Abigail & Bethany

I've been saying I will post pictures of the girls, so here I am finally doing that! It seems though, that taking (or should I say "getting") good pictures of the girls is getting harder and harder to do....maybe my lack of photography skills is lacking as well, but it does seem like the girls try "too" hard to smile for pictures. You can see for yourselves though.......

Can you get any cheesier, Abigail?!

A little too intense for just a picture, Bethany!

Ok, so I did get some pretty good pictures of them too, but about half of the pictures I get turn out looking like the top two!

Silly, but cute.

My 4 year-old Abigail!

My 3 year-old Bethany!

Yes, the best picture I got of Bethany, by herself, was with a chicken....go figure. She definitely is happiest when she's chasing down chickens or carry them around! Most of the time the chickens just put up with it as best they can, and for the most part she's good about not squeezing them too hard. :)

They can definitely be pretty sweet when they want to!

I love you girls!

Smells & Cleaning...

Well, I was going to post some pictures of the girls today, but I got busy and have yet to download the pictures....so, yes, that will have to wait until probably tomorrow.

This might be a short post because I need to do some cleaning. I don't really have a specific day that I do all my cleaning on....partly due to the fact that certain things, like vacuuming, need to be done multiple times a week so then I usually do other cleaning along with the vacuuming. I just started noticing a smell though which is bothering me....not exactly sure where it's coming from, but I figure I better do some cleaning to make sure it isn't anything in my part of the house. The garage stinks pretty bad when it gets hot out and I keep thinking that the smell is coming down the stairs into my kitchen, but I guess I'll see as I clean. :) I definitely never used to be into cleaning all the time, but in the last couple of years I've started to have kind of a phobia about things being clean....which, I'm not really complaining about since it's a good thing, but it's not always fun when I'm always seeing messes and feeling like I should be cleaning all day everyday.

I should probably take advantage of the fact that the girls have new coloring books and have yet to have moved since getting home with them....they're even whispering....cool! :) Definitely something to remember for future referencing....although I feel a little tempted to enjoy the peace and quiet and just sit and read or something. :)

......but the cleaning is calling, or should I say the smell! Ok, the smell really isn't that bad and no one else would probably notice, but I'll keep thinking about it until I clean the house so I better get on it!

Drawing Fun

Abigail & Bethany on the 4th of July!

I'm really needing to think of some things for the girl to do this winter when they're stuck indoors. It seems like even this summer on the days we were having over 100 degree weather, and spent more time inside, they ran out of things to do real quick and then the fighting would begin.

Abigail likes to draw flowers with grass. :)

Abigail has started drawing and writing her name and anything else she sees, so I'm planning on starting her on some phonics this fall and seeing how far she wants to go with it. I'm not going to make too big of a deal about it since she's only four, but since she's wanting to write her name and has started sounding words out, it would probably be a good idea to get her started off the right way. I need to post some pictures of when the girls draw all of us...their people kind of need some work, but it's funny to see them starting to draw people! They've even included the new baby, which is really sweet, other then the fact that in one of Abigail's "family pictures" there was Daddy, Mommy(with a belly), Abigail, Bethany....and the baby! What?! How come I still have a belly?!!! Ok, well I guess the belly does take awhile to disappear and it was funny.....and yes, Jacob thought it was hilarious! 
I guess if nothing else, posting pictures of their latest drawings will keep everyone amused. :)

So Much to Write About!

Yes, it has been forever since I've been on here, but during the summer it seems more practical to be enjoying the outside. Plus, the girls want to spend almost all their time outside, including eating all their meals in their play house, so it requires me to be where I can seem them. Maybe someday I will have a window overlooking the backyard where I can type away while keeping an eye on the girls....that will be nice! :)

In other news, little girl #3 is on the way!  
 
Yep, sometime around the New Year she'll be making her grand appearance. I'm somewhere between 19 and 21 weeks along, and she is a very active kicking and moving little girl. When we went to our ultrasound last week I was telling Jacob that she must be jumping on my bladder because I kept feeling like I needed to use the bathroom. Well, sure enough, we get there and start the ultrasound to see her in an upright position kicking away....so, at least I had a good excuse for having Jacob stop so I could use the bathroom(which was barely 20 min. after I had just gone when we left the house), plus having to use the bathroom as soon as we got to the office! :)

Something that has bothered me some, is the fact that so many people think that having 3 girls in a row is such a big deal, or that they need to ask if we're disappointed that its not a boy. Yes, having a boy would be nice at some point, but you know what....a baby is a gift from God no matter the gender. There are so many people that have difficulty getting pregnant, have multiple miscarriages, issues that involve the pregnancy or the health of the baby, that just to know that God has blessed us with what seems to be a healthy girl and a pregnancy that has been normal, what more could we ask for? It's so easy for people to just care about whether they have an even amount of girls and boys, or just boys, or just girls, but I love my girls and I'm just as happy that this one is a girl as I would be if it was a boy. People can want or wish for their ideals, but God has a plan for each and everyone one of us, and that includes this little baby girl!
I liked Jacob's thoughts on having another girl...."I guess God must think I'm so manly that I need to be surrounded by beautiful girls!" Yes, Jacob's going to have one more little girl that adores him. :) 
I will admit that my one complaint with having another girl was how am I and three little girls going to fit into a bathroom stall!!! I thought it was difficult enough to try and squeeze into a public bathroom stall with two girls, while trying to keep them from touching anything...yep, I'm in trouble now! I generally try to use the handicap stall, but sometimes there aren't any, or they're otherwise occupied....I guess in that case I'll be taking them to the bathroom in shifts. :)

Well, I hope to be a little more consistent with my blogging, but no promises!

Picture Catch-Up

This picture makes me want to get out and do some more hiking/walking. It was taken at the Washington State Park near here...strange name for a park in Missouri! :) It has some pretty nice hiking trails and some beautiful scenery...even for winter time.
I believe this will be rather a random post of mainly pictures that have been taken in the last couple of months....think of it as catch-up in pictures, then maybe it won't be too random! :)Jacob had been going through some of his military clothes and the girls thought it would be fun to wear his hats....don't ask me why Bethany is making that strange expression...understanding her is sometimes difficult for me. And yes, we were listening to the Piano Guys on YouTube. :)
Who doesn't like to drive? The girls are no exception. While we were waiting for Jacob they thought it was highly entertaining to take turns buckling themselves in and pretending to drive...it was pretty cute! :)
The girls loved opening presents at Christmas time, and Bethany was totally thrilled when her Uncle Nathan got a purse too! Her own words when she saw him open his present containing an emergency bag for his car were: "You got a purse just like me!" I know the quality of the picture isn't so great, but I had to post it! :)
I hope you enjoyed the pictures....now that I've caught up on some stuff, pictures of the girl's new haircuts will be coming soon!

Where To Begin....

Yes, I realize I am a horrible blogger, and I do feel bad about it, but life does go on and some things are more important than blogging. I was actually planning on doing homework tonight, but STARS isn't working, and everything I need to do is on there so there went that plan. I also wasn't planning on mopping, but due to an unexpected blockage in a water pipe, I will now be mopping the kitchen floor, plus lighting a bunch of candles...ugh. Also, what I thought might be a longer post will now be pretty short....never know when the unexpected will happen.
This was taken earlier this winter. I thought it was cute...both of them watching a movie and cuddling together! They can be so sweet at times. :) I'll have to post pictures soon of their new haircuts...they weren't sure about them at first, but they love it and they look adorable.

It's also Jacob's birthday today, but it's been kind of a rough day with having a cold, plus dealing with a plumbing issue when he needed to be working on school stuff...poor guy, not a very fun birthday. I love you so much, Jacob! You are doing an amazing job on the bathroom and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

The End is in Sight!

Well, I officially have two classes this week and I will be finished with my first semester of college! I'm definitely excited to be finished, and I'm ready to get started on some fun stuff that I haven't been able to do since school started. :) You know, like reading a non-school book, getting my crocheting back out, and decorating for Christmas with the girls. Yep, I have quite a few things I want to get done with the free time I will have coming up this week, and it all starts Wednesday when I turn in my Final Argument Research Essay! I'll still have my last history class on Thursday, but I get to just enjoy that one and the history class tomorrow free of any assignments or exams. I won't go into all the details of the phenomenon of how I escaped finals for my history class, but I will say that working hard to do the best you can on assignments and exams will often times pay off very well with a professor who wants to show you they appreciate the hard work you've done! So, with two classes left I have an automatic "A" in the class, along with two other students, without having to do the final evaluation or test. :) I can't say how happy I am about that, and it was so worth all of the work I put into each assignment! Now I just hope my argument essay goes off well and I'll be done with English Comp. as well.

As for next semester....well, I'm going to be limiting it to two, maybe three, classes to make it easier on myself and be able to spend more time doing the things that need to be done around the house. This semester was a really good experience and opportunity for me, and even though it was a lot of hard work it was fun to have to use my brain a little more than I do every day with the girls. :) I think I've also learned to use the time that I have more wisely than I've done before; not that it won't be fun to relax a little bit after this week....like raiding the college library collection (that I've only been able to look at longingly) and getting some fun reading material!

I think my next post should be on the girls...who have play-dough all over the kitchen floor, in the tiniest of pieces....how delightful[sarcasm]. Speaking of that though, I should make sure that gets cleaned up before I have pieces of play-dough ground into the carpet....well, it's probably too late, but I can try. :)