Introducing....

...our newest little blessing, Reid!! He was born on Friday, June 15th, at 7:46am, weighing in at 7 lb 11 oz and 20.5 inches long. He was bigger than all of our other babies by a pound or more! We could not be more in love with our precious baby boy, and it's already hard to imagine how we ever lived without him. He's two weeks old today and has been an amazing baby from the start---nursing and sleeping like a champ, and has a really sweet demeanor. His big brothers and sister adore him, of course. We are doing well and settling into life with four children. My recovery from the c-section was a little more difficult than it was with the others, but we were extremely blessed to have Ben's mom here until today helping with the older kiddos, and my parents just 30 minutes down the road helping a ton as well. Life is fabulous and our family is finally complete! Baby Reid, we love you more than you could ever even fathom!!! 

Is it really MAY???

Hello!!! Anybody still out there? I just signed in to write my first post in 5 months and Blogger has totally changed! I guess I shouldn't stay away so long next time! :) I cannot believe it's already May but I'm not especially surprised that it's been this long since I've blogged. Life is CRAZY BUSY, I tell you!

We have had such a fun spring and are gearing up for summertime. I've decided to take the "less is more" approach to life with almost four children so we currently have ZERO scheduled activities. No more dance, no more tennis, no more soccer....just lots of playing in the backyard, having friends over to play, going to friends' houses, traveling to see friends/family on the weekends....and it couldn't be better for our family. We don't lack for things to do but it's so nice to have nothing that we have to do. We even have been regretting to more invitations than we accept, something that wasn't the easiest change for me to make, and it's been amazing how less stressful life is now that we don't have something we have to go to every other hour of the day. 

Here is a short recap of some of what we've been up to over the past few months....

Spring Break in Florida followed by a few days at Edisto. This was our first official family vacation (with just our family of five) and it was amazing. We stayed at a resort in Orlando but didn't leave the resort except one time to go to dinner in Downtown Disney. There were several pools and we stayed on a golf course, so we spent our days at the pool and afternoons/evenings watching the kiddos run around on the golf course. One of our favorite babysitters just happens to live in Orlando and she babysat two nights that we were there so Ben and I could go out to dinner--so much fun!! Disney would have been too much and we never regretted not taking them. Grayson, however, did get surprised last month when my parents showed up and told him they were taking him to Disney World all by himself. :) We are still loving hearing the stories of everything they did and all of the roller coasters that he rode.

Easter Sunday 

Big changes....Whitt moved out of his crib/nursery and upstairs to Grayson's room! We got the boys bunk beds a few weeks ago and they have been a huge success. Whitt naps better in the bunk bed than he did in his crib, and they love sharing a room.

My precious boy goes to school three mornings a week now, and Mommy has a glorious NINE hours every week to run errands and do stuff around the house with no children! I am, however, usually the first one in pickup line at school...after four months I'm still ready to pick up Whitt and Emma Claire. Already dreading the day when everybody is in school full time..seriously, I have nightmares about it. :(

Went to Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia a few weeks ago...

 We've been going to the beach as much as we can...

And finally, we are gearing up for baby boy to be here in just five short weeks!!! This was taken last week at 33 weeks. I finally stopped throwing up 24/7 at 28 weeks so I've been trying to soak up every minute of the remainder of this last pregnancy. It was a ROUGH 7 months (enough to convince me for sure that we don't need to have a 5th...I don't know if I could do that again) but I'm feeling great now, thank goodness. Of course, his room isn't ready and all of his clothes are still in bins in the attic, but it will get done eventually! We are super excited to meet our newest blessing, and I find myself constantly daydreaming about holding him and kissing his sweet little cheeks. 

No promises about when I'll be back, but hopefully sooner than later! :) Thanks for sticking around!!!! 

Oh boy...

2011 was a rough year for us. Last February, after much prayer and discussion, Ben and I decided that we were ready to add another baby to our family. We've always wanted a big family and felt that the time was right, so I had my IUD removed and we were shocked to find out a couple of weeks later that I got pregnant pretty much immediately. We were elated and spent a couple of weeks happily planning for our fourth addition. Sadly, at 6.5 weeks I started having severe pain on one side and ended up in emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy (if you aren't familiar with ectopic, the baby had implanted in my fallopian tube instead of the uterus where it was supposed to). The tube had started to rupture and the doctors had to remove that tube. This all occurred during Grayson and Emma Claire's spring break, so not only was I in pain and grieving the loss of our tiny baby, but the children had no idea why I was "sick" and were not happy campers about having to spend their week off at home doing nothing. We got through it though and eventually decided we were ready to try again....

It took longer than it has in the past since I was missing a fallopian tube, but in July we found out we were expecting again. This time our excitement only lasted about a week....I ended up having a miscarriage that unfortunately was dragged out by hCg levels that continued to rise over the next week and a half and give us false hope. I've had a miscarriage before, but this one hit me pretty hard---I guess I thought that since we'd been though so much in March that God couldn't possibly "let" something like that happen again.

However....God knows what is best for us even when we think we have everything planned out the way we think it should go! In October we found out that we were pregnant again, and this time it stuck!! :) It's been a rough pregnancy so far, but every time I have thrown up and every afternoon I haven't been able to get off of the couch, I praise God for this precious blessing He has given us. We know that God chose this child for our family and we can't wait to meet HIM (another BOY!!!!!!) in June! We look forward to meeting our other babies in Heaven one day, too!

I'm 17 weeks along and still feeling horrible but I think I may be turning a corner. We are having fun discussing names and Grayson, Emma Claire, and Whitt are so excited about their new baby brother. Emma Claire was holding out for a sister and did shed a few tears when we told her that it's a boy, but she's now looking forward to being the only princess in our family. :)

Our losses earlier this year were so difficult but I do think that they have made me appreciate everything about this final pregnancy. We are so very thankful for this baby boy and know that he will be the perfect completion to our family!

almost caught up!

Hello again!! Almost caught up.....starting with November...

Grayson and EC were the ring bearer and flower girl in Ben's cousin Brittany's wedding. They were SO cute and did great!!!!!

The most exciting news of December....we have a new nephew!!!! William Joseph (Will) was born to Ben's sister, Anna, and our brother-in-law, Jeff, on December 13th. He is absolutely precious and I can't wait to see him again!

We went to see Santa Claus a few days before Christmas and Grayson and Emma Claire couldn't have been happier. He even brought them each a present! Poor Whitt had the stomach bug and had to miss it...

Our entire family, excluding EC, had the misfortune of having the stomach bug the week before Christmas. NOT the best week of our lives, for sure! I ended the week by having it on Christmas day and had to miss everything---presents, Christmas dinner, the whole thing. We even managed to pass it on to at least 8 people....I wouldn't wish this on anybody! Here was our sweet Whitt, fast asleep on a towel on the floor in the middle of his nightmare of a day. :(

The week after Christmas was much better--everybody felt great and Ben took the week off of work so we did as much as we could to take advantage of the break from school and work. One day my parents took Grayson for the day and he took a lesson on caring for horses and spent the night with them while we took the younger two to the aquarium in Charleston. It was Ben's first time to the aquarium and my first time to have extra hands there to help me---so much fun! This was taken right after Whitt RAN smack-dab into this aquarium---I don't know if he was just so excited to see the fish that he didn't stop in time or if his depth perception wasn't quite right, but it was HILARIOUS. And no, he wasn't hurt--we wouldn't laugh at that! I'm still laughing just writing about it---wish I'd recorded it!

Santa and the Tooth Fairy missed each other by a few days at our house---Grayson lost his first tooth!!!! It was hanging by a thread so Ben pulled it (DISGUSTING...I had to leave the room) and Grayson was thrilled. The Tooth Fairy brought him two gold dollar coins that night. Can't believe our big boy is growing up so quickly!!!

We spent New Year's weekend at the beach with my brother and his family and my parents joined us New Year's Day. I tried to take a cute artistic picture on the beach with all four kiddos and this is how it turned out....oh well, at least I tried!

Okay, I'm pretty much caught up!! I have a couple more posts in the works---coming soon!

October in December

I promise I intend to get back to blogging regularly! The past few months have been jam packed and I haven't felt fabulous lately so blogging has taken a back burner. Here's a small recap of October---and the only reason there are more pictures of Emma Claire is because she's the only one of the three who enjoys having her picture taken! The other two either make silly faces or run away from the camera. Maybe one day I'll have a decent picture of all of them! :)

One day, many weeks ago, I walked Emma Claire and Whitt downtown to a "pumpkin patch" at a local church, intending to take some cute pictures of the two of them. Whitt fell asleep in the stroller on the way there so Miss Priss had a solo photo shoot. Sweet girl...

Halloween was fun this year---our family of pirates met up with some friends and trick or treated around the neighborhood. Emma Claire and her BFF Savannah had a blast together...

Grayson kept trying to perfect his mean pirate face. :)

Love my little pirate, Whitt!!

Okay, this is a start! Maybe I can find the motivation to catch up and keep up with this again!!

Blogging hiatus OVER!!

Is anybody still here?? I started this post a month ago with the intention of catching up on everything we did over the summer, but after several weeks of trying to upload pictures and my computer overheating every time I uploaded more than a couple of pictures, I'm going to leave it at this. A semi-update of some of the thing we did a million months ago. So exciting, I know! I will get back into the routine of posting regularly and start back with Menu Monday--especially since I've made some delicious meals lately and know you all have been sitting on the edge of your seats waiting for me to start posting recipes again!

Let's rewind all the way back to July, shall we? I drove the kiddos to Indiana the beginning of July and we spent two weeks visiting friends---such a good time! Ben flew up there a few days before we came back home so he helped drive (okay, he did all of the driving since I did it on the way there by myself) back home. The kiddos were rock stars in the car and had a blast with all of their friends.

Grayson and his bff, Henry...

All six kiddos: EC, Ruby, Grayson, Henry, Ellis, and Whitt

Sweet Ellis

And I had a bunch more from that trip but they somehow disappeared and I'm not going to try to figure out how to stick them back in the middle of a post. Boo.

We came back home and went to a parade with a big group of our friends...

I could eat this boy UP!!!!

Emma Claire and Ford being cute

Grayson was in a MOOD! I'm rarely successful at capturing a decent picture of all three kiddos, but at least it's a good representation of our life. :)

I can't even begin to count the number of pictures we have of him making this face

Watching the air show

Grayson perfected his diving skills this summer...

First day of school---Kindergarten for Grayson!

First day of dance for Emmers

Grayson turned SIX! Not sure how that happened since he was just born last week!!

We had a fun little camping birthday party for him that ended up being mostly inside due to a lovely hurricane that had just made its way up the coast.

First day of soccer practice

I mean, really, how I don't bite those little cheeks off, I don't know....

Grayson's new favorite toy--Beyblades!

Whitt started Mom's Morning Out at our church one morning a week. He adores it. I don't adore being away from him but it's good for him...

We spent a fun weekend at the beach with our friends---Grayson, Gibson, Sanders, EC, and Tyler

And this is where the pictures stopped loading and I'm not going to fight with the computer anymore to try to finish. Probably the most random post ever but at least I've joined the blogging world again! :) Hope everybody had a great summer (and fall!!)!