"I shirt"

A couple of cute Makael phrases/words these days...

Borgen-open: (garage door opener)
Puita: Lita (what we call grandma Yarbrough)
Pipa: Grandpa
A-cha-milk-too: chocolate milk
Out: elephant (he just recently actually started saying elephant right, but last week it was still "out").

He has no problem saying his name, but when he was first learning, we would point at him and ask him what his name was.  Confused he would grab his shirt and say, "my shirt".  So of course that quickly became a game.  Although he knows very well what we are asking and has no problem saying Makael now, he still likes to play the "shirt" card.  I don't blame him.  He gets a laugh out of us every time!

Fall Fun

As much as I love fall, the change in seasons usually means an increase in sickness.  We've all taken turns fighting off colds, and Gemma and Makael both had a pretty nasty stomach bug last week. Because of that bug, Gemma missed a day of school last Tuesday. You would have thought the world was coming to an end.  She was devastated!  Come Thursday she was beyond excited to go, and to make things even better, it was picture day!  I'll admit I spent a little extra time doing her hair but I went ahead and let her pick out her outfit.  She always has such an opinion about her clothes that I thought it might be fun to capture her personality and "tastes" in her first school pictures. It's only preschool right? I highly doubt her 3 and 4 year old classmates are really "that" in tune with fashion to even know if her clothes match or not, so it's not like she was going to be embarrassed. Oddly enough, she picked an outfit I would have probably picked out for her. A cute dark purple shirt, jeans, and her pink shoes.  She looked pretty cute if I do say so myself :)

Makael is getting used to our one on one outings during the time Gemma is at school. Sometimes I wish I could go home, turn on a movie for him, and get all of my cleaning done before we go pick Gemma back up. Unfortunately Makael doesn't approve one bit of that idea. I've tried it a couple of times, but the second I pull into our neighborhood he starts crying and yelling "go back, go bye bye". He's definitely not a home body. So we find other things to do, even if it's just going to the mall to play on the jumpy toys.  I had NO idea how many mall walkers there are at 9 o'clock  in the morning.

We took the kids to the pumpkin patch this week. It was so much fun! The last time I was there, Gemma was only 10 months old and I didn't think it was that memorable.  Well, going with a two and an almost 4 year old is a completely different experience.  The LOVED it.  Makael ran around most of the time just yelling and wanting to get up on the tall straw horses.  I'm surprised he didn't lose his voice given how cold and windy it was. Gemma was all about feeding the animals and picking out a pumpkin.  Pretty sure she picked one of the uglier pumking out there, but whatever. It was fun regardless.

10 weeks today with baby #3  and I'm feeling hopeful that my days of morning sickness are behind me. I might have an hour or two throughout the day that I feel crummy, but as long as I don't wait too long between meals I usually feel okay. My mind is already racing and keeping me up at night. What names do we like? Should we find out the gender this time? What color should I paint the nursery? David has been leaning towards finding out the sex of the baby this time, but I haven't been able to fully commit to that idea yet...don't know why.  I know we still have some time to decide, but knowing me, the decision won't be made until we are at the ultrasound and the Dr. asks us if we want to know.  Regardless, I'm crazy excited about this little guy/gal.  I'm pretty sure this is our last baby so I'm doing my best to enjoy every moment, but I am more than happy to say goodbye to the nausea and dry heaving.

 

Makael's favorite 

 

Feeding the goats

You would have thought they climbed a mountain.

And again...he could have spent the whole time here.  

Not ready to end the fun at the end of the night. 

Party of 5!

Fall is here! Well sort of...it's still a little warm for my taste, but colder weather is on it's way  There's a tree in my back yard that has a pretty large patch of orange and red leaves and it makes me giddy to look at it.

Gemma is absolutely loving preschool. I wish she was actually going more than twice a week. She gets impatient on days she's home, and I currently don't have the energy to get us out of the house as much as she would like. Tuesday is by far her favorite day of the week, not only does she get to go to school, but she also gets to go to dance class.  So far, three of her teachers have mentioned to me how good of a student she is. I don't know what that means exactly in a preschool setting, isn't it mainly organized play time? I'm proud of her none the less and grateful she is doing so well.
She continues to be a coloring machine.  I thought it would be fun for her if I taped up her "art projects" on her bedroom wall, but I've quickly realized I have to be extremely choosy on which ones make it to the wall. Otherwise her entire room would be filled up by now.
Today she wanted to write out the whole alphabet, but she started on the right side of the page instead of the left. What was interesting to me is that all of her letters were backwards, perfectly written, but facing the wrong way. Once she ran out of room she continued her letters directly below the last one she had written (starting on the left side of the page) and as long as she was going in that direction the letters were facing the right way.  Doesn't that seem weird? Is she dyslexic? Genius? Weird? Who knows.

I'm not sure where to begin with Makael.  Oh Makael....and we thought his older sister was stubborn.  Wow! We have yet to have a full blown battle of wills, but when we do, David better be around as a reinforcement, otherwise I might not win.
I can't keep up with his vocabulary anymore. He's continually learning new words and actually using them appropriately, as well as using 4-5 word sentences.  My favorite little phrase right now is "work it".  He tells me to "work it" whenever he needs me to fix something for him.  I laugh every time.

So we are going to be a party of 5 come May!! I'm crazy excited. I'll be even more excited once the morning sickness is gone.  It's probably because I'm in the thick of it right now, but it seems to be so much worse this time than it was with the other two.  
Last week was an emotional one. It seemed like we might lose the baby and for five days I rode a non stop emotional roller coaster.  Thankfully we were able to get an early ultrasound and everything looks great. It's hard to put into words the relief I felt when I saw and heard the heart beat. I felt like I was able to breath for the first time in days, and as I laid there and enjoyed watching the little heart beat, I teared up thinking about how many people were praying for us and hoping for a positive outcome.  So thank you...everyone! I am so incredibly grateful for you.

As you might guess, life has been somewhat overwhelming recently so I don't have pictures to post, but I'll get some up soon. :)