Two girls at the beach

So....this is happening

Shortly after Paige died, as I do each morning, I was walking by the half of our room that was supposed to be hers.  I decided it could no longer be empty as it was just too depressing. So we converted it into our office, complete with coloring table for the girls.

Then I decided I didn't want to have any more babies really.  I had experienced enough.  I was done.  

So we moved our adult furniture and rugs upstairs.  Our house was looking like our house again, with a smattering of kid stuff mixed in.

We even moved in Nathan's inherited furniture from his grandma.  Our blank formal room, which had been just the kids playroom was now a room for adults...with a dollhouse for a coffee table.

Then this one showed up and was all "SURPRISE!!!!!"

Currently, I'm closing in on 9 weeks pregnant.  I considered not mentioning it for a while, in case something bad happens to our gummy bear.  But then I remembered the most awful thing had already happened, one of our kids was tragically sick and died.  So for better or worse, I decided to announce it when we got our first ultrasound photo.

Gummy bear is expected February 3 ish.   

Punkers cousin

A month or two ago, people would ask what punkers was doing outside.  We'd be confused, punkers spends about five minutes outside a week.  So we'd look around and find her inside.  There was a strange little punkers look alike coming around.  When I'd see him, I'd tell the girls punkers cousin was visiting.  

Punkers cousin was very sitting at first.  If you opened th door, he ran.  Then one day, I heard a kitty meow.  Then I saw punkers cousin coming right at me.  So I gave him a can of food.  He ate it like it was nothing.  So I gave him a cup of dry cat food.  Again he ate it like it was nothing.  Natalie and Clara threw their peanut butter sandwiches at him.  He ate those too.  I think punkers cousin might have been close to starving to death.

So punkers cousin now sleep on blankets on the porch, gets played with and eats food we give him.  Punkers cousin prefers people food to that cat food crap, but if it's his only option he will eat it.  One day we had a picnic outside.  He wouldnt leave the girls alone.  He got his own plate.  Turns out punkers cousin likes corn. 

Currently, things are strained with him and the girls.  Punkers keeps trying to murder him.  It terrifies the girls, so now they like him a little bit less and insist he can't come inside otherwise the kitties will fight.  Once he gets fixed though, he will have to be inside for a few days.  That will make things even more interesting.

Yelling at the cat:  you don't lay down, you get up and play with me!

To swim or not swim

I haven't posted in a while.  I haven't had anything to post about really.  It's been much of the same old, same old.

Things have gotten a bit more interesting the past week or two.  We kind of mostly adopted a stray cat.  It lives outside our house, we feed it, pet it, play with it.  A post about that will come later.  He will officially be adopted after he gets fixed and all of his shots.

Natalie also started swim class.  Natalie doesn't like water.  It's been going pretty well.  She has been hesitant and normally will come around given time.  Until she met the noodle.  The noodle was a disaster.  She just didn't understand it would keep her afloat.  None of the kids did.  And they all kind of kept bobbing under the water anyways...so perhaps the instructor was a little too optimistic about how handing a three year old a noodle would work out?  The instructor eventually brought out a second noodle for each kid, but for Natalie, it was too little too late.  Fear had set in.

Here are her pictures from swimming.  She only took half of the class, we had other commitments in the wah of the second half.  I enrolled her to repeat the class.  Hopefully the first week of repeating what she learned will help give some confidence back before she meets the noodle again.