33 weeks

I realize that my blog in general has been quite neglected (minus my two recent posts),which means that writing anything about my current pregnancy or even sharing an ultrasound picture has also been forgotten. It’s just simply not easy keeping up without having internet at home. I can drive less than a quarter mile in either direction on the highway and use their free internet. But, this in turn means slow internet, and trying to put any pictures on the blog takes forever,and with two little boys in the backseat waiting patiently while mom uses the internet means I don’t have forever.

But alas, I am here to give an update on my pregnancy: I am about 33 weeks along. I don’t know if the next 7 weeks or so could possibly goby fast enough to please me. I have been measuring 2 weeks big the last couple of appointments, but they say I’m doing good, however, if you ask me I feel like a whale and possibly even look like one. I’m not exactly sure how my belly can grow for another 7 weeks. Kyle even commented that I have never been this big with either Gunnar or Ryker, it was said with love, and it’s true…so no hard feelings towards his honesty. My midwife told me to plan on not having a 5 or 7 pound baby again, that I needing to be thinking 8-9 pounds. She then assured me my body knew what it was doing…so comforting.

A few weeks ago I went out and bought some new bras and maternity pants. My maternity pants from my previous pregnancies are just not comfortable anymore proving that I really am larger this go around. My bras were not fitting at all making me miserable throughout the day. Kyle gladly sent me off to get new clothes because he understands that being uncomfortable doesn't equal happy. 

I have felt okay. I have horrible heartburn, and it keeps me from getting rest, it especially interrupts my afternoon nap attempt while bothboys are sleeping. Baby boy LOVES waking me up at about 3am each morning forsome kickboxing, so I don’t tend to be well rested. He is an active little dude, which I guess is just like my other two, so why should I expect anything different. I was lying with my belly against Kyle’s back the other night and Kyle woke up at 3am during one of the kickboxing sessions to tell me to rollover the other direction because the baby was keeping him awake with all the kicking that was being felt on his back. Funny, I wish I could have him rollover and be kick free and able to sleep well.

As for a name, we are still clueless. We have a couple ideas, but nothing even close to solid possibility. I wish when babies were born that they came out with a tag attached to a toe with the name God determined fit for them….it really would make my life a whole lot less stressful!

So, there you have it a bit of an update on pregnancy #3.Sorry I didn’t bring my ultrasound pictures to upload. We only had two ultrasounds this pregnancy which is so strange to me, and none of the pictures were any spectacular, other than I suppose the miracle of life which is pretty spectacular in itself!

7 years

Kyle and I have officially been married 7 years as of May 21. As I reflect on these last seven years, I realize we have done so much and have an endless list of praises.

Upon getting married I moved with Kyle to Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Within five months of our marriage he left on a year long deployment to Iraq. I went back to Washington State, lived with my parents and completed my student teaching, then kept myself busy coaching tennis and substitute teaching. I moved back to Kentucky in September awaiting Kyle’s return.

Kyle returned and we were at Fort Campbell until February at which point we packed up and were moved across the world to Schweinfurt, Germany. We were in Germany for about four years. Kyle was deployed for 15 months to Afghanistan, and I was blessed with a job teaching Kindergarten at the American School on base. I kept plenty busy with teaching, but also took a little time to travel with friends. Upon Kyle returning from Afghanistan we had our little Gunnar. Together we travelled and saw a lot of great places across Europe. One of my most memorable trips would be our 95k hike across a stretch of the Austrian Alps. It was challenging, yet really gave us some quality time together away from the world. Kyle was deployed again to Afghanistan for what was suppose to be a year. I was busy packing up our apartment as Gunnar and I were planning on moving stateside setting things up for our transition out of the military. God had other things in mind for us. Kyle ended up badly breaking his ankle a month into his deployment and was sent home. Gunnar and my plans got put on hold. Kyle came home Dec. 23, 2009 from Afghanistan…he was the best broken Christmas present ever. I told him that first night that he was home I suspected I was pregnant again (despite our use of birth control). I then began caring for Kyle, our 8 month old Gunnar, and in the meantime tried to take care of my pregnant self. We also moved into a larger apartment off post. It was an interesting move, I was about 7-8 months pregnant, Kyle had a cast on his leg (not to mention his dislocated shoulder), we had a year old kiddo, and we were doing a self-move, talk about good times. Kyle went through a long recovery process and the day after Ryker was born in August we got the news that they were sending us stateside to complete Kyle’s medical evaluation board process.

This meant after Ryker’s birth things went into high speed. We quickly got his US citizenship paperwork, passport, and other documents in line, they packed up our house, put our car on a boat, and our family of four on an airplane and sent us to Fort Lewis, WA. We were in Fort Lewis for a year. There we saw the ins and outs of the military health system. Some days were better than others. We were told we would be there for about 6 months. After a frustrating year and 2 months, Kyle was finally medically retired from the military. We then took about a month to travel and visit our families over the holidays then finally moved into a ‘beautiful’ mobile home up in Priest Lake, ID, courtesy of Kyle’s dad.

We have now been here since January. We have been waiting for Kyle’s VA paperwork to come through. The VA considers Kyle 100% disabled and with that comes a lot of great benefits. We finally got the paperwork about 2 weeks ago (3 months later than expected) which means we are officially on the hunt for a house. The trailer has served us well as a transitioning location, but we are ready to move on. Kyle’s rafting season will end at the end of June, we will have a baby towards the end of July, and then we will hopefully we moving shortly thereafter. We are continually praying that God will show us just exactly where He wants this family of FIVE to go. Kyle is really feeling called to continue his work in outdoor youth ministry .

So here we are 7 years later….I think we have made the most of our 7 years, and honestly I can’t imagine going through all of this with anyone but Kyle. We really seem to balance each other, and I believe God really knew what He was doing when he placed us in each others lives. 

For our anniversary we dropped the boys off with Mike and Laura where they spent the night. I then went and spent the night with Kyle in his home away from home…a tent in the back yard of the warehouse of his work. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting, and we got a peaceful, restful night sleep (the only thing that would have made it better was if I had a toilet). The next day we went and stuffed ourselves silly with breakfast at Frank’s diner then we hit up Manito park in Spokane. It was beautiful and we took tons of funny pictures of each other. It was great to be with Kyle, to relax, and just take time to laugh together. After the park we went and changed our cell phone contract from AT&T to Verizon, then picked up the boys so Kyle could spend some time with them too…I didn’t think it was fair I hogged one of his rare days off. It truly was a perfect day with each other.

Preschool

Gunnar finished up preschool on Thursday, May 24^th. I can’t even begin to explain what a blessing preschool has been in our lives. I was so worried about Gunnar socially after leaving Fort Lewis. Gunnar loved interacting with the kids at daycare usually at least twice a week, plus there were many kids for him to interact with at both Sunday and Wednesday night services at our church, so he was going from having quite a bit of interaction with other children to none when we moved.

Our church up here at the lake has two other little boys that are there off and on. They are brothers who are each just a couple months younger than our boys. So when they are there and when they decide they want to play in the nursery it is good. But other than that there is not a lot of opportunity for interacting with other young children up here. When we heard about the preschool that started in January, the month we moved here, we were thrilled. I probably would have paid big bucks for Gunnar to attend, but we were told they only thing required was that Gunnar was potty trained. Score for us. We were psyched as Gunnar was indeed potty trained (and he only had one accident and that was on a day when 4 kids peed their pants and they had an unusual schedule). The best part of it all is that it didn’t cost us big bucks, instead it is free! It is two days a week for three hours on those days.

Gunnar did pretty well he was the second youngest in his class that ranged from 4 kids to 15. He wasn’t always interested in their activities and if he got bored with something he would often just get up and go play. Luckily he became more actively engaged as time went on.

We have been impressed with all he has learned. He says his alphabet flawlessly, will point out random letters and numbers to us on signs and identify them correctly. He knows his shapes and can count to twenty if he is focused. Although if he messes up, which if it is going to happen he skips number three, then he just starts throwing random numbers out there and ends with ten or twenty. Colors….colors are his major weakness. We are constantly pointing out colors at home, he practices them at school, practices them at home, but he just doesn’t get it. It drives me bonkers. It does give us something extra fun to practice this summer, I can thinking up all sorts of games that involve identifying colors. We will also continue practicing his other skills (especially counting), and I would love to teach him to write his name over the summer. AND, we can’t forget we are working on him NOT speaking in third person. He will say “Gunnar wants candy” instead of “I want candy.” It’s cute and I was hoping he would just figure it out on his own, but I’m beginning to think it is something we might have to make him more consciously aware of.

I would love to get Ryker potty trained so he can start attending as he really wants to stay and go with big brother when we drop him off, but Ryker really isn’t ready yet and with the new baby coming potty training will have to wait a bit. I am hoping maybe by next January we can start thinking about potty training him, he will be almost 2 ½. Ryker does attend a lap sit story time at the public library here. He was actually the only “lap sitter” attending for a while, but now we have a little girl who regularly attends with us and today some 7 month old twin boys attended. Ryker’s behavior during this time has gone from interested to completely not interested! I actually just end up wrestling him most of the time, which gets frustrating. During this 30 minute time we usually sing songs, and look at books together. The songs are fun and interactive, but Ryker just wants to run through the library and push books over. They do capture his attention when they whip the bubbles out. I think they try to judge by my level of frustration with Ryker when to start blowing bubbles. This summer we may stop doing the lap-sit and start going to preschool story time with Gunnar now that preschool is over. I’m hoping that Ryker will see the older kids and want to copy them. It could go either way…but at least then Gunnar will be able to see his friends from school, and I know there is no way Gunnar would stay interested during the lap sit time, so I think preschool story time will be our best bet.

Keeping our kids socially engaged is so important to me, yet living in a very small and rural community makes his a bit of a challenge!