Happy Birthday Grandma!

Today is Grandma's birthday. She would've been 106 this year. Hard to believe she lived to be 102....but I know we would've all loved it if she had lived to be 150!

Makes me sad that she will never hold Joey like she did all my other babies. But I know she sees him and is up there chuckling to herself that I have 2 boys now. :)

Happy Birthday Grandma!! Marions and a draft beer will be had in your honor this weekend. :)

2 weeks already!!!

Why is it that when you're pregnant the time just crawls.... but the minute they're born it just flies! Joey is 2 weeks old already! It's just going by so fast! I'm trying to enjoy every single minute of it since he's the last.... seriously he is I promise!!

He is by far my easiest baby! The others were all hollerin... as Grandma Rie always called it :).. by this point. But this baby is just as content as can be. I think he knows with the chaos of the other 3 there's just no point in hollerin because he'll never be heard. ;) Poor little thing is being man handled by Drew ALL the time but never makes a peep!

Having a 4th has definitely changed my ways a bit. Since he's up every hour on the hour I'm a wee bit tired and many of my OCD's are flying right out the window! lol The other night Joey peed through his sleeper onto my bed. Jennymomof3 wouldve stripped the entire bed immediately. Jennymomof4 grabbed a towel, laid it on the wet spot and went back to bed! Brooke has been packing her own lunch for a week now. I have NO idea what she's putting in there... for all I know she's been eating Rice Krispy treats and Twizzlers! Drew has been jumping in the shower with whoever is taking one at the moment. I just don't have the energy to fill the tub, sit there while he plays in the tub for 30 minutes, and then cleaning out the mess of the entire bottle of soap he always dumps while he's in there! Hannah is loving my lack of attention to detail right now. She has trashed her bathroom and she knows I'm much too tired to even notice! I figure once her feet start sticking to the floor from all the hairspray and makeup then she might actually clean it. ;) And we've eaten pizza so many times in the last 2 weeks that I think they're about to just put us on auto delivery! We did have some very nice meals made for us by Jess and Julie ( thanks again!) but the rest of those nights it's pretty much been pizza!

We've also taken this baby all over the place already too! Cabin fever is in full force here! With temps a high in the 20's and snow, wind,etc. I can't even send the kids outide to play. So we've taken him to the mall, Dave&Busters and this week the museum. He doesn't really care where he goes...as long as his boobies are nearby. ;)

Inctroducing baby Joe :)

I am beyond thrilled to announce that Joseph Matthew arrived on Jan. 12 at 11:30 am. He was 6 lbs. 12 oz. and 20 1/2 inches long. And he was determined to outdo his brother and sisters by taking the longest to enter the world.....a full 36 hours of labor before he finally arrived....and only the last 3 were with drugs! =P

We are all so in love with our newest and LAST addition to our family! :) He looks exactly like Drew did as a newborn. If I have another Drew in the works I'm really in for it! lol

Happy Birthday Brooke! And a quick baby update.

Brooke turns 11 today....wow that went fast! We celebrated this weekend since she had school today and with me being due anyday we fit things in when we can.

She was really hoping that I would have the baby today and they would share a birthday. But with only 7 hours to go in the day....that's not going to happen. Some people say you never know...but my babies take ridicuously obnoxiously long to arrive so like I said...not going to happen. ;)

There's a snowstorm forecasted for Thursday so we all predict he'll arrive then....because my kids always have to have a grand entrance. Hannah and Brooke were both born during MAJOR snow/ice storms. And Drew was born on Easter...disrupting everyone's plans for the day. ;)

I feel fine for the most part. Can't sleep for shit but I think that's just prepping me for the next year ( or two!). Baby is still measuring small for 39 weeks but healthy.

And if you've tried to call me in the last 2 days and gotten a disconnected message...it's because I've ripped the damn thing out of the wall. ;)

Holy blog slacker!!

This poor blog has been all but abandoned! And I would love to sit here and say that I'll start doing a better job of updating it...but I would be lying. Just like everything else in my life right now....it will be neglected!

I would love to say that I will finish blogging our summer Disney trip. But that's not going to happen either. You know how they say you get pregnancy brain....um yeah...I think by the time you get to your 4th kid you can hardly remember your name...let alone the minor details of a trip you took 6 months ago! So I'll just recap quickly. We had a great time, loved vacationing with Matt's parents, got the damn computers back finally ( at the tune to over $300 when all was said and done!) and my kids hate the ocean! Yep.... after 2 hours at this quaint little beach resort they were all ready to go. They are definitely like their father...a vacation isn't a vacation unless you run like hell the whole time from sun up to sun down! ;) No relaxing days on the beach for this family!

Since then we've gone to Vegas for what will probably be our last trip out there for a while. Not a single person has volunteered to watch all 4 kids so looks like we might just have to wait til Hannah's 18 and then dump them all on her. ;)

We also took an impromptu trip back to Disney for Thanksgiving! We've always wanted to surprise the kids with a trip and had the opportunity to do it so we went for it. I had already bought my 25 pound turkey for dinner which I always host. I gladly threw it on Julie's doorstep as we skipped town. ;) We told the kids we were taking them to Hillbilly Hell ( aka Gatlinburg) for the week. When we hit Georgia they finally caught on! Everyone thought we were nuts for going when I am 8 months pregnant but it was worth every minute! Even the 15 hour car ride wasn't bad. We only stopped to go to the bathroom once on the way home...thank god I have the bladder of a camel!!

Now we're back home and I'm feeling the crunch to get a TON of things done before this baby arrives! I have quite a bit of Christmas shopping still to do. Nothing is wrapped yet either! And I still have alot of baby things to buy and I haven't even washed a single onesie or blanket. With the others I was so organized and beyond ready. This one....well I have the carseat out of the shed....is that good enough? =P This poor babe isn't even here yet and is already neglected. Sorry little guy...mommy's plate is overflowing right now!!

Brooke was so kind to point out to me that we haven't done our usual Christmas baking yet either. Even though I absolutely LOATHE to bake...I do it every year because the kids love it. Well...and I do enjoy eating the goodies too :) Matt said he would help me this year so I don't have to stand for hours in the kitchen by myself ( the kids get bored with it quickly and I always get stuck finishing it all!). I'm a little hesitant to take him up on his offer to help though. Last time he helped with Christmas cookies all of my gingerbread men ended up with penises! With Drew helping...I can imagine that all of the angels will have big hooters too! ;)

And just an FYI...if any of you are expecting your usual Christmas card from us this year...that's not happening either. I plan on sending out a new pic of the kids after the baby arrives. But as much as I'm slacking these days I'll probably just end up sending it out with Hannah's high school graduation announcements!

Homecoming dance!

Okay I know that the Disney trip isn't finished. But I felt this event was far too important to wait until I actually got around to finishing that damn trip. ;) I will get it done.. I promise! But I think I'm just going to lump the rest of the trip into one big post with a ton of pics and call it done! lol

So last week was Hannah's very first homecoming dance... a fairly formal affair around here. Of all the milestones we've gone through with the kids... watching Hannah become a high schooler has been the hardest! The last 14 1/2 years have just flown by and I can't get them to slow down! Starting high school just reinforces the fact that she only has a few more years until she goes off to college. And while I will still have plenty of kids at home... okay let's face it I'll have kids living here til they put me in a nursing home ;)... Hannah will be branching out on her own. As her life gets busier and busier I try and savor all the little moments I get with just her.

And these last few weeks I've had the opportunity to help her prepare for her first dance. Going shopping for her dress wasn't quite the long drawn out experience I was expecting. We walked into Macy's, I pointed out a dress that I thought was appropriate for a 14 yr. old, she tried it on ( the ONLY dress she tried on), loved it and we were done! I didn't even bother to look at the price tag because it was just THE perfect dress for her and I didn't care how much it was. Lucked out and it was only $75! Thank you Mema Judy for helping buy the dress :) We also shopped for shoes and jewelry that day and picked up a couple things for the baby too. I'm fairly certain I'm the only mom out there that was shopping for homecoming attire and newborn attire at the same time. lol

And then I got to spend several hours with her as she was getting her hair done. Could I have done it myself... probably. But I never got my hair professionally done for high school dances and it's something I wanted to do for her. She got new highlights, a new cut and then a partial updo with curls. Grand total....let's just say it was alot more than the dress! =P But she loved it and that's all that matters right? I just need to keep telling myself that. ;)

We took her over to her boyfriend Alex's house for pictures and then they went off to dinner and the dance afterwards. They both said they had a wonderful time!

So we've passed yet another milestone. A high school dance. It doesn't seem all that long ago that Matt and I were going to those dances together... okay it really wasn't that long ago. lol But the fact that Hannah was old enough to go to one still boggles my mind. And I know there will be many more dances in the coming years...but there's just something special about that first one.

I'm having issues with blogger and it won't let me upload pics!! So hopefully I can get some homecoming ones up soon!