She is braver than I. The wash tub is full of quite cold water from the hose but she is happily sitting and splashing in it. Freddy has been in and out too but I think he is frozen now because he is staying out. Should I bother buying a wading pool this summer?

It's a big day of firsts here. Freddy's first haircut this morning and now they will be spending their first night as roommates in their bunk beds. Wish us luck!

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.

Freddy got his first haitcut!!! He sat mostly still and he looks so handsome!

What the kids are doing: I think they are making a river now. They are filling a Gus-dug-hole and watching it run down the hill. Yeah for warm weather!

What I am doing this morning: sorting the first batch of wool. Dave sheared one of the sheep yesterday morning- sort of. He did about a third of Chex then he nicked her and felt bad so he quit for the day. :)

Day Trip

Today we all went on a day trip to my parents house. Even Daddy went, which was amazing to the kids because we usually go to their house on our own on weekdays while Dave is at work. :) We went to get my old bunk bed out of their attic. Very exciting!

We had lunch at the restaurant I worked at through high school. It was fun to see some old friends and have some excellent food. The restaurant is right on Lake Ontario and it was a beautiful day to be at the lake! BobBob posted a few pictures on their blog. The kids had a great time throwing rocks into the water!

Lucy baked cookies with Grandma and made Grandma read a thousand books to her. We managed to pry her away for a short nature hike. Lucy loves to do anything outside, Freddy will go along for awhile but not as enthusiastically as she does. :)

The ride home was a long for me. I didn't travel much during the third trimester while pregnant with the other two because it was winter then. I am not so nervous about being away from home this time (yet at least). My feet were pretty swollen by the time we got home (it's about an hour and 45 minute trip) which is why I decided to post on the blog now; I had to sit with my feet up anyway. I never had much swelling with the other two but I guess the weather being warm this time is changing that. I will just have to put my feet up more often. Darn! ;)

We made it almost the whole day without Dave getting a work related phone call. This one was actually good in a way, the gas station sold so much gas today they were almost out. So he is off getting more gas now. I would be worried that I need gas for my van (the empty light came on on the way home) but when we pulled in the driveway we found out it wasn't the car in front of us that smelled like burning brakes, it was us. :( So, since I won't be going anywhere for a few days while waiting for Dave to have time to fix my car, I guess not having any gas won't be a problem. :D I am hoping to do a bunch of sewing this week anyway. And, if we stay home for awhile maybe Freddy will make some progress with the potty. He hasn't used it all weekend, but maybe we can work on it this week. I am not pushing it, he has enough going on in his little world. He seems to be bothered a bit about the baby coming. He gets really clingy and insists he is still the baby of the family. Mostly he just gets mad when I insist he walk up and down stairs instead of me carrying him. For some strange reason it has begun to make my back hurt if I carry him much. :)

My feet are better so I am off to bed. Hopefully I can start the new week with a good night's sleep.

Yesterday Lucy decided she wanted to make a toy for the new baby. So together this what we came up with. she picked some different fabrics from her scrap pile and cut them into the shapes she wanted. Then I machine sewed them (to makesure they were securely attached) and she added a bit of hand sewing. I think it will work as a baby toy between the bright colors and different textures. She is an awesome big sister!

Update

Freddy is not making much progress with the potty, but he is trying. He understands what it is for and will sit and try but when he needs to actually go he asks for a diaper. I don't think he can convince himself to relax and, well you know, without the diaper. :/ He gets the idea though, he has not had an accident. :) I know you are all wondering, he picked out a package of Thomas the Train underwear and a package of Cars underwear ( he loves that movie and he has only seen it once!).

Today is Lucy's last day of preschool for the year. Already! She is excited to be on vacation, probably because during her last school vacation she got to go to Grandma and BobBob's for three days on her own. She is also sad about school being done, she said she will her friends and Ms. Gigi (the teacher). This school was not our original choice but it has turned out to be so far above and beyond what I expected. Lucy has loved every minute of it, she is usually so excited every morning she runs to hug her teacher and doesn't even say goodbye to me.

OMG! Freddy just walked in the room wearing Lucy's bright pink hat (with a flower on it), her pink rain boats and he is running around hammering things! He cracks me up!!!!!!

Anyway, back to Lucy. She is going through some really awful developmental phase right now. The best way to describe it is to say that 4 year old, girls at least, are a preview for the teenage years! She goes from happy and playing to screaming and/or whining in a split second. The screaming I can handle, the whining is killing me!!! She is in her room sobbing right now because she was screaming "no" at me and I sent her up until she could be polite. Ha! She's probably never coming back. ;)

To change subjects, I had a midwife appointment Tuesday, all is well. I do need to send in my admission paperwork to the hospital soon so it is done and I don't have to try to fill out forms while having contractions. We are going to buy a dresser and move Freddy in with Lucy next week probably. Then I will start going through the baby clothes. I almost forgot that I have to pack a bog for the hospital, but it is a bit soon to do that yet. So, it is sit and wait time, wait what part of pregnancy isn't sitting and waiting? :)

I am back to being really tired. Not quite as bad as the first trimester, but I could really use a nap. I don't stay up too much later than the kids now. Dave is getting a lot of cowboy movies in that I wouldn't want to watch. Pregnancy brain has suddenly hit me too. On Monday night, well Tuesday really, my phone started ringing at 12:50 am. I woke up Dave and told him it was his phone, (to be fair his phone often rings during the night for work stuff) he went downstairs and when he came back up he said "You have a midwife appointment in 10 minutes" then I think he grumbled something under his breath. So it was my phone altering me to the fact that I had entered my appointment as am instead of pm. My phone rudely pointed out my stupidity and ruined a good nights sleep! :)

I have also hit the stage where I am very clumsy. I somehow pulled a muscle in my leg a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I fell down the bottom step of our stairs. It was fortunately only the bottom step and I landed on my well padded backside. I also got a sliver in palm and smashed my toe last night. I don't remember these things happening when I was pregnant with the other two. I am going to work on being more careful. :)

Time to go get Lucy back to being excited for school. Hopefully finally seeing the sun today will put us all in better moods.

Something New

I'm not sure how I feel about today's development; I'm excited but sooo tired. Freddy decided this afternoon to start potty training. After his nap he asked me to take his diaper off so I asked him if he wanted a new diaper or to try using the potty. He chose potty and spent all late afternoon and evening running to the potty every two minutes. :/ He finally, actually peed in the toilet shortly before bedtime and we may have over-cheered him. Lucy, Dave and I all cheered so much he started running in to try again even more often than before. :) I wasn't really prepared for him to potty train. I bought potty seats a couple of months ago and he was a little interested at first but then he didn't want to try them anymore. Honestly I was kind of relieved, but he was so excited today I guess tomorrow we will be going underwear shopping.

Tonight we started working on another big step. We started getting Lucy's room ready for Freddy to move in with her. I think it will go well, but I am very nervous about his nap. Lucy has an hour of quiet time every afternoon but she doesn't usually go to sleep anymore. He takes a 2-3 hour nap most days, so I am not sure how it is going to work out. I think I might have to have her spend quiet time in my room, though I am not thrilled about that idea. I hate finding books and toys in my bed! I am so tired though, as long as it's quiet for awhile I don't care what it takes to get it! :D

Exhaustion is setting in again. Did you see how close that stork is getting? The only thing we need is a dresser for the baby. Once we get one I will have Dave bring up all the bins of baby clothes so I can pick out what we need. I know I have plenty of onesies and what else does a summer baby really need? I am sewing a couple of summer things too. I think I have tons and tons of warm and cozy little baby outfits that we won't be needing. I'm not stressing, it's yard sale season. :)

Noah's here now too! :)

Today we are visiting Grandma and BobBob. They are staying the weekend at a nearby campground.

Daddy took a day off to take us to the zoo! :)

This picture kind of goes with my earlier post. She has been doing a lot of this today.

Sick Again

Well, not really again, it's Lucy's turn this time. She's got a fever, a stuffy nose, a bit of a cough, and now today one of her eyes is all puffy. She woke up with a temp yesterday and we went straight to the doctor this time. The wait-and-see approach we took with Freddy's fever was not the best choice, as he had a 103 fever for three days. Plus, on Easter Sunday we found a tick on the back of Lucy's head. So when I discovered her fever, we were off to the doctor.

Dr. Hartle, our very kind new pediatrician, decided to put Lucy on amoxicillin right away just in case she was sick because of the tick bite. She most likely has whatever is going around, but just in case we started her on medicine. Dr. Hartle said the tests for Lyme disease are a bit unreliable and if the test was positive she would out Lu on antibiotics so she just went straight to the antibiotics.

Lucy goes back and forth between sitting on the couch, running around and whining. She handles being sick so differently than her brother does. He just gives in and lays around needing snuggles but not whining too much.

Lucy had to miss a school field trip today. At first I was feeling bad about it but since it has down poured all morning and the field trip was to a farm, I am over it and relieved we didn't have to go. Hopefully she will be back to school Thursday, we only have two more weeks left.