Roots

Today was a day all about Roots.  Our house is mostly finished and so it was decided that today we'd go and get all of my grandparent's furniture that I had saved to fill up our new house.  We rented a large U-haul and drove to Nashville.  This trip was also timed so that we could attend the 73rd Boone Family Reunion.  I've been to this reunion many, many times before, but not since my grandmother died.

After packing up the furniture we headed to the cemetery to look at the graves before we went to the reunion.  First stop was my grandparents, WC  & Thelma Cooke.  We noted that their flowers needed replacing and the boys had fun playing with the tattered flags that were part of an arrangement from Memorial Day.  

Next, we found my grandmother's parent's grave.  Gilbert and Bettie.  I have memories of both of these people as they lived near my grandmother and when I'd visit her, I'd visit them too.

Then, my Dad thought it would be fun to try and find his father's father and mother and their daughter's graves.  This was a fairly large cemetery with my Dad only remembering the general direction of their graves, but we found them.  

Next, it was off to the reunion.  We had a great time and it was good to see everybody again.  Maverick is sitting on my grandmother's brother's wife's lap.  Brighton was a friend to everybody, and made friends with a woman who gave him cookies to take home.  Go figure!

The Babymoon!

Yeah!  I'm finally caught up with the blog from my hiatus while I wasn't feeling up to par.  You can read the entries previous to "Signs" to catch up with our summer.

Derek and I were able to get away from Friday till Monday with the help of our parents who watched the boys.  I'm sure it wasn't easy for them, but it was a well-deserved and needed break for us.  We had a wonderful time.  Here are some highlights:

Derek at the Biltmore House.   I had never been before and really enjoyed seeing this place.  It was a lot of walking and climbing stairs for me.  

On Sunday, we went to Chimney Rock park.  We hiked to a really cool waterfall (pictured above).  I was getting over a cold and pregnant (duh!) so the hike was quite a feat for me.  I was so glad to finally get to the waterfall.  Luckily the hike back was downhill and much more manageable.

Derek and I took the Blue Ridge Parkway back to Asheville for a scenic route.  It was very nice and it was great to be able to take a "joy ride" and just look out the window without somebody asking, "Are we there yet?!?"

My favorite part of the trip was the one-on-one time I spent with Derek.  We were able to have uninterrupted conversations and actually decided on baby names.  This was quite the feat since Derek did not like a single boy-name that I had suggested.  We have decided to be surprised with the gender of the baby, so it was a high priority that we come up with an agreed-upon name so the baby wouldn't go home as "Baby Boy Osterhoudt"

Ready for our Hot Air Balloon ride.  I was so excited that the weather was great and we were able to go.  Derek was glad to be back on the ground afterwards.  He's so sweet to do that for me!

The downward view

I like this shot of our shadow.

Derek and I stayed at a Bed & Breakfast.  This was our room.  

What a wonderful trip.  I can't wait for our next getaway 

which will hopefully be sooner, rather than later!

Signs

 Sorry to all my loyal readers for the EXTENDED Delay in blogging.....it will all make sense soon!

I've titled this post "Signs" because that's what I felt I was looking for ever since Maverick was born.  Signs that would let me know if we were indeed finished having children, or if maybe, we weren't.  

The timing of Maverick's birth coincided with my grandmother's death with in almost a month.  The combination of the pregnancy hormones along with the grief was not a good combination for me and I'll admit, it was rough.  Very rough at times.

I think I may have mentioned it before, but we (mainly I) made the decision to give away our parrot, Connor.  It was not a decision that I took lightly, but I knew it needed to be done for the sake of my health.

I know this may be TMI for some people, so skip this next paragraph if you must.  I exclusively breastfeed my babies and therefore do not get my cycle back for 5-7 months (as a rule) after each birth.  With Maverick, I was so stressed out, that I was getting my cycle every TWO WEEKS.  This was stressing me out more, and my midwives were concerned that I may become anemic due to loss of blood.  They had no explanation for this other than my stress level.  I needed to take drastic measures to reduce my stress and since giving away a child was not an option (Not that I really considered it anyways) the bird was the first to go.  Luckily, our dog, is easy as pie and doesn't require much attention.  Dogs are good like that.

During this time period, Maverick also went on a brief nursing strike and that certainly didn't help the stress level.  Luckily, it was short lived and things slowly started to get better.....

Back to the "Signs" part of this post.  Like I said, ever since Maverick was born I would look for signs to point me in the direction of "we are done" or maybe let's have another...

I would flip-flop on my position SEVERAL times a day based on how much the crying/stress level was.  It got to the point where I finally decided to give this decision over to Derek (in my mind) so that I could get some peace about it.

Fast forward to Chandler's 5th B-day.  Around this time, I was late.  Like more than a week late.  This is generally not like me, so I decided to take a pregnancy test.  In the hour or so from the time I thought a pregnancy could be a possibility to the time that I took the test, so many things went through my mind. How would I tell Derek?  What would his reaction be?  This baby would be due at Christmastime, a time that I had thought in the past, I would avoid at all costs!  How could we afford another one?  And then the test was negative.....and I was sad.

It was then that I knew that despite all things, I really longed for another baby.  

So I told Derek that I wanted another baby and if he did not then he needed to be sure about it and let me know so I could move past this, and get on.  He wouldn't say that he was done.  He had a few remaining hesitations (mainly the money factor) but admittedly wanted another too.  

We decided that we would start "trying" once the renovations to our house were complete (hoping to wrap things up this week!  HOORAY!!)  Well, it turns out that the only real sign we needed to know we wanted another baby was:

There was one and only one occasion this summer where this would have been a possibility, and wouldn't you know :)  We are over the moon happy about our latest little miracle.  I'm due on Chandler's 6th B-Day and I want to be surprised about the gender.  Derek is still on the fence about it.

I have been SO SICK this time and even throwing up, so haven't felt like doing much of Anything.  I'm 12 weeks now, and starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Derek and I are going on a "Babymoon" this weekend for the FIRST TIME EVER since having kids.  I'm hoping to catch up on the blog then!

Maverick goes to MMO!

Today was Maverick's first day of MMO (Mother's Morning Out).  They texted me this picture and said he was doing great.  That was so nice to hear.  I actually didn't get to drop him off myself (my mom did) because I took Chandler to school and then headed to the midwives for my first appointment.  Hooray!

My first appointment went great and it was such a relief to finally hear the heartbeat.  As of now, they think everything looks "normal" and aren't thinking it's twins or anything unusual.  I've gained about 1-2 lbs and have still been having morning sickness.  It's getting better though.  The heartbeat was 160-170 beats/minute which is in the range of normal, but on the higher side.

A good day for everybody all around :)

A boys' dream come true

What boy doesn't love swinging on a swing and watching big machinery pour concrete in his yard?

I know their momma enjoyed this day! FINALLY!

Brighton's 1st Day of 3-Year old Preschool

This is a picture of Brighton on "Meet the Teacher" day.  His teachers are Ms. Cindy & Ms. Shari.

Today was Brighton's first day of 3-year old preschool.  He was an old pro at this and skipped happily into his class.  He is in a class with 10 boys and 3 girls.

His first day went very well and he is off to a good start!

Mountains Trip

For our Labor Day Weekend trip we went to visit Aunt Elizabeth, Aunt Erin & Uncle Joel in the West Jefferson/Boone area of the NC Mountains.

We had a great time.  We took a raft ride down the river.  C & B rode with Erin & Joel and Maverick was in our boat.  Maverick was having fun at first but after about 25 minutes he was D-O-N-E!

Absolutely DONE!  He SCREAMED and cried and there was NOTHING you could do to make him happy.  All he wanted was to GET OUT OF THE BOAT.  Finally Daddy (and Mommy, and everybody else within earshot) could no longer stand the crying and got out and waded in the water with Maverick and that made it somewhat bearable until we could find the nearest bridge and GET OUT!  Next time we'll plan a shorter raft ride.

We also had a fun day at a local park.  If you look hard, you can see some of us far away in the picture.

Aunt Erin pushes C & B on the swings.

Maverick makes friends with a bear.