The ramblings of a crazy person

So, apparently I've not only lost the will to live, but also to take pictures. We had an okay week this week, lots of sitting around, thanks to me, but just nothing really to speak of. I did injure my back again. I had just finished with my physical therapy appointments like a week and a half before to fix a problem that I've been dealing with since September. Then Tuesday Night I made the mistake of trying to lift up Charity and carry her to bed. Luckily she smiled mid-lift, and I ended up dropping her back on the couch and letting her walk to bed, but it still did some damage. I went back to the PT on Thursday and that went well. I'm still not sure it's taking care of all of it, but I am pregnant, so I don't feel like I can really expect to feel 100% yet anyway. So, it's been hard to do much of anything. It stinks. My poor kids have had to do most of the "taking care" of things. Which they've done a good job. In fact we just turned on Narnia and about the part where the kids have to leave their mother in the beginning Bradley says, "That's sad. Who is going to take care of the Mom while the kids are gone?" Apparently Mom's need a lot of care..... his does right now anyway.
So yeah, we went and bought a few things to entertain us with at home. Glad that the school supplies are all on sale, my kids love to draw. And we got the game Operation that has proven to be quite the investment! I'm impressed with how well it keeps my kids' attention! We do spend quite a bit of time looking around for lost pieces since Luke likes to play with it on his own. I need to figure out how to get replacement pieces for that day when they are finally sucked up in the vacuum or something.
That's another thing.... I haven't vacuumed in a few days, and to tell you how bad that is, I normally NEED to vacuum more than once a day. RARELY does that happen, but twice a day would be ideal. So a few days is really gross! I need my back back.
Okay, so I'm sure you all love hearing me whine about my lame problem. I guess I just felt like my blog needed a new post. I hate looking at the same thing over and over again. And I just got after a bunch of you for not updating yours more regularly, so I figured. Sorry I don't have anything real exciting to write about, but what else is new :).
I did put on some maternity clothes today! I feel like my belly fat (aka: muffin top) is bigger than the baby section still.... so it looks strange to wear maternity.... kind of like a fat girl who is trying to disguise her fat as being pregnant..... I don't know. It's probably just me.
I enjoyed church today. It's weird to not have Noah on my lap, but he is loving Nursery. He did cry for a couple of seconds when I dropped them off, but other than that "he was an angel!" according to the Nursery teacher. I'm glad. We got several comments from ladies in the Primary about how "mellow" and "well-behaved" our kids are. And "how in the world did you get 3 amazing kids like that?!" So that was nice. I can't say that I take any of the credit. I feel like we really were just blessed with good kids. Heavenly Father just realized how crazy we were to want so many kids so quickly and thought that if he sent us his best it could be doable :) They really are good kids.... and I do feel blessed to have them. They sat all through Sacrament really reverently too, and I will never forget how cute and loudly Brad sang their little Pioneer songs for the meeting. He was practically shouting. I loved it. I look forward to the embarrassing things that I'm sure Luke will do when he's old enough to go up in the front and sing :) It should be entertaining :) (I hope this doesn't come accross as bragging by any means.... we do have our Sundays that, well, we don't talk about those sundays!! They're still human :))
So life really does feel kinda crazy right now. Nate's job (well the training, I should say) is STRESSFUL!! Not that we didn't know it would be, it just is. Feels like everyday is do or die. And I watch Nate just lay his life down on the table everyday and suck up the anxiety and stress and just do his best. Then come home and have to think about all the correction he received and try to pump himself up for the next day. It's nuts. He's doing great. It's just one little screw up and we're done for! No pressure or anything. I have always known that if anyone could do this it was Nate. And I know he will. But in the meantime..... it's very overwhelming for both of us. I hate that I have NO CONTROL over anything in the way of his career at this point. It felt like I had some before for some reason, but at this point it's completely up to him. Again, no pressure. It's amazing how things like this can take a toll on you mentally and physically. As well as emotionally I guess..... for me especially. Nate doesn't cry, but he's probably just as emotionally effected. Luckily we have received Priesthood Blessings, and lots of reassuring words, help and comfort from Heavenly Father on the matter and we feel optimistic that things will work out. If they don't, then they will work out in a different way than we have planned. And all will be well, I'm sure. Heavenly Father has a way of making things good for us, so I don't know why we stress. It would be nice to have Nate get his first raise, to get a house, to get on with things that we have planned, and to have our baby in a nice stable environment :). I'm learning that "in the Lord's time" is the key here. I don't want anything rushed, I don't want things to go the way I want, just because I want, because that usually ends bad. I have to keep telling myself that. I feel kinda lame even bringing any of this up since I know most of you are going through hard if not worse things, so I apologize for my petty little problems. I will be sucking it up as soon as I'm done typing :)
Life is good. It may not be perfect, but it is good, and good is better than bad :) So I'm going to just be grateful. We have been so blessed. And life really is going the direction we have wanted.... just slower.
We actually got to go to the temple on Tuesday (thank you Sarah!) for the first time in.... well..... way too long (I can't even say because I'm embarrassed). But it's been a while. And it just felt so wonderful to be there. And already I've felt blessings from that. Things at Nate's work felt more comfortable, and things at home have felt much calmer this week. I know it's because of the temple and the Spirit we felt there. I hope we can make it more regularly for these next few months before our little girl gets here and needs me home.
I do feel like this baby is such a blessing. It's funny that pregnancy can feel so exhausting, but be such a peace at the same time. The other night (wow, I just keep going, sorry) I was having a LOT of contractions, I assume because of the back pain, but I have no idea. contractions are normal for me, and especially with my girls, but so many all at once was really starting to stress me out!! 23 weeks along just doesn't seem like enough to me for my brain to think things would work out for her. So on with the worrying I went. Then the cramping started as well. Which, I'm normally a worrier, but when I'm pregnant, and it's about my baby.... the worrying thing is just OUT OF CONTROL!! So anyway. I said a little prayer. I realized that there is not much that can be done if something were to happen or progress with my contractions. (funny thing is, I've NEVER dialated. even after 25 hours of labor +pitosin with Charity, I only got to a 3, so I really have nothing to even base my worry off of) I've been told when to call the doctor and I will do that, but until then, it is in the Lord's hands. I want this baby more than anything right now, but if she is not meant to be mine right now, then she's not (see how drastically I think things out....), and that would have to be okay. But I guess I just decided to hand that worry over to Heavenly Father. I have given that to him and I am not going to stress about how she is doing anymore. I can pray and hope and have all the faith that I can and DO what I can to take care of my body, but I am NOT going to WORRY! Worry does not come from the Lord. It definitely felt better to get that off my chest and to have the Lord take it for me. Hopefully I can keep this up for a while :). I have always been so blessed with my pregnancies and my deliveries. I wouldn't say they were "easy", but they were very blessed, and very free of complications, most of them, so I guess I just look at where my odds are.... and I get nervous. It seems unlikely that I could be so lucky. But that's just it! It's not luck! It's blessings. Not that i think I deserve them. But I will welcome them gladly, and just be grateful.
Alright, so that's all. Sorry to ramble. No picture again. We've got a few fun things planned for this week, so hopefully I will have some nice uplifting post about that with lots of pictures soon enough :). Have a nice week everyone! (I will too!)

Sweet Girls

I guess when Nate woke up this morning at 6:30 he could hear the girls, busy in the kitchen, pouring cereal, getting out bowls and plates. He went back to sleep and then an hour later they came in our room with a bowl of cereal for each of us, each one on a plate. They had made breakfast for everyone. Which even involved cutting up a banana for their baby brother. I love that they can think of this kind of stuff on their own.... cute girls.

Okay, so I finally got my lazy self out to the car and got my camera out. I totally thought that I had pictures on it to post. Well, apparently I'm even lazier than I thought because I haven't even taken any. So on with the pictureless posts. I apologize. I'm not a fan of books without pictures, blog posts are kind of the same for me. Maybe I'll just find an internet picture or something..... anyway.

talking back

Yesterday Luke was playing a game on pbskids.org where you build sand castles with George. As he was building his you could hear the Man with the Yellow Hat say, "That looks good! I like it!" (all happy-like and cheerful) and Luke quickly rebuttled, "no you don't." (almost in a grumpy tone). It was hilariuos!! The kid does not need fake compliments from no computer! Makes me laugh :)

So innocent

The other day, we were all kneeling down for nighttime prayer. Bradley had fought for the spot next to me and then leaned in all lovingly. This is different for Brad, if Daddy's there, he's next to Dad, but I do love the times when he lets me enjoy his attention. Well, this time was funny because he leans over to me and ever so sweetly whispers to me, "Mom, dis might hurt your feewings, but Daddy's a better driver dan you." HA!!! Nate and I had a hard time holding back the laughter (he was very serious about it). It was just so funny because it wasn't like we had just gotten out of the car or anything, it was just out of the blue :) Makes me laugh everytime I think about it.

Do you think you can love more than God?

Okay, so I know I just did a post with no pictures but I need to document some of the things we heard in this talk on Sunday, and I thought it was worth sharing. Just some background, we had a kid giving his homecoming address. The topic for the month is Family History and he happened to be adopted as a child from Russia and then that was where he went on his mission so he was able to go visit the orphanage that he had been at for a few months as a baby, and then found where his mother had lived and found out that she had actually kept him for a few months before getting sick and dying. Anyway, his point was that he was now going to be able to do the Geneological and temple work for his biological family. It was just really neat. A very different homecoming address. I enjoyed it. Okay, so that was unrelated, I just really liked that part, his Grandpa who happens to be a member of the Quorum of the Seventy was asked to bear his testimony at the end, he made a few points that I just loved!

In the middle of his remarks he says, "How many of you have had a baby?" And then, "How long did it take you to love that baby after you had them?" (I'm of course thinking, well, it's not even AFTER for me! I love this little baby that's growing inside me and frankly, I've loved her for even longer than that!) So then he says, "How can we think that we could possibly love more than our Heavenly Father who is perfect?" He of course loves his children. Why do we not give that more credit. We don't have to do anything, just being his gives us his love..... just like our own children. I just loved that thought. A really peaceful reminder that no matter how much we are not liked by someone else or those around us and no matter how much we screw up, Heavenly Father is there and loves us more than we could ever know. And always will. So then he talked about how Heavenly Father owns everything. Everything is his. And if you can get in good with the person who has everything, then you are in a good place! Why would we not want to impress him, or do the things that we know are pleasing to him. That's just such a simple way to look at it. He is the one who can give us the things that we want or need, and we can earn them by keeping his commandments and doing what he's asked. I know this is obvious stuff, but I do love how he put it. And I do need the reminder myself.