june baby

Yesterday i finally started having some braxton hicks (practice warm up contractions). I think this baby's going to wait a little longer, but feeling a little change gives me more hope that this baby will some day come out :-). I'm excited to see what the birth day is and of course to hold our baby. And we're happy to now know that we'll be having a June baby. Fun birthday month. As long as i'm still feeling this good in the morning, Joshua will be going to Kristen and Brent's wedding tomorrow. I'm hoping that our decision will be clear and, of course, that Joshua will make it back in plenty of time. I'm very excited for them to be getting married tomorrow. I wish our whole family could be there. Joshua will be taking a video for us, though.

40 weeks!

Tomorrow is Baby's due date! I'm still thinking Baby's going to wait awhile longer, though. I'm thankful to be feeling so good. Since the very beginning of this pregnancy, I've thought this baby's a girl (which i feel pretty sure of) and that the birth date might be June 1st (just my guess before Kristen and Brent set their wedding date). Joshua's sister is getting married June 1st now, so please join us in praying that if this baby doesn't come before Saturday, that it'll either wait until after the 1st or that I'll have enough labor warning that Joshua will know not to go to the wedding. Otherwise he'll be gone 1pm-midnight on Saturday, and we'll both be hoping that his being four hours away doesn't let him miss this birth. We're trusting that God will answer our prayer to allow Joshua to be at his baby's birth. We're very excited for Kristen and Brent to be getting married!
At my midwife appointment today, everything looks good and normal. Measuring at 41. Baby has plenty of fluid. Still head-down with back on my left front side (good position). Yesterday and today I actually worked out again instead of napping like i have been recently. We loved having Joshua not working for the holiday yesterday, and Mo took the kids this afternoon, so maybe the extra help helped my energy level too :-). We're so excited to see and hold this baby soon, but we're also feeling patient in letting Baby take his or her time in being ready.

midwife

I'm really enjoying the experience of pregnancy with our midwife. I love that our conversations include how God made all of this to work and that we can pray together. My appointments are 45 minutes long, which gives us time to talk. We don't have to do any unnecessary labs. I didn't have to get everything retested at the beginning of this pregnancy since nothing has changed since my other pregnancies that she got the records from. Instead of a glucose test like they do in a doctor's office, she just pricked my finger to test my blood sugar after lunch. For testing my urine at each appointment, i just dip a little test strip in my urine and see if any of the colors on the strip are abnormal, rather than handing it off to some stranger in a lab. And, for my weight, i just step on a scale and tell her the number. I like the simplicity of it. And the kids love going to the appointments and playing with the toys she has for them. When Baby was breech, she suggested i do an upside-down tilt (which i'd already learned from my own research with the other pregnancies) to turn the baby. It makes me sad how many doctors don't offer any solutions or options other than c-section for breech babies. And she suggested I take alfalfa, which i hadn't heard of before. Joshua and i were able to go to the four pregnancy classes she and her assistants offer. Mostly i learned how easy things are when nothing's messed with. Like in the newborn care class, i was expecting more to it, as much as they bugged us over and over and over in the hospital. But instead i learned things like it's normal for baby to be awake for a couple hours after birth and then sleep for about six hours. i remember the nurses bugging me to wake up lazarus to feed him during that sleepy time, and he had no interest in eating at all. i'll be excited to just rest with the baby and be able to keep it comfortable this time. Of course Joshua and i are really looking forward to the birth experience.

robin's nest

Evalana was excited when she found a bird's nest in our playset a few weeks ago. Then four blue eggs showed up in it! We try not to disturb the mama and the nest too much, but when they checked on it yesterday, Joshua said one of the eggs was rocking around. I think we'll have some baby birds in there soon. Lazarus thinks the nest is a little bit scary. Evalana thinks it's very exciting.
5/31/13 update: A rain storm seems to have washed away two of the eggs, one is smashed, and the other never hatched. But now we're on to caterpillars in our house.

bailey's baptism

On Sunday the 19th our nephew Bailey was baptized! Joshua was able to go to Joplin for the service. We're so excited for Bailey to make this decision to trust Jesus in his life! I wish we all could have been there to celebrate with him, but i'm glad Joshua was able to get this little video of it.

school

We've slowed down our school schedule a bit recently, doing it more like every other day as we try to fit in some other stuff and more rest and play too. Here's some of the stuff we're doing as evalana finished up week 9 of our first grade schedule.
Evalana always loves our book reading time. We're learning all sorts of good basic stuff in our Bible lessons. In history we're learning about ancient Egypt. One of Evalana's very favorite parts of our school time is the missionary stories.
Evalana had been too embarrassed to let me share her reading with anyone else, but she actually let me record her reading her last story in her first I Can Read It book this week. Lazarus is in the background playing with his trains and then acting like a two year old.

We did the last of our science experiments on magnets. Both kids have really enjoyed playing with/learning about the magnets. Most of the experiments were a little simpler than this one that took more adult help to put together, but the kids loved the train signal.


In science we're also learning about animals.
Evalana loves being able to write out a Bible verse at the end of each week for her handwriting.

 

Most of our art is water painting, which both of the kids like.
In math she's learned all of her single addition facts.
With my recent computer issues, we've been slacking in Spanish and piano, but she does like doing them. we haven't done any of lazarus's school time recently. i was just sort of doing the 2yo school stuff with him early, but i'll get back to actually doing his school time in August. His trains and legos have been keeping him occupied recently, and i'm fine with that.
Most of the kids around here had their last day of school yesterday. Evalana and I are thankful that we don't have to stop just because it's summer time :-).

39 weeks

Tomorrow we'll be one week away from the due date! I'm still having no braxton hicks (warm-up contractions) or anything. i'm feeling totally comfortable, or at least as comfortable as someone who is carrying a human around in her belly and weighs an extra 40 pounds can be. i've been sleeping great. i still sometimes have to take a nap break during the day, but that works out okay anyway. almost everyone who sees me makes some comment on how huge i am, but i really am just so thankful to be blessed with the opportunity to carry this baby, and i'm thankful this baby seems to be growing well, and i'm amazed at the miraculous way God created all of this to work, for my body to be able to grow this little life. it's amazing to me that my normally fist-sized uterus can stretch all the way up inside my ribs to make a perfect room for this baby. and i actually like the stretch marks, too. it's like a little tattoo of this pregnancy. and i don't know why i get to feel so great throughout pregnancy while others are so sick and uncomfortable, but i appreciate that little blessing too.

Today's appointment confirmed baby is still head down. This time baby's back is on my left front, and i can feel the sweet little feet on the right. I'm still measuring at 40 weeks. Some people have asked if we've narrowed down our name choices. No, we won't take names off the list until after baby's born. at this point i spend most of my freetime (whatever that is) looking through name books and sites, trying to add decent names to our list. I think baby's still a ways from birth day. Last night our hot water heater (which is essential for a home water birth) started leaking. Our wonderful neighbor hooked us up, and a service man came this morning. Turned out it just needed a fix, not a new one yet, so i was thankful for that, and now it'll hopefully be in great shape for birth tub filling, whenever that happens.
Here's the list of guesses on baby's birth. It'll be fun to see who's closest :-)

38 weeks

After last week's appointment with a breech baby, I laid upside down a couple of times and then felt like the baby may have turned, but i couldn't tell for sure. Today Debbie confirmed that the head is down. Yea! I'll be 38 weeks tomorrow. I'm so excited that this baby will be born sometime in the next month! I'm still measuring at 40 weeks (baby has grown, head is down, but head is still floating).
 Last week Debbie brought the birth pool, and over the weekend, Joshua practiced airing it up. Funny how having the birth pool in our house seems to have suddenly convinced Joshua that this baby's coming soon.
I'm still feeling great, although I've been so tired recently. I'm not sure if I need to be doing something differently or if it's just being 8 1/2 months pregnant and taking care of two kids, but I feel like I'd love to get more sleep and rest. I'm happy for this baby to take its sweet time getting to the birth day, but I'm also really looking forward to cuddling him or her in our arms soon.
One treat we had this week was on Monday we had a couple of cleaners come for a couple of hours. They scrubbed the bathrooms so they're shinier than I've seen them since I moved in, and they also did some cleaning in the kitchen. Now my "birth center" (our bedroom) is looking much better.

mothers day with my mom

Yesterday we started our day with church, then we got to have lunch with my mom. Alex took some pictures for us.

Spring!

It finally feels like spring here! Evalana was finished with her schoolwork by 10am, and we're playing outside the rest of the day now. And this year spring also means a new baby!

full term

Today we had our home visit with our midwife. So exciting that on Wednesday this baby will be full term. Remember to go to http://www.expectnet.com/games/vaughnbaby3 today or tomorrow to put in your guesses on baby. Then we'll be closing the polls :-). We've got everything together for our home water birth now. I'm so excited. I don't expect this baby to come for a few more weeks, but it's getting so close now! Baby decided to turn head-up/transverse sometime in the last couple of days. So i get to do more laying upside-down, like i did to get the other two to turn. Also, the strange position has me measuring at 40 weeks now, but, once the baby gets its head tucked back into my pelvis, it should be a smaller measurement. We're praying that God helps us with coming up with some name ideas for this baby. And we'd love prayers for the baby to get into the right position this week and, of course, that when it comes to birth time, everything goes smoothly. Thank you! It's quite a blessing to have so many people excited about this baby.

Several people have asked about our concerns with a home birth. I have none. God has given me peace about our decisions with this pregnancy. I know that doesn't mean that everything will turn out the way we want, but I'm totally comfortable with our decisions not to use ultrasound and to have this baby at home. We'd love continued prayers for everything about the birth, but I'm not at all worried about it.

 Trying to get this baby to turn head down

their first attempt at making a thomas movie

Sorry, i don't know how to make this video smaller.
Also, i took a couple of great behind-the-scenes videos, but they didn't turn out.
Evalana and Joshua made up the story. With some coaching from Daddy, Evalana also made up her lines. Lazarus is featured when Flynn yells "Help!" and also helped with the carpentry sound effects. And you can also see his little hand, bottom, and poking Molly in when he was supposed to be a little more out of the shot :-). They had a lot of fun. They were giggling so hard when Joshua was trying to record the voices. Good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

awana awards

Evalana finished another Awana year with her awards night this evening.

cute bed

My peek in the kids' bed before i went to sleep last night. Sorry the picture's blurry.