Baby Will has arrived!

We are officially no longer Just 4 Crows!

Baby Will has arrived making us Just 5 Crows now!!!

Will was born last week, but I just have not had the time, or energy, to update the blog with the details.  I will share all about his arrival later (like after I get more than 3 hours of sleep per night) but did want to share a couple pictures of our new bundle of joy!

A very sweet friend of mine is also a photographer so she was in the delivery with us to capture some of those miracle moments.  Here are a couple pictures she took:

Me getting to hold Will for the first time!!!  Such an indescribable moment!!!

 J, me, and Will....3 of the 5 Crows

 

 

Baby Will had a little photo shoot with the photographers at the hospital.  I love how he is "smiling" in this one.

Will and I are doing really good. I am just very tired...He is asleep for the moment so I wanted to share his arrival news quickly then catch a nap with him.  I will share all the details and many more pictures very soon. But for now, I am going to rest up with my little man.

Spring Break and our last day as a family of 4!

The kids are out of school this week on spring break.  It has been such a cold week, but that's ok because I am enjoying this time I get to spend with them. 

As soon as we found out that we were expecting and knew the due date, I have been joking that it would sure be nice to deliver during spring break.  That way the kids were out of school and I did not have to worry with all that.  Well, my wish came true...I will be induced at the end of this week because this little guy just does not seem to want to join our crazy world ( I must make a nice, warm home for him)

Since I am delivering this week, I knew I wanted to do some fun things with the kids around town.  I really wanted to have some one on one time with them before all the craziness of bringing a new baby home sets in. 

Here are a few of the things we have managed to get into this week:

We went on a picnic to our local park.  We are fortunate to have some great parks around our area.  So we took us a picnic to one of them and enjoyed the nice cool day.  The kids played, fed ducks, and we walked around the walk.  Of course I had ulterior motives for wanting to walk that much, but it did not do any good.

Here is a picture of us on our way to the park:

Here are the kids playing at the park:

The next day, we picked up my mom (Meme) and she joined us for lunch and the movies.  It was a VERY cold and windy day so there was no playing outside...luckily there are some kid friendly movies on this week.  We had a good time and enjoyed spending the day with Meme.

Here we are on our way to the movies:

Today, J is off work so we can enjoy our last day being a family of 4.  No telling what we are going to get into.  I did not make any plans because I just wanted us to enjoy the day being lazy or doing whatever.

Here is a picture of us running errands last night:

And of course we have to take a crazy face picture too:

Well, that is all for today.  I am making everyone breakfast in bed before we start our day.  The next post from me (or Jason depending how I feel) will be to introduce our new addition. 

Have a great day!

A Baby Shower for Will

This past weekend, some of my wonderful friends hosted a baby shower for our little man.  My friends went above and beyond!  The shower was beautiful and the food was very yummy!  I got a lot of goodies for Will.  He is one set little man.  (Now if he will just make the decision to arrive, hehe).


Here are just a few pictures from the shower:

 My mom and Madeline:

 My mom, Madeline, mother in law and my J's grandmother:

My fabulous friends who hosted the shower:

I am so very thankful for my wonderful friends and family who are helping us prepare for our sweet baby Will!!!!

Baby #3 Update

Just realized I have not shared any baby updates in a while.

Pregnancy is going good.  I can not get over how fast it has gone.  I guess keeping up with all our activities does not leave much time for anything else...boy how crazy life is going to be when we throw a new wee little one in to the mix. 

I am at 34 weeks now.  Less than 6 weeks until my due date.  I have not ever made it to my due date before.  Although, I have joked that this child is going to be the one to go past due date (oh goodness how I -and J - hope not) I am trying to convince the little man that arriving the week of spring break would be ideal....lets see if he listens to momma or has a mind of his own??? 

All of my check ups have been going fairly well.  Weight gain has been good, especially since I have been on limited activity this pregnancy (meaning no exercising), my bp has been normal every visit except last one when it was actually low so I am just keeping a check on that, Baby heart rate has been great (he is such an active little fellow), and no changes in blood clot.  Will is head down so that is good news as well.  As due date approaches I do have questions about the clot and how that is going to effect delivery.  Of course I am praying for no effect at all so we shall see. I have my last bi weekly appointment this week then it is time to move on to the weekly appointments.  YAY!

Here are a few pictures to share:


This is me last week at 33 weeks:

We have been doing a lot of rearranging in the house to prepare for Baby Will.  J got me a new wood closet organizer for our closet.  Here is a pic of him putting it together.  It is all together and I am just about finished putting the closet in order (there was a lot of cleaning out that had to be done first).  I will share the process soon!

J found this amazing wardrobe at the thrift store near his work.  It is by broyhill and it matches our bedroom furniture.  He got it for baby Will to use as a closet for now. 

For now, Jack and Will are going to share a bedroom.  We have a full finished basement, but no way is Jack ready to move down there (nor am I ready for him to either)  Because of the limited space, we thought building Jack a loft bed would maximize the space in his room and give him his own little area free of baby brother for the time being.  I could not find a bed that I like and was in the budget so we decided the best thing to do was to build it ourselves.  The whole family got in on the project.  Below is a picture of the preparing process.  I finished the last coat of paint on it this past weekend so today is assembly day.  I will share this finished project soon as well.

 

So, I think that is about all that has been going on prep wise around here.  In addition to all this, baseball is starting up again and Madi is trying out for a new competition cheer team....did I mention life is wild??? Hold on baby Will life is fun and never dull around here!

Photo Shoot

A very sweet friend of mine took some maternity photos for me a couple weeks ago.
I am so thankful to have such talented friends who will take pictures for me to document this exciting time in our lives.

Here is a sampling of the pictures she took:

my mom is so crafty!  she made this sash for me!

we have less than 8 weeks till baby Will's due date!  I can not believe how quickly it is approaching!!! 

The Dusting of 2014

Last week we got some something we do not get very often around our area...snow!

Usually when the "s" word is even mentioned for our area, people run to the store for milk and bread.  No, I am not one of those people, but it really does happen. 

Well, last week it was predicted that our area would get just a "dusting" of snow.  It was not predicted to be much and it was not predicted to cause any problems at all. (Ha...missed that forecast by several inches)

Tuesday morning, the conditions must have been just right because as soon as the flurries started to fall, they immediately stuck to the ground and started to ice the roadway.  Next thing I knew school was calling for early dismissal.   I still was not believing it was going to be anything major, just the school being cautious which was fine with me because that meant the kiddos could be home with me.

Then, I looked outside and realized that the roads were not looking good and decided to go ahead and leave to get my babies from school.  Boy, I am glad I did.  It normally is about a 10 minute drive to the kids school, but it took me over an hour to get there and back home.  We live at the top of a fairly steep hill and I barely made it up the hill.  I knew once I got up that hill, I was not getting back out in my car. 

J works about an hour from home so he left work around the same time I left to get the kids.  What would normally take him an hour to get home, ended up taking about 4 hours to get home.  The last 6 miles of his drive he was not able to complete so he had to park his car and walk the rest of the way home.  It was really the safest option because the road we live off of was already closed and he would not have been able to make it anyway. 

What was suppose to be just a dusting of snow turned out to be over 3 inches of snow on top of about 1/2 inch of ice.  The kids were out of school for the remainder of the week and J was home from work.  The roads were closed and we were happy to just stay at home and play and be lazy and snack. 

Below are some pictures of our dusting:

View from our yard:

J walking up the hill to come home.  We were so happy to see his face!:

Jack made a snow angel:

Madeline made one too:

J and Madeline tried to build a snowman but the snow was too powdery to form into a snowman:

Day 2
Madeline and J ready to explore:

We did not have a sled, so J created one for us out of an old sign.  It worked perfectly for sliding down our iced over hill:

Madeline and me:

Madeline riding in an inner tube down the hill in our backyard:

Jason had to get in on the fun too:

of course Jack did too:

My loves:

Jack and J:

Jack and me:

Jack:

Madi carrying around a block of ice (I am pretty sure she tried to throw it on her daddy):

We enjoyed the snow days we had and are very glad we got to enjoy playing in it and missing school, but this southern girl has definitely had her feel of snow and is ready for spring to get here.