Summer, summertime

I am not blogging as much as I would like but I think you'll understand why by the end of this post...

This summer has been wonderful. I was fortunate enough to spend the majority of it home with my kids. We kept pretty busy playing and hanging out at the house most times but we did take a drive and have lunch with Daddy one day every week. It was fun and we even ended the summer with a picnic at a park where a squirrel kept coming over to us and wouldn't leave us alone. :)

We took some trips, one to New York, one to the beach and one to Florida. Talk about lots of driving...in the car...with 5 kids! They did amazingly well. We are blessed with good car riders!
Since all these trips were so great, I want to post on them separately but as a whole, this summer was fantastic.

Looking onward, fall is by far, my most favorite time of year. It is the start of the school/homework/sports practice routine and earlier bed times! It is the start of football season, even though I am not a big fan, it does allow me some weekend naps while Howard will be up and can watch the kids :) I have such memories of when I was a child sitting with my Dad while he was watching football.

Thinking back on all that we've done this summer, it makes me sad that it is over. But to look on the bright side, if I had so much fun during my least favorite season, I can only imagine how great the fall will be!!

Where does the time go???

I can't believe it has been two and a half months since Jaeger was born! See how cute my little baby is....

The last two and a half months have really been great. The kids LOVE their new brother. I have so many helpers, too many at times! He is a really good baby and is sleeping through the night, a lot sooner than most of his siblings. He looks exactly like his daddy and nothing like his older brother, go figure.

I didn't really know how chaotic things would be with four kids and a newborn, but trust me, they are! Even though it is CRAZY, I just have such a feeling of peace like this is exactly how my life is supposed to be. I absolutely adore my kids and am so thankful God has blessed me with them.

Please forgive me but this post will be short, I need to get back to packing. We are leaving tomorrow to go camping with all of Howard's family for a few days. Seven people in one tent, pray for us :)

Tomorrow is the big day....

Tomorrow we get to meet our latest addition...Jaeger Devere "JD" Forrest!

I am being induced at 6:30am. If you can spare some prayers, we would appreciate it. We will let you know all the details when we can!!

The makings of a GREAT weekend

*Not having to get up at 5:00 and drive 2 hours on Saturday like the one before
*Watching Jessie at her last basketball playing her heart out
*Watching Jaylyn at her basketball game and score 4 points!
*Witnessing my aunt and uncle surprise my cousin for his birthday
*Enjoying a nice two hour nap while our babies slept
*Catching up with old friends…and realizing how much you have missed them
*Spending lots of time with family

And most importantly…
**Watching UNC beat Duke!!

The Babies

Jovie and Jax are our “babies.” We started to call them that when Jax was born since they are just twelve months apart-it seemed like we had two babies!

Jovie is our little blondie. I don’t know where the blond came from but one of Howard’s brothers was born with blond hair and it all fell out and came in black. I am sort of hoping Jovie’s does the same. That way she would look a little more like her sisters. Right now, she is also into singing. “No One” by Alicia Keys and “Apologize” by OneRepublic with Timberland are her two favorites. Also very funny is the fact that she calls her cousin Dylan, not by his name but Gordon. No one can figure out why, I suppose she is just substituting her Gs for Ds and Ds for Ls. I am sure she will get it right one of these times.

Jax is your typical boy and gets into EVERYTHING. You have to have your eye on him every second. It really is great to have a boy finally though. I remember finding out we were having a boy like it was yesterday. I was preparing myself and the girls for another girl, just going with history. We brought them all to the ultrasound along with my parents. When the technician said it is a boy, Jaylyn sprung off the couch and screamed out a big YEAH!! We were all so shocked and some of us, I won’t name names, were in tears. I’ll never forget it.

Now, Jovie is 2 and Jax is 1, not so much babies anymore. I wonder what we should call them once the new baby comes. Any suggestions??

Just the right amount of crazy...

Something funny happened the other day. Jaylyn had a friend, Kyra, over and when we were getting dinner around for them, we talked about how crazy our house was. This is how the conversation went:

Us: Isn't our house crazy, you wouldn't want to be all the time?
Kyra: No, I want to stay here, you have just the right amount of crazy here.

That pretty much sums up our lives now, just the right amount of crazy!!

Our second-born

Jessie Grace is our second born. We had originally wanted to have our kids two years apart so when Jaylyn was a little over a year we started trying. We thought since it really didn’t take too long to get pregnant with Jaylyn, it wouldn’t take too long this time. We tried and tried and tried with no success. After two years we decided to go to a fertility clinic. I was diagnosed with PCOS and started on medication. Still nothing happened. It was onto the next step. We tried something new the next cycle with no success and it was onto the final option. Because of how that cycle progressed, the outlook of success was looking very dim. To make things worse, at the beginning of that cycle, my grandmother passed away. We were all so sad at how things were turning out.

Amazingly, there was success in that cycle. I still remember to this day waking up in the morning and taking that pregnancy test. My parents were staying with us and we were all getting ready for church. I remember knocking on the bathroom door and telling my Mom and just crying with sheer joy. We found out around 20 weeks that we were having a girl and we didn’t even really need to think of a name. It was a given, we would name her Jessie Grace, after my grandmother. It was perfect.

Today, Jessie is a very energetic 5 year old. She is and always has been our most sensitive child. She loves to cuddle and is the most excited for the new baby. She LOVES soccer, basketball, anything sports while still being a real girly girl. She is our most personable and loves to ask people to tell stories. She gets so involved in learning other people’s stories, it is really fascinating. In a lot of ways, she really does remind me a lot of my grandmother.

We are so blessed to have her, and I am so happy we are able to keep a part of my grandmother alive in her.