Advice please

I'm seeking some advice from those who have 3 or more kids or come from a family with 3 or more kids, with my 3rd child coming very shortly. How do you or did your moms do it? (staying organized, staying awake and alert even though you're sleep deprived, feeding a family, getting out the door, having a normal conversation w/ your spouse, taking a shower w/o interruption,and any other scenarios I'm missing). Any tips, advice, and/or strategies I would love to hear so please share. PLEASE! I'm becoming nervous and worried here.

Sydney turns 4

I turned my blog into a book (print2blog.com). I can't wait to get it in a couple weeks to see what it looks like. With that being said, I'm sure my blog will be more detailed (and therefore boring to some) and perhaps more frequent since this is the only place I write down what is going on in our life.
Last Saturday Sydney turned 4. My goal was to not throw a party until she started asking for one and this was the year she really started asking for a party. So we had her first party with her friends. She had 15 friends from church, our neighborhood, and preschool that came. It was a Christmas theme. I had 3 stations. The first station was frosting christmas cookies and eating some lunch, the 2nd station was making a christmas ornament, and the last station was playing games: pin the star on the x-mas tree, santa-santa- reindeer (aka duck-duck-goose), and this balloon game. After we ate a princess cake (syd didn't want a snowman cake) and ice cream and opened presents. She had such a fun time playing with all her friends and of course getting some new toys. She was really good about thanking kids for the presents and saying how much she loved the gift she got. She even commented how "beautiful" the wrapping was or bag was that the gift was in. The party ended and Sydney was still on cloud 9 while Jeff and I were beat. The night before we hosted a X-mas party for Jeff and his co-workers and were up late. It was a fun weekend and now we're about to leave for Utah to visit family for a month and celebrate Jordyn's 2nd birthday in two days.
The night we had Jeff's work x-mas party.
Syd and her friend Luke with her first gun. She loves the gun. Not only does it make noises but the end lights up too. I love that my girl can appreciate and enjoy boy toys.
Sydney and her new apron that my friend made and a cook book for moms and kids. Sydney loves wearing her apron (as does Jordyn) around the house all the time and I love when she is shooting her M-16 gun while wearing it. I can't help but laugh.
And of course a party wouldn't be a party without a cake and blowing out a candle.
My big girl and I. It's crazy how fast 4 years have gone by. Sydney is such a good little girl. She is very obedient and very helpful. She is always willing and wanting to help me and help around the house wether I ask her or not. She is a joy in our lives and we love her so much.

November

In November it got considerably colder. One week was nothing but temperatures below 0. The cold weather has not stopped us from having some fun. Here are some things we did in the month of November. The front of our house. We had several huge potted plants on our driveway but as you can see they are buried in the snow.
Rock climbing. Sydney loves to rock climb. We still want to make a rock climbing wall in our basement but haven't gotten around to it yet.
Swimming and waterslides that Sydney and Jordyn loved. Sydney went down the waterslide by herself over and over and over.
This is one of our traditions at Thanksgiving. We put it on the wall and throughout the month we write the things were thankful for about eachother. We also have a blessing basket to write what our blessings are and do some giving to a family.
Here's are family photo on Thanksgiving day, right before we went to a friend's house for dinner. It was a great dinner with great friends. On Friday we went to another home in our neighborhood for another Thanksgiving dinner. I'm so thankful for good friends we have made up here. They make being far from family not as difficult.
Sydney and I went to our first ballet--The Nutcracker. We both enjoyed it and had a good time going with other moms from my ward and their daughters. Sydney said she wanted to go on stage and dance with the ballerinas.
Of course we had to go sledding with all this new snow that came in November. I'd love to go, but will have to wait next year. The girls loved sledding so much in fact that they threw a fit when we left. That's how we gauge how much they enjoy something even if we are laughing at them for whining and crying in the car.

The adventures of Tom Sawyer

I should probably read this book again. I remember thinking as a kid that it would have be fun if I were Tom Sawyer's side kick tagging along with him on his adventures. I know I would be honored if he considered tagging along with me on some of mine.

Tomorrow night I am going to the midnight show of New Moon. I never stay up late, unless I have a newborn. I'm an early to bed early to rise person. When I hear people waiting in line all night to see movies I always thought, "Why would people do that? They can just see the movie the next day at a decent hour." I still have the same thought process but yet I am doing that same thing tomorrow night. At least I have tickets and I don't have to wait in line for hours. Before you call me a hypocrite, I have to explain my self discovery that hit me this morning. First of all, I'm not putting myself through this because I'm a Twilight freak. It's actually part of my self discovery as well. Before reading the Twilight series, I hadn't read a book from cover to cover since high school. I'm not a reader and with young ones, I don't know how moms get a chance to read. I always thought sitting down for a couple hours to read was boring. I'd rather be up and moving around. By the time my kids go to bed, I'm ready to climb into my own (remember "early to bed"). But this last May when Jeff and I went to Hawaii with no kids, I thought, "I am going to read a book" stepping "out of my box." Well that week I read 2 of the Twilight books and I later read the last 2. It was enjoying, but I'm not going to reread them over and over like some people do. I'm not going to buy myself a shirt or buy movie. I didn't even buy the books, I borrowed them.

Going to see the movie at midnight tomorrow has got me thinking. I would have never done this, so why am I doing it now? Here's where the self discovery or "ahh-ha" moment comes to life. Looking back this past year, I have realized that I have a love for life, a zest for adventure and I don't have to be a bubbly, funny, outgoing extravert of a person to have that love of life that I assumed those people have (although I'm sure that is true in some cases, it's not always). In Hawaii, I read those books, that I normally would'nt, I have been in a shark tank, I moved to ALASKA (which is still shocking to me), I'm not finding out the gender of our baby, and now I'm staying up until at least 3 am tomorrow morning knowing I'm going to be exhausted the next day. These are some of my adventures. Reading Twilight took me extra strength to just "sit" and lose myself in a book, the shark tank took extra guts to get in the ocean w/ sharks swimming around me, moving to alaska required extra faith, not finding out the gender took extra willpower, and going to this movie at midnight will take extra energy to keep my eyes open. I realized that all these adventures required "EXTRA," meaning I have it in me, but needed a push. These adventures were all fun and exhilarating to me. These adventures although lame to some people create in myself a love for life, an enthusiasm for self awareness, a challenge to see what I can do. I spend most my hours serving kids and these adventures are for me only. In doing things for myself once in awhile, I am having a fun life that I enjoy. It makes me love motherhood and being a wife because I love myself (that sounds cocky, but I think you know what I mean). I'm pushing and challenging myself to things I wouldn't normally do. Life is too short so why not experience things I normally wouldn't do if the opportunity arises, thus becoming my adventures.

So these have been my adventures this past year and I strongly feel that of all my adventures Tom Sawyer would certainly love Alaska and have many new adventures of his own in this state. What are your adventures?

For your viewing pleasure: Our backyard in November

Poems

This came to my mind within a few short minutes. I had to write it down before I forgot. Sydney:

Smiles

saYs funny things

Dances to music everyday

williNg to lend a hand

chEws on her toenails when she's sitting on the toilet

plaYing with kids of any age

Jordyn

Jumping fool

loves fOod

weaRing sydney's dresses

Dimple on left cheek

cuddleY

obsessioN with toothpaste and brushing teeth

spooky halloween...no

Our halloween was anything but spooky. It was definitely a happy halloween. How could it not be with a couple of ballerinas, a pregnant basketball player, and Clark Kent, who flew home for the weekend. With parties to attend, decorations to hang, pumpkins to carve, goodies to eat, painted faces and a tummy, halloween books to read, there was laughter and excitement to be had at our house.

Halloween night outside our home. It was about 15 degrees and a full moon was out.
You can't tell in her gloves and jacket, but Sydney was a ballerina. Jordyn was 3 things: a skunk, flower girl, and ballerina. Luckily she chose to be this warm skunk when we went trick-or-treating outside.
She dressed as a flower girl when we went on base for some halloween fun.
Here is Sydney's ballerina pose.

The girls sitting in pumpkins. This year I carved pumpkin diapers for them to sit in. I bought another pumpkin that they painted. I've learned my lessons from years before that all they care about is the gooey stuff inside and then I spent hours carving a pumpkin by myself while they make a mess in the kitchen. With Jeff gone this week, I had to think strategically.

So it's hard to tell, but my belly is big and round. It makes for a great basketball so I decided to be a basketball player.
It was a lot of fun and the people at a neighborhood party got a good laugh too.
Jordyn's third and final costume is a ballerina. She dressed like this when we went to a play date and one of the mom's is a photographer. She was gracious enough to take pictures of the little ones in their costumes.

Now the halloween decorations are put away, Jeff is getting ready to leave again tomorrow morning for a week in Dallas, and everyone is enjoying a mellow Sunday evening.

1st Decent Photo

Here's baby shaw in 4D. I guess our little one is a little bit camera shy covering it's face w/ it's tiny little hands and arms. The technician estimated that the baby is about 9oz. and 7 inches long. It is always amazing to me when I think that a woman can carry a baby and miraculous that the baby can develop all the things it does in the womb. As you may have picked up, I don't know the gender. There's a reason for that; it might be a crazy reason, but it's our reason. We are choosing not to find out the gender until the baby is born. With Sydney and Jordyn we did know at 20 weeks that they were girls. We want to know and experience what it is like not to know until the baby is born. We're so excited that it is torturous. We can't wait until March and yet it seems so far away to welcome our new baby. I didn't know our doctor had the 4D technology so I was pleasantly surprised when he gave us our pictures. Everything is looking and developing as it should. What else more could we want?

So here I am before my appointment at 20 weeks. I don't know why (seriously) but i've been tracking my weight, bust, and hip measurements. I'll save you the details. How can the baby still be so tiny and everything else grows like crazy?
So Sydney has decided to be a ballerina for Halloween. As you can imagine it was 5 other things before she settled with ballerina. I'm glad. My mom and I made the tutu last christmas and all we bought were leggings to complete the costume. She loves it.
I think most ballerinas do splits while jumping in the air, but here is sydney doing that on the floor. On halloween I'll do her hair more like a ballerina in a bun.
Jordyn is going to be a skunk. However she wouldn't let me put her costume on so who knows, she might dress up as a skunk or as herself. both of which are pretty cute costumes.

Jordyn is growing up

A picture I forgot to add.

Jordyn is hilarious. She has her own spunk to her that is different than Sydney. I love Jordyn and Sydney's similarities and differences. I thought I would update what Jordyn is doing these days. Right now she is all about wearing dresses and throws a fit if I make her change out of her dress if we have to go out in public. She also lets me put her hair in pig tails or a ponytail which is good since her hair is getting long and is fluffy.

If jordyn is not in a dress she is most likely naked like in these pictures.. I don't know why I bother putting clothes on her since she peels them right off. She's also known for taking her diaper off. I'm hoping this is a sign that she is ready to potty train soon.
Her ponytail. recently jordyn has picked up biting her fingernails. She loves to take care of her doll. Feeding it, putting blankets over it, and loving on it.
See what I mean by fluffy hair. Many times she'll take the pigtails out and her hair looks like this. Jordyn loves putting on my shoes and anyone's shoes for that matter. She also has a fetish with my purse, including my lipstick, wallet, cell phone, and GUM, which she pronounces as "num."
Jordyn loves her bath time. This is her funny face. She makes us laugh with the things she does and says on a daily basis.
You gotta love sunroofs. I took this picture driving 50mph w/ my hand out of the sunroof. It turned out pretty good.

New Trampoline

We ordered this smaller and shorter version of a trampoline to put in our basement. I'm hoping it will allow the girls to burn some energy this winter. We got it in the mail the day Jeff left to New York for a week. I mustered up the energy to tackle putting this beast together. It's suppose to take two people to assemble. I wanted to surprise Jeff and do it myself hoping that after 7 years of marriage I could "impress" him still. The hardest part was putting the springs on the frame. I did it and was so glad when that part was over. An hour later I realized I messed up somewhere. Some of the instructions were ambiguous; I had to take the springs off, fix the problem, and put the springs back on. Another couple hours later and in need of a shower, the beast was put together correctly. I DID IT. It was an accomplishment for me. I made Sydney tell me I was the best mom ever before she and Jordyn jumped their hearts out. Here are a few short video clips.

P.S. (what does that stand for?) I wish I could mute my voice.

"up shut"

Of course these pictures got all out of whack. Here is a great cheesy smile from Sydney. Usually her eyes are closed in pictures.

Jordyn: When I tell her it's time to go to bed she closes her eyes to "hide" like she did in this picture.
Sydney her first day of preschool. Notice she is smiling, but her eyes are closed. Stubborn little girl.
Sydney and I on a date to see the broadway show of "Lion King." We both loved it. It was fabulous! Hmmm, another picture of Sydney smiling w/ her eyes closed, at least with her I don't have to worry about red eye.
And for all those who wonder what I look like 15 weeks along, her is an ordinary picture in ordinary clothes w/ a smile hiding my true thoughts, "Why am I doing this to myself. I could've at least tried to look pretty by wearing cuter clothes and put on some makeup."

A few updates to our lives. This is Sydney licking her lollipop. Like Gammie, like granddaughter. My mom has talented toes. She can tie someone's shoes w/ her toes and strike a match w/ her toes and it looks like Sydney has inherited the same toe agility gene as her Gammie.

"Termination Dust." This is a phrase used here. I had never heard of it until now. Termination dust is the end of summer because there is a light covering of snow on top of the mountains. This picture was taken from our street.
The trees in our backyard. Summer has ended and fall has arrived. The trees are turning yellow. When the wind comes up, it appears like it's raining leaves as they all fall to the forest's ground. These trees are in our backyard.
Another picture of our backyard....the ground. I love to see the different colors of yellow, green, brown, and red.
Just another great picture. A few weeks ago all these trees were green. The change has come quickly and soon enough these trees will be barren and the mountains will be covered in snow. More great pictures to come.
This is a side note to my blog. This morning I was singing rather loudly and obnoxiously when Sydney told me to stop several times. I ignored her and kept singing. Finally she said, "Mom I have two words for you....UP SHUT." I told her I had two words for her, "Time Out." I'll have to once again ban some of those disney movies w/ those "bad words."