Checking In

As I said in the last post, we have deer who frequent our yard. I did catch a picture of them on Thursday. Pretty cool. And last night Corey and I were outside and saw a skunk scurry along the fence and toward our back yard. I hope none of us ever accidentally stumble upon him and scare him. Then this morning I was surprised that I finally saw the fox! Almost all the kids have seen him/her and the fox family - there are like 4 of them. Pretty fun. I haven't seen our ground squirrels for a while - I wonder if they've moved on or if the fox has gotten them.

Well, sorry to anyone out there who is sad that I haven't been blogging. Being in the last trimester has something to do with it. Also, the computer that I use has been out of commission for a few weeks, so I don't have a computer to use, except for the minutes here and there that I sneak in and get on Corey's computer when I see him go use the bathroom or take a break for lunch.

I do plan on posting pictures of our new baby girl who is scheduled to arrive next week. I'm going in to be induced on Tuesday. I kinda feel like it's cheating. I've been induced with 4 of my pregnancies though, and it's really nice to have a light at the end of the tunnel. With Joe, my first, I was 9 days overdue and that about killed me (frustration wise), plus there was muconium in the water and almost did an emergency c-section, it was a little scary, so I don't like going overdue. With Wesley and Abi I just waited it out, I was 2 days over with Wes and right on time with Abi. Anyway, September 6th is the day, I'm glad. Wesley and Lily are two days apart with their June birthdays, and Abi and this baby will be 3 days apart - today is Abi's birthday. She opened some presents this morning, freshly wrapped with plastic bags. Her first present was a coloring book. She was very excited when she opened the second one and said "A ...TOY!!!!"


We've had 4 happy years of little Abi, who's not so little anymore. We don't experience the "Terrible Twos" at our house, but have had several cases of the "Feisty Fours".

Abi is well on her way to being our feistiest yet. Joe, Mel, and Ethan went with my mom and 3 of their favorite cousins to go camping last night, so we lost our babysitter Joe, so we took the kids along for date night. We went to McDonald's for happy meals, where the kids would be entertained and we were able to sit and visit. Lily and Abi were cute holding hands in the car.


Abi was very excited when she saw the slide and told her yes, we can go there!

Very excited, she was jumping up and down in the pic above. We don't go to McD's often. It was fun. Here's a story in pictures - look at Wesley's face as he sees that Hyrum has a boy toy in his happy meal and Wes sadly holds his girl toy - look at that expression, great eyebrows.


Two seconds later, we switch the toys so he gets the boy toy that was in Lily's meal and the problem is solved.


Kids sure do live in the moment.


Corey put Lily's stickers on her face. Abi was really mad when we said it was time to leave, and proceeded to hurl insults at us "My Mom and Dad are such a jerk!!!" Corey and I look at each other, he says "You know a little girl has older brothers when you hear stuff like that coming out of her mouth." We're trying to eliminate "jerk" and "stupid" from the family vocabulary without much success.

One last thing, I went to Walmart early this morning to buy Abi's presents. At the checkout, my cashier was a man, maybe 50 or 60 with a really bad comb over. We did some small talk as he scanned my items, he started the conversation by asking "So when are you due?"

"Next week!"

"Is it a girl?"

"Yes." (I was wearing a maroon/pink shirt, maybe that's why he asked if it was a girl)

"Is this your first?"

"...Acutally, it's my 8th." I continue to unload the cart, he continues to scan...

"Did you marry and he had some of the kids or are they all from you?"

"They're all mine."

"Are you done?" scan, scan...

"I don't know, we kinda take one kid at a time. ...But we might be done."

"Are you going to be sterilized? Cause that's the best way to guarantee that you don't have any more." I wasn't sure how to respond to that, but I was laughing to myself at where this conversation was going.

"...I probably won't be sterilized" (He probably hadn't heard that I had said "maybe" we're done, which means I don't know, which means I don't need a guarantee to prevent pregnancy, cause we might not be...)

"Are all the rest boys?"

"No, there are 4 boys and this will make it 4 girls, so going to even up the score!" I said with a smile.

He says "...cause some people keep having kids cause they have all boys and are trying to get a girl. Or all girls and want a boy."

"Yeah." Almost done bagging, I pay with debit, and we say goodbye. And I was chuckling to myself all the way home cause I thought it would make a good facebook post:

"Small talk with the 50 year old-ish male cashier during checkout at Walmart this morning included him asking me if I was going to be sterilized after this pregnancy (after finding out this is my 8th). ...that's getting kinda personal, isn't it? Totally made me laugh though".

So that's what's going on here. I'll check back in after the new addition has arrived. :)