Growing Baby #3

Thank you all so much for your congratulations and well wishes!  It's fun to have all my far away, blogging friends in on our little secret!  I've gotten a few emails with some questions so I thought I'd answer those here.

For starters our due date is July 29th.  We are not finding out what we are having because we thought it would be fun to try that out once.  We're really excited about doing it that way although I think a little cheat will be calling my name throughout the entire ultrasound appointment!  I'm going to have to use all my will power not to look for the tiny little bum.  Joey's not even going to come with me.  He thinks he'll spot the boy part if it appears and he doesn't want to ruin it for us.  If you that have done it this way and have some tips for us, let me know.

As far as names go, Joey gets the final say on this baby since I named Isaac and Georgie.  Be prepared for something like Lance Armstrong Merback or Charles Darwin Merback if its a boy....okay I'm totally kidding!  Once again, this is going to be really hard for me to relinquish my final say that I've always been kind of a brat about.  I do have veto rights though.  YOu'd better believe that I would NEVER give that up!

I'm feeling pretty good now.  At 17 weeks most of the nausea is FINALLY going away but it still lingers there on empty stomachs and wierd smells.  This pregnancy has been by far my worst as far as sickness, tastes, smells, moodiness and all that goes.  My New Years Resolution was to live by the phrase, "Live In The Now" and I've done a pretty poor job of it the last few weeks!  But I'm repenting!  Over the last few days I've consigned myself to getting fatter, not liking the taste of chocolate (because of my wierd taste buds...(oh how I miss its pre-pregnancy deliciousness) and requiring an 8:30 bedtime and I think I'm ready to sit back and enjoy!  Most likely this is my last time to do this so, by golly, I'm going appreciate the miracle of it all!

Joey and the kids are excited.  I told Isaac pretty soon after we found out, reminding him that it was a secret.  Oh boy did he take that seriously.  He was so good at keeping the secret, whispering to me in public places and not even talking about it in front of Joey or Georgie.  I think he thought he was the only one that knew about it;)  When Georgie encounters a pair of tights that are too small or a dress for her doll that she really likes she brings them to me and tells me to save them for the baby.  She's positive it's going to be a girl.  Isaac originally professed a desire to have a boy but when I told him that we weren't sure and that it could be a girl he changed his tune and says he doesn't care.  The other day he said he wanted it to be a girl because he wanted to name her Seraphina!  I'll turn his suggestion over to his Dad...we'll see what he does with it!

Thanks again for all of your congratulations!

xoxo
Ash

Happy Valentines Day!

On Sunday afternoon Joey asked Isaac who is Valentine was.  He said, "Mommy".  To which I replied, Yay for me!  Joey responded with a splendid idea.  "How bout Georgie be my Valentine and I'll be hers and we'll all make Valentines for eachother." (I didn't get jealous because Joey and I had celebrated the night before while the kids slept over at there Altus Grandmother, Ruth's house;)  The fact that Joey came up with this idea made my heart melt.  That alone was the perfect Valentines day gift for me!  I was so excited!  He and Isaac went into the front room, armed with paper, stamps, markers and a computer and went to work.  Georgie and I scrounged up our own supplies and began mapping out our own Valentine ideas for our handsome men.  After about 20 minutes of creating and several warnings from Isaac to "not peek" or "don't come in yet" we joined up together to swap Valentines.  Joey gave Georgie a kitty kat card that said "Be Mine" and you can see fairly clearly the one she made for Joey, complete with the spelling of "ValentiMes" since that is how she pronounces it.  Inside she wrote 5 things she loves about daddy and sealed it with a lipstick kiss.  Her 5 things were:

1. I love him

2.  He hugs me

3.  He kisses me

4.  He plays guitar for me

5.  He reads me stories

Isaac colored a picture of a dragon for my card.  It was breathing out yellow fire that said, "Be My Valentine."  He chose a fantastic color scheme and he was so proud of it!  I folded him a paper airplane and decorated it with some stamps and equations like, Isaac + Mom = Love etc.  I tell you that only because he got such a kick out of it.  It was such a fun little activity and it only took about half an hour.  I think we'll be making it a Valentine tradition until someone becomes too cool for it;)  HOpefully that NEVER happens!  I love doing fun family things like this ESPECIALLY when someone else comes up with the idea.  It seems to go over so much better when I'm not the one pushing it.  I don't know if it's because the pressure is not there for me or if things run better when they're done on a whim or what but I do love it!   Happy Valentines Day everyone!

XOXOXO

The Merbacks

p.s.  If you're wondering why my face is so chubby in that picture (and I'm sure you are because you are so completely aware of my pound gainage;)  and you don't already know why...I'll tell you...drum roll please...We're having baby #3 at the end of July!  Yippee!!  Woo Hoo!  And yes, we are very excited! 

The Mother of All Storms

We just survived the Mother of All Ice Storms.  (I stress the word "ICE" so as not to invoke supreme amounts of anger in Katrina and other Massive hurricane survivors...but we were without power for 8 days!  That's pretty huge!) And some Altus folks are STILL without power!  The scenery was truly surreal here.  There were fallen power lines and branches EVERYWHERE!

Don't you want to lay back and take a siesta in this summery hammock.

Our poor little frozen Christmas tree!

Here Isaac is loving the crunch of ice encrusted branches beneath his feet.  Please note Georgie's tutu, tights and pink boots even in this weather.  She never misses a beat!  And I swear to you, I do not dress this child!  This is ALL of her own doing!

Needless to say, we did a lot of lounging in sweats for eight days.  We sat around the fire, colored, played games, snuggled, had friends over, went to friends houses, stayed up late etc.  So much of it was FUN!  There was a tinge of sadness when the power began to come back.  It meant our life of friends, Joey home from work and leisure were over.  Of course this is easy for me to say because we had a generator, a gas fireplace and a gas stove.  We weren't exactly suffering. 

Something I will always remember about this experience was how people came together.  Everyone was calling to check up on everyone else, offering a warm place to sleep, hot food, babysitting, a visit, the sacrament and the list goes on.  The community really came together here.  It was a great experience of serving and being served.    

Seven days without power will always be a great story to tell!  

It was really nice just being together (except for that one day when all we did was fight with each other;) And now its back to life as normal....bring it on...along with a little sunshine, please!