My little old man

So people are always telling me what a little man my Seb is. They say things like " Why he looks just like a little old man", or "He looks so old for a baby", or my favorite in the grocery store one day- "My, he looks so old, like, well... like a banker!" A banker?
Maybe it has to do with the bald spot he has developed over the past several weeks:


but most people don't see him from behind, so it can't be that. Maybe it is because he is a pretty serious looking baby:




However, he does crack a smile now and then:





Well, whatever it is, I guess old men must be cute because I sure think he is. And maybe it is a sign that he will be mature and responsible from a very early age. I am sure that is it.

Can't get enough twinkle lights

Okay, so I love decorating for Christmas. I am the type of person who looks forward to Thanksgiving because it means that as soon as the dishes are washed, you can break out the tinsel and Christmas music. No, not really. I like Thanksgiving for the stuffing too. By the by, we had a great Thanksgiving this year, albeit much smaller than I am used to- just five adults. Joe and Darcee Moon shared their first married T-feast with us, and Marie Gonzalez, who braved sleeping on my couch and even tended to James's nightmares in the middle of the night. She also went red neck with us as we piled three kids and three adults into the cab of a truck and went to get our Christmas tree. It was great fun.
I love Christmas trees- the smell, the nostalgia, the sap on the floor. It's all part of the experience. One of my favorite things to do, once the tree is lit, is to wake up early when it is still dark, and drink my coffee and read my bible with just the Christmas lights on and my favorite Christmas cd in the background.
The older I get the more I appreciate the lights of Christmas- James is a huge fan of Christmas lights- always shouting out when he sees even the smallest pathetic string of bulbs on a bush, and it reminds me why we should put up lights in this dark season. It is such a lovely picture of Christ coming into a dark world. We light a lot of candles too.
It adds to the joy to have my children start to get excited about this wonderful season and begin to understand the reason for it. So can you tell I like Christmas? Have a merry one everyone.

Here's a few pics of my twinkle lights.

I don't even know what to say

I thought of several titles for this post- " You can't do it all" " While the cat's away the mice will play" " I can't turn my back for a moment" "just keepin it real" and so forth and so on.
Several of my friends have been talking about the frustration of the never ending cleaning cycle, so I am joining in.
This morning I decided it was time to clean a little bit, or a lot maybe. Having a small house can be nice, in that it doesn't take very long to clean, but it also seems to get messy much faster. It was really the bedrooms that needed sprucing up and organizing- the living room/kitchen was relatively clean, so I took advantage of Seb's morning nap to tackle the rooms. I told my older boys to play outside- got their shoes on, coats on etc. Then I got to work. They played outside for a little bit- then I heard them come in, but I figured since they were quiet I wouldn't check on them. Instead I focused on actually finishing a job for once. This is what I came out too about half an hour later. I wish I had a before picture.








But the bedrooms are spotless! Now on to the living room again!

Smiles and Slime

We have enjoyed having Steve's father in town for the past several weeks. He left to return to France yesterday, but it was a great chance for the boys to get to know their foreign grandpa a little bit better. As a result of his visit, we have had a lot of company and been out a lot more than usual which has made for a few very tiring but interesting weeks. Wednesday night we had some French missionaries who were on furlough here for dinner. Steve's dad has helped them in the past and I actually knew Suzanne at Covenant my Freshman year. We were both voice majors and seemed to have a lot in common. She also married a French musician. I hadn't seen her in eight years but we still seemed to have a lot in common when she walked in the door with three little boys. As we were introducing our children, we discovered that we had both named our sons Etienne! I never thought there would be two little boys with that name in one place. It was pretty funny. Anyways- we had a lovely evening despite six little guys running around in a small area.
Now that our company is gone, it is already time to start looking towards the holidays. Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away! I am hosting my first Thanksgiving this year which I am excited about. It will be on the small side, but that should be nice.
We have also decided to spend Christmas here this year which has been a difficult decision. What with the lovely economy and taking time off of work and three little babies etc. it just seemed like a bad year to go, or a good year to stay here I guess. In some ways I am excited to decorate my own house and try to start our own little family traditions, but being away from all the cousins and aunts and uncles and mom and dad- well, we will bear it as best we can.

Wondering about the title of this post? Well, here are the first shots I have managed to get of Seb smiling. He is seven weeks already. I can't believe it.
The slime has to do with the banana mousse that Etienne invented for his hair this morning during breakfast . It was quite impressive.
I have also included a few more attempts at a threesome shot. Still not great I am afraid. Maybe we will get a good one in time for our Christmas picture.

Life at home

Having three children now, one of whom needs to be fed every three hours, and not having a car on many days has made us homebodies on a whole new level. The feeling of being house bound also increases when one lives in a small house and when the weather gets colder. These are some pictures I took last week while Steve was gone to show what we do for excitement in our quiet, at home lives.

Friday mornings there is the garbage truck show that the boys never miss.


Their favorite new toy is my laundry baskets, which they fill with all kinds of treasures(books, diapers, food, dirt etc...) and push around the house. They also occasionally enjoy a few quiet moments of reading in them.



Some days, if you recall the baby powder post, they get into things without asking mom. This was far worse than the baby powder. It was a can of frosting. My floor still hasn't recovered.







After events like this, we turn to the television while I scrub.


As for this boy, well, he eats (he is 12 1/2 pounds already!) and he sleeps- a lot.





This last shot is one of several attempts I have made to get a decent picture of the three of them. As you can see, it hasn't worked very well yet. Ah well.

Just me and the boys

So Steve decided I needed a 'how good a mother and wife are you?' test this week, and is out of town for ten days. Yes. Ten days.
Ten days of flying solo with my three boys. Now lest you think my husband is a jerk or unusually cruel, I must clarify that he is on a road trip with his father, who is here in the states on one of his rare visits. They are visiting some old and dear family friends, and, well, his father is only here once every several years soo... It has been alright so far. Granted, he only left yesterday, but so far we have only had one incident where every single person in the house was crying at the same time- including me. Steve couldn't have done anything about that anyway- not much you can do against post-partum emotions and fatigue. Today was much better, and the weather was about as gorgeous as it can get in Georgia, so I can't complain.
I wish I had more interesting things to say about my day, but I am in the stage where I am trying to fit the rest of my life in between nursing times, so if I seem distant or entirely absent, that is why. Moriah has managed to get me out of the house a few times, and the only reason I am updating my blog is that one of my aunts commented on M's blog that she keeps up on my life through her: ) So here it is from the horses mouth (what does that mean anyway?) I am keeping my head above water, but realizing more and more every day how much I am needing God's help to see each day through with any success. That is a good thing to realize. Maybe i will get things together enough to post some pictures soon- well, I suppose taking some pictures would be a good place to start.

Sebastien Philip Hale

So there is his name. Not exactly sure how we came up with Sebastien- it just sort of evolved. We are spelling it a la Francaise, and Steve is pronouncing it French style, but don't listen to him if he tries to get you to say it that way. I am pronouncing it as any other red blooded American would. Philip and Hale are both grandpa's middle names, so now that we have scraped the bottom of that name source, I hope we will have a girl next time. WE are not sure what we will shorten it to- either Seb or Bass or Bastien, but we will probably go with what the kids end up calling him. Right now they are very excited about him- even Etienne, but there is no way I am leaving him alone with them.

The c-section in itself wasn't so bad- I mean, I couldn't see or feel anything, although Steve throughly enjoyed watching every minute of it. It was so quick and effortless on my part. Ha Ha. The aftereffects are not quite so pleasant however. Let's just say I am on a lot of meds, but my mom is here doing all the forbidden lifting of children and dishes and laundry, and it is rather nice. They also let me out of the hospital early which was a big plus.

Well, enough about me- here are some shots from this sweet little boy's first days of life.

Meeting Aunt Callie and James

"Boy, this guy is cute"

"I think I will kiss him"

"On second thought.."



Bored at the hospital


Wide Awake


Home at last- don't you wish you were a baby?

d-day

Well, everything is just about the same here in breech land, so we have scheduled baby number three's arrival. Barring any unforeseen problems, this baby will have a September 24th birthday, at about two in the afternoon. Everyone has been great, encouraging me about c sections, and telling me it isn't as bad as I might expect etc. At this point, I am just glad to have an end in sight.
Everything is as ready as I can make it in this tiny house- I do love this nesting stage- it makes me so much more organized and clean than I usually am. I had a baby shower last week and got exactly what I hoped for- cash and diapers, diapers, diapers. Thanks to all who contributed. Here is a picture of my booty (pardon the pun). And I have recieved more since.


So next time I post, I will hopefully be the mother of three plentifully diapered children. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, we have finally settled on a name, and no we are not revealing it until Wed. It isn't quite as outlandish as Etienne; at least, I think most people will have heard it before, but it does lean a little on the obscure French side once again. Hey, that is the title of this blog, right?

Heads Up

Thanks for all your prayers etc., but this baby is coming out backwards. Well, actually I don't really know what side they come out in a c-section, but at this point, barring a miracle leap, I am going to find out.
This is not the way I had hoped this little guy would enter the world, but option B was a complete failure, as option A has been the last couple of days. I really did hang upside down on an ironing board several times with a bag of frozen peas stuck on my stomach.
The external version was, much to my chagrin, an extremely painful process. They gave me medicine to relax my uterus, which made my heart race at 120 beats per minute for over two hours. I wasn't allowed to eat all day just in case I needed an emergency c section, so when they took a bunch of blood, I nearly passed out. Oh, and also they gave me a wonderful IV port for no reason other than I might need it for an emergency c-section.
Then the real fun began. It was a doctor and a nurse shoving, pushing, pulling for over an hour until my body now feels completely bruised and swollen. The pain was so bad that I was ready to throw up several times and they called a nurse in to hold one of those useless tiny little puke buckets next to me. Thankfully I held it in. They managed to move his head from one side of my stomach to the other, but couldn't budge his butt from my pelvic region. The things we go through to bring a baby into this world. After literally wiping the sweat from his brow, the doctor told me that this little man needed a good spanking as soon as he entered the world and then calmly asked when I wanted to schedule the surgery.
So that is where we are at right now. Apparently, doctors just don't do breech births vaginally anymore. I am going to try and fight it, but no one wants to deal with the potential lawsuits.
We are praying on, that he may just head south for the winter at the last minute. If not, I enter the realm of c -sections.

Breech Baby

So, the blogging hasn't been happening lately. I usually like to blog when something fun has happened and I have some pictures to go along with it. I could include some pictures of me shuffling around the house in my slippers and the same comfy pants I have been wearing for about a month now, but I will spare you.
I went to the midwife today and she was surprised at the size of my baby's rear end, so she took an ultrasound. Lo and behold that big rear was the baby's head- in the wrong place. So.....
I have three choices
-Hope he will move in the next few weeks using home remedies like hanging upside down on an ironing board for a few hours
- Go to the hospital monday for an external version where they will shove the baby around til he is facing down as he ought to be
- Schedule myself for a c section

Right now I am opting for plan B.

Hopefully that will go fine and I will carry this baby to term, which is only three weeks away, although part of me wouldn't mind if he came a little sooner. Actually, most of me wouldn't mind.

Recapping a month

I am trying to figure out the best way to describe the last month of wedding, celebrations, and general family time without having to write for an hour. I think we accomplished our goal of spending lots of good quality time with family, and staying cool. It gets harder and harder every year to spend so much time away from Steve however. I kind of need his firm hand with the boys, and I just miss him a lot. The boys had a great time, despite a couple bouts with the flu and a period of confusion and trying to adjust to so many new people. I think I will just post a few pictures of random events.
The wedding was lovely, wonderful, full of spending time with almost all of my favorite people, and being slightly related to the Rayburns/Moons/Wykoffs now is a fun twist. I did a lousy job of taking pictures at the wedding so sorry. My kids weren't in it dressed all cute, and I was kind of balloony in my lovely yellow dress, so maybe that is okay.
We had a great fourth of july, and then a few weeks of at-home craziness while Chris and Jackie moved all their possessions into mom and dads attic in preparation for their move to Scotland. Then Joe and Darcee returned and had to try and move all of their stuff out, so lots of packing was going on. Chris and Jackie are also expecting their first baby in February. Yay! Someone else can have babies for a change!
We had a great birthday party for the four July birthdays- salmon and salad, and of course homemade ice cream for dessert. That's the kind of stuff I really miss. Oh, and the berries, which were late in coming this year, but I managed a huge handful of fresh raspberries for my last breakfast there.
Our annual family reunion was fun, although clouded over by a terrible bout of flu that both my boys got. They were still wimpy on the plane ride home, which turned out to be a blessing, since they both slept, and thankfully I didn't get it until after I got home, and then a really mild case. Steve got it too, unfortunately, so now we are spreading it around Chattanooga. welcome home Lewins!!
I am trying to catch up with laundry now, which was just made eighty times worse because Etienne threw a big can of pureed sardine paste into the dryer without my knowledge, and it has exploded, coating my dryer and all the clothes within with hot, cooked sardine. The smell, as you can imagine to a pregnant nose that hates fish anyway, is nauseating.
I suppose I must go and deal with it.

A little pre-wedding fun
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A lot of post- wedding exhaustion




Fourth of July on the water-




Reunited with Erika




The big baseball game

Bocce ball with the men folk


Fun with fireworks











A lovely walk down at the new golf course-




Water fight!-


Birthday Party-








She is showing a little early : )


Too tired to finish a bottle-