Big Boy

I am ashamed that it has been this long since I have posted, especially keeping up to date on John. He is growing like a weed, about to grow out of 6 to 9 month clothes. Here is a little flash back.

Home from the hospital. 2 days old.

2 months old

3 months old

4 months old

5 months old - looking more and more like his daddy everyday!

And on Friday he will be 6 months old. He has one tooth a very stubborn second tooth coming in. He is almost sitting up. He rolls all over the living room and will soon be crawling. He is eating cereal and has started his vegetables. Not a fan of green beans, or at least yet. He is a joy, very smiley, and a lot of fun. You all know I love all of my babies dearly, but there is just something special about having a momma's boy.

In other news construction on the house is progressing. Slow, but moving. Paint is going up the addition above the garage, that I would like to call the girls quarters is being framed and the drilling has been done for the geothermal heating and air. I will try to post soon with some pics.

In about 8 weeks I will graduate with my masters degree, which just makes me happier than words can express. When I started my masters right after getting married, I soon found out we were having twins. That put a quick end to mommy taking classes. Then we moved to Frankfort, which made it really impossible to travel to Uof L for class. So it just kept gettting put off. In May of 2007 I started at Campbellsville in their 18 month program. It has been nonstop classes since then and demanding classes at that. I feel like when I finish I will have to reintroduce myself to my children. I feel so bad for them and all the time the classes have taken me away from them and stuck them watching TV or sent off to play and "please be quiet!" I am very happy to report that I do have a 4.0 and will be even happier when my diploma is in hand.

I am promising myself to get back to updating as the kids are growing and changing so fast, that I want to be able to document it all. I mean... Anna and Sarah are even beginning to read!

Be back soon!

The Reason I am Behind... still.

I promised myself that I would start catching up on posting. Well housing has gotten in the way. We have our house on the market. With four kids we are busting at the seams and need more space to stretch out. Within the first week, we had one offer and another possible offer on the table. Then we went into a mad dash to try and find a house. Back in June we had heard of a new construction that was for sale that we could probably get a good deal on. We went and looked and made an offer. After a lot of phone calls and attempted negotiations, it fell through. When we went back on the house hunt a few weeks ago, we just kept thinking about this house. (the one we had previously made an offer on.) Everything else in our price range was either outdated and needed redoing, not enough space, or just all wrong. This is when we decided to go back to the original house we found in June and attempt negotiations again. We put in an offer and it was accepted. We had a few more hoops to jump through. The house had a contingency offer on it that would have to be removed and the builder had some liens on the property. After a long week of anticipation. The sale of the house is now pending (doing house inspections, filing all bank paper work, etc.) We are scheduled to close on or before September 8th. Without further ado here is a picture of what will be our next home...

We are excited, just nervous about all the work to be done...this is what it looks like on the inside...

UNFINISHED! It has roughed in plumbing and electrical, and drywall. No cabinets, lights, fixtures, floors, etc.

The scary part is both offers have fallen through to sell our current house. We won't have to officially close out the mortgage on this house until construction is complete. So, we have a couple months. Fingers crossed everything will fall into place!!

I hope to get some better pictures of the house this weekend. David and I are going out to start taking measurements to start pricing out everything we need.
I was finally beginning to feel like I had my feet under me with the four kids, masters, and all the other daily stuff, but now adding house construction to the list I just don't know. Hopefully, I will at least be able to keep up with the blogging to document our whole crazy adventure!

A Daunting Task.

I promise we are still here. Although, now that it has been about three months since my last post I am wondering if any readers are still out there.
I am back, hopefully. I now am facing the daunting task of catching up on what has been going on the past few months. Things seem to be getting into a routine here. We have been all over the place and crazy busy the past three months. I am still working on my masters, I am in the home stretch though and will be finished January 8th!!! We also now have our house on the market, us as a familiy of 6 no longer fit. We are on the house hunt. John is a growing boy, sleeping about 10 to 12 hours a night!!! Lauren is potty trained. At least I hope that statement does not jinx me. Anna and Sarah are just getting so big and this will be their last year at home with mommy before starting school. Where has the time gone.
I hope to make it back tomorrow to catch up in pictures.
See you soon!

John Thomas is Here!

Last picture as mommy of three!
John Thomas Lodmell

John and mommy

John Thomas arrived on May 6th. He was 7 lbs 8 oz. and 21 inches long.

They were estimating for a much bigger baby. Although, he arrived 2 weeks early and his long measurements put their guesses off. He is a long skinny guy, not a lot of meat on his bones! He has some chicken legs like his daddy!!

I had been having some problems with my blood platelets being low, so they had been watching and monitoring these each week. When I went into the doctor last week, my counts were up, good enough to receive the all important epidural. I was three centimeters dilated. So, they decided to send me on over to the hospital to have my water broken and give a small dose of pitosin to see if we could get things going. After about 5 1/2 hours I had only progressed to 4 centimeters. They couldn't really push more pitosin, for fear of stressing my uterus. We go going for a VBAC and hoping to not have a repeat c-section. After so many hours with no progress and fear of uterine rupture, it was decided it would be best for mommy and baby to go ahead with a c-section. Rather than being in labor for many, many hours and then having a c-section. Decision was made at about 6:30pm and he arrived at 7:23pm.

I am slowly recovering. Although the recovery from this c-section has been much easier, I think because we made the decision to not continue the attempt for a VBAC.

John is doing well. He only lost 6 ounces while in the hospital and when we went to the pediatrician on Monday he has gained 2 ounces back already. We are getting through some hurdles with him eating. He is a sleeper, at least for now. Although I am thinking he is getting his days and nights mixed up. I have to wake him up to eat during the day and at night he is wide awake and just stares at me.

His sisters are absolutely in love. No one seems to be having adjustment issues, at least yet. They love to help do anything they can. Anna and Sarah would just sit and hold him for hours if they could. Lauren likes to hold him, kiss and hug him. Her attention doesn't last as long as the big girls, but she does love her baby John.

More updates to come soon. I have already started my next round of masters classes, just counting down until January when it will be all done! So, life is busy!!!!

Things Kids Say

The girls and I were in the car on our way home today. There was an eighteen wheeler, just the trailer, sitting on the side of the road. Anna says, "Mommy, why is the truck missing its head?" HAHA! It took me a few minutes to stop laughing before I could explain to her that was a trailer and the other part was the truck. Sometimes they come up with the funniest things!

Baby Update

I went to the doctor today for my 32 week check-up. I have been feeling miserable and large for a long time now. I told the doctor I was getting concerned about how big he was getting. She measured and said, "hmmm", measured again, "Well, you are measuring big.". I asked her how big she said, "at least by two weeks." I was thinking maybe a week.
She decided we need to do an ultrasound to see what is going on in there. I am excited to see him, it has been twelve weeks and ultrasounds are always very reassuring to me that things are ok.
We have really no idea as to what will come of wednesday. All she said is we will look and see how things are going and go from there. David has always thought my due date is off, she doesn't think that is necessarily the case because I had two early ultrasounds that indicated his growth was accurate for the due date.
I am thinking Wednesday we will find out how fesible a VBAC is or whether or not we will just have to go ahead and schedule a c-section because he is just going to be to big.
I will update more Wednesday after the ultrasound.
I have class tonight and during class I am hoping to get some new pictures uploaded.

Baby John

I had an OB check-up yesterday, we are now at 28 weeks. That included the wonderful glucose test. I don't mind the orange drink. I just hate the whole test because last time with Lauren I had to take the long three hour test. So, I am worried I will have to do that again. We will find out later this week the results. Otherwise, our little boy is doing good. I was supposed to start going every two weeks after this appointment, but the doctor decided that since I have done this before that we are going to wait 4 weeks before my next appointment. I am measuring big, but if you saw me you know why. And in the words of my aunt, as she so lovely said in the movie theatre, "You're huge!" (Love ya Liz!)
I would post a picture, but I hate pictures of myself to begin with much less when I am so round and "huge."
Three months to go until we meet our baby boy. We are both getting very excited to meet him and see what he will look like. The girls ask everyday if it is time for him to come out. This is helping Anna and Sarah learn their months, they are counting down until May.
Hopefully, this is the start of me posting again. I have so many new pictures to share. Maybe tomorrow. I have to go get the kids occupied, so I can get online for class tonight.