A Sweet Surprise

Summer on this funny farm generally brings lazy mornings, farm chores, and afternoons in the swimming pool (or reading books poolside as you look up each time someone yells 'mom'). This summer has been much of the same AND we found out a sweet surprise that will add another tail to our funny farm!

Due to some symptoms that started to add together and seem familiar I decided to see the doctor and found out baby Kane #4 will be joining our funny farm at the end of December. Being 39 and pregnant after starting this family adventure thirteen years ago has been quite an adjustment for me to wrap my head around. So it has taken me awhile to let people know. Of course the growing human inside my stomach is starting to give itself away! So I have taken to Photoshop, Pic Collage, and Photofy to help pictures tell my story.

And to tell the three giggly girls we already have at home I decided to put together a little game. I knew I wanted the girls to have something to remember when we told them so I found some fun Cabbage Patch animals and animal forms from Play Dough to go along with the farm theme I was looking for. Then I created a word jumble with baby animal names using the cat, dog, rabbit, goat, sheep, and chicken animals I had found. When the girls had kitty, puppy, bunny, kid, lamb, and chick unscrambled they had letters to unscramble the word baby. I then gave them each two of the animals I had found along with the name of a group of those animals - clowder, pack, tribe, herd, flock, and brood and also an extra card with their names and a card that said sisters because I needed one more letter! As they matched the group of animals with the props they received a card with the name of the animal and one letter capitalized. In the end they had to unscramble the capital letters to spell the word sibling. When they put it together they had baby sibling and we showed them the ultrasound pictures.

It was so fun to watch them work together to match and unscramble the words and try to figure out what the heck they were doing this for. And I even noticed my middle G has the stuffed chick in her bed to sleep with each night. 

And since I chose not to find out the gender with the first three G girls I left this one up to Mark to decide when we went to the 20 week ultrasound....

Stay tuned to see how this sweet surprise shakes up the funny farm and takes us on some new adventures in growing great kiddos. 

Girls just want to have fun

I have seen a few blog posts by moms about having all children of the same sex and being the mommy if three beautiful little girls I thought I would chime in.

We have not found out the sex of my children before they were born. I feel there are not many things in life that are a surprise so why ruin it. And this is coming from a girl who once carefully unwrapped and wrapped back up her Christmas presents because she couldn't take the suspense. Plus it gives me something to think about during labor other than the pain. We only had a girls name picked out for our oldest daughter because I really wanted to name her after my great grandma Grace. I was pretty excited when she was born and I heard my friend Mandie say 'yes' because she was right that she had guessed she was a girl. With our second daughter we only had a boys name picked out. I was so huge when I had her I was sure she was a big baby boy like her daddy (he was 11 lbs. when he was born.) I was surprised to hear she was an almost 10 lbs girl and we had to go back to the drawing board for a name. I was kind of excited though because I only have a brother and always thought it would be fun to have a sister, so now my girls had each other for that. When we decided to have our third child I am sure my husband hoped everyday for a boy in this crazy house of estrogen. I wanted him to have that little boy to follow him around and hopefully someday take over the farm, but in the back of mind I thought another girl would be nice. We already had all the clothes and I was used to the giggles and girls in the house, what was I going to do with a boy? In the excitement she gave us when she was born by surprise in the bathroom of the hospital room that I was more worried about how the nurse caught her before she splashed into the world in the toilet then if she was a boy or a girl. It was probably really the next morning (as I was pretty tired from the sleeping pill I had taken to get some rest before my epidural) before I truly realized we had another girl. Even after my extreme bout with post partum depression, I would not trade her for anything as just like all my girls she can make me smile when times are hard.

Do I wonder about having a boy to follow my husband around the farm and learn all about dairy farming, of course... My grandma had three girls and then my dad and I tend to share other things about me with her and that really makes me wonder if we should try just one more time. I already have the perfect name picked out and I always wanted to have a big family. But do I wonder about having another baby and going through postpartum depression again, absolutely... Should I let that fear stop me? I am still not sure, so stay tuned.

The 'tail' end - comment below with what you like about your family dynamic - all girls - all boys - a mix of both.