(This post is a super-mess, sorry about all the random pictures in random places -- I just can't figure this out!) Anyway, here's what we've been up to lately:
Happy Birthday Hannah! We celebrated Hannah's fifth birthday in April. We had a great celebration. I am not big into birthday parties so we went bowling as a family (Tiffany and Robbie came out to join us, which was great fun!) and then we let Hannah invite some friends over to have cake and presents and birthday games. Her favorite movie is Robin Hood so she drew her own version of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" and had a "Pin the Arrow on the Target" game. Her drawings are so cute. We are so thankful to have Hannah in our family. She is absolutely the sweetest, most sensitive girl ever -- really the greatest kid in the world. So good and helpful and self-entertaining and imaginative and intelligent. She's a cutie. We're all excited to have another baby brother for her to mother in the next few weeks.
Above you can see pictures of Hannah at her birthday. There's also a random picture of me at about 35 weeks pregnant for those of you who asked :) . And the cake is a demonstration of how incompetent I have been in the kitchen lately. It took me two tries to make a simple round cake for hannah's birthday -- from a mix! The first one just totally fell apart, as you can see. I have also blown up potatoes in the oven (it really can happen! and yes, I even remembered to poke them), left the gas burner on on the stove for four hours (we are all still alive, thank goodness) and overcooked almost everything I have tried to make. I am usually a pretty good cook so it has been really frustrating to be such an idiot. One of the many joys of pregnancy :)
We also had great Mother's Day. Seth helped the kids make a little book for me called "We Know Mommy Loves Us Because..." They presented it to me in the morning -- they would each bring over a page along with a pink rose and tell me what the page said until I had a whole book and a whole bouquet. It was the cutest thing ever.
Some friends in our ward threw us a great baby shower -- thanks so much Monica and Marissa! We had a great time and received some very thoughtful and helpful gifts. I always thought by the time you had a third kid you pretty much had everything you would ever need, but I was amazed at how much we had to replace, so the shower was really helpful :)
IMPORTANT: I have one question to ask you experienced mothers out there. Have any of you ever had your membranes stripped to "encourage" the onset of labor? I have been induced twice (breaking water, Pitocin) and I never ever want to do it again. But I hate being pregnant and I really want him to come out...soon...and the midwives have offered to strip my membranes at 38-39 weeks. I would love it but I want to make sure that 1) It's not going to give me pain and cramping before labor even begins, making it hard to use my hypnobirthing and 2)could it accidentally break my water and cause me to have to be induced? I don't know. What do you guys think? Please give me the benefit of your experiences!!!!
