chaos

 These are our kiddos right now. Our life is chaos - loud and crazy. But, we love every second of it, even the seconds that involve tears and discipline. We're growing some lovely little people around here!

 When the boys leave snacks laying around, Raelynn always finds them and helps herself

Everyone gets involved when teaching Raelynn something new

Do you see all three boys at the end waiting for her?

 No one...

 Ever....

 Holds still!

 But we laugh a lot.

 And we're always in each other's business

 We build stuff a lot. 

 We all get involved in chores

It's impossible to empty the dishwasher without Raelynn right next to me.

 We go on adventures - AKA climb trees and wrap them up in strings

 We try not to run over our baby sister with the tractor...

but yet, she's been run over a few times.

We wear amazing outfits and make spider webs with Daddy's pulleys

And we almost always get into drawers we shouldn't...

And fill our mouths with salt water taffy!

baby baby baby

So, I had a lovely coworker in Oregon who was a voice teacher. One of her students wanted to learn the song, "Baby" by Justin Bieber. So, to teach, she had to learn the song as well. That meant singing it ALL THE TIME at work. She has a beautiful voice, so it was never a bad thing that she sang. BUT I have that song in my head constantly because of this little baby inside of me! Seriously, I feel movement, and I think, "Oh yeah! There is a baby in me!" and then this leads to me singing the Baby song. Grrrness.

Okay, that was a side note. I just went to the doctor today for the first time this pregnancy, and I just heard my baby's heart beat for the first time. Such sweetness. I can't find any other reason to go to a doctor other than to listen to my precious baby's little, beating heart. Ah, love it. I love this little baby so much already! I even had an ultrasound (which wasn't scheduled - so fun!).

So, introducing:

Baby Shoemaker!!! 

Coming around November 3, 2012

We have no idea if we're having a boy or girl because we decided to wait until the baby's born this time. We have plenty of clothes to get us by for the first month for either a boy or girl, so no need to plan it out! Exciting times around the Shoemaker household.

off to kindergarten

Isaiah "graduated" from preschool. He has been so excited for weeks for the program they had today. He really has talked of very little other than the program, the songs they will sing, and his part in the play. It was so sweet.

Bryan asked after if I got teary eyed during the program, and I have to admit, I did for a split second when he walked in. Isaiah just looked so cute and big!

 Isaiah is on the top row, third from left

 Isaiah is on the far left awaiting his turn to say his part.

"On a hillside far away

They crucified our Lord.

Surely He was God's own Son

The One to be adored"

Isaiah is on the top row, fourth from left

They ended the program singing:

Oh we're off to kindergarten, yes we are

Oh we're off to kindergarten, yes we are....

To the tune of She'll be coming around the mountain. 

Little Miss Rae was enjoying all the singing. She kept clapping and singing too

 He even got a preschool diploma

 Thrilled to be done

 Two of my handsome men

My sweet boy is getting so big

super rae

Isaiah dressed Raelynn up in a cape and belt, and handed her a dart gun. Raelynn loved it, and Isaiah was pretty proud of himself.

happy sunday

Today was a perfect day. We went to church, we had lunch at Red Robin with my mom, and then we put the kiddos down for a nap. I had a little quiet time while Bryan went and had some quiet time at Home Depot. We spent the rest of the day hanging outside together and working on some random projects.
It was just so nice to be home without any particular agenda.

After Bryan and the boys washed the van, they boys had a bike wash. It was pretty cute.

I was working on cleaning up a cabinet, and little Raelynn was helping me out. Can't say I like the picture of me, but I think Raelynn is just adorable (as usual).

those bryan compliments

Bryan has said some extraordinary things. His comments that have stuck with me are all the ones he has said while I was pregnant. There are so many more than this, but I just don't have the time to write them all!

Pregnant with Isaiah  - I was complaining about my largeness, and he thought he'd make me feel better by calling me "his butterball". Apparently, it was a term of endearment.

Pregnant with Elias  - I was again, complaining about my largeness, and he thought he'd make me feel better by saying, "You're not nearly as big now as you were the first time".

Pregnant with Raelynn - He said, "you just look so much healthier this pregnancy than the others" - he usually uses "healthy" to describe overweight people.

Apparently Jim Belushi and I are similar....

Pregnant with #4 - You remind me of Jim Belushi from that show with the blonde chick because he would sit down on the couch after work and unbutton his pants and pop a beer. Wow. That is the doozy of them all. My husband compared me to Jim Belushi and I'm only 15 weeks along...what will he say when I'm 40 weeks?!

OK. OK. I have to give him a little credit, I may just unbutton my pants every night after dinner because I can't handle the tightness any longer. Maybe I should have prefaced the story with that? hehe

Anyhow, a little background - Bryan's "compliments" have never made me cry, they only make me laugh. I know he means well by what he says...well, how can you mean well by comparing me to Mr. Belushi, but I really gave him no choice by unbuttoning my pants after dinner (yet again)....anyway, back to the background. He means well, he just doesn't communicate well. I give him credit for making me laugh. ALL. THE. TIME.

splish spalsh

Raelynn loves to take baths. She loves to be in the bathroom while the boys are taking a bath, and they normally soak her with their splashing. I can't remember why, but we decided to let her in with them one day. You would have thought we'd given her more birthday cake, the girl was so excited! The boys thought it was pretty fun too.

don't mess with me, i'm pregnant

I took my kids out to run some errands today, and I realized - I'm impatient and grumpy with people. All people are annoying to me.

Starbucks happens to be across the street from my bank, and I happened to have had to deposit a check at the bank. Win for me. So, as I'm sitting at the light after getting my coffee, I notice there is only one car in the atm drive. Score! By the time I get across the street, through the parking lot, and to the atm drive, the lady is just putting in her atm card. Seriously?! Strike one. Who takes that long to pull out their atm card? Isn't the point of going through an atm drive through speediness? Grrnesss as I wait for slow lady in front of me.

Next up, needed to pick up some pills from the doctor office because I ran out this morning. Pull all three kids out of car. Go up to counter and wait almost 3 minutes to be acknowledged. Really? Customer service people. I finally just say as nicely as possible that I just need to pick up some pills, and I was told to "fill out a slip". Okay, cool, but I don't want to see a doc, I just want pills. "Fill out a slip". Okay then. Wait for almost 15 minutes for them to get my pills for me. 3 bottles of pills. I wanted to just go and get them off the shelf myself, leave a check on the desk and walk out....but, I kept my smile and left my rudeness while waiting with 3 loud children in the waiting room. Finally got my pills, and waited another 5 minutes for someone to take my credit card. Finally paid and loaded the kids back into the car.

Then to Walmart - not my favorite, but it's cheap and close and Raelynn was out of milk. I buy my 12 things, and we move through Walmart faster than the doctor's office - ridiculous. As I'm pushing my cart of 12 things and 3 kids hanging off of it, a man in his car follows me to my car - he wants my parking spot. Welp, he's not blind, he knows I have 3 kids. So, I unload the kids, unload the cart, load the kids in the car, and put the cart away. The man has the nerve to be tapping on his steering wheel and laying his head on his hand all annoyed looking. It took everything in me to smile and jump in my car and drive off. What did I want to do? Well, it definitely wouldn't have made Jesus smile, so I opted to turn on some worship music really loud and let it soak into my horrible, rotten attitude.

I'm not friendly when I'm pregnant. Strangers annoy me. It's awful.

mother's weekend

Bryan rented us a little cabin in McCall for Mother's Day weekend. It was a lovely, little place. The weather was AMAZING. It was a fantastic weekend to end the last few, crazy weekends we'd had.

We started off Saturday morning with Isaiah wanting to feed Raelynn so Bryan and I could tackle breakfast.

 These boys adore their sister

Then we took a walk down to the lake. It was a little chilly, but not too bad. It was warm enough outside, that the boys wanted to jump in the lake!

I love having a girl!

 Soaking up some sun

 Warming up after the cold lake

After our adventure to the lake, all the kids and Bryan took a nap. I got to sit out on the back deck for almost 3 hours in the sun, reading a book! It was the best gift I could have asked for! Quiet, sun, and alone time. 

Once they all woke up, we headed to town for ice cream and a walk. 

Saturday night was ended with s'mores. What better way to end an evening?

It was a perfect, relaxing weekend. On the way home, we stopped at a little restaurant on the river and ate outside on the deck. It was very yummy, plus we couldn't beat the view! 

Here are my little 3 reasons for getting a weekend away.

I adore them. I also adore my husband who made this weekend so wonderful. 

boise zoo

Meghan, Mom, and I took all the kiddos to the zoo. It was a perfect day for a zoo visit - lots of sun and few people. I'm so thankful these precious kids of mine have their cousins to hang out with so often! They love their cousins so much - it's like they have 3 other siblings.