Just waiting on a baby... :)

Dear Joanna,

Hi sweet baby! So Mommy is just a few days from being 38 weeks along with you and I'm SO ready to meet you! A week and a half ago your daddy and I spent the day in the midwife office and hospital because we thought you might be coming to see us... but you decided against it. Since then you just keep acting like maybe... just maybe... you want to come out sooner than later but not so far! It is quite the difficult thing going day by day telling myself that it's best if you wait two more weeks, but then I just really want to see you and hold you so I'd be happy if you can earlier, also.

We finally have almost everything ready for you! Your bassinet is ready and waiting for you to sleep in it. Your car-seat is loaded up with your diaper bag full of a cute blanket, an adorable outfit and jacket, socks, and other random things. Your clothes are all up in Lydia's and your closet and all your burp cloths, blankets, etc. are folded and waiting for you. :) So that means you can come whenever you want... just saying. :)

When we were in the midwife office that day they said you were "around" 7 lbs. 8 oz. on the ultrasound... I'm not counting on that at all considering most later ultrasounds like this makes it very hard to find the weight... but I'm already very excited to see how much you are going to weigh! :) AND, on the ultrasound they actually printed off a picture of your hair!! It's crazy long! Like I wouldn't have even thought it was actually your hair because I had no clue what it was! It was quite the crazy hair, too. :) I think you wanted to have lots like your brother and sister did when they were born... At least it makes my heartburn more worth it because I LOVE lots of hair on little babies! :)

Your brother and sister are also SO excited to meet you and hold you. Know that you are ridiculously loved by so many! Daniel talks about you all the time and wants to share some of his birthday gifts with you if you are born close to the 22nd. Lydia just wants to hold and rock you! :) I think it might end up being her favorite thing to do! Your Pappy and Maw-maw are hoping to make it out here when you decide to come to be able to be some of the first ones to say hi and hold you! And, your Aunt Lelia also really wants to be here to see you enter the world. :) Grandpa and Grandma and Uncle Wayne will be able to see you in a few weeks if you are here by then because they'll be coming over to celebrate Daniel's 4th birthday! And all the other family want to meet you soon, too. See... you are going to have quite the exciting world to enter into when you get here! :) Doesn't that make you want to come sooner than later?!

Mommy and Daddy love you so much, little girl! We are excited to meet you and see your sweet face and your tiny fingers and toes and begin this new season with three little kiddos! :) Love you and hope to see you really soon!!!

Love,
Mommy

Getting ready for baby Joanna!

Today is the first day of April and I'm sitting down waiting for Scott to get back from AMP - the weekly meeting on campus... So many things have been going on around here that again, I'm not sure how to catch up but I'll try! 

First of all, I'm officially 36 weeks and 1 day along in this pregnancy which is super exciting!!! It's so crazy to think that there is a big chance that Joanna will be here this month sometime!  The past month or so has definitely been a lot harder with the pregnancy due to frequent and painful Braxton Hicks contractions, "lovely" hormonal emotions, and just getting into the uncomfortable last few weeks... But through it all Joanna is doing awesome which is SO great and she is still a BIG mover! I seriously can't get over how much this girl moves, especially now that she is head down and low. The other day Scott was dying laughing at how funny my belly looked as Joanna was rolling and kicking and doing I don't know what else! It was so weird to watch for me - lol - and Scott wanted to video it! ;) Lol. We did not! I'm still so interested in seeing what she will look like and what kind of personality she'll have! She loves (or hates) music because she goes crazy "dancing" up a storm anytime there is loud music and so far there aren't too many people who touch my belly and end up quieting her down... most of the time she just starts kicking whenever anything with pressure touches my belly! I know in my last post I said that I was measuring one to two weeks ahead, but I think that might have been a misunderstanding from the midwife because since then I've only been half a week ahead with measurement, so that sounds good to me! I still really have NO clue how big she'll be so it'll be a great surprise! :) I'm definitely looking big and ready to have her, but since I'm not measuring that much bigger and since she seems to have a LOT of space to move around still, I wonder if she will end up on the smaller side like Lydia... I guess we'll see soon enough!

This past week was Spring Break so we were able to get all Joanna's stuff put onto shelves in Lydia's closet and a lot of her new clothes washed and hung up! That was super exciting although I still feel very disorganized and it might be interesting trying to find things for awhile after she gets here... I could put more into Lydia's dresser, but right now it's completely filled up with all of Lydia's clothes, so I think I might wait until we move to tackle that! 

MOVING!!! Yes, we are hopefully going to be moving into a new home three weeks after Joanna arrives! We put a contract on a home about 7 minutes northeast of here in Arvada (still about 20 minutes from campus). So far everything has been going well and the inspection went well. The appraisal will be this week so as long as that goes well, then hopefully we will be closing on April 30th! I'm getting SOOOO excited about this move because we really hope we'll be here in this home at least 4 or 5 years before possibly moving again with ministry. That just sounds amazing to me considering this will be the fifth place Scott and I have lived in almost 5 years of marriage! AND, it's a wonderful home - spacious, big, a great backyard, a room for homeschooling, two living spaces, on a cul-de-sac, a block from a park, and in a great area! Awwww, so exciting! :) I'm not sure right now how moving will look with a three week old, but at least it's just in town so while my mom is here Scott can start moving over things we don't necessarily need every day so that when we officially move it won't be as crazy. Then I'm really hoping I'll feel up to unpacking and settling in quickly so we can enjoy our new home for the first part of summer before we head to Durango for almost a month of ministry stuff! 

Daniel and Lydia are both really excited right now about Joanna and the house! Daniel, especially, asks about the house all the time since they were able to be there with us when we first saw it. He loved it and is excited for so many things about it! He's also crazy excited about Joanna coming, especially because he knows she is supposed to be here right around his birthday! :) We are actually planning to have his birthday party with friends and some family only two days before my due date, so maybe we'll have Joanna already and bring her along which he'll LOVE! He is SO excited to be four - seriously sees that as such a grown-up number! :) Lol. He has already been acting so much older in so many ways with how he listens and obeys us, how he cleans up stuff, how he acts with Lydia, and how he talks about Joanna. It's so cute watching him grow up! :) Plus he is SO tall! I don't know how he can grow so fast! He is super excited to take swim lessons this June at our rec center! It'll be interesting in the next few years to see what sport(s) he is most interested in considering all he's done so far is gymnastics and soon swimming. He has loved having more warm days outside riding his strider bike and has gotten SO much better on it! Definitely not as fearful of it as he used to be!

Lydia is quite the big sister already! She tells Joanna that she loves her many times a day and loves giving my belly big hugs and "shows" Joanna many of her new clothes and toys by laying them on my belly. Lol. Today she helped me wash all the rest of the clothes I was going through to put away for Joanna's first few months and Lydia was LOVING being able to help load the washing machine and organize stuff! Her face just lit up when she asked if these were Joanna's clothes! She is beyond excited to have a sister and will often come up to me and put her arms on either side of my belly and then pretend to take Joanna out and "rock" her! ;) She will rock and rock her and it is the cutest thing ever! She's also been very cute with her teddy and dolls lately - taking care of them, pushing them in the stroller, wrapping them in blankets and laying them down for naps... So, so cute! Oh my goodness! I'm beyond excited to see her and Daniel meet their baby sister! It'll be amazing to watch I just know! :) 

There are like SO many things I could say about the kids... I wish I had more time. But I am so tired and ready to get ready for bed. At this rate I might write again before Joanna gets here but there's a good chance the next time I post will be after she's here! How crazy is that?!?! :) Thanks for your prayers for baby's health and just continue praying that everything will go smoothly and amazingly well during the labor and delivery with my emotions and that I'll have  midwife I like (since I don't know which one of the six I'll actually end up having and I haven't even met them all yet!). Thank you! :)