Snoozing on the couch with mommy

A few baby pictures from my phone

Loyal James Frank Keever

Loyal was born at 8:23 on December 10th. He weighed in at 8 pounds 7 ounces and is 19 inches long! He is just perfect and we are so grateful for this sweet baby that The Lord has blessed us with! The surgery went great and I'm feeling as good as could be expected. Stay tuned for more updates over the next few days!

Phone pictures

Countdown to baby

As of today, we are less than one week away from meeting baby Loyal. My c-section is scheduled for the morning of December 10th (one week from today)! I am so excited to meet this little boy, but also becoming a little nervous about the prospect of being a mother of three. I hope I can handle them all! I'm sure it will be overwhelming at first, but when are children not overwhelming?  And it is my experience that God always gives me the grace to handle just about anything. 

This week we have a lot going on...Reagan has her Christmas program on Thursday night, Josh has a birthday (and a conference in San Diego) on Friday, my mom and dad arrive and Reagan is in the city Christmas parade on Saturday, then Sunday morning is Reagan's ballet recital at the Santa breakfast! Along with all of that, I'll be making final preparations for baby's homecoming. Whew! I'm tired just thinking about it all. Now we just need to keep Loyal from making his exit until at least Sunday night!

Stay tuned for pictures of all of the above mentioned activities. I can't promise how quickly I'll get them posted, but my goal is be all caught up on blogging before Tuesday.

I'll leave you with a belly picture that Heather took over Thanksgiving weekend....not sure I could get any bigger!

Thanksgiving weekend

We were very excited to have a house full of company for the holiday weekend. Josh's brother, Isaac and his family came and stayed with us Wednesday thru Sunday. The cousins (Wyatt, Reagan, Ava and Emma) played nonstop. In fact, I'm pretty sure they played so hard that they all fell asleep within minutes of going to bed each night. We ate lots of food, watched a lot of football and did a little black Friday shopping.  I also insisted that we start getting out our Christmas decorations...I mean, we are having a baby in a matter of days! Somehow, I did not take a single picture all weekend. But Heather managed to snap this one of me and the kids...hard to believe we're so close to having three little ones running around!

Rea's Thanksgiving Feast

Just as Wyatt did when he attended preschool, Rea had a Thanksgiving Feast at her school last week. Everyone brought a dish to share and the kids sang some Thanksgiving songs to entertain the parents. It was a lot of fun. Reagan had been telling us for a week that she was going to dress up as a girl pilgrim...so I was surprised when she emerged wearing an Indian outfit. Turns out, if you're an Indian, you get to wear a necklace. Surprise gone. :)

Rea's first solo trip to the fire station

Rea finally got a chance to go to the fire station without her older brother. She had a lot of fun, but was decidedly less interested than I remember Wyatt being.  Figures...she's my girly girl. Most of the kids in her class are girls, so I'm afraid these firefighters had a tough audience. At least they all enjoyed shooting the fire hose.

Fall festivals and Halloween

Leading up to Halloween, we did all of the usual things...carved pumpkins, ate candy, prepped costumes and attended Rea's preschool Fall Festival. The kids love this time of year even though we generally try to steer them clear of traditional Halloween themed things.

For Halloween we always take the kids to our church's Harvest Festival. It's a free festival for the whole community and it's always a blast.  This year the littles decided to be a pirate and a mermaid. So cute! I think my days of having them match or coordinate are close to being over...they've already begun planning next years outfits and everything they suggest do not even remotely go together. Oh well, at least baby Loyal will be here and he will have no voice in the matter. :)

iPhone pictures

As usual...here are some pictures that have been cooped up on my phone.

Belly Picture

Here's a recent picture of my belly's progress...can't believe I have 8 more weeks of growth ahead of me!

Rea's sharing day

Rea has finally gotten her turn to do sharing at preschool yesterday. She was beyond thrilled to take some special things to share with her friends. She, of course, took her beloved "Bunny" and also took some nesting dolls that my mom and dad brought her from Russia.  She picked out her outfit so that she "would look pretty" and also picked which bow to wear in her hair. Such a big girl!

Baby update

Well I am now 30 weeks (and a few days) pregnant with our third child.  We found out in July that it is most definitely a little boy! At the end of the ultrasound, they even did a little 4D! It was pretty neat to be able to see his little face...although I'm sure he's changed a lot by now.

The pregnancy is going great, besides the normal aches and pains of growing a person inside your belly. We have a c-section scheduled for December 10th...so that will be the big day.  My doctor told me after a recent ultrasound that he is looking like a very big boy.  Not something I was excited to hear since I have 9 more weeks to carry him around.  I am thankful that he is perfectly healthy though.

After a lot of looking through name books and many discussions we have finally settled on his name. He will be Loyal James Frank Keever.  A mouthful, I know...but we had so many people we wanted to honor and we are pretty sure that this will be our last baby.  Loyal was Josh's maternal grandfather's name (also Josh's middle name), James is my father's name, Frank was my stepdad's name....so this baby has quite the heritage and legacy to live up to.

Stay tuned for more updates on Mr. Loyal and how he is progressing!

More catching up

After we got home from the funeral, it was time for Miss Reagan to start preschool.  Again...and emotional day for mommy! Where is the time going???

She also had picture day shortly after...uugh, they're so stinking cute!

Since the start of school, we have also added ballet and soccer to our schedules.  Mommy is officially a chauffeur! It's so much fun watching these two discover new activities and things that they love. It doesn't hurt that these activities wear them out and make for much calmer evenings around here!

Tuesday October 8th, Rea had her first field trip with her class. We went to the pumpkin patch.  She was so excited to go without brother and just with her friends. We had a blast and she picked out a great pumpkin.  We're planning to go back as a family soon since Wyatt was very disappointed that he didn't get to go!

So that is where we've been! Sorry it's been so long! Hopefully I won't let it get that out of date again.  Although I can't promise anything...I am about to have another baby! :)