Ten on Tuesday

1. It's moving week here at the Korenak house, which means I feel like I might die and it's complete pandemonium here. We signed on the new house yesterday afternoon and most of our current house is pretty well packed up. Today Aunt Anna came up to help with some cleaning in the new house. The previous owners did less than a stellar job of cleaning it before they left. So Anna and I washed the windows in the living/dining room and cleaned most of the kitchen. Pretty sure they didn't even sweep the kitchen floor, which is very frustrating since I have the rental house to clean once we are out and now have a new house to clean as well. I'm hoping that I can recruit some cleaning help Friday and Saturday from my amazing family!

2. Also this week I've started trying to work on Thatcher's blanket again. I had been putting it off due to my consistent hand pain, which doesn't appear to be getting better and time soon, so I have to trudge on. Currently I am averaging about two rows a day, so hopefully I can get it done before he arrives. I only  make blankets for my own children and my nieces and nephews so I'll probably be wrapping up my crocheting for awhile.  

 3. Sunday dinners resumed this weekend, at Aunt Abbey's, since my house if full of boxes. Baby Alice made her first appearance and the cousins loved it. Everyone got a turn holding her, she was wide awake, and checking everyone out. All the kids did great with her and baby Alice was a great sport being passed around all evening. She's a doll baby that's for sure.

 4. Lots of big news this week for Zach and his sister Trina. Zach's business won an Engineering Excellence Award for the best Engineering project in all of Oklahoma in 2016 for the huge Boeing building they made last year. And his sister Trina won Educator of the Year for Dexter, MO schools for her work pre-k special needs children. Big week for the Korenak family, congrats to them both for all their great work, we're all so proud of you.

5. I am loving my alone time with Rowan and feel it quickly coming to a close. It's been lovely outside so we've had a few morning at the park this past week. This picture was taken yesterday and for some reason when I saw it he just looked so much bigger, definitely like a big four year old boy now. I can't believe how big he is, I love his sweet face!!!

6. Note Rowan's new black shoes in the above picture. When I got home from work Saturday Zach informed me that earlier in the day Rowan had thrown one of his neon yellow Nike's over our back fence, into the yard with the two crazy dogs, where they proceeded to chew the shoe up completely! Par for the course at our house, so he got new shoes yesterday, black per his request, because they are soooo fancy!!!

7. After getting new shoes for Rowan we headed over for lunch with Zane. We occasionally pop in for lunch with this kid and it's just lovely. Zane is such a conversationalist, he told us all about his day so far (all three hours of it), asked us what we'd been doing, all while saying hi and chatting up every single person that walks by. Having lunch with Zane reminds me a lot of going to lunch with Uncle Able, they both know everyone who walks in the door and love to say hi to all their people!

 8. Pregnancy isn't getting any more fun or easier as time passes. The moving, working, and NEVER sleeping well isn't helping. Today Rowan was kind enough to help put on my, no tie, shoes. The struggle is extremely real and I've got nine weeks to go!!!! Jesus help me!

 9. The toys are slim around our house these days, but there are quit a few wood blocks left over from the bunk beds, which is now serve as their main form of entertainment. I'm really looking forward to our new, much larger, backyard. They will have lots of room to run and play and no houses behind us is very nice! Here they are working on their "house" with pieces of our wood tower and their wood blocks. The 75 degree weather the past few days have definitely helped with the moving boredom.

10. Lastly, it's that time of year again when my niece has Girl Scout cookies for sale again. I've already plowed through a box of Tagalongs and we have a few more packed away for the new house. Let me know if you want to order any or you can order online here and she will mail them your way!

Feed My Sheep

One of my New Year's resolutions was to no longer stay silent when I see injustice. Not to just turn a blind eye to racism, sexism, hatred, or bigotry. My silence, purely to avoid confrontation,  gives quiet acceptance to behaviors I most definitely do not support and cannot accept. As of late I keep hearing my father's words in my head. He lived by a few very simple principles that in my short time with him here on earth he definitely drove into my conscious. He wasn't a flashy Christian. He didn't advertise his faith, or quote scripture to strangers. He lived by the principle that people should see Jesus through the way you live your life and through the way you treat other people in the world. He was by no means a perfect man, but he lived a good life and treated everyone like family.

My father wasn't alive during this crazy age of social media in which we live now. He never read a tweet or a Facebook post. He never admired his Grandchildren's pictures on Instagram. I'd like to think he would if he was around, but he missed all these crazy things!! But he did speak with many people, face to face, standing up for what was right and just. It's easy to like people's post or add hateful comments to those you don't agree with, getting in arguments online with people with whom you disagree, never having to speak to them face to face. So today I'm going to start my resolution by posting some of the important words my father lived by in hopes that I can keep these principles fresh in my mind as I walk through this very divisive time in our country.  

"Feed my sheep." God's simplest and most important request to all of us. Not feed my sheep when it's easy, or when they are sheep you think deserve food, or when it's convenient, or when you happen to have extra food, or when they are sheep you like. Feed ALL my sheep, all the time, without judgment about why they are hungry, no matter what.

"To whom much if given much is expected." This one is very hard now. As a child I didn't feel that I had been given much, but dad said this to us all the time, preparing me for when I reached a place that I could truly appreciate all that life has given me. For all my debt, and poor financial decisions, I have been supremely blessed. My family and I want for nothing. So now that I stand firmly in a place where I have been given so much I now realize that much is expected of me. To help others and feed His sheep. So every pay check a huge chunk of money goes to taxes. We have private health insurance that's really expensive. We pay for both and try not to complain about it because we can afford it. Yes we work hard, but we're able to work hard, we can afford to pay these things. I go to work and see families that have nothing, who are on government assistance and I see that through my taxes I am feeding His sheep. This is to say nothing for charity and good causes we can donate to, everything helps, all of these things are acts of kindness that I'm so blessed to be able to afford.

On that same note "But by the grace of God go I or my family." I think this legitamently every single day I work. I see people on their worst days, not just that they've been dealt a terrible hand health wise, but I also see terrible hands that children, and families, are dealt just by the circumstances into which they were born. It's not my place to judge how they got there, it's my place to bring kindness into their life, to treat them how I'd want to be treated. It's so easy to judge how people got into their terrible circumstance, but it's much harder to ignore all those things, and set judgment aside, to feed His sheep.

 "Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong even it everyone is for it."  I try to remind myself of this when I scroll through the Twitter headlines and see such hatred and sadness in the days headlines. Don't let yourself be normalized to hate speech, to lies, to racism, to the oppression of minorities, to all the hateful things we're bombarded with these days. It's tough and it hurts my soul. But I continually remind myself that I have to stand for what's right, that I know right from wrong, even if the lines are forever getting blurred these days.

"Be a light!" This was dad's parting advice pretty much every day, after saying "I'm off to see the wizard," before heading off to school. It's so simple, but so hard as well. Be the light to whomever's life you touch. Smile at strangers, say hi, hold a door open, simple acts of kindness can change lives. You never know what battle someone is fighting or what kind of day they have had. I remember the smiles of strangers, the random acts of kindness, and the kind words from people on my darkest days. The man holding the door open for me after leaving a cardiology appointment, the kind words of strangers in stores, who had no idea that I was walking through the darkest place in my life. Those meant everything to me and kept me going. You could be someone's light in their darkest hour each day!

These are just a few that I've been thinking of lately. There are a few other's that dad didn't quote that pop into my head when I'm reading the news as well, such as the quote from The Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Or Mathew 25:40

'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'

And I was so happy to hear that Sunday's Gospel was the oh so important and oh so timely Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:3-12.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:3)

Blessed are those who mourn: for they will be comforted. (5:4)

Blessed are the meek: for they will inherit the earth. (5:5)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be filled. (5:6)

Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy. (5:7)

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they will see God. (5:8)

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they will be called children of God. (5:9)

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:10)

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. .5:11-12

And there was also a day that after scrolling through Twitter I found myself singing "You Poor Unfortunate Soul" from The Little Mermaid or There's Always Tomorrow from Rudolph, so not always terribly positive, but you get the idea. My next resolution may very well to be to never get on social media again, because it hurts my heart and stresses me out. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord (another Dad quote) and try to focus on the good, be the light, feed His sheep, no matter what terribleness is happening around us. And I'll start quoting my Dad to my children so they hopefully grow up with these wonderful quotes filling their conscious as well.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Well we close on the new house on Monday and move that following Saturday, February 4th. First of all I cannot believe it's going to be February so soon. Secondly I am not ready or have the energy to set up a new house currently. Not exactly sure how I'm going to handle that, but looks like it's going to happen whether I'm ready for it or not.

2. The boys new bunk beds are almost complete which means our children will never sleep again. They barely sleep as it is, getting up early, and staying up late trying to talk to each other in their own rooms so I'm sure sharing a room is going to be amazing!!! I have no clue how to combat this situation mainly just happy Zane is doing so well in school so he won't fall behind during the next month or so of sleepless nights. Surely they will get over it eventually, right??

3. I'm trying to soak up the last days with just me and my little sidekick. "Just you and me right Mamma?" Soon we'll have another nugget to hang out with us. Rowan is the most chill child ever so usually we don't do to many fun activities, unlike when Zane's home and it's constant activities all day. But I'm trying to think of fun things for us to do. Yesterday we painted bird houses and he, very quickly, learned how to write his name!!!! We are very close to getting through all the letters thanks to him being quite the smarty pants.

4. Rowan and I's other activity these days is visiting sweet Alice and her parents. Alice is doing great and remains adorable. Of course Rowan's favorite thing to do is pick out fancy outfits for her to wear. The first day he met her he even got her in her fancy, sparkly boots. So much fun! Rowan is in love with his new cousin and I am pretty sure he's going to be an amazing big brother.

 Today he was helping her play and picked out the adorable outfit below. I'm starting to get concerned that Rowan is not going to be ok with how unfancy Thatcher's clothes are going to be. Of course he'll be dressing Thatcher I'm sure.

5. The big news from the weekend was Pack 348's Pinewood Derby competition. This being our first Pinewood Derby we had no idea what to expect and couldn't figure out how it could possibly last the three hours that it was scheduled. Well boy did we have a lot to learn. It no longer involves all the kids lining up and sending their cards down a track together. It now is done by a computer program that randomizes all the cars, clocks their speed down to the one one thousandth of a second, each car races multiple times in each different lane, there were 156 races in total, and I think and Zane's car was in five of them. It did take the full three hours, during which time Zane, and the whole pack of boy scouts, sat on the gym floor watching the races. Rowan and I watched one race with Zane's car in it then came home for naps. There were lots of trophies for various things, time winners by age, time winners for the whole pack, and various design competition. At the end of the day Zane was the only Lion that didn't get a trophy. He got a ribbon and a really cool Pinewood Derby metal (which our family had provided so it wasn't a surprise) but we could tell he was pretty disappointed not to get a cool car trophy. He is also the only Lion who doesn't have a big brother, aka a father who hasn't built cars before. So we learned a lot of lessons for next year and he did have fun, it was just a very long day boy scouting!

Here he is with his car, The X-Wing. There were four different design categories, Zane choose the Star Wars category, as did most of the boy scouts. No one entered the nature category so next year our plan is to enter the least popular category in hopes of winning a best design trophy. I mean we could have made a snake car and won the nature category and it would have been awesome. I didn't understand how it worked, we will do better next year!

 The X-Wing is on the far left, he did win one of his five races and got second three times I think.

There is the whole Lion Troop, three Jacobs, Zane, Owen, and Mase. I have no idea who is who!

 6. After the high emotions of the Derby Saturday afternoon, we headed over to let everyone meet sweet Alice in the evening. Zane was absolutely smitten and did a great job holding her and helping Grandma feed her. He looks enormous next to her and I cannot believe he was ever that little. I guess technically he was never that little outside my belly!

7. Today I decided to take Rowan to my doctor's appointment with me instead of him having to go to school the whole day. He was a complete champ, though he was slightly confused/concerned with me peeing in a cup and getting a shot. He wasn't quite sure the doctor was being nice to Thatcher when she was listening to his heart beat either, but all in all he was great company. I really would rather have my kids with me than days alone, life is just so much more fun with them here. The ladies in the office loved his fancy outfit and requested I bring him every time so they can see more of Rowan's fashion. He is always fancy and never disappoints.

Here's my side kick, eating a salad with me for lunch. He's a little health nut and has taken to loving salads as of late. Probably because that's my lunch every day.

8. There is some breaking news on the Yellow Family front, because I know every is dying to know about the Kindergarten seating situation!!!! The girl that came into the family around Halloween has been moved up to her own desk, by the teacher, because (per Zane) "she wasn't getting her work done and was chit chatting to much with the other girl." The little boy who previously had been sitting by the teacher is now back at the table so boys now are in the majority once again in the yellow family and things seem to have settled down somewhat. Zane is also almost done with all the first grade words for the year. I guess after he's done with those he's finished with words so we are spending lots of time reading full books and working on sounding things out, which he has also greatly improved on. Kindergarten is no joke these days!

9. Look at this sweet picture of my boys. They love each other so much it just blows my mind. Our walks to and from the bus stop are some of my favorite. I love the people who are at our bus stop as well and will miss them dearly when we move to the other side of the neighborhood. Today the Arabic woman who we know there told me that Zane means 'good' in Arabic, which I loved. They are all such lovely families there who are so kind to me and my boys. I'm sure we will still see them at school but hate that we'll be leaving our little community on this side of the neighborhood. Maybe our new bus stop will be closer to our house, that would be nice.

10. Rowan's birthday celebration plans are well underway here with Rowan wanting to talk about his party ALL THE TIME!! I am not sure that he understands it will just be our family or that it matters to him, but he is extremely excited about presents, though he pretty much refuses to give me any ideas. So far he's suggested tools, cowboy stuff, and a baseball bat. So that really clears things up for me! I have no clue how we'll get our house pulled somewhat together by the 19th. It's a cowboy party so it might look a lot like the wild west, if it was full of boxes. How is my baby four years old already???????????

Second Trimester Recap

I am now officially in the third trimester of my last pregnancy, hooray, and will be thirty weeks this Wednesday. As I've previously mentioned I am not a fan of pregnancy, at all, and this one has been no different. As was the case with my other two boys, I stopped feeling nauseated and generally miserable right around the time I started to get big enough to be uncomfortable. With this being my third pregnancy I've gotten much bigger much faster so the discomfort set in pretty early around 24 weeks or so.

I have continued to exercise as much as possible usually 3-4 days a week, either at the gym or walks/bike rides outside at the neighborhood with the boys. I can't stomach the thought of a maternity swim suit so haven't been in the pool for awhile, which is disappointing, but such is life. I am the super fat lady going extremely slowly on the elliptical or walking around the track at the gym. These past few weeks, since the first of the year, the people starting their new year's resolutions to work out where none to happy to see me, obviously not meeting my weight loss goals for the year, and taking up a machine in the packed out cardio room. I never worked out a day with my other boys, not even so much as a walk around the neighborhood, so I'm pretty proud of myself for keeping up my usual routine. I also ate whatever I wanted, whenever, I wanted with my other two pregnancies and managed to not gain very much weight. Sadly, with this one my eating much healthier and exercising is NOT helping curb the weight gain at all. It actually is much worse than with the other boys and I haven't even had one Dairy Queen blizzard this time around. I hear it's because I'm of "advanced maternal age" and as we all no have ZERO metabolism at baseline.

This news is devastating to me and leads to me being very testy with my doctor when she talks to me about how much weight I've gained. I am legitemently doing all the right things, but as is the case with most of my life and my ongoing weight issues, it doesn't seem to help. So I press on and try to do the best I can and desperately try not to think about how impossible it is going to be to loose this weight once little man is born. It's all beyond frustrating and I wish I didn't have to spend so much time being concerned about or working on this particular issue in my life.

So needless to say I'm large and uncomfortable. The boys are loving talking to their little "Thatchy," and they are quite sure he is THEIR Thatchy, not mine. They also seem to think that my belly is theirs as well. For the past few weeks they have spend a lot of time talking to him, poking him, hugging him, kissing him, and cannot be bothered to hug, kiss, or cuddle me, "No mamma, I'm talking to Thatcher now!" This is a completely new experience this time around since Zane had no clue what was happening when I was pregnant with Rowan. He was only two when I got pregnant and had never had a sibling or been around babies so he was completely oblivious about everything until Rowan showed up and ruined his life. But this time both of them are old enough to understand what's going on and to be excited about their little brother getting bigger in mamma's belly. As much as it does get annoying to have little boys all over my belly, all the time, I do adore how much they love/protect their little brother already. Recently they both, on various occasions, would talk to baby Alice in Aunt Kari's belly, trying to convince her to come out. They both felt slightly guilty about doing this and made sure to come check on/talk to Thatcher after having their visit with little Alice. I think seeing baby Alice out in the world will definitely help Rowan prepare for what's ahead as well.

The is my view most of the time these days!

As I said in my Ten on Tuesday last week work is getting very difficult now that I'm back to working on the floors vs. the NICU. I have lots of contractions when I'm there, obviously not going into labor, but still very painful and I feel that it is way too early to be happening. There are lots of perks to my position in the Flex Pool, but a downside is the lack of a "home floor" with people who become an extended family to me. In St. Louis my job was much harder, much more physically and emotionally taxing, and I worked more days in a week. However, I was surrounded by amazing friends who would do anything for me and were always looking out for me. Here I'm often going to floors where they don't even know that I'm pregnant until I show up so they don't even have a chance to be nice. I often end up making everyone's life difficult by not being able to care for certain kids with certain viruses. No one feels bad for me, because they don't really know me. That all makes it much harder and frankly I think I'm just too old to do this again, but I'm trying to power through and find kind people who will take pity on me each day.

Generally by this point in pregnancy I have at least thought about, and usually started, preparations for babies arrival. With number three I have done less than nothing. I've made an Amazon Baby Registry of the few things we are going to need to buy, as a list for myself more than anything, but haven't purchased a thing. We got a couple things for him at Christmas, but other than that we've done nothing. Once we move into the new house hopefully we can find all the baby stuff in the attic and turn Rowan's toddler bed back to a crib (insert me sobbing at the thought of Rowan not being a baby anymore). Those are the big things we have to do and we can get his roomed set up there. I have no plans for a theme or decoration scheme. I'm planning on putting up all my favorites from the other two boy's rooms, and possibly added a Peter Pan quote or woodland animal letters?? Who knows?? Thatcher is an eight letter name so I probably can't afford to put his whole name on the whole, maybe just a big T. There is a big part of me that is procrastinating this stage because I am painfully aware that this is my last baby. As much as I never want to be pregnant again, the thought of never having another baby phase to go through is absolutely heartbreaking to me and I have yet to figure out how I'm going to handle this. Planning the baby room decorations is the beginning of my favorite phase, so if I don't start that then it won't be over, right???

I am very ready to be done being pregnant and never go through this again, but on the other hand I'm not ready to start over and I'm terrified of how quickly Thatcher's baby phase will fly by. I know that things get lost in the exhaustion and physical pain. Time flies and when you look back it's all a blur. One day a toddler is standing there, pulling on your leg and somehow you've missed it in the craziness of it all. My new year's resolution for this year is to focus on being present in each moment. To soak up every last minute with our last baby. To not let it fly by and miss it all. I want to remember it and love it and hopefully not loose all of my sanity in the process. That's why we are moving now, even thought that's a pain to do when pregnant, I want to be fully settled once Thatcher arrives so I can be fully present with our little men in all their various, wonderful stages. Of course the other big, constant prayer, is that the older boys somehow, some way maintain their sanity when their brother arrives. I know it will be a big change, but I'm very hopeful that with them being older, and having each other, they can adjust well.

Ten on Tuesday

1. The big news of the day is the arrival of sweet Alice Pearl Blakley. She was about nine days late, but finally graced us with her presence today, coming in at 8lbs even 20.5 inches long. Everyone is doing well and we all can't wait to meet her. I hear that Mamma did amazingly well through it all and both Mamma and Daddy are over the moon. Alice makes my third niece and joins the clan of January babies. Of my, now eight, nieces and nephews three of them are born in a ten day period in January, between the 10th and the 20th. It's a good time to be born I guess!

 I think she looks like her beautiful mamma!

 Here was the crowds reaction at my house to seeing the newest addition to the family. The boys were super excited and pretty upset they couldn't cuddle her immediately.

2. While we all anxiously awaited Alice's arrival, Rowan, Grandma, and I went on a little outing to the Cowboy Museum (Edmond Children's Museum) and to go get pizza. Rowan was dressed in his full cowboy outfit for the occasion.

 3. As I mentioned last week Rowan is loving Zach's old Engineering books. This week we added a highlighter and some tabs to help with his studies. Of course his super fancy shirt only helps with his successful studying, of course!

 4. Last night we had family dinner at Aunt Abbey's house. All the children's emotions were running high after four days of being cooped up inside on a long weekend. We left with no major fights or injuries so I consider that a success. These two are remain adorable and get along quite well most of the time. They could spend hours playing with their Hotwheels. E always tries to send Rowan home with a few new Hotwheels, which we really don't need. Such a sweet little guy, best friends!!!

 5. Saturday is the Boy Scout Pinewood Derby. We put off working on our car for as long as possible, but while we were rained/iced in this weekend Zach and Zane got a good start on it. First up was Zach sustaining a minor injury while using his power tools. In good news Zane had learned all about first aid a few meetings ago and did a great job patching Zach up.

 There was lots of sanding, and resanding. Zane was very patient with the whole, some what boring process.

 Finally he got to paint! His design is after the Star Wars X-Wing ship (I'm only mostly sure that's the correct name.) I hear there are a few Star Wars categories to compete in. I'm not exactly sure what all takes place in Derby, but we're all very excited about it!! 

 6. Packing continues, as does construction on the bunk beds. Both are pretty well finished. The bed still needs some sanding and staining, which we couldn't do while it was raining outside. The boys are thrilled to be sharing a room at the new house. I'm still pretty concerned about how small their new room is going to be and how messy Zane's much bigger room currently is with just him living in it. I have no ideas on how to make this better. I guess we'll see how it goes.

7. Rowan has decided upon a birthday theme, Cowboys!!!! During the packing we found the leather cowboy vest of Uncle Able's, which is just his size. And we scrounged up a cowboy hat and a bandana as well. Today we went to Hobby Lobby and got all the supplies we will need in one stop, which is just about all the energy I have for party planning currently. In good news Rowan's party planning is much less intricate than Zane's. He does have high hopes for stick horse races and hopefully Grandma finding her saddle to bring down for him to pretend to ride. He's such a sweet happy little guy, I cannot believe he is almost four. And I pray his sweet spirit isn't crushed by his brother's arrival.

 8. As is often in the case in Oklahoma, the weather predictions of a horrific ice storm turned out to not be true. Thank the good Lord, but the hype is still quite annoying. Zane's school was cancelled Friday when there was no precipitation at all. With MLK Day yesterday this made for a four day weekend, inside a house where most of their toys are packed up. All things considered the boys did great. Rowan is currently really into puzzles and does them over and over again, with amazing patience. Grandma got him two new ones we didn't pack that he does multiple times a day and we ended up unpacking a few as well.

 Zane is still enjoying his Legos from Christmas. Each one makes a few different things, so we are starting on the second time through with each set. Zane really wants/needs someone to work with him, talk to him, help him, cheer him on, as his personality. So as much as I despise Legos I sit with him and try to be patient with it all. (As you see the construction of the bunk beds came inside during the cold adding to the utter disaster/mess that is the inside of my house currently, full of boxes, saw dusting, lumber, craziness!!!!!!)

One of our most fun activities this weekend was shadow puppet shows and dance parties in flash lights.

 9. Here is the classic Oklahoma Snow Day picture. Cold, but no sight of ice or snow! Thanks to Aunt Abbey for the hand me down coats which were much need and my boys are really enjoying!

10. Meanwhile I am starting my third and final third trimester!!! As is always the case at the first of the year the NICU census drops, they hire new nurses, and I have to go back to the med/surg floor. Last week was my first week back on the floor for two days in a row. I have no idea how I'm going to do this for 12 more weeks. My guess is I'm not going to be able to, but that means going on maternity leave without a baby and without getting paid. Working on the floor you never sit down and little Thatcher does not do well with that. I felt like I'd been beaten by a baseball bat when I got home Thursday. Here's hoping for some calmer work days and little man to behave himself for a few more weeks.

Ten on Tuesday

1. This news has kind of gotten lost in the holiday season fun, but here it is. The Korenaks are moving yet again! This move is a lateral one, hopefully to our financial gain. We bought this house which is roughly the same size and is in the same neighborhood as our current house. It definitely isn't our final move, which was always my hope when we started renting, that we would move one more time, into a house we could live in for as long as we wanted. This house will be fine for the next five or so years, but we will most definitely have another move ahead of us. This house can't handle three teenage boys.

So the packing has started yet again. I am usually a professional packer, this is our eighth move in ten years, but at seven months pregnant I am struggling. The boys are great helps and we do have plenty of time this move, unlike the four days I had to pack up our last house. Yesterday I packed these moving buddies! I had previously tried to pack Woody, but the box didn't have room for Buzz. I've watched toy story enough to know these two are moving buddies and need to be in the same box. I also included a remote control car in case they need to make an escape.

 2. Last  Friday and Saturday there was quite the snow storm here, which I completely missed out on because I was at work. I HATE driving in the snow, but I have a job that I have to go to no matter what the weather does. I hear this weekend will be just as terrible, but possibly an ice storm instead of snow. So Rowan and I took full advantage of a lovely morning to go for a bike ride/walk around the neighborhood. Rowan was a trooper, riding his bike for my thirty minute walk and ending at the park for some fun. I'm so not a fan of winter. I'm ready for spring already.

 3. During our packing Zach found the last of his Engineering books, the ones he used to study for his Professional Engineering exam. He took that test years ago, he's licensed in multiple states, and has no plans of going back to school, so he finally decided it was time to part with these books. But our hoarding children found them first. Rowan is now obsessed with his Engineering books, his favorite being Electromechanical Energy Devices and Power Systems. After hours of trying to get him to study his letters (which he does not know all of) I convinced him that he could find letters in Daddy's books and highlight them. It's all very entertaining until we lost his beloved book last night and a full meltdown ensued.  It has been found and he is back to his studies.

 3. The other fun find during packing was one of Daddy's hats that looks so much better on Rowan. Zach doesn't have the head for hats, but Rowan does and this hat is oh so fancy, just like Ro!

 4. Zane has lost another tooth, or should I say, Zane has ripped another tooth out of his head. When he came out of his room with this last tooth I asked how he manages to pull teeth out that are barely loose. His response, and I quote was "This time I used a yo yo!" Begging the question what he had used for the previous two teeth, the answer was part of the wooded penguin in his room. He's a crazy person and claims this doesn't hurt him, but we have discussed not using foreign bodies to remove his teeth in the future. Now he has a huge hole in the front of his mouth where there are three teeth missing now.

 5. I know everyone is anxious to hear how little Alice is doing and the news is that she is still cooking. Aunt Kari's due date was yesterday and baby Alice wasn't ready to show her sweet face just yet. Kari is doing well, though I'm sure she's tired of being pregnant. The boys both gave their little cousin a pep talk at dinner this week, she obviously didn't listen to them. Zane and Rowan cannot wait to meet, and cuddle their newest cousin. So prayers for a save delivery and a healthy baby continue. I'm sure it won't be much longer!

 6.  Thatcher is hanging in there, he's getting bigger and is always kicking and squirming around in there. Last week was my glucose study, one of my least favorite parts of pregnancy, and I'm happy to report I do not have the betis!!! I'm also very happy that I'll never have to drink this nastiness again.

 7. My super fancy boy's newest love is ties. He found this old Christmas tie in his underwear drawer last week and really wanted to wear it to school on Wednesday. He did start the day in it, but we brought a slightly less fancy shirt to change into when the tie came off. Yesterday Uncle Able gave him a new bow tie which he really wanted to wear today, but I don't know how to tie it. Apparently that's something I need to know for my four year old's wardrobe.

8. In another installment of why do we ever buy or keep toys, the boys spent an extremely long time playing with wood scraps this evening. Zane had saw and Rowan had a hammer, lots of "working" took place. We had originally gone outside to ride bikes, but wood blocks is so much more fun. The neighbor boys came over eventually on their bikes and convinced them to take a spin in the gorgeous weather.

9. Let's see if there is any other news?? Not really! I did finally get started on Thatcher's baby blanket. My hands still hurt pretty bad most of the time (about time to schedule my appointment with the Rheumotologist for after baby) so crocheting isn't nearly as fun as it once was. I can do about two rows a night then my hands hurt too bad to continue. Good thing I only make blankets for my children and my nieces and nephews.

10. Baseball sign up for the spring was today. I think I found a solution to Rowan wanting to start t-ball this spring, which I really can't handle with a newborn. We have decided he'll do swimming,which is a 30 minute commitment once a week vs a few hours a week, and only ten dollars instead of a solid $100 or more for tball. We will reassess in the fall once we've figured the whole three kids things out.

We Have a Name!!

The process of naming our third baby has felt like it's gone on forever. It was made worse be finding out the gender so much earlier this time. With the older boys I think I was eighteen weeks and twenty weeks when we found out they were boys. With this little guy I found out around fourteen weeks, leaving us with months to argue about names and get nowhere. Everyone who talked to me about it asked the same question, "what is left on your name list from your other kids?" Simple, Rowan Danny, which is already taken. So the search started from nothing and stayed at nothing for a long time.

I should mention that Zach and I previously took about a week or two to name the boys. We had boy and girl names fairly lined out going into the ultrasound, so once we found out the gender the name was pretty well set. So the months of debate was an unwelcome change. Every name I suggested Zach hated for random reasons, there is a K sound at the beginning, there is a K sound at the end, if I look at it funny the T looks like a K, it's too boring, it's too weird, and my personal favorite "I just don't like it." Zach did give a few suggestions, such as Winslow, which as all my 90s children friends know, Mr. Winslow lived across the street from Steve Erckle and was a large, old policeman. NO!

We toyed with idea of Atticus for a long time, however the new (or really old depending on how you look at it) book by Harper Lee ruined the name for me. Not giving away too many spoilers here, but in the new book (which in reality was the first draft of To Kill A Mockingbird which ended up being scrapped and rewritten) Atticus is not the larger than life, man above reproach, defender of everyone's rights based on his extreme character. Spoiler Alert: he is a down right, hardcore, racist and it kind of broke my heart. Don't read it, it will ruin Atticus and the name for you forever. I know that Harper Lee never really wanted this book to be published and was convinced to do it on her death bed, by someone trying to get their hands on her money. However, it did get published, and I couldn't get over him being a racist, so I couldn't commit to the name. Also my best friend has a dog named Atticus, which was less of a hurdle to get over, but still sort of strange.

So for weeks we were left in a terrible version of the name game. It should be noted Zach and I both hate talking about baby names, probably because we so rarely agree on one (only three times to be exact). The only people who might hate the name game more than we do are our children, who on a daily basis would yell at me, "But what are we going to call him MOM!!!!!!!!!!" Implying, get it together parents and name our little brother. One day I asked Zane, who was the most annoyed by the whole thing, what he thought about the name Beckett. His response was priceless, "Yeah, Beckett that sounds good, his name is Beckett, let's just call him Beckett." Turns out Beckett sounds a lot like Bucket, which we yell a lot in our house when people are about to throw up, not a great connotation and Zach wasn't completely sold. Also, I liked the idea of all the Grandkids having their own letter and their is already a wonderful B in the cousin mix on both sides of the family.

Much to Zane's dismay the debate continued until Christmas Eve 2016. On our way home from Christmas Eve Mass (our first, failed attempt), Zach saw a sign for E. Thatcher St. in downtown Edmond, OK. I love all -er ending names, my favorite being Asher, which  upon research we found out was way to popular and would be shortened to Ash a la Ashley's from my childhood. So I was delighted to hear Zach suggest Thatcher (which I'm confident I had thrown out as a suggestion before). I think that Zach might have been persuaded to settle on a name by the idea of never having to talk about  naming another human being for the rest of his life. So we shook on it, thus naming our third and final boy Thatcher Valentine.

His middle name was always, most likely, going to be Valentine. I have already used the names of the two most important men in my life, besides my lovely husband of course (who, for the record, did not want his child named after him, I suggested it multiple times). I love my Grandpa Dotter to death, but am not a huge fan of either of his names (Billy Dale), so I gave middle naming rights to Zach. Keeping with our thought that middle names should hold meaning Zach went with a very traditional Korenak name, Valentine. Zach has an Uncle Val which he is pretty close to and his father also had an Uncle Valentine. I wasn't fully on board with it, but at some point during the horrible name game, mentioned above, I said, "Ok I'm closing my eyes and opening this name book, you close your eyes and point to a name, that's what we'll name him." When we actually did this Zach legitimately put his finger on Valentine, closing on debate on this child's middle name.  

So the names of our little family are finally complete. I tried buying Thatcher a Pottery Barn Christmas stocking to match his brothers during the after Christmas sale, to make it official, but I was too late. So he'll get his stocking next year and this blog will have to be the official announcement. The boys are beyond excited about little Thatchy, as Rowan calls him. Since getting a name Rowan also feels that Thatcher really wants a stuffed animal to cuddle. He let him cuddle his stuffed polar bear the other night, in an attempt to get Thatcher to stop kicking me. Most days Rowan thinks Thatcher really wants to cuddle his little Hedgehog I bought when we told the boys they were having a brother. Rowan can't figure out why Thatcher doesn't "cuddle it" when he places it against my belly. Strange how that doesn't work. There have been a few mornings where this has been my wake up call, Rowan shoving a stuffed hedgehog under the covers demanding Thatcher cuddle it.

A name makes it more real and gives the little guy his own personality. I'm excited that we've finally chosen our little guy's name. There is a twinge of sadness, as with all the lasts we'll be facing this year, at the thought of there not being anymore babies to name. But such is life, we'll have a lovely little family with our three, sweet, blonde headed boys! Nothing is as I had pictured it growing up, with two boys and two girls, but turns out it's so much better!