Cotter turns 6

Cotter celebrated his 6th birthday this month. All he wanted to do was go to Family Fun- this indoor playground. We invited his buddies and spent his special day there. It was the perfect party for me too, because we could just do it all there which made it easy for me.

This is his favorite slide. It is huge and he says that he loves it so much because it makes him "lose his stomach"!
We had a great Easter today too. We could not have had a more beautiful day. Here are a few pics:



The countdown to baby has started- 6 more days until due date. I have been having a few contractions, but not many. I am more than ready to meet this little man. It is crazy to think how much things are about to change around here. Everyone is so excited! My sister and mom will be here this week, so I can't wait for them to be here. Please pray that this baby will come quickly and safely. I will update as soon as he gets here!

Recent happenings

I have officially decided that as much as I want to be a blogger, it just never quite makes it into my list of things that need to be accomplished each day! Here is a brief update of what we have been up to the last few months.

We had a team retreat in a part of Austria that we have never been to. It was a great time of rest, relaxation, and quality time spent with teammates. The kids had a blast!

Each year in Austria, the kids celebrate Fasching. They get to dress up in costumes and wear them to school and usually have a party or two to go with it. This year, they dressed up as...

a Pirate

an Indian

and Princess Leia.

They had a lot of fun and Carli got to fight against Darth Vader at school! She was excited.

In baby news... I have a funny story. Everything is going well. He is extremely active and we all can hardly wait to meet him! At one of my appointments a couple of weeks ago, they told me that he decided to do a flip and is now head up, instead of head down. The doctor said that since it is my 4th baby, he should have plenty of time and room to turn on his own, but wanted me to go talk to some nurses and they would give me some tricks to try at home. I went to the delivery part of the hospital and the nurse that I talked to was super friendly. She took me into a separate room and began describing what I needed to do at home to try to get the baby to turn. She handed me this envelope....

and began to explain to me (in German of course) what to do. She said to take 2 of these little thingys and place one on each of my pinky toes, like this...

Then she told me to light them! At this point I was really convinced that something was lost in translation! I kept asking questions to make sure I understood what she wanted me to do. I said... "like, with fire?!" She said yes, with fire! Then it will release a smell in the air and I am supposed to breathe in deep and hopefully after doing this for 3 days, the baby will turn! At the time, I was cracking up. It sounded like the craziest thing I have ever heard of! But since then, I have done some research and it is actually a quite common thing to try. It is some form of Chinese acupuncture (without needles) and it has something to do with the little toes that make the baby move. I tried it for 3 days and then went to the doctor last week hoping that he had flipped around, but he is still very much head up. She told me to try it again and come back in a week. So, we will see. I hope and pray that he will turn on his own. They will give him another couple of weeks before they will try to turn him and if that doesn't work, then I will have to have a C-section. Please pray that he will turn!

Baby Update

I am still going to the doctor once a month right now. This month, I will have 2 appointments- one with my Ob/Gyn and then one at the hospital where I will be delivering. My last appointment was just before Christmas. We had a pretty thorough ultra sound where they did organ screening. They took measurements of all of the organs, and he showed us the parts of the brain and the heart. Then he switched it to color and we could see the blood flowing in and out of the heart! It was amazing! I have never had that detailed of an ultra sound before, so it was pretty cool. Then he switched it to 3D so we got to see our little man really good. Here is the picture we got:

Here is another fun picture: Peace!

Everything looks great and he is just as healthy as can be- Praise God! Carli was still hoping that the first doctor was wrong and that the baby could still be a girl, but after that long of an ultra sound, there is no doubt- it is definitely a boy!! It has been fun seeing how each of our kids are dealing with the baby right now. Although Carli is still not too thrilled about yet another brother, she is doing a great job of taking care of me. She always asks me how I am doing and if I need something. Caleb seems to also be more concerned about me right now too. Although, he usually asks about how "we" are doing, not just me. Cotter, on the other hand, usually gives my belly more hugs and kisses than he does me! He talks to the baby, sings him songs, and when I drop him off at Kindergarten, he says bye to me, and then gives my belly a hug and tells the baby to have a good day too! It is super sweet and I just know he is going to be a great big brother!

Now that Christmas is over, we can all focus on baby! Let the organizing and switching rooms begin! Anyone want to come and help?!

Best Anniversary Ever!

This year, Josh and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary! Josh planned a surprise trip to Paris! He invited my parents to come and watch the kids for us and told NOBODY where we were going! He said it was hard to plan a trip alone, but he did a fantastic job! My parents got to be here for Christmas which was so great. Then after Christmas, we hopped on a plane and headed to Paris! We spent 3 nights there and were back in Vienna for New Years Eve. At first I was thinking that it would be fun to be there for New Years Eve, but after the 4 days there, I was ready to be home with the kids and my Mom to celebrate the new year! Josh booked a "Hop on, Hop off" bus tour and it really cut down on the amount of walking we did. We would just get on the bus and it would take us to all of the major sights that we wanted to see. Then we could get off and look around and hop back on to go to the next place. It was perfect. We, of course, spent a lot of time at the Eiffel Tower. We could walk to it from our hotel and as I lay in bed at night, I could see the top of it! It was beautiful!

We went to Notre Dame, but didn't go inside. By that point we were tired of waiting in lines and decided not to wait in the long line to go into the church. It was still beautiful.

We went to the Louvre! We had to wait in line for over an hour and a half, but it was worth the wait!

We went to the Arc de Triomphe...

And saw the Mona Lisa.

We went up in the Eiffel Tower and had a great view of the city.

We ate a ton of amazing food and enjoyed a great anniversary dinner at a small French restaurant. I loved walking around the city, just the 2 of us, and talking about the last 10 years of our lives. Thanks Babe, for an amazing 10 years of marriage and for planning a trip that I will never forget.

Christmas Song

Here is a video from last year of Carli singing one of her favorite Christmas songs.

17 weeks!

This is for all of you who keep asking to see "Belly pics". Let me remind you all that the whole taking pictures of your belly is fun the first one or two times, but by the 4th pregnancy, it is not so cute anymore! There will be not be very many belly pictures of me this time around!!

But, other than my ever growing belly, everything is going well. We have been extremely busy and I typically go to bed right after we tuck the kids in! I am finally starting to have more energy during the day and I have officially gone a week without throwing up! I am hopeful that the sickness part is over and that I can start enjoying this sweet baby. My next appointment is this coming Friday, so I am looking forward to that.

We are also looking forward to going to Germany next week for the Euro-American retreat and then we are going to enjoy Thanksgiving with friends in Germany. Then when we return, we will enjoy a second Thanksgiving with our friends in Vienna! I think that I am going to love all this food!

I hope to post more pictures soon, now that I am feeling a little better.

We are still here...

I haven't spent much time on the computer lately. This pregnancy has made me extremely sick. I was sick with the other three as well, but nothing like this. I am now in my 12th week, so I am hoping and praying that the end is near! I am so looking forward to having energy again. We have a lot to do to get ready for this baby!!

This pregnancy experience is going to be very different than the others. I had the same doctor for Carli, Caleb, and Cotter, I delivered them all at the same hospital in Oklahoma, and by the time Cotter came around, I was a pro! Now we get to learn the new process of how it will work in Vienna. So far, I had to switch doctors, because my old doctor didn't take our new insurance. I have only had one appointment so far with her, but I think she will be fine. She is only going to be doing my check-ups; she won't be the one who delivers the baby. I want to have the baby in the hospital by our house, so they told me that I have to go and register there if I want to have the baby there. They said that it is hard to get into that hospital and that it would have been better to register before we got pregnant!! Well, that obviously didn't happen, but we did get there early enough to get registered. So that is exciting. That will be very nice to only have to drive 5 minutes instead of clear across the city!

I still have lots of fun pictures to post from the summer, so hopefully I will feel up to it soon. Please pray that the sickness part of this pregnancy is over soon. It has been really hard on my family. I am so thankful for my husband who has taken great care of us the last few weeks. I am also so thankful for friends who have brought us food and even washed our dirty clothes! We are truly blessed.