Cowgirl up!

My poor Laney had a bad fall yesterday morning down the stairs. She hit her upper gum on the wooden part on the side of the stairs and it looks really gross. There is skin flapping around and all mangled in her upper gum and blood was dripping down into her teeth all day. It was gross. I debated whether I should take her to the doctor, I was pretty sure they wouldn't stitch it up in her mouth and we called the dentist, who told us to just keep ice on it all day. Right.

But she has been such a trooper. She really is a tough kid. She played all day like it wasn't a big deal and let us look at it and put medicine in her mouth. It's still pretty yucky today, but at least the bleeding has stopped. It's just a dark purple mangled yucky mess up there. But I am very grateful it none of her teeth seem to have been harmed. I know God protected her because it could've been much worse.

These overalls she wore for western day today have been lovingly worn by all the girls now. I have pictures of both Avery & Tatum wearing these overalls when they were her size. It's fun to see Laney's little body in them and think how big I thought Avery was when she wore them!

Tatum is going through a tough time lately, mostly jealousy and mostly of Laney. She hears all the time how big Laney is getting, and I know she is longing to be told how big she is and what an accomplished 3.5 year old she is. She knows she and Laney share alot of the same clothes, socks & shoes because they really do fit both of them. Tatum is taller, but Laney is built larger. Tatum also sees when Laney falls and gets a cut or an ant bite or her mouth gets mangled, and Tatum immediately makes up some pretend wound she has or reminds us of a wound she got a long time ago so she can get some attention. It's shameless. When Laney wants to be held or sit in my lap, Tatum all the sudden wants to be held or sit in my lap. It's such a struggle for me because I am crazy about all my kids, but for some reason I have a special sympathy for Tatum being the middle girl and I try really hard to give her extra attention and praise. But she still acts so jealous! For example, tonight when I took Laney downstairs to give her some tylenol for her mouth, Tatum immediately said, "mama, I think I have a sore throat." And when I ask Avery how her elbow is feeling (she got a bad strawberry a few days ago), Tatum says, "mama, remember when I fell and skinned my knee and there was blood running down my leg?" (which happened over a year ago). I wish she would just believe me when I tell her how special she is and how much we all adore her, and not try so hard to take recognition away from her sisters.

I am so crazy about my little Tates. She has such a gentle and sensitive nature. I long for her understand and feel secure in how much she is loved. I just can't get enough of this little cowgirl.

So Avery has been wanting a Jessie costume from Toy Story 3 ever since Christmas. We couldn't pull it off at Christmas, but I found this little shirt and hat on Amazon last week, and knowing that this was rodeo week and she had nothing western to wear, I sprung for it. Her reaction when she opened the package was so worth it! She told me thankyou about 20 times and touched it like it was gold. When she put it on, she just stared at herself in the mirror. This morning she asked me to wake her up early and put a braid in her hair, like Jessie, with a yellow ribbon. Here's my little Jessie at the rodeo today at school slinging a snake around.

Avery and her buddies, Chloe & Mia.

They got to see a horse demonstration, and this horse was so beautiful! I loved watching it gallop around the lawn. Here's Jessie and Bullseye.
The other day while we were playing on the driveway, Tatum asked me how to draw an Aggie. She knows how to write her own name really well now, so since aTm has letters from her name in it, I knew she could write it. So as I was helping Tatum write aTm, Avery ran and copied our idea herself, only she got the "a" and the "m" mixed up. I was going to correct her, but I thought this would be such a good "typical Aggie" picture for her if she grows up to be an Aggie one day, that I decided I really like her version better. Gig 'Em little Ags!

My sweet friends, Bethany, Devon & Jeannine, threw me a "boy" shower last weekend and it was so much fun for me! I really didn't think I needed that much because I have been given some wonderful hand-me-downs and I figured alot of the stuff I had for the girls will be fine for a boy... he won't care if he gets bathed with a pink towel or washcloth and he will never know if i use a pink burpcloth to clean up his spit or a pink blanket to cover him up occasionally. But I must admit, I didn't realize how fun it would be to have cute dinosaur, baseball and firetruck blankets, washcloths and clothes for him to wear. I am thrilled to have such adorable boy stuff to use now. When I first met these girls, Jeannine had one baby and the rest of us were pregnant with our first. So one baby between the four of us. Now, there are (almost) 16 kids between the four of us!!! As you can imagine, playdates have become a little crazier, but I feel so blessed to have these friends and for the friendships my kids have with their kids.


I have a little more than two weeks to go until my due date. I have a little over one week to go until spring break, which means I am done working for at least 6 weeks. This is one of those times when I am SOOO looking forward to the future that it is sometimes hard to enjoy the moment and the days we are in right now. But in the back of my mind is the lingering reminder that once our baby boy comes, which we are thrilled about, it will change the times and opportunities I have to do fun things with my girls. So yesterday, even though I am gigantic and every day is an effort to just find a shirt that covers me, I did something I have never done with the girls, but will definitely do again - we went to Jamba Juice after we picked Avery up from school. We ordered our smoothies and a bowl of oatmeal (I know that is weird, but their oatmeal is really good!) and we sat at a little table and we just hung out. We stayed there for so long that the lady at the counter brought us out a cut up orange to eat and offered us more oatmeal. Since there were no other customers at the time, I let Avery & Tatum go to the bathroom all by themselves... I have never done that in a public place, but they did a good job. Avery was very careful to make sure they both did "ducktails" while the other used the potty, then she lifted Tatum up to help her wash her hands when they were done. They make me very proud at how much they can do by themselves. I picture us girls 10 years from now, Avery almost 16, Tatum almost 14, Laney 12 and me about 42 (yikes!) sitting at a Jamba Juice drinking our smoothies and talking all kinds of girl talk (Brian and baby boy will have all kinds of fun boy things to do together I'm sure). I hope and pray we are all still the best of friends with each other. I feel so blessed to be a "girl mom," and while I am so very thankful for our son growing inside of me and I cannot wait to get to know him, I feel a little uneasy and nervous about how I'm going to do as a "boy mom" and how having a boy in the mix is going to change all our girl times. But God is so good to us and I believe He has created this little guy to fit perfectly into our family and He has created me as the right mama for this little man child. I can't wait!