I'm still here and I have NEWS!

I'm still alive!  I apologize to the 3 people who are probably still checking this (mom)- my goal is to blog once a week. Ha! I have never been such a slacker since I started the blogging in 2008.  We have had some exciting developments in the meantime. 

I'd like you to meet our new family members...

We are now a mini van family!

  At the end of January Matt talked me into a new 2013 Honda Odyssey.  I didn't think we'd ever own a new car, but it is really nice.  It's amazing how smooth it drives, how everything actually works, and how it smells nice and new instead of like goldfish crackers.  Up until now all 3 of our previous cars combined were way cheaper than this baby- but we're hoping to have it for many years and miles.  It makes me a little nervous to drive such a nice car.  We looked into a Honda Pilot before the twins were born but we weren't planning on jumping up to 3 kids so quickly, so we weren't ready for that much of a car purchase. We were able to buy a Mercury Grand Marquis from Matt's grandma for less than our tax return that has worked well for us.  It is starting to have more problems and we didn't think it could handle any longer trips (assuming I can talk Matt into some of those).  While a mini van might not be the coolest car, it is so nice the kids can climb in and out easily and the automatic doors alone are worth it. We never off-road or haul trailers to make an SUV worth the extra gas money or expense to buy it.  The rear back-up camera and the blue tooth for our phones are some of my favorite features.  We've never named a car before but I'll take recommendations.

After introducing the mini van I'm not sure I even need to say this next part.

Coming August 2013...

Baby Whitmer #4!!!

Why else do you buy a mini van?  Matt bought it before we were telling people were were pregnant- so I got lots of questions.

I always get a case of after Christmas-I-don't-feel-like-blogging-blues, combined with 2-3 weeks of being so tired and sick I spent most of the day on the couch, and we've had company every other week or more. My laundry was out of control, the sink was overflowing (and that is saying something with the new HUGE sink), and my kids were going crazy because there was no way I had enough energy to do an outing that wasn't absolutely necessary. So the blog got neglected. It felt a lot like January of 2010; when I was expecting the twins.  I'm not gonna lie, I started to get a little bit worried it might be twins again.  I was hardly sick with Charlotte, I taught school all day- I remember being tired, but not like this.  The odds of having fraternal twins again naturally is 4 times greater once you've already had a set- so roughly 1 in 12- the odds were still in my favor, right?  As much as I have loved having my twins, it was a relief to see only one baby blob in there. Each pregnancy really is different- I took the nausea, super-human sense of smell, and exhaustion as a sign baby was growing well.  The hard part about 1st trimester is you're so tired and sick but no one knows to help you!  

 The perk of waiting so long to put it up on the blog- I'm 17 weeks now- so I have my big ultrasound on Thursday.  I tried to talk Matt into waiting to be surprised about the gender since we already have girls and a boy so we're all set on stuff- but he doesn't think we'd ever be able to pick a name if we couldn't narrow it down.  He's probably right.  I'm not sure I could wait either.
So make your guesses on the sidebar before Thursday afternoon>>>>>>>>>
 I'll try to get around to blogging about the gender before the baby is born!