Pillow Talk

In the evenings, I always enjoy pillow talk with all of my boys. First with Will and Luke. They are the sweetest right before bed time (sometimes super wild) and that is when we really talk about their lives. Luke seems to talk about Jesus a lot during this time so I just let him talk all he wants. Saying good night and praying with them each night is such a fond memory. The only pillow talk Westin and I have is me praying over him before I head to bed. Staring at that sweet sleeping baby is just pure joy. He is such a joy!

The hubs and I have a totally different pillow talk. Usually by bed time our phones are turned off and it is just he and I, talking about whatever is on our minds. Last night we got on the subject of winning the lottery. J is in a lottery pool at work so we do dream about what we would do if we won the lottery. We are not big, flashy people, we would never be that way with tons of money either. We simply would just live a normal life and allow our children to have a really good life. Not to mention our extended family as well! :)

This morning at work the hubs and I were emailing back and forth and again wanted to make sure each other knew that winning the lottery is more than likely never to happen. We are content with our lives right now. We are blessed to have all of the things we do have and look forward to so much more in the near future.

BUT, who ever said a little dreaming would hurt?? Do you enjoy your pillow talk? I find we learn so much more about each other each night, during our pillow talk.

Blessings!

Westin decided to come early!!

As you know, our c-section had been scheduled for April 18, 2012. That was 39 weeks and 2 days. On Tuesday April 3, 2012 at 1:15am my water broke. I was completely shocked and could not believe it was happening. That is all I could say, between crying uncontrollably. We were not prepared for him to come early, my family was not in town and all of our plans immediately were thrown out the window and before I knew it we were dropping the boys off with J's sister (Aunt Kimberly and Uncle Josh) and on our way to the hospital. 

Once we checked in the hospital around 2:30am my contractions had started and were coming every 4 minutes. I was only dialated 1 centimeter and we felt confident we could hold off on the c-section til 7am so we all could get some rest. 

Rest never came because my contractions did not stop but 7am came very fast. Before we knew it my doctor was there, reassuring me it was happening today and everything would be just fine. Since I was 37 weeks that day I was terrified something would be wrong with him. Both Will and Luke had to be evicted from my womb so I just knew Westin would be the same, that obviously was not the case.  

At 7:27am we were in the operating room starting the surgery. Here I am just chilling while Dr. Neblett does all of the work.

7:52am James "Westin" Clements was born, weighing 5 lbs 11oz. He was SO tiny but oh so healthy.  Of course just like my other boys, the first look at him and the first sound of his cry... my heart felt nothing but an overflow of pure joy. He has brought so much joy and happiness to our family. All we can do is thank the Lord for another blessing to our family.

Just like his brothers, he had to wear the Go Rebs hat... :)



Our little angel boy headed home just two days after he was born.



I cannot describe to you the feeling we have for this child. He has blessed our family and completed it as well. They had to do more work on me this time due to some female issues I've always had so it was the best option for our family to have my tubes tied, we knew it would be hard on my body to have another child. The doctor was only prepared to tie them but once he got in there he decided to go ahead and take them out. We are ok with this decision and now I feel like it was my body that could not handle being pregnant longer. I'm so thankful it waited til we were 37 weeks and Westin was healthy.

He is the sweetest child ever. He is very laid back and sleeps most of the night, only getting up 1 time at 4am each morning to eat then heads back to sleep for a little while longer. He is having some issues nursing but I do think that is almost over because the past few days he has been nursing like a champ.

My recovery has been difficult this time around. I am finally feeling so much better and much like a human again. My only concern is Westin's weight gain and I pray this Friday when we go back to the pediatrician he has continued to gain more weight. I have never held a baby this small so it is scary to me. As his Mommy it will make me feel so much better to see him get a little bit bigger, I know with time that will happen. 

Thank you for everyone that has emailed or checked in on us. We are so in love with this child and our family means so much more to us now. We feel nothing but blessed and I am still in shock that the Lord would bless our family this much. Again thank you so much and I will try to update you all soon so you can watch this peanut grow with us!!

 

37 weeks and more Randoms

• Today we are officially considered full term. Which I just found that out, I thought that you were considered full term at 38 weeks not 37, but hey I will take it!
• My weight gain has not been too bad, at 28 lbs so far and think only a few more pounds will be added til I have him. I tend to lose weight towards the end.
• His room is almost completely finished, just a few things here and there I still want to do. If he came now though it would be fine, we will get around to it.
• All of his clothes are cleaned, his car seat and all other stuff is all clean now.
• I start training my "replacement" at work this week for when I'm out. J thinks I need to stop working now and just enjoy my time but that is not me. I plan to work til I have him and I would rather it be that way. I'm not sure what I would do at home all day while the boys are at school.
• We literally cannot wait to see this little fella. He is such a blessing to our family and I can't wait to have him in our arms and love on him! He has no idea how many people are so excited to meet him!!
• My work is having a "sprinkle" for me this week. I was stunned when they even mentioned it. I mean this is my 3rd child and I think it is something you just don't do, but they insisted. It is a small lunch for the company and small gifts. That is this Thursday so that is something I'm looking forward too. After this "sprinkle" I will really know what exactly I need to go get for him. I know I don't need much at all, just really nursing supplies for me and him.
• I have been nesting for sure. Saturday I spent 4 hours cleaning this house. I think J is nesting too :), he said he's not but he sure is trying to get the yard in order before he comes. This weekend he is laying sod.. that is a huge job and I'm proud of him for having the motivation!!
• It is a joy to see Will and Luke so excited about Westin. You never know how older siblings will react when another child is brought into the world, but so far they are so excited about him getting here and they talk about him daily!
• I must say that at this time in my life I could not be happier. Everything is really together. I hate to say that in fear something will happen, but my marriage, children, family, finances, job and life in general could not be much better. It can be stressful bringing a child into the world but I'm so blessed that at this time I'm keeping it all together. At least for now! I know come 2 weeks when Westin arrives, I might be writing the complete opposite!
• Westin's birthday has been scheduled for April 18th. I can't believe in just 2 weeks and 1 day I will be a mother to 3 perfect boys. I really hope he stays in til then, I think all of my boys were very content until they were forced out of my womb!

I hope you all are having a blessed week, we will talk soon!

35 Weeks and other randoms...

• Today we are 35 weeks preggo with Weston. (I should say I, not we). We are doing great besides my swelling. It is really bad and I'm trying to drink as much water as possible to help it out. It's actually disgusting and grosses me out! I go tomorrow to get another ultrasound, as long as he is not too big, we are scheduled to deliver him on April 18, 4 weeks from tomorrow. Crazy, I can't believe we are almost to the end!
• I will post pics of his room when we are finished which hopefully will be before he arrives. All I really need to do it get curtains in and some more parts for the bedding.
• Will and Luke are getting SUPER excited! It is so nice and fun to see them helping already and even really excited about Weston. I could not love my boys more than I do right now, they make me burst with excitement.
• We have about 10 outside projects going right now. Seriously like big projects. Thankful that J is handling most of it, but I can't lie, I love getting out in the yard and working on my flower beds, so he has been trying to get me to stop, I just can't.
• No matter if I'm pregnant or not, I still have my normal routine. I'm not a girl that sits back and let's people do things for her, it actually gets on my nerves when I hear of woman doing that. I would rather do all things myself than have or ask anyone to help. I think that is J's biggest complaint about me right now, he wants to help and do things and only if it's heavy lifting do I let him do so. Life goes on, I am blessed with normal pregnancies and no major complications and I get my stuff done. He keeps to most of the outside work (besides my flower beds that look hideous right now) and I stick to the inside. I'm seriously thinking about repainting our trim before Weston arrives, J thinks I'm crazy for even trying.
• This pregnancy has been the exact same as the others... It really amazes me! Weston is so funny to us and he has not even come out yet. He has such a personality already and I can only imagine how this little boy will be once he arrives.
• We are getting so excited and will keep you all posted. I hope he cooperates tomorrow and let's us get a good picture of him... I think he might be fed up with the pictures, last 2 times he has kept his hands and feet over his face. He is already our little protestor!

Midweek Randoms

* I did not know what to call this post other than mid week randoms. It is a bunch of different topics. 

* Am I a bad mother for "grounding" the boys for the smallest little things the past 3 evenings just so we can spend quality family time together without EVERY single neighborhood kid around. We have a ball at night together and I'm enjoying it too much. I secretly think the boys enjoy it as well. It makes for a much peaceful time at the Clements home and don't think that I'm not trying to think of a way to have less play time with friends. Don't get me wrong, friends are important, but not every single day!?!? Right??  

* I need to make a post just on my Lukie. I was so worried about him starting Kindergarten this year, just because he just turned 5 in July. I'm here to tell you that little boy is so smart and I could not be more proud of him! Each night as we go over his homework, he knows it and I was honestly worried about it being difficult to him. What I do notice is he is not as confident in himself to say the answers out loud, I pray we can work with him on that. He is a smart, sweet boy!

* This past weekend the hubs and I shortly discussed putting the house on the market and moving somewhere else. In the same area, just better schools and such. Yes homeschooling has always been on my heart, but it's not possible at this moment. Our city has lost their mind with the school systems and it worries us for their future. We quickly decided at this time we are not ready to sell the house, we will stay put and next year re-evaluate. I think staying involved in your childs life is very important and teaching them at home is something we can still do even while they are in school. Adult decisions are hard most of the time!!

* We had our final garage sale EVER this past weekend. It went horribly, didn't make tons of money and just about gave things away. I told J this was it, no more. He said I said that last year too... :)

* My house is a disaster. I'm starting to get more energy and I hope that helps in this area.

* Our family relationship (J, the boys and I ) is the strongest right now it has ever been. I never want this to end and want to have my family under my wings forever!

* I can't believe I'm in my 10th week of pregnancy. Only 29.5 more to go!! ha.... seems like forever!

I hope y'all are having a great week, back to work I go!

All over the place post

This post will be kind of all around the place.

I have always (in a way) feared having "older" kids. The baby part and young child stage to me has always been easy. It is when you have to start shaping them to be the young men you / God wants them to be is what makes my hands sweat just thinking about it. It's a huge responsibility.  

To me, Will is at a critical age. He is 7, about to be 8, and he thinks he is 13. He wants to be so much bigger than he is at this time in his life. He is the sweetest child, a worrier and always concerned about others. He likes being friends with everyone. He has all different kind of friends and that is where I begin to worry. He is at the age where I can only control him at home. I am a big controller, I like to have complete control over all 3 of the men in my home. It is a weakness of mine but I'm being honest here. 

I worry for Will because I have noticed different behavior in him lately that I / we do not like. It might be normal, it might be him just trying to find his way in his world. Either way we don't like it and I try to let him know that "we don't act like that". Not to "make" him be the only way we want him to be, but it's just not appropriate for our household.

I do worry about failing the boys. I worry about not giving them enough time, attention or love. I worry about not teaching them enough about the bible and not teaching them all of the proper things. All I can do right now is my best. I do feel very close to the boys, we play every evening and have fun together. Homework is a family affair and we sit down to eat dinner together each night. Daddy does the baths mostly while I fix dinner or clean up after dinner. We both tuck them into bed and usually read stories and pray together.

I sometimes wonder if that's enough. Should I be impacting their lives in a stronger way?

With another baby coming into the family I think it has sturd up all of these feelings. I never want my children to feel like I'm too busy for them or that they can't come to me and with adding another little one I sure don't want them feeling any of these feelings. I never felt this way when I was pregnant with Luke. It was probably because Will was only 2 and he felt nothing but LOVE to us and his new baby brother.

Thanks for listening and I'm sure I'm doing a great job just because I'm doing my best and that is all I can do. It just these crazy hormones.. lol!

Hope y'all are having a blessed Wednesday!

If you have ANY suggestions on good books I can read, let me know!!

Marriage Refs...

Today I decided to link up with Kelly's Korners SYUL since it is on the ever changing, unique but also perfect topic, Marriage.

**Have y'all ever seen the show Marriage Refs, we think it is hilarious!!!!**

This past March the hubs and I celebrated 7 years of marriage. (I'm honestly pretty proud of that, thank you very much!) Marriage is the hardest thing I have ever had to constantly work on, beside raising two boys to be sweet, kind, loving, hardworking gentlemen and let them stay boys too.

The best advice we have received on marriage and it's something we have always done and agreed with is you just NEVER mention or say the word divorce. (even though my hard head has got in the way and I've thought it, we have never ever said it or even mentioned it) Times will be difficult, you will have peaks and valleys, but you just deal with them, you never allow your mind to go to the "D" word. You always know in the back of your mind that it is just not an option for us and you deal with your problems head on, together! Sure we both can be hot tempered but luckily the older we get the less often it happens. Yes I say things to get on his nerves because I know they will, yes we have arguements about topics we can't even remember afterwards. It's just reality, it's life! Once I let go of the "perfect" marriage and life expectations I had for ourselves, I was a happier person, which in return made for a happier family.

In the beginning of our marriage, everything I didn't agree on, I let him know immediately. It caused many, many arguements just trying to make him think just like myself. Finally someone told me, "sista that aint ever gonna happen"  So I stopped trying to make him the way I wanted him to be and we put the Lord first in our marriage, since then things have been so much easier. We respect each other more and more each day and we cheer each other on in life. We honestly want nothing but the best for each other and our family!

Spending time alone is so important to us. On our anniversary this year we took a quick trip together, just us. We still talk about it all the time and say it is our favorite memory together as a couple, thus far. With every day life it is easy to get into a groove or routine. This trip allowed us both to fall in love with each other again. I remember looking at him one point on our trip, saying to myself  "I remember this feeling all too well, I never want this feeling of complete love to fade away again". Not that we ever stopped loving each other before our trip, we just did not take the time to remind each other how important we are to the other.

We are so blessed to of found each other so young. I love this man, he loves me and what works for us is to just love one another, never stray away from our Lord, respect the other and pick and choose your battles.

Oh and now that kids are around, when I see my husband playing with the kids right now... it makes me love him even more than the minute before!

HE is our world!!!

Wednesday Randoms...

1. I want to say thank you to all of you that commented on my commenting problem. I put a call into blogger, hopefully they will get back to me soon! I think I might know what the problem might be, but we will see what they say. After trying to comment, it will ask me to log in again to my account, I will log in, then it will take me back to the same page, just goes on over and over again. My user name to get into blogger is not a "google / gmail" email address, so I think I must have to have a gmail account in order to make comments now, do y'all know if that will fix the problem???

2. I am SO looking forward to this weekend. Even though last night we made the decision to stay home, we have so many fun things planned. Normally we are traveling to visit my family, every year we go to Georgia on the 4th, so it is exciting for us to stay home this year, maybe start some of our own traditions. I know for sure the boys are thrilled (Mommy as well) to be going to Oxford, MS Saturday for lunch, shopping and walking around campus.

3. I am meeting a young girl this week to see about her keeping the boys a few days a week. We have NEVER used a baby sitter, I have been blessed with helpful parents on both sides, but you know we all are getting older and I feel comfortable letting a girl I know or trust keep them some too. We will see how this goes, I pray it goes well!

4. I made Luke's kindergarten check up with our pediatrician, it makes me tear up thinking about my baby starting kindergarten. :(

5. I am only week 4 of running each night. I have not gone a few nights in these weeks and broken it up with some bike riding but so far, I'm loving the new active me!

6. I will do a book review in the next few days, I just finish 2 AWESOME books that I want to tell y'all about... Oh my I cried, laughed and got so mad all at the same time in these book.

I hope y'all are having a blessed week! Only 2 more days til the weekend!!! WAHOO!

Blog Funk... Life Funk??

I have not blogged in forever and it's just because I needed a break from blogging, facebooking, caring about what others where up too. This is me just being straight up honest! :)

Blogging to me has become hard to keep up with... I considered getting rid of it all together, but then decided that I would get back into the blogging world soon. Just after I get over this life funk I'm going through!

It's nothing bad, I'm actually spending more time with my boys, my hubby and reading lots of books. Since my birthday this year, I have almost changed completely. Not purposely but changed in more ways than one. Heck I'm getting closer to 30, that's just so scary to me! lol... I have been running every morning for 3 weeks now, reading TONS of books - it is my new obsession and just trying to be a better person! Life can be hard at times, I'm trying to really figure out exactly what I want to be in life and make sure I accomplish it all... you only live life once right??

This weekend I plan to post many updates on our past adventures, we have been a busy family the past few weeks! I am even trying to get pictures together so I can give my blog a new look.

Hang in there people, my crazy stories will be back soon! Not sure if you care or not, but I know my family members that keep up with us on the blog are about to DIE for updates! :)

Hope you all are having a blessed Friday!

Spring Time Fever!

I tell you what... there's nothing like Spring! I LOVE it and to me it is the best time of the year! There's a few things I dislike though, like sickness and the weather not making up its mind! Poor Luke has been fighting something for two weeks now, first it was stomach problems, then ear infection & sinus infection, now he has this horrible chest cold but I really think it's from his sinus/allergies draining into his chest. Whatever it is makes him miserable and hopefully soon he will be back to his adorable,funny self!

I have definitely been enjoying my spring cleaning. Each day this week after work, we have been so productive! It really makes me feel good and allows me to have more time on the weekends to be with my angels instead of cleaning. We have so many things we want to accomplish and do you ever feel like it all has to be done right now? PATIENCE is something I don't think I ever learned, I'm the most impatient person I think I've ever known (and unfortunately I passed that gene down to Mister Will Clements) Anyways, we need to re~sod our front yard, I've started to get a small part of my backyard ready for veggie & fruit plants, I must finish that and I really need to get my current flower beds in order! None of this will get done this weekend and that is OK! This weekend is dedicated to celebrating this wonderful Easter Holiday! I'm so proud to be a Christian, I LOVE my Lord & Savior! I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoy our little ones while they are young, I can't wait to watch my boys in the Easter Egg Hunt tomorrow!

Love you All!

I can't believe I figured this thing out

I told myself I would never, ever join facebook, myspace, bloggers; anything to do with anyone knowing what I have going on in my life. I thought it was so high school~ish, but the older I get, the more I realize how hard it is to keep in touch with people I love dearly. It's such a sad excuse, I know, but I am proud to announce that I am a member of facebook, myspace and now blogspot~ HA! I LOVE every minute of it and feel that my life is a story and a story that I would love to tell to anyone who wants to listen! I hope you all enjoy checking up on me and my family! As a busy Mommy and Wife with a growing career; I might go awhile without posting something, but I will try my hardest to keep everyone up to date on the latest stories in our lives! Cary and I both are excited to join blogspot... while we are along on this journey called LIFE!!!