Hey Jude!

 Jude Clinton was born Wednesday, June 24 at 6:45 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 12 ounces and was 21 inches long. His due date was July 6 but I was very excited that he came early. It was the first time I have ever gone into labor on my own without having to be induced. It was very exciting being able to run around throwing things in the suitcase like I've always seen on TV shows!

We got to the hospital at 8:10 am and thought that he would make his appearance before lunch. We waited and waited. I got an epidural at 11:30 am and then we watched a NCIS marathon on TV while we waited some more. After about 10 hours of what Dr. Palmer called "piddly little contractions, " he finally made his appearance at 6:45 pm. My hand hurt from texting so much because I was supposed to be at church with my teens and had to keep sending updates to everyone about what was going on. We had a great experience at the hospital and was so thankful to have my Mama and Margaret keep the other boys while we were there. I think Mama and Maggie were more excited to see us come home from the hospital than anyone!!

Jude has been a great baby and is so soft and cuddly. I am enjoying those precious little newborn sounds, the sweet smell of his skin, the soft peach fuzz head, and being able to rock and hold him. I have found that I didn't mind so much rocking him in those dark hours of the night. I even cherished them this time. I guess I have learned that all to quickly he will be running around not wanting to be held and rocked. There is just something about holding a little baby that makes the whole world seem ok.

Summer 2009

I have been scolded because I have not updated my blog since March so I will try and do better.  Here is a little snippet of our summer.  I will give all the info about Jude next and then catch everyone up on the other boys later.  So you all will just have to take what you can get right now!!

                                         Little Cabin at the Beach:

We decided to go to Savannah in June since it wasn't too far away and we knew that we would not be going anywhere on vacation this summer. The hotels were expensive on the beach so we decided to rent a cabin for two night nights at a campground on Tybee Island. I booked it online and it sounded great- a cabin that sleeps 5-6, a pool, and a laid-back campground atmosphere. . When we pulled up to the "cabin" we all looked at each other with our mouths open wide and just started laughing. Our "cabin" was a tiny little shed that we could techincally hitch to the Expedition and pull it away with us. It was probably equivilant to a very tiny RV. The dining room was the picnic table you see out on the porch. In the picture below we are all sitting in the "living room" together. It was quite an adventure in this tiny cabin with the three boys, Maggie, Clint, and a very pregnant me!

March 2009 Update

We’re having boy #4!!!
"Sometime in the first trimester, a boy fetus begins producing male sex hormones that bathe his brain in testosterone, for the rest of his gestation. 'That exposure wires the brain differently,' says Arthur Arnold, professor of physiological science at UCLA. How? Scientists aren't exactly sure."
-Newsweek, January 30, 2005

Here are answers to the many questions we’ve been asked:

YES

• We are excited about and fine with another little ball of endless energy.
• Clint is still working on getting the bonus room finished.
• I was a little disappointed that I could not pass on my Barbie Dream House or my doll house made by my Uncle Jim (that had real shingles) and I loved playing with growing up. So it’s up to my siblings to have a little girl now!
• Four is a good number for us- we’re WAY outnumbered now!

NO

• We weren’t trying for a girl.
• We aren’t going to keep trying for a girl.
• We aren’t trying to have a football, soccer, volleyball, or baseball team
• We don’t have a name picked out yet. And when we do, we aren’t telling!

Bryce
Bryce auditioned to be in “Milledgeville’s Got Talent” back in January. He and his band (Jamie Tanner on electric guitar and Bradly Pfohl on bass) will be competing against 9 other people/groups on Friday, March 27 at 7pm in Russell Auditorium. It should be a really good show- there will be singers, dancers, rappers, a classical pianist- it’ll be fun and a great experience for Bryce.

He will be playing baseball this Spring and has already begun practicing everyday in our backyard after school. He finishes his homework, changes clothes, then tries to talk Preston into hitting and catching with him. Preston goes out for about 2 minutes then comes back in saying there are too many bees outside to practice ball. If I hear terrified screaming like there is someone stabbing his flesh, then I know that a bee is somewhere near Preston. I used to run outside with fear and horror when I heard this shrieking thinking a bone was broken or blood was gushing from some extremity but now I just know that Preston has spotted a bee.

Bryce reminds me a lot of myself when I was little. Mostly in the way that he treats Preston- he loves him but yells at him a good bit. The other day they went on an “adventure” (Bryce’s idea) to the creek beside our house all dressed in their Bible Man/Superman/Power Ranger/ Batman costumes. I heard Preston’s screams so I walked out onto the back porch to see Preston running in his too-tight Power Ranger costume with “boots” which was actually black mud all the way up to his knees. And boy did that mud stink- he just happened to get stuck in the mud where the cows like to drink so it was mud mixed with cow poop! Bryce said, “I jumped over the creek but Preston got stuck in the mud and then he just cried like a little baby and wouldn’t get out!” And did Bryce help him? Nope. Such compassion- sounded just like me years ago yelling at my brother because he couldn’t “tie his stupid shoes” or “climb a stupid fence.” I made him follow me and do things with me but got mad at him when he couldn’t do all the things I demanded. I have already apologized to him a few times so I will say again, “Sorry Ralphie!”

Preston
Preston continues to do well in school. His newest interest is Tee-Ball. He announced to us that he would like to play this year. Clint and I looked at each other knowing that it would be quite a challenge for all of us. See, Preston’s coordination is not one of his best features. Preston falls at our house at least 5 times a day for no apparent reason. He’ll be sitting at the bar and just fall off the stool onto the floor. Or he’ll just be walking through the house and boom, he’s on the floor. He also doesn’t have any kind of ambition or perseverance when it comes to exerting any kind of energy. One example is the new bike he got for Christmas. It has training wheels but you’d think it didn’t the way he falls off of it and the way he cries when he is trying to go up the slightest incline. We went to the River Walk to let them ride and I just wanted to throw that bike in the river at the end of our outing. I had to push Maddox in his stroller as well as push Preston on his bike for much of the way. The sounds that day consisted of “Mommy, (cry cry) Mommy!” and “PRESTON, pedal, use your muscles God gave you!!”

Clint and Preston went and bought all his equipment so that he could start practicing for Tee-Ball. On Saturday, Preston wanted to practice hitting off his new tee. We got out all his equipment except for his batting helmet. Preston said, “I need my helmet.” And I said, “No you don’t” but little did I know that he did need his helmet and so did the rest of us! At the end of our family practice session, Preston had not only hit himself in the head with his bat but poor little Maddox got whacked in the head with Preston’s bat as well! By the way, Preston doesn’t run after the balls- he skips, frolics, & hops as he is chasing it into the outfield.
So if you want a good laugh, you should definitely come out and see some of Preston’s games. You may want to wear a helmet!

The newest Prestonisms:

• “Daddy why do they keep cutting down all of God’s trees at the High School? We’re not going to be able to breathe!!!”
• “Dear Lord, thank you for the birds and the bees and the trees and please send the bees away to somewhere else so they won’t sting me."
• “Hey Mommy, remember one time when you ate a pig’s rib for lunch?”
• Hey, your baby smells like he has egg poopy.”
• I asked Preston to put up the puzzle that he had left unfinished on the table and he said, “But Mommy, I was waiting for God to finish it.”
• Bryce asked Preston why he wouldn't hug him when he saw him in the school lunchroom and Preston said, "Because I don't like your spiky hair!"
• "Dear Lord, please help Maddox's breath to not smell like poopy anymore."

Maddox
Maddox turned 2 on February 8. He was peeling icing off the cake and eating it as we were singing to him. Now any time he sees a candle burning he exclaims, “Birthday!” He is the parrot of the house, repeating anything anyone says. Nothing is missed by Maddox- whatever we do, he must do. I was at Bath & Body Works the other day trying out lotion and he demanded to try everything I was trying. If I rubbed lotion on my hands, then I had to put it on his hands as well. If the big boys are climbing a tree then you can bet he’s going to be trying his best to get up that tree any way he can. He insists on practicing baseball with his brothers and can actually hit off the tee pretty well.

Maddox has begun to use incomplete sentences like "Preston head." Which means "Preston hit me in the head with the bat." His most used words are typical 2 year old favorites- "no" and "stop." He still enjoys dancing and every Wednesday night dances in the aisles at church when the youth praise band plays. He has become quite picky about his music and is now very demanding in the car when it comes to songs. If he doesn't like what is on the radio he starts hollering, "Song, uh song." Which translates to "I want a new song, I don't like this one" or " This news is boring, I want music." It's been fun watching him continue to develop into his own little person.

And if you haven't seen him recently, his drooling problem is much better. He had his adenoids out in January. They were enlarged which made it difficult for him to breathe through his nose so he always breathed through his mouth instead. So his mouth, therefore, was always open with drool coming out at all times and soaking all his shirts. Then his shirts would sour because of the wetness. Yuck! The surgery went well, but his breath smelled like a dirty diaper for a week. (That's where Preston's quote came from.)

To conclude this post I do want to say one more time for those of you who insist that we "keep trying for a girl" and want us to keep populating the earth with more offspring- "NO chance!!" I would like to leave you with a conversation the other day that helped in the decision making process:
Bryce- "Mommy, what are those purple things on your belly?"
Me- "Those are called stretch marks. That is what you, Preston, and Maddox did to my body so you all need to tell me you are sorry for those."
Bryce- "We're sorry- but we didn't know we did it!"

We love our boys! They stretch us, keep us busy, make us laugh, cry, & want to strangle ourselves sometimes... life is never dull. We thank God for them and thank God for our wonderful friends and family that help us chase them around (especially WyWy & KK running after Maddox), encourage them, and help us keep pointing them towards being young men of God. The Joy is In The Journey!!

Merry Christmas!!

December Update
Well, the biggest news we have is that we are expecting baby #4 in early July. The boys are very excited. The reaction from everyone else has been: "WHAT???" "Congratulations" "How did that happen?" Most people are hoping for a girl for us but we will be happy with either. Personally, I have gotten used to boys and another one would be just fine with me. I'm not sure I would know how to fix a little girl's hair. With the boys, I just slap on some water and run a brush through it and they're ready to go.

I have decided that Kids First Pediatrics should just draft our checking account each month because we have been in the Doctor's office every other week since school started. Ear Infections, Sinus infections, Strep Throat... oh, my! Maddox is going to have to get tubes in his ears and his adenoids taken out in January. The enlarged adenoids would explain why he is a mouth breather, drools constantly, and sounds like Darth Vader while sleeping.

For Fall Break in October we went to Cherokee, NC and then on to Gatlinburg, TN for a few days. When we left, Preston was recovering from Strep Throat and by the time we got back home Maddox had it. We went to the Dixie Stampede to eat supper one night. It was full of horses, big hair, big dresses, food you eat with your hands, and lots of red, white, and blue. It was quite an experience... yee-haw!

Clint was busy until late November with football season. The Baldwin Braves were undefeated this season and were just two games away from the Georgia Dome when they lost. The Jazz Band is playing on a Carnival Cruise Ship to Cozumel and Grand Cayman during Spring Break. I will not be able to go because they will not allow pregnant women that are past 21 weeks on the ship. And I doubt I could sneak by because I'm always really large when I'm pregnant! Clint is also working on finishing our bonus room above the garage so we can move the computer and office stuff in there to free up a room for the new baby. If anyone wants to drop by and help out I'm sure he'd love some help and company!

Bryce is doing well in school and is still playing drums every week for our Church Service. He spends most of his free time listening to music and playing with Preston. Then they spend their time trying to keep Maddox from destroying all their toys. One phrase I hear many times a week, "AHHHH!! MADDOX!!!!"- then a door quickly closing. Bryce is a good big brother and a good little worker. He and Preston enjoyed the Spring weather this past week by playing in the creek every day after school. The next project I hope to give Clint is building an outdoor shower so I can get the mud off the boys before they come in my semi-clean house.

Preston is enjoying Kindergarten. Every night he prays for his teachers, Mrs. Wood and Ms. Hamilton. He was awarded "Student of the Month" for September. When I asked him what he did to get the award he replied, "I was quiet." He was in a Thanksgiving play at school and did a wonderful job. He was very expressive and the audience could hear him. One thing I spend most of my time saying to Preston is, "SHHHHH! Please don't yell at me. Use your inside voice."
A few new Preston quotes:

• "Bryce, remember when Maddox was born and we looked on his belly button and it had a tag on it?" (11/2008)
• "Mommy where is the fire? Aren't we in the Smokey Mountains? So where is the fire that is supposed to be on top of the mountains? (10/2008)
• "This is God's bathtub. Nobody can take a bath in it except for God!" (talking about the baptistry at church- 12/2008)
• "Mrs. Wood! The toilet is sneezing!" (talking about the urinal at school)
• "The toilet smells like bacon!" (evidently he has a fascination with the urinals at school- I guess the toilet could smell like worse things)

Maddox is quickly approaching two and is our little tornado. He will play with toys for about a minute but prefers toilets, cabinets, and anything messy. He walks around the kitchen counters with his hands up grabbing for anything within reach (kinda like E.T.). One day after Thanksgiving he got quiet so I sent Clint looking for him. He was in the kitchen, had pulled the pumpkin pie off the counter and was eating it with a fork.
On one of our frequent trips to the doctor, Preston threw-up in the exam room. Maddox witnessed the whole thing, so not to be outdone, he started spitting all over the floor from his stroller. Later at my Mom's house, she came in and asked, "Who taught Maddox to spit in the toilet?" And I explained to her that when Preston was sick, I ran with him to the toilet with Maddox on my hip and instructed Preston to throw-up in the toilet. So Maddox decided that he needed to do the same.

Another favorite past time is putting my underwear over his head and around his neck like necklaces. He also likes to carry around bags and purses- but he does like to put Matchbox cars in them. My Mom says he needs to spend more time with his Daddy after witnessing him pretending to put on lipstick. He is a very friendly child and loves babies, other children, and especially little girls. He keeps us running and laughing all the time!

Merry Christmas!!!! May it be filled with much love and laughter!!

What's New With the Boys

Bryce started second grade August 4. He seems to be enjoying school and has even stopped complaining about wearing uniforms. He usually breezes through his Math homework, is very good at Spelling, but doesn't like Reading so much.

Bryce loves to eat school lunch. I make Preston's lunch everyday but Bryce asks to eat school lunch! I asked him the other day if he has been saying a blessing before he eats and he said he did. This is a conversation he told me about at lunch one day after he had bowed his head to say a blessing:
"Whatcha' you doin', Bryce?"(Bryce's friend at lunch)
"I'm praying" (Bryce)
"You don't have to do that." (friend)
"But I'm a Christian so I do!" (Bryce)


Preston started Kindergarten this year. He is learning to write his name which has brought many tears during homework time. He is really struggling with the "s" in Preston but we're working on it!

Some new quotes from Preston:

• Jesus is going to come back to life at our Easter Egg Hunt!"
• "Mommy, why did you choose to live here In Georgia? I wanted to live in North Dakota where it snows!" -Preston (8-08)
• "Pull my fingers and tell me which one is your favorite!" (to his little friends Eliana & Bekah)
• "Maddox has tiny feet but a sure big head!" - (July '08)"
• Mommy, did you get these shells from the beach?" (while we were eating Velveeta Shells & Cheese)
• My favorite vegetable is meat!!!
• Braedon has the chicken pops. Maybe a chicken popped him!!
• While we were camping, I was talking to my Mom on the phone asking her to check the doppler radar to find out when it would stop raining. When I hung up Preston asked, "Was that God?"
• "You smell like meat! My friend Gus smells like syrup!"
  

Maddox is our dancing chef. He loves to dance and play with kitchen utensils. His other favorite past times are eating crayons, looking at books, putting on Bryce & Preston's crocks and tromping through the house. Maddox loves any kind of animal, especially dogs and cows. When he sees a dog he will chase it saying, "puppy, puppy" and willl not leave it alone until the dog finally runs and hides. Then Maddox will hunt it down, stand at the hiding place calling it in a high pitched voice. Dogs now run when they see him coming.

If you haven't been around Maddox lately, I must tell you about a serious problem that he has- drooling. I have to change his shirt 3 times a day because it gets soaked. And I do not mean a little damp but dripping wet!! We kept thinking it was teething. But I think it was my Mom who had an epiphany one day while looking at him all wet and slimy-- he never closes his mouth! His bottom lip just sticks out like Bubba in the Forest Gump movie. And slobber is just always dripping, dribbling, rolling down that fat little lip. So we're all hoping that he will one day learn to swallow or his high school years will be full of teasing and no girl will want such a big, fat, juicy, slimy kiss. Maybe that's good for us, right?

He's such a joy to us all! Here is a little clip of the drooling and dancing for all to enjoy:

Crusin' the Caribbean

Clint and I went (without the boys) on a cruise to The Grand Cayman Islands and Cozumel, Mexico at the end of June. It was beautiful and we had a great time.
Here are my favorite things about the cruise:
* I got to sleep late. No one was at my bed bed saying "I want breakfast" at 6:30 in
the morning.
* I got to watch tv.
* I didn't have to cook.
* I didn't have to do dishes.
* I didn't have to make my bed.
* There were chocolates on my pillow everynight.
* There were desserts after every meal!
* We got to swim and snorkel in the beautiful waters of the Caribbean!
* Riding a "mini-jeep" at 40 mph with no windshield!
* I got to spend time getting to know my husband again!!

It was a great trip. I recommend to all couples to take some time, whether it be a weekend or a week, to go somewhere together to get away from the "dailiness" of life for a bit and rememeber again why you love the person you married!! Here are a few pictures:

My Summer of Adventure- Costa Rica

So this summer has been an extremely busy one for me! I flew out of Atlanta, along with my sister, Margaret and friend, Christie, on June 3 headed for Costa Rica. When we arrived in San Jose we made up our minds that when we stepped outside the airport doors that we would pretend to be confident and know what we were doing so that no one would think we were dumb tourists. We stepped out the door into a lightly falling rain and the first thing we saw was a teenage prostitute fondling and kissing all over this big, round, ugly, white American. All our jaws dropped then and there and our cover was immediately blown!! Ralph, my brother, then appeared to pick us up and while we were waiting on our ride he explained that prostitution is legal in Costa Rica.

Ralph's House
We got to stay in Ralph's little "shed-house" as we called it, which was very cute, simple and very Ralph-like. He has a rabbit, Pepo, that hops around freely like a cat and is even house trained to poop on a newspaper. It also likes to chew things at all hours of the night, making lots of rabbitty chewing noises that made us want to put him in a stew. There is a guard booth right around the corner from Ralph's house so I felt pretty safe for the 2 nights we were there. But then I started wondering if I should feel safe since someone felt it was necessary to have guard booths all around the area. When we went to visit the college where Ralph teaches, there was a guard standing in front of the school with a machine gun! I wanted to take a picture but Ralph didn't think it was a good idea. At every door of the college there were armed guards. So I started wondering if I should have brought one of my Daddy's guns for our own protection?!? Ralph kept telling us that the rest of Costa Rica is much prettier and safer than the San Jose area- and we soon found out he was right!

Traveling
One of Ralph's former students, Steven, owns a tour company so we paid he and his wife, Monica, to take us all over Costa Rica in their tour van. We went to La Fortuna which is a town at the bottom of an active volcano, Arenal. We got to see the volcano spewing red-hot lava at night- it was so cool to see in real life what I have watched on TV and read about in books all my life! The next day we went up a nearby mountain & came back down on 20 different zip-lines over the canopy of the rain forest- it was beautiful! We got to swim in a hot river. It looked just like a mountain river in North Georgia but it felt like hot bathwater- it was a strange feeling to be swimming in a hot mountain stream. We went to the beach on the Pacific Ocean which was very pretty and we all stayed in a hotel by the beach with no air-conditioning- HOT!!The last day in Costa Rica we went to see another Volcano- Poas which is not active. It stands at an altitude of 2708 meters (8,200 feet) above sea level. One of the craters measures 1.5 kilometers in diameter (0.9 miles) and is 300 meters deep (900 feet). At the bottom of this hole, there is a medium sized lagoon, that spews boiling sulphurous gases. We actually got to look down into the crater of the volcano!!!! So as we gazed into this massive crater, the smell of eggs was all around us. but it was worth it to see such a sight!! The only thing that would have made it better was if we could have zip-lined from one side of the crater to the other! Words just can't describe how amazing it was looking into the crater of a volcano!

My Companion, Camphylobacter- While at the airport in line for our flight home, I started feeling feverish so I took some Tylenol. The last 30 minutes of our flight I started feeling really bad, shaking uncontrollably, and crying (cause that's what I do when I feel bad). When we finally landed in Charlotte and got off the plane I took some more Tylenol and sat down while Christie and Maggie got our bags. An airline lady came by, ordered a wheelchair for me and suggested I get some medics to check me out. After some discussion I told her that would be fine and so in a matter of minutes I was surrounded by about 10 people all discussing my blood pressure, heart rate, and bodily functions and whether they were going to let me on the plane to Atlanta. They finally agreed to let me fly but then our plane was delayed and I began to feel worse. By the time our plane finally arrived, I felt like I could not sit in a seat all the way to Atlanta & was convinced I had some weird disease and would die on the way to Atlanta like all the medics & & airline people seemed to believe. So Maggie called Clint to come get us and we went to the hospital where they gave me antibiotics, fluid, and a nice bed (but poor Maggie had to make a bed from 2 chairs). Around 3 am, they kicked us out of the room and we had to sit in the waiting room and wait for Clint. Along with us was a man who kept asking for cigarettes, and 3 men dressed in hospital gowns that kept staring at us. Around 4 or 4:30 Clint drove up- our knight in shining white Expedition- and I have NEVER been so glad to see someone in my whole life!! He drove us back to My Mom's house until Dr. Garnto confirmed it was Camphylobacteriosis (which is a bacteria similar to Salmonella) and I finally got to go home on Tuesday night, June 10. I stayed sick and puny for another week. I had to leave the next Monday for a Christ In Youth Conference in Savannah and I really didn't feel better until that next Wednesday in Savannah. But even though I got sick, the trip was definitely worth it! I recommend it to everyone, although you might want to take a few suitcases full of food along with you so you won't bring home an unwanted bacterial companion! I'll fill you all in on Savannah and our cruise next so stay posted... I know it will be difficult waiting, but just try to be patient.....

Amy