may update

It's a little hard to capture the excitement that surrounds the birth of a child... the miracle of new life... especially when you've barely had time to process it, because as anyone with a 3rd child knows... life goes on all too quickly. There are not quite as many lazy moments savoring the haze that is the month after you have a baby... soccer practice, gymnastics, school, work, all must go on....
As most of you know, our little man, Zachary, was born on April 7th... 6 days after Madison turned 6 and 5 days before I turned 29 (again) ha ha!!! He was very healthy and the scheduled c-section went well... the recovery proved to be a little harder for me... maybe because it was my 3rd c-section, maybe because my body was a little older??? In any event, my body took longer to recover and my emotions were up and down...
I basically feel normal again now... with a few tiny extra inches around my belly and some extra poundage on the hips... (yuck)
My days are the routine of nursing, nursing, and oh yeah, more nursing!
Macie is staying home with me while Madison is at kindergarten and they are both a blessing to me. The newness of brother has not worn off, they both delight in holding him and are always willing to run get a diaper or a burp cloth, or the all important pacifier (my first baby to ever take pacifier!) Steve started a new job 1 day (yes, you heard me) before Zachary got here, so he has had little time to stop and smell the roses. He is thankful to have a job and making sure he's doing a good job in light of all the lay offs going around.
I am planning to be off work for at least the entirety of Madison's summer break, and then we will reconsider financially if I can stay home. If this house would ever sell, it would help!!!
I have included pictures in order of:
our new dining room - we decided to dump the toy room for staging purposes (as if that may actually sell the house!!! my nursing time is often spent watching HGTV!!)
us saying goodbye to our pug, Harley... who we had to put to sleep last weekend, life was just getting too hard for him... :(
two pics of us on Memorial day weekend at an outdoor concert
the girls bathing Zachary
Zach on mother's day
Madison loving on Zachary
Macie holding a napping baby
Zachary's first bath
Macie, Zach, and Madison on Easter morning (5 days old)... he is still a little jaundice... We actually did make it to church!!!

of course there are millions more pictures to share... I get crazy with the camera, but it takes so darn long to upload them!!!
love to you all, the Whiddons!

Zachary's room!

Well, with about 6 weeks to go... Zach finally gets a room of his own! I've been pretty slow with getting things ready for him... partly maybe because of the 3rd baby syndrome, and partly because I was secretly trying to hold off moving out our guest room furniture, thinking maybe we'd sell the house in time... but... here we are...!
Steve has been very interested in this boy's room of his... I don't quite remember having him care at all about what fabric I used in the girls' rooms! Anyway, he had the idea to do sort of a safari theme...
My mom and step-dad came up last weekend and we sewed all the bedding and repainted the furniture. Steve and I moved it all in yesterday and hung some pics today... so I thought I'd share! Can't wait to meet the little guy!

Christmas, etc

The last few months in the Whiddon house have been sort of a packed routine of long hours working, keeping up with the girls' school, trying to keep my house immaculate to get it sold, growing a baby, and of course trying to focus on the blessings of life vs. the constant barrage of negatives we get from the world. I figured I'd post a few pics of the past few months, especially from Christmas! I ended up being so sick on Christmas day, that I barely took any pics (which if you know me, is VERY unusual!!!)
the pics are of:
madison's soccer picture (she ended up loving soccer and scoring 5 goals in the last game!!!)
a picture from Halloween (they were ballerinas)
a couple pics from historic Williamsburg, VA at Thanksgiving
a few Christmas pics
and a semi-recent belly pic of little Zachary (about 4 weeks ago)
I'm 32 weeks now and have a scheduled c-section on April 7th!

Wheels...

Hi! I know it's been a while since I've updated my post, but seeing as I can't sleep anyway, I thought I might as well share some pics of our pug Harley in his new wheels! He has gradually become paralyzed in his hind legs over the past 3 months, to the point where he finally couldn't walk at all. It was very sad and especially sad to see his little tail hanging down all the time ( a pug's tail is usually always curled up). Anyway, he seemed to still be enjoying spending time with us and eating, so we couldn't bear the alternative... so we ordered him some wheels! It took him about 5 minutes to get used to them and now he is cruising all around... he can go through the grass and down small steps and curbs without any problems! We still love our little old man!