The story of March (up to this point) has been playing outside and enjoying our yard. We bought our house for the yard, and we love it. The kids have been running it. While I worry about weeding and treating the grass, they are busy chasing soccer balls, digging for worms, and putting in some major sandbox time. Harper and Roman are testing their boundaries and will announce “hey, we’re going over to Peyton and Parker’s house!” I usually scramble and follow them, but they wish that I wouldn’t. Ada mostly wears nothing but a diaper. She’s my little naked one, showing some early athletic prowess with her keen ability to kick a soccer ball. She also likes to use a baseball bat as a hockey stick. I assure you, she isn’t learning these skills from me!

Naked baby showing off her muscles:

This week marks the halfway point in my fourth pregnancy – I can hardly believe we’re already halfway there! The past few months have been such a blur, with the basement renovation, two weeks devoted to the flu (seriously people, get the flu shot) and other busy life events that make the days fly by. Other than the flu episode, I’ve been feeling pretty good. My appetite is on and off. Some days I just eat all day, and other days I don’t want much of anything. I’m still not that into sweets or deserts, which if you know me well, is highly unusual. Things that sound good to me are some nice garlicky pasta with lots of tomatoes and basil, pico de gallo, and coleslaw. Yes, I love coleslaw (the mayo version). Occasionally I’ll get a hankering for some sort of sour candy, but it never satisfies me the way I expect it to.

People are constantly telling me that I look tiny for a 5-month pregnant person. I’m not big to begin with, and I don’t gain that much during my pregnancies. I AM starting to show a lot more, but it’s all belly (and boobs and butt, if you ask Portman). I think I’ve gained about 6 or 7 pounds so far. I’m sure I will start to pack on some more soon! So far my pregnancy high is with Harper (24 pounds) and my lows with Roman and Ada (tied at 19 pounds). I’m expecting this one to fall somewhere in there.

If you’re starting to hate me right now, don’t worry it’s not all fun and games and cute pregnancy clothes over here. Like I did with Roman and Ada, I have some horribly painful (and unsightly) varicose veins cropping up on my legs. Painful to the point that I have to pull on a pair of super tight thigh-high compression stockings every morning before I get out of bed. If I don’t wear them, I find myself barely able to stand up halfway through the day! So if you see me wearing sweatpants in July, that’s why. It’s going to be a long, hot summer in those things, but it’s better than the alternative. The veins went away completely as soon as the last two babies were born, so I’m hoping for the same scenario here. Needless to say, the stockings are one of my main motivations for this to be my last pregnancy!

I had my 20-week sonogram at the end of last week. We didn’t find out the gender, although I’m still leaning towards boy. The baby is happy and healthy and growing strong in there, and the radiologist commented that he or she is very active. I insisted that I already have two of those, and could I please just have another Roman? He was (and is) so easy going, and I could really use another one! The radiologist calculated the due date as August 16th, but I’m optimistic that it will be earlier than that since Ada was induced early (and was well over 8 pounds). Either way, I’m gearing up for a summer of floating in the pool to take the edge off!

Our scanner is still broken, so here’s a photo of a photo of Baby #4 sucking on his/her hand:

In terms of preparations, we don’t have much to do. Minivan: check, baby clothes: check, diapers: cloth and check. The baby will get Ada’s old nursery, which is not much to speak of at the moment. The crib is in the girls’ room, the dresser was moved to the girls room, so all that’s in there is a glider and a shelf! We plan on getting the girls a big dresser, moving the baby dresser back into the nursery, and at some point getting Ada out of the crib. If she decides she won’t give it up, we are hoping to borrow one for a few months until she is ready, or just keep the baby in a pack n play. I’m definitely feeling some nesting instincts, but am barely concerned about getting the nursery ready. Since it’s the 4th time around, I know now that babies don’t need much, and they certainly don’t need a well-stocked nursery, at least not for the first few months!

Last Tuesday we took the kids on our annual Cherry Blossom picnic. It ended up being an absolutely gorgeous day, and I still can’t believe that we saw the Cherry Blossoms at peak-bloom in mid march wearing summer clothes! Every other year we have been bundled up and freezing! Daddy picked up Marvelous Market, and we picnicked in our favorite “secret spot” by the monument to the first Cherry Blossom tree. We had the place nearly to ourselves and saw some gorgeous, gorgeous trees. My favorite images, forever etched in my memory, are of Harper dancing under a tree that was “raining” blossoms, and Ada running around barefoot in the grass and teetering precariously on the edge of the Tidal Basin. Portman was terrified that she would fall in, but I kept telling him that it’s only 12 inches deep – we could easily retrieve her! Not that I want her to fall in, but I’m just sayin’.

I’m a fan of Pinterest, but until this activity, I hadn’t actually done any of the cool things that I’ve pinned. This was too easy to pass up. I literally saw it on Pinterest, pinned it, then got off the couch and went down to the basement to do it.

First I got a large, shallow toy storage container (happens to be from Ikea, but any would do), dumped out the toys and rinsed it. Then I filled it with about 4 inches of water and spread a bunch of plastic dinosaurs and lizards in it at random. I made a spot for it in the basement freezer, stuck it in there, and rearranged the dinos (they slid around when I was moving the container.) The next morning it was ready!

This activity happened to coincide with a particularly busy weekend. I had a bunch of errands to run, and Daddy had a backlog of around-the-house projects to accomplish, including fixing the kids’ sandbox (every year the roof breaks and he has to fix it.) It was nearly 80 degrees outside, and diggin’ for dinos literally gave us 1.5 hours of time to accomplish all of our work, while the kids worked as a team to free the poor frozen dinos. It was awesome!

I wasn’t home when Daddy started the activity, so don’t judge me for the table knives that he gave them to use as “tools!” They ultimately resorted to using water from the hose to loosen the ice, then forks to free the dinosaurs.

The ice block before the excavation started:

Did I mention that Harper dressed in a tiger costume and a pink feather boa for the occasion? Also she drew whiskers on her face. Then she got hot and stripped off the top. Classy, Harper. Classy.

My ragga-muffin filling up cups from the hose:

That night we let the big kids fall asleep together in our bed. We found them nearly on top of each other sleeping so peacefully, but the camera flash made them flinch:

Spring has sprung a month early in Northern VA! We’ve had over a week of temps in the 70s and 80s and it has been glorious. We’ve been outside as much as possible, especially on those hot summer-like days, and we’ve got the yard all cleaned up and ready for spring. Flowers are blooming, grass is starting to green up, and everyone is in a better mood from all the vitamin D. We’ve brought out the water table for the season, filled up the sandbox, and added a tire swing in place of the baby swing. Needless to say, it has been such a nice treat!

Ada gets wet and dirty quickly when she’s outside, and she doesn’t like to wear wet clothes, so most of the time she ends up in a diaper. She loves her naked time. And also she will only wear Crocs, but immediately takes them off (in places like Target and Home Depot). I’m trying to find the perfect pair of summer shoes for her that she likes but can’t get off!

We’ve also been eating outside as much as possible. My kids are NOT neat eaters, and I absolutely hate the mealtime ritual of cleaning food off the floor. I often wish we had a dog just for mealtimes so that I wouldn’t have to clean up! Eating outside is so easy – just hose off or sweep the deck afterwards and we’re done!

Here is Ada (23 months old) eating a mango pit, and Harper (at 28 months old) doing the exact same thing! My girls love some mango.

We’ve also moved most of the messy art projects to the little picnic table on the deck. The big kids played with finger paints after school last week, and on a different occasion Harper had the idea to use dried and live flowers as a paintbrush. She made some pretty cool patterns, and also a pretty amazing mess! They are always way too happy to get to clean off in the hose.

I took these at breakfast one morning and had to include them because Ada is seriously the cutest baby in the world. Even the big kids are always saying “aww, she’s so cute!” For real. She is. And she has some crazy hair right now. At least it’s growing!

This guy is pretty awesome too.

Harper lost her first tooth last week! She is the second kid in her preschool class to lose a tooth. It was a little scary for her at first, but she was glad to get it out since it was really bothering her. We have been reading the tooth fairy book, and we had to keep reminding her that everyone loses teeth! The tooth fairy brought her a gold dollar coin and two lollipops, and she shared one with Roman. She is really growing up!

I have been so slow to blog about the basement project. The construction finished on a Friday a few weeks ago, we had the kids’ big school fundraiser that I worked on the next day, then Portman left for a week in San Francisco the day after that. A few hours after he left, Roman came down with the full-on flu, and I caught it the next day. We were both diagnosed with Type A Influenza, which in layman’s terms means literally stuck in bed unable to do anything with a high fever and general malaise. It was miserable, and incredibly difficult with Daddy gone for the week, but we survived. Needless to say, blogging was not anywhere near the top of my priority list for the past two weeks – for a while there I could barely manage to load everyone into the car to get to a drive-thru so they could eat!

Anyway, onto the basement. The construction is done, painting is pretty much finished, and carpet is installed. We are still working on decorating and moving everything back into place, since everything was displaced during the construction. We had attic stairs installed, so the bulk of the baby clothes and Christmas decorations have been moved up there, but there is still a lot of stuff that still needs a permanent home. Right now it’s the laundry room, which you will see below is still a huge mess!

One thing we noticed during the construction was that the kids were fine without a ton of toys. We didn’t have much upstairs, and they didn’t miss their stuff. There were a few things they asked for, but in general we knew we had too much. So we got rid of a lot. We kept the “gross motor skills” toys like the slide, horse and trampoline, and a lot of Roman’s “boy stuff,” like his cars, trucks and Star Wars toys. Harper honestly doesn’t play with toys very much, but prefers to do art or play pretend, so she was on board with a lot of donations. We kept the huge doll house and some of the baby things for Ada, like the Duplo blocks, puzzles and instruments. In general, though, we wanted a lot of room in the basement for the kids to just run around, build forts, and be creative. And it has been AWESOME.

I took some pictures this morning. I had been waiting until it was clean, but honestly that is never going to happen, so this will have to do!

The “playroom side:” not much was changed in here. We had new lights installed, new carpet, and repainted all the railings and trim. When we moved back down, we took out the TV and rearranged the furniture so that there’s a lot of room to romp. The only furniture addition was a toy storage thing for Roman’s smaller toys (cars and trucks and stuff) so that he can easily see everything.

I’m working on this picture arrangement above the sofa. We had the two baby name pictures from Portman’s and my nurseries back in the 80′s, and I’m adding to that some of the kids’ artwork and some other random pictures I’ve been saving. I have a big stack of stuff that I need to frame!

The playroom “annex” has turned into a little art station for Harper as well as the play kitchen. It really opened up the playroom and makes it seem like less of a bowling alley. I still need to cover the sump pump bench thing – right now it’s a little precarious, but it does provide a nice surface for block building!

The laundry room. It’s. A. Mess. I’m working on that. The trim still needs to be painted, and right now we’re storing a lot of homeless stuff in there. For the past few days Harper and Roman have been using it as their “school,” so it gets covered in “school stuff.” It has been SO nice to have a clean floor to dump everything on!

Portman’s office/guest room. Also a huge mess. Portman is pretty much finished organizing all of the electronics stuff that he wants to keep, and his desk is in place. We moved the playroom TV into this room, and Portman uses it as an extra monitor and video monitor for work. Occasionally Roman will sit in there and quietly watch He-Man while Daddy works, but the girls cannot be trusted to do that. We ordered a bed and it gets delivered tomorrow, so guess what we’ll be doing tonight!?

 Hopefully I’ll have a final update in a week or so, if I’m lucky to have some time to work on it!

I thought these photos were so funny, and captured Ada perfectly. She is so determined to do what the big kids do, whether it be using the potty (not successfully, but at least imitating them) or doing something naughty!

I’ve been meaning to write this post for over a month now, but one thing after another has delayed my time in front of the keyboard. We are indeed expecting a fourth baby Wills this summer! We kept this one a secret for a lot longer this time, which was really hard to do since I was pregnant and super sick at Christmas. So, yeah, during that crazy Christmas we had travelling all over the place and visiting tons of family… pregnant and sick! Not the best way to spend the holidays. Mostly we kept this one a secret because we didn’t expect a very enthusiastic response from certain family members, and our expectations were spot on. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to most people, but we LOVE our kids, and we love having a big family. So to those of you judging us right now, four kids is not for everyone, but it is for us!

We took a funny video of us telling the kids, but in the craziness of the basement renovation and Portman’s office moving a hundred times, the video has gone missing. Instead, enjoy this fuzzy picture of a sonogram taken on my phone because our scanner is also broken:

But on to the good stuff. We are so, so excited to be “rounding out” our clan. We talked a ton about whether or not to have a fourth, and ultimately it came down to “you can’t ride a roller coaster as a family of 5.” Not that we ride that many roller coasters, but there are a lot of things in life that you do in pairs, and we like the idea of everyone having a buddy. That being said, this is probably going to be my last pregnancy. I’m not trying to break any records or score a reality TV show, ya’ll. We always said that four is our “perfect number,” and I really think it is.

We watched a stand-up comedy skit recently where the comedian was talking about the birth of his 4th kid. He said “people ask me all the time what it’s like to have four kids, and this is what I tell them: imagine you are drowning, and then someone hands you a baby.” That’s pretty much what we expect this to be like! We having many days now where we feel like we are drowning, but they are balanced by days that are really awesome, and those make it all worth it.

One thing that I wondered about when we just had Harper was how you divide yourself among kids. Now, I’m infinitely amazed at how love can grow by division. Our kids are challenging, but smart, fun, and full of life, and we couldn’t love them more. The other fun thing about having more and more of them is the love that they show for each other. Our house is full of hugs, kisses and kind words (on the days that it isn’t full of bickering) and it just makes me melt!

Ada turns two at the end of April, so this will be our biggest gap between kids, although not by that much. I’m optimistic that she will be potty trained before the baby is born, but if not, it won’t be the end of the world. I’ve always had an infant plus a toddler in diapers, so that I can handle. In terms of space, the girls are already sharing a room, so the baby will move into Ada’s old room (and Portman’s office of the last few months). Ada is still in our only crib, so we will need to work on getting her into a big girl bed this summer. If she isn’t ready, the baby will probably hang out in a pack n’ play for a while. One thing is certain: we are not buying any more baby equipment! Good lord, this house is bursting at the seams with baby stuff.

We had a lot of fun telling the kids, and here were their reactions:

Harper: I don’t remember exactly what she said, but she was SO excited. Big smiles, lots of questions, and demands that it be a boy (so that we have two girls and two boys). Harper is thrilled beyond words to have another baby around, and is already asking me to have six (total). Um, no.

Roman: “if it’s a boy, I hope it’s a funny gorilla named Chewbacca.” He pretty much only cares about Star Wars and Legos right now. I’m cool with that. Also, oddly enough Roman says he would like another sister.

Ada: “More cookie.” She really has a one-track mind. Of the three of them, Ada is going to have the hardest time adjusting. She very much associates with being the “baby” in the family, so we have a few more months to make her feel like a big kid!

Finally, to answer any lingering questions: no we are not finding out the gender (we would like this to be one last big surprise). I was getting strong boy vibes for a while, but now I’m not positive. It will definitely be a surprise. We are pretty sure we have names picked out, and no we are not sharing them. I was feeling horribly sick in December and January, but much better now. I have no appetite for sweets, and have been craving things like arugula salad and savory dishes. Yes, it is exhausting being pregnant and chasing after 3 other kids all day (duh?) I have no idea how much weight I’ve gained because our scale broke, but I feel like I’m constantly eating. I’m already looking forward to getting rid of my maternity clothes, which can’t be a good sign! We bought a pre-owned HondaOdyssey at the end of last year, so we are all set with the minivan. There is literally nothing that we have to buy for this baby – the beauty of having a bunch of kids!