So in grade school I had this project – I remember very clearly we had to make a collage of our “future” – where we saw ourselves as adults.  Well, apparently my wish as a 12 year old girl was to be a mom, married to the (late, sadly) Jonathan Brandis (who I had a HUGE crush on – you know, from the hit movie, “Ladybugs”, circa 1992?), driving a minivan (and not the swagger wagon of today’s standards) with my FOUR kids and all of the accoutrements we could dream up out of the JCPenney catalog. I probably have that collage somewhere, if I ever find it I will surely blast it out on every kind of social media.  Who knew that my 12 year old self had a pretty good vision as to what the future would hold?  Well, I’m obviously not married to Jonathan Brandis (although I do think I have my own version of a movie star), and I’m currently not driving a minivan (yet), and my days of cutting out the pages of the JCPenney catalog are long gone (because now I have Pinterest), but there is one truth to be found – and that’s the challenging, crazy, rewarding, amazing world of raising kids. If you read my blog you know Vann and I have been tossing around the idea of a 3rd baby for ages and ages.  There was a time when I thought, maybe, two was enough and I was good: We’re almost out of the diaper/potty-training phase and the girls are sleeping through the night (most of the time)… Ella is almost at the age where we can enjoy a meal out… I can have my body back… We’ll be a family of four and that’s…perfect. But then this voice in my heart said, no, someone is still out there, waiting to join your family.  Someone else will complete this scenario.  And so we continued to talk, pray, argue, talk some more…and ultimately decided to wait another full year. But then the voice in my heart came back and said, no, now.  And I tried to ignore it because I’d like to lose another 5 pounds… We have to buy a bigger car and not having a car payment right now is SO nice… But I’m worried about post-partum, and gestational diabetes, and recovering from a c-section… And it’s not the “perfect” time, the time we think is “perfect”… And so, back to the drawing board, prayers, conversations, time spent in major deliberation. And a decision…  And now? Well, baby makes 5 and in September, we have a new bundle of baby goodness joining our crew.  Awesome, and yet, terrifying, not gonna lie.  Last time I found out I was pregnant, I had an 18 month old.  There really weren’t conversations about the baby, just a crazy trial-by-fire when little E was born.  Now, we get to revel in this reaction: Which is, pretty darn fun.