Baby Bennington #4 is...

A GIRL!!! We had our 18 week ultrasound today and got to see our precious baby girl moving all over the place! The ultrasound tech checked all her measurements and organs and everything looks GREAT (including placenta, cervix, etc.) - Amen! The radiology clinic had upgraded to even fancier machines since our last ultrasound (three years ago) and this time we were even able to see her sweet little face in 3D!!! She's due to arrive in mid June - exactly one month after the triplets 3rd birthday. We are so happy and feel so very, very blessed. We are hoping for a full term, natural vbac (vaginal birth after cesarean) delivery. Please pray this stays a healthy, uneventful pregnancy...quite a different experience than our last pregnancy - in every way imaginable!

Happy New Year!

2012...wow. All of a sudden 1983 is seeming really, really retro:) This year holds a lot for us: Robert will be 34, I'll be 29, the triplets will be 3 years old already (I know, gasp!), we will celebrate 7 years of marriage, and the newest Bennington baby is due to join us in June (we find out January 17th if that little peanut is a boy or a girl!) Speaking of the baby - I think I felt the first solid kicks last night while watching a movie waiting to ring in the New Year (which didn't happen - we fell asleep way before 12:00...hey, what do you expect, I'm pregnant:)) That was a fun "first" and a nice reminder of what's to come in the new year!

As far as "resolutions" go, no dieting or exercise for me (well, at least not until after June). I'd really just like to slow down a bit and take time to focus on what's really important. I bought a daily Bible Verse calendar that the kids will enjoy ripping the daily pages off of, I'm sure, but I thought it would be fun to say the verse together each morning as a family and then try to say it to each other throughout each day. Also, I'm going to make a concerted effort to be more consistent at attending church. This year our attendance was probably at about 50% - we just seemed to either be travelling, sick, or just too exhausted from a week full of chasing toddlers around, but I want it to be a more consistent part of the kids' lives, and now that they're a little bit older, and a bit more aware of actually being at church, I think it's important to be there every Sunday (and if we're travelling - we'll visit a new church!). Today, Sunday, January 1st, was our first test: we woke up at Robert's parents' house in Sunriver and had to not only get all the kids up, bathed, dressed, and loaded in the car, but had to pack up all of our stuff (from a week of having it spread to every corner of the house) along with all of our Christmas booty. It was quite a challenge, and we ended up being 30 minutes late to church, but hey, we made it.

What does the New Year hold for you and your family? What goals, hopes, and dreams do you have for 2012?!

Family Portraits

For those of you non-facebookers (you know who you are!) here are our latest family pictures!

First Snow Day!

We woke up to a white, winter wonderland today! And of course the first thing the kids wanted to do was go outside and play in it! So without even taking off their jammies, I just piled a few extra layers, hats, and boots on top and sent them out the door:) The "fun" lasted for about 5 minutes before one by one they started to whine and cry about the cold. So, we headed back inside, pulled all the layers off, and everybody took a nice, hot bath. The rest of the day we just enjoyed from inside the house - where it's warm, dry, and for which it doesn't take an hour to get properly dressed!

Thomas the Train

So, my triplets are obsessed with Thomas the Train. Well, it's more like Oliver is obsessed and he projects that obsession onto his sisters by begging me to put on one of their Thomas the Train DVDs every morning, by dragging his Thomas the Train blanket around the house, and by carrying his little wooden Thomas the Train trains with him wherever he goes (lookout, Pooh, your days are numbered!) or ripping them out of the hands of one of his sisters should she be unfortunate enough to have indulged herself even in the thought of playing with HIS "Kah-mus" (that's Oliver speak for Thomas). I mean, the girls love Thomas, too, they just don't get as insanely excited at the DVD sounds of Thomas and his friends roaring across the tracks of Sodor. Oliver has even gotten to the point that he needs to take his little, blue, wooden Thomas train with him to bed to "cuddle" or he can't (well, won't) go to sleep. At least he doesn't try to wedge it into his mouth (yet) like he does with Pooh's arm. So a few weekends ago, I saw a train table listed on Craigslist. I drove over to see it and it was perfect. Solid wood (always go "sturdy" with three toddlers), just the right height, and with a removable activity mat for trains now...and then a white table underneath for whatever "activity" comes next in our house! I wedged that giant table into my van and then jumped back on Craigslist to find some train sets. That very same day I found a woman selling some Thomas the Train track sets and wooden trains! You should have seen the kids' faces when we went to pick that stuff up - I got in the car with a huge blue Thomas the Train box and they went NUTS. So basically, they now play at their "train table" from morning till night building different track variations and fighting over trains - and they LOVE IT.