I have very few complaints about this week, except for a general lack of sleeping that comes from later kid bedtimes due to late sunsets and pregnancy insomnia. I still feel like I can sleep for 18 hours straight if given the opportunity. I will probably feel like that for the next 2 years.

Sunday:

After church coffee hour has the best snacks (if you are 5)

Looking at this picture makes me want to bake another cake

Mother’s Day bubble bath

Monday:

Who care’s about hearing the baby when there are cars to look at?

Kissing Brutus goodnight before naps

My tree has a child infestation

Tuesday:

Merida wears cloth diapers

Linc loves selfies

**PRAISE HANDS**

Wednesday:

Wise choices

He refused to eat those fries because they are shaped like faces

One billion photos were taken

Thursday:

That’s a lighthouse you can almost see, because this is New England

Throwing rocks with friends is the best

He LOVED the sprinkler

Friday:

It turns out bouncing is more fun with friends

Seriously, Mom, can’t we get AIOs? I’m so tired of stuffing diapers.

Your weekly twinsie photo update. They’re getting so big!

Saturday:

Fun fact: bounce houses are really slippery when they get rained on

Hello Long Island!!

FINALLY planting time

Today’s weather feels like March, not May. It’s actually probably a good thing, since the warm, beachy weather was making it REALLY hard for me to keep doing boring stuff like sending the kids to school or enforcing healthy meal choices or going to piano lessons. I have a serious case of End Of The Year Mom and I’m not even sorry. Since it’s too cold for the beach today maybe I’ll actually get some laundry done instead. Maybe.

So, we’re having another boy, which means we need another boy name. This is terrible news, because we have NO boy name ideas.

These are our current boys: Evan Richard (III) and Lincoln Scott. Evan Richard is named after his father & grandfather. Lincoln was MY grandfather’s name and my uncle’s name and Scott was my father’s brother. Scott is also my soon-to-be brother-in-law’s name, although we didn’t choose it specifically for that reason. It’s just one of the ways our family manages to have plenty of people but very few names.

I have two lists at the moment. The Family Name list and the Names I Found That I Would Consider list. The family name list I’ve been keeping sort of hoping something grows on me, but they are mostly nos. There are a lot of good names we like that I feel I can’t/shouldn’t use because other people close to us have used them, but most of those aren’t full-stop-NO-WAY nos.

There are also a lot of good names we like that I feel I can’t/shouldn’t use because other people close to us have used them, but most of those aren’t full-stop-NO-WAY nos. The definite nos are: Ethan, Carter, Zane, Zachary, Alexander, and whatever my sister-in-law uses when she has her baby in July.

(Sidebar: what’s your feeling on off limit names? If we have a local friend we see at least monthly who has a child named Bob but Bob is 7 years old, that’s still OK, right? But if we have a local friend who has a child named Fred, we see Fred on a weekly basis, and Fred is only 1, that’s probably too close, yes? HOW CLOSE makes a name unusable, is the question.)

Family Names (mostly from my very Scandanavian family, in case that’s not incredibly clear):
William (my father)
Charles (father/brother/uncle’s middle name)
Andrew (brother/brother-in-law’s name)
Newell (E’s grandfather)
Lawrence
Paul
Olaf
Halvar
Oskar
Johan
Lars
Carl
Joel
Eric
Ruben
Rickard
Mathias
Gunnar
Anton
Martin
Gideon
Thayer
Ralph
Burton
Elias
Mason
Jason
Jacob
Arthur
Nathan

Names I Found That I Would Consider (my feelings on these change almost daily):
Asher
Griffin
Hudson
Beckett
Caspian
Sullivan
Phineas
Dash
Noah
Henry
Oliver
Wesley
Max

Oh wait, I forgot a list. This is the Things The Children Want To Name The Baby List:
Rocket
Kristof
Olaf
Baby
Kylo Ren
Ben Kenobi

So basically my family uses obscure, terrible names and my personal list all falls into the “dog or child?” category. I am still hoping I will stumble across something that makes me feel very strongly, but I’m sort of afraid that’s never going to happen and we’ll just settle. That’s ok though, right? You would think after named three children this would be EASIER instead of harder.

All name discussions, vetos, opinions and suggestions are welcome. PLEASE HELP US.

p.s. Caroline’s middle name is Noelle, if that helps. So the sibling set will be Evan, Caroline, Lincoln and ________. Caroline is named after my sister and my mother-in-law (Carolyn/Carol) as well as maybe a tiiiiiny bit after Caroline Ingalls and Princess Caroline and Caroline Kennedy. But it’s mostly family-based. So something at least family INSPIRED for this baby would be nice.

We actually found out we were having a boy a looooooooooong time ago. I had some extra genetic testing done around 12 weeks because my first tests were “borderline”. That testing includes the option to find out if it’s a boy or a girl. As much as I loved being surprised when Linc was born (I also REALLY loved not having to have the following conversations with a million people: Are you happy it’s a boy? Do you have a name? Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll have a girl next time. Well you can always try again…) I felt strongly that I wanted to find out this time. Partly because I was expecting it to be a girl and I didn’t want to go through my whole pregnancy convinced I was right and have to deal with my feelings when I was already dealing with birth hormones, and partly because if it WAS a boy I could get rid of a TON of girl clothes. Also, I already have 3 kids and I’m pretty busy on a regular basis. I am definitely not spending a ton of time sitting quietly and deeply connecting to the new life I’m growing. Knowing it’s a boy and thinking of him as a HIM has definitely helped me feel more in touch with this baby.

Also, we have NO BOY NAMES, so it’s good we have so much time to think about it. All suggestions welcome.

Please note: Evan is not actually sad it is a boy. After the video, he started laughing and said “I was just kidding. As long as Caroline doesn’t get to be the boss of me.”

More photos from our reveal (plus some fun in the orchard):

p.s. Don’t you love my orchard? It’s FULL of treasures.

During spring break this year, we – the whole circus that is my family – got to spend a super fun day at Foxwoods. They always do a ton of kid activities for spring vacation and this year I was lucky enough to be invited to a special blogger day that included visiting the Treehouse Arcade, seeing Clifford the Big Red Dog on stage and a delicious meal at California Pizza Kitchen. And there were cupcakes.

For children who only discovered video games 4 months ago and have only been to Chuck E Cheese twice in their life, my kids have an unnatural love of arcade games. They are terrible at them. Really, really bad. If E didn’t “help” a little, we would end up with a total of about 17 tickets which works out to three-fourths of a bouncy ball in the prize store. But armed with a loaded card and pointed towards the games, all three had a great time in the Treehouse Arcade.

Things I don’t love: shooting games. Things my husband and son LOOOOOOVE: shooting games.

Look, it’s Evan’s first swag bag! He was so excited they gave him a free bag he didn’t even look in it until we needed to find out cupcake coupons several hours later.

This game simulated being attacked by giant spiders. Linc did not love the spiders.

I also stick out my tongue while I am concentrating very hard.

After we turned in our (virtual) tickets for prizes (including plenty of snacks), we headed over to the Fox Theater for the Clifford Show. It was a musical, which all the kids loved, and had just enough audience participation that they stayed interested the whole time. Since the theater was full of parents with small children I didn’t even feel bad when Linc started screeching in joy when Clifford grew from a hand puppet to a giant two-person sized dog, or when he wouldn’t stay in his seat and bounced back and forth between E and I pointing frantically at the stage like, “GUYS DO YOU EVEN SEE THIS? THAT DOG IS HUGE!”

After the show, we got to meet a medium-sized Clifford at the step and repeat in the lobby. I’ll admit Evan and Caroline were a little bummed they didn’t get to meet giant Clifford, but they still enjoyed their hugs and autographed cast pictures.

Linc wasn’t quiiiiiiite sure about Clifford (although I am writing this with him sitting next to me and he’s SO EXCITED about this picture, obviously it’s a happy memory instead of a nightmare) but he didn’t completely freak out. That’s success when you’re talking about people dresses as character.

After the meet and greet, we went straight over to California Pizza Kitchen for some dinner. Back when we first moved to Connecticut, long before we had kids, E and I lived in the town right next to the casino and used to go to CPK for dinner alllllllll the time. Their hummus and warm pita is the best, the free table bread is amazing, and if we each ordered a personal pizza we had enough to take home for leftovers. But we’ve only been maybe once in the last seven years so it was a special treat to be back.

Evan and Linc ordered mac and cheese and Caroline ordered a kid pizza. Only Linc had leftovers, which we took home and Evan at for breakfast the next day (because carbs + dairy is always an appropriate breakfast). E got his favorite club pizza and I got the Thai chicken, which is the best kind. CPK was very family friendly and our waitress was quick to refill the chocolate milks, which is almost all it takes for us to enjoy a fairly peaceful meal.

After dinner we walked over to Cake by Franck to pick up our Clifford cupcakes. I could have spent much, much longer in that shop, looking at the desserts and making up reasons I definitely needed to buy ALL of them right at that moment, but the kids wanted to grab and go so we took our cake home. Well, Evan did, Caroline’s was gone by the time we hit the parking garage.

It was a lovely way to spend the day together as a family, I’m so glad E was able to come and enjoy it with us. Big thanks to the team at Foxwoods for their generosity and the invitation. When we get to do fun stuff like this I’m always super grateful that the internet is still a fun place to hang out and my blog has stayed alive for as long as it has.