April to lately

April was a fun month. It started off with a wedding. My brother, Vance, got married to Melissa Munafo on April 9. We drove down for the occasion. It was a quick trip, but it was fun and so nice to be at the wedding and the reception.

My mom bought Becca a wedding/Easter dress when we were down at Christmas. The dress fit the wedding colors perfectly. My new sister-in-law, Becky Tucker Green was not yet my sister-in-law at the time and she stayed with Becca during the temple ceremony. Becca loves Becky and had a lot of fun. Becky was kind enough to take pictures while outside the temple. It looks like Becca had a lot of fun.

My youngest brother, Quinton, got married to Becky Tucker two weeks later, on April 23. We were not able to travel down for this wedding, as my doctor discouraged the trip since I was two days shy of 37 weeks at the time. We heard the wedding and reception were beautiful and fun. Quinn was the last Green child to get married, so my parents are officially done with weddings. I am amazed that we had such a long gap between the first few weddings, mine in 2005, Blake in 2006, and then the remaining three in the last six months. It has been exciting to say the least.


While my family was recovering from the second April wedding, we celebrated Easter. Becca woke up to find her Easter basket on the piano bench. She had a lot of fun looking at the sidewalk chalk, sticker book, and a small bit of candy. Since we have church later in the day, we had time to dye eggs in the morning. It was a lot of fun. After dying eggs, we got ready for church. Becca wore the same dress from the wedding, but I made sure to do her hair differently to distinguish pictures from Easter from the pictures of the wedding. I think she looks so grown up. Every once in a while, between her hair and her clothes, I find that I have a little girl, instead of a baby girl. I love her so much just as she is though. She makes us laugh and is so sweet most of the time. While I remember baby Becca with fondness, toddler Becca is a delight.

She still loves to help me and copy me. She loves to go to the store and any other outing available. She is very good at helping me put items in the cart at the grocery store. She enjoys going to church and loves nursery. If she wants to see me when I'm not home, she tells me later that she "couldn't find" me. She'll even tell me where I was. "Mommy, I couldn't find you when you were at work." It's cute and sweet and makes me feel loved. She understands that I go to work and that Kyle goes to work and school. She loves it when either of us comes home and loves to spend time with us. She is getting much better at sitting still during books and it is easy to draw her in to a story I am reading. I want her to enjoy books, and it makes me so happy whenever she shows a desire to read.

Becca has recently started talking about princesses. I'm not sure what started it, possibly a talking toy camera she has that occasionally exclaims, "You're as pretty as a princess" when you push the button. At least once a day, she'll exclaim, "I'm a princess!" It typically occurs after I do her hair and she is ready for the day, or after she puts on a necklace or a headband or something. Occasionally, she'll look at me and tell me I'm a princess too. I love it. She is so fun!

I finally took a belly picture. Becca wanted to be part of the pictures too. I was 37 1/2 weeks pregnant here. I'm a little bigger now, but it's pretty accurate. I love that long sleeve shirt. It's just a maternity long sleeve shirt from Old Navy, but it is so soft and comfortable. It was the best part of being pregnant in the winter.

I am now 39 weeks pregnant and waiting for this little boy. I'm still trying to mentally prepare for another 41 week-induction so that I won't be disappointed if it happens, but I'm hoping he comes on his own before then. It would be nice to go into labor on my own, I think. I did have to buy a few more maternity shirts because most of the shirts became too short. We also bought a few more things we need/want for this new little one, so we're mostly ready. I still have to sew a receiving blanket for him, but I'm not too worried. We were blessed to receive hand-me-down clothes from some people in our ward. I finally went through the 0-3 month clothes and put them away, choosing a few to take to the hospital. He'll be in our room for the first couple of months, so I haven't had to modify any bedrooms yet. I don't have his bed ready though because we're planning to use the pack-n-play again like we did for Becca, but it is at Becca's babysitter's house because she still sleeps in it for her nap at daycare. I'm confident it won't take us long to set it up though, so I'm not worried. This baby can come whenever he would like to!

In other news, I still have a job, which is nice. An agreement to purchase Novell was announced back in November. I tried not to dwell on what it would mean for me when the transaction officially became final. We knew there would be some lay-offs and while I was obviously hoping to not be part of that, I at least wanted to make it to the birth month so that I would for sure have health insurance by the time the baby was born. Last Monday, May 2, was the day. Within minutes of coming to work, the rumors and confirmations were reported: it was the day. Around noon, I found out that I still had a job. It is obviously a blessing. I now still get maternity leave and have a job to come back to. I would have received an okay severance package had I been laid off, but I would have had to go out job hunting pretty much as soon as possible after the baby's birth rather than being able to relax and get to know my baby. It's a relief to have it all over, but the new environment is still full of questions. The transition period will last several months at least. Still, I have a job, and I am extremely grateful.

Kyle is again starting school. He did well last semester and is taking full credits this summer. We're hoping that the classes will work together well enough that he can graduate sometime next year. The end is in sight! We're so excited. It will be a hard year, but hopefully it will pass without too many trials and then we'll hopefully be able to move to a new stage in life. In his spare time, Kyle is fixing up our yard. We're hoping to put a patio in the backyard this summer so that our yard is more usable. He's already made a lot of progress and is hoping to pour concrete in the next couple of weeks. I laugh because the last time we updated our backyard was when I was pretty much 9 months pregnant with Becca, and now we're updating it again and I'm 9 months pregnant with this little boy. Apparently it is our way.

Life is good and we have been thoroughly blessed.