You've got questions? I've got answers. Part 1

Welcome to part one of Ask Me Anything.

Since I'm totally OCD I've organized the questions I've received into categories. This part is all about my kids...

Erin asked
Are there any more kids in the Future? No! Three is enough, thankyouverymuch.

Whats your favorite personality trait about each of your children? Jack is a lot like me, and even though my mom's going to roll her eyes when she read this (and probably my husband too) I kind of like his bossiness!

Melody is so snuggly. She loves to hug everyone. Me, Alex, her friends, and even people at the airport! I like that.

Charlie's personality is still developing too much for me to pick a favorite trait.

Mimi asked:
What is your bedtime routine with the kids? Our routine is pretty simple. I try and have the kids bathed before Alex comes home from work. We pretty much let them each pick a book and then prayers and a few songs and then lights out. For a while our bedtime routine was getting long and drawn out. By the end of the day, I'm wiped so I try and keep it simple.

Where is your favorite place to vacation as a family? Hands down, the beach.

Summer wants to know:
What is your best memory (so far) with each child? :) This is a great question. But, honestly, I have too many good ones to pick. Now that I'm not nursing any more and all my children sleep through the night, I can say that I liked getting up with them at 2 a.m. and nursing them. They were so snuggly and quiet then and afterward they would just lay their heads on my shoulder and go back to sleep. I especially liked this for the boys...it was one of the rare moments they were actually still and would snuggle me! Those were always sweet moments.

Kelli asked:
I want to know what your day is like. How do you manage it all? I'm pretty routine. OK, I'm very routine. I'm a planner and like to stick to my plans. But honestly, our day is pretty simple. I take Jack to school in the mornings. Melody also has preschool two mornings a week. On those days Charlie and I play at home or run errands. Other days, we play with friends and sometimes have activities like Music Class. Pretty much every day, Melody and Charlie nap from about 12:30 or 1ish until 3:00 when we leave to pick up Jack. (I know, I know, please don't throw things!) After school, if the weather's nice we play at the park or just hang out. Wow. Now that I'm writing this I realize my life is incredibly boring. Sheesh. Now I feel like a dork.

Amy wants to know:
While you were pregnant with each of your adorable little ones, did you know whether boy/girl? (without help of ultasounds)...
Did you find out or leave any as a surprise? We found out each time. With Jack, I felt pretty certain he was a boy, but I knew for sure (before my U/S) that Melody was a girl and Charlie was a boy. I like to think I have very strong intuition! *giggle*.

When I was pregnant with Charlie, however, my dad (who's right 99.9% of the time) was convinced I was having a girl. I knew I was having a boy. So, we made a bet. The big rivalry in our family is the Auburn vs UGA game every November. The bet was, if Charlie was a girl, we had to wear UGA gear all game day. If Charlie was a boy, my mom and dad had to don Auburn gear. Thankgoodness this was the ONE time my dad was actually wrong. An for the record, he wimped out and didn't keep up his end of the bet even though he'll claim to have worn orange underwear or something!

Kat, who wins for most questions, asked (among many other questions):
-Who was the most difficult labor? I had three C-sections, one unplanned and two planned. So Jack was my only and most difficult labor. But believe me, my labor with Jack was the equivalent to three labors and deliveries. I won't tell the whole long drawn out story, but to give you and idea, I went into labor on my due date, June 2. Jack was born, after much labor and pushing, at 8:42 pm on Friday June 4!
*Update* Truly, I had a lot of complications and problems during my labor and attempted delivery of Jack. For a while there things were very scary and had God's hand not been guiding us all the way, there may have been a very different outcome. I am very grateful for all the people who were praying for me during that time and most of all for the wonderful blessing God gave me that day: a sweet, healthy baby named Jack.

-Any funny labor stories? While I was certainly not laughing at the time I can kind of laugh about it now. Well, not really. But you might.

The day before my due date with Jack, I had a doctor's appointment. The midwife who checked me completely crushed my spirits by telling me that I had no action going going on down there, that there was no way I would be going into labor anytime soon and she scheduled me for induction the following Monday. I went home and cried about it all day and promptly went into labor the next day.

While I was about 36+ hours into labor, checked into the hospital and had already had several hours of pitocin bringing me moderately close to 10 centimeters, guess who was the midwife on call? Needless to say, after my appointment on Tuesday and the hormones and emotion surging through my body, that poor woman didn't have a prayer. I won't go into detail, but she quickly left the room!

Rachel wants to know?
I want to know how you decided on names for your kiddos.
I love answering this question!!

All of my kids have family names. When I was pregnant with Jack, I knew I wanted him to be named after my dad: Marc. Alex felt very strongly that if he was named after my dad, then his dad's name should be in there too. So, after much, much, much debate, we agreed on the name John Marc and decided to call him Jack for short.

Since Jack had such a strong family name, I wanted my other children to also have family names. So, when we our second child, and first (and only) girl came along we chose the name Melody after my mom's sister who passed away in early childhood. I wanted her middle name to be Rose, after Sleeping Beauty, (the most romantic movie of all time) but Alex wouldn't let me name our child after a Disney Princess. Ok, I really wanted the middle name Aurora but Alex totally went off the deep end when I suggested that! Since we each got to pick one name for Jack, it seemed fitting that we do the same for Melody, so Alex picked her middle name, Elizabeth, after his aunt.

Charlie was the hardest name to choose. We had it narrowed down to three names and were getting close to my due date and still hadn't chosen his name. (Yes, I like to have their names picked out wayyyy before they're born. I know I'm weird like that. It's a bonding thing for me.) Our options were Charles, after my paternal grandfather, Eli, after my maternal great-grandfather, and Mabry, which is Alex's middle name. Given our "you pick one, I pick one" agreement, Alex picked Mabry for the middle name. This left me with the option of either Charles or Eli for a first name. Finally, I decided that I loved both names and the men associated with them too much to pick so we decided on Charles Eli Mabry Powell!

What's funny about all this is that when I was growing up and even in my marriage before kids came along, I never thought I would be a big family name person. But when it actually came time to name my children, family names were really the only ones we ever considered. With the exception of Rose, which I'm still bummed I didn't get to use! I love the idea that all my children are named after special people and their names have significance and meaning to us in that way.

Ok, if you are still reading, you rock! I know this was long.

Stay tuned for Part 2 which will be all about me and my husband! And hopefully a little shorter too!