It's about time...

I know, my posting has been absolutely inexcusable & lazy! I can't believe it has been a month since my last post! Much has happened, though it took long enough. The last several weeks we have been preparing the house for my in-laws return from their mission. (For those who don't know, we have been living in their house while they were gone & have since moved into the basement & readied the upstairs for their return). It was quite the task, but we completed it a day or two before they got home (this last Monday Feb 2nd). I had figured that my Little baby girl would arrive before her grandparents, but I was wrong. It seems that she wanted to wait until they were home before she made her grand entrance. Anyway, about a week & a half ago we took some belly pictures & my son wanted to part of that photo shoot.

He loved putting his hands on my belly & feeling the baby kick at him. :)

Side profiles! Not too big, but still getting uncomfortable.

February 6th, 2009 @ 0814 she decided to make her entrance into the world, all 6 pounds 12 ounces & 20 inches of her! The delivery was really awesome & quick! She didn't even get a cone head. I pushed through 3 contractions & she was here!

I think we were all surprised to see that she has a full head of hair! & IT'S DARK! I always imagined I would have a dark haired girl. (Plus my husband has a real weak spot for dark haired & dark eyed girls)! However, I didn't think my daughter would have dark hair @ birth, let alone ANY hair @ birth.

My son is TOTALLY enamoured by her. He was SOOOOOO excited to come see her for the first time. He was all smiles & giggles. A couple of days before she was born, he informed me that she was going to have to come out because she was getting too "bigger". He educated me on how this was going to happen. According my 3 year old, babies are born through moms throats! Here is what he told me...

Son: "mommy, your baby is getting too bigger & is gonna come out huh!? She gonna climb up & up & out through your tongue. & the helicopter is gonna have ta help pull her out with him rope, huh?!"

Mom: nods & chuckles at sons intuitiveness

Son: "mommy?"

Mom: "what sweety?"

Son: "Can I see your hole?" (as he peers down my throat)

I laughed so hard that he had thought this through. A lot of though for a 3 year old. Obviously food goes into your tummy down your throat, there is a baby in moms tummy, it must have to come up & out through that same hole!

He has been so sweet with her & gentle. We shall see how long that continues! I can't believe that she is finally here! I will post more pictures when I get home from the hospital.

Christmas & 3rd B-day

I have been needing to post these pics for over a week! We had a good Christmas this year. My son actually got the whole Santa Clause thing! Well, not entirely. We neglected to tell him that Santa comes in the middle of the night & then leaves before you ever see him. When my son woke up Christmas morning he PROMPTLY went into the living room to the tree & started looking for Santa. It was so sweet! He looked like he was about to cry when he couldn't find him, until we pointed out that he left presents under the tree. My son soon forgot all about looking for Santa Clause.

My sons birthday is just a few days after Christmas and we had a party for him. It turned into a WAY bigger deal than I had intended it to be, but it was fun. My hubby wanted to have a pinata, gift bags for the kids who came, cake & ice cream & some games for the kids. So that is what we did. My son probably won't remember much of it, but he sure did have fun with all of his cousins & friends!

I ended up finding this guitar (really a Christmas present from X-mas '07) in my trunk & my son hadn't played with it in over 8 mths, so I re-gifted. Cheap, I know, but he loves it anyway (& does NOT remember that he ever had it before, I might add)!
The Sunday before his actual birthday we went to my parents house & my mom had bought him this cute cake! You gotta love Costco!

I didn't really get a great picture of the pinata before it got smashed, but it was a cute fire engine. The kids had a good time taking a couple of whacks at it!

We stocked the pinata with 2 HUGE bags of candy, which were rapidly gathered & gobbled up by the crowd & swarm of children! :)

My husband found this sparkler candle that was in the shape of a 3! It was really cool. My son LOVED it. He also loved the toy airplane that was on his cupcake.

He also got spoiled with presents from all of his cousins & friends. (If you look close, you can REALLY see my lovely baby bump, well, it's not so much a bump anymore).

This was his favorite gift! It is a metal jet that he had borrowed from his cousins earlier this year & when it came time to return it, he was heart broken. He did return the plane to his cousins without a tear, until they had left the driveway. Well, they gave it back to him for his birthday & he takes it with him EVERYWHERE again.

We had cupcakes for all the kids, but they had to eat them in the kitchen. So my hubby & his friend lined them up on the floor.

Here is cute video of my son playing his guitar. He was carrying it around making up songs. (We played rock band at my moms house on Christmas day and I believe he learned his technique from that).

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it snow!

So I can't believe it has already been one month since my last entry. Time has been FLYING by this month. I also cannot believe that Christmas is just 3 days away! We have had a TON of snow in the last week, today being the biggest accumulation so far. In the last 6 hours we have gotten about a foot of snow at our house! It's pretty crazy & fun. The only bummer part, Both my son & I have a cold & cough so we are trying to stay indoors (as much as my 3 yr old will allow.) Here are some pictures to share!

We finally got my son a new "big boy bed" to get him out of his toddler day bed, which will transition back to a crib for the new baby. He didn't act all that excited about it, but hasn't had any problems sleeping in it. It's a twin size bed, just very low to the ground.

So my in-laws get their house Christmas lights done professionally every year. The lighting guys came just before Thanksgiving & did a great job. My son has loved looking out the windows @ night and seeing Christmas lights on the trees.

About a week ago we went to my parents house to help set up my dads Christmas train. My son watched it last year & it is the reason he refers to my parents as his "Choo-Choo Grandma & Grandpa." Well, at Thanksgiving my husband & dad told my son that he could help set it up this year. He did not forget this promise. Every time we would go to my parents he would ask if it was time to set it up yet. Once we got it set up he layed there & watched it go round & round. At one point he even stood up & started cheering for it! It was very cute!

Last week we got a little bit of snow, so we went out to play in it as a family. My husband took the lawn mower snow plow to the water retention basin behind our house & plowed up a pile of snow for my son to slide down. It looks like there is hardly any snow in this picture, that's because he had plowed everything off of the lawn.

A BIG "THANKS" to my sister for giving us her kids hand-me-down ski bibs, snow gloves & snow boots! They work FABULOUSLY! My son stayed nice & dry & warm! Here's a picture of the lawn mower with the snow plow attachment that my husband made certain Itake a picture of!

My son kept laying down on his tummy & licking the snow. GROSS!!! No matter how many times we told him that the snow was yicky, we couldn't stop him from eating it. (Things sure haven't changed from when I was a kid). What is so appealing about eating snow anyway? I think we are all guilty of it, at least once, probably more.

I made the attempt to post a little video as well. I hope it works!

Things are going well here. Still pregnant & holding her in. The doctors don't seem too worried about me delivering too early. They did an ultrasound last week (I was one of the new docs guinea pigs on the 3-d machine) & he measured my cervical length, which is still within normal, just a slight bit thinning. Hopefully I will stay pregnant until the last few days of January to the first few days of February. Just watch though, I am going to be one of those who go way past their due date. (I sure hope not!!!) I'll keep ya posted (as best as I can).

Update- 27 weeks

Things keep plugging along. I am doing much better & have stopped contracting as much. I have been able to return to work this week & just tried to take it a little bit easy. So far so good. Thanks for all of your prayers & concerns in our behalf. We will just keep praying that this over-active anxious little girl will stay inside & cook for another 10 weeks (which will take me to term).

Pregnancy update-26 weeks

Okay, so no pictures for this entry & it will have to be a quick one. I am now 26 weeks into my pregnancy, which would make one think "WOW, only 14 more weeks to go!" Right? Well that's what I was thinking about 2 days ago too, until yesterday. My retarded body is trying to decide that it wants this pregnancy to be done with sooner than later! I had cramps & contractions in the morning that pretty much went away in the afternoon. I went to work & they started back up about 3 hours into my shift. I had Braxton Hicks contractions with my son, and with this one thus far, but these were different. There was actually a little pain & discomfort involved. My OB just happened to be at the hospital & so he checked my cervix, which is fortunately still closed, but thinning out & softening already. NOT GOOD! So we went ahead & did a full triage evaluation & put me on the monitors. Contractions every 2 MIN! YIKES! I got a LOVELY medication called Terbutaline- it makes you feel like CRAP- and a steroid shot to my buttocks! The Terb (as we labor nurses call it) stopped the contractions almost entirely (1 an hour) but it makes your heart race & pound and you get all jittery! I could barely fill out paperwork. The steroid shot is to help her lungs develop quicker just in case she does really & truly come early. I get to go back to the hospital tonight for another one of those lovely bad burning boys! (seriously, the shot burns pretty darn good! & I HATE SHOTS!!!!!!) Anywho, this morning was pretty scary when I woke up cramping again, but now it seems to be only one an hour again. I will keep you posted on what develops with this lovely unwanted scenario. As a labor nurse I have seen all realms of the spectrum from moms who really do deliver early to moms who go past their due date despite having been treated for preterm labor. So we will see. Keep us in your prayers!

Oh Ya, I forgot...It's a...

What a slacker I have been!!!! We had our ultrasound the first week of October. Everything looks good with the baby, all parts appear to be present & functioning! :) You can kind of see the profile in this one, I thought the hand in the "SHHHH" position was quite cute. The baby wouldn't hold very still so it was hard to get a good snap shot of its profile, but from what we could see, it has a very similar profile to my son.
Here is a good side profile of its leg & bum. The doctor couldn't get a very good "photo copier" shot of its bottom, so he had to look for boy/girl parts from the side view by scanning in & out laterally to see if there were boy parts between the legs or not. It was quite difficult.

From what the doctor determined (& from what I had gathered from an earlier peek with an ultrasound machine @ work) there are no boy parts & it's a GIRL!

You have to use your imagination a bit here, but this picture is looking at the babies bottom and thighs. It looks like the baby doesn't have the lower part of her legs because of the way we had to zoom in & out (she had her feet crossed & knees together the entire time.) The picture looks like a heart turned on its side, right? Well If you look VERY closely to the right side of the heart right where you would draw the "v" shape of the heart, you can see her girl parts. Some people describe girl parts in ultrasounds as looking like a hamburger. So we are expecting a little girl in February. Pretty cool, eh?

October

This year for Halloween we decided to take a note from my parents book. In the past my Mom & Dad have gone all out & decorated their garage for the Halloween Trick-or-Treaters. This year they were gone to Hawaii (poor them) for a week just prior to Halloween & were still playing catch up at work so they didn't have the time to decorate their garage. So my Husband decided that we should decorate ours. We had spooky music, fog machines, glow sticks, black lights & cobwebs. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but my hubby had fun setting it up. We also found a steal on the bracelet kind of glow sticks and so we handed those out along with candy. Our stash (3 Costco sized bags) only lasted about an hour & a half, as apposed to our AZ house where that same stash would have lasted, oh, at least 10 months. :)

Here is a picture of my son & hubby. I had to get a picture with the cute red suspenders!

I dressed up as an 8 ball. You don't really get the idea of my belly size here, but you can tell it is growing. (I guess it is nice to have a picture that makes your belly look smaller than you perceive it actually is instead of the other way around!) My son LOVED his Fire Fighter costume that his Grandma got him. Plus it was reflective-perfect for a 3 yr old!

Another picture of him with his Fire Fighter costume. He picked out his Trick-or-Treat bucket himself. (He says it "Truck-r-Treat").

So these pictures are backwards in order. Oops. A few weeks before Halloween we had some cousins from AZ come and stay at our house & we went to the Scarecrow Festival at Thanksgiving Point. My husband used his persuasive powers to get a ride on a helicopter. All 3 of us rode for the price of 1!

You can't tell in this picture, but my son really was having a BLAST! He still talks about the ride & the cool headphones he got to wear with the Microphone to talk to Mommy & Daddy!

Here are my boys on their way to get on the Helicopter. I wasn't planning on going, but one of the operators grabbed my hand and walked me up to the helicopter, for what I thought was a photo-op of my Hubby & son sitting in the cockpit. He then proceeded to all but shove me into the helicopter. This was my 2nd time in one & it was really fun.

Another picture of my little Fire Fighter.

We had really good success with my Father-in-laws garden. Perhaps our greatest success was the pumpkin patch. We ended up with 9 LARGE pumpkins! They are beautiful in their coloring. Each one a little different than the next. The largest one is the one behind my son to the right (in this picture) and up against the door. It is MASSIVE!

How can you resist a photo-op with such a cute kid and such huge beautiful pumpkins? I couldn't!