Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas Everyone!

First off we just want to thank everyone who has helped us out this last year and for Christmas- your prayers, love, support, time, and gifts have been very appreciated and just what we needed. Thank you!

Here are some picture highlights. Enjoy!
Jacob showing off some new clothes he got. Don't worry, that's not all he got. His favorite toy was a K'nex ferris wheel set that is motorized and he got to put together with dad this afternoon.
For whatever reason, Sam wanted a recorder for Christmas. This is what he told Santa he wanted above all else, so Santa made sure to deliver. The only set back- he doesn't really know how to play, but I'm sure he'll learn.
Katie showing off her new Tinkerbell jewelry. I'm not sure what she loved more- new toys or new shoes. She is such a girl.
Lilly slept through most of the festivities, but we had fun dressing her up just the same. I think she is everyone's favorite Christmas gift this year. It's so good to have her in our family at last.

Christmas Card 2010

Here is the family Christmas card for this year. If you didn't get one it's either on its way or I don't have your mailing address. You can either enjoy this one or send me your address and I'll send you one. Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas girls

We finally got around to taking pictures for the family Christmas card (which hopefully will get out by the end of this week). While we were at it Jon decided to take some pictures of all us girls together. In fact, I think they are the first pictures of all of us girls together since we finally equaled things out in this family. Katie likes being part of "the girls" and is loving being a big sister now that she realizes we love her just as much as ever.

One month

My sweet baby girl is one month old now! She's such a good baby too and is finally getting some longer sleeping periods at night which makes mom and dad happy :) She finally got to go to church this last week for the first time and she did really well. Although I haven't been able to capture it on film yet, she's starting to smile and coo.

Christmas preperations

We are getting ready for Christmas around here. The kids did most of the work of putting up the old family Christmas tree and I've had my little elves helping in the kitchen to get the Christmas goodies made as well. I was so worried that it would be a rather sad Christmas because it would be difficult to get everything up and going after having Lilly. Though I have to take things slow, the recovery has been going well and with my little helpers making the traditional treats hasn't been so bad and with such a great husband the tree hasn't been a hard thing either. I love Christmas time and I'm so happy to get the house looking and smelling like Christmas.

The girls

Katie when she was a new baby.

Lilly as a new baby.

I get told a lot that Katie and Lilly look alike. Here are two pictures of the girls at about the same age and wearing the same dress. What do you think?

Christmas Lilly

My mom got this adorable Christmas dress for Lilly and I promised pictures :) Here she is at nearly two weeks old. She continues to be a very good baby. She doesn't need the binky unless she is fighting sleep which makes life a pleasure as I don't have to use one hand to hold it in her mouth whenever she's awake. She's been getting up once a night now so that makes things easier as well since my sleep schedule depends on her. She's also been awake a little longer each day and starting to get a feeding schedule down. Her siblings continue to adore her. Katie loves her new sister, but I noticed we have to make sure she gets a good dose of attention too or she starts to get a little jealous.

Lilly's baths

Sponge bath

real bath
Lilly's umbilical chord fell off this last week at last. That meant she got her first real bath this week. She didn't like sponge baths very much and I was a little worried, but she LOVES real baths. She looks so relaxed as she sits in the tub. When I take her out she throws a huge fit with more gusto then her cries at birth.

Rip Van Winkle

Today I drove for the first time in four months. It was a long over due event and I was excited to have this freedom back. However, for the last couple of weeks that I've finally been off the bed rest I must say that I am beginning to understand how Rip Van Winkle must have felt after waking up from his long nap. There are no huge changes, but everything seems to be slightly different. The parking is different on campus, there are new stores open, snow is on the ground again, etc. I'm going to have to get used to this.

Lilly at a week

Lilly is now 1 week old. We've enjoyed having her home and beginning life with the newest member of our family. On Saturday we took her into her doctor's to have her weight gain checked and she is growing well. He noticed that she was looking a little on the yellow side so we went and had her tested for jaundice again. Her test was on the higher side but not enough to put her under lights.

Last night Lilly's sweet siblings gathered around her to oh and ah over the baby. They looked almost worshipful as they tried to get the best spots to see and hold her little hand and feet. They all adore this new little sister. Even Katie has learned to share the spotlight and is getting used to there being 2 princesses in the family now.

My recovery has been going well, especially since Lilly had some longer sleeping hours last night between feedings. I've had little pain and have to keep reminding myself not to do certain things so it stays that way. I'm really enjoying not being on bed rest anymore. I might not be able to do everything I want because of the c-sect recovery and needing to stay home to protect baby from germs, but I'm on the road to doing what I did before and that is enough for now.

The best part has been watching Jon with Lilly. He's been so supportive and wonderful through all the months of bed rest and this last week of long nights. I love watching him hold his little girl in the early morning hours and take such gentle care of her. He's a proud papa.

Kindergarten Sweater

My mother-in-law knits the most wonderful things. One thing she has done is made each of the kids a Kindergarten sweater. This one is Sam's and he was so excited to have his own "grammy sweater" to wear as he's been super jealous of his brother's for the last year. Thank you grammy!

She's finally here!!

After months of waiting she finally decided she was ready. We are so happy to hold her. She is such a good baby too, hardly fussing, sleeps through everything (even being passed around to her siblings).

Note

My funny little girl decided she wanted to dictate a note to me for her friend. It is very random and is as follows:

To: M
From: K

We love earth and Jesus Christ and we love pumpkins and trick or treat and Merry Christmas and God loves us and carve pumpkins and we need water and we need waters for plants and we stapled books and we grow plants and we love colorings. Don't hit your brothers. We'll buy you some money. We love Christmas and super crayons (twist crayons) that are on my bus and twist rags (you have to twist it and then wipe it all off) and penny twist- where we have to twist a coin and then twist it again and again and again for what number it is.

Happy Halloween!

Greasy Grimy Pumpkin Guts

We might carve basic shapes, but that doesn't mean we can't be a little creative. This pumpkin design was inspired by a pumpkin we saw at North Logan's pumpkin walk a couple years back and I couldn't resist copying it. The kids enjoyed helping daddy carve the pumpkin and got a kick out of the eyes being different sizes. Halloween is so much fun!

Getting there

We made another mile marker this week for development. We now have a chance of no NICU time and if we can keep going we can cut those chances down farther- which I would like having been through that before. To celebrate we took some pictures and hopefully the doctors will forgive me for standing up for them- we tried to be quick! By the way- isn't the fall foliage pretty? I just love it!

Katie's fashion sense

She started out the day wearing a cute shirt and jeans. Mid-way through the day she had to change, so she put on the blue skirt and a pink shirt. Then, before going outside to play, she changed her shirt to this green striped one. We needed to get ready to go so I asked her to get changed into a clean shirt and pants, and this was Katie's interpretation

Dr Sam Doolittle

"I can talk to animals in their own language!" my Sam informs me last night. I was telling him how when he was little he would chase after animals- garden snakes, geese, ducks, cats, dogs, etc. I can't tell you how glad I am that we never bumped into a skunk when he was a toddler. He still loves animals today. If you want to make him happy you take him to places with animals- zoos, aquariums, barnyards, pet stores, or his doctors office.

"How do you talk to the animals?" I asked him.

"Well, if I see a duck I go up to him and say 'quack, quack, quack'" (I wish I could capture the conversational cadences he was using for you).

"What does that mean?" I ask.

"Good morning."

"What other animals can you talk to you?"

"Well, if I see a dog I go 'ruff, ruff, ruff,"

"And what does that mean?"

"Good morning."

"What happens if you see a lion?"

"I go 'roar, roar, roar'"

"And what does that mean?"

"Good morning. But if I see an elephant I stick up my hand like this to make a long nose and go 'blooooooooooooooooow.'"

"And what does that mean?"

"Good morning."

The thing is, I can see him going up to a duck, dog, lion, or elephant the next time he sees one and trying it out with full confidence that the animal will understand him. I'll have to be sure to have a video camera on hand when it happens. I hope he never gets disillusioned when it happens and the animals aren't as cooperative. I love my boy who is bursting with super powers he wants to use to help the world, now including talking to animals.

A few tidbits

I had my last high risk doctor appointment today- yeah! The baby is looking good still. I found out that an ultrasound can reveal if baby has a nice head of hair as this baby does. We are happy to have made it this far and hoping to make it another two weeks to a safer time. The doctors are still not so sure we'll make it to full term. Still on strict bed rest. Sigh....

The other day Sam was helping me out by microwaving my lunch. We have this game that we play where I'll let him pick a number in a range. When he asked me how long to cook his I told him to pick a number between 30 and 45. He came back a while later and informed me that the spaghetti was a bit "crispy" and he didn't think 30 minutes and 45 seconds was a good time to cook food at. Upon further investigation I was relieved to find out it was a relatively small disaster and something that I could easily laugh at. For future reference, spaghetti cooked that long is very dry and crispy and black but it didn't start a fire. It also will melt tupperware brand bowls a little bit but not all the way. Not enough to stick to the microwave in any case.

Yesterday Katie was talking to me while brushing my hair (she tells me that my hair looks better if she brushes it out) and some of her sentences were just not making much sense. I asked her "Do you even understand half of what comes out of your mouth?" She replies quickly "No. I don't understand most of what comes out of my mouth." Sometimes she reminds me of the babysitter on Incredibles. She's cute though anyway and very articulate. Her biggest problem is that she likes to talk for the sake of talking and sometimes she tries to say something very smart and ends up switching tracks in the middle of the sentence and saying two different things that don't make sense together.

Put as many pretzals in your mouth as you can and then say...

Fuzzy bunny! I know this is done with marshmallows, but that's just what came to mind. She was so pleased with her newly discovered talent.

Knock knock joke

Yesterday Jacob had his hand on Rachel's belly, feeling the baby moving. Rachel told him that Lilly was trying to tell him a knock knock joke (you should have seen the "You're being weird" look Jacob gave her):

Rachel: "Knock knock"
Jacob: "Who's there" (giggle giggle)
Rachel: "Baby"
Jacob: "Baby who" (more giggling, you're being weird, mom)
Rachel: "Baby gonna kick you, bam! bam! bam!"

This whole time Sam was off to the side watching, and when the joke finished he got this "look" in his eyes. He came over to Jacob and said, "Hey Jacob, I've got a joke to tell you."

Jacob thought this was great (apparently it's only weird when parents tell dumb jokes). He didn't see it coming at all...

Sam: "Knock knock"
Jacob: "Who's there?" (no clue what is coming)
Sam: "Baby" (still has that "look")
Jacob: "Baby who?" (still clueless)
Sam: (In triumph) "Baby gonna kick you! Bam! Bam! Bam!" At which point Sam really does start kicking Jacob in the shins.

Jacob took it in good humor thankfully.

More from my little "secret" keeper

My darling Katie was hanging out with me this morning and keeping me company. She asked me if the baby was moving so that she could feel it. I told her that the baby had just moved, but she stopped as soon as Katie put her little hand on to feel it. To encourage her I told her she should tell the baby a secret.

Scandal!

"But mommy, that would ruin the secret!" She exclaims in shock.

I tried to reassure her that this would just be a special secret between the baby and her and she didn't have to tell anyone else. She stuck to her guns though, dismayed that I would suggest such a thing.

So then remembering our conversation from last week I decided to tease her a little. "Well what if I told you a little secret. What if I told you that I loved chocolate and not to tell anyone else."

"Then I would tell everybody" she promptly replies.

I couldn't help but laughing aloud at that one and she joined in laughing. When we stopped she tells me "I don't get it. Why are we laughing?" The thing is I don't think she will get it quite yet. She sure is a fun girl, but I won't be telling her my secrets anytime soon ;)

Not My Secret Keeper and quick baby update

I was telling Katie that something was a secret and not to tell anyone. To which she replies:

"Oh, I will tell people. I'll tell neighbors and friends and my brothers and my daddy and myself."

There's a reason I don't go Christmas and birthday shopping with her anymore. It was good while it lasted though.

Quick baby update: I see the doctors a lot as in 1-2 times a week. I like to keep everyone updated who has helped us so much and kept us in prayers, but there is not always a lot to say and that is a good thing. This week everything looked the same as last week which is good. The baby is still moving, still has a heartbeat, stitches are still holding up so in a sense the best news we can have right now. I'm starting to count down the longest amount of weeks that I have left on bed rest. I'm not bored, but there are so many other things I wish I could do. I'll make it one way or another.

Sideways

My little boys never fail to pull off something totally unexpected every now and again and make me laugh. Today, Sam ran into my room with a big goofy grin on his face to tell me that today was sideways day and he had put on his shirt sideways with "mermaid hands" coming out the front sleeve. Two minutes later Jacob comes in to tell me has was dressed sideways too. Of course I had to take some pictures ;) Then they decided to turn it into a game and they were now sharks fighting each other. When my sharks got tired of fighting each other they made up and were friendly sharks slapping fins together and playing. When they got tired of being friendly they turned into piranhas and went after their little sister fish who couldn't turn into a shark or piranha in her long sleeved shirt she was wearing. At this point, mommy piranha stepped in and told them that purple (again referring to her shirt) fish are very poisonous and would kill them if they ate her. Then they all wanted to be poisonous like little sister fish but little sister fish told them in no uncertain terms that only purple fish can be poisonous. They tried to attack mommy fish with their poison who quickly turned into a poison dart fish who should poisonous darts at any fish that got too close. Imagination can be so much fun!

Good baby news

The doctor appt's all went well this week. Yeah! The baby is now measuring a little ahead of the due date and weighs a little over 3 lbs now. They say this is good since the baby will be born early. The stitches are still holding so we're hoping to keep going at least another month and get baby even bigger and healthier. The doctor says that at this point if the baby were born there is a 95% survival rate (good) and a 15% chance of long term health problems (not so good). Much better then even a week ago though and the stats only get better from here on out. I am doing alright so far. The doctor has given the okay to go on an outing to the movie theater every now and again. That sounds divine to get out of the house for something other than doctor's appts. Simple blessings.

Skipped Birthday Photos

Here are some birthday photos from Sam's birthday that I must never have gotten around to posting. The one is from when we took him to the aquarium to celebrate because he wanted to see animals and it was snowing that day so the zoo was out. The other is from when I was trying to get some nice photos of him and he absolutely refused to pose for anymore until he got show me his super hero moves. It was so cute!

Mile marker #2

This week we hit another mile marker with this pregnancy! The baby's chances of surviving if born have gone from 50% to 95% and the chances of long term health problems have gone way down- not sure how much on that one. Still would be a long NICU stay though so I think we'll keep things going as long as we can still and try to reduce that one as much as possible. Happy week :)

Prairie Dog Digital Page

Again, some more old pictures but I had fun! I know there are fancy things you can do, but for now I am happy just to keep it simple :) I used a paper kit from www.digitalscrapbookmemories.com collection 1 which I saw on a good sale this last week. This is actually the first digital cd I bought so I'm glad to find some more uses for it. If any digital scrapbooker wants to post their favorite site to get paper kits from please post a comment. I would love to find more, especially if cheap or free. So far, I think I only have stuff from shabby princess, digital scrapbook memories, and Jessica Sprague- mainly because they were either free downloads or on a good sale. Next time I'll try and post something new- I have plenty of pictures if I would just get them to my computer.

Ultrasound Pic

This is a cute ultrasound pic we got this last week where baby Lilly is sucking her thumb.

Digital Scrapbooking Play

So these photos are from about a year ago now but I wanted to use them to try out some digital scrapbooking. I've dabbled in digital scrapbooking for around 5 years now (I only remember that because I found out about it shortly after Sam was born at a scrapbooking fair). I usually use my digital kits to make cards to send out to people in mass- Christmas, Valentine's Day, Father's Day, and Mother's Day among others. It's sooo much easier for those things. I go back and forth because I've invested so much in paper scrapbooking, but on the other hand this is more mobile, way cheaper even with printing, and I can do it on bed rest while I can't really paper scrapbook on bed rest. For those who might be interested, this kit is currently a free download called School Rules from www.digitalscrapbookmemories.com and I must admit I lifted the paper and photo placement from a Close To My Heart book called "Imagine".

Animal friends

My sweet little girl was playing with her stuffed frog and cow next to me when my eyes drooped and I zonked out. When I woke up she was watching a movie with brother and she had tucked her frog and cow in next to me to keep me safe and comfortable while I slept. How cute! My kids take such good care of me.

First week of school for the first grader

Jacob started first grade this week. He loves his teacher. He loves eating at school. He loves that he gets three recesses. He feels very big and responsible now that he goes to school all day. I'm glad he is having such a great start. The only down side is he keeps getting the cafeteria food all over his uniforms and I'm about ready to start sending him to school with an apron to wear while he eats. Jon doesn't have the time to do that much laundry right now. He got his first round of homework today. One sheet of math homework that shouldn't take him very long.

Sam will start kindergarten next week. Both the charter and public school start the kindergartners after the rest of the school and reserve the first week for assessments here. He is so excited to start and I can tell that it is hard for him to watch Jacob go to school without him this week. He had his assessment today and wore his name tag to my doctors appt so he could show everyone that he is a big boy now that goes to school.

Something to Smile about :)

I saw both of my doctors this week. My regular doctor and the one who will deliver baby was in a great mood and it was the first time I've seen him smile at me since the cerclage was put in. Things seem to be going well and he's pretty optimistic that we'll make it to 28 weeks and maybe on to 34 weeks. Always nice to have good news and see the doctors looking at the bright side of things for once.

The high risk doctor was in good spirits too. He told me I was one of the lucky ones and he thinks things will work out for at least another two weeks. They might even take the appointments down to every other week instead of every week if the next ultrasound looks good. This ultrasound actually showed things looking a little better so that is nice.

As it goes, even with all that good news, the bed rest is still strictly in force. Got to do what we can.

Back to School Night

This week was back to school night for the boys. They got to see their classrooms and meet their new teachers. Jacob especially needed to meet his teacher to help him be less nervous about this new change. They both have nice teachers and I think they'll have a good year. Summer is in it's final days again. Crazy!

Another Baby Update

This week the high risk doctors did another major ultrasound to look at Lilly and make sure the stitches are still holding.

Lilly is looking good. She is right on for her date and doesn't have any developmental issues that they can see. Yeah! It was nice to know all the shots they've been giving me haven't mutated her (not that they should, I've looked up the risks, but still...). She is breach this week, but last week she was head down. Still moving around a lot. We've had three ultrasounds now that says she is a girl. That was a relief only because during the first part of the ultrasound the tech said that "he wasn't looking right way to get a good profile of the face" and then I was wondering if we had gotten it all wrong which would be really weird considering the 20 week was "100%" positive. This one was "100%" positive once the tech got to looking. Not that I have any problems with boys, but since finding out we kind of give an extra bit of personality to the baby that I would hate to change now. I have no boy names left and I'm ready to buy pink, pink, and more pink ;) It's been a while.

The stitches are looking the same as always. That is good and bad. I've figured out that why the doctors are so edgy is that I'm on the edge. They've seen things go both ways when they look like what I got now and they are unsure of how it will work for me. They can't guarantee anything so all we can do is hope. They watch things closely so they can be ready if things start to change again. If things do start to change I've been told repeatedly that I would end up in the hospital for the rest of this. One of the high risk doctors said he would put me in the hospital now if I didn't think I could do bed rest at home. I'll be a good girl! I don't like the threat of needles and bed pans. The thought sends a shiver down my spine. My biggest fear is infection. There is nothing they can do about that, and there is really nothing they can do to find out ahead of time and prevent it either. It can happen fast and change things fast and I know all to well how it works. The stitches help prevent this in a way. The more shut things remain the less likely an infection is to happen. Cross my fingers.

Olive Puppet Dance

I so wish that I had been able to record this because it was just too funny. My kids had each received a large black olive to eat while waiting for dinner to be cooked. They each put them on their pointer fingers, ran down stairs, hid behind my bed, stuck their little fingers up in the air as high as they could go, and started singing "La, Na, La, Na, La, Na". Then they jumped up, yelled "Surprise!", ate the olives off their fingers, and ran away. My kids are so cute! I needed something funny.

Viable

Celebration! The baby is now considered viable. I could go into all the ins and outs of why that is, but to make a long story short the medical definition means the baby has a 50/50 chance of survival if born today, it also means the NICU at the hospital here would try and save baby. Of course, we would like to make it much longer then today. Even four more weeks greatly increases the babies chances of survival and greatly decreases long term health problems.

I had a doctor's appointment today. The baby's hear beat is nice and strong. The doctor is also going to further our viability celebration by prescribing three shots in the next three days. yeah. One today to prevent preterm labor and a series of two steroid shots that need to be 24 hours apart to give the baby a better chance of survival if I were to go into labor anytime in the next 6 weeks (if I make it 6 more weeks then I get another series of shots to celebrate that mark).

One more celebration- we are having a little girl. We will probably name her Lilly.

It worked!

I went into the doctor's today to get another ultrasound and see if the cerclage was working or not. It looks like it's doing it's job and holding things together. Yeah! The doctor also thought the chances of the cerclage working for the full time were a little higher then average since I only have a weakness in my cervix and the whole thing isn't incompetent. I'll take whatever hope I can get at this point.

Happy Birthday!

Our sweet little girl turned 4 this last week. She is getting so big and time seems to have flown by. We love her very much and are proud of her. She was the biggest helper on her birthday. A few things about her:
She loves pink!
She loves dolls and wants a dollhouse for Christmas
She wants to be a mommy when she grows up
Her favorite movie is "Tinkerbell and The Lost Treasure"
She is very imaginative