#3 Picture

Here's my ultrasound picture.



Baby #3 is so-far healthy and strong. I've been doing well considering first trimester icky-ness. But still not too bad. You just learn to live with it. Caleb is convinced it's a boy....he wants a brother SO bad. I keep telling him it could be a brother or a sister. He understands, but he's still hoping for a boy. For HIS sake, I think I want it to be a boy too.....but honestly I don't care either way.

My due date is July 31st......which means this little thing could be born on or before Caleb's birthday (July 25th). We're all excited!

back up

Please read the post titled "black friday" first. You'll understand why you'll want to read them in that order, after you do it. :) I'll post pictures hopefully later today.

baby steps....

Last Friday I went in for my first doctor's appointment. Parker took work off so he'd get a chance to see the baby. Only to find out, that I wasn't actually SCHEDULED for an ultrasound. WHAT? With my other 2 kids I always got an ultrasound on the first appointment. Apparently you have to SCHEDULE an ultrasound separately now. GRR! This means Parker took work off to watch me get blood drawn and get a pap smear. WHOOPIE. I felt so bad. Now the ultrasound is scheduled for this coming Friday. And Parker has to work. So I'll get to call him and let him know how it went. Hopefully no big surprises like twins or something. ;) It's also disappointing because.....I just thought I'd know by now if the baby was ok. As soon as I found out I wasn't getting an ultrasound, I said, "Well...how do we know if the baby's ok?" I told them about my sister who had a miscarriage but her body still thought she was pregnant. No bleeding. No cramping. But at HER first ultrasound there was no heartbeat. The nurse looked at me and said, "Yeah....that actually happens quite a bit. I'd say once or twice a week for our practice." I'm thinking...WHAT?!! WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS IF YOU'RE NOT LETTING ME GET AN ULTRASOUND!? Holy cow. So now we have one more week of suspense. I sure hope everything is ok.

I've been feeling pretty icky. I'm so tired after work. It's a wonder ANYONE gets fed. My bathrooms haven't been cleaned in a month. I keep telling myself I need to do it, but I'm JUST SO TIRED all the time. And 2 hours before and after each meal I just feel nauseated. I haven't lost my lunch.....yet. Wouldn't it be nice if I could just SKIP that part. But I seriously doubt it.

Christmas this year is at our house. This is a first for me. Paul and Claudia are coming over Christmas Eve for dinner. I'm excited to be the hostess. But all of the sudden I have SO MUCH more admiration for my mom. How did she do it all these years? I don't know how I'm gonna fix all those caseroles with ONE OVEN! Not to mention the HAM! Pies will have to be made the day before. But seriously, I'm kinda freaking out a little bit.

Then there's Christmas morning. We have church at 9:00. NINE! How inconvenient! It's hard to make it on time to church on any given Sunday.....but throw CHRISTMAS into the mix? I know Caleb will be disappointed, but I think we're gonna hold off on presents till church is over. And there's no skipping church either. First of all it's Christmas. Secondly I'm singing in Sacrament. There's no getting around it.

I hate that I have to work this week. I was asked to feed this missionaries this week, but I had to say no. With work, and Christmas and how EXTRA TIRED I am all the time, I really just can't add that burden right now. I hope they find someone else to do it. I felt bad.

Hopefully after this Friday I'll be able to publish these blog posts and share the news with everyone. For now I just save it in the drafts. :) Merry Christmas!

Black Friday

I am writing this poast today (Dec 10) but I won't be publishing it for a week. On Black Friday we found out I was pregnant. I'd been off birth control for.....like 30 seconds. Ok not really. But I went off the pill, and 2 weeks later got pregnant. I have a doctor's appointment next Friday the 16th. The first doctors appointment is ALWAYS kinda nerve-racking for me. Because it's the appointment where you find out if there's anything wrong. If there's a silent miscarriage. If the baby's gonna be ok. If there's as heartbeat.......of if there's......more than one. There's a lot to worry about. And NOT a lot you can do about it until then. I hope everything is ok. This is why this post won't go up for a week. If there IS anything wrong.....it won't be going up AT ALL I suppose.

For the past 2 days the naseua has started to set in. It's not bad or anything.....It's not like I'm gonna puke every time I brush my teeth (at least not yet.....we ALWAYS get to that eventually). But I just feel icky. If I'm SLIGHTLY hungry, I don't feel well. And if I'm REALLY hungry I wanna curl up and die. I'm EXTRA tired. By 9:30 I'm out of gas. It makes it hard since I REALLY enjoy my evenings after the kids have gone to bed. There's not much time to have any kind of fun when you're dozing off as soon as the kids have gone down. Oh well.

No motivation to cook. No motivation to eat. OH AND LETS not forget that diet I'd been doing. That all came to a CRASHING halt too. I lost 10 pounds in 3 weeks. Not too bad. I would have done SOOO well if I could have kept on going. But that's ALWAYS how it goes. I lose weight- and I get pregnant. Apparently they go hand-in-hand. Oh well. I know how to do it now. And I'll start again after the baby's born. Although I always feel hungry.....sometimes the feeling of being full- is much worse. At the moment- the thought of morning sickness is FAR MORE daunting than the thought of going through labor. I REALLY don't enjoy feeling like this EVERY DAY for weeks and weeks. At least with labor- it only lasts a few hours....it has an end.

Anyway. We're very excited about our Summer surprise. July is going to be an exciting month. Garrett gets home from his mission. Jared comes home form Afganistan. And we will be having a new family member. I don't actually have a due date yet (since I haven't been to the doctor yet). But I'm guessing it'll be the end of July....maybe early August. I'm not so excited about this first trimester. I think I've kinda blocked it out with each kid so far. I definately think it's the WORST part about being pregnant. We'll see how it goes.

Play Time

On Tuesday I didn't have any patients until 1:00. So I got to hang out at home with Angie while Caleb was at school. This.....NEVER happens. I'm off on Fridays, but Angie and I go grocery shopping while Caleb is in school, and we always get back right as he's getting out. So this day was EXTRA special. I sat in her bedroom and just let her play. I can't believe how big she's getting. She's changed so much lately. This video may not seem like anything special to any of you. But it was a moment that I got to share with her....just the two of us. And I'm glad I grabbed the camera so I could remember.

Finally Finished

The first step to getting the house ready for Christmas was getting a bunk bed. This was necessary because Angie's Christmas present this year (actually it's kinda for both of the kids) is a toy kitchen set. It's rather large- and we needed to make room for it. By putting the kids in bunk-beds we could open up an entire wall in their bedroom. We found this thing on craigslist. They were asking 250 OBO. We got them down to 180. It's used. It has scratches and dents. But it was cheap. We were worried we were going to have to spend around 400 dollars to get bunkbeds in the house. So this was MUCH better. We were worried how Angie would handle the new bed. I was expecting several long nights involving her getting out of bed. The first night she got out of bed twice. Then....nothing. It's been about a week now, and she has only gotten out of bed in the middle of the night one other time. Most of the time going down to bed hasn't been near as bad as we'd worried either. Once in a while (when she's kinda wired) we have to put her back in bed a couple of times. But for the most part.....she just lies there till she falls asleep.

Last night was the first night of her falling off the bed. I heard her crying pretty hard around 1:00. I went in there, and she had climbed up the ladder and was crying in Caleb's face. HOW DID SHE GET UP THERE? Caleb then sat up and informed me she'd fallen out of the bed, and then climbed the ladder. Good thing he's there to explain things....I would have thought she'd been sleep-walking! Overall- the transition has been VERY smooth. I can't complain too much. Caleb LOVES the top bunk. And he's VERY excited to show everyone who comes over to visit or play.

With the bunkbed in place, the crib came OUT and was moved to the other bedroom. To make room for the crib- the piano had to be taken out of the bedroom and put back into the living room. I must confess- I MUCH prefer having the piano in the living room anyway. First of all it gets played more. And lets face it- a living room ALWAYS looks better with a piano. BUT with the piano back in the living room, something ELSE had to go. The cedar chest is back in my room (which is ok) and the bookshelf had to be moved to make room for the tree in the corner. The bookshelf is in the computer room. And it looks nice there. But OOOH I HATE moving the bookshelf! It's such a royal pain!

Somehow through all this, we managed to NOT move the TV. THANK YOU. So here's what the living room looks like with its new decor:I actually REALLY like it. The tree was ALSO an ordeal this year. Over thanksgiving, my mom decided to get herself a new pre-lit tree. Not that I blame her. Her old tree is 30 years old. It's BEAUTIFUL once it's set-up.....but it's a ROYAL pain getting it there. So. Since mom has a NEW tree....I wanted the old one. We've always gone to the mountains and cut one down.....but I grew up with this tree. And it's just so pretty. I've always loved it. So I told mom I wanted it. Things got sticky though. Over Thanksgiving we drove the CAR to Boise. We didn't even have room for the Christmas presents we'd bought on Black Friday....let alone this christmas tree. Well luckily the following Friday- Parker was going back to Boise for work. So he said he'd pick everything up and bring it home. That Friday was kinda rough on me. I just had a long day. And I was looking forward to doing what I WANTED TO DO (which was put up the tree) that evening....instead of feeding and bathing and cooking and hushing the whining. But. Parker took the CAR AGAIN to boise. (His first thought was, it gets better gas mileage...so I'll take that). So with all the christmas presents, there was no room for the tree. He called me when he was half-way home and said he wasn't bringing the tree. For some reason this ruined my day. And I was actually quite emotional for the rest of the evening. It's just when you plan on something all day, and then at the end of the day you find out your plans are no longer possible. It's just frustrating. And I was less than thrilled.

But a few hours later we got lucky. Derek and Amanda were making a trip to Twin Falls the next day (Saturday) to go to the Temple. They said they'd bring the tree. PHEW! This made things better for me. So Saturday I set up the tree. Now let me show you the diagram on the tree box. It's laughable. I've always found it humorous. HA! It shows a girl drag out the box. Pull out the tree and shake it. Then stand it up and look at it- all pretty and finished. YEAH RIGHT! The tree is in 3 pieces. The branches fold up- but after being in a box for a year, the wired "pine needles" are all SMASHED and need a delicate hand to fan them out properly. Since it's mostly wire, you can imagine what's happened after 30 years of bending. Smashing and un-smashing. I'd say we lose about 5 to 8 wire branches every time the tree goes up. But it's not too bad. Once the tree is up, and shaped the way you like it- you have to put on the lights. To run the lights up and down EACH ARM takes over an hour. Then the ribbon takes me probably 15 minutes. The the decorations (the funnest part, but yes also the FASTEST) takes about 5 minutes. From start-to-finish, this tree takes 2 1/2 to 3 hours to put up. But it SURE is lovely!
When the Christmas stuff came out, Angie's first thing to do was put the stockings on her feet. Caleb saw what she was doing and quickly decided he should do the same (funny- usually it's her copying him....but apparently it goes both ways).It was pretty cute. Of course I can NEVER get thses kids to hold still long enough for a legitimate picture. Here's the best I could get. Anyway. It's finally Christmastime at our house. This weekend I'll be making peppermint bark and I've allready done my 2nd pair of pumpkin pies. :) Watch out if you come visit. I listen to Christmas music non-stop. And believe it or not- my collection is quite good. I REALLY like it.

SO MUCH WORK!

Every year it seems like getting the Christmas tree into this house is SO MUCH WORK! Last year in order to bring in the Christmas tree, the piano had to be moved out of the living room and into Angie's room. But there wouldn't be enough room in Angie's room so we put Angie and Caleb together in his room. Well THIS year we want to get the kids on bunk beds. We found the bunk beds on craigslist and got them for 180 dollars (they were asking 250), so we were pretty happy with the deal (even though they're used, and have a few dents and scratches....no biggie). But now this means we need another twin size mattress. So until we get one, Angie is STILL in her crib....which means we can't move it to the other room again, which means we can't move the piano BACK into the living room and the bookshelf will need to go into the other bedroom again. BAH! Parker will be bringing the Christmas tree home tonight.

I really do have a LOT more to blog about. But writing that last paragraph just about took all I've got right now......my house is a DISASTER because we were gone last week for Thanksgiving. I will do more catching up (complete with pictures) once the tree goes up.