First OB Appointment

First of all I want to say that I love my midwives. I believe that women should have doctors/midwives that are open to whatever the pregnant lady is comfortable with. These ladies are like that, and again, I love it!

So I had my first appointment today! I got an ultrasound and got to see the my baby, so much fun. The midwives just moved into a new building and got new equipment, the ultrasound machine is awesome! It's gives such good pictures, I was able to see it's little heart and to hear it as well. The baby measured a week earlier then what we thought though, so the official due date is Oct 24. And knowing my babies it won't be willing to come out until Nov 1.

So here are the pictures of my fetus. The tail looking thing is the umbilical cord.

Expectations

I know some of you know but for the others, we decided that it's time to start trying for another baby. Great news, I know! I love babies, but the months of November and December are so full of birthdays, holidays and anniversaries that we didn't want to add another to the list. So, we decided that we would try to get preggo in January and if that didn't work then we would wait until May to start trying again.

Now I don't want to give tmi, but I was really sure I wasn't pregnant, but the days ticked by and still no 'lady days'. I told a friend of mine that Aunt Flow still hadn't made a visit and she pretty much insisted that I was pregnant, so that night I asked Ryan to stop and get a test for me, he was brave and did.

I took the test while he was walking out to get the mail, mostly cause I didn't want him hanging around all nervous to see the results. No, he isn't that bad, I was just impatient to see if I was or if my cycle was off like crazy (I was seriously leaning towards my cycle being off, we've never gotten pregnant on the first try!). And honestly? (I know this IS tmi but here ya go) we haven't been using any sort of birth control for about a year.

After peeing on the stick it took about 5 seconds for it to tell me that I am indeed pregnant. I was phyced, I stood by the front door waiting for Ryan to come in so I could tell him. We kissed, we hugged I squealed like a school girl and then told him 'thanks for the baby'. I am so happy to be having another baby. It's going to be our last, I'm not sure how I feel about that (I am only 24). But hopefully by the end of this I'll know for certain.

You all are invited on this journey with me and even if you don't want to hear about it you probably will anyways. Sorry about that.

With every pregnancy I've had, in short I've gotten what I wanted.

With my first, I wanted a girl, probably becuase I am a girl and also becuase I didn't want her Bio dad being more attached, which he would have been if I had a boy. Also, I was about 8 months preggo with her when the movie Monsters Inc. came out. When Boo stepped onto the screen and I saw her I said to myself 'awe, I want a baby that looks like that!' and, she does. We call her Bugga Boo.

My second, I wanted another girl, Ryan and I had been married for 2 months when we got pregnant and we were still adjusting to Emma and I having him in our lives and the changes of roles. I again, was worried that if I had a boy Ryan would love and favor him far more then he would Emma, so I asked for a girl, with blue eyes (cause I love Ryan's eyes). And again, got what I wanted!

My third, of course I wanted a boy, when asking the man upstairs I wasn't specific about looks, I just wanted a boy and after trying to nurse Kaylyn (who had the smallest mouth) I asked that the baby have a big mouth so I could nurse without so much pain. He does have a big mouth, but to make him look normal I think Father decided to make the rest of him big too. He'll be 2 in May and he's fitting into 3T clothes perfectly.

And my fourth, this is my predicament, I don't know what I want. I'm so smitten with Daniel that part of me is ok if I have another girl, but then the other side is saying I should want a boy so daniel has someone else to play rough with... I'm kinda at a loss. Although, this time, I think I'm going to let it be up to the Almighty (not that it wasn't before, but I won't put in any requests). Just let him take care of it and go from there.

I'm so lucky to have my family, we're so blessed! And, I LOVE BABIES!!!

Oh, P.S. I'm only 5 and a half weeks along!

New Addition to the Family

At the beginning of the year we enrolled Emma into Piano, she was in Karate but I think the girl hormone kicked in a bit and she really started wanting to learn how to play the piano or how to sing. We went with piano lessons. She's been loving them! She seems to be a bit of a natural too. Then again, she's only been to a handful of lessons.
When we enrolled her we decided she needed something that resembled a piano so she could practice. We found a little keyboard on amazon for $11, yeah I should have know... It' sounds like we maybe got a $5 value out of it. We were totally disappointed. Emma, not really knowing any better was totally stoked about it and she practiced like crazy, resulting in our ears bleeding.

The other night as I was surfing Cragslist I decided to look under pianos, just to see what we could find, Ryan asked me what I was looking for and when I told him I was looking for pianos, hoping to find a good one for under $1000, it must have struck a cord with him because then he started looking and decided that he really really wanted one. We figured an upright would fit well in our family room and that we would have some very strict rules on when it could be played and when it would be off limits.
So as we're looking on Craigslist we find an upright piano that was in good condition for $600. Needless to say it was a steal of a deal. We contacted the owners and went to look at it the next day. When we showed up to look at it we noticed right off that it was a pretty small piano. Which suited us fine. I fell in love with it, and I think it's perfect. We bought it and brought it home last night.
The kids love having something new to play with, they're really good with it and know not to be too hard.
Our house feels more like a home with a piano and I'm grateful we have the opportunity to learn and enjoy music in our house.

Everybody Clean Up

I'm always trying to find new ways to get my kids to help clean the house. My favorite so far (and theirs too) is, for every chore they complete they get a big hug and kiss from mom. They eat it up! But, hugs and kisses only go so far.

My newest tactic; time! Kids LOVE beating the clock, so I play on that. While I fold laundry, or do dishes, or even clean up with them I count either up to five or from five down to one. In that time they need to have picked something up. After they have an item in hand they have ten seconds to put it away. It works like a charm, and they love it!

This is how good they did today. I love my kids! I also love how at the end Emma gets all model-ish on me and stoically gazes into the camera.

New Technology

Lately we've run into phone trouble. First, our home phone started dieing without notice, and when a cordless phone dies without notice I can't find it when I push the page button. So we had to start relying on my prepaid cell phone. Which we got for emergencies. But honestly, it adds up fast when the only think you use is a prepaid cell that runs out of minutes way too fast. So then we get another cordless it worked beautifully for the first 2 days, then one of the kids either dunked it in water or pored water all over it. Needless to say, that one is out of commission.

We started thinking and we have found that for the same price as our home phone, internet and one cell we can get unlimited messeging, unlimited data, e-mail and 550 minutes with 2 cell phones. We don't talk on the phone much anyways, most of the time I prefer to text. So we will be dissconecting our home phone, our internet and storing my piece of junk prepaid phone and will be using a cell phone for all of that. Maybe the cell phone will go to Emma once she's old enough for it. Then again, we could add another line use parent controls, and now-a-days they have 'family locate' where they can track the phone by GPS and even give you turn my turn directions. That sounds good to me. We'll have to see where that goes though.

So all in all, I honestly hope that going with cell phones works out. I hope we're satisfied with the service and that we don't regret signing a two year contract.

Best Present this Christmas

This year was full of so many gifts and so much love that it was seriously awesome. I love the Christmas season and the love and generosity that comes with it. My favorite gift (not that all the gifts weren't wonderful) was the one my sister Kristie made for all of her brothers and sisters.

A little history, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March of 2003 and in September of the same year he passed away. It's been one of the hardest things to live with. I hate that my kids don't know him, I hate that I didn't have him ther to give me away at my wedding, or to give me advice on things now. I miss him horribly, as I'm sure the rest of my family does. Thats probably why Kristie made these gifts.

Thank you Kristie! I love it!

The writting is my dad's he sent Kristie a letter while she was living up here and us in AZ back in '02, so she used it in each of the photos. She was also able to find a picture of each of us with our dad, except Rachel (but I'm looking in my archive of pictures to see if I can find one).

Gifts like these are the best!

FUNDAMENTAL TO RASING YOUR BABY!!!!!

A friend of mine on Facebook posted this yesterday and I love it! My mom never let her kids cry it out, and she never got too tired of us. She loves spending time with them and hearing them talk. We could always go to my mom for anything. She believed it was best for kids to have their cries answered and she did amazingly well (even with five kids!)

Mom, this is for you and for following that 'mother's intuition', cause it turns out it was right!!

WATCH THIS VIDEO!!!!!