Sick baby

We woke up with a sick girl this morning. Alyssa seems to have caught whatever cold was going around the family during Christmastime. Poor little thing. She seems pretty miserable. We ended up staying home today and just taking it easy.

I had some time to work on the baby quilt while she was sleeping. A few more squares down...way too many left still!

Hopefully she'll be feeling better quickly. There's nothing worse than having to watch your baby feel sick.

More snow

Had a doctor's appointment today. Looks like everything is going well so far. I start my one week appointments soon...I can't believe how quickly this is sneaking up on me!

We got more snow today. The girls were so excited to go out and play. We took about 20 minutes to get them all dressed in their snow clothes. They went outside for about 10 minutes and apparently decided they were too cold. Next thing I know, they were pounding on the back door wanting to come back inside. Silly girls.

Help!

It just hit me that the baby is coming in about 6 weeks. I have now hit panic mode! There is still so much to do before he gets here. I think the blogging is going to get more spotty as the date approaches.

I still have a quilt, an afghan and 3 blankets to finish before that and innumerable things to do at work. Not to mention all the little baby things I need to get - like clothes and diapers.

Mom is going to help me with the quilt. For some reason I decided that I was going to hand quilt all the squares with designs instead using the maching to do the boring "X" across the middle. I have only done about 30 of the squares and I have 70 left. YIKES. So she will take some of the squares and help me finish that part.

ACK! I hope I can get it all done!

Back to work...

It was SOOO quiet at work today. Hardly anyone showed up. It was nice though. I was able to get a lot done.

The best part of the day though was coming home to see Matt and the girls sitting on the couch with Kenna trying to play the Lego Star Wars game on the XBox. Her tongue was sticking out and she was moving the controller all over the place trying to get it to do what she wanted. I wanted to giggle just watching her. She's never played a console game before and was making her character running around in circles while shooting at random stuff. The first thing she had to tell me was that she got to be the princess. So cute!

Christmas Day 2007

Christmas was great! The morning started out a little rough...both girls woke up a bit grumpy because of the long day yesterday, but once they got to start playing with presents, they improved significantly. We had a nice little breakfast after all the wrapping paper stopped flying and the girls got to play with their toys for a little while before we headed over to mom and dad's for more family stuff. It was nice to hang out with the family some more and exchange gifts with everyone.

We went over to Matt's parents' house later in the evening and got to spend some time with his siblings and parents, and exchange gifts over there too. The kids all ran around and played together for a while, probably driving grandma and grandpa a little crazy.

Angie was doing really well, talking and watching the kids. It was the first time I've really heard her talk since before the strokes, so that was one of the big highlights of the night. I'm so happy to see her progress...especially for how much that helps Joe and the kids.

All in all, it was a great day with lots of time with both sides of the family. I love this time of year for that very reason. It gives us more opportunities to spend time with everyone. Now...if I just didn't have to go back to work tomorrow...

Christmas Eve

So of course I didn't get all my presents wrapped before today (or any of them for that matter...) so I need a break.

Despite all our best efforts, we did not have all our presents purchased this morning. Matt hadn't been able to finish what he wanted to on Saturday, so he headed out this morning to get the last couple items. I still had to get something for his stocking, and we had yet to get the last piece of the present for his dad. Oh, and we had to meet at my parent's house by 1:30 for the start of our Christmas Eve festivities.

At 12:15, Matt still hadn't gotten home and I was getting nervous.

We made it to mom and dad's on time...but I didn't have the chance to run to the store beforehand. Panic had set in at this point.

So, once everyone made it to mom and dad's, we headed out in a big caravan of cars to some unknown location for lunch. This is what it looked like when we got there and got settled...
















This shows most of us...We are a BIG group. There were 49 people all together at this particular gathering. I felt bad for the people behind us in line.

Fortunately, we had a couple minutes after lunch to run to the store so I could pick up the last thing for Matt and the book for his dad. Whew. Christmas shopping finally got finished at 4:30pm on Christmas Eve. (So much for the best laid plans...)

After that it was back to mom and dad's for games and hanging out. We played a bunch of games, including measuring a whole bunch of people for coffins...(Julie had to be the funniest, they used SO much water on that poor girl!)

We also had some of the kids play some music and a nice spiritual lesson from Bryson and Jill.

Then it was time for the opening the pj's on Christmas Eve tradition. You can sort of see the girls opening theirs in this picture.

Kenna was SO upset. She wanted to open a present really badly, and then to find out it was just pajamas about broke her heart. She wailed and cried like there was no tomorrow. Of course that probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was late and she was really tired, but still. You have never seen tears like this over pj's.

For the record, Alyssa happily accepted her pajamas and wanted to put them on right away. I think also because she was really tired and just wanted to go to bed.

(Kenna recovered quite quickly once they brought out the donuts.)

After hairy drive home in the snow at a late hour and getting the kids to bed, here we are. Half of the presents wrapped and completely beat from the long day. Luckily the kids are super tired and should sleep in tomorrow.

My eyes are struggling to stay open. I guess this means I need to go finish the presents...

Best Friends Day

Well, Kenna decided today had to be Best Friends Day, and apparently had a very clear picture in her mind of what that should be.

First of all, we were supposed to decorate the house with streamers and balloons. Too bad mom doesn't keep any of those on hand because it caused a meltdown that lasted about an hour.
Then we were supposed to make a cake. Fortunately, we had one of those in the pantry. We ended up making a few little cakes and let her decorate one to take to Grandma tomorrow. She LOVES to decorate cakes. (After all...she wants to be a cooker when she grows up...)

We also had to play games and do a few other things. She apparently recovered from her earlier disappointment because at the end of the day she announced that it had been the "best Best Friends Day ever!"

Early Christmas present

Matt took the day off and kept it a secret until it was close to the time he normally leaves. He has off all the way until next Friday. I'm so happy to have him home for all the festivities!

What a great surprise!

No wonder...

After seeing me limp around the office on my last visit, my OB recommended that I go see a Physiatrist (I thought she said Psychiatrist at first! I probably need that too...) to get checked out.

At the appointment today she poked at me a bit and determined that I had broken the tailbone (she couldn't tell how badly without an x-ray, which is obviously impossible at the moment) and that my SI joint is out. This is not normal, even in pregnancy, so I get to go to physical therapy. Yippee. And if that doesn't work, I get a fun shot in my hip. Even better.

Well no wonder I can't sit, stand, lay, walk or generally move without hurting (especially after yesterday's marathon of cookie making!).

Yet, for some reason, breaking my tailbone while pregnant, especially this far along, seems extremely funny and ironic to me. If it didn't hurt so bad, I'd be rolling on the floor laughing about it.

This kid is definitely gunning for the position of youngest child.

I must be nuts...

I spent all evening making about 12 dozen cookies. What was I thinking?

Oh, and NOTE TO SELF: Don't try to mix up a quadruple batch of peanut butter cookies when you have no idea where the mixer is and must use rubber spatula. This does NOT make for an effective mixing tool and consequently results in the mixing taking excessive amounts of time.

YAY!

The car was done early! I got to pick it up tonight, thanks to the gracious assistance of mom and dad.

I'm so happy to have it back. It looks perfect and they even detailed it for me.

This almost makes me feel better about the situation with the credit cards...almost.

Customer Service...or a lack thereof

This is not my month for fabulous customer service. I have had a few choice experiences in the last couple weeks, only one of which I will repeat here.

About 3 weeks ago, I noticed that my credit card from one of our banks was expiring at the end of the month and I thought. "Hey, that's weird. I haven't received my replacement card yet. Maybe they haven't gotten the address update." So I called my parents house to see if they had received any mail for us. Nope. No mail.

I went into said bank to double check that they had the correct address and to ask about the credit cards. Apparently there was a mix-up and the cards were made, but never sent out. Watch the mail for a little while, if they don't show up, call the bank and they will send out new ones. Okay. Fine. No big deal.

I waited two weeks. Still no cards. So, I called the bank. After more than 20 minutes of being on hold while they tried to figure out this difficult situation, the lady comes back on the line to tell me that the cards had been waiting at one of the local branches for me to pick up.

WHAT?

Well, when was someone going to tell me this? Nevermind that it wasn't my normal branch, or even one that was close to me. Just a phone call letting me know that they had them would have been helpful so I wasn't worrying that someone had stolen them out of my mailbox.

I asked if they could send them to my house. No.

HUH?

Again, why not? That's what NORMALLY happens. You get the new cards in the MAIL, at your HOUSE.

Can you at least transfer them to a branch remotely close to my house. Sure. The one up the street. Should be there by Tuesday at the latest. Great. Finally.

That Tuesday happened to be today. Now, Tuesdays are more structured days for us than most. I pick up the girls and then have about an hour to run errands before Kenna has to be to her tumbling class. I decided to use that hour on this Tuesday to go pick up the cards. Which involves me going about 20 minutes away from where Kenna's class is, but I figured it would be a quick stop and we'd have plenty of time to get back.

I go to the drive through window, give the girl my information and ask for my cards.

"They're not here." She says.
I give her a blank stare for about 30 seconds.
"Are you kidding?" I say.
"No. Were you expecting them here?"
Another blank stare from me while I try to refrain from saying "duh" and smacking her on the forhead.
"Yes. They told me that they would send them over to this branch."
"Who told you that?"
I'm 8 months pregnant and she expects me to remember what happened nearly a week ago...
"I don't remember. Some lady at the Sandy branch."
"I'll call over there and see what I can find out."

Apparently this girl doesn't have any more pull than I do because she was also on hold for about 15 minutes while the people at the other branch tried to figure out AGAIN what had happened to my cards.

They were still sitting at the other branch. *sigh*

Fortunately, she was a little bit more persuasive and was able to get them to send them to my house so I didn't have to go through this whole exercise again.

Now we just have to see if they actually show up....

I miss my car...

I had to take my car to the shop today to get the dent fixed. Therefore, I had to start driving my brother's Suburban. While I am intensely grateful for their willingness to let me borrow a car for the week...I never EVER want to own one of these behemoths. I feel like I'm driving a tank.

I had to take it over to the mall to get a new cell phone (since the battery in mine decided that holding a charge for any longer than 10 minutes was not something it felt like doing anymore). I ended up parking clear out in the boonies of the parking lot because I didn't trust myself not to hit anything due to the immense size.

It has all kinds of fun quirks (i.e. when you push on the gas pedal it has an STRONG desire to turn left...) and interesting sounds effects (squirrels live in the heating apparatus, I'm pretty sure...)

I've decided I like little, quiet, 4 door sedans...a LOT.

i miss my car...

Decorating the Tree

Here are some pictures from decorating the tree this afternoon. The girls had a blast...even if their ability to handle fragile glass made mom and dad a little nervous.

Drama queen turned shy girl

So today was the Christmas program for McKenna's tumbling class. Despite being a show off and having a real need to be the center of attention at all times, she was SO scared to go out on stage.













She kind of had that deer-in-the-headlights look on her face most of the time. But she got brave and went out and did what she was supposed to.













It was a fun first recital, and very good for her. She was so proud when she got to meet us afterwards and show us her medal.

We also (finally) got around to going out for the annual Christmas tree purchase. I still can't bring myself to buy a fake tree. Matt uses the trunks of the old trees to make ornaments and a little wooden train set that we set out at Christmas time. We feel a little bit better about killing a tree and having it hang around in our house for 2 weeks if we actually do something with the leftovers.

Oh, and something is amiss in the tailbone region still, I'm afraid. I was leaning against the counter while cooking lunch when I heard a distinct "POP" in the region of my backside. We shall see what sort of pain the next few days of sitting brings. Perhaps I'll have to bring this up to the doc.

Done?

Is our Christmas shopping actually *gasp* finished? A whole week and a half early? Well, not quite...but pretty darn close. Once again, date night turns into Christmas shopping night! We had a nice, but tiring evening of walking around Target and the local mall (sans children of course...thanks mom and dad!)

The girls are done - and that is usually the toughest part. Just two stubborn people left and the madness can end. Neither one of us are big shoppers, so this feels like quite an accomplishment.

Did I mention I want to get all the presents wrapped BEFORE Christmas Eve this year? Okay...so maybe the madness isn't quite over yet.

Sad news

I just heard tonight that my sweet niece had a miscarriage.

My heart is aching for her and her husband. What a terrible thing to have to go through.

I think I'll stop complaining about being pregnant now. My aches and pains don't seem so important when I think about how she must be feeling right now.

Funny how things like this can put your life back into perspective.

Surprise!

I received a wonderful surprise tonight. Matt got off work early and I actually got to spend more than five seconds talking to him in person. This is a rare occurance these days since our schedules are completely opposite, and it was fabulous! (Not that we did anything special...but still...)

See, usually our face to face meetings consist of me giving him a kiss before I leave for work at 5am, a hug and quick chat when we trade off the kids around 3pm, and a kiss goodnight from him when he gets home from work at about 12am.

Ah, if I had only appreciated the days we were home at the same time a little more! But I think I took it for granted that we would be the "normal" little family that got to spend all our evenings and weekends together. I must admit that although I'm content with our life and how we've been able to juggle everything so we don't have to rely on a baby-sitter/day care for the kids, I am a little jealous of the women that get to stay home with their kids and then have their husbands home in the evenings and on the weekends. What I wouldn't give to have that kind of schedule!!

I guess that just goes to show that it's hard for us (or at least me) to appreciate what we have until it isn't there anymore.

Grateful

I am grateful for two little girls who went to bed without fuss so their pregnant and very sore mommy didn't have to run up and down the stairs 100 times tonight.

Comfort

Have you ever felt completely panicked/worried about something? Like bawling your eyes out, sick to your stomach, feelings hurting and afraid?

And then, have you prayed about it and felt 100% better?

Yeah, that was my night.

I had read a General Conference talk yesterday about recognizing the hand of God in our lives and praying to be able to see and remember the things He does for us. I must say that I definitely witnessed one of His tender mercies as my fears have been calmed and I can now approach the situation with a completely different viewpoint because of the comfort I've been given.

I'm SO grateful that we have access to all this amazing instruction and inspiration from the leaders of our Church. I don't know what I would do without it...

Nesting?

While I enjoy having my house clean and I don't really mind cleaning, I haven't been that great at it this pregnancy. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that we moved in to the new house while I was in my first trimester. With all the nausea and migraines, I felt so much worse with this baby than with the other two. Then, when I was expecting to feel better in the second trimester like usual and everything got worse instead of better, my motivation continued its slump.

Now at two months left, (and still feeling crappy mind you), I've suddenly started to actually do laundry, dishes, clean, unpack boxes, etc. Can it really be that I'm nesting already or has my second trimester energy finally found me a couple months late?

Accident prone

So we had another big storm roll through last night and earlier today. It left a lot of snow, which I think is great, but I'm sure Matt doesn't like having to shovel the driveway and sidewalks quite so much.

As soon as the girls saw the snow, they wanted to go outside to build a snowgirl. (McKenna refuses to call it a snowman because we are girls and only girls can build snowGIRLS, boys build snowMENS). I got them all bundled up and sent them outside to get started while I did a few things around the house.

I was putting off going out because I really only have one pair of pants that fit me comfortably that I will wear outside the house (the rest are pajama bottoms) and I really didn't want to get them all wet because I was planning to go out to do some Christmas shopping. That and the fact that I don't own a coat that will go around my belly or snow boots that will fit my swollen feet. And let's face it...I don't bend in the middle anymore. That makes it a lot harder to build a snowgirl.

Eventually they could wait no longer. I put on my pants, squished my feet into my uncomfortably tight boots and rummaged through the coat box until I found one that would at least get close to closing in the front.

When you go out our back door, we have a nice big deck with stairs leading down into the grassy area. I headed out and carefully started down the snow covered steps, holding on to the railing. Well...apparently I wasn't careful enough and my foot slipped out from under me, bringing me crashing down on my tailbone onto the step. I then bounced down two more of the steps before I came to a screeching halt. This was quite an...unpleasant sensation.

My right hip is already extremely painful due to that half of my pelvis feeling the need to rotate out of its normal position while I'm pregnant. So now my whole backside is bruised and sore in addition to the hip pain. Good going, grace.

Aside from being a little sore, all is well. The baby was still as spastic as ever and I checked with the doctor that day just to be sure. Mom and dad came out to bring us dinner and check on me (not to mention clean the girls toy room) all of which I'm extremely grateful for.

When I asked Matt if he was embarrassed of his klutzy wife, he just said, "No. Now I just know where your daughter gets it from."

31 weeks and counting...

In honor of my 31st week of pregnancy, (and basically because I'm bored but too tired to really accomplish anything) I thought I'd compile a list of the my most and least favorite things about my current state:

10 Things I Hate About Being Pregnant:

1. Gagging on the toothpaste every morning (every SINGLE morning)
2. Being swollen.
3. Everything hurts.
4. Lack of sleep (due to #3 usually).
5. Constant stuffy nose.
6. Rude comments people make about your size, due date, etc.
7. Random people feeling like it's okay to touch my stomach (seriously STOP IT).
8. Not being able to wear my wedding ring when my hands get too puffy (I must admit, these winter pregnancies are better for that!)
9. All the (rather large) pills I have to take everyday.
10. The process required to get the baby out - which so far, has always included induction.

10 Things I Like About Being Pregnant:

1. Feeling the baby move.
2. My hair and fingernails grow faster.
3. Not feeling guilty about putting my feet up and relaxing (or trying to).
4. People seem to be more friendly and nice to you (although this can backfire, see #6 and #7 above).
5. Getting to take a month off work.
6. Shopping for baby stuff.
7. Having a shelf to sit my cereal bowl on.
8. Decorating the nursery. (boy stuff this time, yay!)
9. Being part of a miracle.
10. I get one of these at the end!

A night on the town...

Matt and I actually got to go out on a date last night! It's probably been a month since we have been able to sneak away because of all the holiday parties and what not.

It was a great relaxing night. Matt's parents whatched the girls for us. We went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and were actually able to have an uninterrupted conversation about something not having to do with the kids. (As much as I love them, I need some time alone with the hubby once in a while!)

We walked around outside for a little while (or in my case, waddled around) and were able to buy a couple of small things for the girls' Christmas stockings.

After this, I came to the realization of how firmly entrenched in the "parenthood" way of life we are when we spent the rest of the time we had wandering around Toys R Us picking out the kids Christmas gifts. Oh well...It was still time alone together and we got some things accomplished in the meantime.

I miss getting to spend time with Matt every day! The opposite schedule thing sucks, but it makes the time we DO have together a lot sweeter.

Make a wish...

After I finished my post last night, Kenna came up to me and said, "Mommy, I need to go and open the front door and stand outside and make a wish."

I had a little chuckle over that, then told her that since it was so cold outside, maybe she could go upstairs and make a wish looking outside her bedroom window. She ran upstairs, presumably made her wish, then ran back down through the family and into the toy room in the basement.

After being down there for a few minutes, she ran back upstairs to me with a completely dejected look on her face.

"Mommy, my wish didn't work! I don't have a printer by my computer!"

She has been asking for several days for a printer for the downstairs computer so she could print out all her artwork. I guess she decided mom and dad were too slow and she'd have to take matters into her own hands.

Christmas Shopping...

I had such great plans this year...I knew I was going to be big and pregnant by the time December rolled around, so I was going to be one of those fabulous super prepared people that you hear about in legend. The ones that have all their Christmas shopping done by August...

But you know what? I really really suck at figuring out what to get people for Christmas. Here we are less than three weeks away, and I have only bought three gifts so far. The sad thing is, I would have gotten more, I just have had no idea what to get people.

And with how many toys my kids have right now, I don't really feel like buying them more. What do you get a kid for Christmas, besides toys, that they won't be disappointed in? I'm leaning towards books...lots and lots of books. Maybe some art supplies...but with the events of earlier this week, I'm not sure that's such a great idea.

At any rate, here I am, big and pregnant and not wanting to brave the crowds, still no idea what to get people, and no time to shop. Is it wrong to order every single Christmas gift you give off Amazon, just because it's easy?

Cleanliness

Apparently crayons are the weapon of choice with the kids this week.

Alyssa decided to do a little redecorating while dad was in the shower. (Okay, maybe not RE-decorating as I have yet to hang up a picture in the house we’ve lived in for 5 months…) She took a dark blue crayon and colored all over two walls, the window sill, both chairs and the table of their “art spot”. She then proceeded to take a yellow crayon to the LCD monitor of the downstairs computer. Needless to say, Matt was a little frustrated with her when I got home from work today. Perhaps we have a future interior designer on our hands? (Every time something like this happens I want to kiss the person that invented magic erasers. Less than 10 minutes and the whole mess was gone.)

Speaking of cleaning up (well…sort of…)

I went into the women’s restroom at work today, and as I went to wash my hands noticed that someone had put up a sign on the mirror talking about the health benefits of washing your hands with soap and water.

You’d think in an office full of adults, washing hands after using the restroom would be standard practice. And this is where you would be wrong. There are several women that apparently don’t feel the need to pay a visit to the sink on their way out, which really grosses out the rest of us.

Bless the person that put the reminder on the mirror, but perhaps it would have been more visible to those who needed it by putting it on the back of the stall doors?

Are you kidding me?

Let’s start at the beginning…

Last Thursday I got to work at early like normal. And, like normal at that time of the morning, had my pick of parking spaces. When I went to leave work, I had been boxed in to my parking spot. There was a column on the drivers side, a car parked super close to me on the passenger side, and a car parked perpendicular to me and just far ahead enough of me to make it hard to get out.

Long story short, I ended up getting up close and personal with the column and adding some new body contours and a yellow stripe or two to the paintjob on my nice, fairly new car.

This afternoon, I took the car in to the body shop for an estimate on fixing up the MINOR damage. (Seriously, you can barely see it…very small dent and a few 1 to 2 inch long yellow stripes.) I thought…maybe a couple hundred dollars. The damage is confined to the middle of the door; they can probably buff the paint out, yadda, yadda. The estimator comes back to show me the paperwork - $1,110.84. Talk about adding insult to injury…

They also have to take the car for an entire week. So now we’re in the predicament of what to do about that. We have to have two cars to maintain our schedules. Fortunately, I have an extremely wonderful and generous family, which includes a brother with an extra car. (I also have good insurance that is reducing the out of pocket repair cost to $250.)

Guess we know what I’m getting for Christmas this year…

Look how pretty!

It being a nice relaxing Sunday today, I decided to do some more work on the baby's quilt. (The time is quickly approaching and I'm no where near finishing this project. Maybe because I decided to hand quilt all the squares? Silly me...)

The girls were coloring and playing with their dolls (quietly and without fighting for a change), so I thought it was the perfect time. I sat down on the couch with my needle and thread and went to town.

About 15 minutes later, McKenna comes to me with her doll and says, "Look how pretty Mommy!" They had taken the three dolls they were playing with and had put makeup on them, i.e. colored all over their hands and faces with the crayons. They were SO proud of themselves.

Needless to say, we spent the rest of the evening before bathtime teaching them how to clean crayon off plastic doll faces and NOT working on the quilt.

Snow!

We finally got our first real snow day. The girls were very excited to go out and play!

They had a blast. Hopefully it sticks around for a little while. Kenna is dying to build another snowgirl.

First post...

So apparently all the witty blog titles are taken...or I'm just not as originally witty as I would like to be (probably more the case). I finally just picked something, even though I'm not in love with it, just so I can start writing. (If in two months I can't come up with something I think is fabulous, it's probably not going to happen.)

I've been wanting to start one of these for a while now, mostly because I'm horrible at writing in my journal - even though I have lugged it back and forth to work every day for a year. I want to be able to remember what happened with my little family. So hopefully I'll be better at keeping up with this.