2 Weeks Down!

Time is just flying by! Well, not really, but it's going faster than I thought it would :) Tomorrow I will be 20 weeks. I feel Eva multiple times a day now, although Rob has only felt her a few times and no one else has felt her at all. She tends to be a bit uncooperative and stop moving when people put their hands on my tummy. Considering that she's measuring about a week ahead of schedule, she should be about 11 inches long and between 10 and 12 ounces.

I had a dr's appointment yesterday afternoon. Brittney watched the kids and drove me to Rob's work, then took the kids to the playground (it was cloudy and looked like rain, so the pool was out). Rob left work early and went with me to my appointment. Eva is doing well. The dr was able to easily find her heartbeat and she sounded great :) I have gained two pounds total since the beginning of the pregnancy, which I am excited about :) I would love to walk out of the hospital weighing less than I did before I got pregnant! My contractions have slowed down over the last few days, a sign that the bedrest is working :) I'm not dilated, but there have been some changes, although not enough for it to be a problem yet. There are medications they can put me on that help with contractions, but they are not great to be on for extended periods of time, so if we can control the contractions with bedrest, that's best. The dr is having me come in weekly now (usually the weekly visits start at about 34-35 weeks if I remember correctly). Once I hit 23 weeks, there is a test they can do that indicates the probability of going into labor in the next two weeks, so they will be doing that test weekly. If I can make it to 24 weeks, Eva has a much better prognosis. If I can make it to 28-30 weeks, she should be fine. If I can make it to 35-36 weeks, she might even be able to come home with us instead of spending time in the NICU.

Happy Birthday Hon!!!

Rob's birthday was yesterday :) He's now halfway to 70! For obvious reasons, I couldn't do much to make the day special for him. Fortunately, we had already sort of celebrated his birthday last month when we went to see Andy McKee in concert, which was my birthday present to him.

Jack gave him a birthday present by wearing underware to bed and waking up dry :) Very exciting for us! I asked Travis if he could come over and stay with me and the kids so Rob could go to boxing. Travis happily agreed and we sent Rob off to a double boxing class. He was supposed to go on Thursday night, but didn't want to leave me alone with the kids when he was that far away and not able to hear the phone if something happened. While he was gone, Beca dropped off a cherry pie for him (which he prefers over birthday cake).

We took it easy that afternoon. He told the kids he would take them to Cabela's if they cleaned up their toys, but Megan was the only one who decided to clean anything, so we all stayed home. We had planned to order pizza for dinner as that is Rob's favorite food, but he didn't feel like going out to get it or pulling the frozen pizzas we have out of the freezer, and since it was his birthday, he got to do whatever he wanted for dinner :) He decided to start with ice cream (Heath Bar Crunch from Bryers), move on to things like bread, fruit and veggies, and finish up with cherry pie, eaten from the pie pan, starting in the middle and working his way out :) I had leftovers from last night instead :) The kids preferred Rob's choice of dinner.

We spent the evening talking, which we actually haven't gotten much chance to do lately. It was really nice to spend time with him :)

I hope you had a wonderful birthday Sweetie!!! I'm so glad you are part of my life!!!

Kylie Lost Her First Tooth!!!

One of Kylie's bottom middle teeth has been loose for several weeks. Last night she came over to have me wiggle it and it was so loose that I gave it a quick tug and it popped right out! Kylie's first response was "HEY! You said you were just going to wiggle it!" Then I handed her the tooth and she stopped complaining :) She was thrilled as she's been waiting all year for a tooth to fall out (Megan lost her first tooth in kindergarten). It was bedtime, but she and Megs ran downstairs to write a letter to the tooth fairy. It asked the tooth fairy to keep her tooth safe. The tooth fairy left a note in return promising to take good care of it, along with four quarters as for the life of her, the tooth fairy could not find a single gold dollar coin (which is what she left for Megan each time). Fortunately Kylie didn't care that she got four quarters instead of the gold dollar, making the tooth fairy very glad that she didn't make her husband go out at 10pm to try and hunt one down :) I have a picture of Kylie with her tooth, but have not gotten the chance to download it onto the computer yet.

Life has been interesting. We're starting to adjust and settle in for the long haul. Brittney comes over every Monday and Wednesday and helps around the house, then takes the kids swimming, which, of course, they love. As Rob no longer has to take the week off in September for my residency, had almost two weeks of vacation time left over, so he's taking every Friday off until September. A friend brought over dinner last night and another friend brought over dinner tonight, both of which we really appreciated! Rob is doing an amazing job stepping up and the kids, especially Megan, are being a huge help as well. Travis is letting me use his laptop until mine gets here (my parents bought me one the day after they found out about the bedrest), which has really, really helped, and Rob bought me a regular computer mouse to hook up to it. Those little mouse pad things at the bottom of the laptop just don't work as well :) One week down, 16 to go!

3 Days Down . . .

And another 16.5 weeks to go. I'm counting to 35 weeks as that is when I have heard that the drs usually take you off bedrest as babies born after then are usually okey dokey :) It took a few days, but reality is starting to sink in. The contractions went away by Tuesday night after I spent Tuesday lying down and I had none on Wednesday morning, but I did a few simple things like wipe down the counters, make dinner, and go to the chiropractor on Wed night and they started back up again. Looks like we're in for the long haul.

We're setting up a schedule for the next five weeks to get us through the summer and make it until my mom gets here. My goal is to stay out of the hospital at least until the end of August - of course, it would be wonderful to be able to stay home the rest of the pregnancy as I'm sure bedrest at home is much better than bedrest at the hospital! At least my kids would be nearby and I rather like my bed and getting to spend time with my husband when he's home from work :) Brittney has offered to come over twice a week and help out with the chores and the kids. I have two other friends that have offered to take the kids one day a week and Rob is home on weekends, so I think that schedule will work. Other friends are offering to bring in meals and that is a big help as well :)

I withdrew from the Phoenix residency. I've redone my class schedule with the help of an advisor and will be attending a residency sometime next spring instead. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they have one close by. They haven't posted the locations for next year's residencies though, so I won't know for a month or two. I'll have to bring the baby with me and either Rob or someone to watch her while I'm in class, but we'll figure it out :)

I was talking to a friend last night. She went through a month of bedrest in the hospital last year. Her twins were due on Dec 14th; Eva is due on Dec 15th. She started having contractions at 17 weeks just as I have, but didn't know to worry about them or to mention them to her dr. She thought they were just coming earlier because she was having twins. I thought mine were just because this is the fifth baby. She didn't go on bedrest until 24 weeks (I think?) though and delivered her twins at 28 weeks. They are perfect now and just started crawling :) Our similarities in dates are interesting :) I'm hoping since I went on bedrest earlier that I'll be able to keep Eva in a bit longer. I saw how hard it was for them to have their twins in the NICU for so long. If I hadn't watched her go through that experience though, I don't know if I would have bothered mentioning my contractions to the dr. I'm so glad her twins are fine and hopefully her experience will help me keep Eva in longer than I would otherwise!

Quote for the day . . .

My current teacher's response to my introductory post ~

The solution to having too much on your plate is NOT to look for a platter! :)

The Results Are In . . .

and baby #5 is . . . a GIRL!!!

It was an interesting day. Our sonogram appointment wasn't until 3pm. We spent the morning making a double batch of chocolate chip cookies - some for our neighbor, who spent a bit of time yesterday mowing and edging our front lawn (we unofficially sort of try to trade off mowing each other's front lawns - although we've never really talked to those neighbors, we appreciate them!), and some for the nurses at the dr's office as I thought it would make it a more positive experience to walk in with 4 small children if I brought cookies.

Well, we didn't end up bringing cookies to the dr's office. We also didn't end up bringing children to the dr's office. The kids and I loaded up into the car a bit early as we had a few errands to run first. As we pulled out of the driveway, it immediately became apparent that something was wrong with the car. One of our front tires was completely flat. So we pulled back into the driveway and I called Rob and told him to book it home as fast as possible so I could use his car to go to my appt. I called Brittney, who had planned to go with us to help with the kids, and explained the situation. Knowing that we couldn't fit all the kids in Rob's car, and knowing that Rob really looked forward to being there for the sonogram, I called Travis and Susan to see if either could run over and watch the kids, but both were working. Beca came to the rescue and happily offered to let the kids play at her house while we went to the appt. The kids were disappointed, but I promised we would get the sonogram on a dvd so they could watch it and that I would call them first to tell them the gender. They probably enjoyed playing at Beca's house much more than they would have enjoyed sitting through the sono.

In the meantime, I got a call from Brittney, who was very disappointed that she wouldn't be going to the sono. Her mom got home from work early and Brit told her what was going on, so she let Brittney use her truck and Brittney met us at the dr's office.

We didn't have to wait horribly long for them to call us back. All my other babies have disliked performing for sonograms and buried their heads as far down as they can go, making getting the necessary measurements difficult, but making it very easy to immediately determine gender. We were therefore surprised to find this baby's head up. The tech appreciated it as that position made it easy to take the measurements he needed to, however he had a lot of difficulty determining the gender. About halfway through, he guessed it was a girl, but couldn't tell us for sure. I ended up having to roll up on my side several times as when I was laying flat on my back, the pressure made me start to black out (which the tech said was pretty common, although I had never had that problem before), but it turned out to be a good thing as she moved a bit when I moved and we were finally able to determine that it was in fact a girl :) She looks very healthy and was measuring 18.5 weeks, so almost a week ahead of schedule, which is normal for our kids :) We got to hear the heartbeat, which was about 170.

Following the sonogram, my dr came in to do my regular monthly check up. I mentioned that I had started having some small contractions. He was concerned that they were starting so early. Although they were all Braxton-Hicks contractions (meaning they aren't "real" contractions), he told me he wanted to put me on modified bed rest, which basically means I need to stay in bed and not do anything I don't absolutely need to do. I could have just been dehydrated or they could have been caused by walking around the mall that night, but he wants to stop them if possible. There are medications I can go on to stop them as well, and we'll use those if we need to, but bed rest is our best bet.

Brittney immediately offered to do whatever she could to help, as has every friend I've talked to about it. My parents response was to offer to send my mom down this week, but they are in the process of trying to pack everything up and move down here as my dad is retiring, so I think we'll have Brittney and our friends help out for the next 5-6 weeks. My mom is thrilled that she'll be able to take care of the house and kids for me and my dad is already searching for a laptop for me :) Brittney is excited to be able to help out and although I've only told a few friends about this so far, I've had offers of childcare, meals, grocery shopping and even household cleaning. We're still trying to mentally adjust and figure out how things are going to work, but I feel so blessed to have people who care about us!

Honestly, I'm not sure how to react to this. I go from trying to figure out what to ask other people to do to worrying that I'm making people do my job while I sit in bed. Rob told me that considering the possible consequences, he didn't think any one would mind if I did that. It's a hard concept to wrap your mind around though. Logically I know that when they start talking about bedrest and terbutalane (or however you spell it) at your 18 week appt, it is not over-reacting to plan to spend the next 18 weeks on bedrest. Another part of me keeps thinking that I should stop being silly, of course I'm fine. Don't worry, the logical side will win out :) It will just be hard to sit there and let other people do my jobs. I don't like feeling lazy and I don't like making people wait on me :) Honestly "taking it easy" is one of the hardest things for me to do.

We have decided that I'll stay in school this quarter. It's not like I won't have time to do homework :) It looks like I may not be making it to Phoenix for my residency this September though. The dr said there is a chance that the contractions will stop though and if they do, then I can go. We'll know more about it in two weeks at my next appt. At this point, I'm assuming I won't be going. We'll figure it out.

We've decided on a name - Eva Grace. We aren't sure if we're going to call her by her first or middle name though. We'll keep you updated!

God Bless America!!!

I love the 4th of July! Maybe it was growing up in New England where history seemed to come alive for me, but it has always been a special holiday.

For the first time in a couple of years, Rob wasn't working on the 3rd or 4th (the place he moonlights at usually does a big party thing that he works at). On Saturday, we took the morning pretty easy, then went over to Kora and Bret's house for dinner. Susie was working, but Travis joined us. The kids had fun playing together, as usual, and the adults had fun playing games like Rockband on their wii. I even managed to not stink on the bass guitar! Travis really got into it though and proved that the hours he had spent playing it with his roommates at college was worth it :) The kids interrupted our game and electrified us by announcing that they had found a scorpion in the yard. Bret and Rob ran out to check and discovered it was a crawdad instead of a scorpion :)

As it got later, all of us piled into our cars and drove to watch the fireworks. We always sit in the same place, which is about 1/2 mile from the park where they set them off. It's hard to see the lower ones, but we have a perfect view of the rest of them, there is lots of room for the kids to run and play, and we don't have to worry about traffic afterward. This year there were tons of june bugs and the kids had lots of fun chasing them (and each other). It had rained earlier that day, so there were only a few other people there. We spread blankets out and Bret brought chairs for Kora and I. The kids made a fort with an extra blanket, chased june bugs and played tag.

Sunday we went to church, then took turns napping in the afternoon. Travis and Susie came over for dinner. Travis brought bacon-wrapped steaks for the adults (the kids got some too) and we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, along with corn on the cob. We also had potato salad and watermelon (although we forgot about the watermelon, so we're eating that today). For dessert, we made a cake we make every year. Megan made the cake this year (from a boxed mix), then once it was cool, we covered it with homemade whipped cream and the kids decorated it with raspberries and blueberries. Megan wanted to place the fruit in the shape of a flag, but the other kids decided they'd prefer a random pattern.





The finished product ~


And a silly picture ~


Travis and I had bought a tube of party poppers and stuff like that, so after dessert we all went out in the back yard and set them off. They are set off by pulling a string, which fires out strings of tissue paper or confetti. We also had a couple of boxes of little tissue wrapped thingies that made a loud bang when you threw them on the ground. Rob demonstrated by doing a sort of Latino style dance, punctuated with the pops. I got it on video :)

My Future Entomologists

We have lots of geckos down here. I love geckos. They eat bugs (including spiders), plus they are cute and they don't bite :) Occasionally we'll see one in the house, although I think the cats eat them, so we don't see many. We found this one the other night on the back door. We took a quick picture, then moved him outside so he wouldn't get eaten ~



I went out to lunch on Saturday with my friend Allison. As I got in her car, I spotted a huge dead bug stuck in her hood by the windshield. It was in perfect condition, so I snagged it for the kids to study. Allison said it was a locust. Having never seen one, I took her word for it.

The kids were a bit apprehensive about it at first, but got very interested in it and decided to do in depth scientific studies on it involving studying it and drawing it. They even discovered that it actually has four wings, two of which are smaller and hidden under the bigger ones :)





To give you an idea of the size ~


Beth's observations ~


Jack's observations ~


Megan carefully studying it ~


Megan's observations (Kylie got upset because she said her pictures weren't as good as Megan's, so she got mad and threw them away) ~

Hallelujah!!!

I apologize in advance to those of you without children. Those of you with children will understand our excitement :)

Jack pooped on the potty today!!! All by himself!!! We have started potty training again (we stopped when I started school last quarter as he really wasn't ready). Our approach, for those interested, is to take their diaper off and let them run around with nothing. In our experience it works much better than pull ups or underware and is easier to clean up. We try not to remind them to go very often as it seems to work better if they figure out how to do that themselves. Jack has only had a few small accidents in the past few days and today he took himself to the potty without anyone's help! Yay!!! I don't want to jinx us, but we're really hoping for a few months with NO diapers!!!

Playing Catch Up

I spent last week sleeping. I think this last quarter finally caught up with me. This week, I've started working my way through the mounds of things that have been put off for the last several months. I have finally caught up on folding the kid's laundry. I have decided they are going to be nudists as I have no desire to ever fold another piece of clothing :) Jack is potty training again and doing pretty well so far (it's only been two days). I might actually get a few months with not a single child in diapers! Someone asked if I would be afraid I'd forget how to change diapers if that happened. I think once you've done something multiple times a day for eight years straight, you can pretty much do it in your sleep for the rest of your life :)

Another thing on my to do list was to sort through the piles and piles of papers sent home with the girls from school at the end of the year (hence the artwork posts yesterday). I accomplished that feat this morning (and feat is an appropriate word considering the size of the task), filled a laundry basket with papers to recycle and in the process found some I'd like to remember.

Megan loves to make books. She takes stacks of paper, folds them in half and writes stories, complete with illustrations. A couple of her books I'm going to take pictures of so we have the illustrations too, but there are several that have just a few illustrations, including (complete with original spelling) ~

************************

Dogs
Ilustartion and Written by Megan

Dogs are excalent smellers. Playful, crazy, funny, and they chase cats around. Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!, hiss, Ruff!

***********************

Happy Halloween
A book about Halloween
Illustrations and by Megan

Once upon a time, in Halloween, there lived a ghost, a witch, a spider, a bat. On that halloween night, it was spooky. Across the valley, was houses. "Boooo I will go over there and scare the children" said the ghost. "It will be fun." "We will watch you" said his friends. And all of the people ran as fast as they could. The ghost said "BOO!!!" Finally, the children ran in their homes. "Oh, banicholes (barnacles)" said the ghost. The End

***********************

Jokes
Written and Illustuad by Megan

To my sibleings, who are jiggleing Jellybeans.

What is the potato head?
The bottom of the potato

Who is the chef?
The turkey

Who makes the turkey?
The keys

The paper is the gluestick

Who lives in a turkey under the sea?
The banana

************************

All About My Family
By Megan

Hi! My name is Megan. I LOVE babies. My favortite food is cheese. I have 4 kids (well, we are going to have number 5 near November!) and 2 parents and 4 pets.

My dad's name is Robert. (Although some people call him Rob). He LOVES the UFC (and wrestling). The type of writing he writes in sribble. He signed up for boxing. His favorite movie is the Leagend of Vampires (??????????). He is 34.

My mom's name is Laney. She is 31 (well, in May she is going to be 31) years old. She has beautiful brown hair and brown eyes. She is a great sewer. Once she made a poodle skirt! I love my mom, she is good at math.

My sister's name is Kylie. If someone asks what she wants to be when she grows up, she is going to fight Shelby Marx and a zookeeper and a cowgirl.

My 2nd sister's name is Beth. She is 4. She loves makeup and baby kittens. She has hazel eyes and brownish and blondeish hair. She has the lightest hair in our family.

This is my brother. His name is Jack. He is a funny little boy. He calls me "neigh neigh". He has brown hair and brown eyes. I love him!

These are my pets. The dog's name is Simon. The black cat's name is Cricket, the black and white cat's name is Harlaquin. The brown and black cat's name is Max.

*********************

This year Megan had assignments called "one page reports" due every other Friday. Her teacher picked her top ten reports and put them together for us in a packet. Below are some of them ~

My dog is named Simon. He likes games catch and Simon says and tag. He is a baby. He is a catahoula leopard dog. He has black spots on his tongue. His birthday is on Valentine's day. That's why he has a red collar and a red leash, and a heart dog toy and a bag of heart doggy treats. It was my 7th birthday present. My babysitter was babysitting me that day so my parents could go get him. I was so glad that I got him. My parents go it for my birthday because I cleaned so much and listened to what my parents said. He plays with the cat. It is soooo funny! He runs faster than me, he runs around the backyard.

My New Baby
On 4-21-10 my siblings and I figured out that we were going to have a new baby. It will be born near Thanksgiving. 3 think it is a boy. 3 think it is a girl. This week it is as small as a bug. It is the 5th child. WOW! It is going to be a looooong year in 2011! But it will be fun! I LOVE babies! They are cute and funny.

My Birthday Party
My birthday is 7-31-10. It is my favorite holiday. I hope I get a pinata for my 8th birthday! I love pinatas. I am going to have my ears pierced and go out to a pedicure and before that I am going to have a High School Musical party. I am going to have a looooooooooong day! Well, I may have a sleepover party also.

Cooking Dinner
I got a cookbook for Christmas. My aunt gave me an apron so meat or another kind of food doesn't get on my shirt. My mom said I can cook every Monday. On the first week I cooked pepperoni and black olive pizza and pepperoni pizza. On the second week I made chicken pot pie. On the third I cooked porcupine balls, meatloaf made into little balls. When it's cooking the rice sticks out. That's what porcupine balls are. I love cooking because my mom works so hard on dinner and I want to give her a break. Cooking is fun!

Finding Roly Poly's
On 5-6-10 I was playing at my friend's. We found a ladybug. My friend's mom said to let it go. But we didn't. We removed a lot of rocks and found lots of roly poly's Then we removed a giant rock and made it the roly poly's home. They we pulled grass and picked the rocks that we removed and put them on top of the grass. Then we went back to playing our soccer game. Then we ate popsicles. We had a great time!

My Brother Jack
I love my baby brother, Jack. He is sooo silly and funny. He is going to turn 3! His birthday is August 13, 2007. He has brown hair and always says "ROAR!!!" He is the smallest in our family. My favorite shirt he wears says "mini me" in red writing. His favorite shirt says "robots rule" and with a lion that opens it's mouth. When he sees a car he says "zoooooom!" Once he danced to Taylor Swift! It makes me laugh so loud! And when my parents ask him to do something, he always says "why?"

Dancing in the Rain

We finally got rain the other day . . . lots and lots of rain. It's been quite a while since it's rained here. We've had to water the foundation because the dirt was pulling away from the house. I remember the first time someone told us about watering the foundation. We thought they were trying to put one over on us, but they weren't :) It can get so hot and dry here that you need to surround your house with a soaker hose and leave it running at least once a week for a few hours or your foundation gets damaged.

As soon as Megan heard the raindrops on the windows, she started pulling out raincoats and searching for her rain boots. Having had a lot of experience with Megan and rain, I told her to forget the raincoat, but to go change into play clothes. She happily headed out into the backyard where, as usual, a huge puddle was forming.



Jack ventured out once or twice briefly, then retreated to the kitchen.



Once I found him a raincoat, Jack happily joined Megan, who was making mud soup in the empty turtle sandbox.



Kylie changed into play clothes and joined Megan and Jack. The puddle had gotten much bigger by this time.



Beth decided to stay inside. Rob got home from work, so Beth helped him do his pushups :)

Surprise Garden

We have tried several times to grow a garden. It never works very well. Last year we managed to grow basil, but everything else died. I think I may try herbs again next year as I really like fresh herbs. Anyway, several weeks ago, Rob got sick. He was sick for a couple weeks. Because he was sick, the back lawn didn't get mowed for almost a month. When we finally were able to mow it, we discovered a large patch of something growing in the back corner. It looked like squash or pumpkins, but it was growing up rather than out along the ground. We took a chance that it wasn't just weeds and mowed around it. Megan did an intensive scientific study of it with detailed notes, and a friend took a leaf to compare to all the plants in her garden, but we couldn't figure out what it was. Another friend finally suggested that it might be sunflowers. A few days later, she was proven right when our first sunflower appeared :) The kids have watched with delight as more and more sunflowers have appeared each day.

Random Pictures

The kids kidnapped the camera the other day. Among the dozens of random shots of various rooms, the computer screen, and toys, I found some keepers :)

Megan's Art - 2nd Grade '09-'10

Megan's art was among the few chosen to be shown in the school district's art show last May. I love that both my girls love art! It was one of my favorite classes in high school and my sister, Molly, is pursuing a degree in it. Rob loves art as well, although his preferred medium in high school was a camera. Anyway, here are some of Megan's masterpieces from this past year ~

Her weaving ~


Flower still-life ~


Self-portrait (my favorite of her pieces) ~


African art ~

Kylie's Art - Kindergarten '09-'10

I've been meaning to do this since school got out, but better late then never :) At the end of each school year, the girls bring home their art portfolios. I would love to keep every piece of artwork, but with five kids, I'm sure that will get a bit overwhelming, so I think we're just going to pick our favorite from each year and have it framed. We'll take pictures of the rest of their art work though :) As I previously mentioned, Kylie won the art award for Kindergarten this year :) What does art from an award-winning kindergartner look like? See below ~

A frog ~


Kylie's weaving ~


Underwater seascape (which is the piece chosen for the art show) ~


I love the backwards "S" :) ~


The jungle (the monkeys are my favorite part) ~

Beth's Pre-K Lessons

Megan is giving Beth pre-k lessons and has even made her a workbook to go along with it. They hold "school" almost every day. I tried to video her singing her ABC's, but she refused to perform before a camera. Apparently Beth subscribes to the belief that the louder you sing, the more likely you are to remember your letters, so she sings at the top of her lungs. Her rendition sounds something like this ~

"a b c d e f g, h i k k l m n o p, q r x t u v w x y and z"