Recent Quotes

Beth: Mom, do you have any ropes?
Me: Umm, what do you need ropes for?
Beth: I'm going to have an experience.


Jack: Hey Mom, can you do up my buttons? Oh, and don't check inside my pants.


Overheard from the playroom while the kids were playing house ~
Megan: Stop!!! If you do that I'll get fired and we'll have no money and I'll have to sell you!!!


Beth (explaining tense to Jack): If it's already happened, you say "drewened". If it hasn't happened yet, you say "draw". Like Thorn (Thor) is drewened in the Avengers. They aren't real you know.
Jack: Yes they are!!! If they aren't real, then who makes lightning???


Phone call with Rob ~
Me: Why are you calling from this phone instead of the other one?
Rob: Eva took the other one and won't give it back.
Me: Eva's one. You're an adult.
Rob: Yes, but she's deceptively strong. And stubborn.

Field Day '12

As I'm allowed up twice a day for an hour or two, I traded walking to school to pick up the girls for going and watching them for part of their field day. Betsy's walking them home so I could make it to field day :) Megan's in a green shirt with one french braid, Kylie's in a purple shirt, and Beth is in a blue shirt. There are also a couple of random pictures of Eva as every time she sees the camera, she insists that I take a picture of her :)

 

Caitlin and Kylie ~

Eva actually allowed me to put pigtails in her hair today!!!

Kylie's Turns 8!

Our little Kyliekins turns 8 today!!! As we have Activity Days at our house tonight, we held our family celebration yesterday. Kylie picked spaghetti and meatbogs for dinner. We had Ashley and Caitlin over (and the elders as they needed dinner. After dinner Kylie got to open her presents.

Megan drew her a picture ~

 

Mom and Dad got her a new bathing suit for the summer ~

Her big present this year was a pink camouflage sleeping bag!

Nona and Papa got her scriptures that were all her own, complete with a carrying case (Megan got new scriptures when she turned 8 too. Kylie was looking forward to this present so much that when we had her talk with the elders to insure that she knew what she was doing by getting baptized and that she wanted to do so, and they asked what happened when you turn 8, she responded by saying that you get your own set of scriptures) ~

We bought Kylie's cake this year for the first time ever (usually she asks me to make it, but I wasn't up to it this year). She was thrilled with this cool Angry Birds cake she found at Albertsons! ~

In lieu of a party, Kylie is going out to the movies next Monday. She's decided she wants to see the remake of "The 3 Stooges". She gets to bring a friend, so she picked Caitlin :)

Happy birthday gorgeous girl!!! We love you and are so glad you are part of our family!!!

Sandy Lake Amusement Park

Rob's department at Fidelity held a picnic for the employees at a small amusement park called Sandy Lake. We got BBQ for lunch then unlimited rides for several hours. I knew I couldn't handle that much walking around, so we kidnapped Ashley for the day and brought her along with us :) For the first hour Rob took Beth and Jack and Ashley hung out with Megan and Kylie, then they switched kiddos so they could go on different rides. Eva and I hung out in the shade while Eva played with rocks she found.

Beth, Jack and Rob on a little roller coaster ~

Rob came back and got Eva so she could ride on the carousel with Beth and Jack ~

Kylie, Ashley, and Megan ~

Kylie, Ashley, and Megan on the Scrambler ~

Eva hanging out with Daddy for a bit ~

Jack and Beth on the boat ride ~

Beth, Ashley, and Jack ~

Eva enjoying the breeze (notice her baby doll - it goes everywhere with her) ~

Kylie, Daddy, and Megan ~

The one ride I got to go on - the train that circled the park ~

Megan and Kylie on the bumper cars ~

We had a wonderful time! We were so grateful that Ashley came with us as it made it so much easier :) We have been incredibly lucky with babysitters - I can't imagine better babysitters than Brittney and Ashley!!! They have been amazing blessings in our lives :)

Random Recent Pictures

Eva playing peek-a-boo ~ 

Eva, Kylie, and Beth being goofballs ~

Eva after falling asleep on Mommy ~

22 Week Tummy ~

Jack pushing Eva around in the doll stroller ~

My gorgeous goofball ~

Bedrest: Uncensored

Over the past week or so I have had several people chide me for not telling them what is going on. I don't like to complain - no one enjoys hearing it and it doesn't make me feel any better about things. I'd rather focus on the positive, which there is a lot of :) Apparently though I am not giving enough information to those who want it, so here it is: Bedrest - the Untold Story ;)

Yes, I'm on bedrest. Contractions with this pregnancy started around 14 weeks, which was 7.5 weeks ago. My doctor told me to go on modified bedrest at that point. The difference between modified bedrest and strict bedrest is the amount of time you are allowed to spend being up and around. With Eva's pregnancy, I was on strict bedrest. I was allowed up to use the restroom and shower and that was about it. With this pregnancy, I get up and get the kids off to school each morning, then put together snacks and drinks for Eva and Jack and we go rest for about 5 hours. I get up and get them lunch, then rest for an hour, then walk to school to pick up the girls. I've had several friends offer to walk the girls home for me, but I like getting out and getting to walk a little bit :) When we get home, I rest for two hours, then get up and make dinner while the kids clean the downstairs. After dinner, I'm done and I rest for the rest of the night.

Note that "resting" involves homework, playing with Eva, reading to the kids, playing on the computer with Jack, etc. It's not usually napping :) I actually am pretty tired most of the time. Cutting back so severely on physical activity has several side effects. One is that my body has a hard time going to sleep. Insomnia is a side effect of the medication I'm on too and the combination of that plus the lack of activity means my sleep habits have gone to pot. I'm tired most of the time.

The medication they had me on during Eva's pregnancy has been recalled due to the horrible side effects (yes, I was on it for 3.5 months - it was fun). Instead my OB put me on weekly progesterone shots. Progesterone is actually a powder, so in order to turn it into a shot, they have to mix it with something else. It happens to be soluble in only three liquids - alcohol, butane, and certain vegetable oils. Since neither alcohol nor butane are really viable options, they use cottonseed oil. This makes the injection very, very thick, which means the needle they use to inject it is pretty big. My friend Jojo was with me when I got one of the injections and her comment was "Oh my GOSH! That's HUGE!!!", which was lovely to hear just before they stuck it in me ;) Anyway, I get injections every Monday. Sometimes they hurt a lot and other times it's not too bad. Even though they alternate hips, I still don't have time for the bruises to heal before I get the next shot, so my hips hurt most of the time. I'm getting used to it :)

Another side effect of bedrest is muscle aches. The human body is not made to lie around all day. Lack of movement makes my muscles hurt most of the time. The worst parts are my back and stomach. At least I can still get up a few times a day and move around a bit. I move much slower now though. My friend Betsy says she likes that aspect of this as she is quite a bit shorter than I am and she says it makes it easier to keep up with me.

I am also slower as I'm having some pain due to ligaments stretching too far because of the weight of the baby. It's gotten worse with each of my pregnancies and it started pretty early with this one. That pain is much sharper and makes it really hard to do things where I have to lift my legs, like climb stairs. Of course, I'm not supposed to be climbing stairs much anyway, so that works out well.

The first few weeks that I had contractions, they were more like constant cramps. I talked to my friend's husband, who happens to be a master herbalist. He told me to start drinking red raspberry leaf tea (which is an herbal tea). I started that and the contractions almost disappeared! He is awesome! (If you are interested, he makes and sells things like lotion bars, body scrubs, teas, and tinctures - his website is http://simpleryou.blogspot.com/) I'm pretty sure the reason I've made it this far without having to go on strict bedrest is because of the tea he's having me drink. I missed it one night and had contractions every 3-5 minutes for several hours the next evening. My contractions now usually only happen once or twice an hour. They are much more defined then they were at the beginning and often last for 60-90 seconds. They can get painful enough that I have to stop talking or doing whatever I'm doing for a minute or two. They aren't making me dilate yet though, so we're doing good!

We've gotten stricter with bedrest as this has gone on. A few weeks ago we had an activity I was in charge of at my house. I got up to clean for about an hour and stayed up during the activity for about an hour. I ended up in the doctor's office the next day, having all sorts of checks done and getting a detailed ultrasound as those two hours caused some major issues. No permanent changes fortunately though! I have decided that cleaning the house is not an option any more though. Fortunately, the kids keep up on the downstairs every day and Rob does an awesome job keeping up on the rest of it :) Megan has also opportunely decided that she wants to earn some extra money and has been asking for extra chores so we can pay her for them.

Yes, I am worried about having to go through the same things I did during the end of my pregnancy with Eva. I try not to think about it too much. The farther we get, the better off we are :) I only have a month left before my third trimester, which is my first major goal as babies born after that point do much better. My big goal is to make it to 35 weeks, which is 13 weeks away on August 18th. I'd prefer to make it to 36 weeks, and that is the point at which my OB won't go to extreme lengths to stop labor (especially if they've stopped it before and I've gotten the steroid shots for the baby's lung development).  That is August 25th. My sister Susie has decided I am making it until August 27th as that is her birthday :) Basically, I'm about 1/3 of the way through the bedrest part of this pregnancy. Three months left to go!

First Half of May

Bedrest has put a crimp in my photo taking and blogging. Plus we have been super busy. Through the month of April, we had activity days every other Tuesday, some soccer games on Tuesdays, soccer practice every Wednesday, play practice every Wednesday, soccer practice every Thursday and some soccer games on Thursdays, art class every Thursday, and usually two soccer games on Saturdays. We have decided that unless our children really, really, really want to participate in a sport or something that happens during the school year, all future activities will have to happen during the summer. At this point, only Kylie is interested in seasonal sports, so hopefully we'll only have one activity to juggle this fall!

I have not been up and around much to take pictures, but there were a few on the camera.

Eva played and played in our bedroom, then decided she was tired. She grabbed a towel off our fancy expensive towel rack that doubles as an indoor swing for the kids (it used to be a gazelle exercise machine - we get much more use out of it this way ;) ) and wrapped herself up, settling down into our baby bouncer and conking out.

Beth took an art class this spring from the same teacher Meg had a few years ago. Beth loved her classes and did an incredible job on her artwork! Here she is with her teacher and her oil painting on the last day of class, followed by the watercolor she did ~

Both Kylie and Jack had end-of-the-season soccer parties. We let them pick one parent to go with them. Jack picked Daddy, so there are no pictures :) Kylie picked me. Eva decided she was coming too and climbed into the car with Kylie. She even tried to buckle herself in. She can't understand why she has to be in a carseat when everyone else is in boosters or on regular seats and takes every opportunity to attempt to sneak into someone else's seat. She was very upset when Rob pulled her out of the car and took her back into the house :(

Kylie's team at Pizza Hut ~

They got medals this year instead of trophies. This is Kylie's coach (Coach Rob), hanging her medal around her neck while proclaiming that she is the best goalie in the universe :)

This Mother's Day was the best one I've ever had :) Rob took me out on Saturday. We went to dinner at BJ's first. We followed it up by me taking Rob to Academy for the first time to look at camping/hunting gear (he is the specialist over emergency prep at our church and has been checking out stuff like that lately). He had been to other sections of the store, but hadn't seen these sections. He spent a good 30 minutes drooling over the guns and ammo :) We even found ammo specifically for zombies. It made me laugh :) No, we did not buy it.

We grabbed what we needed and headed off to Kohls next. I got a gift card from them for my birthday, so Rob was taking me shopping for me - I usually buy stuff for everyone else. We checked out their maternity clothes, but they didn't have anything I really liked. Fortunately the baby clothes were right next to that section :) We picked out a couple of new outfits for Laura, including one we plan to use to bring her home in. They didn't have any preemie sized outfits though, and I'm thinking that's probably going to be all that fits her as this pregnancy is a lot like Eva's. I will either find something somewhere else or send Rob or Jojo out to buy a preemie-sized outfit if we need one :) Rob shocked me by actually picking out an outfit for Laura that he loves! This is the first time I can remember him picking out baby clothes - it's not usually his "thing". He picked out a little pink onesie that says "I'm all about Daddy" on it :) From there, we moved onto other sections. My shopping trip for "me" resulted in 3 outfits for Laura, 10 onesies for Eva, Batman pj's for Jack, 2 pairs of jeans, a shirt, and a jacket for Rob . . . and a jacket and flip flops for me :) It was a lot of fun as Rob actually enjoyed shopping this time. He has decided he likes Kohls. He reached this decision when seeing their sale racks, but it was cemented when we checked out and the receipt said we saved over $350 and only spent $150 :) I love Kohls too! Plus we got Kohls cash, so I will have to go back in a week or two and find something else to buy with it!

The girls all made me Mother's Day gifts at school. Megan wrote me a poem and decorated it. It reads:

My Mommy
Pretty and Helpful
Cooking yummy foods for Everyone
Like a Professional Cook in a Restaurant
If only I could spend every second with her.

She finished it off by drawing a beautiful picture of bluebonnets (the TX state flower) and writing "My mom is as pretty as a Bluebonnet" underneath the picture. It made me laugh a bit as it shows how Texan my kids are :) 

Kylie made me a huge envelope with decorated cards in it so I could "send people letters". She also drew me several beautiful pictures, however someone cleaned up the house (thank you Rob :) ) and put them somewhere and I can't find them to take a picture of them.

Beth brought me home a decorated cup with flowers growing in it and made me a certificate, which reads "Happy Mother's Day! This is to certify that my mom is the greatest because she is niser (nicer) than your mom! Love, Beth" That made me laugh too :)

Rob and the kids let me sleep in on Sunday. We got going a bit late, but I decided not to rush and yell. We were only 15 minutes late to church and I didn't even miss the kids getting to sing to me during the service. Each of the kids made me cards or pictures at church as well. I even got one from Eva as she attended nursery (the class for 18 month olds - 3 year olds) for the first time ever. As usual when we drop our kids off for the first time, Rob and I were a bit worried about how she would do. We peeked through the window a few times during her class and she looked like she was having a blast :) When I came to pick her up, she was crying and very upset. Her teachers explained that she was mad they put the toys away and that class was over. She screamed all the way to the car. At least we won't have to worry about her missing us during the last two hours of church!

Megan made tuna sandwiches for lunch and brought me lunch in bed. Rob and the kids then let me take a nap :) It was a wonderful day!