Mick O'Lantern

Tonight for family home evening we carved our jack o'lantern. I cut open the top, then it was the kids' job to scoop out the innards. It started off with all four taking turns, but Beth bowed out after feeling what was inside the pumpkin.



The other three thought it was gross, but very fun :)



Then Rob took over carving it while the kids watched. I rinsed the pumpkin seeds and oiled and salted them and stuck them in the oven.The kids helped by squishing them around in the big ziploc bag with the oil and salt.





The finished product ~



I told the kids we needed to name him. Remembering our snowman from last March (I think?), they unanimously dubbed him "Mick".

We took one "nice" picture (but Kylie stuck out her tongue) ~



And one "silly" picture. Megan was doing the hula in the background.



Then Megan apprehended the camera ~

Rob-isms

Rob has decided to communicate with Eva through morse code. There are two problems I can see with this - first of all, to the best of my knowledge, Eva does not know morse code, secondly, neither does Rob. This doesn't stop him from trying though and Eva seems to respond when he types out "messages" on my tummy.

Rob often speaks for those in our house incapable of human speech, namely the animals. This afternoon he dictated an interview between his alter-ego, Steve (first I've heard of this individual), and Harlequin, our very large, very un-intelligent cat. He began by asking Harlequin what it felt like to be part of the family's food storage program (he jokes that with Harlequin around, we wouldn't starve if there was ever a famine or natural disaster or something), to which Harlequin "responded" that knowing he might be able to help the family out in that type of situation is what gets him out of bed in the morning. Steve and Harlequin covered that topic in more detail, then Harlequin's feelings about Simon were explored. Harlequin hates Simon and never passes up on an opportunity to terrorize him. This is interesting as among our three cats, Harlequin is definitely at the bottom of the social totem pole. Maybe he picks on Simon because the other cats pick on him. Anyway, the interview came to an abrupt halt when Steve asked Harlequin about his weight issues over the past few years. Apparently this was a touchy subject and Harlequin ended the interview, refusing to talk any more.

Painting Pumpkins

Friday the kids asked if we could decorate for Halloween. As I am not quite up to decorating at the moment, we compromised. Every year we let the kids pick out little pumpkins at the pumpkin patch (the big ones there are a bit expensive, so we buy our big one at the farm we buy our milk, eggs and meat from). Due to having so many small children, we only carve one pumpkin and Rob is the one in charge of that. The kids get to paint their pumpkins instead (with washable finger paint). I cut out both ghost and pumpkin shapes from paper for the kids to paint as well and we will use those to decorate the windows.

Each child got to pick four colors of paint, which we put on a paper plate. That way they can combine colors if they want and it's not a problem if more than one child wants a specific color.





























Megan as "the mud monster" ~





The final products ~

32 Week Appt Update

Eva has officially dropped. For those of you who know what it means, she is at 0 station, although I'm still only 25% effaced (which I have been for the last 3 months) and am not dilated. Dr says he wants me to make it another 4 wks, then we'll pull out the stops and let her come :) If I make it that far. My goal is at least 2 more wks :)

My blood pressure is back up to about where it was, so last week was just a fluke. I asked if I could go to the trunk or treat next Saturday if I promised to sit in the car. He said I could go for an hour :) Because she has already dropped, I am not getting off bedrest until 36 wks.

We talked about what happens when you get taken off the meds. Many women go into labor that day, but some have nothing happen and end up having to get induced. I said I didn't want to go too much past 36 wks as Eva is already about 5 lbs. He said that wasn't going to be an issue for me - I'm not going to make it longer than about 36 wks, if I make it that long.

So we wait . . . :)

The last week has been a busy one!

Monday was Columbus day, so the kids had no school. Rob took the day off work (that's not one of the holidays he gets off) and he and Brittney took the kids to the pumpkin patch, which, of course, they loved :)

Wednesday my mom and Christy checked Megan and Kylie out of school early and took them to the state fair. They had a blast! Kylie's favorite part was the really big, fat pig with lots of babies, because pigs are her favorite animals - they are pink. Meg loved the animals too!





After the fair, they went back to Ron's apartment and had dinner on the roof, which happens to have a wading area.



Beth and Jack got to go play at Beca's house that afternoon as I had a chiropractor appointment. They love Beca's house and were just as excited to go there as Meg and Kylie were to go to the fair.

Friday's appointment went well. My blood pressure dropped 20+ pts (both top and bottom) and was back in the normal range! We'll check this Friday and make sure it wasn't just a fluke (they took it three times just to check), but hopefully it was due to stress and not pregnancy-induced hypertension. It would be nice to not have to worry about pre-eclampsia on top of everything else! Eva is head down and growing well. I can tell she's running out of room as her kicks are not quite as big as they used to be. She gets hiccups more than I remember any of the other kids getting them and seems to get them every night around 11pm. She is much more active in the late evening and sleeps most of the morning, so I'm thinking we have another night owl on our hands :) Works for me! I prefer late nights to early mornings.

The dr says he will take me off my meds on Nov 19th (if I make it that far). At that point, I will be 36 wks 2 days, which is 2 days past when Jack was born. It's pretty common to go into labor within 24 hours of going off the meds. I've decided the 19th would work well for me. My book club meeting for Nov is the 16th and there is an activity at church that I am in charge the food for on the 18th, so those would both be over, plus I would be home in time for Thanksgiving :) We'll see if Eva agrees with my planning . . .

My school quarter started this past week. This quarter I'm taking Principles of Psychopathology, which is basically Abnormal Psych. It's very interesting so far and I'm enjoying it :) The weekly papers are a bit more involved than most of my other classes (these require three references for each, only one of which can be a textbook, the other two of which must be from peer-reviewed journals), but the term paper is only 5-8 pages long and is divided into three sections due throughout the class. Overall, I think it was a good class for me to take this quarter.

Yesterday marked 14 wks of bedrest. I'll be 32 wks as of tomorrow though, so hopefully we only have 4 wks left! I feel like we've run a marathon and we're on our last section :) I repacked my hospital bag on Saturday. We packed it three months ago, expecting at some point that I would be taking an extended vacation to the hospital. Because of that, it was packed for an extended stay rather than delivery. It's now all ready for delivery, including two outfits for Eva - one preemie size and one newborn size, both bought by friends for us :)

The Call is Here!!!

My father recently retired and my parents applied to our church to serve a "senior mission" (as opposed to a regular mission, which is served before you are married, usually when boys are 19 and girls are 21). The way the process works is that they send in the various parts of their application and the leaders of the church assign them where they need them. They are notified by mail, receiving a letter referred to as a "mission call", which tells them where they are going and for how long (senior missions are usually either 18 months or 2 years).

My parents got their mission call on Friday. Since my dad is hiking in New England, my brother is in Italy, one of my sisters lives in Boston and another is at college in Utah, we arranged a conference call so all of us could find out where they were going at the same time. We all guessed where we thought it would be. Travis guessed Tonga (apparently they have good chocolate there), someone guessed South America, someone else guessed Central America, Rob and I guessed Russia, Mom guessed Japan, and Dad guessed the UK. Rob and I were right :) They are going to Vladivostok, Russia (for 18 months)!!! We are very excited for them!!! They leave Jan 31st.

I looked Vladivostok up as I had no idea where it was. It's the main Russian port on the Pacific Ocean and is located about 30 miles from the North Korean border and maybe 20 miles from the western Chinese border. The Russian Pacific Fleet is based out of Vladivostok and it has over a million people living there. The main businesses include fishing, exporting Japanese cars, and the naval base. If you want to find out more about it, I suggest using wikipedia as Christy and my mom tried to google it and ended up on a website that installed a trojan on Christy's computer, which took over my mom's email account, changed all her contact info, and sent out an email to all her contacts saying she was stuck in England and needed money. My mom has a lot of friends and her phone has been ringing off the hook all morning with people trying to see if she's alright. She is :)

In other news, I made it to 30 wks! Yay!!! (I'm actually only 2 days away from 31 wks.) I'm hoping to make it to November, which is only 3 wks away :) On Nov 3rd, I'll be 34 wks and Eva has a pretty good shot of not having to stay in the NICU, or if she does it would be for a few days or a week instead of a month or more. She's growing well and looks perfect. She's probably between 3.5 and 4 lbs right now and gaining about 1/2 lb a week, so she should be over 5 lbs by November. She's spent most of her time sideways, which I think has helped keep her cooking. Yesterday she turned head down. As I expected, once she was head down, she dropped. I don't know if I will make it to November if she stays there instead of turning sideways again. I guess we'll see! My feet are swelling up now, which I've never had happen with any of my other pregnancies. It could be a sign that the blood pressure issue is getting worse. Either way, we're getting closer to meeting this little girl!

I am almost done with the kids' Halloween costumes. The theme for this year is Goldilocks (Beth) and the three bears. Beth's costume we borrowed from a friend and I made the three bears' costumes. I hand-stitched part of them, then borrowed Beca's sewing machine to finished the edging and stuff like that. I think they turned out really cute! I just have to attach the ties to the hoods and add the details that will differentiate between Mama Bear, Papa Bear, and Baby Bear.

We changed our mind about school this quarter and I decided to attend after all. I've attended school through two pregnancies (Beth was born in the middle of a quarter), having gall stones, and moving from New England to TX (without internet - and my classes were online). My class starts today. I plan to double up on homework for the first few weeks so I can sort of take a week or two off here and there. Hopefully it will make time go by faster.

We've signed up for Netflix, and I've watched five seasons of Law & Order SVU so far (each season has between 22 and 25 hour long episodes), along with various movies and documentaries. I have come to to the conclusion that I really don't like watching a lot of tv or movies. Rob loves watching movies and documentaries. He thinks it's quite an accomplishment to have finished 5 seasons of L&O SVU. I think the wrong one of us is on bedrest. We only have basic cable and don't have a DVR, but honestly there isn't a whole lot I would watch. We decided Netflix would be better. We've really enjoyed Netflix, especially the streaming movies as we can watch the first 15 mins of them and then turn them off if we aren't interested in them. The website has you rate movies you've seen so they can recommend others you might be interested in. I managed to rate about 150 movies. Rob has rated another 2300 (and yes, those are the right number of 0's).

The kids have the day off school today, so Rob took the day off work. He and Brittney are taking the kids to "the pumpkin patch", which they are very excited about! I am staying home and doing two weeks worth of homework. Fun, fun :)

3 months!!!

3 months - that is how long I have been on bedrest now. It sounds even longer when you say it's 1/4 of a year! We'll hit a milestone this week though. My dr has said since the beginning that he wanted me to make it to 30 wks. I'll hit that the day after tomorrow :) Yay!!!

We're still hanging in there :) My blood pressure at my appointment on Friday was a bit higher. The nurse said it's about 4 pts away from "being a problem" - which I think means hospitalization and possibly induction. Eva is over 3 lbs now though, so she's big enough that she would have a very good chance of survival without any permanent problems :) I'd like to make it to November. On Nov 3rd, I'll be 34 wks and Eva should be approximately 5 lbs. Jack was born at 36 wks exactly (I'll be 36 wks on Nov 17th) and he didn't have any problems at all and was able to go home from the hospital with me two days after delivery. The contractions are picking up again and they are longer and more painful, but I'm still here!

This past weekend was busy. Friday night we only had two kids at home. Megan spent the night at Beca's house so she could get up early with them the next morning and help man the lemonade/hot dog stand at their yard sale. She has always wanted to have a lemonade stand and loves sleep overs, so she was thrilled :) Kylie went home with Nona and had a "Nona date". Nona took her to the park and Kylie helped her with the quilt she was working on and the two of them took 12 missionaries out to lunch at an all-you-can-eat pizza/salad/dessert buffet (it was General Conference last weekend - General Conference is two days of meetings in which the leaders of our church address the whole church - it happens every 6 months).

Beth and Jack hung out with me on Friday night (Rob was helping a friend move some stuff) and we watched the Jetsons on my computer :) This Saturday was Beth's turn for a daddy date and she and Rob went to the farm to pick up milk and stuff. They had new baby chicks that she got to see, along with goats and bunnies and horses :) She even got to pick out her very own baby pumpkin to take home with her.

Rob went to the meeting for men on Saturday night, so Nona (and Kylie) brought over Chinese food for dinner and Nona stayed and watched "Julie & Julia" with me. Megan spent Saturday night and Sunday at Nona's house for her "Nona date".

My father is hiking in VT for the next few weeks, but we are loving having Nona nearby! She comes over Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each week (she works at the temple on Tuesdays). The house is much cleaner and Beth and Jack love getting out of the house again :) Our friends from church are still bringing in dinner twice a week. I talked to the woman in charge of it and let her know that my mom was helping us out now, but she is still sending dinners :) I am so grateful for all the help we have gotten over the past several months! I don't know how I would have made it without all that help! Not just the dinners - we've had people we barely know call and come by to clean the house, friends drop treats by just because they were thinking of us, friends walk Meg and Kylie home from school, offers to do grocery shopping (or any other shopping I need done) . . . I've been getting headaches from my blood pressure being high and Beca (having gone through five pregnancies herself) knew that caffeinated soda helped headaches even went out and found an all natural cola for me to use! The doorbell will ring and it will be someone with a plate of cookies or a pie or a bag of grapes. We are so blessed! Thank you so much to everyone who has helped, even those who live too far away to do anything, but send emails and keep us in their thoughts and prayers!