Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Skeletons

Even though we are waiting for baby sister to arrive, we have business that we have to do...like...school. We are learning a bit about the human body. We've discussed germs and anti-bodies and how to fight germs. (which we are losing miserably right now since everyone is sick) We also are discussing bones and the skeleton. Each boy put together their own mini skeleton picture and then we did a big one together. They also did a couple of worksheets on the purposes of the bones. Here are a couple of pictures of their work.

It's good that I have the boys home with me all day. I would be going crazy if I didn't have them to take care of. I'm so blessed to have these little boys. They are so kind, loving, and smart. They are so much fun! I'm very excited to add a female to the mix and see what happens. (o:We will have to change the name of our school though. Don't know what to yet, but Nelson Boys Academy won't work much longer.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Quickie Update

Just a quick note for all of you who don't have Facebook. I went to the doctor today. Since my bp was reasonable, my doctor has scheduled to induce me on Friday the 30th. I, of course, could still go on my own before that, but this is my guarantee that she will arrive before the end of the week. Yahoo!

Friday, January 23, 2009

NO BABY!

Last night I was up for two hours timing contractions. Not the most admirable contractions, but they did hurt a bit. They were all over the place and eventually I just had a little voice whisper in my head, go to bed, they aren't going to get any worse. I went to bed...they didn't get any worse. They actually went away. Then, this morning Connor woke up with a terrible cough and said his ear was hurting. I ran in and took a shower and again, the little voice told me...nothing will happen with this baby today. You have other things to take care of first. I felt very much at peace. We went to the doctor and did the non-stress test. Elizabeth performed beautifully and the doctor was very pleased that my blood pressure was down even more. He told me to come back on Monday, do another NST and bp check and if all looks good, we would schedule an induction. So, the good news is, baby and I are in pretty good health (and Dr. Lawrence panicked too much on Monday in my opinion), and I WILL have this baby by the end of next week NO LATER!!!! Of course he told me that anytime I wanted to go on my own he would be very happy. Duh, so would I. (o: This whole not having any idea about when she's coming is driving us NUTS! Especially when the doctor keeps saying, "Maybe in two days you will have her." over and over again. Oh well, she will eventually be born. Don't know any women that stayed pregnant forever. I do have to give a big shout out to my mother-in-law, who came over on Tuesday to be here in case I got sent to the hospital on Wednesday or Friday. The kids LOVED having Grandma here. They played a lot of games~especially Battleship, and I had a grown up female to help me organize baby clothes with. I sent her home for a couple of days to take care of Travis's dad and take a break since I don't go in again until Monday afternoon. They are, of course, "on call" this weekend, but I'm sure his Mom will appreciate a little break. It's sure great having her here. I'm grateful that I have a mom-in-law that I get along with, because my mom is soo far away. (Oh, but my mommy WILL be here on February 2nd. I can't wait!)

As far as Connor goes...I followed my promptings and took him to the doctor this afternoon. He didn't have an ear infection. As a matter of fact, the doctor said his ears were "pristine". He was impressed at how healthy Connor has been and commended me for taking such good care of my son. (I was thinking...awww shucks, go on! And then the thought occurred to me~what do you expect me to do~ignore him and let him starve or something?) (Can you tell this pregnancy thing is making me a tad irritable?) Anyway, it looks like he may be developing some allergies. It HASN'T rained for quite a while here (yes, in Seattle~and we MISS the rain!). It's been very foggy and smoggy. Doc thinks Connor is showing sensitivity to all of this. He gave us a couple weeks of Children's Zyrtec and said to watch him and his symptoms. I'm glad I took him in because he's been waking up so stuffy the past few weeks. Plus, I now have some peace of mind that he isn't sick.

Anyway, that's about it for now. I'm going to go and copy next weeks Language Arts and Math worksheets for school. I'm on a kind of modified bed rest I guess. He told me to stay down and rest as much as possible, but understands that I have three children to take care of. Travis has been a great help and to anyone from Kohl's who is reading this...THANK YOU for being so kind and willing to be flexible during all of this. We are blessed to have so many kind friends and co-workers.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Bed Rest

For anyone who doesn't have Facebook, here is a quick update on things. Yesterday I went to the doctor and my blood pressure was very high. This isn't a huge surprise except that it has been behaving so well up until now. I knew it was giving me problems because I felt really awful on Sunday. I didn't expect my doctor to be quite so freaked out as he was yesterday though. I had to do bloodwork and a non-stress test (I had so many of those with the other kids. I thought I had escaped them this time) Needless to say, I am on bed rest all day today and then I have to go in again tomorrow to be checked again. If my bp is up at all, we will go straight up to the birthing center and be induced. If it is the same or better, we will just go from there. I don't know what will happen. I have a feeling that she will come on her own fairly soon. I was dialated to a one yesterday and last night I had a few nice little contractions when I was trying to sleep. We'll see.

Anyway, she will be here sooner rather than later. This is the latest update. I don't think Travis will be posting pictures or anything here because so many of our friends are on Facebook, where he is most comfortable posting, but I'll get to it as soon as I possibly can.

Thanks to all for the love and support that we have gotten the past couple of days.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Wall-e and Pink Stuff

The other day the boys collected all the boxes they could find and made Wall-e robots. Well, Joseph made them, the other two assisted. They never cease to amaze me with their creativity. They were playing some sort of game show with the robots the other night. Joseph and Spencer were asking the robots vocabulary word questions and then helping them answer. It was pretty cute. So, below are some pictures of the "robots" that have taken over part of our home.

The other pictures are what has really taken over our home. Pink stuff! Some friends at Kohl's threw me a little surprise shower on Saturday. It was lots of fun and was actually at Kohl's. They had a great big cake, so whenever anyone came in the break room, I would tell them they had to eat baby cake, even if they didn't bring me a present. (o: So, for my moms sake I am including pictures of all the loot I got from all those wonderful people. Also, I included a picture of Elizabeth's bed. I put it together the other day. I've become completely obsessed with this baby and feel like she will never arrive and join our family. It also scares me just a little because it all seems too good to be true that we are going to have her in our family. How did I get so lucky?

Anyway, here are the photos. Enjoy!
Elizabeth's bed. This is just a portable crib/bassinet that will be in our room for a couple of months. I always like to keep my babies very close (usually ending up sleeping with me instead of beside me) for about 4 months. Then I move them to the big crib. I haven't gotten the big crib yet, so when I do, I will be sure to post pictures of that because my mom bought the sweetest bed set ever to go in it. P.S. ~That love seat that is behind the bed...that would be where I sleep every night cause I can't sleep laying down anymore. I'll be so happy to rejoin Travis in our "real" bed after she arrives.
Here is closeup #1 of the stuff I got from the shower. Notice the adorable Little Sister shirt on the left?
Closeup #2.
The wide shot. Are we not just so lucky? Then, to top it all off, yesterday I got a big old box of stuff from my mom too. She's gonna be the best dressed baby ever! Thank you to EVERYONE!!!
Here are all the "robots" lined up. We have Wall-e, M.O., Go-4, and EVE.
Here is Wall-e. He's my favorite. You can't really see it, but at the bottom he colored a brown rectangle, then cut it out on 3 sides, so his front can open up to put garbage in. So cute!
So, Connor wanted to play with all of the robots, but can be a bit destructive. Joseph decided to make Connor his very own robot to ensure the safety of his own. He built a Burn-e for Connor. (have you seen the bonus show about Burn-e, the repair robot on the dvd?) Connor loves his very own robot. So much so, that when I went in to put the clean sheets on Connor's bed the other night, this is what I found. And when Connor saw me turn on the light and go in his room, he gave me a good talking to about waking up his Burn-e. As you can see, Burn-e takes up a good portion of Connors bed, but the kid insists on sleeping with it each night. I think that's pretty cute!
This concludes my photo show for the day. (o:

Monday, January 12, 2009

I'm Back!

Travis had the week off last week and so between the boys and Travis, I didn't get much screen time. Really, that's okay. I don't need much, but there are a few items of business that I would like to take care of...like this blog. (o:

So, last week I did a final cleaning of Connor's/Elizabeths room. I decorated the walls and cleaned out the closet etc. It's all ready to go. I also got the bassinet ready in my room. She now has a place to sleep. It seems like the more I try to clean, the more mess the boys try to make, but I'm slowly getting things in order. I know that I still have a bit longer before she is officially due, but my doctor said that after the 19th, she is welcome to come. That's in a week. At the end of this week, people will be seeing a lot of me walking down the streets, through the mall, around Kohl's etc. Anything that I can do to encourage her to join us here on the outside, I will be doing. All this pink and purple laying around is killing me! I actually smeared Connor with her new baby lotion just so I could smell it. I'm even excited about the delivery! I just want to be done with the pregnancy and start snuggling with my new little person that I am already in love with!

Anyway, we also did a few things as a family. We had some pretty torrential rains last week and some serious flooding around Washington. (we live on a hill, so no worries for us) We took the boys to Renton to see the Cedar River run. The library is actually built over the river, so we watched it rage under the building. Pretty amazing. While doing this, Travis snapped pictures of me and my belly, so I will post those for anyone who doesn't have Facebook and didn't already see them. (nice guy, eh? Hello world! See my gigantic belly?) We went to my in-laws and took the Christmas lights off of their house for them and visited for a while. We took 2 drives into Seattle and visited our old friends at the Brown Bear Car Wash. On Saturday, I went to a surprise baby shower for Elizabeth at Kohl's. We have some pretty nice co-workers/friends there. Between the shower and my mom's "shower" package she sent, Elizabeth will be one well dressed baby. (Kohl's baby)

There are other things to report, but I don't want to let this get too long. We will keep you posted on the goings on of our home, mainly on the baby front. I need to give Travis the password and stuff so he can immediately post baby pics and info when she does decide to make her debut.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

A Quick Post

Just a quick post. No baby yet, of course, but getting really really close! We had a good New Years. Travis's parents came and spent the night like they have done for, I don't know, I think the past 10 years. We ate lots and watched movies and it was lots of fun.

Travis has the week off of work, so I am using him to help out with the cleaning of the place and preparing for baby. Connor and I have had a really horrible cold. I lost my voice for a week, but am beginning to feel better. Connor is taking a little longer to recover, but I am starting to see his old self reappearing.

That's about it. Whenever Travis is home, I don't get to the computer much. He's either on it, or the boys are, so this will have to do as my news for the week. (o: