Moody

Well, apparently I have not been in the mood to write here lately.  I have a couple projects to share, some fun things to document, and some kid funnies to record.  At least every other day when I sit in my chair after the kids are in bed and the day is winding down, I think to myself, "I should really upload some photos and edit them for the blog!"  But then I look at the computer for a moment while trying to remember where the camera is in the mess that is my home and then go back to watching TV with the hubs (while drool may or may not run down my chin).  But really, I'm exhausted right now and the blog goes when I'm tired.  Pretty soon, school will start, work schedules will change and I'm pretty sure things will feel more manageable as the routines start.  I'm praying for more time and energy to blog regularly again soon.  Until then...

Catching Up

Well apparently, I took an unintended blog break in March...so sorry.  I'm caught up now!!!

Scroll down or here are the direct links to the posts I backdated...

Bobo's Birthday

Thoughts on Natalie's 6th Birthday

Celebrating Natalie

Natalie's Heaven Day

Spring Break Snow

Hunger Games!!!

Sapphira Turns Three!!

Happy Easter Part One and Two

xoxoxoxo

Goodbye 2011

The procreation department was not good to us in 2011.  I am now surrounded by babies the same age as Asher and bellies the size mine should be if I was still pregnant with Azra.  Not fair.  I am not angry at any of these mommas, but there are some days it is hard to be around them and feel genuine joy for them or stay engaged in a conversation with them.  

I took these pictures back in September when I was supposed to have been due with Asher.   I have a big calendar on my desk at work which I happily wrote his expected birthday the moment I was given a due date by my OB.  

 When I tore off August, my breath caught in my throat when I saw this...my scribbled out due date.  Then I growled (yes I growled audibly at work...oy)...but no tears, just frustration and "why".  What could I do?  I couldn't just rip September on the 1st.  My desk is too small to keep a pile of papers over the infuriating note all month.  I complained to a fellow BLM by email.  She suggested the following...

...so much better.  I just happened to have this picture tacked up on my bulletin board at work and it was just the right size.  I have to admit though, there was a pile on my desk most of the September...not purposely, perhaps subconsciously.  Thank goodness I didn't have a 2012 calendar during the summer so I don't have to repeat all this in February.

While a big part of me is happy to see 2011 and it's associated sorrow pass, another part of me knows that I have a lot to be thankful for.  Two happy and healthy children who celebrated another birthday, the  strengthening of our marriage, family and friends who love us so much and take such good care of us, jobs that help provide for our little family, the hope associated with Samuel attending school, and a loving Savior who gave up so much so that He could promise us that we will see our babies again.  

Here's to 2012...it's got to be better, right?

Sickies

Sick, sick, sick!  It all started with Malachi on Saturday 17th.  He had spent the night at Grandma and Papa's house the night before and had been complaining about his neck hurting before he left and then his leg hurting while at Grandma's.  When he came home, I could tell by just looking at him that he was sick.  As the evening progressed, he began to refuse to move his neck, putting his le-le blankets around his neck to make it feel better, and just plain bawling over little things...sooo not like him.  At one point in the evening, his temperature was nearly 103 and just a little later was 95 and was accompanied by the chills and a belly ache.  The advise nurse said to take him to the ER.  We got right in and got settled in a room.  Poor boy just layed in bed and watched Christmas movies on TV and Cars on the laptop.  After a urine test and nasal flu swab (totally traumatic by the way!), it was determined he had a virus and the neck ache was simply some body aches.  They have him a dose of motrin and sent us home.  We were sad he wasn't feeling well, but soooo thankful it wasn't worse...that neck pain scared me!!!

The sweet nurses, gave him two Cars 2 cars to help him calm down after the nasal swab.  Poor boy...Daddy had to hold his legs, and I laid on his upper body and arms in an attempt to hold him still.  This special gift perked him up a bit.  When we picked up Sapphira from my parents house, he showed her the cars and said "see these cars, Sapphira?  They are so special to me!" ♥♥♥

On Monday the 19th, I came home from work with a sore tummy which progressed into the flu on Tuesday morning.  I had been saying I wanted to take a day or two off from work before Christmas, but body aches and vomiting weren't what I had in mind!  oy

Tuesday evening after we put her to bed, Sapphira began throwing up and continued to do so all night and the next morning.  She had a high fever, but was unable to keep any Tylenol down or the water she kept begging for.  We called her doctor mid morning and they scheduled her an appointment a couple hours later and they suggested we give her 2 teaspoons of gatorade every 5 minutes to try to keep her hydrated since often when your tummy is upset, it can't tolerate large amounts of liquid, but small frequent amounts are ok.  We got 8 teaspoons in her before she crashed in my lap.  Poor thing was soo tired since she hadn't slept all night due to her frequent vomiting.  About an hour later she woke up, asked for more drink, so we gave her 2 more teaspoons and she vomited all that up plus the 8 teaspoons from earlier.  Poor baby was so sick.  Her doctor gave her an anti-nausea pill and a bit later some tylenol which she was able to keep down.  After that she was able to keep liquid down and she guzzled gatorade all the way home.  After sleeping for the rest of the day, she was back to her normal sweet self.

Thinking we had all gotten this from Malachi, I was surprised to be woken up Thursday morning by Malachi throwing up at the foot of my bed.  I was so thankful he only did it twice and felt better later in the day. 

Since Christmas was so close, I jokingly told Samuel that he had 24 hours to get sick and be done if we wanted to got to our Christmas Eve celebrations together.  Thursday night was Samuel's turn, and felt normal by Friday night.  Thankfully we were able to participate in all our usual Christmas get-togethers.

This flu junk is so bad this year!!  I know of sooo many people struggling with this lately.  Hopefully it will run it's course and be done with soon!!

In a Funk...

My house is a disaster, the laundry is literally piling up, I've gained nearly 10 pounds in the last month, and I have been playing fb games again (soooo not good). I'm going to work, being nice to my husband, and feeding my kids, but that is about all. I find myself snapping at the kids for doing little naughty things that I can normally handle with a good attitude and even temper. I guess I'm just overwhelmed right now. Nothing has really changed to make life different, so I think that I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact I have just as many babies in Heaven as I do at home. I was complaining to a fellow BLM the other night and had to apologize the next morning after I was reminded how good I have it. Samuel and the kids came to bring me a coffee at work. Samuel gave me a kiss, and both of the kids said "I love you" and gave me sloppy smooches and tight hugs. I forget how much I have to be thankful for...many people have it much worse than we do. So I have decided to make an honest attempt to have good days, speak only nice, calm words to my children, and keep on the house...we'll see how this goes. :)

Good Morning...

I think I might need an IV of this today...it might be a long day! oy
btw...Isn't this coffee cup sweet?? It's from the Liberty of London line at Target (wish I could have one of everything!). I hinted that I wanted this and Samuel remembered and got it for my birthday...yay!!

Poor Sister!!!

The Tuesday after we went to the beach, Sapphira started struggling with a low grade fever, runny nose and cough. The fever was never over 100 and didn't seem to bother her too much, just made her a tiny bit cranky, so we treated it with Tylenol. By Friday, the fever was gone, but the runny nose and cough remained. We didn't think too much of it since the rest of us were struggling with that, too. Fast forward to last Friday night...she got a 102.4 temperature that came right down with Tylenol. Saturday morning brought more of the same, so we called and got her in with her doctor. She diagnosed her with a "probable sinus infection" and gave her antibiotics to kick it. Saturday evening, she came down with a 104.7 fever...eek!!! We called the nurse on call and she said to give her Tylenol, do a sponge bath and to take her to the hospital if it got to 105. Poor little girl...she just laid on my chest and stared at the wall...she sure didn't feel well. The fever came down to 101-102ish and she started acting better. Sunday morning, Sapphira and I stayed home while the boys went to church. My brother's birthday was Monday so we gathered for his birthday lunch that afternoon. We gave her Tylenol before we headed out. About one hour after the medicine she was at 102-something...10 minutes later (you could see her starting to feel crummy) it was 103-something...and just a couple minutes later it was above 104. She wasn't due for any medicine for several hours, so we decided to take her to the hospital. Malachi stayed and ate lunch with everyone and GaGa and Boppa took care of him while we were gone. They gave her some Motrin when we got there and after about an hour, the "regular" Sapphira started coming back. After waiting in the waiting area for 3 hours, we finally got called back to a room, got some chest and sinus x-rays (sooooo traumatic for her!! I felt so bad!). The doctor concluded that she just has some sort of virus since the x-rays were clear and after a total of 6 hours, sent us home with instructions to continue giving her Tylenol and Ibuprofen regularly for a couple days regardless if she had a fever or not and see what happens. Each day since she has shown a bit of improvement, but today, she is acting like her sweet-self. Playing and crawling and trying to keep up with brother! I hope that is the end of it!

Naughty, Naughty Blogger!!!

I can't believe how long it has been since I posted anything very interesting!!! I am soooooo behind!! I have my list of post topics and pictures here in front of me...let's see quickly I can knock this out! :)

Go Elf Yourself!!!!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

We did this last year, too...sooooo much fun!!!

Long time...no blog

Boy...it has been busy lately! The weekend after I last posted, I was gone for a mom's group retreat...the following weekend was a family reunion at the coast...then bunco at my house...busy busy busy!!! Then in the evenings when I normally take time to blog and poke around on the computer, I've been so tired and worn out that I have not had the energy to do much more than watch TV and fall asleep in my chair!!! Oy! Things are starting to slow down much more now, so I think that I will have time to get caught up! Weight Watchers to report, Sapphira's 5 month milestone...I'll do my best!

New Blog Look!

Don't you just love it??? I spent a couple hours this evening playing with my blog after stumbling onto Shabby Blogs...they have a whole bunch of backgrounds, buttons, dividers, and more for your blogger blog for free!!!...and also Kevin and Amanda...who have hundreds of free handwriting and scrapbooking fonts to download. Both sites have awesome tutorials that make customizing your blog super easy. I can't wait to fiddle around a little more with things! So.much.fun!!!! :)

Oh and by the way...Kevin and Amanda can make your handwriting into a font for free!! Yes, free! I can't wait to submit mine!

Grrrr...

We spent 4th of July with some friends. There was good food, good people to visit with and all of the kids had a ton of fun. The only bummer was that I forgot my camera!!!!!!!!!! I was so annoyed...didn't even get any pictures of Sapphira's first 4th of July. Hopefully I had learned my lesson and this won't happen again anytime soon!

Bad blogger.....

...very bad blogger. I have just not had the energy to do much blogging lately, as I'm sure you can tell! ha! Every time I set down at the computer, I end up spending time on facebook and looking at my crafty blogs and then when I think about blogging, it's way too late. I'm going to take a cue from Bree and do lots photo posts. So here it goes...I know I'm forgetting something!

Accountable

I need your help! I have decided I am sick of myself and I am going back on Weight Watchers. This time around, I don't have the money to pay to attend the meetings, but I still have all my material from when I did it before I got pregnant with Sapphira, so I'm following along at home. I started on June 8th, and after one week, I have already lost 2 pounds. There are a couple ladies at church who are also doing it, so that will help keep me on track. I will do my best to update every Monday, good or bad and keep a tally on my side bar. I need to get off the little bit of what's left of Sapphira's baby weight so that I can start working on Natalie's--yup, you read that right! ha! :)

Sapphira

***Ok...don't take this post the wrong way. I love holding and taking care of my children. Anyone who knows me even a little bit would know that I would give anything to have a screaming, needy child who keeps me awake for days on end than not have one at all. Sapphira is just starting to show just how much different she is from her brother and we are starting to encounter things that we never did with Malachi, so we are at a bit of a loss with how to deal with them. With that said, here's my post....***
For the last 3 weeks or so, Sapphira has decided that she needs to be held constantly throughout the day. Putting her down for even a minute while you run to the bathroom is not on her agenda. I was thankful at first that this didn't hold true at night and she would sleep in her pack and play in our room and only wake up for her one feeding around 2 or 3 am. Well...this all changed on Tuesday night when she decided that she needed to be either held or snuggled up against one of us all night long. I cannot handle having a baby sleeping in our bed. I don't sleep well at all and wake up feeling worse than had I never fallen asleep. Our bed is too little and I am a little too high strung for this to work for us. So, since I had to go to work in the morning, Samuel slept on the couch with her most of Tuesday and Wednesday nights, bringing her in to nurse. We kept trying to lay her in her bed, but the second she felt it beneath her, she woke up and cried...oy! Samuel had a job interview on Friday morning, so we both agreed that I was in charge of her on Thursday night. We got her to sleep in her swing in the evening (yay!!) and she slept there until 1 am and then wanted to eat. I tried singing to her, rocking her, bouncing her, more nursing and none of it worked to get her to sleep enough to stay sleeping in her bed. Finally after 3:30 in the morning, I moved her pack and play from against the wall to right next to my side of the bed. Sometime after 4 am I was able to fall asleep with my arm hanging over into her bed and my pinkie finger in her mouth...whatever works right??? Obviously this was a good thing to do since she let me transfer her into her bed after both night feedings without even needing her pacifier or my finger! yay! Saturday night was more of the same. Hopefully we are heading in the right direction so we can get her into her crib in the nursery in the next couple of months. I am so thankful for sleep!!! :)

Birthday Present

My birthday was back at the beginning of April, but I have been meaning to post about the best present I have gotten in a long time!! I have been wanting one of those charm necklaces with my kid's names for the longest time, but we have never been able to afford them. I happened upon The Vintage Pearl from Ali Edward's blog and fell in love with her versions of this style of jewelry and the reasonable pricing! I told Samuel about it and my in-laws and parents chipped in so that he could get it for me. I LOVE it!!! It came just a couple days before Sapphira was born. Here are some pictures of my new favorite thing!


A side note: I love the little birthstone crystals and when we ordered it, we didn't think twice about what Sapphira's should be. By the time I received the necklace, I had gestational diabetes, my blood pressure was starting to creep up and my OB was suggesting that Sapphira was going to be making her appearance soon. I just remember praying that she would be born in April, partly because I would like March to be Natalie's month if all at possible, but mostly because I didn't want to have to send my necklace back for a new birthstone!! ha When I was induced on March 31st and the Dr said I might have her that evening, I have to admit that I paniced a little. Later that night, as Samuel and I were watching Jay Leno in my hospital room, he turns to me and points out the fact that it was midnight and that "your necklace is ok!". :)

New website

I recently ran across a new-to-me website called My Bloomin Belly. It is all about being pregnant and then a mommy. I think that it is so cute. It has articles about getting your baby used to the water (swimming and bathing) and about the pros and cons of epidurals. I like that it isn't one of those in-your-face type of sites that offer you information about things they have no experience in and tell you if you don't do things this way your a bad mommy and your kid will grow up wrong (we've all run across those, haven't we!!). The articles are more "this is what worked for me, try it and see what happens!!" Plus, and this has to be my favorite part, they have weekly giveaways!! This week they are giving away a $10 Target gift card! Who couldn't use that?!? I encourage you to stop on by, give it a try and at least enter to win...hopefully it will be one of us!! :)

That explains it!

On the 12th, I had a regular OB appointment. This time I had to drink that glucola stuff and take the one hour blood test. I told him about the extreme fatigue I was having and he told me that some of that was normal, to try exercising a bit each day, and we would see how my blood results came in. (I was so tired that even though I was actively participating in the conversation, I didn't remember him saying the thing about the blood test results...gosh!) He also measured me, and told me that Sapphira is measuring 2 weeks ahead!! (Another thing I didn't remember him saying by the way!!) Malachi was 9 pounds and off the charts at birth and he never measured that large. I think that I'm a little concerned. Hopefully she doesn't inherit her brother's enormous head...that was the worst part of it. Anyways...back to the blood test. On Tuesday, the late afternoon was spent playing phone tag with a nurse. Finally I was able to talk to her and she said my iron was low. No wonder I was so tired!!! I was about a half a point below the cut off and that I needed to get back on my prenatals in order to get my hemoglobin levels back to normal before I delivered. I had switched to Flintstones at my doctor's suggestion at the beginning of my pregnancy because they made me feel crummy. Luckily that is not true now. After just two days of taking my prenatals, my energy is back to my pregnant normal and I feel a million times better. I'm glad I had to take that test when I did...I don't think I could have gone on like that for much longer!!!

Naughty, naughty blogger!

I have been a very naughty blogger. Is it the time of year? The fact I am totally addicted to Facebook? Not many interesting things to talk about? No comments...is anyone out there?? Probably a combination of all of the above. But then I have to remember that just because I don't anything totally interesting to say doesn't mean I shouldn't write...this is like a journal anyways...you can't fill every single line of a journal with something totally fascinating. Someone is out there reading...right??? :( Ok, I must get back into this groove. My new goal is to post at least once a week until Sapphira is born. Seems pretty easy, right? Help me stay accountable!!

Finally Updated!!

I finally got around to posting about our Christmas and writing a couple posts about other things that have been happening. Between "recovering" after the holidays, working a few extra hours, and all three of us being sick, I haven't had the energy in the evenings when I usually blog. Most nights, we both just crash in front of the TV. Hope you find something interesting to read, and I will try to get better at blogging. Hmmm...that kind of sounds like a New Year's Resolution. I'm not ready to commit on any resolutions yet. I'll think about that one! :)