28's all around

This last week was the week of 28's! On Friday April 11 my baby turned 28 weeks old in my big old belly. We're getting closer!!

 28 weeks preggo=the glucose test, the orange (or red if you are my sister living in Vegas) drink thing...which I haven't heard back from yet. let's hope I passed! I had to do the 3 hour with Sophie and that was no good. Lots of people cry about it when they have to take it, and yeah I don't love it, but it's not THAT bad. But I am glad it's done with :) Everything else is going pretty good. I've developed lovely comfy varicose veins...pretty much everywhere you can get varicose veins this time around which is really nice. Makes it kind of hard (well harder than a normal pregnancy ;) ) to walk/stand and pick anything heavier than Sophie up. But good news! It should all go away after I deliver! only 2 1/2 more months of no walking!! That should be pretty easy right? at least maxi dresses are in  so nobody has to ever see my legs! Also at 28 weeks this lil babe has zero prospects for a name. Suggestions are welcome! Because we've got nothin! Well, nothin that doesn't get vetoed by daddy that Is...

Then the next day I myself the Mom turned 28 years old!

On Friday, the day before, Rusty's mom and sis came down and we went to lunch (mmmm cafe rio) and got me a pair of lamps for my bedroom, since, ya know, for the last almost 8 years we have only had one  and it was the one I had growing up. Thanks for coming down girls! It was SO nice! Then on the big day (the next day) since not only do I have a tax season b-day, it just happens to be 3 days before THE deadline so there is no chance I can ever have a husband on it (except next year it's on a Sunday! so maybe then!) My largely pregnant self may or may not have cried at the thought of spending it all alone so my lovely nice wonderful daddy drove up to Layton from Orem and picked me and the kiddos up (so that we didn't have to drive separately home when Rusty met up with us in Orem) and we party hardied at my parents and spent the weekend. It was fantastic!! Thanks mom and daddy for giving me my birthday!



That's a lot of candles on that cake!

and apparently 28 candles makes a LOT of smoke.

Masters of the Daddy Stalls

As most of you who read this old bloggity blog know, my husband Rusty is a tax accountant. Aside from the crazy long hours during this time of year he LOVES it! why? you ask. I have no idea. But I'm glad he loves his job! That being said, as stated above the hours kind of sort of a little bit suck this time of year. He leaves around 7:30/8 every morning and gets home around midnight or 1 for about 2 1/2 months straight. Usually it has just been me and him who suffer through it and live for that lovely April 15 deadline when we can have a more meaningful conversation than a "mmmmfffhey" as I try to pry my eyes open for more than 3 seconds at 1am. In years past, the kids have had an "out of sight, out of mind" attitude towards dear old dad, but this year they (Conner) have started realizing that something's up. Conner has often told me this past season "I not got a daddy anymore" :( or ask me "where's my dad?" Oh man this sounds so sad when I type it all out! We are really really grateful for his job and this is not supposed to be a sad post. It is supposed to be a funny one! So I'll get to the funny part!

This year Rusty has tried to leave a little later in the mornings (like 9) a few times a week so he can see the kids a little bit. (and so C knows he still has a daddy :) ) The funny thing is these little people have come up with some pretty ingenious ways to get daddy to stay home just a little bit longer. So without further ado, I give you the stalls...

#1 Block the path They started out with the obvious ones like locking the garage door so he couldn't leave. or just simply standing in front of the door with arms spread. When that didn't work C tried opening the pantry doors to block the way. more obstacles to get past = more time!


"Dis is my stop sign. It means daddy can't go to work!"

#2 Hold me Daddy Sophie has even gotten in on the action. She sees him getting ready and she wants only him to hold her. (if I try to take her she throws a fit) he's gotten really good at getting dressed and ready with one arm. And then she points around the room and trying to give him a tour of the cool things in our house...like fans and stuff.

 

#3 If the shoe don't fit...We have found numerous times toys in his shoes...so he can't put them on? Pretty logical thinking for a 4 year old! I might be a little proud.

 

Pretty sure she didn't do it, but she sure took the fall by being caught with them.

#4 Classic Guilt

 "Daddy, don't you want to play a game with me??" what do you say "no I don't"?

#5 Plain old talking C also has come up with his "I have to tell you something" stall. Where just as you're about to leave he says "Wait! I'm saying something!" then he says he has 4 (or 6 or 10 or whatever) things to say and they're usually bogus thought up at that second things like "I think you're really nice. That's #1! #2 is...um...think, think, think...I really really yike you..." and so on.

#6 Don't ever let go "Daddy I got you! I holding on and now you can't weave!" I like how he's holding onto his toy garage thing as an anchor. haha.

#7 Kill him with Kindness And sometimes, when all else fails, simply hugging is a good last resort.

 

"I promise if you stay I won't wipe all this cream cheese on my lips all over your shirt..."

When it's over it really is like turning a switch. When April 15 passes all is 100% back to normal. Thankfully we have only 6 days and counting left until we can drop these little shenanigans!  (even though they are pretty funny)

Operations: FATTY Double Whammy

The nice thing about kids being EXACTLY 2 1/2 years apart (well 2 days away from exactly, to be exact) is that we get to piggy back well check visits (for a little while anyway) Conner had hs 4 year check-up an Soph her 18 month on Wed. the 2.

Everyone ready for some stats??? Here we go!

Conner's 4 Year Stats

Height: 38 Inches= 15%
Weight 29.6 Lbs= 5%
BMI 14.06= 5%
Last year he was 11% height and 5% in weight. So...we're pretty much the same. Which is great! He's just chugging along just the way he's supposed to I guess!
Dr went pretty good for him except that Sunday he started to get a little cough and by the time we got to the docs on Wed it was pretty bad (good timing for an already scheduled check up! I'm good at planning things like that) He was wheezing pretty bad so Doc had him do this breathing thing called a nebulizer. It's basically a machine that turns medicine into a vapor form and inhaling the medicine reduces inflammation in his lungs and stops the wheezing. Usually people with bad asthma need it. what?! asthma! He doesn't have asthma! or does he? They sent us home with our very own nebulizer stuff and have to do it every 4 hours to get rid of this cold (which by the way me and Soph caught to...so we're all sickleys here. fun!) Anyway we're hoping that it's just a cough and not a lovely appearance of asthma settling in this little guy. Cross your fingers for us! Otherwise we might have to do this every day for forever! Picture time!

But more fun, non medical things about C, at 4 years old Conner is such a little ham! He says funny things every single day that make any day a little bit better. Example: out of nowhere "Mom did you know that bats sometimes poop?" or "Mom, you and me is uppercase people and Sophie is a wowercase person" (because she's little? I guess?) fun little things like that. He's fully, and has been for over a year, day time potty trained and as of today has gone 10 consecutive nights going to the potty at night and being dry in morning! yay! Except for the part where he yells at 2:30am from the potty "Mooom I'm done!" "Awesome. Go to bed"

He loves to learn and can say all of his ABC's (recognizing all of them is another story), can count to 20 (as long as he's singing his numbers song) and can write his name! That last development is only about 3 weeks old but it makes for one proud mama! He's really into dinosaur fossils right now and likes to "go find me some fossils" (aka rocks) outside then lay them out in the shape of a dinosaur. I use "shape of a dinosaur" very loosley :)

He also really likes to eat black cookies (oreos) and "new kind of cookies" (girl scout cookies) and will negotiate very well with me until he gets a good amount in any sitting. Although now I feel less like a horrible lots of cookie giving mom because C is such an awful eater that she said "Cookies are better than no food at all" so there ya go...
and here's some more pics of Conner!

classic taking a picture of Conner look. He's starting to smile a little more though...

Photo bombing my last preggo pic. (since we're talking about being fatty here's me at 24 weeks! although I'm 27 right now...)

Sophie 18 month stats

Height 30.5 Inches= 18% (not too shabby!)
Weight 19 lbs =1% (we're on the charts people!!!! This is exciting!! although 1% explains why she is just barely kind of sort of fitting into 12 month clothes)
Head Circ. 45.25 cm = 16%

Sophie is still just the sweetest little thing that ever was. Ask anyone, she has probably got to be the very best cuddle baby EVER. I'm serious. My mom says that if you're every having a bad day just go see Sophie and she'll make you feel better about everything. Of course sometimes her cuddles are induced by her shyness, like if she is around new people (or even just people she hasn't seen for a while) she cuddles even more! 

She's also such a girl. She LOVES shoes. In fact, "shoes" was her 4th word right after "Mom" "Dad" and "Duck" If she doesn't have shoes on she'll bring me one or two, mostly not matching ones, and say "shooos" then stick her foot out. She loves the color pink. In stores she always spots the pink. I was getting her a little chair for the back yard and was debating on getting a green one, ya know, to last through the years and she saw the pink one and jumped up and ran to it and said "dis, dis!" So....she got the pink one. What can I say? I'm pretty soft. She also loves necklaces, and (finally) bows in her hair. She even sits so still while I actually do her hair which is a HUGE  blessing to a has-no-idea-what-she's-doing, trying-to-learn-how-to-do-little-girls-hair mama.

She also loves to find belly buttons (especially my giant poking out one) and noses. We love "Little One" as conner calls her and are so SO happy to have her in our family!

And some more pics...

Not sure why she just decided to lay down...

She out grew her black sunday shoes (it's been a few weeks since she wore something that needed black shoes to church) so we had to improvise. Pretty cute though!

This is how she looks most days...kind of like an orphan. But at least she's a very cute orphan!

Very first pig tails day! (they lasted about 3 minutes) and that's a library book she just ripped. oops.

Transformation Complete!

We are slightly (and by slightly I mean reeeeally) obsessed with Transformers at our house these days. About a month and a half before the Conner's birthday I asked him if he was excited to turn 4. He started crying and said that he didn't want a birthday party this year because he didn't want to be 4. When I asked him why "because my faborite # is 3! I gotta stay 3" I tried lots of things to make turning 4 sound so cool. Eventually my question "if we have a transformers birthday party would it be ok if you turned 4?" did the trick! ever since that moment he was so excited to transform into a 4 year old.

His birthday was on a Saturday so we had his party ON his birthday this year! Awesome! I will say though planning a giant party during tax season with no husband and being 7 months preggo was a little challenging. I had a giant project every day the week leading up to the big day. I can honestly say that with out my college education this party would not have been possible...or at least it wouldn't have been as super cool.

 

I remember everyone saying that if you majored in elementary education you were a"Mommy Major" Well after this week I officially think that Art is the new mommy major. I graduated in Graphic Design and had to take all sorts of random art classes, some that I never thought would be useful in my life. But oh no. While planning a nearly 4 year old's b-day party I was channeling all sorts of crazy classes. Examples:

 

Graphic Design classes=invitation(well this one's not so random of a class...since it was my major and all...)

 

3D Design/Sculpture= Piñata fun!

 

Conner helped me out with this. yup, he was a huuuge help :) But we had lots of fun working together.

Ceramics and painting= super cute experimental first time Fondant Cake



C helping me make the cake!

The finished Transformers Cake

 It turned out so cute and I only had to call up Rusty once crying! Note to self: Apparently if you try to make gray with black food coloring it turns purple! Yikes! thanks to Google and a little remembering of color mixing rules if you add yellow to purple it makes gray. phew! Although Conner may or may not have thought that it was going to transform into Optimus Prime at some point. He was slightly disappointed.

Party Time!

So anyway the day of the party came and honestly...I was pooped! But C was excited enough for the both of us that it kept me going and made it all worth it! It was a giant party with 21 adults and 12 kiddos! holy cow! That's a lot of people in my house!

"Ocams Prime is in the middle because he's my faborite autobot"



When all the new people started coming Sophie go so shy and scared.

But she eventually warmed up and had lots of fun :)



Energon Cubes (the stuff transformers get their energy from, of course)

 Piñata!
Even though the day wasn't as BEEEAUTIFUL as the weather guys on TV made it sound like it would be, we still were able to go out and take some whacks at the piñata. Either it was very strong to begin with, or a bunch of 4 year olds were hitting it (with really good form like you can see Conner doing) because eventually after every kid went through the line 5 times Rusty had to intervene and it still took him like 4 hits to get to the candy. Guess it's safe to say that if you order something from Amazon.com the box it comes it will keep it safe.

He got lots and lots of presents. What a lucky kid! We, the parents, got him a swing set! which will be set up shortly after April 15th...

Happy Birthday Conner! What a fun little guy you are. You always keep me on my toes and make my smile every single day! Love you so much!

Thanks to everyone who came to help C have an amazing day! He had a blast with you all there!

Another Bump is to the Hump! and other exciting tales...

Well friends, here we are! We made it to 20 weeks! "What!?" you ask! "Half way already?" Yup I sure am! and yes, that is my belly button poking out just incase you were wondering.

I'm feeling pretty good. I can still sleep on my stomach, only throw up like 2 times a week, can still wear normal pants, and the giant pizza that was my face at the beginning of this pregnancy is finally starting to clear up! The only blah I am feeling is that I'm still sooooo tired. (it might have something to do with 2 kids ages 3 and under) My house looks like a tornado...pretty much every day. So if you come over unannounced (and probably even if I know you're coming) no judging allowed!

 

We had our big ultrasound on Thursday Feb 13, about a week ago. Here are some pictures of our new little MISTER!

He is obviously a very corporative little boy. Not to mention obviously a boy in general. 

Might we get our first thumb sucker with this one?? Maybe!



Conner was, as you can imagine, stoked to be getting a little brother. Sophie had no clue what was going on and therefore didn't care and just sat there like the good little girl she is and ate her goldfish. The tech left to get the Doc to tell us the results of the ultrasound. We waited for like 25 minutes for Mr. Doc to come in and see us, all the while trying to entertain 2 little kids in a small room full of really exciting things they couldn't touch. Lucky for me I was laying on the bed/table thing covered in goop and couldn't really move so Rusty got the brunt of it.

As the minutes ticked by I started thinking that  the Dr was either really busy, really slow, or heaven forbid, something was wrong.  Finally Doc came in. We talked about how we were having a boy and were excited, blah de blah, everything is fine, when the doc got serious and said, "Well, structurally everything is fine with your baby." Oh. Well that left a big fat "but" hanging in the air.

The main things looked great like his heart, spine, lip, etc. which is fantastic. But he had a few other red flag concerns. Basically this little dude has 3 what they call "Soft Markers" which on their own mean next to nothing, but if there are multiple at the same time it greatly increases the odds that the baby has Down's Syndrome.

Marker #1: his kidney's were dilated. Usually they like them to be no more than 4cm...or mm...or something. Anyway, one was 4.something and the other was a whopping 7.1. Usually clears us by the time baby grows and is born, but as I said before, if found with other markers could be cause for concern.

Marker #2: He has what is called a choroid plexus cyst. AKA a cyst (sack of fluid) in his brain. That one sounds really scary and weird but Doc said that these are reeeally common. They see them a ton on ultrasounds and they, like the kidney thing, usually clear up on their own. And even if they don't clear up they don't cause any harm. Once again, harmless unless paired with other markers.


I'm not completely sure where the cyst is but it's one of those black dot things in the circle.

 

Marker #3: Sorry no pic for this one but his umbilical cord has only one artery and typical ones have two. Doc said that this usually is harmless. We'd do a few more ultrasounds as the pregnancy progressed to check growth and make sure everything is still ok but mostly this just causes babies to be smaller. Great. Because I totally need help it that department.

With these 3 markers my odds of little guy having Down's Syndrome went from about 1:900 to 1:50. Yikes!

So anyway that was our exciting ultrasound.   I did really good talking to the doctor. Although I could totally feel the shock settling in. I was brave and didn't cry at all, which is amazing because I'm a crier in general and when I'm pregnant, well let's just say I might have been caught crying at a cat food commercial a week ago. Anyway I did so good until we got to the elevators and Rusty asked me how I was. Oh boy...

I cried all the way to dropping C off at preschool, all the way back to my regular Dr's office (I had my reg 20 week apt right after in Layton) I cried during my appointment. My Doc gave me a big hug and told me everything would be ok and really not to worry because even though my odds were down to 1:50 that also translates to only a 2% chance. That helped a little bit but gosh once I start crying it's a little hard to put on the brakes. It's every mother's fear to have something wrong (even if it's just potentially wrong) with their child. I've never had a less than perfect ultrasound an and I didn't know what to do. I felt helpless, and overwhelmed, and honestly just plain scared.

The ultrasound doc had offered us a new blood test we could do that takes the place of and is WAY less invasive than amniocentesis (the one where they stick a giant needle in your stomach and get a sample of baby's DNA) and my doc suggested if it would put my mind at ease we could meet with a genetic councilor back at Mackay Dee hospital (that's where I had my ultrasound) and talk more about it. We decided that we wanted to definitely at least learn more so we called and they could see us in 20 min. Just exactly enough time to drive back to Ogden!  And thankfully C was at preschool at this time. (and thankfully preschool = awesome neighbor who could watch him for an hour longer after it was supposed to end!)

We got to our appointment right smack on time (11:00) and saw the councilor right away. He was the nicest guy ever ever. He explained this new test that is essentially 99.5% accurate called MarteriT21. It is a blood test where the take only my blood and they have found that trace amounts of baby's blood is in mom's and they have come up with a way to separate the two and test the DNA of baby. It's only really been around for about 2 years and the closest place to Utah that has the technology to do it is San Diego. He said that we could do it today if we wanted to but if we wanted to think about it this test can be done at any time in the pregnancy and the only need for rushing is for termination purposes. Which was absolutely NOT an option for us. We knew that we would love this baby NO MATTER WHAT. And be so grateful for any baby we were given. But I'm not a very patient person in things like this and I tend to over analyze everything and I knew that not knowing for sure would eat me up for the next 4 1/2 months. Also, I like to be prepared (I'm kind of like a boy scout) and if our sweet little boy ended up having Down's I wanted to be able to be ready so we could hit the ground running when he was born and give him the best start possible. So I said sign me up! and they drew my blood that day and shipped it off to Cal-i-forn-i-a. He said that it would take about 10 days to get the results back and we were on our way.

By this time I still hadn't called my parents because I was just a big old blubber bucket. Every time I felt like I had stopped crying long enough to call just the thought of calling made me tear up again.I finally got my composure and called them on the way home from the hospital and had to have Rusty explain everything because somehow, 27 years later, moms and dads still make me cry when I'm already sad. That sounds bad. Not cry in a bad way, but it's pretty hard to be brave around them because I know they won't care if I get tears and snot all over them and they'll just want to give me a hug.

Rusty explained everything (twice, since both were at work and I had to call them separately) My mom said she could be here in an hour and a half but I told her I would be fine. Rusty said he could stay home from work but it's Tax season! I didn't want him to get in trouble! So I told him I just needed a nap and I would be fine. So we put on a show for Conner and Soph was sleeping and Rusty left reluctantly to work. I laid down and was totally fine. What is it they say on "The Italian Job"? Fine means "Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and....something that starts with an E. Oh, Emotional!" Yup, I was FINE all right. I cried for almost 2 hours before I called my momma back to see if her offer to come was still good. An hour and a half later my mom, dad, and big little brother (he's 5 years younger but like a foot taller than me) came bearing gifts of popcorn, Oreos, and hugs and later took me to lovely Café Rio for dinner. Those 4 things can make anything better.

From then on out it was a waiting game. Every day got a little bit better. I thought more about the 98% that baby boy wouldn't have Down's than 2% that he would. But I still didn't let myself get my hopes completely up incase we were in the 2%. Through prayers and blessings I knew that everything would be ok. I just wasn't sure if "ok" meant that the baby would be fine (the real fine, not "The Italian Job" fine) or if it meant that the baby would have chromosome abnormalities but we would be able to handle it.

Although I felt everything would be ok, I was still a ball of nerves while I waited for my 10 days to be up. Gosh if I was this crazy and only had to wait 10 days there was no way I could go the rest of the pregnancy at all without knowing! By this point I would have taken any result, I just wanted to get the heck out of limbo!

So you can only imagine my relief when on Wed. Feb. 19, only 6 days after my blood draw, (the longest 6 days of my life, I might add) my phone rang at 5:30pm and it was the genetic councilor calling saying "I have good news for you!" This little guy's blood work came back negative for any chromosome disorders and therefore has only a .5% (they have to have their margin of error on the test) of having Down's! (or Edward's and one other one I can't remember...) Most likely this baby is going to be perfectly healthy which is music to any mothers (especially this mothers) ears!


The end...that was really long!  I didn't mean for it to be so giant! If you made it to the end, YOU my friend are a true friend!

We are very excited for this little boy to come into our family! While we would have loved him with all our hearts no matter the test results, I would be lying if I said I wasn't so grateful that he (more than likely) will be a healthy bouncing little boy! I almost said that I'm also so grateful for technology, but then I realized that it was technology that got us into this crazy medical goose chase in the first place...but actually, I still am. Because if the results would have been the other way around I would have been so thankful for the heads up!

The End (for real)