Full Diapers & Even Fuller Hearts

The Snippets of Our Lives

2012-02-08T20:50:00.005-07:00

I got this idea from 71 toes and thought it was too cute. I cut out a bunch of hearts and as a family we sat down and wrote down things we loved about each other. Then we hung them up for February. There's stuff on there like, "I love playing with Daddy" (Jenna) and "Kate you are so cute" (Jenna) and Carter put "cookies" for me (he loves when I make cookies... mmm me too), "Mom I love you so beautiful" (why thank you Jenna), "Carter I love playing games" (Jenna) "Logan I love you so handsome" (Jenna), Carter's mostly say I love you with what looks like pictures of houses, but he was actually trying to draw stars, ha ha!

So I could leave it at that and have you thinking awwww what a sweet idea and loving night! SIGH but in reality it was getting late and Nate had fallen asleep on the couch (poor exhausted busy man) and I am like, "NATE GET UP we still gotta have FAMILY HOME EVENING come on I cut out the hearts are you gonna do it or not??" and so he is half asleep at the table (and managing to sleep-write some very sweet notes) and the kids were tired and I was getting impatient spelling out a billion words for Carter and Jenna who wanted to write all their own hearts so it was taking FOREVER and Kaitlyn was standing up on the table knocking all the hearts off and making everybody mad and I did not feel all warm and fuzzy and I am like, this is NOT how the other blog made it sound...

But it ended up being a cute little family night anyway. Sometimes things don't have to go perfect. You know? And the kids love our heart wall, even though they don't fill up the whole kitchen like in the other blog... :)

Other randomness to go with my random pictures. So I was SO excited to find out the kids in school still do Valentine's boxes!!!!! I loved doing that in elementary school!!!! So here is Jenna working on her box with her good friend Eliza. They were so cute and had fun decorating it.

And this photo should have gone with the last post... Nate and Carter sword fighting. Nate is a good multi-tasker.

"You got me... you got me!!"

The kids dancing to the radio.

I am a huge radio listener. It helps our CD player is broken and our van doesn't even have a CD player, period. I know I am totally living in the 90's. Anyway, the kids have gotten really familiar with a variety of radio songs. My favorite is when I hear Carter singing, "Just a kiss, just a kiss in the moonlight, I don't wanna mess this thing up" and Logan adds "I don't want to push too far." Lol. Also, Jenna is getting very particular about which songs I listen to in the van. She tells me when to change the station and when to stay. She is getting kinda bossy. But she mostly has good taste.

So as soon as I wrote I've given up on exercise this pregnancy cause I am just not motivated, yesterday my lower back started hurting and I already felt like it was hard to bend over!! I'm like AHHHH I'm only 21 weeks this shouldn't be happening!!! Anywho I pulled out my favorite pregnancy workout DVD EVER (well when the only other ones I've tried are the "Perfect Pregnancy Workout" with that 9 month pregnant Cirque du Soleil acrobat that got great reviews- I hated it- and Denise Austin's pregancy workout -most annoying voice ever- then it's not saying much) BUT I do honestly love it. I hardly did anything when I was pregnant with Jenna and Carter, and I did a lot of running with Kaitlyn, and then with Logan I consistently did this DVD. Want to know what it is? I found it at the library and had to buy my own copy, It is:

I seriously love it. The workouts make me feel SO good but not too challenging and the lady is not annoying. And working out in 10 minute increments makes it seem better. That's my plug for this DVD, they are welcome to pay me for advertising now if they like.

ANYWAY I pulled it out today cause I don't want to feel 30 weeks pregnant yet. The kids got completely sucked in and tried their best to do it with me, and even after I was done they did it again for another 40 minutes! I had to take pictures. Oh, and if they put on swimsuits to try to match her tank top, or if they already had them on, I really am not sure.

Full body rolls

Shoulder rolls

The saw

Weights. Carter kept saying "Logan do you see my arm is getting bigger?"

It was very entertaining.

So yeah Carter was in that swimsuit earlier today and then later he comes out with 3 layers of clothing on, you can't tell very well but he looked so bulked up.

It reminded me of that "Friends" episode where Joey comes in wearing all of Chandler's clothes. ha ha!

Tonight Carter told me if you catch on fire, it makes you fly. He said this as he makes taking off noises and jumps off the couch. It made me laugh. I reluctantly set the record straight and told him no, if you catch on fire it will burn you and maybe even kill you. I didn't want him to get any ideas. He looked pretty disappointed.

Okay I'm done, I am good at rambling.

Life and other random thoughts

2012-02-04T21:49:00.006-07:00

SO. I am actually doing just fine since my last post, I promise. In fact I thank everybody for your reassurance… I wasn’t sure I should say anything until I found out for sure, but I have to say I am glad I did because I got a feel for how unreliable the test really is. Therefore I know there is just a tiny, slight chance the baby has Downs, and even if it came to that, I do know I would be okay. Just google images of Down syndrome babies and your heart will melt. :)

And now for some random thoughts of the day! Try not to be too bored!

It’s been a few months since Jenna started school, but every time I drop her off and watch her run/skip off I still feel a little sad inside. Every time. Part of me just hates that she is growing up.

BUUUUT part of me loves that she is so grown up. For example, she has been getting all the kids breakfast (cereal) in the morning cause I am either downstairs working or SLEEPING still. It rocks. She helps with a lot of things like that.

She is also obsessed with the old X-men cartoons on netflix. Nate introduced those to the kids cause he LOVED them as a kid too and would make his little sister watch them with him and now he is doing the same with his kids. :) It didn't take much for them to get sucked in, but Jenna especially loves it. It is pretty much her favorite thing to watch right now.

Also Jenna and Carter have been playing so dang cute together. She goes on dates with Carter, he is her boyfriend, her prince, whatever, and I hear stuff like, "Hey Derek (from the Swan Princess) do you want to go on a date with me" and he says, "No I have to work" as he gets the toy laptop out. Or she talks about how it's time to go to the party and they get all dressed up and eat at a "restaurant" (today I was their waitress) and they turn on the radio and dance. I love overhearing them "pretending." Especially when Carter is not pretending to be a girl, ha ha. They really are good friends. Mostly. Sometimes Jenna will get snooty and only play with Logan and they turn on Carter. Even Kaitlyn turns on Carter. She definitely prefers Jenna, and Carter just LOOOOVES Kaitlyn, a little toooo much so when he tries to pick her up or kiss or hug her, she gets super mad at him and he doesn't know why. Like at night Kaitlyn will give Jenna a kiss goodnight, and then refuse Carter. Poor Carter.

The kids have been into sword fighting with their foam swords. Carter is pretty serious about it. He sword fights Nate and it’s like the cutest, funnest thing ever to watch cause Carter has this snarl on his face the whole time, determined to beat Nate, and he usually does. :)

Carter is still so into bow and arrows. Both his bows and all his arrows are broken, but he finds other things, rubber bands, hangers, anything he can find. I have tried teaching him how to say his "R's" lately with the word "Arrow." He almost gets it, but it takes a lot of concentration. I just know that someday when he does start saying his "R's" correctly I am so going to miss the little boy who says, "I'm going to go over thee-yah." and "Mom look I combed my hee-yah."

Kaitlyn is pretty much Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. She lets me know exactly how she feels. She is either the CUTEST, FUNNIEST little ham who loves to dance and make funny faces and giggle OR she is screaming and angry at the world. SIGH. I prefer the first one. Logan has started being very motherly to her. When he sits next to her for meals, he helps feed her food, or if her food is at all hot he blows on it for her and asks if she wants some more. He shares his drink with her and uses a mommy voice with her, "Here Kaitlyn! There you go!" It makes me smile.

I can't think of any Logan stories lately, which is actually a good thing... my house has stayed intact. MAYBE HE IS GROWING UP! And I KNOW this subject just keeps popping up, but I CANNOT get myself to potty train!!!! AHHH!!!! Too. much. commitment. I secretly have a deadline of age 3 for all my kids and so I have like a month now. If he is not trained by 3 I will try not to judge myself too harshly. I wish I could potty train Kaitlyn at the same time. I am only half joking. I have heard of 18 month olds being potty trained... buuuuuut let's focus on Logan, right?

Logan’s woken up scared in the middle of the night a couple times last week so he’s come in bed with us. Someone gave me the advice before I had kids to never let your kids sleep in bed with you or vice versa because there is no going back and they won’t learn how to sleep on their own. That’s something I always took to heart, and the kids are great sleepers, in their own beds (thus making sleep nice for me! I don’t do well with little people rolling into me) BUT I think sickness and nightmares are definite exceptions. And as I woke up to Logan’s huge brown eyes staring at me this last week I couldn’t help but think I could wake up to that cute face every day.

So I am BACK to getting up between 5:30-6:30 in the morning and getting a bunch of work done before I have to stop and get Jenna to school. IT IS SO WORTH IT! I feel so free when my work is done so early. I still really really really love transcription, I really do enjoy it and the time usually flies by. So when I do it while the kids are still sleeping anyway, it makes me feel like a better mom cause then I get more stuff done later and they don’t see me on the computer SO much. Hopefully I can keep it up…

As for my other goals, I have not missed a day of personal scripture study!!!!! However um, a lot of nights I am reading like 1 or 2 verses…. I really really need to not read them when I am half asleep already. It’s bad. BUT hey consistency is good, too right?

And MEAL PLANNING is saving my life!!!! Oh my heck it makes things so much easier. I’ve been going shopping only ONCE a week, on Saturday (no kids, wahoo!) and I plan out the meals for the week and everything I’ll need (but this week I was back to Walmart two more times cause I forgot stuff so that stunk) but knowing what meals I am going to make is like the simplest goal ever but it pays off so much. I feel stupid for not planning meals before. And I have been trying some new stuff—looking up recipes is so fun! Some ended up okay, and then we’ve had a couple of HUGE winners. I will share later!!

I ended a love/hate relationship a couple weeks ago. I sold my treadmill!! I bought it 4 years ago off KSL, it was a beautiful SmoothFitness 3.25 and I got a fantastic deal from this old lady. I used it quite a bit at first, it was so nice to get back into running and training at home for races with little Jenna and Carter at home. Not so nice when Carter got his hand stuck in the treadmill and we went to the ER, BUT you know. Then I got brave and started running by myself outside more and AHHH I LOVE running outside (but I still missed my mom as my partner!) Anyway I hated the treadmill more and more, it was like TORTURE. It didn’t matter what I watched or listened to I just dreaded it. I then would use it in the winter, but then the last couple winters I still could not bring myself to use it. (hopefully I don't regret selling it in future winters.) And the kids were always swinging on it and climbing on it and getting hurt (it was never on of course) and it took up space so I’m like I’M DONE!!!! I put it up and 4 prospective buyers and 5 hours later it was gone. Sigh. Good-bye, treadmill, good-bye. I am just an outside runner.  I have not been very active this pregnancy, and at this point I’m like, blah, why start now I’m just taking a very long break from exercise in general. BUT I have high hopes for after having the baby that i can get back into it. A few months ago I found a deal on a double jogger stroller/bike trailer on KSL and hopefully that’ll help get me running (and hopefully biking! I think I’d like biking, anyone have a bike??) after the baby. Yes I’ll have 3 little ones at home while Jenna and Carter are at school… I’ll just see if 3 can fit in the jogger…

Oh man Nate makes me laugh. The other day I caught him reading a children's book that we had gotten from the library a long time ago and now I owe huge amounts of money on it cause I never brought it back (the library mob is coming after me) anyway it's called "Chanukah" and while reading it to the kids he was pronouncing the "CH" and I laughed and laughed, I was like, you do know it's pronounced "Hanukkah" and he is like what I thought it was just like a spoof of Hanukkah for kids, like, oh how silly, CHanukah, oh man I love him. Also the other day he was watching a basketball game (couldn't tell you who was playing) and told me to watch this dunk shot and I did and apparently my reaction wasn't good enough cause he's like, "Well?! Wasn't that awesome??" I honestly did not see anything special. I was like, "Sure, but it looks like every other dunk I've ever seen." He was like "NO! LOOK at it! Look how high it is! It's awesome!" I say, "I guess!" He said, "Some people are saying it might be the greatest dunk of all time!!!" and when I said, "Hm, well I'm not that impressed." he almost tackled me. Ha ha.  It all looks the same to me!! We have fun with each other. :) I guess I should be a better wife and pretend to share in his excitement a little better. Let me practice... ahem, WHOA!!!! THAT IS THE GREATEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!! HE MADE A BASKET!!!!! BY JUMPING REALLY HIGH!!!! WAHOOO!!!!! see was that good? did you believe me?

WELL I think I have rambled on long enough, I just need a snapshot of life once in a while.

And here is an actual snapshot of the day. This is the first thing Kaitlyn does when she finds a marker. She's done it a few times.    Seriously, what are stomachs for?

Don't know what this face is.

At least it's not my walls.

Blood test

2012-02-01T23:27:00.004-07:00

Guess what. I have a pretty romantic Valentine’s Day date planned. Me, Nate, and a doctor. A perinatologist to be exact. We are going to do an in depth ultrasound and possibly an amniocentesis (I haven’t decided about that yet). Based on the alpha fetoprotein blood test from my last appointment there is a slight possibility that this little baby girl inside my tummy has Down syndrome.

When I heard my doctor had left me a message to call him I immediately got super nervous, because they say no news is good news, and I knew there was a good chance they got that blood test result back. My blood test results have always been normal.

The normal odds of having a Down syndrome baby for someone my age is 1/750. Mine came back as 1/141.

Obviously I have a lot going on in my mind right now… how much should I worry? How much should I prepare myself? There’s a good chance I am worrying over nothing... yet there was no controlling it once the words "Down syndrome" entered my head. My heart is pounding right now. And the fact I have to wait two more weeks to know anything else is killin me. In so many ways I am freaking out, but at the same time I know it doesn’t matter. This is my baby, the baby I feel moving inside me every day, the baby I knew was coming soon after I had Kaitlyn, and I am grateful. I just know that no matter what happens I have nothing less to offer this baby than the crazy amounts of love I have for the previous 4.

20 weeks... halfway!

Yeah, one thing is for sure... baby #5 will change my life, for the better.