Doing Swell

We are all doing great. Randy went on the father and sons campout trip this past weekend and had a great time, he said the only thing that would make it better would be if he had his own son to take with him. Maybe this baby will be a boy and they will be able to go together in a few years. Boy or girl, I just want a healthy baby. Only 3 more months to go and I my belly is swelling up already. I tried to give a sister at church a hug today and it was pretty funny to see, everyone around us got a good giggle because we were unable to reach each other around our pregnant bellies. Jolee now thinks that there are babies inside of every stomach and will say "hi baby" and pat just about any belly, including her own belly. We have a bunch of books on a new sibling that we have been reading to her. I doubt she really understands, but I am hoping it will help to prep her for her new sibling in August. I only have 3 more night shifts, then I will be switching over to day shift for a while (not sure how long). I am excited to sleep on a normal schedule soon. This switching back and forth while pregnant and being a mommy to a toddler is a bit taxing. Somedays I just sit around and read books with Jolee and do about nothing around the house. Which means that other days I get to clean clean clean. Oh, I hated having Randy gone overnight while he was camping. Now I know how he feels, with every creak of the house sounding threatening. I woke up in the middle of the night and had the hardest time falling asleep. I am so glad that he is home, although neither of us slept much last night as Jolee's molars are getting closer and closer to breaking through meaning no sleep. Still going crazy without having a fence. Most of our projects are on hold until we can get a fence up, so our spare room is still a bit packed with random boxes. I still haven't found everything we need, so I end up just doing without so random things, like the web cam. (sorry Mom I still haven't found it, but I know it is somewhere.) Jolee's potty training is starting to go a bit better. She has fallen in love with panties and hates having to put a diaper or pull ups on. I also started to reward dryness more than using the potty, so she is a bit quicker to get to the bathroom. One jelly bean if she uses the toilet and had a little accident in the panties and three jelly beans if she uses the toilet and is dry. She really doesn't like getting just one jelly bean, so we went almost the entire day without any accidents. She actually went to church in panties and was accident free (horray!). She didn't have any accidents until she got home and she only had one because she was playing a little too much and put it off too long. I make her clean up her messes ("no, mommy do it" is her usual comment) so I think that is helping to encourage her to be accident free. I feel like I think about potty time all the time. I would love her to be completely potty trained soon so that we can be diaper free for a least a few months before baby is born. I am so excited to meet our little cygnet and have just a little bit bigger of a family.

Happy Mother's Day

I am so grateful for my mother and my mother-in-law. They are both such wonderful women and I am grateful to have them in my life. I love you both! I got to enjoy my second Mother's Day today and it was great. I got to speak in church. I was a little nervous as always, but I spoke directly after the primary children sang songs for the mothers and it really calmed me down. I am so thankful for the sweet spirit that comes when children sing. I am so glad that I am a mother. It has blessed my life more than words can describe. I can't even describe how much Jolee has changed me for the better. I will always be amazed at how wonderful motherhood is.

Photo Update

Jolee and Daddy plumbing

Monsters in a crate

Milkshake heaven

Future dishwasher in training

Grandma, Jolee and Max reading Jolee's new princess book

Uncle Russell and Uncle Max cuddling with Jolee

Bedtime stories with GrammE

Randy, Russell, and Max building the new dog run

Sliding with Max

Balancing with Russell

Climbing with GrammE

First french braid (partial), getting ready for church

Babysitter's new baby goat

Teacup ride at the fair with Mommy

Giant slide with Daddy at the fair

Family time at the fair

Petting baby pot belly pig

Petting a wallaby

The past couple of weeks since we have moved have been busy, but fun. We enjoyed a visit from GrammE, Unlcle Russell, and Uncle Max. We went to the Pima County Fair. We hiked Pena Blanca Lake. We played, worked on potty training, and lots more unpacking.

Unpacking and unpacking

I forgot how long it takes to get settled after a move. Unpacking while pregnant with a very active and "helpful" toddler is quite a bit more work than I thought it would be. Up at 5:30am, Randy is off to work at 6am, Jolee and I take Chonkiri for a walk, then starts the unpacking, toddler entertaining, dog scolding, toddler chasing the dog with the broom scolding, learning time, color time, snack time, unpacking, hide and seek time, nap time, unpacking, dog walk again, lunch, unpacking, cleaning, reading time, toy time, unpacking, scream and then spider killing, color time, ABCs, Daddy home (hooray!), unpack, reorganize, cook, clean, baths, clean, toddler bed time, unpacking, cleaning, bed. Then start all over again. We did have a couple of interesting things happen in the last few days. I went to a baby shower, lots of fun :) Caught a baby praying mantis (so tiny and cute), caught a baby tarantula (Randy suggested that I keep it, I almost passed out in shock, and no, I didn't keep it), Randy got recommended by the special ed director to be the representative for the entire school district in a statewide community based group (WOW my hubby rocks!). Well that is as much as I can write tonight, sorry for rambling, but I am exhausted!

Loss and Gain

Trying to decide how to word this has been a bit difficult. We had another miscarriage last October. It was a devastating time for us and too difficult to fully express. We had thought that we were past all of the misery of miscarriages and I was extremely hopeful and not worrying at all. A few weeks after we found out that we were expecting (the baby would have been due a few weeks before Jolee's birthday) I started to feel that something wasn't right. I went in to the midwives a few times and had an ultrasound done. Everything looked fine and the ultrasound showed a very healthy baby with a great heart beat. Two weeks later, I was sure that something was drastically wrong, I went in and had another ultrasound only to find that the baby had died. No words express how many ways my heart broke. Writing about it now is still difficult. After the miscarriage, I was talking with my midwife and she stated that as soon as I was to get pregnant again, that they would test my progesterone levels to see if it is low which would cause miscarriage in otherwise healthy pregnancy. At first I was hopeful that this would solve our problem and stop me from miscarrying, with time though, I became angry and frustrated that they didn't check my progesterone levels when I had first said that I thought something was wrong. If it was just a low progesterone level that caused my unborn baby to die, why wouldn't they have checked it. Low progesterone is so easy to fix, you just take progesterone twice a day for the first 12 weeks. So there is the background to this story.

I went into to check a post miscarriage check up about 2 months later. I still hadn't had a period yet, but it wasn't thought much of because of my body still healing from the miscarriage. They did follow up blood work and such. The next day I get a phone call from the midwives saying that my HCG level is high. I was in shock.  Talk about a surprise, hello you are pregnant. So I immediately went in a had lab work done. Low and behold my progesterone levels were less than half of low normal, meaning that without supplementation of progesterone I would again miscarry. After a bit of drama I was put on progesterone and I ending up changing my OB. I am now off of progesterone and 20 and a half weeks along. We are due the middle of August. The halfway ultrasound looked great. Once again we are not finding out the sex of the baby.  The baby likes to do flips, at least that is what it did during the ultrasound. I am still having a little bit of a difficult time emotionally because of the last miscarriage and being scared to death of miscarrying again. I have actually been in a bit of denial. I have tried not to let the idea of pregnancy full register because I don't want to hurt as much as I did if something bad were to happen. I am finally starting to open up a little more and not be as scared. Fingers crossed everything stays going well.

MOVED! finally

So we have finally moved. We are adjusting to life in a smaller town and thoroughly enjoying it. We have kept ourselves very busy over the last few days unpacking and doing some yard work. Going from a tiny yard to almost 1/2 acre is quite the change. We still need to get a fence put in so that Chonkiri can go outside without a leash and to keep other dogs out of the yard. The yard has a bunch of fruit trees, but because no one has lived here for the past 2 years, we don't know if they will produce this year or not. We have so many projects going that it is hard to find anytime to sit down.

Moved? Nope, not yet :(

A few weeks ago when all the drama of not closing on time started, Randy in a way of rebellion decided that he was not going to shave his face until we moved. 

 Okay, he is not actually as mad as he looks in the picture.

See, I got him to smile.

Here's to hopefully closing tomorrow and moving sometime this week (I really feel like a broken record due to the number of times I have said that).

Sprinklers

After a morning of tearing down all of the vine that had died in this winter's freezes, Jolee got to enjoy some time in the sprinklers. It amazes me how quickly she has grown.

 Here she is playing in the shower after her time in the sprinklers. She is definitely a water baby.

socks

Jolee loves to be silly. Here she is first thing in the morning with socks as mittens. She had opened her sock drawer, found a pair, put them on, then she was so proud to show us what she had done.

Just Waiting on the Paperwork

It is actually going to happen. We are really moving this time. If everything goes through quickly, we will be moved on Friday. If it takes a little longer, we should be moved no later than the middle of next week. I am going a little crazy with last minute packing. Jolee is still working on potty training. Randy is still working. I am still just happy as can be that I have the wonderful family that I have!