Wish me luck!

Tomorrow I go for my glucose tolerance test. Everyone one is convinced I have gestational diabetes... just based on the size of my babies... and the fact that time may have run out for my luck in passing the glucose tolerance tests in the past. So tomorrow I will drink the delicious orange drink and go and have my blood drawn. I really hope I don't have it - I'll keep you all posted!

Oh, Baby!

Hey everyone! I had my 18 week level 2 ultrasound yesterday and everything looked wonderful! The baby was so cute and active! I knew the ultrasound technician from previous ultrasounds and she was awesome! We chatted it up and had a great time. The baby kept putting his/her hands around his/her face. The tech was joking that he/she was trying to suck it's thumb. It was all very cute and I loved seeing the baby! In this picture, you can see the hands around the face. And for those who are wondering - yes, I maintained my willpower and did NOT find out if the baby is a boy or a girl! We'll have to wait 22 or so weeks to find that out! In the meantime, I am thoroughly enjoying being pregnant! It was almost surreal to see the baby on the monitor because most of the time I don't even feel pregnant (aside of being tired but I'm tired anyway!) I haven't had a stitch of morning sickness this time around so that is GREAT!! I can't wait to start feeling the baby move - that is the best! The tech said the placenta is right in the front of my belly on top of the baby so that is why I haven't felt anything yet but soon I will! I can't wait... the kids are very excited to feel the baby kicking!! I'll keep you posted!

We love IKEA

Ed's out of town for business tonight so I told the kids we could go somewhere fun since I wouldn't have to rush out to work. Kevin and Ryan automatically said they wanted to go to IKEA. For those who haven't been to IKEA, they have a huge, bright, clean, well attended and oh, yeah - FREE playroom you can leave the kids in while shopping. Depending on how busy the store is, you can shop for between 30 minutes and 1 hour. Today when I dropped the kids off, they asked if it was OK if I left them for 1 and 1/2 hours. Sweet! I went upstairs to the cafeteria and enjoyed a delicious salmon dinner for cheap and then shopped. I did get called early because Ryan hurt his lip but overall, they had fun. Then we got some frozen yogurt and Ryan was all better. While we were eating the frozen yogurt, we heard an announcement that all Christmas decorations were on sale for FIVE CENTS each! There were some decorations, some ribbons, bows, candles, etc... We got $3.00 worth - yes, 60 Christmas items!! We hit the jackpot. I will use a lot of it for crafts and gifts and will donate a bunch to the preschool!!! What a bah-gain!

Seeking Baby Names

We haven't come up with any baby names yet! I keep joking that we'll be bringing home a nameless baby - but they don't let you do that anymore! (They let you leave the hospital with a birth certificate that says "Baby Boy" Last Name or "Baby Girl" Last Name. We still have plenty of time... any good suggestions for boy or girl?

I should mention that Eddie picked out "Josiah" for a boy and "Sophia" for a girl. Kevin is convinced that "Sully" is the perfect name for either girl or boy.. And Ryan changes his mind daily but has all kinds of silly names like "Flower Flower" or "Pink Pink"....

So excited!

I'm 18 weeks along today and I have my ultrasound on Thursday. It's my level 2 so I'll have one hour of looking at baby! It also means one hour of not being able to pee but that's OK!! I can't wait to see the little one! I hope to get some good pictures I can share with you all!!!

Come On Down..

Anyone been watching "The Price is Right" since Drew Carey became the host? I just love this show!! I think Drew is doing a great job. You can really tell that he loves the show! I'm a game show junkie. Maybe I am "old school" because I just don't "get" "Deal or No Deal"... I do love the old shows, though - The Match Game, Family Feud, that show with the Whammies... Name that Tune, there was a cool game called Pitfall - I loved that show... I don't get a chance to watch "The Price is Right" that often but I caught the end of it today... Way to go Drew!

Here's Drew and one of my favorites - the Showcase Showdown:

Can't sleep - got any tips?

I haven't been able to sleep most nights... I just toss and turn... then I end up getting up to pee - it seems like I never get to sleep. Does anyone know of any tricks that work during pregnancy? Is there a tea or something that will help?

Christmas Pics!

I'm finally putting up some Christmas pictures! Enjoy!!

Here are Kevin and Ryan posing with Sponge Bob at the Elks Christmas party:


Kevin and I at his classroom Christmas party:


Ryan at his classroom Christmas party:


Christmas morning:


Kevin is enjoying opening presents!


"Hey look! A Shrek toothbrush!!!"


Eddie opens Don't Spill the Beans...

No School Today!

We are getting lots of snow today - so far probably 3 or 4 inches... we received a call from the school this morning at 5:45 am saying there would be no school. I was psyched! I am so glad I do not have to do my usual drop off / pick up routine; drop off Eddie at 8:35, come home, drop off Kevin and Ryan at 11:30... pick up Kevin and Ryan at 2:00 then sit in front of Eddie's school until 2:50 when it's time to pick him up... However, today Eddie would have had reading group after school so I wouldn't have had to pick him up until 3:30 so we would have had time to come home in between pick ups but I'm very glad we don't have to do all that in the snow! The kids are outside having a grand time in the snow and I'm inside cleaning and doing laundry! I plan to spend the afternoon scrapbooking and then going to work tonight. Who could ask for anything more?? (Well, except for having work called off...) They do say we are getting another storm on Friday! Just when our lawns were all green again; more white stuff!!! At least I don't have to work Friday night! Stay warm everyone!

$4 Prescriptions at Walmart

If you haven't heard yet - Walmart offers over 350 prescriptions for $4.00. I ended up taking Ryan to the walk in clinic yesterday morning at the pediatrician's office. Ryan woke up Tuesday night in A LOT of pain - his said his right ear hurt. When the nurse practitioner looked in his right ear - she said he was 100% correct; he had a HUGE infection in his ear... so she prescribed amoxicillin and sent us on our way. Usually they fax it to my pharmacy but this time she gave me a paper prescription and I remembered that Walmart had $4.00 prescriptions... so off we went to Walmart (we needed to do some shopping anyway) and dropped off the prescription... we did our shopping and 15 minutes later, the pink stuff was ready for pick up and only cost $4.00. I imagine with my insurance, it probably would have been a $10 copay as opposed to the $25 or $45 copays we often to have to pay but it was still a savings of $6.00 and you figure over this year, we'll have at least 10 of those equalling a total savings of at least $60.

For more information, you can see www.walmart.com/pharmacy - and you can see the complete list of covered drugs at: http://i.walmart.com/i/if/hmp/fusion/four_dollar_drug_list.pdf

Found Videos

I found these videos when I was going through my pictures to order some prints for scrapbooking. I realized, though, that I have hardly any video of the kids... TONS of pictures but not that many videos!!! So my goal is to take more videos!!! Enjoy!!!

Here's a video of Kevin and Ryan in the early stages of walking... and yes, that really is a tractor tire hanging around his neck!


Here's a video of Eddie from our trip to Disney in 2005:

T'was the Night Before Christmas...

We had a busy night the night before Christmas... things started off with a get together at our good friend Linda's house and then we headed to church for the 6:30 candlelight service. After church, we went home and put our reindeer food out on the lawn, Santa's cookies and milk out and hurried off to bed...

Here we are getting ready to put out the reindeer food:


Eddie


Ryan


Kevin


Eddie sound asleep


Kevin and Ryan trying to fall asleep so Santa will come


Kevin working on sleeping


Ryan pretending to sleep


The Gingerbread House we made

Make a Joyful Noise

As promised, here are the videos of the kids singing at church:

Matthew Begats (This is the song that I mentioned was really hard for Eddie to learn... yes, this really is his group although you can't see him - sorry the picture is out of focus but at least you can still hear it).


My God is so Big


Joy to the World

Baby

Here's the picture I promised of baby! It's pretty blurry but hopefully you can still make it out. I hope to have some more pictures after my level 2 ultrasound on 1/24.

Hi everyone!!!

Merry Christmas!

How 'bout them pajamas!!

Merry Christmas to everyone! Sorry I haven't had time to post pictures yet but I will soon! We had a great Christmas... We had a special Christmas service on Sunday - the kids sang and it was very cute. Each group sang two songs... Eddie did one song that was particularly hard to learn (even for me!) It was very cute though. It was an extra long service because of the singing and they honored two missionaries... after the kids finished their singing, they went into their Sunday school classes and the pastor gave a nice sermon... I will post some pictures (and video!) of the kids singing! On Christmas Eve, we went to the candlelight service at church. It was the first time the kids stayed in the sanctuary the whole time - there wasn't a sermon per se but a special presentation and singing... at the end, we all held our little candles for "Silent Night"... I think the kids really enjoyed it. We had our work cut out for us when we got home though - had to sprinkle the lawn for the reindeer, set out our letter for Santa plus his cookies and milk, we tracked Santa on the Internet and scrambled into bed... Christmas Day was really fun - the kids got lots of goodies. We had a visit from Ed's sister and her husband and Ed's Mom... it was a good time. I will post pictures soon but wanted to say a quick hello! A special thanks to our friend Darlene from bloggerland for the cute stuffed animals - the kids loved them!! I will post a picture! TTFN!!

Christmas Cards Should be in the Mail by Friday!

"I'm really not this flaky usually"... I hear myself saying that a lot lately... maybe I actually AM flaky after all! At any rate, I sit here at almost 1:00 am writing (or typing out I should say) my Christmas card labels... with any luck, I'll pick up the cards tomorrow at Walmart, put the labels on them and get them in the mail by Friday! I know I shouldn't be up this late but I really would like to get them in the mail by Friday so they at least have a chance of arriving before Christmas (even if by one day). I'm setting myself up for failure tomorrow... we have a busy morning and then I have a ton of shopping to do while Kevin and Ryan are at school tomorrow but just realized I won't be able to do because they have Christmas parties... and I have to work tomorrow night! I will be SO tired by the time the night is over tomorrow... maybe I'll have to finish the labels tomorrow! I promise, next year - I will have them done early!!!

Thanks for all the comments!

Thanks for all the comments lately! I love getting comments! I hope to have some pictures of #4 up soon for you all to see. Thanks for reading my blog!!!

Appointment Update

Hi everyone! I had my appointment today... and got to see the baby! Everything looked great... he or she is measuring a few days ahead of schedule and had a heart rate of 151. Well, I thought the level II ultrasound was today but I was mistaken. They do level II ultrasounds as part of the screening but not until 18 weeks (as I've had done before). The part that they do earlier is what I had done today and it was a short ultrasound by a specialized technician who can look at the nuchal fold. They are looking for the thickness of the baby's neck to try and see if they baby has Down's Syndrome. They can't tell you yes or no but they will try to estimate your odds. The test is totally based on how cooperative the baby is because they need to get to a certain spot on the neck. To give you an idea of size, they want it to measure between 1 and 3 mm. Our baby was *not* cooperative and was actually laying on it's head so the tech could not get a good look at it. That was fine by me, I enjoyed looking at the baby! They did blood work today and I will have more blood work done in 3 weeks. January 24th is the day of the big level II ultrasound. The actual scan takes one hour plus any other counseling, talking to the doctor or blood work... It was so unlike me but when the tech was starting the ultrasound, I said "Now, I know you probably can't tell yet but we are not finding out the sex so please don't let me see"... That's so NOT me!!! She said it would be too small for me to be able to tell but that she would never say anyway!!! She gave me some pictures but they are kind of blurry. The pictures I have from 2 weeks ago are clearer so I'll try to put one up tomorrow! Good night!!!!

4 Year Old Pictures

I took Kevin and Ryan to Kiddie Kandids (at Babies R Us) for their 4 year pictures. They have a birthday club... you are able to get one free picture per year so that's just what we did!

Ryan


Kevin

Level 2 Ultrasound on Monday!

I am having a level 2 ultrasound on Monday. I will be 13 weeks. They do them earlier now... When I was pregnant with Eddie, I think I had a level 2 ultrasound at around 19 weeks. When I was at my first prenatal appointment, they offered me what they call "first trimester" screening. It includes the controversial AFP test and the level 2 ultrasound among other thing. I think they call it a quad screen (?) these days. I was sort of taken aback when she asked me about it because I hadn't heard of it before (not as first trimester screening anyway)... and I couldn't believe what they said next... they actually said that they offer it earlier these days to give the mother options, you know in case I wanted an early termination? Well, that won't be happening but I will be glad to take a peek at the little guy or gal. I imagine it's too early to find out the sex but we will not be finding out until the baby is born! In the past, I've always found out but this time, I will be relishing the wait and the surprise. I will try to scan in my pictures from Monday and let the little one say hello to everyone here on the blog!!!