A New Shown!

A new Shown was born in June! Don't worry it wasn't our little one... he/she still has a few more months to go. Jerry's brother Joe and his wife Kim welcomed a sweet baby boy to the Shown family. He is named Joseph after his daddy, but they are going to call him Joey.

He was a bit late so every time the phone rang I hoped it was Joe calling to tell us the baby was here. We finally got the call! All our boys are excited to have a new baby cousin! And it will be fun to have two cousins, Little Joey and our baby, so close in age.

Pregnancy Update: Week 27

I am starting the third trimester! Which means the "calm between two storms" (as I like to call it) is coming to an end. Although I have 13 weeks to go, if I can make it another 10 weeks I'll be so very happy. The earliest I've gone into labor is 30 weeks and that was with the twins. The next earliest was Hayden at 32 weeks. So I have about another month or so before Jerry starts sleeping with his keys and shoes by the bed. Poor guy... not only do I go early, I go so fast!

The shots are going well (thanks Lisa!). I've had 12 so far so, that means 8 to go! I haven't had any side effects except itching at the site of the injection. We alternate the side I get my shot in each week, but strangely enough both sides usually itch. Guess one side sympathizes with the other or something. Speaking of shots in a couple weeks (at 30 weeks) I am going to get the betamethasone shots to help with lung development just in case baby should come early. I'll get two shots, each a day apart. They are only administered at the hospital so I'll have to make two quick trips up to St. Vincent Hospital.

I really enjoy feeling the baby move. The baby is now big enough to kick a table/desk if my chair is in far enough and, my favorite, push back when nudged. Movements are strong enough for others to feel and Wesley especially enjoys catching kick or two.  None of the other boys are patient enough to wait for a kick, but they all like to talk to the baby and give him/her a good night kiss. Wesley cracked me up the other day, when he heard my uterus is currently the size of a soccer ball he said felt really bad for me. He says he couldn't do anything with a soccer ball in his stomach! :)

I am starting to feel big and have trouble sleeping. As if the general pregnancy issues (aka multiple bathroom trips) weren't enough I've added a "new" issue that keeps me up at night: heart palpitations. At first it was just the feeling of a skipped beat here and there, but slowly grew worse. It happens briefly throughout the day, but rarely lasts long. When it really kicks into high gear is when I lay down to go to sleep, that is when it is nearly constant and lasts as long as an hour or more.

I finally decided to go see the doctor about it on Monday. Of course, when I got there my heart was beating perfectly normal. Thankfully, when I laid down for the doctor to listen to the baby's heartbeat it started up and he was able to hear it. My doctor (who has a great sense of humor) said they are "premature [heart] contractions" and made a joke about every part of me liking to prematurely contract! He didn't say, but I'm guessing they are PVCs and not PACs although I guess it doesn't really matter. They ordered some lab work to see if they could pinpoint the cause. The lab results showed that I had low magnesium levels so I just started taking a magnesium supplement. We'll see if it works... if they don't go away or continue to get worse then I will be referred to a cardiologist. Let's all pray it doesn't come to that!

We're still looking for boy name suggestions so if you have any please let us know. We want something fairly unique (definitely nothing in the top 25-50 names) and that doesn't start with the same letter of any other family member (so no J, S, R, W, E, H names). We think at least two syllables sound best with a one syllable last name like ours. AND we need two middles names. Gosh, seeing it all written out like that it's no wonder we can't find a name! :)

I'll end with this (slightly blurry) picture that Wesley took of me and my soccer ball!

Bellin Run 2011

June 11, 2010

Jerry and Roz both ran the Bellin 10K again this year. So did 18,699 other people! LaForce (Jerry's employer) puts together a corporate team so Jerry and Roz signed up with them. They both put a little more effort into training this year and both beat last years time! Jerry finished with a time of 1:02:42 and Roz with 1:05:46.

Before the race

The "traditional" pose

The boys and I ate a quick breakfast and went to sit on the curb to watch Daddy and Roz run by. We are lucky enough to have a friend who lives just around the corner from the halfway point where we like to sit, so we get a great parking space and don't have to walk far.

Roz and Jerry were in the same "corral" this year so they weren't too far apart although they did not run together. Thankfully it didn't rain. It was cool, but I'm sure none of the runners were complaining about that! It is hard to scan a huge crowd of runners for familiar faces. I think it's easier for the runners to spot people they know than the spectators. We knew a lot of runners this year but didn't manage to catch a glimpse of all of them.

The boys waiting to see Daddy and Roz

You can watch a video clip and see the official finish line photos of Jerry here and Roz here. For some reason they got a lot more shots of Jerry than Roz. When watching the video remember to look for their grey LaForce shirts. (Jerry is off to the far left in his clip and Roz is in the center.)

Who is up to run with them next year? The date is already set for June 9, 2012.

Happy Father's Day!!

Jerry became a first-time dad almost 20 years (!) ago at age 18. Maybe part of the reason he is such a great father is because he's been one for his whole adult life!

Jerry and Roz in August 1991

Over ten years later he became a dad for the second time, to his first son. Little did we know how many sons we'd end up with!

Jerry and Wesley in March 2002

Surprise! We doubled our number of kids (for the second time!) with the addition of twins less than two years after Wesley was born.

Jerry and Eli in January 2004

Jerry and Justus in January 2004

Jerry holding both twins for the first time!
February 2004

By the time Hayden arrived Jerry was a professional. He's been a dad in his teens, twenties, and now thirties. He's had a girl, boys, singletons, multiples, full term, and preemies. He's had his own babies, toddlers, tweens, and teens. Not much left to do but just enjoy each new addition as they come!

Jerry and Hayden

Our sixth child and fifth son was named after daddy. What can I say, we ran out of names! :) Two Jeremys in the house and neither goes by his given name!

Jeremy and Jeremy (aka Jerry and J.D.)

You might think your dad is "one in million", but ever-the-over-achiever Jerry is a truly rare "one in 18,097"!! That is until the next Shown arrives... then he'll be "one in 7,032"! :)  At least according to the US Census data and the NY Times.

(click to enlarge)

 

Happy Father's Day

Jerry!!

The Big Move

June 2, 2011

Next year Roz will be living off campus with seven other girls in a duplex a few blocks from school. They signed their lease awhile ago but were not able to pick up the keys until June. So poor Jer drove to Eau Claire to move Roz out of the dorm and then two weeks later loaded up a bunch of stuff to move her back into the duplex.

Loading the van here at home went great. When all the seats are removed that van is quite roomy! We had a couch, loveseat, over-sized chair, a complete full bed, and tons of other stuff in the back with room to spare. Unloading went well too... except that it was a steamy 95 degrees that day and Roz lives on the second story. Glad my contribution to the move was to stay home in the AC and watch the boys!

First Step: Bring everything up from the basement

The "first" layer and goodbye old green furniture... you served us well!

Packed and ready to go!

She isn't living there yet but wanted her stuff there so she can drive over and stay a few times throughout the summer. Come fall she'll be able to fit the rest of what she needs to bring in a car... hopefully her own car. So if anyone knows of a good deal on a safe, fuel efficient car let us know!!

Bayshore Park Fun

May 31, 2011

When Jerry went back to work after the long weekend Grandma Joddy and I decided to take the kids to Bayshore Park to play. For years now my boys have LOVED Bayshore or as they like to call it "Pirate Ship Park". They have fond memories of camping there a couple years ago. They want to go camping again this year but, unfortunately, they'll just have to be patient and wait until next year. I'm uncomfortable enough sleeping at home these days... I can't even imagine sleeping on the ground in a tent!

The boys are old enough now to just play while Grandma and I had a nice visit. They tried out all the playground equipment, but the sand is always the big hit. We even remembered to bring our sand toys from home. Wesley made a very nice sand castle with a draw bridge!

I have lots of pictures to share so I am making them small, just click on any one to enlarge.

After playing on the playground and having a snack we drove down the hill to the bay. The boys promptly took off their shoes and ran to stick their toes in the water. The water was pretty cold but they didn't seem to mind. Grandma and I had to remind everyone to stay back since we didn't want to load any soaking wet children back in the van.

 The worst part of every visit is leaving. The boys are always so sad to drive away, even if I promise we'll be back again soon!

Another Mrs. Shown

Jerry's brother Joe got married on June 10. I will never forget the date because that is also Joe's birthday! My sister's anniversary is April 1st, which is also easy to remember. How nice of both our siblings to choose easy to remember dates to get married!

The wedding was put together quickly which, unfortunately, meant we were not able to be there. We are thankful we got to meet Kim and her kids when we went back to Arizona for a visit last January.

Joe and Kim are due to have a baby any day. We were all kind of hoping the baby would also come on the 10th but it didn't work out that way. They got married at a local park which made for some pretty photos! Congrats Joe and Kim!

Wesley's Book Report: Swiss Family Robinson

Wesley is a huge bookworm and is excited to be participating in several summer reading programs this year. The one hosted by our local paper publishes the weekly "book reports" that the kids send in on their website. Here is Wesley's first entry about his new favorite book Swiss Family Robinson by Johann D. Wyss:

I like the Swiss Family Robinson because it has adventures. A family's ship gets shipwrecked and stranded. They swim back to the boat a couple days later to save their animals. Then they take the animals back to their island but a shark tries to kill one of their sheep. One of the boys shoots the shark. Then he cuts the shark's fin off as a prize. A couple days later they see a dead whale on the shore and make candles from the blubber. The mom finds seaweed and makes jelly from it. They live in a tree after they see tapirs, jackels, and other animals that might eat their food.

His entry can be seen on the Green Bay Press Gazette website here.

Memorial Day Weekend 2011

This year we had an extended Memorial Day holiday. Our little party started early thanks to the arrival of Grandma Joddy and Grandpa Steve on Thursday! After driving through some nasty tornado weather and flash floods, they (thankfully) arrived in one piece.

Saturday we had our annual Birthday/Memorial Day party. You can read about last year's here.  We seem to have a lot of birthdays close together, so we start each summer with a April/May/June birthday bash and end it with a July/August bash. It works out quite nicely.

We had a great time eating and chatting and playing ladder golf. Thanks to an ordering glitch we ended up with a whole sheet cake instead of a half. Which meant that even after dividing it up between several households, we happily ate cake for the rest of the weekend.  Here is a shot of all the birthday guys (and gal):

Shelly, Jerry, Pa Denny, John, and Grandpa Steve

In addition to our out of town guests, our little white cuddler Jean Luc joined us for the weekend too. Sunday we went to church and then patiently waited for dark so we could go watch the fireworks. It just wouldn't be fireworks without popcorn, so we cooked up a big batch of kettle corn before heading out. Despite the fact we limited beverages we still had a few little stops behind dark bushes and van doors. Everyone, even the adults, fell exhausted into bed only to get up early Saturday morning to head to the parade.

The weather folks kept threatening us with rain throughout the weekend, but it ended up we had beautiful weather. In fact, Monday was sunny and quite warm. I'd say hot, although our AZ guests would probably disagree. As always the boys had a great time at the parade!

The boys with Roz and her friend Emily

Dad sits close to supervise candy pick-up

Hey, it's Mrs. Vivian Lawyer!

J.D. proudly waves his flag

The parade Jerry lovingly calls the "never-ending parade" was a little longer this year. We didn't know why but about halfway through the parade just stopped. We sat for a minute before we saw black smoke rising on the other end of the bridge. Shortly after that the fire trucks (that had been in the parade just a couple minutes before) were racing back across the bridge to put out the fire.

We all wondered what was on fire. Jerry used his phone to pop on Twitter where people were posting a parade vehicle was on fire. Roz's friend Emily got a call from her mom who had heard Ferris Bueller style from a few kid's walking by that the Star 98 Radio mini-van was on fire. My brother-in-law John called Jerry's cell and we were able to spread the rumor down the bridge via the "telephone" method. :) Sure enough, that rumor turned out to be true!

Thankfully no one was hurt. The firetruck, crossing the bridge yet again to return back to the station (followed by the Star 98 van on a flatbed), received huge and well-deserved cheers from the crowd. In the year's ahead we'll all able to say we were there the year of the Star 98 fire.

After the parade, we went home to try and stay cool the rest of the day. The boys played in our kiddie pool and the girls (me, Roz, and Grandma Joddy) headed to air-conditioned Target to do a little shopping. Jerry had to go back to work Tuesday, but the boys and I extended the holiday weekend and took some time off school to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa until they headed home early Wednesday morning.