Pregnancy Update: Week 36!!!!!!!!

Well, I have to say when we started this adventure way back in January I really didn't think I'd be writing this post, but I'm sure glad I am! As of yesterday, this became my second longest pregnancy. The only one that lasted longer (so far) was Wesley who was born 10 days early. It is looking more and more like I will reach my goal... bringing my baby home with me and skipping the NICU! Of course, there are no guarantees, but in another week I will really be in the safe zone!

Did the 17 P shots make a difference? Or was it my taking it easy? Or that the boys are a bit older and can do things for themselves? Probably a little bit of everything. I will say that this pregnancy would not have gone so smoothly if it wasn't for Jerry not only doing all his work but mine too these past few months. Nor would it have been the same without the help of my new friend Lisa who took time out of her busy schedule each week drive across town and give me my shots. "Thank You" just isn't enough!

35.5 Week

After the false alarm two weeks ago, I have continued to have contractions on and off. Nothing too terribly painful and nothing lasting long enough to send me back to the hospital. Every time I get a few in a row though I start to wonder if this is it and then they go away. You'd think after 5 other labors I'd know the difference, but every pregnancy is different and there is always room for doubt. Since my labors are so fast my main concern was always having preemie at home without the proper medical help. As we get farther and farther along, I am less concerned with that. I hope to still go fast and am confident that (as long as Jerry is with me) I could get it done wherever I happen to be. We did review emergency delivery procedure not too long ago just in case. :)

My view :)

Nothing really exciting to report from my doctor appointment yesterday. The baby is head down. Heartbeat sounded great. I did not get an internal exam so I don't know if anything is going on in that regard. My Group B Strep test from the hospital was negative, but if I make it to 38 weeks they will repeat the test. I will now start going weekly. I haven't done that since I was pregnant with Wesley!

Not sure if this will be my last pregnancy update or not. Just in case, here is a little list of pregnancy quirks I will miss (NOT!) when this is all over:

• going to the bathroom every 30 minutes
• no comfortable sleeping positions (I spend at least a couple hours in the recliner each night)
• looking at items that I've dropped trying to decide if it is really necessary to bend over and pick them up 
• needing assistance to put some of my shoes on
• turning sideways or hunching over to wash my hands or dishes at the sink
• not being able to reach into the cupboards or to the back of the stove
• since we have a fridge with a freezer on the bottom, I drink warm drinks instead of squatting to get ice
• swollen legs and sausage toes (although they are much better this time than they were with JD)
• water can give me heartburn but spicy food does not (?)
• driving is a challenge, short legs and a pregnant belly don't mix
• my already big nose gets even bigger

I'm sure there are more, if I think of some I'll add them later. To balance things out in my next pregnancy update (if there is one!) I will make a list of the things I really will miss! :)

Reminder: Don't forget to take a guess in my FB "baby pool"!  (If you get an error message just hit "okay" and you should still be able to make a guess.)

Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary

Roz and Trevor took the boys to the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary on August 23, 2011. As usual, they had a blast! I stayed home to relax while they were gone so these photos are courtesy of Roz!

[We didn't know it at the time but this was their last trip to the sanctuary before the big move. Glad they went and that we have some pictures to help them remember one of their favorite places in Green Bay!]

Swimming Fun

Since I was trying to take it easy this summer we did swimming lessons a little different. The once-a-week evening classes worked out very well. We were happy to have that option otherwise we would have had no lessons this year.

On the last day of swimming lessons they have "fun day" and can bring toys from home to play with. Justus spent most of his fun day going off the diving board. The HIGH dive! Here are some shots that Jerry took, as you can see, he wasn't timid about it at all!

All the boys, even Hayden and JD who weren't in lessons, made big improvements in their swimming abilities this summer. Level 3 was a real challenge for Wesley, in a good way.  I'm guessing he will be in Level 3 all of next summer too. He won't be alone! Both Justus and Eli passed Level 2 and will be joining him in Level 3.  Over the course of the summer, JD went from cautiously walking down the steps to holding his breath and jumping in with eyes wide open!

Even though swimming lessons were only once a week, the boys were still in the pool a good bit over the summer. We definitely got our money's worth out of our season passes! Even I went along more than I thought I would be able to. Several evenings a week and most weekend afternoons Jerry would load everyone up for a swim! Most days he even bought them lollies from the snack shack. :) A couple times he went all our and earned major brownie by allowing the boys to get a bigger special treat (like ice cream or nachos!).

A few weeks ago, I ended up getting a deal on a little Kodak video camera for Eli. He has been wanting one ever since I gave him my ancient Sony digital camera to play with. You can tell it's a $30 camera quality-wise, but that doesn't seem to bother him! What we didn't expect was that it would be waterproof. Not just okay to get splashed, but good up to 4 feet under water!!

So the day after he got it we decided to take it to the pool and see how it did. Eli was a bit nervous to put it in the water the first time (okay, I'll admit, I was too), but when it survived the first submersion we realized it would be a lot of fun.

We took it to the pool a few times. I got a chuckle out of the looks we got. Apparently, there aren't enough waterproof electronics out there because everyone gets a little nervous when you step into the pool with a camera! Most of the videos we took were only a few seconds, so I put together this little video using iMovie on the new Mac for the first time. (I hadn't used iMovie before so it was good practice and as you can see from the video I am no pro and really have no idea what I'm doing!)

The pool closed for the season yesterday and everyone is a little bummed. JD asked this afternoon if they could go swimming tonight and I don't think he believed me when I told him it was closed. Poor little guy even cried. The bummer thing about so many months between swimming seasons is that every year you have to start over and get used to it all again. Of course, progress is made overall, but next year he definitely won't start out jumping in like he ended the season yesterday!

Bye Summer!!

Proud Mom to a Gang of Bikers!

Last week Hayden figured out how to ride a two-wheel bike with no training wheels. All summer Hayden has been asking for Jerry to put the training wheels on one of the bikes for him. And all summer Jerry has been telling him he didn't need them. So a few weeks ago (July 31st to be exact) Hayden finally gave it a try. And what do you know!? Dad was right. Jerry got him started once and he took right off!

It took a few tries for Hayden to figure out how to get going from a stop (the driveway worked perfect for that) and as you'll see in the video he learned out to go but wasn't quite sure how to stop. He figured it out though... a lot faster than his mother who would crash into trees instead of just pedaling backwards. :)

JD enjoyed riding his new birthday bike along side his big brother. He hasn't figured out the brakes yet either but he doesn't get going too fast so if he just takes his feet off the petal he stops pretty quick.  Sometimes I look out the window and have to chuckle at a cul-de-sac full of kids on bikes especially since they are all mine! Wish I was up for a bike ride, I'm sure our little caravan would get a lot of looks!

I have posted a video of everyone from Wesley down when they learned to ride a bike. If you want to look back, you can see Wesley's video here (my how they have grown!) and the twin's video here. Here's Hayden riding off:

A New Tradition

A few years ago I made a special candy birthday card for Roz on her 16th birthday. Then a couple months later I made a similar card for my nephew Carter on his 10th. Both cards were a big hit! Even after all this time, my niece Morgan remembered Carter's card and mentioned she hoped she'd get one for her 10th birthday too. I took the hint and put together her candy card before our big birthday bash.

Morgan and her card

Click to enlarge if you want to read the card!

Each card is worded a bit different, but they all are lots of fun! I just go buy a bunch of candy bars with names I think I can work in and then come home and start writing. This time around I had trouble finding the "Zero" candy bar. Facebook came to the rescue. I asked my friends if anyone had seen one around town and sure enough someone had! (Thanks again Jill!!) I can't take credit for the idea, someone in high school made one for their boyfriend and I remember thinking it was pretty cool so I tucked away the idea.

Wesley is already planning what candy bars he wants on his card when he turns 10 in March. So it seems we have started a new tradition!

Smile Detector

I got a new camera. It has a feature (that I'm sure I'll never use) called "smile detector". We had to give it a try to see if it worked. It did. Well, kind of. It detects smiles, but they have to be really big. Like this...

 

I think I'll just stick with manual mode. 

False Alarm

I have several posts I need to get to but this one is going to bump them back so I can get it down before I forget!

I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions on and off for several weeks now. Nothing regular, nothing exciting. Last night I slept really well until 3:30am (which was a miracle in itself!). After a trip to the bathroom, I had a contraction. I wasn't worried. Then I had another. I tried changing positions but kept having them. I finally grabbed my iPod and used my contraction timing app to see if something was really going on.

The contractions kept coming about every 7 minutes or so, but were not really painful. At 4:40am Jerry heard me wandering around and asked how I was. I told him that I was going to call and I thought we should go to the hospital. Better safe than sorry with my history. Jerry got dressed and went to tell Roz we were leaving. Her response: "What day is it?"  :)

We got to the hospital about 5am. I was admitted into L&D Room 2 where the monitor showed the baby was doing just fine and I was having contractions every 5 minutes. The on-call doc ordered a shot of terbutaline which did slow the contractions down and make them less intense. The nurse checked me and the good news was I was only about 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. (I could be that for weeks!)

I also had a fetal fibronectin and Group B Strep test. The contractions continued and I got another dose of the terbutaline. Much to everyone's surprise, the fFN test came back negative! This means that there is a good chance I will NOT have the baby in the next two weeks! Since I am currently almost 34 week (33 weeks, 6 days if you want to be exact) that gives us hope that the baby won't come until after I'm 36 weeks. Although not a guarantee, this is very good news!

They checked me again and there was no change. My doctor came in to say hello and let us know his plans. The contractions continued, but since they weren't dilating my cervix there really wasn't much else to do. We have already done everything that can be done for mom's in premature labor. Betamethasone (lung) shots being the big one. So they sent me home.

Jerry and I stopped to have breakfast on the way home. (It was the nurses suggestion!) Thanks to Roz, we came home to find the boys fed and the kitchen cleaned up. Wesley even made our bed for us. I guess there was some confusion when the first risers woke up to find our bed empty of both Dad and Mom. After waking up the rest of the brothers apparently ideas were tossed out (maybe they went shopping?) and rejected. Roz heard them scrambling about and let them know what was going on and not to worry she was there before going back to sleep. Once they knew what was going on they resumed their normal morning routine of watching a video or playing until breakfast.

I took it easy all day (although I did go vote!). I worked in a few naps, but am still pretty tired. Wesley had several questions when we got home. He tried to tell the brothers that the baby had started coming out of mom's uterus but they pushed it back in. :) I set him straight, but was impressed that he knew and used the word uterus appropriately.

I have continued to have contractions throughout the day, but nothing really regular. Some are more painful than others and I'm not really looking forward to living with them for at least two weeks, but it's better than having a preemie!

July/August Birthday Bash

Over Memorial Day weekend we had a big birthday bash and this past weekend we had another. This time for the July and August birthdays. My parents hosted so we drove up to their house in Oconto.

Last year at the August birthday bash it ended up that Jerry, Wesley, and Roz were all wearing Hawaiian shirts and I took a photo that became one of my all time favorites. We decided at some point that at this year's party everyone should wear a Hawaiian shirt! A few family members didn't have a Hawaiian shirt to wear but the dollar store came to the rescue with grass skirts for them and leis for all!

Once again we got a great photo! I still can't believe we got a group of sixteen people including nine kids to all look at the camera and smile. We may have just started a new tradition.

The Whole Family

The Whole Family... silly shot!

JD, Grandma Linda, and Wesley

The Birthday Gang

We celebrated the birthdays of my niece Morgan, JD, my nephew Cooper, my mom aka Grandma Linda, Roz, and my sister Abby. We visited, ate pizza, opened gifts, and (of course!) had a big cake. We also watched a pretty strong storm move through as well, but thankfully we didn't lose power to our party. We did notice several trees down on the way home though.

Now the big question is... will we have another August birthday to celebrate at the big birthday bash next year or will we be making it a July/Aug/Sept birthday bash?!?  Have you taken a guess yet on when the baby will arrive? If not, take a minute and make a guess!

JD Turns Four!!

It's a good thing we have a baby on the way because I can't believe my current baby is four years old!! To celebrate JD's special day was went out for a McDonald's dinner, where the little birthday boy got a free Happy Meal. Then we came home and opened presents and had cake.

The Birthday Boy

Opening gifts

This about sums up birthdays at our house :)

A brand new bike from Mom and Dad

Since at least Christmas JD has been telling us he wanted a big water gun for his birthday. When Grandma Joddy was here in June she bought a big water gun and we hid it away in the basement. She was also nice enough to get each of the boys a water gun so they could squirt each other. It's no fun to have a water gun fight alone!

So several times throughout the week I asked JD what he wanted and he kept saying he wanted... a watch. He even went as far as saying he knew Daddy got him one which was, unfortunately, not true. It all worked out in the end. JD was happy with his gifts after all. In fact, all the boys wer so excited about the water guns we managed to squeeze in a quick water gun fight between gift opening and cake. And it ended up JD did get a watch from Aunt Abby at our big birthday bash on Saturday (I told her this story and she just happened to have a spare one at her house).

A super cute shirt and tie from Gma Molly and Gpa John

The new bike was a big hit. We kept it inside for a couple days and JD practiced riding it around the kitchen. It took a few tries but he finally got pedaling down. By the time we brought it outside he was ready to ride off down the street!

Click here if you want to see some pictures of JD on the day he was born or read his birth story!

Happy 15th Anniversary!

July 27, 2011

Wednesday was our 15th anniversary. Jerry's plans to go on a special anniversary getaway never came to be since I can't roam to far from home right now. Maybe next year! We did have a nice dinner out at Ziggy's. I had prime rib and Jerry had tenderloin, both were delicious. The only down side to our dinner out was that we left the boys at home with Roz only to have the dinner interrupted several times by a screaming toddler (who wasn't ours). We were pretty understanding, of course, but some of the other patrons were not.

I can't believe it but I actually forgot to get a picture of Jerry and I together. I think that is the first time in fifteen years I haven't taken one of us on our actual anniversary. The only picture I have to share is of Wesley's sweet Play-Doh anniversary wish...

New Ride

July 23, 2011

We have been planning to get Roz a car for several months now. After putting it off for most of the summer I encouraged Jerry to get the job done one recent Saturday morning. Roz happened to be in Eau Claire and not home when we bought it. Since we were buying used and Jer had certain makes in mind it wasn't like Roz would have much say in the choosing of the car anyway.

Since she wasn't here we took these pictures to send to her...

The boys were impressed with the sun roof! :)

It was nice to get it done. When Roz got back she was very happy with her new car. It's a 2003 Saturn L200. Hopefully Roz will get many happy, safe miles from her new ride!

Company Picnic

July 22, 2011

Every year Jerry's employer has their family company picnic at Bay Beach. This year Roz was out of town so we took our nephew Carter with us instead. It worked out quite well because he could take the big boys to ride the bigger rides while Jerry helped me out with the younger two.

We all had a great time. The food was good... better than years past for the kids since they set up a kid table with mac & cheese and PB&J sandwiches. And who doesn't like free rides? The only down side... it was unbearably hot and humid. We didn't stay nearly as long as we have in years past because it was so uncomfortable. I felt bad for the big kids who had to wait in line in full sun. Thankfully, the little kiddie rides are mostly in the shade.

After months of anticipation it was the big chance to ride the new Zippin Pippin roller coaster!! It did not disappoint. After his first ride, Eli was excited to tell me he "went weightless" going down the first big hill. Even Jerry said it was a pretty good ride for $1! Justus, unfortunately, was about an inch short of being able to ride. He was not happy to sit with us while Carter, Wesely, and Eli rode several times. I told him to eat his veggies and he and I go for our first ride together next year. I don't think that helped much.

Since I didn't do much walking around I had Jerry take most of these pictures...

Carter and Wesley waiting to ride the Zippin Pippin

Eli waiting to ride the Zippin Pippin

Carter, Wesley, and Eli go by on the Zippin!

Hayden

J.D. and Hayden on the train with Dad

J.D. takes a hydration break

The race cars... a favorite ride!

Pink Flamingo 2011

July 16, 2011

Mid-July means one thing for our family... The Pink Flamingo! I've written about it every year since I started this blog. If you want to take a trip down memory land you can see the posts here: 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a charity softball tournament that turns the park by our house in one big city reunion.

Our favorite part is the parade on Saturday morning. We started a tradition several years ago of a pre-parade breakfast of donuts from the local Uncle Mike's bakery. The boys didn't let us forget the tradition this year... they were thinking about what type of donuts to get all week!

The parade is short but sweet (literally). We always get buckets of candy! This year we had a few friends join us which just made it all the more fun. Being on the same side of the street as the water fighters we have to be a little more careful in letting the parade floats know we want to be in the dry zone. Nothing worse than wet candy!

Waiting for the parade

Here it comes!

Our boys still go for the candy but I think next year we'll lose Wesley, Eli, and Justus to the water fight portion of the parade with my nephews Carter and John.

Even though he wasn't officially in the water fight, Justus still managed to get soaked. He wasn't too upset about it as you can see. In fact, he thought it was great!

Our second favorite part is heading down to the park on Saturday evening to eat dinner. They serve great cookout foods (burgers, brats, dogs, corn etc.) for really reasonable prices. This year we got lucky on a very close parking spot and sat at an out of the way table in the shade. It was pretty hot so we didn't stay too long, just long enough to fill up with yummy food. Then it was back home to the air conditioning to cool off!