Four and a half...

...more weeks until my due date!
I've tried posting several different times, but the stupid picture uploader was taking too long each time and so I gave up. This time I won't post so many pictures, maybe that will help actually get this one on the blog!
So I'm 35 weeks along right now, 36 on Monday. I have three more appointments scheduled with my doctor, and then if I have been scheduled to be induced on my due date if I haven't gone by then (August 23rd), and that's mostly because of the cyst on the umbilical cord and not so much because of the clot...which as far as we know is still there. The baby is doing very well. A little too well, actually- at my 34 week growth chart, it was estimated at weighing 6 lbs 1 oz. And I'm measuring 2 weeks ahead of schedule. Which means I'm probably going to have another big baby. Chloe was 9lbs 2 oz, and Linus was 8 lbs 10 oz. I hope I go into labor before I'm induced, mostly because my contractions felt much worse in both of my other deliveries once the Pitocin was administered. I was induced with Linus because I was leaking amniotic fluid with him a week before my due date, and with Chloe I just wasn't progressing very fast. I had 18 hours of labor with Chloe, and 6 with Linus, but I got an epidural with Linus because the contractions came on hard and quick with him and felt much worse...although it's hard to remember the pain after it happens. Anyway...so there is an end in sight and I'm starting to think and consider that I might actually make it to term, which is sort of a weird thought. This whole pregnancy has felt like a big grey cloud that I can't see through at all, and all of a sudden it feels like the fog is lifting a little bit. It's a nice feeling to think that this baby will likely come out, survive, and have no problems to deal with afterwards- like the whole pregnancy were normal or something. It really is a miracle that I've made it this far, and I get emotional everytime I think about all the prayers/help/support we've recieved through this whole thing. It's not over yet, but the danger looks like it's behind us now. Amazing.
Now if only I could go just like a couple weeks early, and that way I can get over this HEAT! Having a baby in August is not something I will intentionally do again. Blahhhhhh...
In the meantime, remember that link I posted for the video on how to make a tu-tu? (You can find it here if you don't know what I'm talking about). Well I made one, and Chloe and I went out and took some pictures of her in it this afternoon. Love this girl. Now I just need to think of something costume-y to make Linus because he keeps asking to wear the tu-tu.

Five Years

Today is our anniversary!! I wish I had a wedding picture I could post here, but they are all in hard copy and I haven't made a disk of any digital copies or anything yet, so I won't. It's been five years and it's been a very blissful five years. How are we celebrating, you ask? Well I spent the evening having a movie night with popcorn with the kids, putting Linus to bed early because he's got a fever, and then painting the baby room with my mother in law, who's anniversary is also today. Craig and his dad are both up at scout camp until Saturday, so of course my MIL and I went to work! :-) We'll celebrate when they come home. I did manage to put a bunch of "I love you because..." notes in hidden places in Craig's camping gear before he left this morning. I made the mistake of sticking one in his water bottle, though, which he found before he left as he was filling it up- it was supposed to be a surprise, but I'm sure he'll have fun finding them anyway.
Not to get too sappy or personal (because we all know it's just not in my nature to do that...) but I am pleased to say that I am a 100% more in love with Craig today than I was on this day five years ago. Marriage is a kick in the butt sometimes, but holy cow, I never in my entire life have felt more at home with anyone like I have Craig. He is my home. He is my family! I understand way more what it means to spend eternity happily with someone today than I did when I got married. Sometimes I wish I could go back and experience my wedding day all over again with Craig knowing what I know now. I wish I could look into his eyes at the altar and feel that sense of security and peace and hard working love that I feel now when I am with him. But the greatest part about that is that in many ways, I still get to do that every day. When we look at each other laughing at something one of the kids has done, when we work together on projects in and around the house, when we share insights with each other after our scripture study and share our testimonies and pray together, when we hit the pillow at the end of the day and talk about everything that is going on, good and bad, and apologize for being dumb when we got mad over this or that, and talk about the kids, and talk about our goals and changes we want to make for the better- I get to have him for forever!
At our wedding reception, with shaking hands and weak knees, I sang Craig the song "The Luckiest" by Ben Folds on my guitar. I feel that I truly am the luckiest, mostly because I know Craig feels the same way about me.
So since he's at scout camp, I have time to blog about how much I love him. :-) And paint our baby room, that was pretty exciting too.

Summah-Time

What's the next best thing to going to the pool for a bunch of home-bound suckers such as us for some water-filled, cool-down on a hot day fun?
Sprinklers, of course!
Chloe had a blast.
Linus...ah...didn't.

In fact he was quite disgruntled about the whole experience. He didn't like putting on his swimsuit, he didn't want to put on the shirt, then he didn't want to have no shirt on, he didn't want to put on the sun screen, and watching him finally experience the sprinklers was painful...but admittedly funny.



All was made well when we found his belly button again. Whew!
Chloe took this picture. And was quite proud of it, actually. Apparently the whole face isn't necessary to get a good portrait done...


No bad/good sprinkler experience can't be made better with some otto-pops. We eat a lot of otto-pops around here...good thing they come in huge boxes.


These next few are just some being silly pics around the house. I actually took the camera out to get some pictures of Chloe in the hat I made her (the second one...and probably not the last). This turned into a "lets climb on all the furniture and jump around because it's raining outside and we need to get out some energy!" shoot.
Chloe is very proud of her bruise here. I'm not sure exactly what happened as I was napping at the time, but I know it involved her scooter and a bag of ice afterwards. It was fairly swollen to begin with, and then she got a nice mosquito bite on it later, so her shin is a little lopsided if you look at it from an angle. You always know a kid is having a good summer when their shins are bruised and scraped up and down. :-)


Linus had to get his hat out too. And the rain boots (thanks Angie!!). But only momentarily, as this was the only shot I got with him in them before he found something else to do.


Linus loves to dance.


Green popsicle tongue.


This is the hat, and Chloe loves it. Especially when she wears her "matching blue dress" (skirt) with it.


Not that I'm biased or anything, but sometimes she is just too cute. And sometimes she knows it too.

Other than that, the summer has been rather relaxing. I still try to find a balance everyday of not "over doing" myself, even though I have no clue what over doing myself is. Yesterday I had quite a few contractions...maybe like 7 or 8 total good ones and a handful of "unsures" from about 1:00 p.m. to bed time. That's the most I've had in a while, so I didn't do a whole lot yesterday, mostly because my hips get rather sore when I contract too much which makes moving in any way a task. I've decided that being pregnant over the summer isn't really a good idea. We're not even through June and being uncomfortable at night and tossing and turning combined with sore hips combined with a small bladder combined with the stagnant heat of it all with our bedroom being upstairs is a torturous combo. And theoretically I still have a ways to go. But underneath it all I am happy that I'm still pregnant. I'll be 30 weeks on Monday! I should have like a 30 weeks celebration or something. If anyone has any good suggestions, let me know. :-)
Anyway, Craig let me sleep in this morning and it's 9:30 now and I haven't showered, so I better skidaddle.

Just a few things to remember

I was just thinking that I needed to record a few funny things that the kids do/have said before I forget. These are the type of memories I want to look back on and laugh when they become teenagers and I want to rip my hair out. :-)

Funny words/phrases from Chloe:

• Whap-chip: Chapstick
• Fimbers: Fingers
• "Mmmm, Mommy, this is de-WISH-us" (delicious).
• "When I grow up, I'm going to have a baby just like you! But I need to get married first. I'm going to have a wedding and be a princess just like Lela (her aunt who married Scott over Christmas)"
• Pokey-Hokey: Hokey Pokey
• "When I got scared, I FREAKIN' OUT!"
• After examining anyone with Grandma's doctor kit: "I'm all done. You're just a wittow (little) bit sick". Thank you for the diagnosis, Doctor.
  
• Mom: "Chloe, how many {jelly beans, rocks, sticks, grapes, etc...} are there here?" If it's anything over two, she says "five". Or she'll count them, looking anxiously at me one at a time, saying "wwwwwwwwww....." until she sees my nod of approval "ONE! Ttttttttttttt..." *nod* "TWO! Thhhhhhhh........" *nod* "THREE!" and so on.
  
• "Mom, when I grow up, I'm going to be just like SUSAN (from Monsters Vs. Aliens). And I'll get bigger and bigger and bigger...." Couple of funny stories related to this: my sister is younger than me, but she's taller than me by a couple of inches. She looks taller than she is because she's got long hair and is very slender. When she came to visit for Chloe's birthday, Chloe called her Susan all night because of how tall she was. My sister was less than thrilled when I explained to her that Susan was a 50ft. monster on a show that Chloe has watched. Also, when we got the bunk bed for the kids, Chloe was convinced that the reason we put her on the top bunk was because one day she's going to be as big as Susan and then the bed will fit her juuuuuuuuust right. She still loves Tinkerbell, but honestly I'd rather her imagine her potential as being a 50ft. modestly dressed super-hero who can do anything than a short-tempered, skantily clad fairy who's movies and acccessories cost way too much.
  
• While watching any movie, through pretty much the whole thing: "Oh! Is that a dog? Mommy, is that a dog? Is that a nice dog? Is it a mean one? What's the dog doing? Is it jumping? Why is it jumping? What's it doing now? Where's the doggie? I can't see the doggie!" and any question I answer is usually followed with "What? What!? WHAT?!? Mommy, I can't HEAR YOU!" no matter how clearly I speak at her. Needless to say we aren't watching very many movies this summer.
  

Funny words/phrases from Linus:

• While eating at the table: "Ooooooone! Twwwwoooooooo! Frrrrrreeeeee! Eiiiiiiiiiight! Niiiiiiiiiiine! TEN! Hee-I-come!" Then he holds his hand out and gasps and says "Where's Doh-ee?" to which Chloe replies at the other end of the table "Here I am, Yi-yus!" and Linus gasps again and says "I FOW' YOU!"
• The other night Linus kept repeating over and over (a frequent experience for our listening pleasure) "Kar-sus man comma gemme! Kar-sus man comma gemme!!" I had NO CLUE what he was saying. Chloe would exasperatedly try to interperet for me with "MOM! Yi-yus says the Kar-sus man's gonna get him!!!" Kar-sus man?? Did they watch some superhero show with their uncles? Is Kar-sus some Star-Wars jedi knight I don't know about? Then finally while eating breakfast with Daddy, my bedroom door was open and I was listening to Linus's broken record Kar-sus man chant downstairs when Chloe finally blurts out "Daddy, GARBAGE MAN!! The garbage man is gonna get Yi-yus!!" I later found out that a few days previous, there happened to be several loud garbage trucks coincidentally in our cul-de-sac at the same time and the kids were outside watching the entourage when they came. One garbage truck in the cul-de-sac once a week? Not scary. But THREE? Well certainly garbage day armaggedon was upon them and Linus hasn't been able to stop thinking about it since. :-)
• BREH-SAS: Breakfast
• OH-MEE-OH: Oatmeal (his favorite thing in the world, surprisingly)
• NAAAAAAAAAACK?: Snack (usually repeated several times, even when an answer is given after the first inquiry)
  
• *hankssssss*: thanks- said almost every time in a whisper (hence the lower case letters, as the previous upper case indicate the opposite volume he applies to everything else he says)
• Ever seen Up? You know how the dogs always get distracted when they see a squirrel? Linus is the same way with birds. Doesn't matter what he's doing, when he spots a backyard bird fluttering here or there on the lawn, he drops whatever he's doing, points, and yells "BIRD!!!" and will either chase after the bird until it flies away or he'll jump up and hold his hands apart as though he's about to clap and follows with a resounding "YYYARRRRR!!!" to try to scare it off. On occasion, I've seen him crouch down low and walk slowly towards the bird, making the sign for bird with his hands and saying a little softer "Commere bird! Commere bird!" until the bird notices and flies off. He then responds by throwing his arms up in exasperation and moaning a disappointed "AWWWWW!" I think Chloe must have tried this once to catch a bird or something because I don't know where he came up with it.
  
• Doing everything Chloe is doing, wanting to play with every toy Chloe is playing with, and generally being a neusance to her as much as a little brother can be. Occasionally, in his worst moments, the second he realizes Chloe is bothered by his presence, he will get a wild look in his eye and a mischevious grin and then either hit her or just hold his hand up in threat to hit her (both yeilds the same dramatic result from the offended party). Then he always looks surprised when he sees that I was watching and he now has to sit up in his room.
  
• Chloe for a while loved being another one of Linus's disciplinarians (is she the oldest? Most definitely), but Linus has figured out how to do the same to her. Whenever Chloe is doing something wrong and I start to get after her, Linus will turn around with a "NO! DOH-EE, TIME-OW! OOOOOOOONE! TWOOOOOOOOO! FREE! OKAY, 'PANKIN'!" He even wags his finger at her menacingly, which Chloe dislikes greatly and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to crack a smile when I tell him not to talk to Chloe like that.
• Still sucks on his fingers and uses his shirt as his "blanky" while doing it. We tried getting after him every time he did it, but that just made him do it more and then be cranky about it. I've recently tried some positive reinforcement where I ask him in an excited voice if he can be a big boy and show me how he can take his fingers out of his mouth, then give him a resounding high five when he does it. I then quickly find something else to distract him while his hands are out of his mouth that involves his hands so they won't go back in. That worked for about two days until it became a game, where he would put his fingers in his mouth, take them out, receive the high five, and then put them back in with a giant grin. I proudly showed Craig the first night when it worked, and he promptly laughed in my face the next when it didn't work. I'm fairly sure his two year molars are popping up, so the activity has increased in the last week or so, I'm hoping that once they break through, I can use the reprieve as an opportunity for some more positive reinforcement and kind of leave it alone until he's ready. He is reckognizing that we think it's a bad behavior and seems to respond to it occasionally, so that's a good start I guess.
  
• He loves hugs, snuggles, and giggles. And so do I. We make a good team.
  

Moving Sheds for Dummies

Question: How do you get a shed that was transported about a mile on a small forklift to your front yard, but then sunk as soon as it hit your grass and then had to sit on your driveway for a week into your backyard with the least amount of damage?
Answer: Get a bigger forklift.

Voila: except for a few ruts in the yard and a small broken tree branch, everything made it in the back safe and sound. This is Craig's parents' shed that will hopefully allow them to get 11 kids worth of junk out of their garage into the shed so they can actually use their garage for what it was built for: cars! Guess how much the shed cost them to put together? Almost nothing!! My brother in law, Daniel, was in a construction class at his high school last semester and they do a deal every year where if you pay for the materials, they will build the shed for you. Craig's parents had also earned a fair amount of Home Depot cards from points on their credit card and were able to use that to pay for the materials. They just had to find a way to get it to the backyard. They tried once last weekend and made it with a forklift to our driveway. As soon as it hit the grass, though, it sunk and then the front end of the shed tipped into the ground and lifted the back end of the forklift up, which made it immoveable. So the shed parked it on our driveway for a week. The other night we got another forklift out, this one much larger, that made it into the backyard okay and even missed crushing any sprinklers on the way (this thing weighs 8,000 lbs). The kids watched the whole thing from the dinner table. Chloe started balling uncontrolabley when it got closer and the beeping from backing up got louder. Linus just sort of sat there in awe of it all. Later, after Chloe had calmed down, she told me, "Mom, Yi-yus didn't freakin' out like I did. I freakin' out". That girl makes me giggle.
This week, in other news, Craig got very ill and came home early on Tuesday. We successfully quaranteened him upstairs in our room for the day, reasoning that if the kids got sick, than everyone would get sick, and avoiding getting me sick and stressing my body out any would be a good thing. So Linus and Chloe had their first sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house and I slept in Linus's bed since Craig had already regretfully contaminated ours and he'd been running a temperature of about a 103 that evening and I didn't feel comfortable leaving him by himself. The next day he was feeling much better, though, and none of us got sick, so we're celebrating. :-)

Additions

This is one of the kids' favorite passtime. There's enough unevenness on the cement behind the house that when you water it with the hose, it makes a small puddle. They ran back and forth in the puddle for like 15 minutes and then played happily making "puddle soup" with bits of grass and sticks and dandelions and leaves from the yard. Linus thought it would be a good idea to sit back and relax in the puddle at one point, until he quickly realized before I could stop him that his rear was sopping wet as soon as he did it. That was a sad moment in the life of Linus.

We've also had some additions to our household, which I have yet to get some pictures of yet, but they aren't as cute as my kids so it wouldn't be as exciting anyway. :-)
Last Friday night, as I mentioned, Craig went to pick up our car in Utah and it made it's way back into our garage! It's very nice and super easy to drive (for any of you out there conisdering the Honda Pilot, get a decent used one at a good price and they are totally worth it!! So far anyway...). I've driven it once from the grocery store back home and it was just like driving the Accord, smooth as silk. However, currently there is a large shed in our driveway (that's another story for another time) and I'm not comfortable backing the Pilot back into the garage like Craig can, so I don't plan on using it on my own until I have enough space to get to the street from my driveway without crunching the car or the shed.
Secondly, to preface the thirdly, we have a new room in our house! I would go take a picture of the finished product right now, but the guy from our ward who we hired to build it for us is up there fixing a couple of things, so I don't want to bother him. Basically, our "master" bedroom used to be two smaller bedrooms, but some previous tennant took out the wall between the two rooms and made it one long room. While we liked having the extra space in our room, we hardly use it and with the upcoming baby, we didn't want the baby sleeping in our room nor did we think there was really room for all three of our kids to fit in the other bedroom that is upstairs that Chloe and Linus are currently sharing. So we decided to compromise: we put the wall back up in our room to separate the two spaces again, except instead of adding the door back into the hallway, we just put two pocket doors in the middle of the wall so that it still sorta feels like one big room when it's open, but we're putting the baby "nursery" on the other side and when the baby is sleeping, we just shut the pocket doors. This is also leading us to replace the basboards, closets, and doors in our room, take out the popcorn ceilings, and repaint everything upstairs. I'm having trouble knowing where to stop with what we can afford to do, though: if we replace the basboards, we have to do it in the nursery as well as our room, and then...into the hallway and the kids' room...and then down the stairs....and then the living rooms...and then the entire house, right? And then all the doors and window sills and do we want crown molding anywhere else but the bedrooms and do we need to replace the windows and do we need to remodle the kitchen and the fireplace and recarpet and...well it just doesn't end, really, so I'm going to have to draw the line somwhere. We'll just cross that bridge when we get there I guess. For right now, we have a wall with two pocket doors in it. Yay!
Thirdly, in honor of having a real "nursery", Craig picked up some baby furniture at IKEA while he was in Utah. Sort of. We picked out what we wanted from the catalogue before he even left, but then they didn't have exactly what we wanted in stock, and seeing as there is no IKEA in Denver (yet) and shipping would be over $300 to do it online, we needed to get something there.
What we originally wanted was the changing table (pictured below) with two columns on either side that had shelfs and drawers on them with the connecting peg shelf in between the columns above the changing table. But they didn't sell the columns anymore, so we opted for the slightly more expensive matching wardrobes instead, and considered ourselves lucky because now we have extra badly needed storage space for baby/kid stuff. This is what it will sort of look like, except all right next to each other and the shelf connecting the two wardrobes over the changing table.

Patterns

So a lot of people have been asking me if I have patterns for the hats I've made, and I thought I would share what I know.
First of all, the premie hats- yes, I did steal a pattern for these hats because I wasn't sure exactly how small small should be on a premie sized head and I wanted to find someone else who had already tried it. This pattern here for premie hats is VERY simple, and if you are like me and don't know which letters stand for which stitches, just google them and you can figure it out. If you are visual like me, google the stitch under "google images" and you'll find lots of help. Or stop by my house and I'll show you myself. :-)
The other hats I'm sorry to say I don't have a specific pattern for, I sort of just made it up as I went, but followed the same pattern somewhat as the premie hats. For example, the premie hat has you start with six around the middle and for the next 6 rows, you increase 6 stitches each time, each time making your "double" stitch further apart (if you read and understand the pattern, this will make sense)- so by the end of the 6th row, you have 36 stitches and you just continue on with 36 around for 7 more rows (so you end up with 14 rows all together). I applied the same thing for larger hats, except I started with 8 and increased by 8 each time instead of 6. When I felt like the "crown" was big enough for whatever sized head I was doing it for, I would just stick with that number stitches the rest of the way until I thought it would be long enough too. And a word to the wise, the thicker your yarn, the larger your hat will be, even if you do the same pattern with the same sized hook (all of the hats I've done so far is with a size "H" hook and it's worked well to keep a tighter stitch even with thicker yarn).
I have a couple of other patterns I experimented with (aka made up) today that I'm trying in different sizes- for girls. I'll post pictures tomorrow, it's late now and too dark to get a decent shot of one. :-)
Craig is in Utah tonight picking up our car! He'll be back tomorrow in the early afternoon. I can't wait to take a spin in it. I'm kind of nervous to drive a bigger car- I didn't get my license until I got married and have only really driven one car that entire time (which is the Honda Accord we have now). A larger car to me just means I have to be super careful not to hit anything. It's like being pregnant, in a way- you aren't really aware of how big you actually are and keep bumping into things. Except with a car it's just more expensive.
Also- at my appointment with my doctor on Thursday, we went over sort of a lot of stuff. First of all, she told me randomly WAY too much about a sex ed presentation she did at a high school once to help "scare the pants on" the kids. Not only did she scare the pants on me, she scared my kids and future kids out of the public sex ed programs schools offer when they are old enough to be offered to. Her descriptions of the slides were gruesome enough (she's my doctor, somehow I assumed whatever she was saying would be relevant to me eventually, I don't even remember why she brought it up in the first place, but it turns out she apparently just had some time to waste that day...)- I didn't even have to see them to know that I would never want to ACTUALLY see them. Yuck.
When that was done, she moved on to things that were actually relevant to me. My cervix, as previously mentioned, is longer again, which she was excited about, but I'm starting to funnel a little bit. Funneling is when the cervix starts to peel open from the inside and makes sort of a V shape when fluid starts to enter into the open part. Except mine wasn't V shaped, it was U shaped, which apparently is odd. She decided that it was probably the clot pushing it's way in there and that's why it was more of a U instead of a V, because if it were fluid, it would be a V. So, as usual with my appointments, a little up and a little down. She decided that I didn't need to do weekly ultrasounds anymore- in fact, so far all the ultrasounds have done for us on a weekly basis is make us worried over nothing. "Oh dear! My cervix is short! But...I didn't go into labor...and look, it's lengthened out again, great!! Oh wait...no, no it's short again!! Aaaannnnd...I didn't go into labor...and it lengthened out again, fantastic!! Oh poo, it's shorter again!" and so on, and this all while I'm on bed rest, so obviously anything I'm doing is not making it worse or better. Instead, I will just have a check up with Dr. B every two weeks with no ultrasound. Basically the only time we need to worry is if I'm showing real labor symptoms (spotting, bleeding, broken water, lots of rhythmic, hard contractions, etc...), and knowing I have a short cervix, since I've been so up and down, shouldn't be a reason to worry. I'll still do the monthly growth measurements for the baby until it's born, but other than that, I think my ultrasound picture collection is going to dwindle for a while (I have probably close to 50 or so pictures already, maybe more, they give me a few each time I get an ultrasound).
I think I've been doing really good with this bed rest thing- I have my moments where I just want to say "really? I don't feel like this is necessary", especially when I miss out on things that I love to do and think too much about the things I want to do this summer and probably won't be able to (swimming, going to the zoo, driving my kids to Denver to see my parents, visiting the Children's Museum, just getting out and going places we've never gone to before). And to be honest I think the most frustrating thing is that everyone else thinks I need to be more careful all the time, and then I sort of feel like a jerk if I ever try to convince them that whatever I'm doing is okay- as though I'm convincing them that it's really okay to put my baby at risk, it's no big deal. Especially when I know that my being careful means inconveniencing someone else to do said activity for me. But I just think that the point is that when it's all over, I'll be glad I did it. And I find ways to occupy myself in a safe way- truth be told I've always favored quite, low key activities (like crocheting, ha ha) over bigger ones anyways. For so long anyways...
Okay, now I'm just stalling because it's late and Craig's gone so I've got the house to myself and I hate going to bed alone (did it for 19 years without him, don't know why it's a problem now but it is!!) Night!