Happy Thanksgiving!

We cooked in the morning, watched the parade on t.v., ate a great dinner at my parents house, had a little rest time, and came back to our house to play Wii. It was a great day filled with my favorite things- food, family, and fun!

Here are a few pictures of our meal prep. The boys helped make the orange rolls.

They each wanted their own little bits of dough. They loved playing with it.

Between the double batch of orange rolls and the mashed potatoes, I used 4 full sticks of butter an over a cup of half and half. Good thing I need to gain weight. Sorry for the rest of ya'll.

I have a great video of Papa and Ken Wii boxing each other. I will try and get it uploaded in the next few days. And let's just say little Kenny will clean your clock at bowling. Anyone is welcome to challenge him at Christmas and see if you can beat a six year old!

The Baby's Health

I meant to post about this last week, but it was scary and I was trying not to think about it.

I did have to go to the hospital after my last doctor's appointment. You see, this little guy has a low heart rate and it is hard to find his heart beat. Even at 7 months it takes some time to find him. His heart rate is on the low side of what is considered normal. He also is very still. It is not uncommon for me to go 4-6 hours and not feel a thing. He often fails the daily kick counts I have to do. Also, I had been effacing for awhile, but I was dilated to 1 cm (28 1/2 weeks). That is still considered okay for now, but it is concerning given my history of pre-term labor. After my appointment the doctor hooked me to a monitor to do a non-stress test- just to make sure he was okay. He failed miserably. They couldn't keep his heartbeat on the monitor and the few movements he did make were not reactive (his heart never varied from it's low point.)

That got me sent over to the hospital to do a complete bio-physical profile. It took some time, but they were able to get a reactive monitoring strip and he looks fine on his ultrasound.

Current prognosis- This baby is prone to fetal distress. I am not allowed to get stressed in any way- emotionally, physically, etc. His heart rate is low and he doesn't move much, but everything looks okay from the ultrasound which is the best they can do for now. I continue the daily fetal kick counts, though I don't know why because he usually fails. It frequently takes me hours to get 10 movements. As for my labor issues- I am continuing medication to keep things quiet in there, resting as much as possible, and praying really hard that the dilating stops so I can stay out of the hospital and off bed rest.

Questions

I borrowed these questions off my friend Tiffany's blog and decided to ask Kenny these questions. Nathan is too little to answer. He just repeats the question or whatever Kenny says.

Why did God make mothers?
Cuz' they love kids

How did God make mothers?
with a special machine

What ingredients are mothers made of ?
human

Why did God give you your mother and not some other mom?
God thinks I will like you.

What kind of little girl was your mom?
I think you had blond hair

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
If you would like him

Why did your mom marry your dad?
Cuz' he is a good dancer

Who's the boss at your house?
Daddy- no wait, wait. Me. I'm the boss. Me, me, me. (I think we need to talk about this one).

What's the difference between moms & dads?
Dad's have flat hair and Mom's have big and little hair

What does your mom do in her spare time?
lay down on the couch with the baby in her tummy

If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
I just want you to get new clothes made out of paper.

Goofy Gophers

Real gophers

My gophers

Clone Wars Party

One of the great things about having kids is that by adding the word "party" to the end of anything makes it extra special.

We got a few of the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons on Netflix. It was Saturday and I told the boys we had a lot of work to do, but if they worked hard we could have a Clone Wars party that night.

They happily did everything I asked them to do and when night came, they got their party.

The party consisted of making their own ice cream sundaes, wearing pajamas, and watching the movie. Nothing very far from normal. Nothing that cost extra money. But the kids were giddy about it and it served as an awesome motivator to keep them crackin' all day.

"Please Leave A Sample."

One of the greatest travesties imposed on pregnant woman is the urine sample collected at every visit. I know, your thinking "Buck up. It's just peeing in a cup."

To you I offer a challenge. Get a large, oblong watermelon to hold between your thighs. Sit down on the porcelain throne (no cheating guys) and try to bend your body around the watermelon- never letting it slip of fall- and stick your little dixie cup where you think the urine stream is going. Don't be alarmed if you can't see what the heck you are doing. That is all part of the process. Begin your business and move the cup- still blindly- as needed to actually catch a little bit in the cup.

"But won't I pee on myself?" you ask. Of course you will. It's all part of the magic. The last step is to remove the urine sample and attempt to balance it while cleaning off the outside of the cup, without dripping any on yourself or the floor.

Please note- as your pregnancy progresses and the watermelon increases in size, the frequency of this little exercise increases. Just one of the ways our medical community prepares you for the total lose of dignity you will experince during labor and delivery.

Thanks doc for looking out for me!

Kenny-isms

Yesterday:

He came home from school with an ink pen in his shirt pocket. I asked him what that was about and his response was, "I wanted to look like a handsome man."

Today:
**Please note- Kenny got some new Clone Wars underwear yesterday.**

"Mom, I wanted to show everyone my underwear and my brain was thinking about pulling my pants down but I didn't listen to it."

Reading Development

Kenny has reached the reading milestone of print awareness. Kindergartners sometimes reach this towards the middle/end of the year but it is very apparent in the start of first grade. This is the stage where a child knows their letters, sounds, how to blend (sound-out), and enough sight words and knowledge of how language works to become aware that the word is full of words and every word has a message to convey. Up to this point, most kids recognize letters and the occasional word on signs, but they do not make too much of an attempt to figure out the information being conveyed through those letters and words. It is also characterized by a sudden interest in writing anything and everything.

This is a great stage because it signals that the child is ready to begin more advanced reading instead of only controlled print (same words repeated page after page and using only certain short vowel combinations).

The down side is that Kenny asks us about everything. Mail, signs, poster, etc. are all fair game for reading. He will study them and figure out what he can on his own, but he is constantly asking things like "What does p-a-r-t-y spell?" It is like the "why?" phase all over again. And since Nathan is in the "What's that?" phase, we are getting a double whammy.

Our school had a contest making storybook pumpkins. Each class that participated picked a book and made a pumpkin to go with the book. There were some awesome pumpkins- curious George, Where the Red Fern Grows, Corduroy Bear, The Three Little Pigs. and many others.

This is my class pumpkin. I love this book. If you have little kids, get this book! It is a cut-away book with short, simple text and vivid colors.

Photo was taken by our school librarian, Lisa G. Click on the picture to see her blog.

Frustrated!

I have our pumpkin carving and Trick-or-Treating posts ready to go, but I cannot get the pictures to load onto our computer off the camera! I think it is because we switched to Windows Vista. It is very different in a lot of ways. Even the Microsoft Office programs are set up different. Sometimes I hate technology- it just moves too fast!

In other news, during Sacrament meeting on Sunday Nathan was trying to button Eppie's overshirt/jacket thing. He had the buttons all lined up wrong so he had to pull really to get the two sides to get together. So he said, "Too big, Eppie too big!" It was funny.

Life is just going along normal here. I have a picture of my baby belly but it is stuck on the camera. Anyway, I look a lot smaller than I did two weeks ago when I took the picture because I have lost 3 pounds! I'm seriously afraid I'm just going to wait until the last month and suddenly put on 20 pounds. The good news right now- no new stretch marks and my previous battle scars have yet to turn back to ugly purple. I am also carrying very low- as usual, so I can breathe just fine. However, walking is becoming a bit of a painful issue. Bound to happen when your baby basically stays below the belly button the entire time.

Check out my brother David's blog. He had his baby girl this weekend. That makes 2 down and two to go until it is my turn.