So far, so good.

So far things are going great with the bunkbed! The kids were so excited when we put it up and couldn't wait to get in and use it. Katie has slept in it a few nights. Despite my fears of her forgetting she is up so high and falling off when she gets up in the night, she has had zero accidents and loves being on the top. Jace has only fallen off the ladder once, and it jarred him so much that he hasn't tried to go up it much since. He loves his bottom bed so much it doesn't really matter anyway. He slept in it for the first time last night and did great! He fell right to sleep and stayed there all night. Today he took his first nap in it and slept for three hours without getting out once. Tonight he ran in his room and practically jumped into bed. He has been in there for almost an hour, and although I don't think he's asleep yet, he hasn't gotten out at all. So things are good so far...hopefully it will last after the novelty of the new bed wears off.

My biggest problem with the bed is making it. How in the world do you make a bunkbed, especially the top? Not to mention that I can barely get up into the top with my huge belly. Maybe I just won't worry about it for now. No one can see up there anyway.

January

I haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately, but thought I should post a new update for anyone who still looks at our blog. Hopefully there are still a few!

We've had a busy month since Christmas. Scott got into a car accident on New Years Eve day. It wasn't his fault and no one got hurt, but our car was totaled. We had been planning on getting a minivan or something bigger with the new baby coming so it ended up working out fine, although we were planning on doing all of that after buying a home. So now our home plans have been pushed back a little, but we do have a new Chevy Uplander. Scott thinks they are ugly minivans, but I think they are fine and it sure is nice to have the extra space! Katie turned four this month. I can't believe that much time has gone by already! She has grown five inches since her last birthday and has become such a big girl. She's been testing her boundaries lately which has been frustrating, but she's still a good girl and lots of fun to have around. She still sings all of the time and has been into pretending like she's making presents for everyone by wrapping toys she has in her room with blankets, hats, dresses, whatever.
I've also been dealing with endless questions with her, things like...
K: When we eat all of this grapefruit then it will be all gone, right?
Me: Yes.
K: Why will it be all gone?
Me: Because we ate it.
K: Why did we eat it?
Me: Because we were hungry.
K: Why were we hungry?
And on and on and on....you get the picture.
I try not to say 'Just because' too many times, but sometimes that really is the only answer or the only way to stop the cycle. It makes me tired!

Jace is almost two and he is crazy! He is either talking or running around with a ball in his hand. He has been saying some pretty funny things lately and says things that I wouldn't expect from a two year old.

The pregnancy is going well. We've been to see the specialist a couple of times and the heart looks good. We did have to go down to SLC for an MRI becuase he thought it looked like part of the brain was missing, but everything ended up being normal. The funny thing is that I never felt extremely stressed during this time of specialist visits and tests. I didn't know at the time if it was because everything would be normal or that even if there was something wrong with the baby, it would all turn out okay. It wasn't like I didn't feel anything...I did worry that something would be wrong with our baby, but I alwasy felt things would be fine. It is a relief to know things look normal so far. The doctor did say the baby measured a few weeks bigger than it should, something that is more likely if the mother fails the one hour glucose test, but then passes the three hour like I did. I don't have gestational diabetes, but I guess I'm at higher risk of a bigger baby. Jace was more than a pound bigger (I did the same thing with the glucose tests with him) than Katie so we'll see. However, the next week at my regular OB appointment I measured normal so maybe no one really knows.

We bought bunkbeds for the kids a few days ago. We still have not put them up but we are bracing ourselves for moving Jace to a big boy bed. Hopefully it won't be too horrible.

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas in Idaho this year! We spent Christmas Eve day at Scott's family's house. The kids had fun playing with all of the cousins, and it was nice for everyone to just relax and visit. We had a Christmas program with songs, a story, and a poem, there was tons of delicious food to eat, and presents for everyone. It was a good day, and the kids were so worn out that they fell right to sleep when we got home.

We had Christmas morning at our house with just the four of us. I was excited to have our own Christmas morning, and it was as wonderful as I had hoped it would be! The kids got up around 7:30 that morning and didn't stop playing the entire day. They were so excited with their presents and the things that Santa brought, and I was even surprised with a new Bosch mixer from Scott! It was so relaxing to be at home by ourselves and to let the kids open presents and play with their toys at their own pace. The only hectic part of the day was trying to get a picture of each of them with all of their Christmas gifts by the tree. I guess we shouldn't have tried that right before bed time.
Although we were by ourselves Christmas morning, we did get to see some family that day. That morning Scott's parents came over to visit and have breakfast with us. We were also planning on going to my family's house that afternoon, but with all of the snow and wind the roads were really bad and we decided not to chance it. I was sad to have to cancel that get together, but we ended up going the day after Christmas and spending the night. It was fun to spread out Christmas a little more this year. :) There were presents opened, yummy food eaten, and lots of Wii playing going on.
Overall, everything was wonderful! We love living so close to our families that we can see them often. It was also so great to have our own Christmas together as a little family. We hope you all had a great Christmas as well!

Christmas Tree

We went up into the mountains the weekend after Thanksgiving with all of my family to pick out our Christmas trees. It was a beautiful day, and there was just enough snow to have fun in. The kids had fun sledding and playing in the snow while a few in the group went tree hunting. It didn't take long before everyone found something good!

Our tree is a classic mountain tree (lots of gaps and not very symmetrical) but I love it! We all had fun decorating the tree and now our house looks very festive. I was worried for the first few days about how all of our decorations would fare with the kids pulling, throwing, touching them all of the time, but after the initial newness wore off they were pretty good and left things alone most of the time. We set out a small Christmas tree and children's nativity set that they are allowed to play with and that seems to help. The other day I attempted to make sugar cookies with the kids to share with friends. They had a lot of fun, but it was crazy! Jace was only interested in putting anything he could get his hands on in his mouth and Katie loved to 'help' by piling up flour and giving it to Jace, which he would then eat. But the cookies turned out great and we were able to get enough good ones to give out to a few people.

Getting ready for Christmas!

I can't believe Thanksgiving is almost here...and Christmas just around the corner! Katelyn and I have done a little preparation for Christmas decorating lately...

We sliced limes, lemons, oranges, and apples and dried them in the oven to make ornaments for our Christmas tree. I started doing this with roommates in college when we didn't have any real ornaments, and I've loved it ever since. I'm excited to have a tree this year since we haven't been able to have one for several years while living in Denver.

I also tried my hand at wreath making. They are so expensive to buy in the store that I thought I could do it myself for much less. I'm mostly happy with how it turned out, especially since I have never done it before. There are a couple of things I would have done a little differently, but everything is glued on and there to stay.
On Friday we will go up to the mountains with my family to pick out our Christmas tree and start decorating!

Baby update...

Well, there appears to be nothing wrong with the baby, although we did see several big dips in its heartbeat yesterday. The slow downs don't last very long and the specialist thought that they may be due to the baby confusing pressure from the outside with high blood pressure and compensating for it by lowering its heart rate. I'm not sure if he really knew for sure since it seemed like the heart rate went down even without pressure sometimes. But there is nothing anatomically wrong with the heart or major blood vessels. They even checked the blood flow and that looks normal. Also, the baby was very active during the ultrasound and the doctor said that if it were sick it wouldn't be moving around so much. I have to go in again in 4 weeks to do another ultrasound to see how things are going, but they didn't seem too concerned. I guess it's just something that happens sometimes to some babies and there's not really a set reason why...just like so many other medical things. So I've decided not to worry about anything until a reason comes up to worry. It sounds like we have a healthy baby and everything is fine.
On a side note...we told the people at the hospital that we didn't want to know the gender of the baby. They listened and didn't tell us. However, they did a full ultrasound looking at all of the organs and everything, and never told us to look away. After the ultrasound, Scott turned to me and said, "I know what it is." I looked back and said, "So do I." Bummer! So we think it's a boy, and now the big surprise is ruined, but I am still going to bring a boy and a girl outfit to the hospital just in case. Scott and I are definitely not expert ultrasound readers so we could be wrong. But it sure looked like our kids will have a little brother....we'll see!

It's a....

Just kidding! We had the ultrasound today and went through with our decision to not find out the gender. Now I am looking forward to finding out at delivery!

The baby seems to be doing fine, except for an irregular heartbeat. Irregular enough that I have to go see a specialist on Wednesday about it. The problem is that the heart rate kept dropping to around 80 beats/min, then coming back up to the normal 150ish range. The doctor said that irregularity happens sometimes since the baby's heart is still developing, but that he wanted to check with the specialist just to make sure all was well. He seemed to think the heart had all the right parts, or at least he didn't say there was anything to worry about just by looking at the heart with the ultrasound so that is good. I'm actually not feeling extremely worried about it at this point, but I am looking forward to (and hoping for) good news on Wednesday that everything is fine. The baby is fairly active so that is a good reassurance every now and then that it is still okay.

I was going to post some ultrasound pictures, but none of them turned out very well since the baby's arms were crossed over its face. No cute profile pictures this time.

With other news...there is actually not that much. Scott is still working and the kids and I are doing the same old thing at home, but we are happy and enjoying life. Here is an especially uplifting picture of Katelyn in her current favorite dress up outfit...

...if you look closely you can see that she is also wearing blue bloomer type things underneath the swimming suit. Very lovely, of course. I will miss this stage of her life. It makes me smile just looking at this picture.