Just for fun

Well we decided we couldn't live without a camera so Phil got me one for mothers day. Well actually its a mothers day, fathers day, my birthday, Phils birthday, and anniversary present. Here are some of the fruits of that purchase :D












Here is a picture of the office that Phil (and many helpers) finally finished. Yay!
Its not much to look at in the way of decorations, but its coming along and serving its purpose magnificently :)


Our new food storage room. We are currently working of stocking up on things, but isn't it pretty. I will never be grossed out to eat anything out of there :D

Belly baby!

Here it is the latest belly photo :)
I look enormous!
Yesterday I had my doctor appointment, everything is going great! Baby's heart sounds good, my blood pressure is great, weight gain has been just fine. The one question I was anxious to ask was, How fast would my labor most likely be?, The answer was: "Oh you can count on it being an hour and a half." This said far to calmly for my liking. I just about lost my breakfast.
"What!, What?!" AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was just getting over this anxiety! How do I deal with that, an hour and a half? I usually take longer than that to figure out I am in labor! I am seriously reconsidering being induced. Something I am totally against, unless of course it is medically necessary. It just doesn't seem right to me to pick your baby's birthday. I don't know why, I just think its weird. Then there is also the fact that with Lyon, I was offered the induction, wasn't going to do it, but then I ended up going into labor the day before I could have been induced! I am thinking that I will simply have to prepare for the possibility of delivering my own baby. Or having Phil do it for me.
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NO WAY! I refuse I am having this baby in the hospital dangit!

Fear + Joy = babies (and no sleep)

It is five o'clock in the morning I am so TIRED but I cannot sleep. I have been awake since about three thirty tossing and turning, Uggggg! The question is, why? (and since my darling husband is still sound asleep and I don't want to ruin his night as I will need him to let me take a nap later, I am going to talk this through on my blog) So why can't I sleep well..... I had a bad dream, I have a lot of dreams lately thanks to my pregnancy and they are all so so so realistic I have to wake-up to realize that it is in fact a dream. I dreamed that my OB doctor you know the person who will be delivering my baby, told me that every time he has to deliver a baby he all but panics, he looked really depressed, clearly not something you want to hear from someone that you are trusting your life and your babies life to. No, I lost all confidence in this doctor and felt absolutely terrified! Luckily I woke-up and found this to be a dream, and a weird one at that. Now hopefully my doctor doesn't really feel this way and all can be well, but this got me to thinking..... I have been so afraid of having this baby, seriously throughout my entire pregnancy and actually even before that I have been dreading the day! I don't like it, I don't understand it, well I thought I didn't but in the last hour and a half of tossing and turning in bed I realized why, I am going to share this with you, whoever may be reading this, but be warned if you don't like birth stories do not read this, also it will be long, but it is your choice I am throwing this all out into the universe to help get it off my mind.
Here is the story:
When I was pregnant with my first baby my husband and I had just moved up to Holiday, UT I had quite my job and was looking for a new one. Then we found out our good news that we were in fact pregnant! This made finding a job a lot harder I mean who wants to hire someone who is pregnant when there are a ton of other younger and more energetic willing bodies to do the job? I didn't think anyone would hire me and as we were not struggling financially we decided it would be ok for me to just stay home. My job would be homemaker and baby builder. All went very smoothly I had plenty of time to read every book on pregnancy and labor and delivery I could get my hands on, I had no kids to keep me up at night or wake me up early in the morning I was well rested and things went very smoothly. Now since I had read everything one needs to know about having a baby (seriously I could have taught a class I knew so darned much) I felt very confident in having my own baby. I knew how to handle the pain I knew how to know when I was in labor and what to expect through out the entire labor and delivery process. I was fearless, something many people asked me about. This is how the conversation would go: "So are you scared?" Me: "Of what?" Them: "having your baby!" Me: "Not a bit"
Seriously I was so confident in myself and my darling Phillip had every confidence in me as well. Well my due date came and went I shrugged my shoulders and went about doing everything I would normally do. Four days after my due date I went to school with Phil walked all around UVSC no contractions no activity nothing, my baby wasn't coming anytime soon. We started driving home it was late after seven or eight in the evening and we hadn't had dinner. We decided to call in an order to cafe rio. We picked it up brought it home, turned on our favorite show "law and order: Criminal Intent" I think we watched "er" too. We sat on the couch and ate our dinner. It was probably close to ten o'clock and on Phil's insistence I decided to take some castor oil in the hopes that it would start my labor. Now if you have ever tasted castor oil you know how disgusting it is, thick and oily with a weird nutty flavor, Ick! The instructions on the bottle say to mix it with some juice so I mixed like half a table spoon in with my orange soda. Basically I took one sip tasted the stuff spewed it out of my mouth and started gagging! It was so yucky and the soda made it worse. A few minutes later I was in the bathroom with pain in my belly I figured was just from gagging and maybe eating too much. To put it bluntly I felt like I had diarrhea, I didn't! I stayed in that bathroom for what felt like an hour before Phil came to check on me. It was probably really ten or fifteen minutes. Well I was having contractions every two minutes I still thought I just had a stomach thing going on. This was not real pain, and if this were labor I would KNOW it was labor. That is what every book I read said. "If you aren't sure you are in labor, you probably aren't" I was not sure, and these "contractions" I really didn't think that that was what it was, were not starting every half hour and then every fifteen minutes and then every ten and then every five. That is what was supposed to happen I hadn't had any type of pattern the whole day or week or ever! I had had the practice or braxton hicks contractions I knew what it felt like but this was to fast there was no way, right! Well around one o'clock in the morning my husband convinced me that we should call the Nurse Midwife at LDS hospital to see what she thought, as she was to deliver the baby and all. We did and she very calmly talked to me and said basically that it sounded like I was in labor and that I should head to the hospital when I was ready. I still did not think I was in labor, but at around 2 or 3 Phil said lets go and I was like, ok, so we went. All the way there I just knew that we were going to be sent home with the nurses laughing at us. Nope! We got there and I was six centimeters dilated! I was like what the....... My contractions were coming so fast, it was all so crazy! I didn't need any help for the pain I was fine that way but I was freaked out that I didn't know I was in labor! It was about 3 o'clock when I started seriously pushing to get that baby out, it took two hours or maybe a little bit more. The Midwife kept telling me there were things that they could do to help me out, I had no idea what she was talking about, she was telling me there were meds they could give me for the pain, I still had no idea what she was talking about, what pain? I just wanted that baby out of me, finally after so long of pushing my darling Baby Bear was born, he was a posterior baby which was why he was so hard to push out. The Midwife later told me that she really did not think I would be able to do it. With it being my first baby and all and not really knowing how to push with the right muscles and all. Had I had an epidural, had there been time, I probably would not have been able to.
Well that was baby # 1, baby #2 I thought oh yeah I have been through this I know what to expect I am not afraid of the pain, I will be really close to the hospital...... I was a little scared. My husband was working graveyard shifts so I was alone at night, the most likely time to go into labor, at least that is the way it seems. I was watching not only my own little boy but my nephew as well, what would I do with them if I went into labor in the middle of the day while every one was at work? Phil's family lived a half hour away (we were living in orem, UT at the time) My sister worked a half hour plus away. My Mom and brothers and sisters were practically that far away if they were even home. Plus they didn't have cell phones! They all assured me that they would come and take care of the boys and that it would be fine. What they didn't realize is that although a lot of women labor for 12 and plus hours my labor was expected to be around 3 hours as my first was only 7 and a half and most of that remember was spent pushing the baby out. So in my mind I was thinking I would have one hour to get to the hospital before I would need to start pushing! You would think I would opt to be induced, well choices were not that easy. A couple of weeks before I was due Phil, Bear, and I were moving. Everything was packed and ready to go our lease on our apartment was up on the last day of the month. We had to be out of that apartment! Unfortunately the apartment we were moving into was not yet finished it was almost there but not enough to move in yet. So we loaded all but the necessities into a covered trailer and then went to live in my husbands parents house until we could move into our apartment. The apartment was in Orem, right down the street from the hospital, I was very relieved about that. My in laws house is in Mapleton, almost a half hour from the hospital. I did not I repeat, DID NOT, want to go into labor while staying there. I was not going to be induced, as tempting as it was. So I waited, waited and waited, eleven days later and we were still in my in-laws basement. I was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor and was sharing it with my two year old! I was uncomfortable, my husband was gone all night and slept all day, I did not want to have the baby yet! Well one evening as my Phillip was getting ready to go to work I asked him to stay home with me, just in case. His reasoning was that he couldn't just start staying home from work just in case. I still had at least a week left. Well that night about 3 in the morning I woke-up. Contraction! Bear was sound asleep next to me, I didn't want to wake him up so quietly I rolled off of the air mat, not an easy thing to do when you are huge and pregnant. I tried going to the bathroom, getting a drink of water, laying on my side and relaxing, everything the books say to do if you think you might be in labor as these would help stop contractions if it was false labor. I hadn't had any contractions the whole day, so how could this be labor? I started timing them they were one and a half to two minutes apart, but not exactly the same amount every time. Sometimes they were 2 minutes apart and sometimes they were a minute and forty five seconds apart, so they were erratic, right, this had to be false labor. Well they weren't stopping and I was starting to get worried I called my Mom who was working a graveyard shift at a hospital (she worked in mother baby, not in the hospital I was to deliver at) surely she would know what to do. So I called and she was busy so I was to call back. I called my husband, and said I am having contractions, but then I decided the times weren't consistent enough for it to be labor so I shouldn't be bugging him so I said never mind, hung up and after a few more minutes called my Mom again. I got through to her, told her the situation and she is like hmmmmm, she turned to a nurse she was working with who was a labor and delivery nurse and said what do you think after explaining to her my situation this nurse said "she needs to get her butt to the hospital" Ok now I was scared, I called Phil he didn't answer!!! I tried again and again!! What was going through my head is this: upstairs my father-in-law was sound asleep, he had told me that he would take me to the hospital it I needed him too, I did not want him too! Sorry Richard. I wanted Phil, I needed Phil! My Mother-in-law was also working a graveyard shift so she was not home. There I sat, in absolute terror, my baby was asleep and I didn't want to wake him so I couldn't cry like I wanted to. Finally I got through to Phil, I told him to come home I was in labor and needed to go to the hospital! He said ok I will just finish this last thing and then I am on my way! AAAAAHHHHH! Please hurry! He did hurry he was home in a half hour and ready to take me. Meanwhile I got my things ready and when Phil got there his little brother was awake so I told him to go downstairs and sleep with Bear, so he wouldn't be alone. Good at least I didn't have to worry about who was going to watch him. It was now about 5 am Phil sped to the hospital, we got there and walked in and the ladies at the desk are like, are you here to be induced, because I wasn't kicking and screaming in pain they didn't really believe that I was in labor. The nurses checked and I was five centimeters dialated! They moved me to a real room. At this point I wanted to push, for the freakin life of me I wanted to so bad! The nurses said no not yet. I wasn't fully dialated they didn't want me to tear my cervix, I didn't care, I wanted to push. All they told me was not yet not yet not yet! Where was the doctor was all I kept asking. Then all of the sudden my water broke it was like a huge wave coming out! Where was the doctor! That baby was coming and fast, within minutes he was half born! My doctor walked in just in time to catch my baby! This was all a blur to me, when I remember it, its like I was completely disconnected from my body, very weird! But my Baby Lyon was here and he was healthy and I hadn't died or had the baby at my in-laws house or in the car.......luckily! If I hadn't been able to get through to my Mom that night I probably would not have made it to the hospital in time, I would have probably delivered him myself! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These are some of the reasons why this time I am terrified! Now the situation is far from the same, this time. I have a well established home, even a nursery to bring my baby home to, Phil no longer works graveyard shifts, so I should have no fear. I do though, how do I know what to expect this time? Will my labor be just as fast? Will I have someone to watch my little boys? What if Phil is at work and he it takes him forever to get home? I am constantly trying to make back up plans for just in case this or that, but I cannot make plans for the unknown possibilities! Sure this time I could choose to be induced, but this brings to me a whole new wave of fears and risks! I am so overwhelmed by this, :( All I can really say after all of the above is AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But I also must admit that I do feel a little bit better.

=/

Ok I promise I have been working on the Darkest Black post. I am sorry its taking so long. We moved our computer downstairs (it used to be on our kitchen counter) and it is almost impossible to get down to get any work on it done. I tried to take Bear down with me while Lyon was taking his nap I got a little bit more typing done but not enough:( He was so bored, and he kept getting into things and driving me completely crazy! Anyway if it were possible for me to get up early I would so already be done but oh well. Just know that I am working on it and someday it will be posted. As for blogging about anythintg else, I have lost my camera.........brief pause so I can bawl about it.............It was really the absolute best camera ever! I am so sad to have lost it. I didn't misplace it, oh no, it was taken out of my purse! Can you believe it! It was in my bag right next to my wallet and somebody took the camera instead of what could possibly have been a good deal of money. What is the deal with that? My point is that because I have no camera I have no pictures to post with whatever I may be writing about and that bothers me. I always think the pictures are the best part of a blog, so why blog about Bear starting T-ball if I can't put any pictures? I am going to have to figure something out, I have a baby on the way for crying out loud! I must have pictures! Who has a baby without taking pictures?! AAAAAHHHH! Oh the agony!

Pregnant and irritated, why? Well......

Dear readers,
This is my dishwasher. Isn't it pretty? It is a very nice and expensive dishwasher. So why is it that 90% of the time I am doing our dishes by hand? Ok sometimes it is a simple choice between having the dishwasher take two hours plus to wash a few dishes or doing them by hand in ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes however it is the fact that even after the two hours plus in the dishwasher my dishes are not completely clean! Grrrrrrr! This dishwasher is supposed to get dishes cleaner and dryer with less soap and it doesn't! I understand that sometimes this is due to how the dishes are being loaded but I am very good at loading it properly! I really don't mind doing the dishes by hand normally but right now I am very pregnant and leaning against a sink to do dishes is much more difficult with a huge belly that one has to try to get around. By the time I finish doing dishes not only does my back freaken kill but my feet and other body parts......its like they hate me :( I just wish that the stupid dishwasher would just do its job so I don't have to re-do it and that when and if the dishes are clean I could just put them away not have to leave half of them to air dry on a towel on my counter! I can't keep doing this =( Does anyone else have this problem? I mean with such a wonderful top of the line appliance one would think that it would do a better job than the 20 year old p-o-s we used to have, but it doesn't!

And just in case anyone was wondering I have tried all the different dish washing detergents and I still have the same problem so don't tell me to try a new soap!

Sincerely
A very irritated and overworked Mother
AKA-Rose

P.S. Now that I have that off my chest I will go and wash my dishes with a smile on my face as it could always be worse, at least I have running water and a sink. :)

Grrr....

I am having more problems with our computer so it will take a while longer to get my story posted. So sorry.....

I'm Back

Ok I am back online. Glad to see some of you have an interest in the story. I just need to do a bit of editing, and since I wrote the story on paper instead of typing it into the computer I will have to transfer it wich always takes me awhile. Not that I suck at typing or anything I just have two little boys that are either climbing on me or pulling on me saying "MOM, MOM!" Lol! So I will post it in the next week.



On another note I had another Doctors apointment yesterday. The baby is doing awesome and kicking as hard as ever, constantly. I had to do the glucose screening wich is always a pain, but I made it through that. Luckily my dear sister Annie was available to watch Bear and Lyon, making the whole process go much much smoother so thankyou again Ann. I have eleven weeks to go and we are so excited! Phil and his Dad have put the finishing touches on our basement rooms and we have started moving things in. So far we have our desk one table and one shelve of books moved. Now we just have a ton of more crap to bring down adn sort through. Thankyou everyone who helped make this project possible, Sam thanks for letting us borrow your tools. Daniel, Johnny, Bobby, Mike, the wives who sacrificed their husbands too, and most of all Richard Thankyou so very very much you helped more than anyone and we so appriciate it! I am so lucky to have such knowledgeble and hard working people in my family :D We love you all so much!

Bear and Babies

This is how the conversation went:
Dad:"Its time to wake-up buddy."
Bear: sitting up in his bed "Dad, Where is the baby?"
Dad: "Uh, in Mommies tummy"
Bear: Running out into the kitchen where Mom is "Mommy where is your baby?"
Mom: "Still in my tummy"
Bear: disappointed and confused "oh"
I think he must have had a dream that we had the baby. Very cute! If only I had a picture of his face. LOL!

Hmmmmm.....

I have just about finished part two of the Darkest Black short story I started in October, but I am not really sure if I want to post it. Does anyone really care to read it? Let me know....

Sushi Rolls

Have you ever had that feeling, the one where you are craving something so badly that it becomes your every thought? Well maybe everyone doesn't go through this, but for the last 7 months it has been my life. I have been craving sushi rolls, desperately! I dream about them, long for them, and yet I have managed to refrain. Some of you may be wondering why, well, when pregnant there are certain food items that you are really supposed to stay away from. Some of those being deli meats, soft cheeses, certain types of fish, and any type of raw meat. The reason being, well basically there are food born illnesses involved that can cause a lot of problems with ones pregnancy. Now, this isn't to say that if one eats these things they are guaranteed to have problems with their baby, but it is a risk and one that I am just not willing to take. There is far to much worry and guilt accompanying it so I keep away no matter how great the craving.
This brings me back now to the reason for this post, somewhere I got the idea that I could make my own sushi rolls at home without the use of raw fish and risk of contamination. So I did research to find out just how to make them and it turned out to be pretty easy, so long as you have the right tools. I ordered what I needed online and then took a couple of trips to the grocery store for different ingredients and then, well have a look....

the seaweed

the inside ingredients

rolling it up

I actually did it! Oh yeah, rice on the outside, thank you very much :)


cutting the pieces


The finished products


This is a terrible picture of me, I know, but look I am finally eating sushi rolls!

Lyon ate them!


Bear loved them! He ate almost as much as I did! This is my little picky four year old too!

Phil loved them too, he took the pictures so I don't have one of him enjoying them.
They really turned out awesome! I will definatley make these again!

Sledding

We woke-up to the snow on Thursday, very unhappily I might add. I had an appointment with my OB, so of course it had to snow the day I would be driving. This has happened almost every single appointment I've had including ultra sounds! Well Bear looked at it with a better attitude, he had gotten a spider-man sledding tube for his B-day, he'd been waiting for just such an occasion to try it out. So after my appointment, which went just fine, we were in and out of the office in 15 minutes then only another 5 minutes to go to the lab and have some blood drawn! How is that for speed! Anyway we took Phil to work then headed home. Bear not forgetting his sled and me feeling to bad to say no decided to take the boys sledding. We had to go home and get their snowsuits on first then we piled back into the car to go to the sledding hill. By the time we got there poor little Lyon had fallen fast asleep, but not Bear he was very ready for action. So I sent him on his way while I watched by the side of the car. I wasn't about to wake-up a sleeping Lyon, but I also didn't want to leave him alone in the car. So I rolled the windows down and stood ready to get him should he wake and also so I had a perfect view of Bear. It was fun for me to watch Bear, He had a method, He would set his sled just so at the top of the hill then back up so he could get a running start and then jump on full speed using the inertia to make it down the hill. He did this for maybe a half hour before he decided to call it a day. He was soaking wet well his snowsuit and jacket were, so he said how about if I lay in the sun. Lol! He laid on the sidewalk for about a minute before deciding he wouldn't dry off that way! He had so much fun though, and it was probably better that Lyon fell asleep so I didn't have to worry about them sharing the sled.



Running Start

Super fast

Sleeping baby

Mama standing guard


This kid is awesome!

Drying off

Kites

So Bear got some kites for his Birthday we've been waiting for a windy day to try them out. We were finally rewarded with a nice windy day :)

I love to see the Temple

We went and saw the Draper Temple, it was Beautiful! We took both Bear and Lyon, Bear was so excited that he got to go.



On the way home we stopped and got the boys some lollipops :D


Since it was Bears B-day we let him decide what we should have for dinner. He told us he wanted to have spagetti and meat balls. Ok I have never made that before but with Phil's help and an awesome recipe I decided to attempt it, for Bear.

The picture does not do it justice. Dinner turned out great, very yummy!

After dinner Phils parents came over with some presents for Bear he was so excited! His favorite thing that he got was a little Book of Mormon. Lol!


After presents, or maybe it was before, we had cake and ice cream. A football cake of course.


When we were finished, our plates were still on the table. Lyon who was not finished yet stayed at the table and after finishing his cake and ice cream he moved over to Bears chair and finished what was left on his plate then he moved over to my plate and finished what was left of mine. Lol! What a silly boy :D


And just for fun,and because I finally have one, here is a belly pic of me. There is definatley a baby in there.


We had a really great day! I love to see the Temples and I am so glad my boy's do too! I also love to spend time with my family, and I am so happy that Bear had a good day on his Birthday! :)

Football Birthday Party

Over the weekend we had an awesome Birthday party for Bear. He turns 4 this week and I thought he was old enough to appreciate a party, and Phil and I were just crazy enough to take it on. We invited all the kids around that are his age (over thirty plus his cousins) and I was just hoping that someone would show up. I was really worried because I know that it can be hard to remember that there is a party and also a lot of kids have been sick. I figured if at least one kid showed up it would be ok. The day of the party arrived and we were all ready, it was two o'clock and...... Thank goodness we had 14 kids come :D HURRAY! The party turned out great, better than great! We had plenty of games and we decorated cupcakes, played out in the back yard and then had ice cream. It was so much fun to watch the kids have so much fun. I was seriously worried that they would be bored. Some of the parents ended up staying, which I expected, because there are some really shy kids. I planned ahead though and had a fruit tray ready for parents to snack on, and we got to visit with one another and we got know them better too! It was just such a relief to have it go so unbeleivabley well! I really want Bear to be able to socialize and have a good variety of friends to play with. I think that this is a good start. We know the kids better they know where we live and we know where they live and we've met their parents. Setting up play dates is so much easier when you know who each other are. It was just so much fun, I'll definatly do it again!

Birthday Bash

This is one of my favorite sites! Go check it out, tons of giveaways and all that good stuff :D

Art Project

Since we don't go outside much we do a lot of art projects. Luckily the boys love to color and paint. Here we took these huge pieces of paper and traced the boys while they were laying on the papers then the boys each drew in the rest of their features.


Bears is a bit more detailed than Lyons. I must admit I did help a little but only with the bones because Bear asked me to. He did his own face though, even all of his teeth :D


Lyon is just such a cutie. He was so proud of his work and wanted to help hang it on the wall. Yes, we hang their artwork all over the walls of my house. I love to look at it all and the boys love to see it hanging up as well :D