November 2010

November ended up being just as busy as October! Probably don't have as many pictures, but trust me it just FLEW by. The month started off with Mark working on the baby's room. He thought this was going to be a weekend project... Hmmm...well it was a weekend..or two..or three! It turned out to be a bit more work than either of us had realized, but the finished project is completely worth it. Mark did a fantastic job and he had a great little helper. Jonathan painted one entire wall blue and really did a great job painting. Here is step one of the process: painting the room blue. Many more steps to come!

We had another baby shower at work for Michelle, another PT. She is two weeks ahead of me, expecting a little girl. The shower was a little bittersweet as her husband has gotten a new job in Dallas and they will be moving at the end of the month. She has become a great friend to me and they live in our neighborhood, so I will be very sad to see them go. But it was fun to give her fun gifts for this little girl.

We signed Jonathan up to take the Big Brother/Big Sister Class at Baptist Hospital where we will be delivering. This class is supposed to help them with the transition to having a new baby in the house as well as alleviate some of the fears of seeing their Mommy in the hospital. Jonathan just absolutely LOVED it, every single part of it. I have to say that Mark and I highly enjoyed ourselves as well. I haven't laughed that hard in a long time as watching Jonathan and the other children answer questions, change diapers, and play in the delivery room. He made a great card for Daniel's crib in the hospital, fed a pretend baby a bottle, changed a diaper, had a birthday party for the baby, went to visit a labor and delivery room, visited a mother/baby room, and even got to see a real live baby through the glass in the nursery. I have to say the class was great and I would highly recommend it to other Big Siblings!

 Card he made for Daniel

 Feeding his baby a bottle

 His Big Brother certificate and pin (we also got him a t-shirt).

Jonathan went to a birthday party the next weekend for Megan. It is so hard to believe that she is 3! Seems like she was just born yesterday! Jonathan had a great time playing with everyone at the party and did a great job decorating his crown all by himself.

 That same afternoon was my baby shower from the girls at church. It was so very nice and just so filled with love. They had done a bear thing which I just loved. From the invitations, to the decorations, to the food, it was just perfect. My Mom and Mark's Mom and Aunt were able to come share the special day with us as well. Everyone had a really nice time and I am just so appreciative of the love that was shown.

 Me at the shower - 32 1/2 weeks pregnant

(See below for more posts!)



October 2010

As always, the start of fall means that our family is on the go...constantly! This year was no different as Jonathan had a TON of fun activities and my belly was expanding pretty rapidly as well!! We had a blast with everything and managed to survive the chaos that seems to reign this time of year. Here are a few highlights from the month. (Oh, and there is another new post below this one. Trying to divide them into months...)

This picture is at 26 weeks. I have gotten involved in the Holy Sews ministry following the death of our Gracie. The group had the opportunity to do an interview for the local news station here in LR. I had gotten dressed up for that night, so we decided to take a few pictures. The interview was a huge blessing as we were able to reach several hurting families, make connections with new hospitals here in Arkansas, and recruit a few new volunteers as well. There is a link from the main website to the interview. http://www.holysews.org/  It is the "Feature Story on Today's THV."

The October bulletin board at Jonathan's preschool. My good friend Edie designed this one and did a great job. Each "spider" is the kids hand prints, which they then painted. It turned out great and Jonathan loved pointing out his spider every day.

The first weekend in October we decided to go to the Johnston Pumpkin Farm in Greenbrier. Unfortunately, we picked the absolute HOTTEST day to go. It was just miserable. I just cannot tolerate the heat and felt so bad the entire time we were there. Jonathan tried so hard to play, but he was just burning up as well. We had fun, but I will honestly admit it was not our best pumpkin patch experience to date. We just could not fit it in on another weekend, so sometimes you just make it work...

 I think our favorite activity at the patch this year was painting a pumpkin. Jonathan just loved it and I had a great time watching him. He wanted to paint the entire pumpkin - the top, bottom, AND the stem! He actually liked it so much that we let him painta another one. The 2nd time he picked a little bitty pumpkin.

 Jonathan and Daddy sitting in the patch.

 Our family!

 Jonathan has gotten very into taking pictures. He has taken pictures of everything, including himself. It is always interesting to download the camera and see what he has captured lately. His favorites seem to be whatever is on tv. He likes to take pictures of his shows.

 We had a baby shower at work for one of the other PT's, Carrie, and her husband, Kurt. They are adopting twin girls who are just absolutely beautiful! The shower was a lot of fun to buy everything in two's. So happy for them both!

 Jonathan decided he wanted to be Superman for Halloween. He was so excited when his costume came in. Mark flew him around the living room for weeks! He is also wearing his light-up Superman ring that I found as well. (It has super powers in case you didn't know!)

We said goodbye to a member of our family this month as well. We bought the Jeep Liberty in 2003 in anticipation of starting a family (and because I wrecked my Mustang). It has been a great SUV and we have really enjoyed it. The 4WD has gotten us out of some places and it has kept my baby safe for the last 3.5 years. However, it will be a little tight with two car seats in the back. Plus, we would not have any room for people to ride with us when they come to town. All of this led to us researching a new car/SUV/van.

 We ended up getting at 2007 Honda Odyssey minivan. Trust me, I have gotten harrassed by everyone who sees me for driving a van, but you know, I really kind of like it. I'm not lying, I would like a big Suburban or Yukon, but that is just not in our price range right now. This van meets all of our requirements for a car, at about $30,000 cheaper!! Mark has become a big fan of Dave Ramsey, so we are trying to follow his money management plan to get out of and stay out of debt. In the mean time, I have auto-open/close doors, a drop-down DVD player, and several other fun extras in my new van. We ended up buying it in Shreveport, so we made a weekend trip down there. Stayed in a hotel, had a great dinner, and did a little shopping before coming back home.

 The next weekend we went to Vicksburg and Jackson for Mark's sister, Kim's, engagement party. While we were in Vicksburg, we stopped by to see Johnson. Unfortunately, we have not been to Vicksburg or been able to see her in a long time. So, we were very excited to spend some time with her. We even got to take her to run a few errands. Jonathan loved having her ride in the back of the van with him, he thought that was pretty hot stuff.

 Saturday night we went to the engagement party. My sweet little boy told me, "Mommy you look so pretty" as we were getting ready. Just made my whole day. For a Mommy who is getting bigger by the day, it was such a sweet and loving thing to say. He took this picture of me himself. Such a sweet little boy who is going to be such a great big brother!

 That Sunday we drove back to Little Rock for a special memorial service at Baptist Hospital. This service was to remember every baby that had been lost this year at this hospital. It was a beautiful service. At the end, each family wrote a message to their little one and tied it to a balloon. So many balloons floating away, so much love, so much loss, but still so much love and hope for the future.

 Jonathan's class at school asked each of the kids to decorate a pumpkin for the Fall Fest. Jonathan has been on a BIG acorn kick. He collects them everywhere we go. So, we decided to make "ACORN"ucopia as our pumpkin. He told me where to put each acorn and I used the hot glue gun to put them on the pumpkin. We both had a blast and I think his little friends at school liked it too.

 Jonathan's preschool puts on a Fall Fest every year a few weeks before Halloween. All of the kids dress up and play games all over the preschool. Jonathan loved wearing his costume and seeing all of his friends from school.

 This is his best bud Sam. They were too cute in their matching superhero outfits. There was also a baby there that night dressed as Superman. He thought that was so cool that there were two Supermans.

 The next night our church had their Fall Funfest. So, once again, Jonathan dressed up and we went to the church for a ton of games, candy, and treat.

 He did really good at throwing the darts at the balloons. Boys got good aim, baseball here we come!

 The NEXT day (yes, all three of these events happened in the same week), Jonathan's class went on a field trip to the pumpkin patch. This time it was not hot thankfully. I did not get to go, but Mark and my Mom were able to go and enjoy it with him. The field trip was very neat as they had a couple of learning activities for the kids to participate in, not just walking through the patch.

 Mrs. Meagan's class at the pumpkin patch. Jonathan's on the top left side of the step.

 MaMa Deb (my Mom) was able to come spend this entire week with us and go to all of the fun Halloween activities. On Friday, Jonathan decided that they needed to make a pumpkin pie. They worked really hard and made an excellent pie. I don't think he ate too much of it, but he really did enjoy the process of making it!

 The Friday before Halloween Jonathan's preschool did Trick-or-Treating around the building. Jonathan loved it, especially all of the candy!!

 Jonathan's class after Trick-or-Treating time.

 The PT's at work usually do a theme. This year we were a little lazy and just bought matching t-shirts. As you can tell, Michelle (32 weeks) and I (29 1/2 weeks) are both getting rather big and prego here. Kim did a skit with another group, thus why she's not wearing the shirt.

 After the trick-or-treating, Jonathan and his friends changed back into regular clothes. They then had a pizza party with green punch. They had a blast and especially loved the cd of Halloween music during the party. See the dancing below!

 Finally, Halloween arrived, and Jonathan went trick-or-treating. We went through most of our neighborhood and he got a TON of candy. Oh my, the candy. We always have fun on Halloween, though, and this year was no exception. I do miss giving out candy at our house, but nothing beats watching him have so much fun.

 Our family trick-or-treating

 Superman Jonathan

 Jonathan and his loot from trick-or-treating. This does not include any of the candy from the Fall Fest at preschool, Fall FunFest at church, or trick-or-treating at chuch. Yes, we have waaaayyyy too much candy. Yes, yes we do.  :)

September 2010 and Labor Day

Just a few quick pictures to finish out September. These first two pictures are from the playground at preschool. Jonathan and his friend took these play kitchens and turned them down on their side. Made them into their very own recliners. It was ABSOLUTELY hilarious!! This is how I found the two boys when I got there. Then their sweet little girl friend came to sit in between them. Jonathan was not ready to leave with me. Just wanted to sit and chill. A couple of other Moms and I decided they just needed some magazines, a cooler, and a TV to watch the game! The making of a man is right here. Oh my, it is hilarious!!!!!

 

The other big trip of September was our Labor Day Family Vacation with Mark's family. We met his parents, his sister, her fiance and daughter, and his brother's family at Lake Guntersville, Alabama. We had rented a lake house there that was gorgeous and huge! Lots of room for the kids to run around and play, plus plenty of beds for everyone to sleep in.

On our way to Alabama, we stopped and spent the night in Corinth, MS. Actually found a decent hotel there and we decided to go the next day to the Corinth Civil War Interpretive Center. This park area is part of the greater Shiloh park and was extremely interesting. Mark had a relative from Meridian who fought in this battle, so we enjoyed looking at the exhibits.

 21 1/2 weeks

 Jonathan and Lucy having fun watching tv before bed time.

 Mark and his Dad on the back porch. His Dad had just had his rotator cuff repaired. He had managed to separate his bicep tendon from the bone. Can you say OUCH!!

 Mike, Kim, and Lacey watching a little tv.

 It was about an hour from where we were staying to Huntsville. The Space Center there was having a STAR WARS exhibit and Mark really wanted to go. Jonathan has become a big fan lately as well, especially of Darth Vader. Not really sure why Darth, but he does like him the best!! Unfortunately, my lovely stomach virus returned that day and I was not able to go with them. I really hated to miss it. Mark took a ton of pictures for me so I

Happy Birthday Gracie Lynne

Today is Gracie Lynne's birthday. One year ago today she entered and left this world. We know she is in Heaven with our Lord Jesus, but we still miss her here on this Earth...every day. So Happy Birthday baby girl. We will always, always, and always love you and miss you every day until we see you again.

We did take some time today to go to Gracie's garden to celebrate her life and remember her. We are thankful for a peaceful place to sit and just be. We took out some new flowers and a little happy present for her. Also had some pink cupcakes in her honor. Not nearly good enough as having her here, but it is what we could do to keep her memory alive in our hearts and minds.

Mommy loves you.

September 2010 - Preschool and Veggie Tales

Jonathan is absolutely LOVING his new preschool class. His teacher, Mrs. Meagan, is great and he is learning a TON of stuff already. It is so much fun to watch him try to write his letters, sounding things out, picking out letters on signs, etc. He is very into learning and reading, which is a true blessing. They do a bulletin board each month. For the first month of school, they did Mrs. Meagan's Monsters. Jonathan has gotten very into monsters (not scary ones) lately, so this was perfect for him. He made a great scary monster face for his plate and then decorated it with green paint and blue string hair. He has decided that monsters should be blue. Not sure why, but he colors all of them blue now.

We had our 23+ week appointment with the High Risk OB clinic on September 17th. This appointment was specifically to check on the baby's heart. Let me tell you, this one was the most stressful of the three we have done. First a regular sonographer came in and did a mini-ultrasound of the baby in general. She measured him, checked him out again, and gave us some great pics of him. We even got to see him in 4D which was VERY cool. I have to say, he looks just like the baby pictures of Jonathan. Too little peas in a pod I'm thinking. But, the 4D was very comforting. So very real to see him that way and just imagine him here with us in just a few short months. After she left, another cardiac sonographer came in and did an ultrasound/echocardiogram of his heart. Let me tell you, that was hard. Mark and I had no real idea of what she was doing or seeing and she was not allowed to tell us anything. So we are basically just sitting there in silence for 30-45 minutes while she looks at his heart. Then she left. Didn't give us any inclination good or bad. Whoah, that was hard! After her, the high risk OB came in to tell us that everything on the regular ultrasound was great and that the baby was doing great overall. She said the heart doctor would be in to talk to us about his heart. She left and the pediatric cardiologist from Arkansas Children's Hospital came in. She watched the video of the entire ultrasound that the girl had done. At the end, she finally told us that his heart looked great. She did not see any problems and did not feel like there was anything there to be concerned about. She was super nice and we both really liked her a lot. She did say that there are a few problems that you cannot see on an ultrasound and to make sure that the pediatricians check him out good when he gets here, but she did not expect for there to be any problems. Wow, the stress level in the room dropped by about a million! We are so very thankful and blessed and happy by this news. The other great news is that we are officially discharged from the High Risk clinic. We will now just be followed by our regular OB (who we love) until this little man gets here. Wow. What an amazing blessing. Seriously. I just cannot thank God enough. We will keep praying that things go well and that he will come here healthy, happy, and on time (not early!). Thank you so much for praying for us. We know how much God is here with us and we are so thankful.

This appointment was even more appreciated in that we had had a scare the week before. I had gotten a stomach virus the first week of the school year from the kids. Of course. I always end up getting the stomach viruses. Well this one did not seem to want to go away. After a week, I called the OB's office and they suggested I go to the regular doctor's office to check things out. When I got there, they did a urinalysis and saw blood in my urine. Well, of course, this completely freaked me out. He, not being an OB, didn't really know what to do. He thought it was an UTI, but he wasn't sure. Well, this led to me leaving his office and driving directly to the ER at Baptist. Of course, I had taken Jonathan with me as preschool was over for the day. Poor, sweet baby was such a very good listener through everything. We called my best friend Karen, and her kind Mother in Law came and picked up Jonathan to take him to Karen's house. Mark was in Pine Bluff at work when I called him with all of this. He immediately heads for home, but he is an hour away. The ER has no desire to get involved with the prego (me), so they immediately send me up to Labor and Delivery so that they can monitor the baby. Let me tell you, it was some very, very bad deja vu to be back there, NOT wanting to have a baby, and knowing that things could go very badly, very quickly. Poor Mark was just beside himself. He kept saying how much he hated it there. So sad when the L&D unit should be a happy place. Anyway, they hooked me up to the fetal heart rate monitor and the contraction monitor. After a while, they decided that there was nothing wrong with the baby and that he was not in any distress. This was a huge blessing and relief to us. They did look at me, though, and said, "He is fine. You, however, are very sick." That I knew, but it was still kind of funny. It ended up that I did have a bladder infection (from the stomach virus) and severe dehydration. Four nurses tried to start an IV before they finally had to call in an anethesiologist to get one started. Let me tell you, that wasn't much fun. My poor hands and arms were bruised for a week. They ran two bags of fluids and a bag of antibiotics. About 8 hours later, we got to go home. In the mean time, we sat there and listened to the baby's heart beat on the monitors. It was a beautiful sound and, trust me, the highlight of the day. He wasn't a huge fan of that monitor and kept kicking at it or moving away from it. This made us laugh. The nurses kept having to move the monitor around to find him. He is just so little right now that he can definitely move away from it. They are used to term babies who don't have much room left to move!! Anyway, it was a very exciting and scary day, but a blessing still that the baby was good.

I have a couple of new prego pics, but of course, they are still on the camera. I'll have to work on downloading them soon.

This past Wednesday, his class took a walking "field trip" to the other playground at Easter Seals. They rarely get to play over there, so it was a big hit with all of the kids. I sent my camera with his teacher, and she got some great pictures. There really are some very nice things about working at the same place as where he goes to preschool. He has made several new friends in his class (of which I'm very thankful for) and really likes going to school every day. I thought these pics turned out great. Now if only I can get caught up with scrapbooking so I could make a page of them!

Thursday night was the highlight of Jonathan's week. Our church sponsored "Veggie Tales" to come in and do a show. It was an absolute blast. As soon as the music started, he just got giddy. He jus loves Bob the tomato and Larry the cucumber. He could not believe that they were at HIS church. I was so glad that we were able to go. Mark had gone on a lightning fast trip to Chicago Wednesday morning to give a speech. He flew back to Little Rock at 5:20pm Thursday. The show started at 6pm on the complete other side of town from the airport...during rush hour. Thankfully, his plane was right on time and he hadn't checked any bags. He walked into the sanctuary at 5:58pm. Jonathan was so glad that Mark was there and I know Mark was glad he hadn't missed it either. I bought Jonathan a "Super Larry" hat and a cute t-shirt. He looks so cute in this silly hat, cracks me up. At the show, some of the children were standing in the aisles so they could see better. Jonathan started in the aisle, and then slowly moved closer and closer towards the stage. He eventually ended up on the steps. The stage manager on either side of the stage gently told him he couldn't stand on the steps. He went and had a conversation with each of them to see where he COULD stand. Such a little negotiator. But he did, listened, and followed their directions. I was very proud, but it was hilarious watching him talk to these two guys. I couldn't hear what either of them said, but I can imagine!