Looking good....

First off, a very Happy late Father's Day to all the dads out there. I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday. I know we did. We all went over to Doug's parents' house and bbq'd and swam. I think we all get a bit too much sun though! But the kids did have a blast swimming and boy did they conk out fast last night. Ryann pretty much fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Doogie was pretty pleased with himself, that he can now go in the pool without any floaties since he passed the swim test (he has to jump in at the deep end and swim all the way to the other end of the pool without touching the bottom or going to the side of the pool). He still has to make sure that someone knows he's in the deep end though so that we can keep an eye on him!

Ryann is wearing underwear today! I have kept meaning to start working on potty training with her, but figured I would wait until after the move and school was done with so that I could devote more time to making sure I "reminded" her to use the pottty frequently. But she pretty much decided to do it on her own. Yesterday she kept going in to sit on the potty, she didn't do anything (she usually told us after she had already gone), but that is still a good sign. So I figure now that we don't usually have to be anywhere and the weather is nice, she can just run around in her underwear. So we'll see how well she does, hopefully she will be officially potty trained soon and I will just have Jaxon in diapers...well until this little guy arrives!

I had my OB appointment today. I'm a little past 34 weeks now and if I do go into labor now they wouldn't stop it. However, it looks like the little guy has been behaving himself and I'm still at 3 cm dialated and 50% effaced and he said that my cervix didn't have the feel of going into pre-term labor at this time. So that was good news! My blood pressure was back to normal this week (last week it was a little high) and I lost 4 pounds! That didn't surprise me too much since I haven't had much of an appetite lately...probably the heat, it just takes everything out of you! So I go back in next Monday for a quick check to make sure things are still staying the same...he's going to squeeze me in as soon as he gets there in the afternoon since he is going to be gone all morning for some meeting. Hopefully he won't be late getting out of it! He was running a bit behind today so I was actually almost there for a couple hours! Oh and did I forget to mention that I have an end in sight?! LOL! We talked about inducing me on a certain day so that we could hopefully get Doug here in time for it. He said that technically they can't induce me until I'm 39 weeks along....but since I tend to go early (Doogie and Ryann were 1 week early, Jaxon was 2 and Jayde was 3 weeks) he said that to go in earlier than 39 weeks I would need to get an amnio done first to prove that the baby's lungs were mature and then if that came back good than he can induce me. So I go in July 12th to have an amnio done, they will get the results back on the 13th and then on the 14th they will induce me....so unless I go into labor earlier than that (and there is still a chance that could happen) this little guy will be coming on the 14th of July! :) So I told Doug to start looking for plane tickets!

It also doesn't look like the FBI transfer to Richland is going to pan out for us. :( There is still a slight chance that it could happen, but it doesn't look promising. So keep your fingers crossed for us that one of the other jobs that Doug has been looking at falls into place for us and that he'll be back home with us in WA really soon. I know we are all really missing him and there isn't a day that goes by that the kids don't mention him. Usually with a "I miss Daddy", it's kind of heartbreaking to hear that. And it can't be that fun for Doug being all the way over in NJ by himself either.

So anyways, that's the latest news on us. I will keep you posted as I hear things! :)

Still hanging in there...

Saw my OB this morning for a recheck. My blood pressure was slightly elevated...which is unusual for me, I don't usually have a problem with high blood pressure. When he checked me I was up to 3 cm dialated (I was 2 1/2) on Friday. So he decided to do a FFN (fetal fibronectin) test. Which can basically tell you if you are in danger of going into labor early...think he said if it came back positive that I would have a 97% chance of going into labor within 10 days or so. Luckily though the test just came back negative which takes my chances of going into pre-term labor (within 10 days) down to 47%. He also decided to hook me up to the monitor for about a half hour to check for any contractions and to make sure that they baby was moving and sounding okay. All that checked out fine as well, so now I'm just back to taking it easy and keeping an eye out for any other pre-term labor signs. I will go back in to see him in a week (next Monday) and hopefully there won't be any other changes for a while and this little guy will just hang out and "cook" for a bit longer!

7 Weeks or less...

And it is looking like it is going to be less...how much less I'm not sure yet! I'm at 33 weeks right now and just had my doctor's appointment with my old OB...finally got in to see him! I have been feeling a ton of pressure lately, lots of braxton hicks and maybe some actual contractions, not to mention the baby feels like he has dropped. Looks like I was right, since they decided to check me out to be on the safe side and I'm already 2 1/2 cm dialated and 50% effaced. He said it could be nothing considering that I've already had a bunch of kids or I could be in pre-term labor. So to be on the safe side I got a steriod shot today and have to go into labor and delivery tomorrow morning (since he will be on call) and he will give me my other one there. This is so just in case I do go into early labor it will help the baby's lungs develop faster. Then I will come back in and see him on Monday since he wants to check me again and see how I'm doing. He will actually be on call that day as well but he's making an exception for me and going to come back to office just to see me. So I get the special treatment already! LOL! He did one test today, but it wasn't the one that he hadn't wanted to do. So I think he will do the fetal protein test on Monday when he see's me and that will help tell him if I'm in pre-term labor or not. He didn't put me on bedrest officially, but told me to take it easy and all that fun stuff. He also sounded a bit ticked off that this was the first time he had seen me considering I got into town at the beginning of April and when I told him it was because they wouldn't see me because they hadn't gotten my records yet, he did not like that at all. So I think he is going to be talking to people about that! I also asked him what the chances were for him inducing me on a certain date so that Doug could be there for it. He said I had a good chance of that as long as I didn't go into early labor on my own, and he'll be able to tell me more about when that will be when he see's me on Monday. So that's my exciting day so far!

It was also the last day of school for Doogie, so summer has officially started here. I don't even know why they bothered to have Kindergarten today though anyway since they only went for about an hour! But then they did get to take a tour of the new school that they will be in next year.

So otherwise everything is going fine. Ryann is back to normal and the impetigo is pretty much all gone. She has just another day left on her antibiotics. And the good news is that none of the other kids got it! I am keeping an eye on Jaxon though since he's eye looks like it might be bugging him, it looks better this morning though after he had his bath...of course it has to be on a Friday too! So we'll see how it looks later.

Anyways, that's about all the news for now. But I will keep you posted if anything changes! :)

Not the way I wanted to spend the day!

Well we spent a good portion of the early afternoon in the emergency room with Ryann! Poor thing was just all lethargic and she kept just falling asleep. Which is so not like her at all. She also had a crusty looking rash on her head (in her hairline) that I had noticed early and had been putting neosprorin on, but it was still spreading. When I noticed the rash on her head was getting worse I decided I was going to take her to the doc on Monday...but the real thing that worried me was just how out of it she was and I didn't want to wait until Monday for that. So we headed for the emergency room where she pretty much slept off and on the entire time we were there! The nurse brought her in an italian ice and juice which perked her up a little bit, she wanted it...but even then she kept drifting off to sleep between bites. So it looks like she had gotten a little dehydrated too. She really freaked me out for a while there when I couldn't get her to wake up to drink the 3rd cup of juice the nurse brought in! We even looked out in the hallway for the nurse but she wasn't there at the time. Luckily though I finally got her to wake up a little bit after that and she drank some more for me and started to perk up more. By that time the doctor finally came into the room to check her out. He was pretty young, didn't look like he was old enough to be a doctor! LOL! Funny though that Ryann really started to perk up once he came into the room and she even started smiling at him (something she hadn't done for anyone else!) Guess she likes cute young guys! :) She even began to finally talk...and we hadn't heard hardly two words out of her mouth all day! So on top of being a bit dehydrated...though I could of sworn she was getting enough fluids! But the nurse did point out that with them being so much littler and alot more active, they actually tend to get dehydrated alot faster than we do. So I'm going to be really pushing the fluids alot more! But anyways, on top of being dehydrated the rash on her head was impetigo (a staph infection and very contagious) and on top of her body trying to fight off that and then being dehydrated that is what probaby caused her to become so lethargic. So she is on antibiotics and also has some ointment to put on her sores. We will also have to keep her out of the sun while she is on the medicine since I guess it makes her even more sensitive to the sunlight. And we also have to make sure that she doesn't spread it to the other kids...so that will be fun! UGH! So we have had quite the day today...but I'm happy to say that she is already acting alot like her normal self. Still not quite as active, but atleast she is smiling, talking and a heck of a lot more animated than she was.

Anyways, hopefully we won't have any more episodes and everyone else won't catch this lovely stuff! We actually had a run of it in the house a couple years ago with Doogie and Jayde...and I remember wondering if this is what Ryann had as well. Guess I was right! LOL! I'm just glad it wasn't something super serious...this is actually pretty easy to treat we just have to be careful not to spread it around more.

Otherwise though we are all doing well, and just hanging in there. Doogie has his last week of school and then he will be out for the summer! And I go in for my doctor appointment on Friday. I've been having a ton of Braxton Hicks lately and it feels like this little guy has dropped. So we'll see how I check out. Also going to talk about maybe inducing me on a certain day so that we can make sure Doug is here for the delivery! Unless I end up going into labor on my own before that!

The pictures are from Friday when the kids were over at Grammy's and Papa's pool having a blast swimming and keeping cool in this really hot weather! They love to swim and this was Jaxon's real first year of being in the pool and he absolutely loved it!

Just 9 weeks or less....

Wow, can't believe I'm already 31 weeks along! Just 9 weeks left to go.... or less! Probably less since I have gone early with all the others. Just had my doctor's appointment this afternoon and everything was looking good. Baby is growing well and heartbeat was nice and strong! They finally got all my records from NJ, but now I need to sign a release for my records from TN since they want my records from my c-section. They don't think there will be any problem having another v-bac since I already had one at the same hospital and same practice who did my c-section. But they said they would just feel better if they had my records for it.

Otherwise everything is going well!

Doogie had his Kindergarten Music Program on Thursday. It was really cute and I'm glad I was able to go to it. He had one back in NJ that I wasn't able to make it to, I had stayed home with the other kids and Doug went to it and recorded it for me. So I made sure to bring along the video camera to capture it all on tape. He is doing well in his coach-pitch...he has really improved since he first started. Before he would really shy away from the ball when it was thrown or hit to him, but now he will atleast get in front of it and try to get a mitt on it. He had a hard hit ball hit to him at his last game earlier this week and he managed to knock it down and keep it from going past him. He is also doing really well at hitting off the coach and not having to use the tee, one of these games I going to have to bring the video camera and record him playing.

Jayde is doing good too. She loves going to speech 2 days a week and working with her speech teacher. And though she doesn't officially qualify for the speech program over the summer her teacher said that she would give me a call when it started up in July and squeeze her in anyways. One of the many reasons I really like her, because she genuinely cares about these kids and wants to help them as much as she can. I have to start doing tongue exercises with Jayde. Atleast a couple times a day I have to take one of those tongue depressors and push it down gently on the middle of her tongue. I guess she has a weak middle tongue muscle and it makes it difficult for her to pronounce some of the sounds. So doing this should help strengthen that muscle and we should be seeing some improvement in a month or so. She is also improving with her t-ball as well. She is really starting to whack that ball off the tee! They are just so funny to watch at that age. It's really more like playing mob ball where everyone just races to the ball and trys to get it first!

Ryann went in for her 3 year check up today and she is looking great! She weighed 37 lbs and was 39 inches...so she is in the 90th% in both height and weight. Developmentally wise she was doing alot of things that are in the 4 year old catergory...which our doctor says puts her ahead of the game. She didn't have to get shots this time, and she doesn't have to go back in for another well check until she is 5! She did a great job cooperating and sitting still for the doctor and nurse, think she got used to it when she had all those ear infections!

Jaxon is turning into such a little boy! He is losing that baby look...I can't belive how big he is getting. He is such a funny little guy. He has discovered the art of blowing kisses and it is pretty darn sweet. He also has figured out how to "jump"! Well atleast he thinks he is jumping! It is funny to watch as he crouches down and than springs up as fast as he can and throws his arms up in the air with a huge smile! He will do it over and over again, I think he is going to have pretty strong leg muscles! His also been using sign language a bit along with some of the words he knows, not to mention picking up a bunch of new ones. He is like a little sponge!

Doug is doing well in NJ. We of course miss him like crazy. But things right now are looking pretty promising. So we just continue to keep our fingers crossed that he will be back in WA with us again very soon.

My Baby is Three!!

I can't believe it's already been 3 years! Where does the time go? She also shares this birthday with her cousin Zach who is 2 today. So a big happy birthday to him too! One of these days it would be nice to get together with them on this day and just have one big old party! Ryann is definitely loving all the birthday attention! She probaby thinks that every day is her birthday right now since we had her party on Saturday and it seems like she is getting something almost every day! LOL! So Happy Birthday to my little girl!! Why does each birthday seem to get harder? I mean you want them to grow and learn new things...but than again you also want to keep them just the way they are now! Guess that's why I take so many pictures...I always want to be able to remember the way they were at this age!

Oh and it looks like Mr. Jaxon isn't done getting those teeth in...he just got 6 in all at once and now he is getting two more! Poor guy, no wonder he's been a little grump lately and try to take a bite out of everyone! LOL!

And I finally got the pictures to upload....can't believe how big they are all getting! I'll try to add

some more pics later!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Well I've been blogger slacker lately! I'm blaming it on being so busy though! LOL! I'm sure you all understand that! I hope all you mom's out there are having a wonderful day today. We are just hanging out today and taking it easy. So let's see what's been happening with us...

Doogie is doing good. He is in morning Kindergarten over here in WA now and having a great time. I think he likes it that he only has to go a half day now (in NJ they went a full day) though I know I miss the full days! Friday they had their "Mother's Day Tea" it was alot of fun, the kids had made lady bug wings and antenae in art class and they wore them for the party. They got up and sang us some songs (which we loved!) and then we had cookies and apple juice! It was so nice being able to spend some one on one time with him for this...I just wish I had remembered to bring my camera with me!! I know one of the mom's that did though, so I was going to ask her if she could email me a few of them. After the tea, we went to the book fair that they have going on at the school and we picked out some books together. Doogie found some really cool Dragon books (he is really into Dragons at the moment). I had to keep Doogie home a couple days this past week, since he caught a bit of a cold and had a nasty cough to go with it. But now he seems to be doing pretty good...he only coughs a little now and that's when he's been running all over the place! He's also playing coach-pitch baseball! He is actually doing pretty good, he's got a good arm and he is hitting the ball pretty well too. We just need to work on his catching and fielding some! He doesn't like seeing that ball come right at him...but that's a pretty natural reaction!

Jayde is doing great! I think she is the only one who didn't catch this cold that went through the house (thanks to a daycare kid that my mom watches...grrrrr). We finally got her into speech here and she goes two days a week for a half hour. She absolutely loves it (especially all the one on one attention!) The speech teacher is wonderful and she is so good with Jayde. In just the short time that she has been going (a couple weeks) I've seen improvement. She is going to give me some things to work on with Jayde for over the summer and then next year for Kindergarten she will pull Jayde out of class for about 15-20 minutes for 4 days a week. Jayde is playing T-Ball and she is doing really well! The first game was a total riot! None of the kids knew where to run so they were running all over the place! After Jayde's first time up and we finally got her over to first base and she was watching the kid behind her bat...instead of running to second when he hit the ball she went after the ball along with the other team! LOL! Jayde hits the ball really good off the tee and she knows that if she gets the ball out in the field she needs to throw it to first base. We have since her first game worked with her on running the bases and letting the other team field the ball when her team is up to bat! LOL! I have to say I don't think I had laughed that hard for quite a while though...so it was quite entertaining!

Ryann is growing up like crazy...what a hoot she is! She ended up getting a bit of a snotty nose with this cold, but that's about it. She turns the big 3 tomorrow! Can't believe it's been 3 years already! We celebrated her birthday yesterday, just a small family one. Of course it was a beautiful day until we got to the park around 5:00pm and then the wind started blowing! So the kids played for a bit (the girls had fun chasing the seagulls) and ate dinner. When everyone was done eating the wind had actually died down some so we thought it was safe to do presents...but as soon as Ryann went to go get one to open the wind started blowing again...even harder. So we packed up and moved the party back over to my parents house and did the presents and cake there. Ryann had a blast opening up her presents (and Jaxon loved the boxes and ribbon!) When it was time for cake, Ryann started crying when everyone started singing Happy Birthday to her! LOL! But she calmed down when it was done and it was time to blow out the candles!

Jaxon is turning into a little boy! He is walking all over the place now and also running! He just looks more grown up now! He is such a busy little guy and just wants to do everything that his brother and sisters are doing. He just got 6 more teeth in (all at once)! So he wasn't a happy camper there for a while! He is still a little momma's boy, but he's getting better at letting other people hold him now than he was. I'm hoping that he isn't going to be too jealous when his baby brother gets here! We found this cute little crocodile shirt for him yesterday at Target that says "chomp" on it...fits him quite well (in more ways than one) since he likes to take a bite out of people! He can be quite a little stinker at times! His absolutely favorite thing though (besides me, that is! :) ) is to watch Blue's Clues! He just LOVES Blue! It is pretty cute to watch him go sit down in front of the TV and watch Blue...it also gives mommy a much needed break to get a few things done! And it's usually a sure fire way to cheer him up when he is in a grumpy mood! I think I have the DVD of Blue's Clues memorized that we have!

Doug's still in NJ. The kids and I miss him alot. It's hard having him so far away, and the kids are constantly asking me when is Daddy coming back! Makes it even more difficult when you can't give them a definite answer! But we are hoping to hear something back soon (hopefully by the end of this month). So keep your fingers crossed and keep praying for us. We want Doug back home with us!

I'm hanging in there. Just 11 weeks or less before this little guy gets here! I finally got in to see the OB over here on Thursday. I had to reschedule a few times since they won't see me without my records from NJ. And the office in NJ won't fax my records, they send them to a copying company and than they will mail them to me! UGH! So they finally mailed them on Monday, but it wasn't going to get there in time for my appointment on Thursday...so the OB office here in WA actually called them up and pretty much bullied them into atleast faxing a few things over that they really needed to know for my appointment. So it was nice to have them looking out for me here. But anyways, everything is looking good. Baby is measuring where he is supposed to be, heartbeat is nice and strong and he is very active. So now I will start going in every two weeks for a while...so we are getting close to the countdown! I just hope Doug will be back in time for it! I also ended up catching that darn cold that came around....mine ended up turning into a sinus infection so I'm on antibiotics for it and finally starting to feel better. I just want to get healthy and get everyone else healthy and than stay that way!

Anyways, that pretty much sums up what has been happening over here! Oh yeah, we did make it over to Seattle that last week in April to visit with Doug's grandparents, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and her family. It was a good trip and it was really nice to see everyone. I know the kids had a lot of fun meeting their cousins for the first time. Hopefully we'll get to see them again and not have to wait years and years!

Well I was trying to get some pictures loaded with this post and for some reason I'm having problems getting them to load. So I'll have to try and upload some pictures later of the kids to show you how they have all been growing!