Elizabeth

I did bless Elizabeth though :)

finger in car door!?

so, i had three ladies at church yesterday tell me that i had dropped. so far, nothing has come of it, well except the contractions that hurt like crazy. only time will tell what will happen
taylor today, tried to break his finger. i was putting the base for the car seat in the van, and rearranging the other seats. he was arguing with lynette in her car, and shut the door on his finger (not sure why). the indentation when halfway through his finger, so i decided to take him in. the doctor said that their bones are soft and they bounce back quite well. she said she didn't see anything on the xrays, thank heavens.
so, my parents are going to be out here the week before thanksgiving to go through the temple with candice. we have decided that we are going to bless the baby while they are here, then they don't have to figure out how to come back out. however, it looks like my dad will be doing the blessing again. one of these times we'll get everything taken care of the right way.

differences

it's funny how just by looking at the title of the post that you can immediately tell who wrote it. mine never have capital letters (just so you know, unless it's a professional document, i never capitalize), and shaun does.

stitches!!!

today started out slow and calm, but quickly went to crazy. i was working on the computer, when taylor comes in crying that elizabeth hit him with the baby swing. (okay, we sent to storage yesterday and got the baby stuff. clothes, swing, blankets, and bath tub) when i looked at him, he had a small slice right above his right eyebrow. when i looked again a little while later, it was really starting to bleed. i cleaned it, and stopped the bleeding for a bit, then cut a bandaid into strips and tried to pull it shut. after calling grandmas, i decided to take him in to get stitches. we got in to see the doctor, he pulled off my strips, and the wound had sealed itself! he cleaned it up again so he could have a closer look. in cleaning it, he opened the wound again. then it came all the way open. he had planned on just using the steri-strips to close it up, since mine had worked so well. but it came all the way open and started to really bleed again. so he decided he was going to put stitches in. he called in some help. we had to hold his head in a vice grip, and lay across his chest with his arms under us (he was not a happy camper). part way through the first stitch, i had to lay my head down cause i was feeling light-headed and dizzy. a second nurse walked in and told me it was time for me to take a break (she took over laying across his chest). in all it took 3 stitches, 2 nurses, and the doctor to get the job done, and a 20 minute wait afterwards for mom (i didn't want to end up on the table also).
when we got back home, i had to lay down and take a short nap. the whole event had left me very tired.

Transform, well, not yet.

This is the initial photo of Taylor and overlay of Optimus Prime I did.
Here is Taylor laying down like the first layout I did, which is above.
This is Taylor standing up and showing how he will move....and uh, yeah, I still have to figure out the chest. I think I will just have him wear a red shirt and hang a grill down around his belly, while the chest section willl be a chest plate. I will do the same for the back probably since I need him to have some mobility. Nadia thinks a tube of red spandex pulled over the foam will work to get him red...I hope so.
This is the stack of blue foam I have to work with...they only sell 4x8 sheets and I decided on 2 inch thick foam, so I have less gluing to do.

Work, Work, Work, and then, Oh, Sleep

I don't know that my posts will be as interesting as Nadia's, but when I look at the ones she has so far, they are so interesting to me. I guess that is because she is now in the shoes I was in at home. Now I am in her shoes...well, if you consider how crazy being on Graveyard shift is, I kinda went overboard taking her place. But I had to get out of the house away from the kids...10 months of Mr. Mom had finally endangered my sanity. I just feel bad that it all switched when she is 6-9 months pregnant. She still needs my help at home, but all I can do is sleep. Its pretty hard to wind down after work, and then the kids are up at 8 or 9 when I should be going to bed. As I wine about this, please allow for the following facts: we live on the main corner for people to reach campus, both students and faculty; when I try to sleep in the bedroom, then kids come in and jump all over because they are awake, so I usually surrender to the office...sadly, away from my wife; and does anybody else have trouble sleeping when it is bright? Nadia really tries to keep the kids quiet, but the house carries the sound well no matter what. I really appreciate her, and I really really miss her. Which brings me to the shoes again...I applied to Meleleuca yesterday, where Nadia just quit to be Mom again. Days part time will almost match my night differential from Walmart, and I can work a couple hours less a day and start marketing my artwork some. Several good things: Days (well nights 4 or 6-10), I need say no more; sleeping at the same time as my family, in the same room as my wife; Meleleuca product checks (we realized we lost them now that Nadia doesn't work there), yea; and no more heavy frieght...oh, and I can dress nicer and not destroy my clothes :) On a different note, I am in the process of building Taylor a costume for Halloween. He told me he wanted to be Optimus Prime when I asked him what he wanted to be. So, I am carving blue foam core into parts to turn my son into the famous Transformer. I'll get some photos and post them, or have Nadia do it. I'm exhausted. Hope I wrote understandably and didn't say too much. Everybody cheer Nadia on these last 3 or 4 weeks! She is so patient with me...and works hard with the kids to keep them in line, or to undo what I have allowed, and do what I never did. We are all alive and healthy for the most part, other than my daily sanity checks. I will go on and on. So, that's it. First post. Hope it made sense. Later
nadia here-you have to understand that the product check was worth $80. that's laundry and cleaning products, and vitamins, and personal products that i didn't have to pay for out of pocket. it was one of the many wonderful benefits of working for melaleuca.

so, here's a recent pic of mom and munchkins. we had a stake activity on friday, and shaun brought the camera. this is a perfect example of the character of elizabeth-sassy (daddy was just trying to get her to smile at the camera).
nadia looks like she's ready to pop, and she feels like it too.

speaking of nadia, she met with the doctor today to go over her blood sugar numbers. the doctor wasn't too concerned, which made us all feel better. he told us that if i were on insulin, the numbers they gave me would be accurate. since we're just trying diet at the moment, my high can be about 15 pts higher. he's running a blood test that checks on management history, and he said if the number comes back normal, we'll just keep doing the diet thing. if it comes back high, we'll do meds. i'll find out on wed when i meet with the midwives again. oh, and i'm only 1 week big now!!

patience trying

it's actually been an uneventful week. it's my first week being home full time. that, in and of itself has been interesting. i lost taylor in 2 stores in one day. we went to kmart to try and find elizabeth a jacket that fit, she's grown so much. while she and i were looking, taylor took off. when i went to find him he was playing with the doors at the front of the store-running out one and back in the other one. then in broulims (grocery store). the kids love to use the mini carts that they have at the store. while i was checking out, he decided that he was going to go put the mini carts away. when i got done, and went to find him, he was gone. i looked around the carts, and went partway back into the store, but couldn't find him. i had decided that i was going to go out to the car and see if he was there. as i was walking out the door, i heard him yelling for me to wait, and here he comes running up behind me. i've about decided to stop taking the kids with me to the store, but then i would never get any of my errands run.
the kids have started trying my patience to the limits. taylor takes over an hour to get himself dressed. this morning, for church, i tried for 20 min to get him to get dressed, then i forcibly dressed him. i was not happy. then, we were almost a half hour late to church. by that time, i had almost decided to keep us all home, but i knew i needed the time to myself and with the lord, so we went anyway.
i've been working on pj's for the kids for christmas. since i was working, i didn't have a whole lot of time to do much on them. i still haven't. i decided i was going to decorate some cloth bags i had for the kids for halloween. i found some halloween clip art on the internet, and blew them up to fit the bags. then i did piecing (i love wonder-under). when i get them finished, i'll get pictures taken and posted.
i had a poncho that i'd made for one month-end at work that wore yesterday. the kids decided that they wanted one too. so, when i went to get a few things at walmart, i let the kids choose some material for their ponchos. then i spent the rest of the day getting them and the bags made. but, like i said, i haven't done much on the pj's.

haircuts

so, taylor found my leatherman this morning, and proceeded to give the worm a haircut as well as his sister. thankfully, i stopped them before they could do more damage than that. there are two spots in elizabeths hair that are shorter than normal, and unless her hair hasn't been brushed, you can't tell they're there.
i went looking for maternity pants and nursing bras today. pants i finally found, but only at motherhood. and it took me 20 min to find nursing bras. the ones i tried on that are the "correct size," didn't fit. we tried a size bigger, that didn't fit either, then we went into the plus sizes. i finally found one that fit, and i hope it still fits after the baby comes.
oh, our gas prices have dropped about 20 cents in the last week. we're now paying 3.36, much better than the 4.09 it was a month ago.
and it's snowing! they predicted snow for thursday, none came. they predicted snow for friday, none came. they predicted snow today, and it finally showed up! it didn't start until late this afternoon, but i'm glad it waited. if it had snowed this morning, we would have had a blizzard on our hands. with winds at 10-15 miles an hour, it would have been a miserable day.

still on schedule

so, the midwives want me to keep track of my blood sugar for another week to see if the high fasting numbers are going to be consistent. they allow for 2 high days a week, i had 6. all my other numbers are great. it's just those fasting numbers that have us worried. they told me the next step, if diet and exercise don't work is oral meds. if the meds don't work, then it's insulin. if i go on
insulin, i become a dr patient and not a midwife patient. hope we can avoid the insulin then.
oh, the midwife doesn't think the baby is very big yet. that's exciting news!
i have 2 days of work left before i come home for good. i'm so excited. the hard part is going to be getting the kids back on a normal schedule.
still waiting to hear back from the school as to whether they'll let me back in or not. if they do, i need to go see my advisor and figure out the best way to get me graduated.

oh dear, early labor

so, conference was great! the kc temple took me by surprise, as i'm sure it did most of the saints in kc.
while we were listening to conference, taylor decided that he was going to take the sunscreen and empty the can all over the bathroom. so, instead of making bread and cleaning the front room and the kids room, i deep cleaned the bathroom. i had to clean the toilet and the counter, and i had to mop the floor. but, spray sunscreen is hard to get up.
after that was all done, i started having some hard consistent contractions. they built up for about an hour and then i started timing them. they were an average of 3 min apart, and lasting 40-50 seconds. so i called the midwives and they had me time them and drink two large glasses of water to see if it was just dehydration. after an hour, they started decreasing. after 2 they were entirely gone. but it made me tired and sore the rest of the day.
needless to say, nothing got done yesterday. i went and got groceries only because i had to, there was nothing left in the house.
the bread got made today, the rooms didn't get cleaned (again), and the laundry didn't get hung up. the oil didn't get changed in the car, and shaun didn't make it to priesthood. he didn't make it cause he stayed up all day to listen to the rest of the sessions.

early birds and on time vs early

my children were up this morning at 7a. most of you know that i am not a morning person at all. needless to say, this upset me slightly. when i got home last night, they were both asleep in my bed. not a big deal, but they had been asleep for awhile before i got home. since they went to sleep early, they were up early. but, i was able to get elizabeth to take a nap today, so that helped a little, but i was short on sleep and i don't deal well with that in any way. shaun, bless his heart, stayed up and watched the kids so that i could get a little bit more sleep.
shaun has really started hating his job. his hands hurt all the time, which is a bit concerning for an artist. he worries about it constantly. his back is always hurting as well, which is nothing new, but still not comfortable.
i went to see the midwife abt my blood sugar levels. i've been keeping track now for abt a week. she was impressed with my numbers, but a little concerned about my fasting numbers. they are usually over 100. so she wants me to keep track for another week, and if they continue that high, she's going to have me talk to the doctors. so, we'll see what happens next week. on a happier note, i am no longer measuring 3 weeks big. i'm now only measuring -1.5 weeks big, and my weight gain has been minimal. the walking has really paid off, and i'm not sure what to say changed the measurments. probably nothing at all, but still the same. i'm glad that i'm not that off from what i should be.