New Year’s Meme (Part Three)

This is a New Year’s Meme I originally did in 2009, then again at the end of 2010. The answers in black are my original answers, the ones in red are last year’s, and the ones in blue are this year’s.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Went to Houston, won a trip to Hawaii (although we've not gone yet).
In 2010 I became a stay at home mom for the first time and also launched a photography business. In 2011 I started an etsy shop (and made a few sales!). I also shot a wedding with Nick. And I was hospitalized for pregnancy complications.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I honestly can't remember last year's resolutions, but we've decided to make some financial changes this year.
This year's resolution was just to trust God more, and we've definitely had to do that. Next year I'd like to expand my photography business. We had the same resolution this year as last, and God has definitely carried us through! I also wanted to make enough with my photography business to cover our initial investment, and I did that.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes. Unfortunately she also got divorced. We also found out that Nick's sister is pregnant. Sadly, still not me, although at this point that would be something of a financial disaster.
Two girls I graduated high school with gave birth. But considering my 2009 answer, I want to point out that I got pregnant about three weeks after I posted that answer and I entered 2010 with a 13 week old baby of my own! Um, me! Me! And my friend A (ironically enough the same girl from my first answer to this question).

4. Did anyone close to you die? My grandfather
No. I'm blessed to have attended no funerals in 2010, although I did learn that a former co-worker passed away a week ago. No one close to me died, but one of my close friends lost her dad just before the end of the year.

5. What countries did you visit? Just this one.
Same answer. Still same old boring answer.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? A SLR digital camera
This coming year I'd like to have the full Photoshop Suite/Lightroom and a better lighting equipment package. And since I've been reading all these craft blogs, I've fallen in love with the idea of having a Cricut machine. We’d love to be able to move to a bigger house.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? March 3, the day my papaw passed away, and June 26, our 10th anniversary.
January 7, 2010 was the day I went in and quit my job. June 6, the day I found out I was pregnant, and December 14, the day I was admitted to the hospital.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I don't know how much of an achievement you'd consider it, but I did win that trip to Hawaii.
Actually getting a few photography clients. Also, moderate overall success as a coupon ninja, and serious coupon ninja success when it came to Christmas this year. Hanging onto my pregnancy as long as I did. Also, managing to get most of the Christmas gifts finished and out the door (although I actually still have a few to do).

9. What was your biggest failure? Probably that we could have handled our money better.
Not keeping more on top of the laundry. Not being able to control my blood pressure during my pregnancy (although I did try!).

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Not unless you count strep throat
Nope! Unless you count the time I slipped in our backyard and ended up with a very sore spine and tailbone for a few days. Well there was that little blood pressure thing…

11. What was the best thing you bought? Probably my car - it's been a great investment so far.
My camera! Probably the Sequoia.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Morgan has really gotten it together with school. She had some issues in October with not really wanting to get her work done, but she's improved 110%.
Morgan has been an ah-may-zing big sister! Nick was an AWESOME husband and father during the chaos of the last few weeks of my pregnancy!

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? A couple we've known for years and years and actually introduced. They both just gave up on their marriage and decided to get divorced rather than putting any effort into fixing things.
Barack Obama. The plethora of men behaving badly in the media this year!

14. Where did most of your money go? Bills, food.
Bills, diapers, formula. Bills, diapers.

 
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Our trip to Houston.
My camera and our trip back to Texas. The birth of our son.

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Anything Hannah Montana. If I never hear Hannah Montana again it will be too soon, but since Morgan sings the stuff in her sleep, I'm probably not that lucky.
Anything by the Avett Brothers. Nick has been playing the crap out of them! Billionaire as performed by the cast of Glee. Odd choice I know, but I think they just blew the original out of the water!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? Probably happier, Probably about the same, Happier b) thinner or fatter? About the same, maybe a little heavier, but not much, probably about the same, which I’m pretty proud of since I just had a baby! c) richer or poorer? Probably about the same, although we really should be richer, Poorer, Money-wise, about the same, but infinitely richer in our family.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Photography
Day to day photography just for myself. Cleaning – we have way too much stuff in this house!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Eating out.
Staying up way too late. Eating lots of Ramen noodles during the first few months of my pregnancy. I ate them because they were cheap, but I know they must have added to the later problems with my blood pressure.

20. How did you spend Christmas? With family, eating, opening gifts.
This year will be the same. Out of the hospital – yay! And frantically trying to finish making gifts!

21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Yes, with my husband and daughter, every day.
Yes, with my husband and both of my daughters, every day. Yes, with my husband, my daughters, and my son!

22. What was your favorite TV program? Lost
Lost, until it went off, then Sons of Anarchy and Terriers. Glee. I know – it’s a guilty pleasure.'

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nah
Nope. Still nope.

24. What was the best book you read? I couldn't even begin to narrow that down.
Same answer, although there have been some great ones! Probably The Hunger Games Trilogy.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery? That Itunes will let you redownload your purchases if your hard drive crashes!
The Avett Brothers. Adele. And Glee.

26. What did you want and get? A better car.
A Nikon D90. A son (although technically he didn’t arrive till 2012).

27. What did you want and not get? A Nikon D90
Photoshop/Lightroom. Photoshop/Lightroom.

28. What was your favorite film of this year? Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Fireproof
Sherlock Holmes. Well, the only one we got to go see was Hugo, but it was pretty good.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 31, and I hung out with Nick, went shopping, went to see the movie Fireproof, and stopped to visit with some friends.
I turned 33, and to celebrate we had a cookout with family and friends the day before, then I had a photo shoot. The day of we went to church then went and had lunch with Nick's sister and her husband. I turned 34, and I got to do a little bit of shopping and have lunch with Nick.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?More money? Definitely more money, and a baby, or at least having one on the way.
Having made enough off my photography to have paid for my camera in full. Right now I'm a little over 50% of the way there. I can’t think of one blessed thing!

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Same old jeans and cute shirts I'm afraid.
Not much has changed here. Lol, it was maternity wear for most of it!

32. What kept you sane? Nick beating my butt when I got too stressed, although I probably could have used more of that.
Concentrating on letting God take care of us and our finances. Still trusting in God, although I wouldn’t have turned down a few more spankings!

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Mmmmm....Josh Holloway, although Harrison Ford wasn't bad either.
Still Josh Holloway - Oh, Sawyer, I miss you! Is it weird that I’m still crushing on Josh Holloway even though Lost has been off the air for almost a year?

34. What political issue stirred you the most? No politics here, please.
The health care fiasco! Honestly I’ve been a little too occupied to pay much attention.

35. Who did you miss? My friend L
Still my friend L, although I got to see her a bit more this year. Same answer, although I got to see her even less this past year.

36. Who was the best new person you met? I can't really think of anyone new I met in real life that made a big impression, but I met lots of great people on here!
Same answer. Same answer.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Life is not fair - sometimes the people who make the worst decisions can still end up swimming in money.
God is always there for us - His mercies are new every morning! Sometimes you just have to take off the Super Mom costume and take care of your own health (and life will continue when you do).

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. I can't really think of a good answer for this one.
Still can't come up with one! Sigh, still nothing.

Life these days…

Hi, guys! Jack got to come home with us on the 13th, and he’s doing fabulous! At 3lb 13.27oz, he was actually the smallest baby our hospital’s NICU had ever sent home! Since then he’s gained steadily, and as of this past Friday he weighs 4lb 7oz. I don’t generally (or really ever) post pictures of my kids on here, but these are all pretty anonymous, so I had to share:

My baby shower was yesterday, and it was terrific! I got tons of diapers and clothes, and so many people that I love came to help us celebrate. My sister-in-law made us the BEST diaper cake alternative:

My mom actually stayed home and kept Jack for us. We didn’t feel comfortable having him out in a crowd yet (we’re still almost 3 weeks from his due date), but we played a slideshow of pictures on Morgan’s iPad, and everyone understood.

We’ve had so many wonderful blessings lately. The check Nick’s sister and her husband sent us for Christmas allowed us to pay off a few bills as well as buy Nick and I each something we’d wanted for a long time. Nick has long wanted a hand gun (every guy in my family loves to shoot), so that was his gift. I got to go get myself both a serger and an inexpensive embroidery machine.

But the best thing the money did for us was allow us to get through my 16 days of hospitalization plus Jack’s 9 days beyond my release. Obviously I was unable to cook during this time, which meant extra money spent on eating out every day, plus quite a bit of gas spent with Nick and I driving to the hospital every day (sometimes several times a day for me as I was pumping milk as well as nursing).

Another blessing was how we got our car seat. We had hoped to get a car seat in the baby shower, but that of course was before he decided to show up 5 1/2 weeks early! Because he’s so small, we knew we would have to have one rated 4lb and up. Daisy’s old one wouldn’t work, because not only was it not rated for preemies, but it was also past it’s expiration date.

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever priced infant car seats, but they aren’t cheap, and those rated for 4lb babies are definitely on the pricey side. When Jack was 5 days old, my cousin sent me a text telling me she had some baby stuff for me. Included was a car seat/stroller travel system that was exactly what we needed! It had belonged to her best friend, and my cousin had used an identical system for her son who’s 8 weeks older than Daisy. Nick and I had decided against getting one on Craigslist just because you can’t know the history of the seat that way (once a car seat goes through a car wreck, it’s considered compromised and no longer safe). But my cousin is a nurse, and certainly one of the most conscientious moms I know, and she could vouch for the car seat having never been in any sort of accident.

She and her mom (my aunt) also brought 2 bouncy seats, a Boppy pillow, a baby swing, and the BEST little outfit! A few months ago Nick’s sister had sent us this precious little sleeper set from Gymboree, and I had decided it would be his coming-home outfit. Then when we found out he was going to be really small, I realized that it would be way too big on him, so I resigned myself to finding something else. The outfit my aunt and cousin brought that night was from the same line, but preemie sized!

They also brought him a layette set in the hospital, and then FOUR more sets tonight! Plus, they brought me a Moby Wrap, something I registered for but didn’t get (probably because they’re so stinkin’ expensive!).

And speaking of blessings, a longtime prayer request of ours has been for my mom and my aunt to be able to sell their dad’s farm. My papaw passed away almost 4 years ago, and the economy being what it is, the property has sat on the market since then. Tomorrow they are due to finally close the sale on it.

An unexpected side effect of that for us was that my aunt bought a new refrigerator and gave us her old one. Now we’ve needed a better refrigerator for AGES. Ours was used when we got it, and we’ve had it for over 10 years. Besides being on the small side, it just had a lot of wear and tear. Several of the shelves in the doors were broken, the ice maker would sporadically decide to stop working, and the dairy drawer was broken. All of that said though, it still kept the food cold, so it was just something that kept getting put on the Someday List.

The model my aunt gave us is far from new, but it’s in great shape – a side by side with lots more room than ours, water and ice in the door, and no broken shelves! The ice maker does need to be repaired, but we’ve been told it can be fixed for about $40. And it fit in the space we have without a centimeter to spare! It’s just so neat how God gives us good things even if we sometimes don’t “need” them yet!

Anyway, I know this is a terribly long post, so I’ll wrap it up. Have a great night!

A blessed New Year

Well, I’m finally getting a moment to post after a whirlwind couple of days. Monday (the day after my last post), my doctor had someone bring me over for my ultrasound about 10:30.

My amniotic fluid looked great, but Jack was not as active as he had been up until that point, and it was harder to see his breathing movements. My doctor decided we needed to go ahead and induce, so they took me back to my room, and I called Nick, then my parents and in-laws.

I already had an IV in, so they just needed to get the epidural and pitocin drip started. The nurse wanted to start the pitocin drip first (which would have started the contractions), but I insisted on the epidural first, lol. The epidural actually went very smoothly, very little pain from the injection or the insertion of the IV line. My doctor came in once the epidural was in effect and broke my water, around 1:30 I think. Family was in and out, but Nick stayed with me the whole time unless he was walking Morgan out when they needed to check dilation, etc.

Shortly after 5:30 I was 7 cm, which was about as far as the doctor planned to take me before delivery since he was so small. There was just a bit of my cervix that still needed widening, so she had me push gently a couple of times. That did the trick and got me to 8 cm, but it made Jack’s heart rate (which had been great until then) drop down, so we knew we had to go fast. We got everyone’s attention, she had me push one whole time and he was out. There was a scary moment because the cord was wrapped around his neck twice (thus the heart rate drop), but the doctor had him untangled within a couple of seconds, and we heard beautiful, loud, pissed off crying!

The doctor was so pleased with how gorgeously pink he was, and his Apgar scores were 8 and 8. She laid him up on my chest, and as soon as I put my hand on him he quieted down. Because he was so small, they only did basic cleanup and vitals in the crib warmer, and they had him in the incubator and out of the room within a couple of minutes.

It was so hard to watch them wheel him out and have to stay put, but I knew it was best that they get him down to the NICU to check him out. My nurse came back in about 15 minutes with his stats and the news that he looked to be doing great and had not had to have any breathing intervention. He was born at 5:42 PM, 3 lb and 11 oz, and 17 1/4 inches.

Nick took the family down to see him once they gave him permission (about and hour and 1/2 after delivery), but they wouldn’t let Morgan come in because it’s flu season. She was pretty upset, but she did understand. I didn’t get to go see him in the NICU until he was almost 5 hours old, which killed me! I tried earlier, once the epidural first started wearing off, but when I got up I was too lightheaded to even make it to the bathroom without a nurse on either side to help me walk. By the time I was able to get up and move without passing out, the NICU had closed temporarily for shift change, so I had to wait for a bit longer.

When I finally got to see him, it was a bit terrifying to see how very small he was, and all the monitor wires and the IV line (all standard accessories for brand new NICU babies) made it even scarier.

But he’s done just wonderfully well! He never had to go on any sort of breathing treatment, and yesterday he actually did a great job of latching on and nursing on two separate visits, truly impressing his nurses (and his parents!). I’ve been pumping breast milk, which they’ve been giving him via a feeding tube or a syringe in addition to the nursing, and they got to take out his IV line today. He became a little jaundiced earlier, but that’s more or less expected at his age (Daisy went through it too, and she was full term). They’ve got him under the bili lights right now, although they’re taking him out for feedings of course. I’ll be going back down in about an hour and a half to try nursing again.

I can technically leave at any time, although I’m delaying check-out (with my doctor’s approval) until after Nick gets off work and can pick me up so that I have a place to hang out between feedings. Of course we had been hoping and praying that he would not have to stay longer than I would, but the news is still much better than it could have been. The NICU doctor anticipated as of yesterday that we will get to bring him home by the end of next week, which is a huge change from the 5-6 weeks they were predicting before I had him!

I think we’re going to try to bring the girls down later so that they can at least see him through the window. Morgan was in the room for all of my labor except for the approximately 7 seconds it took for him to actually be born, lol. She chickened out at the last minute and left to join her papaws in the hallway, but I didn’t mind.

Thank you again for all your prayers, and I would really appreciate their continuation that we can bring him home soon (but when he’s ready of course!). Off to pump more milk…

Happy New Year!

Hello, everyone! I hope you’re all having a great New Year! I’m back in the hospital and only have access to post to the blog via Window’s Live Writer. I can’t actually view my posts because my blog isn’t allowed by the hospital’s firewall, so hopefully I won’t get home and realize I’ve made all kinds of typos lol.

I got to go home for Christmas, which was very nice. I actually went home (or rather to my parents’ house) on Wednesday the 21st. Nick picked me up at the hospital, and we stopped by the house on the way to my parents’ house so I could get a few clothes and craft supplies I needed. Nick grabbed the mail, and I had the most wonderful surprise in it! One of my dear friends that I met through blogging had sent us a Christmas card with some money inside! This was such an unexpected gift, and it was such a blessing! Nick had ended up having to miss a day and a half of work with me being in the hospital, and on the way home I was just telling him that we needed to be in prayer because funds in the bank account were running pretty low. What a blessing this wonderful lady and her husband were to us!

My doctor’s visit that Friday went very well, good blood pressure readings, and my amniotic fluid level was back at a 12, which is the magic number of where it is supposed to be. Friday night we had my family’s Christmas celebration, and I spent most of the day trying to finish up the gifts for that night without overdoing it. By the end of the night though I was worn out, and myself, my parents, and the girls were all going a little stir crazy with each other, so Nick decided to take us home.

It was a relief to get back to my own bed, and I tried to take it easy, although that’s easier said than done with a two year old. Saturday night we had a Christmas celebration at Nick’s aunt’s house, and Nick and I spent a few hours that night getting all of Morgan’s and Daisy’s gifts wrapped and under the tree.

Before going into the hospital, I had found Nick a few token gifts, nothing big, but things I knew he would like. We rarely get each other anything of any substance for Christmas, just because our money generally goes toward buying for the girls and everyone else, but we usually come up with something small for each other. I gave him the things I had for him, and he surprised me with the start of a Willow Tree Nativity set, complete with a stable he made himself! I’ve collected Willow Tree figurines for years, mostly getting them from family as birthday gifts, and I’ve wanted a nativity forever, but the price was always too high. He found the 6 piece starter set on sale at a little Christian book store, and he told me that he plans to buy me a new piece every year! I love, love, love the idea of this, and I was thrilled with the gift!

Sunday morning Morgan woke us all up bright and early, and we all piled downstairs for the girls to open their gifts. They loved everything they got, and I was pleased and relieved to find that they appreciated the handmade and thrift store items just as much as the few new things they got.

After they opened gifts at home, we went to his dad’s house, and that’s where Christmas got really interesting! I got some makeup that I’d been needing, and some body care stuff from Victoria’s Secret, as well as a curved shower curtain rod, something Nick had been wanting for our bathroom for ages. Nick got an airbrush kit, some golf shoes, and a couple of florescent light ballasts with extra light bulbs for our garage, something that we’d needed FOREVER.

Morgan got some pajama pants and some boots and some hair styling tools and some scrapbooking stuff. Daisy got a fuzzy pink rocking horse, a very sweet handmade snowman shirt and tutu (from my SIL R), and a cute pair of shoes (that she immediately put on the rocking horse lol). Then my MIL brought out the gifts Nick’s sister K had sent.

Now I’ve mentioned before that K and her husband are both very well off and very generous, but I honestly wasn’t expecting the level of gifts they got us this year. First of all, Morgan opened up a really cute pair of boots that she’d been wanting, and then she opened up…………..an iPad 2! And not just an iPad, but an iPad with about $250 worth of accessories, including Skull Candy headphones, a smart cover for the iPad, a car charger, and $140 worth of iTunes gift cards! We were stunned, to say the least, and we just about had to peel her off the ceiling!

Then my MIL brought in these two super nice rolling duffle bags, one with Nick’s name embroidered on it, and one with Morgan’s. Morgan’s was stuffed completely full of gorgeous clothes and shoes for Daisy, and Nick’s was completely full of clothes, blankets, etc. for Jack! There was also a very cool little toiletries case inside one of them for me.

THEN, my MIL handed me a card from K and her husband. Inside was a very nice check and a note that it was to help with bills! What an amazingly generous gift altogether!

When I got the unexpected card on Wednesday with the money inside, there was a note from my friend telling me that they were so glad to be able to be in a position to be of help to us, and they hoped that we would someday soon be in a position to pass the blessing along. We knew immediately that this was our opportunity to do so, and we began making plans to bless my brother and his wife, who have been facing some financial issues lately. The next evening we took them out to dinner, and while there they spilled the secret that they had just found out that they’re expecting their first baby! After dinner we stopped at Wal-Mart, and bought them their first baby gift, and it was so much fun to be able to treat someone else! We were also able to pay my parents back a couple of hundred dollars that they loaned us when we bought the Sequoia, and I know they were relieved to get it.

Anyway, back to the pregnancy…that day (the day after Christmas), my blood pressure at the doctor’s visit was a little on the high side, and the amniotic fluid level had dropped to 10. But things were not worrisome enough as of yet to send me back to the hospital, so she sent me home again with orders to drink lots of water and really stick to the bed rest. Other than dinner with my brother and his wife, I did just that. My mom came over the next day to watch the kids for me, and I only got out of bed to move to the couch just before Nick got home.

My next doctor’s appointment was Wednesday. Despite all the continuous resting, hydrating, and low sodium diet, my blood pressure readings had continued to climb since the visit two days earlier, and I was concerned enough to pack a small bag just in case I had to be readmitted. It turns out that was a wise choice, because the visit showed that my amniotic fluid was back down to an 8, and the baby had dropped down to the 11th percentile on the growth chart. They estimated his size at 3lb 13oz. She me sent back over to check in again, and I’ve been here ever since.

She’s been doing ultrasounds every two days, and today’s indicated that we can likely only get another 2-3 days out of the pregnancy before we have to induce. She will do another ultrasound tomorrow instead of waiting till Tuesday. The good news is that Jack himself seems to be doing very well other than just being very small. Today we could see him sucking his thumb and making other little nursing motions, and his breathing movements are looking great. He’s very active, and is handling the frequent nonstress tests very well.

When she did the ultrasound on Friday she told me that she thought that if we could get to 35 1/2 weeks now we would have a take-home baby, which is a week sooner than she was  thinking before. I’ll be 34 weeks and 4 days tomorrow, so we’re within about a week of that now. I did take a tour of the NICU a few days ago, just to prepare myself, but I’m praying fervently that God gives him the strength and level of development needed to avoid us having to leave him here at all!

Last night Nick brought the girls down to ring in the new year with me. My brother and his wife and well as Nick’s sister R and her husband also came down. The siblings and spouses left about 12:30, but Nick and the girls stayed all night. That wasn’t exactly the plan, but Nick pulled out the pullout couch to lay down for just a minute, and in no time at all he was fast asleep. Morgan played on her iPad, and Daisy snuggled up next to me, and I just couldn’t bear to wake him up and send them home. I had the nurse bring us a couple of extra pillows and blankets, and Morgan shared the pullout with Nick and was asleep by about 2:00. It was really so sweet to have them here, and just the best feeling in the world to have Daisy’s little arms wrapped around me while she slept. My blood pressure was lower today, and I really believe that’s why!

Anyway, that’s what’s going on with us. I really, really, REALLY appreciate all your prayers and sweet comments, and I apologize for not having access to reply to them. Please do continue to pray for us – Matthew 18:19 tells us:

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”

So I’m asking you to please be in prayer that our baby is born healthy and strong, with no complications resulting from his prematurity, and that we are able to take him home with us when we leave!

Quick Update

This is just a very, very quick update to let everyone know what’s going on. I was finally able to come home from the hospital on Wednesday afternoon. It took some experimenting, but we seem to have finally found the right combo of blood pressure meds, and I’m getting doses at 6AM, 9AM, noon, 6PM, and midnight. Still, it’s better than having to be woken up every two hours for blood pressure readings!

The girls and I stayed at my parents’ house Wednesday night and Thursday night, but Nick brought us home last night, at least for a couple of days, which was wonderful. I love my parents, but it was honestly really stressful just spending that much time with them and the kids in the same house. Yesterday my dad took me back to the doctor, and things still look good on the ultrasound. My amniotic fluid is back to normal, the baby looks good, and the blood flow to the placenta is still improving. I have to go back again on Monday for another ultrasound.

Last night before we went home we had Christmas at my parents’ house, so I spent a few hours after my doctor’s visit working on the unfinished gifts we had to give last night. Nothing terribly strenuous, and my bp stayed within the acceptable range, but I’m glad to be done with that part of it.

I have a few more to finish today, so I’ve got to go, but I wanted to say thank you so very much for all the wonderful thoughts and prayers (and a very special gift from a dear friend on here – thank you L!).

So here’s what’s up…

Okay, so it’s been a couple of weeks since I posted. I’ve been crazy busy trying to get all the Christmas presents made (and a few of them bought). Unfortunately that all came to a standstill a few days ago, but more on that in a minute.

Nick ended up buying the truck from my dad. We used part of the insurance money to pay off some bills, which got rid of some high interest stuff and freed up more than enough to cover taking out a small car loan at a low interest rate to pay for the truck. It also had to be registered and have new tires (the others were seriously dangerous), and it will have to have a new fuel pump, but the rest of the insurance money has pretty much covered that.

Now, baby news:

At my doctor’s visit on the 1st, I had gained 10 pounds (from a starting loss of 3). She had wanted me to start gaining some, but I was a little unhappy to see 10 pounds in one month. Still my doctor was fine with it, so I decided to be too. My blood pressure was up a little at that visit, but I had forgotten to take my pill that morning, so we assumed that was why.

Wednesday I went in for my next visit and an ultrasound. My weight was up another 11 pounds (in 13 days time!) and I kind of freaked out. There was just no way that I had gained 21 pound in 6 weeks. It turns out it was all (probably including the first 10) fluid. My bp was very high, despite having taken my pill that morning.

We discovered the high bp after the ultrasound. Nick had come with me to the visit, and we anxiously watched the monitor to see how much the baby had grown and how my amniotic fluid level was. As it turns out, things were not ideal. My fluid level was pretty low, somewhat concerning, but even more so coupled with the fact that the baby was showing smaller than he should be. At the last ultrasound 4 weeks prior, he was in the 35th percentile on the growth chart. This time he had dropped to the 15th percentile.

The ultra stenographer had me go out to have my bp taken and to talk to the doctor. I was kind of worried at this point, but Nick was saying, “Look, don’t freak out, I’m sure it’s no big deal.”

Then my doctor came in. Now I LOVE my doctor. I’ve had her for all three babies, and besides being just an awesome practitioner, she’s also got an amazing bedside manner. She’s very low key and laid back, so when she came in with a grave look on her face and said, “Okay, we need to turn this around. I want you to go check in and we’ll get you on the baby monitor and hooked up to an IV”, well I really started to panic. Even then though, I assumed she was talking about a 3 or 4 hour procedure, after which I would go home.

Nope, this was to be at least an overnight visit. At this point Nick was looking a little pale himself, but we grabbed my purse and headed over to the women’s pavilion part of the hospital to check in. We called my mom on the way to let her know what was happening since she was watching Daisy, and she assured us they would get Morgan after school and keep the girls overnight.

I got checked in and put in a room on fluids and a baby monitor, and they gave me a steroid shot to help mature Jack’s lungs in case he needed to be delivered.

They did some blood work to see if it looked like I was in danger of needing an immediate c-section, but fortunately that all came back okay for the time being. After a bit my doctor came to check up on me and let me know that I would be in there till at least Friday to give the amniotic fluid time to build back up and my blood pressure to get under control. She tripled my bp meds dosage and told me she would come do an ultrasound Friday morning.

Friday morning there was absolutely no change in my fluid level after about 30 hours of being on an IV as well as drinking plenty of liquids orally. The placenta shows some damage from the combination of the low amniotic fluids plus the stress from the high blood pressure. At this point it’s not unrecoverable damage, but it’s very important that the fluid levels come up and the bp stay down so that the placenta can grow and recover. Right now it’s showing a diminished level of blood flow, which is why the baby is so small. They’re measuring him at about 3 lb 1 oz.

She told me after the ultrasound that the very, very, very earliest she was willing to even speculate that I might be able to go home will be Monday, and that’s only if everything looks great on the ultrasound she will do then and my bp is consistently low. If there’s not been a marked improvement by Monday, then she will most likely induce labor or do a c-section.

I’m 32 weeks and 2 days now, and she’d ideally like to get me to 36 and 1/2 weeks. She said that with the steroid treatment (I had the 2nd shot 24 hours after the 1st) that at that point I should be able to take him home with me. But if he comes now, we’re looking at several weeks in the NICU, possibly up to 8.

This has been such a crazy surreal experience for me, mostly I guess because it just happened with no real warning. I never had any sort of problems with Morgan’s or Daisy’s pregnancies, at least not to the point that it would have caused them to have to be born too early. Morgan came 3 weeks early on her own, and Daisy was induced 2 weeks early because I was halfway dilated and she was fully developed and considered full term.

Nick stayed overnight with me Wednesday and Thursday, then went to work the next day, but tonight I’m by myself. There was a family Christmas celebration tonight (which I was pretty sad to miss), and he attended and took the girls home with him to give my parents a break. They did stop by to see me for a few minutes, but it’s killing me to be away from them so much. Prior to Wednesday, Daisy had never been away from us overnight. She did okay that night, but Thursday night she got to missing us really bad.

I would really appreciate all your prayers on this situation, most especially that I can hang onto the pregnancy long enough for him to not have to go to the NICU.

Crazy, busy, blessed life

Gosh, I can’t believe it’s been 11 days since I posted! Ah well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks. The last time I posted was right after Nick’s car accident. Let’s see…

The next day (Wednesday) we had an appointment to have an inspector come look at our roof. There was no real reason for this other than that the company called offering free inspections and there have been some pretty bad storms in the area in the last year. We really weren’t expecting any sort of bad news, but it turns out that we had an actual hole in the roof about 6 inches in diameter, along with various other damaged spots. The roofing guy made it sound like it was the worst roof he’s ever seen, which naturally worried me a bit. I called my father-in-law (who is head of construction at a large hospital in our area), and he came over to check it out after the guy left.

The hole in the roof does indeed exist, but it’s on the edge of the eave. While it does need to be fixed, it’s not as urgent as the roofer made it sound. My FIL did a temporary repair with sheet metal, and we’ll have to see if we can get the insurance to pay for a new roof. The issue there is that we had to get a new insurance company a couple of months ago. The damage on the roof seems to be clearly from prior to that time, so we’re going to have to try to get the old company to pay for the repairs/replacement. Just another thing we’ve got to leave in God’s capable hands.

Thanksgiving was that Thursday. Ours was nice. We spent it at my parents’ house, as we do most years. Afterwards Nick and my brothers went hunting while Morgan, Daisy, my sisters-in-law, and I went to a local Christmas tree festival. This is something I’ve attended a number of times over the years, and my mother-in-law’s co-worker got us free tickets, which was very nice. It did turn out to be pretty exhausting (the perils of hauling a two year old around while 7 months pregnant), but it was a good way to get into the Christmas spirit.

Thursday was also the day I was supposed to get the final payment for the wedding Nick and I shot in October. We were actually supposed to be paid the previous week, but the bride asked if we could wait till she got paid again on Thanksgiving, and I agreed. This was the money I was counting on to pay our electric bill. Because it was Thanksgiving day I texted the bride and told her I’d be happy to wait till the next day if she needed me to. She texted me back saying that she would be out of town till Friday night and asking if she could pay me the following Thursday when they got paid yet again. Unfortunately I had extended our electric bill final notice as far as possible after the bride couldn’t pay me the first time, and the coming Monday was the last day we had to pay before disconnection. I explained this to her and she said she would try to come up with the money by Saturday.

Saturday she texted me and asked me to meet her to get the money at 2PM the next day. But the next day she called me and told me that she wasn’t going to be able to pay me that weekend after all. At that point I told her that I understood and that I would just be praying about it, and I asked her to please call me if she was able to come up with the money. A few hours later she called and said she had $200 (of the $300 due) and asked me to meet her. While it wasn’t quite enough to pay the electric bill, it was certainly better than nothing, so I headed out to meet her. When I got there she had the whole $300. I don’t know how or where they came up with it, but it was certainly a relief to be able to put it in the bank and pay the electric bill the next day!

The next hurdle on the horizon was the house payment. The very last day it could be paid without being late enough to go on our credit report was this past Wednesday. You know, there have been many times in the last couple of years especially that we’ve been in a relatively desperate situation financially, and God has come through for us. Every. Single. Time.

But this time, although I knew He would provide, I was completely stymied as to how He was going to do it. There just seemed to be nothing at all on the horizon, especially considering Nick’s car wreck, the whole roof issue, and the fact that his next paycheck looked to be shaping up to be pretty short due to the holiday (and resulting lack of customers at his job).

On Tuesday the car insurance guy came out to do the adjustment on Nick’s car. He not only totaled it out (the best possible outcome for us), but he gave us about $2000 more for it than we expected. This allowed us to pay the house payment as well as supplement Nick’s paycheck as we needed to for the rest of the bills. We still have some money left to put down on another vehicle for Nick. My dad recently bought a used truck at auction for a good price, and he’s told us that he’s willing to sell it to Nick for what he has in it. We’re still praying about whether or not this is the direction God wants us to go, but He has been so amazingly good to us, and I know He will lead us the right way!

On Wednesday my friend Elizabeth had her baby – a beautiful, perfect 5 lb 12 oz girl! She’s tiny, but oh so beautiful with tons of gorgeous dark hair. Elizabeth was just 8 weeks ahead of me, and I can’t believe my own pregnancy is getting so far along!

Thursday I went in for my 30 week appointment, and I’ll go back on the 14th for another ultrasound. Friday I went in to see Elizabeth and the baby and took her hospital pictures for her. It was so awesome to get to snuggle that precious baby girl, and it just made me ache to have little Jack in my arms!

Tonight was Nick’s company Christmas party. This was the first year he didn’t win any prizes, but it was so much fun to get to dress up and have a date night with my hubby! We also got to go see a movie this past Sunday. We hadn’t been to see a movie in a theater since May of last year, so when my mom offered to watch the kids, we jumped on the chance. We still had the movie gift card Nick got for his birthday in 2010, so it was completely free except for $4.00 toward the drink we shared (seriously – $5.75 for a drink! You’d better bet we got a refill!). We saw Hugo in 3D, and it was a really neat movie.

Anyway, this has been a crazy long post, so I’ll save the ABC’s of Gratitude and the pregnancy update for the next one.

Blessed nonetheless…

It’s been a stressful few days. Sunday the baby was very, very inactive. As in I didn’t feel him moving for about 22 hours. Now this happened with Morgan too, and they had me go in for monitoring. I’m nearly 29 weeks along, and I’m at the point where I should be able to count kicks a few times a day and get 10 movements within an hour. So I called my doctor, and sure enough she sent me down to the women’s pavilion at the hospital for monitoring. As it turned out, he was just fine, and once they hooked up the monitors he woke right up, so they sent me home pretty soon. Yesterday and today he’s been quite active, and in fact is rolling around in there right now.

Yesterday I realized that the function keys on my laptop were no longer working. This wasn’t a huge big deal since there’s a work around for almost all of them, but the major problem was that I had no way to disable my touchpad. This was a real issue because my cursor had developed some crazy level of sensitivity, jumping around constantly during typing and making it a huge pain in the butt to write an email or blog. It kept jumping back to earlier on the page and causing me to type in the middle of a word or even highlighting sections and causing me to type over and delete them.

I wanted to be able to disable to touchpad while my mouse was plugged in, or at least decrease the sensitivity so that it wouldn’t read every little accidental brush as a click, but the computer repair guy had not reinstalled the controls for my touchpad when he reinstalled Windows 7. I gave him a call and he asked me to bring it back down. I took in back in this morning on my way to get Daisy’s hair cut, and they called me before the end of the day to say that it was done. I picked it up and he had reinstalled the touchpad controls and set it to disable the touchpad only when the mouse is plugged in, which is what I wanted.

He also opened up the keyboard to make sure all the cords inside were properly seated and discovered that someone (cough, Daisy) had spilled something on the keyboard. Not sure what it was, but fortunately it had missed all the critical parts and dried quite harmlessly. There was again no charge for this trip, and I really think I’m finally done with repairs.

We also had them look at Nick’s laptop the other day, and they were able to get it operational again, but we will have to wait to pick it for a few weeks because we don’t have the $149 to cover the repair fee.

Tonight Nick called home about 6:00 to tell me that he’d been in a car accident. He’s okay, thank God, but it wasn’t a pretty picture. No one at all was hurt, but his foot apparently slipped off the clutch and he slammed pretty hard into the car in front of him, causing a chain reaction of rear-end collisions including 5 cars counting his.

My parents were due to pick Morgan up for church soon when he called, so I called and asked them to come on down so I could go pick him up. Daisy was asleep, and we left Morgan in charge of her for the 10 minutes it took my parents to get there while I headed out to get him. It was a really awful rainy night, and I’m just so thankful it wasn’t worse. He was pretty shaken up, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. When I got there the wrecker service had already arrived for him, and the wrecker driver was one of his good friends from high school, which gave him a bit of a distraction.

We do have full coverage insurance, and the cop didn’t ticket him for anything, probably due to the awful road conditions. I know the accident will be written up as his fault, but his tags were also expired, and the cop didn’t seem to notice. It’s not something we were neglecting – in fact we had planned to get them renewed last week, but we ended up having to pay for my computer repairs first so that I could finish the wedding photos.

Car accidents always feel like the end of the world to me for some reason, even when they aren’t serious, but I know that God is still in control, and He certainly had His hand on Nick’s safety. And we’re fortunate to have two vehicles, so it won’t be a problem for Nick to get to work and back until his is repaired (if it can be repaired). Actually, it might even be better if they would just total it out. We own it outright, so that way we wouldn’t have to pay out the $500 deductible, but could instead just take the payment for it (less the deductible) and put it toward getting him something else. In fact, he’d been seriously considering selling it to get a pickup truck for a while. Since the Xterra was too small to fit all three kids in, we’ll be taking the Sequoia everywhere as a family anyway once the baby’s here, so it makes going with a much needed pickup for him to drive daily a feasible prospect.

I guess this post is just to remind me that even in the middle of all these little and big crises, God is still right here taking care of us. In fact, since I’ve been such an awful slacker about it, it would be a good time to list a few more things I’m thankful for:

O, P, & Q:

• Orgasms – enough said on that one!
• Orange Italian Ice – yes, I know I listed this one under “I” too, but I really love it!
• Old friends – like the one who drove the wrecker tonight, and the one we had a visit from last week. That one was one of Nick’s best men when we got married (he had 2), and we hadn’t seen him in ages, so it was great to get to catch up. I also got to visit with one of my old friends from high school about a week and a half ago, and it was such a fun day of girl talk and crafting!
• Ordinary days – where nothing much happens, but nothing much goes wrong either
• Pasta – I know, I know carbs, carbs, carbs. But I do love it, and it generally makes dinner a snap.
• Pinterest – Holy Inspiration, Batman! I’m ridiculously obsessed.
• Precious two-year olds – Daisy has reached the stage where we have a hard time even wrapping our heads around how cute she is. Example: watching her do the sign language motions along with the host on her night time toddler program. They also run a montage of all the characters on the network sleeping every night, and she tells every single one good night as they play across the screen. I mentioned before that when she wants something, she says “Hin me (hand me)_____.” The other day she said “Hin me fiss bum.” I didn’t understand her, so she rolled her eyes and said with great patience “Hin me five.” Turns out she wanted a fist bump and then a high five, lol.

         

• Photography – I’m so blessed to have a good camera and to even be able to make some money with it sometimes!
• Quiet – sweet, sweet silence when I can get it lol.
• Quilts – I love blankets of all kinds, but I especially appreciate a nice, heavyweight quilt.
• Qi – Wikipedia tells me this means life force or life energy, but I just like it because it’s almost always a high score on Words with Friends, the game Nick and I play with each other via phone all day every day!

Other blessings:

• Morgan brought home an A/B Honor roll report card today, as well as a certificate showing she was promoted to the next reading group level.
• Morgan also cleaned out the freezer for me the other day (something I had been dreading), and she helped me clean out the fridge.
• A guy Nick works with gave us a huge trailer full of free firewood a few days ago.
• My mom found a good deal on diapers and bought us a box out of the blue yesterday.
• Last week my mom also bought me this awesome double jogging stroller for an amazing price. I found it at the Goodwill. It was priced at $50, a great deal since it was in perfect shape and retails for about $225, but to make it even better it was half-off day, so we got it for $25! I actually just called my mom to see if she knew anyone who needed it since it was such a fabulous deal and I knew we didn’t have the extra money for it, and she had me just get it for us and gave me the money for it.

• Nick has had a few side jobs lately that have helped with bills, and I should get the rest of the wedding photography money on Thursday. That will pay the electric bill, although we’re still waiting on God to send the house payment.
• My brother who has been in L.A. on assignment for a few months just bought a house about 3 minutes from us. He’s still in California till January or so, but my parents are closing on it by proxy tomorrow. As part of the deal, the current owners agreed to put on a new roof with my brother only responsible for half of their insurance copay.

And a baby update:

Week 29 of Pregnancy

Your baby's packing on the pounds, which look so cute on her. If only you could say the same for your varicose veins….

Your Baby in Week 29 of Pregnancy

How big is your baby this week? She weighs nearly three pounds now and measures about 17 inches. Though she's getting pretty close to her birth length, she still has to chub out a bit. In fact, over the next 11 weeks, she'll more than double — or even come close to tripling — her weight. And as she grows and the room in your womb gets tighter, you'll be less likely to feel those big kicks and more likely to get poked by an elbow or jabbed by a knee.

Learn more about your baby in week 29 and baby fat.

Week 29 Pregnancy Tip: Counting Baby's Kicks

Have you counted your baby's kicks today? Once you've passed week 28, you should be counting them every day. To make sure that you do — and to make sure that everything's A-OK in your belly — make a habit of counting your baby's kicks twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. Best to do your counting lying down (since babies are more likely to kick up when Mom's lying down — a pattern they tend to continue after they're born). If you can't lie down, sit. Count any and all movements (even swishes and rolls) until you hit ten. If you haven't reached ten within an hour (your little Rockette may just be on her break right now), have a light snack and try again — that blood-sugar rush is likely to get baby on the move again. Just remember that fewer than ten movements within two hours warrants a call to your practitioner. Chances are everything's fine, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Source

New toys!

Hi, guys. I know I just did a toy review, but I wanted to tell you about some that I picked out for myself. A few weeks ago Eden Fantasys offered me the option to feature a banner and/or a text link on the blog in return for store credit.

Now I don’t participate in affiliate programs for a couple of reasons, the main one being that I always find myself mildly suspicious of recommendations from people who are making money off of me following their link and purchasing. That’s not to say that I dislike you if you use affiliate programs or that I think you’re dishonest, just that I think affiliate programs in general tend to cast a shadow of doubt on honest reviewers. Obviously I don’t mind reviewing a product, but I don’t feel comfortable asking people to buy when I know that it will profit me (I know, I’m a lousy salesperson!). If you’d like for me to review a product, by all means, get in touch, but please understand that I’m only willing to offer my honest opinion.

All of that said, I’ve always been happy to feature a banner for a company that I have a reviewer/customer relationship with if I feel that the company is indeed worth it. In fact, I’ve had a non-compensated Eden Fantasys banner up on my sidebar for months now. That being the case, I was tickled to have them offer compensation for something I’ve been doing anyway, and they were very easy to work with in finding something to fit in with the design and width of my sidebar.

My gift cards arrived quickly via email, and I got to pick out some very cool toys that were definitely not within our regular budget, and I thought it would be neat to recommend something to you that I picked out all by myself.

First of all, I did a quick Google search for coupons (something I do no matter what I’m ordering online) and found a 20% off coupon on this site. This gave me some extra money to play with, and Eden Fantasys orders are always free shipping over $59. I made a list and came up with 4 toys I wanted.

First of all, to get the small one out of the way, I’ve long been interested in having a small, unintimidating butt plug. This one seemed to fit the bill, and I’ve been really pleased with it. And with my 20% off coupon, it was only $10.39.

The second toy I picked out was a Hitachi Magic Wand. Sometimes it seemed like I was the last person on earth without one, and I just couldn’t resist. Plus they were on sale (and still are as of right now) for $41.24. I have to say, I’m very impressed with it, although maybe not in the way everyone else is. I find that it’s a bit too powerful (even on low) and broad to be effective at bringing me to orgasm, but in it’s intended use as a massager it’s amazing! Nick went over my whole body with it, and it was the most relaxing massage I’ve ever had! I will say that I used it to add some general vibrations down there during sex, and Nick was pretty much blown away, so it will definitely come into play for that again. All in all, I’m very glad I bought it.

The third toy I got was a JimmyJane Form 2. Let me first of all say that this is NOT an inexpensive toy. It retails on Eden Fantasys for $144.99, and even with my coupon it was $115.99. However, I had heard tons of good things about JimmyJane Form Vibrators, and I really wanted to give it a try. I have to say that I’m really impressed with it, and if you can afford it, it’s worth getting. First of all, it’s rechargeable, always a HUGE plus in my book. And a single charge gets you 7 hours of use! It’s also waterproof, although I’ve yet to try this feature out. I found it very easy to operate, and there are multiple speeds and pulse modes. The texture is very comfortable, and the two “ears” are tremendously well suited to clitoral stimulation. The only downside I’ve found to it so far is that if it’s tucked in place and I squeeze my legs together too hard it’s possible to accidentally turn it up, down, or off.

The fourth toy I got was a Lelo Lily. Now these are normally $117, but right now they’re on sale for $87.75, which is even cheaper than I got it for ($93.60). This is the toy I recommend the most. In fact, I already have one, and I love it so much that I took the opportunity to make sure that I have a back-up if anything ever happens to the first one. I got the first one as a review product from another company almost 19 months ago, and it has been used literally 5-7 times a week ever since then. It shows absolutely no wear and tear, and I usually only have to charge it once maybe every 5-6 weeks. Like the Form 2, it gives you 7 hours of use on a single two hour charge, which means that if it happens to reach the end of its charge in the middle of things, I can actually plug it up for 5 minutes and get enough of a charge to finish things up.

The shape is absolutely perfect for tucking in against my clit, and the velvety texture is very comfortable. Also like the Form 2, it has multiple speed and pulse modes, although the Lily is not waterproof. I have a tendency to have a hard time getting to sleep at night, and a quick orgasm gets me settled almost every time, which is why it gets used so much. It’s very, very quiet, and it even features a locking feature to keep it from getting turned on accidentally during travel. It comes with a little satin travel pouch, but when we travel anywhere overnight I have a zipper pouch that I made myself that carries the Lily, my favorite glass dildo, and my favorite pair of tweezers (I inherited my dad’s eyebrows, and I’m not letting those suckers get out of control!).

Anyway, I obviously recommend the Lelo Lily. Yes, it’s a bit pricey, but in my opinion it’s totally worth it, and over a year and a half’s worth of significant use has proven that it’s a quality product. It was so much fun to get to pick out some toys I couldn’t normally afford, and after all my gift cards and the coupon, I only spent $1.22 out of pocket! Merry Christmas to me!

Well, I’m off to bed! And the, er, Lily…

Eden Fantasys Review: Tenga Egg

It’s review time again! Actually it was review time a few days ago, but my computer woes turned out to be more extensive than I thought!

I got the laptop back last Monday afternoon, and it ran pretty well for all of one whole day. Then on Wednesday morning I got a Windows message telling me that there was a hard disc error and that I should back up my files ASAP. I called the computer repair place back, and they told me to bring it back down. Further inspection showed that my hard drive was indeed dying. Fortunately they still had all my files backed up on their server (I hadn’t lost them yet, but this way they didn’t have to go through the whole time-consuming back up again). They told me that there would be no labor charge since they had just given the computer back to me, but I would need to pay for the new hard drive.

To make  long story short(ish), I had them put in a 500 GB hard drive (it was only $20 more than a 250 GB replacement would have been). I got it back the next day, and it’s been running BEAUTIFULLY!

Anyway, as the title says, it’s review time again! I’ve felt kind of bad that all the toys I’ve reviewed have been pretty much just for me, so this time I asked to see something from their line of masturbation sleeves. What they chose for me/us was a fun little toy called the Tenga Egg.

This neat little product is a very discreet, very portable, one-time-use silicone masturbation sleeve. There are a number of different internal textures, but the one they sent us was the Twister.

When we unwrapped the egg, the shell looked just like, well, an egg. It was pure white, had an eggshell texture, and opened just like your typical Easter egg hunt toy. Inside though, it was definitely the prize egg! The shell contained a hollow silicone egg. The hole in the bottom of the egg contained a small white tube with a single-serve foil pack of lube inside. The inside of the sleeve was ridged in the pattern indicated on the egg wrapper.

It was all pretty self explanatory, but there were instructions included if you need them. You just fill the sleeve with the included lube, slip the egg over the penis and go to town with it. It was a lot of fun to use together, Nick was very impressed with the feel of the egg, and it definitely got the job done. It also had a tremendous amount of stretch to it, so even though the resting length of the sleeve is about 2”, you won’t have to worry about running out of room when it’s in use.

The price on the Tenga Eggs is $9.99, so it won’t break the bank, but keep in mind that this is a one-time-only use toy. That said, I wouldn’t recommend buying this just as an addition to your toy box since it’s not intended for reuse. BUT, I do think it would be an excellent purchase for certain occasions. For instance, it would make a lovely stocking stuffer for the man in your life. I also think it would be fabulous to slip into his suitcase with a seductive note if he’s going away on business for a few days. And it would certainly be a wonderful addition to an anniversary date - after all, you can pay almost as much for a card, and they’re certainly less fun!

The Tenga Eggs are 100% silicone (except for the shell, obviously), and the specs straight from the site are as follows: 

Safety features:

Food-grade material / Hypo-allergenic / Latex free / Non-porous / Phthalates free

• Shape / Design / Size / Fit

  Color:

  Clear

  Length:

  2"

  Fits up to:

  3"

  Circumference:

  5 1/2"

  Weight:

  1.7 oz

After use, we did wash the egg out, let it dry, and put it away to try it again sometime, but I did notice some thinning of the silicone at the top of the sleeve, so I don’t anticipate it lasting very long. Still, for a single serving toy, it was a ton of fun, and we’re both glad we got to try it! As always, please remember to check out Eden Fantasys for all your sex toys needs!

Eden Fantasys provided me with this product to review at no charge, but I was in no was compensated for this review, and all opinions are my own.

Laptop, sweet laptop

So, It’s been a while since I posted. My laptop started running REALLY slow about a month ago. I tried all kinds of things, including of course multiple virus scans, but nothing helped. Finally, about a week and a half ago, I was having a terrible time wading through the editing on the pictures from the wedding Nick and I shot. Nick told me to take the computer in to be serviced, and they told me I would have it back within a couple of days. Unfortunately it took them a full week, but they did get it all fixed. There were several viruses on board, so we just had them back up all my files and reinstall Windows 7 completely. Apparently I had over 10 times the amount of files to as the “average” user, heh, which is what took so long. Sadly I missed this years Love Our Lurkers Day in the meantime.

Anyway, I’m very glad to have it back, and when I get a chance I’ve got some very cool new toys I want to tell you about.

Nick and I had a conversation about DD the other day. It was very low key, which was good, and he admitted that he’s just not comfortable with spanking while I’m pregnant, but that he’s still on board with the rest of it. That was very welcome news to me since it’s been a few months since there was any spanking.

Baby Jack is doing well. I had an ultrasound a week ago, and he’s about two pounds now. I gained the 3 pounds she wanted me to plus (gulp) 7 more. BUT, I made the mistake of going to my appointment directly after eating a pretty heavy lunch at a Mexican restaurant with Nick, so I honestly think about 3 pounds of it was due to enchiladas. Either way, a net gain of 7 pounds is not terrible for being almost 7 months pregnant, and my doctor is actually quite happy with my progress. Still, it’s hard for me to watch the number on the scale go up, but I just have to remember that it’s good for the baby. I go back for my next appointment on December 1.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on with me. Hope you guys are doing well!

November already!

Gosh, I can’t believe it’s already November! This whole year has honestly just flown by! So, a few gratitude items:

ABCs of Gratitude:

L,M, & N since I missed a few weeks…

Love – it almost seems to trite and obvious, but how could I leave it out?

Lemons – I love just about anything lemon flavored (Nick made me a lemon cake with cream cheese icing for my birthday), and I love how fresh and clean they make things smell!

Lips – Nick has the most amazing lips, and I love everything they do!

Laptops – Right now we’re having some problems with both of ours. Mine has something wrong with it that no virus scan seems to be able to find, and Nick’s is currently in pieces waiting on us to be able to order a part it needs. But even if I can only use mine in safe mode right now, I’m so glad I have it!

Making things – this year is going to be by and far a handmade Christmas, but I’m pretty confident that the projects I have in the works are suitable and gift-worthy, and I’m grateful to have the skill to make them!

Marriage – I’m so very blessed in the marriage God has given me. Like any couple, we have our disagreements, but I truly believe that ours is a great love story.

Nick – Of course this is the guy that makes that last one so great.

Naps – I don’t get to take them all that often just because life is so busy these days, but I sure do enjoy the luxury when I get the opportunity! In fact, I came home today from a super stressful trip to Wal-Mart and Target with both kids, just ready to pull my hair out, and Nick sent me upstairs to take one and just decompress. It was wonderful!

Nikon – I love my camera, and I’m so glad I went with the one I chose!

 

Recent blessings- The wedding Nick and I shot the day after my last post went very well. It was Nick’s first time shooting, and he was really nervous, but he did great, and we had a lot of fun working together! Also, when Nick’s sister came to pick her camera back up, she refused to take the $50 payment for letting us use it!

I passed my glucose test! I was VERY excited about this. Diabetes runs heavily in my family, and every time you have gestational diabetes it increases your likelihood of developing the disease later on down the road. Since I had it with Daisy despite keeping my weight gain strictly under control, I was pretty resigned to finding out I had it with this baby too. And beyond dreading all the extra precautions and sugar testing and special diet, I was really dreading having to shell out an extra $40 a month or so for blood sugar test strips, so it was a big relief to find out I passed!

Nick was on vacation last week, and I loved having him home! We did the wedding on Monday, then just kind of had a relaxing week together. He got to go spend one day playing golf with one of his friends and one of my brothers, and on Thursday he was able to go haul off some more scrap metal, which gave us some much needed extra money to make a couple of payments (including the house payment!)

The kids had a good time last night trick or treating. Morgan had just kind of a random costume going on with heavy zombie looking eyes and fake blood all over her face. Daisy had the CUTEST lady bug costume, but she HATED it! I ended up just sticking her in her warm fuzzy footsie pajamas and wheeling her around the neighborhood in her stroller with Morgan. She was amazed at the whole thing though - she couldn't believe all the candy she got (and neither could I!).

I’ve gotten a few Christmas gifts knocked out already. I’m making some zipper pouches for some of the women in the family. I have one of those done, as well as a couple of bird feeders made from thrifted tea cups and saucers and copper pipe. They’re really pretty! I’m also giving out 7 sets of these nativity sets, and I’ve got all of them done, along with a set for us.

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I’ve also made a set of coasters for one of my brothers, and I’ve got the painting done on 4 of the 6 recipe card holders I’m making. I also made a heat bag/neck warmer for my parents. And I got a free bottle of nail polish with a coupon at Target today – stocking stuffer! But I still have a ton to do, so I’ve got to get going on it! Less than 8 weeks till Christmas!

 

Baby Update:

Week 26 of Pregnancy: Baby's Eyes Open

Your baby's eyes — which have been closed for the past few months — are now beginning to open. Your baby's brain-wave activity is also kicking in at this stage in fetal development, which means your little one can not only hear noises but can now also respond to them.

Look who's looking. Your baby's eyes — which have been closed for the past few months (so that the retina, the part of the eye that allows images to come into focus, could develop) — are beginning to open at 26 weeks pregnant. What this means is that your baby is able to see what's going on now (unfortunately the view in your uterus isn't all that exciting). But do try this at home for kicks (baby's that is): Shine a flashlight at your stomach. Your baby might kick in response (as in: "Get that light out of my eyes!").
The iris, the colored part of the eye, still doesn't have much pigmentation (that'll fill in over the next month or two), so it's too early to start guessing your baby's eye color. Even the color your baby will be born with might not be the permanent shade; so you may be kept guessing until your baby is close to six months old.
Look what else is going on this week: Your baby's brain-wave activity is kicking in at this stage in fetal development, which means your little one can not only hear noises but can now also respond to them. Not in so many words, of course, but with an increase in pulse rate or activity.

And talking about activity, at your baby's current height and weight (about nine inches tall and two pounds), and at the rate he or she is growing, your baby will soon be feeling a little cramped in your uterus. Not to worry, there's still plenty of room for your baby to grow. It just means your gymnast will have less room for those somersaults, cartwheels, and other Olympic feats.

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Randomness

Ok, clearly I’m terrible about keeping up with the Thursday posts. But anyway…

So here’s what’s been going on in my life lately. First up, the 3 hour glucose test I took last Tuesday: um, I don’t know. My doctor’s office still hasn’t called me with the results. I think that’s kind of weird, because the results should have been in Wednesday at the latest. I’m sure I’ll hear from them tomorrow, and if not I’ll call them Tuesday. To be honest, I haven’t called them already because I threw a baby shower for my friend Elizabeth yesterday, and I just didn’t want to have to know about it before then if I failed.

Despite some problems getting funding, I think the shower was a success! Originally I had hoped to get donations from 7-10 people of $15-$20 each, hopefully totaling around $150. That’s about what my mom and I figured it would take to cover food and decorations, and If we had anything left over we would just give it to Elizabeth and her husband as a gift. Unfortunately we were only able to collect $70 total from 4 people, and it looked like we weren’t going to be able to do very much for her. I knew that I just didn’t have any money to put with it, and I was really praying that God would help us pull it off within the budget. We found some really good deals on some of the food, and E’s SIL came through and picked up some favor boxes and a few extra tablecloths. We ended up serving chicken salad sandwiches on french bread, a veggie and dip tray, cowboy sushi, cupcakes, cream puffs, snack mix wrapped in pink napkin diapers, and the BEST coffee punch (I’m having it at my shower in a few months). For the favors we had little clear plastic boxes topped with pink bows and filled with pink candy pearls. I also got her a balloon bouquet, and for the centerpiece on the table my mom brought her antique silver tiered plate stand to display the cupcakes. We managed to get everything for right at the $70! I didn’t have a whole lot for her in the way of a baby gift, but the night before I was cleaning out Daisy’s closet (I’m working on turning her room into a boy’s room!) and I found 5 or 6 little dresses and sweaters with the tags still on them! They were things that my mom or I had bought on sale but that Daisy had  outgrown by the time the appropriate weather rolled around, so they rounded out the gift bag nicely! I’m so glad I was able to throw the shower for her, and I’m especially grateful for all the help I got from my mom and E’s SIL!

Tomorrow Nick and I are shooting a wedding together. I'm both dreading and looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to the fact that the money from it will finally mark having made enough to pay off the initial investment for the camera (and then some). We also really need the money this week (and will still need about $300 besides). But weddings are just very, very stressful, not to mention a ton of work. I’d much rather do portrait work any day, but I’m very, very grateful for the income!

We have had one hiccup already that could have been a real problem, but thankfully turned out okay. B, the wife of one of Nick’s best friends has the exact same camera as I do. Months ago when I booked the wedding (and they wanted two shooters), Nick asked her if she would be willing to rent us her camera for a few hours for $50. Nick’s sister also has a DSLR, but hers is a Canon, not a Nikon, and it’s an older model. We thought it would be best to use B’s camera if we could, just because that way I would be completely familiar with it, and all the images would be of the same quality. Anyway, she agreed, and in fact Nick brought it up with her several times, as recently as two days ago, at which time she very specifically assured him that she was still on board with it.

Tonight he texted her husband several times to tell him we needed to come get the camera, but it was taking forever to hear back from him. Finally (18 hours before the ceremony), he texted back saying that she’d changed her mind and didn’t want to rent it to us after all because the fee for the rental wouldn’t buy her a new one if we broke it.

First of all, of  course it wouldn’t – if we were spending that much we would have just gone and bought a second one for ourselves. The whole reason you rent a camera is because  you can’t/don’t want to invest the money to own it. Plus, she agreed to the $50! Second of all, if anything were to happen to it we would replace it, even if we had to take out a loan to buy her a new one or (gulp) give her mine (which is actually a few months newer). And lastly, it was a really crappy thing to do to someone at the 11th hour. If she had said this 2 weeks ago, or a week ago, or even 3 days ago, I would have still been irritated that she was backing out after agreeing to it at first, but I wouldn’t have been really mad about it. But to do it on a Sunday night, less than 24 hours before the wedding was just incredibly rude and inconsiderate. There is not a single place in our city where you can rent a DSLR (I checked before we even thought of asking her), and this obviously left us with no time to rent one via an online provider.

Fortunately Nick’s sister graciously agreed to rent hers to us for the same price, so I made a 10:30 PM trip to her house to pick it up and shower her with gratitude. If you happen to think of it, Nick and I would really appreciate your prayers that things go well tomorrow. Also, Daisy and I were both feeling really lousy this morning at church, and I was really afraid we were coming down with something. But we stayed home from church and rested this evening, and it seems to have helped us both.

I’ll get caught back up with the ABC’s of Gratitude, but I need to head to bed, so I’ll leave you with my baby update for now:

 

Week 25 of Pregnancy: Baby's Lung Development

At nine inches and more than a pound and a half in weight, your baby is taller than two juice boxes stacked one on top of the other, and almost as heavy as four of those little boxes (an analogy you'll find particularly apropos in a few years, when those juice boxes start taking over your refrigerator, your pantry, your car.…).
Don't look now (as if you could), but your baby's skin is turning pinker. No, not because he or she's getting overheated (in fact, the amniotic fluid is perfectly climate controlled, keeping your baby at an always comfortable temperature), but because small blood vessels, called capillaries, are forming under the skin and filling with blood. Later this week, blood vessels will also develop in your baby's lungs, bringing them one step closer to full maturity — and one step closer to taking that first breath of fresh air. But at 25 weeks pregnant, those lungs are still very much works in progress. Though they are already beginning to develop surfactant, a substance that will help the lungs expand after the baby is born, the lungs are still too undeveloped to sufficiently send oxygen to the bloodstream and release carbon dioxide when he or she exhales.

The lungs aren't the only system that's gearing up for air intake. Your baby's nostrils, which have been plugged up until now, are starting to open this week. This actually allows your little one to begin taking practice breaths. (Of course since there's no air in there, your baby is really only "breathing" amniotic fluid, but it's the practice that counts, right?)

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Birthday Musings

Warning: some admitted whining ahead, followed by my normal sunny outlook.

Today was my birthday. Honestly, it didn’t start off very well. I stumbled out of bed this morning and got Morgan off to school, then went back to sleep for a couple of hours. I was woken by my doctor’s office calling to tell me I failed the glucose tolerance test I took on Thursday, and I’ll need to come in this week to take the three hour test.

If you’ve ever had this, you know how much it sucks. You start off by fasting for 8 hours or so. Then you go in first thing in the morning and have your blood drawn. Then they make you drink this awful syrupy glucose drink that tastes like flat orange soda that’s been sitting out for a few days.  And they want you to drink it really fast. Then you wait around for an hour. Then they draw your blood again. Then you wait around for another hour. Then they draw your blood again. Then you wait around for another hour. Then they draw your blood again. Of course during all of this you feel really crappy, because you’ve been fasting, then you have to down the gross drink, and you’re dealing with all the fun of hanging out in an uncomfortable waiting room in between getting repeatedly stabbed with a needle. So basically you’re tired, bored, hungry, sore, and usually a little nauseated.

So anyway, I called my mom to see if she could watch Daisy one day this week (because that adventure is not happening with a two year old in tow). She and my dad were on their way somewhere and just seemed really distracted and irritated to be bothered with the call, but she said, sure, she could watch her, but only tomorrow. So, I get to end my birthday by fasting. And neither one of them remembered that it was my birthday. I know that’s a really immature thing to complain about, but it kind of hurt my feelings anyway.

Also (and this is way petty, but I’m absolutely venting here, so just overlook me), Nick’s sister (in Texas) told him a few days ago that she was putting my birthday gift in the mail that day. Since all my gifts were opened at the family fall birthday get together a couple of weeks ago, I was really excited about having something to open on my birthday, something that rarely happens. Then she texted me this morning to tell me that she’s absolutely going to go to the post office tomorrow to mail it out. Honestly not a big deal (it’s not like she had to give me anything at all, and I gave her hers over a month late, when we went to visit them), but it was just something that added to the disappointing way the day started. But that just means I get to open a gift in a few days, extending the celebration a bit!

Things really did look up after that. I went and had lunch with Nick (with Daisy along for the ride of course), and we had Jet’s Pizza, the absolute, hands down best pizza I’ve ever had anywhere. And after that I got to go do some light shopping, and I bought myself a very nice (and deeply discounted) purse, as well as knocked out a couple of Christmas gifts for Morgan and Daisy (using a coupon of course!).

Nick very sweetly made me a delicious birthday cake last night, and I found out that 34 candles makes for an impressive blaze, but I got them all blown out in one breath. He also made dinner last night and tonight, and a couple of days ago he let me do some thrift store shopping. He worked incredibly hard this past weekend hauling off scrap metal and doing some mechanical work for a few different people. God really provided for us, allowing us to pay some bills we otherwise would not have had the money for. And my mom did call later to wish me a happy birthday and apologize for forgetting to earlier.

Since I missed Thankful Thursday, here’s my baby update for the week. Also, we finally settled on a name. I won’t post it here for privacy reasons (my girls go by alternate names here too), but I’ve decided to call him Jack on the blog. My last visit was this past Thursday, and everything is going well, although my doctor would like to see me gain a little weight. I’m about three pounds down from where I started when I got pregnant, and she’d like to see me gain those three pounds back by my next visit That’s hard for me to hear because I’m so used to hearing that I need to lose weight! I gained a ton of weight with Morgan and frankly never quite got back to where I was, so I was super careful about weight gain when I was expecting Daisy. With her I lost 10 pounds before I knew I was pregnant, then gained back those 10 plus 1 by the time she was born. She was perfectly healthy (in fact, her APGAR was 9), so I was really proud of doing such a good job keeping it in line (for the record, I’m um, voluptuous to start with, so it’s okay for me to gain less than average sized women). Anyway, since there’s a good chance I may be gestational diabetic again, it’s going to actually be a challenge to put weight on now (at least if I follow the diet like I’m supposed to!).

Week 24 of Pregnancy: Fetal Hearing

Your baby weighs more than a pound and a half right now and sports a crown-to-rump length of about eight and a half inches (standard letter size!). At this point in fetal development, that beautiful face (though still tiny) is almost fully formed.

Your baby weighs more than a pound and a half right now and sports a crown-to-rump length of about eight and a half inches (standard letter size!).
Wondering what (and who) your baby will look like?  If you had a baby cam at 24 weeks pregnant, you'd almost be able to tell by now.  That beautiful face (though still tiny) is almost fully formed.  What's still missing from the picture is the fat that will be piled on under baby's skin.  Until those fat deposits are made, that very tender skin is still very transparent, which means a close look would let you see clear through to all the organs, bones, and blood vessels. Fortunately, that see-through look won't last much longer. Babies at this stage of fetal development are gaining about six ounces each week — with much of that gain coming from fat, in addition to growing organs, bones, and muscle.

What's been playing on your little rocker's stereo system these days?  All kinds of sounds can be heard by your baby in your womb: from air exhaling from your lungs (deep breath now), those gastric gurgles produced by your stomach and intestines, your voice and your partner's (which your baby will be able to recognize at birth), and even very loud sounds such as honking horns, barking dogs, or a wailing fire truck.

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