A little bit of Christmas

We've had a busy few weeks since Alex has been home. The first week was spent mostly getting in to the groove of having another person in the house. The following week we really started to prep for Christmas.

Laney is going to school two days a week while I am home on leave. One of the days she was home last week we did some baking. Here she is helping make gingerbread for her Aunt LaLa.
Over the weekend, Rob, Elena & my parents went and got our tree. We decorated it on Sunday.

Here's my little man in one of his multitudenous Christmas outfits. It says "I've been super good all year." Not hard when you've only been here two + weeks.

My girls

Rob, Kat & Elena ready for Christmas Eve services.

Alex made his debut at church Thursday evening, so I got to hear Kat play in the Christmas band . . .

And see Elena sing with the Children's choir.

Christmas morning was fantastic. Although it started later than expcted. Laney had been so excited for so long we expected to have to stop her from opening presents before her sister got up. Instead she crawled in bed with us for a bit and failed to notice that there were new presents under the tree until we pointed them out.

Kat was ver pleased with her haul this year.

Elena kept wanting to stop opening presents to play with each toy. At least we know she liked them!

My brother & his wife came over later in the morning for the day. Here they are with the new nephew.

Enjoy the remaining 9 days of Christmas!

Alex is Here

Today was supposed to be Alexander's birthday; however, he had plans of his own. My water broke last Thursday night a little after 9 PM. Alex had arrived by 12:30 Friday morning.

He picked a record breaking day to arrive. Friday, December 4, 2009 is now on record as the earliest snow fall here.

Getting Ready for Baby

Baby Alex will be here in 15 days (or less). December 8 is my absolute last day. I will either be induced or have a c-section depending on how my ultrasound after Thanksgiving goes. In addition to the usual prep work of washing baby clothes, packing the hospital bag, and locating the baby gear in the attic we've done a few fun things too.

Last Sunday, Laney went to the sibling class at the hospital where I will deliver. They talked about what happens when Mommy has a baby, keeping clean before touching the baby and got a mini-tour of the L&D ward. I didn't get to see her in class - but this is how she looked when she came out - they dressed like Doctors (and also avoided passing flu germs in the ward).

Then we continued a tradition I started 3 years ago with Elena . I took Kathryn to Build-A-Bear for her birthday back in 2006 and she made herself a Hello Kitty and she made a bear for Elena too. That bear is now well traveled and great friend of Elena's.

On Monday I took the girls to Build-A-Bear. The girls each made their own bears (a Panda for Kat & a pink bear for Elena) and they made a bear for Alex.

Here they are warming up the hearts & making wishes for the bear.

Elena giving her new bear a "bath".

The newest stuffed members of our family - Toby, Cindy & Loki-San.

Halloween Pictures

There are a lot pictures in this post as I am playing catch up. These cover three weeks worth of Halloween festivities.

Two weeks before Halloween, my friend Byrony & I took our girls to a pumpkin patch at the local halter club. The girls got to go on pony rides & enjoy a petting zoo.
Then we picked out pumpkins. Both girls became obsessed with the tiny white ones with orange stripes, so I ended up buying one of those in addition to a regular jack-o-latern sized one.

The following week Kat was invited to a Halloween party. She went as Neil Gaiman's Death from his Sandman comic series. She hasn't read much of the series, but she thinks the character looks cool (I agree).

On to Halloween night - here's Laney & the aforementioned white pumpkin and my electric jack-o-latern. Unfortunately, the other pumpkins I got during our trip to the pumpkin patch rotted before we could carve them.

Me & Laney. Looking at it, I find it hard to believe I am 33 weeks pregnant in this picture.

Laney & Daddy

Our little butterfly - all ready to trick-or-treat. She was so excited. She would not say "trick-or-treat" at a single house, but she always said "thank you".

Greetings from Plague House

Our most recent news is that Laney is currently recovering from what is suspected to be the "piggy cold" (that's Kathryn for "Swine Flu"). The doctor's office is hypothesizing, they don't send out for the CDC confirmation as the treatment for both flus is the same. Luckily, we caught it early enough that she qualified for TamiFlu. The pedetrician was also able to give me a prescription to put Kat on a preventative dose of the same stuff & my doctor prescribed me the same. And to think I finally got my vaccine on Friday!

Laney has been consistently running a 102 fever since Sunday afternoon, but she woke up from her nap today fever free & in a good mood. This was evidenced by the fact that my living room floor spent most of the afternoon coated in Barbies & their accessories. The good mood mostly continued, but the fever is back.

As to the rest of us, no one has run fever. Kat & I have coughs and headaches & I am feeling more run down than usual (which is a trick).

On the home front, literally, we have an offer on the house. We're still in the option period and the inspection is tomorrow (holy cow!). We still need to find a new house to live in and fast. We're supposed to close on this one on November 30 & be out by December 1. I really need to pack.

What's a preggo Mommy to do?

Just a rant -

I am concerned about the H1N1 vaccine - I don't feel that it has been tested long enough, but after talking to three doctors, doing some online research & a lot of praying, I finally resolved that I would get the vaccine and try to get it for Laney as well. We're in the highest risk categories. This was our personal decision, everyone needs to make there own.

I talked to my OB on Tuesday (before I made the decision) and she told me I needed to decide quickly, she wasn't getting many doses. So Friday, when I had my nerve up I called & told them I was interested. They told me they still didn't have the vaccine & didn't know when or how much was coming. Had I tried my GP? They put a note in my chart & I may or may not get notified when the vaccine comes in. I have another appointment a week from Tuesday, maybe they'll have an answer by then.

Called my GP (such as it is, I haven't been there in over a year). They think they'll get some, at some point. Don't know when, don't know how much. No waiting list or anything.

Sigh, I knew the pediatrician had the vaccine - it was in the paper. And Laney falls into one of the only 2 groups they are giving it to - children between the ages of 6 months & 3 years 364 days old. She'll be in the other group come December - those living in a household with a child under 6 months. BUT after 40 minutes on hold, I find out the pede only has the nasal spray. Asthmatics can't get use the nasal spray, they have to have the injection. And when are they getting the injection? - they don't know when or how much.

Seriously. This is nuts.

The last 27 days

I just caught the day of my last post - 27 days, wow. Not sure if I've ever gone that long. What have we been up to?

It's football season. Kat's marched in 4 football games. She's also been to two Homecoming dances - her own & one with a friend from another school. She came home from band very excited tonight because they now know their entire marching show. They have their first marching contest this Saturday. I sit here multi-tasking and updating my calendar to keep track of where our busy sophmore is due to be each day.

Elena is still doing well. She recently started attending Tumble Tykes - which a gymnastics class that meets on a bus at her school. She was so excited to get to join her classmates. Her little class is keeping them busy - they take Spanish daily, and have yoga, music & chapel once a week.

I'm making it. I try to remember that it could be so much worse. I am uncomfortable. I am carrying this baby very low, so I have more swelling and pain that would be normal at this stage. I am bushed by the time 4 PM rolls around each day - a bonus is that overtime is now a big no-no. But I am still able to work and I still have a job (we had layoffs a few weeks ago).

Rob is super supportive husband, roomba pro - that little gadget is getting some use with the house on the market, and band dad extraordinaire. And he's studying for a certification.

The house has been on the market almost 5 weeks. We dropped the price about 2 weeks ago because we had only had a few showings. We had 5 showings in the last 9 days - 2 this afternoon! It's been crazy. Hopefully, the craziness will result in something. I am ready to start looking at real houses - not just online.

Cute pre-schooler story on the house showing thing - Laney & I ended up in the house during one of the showings tonight. The idea was to rush in, apologize for interrupting, let the dog out, fix her dinner and put her back in the crate and leave them to it. By the time I had the dog food in the dish - they were done (I hope I didn't rush them, but they were in the back yard when we came in, so I don't think so). As the agent was leaving, she said, "You have a lovely home." Now I am not taking that to mean anything, she was being polite. But Laney looks me after they leave and says, "They liked our house. We can get a new one tomorrow." Ah, to be 3 and optimistic and have no concept of time.

I would love for Laney to be right. I am tired of living what I have come to term as "life on hold". A good chunk of our stuff is in a storage unit. More of it is in sealed boxes in the attic and in a closet upstairs. I had to buy a new glue gun to make Kathryn's homecoming mum. A friend asked for a scan of something and I had to admit I had no idea where the book was. I also have this basic policy against bringing anything non-consumable into the house right now - so the girls have gotten used to hearing, "When we get the new house" or "after the move". Half of Laney's birthday presents had to get packed up and put away before she could even enjoy them. I haven't done much prepping for the new baby either. I am looking forward to setting up the nursery again & I need to see what's in those boxes to see what else we need/want for this little guy.

So wish us luck - if you're the praying type - pray for a sale & a purchase that work out with the kind of timing we need. And I'll try not to stay gone quite so long this time.

First Day of School Pictures

The Sophmore - all girled up for her first day of school. Don't worry, she was back in jeans & t-shirt the next day.
The Turtle (what her school call the 3 year olds) looking like a Partridge Family refugee. I didn't realize how 60s-esque this outfit was when I bought it, but it's still pretty cute. Rob asked her if she could say "Ban the bomb".

Update

We've been busy to say the least. The house is almost ready to put on the market. The hall is painted. Kathryn's room is painted a nice boring off-white (it was pink, she was 6 when she picked the color). The kitchen cabinets are repainted.

We've cleaned, we've packed, we've thrown out a ridiculous amount of stuff! It's amazing how much trash you can accumlate in 9 years. I think our garbage men may hate us by now. We also opened up a storage unit last week. That's where our dining room table & my sewing table & cutting table are.

This weekend we'll take some more stuff to the unit & do a bit more painting - try to redo the bathroom cabinets.

We meet with the real estate agent on Tuesday to take the pictures & sign the papers. And no, we haven't looked at any houses yet. Hopefully that'll start soon as well.

On to non-house related stuff . . .

Kathryn's been in band camp for the last week & a half. This is the late afternoon camp - they march from 4 to 8:30 every day learning their routines for football season. School starts on Monday. She'll be a SOPHMORE! Holy cow. I am looking forward to having the whole family back on the dinner table when band camp is over.

Elena is (I am almost afraid to say this) potty trained. She's been accident free for a while, I still expect her to have one now and then, but she's doing great. She's graduated from the thick training panties to Disney Princess panties, she's very excited. She's also sleeping in underwear. But that is not her big obsession right now. Right now she is obsessed with her Mickey Mouse Birthday Party. She's been talking about it since the trip home from Colorado and the closer it gets the more excited she gets. I am just hoping all goes well with it, considering that the house will be on the market, Kat is going to San Antonio the day before to march at the Alamodome, and life is just a little nuts right now.

Young Alexander appears to be doing well. He enjoys kicking his mom. He also stretches like his sister. He's big enough his mom can't wear real pants anymore, but I can still get into a few of my pre-maternity baby doll type tops. I have another appointment on the 31st.

So that's life at our house in a nutshell.

It's a boy

We had a routine ultrasound today and all signs point toward boy! Everything is developing normally and we're a little over half way through.

I've nicknamed the little bug "Thumper" becaus he is so much more kicky than Laney. I had trouble telling when Laney started moving. (turned out she preferred to stretch instead of kick) Not this time! Thumper makes his presence known. At 20 weeks 6 days, we can actually feel his movement on the outside at times. At this rate, the next 19 weeks are gonna be fun.

What We've Been Up To

Our July at a glance . . .

We got home from our vacation and had one week left with Kat before she went off to spend a month with her mom. We had the little birthday celebration for her before she left.

We had a quiet 4th of July with the usual suspects. We celebrated Christina's birthday with hamburgers, blueberry cheesecake, and explosions.

We also started cleaning up the house for sales. We painted the hallway. We're almost done, I still need to do the base boards & doors.

The next weekend we went to my brother's house and spent a relaxing weekend at the beach. We needed that. Things have been nutty at work for both Rob and I, so a couple of days of sun, sand & family was extremely theraputic.

Laney started swimming lessons the following week.

We also went and saw the new Harry Potter movie that weekend. Well, I saw the whole movie, Rob missed half of it due to a power outage at the church where Laney was being babysat. He saw the rest the following weekend when Kat came back from her mom's.

She came home a few days early in order to attend a friend's Quincera. She got to wear her new freshwater pearl set she got from my Grandma for her 15th birthday.

We started meeting with one realtor to get ready to put the house on the market. We weren't getting the kind of communication we were happy with and he was insisting that our house required some very expensive repairs, i.e. siding to the tune of $8K. We thought we might not be able to move if that was the only way our house would sell.

But August has seen things looking up. We were referred to a new realtor by some good friends. We met with her yesterday and she was relatively optimistic. Clean up the house, pack the personal items away, repaint a few places and off we go. So we started packing in earnest last night and continued today. We're going to try to get as much done in the next two weeks as possible, so that maybe we can be on the market close to my birthday. I'd like to be in our new house by Thanksgiving.

Wish us luck, keep us in your prayers, etc.

Back from the beach

We're back from spending the weekend in Lala Land (aka, my brother's house). I hope to post pictures of the trip soon, along with the rest of the Colorado vacation, Father's day, 4th of July . . . and at some point, we'll start sanding the old paint off the base boards and get them re-painted so I can declare the hall fully done. Sigh . . .

Happy birthday, Kat!

We've come a long way in the last 12 years. Here you are on the first birthday I spent with you & your dad in the skates I bought you for your birthday.

And now your 15. Wow! You're a beautiful young lady and I love you very much.

********************

Some pics from the early birthday we had for Kathryn:

Never too old to blow out candles:

Her new slinky:

Cave of the Winds & Garden of the Gods

We spent Tuesday of our vacation in the funky little town of Manitou Springs. We did some shopping, played at the local park and then headed up the hill (way up the hill) to the cave of the winds. Manitou Springs is the town on the otherside of the bridge in this picture taken from the Cave of the Winds overlook.
The entrance to the cave - it's 54 degrees at all times in there. A bit different from the caves we have visited in Texas that average in the 80's with high humidity.

A cool cave picture. We took so many.

This is Laney walking through the lowest, narrowest passage in the cave.

Kat gets friendly with the bear at the entrance.

On Wednesday some friends from college drove down and joined us for a trip through the Garden of the Gods. This city park is a monument of natural sandstone formations.

We didn't hike as much as we'd have liked - Laney had some altitude side effects that slowed us down.

A totem pole:

You can't climb most of the rocks without equipment & permission, but there are a few that are open to the public. Like this one:

Above the hole the girls are sitting in is a path that led to where Rob is in this picture:

Here we are as a group, with one bushed toddler: