Winding down

Things are calming down~emotionally. My step-grandmother died on the 21st of December and her services were yesterday. What a horrible time of year to lose someone, but then again, as they said at the funeral, it is a great time to celebrate a life. Her services were wonderful...honestly. I have been to so many funerals that seemed rehearsed and so general that they could be for anybody. This was at her church, where she had worked with the Kindergartners for 15 years. Therefore, they knew and loved her and it was obvious. She had also taught Kindergarten at LR for 30 years, so the fact that she loved children permeated the service. She will be missed.

Things are calming down~activity-wise. I have been able to sleep in and rest all day for several days now. Which I need to do since I am sick again. I have this cough that won't go away combined with congestion and sinus stuff. Tobin received an electric griddle for Christmas, so I have been treated to awesome breakfasts in bed for a couple days! NICE! I go back to the doctor on the 3rd, so maybe they can help. I definitely don't want the flu shot! No Way! We are hoping that we get to hear the heartbeat.

I called the tech. support line for my new camera and they walked me through an initialization process that I had never done. It is supposed to help with the image stabilization and blurry shots. We'll see. Here is one from Christmas at the Elliott's. Hunter received a new bow from his dad:
Well, we are going to Arkansas to rent a deluxe cabin for New Year's Eve. We're going with the Fespermans, but they'll have their own cabin. They are way more than I wanted to spend, but I guess we'll splurge. Tomorrow we will hike the Goat's Trail. This is what it looked like on 12-27-05. You can see the HUGE hill that you have to walk up to get out. That will get me for sure; I'll be the last one up! The drop-offs and cliffs are ridiculous, but the views are gorgeous!

Time to relax?

I wish. It seems that the Christmas Break is always filled with "stuff" to do! I really have this desire to run out and search for bargains and get some presents for next year at some killer price, but can't get motivated to spend any more money! How's that for a catch 22?

I do have some pics to post from our different family gift exchanges, but not too many. I finally called the Sony helpline this morning since I was to the point of hating my CyberShot camera so much I was going to return it today. The guy walked me thru an initialization process that seemed to help, for now anyway. About 80% of my shots were blurry and I was VERY ticked out it! The pics themselves shouldn't mean so much, but they do.

Tobin and I went to one holiday party and spent the majority of the time playing old school arcade games rather than visiting. We really didn't know anyone there other than the couple that invited us, which happens to be one of Tobin's best friends. We still had a great time and full turkey meal with all the fixins! They had 5 stand up arcade games with Galaga, Frogger, Dig Dug, PacMan and Mrs. Pacman.....on and on. No quarters needed!
We also played this white elephant game and ended up with a ridiculous gift and a really cool one! Everyone was supposed to wrap and bring something from around the house..no money spent...something you didn't want anymore. Luckily the first item I picked was taken by someone after me that wanted it WAY more than I did. I ended up choosing again and got a brand new real marble cutting board that matches our tile in our kitchen! Hope everyone is enjoying their time off!

Time with Family

I should be cleaning my house, but I will get to that soon. I have enjoyed being with Mel and family. The boys and I have gotten some quality time while Mel ran errands. Here are just a few pics of the boys playing in the BIG ball pit that grandma got them. The crawl through this long blue tube to get inside of the big tent-like structure! She filled it with two bags of colored balls, but there are three doors that the balls can come flying out from! Plus, a BIG hole in the top! HOURS of fun!



The schedule gets fairly busy from here on out. Today at 3:00, my dad's side of the family comes over for our gift exchange and some yummies. After that, I imagine it's back out to mom's. Tomorrow evening will be spent at mom's. We are doing the gift exchange for adults then and kids on Christmas morning. Christmas day has two BIG meals, one at noon and the next at 5:00. That second meal and another gift exchange is Tobin's family. SO MUCH FUN to be had! Tobin and I stayed at home and exchanged our gifts last night. He received an Xbox 360 game he had wanted (Call Duty 4) and I got a silver Ipod Nano. I really like the Touch Ipod's, but can't justify spending that much more. So, he did a great job of picking it out! We needed enough GB space for his music and my music for when we go hiking, floating, camping.....it may be a little while before we can do all of that again, but not too long! So, it was a small, but very nice Christmas between us. We had already discussed getting only one gift for one another and saving our money for baby stuff. We did go out to dinner, which was the most horrible meal EVER. I DO NOT recommend the P'Zone at Pizza Hut by any stretch of the imagination. ICK! NASTY!
And may I say that the evenings are not a good time for me to eat something that I don't like! Ewwwww.

They're almost here!

Well, still 6 hours away, but maybe by the time I finish wrapping all of my presents, it will be time to join the "welcome wagon" as they pull in into mom and Dave's driveway. I know it will be bedtime for the boys, but they always have acclimate to being at grandma's again. This time they have new bunk beds! I just hope they don't fall asleep right before they get here! Koen likes to reacquaint himself with all of the toys that stay at grandma's. I'm sure I will get in trouble for riling them up right before bed. I plan to anyway!

Science Club Trip!

I didn't really feel up to it, but that was the scheduled date, so I suffered right along! I knew they would have a blast! I met the kids at the Discovery Center where I had a game plan to allow them time in the museum, plus each kid got to ride the high wire bike. Hardly any of the kids simply rode the bike across the high wire. NOOOOooo, they had to rock it back and forth and try to get horizontal in order to touch the net wires. lol Near the end of our time there, they all went down into the Immersion Cinema and participated in this really cool computerized activity. They competed against one another in a food web, but this was all on a BIG screen close to the the size of an IMAX screen. Each kid got their own laptop to use throughout the game so they could attain their goal and move on to the next level on the predator/prey activity. I think it was a very worthwhile activity for only $8 a person!
Pregnancy is moving right along. The morning sickness is still in the evening and still alive and kicking. I am starting to show some, but I can't decide if that is just weight gain or what. I know the little baby is the size of a medium olive now! Why is my tummy so much bigger? lol!

With our snow predictions in mind, I talked Tobin into going Christmas shopping with me last night. We started out at the very packed ToysRUs in the mad search for a soft, plush Buzz Lightyear. No luck. Finally found one at Kmart, plus some fun Toy Story coloring books that use markers that only work on those particular pages. I also had some Christmas returns to do and got that out of the way. I tired after 3 places, so we went home and I went directly to bed!

Since the snow never transpired, I have more shopping to do today and then, on to wrapping.
You know, I wither wanted a snow so deep that you had to stay home, or none at all. If we weren't going to be out of school, then no snow is fine with me.

SCARY, but so far, so good!

Well, I have quite the story from my appointment yesterday. I'm going for the short version for Blogger. Tobin was not able to attend due to the rescheduling. I got out of school at 3:15 and my appt ws at 4:00. My car was 80% iced over and I barely got the driver-side door open. I had to wait about 20 mintues for the ice on the windshield to melt enough to scrape. The roads were slick too.

My mom showed up and I am so thankful that I didn't have to go through it alone! Once the doctor came in, he congratulated me and we got ready for a series of quick tests he ran on me. Routine stuff. Then, he wheeled in a portable ultrasound machine which surprised me since yesterday was just week 9. From there, it got weird....

He was very quiet for about 3 minutes and ignored any comments or questions I was spouting out. So, I just laid there.....finally he said, "I can't find your baby." I asked him if it was possible that I wasn't pregnant and he said no. It was close to 5:00 by this time and the regular ultrasound tech had already left for the day. The doctor left the room and my mind went crazy.

He came back and said to get dressed because he was going to try to figure out how to use the big ultrasound machine. He forewarned my mom and I by saying that he was not an ultrasoundographer (new word for me), but he knew that if he asked me to wait until Friday to come back in, my mind would think the worst and that wouldn't be good for my health! So, mom and I were taken to that room and then had to wait for him to finish his other new OB patients. So, there I am, lying on the table, waiting and wondering. I asked mom if it could be dead and she just sat there. Seemed like a long time, but maybe only 30 seconds. She finally said that she didn't think I would still be throwing up and be so affected by the pregnancy hormones if that were the case. That made sense....

Then, his nurse came in and said that she was going to stay and watch him try to use this machine because he had never done it and this was going to be good. Was that supposed to be reassuring that she was in on the entertainment value of the deal....?????? But, she did make me laugh, so I wasn't too bent out of shape. Then, I started wondering why he would take on such a task that he'd never done before...this must be scary.....

It didn't take him long and he got a picture of our little blob....and by that I mean no discernible human features due to the gestational time frame of 9 weeks. He had to point it out to us. What WAS reassuring was that every so often, he would show my mom and I the heartbeat. SIGH OF RELIEF!!!! It was hard to focus on due to our little blob's constant movement! Man! The heartbeat was so incredibly fast though!!! Remember, we're talking about something the size of a pinto bean. According to my books, we're not even to the medium-sized olive days yet!!

So, I greatly appreciated him staying to 6pm to assure me of the health of our blob. I know he didn't have to do that, but he must have been concerned as well, especially considering my age and how long it took us to attain this pregnancy. he even gave us a picture which is currently on our refrigerator! hahaha Ultrasounds pictures are difficult enough as it is, so I decided not to post the white blob. The heartbeat was the main part and of course that is not detectable in the photo anyway. I don't go back until after the New Year. The end of the story is that somewhere along my journey to or from the doctor's office, I punctured one of my tires. I didn't know this until Tobin got home and asked me how long my tire had been flat. I knew that there was a weird sound all the way home from, but the car wasn't pulling one way or the other and there were no other obvious signs of malfunction....oh well. Being the great husband that he is, he changed it after dinner and took it to be fixed today. I got to drive the truck to school and the heated seats were a definite luxury!

Dr. appt cancelled~

Does this look natural?? hahahaha This was taken near the end of the school year last year and my friends were all voting that I held the baby at Suzanne's baby shower. Knowing how long we had tried to conceive, they were trying to send some baby vibes my way, I guess.

Well, my 1st appt. with the doctor as supposed to be yesterday. So, for those of you that have been wondering, we ended up waiting for 30 minutes to find out that the doctor was in surgery and would not be returning to the office. I figure we better get use to that! I would want top-notch care if I were the one on the operating table, so I didn't get too upset. The only thing that really stinks is that Tobin had taken the day off to go with me and he cannot get off for the rescheduled date--tomorrow. I'll let you know what I find out!

More Thanksgiving pics

Thought I would make some collages of Thanksgiving and some of the fun times in Alabama recently. Mel did a great job on the turkey and there were some yummy side dishes made by her friends. My lil' nephews kept sneaking whipped cream off my pie. Koen called it ice cream! He sure loved his new Buzz Lightyears.

It seems that morning sickness may have settled in. I don't think it is the flu stuff that I can't seem to shake. It doesn't seem to hit in the morning though. More late afternoon and evening. I feel nauseated about 80% of the day.

I went home from school on Friday with a fever. I had zero energy

and felt warm, so I went to the school nurse and my temp

was 100.3. I called my doc and talked to the nurse. She chewed me out for being at work and said if it got to 101 degrees that I would need to go to urgent care. Too dangerous for baby development. After some friends/coworkers also chewed me out, I went home and stayed in bed for 17 hours. Going back to work tomorrow, but my energy isn't that great. No temp though.

I wish this was a short week! No such luck! I do need to get some Christmas shopping done this week.....Have a great work week everyone!