KieraAnne

William Harold

2011-07-29T12:16:00.001-05:00

So the drama all started at my 40 wk check up on Tuesday. My midwife again asked if I would like to have an ultrasound to check the baby’s size. I agreed since she said they could do it right then and I wouldn’t have to come back. I expressed my skepticism at the technician being able to accurately predict the size of the baby since when I was at the hospital to have Henry they checked him and the guy said my dates must be wrong as he was only measuring at about 38 wks. He then came out just over ten pounds. The midwife and technician lady assured me that they are much better at this then whoever that guy was and that Eddie, the technician, is usually accurate to within half a pound. So I went to get the ultrasound. Almost immediately Eddie asks if I am trying to set some kind of record…the head is measuring off the charts…she can’t even get the whole abdomen on the screen, etc… So she finally says that the baby is definitely over ten pounds and she’s thinking more like 11 lbs +/- 9 oz. So I go back to the midwife and everyone starts freaking out. The midwife calls in the other midwife to consult. She then has to check my cervix and measure me herself to give an opinion. They tell me about all of the horrible things that can happen to me and the baby since he is measuring so big. Shoulder dystocia (getting caught on my pubic bone possibly resulting in nerve damage and paralysis), getting stuck in the birth canal and dying, my uterus hemorrhaging from the uterine distension caused by carrying such a big baby, etc. They then tell me that I can get a cesarean at this point if I want. I politely decline. The 2^nd mw says that at this point she almost wishes they didn’t know how big it was since now they are medically obligated to tell me all of these things. They ask how much longer I’m going to grow this thing as it is already so big. I know they want me to bring up being induced, but I don’t want to. I say that I would like to wait until at least after Thursday (my actual due date) to give him a chance to come on his own. They immediately agree and ask if I could come in Thursday night to be induced so that they can both be there Friday when I have the baby. This would be convenient for them as the 2^nd midwife is going on vacation Saturday. I ask why she has to be there as she’s not my midwife and they explain that in these situations it’s better to have two of them there in case something happens. So I agree.

I am annoyed at this point because I’m pretty sure that the baby will come out just fine and not get stuck or anything and I think they’re freaking out for no good reason as it’s all based on assuming the ultrasound is accurate. But I make plans for the sitter to come Thursday night and in the mean time do all I can to try and induce labor on my own. In retrospect I think I was having contractions off and on for the next three days and the baby would have come on his own by that weekend…which I would have preferred as I was kind of hoping for a 20^th or 23^rd birthday so he would match the other kids. Anyway, Thursday rolls around and I am making preparations for the sitter to come (ie; I had just changed the sheets on our bed) when the nurse from the clinic calls and asks if it would be okay for me to come in Friday morning at 6am instead as there were some scheduling conflicts at the hospital. I am more annoyed at this since I had just changed the sheets (and because that would mean getting up at like 4:30 to drive into Denton), but I agree. I was also a little concerned as I was having some spotting that day, which had never happened before. The nurse assured me it was normal and not to worry. So I call the sitter and Patrick and rearrange everything. This was at about 9:30am. Around noon the midwife herself calls me. She wanted to let me know that the OB that oversees them (I think) was VERY concerned about me trying to deliver this baby vaginally and wanted to make sure that I knew she STRONGLY recommended that I have a cesarean. She then again went over all of the bad stuff that could happen and asked what I wanted to do. I expressed again that I would at least like to TRY to have the baby myself before resorting to such measures. She agreed and then said that they really felt I needed to have the baby sooner rather than later and that she had talked to the hospital and they had managed to rearrange things so that I could go in that night again. So we were back on for the night. This was again annoying as I had just rearranged everything and Patrick and I were talking about maybe going to a movie and out to eat in Denton and then staying in a hotel overnight so we wouldn’t have to get up so early to drive in the next morning. So those plans were out the window….which actually I was fine with since I was having contractions and the whole spotting thing so I really didn’t want to be in labor in a hotel somewhere. I looked up an article about shoulder dystocia and big babies and it convinced me yet again that the doctor was over reacting and that the baby would probably be fine, but whatever.

So that night the sitter comes and we head in. We were late, but I don’t think it matters. The nurse then took FOREVER to get me started. It turns out they wanted to insert something called Cervidil (?) to ripen my cervix overnight and then get me started on pitocin around 6am the next morning. I had to be hooked up to an iv and on the monitor the whole time. This annoyed me as I had specifically discussed this with my midwife and she had assured me that I didn’t need to do this since I was planning on natural childbirth. So I ended up arguing with the nurses about it and they went and woke up the other midwife who was on call to ask her about it. She agreed to delay the pitocin until after my mw had come and had a chance to discuss it with me. I have never been in labor at the hospital w/o pitocin and I really wanted to try it this time. The nurse also agreed to fudge the charts a little if I really wanted to get up and walk for twenty minutes or so every hour. This was nice, though aside from using the restroom once an hour I didn’t really feel like doing this as it was nighttime and I was sleeping…mostly. By 5:30/6 I was having contractions for real. By the time my mw came she said I was in labor on my own and didn’t need the pitocin. The cervidil and fallen out at some point too so I wasn’t really on any labor inducing meds. Shortly thereafter the ob came in to talk to me. She AGAIN explained all of the risks I was taking in trying to do this vaginally and how it could be dangerous for me and the baby and did I understand this? Yes, I did. She then asked what I had against having a c-section. Seriously? Why would I NOT want to have unnecessary surgery that would then influence my doctors decisions about my birthing capabilities for the rest of my pregnancies? I said something about the recovery time and having three other kids at home to look after and how it would mean I’d have to have cesareans from then on. She made some noise about how no I wouldn’t, but I know the policy at Denton Regional is once a cesarean always a cesarean so I politely (or as politely as can be done since we were having this conversation in between contractions) declined. She then seemed to wash her hands of the situation and left.

So I labored “for reals” ;) from about 5:30/6 until around 10 am. My mw broke my water around 8 I think so then I had to sit on a towel wherever I was so as not to leak. The mw’s were both very nice and helped me with different positions, pressure points, warm towels etc. I tried sitting in the rocking chair, which was nice, but the whole moving my hips/bellydancing thing I was going to try did not work. If I tried moving my hips during a contraction it seemed to make it much worse, so I stopped. Soon my muscles all felt really weak and shaky and I didn’t trust myself to stand/pace/lean like we had discussed as I felt I really needed the support of the bed or chair or I would fall over. So it wasn’t too bad until I started puking on the downside of every other contraction. That really, really sucked. I also think the doctor completely freaked me out with her discussion of how if the baby did get stuck she would have to stick her entire hand up my stuff and try to dislodge him manually. So I was thinking about how the contractions really, really, really hurt and how much more it was going to hurt when I had to push such a HUGE baby out and then they had to stick their hands up there to turn it. I think this psyched me out as much as if not more than the reality of how painful labor is. So around 10am I gave in and asked for an epidural. I had been mentioning it off and on all morning, since I knew the last two times the anesthesiologist had taken an hour and a half to get to the room and I was concerned he wouldn’t get there in time if I waited too long. The midwives kept telling me I was doing a good job and I had good instincts and all this…I think they were a little disappointed in me for getting an epidural but at that point I really didn’t care. I decided that my reasons for trying natural childbirth were apparently not strong enough in the moment as I had by this point convinced myself that going natural just for curiosities sake was dumb. So they nurse turned up my I.V. (apparently they need to pump you full of fluid before an epidural?) and sent in the order. We had to wait until I had enough fluid…the waiting sucked. I kept telling Patrick that “they better hurry.” I don’t know if I was concerned with the baby coming out before he got there or if it was just the knowledge that relief was coming that made the intervening contractions so much worse. So he finally got there around 10:20. They sent Patrick out, even though he specifically asked if he could stay this time, and the guy got to work. I think it started kicking in around 10:45. I still felt a lot of pressure with each contraction, but I was able to start to relax my overtaxed and shaking muscles. Patrick put on my nice music I had brought and I think I slept for a little while. The second midwife came and checked me sometime during the 11^th hour and I think I was at a 7. She said the other midwife (mine) would be back at lunch as she didn’t want to miss this. Around noon I began to be concerned as the pressure with the contractions was mounting and I couldn’t really ignore it anymore. I kept asking Patrick to watch the contractions on the paper to see if they were getting bigger and closer together as that’s what it felt like. He said they looked bigger, but were still about 2.5 minutes apart. I finally called the nurse to come check me as I was beginning to worry that the baby would plop out on his own and everyone would miss it. Patrick and I thought this might be hilarious as they were all so worried. So the nurse checks me and says I’m at an 8 and calls the mw. The 2^nd mw comes and checks and says that my cervix is like butter and that it was at a 8/9 when she was done. She then goes to call the other mw…I think. So they finally come in around one and start setting up. The 2 mw’s and a 3^rd mw in training are there to hold my legs/catch. Patrick didn’t have to do that this time, although I think he did end up doing it anyway when one got distracted. The mw checks me and the other says she should probably suit up or whatever…she then tells me to try and breathe down during my next contraction. I do…but then it sounded like she meant push when she said breathe so after a few more breaths I asked if she meant I should push or breathe down? She said both. I was embarrassed then as I hadn’t been really pushing at all. So I gave a few pushes, which wasn’t fun. The 2^nd mw asked if they should call in the ob, and the first said….hmmm, let’s wait. Which was good as the OB was a little too freaked out I think. So I pushed through like 4-5 contractions and then plop! Out comes the baby. This surprised me as I usually push way longer than that and from the mw’s attitude I wasn’t even really aware that we were “really” trying to push it out just yet. Usually the doctor has me do some pushes and such almost as if to warm up to the “real” pushing. So the baby comes out…Patrick said its cord was around its neck, but loosely and she just pulled it off. I told the nurse I didn’t want him on my stomach and Patrick said she then gave me either an annoyed or confused look. So I guess she was holding him or something and they asked Patrick if he wanted to cut the cord. I was a little annoyed at this point because the nurse was purposefully holding up the blanket so I couldn’t see. I didn’t say I didn’t want to SEE the baby, I just didn’t want to touch it when it was yucky. So I missed all of that. They took him over to be weighed and he was only 9 lbs, 12.6 oz. Stupidheads. I had read a study that the sonographer is only accurate to within 1.1 lbs 48% of the time that late in pregnancy. So all of that fuss and rushing me to the hospital and all was because they all overreacted to an inaccurate ultrasound. So I now know to never ever get an ultrasound that late in pregnancy as they will all overreact. Bah. Anyway. So the baby came out and a few minutes later the placenta came out too. I had asked the midwife if I could see the placenta and she said yes. So she showed me all the parts and it was pretty cool. Probably funny to the nurses that I didn’t want to touch the baby but I wanted to see the placenta. So I had a small 1-2 degree tear in the back and a 1 degree to the front which was much less then I had torn for my other kids. The 2^nd midwife measured the babies head/torso (or saw the measurements anyway) and told me that I could probably safely deliver a baby a pound larger without any problems. I was like, “oh really? See? I told you they just come out.” I had told them how Henry just came out and they all seemed skeptical that I didn’t have any trouble pushing out a ten pounder. They now believed me.

So Patrick stayed with me at the hospital for the whole day, which has never happened before. It was nice. He stayed the night and we watched Ghostbusters on the laptop…or parts of it anyway, I think I kept falling asleep. The next day our pediatrician randomly showed up and said she had come for another one of her patients to do the circumcision and saw our name there so she came to see if we wanted our son done as well. I thought that was nice as I was worried about calling her or having to do it at the office later that week. So we were supposed to go home that afternoon, and the sitter was bringing the kids to drop off and see the baby and then we were going to take them home. So before this can happen they tell us that the baby has a heart murmur and elevated bilirubin so we may have to stay another night depending on what the echo they’re ordering for his heart says. So I’m worried about that and we agree that Patrick will take the kids home and I’ll stay if we need to. Then they come say he’s fine and it’s an innocent murmur with a normal hole that is in the process of closing and that’s why it was so loud (I think how if they hadn’t made me come in early it probably wouldn’t have been there). The nurse then says she can rush the jaundice test thing and we can leave by 6:30 if we want. So when the kids arrive that is the plan…right up until Patrick leaves me alone with all of them in that small room to go get the carseat. He was only gone fifteen minutes but it was enough to completely stress me out. So after they left to go eat I started thinking how I really wanted to stay another night. I asked the nurse if it would be okay and she said they could just cancel the orders and have me go home the next day. So when Patrick comes back I ask if it’s okay if I stay and he agrees. I had a nice peaceful evening, and the nurse brought me some snacks around 10 when I got hungry (they serve dinner at 5:30, you would be hungry too). The next day Patrick came with the kids and we ended up having to wait around for everyone to come check us out. Luckily the hospital had wifi and we could put on a Netflix show for the kids. I guess the hospital had like three babies born all at once (11 total that weekend) which was insane for them. This was the first time I had ever seen more than one baby in the nursery, I guess Denton is having a baby boom. My pediatrician blames those cold weeks of winter we had this year…that doesn’t line up for our conception, but it’s an idea.

So now I’m home. Patrick surprised me by taking Monday off of work. I had to take the baby to the doctor so that was nice. When I got home I was exhausted and he further surprised me by taking Tuesday off as well. He’s really nice. Wednesday my visiting teacher took the kids to the McDonalds in Sherman for like 5 hours, yesterday my other vt came and watched them for a couple of hours so I could sleep and today she took them all to her house for the day. So I haven’t really had to watch my kids all week. It’s been nice, though it’s getting kind of weird now…so I guess it will be good to be able to get back to a routine. It always seems kind of anticlimactic to me to bring the baby home. It’s like you’re building up and planning for the birth for nearly a year, and then it’s only a couple of nights at the hospital and it’s over. I always feel lost afterwards like what am I supposed to do now? Take care of the kids, Patrick says. That’s depressing to think that’s all I’m going to be doing forever. But I’m feeling better today and starting to look forward to the art history class I’m going to take this fall in pursuit of my second bachelor’s in art history. I was supposed to start working on my second masters in Library Science as well, but they have a two day long 8 +hours a day orientation I’m supposed to go to for that. I can’t leave the baby that long yet so I’ve put that off until spring semester. Anyway, here’s the baby:

William Harold Thaden

Born 7/22/11, 1:14pm, 9 lbs, 13 oz, 19 ½ inches (which is short for our babies).

His hair, eyebrows and lashes seem to be lighter then the other kids and I think his eyes still look blue (though I must admit they seem to be getting darker and will probably end up brown like everyone else)...so maybe he'll look a little different. He has a sloping forehead and no neck so he looks kind of like a garden gnome, but he's pretty cute. ;) He can already hold his head up and look around just like our other big babies.

Big babies...

2011-07-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

40 wks

So I went to the midwife for my 40 wk (two days early) appt. Everything is fine, the baby is still in there, my cervix is still closed, I'm still measuring right on even though I tell her I have big babies. So after she checks me she asks again if I want to get a sono to check the baby. I ask if I would have to make an appt and come back or if we could do it right then. She says they could fit me in right away. So I say fine. The sonographer takes me back and I tell her again the story of the sonographer at the hospital last time who thought my dates were wrong as it seemed the baby was "only measuring at 38 wks." A few hours later he came out and was 10 lbs. So I wasn't sure how accurate these measurements were. She assured me that they are usually pretty accurate within half a pound or so. So she starts...then exclaims; "Girl! Are you trying to set a record?!" I say, no and had she heard of that woman from Texas who had the 16lb baby? She said "yes that woman was not taking care of herself." (?) Anyway, she said that the head was measuring off the charts...she couldn't even fit the whole abdomen on the screen...in conclusion she thought it was definitely over ten pounds and she was going to estimate that it was about 11 lbs +/- 9 oz. She started saying how if it was that big I may need to have a cesarean....that wasn't funny. So then I go back to the midwife and she brings in the other midwife to consult. That midwife wants to check and measure me herself, so she does and manages to reach my cervix, which after her exam she states is now definitely a solid one. Then they both start talking to me about all of the problems that can happen if my baby is that big; shoulder dislocation, difficult birth, possibly getting stuck in the birth canal and die etc... The 2nd midwife then says how she almost wishes at this point that they didn't know how big it was since they were now medically obligated to tell me all of this. They ask how long I wanted to grow this baby given how big he already is. I was kind of annoyed at this. They're midwives; aren't they supposed to be all about natural childbirth and how the body is capable of birthing the babies it grows and waiting until the baby is ready, etc...? Bah.
They said that I had reason to schedule a c-section if I wanted, to which I immediately replied no. So they discussed the various methods of induction; a pill I could take or pitocin, etc... This also made me annoyed as I have always been put on pitocin as soon as I get to the hospital and I have never experienced birth and the difference in contractions without it. So they ask me how long I want to wait. I said at least until after Thursday (my due date) to give him a chance to come on his own. They quickly agree and say I should come in Thursday night and be induced so that I could deliver Friday when they would both be there. The 2nd midwife was going on vacation Saturday so Friday would work better for her. I'm wondering why she needs to be there since she's not my midwife and they say that if they run into any problems then two heads are better than one. So I guess I'm supposed to go in Thursday night...that's dumb. I don't think that's enough time for the baby to come on his own before then. Plus if I have to pick a date I'd rather he'd be born on the 23rd or 20th since those are the other kids birthdays and would be easier to remember. But they seemed adamant that I'm going to have all of these problems because the baby is so big and that we really need to get him out soon. Again, I thought they were supposed to be midwives...stupidheads. So I guess we'll see what happens.

Natchitoches, LA. Part Two

2011-06-23T18:51:00.001-05:00

Staircase brought over from France in 1856

The second day in Natchitoches we spent in town wandering up and down the shops on Front Street. They had some cool stuff including the oldest business in Louisiana the Kaffie Frederick General Mercantile that had been open since the 1800's I think. It had a ton of stuff in it and we ended up getting presents for the kids there. They had a bunch of boutique type stores with outrageously overpriced items that I would only be mildly tempted to purchase if they had been at a reasonable price.

Me waiting across the street while Patrick talked to the Carriage lady

We tried to go on a carriage tour of the city but the carriage they had out sat six people and the lady driving refused to take us if we didn't have a larger group. We watched her sitting there throughout the day turning away people that came up in 2's and 3's. Patrick even tried to go over and get in a with a group of three but she still didn't want to go out. So instead she sat there playing on her laptop all day with no fares. She was dumb. We decided to try and go with the group of school teachers from our B&B the next day as that would make six of us (more on that later).

We had lunch as Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant as Natchitoches is famous for it's meat pies and the people we asked said this was the place to go. It was very crowded and kind of hot, but nice to sit down anyway. We waited about ten minutes for a table. I got a meat pie and Patrick ordered red beans and rice with sausage. The meat pie was pretty good, though I honestly didn't see what all of the fuss was about. After that we decided to catch a movie. We went to the matinee showing of X-men First Class. I was thinking it would be nice to sit in the air conditioned theater for a couple of hours...but it started getting hot around the middle of the movie and I was fanning myself by the end. The movie itself was pretty good. I was distracted by the guy playing Magneto/ Erik Lensher as he looked alot like the guy playing Eric Northman in True Blood. By the end I couldn't tell them apart. Wolverines cameo was funny... The movie theater people came in and flipped the lights on before the credits were even halfway done which I found annoying. The guy told us there was nothing after the credits so we left, but it was still annoying. After that we made a run to Walmart where I got two little outfits for the baby (and a copy of Steel Magnolias to watch...the innkeeper said every time they stock it it gets stolen) and Patrick got some tums and manilla folders (exciting I know). We made it back to the B&B around 4 to discover that the a/c on the first floor had stopped working. Patrick seemed very nonchalant about this and wanted to ignore it and take a nap. I was freaking out because it was so hot and kept trying to convince him to call the people in charge since if we waited even an hour businesses would be closed and then no one could fix it and we'd die. He finally agreed. It had tripped a circuit breaker, which ours does at home all the time, and the guy came over and showed Patrick which one to fix should it happen again. Patrick then took a nap and I watched Terminator 2 on tv...it took nearly three hours for the first floor to cool off again. After Patrick woke up we went out to eat at the Pioneer Pub and Restaurant because our guide book said it would have live music. It didn't, but that was okay. I had a chicken/ziti pasta dish that was the special and Patrick had a Philly Sandwich. The food was pretty good for the price even though the place was really more bar then restaurant. Afterwards we got ice cream from Dairy Queen and tried to watch The Skeleton Key on netflix, since it's placed in Louisiana. Unfortunately our internet went to crap and that didn't really work out too well. I think we ended up watching some random show on tv...I think it was White Collar. It wasn't as entertaining as I had hoped.

The next day we asked the ladies about joining for a tour and they readily agreed. We met up with the one in charge at the Visitor's Center where she attempted to contact the carriage lady. She actually answered her phone, which was a step up from our three unanswered calls/msgs the day before. She said the driver was going to start late today for personal reasons but that she would call her back when she had a time for us. The teacher lady also gave her an earful about the unprofessionalism of the driver the day before. We waited around a bit to see if she'd call "right back." She didn't. While we were waiting another woman came in and overheard our conversation. She handed out cards and explained that she did personal tours of the city or Steel Magnolias sites or plantations in your car for $30/group/hr. After some discussion we decided this was a better deal and planned for all of us to go in our 7 passenger (at the moment anyway) van at 1pm. This left us time to clean out the cereal from the seats and buy the kids some presents we had picked out the day before. We also had time to visit the historic Fort St. Jean Baptiste. We forgot to take pics, so I don't have any to show you. It was a to scale reproduction of the original fort the town started from. It was very small...and hot...and humid...inside the officer's quarters some birds had built a nest in the chimney and it had fallen. The babies were still at the bottom and would start screaming if anyone came in. The guy there said the mom still comes and takes care of them even though the nest had fallen and broken. Two of them looked like they weren't going to make it, even though the guy said they were fine. Patrick told them how he did ironwork. They were very impressed. After that it was nearly one o'clock so we all met up for our tour. It started out as an historic Natchitoches tour, but we soon turned it into a Steel Magnolias tour. The entire story in that movie is real and we were able to see both the filming sites as well as the actual sites where the story took place. It was a very interesting experience.

Truvy's (Lizzy's) actual "salon;" an enclosed carport

Truvy's from Steel Magnolias

M'Lynn's house from Steel Magnolias (now a B&B)

Me...and sign

Afterwards Patrick and I had a sandwich and ice cream in a music store/sandwich/ice cream shop. It was weird, they had instruments, music and then a counter and two little tables. They had a big screen tv and were playing Prince of Persia. It was near the beginning and we sat and watched it while we ate. It was nice and quiet and a/c'd in there. Afterwards we took our ice cream and drove over to get a closer look at the cemetery we had seen on our tour. It was the one from the movie and had several old graves and cool ironwork. There were a lot of kids graves too which made me sad so when we got back to the hotel I called our kids to make sure they weren't dead. We went out to eat at Mama's Oyster House because they also had live entertainment. It was pretty cool. I had a catfish po-boy and Patrick ordered fried frog legs 'cuz I wanted to try them. We got to keep the plastic cups our drinks came in so that was cool too. That night we rented The Skeleton Key from blockbuster and watched it....I then watched Steel Magnolias after so I wouldn't be scared. ;)

Patrick on Front Street

Gazebo at our B&B

Freak'n huge 12 foot tall sunflowers...they're actually a ways behind him

The last day there we had a nice breakfast of fruit 'n yogurt parfait and french toast with strawberries and whipped cream. We made one stop in town to get fudge (and some earrings I wanted) and then headed to the Alligator Park. It was hot. There were alligators...I took some pics. There was a bus full of blind kids that came about the time we did. I'm not sure how much they were able to get out of the park.

Me holding an alligator for a $7 polaroid

We found Gollum at last!

Patrick 'n the gators

Feeding time

The donkey was hungry too...

On the drive to and from we read from one of the Sookie Stackhouse books (we've been reading these on road trips since we started watching True Blood). About 15 minutes from home I suddenly got car sick and we had to pull over so I could puke on the side of the road. That was fun. I guess no visit to Louisiana is complete without Kiera puking in the street. (I inexplicably got sick in the street when we went to New Orleans 8 years ago too). So that's our trip. Aren't you jealous?

Natchitoches, LA. Part One

2011-06-21T16:17:00.003-05:00

Patrick and I just got back from a little "babymoon" my friends Margie and Josh were so nice to make possible for us. Margie agreed to watch our kids for a few days so we could get away for awhile. Now Patrick has been away on business trips and such several times over the years but I have not been without kids since Isabelle was born five and a half years ago. We considered several different areas to go to, including New Orleans, Galveston and Eureka Springs, AK, but settled on Natchitoches, LA. Nagadoches you say? No, Natchitoches....the first is in Texas and pronounced "Nack -a-doch-es" and the second is in Louisiana and pronounced "Nak-a-d(t)ish". Both were named after a Native American tribe in the area, the difference being that the TX one was the Spanish interpretation of an Indian word and the Louisiana one was a French interpretation. Anyway, Natchitoches was the filming site of the movie Steel Magnolias. I watched this again back in March and realized how close it was to where we live (only five hours or so). I immediately called Patrick (he was away at the time) and told him we should plan a weekend or something there. So when Margie volunteered to watch our kids we were able to get away for four nights and five days.

We stayed at a lovely B&B called "The Queen Anne". We stayed in the Library Room, which I think was the best looking room. The only drawback being it was located right off the parlor, directly across from the front door and had two 10' pocket doors rather than a regular door. There was a plaque outside the room simply stating "Library" ('cuz that was the name of the room). Unfortunately, everyone who came thought this meant there was a library in there and were constantly trying to open our doors...there was also a crack you could see through on the bottom half of where the doors joined, so I wasn't comfortable changing or anything in the bedroom as someone could be trying to peer through the doors to see. Other than this, the room was awesome;

Cool Setee and bookshelves..."library room" get it?

Really big bed...

Pretty armoir with the tv and deceptively comfy couch.

The first night we arrived we were the only guests there and had our run of the place. They had a huge bowl of those yummy mints that crush when you bite them in the parlor. Needless to say we made a serious dent in the bowl before we left. ;) That first night we went into all of the other rooms (all of which were on the second floor) and decided that even though some of them had two person jacuzzi's and ours was only a single, the size and decor still made ours the best. We ate at Chili's that night where I ordered a "thick and frosty chocolate shake." Never ever order this. There is no ice cream and I sincerely doubt there is any milk in it either. It looks more like those powder mixes you can blend with crushed ice to make a "shake." Yuck.

They say the gate stays white because John Wayne touched it..

The next day after breakfast we decided to try and tour the plantations in the area before I got too tired from walking. This was a good idea, if we had tried it later in the week I may have died. The first plantation we saw was Oakland. It had been privately owned until very recently and the family still visited on occasion and even gave tours now and then. It was pretty cool to see the outbuildings and such. The main house was interesting and had been decorated in a 1950's style to portray how it had looked while the family had been there. Very interesting...

Trundle bed in the kids room

The next plantation we saw was the Magnolia plantation. It was cool because it had belonged to the black mistress of the son from the Oakland plantation (Therese Coin-Coin...or something). They had ten children together and he built her this place to live. Later it became better known as an artist colony in the early 1900's. Many famous people stayed here including Earnest Hemingway and Steinbeck, though they were only there for a week or two. Apparently the woman who ran the place, who was widowed very young, would let anyone with "talent" stay there for free, but she would ask everyday what they had accomplished and if they hadn't done anything in three days they were invited to leave. It was more traditionally decorated, which was cool. It was also home to Clementine Hunter, a former slave painter who is known for her "primitive" art.

Magnolia Plantation

African House...ignore the 2x4's holding up the sides

Forge in Blacksmiths shop at Melrose

The last one we saw was the Melrose plantation. This one only had the grounds open as the home was still a private residence. There were some archaeology people from UT Houston there doing a dig and after I casually mentioned that I had studied anthropology and taken an archaeology field school class, they became our best friends and showed/told us all sorts of cool stuff involving Hoodoo deposits they had found in an old midwifes quarters as well as the blacksmiths forge. It was cool. It was also very hot...and humid, that part sucked.

Had to stop...

That night we came back to the b&b to find that four ladies had arrived. They were all kindergarten teachers who met up every four years or so to travel together. They were very nice and reminded me of my mom...but this meant we kept a little more to our room then we had the previous night. After we showered (cuz it was so muggy you were dripping sweat all day...many were concerned that I was going to get dehydrated since I was so pregnant), I decided we should dress up for dinner...'cuz we had brought the clothes. So we went to The Landing Restaurant on historic Front Street. It wasn't really a "have to dress up" kind of place, but it was fun to be fancy anyway. Shortly after we arrived a band started playing, which was cool. We had fried alligator for an appetizer...it tasted kind of like chicken. Of course it was breaded and fried and dipped in ranch, so I guess the natural flavor was probably covered up pretty well. We got the waitress to take a pic of us...Patrick had a hard time understanding her accent, which I thought was funny since I hardly heard one. That was an interesting side note. We really didn't hear many thick or obvious accents at all. I wondered if it was because of the naturalization brought about by television and such obscuring local accents...Patrick thought it was more likely that we had lived in the south so long that we didn't hear it anymore. I think he was right as we were both speaking with an accent by the time we left...

Aaw, aren't we cute? ;)

After dinner we went back to the hotel and managed to watch an episode of Psych on the computer using their free wifi. This was the only night this worked. I think our laptop had a virus or something and didn't work too well after that for more then just checking email and such. I don't know why the pics are so blurry...I blame our cheap crappy camera. Sometimes it decides to focus, other times it can't be bothered. Stay tuned for Part Two of our trip. ;)

PS: Sorry about the random pic placement, blogger is being stupid.

Bellies and Painting

2011-05-26T15:29:00.001-05:00

So I thought I would give you some updated belly shots since I know you're all dying to know how big I am... ;)

28 wks

32 wks

Okay I don't know why our new camera won't ever focus correctly...stupid camera. So it seems my "nesting" instinct tends to manifest itself by decorating when I'm pregnant. You may all recall the various before and after photos of our house as I repainted nearly the entire interior last pregnancy. Well after looking at our ugly kitchen for over two years inspiration finally struck and I picked a color to paint it...then I bought the paint and painted it all by myself. I can't find any good before pics to show you which is annoying since it was really ugly...here's one that kind of shows the wallpaper...ignore my underwear showing:

Ugly wall paper....

Okay so now picture that ugly dingy wallpaper around the entire room...it was dark and dirty looking...anyway here's the after:

So, I think it looks much better. I plan to get more of the blue plates to hang as well as something to go over the big space looking into the computer room, but it still looks better than it did...we also plan to change the backsplash and the counter and the floor and lighten the cabinets... What do you think?

Names

2011-05-19T11:39:00.000-05:00

So it's time for the bi-annual baby names post. For those of you that didn't hear, we're expecting another boy. Right now we're kind of leaning towards William really for no other reason than that I wanted to name the other two that and we didn't. But I also like Alexander or possibly Michael...although that is a little too common for me. So the question at the moment (cuz we could still change our mind entirely) is about the middle name. We were planning for the middle name to be Harold after Patrick's grandpa. That way the last three generations of Thaden men would be commemorated in our sons middle names, which is nice since Patrick is the only boy in his family and our boys are the only ones who will carry on the Thaden name. So James is James Patrick, then Henry Russell, after Patrick's dad and then possibly William Harold after his grandpa. The problem with this is that I like William Robert better. I think it sounds better and it's cool cuz it's like we're naming him after William Wallace and Robert the Bruce (you know those Scottish guys who did that stuff? (watch Braveheart for a history lesson) both of our families are Scottish on top of the German so that would be cool). Also that's cool 'cuz William roughly translated can mean "helmet" Patrick's name on some of his armour msg boards is armour bob. So it would be funny to name our baby "helmet bob." Also William Robert is Billy Bob, which is funny, but we would never actually call him that. However we planned the whole Harold thing and I'd feel bad not doing it now...but Alexander Harold sounds better...we could call him Alexei and pretend he was Russian....I don't like Alex...and Lex would rhyme with sex and people would make fun of him...and Xander is too trendy and I hate that guy on Buffy...and I like William better...even though my sister-in-law just named her baby Liam, which was my original plan to shorten William to (though Patrick doesn't like that name so it probably wouldn't have worked out...) I can't think of any other boy names I like. What names do you like?

Just a note...

2011-04-07T13:48:00.000-05:00

I've had some people express concern that I am such a depressed and negative thinker, always on the brink of some crisis or another based upon my blog posts. To you I would like to say; generally the only time I am motivated to write a blog is when I'm really annoyed about something. Thus my posts may seem overwhelmingly negative. However, you should note how infrequently I update and that should give you some peace as to my state of mind. ;) So there.

Updates with pics.

2011-04-04T18:58:00.001-05:00

So I suck at updating I know. I've decided to apply for both Art History and Library Science. I'm only going to take two courses this fall; Art History Survey to 1500 (or is it 1800?) and one of the core LS classes....Library Professions maybe? I can't remember. They are both online was the point. I've discovered that only a few of the art history classes are actually online and I'm not going to be in a position to attend a steady stream of actual on campus classes this fall with a new baby. This way I get one of each and can make a decision about one or the other if I need too. This is of course all assuming we magically come up with money to pay for these....if they were both graduate level classes then it would count as attending half time which means I would qualify for financial aid, but since one is an undergraduate course I don't think I'll qualify for anything, so we'll see how that goes. Anyway, really this was for posting my belly shots since some of you don't have facebook accounts to see where I posted them there. So here you go:

12wks

16wks

20wks

24wks

Yeah, I know, it would help if they were all cropped the same or shot from the same distance, but you get the idea...and yes I did dye my hair brown in the last one. At least it's starting to grow out some, hopefully by the time the baby comes it will look normal again. I haven't been having too hard a time with this pregnancy until the past week or two when it seems I all of a sudden 'feel' pregnant. Suddenly my stomach is huge, I'm awkward, I can't bend over without cutting off circulation to my head, and as of the past two days I can no longer easily roll over in bed or walk without cringing in pain for the first few minutes after a long 'rest'. Bah. I've also been in a bad mood lately...the two may be related. I hate being pregnant, I hate taking care of my kids, I hate being home, I hate having to go somewhere, I hate how incredibly messy my house is and I hate cleaning it. I hate my church calling, I hate my books, I hate my yoga class, I hate exercising in general and I'm not particularly looking forward to the next fifteen weeks, not to mention the new level of chaos that will be achieved by adding one more kid to the mix. I just want to relax and hang out with my husband (and no kids). I want to sleep in and stay up late without worrying about someone bugging me in the night or morning. I want to go places and see interesting things, but I also want to laze about the house all day doing absolutely nothing. I want to look fabulous but I don't want to be bothered getting ready for the day. So I guess I'm in a pregnancy funk or something...or I'm in serious need of a baby-free vacation. Bah. So I'm tons of fun to be around right now I'm sure. :) How are you doing?

Snow, life plans, and blah.

2011-02-09T14:55:00.002-06:00

It snowed today. Again. So they shut down the entire state. Again. After spending nearly the entire week locked up in my house with the kids I've about had it with the hilarity of Texas closing schools and garbage pick up and anything else they can think of for a little snow. Yes I understand there are no plows, no salt trucks and consequently there can be a very dangerous inch thick layer of ice on the roads. This then makes the already horrible at navigating in any kind of snowy condition drivers spin out of control and kill themselves and anyone else unfortunate enough to be on the road with them. But still. We were supposed to get a HUGE storm today. Snow from 7pm-7pm. Maybe even 8 inches!!!! It kind of sleeted for maybe two hours. You can still see the grass poking up from the snow. Yes it is very cold. I think the wind chill factor is like 1 right now. But I'm pretty sure I could still make it the two blocks down the road to get my daughter to school. Or even the seven miles to the gym for my much needed time away at yoga class. But no. Someone could get hurt. Better to close everything and go to school all through the summer to make up for all the snow days. Bah.

In other news I have been seriously considering going back to school. My plan being to try and take only 1-2 classes a semester starting this fall, with as many of them online as I can. My original plan was to go back and get a second bachelor's in Art History. Followed by a Master's with the possibility of a PhD in the same subject. The reason for this being that I have always wanted to work with objects in a museum. I thought an Anthropology degree was the way to go for this. Halfway through my master's I realized I was wrong. Or at least as far as an "Applied Anthropology" degree went I was wrong. Apparently I should have gone into Art History. I found several cool sounding courses at SMU (Southern Methodist University) in Dallas that sounded like just what I wanted. One even says you leave with a basic understanding of Maya hieroglyphs. Awesome. But to get into those courses you have to have at least 18 undergraduate credit hours in Art History. So I thought I'd go back for just those hours. Then I thought, hey it's going to take forever anyway with my million babies, so why not just get a second bachelor's? I'm pretty sure (though I could be wrong) that my first bachelor's would cover all of the University requirements so I would only have to take the major courses. That way I'd have a broader base to start from at the graduate level and wouldn't feel like I was missing out on stuff 'cuz I had only taken the bare minimum to get in. I figured if I planned on six babies and taking a semester off with the birth of each, taking two courses a semester I could earn my bachelor's in four years, and possibly graduate with my PhD when I was 46. 46 isn't that old. Then I could finally know a bunch of cool stuff, work at a museum or a university where people come to me to answer their vague yet interesting questions about ancient times/items/etc... You know like Nicholas Cage's mom on National Treasure 2? She was the only one (yeah right, I know) that could decipher what that cool old pre-columbian glyph meant. I always wanted to be that person. So I thought that would be cool. Isabelle would be 21 that year, James, 19, Henry 17, #4 15, #5 13, and #6 11. So they would all be either gone or in school and I would be free to get a cool job. So I sent in my fee and application to start this fall semester.

Then I had a moment of complete and utter panic when I was in a mood and decided to see if I could find a job..you know, if I needed to (I do this every now and then), to my dismay I found that I am completely unemployable. I have no skills and no real job experience. My only real job in my whole life was as a secretary (and that for only a little over a year). A secretary whose sole responsibilities were to redirect calls and deliver the mail. So I wouldn't really count that as secretarial experience. I then started frantically looking at different options available to me to get training for a "real" job. I started looking at stuff I never wanted to do but felt I needed some sort of qualification for so I could get a job. I looked at nursing programs and getting my teaching certificate, which is when I saw the Library Science program at TWU is "100% online." I could get my degree in that and not have to worry about babysitters and such for classes during the day. I could finish in three years with my two classes a semester plan and then be utterly employable. I'm sure there are way more jobs for librarians then for Art Historians. I mean really, where could I work with the art degree? A museum? Maybe, and granted there are a lot more museums in the area then in many towns so I may have a chance of that. A university or college? Sure. There are also several schools in the area that may or may not hire me. But if I were a librarian...there is a public library in nearly every town, libraries in the museums (some of them anyway) and multiple libraries within each University/college in the area. If I wanted to be an "academic librarian" (ie at a univeristy...I think) then my second masters in Anthropology would actually be a good credential for me to have. I thought. I like books, I like libraries...maybe that would be good? Upon further investigation I found the UNT also has a mostly online program that has a much better reputation...plus they already have all of my transcripts and such so I wouldn't have to pay/submit those. They have a few more requirements like proof of technical proficiency on a computer and 6 months or 120 hours of fieldwork, which kind of suck, but it could be good right? I like looking up stuff when I'm curious...they called some free lance librarians "information brokers" which sounded kind of cool or the stewards of information or something like that. What I don't like is all of the computer crap. I have to learn about search engines and some programing type sounding stuff and cataloguing stuff which all sounds really boring, but some of the classes sounded interesting. Like Youth Literature or The Art of Storytelling and stuff like that. Plus I'd be done in three years instead of 16...so I'd still be young enough to be a "sexy librarian."
Bah. I don't know. I think it might be cool...I took a Preservation class from the library people at UNT while working on my Anth degree and found that I had way more in common with all of them then I did with my anthropology cohort. We were almost all married (I think one other older anth guy was), many with kids, we all watched the same shows, read the same books, got the same jokes...I felt like; "hey! These are my people!" I looked into the Library Science program at that time but again all of the classes sounded boring and technical. I don't know that I really care about microfiche or the dewey decibal system....but these people I had so much in common with did so maybe there was something I was missing? I think it would be fun to work with special collections maybe or in the adult fiction section (though I get the impression you kind of have to do everything, even if you do specialize). Plus it would be a real job...if something were to happen to Patrick and I suddenly had to support everyone I could probably find something. With a masters in Anthropology and/or Art History I'm not so sure. If I want to do this I need to write a letter of intent and get three letters of recommendation and send in my app. It didn't sound like they have a close deadline unless you're applying for the PhD program, which I wouldn't be. I don't know. What do you think? I kind of wish I could do both but I'm not free 24 hours a day and we're not independently wealthy so I don't see that happening. But if you had to choose one or the other; starting all over again for a BA at 30 with four kids and probably not finishing for 15 years (think of the school loans on that) only to find yourself old, overeducated and still not very employable...or...starting at the graduate level again, taking maybe only three years (so I'm not too old) and being able to find a job that is still respectable with the possibility of all but matching Patrick's salary (should I choose to get a full time job, which I doubt I would while there were still kids at home). Which would you choose?

Of course the kids at home thing brings up another problem. One of the reasons I was okay with the art degree taking so long was because I wouldn't be expected to go pursue anything in the field until I was finished which would definitely be after we were done having kids and they were all in school full time. That way even though I was technically home with the kids I could still feel like I was doing something with my life. Maybe this is my "oh crap I'm turning 30 next month" crisis. You're supposed to be a grown up at 30 right? Whatever your doing with your life then, that is your life, that is what you do. This is not what I want my life to be. I don't want to look back and regret not trying for the degree/job/experiences I wanted. Not that there is anything wrong with being a stay at home mom, but that was not all I wanted to do. Of course, my gym teachers think I should go get certified to teach TurboKick and then I would be totally employable as well. The manager of the gym even asked if I would like to teach some classes. That was flattering, but I don't think teaching kick boxing while pregnant would work out very well so I said something vague about maybe after the baby. Bah.

Henry's new shirt

2011-01-08T22:07:00.000-06:00

For those of you who didn't see it at Thanksgiving...or pay close attention to my sidebar. ;)

Look I'm totally famous and trendy!

2010-12-12T18:48:00.001-06:00

http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/staticslideshowglamour.aspx?cp-documentid=26242722&gt1=39092

Check out the second ring in the slideshow. Patrick was so ahead of the times. Of course mine is white gold, not yellow so it's way cooler. ;)

UPDATE: Oh, I see how it is. No one cares that my ring is like totally famous now and was featured in an article/slideshow on the msn homepage. Well I thought it was cool....and my diamond is bigger. :-P

Tom Petty Rocks

2010-12-10T14:28:00.000-06:00

Here's a partial post I wrote back in September and never got back to. Sorry!

This past Tuesday Patrick and I were able to attend our third Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert in Fairpark (outdoor partially covered theater with chair and lawn seating in Dallas). It was awesome. The first time we saw him was at this same venue. The auditorium itself is small enough that there really are no bad seats. You're close enough to see him on stage without the big monitors, though those are fun to look at too. The second time we saw him was at the American Airlines Center. That was still cool, but a much different experience. Think 18,000 people vs. 2000. The more intimate venue is amazing. It's fun to hear your favorite songs on the radio, but way more awesome to hear them live with over 2000 people all singing along.

Updates..ish...

2010-12-07T15:19:00.000-06:00

So I changed my blog design per Margie's dream request.... ;) Not much going on here. I may change some more stuff on my blog next week, but then again maybe not. We've been enjoying watching Castle. We're all caught up now which kind of sucks since we have to wait for a new episode every week...not to mention the weeks of reruns they do during the holidays. Though I did see on my facebook Castle page that Castle and Beckett are finally going to kiss in a January episode. So that will be awesome. Most awesome moment of the show was when Castle dressed up as a space cowboy in the Halloween episode one season. He looked just like his character from firefly. Then Alexa's all; "what are you supposed to be?" and he's all; "a space cowboy!" and she's all; "First, there are no cows in space and second didn't you wear that like five years ago?" That was hilarious. Okay, well I have to get Isabelle from school so no more updates for you! :)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Fourteen

2010-09-13T23:53:00.003-05:00

Well here it is: Judgement Day. I am proud to say that today I totally and completely abstained from chocolate. Not only that, but the only "treat" I had was one sliced peach and one banana with a little whipped cream on top. See? I do so much better when no one is here to eat with me. I guess that means I'm a social eater...and I eat when I get bored...hmm I wonder how that works? Anyway, yay me!

On the other hand: I didn't make it the full two weeks, in fact I think it was only three of the fourteen days that I managed without chocolate, so that's kind of a bummer. I did not notice any real improvement in my skin. One patch on my pinky finger seems to have cleared up mostly, but a couple of patches on my leg have flared again, so no real change. Of course, I didn't really do the no chocolate thing, so who knows if that would have made a difference or not? I'm going to try and consciously cut back on chocolate in particular for the next little bit and see if that helps. However I probably won't be chronicle-ing (?) it every day on here. Much to the disappointment of my loyal fans I'm sure. ;)

So Patrick is gone. This means I can watch whatever I want in the evening. Generally this means all of the watch instantly chick flicks I have stored up on netflix. Tonight I started watching "Lost in Austen." I got through the first fifteen minutes and had to stop it as I wasn't really feeling it and the main girls voice was really freaking annoying. Although the brief glimpse I caught of Mr. Darcy did look promising, so maybe I'll have to try again. What I ended up watching was called "New in Town" starring Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. I thought, hey HCJ is hot and I like Bridget Jones so it should be good right? Wrong. I think Renee Zellweger's face is kind of funny looking. All through the show I kept thinking she looked like Christina Applegate after her face got burned by acid or something and they had to do reconstructive surgery, but it didn't really turn out so good. Also Mr. Jr was not looking so hot in this. He had a very distinct belly overhanging his jeans and his facial hair, which I usually like, just made him look unkempt. That added to the layers of clothing worn for the Minnesota weather made him look more like he was playing a homeless person then the romantic lead in a "comedy." (It wasn't very funny either...all of the women folk they were mocking reminded me of several people that I knew, which I found kind of insulting) What is really funny is that I seem to be going through Torchwood withdrawal. It really wasn't that great of a show, but I guess I really liked it as I keep wanting to watch episodes of it again. I've refrained so far as I don't want to waste my free tv time re-watching stuff, but I may have to revisit it at least once before Patrick comes back. I think I really liked the character of Gwen Cooper on that show...aside from the whole two-timing side plot in the first season....and the total and utter frustration I felt from her and Jack NEVER hooking up...even for a second....yes I know I was just complaining about her infidelity, but still, it's worse then Bones. I was going to say or House, but House and Cuddy totally hooked up at the end of last season. I may have to watch the last five minutes of that episode again before the new season starts. It will be good to get all of our shows going again. I know it's pathetic to live through television, but at least it adds a little excitement to life. So by the end of the month (I think) we'll have House, Bones, Glee (I will anyway, unless I can convince Patrick...I did make him watch the last 4-5 episodes so maybe he'll be willing), Vampire Diaries, and Supernatural. That takes up nearly every night of the week, so at least we have something to look forward to. True Blood is over now, but I haven't seen it yet as Patrick is gone. We've also been talking of trying out the show Castle, with Nathan Fillion of Firefly fame. I've heard it's good....also Warehouse 13, Psych, and V. Oh and we also have to finish the seventh season of Buffy that we finally started. It kind of got put on hold when we started watching Torchwood. This is my fault as I've seen it before and thought it was the suckiest season of Buffy. But we do get to see crazy Spike which will be fun after seeing him crazy and omnisexual on Torchwood... Anyway, I digress. No chocolate. Good. :)

(Crazy Spike from the future)

(Crazy Spike from 2002)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Thirteen

2010-09-13T00:13:00.001-05:00

Patrick leaves and the chocolate disappears...I wonder if there's a correlation there? Patrick left this morning to drive to New York and install a staircase with his boss. Leaving me here alone with the three crazies...who all felt the need to wake up at 6am today. Man did that suck. Anyway, no chocolate today, though Isabelle did request brownies for dessert, but I said no. The reason being (I mean aside from the no chocolate thing) that Patrick thoughtfully bought us some of those ready-to-bake cinnamon rolls to have today. When he bought them he forgot he was leaving at the crack of dawn and thus wouldn't get any. His plan was to make them for breakfast. I made them for lunch. ;) The kids also had tomato soup, so I'm not that bad...they each had one roll, Henry had half and I had four and a half...I was only going to have one, it just didn't work out that way. Anyway I saved two for the kids to have for dessert this evening, but when James and I got up from our naps I found only an empty bag. Isabelle thoughtfully drew a picture to tell me what happened....in it she's taking a roll out of a bag with two rolls inside...then she's taking a roll out of a bag with only one inside. So James didn't get another one. Poor baby. So I guess today was a success on the chocolate front, but a fail in the battle of the bulge, if you know what I mean. ;)

Side note: had all three kids by myself at church today. Man did that suck. I don't know how mom did it with the five of us...and then they kept calling her to be the Sacrament Meeting chorister! I would have been really mad/annoyed/etc...if they did that. I would have said; "don't you see me sitting alone with my five kids? Do you really think they can behave by themselves?" But I never remember he complaining, so I guess she was okay with it. Of course this is probably one of the reasons we always sat on the second row. So yeah, anyway I was ready to go sit out in the foyer after trying to muffle James shrieks during the sacrament prayer, but as we were getting ready to leave my nice visiting teacher came and sat by us and blocked the kids in on the other end of the row so they couldn't get out. So after finding some crayons and paper, they weren't so bad after that. Then on the way to primary (while juggling car seat (with baby), board, easel, church bag, diaper bag, tape, 4 year old, and toddler) my friend stopped me in the hall and offered to take Henry. I'm not sure if she meant right then or for the rest of church but I assumed the rest of church as she took him and walked off. That was very nice as I was planning to just let him crawl around bugging people in primary, which probably wouldn't have worked out so well. Hopefully Patrick will be back by next week (he should be) and I won't have to do that again for awhile...though he said it sounds like they're going to be going back at least two or three more times. I told him he should take me with him one time. Or better yet, I should go somewhere for a week and he should watch the kids. Who wants to come? I'm not sure where we'll go but there will be no babies! We'd better do it soon though before another one finds it's way into my uterus (I don't know how they keep getting in there...) So any takers?

Giving up Chocolate: Day Twelve

2010-09-11T22:10:00.000-05:00

I didn't get enough sleep last night...only like five hours. I know lots of you get by on less than that but I'm not used to it and I'm falling over this evening. Patrick is leaving tomorrow to go to New York for like a week and I'm planning on not making any treats while he is gone. So that's my excuse. ;) He brought home some "Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Filling" tonight and we had that while watching the last episode of Torchwood. It was really depressing (the show not the chocolate...although being overly full of the chicken tenders we had at dinner didn't help I'm sure). I'm glad they're making another one, hopefully everyone won't die. I think it would be funny if Qwen named her baby after Jack and then he comes back and is all "so you named your baby after me?" and she's all "well you said you were never coming back..."

I also had left over French Toast with whipped cream for a mid-morning snack....and then Patrick and I had left over bacon and cheese while watching the previous episodes of Torchwood this afternoon. Very healthy, I know. But at least we finished the show so I won't be waiting to watch it while he's gone...like the finale of True Blood tomorrow night I have to wait a week to watch...or the new episode of Vampire Diaries Thursday. I could watch them without him, but it's fun to watch it together for the first time. Okay, now it's ten o'clock and I'm going to bed. Sorry no funny stories about chicken butts today. ;)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Eleven

2010-09-10T23:29:00.000-05:00

I don't want to talk about it. Really it wasn't that bad. I had one bite of my daughter's Fiber One bar with chocolate chips before I gave the rest to my husband....and then this evening I had half a box of Junior Mints. I forgot they were chocolate until after I was already sick to the stomach from eating too many. Of course the really bad part was the four pieces of pumpkin pie I had...plus the French Toast drenched in syrup and whipped cream we had for dinner. Yeah I suck. Oh...I guess there were some strawberries on the French Toast, so that means they were totally healthy...and we used eggs fresh from our chicken's butts, so that's like all natural right? ;) Yeah they've started laying eggs. It's kinda cool/gross.

Giving up Chocolate: Day Ten

2010-09-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

Bah! So I said the cookies were all gone. Apparently I was wrong. There were two left. They're gone now. We won't discuss their final destination. I also had a fruit smoothie today (yum!) and a piece of pumpkin pie (not so yum as I discovered the kids kiped the can of whip cream and thus had none for my pie...luckily I'm going to the store tomorrow so I can get more). Tomorrow I have to go into Denton for my allergy shots. I've been going on Mondays, but since Isabelle started school that just doesn't work anymore. It takes too long to go while she's in school and I have two gym classes Monday and Wednesday mornings, so Friday it is! Although I think I'm going to have to leave pretty early to get there, to the store, and back in time for her to eat lunch and get to school. She needs to be there by 12:20 and Denton is 45 minutes one way....so I guess we'll be leaving at like 8am? Wow that sucks. I guess I should go to bed then so I don't fall asleep and kill us all. :)

Side note: Vampire Diaries premiered tonight, so we watched the finale from last season to catch up to watch the new episode on the computer tomorrow. After that we watched the first episode of Torchwood series 3. Way more exciting than teen angst, even with the vampires. If you've never watched Vampire Diaries, let me tell you it is cheese-a-riffic. Patrick and I can almost say the lines before the characters do as they are so predictable. But Damon's charming homicidal tendencies lend the the show some appeal, so we watch. Plus Katherine's coming back so we get to see the actress that plays Elena be totally evil. Fun, fun. :)

PS: I think I'm starting to see why I'm not losing any weight despite all of the exercise...you may think this is me going crazy from chocolate withdrawal, but really I eat like this all the time. It's amazing I don't weigh a million pounds. I'm just saying. ;)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Nine

2010-09-09T01:33:00.000-05:00

Fail. While I did give the kids half of the left over cookies, I ate the other half...and this was after I was so excited this morning for my scale finally breaking the 150 mark. It has only done this once or twice before and that was a couple of months ago when I was doing much better, so I was hoping this was the start of another downward trend. Well let me tell you it's back above it now. Stupid cookies. On a side note. We've been watching Torchwood. Having just finished series 2 (they call them "series" in the UK not "seasons" weirdos), we watched the crossover two part series 4 finale of Doctor Who so we would be all caught up when we start series 3...which is really a miniseries, not a whole series. Plus we probably can't watch it all before Patrick leaves to New York on Sunday, so that will suck. The reason being tomorrow we have to rewatch the finale from last season's Vampire Diaries so that we can be all prepared for the premier of this season which should be up Friday. It starts seconds after the cliff hanger ending from last season so I thought we should refresh. Plus I wanted to see Damon and Elena kiss again 'cuz he's totally hot...even though he's so not a nice guy. (Which I guess I would be more worried about if i had a teenage daughter watching this....the jerk that murders people is the 'cool' one while the nice brother is a dork) Oh yeah, so we watched Doctor Who. That show is awesome. It's so much funnier than Torchwood, of course I know they're supposed to be different types of shows but still. I also liked the German-speaking Daleks; "Exterminaten, Exterminaten!" HI-larious. and then at the end when everyone left and the Doctor was so alone....poor David Tennant. He looked like he was going to cry when he left Rose with the other Doctor....and then all of his companions were threatening global destruction and he was so sad...no wonder he didn't take any more companions until after he regenerated. *sigh*

So yeah...I had chocolate. But now the cookies are gone so I shouldn't be eating any more tomorrow. Plus since Patrick is going to be out of town, next week should go better as I always seem to eat more sweets when he's here then when he's not. He was gone for three weeks in June and I lost nearly five pounds, so that was nice. Maybe I can lose a couple next week. ;)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Eight

2010-09-08T00:09:00.001-05:00

Just when you think you're in the clear, BOOM, chocolate circles around and ambushes you from behind. I was doing so good today. I was experimenting with a technique described in this book I'm reading "Health at Every Size" by Dr. Janet Bacon. In it you eat what you want, when you're hungry, and then stop once you're full. Crazy right? Anyway I was still avoiding chocolate and doing pretty well. I have been consistently back down to my pre-August weight for two days now and had just started to consider those extra three pounds a bad dream when it happened; I came home from the gym starving. I told Patrick that I was going to make these delicious oatmeal, chocolate chip, pecan, craisin, vegan cookies we'd had before, only without the chocolate chips. Well as soon as I finished my dinner I knew that was a bad idea as, per my books instructions, I was listening to my body and it was saying that it was full. Maybe even a little over full. But a promise is a promise (and an excuse is an excuse) and I started making the cookies anyway. I reasoned that I wasn't going to put chocolate chips in and I was only going to have one anyway, so it would be okay. *sigh* What an optimistic fool I was. Before I had even finished adding all of the ingredients I was eating the cookie dough out of the bowl (no eggs so it was okay...not that I've let that stop me in the past, but you know). I had added all of the other ingredients and was remembering how incredibly delicious these cookies were last time we had them...when they had chocolate chips in them. I'm sure they would have been fine without them, but I impulsively grabbed the bag from the cupboard and dumped some in....and ate some more dough, this time with chocolate chips.

As I started spooning them onto the pan I argued with myself over whether or not I should cook the whole batch or save the dough in the fridge for later. I thought that if I cooked them all then I would may eat too many, but I also knew from past experience that if I only cooked a dozen there was a good chance that Patrick and I would completely finish off the pan. I decided to chance it. I cooked 14 cookies (I managed to squeeze an extra two onto the pan) and saved the rest of the dough in the fridge (where I'm sure it will haunt me tomorrow). Once out of the oven (and now full of dinner and cookie dough) I once again told myself that I would only be eating one. The problem with this being that even after I carefully selected the "best" one for me to consume and then ate it slowly (or so it seemed to me) Patrick had yet to take even one bite from his first. So then when he finally did get around to his cookie I wanted another so that I would be eating one with him. And so it continued. It probably didn't help that I brought the cooling rack of cookies over to the computer desk for easier access while we watched Torchwood. We finished them off. Henry had two, Patrick had 6.5, and I had 5.5 (well honestly I think I'm the one that had 6.5, but we've decided it was him as neither one of us is completely sure). So that added to the hearty meatloaf as well as the four pieces of, albeit homemade, pizza I had today brought my calorie count up to a whopping 3020. To keep this in perspective I aim to keep it under 1500 every day. So that sucked. So much for listening to my bodies cues...and now I have the rest of the cookie dough lurking in the fridge for me to find tomorrow. Maybe I can convince the kids to eat it all...

Giving up Chocolate: Day Seven

2010-09-06T22:59:00.000-05:00

Hurray! No chocolate for me! I almost gave in today at the Dollar General. I had to run in for bread and milk. I went straight to the back for the milk and then was making a beeline for the bread without looking to either side of me, when I had the thought that maybe I should grab a snack for our picnic (the reason for the bread run). I briefly considered the cookies in the cookie aisle and even squished a pkg of chocolate chips cookies to see how soft they were before I caught myself and headed over to the bread. If I don't need chocolate the kids don't need it. Besides, Isabelle always says it hurts her tummy (maybe she's allergic too?). I also looked at the truffles by the cash register again (I only saw the yucky white chocolate kind), and was briefly tempted by the dark chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter cups, but I persevered and bought nothing but the bread and milk I came for. That was an act of will power in itself as I always seem to find 5-10 other things I "need" when I go to the store. So yay me! We had homemade pizza for dinner tonight and I had one too many slices, but at least I didn't have chocolate or sweets...well, I had half of a blueberry muffin, but that was only 75 calories. :) Plus it had blueberries...or a reasonable facsimile, so hey fruit right?

Today was Labor Day and Patrick didn't go in to work at all. It was awesome as he usually has some project he's working on that he needs to go into work for even on weekends and holidays, but today he stayed home. This meant I got to go to my gym classes (which was up in the air as my sitter couldn't come today) and we planned a family picnic at the park here in Collinsville. It's a very small park, but they have some fun toys, my favorite being the teeter totters (at least when Patrick rides with me). It's crazy that parks the world over have been removing teeter totters and merry-go-rounds for years, but ours just installed them this past year. Yay small towns that don't care about lawsuits or injuries! We packed a picnic lunch (I had roast chicken, spinach, tomato, cheese, and carrots, the kids had pb&j's) in the cool picnic basket we bought last year at a yard sale as well as the Dora and Spiderman kites I impulsively bought for the kids at one of my Dollar General runs a couple of months ago. We haven't had a chance to fly them until now and today was perfect. Just windy enough to get them up easily, but not so windy they got away from you. We even let Henry crawl around on the grass in his stink bug position (hands and feet, bum up in the air). So yay for us. No chocolate and I get to be a good mom today.

Giving up Chocolate: Day Six

2010-09-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

Success for reals! No chocolate....however I did have a blueberry muffin, 1.5 strawberry shortcakes (?) with whipped cream, and a slice of apple pie. So....once again, good for the chocolate thing, bad for the weight thing. Oh well. Sorry, no fun stories today. :(
Although, as an aside. I was looking for pics of strawberry shortcake and nearly every one of them was some variation of this:

With a bottom and a top like a sandwich with strawberries and whipped cream in the middle. I've never made it this way. Does everyone else do it like this? We do it more like the pic at the top with the shortcake on the bottom and then piles of strawberries and whipped cream on top. Most often the shortcake is torn into pieces too, so it's not even whole like in the picture. Am I doing it wrong then? (Not that this means I'll change, but I am curious.)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Five

2010-09-04T22:05:00.001-05:00

Success! ish....okay I took three bites of leftover brownie, but that totally shouldn't count. I also gaurded the remaining Nazi Pie with my life so that Patrick and I could have it for dessert tonight...and then went to the store and bought the makings of strawberry shortcake. However, after a very hearty dinner of meatloaf, potatoes, and carrots, neither of us felt at all like eating, so Patrick had a popsicle and I abstained. We'll see if this is a sign of things to come. Now, I hate to leave you with no tantalizing picture of chocolate, so here is a pic of the totally delicious S'Mores Cookie Bars I've made in the past. They are really, really, really, really bad for you...and just as good. ;)

Let me know if you want the recipe. ;)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Four

2010-09-04T00:17:00.001-05:00

Maybe I should just retitle this my "Chronicle of Chocolate Consumption" as I don't seem to be making any inroads into the whole "giving up" aspect.   So today, I made brownies for the neighbors. Again. This time I vowed to take them over the second I saw her SUV drive up. Of course as I was mixing the batter I had to have a little taste. Just a little. Then I poured it into the pan...and had another taste, and another...let's just say I hope the oven killed off any germs I left in there 'cuz I had a lot of "tastes." Once the brownies came out of the oven I put them on top of the stove to cool. I ignored them for some time as they did this. I watched a show on the computer, got the songs ready for primary, put James down for a nap, put Henry down...I didn't even cut the brownies because I knew that as soon as I did this I would want to snitch, so I didn't walk near them until they were completely cooled off like two hours later.

I sat at the computer doing some waste of time thing or another, purposefully not thinking about the brownies. I thought I was doing pretty well right up until I got out of my chair, marched over there and cut a row, eating one and sitting back down without thinking twice about it. See apparently I had been thinking about it subconsciously and had decided that one wouldn't hurt without telling my conscious brain...my id and superego were not communicating I guess. Anyway, I only ate one. I was so proud of myself. Then I went and picked up Isabelle from school and when she got home she wanted a snack. Being the generous mother that I am I offered a brownie. No sooner had I given her a brownie then my sneaky hand snatched up another and shoved it in my mouth before I could protest. I felt like Ash from the Evil Dead movies where his hand is possessed and bashing him over the head with plates. Anyway, so, while my mouth was busy chewing I quickly got out a plate, cut up the rest of the brownies and started stacking them on there as quick as I could before my hand got any ideas. Unfortunately I wasn't going fast enough as my hand managed to shove another two into my mouth before I could get the plate covered in saran wrap. But once that was done and all of the stray bits were taken care of (ie I ate those too) I was able to sit and be still. I even managed to turn down an offer of yet another brownie this evening when I went to our neighbors to drop them off. See I can say no! ;)

You see I think this sort of undertaking requires a certain amount of willpower exercised while in just the right state of mind. If either of these are out of whack it's not going to be a good day. The problem today, for example was, I believe, the Nazi Applie Pie I had for breakfast....followed by the half slice I had at lunch, and the other half slice I had for a mid afternoon snack. I mean once you start your day with a 377 calorie piece of pie you've got to wonder why you should even bother trying to eat healthy the rest of the day. I tend to be of the attitude that if I've already screwed up that bad before lunch I'd rather just toss the whole day out the window and start again tomorrow. This is one of my biggest problems when it comes to weight loss as I hate cooking first thing in the morning and so tend to grab something that's quick and easy, like leftover dessert from the night before. Although I guess this way, at least today, I could claim that Nazi's sabotaged my diet and how many people can say that? Darn Nazi's!!!

PS: I found the card reader. Pics of the Nazi Pie have been posted in yesterday's entry. ;)

Giving up Chocolate: Day Three

2010-09-03T00:18:00.001-05:00

Wow I suck at this. I too am one of those people who, if I try not to do something, I am more likely to do it then ever. Well okay, I didn't do that bad today. I licked the chocolate pudding off the foil on my kids pudding snacks today, but you really can't let that go to waste and I didn't want them to do it as it would make a big mess and they could cut their tongues on the foil. What? It could happen. So that was all I did...until I had to make a run to the store.

I was making Chicken Croquets for dinner (which are awesome btw, but so not good for you) when I realized we didn't have any bread crumbs and I had to run to the store. The only store in our town is the Dollar General. Now I used to scoff at people who shopped at the Dollar General, but since moving here let me tell you I am now a firm believer. It's like a mini Super Walmart. They have pans, plates, gift wrap, cards, clothes, shoes, dvds, diapers, yard decor, candy, groceries, milk, beauty products, you name it. Granted their selection is rather limited and some of their items are overpriced *cough* milk *cough* But some are actually a very good deal. Anyway, I went for bread crumbs.

I could not find the bread crumbs. I went up and down the food aisles three times looking for them....I was also looking for pie crust as I had decided I wanted to make an apple pie. Do you know what is right next to where pie crust would be? Brownie mix, chocolate chip cookie mix, Jello no bake oreo cake mix, chocolate peanut butter bar mix....my mouth started watering just looking at them. I steeled myself against the temptation and headed down to the cracker aisle since I couldn't find bread crumbs (crushed Ritz make excellent bread crumbs). Do you know what else is on the cracker aisle? Cookies. Chocolate drizzel shortbread cookies, soft batch cookies, thin mints, mallowmars, little debbie snacks....okay those weren't such a temptation as they're kinda nasty. So I had to go up and down these aisles over and over looking for what I wanted to buy. But I resisted. I resisted and I resisted, all the way up to the cash register where a box of Lindor Truffles called to me. No I didn't buy the whole box. They had individual truffles for sale. I reasoned that if I had just one it would satisfy my craving and I wouldn't want/need anything else. So I grabbed one quickly and started checking out. The clerk couldn't get the barcode on the wrapper to read, so he asked if I could grab another. I was already down the counter by the card reader, so when I moved to comply, the woman in line behind me right next to the truffles reached down and grabbed one for me. I said thanks as she handed it to the cashier. More people got in line. He couldn't get that one to read either. She grabbed another. Nope. Finally she grabbed the remaining contents of the entire box (which was really only like six, but still) and handed them over. I'm sure the people behind her were getting antsy and I think I was blushing at this point over all the trouble these people were going to for one stupid truffle I really shouldn't be eating anyway. So after two more tries, the clerk finally got it to read, the woman put back the double handful of truffles now trailing over the counter and I took my bag to the car to eat my treat. Unfortunately when I opened the wrapper, I saw that in my haste I had grabbed a white chocolate truffle. I don't like white chocolate. Yuck! All that trouble for a nasty white chocolate one? Oh the humanity! I ate it anyway. Does white chocolate count as chocolate? When adding up my calories for today I also discovered that just one white chocolate lindor truffle is 230 calories. What the freaking crap?! That's like an entire Healthy Choice frozen dinner! Stupid truffle.

After the gym I went to the much bigger (though still incredibly small) supermarket in Whitesboro and found some ready made pie crust. I made apple pie tonight and had a big slice with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream. It was delicious. It was also over 400 calories, which when added to my truffle fiasco and the extra croquet I snuck while making the pie were definitely not good for my calorie count today...on a side note, I was thinking about the phrase; "as American as apple pie" while I was making it. You're supposed to cut slits in the top of the pie crust to vent it as it cooks. I usualy cut a leaf shape as that's what my mom always did, but today I decided to cut the four slits the picture showed, in the four cardinal directions....these then looked wierd to me so I added a few more lines and low and behold I had carved a swastika into the pie. We now had a Nazi apple pie. It was probably un-American of us, but we ate it anyway. ;)

Okay I was going to post a pic of our Nazi Pie, but I can't find the card reader. If I do, I'll post it later...I know you're very disappointed. :(

*Update: here it is:

Giving up Chocolate: Day Two

2010-09-01T23:40:00.000-05:00

Well today went better than yesterday...of course that isn't really saying much since yesterday could be categorized as a total failure. Patrick taking all of the chocolate to work with him helped. The only chocolate we have left are the chips we have in food storage and the baking chocolate in the fridge. Plus I totally overloaded yesterday, so I wasn't even really craving it today. What I did want was something with cinnamon..like apple crisp or coffee cake....that would have been good. But no apples, and luckily I was too busy today to bake a cake. This evening after my nap (yes I sometimes take naps, though I've been missing them lately), I wandered into the computer room to see what the kids were doing and get started on dinner. (It is open to the kitchen) Isabelle and James were sitting in front of the computer screen happily watching Short Circuit. That movie is awesome...but that's beside the point. While I was out they had apparently raided the candy left over and forgotten about from Christmas and Easter. Pieces of candycane were everywhere and I found an empty bag of Mini Robin's Eggs. I saw that they had gathered the eggs in a pile inside the openfaced candy cane box and were munching away. [On a side note I later found them in James's truck, under the chair, in my shoe and overflowing one of the train cars the kids play with.] Now mini robin's eggs and I go way back. In the past I have stocked up on these the second they go out on the shelves...you know the day after Valentines Day? Robin's eggs and peeps...mmm... Well two years back I went totally overboard with Robin's Eggs....I bought at least three 10 oz bags worth as well as 5-6 half pint sized cartons for "us." Patrick does not care for Robin's Eggs, so I pretty much ate them all myself...in a two week period. That is a lot of malt balls to eat in that amount of time. It was over a year before I was able to even get up the slightest desire to try them again. So anyway, the kids were eating these and even though I don't like them as much anymore my first inclination was to snag a couple. I had eaten about two handfuls (which really sounds like a lot more then it is) when I remembered that they had chocolate under that thin candy shell. This stopped me from eating more for the most part. I did snitch a couple here and there throughout the evening, but only ever 1-2 at a time.
This evening when it became "that time" of the night where we both start prowling the kitchen for snacks I had trouble even trying to think of anything chocolate that I wanted. So that's good. Probably not a lasting side effect of overdoing it yesterday, but better than nothing. Instead I had ice cream with toffee bits. That doesn't go much towards my weightloss goals, but is good as far as the no chocolate thing. In conclusion I'm going to categorize today as 90% successful. :)

Giving up chocolate. Day One.

2010-09-01T00:47:00.002-05:00

I have decided to try and give up chocolate. Not forever, but just to see... According to my allergist I am allergic to chocolate. I believe it was a 2+ on a 4 (with pluses, don't ask me what that's about) point scale. Chocolate and strawberries. The only side effects from the chocolate that I have ever noticed was that drinking a mug of hot chocolate makes me nauseous. It's still good so I still do it every now and again, but generally the stomach ache that follows is enough to deter me for several weeks or more afterwards
.
So...as many of you know I have been suffering from various levels of excema for the past five years. This sprang out of nowhere and has yet to be "cured." I have been told I need to identify the trigger(s) and stay away from it(them) and then I won't have this problem. Unfortunately I am allergic to everything on God's green earth so discovering said triggers is near to impossible. Now on to my chocolate dilemma. Yesterday, after eating 4 brownies, I was lying in bed arguing with my insides about where they needed to be at the moment (namely, in side) when I thought maybe chocolate is the culprit. Now bear with me...I have noticed a very substantial increase in my chocolate intake in the past 4.5 years. Granted this was after my excema started, but it can't be helping it right? Ever since I was in the hospital with Isabelle and a friend of mine brought me the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, I have craved chocolate like nobody's business. I have made cookies, cakes, cupcakes, brownies, sundaes...I buy granola bars with chocolate chips, fiber bars with chocolate drizzel, even the Special K chocolate cereal.  There have been times when I have felt the need for chocolate and just inhaling the scent has calmed me considerably. So, what I'm trying to say is; for someone who is supposedly allergic to it I seem to be consuming an awful lot....and I am constantly breaking out in itchy patches... So I have decided to conduct an experiment.   Two weeks without chocolate and we'll see what happens. Maybe nothing. Maybe I'll lose a few pounds. Maybe my skin will clear up. Maybe I'll plan a field trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania and initiate a hostile takeover. We'll see.

Day One:
   Didn't go so well. It all started when my two year old came into my room carrying the box of chocolate covered Eclairs left over from our party Saturday (yes partygoers, I bought them and forgot to bring them out. Sorry.)   He wanted one. I was half...well 3/4 of the way asleep and willfully opened the box for him (you know being the kind, observant and health conscious mother that I am). He took one and went on his way. I looked at the box. Briefly considered my vow of the night before and then just as quickly dismissed it as I took one out and ate it right there in bed. I then thoughtfully took the box back into the kitchen so as not to tempt myself further....and upon placing it in the fridge snagged the 1/4 eclair on the shelf that Isabelle had 'saved' (no I'm not a jerk, she didn't like it).   After getting more sleep I quickly disavowed any knowledge of the mornings eclairs and decided to start the day anew....

     Last night we made brownies for our new neighbors. We planned to bring them over a plateful to show that we were nice and that they were welcome, yadda, yadda, yadda. Anyway, they weren't home. So the plate was sitting on top of our refridgerator covered in plastic wrap waiting to go. On the counter were some of the hard corner pieces I didn't want to include in the gift plate. I ignored them. I ignored them for two hours. Then I ate one corner. That was it, just one corner.   Later, (but not much later, let's be honest) they were sitting on top of the microwave and I had to warm something up...I think...or maybe I was getting something out of the cupboard, but I looked and looked at them and I thought: "I should give those to the kids so that I won't eat them....James would like it...Isabelle won't eat it....James didn't eat his last night either....I don't need them...well if I eat them now, they won't be there to tempt me later." So I unwrapped them and ate them while I hid around the corner so the kids wouldn't see. Sigh. So one eclair and two brownies later....

Fast forward to late afternoon. Isabelle is in school, James is sleeping, Henry is playing on the floor and I'm thinking about the brownies on the fridge. I'm thinking that I should run over to the neighbors and drop them off. A quick glance out the window shows a car in the driveway. But that doesn't mean they're home...I"m pretty sure they have two or three cars.... Besides, if they were home, she'd want to talk and I couldn't leave my kids alone in the house that long could I? No of course not! I take down the plate and look at it. I imagine that if I rearrange them a little bit, no one would know if I ate just one. So I did. It was delicious.

   Night time. We've had dinner, I've worked my butt off at the gym (or not considering the sweets I've eaten already today), the older two are in bed. It's just Patrick, Henry and I. I really want something sweet...I say something to the effect of; "you know, maybe we should just make the neighbors a new batch of brownies. I don't want to give them old stale ones." Patrick readily agrees, even going so far as to say that he was thinking something similar himself (in his case I'm sure he was being quite serious with no underlying motives at all. He's just that way). Now this sounds innocent enough, but I happen to know for a fact at this point that the brownies are not going stale, they are in reality getting chewier and richer with each passing moment they spend on the fridge. But the decision has been made; they must be eaten. I quickly eat one before we get any further into the conversation. Patrick mentions; "I thought you were giving up chocolate." To which I reply, "shove it Patrick, and pass the plate!" Just kidding. I calmly say, "yeah well..." and mumble something as I fade into the distance. Patrick looks at me funny as people don't actually fade into the distance whilst standing there talking to you. Anyway, I eat two before we've even sat down. I grab another in the pretext of giving some to Henry. I do share, but most of it is for me. I eat one more as we watch our show (Torchwood...give it a try!) before my stomach starts to catch up with me. "Kiera," it says. "What are you doing? Don't you remember our little issue with chocolate?" To which I reply, "but I can easily eat 7 or more of my brownies! It's just this box mix that's screwing us up! Here let me prove it!" and I shove another one in. But my stomach's arguments finally win out and I stop eating brownies.

About fifteen minutes later my stomach really makes it's complaints known and now I sit here wondering what in the world is wrong with me that I can eat so much crap knowing it disagrees with me. Not only the allergy thing, but that I have also been going to the gym religiously since February trying to lose weight and not succeeding to the degree I think I should probably because of this very thing. Again I thought; well if I eat them all...or enough that Patrick can take the rest to work anyway, then they won't be here for me to want. This would only work however if I didn't know how to cook. But I do. So most often the pattern at this point would be for two days from now (or even tomorrow if the mood strikes), we will be sitting down to watch our show and one of us will say; "I want something yummy..." and out will pop the mixing bowls and pans and another batch of [brownies][cookies][cake][s'mores bars (which are DELICIOUS btw)], etc... will appear. As of tonight though the remaining four brownies and three eclairs are going to work with Patrick.  So I should be able to start with a clean slate tomorrow. I thought maybe if I chronicled my journey on here it would help. Unfortunately, I am now set back a day before I even begin. So tomorrow will be Day Two (One). Stay tuned.

Fruitful Fourth

2010-07-07T22:45:00.000-05:00

This year for the Fourth of July I got a little carried away in my eagerness for patriotic desserts and bought way too many blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and then some peaches and bananas for good measure. This is the result:

First up: Blueberry Pie. Mmmmmmm

Hooray for pie!!

Next: Red, White, and Blueberry Trifle.

(with Peaches and bananas too)

I love Trifle!!

Hmm...I wonder what this one is?

James is worried it may explode....and no my husband is not handing our two year old fire...

o_O

Ooooh! Strawberry Icebox Pie! (with blueberries)

I feel so patriotic...but wait! Where's the whipped cream?!

Ah, there it is. All is right with the world...

I couldn't agree more!!

Hello?

2010-06-15T01:05:00.000-05:00

Blah, blah, blah. Words....'n stuff. Blah, blah...hello?

Too much to do

2010-05-26T15:29:00.001-05:00

I feel like I have too much to do this week. This stems mostly I think because generally I don't "have" to do more than one or two things a week so when there are real things to be accomplished I get stressed.

Monday I went to a new class at the gym (kickboxing) since the regular bootcamp class I attended was moved to T/Th. I promised the kids I'd take them to the library, but we didn't have time.
Tues I was supposed to do the laundry (didn't happen) and was invited to a splash park in Sherman, plus I had my bookclub that night in Denton (don't get to go to gym class). .
Wednesday I'm going to try the new Zumba class at my gym, since Patrick will be here to watch the kids. I'm also doing the laundry since I didn't Tuesday.
Thursday I have band in Denton (don't get to go to gym class).
Friday has nothing planned at the moment and
Saturday we're having a cookout (you don't say bbq in Texas unless you're actually having bbq) with the possibility of lots of people coming. Maybe only two, but possibly like 20 something, including kids.

However this week I also have to write a talk for church....this takes precedence as I don't want to feel like an idiot in front of our whole ward. Consequently all of my free time that would be spent paying the bills (which I really should have done last week), cleaning the house (which also needs to be done before Saturday), reading (which makes me not crazy), taking the kids to the library (which makes them not crazy), preparing the songs for primary this week, etc...is taken up with talk writing. I was hoping it would be done today, but I haven't had much time to work on it, even staying up until 1-2am as I have been. Bah! (I probably shouldn't be wasting my time blogging either, but whatever) Plus I really want to watch the Lady Gaga episode of Glee from this week, but I don't know when I'll be able to. So those of you with jobs and kids and activities that you do every week don't laugh at me, but I'm stressing out.

Which Pic?

2010-05-14T23:05:00.001-05:00

So my sister recently edited a bunch of pics of our kids for me and now I can't decide which one to print. What do you think?
Isabelle:

2 :

James:

Henry:
1:

and finally Isabelle and James together:

Of course I also like these of Isabelle:

but my sister said they're too shadowy...plus she's not by the Texas Bluebonnets and I just may get arrested if I live in Texas and don't take pics of my kids by these flowers. ;)

Which ones do you like?

Chickens and Turtles and Nests, Oh My!

2010-04-30T16:35:00.002-05:00

Spring has arrived here in Texas. I see baby horses and cows every time I drive into town and the air is full of allergy-inducing pollen to "delight" the senses. About a month ago I bought some beautiful flowers to go on our porch so our house wouldn't look so drab next to our over industrious yard working neighbors well kept plots:

(This isn't an accurate pic of our house...Patrick has since torn all of those bushes out save a small ornamental one on the corner.)

A few days before Easter we bought some baby chicks:

Isabelle named them: Pizza, Music, Happy, and Potato.

They've since grown rather large:

Pizza and Music are the big brown ones and Happy and Potato the smaller black ones. While they've been living on our back porch, Patrick has been building them a bigger coop out behind the garage/barn next to our mulch pile:

It's nearly done and I'm sure they'll like it much better.
Earlier this month our adventurous turtle started escaping from his rocklined pond that Patrick made him:

We've found him in the far reaches of the yard, but we have always found him...that is until two weeks ago. After realizing we hadn't seen him in a couple of days we started looking...and looking...and looking. But alas it seems our beloved family pet of 16 years has finally heeded the call of the wild and gone on a grand adventure from which he may never return. Hopefully he is having the time of his life, making turtle friends and little turtle babies, and not squished on the side of the road somewhere. Bye Golly!!

Last week while watering my plants I discovered that one of the ferns and one of the flowers had nests in them!

The fern had 2 baby birds and 3 eggs in it when I first discovered it. This shouldn't have been a surprise as a bird seems to fly away from it every time I get near. The flowers had just a nest, in the final stages of completion. Now, a week later, the fern has five baby birds in it. They are very tiny, but growing fast. When I first saw them, the oldest were no bigger than the last joint in my finger...they're not much bigger now:

The flower nest has since been completed. Tuesday there was one egg in it and as of today there are now two. They seem to be the same type of bird as the fern layer.

I try to be extra careful when watering my plants now so I don't douse the babies, and I keep checking the remaining ones for signs of habitation, but I think they'll remain vacant for the time being.

It's been heating up here, today being the worst so far, in my opinion, as it is incredibly humid outside and I've had to turn on the a/c. I hear there's snow in Utah. I'm not sure which I'd rather have. ;)

So there you have it. Springtime at the Thadens!

Yeah I know...

2010-04-10T18:30:00.001-05:00

I suck at updating. Now we're so far behind I don't know what to write...birthdays? Easter? New beds? Pets? Flowers? Today it will be birthdays since I already said I'd write about that. All of the birthdays in our family except Henry occur during the first three months of the year. Patrick's is Jan 10th, Isabelle's Jan 20th, James Feb 20th and mine is March 7th. So we have non-stop parties at our house during those months or so it seems. Here are some pics:

First was Patricks birthday. He turned 34 this year. We didn't have a big party and he opted for dinner out with the family as his birthday plan. We had cheesecake for the cake since he loves it:

he got lots of cool iron type books.

Next up was Isabelle's 4th birthday. She decided she wanted to have a "Pinkalicious Party" after getting that book for Christmas. We told everyone to wear their favorite princess dress or pink clothes. Here's what Isabelle wore:

we decorated the whole house, but here's a pic of just the dining room

we had pizza and pink lemonade and pink cupcakes....

Next up was James's birthday. He turned two....and was very sick, so doesn't look as happy as he could have been..

Here's his fancy robot cake I made....before it got squished by saranwrap....

James wanted French toast for his dinner....

one of his favorite presents was a firetruck that flashes lights and makes noise.

My 29th birthday was next. We didn't do much...we had yummy cake, presents, and Patrick and I went to go see Avatar in 3-D.

Here's me with some of my presents...Isabelle took both of these pictures btw.

So there you have it. The Thaden birthday extravaganza. Sorry there's not many words....I'm trying to catch up on posts, and pictures seems to be the easiest way.

Ward Talent Show

2010-03-05T18:39:00.000-06:00

I promise I'll do a "real" post sometime next week after the last of our birthdays is over. Until then here is a video of me at our ward talent show...just before the batteries in our camera died. I was really tired that day, which is my excuse for slowing down so much on the chorus. ;)

Where's my doctor?!

2010-02-05T16:32:00.002-06:00

Here's the easter egg from the "Blink" episode of Doctor Who for those of you also going through David Tennant, aka "the Doctor" withdrawal:

and here's a funny Scottish kid talking back to him:

That show rocks...if anyone wants to pool their money and spring for one of the Doctor Who seasons as a surprise birthday present for me that would be cool. But they're freak'n expensive so I'm not really expecting it. ;)

First "real" Haircut.

2010-01-04T15:04:00.001-06:00

When my mom was here over Christmas we took Isabelle to Quick Clips (or something) to get her first real haircut. My mom and I have both cut her hair before, but this mainly consisted of trimming her bangs. Her hair has been getting longer, but it is so fine that it looked scraggly and messy all the time...within a minute of combing it it would look all stringy again. I thought maybe a shorter cut would help this. For her part, Isabelle has been obsessesed with Victor from the Corpse Bride.

She wants to BE Victor. So she has been asking if she could get her hair cut like his. I agreed, figuring that anything shorter than what she had could be considered "like Victor". So the big day came.

My mom and me took Isabelle and the two boys to the hair salon.

I was getting a trim and some layers put in so I went first so she could see how it was done. She didn't seem very interested. I was worried she would squirm and cry and change her mind halfway through. I should have known better. Isabelle hasn't ever been very sentimental about girly things like her hair, even though I keep expecting her to.

(completely unrelated: check out the stylist's fuschia and florescent green chipped nails, pink hair streaks, pierced nose and lip ring. I honestly didn't notice any of this at the time...)

She sat right down in the seat, held still, tilted her head when asked and when she was done she thought it was awesome. She went around telling everyone she looked just like Victor now!

It does look much better. It curls under all on it's own and doesn't need a bow or anything to look cute. So all in all I'd say the first haircut was a success!

This is about as messy as it gets.... What do you think?

Dining Room: Before and After

2009-12-17T15:54:00.004-06:00

So we've spent the last two weeks frantically (at least on my part) trying to finish the dining room before company comes and so we could put up our Christmas stuff. It had wallpaper and we had avoided this room 'cuz it was really, really hard to strip the paper. We finally decided to paint over it. In order to do this we had to primer it with special shellac primer that goes on wallpaper, then Patrick textured it to look similar to the rest of the house, then primered again this time with regular primer and finally paint. Here are some pics:

Before:

The one of James is the before pic...in the background. It was the best I could find. We've switched computers recently and I don't know where all of my old pics are.

We had to cut out the bottom of one of the built-in bookcases so we could put the piano against that wall too.

This is after we've done the first coat of primer, but before the texturing.

Patrick priming after texturing, the night before he has to leave on a business trip....

Ready for paint.

The drama of the bookshelves begins. I thought the darker green would look good...but was overwhelmed by way too much green....so I bought yellow paint...that was awful. It looked like a preschooler colored our room...I didn't take a picture. Then I bought a gold/wheat color. That was much better:

This is before we put up the Christmas stuff.

After (don't laugh at our tiny table and mismatched chairs, we're working on it...):

and here's a shot of just our tree...the big 9 footer we got to match our 11 1/2 foot ceilings (we thought our 6 /12 foot tree might just look silly).

So there you have it. The result of nearly two weeks of 2-3am nights. What do you think?

Here is Henry's reaction to the whole ordeal:

Coming Sometime in the forseeable future: Hallway: Before and After, Baby's Room Hallway addition: Before and After.

New Moon in a Minute

2009-11-30T17:01:00.003-06:00

For those of you who haven't made it in to see the new Twilight movie, this about sums it up. ;) Sorry my formatting cuts off the side of the video.

Special Marriage Meme for our Anniversary

2009-10-17T14:05:00.001-05:00

What are your middle names?
Mine is "Anne" after Queen Anne of ....somewhere. ;) Patrick's is Russell after his dad, a tradition in their family is for the first son to get the dad's name as his middle.

How long have you been together?
Well we met in October of 2002, but our first date wasn't until March 6, 2003 (the day before my birthday). We were married Oct. 17th of that year, so married six years, friends for seven and "significant others" for six and a half-ish.

How long did you know each other before you began dating?
Well, as I said above, we met in October, but didn't really start hanging out or talking much until the following January when Patrick returned from Christmas with short hair. My friend and I were appalled that he had cut his hair and went over to tell him so. My friend decided that that was the time for her to take a temple prep class, leaving the two of us alone for Sunday School. In Febraury we decided to drive to New Orleans together and the first week in March he asked me out to "check if I was crazy or not" before our trip. I guess I passed the test.

Who asked whom out?
He asked me. I would never feel comfortable asking a boy out...I would assume they did not like me if they had not asked me out first.

How old are you?
I'm 28 1/2 and he's 33 and 3/4. I've always liked older men...never really even attracted to guys my age, much less younger.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
Well since four of his six sisters live within a couple of hours drive, we see his more often. My closest sibling is in Utah...an 18 hour drive from here.

Which situation is hardest on you as a couple?
Uh...what?

Did you go to the same school?
Not really...I guess he took a couple of classes at UNT where I eventually got my Masters, but we didn't meet there or anything.

Are you from the same hometown?
No. He's from the army...he doesn't really have a hometown.

Who is smarter?
That's an antagonistic question. I think we're equally smart in different areas.

Who is the most sensitive?
Generally me, though there are some areas where he is the more sensitive one.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Uh...McDonalds? We also like Applebee's for "fancy" dinners, or Bari's Italian restaurant in Denton...though I think it's called "Fera's" now....

Where is the furthest you have traveled together as a couple?
Istanbul, Turkey

Who has the craziest exes?
That would be him since I never really dated anyone before him and thus have no exes to speak of.

Who has the worst temper?
I think we're pretty even on that one, though we get mad about different things.

Who does the most cooking?
Hmm...I think he may cook more than me...but I bake more, so maybe we're even.

Who is the most stubborn?
I think I am..

Who hogs the bed most?
I do...and as soon as he leaves I take the rest of his side too.

Who does the laundry?
I do, he's at work all day. It's the only "chore" I do consistently.

Who's better with the computer?
He's better with internet stuff and I'm better with word processing/excell type stuff.

Who drives when you are together?
He does. I think I've driven maybe 3 times when we're both in the car since we've been together, which is funny since he always says he'll need me to drive on road trips, but it's never happened.

Okay I guess that's it. Happy Anniversary Patrick! Hope you come home in time for us to go to the movie! ;) (We're finally going to go see Harry Potter at the dollar theater).

Our wedding day six years ago......

Just home from our anniversary date. ;)

Henry Russell born Sept 23rd, 1:28pm

2009-10-02T18:12:00.001-05:00

Sorry it's taken so long to get to this blog, but our computer was down for a few days after James spilled a nearly full can of soda on it...aparrently soda and computer mouses don't mix. We have now bought a new one and are good to go once more.

So as you know I was supposedly due September 23rd according to the doctor. I am of the opinion that I was actually due on Sept 16th for various reasons that I will tell you if you care, but if not I'm not going into them. So the 16th came and went, no contractions, no dilating/effacement etc.... Then the night of the 22nd I was up late reading my book (the Dresden File if you're interested, much better than I thought they'd be). Anyway I was sitting in a semi-reclined position, which was a change from laying on my side and reading as I had been doing the last several weeks. I think this may have had something to do with what followed. So about 2:45 am I decide to call it a night, Patrick at this point had been sleeping since around midnight. I got up to get a drink of water before turning in and passed one of James' toys on the way to the kitchen. Thinking that I would undoubtedly trip over it on my subsequent trips to the kitchen that night (I'm really thirsty when I'm pregnant and wake up a lot to use the restroom), I bent down to pick it up. As I stood to put it on a shelf I felt what it retrospect I think of as a faint tearing, but I may be making that up, followed by a gush of water in my nether regions. For a split second I thought I must have overtaxed my bladder, but as I was unable to stop the flow I rushed into the bathroom (about ten feet away) to investigate. I discovered that my water had broken...beyond any shadow of a doubt. This kind of freaked me out for a second as my water had to be broken by the doctor several hours into labor with the last two...but as my sister had just gone through a similar experience two months ago, I was more prepared than I would have been. I quickly cleaned up as best I could and grabbed a clean towel to fold between my legs for the trip to the hospital. I then carefully made my way to the bedroom where I started getting dressed. Patrick woke up at this point and looked at me in question. I said something like; "Wake up Patrick, my water broke" to which he replied; "really?" He thought I was kidding, I assured him that I wasn't and he pulled himself out of bed all bleary eyed and sleepy. He called our friends in town who promised to watch the kids and the wife came over within ten minutes. I was in the mean time hurrying to pack all of the last minute items I needed, taking a 40 wk picture (since we hadn't gotten one yet)

and emailing our other babysitter so she'd know to expect a call the next day. At this point I still hadn't had any contractions. I was a little bummed 'cuz I was hungry and knew they didn't let you eat anything once you were in labor at the hospital. Patrick offered to buy me a candybar at the gas station since we needed gas anyway. About thirty minutes from the hospital I finally started having contractions. They were five minutes apart and then suddenly two minutes apart which kind of freaked me out as my sister-in-law had her baby in the car the month before and I really didn't want that to happen to me. Once we got to the hospital, Patrick helped me out of the car and the contractions stopped. Unfortunately my water started leaking again now that I was upright and I worried about leaving a wet trail all the way up to the maternity ward. This problem was solved by borrowing a wheelchair from the ER and Patrick pushing me.

We wheeled up to Labor and Delivery and I reported that my water had broken. They asked a bunch of questions (which they hadn't done before) about my name, doctor, etc...before showing me into a room. I changed and the nurse checked me and said I was dilated to a two. She said they had to run a test in the lab to make sure my water had broken and then they would admit me. She said they used to just use those litmus papers, but they had too high an occurrence of false positive so now had to use the lab. My nurse was about 8 months pregnant...interesting because my nurse with James was also very pregnant. Anyway, we waited and waited for the lab results which she said usually took about 15 minutes. She called down to the lab eventually and found they were backed up but would get to them soon. In the mean time my contractions had gone back to being 5-7 minutes apart. Finally she said that she used the paper and it changed color immediately so she was counting it. They admited me about an hour after we arrived (so about 5am now), hooked me up to an IV and monitered my contractions for awhile before giving me pitocin to speed things along. The contractions hurt more after this. My doctor came in about 8 am to check on me (it seems that if you're there during the day than your regular doctor will try and deliver you, so that was nice) and I was about a five. She asked if I wanted an epidural first off and I said "Yes, please." They ordered me one right away. After she left the nurse said that they had paged the anesthesiologist and he was coming....twenty minutes later she said the same thing....30 minutes after ordering it she checked and said he was on his way when they had an emergency situation come up and he was now in surgery. That sucked. I was worried that he wouldn't get there in time and I would have to have the baby all natural...which is what happened to my sister. Finally an hour and twenty minutes after calling for him, the anesthesiologist came rushing in. He explained that he was still in the middle of surgery stuff, but he had maybe ten minutes to give me my epidural. He repeatedly said that I needed to understand that this was a REAL emergency and my patience was appreciated...that he was sorry it took so long, but there was a REAL emergency so I just needed to bear with them. (He said this like 3-4 times, it was kind of funny) I told him it was okay, since he got there before I needed to push....or something to that effect since I wasn't big on the talking at this point. Finally the epidural was in and I was able to relax and get some sleep. About 11:45 Patrick asked the nurse if she thought he had time to go grab some food. He said she gave him a dirty look and said it was hard to judge these things. I told him it was fine and he left...for like 45 minutes. He came back and said that traffic was bad and he forgot it was lunchhour so people would be out.

Anyway, about this time I was feeling pressure with each contraction, though not much pain. The doctor came back to check me around 12:30 and said I was a really elastic 8-9 centimeters and 90% effaced. She said she'd be downstairs and they could page her if we needed her. She left and the nurse came in and said if I started feeling alot of pressure I should let her know right away. I asked what a lot was since I was feeling pressure with each contraction and she said something vague about if I felt "more" pressure I should tell her, but that she'd be back to check on me soon. This worried me as I was feeling more pressure with each contraction, but I didn't want to call her back too early. I decided to wait until she came back...hoping the baby wouldn't pop out in the mean time. She came back and I explained the pressure situation. She then started getting the room ready before checking me. I was now at a ten and 100% effaced so she thought we should try to push and then she'd call the doctor...yes in that order, don't ask me. So we did a few pushes and she said they weren't doing much and that she'd page the doctor and maybe turn off the epidural so that I could feel enough to push. This disturbed me since I could feel alot more than I could with either of the other two kids and I pushed them out just fine...I could even still move my legs slightly which I couldn't at all with them. I told her how big James was and she exclaimed that if this baby was that big she might need someone else in there to help her she already had an assistant (nursing student?) with her but said she'd need someone else for such a big baby. I don't know why. Anyway, Caren (my doctor) came in, along with the nursery people and someone else ( I didn't catch who she was) and we started pushing....oh wait. First they doused my parts in iodine...which apparently Patrick said they do everytime to sterilize the area maybe? Anyway, the point being I could clearly feel them doing this...along with the "pressure" of each contraction...not fun. So we started pushing...and it hurt...a lot. I don't know if the nurse did turn off the epidural or if it wasn't working properly to begin with or what, but I was very annoyed that it hurt so bad...although I wouldn't have put it so nicely at the time...;) Caren even said when she came in that they would leave it on since she was sure I'd much rather have to work harder but be comfortable than to be in pain...it didn't work out that way though. So when the baby was crowing, Patrick mentioned how I had wanted to see this one and asked if they had a mirror. They quickly got one after I said I couldn't see the reflection in Caren's mask...I took one look and said "wow that's nasty! Nevermind!" and they took the mirror away. Of course now that I could tell what I was seeing I could see the reflection in Caren's mask. But my eyes were shut for most of the birthing process after that (see above re: crap epidural). So the baby came out, with much pressure relief, followed shortly thereafter by the placenta which brought even more relief...it's funny how you don't notice how incredibly full and stretched out your stomach is until the pressure is suddenly gone. They then plopped him on my stomach....which made me say something very motherly and affectionate like "eeew!" and pull my hands back so I wouldn't have to touch him. The last two they asked if I wanted them on me and I said no, they didnt' ask this time. After a second the nursery nurse asked if I wanted her to take him and clean him up. I said yes please. As he came out Caren said she didn't think he was as big as James. But low and behold he was 10 lbs, 1oz.

Patrick and the nurse said they thought they saw some red in his hair (though I've yet to see it) so we named him Henry as I thought Henry sounded more like a redhead and William a brunette...his eyebrows are fairly light though...nearly white blond so maybe he'll have lighter hair. I stayed at the hospital that day and we went home the next.

Patrick took Friday off of work to stay home and watch the kids, which was very nice. Another reason I think the epidural wasn't working; before they take you to the recovery room they make sure you can pee. The past two times the nurse has had to physically support me into the wheel chair and into the bathroom since I could barely move/feel my legs. This time I could just walk in there...the nurses were surprised when I didn't want any pain relief until later that night when I started cramping from nursing. They asked me to rate my cramping on a scale of 1-10...I said maybe a 2-3, they then asked me to rate the pain in my bottom the same way. I said a 1. They looked confused and I explained that it really didnt' hurt. I don't know how other women experience childbirth but my parts really don't hurt afterwards. I feel generally tired and muscle-achy, but I don't cringe everytime I sit down or anything. Anyway, so here he is.

He's very cute and sleeps well for the most part. He seems to want to be awake between 12 and 2 in the morning which is annoying, but otherwise he sleeps until 8 or so. Isabelle and James seem to like him and always want to help with the baby, which is sweet, though kind of annoying too since their idea of helping is often different then mine. So if the doctor was right, she said I am one of less than 6% of women who actually have their baby on the due date, and if I'm right he was exactly one week late...just like James and Isabelle. Well this post is already too long, so I'll write more later. :)

Kitchen Corner: Before and After

2009-09-18T14:29:00.001-05:00

Remember how I painted the trim in the kitchen and it made the wallpaper especially ugly? Well Patrick helped peel off the paper in the corner I started and then plastered and sanded over it so I could paint. Here are the before and after pics.

Before:

Intermediate:

James helped.....

After:

I haven't decided yet if I want to do the rest of the kitchen that color or not...if not I may paint over this when I decide on a color, but it looks nicer for now. What do you think? There really isn't that much "wall" to paint in the kitchen, just around the two entries and about a foot worth above the cabinets. The rest is all backsplash that we were planning to replace...

On the baby front: Nothing to report. I'm due next Wednesday according to the doctor, or last Wednesday according to me....and the midwife I saw this week (doctor was out of town) who said I was measuring at 40wks...which would seem to agree with my due date. Anyway, not dilated at all, some contractions, dont' seem to be accomplishing anythign...my next appt is for the 25th, two days after the doctors due date. If I still haven't had the baby then I'm assuming she will be scheduling me to get induced the following week around the 30th. Fun, fun.

UPDATE: Here's the handle cover I made for our carseat...it totally looks like it goes with it if you don't look close huh? If you'll recall, the rubber grip had melted in the attic and I didn't want sticky stuff on my hand everytime I tried to pick up the carrier, so I made this out of the head insert that came with it since I had already bought a better one. What do you think?

When Patrick's away....

2009-08-28T17:02:00.002-05:00

Kiera feels the need to re-decorate. Patrick was away on business this past week (doesn't that sound so professional?) and I felt the need to paint the remaining two brown doors in the kitchen as well as the wainscoting poking out the sides. Not as grand a plan as I've had in the past, but it still took some doing. Here are some pics:

Before:

(notice the doorway, not the baby)

Intermediate:

I hate having to primer things...stupid dark wood. ;)

After:

This only took a day, which was nice. I primered/taped while the kids were awake (and miraculously they didn't get into it) painted the first two coats during their nap and then finished up after they went to bed. I think it helped lighten the room....unfortunately I think it also made the ugly wallpaper stick out whereas before you didn't notice it so much. Consequently the next day I got it into my head to try and pull off all of the wallpaper in the kitchen. "Maybe it will come off easy," I thought, "then I can repaint the kitchen before the baby comes and wouldn't that be awesome?" So I spent an entire load of laundry peeling wallpaper...after an hour I had managed to remove about 3/4 of one small corner by the garbage can. That's when I decided it was too much work and quit. We'll paint the kitchen some other time.

So I also decided randomly at 2:30 in the morning the night before Patrick left, that maybe I wanted bangs again. I did a search for short curly hair with bangs and found this pic:

So I went into the bathroom and kind of parted it where it should go and thought "yeah that might be cute, maybe I"ll go get a haircut when Patrick comes back..."then I thought; "screw it, where's my scissors?" I then proceeded to cut my hair. The day after painting the kitchen I also decided to dye it. The hair dye I bought was supposed to be very close to my natural color. After I was done I thought it looked really dark, but after holding up a piece of the bangs I had cut previously I found it really was my color...I just had way more highlights before than I thought I did. After coloring my hair I went to fix it in the mirror...and decided that the back was way longer than the front and that I didn't like it. So I pulled out the scissors again and started hacking away. It's very hard to cut the back of your own hair. I'm not sure how bad it is yet since I let it go curly and you can't tell as easily where it's uneven. So here is a pic of the finished product (yes I know it's sticking up funny on the side) as well as my 36 wk belly. :P

Patrick is going away again next week. I don't have any major plans to do anything yet, but who knows what will happen?

Laundry Room: Before and After

2009-08-20T13:22:00.010-05:00

So after the baby's room I swore I was done painting until after the baby came....but then last week I decided that the laundry room was small and thus should be really easy to do...plus we already had all of the paint in the colors I wanted...the only things I needed to buy were a cool vintage "Laundry" sign I saw online and a new cover for our butt-ugly ironing board. Well the room turned out to be more work than I thought, largely because I wanted to do stripes but we didn't have enough tape to tape them all off so I had to freestyle it, and because the space was very small and my belly is very big, making it difficult to manuever. Somehow I managed as you can see. Anyway, here are the pics:

Before:

(Pardon my big belly getting in the shot) As you can see there was nothing really "wrong" with the room, it was just very, very dark. My grandpa's house had dark wood paneling everywhere and a dark kitchen floor and I always thought it was very depressing, so I was trying to lighten up the room. It's kind of sad because the panel is kind of warm and pretty when it's cleaned, if you like that sort of thing. Oh well.

Intermediate:

This is where you say "What in the world are you doing painting when you're that pregnant?" and I answer "well obviously I am insane."

After:

The lighting is different in the after pics 'cuz of the time of day so it looks darker than it does in real life. Here is the pic I was using as inspiration from Better Homes and Gardens:

So they have way more light than we do, but our window looks out onto a covered porch, so there's not much light in there anyway. What do you think? Remember we are planning to replace the floor with something a lot closer to white than that ugly brown and yellow stuff they have down now...I think that will help alot.

PS: Okay I think we figured out how to fix my pics so they'll blow up, but I don't want to reload them all since it takes so long. However future posts should work. :)

PPS: Okay I retook the first after pic in better lighting and added it with the new editor so it should blow up bigger now...not that any of you are re-reading this, but I just thought I'd say.

Jerks

2009-08-10T17:01:00.003-05:00

So today we went into Denton to go to the doctors office to get my bi-monthly allergy shots. Generally the routine is we go in, Isabelle and James settle into the toys in the kids area and then when we get called back I get my shots and Isabelle gets a sucker. Up to this point I think James has been too little to get one too. Following this Isabelle tends to run around the waiting room generally amusing and charming any other patients who happen to be there. They compliment me on how cute she is and ask her questions which she is happy to answer...they then exclaim over how well she speaks and how smart she is and how old is she? Only three? That's amazing! She always is so proud to tell me how she's "not shy of people" anymore and loves talking to them. The type of patients range from other kids to older grandparent types. The worst anyone has ever said to her was that she shouldn't run with her sucker in her mouth as she could choke. She then obligingly takes it out (the same guy says it everytime and we've been there at the same time a lot more than you'd expect) and they tell her how she's a good girl, etc... This admonition is generally given with a chuckle and an amused smile.
So today; we go in and I decide that James is big enough for a sucker as he is gesturing repeatedly towards Isabelle's and babbling (he can't really talk yet). I ask if he wants one and he nods emphatically. I give him a sucker and he walks around eating it going "mmm....mmmm" over and over again. He eats the entire thing as Isabelle alternates between running around visiting with people and reading/looking at books. I am at this point complimenting myself on how I am such a good mom since I let James have a sucker, and allowed Isabelle to wear her underwear all the way to the doctors office. She even went potty in the restroom there.
Anyway, I am sitting down reading a magazine and listening to Isabelle talk/run to ensure she isn't bothering anyone (which has never really happened before to my knowledge so I wasn't too worried about it...as I said most people think she's charming and compliment me on how cute my two kids are). So this older couple has come in (around late 50's maybe) and is sitting down waiting for their turn. I hear the woman tell Isabelle at one point that "running is an outside activity." I roll my eyes and think to myself how she should mind her own business as she isn't her mother. However I tell Isabelle to come over and ask her to finish her sucker so we can go. She agrees and continues to roam the waiting room munching on her sucker. I then hear the gentleman (and I use that term loosely) tell her that she "needs" to "go back over by her mama". I'm a little annoyed at this point since she isn't hurting anything but I again have her come over and tell her we're going to leave and maybe she should start help cleaning up (as they tend to dump the entire basket of blocks as well as all of the kids books on the floor while we're there....the kids area is on the opposite side of the waiting room in a kind of foyer area so this doesn't tend to bother other people). Anyway, Isabelle is over there eating her sucker and I am awkwardly crouching over my huge pregnant belly encouraging my 1 1/2 year old toddler to help pick up (which he's doing quite well), I again ask Isabelle to come and help. Now for those of you who have ever been pregnant you know how uncomfortable and hard it is to bend over and pick anything up, much less lots of things and watch two toddlers at the same time. In most social situations I've been in this has elicited sympathy and unasked for assistance from other people. Not the case here. As I'm in the middle of this the guy gets out of his seat, stalks over to me and demands that I "control my child" with a please added on as an afterthought. Now again Isabelle was not hurting anyone and I am obviously not in a position to go over there and physically restrain her in her chair. She's three years old! She has wiggles!
So my first impulse was to say something to the effect of "control this" and flip him off. Instead I restrained myself and told Isabelle in my firm/mean voice to get over here right now unless she wanted her bum spanked. She ignored me so (under the glaring supervision of the uber evil, child-hating couple) I walked (more like stomped) over to her and she immediately sat down saying something to the effect of "I'll sit here!" I say no, pick her up (again with my huge pregnant belly) and carry her back over to our side and sit her in a chair. I then continue to shove toys/books back where they go with more force than is necessary as she cries, not understanding what she did wrong. I explain to her that some people don't like it when she runs by them and gets in their space. She is crying more now since, as I said usually people think she's cute. The couple walks out and she again asks why they were mad. I am at this point very mad myself and tell her, in a voice loud enough for the nurses to hear, that it's because they're JERKS. This gives me a little satisfaction, but I"m still angry.
I ask you what am I supposed to do to "control my child?" Maybe I should have said "Oh I'm sorry but I seem to have left my duct tape at home" or maybe explained to the gentleman that I didn't see that she was doing anything wrong and how maybe he was the one with the problem...or just flipped him off and called him a jerk. We've been going to that office several times a month for the past three years and I have never once had anyone say they had a problem with either my children or the manner in which I "control" them. I'm sorry but after driving 45 minutes to get to the stupid clinic I think it's okay to let them move around and get some of the wiggles out. I don't feel the need to restrain them in a chair just on the off chance they may bother somebody. Again the idea that the man would come over to me and say something like that when I'm obviously pregnant and not at my "restraining children" parenting best, crouched over awkwardly on the floor trying to be a good citizen and clean up after my progeny, both of whom are too little to be able to sit in a chair for that long with nothing to do and then demand that I "control my child"? WTF? Stupid jerk. Okay that's all about that.

On a more positive note; James went to nursery for the first time on Sunday (two weeks early, which was very nice of them to allow) and had a great time. Every time we asked if he wanted to go and run around/play with toys/Isabelle/etc..he nodded his head emphatically and tried to go. So by the time nursery came around he was ready. Patrick took him (as they tend to cry if I leave them somewhere and not so much if he does) and he reported that he took off running down the hall to get there, went right in and headed straight for the toys without looking back once. Patrick explained where he'd be and made sure Isabelle would "watch" him (though I don't know how helpful she was) and left. The nursery leader reported that he did really well and Isabelle said he didn't cry once even when one of the other kids "ran him over." She said he ate all of his snack and that they had fun playing. Also Isabelle wore her underwear all day to church on Sunday without any accidents. Patrick warned the teacher she was wearing underwear and was surprised when she then explained that Isabelle has been asking to go potty for weeks and they've been taking her with no problems. Who knew? I took her to go before nursery and after and she went just fine. So now if she can just manage to poop in the potty I'll call this a potty training success....of course she only poops in her diaper every 3-4 days so who knows when that will happen....

Shorn

2009-07-29T13:48:00.008-05:00

When I was growing up my great grandma always wanted me to be a beautician...I think so I could do her hair for free... Since I'm not doing anything with my Anthropology degree I thought maybe I'd try out my "beauty" skills on my husband. What do you think?

Before:

First we cut off his ponytail. Isabelle thought that was great...

Intermediate:

I actually kind of like this length, but it would drive Patrick crazy 'cuz it would get into his eyes. After we put the kids to bed I cut off alot more....

After:

I took these pics the next day so his face is all dirty from work, but otherwise, what do you think? Oh and here is my belly at 32 weeks with one of my new maternity outfits. :)

Names

2009-07-21T14:32:00.002-05:00

So apparently no one cares for my angry post about not going to my reunion...or no one is checking my blog anymore, one or the other. My sister called me today to tell me her water broke so she's off to the hospital to have her baby. My parents are leaving to watch her kids and would have arrived at her house right about the time we would have gotten to theirs. So I guess it's a good thing we're not going to my reunion since no one would be there but my brother. (Although that doesn't make me any less mad about the whole situation). Moving on.
So we're trying to decide between two baby names:
Henry Russell or William Russell (although I also like William Henry, but Patrick is insistent on the Russell part). Here are the definitions:

Henry: The boy's name Henry \he(n)-ry\ is pronounced HEN-ree. It is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "home ruler". Norman name that is a favored royal name (for eight kings) of England and France. The second son of the current Prince of Wales is named Henry.

William: The boy's name William \wi(l)-liam\ is pronounced WIL-yum. It is of Old German origin, and its meaning is "will helmet, protection". For a long time after the Norman conquest in AD 1066, three out of four English boys were given some form of the conqueror's name, William. Short forms and variants came into being with a common basic meaning of "will", "determined", or "resolute". William has remained a royal name in the UK for nearly one thousand years. The firstborn son of the current Prince of Wales is named William.

Before you say it, no I did not intend to name my son after Princess Di's kids, it was only later that I realized both of the names I liked were theirs... Anyway. William is cool because I still like it from the last time and because one of the meanings is "helmet" which is funny considering what Patrick does for a living. I have liked Henry since we saw the last Indiana Jones movie. I also like that it is a traditional name (ie not wierd) but still not as popular as say "michael". We also have ancestors on both sides (I think) with both of these names so we can claim we took them from our family history. Which do you like better?

Updates

2009-07-17T12:23:00.004-05:00

We just got back from our 30 wk ultrasound and are happy to report that the placenta has completely moved out of the way and we are previa free. Yay! Now I just have to worry about going into labor and not making it to the hospital on time (not a big worry since both my kids took 13 hours of hospital labor, were at least a week late and James had to be induced).

I'm glad everything is fine and we don't have to worry about randomly bleeding to death anymore, but I'm kind of disgruntled too. I was kind of hoping that it would still be there and they'd put me on more restrictions which would then make it medically necessary that we miss our supposed trip to Utah next week for my highschool reunion. Instead they took me off all my restricitions and told me it was totally safe to travel. Now I'm bummed out because the reason we probably won't go is money related. I hate not having money to do stuff. I also hate sitting at home all day taking care of screaming kids and constantly picking up the messes they make. I was looking forward to a trip. Eating at restaurants, stopping at gas stations, staying at a motel. Then once we got to my parents house we were going to take advantage of their free babysitting and go to the greenshow and a play, and see Harry Potter and the parade on the 24th and festivities at the park and then the reunion Saturday. We never get to do any of those type of things here. Just the screaming kids and messes. Bah! I think it would totally be worth putting it on our credit card to go anyway, but Patrick disagrees and since he makes the money I guess he should have some say in how we spend it. But it still sucks.

Picture Post

2009-07-09T15:27:00.006-05:00

So I've been meaning to update but have been too lazy to think of stuff to say. Instead here is a picture post of what we've been up to:
28 wk profile pic...with new haircut. My mom trimmed up the back and sides for me while she was here and I decided it was good enough so I won't be going to the salon to drastically cut it anytime soon.

Mom and Dad came to visit for a week from Utah. Mom played with the kids and exercised and Dad sat around with small spurts of metal detecting in the 100 degree heat.

Mom helped me (and by "helped" I really mean she did all the work and I supervised) plant two pots of flowers to put on our porch the morning before they left...you can't really see the flowers in this picture, but I guess that's okay.

Dad hauled our rocking chair from the back porch to the front...James thought he was chasing him with it.

Isabelle holds James' hand sometimes and "helps" him. It's cute when he goes along with it. Not so much when he's pulling away from her screaming....oh and Patrick put in a chain link fence around the back to keep James from running out into the street everytime he's outside (his favorite pasttime).

Isabelle and James finally got a new pool to play in. It looked much bigger in the picture, but they don't seem to mind.

Isabelle in her 4th of July clothes (there's a flag on her shirt if you can't see it) and Patrick grilling hamburgers....We went to see the fireworks in Gunter and were pleasantly surprised by all of the stuff they had to do in the park. Next year we'll definitely go earlier to see more of the booths as it was almost dark by the time we got there this time. That didn't stop Isabelle from playing on the swings and slide and running around crazy.Isabelle actually took this picture of us...in the dark I might add. Turned out pretty good for a three year old huh? This is us waiting for the fireworks to start.

James was not impressed with the fireworks. He liked maybe the first two and then decided they were loud and scary, so Patrick covered his ears the rest of the time. We thought they were surprisingly good and much better than we were expecting for such a small town. Though they played more traditional patriotic music over the speakers rather then Tom Petty's "American Girl" and Toby Keiths "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" which are Denton standards...it was still good though.

When we got home we set off a few small fireworks and did sparklers but it was late and the kids needed to go to bed so we didn't get to set off even half of the huge bag of stuff Patrick bought. If we manage to make it to Utah for the 24th they said we can set these off at my highschool reunion, but it's looking less and less likely we'll get to go. :(

The next morning it rained and Patrick let Isabelle go out and play in her nightgown with my Mona Lisa Umbrella. He's a much nicer parent than I am.Sunday evening I was finally able to finish making my 4th of July cake (fireworks and such ran too late to do it the night before). This is one of my favorite desserts...it's yellow sheet cake with a layer of vanilla pudding, bannanas, whipped cream and strawberries for the stripes. Generally you also have blueberries for the stars, but we decided to forgo those this year. It was still very tasty.

Guest/Baby Room: Before and After

2009-06-18T11:50:00.010-05:00

So we just finished up the baby's room and I thought I'd post some pictures. Before:
(door leading to our room)

Closet and hallway door. (I'm starting to wonder why I bother posting before pictures since every room in this house looks exactly the same...)

We ran into a few snags along the way...I had originally wanted to strip the paint from the trim and have a dark wood border. We started doing this and then, at Patricks insistance, double checked to see if it was okay for me to be doing that. The internet betrayed me and every site I found said pregnant women should not only not strip paint but should vacate the premises until the project is completed. So we stopped stripping the paint and Patrick sanded down the part we had already done so I could paint it. Here's what we did:

We've been referring to this room as the "box room" since it is where all of the unpacked boxes have been. Here are some pics of most of them shoved to the center of the room for painting. There were actually 4-5 more big boxes in here before we started fixing it, but we managed to find some place to cram what was in them...for such a big house it seems to be lacking in usuable closet space...

So here's the finished product; notice that we only painted up to the edge of the two far doors. This was because Patrick is planning on putting in a wall here so that we can access our bedroom without having to walk through one of the kids rooms. So it may look kind of funny with only three of the four walls painted, but we'll fix it before putting the baby in there (so before like November/December since he'll be in our room the first couple of months).

So there area few more things that need to be done...I want some sort of curtain or valance for the window, we still need to paint the louvered doors (waiting on a paint sprayer thing for that) and I think the walls need a few more things on them, but I'll have to go looking for something I like for that. Plus the cradle will have a bumper/sheets/mobile but I'm not putting them on this early for the kids to destroy. I was thinking it might need a colorful rug in the center of the room too...and something more substantial on the bookshelf, but I'm sure we'll fill the space soon enough.

My parents are coming to visit next week and mom said she'd help me take down wallpaper in the dining room so I may have pics of that soon...or not if I'm not feeling like it. I usually take a few weeks off between rooms so I don't know that I'll want to jump right into the next one so soon. ;)

Belly pics

2009-06-12T12:54:00.003-05:00

So, by popular demand, here are some pictures of my growing stomach:

16 wks

20 wks

24 wks

I don't know why it loaded them all to the side like that...they're supposed to be in the center. Oh well. You can also see my bad haircut in these...if I'm ever somewhere with a salon that's open and I don't have the kids I'll try to get it fixed. In the mean time it just looks retarded. Oh well. I'm currently working on the guest bedroom/baby room and should have pics of that posted within the next week. :)

Master Bedroom: Before and After

2009-05-17T17:52:00.009-05:00

Well this past week I decided that if there was any chance at all I was going to have to be on bedrest at some point then I needed to get the bedroom done so I wasn't stuck in an ugly room. ;) Looking for before shots I realized that we seemed to have largely overlooked taking pictures of this room (probably because it looked just like the other two) and could only find two pictures showing parts of the room. The first is a pic of the tv stand they had mounted to the wall (just like a motel). Some people that have seen this thought it was cool. I thought it was butt-ugly and had Patrick take it down. The second pic is of the door leading out to the screened in back porch from this room.

I debated over what color to paint this room...I was toying with the idea of doing a cool two-color faux finish in here but after bringing home a couple of colors to look at that ended up being no where close to what I wanted I decided to just paint it the same color as the bedroom in our last house. The idea being that I was never able to fully actualize what I was visualizing so maybe I could do so here. The color looks a little washed out in these pictures. it's actually much darker.

Bye bye tv stand.....hello bookcase.

I think I'll buy a plant of some kind to put in the corner by the treadmill...maybe a small tree? I think that wall needs more stuff on it too...

In the future I would like to get some new dressers, matching the dark wood of the mirror over the taller of the two as well as a cool-looking four poster/canopy bed...kind of like this. The ceilings in this house are high enough I think we could actually get away with that. In the mean time I've tried various methods to mimic a canopy...two houses ago we had a sloped ceiling that I looped the fabric on, last house the ceiling was low enough that I hung it from there and then caught it back at the wall with hooks and draped it down either side. Neither of those options would work here, so I finally decided on a curtain rod. I think it turned out nicely.

I also plan to get a new bedspread...I'm kind of leaning towards one similar to this (look at the bed, not the rest):

but haven't been able to find one. I'd like to get some more red in the room so I may buy a red sheer curtain or loop some red in with the bed drapery. But here it is for now. :)

Coming Soon(ish): Before and After Guest/Baby room

Coming much later: Before and After Dining Room

Stay tuned. ;)

Na na na na na...Batman!

2009-05-12T12:32:00.004-05:00

James got some new jammies at the store last week. I debated over getting these, but finally did since they were so cute. My little brothers used to have some very similar to these.

Please ignore the messy house. ;)

It's a....

2009-05-06T16:10:00.004-05:00

Baby! YAY!!! We were worried it was four hamsters there for awhile. ;) I was going to post a picture here, but I guess my scanner isn't working. Imagine generic baby profile ultrasound pic.

So we were convinced that this baby was a girl, not only because of symptoms I had similar to Isabelle's pregnancy but also because Isabelle was convinced that not only was it a girl but that her name was Angelina...she said it often enough that she had us convinced too. Alas it was not to be. (That means it's a boy) So now we have to think of some boy names...maybe I'll do a post about that at some point, but right now it's a little depressing since girl names are so much easier to come up with...and I was excited about getting all of Isabelle's cute girl clothes out again. She had so many that most of them are still in very good condition...James' clothes on the other hand were mostly 2nd or 3rd time hand me downs which he managed to almost completely destroy (i.e. stain horribly in several places)...so I guess that will be fun....boy clothes are so boring! Pants and shirts. That's ALL they wear. Bah!

In other news, we also discovered that I apparently have Placenta Previa. This means that my placenta implanted over my cervix (i.e. baby's escape route). The doctor said that this can resolve itself as the uterus grows, it can "move" the placenta out of the way allowing for a regular delivery. I have another ultrasound scheduled at 30 wks (which I might add are an additional $300 per ultrasound...if it has partially moved at 30 wks, they'll check again at 36wks...so a possible extra $600 we'll need to pay them)to see if this has happened. If it doesn't move then that means that I have to have a c-section. That freaking sucks for several reasons:
1- We've already paid off the hospital for a regular birth, a c-section is at least another $1200 we have to come up with.
2- How am I supposed to take care of three kids by myself when I'm going to be broken for weeks afterwards?
3- Apparently our hospital does not allow VBAC's. EVER. It doesn't matter that the only reason I would have to have one this time is the placenta thing or that I've had two completely normal vaginal births previous to this, they will not allow me to ever deliver "naturally" again. I think this is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard in my entire life. My doctor said it's because they're required to have a surgical team on hand in case I do need another c-section. Since their anesthesiologist is not there 24 hours a day and my ob is 20 minutes or more from the hospital, they've decided to just make it a blanket policy to not allow these for any reason. Caren, my doctor, said that if someone did come in and they were already at like 8-9 centimeters and didn't have any problems then she would deliver them but that I shouldn't count on that happening. She said if I wanted a VBAC for the next one I'd have to deliver at one of the much larger hospitals closer to the metroplex where they do have a surgical team on hand at all times. This has made me very, very mad. So right now we're hoping that the stupid placenta will just move and we won't have to worry about this.
4-I also found out that there is a higher chance of bleeding ALOT during and after delivery if you have placenta previa for various reasons I don't want to go into. But if they can't get it to stop their solution is apparently a hysterectomy. Yeah. What the crap. So that freaking sucks too.
5- I have now been placed on "pelvic rest". This means no fooling around with my husband...FOR THE REST OF THE PREGNANCY! Plus, the six weeks after delivery...which is SIX and a HALF MONTHS (assuming it doesn't move at 30 wks when they check again...which is still 10wks away but a lot better than the 26 wks we'd be looking at otherwise). Yeah so that REALLY sucks....really. I think that is a very important part of a healthy marriage relationship and I worry that it is going to effect us in more ways then the one in the coming weeks. They do this because if it were to hit the cervix or 'disrupt' it or something it could cause the placenta to start bleeding profusely and kill the baby. She said I will probably have some spotting in the weeks/months to come since any contractions and such can also disrupt the blood cells in this area and cause bleeding. She said spotting is okay but if it's anything heavier than that I am to rush to labor/delivery at the hospital. You know the one that's a minimum 45 min drive from here. So...yeah. Lots of fun stuff to look forward to. Plus now we also have to come up with money for a circumsion. Bah.

Anyway, baby is apparently healthy and doing well, kicking away. He was curled up into a ball during the ultrasound which made me worry they wouldn't be able to tell the gender, but she found it just fine. Fun, fun.

"Master" bath & Kid's room: Before and After

2009-04-20T16:29:00.005-05:00

Well my husband went away on business this past week and I suddenly decided that I needed to be productive with my time. So Tuesday I painted the bathroom, Wednesday I decorated the bathroom and painted the kids room, Thursday I drove into Gaivesville to buy some wall art and Friday I drove in to Sherman to buy even more art after I noticed big empty spaces on the walls. Now my baby didn't seem to like this much (you know the one in my belly?) so I've been taking it easy the past couple of days, but it was nice to get so much done. The bathroom is long, narrow and dark and subsequently hard to get a picture of, so hopefully you can kind of tell what it looks like. Also I can't find any good pics of the kids room before so you'll have to just imagine more of the same from the one shot I have.

Bathroom Before:

Bathroom After:

Bedroom Before:

Bedroom Intermediate (Isabelle wanted to help):

Bedroom After:

There are actually a few more pics hanging on the wall now, but I guess I took the after pictures before I hung those up...just use your imagination. ;) I wasn't planning on painting Isabelle's room, but she kept asking when we were going to do hers and insisting that she wanted it green. So I told her that if there was enough green left over from the bathroom we could paint one of her walls...I was thinking like an accent wall....anyway there was a LOT left over so we painted two walls. I think it turned out pretty cute. What do you think.

Coming soon: The Bedroom Before and After. ;) This room looks really, really bad now that the ones surrouding it are done.

The Den: Before and After

2009-04-10T16:42:00.009-05:00

So I suddenly got completely sick of looking at the den, or "computer room" as we call it this past Saturday, shoved everything into the center of the room, and started painting while listening to conference. I optimistically estimated that I could probably get it mostly finished by the end of the Sunday afternoon session. Well after staying up until 2am + three nights in a row, the last two with Patrick helping, we finally finished it. Here are some shots from before we moved in and a few after we moved in so you can get an idea of the sty we were living in before I snapped. I should say that this is the room where the movers put most of our stuff so it has been the most junk filled/disorganized of the house....and unfortunately where we seem to spend most of our days as the tv in the kitchen picks up pbs and the living room doesn't and since we're on the computer a lot.

Okay here are the after shots. The mirror is currently planned to go back on the bathroom door and the bookcase isn't filled yet, so I didn't take a picture of that...and ignore the box of office stuff we have yet to find a place for. Also the blue is slightly more purpley than I was going for, but I think it still turned out pretty good. :)

Doesn't it look much better without all of that brown, beige, and light pink (the color scheme for the entire house btw)? I think the wainscoting looks WAY better painted white...what do you think? Also, if you didn't notice that is a pic of the St. George Temple over the computer and there was one of Jesus in the living room, though I don't think we got a picture of that corner...aren't we such good mormons now? ;)

Birthdays

2009-04-02T11:45:00.010-05:00

Well we've had quite a few birthdays around here the last three months...four in fact, so now the whole family has to wait for the baby in September for another birthday party...although I guess hours of labor isn't really what I'd call a party...and they don't usually bring the new mom cake, though I think they should. Maybe I'll suggest it and revolutionalize the hospital cafeteria. ;) Patricks birthday was first. He turned 33 years old. His birthday is only two weeks after Christmas and thus I usually buy his Christmas and birthday presents and the same time and arbitrarily decide which will go to which holiday.

We had a big cookie cake that his sister Heidi made us, which was very nice btw, and that I decorated with black frosting I bought for Halloween cookies and never opened. We also had strawberry cheesecake which I made later, very delicious.

Isabelle's birthday is ten days after Patricks. This year she turned three years old and we invited a couple of friends over (and their siblings and moms, so seven kids including my two and three moms including myself). I think I went a little over board with decorations and such, but I guess it's okay for her first party. There were a few crying instances where people weren't sharing but they all quieted down when we had cake and pizza.

Later that night we had the family party with the rest of the cake and presents from us and anyone who mailed stuff. Isabelle got a cowboy hat and a magnifying glass like Sid the Science Kid (pbs show). Two of her favorite gifts were her own toolbox with tools and a big princess dress from her friend Tyson who couldn't make the party.
James's first birthday was next, exactly one month after Isabelle's. We didn't have as much of a party for his as this was also the day we closed on our new house. We were out signing papers and checking out the new place until around 9pm. When we got home we had some carrotcake and James opened his presents. One of his favorites was a helicopter toy that makes lots and lots of noises from Grandma Segler. Mommy likes that it has an off switch. ;)

Two weeks after James' birthday was mine. I turned 28. Patrick surprised me by inviting all of our Denton friends up to our new house to celebrate. We had chips and cookies and Patrick bought me a HUGE strawberry cheesecake from a bakery/pizza/sandwich place in town. It was good though a little too rich. We had fun visiting with our friends and eating ourselves sick.

One of my favorite gifts was a cool U2 coffee table book from my friend Josh and Dave. Patrick got me some nice movies and the new U2 cd, and my mom sent me a cool table runner and some nice maternity clothes. You can also see my ugly living room pre-paint/decorating in these.

So there you have it. Our three month birthday extravaganza! Wasn't that exciting?! ;)

Before and After

2009-03-27T12:45:00.006-05:00

Okay so we FINALLY finished one room to do before and after shots...well actually I still need to hang the curtains, but this is close enough I guess. So here is the living room before we moved in:

The first thing I did was take those curtains down. Here is an intermediate/almost done shot:

It's kind of hard to see in that shot, but I wrote Isabelle's name above the entryway....I also put a heart with Patrick and my initials in it. I thought it would be okay since I did it in trim paint which was a lighter color....unfortunately the trim paint was also semi-gloss and the regular paint was satin/eggshell finish. This meant you could see the writing even through the paint. So those areas got lots of extra layers. So here is the end result...I couldn't get a very good pic of the opposite wall, but rest assured that it looks good...also picture red curtains framing the windows.

So there you go. I'm going to put a plant to the side of the big couch there, the smaller sofa has a red throw that goes on it, but you can see what it's supposed to look like. What do you think? If you don't like it, don't tell me. ;)

I know, I know...

2009-03-16T17:21:00.009-05:00

I need to update more. We've been in the house for about three weeks now and I'm still not unpacked. I thought I would have painted most of the rooms by now and have nice pictures to post, but I've only done the trim in the back bathroom. Since I don't want to take stuff down to paint, I haven't put up any pictures or anything on the walls/shelves so the house is still really ugly and depressing. I'd like to blame being pregnant on my lack of motivation, but I think I'm just lazy. But not lazy enough to complain that the house is ugly and needs repainting apparently. ;) Here are some random pics to keep you entertained.

James has discovered he loves pb&j sandwiches....
Ready to go to church...Patrick was appalled that I dressed James as a preppy...I didn't notice until he said that.

Isabelle found the witch hats and decided they should both wear them...and yes that is the start of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure on the tv.

Okay now I'm mad. As I was looking for pics to post I realized I couldn't find any from Isabelle's birthday in January. She turned three and it was her first "friend" party. We had streamers and balloons and a tablecloth, hats, party favors and five friends over and somehow all the pics I took have either been lost or deleted. Stupid digital photos!

So there was a cute video of James here in our extremely yellow and not in a good way kitchen, but after waiting four hours for it to upload I decided it wasn't happening.

Okay I found the photos of her birthday...I put them in the wrong folder. I should do a post about birthdays or something since all four of us have had them in the last few months and I didn't do any pictures...maybe next time. :)

Update II

2009-02-13T09:17:00.001-06:00

So our taxes were finally processed last week and we were supposed to close this past Wednesday...then Thursday...then Friday....now maybe Tuesday, but I wouldn't count on it.

Update

2009-01-24T12:56:00.002-06:00

Okay so we're currently set to close on the new house on Feb. 20th. Hopefully the IRS will have straightened out our taxes by then (I called them and that is the date they gave me to call back as they should have been processed by then). We've also accepted an offer on our current house and are set to close on it Feb. 24th. So if the Collinsville one is delayed again we may have no place to live! Well actually the people buying our house said they are willing to rent it to us for a month or two if we need to. They are buying it for their daughter who is attending college here...how would that be if your parents bought you a house for college...man, some people with money. Not that I'm complaining. ;) Anyway, so the 20th is a Friday and the 24th is a Tuesday, so that leaves us Saturday and Monday to move (as I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that sort of thing on Sunday). No time to go clean or paint or anything...well hopefully if we close in the morning I can go over and clean that afternoon. Luckily the house is big enough that there should be plenty of room to keep stuff away from the walls while I paint. Unfortunately this means we won't be able to hang pictures for awhile. I hate that. That is one of the first things I do when I move to a new place is hang the pictures so it feels like home. Oh well. Send lots of speedy tax processing wishes to the IRS for us! :)

Le Sigh....

2009-01-17T12:10:00.003-06:00

So today I was supposed to be at the new house cleaning. I was going to bring the vacuum, my cleaning supplies, some food for me and the kids, the pack 'n play, Isabelle's blankets/pillow (you know so they can nap), the laptop, some movies for the kids, and some toys. I was going to vacuum the floors first, then sweep out the cobwebs, gather all of the random items left in the house for goodwill, clean the kitchen and bathrooms, take down and wash the curtains, wash the blinds, evaluate whether I need to wash the baseboards, try and get a little closer to deciding on an exact shade of paint for the living room, dining, den, and back bedroom now that the curtains are down and I can see the light better, etc...
Instead I am at home with my kids doing not much of anything. I should probably clean the bathroom today, but that's about it. You see we were supposed to close yesterday. We were supposed to meet at the title office at noon, sign the papers and be done with it. Instead they were still lacking some paperwork by 5 and we found out that the mortgage company was unable to verify our 2007 taxes with the IRS since Patrick just mailed them two weeks ago *rolls eyes* so now the whole loan process is on hold until they can verify that and who knows how long that will take. So now that we're technically in breach of contract if we don't get everything worked out Tuesday (Monday's a holiday) then the sellers could just say forget the whole thing and we'll be back to looking for a house. I can tell you right now that there are no houses as nice as this one in our price range. So now I'm annoyed, even more so since Patrick says he's not sure if he should be annoyed or not since maybe it just wasn't meant to be. I'm annoyed because it got this far into the process and still stupid stuff like this is popping up. If this had happened a month ago I wouldn't have been as annoyed since I hadn't made actual plans at that point. But now that it's so close to getting the house and moving, I had made day by day plans of what needed to be done in order to get the house cleaned, painted and moved into by the first of the month. So now it's all up in the air. Stupidheads. Okay that's all. :)

Doctor Who and the Daleks

2009-01-10T12:48:00.003-06:00

Patrick and I have recently been watching the first season of Doctor Who on Netflix. My sister made me watch an episode while they were visiting over Christmas and it was really good so we've been trying to catch up. We're one episode away from season two and it's been great so far. Anyway, Isabelle watched one episode with us called "Dalek" where one of the Doctor's old enemies returns. These are really cheesy looking aliens with body armour that looks like a robot. Isabelle thinks they're awesome. I found this video on you tube and she thinks it's great. :) Enjoy...sorry if you dont' watch the show then it's probably boring .

Here's another one....I like the music on this one...it's kind of celtic-y. ;)

Twilight Spoof

2008-12-27T12:19:00.000-06:00

This is pretty funny...if you've seen the movie/know the plot. ;)

It's the Kiera Show!!!

2008-12-13T22:46:00.007-06:00

Today (last week now) was our ward Christmas Party. Every year they have some sort of musical program following a big dinner in the gym at our church. For the past two years I've played at either this or the Relief Society Christmas Party. Well this year I was excited to be able to play again...you know since I'm self centered and like it when people applaud me. ;) Well I was originally going to play/sing one song...then the activity committee asked if I would be willing to sing Oh Holy Night again as well as the other song I was planning on singing. No problem. Could I also play the guitar accompaniment for Silent Night? and maybe some instrumental background music while they read some scriptures? Sure, sure....then the other boy who was supposed to play some secular songs for the first half of the program dropped out and they were wondering if it would be possible for me to also play Jingle Bells, Let it Snow, and background for a reading of "A Texas Night Before Christmas". Of course I will! I was very excited to be able to play so much...until I started thinking about how this must look to other people. I mean, is there NO ONE else in the ward that can play an instrument? Or "Okay she sings pretty good, but I didn't come here to watch the Kiera Show." Patrick said I was being ridiculous, but I wonder.

So for the program they had me and the guy doing the readings up on stage in armchairs with festive Christmas throws draped around the back. The were going for a country western theme so the guy wore a cowboy hat and I wore my boots and pretended to be country. For the first half they seemed to think it was a good idea (or the guy did and didn't consult the lady in charge) to have some of his grandkids up on stage with us. This was a little nerve wracking from my perspective having a bunch of kids running around next to me and reaching out repeatedly to touch my guitar. One of the little boys got to close and I accidentally hit him up side the head with my guitar. That was fun (read: stressful). ;)

Anyway, here are the two songs I sang for your viewing pleasure. The second song had some technical difficulties with the camera so it's in two parts, missing about ten seconds in between.

Plus my guitar was out of tune...I tuned it in a cold room and then played in a stifling hot room wich totally messes with the strings...half of which are steel and half nylon (as my nylon ones break I'm replacing them with the extra steel strings I have), but the steel and nylon react differently to heat and this messes with the sound... Also you'll notice I tend to smile when I mess up. That's my tell. ;)

Afterwards one of the men in our ward asked me where I was from originally. When I said Utah he was surprised. He said something like; "How could you sing with that twang if you're from Utah?! I thought for sure you were from somewhere down south like Tennessee or something." I smiled and said something brilliant like; "Nope." I didn't think I sung the songs that twangy...though I apparently played it with alot more twang then I intended. Oh well.