Update in Pics

First day of winter... only in Texas...

Baby girl got her toenails painted...

...and ears pierced :)

Merry Christmas!

Bring on 2011!

One Step at a Time

*So I officially stink at blogging. (If I haven't mentioned that before.)

*It's a Saturday morning and I'm up at 7. Ugh.

*Ready for this weekend's cold weather! I need it to feel like Winter so I'll welcome the Summer!

*Reading through the Bible in one year. On day 8, I'm already behind...

*Thankful for the holidays!

*Thankful the holidays are over!

In closing,

My Prayer for 2011 ~

My prayer for 2011 is that I will grow in the area of giving. I've never been a "giver." It makes me so sad! My love language is "quality time." I will sit down and listen to someone talk for hours if I know it's what they need. I'll play a puzzel with Max, or read a book to Ben or just listen to Noah talk about WWII, because I know how much it means to them. But the thought to give them a gift, just because, never even enters my mind!

Jeff loves to give. He gives to people standing in the street holding signs, something I've always been nervous about doing. He doesn't care what they're going to spend the money on, that's not of his concern. He prays that the Lord will use that money for His good, and leaves it at that. He also is always buying other people's lunches! Drives me nuts! And don't get me started about the Salvation Army people ringing the bells outside of Wal Mart during the holidays. I'll give to them if they quit ringing those stinking bells!! But Jeff loves to let the boys put in what seems like 10 dollars in change so we get to stand out in the cold listening to those LOUD BELLS while their little fingers try to get a million pennies into that tiny slot. See? I've got issues.

I (obviously) need to change my heart on this issue. I'm always so focused on what I need for MY family, that I rarely even think of giving. And if there's any left over, my automatic reaction is to save it for MY family at a later time. I need to have faith that the Lord will provide then like He is providing now and has always provided! I want to be blessed so I can be a blessing! And it's going to have to be a choice. It's not just going to happen.

What I love about giving is that it can change a life without much work. When I'm listening to someone talk, I have to listen and give my (always genius) insight. Or if you have the gift of hospitality, you have to think ahead and prepare so the person you're helping feels welcome and comfortable. But with giving, just giving someone a gift, smiling and walking away it can completely change their day!

The Lord has already given me a couple opportunities in this last week to give. I failed miserably the first time (our neighbor is an elderly lady who HATES us, and I had the idea to bake her some cookies and send the boys over to her with them, but I reasoned myself out of doing it), but thankfully learned my lesson and did it the second time with a cheerful heart! One step at a time, right? :)

So in total girl-fashion, Miss Hattie had to arrive with some drama. I was scheduled to be induced on Monday, the 20th, and had a normal checkup scheduled for the Wednesday before. I woke up that morning, feeling fine, but slightly dizzy! The strangest feeling ever. I took a shower, and soon realized I could hardly walk. Seeing how I had gone through the pregnancy with low iron, and had some fainting spells, I figured maybe I needed to eat. Well about 30 seconds after I ate a yogurt, it came back up. By this time it was about 7 am, which is when I needed to be leaving, to make the 3 hr drive to my appt (because I was stubborn and wouldn't change my doctor when we moved). I tell Jeff that I don't think I can drive. In fact there's no way I can drive. He decides just to take the day off, let the boys skip school, and we'll all make the trip.


We get to the doc after a 3 hr car ride that consisted of me throwing up at least 5 times. It was awful. I had my seat almost all the way reclined but just couldn't get relief. I was soo dizzy and nautious it was insane! Thankfully I don't throw up while at the doctor's office, and he tells me I'm probably just dehydrated, to go home and rest. Ok, I'm not one to argue, but I GUZZLE water. Like constantly. How could I be dehydrated? But I'm not the doc so I listen. We go to Jeff's Dad's house where I had planned to stay thru Monday since I was dilating, just to make sure there's no added drama! Jeff and the boys stay until that evening, and the dizziness doesn't subside. Wake up the next morning, still as dizzy as if I had been spinning in circles all night! I call the doc, the nurse says she'll talk to him and call me back. Of course, about 5 hours later she calls back and says "Doctor Howser wants you to come in tomorrow (Friday) morning to be induced." HECK YES! Get this show over with! So I call Jeff, he heads home from work, packs up, picks up the boys from school and heads back to Weatherford. =) About 150 bucks in gas wasted.... oh well.



Get to the hospital Friday morning, still fricking dizzy. Thankfully the throwing up had stopped. Get admitted, start fluids (which start helping with the dizzy factor, slightly) and pitocin, and we're off. Doc breaks my water at about 9 am, when I'm still only dilated to a 2. Get the epidural at about 10ish. We go allllllllll day, it's 5pm and I'm still only a 4. I start to feel pressure, so they check me again, still a 4. My nurse walks out of the room, and about (no joke) 3 minutes later another nurse walks in bc the baby moved and the monitor wasn't picking up her heart rate. I mention to her the pressure I'm still feeling, so she says she's going to check me. I tell her that my nurse had just checked me 3 minutes ago, and she says well I'll check again, and had a smirk on her face. Apparently she's done this before =) Sure enough, fully dilated, head practically sticking out. Little stinker!! She almost pushed herself right out on her own! She didn't need my help! Haha.

So they call the doc frantically, he's stuck in traffic, of course. So we wait..... and wait..... and wait.... He finally gets there, throws some gloves on, 1 1/2 pushes later at 5:31 Hattie Grace was born!!! =) 8lbs, 7oz, 20" long. She's perfect! 10 fingers, 10 toes, all that good stuff.

Love Her.

She's here!!

And she's perfect! Hattie Grace was born September 17th, 2010 at 5:31pm. Tons of drama and chaos accompanied her arrival, but so happy she's here! Will post all the details (along with a million pictures) tomorrow! I should be sleeping right now, while I can!

Progress

We finally have real internet for the first time in almost a year!!!!! Where we were living, it was $75/mo just for basic internet, RIDICULOUS. So we just made do with our cell phones or when we were at our parents. Now that we live in an actual city, 25 bucks a month gets us the fastest DSL available! Nice.

Soooo now I can post pictures on here! Like this one:

Look at that beautiful family! Haha. And this one:

Look at that gut! This was a week ago-ish, at 36 weeks, now I'm 37 1/2 weeks, and at my appt yesterday found out I've started dilating, so hoping to make it to Monday, the 20th, our scheduled induction day! We're 3 hours away from the hospital I'm delivering at, so don't need any exciting things to happen before then!

And there's this one:

My boys started football! Finally! Jeff's been waiting for this day for 8 years now. The day Noah was born, all Jeff was picturing was the beginning of a football team. Noah is the kicker, which is what Jeff excelled at all through high school, so that wasn't surprising. He even had a chance to be the kicker at a UNT, but just didn't show up for his interview. I believe he said it was bc he was in the middle of a video game..... Max plays on the defensive and offensive line (he's solid!) and last week played a little tight end. They are LOVING every second of it, which makes me happy.

Guess I should mention that we moved! Loving it here in Tyler. It's soo nice to be right around the corner from Target, Walmart, a mall, etc etc etc. In Weatherford, it was at least a 30 minute drive for anything. Haven't really gotten to make new friends yet, but now that football and school have started, and we've found a new church, it won't be long. The boys have made several friends, but I need to meet their parents before we have any get togethers =) I'm not picky about much, but that's important.

Not much else going on, just waiting for this baby! Soo ready to not have my kidneys, lungs, ribs and bladder constantly assaulted. Not to mention the heartburn! UGH, the heartburn. Oh and the passing out! Yeah, apparently my hemogloben is low? I dunno, so trying to take an iron supplement, but I'm horrible at taking pills. It's hard enough for me to remember my regular vitamin, but I can't take the iron at the same time, or with food. How am I supposed to take it "1 hour before a meal or 2 hours after a meal" when I have to eat every hour so I don't pass out?!

Yeah, I'm done. Done being pregnant. After 4 times now, I can say that and mean it whole heartedly! It's time for the next phase of life.

Normally Abnormal

Ok so Max has an irregular rythm that changes with his breathing but is within the average range, so no meds or special precautions. He's just abnormal =)

Let's add some chaos...

...to the mix. As if there's not enough craziness going on at the moment.

So last Tuesday (a week and a half ago) I took Noah & Max to the doc for their annual checkups/physicals for football, assuming it would be the normal, boring appt. Nope, of course not.

To start out, they both had a trace of blood in their urine, what's up w that? Then Noah had swimmer's ear (which he hadn't complained once about) and Impentigo (sp?) on his nose, which I thought was just a little raw bc his nose has been running a lot from allergies. So 2 prescriptions right off the bat.

On to Max -

First off, she heard an irregular heart beat, or something like that, so she told me to take him to the children's hospital for an EKG and to pick up a monitor for him to wear for 24 hours. She didn't seem too worried, but docs are good at that, so I'm freaking out a little. Then she tells me that his lymph nodes are swollen for no apparent reason, so she's gonna do some bloodwork to check everything out. Now I'm really freaking out (only on the inside, of course). So 15 min later, in comes the nurse to draw the blood from my 6 year old, who now I'm looking at like he's my baby that I want to hold. He did sooo good. He watched the whole time, 4 VILES full! I had to have bloodwork done the day before, and only had to fill 3 viles, so he was pretty stoked that he did more than mom =)

Well 2 days later we get the word that all the bloodwork came back completely normal, so I got to take a deep breath. That was the part that was really worrying me.

And as for the heart issue -

I'm skipping a lot of drama, including a massive blow-out on the interstate and a missed appt for the EKG, and fast forwarding to today, 4 days after they said I would have the results... Still haven't heard a word!!! Sooo annoying. I really don't think there's anything wrong, I think all the stress going on around him is affecting him. And the fact that we haven't heard anything from the doc further leads me to believe it's nothing serious. If it were, wouldn't they have already let me know something?

Anyway, I'm calling today if they don't call me. Not that it'll do anything, but I can't help myself =) Will update if I actually find something out!