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April 26, 2007

Friday Park Playdate

So I had the best of intentions of posting this information at least by Monday and yet here we are, the night before. Oops.

I organize a park playdate for mothers in my church once a month. I like to open it up to anyone who wants to come fellowship while we watching our kids play, run around and generally get plumb tuckered out. Tomorrow we are heading to the new St Elmo park, we meet around 10:30 or so and bring sack lunches.

Hope to see you out there!

Posted by JennR at 04:19 PM | TrackBack

April 19, 2007

Nothing goes with it!

I'm finding that nothing goes with a small pot belly. My pants don't fit and regular shirts annoy me cause even if they fit I hate wearing stuff where I don't have a defined waist. I have broad shoulders and an ample amount of junk in the trunk and the one area where I generally don't gain weight is expanding each day (that wasn't bragging, did you see what I wrote about junk in the trunk?). Bleck I am in that awkward in between stage and I am definitely grumpy about it.
I had an appointment today and its always a relief to hear the heart beat. I don't know why I am so pessimistic, I always get a little nervous before they listen for it. My regular Dr gave me the impression that they would be handling things differently this time, meaning I won't have to go in nearly as often. You would think this would be a relief but I have found myself in a bad mood and snippy all afternoon. Because of having thicker blood which is more likely to clot and I'm on a blood thinner shot a day (that was a quick update for those readers who haven't seen my factor v references in previous posts) I see a high risk Dr and a regular ob. After 28 weeks I am usually in one of the offices every week and then closer to the end I am in twice a week. My impression has been that they are scanning to check fluid levels and for brain bleeds (thats from being on a blood thinner, morbid I know). I'm sure they are checking other things as well, and I end each visit with 20 minutes on the baby monitor. They make for long visits and inconveniencing friends with childcare but I hadn't realized till today how reassuring those visits were. Now I'm considered an old pro (meaning I have had two perfectly healthy pregnancies and two healthy kids) so they are thinking this time around we can back off all the visits. My ob said she'd still do more scans but I won't see the high risk as much, she's going to over see most of it. Why is this not a relief? I'm so weird today. Tired and grumpy. Too much thinking.
I hate change. Maybe I should just work on having a little more, dare I say, faith.

Posted by JennR at 03:31 PM | TrackBack

April 11, 2007

Almost normal

Today has been a surprisingly productive day, I almost feel half way normal again. It's so nice. I've been doing laundry all morning and trying to clean and pick up as I go around the house. I've tried to do the dishes as they come, I know not a huge achievement but compared to what the last 12 weeks have been like this is progress.
Its a busy and crazy time around the house since there are four of them running around. They have really entertained themselves which had been nice. Maybe that's why I am more motivated, I don't want anyone going home saying "Miss Jennifer sits on the couch A LOT!"

I've been working on the plans for a friend's baby shower (she doesn't read my blog so I think I can share details). I'm getting really excited. I want it to be a very classy and elegant shower but we also would rather spend our money on her gift and not really on the decor. I was looking through the girls room and found all the great clothing that my sister knitted for the girls when they were first born. I called her and she's going to mail me some of her extra yarn and I think we're going to whip up a few pairs of Mary Jane booties in the next two weeks to use around the room as decor. My sister also had one of these extra bonnets already knitted up and is sending it to me to use as well and give to Christy. I'm so excited and would love to take the credit for this bonnet! : ) She's sending the pattern for this wrap sweater and she said it was really easy, so I'm going to give it to a friend to do cause she's obsessive and can knit up two in a week. So hopefully we'll be able to decorate with some sweet crochetted and knitted items that we'll be giving the mom to be.

I'm thinking with a few well placed tea light candles and some fresh flowers we might be close to being set. Hopefully we'll be able to get some good tableware as well. I've been excited all morning, what a nerd. Mostly because my sister is willing to give me some of her left over yarn and I am super picky about yarn. I didn't want to be going to a specialty shop in town trying to match the right gauge.
Thanks Heather, you ROCK!

Posted by JennR at 01:01 PM | TrackBack

April 09, 2007

Easter picts, sort of

Girls, look this way!

Julia, don't play in the vent!

Lizzie

Julia

Here are the girls baskets. I got the Care Bears figurines at a consignment sale in a zip lock bag for $5 and I've been saving them for over a month for their baskets. Andy played with them all morning and gave the bears names based on their tummy pictures and his own sense of humor. Good Luck bear is now called Irish bear and he called Champ bear the trophy bear. Those were the only ones I over heard. LOL!
They each only got a few sweet tarts in some plastic eggs which they ate right away. I just have this aversion to candy and my kids, I don't know what my hang up with sugar is. I really like them to eat healthy but realize treats every once in a while won't kill them. (or will it? Just kidding!) Eventually they will get chocolate bunnies and what not but for now, since they are only 2 and 3, they can have a handful of sweet tarts. The great thing is they don't know what they are missing yet. My dad sends them chocolates from See's Candy every easter so we still have those to tackle.
The day felt really thrown together. I tried really hard to let a few things go, silly stupid things that only mattered if you had expectations. We didn't wear the dresses that I had planned because of the AWESOME weather (heavy sarcasm)! and I didn't even get to their hair till about 10 minutes before we left and supported a ponytail myself. See, I told you it was silly stuff. But those of you who are used to getting a household ready for church and don't feel especially put together themselves know what I'm talking about. But we made it for worship and really enjoyed ourselves. We left for Oak Ridge before the sermon so that we could make it to lunch at my Gran's. I was so disappointed to see that they were singing Death is Ended after the sermon! BLAST!
Julis is awake after a 3 hour nap, she's still recovering from a tiring day, so now my time is up. Later gators.

Posted by JennR at 04:14 PM | TrackBack

April 04, 2007

Oh, if only

Did you know that anacondas can shorten their pregnancy by 100 days just by laying out in the sun to help the babies develop faster? Brilliant! Dang, I so wish this was true for humans cause I'd be out laying in the sun every moment it was shining!!

*sigh*

Posted by JennR at 09:06 PM | TrackBack

Sink or Swim

So Lizzie had her first swim lesson last night at the Y and I'd have to say it ended on a high note, which was certainly a surprise to me.
We talked about it all day and I knew that this child would either clam up and refuse to do anything or timidly get into the water. I had even offered an incentive of leftover cake and ice cream if she obeyed what her teachers asked and tried new things. When we got there and one of the teachers introduced themselves, she turned to me and shoved her hands down in the pockets of her pullover so I couldn't take it off. She wouldn't talk to anyone. So I pulled her aside and reminded her of our deal and asked her to take off her flip flops and pullover. Basically this paints the picture of at least the first 15 minutes. It was slow going and she had this painful look on her face like I was feeding her to wild dogs. Her teacher is this young girl who worked pretty well with her. By the end Lizzie was actually chatting it up with her instead of ignoring her. There's only one other teacher in the class and one other student, so Lizzie has this teacher all to herself which is nice.
By the end of the half hour she was holding onto the noodle while kicking across the pool (with the help of her teacher of course) and she was upset when we had to leave.
The whole thing kind of wore me out. She's really excited about going on thursday and tells me every once in a while how much she likes swim lessons.
I think on thursday we're going to go early and I'm going to swim with her a bit to get her warmed up to the idea again. (did I mention how excited I am to get into a swim suit)
Side note: if I had a working brain cell in my head I would have taken her to open swim a few weeks ago and gotten her used to the surroundings. I highly recommend this if you are considering enrolling your kids in lessons, take them to that same pool first and swim with them. Oh well, I'll have to remember with Julia.
We'll see how thursday goes, I think if she and I are already playing around in the water it will help with the transition. (in theory)

Posted by JennR at 09:43 AM | TrackBack

April 02, 2007

a new low

These past few days have been really difficult nausea wise. I haven't stayed on top of my hunger and am not snacking as much as I could to avoid the dreaded nauseousness. I'm firing myself from meal planning lately, I want food here but don't want to shop for it or think about it. Isn't pregnancy fun!
So this afternoon I was sneaking sunchips since it was past 4 and I didn't want the girls to eat. Then I spotted Julia's birthday cake in the frig and I thought maybe thats the sugar shot I need. So I managed to cut a corner off while the girls were playing on the computer and they didn't see me. I was delicately placing the cake back in the frig when it tipped and the whole thing landed on the floor upside down. LOL! Smooth! They still didn't really ask questions, as I wiped up numerous multi colored sprinkles from the floor and inside the frig.
Luckily the cake is still intact and I got the sugar burst I needed to make it till dinner but tonight I will definitely be getting a new container of cottage cheese and some triscuits.
What a BUM!

Posted by JennR at 04:42 PM | TrackBack

One of my favs

I've continued looking through the cd of Julia's first week and stumbled upon this video which is one of my favorites.

Let's see if my inexperience with youtube pays off and this video actually works.
If so you may be seeing a lot more videos on this blog.

* no babies were harmed in the making of this video, :)

Posted by JennR at 01:24 PM | TrackBack

Julia is 2!

We celebrated Julia's second birthday this weekend.
I just looked back through pictures from her first month, it seems like forever ago. After having a c-section at 6am on March 31st, we had our second little girl (who I got to see for the first time on the LCD screen on our camera, how lame)! I got to feed her in the recovery room and be with her for 30 minutes and then she was taken to the nursery for the mandatory 3 hours of observation. My mom and Amy were watching her and reporting back to me. She started to have some breathing issues and was taken up to the NICU for precautionary reasons. I think I handled this news really well, probably because Amy and my mom were so upbeat. The nurse that told us she went to the NICU even had the nerve to say, "when they're so little, they can just go so quickly! I remember us just staring at eachother- did she just say that?! The weird thing is we more just made fun of her bed side manner than really letting it sink in that she just told a new mom that her baby could "go" so quickly. As I look back I wonder how much I was protected that day from an emotional break down. Lizzie was home with double ear infections, of course, so Andy was taking her to the Dr that morning I think. It was a crazy time. Julia was back in my room by midnight that night and was fine the rest of the time. It wasn't the ideal first day with my new baby, but I think we ended up bonding just fine in the end.
She was a skinny little thing and we certainly had some feeding difficulties but once the first year past she seemed to be much happier. Especially on table food!
Now she's a very happy little girl, and usually has us cracking up. She is getting more fiesty with her sister and learning to hold her own which is not always a good thing (at least for Lizzie).

Lizzie meeting Julia when we got home from the hospital (Lizzie was so little, we were crazy!)

Julia's birth announcement picture.

Julia with JLG- Happy Birthday JoyLynne, thanks for always being there at such important moments in our lives!

Julia on Saturday with her new Larry the cucumber toy.

Happy birthday my little cuddler, I love you!

Posted by JennR at 10:42 AM | TrackBack