Alex's 5th Birthday

Yesterday was Alex's 5th birthday. Since it's so close to Christmas, we try to make it fun for him. We also take down our Christmas decorations the day after Christmas so that it won't be Christmas anymore, it's Alex's birthday.

Alex was very excited when Ben told him happy birthday in the morning. He told me, "Ben said happy birthday to me because it's my birthday already!"

After making the boys clean up their toys in the morning, which took much longer than it should have, we took everyone to McD's for lunch so they could play on the playground. They didn't think it was very funny when we were almost there and told them that it looked like McD's was closed and we'd have to just go home. They had a really good time playing and eating at McD's and weren't even upset when we said it was time to go.

When we got home, I got started on making Alex's birthday cakes. He wanted cupcakes and a round cake. He told us on the way home from McD's that it's a cake when it's round and has frosting on it. He didn't know what it would be called if it were rectangle without frosting. Alex helped me do the cake mix and then kept asking me later if they were done yet so he could eat them.

Here are the finished cakes, kind of my own version of a cake wreck, since it ended up going a bit lopsided and the frosting was melting on me. Alex wanted a blue cake with a lion on it, but I didn't really have time to do a lion, so I just did a blue cake.



While I was letting the cakes cool before frosting them, I wrapped the presents Chris picked out for the boys to give to Alex for his birthday. As I finished, Bryce took Alex to the store so they could let Alex pick out his own birthday present. He ended up picking out a nerf-type tommy gun and had wanted to pick out something for his brothers, so he decided to use half of his birthday present money to go in on a present for the family. He's a very nice and thoughtful kid.

This is what he picked out to get everyone. They're like the rock 'em sock 'em robots, but more fun since they move around:


After Bryce and Alex got back, which was just as I finished frosting all the cakes, we had Alex choose what they wanted to eat for dinner (he chose dinosaur chicken), then let him unwrap his presents and then we sang happy birthday to him so he could blow out his candles and we could eat his cake and have root beer floats.

Alex seemed to really enjoy his birthday, and enjoys being a big 5 year-old.

Here's what Alex looked like when he was 2 weeks old:


And here was Alex on his birthday with his cake:


Here's Alex and his presents:




Here's Alex blowing out his candles while we were singing to him:


Here, they're ready for their cake:


Chris, Alex, and Ben enjoying their cupcakes:


Daniel is enjoying his cupcake:

Christopher's follow-up appointment and some random pictures

On Monday I took Chris to the urologist for his post-op doctor visit. At first he was a little nervous about the idea of going to the doctor again. He would ask us, "Are they going to put more stitches in me?" or "Are they going to stick another needle in me?" When we told him that no, they were just going to look at where the stitches were and make sure it was healing the right way and that they would probably let him pick another toy from their treasure chest, he wanted to leave right then. We got there a little late because the light was out by the freeway, so traffic was really backed up, but it wasn't too bad. Shortly after we got there, the nurse came out to get us to take Chris to the bathroom to give them a sample. He thought it was pretty fun to pee in a cup. After going to the bathroom though, he decided that the appointment was done and it was time to go. I had to tell him that it wasn't and he had to still wait for the nurse to take us back to the room. She came out a couple of minutes later and we waited in the room for a few minutes for the doctor to come in. When the doctor came in, she looked at Chris's incision and said it looked perfect and he was healing just as he should. Chris was pretty happy that he was done and ran out to the treasure chest, where he grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a toy whistle thing that was in the shape of lips. So Chris is done with the urologist and hopefully won't (and shouldn't, since complications are pretty rare) have any more problems with it.

Here are some pictures that I took of the boys and some the boys took of the boys:

Ben's self-portrait with goggles on:

Daniel posing for the camera:

Daniel lying on his bear rug. He does this a lot:

Ben with the bear on him:

Ben carrying the bear:

Alex cheering:

Alex carrying the bear:

Christmas

Okay, I'm going to finally post some pictures from Christmas. The boys all had a really good time and probably got way too many presents. They spent the whole day playing with their new toys and haven't gotten tired of them yet, so I guess that's a good thing. :)

Here's all the loot by the tree:

The new train:

The new tents:

The boys looking at their new train:

Chris by his tiger rug and other presents:

Alex and Chris with some presents:

Daniel's 18 month check-up

I took Daniel in for his 18 month check-up today. His appointment was scheduled for 11:00. I guess 11:00 is code for 12:00 in this doctor's office, since it was after 12 when he finally came in the room. I was really glad I didn't have Alex and Chris with me, since they would have been going nuts by then. Daniel was pretty easy to entertain, so at least it wasn't a totally unpleasant wait.

Daniel now weighs 24.7 pounds and is holding steady at about the 30th percentile. They measured him at 33 1/4 inches, which is in the 75th percentile, but I don't know how accurate drawing lines on the paper and then measuring the lines is. It did seem like the nurse measured him a little long.

He's getting over the cold that he's had for the last month, but is otherwise healthy and happy and developing right about where he should be for his age. He only had his second dose of the flu shot today and no other shots, so if they hadn't run out of the flu shot last month and had to cancel that appointment, he wouldn't have had any shots today. He definitely didn't think getting the shot was fun, but he was pretty good for it.

Daniel was definitely ready to go when we went, but he did stop by the nurses' station, since he knows they have suckers there. So he got his sucker and was off. He wanted to walk the whole way and didn't want me to pick him up. He was laughing the whole way to the van.

This is a fun age, in my opinion. I think the best part was being able to put him in the nursery last week for the first time. He did really well and just sat down in a chair and got ready to play and didn't care when I left him there. I'm hoping that this next Sunday goes as smoothly, especially since Bryce and I are actually teaching our classes at the same time right now, as Bryce's primary class will be moving up to Senior Primary, so they're getting them used to the change.

Now, assuming he doesn't get any ear infections or major illnesses or the like, Daniel won't have to go back to the doctor until he's 2. I'm so used to having to take him in almost every month with his colds and all that it's strange to think that we could actually go that long. Hopefully we actually can.

Christopher's surgery

Yesterday Chris had his surgery. I woke him up at 6:00 in the morning and had him use the bathroom, then we got his shoes and his coat on and got in the van to go. He did bring along his favorite blankets and his tiger for comfort and support. We were supposed to have him at the surgery center at 6:45, but the roads were supposed to be slick from the snow, so we left a little early to give us time to go slow. Of course, the roads were fine, so we got there 15 minutes early.

When we were almost to the surgery center, Chris showed his nervousness a bit. He asked me, "Are they going to use a big, sharp knife?" and then, "Will they stick needles in me?" I told him that he wouldn't feel anything during the surgery, that they would give him some medicine that would make him go to sleep, and that seemed to help him.

It was interesting to pull into the parking lot at the surgery center and only see like 5 other cars sitting on the other side of the parking lot. It made me wonder for a minute if I was going to the right place. Luckily, I was in the right place and they were expecting me. The nice thing was that they knew immediately who I was when I walked in. The bad thing was that I had left the forms they had mailed me at home, so I got to fill them out again when we got there. I guess it was a good thing we were a bit early.

Chris was being silly in the lobby and kept hiding under his blankets and kept the receptionist entertained until they took us back to the pre-op area. The nurse who took us back listened to his lungs and checked his pulse and blood oxygen levels and asked a few medical questions. Then the anesthesiologist came in and explained what he would be doing. While he was doing that, the nurse came in and gave Chris some medicine that would make him a little loopy and make him forget the first part at least. Chris was pretty funny a few minutes after he took that medicine. He told me, "Hey Mom, I took the medicine and I didn't go to sleep." He was pretty proud of that. I could tell when the medicine was starting to kick in. Chris was lying down on the bed and looked at me and said, "Mom, I'm still in my bed." A minute or so later, he said, "Hey, I'm not in my bed. Whose bed am I in?" He'd later try to talk to me and couldn't quite get the words to come out right. I don't think he even realized what was going on when they wheeled him back and I didn't go with him.

It was about 7:50 when I went back to the lobby to wait during the surgery. A little after 9, the doctor came out to tell me that everything had gone well and that he was just coming out of the anesthesia. She said they'd probably let him sleep it off a little and then come and get me. It was a little after 9:30 when they did. The nurse warned me that Chris was crying a bit, which I expected. He had been coughing a lot too because of the cold he was still getting over a bit and the tube they had put in his throat. They gave him a dose of the Tylenol with codeine to try to help him with the cough a bit, but didn't think he was in any pain at that point. When I saw him, he was trying his hardest to get the blue tape stuff off his hand. It was where they had taken out the I.V., and he really, really didn't want it on there. He ended up pulling it all off himself. They had tried to calm him down earlier with it by putting some on the leg of his tiger to show him that it didn't hurt. He didn't calm down until we took it off the tiger too. Once we did that, I held Chris in a rocking chair and he went back to sleep. He would wake up a little occasionally and ask for water or apple juice, drink some, then go back to sleep. After 10:00, they let us go home. I carried him out to the car and buckled him in his seat and he went back to sleep in the car on the way home. It was snowing when we left, so the roads were worse then than they were at 6:00 in the morning, so it took us a bit to get home.

When we got home, I put Chris up in the guest bed and let him watch Dora (that's what he picked out). I got him some apple juice and some crackers to munch on and left him a bowl in case he felt like he needed to throw up. The nurse thought he might when he got home, but luckily, he never did. He was feeling a bit sore, but felt like he needed to go to the bathroom, so I took him to let him try. I think with the anesthesia and all the IV fluids, he couldn't help himself, for he had actually already wet his pants. He was upset about it, but we got him changed and dry. We had to change him a few more times through the day as he had a touch of diarrhea from the surgery and would leak a few times as he'd try to make it to the bathroom. By the end of the day he was doing much better with that though.

I went to pick up his prescription for Tylenol with codeine and got him some Goldfish crackers while I was there. He was very excited about the goldfish. He loves those and at them all day long. He did surprise me and didn't sleep until about 3:00 and slept until 5:00.

My visiting teachers were really nice and brought us dinner last night just so that we would have one less thing to worry about. I'll admit that it was really nice to not have to worry about getting dinner ready too. And Chris was especially excited when they brought him a candy cane container full of M&M-type candies.

Today Chris acts like he's back to normal. He does say he hurts a little bit still, but he's wanted to go outside and play (I wouldn't let him because it's too cold), and he's been running around and having a good time. It's nice that the surgery is over now and that he's feeling pretty well.

Friday's appointments

Well, we've basically gotten one of the two weeks done now. Today's appointments were the ones I was a bit worried about making it from one to the other on time, even though there should have been plenty of time to make it to both on time. As it was, we were 5 minutes late to the second.

The first appointment this morning was Chris's appointment with the urologist to make sure he is healthy enough for his surgery on Monday. The actual time spent with the doctor and/or the nurse was about 5 minutes. The rest of the time, we were either waiting in the waiting area or in the examination room. The waiting part took over half an hour. That's always such fun with 2 boys who were getting rather bored. At least this time I remembered to take paper and pens with us so they'd have something to do. Chris is healthy enough for the surgery, so I get to take him in early Monday morning for that. Alex and Chris were pretty excited to be able to go through the treasure chest at the end and pick out toys at the end. They weren't going to let the doctor forget about that one.

The second appointment was for Alex's speech therapy. Since Chris was with us, Chris and I waited in the waiting area while Alex went back. That appointment seemed to go a lot faster, probably in part because I didn't have another appointment to try to make it to right after. Alex is still doing well with his speech therapy and has been very cooperative. I thought he might not be since he missed two weeks of it, but he still did well today.

While I'm really not looking forward to having to take Chris in for surgery next week, since I don't have multiple appointments on multiple days next week (just appointments on different days), it should be an easier week. So I'm glad this part is over.

A Little Story

I have a little story to tell. "What kind of story?" you ask? Well, sit back, relax, and take a listen. It all started back in July, when Bryce and I decided it was time to try for another baby. Yes, I know there are some of you reading this who may be thinking, "Another one?! You want to have a 5th baby?! Especially in this economy and when the four you already have can be very rambunctious, to say the least?!" Just know that we both felt strongly that there was someone else waiting to join our family and that it was what Heavenly Father wanted us to do.

So anyway, in August I took a pregnancy test and was pleased, but not surprised, when it was positive.

I had my first visit with the doctor at the end of September. I'm sure that some of you were speculating on the possibility, and I may or may not have been successful in making you think I was not. It was a typical first OB appointment - blood draw, weight check, blood pressure check, pap smear, and ultrasound. Everything looked good and all was well.

Here's a picture of our little peanut at that appointment:


Four weeks later, I went for my second appointment. Dr. Lowder told me the titer levels for my antibodies (taken with the blood draw at the first appointment) when he took me back to the examination room. My titer level was at a 4, which is higher than it ever was with my pregnancy with Daniel (I don't know what the numbers were with the other 3). With Daniel, it was below a 1, until it went up to a 2 near the end of the pregnancy. Dr. Lowder said we didn't need to worry about where it was, that we'd just call that the base level and watch for it going up from there. Of course, I still worried about it until the next week when they called to let me know that the numbers had actually gone down to a 1. He took my blood pressure and checked my weight and then sent the nurse in to give me a flu shot. We listened to the baby's heartbeat at that appointment. It took a bit for him to find the heartbeat, but we could hear the baby moving around plenty until then. I talked Dr. Lowder into letting me come back in 6 weeks instead of the usual 4, since I would be 20 weeks along and we'd be able to do the next ultrasound. Usually I think I should ask about things like that and then end up not saying anything, so I was glad I actually did it this time and that he agreed.

By about 16 weeks, I was starting to feel the baby move a lot. Between 16 and 18 weeks, however, I hardly felt the baby move at all. I would either feel movement once a day or not at all. I would even try all sorts of things, lying on my stomach, lying flat on my back, etc, to try to feel the baby move. I kept telling myself that it was probably just that the baby had turned a different way or I was distracted, but I still worried. I thought of Brian and Steph when they found out they had lost their twins and could see that happening to me with this one. I realized that when they went through that, I never really showed them much sympathy. I felt it, but I didn't know what to say or what to do, so I felt bad. I hope they realized that I felt for them and wanted to be able to help them. I finally told Bryce about my worry on the day before Thanksgiving and that must have been the magic button because from then on, I've felt the baby kick quite often. Bryce even felt the baby kick for the first time last week.

De and Doug and their family came up to visit Doug's family for Thanksgiving. Since I was 18 weeks along then, I was sure they would be able to tell I was pregnant (and we weren't telling anyone yet) when they saw us, but they never said anything. So we hoped that meant that we managed to get away with them not finding out. Only they can say if they had any idea.

I was sure people around me had started to wonder, especially people at church, but no one ever asked me if I was expecting until this last Sunday, when the RS pres asked me during church and then one other person asked me during choir. I actually thought it was pretty funny.

So that brings us to this morning, when we went to t he doctor for the third visit and the anticipated ultrasound. I'm a little bummed because I can't figure out how to get the dvd file to work properly to post on this blog so you can see it, and the pictures I have aren't very good and don't show what we're having. I did manage to get a couple of still shots from the dvd, so below are first one of the pictures they gave us (it's mostly the back of the head and the spine) and then two I got from the dvd. See if you can figure them out. :)





Did you figure it out? For those who may not have or who are just too lazy to really look at it, yes, we are having a baby......girl! We both knew we were having a girl this time and the ultrasound confirmed it, so we've been 5 for 5. :)

Bryce says I'm not allowed to spoil her, and I told him I would try my best not to.

And in case you were wondering, yes, it's been very hard to keep this a secret. There have been many, many times when I've almost said something like, "Oh, my doctor told me..." or "when I was at the doctor last time..." especially when my parents were up when I was about 12 weeks along. Luckily I was feeling well, so I didn't have that to give me away, but I was starting to show a bit and I know I saw my mom looking at my stomach a few times.

The due date is officially April 30th, which means that we will likely have her sometime in the middle of April.

I hope you liked my story. :)

And it begins...

Well, the chaos for these two weeks officially began today. If it continues to go like it did today, it won't be too bad, so that's always good.

It began at 9:30 this morning with Daniel's follow-up appointment with the ENT to make sure his tubes were still doing okay. That visit went pretty quickly with nothing too exciting except for a bump on the head for Daniel when he was running around the chair in the middle of the room and tripped on the foot rest for the third time and landed on his head. And I found out that the tubes they put in his ears are green. I didn't realize they came in different colors, so I guess that's good to know. Anyway, his tubes look great and he is doing well with them.

After Daniel's appointment, I took Daniel over to Katie's to join his two brothers while I went to the dentist. I'm sure by the end of next week, Katie is going to appreciate the break she'll get from my kids for a couple of weeks. I timed it perfectly to get to the dentist about 5 minutes early so I wouldn't have to wait too long and didn't have to worry about being late. Unfortunately for me (and for Katie!), the dentist was running late, so I got to sit in the waiting room for about a half hour before I went back. Luckily I had my pda and could play solitaire while I was waiting. The dentist and I joked about how my tooth on the other side must have been feeling neglected from all the attention the one tooth got, so decided to need to get a new filling. An hour later, my tooth is all fixed and I don't have to go back until my next cleaning in May. It's amazing how nice that is after months and months of work on one tooth. It will be even better when the numbing goes away, hopefully before I go visiting teaching tonight.

So today's main events are over and were relatively easy and painless (not totally painless, however). Hopefully the rest are at least as easy.

Colds, etc.

It's been a while since I've posted on here, so I thought I would today.

We had a pretty good, but quiet Thanksgiving. While it doesn't feel as much like Thanksgiving when we're not around more of our family, it's really nice sometimes to just enjoy a quiet Thanksgiving at home. The best part is that we get all the leftovers. :) Bryce had all of Thanksgiving week off, but we didn't really do anything exciting, just hung out together as a family. Ben still had school, so it made it harder to do things in the day. We did go to dinner together one night since we had some coupons that were expiring at the end of the month. Ben and Chris each spilled their drinks and Daniel got into a coughing fit right before we were going to leave and threw up all over. Luckily, the waiter was really nice about it. He got a good tip.

We got to go to dinner to see De and her family the day after Thanksgiving, so that was fun. Daniel had his runny nose that had been coming and going for 3 weeks and Ben had his cough that he'd had for a little longer than that, so we were a little hesitant to bring everyone along. Hopefully they didn't mind that too much. Earlier that day I had put up the Christmas tree and Alex and Chris helped me put on the ornaments. They were very excited and keep asking when Christmas will be here now.

Unfortunately, Chris spent Saturday morning throwing up. He hadn't been one of our sick ones, and no one else had been throwing up, so we were a little surprised. I blamed computer viruses for that one, since Cindy's kids had been throwing up. Chris was feeling better by about noon though, so that was good. Unfortunatley, that evening, Alex had a fever of almost 103. So Bryce kept Alex, Chris, and Daniel home with him the next day while Ben and I went to church. And through Sacrament Meeting, I kept thinking that we should have kept Ben home too, with all the coughing he was doing.

Chris and Alex both had seemed better Sunday morning, but were both feverish Sunday evening, so we were glad we had kept them home. They've been sick all this week too, which is the last week before my schedule starts to get crazy. They haven't been sick enough that they haven't been doing their usual teasing and fighting though. Alex seems to be doing a bit better today, his eyes don't have the sick look anymore and his temperature has been back down to normal. I figure it's because I had called yesterday to cancel his speech therapy session today. I do think it's better that I keep him home today though.

So for the last couple of weeks, we've mostly dealt with colds and other illnesses. Hopefully everyone will be better soon. Just in time to have Chris have surgery and for Daniel to get another round of shots. Fun times.