Tuesday, December 8, 2009

"I not hold her by the head, Mom!"

Yeah, that's what Logan said just a minute ago. He has developed a dangerous habit of holding the cat around the neck to pick her up. I kept telling him to stop doing that, but he kept at it. Finally, I explained to him that she couldn't breathe if he did that, so he has modified his hold. Funny how even at 3, if we can get their attention & explain the WHY of a request, they will comply? Well, maybe 70% of the time, anyway. Or 60%...but who's counting?

Jessie Mae is a year old now, and is growing by leaps and bounds! That girl is always on the move. She could totally walk, and has, but she much prefers to crawl. She's a very cautious, careful girl, so she's taking her time. She's trying hard to talk, though; she'll babble with much inflection in her voice, and her favorite thing to say is, "Isthat?" Like, "What is that?" She also loves shaking her head no, and will tell on herself if she's reaching for something she knows she's not supposed to have, LOL...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Wow, it's been awhile!

Other than the diaper post, that is. :)

School is in full swing; the boys are somewhat enjoying it. Middle school has been a bit of a trial for Ethan, so keep him in your thoughts and prayers. It's a huge adjustment! Andy is doing very well, other than being a bit rowdy on the bus with his friends.

Logan misses his brothers, and constantly wants my attention--wants me to color, wants me to play, etc. Which is fine...except when Jessie needs to eat, or I need to fix lunch, or...or...or...the list goes on with a family of six, and never stops!

Jessie is getting so big! She's nearly 10 months old (WHERE does time go?). She's crawling all over, pulling up, standing on her own. She has five teeth with another about to pop through! At her 9 month well-check, she was in the 25th percentile for height, 50th for weight (19 pounds). She's so different from the boys that way; they were such moose babies!

It's nearly time to travel up to Kentucky again, for our nephew's first birthday party. I can't wait to see him and Jessie together, and see how they react to each other! Maybe she'll walk a little by then; you never know. :)

Saturday, September 12, 2009

bumGenius Contest!

I LOVE these diapers. Seriously, Jessie has two (in Blossom and Zinnia), and they are the diapers we reach for first, every time. They are very absorbent and leakproof! So here's a link to a contest where you can win 6 of them! All you have to do is leave a comment, blog about the contest (ahem, what I'm doing here, LOL), or Tweet about it!

Go here for details:

http://clothdiapertips.com/contest-six-bumgenius-3-0-one-size-cloth-diapers/

Friday, January 30, 2009

This child cracks me up...

Logan never.stops.talking. EVER. He talks all the time! I love how he says things, too; I gave him a granola bar just now, and he said, "Okay, I'ma hold it a-bar." He's really loving his sister now, too, except when she's on my lap taking up too much space. :o) He rubs her little head, and pats her hand, and talks to her; she grins at him, and coos. It's the sweetest thing! I'm hoping that the smaller age gap between them fosters a good relationship; not that he and his brothers don't have one, but I'd really love for Logan & Jessie especially to be close.

Dennis has been gone on a trip all week, so we've been by ourselves. Not getting any time strictly to myself is driving me nuts, but I'm hoping since he'll be home tonight, I can get out for a few minutes by myself (or even just with Jessie) tomorrow. I love being a mama, but having someone calling your name 18 hours out of the day with no break makes one weary!

Monday, January 12, 2009

Catching up; there's REALLY six of us now!!

Where to start? It’s been quite awhile since I’ve logged an entry in here!

The end of my pregnancy was difficult; my blood pressure was up and down, and for the last 2-3 months, I spilled protein in my urine all the time (at every visit when they checked). I had a couple of episodes of contractions, though thankfully, they weren’t productive ones. At our 31 week ultrasound with our perinatalogist, the tech estimated our little girl’s weight at 5 lbs 10 oz (so about 4 weeks ahead of schedule)! He decided to do another ultrasound at 37 weeks to check her growth. I was measuring ahead, as well, and had some extra fluid, which is normal for a bigger baby; as our doctor said, bigger babies make more fluid.

We trudged along with me mostly off my feet until then, to try to keep my BP down and contractions away. At one of my hospital visits (for BP this time) at just over 36 weeks, my nurse there said, “So you have an ultrasound next week?” I told her I did, and she said, “Well, we may see you here next week then!” I didn’t expect them to deliver me before 38 weeks, especially since my 37th week was the week of Thanksgiving. My nurse said that if her lungs were mature, and I was having problems, they’d deliver her no matter what holiday it was!

On Monday, 11/24/08, our friend Deana kept Logan, and Dennis and I went to the perinatalogist. We had our ultrasound with the tech first, who estimated our baby girl to weigh just shy of 10 pounds!!! Needless to say, we were shocked; I knew she was big, but wow! Since my BP had been up, she took it while I was lying there, and it was high (something like 150/93). Our doctor came in and concurred with the ultrasound tech on the size, and decided to do an amniocentesis to check her lung maturity. That was uneventful, and we went home to await the results. Just after lunchtime, we got the call—her lungs were mature, and she was ready! I called my doctor’s office, and they told me not to eat or drink anything after midnight, and to come to my appointment that was scheduled for the next morning at 9 AM. We would go to the hospital from there! We called all our family and friends to let them know, and geared up for our little girl’s arrival!

Tuesday, November 25th came. We went to my appointment and found out they had my c-section scheduled for 2 PM. We filled out pre-admission paperwork, and headed over to the hospital. They got me in my room, started an IV, and we waited; our nurse was wonderful, and we chatted the hour or so away. At about 12:30, she came back in and said that things were going faster than scheduled, and they were moving us up to 1 PM! They quickly got me ready, gave Dennis his paper clothes (and his t-shirt that says “Coach”), and got things going! All of the pre-op stuff went better than I remembered last time. The nurse-anesthetist had no trouble getting the spinal in at all, and while I felt a little nauseated, they were ready with meds to help me get past that, so I never threw up. It was over in a flash! Jessica Mae made her entry into the world at 1:04 PM! Her apgar scores were 8 and 9. She weighed 8 lbs 11 oz, and was 20.75” long. She was yelling her head off from the get go!! She had some hair, and was dark complected (red-looking for now, the way Ethan was). Her blood sugar was a little low, so the lactation consultant brought her straight to me after we got back into the room for recovery. She nursed for about 25 minutes; took to it like a champ! She did lose down to 7 lbs 15 oz before we left the hospital on Friday morning.

Dennis’s parents came down the day she was born, and stayed with us until Sunday morning. They were a HUGE help with the boys, and around the house. My mom came the week Jessie turned 2 weeks old; she drove down by herself, and stayed for a week. It was SO nice to have her here, and the boys (Logan especially) really enjoyed having here, as did I! I miss our family; they are too far away!

Coming soon in the next post: Life with four children!! But for now, here are a few pics of Jessie...




Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Language Explosion!!

Logan has started talking a blue streak! Of course he's been saying "car" for a long time. But now, he's saying anything and everything he wants to. The first time he started saying mouth a few weeks ago, it came out "mowp". And Blue's Clues was Boos Poos. :o) Now it's morphed into Boo Hoo's, so I'm not sure if that's better or worse! Ethan is Bubba, and he says Andy's name well. I (though we called me Mama to him) am Mommy.

Here are a few pics from this afternoon; Logan had been playing trains all afternoon, running them all over the house, saying, "Shoo shoo! Shoo shoo!" Until he finally collapsed into a nap in Dad's chair, LOL...



And these are the kinds of pics I get of the bigger boys; they are WAY too busy to let me take halfway decent pictures.


Thursday, August 7, 2008

Appropriate name, no?

Not quite six of us YET, but there will be come December!

Baby Jessica Mae will join us sometime around December 15th; her birth will be a scheduled c-section, so it'll likely be the week before that. Hopefully, we can keep everyone updated with pictures of her brothers, and family news as well, on this blog!

Here's a pic of Jessie, one of the good 3D ones we got at our ultrasound on July 23rd...


And here's a recent pic of Logan, contemplating his navel in a pretty hand-dyed fitted diaper (from Judith at Jujube Baby; he'll be two in about a week--how on earth did that happen??)...



Andy & Ethan started school yesterday, and they were MORE than ready! Ethan is a fifth grader, and says he is going to try to get straight As this year. His teacher, Ms. Arnold, seems very knowledgeable and kind, so we're happy about that. Andy's in kindergarten, and we lucked out-he got Miss Amy (deLoache), and also got to be in the same class as his good friend Baker! He is loving school so far; he loves to learn and be social, so we kind of expected that. No pics of those two rugrats yet; bad mama and daddy forgot to take the camera on the first day of school!! Ahhh, well.

Dennis is staying as busy as ever, managing research plots and trying to keep up with all his other regular work. He hasn't had to be out of town much this summer, though, which has been nice! We're looking forward to attending his sister, Becki's, baby shower in a few weeks; she's due with a little boy in October!

I'm staying busy as well, knitting things for others (see my business blog link!), for our coming nephew, and for Logan and Jessie! I'll post a picture of her diapers & britches we've collected so far sometime soon. She's going to have quite the stash! I have an appointment on August 12th with the perinatalogist; my thyroid's a little out of whack, so my OB wanted me to go have him check me out, to see if I need meds for it. She said he may do another ultrasound, so we may get another little peek! I'm hoping so, preferably a good gender shot; I'd hate to knit up all this girlie stuff and end up with Jessie being a little boy instead!!

Signing off for now...I will update another time!