Happy Thanksgiving!

How can you not be grateful when you have a sweet face like that to look at every day?

We drove down to Thatcher for Turkey Day with my family and a last "hoorah" out of Mesa before this next addition comes. Let Mr. G get some fun outside/play time before we're all hunkered down with a newborn.

BOY did we get a lot of playing in.

Today he got to master the "big kid" slide at "Greyma" and "Greypa's" house-

Took a few falls. But he's getting it...I can't believe how big he's getting:

Even cousin K got in on the slide action!

 It was a fabulous Thanksgiving day with family, and we are all extremely grateful for all that we have. I'm PARTICULARLY thankful for my family, both my hubby and sweet boy (and soon baby girl) as well as my extended family. We arrived in Thatcher late Tuesday night, and not 40 minutes after arriving here I started having some crazy painful contractions and throwing up. I ended up in the ER/labor & delivery until 4:30am- It took two rounds of Terbutaline shots to get them to slow to at least a "normal" range of 6 an hour, not to mention an IV and a half. It was a HUGE blessing to have my parents here to help us out while going through that- My dad came with us to the hospital, and my mom was a champ too- we're talking EXTRA big champ for what she had to do after I threw up...Trust me you don't want details (You know what I'm talkin' about mom ;) Love you!)...

In other news, my sister took some pics of the boys all playing at the park here

Sad story about the park. 

You see Mr. G is wearing a red/white very "Where's Waldo" shirt.... 

Well, the day at the park didn't START that way. 

 Unfortunately he was the first one to run towards the playset/slides. He was so excited, that he didn't see a particular sewage puddle that had formed after the lawns were watered and hadn't drained off appropriately, face planted and got his WHOLE body SOAKED. He hopped up, sopping wet, with who knows what all over his face & clothes, and says "I'm cccc-COLD!" So then Michael goes to rescue the poor guy and gets his own shoes soaked. So they both went home and rinsed off and changed their clothes then came back and played hard. His poor face after he got up was so sad!! But I'm grateful that he was still really excited to play at the park after that ordeal.

Next up: Thatcher Baby Shower! My little sister Katie and my Mom are throwing me a shower down here for family/friends who don't live in the valley. Another SUPER huge blessing!

Oh BABY!

My wonderful friend Katy threw me a baby shower today, and she did an AMAZING job! I was so flattered and grateful that she offered to do it, and I really appreciated all of her time and hard work to make it so great- I simply hope I was a gracious guest of honor. Unfortunately I was exhausted today from staying up too late the night before, and this baby is making me burn like a furnace! So I hope it didn't show that my brain was running on a "low hum" and didn't really feel like it was fully functioning- I had a great time and was really excited for the whole thing. I thought it all was so cute and turned out really well.

A HUGE THANK YOU!! goes out to Katy for it all-

I wish there were adequate words and means to truly express my gratitude...

Another big THANK YOU! goes out to everybody else who helped (Mom/Katie) and attended.

Here are some highlights:

We played this very clever/cute concentration game,

made lots of pretty flowers to accessorize the baby with (she's SET!),

opened presents,

And enjoyed all the wonderful food that Katy had prepared. She really is a great party thrower- It was great to see so many family and friends that I love in one setting (and free from the responsibility of toddler herding).

As mentioned previously, we made flowers for the baby's hair. She got a TON made for her! On our way home, my little sister figured it'd be funny to put them ALL in my hair, and this is what resulted...

I was also asked, and I don't know that I adequately answered, what the differences have been in pregnancy between this baby and Mr. G. Here's the big comparisons:

1. No swelling (so far). Maybe a bit of pregnancy face, but nothing NEAR what I was with G by this point.

2. I'm carrying her much lower and smaller than I did G. Although it's not over yet, I could be eating my words later. I feel much more capable of FUNCTIONING with her by this point than I did with him too. I just felt like a massive roley-poley that hobbled and waddled the last two months, and remember I never felt like I could really breathe. She's been nice to me in that area.

3. She's much QUIETER than G was. He was constantly moving from 14 weeks on, where she'll be crazy all day long one day and then for several days after she won't move hardly at all. Although G started and stayed head down, and she's turned all over the place and from one ultrasound to the next she's in a different position (head down or breach). So it'll be the lotto how she ends up around delivery. We're hoping she'll turn head down for delivery, but you just never know...

4. I don't feel the need to eat as much with her as I did with G. With him, I NEVER felt full and from one hour to the next I'd be STARVING. I also have much sweeter cravings (like chocolate shakes) with her, and all I wanted with G was chips & salsa or heavy carbs.

5. Mentally/emotionally she's messed with me a a lot more than G did. Especially in the first trimester I was totally all over the place from one day to the next. I was also kinda sick with her in the beginning, where I never got sick with G. But the sickness subsided around 14 weeks and since I've been totally fine.

So there ya have it! It was a GREAT day, and I can't wait to see this sweet girl in all the fun flowers and outfits she got today from everybody. We were so blessed!

All I Want for Christmas...

We've all seen the cute "baby in the Christmas stocking" pictures like this one,

But this is just RIDICULOUS...

Belly Pics: 31 weeks, 5 days

How's this for a "belly bump" shot?

Many thanks to my photog Michael for his mad skills ;-)

Everything is still going great- She's definitely my small quiet baby so far. We'll see if that sticks!

My due date is Jan. 6th, but I'm holding my doc to his word that he won't let me go later than Dec. 31st.

So if he holds to his promise (which he seems like he will- the SAINT), only...

52 days left!
(which translates into 7.5 weeks...YIKES!)

Adventure: Drive-In Movie

Michael has been so spread thin lately, that we decided it was time to change things up and have an adventure to escape for a few hours and have some time together as a family.

We decided to hit a drive-in movie! I guess this is something Michael's family did while he was growing up, so it brought back some fun memories for him. He was excited to share this fun family past time with us since neither myself of G have ever been.  It was a lot of fun! We went to see Disney's new animated Christmas Carol movie. It was a double feature with Astro Boy, but it was 9:30pm when the first movie was over, so we decided it was probably best to take G home and put him to bed since we have early church.

By review of the movie itself, I don't know that I'd recommend it for small kids (like over 9 maybe- luckily he was distracted by our snacks and the new surroundings enough that he didn't really get it).  It'd be AWESOME in 3-D though...It's not that anything was inappropriate in the movie, it was just a little scary in some parts, and with as good as the animation is it could freak them out a little. They just take the more "tense" scary portions of the story a little to the extreme.

The funny thing is that we were asking G on the way home if he had fun, and apparently the highlight of his night was when his Dad took him to the bathroom, "Went potty. Wash hands...Fun..." was his response.

Sorry for the poor quality pictures, I was shooting in the dark...

ARRR-MATEY! Happy Halloween!

What a great Halloween!

Mr. G finally got to fully participate in Halloween this year, and boy did he love it! I think this kid has a new favorite holiday. Until Christmas comes at least...

Getting our happy little pirate ready for his big debut:

Cousin Marcus came over to show their costumes off. His mom made his costume! We were very impressed...One day I'll have some sort of skill like that, ONE DAY! What a cute elephant he made. Unfortunately this is the best picture I got of them together...

Then we attended our ward Halloween party. Mr. G had a GREAT time! Of all the great things he got there, I think the thing he enjoyed the most was the space to run around! This kid wouldn't sit still for longer than the two seconds he needed to get a drink of his homemade root-beer. At least he was predictable; We could always count on finding him around the food tables. One of the sisters in the ward later said she thinks she gave him something like four ice cream cones because he kept coming back and asking for more ice cream! Stinker pants...

Proof of his ice cream capers: The ice cream goatie on top of his fake beard....

He even got his face painted (we had her do an anchor- It was the most "pirate" related thing I could come up with on the spot....

He also enjoyed a little fishing for some treasures...

Then the REAL fun began! He'd been practicing his door approach all day long, so he was pumped and ready for it! We only a small handful of houses  in our ward and that was PLENTY! It definitely pays to be a trick-or-treater in the ward of a gated community!

Towards the end of the night he was bustin' our chops. He would stop dead in his tracks and say, "Daddy- Walking hard..." (I guess my feet would be hurting too if I was wearing my Sunday shoes all night) and "Basket HEABY! Mommy hold it..." So Michael carried him a lot towards the end between houses. We asked him if he was tired and ready to go home, and as he laid listless on Michael's shoulder he says, "No home. Trick-or-treat?" He's die hard already. But my all time favorite part of the night was when a yappy little dog approached us to smell G's basket of goodies (and G is normally very scared of ANY dog, nice or not), and instead of running away scared or cowering behind our legs G like he normally would he just stared the dog down and yelled, "NO! MINES!!" There was no way he was letting some dog (or anybody else for that matter) anywhere near his candy...Scared or not!

The LOOT!

You notice the full sized candies too?

Yeah- He scored.

The best part?

He was in bed and asleep before 8pm.

That's what I call a successful night!

Dear Pumpkin,

Dear "Pumpkin" (Mr. G),

Boy how you have grown! I can't believe what strides you've made in the last year. You're now carrying on conversations, and are over 3 ft. tall! 

It seems as though 

every day you've learned something new and find a different way to make us giggle. Like when you went potty on your potty chair all by yourself and came back to report in a high little voice that it was a "baby poop!" Or how you insist on carrying a singular leaf around ALL DAY.

I love how well you can take direction (well, when you CHOOSE to), and how cheesy you've become. You are now telling ME when to take the picture! "Ok Mom! 1-2-3-4-GO!" I especially love when you tell me how to cook. It must be from all the observations of watching your Dad cook- He's pretty good at it!

I love learning about your particularities- Even if they are a bit worrisome/OCD. Why do you REFUSE to have dirty hands? C'mon...You're a boy! Pulling the guts from the pumpkin is 

THE BEST PART!

It's great to see you learning so much too- You can finally get your colors straight and finally count to 10 and NOT skip the five! We thought it was funny how you tried to count all the holes daddy drilled into the pumpkin for fun- You said, "eight, nine, ten, eleven, thirteen, eleven..." We'll find the twelve someday.

It's also great to see your imagination coming to life as you request me to color and sing songs from the myriad of Disney movies you're obsessed with, "Mom! Color Poca-HAUNTus." You must think I'm QUITE the artist...

Well, Happy Halloween Pumpkin! We can't wait to see what other tricks and treats you bring to us in the next year...


Love, 
Mommy

*********************

Yesterday Michael had the day off so we had a "Rogers Family Halloween Party."  We went and bought our pumpkins, made pumpkin roll, went to Kids Club at the mall all together and rode the escalator about a MILLION times, had some nice warm cheesy potato soup (for what is likely going to be the last cold day of the year with the way things are looking), then Mr. G got his bath and comfy jammies on so we could watch the Monsters Vs. Aliens halloween special. I was concerned about 10 minutes into it that it would give Mr. G nightmares because the pumpkins were a little scary! But he stayed glued to that show and when he was done he asked, "Again?" So he must've liked it! It was a great day, and Mr. G was very entertaining most of the day for me- I was taking the pictures and he'd randomly give me the most cheesy or sweetest grins. I loved it! It's time to update our family pictures soon...Too bad they'd be outdated in less than 10 weeks with a new addition. For now we'll just admire what we got I think-

Pig-Tales

This is the very beginning of our "sicky" story...

Michael started it...

So I've been asked for an update: Currently Michael and I are doing MUCH better. I never did get the fever, but getting on Tamiflu really early helped with that. My biggest complaint at this point is mild congestion- But a single Sudafed takes care of that. It's a HUGE blessing I haven't been worse like the boys were- Especially because a really high fever is the most dangerous for the baby. Michael was pretty sick for about 4.5 days. Mr. G on the other hand- He was the most pitiful of us all I think. Michael was pretty sick, but he's old enough he was able to repress his need to puke, etc. But Mr. G did throw up really early one morning, had a fever of around 102 (even on Motrin), etc. Nobody would see him or get him anything for the illness because he wasn't a "high risk" being over two and not having asthma. We were REALLY frustrated. It's hard to sit and see your baby suffer...But we'd call after hour services or the Urgent Care and they'd simply tell us "Just keep him well hydrated and rested, nobody is even really 'testing' for the swine flu anymore. It sounds like you guys have it, so deal. If you come in we'll just pat you on the head and send you home to rest."

Yesterday Mr. G did really well. In fact I'd say he was nearly 100%! He was finally starting to eat/drink (which he refused to do the other days), he was chipper and wanting to wrestle with his dad (which is also HUGE), and just really seemed to be back to his normal self. Problem? Today he's back to his sick self. It's really strange. Michael and I have gotten progressively better and not had any problems. But Mr. G woke up this morning coughing again and had a runny nasty nose and is just acting really cranky overall. You just look at him and can tell he doesn't feel well. So we're off to the doc this afternoon. We'll see if they actually take us seriously this time now that he's kind of regressing...I'll keep y'all updated. If you have any questions about it, feel free to ask!

POST-DOC UPDATE: So apparently we were lied to. They (the Urgent Care we called and the on-call doc) SHOULD have tested all of us, but simply didn't because they were LAZY and the information given to us about who would and wouldn't get Tamiflu was also false. Mr. G's doc said he would have prescribed the Tamiflu over the phone that day, but the doc we spoke to said we could "come in Monday and be seen" but by then it was too late for the Tamiflu to even matter. Now we're in a "watch him" phase for the next two days. If he still doesn't get better we're looking at chest x-rays and other tests. Poor form weekend medical people, poor form.

Interesting FYI: Michael was talking with a PA recently and he'd mentioned that at least 50% of the general population has already been exposed to Swine Flu. Make you feel "protected" yet? 

Oink.

So, anybody up for some Swine Flu?

Come hang at our house, it could be REAL fun!

We frequently have piles of kleenex to jump into, Motrin & Tylenol on hand for your enjoyment, and even a little juice if you're REAL feisty. We often even have coughing competitions to see whose is worse...Michael is pretty good- although Mr. G is coming up from behind...

How about a little puke-

But enter at your own risk, if you're feelin' HOG WILD!

{I know...crappy pun...}

Just 'cause he's so dang handsome...

He's just so cute!

I can't believe how grown up he is...