It's Official!

Okay went to the dr. this morning. She had me scheduled for a C-section on Sept 11 and I said absolutely not! So I am officially scheduled for Wednesday, September 13th and I have to be at the hospital at 6 a.m.! MAN THAT IS EARLY! But, it's better than laboring all night and the next day just to have a C-section! So that means I have 16 days (or less :) until Ava will make her debut! I am all about visitors at the hospital so if you are in the area come by and visit. I'll be at the hospital in Greenville and I'll probably have to stay about 4 days which means I'll probably go home sometime on Sat. I am REALLY excited that a date has been set :)

Elmo's a Christian

I have 2 funny stories from life with Elle in the past few days. First, Shawn told me the other night that Elle was "fwiming" in the tub the other night and had her bath-time Elmo in there with her. Well, all of the sudden she took Elmo and mumbled something and pushed him under the water. Then she looked at Shawn and said "Elmo baptized." She was quite proud that she had baptized him so just in case you wanted to know, he is now a Christian!
Another funny story from last night: Elle had just finished brushing her teeth and she came running into the living room to do the usual routine. She gets about an inch from my nose, opens her mouth real wide and blows her breath in my face, so I can smell how great her breath is. So, she did her normal thing, but then lifted my shirt, and blew directly into my belly button, so Ava could smell her breath too. I laughed until I had contractions! It was so funny.

Alarm Clock

As you know we are getting down to the wire on baby preparations. We are done with all things we can think of and now it's just little tiny things that we are working on. There are 19 days or less left until Ava arrives. I am dying to see how she looks! I am much more laid back this time about caring for a baby, but I'm a little more nervous about recovering from a surgery...I've done this before and now I know what it's like plus I have a 2 1/2 year old that doesn't understand. But I will have help for quite a while and should be fine as long as recovery goes smoothly. Anyway, we are planning like I was saying and one of the little things we are working on is getting Elle to get out of bed on her own, come open her door in the morning and leave her room without me coming in to get her. That will be helpful since I may be just beginning to feed Ava when Elle gets up in the morning and I won't be able to go and get her for 20 minutes or more. So, we bought her an alarm clock and set it for 8:05 am so that music would start playing at that time. We have done it the past 2 days and the first day she still called for me saying "Mommy, open da door for me!" or "MOMMY!" over and over again until I stood outside her door and said, "you can come out". A few seconds later she popped right out of that room and was so proud. This morning she didn't say anything until the music went off, then called for me a few times. I yelled from the living room, "You don't need my permission to get up!" and a few seconds later she came bounding in the room. She feels like such a big girl being able to get out of bed on her own and open the door in the morning. Now naps are a different story. She knows she has to stay in bed until I come and get her and that's fine with her. I am so proud of the fact that she is gaining little bits of indepence but at the same time it's sad because it is just chipping away at her need for me! I know all the mommies, young and old reading this know exactly what I mean. Anyway, that's my ramble for the day. Maybe tomorrow she won't even call for me at all and will finally figure out that she can get up as soon as she hears the music!

Dr. Appt

Well, we went to our weekly appt this morning. We have tentatively set the C-section date for September 12, but it won't be finalized till next week. I still want the 13th so we'll see what she says next week. The days are starting to go very slowly now. Nothing to do but bake the bread. (bun in the oven for those that are too slow to get what I meant by that) Of course there is still the chance that I could go into labor on my own before then, or be showing very favorable signs of impending labor. In the case of the 2nd one, I will probably go past the C-section date and hope to go into labor on my own. As much as I want to quit being pregnant, I also still really want to recover quicker than a C-section will allow. Anyway, that's all the news for now. To date I've now written 90 thank you's and as Aunt Lesley pointed out, 90 is better than 0! By the way, we had all the high schoolers over this morning at 6:45 A.M. for breakfast. Today was Greenville's first day back to school. I made them a scrambled egg pizza, a french toast casserole, monkey bread, and a big tray of fruit. It was all really good, but I'm definately feeling that 5:50 wake up call this morning! I didn't sleep good at all last night and I'm having allergy problems so I'm running on fumes right now!
p.s. is anyone else having problems adding pictures in their blogs? I am having major issues!

Pictures of our newest baby

Mommy's got a brand new car!

Look how much room between the front and back seat!

Us at the Honda place having just bought the Element. They take a picture of anyone who buys a car, then put that picture in 8X10 size on a calendar and mail it to the buyers. How nice!

Ava can now be born...

We did something very exciting today! It was very spur-of-the-moment for us but here's the story. A few days ago, we decided to try one last time to put the car seats in a certain configuration in the Ford Focus that we were sure would work. We had resolved ourselves to the fact that one of us would ride in the back with Ava, and Elle and her carseat would be in the front passenger seat. We did a "dry run" since D Day is fast approaching....with very bad results. Elle's car seat would be very close to the dashboard and airbag. We can't turn the airbag off in the Focus so that worried us. Plus, Ava's seat had to be in the middle just to fit in the back seat. That left absolutely no and I mean not even a little room for the adult that would ride back their with her. Seriously, one arm would be in the car seat and the other would be up on the window. As for legroom, my knees were up against the back of the front seat and I could not move them even a little. It just became very apparent to us that whatever we had to do, we were going to have to get another vehicle, even if it ended up being a very old one. We had to have more room between the back and front seats. So, this morning after Shawn did some research on the internet last night, we headed to McKinney and the biggest Honda dealership in Texas. We had our eyes set on an older model Honda Element....the exact vehicle Chad and Lesley (shawn's bro and wife) just bought a few weeks ago! We found an silver '03 with 52,282 miles on it in great condition! After much haggling over the price we were able to get payments that are $51 more than what we were paying per month on the Focus. So, we are thinking if we are very careful with the budget, we are good to go! The best part is that there is more room between the front and back seat of our new car than I've ever seen in any car before! Both car seats fit wonderfully in the back with LOTS of floor space. Here are my personal favorite things about this car: It has a visor extender, cruise control (i've never had that before!), Keyless entry, power windows and locks, and the entire inside is pretty much waterproof :) I am having trouble putting pictures of our new little pride and joy on here but I'll try tomorrow

Hawaiian beauty

I haven't posted many pictures of Elle lately because every time I pull out the camera she puts her hands over her entire face. What a stinker. The only way I was able to get her to put her hands down for this shot was to threaten her and then to get her to smile I had to say "boogers" and "toot". What a girl!

84

Can you guess what that number stands for??? I'll give you a few minutes.



Okay, it stands for the number of thank you notes I wrote today. Yes, I said today! I have been writing since 11 am and it's now 3:30 and I'm finished. That feels so good to get done with! Here's a picture of what 84 Thank You's look like. By the way, if I was to mail all of these off, it would cost $31.08. That's why people from church will get a hand-delivered one!

Dr. Appointment

I went to the dr. this morning. I talked to her long and hard about all the risks, benefits, and negative aspects of VBAC verses a scheduled C-section. She said she had read what my previous dr. wrote about the delivery of Elle and she was willing to try whatever I wanted to try, but that my chance of failure was very high according to my last delivery. Shawn and I looked at each other and he said "There's your answer." So, unless my body begins to show signs of imminent labor before the 39 week mark, we are going to schedule a C-section. It most likely would be done on Sept 12, but I am going to see if she will do it Sept 13yh, since my birthday is on a 13th. Tuesdays are her scheduled day to do C-sections and the 13th is a Wednesday so we'll see. I go back to her again on Monday so I will solidify plans then. I am pretty much at peace with the decision we made so now it's a fast countdown! By the way, for those that were at my shower, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send me pics that you took at my shower. I am working on getting that scrapbook page done so if you have pictures send them via email. Talk to ya later!

8 months pregnant

Here's me at 8 months which equals 35 weeks. For those of you who are mathematically deficent, that means 5 more weeks. I need help....please vote through comments on whether you think I should have a scheduled C-section (it would be around Sept 12) or wait for labor and/or 41 weeks for a C-section which would be no later than around Sept 26. Remember that I can't have any type of drug to help contractions along so if I went into labor by myself, I would have to progress and all without the pitocin or anything like that. I'm still feeling pretty good right now. I get tired quite quickly but I've also had a lot of activity the last few days! I have an appt in the morning for a reg. checkup. I'm not sleeping great but it isn't horrible either. I just have no energy especially to care for Elle right now...poor baby :(

It wasn't a shower...it was a downpour!

Very important monitor to watch Ava...good gift.

I love this jacket Emily and Joey!!!

All that stuff!!!

My hostesses

I had my baby shower a.k.a. baby downpour Sunday at church. I was totally caught offguard by all the stuff I got. I am sooooo blessed!!!! We are pretty well set except for a few tiny little things. Enjoy the pics of all we hauled in! I have 86 thank you notes to write as of today.

Overdue

No, not me...this update. I must spoil you all with regular updates because I have never heard so much whining in my life about me not having stuff up about the nursery and all that! But, I am a pretty on-top-of-things type of person so it has been unusual that it's taken me 2 whole days to finally get pictures of the nursery up. So, this post will be about the nursery. I completely finished it as of last night around 9 pm. I am in love with it! It has turned out sooooo cute and I can't wait to see little Ava in there. Elle loves the room to! Anyway, enough talkin...here's the pics.

Dog Tired

Well....we have been working since around 9 this morning and it's 9:15 pm right now and we are done. We have officially done as much as we can on the nursery. If I get some of the decorating items I registered for, that will totally finish off the nursery but we've done everything we set out to do. We are so unbelievably tired right now and I'm just praying that sleep tonight will erase some of the aches since tomorrow will be a big day. The nursery looks AWESOME but I'm not showing pics until the last finishing pieces are in which should be tomorrow. Thanks for all the prayers and sweet words you've written to me about staying positive! I am glad it's all done and it's not a minute too soon. I have been having harder contractions lately, which really doesn't mean much...but I like to think it means that Ava will be here sooner than Sept. 18th! Pray that it is sooner cause the heat is melting me! I will have pictures of the shower up very soon, pics of elle up, and pics of me at 8 months preg. up soon too. Some of you have been alittle testy with me lately for not putting pics up! So, you are about to get your fill. Be looking for updates in the next few days :)

FINALLY!

We have officially gotten the nursery under way....with around 5-6 weeks to spare! We cleared it out completely today, painted it, and the carpet is getting cleaned (for sure this time!) tomorrow morning at 9:30. We're getting the living room carpet cleaned too and I've been wanting that for quite a while! When you have 14 high schoolers eating and drinking in your living room every Thursday night, spots tend to show up all over the place! Anyway, a lot of the anxiety and freaking out has subsided since my wonderful hubbie got to work on all this stuff today. He also began painting the dresser that will go in Ava's room and will probably be done with it tomorrow. I AM A HAPPY CAMPER! My baby shower is in 6 days and I'm very excited about that. Hope I get a lot of stuff off my registery cause I had fun picking all that stuff out! I'll send pics of the nursery as it gets finished. It will probably be at least a week before it's pretty well complete.

The L Word

Leveling....that's what they're doing to my house right this minute. They arrived at 7:45 this morning and got to work right away. They must have magic shovels because they are digging through this black clay like it's peet moss. I got to eat my bowl of cereal while staring at about 7 men in my backyard...a little weird but oh well. They are digging these humongoid (I think that word should be in the dictionary) holes all around the side and back of our house and have already taken out a hydrangea and numerous green bushes that use to be in one long row. Now it looks like 3 free standing bushes. Oh well! As long as they don't hurt my beloved pool I'm good to go. Anyway, I thought you might like to see what it looks like when they level a house. Enjoy! The Mexican guys thought it was funny that I was taking pictures of them working :)

To Breech or not to Breech

And the answer is....NOT BREECH!!! I had a dr's appt this morning and asked for a sonogram and Ava's head is down now. There is almost no chance of her turning back around said the dr. So here's where we stand...The Dr. said she would not induce me at all and that if I didn't go into labor on my own by 41 weeks which is September26th, I would have a C-section that day. I still have the choice to elect for a C-section and that would be done at 39 weeks which would be around September 12th. I'm not sure what to do at this point. The dilemma is do I chance going to 41 weeks, hope I go into labor on my own, and then hope that all goes well and there is no need for a C-section or do I just schedule it and know what's going to happen. She said that there is a very good chance that I will have to have a C-section again even if I go into labor on my own, because of my reason for having one the first time. She said that my pelvis could be in such a way that a baby's head can't turn to the correct position. Anyway, there's a lot the digest and think about. If I wasn't going to breastfeed it wouldn't be so bad to have a C-sec but having to sit up and get up all day and night after having yourself cut in two is not very pleasant. I've heard it's much easier to recover from a scheduled C-sec than what happened last time???? More to come as I find out more.

Have you ever had that dream where you go to school and realize you forgot your pants?

Taking after mommy and getting ready to go hiking. We got her this pink backpack because she's been booted out of the diaper bag. She no longer needs it since all we carry in there for her is toys.