Sigh

During all the craziness of the holidays I had to do my oh so lovely glucose test to determine if I had gestational diabetes. I have quite a few of the risk factors. Having sailed through the tests on my previous pregnancies I blithely assumed that the results would be the same. Sadly they were not. After the delightful fun of starving and then hanging around the lab for 4 hours (they were running behind so the test started later) I got the diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes.

I have the feeling that I was borderline with my other pregnancies but that my holiday eating tipped the balance for the tests this time around. Mostly this means that I will have to be very careful about what I eat, so if I am good it should not be too big of an impact. The part of all this that really has me frustrated is that it means more appointments. I am heartily sick of waiting rooms. I have been spending a high amount of time in them of late and only have more to look forward with Evan's upcoming pacemaker surgery.

And now for something a bit more upbeat. We have been enjoying nice "warm" weather of late. I took the kids to the zoo for the first time in months and we did not freeze. All we needed was our jackets to keep the chill off. This warm weather has given me an infusion of extra energy. I actually felt like cleaning this morning instead of wanting to crawl back into bed and sleep.

Christmas pictures for the Grandparents

We had a nice quiet Christmas. The kids got way more toys than they needed but that was to be expected. Our Home Teacher invited us and some other people to his house to eat waffles with ice cream, a tradition that they started a few years ago. It was neat to be able to get to know some people in the ward a bit better. We suspect that the family that has been anonymously leaving parts to a nativity scene on our door step during the 12 days preceding Christmas was there also. they drive a dark blue mini van and we would frequently see one drive past when we went outside do get the next piece.

What is in the box?

Animals! Harry knew all the names of the animlas except for this one. I need to look it up so I can figure out what it is.

What is this?

A car carrier truck! This is one of Evan's favorite things, a vehicle that you can put other vehicles in.

One of the coloring books that I got the kids. We kept gifts very minimal on our part, but they really needed more fun pictures to color.

A pretend cookie making kit. I have been eating a lot of pretend cookies which are the best kind since they don't have any calories.

The winner of the Most Annoying Gift of Christmas goes to this one. It was a gift from good old Auntie H (who should she even get married and have kids will be open for massive retribution on my part). Not only was it excessively loud (what is up with the high volume on kid's toys?) but my husband had to go to the garage several times to even find the right screwdriver to get the stupid thing out of it's packaging. The only thing that saved it from a emergency batteryectomy was a mute switch that turned off the music and talking part. It can still drive much to Evan's delight.. Those batteries are a goner if the kids ever figure out that switch.

Merry Christmas!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Big surprise

Today I had another ultrasound to check the development of the baby's heart but they also looked at the whole body to make sure everything was developing as it should. I found out that we were having........






a........









boy. Big shock huh???

The ultrasound tech asked me if I was ok with that and I told her yeah since I already had all the clothing ect. It is not like I can exactly exchange the baby at the baby store any way, so either way I would have to deal with what I had.

Now the hard works starts since we will have to come up with a name for this kiddo.

My harrowing snow adventure

Yesterday it snowed all day and we got several inches of snow. We were supposed to head to the mall for playgroup but in the process of cleaning the snow off my car I dropped my keys and lost them. I think that was Heavenly Father's way of warning me that I should not go out driving in the snow especially with kids in the car.

Later that evening was a cookie exchange that I had been looking forward to. Boy Scouts was canceled for my husband so I got to take the minivan to the activity. I thought it was heavy enough to handled the still unplowed roads. Apparently it was not since it could not make it back up the hill that was near the house where the activity was being held. I was not the only one that was having trouble and the host's husband ended up helping several of us by towing our cars up the hill.

I am still nervous about driving but have a ton of things to do all week. I just wish the city was better about keeping the roads clean and ice free. In Utah there really was no such thing as driving in snow, the roads were very promptly plowed and sanded. Growing up I never understood why my parents dreaded snow but now I know exactly why they hated it.

Easy

I have a crazy fun filled week ahead of me. There are a lot of activities and appointments packed into a short period of time. I think that I have managed to get a handle on things but I may be white knuckling it. Added to this is the fun icy cold that is Kansas at winter time. We went grocery shopping this morning and it was 7 degrees F outside and that was not accounting for the wind chill which temperature at below 0. Evan had the nerve to ask if he could stay outside and play when earlier he had been whining about the cold. I had half a mind to let him stay out there for a short time all by himself.

Something that has saved my tenuous sanity and made me seem a whole lot more together than I really am is the discovery that fudge is a seriously easy treat to make. All you need is a bag of chocolate chips, a can of sweetened condensed milk and a small amount of butter. You melt them all together, spread the goo onto wax paper and throw it into the fridge. Two hours later you have a yummy treat to share. I bought some mint and orange extract to add some different flavors to it and have also been digging around in my pantry for leftover things that go well in it. Marshmallows have been the most popular additive so far, but I like the orange walnut batch that I made.

Snow!

Tuesday we had our first significant snowfall of the winter. The boys were pretty excited about the whole thing since this is their first chance to experience the wet and bitter cold that is snow. It was fun seeing them so excited but that fun wore off quickly as the cold penetrated my body. Luckily most of the snow has already melted away and the rest will soon follow after.

Evan's not too sure about the whole snow thing.

Harry jumps right in.

Harry's attempts to make a snowball. It was a rather dry snow, so it was not very good for making things like snowmen.

Evan throwing a snowball that daddy made.

Our back patio turned into a bit of an ice slick. I told my husband that we should make it into an ice rink, but he was not going for it. Harry had fun sliding on it and even laughed when he fell on his bum.

Sunday Cuteness

Evan has this new phrase that he likes to use. Instead of being happy he is cute. It all started one day when I was questioning him about his behavior prior to allowing him out of his room where he was being punished. "I am not sad, I am cute now" was his reply to me asking if he was done whining and crying about some imagined slight. This phrase has made it into his regular vocabulary and I find it rather.. well... cute.

Yesterday my husband's work had a kid's holiday party. It was mind numbingly boring for the adults, but the kids had a fun time. Santa even came and brought books (secretly supplied by the parents) for the kids. They even had some people doing balloon animals for the kids. With the amount of popping that was going on I could tell there was a balloon animal slaughter going on.

They got to "decorate" their own cookies which was basically spreading frosting on the cookie and then adding sprinkles.

Evan with his green lips after eating his green cookie.

The big guy himself. He stopped and talked to many of the kids Evan included but some guy got in the way of my shot of him talking to Evan. Santa was played by a guy that my husband works with and according to him that belly is not padding. Also that other kid standing next to Harry was quite the.. um how shall I say it?.. "active" little boy. My husband sometimes moans about the kids misbehaving but they were perfect angles compared to that kid.

I will have more pictures of the boys and Santa but not right away. There was a photographer at the event so I have to wait to get the close up pictures. Harry surprised me and actually sat on Santa's lap this year instead of freaking out like he did last year.

Grr!

Putting up the Christmas decorations was fun and exciting. I thought that I had properly impressed upon the children that they should leave the ornaments on the tree and that the lights were off limits. Yeah I know, funny huh?

Yesterday while I was doing something else I heard "Lights are broken, owie!" which of course set off my mommy danger alarm. I got Evan to show me what was wrong. He had broken one of the bulbs of the lights on our Christmas tree. I was steaming at that point but also searching his hand for any cuts. Thankfully there were none and he earned a trip to his bedroom until dinner time. I unplugged the lights and picked up all the glass that I could find.

Not too much later I hear "Lights working" which also set off my mommy danger radar. Harry, who had witnessed all that had happned to Evan, had plugged the lights back in. Steaming again Harry earned himself a trip to the bedroom until dinner time (which with all the giggling I kept hearing was probably not much of a punnishment).

I had reached my limit of frustaration and promptly after dinner removed the lights from the tree. We now have a light less tree which removes a lot of the prettiness from the tree. Sigh. I know that the kids are very sad about not being able to see the lights on the tree too, so maybe the lesson that we do not touch things that mommy and daddy tell us not to will sink in. I am not holding my breath though.

Brrr!

I am in a bit of a blah mood. Life is chugging along with it's little twists and turns. I am over the majority of the whole morning sickness although there are certain things that send my stomach into flip flops, often rather suddenly. Mostly it is exhaustion that I am fighting. I wish I had the energy to do more with the kids, but mostly I want to sleep. It is not like I can take them to the park or anything with out freezing (not that they mind).

Speaking of the cold, it is kicking my bum in a huge way. We made a half hearted attempt to keep our lovely winter gear that we owned when we lived in Utah, but with all the moves we ended up getting rid of a lot of it. I still have my warm coat, but the icy wind of Kansas cuts through it like I was not wearing much of anything at all. I think the boys are decently outfitted but they don't really complain about the cold, so it is hard to tell. I know about cold, but I have really grown soft after six years of not having much of a real winter.

I am trying to save energy by keeping the house at 68 degrees. I did it fine in California. I could even wear short sleeved shirts in the house at that temprature. Here in Kansas my thrifty ways are not working out so well. I am freezing my bum off. I have to pile on the clothing to even feel a tiny bit thawed out. I don't get it, it is the same temprature but some how it feels so much colder.

I also am rather low on maternity long sleeved shirts which is only adding to my frustrations with the cold. When I was pregnant with Evan a nice friend of mine lent me her collection of maternity clothing, so coming into this pregnancy I had a grand total of one long sleeved shirt and one sweater that I found last summer at a thrift store (it is horribly frumpy but very warm). I am also lacking the shopping resources I had when it came to maternity wear, so I have resorted to wearing large men's shirts. They may not be shapely or trendy but they cover my body and keep me warmish.

Sometimes I really wish I was a bear so that I could snuggle up in my cave and sleep the winter away. When I woke up the baby would be out of the tiring newborn stage and into the toddler age.

Thanksgiving day report

We had a fun thanksgiving. My husband's cousin and her family came over for a visit and helped entertain us. We also had the missionaries over, so we had a very full table.

There were a few spots of trouble. My husband sliced off the tip of one of his fingers so his cooking abilities were rather compromised. Luckily he found the bit of skin before it accidentally got mixed in with our stuffing. I was able to hold my nausea in check long enough to put the herbed butter rub under the turkey skin. I forgot to make the mashed potatoes but as was discovered later all but 4 of them had become rotten, so there would not have been enough for everyone any way. I also forgot to put out my homemade cranberry sauce.

Despite all that there was plenty of food to eat and leftovers galore. One of my ulterior motives in inviting the missionaries was so that I could send them home with as much of our leftover food as I could. I hate having piles of turkey left over. I am not all that fond of it in the first place so being forced to eat it months later is torture. We had enough that my husband could have turkey sandwiches for a few days and we could have a meal of turkey noodle soup. That was enough for me.

Poor Evan had a rather tough day today. He tore one of his fingernails in church so we had to scare up a bandage to keep the blood from dripping on everything. Later on in the evening he was goofing off and tripped into the laundry bag holder. It was not until I saw blood seeping though the bottom of his blanket sleeper that I realized why he was making such a fuss about his toe. He had cut the bottom of it somehow. Another band aid soothed him.

We put up our Christmas tree today. It has really been fun watching the kids change from infants who could care less about holidays to kids that are excited about the whole thing. I am having a hard time with this Christmas simply because I have no idea what to get them for presents. They already have so much stuff that I feel like I don't want to get them anything because it will just add to our burden of stuff. I am thinking that I may get them each something small and then donate something bigger to charity so that those with out will be able to share in our good fortune.