Merry Christmas

You won't be hearing from me until after the Christmas Festivities, so until then Feliz Navidad. I hope you get all your gifts wrapped, I am not even close. Enjoy the videos!

Must Have

Ok, so I am perusing the web, catching up on old posts of other bloggers, and I come across these posters on cjane that she is advertising, and for a moment, my world stopped spinning. I cannot go on with my life without some of these prints for my home.

Here is the main site:

http://www.zazzle.com/logophilia/gifts#products

Here are those that I must have, in the near future, preferably, so that I can gain composure again. Nothing excites me more then a good find for the home that fits so perfectly you want to scream your head off.

http://www.zazzle.com/11_x_14_raise_hell_then_sleep_well_full_bleed_poster-228770560495137703

I do not care one bit that the word 'H' 'E' double hockey sticks is used in this poster. I think it is hilarious and perfect for the boys room when they get a little bit older to understand that it is a funny phrase, not one we use, per se, but very appropriate. I can hear my mother now, 'I cannot believe that a mother of small children would have that on her wall.' She is gasping and making sounds like she thinks it is the worst offense, when really, she thinks it's funny too.

I also have this half wall separating my kitchen from my living room that is just dying to have these 3 prints on the kitchen side framed in black, right in a row. I'm just saying, it might look good, that's all.

http://www.zazzle.com/11_x_14_julia_child_i_multi_color_poster-228987609937231753

http://www.zazzle.com/11_x_14_woolf_on_food_i_solid_color_poster-228913973144487167

http://www.zazzle.com/11_x_14_russian_proverb_solid_color_poster-228806644044916643


I think this may have overtaken the black kitchen aid mixer for a couple of moments, time to get on it babe, these are way cheaper!

Where's the Tip?

Ok, so I didn't send out holiday cards this year. Had I known some people counted on them like they count on Starbucks having holiday lattes, I would have pulled through for you. But since most of you read this I'll just go ahead and figure you get your own special version here, and maybe just maybe, although you can't hang it on your door, wall, string, window, special card holder, this will suffice. If you didn't care if you got a tip from me on the holidays, well then Bah Humbug, and I hope you like your coal.

Another Holiday Tip from our home to yours...

Jack Frost nipping at your nose, is not festive to small children.

Here's hoping your Holiday is filled with hot chocolate and warm cookies.

Merry Christmas.

Love,

Andy,Melissa,Kendall,Ethan,the bun in the oven,and our mascots; Lillian & Stanley

Charlie Horses*

There is the little man. Such a cutie for some cartilage and all. Look at the noggin, looks like he takes after his mama like the other two. Large heads are a sign of intelligence. I think I made that up, but it sounds good. I think it just comes from my grandfather, which comes from his mother, and most of us who come from that wonderful ancestry have big heads and big boobs. Well except for the men of course, but you never know, they put on an extra few pounds…they may be more susceptible to man boobs, I wouldn’t risk it, I’m just putting the warning out there. But it was refreshing to see that it looks as though he will have a cute little nose, again, one of my fears, the child comes out with this giant schnoze, and well, it’s just awkward for everyone involved.

As I have said before, I have popped. Considerably so. There was this Christmas song we learned in elementary school that we would sing in a round, and each time I pass myself in the mirror, I start to sing, ‘Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat…’It’s like my theme song. I am always pregnant at the holidays. The rest of the song goes on about pennies, and putting them in a hat, which is irrelevant, but just the same the song comes to my head. Like I have mentioned before, sometimes my life plays to a soundtrack in my head, but I have no control over the choices. When I see kids who have just learned to walk toddle around, in my head the song plays, ‘Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down,’ and I will continue to sing it for the rest of the day. Now if you know it, you will too.

You know the show with the girls that didn’t know that they were pregnant? I will never ever be able to say that, ever. It’s like whoa, she’s pregnant. I could be really spiteful and say, ‘no, it’s a hernia,’ or just, plain and simple, ‘no I’m not.’ But that would be just mean. But regardless, I would never believe these stories unless I was a personal witness to one, which I will not divulge in because that is not my job, but let me just tell you, no, by all means, no way, would I have known that she was pregnant and about to deliver. That my dear readers, is the way to look. I am sure it is a shock, and I am certain it would be a little easier to show then to one day be like, ‘oh yeah, I just had a baby last week, no, no I didn’t adopt it, it came from my uterus.’ But it beats the extra two feet that is going to stick out in front of me in the end of all of this. Oh and the baby was born fine, cute, healthy, and a toddler now. But I am a believer that it could happen. Kendall didn’t move much during my pregnancy with her, and you would be able to convince me the subtle movements were gas if I didn’t have a fourth chin and a stomach that rounded the corner before me.

I sound like a big fat complainer when it comes to pregnancy, and I am not. I do love being pregnant. I love that there is life growing in me, from me and Andy, but I feel it is my duty to relate to all you other pregnant women out there, who were, are, and will be pregnant. Not only that, it is the ultimate excuse…’I can’t do that, I am pregnant,’ or ‘I can’t do that, it might hurt the baby,’ or my personal favorite, ‘Yeah, well I’m pregnant, beat that!’

So some of the symptoms that are aching me right now comes compliments of the growing child. It is supposed to be close to 2 pounds right now, but you would think it was 25. First and foremost, the round ligament. You wouldn’t even know you had it until it starts to take some pressure, and then you are like, ‘hello, did I just do 5,000 sit-ups and compete in a tractor wheel lifting contest last night in my sleep?’ This muscle, when agitated, will cause you to waddle like a duck, cause you immense pain when rising from just a simple sitting position, and will sometimes have you thinking that the baby is just going to drop right on out. It is located right under the growing belly. It hurts right on down through your crotch; it’s really grand like that. The only relief you will feel is sitting or lying down without moving and nobody touching you or rocking anything near you that might cause you to stir, so you best surround yourself in yellow caution tape, or holding your crotch like you have to pee. Both of these situations, as you can see, are real conducive to having you look like a complete degenerate. Kendall is always asking around the house, ‘Mom, you have to pee,’ I just simply say, no Kendall it’s the counter pressure’, and waddle to the next activity. If you see me in public and I am holding my crotch, don’t tell me about it, just stand in front of me so others don’t see. The pain is that bad sometimes. I warned you on the first blog about this; it would be graphic in nature, so just stop reading now if you don’t like it.

Next are the Charlie horses in the leg. Don’t tell me to eat a banana. These typically happen at about 3 in the morning. And the pain is so bad that I just want to kick Andy. I am one of those that if I am in pain I want to kick or hit something really hard. When I went into labor with Ethan, as I was waiting for Andy to get ready, anything that was on the floor was punted across the room. I am getting pretty good with them, and I know to just freeze. To not even blink, it might set it off. I pray to God to keep Andy still. But if it catches me by surprise and I point my toes like you want to do instinctively when you have a Charlie horse, the pain resembles to me what it might feel like to have had your leg muscle attacked by a wolverine.

Lastly is the water retention. This too seems to happen only at night. If my clothes are bunched up, if the blanket isn’t straight beneath me, when I wake up to go pee, I will feel this stinging sensation on my skin. When I lift my shirt or pant leg to investigate in the mirror I will see skin indentations so deep it causes a ridge when I run my fingers over it. It’s like a braille map that leads to nowhere. The other night I fell asleep with Kendall in her bed, and she has this book that has little puffy letters on the cover. I must have been lying on it, for when I woke up, felt the sensation, and lifted my shirt, my side read, ‘The Cat,’ ok people, talk about swelling. There is a reason I am pregnant in the winter, if it were August, I would look like a wrinkled mess all day. You would be able to just poke me, and there would be an indent left.

So as you can see, sleep is just wonderful. It is all worth it, of course, in the end I will hold a little miracle, but it is not for the weary. Many say they would like to have their husband be pregnant for one day so that they could relate and see what it is really like. I could not disagree more. Have you taken care of a man who has the common cold? The cold that you and the kids had just last week and managed to function fine with, which has now crippled this man? Yeah, just remember that.

Oh and the Frank & Beans

Good Vibrations

Phew, finally some time to blog, I know you have been waiting with bated breath. It's sort of like a comeback, I mean a month without blogging, that is absurd. Not that I didn't think of you often, really I did and I thought, yeah, when I have the time, and when I am not completely exhausted, and when the kids are restful for an hour, I will blog. Low and behold, that never happened.

So the comeback. There have been some really failed comebacks like um, lets see MC Hammer, Debbie Gibson, Whitney Houston, so on and so forth. They were really embarrassing comebacks, I kind of feel bad for them. But Marky Mark, now Mark Whalberg, he made an excellent comeback. Maybe it was the career switch, but there are those that can't even do that successfully. But to go from 'Good Vibrations,' to where he is now, that is something. I mean what happened to his brother, Donny? Now that is embarrassing. I kind of think the character in Mark's produced show, 'Entourage,' Drama, is based on Donny, always trying to be on par with his older brother and his success, but never getting there, but was famous first. What a tough break. But I absolutely love the show, 'Entourage,' it is about nothing I am interested in, but it has that cool flavor about it. My favorite characters aren't even the main ones, they are Ari, Lloyd, and Shauna, all played so perfectly. I mean sure, Debi Mazar's character has a foul mouth, but isn't the accent great? Oh, I miss HBO...saving money...in recession...sacrifice...right...Netflix, anyone? Great gift idea!

So anyway, Mark Whalberg is behind 'Entourage,' again adding to his comeback, which really isn't a comeback anymore is it? I mean he isn't in Calvin Klein ads anymore, and he isn't self-tattooing, 'Nicole 4-Eva,' onto his chest, which by the way didn't that just ruin the movie for you when you were like 17? It was good up into that point, and then he goes and does that. I remember laughing out loud. Back on point, he is now a successful actor, a family man, I enjoy the movies he is in, he has that awkwardness about him that teeters on that line, like he could really make a left turn and deliver some bad acting, but he makes wise film choices, which lead him to the right, must have a good entourage himself.

So onto my little gone a month and back comeback, hopefully it will be like my friend Mark's. As you may have picked up on, we are having another little boy. Another little man, a friend for E so he doesn't have to play Barbies all the time. I had a Level II ultrasound at the beginning of the month. My doctor, the micro machine man, more on that later, decided that he didn't like my folic acid level, and said he wanted to make sure everything is alright. Turns out it is fine, and the child may have the middle name Popeye, due to all the folic acid that goes in my body. I jest, but really I am thankful he had me double checked. I go back and forth about showing the pic of the frank and beans, and some of the others, but I mean what's the harm? Maybe later this week. I think he would be proud, I was like, 'uh yeah, that's a definitely a boy', before the tech even said it, you couldn't miss it. Takes after his big brother, and I won't go further down the lineage then that, that would be crossing a line.

I count it as pregnancy hormones, but sometimes while I watch E sleep I cry because he won't be my baby boy anymore. It's ridiculous I know, I don't cry over Kendall and that she won't be my baby anymore as she slumbers, and I love her just the same, but that baby boy bond, oh how it binds. On second thought, this might be a good thing for E and I. Kendall is my little lady, I look at her and I see me, she acts like me, she talks like me, in some ways I feel a bigger responsibility towards her to bring her up to be a strong, well behaved girl, so in many ways I expect more from her. She is the oldest, by a mere 13 months, but still, and she is the girl, she could be the leader of the pack if this was my last. The doctors want me all done with babies by the time I am 35 to keep me, the pregnancies, and the babies healthy since they aren't really sure what is up with me and my fertility issues, just that it is a gene thing, and the older the eggs, the more susceptible they are to weakness and abnormalities. We say we want 4, but we really can't be picky...I mean 3? They weren't sure I would have one. So Kendall, like me, is the oldest, we are the leaders, there is a little bit of some expectations with that, and to be the big sister of 2 boys, that ain't going to be easy. Do I cry over Kendall, sure I do, but mostly because she is growing so quickly, and I also just made her eat soap for sassing me, again. Oh going from 2 to 3 is going to throw me for a loop, especially with three years off, I never had so much time in between babies, you think my laundry pile is high now!?!?

So the pregnancy is progressing. In typical form, I look like I am 42 weeks instead of 23, but what are you going to do? I mean it's the holiday season, that is the ideal time to be pregnant, ok so not so much after birth, when the summer is around the corner and you resemble a pale beached whale for months, but I will enjoy my cookies now. Maternity clothes is pretty awesome like that. Remind me I said this about mid June when I am telling you that my body is jiggly in places it shouldn't be, and when I want to take some scissors to my gut and perform my own tummy tuck. Sterile, of course.

When you are tired and it is your first pregnancy, I will give it to you, that is rough to feel that exhaustion that pregnancy brings for the first time, but by the second trimester, it lifts. The second time around is a little different, the exhaustion doesn't lift until about 16 weeks, but you know what to expect. The third time around, I am here to tell you, I would never lie, it doesn't lift. It doesn't go away, ever. I tell you what, naps would be great, but you don't get them when your three and a half year old doesn't nap, and wants you to watch a Barbie movie with her while her brother naps, and asks you every 5 minutes, 'Mommy, I thought you were watching this with me, open your eyes, you will miss the best part.' I want to say, 'Well Kendall, I got the best part the first 378 times we watched this movie, it's ok if I miss it just this once,' but I don't, and in my best exhausted Mommy voice, I say at the end, 'you were right Kendall, that was the best part.'

Andy likes to tease me that it must be easy sleeping in until 10 a.m. everyday, since it is around that time I first check in with him when he is at work. Truth is, is that is when my brain starts functioning to the point where I can have a conversation beyond, 'What would you like for breakfast? What show did you want to watch while I make breakfast?' and 'It's ready!' I mean actually making breakfast is pushing it. I am at the point where it isn't comfortable to sleep, so I don't fully rest. I get up 5 times to pee, and there are things that occur to my body, which I will go into in my next post that really make sleep sometimes painful. Like leg cramps, round ligaments, and water retention.

And in all honesty should the man really have anything to say about when I sleep till? I mean I am the one carrying the extra weight, walking like a duck, dealing with heartburn from just putting some pepper on my baked potato, out of breath when walking up a flight of stairs, so on and so forth, and in the end, getting to push this thing out of my vagina? An episiotomy is not some grand prize or war wound to show to your pals. How would you liked to be sewed together from one hole to another? Yeah, that's what I thought, let the beast sleep.

If my children want to be angels and let their poor impregnated mother get some extra rest before they put her through non stop preschooler entertaining for the next 9 hours until their father gets home, then so be it. And I am here to tell you, the children wake at 8 a.m., the dog wants to pee at 8 a.m., that sounds like a wonderful treat to some mothers, and it is, but I run them ragged, I do. I do everything in my power to make them exhausted at the end of the day. We do not stop, all day. Sure that may make it worse on me, but I think being pregnant and up at 6 a.m. would be worse. It's not child abuse, we have fun, can I help it if they sometimes fall asleep in the upright position?

And that is where we are at, now if you will excuse me I have to go and feed children who are hungry and tired from playing in the snow, but the comeback is in full swing.

The news from Mt. Hood is not what we intended to hear, which I am sure you are fully aware of right now. I can only imagine the pain her family experienced as they made some heart wrenching decisions in the past few days. The strength her father displayed when speaking at the press conference was unbelievable.We can only pray that Katie is at peace, that she is rejoicing in heaven at probably one of the best times.

The Lord blesses those who devote their lives to him, their work, their everything. What riches Katie is receiving as her life was a full testimony. So short a life, but so full of adventure with God as the focus. Awesome.

Continue to pray for her close friends, her family, those that will pursue recovery when the time comes.

Continue to pray for the other families of Katie's friends and fellow hikers.

Continue to follow Amy's blog as Memorial Services are planned on each coast for Katie.

Mt. Hood

I promise, I promise, new post coming, updates, ultrasound picture of some frank and beans instead of a hamburger, so on and so forth. I have been brought to post to raise awareness and prayer for a college friend of Andy and I. I have mentioned recently on facebook that Katie is a girl with a gentle spirit, a love and devotion to the Lord that is admireable,a drive and determination to do what is just, a caring heart, and a person that is filled with adventure. The woman she has become is no doubt exactly who she is supposed to be. I can remember seeing her at a wedding a year or so ago with her hair knotted in this dreadlock mess, but she was beautiful, and you know me, I marched right on up to her and blurted out, 'you are the only person that I have even looked at with dreads and thought, that looks really good!' She laughed and said, 'well it really cuts down on the whole hair maintenace thing.' You know me, just blunt like that.

If you don't know by now, Katie is one of the hikers that is missing on Mt. Hood. I, like many others I know, are always searching for updates, praying for weather changes, and a miracle. The best sources I have found have been provided through a local oregon website, as well as her friend Amy's blog that she just started. As you will see in pics, Amy was a close friend of Katie's, and my heart goes out to each of them that held Katie close. I can only imagine the heart wrenching emotions her family and close friends are experiencing. If you can, pray for them. Pray for Katie and Anthony. Pray that no matter what their situation may be, that they are feeling the Lord's warm embrace. Pray for the hiker and friend that was with them that lost his life. Pray for Luke's family. It is starting to seem as though he may have been going for help. Pray for those searching for them. Pray for their endurance, pray that they are kept safe and warm, and pray that they are led in the right direction.

Here are the links to the websites you can follow:


http://mthood2009.wordpress.com/

http://www.oregonlive.com/