Saturday, January 31, 2009

Misery

I'm now on Day 2, Night 2 of being miserable. I came down with a bad cold a few days ago and, combined with the ordinary discomforts of being 8 months pregnant -- being big & awkward, having baby jabbing & beating me up from the inside, heartburn -- along with long nights, inability to breathe & swallow, and living with sleep deprivation during the day, I'm pretty much a mess. Of course, even without all the rest, the sleep deprivation would be enough to put me over the top. I just don't do well without sleep. And going through it yesterday, knowing I had more to look forward to regularly in just another months' time made me spend a good majority of the day bawling. (Which is when my husband's like "What's wrong? I'll do anything! Just stop crying!!" ;-) Men - they just don't get it.) I'm praying this virus runs its course quickly and Matt & Madison don't catch it. We'd been doing so well this winter in regard to staying healthy...

Friday, January 30, 2009

What's It Worth?

Thought this was fascinating and somewhat alarming to see what the gvnt. is doing with our currency --

(I'm a little addlepated when it comes to embedding video & using the right format on the blog... so click on this link to see the 4 min. video.)

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mad Hatter

Madison turns 18 months old today! Wow! Where did a year and a half go? At 18 months, Madison is at 50% for both weight and height. She's also exactly in 18 month clothes right now. She's very into climbing right now - anything she can pull herself up onto, she does. Here are a couple pictures from this morning. She found Daddy's hat and ski mask and decided to try them on - and then enjoy a good laugh at herself in the mirror.







Here are a couple more -- Hair is getting longer all the time. I always did like to fix my dolls' hair when I was little...

In other news, Matt took a ski/snowboard trip with some friends last week. They had a great day and Matt enjoyed hitting the slopes for the first time in a couple years. It's good to be back in an area where skiing is available nearby. I, yet again, missed out on the skiing fun because my body is busy acting as baby incubator. ;-) But NEXT year... hopefully... I'll get back out there.

I'm measuring about 35 weeks right now - just about a month left! At this point, I'm waiting for either labor pains or March 6th, whichever comes first. If not before, baby's birthday will be March 6 by c-section. Please be praying that the Lord's will be done as far as how the baby arrives! I'm feeling mostly OK -- ready to have my body back but nothing adverse except occasional discomfort from heartburn. As far as I can tell, I'm all "ready" for the baby's arrival - newborn clothes pulled out of storage, carseat ready to go. And of course, bracing once again for the the 'trauma' of sleep-deprived recovery.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Reading

Lately Madison's 'thing' has been reading. Her current favorite is a Pooh book. She brings it to us to read to her, but more often than not, we'll hear her reading to herself, sitting in her little chair or on the floor. It's always nice 'cause when you hear that you know she's occupying herself & not getting into mischief! (and Mama doesn't have to go hunt her down to find out what's been destroyed!) It has been SO hard to get her reading on video. This is the best I've done so far... and as you can see by Daddy's one little outburst, she's very easily distracted, and even more so when she notices a camera on her.

A Little Chatter

Her hair is just starting to get long enough to try some more things with it.

The Monkey Princess

She's a princess all right -- I just wish she'd cooperate a little more when I want to pose her!


33 Weeks

One more week down, few more to go...




Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Hangin' Out

This one's for Auntie Jenn --


Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Sledding

Yesterday Madison and I joined a few friends and family for a sledding day. The temps were mild enough, the sun was bright and the wind was low -- perfect for sledding. Madison had a great time riding down the hill on someone's lap or having Uncle Jared ("Cookie" is what she calls him -- we don't know why) pull her down the hill at top speeds. As long as her hands and face stayed out of the snow, she seemed to love it. She would let out a happy "Weee!" and ask for 'more' afterward. It gives us hope that she'll be a great amusement park/roller coaster rider someday! A few photos are below -- a bunch more on Picasa -


Don't the little girls look like colorful, puffy marshmallow people?!

Tree Trauma

Today is my day to take down all our Christmas decorations -- snowmen, stockings, Christmas tree, ornaments. I think Madison is suffering trauma at the loss of the tree though. She keeps walking over to the empty space where the tree once stood going, "Tree? Tree? TREEEE." [The final 'tree' she says comes out like an anguished, desperate plea - like "PLEASE bring back my tree"]

Monday, January 12, 2009

Baby Belly

So here I am this time at 32 Weeks --



Size-wise, I don't think I'm far off what I was last time -- Here's me pregnant with Madison at 30 Weeks --



And here was 37 Weeks last time --



So we'll see if I'm as big with this one at 37 weeks as I was last time!
I'll say one thing, so far I would MUCH rather be pregnant in the summer than the winter time. Summer heat didn't cause me discomfort before (I was in a/c all the time anyway) -- though it may have contributed to the excessive swelling I had last time. But this whole having to wear coats and pants and socks and shoes and boots.... it's getting ridiculous! One of my most loathesome daily chores is having to somehow reach my feet to be able to put on socks. I would MUCH rather be able to wear a skirt, a pair of flip flops and ponder the idea of taking a sweater along. Made life with a belly a whole lot simpler.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

New Year, New Seasons

Matt has started his new cleaning job full time. This will be his first full week back to work since early December. We've been pretty spoiled with him being home so much throughout most of December and even some of November. Once they finished closing down the district office he was running, Matt basically had 3 weeks of paid vacation before and during the holidays. I started getting confused over what day it was because every day felt like a Saturday since he was home! Despite the job frustrations, it has been awfully nice and a blessing to our family to enjoy that much time together. Matt's enjoying his new job so far. He says he likes the "mindless grunt work". (Of course, coming off a couple years of constituent work where you're mostly hearing people complain to you, who can blame him!) For much of the work, he's able to pop in his earphones and listen to music on his MP3 player all day while he works. He comes home tired physically instead of mentally now -- a welcome change to him since the former actually means he's burned calories instead of brain cells! :-)

The pregnancy is continuing along just fine, uneventful. I do feel like Christmas was a turning point though in that the heartburn, discomforts and intensity of the kicking seem to have kicked up a notch. It went from being hardly noticed to "GIVE ME SOME MEDICINE!" - but that being said, I still don't think the heartburn & joint discomforts & all that are as bad as my pregnancy with Madison. As of today, I am 32 weeks along. Less than 2 months to go now! The first time I actually verbalized "two months left", it hit me as a shock. All of a sudden it seemed to go from some time in the distant future to right around the corner. I went from not thinking about it a whole lot (mostly b/c I have most of what I need after already having a girl) to thinking, "Oh my gosh! I'd better get ready! I need to DO something!" Again, there's not a whole lot to do, but I have started doing things little by little, either to get ready or things I know I won't want to do after the baby is born.

Madison continues to develop by leaps and bounds - mostly evident in her vocabulary and understanding of different words and things. I'm amazed at how much she knows or says that I don't even realize. For example, I've heard her say the word/sound "Wawee" before, maybe even for weeks. It wasn't until last week though when we were coming home and driving into our parking lot that I realized "I think she's saying 'Where are we?'!!" Sure enough, since then I've heard her say it when we arrive at other places - someones house or the grocery store. She even said it when we drove by our church one time. I'm just amazed at how much she picks up, recognizes and understands. It's just lost in the translation to me for a while -- until I finally get smart enough to understand her! Her pigtails are getting longer. Her teeth are finally continuing to come in. Her appetite continues to be very healthy & ambitious. She often eats more than I do for a meal - especially as the space for my stomach continues to shrink & I feel full very quickly. It will be fun to see her playing with her little sister in just a few short weeks. It's hard to think of her as the big sister. We still refer to her as 'the baby' at times... not for long!

Saturday, January 3, 2009

Singing Away

She was so cute, standing at the table playing with her toys and just singing away. So of course I grab the camera and she stops. Typical. Only the first 3 seconds really captures the singing - then she starts mumbling and goofing off. Oh well.

Happy New Year 2009

Daddy put Madison's toy box together and it helps a lot with keeping the toy clutter to a minimum!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Our Christmas

I'm finally getting around to posting Christmas pictures. We had a lovely Christmas with friends and family. Madison was a lot of fun opening gifts Christmas morning -- and just as fun when other people opened gifts. She'd Ooh and Aaah and gasp with delight. Thanks to so many of you, especially family far away, that were so sweet to think of Madison & send a gift. She enjoyed them all -- but especially loved the boxes. (Hey that's the way it goes at this age right!) Btw - as I type this, Madison is standing next to me going, "Mamisee! Snow!" -- she says 'Mamisee' for 'Madison'.

Playing in the snow Christmas Eve day -



After the Christmas Eve service at our church -








Matt wants to get Madison's music education started early - so she got her first guitar for Christmas!




Boppa got a new bathrobe made by Aunt Alyssa -



Madison likes to make this "grumpy" face -- it's not necessarily because she's grumpy though, it's just because -

The great-grandaughters with Great Grandma T -



Visiting with Great Grandma B and Uncle Steve & family who were visiting from New Jersey -