Umm...help, please!

I am really starting to get discouraged about this pregnancy and my summer, the outlook just isn't good. On Saturday, when everybody else was working, I thought it would be nice if I cleaned the house so no one else had to worry about it when they got back. Now I know when I do too much I hurt, but I hate not contributing either so I did it. Saturday evening and Sunday were spent in excruciating pain from both my low back and my pelvic bone. Luckily on Sunday, Jesse made me get into a comfortable position and stay there all day, so I am able to walk again today. Mostly, I am just getting so depressed about not being able to go anywhere or do anything (even sleep well), including my household duties. I am trying to ice it and I have ordered some yoga DVDs that other women say have helped with their low back problems, so I will give them a try, but no solutions yet for the pelvic bone. So I am sending out an S.O.S., if anyone has any suggestions for preventing the pain or how to combat it once I've gone too far that would be great. The prospect of sitting all spring and summer has got me kind of down and I don't want miss out on everything. Thanks!

Anything for Pizza!

On Friday I had planned to send Melia some Papa John's (her favorite) pizza to their new apartment, because that is whats fun about having your own place and living in a city. She thought that we were coming up to have it with them and sounded disappointed when she realized we weren't. So, since I hadn't seen the place yet and I always love some Papa John's, Jesse, the P, and I went up there for dinner. It was fun to see them in their new place, it kinda made me miss that whole stocking up your new place and getting everything set up the way you want (and I have done that a lot!) After playing some cards (very interesting to do with two kids wanting to join in) and eating the pizza, we headed out so they could enjoy their evening and Jesse could do homework. I'm sad they are so far away, but happy to see them on their own and enjoying it.

Still a boy!

Tuesday was my second ultrasound and the baby has been upgraded to a 95% chance of being a boy. It was weird this time because Jesse missed the appointment so I went through it by myself. I felt odd being in the room alone and even though I could see the baby better this time, I kind of just wanted it to be over. Everything else with the baby is good; heartbeat was good, my stomach size is on track, and even my weight was ok with them. I have only gained about 2 lbs total so that helps give me some leeway, which I really need! Last time I didn't want Peyton to ever be born because being pregnant seemed so much easier than taking care of a baby, but this time I just can't wait for this thing to get out of me. Maybe I will get lucky and be a few weeks early, though I tend not to have that kind of luck. Being in labor for even 30 hours again seems a fine trade off for not being pregnant. Anyways, the ultrasound pic were a little better this time, but he was head down again so getting face shots were hard. If you can tell the pic below is a profile. He was being really cute and kept trying to cover his face with his hands and cross his legs, like he knew those were the things we were trying to look at so he wanted to hide them. Great to know our kid is even stubborn in the womb!

Oops!

As a Mom I have made some really bad rookie mistakes this week. We will start with how I unknowingly let Peyton be in pain (see sounds bad already.) The past few weeks Peyton has been unusually cranky, snotty nosed, drooly, eating bad, and sticking his fingers in his mouth. Now these are all classic signs of teething, even I know that, but somehow I can't count and I thought he had all his teeth. It doesn't seem that counting has ever been a problem for me, but when the counting requires you to stick your fingers into a mouth that will bite you, my skills seem to lack. See, I was sure Peyton had all the teeth he was going to get for a while. I thought he had both sets of molars, so to me he was done. Mom even suggested that he was teething and I informed her he couldn't be and he must just be acting like a pain. However, while he was sticking his fingers in his mouth at church I decided to reach around in there, just to make sure. To my surprise, I felt a little peak. I immediately checked better and then felt overwhelmed by stupidity. My poor baby was getting molars. The last time he teethed with molars, he got all four at once and it took a while. Poor kid has had a throbbing mouth and I was doing nothing to relieve the pain, way to go me!

So after this I must have had my confidence shaken and I was off my Mom game because then came big mistake number two. Peyton's regular hairstylist has moved into town, much to my dislike, and he has been in need of a haircut for quite some time. I was ready to just give him a little trim to hold him over till I got him an appointment somewhere when Mom called the flower shop to see if another one of Dad's old students could do his and Peyton's hair. She couldn't get them in soon enough but the other girl working there could. I had reservations about letting him go to someone whom I did not know the quality of their work, but I was getting desperate. Big mistake! His hair is sort of hard to cut, but man she butched it, and gave him a mini mullet. That is just not worth $10, I could have done that for free. You can see from the pictures it is definitely longer in back, but you can't see how choppy the rest is and he has lines all over it where she didn't layer it very well. I didn't know how to fix that, but Jesse and I took a stab at making it shorter in the back. You can see what you think, it is better, but not great. Never again. Dang Tanda, now I suppose I should just take him in town to guarantee the work. Not a good week for me!


Before he got his hair cut...


After the first cut...


After our attempts to make it look better.

A day of hunting...eggs!

Saturday seemed like a blur of eggs. We started the morning, earlier than I usually do, at the Toledo Ward egg hunt. Lucky for us, the ward runs on Clarissa time so even though we were a little late they hadn't started yet because they were still awaiting her arrival. Peyton has been way more shy than usual it seems, so he kind of clung to me for the first bit, but once they started he warmed up and figured out what he was supposed to do. The eggs were all hard boiled, though, so when he threw them in the bucket he always broke them. I think his favorite part was counting them at the end and then completely squishing one in his hand.

Counting the eggs afterwards, Peyton got 8 total, too bad no one here really likes them.

After, they tried to get a picture of all the kids and Peyton did not want to do it so Dad tried to hold him and hide behind a tree, but Peyton just tried to go behind too!

When we got back from that one, Jesse went to his track meet and then when he got back we left for Morton. With all the eggs from the years past we ended up having over 500 eggs to hide, which is hard to do inside (the weather was to crappy to do it outside.) We did one for the little kids and Peyton was really starting to get the hang of it, and he didn't even care about the candy inside this time. Since we had to do three hunts total (one for little kids, one for big kids, and one for the boys) we hid the older kids and the boys' upstairs. Even after the lil kids went, we still had 450 or so eggs to hide. We tried our best to make some really hard to find because the boys are totally competitive and violent about it, but after a while we just threw them on the floor. Luckily there were no injuries this year, but Peyton hated just sitting and watching now that he knew what to do with the eggs. It was a fun day and on Sunday we had a nice ham dinner with my whole family (minus Alesha) and more goodies. I feel perpetually full and between all the egg hunts and the Easter bunny coming, I swear we have candy coming out the ying yang. Good thing I am pregnant so I can eat it all guilt free!

The kids hunt, it is blurry but you can tell Peyton was crawling on the couch for eggs!

The boys heading up the stairs, because Jesse was injured (chopped part of his finger off) he got to go first.

Jesse and Nathan are trying to push each other out of the way, boys!

All the cousins but baby Blake, I didn't get a shot of them all looking, don't know if anyone did.

All the brothers and dad with their results, they will use that number to determine the order next year (worst first!)

Cute treats!

Usually I am the type of person who makes a dessert based on how good it will taste, not how it looks. However, this year for Easter I really wanted to make some cute goodies that would make a good visual statement, even though I didn't know how they would taste. When it was all said and done the brownies tasted pretty good and the cheesecake peanut butter cups were fine too which is good because they didn't turn out as cute as the pictures. I am definitely not a good free hand artist, but it was fun to do.

Easter Round #1

With Alesha being home, we decided we would do the "big kid" Easter Egg Hunt this past weekend so she could join in with the fun. Even though we have kids now, it still seems impossible for an Easter to pass without us getting to have our hunt. It is such a tradition, a bit absurd, but we like it! Since Sunday turned out to be a gorgeous day, we got to do it outside and enjoy the beautiful weather. As always we started out with the traditional buckets on the head shots and then we scattered as we started our search. I was really hoping that Peyton would pick all my eggs up for me, but he didn't quite get it.Every once in a while he would pick up an egg, but even after discovering the candy inside (and eating eat) we couldn't keep him focused on it. So cute when he did get them, though. He totally has candy in his other hand and chocolate on his face, he was nice enough to bring me one of my empty eggs, though.

If you can't tell, I am trying to get him to pick up the egg on the end of the car, I never did.

We periodically stopped to check our count and see how many we had left to find, I only ended up with 20 of my 21 so I am sure it will turn up later.

After we had finished, notice that mom is actually in the picture!

Although I hardly need the candy, I look forward to this every year. Even with it being hard physically on me this year, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time outside with everyone, especially Alesha (she left for Utah not long after we finished.)I miss her when she's gone, but when she is here it seems like she never left. Love you!

Isabell napped through most of it, but when she came out she looked so cute!

Girls Day

Alesha has arrived for her Spring visit so everyone is trying to keep her entertained and do whatever she wants. Unfortunately she had some big trips on her to do list and with my mobility decreasing I just couldn't do them with her. Luckily everyone liked my suggestion of going and getting pedicures, I could totally sit there and just enjoy. We went to a new place this time because they had four massaging chairs, and that is a must for Melia, and they were super nice. They even let Erica sit in the chair and soak her feet for free since she didn't want anyone touching her feet (how weird?) The chairs were heavenly and we all enjoyed about an hour of massages while we waited for everyone to finish. Mom was the most uncomfortable and since she never paints her toenails it was super strange to see her feet like that. Cute toes and a relaxing outing, count me in every time!

Alesha and Melia had some issues with the scrubbing tickling their feet. Melia squeezed my hand real hard, but Alesha just squirmed.