More Halloween Stuff

This week has been a fun one for us. It feels like things are starting to be normal again. Which has been nice for me. Well except the puking my brains out almost every night.

On Monday after our appointment, I was in such a good mood that I finally had the motivation and desire to work on Axel's costume, and it turned out SUPER CUTE. I'm not gonna lie.Then on Tuesday we went to Mike's Halloween Train aka the "Nightmare Express". I am so glad we went the first day, I have heard the wait has been insane. We were able to just walk right in and had no wait. I am always impressed with this event each year. It just seems more and more organized and put together. We only got a few pictures this year because we didn't have to wait very long.
On Thursday, we were back to having Story come and play. Axel was SO excited to see her. When she came inside the house, he was in the kitchen, but then saw that it was her and came running or crawling in to see her. He stood by her side the whole day fake laughing to her like he was sooo funny. She was a good sport about it too, and tolerated his excitement. At first she was a little stressed out by our dogs, but then she warmed up and had a blast that day. We did some dancing and singing and of course when Uncle Kory came home she ran right up to our table to her seat, because she knew it was time to eat. We put Axel's costume to the test and showed it to story, and she grabbed it and hugged it and said Hi Pablo, and then attempted to put it on. She then continued to wear the part she could the rest of her stay with us until it was time to leave with Mom. Hmmmm I think I know what to make her for her Birthday now.

Then on Friday, Maddy had her Birthday Party. It was a Halloween Party, and I helped Hilary with it. WE had fun decorating and planning, but I didn't any pictures of all the cute work she put into it. Bummer. Axel didn't have a nap that day because we were over there all day, and he was just all over the place. He had a blast. So much so that he fell asleep at like 6:30 that night. It was fun to see Maddy with all her friends and as her little Social self. She is such a people person.

Axel pretty much thinks these two kids (and Aislynn, she wasn't dressed yet) are the greatest in the world. He calls Nicolas "Cus cus" He thinks the world of them.

Cinderalla the Birthday Girl. So beautiful
Nicolas WAS going to be IRON man but decided last minute that Dracula was scarier, and opted to be that again this year. He is doing his "Scary Pose"
I am sad I didn't get a good picture of Aislynn. She was a very darling Indian, oops I mean Native American, or wait a First American, however you say it now, she was cute and cliche and had long black braids and a feather in her hair. You can kinda see her in this picture below. But my mom just threw together this costume for her, last minute, no trouble at all, because she is just amazing like that.
And here are some of the other kids from the party, this doubled in size but I forgot to take a picture of them all. We probably had 20 kids. It was intense.

Axel had fun playing with the soccer ball in the back yard most of the time.

Boo!

The Anderson family had their usual Halloween Party this year a few weeks ago. I was technically still not supposed to go, but decided to go anyway. I am glad I did, although the result of me going DID put me back in bed for a couple more days. But it was WELL worth it.

Because it was SO early this year (sorry but it was) and because I was put on bed rest right at the beginning of October, I hadn't had a chance to get any of our costumes put together. SO this year we didn't participate in the costume part. Luckily for Kory and Axel, Kelli brought us some wigs. I think one of them was supposed to be for me, but Kory really wanted to dress up Axel as that chick from the grudge that crawls around (because of his crawling) but never got around to getting him a wig, so when we saw that they got a long black wig, we had to put it on him. PERFECT!

I didn't take too many photos tho, but the ones I did take were too cute to not share. So here they are!

Are these boys not to die for? Seriously! oh how I love that Ashdon is ALWAYS smiling, and Krew and Axel could be brothers with those twinner jammies and scary scowls. I think They both may have out grump'd that little Frankenstein :) (Who by the way was the cutest little Frankenstein you have EVER seen)


I had to capture this moment of Story just In AWE of her Grandma. She really loves this lady and I think this picture just shows what a special relationship they have. I also love how Maida dressed up! Her Witch costume was great, I definitely had costume envy. And the fact that story was a little Bumble bee was just perfect for her. Cutest little bumble bee EVER!

We were singing the Bumble Bee song to her, and Maggie stops us and says "That is just gross!"

"I said what is gross Maggie?"

"You're singing about squishing a baby?! Its just a baby?"

Ah sweet Maggie, so smart and always thinking about the environment and the world around you. (Your mother has taught you well :) )

Back in business

Say hello to Baby #2!

Alive healthy and strong. Sorry for the lousy pictures, our scanner is in storage, and so you just have to deal with the snaps I took with my camera of them. But still if you can see what I see, isn't it so darling? Do you see the hand stubs and feet? Makes it all real, and not just the flu you know?

Such a relief for us. I'll admit I was pretty worried.

The good news: The babies heart rate was 182, and right on track due date wise (8 weeks, 2 days)
My bleeding is completely healed now. It was nowhere in the ultrasound. The ultra sound tech was absolutely awesome. I remember her from Axel's too, she is soo great. She gets excited and showed us all these cool things, like the blood going from my body to his through the chord. It was amazing.

The bad news: My "stay-cation" has now come to an end. :( I will no longer have an excuse to have everyone do everything for me. Although it was hard at first, I really started to enjoy my time off and all the extra help I received around the house, and the fact that I could just be like , nope sorry I am off duty, Drs. orders :) But it is nice to have my abilities back, I have felt somewhat useless. I am a doer, I like to go and do, and while I have tried to say things like there is NOTHING more important than sitting here making sure this baby stays put, it didn't make it easy.

I honestly don't think I would have healed or recovered had I not gotten so much help, prayers and positive vibes. So thank you to you all for all your love and support, kind words of advice, and help. We are so blessed to have so many people that love and take care of us. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and in this case that is very true. :)

This baby has definitely tested my faith and made me realize what is important in my life right now. I am not saying it has been easy, probably one of the most exhausting and hard two weeks (has it really only been two weeks?) of my life. I am glad we are all better now, just in time for HALLOWEEN!

our own pumpkin patch

This year we didn't need to go buy a pumpkin because we grew quite a few in our garden. (8 total, but one shriveled up and died somehow)

All summer long we watched as more and more pumpkins showed up. Axel loved going out there. He would pound on them with his pudgie little hand and say "ball ball ball"! It was such a fun thing to do with him. This is probably the only year we will do pumpkins because we have the space in our yard. But hopefully next year we will have landscaped our back yard so I won't have as big of a garden to grow pumpkins in. Although they were kinda low maintenance. So maybe I will grow them. We'll see.

The other day we decided it was time to harvest these pumpkins and put them on our porch, I WAS going to do something fun with them but that was the day before I was put on bed rest so on our porch they sit. Maybe we'll carve a few next week. Whenever Axel goes outside he tries to throw them. (the only one he can lift is the tiny one and amazingly enough it has survived many a trips down our stairs )

Here are some pictures of him with the pumpkins. It was by chance that he was wearing his skeleton jammies that day. :) Perfect for the occasion. (and don't mind ALL my weeds, they were out of control! I hate morning Glory.)

This face is classic Axel. "ball ball ball" can you see it?

This is the one he throws all over our porch. He is watching the other kids... man that kid can give some serious looks!
We also found something else on the pumpkin, (look at Maddy and Nicolas' faces at the picture below)
Sheer disgust! This is what they found. WE found these ALL over our garden this year. So gross. I almost couldn't eat our veggies because of it. I hate bugs. We didn't ever spray, I never got around to it. But next year, I will.

Our neighbor boy told me we weren't allowed to pick the pumpkins. When I started cutting them away from the vines he said "HEY! What are you doing? You can't do that!" Hmmm do you think its time for a fence? Not only that but their dog nearly knocked me and Axel over, and she tripped Maddy, and she got this huge gash on her side. I am kinda glad I don't have to go out their anymore so I don't have to worry about her coming out of nowhere and jumping on me, because she is not a puppy anymore. (oh and her name is Zoe, so whenever we have our Zoe outside and she is outside, she ALWAYS comes over. )

Next question, is it inhumane to throw a snail? What about squishing a spider? or killing a fly? Just wondering what your thoughts are on it.

Here I am

So I am still waiting for my ultrasound, the bleeding came back but I am told it is "old blood" if it was brown, so I have been just trying to do as little as possible, to let whatever is happening get the healing and rest that it needs. That has been hard, but it is tapering off again. Which is good.

On a positive note, I am still so sick with nausea. Way way way worse than when I was pregnant with Axel. So in a way I am grateful because I feel like things are moving along, and as much as I hate hate hate not being able to eat anything, I am glad for it. I have been praying every night that our babies heart will be strong and that all will be well in the ultrasound.

I have a lot of anxiety when I think about Monday. What if something is wrong? Our last ultrasound I felt so lucky, what if this time we are not? I know I will survive but it puts a lot of pressure on me. I know a lot of moms feel this way every time they go to the doctor to hear the heartbeat. I had told myself I wasn't going to be like that with this pregnancy, since I knew how out of my control it all was, but it really is hard to keep that perspective.

I also have been tempted to break out my maternity pants. I know already?But don't judge, my pants push right on my uterus, and I remember waiting way to long to switch to them with Axel, (remember I cried in the dressing room?) But when you are laying down all day anyway sitting in PJ's just adds to the lazy gross factor. But I need to be comfortable. It's funny how a shower and clean clothes can give your spirits such a lift.

Also, I am completely done breastfeeding. We felt like even tho my doctor said it was safe and ok, because I was trying to heal and get a lot rest it was making me quite exhausted. But luckily with a little persistence and effort we were able to get him to take a bottle. Which also has been nice because Kory is the one who is putting him to sleep now at night, something he hasn't allowed Kory to do. So they are getting much closer. Sometimes at night when I am camping out in our bedroom while Kory puts him to bed, I get sad, I miss those nights of reading him stories and snuggling with him. I knew that it would eventually end, and I know this will make it easier for us all when new baby comes, and hopefully in a little bit when I am more healed I can help put him to bed too.

I know this update is kinda boring, but it is what is going on in my head right now, sorry to bore any of you, if you read it I will be surprised. ha

Lagoon!

Kory's work goes to lagoon once a year for their work party, we have really enjoyed this perk of his employment, last year we missed out because we had just had Axel, and who brings a new born to Lagoon? (I'll admit I tried to convince Kelli and Kyle to bring Felix this year because I thought we could trade off and take turns, next year maybe :)

But this year we thought it would be fun to take Axel, and it was really fun. He couldn't really do any of the kiddy rides, so we got to go on a few rides as a family, had dinner with Kory's co workers and went home. Having a kid at Lagoon was a first for us, so it was fun but in a different way, it was fun to see his reaction to it all. He is such an observer. He loves looking at people and just taking it all in. His most favorite part tho? The Basket Ball hoops game, he honestly watched that forever.

But we were so pooped with just the amount that we did.

Waiting in the forever LOOOONG line of the log ride.

Riding the Log rideOur family on the Zoo Train
(I have never done this before because it always makes me sad, but I was surprised how active all the animals were, much more then the zoe)

Hi all

so I am kinda back to sitting. Don't ask

Anyway here are some pictures from when Axel had the flu, he pretty much was in this position all week. It was sad. This couch has had a lot of attention these past couple of weeks.

Isn't that the saddest thing you have ever seen?

When he saw I had the camera out, he sat up and did some posing for me. Such a good sport even tho he was feeling crummy. He is getting so so big it's crazy