Happy Birthday Mike!

Yesterday we got to celebrate Mike's Bday. He took the day off from work and spent the first 4 hours of the morning out on the golf course with a co-worker. Then he came home pooped and we lounged around the rest of the day, watching the kids play and watching a movie. Caleb and I slipped out to go pick him up the ice cream cake that I convinced him he wanted. After dinner it was time for dessert. The boys insisted that they sing Happy Birthday to him, so afterwards he blew out his pretend candles.


This is his, "I'm so glad you and your cravings suggested ice cream cake for my Bday" look.

I'm not sure, but I think maybe me and the twins enjoyed it a little more than he did.

Happy Bday Daddy! We love you. When you decide what you really want for your Bday, let us know. :)

La La La- Not listening! (32 weeks)

My uterus and little girl are Not Listening! I've been having a lot of contractions and on Tuesday evening they started coming 3 minutes apart! This went on for a couple of hours before I let the worry get the best of me and headed to Labor and Delivery. They were able to monitor me and document that yes I am not crazy and those were contractions and were that close together. Luckily they were able to get them to slow down and send me home. I am only dilated to a 1 which is not uncommon for a third time mom so that was reassuring at least. I saw my regular doc yesterday. We are still sticking with the game plan for now and he sent me home with a perscrip for the same meds they gave me at the hospital that night to try to stop them at home if they get that frequent again. I've still been having them since then but a lot more sporadic. He didn't do an ultrasound this time but I know she's fine and while they monitored me at the hospital that night, she wasn't phased by the contractions at all. Her heartrate stayed perfectly normal and she was just enjoying the ride.
Her Dad has let her know that he will NOT share his birthday with her tomorrow, so she better stay in there longer. And I have been telling her that really it's only a week and a half that she has to go at this point to beat her brothers and help Momma obtain an "all time personal best record". I think we can do it but I have this image of her in my head covering her ears at us and chanting, "La La La-Not Listening!"
4 more days until week 33- We can do it!

It's SOOOO Girly!

I've been a total slave driver to poor Mike this weekend. I knows he knows how much I appreciate it and am so relieved to finally say that baby girls room is pretty much done. We went on a hunt for some decor on Saturday, but didn't come home with much other than these cute metal flowers for the wall. So I broke out the Cricut and went to work cutting and Mike helped by doing all the standing and putting it on the wall for me. I think it turned out super cute.


The Cricut also came in handy to Polka Dot this wall to match the sheets and curtains. It's so fun. And we found this nice dresser at IKEA Sunday evening and the lamp at Hobby Lobby. I am still on the hunt for something fun to put on the shelf. Some saying or her name or ladybugs/flowers. I just can't seem to find anything.

Because of size constraints I am not able to get a good pic of the changing table and these pics together. But these go above the changing table.

And the cute, cute curtains that tie it all together.

I Love it and am so excited that we were able to get it all together before she makes her appearance. Makes me a lot less stressed for sure. Every time Mike walks into or past that room I hear, "It's SOOOO Girly in here!" I'll take that as a compliment. I done good. :)

Shark Swim

Last Year's pool had sprung a leak at the end of the season and so far we had yet to replace it. That was until today when we had to run to Toys R Us and I came across this one on sale. Knowing that we should be speinding more time at home for the rest of the summer, I opted to go ahead and buy it. As you can see, our money is already not going to waste. The boys played and played in it all this afternoon and have been asking to go out tonight to play some more. We keep having to explain to the twins that it's too late and they can play in it tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be a long morning of them asking to go out and "play in water."

Top Bunk

For months and months Zaric has been claiming the top bunk and all the while Zaden has never seemed to care and has been perfectly content on the bottom bunk. We thought this would be an easy, natural arrangement to uphold. That was until we moved them into the "airplane room." Apparently the moved has now sparked an interest in the top bunk position for Zaden and we've had to resort to a schedule of taking turns for the top bunk spot night after night. It was Zaden's turn last night. I took this picture late into the morning today and as you can tell, he's pretty content there now as well. I wonder how long this will last before we have to break down and give permanent assignments.

31 Week Visit

We had a good OB visit yesterday packed full of questions and mostly answers. We got to have a little look at baby girl. She is growing and looking great. From the inside view, my cervix seems to be holding up, but the uterus is starting to thin. For most "normal" women this wouldn't be a huge issue. It seemed to concern him (and us) just a little more with me. It was kinda fun to see how it does that on the machine. You could see wrinkles in it that were starting to shrink and fold. I never had that pointed out to me before.
From his demeanor and explanations of many things, we got the impression that he fully expects this to be another early delivery. How early is still TBD. The goal is still 34 weeks for now. He called the next 2.5 weeks the "biggest payback weeks" for keeping her in there. He's still letting me go to work since it's mainly a desk job. But wants me off my feet and resting as much as possible at home. We are hoping to work something out with Mike's work so that he can be home when I am home to help with this over the next few weeks with the boys who want their mama up and moving all the time. And to prevent me from trying to clean and be more productive than I should be. I know I will have a hard time with this part so I really need someone here yelling at me and keeping me in line.
Expecting her to come early, we also opted to get in the lung-developing Steroid shots for little girl. I got one in the office yesterday and will get another later today. This is something that they gave me with the boys while in the hospital trying to prevent labor. To be most effective they need to be in there at least 48 hours, so we opted to get them in now rather than waiting it out to see what happens to give her the best odds of only a small NICU stay if she follows her brothers leads.
Right now, she is still cooperating and is head down. He read over my surgical analysis from the twins C-section and thinks it may be possible for us to at least try a Vback. This is something that we were hoping for but trying not to get too excited about. Of course that decision will ultimately be made at the last minute, but at least we know he's willing to try. And we trust that in the end he will make the best decision of what is safest for me and for baby girl. He joked that he would basically have a catchers mitt on one hand and a scalpel in the other at the ready.
I am experiencing more and more contractions these days. Nothing at regular intervals, so they aren't too alarming at the moment, but definitely something to keep track of and not ignore. So I will be started to keep a notepad handy to be writing down times throughout the day that I feel them so we know when to get concerned.
Unlike the boys, I haven't had much insomnia with this one which has been really great until tonight. I'm hoping it's a one day fluke and can feel a sick day coming on as the morning wears on. I've been tossing and turning and up and down (mostly up now) most of the night. Mostly its the normal pregnancy stuff (being uncomfortable, acid reflux, bathroom visits) keeping me up. Mental note: Do not eat French Toast sticks for dinner with the boys.
That's most of the updates that I can think of at this hour. We got a few more things out of storage over the weekend and are getting them looked through and washed up and Papa Ringo and Grandma Judi are so far planning on coming up this weekend to help with the last of it (we hope). But at least we now feel functional at least knowing she's on her way anytime between the next 1-8 weeks. ;) How's that for an expected delivery time? We will start weekly visits now and will keep you updated as much as possible. Fingers and toes (and legs) still crossed. :)

Nesting Mode

We have reached 31 weeks today! Knowing that we are only 1 week away from when the twins made their appearance and only 2 weeks away from Caleb's surprise arrival our anxiety levels are on the rise. We have gone into full on nesting mode. We got the twins moved into Caleb's old room, took down the Nascar decor and up went the airplane decor. Zaden keeps telling us that now he sleeps in the "airplane room". Their room has been airplanes for a while but I guess he's finally noticing now that he's moved into Caleb's old one and he watched us put up some decorations. They haven't seemed to have minded the change which has been awesome.
While we are still hopeful and trying everything possible to keep little girl in there longer, but the anxiety is getting the best of us and we've started digging things out of the storage shed. The crib and changing table are finally put together and the swing up. The car seat and bouncer are washed and ready and I've been spending time getting her Newborn size clothes all washed. Mike brought in a bunch of other stuff for me to go through in the next little bit as well. We are making so much progress but still feel like there's so much more to do. As I rearrange her room in my head a million times (knowing that I am still waiting for a dresser and the glider to come in) I keep questioning everything and wanting it to be just right. So sorry, no pictures for now until I get it all perfect.
I know it's probably the anxiety, but I've even been having dreams about changing little girl's name. I don't know if it will happen, but I'm leaving myself open to the suggestion just in case Faith no longer feels right when we meet her. I've not ever had that problem thus far with the boys. It's probably partly because we STILL can't agree on a middle name, that it's making me question if we should go back to the original thought of using Faith as a middle name instead. Decisions, decisions. I also know that whatever we decide in the end will be just perfect for us and her, but it doesn't help the anxiety level any. We've been so sure of it up until we started getting her things ready.
We see the Dr. again on Tuesday for a normal visit and I am sure a bunch of questions knowing that we are approaching what I refer to as "the danger zone." At our last visit he said that his goal was to just get to 34 weeks and then discuss from there. At this point that would be a record for us so we'd take it, but realistically I would love to make it to at least 35 or 36. Start crossing your fingers and toes for us and I'll be trying to post more updates as we keep getting closer and closer.

Goodbye Bowling

As I mentioned in a previous post. Our good friend Allison is leaving us for Seattle by the end of this month. We had to get in one last hang out time with her. She mentioned that she had a bowling gift certificate that she needed to use up before she left and we were all about helping her use it. We first went to a yummy dinner at Salt Lake Pizza and Pasta and then it was onto bowling. The twins and Caleb joined us the first game. Zaric loved bowling but had a really hard time in between learning that we had to take turns with the ball. Zaden just went with the flow and Caleb was super excited about it all. The 2nd game the twins dropped out and we played with Caleb and the 3rd game was just us adults. Mike won the first 2 games, but Allison and I whipped him the 3rd game. Allison beat me by 1 lousy point! Thanks again Allison for a good time and a fun way for the kiddos to hang out with you one last time. You will be missed. Here's just a few of the tons of pictures me and Caleb took. Enjoy.

Happy Belated 4th

We hope you all had a happy and safe 4th of July! We took the opportunity here to have an extended weekend together and have had a good mix of work, fun and relaxing. On Friday night we started phase 1 of baby prep and got some of Caleb's room moved downstairs. That created more of a mess than I was ready for and we spent most of the day Saturday finishing that up and starting to prep his now "old" room for phase 2 - Moving the twins later in the month. But I am happy to say we got it done and he's a happy camper in his new space. We also took a couple breaks that day to let the kids play outside and run through the sprinklers and have some fun. On Sunday we took the kids to the local outdoor swimming pool and let them at it. They had a ball for nearly 3 hours. After we were done there we decided to grab a quick late lunch and ice cream at Dairy Queen then came home for some much needed naps. We finished off the night with lighting off the fireworks we had purchased for home. On the 4th we woke up and I made some red white and blue and star shaped pancakes and some flag sugar cookies for the boys. We spent most of the day at home lounging and waiting for time for the Bees baseball game. When the time finally arrived we headed out and had some fun watching the game, eating ballpark food and mostly watching the fireworks after the game. They always do a great fireworks show after it which is why we try to make it our tradition to go every year. We got home late and hit the sack. Today we took off "just because" and have spent the day relaxing for the most part. We did venture down to Orem to take the kids to Pirate Island Pizza. I'm not really going to say I was disappointed in it, because we did have some fun. But really, not sure it was worth the drive for us. It was fun to try out something new though. I can't believe our long weekend is coming to a close and it's back to the grindstone tomorrow for a few days of work before another weekend. I think we can handle it though and are looking forward to a quick Price trip this weekend to visit and go to a wedding.