Catching Up - Or "What Happened to December?"

I apologize, once again, for my extended absence. December was completely crazy and busy. Tonight I'm in a hotel room in Elkhart, Indiana (work meeting tomorrow), so instead of completely vegging out on TV or working on the work I brought with me (boring!), I thought I'd attempt to catch up on my blogging. Settle in, this could be a long one.

Grace's 3-Year Update/Birthday
Right before her actual birthday, we did our 3-year visit to the Cleft Palate Clinic. I was expecting it to be totally uneventful. We meet with the Plastic Surgeon, ENT, Dentist, and Speech Therapist. Plastics was uneventful, her palate is still closed and looks great. ENT I expected to be fine since she hasn't had any ear infections (until last week). They looked and her tubes are both out, but she did have some fluid still behind the ear drum. They asked when she last had a hearing check (birth) and had the audiologist do a hearing check. I wasn't at all concerned. She constantly whispers when she knows you need to be quiet (like in the middle of the night when she comes to tell me she can't find her lovey), she never asks me to repeat myself and generally seems to hear fine. However, they did find a slight hearing loss in her right ear. The ENT met with us again and wants to see her in a few months. They may decide to put the tubes back in her ears to drain the fluid and make sure the hearing issue doesn't get worse. Now that she just got a double ear infection, I think this is actually likely. Great, another surgery. The dentist said her mouth looks perfect (she does have a gorgeous smile). The Speech Therapist said we are on the right track with her weekly visits.

Her regular 3-year check up was fine. She weighed 37 1/2 pounds and was 37 1/4 inches tall. She is potty training well and generally doing all the things a normal 3 year old should.

Grace's birthday party was a Dora theme (of course)! We ended up having about 6 kids and parents in attendance. I made a yummy barbeque and everyone seemed to have a good time. Grace got lots of toys, mostly Dora ones. Also, Donna and Kyle and family came to visit. Grace had so much fun playing with her cousins. I think my favorite picture is her playing dress up with them.

Christmas
The weekend before Christmas we embarked on our Indiana family road trip. Luckily, my work decided to be nice and grant us all with Christmas Eve off instead of only the 1/2 day that was originally scheduled. We left on Friday after work. Grace was very good in the car. We put her in a pull-up for the road, but she was still dry when we got there! We went to Kyle & Leslie's to spend the night. Saturday morning, we realized that we had left the backpack with Grace's clothes at home! I went to the store with Leslie and picked up enough clothes for Grace to get her through the weekend. I know Donna was giving us cash to get Grace some clothes, so I decided to spend it early! Later Donna arrived and after Kyle got off of work we did the gift exchanges and had dinner and just visited. Sunday we got up and had breakfast before heading to Gary's (Eric's Dad's house). We got there in time for lunch and did our gift exchange there. We stayed for a few more hours and then drove up to my Grandparents house. We got there while they were at church, so we used the spare key and let ourselves in and got Grace her bath and into her PJ's. I was still waiting to hear if my parents were going to make the trip. They were supposed to leave around 5 pm central time to drive to Grandma's. Unfortunately a big snowstorm in Iowa made driving nearly impossible, so after giving it a great try, they turned back. After Grandma and Grandpa got home we visited for a while before bed. On Christmas Eve morning we headed for home. That evening we went to the Christmas Eve service at church. Grace was so excited for Santa to come. We left him cookies and chocolate milk (by Grace's request). She woke up at 4:30 a.m. I went to her room and she got up and looked out the window. She said, "Santa's not here." I told her she had to go back to sleep. At 5:00 a.m. she got in bed with us and by 5:30 a.m. we gave up and got up. Grace's big gifts were a basketball goal and a Go Diego Go Rescue Center. By 8:00 a.m. we were ready for naps. Grace slept until after 11:00 a.m.! That afternoon we went over to Will and Samara's where Samara made us a great Christmas dinner.

Changes around the House
Our contract with our realtor ended in mid-December. We still have the sign up, but technically we're off the market. I called the realtor on January 2nd and told her let's leave it off until February 1st, so we can do a little work on the house. She said she wanted to shoot for January 15th, so we got busy! Two weekends ago, Samara came over and painted with us. We painted the office/pet room, Grace's room, and the upstairs hallway. It's a nice tan color. I'll take pictures once the transformation is complete. We decided not to let the house being on the market keep us from getting ready for the baby, so we want to get started on the nursery. If we stay in the house, the kids will have separate rooms, so that's how we're setting up. If we sell and move, we'll just combine them. Now that we are going to use the pet room, we had someone come and quote us carpet prices. Smokey has used the carpet as an extension of his litter box and the room just stinks. We're replacing the carpet in that room, the hallway, and stairs. They are installing it in one week. Since we are using that room we had to clean it out. We moved the desk and computer to our bedroom (after a little rearranging). The dog cage and stuff in the closet was moved to the basement. I bought another shelving system and got everything really organized in the unfinished part of the basement. Next step was to move all the toys from the living room, sun room, and some from Grace's room to the basement. We made it like a play/toy room. It's been in that form for about 2 weeks and so far is working ok. She doesn't play down there by herself a ton, but will ask to go down and pick out toys to bring upstairs (one at a time). Eric's idea was to move Grace to the other room, because otherwise we will have to totally disassemble the crib to move it accross the hall. Grace is getting new furniture, so we'll just put it in the room after we get the carpet. I ordered her a headboard with a bookcase and a dresser from Target online. We'll move the desk, round table and fish tank to her room. Last weekend Eric got an amazing deal on a twin size pillow-top mattress, boxspring and frame. We put the mattress on her floor on Sunday (in her current room) and she's been sleeping in at night. She's so excited. We bought her Dora sheets and comforter. Samara made her curtains this week and I think it will be really cute when finished. We'll leave the crib, dresser, bookshelf, glider, and bring the changing table back up for the baby room. I can't wait until next week when it's all done (except for the baby bedding/decorations).

Pregnancy Update
Speaking of the baby... I can't believe I'm half way done! I started really feeling bigger stronger movements right around the first of January. I can now feel kicks from the outside if I have my hand in the right place. Eric says he has felt it too, but I haven't had Grace try yet. I haven't done a belly picture. Not sure why except I haven't gotten around to it. I've officially gained 9 1/2 pounds. Not bad considering I was pregnant through the holidays. I haven't really been craving sweets though, so that's good. I think I'm on track to gain about 30 pounds this time which is slightly less than with Grace, but I could have some big gain weeks coming up. I feel really good. I am not really tired anymore. I do have to make LOTS of bathroom stops. I also am extremely irritable which unfortunately I take out often on Grace. She does little 3-year old things that really irritate me and I know I am hard on her. I try to be patient, but it's extremely hard right now.

Today, I had my "official" 20-week ultrasound. It was a Level 2 ultrasound at a Maternal Fetal Medicine office. First we met with a genetics counselor. We talked alot about our family reproductive historys and other health history. Turns out we don't have any red flags that would make us high risk or warrant additional screening. The only reason we were there was because of Grace's cleft palate. On a bright note, we discussed radiation (in reference to the fact that I had my mammograms and chest x-rays while 3 weeks pregnant) and she confirmed that since I didn't miscarry, there was basically zero risk of that causing other birth defects from exposure at that gestation. Since we were discussing radiation, I asked her if she knew about breastfeeding after radiation on the breast. She's going to do some research and get back to me. Eric is againt the idea of breastfeeding, but I want to try at least one sided or both if the radiated side will produce milk. I'm not really hopeful about milk production. The right side is growing much slower than the left. I don't know if it's noticable in clothes yet, but they look and feel different to me. Also, my nipple on the left side is changing, but the right side pretty much looks the same as before. All signs point to only the non-radiated side working for milk production.

Once we finished the genetics talk they took us back for the scan. The technician was really nice. She did a head to toe scan and measured and looked at everything. They looked at the brain and in the head they looked at the hard palate and lips. They can't really see the soft palate in ultrasound, but from what they can see everything looks good. So worst case scenario, if this baby has a cleft it won't be any worse than Grace's was. They looked at all the chambers of the heart, measured arm bones, looked at the bladder, kidneys, etc., measured leg bones, counted fingers and toes on both hands and feet. They were also able to confirm that this is definately a boy. We have an extremely clear picture of the boy parts and she even showed us the difference between the cord and the penis. I would say we can be 100% sure it's a boy. We are still up in the air on names. Grace and I still like Luke, but Eric's leaning towards Caleb. I guess we still have time to decide, but I'd like to start calling him by name. It seemed more "real" with Grace once we started calling her by name. Eric has the pictures and I'm not at home, but next week when I am back home I'll scan and upload the ultrasound pictures. He looks like he has a cute profile. His nose looks different than Grace's. I can't believe I'm having a boy. I don't know what I'll do with a boy, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. If he has 1/2 the personality that Grace does, he'll fit right in.

Goals for 2008
I'm not going to do a ton of goals for 2008. Seems like I did ok on the 2007 goals. I exceeded our debt reduction goal. I think I lost the weight I wanted to etc. This year, I want to do more of the same.
1. Continue working on the debt. It will tough adding a 4th family member, but I want to keep paying extra on our bills and continue to not use credit cards. On average we typically increase our debt by $5,000 per year, this year we decreased it by just over $15,000.
2. I would like to be down to 155 pounds (+5 pounds over pre-pregnancy) by the end of the year (7 months after baby born).
3. Continue taking classes and getting good grades. (At least 2 classes after maternity leave).
4. Be a good Mom, Wife, Daughter, Friend.


Ok that's all for now. On Thursday, we're leaving to go to Iowa to visit my parents. On 1/21 Grace will start with her new daycare provider (saving us $60 per week!). I should have pictures of the kids rooms next week too. I'll strive for an updated belly picture and I'll scan the best of the ultrasound pictures.