Easter Egg Hunt and more!

After her nap last Sunday, Gabbie put on her coat, shoes, and backpack and said "Mommy, I go to school". I'm sure she wasn't trying to break my heart...but it was hard to keep the tears back. Not sure what will happen the day she really does go to school!

We're on top of the world!

She insisted on helping me wash windows! I would follow behind and wipe them up. She helped for over an hour!

Below are some pictures from Gabbie's first Easter Egg Hutnt :-)

Not so sure about the Easter Bunny...neither was the kid next to me who said "Look, the Easter Bunny has a zipper taped to his back!"

The first find...guess she wanted to enjoy one at a time!

Now I get the idea...time to fill the basket!

She stopped to eat from this one too!

This is what I love about my daughter. Words I have used to describe her recently include "Difficult", "Miss Independent", and at times "Bratty". Many moments she reminds me of why I also call her "Sweetheart", "Lovey", and "Cutie". Today instead of always adding to her own basket she thought she should help the other kids fill theirs, even gave them some of her candy from her open eggs. As irritating as her increased attempts at independence have been, I do enjoy that she is kind hearted :-)

"Look at my basket!"

Fun times...life is good :-) I think Gabbie liked the twirly flower she got even better than the candy!

Busy times

Thankfully we have 1 room almost finished on our ongoing remodeling project! Once I get some carpet picked out we will be able to move into one of the bedrooms (although the trim work and closets won't be done, it will be done enough to live in!) I have never shopped for carpet before, and I am not really looking forward to it since I do not have a clue what I am doing.

The pictures below will show the painting we have done so far. I am hoping by the end of the week we are ready to paint the stairway, hallway, and the other bedroom. Then its time to get Gabbie back in her own room, in a 'big girl' bed, empty the furniture out of our storage unit, and get somewhat back to normal!

We have also been working in the garden. Radishes, brocolli, lettuce, peas, spinach, potatoes, and beets are all in the ground. Gabbie has been a big help with that...it will be interesting to see what comes up in what row!

Miss Independent. She can take her little wagon anywhere, including down to the mailbox. I went inside to check on supper, looked outside and she was half way down the lane.

I need more zoom on my camera :-) Lucky her Dad saw her going for her walk, and decided they would go together. I'm surprized at how far her little legs can travel!

Priming the bedroom walls...what would we do without Gabbie's help?!

Taking care of "Dolly" is the new thing. She's in the wash machine now as Gabbie naps. I'm hoping cottage cheese will come out of her clothes fairly easily.

After the room was primed and textured, now time to paint!

Another 'before' picture, looking out into the hallway.

'After'.

Dolly apparantly has to wear shoes to go outside.

I had to take a picture of the garden before it fills up with weeds :-) Gabbie is at one end scooping up the dirt and planting peas in random places, her 'dolly' is on the other side apparantly sleeping (anytime I said anything I was told to "shhh")

All done...time to take dolly home...

Ultrasound day

Disclaimer: this blog is going to involve some complaining, so skip to the bottom if you just want the good part :-)

Okay, so I was pretty excited about this week because we had our ultrasound scheduled and a doctor appointment to check everything out. I was looking forward to having our first glimpse of this little one, and probably the last until August if all goes well. On Sunday Brice told me he "didn't feel quite right" and by Monday he was running a temperature. Monday night he was in bed by 8 p.m. and Tuesday he was asking me to schedule him an appointment at the doctor. Our family doctor was off, so I had him scheduled with someone else. I called and said "I think he has strep, he sure looks like he feels awful". This was only the 2nd or 3rd time in our married life he has asked me to get him into the doctor. Anyway, he goes, calls me and says "Doctor says I have the Flu; he gave me an inhaler that is supposed to be like the Tamiflu prescription, it cost $65.00". Geez, I thought, better work good. By Tuesday afternoon he felt worse and was telling me we should reschedule the ultrasound. He wanted to be there, and neither of us thought he should be spreading the flu, nor did he feel good enough to go. (Of course this whole week Gabbie has also had green thick snot constantly running, so I'm figuring whatever Brice has she is getting as well). We woke up this morning and Brice was still complaining that he could hardly swallow, and he was even talking softly to keep it from hurting. He still had a slight temperature. We decided not to cancel the ultrasound. By this point it was not our excitement to see the baby as much as it was hoping the doctor would squeeze Brice in while we were there, and while he was at it check Gabbie out too so we wouldn't be driving down again later in the week. So begins another story...

Needless to say it was hard to get the 2 of them (Brice and Gabbie) going this morning. We had to be out the door by 8:00 for sure. The plumber/electrician shows up about 7:40, so Brice is going over things with them including that we can't use the sinks or toilets all morning, perfect timing I figured since we were leaving anyway. By 7:55 Brice is sitting at the table working to get the energy to put his shoes on and get out the door. By 8:05 I'm in the car just avoiding the temptation to honk the horn and hurry him up. We make it to the hospital by 8:35 (yup, for an 8:30 appointment). We go to the hospital radiology department just as we did for both of Gabbie's ultrasound. After waiting 15 minutes they finally tell us that we are not down for an appointment, and of course I didn't bring my appointment card with me for proof-it was sitting on the table at home with my cell phone. Turns out that since we had Baby #1, our physicians clinic now has their own ultrasound machine and technician located 'conveniently' near our doctors office. I guess its convenient for people who have a clue what's going on! So, we make it over to that office, by now its 9:00 and we are super late. I am ready to apologize, but they apologize to me and state they tried to call me but I didn't answer-a reason I should have grabbed my phone I guess. They tell us that their ultrasound tech overslept and we would not be able to be seen until 10:30. Seriously!?!? So they arrange for us to see the doctor first. Here's the best part: The doctor is apologizing to us for the whole mixed up situation, and Brice says "I tell ya' what doc, you can make it up to us by looking in my ears and throat and telling me what is wrong with me." The doctor one-ups him and offers to look at Gabbie as well, all while just billing us the one office visit that we were originally there for, which was for the baby check up. Awesome!

The diagnosis: Brice's strep test came back positive (duh, who knew?). Gabbie is just a 'snot nosed kid' with clear ears and throat. I'm pregnant with a baby with a good heartbeat.

Here's the part that really ticked me off: The prescription to treat Brice cost $5.95. And no, we can not return the $65.00 inhaler although it is essentially useless to us now.

Okay, here's a bit of husband venting. I know he is sick and does not go through the procedure of going to the doctor much, but honestly. I asked him "when you went to the pharmacy to get that inhaler did you show them your insurance card?" He says to me "what insurance card?" Arg... So I say "if you didn't have yours, did you ask them if they had mine on file". He says "no, I just paid for the prescription". This ensued a good 10 minute argument on the way home-basically a lecture from me since his throat was too sore to do much responding with his voice. Luckily we know the pharmacist, I called him, unfortunatly our insurance didn't cover that inhaler, so he is sending me a receipt so I can at least turn it in for our flex account to reimburse us.

The ultrasound was last today, which turned out to be a blessing. Brice was getting tired and not too happy to have had his throat swabbed, Gabbie was SUPER upset after having her ears checked, and I was just ready to not be hanging out in the clinic anymore. The tech had Brice and Gabbie wait outside while she did the 'technical' stuff...measurements of the baby, checking all the organs and extremities, etc. I had been told to come with a full bladder of 32 ounces of water, so I did, then she asked me to go to the bathroom because my bladder was pushing on everything and she couldn't see much. Whatever... Anyway, the measurements all landed perfectly on their chart of 'normal' and we measured exactly at 18 weeks and 4 days, so our due date is correct. I caught myself trying to catch a glimpse of if it was a boy or a girl (although we agreed to not find out I couldn't help being curious!). Brice and Gabbie got to come in to see the basics-the head, arms, hands, feet, legs, etc. He/she weighs about .55 pounds and its femurs are 2.5 cm in length, those are the only measurements I can remember. The doctor called us after we got home and said everything looked great on the pictures. Aside from my paragraphs of complaining previously, we are so blessed to so far have a healthy, normal looking baby with no complications. We can't thank God enough for the healthy one we have, and to be blessed with another one is amazing...

We got to the car and looked at the pictures. I told Brice "I don't see any boy parts". He said "seriously, if the femurs are 2.5 cm, what boy parts do you think you would see?" Good point dear. Its amazing to think of how much growing that little thing is going to do over the next 4-5 months. We could see everything so well today, and in the end its still just half a pound!

I don't have a scanner (nor would I have a clue how to use it probably), so I took pictures of the ultrasound pictures to post on here. Obviously the quality won't be as good. Brice also took another "stomach picture". I laugh that I am volunteering to pose for an unflattering photograph, but we took so few during our pregnancy with Gabbie that this time I'm hoping to have them to see the progress. Then we can put them away in a box and never speak of them again...

Brice achieved his goal of removing the rest of the sidewalk from the house for the deck.

An unclear picture, but it is a foot...

This was the best profile view she could get. This baby wasn't quite as cooperative as Gabbie was with hers as far as being 'photogenic'. But here you can obviously see the spine (this is my favorite picture-I think the formation of the spine is so interesting...)

The 2 legs.



This is the baby's face apparantly...She made an extra copy of this picture for Gabbie to show at daycare but I'm sure Gabbie was more interested in her sucker and sticker.



One of the arms and a hand. We did get to see the baby moving its hand and opening/closing its eyes. And baby did cooperate well enough to get a perfect view of its heart, kidneys, and stomach. So far he is head up, feet down.

I was assuming that this size of stomach would mean more than a half pound baby so far :-)

While we were gone the plumber got these pipes from the basement replaced.

Getting Busy

Warmer weather and more daylight has made for lots of work to be done that has waited all winter! Gabbie and I have been doing yard work while Brice does a million other things, as you will see in the pictures below. Gabbie's bedtime has become 'flexible', as has supper time since we do not want to go indoors until the sun goes down! I am thinking its time to start shutting our computer off, as today is the first day either of us used it since 1 week ago. Good warm days ahead :-)

Gabbie is getting smarter-I think she has discovered the 'stalling' tactic to delay bedtime. Anyway, now when she has to nap or go to bed all of her teddy bears need to be tucked in as well. The last few weeks have seen another jump in her vocabulary; at times I feel like we might actually be having a conversation. She can say her alphabet other than "W" and count to ten with fair consistency. We are very happy that she is saying "thank you" and "you're welcome" without needing prompting.

One of Brice's million things he has been doing. He removed the cement steps from the front of the house. Hooray for me: Gabbie enjoyed dropping things in the space between the house and the steps, now I don't have to deal with that :-) The main point of removing them was to prepare for the addition of a deck to the east side of the house. Brice is pretty excited about a deck; as hard as he works he deserves a place to sit and relax once in awhile. I am just excited to decorate it with lights for Christmas!

Like I said, she's getting smarter. If the mixer is running, there will be a beater to lick off soon...

Even Gabbie knows that basic housekeeping has failed around here lately. She knows I probably don't have the dishes done, so why not just eat out of the pan?

After vacuuming and sweeping to prepare for insulation. This will be a bedroom. Since I took this picture the room has been insulated, drywall in place, and the first layer of mudding/taping is complete.

Everyone had a hand in cleaning up after the insulation was installed.

Time for clean up at the farm Brice rents... this has kept his Dad and him busy the past week or so. I said as long as they were at it they could dig me up a second location for a garden, but I'm not sure that was on the priority list...

Break time :-) Enjoying a lemonade outside at the end of the day.

Somehow Brice managed to leave today at 4 a.m. to haul pigs; not sure how he does it. I have been without Gabbie all day and should probably be using my time more wisely than blogging! She went to my Mom's when I went to work this morning, and since Brice and I actually have plans tonight as well we won't see Gabbie again until the morning. It was strange to go to WalMart without my assistant, then drive home with Josh Groban blaring in the CD player instead of something to entertain the child. Its a strange ache when she isn't here...I always think I'll enjoy it, but then I feel lonely when I am doing housechores without her wanting to "help Mom!"

Its hard to believe we are almost half way to meeting our second child...when I saw on the calendar today that we were 18 weeks along I was surprized. We get our first glimpse of him/her on Wednesday when we have an ultrasound. I'll have to find our ultrasound picture of Gabbie to see if they have similar 'space monkey' photos as we call them :-) On the plus side, I am starting to feel better as far as having more energy again. In exchange for that I am having carpal tunnel symptoms in both hands and a near constant back ache, both of which I expected as they came on about this point with Gabbie and didn't leave until the day I had her. Neither really bother me much until I am trying to lift Gabbie or type at work with numb hands.

Better wrap up and be productive! I hope the windy conditions today are bringing in more warm weather!

March Update

We are happy that the weather is improving and Spring is near! Gabbie and I have enjoyed more outdoor strolls, and this weekend I bought some tomato seeds to grow indoors until we can get them in the garden. We have been able to help Brice more with his chores without taking 20 minutes to bundle up! Winter hibernation is fun up to a point.

Here are some pictures of the last few weeks around here:

For Valentine's Day Gabbie got a new toy for the shower. Somehow its okay when she dumps the water over her head, but not when her mother does it!

Celebrating Grandpa's birthday. I think Gabbie's starting to get the concept that other people have birthdays and get presents instead of just her.

Of course, the ongoing house project. We decided to open the stairway on the west side. It turned out much better than I thought it would. The room you see now will be the office as it was before, only without sharing it with Gabbie. Brice's computer has been packed up for over a month now; catching up on his bookwork when we get this all done will be interesting!

The mess...as much as I appreciate the progress, I'll be glad to be able to come home from work without having sweeping, dusting, and vacuuming to do to keep up. I keep thinking we are doing well enough to be utilizing the space by mid-summer, but when I repeat that estimation to anyone working on it they look at my like I am crazy. I forget its March already and soon they will all be in the field with less time to work on the house.

I felt great this weekend, so Gabbie and I got our cleaning shoes on and went to work. She loves to mop and dust. Not sure what got into us, but we worked all day Saturday. I hadn't cleaned the house that good since before Christmas. We even worked in the basement and did multiple loads of laundry-and the weather was perfect to hang it all outside and get that fresh Spring smell!

Before lunch Saturday I told Gabbie she needed to get dressed. She went and got her 2 piece swimsuit. I figured it didn't matter much; we were inside and she was mopping the floors (more playing in the water) anyway. Later I told her we needed to go outside and help Daddy, so she went and put on a light jacket and shoes.

We wore her out! She fell asleep by 7 p.m. watching the girls basketball championship. Thank goodness; the 2-3 nights before she'd been up nearly every hour crying. We figured it was an ear infection, but she seems better now.

Cleaned the house yesterday, time to do the yard today. We had the front door replaced last fall, but the old one had been sitting in our yard ever since. Here Brice is hauling it away.

Valentines flowers :-) Thought I better take a picture today before they all started to wilt. I was surprized when I got home on Valentine's Day by these. As busy as Brice has been working on the house, plus keeping up with his normal tasks, he managed to get me some flowers and a bird feeder. I haven't seen any birds at the feeder yet...hopefully soon!

Appointment #2

Yesterday I went in for our second "baby appointment" as I call them. Gabbie tagged along since our poor daycare provider has been sick. Bringing her with was pretty entertaining...she hasn't been to the doctor since last summer, but boy did she get really nervous when I got called into the lab, then back to the patient rooms. It wasn't easy to convince her that we weren't there for her to be checked out! She was a good trooper, as we had a long wait.
Everything went well; good heartbeat again. I still have a bit of infection left in my right ear, but he said I could quit the medicine. The only thing was that I didn't measure much bigger than the appointment a month ago, 'small for weeks' he called it. He wasn't concerned, and we both figured it was probably from fighting the respiratory and ear infection and the nausea that came with the medicine, plus the pregnancy nausea. He figures we'll catch up by next month. I am hoping by then the prenancy nausea is gone too :-) Doctor offered the genetic testing to be done anytime now. I turned it down, we hadn't done it with Gabbie, and I told him "if I love Brice then I can love whatever condition this baby comes out in". Doctor found that entertaining and laughed, then Gabbie laughed her big laugh (the new thing she's been doing), and we all had a nice laugh at Brice's expense. Sorry dear.
While we were there doctor said they'd schedule our ultrasound to be on the same day as my next appointment. I told him that I thought we were waiting until half-way through to do the ultrasound. He reminded me that at our next appointment we'd be over 18 weeks, close to half-way. Yikes...at first this one was going slow, now it suddenly seems to be flying by.
This week I'm feeling more myself again. I was really starting to feel down in the dumps the past month after I just felt worthless and sick all of the time. Yesterday I stopped and got a library book, since I've been staying up past 7 p.m. again. Today I plan to go for a jog. I cleaned the house (what's left of it, doesn't take too long!) and I do not feel like I'm dragging through the workday. One of my patients on Monday said to me "you actually look like you have energy today". I may even get my haircut this week for the first time in almost 3 months.
I don't have any new pictures to post, but progress has been made in our home improvement project. The wiring is mostly done and today they will be here to work on the plumbing. I laugh that we will probably get it insulated after winter is done!
Like I mentioned above, Gabbie's new thing right now is the 'big laugh'. She thinks she needs to let out a big laugh when other people are laughing too. I need to get it on video to embarass her with in 10 years! She is getting good at her alphabet and knows all but a few of the letters when we draw them for her. Of course yesterday I realized we were showing them all in uppercase; hopefully she catches on quickly to lower case as well. Now she loves to take a shower to play with her foam letters. Too bad we've listened to 2 years of screaming and fighting to get her to take a shower every other day, now she wants to shower twice a day.
Have a great rest of the week...one more week until March! Spring is near!

Home Improvement

Well, I think we officially have half of the house 'gutted'. This project has been a year in the works already...we are hoping its mostly done before summer starts! Moving Gabbie into our room has not helped anyone's sleeping habits...she regularily gets up at 4:30 and sleeps in our bed. I like to get up between 5:00-5:30, so she thinks she can too. Brice is having to deal with it more than I since I've been sleeping on the couch for a month dealing with the stomach flu, respiratory crap, and acid/reflux. Here are some pictures:

Gabbie is suddenly interested in 'water' and 'dishes'. This has been very handy for me lately. When I don't feel well and want to rest the 'dishes' keep her entertained for a good half hour.

What Brice is calling our "Japanese hotel". He is becoming a pro at organizing lots of furniture into few rooms :-) It is quite congested, however I have stayed in a Japanese hotel and it is not nearly this roomy. Too bad that was 10 years ago in the days of 'film' cameras, so I have no picture to post!

We had an obstacle course in the kitchen for awhile, but this carpet has since been put away. Gabbie enjoyed walking it like a tightrope walker!

Don't even try to come in the front door...

Brice's "office" :-)

Plenty of seating...

I took this while Brice was gutting the ceiling and south wall in our office; obviously the dust was still flying. He worked hard and within a week the room was gutted and cleaned up, ready for the carpenter and electrician.

I took this mess in stride until a few days ago. I've been fighting a respiratory bug for over 2 weeks, which got much worse this past week. I could get through a day at work, then was so tired I didn't even get up for supper. I got short of breath in WalMart trying to buy our basics, and one night an ear infection became so painful we thought about a trip to the ER. Luckily we found an online home remedy to get us through until the next day! I was given 3 medications and by Friday had minimal to no relief. Went back to the doctor and was told that the ear and sinus infections were 'plenty nasty' and that I could expect at least 10 days to feel better. Today is the first day I've actually felt half way normal. I tackled the 7 mile 'lake walk' with a friend and helped Brice with chores. Its the first time in a week I've sat here at the computer to check e-mails and catch up on the ever important Hollywood news on people.com. I hope it helps me sleep well tonight! Anyway, now that you've heard all my complaining, this past Thursday I lost it with the mess in the house. I was convinced the dust in the house was keeping us from feeling healthy and demanded we clean up as much as we could. I had called in sick to work thinking I'd sleep, but the piled up dishes and dust were appearing in my dreams. So, Brice helped me a few hours and we got everything possible cleaned up, put away, and dusted. Whew...

That's all from here. We request that everyone pray for an early Iowa summer :-)