Leap Day!

Here is the latest picture of the baby!! This was taken on Tuesday, February 26. What a difference between this scan and the last one! I love that you can actually see arm buds and leg buds and that big head! The heart was beating 178 beats/ minute which is just perfect.
I haven't been doing so well myself though. I've been extremely dehydrated, and two days ago I had a nurse come to the house and hook me up to an IV so I could get continuous fluids. Imagine that! At home! I didn't even know they did that. It was okay, although I was so dehydrated that they had to stick me 5 times before they got a vein! Ouch! Did I mention I HATE needles and IVs??? They came and took it out this morning, and I have a dr. appt this afternoon. Let's hope they say I'm all better!
The kids are doing great. Sam is really showing her maturity and helping me through all this. Today is MisMatch day at school in honor of Leap Day so the boys had fun with that, mostly just by mismatching their socks and shoes.
This weekend is the International Fair for Girl Scouts. I hope I can go! The girls have been working pretty hard!
HAGD!

Update!

Well....let's see...where do we begin?
February 12th was Samantha's 11th birthday! Unfortunately, she says it was "the most horrible birthday ever"... She went to school as usual, and I was home getting sick constantly. So I was on the phone with the doctor when the school called, Sam fell off of a pogo stick and cut her lip open. So I dragged my sick self to get her, and brought her to the doctor...that was a joke because I was so sick I could hardly sit still!!! They referred us to a plastic surgeon because she needed stitches. So I had to call Art home so he could bring her, so I could get myself to the doctor. The doctor told me I could either go to the hospital and get an IV or try a new medicine. I opted for the new medicine. So I went home, hopeful it would work. Sam got her stitches and even though they hurt she was okay. Couldn't eat her birthday dinner though. And right during dinner Art noticed the cat was walking strange, not using his back legs. He had to rush him to the hopsital, he had a blood clot and had to be put to sleep. And to top it off, the pharmacy never mixed Sam's antibiotics so he had to go and get that again. It was NOT a good birthday.
And I'd like to say that new medicine worked for me, but it didn't. So on the 13th I had to go to ER and get myself rehydrated. I hate ERs!! Seven hours in there. But it worked... since then I have been able to hold food down, what a relief!
I just love this picture of Colby, licking all the frosting off of the cake container!! I couldn't bake a cake for Sam, so my mom bought one at the store. Colby really liked the frosting!
Sam is out of basketball for 2 weeks. She's not happy about that at all!!! But she does get the stitches out on the same day as her birthday party, so she's looking forward to that!
And Art had been wonderful, picking up all the slack and really helping out. Unfortunately, he's been doing so much that he's gotten himself sick again. He's got a coughing/aching/sneezing cold and feels awful. Poor honey!

Big News!!!

We're expecting baby #4!! We are very very excited. I had an ultrasound done this morning and this is the picture they gave me. It's hard to see, but where it says "baby" is actually a baby and a yolk sac. Baby is developing right on target... today I am 6 weeks and 1 day pregnant. I was able to watch the baby heart flutter on the screen! AND- I was able to actually hear the heartbeat, which was beating at 123 beats per minute.
We are overjoyed with the Little Bean! Unfortunately It is causing me much misery already, but hopefully my midwife will get something for me today. I don't think I can handle this for a few more months!!
I will update with pictures of the basement hopefully soon.

Congrats to Colby!

On Saturday the Scouts all participated in a pinewood derby. Colby made his car into a shark, and it came in SECOND place! Congrats to Colby, he was very excited!
And I'm glad I took this photo, because we lost the trophy. I really hope someone turned it in, would a Boy Scout really steal a trophy?

Not much else is going on with our family. As the Cookie Mom for Sam's Girl Scout troop, I got to go and put in all the orders last night. Sam sold 200 boxes. That will be fun to hand out!

Boys are still practicing- they test this Saturday for tae kwon do...moving from orange belts to green belts. I hope they make it, they both could use more work really.

Happy Friday!

Just thought I'd do a quick update... no pictures because I'm too lazy to upload them on to the computer right now.

Things are busy here, as usual. The boys are testing in a week for their green tae kwon belts, which means we're trying to fit in as many practices as we can! We're also in the midst of basketball season, and this Saturday is the pinewood derby. All 3 are participating as scouts, and I am chairing the even on the Girl Scout side. Did I mention we also have bowling the same day? Oy!

Art is still working hard on the basement. He's been working on the stairs, and they look really nice! He just finished taping so that he can start staining the wood. He also cleaned my laundry room for me and did *all* the laundry!! What a guy! And he build some storage spaces for the all "stuff" we have. And we purged through our camping stuff. We had way to much for a family who probably camps once a year!!

Well, have a great day and keep warm! It's freezing here!

Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day!

It's a holiday- so the kids are home from school. We decided to do something new and fun today since we have no "extra" kids... we went to the YMCA in Bethlehem and went ice skating! Brrr, was it cold! Art said "You don't need snow pants, it's indoors"... yeah well, he forget to mention that it's still freezing and wet indoors!! I'm sorry to admit that we had to scrounge through the lost and found box for gloves for Sam and Colby!! And Will of course made friends with some kids right away! They all did great. We ended up bringing our friend Sarah, and she was very new at skating... so Sam stayed with her the whole time. What a great friend she was! The boys just skated all around. Will never fell, but Colby fell lots of times!! He loved it though. Too bad I couldn't bring my camera.

So the first picture in this post is of some heaters. Kind of insignificant, I suppose... except that they are in the basement! And Art just put them in over the weekend!! Yippee, we have heat in our basement now! It is awesome! It is so great to have such a handy husband!

And the second picture is of our cute little Blueberry! It's not the best photo... but can you see that his feet are off the ground? Yes, he loves to climb the cage! He somehow jumps up and holds on to the middle bar, and climbs all the way to the top! It's pretty cute. And now that Samantha is over her fear of Blueberry biting her, she holds her all of time, which is making Blaueberry very friendly and lovable.

I hope everyone...the kids especially...but really everyone... takes Dr. King's message to heart and makes sure that they help out anyone who is hurting... what a wonderful world this would be if even a handful of people promised to do that, without thinking of themselves first.

Happy Monday!

This past week...!

I'm sorry I haven't posted for a week now. It seems that we have been extremely busy lately and when I do get on the computer, I am kept busy with my emails and message boards!

What have we been up to this week?

Since Will's picture is first, I'll tell you about that first. When he went bowling on Saturday he was given this trophy because he came in FIRST place at the Christmas Challenge they had! I am so proud of him! He has really come a long way since he began bowling almost a year ago. His first scores were in the 30s and now his average is 87!


Do you recognize this next person?? This is Hannah Montana! We went to Hannah Montana/ Jonas Brothers/ Miley Cyrus concert

last Wednesday. What a circus that was! It was so crowded! And I had to hold all 3 kids' hands the whole time because I was afraid I would lose them! We had seats on the floor-- and because they had a stage that had a "runway" shooting out the middle, we ended up with 4th row seats!! It was amazing. Unfortunately, everyone in front of us stood and we couldn't see all too well. Sam could, but Colby had to be held on my lap, and Will sat most of the time, just listening and making origami animals out of the programs they gave us!

I am reading the book "Wicked" for an online book club. Wow, what a book! If you know anything about the Wizard of Oz you should read this book, it will change your thoughts! I'm having a hard time putting it down- I want to go and read it now!

The kids are full swing in basketball. Samantha's team finally won their first game last Saturday!! They were so excited, and who can blame them? They are improving so much but they are really no match for the teams they have been put up against. And on Sunday they played again, and they were creamed... and poor Samantha got elbowed in the shoulder. I don't what was hurt more, her shoulder or her ego. She ended up sitting out the whole second half of the game.
Will's team is doing well. They win some, they lose them... fun to watch, Will is really getting the hang of the game now! And Colby, his team is just fun to watch. They really have no clue what they are doing!

It's almost time for the boys to test again in tae kwon do, so we have been trying to get them to class as often as possible. Colby is one stripe behind Will. They are hoping to move from orange belt to green.

Samantha is sick again. She's been complaining of a headache, sore throat, and stomach ache. She's been out of school for 3 days now. Poor thing! Although I'm not complaining, because she's being extra cuddly!

Another thing that happened to Sam last Friday, at basketball practice, she was hit in the cheek with the ball, and it knocked a whole side of her braces off! Completely came undone. We had to make an emergency trip to the orthodontist on Monday, but all is well now.

Colby lost a tooth this morning, so we'll be expecting a visit from the tooth fairy tonight! I hope she remembers, she has a habit of forgetting sometimes.

Happy Wednesday!