Bedrest Bootcamp

My cousin Julie very appropriately named this current situation I am in, "Bedrest Bootcamp" and it couldn't be more true.

To be completely honest with you, I think my doctors are totally over-reacting and I am just taking a bed up in the hospital that could be used by someone in a much more dire situation than I, but what do I know. My babies are measuring small, but so did my other two girls. And here is the thing; wouldn't you think if the babies were in some sort of distress that they would be showing distress in some of these millions of tests they are running on them every live-long day?! Their NSTs (non-stress tests) are always perfect; they are scoring perfect on their bio-physical profiles; their heart rates are perfect; there is no question in anyone's mind that they are having no difficulty moving--BELIEVE ME. But I am not a doctor and I am told this is where I am supposed to be, so here is where I am. I feel like a lazy, fat slob sitting here in this hospital bed having nurses wait on me hand and foot when I feel absolutely perfectly fine. The last time I had a long stay here was when I was here for pneumonia, but then I was really, really sick and hardly remember a single detail of that stay. Believe me, I am aware of every single boring moment here this time.

I miss my girls. I am greatly distressed that the final days/weeks before two more children enter our chaotic lives I am spending here strapped to a hospital bed rather than being able to hang out with them and do fun things with them before I no longer can do that with ease.

Then of course, not an hour goes by when visions of my utterly disastrous house enter my mind. We are talking utter and total disaster. Not a thing has been done to it since I officially went on bedrest which I believe was almost two weeks ago. Add to that Christmas mess, clean laundry piled up all over my house and dishes everywhere and you've got a recipe for yuck!! It is so bad.

Thank you all so much for your nice comments and your prayers. You will never know how much they are appreciated. Emma and Kate could be here as early as next week. We'll see. In the meantime, I am trying to keep myself from going nuts by knitting hats for my big girls and the babies with a cool kit that my cousin got for me and playing on this laptop that the hospital lent me. Is that cool or what?! Oh, I'm also over-dosing on Law & Order: SVU. I've seen two marathons since I've been on bed-rest. It's been one of my favorite shows for years and I fear that once I leave here I may never be able to watch it again!!

I'm going to get my mom to take one last belly shot of me and maybe pictures of the little knit hats I'm making. The fruits of my "labor". (HAHA....pun intended).

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a blessed New Year! I'll be ringing in 2008 right here in this hospital bed. I'm really starting to feel sorry for myself now.

UPDATE

THis is Kristen's mom writing to you, her friends. Lots has been happening in Kristen's situation. Please come over to my site to catch up. After you catch up, Please Pray!!

Thank you so much.

Some "Hoopla" and Some News

My new blogging buddy, Andrea, from Lifesong has created a new Christmas meme; but we aren't allowed to call it a meme. She has made the executive decision to heretofore refer to it as a "hoopla". I like it. The word "meme" has never made much sense to me. She has tagged me for the meme hoopla so I'm going to attempt to do this today. I'll post her instructions for the hoopla here and if I tag you, you'd better do it, y'here?? So, here are the rules:

1. List 12 random things about yourself that has to do with Christmas

2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word

3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.

4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it and I'd like to get as many people involved as possible.

So, are you up for it? I hope so. This could be hard for me because the juices that flow to my brain just aren't doing their job as of late; so we'll see how it goes!

12 CHRISTMAS THINGS ABOUT ME

1. I have to have my Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving. Before is, obviously, too early. And after, to me, is just unacceptable. The sooner I can get Christmas spirit flowing through my house, the better.

2. The more lights, the better. And they have to be multi-colored; and blinking, if possible. None of these plain, white, non-blinking lights for me, thankyouverymuch.

3. I don't care if it's 70 degrees in December; if at all possible (i.e. I have firewood at my disposal) I must have a fire in the evening to go along with the lights and festive-ness of the Christmas decorations.

4. I don't bake at all much at Christmas time. I feel like such a schmuck, too; especially this year when that seems to be the big thing around the blog-o-sphere right now. Man, my poor kids. Now that I have more time (more on that in a little bit), maybe I can do a little more baking.

5. When I was a kid, we always opened our presents on Christmas Eve. In my family, the kids open their gifts on Christmas morning. (Except for the grandparents gifts, which they open on Eve---whichever grandparents we happen to be spending Eve with).

6. I didn't believe in Santa as a child. Not that my parents ever said, "Santa does not exist". They just never did the Santa thing so we didn't know any different. Until other kids would talk about Santa.

7. My kids do believe in Santa Claus. And I love living vicariously through them. They write letters to Santa every year, and I (as Santa) write them letters back. They look forward to checking the mail every day until they receive their letter from Santa. I think it's about as much fun for this mama as it is for them.

8. One of my favorite things to do when I was young (and still to this day) is drive around looking at the lights on people's houses. We would always try to find the houses and neighborhoods with the most lights and drive around for hours looking at them while we played Christmas music in the car. I have passed this most favorite tradition of mine onto our children and they love it just as much as I did. In fact, this is our plan for the evening after I get home from work. They can't wait.

9. We always had a real tree when I was growing up. I love, love, love the smell of pine that comes with a real tree. Alas, as an adult, I have a fake tree. We had a real tree for a couple of years, but the difficulty we had getting one that would stand up straight, plus the fun of keeping it watered and not drying out before Christmas was just too big a pain. Of course, now we have a fake tree that literally takes me almost two hours to get put together, so I'm about to scrap that idea and go for a real one again next year. Who knows. My kids want two trees. They don't ask for much. (Probably cuz Grandma has two trees......)

10. I can't stand tinsle. And I mean that silver, stringy stuff that gets all over the house and rarely stays on the tree. I won't buy it.

11. I am notorious for leaving my tree up for a good month after Christmas is over. I have a horrible time letting go. That and the fact that it's much more fun to put it up than take it down.

12. I can't remember the last time I travelled anywhere for Christmas. I prefer to stay on the home-front.

I DID IT. Can't believe my brain came up with 12 things! Now it's your turn.
I tag:

Pea
Mom (Grandma Dawn)
Joey
Diane
Sherry

And now for some news. I visited my perinatal specialist's office again yesterday. They want to continue to "keep tabs" on the babies since one, in particular, is measuring significantly smaller than she should. As it turns out, they are both measuring significantly smaller than they should, which has them concerned. Apparently (and I never knew this--in fact, I've learned more about pregnancy through this one than I probably ever cared to know), there are two arteries that flow from/to each umbilical cord. They believe that the reason the babies are measuring so small has to do with the fact that the blood flow from one of these arteries to each baby isn't quite doing its job as well as it should. They don't believe the babies are in any immediate danger, but are concerned that because of this, the girls might just decide, "Screw this....let's get out of here" much quicker than they should. I'm right at 29.5 weeks. Wayyyy, wayyyy to early to have these children. So, basically, I was told under no uncertain terms that I am "not to be working 40 hours a week anymore". And today, as a result of Dr. Hobbins frustration with how difficult this is becoming to accomplish for me, he is almost flat out saying he doesn't want me working at all. Needless to say, he's justalittleirritatedwithmyemployers. So, anyhoooo.....that's what's going on with me. I don't know what my official schedule is going to look like, or if I'm going to have one at all. Every day is an adventure and a mystery in my world.

Please pray for little Emma and Kate that they'll grow and stay put for at least another 7 or 8 weeks at least. Oh, yeah. Did I forget to tell you? Emma and Kate. Those are their names. Their real names. I don't have the brain power to come up with clever nicknames for babies I haven't met yet and I'm tired of calling them squirts. So, it's Emma Faith and Katherine Hope. (Kate). I guess the baby name game can be officially over. I had a lot of fun reading everyone's suggestions and I appreciate all the input. Hope you all like the names we chose.....although I'm sure it's impossible to please everyone!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Those Kids Of Mine

First, I want to thank everyone for the nice birthday wishes this weekend! Nothing spectacular occurred over the weekend for me in regards to birthday celebration; as I mentioned before, most of the celebrating had already happened. Care Bear was a little dismayed over the lack of excitement for my big day exclaiming "What is a birthday without a party or a cake?!" Hard to explain to an enthusiastic 5 year old party connoseur that the older you get, the less you care (in fact you actually prefer) to have your birthday made a big deal of.

I did go to a Scentsy party on Saturday at Sherry's house and purchased a warmer and two scents. Right off the top of my head I can't remember which ones they are, but they smell good! I was going to get Cozy Fireside like Karen suggested, because it is definitely yummy, but she would have had to order it and I was simply too impatient to have to wait to use it, so I got one that was already in stock.

We are currently in the midst of our first major snowstorm of the year here in Colorado. It's lovely to look at, and I would be thoroughly enjoying it if I were sitting at home in my giant recliner, snuggled up in my electric blanket by the fire drinking a steaming hot cup of coffee. But instead I had to brave the storm and make my way up north and the drive which normally takes me between 15-20 minutes took me an hour and a half. An hour and a half people! I was over 30 minutes late to work this morning and as it was I gave myself 45 minutes to get here, which I thought would be plenty of time. I should have known better.

Last night, when I arrived home from work, my kids were in full Christmas spirit mode. They had been outside building snowmen and Care Bear was in the process of writing and illustrating a new Christmas Carol. When it was complete, we all had to assemble on the couch where she taught us the new Christmas carol and led us in a sing-a-long. Anakin and I were to sing the song with her, and Feisty was to provide background vocals. I am going to post the Christmas Carol now for you and I advise you to learn it because I am 100% positive that it will be the next great Christmas Carol of our time!

"SNOWBALL FIGHT DAY"

"In my stocking is a candy cane and some candy"

"Outside there is a snowman and snow"

"Under the tree there is some presents"

"The tree is so pretty"

Once we learned the new carol and she felt satisfied that we had sung it satisfactorily, she hopped on "stage" (the fireplace bricks) with Feisty and they performed "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph". This was all done with a rather "goofy" and lighthearted air, but then Anakin wanted to perform. And he got up on stage in all seriousness and proceeded to sing "Away In A Manger" in perfect, falsetto pitch. It makes me sad that he can not ever be a part of the children's musical performances at church because he is never there on Sunday. I know without a doubt that Miss Tammy (the children's music director) would have some great part for him in their performances because he really does have an amazing voice and ability to sing on pitch. Anakin's singing ability is one of the few things that he has a high level of confidence in. I wish he had the opportunity to showcase it more.

After the performances, we had to rush to church to practice for Mom and Dad's (a.k.a. me and Mike's) deal on Christmas Eve. The praise band is leading the Christmas Eve service this year. I don't think that's ever happened before, but I think what we have planned is going to be great and I'm looking forward to it. On the way to church for practice, I told the kids about Grandma Dawn's accident in Hawaii and that we needed to be sure to remember to pray for her when we went to bed that night.

Feisty became very distraught at this news. In a little teary voice she said that she wanted to get Grandma a "washcloth with ice in it to help her feel better" (Feisty's answer to any type of pain whether it be a cut, scrape, bruise, splinter or tummy ache is water, whether in the form of a bath, a warm cloth, or a cloth with ice wrapped in it.) I told her that Grandma is in Hawaii right now, but I'm sure she would love that when she gets home. Feisty sat there for a minute quietly then said, "I'm worried about her. In the morning, I am going to get her a washcloth with ice in it to make her feel better." Since reading Grandma Dawn's post today, I am going to have to let her know that she is feeling better today so she can quit worrying so much. She's also very concerned about the pain I will be in when I have the babies. She assures me she will be there to "take care of me". I love that child.

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Birthday Eve

It is the day before my birthday and I am looking out my window at work to a fresh blanket of snow covering the lawn, slushy streets and snow brushed trees. It's a beautiful, Christmas-ey scene. When I was a young girl, it was always my dream to have snow on my birthday. Most of the time it didn't happen. I have always loved snow; always loved winter; always loved the "cozy" feeling it creates. I still love the snow, but it has gotten more now to where I enjoy looking at it more than being out in it and playing in it. I am happy that there will be snow for my birthday this year; since my birthday is on a Saturday this year, I look forward to (hopefully) being able to sleep in a little, enjoy the current book I am reading and having a fire in the fireplace. I don't have many plans for tomorrow since for the most part my birthday has already been celebrated. I do have a Scentsy party to go to tomorrow at Sherry's house and I'm hoping I feel like I have enough cash to get a little something for myself. We'll see.

Last night, Mike and I and the troops went to Applebee's for dinner to use my gift cards that my mom and dad got for me for my birthday. The kids love Applebee's (mainly I think because they like to get balloons there). It was a nice time and we spent all but $.13 (that's cents) of the gift cards. How is that for planning?! After that, we took them on a little drive around one of the neighborhoods where we live to look at some fabulous lights and lawn decorations. Their excitement of the decorations and their awe of them (particularly the lit up reindeer that moved) was contagious and it made me feel like a kid again sitting in the backseat of my parent's car and feeling the excitement of Christmas.

I received the most precious birthday gift last night that I have ever received. It instantly became one of my most prized posessions and I wish I could somehow preserve it to ensure it never gets ripped, smeared, written on, or in anyway destroyed. My precious little Care Bear spent the entire morning creating a birthday present for me; she even painted the wrapping paper herself and wrapped it up in a box all by herself. I have never seen her more proud, and my heart has never felt more full than when I received this wonderful present from my little girl who thought of me and created a gift for me from her heart. Care Bear loves to draw, color, paint, etc... and she loves to make up stories. She wrote me a book complete with illustrations. I'm going to post it for you because you just have to see it. I'll have to interpret for you because she didn't ask for any help with spelling; she sounds out words herself and is very literal and phonetic.

FRONT COVER

PAGE 1

"Hi! Today is my Mommy's Birthday. I can't wait!"

PAGE 2

"My Mommy (something I can't make out here). I'm going to go do something." (Note the picture in the corner of her going out the door.)

PAGE 3

"Let's go get my Mommy's present!" (the picture is of her and her friend, Blondie 1)

PAGE 4

"Let's split up, OK?" (Care Bear and Blondie 1 again)

PAGE 5

"No."

(This is me looking for my party and my present).

PAGE 6

"No!"

(Still looking for the party and my present).

PAGE 7

"No!"

(And still!)

PAGE 8

"Happy Birthday!"

(And I finally found my party and my presents!)

BACK COVER

I will cherish this forever and ever, AMEN!!

Next time you hear from me, I will officially be 33.

And as I sit here enjoying the wintery scene and the cold, my parents are currently on a plane jetting towards tropical weather and beaches to celebrate their 35 years of marriage. As jealous as I am, they greatly deserve it and I hope they have a fabulous time!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday

Yeah, you read the title right. Wednesday. That is all I can come up with for today. I'd probably be better off without any title, huh?

As is par for the course for me lately, this is a post full of random bits of things that fly through my brain at any unsuspecting moment that I think I absolutely must preserve for prosperity; when in reality, someday I'll look back at these posts and say, "Why did I think that was important?!?!" If nothing else, it will remind me how scattered my brain was the year I was pregnant with twins.

Twins. I can't believe I'm having twins. It hits me like that every now and then. Scary.

I would first like to thank a new commenter on my blog for her sweet comment to me the other day. Unfortunately, she doesn't seem to have a blog, so I can't return the favor by visiting her blog, so I would just like to say "Hi!" to Samantha and thank her for the nice comment. I'm glad you enjoy it here and I hope you come back to visit again!

And then I would like to apologize. I have been neglecting you. Yes, you. You who so faithfully read my blog and continue to come back every time I post; but who rarely gets a return visit. That would be probably the majority of people I have on my blog-roll. I go through my bloglines every day with good intentions. However, I'm lucky if I get through the day having commented on two or three blogs. And I used to be so faithful! I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten you. I still love you all! I just can't form many complete thoughts lately, much less focus on a blog long enough to read it and then comment. Is there a condition called "Pregnancy ADD"? Cuz I think I have it. For sure. But I have made an early New Year's Resolution. (Is that allowed?! And if it is, does that negate me from making a resolution on January 1?? I hope so!) My resolution is to be better about keeping in touch with all of you. I miss you all and I'll tell you what! All those harassing phone calls and pesky people pestering me at work all day? Well, they can take a back seat for now. OK, that was a lie. I'm just kidding. But I am going to try to be better about stopping by all of your places. Did you see that caveat in there? Try. I don't make many promises right now. (*But I do love you!!*)

This Saturday is my birthday. Wee! Yipee Skippy! Hurrah! We actually celebrated it for the most part this past weekend for several reasons; most of which revolve around the fact that my parents are skipping town on me and will probably be sipping on non-alcoholic Mai Tai's and swimming with sting-rays at the exact moment 33 years ago that I entered this world. Or rather, my Dad will be swimming with sting rays. My mom will probably be sitting on a beach with her nose buried in some book. I'm not jealous though. Oh, no....not at all!

Anyway, it just so happened that this past Saturday at our church was "Parent Freedom Night". About once every other month, the teens are lucky enough to get to be paid by us for the priviledge of watching all of our little rug-rats so us adults can go out and do whatever our little hearts desire. This was perfect timing for Mike and I to be able to go out and celebrate my b-day without completely imposing on my parents. They were imposed on at 9:00, however, when they had to go pick them up and have them stay overnight at their house. But at least they didn't have to entertain them the whole evening, right? I mean, come on. How many opportunities do you really think I am going to be able to go out and enjoy an evening out sans kids once the squirts arrive?! Who in their right mind will ever agree to take on five kids for the evening just for our sakes?! I feel the walls caving in. The little freedom I have left is slipping away at a fairly rapid pace. I'm starting to suffocate!!

Um, anyway. So, we went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant where we ran into two other couples from our church also out enjoying a kidless evening. I mean, there's probably about 200 restaurants in the area; what are the odds of running into two other couples at the same restaurant?! We then decided to go to a movie. The one we really wanted to see we were late for, so we made a big mistake and chose to see "The Mist". I implore of you not to waste your hard earned money on this movie. Worst $15 I ever spent. We walked out 45 minutes into it and ended up going home to watch a movie on DVD. Something we could do any other night of the week after the kids go to bed. Oh, well. It was nice and quiet and peaceful.

Sunday, my mom had our family and my SIL (who shares the same b-day over) and Kevin over for a birthday dinner. It was tasty, and I ate way too much cake. WAY too much cake. She got me my electric blanket!! I walk around my house with that thing now like it's a security blanket. I wuv my new bwankie!!

I am now going to re-post a little poem I wrote last year at about this time, because right now it is so apropos.

--Adapted from “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” by Kristen P. December, 2006 (sung with the same tune)

It’s the most germiest time of the year
When the kids are all coughing
And Mommy is puking
Oh please don’t come near!
It’s the most germiest time of the Year!

It’s the sick-sickiest season of all
When the cold man is calling
And Lysol is spraying
No friends come to call!!
It’s the sick-sickiest season of all!

There’ll be Pepto a-plenty
And stomachs are empty
And hacking is all you can hear
There’ll be foreheads a –roasting
No time for blog posting
It’s not a good season I fear!

It’s the Germ-Germiest time

OF THE YEAR!

Last week Care Bear and I had the stomach crap. Whilst Feisty was fighting yet another UTI, unbelievable as that is. Feisty finished her antibiotic, and the doctor is now convinced that her UTIs are a result of her constipation problem. We are supposed to be putting a stool softener in her apple juice once a day for her to drink, but right after we started doing that, she came down with a stomach bug and let me tell you how messy things can get when you combine a stomach bug with bowel movements loosened by stool softener! Yeah. The smell isn't so pleasant either. (I bet I lost about half of you right about here!)

Anyway, due to the stomach yuckies, we decided to hold back on the laxative because, well, the bug seemed to be doing the job for her. But now she's backed up again. She's consistently complaining of stomach pain. Last night I was in the car taking her to the ER when she vomited all over the car and then promptly fell asleep. I got about a good 3 hours of sleep last night. So did she. I'm so tired of this. She's so tired of this. Why can't the doctors figure out what is really going on with my baby and help me come up with a solution that will actually work?! I'm tired of watching my 3 year old precious girl suffer and constantly have to be on antibiotics. Something has to give.

I have a playlist of Christmas music currently playing in my side bar. One of my favorite Christmas songs (sung by one of my favorite male singers) is playing in it: "Mary Did You Know" sung by Clay Aiken. Our praise band is going to sing this song on Sunday for the offeratory. I love it. Wish I could find a way to record it and stream it here because we're doing a pretty cool version of it. Hmmm. Anyone know a way to do that? Easily?

And one more little item that had me seeing dark red this week. A little tidbit of celebrity "news" that I have seen all over the place. Go to TMZ.com and see what the huge buzz this week is. I'm sure you already have, but it makes me so mad. Leave the girl alone. She's normal. She just got engaged. Let her frolic in the ocean in peace! For cryin' out LOUD!

Wow I'm jabbery today. Must be all the sugar from the three donuts I have eaten this morning. Three donuts! What is wrong with me?!?!

Hope your Wednesday is fabulous!

I'll Be A Model In My Next Life

I was visiting Steph over at "Adventures in Babywearing" today, and she had posted a picture of herself morphing into Kelly Clarkson. I thought it looked like fun, so I decided to see who I would morph into. There were several options I could choose from, but if you were told you looked like a super-model, wouldn't you pick that one, too? So, here is me morphing into Christie Brinkley:



Pretty cool, eh? Other choices for me were Kate Hudson, Tara Reid, Thandie Newton and Josh Duhamel?!?!?! What the?! Please tell me I don't look like Fergie's boy toy!

Anyway, if you want to join in the fun, Steph has a Mr. Linky up. A fun, mindless thing to post and if you're like I am today, fun and mindless is all I can manage.