36 Weeks Update

Today, I went to the doctor for my 36 week appointment. When I got there, the waiting room was packed. This seems to happen quite often, but I always seem to get called back very quickly. Today was no exception and I am not complaining.

Total weight gain is currently at 8lbs. I'm not complaining about that either!

My blood pressure was good today. So good that I did not have to lay on my left side for a half hour in the exam room. This is always a good thing because I don't like laying there for so long. Unfortunately, this also means I still get to go to work for at least another week.

When I go back for my appointment next week, the doctor will check me to see how much I'm dilated, if at all. I'm betting I'll be at least a little bit dilated by next week. Sometimes it feels like Noah is really low and pressing down.

I'm measuring right on target for 36 weeks so that means Noah is still growing. I can hardly believe he will be here two weeks from tomorrow!

So, how much do you think Noah will weight when he is born? Leave your guess in the comments and we'll see who comes closest without going over.

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Jumping Jack Flash

Tonight was the first night in about a week that I felt like it was not unbearably hot outside. Oh, it was hot alright but at least there was a little bit of a breeze.

And I was still sweating like a pig, but that is pretty much a daily occurrence any more. It is really awful to start sweating in inopportune places. Like in church. Or in meetings at work. Or in bed at night. Or just about anywhere. Uggh!

But we sat outside for a while and Emily played. But first, we had to clear the area of any bugs or anything else that looked suspicious. There was a wasp flying around outside her trampoline, but I shooed it away. And then there was "wasp poo" aka bird poop on the trampoline. So I sprayed that off with the waterhose.

The trampoline was still wet when she started jumping, but she didn't really mind. It did not take long at all for her to start plopping down on her bottom and then springing right back up.

Emily also played in the water table a little bit. It was pretty filthy though. I tried spraying it out with the hose, but it still had some yucky stuff in the bottom. After we were done playing, I filled it up and put some bleach in it to clean out the muck. I'll rinse it out in a day or two and it should be good to go.

Here are some action shots from tonight. Enjoy!

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Sisterly Love

This weekend, we took Emily to the Build-A-Bear Workshop to pick out a gift for Noah. Emily went in knowing that she wanted to make him a puppy.

She picked out a cute little puppy and then we went off to find some clothes for him. She picked out a sailor suit with some big black boots. It came with a cute matching hat "just like they wear in the Navy" according to Daddy. And Daddy added some cool shades for him.

In case you were wondering, puppy's name is "Hearty".



Emily wanted to get a new outfit for her bunny "Sweetheart" too. She picked out a pink bikini. You heard me right. I won't allow my child to wear a bikini, but I'll allow her stuffed animal to wear a bikini. Am I cool or what? Right.




After we finished up at Build-A-Bear, we wanted to go to the Disney Store. Except that they don't have a Disney Store at the mall where we were. So we decided to go to another mall farther away from our house that has a Disney Store.

But first, I was hungry. I'm always hungry. And I always like pizza. So we went to Hideaway Pizza for lunch. Can you say yum? Yes, it was so so good. I love their homemade ranch dressing with my pizza. It was a perfect lunch spot. Could not have been better.

After lunch, we went ahead and headed up to the other mall to the Disney Store. Emily got a few things with some Disney bucks that we'd had since 2008. Yep, 2008. Wow. She picked out a Hannah Montana game for her Nintendo DS and a notebook and stationery set. It was fun for her to pick out "anything she wanted" and I think she is happy with her choices.

So that was our fun day shopping. We don't do things like that very often, but we are trying to focus on family in the last few weekends before Noah gets here. In case you haven't done the math, we have two more weekends before he will be here.

We cannot wait!

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Hunger

Can I just say? I am HUNGRY lately. For the last few weeks, I have been hungry during the day. I've been hungry during the night. I'm hungry when I wake up. I eat a meal and then I'm hungry again just a couple hours later.

As of this week, I have still only gained 7 pounds total during this pregnancy. But I have a feeling that will soon change.

This morning before I even got out of bed, I noticed that Noah had the hiccups. I wanted to go tell Emily because I knew she would be tickled to hear this. She is all the time asking me what Noah is doing or what Noah is saying.

Mike was tickled too because he said that means his boy is growing. Mike has a lot of ideas about what it means to be a boy. And I think one of those is that boys should be BIG. And apparently, that applies to me when I'm pregnant and carrying a boy, too.

Here's an example - I prefer 1% milk. When I go to the grocery store, I buy 1% milk. But if Mike goes with me and gets to the milk case first, he always gets 2% milk. No sissy 1% milk for his boy. Ha! What is up with that?

So anyway, I worked from home today so that I could do my 24-hour urine collection. Tomorrow before work, I have to take it by the lab and get my blood drawn. Hopefully this will be a one-and-done deal. Lets hope we don't have a repeat from last time with the multiple blood draws.

But by the time I get out of the lab, I will probably be hungry again. Come to think of it, I'm hungry now.

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Noah's Baby Shower and Today's DR Visit

As I mentioned the other day, Noah's baby shower was over 4th of July weekend. Unfortunately, I did not get a lot of pictures. I did not get pictures of very many of the people who were there, but we had a good crowd.

It was also the family 4th of July cookout and we had a great time.

Emily and I at the gift table. The cute diaper cake again.

A closer picture of the diaper cake. Notice the animals are two-by-two pairs.

Noah's cake. Isn't that cute??? More two-by-two animal pairs.

Our little family of four. :)

Today's Doctor Visit

Today's doctor visit went fairly well. My blood pressure was pretty high when I first got there. I think it was something like 150/98, but it went down to 120/68 on recheck later. I do have to do another 24-hour urine check though. Boo! :(

I also had my routine Group B Strep test today. The doctor also checked my cervix. I was not dilated at all, but I was almost 100% effaced (this means my cervix has thinned out.) Baby's head is very low, but I could have told her that. Ha!

All this is good and the doctor thinks I will probably not go into labor before August 6th. Of course, all that is up to Noah but things are looking good for an August 6th delivery.

My next appointment is scheduled for next week so we'll see if she still thinks that.

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Nursery Preview And More Updates

Today I am 35 weeks pregnant. Noah will be here in a little over 3 weeks (or less!)

We have been working on Noah's room for several weeks and I just love how it is turning out.

I wanted to share a few pictures of the progress we have made.

But, this internet connection is very slow and it takes a long time to upload pictures to the blog. So in the meantime, I may as well share some of the other things that have been going on.

• On 4th of July weekend, Mike's family threw a baby shower for us. It was a combined Independence Day celebration and baby shower. Emily was SO excited, but it was mostly because she wanted to go swimming. Unfortunately, it rained that day. But the party went on. I have pictures and more details to share in a day or two.




• Last week, Emily had her 5-year-old checkup at the doctor's office. She was 41 lbs and 44 inches tall. She was in the 75th percentile in height (wow) and the 50th percentile in weight. She got two "pinches in the arm" and did not even cry. She was so brave!




• That same day, we had an ultrasound appointment for Noah. After waiting over an hour in the waiting room, we finally got called back for our ultrasound. (I was SO hungry.) Noah looked good. He was measuring on track for 34 weeks and he was estimated to be 5lbs, 5ozs at the time. We did not get any really clear 3D ultrasound pics, but that is okay. We will see him live and in person very soon.




• This weekend, my mom came up to visit for a few days. She brought Emily's birthday present - a trampoline!! Emily loves it and we have been out to jump on it every night. Well, Emily has jumped on it. It's "No Adults Allowed" although I would love to jump too. We have been very fortunate to have some less hot evenings the last few nights. Otherwise, it would be difficult for me to sit out there and watch her. Mom and Mike put the trampoline together and put the anchors in the ground. They did some small projects in Noah's room too this weekend.





• I have a doctor's appointment with my ob/gyn in the morning. We'll start going to the doctor every week from here on out. I'm hoping for a good report and no blood draws needed. Ha!

So here are a few pictures of Noah's room. This is still a work in process, but I am so excited to share it with you.

Noah's ark themed crib bedding

A closer shot of the "mural" on the wall behind the crib.

Two-by-two animal pairs on the wall above the twin bed.

Closer shot of some of the animals.

And the elephants on the other wall. These are the ones I can see through the doorway from another room and I just love that.

The diaper cake from the baby shower the other week. It is just a-dor-a-ble!!!! It could not be more perfect.
Daddy and baby giraffes. Emily fixed these up and put the red white and blue lei on them.

Noah's ark clock, Noah's ark lamp, and diaper stacker. Yes, even a half-packed diaper bag hanging on the door knob. Mike is worried that we may need it. He would be happy if I would just start packing my own bag as well.

I am missing a picture of the window treatments and the shelves. The shelves are mostly empty for now, but they will fill up over time.

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What is this?

First off ... a couple cute pictures of Emily playing outside tonight.

And now's your chance to click away because some gross pictures are coming up next. So click away .. click away now.

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Still with me?

Okay, with permission, I'm posting these pictures of Mike's arms and legs.

He's gotten into something and looks like an awful mess.

So what is it?

It's a bad case of poison ivy!

He has just had an awful time with it. He's been to the doctor and got a shot. He's used all different kinds of prescription and non-prescription creams and salves. He's tried oatmeal baths (they work pretty well.) And he's still suffering.

He thinks he got into the poison ivy when we were down at my parents house a week and a half ago - probably somewhere down around the pond. And since then, he's just been spreading it around all over the place!

It's awful to look at and I'm sure it's more awful to experience the itching and pain.

Hope you get to feeling better soon!

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Baby Day

I know the title is "Baby Day", but I forgot to mention one thing about Father's Day.

The other week, Emily and I picked out a Father's Day card for her Daddy. It was sooo cute. It had a caterpillar on it and an alphabetical list of all the wonderful attributes that her dad brings to our lives. And on Sunday morning, Mike was reading the card out loud to us ... all these wonderful things ... and "Happy Birthday, Dad!"

D'Oh! What was that? What did that card say? Oh yeah, it totally said HAPPY BIRTHDAY. Good job, Mom. Total fail on the card. But Mike was very sweet about it. He said it's the thought that counts.

And moving on ...

So the reason this post is called "Baby Day" is because Noah's birthday has been tentatively set. My cesarean section is tentatively scheduled for Friday, August 6, 2010. Sounds like a good day to me! It's only about 6 weeks away, which makes me a little nervous but I think it will be good.

When Mike got home tonight, I told him that August 6th was Noah's tentative birth date. He thought that sounded like one of his relative's birth dates so after supper he went to his family tree stuff and looked it up. He found out that it was not the person he thought, BUT there was someone who was born on August 6th. On August 6, 1910, Mike's grandpa's brother was born. And his name was Noah Smith! Isn't that wild?? 100 years later, there may be another Noah Smith born in the family line. Very cool, if you ask me.

Like I said, this date is tentative. I have been having slight blood pressure issues with this pregnancy just like I had when I was pregnant with Emily. When I went to the doctor last week, my blood pressure was elevated and I had to lay on my left side for a while and then have my blood pressure rechecked. When the nurse checked it again, my blood pressure was fine.

Minor grossness ahead so skip this paragraph if you're so inclined ... the doctor had me do a 24-hour urine capture to check for protein in the urine that might indicate the beginnings of preeclampsia. This is more of a baseline reading so that we can measure changes against this one if we have to do this again in the last few weeks of my pregnancy.

My doctor always stays on top of things with my pregnancies so I feel very comfortable with her watching me these final weeks. I know she will not hesitate to do what she needs to do to keep me and baby safe.

Another funny thing that happened ... this morning before work, I had to take my "sample" to the doctor's office and get some blood drawn to go along to the lab with it. So the lab tech at my doctor's office is always the one to draw the blood samples. She knows me by name and the difficulties with my veins (and always sorta cringes when I walk in). Sometimes she gets blood on the first stick. Other times it takes her SEVERAL tries. This morning, in fact, it took her three tries (including one in my hand) to get a tube of blood.

So this morning, the lab tech lady was telling me that she was going to be out of office on medical leave for a couple weeks starting this Friday. And she was concerned about the girl who was going to be taking her place because "sometimes she can be rough". And she doesn't like to turn over her "difficult patients" (Who? me?) to this person because she doesn't always have the patience to do a good job.

And I was thinking that this person just took THREE sticks to get a tiny tube of blood and she's worried about someone else being "rough"? I'm pretty sure I would much rather have someone who's a little rough who can get it on one stick than someone who's gentle and takes three or more stabs! I don't know, I just thought it was funny that she said that to me this morning.

So anyway, mark your calendars and put a big question mark beside it. At least we know that Noah will be here on that date or before. Six more week or less until we meet our sweet boy. Wow, I'm overwhelmed!

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Father's Day 2010

Today we celebrated Father's Day. We let Mike open one of his presents last night and the other four this morning.

The present last night was a two-person camping chair. The four presents this morning were three dress shirts and a new belt. I think he liked all his gifts.

After church this morning, I tried to get a picture of Emily and her Dad, but she was not cooperative. All of them looked like the one below with her hands in front of her face.



But before church ... she wanted me to take a picture of her and her doll, Stephanie, because they had on matching dresses. And she smiled just fine for those pictures.



She wore the navy sailor dress because her daddy was in the Navy. She looked too cute in it for sure.

For lunch, we went over to Mike's parents house to celebrate Father's Day with his dad. His mom and our sister-in-law cooked steaks, Hawaiian chicken, and all the fixins. It was a delicious meal, but we were all so stuffed.

This week is vacation bible school at church. They are doing a cowboy theme this year. I know Emily will enjoy that.

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Quiet

It's too quiet at my house.

Emily is spending the week with Grandmother and Granddaddy on the farm. Her cousins Tyler and Carter are there too and I am sure they are having a wonderful time.

But it's still too quiet at my house.

Mike and I have just been hanging out. We have a lot of things that we want to accomplish this week and we have gotten started. But this is a perfect time to relax and try to enjoy the quiet.

We don't get opportunities like this very often so we want to make the most of it. Except that doing nothing makes me kinda sleepy. And it makes me kinda want to go to bed early.

Maybe later this week we'll go out and do something fun one night.

In the meantime, I hope Emily is having an awesome time during Cousins Week 2010!

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More Busy Days

On Sunday, we celebrated Emily's 5th birthday at a local Mexican restaurant. She picked the restaurant.


And we invited all her faves ... like Aunt Heather and Uncle Stephen.

And Grandmother and Aunt Heather.

And lots of people!!!

And the proud parents.

Emily had fun opening her presents. She got a gumball machine!!!!! And she loves it. But we had to put it up out of reach because the day before she ate a BUNCH of gumballs all day long.

She received lots of wonderful gifts and was so excited to open each one to see what was inside. I don't think there was anything she didn't like.

And then ... we got to eat the cake that she picked out. The design featured Mario and Luigi. I think it turned out really cute. And, of course, it was so so yummy.

After lunch, we headed back out to the house to put on the first coat of paint in Noah's room. His room is sort of a bright sea blue color. I'll have to take some pictures in there sometime soon.

Mike and his Dad and his brother worked out in the yard Sunday afternoon cutting down some bushes, trimming some trees, weedeating and cleaning out around the shed and well house. Stephen trimmed some trees around the driveway.

The girls worked in the house finding other things to sort and organize and box up all around my house. I think no room was untouched! I tried to keep my master bedroom and closet closed off so that nobody would see the scariness there, but even that was not kept hidden.

They did a lot of work in Emily's room, too. We took a lot of stuff out of there and put it in the shed and her room looks great now. Stephen installed a "pet net" in Emily's room to store all her stuffed animals. At first, Emily was SO upset at the thought of her pets being up and out of reach, but Grandmother finally convinced her that it was best for them and for her.

Our sister-in-law Cherry brought us pizza for supper and we were sooooo grateful. It was the perfect thing and helped us out a lot. Thank you, Cherry!

The paint in the nursery had to dry four hours between coats so we were able to apply a second coat on Sunday night before we went to bed.

Then we decided that it might rain and we needed to move some things that were outside to the shed for the night. It was mostly stuff that my mom was going to take back to her house. So everyone loaded up the stuff and hauled it to the shed. And good thing they did because it rained almost 3 inches on Sunday night. The yard was a bit flooded the next morning. What a mess! A few of the cars got stuck in our yard. But Gary brought his truck out and the guys eventually got them all unstuck.

Monday

Monday morning, bright and early, Mike's mom brought us out some breakfast. Then we all got to work. We pulled off the tape in the nursery and Mike's mom did the touch up painting. Then everyone pitched in to move the furniture back into place in Noah's room. We moved a twin bed into his room and got the crib put back up. I think everything looks wonderful in there. I'm very pleased with how it looks so far.

All our out of town guests needed to be on the road by around 2pm so we were trying to get a lot of last minute things done. We had a few more boxes that needed to be moved to the shed. A few things were left to be done in Emily's room, and I still had lots more things to sort and separate.

We are so grateful for everyone who came out to help us on this long weekend. We could not have done it without all of you. We love you all very much.

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A Long, Productive Weekend

We have had a very busy several days. We are so blessed to have a wonderful family who helps us. We are so thankful for everyone who pitched in this weekend.

Friday

On Friday, the shed company came out to build our shed. It took them about 5 hours, but it looked great when they were done. One of the guys told me that he normally works in the factory, but someone called in sick and so they asked him to go with the building crew. I'm just glad they were able to come out when I needed them.

Mike's dad came out while the builders were there and worked outside in our yard most of the day. He did a lot of weedeating and cleaning up out in the yard. Emily wanted him to play with her instead of working. She even fixed some blankets on the floor by her bed so that Pops could take a nap with her if he got tired.

Friday night, we went to the home improvement store to get shelves for Noah's closet and some shelves for the new shed.

Saturday

On Saturday afternoon, my Mom, Heather and Stephen came into town to help us move things into the shed and fix up the baby room. Mike's mom and dad came out to help too. We put together the shelves for the shed and quickly realized that we were going to need many more shelves than what we purchased. Mike's parents went to two different home improvement stores to get all the shelving that we needed.

While they were gone, we started packing and organizing boxes that we could move out to the new shed. As soon as they got back, we put up all the shelves. I think we had a total of 9 sets of shelves. That was a lot of work!

Later that night, Stephen and Mike installed some shelves and wire baskets in Noah's closet. It was complicated to figure out how the shelves went together, but I think they turned out great. Perfect for a little boy's room.

After the shelves were up, we put all the things we had purchased for Noah into his closet. We also moved a lot of the baby things from Emily's room to Noah's closet. Then we cleared the rest of the boxes out of the baby nursery and moved the furniture to get the room ready to paint.

Sunday

Sunday and Monday were more busy days. But those details will have to wait until another day. Now it's time for bed.

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28 Week Ultrasound

This afternoon was our 28 week ultrasound with the maternal fetal specialist. Mike and Emily came up to go with me to the doctor. We had to wait a long time, but we finally got called back to the ultrasound room.

The technician checked out Noah with the ultrasound for a long time. She showed us the four chambers of the heart, the long bones in the legs, different parts of the brain, the belly, the kidneys etc. When we first started, he was head down with his feet up in my ribs. The he later moved so that he was laying across me.

We got to see some cute cheeks. He had his hands by his face most of the time, but we did get to check out his face a few times. We saw some adorable little hands and feet. Some of them were 3D/4D images, but some of the pictures didn't turn out too great. He was still cute though!

Noah was measuring perfectly for 28 weeks and the technician said he was about 2lbs, 9 oz. Just perfect!

After the technician was done with her scan, the doctor (eventually) came in to take a look. He said Noah looked great and he didn't see anything concerning. I asked him if we needed to do anything differently and he said to keep doing what we're doing. He said we're doing great, but he wants to see us back in about 6 weeks for another check.

We're so grateful for the good news and the good ultrasound. Can't wait for this baby boy to get here!

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As American As Apple Pie

This afternoon while Mike was mowing the yard, he noticed that one of our trees had tiny apples on it. We have lived here 8 years and I don't remember seeing any fruit on this tree ever!

We think they might be Granny Smith apples, but we don't know for sure.

We do expect them to get bigger at some point.

Emily sure liked them!

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Will it? Wont it?

Will my new storage shed make it in time? For some reason, this is very hard to figure out. The shed company didn't call me back last night like they said they would. I called this afternoon, but had to leave a message.

When the guy called me back, he said he was "trying really hard" to get me scheduled for next Friday, but they still don't know for sure. He said one of their workers fell off a ladder and hurt himself today.

Apparently, he fell down on some boards on the ground chest first. He has no broken bones, but is in a lot of pain. And they hope to have him back at work by Wednesday or Thursday next week, but they don't know for sure. So in the meantime, we sit and wait and pray. The guy said he should know something by Monday or Tuesday and he will call me as soon as he finds out. Uh huh, I think that's what he told me last time.

I guess they already got my money and so they feel no real need to accommodate me at this point. I am sure they don't need my business as much as I need my storage shed. That's typical of companies these days, isn't it?

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Good, Better, Best

Today was Emily's last day of school for this year. Her last day of Pre-K ever. She got her report card today and it was GOOD. She passed every skill, of course.

In her Pre-K class, they have a color chart that they use to track behavior. Green is GOOD. Blue is a warning. Yellow is worse than that. And Red is a trip to the principal's office. Emily, proudly, has stayed on GREEN every day this whole year. And that is GOOD!

This is what Emily looked like this morning on the way to school.

Do you remember what she looked like on her first day of Pre-K? Check it out here.




Isn't she just growing up right in front of our eyes?

Today while I was at home, I called my doctor's office to see if they had the results from my glucose tolerance test that I took last week. The nurse called me back later and said that the results were normal. I told you that's what it would be, but I feel BETTER now that I know for sure.

I also worked on cleaning and organizing in Emily's room today. I had a lot of baby things stored in her closet and I was trying to get everything sorted out so that I can move some of it to Noah's room soon. I don't know about you, but I clean and organize with a large trash bag in hand.

Anything that has seen better days goes into the trash bag. It's much easier to clean this way when Emily is not around though. And the bag has to be gone by the time she comes back!

When Emily got home from school, I put her to work putting away her things in her room. She is a good helper if I give her specific directions. "Gather up all the shoes and put them on the shelf." "Find all the baby doll clothes and put them in this suitcase." "How many books can you find? Put them on your desk."

When Dad got home, we went to eat at Ted's to celebrate the last day of school. It was good Mexican food tonight, but Emily was more interested in checking out the other diners than eating her dinner. Lately, she has become an expert people watcher. I have to remind her often to keep her eyes over at our table.

Tomorrow, Emily and I are going to spend the day together. And I think that's the BEST news of all. We don't have any specific plans, but we are going to try to find something fun to do. We might go shopping. We might go play at the park. We'll definitely try to get some things done at home. But I know we will have a great time.

More

I made some phone calls yesterday and was finally able to talk to a guy about our shed. He wanted to schedule us for Tuesday, June 1, but I said I really needed it earlier than that - before Memorial Day. He said their schedule was booked until then, but there was this one customer who had inquired about delaying their installation date because their building site was not ready. And IF they change their install date, then we can get our building installed on Friday, May 28. He called it an "outside chance" that we could get installed on that date, but I explained that we were expecting a baby soon and we NEEDED to get this building in before Memorial Day. So we are praying that we'll be able to get the date that we need and everything will work out. At this point, I just have to turn it over to God and let him work out all the details.

And A Funny

This morning when Emily and I were on our way to school, Emily and I were chattering about different things. She said that "Daddy works on suitcases." I said he doesn't work on suitcases. And she said "Yes he does. He works on a lot of suitcases at work." I tried to explain that they're not suitcases, but they are computer files that are called cases and that Daddy helps people. I am just wondering how many people she has told that her Daddy works on suitcases.

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Tasty Tidbits

• Emily's last day of school is this week. Her class is having theme days every day this week. Tomorrow is sports day. She gets to wear her new OU t-shirt. It's pink.

• I've been packing Emily's lunch for the last few weeks. I've just been putting "stuff" in it - peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, rolled up slices of ham, string cheese, yogurt, chips, cookie. Just whatever I have on hand. She's LOVING this because she had been eating lunch in the cafeteria for months. The main reason I'm packing the lunch now is that the school will no longer allow her to charge her lunch because the school year is nearing an end. And I don't exactly know how much a lunch costs each day. Lame, I know.

• We went to our local home improvement store this weekend and ordered a storage building for our yard. So far, they have not called to schedule delivery. And, you know me, if they don't start doing right by me, then I'll have to start naming names on my blog. And you know they don't want that!

• On Sunday night, a bad hail storm came through our town. Many people have horror stories of hail stones going all the way through shingles and the roof deck and right into their living room. Many windows were busted out on both homes and cars.

• Did you know that the largest recorded hail stone was something like 7.5 inches in diameter? Mike told me this. He knows all about it.

• We're expecting more bad weather tomorrow. I know this because Mike keeps telling me that "Wednesday looks interesting". When he says this, I hear "Wednesday looks dangerous."

• This is a three-day work week for me. I'm taking a few days off to celebrate Emily's last day of school and her first day of summer vacation! I want to spend as much time with her as I can now before we become a family of four!

• I saw on the news that Sonic now has "real" ice cream. (Not sure why this was news.) So today at lunch, I went to Sonic to check out this new feature. And while I believe them that it's "real" ice cream (why do they need the quotation marks if it's really real?), I didn't think the ice cream had much taste. Am I the only one who feels this way?

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27 Weeks

I'll be 27 weeks pregnant on Monday. I thought I would go ahead and post a picture from today. 'Scuse my bad hair day. It's been rainy and I took a nap!

I had my glucose tolerance test this morning and it was no fun at all. They draw your blood for a baseline reading and then you drink a nice big bottle of super sweet orange drink (must finish it within 5 minutes.) I was drinking this and the technician told me not to get sick or they would make me come back and do it again another day.

Then after you drink the stuff, they draw your blood every hour for three hours to check how your body processes the sugar. In case you were counting, that's a total of four blood draws. Well, they got their four blood draws from me, but they ended up sticking me a total of 8 times! That's a miss every other time. It was awful. They poked both arms and both hands.

Noah is very active these days. He flips and kicks and hiccups a lot during the day ... and night. Sometimes you can see my belly moving when he kicks. That's very cool to see. He is about 14 inches long and 2 lbs.

My current craving is Reese's Pieces. I'd rather have these than ice cream. I'd rather have these than just about any kind of food. Too bad that won't fly. Peanut butter in a crunchy candy shell. What's not to LOVE?

I'm looking forward to going to the doctor for another ultrasound in about 2 weeks. It's always so fun to see how much baby Noah has grown and what he's doing in there.

I was talking to Mike the other day and told him that I was going to be 27 weeks on Monday. Emily was born at 37 weeks so we Noah could be here in as little as 10 weeks. Yikes! That makes me think I need to get busy.

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Glucose Tolerance Test

My glucose tolerance test is in the morning. I just want to take back what I said earlier this week about knowing that I'll pass the test this time. It's sorta like when you say that your kids sleep through the night ... or when you say that you or your kids never get sick. As soon as you say that, you know whatever you said WILL happen. So I take back what I said about the glucose tolerance test. Just because I don't want to press my luck.

So tonight as I prepare for the test, I'll be eating nothing after midnight. And I'll dutifully show up at the doctor's office early in the morning to start my test. Oh, and someone told me that it's not three blood draws. It's actually four. OUCH! I was thinking I might take pictures of all my "wounds" and post them on the blog, but I think Heather might not like that. Sorta like the alien baby pictures.

I told Mike that I might need some TLC tomorrow when I get done with my test. Mike went to the doctor's office with me when I had to do the three-hour test when I was pregnant with Emily, but he's not going to be able to go this time.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the difference between the one-hour glucose screening test and the three-hour glucose tolerance test. I keep getting asked about this A LOT. The point of glucose testing in pregnancy is to look for gestational diabetes (aka diabetes during pregnancy.)

Like any screening test, the one-hour glucose screening will not give you a diagnosis. It's purpose is to identify which women need a closer look at their glucose levels. I think about 80% of women will pass the one-hour glucose screening.

The women who do NOT pass the one-hour glucose screening will have to take the three-hour glucose tolerance test and this will tell her doctor if she has gestational diabetes. Of the people who have to take the three-hour test, only about 30% of them will end up actually having gestational diabetes. So statistics (and history) are on my side.

I'll have to take a good book with me or something because three hours is a long time to sit in a waiting room. Especially when you're hungry. And especially when you're hungry and pregnant. And especially when you're hungry and pregnant and had to drink a bunch of nasty orange liquid (which gives me wicked heartburn) and have to get your arm jabbed repeatedly.

Okay all this talk about the test tomorrow is making me grumpy so I better go to bed.

Goodnight all!

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Spring Storms

As you know, we live in Oklahoma. Oklahoma is known for being in "tornado alley". On Monday evening, we had some damaging storms in the area. A tornado came through about a mile and a half from our house. There's a lot of major damage just down the street. As of today (Wednesday), there is only one north-south road that is open out near our house and it has power poles and power lines leaning over the roadway. Some of the cross streets are closed or blocked off.

And the sad thing is that we're having more bad weather in the state tonight. I think we're supposed to get storms every day from now until Monday or Tuesday next week.

We lost power on Monday night and finally got it back on Tuesday night. We stayed at home in the dark on Monday night, but we were getting ready to go stay with family on Tuesday. As we were packing our bags, the electricity came back on. I was soooooooo glad!

There are lots of people that had it much, much worse than we did. Many people are in need of our prayers during this time. I can't drive through the damage area without getting emotional. (I mean, I am plenty emotional right now without seeing all that.) But, it just breaks my heart to think of all those people who worked so hard for what they had and now it's all destroyed. Just seeing them out in the yards putting tarps over their roof or boarding up part of their house that was damaged, I can't imagine what they are thinking or feeling.

So all that to say ... please pray for these families who have lost their home or who have damage to their home.

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