Fondue Party

Have you ever noticed that when you do something one year your kids can dub it a "tradition" by the next year. That's what happened last night. As I was tucking the kids in bed each one whispered in my ear about how excited they were about Valentines Day tomorrow and that they couldn't wait to see what the big surprise from Dad and I would be.

Hmmmm..... Surprise..... For tomorrow.... Right.

In years past it has been heart attacking their rooms, sending flowers or balloons to school, or filling their bedrooms with 100's of pink and red balloons. But this year I thought I would just take a break. Honestly I didn't have anything planned and I didn't really think they would notice. Boy was I wrong.

So after everyone was in bed, and now knowing their expectations, I got to work. I made each one of them an invitation to a Valentines fondue party to be held when they arrived home from school. Then while they were at school I was able to set this up for a little Valentines Day Surprise.

They had a lot of fun and it seems like I passed for this year anyway...Until next year :)

Crushes

Alaina came home from school today and I asked how her Valentines Day was?

She said," it was okay."

I asked, "why just okay?"

She said, "well Kendra was sitting next to the boy I kind of have a crush on today in one of her classes and she heard him say that he has a crush on a different girl, so I was sad. But then I got to thinking there's a long time between now and when I'm 16 (the age she can date) and things can always change between now and then."

My only thought was hunny... things can change by 6th period :)

My little Gummy Bear

The one good thing about having a high risk pregnancy is that you get to have weekly ultrasounds. With all of the miscarriages I've had in the past, getting to see the baby each week really helps settle my mind and nerves. I can see that our baby is progressing, growing, developing and has a super strong heart beat. These "good ultrasounds" have been an awesome reward for having to endure so many bad ones over the last 3 years.

Here's a pic from today's ultrasound.

This could probably be my most favorite ultrasound picture of all time :)

9 weeks and growing!!!!!!!!!

Week #4:Looks like I'll be keeping my "Muffin Top" after all

This is the long version... (scroll to the very bottom for the short story)

So this week hasn't been going well. I have been sick most of the week and had a really hard time working out without feeling like I was going to faint or throw-up. This morning when I weighed in I had actually gained 1.4 lbs. Ugh. After the weigh in I didn't stay to work out with the ladies I just came home and went back to bed while Hudson was at preschool.

While I lay in bed the thought came to me... Maybe I put on weight this week because it's about time to start my period... when was my last period anyway... Wait a minute, am I late? I knew it couldn't possibly mean I was pregnant because after my 3rd miscarriage in October I decided to take a break from baby making. I stopped seeing doctors, went off all medications for infertility, no more IUI's, no more tracking periods, and no more timed intercourse. I just wanted to enjoy the holidays with my family and not be working my way through another disappointing loss. So absolutely NO way I could be pregnant.

But... I did have an extra pregnancy test in the bathroom cupboard and it wouldn't hurt to take one just to be sure. I definitely wouldn't be telling anyone that the thought actually crossed my mind and that I secretly had my hopes up. I would just take the test really quick, see that it was negative, and throw it away. No harm done.

Weird thing was... after peeing on the stick... it had a big + sign on it. SAY WHAT?????

I seriously couldn't believe my eyes. How could this just happen on it's own? I definitely had mixed emotions. I was surprised that this could even happen with no outside help, I mean, we had been making babies the "romantic way" in a doctors office for so long, did we actually just do this the old fashioned way? I also felt nervous and NOT excited and found myself saying in my head, "don't get your hopes up, this may not even work." Such a weird spot to be in.

I had a positive pregnancy test though and I needed to move forward to see what the outcome would be. I called my doctor right away and his response was to do bloodwork every other day for a few weeks to see if this would even be a viable pregnancy. It was pretty much like hearing lets see if we have a real live baby to work with, then I'll take time out to see you. That feels pretty bad to hear... No... Congratulations! No... here's your due date, let me schedule an appointment for you to come in. Don't get me wrong I actually really love my doctor and the office I have been going to for the last 13 years but I want help now. I want someone to keep this baby alive not to wait and see if it will stay alive. I need help!

I started thinking...

In December I felt prompted to go to a new doctor for another medical condition that was going on. Although this doctor was not an OBGYN we were randomly talking about some of the pregnancies I wasn't able to keep and she urgently encourage me to go see a different doctor, someone she knows, who specializes in this sort of thing. I was hesitant to go then because I really did love my doctor and had be going there so long but at the same time, today, right now, at this moment I am feeling prompted and maybe a little desperate to take her advice. So I got his number and made the call, he was able to get me in immediately and is very confident that he can get me a real live baby!

I've had bloodwork done and my progesterone is too low to hold this pregnancy so he wants to do progesterone shots for at least 12 weeks. Until my body starts producing it and takes over. That will mean coming to his office every other day to get a shot in my rear end. Yay! (Totally worth it though) He will also be doing weekly ultrasounds and bloodwork and has asked me to take a baby aspirin everyday for the first 3 months to help prevent blood clots from stopping the flow of blood to the baby and placenta. So he's doing something.

Right now I'm 7 weeks pregnant!

I am still nervous about the outcome of this pregnancy but I also feel very peaceful about it. I have always felt that there were more children that needed to come to our family. After the last few years I wondered how I was ever going to get them here. But now I really feel Heavenly Fathers hand in every part of this pregnancy. I feel blessed. I feel loved. I feel like I'm part of a miracle. I feel inspired. I feel watched out for and taken care of. I feel like this is right and will actually happen.

Little Miss Smarty Pants

Hailey has been struggling a little with her reading this year so we went to have her eyes checked. It turns out she has pretty good vision but her head injury from a few years back may have done a little damage to her tracking abilities. Which means her eyes aren't working and tracking well together when she is reading. So while she is trying to read a sentence her eyes will skip around to other parts of the page instead of working together on the same sentence. So the game plan is... vision therapy and glasses for a while. She is actually super excited to wear glasses and can't wait to show them off at school tomorrow!

This year's creation

Ky searched online for different pinewood derby car ideas and this is what he came up with.

A Wii Remote!

Ky and Dan have spent weeks recreating this wooden Wii Remote to race in the pinewood derby tonight.

Not to shabby, huh?

"Put a stop to the muffin top" Week #3

Everyone is doing really good with their weight loss so far. It's fun to have a support system like this while trying to shed some pounds. This week I lost 4.4 lbs. I am in 3rd place, this week, for % of weight lost. Yahoo! So far, as a group, we have lost 58.10 pounds. Can you believe it? Keep it up ladies!

"Put a stop to the muffin top" Week #2

My first weigh in went well, I worked out everyday this week and lost 5.7 lbs. Jenne and Kathy made all of us these cute matching t-shirts. Aren't they sweet?

Looks who’s 4!

Hudson has been planning his 4th Birthday for months now. Here’s what he has come up with… “A trip to the Gas Station”. Yup, that’s all folks. That is what he wants to do for his birthday. He wants to take his money and go buy some candy and a drink at the gas station. He has been so excited and will not stop talking about the birthday party he will be having at the gas station.

So, being the awesome parents we are, and finding ourselves looking to save some money a couple weeks after Christmas, we were on board with Hudson’s plans. On Hudson’s birthday we would take the kids and a cake to the gas station out on Leslie Rd. (because it has tables and chairs to sit at). Hudson would spend his money on a couple of candies and a drink, we would sing happy birthday, eat cake and voila… A 4 year old's dream come true.

A couple of days ago Hudson excitedly told the big kids in the family where we were going for his birthday. They evidently weren’t as keen on that idea as Hudson was because after hearing about it, they spent hours talking to him and finally convinced him that the gas station was totally a bad idea and he should pick Chuck E Cheese.

Darn it! They were persuasive enough to change his mind. But rather than totally bagging the gas station idea……we compromised and did a quick stop at the gas station on our way to Chuck E Cheeses. It turned out fun. For both him, and the other kids.

"Put a Stop to the Muffin Top" Week #1

I'm teaming up with a great group of ladies to "Put a stop to the muffin top." I think there's about 12 of us who weighed in this morning for our first week of competition. Should be fun! Wish me luck.

New Years Day Dodgeball Party!

Super fun Night! Thanks to all who came and thanks for the awesome idea Libbie :)

Ugly Sweater Party

After a quick trip to Value Village we took our family over to the Madder's house for a little "Ugly Sweater Party" and to ring in the New Year with a ton of fun friends.

The adults hung out, visited, and played Oink...Piggy....Oink. Which was VERY entertaining :)

The kids had a blast playing with friends.

Thanks for the invite guys. Happy New Year!

Kase’s 7th B-day

So it’s 2 days after Christmas, but the partying isn’t over just yet! Today Kase turns 7 and for his big day he chose to take the whole family to Leavenworth for a day of sledding!

The funnest part of tubing in Leavenworth is the easy ride to the top. No hiking, hauling, or climbing your way to the top of the mountain.

Here’s what it looked like from my perspective on the way down the mountain.

Here’s everyone else screaming down the hill.

After sledding we finished up with presents and lunch at Red Robin

Happy Birthday Kase!

Christmas Day!

Christmas morning with the kids was a blast! It always is. Watching kids enjoy gift exchanges has to be one of the worlds best experiences. Especially when the kids are enjoying and appreciating what has been given and received.

This is one of Hudson’s gifts, but ended up being a huge hit with all of the kids. The video below explains it all. Can you imagine having a ball you could stand up in and roll around it. LIFE SIZE!! How cool.

After our own family festivities were done we spent the rest of the afternoon with the Roses.

Stockings have always been a really big thing in my family, probably everyone’s favorite part of Christmas. Last year we each received our “final stocking” from our childhood Santa. It was super fun to receive that last year…..BUT…..it is a little sad knowing that that tradition is over :(

This year Leslie wanted to put a stocking together for my parents, so we all contributed towards one huge stocking for the both of them. It was a fun surprise for them.

After presents and dinner the rest of the day was spent playing with cousins. Can life get any better for a kid. What a killer day!

The Kelly’s brought marshmellow guns for all of the kids to decorate and have a little marshmellow war.

And with that…..Christmas was over. Merry Christmas everyone. Already looking forward to next years!

Santa in our living room.

So the kids set up a video camera in the living room tonight before they went to bed, trying to catch Santa. And guess what… They actually did! Here’s the video for proof. The first half of the video is just a silent dark living room but about 20 minutes after midnight Santa finally appears. I’ve only attached the last couple minutes with Santa. (Sorry about the ugly half lit Christmas Tree. Our fuse just went out a couple of nights ago. I was hoping Santa would take care of it while he was here. He must have been too busy tonight)

BUSTED!!! So the kids totally got caught. Santa wrote them a letter saying not to try that again or they may find themselves on the naughty list but he was letting it slide for this year. I don’t think the older kids are to worried though because I’ve already heard them talking about putting some kind of video camera on the roof to capture Santa’s sleigh and flying reindeer next year. :)

Christmas Eve

After brunch I grabbed the family and we headed over to the Ostler's for a little Christmas Eve fun!

Then it was home for a little family time before bed and the opening of their new Christmas P.J.'s.

Granddaughter Brunch

This morning was Christmas Eve brunch with Grandma Rose. I love this tradition and look forward to it every year. This year I wanted to put together something special for grandma as a Christmas gift instead of my normal store bought gift.

Whenever we come over to grandma’s house she asks us girl’s to sing something or sit down and play the piano for her. We never have anything practiced or prepared so we try our best to plunk away at a song but this year I thought it would be a fun surprise if we put on a little concert for her. So I contacted all of my cousins and sisters to see if they were in, and then sent out sheet music for everyone to start practicing. We all got together last night to have a final run through and it sounded great. After practicing we even were able to sneak away for a late dinner together, which was a ton of fun. (Especially the guy who was licking the restaurant window right outside of our booth ;) Good times!

After breakfast was over and cleaned up we sat Grandma down for her big surprise. We all sang her a song called “Baby in a Manger”, we did parts and everything, it sounded really pretty and made grandma cry. Then a duet was preformed, a couple of piano solos, and finally my grandma’s favorite and most requested Christmas song “Star of the East”.

I video taped us singing but I’m not sure how many of them wanted to be made famous on my blog today so I’m just putting my grandma’s reaction to our songs, which is my favorite part anyway.

We love you Grandma!

A visit from Rudolph

This little reindeer rang my doorbell tonight.

Kids say the darndest things

Every year the Ostler side of the family puts together a Nativity video to watch together on Christmas Eve. In years past we have had the kids dress up and act out the Story of Christ’s birth while grandpa Ostler narrates. This year we decided to do something a little different; use the kids as the Narrators and the adults as the actors. Kind of like the kid history videos you can find on youtube.

So first step was to interview all of the grandkids, ages 2-11, to see how much of the nativity story they knew. My brother in law, David is heading up this project and will be the mastermind behind cropping and snipping all of the kids interviews together to make one awesome story told by the grandkids. Dan and I interviewed all of our kids tonight so we could turn our videos into David to get started. They all did really good retelling the story and most of them said something funny that will be so cute to use in the video. But the award for “biggest ham” and “kids saying the darndest things” goes to our 3yr old, Hudson. Here are a few of my favorite lines that I hope will make it into the final edit. (I left Dan and I talking on the video just so you would know what questions he was responding to, but in the final video it will be just the kids talking.)

(My favorite 4mins out of 56mins of interviewing)

Can’t wait to see the final product on Christmas Eve. It should be AWESOME! Thanks for all your hard work David.

The perfect white elephant gift!!!

In searching for the perfect white elephant gift, Kayleb scouted out this stuffed squirrel at an antique shop his mom works in. Oh My Goodness!!! 100% authentic, full blown, stuffed squirrel. I couldn't resist. YES I bought it. Yes I paid too much for the budget on the gift exchange. But I truly couldn't resist. You should have seen the faces of the group when the gift was un wrapped. Truly funny. I hope to see this squirrel in the future at many more white elephant parties.