34 down, 6 to go

Your baby has bulked up like the average cantaloupe -- to about 4 3/4 pounds. (Length: almost 18 inches, head to heel.)

Somehow it feels like there's something WAY bigger than a cantaloupe in there. The boy is moving around so much - the girls will just be sitting next to me on the couch and they can feel him kicking without having to put a hand on my stomach or anything. Just sitting next to me is enough. He gets the hiccups ALL the time and they like to feel that too. I haven't measured myself this week, but I'm assuming I'm measuring at least 38 weeks. All the girls came at 38 weeks and I measured right on for them, so that means I'm now as big as I've ever been, with at least 4 more weeks to go. How big am I going to get???? I'm hoping this boy will follow the pattern of his sisters and comes a little early to put me out of my misery. My maternity pants are already getting tight on me and there's no way I'm going to buy more. When I bought them they were so loose I thought "These will totally last me the whole time". Yeah, not so sure about that now.

Just for kicks, here's a video I found on YouTube. It's a little boy baby, playing for 4 hours but sped up to last about 2 minutes. It's really cute. But I don't think any of my babies ever played that well for 4 hours.

Speed Scrap!!

I'm hosting another speed scrap over at ScrapMatters..... it's coming up this Wed night. I'd love to see you there! Here's the ad and the awesome participation prize that everyone who plays along will receive:



Hope to see you there!!

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

HOLY COW!!! I have been dying to get one of these for my girls (Elena and Mari in particular) and this awesome lady is giving one away for free!!! Go check it out!

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

findings

About 15 minutes ago (literally) I was on the phone with my sister when Maricela came up to talk to me. I noticed something funny in her nose (thought it was a weird booger) and told her to lift up her head. As soon as I realized what I was looking at, I told Kara I had to call her back and hung up the phone. I plugged Mari's other nostril and told her to blow. She sniffed. "No, BLOW" I shouted. She figured it out, blew really hard, and out shot a flower bead. She then opened her mouth to show me what she had in there - a pretty marble. I called Keith over to show him, and he said he thinks the bead has been in her nose since yesterday. He said she went to him and was talking about something in her nose and he checked it, but didn't see anything. We're wondering if it was up there even further and had somehow worked its way out enough for me to see it. Really, it was barely showing and I was afraid it wouldn't come out with just blowing and I'd have to break out the tweezers. We told her "Mari, don't EVER put things in your nose again". And she replied "That's what my friends do". Lately she's been telling us about her "friends", who usually do things we wouldn't want her to be doing. The other night, we had her in our bed because she was talking too much and keeping the other girls from going to sleep. Keith and I were in the living room watching tv, and could still hear her talking and giggling in our bed. Keith went to check on her and asked her who she was talking to. She said "my friends" and Keith said she was looking at something behind him and smiling. I don't know if we're dealing with imaginary friends (none of the other girls had any) or if it's just a phrase she heard and is using. Either way, these "friends" better straighten out their act before I straighten it out for them.

Here are the bead and marble, in case you were wondering. I think this will have to be the picture of the day for today.

33 down, 7 to go

Your baby is proportioned like a pineapple when it comes to weight -- a little over 4 pounds. (Length: more than 17 inches, head to heel.)

I had my regular checkup on Tue and when the doctor measured my belly, he said "You're right on....exactly 33 cm." I immediately questioned him - I've been measuring 4 weeks bigger for the last 13 weeks and all of a sudden I'm right on? He measured again and, sure enough, I was really 37 cm. He'd mistaken the baby's head for the top of my pelvic bone and that's why the measurement had come up a little short. :P At least we know he's head down and not breach! I have another appt in 2 weeks and he said we'll do another ultrasound at that one, so we can find out if this baby's going to be a porker. The good news was I hadn't gained any weight since my previous checkup....hopefully I've pretty much topped out.

In other news, I've now officially thrown up while pregnant. Last Tue, Maricela threw up a little in the morning, took a big, long nap, and then was fine. Then Téa threw up Wed night. And then Amya and I both threw up all night long Friday night. It was horrible. And we'd just been to our ward's Valentine dinner, where I had stuffed myself. I think I'll just let you picture it from there.....it was not pretty. Keith started feeling sick Mon night, but never threw up. Lucky him. But we're all over it now and hopefully that'll be the last of sickness in our house for awhile.

Scrap Matters Enabling

I just wanted to pop in and post all the fun stuff that's going on at ScrapMatters right now. For starters, I'm hosting my first challenge! It's called the Grand Theft Layout challenge and, basically, I pick someone from the gallery who I think has awesome pages and challenge everyone to pick a page from her gallery and scraplift it. (Scraplift is where you take a layout and then use it as inspiration to create a page of your own, whether you copy the layout, or use the same color scheme or photo placement, etc.) You can check out the challenge by going here. These are the two pages I made for it....

credits


credits

I also did this page for Sya's CT

credits

and this one for a speed scrap last week

credits

There's another speed scrap tonight that I'll be participating in (as long as no more of my girls get sick - Mari was throwing up on Tue and Téa was up all night last night)....

Finally, tomorrow will be a big day at Scrap Matters. All of the designers have gotten together to create new collaboration kits....they're calling them "twice as nice" kits and they'll all be released tomorrow. I've seen these kits and they are GORGEOUS!!! So check over in the SM shop tomorrow to check out the new goodies!


I think that's about it for now....I have a couple more pages I've done but can't post yet, as the kits haven't been released. So you'll have to wait for those. Also, I'm hosting a speed scrap later on this month, so I'll let you know more about that later. TTFN!

Why?

Why would she do this?

Maricela cut her own hair on Saturday night. Keith found her in the bathroom, with hair all over the place. He asked her who cut her hair and she said that she cut it herself. He didn't believe her and said something about her not knowing how to use scissors. To which she said, "Yes, Dad, look", picked up the scissors, carefully put her fingers through the holes, put them up to her head, and proceeded to cut off another chunk right in front of him. ARGH!!!!! I guess she thought it would make her look pretty, but she doesn't look like my little girl anymore! It is SO short - in places it feels like a buzzcut. In fact, it looks like we shaved the top of her head and it's now growing back in. Keith asked if this means we can shave her whole head and I said no. I don't know what to do! Should I cut the hair in back shorter so it matches a little?

My little girl has a mullet!!!! And here's a picture of her from today...this is what she did while I was in the shower. Such a booger!

I found a giveaway on a blog called Angela's Accessories that would be perfect for us....she's giving away this adorable hat:
All you have to do to enter the drawing is leave a comment on her blog. Mari totally needs this when we go out in public so people will still know she's a girl!

So far, Téa is the only one who hasn't' cut her own hair (or anyone else's, for that matter). Elena did cut Téa's hair for her, but I'm not counting that against Téa. And the haircuts get worse with each girl!! Maybe this will be something to look forward to with the boy....has anyone had their boys cut their own hair? Please tell me this is just a girl thing. (Of course, with a boy it probably wouldn't be as upsetting, seeing as how their hair is usually kept short anyway.)

32 down, 8 to go

Your baby is taking up more and more space in your uterus and weighs as much as a large jicama -- about 3 3/4 pounds. (Length: about 16 3/4 inches, head to heel.)

I can definitely attest to the "more and more space" part. This baby boy has got to be huge! I can not get comfortable at night, as my stomach is in the way no matter what my position. And he moves constantly....to the point where I want him to take a nap or something just to give me a little relief. He used to be shy about moving when Keith would have his hand on my stomach, but not anymore. Keith gets to feel him move all the time....in fact, the other night, baby boy moved so violently that it scared Keith! He's always been a little squeamish about how it seems like there's an alien in my stomach and when this little guy moved, he pushed out really hard and made my stomach pop out. It freaked Keith out a little bit and he said he was done for the night. If only I could say that too!

I finally got some baby boy clothes. Up until I got these, the only piece of clothing I had for this boy was a $3 onesie from WalMart that said "Daddy's Helper". Old Navy was having a sale on their website, so I picked up a few things. I was so excited to get them in the mail. And then when I got them, and realized that there really wasn't that much (about 10 items) and thought about how much I need, I got a little depressed. I am SO not ready for this little guy to be here! But then again, I am SO ready to get him out of me!

New pages

I just realized that it's been awhile since I've posted any scrapbook pages, so I thought I'd put them all on here in one big post. And now after going back, there haven't been very many posts since I showed you pages, but there have been quite a few days. I need to post more often!! Prepare yourselves......

Here's one of Téa doing some of her crazy bike stunts...

One of my neighbor's little boy (I'm preparing myself for boy pages ;p)

One of Elena on the day we realized she had 2 loose teeth!

One of my other neighbor's new little girl......

One of Maricela, crashed out on the couch after a day of playing with Jenny and Taylor.....

One of the Monsters, Inc. characters in a parade and a ride at Disney.....

One of me and Mari making funny faces together....

Credits for all of these can be found in my Scrap Matters gallery. I have been on a real scrapping kick lately - hopefully I won't lose my momentum and can keep this up!

the story of the ankle

I've had some requests to get the full ankle story, so here it is.....

Late Friday afternoon, I was trying to get some cleaning done in the girls' room. I had asked Elena to help and instead she climbed up to Amya's bunk and wouldn't come down. I kept asking her to come down and then threatening her, but she wouldn't budge. I think she thought she was safe, since I don't go up there. Finally, I'd had enough, and I hauled my big butt up there to make her come down. On my way back down, I had a little fall. I was standing on the very last rock with my right foot. I could either put my left foot on the shelf of the bottom bunk, or down on the ground. I thought I was low enough (and my legs were long enough) to bypass that bed shelf and go straight to the ground. So I let go of the rocks I was holding onto and "stepped" down. Unfortunately, I totally miscalculated the distance and crashed down hard on my left ankle/foot. I immediately fell backwards and poor Téa broke my fall. I was initially more concerned that I'd injured her, but once I realized she was fine, I started to feel my own pain. Keith quickly came and helped me up, but I couldn't put any weight at all on my ankle. So he carried me to the couch and I laid there for the rest of the night. I wanted to go to the doctor's, but he had his electrician friend over and they were working on wiring the clubhouse (more on that later) that Keith has been working on and he didn't want to lose their momentum.

I realized that I haven't posted any pictures (at least I don't think I have) of the monstrous bunk bed that Keith built for the girls this past October and if you haven't seen it, you may not understand what I'm talking about. So here are some pictures to help you out. This is the three tier bunk bed that the girls sleep in - Elena and Maricela on the bottom, Téa in the middle, and Amya on top. This thing goes from floor to ceiling and I can't fit the whole thing in the picture with my widest angle lens; it's that big. Our ceilings are about 12 feet high in the bedrooms....this thing is huge. You can just barely see the opening for Amya's bunk in the top middle of the picture. And then the bottom opening is the "shelf" that I'm talking about. Anyway, my right foot was on the rock that the arrow is pointing to.

And just for a little more perspective, here's Maricela next to the rock I was on. As you can see, it's really not that far off the ground, since she's barely 3 feet tall and it's shorter than she is.

So on Saturday my ankle was still hurting A LOT and we went to the doctor. He xrayed it and said it was broken. On the navicular bone (the one I've circled in the picture below) you could clearly see a piece of bone jutting out. It didn't look smooth like the one in the picture. He said that probably the tendon that is attached to that bone had been pulled too hard and pulled off some bone with it (which is almost exactly what happened when I broke my thumb skiing a few years ago). However, it was way too swollen to cast, so he made a splint for me to use until the swelling had gone down enough to cast it. I told him I already had an appt scheduled for the coming Tue (yesterday) and he said that should be long enough and to have my regular doctor cast it at that appt. And I guess technically it's not my ankle, it's my foot.

So we went to the doctor yesterday, and after he looked at my xrays, he said he didn't think I had broken it. He thought it looked like an old fracture, not a fresh one and didn't think it needed casting. (Which is strange, because I've never hurt my ankle/foot badly enough to not walk on it before.) So he said to just stay in the splint and stay off it as much as possible so it can heal. And that if it doesn't get better, they can xray it again and cast it if they need to. I can put a little pressure on it now, as opposed to none at all over the weekend, but I don't want it to heal wrong, you know? I'm a little confused, but we'll see how this goes.

Here's a picture of me with my splint and crutches.

I have found out that it is NOT easy trying to get around on crutches while pregnant. And weighing (right now) 35 pounds more than usual. My hands and armpits are already sore, and I'm only moving around to go to the bathroom and back & forth from my bed to the couch. Also, you have to use your stomach muscles to walk on crutches and my stomach muscles are already sore from stretching for this baby, so now they're even worse. I usually feel a contraction or two after sitting back down...probably from the strain of moving around. Keith's been really great though - bringing my food (and my Oreos) to me on the couch, getting me drinks when I need them, and taking care of the kids. And my neighbor brought us dinner Sunday night (which was really good and I need her to give me the recipe) so that was nice, too.

And then because of all this, I had to quit the maternity subbing I was doing. I feel really bad about it - I'd already done 4 weeks and only had this week and next left to do, but it just isn't going to be possible. This was the one I was looking forward to, as it's a third grade class with some of my students from last year in it. But I had fun while it lasted.....I just hate feeling like I left her hanging.

Anyway, I've probably bored you with this story for long enough, soooo........that's it! Hope I've answered all your questions!

One more quick tidbit - At my appointment yesterday, instead of measuring 4 weeks bigger, I measured.....(are you ready for it)........5 weeks bigger. ARGH!!!!!!!

31 weeks down, 9 to go

Your baby now weighs as much as four navel oranges. (Length: over 16 inches, head to heel.)

And here's a really bad picture of me, taken a couple nights ago. Please remember this was taken at night, after a long day, after a lot of stress, after (I don't know what else, but there's gotta be a reason I look so bad.) (Also, please ignore my dirty door.)

And I can't believe I'm posting this one, but it needs to be documented right? Besides the fact that I started contracting sooner with this pregnancy than any other, and I'm already heavier than I've ever been (with weeks still to go), and my stomach's measuring bigger than it should be (which I've never done) that's not all that's different about this pregnancy. This time, I also get to experience bloating. I've never done this before. Never! And now, every day when I take off my socks, it almost looks like I still have socks on! I practically have cankles. I'm telling you, this boy better be worth it! :)

Oh, in this picture you need to ignore the dirty couch. I've given up on having clean walls and couches and that sorta thing until the kids get older. There's just no point in stressing over getting them sparkling clean, just to have them marked up 10 minutes later.