Baby Boy #3

Here's an update on our sweet baby boy with a little back story to go with it... (his name is still not finalized, so he's just Baby #3 for now!)  Sorry, no pictures this time- the ultrasound pics were hard to interpret this time, so not worth posting!

I am on my 5th OB/GYN doctor since my pregnancy with Deegan.  The 1st was just kind of weird and uncomfortable to be around so I moved on to the one I saw most of my pregnancy with Deegan (#2). He was okay, but we moved to Logan so I found another doctor in Logan (#3).  After seeing him most of my pregnancy with Griffin, I decided to deliver at a hospital he couldn't deliver at, so again I switched to #4.   Number 4 was still an hour away, and this time I decided to deliver at the Logan hospital, so I found yet another doctor for this pregnancy (#5- Dr. Kirkman). I LOVE this doctor! I am the type that likes my doctors to be a little overly cautious vs. under cautious, and he is just that!  When I was pregnant with Deegan I was diagnosed with IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction) which can be caused by a million different things, but my Dr. said my uterus just wasn't growing enough to allow the baby to grow.  I had a little fluid loss and Deegan's proportions were not consistent starting at about 32 weeks pregnant.  They measure the head size, the abdomen size and the femur length when determining IUGR, and his head always measured a week or 2 ahead of schedule while his abdomen was behind a week and his femurs 2 weeks behind.  I had to have lots of monitoring until he was delivered and it was EXPENSIVE! Luckilly he came out fine, just a little hypoglycemic for a few days.  With my pregnancy with Griffin, I wondered if maybe my dates were just wrong with Deeg because all I knew at the time about the IUGR was that he was kind of small, so I told dr. #3 that I had been diagnosed before with IUGR but thought it was mostly just wrong dates (I really didn't want to pay another $8000 to have baby #2 if I could help it!)  He went with that unquestioningly and I assumed he knew better than me and would say something if there was a concern.  I was never monitored with Griffin, but looking back, I'm fairly certain he was IUGR as well since his proportions were about the same as Deegan's and he was even smaller than Deegan was. If so, that would be a big contributing factor to why he needed the helmet since he was kind of "squished" on the inside!  The first time I saw Dr. Kirkman with this pregnancy I explained all of this to him and he said that normally if you have 2 in a row that are IUGR and the second is smaller than the first, it's likely that #3 will also have the same problem and be even smaller.  He has been very cautious about seeing how things are, and at my 20 week ultrasound, the baby was growing just fine (as were my other 2 at that point).  He decided that at 31 weeks we'd do another ultrasound to check on him since that's about when IUGR presented itself and started becoming more of an issue. 

I started feeling Braxton Hicks contractions around 20 weeks, but only 2-3 per day most days until 29 weeks (I never felt them at all with the other 2 boys, so I was a little concerned). When I was 29 weeks I started having them a lot more frequently- 10-20/day, but never in any pattern or consistent enough to be too concerned.  At 30 weeks my doctor checked to make sure I wasn't dilating, and I was not dilated at all, but was 50% effaced (which he said, explains why I feel like the baby has dropped a ton, because he has!).

Today I had my 31 week ultrasound to check his growth and fluid levels. I went in feeling pretty nervous, but came out confident!  He is measuring exactly on for my due date (3 lbs 2 oz so far), and "he has lots of fluid" according to the US tech. Hooray! So as for now, we have a perfectly healthy little boy that may even be bigger than his brothers! As excited as I am to get this pregnancy over with, I'm more excited that he gets to cook for a while longer!

Summer Happenings

After we got back from Texas, we had a quick impromptu 2nd birthday party for Griffin. It was a perfect day for it- the kids all got to run around outside in the back yard, and it was just all around fun!

I love this boy!!!

Thanks all  of you who came!

These boys LOVE each other!  I love how well they get along (most days), and can't wait to add another boy to the mix!

We moved the furniture around (switched our bedroom with the boys to make everything fit better with a crib and bunk bed), and when we did, we decided it would be okay for Griffin to ditch his crib and start sleeping in a "big boy bed". I was nervous because the transition for Deegan was a nightmare and he never slept well, but Griffin has always been a good sleeper, and loved his new bed. It may have helped that he didn't figure out how to get in and out of the bed for about a week, so he was used to sleeping in it before he knew he could be free!! 

First irrigation day of the year!

Deegan and I were both pretty excited to wear our new boots!

I tried to get a good picture, but holding the camera yourself and trying to see around that belly is a difficult task! Thanks for the boots mom, so I don't have to irrigate in my snow boots!

Deegan, fighting nap time, decided to lay down and whine in the middle of the hallway!

We love our backyard!!

Baseball/catch at Powell's house

HOT day! We needed to cool down!

Deegan drew a pizza guy for me! See his arm throwing pizza dough in the air? ;-) I LOVE little kid drawings like this, it makes me happy!

Our "car wash" sprinkler. (Oh and the new minivan in the background!) 

Trip down to Kennecott Copper Mine to see the GIANT trucks! The boys were in HEAVEN!

The new favorite way to ride the slide- Griffin starts at the top and slides into Deegan about half way down and the ride the other half together! I took this picture while they were outside playing so well one night, then the next morning I was about ready to throw them both out the window until I remembered how sweet they were the night before... It's the ups and downs of parenting that keep it fun I guess!

When I irrigated the first time this year, I apparently didn't close the water "gate" all the way when I was finished, and I had figured whatever water still trickled into our yard would be fine. I found out hours later that I was wrong! Adam noticed that the carpet was damp at the bottom of the stairs, so we followed the water and found that our little "under the kitchen" storage room had about 3 inches of water in it and had leaked down the stairs (which we re-carpeted less than 2 weeks prior) and into my craft room and laundry room!  My craft room seems to be the low point in the basement and got the most water... it was a MESS! So, we (Adam mostly) quickly cleared everything out of the storage and craft rooms and started sucking up water! It was a LONG afternoon/evening! Luckily, when the previous owners re-finished our house, they dug out the basement kind of weird and there is a funny little slope up from the hallway to the living room, which kept the water out of the living room thankfully!

Adam got a bright idea one day to tie a rope on one of our trees out front and make a swing... it looks a little tacky hanging there, but luckily it can be easily tucked up on the branches and it blends in. The kids love it! To tell you the truth, if I was little enough and not so pregnant, I'd probably be swinging on it too!

Sometime in May we decided to take the training wheels off of Deegan's bike and teach him to ride. He did SO well! I really expected a lot of tears and frustration, but he was excited and cautious enough that he didn't have too many falls. His first real fall/crash was 1 week later at my mom's house when he was feeling overly confident about riding and was riding circles on the sidewalk of the cul-de-sac. He came across the street and hit the driveway curb just as it started sloping upward and crashed into the grass. I'm pretty excited that that was his biggest crash! He's loved having the freedom to ride all over the place. We rewarded him for learning to ride well by letting him pick out a bell or horn for his bike, and now I can hear his little bell ringing all the way up and down the street when he rides!

On the way back from running errands, Deegan started falling asleep in the car. Every time he falls asleep in the car he fights it really hard, which results in him pulling some REALLY funny faces while he tries to keep his eyes open! It never gets old, Adam and I laugh every time!

I tried to get both boys to take a picture for 4th of July before we went to see fireworks, but Griffin wasn't having it. I made their shirts with a freezer paper stencil, and I was pretty impressed at how well they turned out (Griffin had a red shirt with white US ). We went to the fireworks with our good friends, the Anderson's (Christa, Orrin, Sam and Annie) and had lots of fun.  Adam was working that night at USU, so he had keys to the building right by where we usually sit, and we got to watch the fireworks from the roof. It was cool to see them from so high!

Speaking of Sam- (I wish I had a picture of the 2 of them more recently, but I don't so here's a Halloween one from last year)  Deegan and Sam have decided that they are brothers.  I was first informed of this by someone in the primary at church who told me this story: "The music chorister was playing a game with the kids and having them stand up for different things like 'those who have blue shirts on, stand up!'. She got to 'If you have a brother in this room, stand up'. So, naturally, Deegan and Sam assumed they should stand up! When the chorister said to Deegan 'you have a brother, but he's not in this room, huh?' she was QUICKLY corrected by a very feisty little Sam saying 'DEEGAN'S MY BROTHER!'."  I have since had many conversations with Deegan and Sam about being "brothers". We had the neighbor kids over one day for a pizza lunch in the back yard and while the kids all played, Christa and I noticed Deegan and Sam with their arms around each other's backs. We thought it was cute until they came storming over to us to tell us "They said we're cousins!" I was a little confused and said, "you're just best friends, not cousins, huh?"  The reply was "But we're BROTHERS!"  So I explained to them and the other kids that they just like to pretend to be brothers but they are really just best friends, to which I was answered again with "But we're BROTHERS!!!" I finally had to just walk away and say "play nice!"  :-) I love that they are so close! Annie is the same age as Griffin and they get along so well too (as well as 2 two-year-olds can)! She melts my heart and anytime she asks for treats or cookies I just have to give in because she's just so cute!  We are really grateful that we have such a great neighborhood with so many good friends. I couldn't have picked a better neighborhood if I had hand picked every single neighbor!

Texas Vacation!

Okay, so I'm a little late on updating the blog, but I've been busy making a baby and taking naps!  I forgot to post Easter pictures (maybe because I only took like 3), so here's a little Easter recap... We did an Easter egg hunt at grandma/grandpa Jorgensen's house and at G/G Powell's house, but I didn't get pics at the Powell egg hunt because I was hunting for my own eggs ;-)

Every year, our Easter Bunny hides the kids' baskets. This year he/she decided to make an obstacle course to help them find the baskets.  There was one string attached to each of the boys' baskets and wound all through the house to their bedrooms. (Please excuse our lovely jammies and bedhead, this video was taken first thing in the morning!)

Now, on to Texas... Adam served his mission in the San Antonio area, and we've been wanting to make a trip out there since we got married. Finally we decided to just do it because it only gets harder to plan with more kids! We left on my birthday (4/19) and spent a week there. It was lots of fun, but by the end we had learned that a week is a little too long to have little kids sharing a hotel room with us and missing naps and driving all over!

I'll spare you the day to day details of what we did and just say we had a ton of fun and got to do lots of things. It was nice to just hang out as a family and not be working around other people's schedules and needs while we enjoyed our time together!

Leaving the SLC airport!

waiting... 

The boys LOVED the airplane and were much better behaved than I could have ever hoped!

The first day there we went to Sea World.

Watching the dolphins show off for food!

inside the 4D Sesame Street movie

Griffin and I got lucky and sat in seats that the water sprayers weren't working real well, so we only felt a tiny mist once or twice- Adam and Deegan got nice and wet :-)

Shamu waving to the crowd. It's super cool what they can train those whales to do! We ended up getting rained out after a couple hours there (right as we were getting ready to ride the rides), so we took the boys to the gift shop and let them pick a souvenir to make them feel better about leaving. They both got stuffed whales and still sleep with them every night!

The Alamo

Walking the River Walk

Waiting outside Lulu's Bakery for a Chicken Fried Steak lunch and a 3 1/2 Lb Cinnamon Roll!

We took the cinnamon roll back to the hotel for later and only took a tiny corner out of it before we were done!

Our hotel was right by Krispy Kreme, and Adam and the boys had never had their "Hot" donuts, so we went and watched them make them and had a late night snack. Deegan wore that hat almost everywhere we went!

The 6 flags over Texas at the capital building

Peace Officer's Memorial

Walking up to the University of Texas Stadium

Mini Golf at the Peter Pan golf course

We also did a little site seeing of Adam's old mission areas and I decided it would be okay to move there if the opportunity ever presented itself! Maybe it's my lack of things to do or see in Logan and places to shop, but there were SO many places to go and things to do, and the scenery was beautiful. I want so badly to have big giant plants in my front yard with leaves as big as my kids! Oh well, for now, Logan will do- I kinda like our neighborhood!