Snow Day???

I'm not really sure if it snowed on Tuesday night or not. When I went to bed it was hailing a ton and when we woke up the next morning our backyard was somewhat of a winter wonderland (or at least as close as it gets in these here parts of Texas). The kids were so excited to go outside and play in it. I had to get ready for my midwife appointment, so Adam got the kids all bundled up and took them out. I think they looked pretty cute and they had a ball playing until they got their gloves soaked and their hands started freezing.

Allie and Jack all dressed and ready to go out.
Jack ate or licked a ton of the ice which is no surprise because he licks everything (including people-he thinks it's hilarious).

The kids playing in the ice.

Allie filled the sand box up with ice. Later it melted and Jack fell in. He was freezing.

Baby Blog

Wow it's been a long time since I've written a blog. So I figured I'd give a pregnancy update since we've had an interesting few days with it. Saturday I planned on going shopping all day for Christmas. I had a ton of places to go in search of a red sweater for Jack. We were having family pictures taken today at the capitol and all I really needed to find on Saturday was a red sweater. It shouldn't be that hard (oh, and a long black skirt for myself-not even maternity). After over 5 hours of shopping and looking in every store in Austin, no red vest (just a sweater) and I had only found one long black skirt which was perfect. Anyway, the point is that very early that morning it felt like the baby had dropped. All of a sudden I could feel a ton of pressure and the kicks were much lower than normal. Throughout my shopping expedition I did a ton of walking and I could feel my hips separating (0uchhhh).
on Tuesday I had an ultrasound scheduled to check the position of my placenta and make sure it had moved up and out of the way. I expected it to be a quick appointment, in fact I almost brought Allie with me. It's a good thing I didn't. It took forever. The ultrasound tech remeasured all of the babies body parts because it had been a while since my last ultrasound. Everything measured well. I also had her check to make sure the baby was still a boy and she said it was very obvious that he was. So the problem that took so long is that she couldn't get shot of my cervix to make sure the placenta was far enough away from it. Of course she couldn't because the baby had dropped so low on Saturday that his head was right over it. Eventually she had to go talk to the doctor (which is always a little scary) and they decided that she would have to do a vaginal ultrasound. That worked. She was able to see that the placenta is out of the way of the cervix and everything looked good.
The next day I had an appointment at the birthing center with one of the midwives. I told her that I thought that the baby had dropped on Saturday and she didn't really seem to be too worried even after I told her about the whole ultrasound ordeal. Then she felt my stomach to check the way the baby was lying (head down) and started to get worried when she realized the baby did in fact feel like he was engaged. So, she did an exam and said that his head is really low and that my cervix has started to thin. She didn't really check to see how far dilated I was because she was afraid that would send me into labor. She estimated about 2 cm. Then she said that she should put me on bed rest, but realized that was ridiculous since I have two little ones at home. She said to stay off of my feet as much as possible, no cooking, no walking and no cleaning. So, I went home and cleaned the house for Activity Day that night. But that's it, no more major cleaning (luckily Adam did the mopping). She did move my due date up almost one week as we went back and looked at early ultrasounds and checked dates. If I deliver soon (which I'm not going to) then the baby should be ok. I would just have to deliver at the hospital and I really don't want that. If I can hold off until the day after Christmas that will put me at 36 weeks, according to my new dates, and I can deliver at the birthing center. In the meantime, I'll be keeping my fingers crossed and saying some serious prayers and I'll take any prayers that anybody else has to offer.

34 weeks pregnant (can't really see my belly since I'm wearing a black shirt, but it's there)
About two weeks ago (at 32 weeks)

Pumpkin Patch & Halloween Party

The Saturday before Halloween we took the kids to the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm to play at their pumpkin patch. We looked at the animals, found our way out of the maze of hay, took a tractor ride, and looked at lots of pumpkins. Later that night we went to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat at church. We all had a great time. The kids were quite happy with the candy that they collected. Allie was just happy to finally get to wear her Little Mermaid costume. She's been so patient.

Jack and Mommy driving the tractor.

Jack and Daddy during the big tractor ride.

Daddy and Jack hanging out on the pumpkins.

Jack looking cool among the pumpkins with a ring of drool around his neck.

Allie and Jack sitting in the pumpkins. The sun was in their eyes and neither of them wanted to cooperate so this was the best picture we could get.

Batman and Ariel (The Little Mermaid)

Jack would not leave his mask on long enough to get a picture of it.

Jack turns 2!

Jack turned 2 this past week. We just had a low key family party. This was the first year that we didn't have any of the Grandparents here for one of the kid's parties. Maybe next year we'll have a party with friends. I was asking Adam the other day if we should have a party with friends for Allie this year and he reminded me that this year might not be the best idea since her birthday is my due date. Good thinking Adam. Maybe next year for Allie too.

Things we love about Jack:

-The way you gallop and prance instead of running.

-That you never get tired of playing peek-a-boo.

-Your belly laugh when you are getting tickled and that you still love being tickled.

-You sometimes cuddle for about 30 seconds.

-The way you put your head down on our shoulders every night when we sing "You are my sunshine" to you.

-The silly sounds that you make while you're trying to fall asleep at night.

-The way you stomp your feet when you dance and clap your hands when a song is over.

-That we have you in our family.

Jack coming through his door first thing in the morning. We hung up some of our Halloween streamers on his door. I love this picture!
I made the cake in the morning and then made the frosting in the afternoon after we dropped Allie off at school. Since it was just Jack and Mommy, we shared the mixers with frosting on them. Jack doesn't look very impressed...yet.

Now he's loving it. How could any child of mine not like chocolate.

Adam made his mom's recipe for mac-n-cheese. Of course we all loved it. This is Allie shoveling it in. She had just gotten done throwing a fit over something. So, she still has some tears and snot for the camera.

No pictures please. It's my birthday and I just want to eat my mac-n-cheese.

The Cake

Weekend visitors

Over the past 36 hours, we have found two little friends around our house. These little friends are not the kind of friends that are invited, but their appearance would make you think we live in West Texas.

On Saturday morning, Jen noticed a little snake coiled up in the corner of our garage, near the garage door. She came inside and asked me I if I had seen it, which I had not. I went and peeked at the snake, but didn't have much thought as to what to do. I knew we wanted it out of the garage, but my snake experience is quite limited. I continued working for a few minutes on the computer and Jen returned to ask me if I noticed that the snakes head was now moving. That was my cue to figure something out. So, I decided to grab a shop broom and shoo the snake out. By this time the snake was slowly starting to move, so I went ahead and swept the snake out of the garage. The snake skidded to a stop a few feet down the driveway. The snake looked a little dazed and was flapping his tongue in and out of his mouth like snakes often do. I took another swipe at it with the broom and the snake went a few more feed down the driveway. Jen came outside and took a closer look at the snake. The snake's head was up in the "strike quickly" position and his tail was rattling. So, on closer inspection, we had a little rattlesnake in our driveway. And we thought we were living in an urbanized city, 15th largest in the nation. Jen, who has more snake experience than I, suggested two options. One, shoot the snake with a gun loaded with snake shot. Or two, and the more practical option, take a shovel to the snake and take it's head off. Of course, we don't have a large shovel. Jen ran across the street to ask a neighbor for a shovel. The snake started to slither onto the grass next to the driveway. It was heading for a tree bed that is full of lantana, which is dense, leafy vegetation. I took a few whaps at the snake with the broom, but it went into the tree bed and disappeared. At this time, Jen returned with the shovel, but I couldn't even see the snake. I took a few more whaps at the lantana with the shovel, but nothing. I then sprayed the tree bed with a high pressure water hose, but again nothing. So we have a squatter on our property.

Then on Sunday evening, I was casually walking by our piano and looked down to see another visitor--a scorpion. Although I don't have much scorpion experience, similar to my lack of snake experience, I did know exactally what to do. Step on it. So that is what I did. The scorpion was about 2-3 inches long, and was easily squashed. The last time we had a run in with a scoprion, Jen was pregnant with Allie and we were alseep in San Angelo, Texas.

So, there you have it. Two univited guest, one of which is still roaming around our grounds and the other who is on the way to the county trash dump.

It's a....

Boy! Allie didn't get the sister that she has been asking for for her birthday, but it looks like Jack is getting a brother. Allie told me last week that she didn't need another brother because she already has one. I was a little afraid to tell her that the baby wasn't going to be a sister, but all she said was why not (typical 3 year old). We told her that Heavenly Father wanted us to have another brother and she said "why". After that, all she seemed concerned about was when the baby was going to get here. I think she's over it.
As for me, I'm not going to lie, I really was looking forward to having another girl to wear all of those cute clothes that Allie hardly got any use out of because she grew so fast. I really just want Allie to have a little sister at some point. We'll see. I am glad to have two children of the same sex close together so that the boys can share a room sometime soon. Things are kind of out of control with Allie and Jack sharing a room right now. And Adam, in true Adam form didn't care either way (he's just glad the baby is healthy), but I do think he's excited to have another boy. He's already talking about Olympic aspirations for both of the boys and Allie too.
Everything seemed really good at the ultrasound as far as the baby's health is concerned. He weighed about 12 ounces and was measuring about 20 weeks which is right on. She said that put my due date at January 26th (the original due date is Jan 28th). The only problem is that the tech said that my placenta is lying low, but that often times that corrects itself as the pregnancy progresses. If not, it sounded like another c-section. I hope not. I really want my natural birthing center birth. Again, we'll wait and see.

The baby sucking his thumb

Full body shot

What a fun week

We spent Labor Day with some friends from church. They grilled and Adam was able to get his meat fix for the month. The food was all so yummy. I used my mother-in-law's recipe to make fish/frog eye salad which is always a big hit with the kids. The kids had a water balloon fight with a couple of the brave dads. It was a really fun day.

Allie is so excited to be drinking soda and it's pink

Daddy and Jack playing soccer-Jack forgets to use his feet

The kids waiting for their turn to get the next water balloon

Allie had her first day of preschool at the University of Texas Lab School. From what Adam told me she did really well. I asked Adam to make sure to take some pictures of her before she got too deep into playing. Apparently she ran off to play so fast that Adam couldn't even get one picture. When he came back to pick her up, her teacher said that "Allie is made for school." I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, but she seems to be loving it. This week she only went for two days, two hours each day. Starting tomorrow she'll go four days a week for three hours each day. On Mondays and Wednesdays Adam takes her to school and brings her home and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I drop her off and Adam brings her home. I think that Mondays and Wednesdays are going to be great for Jack and I.

The only picture I got of Allie on her first day of Lab School (I think that skirt is getting a little short). Allie loves her new pink puppy dog.

For the most part potty training is still going fairly well. No major accidents, just lots of little ones this week. Jack on the other hand has taken to going poopy in his diaper when he is in his crib, then taking all of his clothes of (onesie included) and smearing the poop everywhere. We had a major mess after nap time today. Yuck!!!

On to better news...I had my first appointment with my midwife at the birthing center this week. Things went well. I love how laid back they are about most things. I also really liked that they paid a lot of attention to the nutrition of the mother which my OB/GYN usually doesn't have time for. The office was very busy because it was the first day back after the Labor Day weekend, but the midwife didn't seem rushed at all. I was 18 1/2 weeks and I measured 15 weeks, so we'll see how big the baby is tomorrow at the ultrasound. It's the big one. By lunchtime tomorrow, we'll know if we are having another girl or another boy (assuming the baby cooperates). Stay tuned. We'll post another blog when we get home from the appointment.

Oh what a week!

We have had quite a week of transitions for the kids. Allie got up Tuesday morning and announced that she wanted to wear panties instead of putting on a diaper. I was shocked because I have been trying to get her to do this for months with no luck. She loves her diapers. If Jack wasn't still in diapers (the same size as her), I probably would have thrown them away by now. Amazingly, Allie stayed dry all day. Even at nap time I let her stay in her panties rather than put a diaper on her. On her own she went into the bathroom and went potty during nap time. She did wait until bed time when she got her diaper put on to go poopy. The next day she stayed dry all morning and asked if she could wear panties to her preschool open house in the afternoon. I let her and she had no accidents. Dry all day. On Thursday Allie stayed dry again all day and this time went poopy in the toilet.
Adam and Allie decided months ago that if she stayed dry for 3 days in a row and used the toilet all day on those days (instead of just holding it in), he would by her rainbow ice cream with sprinkles. So, Adam dropped by the store on the way home from campus and picked up some rainbow sherbet. Luckily we already had the sprinkles at home. Allie was in heaven. That was Thursday and she has been dry and using the toilet ever since. I'm not sure what the sudden change of heart was for her. The only thing I can think is that since she is starting school this week, she wanted to be able to use the toilet like some of the other kids or maybe it was timing and she was just ready. I hope this is it and we don't have any backsliding.
I think we have finally had a breakthrough with Jack also. After four months of being in nursery at church, he is finally OK with being left there alone while Adam and I go to our Sunday School classes. So it looks like I have almost a 5 month break before I have another baby to be walking the halls with for 18month-2years. I'm just grateful for a break at all.

Baby, Jack, and Allie update

I can't believe it myself, but I'm almost 17 weeks into this pregnancy. I think it has gone by so fast because I'm not obsessed with finding out the gender of the baby. I figure I have a boy and a girl and either way with the next one I will be excited and a little disappointed.That's probably good because I was devastated when I found out that Jack was a boy. What was I thinking!
All is still going well with this pregnancy. I had my last appointment with my OB/GYN this past week. We have decided to deliver at the Austin Area Birthing Center if everything goes as planned. So from here on out I will be seeing a midwife there. Surprisingly, my doctor was very supportive of our plan. I was a little nervous to tell her that I didn't plan on delivering in the hospital. But as usual she was great.

We have scheduled the BIG ultrasound where we hopefully find out the gender of the baby if it cooperates. We'll be going to that 3 weeks from tomorrow. Stay tuned to find out more.

Baby #3 at 16 weeks

So, on to Jack. I'm sure by now all 3 of our readers know about Jack's nut allergies. Several months back we gave him a trail mix that included cashews in it and he broke out in huge hives and went into anaphylactic shock. His mouth started swelling up and he was having major trouble breathing. So, I had to call 911. Luckily before I called 911 I was able to give him some Benadryl and by the time the paramedics (and about 15 firemen) got here he was just wheezing a little. It was so scary. We now keep an Epi Pen Jr on hand just in case. Recently we had another scare with Peanut Butter. Again he broke out in hives but this time I was able to get the medicine to him sooner and he was fine. We had some more allergy testing done on him about two weeks ago because I suspected that he had more than just nut allergies(the last Dr. would only test him for nuts for some crazy reason). We found out that he is allergic to peanuts, cashews, eggs, wheat, and soy. So, my latest dilemma is figuring out what the heck to feed him.
We also found out a couple of months ago that Jack will need eye surgery in the next two months or so. He is having problems focusing his right eye with his left eye when he looks at things at a distance. I had been noticing that when he was in his high chair and would stare off at things his right eye looked a little lazy and sure enough it is. Oh, Jack what a mess you are. But you sure are cute.

Jack with a patch over his eye before his last visit to the opthalmologist

Jack kept pulling the patch off so I had to put band aids all around it. It worked. The Dr. had a hard time getting it off.

In Allie news, she will be starting the University of Texas Lab School (preschool) in about 2 weeks. her teacher is coming to visit on Tuesday and Allie is excited to meet her. Adam and I are hoping that going to school will help her desire to get potty trained once and for all. As she says "Mommy I know how to use the potty. I just choose not to. I choose to wear my diaper." I'm about to throw the diapers out if this doesn't work. Then of course I'll be left to clean up the mess since she also chooses to go in her panties. I don't know which is worse, having 3 kids in diapers or "helping" her clean up her messes and just having 2 in diapers.



Oh, one last thing, I promise. We put Allie and Jack in the same room to sleep (Allie's room) for the first time tonight. We'll see how that goes. Jack was very upset when he first realized that we were leaving him in there. But by the time we closed the door they were having a grand time. Allie has been being a little mother in there. It is hilarious to hear the things she tells him. She's been reading to him to help Jack to feel better abut things. It's 8:15 and they are still playing. Maybe they'll sleep in tomorrow. Not likely. We'll let you know how this goes on our next blog posting sometime next month.

Family News!!!

So, most anybody (all three of you) who reads our blog probably knows by now that we are expecting a new Baby West in January. Allie has been asking for a baby sister for her birthday for quite a while now and my due date is actually Allies birthday, January 28th. We did what we could for the birthday present part, but as for it being a sister, I'm not sure if I can help you out on that one Allie.

We have had a couple of scares so far with the baby's heartbeat. At our first ultrasound (at 7 weeks) the baby measured right on for its age, but the heart beat was pretty slow. The doctor said that could mean nothing at all or it could end up in a miscarriage, only time would tell. That was on Friday and she scheduled us to come back in on Monday to do another ultrasound. The baby had grown over the weekend (amazing that they can tell that) and the heartbeat was normal. In fact the doctor said that the baby showed much more movement than normal at that age. I was just happy that the baby was moving, but when I told Adam that he said something like "uh oh, another wild child for us."

This past week I went in for another appointment at 11 weeks. Normally I wouldn't have come back until 12 weeks, but my doctor was getting ready to have her third baby and wanted me to come in before her induction to have another ultrasound to check the heart again. I had to see a different doctor (She broke my water when I was in the hospital delivering Jack) and she wasn't going to do another ultrasound until she tried to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler and couldn't. She looked for a heartbeat for what seemed like forever before she finally said "looks like we need to do an ultrasound." Of course I was thinking no wonder I've been feeling so much better than the last two pregnancies. It's because something happened to the baby. Then I had to wait a very long 15 minutes in the ultrasound room until she came back in. When she finally did the ultrasound everything was fine and once again the baby was very active. So, for now we are just keeping our fingers crossed and saying lots of prayers that everything will turn out OK. We'll keep you posted.

A New Ride

Now that we are expecting a new addition to the fam, we thought we should try to upgrade the space for transporting these various kids and their luggage around town. Actually, Jen has been keeping an eye out for larger vehicles for quite a while, just so she could be prepared for the time when we actually pull the trigger.


Some might wonder, "How can these poor saps (literally and figuratively) afford another vehicle. Well, you can thank our Uncle Sam for that. We decided to use our tax refund from last tax year, the government stimulus checks from a couple of months ago, next years estimated tax refund, and a special county rebate program to purchase a new 7-passenger van.


The rebate program involved "trading-in" a car that is either over 10 years old or has failed the most recent emissions testing. Adam was driving a 1993 Dodge Shadow with a few miles on it.

So, we applied to take the "Purple Plum" off the road. The rebate program basically counted the car as a trade-in valued at $3000. Of course, the car was worth about $25 in parts, so we thought it was a good idea to look at getting in on the rebate program.



Jen, who never thought of herself as a "mini-van gal," has been researching vans since Allie was born. So she settled on looking at a Honda Odessey or a Toyota Sienna. The Toyota's are a little cheaper on the used car market, which we were in, but none-the-less still have great track records. So Jen found a small local car wholesaler who also sells a few cars to the public. Their gimmick is that you pay the price on the sticker (i.e., no haggling), but they also don't really dolly-up the cars or put add-ons to increase the resale value (often a tactic of other car dealers). When we got to the dealer, we could tell that the cars were washed and vacuumed, but nothing much else.



Jen was originally looking at an 2007 8-passenger Sienna LX (middle-tier van). All of the LXs on the lot were previous rentals with about 20,000 miles or so on them. Some of them sure seemed like rentals, with stains on the carpets and funny smells from the interior. But they were 8-passengers and had an automatic sliding door (just one door is auto on the LX-you have to get the top-tier van for two side auto doors). We couldn't decide which of the three or four we liked.



While we were mulling it over, we decided to check out a 2008 Sienna CE, which is the low-tier van of the line. Basically, it doesn't have auto doors or color-keyed side mirror, but it has the same engine, safety features, and interior setup. We took it for a test drive and noticed that it had only 4500 miles on it and it smelled brand new. It even looked as if it was hardly driven. It had a price tag of a $1,000 or so more than what we were expecting with the 2007, but it was basically brand new.



So, now we have a new van to think about, although it didn't have the two things Jen was looking at: 8-passenger and auto-sliding door. We thought, however, that while it was being sold used, it seemed too new to pass up. We also thought there was some catch as to why this almost new, hardly driven van was being sold as used. We don't know the back story of the van, but a carfax check showed no problems, just that it was sold at an auction to the dealer we were visiting.



Anyway, we decided to get the 2008, which happens to be the same exterior color as our 2005 Toyota Corolla (thanks Grandpa West for helping us get that car!). So, now we don't have to worry about where to put a third car seat, because there is plenty of room for even two or three more car seats in our new ride (don't get any ideas).

Staying out of trouble

We teach our kids to always keep their noses clean.

Long time, no post

The day before Mother's Day we went to the local Farmer's Market to pick up some veggies for dinner that night (grilled vegetables and tofu mixed with bow tie pasta-yum). We also picked up some peaches that the kids wanted to eat right away. What a mess, but they were so good. I'm not sure about that face that I'm making but Allie sure loved that peach.
Jack ate the peach so fast. We couldn't find the seed so we just thought that he had dropped it on the ground. I even stuck my finger in his mouth to check if it was in there.
After the peach was gone we saw him sucking on something. It was the seed. I guess he must have been hiding it in is cheek like a little chipmunk.
I've been taking the kids to the park pretty much every morning lately. It really helps the day to go better. Our favorite park which happens to be really close by has this dolphin that shoots water out of it. The kids love to play in the water and then go play on the play scape or in the sand.


Last summer the dolphin never worked so we figured it was just old and broken. We were really surprised earlier in the month when Allie pushed the button and water came out.
Allie threw something at her brother and this is me putting her in a time out. If you look very closely you can see that she is screaming and kicking. Gotta love toddlerhood.
This is Jack at the top of the play scape climbing out. He's learning from his sister to be very brave. I just thought this was a cute close up of Jack
Here is Daddy racing down the slide with Jack in the background.

So, my latest cooking adventure (other than experimenting with new vegetarian recipes) is bread baking. I've always been afraid of making yeast products because they take so long to make and if they don't turn out well then you've wasted a whole day in the process. We had a church activity that a friend of mine named Kristen taught. She showed us how to make a basic refrigerator roll recipe. I told her that I really wanted to learn to bake whole wheat bread so that I didn't have to buy the stuff at the store with high fructose corn syrup in it or spend a fortune buying it at Whole Foods or Central Market. She offered to come over and show me how to make bread using this recipe she has from a 1950's Betty Crocker Cook Book. It came out really great while she was there (of course). A couple of days later I tried it on my own and it didn't go so well. I tried again a couple of days after that and low and behold it turned out terrific (or at least I think so). Now I'm baking 4 loaves every week and a half and then freezing it to use throughout the coming week. It's so nice not to have to buy bread from the store with 50 ingredients in it. Plus it's always such a sense of accomplishment to make lunch every day for the kids on my own bread.

Adam's mom recently came to visit us for a couple of days. we had a really good time with her. I wish we had taken more pictures, but it's hard to get the kids to sit still. We didn't do much on this visit. It was nice and relaxing.

Grandma brought these two chairs with her for the kids. Of course they fought over them the whole time and almost killed themselves pushing each other over in them on the tile floors inside. So, now they are officially outdoor chairs. They still fight over them, but at least it's outside on the grass. Every morning when they go out into the backyard, they each pick their chair and then just sit in it for a few minutes before pulling it all around the yard and putting it on the trampoline.

These are some cute pictures with Grandma before she left to go back to Dallas.
Jack and Grandma
Allie and Grandma