Christmas photos

Well we took some Christmas pics over the weekend. We were able to get a cute shot for our Christmas cards. Here are some of the others that were taken!

Prayers please!!

My friend Shawndra is very sick and not doing very well today. Her blog is just to the right if you would like to read it. Please Please Please send some prayers her way. I am just so sad now!

Cooper's nursery is DONE!!

Before I get into the pictures, first I have to say a huge thanks to Heather B. She came over this morning early and drew all of this on the wall. Then we painted. She is the best friend ever. She helped me paint the walls yellow back in Aug. and has been the biggest help during my whole preg. Really she has been a huge blessing in my life. I am just glad that I found her.

Also thanks to my good friend Odette who let me borrow all these beautiful baby furniture. I SO appreciate it Odette. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

And now the best nursery ever:























I am SO tired now but we had so much fun painting today!!! Everyone have a wonderful weekend!!

A great video I found on my friend's Sharri's blog!

Our baby, Cooper Ryan!!

Well today we had our 20 week ultrasound. The whole family went to see our new baby. The kids did great. No fighting or anything at the doctor's office. That in itself is pretty amazing.
Our sweet baby is doing great. The doctor looked at the heart, brain, bladder, and almost every little part. Everything measures normal and looks just great. It was so great to see that little heart beating and he was even rubbing his eye with his hand. And I guess if you didn't get the title of this post, our baby is a boy! I will soon be the mommy of 3 little boys!!! :)
Nicholas was pretty excited at looking at everything. Riley is his usual Riley fashion covered his eyes a little and then asked if the jelly stuff the doctor squeezed on my stomach (the stuff that makes the ultrasound work) was sticky or not. Hehe!

Here are some shots of Cooper:
This first one is of his face. It is kinda hard to see what exatly you are looking at.

Here is a shot of his little foot.


We are really excited!!! We went to Babies R Us and bought him a cute University of Misouri outfit!! Woohoo!

Long overdue updates...

Well I have so many pics that I wanted to post. First of all, Riley recently won a huge award. He won the Optimist Award for the "Super Citizen Award". He won for being recognized for "respect". The teachers nominated him for all of the second grade. We are so proud of him. What an honor. Here he is accepting his award.


Here is a grouping of our Halloween fun. Included are the pics from the kids' school costume parade, their class parties, Halloween night and when all the neighbors got together in the field by our house and smashed the pumpkins. I guess this a tradition around here. :)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I think that should be all the pics for now. The kids are doing well. Busy with school and playing with their legos. I am doing well. Finally over the yucky sick stage. I am now at 19 1/2 weeks and have a sweet baby that has decided to start kicking and moving around. This is certainly my favorite stage. I love all the little kicks.
On Wednesday, we have our BIG 20 week ultrasound where we get to see our sweet baby and hopefully find out the sex of this baby. It will be nice to finally be able to call the baby something besides baby. The kids really wanted to be a part of it so I will pick them up from school a little early and we will all head over to the office. I will post on Wednesday our news!!!

Our trip to Omaha

Well last weekend, we headed out for Omaha. We had a blast. This is the best zoo I have ever been to. We walked around for almost 7 hours and I think we saw almost everything. I made a slideshow with a sampling of some of the pics. The kids were really good and we really had fun!!!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

VOTE!

Follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX40RsSLwF4

A Riley funny!

We just got back from Omaha (will make that a separate post with pics soon) last night. On Thursday, I asked each kid to pack a small car bag for the ride there. I said to bring their gameboys with games, some books and maybe a small toy. So Nick does just that.
I went to check Riley's bag. In this bag is a jeep (something I have never seen him play with), a marble, 2 3lb. hand weights, and 3 rulers!!! God, I love this kid!

Needless to say though, I made him repack with the list I gave him. Haha!!

Trunk or Treat

Last Friday night (17th) we took the kids up to their school where they have the annual "Trunk or Treat" night. They have a big chili dinner (or in my kids case, hotdogs) and then go trick or treating around the parking lot. Tons of parents (of course not us since I can't get anything done now a days) decorate the back end of cars and hand out candy. I wish I had taken some pics of the cars. They are usually spooky and have a great theme. Some play music and some put their vans together and make a little mini haunted house. It is really fun. We went with our neighbors this year. Here is a picture of the kids. My kiddos are the "Star Wars" guys with the masks!

Here are the kids eating dinner.


Part of the haunted van deal.


So after kids were done with going to all the cars, Nick decided to hang out by the DJ and dance while Riley decided he wanted to go around again to all the cars. By this time people were giving him TONS of stuff since the night was about over. So he had about 3 times the candy that Nick had.
So when we get home, I tell them that they can have 2 pieces of candy each. For their first pick they each pick a skittles bag. Well that is ok I guess. Pretty good. Now mind you, they have TONS of yummy chocolate bars. This is the good stuff tonight. So for their 2nd pick, Nick pics a gummy ear! That is right a yucky gummy body part that looks gross. And then Riley picks a bag of goldfish. What? crackers?
What kind of kids am I raising here? A gummy ear and crackers..... Well that left good chocolate for Bill and I when they went to bed! :)

I LOVE this!

See more Ron Howard videos at Funny or Die

Hard Times!

My brother who is a journalist with the Washington Post is traveling across the country. He is going to many cities and talking to people about the economic crisis. He journey is maped out and there are interviews along the way. Here is the link to that. I thought some of you may find it interesting.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/hard-times/?hpid=topnews

Sat. part 2

After our adventures at the festival on Sat. (and to answer your question Heather, we didn't get those yummy turkey legs, the line was SO long and when I gotta eat, I can't wait). However we did get my favorite food there. They used to be called "pickles on a stick" but now they are just "pickles". But they are $1 and the biggest dill pickles ever. I love em. Both Nicholas and I got one after Riley assured me that he didn't want one but as soon I eat mine, he wants to share it. Next time I am buying 3. Sorry I got side tracked!

After all this fun (and after I took a nap), we went out to dinner and then went to look for costumes at this huge Halloween superstore. The kids picked out Star Wars guys but not before we found these fun masks. Bill even had fun too!!

This next photo is taken of Riley from when he and Bill were at the grocery store. Hehe!

Saturday!! part 1

Well we went to the Renaissance Festival on Sat. For those of you that don't live in the area, it is a HUGE place that has actors all dressed up in costumes including king, queen, and hundreds more. They have lots of shops (like little old booths) and tons of food.

My mom used to take me there growing up and I have such wonderful memories of going there (thanks Mom). Now we have been taking the kids there. They have a blast! Here are some pics!

Later on, I will post about our Sat. part 2 when we went Halloween costume shopping. Hehe!!

GREAT news!!

Well I have some good news in relation to the testing we did last week. And I thank God for our wonderful results!!!

Before any testing, the risk for having a baby with Down Syndrome for my age group (36 yrs) was 1:216. Which isn't too bad anyway. Well based on my tests (blood work and measurements at the ultrasound) my odds now are 1:4300. HOLY MOLY! That is basically the odds of a 20 year old. So basically me being 36 isn't a factor in this disorder.

They also tested for trisomy 13 and 18 which are much more serious disorders. Once again the normal odds for a 36 yr old are 1:382 but after testing my odds are 1:7600.

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE this baby and if there was something possibly wrong, it wouldn't have made any difference. We would still LOVE this baby. It is just nice to put my mind at ease that at least being in that "older" group isn't a disadvantage.

The doctor told me that the odds that I have now are the same odds that a 20 year old would have. I told her it was nice to be compared to a 20 year in some way. Haha!

And just in case anyone is still keeping track, yes, I still have morning (all day) sickness. I think it may be getting better or maybe I am just getting used to it. Who knows?? Also for the record,

I am 13 weeks and 1 day today!! WOOHOO!!

12 week ultrasound!!!

Hi!

Well Bill and I had our genetic screening and counseling today. Since I am 35 years old (0r 36 when the baby is due) my doctor requires us to go to this appt and talk about family history etc. Everything in our history doesn't indicate any problems. We did apt for the 1st trimester screen test (although I start 2nd trimester today WOOHOO).

This test is non-avasive and will give us odds (in about a week) of us having a baby with 3 chromosomal problems. There are more than that but this shows the 3 major ones. The odds will come back as 1:300 or some form of that. It won't make a bit of difference to us however we thought if the odds were high, then at least we could educate ourselves more about the difference disorders.

The test consists of an ultrasound and blood work. They look for certain proteins in the blood combined with measurements from the baby. They measure the baby's nec area and the normal range is 1-3mm. As the area gets bigger, that could indicate a problem. Our baby's measured 1mm. So we are in the very NORMAL range on that. So that is a great sign. Now we just wait for the blood work. However the doctor (this is a perinatal doctor, a specialist, not our reg. doc) said that everything looks wonderful.

We got to see our sweet baby today. I saw a sweet face, body, arms and legs. The baby had her (I think it is a girl, however too early to see any boy/girly parts yet) hands up against her mouth at one point. And what was SO wonderful was seeing the heart beat. That was so great!!

Anyway, here is a pic of our sweet baby. I did label the parts since some of you may not have any idea of what you are looking at. HAha!!

Have a great week!

Still feeling bad!

Well I am at 11 weeks today and still feeling yucky. I had a great day Monday and thought maybe I was getting better. No such luck but maybe soon. I figure with the other kids I was better by 12-13 weeks so hopefully by next week!

We got to hear the baby's heartbeat on Friday. It was 174 beats per minute and sounded wonderful. I LOVE that sound.

We are meeting with a genetic counselor next week (due to me being 35) about genetic testing. We have decided to only do the 1st trimester screen (or maybe triple screen, I can't remember). That is non evasive and they will test my blood and also do an ultrasound. So I will get to see my little one in a week from today! :)

The Daily Show!!

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=184111&title=john-mccains-big-acceptance

First Day of School

Well my babies are officially at school today. They were so excited to start today. I am feeling kinda sad but I sure am getting lots of stuff done today. :)

Nicholas is now in 4th grade. That just seems so big. When did he get so old? He didn't really have a lot of friends in his class yet he was just excited. He said that this will give him a chance to get to know some more people. I am so glad that we have raised such good kids with good self esteem.

Riley is in 2nd grade. He seemed big too this morning. He even told me that he has been up since 4 (I am not really sure about that one) because he is just so excited to go to school. What a sweet little person.

Well I am officially feeling crappy. Morning sickness should just be in the morning but crap if I don't feel bad ALL day long. But that is a good sign, so I am certainly not complaining. We have picked out a paint color (a nice light yellow) for the nursery. I will start painting next week. It is a good distraction from the morning sickness. I will be at 7 weeks tomorrow!!

Have a good day!!

WOOHOO!!

Well it is official, we are having a BABY!!

Our sweet pumpkin is due early April. I will post more soon!!!

Nick and Riley are so excited!