This is the story of Danielle and Rob...and baby Kai...

Happy Holidays

2012-01-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

Ok....I slacked a little.

I didn't send any greeting cards. I DID give them to people here, because I had time to do that...So for those of you NOT in St. George...Pretend this is hanging on your fridge....

Much Love...

Christmas Weekend

2012-01-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

Before Christmas I wanted to make sure we did one of my favorite things.

Put together a gingerbread house. I wasn't sure if Kai could focus long enough. But he really seemed to enjoy it! :D

You can see where Kai took a bite out of the top of the roof...

He actually put SOME candy on the house...but most went into his mouth...

{December 24, 25, 26}

We had 3 Christmases. 3.

Christmas Eve we went to Rob's parents house to do our gift exchange with them. Had dinner and got entertained by Kai. He was such a goof. He got spoiled with a Cars light from Uncle Danny, an R/C police car and Lion King from Grandma and Grandpa, and a Lego wagon and cape/mask from Aunt Michelle, Uncle Russ, and the girls.

{Christmas Eve}

Super Momma

Once Kai had the cape and mask on...he didn't want it off...He slept in it that night. It was so dang cute!

{Christmas Day}

Happy boy Christmas morning with Car Pez

Kai's new boots and mom's new slippers!!

Dad's headphones

{At moms}

Kai LOVED his Cars blanket from Grandma and Grandpa

And Police car

Jackson didn't want Kai stealing his toys

Got Maddie and Brycen tickets to go see Real Salt Lake Soccer!

{Dec. 26th, Celebrating Jackson's b-day}

Jackson's Birthday is Jan. 2nd, but we wanted to celebrate it while they were in town.

CUTE BOY!!!

Kai got him a MACK!!!

Kai liked Jackson's bunny

Reading with Grandpa

Christmas was great. I'm kind of glad December is done though. There was a lot going on!
Kai got SO spoiled and is still loving all his goodies!

Rob got me a Kindle Fire for Christmas and I am LOVING IT!!!

If anyone has some good suggestions for reading, lay 'em on me :D

I pray for Patience....

2011-12-20T17:30:00.000-08:00

Holy Cow did I need this quote this week.
My friend, Megan, Posted this on her blog and it REALLY spoke to me!

Quote from Lynn Robbins talk in the April 2011 General Conference:

A sweet and obedient child will enroll a father or mother only in Parenting 101. If you are blessed with a child who tests your patience to the nth degree, you will be enrolled in Parenting 505. Rather than wonder what you might have done wrong in the premortal life to be so deserving, you might consider the more challenging child a blessing and opportunity to become more godlike yourself. With which child will your patience, long-suffering, and other Christlike virtues most likely be tested, developed, and refined? Could it be possible that you need this child as much as this child needs you?

I must need SOMETHING because this little 2 year old, as cute as he is, has been trying my patience to the breaking point. Especially lately. Holy cow, I wonder daily how we're all going to survive another year. Let alone another child.

Prayers were answered on my Birthday this last saturday, though. He was the sweetest angel all day long! No fits, no arguing, he obeyed like crazy. We went and saw Santa, and he normally can't sit still for 2 seconds, and he actually sat on his lap and got a picture, and we had to TAKE him off his lap, instead of him scooting down immediately.
The next day....he was making up for being so good. Oh my gosh!
Hes so hard to discipline. I'm at a loss. I can't get him to sit in time out at all. No matter how much I hold him in the seat. And the kid is way too strong. He hits, pushes his fists into our necks, throws things at us. So if someone watches him for us, I get so nervous. But he's always so good for them.
So, I will now have to just read this quote everyday and continue to pray for patience. And hope we all survive another year....and another child.
I'll try not to cry now!

Fall Holidays

2011-11-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

Usually Fall is depressing for me. I hate cold. I love Christmas, but getting to it is usually soooo much of a bummer.
BUT this year is different. Don't know why. Maybe having kids distracts me. Being pregnant maybe? But when I saw a magazine for fall stuff several months ago, I was almost excited. Halloween was more exciting to me this year. I looked forward to it. And I was really looking forward to Thanksgiving this year. Wish I had the whole week off work, but oh well. We went to Rob's parents for Thanksgiving this year. That's always a big thing to get used to also. Especially when you get married later than some people, you get used to your own family traditions, etc. But Rob's family is awesome and I really like spending time with them, so I don't mind throwing them in a rotation. And Kai loves all his grandparents, so any time at any of their houses is awesome to him. Not to mention Rob's mom cooks great food (even if she doesn't think so). But of course I always miss seeing my mom!

I hope I can gather the energy to start maybe decorating for Christmas this weekend also. The house Kai goes to for daycare put their christmas lights on the house this week, and Kai loves it. So the sooner we do ours, the better. I love seeing him excited for things as he's getting older.
He's the funniest kid lately, I'll have to post some more silly stuff he does. It makes me laugh :D

Halloween

2011-11-14T20:24:00.000-08:00

I know Halloween was a couple weeks ago, but I'm behind. Big surprise. We decided Kai would be Dracula, just because we found a cute costume at TJ Maxx. He was a good one though. He'd do his evil Dracula laugh for us. It was so cute to see him going up to the doors, trying to go inside, and taking as much candy as he wanted. (I really tried to stop him, but he thought this was like an unlimited shopping spree).

My costume was inspired by the fact that I wanted to use my pregnant belly somehow and thought of this. I know...mildy disturbing. But not that surprising if you know me :D
One girl at work was really bothered by it. So I had to hide it behind my desk while I talked to her :P
Everyone else thought it was amazingly creative. I told my mom what I wanted and directed her while she made it. Kai liked it. He'd point to the doll and say "Baby sister!" Ok, I know...we're going to have major counseling bills later....

Mom made a creepy zombie....

Speaking of zombies...My mom took me to "Thriller" at Tuacahn for the first time, it was AWESOME!! I loved it. But it was the first COLD night here. We were freezing!

Annual Girls Day in Springdale!

2011-11-13T16:24:00.000-08:00

My mom, Madison, and I, have gone to Springdale each fall for the past few years. Its fun to just stop at all the shops, eat lunch, and make new memories together. Kai had a couple breakdowns that were frustrating, but did fairly well.

Kai calls this a "Fuffalo"

We went to the wildlife museum. Kai wouldn't let me put him down. He was pretty freaked out.

Looks like I'm getting a Bear head massage...

Kai has been allowed to come on the girls trip, but I think my mom says he's done now. Next year, baby girl can go! :D

It's a....

2011-09-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

Just for clarification its a baby with a pink bow. I had a lot of people thinking it was a baby with a birthmark or a cut-out placenta...So, yes....a GIRL!! We're so excited! One of each! YAY!

We're working on names, so if you have ideas...lay 'em on me!

Mr. Kai...and baby too

2011-09-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

I really should update more on new stuff Kai does. He makes me laugh :P

When we had his Dr. appointment they asked if Kai says at least 200 words. I was like...well, I dunno, does he? But when I think about it, of course he does. He has a book "Baby's first 100 words" and he can name everything in it, and says tons more than that.
He TRYS his colors, but sometimes gets them wrong. 80% of the time he can correctly name red, yellow, purple, and blue.
He loves to point back and forth from me and Rob and say "Mama....Dada....Mama.....Dada" and sometimes does it so fast that he gets backwards and then fixes it.
He loves to do "knuckles" and "spive" (he says "SP" instead of "F" almost always). The other day we were at Rob's sisters house, she has horses, and he loves to go look at them, but is a little scared. He held up his fist to the horse and said "Knuckles!" it was SOOO cute and SOOO funny!
His current favorite movies are Rio, all the Shrek movies, occationally Alvin and the Chipmunks, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and lately we've found he likes Beethoven. Rob insists Kai wants a dog. He's really been into this Elmo dvd of songs lately too.
He will color for a very short time, then he just eats the crayons....no bueno! BUT he's been bringing home masterpieces from daycare....they're on the fridge :)
He's started kinda singing along to songs, it is so cute! He LOVES music. The other day he was humming a tune of one, I thought that was pretty good. He's been trying to sing "twinkle, twinkle little star" lately. Its adorable!
If I dance and tell him to dance, he tries to do what I do....hopefully that doesn't make him a bad dancer in the future....
Unfortunately he's learned he likes to pull the chair to the kitchen counter and have a utensil and pan or bowl so he can "Make it" he says. Can be annoying.....especially if the kitchen is messy. (maybe motivation to clean it more....which I have)
He still loves his baths, but started not liking his hair washed, so I'd try to act like I forgot to, he'll tell me "Hair". Heehee
Kai can give kisses, but for some reason if its not your lips, he acts like he's blowing his nose on you or something. He does that to my belly for the baby. It IS cute though ;)
We are ALMOST done with the bottle. He is just having a hard time giving up his morning one. Any tips? He freaks out if we give him a cup.
He is DONE with the binky.

This pic is at 12 1/2 weeks. I popped early, because those darn stomach muscles have not come back yet, after Kai. :P

I am 16 weeks along now and my appointment a couple weeks ago was good. Heartbeat is great, they found it instantly, and I'm measuring right on. They scheduled an ultrasound for 19 weeks, but I can pay $25 for one at 16 weeks to see the gender if I want to know earlier. So....we're doing that wednesday!! I'm too excited to wait!! Of course there's things we'd be happy about either a boy or a girl, but it'd be nice to have a girl, so we can have our one of each. Because after this, we are done. :P
People have asked us about names, but we really haven't discussed that much yet, so we will see. I need to speak to the geneologists of the family to see some family names too. I'd at least like a family name for a middle name.
Nausea is pretty much completely gone. I just can't let my stomach get completely empty, and avoid bad smells.
Kai is at a point where he likes to jump all over you, so this poor baby is going to come out black and blue, I'm afraid. Ah well....that will be his/her life for a while I am sure. :)
I'll definately post what we find out at the ultrasound.
Rob and I got a nice break, my mom watched Kai this weekend while we went up north to my cousin's wedding in Springville. It was gorgeous up there and I got to see a bunch of my family that I never see. It was wonderful! I missed Kai a TON, but it was nice to get away.
I'll post some of the pics from the wedding, and another belly shot soon I'm showing so much already! :(

A Touch of Sun

2011-09-20T18:47:00.000-07:00

For I heart faces entry this week, the theme is "A touch of sun". This is one of the first pictures I thought of. Kai last year in his pool...

Happy 2nd Birthday Kai!!

2011-08-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

Kai had a great birthday. My awesome friend, Amanda, made this awesome Mater cake!!

Kai was sooo excited when he saw his cake!

"loving" his clothes, "awwww"

Must be time to learn to Potty!

Jalee, my sister-in-law. Got him a drumset. My mom got him a guitar... He's on his way...

Kai LOVES his "beans"

Lu-lu helping, while Kai does a "happy dance"

Kai LOVES this movie....he's watched it a couple times a day since his b-day....

Showing off his skills on the drums...after he showed his stripping skills....

Happy Birthday little man! So amazed you survived to TWO!! Go us!!

Had his 2 year appointment today. He's doing great. He's 90th percentile in height and weight and 80th in head circumference.

Height: 36"

Weight 33 lbs.

Photo Challenge : Pets

2011-08-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

This photo was featured on Pioneer Woman, so I thought maybe its good enough to put on iheartfaces :D

Beautiful Eyes : Baby Blues :

2011-08-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

I really like iheartfaces.com

But have yet to enter a challenge...

So here goes

Kai's new T-shirt

2011-08-08T21:16:00.000-07:00

Yes...it is true. Dammann Baby #2 is due March 10th, 2012.

We are very excited and very apprehensive!! I'm just praying that Kai will learn to be gentle!

When I ask Kai if he wants a brother or a sister he says "Uh huh!" and I say, "do you want a boy or a girl?" he says "Gool"

He doesn't get it yet, but its cute anyway!

The shirt is how I told my parents, Rob's parents, and Rob's sister. I had to point it out to all of them. My mom saw it and immediately thought it was a hand-me-down. DORK!!

Even though we talked about maybe adding another family member by next summer, people were surprised.

I am 9 weeks, 2 days today. I have actually been feeling great, only mildly quesy sometimes, especially if I wait too long to eat. Until today...

Rob's boss was in town and we didn't eat until a couple hours after we normally do. When Rob and I were driving to lunch, I had to make him pull to the side of the road...so I could empty what little filled my stomach...NO BUENO.

So less nausea than last pregnancy...maybe a girl?

I have had 3 migraines so far--YUCK!

At the beginning of the year, I went down to Vegas with my mom, sister, and her mother-in-law. We saw Robyn, and she bought me an adorable little girls dress and took a "magic wand" in the store and "blessed" me with a girl next. :)

So we'll see if she's magic! ;)

We went down to Robyn's baby shower just over a week ago, it was filmed, so in the fall you may get to witness that on the next season of "Sister Wives".

Telling my grandparents at their 60th anniversary party that they were going to have another great-grandchild #17? #18? I forgot. :S

Missing the boy...

2011-08-03T09:47:00.000-07:00

I didn't end up doing a post on the fact that my nephew was missing. By the time I was about to, he was brought home, THANK GOODNESS. Long story short, my sister's step son was wrongly taken by his biological mom. She's been on drugs, and we believe he was NOT safe with her. He was missing for just over 2 weeks...a long 2 weeks. 2 weeks full of tears and constant prayer that Jackson was safe. It was scary. Especially for April and Darrin. We had already planned a trip to see them in Price, the weekend of July 16th, but changed to stay in Sandy, because that was where April and Darrin had been staying and trying to find Jackson. My mom, Maddie, Kai and I went. Even though the circumstances were NOT happy. We did end up having a good time trying to brighten April and Darrin's days. I think they liked having Kai around to take their minds on a short vacation from all the terrible things. We ended up going to the zoo on saturday. I was impressed. I had heard crappy things about Hogle Zoo, but it ended up being really fun. Kai was SO good the whole time, and LOVED it.

Had to get some shots at the room, since it WAS Kai's first hotel stay! ;)

Now....holy zoo picture overload, Batman!

He'd call the Peacock a "chicken"

NO, MADDIE!!

And pay no attention to what THESE monkeys may be doing below....

Checking out the elephants!

This big fake elephant sprays water from his trunk. Scared Kai....

Don't mind him, he's in awe...

Kai was really checking this guy out (T-Rex)...Then it growled...Kai jumped, and ran and cried! And my mom was laughing so hard she was crying....only cause it scared her too. :P

LOVED the Giraffes. So did Kai...

I'm sure Kai will try that someday...tongue in the nose hole!

This next one looks like he's got a hat on! ;)

BIG HAT

Across the way was "This is the Place" Park.

This camals got floppy humps....Its ok camel....you're not alone....

The massiveness of this guy is a little scary.

At first, before the carousel was going Kai was DONE, but then he was fine again when he saw how fun it was (it was his first ride on one!)

Wish this sloth wasn't sleeping so much! I wanted to see him!

Kai liked this "Sand Cat"...I think the cat liked Kai...juicy snack...

Had more tickets, so Kai had to ride again with Grandma

Kai's getting sleepy! Thanks so much to Darrin, April, and my mom, who helped so much with Kai.

And he's out.....missed the train ride, dang it!!

Kind of a crappy picture, but I love Kai's expression when Maddie has the giraffe mask on!

It was a great day!!

Playing after the zoo...and feeding chips to Midge the dog...

Kai was so worn out that he passed out before we even got on the train, and slept through the train ride! (bummer because he loves trains)
The trip up was really fun, and it was nice to have an actual "Vacation". Now I just need one with Rob.

Off to Powell.... ::July 4th weekend::

2011-07-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not gonna lie.....
I was nervous as all get out! We've really only taken Kai to the lake twice: once this summer and once last summer. Anyone who knows Rob will think that is the most bizarre thing EVER. Rob LOVES the lake. Most of the reason for not going is me. The first year I was just plain nervous for every reason under the sun about Kai being out there. Going to Powell made me super nervous.
It actually ended up being pretty fun. Kai only screamed and cried 50% of the time... :P
Here are some pics of the fun:
Kai sleeping on his cousin Kalie

My neice Stephanie

Kai says "GO!" cause Kalie wouldn't jump

Rob showing them how its done!

We ended up leaving a day early because a storm was heading in and I wanted to be at mom's for the July 4th family festivities :D

The Family time was great, as always. Until fireworks time....Kai was ridiculous. He wanted to run in the street to play in traffic, would NOT listen, or sit, or be held, or ANYTHING....so we left DURING fireworks. Kai is grounded until he's 8. Terrible two's, anyone??

Gummy

Oreo

Cousins :D

Cute Kai

Just Dance!!

CUTE O

Kai LOVES "scumming" (thats what he calls it)

Fireworks...

Stuff

2011-06-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

So remember how I said I was going to get better about blogging? HA! Hows that working out? Yeah...not so much. :P
Here are some pictures from Memorial Weekend. April's birthday is May 25 and Brycen's is the 30th, so we celebrated both since April, Darrin, and Jackson were in town. We had a nice time hanging out, tossing the kids in the pool and eating some good food!

Cute Jackson:

Kai, not too happy about the cold pool...before his haircut

Post-haircut, with a sucker:

Sitting in a bucket, of course, to watch Yo Gabba Gabba!

It was a great weekend...

Easter picture madness...

2011-04-26T21:06:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get some cute little Easter pics of Kai...I really don't know why I thought he would cooperate and "pose" or anything for me!! So it was a candid shoot... :P
Amanda went with me to take pictures of Hunter...neither boy was being helpful!
Here are some ok ones I got...

Amanda brought a basket of eggs. Kai would grab one, go to a bush, and throw it...go back to the basket and get another one, and throw it... *SIGH* I guess WE are hunting for eggs...

I think this is my favorite:

Famous for 1 minute?

2011-04-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

So if you were the one of the millions of viewers of this last Sunday's "Sister Wives" on TLC, you would have seen me! If you happened to miss it, you can go here and watch the clip called "appreciation dinner", thats not the whole piece I was in, but its a preview. Sorry, I couldn't get it to imbed here. If you look hard enough, you can see the whole episode, but the part I was in was only in the last 10 minutes or so.
Anyway...enjoy...
request autographs as necessary, I will try to send you mine! ;)
hahaha

The Latest

2011-03-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Not much excitement lately.
Just working toward April's wedding. And fun in the process.
Kai of course is getting big too fast. He's so much fun.

We watched little Lu-lu

He LOVES his dad, and usually only wants him! Makes me feel a little sad sometimes!
He is obsessed lately with 'Cars' and 'Despicable Me'. And because of 'Despicable Me' and can point out the moon to us. (Usually when you can see it in the day).
He loves going on walks. He's been climbing into his stroller and saying "Walk!" and "Let's go!"
My mom got him some PJ's with a monkey on him, and I showed it to him and said, "Kai, what's this?" and he said "EEE-EEE-EEE" I had no idea he knew what a monkey said!

Kai's been a picky eater, so that's been rough. He will always eat rice though...and usually applesauce. And most recently he loves Quaker Oatmeal To Go bars! And of course anything snacky (He's SOOO his father's son!!) like chips, crackers, pretzels, etc.
Rob and I got gym passes, so HERE'S to LOSING WEIGHT!!! I SOOO need to get rid of this fat! UGH!
We went to Vegas to find dresses for my mom, Maddie, and April's future mother-in-law, and Robyn was able to come and hang with us for a while. So we goofed off in the parking lot. Poor Robyn was so tired, all her pics looked drugged, so we tried to fix that....

April's future mother-in-law

Then I messed around with my self-timer

Photoshop....I LOVE YOU!

2011-02-22T21:46:00.001-08:00

Goodbye 2010...Hello 2011

2011-01-31T15:54:00.001-08:00

I have been reading everyone’s blogs and being frustrated with myself that I have been such a slacker with updating. This is a great place to record all the little things, and I fail to do so. So my new year resolution is to do better (I know, I am over a month late on this resolution crap…but better late than never…)
December was, of course, hectic. Between Christmas, family functions, Rob and my birthdays we were all over the place. Christmas was awesome and Kai got spoiled. And so did I. Rob got me a tripod and an ipod touch for Christmas and a new lens for my camera for my birthday! He always does awesome with gifts, I am so lucky!
Beautiful Maddie

For new years we went to my mom’s for dinner and some games. It was really fun. My mom got “Just Dance 2” for the Wii and Madison, mom, and I had a blast playing. Of course the guys just watched and made fun. :P We may have looked dorky, but we had fun and I won almost every time! GO ME! Haha.

I think Kai was playing along to "Walk Like an Egyptian"

On Christmas my little sister got engaged. So her and Darrin will be getting hitched in April! We’ll share anniversary months! Congratulations you guys!! And April was nice enough to let me take her engagement pictures. We did that just the last weekend in January. So here's an overload of some I liked.

And I was having some fun with some:

I wish we would have had more time to do more, but we’ve all been so busy! April and Darrin moved to Price, Utah the first of January. And although I am glad Darrin got a good job opportunity, I was sad to see April leave. She has been my nanny for Kai since November of 2009. I am so grateful that she was able to do this for us! It saved us a ton in child care money! Since the beginning of January, Kai has been going to day care. ROUGH!!! Its so hard to drop him off at a stranger’s house. It’s a lady that is licensed to do it from her home, she has about 5 other kids, and once Kai forgets that we’ve “abandoned” him there, I think he has a good time. He goes there 3 days a week, one day he goes to Rob’s parents (he loves that the best I think), then the remaining day we bounce him where we can: Either Rob’s sister, my friend Amanda, or my parents if they have a day off. I think Kai got way used to just being at home all day with his own toys and in a familiar place, that now he’s going somewhere everyday, he gets sad for us to leave him. And maybe it’s the age for the whole “I only want mom and dad” thing. He’s always been good with other people, he’ll go up to anyone for the most part. But he KNOWS when we’re leaving him and he doesn’t like that at all!
The other day, Kai was being extremely fussy and I know that he really wanted outside, but there was something else making him so impossible. I felt his gums and sure enough, he has a molar spiking through! I guess now I understand the grumpiness, but that doesn’t make it any more fun! A couple weekends ago we bought Kai a little slide, because he’s always sliding down the ottoman, or his Cars couch he got for Christmas, and he loves the slide at the playground. I think the one we got may be a little too small though, because as soon as he starts sliding, he stands up at the bottom. Its for 1 ½ years and up, but Kai is a tall kid.
Kai got really sick a couple weeks ago. Bad cough, up and down fever, and you could just tell he was feeling miserable! So we finally took him to the doctor and he had an ear infection with his bad cough, so he got a steriod shot and antibiotics. Poor lil guy. And he must be getting more molars, because the last few days the kid is just impossible. The other week when Rob's mom and dad were watching him, she put him down in the playpen in a spare room for his nap (as usual) and a few minutes later, he comes walking out to the room they were in! Little turkey climbed out of the playpen! Hasn't climbed out of the crib yet, thank goodness. Because I do not think he is ready for a "big boy bed", oh my gosh, I just can't even imagine it!!
And here is a pic I played with of my Valentine flowers from my wonderful Hubby!!!

A is for....

2010-12-13T17:33:00.001-08:00

Was playing around with an action I downloaded...

With Kai teething, we decided to try to let him chew on an apple. It was a good idea, he chomped on that for over an hour!

15, almost 16 months...

2010-11-30T16:01:00.000-08:00

…and Kai had his first cold :(
He’s always so full of energy, so it was hard to see him just want to sit and watch tv. I think all the things we did helped the cold only last a couple days, thank goodness! (vaporizer, sleep, lots of water, and essential oils my mom uses) Recently, Kai has decided he doesn’t want to eat anymore. I read that its normal and that he’ll eat when he’s hungry, it just makes me feel bad that maybe he’s not getting enough nutrition.
Kai is really getting such a funny personality. I think he’ll be a jokester when he’s older!
He loves to chase people or be chased, especially if you carry him around when you do it, he’ll laugh so hard.
He was saying something the other day that sounded like “circle” and I realized he was saying “Ready, Set, Go” (I say that to him a lot). So now he says it a lot, or he’ll finish when I say “Ready, Set” he’ll say “GO”.
He’s started coming to us, grabbing our hand and taking us to what he wants. Last night it was his blanket on the other side of the gate, he took Rob over to get it, because he couldn’t reach, it was cute.
At night, when he’s ready for bed, he goes into the kitchen and cries at the sink because he wants his bottle.
When he’s tired, (or doesn’t feel good) he’ll grab his binky and his “blank” (blanket) and either want to climb up on us (even though that usually doesn’t last long), or sit on the floor or the couch. (he also rubs the blanket on his cheek when he does this).
He has one blanket he just LOVES. He drags it around a lot and chews on it.
Before he stopped eating he was getting pretty good at feeding himself. We’re trying to get him off of the baby food, but with him not wanting to eat, we’re giving him anything he WILL eat.
BUT-- He is not a fan of his highchair anymore, he’ll be in it for a couple minutes and then be crying to get out, and trying to climb out of it. I think he just doesn’t like to be restrained. (is he going to be a rebellious teen or what??!)
He loves books and to be read to, but he’ll change the pages for you before you finish it. He also eats his books...(at least he’s eating??)
He LOVES “Yo Gabba, Gabba”, he’s just recently started to get excited about Spongebob too. If he sees something with Spongebob on it, he’ll start laughing and get excited.
He does pretty good with movies, he’ll watch bits and pieces. I think his favorite, so far, is “Up”.
He’s started liking toy cars a lot, he’ll push them around.
He has 7 teeth and has had just the 7 for quite a while. He’s drooling even more lately, though, and from all the other stuff going on, I am assuming he’s got more that are shortly on their way.
Thanksgiving was at my mom's house this year. It was wonderful as usual. We provided the Turkey, and of course the green bean cassarole (LOVE IT). I just love being able to spend time with the fam...it was good!
Mom's new pretty cat, Autumn

Josh reading to Kai and Lu-lu

Cute Gummy

Josh, sleepy with a hurty back...few days later, he's passing kidney stones :(

Kai doing his shapes...he's so good with it!

Also my friend, Amanda, and I, decided to take eachothers family pictures. That was fun…Kai wanted nothing to do with sitting still for anything…so we had to work with that. Here are some pics that I liked:

Vicious Life Cycle.

2010-11-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

Today we had to do a tough thing. We put down our family cat. Armond was 16 years old, so he lived a long good life, but we were very close to him! I remember going with my mom to the mall and Best Friends Animal Sanctuary was there doing adoptions and I finally convinced my mom to get a cat. (I was 16 at the time).

I picked him out because he was such a beautiful chocolate/black color, and I thought his name was cool. He's been a very good cat, and it was very hard to see him get so old and sick. Today my mom picked me up so I could go to the vet with them, I got in and saw my mom had been crying. My sister, Maddie, was in the back, looking out the window. I said "Hey, Maddie." She looked at me, her eyes all swollen, face red. When her eyes met mine, she started crying again. UGH! That started me crying. Armond was standing on the console, so I held him for a minute. Maddie doesn't cry often (at least not in front of people), she'll usually just get quiet. This was hard to see her crying. And I always cry when I see my mom cry! We all sat very quietly in the room at the vet with Armond. All crying, and petting him. Maddie left the room when the vet came in. He asked if we wanted to stay for it, my mom and I stayed. People told my mom that she should stay in there so he can be comfortable with familiar people. I couldn't leave her alone! They took Armond to weigh him and shave a spot on his leg for the injection. He was pretty calm for being out of his normal surroundings. They laid him down and we helped hold and pet him, and as they gave him the injection, he started purring. I think he was telling us Thank You and Good-bye. (awesome, now I'm crying again, blah!) He slowly went limp and we laid him down. It was a minute or two before he was gone, so we just sat and petted him. I had found a poem earlier that I gave to mom to help comfort her. I know she was feeling guilty, but I want her to know she shouldn't because she was so selfless to take care of him so well and for so long. She is amazing to all her pets, and she should just feel great for being able to give him 16 comfortable, loved years.
This is the poem I gave mom:

BEAMED FROM THE BRIGHT CATTERY IN THE SKY
(Michael Hatwell, The Cat Magazine)
"praedilecta Sappho ibi nuper ascensa sic loquitu"
In case you have been wondering
Just how I am getting along
In my new surroundings
Or worry whether I have learned to cope
With the easy rhythm and pace
For which this place is renowned
Then listen: I have been chasing little mice again
Sweeter, lighter, infinitely more fragrant
Than any I ever brought into the bedroom
For your pleasure
In the old days.
That having been said,
I wouldn't for all the world wish you to infer
That they stint the grub up here:
Admittedly
The celestial fish are not especially exciting
(Their natural zodiac ripeness has had to be homogenised
for the general run of feline palates)
But on the plus side
The nice cat-lady who comes round,
All gowned in blue (my favourite colour)
And with glory crowned,
Pours out a warm and creamy whiteness
That is literally
Quite heavenly.
Someone usually remembers
To cut my claws
And tickle my ear
So that side of things is catered for,
One might say,
Adequately enough.

I think of you sometimes
Certain that you will come one day
To take me on your knee
And talk to me the way you used to.
When that day comes
I shall let you know
Loudly and unambiguously
That things round here have finally begun to go
Really very well indeed:
I shall add to ordinary space and time
My own particular dimension
Of thick, soft-throated sound.

I know some people think its ridiculous to be that sad about a pet, but Armond was like part of the family, and he was with us for 16 years, thats a long time. All of our pets are like family. Pets are great companions and give unconditional love!

And on a happy note, Happy Birthday to JOSH!!! My older brother!! You are awesome and I hope you have had a great day!!

Halloween Happenings (picture overload)...and fun news at the bottom!!

2010-11-07T13:25:00.001-08:00

Halloween week was pretty busy, at work it was also Diversity week, so we had themes for each day.
For our Halloween costume, my mom, my brother and sister, and I tie-dyed shirts

Kai had a blast playing with Maddie.
On October 25th (mom's b-day) we went to a carnival at her school. There were like 10 bounce houses, and Kai had SO MUCH FUN! April and Maddie took him on a lot of them. Thank goodness for skinny sisters!

Kai liked watching people climb the rock wall

My mom, Rob, and I were hippies in the Manson family. Kai was DJ Lance Rock from Yo, Gabba Gabba! Kai doesn't cooperate well with picture taking! :P

Ok, and now something really exciting! I love this website, thePioneerwoman.com, and she does photography assignments/contests all the time. This week she did "Four Legs" so I submitted a picture and she featured it in Group 2 today!!! YAY!!! There are like 30 some odd thousand pictures submitted to her group, so I was very excited to see my picture on there today! I got all giddy and butterflies in my stomach! This is my picture:

So, go comment and tell them your favorite (really it doesn't HAVE to be mine! ;) but I'd love the love!!)

MOM

2010-10-25T22:04:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to the beautiful woman who raised me!! I LOVE YOU MOM!!!

What's goin on?

2010-10-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

I know....I slack.
So I guess we'll update.
My best friend, Robyn, invited Rob and I up north to attend the network premiere party for "Sister Wives", so Kai stayed with my mom and Rob's mom. It was fun and kind of nice to get away for a minute. Even though Rob and I kept saying "I miss baby Kai!" And I felt horrible for Carolyn (Rob's mom) because Kai normally sleeps through the night. He'll go down at around 9-9:30 and wake up around 8 or 9 am. Well, not the night at their house! He wouldn't go down until about 10:30, then woke up at 2:30 and wouldn't go back to sleep until 4:30, then woke around 8. I felt so bad. I know its because he was out of his element, but even times we've taken him out of town, he'll sleep pretty good.

Kai has been walking so much better. Especially the last couple of days, he'll walk into the kitchen and back to the living room without falling. The other day he pointed at a picture of a dog and said "wooo-ooo-oooo-oooo-oooo" over and over. We kind of weren't paying attention for a minute, then realized he was making a dog sound. It was so cute! If we see any dogs while we are on a walk, he gets so excited. I wish we could have a dog, but right now we just don't have the time to train one and deal with all that goes with it.

Kai has also started liking regular food a lot more. Which I am glad for, maybe we'll start transitioning his milk from the bottle to a sippy cup now. We do juice in a sippy, but he hasn't been interested when there is milk in it. He LOVES crackers, but we can only give him one at a time, because he'll shove them all in his mouth at once.

Kai babbles on quite a bit now, and I can tell he tries to say a lot of words. He loves to dance and LOVES "Yo Gabba Gabba"! I wish we could afford to take him to the live show, he'd love it! At first I thought "Yo Gabba Gabba" was a cracked out show, but the fact that it grabs his interest so much has made me pay attention more. And I realized it does teach a lot of good things, so I don't mind. He's always "GO GO GO" and when we turn on "Yo Gabba Gabba" he will sit and watch the whole thing. One thing I really love lately, is if I sit on the floor, Kai will come over and sit on my lap, I love it! Its so cute. And since he won't hold still long enough to cuddle, I get to use this as cuddle time! He also LOVES to be read to! I'm grateful for that. He'll usually be calm enough for you to read to him, and when you're done, he sometimes gets upset until you start reading again. Too cute.

And Kai always has been, and always will be a cute little poser! :P

Look what I can do!!

2010-09-28T17:08:00.000-07:00

Finally Kai is wanting to walk. For the longest time, when we would try to get him to walk, he would just get all limp-legged and not even want to attempt it. But all of the sudden he tried walking on Friday night. He didn't get more than one step in before falling, but we worked more on Saturday, and he's doing so good!! Now when he tries he holds his arms straight up above his head, its hilarious.

My little baby....not so little anymore

2010-09-14T21:22:00.001-07:00

So my little boy is ONE! Can't believe it! At his 12 month appointment he weighed in at 25 pounds, and is 31 inches tall. We had his birthday party on August 21st (his b-day is the 19th), and a lot of people were there, and my friend Amanda made a wonderfully awesome cake! Here are some cute pictures from the day! ;) On the cake, the shark came off and was the part we gave to Kai My cute little neice: Trying out the pinata Presents Both Kai and my expressions here make me laugh! :P Kai and his grandmas: Happy Birthday, my sweet boy, I love you!

Wedding Video

2010-08-29T13:07:00.000-07:00

I was looking at pictures today and ran across my wedding picture video I had made. I tear up every time I see this!
Ok, everyone together "AWWWWWWWW!"

Drying up...

2010-08-15T20:55:00.000-07:00

Warning, may contain TMI
So I breastfed Kai until the beginning of November. So less than 3 months. I have been pumping exclusively since then. 9 months....9 months of pumping everyday. Setting the time aside to pump. And I work full time. At first it was 5 to 6 times a day. Now it is 1 or 2 times a day. At first I had to supplement with a little formula, then when he started eating cereal I had enough milk...more than enough. My fridge was full. As I started tapering off a little, I am now supplementing a little again. I don't feel too full if I pump twice a day now. Its really not all that bad. I am quite excited to stop having to set aside this time everyday. But in a way I'm a little sad. I'm sad because my baby is growing up! 4 days from today he turns ONE! Holy crap!! Its very surreal. Next monday is his 12 month appointment, so we'll get to see his stats, which I am excited for. He hasn't been to the Dr. since 6 months. His Dr. is my uncle, so he was like, "eh, he can skip his 9 month, he's doing good". The only thing I am worried about is his reflux. The medicine he's on helps quite a bit, but with how easily he still pukes, I am worried that if we take him off he'll get really bad again. :( I am a little excited to have him try cows milk though! I wonder what he'll think of that. We put his carseat facing forward yesterday for the first time. I konw its 5 days early...but hey...he's bigger than a lot of 1 year olds, so I figure he'll be fine. He likes it a lot, being able to see everything.
We're gearing up for his party, which will be next Saturday, the 21st. We're doing a fish theme, and my awesome friend, Amanda, is making the cakes (one for Kai and one for everyone!) It's going to be way fun! I'm so excited! I will definately be posting a bunch of pictures from it! This is the invite I made for the event!

And in addition, I have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my beautiful neice! Today she is 8 years old! We're doing a family celebration when she gets baptised! I can't beleive how old she is! WOW.

Happy Birthday "Gummy-cita"!!

My friend....the Sister Wife

2010-08-06T22:16:00.000-07:00

I have a friend that is involved in a controversial situation. Rob asked me tonight, when we saw it on the news, how I felt about it. I will stand by this:
I am so proud of my best friend. She is an amazing person no matter what anyone else thinks. I have been friends with her since we were 12. Almost 20 years will give you an idea on someones character. While this may not be MY lifestyle choice, she is happy and I am SO immensely happy for her. I am looking forward to this show, "Sister Wives" on TLC in September! It will be interesting! ;)

Random

2010-07-31T22:17:00.001-07:00

So I really think this song is beautiful, but the radio plays it so much, I will get sick of it, I'm sure. But this performance is very impressive too. I'm not really a Pink fan...but this was cool. All that and she kept singing!

LoL

2010-07-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

So I have kind of been toying with the idea for a while...but with how Kai has been swinging from my locks like Tarzan in the jungle...I decided to just do it before I got too psyched out. To make it easier, I recruited a fellow long-haired-brunette just 2 days ago to join me. She had been thinking about donating her hair for a while too. Its quite a change. The last time I cut my hair was to my chin 7 and a half years ago. Since then I have just regularly trimmed it and grown it out. I didn't realize how long it really was until I saw my before picture, though:

Thats Amanda on the left and me on the right.
I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but with help from the hair dresser, and this as kind of an idea, we ended up with this:

My hair is shorter than the picture I was going for, but I think I like it. :D
Change is always good, and its just hair, right? It'll grow out...
What do YOU think?

Beautiful Neices

2010-07-07T17:07:00.001-07:00

I could take pictures of these girls for days!!

Aren't they gorgeous?

And I slack....so here are some pictures....

2010-07-07T16:50:00.000-07:00

A couple with April:

This one was just too funny!

I just wanted to post SOMETHING...so these are some pics I took of April's boyfriend and his baby.

2:57 a.m.

2010-06-05T23:36:00.000-07:00

"Wwwwaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh..................wwwwwwAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Crap...Kai's awake. Gosh, he was so good about sleeping through the night for so long, why is he waking up in the middle of the night, every night this week! I get up, stumbling in the dark, and rush to Kai's room. I try to give him his binky, hoping maybe he'll just go back to sleep....no such luck, still crying. I go into the kitchen, block his eyes from the bright light of the fridge, while I grab a bottle. I turn on the hot water and start warming the milk. Rob comes in the kitchen to check on us, Kai has his eyes closed and is kind of tiredly half-heartedly crying (sounds very fake). I finally get the bottle to a decent temperature and take our routine spot on the recliner. I rock him as he sucks down his bottle very quickly. I'm hoping he'll easily go back to sleep. As he finishes, I do a switcheroo with the bottle for the binky. I pull him up onto my shoulder to burp him, and his head goes limp against my shoulder. As I am patting his back, I start to think of how sweet and innocent children are. I think of how Kai will be in 17, or so, years. These are the kind of moments I will think back on. When I could hold him in my arms and kiss his cheek softly. It makes me grateful that I have this moment with him. Just the two of us cuddling. I get a little burp out of him, so I gather him and his blanky up and walk softly to his room. I give him several more kisses on his cheek and whisper "I love you, bud" and in one swift move, lay him gently in his crib. He doesn't make a sound and I creep out of his room and softly close his door, my heart full. I love that little boy. I tip-toe back to my room, and crawl into bed. 3:11 a.m. Not bad... I gradually fall asleep again, thankful that my little boy woke me up to remind me how much I love him.

Mother's Day

2010-05-09T21:55:00.000-07:00

It is almost surreal to be celebrating Mother's Day, as a mother, for the first time. Sometimes even after a night of almost no sleep, or a day of fussiness speckled by bouts of baby laughter, I have to stop and think "Am I really a mom??!" It really blows my mind sometimes. It makes me hope that I am really doing all I should to be a decent mom. Am I being too obsessive about this? not worrying enough about that? But I know I just need to realize that he's happy and healthy and thats the most important thing. And when I see his huge smile with his little new teeth, or hear that adorable little laugh, I know its all worth it, and I think of how much I love that little boy.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom and every mom out there, or anyone who's been a "stand in" mom for anyone!! You are loved!

Giveaway

2010-05-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

There is a fun giveaway from one of the blogs I follow....The Dress-Up Drawer is offering a free item from this Etsy shop. Be sure to stop by and check it out!

Ironman

2010-05-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

All of the people who do this ISPIRE ME! They are amazing...and I saw this guy. He must've taken a tumble during it, his shoulder was all bound up and he was STILL GOING! Talk about AMAZING!!

Cliffhanger

2010-04-19T21:10:00.001-07:00

So our Leadership Retreat was pretty fun. Everyone pretty much repelled twice. Even though they almost had to throw me down both times. It was a 90 foot cliff! We had a pretty good time, then went and had lunch.

This weekend was pretty good too. Rob, Kai, and I just hung out a bit. Went to the splash pad on Main St. It was CRAZY busy though, but I got a couple good shots of Kai.

And of course I have been playing with my camera and photoshop a bit! :D

The tooth

2010-03-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

I could tell Kai had a tooth coming, he was very cranky, always chewing on stuff hard, and his gums were swollen. Finally on Saturday I put my finger in his mouth to put some Oragel on his gums, and I could feel the ridges of the tooth! It had finally broke through!! Since then he’s been much happier. All last week he didn’t sleep through the night and after the tooth, he is back to sleeping through the night again! THANK GOODNESS. We’ve even had many nights that if he doesn’t fall right asleep at the end of his last bottle, I’ll just put him down in his crib. He usually falls asleep after 10-30 minutes of babbling to himself. At first we had to keep going in his room to put his binky back in his mouth, but lately he just goes to sleep after a while. My mom got him a little musical projector that shines on the ceiling, and that has helped a lot, as I figured it would.
Last Saturday was also the First birthday party for my friend, Cami’s, daughter, who I say is Kai’s girlfriend. She’s adorable. Its crazy how quickly Kai is growing. He's be 7 months old today! (technically yesterday here now.) March 19th is also my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!

I guess I’ll update what Kai is doing:
He can sit up on his own, for quite a while (He even sat back up after falling back on the Boppy).
He can now go every direction in his walker, and RUNS in it! He’ll chase you around the house, he knows exactly how to get where he wants to go.
He has eaten pretty much every 1st stage food and LOVES them ALL (I haven’t tried the meats yet, because everyone has said to wait on those…)
He is a VERY good eater, he gobbles up his food in no time!
I started introducing him to sippy cups, but he hasn’t been very interested in them, except today he drank quite a bit of juice from it, mostly he’s wanted to chew on the spout.
He is doing very well at grabbing items and turning things over to look at (and chew on) all sides of them.
He babbles, sings, and SCREAMS (happily) quite often. In the car, he’ll sing himself to sleep.
He says “Da-da-da-da”, even after we do sometimes, but I don’t think he knows what it means. He hasn’t quite said “Ma-Ma” yet. He’ll copy us and say “Blah-blah-blah” and I swear he tried to say “Bath” when we’ve said it.
He blows (or maybe he’s trying to whistle, lol).
He LOVES to laugh, especially at Rob! He LOVES his Daddy SOO much! (And Rob is such a good dad! And Rob loves to make Kai laugh).

Results are in!

2010-03-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

Kai has severe reflux. No bueno. The doctor said that he didn't see any structural abnormalities or damage from the reflux. So twice a day I have to give him a perscription antacid. We need to feed him less, more often (easier said than done, because he's a HUNGRY HIPPO!! He cries like you've beat him, if you take his food away before he's done), we need to burp him more often, and also keep him upright for a while after he's eaten. Its hard to say how much better it is so far, because we've only had the perscription since last night. But I am sure it'll be better now. Kai started walking backwards in his walker last month, well a week or two ago he started going forward a bit, then all the sudden yesterday, he started running all over. He goes so fast across our wood floors and he wants to get into EVERYTHING! He was trying to pull on the trash, open all the cupboards, play on the computer, mess with the printer, chase the cats...its insane! Hes so funny, once he's figured something out, he's all over it! When I got home from work Rob said "Your son is running everywhere!!" so I had to get a little video of it. He's so cute!

I know, I know, I know

2010-02-28T21:55:00.000-08:00

I keep saying I'm going to be better with blogging...well, we've all come to terms with the fact that its just not going to happen. So, as I go back and forth from the couch to Kai's room to stick his binky back in his mouth, I might as well keep myself busy in between. Right now he's in there singing, but that could quickly escalate to crying...so I'm on the edge of the couch, ready to jump. :P
We've been working on getting him to go to sleep on his own, cause I just got so frustrated with trying to rock a fussy boy to sleep when he didn't want to go to sleep. I don't understand why he fights sleep so much...ok, I think he finally gave up for tonight!
Ever since Kai was born, he has spit up a lot. More than most babies. Rob thought it was normal, but he pukes so much, I am surprised he's gaining weight as well as he has. At 6 months (woah, 6 months!!! Holy time flying, batman!) he is 19 lbs 12 oz (84th %), 27 1/2" tall (85th %), and his head is 17 1/2" round (65th %).
So at his appointment, the Dr suggested we get an xray of his esophagus and see if we can figure out what is going on. That was done on Thursday, and we haven't heard the results yet. The tech there said she could see him refluxing though. We had to have him skip a feeding to be hungry, then put him in this little hospital gown with tigers on it. It was seriously the cutest sight ever: him in that gown! But it also made me a little sad. Rob stayed with him to feed him the barium stuff, and I stood behind the wall with the window. Kai doesn't like to be held down, so he screamed quite a bit, and the barium just got all over his face and head. Poor guy. Hopefully we hear something tomorrow. Other than that, he's doing pretty good.
Christmas was fun, Kai was even a little interested in opening presents. He got a walker from grandma Kris and grandpa Dave, which he loves. He got a highchair from grandma and grandpa Dammann. My mom has taken some pictures of him, here is a Christmas one:

And a couple from this month:

He's getting so big! I held a baby that was around a month old and she felt soooo little!
My friend, Robyn, who took my old central supply position is moving this week! :( I am sad to not have her at work anymore. Its been an awesome year getting to be around her all the time and getting close again. But I am happy for her, she's getting married this summer. So new adventures for her! Congrats, Robyn!
We've done a lot of playing Left 4 Dead 2 since Rob's birthday (when we hurried and bought it with the gift card he got). The game is SO addicting and fun! Even if I sometimes get nightmares from it!
Ok, well its very much past my bedtime! I won't say that I'll blog again soon, that'll just jinx it. So....maybe you'll see me again before Kai's first b-day! HAHAHA, I'm sure I can't be THAT bad!

Kai laughs

2009-12-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

This was the second time he really laughed. It's so fun!!

Yeah, I know

2009-12-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

When Kai was a couple weeks old mom took these pics...

Ok, lets get past the fact that I'm a lazy moron and never blog anymore. Or I'm a mom....whatever! :P
So Kai is 16 weeks old now...4 months. Craziness. At his 2 month appointment he was 12 pounds. The last time he was measured was at 6 weeks, he was 22 inches. His 4 month appointment should be soon, so we'll get an update on that. He's getting big so fast!! And I can't wait to be able to start feeding him cereal! For the last couple months he's been sleeping through the night every night. Sometimes its just hard to get him to go to sleep. We rock him for a while to get him asleep, he just fights it so much.
I started back to work on October 29th, its been hard, and I miss Kai every day!
Rob's aunt passed away so we went to her funeral up north on October 30th. It was Rob's dad's sister. That was the first time I ever saw Dennis cry, it was heartbreaking. He spoke at the funeral and he's an impressive public speaker, I was humbled.
My sister, April, was kind enough to take our offer for her to live with us and to take care of Kai while we are at work. She's working for Rob in the evenings. Its so nice to have someone I know watching him, and not having to pay for daycare or a sitter. I am so grateful for it!
For Halloween Kai was a lobster...and a very cute one at that.

We took him around with my siblings and neices and nephews in my mom's neighborhood while they trick-or-treated.

Rob was...himself, Josh was a....yeah...well, he was a "special friend", April insists she was 80's, but people kept thinking she was a hooker...I was a lunch lady, Gwennie was a rock star, Brycen and Maddie were vampires, Owen was Darth Vader, and Skylar was a grim reaper? I think, and Lelah was a cheetah!...They were all very cute.

Kai's blessing was the first weekend in November, and my grandpa Lockwood blessed him. It was a very nice blessing, and of course Kai screamed through it, and then puked all down the front of my grandpa on the way back to the seats. We had a luncheon at mom's after it, and it was so nice to have everyone there. I was happy to have Grandpa bless him, because he's who blessed me when I was a baby.

We finally did family pictures, it had been 5 years since our last ones, and we had 4 new family members! Here's a taste of some good ones:

For Thanksgiving we had a wonderful dinner at Rob's parents. Kai was so good, he ate right before our dinner was ready, then he fell asleep and stayed asleep while we ate!
I was appointed to plan our work Christmas party, which is on my birthday, so I hope I get it all figured out and it goes well!
I finally made a birth announcement for Kai that I was ok with:

I will try better to not wait so long to post!! I also need to post the video of Kai's first laughs!!

This just in....I'm a slacker!

2009-10-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

I get so busy and tired so often now, I'm slacking on blogging. Kai's napping, but might not be for long...so I'll update you all.
A few weeks ago Kai had a Dr. appointment at 6 weeks. He was 11 lbs, 5 oz, and 22 inches long. He's getting so big. he's in the 77th percentile in weight. That might be because I had no idea how much I should be feeding him and turns out I feed him more than my 5 month old niece eats! oops! I've tried to slowly cut down, but then Kai acts like he's starving all the time. So we're trying to work on that. Kai's been really good most nights. We've had a couple where I'm up until 1, and once I was up til 4 am, but also a couple nights where he slept for 8 hours straight. So I'm very thankful for that.
He hasn't been too happy with his swing or bouncer, which sucks, because if I want to shower I have to wait for him to fall asleep enough to put him down, and then he usually wakes up while I'm in the shower, so that's been tough. I am the kind of person who gets irritated if I can't finish something I've started, so if I start getting ready, I just want to be done with it. Hopefully it will get easier.
Kai gets his shots this week, so that will be sad for me. I feel so bad when he's hurting. He's been pretty gassy/colicky so he can get pretty fussy and pained.
My mom took some pictures of him when he was a couple weeks old, so I will post those when I have the laptop, and she just took some more pics today that I will post when I get them!
But I hear my little man stirring from his nap, so I am off!!

Kai's birth story.

2009-09-28T20:23:00.000-07:00

Ok. Of course having the new baby, its crazy to find the time to even blog anymore. My memory is failing me, so I hope I get all my details right! I guess I tell long stories, so sorry if this is a bit boring, But here we go!

After the blog that I wrote on August 18th, where I was having more painful contractions and questioning if I should call the Dr. and what-not. So finally at like 4 pm, I called the Dr office, and got voicemail, so I left a message saying I thought I was having contractions, but didn't want to go to the hospital and be sent home if it wasn't labor, and could I come by and be seen by the doctor. One of the girls from the Dr office called me back and said, "Can you come in right now?" so we grabbed my bag (just in case, but I really didn't think I'd need it, I figured we'd be home in a little while), and we headed to the doctor.
At about 4:45 pm, we went in, of course they checked my blood pressure and urine. The blood pressure was way up and there was protein in my urine. Then the Dr checked me (painful as hell), and I was dilated about 3-4, he said I was in early labor and I had a choice to make. He said, "You can go home, if you want to be comfortable there and come back when labor progresses more, or I can call Labor & Delivery and tell them you are coming over." I got really nervous. Rob asked, "If she goes to Labor and Delivery, is there a possibility that we'll be sent home? Or are they going to move things along?". Dr. Lunt said, "No, things are moving along anyway, but we'll probably do some pitocin to keep things going along." As scared as I was, I said, "Well, my mom would be mad if I didn't just go over, so let's do it!" The nurse walked us through the back way from their office to Labor and Delivery. As they passed us to an L&D CNA, I started crying. I felt so stupid, but I was realizing that this was it! I was so scared. She turned and saw me crying and asked if I was ok. I told her I was just scared. They wanted more urine, and when I was in the bathroom, I realized I was bleeding quite a bit, but I figured it was expected.

I got into a hospital gown and into bed. It was about time for the shift change, so I didn't see a nurse until the new one started at 6 pm. The CNA worked on getting things all ready for me, and Rob had called my mom on the way over here, so she showed up pretty quick after we did...heck, she almost beat us there! When the nurse finally came in, her name was Nicole, and she was the nicest girl ever! She was so great and I am so glad we had her! She got my IV going and said I needed to have a full bag of fluid emptied into me before I could get an epidural.
See, I hadn't been totally positive that I was going to get an epidural, but the pains I was having were so bad. I had really bad back labor all day, and it got so much worse once we were at the hospital, I couldn't even feel the contractions in my abdomen anymore, just the horrible back pain. My mom always tells me that I have a low pain tolerance, and I figured I did, but I just wanted to see how things were going to go. But the pain was bad enough to justify the epidural...why have all that pain if I don't have to?
Rob and my mom hadn't eaten, so at about 7 or 7:30 I told Rob to go get something for them. While he was gone I finished my bag of fluid, but I told them I wanted to wait for Rob to get back before I got the epidural. As they were getting things ready for the epidural, our nurse aparently had to go talk to her manager, so the nurse down the hall came in to get things ready. BLAH!!! It was the nurse that helped us when we had to go in to L&D in May, when I was having the first hydronephrosis pains. I was very unimpressed with her then, and when she walked in, from the look on my mom's face, I could tell it was a nurse she did NOT like, and had talked to me about. GREAT! She was pretty rough with me as she got me in position for the epidural, etc. She told my mom that only one person could be in ther with me when they put the epidural in, so my mom said it would be Rob, so when it was time for my mom to step out, that nurse escorted her way down the hall to a waiting room, by her arm. What the hell?? Is my mom a criminal? Thank goodness that was the last we saw of that nurse. When my nurse, Nicole, came back in, I asked if my mom talked to her about that nurse, and she said, "No, she just said that the nurse stressed you out", so I told her we've had bad experiences with her before, so she said that she wouldn't be back in there, she promised. Thank goodness.
So time for the epidural...that was an experience. It was just after 8 pm. Rob sat in front of me and put pressure on my knees to keep me from moving forward or jolting. The nurse held me at my shoulders...couldn't tell if it was to keep me still or be reassuring! It was pretty bad. When the needle went in I felt the most painful shock down my spine, and down my left leg. I shreiked so loud. I was bawling and I think Rob felt so bad and didn't know what to do. Finally the pains subsided and the nurse told me I did so good. She said most people jerk forward, and some have to have it done again, but I held perfectly still. It only seemed to numb my left side at first. I could still feel on the right, so I had some pains still during the contractions. After a while they propped me up to help "drain" some of the meds to the right side. It did help a lot. I could still feel a tiny bit, but it was good to feel when the contractions were. The nurse was excited to check me and see how far I was. I was a 5, couple hours later I was 5-6.
We let my sister-in-law, Jalee know that things were going on their way, so she came over around 10pm, I think. Dr. Lunt had come in before the epidural and said he didn't want to check me until I had the epidural, since when he checked in his office, it was so painful. I had been shaking like crazy since before the epidural, which is something I do when I am in pain anyway, and nervous, but it also happens in labor. I shook like crazy until after I had Kai. Rob kept feeling bad thinking I was cold, but I wasn't I was so hot. But Rob, mom, and Jalee were freezing the whole time. They said the room was very cold. I asked the nurse for warm blankets for them, but that didn't seem to last long, they got cold quick again.
I hadn't eaten since lunch, so I was starving, but I couldn't eat. They said I could have liquids, so finally I got some yummy grape juice (Jalee's suggestion of hospital juices), and broth, which was TASTY, since I was starving!
All of us were laughing and joking, the nurses probably thought we were crazy. Around 2 a.m., I was dilated to a 10. They wanted me to stay at a 10 for a while to allow Kai's head to cone more to come out easier. Since I had the epidural it wasn't painful, but I did feel quite a bit of pressure with each contraction, and I would tense up my muscles automatically and would try to relax. They turned my light off and try to sleep...yeah right. After an hour they were back to get things moving. The nurse and CNA were there to get me pushing to get Kai down more. They told me that with first births, its usually about 3 hours of pushing. I was quite a bit nervous about that because I was so tired, and hadn't slept in about 20 hours. I hoped I had the energy. My mom had a leg, and Rob was by my head to support my back with each push. I was thinking "Ok...here we go!" I had heartburn all day, and they gave me some Malox, but it hadn't helped. At the end of each push, I could feel the acid burn my throat and I felt like I was going to puke. They gave me a barf bag and finally it came into use. I almost felt like my pushing wasn't doing any good. I felt like I wasn't really pushing enough. The nurse kept saying how good I was doing and that he was moving down good. They started saying they could see his head and the nurse was trying to see what color his hair was. After a while with each push they could all see his head and all the hair he had. (I was so glad, I thought he was going to be bald!) An hour later the doctor got there and after a few pushes Kai's head was out and the doctor told me to sit back and relax, and he'd do the rest, and within seconds, Kai was out at 4:27 a.m., After 21 hours of labor. His little cry sounded like a car's motor trying to start, it was so sweet! Everything after that was such a blur! Rob held him first, and called his parents. I did tear, and the spot lights in the room weren't working so we had a portable spotlight that the dr was trying to work with, but he'd move and his head would block the light, so the stitching up took FOREVER! Finally I looked at him and said, "Are you stitching the whole thing up??" :P Kai was 8 pounds, 5 ounces, and 19 1/2 inches long. Rob's parents came and left, and the nurses wanted me to try nursing. By then I was SOO SOO tired, and it was a little frustrating. Kai was making little grunting sounds like a pig, it was so funny. We then got moved to the mom and baby floor and they had me try nursing again, and by then I was just like, "C'MON!! Just let me SLEEP!!!" It was after 7 am, and I had been up for 24 hours, Rob and I were so tired. Kai was in the little cart, and slept so quietly while we did for a few hours. He ended up having jaundice, and we had to stay an extra day. I really didn't mind. I had a hard time leaving, I cried as I packed my stuff to leave the hospital, it was nice to have people to help, and now we had to leave and face this alone. And the hospital food was REALLY GOOD! But....it was crazy that it was over and he was here.

Baby Kai

2009-08-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

I will have to find some time to do a birth story, but for now I'll just update. Kai was born on Wednesday, August 19th, at 4:27 am. He was 8 lbs 5 oz, and 19 1/2 inches long. He's got blonde hair, and grey-blue eyes, he looks so much like Rob. In my last blog I mentioned how miserable I was, well, thats because I really was in labor. Good to know! We ended up staying a night longer than we were going to in the hospital because Kai had Jaundice, but he had the light treatments, and I think he's doing ok. Last night being our first night home was pretty hard, he's got his days and nights mixed up, and since I didn't have him until early morning, I had spent a day in labor with no sleep, so I still can't manage to catch up. I got maybe an hour and a half, or two hours last night. Everyone keeps saying "sleep when he does", so I'll be trying to do that so I can catch up a little.

Kai is so precious and I love him so much, and its so awesome to see Rob in his Dad role. Rob's been amazing. He stayed at the hospital with me the whole time except to stop by the house twice to get somthing. He helps me with feedings and anything else I need. He's even at the store as we speak getting girl things for me! Now I have 2 amazing men in my life and I couldn't be happier!

Lame

2009-08-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

So this morning I woke up to some contractions that were crampy and my lower back hurt pretty bad. I was spotting a tad yesterday morning and this morning. I tried to sleep a little, but kept waking up to the crampy feeling.
I finally decided to get up and shower, etc. I had a few contractions during all that, but then when I sat down they started getting worse. They were about 4-7 minutes apart for a while, then eased up a little after a couple hours and are now like anywhere from 5-20 minutes apart. I keep thinking maybe I'll call the Dr and see what I should do, but I have an appointment tomorrow morning, so maybe I'll just wait until then. I just hope things don't happen in the middle of the night....that would just stress me out.
Maybe I'll go lay down.... :(

7 Days....

2009-08-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

7 Days....makes me think of "The Ring" but really, its 7 days until my due date. I was hoping that I wasn't going to be sitting around wasting my maternity leave on bedrest. But, alas.....no baby yet.
Here's me at 38 weeks and 4 days (gotta love my 87 chins and the maternity shirt that Jalee gave me that doesn't really fit, but I don't have much else!):

I've been havng quite a few contractions, sometimes they get regular, and they're getting stronger, but not productive yet.
Tuesday I had my dr appointment. My blood pressure was way high. Something like 162 over 90. They checked me and I'm almost 2 cm dilated and 80% thinned. She stripped my membranes, but if labor doesn't start in 24 hours, it didn't work...so yeah, didn't work. They reiterated the fact that I need to NOT do anything, no cleaning, no shopping, no sex (there goes that labor-inducing idea), etc. I go back this wednesday. On Thursday I went to the stress-test fetal monitoring, and my blood pressure was a lot better, I only had 3 contractions during the half hour, but they were stronger than last time. My amniotic fluid was a tad lower than they like, so they want to see me twice a week now, so I have another appointment for that tomorrow.
Friday night Rob's parents brought us Cafe Rio! YUM! That was so awesome of them! :D Yesterday and Today Rob has been doing a lot of cleaning, since I can't. But he's been amazing about it. He makes me food, cleans the kitchen, and anything else I need. It's nice that he's being so helpful because I really wanted the house clean before the baby comes.
Last monday a little birdie brought me some crib bedding!! Thank you!!!! So we're FINALLY completely ready in the baby's room. I had wanted to do a tropical/underwater theme, but everything was so expensive, so this works just as well, and I really do love it. The whole room isn't very fancy, so here's just a picture of the crib:

And now that Rob cleaned off the desk, Gizmo has a new place she likes to call her domain. And now if there's ANYTHING on the desk, she likes to knock it off on to the floor! (she's such a turd)

Gizmo has some really bad matted fur right now, we try to brush her a lot, but she just likes to attack the brush. The matts have been pretty easy to brush out or cut out before, but now I think we might have to break down and pay $100 for a groomer to shave her. It's so bad. (and I can't believe it costs that much!!)
My friend, Cami, brought her 5 month old over the other day to visit me and Gizmo did NOT know what to think of that! She hasn't been around any babies or anything, so she just watched from across the room very intently, then gradually came over to take a look, but just for a second. It will be interesting to see how the cats react with a baby here all the time!
Well, I am hoping that Kai decides to come soon or I'm going to go crazy on bedrest! And I am so sore all the time, that needs to end.

Getting yelled at.

2009-08-09T21:17:00.001-07:00

My family kept giving me a hard time all weekend. My mom had a lunch at her house yesterday because we had some family in town, so I went over there to SIT AROUND. I personally figured sitting at home and sitting somewhere else was about the same. BUT others didn't agree. "Aren't you supposed to be on bedrest?!?" was the constant question. Yeah yeah yeah. The lunch was good and it was really nice to see everyone. And a couple family members hadn't met Rob before, so I wanted him to meet them. They were having a community yard sale in my mom's neighborhood, and on our way to my moms house I saw a baby swing, so we had to go check it out. That was one thing I didnt have yet, so we looked and it was only $5, so we had to get it. Rob cleaned it up today, and it's as good as new! :D That evening was my neice's birthday celebration because all of Jalee's family was in town. The kids all were playing on the slip'n'slide. I was saying maybe I should go ahead and play on it with them, maybe get some labor going! :D
Today was my neice's baby blessing. Lots of family was there, so it was really nice to be there. Its so awesome to see my brother bless all of his children, I'm so proud of him and his worthiness to be able to do that. After sacrament we got some family pics out front (hopefully I can snag a copy off Jalee's blog soon), then my grandpa and my brother gave me a Preisthood blessing. I was very grateful that I was able to get one before the baby comes. My grandpa is also going to bless my baby when he's here. I'm glad for that, because he's who blessed me when I was a baby.
I am still pretty swollen, we went to Walmart today (before you yell at me, I rode on the motorized wheelchair!)I checked my blood pressure on the machine there, and it was 148 over 88. So still a bit high :/ One of Josh and Jalee's friends was talking to me after the blessing today and said, "Don't be surprised if at your next Dr. appointment, he tells you that you're blood pressure is still too high, and they tell you that you'll be induced that day, and walk you over to labor and delivery." Its probably true, I heard him tell someone that last week. So I guess we'll see what he says with how this appointment goes, PLUS the blood and urine they took last week, and the monitoring. I still have had some mild contractions, but nothing monumental. My next appointment is Tuesday, I guess we'll see what the dr says!

Resting

2009-08-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

Warning: may contain TMI
So yesterday started with me losing my mucus plug. I wondered what this meant for me. Would I start having stronger contractions? Would other weird stuff follow?? Well, not right away. My mom came and got me and we went and picked up my urine collection kit...YAY. I hung out at my moms for a while and began collecting my urine in her fridge. My step dad was none too thrilled to hear about that. My mom helped me to make sure the nun's cap I was peeing in would pour nicely in my brown jug, and was convinced that I started having the "bloody show". Then I had to go get monitored at the fetal monitoring office at the labor and delivery unit. (so much for bedrest!) My mom and Rob came with me and I had to make sure that on this outing I didn't have to go to the bathroom, because we had to leave my pee jug in the fridge. I made it alright. I was hooked up to the machine for just over a half hour. My blood pressure was A LOT better 143 over 84. Kai's heartbeat was good, and I had 5 contractions in the time I was there, but they were mild. The tech monitoring me said she thought it wouldn't be long before the baby was here, with all the contrating and the baby being so low. I guess we'll see. I keep having contractions off and on, but nothing strong.
Rob worked all night last night, and I think he was a little worried about me. I told him I'd be fine. And I was...other than not getting much sleep because I can't get comfortable AND because when Rob's gone, I don't sleep well. This morning my mom came to get me and my jug of chunky urine to take to the lab. They had to take my blood (again, I hate needles) and the girl looked to be about 16. I was worried she wouldn't do well. It took her a while to get my vein up and she even suggested using my other arm, but I promptly told her "No, that vein rolls!" So she figured it out and got the vein, but I could tell she wasn't quite a pro, I could definately feel every time she changed the vial. With that done, I called the Dr's office to let them know I didn't get everything done wednesday night, but it was done now. But I'll probably have to wait til monday to hear anything about my urine, blood, and monitoring.
I'll just hope things start moving along on their own, since I can't go walking or any other stuff to move things along. *crossing fingers*
But to end on a really good note, Rob is sooo good to me, he's been cleaning up and making me dinner and everything. And now he's asleep on the recliner since he worked all night. Poor boy!

37 weeks and 3 days...what do you get?

2009-08-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

Bedrest.
I had a Dr. appointment today. When the nurse started taking my blood pressure, she says, "HOLY COW, your blood pressure is high!!! Do you have a headache or anything??" I said no. So they had me lay down for a minute and checked it again. It had gone down, but I guess it was bad enough that they said I couldn't go back to work. In a way its good, today was the last day of Month End for Accounts Payable, so I got Robyn trained on it. BUT I wasn't expecting to not go back to work yet. So THAT stressed me out a little. There's still so much that I have to do and get ready before I start my Maternity Leave...but Oh well! I have to stop working. I hope things at work go ok. :/
I have to go get blood work in the morning and then I have to collect my urine for 24 hours....and keep it in the fridge...."WHAT?!" I dunno, but they want every drop to check for protein, etc. I have to go to the hospital and be monitored once a week to make sure the baby is not stressed and see how I am doing. If it stays bad or gets worse, they will induce me early. If not, they're hoping things progress on their own. The dr. thinks that in 7-14 ish days I'll be a mom. Crazy. I haven't progressed much. I am dilated 1.5 cm, and thinned 70%. The exam about killed me today and I am cramping in my abdomen and back a little. I have been having Braxton Hicks contractions more, and some get a bit uncomfortable. I hope things progress quickly because this bedrest thing is going to get old fast. And its stressful to just be sitting here not being helpful at work, home, etc. I know its only going to help me and baby Kai, but its hard for me to just let go and relax. :(
So tomorrow starts my Maternity Leave. I just hope Kai comes soon, so I'm not wasting my leave by just hanging out watching soap operas! :P
I will try to keep my blog updated, so you all know how its going.
I will leave you with a couple cool pics my wonderful mother took this weekend. Yes, its my bare belly, which I have refused to post on here so far! EEK

Getting closer?

2009-08-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

This is me at 36 weeks and 4 days (my lips are blue because of the shaved ice I was craving!):

Went to the doctor on wednesday. Had to have the Strep B test...girls...not so fun! But I got checked and I am thinned 60-70%, dilated 1 cm, cervix is soft and baby's head is down. I have 22 days left, but everyone thinks I'll be early. I kind of hope so, but I have to wait until after this wednesday! I'm still training people to cover me while I'm on maternity leave. I have had a LOT of pain in my hips and pubic bone. It feels like someone wrapped a chain around my pubic bone and tied it to a mack truck on the freeway...so it feels nice as you can imagine! :P My ankles are so swollen, and don't go down at night anymore. They're ridiculously huge! I can only wear flip flops now, and almost all of my maternity clothes no longer fit. I've been having Braxton Hicks contractions quite a bit, so I guess my body is getting ready. Also....we have decided on a name! Kai Tanner Dammann. Rob kept coming back to that, and I liked it a lot too, but I really wanted Rob to have a big part of choosing it. We're getting very excited and I am also getting very nervous. We didn't do a birthing class because we wanted to save the money, so I hope Rob will be ready for this.
Gizmo has been such a turd, she's been getting into everything and knocks everything of counters, tables, the desk, everywhere, but this is how she likes to lay now, shes funny: SUPERMAN!!!! (I think she's just hot and trying to cool of on the tile)

31 days and counting..

2009-07-23T18:17:00.000-07:00

One month until the baby is here!! So crazy to think. I had a Dr. appointment on tuesday, everything's still going good. I'm measuring perfect and all seems well. My feet are still swelling like mad, and I'm still getting migraines. :(
I just keep checking my blood pressure to make sure I'm ok. Lately if I don't eat in a couple hours I get SOO shakey, lightheaded, sweaty, and hot. So I just gotta keep up on that. I am definately to the point of being DONE! I feel so huge and swollen and nothing fits me right now and my hips and pubic bone hurt all the time. In the evening I am so stiff. But one good thing is Rob's gotten to feel the baby move a ton lately. He sticks his foot or butt out a ton and it amazes Rob. Rob also will pull me to him and kiss my stomach, its so cute. I'm so excited and so freaked out at the same time. We have the car seat in the car and my bag is pretty much packed. I just wonder how my cats are going to handle this! :P I still don't know what I'm going to do after my maternity leave, I have to work, but don't want my baby in day care. I'm just praying that something works out. Or maybe I'll have to change jobs. Thats the LAST thing I want to do! My job pays well and I enjoy it, no other job will pay as good right now. Too bad Rob doesn't make double his pay!
My next Dr. appointment is next wednesday, I guess we'll see how that goes. I'll be 36 weeks, maybe they'll start checking me?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

2009-07-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my best friend, Sharise!
Sharise, I am so glad we've been friends for so many years. You've been there for me through everything and I cannot thank you enough for everything you've ever done for me. You're so amazing and I WISH WISH WISH you lived closer to me. I miss you and hope your birthday weekend was wonderful! Love you!!

Last week (week 33) and stuff

2009-07-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

This was last week at 33 weeks:

Today I am 34 weeks. SO CRAZY. We started getting the baby's room a little more ready. Not exciting enough for pictures yet, I still don't have my bedding, but we have the crib, dresser, and an extra twin size bed all set up where they're going to be. Its so weird that its getting so close. I'm washing some of his blankies and clothes right now, and I'll be getting a hospital bag packed this week.
At work we had our annual "Freedom Breakfast" at work this week and I helped Paula decorate for a few hours, my feet were CRAZY swollen! They've been pretty swollen consistantly lately, they did go down one day, so I took a picture:
then I got one of the day after decorating to see the swelling: (I'm lucky any shoes fit!)

We had Maddie and Brycen over for a night a couple weekends ago, it was pretty fun, we ate pizza, played Rock Band and other Xbox games, and had fondue!! We finally broke out our fondue set we got for our wedding from my cousins Shawna and Jason, it was WAY GOOD and WAY FUN!

Lately Gizmo has a new place to lay, she's so funny!

Rob and I ate at Panda Express the other day and when he openned his fortune he just smiled and handed it to me. I said, "What do you think it means?" and he said, "The baby!" It was soooo cute

Yesterday the girls at work gave me a baby shower, it was way fun and the food was sooo good. Here are some pictures from it. Ok...in all reality I am SWOLLEN ALL OVER. I look sooo huge!! :/

And although this is very blurry, I wanted to post it anyway, this was the girls from the shower Amanda, Marge, me, my mom, Cheri, Paula, Michelle, and Debbie. Cheri is the girl in front of my mom, and she is pregnant, and due 4 days before me. Shes so small!! :P

My doctor appointments have gone ok, I had to go two weeks in a row because my blood pressure was up quite a bit, but its gone down now. Things are looking ok. But I have had a few more migraines in the last few weeks, which is torture, All I can do is take tylonol, and lay down with a cold rag on my head and try to sleep.
I think I've had a Braxton Hicks contraction or two in the past couple weeks, but that's it. I've been watching my belly move around a lot when the baby moves, its so fun!
We're still thinking through a couple names....so hopefully this kid has a name when he's here! I tell Rob maybe we need to see him first, and he said, "I don't think its going to help me to see him, unless I can see him when he's like 14!" hahaha. Hopefully we figure it out!

Baby Shower at moms

2009-07-12T13:44:00.000-07:00

I hadn't blogged but 2 pictures from this, but I'm finally doing so. I didn't have a lot, but here are a couple more: (beginning of June)

Michael

2009-06-25T20:37:00.000-07:00

When I was little I seriously thought I was going to marry Michael Jackson, I dont know how...he's my mom's age, but I really believed it. Too funny. As I heard the news today, I felt the world had lost an icon. As strange as things got with him in the last 15 years, he is an amazing artist that has had a HUGE impact on music. My very first record (yes, it was a single, but a record) was Thriller, I listened to that SOO MUCH!!! And I could watch that video and the "making of Thriller" over and over when I was little, and even knew most of the dance! Another thing I thought of was his movie "Moonwalker" (1988). I made my brother watch that like 500 times with me! One of my favorite parts of it was this (some TALENTED kids):

If you watch the real video, the kid does an AMAZING job at doing ALL of Michael's mannerisms!
I was pretty shocked to hear the news today, but I hope him and his family find peace.
When I was little, this is the poster I had on my wall, all but their faces was covered in my sticker collection, but I would stare at this every day and think, "we're getting married". A little funny!

I know I haven't blogged in a while, but I'll try to get a more personal one in the next day or two! :P

Diagnosis: Hydronephrosis

2009-06-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

So that's what they say it is. The baby is squishing my kidneys and ureturs and backing my kidneys up, causing intense pain, etc. I've been alright since then, so I'll hope that it was a one time thing. :S I'm surprised that something like that could hurt so bad, but apparently you have lots of nerve endings in your kidneys and anything with them can be quite painful.
Baby's been kicking a lot more lately, which is fun. I can feel his hiccups now, usually.
My baby shower was Saturday, and was so fun!! Thanks you to everyone who was able to make it, I was very grateful for all of you there!
My mom still needs to get me some pictures, but here are some I stole from her blog:
The awesomely cute and DELICOUS cake that Amanda made me:

Opening the blanket my Aunt Carolyn made:

Before my shower, we really didn't have ANYTHING. My mom and Dave got me a crib, its so cute, I'll have to post pics when his room is done. Rob put the crib together Sunday morning, it was cute, he got up early and everything. Rob's mom and dad got us a stroller and car seat. We got a lot of diapers, wipes and tons of other cute stuff. I'll post more pictures when my mom gets them to me. We had some really good food and about 20 or more people showed up. I want to thank my mom for putting the shower on for me. She's so awesome, and I know she had a lot to do and worry about, but I appreciate it so much. My sister, Madison helped so much, I'm so grateful for her! And Sharise helped by bringing a salad, and getting the prizes for the games. Thanks EVERYONE!!!
Rob and some of the guys went to the lake for the day, we got Dave to go and he actually tried wakeboarding!! He got up right away, but just needs to get the hang of staying up sideways, its hard to get a handle on sometimes. And Rob finally got to wakeboard for the first time this summer, so I was glad they were all able to go.
75 days left to go until our little baby is here!!! I guess we better figure out that name!! :S

Not so awesome...

2009-06-04T19:55:00.001-07:00

2 weeks ago I was having back pain and cramps, I called my doctor and they said they were closing the office, so I needed to go to labor and delivery. I said, "even if there's no blood, or anything, I still need to go?" and the lady said, "Yes, anytime you have cramping, back pain, and/or pressure, you need to go be checked". I was pretty bugged, feeling like nothing would be wrong, I just wanted the reassurance from the Dr. office....well, didn't get that. So one of the nurses at my work said maybe it was a UTI, so she had a cup and a dipstick available (of course) so she checked my urine. She said there wasn't infection, but that there was a trace of blood. That freaked me out enough to pull Rob away from work and go to L&D. So we went.
I laid there in a gown, with monitors on my belly. It was pretty cool to sit and listen to our baby have the hiccups, since I couldn't feel them. They said that there was a trace of blood, but they didn't know why. They said the baby seemed fine, was moving and had a good heartbeat. They took blood and some kind of fetal/cervix test to see if there were signs of labor. After 4 hours, they said everything looked ok, and to follow up with my Dr. the next day they were open. Blah....I knew it was pointless, but I guess its better to know. When I went to the dr, he said that it could be kidney stones, but I hadn't really had any problems since the hospital, so he said we'd watch and see how I felt, if I did ok, they'd just shrug their shoulders and keep going.
A few nights ago, I was tossing and turning because my back was killing me. When I got out of bed, it eased up and was fine. Then the next night (night before last night), my back was hurting REALLY bad and kept me up, when I got out of bed, I figured it'd get better, but it just kept hurting no matter what I did. It was just on the right side this time. Then when I went to the bathroom, yep blood visible in my urine. I had some deadlines at work, so I had to go in. I felt like I was dying, it hurt so bad. I had a Dr. appointment set up for 4 that afternoon, and I called to see if I could get any earlier, but still have time to get my work done. I was able to move it to 2. I tried my hard to just focus through the pain and just get what I needed done. I got done at noon, and made Rob take me home. I laid down and put a heating pad on my back for a couple hours. The pain eased up quite a bit, and after peeing blood all morning, that also stopped. So by the time I got to the Dr, I had nothing to show for my miserable morning. They decided it was time to send me to get an ultrasound on my kidneys. They said its very painful to pass stones, and there's not much you can do about it, you just wait for them to pass. They might have to put a stint in to help it pass though. They took urine to test for infection, and sent me to the hospital for the ultrasound. They also sent me away with a prescription for Lortab. I don't really want to take it, but if I am hurting like yesterday, I will. I was supposed to find out the results today, but they never called. I called and left a message, then tried again at 5, but they'd already turned their phones over for the night. So I'll try again tomorrow. I really want to know whats going on. I wasn't really hurting much at all today. But there's gotta be a reason for all that pain and the peeing blood, right??
And ohhhh....tomorrow is another thing anyway.....I failed my glucose test last week, so I have to go in for the 3 hour test tomorrow! The glucose drink really isn't all that bad, but they have to take blood 4 times while I am there....and I HATE needles!!!!! So I'm not excited for that. And I have to fast for 12 hours...the earliest I can go in is 8 am, and I won't get out until 11. I'll be HUNGRY!! So anyone who doesn't know about the glucose testing...they have to check to see how your body is producing insulin and handling sugars. If you fail the tests you have Gestational Diabetes. And depending on how severe, you might just have to adjust your diet, and check your blood daily, or even have to have insulin shots or pills. So I hope I pass it!
I am now 28 weeks and 4 days pregnant...I have 80 days left. Crazy. My baby shower is saturday, so I am excited for that. My friend and coworker, Amanda made my cake and it is SOO CUTE!! I'll have to post pics of the shower and the cake after saturday. Rob and some of the guys are going to the lake while we have our "girl time", so at least he'll be occupied.
Rob has been so good with everything with me. He takes care of me and checks on me a lot at work. I'm so lucky to have him. He's the best!
28 weeks: (feeling like a cow)

Guessing game!!!

2009-05-24T15:23:00.000-07:00

Ok, people, go here to place your bets on the baby!!

This is week 26!

2009-05-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

185 days down…95 to go…
My next Dr. appointment is in 2 weeks, after I do my glucose test and then after that, I go see him every two weeks. Its getting closer! I went to the Dr last week and found out that I am gaining weight like a cow! Someone asked me the other day what I was having and I said, “Hopefully a calf, from the size of me!” I know, I need to be better when I talk about my weight, it’s just a difficult subject. I had worked so hard on Weight Watchers to get to my goal weight, and I had started to gain a little bit before I got pregnant, so this is really hard on me to watch my weight climb. I have gained more than the “recommended” amount for the pregnancy already, and I still have 3 months left… I just need to start making Rob go walking with me in the evenings, so I can get myself a little healthier. But this weight thing is killing me! This is me last week at 25 weeks:

Mothers Day is past and gone, and I'm a slacker, so HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM!! Rob and I went to his mom’s house just after noon and spent some time with them before heading to my mom’s for dinner with the fam. It was a nice evening. We all got to sit around and chat for a while and hold baby Lelah. She’s such a cute baby. And we watched all the kids run around and play.

I’m finally feeling some more distinct kicks in my tummy, and Rob’s even felt it. On Tuesday last week I felt some movement, so I stopped working to just stare and my belly, and I saw my stomach move, so I called Rob’s office and made him come down to see if he could see it too…which he did get to witness! He said it looked like a muscle spasm. I've seen more movement, and Rob got kicked in the head this last week. I think he's excited to finally be able to feel something. In the mornings I wake up on my side, and he’s usually jumping on the bed…..such a naughty little boy!! :P
And for a major headspin last week: We finally got an appointment with the Big Fix to get Gizmo neutered, and Rob took him in Thursday morning. Well they called him a few minutes later to tell Rob, “Uh, Gizmo is a female…so you need to bring $10 more dollars for the spay when you pick HER up” WHA WHA WHA????!!! FEMALE?!?! Rob and my brains hurt all day long trying to wrap our heads around the idea that this kitty that we’ve had for like 5 months is a FEMALE! The lady we got him from told us it was a male. And Gizmo TOTALLY acts like a male cat, I’ve NEVER seen a female cat act the way Gizmo does. We were floored! You see, Gizmo is long haired, and has lots of hair, so I never really thought I needed to double check what the lady told us. BUT I had joked a couple times with Rob, saying, “What if Gizmo is really a girl and we don’t know it!?” And Rob would say, “No, he acts too much like a boy, there’s no way”. Its funny that I had said that and BAM its really a girl. I felt so bad for her when we got her home from her surgery, she was so out of it and bobbly-headed. She just laid and slept in the pet carrier all night, and wouldn’t even get up at all. I was starting to get worried, because she hadn’t really drank anything and didn't eat, and was so lethargic. When I finally made myself to go bed, I made sure to listen for any meowing at night, but at 2:30 am, she came and jumped (shes not supposed to be jumping!) on the bed, and laid and slept on me. So I felt better knowing that she felt better. Poor kitty….what a hard day…..find out you’re female, not male, get your belly shaved, get anesthesia, get cut open and pieces taken out, and wake up confused! But Rob refuses to call Gizmo a “her” he says, “Nope, it’s a boy!” Too funny. Her incision is a little swollen, but I'm thinking she might be ok still. I call her my baby cow because her skin is spotted like a cow. She still loves her tummy petted!

Welcome!!!

2009-04-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Lelah Riley was born on Friday, April 24th. She is 5 lbs 15 oz, and 19 1/2". She was 2 and a half weeks early, which means I just have that much longer now. :/ You see, Jalee was due 15 weeks before me, but since she was early, I still have 17 weeks left!! BLAH. Anyway, I went to see Lelah Friday night, but she was in the NICU because the respitory therapist wanted to watch her closer, so I didn't get to see her until around noon the next day. She's so tiny and so pretty. I expected her to look just like her siblings did, but she didn't! She's got kind of strawberry blonde hair (and very little of it), and everyone says she looks like Jalee's grandma. But of course I had to ask Lelah if she'd talked to her future cousin and found out his name...she kept quiet...figures.
This weekend, I had been looking at my kitchen floor thinking, "I need to really clean this darn thing". So finally I got to it. I hate mops, don't really beleive in them (they just push the dirt around), so I sweep and wet swiffer my floors, but every few weeks I just have to get down and scrub it with a sponge. So Sunday was the day. grrrrr. I hate doing it!! And I've put it off too long, being pregnant and not feeling good and all. So I got down on my butt and did it. I sat on my butt the whole time because I have a bad knee that won't allow me to kneel on it. So I scooted around with Gizmo bugging me the whole time, trying to get close to the action. It took me an hour and a half!!! GOOD HELL!! When I finally got up, I could barely stand and barely walk. My hips and legs hurt so bad. Today was very painful too. Getting out of bed, I remembered the pain, "OH NO, that HURTS". Stupid dirty textured crappy linolium. At least I have a very clean kitchen floor now....lets just see how long that lasts.

8 things...and stuff..

2009-04-23T19:58:00.000-07:00

I filled this out Tuesday, and now finally posting it....

8 Things I am looking forward to:
1. Our Baby!
2. Going to the lake this summer!
3. Hopefully getting in a trip to Lake Powell this summer
4. Working towards buying a house
5. Forcing my mom to do even the smallest road trip this summer
6. SUMMER! SUMMER! SUMMER!
7. Family and friend BBQs
8. Did I mention Summer??
8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Drug myself out of bed
2. Went to work
3. Closed Payroll, cussed some people under my breath
4. Bunch of us when to lunch with Darrick
5. Worked more, cussed more people under my breath
6. Went to the grocery store
7. Made a quiche!! Yes, my first one ever!
8. Relaxed on the couch with Rob and Gizmo
8 Things I wish I could do:
1. Be at Lake Powell
2. Lay on a blanket in the grass and relax in the sun!
3. Fit in clothes
4. Travel all the time (for free!)
5. Be at 5 places at once
6. Spend more time with the family
7. Make money without working
8. Be a stay-at-home mom.
8 Shows I watch:
1. Survivor
2. Amazing Race
3. How I met your mother
4. Nitro Circus
5. Ghost Whisperer
6. Biggest Loser
7. Criminal Minds
8. American Idol

22 weeks: good/bad

2009-04-21T20:22:00.001-07:00

22 weeks and 2 days down…17 weeks and 5 days left. Crazy to think of it as time left.

Some positive things lately: 1) I’m starting to feel the slightest movements in my tummy. 2) I feel pretty good for the most part, especially if I am wearing clothes that aren’t squeezing me too much. 3) AND now that it’s getting warmer out, I have skirts with elastic and other stuff that actually can fit me! 4) I’m definitely looking more pregnant than fat. I actually had my first stranger comment on my belly, I was at Albertsons, and the checker said, “when’s your baby due?” It was nice not to have to say, “I’m not pregnant, just fat”. Like I had to with the couple customers a week at Wells Fargo that would have to put their feet in their mouths because I had gained weight.
Some negatives lately: 1) Rob still hasn’t been able to feel the baby move (sad). 2) We still don’t know about a name for the baby. 3) We had to get rid of our old Love Sac, because it was hanging out in the room we’re going to use for the baby, and we had to accept that there was no way we were going to be able to fix the fact that LaFawnda had completely ruined it by peeing all over it about 30 times or more. It was really hard to just get rid of it. We only bought it like 3 years ago, and I loved it! Not to mention, it was just throwing away $400. And now we are back to not having enough furniture in our living room…just a couch. We need a rocker/recliner, then I can rock the baby!

4) I thought I was supposed to have more energy this trimester, but I’m always sooo tired! Might be due to the fact that I haven’t been sleeping well. I had been taking Unisom every night, but I stopped because I realized I shouldn’t be doing it EVERY night, dang it. 5) I have been having some major round ligament pain mostly on the left side. Its killing me! 6) My bras are breaking! (and hurting me in the meantime)
BUT, now that I’ve been feeling pretty good, no longer nauseous, I have been more experimental with foods. This last weekend we were watching an episode of “Guy’s Big Bite” that Rob had recorded, and he made some yummy looking pot pies. So we just had to try making them.

They were way good.
Then yesterday for some reason I wanted to make a quiche. I’ve never made one before, and have only eaten one once. A little frozen one you reheat from Costco, it was ok, but for some reason I wanted to try making one. So I got the stuff and made a chicken and broccoli one. It was GOOD! This is good, I gotta keep trying all this new stuff, so we have a bigger list of possible dinners. We make such basic stuff all the time (spaghetti, tacos, steak, variations of chicken). But this will hopefully get our children to eat many different things.
Lately I’ve been craving a lot of fruits. We finally got our first watermelon of the year, and it is a really good one! And salads. There are still some days that nothing really sounds good, but usually a salad always sounds good.

It's spring for sure, poor birdies are getting tossed out of their nests! This made me sad the other day....and made it hard to pull apart the rotisserie chicken for the pot pies...

The big REVEAL!!!

2009-04-14T20:52:00.000-07:00

PHEW!!! It's official! IT’S A BOY!!!!
I was so worried that we still weren’t going to be able to see the gender! I drank a soda and water before I went to my ultrasound, so he was pretty active from the sugar but still kept his legs pretty close together, but she got a quick couple shots right at first, but then couldn’t get another look after that. The umbilical cord kept pulling his stuff up against him, so you couldn’t see it. He’s so naughty! I can tell we’re going to have a difficult child!! :P And Sharise is convinced that his name is Eugene (have no clue where she came up with that), but NO it’s NOT his name! :P We aren’t set on a name yet, but Eugene is not one on my list. But if I call him that to her, it keeps her quiet, so that’s fine. Its so cool to see the ultrasound when he’s so active. And I could feel some of his movements when I was on my side, and she had the ultrasound wand against my uterus. Rob was all excited and looking at the pictures we got, satisfied that his equipment is there! Rob’s mom got us some cute little Nike’s! I’m so excited.
Easter was good, we had a pot luck lunch at my mom’s house on Saturday, with lots of good food. But we missed the kids doing the egg hunt because they did it so fast in the yard, and we didn’t even know they started.
Here's Jalee and Josh helping the kids empty their eggs:

Owen, being a goof:

We got a little family picture, but I’ll have to wait until I can get it from mom, then I’ll post it. Me and Jalee had our pregnant bellies squished against eachother in the picture. Heehee She’s got 4 weeks left, unless she pops early, which she is convinced of. Seeing little Lelah, will make me even more excited for our baby, I can’t wait!! Another neice!! YAY!
I am now 21 weeks, and over half way there!! Clothes are fitting less and less….dang it!! I’m just glad its getting warmer so I can easily wear some skirts that are elastic topped!! And I have a couple maternity capris, so I’m ready for this summer!! I just need a maternity swim suit. I’m keeping my eye out for a inexpensive cute one!
The other day we had to bathe Gizmo because he smelled like a FOOT!!
So we got some pics of the aftermath. He was a little upset! :P

And he looks hilariously evil while licking himself in this one, please ignore the cat litter on the floor! It looks nasty:

And a couple weeks ago I was resting and he slept on me.

Ultrasound and Anniversary

2009-04-07T17:17:00.000-07:00

So I was hoping that today I could make a more official announcement. “IT’S A BOY”. But I can’t confidently do that now. We went to our ultrasound yesterday with both of our moms in tow, hoping to get a good show. But the baby was all balled up as low as he/she could get. We tried shaking my stomach, rolling all kinds of ways, but the baby was not budging. The ultrasound tech was able to get measurements, and the baby was measuring at exactly 20 weeks. Which is one day behind what I was estimating, so we’ll stick with the same August 23rd due date. (She said it could be a difference of even just 6 hours). She finally got a shot of what she thought were girl parts. WHAT?!?! So I told her what the other tech had said, so she said, “What are you doing at 5 today?” and I said, “getting off work” so she told me to drink something sugary and come back after work. So I did just that, and we went back. And what then? Well, nothing really. Dang it! She thought for a second she saw a sack and penis, but then took that back when she couldn’t see it again, and thought “That might just be swollen labia and the cord” FREAK!! The baby was still mostly balled up and we couldn’t see much. She poked around forever and still couldn’t be sure if she was seeing a sack or swollen girl parts! So she told me to come back in a week and maybe the baby would cooperate more. My stomach is a little sore from all the poking and proding (we were doing all we could to get that baby to expose something). So next Monday, around lunchtime I go back and hope we can see something! If not…I guess we’ll get a big surprise at the delivery! It just sucks, because I wanted to be more prepared. I guess we’ll hope we get a big reveal next week. The ultrasound tech said the baby was “Being a bad baby”….Guess the first thing we’ll need to do is hand out punishment when this baby is here! J/k. More sad news for me: the placenta is on the front wall of the uterus! So that’s why I’m not feeling a lot of movement! Dang placenta!! But I guess, either way, I should start feeling a lot in the next couple weeks regardless, the tech said. I was pretty concerned that I ‘d be charge some huge amount to go in next week, but I called today and there won’t be a charge! PHEW!! I was awake all night worried about it, thinking I wouldn’t be able to get it done. So MAYBE I'll have some news next monday!! I HOPE!!

On another note, Rob and my FIRST ANNIVERSARY was sunday!!! One whole year!! WOW, that just flew right by. I was a little sad thinking about how long it's been, and I'd love to relive the day! It was the best day of my life so far!!

We went to Vegas Saturday. We stayed at Imperial Palace. We did some walking around, had dinner, and walked a little way down the strip and back. WOW, my hips, legs, and feet hurt soo bad! So when we got back to the hotel I soaked in the crappy tub for a few minutes, which helped a little. I didn't sleep good at all, in a queen, when I'm too spoiled with my king! And the bed was hard, and I woke up several times with VERY sore hips. But we had good breakfast the next day and headed home in the afternoon. We had dinner at this place we found about 4 years ago there, Roy's Hawaiian Fusion. A little pricey, but very good! Rob got me some beautiful earrings and a sweet card. He's so good. My friend, Robyn, asked if he could give guys lessons, since he's so good! :P I have to admit, he knows what he's doing in the gift department! We also dug into our wedding cake top that night. It was GOOD!!! Rob's mom did an excellent job of wrapping it so that it didn't get freezer burn, and it was moist and delicious!!

19 weeks

2009-04-01T18:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm a slacker. I haven't blogged in a while. I've been feeling pretty good lately, but when it comes to eating, for the most part nothing sounds good. Except for fruits and vegetables, for the most part. And one of my favorite things right now is 'Spoon Me' MMM MMM Good!!

I haven't been sleeping all that great either, so the half a unisom at night has been very helpful...and earplugs. (Won't be doing that for long, huh?) Gotta get all the sleep possible while I can.
Our first anniversary is this Sunday!! So I get to thaw out our cake top and eat it, hopefully its good. I don't know what we're doing yet, we might stay the night in Vegas. We'll see. We really wanted to do something, since its our FIRST! Its crazy how fast this year has gone by and now we're expecting a baby! Crazy.
I have another ultrasound on monday, They'll be checking my cervix again (sorry guys), and measure the baby, and be able to tell better if it's really a boy!! YAY!! It will be fun to get another look. Rob's mom is coming this time too, along with my mom, so I'm excited.
And here I am at 19 weeks: I think I might be looking a little pregnant now instead of fat :P

Fish Trees

2009-03-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

We have these trees that line the whole front of our building. In the spring they bloom white flowers and are really pretty. BUT they smell like fish. I noticed last year and nobody knew where the smell was coming from, until I had a co-worker pull down a branch and sure enough, it was the blossoms! Its SOO nasty for a couple weeks until they fall off. It gets so strong and overwhelming, I'm just glad I'm not still in my first trimester, I'd be out front puking on my way in and out everyday!

On a brighter note, I am 17 weeks pregnant now.I think I've started feeling the first few flutters in the past week or two. And people at work that didn't know are now asking if I am going to have a baby. And I can happily say "YES!" Back before I got on weight watchers almost 3 years ago, when I worked at the bank, customers would ask me "When are you due??" And I'd have to say, "I'm not pregnant, just fat". It happened so often!! At least now I can say I am pregnant!
My mom, Dave and the kids are in their new house. I love it, its so cute, I'm so happy for them. I did what I could to help, and Rob helped a ton. In return, mom got me some maternity stuff, thank goodness, because its painful sometimes to wear pants with a hair tie hooking the button to the button hole.
Gizmo is being a cute kitty. He loves his belly rubs and always comes over and lays on his back and meows for them. He's slowly getting bigger, so he can do more destruction when he runs around crazy when he gets hyper. It's entertaining!

Today my friend Cami was getting induced because she's a week past her due date, so I'm excited to be able to see her little girl Rylee!! I'm sure she's been preoccupied, but I'm anxious to hear how things went!
Rob and I are still thinking about baby names, we have a couple of ideas, but aren't quite set on anything. I've also been looking for ideas for a baby room. I was thinking of doing a water or beach theme, but I'm not sure. Then I started thinking about a monster theme because Sharise and I have seen really cute monster plushies, and Sharise actually bought me one, so our baby has his first "friend". LOL so cute!
Rob just doesn't want them to be too scary that they'd scare the baby (isn't that so adorable!?)

Its....A...BABY!!!!

2009-03-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

My ultrasound was really fun today. The baby was jumping up and down the whole time, so cute!! The ultrasound tech said she was pretty sure its a boy. I was like, "pretty sure?" And she said that it's a little early still, but she said that the parts looked "very boy-like" and that she'd be "very surprised if it came out a girl". And I said, "so it's not a 100%?" and she said, "well, my personal opinion is that its 100% a boy, but don't go all crazy with that, they'll be able to see better at your next ultrasound" So....I had a feeling it was a boy, and I think its easier to mistake a girl than a boy, and even when I saw between the legs, I was thinking, "Uh....those are boy parts!" So...we're going with that for now. :P
So here are a couple ultrasound pics:
Spine:

Profile:

And Rob's favorite one because he's being a poser with his arms behind his head:

Funny

2009-03-02T20:42:00.001-08:00

I got this from my sister-in-law's site:
http://www.cpbintegrated.com/theherofactory/

Kind of fun.

15 weeks

2009-03-02T20:20:00.000-08:00

So here we are....15 weeks. I've felt a lot better. There's been a couple days that I've felt pretty crappy, but its a better run than weeks 8, 9, and 10! I've had some stomach pains when I eat more than I should (I think that must've been why). I've had a lot of people comment how you can tell now that I'm showing. I still just feel fat. When I stopped by my old work, Wells Fargo, everyone that saw me was like "Let's see!!" I'm like, uh...lets see what? Did they want me to strip down? You are looking at me with your eyes....what more do you want! J/K. :P It was fun to have everyone excited for me. Lately I've been craving tacos, so we've had tacos like 4 times in the last two weeks. I've also been craving orange soda, which I hadn't had for like ever, until Robyn got one stuck in the soda machine at work and had to get another to get it out, so she gave me her extra. Now I've craved it. I'm excited for wednesday's ultrasound. Also my parents are moving into a new house this weekend. I'm excited for them. It's something my mom has wanted for a long time, and it will be fun to help them and enjoy new memories in this house. YAY!! Our kitty, Gizmo has been so cuddly and cute lately. His new thing is trying to scratch the tile and cover his food (he must not like it much). He loves when you open a crinkly wrapper, he comes running and stands at attention until you throw it for him. He also comes running from wherever he is at if he hears you go to the bathroom, because he has to climb up and watch the toilet flush. Hes so funny. Anyway...here's a 15 week picture, and I'll post again after my ultrasound! (hopefully with pics!!)

At work they call me "Preggo"

2009-02-25T20:05:00.000-08:00

14 weeks….I’m now in my 2nd trimester. It does feel better. I have felt a lot better. I still don’t have my energy back yet, but I only feel kind of sick if it has been a while since I’ve eaten. I can’t wait to find out if I’m having a boy or girl. My Dr. appointment this morning went well. We got to hear the heartbeat and he found it really quick today, and while listening you could hear a static scratching sound on the doppler, and the Dr. said that when you hear that, it’s the baby moving. SO CUTE! I have to have an ultrasound next Wednesday to check the length of my cervix, to make sure I’m ok, and we’ll get a peak at the baby. I will only be 15 weeks, but one of my friends told me she found out it was a boy at 15 weeks, so if it is a boy, maybe we’ll be able to see! So I told my mom if she wants to go just in case, she can. I’m excited to see the baby again. I now know how all those pregnant ladies out there feel when everyone else seems to say, “wow, that pregnancy was fast” and the women think, “Holy cow, whatever!! Its been DRAGGING ON FOREVER!” That’s how it feels.
Rob has been so cute, he’ll roll over in bed in the morning and put his hand on my stomach and he always asks me “How’s the baby?” I think once we have an ultrasound where it doesn’t look like a blob of something, it’ll all become more real. I’ve been starting to have the “round ligament pain” in my stomach, and I’ll forget to be careful sometimes and sit down too hard, and it hurts my pelvic region. Hopefully now that I’m feeling better, I can get some energy and start going to the gym a little bit again. I want to start walking and swimming so I can stay strong. I’m really excited for the next couple of weeks when I’m supposed to start to be able to feel a little movement from the baby! My friend, Cami, is due in about 2 weeks, and I’m excited to see her little girl! Then next is Jalee!! Its funny how many people I know that are pregnant! Its nice to not feel “alone” in it.
Last Friday Rob had to work from 7:30pm until 6:30 in the morning! I was so sad. So I went to dinner and rented a movie with my mom. It was really nice to spend some time with her. I had a hard time sleeping, though, because of Rob being gone. I didn’t know exactly when he was coming home, either, so that kept me up too. So Saturday and Sunday we bummed around a lot because we were so tired.
This week following such a hell week last week, has had a decent start, so I hope it continues on that way. And the excitement of my Dr. appointment also helps! I’m glad Rob’s boss is easy going and doesn’t mind Rob missing a little of the morning to go with me too.
I don't have any new tummy pics, I get so tired after work, I just don't get around to it, I'll try to this next week. I just feel fat, so it doesn't look good. Pictures I DO have are from Valentines Day. Rob got me roses, candy, a big stuffed frog, a belly band (I've been wanting one badly, since my pants don't fit anymore), and preggie pops (for morning sickness). Rob's so sweet and he always makes sure I feel special on Valentines day.

Our room in Zion's was small, but really nice. Its an old hotel that had been remodeled.

The view from our room:

Hell week

2009-02-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

Work this week has been so stressful!! A certain "someone" has decided to make life miserable for EVERYONE!! I only go to morning meeting once a week now, and while I was there this week, I felt so much stress I almost took a chemical shower to see if it would get rid of any of the filth I felt. Everyone is so worked up now and every one is freaking out. Which in turn, causes more stress. I'm about ready to freak out, I can't take it. Poor Robyn, my friend I just got a job there, has been having to come into my office and clear her shakras, and I feel like I need to now! ONE good thing is, Rob has a job!!! He's at my work, but contracted. He works for Healthcare services group. They manage our Housekeeping and Laundry at our facility. He's an "account manager" so he wears a shirt and tie, which is weird for him, but it seems to be going well. Its good to know that if I need a hug, I can page him to my office! :D
I'm just waiting on all the CNAs and Nurses to hit on him! :P
Anyway....thank goodness it's friday tomorrow and hopefully I can calm down and relax this weekend!

Happy Valentines Day!!

2009-02-14T08:19:00.000-08:00

Myspace 2.0 layouts & Myspace Layouts

Ahhh...Valentines day.....The day I had my first kiss with Rob. I've loved Valentines ever since then. Even with Rob in Oregon, I managed to spend every Valentines Day with him, except one. Which was hard, but thankfully I was with Josh and Jalee that year, and they took me to Applebees and we begun our wonderful bright light shining in your eyes and singing Gloria Estefan's "Coming out of the dark". Which still makes me laugh. But Valentines has always been special for us. This year I told Rob we didn't have to do anything exciting because its not our "real" anniversary anymore, now we're married and our first anniversary will be on April 5th. But Rob said he still wanted it to be special. We're going to Zion's today to stay over, and have reservations at the Switchback Grille tonight. I'm excited, I think it will be fun. And it's so crazy to think of our first kiss being ELEVEN years ago today. From then on, we were together all the time and he has pretty much always been the exception to every bad "typical guy" thing. Rob, I love you so much and I am so happy that I met you over 11 years ago, and I am glad that no matter who I dated in all our "off" times, I always came back to you, and in the end, you're who I am with.
I hope everyone's Valentines day is good today!! I love you all!
I'll share the first picture ever taken of us together in March 1998:

And the happiest day of my life, so far:

It's been awhile...

2009-02-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

So I decided I better post something. For about 2 weeks I've felt pretty good, only mildly nauseous SOME of the time, until last night....yep, I hurled and felt like CRAP!! NO GOOD. hopefully it just gets better from here. I am now 12 weeks along, and that's the safer zone, so we're optimistic that things will go well from here. I missed posting any pictures of me so far, but that's mostly because I've felt so crappy, and I feel fat. I've gained more weight than I should have yet, and I'm pretty bloated, so I apologize for these anti-model shots!! :P
The first one I was 9 weeks pregnant, and I didn't know Rob was getting my face in it.

This one is 12 weeks (yesterday).

I had a raging craving on Saturday for ParrotHead and their sweet potato fries. So I drug Rob there Saturday night for Tiki Tacos and Island fries!! :D

may not be the most amazing picture, but it is DELICIOUS!!! The tacos are WAY GOOD, too.
Gizmo is getting bigger, so I had to post some pics of him. Kip isn't a cuddley cat, and neither was LaFawnda, so its nice to have a cat that acts like he likes us! :P

The other day, I came into the living room and he was chilling on the couch...HILARIOUS!! I was laughing so hard!

When I got home from work today Rob said, "YOUR cat has been SOO NAUGHTY today!!" I guess he got all hyper today and knocked things over, climbed everything and wrecked havoc all day. Already I can hear him saying "YOUR son/daughter has been SOO naughty today!!" heehee

35 things

2009-02-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

TYPE ONLY 1 WORD. IT'S HARDER THAN YOU THINK!!!

1. Where is your cell phone? desk
2. Your significant other? home
3. Your hair? straight
4. Your mother? wonderful
5. Your father? Portland
6. Your favorite thing? Rob
7. Your dream last night? weird
8. Your favorite drink? juice
9. Your dream/goal? house
10. The room you're in? office
11. Your fear? needles
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? home
14. What you're not? unsick
15. Muffins? yum
16. One of your wish list items? house
17. Where you grew up? everywhere
18. The last thing you did? invoice
19. What are you wearing? black
20. Your TV? big
21. Your pet? Kitties!
22. Your computer? ok
23. Your life? changing
24. Your mood? TIRED
25. Missing someone? always
27. Something you're not wearing? socks
28. Favorite Store? TJ Maxx
29. Your summer? LAKE
30. Your favorite color? Blue
31. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
32. Last time you cried? weekend
33. Four places I go over and over? Work, home, store, bank
34. Four of my favorite foods? Popsicles, fruit, ribs, halibut
35. Four places I would rather be right now? Home, Hawaii, cruise, roadtripping

Thinking

2009-01-28T12:48:00.000-08:00

Today found me thinking about all of the people that I know that are so inspiring to me. I am truly lucky to know and be friends with all the people in my life. Its crazy to think when you’re living your life and wondering why some things didn’t go right, or at least not how you expected them to, and you stop an realize that it was probably all for a reason. To bring you to where you are now, to have you cross paths with all the people that have been brought your way for one reason or another. Maybe its family, someone you’ve worked with, or someone who took the time to smile at you or stopped to talk and get to know you. I am so extremely grateful for every soul I have met in my life. EVERYONE has taught me SOMETHING. Whether it be good or bad. Taught me what I want to be like, and whet I know I never want to be like. All these things have molded me into what I am today. And I have friends, my family loves me, and I have a wonderful husband and a baby on the way, so I can’t be too horrible, right?
Going back and reading some of the comments to my blogs, or reading other blogs that have given me things to think about, made me realize that Its ok to get older. I don’t have to be the cutest, skinniest person. I may not have been on a sports team in high school. I wasn’t the most popular, but that I am of value. I am worth knowing, I do my best to be a good person. I try to be one of those that people meet who is a positive light in people’s paths. I’m far from perfect, but I hope that I can impact people’s lives the way they have mine.

Happy Birthday!! and such...

2009-01-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

Its been a while since I blogged, so I knew I needed to get on here soon, and my main motivation was that yesterday was my oldest nephew’s 8th Birthday!! And I wanted to say Happy Birthday, Skylar!! Skylar is such a wonderful and unique boy. Its hard to believe that he is already 8, yet so many times he seems much older. I feel very close to Skylar because I lived with Josh and Jalee when he was a baby and I helped to take care of him. Jalee wanted to take a job in Vegas and asked me if I’d come to help. I was overjoyed that she thought to ask me. I was more than happy to take this new adventure with them.

Skylar was such a good baby that it was well worth it. I was glad to be there during his milestones of crawling, walking, talking, etc. I am truly grateful to have had that opportunity to help Josh and Jalee. I’m sure there were times it was hard to have me be in the way, but it was a fun 10 months of my life.

Happy Birthday, Skylar, now you are 8 and its time for another milestone, your baptism. I am so happy for you and that you’re such a smart, fun nephew! I love you!!! And Thanks to Josh and Jalee who raised such a wonderful little man!

The pregnancy is going ok. I have still been pretty queasy and very tired. Many nights I fall asleep on the couch, and Rob has to wake me up to go to bed. Rob has been so wonderful through all this. He gets me anything I need. And, although, I have not yet made him run to the store in the middle of the night, for a craving, I know he would in a heartbeat. He’s been so good as to clean the kitchen while I am at work, and he makes dinner when I’m not feeling up to it. He also has taken over cleaning the cat pan, which is a must. I go in for my official 10 week ultrasound on Monday, and this will help us determine which doctor we will go to for the length of my pregnancy. I haven’t had any really strange cravings, just things that really sound good. Last week it was baked potatoes, and yesterday at work a sudden urge for tater-tot-casserole hit me pretty hard. So I left work in a hurry to get to the store and get making it. The strange thing is, I don’t remember my mom ever making it when I was little, I think I had it at friend’s houses. But last night I just had to have it! And it was delicious. Rob had never had it, but he really likes it, so that’s good. And if I had any cravings, Rob is eating along with me. He’s eaten most of the pickles and crackers we had. But then I don’t feel so bad. I’m already having problems fitting comfortably in my pants, I have a pair of workpants that sit higher on my waist and I wore those the other day and ended up getting sick several times, I think the tightness did NOT help. So I have to watch what I wear already. That’s ONE good thing with being pregnant in the summer, dresses and skirts will be easier to wear!
A couple weeks ago we finally made the decision to get rid of LaFawnda. It was a very difficult decision, but we could not afford all she was costing us already. Our old apartments are charging us $750 for just ONE spot on the floor, and we’ve done all we could to fight that, and get it lowered, but they will not budge. And she has completely ruined our LoveSac, but thank goodness we found out there’s free foam for life, so we have to find a way to dispose of the ruined foam and get to Vegas for replacement foam. And she was trying to find “new places” at our house now to urinate. We could NOT do that again, so we grudgingly gave her away. But Kip has been so sad and lonely, so we decided we should get a new kitten. So we found a lady that had some kittens and went and took a look. We instantly fell in love with one of them. He’s a persian and is so ugly, that he’s cute. :P
Look, mom, he's using the scratch post!!

We named him Gizmo, because he looks so much like Gizmo from the Gremlins movies.

So here’s our new baby.

He is the best kitten ever. He has not had any accidents at all and he’s good at nights and stays in the living room and kitchen. Kip is having a hard time with this new transition. The day we brought Giz home, Kip got attacked by a neighbor cat, so I think he has some trauma that he’s associating with the kitten’s arrival. We’ve let Kip go outside most of the day, and have let him stay in our bedroom and bathroom when he’s inside. He’s ok with that, but Rob thinks Kip is still sad and thinks we don’t love him anymore. I know it will take him a while to get used to the kitten, but right now its pretty hard. We have to hold the kitten way away when Kip comes through the house, and Kip hisses and runs away. Hopefully it gets better soon.
Kip being mad that he's made to wear antlers...

To the doctor...

2009-01-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

Like I said in my previous post, I’ve felt pretty queasy, but that’s about it. I should have knocked on wood. On Tuesday in the early hours of the morning I woke to my head just pounding! I tried to go back to sleep, but it wasn’t happening. So I just laid there very still until my alarm went off. I got up to go take a shower and get ready for work. My head just got worse…Lovely…a migraine. I was out of my migraine meds, but I wouldn’t be able to take those anyway! My migraines are usually visually triggered (lights, glare, bright colors, etc), there is only one time I can remember getting one in the middle of the night, it was in middle school. Since it was further into the migraine, the blind spots were gone already, so I tried to just get ready for work anyway. I had too much to do to miss work. As I started showering, the pain got SO much worse that it made me nauseous and I started violently dry heaving in the shower. Rob heard me and came in right when I collapsed to the tub. I plugged the tub and took a bath instead and Rob got me water and crackers. So I ate those and tried to just keep getting ready. When I was out of the bath and trying to brush my hair and all that, I got so weak, so I laid down for a minute and a few minutes later had to get to the toilet. I was violently throwing up the crackers. This was NOT going to happen. I had been trying to get ready for over an hour now, and I was going to be NO GOOD at work. So I finally called my manager and she told me to stay in bed, and call the doctor. So I laid back down, and laying still seemed to help a little. Rob called my OB doc and they said they had nothing I could take that he should take me to the ER or Instacare. So Rob called my family doctor instead and got me an appointment in a couple hours. When we went in, the Dr. talked about what kinds of drugs are graded certain ways because they can’t be given to pregnant women, but they had a shot they could give me that wouldn’t hurt the baby. It had something for the pain and something for nausea in it. And since we all know how much I LOVE shots you can imagine my excitement. But I was willing to do anything to stop the migraine. So they gave me a hugely painful injection and said they wanted to do an ultrasound so we’d better know how far along I was and hopefully see the heartbeat. He told me I’d start to be out of it from the shot, but they did the ultrasound in time for me to see it. We saw the heartbeat and he measured the baby at almost 7 weeks. After that, I was in a daze, the shot totally knocked me out. I went home and laid on the couch, and was barely able to lift my head to eat some soup. Good thing Rob was home to take care of me, the headache eased quite a bit, which was good. And the Dr. suggested me to take Vitamin B6 3 times a day to ease the nausea, and that seems to help a bit, along with a prescription for anti-nausea. So hopefully things will start to look up. I can tell I’ve been gaining weight already, but that’s because at night my appetite comes back more, so I eat when I feel I can. Rob has been amazingly good with me, he’s been doing his best to clean the house, he’s had to take over cleaning the cat pan, of course, and he’s been doing most of the cooking. I’m grateful that I have such a wonderful husband. It was cute, last night he said that he’d been thinking about seeing the heartbeat, and how much more real it seems. He thinks about the baby a lot, he says. So adorable!! I am NOW knocking on wood when I say I hope things stay going well!

Christmas, New Years, and our Little Big Announcement.....

2009-01-04T18:10:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I blogged, I've been a little busy. Christmas morning started off with going to Rob's sister's house for the girls to open their presents, and have breakfast.

It had snowed and continued to snow, so it was kind of nice to have a little "white christmas" since they live in Dammeron Valley. Then we went home to relax, or something like that for a while before heading to my mom's in the afternoon.
Before we went to my mom's, something like this happened....

So I HAD to let my mom know...

So far I hadn't had any symptoms really, except being tired, so I was hoping I'd be all good. Since my mom wasn't so sure after 3 tests, I got a blood test done and it was also positive. We told Rob's parents the next week. We went over and gave her a onsie that said, "What happens at Grandma's stays at Grandma's". She thought it was cute, but then had to ask, "Are you trying to tell me something" so funny! I told Jalee by giving her a pacifier, but she just said, "oh, so cute!" and I said, "Its not for you...its for me" and she said, "well I don't want to assume things if I'm wrong", so I had to say, "I'm pregnant" and she said "REALLY?!" and She looked at Josh and said, "Josh" and he perked up and said "you are?!" all excited. It was funny that it didn't sink in for him until Jalee said his name! FUNNY.
We went to visit Sharise and Chris in Spanish Fork for New Year's and I felt VERY queasy the whole time. No food has sounded good, but I know if I eat a little bit all day it helps a little. Rob has been so good to me, he's so cute and excited. He makes sure I'm comfy and always asks if I need anything. Today I am 7 weeks, I "think". I guess there's a possibility that it could be longer, I have to wait and see the doctor in a few weeks. Anyway. It was a little sooner than we'd had been thinking, but that is totally ok. I'm pretty sure that Jalee was excited since she's pregnant too. :D I was not wanting to be pregnant and huge all summer, but oh well! I'll have to brave the 100+ degree heat here. Until August-ish.
I'll let you all know what my Dr. appointment brings.

Merry Christmas!!!

2008-12-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Dear Family and Friends

This has been an exciting year for us. We kicked it off by playing Rock Band with Family and Friends on New Years Eve to ring in 2008! That is one of our favorite past times now!
Right from when Rob proposed in Reno on August 26th, 2007 we began planning the wedding. So the beginning of 2008 was all about getting things ready for April 5th, 2008.
Our families were so wonderful and so helpful with EVERYTHING. It made it so stress free. My mom and Dave did so much, I truly felt blessed, and they’ll never understand how grateful I am for that. Rob’s parents were such a huge help. They let us take over their backyard to have our wedding in. Rob’s mom, Carolyn, did all she could get the house ready and the yard and the decorations looked AMAZING. Thank goodness my dad was able to come down from Portland and be there to walk me down the aisle. I hope he realizes how important that was to me. The wedding was beautiful, everything I could have asked for. The wind had started up a little while before the ceremony and I hoped it would just go away, so both my mom and I said silent prayers and the wind stopped completely for the length of the ceremony! I was so happy!
Everything was great and I am eternally grateful for all the help we got and for everyone who was able to come or send their love. On the way to spend our wedding night in Las Vegas on the way to California for the honeymoon cruise, Rob and I just went on and on about how perfect and wonderful everything turned out. I was so glad to hear him talk about it the way he did, to know it meant just as much to him. For our Honeymoon we went on a Mexican Riviera Cruise for 7 days, which included stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan, and Puerto Vallarta. The cruise was the most fun way to relax after months of planning. We loved it.
Since the wedding we’ve just been enjoying married life. We didn’t get out to the lake as much as we would have liked this summer, and only one trip to Lake Powell, so we’ll have to remedy that next summer. (Which cannot come fast enough, I do NOT like the cold! I keep threatening to move to the equator. HAHA)
I am still at St. George Care Center, and in May I moved from Central Supply to doing Payroll and Accounts Payable, and I love it. With the economy the way it has been the company Rob was working for had to shut down. Construction is suffering pretty bad right now, (unfortunately that’s been Southern Utah’s staple) so Rob is trying to find something he loves as much as he loved the paver business. Rob is an amazingly dedicated hard worker though, so he’ll have no problem finding something good. Hopefully by next winter we will be in our own house where we can get a dog, and raise children, and live happily ever after!
We love all of you and miss everyone we don’t get to see often enough. Please know that our prayers and love is with you always and we hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year in 2009!!

Love, The Dammanns

So......Thirty.....

2008-12-22T16:54:00.000-08:00

First off, Someone requested a full picture of my Christmas tree...Not very exciting but here you go:

The big 3-0…Good thing my co-workers made it a good day, so I wouldn’t sit in my office crying and mourning my younger years. It is SO hard to believe that I am 30. I seriously feel like early 20s. Does that feeling ever change? Time flies so fast after high school, back then I’d never have believed it, but its true! I guess at least I can say I was married before 30. I had originally wanted kids all done by 30, also, but alas. I must try to get it all done before 35. New deadline! Hahaha.
Since Rob’s birthday is 3 days before mine, we have a combined dinner at his parent’s house. They gave me a framed picture of Rob and I at the wedding. Its my favorite one of us, so I was SOOO excited because I hadn’t been able to get any blown up yet.

On the day of my birthday my boss and some other co-workers had decorated my office, so that was cute. And Debbie, my boss, also made me some sweet slippers!!!
HAHAHA (...yeah, out of maxi-pads)

Debbie's daughter, Amanda made me an awesome cake!!

Everyone kept bringing me stuff, so it was sweet. My sister, April, brought me a dozen flowers, and they STILL look amazing after 5 days. They opened so big and smelled SO GOOD.

Rob got me a heated throw blanket because I’m always cold and a heated back massager, because my back is always hurting. So I was excited about those! :D
That night we went out to dinner to Texas Roadhouse with my mom, Dave, Madison, Brycen, Jalee, Josh, Skylar, Gwennie, and Owen. It was pretty fun. It had been snowing pretty much all day, and when we were eating the flakes got bigger, so Rob was way excited. Rob promised me I wouldn’t have to sit on the birthday saddle at Texas Roadhouse, but my lovely sister in law and brother knew one of the waiters and told him as soon as they walked in, so it ended up being unavoidable, DANG IT!!! My mom got pictures, but I look nasty in them, so I will NOT post them HERE. Good thing it wasn’t a busy night! My mom got me a cool shirt, some lotion and a little Asian decoration for my living room. I was glad that everyone could go to dinner with me (minus April, she had to work). Its always fun to get together. So now I’m 30…..and my husband is 31……we’re old and moldy.
This was us at dinner, Rob was hiding behind me. :P

But I had a pretty good birthday over all. But now on to the crying for a decade until I turn 40 and really go into shock.
Thank you to everyone who made my birthday such a good day! I love you all!!!
This was the snow the day after my b-day