Last pre-Freddie post

Well, tomorrow is the big day, and I feel like there are 20 million things that I need to do. I had planned to do so many things before he got here and I'm having to realize that it's just not all possible. I got lots of cleaning done, but not as much as I wanted...and I'm hoping to get some of Freddie's burp cloths with their decorative fabric sewn on today, but I'm not holding my breath. I need to tie the bumpers back onto the crib, but other than that his room is ready and I already got all his clothes washed and folded, so that was one thing I did get done that I wanted!

So, I need to go give Karyl a bath right now (I promised her that she could take a bath after Dora was over...). Then I'm going to try and get as much done as possible before taking her over to Grandmas and Grandpas, where she is spending the night tonight so Greg and I can come home tonight and finish up some last minute stuff!!

So, in less than 24 hours we will be the proud parents of 2 beautiful children!! I'm excited and not too terribly nervous...at least if I am, no one will know =)

Until later....here we go!!!

Getting Closer

So we're about 5 days away from having another baby...I can't wait!! We've discovered that having a second child brings totally different feelings than the first one as you get closer to delivery. We're so much more relaxed about bringing a baby home since we've been through it once and have more experience!

On Thursday night some of my friends from our new ward threw me a baby shower and it was fun to get together and get to know some more people in our ward! We got some really cute little boy clothes and blankets (which we desperately needed!!). I put a few pictures below...

This was a fun memory game that Denise brought...all the words were pregnancy related and when you made a match you got a prize relating to the term. For instance, for matching the word "conception" the prize was a Skor bar, and for matching the words "diaper change" the prize was Rolos!!

This was the diaper cake that Stephanie made, I have always wanted to know how to make one, and I was so excited to get one!! Besides, the diapers were much needed...we forgot how tiny diapers could be (we only see the size 6 nowadays!!)

Stephanie was sweet enough to host the baby shower at her house...thanks Stephanie!! I also put this picture on here because it's one of the only ones where I don't look like I weigh 300 pounds (which I DON'T...but it looks like it!!)

And I know I'll hear about this picture, but it was so nice to have both of Freddie's grandmas at the shower...Grandpa was back at our house watching Karyl with Greg (although something tells me Karyl was probably running the show while the women were gone!!). And again, this picture doesn't make me look quite a large, so another reason why I put it on here!!

It was a lot of fun and I just love our new ward! It's so nice to have so many new friends out here that we get along with and have so much in common with. And since we're all having babies around the same time, there will be lots of baby showers in the near future...I can't wait!!

Other than that, not much else is going on. Just in case I don't get another post up before the baby is born, I will be home from the hospital on Tuesday the 3rd and I will try and get pics up ASAP. I'll try and show Greg how to do it, and if he has time while I'm in the hospital maybe he'll put up some pictures...but he'll be busy with Karyl and I'm not going to make him promise!!

Also, if any of you are going to be near Mission Hospital between the 27th and the 3rd, I love having visitors...so give me a call on my cell phone (I'll have it with me).

Fredrick's New Birth Day

Freddie has a new brith day...he is now going to be born on Friday, February 27th at around 11 am. After my appointment today my doctor decided that our first scheduled date was too close to the due date and since my blood pressure has been going back and forth between normal and way too high she decided that it would be better to go with an earlier date.

So...we are now looking at about 10 days away!! Honestly I'm really excited to bring him out and give my insides a rest, and since he's so big already and everything seems to have developed properly there very little risk in having him 10-11 days before his due date.

We'll keep you posted on how things are going, but as of right now I am having contractions but am not showing any signs of being near labor (not dilated) so he should stay put until Dr. Cvar goes in to get him!!

Oh, and so Karyl gets some time on here too, yesterday Grandpa weighed and measured her and her are her stats:

HEIGHT: 37 inches
WEIGHT: 31 pounds

She is a big girl...heck, she's bigger than a lot of the 4 year olds we know!!

Wish us luck...baby time is even closer than before!

Valentine's Playdate

So, here's how the morning started....

She was up at about 6:15 am and kept calling "mommy" over and over, so I finally went in to see what was going on. She was ready to get up, and despite my best attempts to assure her that it wasn't time yet she wasn't believing me. So, being that I was still wanting to sleep I told her she had 2 choices...she could come in mommy and daddy's bed and sleep some more, or she had to stay in her bed. As you can see above, she chose our bed, and amazingly she actually fell back asleep until about 9:30!!

Once she woke up, we headed over to Karyl's friend Diego's house for a Valentine Playdate. There was cookie decorating, a "lovebug" craft, and lots of lots of playtime. We had an awesome time and it was so nice to be able and sit and talk to other adults.

Stephanie was brave to let all these kids play with frosting, but they did pretty well and they had a blast!! Although, once Karyl figured out was on the knife, she wanted to lick it off rather than waste it on the cookie!! Then, when I got her another one to decorate, she refused to put anything on it, she just wanted to eat it....go figure!!

And to end this post....since I'm getting closer and closer to delivery day, I have been wanting to take a picture of myself so I'll have a record of how pregnant I looked. I'll have to check my picture from the days before Karyl's birth, but I think I've matched or surpassed with belly size compared to Karyl, and I'm still 2-1/2 weeks away from D-day!!

So, here it is, the belly pic!! I decided to try out the timer function on my camera...it works really well, but I had to balance the camera on top of a lunch cooler to get it just right, but I was pretty happy with how I looked in this picture, so I share it with all of you...here I am in all my pregnant glory. And if you're wondering, that is ALL baby...this belly is hard as a rock!! You can feel exactly where his butt and legs are!!

I was also told at my last appointment that since he is in the right position, if I go into labor early that they wouldn't section me...they would let things go naturally unless I stopped progressing or something. I had no idea that was even an option up until then because I was under the impression that my doctor didn't do VBACs!! So, I'm kind of hoping that he decides to head out early...I'm scared to death since I was prepared mentally for another c-section, but a natural birth would save us much needed money and would take away the limited number of births that come with having all c-sections.

We know that Heavenly Father has a plan, and that He already has a perfect plan for how this baby is going to get here, but I can hope =) I've been having more and more random contractions, so maybe it's a sign he's heading out the exit sooner than expected!!

The LoveSac finally gets unleashed

OK, so anyone who knew us when we were first married knows that right before we got married we went to the Grand Opening of the LoveSac store here in Riverside to get a LoveSac for our new apartment. When you go to the Grand Openings, you automatically get anything you buy half off and depending on the store you get even deeper discounts depending on how early you were there. We set out at about 2 or 3 am the morning of the Grand Opening and waited for hours until they opened.

Anyway, as of that date we became the proud owners of a 6 foot LoveSac. We had it out in our apartment and in the condo until we started accumulating too much stuff...then we had to vacuum pack it the best we could back into a gigantic plastic bag and tie it up and put it in the garage. That was over a year and a half ago.

Now that we have a house, I am done working until after baby is born we were able to move my computer into the "office" and free up the space in the living room for our prized LoveSac. For those who don't know what a LoveSac is, it is a giant bean bag, but instead of having beans inside, it has chunks of foam. It is by far the most comfortable thing you could ever sit on and we have been missing it for a long time!!

I have put a picture below with Karyl sitting on it so you can get a perspective on how big this thing really is.

Sicky McSickerson

Well, it doesn't happen very often, but I can't get lucky all the time, right? We went to Disneyland yesterday morning with some friends from our ward and I couldn't figure out why Karyl was enjoying being there, but kept wanting to ride in the stroller (not normal!). Well, the way home I noticed she was warm and red in the face, but it was HOT and I just figured she needed to cool off. Unfortunately, we got home and despite the blasting air in the car, she was still just as hot...so I proceeded to take her temperature and discovered that I had a sicky on my hands.

She has been coughing and had a runny nose for the past week or so, but apparently it turned into a viral bronchitis (I found that out after calling the 24-hour nurse at about 11pm). She was perfectly happy after giving her some Tylenol and things were reasonably ok until bedtime. I put her in bed, but just kept hearing her cough...and she couldn't fall asleep. So, Greg headed out to the couch and I to the recliner with her in my lap. Keep in mind that being almost 9 months pregnant isn't exactly condusive to sleeping on a recliner with a wiggly toddler on your lap....especially since I'm up every hour or 2 anyways going potty!!

So, after a call to the pediatrician Karyl and I headed to the 24-hour Wal Mart close by (Greg had to be up early and I refused to let him go with us...I wanted him to sleep). We got some cough syrup and a season of Spongebob on DVD so I didn't have to keep playing individual episodes from the DVR.

Then, we settled onto the recliner for a semi-restful night for her, not so much for me....but we'd rather have them be comfy than us, right?? At about 2:30 after she had been sound asleep for about an hour I very awkwardly got out of the recliner and put her in bed and Greg and I headed to our bed. He got up in an hour and headed to work and I finally fell asleep about 4am...then about 20 minutes later she started crying. So, I brought her in our room, propped her up with a few pillows on the bed and put on the Nick station (THANK YOU for having decent cartoons at 4am!!) and she eventually went back to sleep and I was able to get some comfortable rest at least inbetween her moving and coughing. It was as close to perfect for that night as I could have imagined.

So, she was up at about 9 am and stayed tucked on our bed for about 2 more hours while I brought her breakfast and we watched more cartoons. Funny enough..as long as she has the Tylenol, she is perfectly fine...just a coughing machine. Hopefully things will get better tonight and I can get a little more sleep. The recliner thing just doesn't work right now...It is almost impossible for me to get in and out of that thing when the feet are kicked up seeing as how I have no stomach muscles right now and my legs ache so bad at night that staying in the recliner is like slow torture....

So here we sit, watching Spongebob (which I have memorized), and me praying that this cough subsides enough to at least let her (and us) sleep tonight!!

At least she got sick BEFORE the baby was born!!! Always look at the silver lining =)