Tuesday, November 25, 2008

It's beginning to look...

...alot like Christmas...at least at our house (and on my blog)! Normally we start decorating for Christmas sometime after Thanksgiving, but this year I decided to start a little early. Because I wasn't sure if we were going to be moving before Christmas, I didn't feel like decorating for Fall like I normally do...I just wasn't motivated to pull things out of boxes if we were going to have to pack everything up into boxes. However, since we're staying put for now, I was extra motivated to get our Christmas decorations up and enjoy the lovely sights and scents of Christmas in our house as long as possible. Hylke and I both typically agree that the Christmas season doesn't begin until after Thanksgiving, but with Thanksgiving only 3 days away, I cheated and began decking the halls yesterday during Noah's naps. I even played some Christmas tunes on our ipod while decorating...shhhh, don't tell Hylke. :) We'll finish all the decorating and get our tree sometime this weekend or the beginning of next week.

We will be visiting both sides of the family for Thanksgiving...both sides ON Thanksgiving. I'm not sure how many more years we'll be able to squeeze in time with both families, but we figured to stick with it as long as we can. Typically we go to my parents house a couple days before Thanksgiving and leave after a Thanksgiving lunch. This year, however, Hylke is teaching at our Thanksgiving Eve service at church...which doesn't end until 8:30pm! We hope to get to my parents house between 10:30-11pm. We'll stay until about 3 or 4pm and then drive a couple hours to Hylke's parents house just in time to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner. :) We're hoping that Noah will nap during our 2 hour drive so he's in great spirits to play with cousins and enjoy more festivities! We'll stay the night at the Hylkema's and come back sometime on Friday.

Speaking of Noah and sleep (well, I mentioned it above), I did something I never thought i'd do...I actually put Noah down in the 5 o'clock hour on Sunday night. No, this wasn't a nap, he went down for good. He's still taking 2 naps (except on my Bible study, T-mom's days and occasionally on Sundays when our schedule really only leaves room for 1 nap) but Sunday was one of those 'only really time for one nap' days. He took a nice nap...probably about 2 1/2 hours...but I could tell he was super tired come 5 o'clock. We typically put him down between 6:30 and 7pm ( I know many people think it's crazy, but babies need sleep!!!) and he wakes up between 7-7:30am. Well, it was about 5:45pm and I just couldn't hold him off any longer, so down he went. I was a bit nervous that I'd get an unwanted early morning wake-up call, but can I just tell you that we didn't get up until almost 7:30am!! My little guy was so tired from long weekend!

I'm on the laptop (pictures are all on the desktop) so, unfortunately, this will be a boring (no picture) post. I'll try and get a couple Christmas-y pictures up soon. :)

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Ultrasound pics

Please excuse the poor quality of these pics. We are missing the manual and set up CD for our new printer/scanner/copier...I wonder if it was thrown away with our registration card and tags...:)!!! Anyway, I took a picture of our u/s pics and needless to say, they are a bit blurry.

Elliana sucking her hand:

Elliana's profile (it looks like she's giving the "peace" sign:

This is of Noah telling us it was a BOY! It's pretty clear!
This is of Elliana telling us it's a GIRL! The darker parts are the "three white lines" they look for.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Elliana and stuff :)

Today we had our "official" ultrasound. It was so fun to see little Elliana again, and to confirm that she's an Elliana, not a Zachary (our boy name). I hope to post some ultrasound pics soon, but I'm being lazy right now. ;) The ultrasound tech said that she's very active....something I already knew!! This little girl tumbles and kicks and moves all around. Noah was extremely active also, but I have been feeling stronger kicks and jabs earlier than I felt Noah's. She was being extremely lady like and crossing her legs when the U/T tried to get an official picture of her "female parts" but after going back a couple times, he got a couple pictures. When I went in for my ultrasound w/ Noah one of the first things the tech said was, well, I know what it is! Noah's legs were WIDE open. Already seeing the difference between my boy and girl. :)

A funny conversation between the u/t and me:

U/T: Ummm, how tall are you?
Me: 5'3
U/T: oh. hmm.
Me: BUT, my husband is 6'5" (Hylke was still in the waiting room at this point)
U/T: Ahhh. That makes sense.
Me: "chuckle" Why's that? (rhetorical question, of course)
U/T: Well, she has long arms and long legs...takes after your husband.

I'm not surprised at all. Noah was a long skinny baby for the first 4 months...then he filled out and kept growing tall. At Noah's U/S, the tech also commented on Noah's long arms and legs. I'm so glad they'll have some of their daddy's tall genes...something my side of the family has very little to offer. :)

Well, I have decided to go ahead and have a repeat c-section; a decision I am very comfortable with and confident of. I was really going back and forth, but since Hylke will be taking a group of JH students to Mexico 2 weeks after my due date, my decision became much easier. I couldn't risk being overdue and still potentially having a c-section, giving us only a week or even less before Hylke would leave. My doctor was so helpful, he didn't push me either way, but gave me all the options. He did let me know that because Noah got stuck there was the possibility that my birth canal was narrow. This would, of course, have a higher chance of repeating itself. My sister actually had a similar problem with Isabella being stuck and the drs. said she needed to have a c-section with her next b/c of how traumatic Isabellas delivery was (2 failed attempts at suctioning her and finally having to use forceps...and still having major tearing). It's a good thing too, Lily was over a pound bigger than Bella was!! Sooooo, Hylke and I decided that a c-section would be the best option for us. I'm very comfortable with my dr. He's really great. One of the nurses that works L/D (and goes to our church) told me that he is an outstanding surgeon and the best OB. He is not who delivered Noah, although that doctor did an outstanding job also. Soooo...it looks like March 2nd will be the big day....which means, only 15 more weeks!!

On another note, Noah is talking up a storm! It is so fun to hear him talk. He says something new all the time. He loves airplanes, trains and busses in addition to trucks and will point them all out. He says all of them, but instead of train he says "choo-choo". He loves to say "Hello" and "bye-bye". He will pick up our cell phones and say, "Hellllooooo" and anytime we leave, or he sees a car driving away he says, "bye-bye". Yesterday he heard me talking to Hylke and when I hung up the phone Noah said, "honeeeeeey" Yes, Hylke is my honey. He says grandma/grandpa, oma/opa, amy, bella and lily (which is kind of like lilililil) The list could go on and on. It amazes me at how much he soaks up each day...kids are amazing. We are loving each and everyday with our very active, very curious, very sweet little boy. He's such a sweetheart.

I hope to post some fun things (pictures) this week...i've slacked a little.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Halloween

We had a wonderful Halloween. Our church puts on a big Halloween extravaganza called Halloween Happenin' where about 5,000 people from the area come out for some great fun. This year Noah even got to do a bit of trick or treating at "Camp Trick or Treat". He still has no idea that he got candy (or rather, what candy is), but loved the excitement of someone putting something in his pumpkin. We had a fun time hanging out with some of our good friends, Andrew and Denise, their daughter (one of Noah's best friends) Sienna, and her new baby brother, Nathanael. Hylke was with us some of the time, but the youth (JH-College) had their own section, Surf City, that they took care of, so he was a little busy with that. I'm glad he was able to join us for Noah's trick or treating time. :) Here are a couple pictures of our night. You can view all of them here .

Mowing our...ummm...tile in the morning. :)



Just looking cute. :)


On our way to Halloween Happenin'

With his beach bum daddy
and his 8 ball mommy. :) I had to do something with this prego belly of mine!
Trying to figure out what to do next
Singing and dancing to the music
trying soooo hard to pick up this pumpkin with Sienna


Mommy time

And one more....almost 22 weeks: