My Christmas Present

As you most likely know, I own a business. Oh, and by the way, happy 6th anniversary to my crazy "little business" that was supposed to just make me a couple hundred extra dollars a month and now is better than a full fledged, out of the home career. My site officially launched February 6, 2004. I can't believe I went from an awful looking site on angelfire to this: My Sweet Dreams Baby. I am a proud mother of my little business baby.

But anyway, that wasn't the point of this post. For Christmas, Josh did a wonderful thing. In the garage there were boxes. Piles and piles of boxes filled with colorful and fun, child oriented products. And every time I went out there to get something to send to a customer, I had to dig around in the boxes to find what I needed, and then I stood up and banged my head on the bikes that hung over them. Happiness-or not.

So, for Christmas, Josh did this:
A full shelving system with all of my products nicely organized by item and easy to access without banging my head. THAT is happiness. My head thanks you Josh.

Mormon Battalion

The Mormon Battalion marched into San Diego in 1847 and each year they commemorate their arrival with a big celebration in the heart of San Diego's Old Town. This was our second year attending, and again, like last year, we had a blast.

(First of all, can I just say that it is awesome that we can be outside having a great time in January.)

This year we were smart. We knew there was way too much fun to be had for a family with three little boys who get tired and cranky around lunch time to handle it all. So we picked our favorites from last year, stuck to them, and then headed home.

We cooked biscuits on a stick over a fire (this was everyone's very favorite part and the first thing we did when we got there). Now can I just mention that I thought it would be fun if our boys wore their vests and cowboy hat costumes they got for Christmas, you know-to at least sort of fit the theme. But instead, we ended up with 2 Batmans. Very Mormon Battalion like. You can't see Nathan in this picture, but he even had his Batman costume had complete with sticking up bat ears on for this. Oh well. At least my kids can never say we didn't let them express their individuality.

The other favorite part for the boys was the mock march. They became soldiers wielding guns, something mom never lets them do at home, and marched around Old Town to the beat of the drum.

Even Dallen got in on that action. Why are boys, even from such a young age, so obsessed with guns?

Other than that we sampled scones, made miniature bricks, made pioneer dolls, looked up an ancestor who was part of the Battalion, and listened to some stories. This is something we will look forward to each year as long as we are in San Diego.

Dal's Birthday Fun!

Unfortunately, my unexpected surgery fell just 27 hours before Dallen's birthday this year, which meant that on the day of my sweet little one's birthday celebration, I felt like doing little more than laying on the couch all day. Luckily, he was turning 2, and since he doesn't even know what a birthday is, let alone what day it should be celebrated, we decided to bump his birthday back a few days.

So Saturday, 2 days after his birthday, we celebrated instead. He got up that morning and went to breakfast with daddy and came home to find the house decorated and presents waiting for him. He opened them, had them snatched away by big brothers and was confused about what all the fuss was about. I think he was less than impressed.

But to make things extra fun, Grandma and Great Granny and Great Gramps came to town that day, so later that evening we had a little party with 3 grandparents and cousin Laura and Sam.

I, of course, had to make a cake-because I love to go over the top on cakes. I blame that completely on my mom. And now, for your viewing pleasure (and after much nagging from my mother in law to get it on the blog:), I present it to you:

In the few moments that he slowed down enough to look at it he thought it was pretty cool. I think his big brothers were more impressed. But I had fun making it and that makes it worthwhile.

He actually did a good job blowing out the candle:

For our after cake entertainment, cousin Laura, my adorably cute 80 year old Granny and Josh demonstrated their ability to "shuffle off to Buffalo" (a tap move for those of you unfamiliar with dance). I too would have joined them, but my belly button was still hurting pretty good at this point and I didn't think bouncing up and down would help it much at that point:

I Love Short Little People!

How lucky am I that I get to spend my days with miniature people?

Today has been particularly sweet. I volunteered in Nathan's classroom (something I LOVE doing but haven't gotten to do enough of this year due to things like random and unexpected surgery or the Swine Flu) and got to chat with all sorts of crazy kids. I watched them as they ate their snack and slobbered things like yogurt all down the fronts of their jackets and smeared it all around their mouths and just grinned to myself because it's just flat out cute. I love their carefreeness, their excitement as they all try to tell me things at the same time, their innocence.

Also, Nathan announced his ambitions today. We were talking about college this morning because Thursdays are "college day" at his school. They are supposed to wear college paraphernalia (Go Cougs!) and whatever. I was telling the boys that college is fun because you get to pick whatever it is that you like to learn about and take classes all about it. I said daddy picked chemistry and mommy picked social work. Nathan said "I think I will either do engineer (and no, he doesn't mean like mechanical or electrical. He means driving a train.) or monster truck driver." Awesome Nathan! :)

Dal is 2. I know you already knew that, but I mean Dal is 2. It is like someone flipped a switch and he is completely 2 now. And he is determined. He isn't the yell at you sort of determined. He is the "I'm going to do whatever I want (quietly) no matter how many times you try to change my course." He learned to get out of his crib last week. Bummer. Yesterday at nap time I went in to put him back in his bed 3 times. When I checked on him later he was out cold...on the rocking chair! Oh well. He slept for more than 3 hours there (due to lack of sleep the night before with his new found getting out of the crib excitement). Whatever works I guess.

And Jack. Jack is getting too big and too smart. I told him today that I am really noticing that he is maturing (had to explain what that meant) and getting ready to be a kindergartner. Then I told him that I an NOT cool with that. He grinned and laughed because this is our joke. Mommy doesn't want him to leave her and go to kindergarten next year-and he can't wait!

Loveable Little Cutie

This morning as Dal climbed tenderly and gently (as tenderly and gently as a 2 year old can) over me to snuggle up next to me as I lay, slightly invalided (I just created a new word) on the couch, I was struck by the memory that two years ago this very morning I also lay, not on a couch but on a bed, slightly invalided, with Dal in my arms.

Yes, and Tuesday night, as I lay on a hospital gurney I was struck with the memory that two years previously on that same night I also laid on a hospital gurney, waiting for something to come out of me. No luck for me that night two years ago though. I had to wait another 26 hours for that to happen.

Today is Dal's birthday, although given the current situation in our home we are going to wait until Saturday to celebrate. But I couldn't let this day pass without reminiscing about my sweet little angel.

Dal was the roughest of my babies so far. Forty two hours of labor, and no, I am not exaggerating, my most painful delivery, the most difficult of my babies what with his reflux and issues with dairy in the beginning, but over and over I am struck by just how worth it he is.

Of course that sounds cliche because every mother feels that way about her child. But Dal is a bright spot in my life every single day. When he was little I got in the habit of singing "You are my Sunshine" to him every night at bed and the words ring true. He is my little sunshine.

Sure, this little sunshine is turning 2 and with that comes the glories of tantrums and opinions, but let's just say that after dealing with one of his brothers before him (I won't name names), Dal is a walk in the park. (And of course I love afore-mentioned un-named brother for many various reasons as well-his state as a 2 year old simply not being one of them.)

I was asking Dal's two grandmother's for words to describe him for a project I am working on and the words they came up with are "loveable" and "little cutie." How else can you describe this little guy? He is a charmer, a people person, he has his own fan club and I think it is a toss up to determine whether cousin Laura or neighbor Tala is the President (with Josh and I of course being the founders of the club).

There is nothing more to say about this kid but that he is sweet, fun, loveable, compassionate, kind, adorable, wonderful. He has dimples and blue eyes to top it all off. I am just flat out in love.

Lately Dal likes to sing to himself. In the car the other day he was singing 'Ho yo, ho yo, pirate's life for me." Sometimes he hits, but honestly, the look on his face when he hits me makes me want to laugh so much that it is hard to get mad at him.

The one other big personality trait of Dal that must be mentioned, is that he wants to be exactly like his big brothers. Anything they say or do is gospel to him and he WILL do it too-do not ask any other questions. You will not stop him from being one of the boys. And one of the boys he is. I am so glad.

I love him. I am so amazingly glad that he became a part of my life two years ago today. My little perfection.

Bandwagon

There's a bandwagon that's been going around our town, so I decided to jump on. And then I slipped and fell off. And then it ran over me.

Whenever I start to hear that other people are pregnant and I feel a twinge of jealousy, that is when I know it is time for another baby. Seems like lately half the people I know are pregnant. So, I too jumped on that bandwagon.

I found out I was pregnant the day before Christmas break started. I was excited, but for some reason, I also felt reserved about it. Like I suspected something might go wrong. We didn't even mention it to anyone-not even Josh's parents or grandparents while they were here for Christmas, because, like I said, I had a feeling something might go wrong.

I never started to feel sick or tired or pregnant in anyway. So, when I started having severe cramping and then started bleeding on New Year's Eve, I wasn't surprised, chalked it up to a miscarriage, felt grateful that it happened early on rather than further down the road, and hoped we could move on and get pregnant again soon.

After more severe cramping on January 2nd, I went to Urgent Care where they checked me (concerned with potential ectopic pregnancy) and everything looked good, so they sent me home, and I confess, they got my hopes up. Maybe I wouldn't miscarry after all.

The next day, Sunday, there was no denying it. I miscarried. I was disappointed, but handled it pretty well. I know that miscarriages happen and that if you want to have lots of kids, chances are, it will happen at some point. Again, I just felt grateful that it happened so early on.

So, the doctor had me start coming in to check my hcg (pregnancy hormone) levels in my blood every few days. They were still going up. I thought that seemed strange, doctor said it was normal.

Monday of this week I had a follow up ultrasound, just to make sure everything looked good and clean. Doctor said everything looked fine but wanted me to do one more hcg blood test to make sure the numbers were finally dropping.

She called yesterday morning and said that they had gone up again, quite a bit. She used the words "which is scary." Not words you want to hear out of your doctor's mouth. She sent me to have an ultrasound with a radiologist yesterday afternoon with the assumption that it was ectopic. I was then to go to the hospital for a shot of some medication that would help dissolve the pregnancy.

The ultrasound showed an ectopic pregnancy-that appeared to have ruptured. Very dangerous. They sent me straight to the ER where they sent me straight to the women's hospital for surgery. So, last night I had laproscopic surgery to remove it and my left tube. Then they sent me home about midnight. Not quite the day I expected to have when I woke up yesterday morning. :)

I should mention that through all of this I was feeling no pain. (Other than the severe cramping almost 2 weeks ago.) The doctors and nurses were completely floored by this. I should have been in intense pain. Things should have been much worse. I thank my Heavenly Father that they weren't and I am grateful for the Priesthood to bless me at times like this.

So, that is my story. I thought you all should know. Might as well just tell it like it is, I don't need any secrets. Physically I am doing quite well-surprisingly well, although that might be the Percoset. :) Emotionally I am doing well too.

When I got home last night I had strong feelings of being blessed in so many ways, so many tender mercies. Blessed to have a husband who takes such sweet and tender care of me, for a cousin who came and watch my boys till the middle of the night, for a friend who has been there done that on this sort of thing and could give me advice and comfort, for doctors and nurses who were amazing, for a Heavenly Father, Savior and Holy Ghost who comforted me when I was FREAKED OUT about having surgery (I do not do well with hospitals and blood and such). So many things.

As I write this post I can think of several of my close friends and family who have had similar experiences, or other much worse experiences with wanting a baby. I hope you all know that I think about you and pray for you. Being a woman and mother can present difficult challenges. Just hope you know that I care-I really do.

And now, I get to spend the day on the couch while Josh takes care of the boys. Sweet! :)

I have been waiting and waiting...

for this....
and no, I don't mean the dragon face painting, although that is cool too. Look at that missing front tooth! Does anything say cute like a freckle faced, toothless 6 year old? I wish we could get both front teeth out at the same time, but that first one was loose for like 9 months before we got it out, so I am thinking we have about 5 months to go on the other.

And just for fun, my little Spiderman: (the boys had a day full of birthday party fun yesterday-two parties in one day, face painting at the first one. Oh, and I love the cupcake crumb face)

And this picture brings to mind the oft quoted phrase in our home recently "You're mean! I don't want you for a (insert title here, ie daddy, mommy, brother) anymore!" (Cute little stinker)