HALLOWEEN Festivities ...

After SEVERAL grueling hours of paper mache-ing and creative costume making, we finally were able to unveil our brilliant (okay, I'm being a little dramatic) idea for a family costume, which we wore at my sister's Halloween Party last night.  I was a jar of Prego sauce (get it!?!?), Tim was a box of spaghetti, and the kids were meatballs.  Of course, the kids weren't all that enthusiastic about our family costume idea, so they happily trick or treated in the costumes of their choice (Curious George & Fairy Princess) on Halloween, and were asked only to dress as meatballs for the party on Saturday! 

And what would Halloween be without a culinary creation from yours truly?!?!  Okay, so it wasn't an original, more of a copy-cat from something I saw in one of my Taste of Home Magazines, but it still looks cute!  Here's a picture of my "Cheese Mummy Man", which is

 basically just a cheeseball mix made to look like a mummy.

Growing Pains ... (or lack thereof!)

We awoke this morning with some excitement in the house. Apparently, while I was in the shower, Alex awoke and made his way downstairs where Tim was getting ready for work. Alex told Tim that his tooth felt REALLY loose this morning (it's been loose for about 3 weeks now). Tim replied, "Well, then pull it out!" To our surprise, he did! Alex came upstairs extremely excited and as I was stepping out of the shower came barreling into the room with a ziploc bag containing his first tooth lost. I was excited for him and surprised at the ease with which this new milestone has come and gone. As a child, I remember days, even weeks, of playing with the loose tooth and dreading the day that it was time for it to come out. I remember my father tying floss around the tooth that, really, was only barely hanging on by a hair and I was just too scared to pull it out myself. He'd say he was going to count to three but pull it out on two instead and it worked every time! When Alex came home from school one morning announcing he'd had a loose tooth, I anticipated weeks of "it" being the topic of his every conversation. I anticipated a solid week of him terrified to have us help pull it out. To my amazement, he's be so cool with it, that you'd almost not even know he had a loose tooth. And the way he handled himself this morning just makes me so proud, and breathe a sigh of relief that maybe, just maybe, this whole business of loosing teeth will be different for him than it was for me. But then again, he's a boy and maybe boys are just different about these sort of things?!? Time to prepare for the tooth fairy!

First Ultrasound of Baby #3

Today I had my first ultrasound done of baby #3 and it was exciting for us. I was happily surprised when Tim showed up for the appointment, which was not planned since the appointment was in the middle of the day and he had to get out of work for it. We arrived at Seton's Imaging place a little early and the technicians took us back quickly. There was a more experienced technician training another technician so I think we spent a little more time "learning" about the baby (and me) than we normally would have, which was nice. Overall, I'm a pretty happy camper, now that I've seen the baby in there, and saw the little tiny heart fluttering! They said that the baby is measuring on target for what we had predicted my due date to be and that they consider me now at 9 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Here is a video and picture of our first ultrasound. Enjoy!

First OB Appointment

Well, today I had my first OB appointment and it was somewhat anticlimactic. Since I'm a new patient to my doctor's office, I wasn't sure of ALL that I could expect from the appointment. The doctor seemed nice enough, although very monotone and serious, and the nurse was very friendly and chipper. The doctor was relatively thorough in going over my medical history and following our discussion, he completed the exam. He said that it seemed as though I'm around 8 weeks along and so he wouldn't even attempt to look for a heartbeat with the Doppler since he would likely NOT hear one (the instrument usually isn't sensitive enough to pick it up until 10 weeks). He scheduled me for an ultrasound next week just to get an accurate due date and check things out. So I walked away from the office, happy that I met the doctor and encouraged by his promptness in getting me in to the exam room, but disappointed that I didn't get to even hear a heart beat. Oh well, I guess it will be worth the wait another couple of days to get an ultrasound and see everything and hear a heart beat that way! Another disappointment - I learned today that they do not allow videography during delivery..... something that I was hoping to capture in a relatively non-graphic form since I wasn't allowed to tape Alex's birth and we accidentally taped over Emily's arrival! Hmmm..... Maybe I can get my sister to somehow sneak some shots of labor.... (wink wink) if she's there with us!

Baby Names and such ....

To my disappointment, my doctor's office called yesterday morning and cancelled my appointment for the afternoon. After some difficulty and frustration, they were able to "squeeze" me in for my first prenatal visit on Oct. 10th. I must admit, besides the disappointment I felt, I'm also worried now about my decision to switch doctors. It was a necessary evil to switch since my former OBGYN docs don't even have hospital privileges at St. Mary's Hospital. But the cancellation concerns me, especially after a friend of mine mentioned a few weeks ago that she had issues with the office consistently cancelling her OB appointments when she was pregnant with her last child. I guess I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and try it for a couple of months, but I don't want to get too far into this pregnancy feeling a lack of confidence in the medical care I'll be getting.

So on to a happier note..... in thinking of our future arrival yesterday, I spent a half hour or so searching online for baby names. While on vacation this summer we compiled a list of baby names (mostly girls, though) from a geneology database that Tim's Uncle and Aunt have been working on (Thanks Dean & Laura!), and I thought I'd look for some other names last night. Here are some of the names I like so far (in no particular order):
Boys - Aaron, James, Evan
Girls - Anabel, Evalyn, Charlotte, Sarah, Adeline (pronounced with the long "I" sound), Juliet, Sonia

Update on Medical appointments

Well, we've had a busy month (and it's not over yet) for follow-ups on medical issues but this seems to be the month to clear the air! Alex had his 6 year old checkup a couple of weeks ago with his pediatrician and everything seems to be normal. We brought Alex on Tuesday morning to Dr. Bulford to get the lab results and follow-up on the minor lesion removal from his lower lip. Dr. Bulford said that, as suspected, the lesion was a mucoscele which he described as a spit gland that got clogged with saliva. He said it shouldn't recur and we don't need to see him again. Also, this afternoon, we visited with Dr. Cevera (ENT) to re-check Alex's ears. Several months ago, Alex developed fluid in his ears that caused a very mild hearing loss. It's taken many months of wait and see and a long course of Nasonex, but today the doctor said that all of the fluid is finally gone (Yay... no tubes!) and that we'll just re-check again in 3-4 months to be certain that the fluid hasn't come back. He'll go back to the doctor in January which will be a good time since that would probably be the timeframe (cold season) for the fluid to come back if it were going to.

And lastly, I have my first prenatal visit with my new OB/GYN doctors this coming Monday. I'm excited about the first visit. Although it's all sort of "old hat" for me, this last pregnancy will be different in some ways. The first difference is that this baby will be born at St. Mary's Birthing Center instead of at St. Peter's Hospital and the doctors/midwives that will deliver the baby will be from a different practice. My first appointment next week has been scheduled a little early (with my last two pregnancies, I didn't have the first appt. until I was about 10 weeks along) and so I'm not sure that they will do much more than review my medical history and confirm the pregnancy with a test. Normally they'd listen to the baby's heartbeat but, again, I don't think you can hear it until around 10 weeks so I'm not getting my hopes up for anything too exciting. I should be about 7 weeks pregnant at my first appointment and if my calculations are correct, the estimated due date is May 19th, 2009.

Chaos vs. Control

You have to check out this video that I made! It's about a subject matter that is very near to my heart and I think you'll find it interesting and fun!