just what every mom wants to hear....

Once again Charlie was completely heartbroken that Eric was not with me when I came to pick him up from school yesterday. He took one look in the car and burst into tears. His teacher was very surprised and told me he had a great day and that she had never seen him cry. As I was getting him buckled our conversation went like this:

Charlie: Where is daddy?

Me: Daddy is at work right now, you can see him when he gets home.

Charlie: I really want to see him right now. I miss him soooo much.

Me: Well I am here and I am so happy to see you.

Charlie: Yeah, but I don't love you very much....


Ahh...way to make a mom feel good. Don't worry, I am not taking it personally :)

Here is a picture of the little rascal the other day after he got himself dressed

How do they walk around with their shoes on the wrong feet like they don't even notice?

freehand scraps sneek peeks...

Here are a few more sneek peaks from the September kit for Freehand Scraps.

That heart paper from Heidi Swapp has been one of my favorites since I first saw it with Heidi at CHA in February! I am getting more comfortable using non-traditional boy colors for Charlie's pages. This page turned out better than I expected and I think the pink looks great!
I think I used the chipboard accents from Chatterbox on every page and card that I made with this kit.
The kit comes with an entire bottle of white flocking from Doodlebug and double-sided sticker letters to apply the flock to. It is hard to see in this picture, but those letters are fuzzy from the white flocking. (Holly, great idea to use this on baby pages...I am going to have to steal that one!) More flocked sticker letters and the tree is one of the Chatterbox chipboard accents with green gems from Doodlebug. It is hard to see, but I hand-cut out the big "9" and then I added dots with glossy accents.

Be sure to check out the kit at http://www.freehandscraps.com/ on September 1st to see all the contents and the rest of the gallery.

yet another baby update....

Had another ultrasound today to see how the little guy is growing. He did show some growth, but did not gain any ground. The doctor showed us his growth curve so far and said that even though he is still measuring small, that may just be his growth curve. As long as we see him showing growth we will do nothing. If he shows any decline, we may have to think about implementing an action plan including steroids, increased monitoring and bedrest. She said that it is hard to know what a normal baby is for me since there were so many complications during my last pregnancy. I am to continue monitoring my blood pressure and start taking one baby aspirin a day. There have been studies that it may help with pre-eclampsia/growth restriciton. So, not a bad visit all in all. My blood pressure is still steady and his heartbeat looked great so we will be back in 2 weeks to check on his growth again.

I am so happy that they are starting to get Fall clothing in the stores now. I have not been too excited to buy anything for the little guy since it has all been summer stuff that he would not be able to wear in forever. (plus, I do have a TON of stuff leftover from Charlie) I found this CUTE outfit yesterday at Old Navy:

I just love the owl and the green. So cute!

first day of preschool for mr. charlie.....

Today was the day! We have been talking about preschool for several months and Charlie was so excited to go this morning. At first he kept saying, "I am going to go to preschool and mommy is going to stay with me." I was worried there would be many meltdowns. We just kept reminding him that it would be like children's church and that we would come back to pick him up after a few hours. This morning came and there were no tears. He walkd up to his classroom and said "see you guys later" and ran off to play. SO happy about this! I came back to pick him up and he seemed pretty happy to see me. He gave me a big hug and told me how much fun he had and showed me the circle picture that he had drawn in class. Then he realized that daddy was not there to pick him up and a meltdown ensued. Not sure why he got so upset about that, but he calmed down and I took him to McDonalds to have a fun lunch together.





After McDonald's we stopped at Walmart for a few groceries and I said to him "Wow, I am sure proud of my little preschooler". He thought about it for a while and said, "Can I still be a churcher too?" :)

it's been 9 crazy years....

This weekend Eric and I celebrated our 9 year anniversary! We were lucky enough to get to spend the weekend in Jackson Hole (FYI, they have dropped the "Hole" now, so it is just Jackson, WY, who knew??). My dad has been working there for the past few months and was able to get us a gorgeous suite at the Teton Mountain Lodge - what an unbelievably beautiful place! Eric's parents watched Charlie for the weekend which made it all the more relaxing for us. Thank you Priscilla and Roger & Anita, we appreciate it SO very much. We all got massages on Sunday - my first prenatal massage...what a treat that was! I had great intentions of taking a ton of pictures, but of course, we hardly took any. Here is a shot of Old Faithful:

We drove up to Yellowstone on Saturday and saw the steaming geysers and Old Faithful. We did not see any wildlife except for one buffalo on our drive back to the lodge.

We had a great time with my parents and I want to say thank-you to them for inviting us along. Love you both.

I did a scrapbooking layout about our nine years together for Freehand Scraps. I can only show a sneek peak because the gallery will not go up until the first, but here are a few fun facts that I gathered for it about our nine years together:
Eight - the number of automobiles we have owned
Fourteen - the number of employers we have had
Seven - the number of addressed we have had
One - the number of pets we have owned
Two - the number of boys that we have

It was fun to reflect on these numbers. I actually would have thought the number of addresses and automobiles would have been higher. It seems like we are always moving or getting a different vehicle! Anyway, Happy Anniversary to my funny, understanding and extremely loving husband. It has been a crazy nine years and I can't wait to see what lies ahead. I love you.

he always has us laughing.....

Yesterday after the service was over we went to pick up Charlie from Children's Church.....

Me: Hey bud, how was church?

Charlie: Pretty good. Are you guys done with Jesus now?

another baby update...

Today we had the follow-up ultrasound appointment with the MFM specialist to get the shots of the heart they were not able to get. They were also are just looking at the baby's general growth. The heart is looking great and there are no major concerns. We did get to see proof today that he is in fact all boy! He is measuring a little small. His weight was low but the doctor said she does not like to go by that since it can be off pretty drastically. (We know all about this, they had no idea Charlie was going to be as small as he was!) She said they tend to go by stomach circumference and his was measuring at 25%. Not too bad, but they want to keep a very close eye on it. So here starts my weekly visits. They want to start doing ultrasounds every two weeks and then on the other week I will visit with my regular OB to keep an eye on my blood pressure and other pregnancy issues. I am not really sure what to think about the appointment today. I wanted to burst into tears a couple times, but I was able to find the strength to keep it in and just pray. Charlie had pretty severe growth restriction between the time of 20 weeks and when he was born. I was always told that the growth restriction was directly related to my high blood pressure. This time my blood pressure is staying low and consistent so I was not expecting to hear what we did today. Because we just started monitoring the growth we have no way to know if there is actually some growth restriction going on, or if he is just a small baby at this point. Hopefully we will find out more at the next appointment.

The ultrasound tech (her name is Vanja and she is Wonderful!!) mentioned again today that he was being a stubborn little guy. I was joking with Eric on our way home that it is a good thing...being a stubborn little fighter seems to be a requirement to be able to make it in this belly!

a story of potty training success...

Many of you may not know, unless you are as obsessed with Guitar Hero as Charlie is, that Guitar Hero Aerosmith came out at the end of June. Charlie has begged and begged for it. Everytime we go to Target we have to go by the electronics section so he can stare admiringly at the box. We told him several times that this game would not have any KISS songs or Rock and Roll all Nite, but he still insisted that he had to have it. A few weeks ago after having a tough day with potty training (he is completely trained on pee, but was still having some trouble with poo) he asked me if he could get Guitar Hero Aerosmith. I finally blurted out “If you can go poop in the potty five times in a row with no accidents then I will buy you Guitar Hero Aerosmith.” That was it. Five days later we were on our way to Best Buy to buy it for him. It seemed so silly especially because he can’t actually play the game. A few times playing it with daddy and realizing that we weren’t kidding about no Rock and Roll all Nite, the excitement has worn off and he never asks to play with it. I don’t care though because it worked! He has only had one accident since and he is so proud of himself!

cheese!...

This is the face that we get anytime we try to take a picture of Charlie...

Followed by...

Me/Eric: Charlie, look at the camera

Charlie: I am!

Me/Eric: You are not looking at the camera, look at me!

Charlie: Cheese! Cheese! Cheese....See, I am looking at the camera!

Me/Eric: Ugh, just forget it.

At this point, bribing doesn't even seem to be working. Oh well, I think we all have this collection of pictures where we went through the cheesy grin phase, right?

a day at the zoo...

I have been dreading going to the zoo all summer. Eric always suggests it on his day off as something fun to do, but I always come up with an excuse. It is just SO hot here during the summer and my sensitivity to stinky smells has been crazy since I got pregnant. Anyway, Eric talked me into it last week, and it was great! The weather was perfect and despite a few random smells, the day was perfect.

Charlie LOVED this crane. He said "Whoa! He has hair just like me! He must go to Monkey Dooz to get his hair cut too!"
His impression of the long-horned sheep.


Hello? Hello?

Baby update: Had an appointment on the 31st and everything went good. Blood pressure was great, but my test results from the last urine test showed an increase in protein levels. Nothing to worry about yet but we need to keep an eye on it. I have decided to do a repeat c-section and get a tubal ligation at the same time - I had to sign a ton of forms for this. I guess since the procedure will be performed at a catholic hospital the sisters have to approve my request for a c-section and tubal ligation. Who knew? I was very surprised about this. The doctor said with my history I should have no problem getting an approval.