Been FOREVER

So I have TEN THOUSAND pics to post, but just have had NO time lately!!! I've had to work full-time (and some overtime) the past few weeks so that I can qualify to get 12 weeks maternity leave. When I'm not working, I've been trying to get ready for baby, spend quality time with James & the boys, and doing normal household chores...PLUS Aidan started Pre-K and James is back in law school! I have been running from sun up to sun down! No wonder I contract all the time.

BUT I just had to post that I am SOOOOOOO excited for our baby girl's arrival! I'll be 34 weeks this week and the time has just flown by! I can't believe I only have 6 weeks until my due date! I cannot wait to meet her and see the dynamics of our family change a bit. I can't wait to introduce AJ & Ethan to her and see Ethan as a big brother. I have so much love for this child that has yet to even grace our presence. This pregnancy has been difficult compared to the pregnancies w/ the boys. But I still love being pregnant and feeling her move and seeing her all cozy on ultrasound. I feel so blessed to be a part of this amazing miracle. I am so excited to meet her!!! But hopefully she'll stay in a few more weeks! (Ethan was born at 35 wks and 6 days).

24 weeks!!!

I wanted to mark a special day for me. I've been counting down until 24 weeks gestation. Reason being, I am an overly-paranoid, worst-case scenario seeking, labor and delivery nurse who should NOT work in a hospital with a high risk labor and delivery unit. All of the other hospitals transfer their super sick "train-wreck" patients to us. I see anything and everything that could go wrong during and after pregnancy. I actually love it...but it's a HORRIBLE place to work while I'm pregnant! I've had a few minor scary incidents this pregnancy, but I've blown them way out of proportion just because I see the worst case scenario at work.
Anyhow, 24 weeks marks the "age of viability". If a child were to be born after 24 weeks gestation, the child would have a chance (though very slim) of survival. I have been counting down to this huge milestone this pregnancy, especially since I had a scare 2 weeks ago in which I began contracting every 3 minutes. After IV hydration, medication, and rest I was as good as new. But I'm glad to know that I made it to 24 weeks, I am over halfway there and hopefully I can carry her to term. I count each day as a tremendous blessing!

Wantilan Luau

Another fun thing we did in Orlando! Our hotel had a really fun luau. James, being the wonderful husband that he is, volunteered me to go on stage to dance with the hunk of love shown above (all 5 foot 3 inches of him!). I never realized how "white" I dance!!! And attempting the hula, wow my hips didn't move at all! Plus you throw in that I'm preggers and you get a pretty hilarious scene!!! You will NOT see footage of that embarrassment on this site; though james has it for all of his blackmailing pleasure :) BUT of course, the FOOD was sooooooo good!!!!!!!!!!!! Good times...

ORLANDO!!!

Well, I'm kinda on a modified bedrest today, so I thought I'd update my blog finally! The week after James finished finals, we got to go on vacation sans kids!!! Like I had said in a previous entry, we were GOING to go to Cancun with our friends Gretchen & Benj, but it continually did NOT work out for us. So we thought we'd stay in the states. We wanted to go somewhere where the prego ladies could just lay out and chill and the guys had plenty of activities to keep them busy. We decided to go to Orlando and enjoy Universal Studios. It was PERFECT!!! We stayed at the AMAZING Loews Royal Pacific Resort on the Universal campus. It was GORGEOUS!!! The pool was huge, the rooms were nice, and the breakfast buffet was gain-10lbs-in-a-week delish. Here are a few pics from the trip:

So the trip didn't start out perfect. When we got to the OKC airport, we saw on the weather channel that it was sunny and blue skies all over the US...EXCEPT for Florida. What??!! I had NOT planned on that. Oh well, we just figured we'd have a few light showers in between sunshine. When we got there it WAS blue skies, until the shuttle dropped us off at the hotel. It was POURING DOWN RAIN! It was raining so hard that the streets were filling with little minor floods. I don't know why rain didn't cross my mind when packing; all I brought were dresses, my swimsuit and shorts. We heard there were supposed to be "torrential thunderstorms" and "flash floods" throughout the rest of the week. So we had to get used to the idea of a rain-filled vacation. Here's a cute pic of Benj & Gretch strolling in the rain.


Like I said, the hotel was BEAUTIFUL. It had a Bali/India theme. It was actually one of the better-priced hotels on Universal and, I thought, had way better amenities. I really liked the fact that although it was kid-friendly, it still seemed like a peaceful, quiet retreat. We definitely want to take our kids there in a few years.

Shots of the pool:

After the first day of rain, we actually had a PERFECT day on Day 2. It was overcast but NO RAIN. The girls enjoyed dry poolside time all morning while the guys had a roller-coaster riding blast at Universal/Islands of Adventure. The boys cracked me up. They were like little kids. They kept calling with updates..."we just rode dueling dragons for the 3rd time!" "we're gonna do the hulk again." I think they ended up doing the Hulk roller coaster 7 times that day. I am SO glad that I had the excuse that I am pregnant so that I didn't have to suffer through that sort of nauseating agony that they were absolutely giddy over!

Did I mention the food yet? Oh man, I had to have eaten 4 to 7,000 calories PER DAY!!! The food was sooooooo good. One highlight of the trip was the brazilian churrascaria Texas de Brazil. The meat was to die for!!! Unfortunately our waittress was NOT Brazilian (I think she was German) so J didn't get to show off his portuguese skills. But it was still absolutely amazing!

Like I said, we lived it up eating at the hotel buffet each morning. Whatever you wanted was available: fresh omelets, pancakes, french toast, fresh fruit and yogurt, donutes, cinnamon buns, bagels, eggs, bacon, sausage, anything and everything!!! Oh and did I eat everything! The hot chocolate they had was the best I have ever had. We made the waiter tell us what brand they use and surprisingly, it was Nestle Rich Chocolate. What? No special gourmet blend that is unavailable in stores? Sweet! I know what I'll be stocking up on this winter!
It was so nice having a couples' vacation. Especially since I see James less and less through the school months. It was fun spending good, quality time with my eternal companion.
So there was a water taxi that took us from the hotel to Universal Studios where the theme parks and all of the fun restaurants were. We got hooked up by a friend who's brother works at Universal. We got 2 free tickets to the theme parks. The guys already had their tickets but this way Gretchen & I could go to the park one day and just see what it was like. We weren't allowed to do a majority of the rides, obviously, but we actually did get to see some of the Universal shows. We saw Twister and Shrek which were fun. And we got to watch the guys ride the Hulk like 3 or 4 times. Oh, another benefit of our hotel was the Express Pass. We show our hotel key card at the theme parks and were immediately admitted to the front of each line! No long waits at all!!! This made it easy for the guys to ride rides over and over again in a shorter period of time. I thought the Jurassic Park looked sooo much like the movie!We took this picture for Aidan who is really into dinosaurs lately. We thought he'd like seeing his dad posing with the scary T-rex.
Here's the Jurassic Park water ride that the guys did. Bummer I had to miss it [sarcasm]!!!
Who doesn't love a little Back to the Future memorabilia? LOVE the delorian!I couldn't get this picture to flip. Just look at it from a side view. Our kids thought it was funny.
As parents of 2 boys, we can't meet spiderman and not take a picture for proof.
We also went to Wet-n-Wild one day. It was so fun!!! We actually had HOURS of sunshine to enjoy. The guys loved the rides, and the pregos were able to do a few rides as well. There was one ride that I cannot believe they let us do. I was afraid I was going to fly out of the tube and land right on my stomach! Good fun though!!!
We had to celebrate Benj's 30th b-day (which was the Monday after we got back home)! We had a little b-day surprise at Hard Rock. Our waittress was this middle-aged, greasy-haired with purple streaks, too much makeup, smoker's voice, unfriendly unlady. The funny part was, after she made Benj stand on his chair for us to sing to him, she whispered to him, "I'd give you your birthday surprise but your wife's sitting right here." EWWWWW!!!! Creepy!!!! It was awesome!Looking back, I am so glad we didn't go to Mexico (aside from the whole swine flu epidemic). I think I would have gotten bored with laying out on the beach every single day. We livened it up by doing so many different things. We were never bored and the rain never got the best of us. It was the BEST trip!!!!

Boy or Girl? The verdict is in...

Aidan was right! Aidan and Ethan are going to have a baby SISTER in October!!! I can't believe it! A girl!!! My sweet daughter is coming into a home of two older bros who will surely be protective and a daddy who she'll have wrapped around her lil' finger. AND she's evening out our household---3 boys and now 3 girls (including Hondo). I can't wait to have a daughter to take shopping, get manicures with, teach how to bake our favorite desserts, and see grow into a beautiful woman. And while we wait, I can have fun buying pink clothes, bows and ribbons, and baby dolls. Wow, what a different world this is going to be! The ultrasound shots shown here aren't the greatest just because of the direction she was facing and the placement of the placenta. Everything looks, for the most part, healthy and functioning properly. Hopefully she will continue to grow and develop so that she'll be a healthy baby!

She's definitely related to us, her foot was HUGE compared to the rest of her body!!!

One final down, 3 to go!

James took his Contracts final today. Only three more to go and then we get to go on VACATION!!! I'm counting down the days (16). We've had a rough year and are in desperate need of a vacation. I can't wait! I can't wait! I can't wait! We DID book a trip to Cancun (like back in Jan/Feb) before we realized how horribly dangerous Mexico seemed. BUT our reservations were nonrefundable, nontransferable. Then we heard that as long as you were on the resort you were fine. So we decided that the trip was still on. Well, in comes SWINE FLU!!! Now not only is the trip to Cancun off, our nonrefundable plane & hotel tickets were REFUNDED!!! Woohoo! Thank you Mr. Contagious S.Flu! I've never been to Mexico, but I'm very comfortable with waiting for that chance. We decided to stay safe in the U.S. and go to Orlando. More about our trip later! Study away James, the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight.

Even MORE Great News!!!

Our family has really had it rough lately! Talk about being kicked while we are down... BUT we are FINALLY having a few visible miracles and blessings headed in our direction. Not only do James and I have our great news, but JEFF AND JULIE ARE PREGNANT TOO!!! We are 3 weeks apart :). I think I was more excited about their news than I was my own (well, our first response about our news was utter SHOCK, excitement came later!). They are going to make the best parents. I am very very very very very happy for them! Congratulations guys!