Goodbye 2010!

So it's 11:50 and I am sitting at home on the computer deciding to update my blog. It's been a while and we have been super busy but tonight I want to take a few minutes to write about how things are going around here!

We have been sick the past week with all of us having the flu! Ick!!!! Thank goodness for Tamiflu! Maddy has also been sick on and off with ear infections for the last few months. If she contacts another one we are going to have to take her to the ENT to see what is going on. : (

We already have an appointment scheduled for mid-January with the pulmonologist to check on her breathing/asthma/upper respiratory issues to see what types of preventative things we can do since each Winter she seems to catch lots of colds and things!

We just celebrated Christmas and it was so much fun seeing things through Maddy's eyes this year! This is the first year that she really began to understand about "Santa" All month she was so excited about Santa and had alot of questions! She called Santa, "Ho-ho!" When we would go to the mall she was so excited to see and wave to ho-ho! We went to see him and Maddy sat on his lap, she was a little hesitant/cautious with him and didn't want to look at him it was so cute! Whenever anyone asked her what she wanted from Santa for Christmas she said, "Aunted House (haunted house)" and "Aaaaaaa (The Little Mermaid, Ariel)"

This was the first year that she understood about leaving cookies and milk for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph. A few days before Christmas I told her that we were going to have to get cookies and milk to leave for Santa and she said, "Why?" I told her because Santa loves cookies and milk! The next day we were in the car and Maddy said, "Why does Ho-ho want baba?" She thinks that milk and ba-ba are essentially the same thing. I told her well because he likes to drink milk with his cookies but he likes his milk in a cup! Then she would say, "But why?" We has this conversation about 5 more times before Christmas Eve! I also want to mention that I have never seem Maddy SO excited to go to bed as on Christmas Eve, as soon as we walked in the bed that evening she told me, "I go night-night, ho-ho come!" Lol!!!!Maddy has also been very excited about the Nativity and baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. She calls baby Jesus, "Baby Jeez" I think it's so adorable, whenever we would be at the store or anywhere she would get so excited if she saw a natvity she would say, "Mommy!!! It's Baby Jeez!!! It's Baby Jeez!!!!" I hope she will always share this excitement about the Baby Jesus!

Things are also going good on the baby Mason front! We only have about 4 and a half weeks left until our scheduled c-section at 39 weeks and we're getting so excited! He is growing and moving around like crazy!

I am also very nervous though! I am most worried I think about how Maddy will handle the adjustment. It has always been just the 3 of us for so long and I dont want her to ever feel left out! : ( I worry about how she will feel about Mason and about the 3 nights that I will have to be away from her while I'm in the hospital. She will or course be able to come up the the hospital but is planning to sleep 1 night at my mom's, 1 night at Matt's mom's, and the last night at our house and Matt's Mom will sleep here. I have never even spent one night away from her so it's going to be hard!!!! We have been working on Mason's nursery and have most of it done we just have a couple more things to do! It's a nautical theme, here are some pics of Maddy and Matt painting the boat bookcase for the nursery!

And just a few more pics from some of the things we have been up to lately~

Baking Day at Aunt Dianne's

Winter Wonderland
Decorating Tyler's Christmas tree Christmas pics taken by my friend Kelli!

Introducing.... Mason Andrew Gray!

Last week was our big appointment that we have been waiting for. Our 16 week appointment with the ROC (regional obstetric consultants). This group of doctors monitor high risk pregnancies. Starting at 16 weeks they are able to perform an ultrasound and check fluid levels and for kidneys and a bladder. So this was a very important one for us. That morning I woke up and was a bundle of nerves, I was in the bathroom half the morning and then after dropping Maddy off at my mom's we were on our way. As we started driving downtown we got a little surprise, we saw a rainbow! As soon as I saw it I thought of Tyler and knew that it was a message from him telling me everything is going to be OK mommy! Don't worry!

Finally we arrived at their office (view from office above) and after a 2 hour wait! YES, I said TWO hours!!!! We were finally brought back for the ultrasound. They scanned little Mason for over an hour so we were able to see him moving all around, at one point he had his little feet positioned over his head! watch his heartbeat, then he was practicing opening and closing his mouth, and most importantly, they said everything looked great and he look healthy! They were able to see one of the two kidneys and the bladder. Because I am was only 16 weeks it can be hard to see them so we will go back in 6 weeks for a rescan. Then we asked if they could tell us whether or not we were having a boy or a girl and she said, yes! She pulled up a picture she had taken earlier of Mason and you could see very clearly that he was a B-O-Y!!! Matt and I were both sooo excited! We both had a feeling it was a boy! Then when the doctor came in the picture was on the screen still of Mason with his "boy parts" and the doctor said, "Ohhhh, someone is showing off I see!!!" We were cracking up! I never knew how I would feel if we had another boy, because this isn't our first boy. I felt so excited but also a little sad because I don't want Tyler our first little boy EVER forgotten. So many people that we have told we are having a boy say, "Oh that's so great! Now you'll have a boy and a girl!!! " I want to say to them, "Well, we already have a boy and a girl, our first little boy just isn't here with us." It's hard and I know it always will be hard. There will always be firsts that we never got to experience with Tyler and that really hurts. But I know that just like Tyler is so special and his own little person, and Maddy is our little girl with all her special ways, Mason too will be his own little guy with his own personality and in my heart and mind (and in those who are close to us and are family) they know that we have TWO boys and a girl!

When we got home to Maddy we showed her a picture and said, "Look, Maddy, Mommy has a baby boy in her tummy." Maddy told us quickly, "NO, it's BABY!!!!" She didn't like that we were changing the name up to baby boy, she wanted it to just be baby! We told here your right it is a baby and the baby is going to be a boy! She again said, "NO, NO, NO it's BABY!" Ok Maddy ok it's baby! She's just still too little to quite get it! Oh how I love her! : ) The day that Matt and I found out that Maddy was a girl we went to Babies R Us and picked out her very first stuffed animal, a little pink and white dog that barks. So that evening we went together as a family to Babies R Us to pick out Mason's first stuffed animal we were so excited to find the exact same puppy that we got Maddy but in blue and white! Of course we also let Maddy pick out a new toy just for her while we were there!

Myrtle Beach trip

Here are some VERY delayed pics from our summer trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina! We went at the beginning of summer!

Aquarium

Children's Hands On Museum

Swimming at the condo!

Feeding the ducks outside of our condo!

Day on the water! We rented a pontoon boat and went to an island for swimming and a picnic!

Carnival Fun!

Just an update!

I have been so bad about blogging mostly because I just have been feeling so sick. With this pregnancy I have been having REALLY bad headaches and also nausea/vomiting. It is hard, especially with a 2 and a half year old at home who wants to play all day when I sometimes feel so sick I was to just lie in a dark room with an ice pack to try and get rid of my headache! I am not trying to complain, I feel so blessed to be carrying our 3rd child! All of this will be soooo worth it in the end!

We had our monthly ob appt about 2 weeks ago and were able to do another ultrasound! I was really excited to see baby again! Maddy was with us for this appointment and we told her that we were going to watch the baby on the BIG movie! The ultrasound room has one of those huge flat screen TV's. She seemed pretty intrigued although I am not sure that she really understood. When the baby came on the monitor she said, "What's that?!" We told her, "That's the baby in mommy's belly!" She watched and watched the whole time! Baby looked great! He/she was moving around dancing like crazy! Then he/she put their hand right beside their face like they were waving hi to us! It was so cute! We also heard and saw the heartbeat again! Music to my ears!

Little Miss Mad's is doing great! She is definitely trying to assert her independence and see how much she can get away with at this age. Just today we went to the library and while leaving she didn't want to hold my hand while we walked across the parking lot. It told her, "No, Maddy you have to hold my hand there are cars!" She then snatched her hand away and threw herself on the ground all within about 2 seconds! Then looked at me and said, "NO!!!!" Oh boy, the two's have hit!!!!

I have been blessed...

Today I read about a little boy who passed away from a congenital heart defect. They showed pictures of his time spent in the NICU and it brought back so many memories of that long month that Maddy was in the NICU. It makes me think of just how blessed we are to have a beautiful healthy little girl in our arms. Having her in the NICU was so scary and now it just seems amazing how big she has become since that day. I want her to always know how much of a miracle she is to Matt and I and how much we love her. Maybe one day she'll read this blog. I wanted to share a few of her favorite things right now, just little things she is doing that I want to always remember!

For one, she loves anything "Boo!" Boo to her is anything Halloween-like such as witches, ghosts, pumpkins, etc. She watched a Mickey Mouse Halloween Sing Along and since then she loves anything scary. While at garage sales a few weeks ago I found a little toddler witch costume, it is so cute and boy does she love it! Every time the witches song comes on she has to run and get her hat and broom!

She also loves to dance! I watch that show, "So You Think You Can Dance" every week and when it comes on she goes in front of the TV and does her own little version of the dances they are doing, I just love it!

Little Miss Maddy is also becoming quite independent at times! She is saying on a daily basis now, "I want to do!" Meaning she wants to do it herself without help! She is getting so big! But with this Independence also comes the pouting when she is told no. When she is mad or angry she will cross her arms over her chest and say, "Hmm!" Then sit there pouting. She learned this from her little buddy Charlie. Honestly, though I don't really mind it, I would rather her quietly pout then throw a fit or yell! : ) The picture below is of her pouting when we went to the Hands-On Museum. She wanted to put the play food in her mouth and I told her no so she was mad. (Goodness only knows how many kids have put those things in their mouths! Ewww!!!)

She is doing great with her speech therapy and has made lots of progress! She is now saying short sentences/phrases and adds quite a bit of new words to her vocaubluary each week! Her favorite part of therapy is getting a cup of water from the water machine on the way out. Every time I tell her we are going to therapy she says, "And I get wa-wa!" So when we are through she always reminds me that she wants her water. After getting the water she then has the routine of sitting outside of the building on the bench and drinking her water before we proceed to get in the car. I love the little routine things like this that we do! I love her so much! Well I am headed to bed! Yawn!

Our first glimpse of you!

Matt and I were so excited to go back for our second ultrasound, we were also really nervous. We got to the doctors office and waited for what seemed like forever but in all reality was probably a pretty short wait. Finally, they called us back and got all set up for the ultrasound, I silently said a little payer to please show us that everything is OK and show us little ones heart beating. The second the baby came up on the screen I saw the beautiful little fluttering and I knew that it was the little heart beating!!! She measured the baby and said that everything looked great! They she zoomed in a bit and showed us the heartbeat and turned on the volume so we could hear his/her heart beating!!!! Ooohhhh, that was the greatest sound and it brought back memories of being in that same room just a few years back listening to Maddy's little heartbeat! She printed us out 2 ultrasound photos, I think they are so cute although this early on the little one looks kinda like a little grain of rice! Next we met with Dr. Boyd (this is my doctor who delivered Tyler) and he gave us the due date of February 9th! What a day full of blessings!

Our next appointment is towards the end of July and then at the end of August when I am 16 weeks we have our appointment with ROC- the high risk doctors for a consultation and ultrasound to check and make sure everything is ok with baby. I am hoping to possibly find out the sex this day too!

Early Appointments

I have already had a few ob appointments thus far. Because of my history with Maddy and having the severe pre-eclampsia and delivering early at 34 weeks, I am considered "high-risk." Our first appointment was called a, "confirmation appointment" with the nurse practitioner, they did a pregnancy test in the office to confirm that I was pregnant and then went over different things like prenatal, things to do and not do during pregnancy, etc.

My next appointment was the long appointment where they do your first ultrasound, yay! And then you see one of the ob's. We got there and did the ultrasound first, I was so excited and couldn't wait to see the little peanut- Matt calls this little one "peanut." So we get in there and I am sooo nervous and we very disappointed to find out that it looked like we weren't quite as far along as we thought we were. I thought I was about 6 weeks and 5 days when really I was more like 5 weeks and 5 days. We were able to see the yolk sac but she said it was still too early to see the baby. She said we would schedule another one in 1-2 weeks. I was sooooo bummed! Then we go back to the waiting room and they call me back to do the finer stick to check for gestational diabetes and the numbers were a little high so they told me I had to go to the lab next to do the 3 hour glucose test, after the ultrasound and then this I was feeling really defeated already.... Next we went into the room to meet with Dr. McIntyre.

She was so great and it felt good to meet with her! She said that the due dates were probably just off and when we came back in a week or 2 we should be able to see the little one. Also assured me that the blood work was just precautionary and didn't necessarily mean that I had gestational diabetes (which by the way it did all come back perfectly normal! yay!) I spoke with her about how I wanted to try and change my eating habits a little to eat more healthily and she said this would be fine and also talked to her about being seem by the high risk consultants and she also agreed that this would be good because of my past history.

BIG news!!!!!!

We're pregnant!!!! I wanted to begin blogging all about our new little peanut but am not ready to share quite yet so I am just going to save these as drafts for now and publish later. Matt and I decided a few months ago to stop using protection and if something happened it happened and if not then that's fine too. Because of all the infertility issues we had in the past we knew that it may take a really long time and I think we were both expecting it to be even a year or so boy were we surprised to find out that after just a few months we are expecting!

When I realized I was late I took a early test and it was negative. Then a few days later I decided to take another one and it was positive!!!! i was so excited!!! I took the test in the morning and the first one was a faint line, I left for work and then when I got home took another one and this time the line was darker! Matt was at work and I was dying to call him at work and tell him but I wanted to tell him in person. I also wanted to think of a creative way to tell him.

So, Maddy and I went to the store and I bought Maddy a book called, "I'm a Big Sister!" Then we went home and waited for what seemed like forever for him to get home! When he finally got home I said," Maddy-go show Daddy the new book you got today for him to read to you!" Maddy took the book to him and he said, "Oh you want me to read this to you? Ok... Then began reading the title and looked up at me and said, "Wait.... what???" I said, "Yep! Im pregnant!" He kept saying, "Are you serious? Are you serious? Wow, that's great!!!!!!" Then of course he had to call his mom and dad. they were so excited! Then we went up to the ballpark where alot of our family was and told them, they were all really surprised and happy for us! We also went to visit Tyler at the cemetary and tell him that he is going to be a Big brother again, although we are sure he already knew since he is up there with Jesus watching over all of us!!! So, that's our big news! We are beyond excited and cannot wait to welcome with little one into our lives!!!

Summer fun!

This summer has been in full swing! And I have been a terrible blogger! We have been spending ALOT of time in the water since it has been sooooooo HOT here! This week the highest temp was 108!!! Yikes!!!! I am getting to the point where if there isn't water of some type involved I want to stay indoors! We have had fun swimming in Grandma and Grandpa Ford's pool, making lots of trips to the Adventure Landing water park, playing in the sprinkler, playing in the kiddie/family pool we got for the backyard, and the other day we washed the cars with Maddy for the first time. Oh my goodness she loved it! Her favorite part was getting to squirt the hose and trying to squirt her Daddy! She thought this was hilarious and just laughed and laughed! We have also recently went on a few little outings, we went to Marineland one day to see the dolphins and then took a ferry accrooss the water to a fort and then went another day to a different Fort about an hour away. Maddy went to her first movie. We also went to storytime at the library, hands on kid's museum, another kids play place, going to the parks, day trip to a water park, etc. It would take me forver to post all the pics so I just picked a few of my favorites from each outing and made a slideshow instead!

This slideshow made with Smilebox

Memory Boxes

When Tyler was born at 20 weeks he was very little (and perfect!) I was so worried that we wouldn't be able to find something that would fit him, my mom, Grandma, and Aunt got together and made the most adorable little outfit for him to wear since we counldn't find anything. So ever since then I have always said one day I wanted to make and donate little gowns for other parents facing the same thing. This year I was so excited to start a project to do in memory of Tyler instead of just focusing on the fact that he is not here with us, although that of course is always on my mind. So I began planning and thinking of things I could put in a memory box to donate to the hospital. I contacted the hospital chaplin at Baptist Downtown (I know her from infant loss support group meetings that I have attended) and told her my idea which she said would be very welcomed.

My Mom and I began by looking online for patterns to make 4 gowns made to fit babies weighing under about 4 lbs. It took forever but we finally found 2 patterns. My mom and I went to the store and bought all the materials to make them. Since I am not the most handy person my mom did the sewing and then she left the buttons for me to sew on.

Next we had a girls night to work on the memory boxes. We sewed on the buttons, made teeny baby bracelets that said, "baby" and "angel", made little pink bows for the girl boxes, and made 2 scrapbook pages to go in each box to place the babies hand and footprints. Then a friend of mine Kristis who chochet's made 4 teeny hats for me! She was so sweet and did this free of charge! They turned out just perfect! My friend Kelli ordered brochures from Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, this is an organization that comes to the hospital and provides professional infant loss photography free of charge. They create such beuatiful images for the families to cherish forever, I wish that I would have had them come out when Tyler was born, this is something that I will always regret. Last, I went to the store to get hand mold kits, and the boxes to put everything in.

I finally got everything completed 2 nights ago and I am going to be delivering them this week. Here are some pictures of the boxes and I few pics from the night that the girls came over to help! Thanks girlies!