Brother and sister

Here's Greyson
Here's Emma.I think they look like siblings. They also look like they are smooshed in someone's belly... Oh, right, they are/were.

I think Emma's nose looks more like mine and Greyson's looks more like Jon's.

Emma thinks that both pictures look like the babies are "muddy".

I'm feeling the baby move very often now. He's kicking, wiggling, punching or moving and I feel it lots of times everyday (and night).

I got my referral for Akron Children's set up. My appointment is with one of the doctor's that saw me after I delivered Emma. I'm sure we'll be headed in the right direction and we still have plenty of time.

In other news: Jon is starting his LAST rotation tomorrow. You did read that correctly, the last rotation! It is one of the hardest ones but he can do it! His big case study presentations are this week. He has started studying for his registry (National Certification Test) which he will take in July.

I'm done with tax season and am loving my short work schedule. If it would ever quit raining we'd start our daily walks to the park.

Emma is great. She is napping right now. But I heard a noise about 15 minutes after I laid her down for her nap and went in to check it out. She was sitting in bed peeling stickers out of my childhood sticker albums. When I took it from her and told her it was time for sleeping, not for playing she looked at me for a second and handed me a little toy dog, another book and then pointed to her nail clippers for me to take as well. I love that she is so honest.
I had to go back in about 10 minutes later and take the Elmo puzzle out of her bed.
She finally fell asleep.
She is such a great kid and I'm so blessed to be her mom. I know having Greyson will just double that feeling.

Happy Easter

We had a blessed Easter this year.

Celebrating the gift of salvation felt extra real to me. I was reminded over and over of how unworthy I am and how Jesus saved me anyway. My worth is in Him.

My friend that passed away from cancer a couple weeks ago is currently benefitting from Jesus' suffering and even more from Jesus overcoming death. She is living eternal life right now- all because of Jesus.

I'm so thankful to you Jesus. You gave everything for me. I want to live my life all for You.

He is risen- He is risen indeed!

Friday's ultrasound

I was blessed today a thousand times over. God made an unexpected way for Jon to get to come to our ultrasound today. My mom came too and together we saw Greyson Joshua for the first time.

This bottom picture has edits done to the right arm (left side of picture).

He really has two arms, two legs and all his digits.

The ultrasound tech asked us before she started if we wanted to know the gender of the baby. Jon and I said in unison "YES!". It's a good thing she asked before she turned on the ultrasound machine because as soon as she turned it on we were looking at Greyson's bottom and his parts- first thing he showed us. :)

I had to drink lots of water as to have a full bladder as instructed by they doctor. I did that, but I also wanted to make sure the baby was awake so I had three mini pieces of candy.
The tech said that she couldn't "get this baby to hold still". I sheepishly said "that might be the candy I ate before I came in". She smiled and looked at me and sarcastically said "thanks!".

So he wasn't extremely cooperative in getting certain shots she needed at first. She never did get a black and white (2D) profile pic that was super clear. He kept looking at us. We did get to see all kinds of cool things though.

His beating 4 chamber heart. It was beating about 158bpm.

Kidneys- although the ultrasound tech kep showing me what she was looking at, I never could really see the kidneys.

Imbilical cord and thank goodness he wasn't squeezing it like the baby the tech told us about. She said she saw an ultrasound for a high risk pregnancy where the baby's heart rate kept drastically dropping. They did an ultrasound only to find the baby literally squeezing the imbilical cord hard enough to stop enough blood flow to himself that he would eventually start to pass out, his grip would release enough that the blood flow would return to normal and he'd wake up. However, since the cord was still in his hand he'd do it again.
I figure, that's the only thing in there for babies to play with! Just kidding. I would have been freaked out too just like that baby's mom did.

We saw the lens of his eyes. Too bad there's no color. Come ON technology!

He had his arm up over his face a lot of the time.

He yawned at the end of the ultrasound and she got some good pictures of that. It's fun to see them doing that.

He weighs 10 oz and is right at the 50th percentile for all his measurements.

We saw his full bladder (and mine, I was glad for the bathroom break after she got the pics she needed).

We saw long fingers, perfect little feet, and Jon's nose. We think he looks more like Jon than me. A couple views looked more like Emma but mostly, he looks like his daddy.

The tech was pleased to see that everything measured exactly to the day of our original due date- September 15th. I'll still have him at least one week early via C-section.
We've decided to go ahead and deliver in Akron and I am in the process of being referred to a the high risk doctor that I saw up there after I had Emma.

Easter egg fun

It's Easter time!

I thought that letting Emma dye Easter eggs was probably a stain-accident waiting to happen. So I opted for "egg stickers".

Emma is a fan of stickers so this was a hit. Here is our finished product. Smiley eggs.

Too bad their fate will be deviled eggs for lunch this Saturday.

Emma's birdhouse

Emma has been watching a video where the bunnies make a birdhouse. She started asking to make one so I thought it would be a good project. This one was already built. We just decorated it.She did a great job and was proud of her efforts. We still need to attach the perch and the hook to hang it. I hope we get a family of birds to watch.

How to cure hot-spots

Jarrah's allergies have already begun. She gets "hot spots" on her belly and legs. Emma saw one and asked what it was. I told her and Emma said "Emma will make it feel better!" She ran out of the room and came back with a "flawf-flawf" (washcloth) and threw it on the floor. The following steps are important to follow in order to get this to work just right.

Get one flawf-flawf from the basket. One would think it matters if the flawf-flawf is clean... it does not. Jump up and down on it several times -at least 11 1/2. Run around the flawf-flawf four times without touching it. If you do accidentally touch it, start over.

The next step is to dance around the flawf-flawf. This must, I repeat, must be done while giggling and intermittently twirling. If you do not twirl and giggle, all healing powers will be lost.

Lastly, apply it to the hot spot.

Aaahhh relief!

Butterflies

I love that spring is springing. Emma and I were outside on Saturday and jumped in some puddles and felt the warm sunshine on our faces. What a joy! I see the forecast for this week is warmer still and more sunshine. We will finally get to go to the part. Emma has been asking all winter to go. I won't have to tell her "No- it's cold/dark/snowy outside". I can say "yes! it's sunny/warm/pretty outside".

Jarrah will be "escited" too (as Emma says). The poor dog has been cooped up in the condo all winter and will have a hayday sniffing everything outside.

Speaking of poor Jarrah, we are going to have to take her in for surgery on her paws again. Her nails are so incredibly long that there is no way they can be clipped while she is awake. The other problem is that they bleed. So after her last surgery, in October, to cut them way back, we were informed that normal clippings are more difficult because the vein doesn't recede. So even small clippings make her nails bleed. For a dog that is already spastic about anyone (me included) touching her feet, this makes for a difficult and messy situation. After talking to the vet on Friday our best option is to do the surgery again. They will cut them very short again and since we are approaching summer, hope that they will grow more slowly. As far as next winter, when she's cooped up again and not walking on the concrete... in the words of the vet "you might have to accept her having longer nails". But our hope is to be in a house with a fenced yard where she can be out even in the winter to wear them down a bit.

As for the butterflies that will soon be flitting about outside, I am feeling lots of baby flutters in my belly! I never ever get tired of feeling that. I take it as a blessing to be enjoying those feelings early on in the pregnancy. I have felt little ones for a couple weeks but it's more prominent each week. I'm about 14 weeks now and the icky nausea is subsiding more each day.

Jon is in the depths of many case studies and comes up for air a little bit to see us when he can. About 6 more weeks of craziness for him and then things will calm down a little bit for him. He won't be able to go to our big ultrasound at the end of April but he'll be on call for me to text him or maybe even talk with him on the phone during. I'm not sure. We have been picking out names. The boy name is set and was easy to come up with. As with Emma, the girl names are always so hard for us! Maybe the Lord will make it easy on us and give us a boy this time!?

I'm sure He will give us exactly what our family needs. He always does.