Pins and Needles...

We are counting down to delivery day!! 11 days to go. I am scheduled for my c-section on the 13th. I am so ready to NOT be pregnant any more. :) I am excited to meet baby Mason, but also extremely nervous for surgery and, to be honest, a little worried about how I am going to handle three kids. Scary.

I remember the adjustment to a sibling being quite difficult for Matty. But the girls both seem to be really excited about getting a baby brother. Boy, is he in for a rude awakening. Matty and Anastyn are both prepared to be extremely “helpful”. They can’t wait to snuggle him, and squeeze him, and I’m sure smother him. Watch out little boy!

Anastyn must have heard me tell someone that we had two weeks left. This morning she asked me if baby Mason was coming out in two weeks. She is so smart and picks up on everything that is said. A while back, Grandma Marla asked her how baby Mason would get out of my belly. I am sure she wasn’t expecting Anastyn to have any idea. But she does have ideas. :) She told Grandma that my belly was going to “pop”. She just might be right…

How’s this for a pregnancy picture?? I look miserable. Just keepin’ it real. :)

Needless to say, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the newest member of our family!

Recent Happenings:Kyle was able to make it to the “Annual Fishing Trip” with the guys from St. George this past month. The weather wasn’t wonderful, but that didn’t stop them. He had a great time with his buddies – especially since he hasn’t seen them since we moved. We celebrated Mustang Days here in Lovell. Always a fun week. Kristin and I made poodle skirts to go along with the 50’s theme so the girls could be in the Kiddie Parade. It rained and the girls ran the whole way! I had a hard time keeping up with them to get pictures!!The girls had a great time catching candy during the parade and enjoyed the floats, music, and, of course, the can-can girls!! And last, but not least….Matty had to go to Billings for yet another “poke”. We got bloodwork done and saw the Doctor. Her bloodwork looks better – which is exactly what we wanted to hear!! Darn needles anyways…but nothing a little Cinnabon and Orange Julius can’t cure!!

Sisters

My girls have a tendency to find their way into our bed in the middle of the night. Last night was no exception. Anastyn crawled in bed with us and easily fell back to sleep. Whatever was bothering her was all better as soon as she was nestled snugly between her mommy and daddy.

Later, in the wee hours of the morning, her sister Matty woke up as well. There is not room in our bed for all of us to sleep comfortably, so I carefully moved Anastyn’s sleeping body back to her bed so that Matty could have her turn in ours. Soon Matty was drifting back into peaceful slumber.

It wasn’t long before I heard Anastyn sneaking back into our room. What to do? I was so tired and it was just way too early to be getting up for the day. So I decided to try squeezing us all in somehow. I figured this would backfire and the girls would start kicking each other and fighting over who got to lay by which parent and no one would be getting any sleep.

Well, we didn’t get any more sleep. But that’s okay, because instead of fighting, I got to witness my two little girls join hands and snuggle up to each other. There was no kicking or whining. No pushing or squirming. I watched Matty caress her little sister’s cheek and softly pat her hands. It was a tender moment that I am glad I got to see.

After a while, my pregnant body was just too uncomfortable to lay in a bed with three other people. So the girls and I got out of bed and went in to the living room where we quietly sat by the window and watched the rain outside. We sang songs like “Rain Is Falling All Around” and “In The Leafy Tree Tops”. I treasure my sleep…but I think I will treasure this early morning memory even more.

Pretty soon we were discussing the reason for everyone being awake at such an early hour. Anastyn told me that the monsters woke her up. I asked her what they looked like. She said they were red and blue and green and orange…oh – and pink!

We decided to go in and have breakfast. Anastyn and I had blueberry bagels with strawberry cream cheese. And Matty had her usual – Eggo waffles and syrup. When I got the syrup out and put it on the table in front of her, she got all excited. She pointed to the picture of Aunt Jemima on the label and said, “That’s the guy that woke me up!” I’m not exactly sure what she had been dreaming about!!

Speaking of sisters....I love mine!!

Adventures In Motherhood...

Most of us would agree that being a mom is both overwhelmingly challenging and undescribably rewarding at the same time. The past couple months in our family have been loaded with lots of challenges and lots of rewards. Here is a summary....

A trip to Thermopolis to visit Aunt Emily, a.k.a Aunt "Enemy", a.k.a. Auntie Em. We don't make it over to visit her and Uncle Pat very often, so I thought it was post-worthy. Especially since my girls have a huge soft spot for their greatest of great-aunts. Children automatically fall in love with this woman. She is spunky and fun and caters to their every whim. We had a fun time visiting for the day and enjoying her and uncle Pat's hospitality!!

Recently we drove over to Otto to spend a little time with Grandma Great for her birthday. The girls always love to explore at her house. This time they explored in a few places they shouldn't have. I think Grandma was glad to see us go home that day. :) Besides dragging out every toy in the house and pulling clothes out of drawers, they also got into a drawer that had a razor in it. Being the curious little critter she is, Anastyn managed to cut her precious, most beloved thumb (the one she is constantly sucking on). She cut it pretty deep and, oh boy, was there drama. Drama, drama, drama. We had blood everywhere. On the clothes that they had pulled out of Grandma's drawers, on Grandma's carpet. Everywhere. And when we finally got everything under control and the poor thumb bandaged up, we thought it might actually be a blessing in disguise. We kind of thought maybe this would cure Anastyn of her obsessive thumb-sucking habit. You know - since she would have it all bandaged up for a while. Well, that's not really how it turned out. Now we just have an ambidextrous thumb sucker. :)
Somewhere along the way, we had Easter. We dyed Easter eggs the night before with BrookLynn and Elle (which I hate doing, by the way...way too messy). And, naturally, the girls loved finding their Easter baskets on Easter morning and eating candy. Oh, how they love candy. :) It was nice to be able to relax and enjoy General Conference on t.v. and we had a delicious lunch of ham and funeral potatoes and homemade rolls and jello at Grandpa Leithead's house. It was a good day. This past Friday night was Matty and my "all-expense paid" night in the Sleep Lab! Unfortunately, I have no pictures to share with you. I forgot my dang camera. I did get some pictures on my phone, but I have no clue how to get those pictures onto my computer. We were testing Matty for sleep apnea. Now, I knew this wasn't going to be a pleasant experience. And I also figured that I wouldn't get much sleep. But it really was worse than I had expected! Knowing Matty's history of doctor's offices and hospitals, it was no surprise that she was scared out of her mind the moment we arrived. So scared that she did, indeed, hurl all over the carpet in our room shortly after we got there. And her little hands were shaking the entire hour it took to get her hooked up to all of the wires. I lost count of how many wires they had her hooked up to. Ten on her head alone. Don't ask me how anyone is supposed to be able to get any sleep when they have wires attached to every part of their body. It was one of the longest nights I have ever made it through. I am pretty sure I looked at the time on my cell phone at least fifteen times during the night - just to see how much longer before we could get the heck out of there. I spent the entire night trying to make sure Matty stayed asleep, stayed untangled from her wires, and that the wires stayed attached to her through her very active tossing and turning through the night. I did not want to have to re-do the dang test! I do have to mention that I was slightly creeped out the next morning when the guy sheepishly admitted that he had forgotten to have me sign a form the before we had gone to bed. The one that says "Yes, I was informed that we would be observed on video all night long." I patiently signed and dated with the previous day's date and then thought really hard to remember if I had done anything embarassing-like scratch my butt-during the night. We were so happy in the morning when we could finally leave!! And I was so glad that Kyle and Anastyn had stayed the night in a hotel in Billings that night. I am pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to drive us home without falling asleep at the wheel! We haven't heard on the results yet, but we are hoping that we don't have to have this experience again for a very long time!!

Next. I was hoping that we would somehow be able to avoid this common childhood crisis. But that was not in our stars. Last night Anastyn found scissors. And she knew exactly what to do with them. I wanted to cry when I saw her bangs snipped off at the scalp. Luckily, she left a few longer strands on the top layer so we can camouflage them. :) It wasn't until this morning that I discovered that she hadn't stopped at her bangs. When I took yesterday's messy bun out and started brushing I realized that we were missing a lot more hair. Then I started taking out Matty's messy buns. This is when I realized that the scissors did not stop at Anastyn's hair. After brushing, Matty was actually missing a significantly larger amount of hair than her sister was. I was not happy. You can see the pile of hair in the following picture. I was extremely upset. And Anastyn could sense that. I heard her in the other room a little while later saying, "My Mommy doesn't like me." I had to explain to her that I did, indeed, like her. I just didn't like the haircuts she gave herself and her sister...

Anastyn is very aware of the upcoming arrival of her baby brother. She is so excited for him to come. She loves to rub my tummy and feel the baby moving. She and Matty came in to show me that they, too, had babies in their tummies this morning. I thought it was so cute. When they unzipped their jammies to show me, I discovered that they were actually expecting kitties. :) Too cute.

Oh The Joys!!!

Knowing

Ahhhhhhh..... *Big Sigh of Relief*

I like to know things. I like having a plan. I don't like surprises (unless they are the kind that you don't know are coming!) And I don't care what anyone from the older generation says to me about not knowing the sex of their baby before it was born. I wanted to know. And I was determined to find out before 30 weeks.

I really lucked out. Thank heavens for good friends with connections. :) I was finally able to get an ultrasound yesterday. Kind of in the "black market" way. Hee hee. Let's just say a friend of a friend of a friend hooked me up!

But what is most important here is that we now now - FOR SURE - what the gender of our baby is!!! Drum roll, please.................................

It's a BOY!!!

I am finally providing Kyle with a male heir!!! Needless to say, we are excited and elated! And now we can get some real shopping done! Gender-specific shopping!

I feel much better now. :)

a sneak peek at our sweetie's cute little profile...

Grrrrrrrr.....

Just back from a Baby Leithead doctor appointment. It seems that this baby will be known on my "baby ticker" as just that - Baby Leithead - for a very long time. Like around 10 weeks before I am due.

This makes me unhappy. Very unhappy.

I don't like surprises. I like to have a plan.

I had to have an ultrasound last month because I was measuring bigger than we thought I should be. It was too early to tell the sex of our baby. But I just figured I would still get my 20 week ultrasound. Silly me. My doctor told me "no". He said my ultrasound showed that I have a low-lying placenta and that I would need to have another ultrasound between 30-33 weeks. And that was it. No in-betweens. I complained quite a bit - even with my whiney voice. And he still said "no".

What a bummer.

Birthday Surprise!

Our little AnaBelle has turned three! She has been waiting for this for a long time now!! What a fun little critter to have around. The night before when I was tucking her in to bed, we were talking about how it would be her birthday when she woke up. The next morning as I was still laying in bed I heard her wake up and then she ran as fast as she could into my bedroom. With a huge grin on her face she shouted, "It's my birthday party!!" It was so cute! I think she had a pretty good day. We took her and Matty bowling in the afternoon. They loved it and would run around saying "I Win!" every time they sent the ball down the lane. Kyle and my dad and I had a good time bowling too!

Aletha Durtsche made a FABULOUS cake (as usual). Anastyn loved it and it was Delish! We had family over for taco salad, cake, ice cream, and chocolate covered strawberries. Anastyn felt so loved!! Unfortunately, her daddy got called into work and had to miss the party. We sure appreciated everyone who came to help her celebrate!!

Opening presents at this age is quite the fiasco! She got lots of great toys and adorable clothes. The next day she finally sat down next to me and asked me to read her cards to her (she had no time for such things when there were presents to open) :)

I don't know if you can read the t-shirt that Anastyn got for her birthday, but Anastyn wasn't the only one who was surprised!! :)