When it rains it pours.

This is a pretty good description of me right now. Except add a little more brown hair, less gray, and take out the ruffled shirt, oh and I'm not even 27 yet....but the cane and wobbling is all correct. Oh and did I mention I'm 25 weeks pregnant?

It all started last Wednesday morning when I woke up with a sore hip. Just sore, not annoying or anything, and thought it would just go away once I got up and at 'em. Nope. It got worse and worse through out the day. By lunch I had a limp, by dinner I was close to tears in pain. All that night I slept maybe 30 minutes and cried a few times in pain. I called my ob/gyn the next morning to see what was up and she suggested I see an Orthopedic doctor, so I went to them that afternoon. I wobbled into their office, they took some xrays, didn't see too much so decided on an MRI. I had that MRI on Friday evening. Not our idea of a nice Friday night date, but whatever goes right? I had to suffer with the EXTREME pain all weekend ( What I really wished for was an epidural to take away the pain and feeling all together), with basically no relief from pain meds or icing it. No matter what position I put myself in it hurt.

On top of all that I was going through and the stress that was on Jack, Jacob started wheezing TERRIBLY on Sunday morning. Bad enough that he was making it very clear that he was miserable and scared. Jack took him to the Urgent Care and stayed there a few hours, now Jacob is on regular nebulizer treatments for a few weeks. Thank goodness he has started cooperating and doesn't make us tackle him and wrap him up like a pretzel to hold him down.

Sunday night I started having consistent contractions, not painful, but none the less, and thought "Are you kidding me? What else? What else?!". I had my friend take me to the hospital to make sure things were okay. Thankfully we were only there a couple hours and were sent home. The doctor thinks the amount of pain and stress my body is going through was causing the contractions.

Back to the MRI- I finally got a hold of the orthopedic doctor once he got out of surgeries Monday afternoon and he told me that as far as they can tell I have a condition called "OsteoChondritis". Basically I have a piece of bone/cartilage floating around in my hip (it is rare in the hip) causing the pain and inflammation. I am told to stay off of it as much as possible, use a cane and crutches when I need to get up and move, and they will see what they can do to fix it once I have the baby. It is too dangerous to operate while pregnant.

As of the last couple days the pain has FINALLY subsided to a minimum because we were able to get the inflammation down with a high push on ibuprofen.

Our family is getting lots of help from friends at church since I can't do much at all around the house, for the kids, or for myself. I am so thankful for the power of prayer, and the power of priesthood blessings given to me from my husband and our home teacher from church. When I was in so much pain I had never prayed so often in my life for the pain to go away, for my son to be okay when he was wheezing so bad, and for my husband to have the strength and patience to get our family through everything.

Thanks again to everyone helping us out either through your prayers or service to our family.

UPDATE: I am doing SOOO much better now. I have a little limp but am pretty much back to normal. The doctors are thinking I will most likely need surgury eventually, but we'll just have to wait and see after the baby comes. I have to make sure not to do too much during the day or I start hurting in the evening, but other than that things are starting to get back to normal. Jacob is starting to get better as well, we just have to figure out if he has allergies, asthma, or just a nasty cold that keeps coming back.

Thanks so much for everyone's prayers, we really appreciate them.

Baby love

The verdict is in! Baby number three is a GIRL! We are all so excited to have a little princess join our family! So far she is growing and developing healthily and moves a ton. Right around 20 weeks I finally started feeling a little better and gaining a little more energy back each day. I have rough mornings, but once I get to lunch time my days go pretty smoothly (well, pregnancy wise). I am so thankful for all the support Jack gives me while I am pregnant, especially the first 2 trimesters when I am pretty much useless. I have finally been able to help keep up the house again and even manage to cook dinner a few nights a week (He's happy about that- since our dining out spending has gone down dramatically in the last few weeks!). We're crossing our fingers that our theory about what my diet is during pregnancy carries on into the child, as it has almost exactly with the boys so far, because I am always wanting salads, vegetables, and fruits(which is not normal for me). Up until recently I didn't even have my monstrous, uncontrollable sweet tooth either....but it's slowly creeping back, darn.

Ever since he found out we were having a girl he gives me potential names for her all the time. Here are his names so far: Chucky Sue (Telly's pet hamster on Sesame Street), Ice cream, "Tude" (Short for Attitude...from a movie he watches), and a pretty nice one, Skyler. He'll hear a "name" somewhere, usually on TV, and say "Hey Mommy! I've got a good name, how 'bout ___, put it on the list! " I'm sure there have been plenty other suggestions, these just were the most notable.

Here are some pictures of the little princess from the three ultrasounds I have had to date.

Baby at 8 week ultrasound

Baby at 12 week ultrasound

Baby Girl at 18 week ultrasound-we love how she is clearly in deep thought, and crossing her legs like a lady already. "Hmmm...now that they know I'm a girl, how can I wreak havoc in daddy's life....."

More Pictures

Since I got so behind, and I just have pregnancy brain, I really don't remember a whole lot that has been going on lately. So, here are some pictures instead:)

Just hanging out on the couch, exploring the ceiling with the flashlight. It's fun having cousins around to play with!The boys enjoy tackling daddy...and mommy whenever they get a chance. This was right after Jack did a few pushups with the boys on top of him.An interesting fact that I learned when we first came to visit Omaha was that we are in the direct migration path of many birds. March was quite a fascinating month for the sky here.

We were constantly staring in the sky at the formations of birds going through town this spring.

One Sunday Tyler was watching them out his window of the car and said, "Hey Mommy! Look! How did they know my name?" "What are you talking about Tyler?" "Well, mommy, look, they are in the shape of a T!!!" It was quite hilarious that he noticed what odd shape they were forming, and that it happened to be a T.

Anyhow, this is a picture of our view across from our house...all that white is NOT snow, it is a VERY large flock of birds stopping for a little break, and a snack, in the fields across the way. It was pretty cool...and LOUD!

FYI

Some super cute pictures of the boys from my talented neighbor HERE and her photography website HERE. Enjoy!

Our little talented man

Tyler has 3 favorite songs he asks us to sing for him at bedtime- I Am Like a Star, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and How Firm A Foundation. These have been his favorites for quite a long time now. He also loves to sing. So, here we combine both :) (If you are viewing this from an email, click on my blog link so you can watch the video's)

My monkey

Life is full of catching up...

My goal this week is to get completely caught up with recording the comings and goings of this family on this blog....here I go...

We have a lot of fun with our two wonderfully...energetic...boys. These boys have decided to start giving me the crash course in what boyhood is really all about. Being calm and quiet, as they used to be, is NOT what boyhood is about apparently. They love to wrestle (Tyler is always asking Jacob to tackle him), dance like crazies, run, race, jump, say gross things, dig in dirt, and...what else...well, you get the point.

Last week Tyler was playing at a friends house in the backyard. Watching from inside, I noticed they were digging by a tree and then carrying something back to a picnic table and made the comment to my friend "I hope those are rocks and not bunny poop or something" jokingly. Tyler came in a few minutes later and I asked him what they were doing...his response? "We're poop scientists mommy!"

Here are some silly and fun pictures from January (I just now noticed that most of them are of Tyler...he is definitely the silly guy in this house lately)

Life can just be plain ol' funny.

I'm glad that I learned early on in motherhood that sometimes you just need to laugh. Life's moments can be so frustrating, but once you get through them, they really are just plain old funny, especially when it comes to parenting. Here are a couple examples from recently.

-Yesterday Jacob threw a huge tantrum because I wouldn't let him stand on the escalators at the furniture store. You know, because it is so safe letting a 22 month old make his way down an escalator by himself.

-6:30pm, sitting at dinner table for a nice peaceful dinner, mom and dad excited about eating some yummy steak fajita's (fajita meat from a bag from costco), kids "said" they were happy with chicken nuggets... This dinner turned into one big nightmare for all. The steak was HORRIBLE, we had had this meat before and it was so good, so we were stuck with nothing else to eat and Jacob didn't want anything to do with his food and Tyler was complaining and crying that the nuggets were too small pick up. It was a disaster- I just started laughing right there because it was just funny. (Jack didn't seem to feel the same way though)

I'm positive there are many other examples, but I just can't think of them at the moment. I'm glad I know laughing is important. If you don't laugh you'll cry, and laughing is just a lot more fun.