Poor Audrey

I noticed she wasn't feeling well this morning. She had a nasty juicy cough, runny nose, and fever. She also just wasn't acting like herself and was very whiney. I took her to the doctor this afternoon and found out she has RSV. Great! Apparently its in the beginning stages and will get worse before it gets better. She has a f0llow up appointment on Saturday morning and then she goes on Monday to get her VCUG done to check for urinary reflux. Poor girl! It was kind of funny seeing her get her nose and throat swabbed today. She made the funniest faces. I guess it'll be a long week.

Back from the cardiologist

We just got back from the cardiologist. The doctor said that it sounds like Audrey just has a "regular murmur" now instead of the murmur he was hearing because of the hole in her heart. He thinks it has closed on its own. She goes back in 6 months to get checked again and make sure that's the case. If so, we will not need to go back until she is 2-3 years old. He did not want to do an echocardiogram today because she's older now and much more wiggly.... he wouldn't get anything done. (She has to be completely still for about 45 minutes) He would have to sedate her and feels she is too young for that, so when she is 2-3 we will go back and he will sedate her and do a final check with the echocardiogram to make sure that everything is okay. So, good news! The last time we went (3 months ago) it had not closed yet.

Cloth Diapers

We just ordered some cloth diapers! I never would have thought that I would use them but am quickly realizing their benefits. Once we found out that we were having twins all sorts of logistics flew through our minds. We are going to have three babies in our house which means that we will have three babies in diapers. I spend roughly $80 a month on diapers right now and that's only for one child. So, $80 x 3 is $240!!!! A month!!!! On stuff for our kids to pee and poop on and throw away! Not to mention formula costs, doctor bills, clothing, etc. on top of that ( about $135 for formula per month for one child). Now Audrey will be over one year of age by the time they arrive and not using formula anymore, but her food costs will still be there. So, $135 x 2 is $270. Just for formula and diapers that would come out to $510 + Audrey's food costs. I can't spend that much money on just diapers and formula per month. That's insane!

So, I ordered some cloth diapers for us to try out with Audrey. Hopefully it goes well. It seems like a lot of people order around 20 diapers per child and then wash them every day and a half to two days. We may order less per child since I'm sure I'll be washing every day with three kids, but we'll see. If we do end up ordering 60 diapers, it will cost us $1062 but we will make up for that after only 4 1/2 months of use! The diapers work for kids from 7-35 pounds. I'm so excited to try them out.

Oh and if you think I'm absolutely crazy....cloth diapers are NOT what they used to be. After much research, here is the kind that we are ordering. http://www.bumgenius.com/one-size.php

I'm sure that we will use these for more than a year as well....but after only using them for one year after we make up our cost difference, we will have saved $2880!!

More videos

How Audrey used to wake up from her naps

How she wakes up now

First time drinking from a sippy cup

Watching trains

Kissing herself

More of Audrey!

Audrey fell asleep in her exersaucer. She wore herself out. You know the nap only lasts for 30 minutes though. (I did get her out and put her in her crib. That would make her neck hurt if I didn't!)

Mom! Why am I dressed like this?! I can't move!

(This was taken when we attended our downtown Christmas festival.)

Bath time

After her bath. I tell her she's Baby Moses when she sees herself in the mirror. She thinks its hilarious! She looks for it every time after her bath now.

She sleeps with her "lovey" now at night. Even if its not next to her when we put her to bed, she finds it, cuddles it, and THEN goes to sleep. So precious.

She loves to pull Daddy's hair

Audrey standing up to greet me for the first time in her crib in the morning

Our Christmas tree... this is the only picture we have of it decorated.
All of us at a Christmas party
Audrey got to see Santa for the first time!

Had to get a picture of her in her pretty Christmas dress

She was smiling in her picture with me but this is the mega watt smile she gives when Daddy's around.

Shot glasses all over

If you came in my house, some days you might think I have a serious drinking problem by all the shot glasses. Why are there so many? Audrey takes a daily antibiotic for her urinary reflux. The medicine somes in a large container. I shake it up but I can't put the oral syringe down far enough to get the medicine out, so I have to pour some of it into a shot glass first (they're tall and narrow and perfect for this purpose) and then get it out with the syringe. I just notice them laying around everywhere sometimes and then think....what if someone came in the house right now? I thought it was kind of funny.

Christmas Tree shopping

We went to the mountains to get our Christmas tree. It was so much fun. It actually snowed a little bit, too. You can't see it in the pictures, but there were lots of flurries the whole time we were there.

We've arrived. Doesn't Audrey look so excited?!

The hay ride to get to the trees. Audrey doesn't look too impressed by Daddy's funny faces.

This one is just because she's so darn cute!

Her favorite way to travel.

Checking out all the trees.

I was trying to get a picture of Granseur and Audrey checking out all the trees and then this guy randomly bent over right when I took the picture!

We found the perfect tree!

We picked out three trees that day. .. one for us, one for Granseur's sister, and another for Granseur's parents. We all like completely different trees so we walked all over looking for the perfect tree for everyone. Wouldn't ya know that the three trees we wanted were VERY far apart from one another. The guy in the overalls went and got all our trees for us after we tagged them and carried our trees back to be bound up. He was exhausted by the time he was finished. We joked around and said that we might need one more tree and he said, "I'm done!" and spread out his arms like that. He was pretty funny. :)

Videos

Enjoy!

Granseur's sister, CiCi, finding out the big news! She had a great reaction. Sally's was really good, too. Unfortunately we didn't realize our camera had run out of memory space when we started recording.

Ultrasound Granseur didn't get her saying, "how do you feel about twins?" because we literally just started the ultrasound and he wasn't ready yet.

Hearbeat number two

"How do you feel about twins?"

That's what we heard from the technician at our first ultrasound on November 18th. I don't think I responded at all because I was in so much shock! Granseur laughed of all things. That's good though...at least I know he's totally okay with it! I'll admit it, I cried. I think it was a mixture of thoughts like "Wow! Oh my gosh...really?! Holy crap...Granseur was right! Well, there are the three children we wanted to have...we don't have to worry about trying to get pregnant again for a third time." happiness along with "Will they be okay? What if they're born early? We don't have enough baby stuff. We don't have a big enough house! How am I going to take care of THREE babies? What if they both cry for 8 hours a day like Audrey used to do?"anxiousness. Luckily Granseur took pictures during the ultrasound and some video. I'm so glad I have those now.

It was so funny because as we were walking into the OB office, Granseur said, "Shannon, this is not how you're supposed to do this....walking in to get an ultrasound done while pushing a stroller." Also, even before I knew I was pregnant again Granseur said, "What if we have twins? That'd be great. We would be done and not have to worry about getting pregnant again." How does he do that?! I think that's part of why he laughed. He couldn't believe it was true.

My infertility journey was definately the hardest thing I ever had to go through. You can change almost any other circumstance in your life, but if you can't have kids....that's it...end of story! It was hard to accept (and I never did) that could be me and there was nothing I could do about it. In many ways I'm also thankful that I went through that. It helps me to appreciate Audrey so much more than I probably would have if I had gotten pregnant easily, so it made me a better mother. It was another thing that brought Granseur and I even closer together when I know that it can tear some couples apart. Also, when we were first going through treatments to try to conceive Audrey the possibility of twins was always in the back of our minds. We would have been thrilled if that was the case because we just wanted one baby...if we got two, how blessed would we be?! So that thought has been with me for a while. I certainly did not think that I was going to be pregnant again so soon and with no medical intervention at that, but when we found out we were having twins, I felt like God was preparing us all along. Had we not struggled with infertility, even the thought of twins would have never entered our mind and I probably wouldn't be this okay with it. At least now the thought was kind of there and while having three kids under a year and a half old can seem scary, we can also see how incredibly fortunate and blessed we are. This is God's perfect plan for us.

Some of the positives are: They can all play together. Sure, they'll probably hate each other now and then too because they're siblings but they'll definately be close. Although I will have triple duty on diapering, it will be over in just a few short years rather than if we had three kids spaced out. They will enjoy the same outings like Disney World because their age difference won't be that big.

I hated holding in the big news for so long but wanted to make sure that we told family and friends before I posted on here.

So, here's a few pictures. Videos will come later...they are just taking a long time to upload.

Waiting in the waiting room taking care of Audrey.

What?! Are you serious?

What's going on? Let me see!

The two babies.

One of the babies. You can see each baby better when they are isolated on the screen.

Oh my goodness!

Holy cow! Can you believe this honey? I'm a little scared! What about you?

Me and the three babies.

Family picture

OH..she can crawl now too

In the past few days Audrey has really done well crawling as well. She can get across a whole room without falling down. Her "crawl" may include a few scoots where she pulls both knees forward at the same time but she can definately get to where she wants to go.

She can pull herself up!

Audrey pulled herself up to a stand for the first time yesterday! It was at my parents' house on their couch. It was so cute! She tried a few more times but couldn't do it again. Today she has done it several more times on our couch at home. It's so exciting. It's definately time to start baby-proofing though. She gets into everything she can. Granseur made the mistake of teaching her how to open drawers. She has some low drawers in her room and when she opens them she bonks herself in the head. I love watching her grow!

My little girl is growing up

Since there is another baby on the way, Granseur and I had a discussion with Audrey. She's going to have to learn how to be a little more independent. It seems to have worked. She will grab and hold her own bottle now to feed herself (even though I still have to hold her.) She's been doing that since Sunday. It was hard to teach her though. She would see the bottle and just start opening her mouth for us to put it in and leave her hands way back. When we wouldn't give it to her right away to try to make her grab for it, she'd just cry. She just didn't make the connection. Finally we placed it in one of her hands and its like a light bulb went off. It was so exciting. :)

On top of that, I can have conversations with Audrey now. They don't make much sense and her end is usually just "mamamama" or "dadadada" or "gggggggg" but I'll talk to her and she talks back.

She loves it when Granseur flips her upside down. When he brings her back up she just wants to do it again and will arch back again and giggle. She's strong!

She's so close to crawling too. She can get about three scoots in before she falls down but she's doing so good. She can also hold on to the side of her pack n play, crib, or coffee table and hold herself up. I can't believe how far she's come from the day she was born. I can't wait to see what she does next. I love her so much!

Night Terrors

What an 8 month old little girl could have night terrors about...I have no idea! Audrey has night terrors almost every single night. We feel really lucky if we get two straight nights in a row where she doesn't have at least one night terror. That's probably happened only three times. She's not hungry in the middle of the night anymore, she just has issues sleeping. Sometimes it only takes me 5-10 minutes to calm her down and put her back to bed, other times it could take an hour and a half to get her back down only for her to scream an hour and a half later. I'm praying I finally get some relief tonight....even if its the only night this week. Now that I'm pregnant again, I'm even more tired than I was before getting up all the time. Last night one of her night terrors was at 5:00 a.m. (She normally gets up and stays up for the day at 7:20) It didn't take long to calm her down - probably 20 minutes when it was all said and done so that was good. The only problem is, I still feel exhausted and want to plop right back in bed but at that point I'm awake. It took me two hours to fall back asleep...I only slept 20 minutes because then she was up for the day. It's so funny though...when she wakes up for the day, she just talks to herself and makes cute noises. It's completely different than when she has a night terror. You'd think someone was killing her! I hope that this is a phase that ends soon. I need as much rest as I can get before the new baby gets here. I'll never sleep then!

Oh and I'm SO excited this is the week of Thanksgiving. All of Granseur's commitments during the week are canceled for the holiday so he gets to come straight home after work. I love it!

I'm PREGNANT! (again)

I've been dying to write this but wanted to wait until we told all of our family and friends. We found out in late October. We bought Audrey a onesie that said, "I may be little but I'm the BIG SISTER". That's how we told our family. The weird part? No one got it! My mom saw it and read it aloud as soon as she saw Audrey and then just went about like nothing had happened. Finally we told them and asked how they didn't understand the shirt. My mom said, "Oh, well I thought it was a hand me down shirt and I didn't want to make a big deal about it." I said, "We're not so poor that we need to make Audrey wear a big sister shirt if she really isn't one." Granseur's grandmother read it aloud and didn't get it either. We have most of these reactions on film....I'll try to post them up here sometime soon.

When I first found out I was pregnant I absolutely couldn't believe it! We tried for 18 months for Audrey and with a RE the entire time! After I had her I was even told by my regular endocrinologist that my hypothyroidism had gotten worse and that he was surprised I got pregnant at all. So even though we weren't preventing anything, it was still a huge shock! I figured we would go back to the RE in March - June of 2009 and even then I thought it would take us a while. I guess not! The funniest thing to me is now some people are calling me fertile Myrtle. I NEVER would have thought that label would be put on me.

At first I was concerned about having enough time to spend with Audrey once the new baby is here and how hard it is going to be, but it did not take long at all for me to be excited. God really put a few things right in front of me to give me the right perspective. The day after I found out I went to one of my MOPS meetings and there is a lady at my table that cannot have any children at all. She adopted her beautiful little boys. I realized I should be truly grateful and just as excited about this gift God has given me...not everyone gets this chance. The day after that I went to take Audrey to a pediatrician appointment. I sat next to a cute little boy and his dad. While we were waiting I started talking to the man. It turns out that his little boy was 15 months old and his wife was going to have their next baby THAT day! Another sign that everything will be okay...other people do this, too! The day after that I went to my bible study and there is a woman in that group that also did fertility treatments to get her first child. She has been trying since her son was born and nothing yet.....the boy is now two. As if it didn't sink in enough by then and I was truly grateful and thrilled, about a week after that a woman came over to my house and we got to talking about this stuff. She has the exact same two diseases I have that make me infertile (not now though!) and her and her husband have been trying for 6 years and also seeing a fertility specialist and they have not had a child yet. Now I'm feeling really fortunate! God chose to give me this baby that he clearly has a purpose for. I am so blessed!

Then I thought about all the other great advantages even though I will be very busy! The kids will be close in age and will be able to enjoy the same outings....like Disney World. I also cut down my years of diapering. I will be doing double duty....but time wise it will be cut short than if I had another child later on.

My due date is July 4th. Ha! Independence day....kind of ironic, huh? and that's just two days after our 4th anniversary. Here we go again!

I hate Boy Scouts!

What a weird thing to say, right? Well Granseur is the Boy Scout Master here. He was asked to be the Scout Master about a year and a half ago since he used to be a boy scout with that troop, is an eagle scout and can teach the boys a lot, and none of the boy scout parents would step up to the plate. So he said yes. He felt that this was a good way to give back and be a good role model for young men and in essence serve the Lord since we aren't able to tithe as much as we'd like.

Here's the problem. He's gone one night a week until about 10:00 usually for scout meetings. They are only supposed to last until 8:30 but there's always something he has to do afterwards like see if a boy is ready to advance to the next level, etc. Then there's a scouting trip one whole weekend each month. During this time I usually can't reach Granseur at all since they are out in the woods in some remote place. Then there's special events like Eagle Scout ceremonies and opening for special events like share holders' meetings for companies. There's also planning meetings which take place any given night and boy scout camp where Granseur does not spend the night but goes straight after work and stays late. This is only one week of the year but its on top of everything else! I just think its getting ridiculus since we have a family now that he needs to spend time with and that does not include a little boy in boy scouts.

I realize that there are husbands that are gone a lot more than mine is, but here's my thing.... It's not benefiting our family in any way. We don't have a child in boy scouts and its not work related so we're not getting any income from it either. I also think its strange that out of all the boys in boy scouts that none of the parents will step up to be the Scout Master and that they actually called someone who does not have a child in it at all. I like to call it Baby Sitters of America instead of Boy Scouts of America because a lot of the parents seem to think that its great to get their kids out of the house for a whole weekend each month and not help at all.

On top of this Granseur is also on a local board and is also part of the handbell choir at church. The local board meets once a month and the handbell choir meets once a week then he has to be there to perform as well on weekends. He has something going on 3 out of 5 nights this work week and likely won't see Audrey at all until she's already asleep. That of course does not even include last Sunday when Granseur had to get to church early so he could play in the choir. I had to get Audrey ready again all by myself. She was being a terror that morning and everything was going wrong. I made it, but it was awful trying to get there. It's just too much! None of these things are work related or benefit our family. I feel like he's missing Audrey's life and for no good reason.

Sometimes I feel guilty for feeling this way since he is trying to be nice doing all of these things that are good community service activities and he can teach the boys a lot and he's good at it, but I just don't think he needs to be the scout master. Something has to give. I'm getting really fed up.

Corn Maze and Pumpkin Picking

We went to a corn maze last weekend and pumpkin picking yesterday. Just thought I'd share some of our fall activities.

Starting the corn maze. I'm leading the way...Oh no!

At night the corn maze is a haunted corn maze, so we saw some scary figurines along the way. Audrey wasn't scared though. She loved them!

OOOoooo.... can I have that?

Got it! Now what do I do with it? Stick it in my mouth?

No outing with Granseur is complete until he does something silly.

Granseur takes over leading the way.

Aren't they precious?

We've arrived at the pumpkin patch!

This looks like a good picnic spot.

Maybe I can take Mommy's drink while she isn't looking.

Picnics are fun!

On the tractor ride to get to the pumpkin patch.

Here we go!

My workout for the day: Squating down with an 18 lb. baby strapped to me while also picking up pumpkins to add just a few more pounds. Repeat a lot!

Granseur checking out pumpkins.

A baby pumpkin! Apparently pumpkin picking is quite exhausting...especially when you don't have to walk or pick up anything.

The ride back after picking out our pumpkins.

Everyone knows that Daddy is the "fun one." Here they are going down the slide.

Gotta check out the animals, too.

Pumpkin carving time

Me attempting to make a jack-o-lantern. I've never carved a pumpkin before. I would just pick out one I liked, draw on it what I wanted, and someone else would get all the guts out for me, scrape the inside and carve it for me. Doesn't that just sound like me?

Oh and notice the glow from the oven behind me. We're roasting pumpkin seeds! I've never done that before either or eaten any. They were good. Too good....I ate too many. :(

Audrey getting in on the action. This is her baby pumpkin.

The final product. A daddy, mommy, and baby pumpkin. You can totally tell which one is Granseur's. He's a little (okay...a lot) more creative than I am.