Life is starting to get crazy around our house.  Our kids are growing like crazy.  We have the much anticipated development assessment on Friday.  Hopefully it all goes well.  We also have to meet with the genetics clinic to schedule an appointment!  Awesome!

Over the last 4 years Kris and I have grown up tremendously.  We've made little us' who are our entire world.  In the last 4 years we have went through a plethora of vehicles.  The ones that I primarily drive have changed from my sporty little Pontiac Sunfire

To our first brand new "family but still sporty" vehicle, the Jeep Compass Sport

And now to our new extremely family friendly Dodge Grand Caravan SXT

It doesn't have all the frills like a sunroof or heated seats like the other two vehicles had but it does have 3 rows of seats

and a radio, 13 cupholders, tailgating seats, and it's a Stow N Go!

It will fit Troy, Rylee and Baby #3 who will be here in 9 short weeks...

Life right now is great.  It's positive and full of love!  We're ready to meet this babe (especially me)!

She did it!

Today was a huge day at our house.  First we did the last thing we needed to before Baby #3 comes...we bought a new vehicle.  Now we'll all fit comfortably so we're ready!  Secondly, Rylee pulled herself up on the lower part of our TV stand.  This is a huge milestone for her.  Kris walked into the livingroom with Troy and ran to grab his phone to capture this moment.  AMAZING!! I think I am on cloud 9 right now.  And lastly, it's official...we have a 2 and half year old boy in our house!  Happy Half Birthday Troy! 

Great loss and sadness

On June 14, my coworker Karen and her husband Dave were in an accident.  They had just started their 2 week motorcycle trip out west.  They were in Cody, WY when something terrible happened.  I am not sure of all the details but Karen was bumped and bruised and broke her wrist.  Dave, however, ended up being taken (with Karen at his side) by medflight to St. Vincent's in Billing, MT.  He was taken  into surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain.  Unfortunately, Dave would never wake up.  He was breathing on his own but he would never wake, never know his family again.  It was a grim 6 days for Karen.  She was faced with an awful decision.  However, Dave passed away Sunday, June 20th as a result of this terrible accident.  He was away from home.  He was on vacation. 

Karen is an extremely strong woman with thick skin when she needs it.  Tonight at his wake, I seen her break down.  I seen the faces of their two boys.  I seen the tears in the eyes of everyone who loved and cared for him and his family.  Parked outside the Funeral home doors was his beloved street sweeper that he drove to keep Platteville a clean city.  I didn't know Dave well but I do know Karen and how much she cares for him.  My heart absolutely broke when I seen her tonight.  And in all her misery and pain, she asked how I was feeling.  A tragedy like this makes you think "what if that was me?"  I depend on Kristopher a lot.  I lean on him when I need to.  He's my very best friend.  He's the first person I want to share a story with.  He's the first thing I see in the morning.   He makes me feel safe and secure.  To hold his hand, makes me fall head over heels for him all over again.  I can't imagine losing him before I'm 50.  I can't imagine my life without him.  I don't even want to think of what that life would be like. 

Rest in Peace Dave. 

Below is his obituary from the paper.

David L. Cammack

PLATTEVILLE, Wis. -- David L. Cammack, 51, of Platteville, died Sunday, June 20, 2010, at St. Vincent Health Care Hospital, Billings, Mont., from results of a motorcycle accident.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Friday, June 25, at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Platteville, with the Rev. David Flanagan officiating. Burial will be in St. Joseph's Cemetery, Sinsinawa. Friends may call from 4 to 8 p.m. today at Melby-Bendorf Funeral Home & Crematory, Platteville, where there will be a scripture wake service at 3:45 p.m. Friends also may call after 9:30 a.m. until the time of service Friday at the church.
He was born on Sept. 23, 1958, in Lancaster, son of Clarence "Casey" and Lois (Baker) Cammack. He graduated from Platteville High School in 1976 and attended Southwest Tech in Fennimore for two years.
He married Karen Budden on Aug. 25, 1984, at St. Joseph's Catholic Church, Sinsinawa.
He worked for the City of Platteville in the Street Department, where he was an equipment operator and mechanic. Prior to that, he worked at NAPA, in Platteville.
Dave enjoyed the outdoors, fishing, hunting, camping, boating on the Mississippi, cars and riding motorcycle. He was an avid Packers, Badgers and NASCAR fan.
Surviving are his wife, Karen; two sons, Casey and Jacob, both of Platteville; his mother, Lois Cammack, of Platteville; a brother, Clark (Joyce) Cammack, of Platteville; a sister, Kathy (Steve) Millar, of DePere; father and mother-in-law, Jim and Arlene Budden, of Cuba City; brothers and sisters-in-law, Janet (Donald) Godfrey, of Denver, Colo., Gary Budden, of Cuba City, Judy (Dave) Kelly, of Prairie du Chien, Kevin (Janet) Budden and Randy Budden, both of Cuba City; a great-niece, Natalie Grubba; and many nieces and nephews.
He was preceded in death by his father, Clarence, on April 19, 2008; and a brother-in-law, Brian Budden.
Memorials may be given to the David L. Cammack Memorial Fund.

A little explanation

I have had quite a few complaints about my bloggy hiatus.  I decided this was what was best for me and my family.  I hurt feelings in my "Yesterday" post.  That's not the intention of my blog or me as a person.  So, I have decided to cut out all of the random ramblings of everyday life in this blog and stick with the more important things.

Today was a big day in our house.  Many days with appointments are.  Today, Tammy, the Birth to 3 program coordinator came with our OT, Jessica.  Jessica would like to start visiting Rylee twice a month rather than once.  She will come weeks opposite of Marcy, PT, because their therapies overlap quite a bit right now.  Tammy has decided to come with Krisann, Speech therapist, in her July appointment.  Krisann does therapy here once a month.  However, now we need feeding therapy 2 to 4 times per month as suggested by the Speech Pathologist who did Rylee's swallow study.  I think they will decide to have Krisann come once a week instead of once a month.  At this point in time, that is how we need her.   That means our visits double each month.

Tammy also talked with us about Rylee's feedings.  She was appalled at the cost of the feedings.  She is getting a bunch of our paperwork for some county/state programs to help cover the extreme cost of feeding Rylee.  Rylee's feedings consist of:

4 oz Pediasure
2 scoops of Duocal
1 (1.1 oz) packet of Simply Thick (honey consistency)

We do this 6 times a day.  She gets this cocktail every 3 hours.  Her first bottle and last bottle of the day, we also add 4 mL of Pantoprazole for acid reflux.  There is definitely some time involved in making her feedings.  She tires and fills easily.  This cocktail ends up being about 5.5 oz after everything is added.  The Simply Thick dilutes the Pediasure therefore that is why instead of 1 scoop of Duocal we are now adding 2.  That means we use double the Duocal!  The daily cost to feed Rylee breaks down to:

3 bottles of PediaSure (which is half a package) $5.50
6 packets of Simply Thick (a case consists of 100) $3.36
12 scoops of Duocal (1 can lasts a week) $3.18
Total daily cost: $12.04

Therefore, you can understand how pricey this one child is to feed.  This doesn't include cereal, baby food or snacks like puffs.  Hopefully, one of the programs will cover this added expense.  From my understanding, they will most likely cover the cost 100%.  LOVELY!  I am anxious to get that ball rolling.

Tammy and the therapists started coming to our home last August.  So in early August we are going to have another evaluation with all 3 therapists and Tammy.

Right now, we are looking forward to having the development assessment at the Waisman Center.  Our medical histories went out to the Genetics team today.  I am in the process of organizing Rylee's 1400 pages of medical records before I turn the 1 hard copy I have over to the Genetics.  (I am making copies for my own personal benefit!) In July, we have 6 days where we have nothing going on which includes 2 saturdays and 2 sundays.  There are appointments galore in July and our August is filling fast!  September will be the month of rest!  I want to enjoy this little wiggle worm growing inside of me.  And I want to be able to transition the kids to having a new little baby in our house.  Neither one seems to be overly interested in the belly.  However, Rylee has lately taken notice to the belly and hits it every chance she gets.  All in all, we are doing great around our household.  We are taking the negative and turning it positive.  Instead of dwelling on the fact that we will never have a "normal' little girl, we are going to embrace the "special" little girl we have.  I was told by a wise woman a few weeks ago that "Special children are only born to special mommies."  I am not a "normal" mommy anymore, I am a "special" mommy!  Not many moms can say that, I am a lucky one I guess.

A big change

I have decided to take a blogging hiatus.   You wanna know what happening, pick up the phone and call or email.  But for right now, The Sweet Things in Life, is on hold.  

Sunday not so funday

Today, has been an odd day.  I think we stuck all our ambition into yesterday and didn't leave much for today.  This afternoon, Troy, all to easily, took a nap.  Upon awakening, he was whiny and felt warm.  The rest of the afternoon he has been quiet, flush with fever, a little whiny and pretty much glued to Kris or my lap.  He won't say whats wrong with him.  He batted at his a little while watching some TV and when he was eating a cheese stick he stuck his finger in his mouth and moved all the cheese to the other side.  So I am not sure if it is his ears or a molar coming in.  This afternoon has been pretty quiet around here but this morning we hit those closets hard.  We switched everything from the closets to it's new home.  Some was boxed up, hung up and put in a bag.  Our "new" closet is definitely smaller than the old.  I purged through my clothes and shoes.  I rid my self of 2 garbage bags full of shoes and I still have 43 pair.  That's awful right?  My thought is I have to wear nicer shoes to work however, I do wear lots of flip flops during the summer if they coordinate with my outfit.  (Which I have at least 1 pair in every color imaginable).  There are definitely shoes that I forgot that I even had.  I also rid myself of many tops and bottoms.  All the clothing and shoes will go to our local thrift shop for someone else who needs them.  There is still a bunch to be done but we'll do that throughout the next couple of days.  Rylee has therapy on Wednesday and Friday this week and an appointment with the GI doctor and nutritionist on Tuesday in Madison.  I have an appointment Wednesday at the same time as Rylee's therapy session to have my glucose test.  Busy week for me and Rylee.  Kris and Troy will stay home on Tuesday while I take Rylee to Madison.  We don't all have to go to the appointment and I prefer to go myself.  Technically, I am officially home bound until Baby #3 comes.  I can go to work but I can't travel outside a 50 mile radius of Dubuque.  My thought is that I am going to Madison, which is where I would go if my water broke anyway, so Madison is exempt from that 50 mile rule.  Tomorrow marks 28 weeks, 5 days.  Scary day for me because that's the exact day my water broke with Rylee.  I just want to be at 36 weeks, the "safe zone", so I have less to worry about.  As for the rest of tonight, Kris and I are going to snuggle our babies, tuck them safe in their beds and probably finish up putting things away.  As for right now, I made Ham, Au gratin potatoes from scratch and beans for dinner and chocolate pudding for dessert.  Enjoy your Sunday night, I know I will.

Productivity

Kristopher and I have been productive today!  Friday afternoon, Kris fed Rylee some chocolate Pediasure.  However, she threw it up on the carpet and a quilt.  Our carpets are nasty from Rylee puke.  There are times when she gives no warning and just throws up.  Which means the vomit most likely goes on the carpet.  We do scrub the carpet but it needs a good shampooing.  Last night, I had a baby in my belly who must have been uncomfortable because he/she did not stop moving all night.  From 3 to 5, my whole body practically shook when I was kicked, punched, head butted.  So needless to say, I was awake.  I was thinking about that living room carpet and when we could shampoo it.  I was going to clean out the kitchen cupboards and rearrange those and maybe the same in the bathroom.  But as I thought about it, that's a job that could wait another week.  That chocolate pediasure vomit had to come out of the carpet soon.  As a mother, the #1 thing that I have learned is that chocolate stains EVERYTHING!  It would be silly to rent a shampooer and only do the living room carpet.  So I talked to Kris in the morning.  We have a space issue in our house.  We have no room for a new baby the way our house was set up.  Kris and I are hogging the big bedroom while the kids have a smaller room they share.  We decided that switching rooms was in the best interest of everyone and it would maximize space.  In our big bedroom we had our big bed, dresser, computer desk and chair, bookshelf, 2 endtables, Hope chest at the end of the bed and quilt rack and we still had plenty of room in there.  In the kids room, we had 2 cribs, dresser and hutch, piles of toys and all that baby stuff and they were squished.  So today our mission was to clean all the carpets and move the bedrooms around.  Each bedroom has double closets however, the one in the big bedroom is, well, bigger.  However, Kristopher never had a place for his work clothes.  He didn't want them taking up space in the dresser and we really didn't have the room in the dresser for them so most of the time they are stacked next to the closet door.  In the smaller room, there are these deep shelves tucked in the corner of the closet which will work perfect for his work clothes.  As of right now, the bedroom carpets have been cleaned and are dry, the furniture is all moved in our rooms and put back together.  Rylee woke a little bit ago mad because she was hot so right now, we're all taking a break.  Then Kris and I will move the living room furniture over to the entry and shampoo that carpet.  In the morning we will move the furniture back, return the shampooer, go to church and come home to put away the rest of the mess.  We still have to switch the closets over, move the kids names (we painted the letters of their names and hung them over their closets) to their room, go through some junk we boxed up, and make sure that we have a home for everything that we absolutely need.  Our "new" smaller room is definitely smaller.  All that made the move was the big bed, dresser and 1 end table (Kris made that one and has another one to build yet, our other 2 are going to Thrift shop).  The Hope chest is the only piece of furniture we are not quite sure where that will go yet.  The computer desk has been moved back out to kitchen/dining room area (it's a big room, so there is plenty of room!) while the bookshelf is staying in the big bedroom to house the kids books and a few of ours.  The kids toys will be more organized in their "new" room because there are shelves across the bottom of the closet we used to house our shoes that will now house their toys.  We had piles and piles and piles of clothes that simply didn't have a place to go so I went through those today.  I boxed up the clothes that are too big or small or out of season, made a pile of those that need to hung up (since there is more room for that now) and a boxed up the clothes that are too small.  I also organized their drawers before putting them back in the dresser.  Their "new" room is an ivory color and we still have to put trim up in there.  That's been on the to-do list for quite a while.  Eventually we'll get around to it.  Our "new" room is a color called "dipped in honey" which is a brighter yellow that we painted (it used to be blaze orange with the ABCs stenciled as a boarder) right before I got pregnant with Troy in hopes of having a baby one day.  Kris's mom made us a quilt for our wedding of yellows and blues since those were our wedding colors so the color works with our linens.  Right now, their room needs some tidying but all in all it's a nice set up.  Another baby will easily fit in there now.  Troy also got moved out of his crib and back into his big boy race car bed.  He was excited about that and even napped in there late this afternoon.  I didn't get any before shots of the rooms but I will definitely take some after photos tomorrow. I love productive days like this.  And it feels good to get rid of junk that we didn't need in the first place. 

China

Over at Kelly's Korner she is having a Show Us Your Life day.  Today is SUYL is on China Patterns.  My china is a passion of mine.  I absolutely positively love our dishes!  I have 11 place settings and none are the same color.   They're bright and amazing!  I also have things like a bread plate, salt and pepper shakers, pizza platter, pitcher...the list continues on and on and on!  I have a little creamer with a duck on it!  And Troy received a matching bowl.  I have Fiestaware by Homer Laughlin.

I don't have the 3 latest colors...Ivory, Chocolate or Lemongrass.  The next color out will be Papricka.  But that is what birthdays and christmas are for!    There are also all the retired colors that I don't have.  By the time I pass, my poor children will have to divide up or sell all my Fiestaware.  The following is a blurb about FiestaWare from the Homer Laughlin website on the history of Fiestaware.

Fiesta^® Dinnerware was designed by Frederick Hurten Rhead in 1936 and is now among
the most collected china products in the world. As originally designed, the line featured art deco
styling and bold, bright colors. The product was discontinued in 1973 and reissued in 1986 with
new contemporary colors to mark its 50th anniversary.

Fiesta^® Dinnerware’s styling complements a wide range of decors.
The fifteen bold colors complement one another as well as a wide range
of interior palettes. Over 50 items in the line provide maximum service options
and ensure consistent tabletop styling. The plate’s coupe shape allows maximum food
plating surface; sculpted concentric rings highlight and frame the food presentation.
Alpha Alumina added to the body enhances durability and provides superior heat retention.

Yesterday

Yesterday, I had a bad day.  Unfortunately, you had to read about it.  I try to keep my self-pitty parties to a minimum.  It's hard for me, just like any other parent, to watch my child go through something that I can do nothing about.  I have no way to help her.  Rylee and Troy, as well as the baby kicking around in my belly, are my children that I love very very much.  I can't imagine my life without them.  I am doing the best that I can to handle what has been thrown at Kris and I.  I was told by a physician that my child is "disabled" though not clinically diagnosed, she is disabled by being globally delayed.  She is delayed in every sense of the word.  I said yesterday that I would give anything for her to crawl to me.  The truth is, no one can say for sure if that will happen.  No one can tell me if she will walk or talk or write her name.  That would be hard for any mother.  Any mother being told their child is "disabled" would feel like their world was falling apart just like I do, right now.   I love all children and I love my family.  Other children's progression in life is a double edged sword for me.  All those milestones in a little person's life are big deals.  I completely understand a parent's desire to share the news.  And I care about those accomplishments.  BUT, my child isn't reaching those milestones.  And no one cares about that.   My children and husband are my number 1 reason for getting out of bed everyday.  Right now, other children's accomplishments are more towards the bottom of my list.  I don't know how to process that success of others right now.  I know that had the roles been reversed, each mother reading this would feel the same way that I do.  It's best for me and my sanity to not have that to deal with.  I have enough to worry about and having a constant reminder of how "disabled" my child is sucks.  Yesterday, I wrote a post where I was pissed off at the entire world.  At that moment, I was and this is my blog so I can do that.  I know many children who are/have been excelling and many parents and grandparents who are excited to tell me about it.  I have 5 new babies coming into my life soon and I know that eventually at least one of those babies will surpass Rylee.  One of those 5 babies is my own, who could very well surpass her.  I can't even comprehend at this point in time how I will handle it.  I do know that no matter what, I will not discourage this baby from excelling and progressing at his/her own rate but rather embrace it.  I have put all my blood, sweat and tears into Rylee.  And knowing that 5 babies will soon enter this world already much better off than Rylee is a hard thing to even think about.  It was brought to my attention that I was singled out on Facebook late last night.  Apparently, my feelings are no concern of this person so I am not going to dwell that part.  It pains me that my "poor me" moment lead to that childish act which in return drug far too many people into something that was meant to be nothing.  Kristopher and I are trying hard to handle this everyday stress efficiently and rid our lives of that kind of negativity.   My children are happy and I refuse to have one negative person around them.  I don't deserve malicious acts for posting personal feelings on my personal blog.  In past posts, I have wrote if you don't like what I write on my blog, don't read it.  I am extending that to this post and future posts.  Yesterday, I was stating, again, for the record that I didn't want to know about other children's milestone accomplishments simply for the fact that it drives me crazy knowing that Rylee is that much farther behind her peers.  I definitely could've stated it a different way than "rubbed in my fucking face."   I apologize if any one person felt I wrote that post towards them because that was not my intention at all.  I, again, was having one of those "poor me" moments like everyone has.  Unfortunately, it upset one person which in turn extremely upset Kris and I.  I am not apologizing for what I write on my blog because it's my blog.  I again want to restate my disclaimer that this is my blog and if you, personally, have a problem with something that is written, don't read it.

Just can't catch a break

**Edited to add:

Dear Dodds Family, please keep an eye open in your emails.  We are taking Rylee to UW Hospital-Waisman Center Genetics.  However, before we can schedule an appointment we have to fill out an enormous packet of family medical history.  Rylee has a rare chromosomal abnormality, as you are aware, and we are trying to find out how this is affecting her now and in her future.   We're hoping for some more insight as to why she has quit growing and put a stop to this. Our baby is slowly withering away and we need your help.  All information obtained will be used strictly for the use of Rylee's family medical history and all will be confidential.  Thank you!   

Love,
Mary**

**Updated to add:

This was my pitty party post.  I am done now!  I try to keep these at a minimum.  Thank you for being my friends and family.  I really do love and appreciate you all.  I did sock all the negativity to the laundry.  It felt good and my laundry got done. 

Love,
Mary**

We took Rylee to UW Hospital today for a Swallow Study.  I was thinking last night, "I wonder if I can even go into Radiology with her?" Originally, I was going to take Rylee to Madison by myself while Kris stayed home with Troy.  We didn't want to have to wake them both up at the crack of dawn to be at the hospital by 7:45.  And that way Kristopher would get to stay home and sleep in with Troy as well since he doesn't get to bed before 1:00 am.  I talked to him on his lunch break and we decided that it would be best if he came along just in case I couldn't go back.  That meant that we also had to take Troy.  Regardless, we would've had to get him up early so he came with us.  As it turned out, I wasn't able to go back in Radiology with her so Kristopher did.  Troy and I stayed in the kid friendly waiting room.  It took over an hour for the entire thing start to finish.  While, we were waiting for them to finish, a couple walked in with their baby girl.  Many of her features resembled Rylee.  It makes me wonder if the answer to what Rylee "has" is right under everyone's nose but no one sees it.  Anyway, that little girl was next to see the same doctor Rylee did and have the exact same procedure done.

The results of the Swallow study were immediately available.  They put barium in her food that Kris fed her and watched it go down through her throat to stomach.  As it turns out, some of it doesn't make it to her belly but rather into her lungs.  Now think of how it feels when you swallow something and it goes "down the wrong tube".  It's not comfortable and you end up coughing like a maniac until you're not choking anymore.  It doesn't feel good.  That is how this little girl feels during every feeding.  This is called aspirating.  Dr. H concentrated her Pediasure to a nectar consistency.  She still aspirated with that.  Then Dr. H concentrated it to a honey consistency...no aspiration.  Now, for every bottle and feeding has to be the consistency of honey.  That makes it so thick that we have to slit the nipples of her bottle much like a nipple used when feeding cereal through a bottle.  We are to use a product called SimplyThick.  Therefore, that tacks on another $120 a month to just feeding Rylee.  With Pediasure, Duocal and now Simply Thick, we are up to about $500 a month just to feed Rylee.  We still have to feed ourselves and Troy and in 2.5 months, we'll have another mouth to feed.  We just can't catch a break.  Something has to give.  I fear that eventually we're going to have to live in a cardboard box under a bridge and walk to work.

I am just sick and tired of all this.  I want to wake up from this bad dream.  I want to take Kris, Troy and Rylee and run away from all of this.  But running away won't fix it, it'll just follow us.  I hate the amount of paper work that I am constantly filling out that says the same things over and over and over again.  I hate having other people's kids milestones rubbed in my fucking face.  I have done my best to separate myself from having to deal with that stuff.   I wish that Rylee could crawl and eat baby food.  I would give anything just to have her crawl to me.  I can't deal with others lack of sensitivity or common sense.  But I dwell on it.  It eats me alive and I just don't understand why it keeps happening.  I would never ever tell anyone who has a "disabled" child how much more my child has progressed than theirs.  Never!  My feelings are hurt and I'm pissed off about it.  I try to keep the peace and I try to "just ignore it" (like I have been told a million times) but I can't.  I am human.  And I am afraid one of these days I am going to blow and it's not going to be pretty and I'll say things I don't mean and will regret.  That is what I am trying to avoid.  Unfortunately, my husband is in the same boat as me.  His feelings are hurt and he's internalizing everything and he's dealing with everything just like me.  Together, he and I are alone and I very much feel that way. I just want a break!  Just one stinkin' little break.  Is that so much to ask?  APPARENTLY IT IS!  Thanks for reading my complaints.  I am now going to take out this negative energy on folding a load of laundry that just got done.

Oh ya know

I have some free time right now so I thought I'll write a post for my blog.  But I really don't have anything to write about that's overly interesting.  I ended up not going to the doctor on the 3rd. After some resting overnight, the contractions mostly quit.  It was the 3 again, I am tellin' ya.  It was also a day of celebration on the 3rd.  Kristopher and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary.  I love him!  He sent me "4 roses for 4 wonderful years".  We also got a beautiful arrangement of flowers from my dad and his fiance Deb. 

Yesterday, I had to work from 8 to noon.  It was my weekend.  I don't have to do it again for another 8 weeks.  After work, I went grocery shopping.  Everyone who knows me well, knows that I absolutely HATE grocery shopping.  I never used to mind it but now it's the worst chore.  I hate it so much that I try to do the majority of my grocery shopping once a month.  It ends up being a even bigger trip but I only have to do it once per month.  I make a list of meals, determine what ingredients I need and then buy them.  After that I went home and spent some quality time with my husband and kids.  I love those kind of nights.

Today, we were summoned awake at 4 am by a little girl named Rylee.  She fell asleep the night before 45 minutes earlier than usual.  So at 4 am, she was ready to play.  We brought her into bed with us and let her "play" between us while we slept some more.  Sadly, all 4 of us were up at 6:30 am.  Daddy made
wafflers" at Troy's request.  While we were getting ready for church, Rylee was doing her army crawl around the house and was in the kitchen.  Kris was watching her and she ended up getting herself up on her hands and knees.  I seen it with my own eyes.  It was freakin' awesome!  Before church we stopped to visit my grandma.  We haven't been into see her in a while.  She was quite excited to see us.  Troy showed us that he knows how to drop kick balls.  He's pretty good. The kids were pretty well behaved during church.  We came home and decided to work some more on our house.  On Memorial day, we put up shutters on our house.  It looked awesome.  Today, we painted the front and side doors.  The side door is just an ivory on the outside and white on the inside.  The front door is the same midnight blue as the shutters on the outside and white on the inside.  We also filled the holes on our Adrinodack chairs but didn't get to sand them or paint them today because it started raining a couple of times.  I posted some pictures of befores and afters. Enjoy!

This picture was talking on April 18, 2009.  Our house has looked like this since we bought it in September 2006.  It's a sad sad sad photo.  I never realized how bad it needed something done to it. 

This picture was taken on Memorial day.  The shutters make a huge difference.  We still needed to paint the chairs and the door and add some more mulch around the shrub we planted. 

The door is painted.  It was currently sprinkling when I took this photo.  The chairs are in the garage unpainted and we still have to get more mulch for the shrub but all in all this is a huge difference from what this poor house looked like.  And if you look in the big window, you may see someone peeking out from her high chair.

I took her photo as I was walking up to the house.  She was playing with a toy while we were ate supper.  She was enjoying herself so much that we just left her there while I took a photo and Kris helped Troy. 

Oh my gosh there will be 3

I just started to hit me that in a few short months, hopefully (fingers crossed), I will have 3 children.  I will have 3 children 33 months apart.  Apparently 3 is my number!  Fingers are definitely crossed that this babe stays in there for at least 10 more weeks.  I have been having some major contractions lately.  Some hurt, some don't.  I hate this.  They're extremely uncomfortable.  The last couple of days they are have been accompanied with some cramping.  And the baby is definitely low.  I am being kicked and punched down low and not high like last a couple weeks ago.  My entire day consists of bending and lifting kids or carrying $500 bags of quarters (which are heavy!).  And in 2 weeks from today, I am going to see Dr. Mehta.  Dr. Mehta delivered that terrible news last time I was 28 weeks pregnant.  I don't want her to do it again.  It was that 28 weeks appointment that she told me my water had broke.  To say I am little uneasy to go to the appointment is an understatement.  I am contracting now and all I am doing is sitting at the kitchen table in comfy clothes at 6:30 pm.  I have probably had at least 20 contractions today.  I am sure there isn't much going on but I am going to call tomorrow.  If they can maybe prevent a premature baby, I am going to let them do it.  I hate to call.  I don't want to go on bedrest.  And that is what I am most worried about besides the fact of a high risk of premature birth.  But, I have to do what is best for the babe and that would be go and make sure all is well.  Hopefully, I go back to work afterwards.  Cross your fingers!  Maybe since tomorrow is the 3rd, it'll bring me luck.