40 weeks and due

Today is the official due date. This is officially my longest pregnancy. I am so ready to have her, to hold her, to let Tyrone have his time with her before his deployment! I never dreamed that my fourth pregnancy would be the longest, it's rather unexpected.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however. One way or another, there will NOT be a 41 week post. Next Wed., Jan. 6th, if she is not here, we will induce. I hope it happens before then, but either way, she's got no more then 6 days in there!! I promise I will update asap when things happen! Please say a little prayer for my patience in the mean time, because there is somewhere around an 8 1/2 lb baby in there, and she is squishing me from the inside out!

Happy New Year's Eve!

snow, snow, snow

I took pictures at Christmas, that my camera completely ate. I ended up with only 2 pics, and so it looks like Gabe and Shiloh were the only people present Christmas morning :( Apparently my camera is picky about batteries...now I know.

We did have a wonderful Christmas, however. On Christmas Eve, we made oatmeal cookies for Santa, read our stories (the bible story, the Polar Express, Alabaster, and The Night Before Christmas), ate cookies and drank hot chocolate, and watched the Santa tracker on Norad. Christmas morning, we had a great time opening presents and playing. Then, Christmas night, we went to our friends Tosha and Tim's house for dinner. It was a fantastic time. They have kids around our kids' ages, and we had good food and good conversation.

Today we are getting the tail end of the blizzard that whooped the entire midwest this week, so, since Santa brought the kids snow gloves in the sizes they need this year, it seemed like the perfect time to let everyone out to play. They stayed out for a good hour, and had lots of fun.

Christmas Eve Gift!

Just some pictures to commemorate Christmas Eve!







The best of the group pictures....that was a total fake pout on Shiloh

And then it devolved into this...

39 weeks

So, here we are! Only 7 days left until her due date! It really is down to the wire, I've been making steady progress. At this point in each of my other pregnancies, I had 1 day until Gabe was born, 2 until Kaleb, and 7 until Shiloh. We're good with whenever, but are hoping that she holds off at least until tomorrow afternoon, so that we can have Christmas on Christmas as a family!

My next appointment with my midwife is Wednesday, but I would be okay with not making it that far! Funny story, though, she is the midwife that delivered Shiloh, and I started seeing her again several appointments ago. She was so excited to see us again, and to see how much Shiloh has grown! She told me to make my appointment for next week with the receptionist, and I did, but Judy didn't have any openings. She stuck her head out to tell me everything looked good on the non stress test we had just done on the baby, and I told her I had made my appointment with another midwife.

She said "NO!" and ran over the the receptionist and had her change her schedule around and make room for me! I love knowing that the person taking care of us knows and loves us! She is also on call at the hospital on Christmas and Sunday, so she told the baby that one of those days would work out really well! :)

30% chance of snow with no accumulation...

Riiiiiight. Sorry, weather channel, you got it wrong today!

The boys are really supposed to be in school today, the last day before their break. However, Gabe had a very scary asthma episode during the night, one that had my hand on the phone to call 911. We were able to get it under control with Xopenex and Albuterol at home, and he seems none the worse for the wear. But, literally, he was gasping for breath and panicking, and came to our bedside barely able to wheeze out a "mommy!", retracting from his collar bone to his ribs. I really can't believe that we were able to tame this episode ourselves, but we were. Still, it shook all of us up, we had Gabe sleep in our room, and we decided to have the boys stay home with us, where we can keep a close eye on him, although he is now acting like he feels 100%.

So, for a couple of days, the weather channel, which I keep a close eye on because of our potential for severe lake effect weather in the blink of an eye, has been saying that today we have a 30% chance of light snow with no accumulation. So imagine my surprise when we rolled out of bed VERY late this morning to find that we couldn't see the road, the snow plows were running, and we were being steadily snowed on. It isn't a ton, but I'd say about 2-3 inches. So the boys are out playing!


Kaleb's snow angel
Gabe's snow angel

Playing, complete with the scarf his Grandmother made for me several Christmases ago, since he can't remember what he did with his!

Gotcha!

38 weeks

Please, please excuse the streaks on the mirror. I didn't realize that some boy of mine had gotten stuff on the mirror when they were brushing their teeth until I was looking at this pic on the computer, and I'm really tired to go take more :)

Anyway, I am officially 38 weeks, with 14 days to go. I KNOW that she dropped more last night, other then that, I'll have a better idea of any progress that I have made after my appointment tomorrow. I'm tired and achy and all of those other things, but am happy to have such a beautiful, growing family. I'll update tomorrow if I find out anything uber exciting at my appointment!

Kaleb's Christmas Concert!

Kaleb's Christmas concert was last night! Shiloh was having a monumentally bad night, and Gabe wasn't having a great one, either, so I stayed home with them and Tyrone and Kaleb went and had special Daddy time! Tyrone took lots of videos for me, and the kids did so well!!! It was hard to pick a favorite, but this song was soooo cute! :) Good job, K!

congrats, sheena and hun!

**Blogger is adding underlines again....sorry!**

On November 27, our friends Sheena and Hun welcomed their beautiful little girl, Stormie Gail, into the world. Sheena had a long 41 week pregnancy, and did it like a champ! Congrats, guys! We can't wait to meet her in person and get the babies together here in a few weeks or so!

deployment

Tyrone's brigade was originally scheduled for a January deployment to Iraq. That was canceled as the Iraq troop draw down continues. We were grateful, but knew that it wouldn't be the end of deployment for us. Following President Obama's speech 2 weeks ago, we received orders that Tyrone's brigade would be deploying to Afghanistan. Some units are going as early as January, and that includes some dear friends of ours.

Tyrone's unit will be leaving in March, or there abouts, but we do not have a date. We will be staying in New York this time. I am apprehensive, but I know that we can do it. I know that Tyrone is a capable and accomplished soldier, as are those around him, and I know that the Lord loves us dearly and will protect my best friend, my husband. I ask that you pray for peace and safety for all of us as we embark on this journey again. It came very fast, I do not feel ready to let go again. But I know that we can do this, we have before, and we are a strong family with lots of love.

We plan to fully enjoy our time as a complete family, with less rushing around then we had before last deployment. Tyrone has a couple weeks of leave, starting next week, and will also get 10 days when the baby is born. We will make the most of this time, and try to prepare the kids as well as we can for what is coming. Thank you all for the love and support that you have given and will give, it helps more than you know.

kaleb's birthday celebration

We had cake and presents after lunch for our very own 8 year old!

Lots of playing around....



Cake eating....



Singing happy birthday

Reading Grandmother and Grandfather's birthday card

Laughing hysterically at Grandma's singing card

Daddy teasing K w/ the singing card

Kaleb realizing that he had gotten the air hogs zero gravity car he wanted from Grandma and Mr. William

sigh....Daddy got ahold of the camera...

Kaleb, with his present from Mommy and Daddy...his very own MP3 player! He is over the moon, he feels like a very big boy!

Driving the air hogs car on the wall, super cool!

kaleb's birth story

As I have done this year each time one of my childrens' birthdays rolled around, I am writing out Kaleb's birth story.

I had an appointment on the 11th with my wonderful midwife, and she told me she's "help him along", but not to tell the OB :) I was 39 weeks, 1 day. Sure enough, that night, I began having contractions that I could time, and they got fairly close together. I called Mom, and she came and picked me up and we went to the hospital. They confirmed early labor, but suggested I would be more comfortable at home. I went back to Mom's house (much closer to the hospital) and spent a fitful night on the couch.

By the morning, I was having to breathe to get through the contractions, and we headed in to my OB's office. He checked me out, and then we met him in his office. He said "Looks like we're having a baby today!" I started crying, and he told me not to be scared, and Mom told him I wasn't scared, I was excited, which was the truth!

We walked over to the hospital, and it was game time! After being hydrated, my contractions slowed down some and we had to do pitocin. We also tried the epidural, but it was so painful to have the keep trying and never hit the right spot due to the hardware in my back, I declared enough, and that was the beginning of me having an epidural free birth! I did get Demerol, threw up on my mom (more then once, I think, mom?) and was able to get a little sleep. Things progressed well, although I'm hazy on some details, between the Demerol and it having been 8 years...

Kaleb was born quickly when the time came. He was born at 8:05pm, 21 inches long, 8lb 3oz. He was a long little guy! I can honestly say I was in awe. He was mine? How had something so beautiful come from me? When we were settled, Mom went home, and it was just my boy and I. I made lots of promises to him in whispers through tears when we were alone in the hospital room.

And that was the beginning of my life as a mommy! We love you, Kaleb!

37 weeks (and 1 day)

Ok, I'm officially huge! I'm not sure how I could get much bigger!!!

**I had an appt. on Monday with my midwife and she was estimating this little girl to be at about 6 1/2 lbs then, which would put her close to 7 by now. I'm measuring 2 weeks ahead, and all of that makes lots of sense, since I have big babies!

**The biggest news, of course, is that she is officially full term as of yesterday, with only 20 days left until her due date!

**Our hospital has recently started a new visitor's policy, b/c of H1N1, that no one under the age of 18 is allowed in to L&D. So from the time I go in until the time princess and I are released, they kids and I won't see each other. Shiloh and Gabe especially are not going to do well with this, I know. Now I am hoping even harder that we are not in the hospital on Christmas, I can't imagine not seeing all of my babies on Christmas!

Time will tell how much longer until this little girl decides to join our family...

day 2!

So, big day snow wise! Last night there was a good bit of rain before we got back below freezing, which melted alot of the snow from yesterday and gave us some yucky ice. We could actually see the grass last night, so we started pretty much back at the beginning, accumulation wise. As you may recall, there are sidewalks, driveways, and a road under there somewhere...

Later on, I'm going to be putting up my 37 week pic. I keep telling this baby that she should not be born right now.... :) But, she is officially full term, and I have 21 days 'til my due date!

7:30am

The kids were, in fact, given a snow day, so they are home with me. Here they all are, eating the muffins (cinnamon walnut streusel, yum!) Shiloh and I made yesterday for breakfast and watching the snow out the back door.

8:30am....pretty big difference for 1 hour.....

3:30pm....sorry about the break in posts...we had lunch, nap, etc. Anyway, it's been coming down hard and sideways. The accumulation in the backyard is hard to see b/c the wind is blowing so hard that it keeps picking up whats fallen and moving it around, it's like a "snow bowl" back there, crazy. It's also bitterly cold, the temp is 28, but the wind chill is 15.


7:00pm.....It is really coming down. With Tyrone home for less then an hour, the truck is already completely covered in snow, and our wind chill is around 10 right now. I'm not sure, but I don't think the boys will have school tomorrow, either.

and the snow storm comes to ny

That big storm has reached us! It's snowing like crazy, and the wind is blowing so hard that occasionally I cannot see out of our window at all. When I open a door, the snow blows in. A lot of the schools were delayed or canceled, but not ours. So, the boys are at school. I'm anticipating school being closed tomorrow, however. We are supposed to get up to 4 inches today, 4 tonight, and up to 8 inches tomorrow. Sounds like a day for Christmas decorating and hot chocolate!

My Mom (HI MOM!) has requested a series of pics taken throughout the day, like I did last year when we had a big storm, so I will do my best to oblige! Also, Kaleb's concert was last night, and I wanted to get that post up first, but Blogger seems to be having issues processing my video, so look for that possibly tomorrow. Kaleb is very proud and wants everyone to see it! The only other thing is that Blogger is doing that weird thing where it underlines everything as I write, no matter what I do. I'm not sure if it will show up that way when I publish, but if it does, it's not my fault!

Check back for more throughout the day if you're interested in our storm!

Ok, this was at about 8am, out front

8am, out back

10am

Here's the 10am update. It's been snowing more, and the wind is MOVING! It is literally shaking the windows and howling. Our power has blinked a few times, but that's it so far, and I really hope it stays on. You can actually see the effects of the wind in these pics.....Check out all of the seed pods that have been blown out of our tree in the front yard. The plows have come through again, which you can see, and the snow is higher on our fence, and all of the footprints out front have been filled in.

So, we just went over the freezing mark (we're at 34 degrees), and it looks like that's all the snow until this evening, when it will pick up 3 fold! Unless something dramatic happens, I think I'll just start another post like this one in the morning. The storm is definitely still here, but for now we're going to have ice and lots of wind, which isn't as pretty as the snow :) Check back tomorrow!