My December View from Bed Rest :)

I don't spend much time off the couch these days so I was laughing at my different views from my phone the other day. This picture I did switch from the couch to the chair, our poor Christmas tree is pretty much dead by now but I don't want to take it down. I just love looking at it and the lights. I can't believe that Christmas is already over!

Connor loves his leappad 2! He was showing it off to me the other day and I was taking a picture of my cute new slippers from Aunt Steph - I said she was making me awfully fashionable on bedrest! :)

You can see Scout at the end of the couch, he is a permanent fixture on the couch with me, he has taken to bedresting quite well. Sedona is always laying on the floor next to me at the couch. :)

This is standard somedays when I want to take C's picture, that hand in front of the face. Little stink pot :) It hasn't stopped me from still taking the pictues though :) I love that the cozy coupe is still a favorite toy, that thing is seriously the best money we have ever spent on him. He has driven/pushed/played with that thing every single day since his first birthday. 

Nonny got a new bathtub and we took the box, I am not kidding you it is endless amounts of fun. It has been a fort, pirate ship and boat. He plays in it everyday, it's awesome! I finally had to tell him that I couldn't go in there anymore though - it is a little too hard for me to get out of it and it KILLS my back - he said when I didn't have a baby in my tummy I could play in there :) I agreed!

I just loved this picture, he came and snuggled with me (which he is pretty good at, he snuggles with me all day and I love every single second of it!) after school one day. He wanted to watch something on my phone and I just loved this little smile. I think he looks just like Bj in this picture.

Sir Scout, I mean we joke all the time about how Scout has NO idea that he is a dog. When I die, I want to come back as one of the dogs, they live a pretty cushy life around here. I think Scout has taken it upon himself to personally take care of the babe and I while on bedrest :)

Connor has been saying the funniest things lately and I have to write them down so I don't forget. They mainly have to do with me on bedrest - he told me the other day "remember when you didn't have a baby in your tummy and you could cook dinner?" ha! He told me that they took his blood pressure two times in the ambulance when he got his stitches, he goes "Momma, it was just like I had a baby in my tummy like you!" Ha, poor thing will probably forever associate blood pressure with pregnancy :) He has also been taking the best care of me, if I even think about doing something I am not supposed to he goes "Momma, remember you aren't supposed to be doing a lot, right?" Sweet, sweet little boy. I am pretty darn lucky to have such a great little sidekick bedresting with me. He is starting to get a little cold so he has been even more snuggly than usual and I kind of love it more than anything!

Christmas Morning, 2012

I am sure if I looked back to last Christmas I will have said the same thing, but I am not sure there is anything more magical than Christmas with a 4 year old. Oh my word, my sweet boy has been SO excited for Christmas. He couldn't wait, every morning he wanted to know how many more days we had left - next year I really want a fabric advent calendar, the chocolate one didn't last too long in our house :) Connor was in his jammies right after dinner on Christmas Eve and I think he was ready to for bed! He was a little sad, he kept telling me how much he was going to miss Skipper the elf. He took a few pictures of him before bedtime so he could remember him until next year, ha! This was our little tree after Santa came, I kind of love being Santa. I had a little bit too much fun shopping from the couch for everything but after looking at it I realized I didn't do as bad as I thought :)

Skipper the elf played one last trick on Connor, he taped him in his room on Christmas morning! I was actually the one who woke everyone else up on Christmas morning, I guess that isn't too surprising at nearly 31 weeks pregnant though! It was a few trips to the bathroom and all of a sudden I heard "Momma, I can't get out of my room!" haha! I of course flew up and ran in with the camera so we could videotape him :) He was really happy that Skipper left him a little note and and played one last prank on him :) Sweet, sweet boy - we had a lot of fun with the old elf on the shelf this year.

I will have to get the videos uploaded, he was SO sweet going down the stairs - he goes "Santa ate his cookies, the reindeer ate the carrots and the milk is gone!!" He was SO excited to put it out and equally as excited that they were gone in the morning :) He was then SO excited that Santa had come! He ran over to the tree and asked if all the presents were his! :) We laughed because only few were not his :) We were actually surprised that it took nearly an hour to open everything - he was more of the whirling dervish of wrapping paper this year flying through things! He kept going "this is what I wanted! this was on my list!!" haha!!

Daddy wanted to stop and make some coffee so we were able to get C to take a very brief reprieve from opening presents to get a picture and then we were right back at it :)

This ambulance was and still is the PRIZED pocession of Christmas morning. I mean, he was SOOOO, SOOOO, SOOOO excited about it! He pulled the wrapping paper off SO fast and was screaming "this is what I wanted!!!! Santa brought me the exact ambulance I wanted!!!!!" He RAN over to his toy boxes and grabbed out his police car and firetruck to go with it. It was the cutest thing ever. Bj and I seriously couldn't stop smiling all day. We got a really good video, I mean - I am telling you what it's just magical :) My mom and Davey came over to celebrate with us before they left for my Grandma's. Connor met them at the door and showed them the ambulance and was handiing them their presents, it was so funny! The ambulance has a stretcher, 2 paramedics and a little boy with it. So we have been playing that my little boy fell and hit his head on the coffee table and has to get stitches :) Sound familiar?! :)  

He was also pretty excited about more play food to go in his kitchen. We love the pizza exhibit at the magic house so this pizza set was a huge hit! We ate a lot of pizza on Christmas morning :) 

This little set was the second hit of Christmas, Captain Hook's cabinet of Hooks! Santa was really excited because she got a GREAT deal on this and it went over really well! It has all of these interchangeable hooks, they are pretty cute. His favorite is this one that shoots out water cannons :)

He loved his microdrifters set, legos and everything! He got a new Jake and the "Leverland Pirates" stuffed toy and he loves it - I am not kidding when I say that over the course of the day we opened every single present that he received! It was really pretty precious :) Nonny and Uncle Davey came in time for breakfast and round two of presents! I think Connor was in heaven, he couldn't believe all the presents and he loved having visitors stopping by!

This was my view for most of the day and I just couldn't stop feeling so happy and blessed. It was not lost on me that I was so lucky and happy to be able to be at home and spend Christmas morning with my boys and not in the hospital. That was one of the hardest things for me thinking about when I was put on bedrest so many weeks ago. But, I was home and so incredibly blessed, thankful and happy I was. I couldn't stop thinking about what our Christmas morning will look like next year with two little stinkers! It's so funny to think are we going to have double the boy toys or boy and girl toys next year?! :)

Santa brought the Peter Pan dvd and it was another hit, we have watched it quite a few times since Christmas! Bj got a new "snugglie" as Connor calls it from Nonny and I think it's his favorite gift of this holiday season :) He didn't spend much time out of it at all for the two days he was off :)

"Mini" was I think the family's favorite gift this year, I was SOOO surprised! She hasn't been out of someone's hands since Christmas eve either :)

I just loved him sitting here "reading" with his little slippers and legs crossed. My sweet, sweet boy! We had a wonderful Christmas - as hard as it was not being a part of the big celebration with families it was really nice to be calm and quiet just our little family. We didn't brush our teeth or change out of our jammies, we just enjoyed the time as a family. We played, watched movies, sat on the couch and really enjoyed being together. We are so very blessed and happy and full of love this holiday season! We hope everyone had a very merry christmas as well!

Christmas Eve!

Per doctor's orders we were at home for the holidays, bedresting from our little house! While we were really sad not to be able to join in and do our normal holiday routine it was really nice to be at home and have our family come to us! I had really wanted to host Christmas Eve again before going on bedrest so we decided that my in-laws would still come over and we would celebrate with everything on Christmas Eve! It was such a fun little night and we really enjoyed ourselves!

Bj was pretty excited with his gifts -  fancy beer and crown, in his eyes it doesn't get much better than that :)

My mother in law has a birthday on Christmas so we decided since we wouldn't be able to celebrate with her on her big day, we wanted to have a cake on christmas eve! It was so fun to sing happy birthday and Connor helped her blow out her candles. He also enjoyed eating ALL of the icing from his plate and any other plate he could get his hands on! We told him he better stop because if he didn't fall asleep Santa wouldn't be able to come! After cake he was in his jammies, setting milk, cookies and carrots out and he was ready for bed in no time, he wanted to make sure Santa was able to come and drop all his toys off :)

I mean...I am pretty large and in charge these days, especially in the belly area but I think this picture makes me look slightly bigger than I really am :) I am not one who cares, I love my big, pregnant belly and the little pork chop inside. I found this dress over the summer for $3 at Kohls, and I knew I was going to wear it on Christmas Eve, bedrest or not! :) A funny sidenote, I had to put tights on and they were not maternity tights but I was like I will stuff myself into them and see what happens, I got them on, and was pretty proud until I realized the only reason they went on was because of a giant hole in the booty! hahah! Look at the face on my child - this is the LOVELY little face we typically get when we want him to smile for a picture, cute huh!? I said I can't wait to pull this out in a few years to show him :)

My nightly ritual was to wrap all of the amazon boxes that arrived on my doorstep that day - I wanted to stay on top of things and it gave me a change of scenery, the floor instead of the couch. I was pretty impressed with myself, all I had to do was arrange the presents as Bj brought them up on Christmas Eve and I was good to go! I just smiled as I looked at everything, I couldn't wait for Connor to wake up the next morning and see what Santa had brought!

One of my favorite gifts this year were these new Christmas dishes from my mom. I have wanted to christmas dishes forever and she found a great deal on them last year after christmas. I may have had to wait a whole year to get them but she was nice enough to let me use them on Christmas eve. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the place settings, it looked so pretty and festive! It was my one little touch for Christmas Eve, Debbie brought over the chicken ala king for dinner so all I had to do was show up and eat :) Bj and I watched a few Christmas movies and it was off to bed, awaiting the arrival of Santa!

29 weeks, 4 days

Who is surprised that while I am typing this I am now 31 weeks exactly?! :) Not me! It takes a lot of work to get to the computer these days! We went in for our second growth u/s on December 17th, Connor's fourth birthday! We are pretty awesome parents, huh?! Ha! I of course was a nervous nelly, but everything looked wonderful again! He/she has earned a new nickname, "pork chop" - the little booger was measuring in at 3lbs, 7oz! Woohoo! I said it has taken some hard work and determination on my part to beef up the little bitty - it's tough eating 3 different birthday cakes, endless amounts of homemade macaroni and cheese, and thankfully I am craving salad, spinach and fruit! I was a little nervous at my last dr appointment they were going to think I was swelling because I had gained so much weight, but somehow I came out at only the normal 2lbs!

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Look at that sweet profile, I just love those sweet, sweet u/s profile pictures! It is so fun thinking about who is in there and whether or not they will look like Connor or not!

These u/s pictures are usually a little scary looking but the unbiased momma in me thinks it's pretty cute :) My mom is probably shuddering right now, but I can't help it, I love all the little pictures we have! Connor put his little signature on these u/s pictures I did my best to crop them out but you can still see some leftover pen. Everything looks great and we are so thankful and blessed! I go back for another growth u/s in a few weeks and then I go in for weekly fetal monitoring and dr appointments until the little pork chop arrives!

 

Happy 4th Birthday, Connor!

Somehow another year has flown by, and you my precious boy are another year older making you 4. Four? How is it even possible that four years ago we were welcoming you into the world, four years ago we still didn't know if you were a boy or a girl. Four years ago I had no idea how bright my world was about to become, I had no idea how much I would love you and how being your momma would make me a better person. I could go on and on, but for now here is how we celebrated you turning one year older :)

You have loved Curious George for quite some time, it's a ritual, we wake up and watch one every morning. You love it, though I will say that you are starting to move away from George and on to Jake and the Neverland Pirates - I am thinking it could be a theme for your 5th birthday :) I asked you a few months ago what you wanted your party theme to be and George it was! I have been searching for fun things to do because birthdays are like a national holiday around here, and I think that is the way it should be. When I was put on bedrest all of this planning came to a halt as we figured out what was going on and where I would be. I will always remember how you handled yourself during this time, my wise little boy. You have been SO excited about celebrating your birthday and I knew one way or another we were going to do something. Because a birthday shouldn't just be celebrated on one day, we broke it into three little celebrations. I thought it would be better for me and my blood pressure, I okayed everything with the doctor, and it's more fun to drag it out :) Friday morning we celebrated with your four little friends - Reese, Cam, William and Henry. We had them over to decorate monkey cupcakes, have some lunch and hang out! We gave out books as a favor, I thought it would be the last year that wasn't too dorky to do :)

Auntie G was hired out to make this amazing cake for you! Let me tell you, it tasted as amazing as it looks! I am not even going to tell you how long it lasted in this house - key words, not long :) Nonny made some homemade macrioni and cheese which also didn't last too long! Ha!! 

You guys did such a good job decorating the cupcakes, they turned out adorable - they were so fun to do and it was the only prep I did for the whole three days of celebrating. We just sat in the kitchen and made smiles on the vanilla wafers and you guys had fun going to town with them.

After decorating cupcakes it was outside to break the pinata! You guys were so cute waiting for the candy to come out - I was a little worried about it not being a pull string this year but you guys did awesome breaking it open! Poor Jess realized that by default she was going to be the one holding the pinata, the other mom is pregnant too, ha! She did a great job and you guys were fishing for candy in no time.

I love this picture of the two of you. You and William are such sweet friends and I know you love playing together at school and playdates. You were a rotten stinker when it was time for him to leave, but I think some of that was because of the massive amount of sugar you consumed :) You guys had just helped yourselves to more cake - you both just look so happy and sweet, just like little four year old boys should.

Before bedrest we looked on etsy and picked out your invitations and you picked what little printables you wanted for your party, I had already bought everything so I sat on the couch the other day, hit the print button and cut everything out. It gave me a nice little project to work on and I loved how it turned out. I just love having your birthday party decorations among all of the christmas stuff -this really is a magical time of year. You kept telling me you didn't like the fact that the George tins were wearing binoculars, you funny boy. I had Daddy pull those out of the basement from last years birthday party, taped on a new sign and voila it looks great! ha! Those three tins were the best $3 I have spent! We decided to keep it simple and have Nana, Grandpa, Nonny, Uncle Davey, Shannon and Aunt Jen over for dinner on Sunday to celebrate your "family birthday" as you called it. We did grandparents and godparents because we knew that would be enough excitement.



You told Skipper before going to bed to make sure he found a spot downstairs so he could see everything that went on at the family birthday. It was really cute and you loved that Skipper flew in with some balloons. You also loved that you looked like Curious George holding balloons in the next picture - I love how easy it is to please a four year old :)

My friend Julie made this cake for you and it was amazing!! She is such an amazing baker and did all of this by hand - I can't thank her enough for all of her hard work making this adorable cake for you and you LOVED it!

It seriously looked like Christmas morning after you finished opening your presents - your grandparents and godparents are pretty darn good to you and you were spoiled rotten! I think you may have even thought it was Christmas :) You loved your Jake puzzles from Nonny, your police car from Nana and Grandpa, your puzzles from Aunt Jen and your super cool Handy Manny car from Uncle Davey and Shannon. It's a good thing Daddy is building you a playroom in the basement for all these new toys :) 

I have tried to get a pictue of the three of us on all of your birthdays, I love having them. It's so fun to watch as you get bigger and I love remembering what you were into at each birthday. I can't believe that next year on your birthday you will be a big brother and our family will have another little sweetie to love on.

You were a little shy having us all sing happy birthday to you, all three days that we did it :) You are such a shy little guy sometimes and you don't love having the spotlight on you at all. You were pretty excited to blow out your candles though. You called me over to stand next to you and hold your hand - I loved that, my sweet, snuggly, affectionate little boy. I love how you always want just one more kiss. I know you will one day grown out of this but I really hope it's not for a long time.

Well, here we are after a weekend full of celebrating we have arrived at your actual birthday! You are officially four and you couldn't wait to open up your presents from mommy and daddy. I had a dr appointment in the morning and you were so good for us, you were so patient but you were so ready to get home by the time we got there. Daddy took the day off and we left it up to you what you wanted to do on your special day. I thought if you wanted to go anywhere daddy could take you, but you just wanted to hang out. You are kind of a homebody just like us :)

We gave your your new pirate ship, a spyscope and some Jake figures. You were pretty darn excited, it was adorable! I think we have played with your pirate ship in some capacity every single minute since you got it :) Nonny brought over a big box and we have been playing in that too - it's been nice for me to sit in there instead of the couch for a little while! We celebrated just you, me and daddy with dinner and cake, and it was perfect. I mean, you are supposed to have three different cakes to celebrate your birthday, right?! :) Connor, I love you so much and daddy and I are so proud of you. You are such a sweet, loving, smart, impatient, curious, wild, loving, snuggly, snarky little sweet pea. You have grown up so much this year and we can't wait to watch you take on your role of big brother in the coming weeks. You are going to be amazing and wonderful and your little brother or sister is going to be so lucky to have such an awesome big brother to grow up with. Happy 4th birthday my sweet little man, I hope it was wonderful!

Santa Time!

A few weeks ago after my dr appointment, I asked if there was anyway I could go with Bj to take Connor to see Santa. My dr told me it was okay as long as I didn't sit on Santa's lap, haha! :) He said just be quick and head right home. We visited Santa at Plaza Frontenac, he is our favorite! We were the first in line and they were great, they did everything they could to get Connor to smile - I was sitting next to him and thankfully they cropped me out :) It maybe isn't the best smile, but it's a smile! He was so cute, he was telling Santa all about where Skipper his elf was that morning, it was adorable :) I put out all of my Connor Santa pictures this year and I just love looking at them! I still can't believe he is going to be 4 in just a few short days. 

First Ambulance Ride/ER Visit!

I promise this is my last update for the day! I love how I don't update for a month and then do 10 posts in a day :) Monday, December 10th my mother-in-law came over and picked Connor up for the day. They were going to get some stuff for his birthday party and play at her house. She noticed that her car was driving funny so she pulled over and made it to the Mercedes dealership. She said Connor was being so good for her while she talked to them - they were eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate. She said Connor was sitting in a chair and dropped something on the floor. He kind of hopped off the chair to grab it, not seeing that it was under the glass table. He bonked his head on the corner of the table and put a HUGE gash in his forehead. I had no idea what happened and I called in the midst of it, she said "Ellen, don't panic but Connor hit his head and has to go to the hospital." I mean, my heart was on the floor and I was telling myself to take deep breaths, mainly because I didn't know what had happened. I managed to ask if she has called Bj, she had and then she told me what happened. Thankfully my brother was here because I am not supposed to drive. I called who thankfully knew better than to argue with me when I asked what hospital there were going to  :)

Debbie had called the ambulance because she knew he was going to need stitches. They came, cleaned him up and put him in the ambulance to go to the ER. Bj said they asked him if he wanted the sirens on and he said yes :) He wants an ambulance for christmas so I was hoping that instead of being too scared, he would be excited that he was riding in an ambulance! After talking to Bj and my mom I calmed down and knew that my bp would be better if I was with Connor, especially getting stitches in his head. The hospital is where my dr's are so I knew I would be in good hands if need be.

 

So scary! This was him arriving at the ER, Bj said he was so good in the ambulance and by the time I got to him, he was sitting so big in his room with the numbing gel on his forehead, playing on Bj's phone. I had tears in my eyes just thinking about how brave he was. He is so shy and doesn't like to be the center of attention and God bless him, he did so great.

I love this expression on his face, this is his typical "oh my gosh, all these people are fawning on me, I am going to stick close to mom and dad look".

After applying two doses of numbing gel to his forehead they came in and were ready to stitch him up. The child life person came down to hold the ipad above C's head so he could watch what he wanted, I mean he watched Curious George like it was no big deal, ha! He was SOOOO good while they laid his head down, cleaned his forehead off and gave him the shot. He flinched a little, but held on to my hand like such a brave little shoulder. I got a little nervous when the dr started stitching, I couldn't watch and I may have been squeezing poor Connor's hand :) When it was over, he had two internal stitches and six stitches across the front of his forehead for a total of 8!

He was all stitched up and ready to go! He got a popsicle, cranberry juice, skittles and a penguin from Nana. I laughed that he could have asked for anything and I would have given it to him. I couldn't believe we had made it almost four years before our first ER visit and stitches! He was one week shy of turning four :)

When we got home he wanted to snuggle in bed, um no problem at all! :) He wanted me to take a picture so he could see his stitches, sweet thing. You can still see the blood on his shirt and it was all in his hair. Thankfully I was able to wash his hair in the sink! Nonny and Uncle Davey brought pizza over for dinner and we were good to go after an adventurous day! I just couldn't believe how brave he was, I told him over and over how proud of him I was! We get to take the bandages off tomorrow and the stitches will disolve on there own in a few more days! The neighbors brought him over an ambulance ornament and we wrote "Connor's First Ambulance Ride" and the date on it. He keeps talking about the next one and I said we didn't need anymore ambulance rides, ha!