12 Weeks

Had my 12 week check up yesterday and I got to see Tookie again! Every one keeps asking why I am getting so many ultrasounds and I say "I guess that's the one perk from having a 2 month premature delivery with my first pregnancy!" I get to see the baby again at my check up next month and then a few weeks after that we will find out just what this Tookie baby is gonna be! Even though it's most likely that having twins was my reason for such a premature delivery, my doctor just wants to keep checking on us and make sure that there wasn't another reason. Which is fine by me. Whatever it takes to keep this one hibernating for the appropriate amount time! And have I mentioned that I LOVE my new OB? Well, I do! He's great and makes me feel like he is seriously taking care of me and this precious little bun and that is worth more than all the gold in the world!! Tookie baby looks GREAT so far. Growing just right (and man has he/she grown!) with a good, strong heart beat and this time the hr was 153. I am done doing the hr guessing game and pulling the mother's intuition card. My sister-in-law Emily is expecting her 4th baby and we all (mother included) just knew it was going to be a girl. She found out last Thursday that it is indeed another boy!!! Anywho, my Tookie was just a moving and kicking and I even got to see him/her put his/her little hand up to his/her mouth. Such a change from the little blob we saw last time!!

I took Audrey to the Nutcracker Saturday night and will try to post about that later in the week. Right now she has a nasty old cold and we are having a Christmas party at our house Friday night for the church (I know, I know. I think I am Martha Stewart when it comes to Christmas. I am aware of my problem!!) so between those 2 things the Nutcracker post may not make it in till next week! We shall see.

Christmas Cookies

I am desperately trying to make sure James doesn't get sicker or have a relapse, especially since Christmas is right around the corner. What a bummer if a little boy is sick on Christmas!! So, I have banned the kids from going outside. Can't let Audrey go and not James. That would be cruel. Since we can't go outside, the kids are slightly bouncing off the walls and driving me crazy!!! So, in the attempt to keep my sanity and spread a little Christmas cheer, yesterday we colored Christmas pictures, decorated them with glitter and then we made Christmas cookies. I am not a clean cook by any means, but oh my word did we make a mess in my kitchen yesterday. I was still stepping on sprinkles this morning but it was all worth it to see how much fun they had. And especially when Audrey pipes up in her sweet little voice and says "Mama, tank you so much fo doin dis with us." Talk about a mother's heart melting into a big giant puddle.

Audrey's cookies

James' cookies (notice a difference?!)

Audrey's finished product

James' finished product

Waltzing Matilda

On Monday James woke up with a slight chesty cough like he gets when he is on the verge of an asthma induced upper respiratory infection that happens pretty much any time the weather changes. Sometimes we can avoid having to take him to the doctor and putting him on a round of steroids by giving breathing treatments every 3 hours for a couple days. But since I've done that twice already in the last month and a half, I wanted to go ahead and get him seen. We had to see the NP and she gave us our usual script and said it was good I brought him in. Usually with in a couple hours of getting those 'roids in him, his cough is knocked out. But this time was different. He had a pretty rough night coughing and nothing we gave him or did really helped. He coughed a lot during the day Tuesday and by Tuesday evening he was coughing non stop. He had another rough night and at 2:00 Wednesday morning I knew with out a doubt we were going back to the doctor as soon as they opened. Even though he acted like he felt okay, I knew that cough was not normal. Especially since the steroids and all the other stuff we usually do for him that has worked a million times before was doing absolutely nothing.

Glad I did and didn't wait it out another day and night. Little man has walking pneumonia. Air is still moving thru his lungs well so he's not close to being hospitalized or anything like that but he does have an infection. So we were instructed to keep with the prednislone till it's finished, continue with Pulmicort 2x a day and albuterol every 4-6 hours (even if it doesn't seem like it helps) and this time we got a script for azithromycin. Jon made him a comfy little nest in his bed so that he could sleep sitting up and hopefully rest better. It worked and he only needed a breathing treatment around 11 last night and after that he never coughed again so we all got a pretty good nights rest. (except it's a good thing that I went to bed at 9:30 since I woke up at 3 and couldn't go back to sleep till 4:30)

This morning his cough finally sounds looser and even though he is quite grumpy at the moment I think he's on the road to recovery. Now, if we can just keep his sister from coming down with anything.....she has been a little rough around the edges this week and has been whining a lot more than normal. When we got home from the doctor yesterday she was running a little fever but some ibuprofen got rid of that so I'm not sure whats going on with Peachy!

I know the pictures have nothing to do with the story but for some reason I can't get my camera to upload to the computer this morning so I stole borrowed the first and last pictures from Becky from Thanksgiving in the country. The middle one is one I took and I just think it's so pretty I wanted to share. Oh and the title of this post is even more random, I know, but every time I say or think 'Walking Pnemonia' Waltzing Matilda plays in my head! Go figure.

Where should I begin?

Lets start with how James and Audrey watered their FAKE, pre-light Christmas trees in their room the other night. It's a miracle they weren't shocked to death or that they didn't start a fire. Now lets talk about how blogger has changed and I can't get a Christmas background to load properly. I'm really frustrated about that right now and got tired of fooling with it so I figured a nice green background was as festive as I could get. Moving on to how I do not feel like myself these days and being 11 weeks pregnant while trying to stay one step ahead (or at least hot on their tails) of 2 little darlings, take care of a husband and try to run a household during the holiday's is H-A-R-D. I haven't seen the back of my refrigerator in more than a month. We've eaten out more times in the last few weeks than I'd like to admit. My poor husband had to actually ask me to wash some clothes for him the other day. I finally had some energy to clean up the living room on Saturday while the kids were napping and when they came out of their rooms they said "Mama, you cleaned up!" Now you have to admit that's bad. Not real sure where my broom is or when the last time was that I cleaned the bathrooms. I think I have decided that there is some sort of evil spirit following me around destroying everything that I attempt to clean or straighten.

James and Audrey now share a room. We moved James into Audrey's room about 2 months ago I guess because James got in the horrible habit of waking up in the middle of the night and climbing in the bed with us. Since he's moved, he hasn't gotten up once in the middle of the night and they absolutely love sharing a room!!!

I will be glad when the first trimester of this pregnancy is over so that hopefully some of my energy will return. And I am still wondering if it was a good idea to get ALL my Christmas stuff out, especially since most of it is still sitting on the table. We've been decorating for Christmas around here since the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I still don't have it all done. It's not that I have that much (okay, I just heard my husband snicker from his classroom) its just that it takes a lot of a certain something that I am lacking these days....ENERGY!! If it weren't for the joy that is in my children's hearts, voices and on their faces every time they see the tree or something new I've put out, I would say it's totally not worth it. But they are really enjoying the season this year and Audrey sings Frosty the Snowman all day long!! They enjoyed helping trim their first tree, make their first ginger bread house and really, really like singing Christmas songs with us. They know more songs and words than I thought!!