Poinsettia Bowl

To end the football season off right, Mike was able to go to the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego. He went with a friend and his son and nephew. He had a lot of fun, despite BSU losing by one point!

The game was the day before Christmas Eve, and they were flying home on Christmas Eve. I was sure I was going to be husbandless on Christmas Eve, and to be honest I thought possibly Christmas day, because of the bad weather. They were flying home through Seattle and Portland - where there were lots of delays and cancellations. But Mikey pulled through and even got home earlier than planned. This was due to the misfortune of others missing their connecting flights due to the weather, so they were able to get on an earlier flight. I think Mike had the feeling that he may not make it home either because on Christmas morning I got to open up a new Kitchen Aid, which Mike went way over his allowed budget for. Isn't it is great to get a guilt gift!

Crazy Hayden

We have been working on potty training Hayden. He went potty on the toilet and got to go to one of his favorite places... Chuck E. Cheese. Even though it is one of his favorites, he does not like it when the "real" Chuck E. comes out. He was clinging to Mike with all he had. I felt bad for him, but it was pretty funny. We hyped up going to Chuck E. Cheese if he went on the toilet, so the other day I was going to the bathroom and Hayden got really excited, clapped and said "Yeah!!! You went pee-pee Mommy, you get to go to Chuck E. Cheese!" Yes, there is no privacy in this house!

The other night Hayden was walking around the house with these play glasses on. He was so darn cute!

Snow!!

We have been getting lots of snow! Hayden had so much fun helping Mike shovel the driveway and throwing snow on him. Mike showed him that he could eat the snow and he thought it was so funny. He came into the house laughing and thinking it was so neat. He kept saying "I eat the snow Mommy," and laughing.

Finally

Because of being on bedrest, and having McKall (so basically a lack of contact with the outside world for two months) I may be a little late on celebrating this, but I filled up my car today for $20.67. This is amazing because the last time I filled up my car it was three times as much. I hope it stays low like this. I remember in high school I had a little Toyota Tercel that I could fill up for $10.00 (gas was $.99) and I could go forever in that little car! Ahhhhhhhh, wouldn't that be nice again.

The most wonderful time of the year

The past couple of weeks have gone so fast as we have been adjusting to having McKall here. She is the sweetest baby ever. I just love her so much. Most of my day is spent keeping Hayden off of her because he also loves her so much. It is so sweet to watch him with her, but I am also afraid to have them be alone together. So, I am constantly saying "Hayden where are you," or "What are you doing." He loves to give her kisses and rub his little nose and face on hers, or give her toys to play with. He has only tried to pick her up once, but he learned fast it was not ok. He is a big helper when it comes to changing her diaper and feeding her (which is happening a lot!) I am happy to say that McKall has been much easier than Hayden was. She is an easier baby, but I think that Mike and I were just crazy not knowing what the heck we were doing with Hayden.

Mike and Hayden put Christmas lights up on the house. Hayden had fun "helping" his daddy. He really wanted to climb up on the roof!

I took Hayden to the night light parade. When the floats were coming he kept saying "Whoa," and "they keep coming and coming!" He had so much fun. Mike stayed home with McKall so Mommy and Hayden could have some time together since I have been a bit more busy these days!

Mike and Hayden went on a tree hunting adventure to find the perfect tree! They picked out a beautiful tree. We had fun putting it up together, and Hayden was fascinated by the lights. Our house smells so yummy too.

Welcome Baby McKall

McKall Lydia Marshall, 11-26-08, 5 lb. 8 oz., 18 inches long. We are so excited to have McKall here with us! The labor and delivery went very well and she is a happy, healthy baby! She has dark hair, which surprised us all. Hayden is in love with her and wants to help us with changing her diaper and feeding her. He loves to give her kisses and asks to hold her. He is a typical two year old around her, aka... a bull in a china store... so we have to watch him pretty close when they are together. She is such a sweet baby and so adorable on top of it! It is so fun to finally have her here. I have had problems loading pics on this blog, so I will be adding more pics later, but I got this one to load so I thought I would go ahead with out the rest.... so keep checking if you are interested in seeing more!

A little early

I know that Thanksgiving hasn't even passed, but I thought I would change my blog to Christmas now since I will be occupied with McKall soon. Plus, I already had my Thanksgiving on Sunday since I will be in the hospital on Thursday. So there!

The day is....

Tuesday! I am being induced Tuesday (probably later at night) and will have her on Wednesday! I am still waiting to hear from the doctor on when to check into the hospital, but that is the plan so far. I spent an exhausting Thursday at three doctors/hospital appointments to determine this. First, I had my regular appointment with my doctor. She did an ultrasound and McKall was behind in growth and the doc found a few other things that she was looking for to determine if I needed to be induced. The doctor wanted to determine if I needed to be induced that day, or if we could wait, so she sent me to the hospital to do a non-stress test and have blood work done. That determines if the baby is under any type of stress at all. After being strapped up and poked the baby was was fine. Then she called the maternal fetal specialist to see if she would squeeze us in to do another ultrasound and other readings that my doc can't do with her machine. So we headed there and got to see McKall again. The specialist also determined that she was not growing like they would like to see and decided she needed to come out, but she didn't feel it was an emergency, so we will be headed in on Tuesday. They estimated her to be 5 something (it was a long day!) pounds. So she will be a little thing like Hayden. Please have us in your thoughts and pray that she will be healthy! We are very excited and it is nice to finally have an end to the bed rest.

Update

So, I haven't been doing much of anything interesting to write about. I could tell you what the walls look like and how many movies I have watched, and how I have searched everything on the Internet that I can think of.... but it is boring enough for me so I won't subject you to my boredom. Actually, bed rest has been going ok. I am so thankful to all who have helped with Hayden, meals, cleaning, and those who have just called or stopped by to say "hi." I think we are going to get through this!! I had a doc appointment on Thursday and everything is going well. Darn it, the bed rest is working! We were hoping that she would say I could resume my normal life, but no such luck. She did say that it is likely that I will be induced at 38 weeks. So, that is only a few weeks away. That could change of course, so I right now I am just trying to make it appointment to appointment to check the progress. I go back next Thursday... so hopefully more news then. I extended my bed rest to my friends house and had my baby shower last Saturday. I was spoiled with so many cute things and the cuteness keeps coming from those who could not make it to the shower. All I can say is I love pink, purple and everything girly!! This little girl is not going to be in a clothing or hair bow deficit. I got four beautiful handmade quilts. I know such talented people.

Check this out!

I found this quilt giveaway on a friends blog. The quilts are amazingly beautiful and you can enter to win too. Click here and enter away! Good luck... but I hope I win! Here is the quilt I picked.

My little cowboy

Here is my sweetie all dressed up for Halloween! He was so darn cute. He went trick-or-treating to a few houses, but I don't think he was quite sure about it. I wasn't sure that he was going to wear the cowboy hat, but he was really good about it. The funniest thing was when he tried to walk in the boots... they were really stiff and hard to walk in, so he looked pretty silly. He ended up not wearing them.

What we have been doing

Along with my expert quilting friend, Anjela, I made a quilt for Hayden's new big boy bed and room. It was a lot of fun learning how to make it. I have only tied quilts before, so this was a whole new experience for me. It was a lot of work, but well worth it! Thanks to the help from Anjela, we finished it the day before I was put on best rest. Thankgoodness! Hayden loved helping with it too. He would ask me if I was going to work on the "fagrit" (fabric) all of the time and he was so excited to put it on his bed. We went to the pumpkin patch with some friends. Hayden has been obsessed with pumpkins this year so he had so much fun finding his pumpkin and going on a hay ride. Mike gets together with his high school buddies every year to play football. Here are all of the kiddos. Every year this picture multiplies!

It also snowed while we were there! Hayden played outside and loved it! Here are the boys before their game started.

Uggggh!

I have been put on bed rest. Not too happy about it, but I know that this is what needs to happen right now. I have Pregnancy Induced Hypertension (my blood pressure keeps getting high through the pregnancy). This can cause the baby to stop growing. She is fine now... measuring where she should, so the bed rest will hopefully help her to keep growing the way she should. I had this with Hayden and he was only 5 pounds when they induced me around 37 weeks. I didn't have to do bed rest with Hayden though. Different doctor, different ways? So, hopefully she will be bigger than he was. I have cried a couple of rivers over this, but I think I am sorta coming to terms that this is what I will be doing for the next 4-6 weeks. I just hate asking for help, but I am grateful for the friends and family members who are willing to help Mike and I with Hayden and things around the house. It is hard for me to have people clean my house and to send Hayden away, but he will probably love it! He loves playing with friends and being with his grandparents. As for me, I will be reading lots of blogs, and books and watching lots of TV and movies. For Mike's sake I will also try not to be a pain from the couch or bed as I watch my house go crazy! I am so lucky to have my sweet Mike. This is not going to be easy for him, but he has been really good about it.

Hayden is two going on twenty. He is very independent right now, and here are some of the ways he is showing it. He has started going to "Kids Club," which is basically a play group/pre-pre school with Miss Annie. He loves it. I dropped him off the other day and was talking a bit to the mom's when Hayden pointed to the door and said "Out Mommy," giving me a little push. When we are shopping at the store he puts both of his hands out in front of him and says "You stay there Mommy" while he walks ahead of me. He gets very upset if I try to follow him (imagine me trying to follow him, how rude of me!). He won't let us put him in his car seat, he has to climb up into it all by himself, and takes his sweet time doing most days too I will add. If all three of us are together he definitely prefers his daddy over me. We were eating at Taco Time today and he would not share my food with me, he only wanted daddy's taco. He also tells me to stay home when we are all heading to the car. He does tons of other little funny things all day long... I love that little guy.

Help!

This morning I took some mail out to the mail box, and put the flag up so it would be picked up. Later this afternoon I had to go to the store, so on my way to the car I noticed that the flag was down, which obviously means the mail had been picked up and I had new mail waiting for me. I got the mail and then went to the store. As I was driving home from the store I suddenly started panicking about the mail because I didn't know where I had put it. I usually set it on my front seat if I grab it while I am heading out, and it was not there. It was not in my purse...I must have left it sitting on the car, oh crap. I started panicking even more, hoping there wasn't anything important. As I turned into my neighborhood I started scanning it to find my lost mail. I saw an envelope at the corner by my house, so I parked the car and went to see if it had our name...nope, just an empty envelope. Hayden was still in the car, so I unloaded him and our sacks. I must have brought it in the house I was telling myself. By the time I got Hayden in and unloaded all of our stuff I apparently forgot about being totally panicked because I sort of forgot about it and made lunch. Later on my friend Jess called and somehow I remembered it again. I told her the story and she told be how stupid I was (just kidding, she was just thinking it). After hanging up with her I decided that even though I had already gotten the mail I better go check the box... I found the mail! So I hadn't really gotten the mail - yep, I am just crazy. Being pregnant does really weird things to your brain.

Horsey

I thought this was pretty cute, and funny.... Yesterday Hayden had just woken up from a late nap. He sometimes has a hard time waking up (he didn't get that characteristic from his mom) after his naps. He was having trouble being happy, and for some reason he really loves to pull, hold, yank, or rub my hair. I was getting ready to make dinner and he asked to "pull hair mommy" and I told him no because I have to make dinner. He was not very happy with this and started crying, for a long time. He cried so long about my hair that it turned into involuntary crying ( hard to explain involuntary crying, but you know when you have just cried so hard and so long your body just kind of goes into convulsions). We tried calming him down and nothing was working... we were trying everything and the stinker would not stop! It was getting to the point of frustration for Mike and I and then Mike said "Do you want to gallop like a horsey?" Immediately Hayden stopped crying, looked at Mike and said "yes" and hopped up and began galloping. He was happy again. It was so funny that after all of the "parenting skills" we tried to console him with, that was what worked!

Jealousy at the Thrift Store

Hayden and I had plans today to go shopping with a friend but her little girl got sick, so, instead of wasting a planned day of shopping we decided to check out all of the thrift stores around to look for Hayden's Halloween costume. I love to shop at thrift stores. You can find so many neat things, among the junk. Maybe that is why I like it so much, because most of the time it is useless things but every so often you will come across something that you can't live without! Hayden is going to be a cowboy, so we are looking for a leather/suede vest and boots. No luck... at least for those items. We were at our second place and I was looking at the bedding. I found a brand new bed skirt for Hayden's big boy bed. I was very excited because this one was a third of the cost of the one I had found at Target, for exactly the same thing. I skipped over to the next set of racks... this is when my jealously at the thrift store started. I eyed a brand new looking comforter/quilt in the exact time that a lady walked over to it and started inspecting it.

What.......... that is mine.......... I saw it first......... you really don't want that........ your son is way younger than mine, there is no way he is ready for a big boy bed.

I am embarrassed and ashamed to say these were my thoughts as I stood there watching this lady look at this comforter/quilt, that I wanted to at least look at to even know if I should even be having these feelings and thoughts. I hovered for what seemed like for ever..... and then she walked away. She bought it. I was sad. Now that I think about it, it was ugly, there is no way it would have worked in Hayden's room. Hmmmmmmmmm. Sigh.

The letter "F"

Mike and I are both excited because it is Football season, which means it is going to be Fall soon. I like Football, but I must say that I am way excited for Fall... cooler weather, pretty colors, new decorations, etc. Last night we went to the season opener BSU Football game with our Friends, Collin and Elizabeth. Elizabeth and I are only two weeks apart in our pregnancies, so we took bathroom breaks, waddled together and complained about being uncomfortable ( we had so much Fun!) This is Mike's Freaky Football Face ( a.k.a. I am so excited to be here Face). This is Collin and Elizabeth. Mike and Collin have season tickets, so they will be enjoying all of the games together.

It's a...

Myspace Layouts

We had another appointment today. We got the confirmation that it is a girl (Although the doc still said save receipt's. I don't think she likes to be fully responsible if it is the opposite gender)! The appointment went well, but we had a bit of a scare. While doing the ultrasound Dr. Z said my amniotic fluid was very low, low enough that she was pretty concerned. She measured the levels and did testing to make sure I was not leaking fluid. She was talking about hospitalizing me.... scary. After the testing was done she concluded that I was not leaking fluid, but that I was most likely dehydrated. The levels were ok enough that she decided to not hospitalize me but told me to drink massive amounts of fluid, don't get hot, and take it easy. I have a follow-up appointment to assure the fluid is returning back to where it should be. Although this happened the baby is healthy and growing a lot! She has been doing gymnastics the last few days in my tummy. I have been feeling a little sick, and I guess I didn't eat or drink enough. I didn't think it would be this easy to get dehydrated, so it makes me wonder how many times in my life I have been dehydrated with out even knowing. So, with that said, I need to go drink some more water... and you should too.

Tricky Hayden

Yesterday Hayden and I were out shopping with my mom for the baby's bedding/room decor. We stopped for some lunch. Hayden had fries and a sandwich, and would have been perfectly happy just eating his fries. I told him he had to have another couple bites of his sandwich before he could have more fries. He picked it up and looked at me from the corner of his eye and slowly licked the sandwich, in hopes of fooling his mom and grandma that he had taken a bite, anticipating more fries. It was all we could do to not burst out laughing at this, but we didn't want him to think it was funny or OK! I love that tricky Hayden for the many times a day he makes me laugh.

Chicago!

Last night I headed back to the fair with my cousins Sarah, and Megan and my Aunt Karen and Uncle Wayne for the "Chicago" Concert. I love "Chicago" and the concert was so much fun to say the least. We had to wait in long lines in the heat and run to our seats but we made it and it was so worth it. The best part was when they sang "Your the Inspiration," it's my favorite song. The baby must have liked it too because she was dancing a lot! I have fond memories of belting out ballads with Sarah (in the middle of the pic) at ISU when we were roommates, so it was fun to be there with her. I have put some "Chicago" music on for you to enjoy :)

Latest Adventures...

We went to the Discovery Center with Grandma Wyler, Aunt Angie and Hayden's cousins. His favorite part was the big "bubble wall". If you look closely at the picture you can see Hayden and Grandma blowing on the soap to make the bubble. Then we went to the Zoo with some friends, Jessica, Ainsley, and Owen. Hayden was able to touch a hedgehog and a snake. He wanted me to touch the snake, yuck! Next Mike, Hayden and I went to the Western Idaho Fair. I have always loved the fair! Hayden ate a pronto pup, I had an onion burger, and Mike had a Basque Sausage, and we all shared a huge thing of french fries! We were so stuffed that we passed on dessert...I think that is a first for us at the fair. Hayden fed the animals in the petting zoo. He was totally different at the fair this year... last year he wanted nothing to do with the animals. I was kind of bummed out that I wasn't able to ride any scary rides this year (they have this weird rule that pregnant women can't be scared to death 1000 feet in the air). So sad. Our next adventure was a little weird, but good weird. We went to a place called "Walter's Landing" with Mike's Family. Mike's mom found this place and wanted to take us all there, and it was her birthday so as creepy as she made it sound we couldn't say no! It is really hard to describe (one of those places you just have to see for yourself) but it is basically this mile long walking loop where a rich, and possibly bored, lady has set up figurines and oddities to look at along the way. It is actually neat in a creepy weird way. Go check it out sometime. After Walter's Landing we had lunch at Settler's Park. They have a little water park area there that Hayden loves. We went there a few weeks ago with Amy, Baylee, Cayden, and Caleb.

Whew!!! This summer has been fun!!

Hayden's little buddy, Elmo

Hayden is obsessed with Elmo. He has one Elmo video (we desperately need to buy him more for some variety) that he wants to have on all day long. He will sit and watch it one time through, but then he wants it playing while he is playing with other stuff around the house. He walks around all day saying "Melmo" and tries to put the DVD in to watch it. At first it was cute, but now it is just plain annoying. I have the song "la la la la la la la la Elmo's world" running through my head at all times. He was never interested in T.V before he found Elmo, so part of it is kind of good because there are just times that I need him to sit and be occupied with something because he is such a busy body. I am frustrated today because he was watching it on the laptop yesterday and now I can't get it out of the computer, I don't know what he did to it, so now he is not only asking to watch Elmo all day long he is saying " Melmo, computer broke" over and over. Help, I think I might go crazy!

It's a girl...we think!

We went to the doc today, very excited to find out if Hayden was going to have a little sister or brother. However, the little stinker had it's legs up, wouldn't turn when we needed it to, etc. We are pretty sure it is a girl, but the doc had to make her disclaimer that it could still be a boy. So, even though I have felt that the baby was a girl the whole time I will not be out tomorrow buying cute little girl clothes like I was hoping to...ok, I would have been out buying boy stuff too (I just like to shop and I would have had a reason boy or girl)! We will go back in a month and should hopefully know for sure then.

What do you remember?

This was on my friend Jessica's blog, and it looked fun...

1. As a comment on my blog, leave a memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! 2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see what people remember about you!

4th of July

I know it has been 20 days since the 4th of July, but I have had really good intentions of posting about our holiday adventures. And, our computer crashed, so I was without my computer for a while. That is a whole other story, but I just have to vent for a second. What kind of weird and twisted people write viruses and spyware? All I am going to say is that I have equated them with murders and thieves. I have my computer back now, so all is well. Ok, back to our vacation... We got to go to the Oregon Coast thanks to Mike's grandparents! They got their entire family rooms on the beach in Florence, Oregon. It was so much fun spending time there and seeing Mike's family. We went to Sea Lion Caves, the Aquarium, went to tide pools, walked the beach, watched some fireworks on the beach, and ate lots of yummy food. The weather was perfect, for the most part.. it was only in the 60's (I loved it because I get so hot when I am prego). Hayden loved seeing the ocean and playing in the sand. Of course I didn't take as many pictures as I wished I would have, but here are a few. We also spent a little bit of time in Portland, and we went to see my grandma Barbour's grave site. We had so much fun. Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Whittier.

Cute even when he's naughty

One of the ways we have been teaching Hayden to count and to learn his numbers is to count the stairs as we walk up and down them. He loves it and is actually learning them very quickly. Sometimes as parents Mike and I can't help but laugh at Hayden, even when he is being naughty and we shouldn't be laughing at the situation. The other day Hayden was in trouble for something, I can't even remember what it is now, so we were telling him what ever he was doing was wrong and he was in trouble, so he started crying really loud...he was mad! He was upstairs throwing his fit and I walked downstairs to ignore the tantrum he was having. He got even madder that I was leaving him so he decided to follow me. As he was screaming and walking down the stairs, with his mad crying voice he says..."two, three...". Mike and I started laughing, trying hide it from him, of course. He can be so funny and cute even when he is being naughty!

Yummy!

Mike has taken up a new yummy hobby of dutch ovening (is that a word? I think it is!). He took a class so he could learn a little more about it, and the other night he tested out his new skills on us. He was seasoning his dutch oven with Crisco and Hayden apparently thought the Crisco looked really good, so he dipped his fingers in and ate it. It was so gross...and I just had to watch Hayden's face! Hayden had a lot of fun watching daddy cook outside and seeing the fire, to light the coals. He made us a chocolate hot fudge cake and it was delish! I can't wait for him to try out some more recipes on us.

Fun stuff Hayden has been up to...

Last weekend we took Hayden to the "Cherry Festival" to watch the parade and eat some carnival food. Hayden and Mike both got foot long corn dogs, and surprisingly Hayden ate most of it. I got a corn on the cob, and we all shared some yummy, greasy, potato things. Hayden had fun watching the horses and police/fire trucks in the parade. He got to collect candy when they threw it from the floats and he was pretty proud of himself. The cutest part was after he had a big handful he would throw it back into the street because that is what the people did to him. We had to convince him that he got to keep it! After the parade we wandered around and found a petting zoo. Hayden got to feed the animals. He pretty much stuck to the goats, and yelled at one when it walked away from him because he still wanted to feed it!

We have put Hayden in a gymnastics class... he calls it "niks." It is so darn cute to watch him. I wasn't quite sure about it in the beginning because he is the youngest and smallest one in the class, so his listening and following directions skills were not quite at the level of the others, but he has really made some progress and has so much fun. He loves to run around for warm-up's, jump on the trampoline, and walk on the short balance beam (he got a little scared on the big one!). His most favorite part is at the end, however, when he gets a stamp on his hand from his coach. He loves getting the stamp and shows us his hand all week where the stamp was. Every time he hears the word gymnastics he points to his hand.

6 years!!

Today is our six year anniversary! In honor I thought I would brag about the way Mike asked me to marry him...because I think it is really fun. I will start a few weeks before the proposal. It was December 2001, and Mike and I were both attending Idaho State University. Mike was graduating so I wanted to do something fun for him on his last day. I had been asking him what he wanted to do, but he kept brushing me off and then finally told me he would plan the night. I thought that was a little weird since he was the one graduating, so my little brain started spinning and I realised he was going to propose that night. I had been waiting and waiting for him to ask me. I am not proud of this, but I had even gone into his room one day, with a friend, to see if I could find any evidence of a ring, I did find something (the receipt). So, I waited and waited! A few days before "the big night" he said, "I couldn't think of anything to do, so why don't you go ahead and plan something." I was fuming and of course discussed this with my roommate who was aware of the whole situation. I later learned that she was in on it with Mike because they knew I had figured it out...so they wanted to throw me off. I don't exactly remember the time frame, but Mike finally told me he had something planned and I needed to be ready at 4:30, all dressed up. He came to pick me up and we headed on the freeway toward Boise. For those of you not familiar with the area, once you are headed that way there is not much around. I knew we weren't going to Boise because he didn't tell me to pack. We finally turned into the tiny Pocatello airport where Mike had borrowed his company plane, and pilot (thank goodness) and he flew me to Salt Lake. When the plane landed we were picked up on the runway by a Lincoln Town Car, and I was given a dozen roses. Then we had dinner at a place so fancy that I know we will never be back again! I waited and waited, and finally on the plane ride home, really high up in the air, he proposed to me! He gave me the most beautiful ring ever. He picked it out all by himself and did better than I think I could have done. That is a whole other funny story I will tell some other time. He couldn't have done it any better...it was perfect!

And here we are six years later, with our sweet little Hayden and another on the way! I love you Mikey!