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.