Raising Organized People

One of my biggest pet peeves-Messes, clutter, and unorganization. I think that teaching my children to clean up after themselves and be organized is one of the most annoying things I have faced in parenting. Olivia already seems to like organization and clean space but she definitely has a long way to go. Romeo on the other hand I swear could live in a landfill. He is very messy and careless, I'm sure part of being a boy, but still. I think its funny how he is that way but when he goes to a messy house of a friend or someone else he lets me know he really dislikes it. Another hard thing is having them do their daily routine and little chores without being reminded. They only have a few things to do but somehow seem to forget quite often. Its crazy because they say that repetition is the best way to remember things but you'd think each day was the first time they were told to brush their teeth or take a shower.

This past school year I made them both weekly charts of their daily routine and they had to check off each thing that they were suppose to do in the morning and then report to me when they were done. No nagging on my part at all, they had a certain time to get it all done by. That worked out quite well. Of course once I stopped doing these charts thinking they had it down, noone could remember a thing. So here we are, back to charts because I hate asking them to do things more than once and constantly nagging for things to get picked up.

I talked to my mother the other day about this and how much it bothers me because it puts a lot of extra stress on me and I, a good amount of the time just end up doing everything myself. My mother said, " I have been telling your brother Dan for over 20 years now not to leave his shoes in front of the door and he still does it when he comes to visit to this day." She said," Sometimes they never get it! I remember her saying to me and my brothers when we were younger that she wonders how our houses would look when we grew up because we made such messes.

Funny thing is, is that all of us are neat people, and my brother Dan well, he never leaves his shoes in front of the door at his own house so we must have learned something even if we didn't show it living with her. Maybe its just the comfort of her and knowing she could take care of it and did it well, not knowing how much she did need us to do our part. Maybe that's how my children feel. Thing is though, I don't think I can stand to see if it happens until they move out, especially with another child on the way. I guess its a work in progress as is everything else when you are raising kids but for now charts it is!

HOT HOT Summer-Finally!

The weather here has been hot and humid lately, I do not mind at all! It seemed that we would never get a summer this year and now here it is full strength, it has been in the upper 90's with a heat index of 105-115! We finally upgraded our little plastic baby pool to a more appropriate size for an 11 and 8 year old. They love it so much and have been taking full advantage of the weather to use it.

Little Gabriel will be 10 months this Thursday, cant believe it! I enjoy everyday watching him grow and learn new things. He is now crawling at full speed, pulling up to standing and his newest milestone is standing without holding on to anything. I am quite sure he will walk before his first birthday. He is such a strong willed little boy and wants to do everything for himself. He has let us know lately that baby food and being fed by us just isn't going to happen anymore, so our biggest challenge has been finding good things he can feed himself that are soft enough ( since he has yet to get any teeth) but easy enough for him to pick up. Its been a bit hard.

I planted a few different vegetables and herbs this year and they are doing very well considering they are in big pots. My first few tomatoes are turning red and I cant wait to make pico de gallo salsa and eat warm tomatoes fresh off the plant, my absolute favorite! My mint plant is huge so I am going to have to make fresh spring rolls and start drying some for winter. I love summer and am not going to complain about the heat, after all before we know it , there will be snow on the ground once again and we will be longing for these dog days of summer.

So Far so Good

Since I haven't blogged in awhile let me start by catching you up on this crazy pregnancy. We are now at 26 weeks. I can't believe how fast the time is going by. At 15 weeks we had an amniocentesis and found out that the baby does infact have the E antigen that my body is making such high antibodies against. The name of the condition is Anti-E alloimmunization. Since then we have been going to the doctor about every 10-14 days for ultrasounds to measure blood velocity in an artery in the baby's brain to see if any signs of anemia are apparent. So far all of our appointments have resulted in good news. Starting at 28 weeks we have to go in every 7 days for fetal non-stress testing on top of our ultrasounds and regular ob checkups.

I am in good spirits about it all still and know that what we have to do is what we have to do for a healthy baby. I have been getting quite uncomfortable early on though so I do dream of the day when my body has a chance to recover from being pregnant for what seems like so long, I actually don't even feel like I had a 4 month break inbetween. I look forward to next summer when I have no restrictions and have my wonderful family all here, healthy, to enjoy it with!

Bad Blogger

When It comes to blogging, I am terrible at it. I honestly would rather write in my journal or Facebook. Its so much less time consuming to just update your status about your life in a nutshell or pour out your heart to a piece of paper that wont ever be able to judge you. I also would rather pick up the phone and talk to someone personally. I do like blogging though because its a place to keep memories, something i am big on.

This Thursday I will be 15 weeks along in my pregnancy and that is also the day we find out more about how the baby is doing, I can't wait. We did get the blood results back from Prob and it turns out he does have the antigen that my body is making antibodies to so that is scary because the baby probably does too. We'll know more Thursday and I'll try to remember to post a blog.

Here are some pictures to catch you up on whats been going on around here.

Our trip to Duluth-Gabriel was so afraid of the waterpark and snuggled me the whole time, I didn't mind that part. The older children had a blast and some very nice people we didn't even know paid for our meal the first day we were there. Thank You whoever you are!We walked the boardwalk on Lake Superior, it was beautiful and the kids loved it!



Gabriel's first time playing outside in the trampoline, he loves outside

Romeo teaching Gabe how to play guns, he seemed to like it to, go figure, all boy already!

Gabriel's first time at the park, he was so happy!

My first knit project, Romeo got me into trying to learn. I am currently working on booties originally for Gabe but I finished the first one and it is too small for him so I guess they'll be for the new baby. The first bootie looks great though.



At the Cambodian temple for the New Year, our first time going since I met my husband, good experience for the children and I also liked it even though it was yucky out.



Gabe just had his first sickness, took him to the Dr and he had an ear infection and a terrible cold, antibiotics are helping him recover. He got to sleep with Mommy and Daddy for 4 nights.



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Our very neat Easter eggs that we dyed with Men's silk ties from an idea we got from a thrift store, so cool. Check out the recipe below and give it a try!

My First Easter

Our friends Florence and Eleanor

HAPPY EASTER!

Uncle Dan ( who is going skydiving next week) and the boys

Daddy and Gabe at our trip to Linder's to check out the beautiful flowers I can't wait to buy and plant!

Also, to anyone who I am friends with on Facebook, alot of my friends got deleted by accident and whoever I noticed I re added but please check and see if I overlooked you and re add me ( if u want lol)! Have a great rest of the week (: 

When life hands you lemons...I am really sick of lemonade!

Could things be easy for us when it comes to pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum? I was hoping since the 3rd time was not a charm that the fourth would have to be, I can't be that unlucky, but I found out I am and somehow ended up with another complication that only happens in like 1% of pregnancies.

I had some of the routine first trimester blood work done and it came back that I have antibodies to certain things in blood. I was referred to a Perinatologist (for those of you who don't know it is a doc that is specialized in high risk pregnancies.) To make a long story short if my baby has a certain blood type that my body has made antibodies against my body will destroy the baby's red blood cells and cause anemia in the baby. Treatment? Very frequent ultrasounds to measure blood in the brain to check for anemia and if anemia happens the baby will have to get blood transfusions via a needle inserted into my stomach and through the umbilical cord. Sounds like fun for both of us huh?I asked how likely it will be that the baby will be affected. They said based on the high number of antibodies in my blood it is very likely. Damn.

So the next step is getting my husbands blood type looked at to see if he is going to pass the baby the type my body has antibodies to. Second at 15 weeks will have follow up bloodwork and an amniocentesis, which I haven't ever had so I am nervous. I guess the doc said for now it won't affect the baby until about the 18th week and I am 11 weeks now. I will keep you updated.

On a cheerier subject, spring is near, I can feel it. I have been thinking about planting flowers, having sheets on the bed that smell wonderful from being hung outside, having the windows open and barbecuing. I can't wait for the children to be able to play outside and to be able to take these hyper dogs to the dog park. The down side to the transition from winter to spring is all the dog poop that surfaces, and the muddy dog feet that have to be cleaned, woohoo! I love my animals but Life would be so much easier without them *sigh*.

This and that

It's been awhile. Been so exhausted I could barely function. Nausea, driving kids to and from school, taking care of a baby, house,animals and much more in the midst of the first trimester of pregnancy has been alot. I am finally starting to get a little bit of energy back (just a little) and the nausea is definitely getting better.

We celebrated Prob's 33rd birthday on the 15th and we got a rare night out alone to one of our favorite places, Mancini's restaurant, it was a short date but it was nice.

I was the parent volunteer this past week at a girl scout meeting for Olivia's troop. The girls came up with ideas for a community service project and then voted on their favorite. Helping out at the humane society was the top choice. Gabriel came with and he was a big hit with all the girls. Olivia however did not like sharing her baby brother and was so worried about the way the girls were holding him.

 I have been so proud and happy lately when I watch the kids with Gabriel. Olivia especially. She has always been such an overachiever, good helper, rule follower, amazing child and definitely wise beyond her years. Since Gabriel has been born she has been an amazing help and wonderful big sister. Today she was giving Gabriel a massage. She is always making him things, the latest being a book dedicated to him. She knows how much he loves smiley faces so if she isn't making him one at school she is pulling up an image online when he is fussy while playing lullaby's in a separate tab to keep him happy while mommy is busy doing something else. He loves her so much already. When he sees her his whole face lights up and they already have an amazing bond, even though they are 8 years apart. She is something else and is the kindest person I know. I love all the children so much and am so blessed to have them.

Feeding her baby brother



Spring break this week for the children, which is very nice when I don't have to drive them to and from school. It is supposed to be nice and the children have really been enjoying being outside so hopefully they can get alot of that in. The snow has finally melted enough too so that the dogs aren't walking over the fence which means they get to be outside more too, which is much needed.

That's just a little bit of whats been going on around here, haven't been taking many pictures because my cameras aren't great, my new phone actually has a better camera on it then my camera. A new one is in the plans soon but I want to do alot of research before we  buy one so we'll see, sometime before baby #4 is born, we have some time.



BEST FAMILY EVER!

And so baby #4 is OK and cooking

Friday we got another ultrasound ands the results are in. Baby #4 is A OK, in the uterus where he or she should be and we even got to see the little specks heartbeat. They even gave me a picture of what looks like the little dot but we all know how fast that will change and before we know it we'll be going crazy taking care of 2 babies (Gabe and the new one will only be about a year apart) and two older children. So I think I'll enjoy that little speck being in there for now and the horrible nausea it's been causing me. I am excited though about the good news and am getting use to the idea that this is going to happen again. The ultrasound estimated that I am about 6 1/2 weeks and not surprised that our due date is October 20th. Rome's birthday is 10-5 Olivia's 10-24 and Gabriel is 9-21. That time of year is getting quite expensive, I think it's time we find a better hobby for new years lol.