Grocery Store Mayhem

I learned a very important lesson today about grocery shopping on sunday- you will be punished for it somehow. I usually don't do my shopping on sunday but since we were gone all day thursday, friday and saturday I didn't have a chance to go yet. All my necessities were gone, no bread, milk, butter, chicken, cereal, eggs....So in order to eat dinner and not order out I decided to brave the rain and do my grocery shopping today. I made my menu for the next 2 weeks, made my list then Cayson and I headed out into the pouring rain. Everything was going really well until right before we went to check out. I decided rootbeer floats really sounded good so I grabbed some vanilla icecream then went to get some IBC rootbeer, you know, the kind in the glass bottles. I put my hand on the cardboard carrier, turned to make sure Cayson wasn't pulling anything down to break it, and while pulling mine out pulled another one out with the corner of mine and it fell and all 6 rootbeers shattered on the floor spilling rootbeer all over my pant legs. Now I'm embarassed because everyone is looking at me and Cayson is yelling "Mama broke the soda!" Once a worker came over I went to stand in line to check out. I started putting things on the checkout stand and Cayson decided he wanted to help. He started out with the IBC rootbeer, dropping one bottle in the cart. I told him not to grab anything and let me put things up by myself. I proceeded to put things up and turned around just as he was getting the eggs out, followed by dropping the egg carton and spilling eggs (an 18 pack) all over the contents of my cart and the floor. We finally got checked out and somehow I didn't strangle my 3 year old that just wanted to help. Luckily I kept my frusteration under control and told him how nice it was that he wanted to help but next time to listen when I tell him not to grab things. So we'll see how next time goes. As to the sunday shopping....I will avoid it at all costs! Oh and not the mention all the things that I forgot. Did I not see them on my list?!?!?

The date is set!

Our delivery date was set today.....scary! My c-section is set for Thursday, February 21st. I'll be exactly 32 weeks which is 4 weeks from tomorrow. I feel like I am cheating since I'm not going the full 40 weeks, but its not by choice. If we weren't having problems we obviously wouldn't be delivering early so I guess I shouldn't feel that way. Now that we have the day set, and it is so soon, I am starting to feel sad that it is almost over. I actually like being pregnant...it does have a few very nice perks! I am very excited to see her but sad about missing the last 2 months. And I am going to miss feeling her move too. This may not be going as planned and hoped for but in 4 weeks I will have a pretty little girl and none of this will make a difference. Maybe next time??? Cayson went with me today to see the Dr. He was fascinated by hearing the heartbeat and wanted to hear it again. The Dr even put the doppler up to him so he could hear his own heartbeat. He thought it was the coolest thing and wanted to take it home with us. I wish I had a picture of his face when he heard the baby, it was priceless! That's it!

5 weeks to go...

Here are some new pictures of Carly. She's looking like more of a little person now. I think she looks mostly like Thad right now but its hard to tell still. Please, someone tell me she looks like me too!!!! And yep, you read right. We don't have the date yet (we will schedule that on wednesday) but we are delivering at 32 weeks...that is 5 weeks away! I actually hit 32 weeks on Feb. 22nd but don't plan on scheduling the delivery until the following week. We did better this past month with the growth issue. The brain size only increased 4 mm which is good considering the previous month it increased 10 mm. Our Dr thinks she may be stabilizing but the swelling is still way above and beyond the severe point. He says that as long as the brain doesn't start pushing on the skull we have a good shot at the brain recovering but we wont know anything until she comes. We have our next ultrasound in 3 weeks, Feb 8th. He'll look at the pictures and as long as everything looks okay we'll have 2 weeks to go. SCARY!!! I am not looking to foreward to staying in the hospital for almost a week but I guess we do what we have to. The bright side for me is less stretch marks, no episiotomy (of course my other incision will be larger and probably more painful but the idea of being cut down there just makes that seem worse...), good pain drugs, no false labor or 5 trips to the hospital, and not going through 36 hours of labor. I'll put up my new due date when we find out! Thank you everyone for keeping us and Carly in your prayers. I have no doubt that we may have gotten different news if we didn't have so many people keeping us in their prayers.

This picture is my favorite...she looks like she is smiling and her cute little hand is in her face!

My news for now...

We saw the neurosurgeon on Friday January 4th for the first time. He looked at our MRI films and brain scan images and came to the same conclusion that the other Dr's had. The swelling is pretty severe. The ventricles are over 3 times the size that they should be. At the time of the MRI there was about 10mm between her skull and the brain (in the back) which doesn't leave much room for any more growth. He feels that with the swelling being so severe that it is in her best interest to deliver early. We are talking as early as 30 weeks (4 weeks away) and probably no later than 34-36 weeks. I obviously do not want to have a baby 10 weeks early so I am hoping for as late as we can go. We will deliver at Good Sam and she should be able to stay there as long as I'm there. (at least that's what the Dr says...fingers crossed!) Then she will be transported to Phoenix Children's as long as she is stable enough. Two options, they will either place a small catheter in her head to drain fluid or draw fluid out daily with a needle to relieve pressure until she is healthy enough to have a shunt placed. Things can change since her condition is very unpredictable. We have another brain scan on friday and then see the neurosurgeon next monday to hopefully determine when we will deliver. He says they see the most growth between 25-30 weeks so this is a scary time and we are hoping that there isn't so much growth that we have to deliver before 30 weeks. At least I'm somewhat prepared to have a baby early, some people go into labor and have no idea that they will have a premie. That's it for now, hopefully I'll have some more information next week!

Winter at the cabin

We just got home from a week long trip to the cabin. We had so much fun while we were there, despite being sick. We flew into Salt Lake then rented a car and stayed with my sister Tondi overnight before heading up to Island Park on sunday morning. We switched our rental car for a 4WD before we left and good thing cause it snowed the whole way up and the roads were covered with ice. We did a 5 1/2 hour trip in 8 hours...and did I mention that I forgot our DVD player? 8 hours in the car with Cayson+no entertainment= an excruciatingly long trip! On monday Thad went snow mobiling and Cayson played out in the snow with his cousins. I stayed inside because I was just coming down with the cold from hell (which I eventually passed on to Thad, Cayson and Tondi...sorry!) On tuesday I finally emerged and went outside to watch everyone sled, that lasted all of 30 mins before my nose made it impossible to be without tissue any longer. We made it into West Yellowstone on wednesday to get my favorite icecream. I was beginning to get cabin fever so it was nice to get out. It snowed heavily all wednesday night and all day thursday so it was an indoor day. On friday Travis brought the girls up and the guys went out snow mobiling again. We left on saturday to drive down and stay the night in Rexburg with Travis before driving back down to Salt Lake on sunday to fly home. Saturday night Thad and I went to the Rexburg Temple open house while Cayson played with the girls at Travis and Becky's house. The drive down went smooth, roads weren't too bad and it only took 4 1/2 hours...yea!!! We are back home and back to the real life which is sometimes a bummer. We had a fun time and plan on going back up next winter break!

I finally made it out of the house!!! My ski pants were size 4...they didn't fit very well!

Thad and Cayson on the sled. This is what Cayson looks like before the ride!

This is what Cayson looks like after the ride, snow covering his face and crying. Still he wanted to go again, how easily he forgot.

But its okay if he puts the snow in his face from eating it...

Making snow angels and Coco watching over

We're alive...

Just a quick post to say "We're ALIVE"! We've been gone at the cabin in Idaho for just over a week and got back tonight. I do have a baby update which I will hopefully get to posting tomorrow or tuesday, depends on how my day goes. And we have some fun pictures from the cabin too! Until then, we are alive and I will hopefully get some extra time on my hands soon!

Wildlife World Zoo

We went to the Wildlife World Zoo today with Maury, Connor and Cash. It was our first time there and we really had a lot of fun. Cayson loved looking at all the animals. They are doing a bunch of improvements to the zoo so by next year there should be new exhibits.

On the train
Feeding the giraffe
Some kind of animal with really big horns
As soon as we got out snacks the monkeys were right at the fence, too bad we couldn't feed them. This monkey was swinging around the whole enclosure, he was funny to watch.