Our Christmas Card...

Merry Christmas everyone. Thanks to the Fifes, we got to put together a sweet Christmas card for everyone. Hope you like it.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1119105672

My Girls

Joseph is now in WA for the weekend and he was in AZ last night so I am on my own with these two girls till Sunday night. :( The past few days I've been noticing what a big girl Ella has gotten to be. We went to the apartment playground the other day and there are somethings that she always tries to do but it's more for like a 5 yr. old. There's this ladder that is made out of solid metal but huge gaps between steps. The first step doesn't even start till 2 feet off the ground. I'm always so scared she's going to slip, fall through one of the gaps and smack her chin on the metal. Anyway, she insisted that she do it by herself. She kept pushing my hand away and saying, "Mimi go, a go Mimi". So I told her ok, and I stood to the side with sweaty palms, my heart racing and biting my lower lip. Every time she looked like she was about to slip I'd hurry and put my arms out but she'd just say, "no, Mimi, go" to me. She did it all by herself and she was soooo proud of herself for accomplishing such a feet. She would go up the ladder, run up to the slide, go down and do it all over again with such a priceless smile on her face. She kept clapping and shouting "Dayyyyy!" (yayyyy). She played like that for an hour. She gets in the car and her carseat all by herself (although it feels like it takes 20 min. for her to finally get seated). Everything is always, "Ella do it, no! Ella!" She is so independent, sometimes it's nice and sometimes it makes me crazy. Like when we are in a hurry to go somewhere and she has to tie her shoes. She has to sit there for 5 min. to figure out that she has no clue how to do it and then ask me for help. But if I try to help before she has a chance to do it then that is the end of it and the tantrums start. Then there are the days where she wants to help me and sit by me and cuddle me that make all the crazy independent days worth it. Last night she even asked me to "Bok" her. She said, "Mimi bok-eee, pees?" I didn't know what she was saying at first so I kept asking her what and finally she folded her arms and acted as if she was rocking a baby. It was so sweet. It's hard to see my little girl growing up but it's fun at the same time. She got her very first hair cut on Wed. (Sorry Stacy, I couldn't wait till Jan. it was making me crazy) and I love love love it! No more mullet! She did pretty good too. She'd move her head to look at things but kept still for the most part. Here are some pictures....

Before...The "child abuse mullet"

The After





As for little Carly-Car, I had two dr. appts. on Thursday and it seems as though she's doing just as well as last week. The fluid stayed the same but the doppler went down even more. My ob said that if she doesn't come on her own before the 22nd then he's going to induce me on the 22nd. She'll be 37 1/2 weeks so all is good there. Only bad thing....Ella's birthday is on Dec. 16th, Carly's will be the 22nd, Joseph's is the 23rd and then of course theres Christmas on the 25th. It will be quite the busy month but hey, I'm all for looking on the bright side of things so here are some good things to come out of it all.... 1)We get all the birthdays (except mine) and Christmas taken care of in one clean swipe. 2)We'll have another baby in time for a 2007 tax return. 3)All 4 of us Killians will get to make it to my brother's wedding on Jan 8th. 4)We get to meet Carly sooner than later. 5)I don't have to be pregnant for 40 weeks!

Our Happy Thanksgiving

This year we spent another Thanksgiving at home. 2 years ago we spent it at home as well because we were pregnant with Ella and she was due any day also. But that year we decided to go to Golden Corral so that we didn't have to cook. (yes, a little white trash but, we didn't have to cook) This year we decided to make our dinner and it was sooooo good. I was so excited to cook next to Joseph but I'm one of those people who do things real slow and take my time to make sure I do everything just perfect. Joseph does everything perfect AND fast. I tried to help but I guess I just couldn't keep up because next thing I realized was that I was trying to keep up with all of Joseph's dishes and cleaning up after him while he cooked pretty much the whole dinner. And it was such an amazing dinner! He did such a good job and it was the first turkey either of us has ever attempted to make and it turned out perfect. We took Ella to see her very first movie in a theater, The Bee Movie. She loved the pop corn and getting to see all the bees in the movie and walking around on the seats. We had fun taking pictures, starting our own family traditions and making fun memories. Here are some of our pictures.

Making the pie filling

Ella keeping us entertained in the kitchen

Ella being a big helper


Watching the Macy's parade togetherDon't worry about Ella and I just getting out of the shower :)



After Thanksgiving comes the notorious "Day After Thanksgiving Sales". Which I am happy to say I got to participate in this year. I went with Joseph's hometown friend Amy who lives out here also. It was her first experience of the waking up early and standing in the check-out line forever to buy something on sale. Thanks Amy! :) I woke up at 3 am and shopped for over 7 hours! Contrary to popular belief, it was a very relaxing and gratifying experience for me. I got all my Christmas shopping done that day and all before noon. :) We gave ourselves a couple of Christmas presents early this year. One was a 32 inch LCD TV. Yes, my sweet little 20" APEX tv from college finally cut out on us. And then Joseph got me a video baby monitor! I have been wanting one of these for two years now and I love it! It gives me such peace of mind and that is worth every penny spent on it. :) Saturday Joseph took work off for a total of a 4 day weekend (so awesome!) so we went out and got some ornaments for our tree and put the tree up together as a family.


Then Sunday we got to see our sister 'n law Lindsay. She is an opera singer in NYC and she came out to Vegas to sing in Messiah at UNLV. So we got a babysitter and went to see the opera. It was a nice date for us and kind of changed things up for us as opposed to your average dinner and a movie. The fun didn't end there....today I got to meet my long time college girl friend Stephanie at the airport while she had a layover on her way back home. Thanks again Steph for taking the time to visit with me. It was so nice to see you and I feel like that 45 mins. wasn't near enough to catch up almost 4 years worth! :) I got to see her cute little baby and it was fun to see her as a mommy. Last time we saw each other was a day before she got married! So here are a few pictures of our little reunion.
baby Crew was super sad b/c he was teething and Ella was so excited to hold him. Right when we sat him in her lap he took one look at her and just started giggling. It was so sweet.


Love at first sight?

In other news....just to give you a quick update... Carly is doing really well. Fluid numbers are up and doppler is down. I've still got to go to fetal monitoring twice a week now and my doctors appts. are once a week now. Kind of annoying when you know things are going to be fine but it's good to know she's doing well. :)

Baby news and a little more

Here's Carly's ultrasound pictures. Joseph thinks she's really going to look like me. She's got some pretty massive lips so I wouldn't be surprised. And don't worry, you can say it...the 3D picture is pretty creepy but I thought you could see her big lips better in the pic. Sorry if it gives you nightmares. lol

I went to my last two doctors appointments yesterday and today. I'm learning a little more about what's going on and what the doctors are looking at. If the amniotic fluid level drops below 5cm that's very dangerous and my doctor will induce me. Three weeks ago I was at 7cm. Last week I was at 11cm and this week I dropped back down to 9cm. So not as bad as 3 weeks ago but normal is around 20 cm. The doppler went higher too (not good) from last week so...to make sure things are still ok, they switched my weekly fetal assessment appts. to twice a week instead of once a week and my o.b. appts. will be weekly now b/c I'm considered high risk. The dr. said if the amniotic fluid drops to 5 cm or below they'll hospitalize me but there's no way I can be hospitalized with a 2 year old. When I talked to my o.b. dr. about it he said that he won't even mess with putting me in the hospital, he'll just induce me. He said that he's definitely not going to have me go to my due date and at the very latest, if things look good with baby's growth, doppler and amniotic fluid, he'll have me go to 39 weeks. But...to expect something more like getting induced between 36 weeks and 38 weeks. That's as long as things go like they are now, but if they drop he's inducing me right away. I'm not worried about anything and if I can make it to 34 weeks with no problems then I'll feel pretty home free. That's only 1 week away. So we pretty much will have a new baby in about 3 weeks. Crazy!
As long as I don't have this baby this weekend I'll be fine. :) For those of you who really know me, you'll know that there is nothing that will stop me from making it to the Black Friday sales! A-yo! I'm totally prepared to be up by 3, 4 am and have a full day of Christmas shopping. I am a total bargain shopper so how could I miss the Black Friday sales? I get so annoyed when I buy some thing and it goes on sale soon after. Even if I only would've saved like $3.
As for our turkey day, it starts a little early. We have decided (along with my doctor's decision for me not to leave Las Vegas) to stay home and start our own traditions and have our 1st homemade Thanksgiving dinner at home. So Joseph and I are making pies tonight to save some time and oven space tomorrow when the big cooking extravaganza begins. Joseph is an awesome cook so it will be fun to be cooking side by side with him and have some company in the kitchen. We'll see how our very first turkey turns out. Oh, and to all you Othello peeps, I'll have to brag about Joseph's birthday present. He's going to go to Othello next weekend (with out me...:( ) to watch the state championship games and is hoping Othello makes it. It'll be nice for him to see his family again too. (I'm sure most of you are going home for Thanksgiving so you probably don't care but...whatever.) Anyway...Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

The Skinny On Our Little Skinny

I got another ultrasound today, and it sounds like things are getting better. Carly is still small, but she is catching up in some areas, like weight and size of her abdomen. (they said on the last ultrasound she was almost 2 weeks behind in her weight and now she's caught up by a week.) But of course, what would one of my dr.'s appts. be if there weren't something that went wrong? Now they're saying that the amniotic fluid is lower than normal. We don't know what to think, other than Doctors say horrible things to get you to freak out, so when the baby is fine they can say, "Look we fixed the problem". Anyway, all in all, we really think everything is gonna be fine.

We did however get some more ultrasound pictures. It is nice to be able to see the baby a lot during the pregnancy and compare the ultrasound pictures and actually SEE how much she's grown. :) We're thinking she looks a lot like me. Her lips are HUGE! I really need to get these pictures up so you guys can see them. I am now 32 weeks today. Carly is measuring 16.3 inches long and weighs 3 pounds 13oz. I only have 56 days till my due date. (Or less if she comes early.) I'm really starting to feel the aches and pains of pregnancy now. I ALWAYS feel hot. It's not just a little bit hot, I feel like I'm in a sauna all the time. I wake up sweating in the middle of the night and look over at Joseph who is curled up in blankets to keep warm. Not just a little sweat either. My pillow and my underwear are wet from sweat! It's November and during the day I need the AC on! Carly may be measuring small but she sure is big in my book. :) I feel her stretching into my ribs and pushing out the sides of my stomach all day long. I'm to the point that I have to eat little amounts but all day long b/c it's all baby in that tummy and not much room for food. :)

We are really trying to get prepared for this new baby. One thing that I've really been working on is Ella. I'm so nervous that Ella will feel left out or regress with potty training, throw tantrums, or act out in other ways when this baby comes. I've been working really hard to have lots of patience with her and to really listen to what she has to say. I read something a while back that makes a lot of sense. It said that even though toddlers don't think like adults, they still have feelings and want respect. I know I only have a 2 year old but I try and show her that respect by listening to what she's saying. It's been sooo nice b/c she really listens to me and I can actually reason with her when she's upset about something. Don't get me wrong, she's still got her moments, but she rarely ever sits in time out and she respects me back. Joseph and I have been making an effort to play games with her, have family nights, talk to her about her interests, read books with her and just play and wrestle around with her every day. It's really important to me for my children to know that they are loved, that they have a family that loves them and their home is their sanctuary. I hope that I'm teaching that to Ella b/c I have NO clue what it's going to be like with 2 kids....except that it's going to be harder than 1. :)
Ella is doing really well sleeping in her own bed. I couldn't have asked for it to go smoother. I was really nervous about how long it would take her to catch on but it was a done deal that first night! She got up once, I told her to go back to bed, she did and she's never gotten up again. She has learned to open doors now so when she wakes up in the mornings she opens her door and comes and wakes us up. Unfortunately it's at 6:30 am now. :) We had to put a door knob lock on the front door though b/c she knows how to open that door too and I'm so nervous about her getting up in the night and opening the front door! Scary!! Ella loves to say prayers. It's so cute to hear her say them, along with the other things she says. She's really starting to chatter a lot. I'm trying to teach her about Santa now. During Halloween she was so scared to go into the holiday section of any stores b/c of all the scary statues and things. Now when we go through the stores she's afraid of all the Christmas decorations. So I told her that Santa is really good b/c brings candy and toys. I'll have to record what she has to say about it. It's really cute to hear what she has to say and how her little mind works to comprehend things. I love her so much and she's really become my little buddy. Some of her favorite things are singing songs, coloring, painting, bubbles, the Elefun game, learning to jump (and practicies for like 20 mins straight), going down the slide, playing with her friends, looking at books with babies in them, saying prayers, setting the table for meals, helping mommy and daddy by getting us a towel after our shower or anything else she can reach and get for us, and telling us her colors. Here are some random taken recently pictures.

Baby Update #2

I just had my 1st fetal monitoring check up today followed by my regular doctor check up. Things seemed to go fine at the monitoring check. The dr. handed me a sealed envelope to give to my dr. when I went there right after. I handed my dr. the envelope and he said it wasn't good. He said the heart beat looks good but the doppler is elevated. (The doppler measures how hard the baby's heart is working to push blood to the placenta. Kinda like her blood pressure.) He said that means she's not going to make it to her due date and he'll go as long as he before he has to induce labor but to be prepared to have this baby anywhere between 2 weeks from now and 6 weeks from now. (If I carried her to term I'd be having her in 9 weeks) He also said that he can guarantee she's not going to weigh more than 5 pounds and to expect her to be between 4 and 5 pounds. After that talk he sent me back to the hospital to get a steroid shot (in my butt. awesome.) and I get to go back tomorrow for another one. These shots are to help her lungs develop faster just in case he has to deliver her at 33 weeks.
I don't know what to think about all of this. I kinda get excited that we get to see our baby sooner than we thought but then I think, "oh yeah, that's not a good thing". I just hope she's alright and things go well. I'm sure I'm in good hands. I have another ultrasound scheduled for Tuesday to measure her stomach again. My dr. said that if her weight is catching up then that would be nice and can I rest at ease for a low birth weight baby.

Anyone for a novel?

This weekend has been fun and full of surprises. Joseph got together in SLC with a bunch of friends he grew up with. They had been planning this for at least a month now and I was happy for him to go but then the thought of me not having a husband or a car was SCARY! So he dropped me off with a friend in St. George. She has a boy Ella's same age so they had fun playing. Ella spent hours playing in their sandbox. She loved getting to go outside in the back yard and play with real toys instead of the broken glass, dead pigeons, cigarette butts, and used bandaids we have at our awesome community playground. Alissa and I did a lot of very necessary shopping. I haven't shopped for myself in a very long time and boy did it feel good.

Friday was pretty eventful. I woke up feeling cramps and continued to feel them all day long. I'm pretty sure guys don't read this so I'm just gonna say...the only time I've ever felt these cramps were either on my period or when I was in labor with Ella. I didn't think much of it and just figured that they were Braxton Hicks contractions. I always worry and work myself up over things that really are no big deal so I thought, "well, there's no blood so I'm sure I just have a stomach ache or something." We were going to the library so I went to the bathroom before we left and I saw what I thought might be a tint of blood. Again, just thought I was imagining things so I blew it off. We took the kids out to eat and then to toddler time at the library. We were just about to go shopping when I took Ella to the bathroom and had to go too. This time there was no mistaking it. I saw blood and lots of it. I didn't freak out though. I just went out and told my friend about it, who suggested that I call my doctor. (by the way, the whole time I'm still feeling the contractions) It wasn't till my doctor told me to get to labor and delivery right away that I started to freak. I wasn't even in Las Vegas and Joseph was 4 hours away! I called Joseph in Salt Lake to tell him what was going on and I couldn't even tell him what was happening with out breaking down crying. All I could think about was having a premature baby with a low birth weight being stuck for 8 weeks in a hospital in a whole other state. So after dropping off my friend's little boy with his dad we went to labor and delivery with Ella. They strapped me up to a fetal heart monitor and all this other stuff. The nurses kept telling me that according to the monitor, I wasn't having contractions. I was like, "how can that be?? I'm having one right this second." So they ran some more tests and we sat there for 3 1/2 HOURS! before they told me what was going on. Poor Ella did sooooo good! (with some help of Alissa, candy, cookies and crackers) She was so tired that she would giggle and play and then get down on the floor and lay down right there. Then POP back up and play. We didn't even have toys for her. So yeah, she did awesome. Anyway, when the nurse finally came back they determined that I had a really bad urinary tract infection and I was peeing blood and the contractions weren't uterine contractions, they were bladder spasms! Holy smokes! So now I'm on antibiotics and some pain meds for the spasms. I was a little annoyed that I had to go through all that and put my daughter and husband through all of that just to find out it was a UTI but the nurse told me that it was actually good that I went in b/c the infection was so bad that it would've put me in premature labor and I would've gone in that weekend anyway. (pretty crazy that it was "that bad" b/c I never felt the normal signs of a UTI) It was such a relief to be able to call Joseph and let him know things were ok, baby is healthy and he doesn't have to rush home. --Then of COURSE the next day I'm getting Ella out of her car seat, didn't watch my footing and fell into a storm drain! They weren't kidding when they said pregnant women are clumsy. :) I was holding Ella when it happened so I was trying to fall gracefully so she didn't get hurt and the baby wouldn't get hurt. I ended up rolling my ankle and landing on my own foot. I didn't want it to spoil the day. We were on our way to the park at the time so I decided to be tough and shake it off. We went to the park with the kids, took them home for lunch and naps, then went out for shopping on our own. By that night I was getting the full effect of twisting my ankle. I had to elevate it and lay it on a cold pack all night and even through the night. It's been a little tender but I've never been known to be able to just stay in one spot for too long so needless to say, I'm still trying to shake it off. :)
In other news....
When we came home we put Ella in a BIG GIRL BED! I was so nervous about this. She usually plays for about an hour in her crib after we put her to bed. I also usually read a "how to" book when it comes to starting something new with Ella. I mean, I'm a first time mom. I don't know how to do these things. I get so nervous that if I do things wrong then it will back fire and be harder to try and do it the next time, ya know? Anyway, I picked a little advice from a bunch of different people and took down her crib right before a long weekend trip. So that when we came back she'd have a whole new room. We got her a new quilt that we totally built up, she got to help her daddy take the crib down and we just made everything so exciting for her. Joseph and I went in and explained to her what was going on and what was expected of her. We read her stories, sang songs and said prayers. Then said goodnight and left. I sat outside her door too just in case she got up, she wouldn't have to come out and find us and I could just redirect her back to bed. She only got up once and I told her to go right back to bed. She did and stayed there! She did roll around in the blankets for like an hour but stayed in the bed. I was even so proud of her sitting on her bed and yelling for me to come get her b/c she had to go potty. Tonight was no different. She cried a little when we left the room but stayed in bed! YAY!

She looks so little in such a big bed!



ps:
For those of you who have asked....I doubt I'll be having a baby shower. I'm pretty much set on clothes and things like that. Although I have registered at Babies R Us for last minute things, things that need replacing and some necessities. You never really realize the things you need until AFTER your first baby. lol There were so many things popping up now that I think, "wow, I wish I had that when Ella was a newborn." :) One cool thing about Babies R Us is that you don't have to pay shipping, you can just have it sent to the store by me and I pick it up.