39 week OB appt and Christmas (with pics and a vid)

I'm still here...and I'm still pregnant. 39 weeks 1 day, in fact - 6 days till due date. I hope I have my baby in the next 3 days (read: before New Year's), but that's entirely up to him. My OB is willing to induce me, and I briefly considered it, but I know that's not the right thing for us. I tend to be anti-induction unless there's a medical reason. But the thought of guaranteeing the 2009 tax credit was pretty tempting. However, I feel like that's a selfish reason to induce (despite how much we really need the money) and I don't feel comfortable "playing God" in that sense. It's not my place to decide when my baby comes - it's HIS. Hopefully my little guy will decide to come out sooner rather than later! I've had some contractions off and on, so who knows. I think he dropped, too - though it's hard to believe there was anywhere to drop TO (and my OB commented on that as well LOL). He feels lower and I feel even MORE pressure than before.

Now for the possibly TMI stuff. If dilation and such gross you out, feel free to skip this paragraph. I got checked again today and am 3 cm dilated and it sounds like I'm mostly effaced (was at 50% last week). He didn't give a number, but he said my cervix was "very thin." I take that as to mean it's just shy of 100%? My OB would have offered to strip my membranes, but the baby's head was blocking access to them. Poo. Oh well, at least his head is down and in position to come out, right?

In other appointment news, I didn't gain any weight this week, so I'm still at a 17 lbs weight gain total. Sweet! Blood pressure, baby's heart rate, measuring, etc are all perfect. I have an appointment set up for next week (on my due date), but I'm REALLY hoping he comes before then! LOL, if I remember correctly, I think I had an appointment set up for the day I went to the hospital with Emma, too. But I don't want to wait that long! I think my prospects of having him sooner are pretty good, though. We're trying some of the more natural ways of kick starting labor (and they only work if your body is ready anyway). I refuse to try castor oil, though. Yuck. But if you have any good suggestions, I'd love to hear them. And yes, I know that what puts a baby there can help get a baby out;)

Oh! I keep forgetting! I wrote a fun little eviction notice to my son:

Dear Hyrum:

Over the last 9 months, your residence here has been challenging. You are hereby evicted for causing the following infractions:

- nausea
- vomiting
- frequent urination
- excessive heartburn
- extreme exhaustion
- insomnia
- sciatica
- swelling
- carpal tunnel
- hormonal mood swings
- back pain
- abdominal and pelvic pressure
- general aches, pains, and discomfort

If you have not moved out by December 31, 2009, legal action will be taken.

Love,
Mom

:D

As far as digiscrap stuff goes, I don't have anything new to share. Life's been busy with Christmas and trying to tie up lose ends before the baby comes (like, oh, packing the hospital bag...and cleaning...again...). I made a super cute new blog LO, but the kit isn't set for release till the 1st so I'll have to wait till then to share. I still need to pick pictures for it anyway - and hopefully they will include a newborn baby boy!!

We had a FABULOUS Christmas. We all slept in till around 10:30 - though I couldn't get to sleep till 8:30, so I still didn't get much sleep. Ah well. Anyway. We started the day with our yummy traditional breakfast of crescent rolls baked with cream cheese and chocolate chips. While they baked, we read the Christmas story from the scriptures while Emma colored pictures to match.

Then we started on the presents. Oh my goodness. That took forever! For one thing, there were TONS - and most were for Emma. Grandparents like to spoil, after all! And the ones from John's mom are still on the way! My mom has a tendency to go overboard with gifts for grandkids. Also, Emma takes her time with opening gifts. She wants to play with each one. This is good, because it means she likes it, but we have to coax/distract her onto the next. With 20+ presents...it takes awhile! After a couple of hours of unwrapping (and getting about halfway through the pile), we were all getting tired and so everyone took a nice, relaxing nap.

After our much-needed nap, we got to work on the food (the roast was already cooking in the crock pot before we napped). Correction: John worked on the food. All I did was the gravy and roast seasoning. Cooking is really hard for me these days, what with my huge belly, physical exhaustion from standing for even short periods of time, and general discomfort. Emma and I worked on unwrapping more presents and got ready to go over to Nathan and Jessica's for dinner.

We really enjoyed our time over at Nathan and Jessica's. The food turned out great all around:) The best part of course was spending time with our family. We did a little gift exchange after dinner. We got Nathan a toy gun with those little orange plastic darts and a whoopee cushion - SO totally perfect for him! We gave Jessica some shower gel and lotion and we gave Noah a book and a toy tambourine. Jessica made us all really nice scarves. Well, John got his for his birthday, so he got a book for Christmas instead:) John's scarf is a Super Mario Brothers scarf - it's a green pipe with the poison flower guys poking out each end. Mine is a pretty purple girly scarf and Emma's is a cute cuddle-me bear scarf. I'll have to take pics of them sometime.

One of the funniest moments was when we tested out the whoopee cushion on the kids. Emma didn't seem to care too much one way or the other (though she pointed at Nathan when it went off, LOL). But Noah FREAKED out! It was hilarious! I got it on video:D



Of course, I didn't realize until AFTER we got home that the chair arm is blocking his face...oh well. You get the idea:)

We mainly just hung out over at their place and enjoyed our time together:) It's fun having a smaller Christmas celebration like that. We still got to spend it with some family, but it wasn't nearly as hectic as going home. It was just...nice. I like laid-back relaxing holidays:)

We unwrapped a few more presents when we got home and then put Emma to bed. We still had about 8 of Emma's gifts left to open! We had her open those later the next day after John got home from work.

Oh my goodness, we got SO much stuff! Well, mostly EMMA got so much stuff! I have NO idea where we're going to put all these new toys! We're working on figuring that out still. Of course, as soon as we get one type of toy organized and put away, Emma pulls it out again...so it's taking awhile to figure out. That and crawling around on the floor at 39 weeks pregnant with bad carpal tunnel while having mild contractions isn't exactly easy LOL!

Anyway, we have been SO blessed this Christmas. In our mystery stockings, we each got some clothes. John and I got athletic-y type pants and both kids got warm fleece shirt and pants sets. John also got A Christmas Carol DVD, an orange, and...oh I can't remember what else he had in his off the top of my head. I also got some bath stuff, slippers, and some candy in mine. Emma got a green ducky, cheese and crackers, a hat and mittens set, and...I think that's everything? Everything is spread out all over our living room, so it's hard to keep track! The shirt and pants set is even in her current size, though it looks a bit big so I may put it in with the next size up stuff - which is what we need most anyway. Baby Hyrum got a couple of baby toys (which Emma keeps trying to steal) in addition to his cute warm outfit. No food for him, cuz, well, he's just going to nurse for the first few months anyway;)

Seriously, whoever left us these mystery stockings was truly inspired (and I hope they read this so I can properly thank them and so they know just how awesome they are). How could they possibly have known I needed new slippers? I even forgot I needed new slippers! My old ones are in such disrepair that I never wear them, and therefore rarely even think about them. And the bath stuff? I have been taking SO many baths lately - and therefore using up more and more of my nice smelling bubble baths. Also, with my allergies, I have to be careful about which ones I use. Many of the floral ones are too strong for me, but then there are other floral ones that I absolutely LOVE. And they got me rose scented ones - my FAVORITE floral scent:D One I rarely have allergy issues with, too:) Also, Emma LOVES rubber duckies. Loves them. Bonus points that this one is green, too, since we're pretty sure it's her favorite color. And she loves those little cheese and cracker snacks. She also needed another winter hat, too, since the only other one she has is a bit snug and isn't nearly as cute as the one she got for Christmas. She's also obsessed with putting gloves/mittens on her hands. Really, everything we got in these stockings was perfect for us. So, to the sweet people who put them together, THANK YOU!!! <3

As for our other gifts, I got: a 1 TB external hard drive from my parents, a 3 cup food chopper from John (I asked for it - but it didn't work, so he took it back the next day and for only $7 more upgraded to a much nicer 8 cup food processor; after Christmas sales rock), pretty homemade earrings from John's sister Rebecca, the aforementioned scarf from Jessica, and more bath stuff. And of course, more candy than I need. I know my sister and John's mom have gifts for me too that just aren't here yet. But all in all, I'm very satisfied with what I got:)

John got: the first 3 Fablehaven books in a boxed set from me (LOL, and I'm now reading his present - he checked them out from the library over the summer and said he'd love to own them someday), The Tale of Desperaux on DVD (cute movie - I think we've watched it 5x or more already. Emma loves it), a green fuzzy blanket from Victoria (which Emma has completely usurped - she's sleeping with it now), a book from Nathan and Jessica, and a homemade navy blue fleece scarf from Rebecca.

And Emma. Oooh Emma. She got SO much stuff! From us she got: a bead maze, a homemade kitchen roll up playmat, homemade bean bags, 2 coloring books, a glitter baton (she picked it out at the dollar store), a toy baby bottle with the fake orange juice in it (which broke within 5 minutes of opening...it fell ONE FOOT onto the tile floor. Taking it back to The Dollar Tree soon), a tambourine, a couple of books, and a bunch of candy. Ok, so when I list it, it sounds like we got her a lot...but almost all of those gifts were a dollar or less. The most we spent on one gift was under $12. Yeah, we're cheap. Ok poor. Plus, I knew what my mom was up to...

My parents got her (you ready for this?): a TON of play food (which I gave my sister credit for), a little toy stove (which she LOVES - sadly, she doesn't seem interested in the one I made, though:(), lots of toy kitchen accessories, a twin baby doll set with lots of toy baby furniture (I think this is TOTALLY her favorite), 2 My Little Ponies (they look so weird now!), lots of books (including a potty training book that says "age 5+" on it LOL - sorry, but there's NO WAY she'll be in diapers that long!), a couple of play books with little velcro animals, a playable piano book, a couple of backpacks, a snap bracelet, 3 aprons (one homemade - I got a matching one, too, but we decided to do these early so we could use them sooner), some doll clothes, and Christmas jammies. Phew. See what I mean about my mom? And we've got another package in the mail from her with some PJs in the next size up (we desperately need them, though).

Emma also got an adorable homemade apron from Rebecca, some cute clothes from Paul Kari and Nason (and baby Hyrum got some from them, too:)), a scarf from Jessica (mentioned previously), and another play food set from cousins Rachel and Alex (and their parents;)).

Hm, did I leave anything out? I THINK I got it all; there's so much it's hard to be sure! In any case, we totally made out like bandits this year!! And Emma JUST had her birthday last month, too! We're seriously drowning in toys. Need to go through them AGAIN - even though we JUST did that!

But yeah, we had an AWESOME Christmas! Here are some pre-edited pics (what can I say, I'm feeling lazy right now. I'll edit them when I scrap them) for your enjoyment:

Emma and I in our matching aprons (while making/decorating/eating sugar cookies before Christmas):


Our tree and presents:


Our gingerbread house (made with a kit):


Our stuffed stockings:


Emma coloring in her Christmas PJs while reading the Christmas story:


Traditional Christmas Breakfast:


The aftermath:


I have an adorable video to post, but I'm having issues getting it uploaded. Grrr. It's 4 measly MB too big for Photobucket - and I have a Pro account. I know nothing about compressing videos, either. A friend recommended Vimeo awhile back, but I'm having issues getting it up THERE, too. Their uploader hates me or something. It's way too big for 4shared and blogger, too. Speaking of...

So for the first time ever, I used blogger's photo uploader to upload these pics...and it is a major pain in the butt! It sucks! It puts the pics up in the reverse order that I want them and sticks them at the very beginning of the post automatically! Grrr! No, it should post them where I leave the cursor, dang it - that's where I want them! And they should be in the ORDER I specify, too. Yeah, I'll keep doing the Photobucket copy link thing I've been doing all along instead. Sure, I can edit it, but I'd rather not have to when I already have the cursor where I want them anyway. And the reverse order thing? LAME. Good thing I know html well enough to move things where I want them. Their code is sloppy looking, too. And the "large" image size is 200 pixels smaller than what I usually put up. Lame. Blogger photo uploader = total crap. *ahem* yeah. Not impressed. [/end mini rant]

Anyway. If anyone knows about compressing/editing videos down to 300 MB or lower (for free), I'd love to know! My super cute video is 304 MB! It's SO adorable! And I want to share it! But I guess this will have to suffice for now;) Hey, at least you get some (unedited and way too small) pictures, right?

Now to end on a positive note. Life is good:) We had a great Christmas and we're having a baby very soon. Let's hope my next post is a birth announcement! Or at least an "I'm in labor and headed to the hospital" announcement. But most likely, it will be of the cute video I want to share once I figure out how to get it uploaded;) But that's great, too:)