Another day...

Just wanted to let everyone who may be wondering know that I'm still pregnant! My ankles are EVEN BIGGER!!! The baby is active and seems to be growing well, and I promise that especially since I won't be at the hospital... I will have a blog up with pics pretty quickly once he gets here. I am getting more and more excited about meeting him and I'm feeling great! I have finally had some energy this last day or two so that's always a good thing. I have been feeling bad for Jaydin lately because his birthday is LAST... so I think it would be nice to have this baby fairly close to his birthday.. so they can be last together! :o) Jaydin turns 7 on Wednesday!!!! WOOT WOOT!!! Either way... I'm sure we have a couple of birthdays left to celebrate in the next week or so.

Preparing for birth at home....

So I have a little edema these days!!!

Semi-Ankles in the morning.....

Cankles at night!! OUCH!!!

So now that I'm getting close to the end of my pregnancy, we decided to get the room ready for the "big event". I anticipate using the whole house for most of my labor but plan on birthing the baby in the spare bedroom downstairs, hopefully in my fancy inflatable birthing tub!! Darin is planning on "catching" the baby but will NOT be in the tub with me! (It's big enough but he is not interested.) Here is a pic of the AMAZING birthing tub!!!

We also have a nice queen sized bed in the bedroom. We lined it with some Vinyl shower curtains (bought at All-A-Dollar)! I hope to use the bed to just get some nice massages during labor! (My midwife is also a massage therapist ;o) ) It's also nice to have the bed in the case that something arises that would require me to get out of the tub for whatever reason... I.E. thick meconium present when my water breaks.

So here's kind of the whole set up. We have plastic under the tub as you can see and also candles in the window as I plan to have candles burning just to make the atmosphere as relaxing as possible. I am very excited about this birth. I know that some of you may think I'm completely insane but I promise to blog all about it once the little guy arrives.

Speaking of his arrival... Darin is getting VERY annoyed with my lack of desire to pop RIGHT THIS SECOND!!! He really wants me to be doing things to promote the birth... I'm not sure why he is in such a hurry to have a crying baby and a wife who squirts milk across the room... either way.. it's kind of cute that he is so anxious to meet his son.

Happy Birthday Dom!

So hip hip hooray... Dominic is 2 today!!

I seriously can't believe how fast time flies. Really... I still have a slide show up on Myspace of his first birthday. He is such an amazing little guy and I feel lucky to be his mommy. He is so intelligent and independent. Loving and sweet. I couldn't ask for a more perfect child. (At least I think so! We'll see what happens when little brother arrives! ;o) )

So we started out the day at the zoo. Dominic really loved it! Unfortunately I left my SD card for my camera at home in the stinkin' computer so I was really bummed when all of the sudden I couldn't take any more pics. Here are some that I got.

All 3 of the boys were very well behaved at the zoo and they really seemed to enjoy themselves. We bought a family pass so we can go back a few times this year. It's always a nice pass time. Especially when you know you can go back. You end up only staying a couple hours and the kids don't get bored!

After the zoo we went back to my moms and had a fun little birthday party for him. Just cake, ice cream, presents and LOTS of family. Dominic LOVED it! He is at that adorable age where EVERYTHING excites him. He opens one present and wants to play only to be deterred by the fact that he has to open another present. He loved ripping open the paper and was so excited for each gift he got. He did get quite a few cars/trucks, a bike and helmet of course, and a couple of balls which he loves! He also got a Mr. Potato Head which is perfect cause... he loves to watch Toy Story. All and all it was an amazing day and he was thrilled to sing the happy birthday song and blow out the candles.

On the Mothers Day side of the world..... The boys gave me their gifts from school first thing this AM and they were adorable. Jaydin has this way cute teacher who did a "recipe" book from the kids. Basically she had them tell her their favorite recipes. My favorite in the book is the HOT POCKETS recipe. This girl actually explained how you take them out of the freezer, put them in the microwave for 2 minutes and then eat them. She ended the recipe by stating that she eats at least 1 or 2 everyday and LOVES them!! :o) Glad I'm not her mommy! ;o) Darin and the boys got me a new ring! It is beautiful.

Darin also had planned to sit me down in the pedicure chair at wal-mart while he shopped but they were closed for Mother's Day! LAME!!! It is def. the thought that counts though and I love that he would be willing to walk around wal-mart for an hour while I get my feet pampered. My mom gave each of us girls flowers with cute cards... so nice of her to think of us. It's hard for me to think about everyone when there is so much going on... especially with birthdays and all that jazz. Vicki (of course) got each of us a present. (She swears she is one of those people who would rather give than receive.) She really outdid herself by giving us each these Mini LCD keychains that hold up to 60 digital photos. Seriously... they rock and I can't wait to play with mine more tomorrow! I have to wait for it to charge tonight.

Really truly it was an amazing day. We ended it up at Grandma Houtz's where we visited with family... good times all around! Hope everyone had a wonderful day. To all of you amazing mom's out there HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!! And to my very special little guy... HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY BABY!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! :o)

Make way for baby!!!

So here I am at 37 and a half weeks prego. I realized from Cortneys comment that I have no pics of me prego on my blog. Now you can all see why! At this point in my past pregnancies.... Damon and Dominic were born 7 days from today and Jaydin was born 4 days from today! (By gestational age.) With this little guy I would really like him to stay in for AT LEAST 11 more days... preferably 16! :o) I am totally ready for him... I would just like to get through all the birthdays and be able to get my dad to Cardiac Rehab everyday. Vicki will be able to take over driving after the 23rd so... if we can make it that far my dad will not have to have any gaps in his rehab!!!!

This pregnancy has been a roller coaster ride to me thanks to my "just kidding you didn't miscarry after all" experience and the provider that I originally chose. My dad's surgery has been an added bonus to the whole scenario but actually the least stressful of the hurtles I've been jumping. Because this has all been so crazy... I wanted to take a minute and reflect on HOW WELL PLANNED OUT THIS PREGNANCY REALLY WAS... AND HOW EXCITED WE ARE THAT COLTON WILL BE JOINING OUR FAMILY VERY SOON!!!

Let's start with "the compromise." Darin had 2 stipulations to having another baby... one was that he get his truck!

The second was that he pass his Residential Journeyman test.


So I did tons of research as the date of accomplishment towards the compromise rolled around and discovered home birth. I really felt a strong desire to have my next baby at home because... I HATE THE HOSPITAL! I hate the way they take the baby away and act like they own it. I hate the smell. I hate the stupid uncomfortable bed. I hate the providers who act put out when you ask for something. I hate the anxiety of oh.. is this it? Am I going to get to the hospital in time? And I hate the interventions they throw out like candy when you don't labor in a way that is expedient for them!!! I called several different people whom I knew had first hand experience with birthing at home including a few home birth midwives and after looking at the actual statistics, I realized that having my baby at home was not just safe but safer for me than the hospital. It also was the only way to know that my birth choices will REALLY be validated. I am lucky enough to have Darin... who totally hates the hospital as well, knows that I know how to have babies, and isn't afraid of a little blood! So with home birth in mind I waited patiently for Darin to take his test!

Once both stipulations were accomplished it was a matter of DAYS before I took out my IUD! (That's right I took it out... my Dr. told me to and it was really easy. ) I desperately wanted to have another May baby as I figure at this point my mothers ring would be horribly ugly with 3 Emeralds and a Topaz or something! This is the first baby I will have INTENTIONALLY in May and I'm very excited. I also really wanted to have a 2 year gap between Dom and the next. I feel like the one year gap was WAY too small but a 3 year gap would be too big. The day I had my first/last period after I took the IUD out I already had my due date calculated and would say things like... "If I get pregnant this month I will be due May 28th!" I was very excited when I had a positive pregnancy test mid-September.

So even though the rest of this pregnancy has been trickier than intended. I couldn't be more thrilled that I will be giving birth to our little guy in the next couple of weeks! The boys are so excited to have a baby brother and well... as hard as it is to imagine nursing and not sleeping all over again... we are taking it in stride with a lot of humor and anticipating the day we will finally meet Colton Stephen Adams!!!

Pics from Dad's hospital stay.

Here are some pics we took before the surgery. Just wanted to get pics of the kids with dad and we made him a nice collage from them.


Dad with My boys!!


Dad with Alex, Odessa and Josiah.


Dad with Nikki and CJ


Dad with Whitney, Zack, Haley and Kirsten


Dad with Chantelle


The six of us while dad was in surgery all there to support eachother.


My favorite pic! Love us just being goofy!

Baby room!!

Okay... so I'm finally posting pics of the baby room! I thought I would first re-post a "before" picture. Obviously anything would be an improvement!!!



So... we spent a ton of time painting these lovely wood figures on the wall and they match the baby bedding. I just took pictures in a panoramic style so you should be able to connect from one pic to the next and figure out the basic of what the room looks like.














I guess this post is mostly pics.... so what do ya think? ;o)

And life rolls on.

So... my dad is doing well. He is bored out of his mind and has only been taking tylenol for pain since before he came home. He is doing Cardiac Rehab at UVRMC and seems to be enjoying it! The first day he joked that it was like "going into the senior center, except they weren't playing bingo, they were exercising!" ;o) He really does seem to be the youngest by AT LEAST 20 years in that joint... but he is enjoying it.

Pregnancy is also rolling on. I'm 36 weeks now! This is the first time I have REALLY intently wanted to stay pregnant into my 39th week and beyond! (My other boys were born by 38 and 3.) I am feeling good physically... although I can tell that I occasionally overdue it. Bending over to clean is enough to start contractions so I've decided my house can be a little messy at least until next week. At 37 weeks all systems are go. At 36... I would have to go the hospital if I were in labor and that is NOT something I am interested in. Either way... my goal is to make it to Memorial day on May 26th. For the few of you who don't know... the 26th would keep my boys birthdays 5 days apart! Dominic will be 2 on the 11th! Then Damon will be 8 on the 16th! Followed by Jaydin turning 7 on the 21st. So many birthdays... so little time. (Not to mention that both of our moms have birthdays on the 13th and 14th!)

I also am my dads chaffeur for now for cardiac rehab as he is not able to drive for 5 more weeks. This is another reason why staying pregnant longer is better. Once little guy is born, getting dad to Provo everyday will be a little more of a challenge. If I can hold out past the 23rd... Vicki can drive him! :o)

I really did get the baby room clean the day I originally posted the disaster... but everything has been so chaotic that we haven't had time to get the final things on the walls. As soon as they are up I will take some pics!

Hope everyone is doing well!
:o) ME