40 Weeks Today!

Today is my given due date, which is pretty hard to believe! It's weird to think that any day now (any minute for that matter) Seamus will make his appearance.  Both John and I have come to terms with the fact that we will have a wee'un very soon, but it's still kind of hard to wrap our brains around how much things will change having a little person in our lives.  I think I've come to better terms with it, John still has some progress to make but he's getting there! It probably won't totally hit him until he's holding the boy. :)  
I am pretty stinkin' ready to have him though.  Sleep is not so much fun anymore and it takes all my energy just to roll over.  On top of that, I injured a leg muscle a few months back playing softball and it's still not fully healed.  I never realized how much I used the stupid thing to move until I hurt it.  I'm going to attempt using heat (I've been using ice but that only works momentarily) to see if that helps at all.  Fingers crossed that it does! 
Other than not sleeping to wonderfully at night, I'm feeling pretty good.  Pretty giant but good.  At my Doctor's visit last week, Seamus had dropped.  The week before last I was measuring at 45.5 inches and last week I was down to 40.  Yay for Seamus moving down! That means we're getting closer and closer to the big day!  I'm a little anxious but also excited about it, which I suppose would be totally natural.  It's a big event, especially it being the first.  I'm really just hoping that all goes smoothly and the Babes is healthy in the end.  That really is the best Christmas present I could ask for.  Oh, and for him to make his debut BEFORE Christmas! :) 

Oldies but goodies

Yup. Well overdue for a new post.  It's been a while and A LOT has happened since June.  Big news that is way old news now is that we are havin' a baby! We found out in March and then found out in August that we are having a boy.  Both of us initially were thinking it would be a girl ( John is Leary of boys due to the craziness of the boys in his family) so it was a bit of a surprise to find out it was a boy.  As of today I am 36 and 3 days along and Babes is doing great.  My belly is measuring bigger than where I am at so I had to have two ultrasounds last week and the week before to get some measurements of the boy.  I guess on the ultrasound to determine sex they were unable to get a proper head measurement and to see how his brain was developing so they wanted me to get another one around 34 weeks.  Let's just say he's never co-operative and is constantly movin' and shakin' so its hard to get any sort of measurement on the guy.  We have one ultrasound two weeks ago and to no one's surprise, they were unable to get a good look at his noggin so we rescheduled for another one this past week.  I had an actual Dr doing the work and he was able to find Babe's head within a minute and get a good look at it.  Everything looks great, and Seamus (Shaymus, a solid Irish name!) is gonna be a big boy.  He's measuring in the 89th percentile already for size and is not only a chubby little guy, but a long one.  The Dr at the ultrasound said that he has a long femur, meaning he's tall. There are tall genes on both sides of the family so it's not overly surprising.  Just makes me a little nervous about his actual birth. But I'm sure it will be fine!

We were able to get a few 3-D pictures of the boy and I think they are pretty neat myself.  And look how cute the little bugger is! :)

The second piece of old news is that we have officially moved back to Maine.  We made it back here the second week of September and have been living with my parents for the time being.  We both are hoping to be able to get out on our own soon, but it's difficult due to John being the only one working right now.  He found a job at Panera Bread which equals lots of yummy goodies for us, but it's not the best paying and he hasn't been getting a lot of hours.  I worked for a few weeks at a Halloween store that sold only Halloween stuff and then closed down in November.  That also brought in a little money, but not enough to do anything withe besides get us necessities. So it's been a little rough, but my parents have been kind enough to let us stay with them which is wonderful.  It's just time to have our own space.  I know we did the right thing moving here, I just have to be patient and have a little faith that everything will fall into place.  Even if it's not exactly when I want it too. 

VACATION!

Three weeks folks! Three weeks and we are off for our first vacation in a year. Yes, you heard that right.  We haven't had any time away from work for a year, and that's including Christmas and Thanksgiving and every holiday in between.  Needless to say, we are exhausted and in much need of some R&R.  We seriously cannot wait for the 21st! :D

Some News!

For the last two weeks, John and I have been doing respite foster care.  We aren't technically licensed to do it, but due to where we work, we are pretty much trained to do so.  We have two boys with us, one is 12 and the other is 10.  The 12 year old both John and I worked with when we were working on the boys side.  And I must say, he has made some AMAZING changes and grown up so much from when we moved over to work on the girls side.  He's like a totally different kid and we are really enjoying having him with us!  The 10 year old has posed some problems only with me ( but many of the boys have "Mom" issues so I'm not overly surprised) but we made a deal with him that if he had two great days, and no issues with me, then we would buy him a pack of Pokemon cards.  That has made all of the difference and he has been amazing too for the last few days! 
Having these two has completely changed things too.  Going from no kids to two of 'em is a bit of an adjustment.  Life has been hectic busy the last two weeks between therapy visits, dropping them off and picking them up from school, phone calls on specific days, and work for John  and I that I feel like a chicken with my head cut off at times.  But it's good experience and the pay is good! So we can't complain.  They should be moving into their permanent foster home within the next week, if all goes well with getting an out of state background check back fairly soon for the new foster Dad.
Other than that, I am going to be moving over to working with the proctor ( kids that are in a form of foster care) kids over the next little while.  I basically will be a mentor for them and because they are out of the program, they are much better behaved, which means a lot less stress besides having to fit them in time wise and dealing with gas.  But all and all, I think it will be a nice change.

Christmas / Post Christmas Update

- John and I had our first Christmas actually together.  This is technically our third Christmas, but I had spent the last two with my family back home.

- We were able to take one of the girls home that we work with.  She was suppose to have come with us for Thanksgiving, but due to her terrible grades, she was not allowed to come with us as a consequence for the bad grades.  She worked really hard to bring her grades up so that she could spend Christmas with us.  It was unexpected that we were going to have her Christmas Eve as well as Christmas day until we went into work.  She was incredibly grateful to be with us, and was wonderful. 

- Christmas Eve we spent at John's Mum's house with us and his brother and of course his Mum.  I made a traditional tortiere ( a French Canadian meat and potato pie that my family has every Christmas) which I brought with us.  We had a yummy meal of ham, potatoes, tortiere, corn, rolls and the works.  It was delightful! After dinner, we read the account in Luke of Christ's birth and then opened one present a piece. 

- Christmas morning we opened presents with John's Mom and brother.  John's brother Jim, went and got his son Landyn around 4 and Landyn got to open his presents from us.  We had to go into work at 5 which wasn't to terrible.  All the girls were in a good mood and things went really well.

- My Christmas Cactus actually bloomed on Christmas! I was really happy to see numerous blooms on it, but only one showed itself on Christmas day.  That made me happy. 

Yup for some reason it's sideways. It isn't on my desktop. Not sure what's going on but you get the point! :)

Post Christmas Update

- After Christmas was really difficult for John and I.  We had to put our little Italian Greyhound, Mickie down.    We had taken him in before Christmas due to his side wound not healing.  The Vet gave him an antibiotic and a painkiller.  When the antibiotic wasn't seeming to work, Mickie's wound wasn't healing at all, and his eyes had turned a weird shade of green, like green cataracts we decided to take him back in.  When the Vet checked his gums for blood flow, they were incredibly white meaning he was severely anemic at that stage.  His body temperature was about 10 degrees lower than it was suppose to be and he was getting cold to the touch.  The Vet said that he had had an auto-immune disorder meaning his body was destroying every red blood cell it was making.  The option was to either put him to sleep or to that day give him a blood transfusion, and then put him on steroids that may or may not improve his health.  It was a fifty fifty chance of getting better.  We chose to have him put to sleep due to the fact that it would have been around $600 for that days treatments and then would have been expensive the months after that if he survived.  His quality of life would have been far less  than it should have been if we had kept him around.  It was an incredibly difficult decision to make and both John and  I were a mess before they came to take him away for good.  It was hard.  But we feel that we did the right thing.  We also feel that were a "doggy hospice" for Mickie the two months that we had him before he died.  He was spoiled with love and affection, which he wouldn't have received had he not been adopted out to us. 

  

- Three days after putting Mickie down, John and I decided to go out to the shelters to "just look".  After going to two shelters and finding one potential, we found this guy: 

Yup.  He ended up coming home with us.

- His name is Otis and his is a pure bred Pug.  And I have to say he is wonderful! He is like a lab stuck in a small dogs body and makes us laugh everyday.  We are currently working on sitting and staying and getting better at it everyday.  He is amazing with all the girls who adore him ( along with the staff and therapists) so we have a good match!  We absolutely adore the guy, snores and all! :)

Elijah

This picture is of our reception in Provo.  The child that we are holding is probably one of our favorite kids. His name is Elijah.
We are lucky to have amazing friends who also happen to be our landlords, who also happen to live upstairs from us.  We live in a basement apartment below them  that they  re - finished right before we got married.  When we found out that it would be available when we did get married, we jumped on the opportunity to rent from them.  They are old friends of John's and are great people. So it was a no brainer really!
Elijah is the oldest of Jarom and Kaylee's and he just turned three in October.  His favorite past time has to be wandering downstairs to visit us. Since our apartment is the basement of their house, Elijah often comes down and knocks on the door wanting to come in.  Sometimes with Mom's knowing, sometimes without.  Kaylee had to install sliding bolt locks on our bedroom and living room doors to keep Elijah out, he loves us that much!  One morning at around 5:30, I hear his little knocking on the outside of our bedroom door.  When we didn't respond, he kept knocking , slowly getting louder and louder.  And when that didn't work, he let out a very forlorn " Jessica!" When we didn't respond still, he wandered upstairs to cause chaos in his own house.
We walk Elijah to church every Sunday weather permitting and then if it's yucky out, then he usually finds us to sit with us.  Today, we were tracing his hands when he looks at me, sits down on the paper and says "my bum! Trace my bum!" On another Sunday, we were drawing and he wanted me to draw Dora.  Now, I am not what one would call an artist by any stretch of the imagination. So I start drawing a smiley face, add some big hair and let him see it.  Elijah gives it one look and yells " AH! Scary Dora!" John and I had to do everything in our power to not laugh out loud. Although we were laughing as quietly as we could manage. Elijah never fails to make us smile.
Elijah has been great at inadvertently helping John be more accepting of things that children do that he is still learning to accept.  Like moving his alphabetized movies into a not so alphabetized mess.  Or moving his things to other places.  John is definitely learning some patience in that area! 

We love Elijah and love his visits! We are also super glad to live below the kid so that he can come visit whenever he wants! :)

Christmas Party Number One!

Last Friday we had the opportunity to go to our work Christmas party.  This was a first for both John and I and I must say, we had a lot of fun.  The night started with some mingling and some delicious buffet type food from Tucano's.  Tucano's is a Brazilian restaurant here in Utah that is known for it's meat.  At the actual restaurant you have a little bar that has a red side and a green side.  If you have the green side up, the waiter will stop by with a variety of different meats for you to pick from.  If the red side is up, that means you are done! Anyway, at the party we have beef, pork, chicken, salad, macaroni salad, fresh fruit, and lots of yummy desserts.
After we all finished eating, we had a white elephant gift exchange.  We all drew numbers, I got 20 and John got 37.  When it finally became my turn, I went for a bag, which was super heavy when I went to pick it up. And to top it all off, it had Karen's (one of my co-workers) name on it exclaiming that she needed to take it home with her.  I proceeded to open it and found the most hideous collie plaque that I have ever seen. Something similar to the adorable picture to the right.  Although it was much creepier, mis-proportioned and in living color. Something that I would rather NOT be waking up to every morning staring at me. ;) John opted to take two gold fish that one of the proctor families got.  And didn't want. I figured it was better than grabbing another frighteningly ugly dog statue so told him he should grab them.  They were very glad that we took them off their hands and due to a suggestion from our Boss named them Tupac and Biggie. Ha!
Update: Sadly, Tupac died two days after we got them.  Biggie may be to blame but we have no solid evidence.