New Baby Update

I had my 5-month sonogram last Thursday and then just a regular doctor's appointment on Wednesday. We got the results back from the spina bifida/down syndrome tests which were negative. We were also told that everything seen on the sonogram was normal. Yay for good Doctor's appointments. I had even gained 5 pounds since my last visit. This is a big deal for me because I have been having problems gaining weight plus the stomach flu that went around our house last week didn't help matters any. I am now finally at +1 lb for the entire pregnancy. As long as I don't lose any more I should be good.

Just as a side note, we didn't find out if the baby was a boy or a girl. We are still planning to wait until January :)

Relaxing

B loves G's pink princess chair. He is just relaxing watching Wonder Pets which he either calls "Ming Ming" (one of the character's names) or "Pets" He doesn't always make it through an entire show but sometimes he will. He is even reclining himself a little in the picture.

B is getting really good at talking. He will say about 99% of what you ask him to say and he is starting to put words together to form sentences. His first attempt at a real sentence came earlier this week. He was standing/running/jumping on my bed (none of which he was supposed to be doing) and he said "Look at me doing!" He has since used that sentence when climbing on the kitchen table or standing on the couch. He knows he is not supposed to do these things yet he likes to bring attention to himself :)

We are trying to teach B to go to sleep by himself and to stay in his bed all night. This is turning into to quite a process. Yesterday for his nap he did really well. I only had to be in there for about 3 minutes and I even left before he was asleep. But last night I sat by his bed on the floor (as opposed to lying next to him in the bed) for an hour. I tried several times to leave but he would just scream. Then T sat by his bed for about another 30 minutes before he finally went to sleep. And then he woke up around midnight and we had to sit by his bed for another 45 minutes. Our goal is to get him to be able to go to sleep by himself before the new baby comes. We will see...

Trikes

Last Saturday it was our turn to help clean the church. We took the kids trikes to ride in the parking lot after we were finished. Grace is getting good at going forwards but not so great at steering. She doesn't really bump into things she just can't really get where she wants to go. Blake doesn't go to much at all. He was holding a bouncy ball in his hand which made it hard to grip the handle bars and he didn't want to give him up so he mostly just pushed his trike around.

Monkey Bizness

A couple weeks ago we took the kids to Monkey Bizness. Basically, it is a huge room with lots of the blow-up, jumpy things that you can rent for parties etc. On this day, we were with our friends, the P family and stayed about 4 hours. It was a lot of fun. T and I ended up taking the kids back on Labor Day when T was off work. There were lots more people that day and we stayed about 2 hours.

Grace was a little nervous of everything at first which is very typical for her but she got pretty brave towards the end of the day and was a lot braver when we took her back the second time. Here, she had finally made it to the top with only the rope for help. She was really proud of herself.

The big slide! She would only go down this way. She loved it though. She kept going over and over. It was nice not to have to carry her up the stairs. Blake, on the other hand, wasn't quite big enough to do the stairs by himself so he had to be carried. He loved it though and would even go down the right way but would get going so fast towards the bottom that he would kind of flip over and over on his side. Every time he got to the bottom he would say, "Again!" and run to the stairs. When he got to the top he would say, "Get set, GO!" I didn't get any picture of him on the big slide because I had to go up with him.

Our little monkey :) He was climbing all over and through the obstacle course they had.

This is a smaller slide inside one of the inflatable rooms. He could do the stairs all by himself and he did it over and over and over. He had lots of fun! There were big smiles every time he got to the bottom.

Back Among the Living

We are alive. We have just all be sick so I haven't had a chance to post anything in a while. A week and a half ago Grace got a stomach virus that she so graciously passed to each of the rest of us. Blake was second I was third and Troy was last but we basically all had it is some form the entire weekend. Then this last weekend Grace somehow got swimmer's ear which is no good for her but at least it is not contagious. She is still on antibiotics but is pretty much back to normal. Hopefully this weekend I will have a chance to post some picture and video that I have been saving up. We really need a "healthy" weekend :)

Coupons and Sales

Today I went to Kroger and bought

6 large boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats
2 gallons of milk
2 single-serve yogurts
2 six-pack packages of raisin boxes
2 six-count packages of English muffins

I spent $13.50

I also bought a 17-lb bag of Kingsford charcoal for $3.99.

It was a good day :)