Happy Thanksgiving!!

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!!  I did!! It was so yummy - well, the turkey was!!  Mommy made a bunch of other food that I don't like, and she even made me eat some of it!  YUCK!!  But oh well, the turkey was yummy, and the rolls.  As usual, Daddy made the turkey and Mommy made everything else.  We tried a new recipe on the turkey, and I think we found a keeper!!  Daddy said it was easy, and it was definitely yummy!!  Here's our turkey all finished:

Mommy made everything else.  We had the usual green bean casserole (yuck) and a new dish with stuffing and sweet potatoes together (double yuck), good ol' cresent rolls, and apple and pumpkin pie.  Mommy always makes a pumpkin pie (cuz she says it's not Thanksgiving without it!) but Daddy's not a big fan and always wants apple.  So this year Mommy caved and made Daddy an apple pie.  But she just couldn't do without her pumpkin one though and bought one just for her!!

We ate our Turkey Dinner for a late lunch this year and had a big breakfast to hold us off til it was ready.  Mommy made breakfast casserole (usually reserved for Christmas Morning), and we watched the parade while everything cooked.  I liked the parade!!  The balloons were really cool!!  Then we watched the dog show, and were a little disappointed that we couldn't see the greyhound or the Irish wolfhound.  Then we ate, and then passed out!!  We were all exhausted (well, except me)!!  Daddy says I fell asleep on the couch before it was 8:00, but I'll believe it when I see it!!  Oh . . .

Anyways, It was a fun day spending it with Mommy and Daddy.  Poor Daddy had to get up and go into work this morning though.  Thankfully it was just a short trip.  They closed down the production lines yesterday so that everyone could have the day off, so he had to go in this morning for a few hours to get everything up and running again.  The good news: apparently he makes a LOT of money for the days he has to do that!!  And it looks like he'll be doing it again around Christmas because of some maintenance down time too.  But he's home already, so he was really only gone for breakfast - guess that's the up side of going to work at 5 am!!

Well, we aren't doing much this week.  Mommy's next Dr. appointment isn't until Thursday.  But I did hear a rumor that Mommy is thinking about taking me to the Bounce place in the next couple weeks!!!  I certainly hope so!!  I'm so bored now that it's too cold to play outside!!  I wonder if we can ask Greg to go too?!?!?  Talk to ya all later - have a good holiday weekend!!

New Chair!

 Merry Early Christmas To ME!!!  (and Jayce too, I guess!)  Cam was very generous with his first paycheck, and allowed me to get a new Rocker/Glider for the nursery!!  The one we had was just a cheap one that we got to "make do" with Riley, and it has seen better days.  It's not completely trashed, but it definitely needs a new seat cushion BAD!!!  So our thought is it will become the "play rocker" for when we get the play room finished (hopefully next year), and this will be our Nice Rocker!  The best part is it's La-Z-Boy, so it will Last, and last, and last - we hope!!  It will be used for kiddos, then eventually as an add on in the living room.  So we will definitely get our money's worth out of it - which thankfully wasn't much - gotta love clearance sales!! 

And as you can see, the room has one more addition too!  Last night we took Riley to Build-a-Bear Workshop and made a Monkey-shaped "Bear" for Jayce.  He was so cute.  He loved watching it get stuffed, and really loved the Heart Ceremony that they do to give your "Bear" a heart.  The only problem was convincing him that it was Baby Jayce's Monkey and not his!!  We got home and showed him His Teddy Bear Fozzy that Mommy and Daddy made for him before he was born, and then made a big deal about putting the monkey in Jayce's bed and Fozzy in His.  Let's hope it worked!!  Cam wanted to name the Monkey King Louie (yes, like in Jungle Book), so all we need now is a bear named Baloo and a cat named Bagheera (although Daddy would prefer a bengal cat named Shere Khan) to go with Mowgli and King Louie!! 

 And lastly, I thought I would add the latest picture of me and Jayce.  I'm now 35 weeks, and no more major contractions!!  I still get at least one or two every day, but that's all, so I'm not really concerned at this point.  My next doctor's appointment is Wednesday so I will probably discuss everything then with my doctor and see if anything is going to change.  Just a couple more weeks until I'm considered "Full Term", so then Jayce can make his appearance anytime he wants!!  (and the sooner the better - if you ask me!!)  He seems to be sitting so much further out in front than Riley ever was, and so it's really taking it's toll on my back.  Not to mention the 35 lbs. 3 1/2 year old who doesn't realize that Mommy can't pick him up right now!!

Other than that things are going good around here!!  Our house is pretty much a disaster - since I've been trying to take it easy and not do too much or get overstressed, but Cam's been really great about picking up the slack on making dinners, doing dishes, and helping out with Riley.  He is still really liking his new job - and liking it more and more the deeper he dives into his responsibilities.  It sounds like he's really getting along with his co-workers too - they seem to have a lot in common, which I'm still trying to decide if that's a good thing!!  ;)  lol  We hope that things will work out nicely with Jayce being born around Christmas so that he can get some time off work, since his vacation days don't kick in until next year.  He's been talking with his boss, and as long as Jayce is cooperative (hahaha) then he should be able to trade the days he already gets off for Christmas for earlier and then work the week after Christmas a little more than originally expected (which would be ideal since they shut down that week for maintenance and Cam wants to be there anyways to learn more in the process).  So, not much else going on here.  Just hanging out until Thanksgiving!!  Guess it's really sneaking up on us - we  better go get our turkey!! 

First Snow!!!

It SNOWED!!!!  I was so excited yesterday to wake up and see snow!!  I was a good boy yesterday morning and went to wake up Mommy instead of sneaking downstairs and getting into stuff I'm not supposed to, and Mommy told me to look out the window!  I spent the whole time Mommy was waking up looking out the window and watching it snow!! 

So I drug Mommy outside and we played in the snow!  It was so much fun!!  Mommy showed me how to shovel the driveway so I can help Daddy this winter.  I thought it was more fun to shovel the snow on the grass and put it on the driveway, but Mommy said I was doing it backwards. 

Then we went in the backyard and let the doggies run around . . . well, let Mowgli run around - Piper's not much of a snow dog!!  And Mommy helped me make a Snowman!!!  Actually Mommy did most of it, but I made the balls to start with so she could roll them.  We had to make it a couple times, cuz it kept falling apart or falling over.  Finally we got it standing with a face and hat.  Mommy hurried to take some pictures!!! 

Then Greg was playing outside too, so we went over to play with him and Lacey and Jaxon.  We tried to make another snowman, but mostly we just played with Callie and ate snow!!  Then we went inside to warm up and play some more.

When we came home I was bugging Mommy about some Hot Chocolate so she made some, and it was YUMMY!!!  Mommy found a recipe to make her own Hot Cocoa Mix, and since we drank almost the whole first batch already we made some more.

That way Daddy could have some too when he came home for lunch.  Yep - Daddy came home for lunch yesterday!!  Isn't that cool that Daddy works so close he can come home if he wants too!!  Then he can have a hot lunch and hang out with us if he wants!!  Also, last night we went and did some shopping.  Daddy made Mommy a promise a while ago that she could get something special if he got a good paying job, and since he did we went and got the something special!!  Daddy's going to pick it up today, so I won't ruin the surprise - I'll let Mommy tell you about it when it comes and she can get pictures.  She's so excited!!  And so Thankful to Daddy!!  Speaking of thanks - Turkey Day is Coming!!!  Mommy made a Thankful Turkey for us.  She'll have to take a picture to show you.  It was a MOPS Craft.  It's a turkey with a lot of Paper Feathers for the tail.  Each day we take a feather and write something we are thankful for on the feather then stick it in his tail.  Then when we sit down for Thanksgiving dinner we can read off all the things we have been thankful for this month!!  Mommy's so smart!!  I'm thankful for her and Daddy!!  So have a Happy Turkey Day everyone and Watch for an update on Mommy's Surprise!!

Another Scary Night

Well, it just wouldn't be a pregnancy without some sort of pre-term labor issues for me!  Last night Cameron and I spent most of the night in the hospital trying to make sure that Jayce wasn't going to arrive 6 1/2 weeks early.  I started feeling contractions late in the afternoon yesterday, and by 5 o'clock they were coming about 5 minutes apart.  Since we are still working through some insurance logistics I wanted to avoid a trip to the hospital as much as possible - especially since I had just had a Doctors appointment earlier that day and everything was normal!  So I laid down, tried to relax, drank lots of water - but by 6 o'clock they were still 5 minutes apart, and every 3rd or 4th one was coming at 3 1/2 minutes.  So I called the on-call nurse for my Dr.'s office, and she said since I'm still pre-term any having that many contractions it's time to go to the hospital. 

Thankfully, Lacey was generous enough to let Riley have a "last-minute sleepover" with Greg last night!!  We packed a bag for him, pulled dinner out of the oven to sit and wait for us to return and headed out!  By the time I was hooked up to monitors in my room, it was about 7:30 and the contractions were about 2 1/2 -4 minutes apart.  They gave me a shot to stop the contractions about 8 o'clock, but those medications only last for about 30 minutes max.  The nurse told me they would make my heart race, and did they ever!!!  For those thirty minutes I thought I was going insane!!!  My arms wanted to shoot off my body and do a dance all of their own!!  And of course, once they started wearing off I got a horrible headache!  But they did their job, and stopped the contractions.  The Doctor continued to run a couple tests to see the likelihood of me delivering within the next two weeks.  When all those tests came back normal (or negative) they released me from the hospital.  It was about midnight before we were back home in our own bed. 

Riley stayed all night at Greg's house - there was no point in waking him and Greg's parents in the middle of the night.  And I've only had a few contractions today, nothing major to cause concerns.  Cameron was quite the trooper last night!  Staying with me, and trying to sleep in the most akwardly uncomfortable chair I've ever seen, then getting up at 4 am as usual to go to work this morning!!  I really blessed with a great family and group of friends!  So hopefully everything will return to normal and this little guy will stay snug for another couple weeks. 

In happier news!  Riley finished his swim lessons today!!  (yes, we went - but I just lounged in the pool with the jets - I have learned what back labor is, and it's not fun!!! - and the teacher was wonderful to work with Riley so he could finish everything!)  He got a certificate of completion, and had a blast!!  It's so great to see how much he has improved in the last 4 weeks, from being completely terrified and clinging to me like an octopus to laughing and playing and swimming like the rest of the class today!  There were no tears, or even screams today!!  I hope this helps him in the future, and he doesn't regress between now and the next time we get in a pool.  But he's at the age he can start the Pre-school class now, (which is Mommy free) so maybe we'll do that in the spring to keep him conditioned!!  Well, that's all for now!  We have absolutely nothing planned for the next couple weeks except for a few small things (Like a Massage for me - YAY!!!) and a birthday party next weekend.  So things will relax a little around here.  And we are all praying that Jayce stays comfortable until at least Thanksgiving!!  Have a good weekend everyone!