Decorating for Christmas

Getting our Tree - 2011

I always grew up with a real Christmas tree.  Unfortunately but wisely we made the decision the first year Kiersten was born to go to a fake tree,  It just was simpler with a small child.  However this year I really longed for a real tree again.  I wanted the smell of it in the house and I wanted the adventure for Kiersten to be able to get a real one!  We planned on trucking out in the actual woods and getting one however timing wasn’t good this year.  We were in HSB for thanksgiving, I worked the following weekend and then we realized Den and Kate were coming up this weekend to celebrate Christmas.  That left us a only a couple choices, put up the fake tree again, or… have Den and Kate go with us to get a tree at a local tree farm.  We didn’t want to waist the WHOLE day getting a tree when we didn’t have much time with Den and Kate to begin with.  So we opted to go to Carvers farms and cut down our tree.  It was a good family fun adventure that Kiersten loved.  We got there and got to have a hay ride down to the tree farm area and then Kiersten got to pick the tree (with Grandpa Den and Dad doing a little convincing).  I thought most of the trees looked the same, all perfect, just a little different sizes, however Kiersten didn’t think so.   So she got to pick her tree and go for a hay ride and she LOVED it.

Disney on Ice–Toy Story 3

This year I planned on taking Kiersten to Disney on Ice.  I was just as excited to take her as she was to go, I think.   These days I’m a little (just a little) emotional about everything we do over the holidays is the last time Kiersten gets to be an only child!  I’m super excited for her to have a sister and things will be that much more joyous when the new one arrives, however, I want her to enjoy the time she has without a sibling!  Sooo…. I was excited to take her for the last time by herself, and to make the trip even sweeter, I won the tickets online and didn’t have to pay for our seats!  She had the best time, didn’t take her eyes off the show the whole time.  She also didn’t want to leave when it was over!  She was sure it was going to start back up again!  Here are some great photos from the event!

29 weeks and 2 days (so they say)

We started our every 2 week appointments!  I still can’t believe that I’m far enough along to be seeing my OB doctor every two week, can’t say I’m not thankful though!  This pregnancy has been rough.  I’m still having nausea but I do have to say its much better than the first half of the pregnancy. I’m also not convinced this one is a girl!  I’m good with having a boy or girl but this pregnancy has been sooo different compared to my pregnancy with Kiersten, completely opposite really!  I have been really nauseated with this one, as most of you know.  I’ve had a lot more pains, super dry skin, crave Pepsi (which my mother in law craved with both of her boys, which I think is strange).  I have had dreams about this one that it’s a super fat baby boy with brown hair and brown eyes, and with Kiersten I had dreams of a blonde haired blue eyed girl!  So we will see for 100% when the baby arrives!  George and I will be excited no matter if it is a girl like they say, or we get the surprise of a baby boy!  However if they were wrong (which I doubt, what are the odds right??) and it’s a boy, we have lots of damage control to do with Kiersten.  She KNOWS it’s a girl and if you mention that it just could be a brother instead, she starts crying, and tells me that it’s a girl!  So damage control will be in order if they were wrong!

So back to our last appointment… it wasn’t as simple as my other appointments!  So went in and my blood pressure and heart rate and, weight were good!  I didn’t gain any weight over the last two weeks and over all I’ve gained only 2lbs.  Can blame the nausea on that one!  I saw Stephanie Harrison this week and she measured my tummy which she said is measuring right on with my due date of February 12th.  The babies heart rate was 148 this time, 154 two weeks ago!  She said the heart rate sounded good and strong, so that is great news!  However I explained to her that my shortness of breath has gotten much worse, and I have been feeling like my heart has been doing something strange.  Many times through out the day I noticed that I can feel my heart up in my throat and it feels like its beating funny (flipping almost) and very rapid rate.  She listened to my heart and informed me that I have a new mitral valve heart murmur, and that the weird feeling of my heart is probably heart palpitations. Being in the medical field I know what these are but I have never had them so I had no idea what they felt like!  With all my symptoms combined with my anemic state (low blood count) from my previous blood work, she wanted to repeat my blood work and refer to a heart doctor to have them evaluate my heart!  She said most likely all of this will resolve when the baby is born, but we need to watch it because there is a small chance that it won’t resolve!  So my heart doctor appointment isn’t until the 21st of December, so I have a ways to wait to find out what is going on with the heart!  I did go have lab work done in the mean time and my blood counts are rising (I’m now on iron supplement) and my thyroid levels were normal so that is great news!  My sodium level was just slightly low but not terrible.  So all in all the levels of my blood work were okay!  I haven’t talked to my OB about them yet but I did review them on my own!  So next appointment we will get the official confirmation that my labs look okay!

So now its just waiting time…. have to wait for next OB appointment and for my Heart appointment.  Then we will have more of an idea on what is going on and if I can do anything about it.  In the mean time, Caffeine is out of my diet, which is hard being so tired during this pregnancy and having a 3 year old with miles of energy!    But good news… we are getting closer to meeting this new baby, and all of this craziness is worth it!

Happy Halloween - 2011

We had a great time trick or treating with Cade in his Thomas the train outfit.  Kiersten was Ariel the Little Mermaid.  Besides just looking at her and knowing who she was she had to tell everyone!   She even sang for some of the crowd!  It was very comical and kind of scary that she was so out going!  She loved and still loves the bright red wig!  The costume she picked out herself and she enjoyed every minute of it!  Thanks Erin, Bryan, and Cade for inviting us trick or treating, it was a great night!

While Dad was at hunting Camp…

Kiersten and I had a great week of pretty much vacation.  We had a lot of girl time while Daddy was at hunting camp.  Because I work 12 hours shifts and daycare is hard to come by in the evenings, I just decided to take some vacation while George was gone so I didn’t have to worry about Kiersten. Twice we made cookies in the 9 days… and here is a couple photos of Kiersten making them!

 

Gender Reveal Party– October 15, 2011

Back in October we did a gender reveal party instead of a baby shower. I felt like I didn’t need anything to have a baby shower for but still wanted a fun way to tell everyone what the gender of the baby was.  So… we had our ultrasound, put the gender in an envelope and sent it to a baker in orofino!  She baked the cake with pink or blue on the inside…and when we cut the cake everyone including us, found out we were having a girl!!  I’ll just say I was very surprised and the first words out of my mouth as I clutched my husbands arm was “You’ve got to be $#*!!*@& me”.  Here are photos from the fun event!  Thanks everyone who could make it!  It was fun to celebrate the news with everyone! 

 

Family Weekend at Greenbluff and the Corn Maze

This last weekend we had a great family weekend. We went to Greenbluff on Saturday and the corn maze on Sunday. We mostly do Greenbluff for kiersten every year but I look forward to it! The corn maze was a new experience for us this year. We had a lot of fun as a family and the corn maze brought out the competition between the family! Go figure! But I will have you know, I won two out of the three mazes so don’t let George tell you any different! :) My parents were able to come up and experience all this with us and it was the best time! Here are some photos!

Kiersten can't go anywhere without playing in the dirt!

Baby Update

Baby Drake #2 is doing well, had my follow up appointment today about the ultrasound. She said EVERYTHING ( I didn’t realize they measures so much) on the little one looked great. I maintained my weight this month and babies heart rate was 156. I talked to her about the sinus headaches I’ve been having for the last month and half and she prescribed antibiotics to help get rid of the infection. Hopefully it will work because the headaches are driving me crazy, and I hate having to take Tylenol to battle them.  Baby is moving more and more in my tummy.  The kicks are great, but the rolling around…I’m not so fond of.  Kind of reminds me of my nausea again. :) Speaking of nausea, it has gotten much better, I rarely actually get sick anymore (for the last week and half).  In the evening I still feel a bit sick but nothing like before.  Definitely can tell baby is taking over my belly because I can’t eat much with out feeling overly stuffed.  Well nothing else to report on the baby home front.  Hope everyone is doing well and look for your Gender Reveal Party invite soon.  Party is being planned for October 15th.  Please, get me your addresses so I can get them to my momma.  Drake.jocelyn [at] gmail.com  Looking forward to sharing the news of babies gender with all our close friends and family!!

~Jocelyn

Baby Drake #2

We had our 20 week Ultrasound on Friday. The baby looked healthy however we have an appointment on Tuesday to tell us the final word that the baby is healthy. Kiersten went and she loved seeing the baby. And thinks she needs to have her own pictures of the baby. Will be printing her out copies of the ultrasound shortly. Until then here are the ultrasound pics!

Lumberjack Days 2011

Last weekend Kiersten and I went to experience another Lumberjack days in Orofino.  Since she has been born I don’t think we have missed it, and she loves it. The parades, the rides, the animals and this year my mother in law came up and brought her cousin Carson.  Kiersten had the best time with him and I’m so glad they came up to enjoy the fun. 

This ride they called “The Slide” it was more like an obstacle course where you climbed up nets and across these hanging bridges and it ended with the slide.  Kiersten loved it, however the bottom photo in this collage you notice she is concentrating very hard….her cousin Carson thought it would be fun to jump on the bridge and scare her. She yelled “stooooppp” at him just after I snapped this photo!

 

And her winnings!

A kick in the night…

Baby Drake #2 made its presence known, At around 3am.  Could it have had any better timing?  Kiersten has been sick waking up and coughing a lot over the last few nights and I am tired all the time so I try to get sleep in whenever I can.  However last night was a bit different.  Kiersten woke up crying and coughing at around 2am and I couldn’t fall back asleep only to feel flips happening in my belly.  I was still attempting to sleep all morning however these flips kept me from falling into a deep sleep from 3am on.  When George woke up in the morning I said, I think I have started to feel this baby move and kick.  He didn’t say much as he was in a hurry to get to work.  Kiersten woke up at 6:45am and came in and laid in bed with me. Shortly after George left for work the movement started all over again, so I laid on my back, and I was surprised and shocked to see the little kicks on the outside of my belly.

You might be asking why I appeared surprised, and that’s because according to the doctors I’m only 15 weeks and some odd days.  This seems early to feel and see the baby kick.  I didn’t see or feel Kiersten until 20 weeks. And another thing that makes me suspicious that this baby is going to come earlier than they think it is… the kicks are about an inch above my belly button and they say your uterus doesn’t even hit your belly button until 20 weeks.  The only thing I can think if they are correct is that the baby is merely is kicking the top of my uterus instead of out towards the front and that’s why I feel it higher!    Either way the kicks are real, I can see them when I look at my belly and that tells me baby is healthy and active, and has been active ALL MORNING its now 9am and it started at 3am!!

On another note, My belly is growing and I’ve gotten away with wearing scrubs at work with my job so I can hide it and haven’t had to buy new clothes.  However I took a new position at work and start orientation this week and have to dress up…so this means that today… I have to go clothes shopping…not looking forward to this!

15 week appointment

Not a lot to report with our appointment today.  Went in and saw Stephanie, discussed all my symptoms, shortness of breath, weakness, and more importantly nausea.  She is a little concerned about my nausea because I’ve just been losing weight since I got pregnant. She wants me to gain some weight.  So any time I feel good, EAT and Drink water whenever I can, because I feel dehydrated a lot! Although I will say that I do eat and drink already whenever I feel good! She gave me some hints to help with the nausea but most I have already tried, so my goal this month is at least to maintain my current weight, and try to keep some vitamins down (currently doing gummy vitamins cause it’s the only ones I can keep down part of the time).  She said to try anything with papaya in it….I guess it helps ease the stomach.  So I’m looking for juices and stuff with that if you know of anything!  I don’t even know what it tastes like so who knows if I can keep it down either!  All my vitals were good, pressure was 106/60 which is a little lower than average for me but not my much. My weight like a mentioned before was down a bit again.  But the baby was super easy to find by Doppler and the heart beat was strong!  Next appointment in one month.  She said we could have the US then or wait till 20 weeks.  I opted to wait until 20 weeks because she said that sometimes they can’t to all the anatomy of the heart at 18 weeks.  So we will have our US in a month and half…. we probably won’t be finding out what it is at the ultrasound but rather will be having a get together to reveal the gender with friends and family.  Haven’t decided when we will do that though, was thinking November but may actually do it in October instead due to limited weekends available for my mother, mother in law, and my schedules to coordinate in November!  We will see!  Until next time….

11 Week Appointment with Baby Drake #2 also known as….

Hello everyone,
So here is the update on the Pregnant home front… Just hit 11 weeks today and my nausea is still in full swing.  I’m good if I hold down one meal a day!  Its been bugging me because I haven’t been able to hold down my prenatal vitamins but no need to worry, Doctor said not to worry about them until this nausea goes away.  I had an appointment today and decided that Kiersten could go with me since I know all they do for a while is just listen for the heartbeat.  I went in and they took my vitals, all looked good and then weighed me.  My weight was down 6lb but I kind of expected that with all this nausea. Then we went into the room and the doc came in to find the heartbeat. I wasn’t positive about them finding it because with Kiersten the doctors couldn’t find the heartbeat even at 13 weeks, that’s why we had an ultrasound early with her too.  But this one the doctor found right away.  No I don’t know the heart rate… for those that think they can tell girl/boy by the rate. :)  I personally think this one is a boy… the only thing I really crave is pepsi…and I’m sick all the time. After spending the week with my mother in law camping….and she said she was sick for all 9 months with her boys and LOVED Pepsi.  Coincidence… not sure, I guess we will find out later.  The other reason I think this one is a boy is my dreams… you may laugh but the first dream I had with Kiersten was that I had a Blonde haired blue eyed girl…. and that’s just what we got.  With this one I dreamt that I was having a super chubby dark haired, brown eyed boy!  Will be interesting to find out if this one comes out the same as my dreams.
So I refer to this baby as Baby Drake #2, however Kiersten has came up with a name of her own…. My parents were up visiting a few weeks ago and my mom asked her what the baby’s name was going to be.  Without hesitation Kiersten said, Baby Casen.  I have no idea where she came up with the name and it has stuck… if you call the baby something else she will argue with you about it.  If we do not name it Casen, Which still is under HUGE debate, I’m not sure she will be to happy with us, and I’m pretty sure she will call it Casen anyways!

4th of July 2011--- Lake Cascade

 

Every 4th of July we go camping with George’s side of the family.  Its always a fun time, but I have to say this year was much more fun since we couldn’t salmon fish we got to play at lake cascade and the kids got to actually fish!  Kiersten always has a blast with her cousins especially Carson.  They just seem to like to get into trouble together!    The dirt pictures were one of the first nights of 5.  She was so disappointed (not really) when she had to go swimming to clean up!  The highlight of the week was fishing, the kids couldn’t seem to get enough of it and Kiersten caught a fish ALL BY HERSELF, which she was very jazzed about.  She has come along way…just last month she was terrified of the fish when we took her with Grandpa Scott.  This time she actually held it, not something I even do! Yuck!.  We got to fish, swim, play on the boat, and just hang out in the sun for a week.  A well needed vacation!   Thanks everyone for making it such a great time!

Sister in Law might kill me for this one but I thought it was a great dive caught on Camera!