Baby "Gary's" Sprinkle

 I am down to the very last month and am so ready to meet our little man.  This pregnancy  has definitely been a different one....not bad, not great.....just different.  I don't know if it's because {a} it's a boy {b} It's my 3rd baby or {c} I'm just getting older.  I'm sure it's a combination of all 3, but it's all been worth it.  I have my c-section scheduled for Monday, July 25th and so I can finally see an end in sight. 

When I first found out  we were having a boy, Mia's cute little friend, McCall, said, "when my mommy has a baby boy his name is going to be Gary, but your baby can be named baby Gary #2."  So, for all of this time we have been referring to him as Baby Gary.  I think Mia is going to be a little disappointed when he gets here and his name isn't actually "Baby Gary."  I just hope that we have another name picked out by then.

Last weekend my cute friends threw me a little "Sprinkle." It was anything but a sprinkle as I was showered with a lot of great baby boy gear.  I have to say that it has been so much fun preparing for a little boy.  We have been so used to pink, pink and more pink around here and so it's been a fun change. 

Here are a few pictures from the Sprinkle Shindig:

Check out that cute banner.

The Spread

The Candy Bar

The Hostesses with the Mostestess:

Everything was amazing.  They definitely need to go into party planning!
{Dana, Debbie Deb & Celine}

Having way too much fun at the Candy Bar
{Heidi, Amber, Kristin}

Cute Juanita and Grace

The Goods.  Everyone was so overly generous!

I must say that these are going to come in very handy!

Baby Gary

Baby Sculpting
Mariah came up with the funnest game.  We were given 1 piece of gum and had to sculpt a baby out of it.  I must say that there were some pretty artistic ladies {myself not being one of them}.

Here are the results

Dana and cute little Brooklyn {Celine's baby}

All the lovely ladies

{Heidi, Mariah, Celine, Amber, Kelli, Holly, Kristin, Deb, Grace, Dana, Carolyn, Me, Juanita}

The fabulous, talented Grace whipped up this darling cake. As you can see not only does it look amazing, but tasted just as amazing as it looked.

I am looking {and feeling} well done.  Let the countdown begin!!!

One Rad Dad

Happy Father's Day to a man who loves his 2 little girls more than anything else!!

And....Happy Father's Day to the best Dad a girl could ask for!!!

Let The Summer Begin

This week Mia started her swimming lessons and gymnastics.  I signed her up 2 weeks ago and every morning when she would get up she would ask, "Is it time to go to my lessons?"  This morning I was finally able to tell her "Yes! it's time for lessons."  She loves being in the water, but has been relying on her floaties whenever she's in the pool and so I want her to learn some good swimming skills.  So far so good!

I've been thinking about what activities to sign Mia up for the summer.  She has so much energy and is always jumping around and doing little flips.  I looked into dance and gymnastics and after doing a trial run of gymnastics, I knew this was something she would really love.  The first time she went to class, however, she was so shy and didn't want to do any of the stretching exercises with the other kids.  I thought, "oh no.....maybe this was not the best choice." But, as soon as it was time to go to the balance beam she was the first one in line. 

Memorial Day and Kidney Stones

We decided to make a last minute trip to Utah for the Memorial Day weekend.  Being 31 weeks pregnant, I debated whether or not it was worth driving the 9 long hours but felt like it would be a while before would get back once our little man gets here.  I'm so glad we were able to be there  to decorate Kate's grave site. It was also so nice to see our families.  Those were some of the highlights of our trip.  Now here's the low light:

On Saturday night I started having some low back pain. No big deal, right?  I decided to take it easy the rest of the night and see if the pain would subside.  Well, it didn't.  In fact, it got progressively worse.  My first thought was that I was going into labor.  The only thing was that the pain was constant and not like contractions..  The pain became so intense that I started vomiting.  At this point my mom was on the phone with the ER while Bryan was trying to do what he could to console me.  I've had kidney stones in the past, but never during pregnancy so the thought never crossed my mind that it could possibly be that.  I was in so much pain that we rushed to the ER.  When I got there we had to wait for the on-call doctor to get there before they could give me any pain medication and let me just say that it seemed like FOREVER before he got there.  All symptoms pointed to kidney stones and a urinalysis confirmed that there was a high probability I could have them.  So, they pumped me full of fluids and some Morphine to knock out the pain (which I was so grateful for).  After being in the ER for about 4 hours, the pain was under control so they sent me home with some Percocet and wished me good luck as I would have to pass them on my own.

Sunday I felt much better and thought that the stones were gone.  Only in my dreams.  About 2:00 am I woke up in excruciating pain and the Percocet wasn't helping at all.  Same scenario as the night before, but much more intense.  Now, I have a high tolerance for pain, but this was like nothing I have ever experienced before in my whole life.  So back to the ER I go.  It was like deja vu.  Luckily since I had been admitted the night before they were able to treat me as "out patient" and were able to immediately start me on the Morphine again.  The only problem was that the pain was so bad that the Morphine wasn't even touching it.  They were worried that the stone was too big to pass on my own, but the Fillmore Hospital didn't have an ultrasound to find out how big it was.  They were worried that the pain was going to cause me to go into premature labor and felt like I needed to get up to Utah Valley.  And to top it off, I had to be transported by ambulance because of the risk of respiratory distress.  So, on Monday morning (Memorial Day) I took the very long, very expensive ride to Provo.  I felt so ridiculous, but at that point I didn't care.....I just wanted to be put out of my misery.   So to make a long story short, after x-rays, ultrasounds and an overnight hospital stay they couldn't see  a stone large enough to have to be surgically removed (thank goodness).  So, I was sent home knowing that I had no other choice than to just pass them on my own.  The Percocet was helping to dull the pain and we made it back to Fillmore at about 2:00 pm.  The worst part was knowing that we had that long 9 hour drive ahead of us.  I debated whether or not Mia and I should stay for a couple of days until I knew I was out of the woods, but with the high risk of me going into labor I wanted to be close to my doctor in California.  So we hit the road and happy to say I survived.  Over the next week I passed at least 3 stones and hope that is the last of them!!!  All I can say is that I would never wish kidney stones upon my worst enemy!!!