Happy Thanksgiving!!



Well we've had a quiet Thanksgiving close to home and it's been kind of nice actually. Chad made turkey and mashed potatoes and the kids and I made a fruit salad and it all turned out great, it was a perfect meal. The turkey was moist and very flavorful, Chad did a great job (and thank you mom for the instructions and recipe for the brine!). We are bummed that we're having to miss all the fun with cousins and grandparents but it's all for the best and we know that. And I've got to say it was nice to sit down to a yummy meal and not have to worry about whether or not Cosette was going to get sick from cross contamination.

I'm thankful that these kids love each other! This is Cosette kissing my belly, she is very excited for Caleb to get her.

This is a note that Cosette wrote Debbie one day. Cosette had been throwing a major fit and Chad and I were done with her, just completely out of patience but sweet Debbie took the time to find a way to help her out and Cosette was so grateful, she wrote 3 or 4 of these notes to Debbie. I LOVE that they can be so sweet to each other! I mean, don't get me wrong, they still fight like regular sisters, but they're also so often kind to each other, it makes my heart happy.

 Debbie loves to write love notes to everyone, she'll write little notes and put them on everyone's pillows. And I'm not sure what they taught in Primary on Sunday but she came home with on fire, ready to serve us all. She kicked Isaac out of his room so she could make his bed and pick up his room and she was eager to find new ways to serve all of her family. And because she was so excited about it, Isaac and Cosette caught her excitement and soon we had all the kids running around the house looking for ways to help out, it was awesome.



Isaac is awesome

Isaac is so awesome, look what we got from his school last week!

 

 

 And then he followed it with this...

A neighbor girl was just being kind and had written him a note from a 'secret admirer' and apparently he wasn't pleased about it. He was NOT allowed to give this to her and I told him that under no circumstances is he to say anything other than 'thank you' to her. But the note still gave us a chuckle even if it is rude.

On a completely unrelated note... I feel like we're drowning. And what's worse is I don't even know if there's a lifeguard. Bed rest has been hard. The most difficult part is that it's not necessarily hard on ME, it's hard on everyone around me and Chad is getting the brunt of it all. He's the one who's having to do all the things he normally does PLUS all the things I normally do. So now he's doing pretty much all the grocery shopping and the dishes and getting the kids ready for bed and cooking dinner and taking time off work to take the kids to the doctor and taking time off to take me to doctor and I just don't know how much more he can take. Thankfully my mom has been coming down each week and she does the dishes and cooks dinner for a couple nights. I think I don't realize how much I actually do until I have to watch a bunch of other people step in to do it for me. And truthfully I'd probably just start doing more if I didn't feel so awful when I get up and do things nowadays. It doesn't even take much anymore, after just a few minutes of being up and about I get lightheaded and it feels like someone has taken a vacuum to my heart and sucked all the energy out of me and when I take my blood pressure it can get pretty high. So now I have to make a decision, do I sacrifice the comfort of everyone around me so I can stay pregnant for a while longer or do I sacrifice the health of my baby so other people don't have to do quite so much. I know the answer, and it's only for a few more weeks, but it's still difficult to just sit there and watch everyone else carry the burdens that I usually carry.

My helper

So the whole "writing to the kids" thing has become overwhelming to me because there are some things that I just want to get written and then I can't think of a way to write it so it doesn't get done. So that may or may not happen in the future, but I think it's more important to just get the information on here so I'll just do the best I can.

So here's a picture of Cosette with the REALLY crude, thrown together baby wrap I made for her to carry her doll in. She'd tried to make one with a scarf a few days ago but it didn't work well so I tore up a sheet and tied it on her like a moby wrap and she LOVED it. She wore it the entire afternoon, didn't even take it off to eat dinner. Now that I know that she likes it I'm going to find some material and make her one that actually fits/works well.

 She is very much a nurturing child. She likes to help people and she's willing to do what needs to be done. With the whole 'skinny jean' trend being what's cool this pregnancy I've discovered that I need help getting my pants off at the end of the day and Cosette has no problem helping me with that! The one time I asked Debbie to help she looked at me like I was crazy and looked completely grossed out but Cosette just hears that I need help and she's willing to jump in and do what needs to be done, it's amazing. So that's become her 'job' these past couple months and it has been a great help.

The doctor lifted a few of my bed rest limitations yesterday and I'm very, very grateful. I get a little stir crazy when I don't leave my house so I'm excited to be able to go pick up Cosette and the neighbor kids from school each day, I know it's not much but I am very happy to get out!

Bed rest and halloween

Well I'm on bed rest. I was seeing spots occasionally so they had me do a 24 hour urine collection and found protein in my urine. Thankfully it's not a lot so while I technically have preeclampsia it's still pretty mild. What's interesting is I'm not having any other symptoms, I'm not bloated or swelling and my blood pressure is fine (most of the time, it's gone a little high once or twice but always comes right back down). But they're taking it all pretty seriously and put me on bed rest and had me go get the steroid shots for Caleb's lungs and are doing non stress tests and all that fun stuff. Sometimes the thought of it really stresses me out, I've had some pretty awesome freak-outs over this, but I'm far enough along now and I know it's not that severe so most of the time now I'm pretty calm about it. It can just get difficult to force myself to stay down and not do too much when I pretty much feel completely fine and normal. It can all feel a bit silly to be just sitting or laying there and have to ask people to do all these little things that I'm perfectly capable of doing myself. But I know it's only for a little while and if feeling silly keeps our little dude safe then it's certainly worth it. So on that note... I was on bed rest for Halloween so Chad got to take the kids trick-or-treating and I was pretty jealous because it's so fun to see their excitement and happiness.

Debbie was Glinda (love that stoned look on her face, she didn't want to stay still long enough for a picture so this is the best we got)

 Isaac was a chemist

 And Cosette was a princess (I think we've used this costume for one girl or another for 3 or 4 years straight now!)

 

I took these pictures of the girls a few weeks ago. Debbie was making up a crossword puzzle and then helping Cosette do it. She is such a wonderful big sister, telling stories and singing songs all the time, I'm not sure what we'd do without her.

I'm sorry Cosette

Cosette, I need to apologize to you. I am sorry I have lost my patience with you so much lately. I am sorry for all the unkind things I said about you. And I am sorry I was not the safe haven that you needed me to be. I'm trying to do better and what's interesting is I've noticed you've been trying to do better as well. We will get through this sweetheart. We will. Because you are strong and I am strong. You've given me a lot to think about lately, like the other day at lunch when you were sad and you asked my why you were having to go through all this and I told you that it's called a trial and sometimes God let's us go through trials to help us grow stronger and you looked at me all confused for a minute and then said, "well that's mean." And I know it seems mean to you, it's not fair and it's not fun and it's hard, but hopefully you and I can figure out together how God wants us to grow from this and I know that we will both be stronger because of it. Because this is hard Cosette, you are being asked to go through a lot, and you are wiser than your 5 years because of it. I wish I had taken a picture of the time your doll "got her blood drawn" and you had taken a cotton swab and put it in the crook of her elbow and then wrapped it with a hair tie and it looked just like the many times you have gotten your blood drawn. This last time you went in for the scope the anesthesiologist came out to talk to us as you were waking up and said that you were great and then he said that he could tell you've done this before and are used to it and then compassionately added, "which isn't really a good thing." And it just drove home to me that you really are an extraordinary girl and you are brave and you are good at doing hard things. You are so responsible about your diet and while it's been so very hard for you, you still do it and do it well. Your teachers are often blown away with how responsible and knowledgeable you are about your disease and your diet. You have many people who love you and want to help in any way they can. Like my friends who make an effort to make food you can eat and often go out of their way to buy special food for you. And Grandma Shapiro is coming down once a week to help me figure out how to cook for you. Now if you'd just stop being such a stinker and actually give my food a try that would be great!