elf yourself

So this is only part of the reason why I have the best sister ever. Because she makes things like this, that make me smile and make my day. Just wanted to share it with everyone. Hope it makes you laugh too :)

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9635455174

Thanksgiving

We had the most amazing Thanksgiving this year. We definitely have an enormous amount of things to be thankful for. My whole mom's side of the family (aunt, uncle all the cousins, and my grandparents), were able to go to Galveston, TX for Thanksgiving. Since John and Erika were not able to come back to Kansas this year we all went to them. Jeremy and I actually stayed with John and Erika, which was awesome. It was great to see where they live and what they talk about all the time! It was such a great break away from everything here. Mom and Dad rented a mini van and the five of us rode down together. That was a treat in itself :). We really did have a great time in the van for 11 hours there and back :). And it was a very good idea of dad's to rent the minivan, because I am pretty sure Jeremy, Erin and I would not have lasted in the back seat of the VUE together for that long.
We left Wednesday morning and arrived in Galveston that evening around 10:30pm. Thursday Erika had planned and AMAZING thanksgiving lunch for everyone. Keep in mind, there was 14 of us!! And she cooked for us for all but 2 meals from Thursday-Saturday. They were wonderful hosts!!
I know that while we were gone Wichita got a little cold front, and Galveston got that as well. Just not quite as cold. It was in the 50's every day we were there. Just so everyone knows, 50 degrees in Galveston is colder than 50 degrees here. I guess because of all the moisture in the air, and the breeze off the gulf. Well Erin and I were a little disappointed that it was a bit chilly, but that was not going to stop us from swimming in the gulf. So Erin, Annette and I went swimming while everyone else sat on the beach wrapped up in blankets watching us :). It was a bit cold, but as long as we stayed under the water it was not too bad. Annette taught Erin and I how to boogie board, which was a lot of fun.
Friday, all of the grandkids, but John :) had bought tickets to the amazing water park in Galveston called Schlitterbahn. So despite the chilly weather we all went, and had an amazing time. It was enclosed pretty well, but was still pretty cold. We will be lucky if we get out of this weekend without getting a cold :). Before we went to Schlitterbahn a lot of us went shopping on the Strand, which has a lot of custom boutique shops. It was a bad place for me to be because they have the most adorable baby things at these shops!! But I had to hold off. Friday evening we all went to the Festival of Lights at Moody Gardens. They have an amazing display of Christmas lights, that you walk through by the harbor.
Saturday, we ate lunch together and then Mom, Dad , Erin, Jeremy and I left and went part way back to Dallas that evening. Everyone else stayed until Sunday morning. It was just an amazing time away with our amazing family. It really could not have been a better Thanksgiving. Thank you John and Erika for making our time in Galveston so amazing.

Little Ones to Him Belong

The past couple days at work...lets just say, they could have been better. When I arrived at work on Monday, I found out that one of our nurses was in a very bad horse accident, while riding with her daughter, and was on life support in the SICU. Her family was most likely going to take her off that afternoon. I was not very close with her, but worked with her quite often, but there are a lot of nurses who were close with her, so it was a very rough day on the labor and delivery floor. Her family did decided to take her off life support after confirming there was no brain activity, and she passed away around 4pm. The atmosphere was something like it had never been before.
Then early in the afternoon I took a patient who was 22 weeks pregnant, fully dilated and about to deliver. I had taken care of this couple last week, and we had been able to hold this off for a few days at least, but now there was no holding her off. The age a baby is viable is not until 23 weeks and even then there is only an 8% chance of survival. So there will be no resuscitation done for this baby. This couple had been trying for 6 years to get pregnant and this was their first pregnancy. This is going to have to be one of my questions for God some day. Why does this have to happen to such a loving couple who wanted this so badly, and who had tried for so long? Needless to say, my emotions were overboard especially being pregnant. I went back to work, for one more day of fun today, to find another situation (though not my patient) almost exactly like the couple the day before.
Before the past couple of days, I have been feeling really good. The nausea is so much better, and I am almost reaching the 12 week mark, which dramatically decreases my chance of miscarrying. Which has always been a concern in my mind, just because of where I work. I am still feeling better physically, but still worry very much about every little complication possible just because of what seems to be around me every day. Lately as I have been worrying about this, God brings to mind the simple song of "Jesus Loves Me". The part that says "little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong". I just keep reminding myself that our baby is in God's hands, and so are we. Then I look at our sonogram pictures, and I cry (tears of joy), mostly because I am a hormonal emotional wreck, almost all of the time, but also because I cannot believe what God has blessed us with. It is the most amazing thing.
I am sorry, I rarely post about such depressing things, but I really felt like writing all of this out. I hope I didn't ruin anyones day! :) I also want to share a new sonogram picture from our last appointment on Friday. I like to think the baby is waving, but if you look where I put the "Hi!" caption, you can see the little hand and all 5 fingers! That was very exciting, and we got to see the little guy or girl move around like crazy!
Thanks for bearing with me through this post :).
WE ARE WEAK BUT HE IS STRONG...

best friends...

Here is a non-pregnancy post! :) It is still kind of about our child...even though he is a dog :). Yesterday we were at Josh and Tessia's for 6 1/2 hours, and this video shows how our dog (Emmett) and their dog (Ace), played the whole time. They seriously went this hard and fast the whole time we were there. I thought surely they would run out of energy soon, but they just kept going! They are so cute playing together, they were definitely our entertainment for the evening. Ace is a huge golden retriever who thinks he is a lap dog, and Emmett thinks he is much bigger than he is, so it works out quite well. When we are in Galveston over Thanksgiving Josh and Tessia are watching Emmett for us, and I think they will have their hands full, if this is what the dogs are like the whole time! Needless to say Emmett has slept most of the day today. Here is the video...you don't have to watch the whole thing, it seems kind of long, even though it is only 2 minutes :) Oh, by the way, I decided I am asking for a little video camera for Christmas, because my digital camera just doesn't cut it...and with a child on the way, I am thinking it is a must :) ...hint, hint, mom :)

week 10

Ok so I promise I am going to try to not make all of my posts pregnancy posts, but that is about the most exciting thing going on around here lately :). Jeremy and I continue to get more excited by the day!! And I feel like I continue to get larger by the day. Tonight at work was a fairly slow night, so the girls and I decided to try to listen to the baby with our doppler and then also did a sonogram. With being only 10 weeks it can be very difficult to hear the heartbeat already, without using a sonogram machine, but we heard it!! I recorded it with my cell phone and sent the recording to Jeremy so he could hear it. We will be able to hear it again on Friday at our appointment. It was between 160-170 bpm tonight.
But I wanted to share the sono pictures with everyone. It is amazing how much the little guy or girl is growing!! You could actually see he/she moving around!! It was moving like crazy on the sonogram!! It was the neatest thing to see. So I have tried to edit the pictures so you can see them a little better and maybe define what you are looking at. Our sono machine is really old, so they are not the best pictures, but we think they are quite amazing! We got a couple good profile pictures, and then the one where I have the leg labeled; we were able to freeze it while it was kicking its leg!!