Guess what just landed on my doorstep?

Yay! That just totally made my day! I think we now officially have everything! I suppose that sometime in the next two weeks I should start getting everything out and washed and ready, huh? : )

Thirty-five

Today marks 35 weeks.

leaving my 35 days to go.

WOO-HOO!

Out on the Lake

We figured that since we won't have a ton of opportunity to spend time out with the boat this year, we'd better get started! So on Saturday we hooked it up and took off. Although I supposed the process of hooking up should have given us some hint as to how the day would evolve.....

For those who live nearby, you've seen that parking the boat is a tight squeeze. For those who haven't, there are 4 1/2 inches on each side of the boat once it is parked. Yes, that's a grand total of NINE inches of leeway before either the fence or the side of the house is taken out. Watching Aaron learn to park it last year was extremely nerve-wracking, yet quite entertaining! But just like everything he does, after a few times he was a pro and can now do it in just a few minutes, usually without having to change his angle at all. That is, unless the neighbors have their sprinklers on for a long time in the wee hours of the morning. And the ground along the edge of the fence becomes a bog. And the boat starts sinking and sliding. yah. That proved for an interesting time at pulling out the boat.

Due to the soaked ground, the boat had slid all the way over to the fence and was resting up against it. Which would have been manageable except for the fact that the fence posts protrude a good 2 inches past the fence panels. and the boat trailer was stuck behind it. Fun! After trying to get it out himself, Aaron finally pulled me outside to try and guide him without taking out the fence or the corner of the house. That was a joy. But hey, unhitching, re-angling, and ending up with me behind the wheel while Aaron sat on the boat and pushed the fence away from it with all his might finally did the job 20 minutes later. Phew! : ) (and apparently we'll be getting rock to put under the boat this week to avoid that happening again!)

Hurdle # 1: jumped.

When the kids came home from their church activity we did the flurry of "everyone change, hurry up and eat and let's GO!", and finally all made it out the door. We knew we'd be up against a fair amount of activity at the harbor, but hoped to avoid too big a rush. Well....we ended up sitting and waiting to get IN at the harbor for 45 minutes. The lot was completely full, so they were letting a boat in for each boat that came out. Note to self: if boating on Saturday, go EARLY. When we finally got to the front of the line, all the slips were full. So we got to wait another 10 minutes until we had a spot, and tried to convince the wonderfully nice man at the gate not to let another boat in until we launched! : ) (the next person actually did wait quite a while-although if that was why, I don't know!)

Then comes the lovely launch. I know Aaron's done this a million times, so he's an old pro and probably finds it mildly irritating that I'm still so unsure and high strung about it, but whatever. Despite the fact that I'm approaching the point where I can refer to myself as "ridiculously pregnant", I pride myself in being pretty darn mobile still! While I'm able to climb up and around the boat fairly well, I'm obviously not nearly as able to jump in and out quickly and get things going which leaves Aaron to do most (um, pretty much all) of the launching himself. Which means that he was up and down unhitching the boat. Which is when he slipped on the trailer. Which is when he tweaked his knee badly enough that as I saw him going down I knew he wouldn't be happy when he came back up. I am very proud of the fact that he didn't use any bad words though! lol I could tell that he had to try REEEEEEALY hard not to, but way to go honey!! : ) The instant purple and red color and mass swelling was beautiful. Not to be deterred though, he backed the boat off the trailer, parked it at the dock, and ran/limped his way back to the ramp to pull out the van and load up the kids. I do wish I had a picture of Aaron and the kids making their way over to the dock-it was like a lame duck family...Aaron limping along with a little herd-all paired up with a partner and holding hands as they walked in a line following behind him.

Hurdle #2-jumped. Well, kind of fallen over I guess.

Once everyone was in the boat we were off. It was great to hit the open water...until the boat started chugging. It drove fine, until we pushed it fast, when it would kind of die off. great. Thankfully whatever that little issue was resolved itself in the first hour or so and didn't leave us stranded.

Everything else was a blast, though for Alaina and Dallin it took some readjusting to the lake. They were both a bit nervous when they first jumped in to swim, but after a few minutes to adjust they started enjoying it just as much as they did last year. They all LOVED the tube-including Lincoln who enjoyed the whole trip entirely too much. It took a bit of force to keep him from jumping off the side of the boat any chance he thought he could! You'll see by the pics of him in the tube that he was happy as could be any time he was in the water! (and yes, I tubed with him, but we went slow I promise)

All was well, until Jacob started puking, but thankfully that was short lived, and with this many kids, not that unusual or that much of a panic anymore. It was "here, lay down, keep this towel in front of you and puke on it, not on the floor of the boat." (it seems he'd just had too much sun and was feeling the effects as he was fine after he finished and even wanted back in the tube for another ride!)

Hurdle #3: puked on

After a couple of wild tube rides for the two oldest and enough of the kids driving in circles to start making me nauseated, we wrapped it up to head home. Except for some ridiculous pressure when we were going fast and pounding into wakes, I'm glad to say that I survived and enjoyed the trip, and hope to squeeze in a couple more trips out before baby arrives!

Thankfully the whole getting the boat out of the lake thing was much smoother than the getting it in (and I'm sure seeing me run from the dock back to the van to pull the boat out was entertaining! YES I can still run!), and the ride home was uneventful (and pukeless). All was great until we got home and asked our neighbor to use his truck to put the boat back on the side of the house since the van just kind of sunk in the yard (that was still mushy). Apparently he ran over his neighbor's sprinkler and broke it when he was straightening out to back the boat in. whoops.

Hurdle #4: wet.

We ended up just sticking the boat in the driveway and avoiding the side of the house altogether until the rock arrives. Probably a good choice!

Let's hope the next boating trip is slightly less eventful!

This week's craftiness

The nesting continues! Though I only get to it in spurts here and there, I'm happy to say that my sewing machine is feeling loved again. And I've started on accessories for the nursery, so I'm all over the place. Oh well.

Never fear-by next weekend, or a week from tomorrow at the latest I can get started on baby's room, and then there will really be some fun things going on! This week I decided to make myself some of the burp cloths that I've always made for others but not myself. Hopefully I'll discover that they really are good and people haven't just been lying to me! : ) And I've really fallen in love with minky fabrics which thankfully aren't nearly as hard to work with as I was originally told. phew! So my blanket is minky velvet, edged with some fabric that my parents brought me from a trip to Hawaii 5 or 6 years ago. It has been waiting for the right project for a long time-it worked out perfectly! (and there is more left still-yay!) I finished the bedding, window treatment and some "art work" (ha!) for the boys room (the ones moving downstairs next week), finished up the valance for the nursery, and just have the crib quilt to finish now. Look at me go! Dang-I wish I could be this productive on a regular basis. Or at least be this productive when it comes to house-keeping. Whatever, you're not supposed to have your cake and eat it to! (Mmmmm....cake.....)

The blanket-and matching burp cloth below


Hopefully the minky will work well for spit-up!


And I have to share this one too-b/c it turned out well! Thank goodness! This is a quilt made of pieces of baby clothing that I did for a friend of mine. I was absolutely terrified of botching this job-especially since it's not like this was something I could just go to the fabric store and buy more of if I messed up on part of it. The back is pink minky dot (matches the few small pieces of minky dot on the front). It was a fun project! Thanks Lisa for trusting me with your princess's memories! : )


So now, if I can just keep up at this pace for two more weeks, I should be able to get everything done, and still have a couple of weeks to just sit and do nothing and "rest" before baby gets here! (did you check the countdown?!? 39 days left till d-day!)

Father's Day

I wanted to do some sort of post for Father's day, but couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to say. I was torn between rambling about my own father, or the father of my children. And you all know how long-winded I am, so since I decided I wanted to do both, I was looking at yet another epic post.
I figured I'd just sum it up with a slideshow of some of my favorite moments of watching my sweet husband as a father over the past few years. Many of my favorite moments are missing-they are from the pre-digital days and I'm not delving into digging out and scanning old photos today. Maybe some other time. I also realized that a many of my favorite moments of Aaron with our kids were facilitated by my own dad-the majority of our family vacations have been due to his generosity. Because of that we have many fun pictures with him as well-hopefully in the next week I'll put together those for his tribute slideshow! : )

So for now-Thanks Aaron for being such a great father, and such a great dad. You really are Mr Incredible. Love you!

Father's Day

Vacation!

I rarely get to do anything fun and exciting that surprises Aaron. About a month ago I decided that we really needed a night (or two) away, since it had been over two years since we had had a night to ourselves. And that was me tagging along on a business trip, so it wasn’t exactly an exciting getaway. For me it was great...sleeping in, laying by the pool, free food, but he had to work the whole time! So I started trying to put something together. I poured over our schedules, and realized that it had to be sooner rather than later, and with holidays, family commitments, weddings, church commitments, and a rapidly progressing pregnancy (seriously, where are the weeks going?!?), I’d just better pick a day! It ended up being the first weekend in June. Not optimal timing since it meant leaving shortly after Taylor’s baptism, but hey, it was now or never!

And while it was a needed getaway to begin with, by the end of last week, it could not have been better timing to just go away for a couple of days.
Thanks to his manager being AWESOME and helping to arrange for a Monday off work, I was able to plan a Saturday and Sunday night getaway. There was a slight kink in the plans when I found out his mom was supposed to be staying with us, but she was a good sport and didn’t get her feelings hurt when she was told “sorry, you can stay with us Friday, but then you have to leave!” So Aaron knew something was up, but didn’t know what. All he knew was that Saturday was going to be a late night.
On Saturday afternoon, I started farming the kids out. Malia and Taylor went with my parents-Aaron was a bit surprised that I had planned for them to go to Pomp’s choir concert and then spend the night with them (we don’t do sleepovers), and I hadn’t told him. Some amazing friends of ours who live in the neighborhood very graciously agreed to take the younger kids (Alaina and Lincoln to one family, Jacob and Dallin to another), and we sent them all off. I had stashed all of our things in the car and had been able to do so without being caught until right as we were leaving. dang. So Aaron hadn’t known we were going overnight until he stuck his jacket in the trunk and saw bags. oh well.
He asked where we were going and I told him we were going to a movie. I told him to just get on the freeway and take exit 6. He realized that it wasn’t a theater close by when he got on the freeway and we were at exit 275. : )
Thankfully he was surprised (something hard to accomplish!), and we had a wonderful time. The four hour drive down there just flew by. I love just hanging out with him, not worrying about having to get home, or getting the babysitter home....it was great. We didn’t get there until Saturday night, and spent the night and the next two days just hanging out and doing whatever. Sleeping in, watching a movie (two actually), hanging out at the pool....just being. One of the best moments was having lunch at Cafe Rio, people watching, and then just sitting out on their patio just hanging out together. So much fun.
We forgot to take any pictures until the drive home-so you can see our one fabulous photo here. I guess I need to follow Ashley's example and start practicing taking pictures of myself-then next time we try to take pictures while driving in the car at 75mph it will look more flattering. ; )

Vacations-without kids-with this many kids are more than rare. By our count it’s happened twice in our marriage. Hopefully we can do it again in another few years... ;)

Taylor’s Baptism

I feel bad that the excitement of Taylor’s big day was dampened by everything else that went on the week previous. It kind of just got shuffled into the list of things happening that week. Thankfully it was the finale to the week, so when it arrived we were really able to enjoy it without having to give any thought to other things that needed to be done. This was a much different experience from Malia’s baptism-it was much smaller (for our family anyway!), and was at the same time as two other kids in the ward. It was less chaotic than Malia’s (especially since we didn’t Lincoln’s blessing and Malia’s baptism on the same day), and much more intimate. It was nice. We were so glad that all of the grandparents were there, and my grandparents were able to come as well. Other than that it was just Aaron’s brother and a couple of friends of ours. And a lot of food. : ) It was a much needed happy and relaxing end to a crazy week.


And Taylor looked so cute drowning in his big suit!
(but really-could these pictures be anymore fantastic? rofl! We all look like we've been through heck and back!)

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Sunday, June 1st, was Taylor’s Birthday. I can’t believe he is 8! He’s been looking forward to this for a LOOOONG time! He is so excited to be old enough for Cub Scouts! And thankfully after years(how many?) of me officially working over Cub Scouts, I have gotten over my Scouting phobia. Well, most of it anyway. So that should make things much more enjoyable for all of us.

Taylor was also totally psyched to get his suit. He has been wanting “church clothes like dad’s” for a long time, so we told him that when he turned 8 we’d get him a suit for his baptism. Unfortunately the day before his birthday when we took him out with us to try them on, we couldn’t find any! He was patient, and enjoyed the trying on process at home a couple of days later when we brought home the few that we found. The hardest part is that this child is skinny as a rail, and getting taller by the day. 10’s were going to be too short within a month or so, so we had to up it to a 12. It took some creative altering, and it is still a bit big in the jacket, but at least we know he will grow into it!



His party was with the fam at Beeb’s and Pomp’s house, and as always involved more than necessary. The balloons, the banners, and of course the gifts were tons of fun for him. The big highlight was Pompa’s surprise treasure hunt. My dad is all about creative gifting, and here we are two weeks later STILL on the hunt! : ) After the massive hunt through their house and yard Taylor found a buried treasure chest that contained a map (that could only be read after using heat to make the map show), and is still receiving clues daily. I’ve been told we are getting closer though.....

Week in Review

The whole long week. For those who asked for it-hey, you asked for it! :)

Monday:
By now I think everyone knows that awful news that Monday morning brought. I realized by mid-day that a few of the people who stopped by the house that day and caught me in the midst of my emotional reaction didn’t get why I was so upset at the whole thing. I realized by the end of that day that when I was asked “what’s wrong”, it suddenly made a whole lot more sense when I told people “a very dear friend of ours died-who also happened to be my OB”, instead of “my dr died”-which most people agreed stinks when you are 8 months pregnant but didn’t convey why I was so upset by the news. Honestly, I’m still processing the whole thing, and I think it will be even harder when I go back to the dr’s office on Thursday for my next appointment and he isn’t there. It was almost like he was on vacation when I went in for my last appointment, especially because his staff was still there. There was a great tribute to him in the paper yesterday by the President of the County Medical Society that very appropriately touched on the gift that he was to those whom he served.

Tuesday:
Well, I made it through the day. and the house was clean. That was enough.

Wednesday:
Wednesday was a hard day again for me. I took a cheesecake to each of my dr appointments, because it was one thing that my dr loved. I’m not sure how I even stumbled upon that little tidbit of info honestly. I think I just took one in to be nice once, or for a holiday or something, and every appointment after that he always mentioned how much he loved my cheesecake and how I should open a store and be the Mrs. Fields of cheesecakes. That started the tradition of me showing up with a cheesecake each time I was in the office. Since I knew his staff would still be there (and it couldn’t hurt to have treats while meeting the new dr, right?), I baked a cheesecake to take with my to my appointment. As corny as it sounds, I’ll probably always think of Hamer when I make a cheesecake.
I made it though the morning ok, but as I got in the car to head out to pick up Aaron (who thankfully was able to join me for this appointment) I lost it again. I finally had to just turn off the radio and drive in silence because every time I started to finally get control of my emotions, some song would come on that would send me into tears again. I picked up Aaron, we detoured to pick up Taylor’s suit, then we headed up to the office. I did fine until we pulled into the parking lot. By the time we got to the front door, I was a mess again. Thankfully Aaron understood, and hasn’t been bothered that it has been so hard for me to deal with this loss.
It was difficult to be there and see that my dr’s pictures were all down (he had a big board of all the pics that people send him of their kids), but it was great that his staff was still there. We spent quite some time talking with them about the whole thing, and though it was of course sad, it was great to talk to them about it. They were very complimentary and recalled many comments that Hamer had made about Aaron and I over the years. The other dr’s receptionist piped up and said “WE’VE heard all about you, and we don’t even work for him!”, so at least they all know who we are! ; )
While it was odd to see another dr, he was very kind and very understanding-though it is a bit awkward to really meet someone for the first time under those circumstances. Dr Langeland and Hamer had known each other since med-school in the early 70’s and have shared an office since they both began practicing. So he was taking over as many extra patients as he could, while mourning the loss of his good friend. It is reassuring to at least know that my care is in the hands of someone who loved, appreciated and knew well the dr that we will miss so much. I know that Hamer and his staff all have always been very complimentary of Dr. Langeland, so hopefully we will get along with him well and it will be as smooth as transition as possible.

That night Aaron put together a video of pictures for my Grandma’s viewing as well. That loss I had been dealing with quite well. Until then. Each time we looked through the pictures I would do ok until about halfway through when the floodgates would just open again. *sigh* That’s when I knew I wouldn’t do so well on Friday.

Thursday:
Thursday was mostly spent getting ready for the weekend, since Friday was going to be eaten up with family things. I checked in with my mom to see if there was anything we could do to help her with things for the funeral, and thankfully my sister was there with her getting things done, as she seemed to be having a hard time getting through the day. Everything was taken care of there, so I spent the day cleaning up the house and getting ready for company, as well as trying to get things put together and hidden for a little surprise getaway for Aaron and I.
People had called and offered to take the kids to play so that I could get some things done-what a life saver! I actually felt like for the first time that week I had a productive day.
My little surprise on Thursday came in the form of Aaron saying to me “you remember that my mom is staying with us this weekend when she’s in town, right?”. Ummmm, NO! I don’t remember! He is still insistent that he told me, I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that considering I had planned for us to be out of town..... I realized after the way I reacted (not totally mean, but not exactly happy) that it probably looked as if I was being the jerk wife who didn’t want my mother-in-law staying at my house. So after some quick consulting with a co-conspirator, I decided to tell Aaron that his mom couldn’t stay with us on Saturday because we wouldn’t be home that evening.

I have yet to be able to plan a real big surprise without some blip coming up that spoils it before it happens. Oh well. At least at that point he understood why I had reacted to the news of him mom staying with us the way I did. And I didn’t look like such a jerk any more! We made arrangements for MIL to stay with us on Thursday and Friday nights instead of through the weekend. Phew!

Friday:

Friday was an interesting day. Aaron worked that morning since the funeral wasn’t until the afternoon. He was able to leave a little earlier than planned and made it home to help me get the kids all ready and out the door. Between cleaning the house that morning (I knew there wouldn’t be time that night), and getting everyone going, it was just a crazy morning. My mother-in-law was helpful in keeping the kids occupied with stories once they were dressed, so at least we didn’t have to change anyone’s clothes from the constantly occurring disasters that seem to accompany this many kids running around.


Our original plan was to skip most of the viewing for Grandma, just because we didn’t know how the kids would do being there for the full hour of the viewing before the funeral, and then sitting through the funeral as well. We did take them all-it was a graveside service so we knew it would be shorter. I’m so glad that we did. We did end up being at the viewing the whole time. I did better than I thought.....about every five minutes. The last time I had talked to my dad had been on Monday when I broke into tears at the news of Hamer’s death-the first time he saw me at the viewing I was in tears again. He walked over and said “well, it’s nice to see that you’ve cheered up!” We (my family) have a twisted sense of humor that gets us through the awkward emotional moments. : ) Alaina started feeling sick at the viewing, we figured it was just the whole emotional aspect of everything-thankfully MIL was there and just sat with her the whole time. It was so sweet to see how many of my parent’s friends were there to support them. It was amazing to see the turnout. Many of my cousins from out of state made arrangements to be there. Most of them I haven’t seen since my wedding. (my how things change in 11yrs! lol) Though there were plenty of tears, there was much laughter and so many fun stories-as far as funerals go, it was a good one. ; )

I love this picture of my mom and her sisters (except Danna who you can't see in this one) all smiling and laughing at one of the stories about their mom....



We had planned to go to Hamer’s viewing that night since we couldn’t make it to the one on Saturday morning (or to the funeral) because it was at the same time as Taylor’s baptism. Unfortunately by the time Grandma’s funeral was over, and we had stopped at the family lunch afterward, we realized that Alaina was really not well-she was getting a fever, feeling worse, and falling asleep. I was absolutely drained, and the kids were done with the day (they were excellent all day!), and it was still over an hour before the viewing started. I felt awful, but we made the decision to skip it. I still feel bad that we did not go-especially since I grew up with his kids. I know that there were hundreds of people there (literally), so I’m sure his family was very busy all night...Had we not spent the whole day doing funeral already, I would love to have gone. We will very much miss him!

And now I would love to just have a very boring rest of the month....

Indulgence

So I kind of went into hibernation mode last week. Emotional instability does that to me. But I really wanted to say thank you to all of my cute friends who checked in on me! And for those who helped out with the kids last week, you are wonderful! It is such a blessing to be surrounded by such amazing people!!

Now-worth sharing after a week and a half....

I saw this:

on someone's blog.
(Who knew celery could be so inspiring? ; ) Thank you Heidi!! lol)
So, well, HELLO! Who wouldn't want that?! And considering how M&Ms can fix just about anything (thank you MaryAnne!), this puppy has got to be good for the same!

Here is the biggest advantage of being pregnant (and my personal favorite), I did not feel the least bit guilty that I wanted that cheesecake badly enough that my mouth actually started watering. And to top it off, I'm *supposed* to be putting on weight! YAY! Yes, it's a bit awkward to pack on the pounds when all of my friends are little skinny-minis who still think they need to lose weight (riiiiight), but I love that I can eat what I want and not feel the least bit bad! haha! : )

So, back to the cake. Unfortunately, the picture I saw was only that-a picture. With no source. dang! I took what little info I could pull of the downloaded picture code and started my search. I probably spent a good 30 min tracking down what this thing is. The good news: I found it! The bad news: It is made by a cheesecake company in England. Not to mention the 8" version starts at roughly $45, so even if it was possible to have one delivered, I could never indulge that much! I was really hoping that it was a picture from a recipe site somewhere. Oh well. What's a girl to do?? Improvise!

I've been tweaking a chocolate cheesecake recipe anyway, and what better way to tweak it than to make this the finished product. A sweet husband stopping at the store for me and 24hrs later, voila!





To. Die. For.

As Malia keeps so kindly pointing out, mine isn't as tall as theirs, theirs is actually built on a cookie, I just wanted a crust. And she noted that my chocolate drizzle is messier than theirs. I'm all for messy chocolate.

Aaron found it a bit "too rich", but I'm going to go with "just right". And the flavors did meld a bit more after it set overnight, so he just might enjoy it more today than he did last night after only chilling for a few hours. (yes, it is only noon and I've already had a piece today)

There is very little that is better than chocolate therapy.

What a way to start the week...

I've decided I need to get black out shades for whatever room Lincoln sleeps in. This whole getting up with the sun thing is getting old! : ) Oh well. It gives me more time to get the laundry done, right?

This morning started out with a bang, literally, as Lincoln cracked his head on the side of the tub. He was bending down to pick up a fish off the tub floor while I turned off his shower and smacked the corner of his eye right into the edge of the tub. Fun! Thankfully it didn't pop open, I just hope he can make it through the next day without cracking it again and popping it. this comes after smacking the very top of his head on the hymn book holder on the back of the bench at church yesterday. That one did pop open, but thankfully didn't bleed much. Ah, the genteel life of boys.

Unfortunately, instead of getting better, this morning took a turn for the worse with a phone call. My poor father had to be the bearer of bad news when Grandma died last week, but at least we were all expecting that so it was a bit easier to hear. Sadly, I was not expecting the news he called with this morning. Any of you that know anything about me know that I absolutely adore my dr. He has more than spoiled both Aaron and myself through the past 10 yrs and 7 pregnancies. I grew up with his kids, and much of his office staff over the years has come from the neighborhood I grew up in, so with as much time as I've spent pregnant, his office was as close to a home away from home as a dr's office can get! : ) Well, my dad had the unfortunate task of calling me this morning to let my know that my dr passed away last night. Wow. It took a minute to register with me. I thought for sure I must not have heard him correctly. I think I kind of shocked us both when I instantly dissolved into tears, especially when I made it through the "grandma died" announcement without doing so. I was so glad that someone in his neighborhood thought to call him so that he could let me know so that I knew before the office staff has to tackle the dreadful task of calling all of his patients. I am still shocked at the news. He certainly wasn't old enough to die yet-he is my dad's age, maybe a couple of years older. His kids are mine and my sibling's ages...early 30's down to early 20's. Not old enough to have to worry about losing a parent yet. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult this will be for them. My heart goes out to them.

I had planned on calling his office this morning to change my appt this week from Tues to Wed, but after hearing of his passing just couldn't quite pull it together enough to do so, so Aaron did for me. They've already scheduled me to see the dr who shared his office with him and we'll see where it goes from there I guess. I've only seen that dr once before-at the end of my second pregnancy when my dr was out of town, so I really don't know much of anything about him. Thankfully those who I've known from the neighborhood I grew up in that have worked in the office have always spoken very highly of him, so that is comforting. As odd and as selfish as it sounds to say I'm devastated by the thought that I've lost my dr, I am. He has been beyond good to us, more than accommodating to everything I've even thought to ask for as a part of my prenatal care, often times before I could even ask. The man gave us his pager number and home number during one of my pregnancies, because he didn't want to miss the delivery, even if he wasn't on call. When people would balk at the fact that I drive an hour-each way-to see my dr, I would tell them that when you find someone worth much more than their weight in gold, they are absolutely worth an hour drive. I always joked that if my dr retired early and wasn't around to deliver one of my last babies, I'd just have the baby myself at home. I never thought I'd actually have to figure out what to do if he wasn't an option!

Freedom

I figured last Friday that I'd write this post about the kids being out of school for the summer. Everyone knows how much I've been looking forward to that-most days even more so than my kids themselves! Our excitement for the beginning of summer vacation was dampened some though by the news that my Grandma passed away on Thursday afternoon.



We all knew it was coming, she was first placed in Hospice care back at the end of March. She was one tough old lady though, and kept hanging on longer than anyone thought she would! She's been in and out of the hospital a number of times over the past 4 yrs, many of those times we all thought "oh, this will be it, how could she make it through this again?", but she always pulled through. By Wednesday last week it became very evident that this was the end. With as much as she struggled the last few days, it truly was a blessing that she was finally able to let go. I chose not to go see her in those last few days, wanting to keep my memories of the last time I saw her-Mother's day-instead. It was hard enough to watch my own mom watching her mom let go. I was with my Mom on Wednesday night and it was hard to see her not quite know what to do about it all. Knowing it was happening, and that there was nothing to be done but just wait. So while it was sad that she did finally let go, we are all grateful that she is not laying there just hurting and waiting to go anymore. The saddest part for me was that she mentioned to my mom a number of times that she was sad she wouldn't be here to see my new baby-she was so very happy that we were getting another little girl.


So, here's to Grandma's Freedom. Freedom from being tethered to oxygen tubes for the past 6 or so years. Freedom from the nursing home-that while it was a blessing to be there and be cared for, just wasn't home. Freedom from the discomfort and eventually pain that she sat through each day for the last weeks. I think Jacob summed it up best when upon our telling the children that Grandma died he said "Oh good! Now she's not sick anymore!"


Grandma was always good for a laugh, comments that made your eyes roll, and more than enough treats to make us all sick. For the best sleepovers and the best "hotcakes" ever, for smashed pennies from the railroad tracks, for celebrating every holiday known to man with some sort of goody bag. For terms like "num-nums" and "to-to" and always saying goodbye with the words "give me a buzz" (give me a call) so my dad could turn to us and say "she'd look funny with a buzz!"