Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Summer!

I would like to say thank you to you all for your advice on membrane stripping! Turns out it's not even an option for me because at 40+ weeks I am still not dilated (well, at a 1), not effaced, and I'm GBS positive so they hesitate to do it anyway. I'm hoping things will kick into gear on their own sometime very soon (tonight would be nice, if someone's taking requests...).

In the meantime, the baby has missed out on sharing Joshua's birthday (19), Seth's birthday (20), and the first day of summer (his actual EDD). So we went ahead and celebrated without him. Joshua decided that he wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese for his birthday this year. He had never been before, but Hannah went for a birthday party last month and came home with star glasses, and he has been dying for some ever since. So we packed up his cute piggy cake and headed down for a very small family party. The kids had a great time and are dying to go back. Seth and I played several rounds of the basketball arcade game, which gave me some really good contractions but also (sadly enough) made my arms so sore I couldn't take my own shirt off for two days afterwards! Pathetic.

What is there to say about Joshua at 3? He is so cute and so extremely smart. He counts like crazy, knows all of his letters and what words start with each letter. He can tell time on a clock with hands (at least the hours and most of the half hours, and can tell when it is approaching the next hour). He absolutely adores his sister and will do anything to get a laugh out of her. I've never heard a barely-3-year-old that could make up jokes and puns as well as he can. He also adores babies and it is so funny to see the almost spiritual experience it is for him to be near a baby or see a picture of a baby -- it definitely brings out the best in him and I'm hoping it holds when ours comes. I love him to pieces and it has been very special to watch him lately and look forward to having another little boy.

So here are some pictures from our lovely weekend. We were fortunate enough to have Seth's mom here for a visit. We were able to go out on some dates while she was here, so we celebrated Seth's birthday that way. I didn't even make him the dessert I've been promising him for a year! Am I a terrible wife or what? It was even his 30th bday, so an important one! I just get too overwhelmed at this time of year -- two birthdays and Father's Day and soon another birthday and then our anniversary coming up on the 28th! I think I will move his birthday to July 20 and make his dessert then. Even though I don't have the strength to celebrate all of his special events separately, I love him and appreciate him so much in all of his roles -- as a wonderful person, father, and husband -- and I'm so glad we have all of these occasions to celebrate together...even if we have to spread them out a little!

A Million Years Later

(This post is a super-mess, sorry about all the random pictures in random places -- I just can't figure this out!) Anyway, here's what we've been up to lately:

Happy Birthday Hannah! We celebrated Hannah's fifth birthday in April. We had a great celebration. I am not big into birthday parties so we went bowling as a family (Tiffany and Robbie came out to join us, which was great fun!) and then we let Hannah invite some friends over to have cake and presents and birthday games. Her favorite movie is Robin Hood so she drew her own version of "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" and had a "Pin the Arrow on the Target" game. Her drawings are so cute. We are so thankful to have Hannah in our family. She is absolutely the sweetest, most sensitive girl ever -- really the greatest kid in the world. So good and helpful and self-entertaining and imaginative and intelligent. She's a cutie. We're all excited to have another baby brother for her to mother in the next few weeks.

Above you can see pictures of Hannah at her birthday. There's also a random picture of me at about 35 weeks pregnant for those of you who asked :) . And the cake is a demonstration of how incompetent I have been in the kitchen lately. It took me two tries to make a simple round cake for hannah's birthday -- from a mix! The first one just totally fell apart, as you can see. I have also blown up potatoes in the oven (it really can happen! and yes, I even remembered to poke them), left the gas burner on on the stove for four hours (we are all still alive, thank goodness) and overcooked almost everything I have tried to make. I am usually a pretty good cook so it has been really frustrating to be such an idiot. One of the many joys of pregnancy :)

We also had great Mother's Day. Seth helped the kids make a little book for me called "We Know Mommy Loves Us Because..." They presented it to me in the morning -- they would each bring over a page along with a pink rose and tell me what the page said until I had a whole book and a whole bouquet. It was the cutest thing ever.

Some friends in our ward threw us a great baby shower -- thanks so much Monica and Marissa! We had a great time and received some very thoughtful and helpful gifts. I always thought by the time you had a third kid you pretty much had everything you would ever need, but I was amazed at how much we had to replace, so the shower was really helpful :)

IMPORTANT: I have one question to ask you experienced mothers out there. Have any of you ever had your membranes stripped to "encourage" the onset of labor? I have been induced twice (breaking water, Pitocin) and I never ever want to do it again. But I hate being pregnant and I really want him to come out...soon...and the midwives have offered to strip my membranes at 38-39 weeks. I would love it but I want to make sure that 1) It's not going to give me pain and cramping before labor even begins, making it hard to use my hypnobirthing and 2)could it accidentally break my water and cause me to have to be induced? I don't know. What do you guys think? Please give me the benefit of your experiences!!!!

On Questions

So, I knew the day would come when Hannah would reach the phase of Questions. I always dreaded it because I am the kind of person who doesn't like to learn things, I just like to know things. When Seth tries to explain things to me (such as how a microwave or computer works), I can't even listen because I just don't care -- as long as it does work I'm happy. Hannah, on the other hand, is always curious about technological things like that, so I think Seth is really happy that he has someone who is sincerely interested in what he does all day at work (even though a lot of it he can't explain because it is classified information).

Anyway, I expected those kids of questions to come along -- aren't they supposed to ask questions like "Why is the sky blue?" or "Where does rain come from?" and "How does this work and how does that work?" But I have to say I am constantly blown away at the things that come out of Hannah's mouth. Here are some of my "favorite" questions lately:

-"What if a butterfly poops on my hand and I eat it?"
-"What does it look like inside my uterus?"
-"What does it look like inside a chicken's mouth?"
-"What if I catch a squirrel and throw it?"

and here's the best one:
-"What if you have your hand on my bum and I toot in your hand?"

I, on the other hand, only have one question to ask: Am I actually expected to answer questions like this???

"Wow, you're a chunky one!"

Believe it or not, this is what was said to me today by the cashier at Target after she found out I was only five months pregnant. I didn't even know what to say, I totally just stared at her. I mean, honestly, even if it's true, does anybody ever actually come out and SAY that to a pregnant lady?
She did add that at least I am only big in the stomach, which must be a plus (yes it is, thank you). But seriously!

I hate, hate, hate people asking me how far along I am, and then expressing surprise that I am not about to deliver; I hate people telling me that this is going to be a huge baby (I have never had even a big baby, and I was humongous with Joshua); and I hate people telling me "Oh, you're getting big!" in a tone that implies that if I'm getting big, it must be getting close. I KNOW I'm huge, and no, I have not gained too much weight, and this is not a huge baby, and I am not due for over FOUR MORE MONTHS, no matter how big I am!

Sorry to go on the rampage. I just needed somewhere to vent because I get so tired of hearing this...and it's going to last for oh so much longer...

But then when I came home I found a sample of a teeny tiny newborn diaper in the mail and it made me so excited for this little one. Those diapers are the cutest things ever (next to the baby of course). So I guess I can live with "the comments" if I have to...but be forewarned that if you are standing next to me when you make one of these comments you will be kicked.

By the way, we need help. Does anybody have any boy names they really like that sound good with Nielsen?

It's a Boy!

Me at only 20 weeks!

Okay, so I lied! I knew as I was writing that last post that I would never be able to not find out. And I was right, it is another little boy, and we are all very excited for him to get here ... in 20 more weeks! I am over the morning sickness now too, which helps tremendously. If I could just get over the moodiness, the rest of my family would probably feel better too ;)

Now, contrary to what everyone has been saying to me lately, this is not a huge baby. It's just me. When we had the ultrasound done, he was only in the 15th percentile (I didn't even know they used percentiles for fetuses).

While I am posting, I will add a couple of funny kid stories for your enjoyment.



Story #1: Joshua LOVES taking vitamins. This is the conersation I heard as I was getting them out the other day:


Joshua: Do we get vitamins?!
Seth: Yes, you have vitamin berry chews.
Joshua: Well, I "chews" to eat it!

I had no idea he was smart enough to make a comment like that. It was really funny.



Story #2:
Hannah: Will you please play games after I go to bed?
Me (confused): You want Mommy and Daddy to play games while you're in bed?
Hannah: Yes.
Me: Why?
Hannah: Because that's just what grown-ups do!



(I'm not sure where she got that idea, but if she really thinks that, why does she hate the idea of growing up so much? She never hesitates to remind us that she just wants "to stay little forever".)



Also, Hannah's very very very favorite movie in the whole world is Robin Hood. Not sure why, but she thinks it's hilarious and spends a lot of time pretending to shoot arrows, tying up (what she calls "trapturing") bad guys, and drawing cute pictures of Robin Hood. Anyway, apparently Joshua has found something he likes about that movie too. Here is a transcript of a recent conversation:



J: Hannah, do you want to marry in the temple?
H: No, I just want to stay little forever.
J (to me): Hannah doesn't want to marry in the temple.
Me: Not right now. Do you want to get married in the temple?
J: Yes, I'm going to get married in the San Diego temple!
Me: Who are you going to get married to?
J(embarrassed): I'm going to marry Maid Marian!

Happy New Year!

At Hannah's preschool Christmas party

Christmas with Mrs Claus and the Burger King Christmas King

I hope everyone had a wonderful and peaceful holiday season. Now that it is over and the new year has begun, we decided it's time to share what the new year will bring us -- another baby Nielsen! We are all excited to have this little one come out...hopefully on time...and may the time go quickly.

(I have postponed telling people because I like to be able to sound more enthusiastic, and it's hard for me to do when I am still feeling badly. But I am still sick, and I am doubtful if I will ever feel normal again until the end of June, so we thought we'd better go ahead! But we really are happy and excited, we love new little babies.)

I should be having my mid-point unltrasound in another few weeks, but at this point we are planning NOT to find out the gender. I would kind of like a girl (it's been so long since I had a baby girl! And we have girl names), but my feeling is that it's a boy, and at this point the only name Hannah likes for a boy is Bjarni. I'm a little worried about this. We like to use family names for at least one of the two (first or middle) names of our kids, so I think I'll have to start doing some major searching through family history records to find something else Hannah will agree to. :)

Rebecca and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

Well, well, well. Where to start? First off, we had a fun weekend trip to visit our friends the Nations in Ridgecrest, where we used to live. However, when we came home Sunday night, little did we know we brought a stowaway with us -- the stomach flu! The very, absolutely worst stomach flu virus that exists on the face of this earth. Luckily we did not start getting sick until Monday evening. Here's the story, condensed but fairly detailed, if you have a sensitive stomach stop right here because it's pretty bad.

Monday evening, 6:15: Hannah gets out of bed feeling sick, throw up her toenails (and her entire huge dinner) while sitting on the potty "throwing up" out the other end as well. Daddy has run off to the store for Gatorade and saltines, so I have to hold the barf bowl for Hannah, while throwing up into my own barf bowl and getting splashed by Hannah's explosions.

6:30: Hannah gets bedded down on the couch, goes to sleep -- I take a turn on the procelain throne and throws up some more.

6:45-9:45 pm: Hannah occasionally wakes up and throws up, assisted by Daddy, becauseI have been throwing up (out both ends) nonstop this whole time. I think the final count for throwing up alone was 10 times during these three hours. The progression of vomiting was interesting: first came the food, second came the bile (which really burns coming out your nose, by the way), third came the slime that coats your stomach underneath all the bile. I didn't until now know that it was possible to run out of bile. Our friend came over to assist Seth in giving much-needed blessings, which was greatly appreciated.

10:15: Friends come back over to take care of sick Hannah because by this time I am so dehydrated I am headed to the hospital for an IV on doctor's orders. Thankfully we were the ONLY ones in the ER! Amazing. I was almost ready to pass out and my heart rate was 120. My throat was so burned and hoarse I could hardly talk. They plugged me in and pumped me full of Zofran, the nausea drug they give to chemo patients, and then two full bags of fluid, which hydrated me enough to send me home around 3 a.m., even though I was still feeling extremely ill. The doctor was impressed that the virus was strong enough to fight through the chemo drugs.

4 a.m.: We finally arrive home. On the way in, I throw up half the fluid I had just received, right there in the parking lot. People probably thought I was drunk. Both children are now awake and have been throwing up all night long. (These poor friends of ours. I don't know what we would have done without them!)

Tue morning - present: I have been taking Zofran every 8 hours and am afraid to stop!

Wed afternoon: Seth joins in. In the 6 1/2 yearsa we have been married, this is the first time he has ever thrown up. He sounds like a humongous wildcat coughing up a hairball. Scares the kids.

Anyway. We are slowly getting better, we feel better for the most part, but some symptoms have just been lingering and I just hope they go away someday. I don't ever, ever want to go through it again. I seriously wanted to die when I was sick Monday night. I could never have even imagine that life could be so incredibly terrible.

How was YOUR week?