Roller Coaster Update

Joseph has been working on the roller coaster a couple hours every weekend for the last couple months, except for those couple weeks when it rained. He's made a lot of progress on it, but it's not nearly done yet. It is ridable though.

Moses took the first test run:

I love how Moses is looking at me the whole time and smiling for the camera. What a goofy goober!

Then it was Akiko's turn:

She's obviously less than pleased that she didn't go first. She was also hoping that she'd be able to help more than Joseph would allow her. But she really is excited about the coaster.

Joseph has actually designed the base of the coaster so that our bike stroller will latch onto it, so the kids actually have seats and harnesses, you know, for safety reasons.

Our friendly neighborhood missionaries came out to help Joseph as part of their service. They said it was the most fun service project they've done.

I bet Joseph's brother Jake, who is currently serving his mission in the Philippines, wishes he had service projects like this.

With the test runs, Joseph has been able to find the flaws and has been working on redesigning a little here and there so that it will be sturdy and safe for the kids to play on, especially if their friends come over.

I'll keep updating on the roller coaster when there is something new to report on, but it is exciting that it's come along as far as it has.

Re: The Baby - Good News and Bad News

Let's start with the good news:

I saw the nutritionist this morning. It is the last appointment before the baby comes. She was very proud of me. I was able to manage my gestational diabetes. That means no insulin for this lady.

Even though I had some very high glucose levels every once in a while, my overall average kept the baby's and my weights in check. I've only gained 29 lbs. so far. That's so much better than the nearly 50 lbs. I've gained with the other pregnancies. And with all the walking to school to pick up Akiko that I've had to do the entire pregnancy, I do feel much more fit this time around than any other pregnancy.

She seems optimistic that my insulin will start regulating itself pretty soon after birth. Ideally, I'll keep with the diet in order to prevent developing Type 2 diabetes in the future. Honestly, it's something I do plan on doing for the most part, but I am looking forward to eating normal sugar and more carbs again. I don't plan on overdoing it, but cutting back on them as much and as drastically as I had to was really hard. I'm not stupid enough to gorge myself as soon as I've got the go ahead.

So, while it was stressful to deal with, and I'm not out of the woods yet, it was very pleasant news to get.

Now the bad news:

It's not horrible news, but it's not the kind of news you want to get when you're in the home stretch.

So, near the end of a pregnancy, a woman's belly usually measures, in centimeters, the same as how many weeks along she is. So, for a woman who is 36 weeks along, her belly will measure at least 36 cm large.

Last week, at 37 weeks, I measured 36 cm. Still normal. This morning, at 38 weeks, I measured at 32 cm. Weird, right?

I wasn't seeing my normal doctor today. She's out of town. So her colleague, whom I have never seen before, was a little alarmed. She wanted me to go get another formal ultrasound. I told her I didn't really want to do that. I had been through that before with my first baby, whom I had also carried small, and it ended up being an unnecessary expense and nothing to worry about.

She said that that decision was up to me and she was okay with that, but asked if I wouldn't mind letting her check things out with the smaller, in-office ultrasound machine. I gave her my consent.

My doctor had checked me out with the smaller machine two weeks ago, to check the size of the baby and make sure he wasn't getting too big. After taking measurements, the machine stated that he was 6 lbs. 4 oz. and right on schedule. He was heads down. We just had to wait a few more weeks for him to arrive.

This morning, the machine stated that he was 5 lbs. 3 oz. We also found out that he decided to flip around and he is now sitting breach.

Now the weight loss thing we can't really explain and those little machines aren't terribly accurate when you're in the last trimester. There's a margin of error of plus or minus about a pound.

The doctor measured his head, abdomen, and femur. The head and the femur were consistent with the last measurement, but his abdomen seems to have shrunk. No idea why. She checked the placenta and amniotic fluid and everything was normal.

So basically, since my baby has apparently lost weight and is breach, this means two things:

When the babies are measuring small for gestational age, they like to induce early because the doctors are better able to monitor the baby's nutrition, for lack of a better word, better on the outside than on the inside. Inducing a little early I don't have a huge problem with.

It's still really weird that the baby seems to have lost an entire pound. I'm hoping that it was just a really huge margin of error on the machine's part. 

With the baby being breach (butt down rather than head down), they're much more likely to schedule a c-section for me, which the doctor stated would be a shame since all my other births hadn't been. I think the fact that the baby has shifted position is the reason my belly suddenly shrank.

There is an exercise I can do to try and get him to flip back to heads down. If that doesn't work, I'm going to have my doctor do an aversion (sp?), which is where she presses on my belly and tries to manually coax the baby back into position. If that fails, c-section it is. Ugh.

The colleague is going to consult with my doctor first thing Monday morning, so I'm going to have to wait until then before I know what's going to happen.

So, the news that the baby is suddenly small is weird. An early induction is something I can handle. I'm extremely relieved that, at the very least, he is not a giganto diabetes baby.

The news that he's breach makes me nervous. I do not want a c-section. I'm not opposed to them at all and I've given my consent to one if there's an emergency, but I'd really rather push this little guy out the way he's supposed to come out.

So, here's to hoping that we can get him flipped back to where he should be and that, depending on what my doctor says, we'll either induce early or just let labor start on its own. I am really disliking all this uncertainty right at the very end of the pregnancy though.

Spring Break 2012: Part Two

So, the day after we went to Knott's Berry Farm, Joseph's Auntie Helen took us to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Joseph's sister, Kailee, and her little baby Sophia had flown in from Maui the night before and were staying in our suite with us, so they also joined us at the aquarium.

There's not a whole lot to say, so I'll just start with the pictures and comment as needed.

Asher and Sophia were mesmerized by the giant tanks right away.

I just thought it was cute how my kids were lined up to watch the fish.

Kailee and Sophia enjoying their time there.

A giant eel swims by to say "hi" to my boys.

Now the sea bass and my kids wouldn't cooperate with each other for picture, so I had to take a picture of a random girl about Moses' size so you can see how big these 500 lb. sea bass were. It was huge!!

This display just made me hungry.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the black fin shark is about 4 ft. long. This was the biggest diamond ray I had ever seen!! It was ginormous!! At least 5.5 ft. in diameter and she weighed about 500 lbs.!! So beautiful.

 Auntie Helen took us to feed the lorikeets. They were friendly birds. The girl that worked there said that the lorikeets only land on people that they know aren't going to freak out. She told us they never land on her because they know she would freak out. They landed on Joseph, Kailee, Helen, and me right as we walked in.

I didn't even have any nectar and they loved me!

Chill little Sophia shows my kids how it's done.

We're just all glad none of us got pooped on.

Asher loved feeding the lorikeets.

By far, Akiko's favorite thing to do at aquariums is petting the animals at the touch pools. She would spend all day there if I'd let her. She loved the rays and they loved her back and kept swimming to her to let her touch them. When there was a group of teenagers freaking out about how "gross" and "slimy" the rays felt, she kept telling them that they were so soft and nice. She kept giving those kids looks like they were being a bunch of pansies. She totally showed them up.

She was practically in the pool with the rays.

I haven't seen seastars and anemones this brightly colored since we went snorkeling off of Boracay.

Petting the anemones turned into a family affair. Akiko also spent a lot of time at this exhibit and talked the ear off of the lady in charge of the exhibit.

Moses posing on the rocks.

Akiko, still soaked from petting the rays, poses on the rocks, too.

I could not believe how big these crabs were. They could have eaten little Sophia if they wanted to, I suppose.

After we were done at the aquarium, we went back to our hotel and Kailee and I took the kids down to the pool. They were a little upset that we weren't going to the beach, but neither Joseph or I had the energy for such an outing. Luckily, the time at the pool was sufficient.

After we got cleaned up, Grandpa and Helen took us out for a fabulous Mexican dinner. I ate way too much. I forgot to check my glucose levels after the meal, but I'm sure I was over.  It was soooo good!

Grandpa Jack with his newest great-granddaughter.

Moses and Akiko with Auntie Helen and Grandpa Jack. Asher was asleep and just out of the shot to the left of Akiko.

We drove home the next day. The kids were fantastic on the drive home and we made better time going north than we did heading south. I wish we could have stayed longer and spend more time with the family, but I'm glad we are close enough that a drive to Long Beach isn't terribly daunting.

Akiko had so much fun and didn't want to leave. She pretty much refused to get back in the car when we were loading up. I had to bribe her with the promise of a new baby brother and that I was really going to need her help. She reluctantly agreed to get in the car.

Spring Break 2012: Part One

Akiko, once again, had a whole week off school this last week. This time it was for spring break. We decided to take a long overdue trip down to southern California to visit Joseph's grandpa, auntie, and cousin in Long Beach.

We left Monday morning after I came back from getting our tire patched. We found a screw and a slow leak in one of our tires as we were coming home from church the day before. I'm glad we found it then and not Monday or have our tire pop on us as we were on the road. I'm also grateful that it was a quick and inexpensive fix and I was able to get it done super early in the morning.

Anyway, we got down to Long Beach just in time to have dinner with the family. With all the more frequent stops we have to make when traveling with smaller children, we very luckily missed the worst of L.A.'s horrendous rush hour.

The next morning, we took the kids to Knott's Berry Farm. Even though we were staying at a hotel just down the street from Disneyland, I did not want to drop the big bucks to go there where I wouldn't be able to do much of anything while being this pregnant. Knott's Berry is only 15 minutes away and costs half as much to get in and is just as much fun.

My dance studio performed there (and also at Disneyland on a different day) when I was 15 or 16. We were there on an overcast weekday. There was hardly anyone at the park that day, so our troupe pretty much had the run of the place. It was tons of fun.

Joseph had never been there before, but took my word that we I would have a lot more fun going there than the more popular, and therefore more crowded, Disneyland. I'm so glad we went. It was not crowded at all and there were hardly any lines for the rides. It was also a beautiful sunny day, but not hot at all.

Right when we got in, we bumped into Snoopy. My kids don't know the Peanuts characters, but they will someday. Oh, and there's my pregnant belly!

This next series of pictures was the first ride for Akiko and Moses. I just want to show them because Moses' face is funny.

The first one is anticipation before the ride begins:

The next one, Moses shows terror as the ride makes its first drop:

And I'm really sorry it's blurry and dark, but, you know, cameras can be fickle sometimes.

The last shot is nearing the end of the ride and Moses decided it really was fun:

It turns out that my 60th percentile daughter was just tall enough for almost all the rides at the park. Joseph took off with her to ride the big coasters. I hung out at Camp Snoopy with the boys.

Most of the rides we just sent Moses on. I'm glad he's old and confident enough to get in line and ride by himself. Most of the kiddie rides are pretty tame. Moses discovered the coaster, though, which is a bit wilder and he loved it so much he ended up riding it 7(!) times throughout the course of the day. The ride was set up in a way that there was no way I could get a shot of him on it at all.

Akiko had so much fun on the big coasters. Her favorites were Montezooma's Revenge and the Jaguar, but her very favorite was the Perilous Plunge, which features a 115 ft. water drenching drop.

Not my picture. Got it from Google.

While Moses really loved the kiddie coaster, his very favorite ride was the Log Flume, which he had to ride with Joseph, but they went on it 4 or 5 times. The very last time, which happened to be the very last ride of the day as the park was closing, Asher also joined them on the flume.

Joseph couldn't help buying the picture for this one. Can you blame him?

We had a ton of fun at Knott's Berry. It was the perfect kind of day to go. Our friend Krysta, who also lives in SoCal, joined us later in the afternoon and took Akiko on a bunch of rides so that Joseph could take Moses on the rides where he needed to be accompanied by an adult. It worked out great.

I thought that, with all the running around that he was doing, Asher would end up like this for most of the afternoon:

Yeah, that lasted only about 20 minutes. He was so wired the rest of the day. We couldn't get him to sleep until nearly 11pm.

Moses on the other hand, conked out in the car on the way back to the hotel:

We got back to the hotel around 7pm. He stayed asleep until about 8am the next morning, with one minor interruption where Joseph woke him up enough to go to the bathroom.

I'm going to leave the post here and just inundate you with cute pictures from here on out and talk about the aquarium in a later post.

My cute kids posing for me while we waited for Joseph to park the car.

Such a beautiful girl. I love her so much.

Pure handsomeness and sweetness all in one package.

I love these kids!!

I love these boys, too! Asher is 95% Daddy's boy, 5% Mommy's boy.

Asher liked some of the thrill rides, too.

If Asher weren't moving so fast towards me, he wouldn't be so blurry, but he still just looks so cute in this picture.

And this is Asher's "posing for the camera" face.

Favorite mode of transportation.

Cannot get enough of this sweet, sweet child.

I can't believe how big this one is getting. Big coasters already?!

Three of my favorite people on the planet.

Akiko really wanted to take a picture of Joseph and me.

At lunch, Asher kept trying to get up on the table. He was finally content to just put his feet on it instead.

These two are just a couple of peas in a pod.

The kids really wanted a picture as Pink's hotdogs as we left the park. I've never had a famous Pink's. Asher had to pose as the mommy hotdog, as I did not trust him with my camera.

What a great day this was. I'm so glad we went.

Celebrate!!

I have two subjects to talk about today that have caused us reason to rejoice, though the two are unrelated to each other.

First, I'd like to talk about how Akiko's birthday went:

She did not have a birthday party this year, for reasons we will not go into (my kids, though I love them, are not perfect and we'll leave it at that). But we did try to make her day as special as possible.

We started the day out with a special pancake breakfast, where I asked Joseph to make the pancakes spell out her name:

The kids got such a kick out of that, it may end up becoming a birthday tradition for us. Moses loved eating "Akiko" pancakes.

After she left for school, I got started decorating her birthday cake. I got it done just in time for the boys and me to go to the school and surprise Akiko at lunch. I think it's nice that our school allows parents to join their kids for lunch if they'd like.

Her school lunches are way better than the lunches I had in elementary. It makes me feel better knowing that she's got a good and healthy selection.

Anyway, Akiko was so pleased to see us there. Her teacher had Akiko pass out the birthday treats that we brought:

I got this idea from Pinterest. Akiko painted all the clothespins, so each one was unique. The kids in her class thought they were so cute. Most of the kids in her class made a point to come up to me and thank me for the treats. I thought that was the sweetest thing ever.

We stayed for lunch recess. Moses and Asher were a huge hit. I let Asher out of the stroller and he was immediately swamped by about a dozen girls who were fawning all over him. He felt a little overwhelmed and ran back to the stroller and stayed there most of the time.

Moses had a lot of fun running around with Akiko and her friends. He was really upset when the recess bell rang. They only had 20 minutes to play. When we picked up Akiko from school later that day, we stayed after for about half an hour, even though it was threatening rain, and let him play on the playground some more.

I didn't take my camera to the school, but it was probably better that way because there was no way I would have been able to take pictures anyway. It was kind of crazy.

After school, Akiko just had fun playing with her brothers and watching movies (after homework was done, of course). She got several calls from her grandparents and relatives. She couldn't believe that people "just keep calling me."

Later that evening, Joseph took an early train home and we headed over to Round Table Pizza for a birthday dinner. I told Akiko that I could either make her whatever she wanted for dinner or we could go out to a restaurant of her choice. I'm glad she chose the latter. The last two years she's requested time consuming gyoza. I really don't think I could have pulled that off this year.

We went home to cake and ice cream. I had asked Akiko what kind of cake she wanted: chocolate with vanilla frosting and decorated with flowers. She was expecting a store bought cake. I gave her this instead:

She couldn't believe I made it. Akiko and Moses kept telling me that it looks just like the cakes they make on Cake Boss. I felt very flattered. My cake decorating skills are nowhere near the caliber of cake art produced at Carlo's Bakery. I was proud of the cake, nonetheless. And it was really tasty, too. And yes, I can eat cake with diabetes. It just has to be a really tiny slice.

I'd like to put our video up of Akiko blowing out her candles, but the file is too big and it won't upload. We put trick candles on her cake this year. It was hilarious. Her confused face was priceless. Asher was also really helpful blowing out the candles with pinpoint accuracy. I can't wait for his birthday in a couple months. It's probably better that I can't post the video anyway, because now I won't have to worry about paying royalties for singing the Happy Birthday song.

Akiko opened her presents afterwards and loved them all. Then it was time for bed. It was a really busy day for me, and I overextended myself, but I'm glad I was able to make it a special day for her even though she was still bummed she isn't having a party. Akiko said she had the "most amazing day ever."

We had her best friend over for a playdate after school the next day. I let the girls have a slice of cake for their after school snack and they both just pretended that they were having a private birthday party with just the two of them. Then I took all the kids over to her friend's house, so I could go to a doctor appointment, and her friend gave Akiko her birthday present that she had bought about a month earlier in anticipation of Akiko's birthday. How cute is that? I don't feel as bad about the no party thing anymore since the playdate ended up being sufficient enough.

My next cause for celebration is that the couch is now 100% done. Finished. Out of my hair and no longer nagging me.

I love the pattern of the pillow covers. I wish I'd got the blue color in the same pattern though. Our house is so brown.

I'm really pleased with the overall look. And if I get tired of the pillows, the covers are so easy to make and it's such an inexpensive way to change things up that I'm not terribly concerned about it right now.

There was a pattern that I liked more, but it was much lighter and the conservative mom of nearly three rambunctious boys said, I think this darker brown color will be better for now.

I'm thinking of adding a few smaller throw pillows into the mix, too, but for now, I'm done. This was truly an exhausting project and it really tested me. I am so pleased with the outcome though and it was a lot easier than I had anticipated. Would you like to know the approximate cost?

Item	Amount	Cost	Subtotal
Main fabric	12 yards	$3 per yard	$36.00
Pillow fabric	4 yards	$9 per yard	$36.00
Pillows	5	$15.00	$75.00
Zippers	5	$2.80	$14.00
Upholstery thread	3 spools	$2.40	$7.20
Grand Total			$168.20

Not bad, eh?

All I have to say is: I am awesome!!

This next week, I will relax and spend time with my family for spring break. Then I've got a whole lotta stuff to still get ready for this baby. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy has gone.

Less than a month left? Usually the last month drags on as I wait around for the baby to come, but with all I feel I still have to do it's going to go by in the blink of an eye. I'm so excited to meet this little guy. And not be pregnant anymore.

I saw his chubby little face for a moment a couple days ago. He's so cute! My doctor did an ultrasound to check how big he is. He will probably be my biggest baby, but he's still in the normal range, thank heavens. He's already measuring 20 inches long! Tall baby! But still, so far, so good. Not too fat. Whew!