17 Weeks and Kai's Singing

I am now 17 weeks pregnant.  What?!  Anyway, being that the nausea is gone and the Christmas goodies are out in full force, I have gained a little weight.  Total weight gain is at about 6 lbs right now. Another development which is super uncool is that I have some major pain down my left buttock and down my thigh.  My sciatic nerve..yikes.  I'm hoping it  gets better soon or I'll need to find something to help ease the pain.  It will be fine for 3 steps and then the fourth one will be super painful which means I end up sort of limping.  Not ideal when lifting and bending and all that fun stuff with the kiddos.  I'm still able to exercise, it's just painful.

{Haven't grown much in the last month}

On to some other fun things:)  Kai had his church Christmas concert today and rocked it:)  Being that he was soooo sick at the school one, I'm glad he could do his thing.  He was definitely the loudest kid and we heard him loud and clear.  I had told him to sing loudly so that we could hear him in the back and boy did he ever.  I was laughing so much that I cried.  That kid.  He has no fear and loves the attention.  They sang `King  of Kings' and `Away in a Manger'.  His letter was `T' and he yelled out `Truth' when it was his turn.  He is the one in the middle in the red striped shirt.

We went swimming at the Walnut Grove pool yesterday and the kids loved it.  Kai loved the waterslide and Koen loved the little slide.  We will definitely go back!

Tonight we went to Ikea for dinner and to buy the baby a dresser!  I had been looking for it on craigslist for the last 2 months but nothing showed up.   I love it.  Such a big splurge for us (as it wasn't on sale) but I'm hoping it's a forever type item.   I had hoped for it to be in the `As Is' but we can't go every day checking that out.  Oh well.   Also, the kids went in the play area for the first time AND we ate at the cafe there.  The boys are determined to go back there over the holidays.  Might have to do $1 breakfast:)

My favourite moment of the day was before the kids went to bed, they cuddled up next to my belly and sang the baby three Christmas carols.  It was really, really sweet.  They are so excited to have a baby brother or sister.  

Life is good.  Stress is low.  Had my last GC photo session of the year yesterday!!  Two weeks of family time now. Bring it!

Hope you had a great weekend.

Love, Louise

Jackie's Bowling Party

Every year we go bowling for my sister Jackie's birthday.  This year we did it a week early as we have two sisters (Trish and Jackie) due over the holidays!  They put up the bumpers over the gutters this time so the kids had a great time:)  Yes, my boys are wearing present bows in their hair, they were feeling festive.

And seriously, can someone tell me what happened to blogger?  Maybe it's just me?! Yikes.  I had to switch to advanced editor (from old editor) because none of my regular options were there this morning (like posting pictures from a URL etc).  I have no idea what's going on but it took me forever just to post this.  If someone has a quick tip on how to help me get my blogger options back to normal, I would appreciate it.  No idea why it suddenly changed and this could stress me out with the GC site as well....

Have a wonderful weekend. After Kai's Christmas Program rehearsal,  we're headed out on a family swim!

{Kai bowled the whole game by himself!}

{First baby due next week!}

{The birthday girl}

{Opi and his support crew}

Can I tell you how incredibly awesome it is to have healthy kids again?  After 2 weeks of hiding out at home, it is so great to be back in the real world again!!  Yay!!

Almost Christmas Break!!!

I know I've been a blogging machine. The more that Gary is gone, the more I need to process here as Gary is usually my sounding board!

Thank you for all the love for the Global piece about my 4 sisters and I. I thought they did a great job and it was really fun to do. My sisters and I are very close and my middle sister, Jan, said we make up almost half of her friend group:)

{One side of our Christmas card...I do not like our family photo and I'm only picky because our faces printed super white which drives me bonkers.}

I am really looking forward to Gary being home for two weeks!! What do we have planned? Nothing too exciting but here are a few things:

1. Paint the baby room (going for a warm grey)...accent colour to be decided once we know if it's a boy or girl!

2. Go swimming

3. Go skating (I won't be able to skate but I want Kai to practice for his lessons that start again in January).

4. Go to ikea:)

5. Bowling with the Dekens family

6. Christmas dinner and all that jazz with my family and with Gary's.

7. Christmas dinner with friends

8. Celebrate Koen's 3rd birthday! He'll have a small party that will likely be train themed.

9. Christmas concert at church

10. Last photo session of 2011

11. Meet a couple of nieces or a niece and nephew! This is what I am most excited for, I can't believe that they will have their babies so soon!!!!!

12. Read

{The other side}

We've had a rough couple weeks here. Koen had hand, foot, and mouth disease. Then, a few days later Kai got it. Then Kai got another virus on top of that. The doctor thinks Kai will be ready for school tomorrow. At least he'll get to go to school one last time before holidays, he has missed so much! This means I have had two sick and grumpy kids at home for 2 weeks. Being that we were contagious it was really, really boring. Thank goodness for tv. Seriously. The hardest part is that Koen has been better for 3 days but we still couldn't do anything because Kai could barely get off the couch. They may have given my HFMD but we will see in the next few days if that is confirmed or not...

I was able to do a maternity session for my sister Jackie and her husband Tyler. They did such a good job and we just went to a nearby field where the kids fell asleep in the van and we did the session just a few steps away:)

I started looking into booking our cabin/condo for Spring Break. Just on the Island as we go every year. This year we might go to Parksville instead of Tofino...the boys LOVE it and so do I. We'll also be going to Green Lake with my sister and her family. I love family holidays!!!!

And finally, Koen is suddenly a big boy. He just seems to have grown up overnight. His sentences are so much longer and his thoughts/questions are so much deeper. He is absolutely hilarious and has us laughing all the time. He is so excited about life, I love it. I've realized he should probably be dressing himself by now so we've been working on it. Watching an almost 3 year old trying to master putting on underwear is quite funny. He's got it all down except for his shirt and that's fine. Shirts are pretty confusing!

Okay, better get dinner going here. Have a wonderful evening.

Love, Louise

PS It might snow tonight!!!

PPS My GC Photography link isn't updating right now but there is a cute new post! Check it out here.

Global Link

In case you didn't see it, and would like to, the link should be up until tomorrow. I thought they did a good job putting it together!

Here it is.

16 Weeks

I wish I had posted week by week with each boy as I find myself going back to my pregnancy with Koen to see where I was at in regards to how I felt, looked etc.

I'm going to sound a bit crazy for a minute but here I go...

This is a weird stage for me because I don't feel pregnant because typical pregnancy symptoms ended for me a week ago (which is normal!). And, I'm not a hypochondriac but suddenly I do sometimes feel afraid that everything will not be okay. I haven't really felt the baby move really since last week, although possibly a few times today. I worry that my Graves Disease will come back while pregnant (which in turn would affect the pregnancy and the baby) and I worry that the baby will die (I think this is on my mind because it recently happened to someone we are close to and also to Michelle Duggar). I try not to think about it and just remind myself that I'm really not in control of this baby's life and I just need to trust God on this:) I didn't worry about these things with the boys and I'm sure it will help once I feel baby kicking me all the time.

In lighter news...

I crave eggs and love light meals. Salads and soups=awesome. My weight gain is still at 4lbs. I get to see the midwife in 1.5 weeks AND I get to have my ultrasound in 2.5 weeks. I know already that I will be crying when I see our baby on the screen.

And finally, the news story is on tomorrow! I hope it goes well and for some reason I'm nervous about it. We are going to get a copy of the story on disk which will be a great keepsake. Looking forward to meeting the first baby in the next couple of weeks. It is Trish and Steve's first baby and I can't wait to meet my little niece.

Have a good night!

Love, Louise

Global News

Last night we had Tanya Beja from Global News come to our house to interview my 4 sisters and I (due to the fact that all 5 of us are pregnant). It was a cool experience because I love seeing the behind the scenes type stuff. How the camera man works (lighting he takes along, shots he needs) and how the story is put together (I may have asked a few questions!). It's sort of like a photo shoot in many ways.

They were at our house for 2 hours. The first hour was with my dad and all the kiddos. It was a bit wild as they did some shots of all of us playing in the corner of our basement for a bit. Of course my boys were pillow fighting with Opi amongst the playing. My favourite comment made by Kai likely didn't get caught on camera but when someone asked if there was a baby in mommy's belly, he said, `Actually, it's in her uterus!'.

The last hour was just the 5 of us sitting around the kitchen table. I know this sounds silly but I thought we would do it in our living room area so I kept that area of the house soooooo clean all day and then we didn't even use it. If you have kids, you know how hard it is to keep your house clean! Anyway, it was good. I think I didn't say some stuff clearly and hopefully I didn't say anything too ridiculous. It's just a feel good story so I hope that's how it comes across. We talked about the good and bad things about being pregnant together and also how it is for us to do this without our mom.

You may have seen a `teaser' on channel 11 (Global) already. I don't think it's the most amazing story so hopefully we were interesting enough? It will air on Monday sometime on the 6pm news.

I have a wicked headache today. Nothing like waking up with a headache. I know it's my fault for stressing yesterday and not eating properly. Tylenol to the rescue...

Have a great weekend:)

Love, Louise

PS Happy birthday mom! Koen and I sang Happy Birthday to you at breakfast time, you would've loved to have seen him singing, it was adorable.

Brotherly Love

Kai has been home from school all week because he has a really bad cold. It's more that I'm trying to get him to regain his energy by staying home and laying low. I did take him to his school's Christmas matinee performance but unfortunately he spent the whole time yawning instead of singing so we left after they sang their three songs.

It was exhausting because I had to take Koen and hold him the whole time to ensure he didn't go near anyone, although, his spots are already scabbed over so i think he's almost better. It's tiring because he's heavy and just wants to run.

Gary will be home at 4:30pm tonight and stay home! Woohoo!

Kai spends about 15 minutes a day reading to Koen. It is really sweet and he totally copies the way I read, leaving the appropriate blanks for Koen to fill in.

But of course, it always ends in wrestling.

I'm waiting for the UPS guy to get here so I can get out of my work out clothes and take a shower. He is delivering our Christmas cards and I'm looking forward to seeing them!

Have a good night!

Love, Louise

The Chapman Household

1. Thank for all your words of encouragement, everyone! We are really excited to all be pregnant together. It was never planned, it was how it worked out. Something kinda exciting is happening on Friday in regards to us all being pregnant and supporting each other and I'll share about it afterwards:)

2. So, things have gotten a bit exhausting in our household. Two kids is easy WHEN they are healthy and when Daddy Bear is around and the kids don't get up at 5am everyday. On Monday night I discovered that Koen has hand, foot and mouth disease. Again. You can get it more than once if it is a different strain. When Koen gets any kind of illness that affects his skin, he gets is so bad. I'm so thankful it isn't an itchy rash but he is covered. Worse though, besides needing to avoid all social situations, is that he is not himself. So whiny and grumpy. Understandable, he feels terrible. So thankful he is out of diapers because I think changing his diapers right now would make me vomit...yuck!

I was worried Kai had it too due to the vomiting on Saturday but other than cold like symptoms, he doesn't have a single spot. I kept him home from school yesterday just in case. Hopefully he feels better tomorrow. I'm glad I kept the kids home from church on Sunday as they were under the weather! Kai has his school Christmas program this afternoon and tomorrow evening...looking forward to it!

3. Smallest thing ever but I have two of the hugest zits ever (yay second trimester!). One is in my dimple so if I smile all the time, it sort of hides that one. Again, they are huge. Kai was pretty fascinated by them and a little shocked that he can get some as a teenager.

4. Went to the TMJ specialist yesterday. I was nice and relaxed but alas, the procedure was not a success. And, I wish I had known (although they did tell me) that it would not be painful. Way less scary than the chiro. The one thing I have going for me is the amount of the relaxin hormone in my body right now, it loosened everything up so it made it easier. Oh well. I had my mouth guard adapted and had a lower splint made which I have to pick up next Tuesday. These mouth pieces will prevent my teeth from coming together thus leaving a space for my disk to potentially go back into place. Again, this has a 50% chance of working. So, the mouth splint, the appointments (plus 3 more) and the procedure cost $1300.00. Awesome. Can't think of anything else I would've wanted to spend my money on. I'm interested to see how much of it is actually covered. I'm hoping for about $400.00 in coverage. Oh ya, and every time I go, it's a one hour drive away.

5. Gary's basketball season has not started out well. It is really frustrating, for him and me, to see him put so much time in and not have the kids do what they can do. They lost two games by 4 points or less and in those games, they should've won by a large margin. I'm hoping things get better for them because I know how much Gary cares about it and how much work he puts into it.

6. And two funny/cute things about the boys:

Kai trying to get Koen to build something with Duplo: `Koen! Believe in yourself, you can do it! And if you need help, just as God!' (Koen then proceeded to ask God to help him build it. It didn't work:)

When I spotted the dots on Koen's hands and feet, I just kept saying `Shoot! Shoot!'. Koen then said, `This is frick'n nuts! '. I may have said that last week. Oops. That kid has an amazing memory.

Have a good week.

Love, Louise

One Of A Kind Sister Photos

Last weekend my sisters and I had a super mini (10 minute) session before going out for lunch together. The plan was to get photos with the five sisters and some with the four pregnant ones.

As we were about to take a picture with the 4 pregnant sisters, my sister Maria says, `Where's my sign?'

Apparently we have 5 pregnant sisters!

So, within 7 months, there will be 5 more babies added to our family! This is definitely a once in a lifetime type thing.

It is nice not having anyone feel left out of the daily emails about labour, breastfeeding, baby names and all that jazz. I can't believe the timing of it as it hasn't been easy for all of us.

I'm thankful that although we don't have our momma, we have each other!

Praying for safe pregnancies and healthy babies.

Yay for family:) First baby should arrive in the next 3 weeks! Yippee!

15 Weeks

Um, how did we get here so quickly?! Yikes!

I am so happy to say that the nausea is now gone. Hip hip hooray!

I am also happy to say that on Thursday (and every day since) I have started feeling the baby move! I can't feel it with my hand on my lower belly but I can feel it from the inside. This is so crazy early to me as I didn't feel Kai until I was about 19 weeks. I felt Kokies at 17 weeks:) It is so crazy how you recognize the feeling immediately. I'll be honest that although I think the human body is amazing, I get kinda weirded out by the giant movements at the end. You know, where the baby's body parts are recognizable from the outside as it punches or kicks your ribs out.

I have not been sleeping well. I feel anxious about silly small things because they seem bigger to me with my hormones these days. I need to make sure I get a better night sleep because I don't want a nasty headache to return! I did a volunteer photography thing at the church last night and hopefully that is the last `stressful' thing for a while. It's not that it's really stressful but it's a long night and I don't always love volunteering with photography. I wouldn't mind making cookies or something instead for a change:)

I have gained 4lbs so far. I've been pretty good about walking 45 minutes a day and riding the recumbent bike for 20 minutes.

Gary saw the kids for about 4 hours this week which is not even close to ideal. It's always a bit of an adjustment getting back into basketball season. Gary just took Kai, now, to the second game of his tourney today. Kai was so excited to wear his Falcons shirt and ride the school bus with Daddy Bear. He asked that Gary teach him all the boys names so he can shout out `Good job!' to all the guys as they play:)

I am excited to add a baby to our family. I'm nervous about how the baby is going to get out of me. If the OB says there is a high chance that I would be successful at a VBA2C (after looking over my previous labour with Kai), then I will feel confident. If he feels that my chances are low, then...well...we'll see. I wish I made 7lb babies with average percentile heads:)

We will hopefully find out what we are having at the beginning of January and I am sooooo excited for that. Gary and I are terrible at finding names so if we know the gender, that should help us out a bit:) Our top boy name right now is a crazy one (and it doesn't start with K or C). `Crazy' meaning I've never heard a person with the name before.

I am thankful for this little baby growing inside of me. The boys are quite excited about it too. Koen blows raspberries on my belly and Kai talks to him/her. Sample conversation: `Hi baby! It's Kai and Koen here. We're going to help feed you and change you and teach you lots of things. Okay, well, we gotta go wrestle now, bye!'. Kai asked what boys have instead of a uterus and I said nothing. He said girls were complicated:)

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

Love, Louise

(**Updated: Kai threw up before the game started so I had to drive out to Maple Ridge to go get him. Poor Bubs. Hoping it's not the flu, I don't do that so well**)