I am feeling blessed.

It has been kind of hard to think about the good side of thing lately (during the last few months actually), I guess we tend to concentrate in the bad things rather than the good things. It comes natural to me and I really need to stop doing that.
Here is a list of the thing that have been hard on me:

-Having to deal with two miscarriages and ectopic pregnancy before finally getting pregnant and staying pregnant.
-Even though I was extremely excited about getting pregnant, being sick for the last 30 weeks have not been fun at all.
-Not being able to have a good summer with the kids this year, even though they know I tried to make it work. The medication to keep me from throwing up kept me passed out most of the summer.
-Being told by my doctor that they found a soft marker for Down Syndrome on my baby....(I will explain this later)
-Being told that I have anemia and now need to take another gross pill to get my iron levels to where they need to be.
-Being told that I have Gestational Diabetes (again) and now that I can finally eat... well I can't :)

I have talked to friends and family members that are close to me about all this issues and probably complained more than I had to but you need to air all of this out right? Other wise you can go insane. They all have been supportive and kind to me but it still makes me feel a little down because I was hoping for the best pregnancy ever, I took a big break to give my body time to feel great for this last pregnancy, I wanted to enjoy it as much as I could being that last time that I get to carry life inside of me... It still is special but it is just not the same.

The hardest thing has been wondering what the outcome of this pregnancy is going to be. When the doctor told me there was something that was not right with the baby it broke my heart and I felt like it was a slap to my face. They told me she has Echogenic Bowl Syndrome, which basically means that her bowl seems a little dense and they usually see that in babies that are born with down syndrome... they are not sure 100% about it and I was supposed to get refereed to a High Risk pregnancy doctor but so far they haven't done that. I have to be honest, when I first heard about it I just cried like crazy, I felt like I really didn't deserve to go through something like that at all, after all the trials to get pregnant and then you are told your idea of a perfect baby is gone. I feel selfish now for having those feelings. After I talked to Dan about it I stopped at a park and prayed to my Heavenly Father to give me the strength to deal with what ever will happen, if she is meant to have DS, it will be OK, I know that now. I have been blessed with understanding and encouragement to deal with it and I know that she will be perfect no matter what and we will love her just the same. I hate it that they had to tell me and have me waiting for the day she arrives to find out if she will be or not.
Heavenly Father does not give us trial that we can't handle, I know that for a fact. I never thought that I could be strong enough to deal with a situation like that but I know he will be with me every step of the way.
The only thing I ask is that people do not look at my baby with pity or feel bad for me, that would just brake my heart. We love her already, we can't wait to meet her and hold her in our arms for the first time. It has been a rough pregnancy, the hardest one I have had to deal with and I can honestly say that we can't wait for it to be over... my body can't take it anymore, everything, EVERYTHING hurts but I know that at the end of the road we will have the cutest baby to hug and love for the rest of our lives and suddenly it doesn't seem too bad anymore.

I have been blessed with a wonderful family, a great husband and kids. I have more blessing that I can count and the list is definitely longer than the one I previously wrote down. I love this time of year and even if I can't enjoy a big meal for Thanksgiving I know that my life will be for ever full with all the blessings Heavenly Father has given me.
Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving.

My birthday... not so fun.

I decided to officially cancel my birthday for this year due to a massive attack of the flu to my dear family.
I just don't know if I should cry or what. It all started last week with Dan and Tristan getting sick first and then me and my mom. We are slowly recuperating but now my Aaron is also sick with the flu, a really bad ear infection and respiratory issues. The poor thing had a seizure Saturday night after throwing up due to his high fever and I didn't even know it. He started acting kind of funny and did not make any sense at all. I feel so bad for not taking him to the ER right then and there but now I know what a seizure looks like... The doctor gave him TONS of medications and we are hoping he can feel better soon. He got a cute mask to go with the breathing treatments that we have to do at home, my poor boy. He had RSV about 3 years ago and he got to have a breathing treatment at home but his time is different, he was wheezing but his oxygen levels were fine, so he is getting 2 puffs of two different medications twice a day, he will do one of the medications for a month and we will see how he is doing by Thursday back with his doctor and then she will decide if he can stop one of the medications...
And so my birthday is on hold, I am not up to 100% yet, I can't taste anything so there is no point going out to eat, my body aches so no going to the movies or anything.
My mom was crying this morning because she really wanted to cook this really yummy meal for my birthday and make me a cake but she is also sick and I don't want her to work hard right now. Wish us luck and that the sickness can leave my home soon, I can't take this anymore!!!

Aaron turns 4

So I am giving myself the award for the worst mom ever for taking me this long to post about Aaron's birthday. Just because he is the last one it doesn't mean we love him any less or his birthday is less important... it's just me and being sick all the time that has not allowed me to sit down in the office and actually upload the pics and write about.
Aaron turned 4 on October 12, he was a very happy boy waiting and waiting for his birthday to come. We did not have a birthday party for him because the school wont allow me to send invitations to his friends and I just didn't know what else to do. Since his birthday was on a Tuesday we figured we would start the celebration earlier and we gave him his presents on Sunday when the whole family was at home and that way he didn't have to wait until after work to give him his presents. Yes horrible mom again did not want to wrap the presents so we just made him close his eyes and wait for them... he actually liked it very much. He got a cool construction site thingy that he just loves, magic markers that only work on a special paper (for my own peace of mind), a singing stuffed animal that is my favorite toy in the whole world, a little battle mouse that talks all the time and walks all over the place, cars and many other things. On Tuesday for his actual birthday I made him his birthday cake, nothing fancy just a race track with 4 cars since he was turning 4 and he just loved it. Funny thing is that I had it on top of the stove to keep it safe from the little fingers and I forgot the oven was still on, the cake melted in the back and so did the cars.... see??? Horrible mom.
That night we took him to Chuck E Cheese's to celebrate and spent almost 200 tokens playing for a couple of hours and we got a good amount of tickets to trade in, Aaron got to pick most of the stuff for him but the other kids also got some goodies. He was very happy and I am glad he enjoyed his two day celebration.


I just want to say for the record that Aaron is a bright little boy with lots of imagination, some times way too much (he tells me stories of how things happen around him even though we know he is the one doing it). He is very enthusiastic about school and absolutely loves Tristan, he says he is his bestest friend. He has a crush on his PK teacher and I think she does too :) He is learning how to be helpful and trying really hard to clean up after himself. He is a joy to have around and we love him so so much. I can't believe he is 4 already!!

Just a quick thought.

I have been dealing with morning sickness for the last 5 months officially now. I had never gone this far being sick like this and let me tell you that is not fun at all. My mark was always around 20 weeks. I was done puking and feeling gross all day, today I am at 25 weeks and a few days and I feel like I can't take this anymore. I had been feeling better but for some reason it is all coming back again. I am thankful to have my mom here because she helps me out and I can take naps without leaving my kids on their own, but seriously I am getting SICK of this.
I usually deal with gestational diabetes after my morning sickness but I still have to go and do the test, I have been putting it off because it is something I don't want to deal with right now, so I will be praying that I wont get it this time. I feel like this is the worst pregnancy so far, I know it is all worth it and in the end I will forget all about it, I want to be able to enjoy what is left of it, wake up in the morning and be excited about my little projects for the baby but so far that is not happening. I am hanging in there, just watching the time go by and I think to myself sometimes it is too much. I am glad my other pregnancies were easier or I would have been done after two.... really.

The beach!!!

One of the reasons I was so excited to move to Texas was because of the proximity to the beach. I grew up in a country where going to beach was something we did regularly. The water was always clean and warm and the weather was perfect, we used to spend the weekend there when ever we could. Since I came to the USA that was not the case, I never went to VA beach while we lived there, I went to the beach in New Jersey and I froze my butt off. We have not been to the beach as much as I would love to but at least once year we have done the trip down there. We went to Galveston last month when my mom came back from Utah and we had a blast, it was the perfect day, perfect weather, it wasn't crowded, no jelly fish stinging us and the water was kind of clear. We played in the sand, jumped in the water, buried our feet in the sand and just enjoyed ourselves there.




The kids and my mom were mostly in the water playing and the kids were amazed at how far they could go before it started to get really deep.
I wanted to go back but I am not sure we will have the time to do it.

Halloween decorations.

I haven't been feeling like blogging lately but honestly I don't even know if that many people read it anymore so sometimes I wonder why do I even care... oh yeah because this blog is mainly for me and my posterity :)

We have been doing things, going places and taking pictures but I just can't find the time to sit down and get the pictures in here and write about it, also lots of thinking going on and to get silly thoughts out of my head I better get busy I guess.

The kids and I decorated a Halloween house that we got at Walmart. I usually get into the decorating thing 100% but this year it has not been the case. The kids basically decorated the outside of the house so if you were to come to my house then you would understand what I mean, they did a good job, basically it is the same old decorations so it was easy for them to figure out how to put them up.


I also worked on a little project of mine this year, I had seen this Halloween counters before and think they are really cute but when I went to the store to look for the materials they did not have them, apparently you have to buy a piece of wood and cut to size and all that fun stuff, so we went a different direction and thanks to my crafty daughter Shayna we managed to find a way to make it and I really like it. We bought the blocks at Michaels and also the little boxes the are in, I painted the boxes, covered the blocks with paper and added the numbers (I used a marker and did it by hand instead of using stickers or anything else). I think it all came together very well and it was easy to make.






These are my dollar store finds, two plates a little jar that go together, aren't they cute?

Tristan's 6th Birthday

My life is filled with fun and happy moments because of my little guy Tristan, he is such a fun person to have around and I really can't imagine a life without him.
On Saturday we had a big party planned for him. This year the theme was "Cars" and he requested a cake shaped as the car Lighting McQueen. On Friday night he sat right by my side as I was decorating his cake, he was making sure I didn't forget any details and basically just supervising the whole thing. He approved of the cake and that made it all worth it.

We got the house decorated for the party Saturday morning and then patiently waited for his guest to arrive. For some strange reason I had the feeling nobody was going to show up. When his first friend showed up we felt a little bit of relief since this was his first birthday party ever and we didn't want him to feel sad if nobody showed up. His friend Jackson and him had fun playing for a while and then waited some more, nobody else showed up so we started eating pizza and then playing some games and just then the second friend showed up (Brianna the "girlfriend"), she came with the whole family and it was excellent since they had 3 kids and they made it so much fun. Everybody joined in the games and we had some noise going on, it actually looked like a party :)

We had a Bingo game and then the "Pin the tire on the car" game, then we headed outside for some pinata time, it didn't last very long but it kept them entertained long enough.
We took some pictures with Lighting McQueen and then it was cake time.

Everybody was impressed with the cake and the parents didn't want to eat it. The cake was so moist and delicious that I actually ate a slice of cake, I don't usually eat cake...

Tristan was super happy with all his presents, Dan, my mom and I were able to find all his birthday presents to go with the theme, so he got coloring books, crayons, a reading book, puzzles, and Mack the truck. His friends gave him a train set that he loves and a remote control car. He was a happy boy and that is just what we wanted.


Then today we woke him up early in the morning to sing Happy Birthday and at school he got a crown, stickers and a pencil... wow!!! After school I took him to Toys R Us because he got a $3.00 off coupon from Geoffrey and as always he got his crown and balloon there as well. He picked a cute set of mini cars and off we went home to show everybody. We took him out for dinner and everything was fine until he fell off his chair, he hurt his back really bad and cried for a long time. I felt so bad for him because that is no way to end a celebration. All in all it was a good day and he was happy to turn 6. We spoiled him rotten and he deserves it. We love you Tristan!!!!

These pictures are out of order and I can't figure out how to fix it, but you get the idea.