Bed Rest Field Trip

Today I snuck out of the house for a little while so I could attend Vince's first ever school concert (and regain some sanity)!  I'm SOOO happy and grateful I was able to attend his holiday concert, and I have this high risk pregnancy to thank haha!  I would have otherwise been at work today, and Vince would have missed having a parent to wave to in the audience.  He didn't see me at first, and was just waving blindly to everyone like the teacher was telling him to do.  But when he saw me, his face lit up like a little Christmas tree, and then he would wave to me in between each song.  My heart would melt each time.  Such a special day!
The poor little girl that stood next to Vince stared blankly into the audience, with her hands in her mouth, and was frozen with stage fright the whole time.  At one point Vince decided to break her freeze and he attacked her hat, which sent her into a small tailspin of a melt down.  It was all quickly remedied by an intervening teacher and some Christmas bells that were passed out to each kid for the song Jingle Bells.  

There's nothing like watching your 3 year old belt out Christmas songs, and I couldn't have been prouder.  He did want to skip all the songs and get right to "Holly Jolly Christmas", which is his specialty.... and when it was time for that song Mrs. Ward let him announce it because he was bugging out with excitement that it was actually time to sing it. Leave it to us to have the only child not wearing a nice Christmas outfit... although the guitar shirt is pretty cool I must say

 On the home front, I've reduced our family to having to wear matching Christmas pajamas... I can't help it, these two look so cute!  Mike and I have a different set of matching pajamas... I'll spare you the picture.

They typically use the fireplace to stage their shows

The Weekend Trike-a-Thon

My friend Danielle held a toddler trike-a-thon at the local roller rink over the weekend to benefit Toys For Tots Foundation.  The idea was to make a track for the kids to tricycle around, hoping they'd stay in between the cones.  I didn't get the pleasure of witnessing the madness, but Mike came home with a few cute photos of Zoë on the track, and Vince being a grumble bug and refusing to participate.... while appropriately wearing his Pop-Pop's bah humbug Christmas hat. 

Vince said...

Here's a couple of things that Vince said recently:

At Church yesterday, I brought Vince to the front of the Church for children's time. Vince was the youngest kid there, as most of the other kids were 5 and older. The reverend told a story about making your own reality, and asked the kids if they had any goals. Vince raised his hand, and when she asked him what his goal was and put the microphone up to his mouth, he answered: "Uh...., Santa Claus is coming to town."

Tonight he said to me in a funny voice: "Daddy, I'm going to drive you crazy."

You already have, kid, you already have.

A Very Happy Birthday! (from the couch)

My couch/bed rest update:  not much has changed in the last couple weeks, although I do go to the doctor again today for another check.  We'll keep our fingers crossed for no changes!  I don't feel any different, aside from being COMPLETELY OUT OF SHAPE, TIRED, and pretty lethargic ALL THE TIME.  It's a little hard to not get into a weird and depressing funk about yourself when all you do is plop on the couch all day... but I'm holding on to that small fact that I'll NEVER be able to lounge this long again after this is over!  I've gotten sucked into Amazon.com and watching the daily/lightning deals that they have (thanks sister-in-law!)..... and am proud to say that I've constructed a wish list on Amazon for the whole darn family (including our unborn 'baby boy silvestro')... with the ability to see all our wish lists after just searching for one of our names!  (do I have too much time on my hands?....)  it's turning into a good spot to put items that I like and don't want to forget about.  After 5 more weeks of this, my own personal wish list is going to be 5 miles long, watch out Mike!

I turned 38 on Friday (whoah!), and what could have been a pretty quiet and uneventful birthday turned into an evening with great surprises, awesome cake, and good friends that came over to hang out!  Mike organized some friends to come over and surprise me for cake and ice cream around 7pm (now I understand why he kept nudging me to actually wear some real clothes that day haha!)  It couldn't have been any better!!

Earlier during the day I searched on the web and scouted out every place within a 10 mile radius of our house that gave away free meals on birthdays, so after the nanny took the kids for the day, my mom drove us to the Abington Ale House for my free lunch!  It was the first time I could use my new seat belt bag that Mike got me for my birthday too!  I was ecstatic to get out of the house, and had a great lunch with my mom.... and a few other people sitting in booths around us who were celebrating their birthdays too! 

my complementary birthday cupcake

 

my fun seat belt bag, from Harveys seat belt bags.  I love it!  You gotta give credit to Zappos.com website, they have little videos you can watch of models walking around with whatever item you are shopping for, very helpful!  

My two delicious birthday cakes!  Cookies and Cream ice cream cake on the left, hand made by my super talented and thoughtful friend Danielle.  The cake on the right is from our near by fabulous German bakery Konditor Meister. A very decadent chocolate cake, I've only ever had them for work birthdays!  Vince ate that ENTIRE piece of fondant on top of the chocolate cake.... I'm still shocked he didn't get sick.

 Thanks to Maggie we got at least one decent family photo before everyone got crazy...

Bed Rest: Week 5

Today marks the end of my 5th week of bed rest.  I'm happy to report I haven't had this baby yet, and things appear to be remaining stable and it's less likely that I will deliver a dangerously premature baby.  Last week the doctor said that he thought things hadn't changed since my last examination, and I was ecstatic to hear that I could wait 2 weeks before another visit.  Prior to that I had been going weekly once I left the hospital.  I will see him again on Monday, when I will be 29 weeks pregnant.  We'll keep our fingers crossed for no more changes.  If I can get to 34 weeks pregnant before having this kid, than he'd be less likely to have to go to the NICU at all, or maybe he would just have to go for 24 hours of observations.  I would also be able to deliver at my regular hospital (their NICU will only take babies born as young as 34 weeks gestation). 

So that being said, I have about 5 weeks left of pure bed rest... and I'm starting to freak out because I STILL haven't gotten around to finishing up (or starting!) Zoë's baby book!  Honestly!  I must be the poster child example for procrastination!!  Here I've been sitting on the couch/bed for over a month and I keep finding "other things" that I need to do before I get to the baby books.  It sounds like a joke!  I am proud to say however, that I just finished the last episode of Season 4 of Mad Men, and am now a complete zombie in the way of netflix streaming.  I've also managed to do over 90% of our Christmas shopping online, and have found some interesting deals that only someone with ridiculous amounts of time on their hands would be able to find on the internet.  That being said, I can't wait to get my free toaster oven in the mail that I was just awarded today ;) 

Now if I could somehow just get over this no paycheck thing... I think I'd be OK staying home (provided someone still comes and wisps the kids away for several hours during the day).  I've started inquiring to all the wonderful people who have been stopping by and offering help.... asking if they could just keep coming even after I'm done with bed rest and have our third child on hand.  We'll be outnumbered!  I think I'm going to savor the next weeks of bed rest, settled in knowing that I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO DO THIS AGAIN....