First post of the new year!!

Well, I know it's already the 15th of January, but I am just now getting around to posting an update on how things are going around here. We will start with the update on Benjamin... He is once again climbing on everything in sight! We got some pictures of him in the act...

We all went to Gattiland to celebrate my mom and uncle Robin's birthday. I did Benjamin's hair and it looked SO cute... although he kinda needs a haircut. Here are some pictures from the party. We had a good time and hope that mom and Robin had a great birhtday!!

As you might have noticed in some of these pictures, Benjamin has a rash on his chin and a little around his nose from all the drooling and milk dripping down his chin. His tongue is constantly sticking out of his mouth, and so because of this, we can't keep his chin dry and it's created a real bad rash. We are working on getting rid of it, but he just won't keep the chin dry. Other than that, Benjamin has been doing really well! He is loving all his new toys from Christmas and he is looking forward to little Tyson joining our family. (as much as he can understand anyway)

Now an update on Tyson... on Tuesday I went in for an appointment and found out that there was no change in my dilation but the baby had dropped. He said he has no idea what is holding the baby in, with as low as he is. So the doctor put me on official bed rest. (an outing every now and again is okay but only to save my sanity) Well on Tuesday night the contractions began getting harder and closer together. On Wednesday they were close enough together to call the doctor. I went in to see my doctor and he checked me again and found that I am now dilated to 1 cm and my cervix has thinned out. Because of this, the doctor admitted me to the hospital to monitor me and try to stop the labor. We are 33 weeks along, and really need to make it last another 3 weeks. They kept me there and monitored me for 4 hours and gave me two doses of Terbutiline to slow down the contractions. They felt that it worked pretty well so they sent me home with prescription for Terbutiline to take as needed. So we are hoping this will keep the baby in a little longer. I have my next appointment on Tuesday, so we will know more at that point. :o)

Yesterday evening Kathie arrived from Utah. She is here to help me while on bed rest and to visit with Benjamin. We are so grateful to have her here, so that she can give my mom a break and of course the help is VERY appreciated. Benjamin has not let her sit still since she got here. He drags her all over the house and they play together all day. It's been fun so far! She is here until Thursday the 22nd. We are so glad she was able to make it down!!!

I want to thank my mom for all the time she has been spending with me since I was put on bed rest. I don't know what we would have done without her help! She organized my house, cleaned, cooked, entertained Benjamin and helped me run my errands! She's amazing and I'm so grateful for everything she did for us!!!

Well, now that I am "officially" on bedrest, I am working on finishing my continuing education for my Utah Loan Officer License. I have 13 hours of classes left to do. So I'm going to get on that now. I will update you all again as soon as we know more!

Christmas with the Jones' this year

Well we had a great Christmas this year! Benjamin seemed to really enjoy opening presents and has had a blast with everything he received! We spent Christmas Eve with my mom's side of the family which was nice. After Annie's house, we went home and attempted to go to sleep. I haven't been sleeping at all, and on Christmas Eve I only slept for an hour and found myself watching A Very Brady Christmas at 6:30 in the morning - waiting for Aaron and Benjamin to wake up.

Here are some pictures from Annie's house...

Here's Annie with one of her gifts

Taylor, Nikki and Tim just hanging out

Don, Marianne and Don David

Mom and Dad - love this picture

Ben playing with Uncle Tim

Christmas morning when Aaron and Ben woke up we did our stockings and then the presents from the Haroldsen side of the family. It was very relaxing to have it just the three of us. This was the first time Aaron and I had ever NOT spent the night with one of our families on Christmas Eve. It was pretty fun to just take it easy and enjoy the morning. Here are some pictures of Ben opening his stocking and playing with some of his new toys...

Opening his stocking with daddy


Playing with the drill that Grandma & Grandpa Haroldsen bought him

Helping Dad open his stocking


Little dinosaur that was in his stocking

Magnet toy from Aunt Emily

After we opened our gifts at home, we went over for breakfast at my mom's house (yummy breakfast tacos... my FAVORITE) and then we opened gifts with them. After opening presents, I started to feel the effects of not sleeping and so we left for a few hours to take a nap. We went back over for Prime Rib dinner and some good Karaoke fun! Nikki got a karaoke machine for Christmas so we all had to get up and sing. Here are some pictures from the party at their house...

Lounging on the couch

Mom and Dad singing Karaoke

Benjamin attempting to sing :)

Nikki and Taylor singing

Aaron and I ATTEMPTING to sing haha

Overall we had an AWESOME Christmas and want to thank everyone for contributing to our Holiday! We had a blast with the Jones side this year! We missed the Haroldsen's and hope we can make it up there next year!!

As an update for the unborn baby - it looks like we are back to having Pre-Term Labor problems. I spent the night in the hospital on Friday Dec. 19th with contractions and the doctor has pretty much said there is nothing they can do to stop this baby from coming early. I have already begun dialating so it's just a matter of how long I can hold out before he joins us. We are hoping to make it til Feb 5th at least, as that will be the "safe zone" of 36 weeks. My contractions are worse with this one then they were with Benjamin, and I began dialating 4 weeks earlier than I did with Ben. So we will see how it goes! We are hoping everything works out and that little Tyson is healthy when he arrives.

I hope everyone has a great New Year! We love you all and hope you had a great Christmas!

Can we say "HANDFUL"??

As many of you know... Ben keeps me on my toes on a daily basis. However yesterday was a special kind of behavior. We were eating breakfast and when I got up to get him out of his highchair, he decided to stick his fingers in his mouth and gag himself, resulting in throwing up all over the place!! Which by the way - I don't do well with apparently. Well after cleaning it up, I put him in the tub to get him all clean. I decided to take some pictures because I don't have any of him in the bath. Well as you can see in this picture... we has a water bottle that we use to rinse out his hair. He enjoys playing with it in the faucet and then dumping it on him...

Well yesterday, he thought it would be funny to fill it up in the faucet and then throw it outside of the bath tub. So then I had to clean up ANOTHER mess in the bathroom. Let's just say, that was the beginning of an extremely difficult day. =)

On top of learning how to gag himself, he has also learned some other fun things. Such as... he can roll down the window in the back seat; he has learned to grind his teeth; he has figured out that he LOVES to spit; if he doesn't get his way - he throws himself on the ground and has himself a huge temper tantrum; and instead of sitting in shopping carts - he likes to walk behind it and push it. Those are just a few of the fun things he's learned.

He's not quite talking yet but can say a few words. Some of his favorites are this, that, mama, dada, and kitty/doggy (same word for both - sounds like kitty). When we get ready to go bye-bye he blows kisses and walks toward the door holding either my purse or his diaper bag. When he wants to go outside he will bring me his shoes to put on. He also can point out several body parts, such as his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, belly button, toes and hair. He especially likes to point out mommy's belly button. He is not very gentle when he does this either... which his little brother is not a fan of.

I realized today that we haven't taken any pictures of this pregnancy, so we thought we would take one today. Here's a couple of pictures, please don't make fun of the hair or lack of make-up. I just stepped out of the shower. This is me at 28 weeks.

We had an ultrasound last week and learned that the baby is doing VERY well. He is bigger than Ben was at this stage. He is measuring in the 71st percentile and weighing in at 2 1/2 pounds. The doctor said everything looks good and I haven't been having any pre-term labor which is awesome. I had told some people that we were planning to do a C-Section to avoid any complications during the delivery. However, after speaking with the doctor a little more about it, we feel there is not much of a risk of having the complication again, and even if we do - we feel that the doctor would be able to keep it under control. So we have decided to go with a normal delivery and hope for the best.

We put up our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving. That was fun until Ben decided to take an ornament off the tree and bang it on our coffee table breaking it. So - now all the ornaments are on the top half of the tree. :) But here's a couple pictures of Aaron and Ben putting up the ornaments.

Anyway - that pretty much sums up what's been goin on down here. I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the holiday season!!