My poor feet!

I am so ready for this baby to come! I am absolutely HUGE! Last week at my doctor's appointment we found that the baby had turned! Yea!!!!! So we are very happy about that, with the added bonus that my iron levels went up! I guess the baby isn't growing as fast, so my iron levels aren't as drained. So all good news!

This baby is a mover and a shaker, she does not hold still for long and she favors my right side. There are many times where there is tons of pressure on my right side and I look down and I am totally lopsided. Mark can tell if she is on my right side from across the room! I call my feet elephant feet because they are extremely swollen. My sister-in-law was a gem and gave me a pedicure on Saturday. I've wanted one, but I've been so embarrassed by my elephant feet that I haven't done it. So a big thank-you to Cassandra!! My hands are a little swollen, but I still had to take my wedding bands off, so I now where them on a chain for a necklace.

I have a doctor's appointment Wednesday. Hopefully she has stayed put and not turned again, and I really hope she has dropped some. If not, I guess I'll just keep pluggin along! Hopefully soon I will have some baby pictures to post! Cross your fingers!

Baby update

Well, this pregnancy has been quite different from Abbi. Abbi was pretty smooth sailing the whole way, no real concerns. However this one, I can't really say that.

My iron levels are lower than normal anyway, so when I am pregnant I expect them to go even lower and I immediately start taking an iron supplement. However, when they tested my levels I was a low 8, which they want you to be around 11. So, my doctor prescribed me a heavy dose iron pill to take twice a day. So I start taking those. My next appointment, they check my levels again, NO CHANGE!!! So, I then had to go get an IV of iron for 5 straight days. Since they are pumping it straight into my blood, I figured my iron levels would shoot right up! Well, went to the doctor and they tested and it went up 1 point to a 9. It went up, but not quite enough. My doctor was trying to decide if I should get another round of IV's or not. I really didn't want to, mainly because it is way expensive, but also, I wanted to try and see if taking the pills and really trying to eat iron rich foods could bring it up. So he let me wait a week. So after trying really hard to bring my levels up that way I went back in and it rose 1/2 a point! My doctor decided to not have me do the IV's but to continue with what I was doing and hopefully the level's won't go down. He calls this baby a sponge because of how much iron I've taken and my levels are still as low as they are! The only concern he has is if anything happens during delivery and I bleed, I don't have a reserve of iron in my system and I would need a blood transfusion. Let's just pray that doesn't happen!

So, I've been working on my iron, however this last doctors appointment, we found out this baby is breech. Yay. So we have 3 plans in place. I will crawl around on the floor (the gravity expands the room the baby has and hopefully she will turn on her own) If that doesn't happen at 37 weeks he'll give me something that will relax the uterus and he'll try and turn her from the outside. If we succeed there, great...however she could still turn back to breech, but hopefully not. If she is still breech at 39 weeks I'll get an epidural he'll go in and try and turn the baby and if successful they'll go ahead and start me and hopefully have a great delivery. Finally if all else fails, unfortunately it will be a c-section. Both the doctor and I would like to avoid that last scenario, but I am thankful that we have all these plans in place. So here's to hoping this little baby turns!

Mark and I still haven't decided on a name. We have a couple we like, but unfortunately, I like some, then he likes others. We haven't made up our mind on a common name yet. This may just happen whenever she comes!

I am ready for the constant 24 hour heartburn/acid reflux to be over! I'm excited to be able to move more freely again, not have to kick my legs up to get enough leverage to get out of bed, to be able to bend over and tie my shoes without having to hold my breath. Oh, the little things we take for granted! Yesterday my feet and ankles looked like an elephants trunk! :-( I can't get my ring off either! I just have to keep telling myself 4 more weeks, just 4 more weeks!

Updates!

Well, as you all know, we are expecting our 2nd baby in April, but we also found out that we are having another girl! We are super excited for this addition, however, Mark and I are struggling to agree on a name we both like. Hopefully we can find one before she comes!

Abbi has moved into a big girl bed. We did this back in November. Overall she has been pretty good in it. She has had a couple nights where she continually gets out of bed, but that is getting better each day. We have her bed and the crib set up in the same room together, mainly because I am just not ready to put my almost 2 year old downstairs.

I got a new calling. Well, a couple new callings. I was released as a primary teacher and called as the Laurel adviser in Young Womens. I am excited for this calling and so far I believe I will enjoy it very much. My other calling is as the Ward Choir Director. I'm excited to do this, but it has been a little frustrating getting people to come to practice. Hopefully I can think of something to get people there! I am very appreciative of those who do come faithfully each week!

We have done some home improvement. We have a fireplace in our living room and it was wallpapered around it of all things (don't think that is very fire proof) so we ripped the wallpaper down and tiled around it, then instead of just a hole for a fire, we put the gas stove which was in our family room and moved it to the living room. All we need is our mantel and it will be complete! It already looks tons better! Since we took the gas stove from the family room and that was really it's only source of heat, we got a wood stove and put that in the fireplace in that room. It's really nice having the wood stove. It is one of Marks favorite "toys" to play with. It was quite the ordeal getting that stove in as the fireplace was built back in the 50's kind of funky, but our neighbor and his sons put it in for us, and they did a wonderful job! It stays nice and toasty in there! So that is one project down. We have a few more on our list we'd like to do, but need to decide which one we do first. We have some time as we are saving to be able to do whatever the next thing is!

I believe that is all the updates I have right now. When I have a little more time I have lots of pictures to download, so stay tuned!

Our Exciting News!

Number 2 is on its way! I went to the doctor today and I am 11 weeks pregnant with my due date on April 24th. We are pretty excited to be having another baby. Abbi absolutely loves babies. She always wants me to wrap up her baby doll, then she'll carry it around the house patting it on the back. It's really cute, but I hope she doesn't expect to tote around her brother or sister! This pregnancy is going well. I've only been nauseous a couple times and mainly at night. The big thing is the exhaustion! But that is even starting to be better. I can actually get past breakfast and not feel like I need to take a nap! At the doctor today they needed to draw some blood and 4 pricks later they finally got enough. It's not fun having tiny veins! What can you do!? With Abbi I had no complications and I really hope that this one goes the same way!

Bear Lake

So this is our Welch family vacation to Bear Lake. We had tons of fun and LOVED seeing everyone again. Now the pictures are put in backwards according to our trip, so if you want start from the bottom!


Abbi is tuckered out from all the fun and is sleeping on our way home!


Abbi is playing peek a boo with us in the car.

Peek-A-Boo!


Here is Abbi with Grandma Welch and Grandpa has her cousin Nathan. Abbi had fun ALL day and was sad to leave the beach

Abbi loved playing in the sand. She preferred it to the water. As you can see she is covered in sand!

Working hard digging her holes in the sand!

Chillin out with dad out in the lake. The lake was so nice! It was great with kids because it was shallow for soooooo long!

Having a chip for lunch. We had fun taking that big tube out with Todd's boat. Thanks Todd for bring it! Had a blast!

Here is Grant taking off from the table to the couch. It's amazing what entertains these little munchkins and how much energy they have!

Grant getting ready for take off! It is quite the wind-up!

That's our vacation to Bear Lake! Can't wait to see everyone again!

Finally new pictures!

I couldn't find the cord that connected my camera to my computer for awhile, but I finally found it! So we get to have a little update. Of course 99% of all the pictures are of Abbi, she is the cutest one in the family!


This is how we usually find Abbi when she is taking her naps. Her knees are tucked underneath and her bum is sticking straight up into the air!

Looking longingly outside! Abbi LOVES to be outside.

She had fun eating her spaghetti!

Having a good time! Neadless to say, when we have spaghetti now, she is usually stripped down to her diaper and it's a bath after dinner!

All ready for church with mom!

And dad!

Abbi is starting to love books. She'll find her books and bring them to you and want to sit on your lap while you look at the pictures. She couldn't sit on my lap because I was cleaning the house, so she decided to sit in her own chair and look at the pictures. She looks pretty serious, must be a good book!

I guess breakfast tuckered her out!

Abbi all dressed for church in the dress Grandma Welch made her.

Abbi hanging out on the couch. I love her pig tails! They curl up into little pom poms!

Making sure to get every last bit of food!

This is Abbi and her attempt to feed herself oatmeal. Needless to say, not much got into her mouth. We haven't attempted it again yet, maybe soon.

Happy Birthday Abbi!!!

Abbi's 1st birthday was on the Sunday Feb. 14th. It was a fun day, we had my parents come over for dinner after church, and after dinner the festivities began! Abbi didn't quite know what to think of her cake. She just kind of stared at it, but we got the candle blown out and went on to presents!



Abbi is opening her first present from G & G Welch. She likes to hand whatever she has in her hand to you, hence I get the wrapping paper as she gets to her gift.

Abbi loves the book they got her. It has animals in it with different material etc. to feel. Her favorite is the "fluffy bird" She also got some cute outfits that Grandma Welch made and a cute little dress for when she's older.

I had to help unwrap the next present, but when Abbi could see what was in it...move over mom! She was pretty excited to see that she got a purse with her own things to go in it! I told my mom that Abbi loves to get into my purse and go through everything, and my mom was a genius and found this purse for Abbi! She absolutely loves it!

We got Abbi her own vacuum! I know, many are thinking wow, but Abbi loves it when I get our vacuum out to clean the floors, so now she has her own! It may be a little big for her though as it is as tall as she is! She also got some new Sunday shoes but she got those earlier so she could wear them to church.

Cake time!!! Abbi was not shy to dig right in as soon as the cake was set down in front of her. Notice the cake free face in this picture...it doesn't stay like that for long.

Woops! She dropped some cake and is looking for it. She doesn't want to waste a bit!

The cake face progression...getting more on there

And more...

Working to get a good handful to try and stuff into her mouth.

And let the stuffing commence!

The end product! She absolutely loved the cake! She looks like she has a cake beard! After this we ran off to the tub and did a quick wash. It was hilarious to watch. She was in heaven with the cake, however bedtime didn't come till 9:30 as it was a little more difficult than usual to get her to wind down. I wonder why???