A new driver in our house!!!

Some exciting news in our family is that Mariah got her driving learner’s permit last week! She studied the instructional manual for less than a week and only missed two of the questions on the test. Her dad took her to the DMV bright and early the morning after her 15th birthday because she wanted to be there as soon as they opened the doors to the DMV! She was SO excited to get her permit! Of course, anytime one of our vehicles is leaving our property, she wants to be the driver! She's really a great little driver-in-training. All that practicing with driving the 4-wheelers seems to have helped, as well as driving the vans and dad's truck around our place. I’m proud of her and excited for her! The changes and the fact that she’s growing up always makes me a bit sad, but it’s also so exciting to see her growing up and hitting all the milestones of a teenager! She's the first girl in her class to get her permit (she's the oldest girl in her class), so that makes it even more exciting for her. She already has plans to drive to school on the first day of school. I can't believe she will have her actual driver's license in less than a year, now!

A bit of a scare

We had a busy day and eventful evening a week ago today. Mariah turned 15 on August 16th and McKenna's 11th birthday was August 14th. We had a party with our family members for both Mariah and McKenna in the evening. We all had a good time.

I had contractions throughout most of the day that day. In the past, they've gone away on their own after resting and drinking lots of fluids. Last week's contractions seemed different to me than the ones I had been having off and on the past week or so, and this time they didn'tn go away with resting and increasing my fluid intake. But, I had so much to do to prepare for the girls' birthday party that I just did my best to ignore the contractions. I started spotting late in the evening (Wednesday the 16th) after the girls' birthday party, and was having contractions about every 5 minutes. I called my doctor (who happened to be on-call for his office last night, thankfully) and he wanted us to go right to the labor & delivery unit for evaluation (this was around 11pm Wednesday night). My doctor came in to evaluate things with the baby and myself at the hospital. The contractions continued to occur about every 5 minutes until around 5am when the meds finally kicked in. I was finally discharged and allowed to come home around 7am this morning. It took two doses of anti-contraction medication at the hospital (several hours apart) to get the contractions to finally slow down enough for us to be able to leave about 8hrs after we arrived.

I was on bedrest for 24 hours, then allowed to get up on Friday to do light activity. Well, come Friday evening, the contractions returned about every 4-5minutes apart...so back to the hospital we went. We had an ultrasound that showed all seems fine with the baby. I will have another u/s next week...but the gender will remain a mystery (by choice) to us until this little one arrives! I was there from Friday night (about 10pm) until Saturday afternoon. I'm now at home on modified bedrest....meaning, I can get up and do light activity as long as it doesn't cause contractions. Unfortunately, just about everything I do had been causing them to return. Today seems to be the best day yet in regards to the contractions. It seems the meds are working at keeping them under control. I plan to attempt a trip to Portland with Steve tomorrow for a doctor's appointment he has with his orthopedic specialist.

The girls and Steve have been great to help me with things around the house so I can relax and just let this baby grow. My cousin has brought us a couple of very yummy meals and my parents brought us a dinner that was so delicious this week, along with some belated birthday wishes since I spent my birthday in the hospital! My parents also gave me a quilt that was handmade by my grandmother who passed away three years ago. My dad said, "every time you snuggle underneath it, it's just like Grandma wrapping her arms around you"...I couldn't agree more! Thank you Dad, Mom, Lela & Don!

My 2006 Graduates....

This is Miranda just prior to graduating from kindergarten! Look out 1st grade (and Mrs Clark!!)...ready or not....here she comes!!!

Mariah, just after graduating from 8th grade....and just after being selected for the "Christian Character" award and plaque for her school! What an honor and privilege! We are so proud of her!

My girls....

This is a photo of the girls enjoying a coastal sunset while we were on vacation in Westport. We stayed for almost two weeks up at our property on the Washington coast. The weather was amazing for the majority of our time there! Of course, it didn't matter if the weather was nice or nasty....it was just nice to get away for a while.

A peek at our baby!

Here is one of our ultrasound images that I scanned. It shows the baby looking directly at you, with his/her arm bent and the little fist tucked up under the chin! This image was from July 7th. At that ultrasound, the doctor said everything looked just great with the baby! Because I am what they now consider AMA (advanced maternal age) I have the option of many more tests, amnios, etc, but I've chosen to decline anything that would be invasive at this point. I don't want to put any risk to this little miracle.

I was far enough along that we could have been able to discover this little baby's gender at this ultrasound appointment last month. BUT, I have NO desire to find out ahead of time! I love the anticipation and surprise of waiting until our little peanut arrives to find out if we have a new son or a new daughter.

Today, August 11th, I'm now 24.5 weeks along...only 15.5 weeks left to go! Everything is going very well. My morning sickness seems to have subsided at this point, except for an unexpected bout of it now and then.

The girls are getting so excited about this little one! What a neat experience it will be to have three older children to share all the excitement of a new baby with! They all would like to be in the room when this baby is born and we are definitely considering allowing them to be there. I know I'm okay with having the older two present (they will be 15 and 11yrs old), it's just the younger one (she will be 7yrs old) that I'm not completely sure about at this point.