We had a fairly uneventful week. Matthew had his follow up appointment for his ear infection and was given a clean bill of health. We did find out, however, that there is some heredity involved with febrile seizures. Since my brother and I both had them and one of Gilbert's sisters had them we have to keep an eye on any of our kids. Good to know.

My son looking drunk. This picture just makes me laugh.



It got a little too quiet in the living room the other morning and I couldn't find Matthew. He decided to just sit behind the couch for a few minutes.



After being given a clean bill of health, Matthew developed a fever on Saturday with no other symptoms. As you can imagine, fevers are not Mommy's best friend, so I got Motrin in him pretty quickly and we spent the afternoon napping in the living room. He slept with me in our room that night and at one point he woke up asking for me so he got to sleep in the bed with me. Something he hasn't done since he was a newborn. So far this morning he's a little cranky so I'll see how he does without Motrin and then possibly call the doctor.

Yesterday was Mommy's 25th birthday. The boys planned a surprise party and when we got back from doing some shopping at Target most of our Texas family was here waiting to surprise me. It was really sweet. RoseAnn made her famous spaghetti sauce and there was a big cake and of course, ice cream =). We had a ton of kids here and Matthew had a blast with them. My loving husband even bought trick candles to make my life a little more difficult. The kids decided to join in in trying to help me blow out the candles so that was interesting.















At the end of the night Matthew was dancing to some Michael Jackson when the last of the people were leaving and apparently he thought he was going to get to go with them.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Me and my pregnant friends =). Rachel (on the left) is due on March 28 and is having a little boy. Erin is due on March 30 and having a surprise.



All due within the same 4 weeks.



Me and my boys (and girl) on my birthday.



I'm hoping Matthew kicks whatever he has soon. Hopefully it's just his teeth, but if he's not doing better by about 10, I'll give his doctor a call. I have my 28 week appointment today. Yay for the glucose test! They give you a ridiculously sweet orange drink and make you wait an hour to have your blood drawn. So gross. Well, here's hoping I pass with flying colors because I have a freezer full of ice cream just waiting for me to eat it over the next couple of months =).

My absolutely wonderful son woke up at 5:45 this morning for no apparent reason. I'm happy to say that he is now napping and I'm hoping it's a long one.

We had a pretty uneventful week last week. I haven't had the boys in about a month but they'll be back tomorrow. It should be interesting as my level of discomfort has risen a bit since the last time they were here.

Gilbert started a new job at Siemens last Monday and he's seems pretty happy with it. The main reason for going back to Siemens was benefits. We were paying a ridiculous amount out of pocket for benefits and with Siemens we pay a ridiculously low amount out of pocket. Plus the benefits are just better and we can all be under the same medical plan. YAY! Like I said, he seems to be pretty happy with the change even though he's back to working 5 days a week now. I guess we just have to make Saturdays and Sundays really count now.

So Matthew loves his mega bloks and he loves his dump truck but he hasn't really realized that the two actually go together...



He also loves to pull the fire truck that he got from Grammy for Christmas. Shortly after this the fire truck was rammed into the wall several times and temporarily removed from Matthew's possession.



Daddy enjoys the mega bloks just as much as Matthew does and takes great pride in building towers and castles. All of which Matthew takes great joy in tearing down the next morning when Daddy is at work.





Daddy's boy



This is what Matthew does on a good day while we're making dinner... On a bad day he does the same thing but with a lot of whining and a lot less smiles.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Apparently the toy box lid is as good of a toy as anything else he's ever been given



Mmmm... blueberries and nutrigrain bar





This is quite possibly one of the most unflattering pictures ever taken of Matthew but the look on his face is priceless. It shows just how much strength it takes to lug his mega bloks over to Mommy so that she can open the bag and he can start making a mess.



Then he dumps them all out...



And finds that the bag is as much fun as the bloks...



Matthew will have a follow up appointment this week for his ear and hopefully everything else will look good, too.

Elise is growing at an incredible rate. I feel like I've doubled in size over the last week and a half. The water retention has begun and while everyone says I look exactly the same, I feel about as big as I was when I delivered Matthew. It doesn't help that sitting is no longer comfortable and Matthew insists that I sit on the floor with him during playtime. Sleeping is no longer comfortable. Apparently I've been trying to roll onto my stomach throughout the night and my back gets twisted and I wake up with a backache. I will start my 3rd trimester in about 2 weeks. I have my next doctor's appointment next week and they'll do my glucose test then. I'm not looking forward to that. I took new pictures of my tummy and it's amazing how two pictures taken within a couple of seconds of each other can look so drastically different. I look bigger in one than I do in the other and since no one was around to tell me which of the two is more accurate, I am posting them both.





And for a little comparison... 26 weeks pregnant with Matthew:



I feel a lot bigger this time around...

Well, it's Sunday afternoon and I'm sitting here waiting to see if our beautiful boy is going to cooperate and take a short nap. He's recently moved down to one nap a day and he's still adjusting and since Sundays are so busy in the morning, he naps on the way home. The drive is not long enough for a decent nap so I'm testing it out today to see if he'll take an afternoon nap for me.

Well, Matthew is all better now and I honestly hope we never, ever have to experience that again. He's been back in his room for a week now and I've even managed to stop getting up in the middle of the night to check on him. He had his last dose of antibiotic last night and I'm glad to be done with it. I never expected diarrhea to be a side effect of antibiotics... interesting. Luckily the experience ended well and he did not develop a diaper rash. He went most of last week without pants on because I was tired of constantly having to pull his pants down to check his diaper since smell was no longer a reliable indicator as the antibiotic killed the bacteria in his digestive system. I never thought I'd share so much about my son's diaper over the internet. Oh well. He's back to normal and back to keeping me busy.

A mostly naked day because it was 80 degrees out.



Matthew' great aunt and great uncle sent him some money for Christmas so we took him to get a new pair of big boy shoes since he was outgrowing his converse. This isn't the best shot but he looked so cute in this shirt and his new shoes.







Our boy is so smart that he realized that he is capable of lifting the lid off of his toy box all by himself. He then proceeded to take everything he could reach out of it and did not cooperate in putting it all away.







We went for a little walk the other day and it was windy and humid. This is the hairstyle that resulted from the wind and humidity:







Auntie Val sent the kids' Christmas gifts last week and Matthew got some cool tshirts. Elise got some cute blankets, a little stuffed giraffe, and some onesies from Grammy. I'm so in love with the blankets Val bought for Elise that I wish they came in my size. Here they are:





Elise has been moving a lot and pressing more on my sciatic, which is always fun. I'm really starting to hate maternity clothes and my regular clothes are not fitting very well. So really, right now I'm just not liking clothes. My clothes from my pregnancy with Matthew are too big because of weight loss and the clothes that would fit me now aren't long enough to cover the belly. The things that do fit are beginning to get holes in them and I really don't want to go out and spend a bunch of money on clothes I'm only going to wear for 3 months. I'm beginning to understand why some women wear their sweat pants a lot. You can actually see in this picture that my shirt just barely covers my tummy.



Alright, bear with me. I try to keep the posts pretty lighthearted but seeing as this is a family blog I'd like to ask you all to keep us in prayer. I won't get into any of the details, but we have some pretty big decisions ahead of us and we're really going to need to hear God clearly on all of them. No, we're not moving again, but to us these decisions still feel huge. As vague as all of that is, we'd appreciate your prayers =).

Well things have been better around here. Matthew had his last dose of Motrin at about 1AM this morning and hasn't had a fever all day. So far, so good. If he stays like this all day he may be back in his room tonight. I'm sure Daddy would appreciate sleeping in a bed rather than on a couch. Matthew has been in a great mood the last 24 hours or so and we're enjoying listening to him talk and laugh and we even got to watch him dance for a while last night. It was great.

This is Matthew on Wednesday night before bed. Less than 24 hours after being rushed to the ER. You can tell he wasn't feeling well at all.



Within 24 hours this is the face that we were seeing again:







He was even well enough by Thursday evening to pretend he was King Kong with his toys.





It was about 78 degrees yesterday so he spent much of the day stripped down to either just a t-shirt or just shorts. This was last night while he was being silly with us. The giant stuffed dog was a "get well soon" gift from Daddy. We named it "Big Girl" after Grammy's old rottweiler.



That's a mega blok in his mouth in this next picture





He even treated us to some dancing



Here are some videos of the dancing. (Yes, my boy pinches his nipples when he's not wearing a shirt... don't know where he learned it.)


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.


Untitled from Melissa S on Vimeo.

Our happy, fever-free boy this morning



Making a mess in the corner



The best sight in the world =)



He has a follow up with his doctor in 3 weeks for his ear infection, but in the mean time it looks like the antibiotic is working =)

Elise and I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and her heart beat sounds nice and strong. Her movements are getting nice and strong, too. So far we have a total weight gain of 14lbs. I can't believe she'll be here in 3 1/2 months (give or take...). She may decide to make an early appearance like her brother did.

Definitely getting bigger.