Happy New Year's Eve

What a great 2010 the Leptuch Family has had. So many exciting things have happened this year and 2011 should be even better. Ava grew up right before our eyes. We are looking forward to meeting Noah and having him be a part of our family. He was trying to grace us with his presence this year, but I guess he wants to wait.  The past 2 days I had been having quite a few Braxton Hicks Contractions. They started on Wednesday night and went into yesterday. They seemed to have let up now, so today, I am going to get out for a walk in this brisk AZ weather. I am most uncomfortable!!!

Mike was off this week and we got a lot of things crossed off our to do list. I am nesting and therefore making lists for my lists and trying to get Mike to get everything done. I think we are pretty much ready for Noah, just a couple of last minute things that aren't the end of the world if they don't get done before he comes.  My mom was down here for 2 days which helped us get those things done.

Now it's time to think of our New Year's Resolutions! We won't stay up late tonight, but we will have our Friday night pizza and enjoy the rest of the year. Happy New Year to all that read my blog and to a great year ahead!

Update on baby Noah

Here is me and baby Noah at 35 weeks. I am now 36 weeks and have just one more week until I am considered full term. Yay! It has been a long road. Last week, I really noticed a drop in baby Noah's movement. It was a drastic drop, so I was worrying and counting kicks like crazy and noticing when he was kicking and when he wasn't. Usually whenever I eat or drink juice or have any type of sugar, he kicks within minutes. By Monday, he wasn't responding to any of that, so I headed over to L&D. They checked him out and everything was fine. I had my Doctor's appointment on Wednesday and she decided that I should get twice weekly stress tests on the baby to make sure that his heart rate, fluid levels, breathing and muscle tone were fine. I got the test done that day and all looked good. It made me feel a little sigh of relief. I go back on Monday for another test. As of yesterday, he started kicking more, so I am going to see if I can go once a week because this is going to cost me an arm and a leg.  Other than that, I am feeling big these days. By the end of the day, my feet hurt and my back hurts. I am just ready for him to be here.  The big day  is less than 3 weeks away. I have been telling everyone that he is going to come early, which means he will now wait until his scheduled c-section! Mike is off this week and will be helping me out a lot and I couldn't be more grateful for. I might have my nanny come next week and help out in the mornings. I just can't get up and down off  of the floor a million times, so it is nice to have someone who can. Then I can get some last minute things done. I am officially done working. It really hasn't sunk in yet and I am not sure when it will. I am going to enjoy this time!!  

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas to everyone. We had such a great Christmas and Christmas Eve.

Every year for Christmas eve, we go to my step-brother's house for a pasta and seafood affair. We all got dressed up and headed over. The food was amazing as always and it was nice to spend time with family.

 Here is Ava in her Christmas eve dress.

 Here is our family picture in front of their tree. We have the exact same shot from last year and what a difference a year makes.

We woke up early Christmas morning, well, I guess I should say Ava woke up around 5:20am. I just decided to get her up because we had to be at my sister's house around 8:30 for brunch.  Santa brought Ava a new kitchen.  Santa's helper put it together during her nap on Christmas eve. He was smart to do it ahead of time. Ava came into the family room and saw it right away. She loved it!!!

 Here she is opening the plastic food that is going to be everywhere in our house until we can get a good storage bin to put it in!!

Ava didn't really get the part where she had to pull all the wrapping paper off, so I helped, but she was all ohhhh and ahhh's when she saw everything. Of course, we had to pull everything out of the boxes for her to see.

**Note to self next year: pull everything out of boxes and cut all strings, put back in box and then wrap...

Next year, we will have an almost one year old and an almost 3 year old. It will require some serious organizing.  Ava got tons of toys and I know was way overwhelmed by the time we were done. She got lots of toys and clothes. I wish I didn't take everything out of the box and held on to some for later. I may still do that.

 After we opened gifts, we all went over to my sister, Jacy's, house for brunch. Here is Ava in her Christmas outfit. Super cute.

We gave her a couple of gifts to open while everyone prepared breakfast. Her Auntie Jackie and Uncle Nick got her the Thomas the Train beginner train track set and she LOVED it. She was so excited and yelling and screaming. Her Aunties said that they haven't seen her this excited before. 

 After we ate our brunch, it was time to open gifts. Ava had an easier time opening presents in tissue paper.

 Here is a dress from auntie Jacy.

 And one of her favorite gifts from Nana and Papa Ron... It is a Sesame Street Riding toy. She loved it and rode it around saying bruuuummmmm the rest of the morning. That allowed us to open our gifts..

After opening presents at my sister's house, we headed home to get Ava down for her nap. She was super tired and way overstimulated from everything and needed a good nap in her crib. She slept for 2 hours and was refreshed when she got up. Then we headed back to Brian and Melissa's for a Prime Rib Christmas dinner. It was so good. In fact, these past 2 days, I don't think I have felt hungry as the food has been plentiful and I have no room, so just a couple of bites fills me up. Do you think I stop after a couple of bites, nope, so I have been a bit uncomfortable. Today, I detox!! We had a nice afternoon, in which Ava played in their playroom and ran around outside. Below is a picture of Ava with her cousins. When we put Ava down on the step, she moved away from her cousin Alex, but in order to get the picture, we left her there.  These 2 were the best, even though Ava has red eye. I just can't get the red eye reduction to work on my camera and when her eyes are so small it won't correct it either. (Patty, I will upload to snapfish for you today or tomorrow).

After this we went home for Ava to take a bath and play with her toys that she had yet to play with. As soon as we got home, she was looking for her kitchen. She just loves it!! She played for a while then off to bed we went. I think next year, we are going to have to invite the family over for brunch at our house so that we can enjoy the day a bit more. All the driving around was a bit crazy, but still fun to be with family!

What a great Christmas we had. It is always over too fast. Next year will be twice as fun!

Ava is 22 months old!

 Ava is 22 months old today. I say it every time, but she is growing up so fast. It is hard for me to sometimes see the changes she has made until we hang out with someone that hasn't seen her in a while. You remember when you were little and people would always say to you, "wow, look how much you have grown." and you thought to yourself, really?? That is how I feel about Ava.

She is talking so much more. She will repeat at least one word from every sentence you say. She is learning new words daily. I am amazed sometimes that she knows what something is. She has started to string words together to make phrases, like "No Way", "Oh Wow", "Oh Man" and "See it", to just name a few. She will also say a bunch of words together to tell a story. For instance, she will say "Choo-choo", "Mall", "Ho-Ho", "Car", which translates to, The Choo-choo train is at the mall and so is Santa Clause (ho-ho is how she refers to him) and you have to get in the car to drive there to see all that. The other day, I asked her if she had fun at the park and she said "boy" because there were some boys there that were running around. She is learning the art of conversation. She likes to describe things to you when she sees them. The other night she was pointing out the body parts on one of her animals. She does it on her own, without us having to ask. She will just start to say words that describe something. My favorite thing that she does is that she will stop somewhere, sniff the air and say "good". Every thing to her smells good.

She has become aware of people even more now. When Nick, Jaclyn's Fiance, came over the other day, she put her arms up in the air as to hide her face and clung to me so hard. It took awhile, but she eventually warmed up to moving around. By no means was she going to go near him, but she was at least not going to cling to me.

I have been taking pictures of some of her favorite things to do as of right now...

First, is flying bo bo. I already posted a picture of Mike and her playing it, but this time, bo bo got stuck on the ceiling fan! Mind you, Mike and I are the only 2 that can play this with her!!




 

She loves to color. She will ask you to draw something and then she colors on top of it.

She loves to play with her magnets. They spend most of the time on the floor than on the refrigerator. She will put them in buckets or in this case, a beer holder, and then pour them out and play with them. She has a bunch of horses that she loves...

She loves to help sweep. She is such a great helper and will be more so when she can actually learn how to sweep the crumbs up!!

The latest thing is that she loves to line things up. She just started this a day or two ago. She picked up all her shapes and lined them up. They have to touch each other! Then she will call someone over to see it....

She is such an amazing little person and seeking her independence daily. Her life is about to change drastically with the arrival of her baby brother, but hopefully she will love him as much as we do. If not now, in the near future!

Posing for Pictures

 

This morning, I decided to take a couple of pictures of Ava because I am trying to finish up one last Christmas gift. Immediately when she saw me pull out the camera, she said "see it". I told her to stand by the tree and smile so I can take a picture. She is starting to get it now that in order to see something on the camera, I have to take a picture first. Here is what I got today...

This is what I get when I say "smile"...

Holy Guacamole!

Mike took this picture at lunch yesterday. We had Baja Fresh for lunch because we had a coupon and when Ava saw the basket of Chips and Guacamole, she went right for it. She used the chip as a spoon and scooped up the guacamole and sucked it off of the chip.

He was so proud because we love Mexican food in our family and he will be devastated if she doesn't like it!

To our Mexican lover in training!



Flying Bo Bo

This is Ava and Daddy playing flying Bo Bo, or as Ava says "frying bo bo". It all started about 2 weeks ago when I was trying to get Ava to laugh. I took Bo Bo by the ears, spun him around and threw him up in the air. She laughed so hard at the sight of it. I kept doing it and she kept laughing. I could listen to her laugh for hours. So it became a game that transformed into daddy and Ava lying on the ground and throwing bo bo up in the air and lots of laughs. It is too cute!

Me.

I am being very brave to post this picture, but I am telling myself that it is to look back on and remember how BIG my belly got with Noah! He is like a basketball in my belly and sticks out SO far. This is me at 33 weeks. (Last weekend). I feel like there is a 15 lb bowling ball in there that I am carrying around.

I have been feeling a bit better and with that, I ended up doing to much last week and paid for it on Friday. It was partially because Ava had another rough night Thursday night where she woke up about every 1/2 hour from 11:30 am to 2:30 am. Then I couldn't fall asleep after that because I too have been sick and cannot breathe out of my nose at night. It is horrible. Every night, I hope that it will get better and it doesn't. I also had contractions for about 2 hours. I probably had 8-10 an hour and should've gone into L&D, but was able to calm myself down and therefore it calmed the contractions down. So Friday morning, I pretty much felt like I had been run over by a truck. Luckily my nanny is done with school and wants the extra money, so she was here to help me and I was able to take a morning nap and rest.

I had a doc appt on Monday and the doctor confirmed that I am still not dilating, which is good. Maybe that's why I didn't follow my bed rest to the fullest this week.

I was finally able to get the person from the hospital that schedules C-Sections to call me back with a time. If Noah makes it, it will be at 11am on January 14th 2011. I have to be there 2 hours early and she told me that I cannot "eat, drink, chew gum or smoke" 8 hours before. She said that they have to tell you not to smoke for liability reasons, even though I don't smoke. It was comical! Anyway, I don't know how I am not going to be able to drink anything. I drink so much water at night and in the morning. I will get to watch Mike and Ava have breakfast and just sit there. Maybe I can have ice chips!!  I think he will come earlier, but if he doesn't that will be his birthday!! The doctor said that as long as I get to 36 weeks, they wouldn't stop contractions after that. That would be Christmas Eve for those of you wondering.

Along with all of this, I found out some bad news that I knew was coming, my company is finally closing it's doors and I will be out of a job starting Jan 3rd. I have known this was coming, but it is always a shock when it does finally happen. Not sure what my plans will be for this year, but I know that everything happens for a reason and we will figure it out.

Our Visit with Grandma Nini

 This weekend, Grandma Nini, came to visit us.  What a weekend to come too. I will back track to Thursday night. Ava woke up at about 11pm and started crying. Mike went in to settle her and about 5 mins later, we heard her again. We knew something was up. After trying to settle her, nothing was working, we realized she had a stuffy nose. Ut-Oh, I thought, Ava caught a cold. Our nanny was sick this week,so I guess she passed it on. I also was not feeling 100% either. My throat was sore and my nose was stuffy. Let's just say between Mike, my mom and I, we tried to settle Ava and after 3 1/2 hours, she finally went to sleep. She still woke up 3 more times before she got up at 5am. I ended up sleeping on the couch at 2:30am to let Mike sleep because he had gone to bed at 10:30pm that evening and had to work the next morning.  I knew every noise that Ava made, he would hear and get up to settle her because he didn't want me doing too much. How can I not, she is my baby and as her mommy, I felt like I had to be there for her. I only slept 3 hours that night. For someone that is supposed to be on bed rest, it was a rough night for me. Anyway, she still has a stuffy nose, but I am hoping she is on the mend. She did manage to eat some breakfast this morning. I guess I am just happy that she is sick now instead of when Noah gets here.

Friday afternoon, Mike's mom came to visit us from LA for the weekend. She and Ava had a blast outside yesterday playing in her sandbox and with all her pods. Ava has collected over 100 pods. She loves to put them in her bucket and then dump them out and then put them back in. Here they are playing with all the pods...

 Ava's newest thing is crawling under the table. I don't get why kids like to do it, but here she is!!!

We bought our Christmas Tree yesterday as well. I told Mike to get a small one and that is exactly what he did. This is the smallest tree we have ever had, but I didn't want something that felt so overwhelming. We decorated it this morning with a couple of my favorite ornaments and the rest will stay in the box for another year or two. Ava really enjoyed looking through the box of ornaments. She kept saying "woooow!" and "ooohhhh". She has such great expressions!



I am starting to feel a little bit better. I feel like I can do a little bit more, but not much. I am still trying to make rest and liquids my priority, but some days it is just hard when so many things need to get done. I got all my Christmas presents wrapped yesterday. I only have a couple more gifts to buy (or should I say send Mike to buy). My little sister, Jaclyn, was nice enough to go out and get some Christmas gifts for me and I am forever thankful!!! I just have to wrap those this morning. I wanted to give Mike's mom all our LA gifts so we don't have the send them and get all the presents that have to be shipped done, so Mike can send out tomorrow. Doesn't it feel like you spend more in shipping then on the actual gift!!

Well, another week down and Noah is still sitting comfortably in my belly. I am thankful for everyday he is in there and take it one day at a time!

Modified Bedrest Until.....?

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to follow up with the Doctor's office to let them know what was going on and to also see what they think I should do. I am still having tightness in my belly when I stand up. They pretty much said what I have been hearing all along that I am having Braxton Hicks Contractions. They put me on modified bed rest and they gave me a Doctor's Note just in case I am asked. That basically means take it easy, stay off my feet when I can, drink plenty of fluids and no heavy lifting, pushing or pulling. The doctor said that the tests that they preformed at LDR (Labor and Delivery ) is basically what they would have done.   I have another appointment on Monday. I want to follow up with them on an action plan. I mean, how do they know if I am dilating or not? I guess the pre-term labor test sorta helps them think that I am not as it means I won't go into labor in the next 2 weeks .It is a fetal Fibronectin test and mine came back negative. From my research online, this is what that means:
The fetal fibronectin (fFN) test can't tell you for sure that you are in labor, but it can tell you that you're not. This is useful because in the early stages of preterm labor, it's very difficult to tell if a woman really is in labor based on her symptoms and a pelvic exam.
A negative result on the fFN test means it's highly unlikely that you'll give birth in the next week or two, which can set your mind at ease and allow your practitioner to hold off on treatments that may prove to be unnecessary.When lab technicians analyze your sample, they measure the amount of fetal fibronectin (fFN), a protein produced by the fetal membranes. This protein serves as the "glue" that attaches the fetal sac to the uterine lining. It's normally found in increased amounts in your vagina during the first half of pregnancy and again late in pregnancy as you near labor. But if fFN leaks from the uterus and more than a small amount shows up in the vagina too early (between 22 and 34 weeks), it may mean that the glue is disintegrating ahead of schedule because of contractions or an injury to the membranes.
If this happens, your risk of going into labor and giving birth prematurely is significantly higher. More important, if no fetal fibronectin is found in your sample, it means your risk of giving birth in the next two weeks is very small.
I am hoping to get some sort of game plan together at my next visit, but I am only meeting with a Physician's Assistant to get my Disability paperwork filled out. (Which at this point, I really need to get done, just in case). I still have a lot more questions for the doctor especially since I will eventually have a scheduled c-section date (which I am still waiting for them to call me back on...)

So the modified bed rest has been hard. It is something that I had mentioned to Mike early in my pregnancy that would be difficult. I guess I can be happy that we are close to the end and this isn't months and months of it. He is having to pick up all the slack. He said to me the other night that he never thought he would be happy to force me to sit on the couch!! He has been a super dad and husband and I could not do it without him. He is rearranging his schedule to help me out and working into the wee hours of the night to finish up. I cannot express how lucky I really am.

On the bright side, this will give me lots of time to catch up on some things that I always want to do, but don't see as worth my limited time. For example, today, I pulled out my recipe box and went through all my recipes and took out the ones that I will NEVER make. I mean, I had one in there for a chocolate-espresso roulade (sp?). Who has time for that? what is it anyway??? I took all the recipes that were just on the magazine page folded up and put them on index cards. There is now room to add more recipes, ones that I will actually make.  I am pretty sure you will hear about all the random things that I will be doing. Maybe it will prompt you to do some too!!