Somehow it's already been another 10 days since I updated.. no idea how it got to be that long again LOL and honestly not too much to update on.

I'm 25 weeks 1 day pregnant today. Go Me! I've almost reached the double digits in the count down. And less than 2 weeks and I'll be in my third trimester. The pregnancy is flying by. Which in some ways is a blessing and other ways it stinks. Journey is growing more and more every day and getting stronger by the minute it seems. He is a very active little one and already developing a personality of his own. He can't stand when anything presses again my belly.. someone's hand, the bed when laying on my side, anything... and will kick right at the pressure every time. LOL We are pretty much done shopping for him. We have one or two small things left to get him and then we're good to go and it becomes a waiting game. I'm so ready to see this little one and the next 3 1/2 months are going to take FOREVER. I go back to the midwife a week from Friday for my last monthly appointment. WOW

I've been busy with work lately. I started work at a facility full time on the 3-11 shift. I LOVE my job. I didn't think I'd ever be able to say that about a job but I really do.. I love it. I look forward to going in every day and that's great. It makes it easier to go even when I don't feel so hot. The other nurses have been wonderful about helping me get my footing so to speak and don't mind helping me out on the things I'm not sure about or can't do because of the pregnancy. They keep saying what a wonderful nurse I am and what a good job I'm doing.. :) It makes me feel good. I'm planning on working up until the beginning of February at least.. we'll see though. I'm working as much as possible right now to try and make sure we are financially caught up on bills and what not before I have to stop working so that there isn't that burden to worry about as well.

River is doing AWESOME. He is on Singulair for his chronic allergies now and it is working so much better for him! He's talking up a storm and so amazingly cute. He is having some issues with not wanting to listen lately but eh, what kid doesn't. We are quickly putting a stop to it and he's getting better. As for the bitting and hitting. He's done alot better with these two things as well. We've changed his schedule around some and revamped some things that weren't working and the biting has pretty much stopped. WOOO HOOO. He has learned how to talk on the phone now. He'll hold imaginary conversations on his play phones (our old phones) and then gets very excited when the real phone rings and will come running from wherever he is shouting "Hed-o" (Hello) LOL He's so cute. I would say his vocabulary is up to somewhere around 30-40 words now :) My smart little man. And he had a follow up with the pediatrician for the bronchitis and it's now gone. He had to have a 3 day stint of antibiotics but it's gone and so is the cough and congestion so we're happy. He's growing like a weed.

Doug is doing great in school. He's in his 5th mod now (out of 9). After this mod is over he gets to order his table :) His estimated graduation date is April 5th. Which means we'll be moving back up to Knoxville no later than May 1st. We can't wait!!!

Hi Everyone,

It's been about a week or so.. I think since I updated. So let's see.

Yesterday was my and Doug's 2 year wedding anniversary WOOO HOOO Go us :) We went out for Sushi and saw a movie. We never get to go out anymore and it was much enjoyable. We saw "30 Days of Night" and while it was good movie if you are into the lore of vampires... I can't say it was worth the cost of tickets and what not. *shrug* The sushi was WONDERFUL.

Today River is 21 months old. Not much longer and he'll be 2 years old. WOW it's flying by. He's becoming such a little person lately. Talking much more every day. And he is very opinionated (What toddler isn't). He has started hitting and biting lately and we are at a loss as to how to stop him from doing it. We've tried a 2 minute time out, we've tried stern no's, we've tried ignoring it. We are teaching him "nice" and he seems to get the concept of being nice. He'll say "nice" and stroke the side of his face or your face and say "nice" again. But then he still hits or bites. I hope this is just a short lived phase.

I'm sick. I don't know exactly what's going on with me. I thought I had bronchitis as River had it last week. But todat it all seems to be in my head not in my chest so I don't know. Because of the pregnancy I'm kind of restricted on what I can take and have been miserable for closing in on a week now. *sigh* I'm almost 24 weeks pregnant now. 6 months. Where has it gone!?! It won't be long at all and I'll be holding a squishy newborn. I can't wait!! We only need about 2 or 3 more things for the baby and we'll be set. I love feeling ready. It makes me feel at peace with everything.

We took River to the doctor yesterday. He has had a cough for weeks now and the last 2 or 3 days it's really been horrible. Then on top of that he's had diarrhea and no appetite for about 48 hours. So We took him in. She said as far as the stomach issues go.. just keep him hydrated and don't force him to eat, which we'd been doing anyway. She was a little concerned about his coughing though and sent us over to an imaging center for a chest x-ray.

We got a call this morning. He has bronchitis. I'm pissed. Linda (my mother in law) smokes. In the house. I hate it. She smokes in her smoking room and no where else (when we are up and around). But lately she has been leaving her door open, coming into the kitchen in the mornings before we get up with a cigarette, and just generally not giving a crap. Essentially.. she is the reason why River is sick. She will NOT smoke outside. She won't stop smoking at the house. We have no choice but to continue to live here until Doug graduates school and we can move back to Tennessee. And she doesn't care that River's always sick other than to say "awww poor baby".

They want River to get a nebulizer treatment every 4 to 6 hours. They put him on albuterol. They put him on singulair. And they sent him for blood work. My poor kiddo.

In other news.. I'm 23 weeks today. I'm starting work for a facility tonight part time (with full time potential) and I'm psyched about it. I'm still working for 2 other agencies for supplemental work but this will be consistant work and consistant paycheck. YAY!

I have some stuff I need to get done before going to work so I'll update more later.

20 weeks

I just realized I never updated about the job interview.

I got the job :) It's stating as a PRN LPN which is "as needed". I basically fill in when they don't have enough staff or someone calls out. It pays 19 dollars an hour :) Which is awesome starting salary for a first time nurse :) And then they have a position opening up in a few weeks for 11p to 7a, which is the shift I decided would be best for my family right now. I have orientation Monday morning and then I can start taking shifts. I also have two 5 hour shifts Tuesday and Wednesday for a local agency that does flu clinics. Really easy work, doesn't pay worth crap but it's something anyway. So maybe, just maybe we will be on the road to getting our life together.

I got my ultrasound appointment rescheduled for October 22nd at 1:15pm. So barring any unforseen circumstances, that will be the day. I feel better about that anyway. I'll be 1 day shy of 21 weeks so if they were give me a guess on the sex, I'd probably be a lot more likely to be accurate.

OK so we don't know what the baby is, we didn't get to have an anatomy scan where we were supposed to because there was a problem with the insurance @@ I will be calling the insurance people tomorrow and reeming them. I ended up in tears for about 20 minutes. My poor midwife didn't know what to say and she felt bad.. once I was done completely loosing it, she asked for a hug ROFL. I love my midwife.

I am measuring 19 weeks instead of 18. Not a big deal. Urine was clear. The girl took my BP when I was still crying so my BP was through the roof but she meant to retake it before I left and forgot. I lost another lb. So I'm 3 lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight at the moment. YAY. Baby's heart rate is in the 140's now. I go back November 2nd for my next appointment and hopefully sometime between now and then I'll get to have my ultrasound.

OK tomorrow is the big day as far as the ultrasound goes but today could be pretty big as well... I have a job interview at 10:30 at a local nursing home. I have already spoke with the hiring DON and she sounded very very happy to hear from me. She knows I've only been an LPN for 2 weeks and that I have no experience and she still wants to meet with me. The nursing home is about a 10 minute drive from here on the backroads (no traffic). I really really hope I can get this job. If not, I am scheduled to do some flu clinics next week through a local agency but the pay really and truely sucks. Bare minimum this nursing home will pay 4 dollars more if they offer the lowest amount possible for the position. I'm really hoping to make a dollar or 2 more an hour than the lowest possible.. so we'll see.

I turned 18 weeks yesterday. Where the heck is the time going? I remember when I was pregnant with River the pregnancy seemed to drag by. Of course that could be because I spazzed out at every little ping and pang. But this time.. it feels like I just found out I was pregnant a month ago and it's already been 3 1/2 months since I found out. WOW! I'm really really excited about tomorrow. I hate this time period of pregnancy because 4 weeks takes forever between appointments and by the 3rd week I start worrying that something is going on. Yes I am a freak. I keep trying to compare this pregnancy to the previous and it's damn near impossible, mostly because it was 2 years ago that I was at this stage with River and I really don't remember exactly when things started happening with him. So therefore I hold my breath and wait until they find the heartbeat with the doppler each time and thank the gods that it's there each time. I'm really hoping the baby cooperates tomorrow. I am no good at surprises and am just DYING to know what I'm having. At the beginning of the pregnancy I thought I was having another boy but everythingis pointing to a girl and I've been having girl dreams lately too so we'll see. Yesterday I got a package in the mail from my grandmother. It was a whole box full of gender neutral baby clothes. There was some really cute stuff in there :) And we have officially started a baby drawer in the spare bedroom to hold all the baby's stuff until it gets closer to D day :)

River is doing excellant. He is talking more and more each day. He needs some coaxing with it though. It's almost like he doesn't want to try and say the word until he's sure he can say it. He talks very low when he says the words as if he's worried about being wrong.. poor kiddo! But he's up to about 10 words maybe 15 that he can say. Our main problem as of lately is that he won't say them when he needs to convey what he wants. For example... he'll bring us his empty cup and hand it to us and point and whine. We'll say, "what do you want?" and he'll point and whine. "Do you want MORE?" he stomps feet and points. "Can you say MORE?" he throws himself on the ground and rolls around while whining and kicking. We set the cup down and ignore him until he's done (about 2.5 seconds once he realizes we aren't paying attention). He stands up and grabs cup, throws it into our lap and repats the above steps 2 or 3 times... then the last time he'll get up and go "MORE!" and point at the cup. He gets lots of praise for saying it and when we hand him the cup back with more in it we say "Here's MORE for you River" and he just takes it and runs. My child is stubborn.

The other day we took him out in the rain to dance around. He LOVED IT! It's still in the 70's here so it was plenty warm enough. We got a few pictures that I'll try and post later and he was very distraught when it was time to come in and we closed the sliding glass door. His head goes against the glass very soft and mournful like. He bangs on the glass with his hand and then turns his head to the side to look at me and says "Bye bye Momma, bye bye" all sad and sorrowful. ROFL. Drama and he isn't even 2. BUT he said it and said it when he wanted something so we gave him a few more minutes in the rain and then brought him in and got him dried and changed. He was much happier with that arrangement. LOL

Doug and I will be married 2 years next month. Handfasted for 3 in December. His birthday is also next month so I'm really hoping to have some extra money to do something nice for our anniversary and his birthday. So please keep your fingers crossed that today goes well....

I'm really frustrated. I got a call on Monday from one of my class mates. She and a few others got their approval to test in their e-mails. So I rushed to the computer and pulled up my e-mail account, heart pounding because it might FINALLY be there.... NOPE! UGHHHHHHH So she gives me the number to the Florida Board of Nursing and says she has been calling them every other day to find out if the approval to test has gone through yet. So I got off the phone and call the Florida Board and the woman that handles my "team" (they go by first letter of your last name) said that they are on applications received on the 15th of August and they didn't receive mine until the 24th of August. I don't know how that is when they were over nighted on the 17th but whatever. She said to call back in a few days and check again. *sigh* I want it to come. My friend from class said that she called the testing center hear in Jacksonville and there is NO wait. You can test next day once you get your approval to test. She is waiting until next week so she can get in some last minute studying. Maybe I'll get it sometime this week or next so that I can test next week as well. Goddess knows we need the money :(

Another frustrating situation is we signed up for clearwire internet service 3 weeks ago. We were told upon sign up that with in 2 weeks of signing up we would receive a 75 dollar Visa Web Certificate usuable on the web anywhere that Visa is accepted. YAY. After 2 weeks of not getting it we called clearwire. The gentleman tells us that it takes 15-30 days. UGHHHH again. Here it is at 3 week and 2 days after signing up and still no damn card. I'm not happy. Doug already told me I could use the card to start our diaper stash for the peanut and I'm watching all these awesome diaper deals pass me by because they are taking forever. WHY can't people hurry the heck up??? BLAH

Other than being desperate for a job so we can start climbing out of the hell that is our debt.. life is going okay. River is 19 months old now (turned 19 months old yesterday). And I am 15 weeks pregnant. WOO HOOO. I can't believe how fast this pregnancy is going! Seems like I just found out I was pregnant and it's been almost 12 weeks! I am feeling the baby move alot more recently. It's starting to feel like movements and not just flutters or gas :) YAY! I almost feel pregnant now LOL Doug just finished his second mod today. He starts his 3rd Mod on Monday. So he has a LONG weekend this weekend. YAY! No idea what we'll do other than annoy the crap out of each other but whatever. 2 Mods down, 7 to go :) I'm so proud of him!

My 14 week appointment

Was uneventful.
I lost a pound since my 10 week appointment.. bringing my total gain to -1 LOL My blood pressure was 120/80. Everything else was good. I signed the papers for the quadruple screening (done between 16 and 18 weeks) and will go get the blood work drawn for that on the 17th. Got a letter from the midwife stating that it was okay for me to get treated by a massage therapist now that I'm out of my 1st trimester.
Listened for the baby's HB. She found it about 2 1/2 inches below my belly button :) HB was in the 150s and she had to chase him/her around because s/he wouldn't sit still long enough for her to get a good measurement on the rate :)
I go back in 4 weeks (October 4th) I'll be 18 weeks and 2 at that time. My antatomy scan is scheduled for the same day at 10:15 :) So hopefully if this little one cooperates I'll know what the sex is in just under 4 weeks. WOO HOO.

Yesterday River went to a speech therapist to have an evaluation done. The pediatrician was concerned that he wasn't saying enough words yet. She said that he should be saying 8 words or more clearly enough that a stranger could understand what he was saying.. he isn't. So we went for the evaluation. She asked about 100 questions, played some with River, and decided that he isn't very speech delayed by their standards and said that normally she wouldn't even recommend seeing him yet but wait until he turned 2 to see if there is an improvement but because of his extensive history with ear infections she thought it might be a good idea to give him a little push now, just in case. So she wants to see him twice a week for the next month and see how he is doing at that time. She gave us a few pointers on what we could do to help him talk more and we've been implementing those suggestions at the house and have asked the daycare to do the same. She said that the temper tantrums he throws are probably mostly due in part to frustration which is normal with any pre-language child and that the techniques she is going to teach him and us will help dramatically with the outbursts... that would be much appreciated. It appears my son has inhereited my temper :)

We are adding dairy into River's diet slowly but surely. He is pretty much on any dairy product in moderation except for MILK itself. He still gets Soy for that and I am very much debating going half and half next week with the milk to see how he does with it. I've also thought about just leaving him with the Soy until he turns 2 and then phasing him over to reduced fat milk at 2. Or maybe just leaving him with soy permenantly. Isn't it supposed to be better for them anyway? Hmmm.....

I got fluffy mail (ie cloth diapers) in the mail today. I've been waiting on the package for almost a week so I was delighted to recieve it. It was 3 dozen prefolds that I ordered through a co-op which means they were an extremely good price for brand new prefolds. We now have a grand total of 2 dozen preemie prefolds and 2 dozen infant prefolds. I think I might need another dozen of each before I'm done. I've decided we're going to go with Kissaluv proraps for the newborn stage with this one. They have cut outs for the umbilical cord and are supposed to have a really trim fit. Once she/he goes to smalls we're going to more than likely go exclusively with WWB covers from then on. I REALLY liked the WWB covers prints and the way they worked. I'm going to buy the proraps sometime soon as those are gender neutral but I'm going to wait on the smalls until I know the sex of the baby.

I went today for an NCLEX review at my school. Basically it's just a bunch of NCLEX questions that we discuss as a group to understand the test taking strategies that would work best on the test. I found out that once we recieve the letter of reciept of information we should recieve our approval to test with in about 2 weeks. I recieved mine last week. So essentially I could be testing for the NCLEX sometime next week or the week after. YAY!!!!!! Then I can start working! YAY!!!!!!!!

In other exciting news.. if we can figure out a way to swing it, we'll be coming up to the K-ville area for Yule this year. I'm really hoping we can figure out a way to be up there for a Saturday night so Doug and I can show up at Temple's new venue and see everyone. WE MISS YOU ALL!!!!!! And if not, we'll be making rounds up there to meet up with everyone so if we don't have your number and you want to get together drop us a line before then :)