Whew...made it through the storm

It was pretty slushy late Friday.  I was surprised at much had melted off by Saturday morning.  Our road was completely clear.  Now there are just slight little traces of snow in our yard here and there.  It's sunny right now that will probably melt off soon too.  So everybody is back to work and daycare today...hooray!  Our power never went out, I guess some 300,000 homes in the Puget Sound area went down and as of reading the paper this morning some 55,000 to go.  We're all on the tail end of our colds now.  Holly's nose is still pretty runny.  So we just took it easy this last weekend and didn't do much.  The Seattle Boat Show starts on Friday, so there won't be any major activities till that's over.  Daddy's going to be so tired.  I'm at 24 weeks and 1 day pregnant as of today, but I was told last week that the baby already is 1.5 pounds.  I haven't been sleeping too good because my hips hurt when I sleep on them, or heartburn, or simply couldn't shut my brain off...May seems really close all of a sudden and there's still stuff to do.  So I'm generally really tired, I fall asleep sitting up on the couch a lot but only in like 5-10 minute bursts.  It's like survival mode right now.  I'm seriously getting pregnant-brain syndrome right now.  I am so forgetful...it's a good thing I tend to write things down.  But you know what?  All of this is do-able because I'm not on bed rest and I can still go work and get things done, it's just a little harder to do than before.

Yep...still dealing with snow

I stayed home with Holly yesterday and David's staying home with her today.  The main roads and freeways are pretty well plowed clear now (I think they caught up with that last night), now it's all the residential streets that are sloppy.  Until that clears up the school busses will have difficulty getting around, thus closing the school district.  So here's wishing for lots of rain.  We have a neighbor that regularly checks the storm drain on our corner for clogging so we're in good shape as far as urban flooding goes.  Yesterday we had some freezing rain, which was weird, followed by a dusting of snow.  Rainier Beach is in a little warm-wet convergence zone so we usually get the least amount of snow and the most amount of rain when either happens.  I heard Olympia got about 18 inches and we got about 4 inches of snow.  Pretty big difference and not terribly far from us.  Today the route to work was about 95% plowed clear, David said coming home last night none of the main streets in our neighborhood had been plowed yet and he ran into every jackknifed metro bus in Seattle...well, practically.  So it took him a little bit longer to get home.  Today looks better as long as all the slush that's forming doesn't become a problem.  Everybody check their neighborhood storm drains!

Doctor appointments...snow...colds

Yesterday I had an ultrasound and found that my complete placenta previa had resolved, which is great news.  I would have been very upset if I was going to be put on bed rest.  I had my OB appointment afterwards, all standard stuff there.  I did the blood test for gestational diabetes after that.  I got a call today from my doctor and I'm one point within normal range.  Her recommendation was to cut back on carbs a little (tis my only vice) and pick up on protein.  They'll probably do finger prick tests in the future since I was borderline, but at this time, no extreme measures needed.  It could be that the reason my numbers are a little haywire is because this baby boy is in the 90th percentile.  Maybe that's why all my uncomfortable pregnancy symptoms kicked in earlier than last time...and I feel super huge.  Today we all stayed home because of the snow, Holly really liked playing in it and sledding.  It's just as well, Holly and I are both sick with colds, nothing serious.  I was bound to succomb sooner or later.  The Seattle school district declared itself closed tomorrow due to snow so I'll probably stay home with her and nurse my cold as well.

"There's snow on the trees!!!"

Yes, Holly...there's snow on the trees.  Holiday is so excited right now because of the snow.  It's probably good that today is MLK day because our daycare's policy is if the Seattle School District closes for snow, they close as well.  We'll have to see what the rest of the week brings.  I'm just glad Holly's feeling better.  On Saturday she woke up grumpy and then threw up.  She had a fever so we gave her apple juice instead of milk and busted out the tylenol.  She felt better immediately.  Yesterday she didn't throw up at all, we just had to manage the fever.  The tylenol brought her fever right down, it just wears off after a couple hours.  She was in good spirits in spite of it, and ate pretty good too.  We got our grocery shopping done in just in time.  When we left Fred Meyer the snow was really coming down much to Holly's happiness.  She really liked it falling on her face.  This morning she woke up without a fever and in good spirits and happier still when she saw all the snow.

The usual stuff

Not a lot new to report right now.  We took down all the Christmas decorations this weekend.  I purged the kitchen and bathroom of all expired goods.  So that's a couple items off my to-do list.  Holly is so not into using the potty lately, she'll even walk up to her potty and kick it when we suggest some potty time.  "No potty, I never potty."  We'll just keep trying.  She seems to have grown some more.  The lingering 2T clothing items suddenly seem tiny on her.  It may be time to weed the rest of those out and be full on 3T now.  Holiday seems a lot heavier to carry now and taller too.  She ate a lot yesterday.  David made Sunday breakfast as usual yesterday and Holly said, "Oh my goodness.  My bacon happy."  She really does love her bacon.  She named her horse 'Lucky', just like the horse on Caillou or 'porsey' as Holly calls it.  She even pretended to feed it one of her snacks.  David's had some kind of lingering sore throat illness for the last three weeks or so.  Hopefully it goes away soon, it's the really busy season at his place of business right now.  I'm surprised I haven't seen any ads for The Seattle Boat Show yet.  My sciatica is pretty well flaring up right now, which isn't a surprise.  I knew sooner or later it would show up.  I can feel a lot of movement right now, last week I did feel an actual kick, but it's mostly like I can feel something swimming around in there.

Christmas pictures

ZooLights

Howlin' at the moon

Swooping for salmon

Puffins I believe

Deer grazing

Scenic shot

More scenic

Holiday's Christmas artwork from daycare.

Mommy and Holly at downtown Macy's.

Grandma Claudia is going to love this one.  Mommy did the same thing when she was little.

Holiday on Christmas Eve.

Mommy and Holiday in their Christmas best.  That's the most comfortable I've ever been in dress clothes...Seriously.

Holiday and Daddy.

Holiday wearing Princess jewelry.

Daddy and Holiday on Christmas morning.

Holiday and Daddy playing on the bed with Holly's new toy puppy.

Holiday got a vet kit from Grandma Linda and has taken it upon herself to give everyone check ups.  The focus has always been on the tummy since she went to Mommy's OB appointments.

Did I mention the set came with a syringe?  She always tells me I did a good job.

Holiday loves Mommy's cupcakes...the frosting at least.

We got a call from our doctor last night and the results from the genetic testing were in and everything is perfectly fine on that front.  Our doctor's very cautious, so they'll be checking out other stuff on our next OB appointment along with the blood test for gestational diabetes.  Admittingly this pregnancy has been noticeably harder on me than with Holly.  I have heard that some women have a tougher time carrying boys than girls, that could be just a coincidence though.  I hardly expected it to be a breeze.

Happy New Year

Everybody's back to work and daycare today.  It was nice having all that time off for us to be together as a family...sleeping in wasn't bad either.  Holly has so much stuff now.  She's just starting to pick up her old toys again after the influx of new toys.  She still loves being in her room, mostly to go in there and read her books...and to use Daddy as a slide or a horsey.  We still have our Christmas decorations up, we were so delayed putting them up that we left them up a little longer.  They'll probably come down sometime over the weekend.  That will probably be a sad day for Holiday since she loved the Christmas tree and all the exterior lights.  Yesterday since David and I both had the day off and Holiday's daycare was open, we decided to have that day of babysitting and get some errands done and squeeze in a movie for us.  In an actual theater too, so we saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie.  I really enjoyed it.  The next big thing coming up for us is the Boat Show.  So we'll probably be in social lock-down until it's over.