It Don't Mean A Thing if You Ain't Got That PAIN!!!

So - kid No. 3. By the time you've given birth twice, surely the third time will fly by and be a cinch. As I'm sitting here I've been having contractions that are regular for the past 28 hours. These contractions have been between 5-8 minutes apart for the past 19 hours. How it is that this kid is not here is beyond me. I am totally baffled as to why they aren't increasing in intensity and dialating me. At around 8:30 last night, after two hours of 5-7 minute apart contractions, we decided to head to the hospital (as the nurse at my Dr's office had told me that I should go to the hospital when the contractions were 5-7 minutes apart for at least an hour). The contractions were tolerable but frequent, so off we went. We got to the hospital and the nurse checked me and I wasn't any more dialated than I had been at my last appointment but I was "80% on my way to 90% efface." I guessed they were going to send me home and she said it was likely since these contractions didn't seem to be dialating me. She went to call my doctor (who was on call that evening)and strapped me up to the monitors before she left. She came back to discharge me and verified that I was having frequent contractions, 7, 3, 6, 5 minutes apart - the only problem is this is not the type of contraction that will get our little boy here. Of course, the nurse said that this type of contraction could last for a few more hours or another day or two - WHAT!!! WHAT!!! SERIOUSLY - MY THIRD CHILD IS GOING TO BE MY LONGEST "LABOR" - I say "LABOR" because until it's active labor (dialated 4 cm with PAINFUL contractions is what I'm waiting for at this point according to the night nurse) it isn't really labor - just pre-labor, which isn't painful but is inconvenient and slightly uncomfortable (as in uncomfortable enough to wake me up several time during the night) on a REGULAR basis. SO - the moral of this story, when it comes to contractions IT DON'T MEAN A THING IF YOU AIN'T GOT THAT PAIN!!! I'm actually hoping for pain at this point - odd, never thought I'd say that. Please say a prayer that this picks up in frequency and intensity so that I don't go crazy (or crazier - depending on who you ask).

Poor Middle Child!

Our poor Nora, no matter how hard her mommy tries to not "middle child" her, it just seems to happen. Over the New Year weekend I decided to take a stab at the 3 day potty training thing in hopes that I could have her out of diapers before Wyatt gets here. She had expressed interest in flushing the potty and had even gone a few times randomly, but since she wasn't even two and with all the changes going around in the household I wasn't going to be disappointed if it didn't work. On Friday after the third pair of panties were soaked, Chris was convinced I was pushing things and that she wasn't ready. Saturday was a different story - one accident in the morning and then everything "clicked" that afternoon. Other than several false alarms due to her difficulty/inability to tell the difference between the need to toot and the need to go number 2, she's been an absolute CHAMP!! I was nervous about her continued success at school. No need to worry though - there's only been one accident at school and her main teacher is convinced that the ladies in the afternoon just weren't paying attention to her when she expressed the need to go. Nora is VERY clear when she needs to go. Her eyes get big, she grabs her crotch and starts walking like a bow legged cowboy and announces "T T Potty" or "Poo Poo Potty." She's also really good at holding it if we are in the car! I'm hopeful that she doesn't backslide when the baby is born. They are transitioning her to the next class room at school and she hasn't missed a beat so I'm taking that as a good sign. She's such a sweet, loving, patient, smart little girl. I don't think she could ever possibly get lost or overlooked in the mix but I'm going to have to make sure that she always gets the praise she deserves:-)

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas started off at my parent's house on Dec. 17th and all the kids had a blast staying up late and plyaing with each other. Microphones, baby Stella and the nightgowns from grandma were the hit of the night! Imagine 7 little voices (some much higher than others) singing 7 different songs all at one time - throwing in a few dance moves along the way. Saturday we celebrated Luke's birthday and Chris and I celebrated our anniversary by lounging on my parents couch and falling asleep to some random movie - Men Who Stare at Goats or something like that. I did actually see the part where the secret agent guy killed the goat just by staring at it - no context at all as to what surrounded that event but I felt like I got the most important part of the movie anyway.



6 years of being married to my best friend - on the one hand it doesn't seem like it's been that long, on the other hand we have two girls and one boy on the way in less than a month - WHAT??

Santa came a little early to our house and the girls got new "pets" that we don't have to feed or clean up after - perfect!! The next morning the girls exchanged gifts with Great Grandma Dornak while Grandma and Grandpa watched them so Mommy and Daddy could go to work.





Our Christmas trip to Fredericksburg was delayed by a day because Nora had a sick tummy on Thursday morning and the rest of Chris' family was going to Mexico on Monday and didn't want to risk possibly catching anything. It was nice to spend one more night in our own beds before heading out for one more Christmas.

The girls had a blast opening a ton of toys but I think the highlights of the weekend were watching the Children's Christmas Mass at St. Marys (thanks daddy for holding them where they could see everything) and then the live lamb that made an appearance at the end of the service at Bethany. We also were able to spend a few hours visiting with Michael John Swanzy - home from Germany for a brief amount of time.

We had wonderful Christmas celebrations and can't wait for the arrival of Wyatt! (less than a month to go - I have a feeling he'll be here before the 29th, especially since my OBGYN has no problem inducing if I want her to:-)

Concordia Thanksgiving

Today daycare had their annual Thanksgiving Feast! Instead of eating in their individual classrooms, the school (well, almost the entire school - more on that in a minute)gathers in the main room and each class is dressed either as Pilgrims or Indians. They say their prayers, the Indians do their little yells and everyone digs in. We were hoping to stop by and tell the girls "hi", take a few pictures, and then head out to our own lunch. Unfortunately, we learned this year that the older kids don't eat until the younger ones are done so while Nora's class made their appearance at 11:15, it was right at noon when Addie's class finally made their way out. Nora was super excited to see us and while she ate most of the food on her plate, I swear she stood up between each bite to run to her Daddy with the biggest smile and point something in the room out (turkey, pumpkin, the horse on his shirt). When she finished saying whatever she had to say, she'd do a cross between a horse gallop/dance/jump the entire way back to her seat. This was certainly an exciting meal for her. Her hair was briaded so cute and their outfits were really precious. Not sure if we get to keep these shirts or not - Addie's class did when she was little but the shirt wasn't in her cubby at the end of the day so I think we are out of luck. When Addie's class finally made their way out, Addie spotted us right away and we snapped a few pictures before we had to leave. Unlike Nora, Addie didn't cry when we left. She's getting so grown up and even informed us at supper that she is nearly 4 (not happening until May but I guess she'll be 4 before she's anything else).

Trick-Or-Treat!

We had a great time going trick-or-treating with my cousin Matt and his family (Nate was a racecar driver) and some of their friends (Madeline was a princess). Addie led the pack right away and was all about going to the next house to get more candy. At one point in the night, Nora had opened a tootsie roll pop in one hand (which she wasn't letting go of) and her pumpkin basket in the other (which she also had a death grip on) which meant that at a few houses where it was "help yourself" to the candy bowl, she was just out of luck! We had to get Addie under control on her knocking more than a few times though because if the homeowner didn't get to the door quickly enough she started to ring the doorbell while knocking some more. She had such a good time and really listened well while we were walking around the neighborhood - she really didn't want the night to end! Nora had fun but took a little while to warm up to the idea of going to different houses. She was content trying to eat all the candy from the first house or two. By the end of it though she was running around - guess she turned into a wild flower:-) I'll admit, the holiday is a lot more fun when the kids get the point!

Jack-O-Lanterns

The week before Halloween we carved pumpkins with the girls. It was late in the evening when we started but we had to carve them then because Mommy was out of town from Wednesday evening through Friday at a seminar. We all worked on getting the guts out of the pumpkins but didn't do a tremendous job apparently because the things were pretty nasty by Sunday - we lit them a few times before then though and the girls loved them. We let the girls draw on the pumpkins with markers first and then Daddy helped to carve their faces. Addie was very interested and wanted to make sure Daddy did a good job. Nora looked on genuinely concerned almost the entire time - it was precious. Here's a few pics from our night! Halloween pics to come when I get around to downloading them on the computer - not tonight:-)

Dornak Family Hunting Trip

Last weekend we had my side of the family out to the ranch for some managment deer hunting. Just so happens that it was Uncle Dwayne's birthday on Friday night. We had cake and sang him happy birthday, and then on Saturday when the kids were getting a piece of left over cake for dessert, they decided to sing happy birthday again before they ate the cake - it was really cute!



Saturday evening mom and I took all the kids (minus Skylar who was hunting with her mommy and daddy but sadly didn't see anything to shoot) to the family stand to look for deer. No real surprise - we didn't see anything (I'm pretty sure the deer would have had to have been deaf and blind in order for us to have a chance to see it). It's getting to be more and more fun with all the kids out there - they are really starting to grow up! We had a great time decorating Halloween cookies, riding 4 wheelers and playing with Uncle Dwayne's Birthday present. Can't wait until next year's trip when we'll have one more kid to add to the bunch!