Think Family.Net

April 30th, 2008 by Natalia

My mother-in-law (Maimie) is dying to know if her new grandchild will be a boy or a girl. She can’t wait to start shopping for girl clothes, she says! So, she gave me the Intelligender gender predictor kit yesterday. It claims to be over 90% accurate. I give it a 50/50 chance! What if you have twins… and there’s one of each sex? I think it would be really confused. Hmmm…..

I followed all of the directions and the results are in. I had Ashton read the results to me after I explained to her that it was just a game for fun and that it wasn’t 100% right all the time. She stared at the test for a second and then said, “hmph, another stupid BOY!” Then she stomped off and went to her room. I asked her if she was mad and she said yes because she had guessed wrong on our game. Once again I told her the test could still be wrong. So she said a little prayer asking God to make the test wrong. She’s so cute!

I won’t lie and say that the result coming back boy, didn’t make me a little excited. I would love to have another boy to play with Jackson. AND I have ALL of his clothes so another BOY would be so much more cost effective. Like I’ve said before, I’ve got me a drama queen - I don’t really need another. But either way, I will be happy.

Little girl clothes are so cute right now!! I’m just praying for healthy!

April 29th, 2008 by Natalia

Saturday the kids and I went fishing with the one and only Mr. Whiskers who is my grandfather. We had a lot of fun. Captain Jackson searched for the perfect spot find fish.

He took us directly to the spot by using the on-board fish navigation finder.

We dropped anchor and cast our bobbers out, and low and behold we had hit it big. I believe I reeled in the first fish of the day. It was a lovely channel cat with a belly full of disgusting soured grain. Then Ashton, was next. She had to work really hard to bring in the fish.

She finally did it, many many times.

Next Jackson hooked him a nice fish. He wanted to touch it and hold it so bad!!

His interest only lasted a little while. He ended up bailing on us when we docked for a potty break. He found much more interest in the extension cord in the back of Granddad’s pickup truck. So him and Granddad stayed behind so we could fish a bit more. We ended up netting more than 30 keepers in a short amount of time. It was great. I guess that stinky bait really works! I was amazed. I always am!! The kids really enjoyed it!

Visit Mr. Whisker’s site to get some of this awesome bait or to inquire about booking a fun family fishing trip.

April 28th, 2008 by Natalia

Well, as you already know… I am. This is my third time around and I am determined to do it differently this time. Let me give you a little back ground info… How about a shortened version of my two previous births?

Ash E. Poo - January 27, 2000 - I was 18 and had NO idea what the heck I was doing. I went into the hospital at night with contractions about 5 mins apart and I was slightly dilated. They decided to admit me. I held hostage in the bed by fetal monitors and an IV tainted with pitocin, which is like the devil’s venom or something. I was starving and they starved me, feeding me only ice chips. I laid there all night trying to sleep. By morning, my OB came in and things weren’t progressing (duh) so broke my water and kept upping my pitocin. After the overdose of pit, I was talked into having a little medicine to take the edge off the pain, so they gave me Demerol and phenya-something which made me drunk (like room spinning, NOT fun drunk) as heck. I felt out of control. I couldn’t keep my mind focused, all I could do was cry and fall asleep between contractions. It was horrible. By this time, I NEEDED an epidural. Along with that came a lovely catheter that caused pain that I could feel through the epidural. Ashton was born at 1:55pm.

Jackson: September 5, 2006 - I went into the pregnancy with birth plan in hand only to have it pretty much be dismissed by my OB as unnecessary. She said, “she does things her way, and mommies and babies come out fine.” I trusted her. Same story. Strapped to bed with fetal monitors coming out of every orifice of my body. Starved. IV’d with hell water (pitocin). Waited all night. Doc comes in and says that I was taking to long so she broke my water and all hell broke loose with it. Got all the way to 10 and my body was ready to push… but where was the doctor? Not there… She left.. so they tell me to freakin PANT, PANT, PANT and not push until they could get her back. What the heck? It hurt so bad… I was like hook me up… I need an epidural NOW… and guess what they did? They gave me one… just in time to push. Jackson was born at 10:22am. I received a “generous” episiotomy which resulted in the nurses coming in and lifting my covers every 20 minutes for the next two days to violate my privacy. NICE!!!

Peanut #3 and I will NOT subject ourselves to the needless torture and unnecessary medical interventions this time around. I’ve done a lot of research and I believe whole-heartedly that a woman’s body was made to birth babies. It’s a natural process, not a sickness. We will be under the care of a Certified Nurse Midwife and will birth in a comfortable birthing center. Now, don’t get me wrong. I think medical interventions are AWESOME when needed, but I think they cause more problems when they aren’t. It’s a domino effect. Give pitocin, it hurts worse… need epidural or drugs.. Labor slows… give more pit… baby goes into distress… c-section.

I watched an a really great eye opening movie last night about all of this. It’s called The Business Of Being Born. It’s produced by Riki Lake. I highly recommend it to anyone who is pregnant or thinking about having a baby some day. It’s a good look at the whole business of birthing babies.

Call me crazy… but it all makes perfect sense to me.

April 21st, 2008 by Natalia

Sometimes, it’s easy to come up with that perfect name for your child. It may come to you in a dream, or maybe you have a great uncle whom you owe allegiance to. It can be that simple.

When I had Ashton I was 18 and didn’t put much thought into the name. I just liked the name Ashton Makayla. And that was it.

With Jackson, I was a few years more mature, so Kev and I put a little more thought into his name. His name is actually Thomas Jackson. He is named Thomas after his dad, his dad’s dad, my grandfather, my brother, ALL whom are “Thomas” something or another. “Jackson” is just a cool name that we liked. We didn’t disclose his name until right before he was born.

Now, baby number three on the way and I decided to start early this time and get some opinions from everyone. We don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl and probably won’t find out until at least June. So right now, we have to explore both genders!

Sooooooo… Here are some of the names we are kicking around… Well me and Ashton… Hopefully Kevin will give me some input soon too.

Scroll through the names and then click on vote and tell me what your favorite three choices are. THANKS!!!

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(Disclaimer: Hopefully no one will get their feelings hurt if we don’t name our little kumquat after them)

April 15th, 2008 by Natalia

Click on the link below and enter our poll. See if you can be the one who predicts when our baby will be born. Tell us what sex you think it will be. And if you think you know… how big will baby #3 be?

Insider tips:

• Peanut #3: due date 11/15/2008
• Ashton: due date 2/13 born 1/27 (37.5 weeks), 6lbs. 4 oz., 19 3/4 inches
• Jackson: due date 9/12 born 9/05 (39 weeks), 9lbs. 7oz., 21 inches

Ok… Guess away!!!

April 10th, 2008 by Natalia

I would love to know what was going through his mind at this point.

If I had to guess: He was probably wondering why mommy was dragging him up and down the street in his wagon. Why she didn’t slow down at the bumps in the side walk. There are no shocks on his wagon. Then he probably was contemplating whether or not he should dirty his diaper, now, or wait until later. After all, with no shocks, it might be messy if he did it now.

Just a guess..

April 9th, 2008 by Natalia

Here are the first pictures of our new little tad pole due Nov 15th, 2008.

6 weeks- Looks like a bean to me!

A Turtle?

8 weeks - It wouldn’t stay still long enough to get a good snap shot.. I think it’s swimming around on it’s back in that picture looking up.

Interesting I know…..

April 8th, 2008 by Natalia

In case you haven’t already noticed the spinning tadpole looking thing on the side of the page… I’m pregnant! I’m almost 9 weeks. I am having a horrible time with the morning/noon/night sickness this time around, like I did with Ashton…

Well, I love taking showers and being clean. I hate to feel dirty. I’m one of those who HAS to shower before I go anywhere. I can’t go anywhere with two day old hair. But lately, I absolutely HATE taking showers. (I still do it though) I feel claustrophobic. I start to think I’m suffocating and the walls are closing in on me. I keep having to open the glass door just to breathe. It’s the weirdest feeling.

On top of that, the smell of my shampoo and conditioner make me so sick that I gag the whole time. They are normally good smelling TIGI products. For some reason, they remind me of some nasty Strawberry Shortcake lipstick that I must have eaten as a kid.

Don’t even get me started on the gagging that occurs when the water runs across my lips or into my mouth. Just thinking about it is making me gag.

I’m convinced that my shower hates me. It becomes smaller when I enter it and it has tainted my pleasant smelling products, inducing lovely barf-fests… This brings back so many memories of my pregnancy with Ashton more than 8 years ago. This was not the case with Jackson. I can only think of two episodes with him.. and they were only because I got too hungry. Maybe this means this baby is a girl. Who knows?

I’m not sure why I’m telling you all of this. It’s kind of silly when you think about it… BUT I needed to get it off my chest before I have to face the shower monster, yet again. I think I might try Ashton’s shower today.. hopefully it’s a better spirited shower.

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated!

UPDATE: I took a shower this morning in Ashton’s shower and it was MUCH nicer. Her shower is a full tub, so much more room for AIR. I also used some of her shampoo and conditioner that helped greatly. BUT now I smell fruity! Oh, well…. I guess I’m moving into Ashton’s bathroom for a while… Until my shower decides to play nice.

April 4th, 2008 by Natalia

I usually take Ashton for ice cream after school on Fridays. Today we ran through McDonald’s and she ordered a chocolate dipped cone. This is what she received.

I think it was the saddest ice cream cone that I have ever seen. I probably should have handed it right back to the guy at the window… but he was proud of his creation… so I didn’t bother.

I just thought I would share.

April 2nd, 2008 by Natalia

Try Denae Hutson Photography.

A friend of mine, from back home (Lubbock) has just launched her own photography business. She’s been doing it a while, but it has just become official with an awesome website and everything. She took pictures of me and my kids last year. They turned out great.

SO…. If you are in need of a GOOD photographer, that will NOT break your bank I suggest Denae Hutson Photography.