December Sonogram

Awesome HEB Toys

If you read my blog you know that I am a fan of HEB.  I worked there just out of high school to pay for college and worked there for three years.  My mother worked at HEB for ten years, retiring when my brother was born.  My mother worked to help put my dad through college.  It's a great place to work I would say.  Everything is about the people.  It's like a small home town grocery store even when you are at an HEB Plus.  I enjoy it very much.

 

HEB makes toy products of their own things such as grocery carts, eighteen wheeler delivery trucks and grocery baskets.  My parents have a picture of me when I was about Evelyn's age, 3, where I am dressed like an HEB bakery employee (my mother worked in the bakery and is still know today for being the greatest baker in the family and among all her friends) and I am sitting on a metal HEB truck that my mother got at work.  I am going to show you two products that I made sure we got for Evelyn, one of which we've had for a year now, the other she just got for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa.

 

The first is the HEB grocery cart:

 

 above and below: with nothing inside

 

 above and below: with a 15" doll

 

The play HEB grocery cart is just like the real HEB carts; grey with red accents.

 

 

Next is the HEB grocery basket:

 Outside of basket

 

 Basket sealed up before opening

 

HEB Ketchup, HEB Angus beef hotdog weenies and HEB Bake Shop hotdog buns

 

 HEBuddy chicken nuggets and HEBuddy burgers

 

 HEB MooTopia Lactose Free chocolate milk with 50% more protein and 50% less sugar (2), HEB Toasted Oats cereal (generic plain Cheerios) and what I think is supposed to be the HEB reusable bag.

 

This did not come in the HEB grocery basket but I think this is what the bag above is supposed to be.  This is a little reusable bag from HEB (they have many) that my mom got for Evelyn. 

It's a good size for a lunch.

 

 HEB whole kernel corn (can), HEB Creamy Creations 1905 Vanilla, HEB Creamy Creations Texas Seasons Poteet Strawberry and HEB cut green beans (can)

 

Fresh HEB produce; whole corn, two jalapenos, orange, apple, lime and a banana

Two eggs and HEB Home Style Flour Tortillas (made fresh daily)

 

 

All of the products found in the HEB basket can be found at any HEB.

 

I'd like to point out the Creamy Creations ice cream.  Best ever!  I didn't know ice cream could be so creamy!  If you have an HEB near you, please try some.  If you don't have an HEB near you...then I'd say it's time you come see a little piece of heaven and visit Texas.  The Texas Seasons Poteet Strawberry ice cream is from the annual Strawberry Festival held in April in Poteet, Texas, about an hour south of San Antonio.  I like, a lot, when stores do those kinds of things; bring the spirit of where they come from into what they make.  There are a lot of things in Texas that are only Texas, just like any other state.  The Poteet Annual Strawberry Festival is a Texas treasure and I am happy to see that it is being noticed even in our ice cream.

 

 

I have heard it said that those who don't live in Texas think that Texans are a little too proud of Texas and all that implies.  I think that if you lived in Texas then you might see what we see, but then again you might not.  "I wasn't born a Texan but I got here as soon as I could."  A nice bumper sticker.  I was born, raised and I still reside in Texas and I never want to make a home anywhere else.  I may move to another state for a short time but I will always come back to my home town of Texas even if it was just to be buried.

 

Texas My Texas.

Guess what...

It has been a long time since I have made a post

and I have a good reason for it.

 

At the start of May 2013, my husband and I started to try for a second child.  We had no luck, and no luck and still no luck.  With our first child it took one time.  Really.  We one day gave up on waiting after a year of marriage to start trying, tried that night and bam I was pregnant.  This time was harder to deal with.  I am heavier now, significantly heavier now, so I was afraid that would keep us from getting pregnant again and when I kept getting my period I felt like it wasn't going to happen.  Five months go by and we say that we aren't going to stress out about making another baby and just tried to have fun with it.  That worked.  We got a positive on three at home pregnancy tests before going to the doctors.  I know five months isn't long at all to be trying but when your first child came after one time, five months seems very long.

 

So the reason I haven't made any new posts is because all the big things happening to me were about the baby and Evelyn's reaction and everything like that.  I don't know who sees this blog and we had only told family, not people we work with, go to church with or even friends about being pregnant.  We don't have friends we hang out with regularly, only those we work with, so it wasn't all too hard.

 

Everything started so simply.  For the first month (not including the two weeks they count for the due date) I had not a bit of morning sickness!  Which was so awesome!  Almost the instant I was pregnant with Evelyn I had morning sickness.  I threw up for three months straight.  No joke at all.  The only thing I could keep down regularly was cheese enchiladas and I had a very small window of when I could eat.  If I ate before or after that window there was no chance of keeping any of it down.  So I was very happy when I didn't even feel a bit of nausea with this pregnancy.  I did have spotting twice at the beginning of the pregnancy leading us to believe that I was starting my period but it stopped almost immediately each time and then we had positive home pregnancy tests.  Everything was smooth sailing until Halloween night.  I spent the two days before making our costumes.  Evelyn wanted to be Jake and me to be Izzy and Daddy to be Cubby.  So we bought different shirts to make the costumes.  My dad even went as Sharky.  Of course I made the costumes, it meant sewing so no one could really help me with it when we have one sewing machine.  Halloween night we get to our church's Halloween Party.  I leak, apparently, when I'm pregnant, so I always wear a pad.  I felt more leaking than usual so I went to the bathroom as soon as we got to the church.  I was bleeding like a period.  I came out of the bathroom and told Tom that we needed to go to the ER.  Just then my parents walk in so we were able to leave immediately and still let Evelyn have fun with her cousins and friends.  We got to the ER and it didn't take long for me to get to the back.  They took blood from me from one arm and were about to take more from the other.  I asked the girl to wait because I wasn't feeling well.  I took a moment to try and regroup.  I told her to go ahead.  She pricked me and the next thing I remember is Tom squatting in front of me calling me and asking me questions.  As an EMT he does this regularly and almost everyone in the ER we were in knows him which made this next part easier.  They quickly put me into a wheel chair and rushed me into a room.  I don't remember it.  It took me until they were all done with hooking me up to machines and gone until I knew what was going on around me.  I could hear Tom close to me as he assisted the nurses and I felt like I didn't need to struggle to wake up to know what was happening to me so I rested while they hooked me up.  I had an internal sonogram done and it showed the baby was fine and had a strong heartbeat still though there was a clot of some kind.  The ER doctor said to do nothing until I could see my doctor.  I made an appointment for the next Tuesday, the earliest time I could get.  Had more sonograms done and the doctor told us that it's possible that the clot could've been another baby that didn't attach correctly or it could be something rubbing that is causing internal bleeding.  Between the two we were hoping it was the Vanishing Twin Syndrome.  After doing research about why this happens we were surprised to find out how common this is.  So often that many times women don't know.  With the technology we have now, being able to see into the womb so early, we now can see how many eggs were fertilized and then later see that, usually, only one attaches correctly.  The reason we were hoping it was the Vanishing Twin Syndrome was because then that meant the bleeding would stop on its own.  If the bleeding was due to something that could cause more bleeding then the blood clot could move or get large enough to detach the embryo that was still going strong causing that one to miscarry.  I was put on moderate bed rest; I had to be a couch potato, I didn't have to stay laying down, just hardly move.  I was given an appointment a month from that day and told to come earlier if the bleeding continued still.  I bleed threw that weekend and some of it was bloody mucus.  I went back that following Tuesday, a week after I had first gone.  The clot was still there and then I was put on bed rest, this time I had to do even less.  I spent about the next two weeks laying in bed.  During that time I got morning sickness.  Bad too.  I threw up less then I did with Evelyn, or so I thought.  After a month, I was finally able to get around to doing things.  It had taken a few days to get back to having energy again.  At my next appointment I was given a prescription to help keep me from vomiting; Diclegis.  I don't like to take pills when pregnant, just my prenatal.  So often you hear of things that later have been found to cause problems and I don't want my child to suffer because I wanted to easy my pain (can you guess that I want to do a vaginal, natural birth?).  I didn't get the pills.  I was holding down more than I had been with Evelyn so I wasn't worried.  At the next doctors appointment my ketones were at -3.  The doctor told me to get my pills, take them and come the next day.  If my ketones weren't down, then I would be hospitalized.  My ketones were in the negative because there was too much acid in my system because nothing was being digested.  The baby was fine but she told me something could happen to the baby if things didn't change.  My doctor lives in a city about 40 miles away.  The hospital closest to us it not a hospital I want to deliver in.  Many women in the area choose to deliver at the hospital I will be delivering in.  Same place I did with Evelyn.  They are known in our area as being the baby hospital.  So since we needed the medicine right away, we stopped at a Wal-Mart next to were we planned on eating, still in the city.  They didn't have it but could get it the next day, no good.  So we went to CVS after eating, same thing.  Then to Walgreens.  Again, no.  Then we went to HEB Plus.  I have mentioned HEB several times but not HEB Plus.  Our town doesn't have one but this city does.  It is bigger, with much more.  It has clothes and much larger toy, book and outdoor sections.  It even has a full electronic section.  Anyways, we get to HEB Plus and they don't have it.

"Sorry, the only stores that have it are in ---ville and -----ville in our area," the woman tells me.

 

"Wait, did you say -----ville?" I asked.

 

"Yes I did."

 

"So -----ville has these pills?" I double checked.

 

"Yes," she still kindly spoke.

 

"Oh good!  That's where we live!  We were here for the doctors appointment and needed the pills right away so we were trying to get them here.  Oh yay!"  The women smiled and made a chuckle.

 

We get back home and we were able to get the pills.  Well, I didn't have to take them until I go to bed.  We rushed everywhere for almost no reason.  If we hadn't done that I don't think we would have found the pills on time though.  The next day my ketones were at zero again.  The pills didn't do it.  That's not what the pills are for but the possibility of being hospitalized caused me to change a little.  I took the pills but was still throwing up every other time I ate.  I was told to take another pill in the morning and the nurse said if that stops the vomiting but still not the nausea, I'm just going to have to deal with the nausea.  So since the start of December I have been going back and forth, everyday, between being dizzy and being nauseous.  The dizziness comes from the pills.  It makes me drowsy.  I can't drive and I sleep so much.  It's near like being bed ridden again.  I can't do the dishes because bending over putting the in the dishwasher or taking them out makes me even more lightheaded.  I try to do things around the house that don't require bending like sweeping.

 

So it comes to the end of the year now.  Three days from the new year and we have much to look forward to in 2014.  In order; we will find out the gender of our second child and will ready ourselves for that, the baby will be born, Evelyn will start school for the first time and my brother will be coming home from his mission.

Much to look forward to.

It's been a Year

I just realized that I have had this blog for a year now (on September 21st) and I thought I should mark this occasion with an update on my family.

My husband, Tom, is getting a new, much better paying, job this month.  A friend of his started a new buisness and has clients already and has shown to be very promising.

Evelyn is in soccer but has yet to play since the game fields have fire ants and they aren't 100% sure they are all gone.  Recently a thirteen year old boy at football practice fell into a fire ant pile and died three days later.  The whole area around us are taking extra precautions this year because of that happening.  Evelyn is only three and at this age, she doesn't do practices, she only does "training" on Saturdays at the game fields then her group scrimages another group her age.  That's why she hasn't been able to play yet, expect in our yard.  Evelyn is in the middle (I wish it was the end) of potty-training and her big motivation is being ready to go to school.  We practice the alphabet, numbers, writing and drawing, even some "psychology."  I have faces each with different emotions and we talk about what we do when we feel that way and also what we can do for others when they feel that way.  Evelyn wanted to go to school this year but she isn't old enough yet, plus she needs to be potty-trained.  That is her great motivator.

We are still trying to have a second baby.  By Monday we should know if we are.  How do you wait for such a thing?  Since I was very young I knew I was meant to be a mother.  I've always wanted children, and lots of them.  We want to have six kids, four at least, but it is hard to see that number right now when we can't even get to Baby 2.0.  We've only been trying for five months and from my research, you don't need to go to a fertility doctor until you have consistantly been trying for a year.  Tom works a lot and we have a three year old so it is difficult to try as much as we should but with Evelyn, it took only one time.  It was also quite random.  One night after a football game we looked at each other and asked, "Should we?"  Let me translate that; "Should we try to have a baby now even though we said we wouldn't start trying to have a baby until a year of marriage so that we would have the first year as just us without getting ready for a baby or should we just throw all of that out the window?"  Yes, we threw it all out the window.  We wanted both really, us time and a baby, but we were very ready to have a baby to love so we tried once.  I think we wanted to see if we were really meant to have a baby already or not and then a month from that day, we got three positives using home pregnancy tests.  I read back on the journal I had at that time and it was very obvious that I was pregnant.  I was dizzy, tired, breast were tender, I didn't like food much and I was getting random headaches.  Right now I feel like I'm have pre-period aches but I am praying everyday that it is all baby-aches.

I prepare further aheah then when I need to; I'm a forgetful person so I do this to be sure nothing is over looked.  I have been planning the nursery, in detail, since we have started to try again.  We have names planned out, nothing concrete yet, mainly because we aren't pregnant yet (or maybe we are?), and we have general colors picked out for the nursery also; grey and yellow.  If it's a boy, more grey, if its a girl, more yellow.  Recently I've been thinking that I just need to find a nursery geared picture from Etsy and then make the nursery off of that.  I like the idea of grey and yellow (sunshine!), but...we will see.  Right now the nursery is Evelyn's room.  We need to move her to her new room before we can even decorate the nursery.

Evelyn's room is going to be Doc McStuffins from Disney Junior.  Mostly using teal, purple and just Doc bedding.  Doing that will make it easier for her to grow with her room; all we would need to do is get new bedding.

So my life is revolving around getting Evelyn ready for school next fall and getting ready for a baby that hasn't been concieved yet (or maybe...).  Plus Tom of course.  He is a big part.  Without him...we couldn't be a family.  I'm glad to have both of them in my life.