The yearly blog post :)

If it feels like I have abandoned my blog it is because I have. Unfortunately I find the convenience of leaving one liner updates on facebook all to perfect for my lifestyle.

Here is what we've got...
We are 15 days away from welcoming our little boy Joseph Francis MacGregor IV into the world. Still welcoming nicknames, but it looks like Quad may be the one. I feel like this pregnancy has flown by. With just over 2 weeks remaining I find myself completely un-miserable (most likely due to the cool monsoon weather we have had) and just enjoying every moment. Funny how easy it is to forget how it feels. I swear I have amnesia just from this pregnancy and Ellies. My favorite thing is the kicking. He has gotten what I would call a little violent lately, which is why I am up a little earlier than expected this morning :). It cracks me up when I am at work and I can just feel him kicking the desk. I try to scoot back in my chair, but honestly.... I can only reach so far over this HUGE belly to do my work.

A lot is different with this pregnancy too. Planning a C-section is... interesting. For example I have been able to tell people we are going in September 9th at 7:30, so by 8:00 we should have a new member of the family. A little odd, but it definitely takes the guess work out. I'm sure most would prefer to be surprised, but if I am going to be completely honest I can say I prefer knowing. Wierd as it is Joey and I are planners that way. I guess we still have 2 weeks to go, but I have not had NEAR as much swelling with this one. With Ellie it got so bad I didn't have ankles for the last little bit there. I didn't realize how much I liked the shape of my legs until I had to deal with kankles. Can't say I miss that little symptom. I definitely carry more up front than I did with Ellie too. Don't get me wrong... people could still make wide load jokes as I pass by.... but it is just more forward with JFM4. I do have a bit of "dazing" with him. Mostly while driving. It is this strange feeling where I'm not really focused, and I don't feel.... awake. Trying to stay aware of that little item so we don't.... "run into" any problems. Overall I am feeling pretty prepared, but I know to expect the unexpected. The to do list never ends, so I have stopped stressing about getting "everything" done before he gets here and have settled with doing what we I can before he gets here.

Ellie is doing fabulous. We just celebrated her 2nd birthday and I can't believe how grown up she is. She makes us laugh every day. Her obsession with her glittery pink shoes and jewelry is one of the funniest things ever. I honestly expected her to by a tom boy... which i supposed may come later in life, but make no mistake.... Ellie is as girlie as they get. We actually threw away the old pair of glittery pink shoes (due to the wretched stench) a few weeks back. There were tears and arguments about them being missing just about every morning, but Grammy had gotten her a duplicate pair in a larger size that we had planned on saving for her birthday. The box sat on the table for a good 2 months without being acknowledged in any way. A few days before her Birthday Ellie decides to sit at the table and discover what was in the box. Grammy and I were in the kitchen, and Daddy just happened to watch what was going on. She opens the box of glittery pink shoes and with her most sincere and emotional tone says "oh my goodness.... oh my"! With tears of joy in her eyes she pulled out the shoes and clutched them to her chest. We couldn't take them from her at that point, so I had to explain that they were a birthday present and that she needed to tell Grammy thank you. It has been almost 2 weeks now since she got the new shoes and I can tell you they look worse than the original pair. Almost all the glitter is worn off and that "familiar smell" is starting to lurk around the pink shoes. Not sure what we are going to do about that one.

Another funny Ellie moment happened just the other day. She is equally obsessed with cats. All cats. The neighbor cat Sammy mostly. She searches for him every time we get out of the truck and insists on going to visit him if she is lucky enough to spot him before Mama corrals her into the house. So... for her Birthday we took her and her "birthday tickets" (gift card from grandma hill) to pick out a present at WalMart. To be honest we haven't been big on toys so we really didn't know what kind of things she would be in to. So we walk down the toy aisle and let her browse and play to see what she likes. Finally we came to this fluffy white cat with bright blue eyes. It took no time at all for Ellie to fall in love. I pushed the button on her back and she began to walk and meow. Ellie had to hold it in the cart for the rest of the trip and kept laying her head down on her fur and saying awwwwww kitty. First Ellie named her gato, but has now changed it to blanca gato. Did I mention Ellie is learning Spanish? Anyway, so blanca is our new house cat. I was doing some laundry in the other day and I heard Ellie "talking" with a very authoritive tone. I snuck in to the front room to see what she was up to. There she was scolding blanca pointed finger and all. I said Ellie what is going on? "Nuffing" she says. Really.... it sounded like you were yelling. "Yeah" she says with that Ellie enthusiasm. Why were you yelling? "Blanca gato kicking" she says with a disapproving look on her face. She was kicking you? "Yeah" she says again with her spunky little voice. Apparently they way Ellie was holding blanca she kept pushing the walk button which in return made blanca "kick" her. I thought I was going to die. No shortage of emotion with little miss Ellie. Her facial expressions are ridiculous! My biggest challenge is not laughing at some of the things she comes up with. She is doing awesome with the my baby can read stuff. I swear she can read all of green eggs and ham :). She also is doing pretty great with the spanish. It's like she just craves more and more. I would recommend that program to any parent. It's like an exercise video... if you don't watch it you can't benefit from it. Ellie asks to watch one of her reading or spanish videos at least once a day. I am seriously shocked at what she has learned from it. Just had to throw that in there. Seriously LOVE it!

As for Mr. MacGregor. Did I mention he got a new job? Well same company, but he is now a Sales Rep for RSC. He loves it! I think the variety has just been really nice for him. It's funny to see how much he has already grown. Pretty sure he is going to do great! It will take a little time to adjust, but already he is just loving it! He is really up to the same old thing. Working, hunting and hanging out with the family. Got another deer just last Saturday ( I know....we are all surprised). :) He seems to be doing pretty well in the way of being prepared for a second child. He shares my anxiety on the whole how are we going to handle 2 and will Ellie be jealous thing. We are just planning to work through it and hope all goes well.

Well that is pretty much it for now. I had bettered get going and get started on my to do list for the day. Canning deer is on the agenda. I know it sounds super gross, but it is actually awesome! It takes out the game flavor and makes really great meat. It also takes up a lot less freezer room. Joeys mom and I have gotten pretty adventurous with the canning since we started the garden. We have already done a batch of pickles, working on bread and butter pickles, and are planning to do salsa, whole tomatoes, apples, and whatever else we can come up with :). If you have any good canning recipes please send them my way :)

Love you all and will post soon. Ahh... who am I kidding. Will post when I can :)

9 months... Seriously?

Yep... that's right. I could have had another baby in the amount of time it has taken me to post a new blog. I didn't... but I could have ;). Alright... short and sweet. Facebook has become my preferred method of sharing my life story, so If you feel like you are missing out check us out there.

Joey- Not sure I can say everything he has been up to since February. How about some recent updates? :). Dang near broke his ankle. He was playing volleyball and he and another guy went up to hit the ball at the same time. He came down on the other guys foot and severely injured his ankle. The doctors say it would have been a quicker recovery if he broke it. That was a month ago. He is just barely getting to walking on it (or should I say limping) this week. Poor guy. To top it off he caught a cold this week. Not sure what it is with Men, but they turn into the biggest babies when they are sick. Maybe if we didn't stack sickness on top of an injury I would be more tolerant, but I'm just not feeling the let me pamper you thing. On the brighter side, he has a little giddy up in his step now that he found out we got drawn for Javelena & spring Turkey. He is also enjoying his Daddy role. He loves that miss Ellie demands his presence, delivers kisses when he tells her "pay the toll", and cuddles him and says ahhhh when he pats his chest and says "show me Daddy's girl".

Ellie- She really is the sweetest dang kid there ever was. She is quite a ham too. Pretty sure she got my humor, although her father would disagree :). The funniest thing is her need for attention. Not sure how I am going to handle it later, but now it is the funniest thing ever! The first thing everyone says when they see her is "What pretty blue eyes". I have noticed lately that she waits for this compliment. We were in Bashas shopping the other day and this little old lady must not have seen her. As she always does when she feels someone accidentally bypassed her she tried to get the lady's attention. "Hiiiiiii" She says in a sweet and teasing tone. The little woman didn't respond. Take 2..... "Hiiiii". No response. She looked at me like a little lab puppy. Her head titled to the side like "Why isn't she noticing me??? She didn't even say what pretty blue eyes I had?" I swear it was the cutest thing! She is SO funny! Makes us laugh every day! She skipped walking all together and went from crawling to running. Seems to be quite a chatter box this week too, although no formal sentenced have formed yet. I don't know if we could love her any more, but there is always tomorrow :).

Me-I feel like my update is always the same. Maybe because it is :). Had our last staff member quit a few weeks ago so it's just me now. The would make 3 formal positions I am covering now. I don't even know how to explain how absolutely behind I am. I have decided to forget any above and beyond and keep my focus on "keeping it legal". So far so good, but I am feeling pretty stressed about dropping all the additional things to get caught up. I am still only working 3 days a week which is amazing for Ellie and I, but complicated for keeping up on my new additions at work. Unfortunately, almost everything in my life has suffered lately from my stress and lack of attention. I don't feel crazy, but I find myself just plain forgetting things and losing track of time. I swear Fridays are Mondays & Tuesdays are Thursdays. Weekends? What are those? I have kept myself so busy either catching up at work, catching up at home, or trying to help someone else do something that I haven't had any down time. Such is life I suppose. So looking forward to going to Kentucky next week and spending a week with family. Hoping it will be the down time I've been fantasizing about.

That's us in a nutshell :). Crazy busy, but happy together. We are still working on that whole slowing down time thing... but still have some kinks to work out.

I'll try to post pics and update more often. No promises for now. I'm already over committed :).

Luvs
MacGregors

funny mobiles

Ellie thinks it's funny when the mobile stops. Of course it wasn't as overdramatic the second go round, but she still giggles a little bit. I think she knows when she is on camera :).

Finally... some free time!

Ellie's Room...

Happy Baby in the morning...

Our Beanie Baby...

Deer in the headlights...

Our little Deer...

Ok... I'm not going to lie. I am not the best at updates. So it's been like 5 months.... that's not half bad. Ok, it is. I have been wanting to update this page for a while and have even gotten threats to update or else. Today with all of the beautiful snow I have found myself stuck to do the things that i have been putting of for, well about 5 months now. I'm pretty caught up, except I will need to re-organize Ellie's room and swap out her too small clothes... Again! I swear this child grows like a weed! She is 5 months and she is barely fitting in her 6-9 month clothes! Speaking of the little angel, I can't even explain the joy that she is. She laughs, she rolls over, she sleeps like a rock... no kidding! Like we put her down about 8 ish and I usually have to wake her up for her 7 am feeding. Not to mention she takes 3 full naps a day... and usually without even as much as a whimper. I give FULL credit to babywise! I must have read that book 3 times before she was born (including the time I went through and highlighted my favorite points), and skimmed through those at least another 5 times. Loved it so much I bought the whole series from babywise to teenwise. I think as parents we drastically underestimate how much sleep our kids need. As a result, she is honestly the happiest baby I could ever imagine. She hardly ever cries. Infact, we didn't even know she had an ear infection until it burst and goop came out. She is such a precious girl! She LOVES Daddy time! I'm not sure if she loves it as much as he does, but I'm sure it's close. Today was awesome because Joey got off pretty early and got to spend the rest of the afternoon with us. Now we have 2 more full days of family time this weekend! It's so great!

I guess while we are discussing Mr. MacGregor I should report the last few updates to the hunting story that is his life. I guess I shouldn't make it sound like he has been abandoning us, to tell the truth we have had and awesome time hunting, I just haven't got anything. We have had so much fun down at the Globe house hanging with the family. Audrey & Jeff have been with us which as been awesomely fun, and equally helpful. While I have gone out hunting Audrey has stayed at the house to hang out will Ellie. Jeff and I have had the most fun irritating Joey. It is a full time job... truth be told he is getting much better. It takes quite a bit more than it used to, but we manage now and then by dropping range finders, talking too loud, making the deer run away (ok that last one has been mostly me), sneezing, coughing, pretty much everything there is do to wrong we manage to cover it. I know he has enjoyed it too! Funniest part is he killed both his deer for this year and his pig while Jeff and I were not present. All signs aside we have had a blast finding and chasing deer. Not so much pigs. Couldn't find the little suckers. We saw one of the biggest deer I have ever seen up close. He still makes my heart race to think of him. Good news is we have One more weekend to get our 2010 deer before August. Next weekend it's on!!!

To sum up the last few months we have had a blast. I don't think either of us expected life to be so... active with her being so little. She has been amazing & fun. She is growing faster than we can keep up with, so we are trying to enjoy every little moment. I will try to update soon, but you never know with me. Enjoy the pics :).

Getting Settled

Amazing how times flies. Tomorrow Ellie will be 2 weeks. Already we are noticing little changes in her. In case you were wondering she has mastered getting what she wants. Looks like she had no trouble at all tapping in to what makes Mom & Dad tick. Everything has been going great. At her checkup last Monday she weighed 7lbs 7oz. (she was 6lbs 13oz when she left the hospital). Needless to say she is getting plenty to eat. Sleeping has been pretty good too. She seems to be getting in to a little routine. It's pretty nice for me. Everything seems completely normal and healthy. As for me.... I have been feeling great. Everything is healing as it should and I am well rested thanks to Grandma Hill. It has been so great to have her around to help out for these first couple of weeks. Joey is doing great too. He went back to work on Wednesday and seems to be handling the change just fine. Granted he does look a little sleepier than usual, but all in all he is doing great. There are a few things we have discovered as parents. The main one is never say you won't do something. Inevitably you will do it. I have had so many opinions and things I swore I would never do that have flown out the window. When it comes down to it I guess you just do what works and hope to get through the day without crying curled up in a ball in the bottom of your shower. Luckily I have not ended up like this, but I'm not going to say I haven't been close. All I can say is thank heavens for pacifiers... always burp the baby with a burp rag... and if people offer help, take it. Parenting is for sure not a one person job. With the help of family, friends, amazing spouses, and awesome grandma's these last two weeks have been beautiful. Thanks to everyone. Will update as soon as I get a moment :). Love you!

A dramatic entrance...

Yes... I realize it is 12:37 AM. This is really the only time I have to give updates. The last few days have been a roller coaster ride to say the least. I'll briefly touch on some the events we have experienced so far. I should start by saying everyone is healthy and safe now, although there were times when Ellie has given us some good scares. Everything was going ok, but I was not progressing in labor... at all. Turn the pitocin up... tons of contractions... no movement, turn it down... no contractions... even less movement. We were ready to endure it the full 24 hours they would allow after the broke my water until the unexpected happened. For some reason... which is still unknown the lost the fetal reading. Nurses are running everywhere, trying this position... and that one. All i can hear is people telling me to breath deeply in my oxygen mask. (By this time I was hooked up to about 8 different machines including the fetal monitor and the oxygen). So I'm breathing... and waiting... and finally they get it back. We all relax and everything is ok. And then came the tears. It scared me so bad, but I knew everything would be ok. Surely that wouldn't happen again. More time goes by... no progression. Lost fetal reading again. Tried to hard just to focus on my breathing and fix whatever was wrong. After what seemed like an eternity they found it again. At this point The nurses get concerned enough to call the Doctor in to the hospital. He arrives and not moments after we lose it again. It took him only moments to determine that we needed to get this baby out NOW! They immediately rolled me down the hall and started operating. Minutes later Ellie was here (12:41 a.m.), but not in great condition. Joey and I didn't find out until the next day, but they actually had to resuscitate her. Finally after the amazing team of nurses and doctors got her going we heard her cry for the first time. All I could see was a head of hair and some fingers move on the table. They took Ellie and Joey to the nursery right after that. I was a little heartbroken to find out that I couldn't go see Ellie until I was able to walk... which wouldn't be until much later that day. They got us settled in our room and we attempted sleeping. Didn't work so well. We rested, but I don't know that you would call it actual sleep. Finally around 6:00 I wiggled my toes and feet enough to where they allowed me to be put in a wheelchair and go to the nursery. Amazing! Meeting her for the first time was so ..... I can't even say. I still can't believe she is ours. After that we figured all would be fine and dandy and we would get to go home after 48 hrs (c-section release time). Little did we know the drama had just begun. It's hard to even recall everything that has happened in the last couple of days because there has been so much. Monday was just rough to be honest. One thing after another. She would just stop breathing, or she would choke on her own spit and turn blue, they didn't think her color was very good... I mean really one thing after another. It was a very scary and frustrating day. I was supposed to be able to feed her at 8 that morning, but then got put off till 11, and then they bumped it back to 3... everything just felt so crazy. After a long crazy day we finally got some answers. They had run more tests and everything was looking better. They determined she had Persistent Pulmonary Hypertension, and anemia. Apparently both of these things are easily fixed, and from our hospital. Such a relief. Then came Tuesday ( I would say today... but now it is 1:03 on Wednesday :)). Tuesday was the best day! So much improvement. She passed every test, her color changed, she became very active, and she finally breastfed for the first time. It really was the best day. Looking back it's hard to even think about all we went through Monday because today has been so great. She still is on an IV with her antibiotics, so we don't get to room with her, but she is just doing great and we spend a ton of time in the nursery with her. Not sure what tomorrow... I mean today will bring. I can only imagine good things. She is doing so great! Not sure when we will be discharged. I'm pretty sure they will discharge me as a patient tomorrow, but there has been talk of possibly keeping Ellie here for 7 days???? In that case I would be staying here as a boarding Mommy as long as they will let me. We should find out more later today. I'll keep you posted as much as possible. I would honestly like to say Thank you for the thoughts and prayers. We feel so blessed and know that it was through the power of prayer, and the grace of the Lord. Hope to have just as good of a report next time I post. I'll let you know when I can. Love you! ~MacGregors

Today is the day...

I can't believe today is the day. Getting ready to go in for induction this morning. Ate a healthy light breakfast and doing some baby yoga stretches to get my body going this morning. I feel very excited... but amazingly calm. It feels like Christmas morning! Strange to think that we will celebrate this day for the rest of our lives. Strange to think that by the end of today our lives will be changed forever. Can't wait to meet our beautiful angel. Funny side story... 22 years ago my Mom and Joeys Aunt Leslie went in the hospital and had babies on the same day. Yesterday Aunt Leslie's daughter (Brittany) gave birth to her little girl, and today I will give birth to mine :). Following in Mom's footsteps. We have joked about it this whole pregnancy, but I really didn't think it would happen. So crazy! 2 little girls added to Joey's family in one weekend. Thanks to everyone for all the well wishes and prayers. We will update as soon as possible with pics and information. Love you! MacGregors