The Life and Times of the Bettinger Bunch

Early Intervention

2011-03-09T14:08:00.002-06:00

About 2 weeks ago, Mark and I went to a dinner party at the house of a wonderful couple from church. They periodically invite over about 5 couples who are from different "circles" of friendships and have a great evening of enjoying dinner, games, and getting to know one another more. It's awesome! I could go on an on about how special this couple is but back to my main post...

During the dinner, I was chatting with one of my friends who is a Doctor at Carle. The Early Intervention program came up in our discussion which led to a few emails and some referrals and BAM! that's where we are today.

I met with the coordinator for the Early Intervention Program this morning to fill out paperwork for Samuel and Hannah to be evaluated for speech and development. That free evaluation will take place at our home on March 28th. I'm very much looking forward to seeing where we stand and seeing if we need to further therapy (especially speech).

At 18 months, Sam was evaluated at the Post NICU Developmental follow-up clinic and passed the developmental part fine. The only slight concern was his speech. The Carle Speech Therapist said that because the twins were such late walkers that their speech may take a while to blossom. Apparently, when kiddos are focusing on a skill like walking or crawling, everything else sort of stops while they learn to do those skills. She said that we should check with our doc at 2 years and go from there.

I wasn't real happy with that conclusion as I know they are both lacking in the speech department. Don't get me wrong, they babble constantly. They "talk" to each other and then giggle, they'll point to things and babble and they'll say a handful of words. Their ability to understand things is perfect though. I can give them 2 part commands (i.e. go upstairs and get your bear) and they follow those fine. They can point to things when I ask them as well. So, I wasn't worried so much about the ability to understand - just the ability to express.

After talking with the coordinator this morning while she was at our home, I feel very excited to take this next step of evaluation. I gave her all pertinent info from the time they were born to now including milestones, meds they were given in the NICU and personality quirks. We talked about words they did say, if they seem to get frustrated easily with communication, and how well they understand. She did make a good point that the fact that they understand things just fine but just don't express communication is better than if it were backwards. It's easier to help them with expressing words than with comprehension. They also will point to things if you ask them to "point to the duck" so we know their comprehension is fine. She said from what I had told her during our brief chat this morning (and mind you she's not a speech therapist - just been around this for a while), that Sam and Hannah would probably both be qualified for the speech therapy program (qualification means that they have a 30% or more delay in speech communication). Apparently the guideline is that at 2, kiddos should have a vocabulary of around 50 words.

We'll know more on the 28th of March when my babes are evaluated in both speech and development but for now I'm just continuing to work with them daily as I have been... flashcards, lots of books, and lots of snuggling mixed in! The coordinator said that a lot of times this happens with preemies, especially twins, because (1) they are a little behind in general and (2) they develop their own language so they don't need to talk. It also makes a difference that they have an older sister that has very advanced vocabulary and speech (I was told today). So, we'll see... if they do qualify for speech therapy, I'm excited to begin and see how much my babes will grow leaps and bounds! So, pray for us in this process! I'm excited to see how the Lord will use our family...

An answer to prayer

2011-01-30T14:46:00.003-06:00

The month of January has been a significant month for Mark and I. Our church has set aside the month of January for a special time of fasting. Mark and I started our fast the first of January and ironically enough started seeing immediate attack from the enemy. It's been a crazy month of health issues for our family. As some of you know, Mark was diagnosed with mono at the beginning of the month (and that's on top of the other health issues that he already has). He was extremely fatigued and just downright feeling crummy. He would go to bed at 5:30pm some evenings and sleep until 7am (he's usually an early riser). The doc even put him on bedrest for a week.

We continued to stay strong in the Lord and draw our strength from Him. His power is made perfect in our weakness, isn't it?! Every Wednesday throughout the month of January, we had a corporate prayer meeting at church. I have to admit that when I hear the words "prayer meeting" I never used to get really excited. This month was totally different! I attended the first 2 by myself as Mark was at home in bed. The Wednesday that he was on bedrest I headed over to the church excited to see what the Lord had in store. It was an awesome night of prayer for me and a night of getting deeper with Him. At the end of the night, one of our pastors called me forward to stand in the gap for Mark. They annointed me with oil, laid hands on me, and a group of our fellow believers prayed earnestly for Mark's healing.

Fast forward a little bit... I get home and send Mark and email to tell him about the incredible time of worship that I had (yep, I emailed him... because he was on bedrest he was in our room all day long and most times sleeping. I didn't want to bother him but I knew he was doing a little bit of work on his computer so I thought I would send him a message). The next morning he told me that he felt like he had been healed of mono! Praise Him! He said that about 8pm the previous night (while I was at prayer meeting), he almost texted me that he had had a sort of "awakening" where he felt he had been healed. 8pm was right after the church had prayed for him! His energy level went up the following days and he was able to go through his day without naps. All the glory to Him.

I was definitely sad that I had to go to church those first two Wednesdays on my own but I know that the Lord had it all planned out. I needed that time by myself to really devote myself to prayer and to focus on my relationship with Him. I've done so much growing these past 4 weeks that it's incredible. I am so thankful for my Savior and for what He's done for me. I have a new thirst for His Word like never before and a new devotion to Him. Thank You Jesus!

Another answer to prayer happened this past Wednesday at prayer meeting. We were praying for those that we wanted to go out to that aren't saved. Mark prayed for one set of our neighbors and I prayed for our next door neighbors, J & A. I prayed that the Lord would give us opportunities to share Christ's love with them - however that might happen. Mark had just talked the night before on love at Fusion and I was reminded about sharing His love with those around us. Anyway, I prayed that in some way I might be able to connect with them. That night when I got home, I had an email from a girl named "A" in my inbox who was responding to the craigslist add that I had for a Cardinal fitness gift card. We texted back and forth and the next day her husband said that he was going to come and get it. He asked for my address and the response that came back cracked me up. He said, "well, we live at 803 ... and so we won't have that far to drive." It was our next door neighbors whom I had prayed for the night before!!!! I blessed them by giving them the gift card.

I am praying for more opportunities to go out to them and build relationship with them. I think inviting them over for dinner is next on my agenda :)

I love how He answers us when we call. He hears our prayers and answers them according to His will.

Thank you Lord for healing and for answering prayers in my family lately. Thank You for divine appointments to share your love.

PS. This is Mark. On another note, God has blessed me this month at work as well. I found out that my quarterly sales numbers were outstanding and I'm getting this biggest quarterly bonus I've ever received this month. We've also been praying earnestly for our college ministry, Fusion, and we had the biggest turnout ever this past Tuesday. We've also been praying that the Lord leads us on our missions trip this summer to Ghana, Africa. The Lord has blessed us, as we've received almost the total amount due for the trip. We are looking forward to being able to share our faith story of His provision. We are also praying about our involvement with Youth For Christ International in Ghana. The Lord is leading us there too. All to His glory. He is God and I am not.

It's my favorite thing...

2011-01-26T21:53:00.001-06:00

This is what Mady told me tonight when I went in to tuck her in after Dad did the bedtime routine. She wrapped her arms tightly around my neck and whispered, "It's my favorite thing..." I asked her what she was talking about. There was a short pause and she said, "wrapping my arms around your neck is my favorite thing."

With tears coming, I told her "it's mommy's favorite thing too!"

I love that little girl!

Starting the year off with a little FREEZER COOKING

2011-01-11T15:26:00.004-06:00

Ok, so I haven't been really good about this whole blogging thing lately. I've had family asking me to start back up again so here goes... I am going to try to be consistent!

This past Saturday I got together with 2 friends from church to spend all day cooking. I've always wanted to try freezer cooking but it's definitely not something to tackle yourself... especially the first time. They had brought up the idea of taking a day to cook 15 meals a piece... 45 meals all together. I was all for it!

The week leading up to the big day was spent picking out recipes, figuring out how much of each ingredient that was needed and getting all the pots and pans, crockpots, and utensils ready to go! I think we purchased, cooked and shredded something like 52 chicken breasts!!

I arrived at the house at 10:30 ready to go. We began by cooking all the meat - hamburger, chicken and the pork for the pulled pork BBQ went into the crockpot. I cooked 15lbs of hamburger! Whew! Then after we cooked all the meat, we started assembling meals. Here's what we made:

Chicken and Veggies with Stuffing
Shepards Pie
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Chicken New Orleans.

Chicken Cassarole,
beef and bean burrito mix
Spinach lasagna
Ham, Potato, Cheese casserole
Sloppy Joes
Italian beef
Hamburger dish
Chicken Parmesan
Chicken Lasagna
Meatloaf
Pulled BBQ Pork

It was insane! But, oh so much fun! We cooked and assembled all day. I think the last meal was put together at 8:00pm and then we started clean-up. The fun part was trying to carry everything home and get it all in my freezer - thank goodness for a deep freeze!

It's been so nice on crazy hectic days (lately especially because we have had a house full of sick people) to just pull out a meal and warm it up! Plus, we totally saved on $$ buying everything in bulk and then cooking. It only cost me around $90 for all that!

Dinner time is crazy in our house just because the babies are usually tired and hungry at that point. Mark is usually just getting home or getting finished up in his office and I'm beat. So, it's been nice to have this little life-saver called "frozen meals" in my freezer. I think it may have to be an every 6 weeks type of thing. And maybe next time we will cook all the meat the day before (each person do a different type of meat) and I'm sure that would speed the process along as well!

All in all it was a fun day and I'm so glad I did it. Here are some pics from the 'event' (they were taken with my phone so they aren't the best quality!) :
Mixing up the Chicken Lasagna
Me being the organizational person that I am loved putting the foil on the finished meal and then writing the instructions (and sometimes a little note) on the top!
The finished Product! It may not look like a ton but the meals in the back are stacked 3-high and a lot of the ziploc bag meals are stacked as well! Yay for food!

Thankful to be 3-0

2010-09-26T21:15:00.003-05:00

(this picture was taken the night of my birthday. My 3 little blessings. My friend brought the tiara to church and I had to wear it all evening. Mady has now claimed the tiara!)

I thought I would be really sad and upset when I actually turned the big 3-0 but it was quite the opposite! I went into this birthday and new year feeling overwhelmed with thankfulness... I'm thankful for my wonderful husband who goes out of his way to make sure that I am happy and does everything in our power to take care of us. He is a wonderful husband and a magnificent father. I'm thankful for my 3 healthy and beautiful children who teach me something new everyday. They are a wonderful creation that bring me closer to my Creator. I'm thankful for great friends who are there when I need to talk, cry, laugh, and have some girl time. I'm thankful for a home church where I feel like family. I'm thankful for a beautiful home. I'm thankful for family. I'm thankful for good health. I'm eternally grateful for my Savior and what He has done for me... Thank You, Lord!

I could go on and on... I am blessed beyond measure. Thank you to everyone who is a part of my life. You all mean so much.

And thank you all for a great birthday and for all the birthday wishes!

Thanks for another wonderful birthday, Babe! I love you SO much!!!!

I think we should give it to God....

2010-09-25T15:19:00.001-05:00

The words from a 3 year old regarding tithing. I don't think I knew what the word "tithe" meant when I was 13. I'm grateful that my little girl is learning very important lessons while she's young and I'm praying that she'll keep these lessons in her heart as she gets older.

A couple of weeks ago Mark and I told Mady that if she left go of us in the swimming pool (she had on a swimmy and she was still holding a death grip on us) that we would give her $5. Yep, crazy right?! She let go for a whole 5 seconds and then resumed her grip on my bathing suit. To keep our word, we gave her $5 the next day after she continued to ask us about it. Mark used the $5 to teach her a little about tithing and what it meant to give money back to God. At that time they placed $0.50 in one cup "for God" and they placed the other $4.50 in another cup for her to save. The next week she excitedly reminded us that she wanted to take her money to God (at Wednesday service) so we packed it up in a bag and she happily carried it to her class and dropped her change into the Buddy Barrel.

The next week she again wanted to give money to God so she got into her piggy bank and got $0.50 to take in. Each time we used it as a teaching time continuing to teach her about tithing and giving back to the Lord. We talked about how all money is His and we are to be good stewards of it.

My mom came up and gave me a $50 bill for my birthday. Mady was excited that I had gotten $5! Ha! I asked her, "well Mads, what should we do with my money?" She looked at me, completely serious, and said "Mom, I think we should give it to God."

Wow. I was floored! Such a small child who is learning such a big thing. It's awesome to me that she is learning things like that and that she has a sincere desire to give back to the Lord. Just this morning she again raided her piggy bank (as her pawpaw had given her some change this weekend). She picked out her change and took it to church. During worship she put her change in a title envelope, sealed it, and wrote her name on the front all by herself (her newest adventure)!

As I was watching her do this I wondered why we adults have such a hard time giving things back to the Lord... whether it money, or circumstances, or problems... I want to have faith like a child. I want to give all things cheerfully. I want to be a cheerful giver.

Thank You Lord for my beautiful kids and what they teach me each and every day. Thank You Mady for a very big lesson from such a little girl.

First Day of MOPS

2010-09-20T14:06:00.002-05:00

I decided to join MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) this year and let me tell you... I'm SO excited! I had seen a post on a message board of another moms group that I was in and I emailed the mom asking her more about MOPS. She gave me all the registration info and I signed up, ready to go! l

Last Monday we had a play date with other MOPS moms at a park in town. It was a nice way to meet some of the other moms, let the kids play, and get some of our questions answered before we actually start. I met some wonderful new moms and even reconnected with a couple of moms that I knew.

This morning was our first meeting and it was great! I had so much fun! There were about 30 moms there. We had a hot breakfast, played some icebreakers, introduced ourselves and broke up into our discussion groups. I love my discussion group and I know that we're going to have so much fun over the next year! What a blessing it is to be around other moms who are going through the same things in life. Just in my discussion group, there are 2 moms with twins and one of those moms even has triplets as well! Thank You Lord for putting these people in my life.

I'm looking forward to the year ahead with activites, speakers, and moms-night-outs! I am looking forward to building new relationships with other moms and my kids building new relationships with other kiddos!

Oh, and my kids did wonderful... even Hannah who tends to go through a little bit of separation anxiety!

Usborne Books & More

2010-09-09T10:38:00.004-05:00

Have I mentioned lately that I love my "job?" Yes, I love my job as a stay-at-home-mom and wouldn't trade it for the world, but I also love my other job as an Educational Consultant with Usborne Books & More! I've been meaning to post about my side job for a while but just haven't gotten around to it.

If you're not familiar with Usborne Books & More, you'll want to make yourself familiar! :) UBAM believes that kids should have every opportunity available to them, especially a good education. We offer a huge variety of fiction and non-fiction (over 1500 titles in our catalog) in age ranges from infant to high school. Our books are very educational and cover a wide range of subjects. UBAM also has a ton of activity books like sticker books, lift the flap books, touchy feely books, puzzle books, Things to Spot books, activity cards, and I could go on an on. We have one of the most creative and original books lines in the US.

Here's the Usborne Books and More Mission Statement:

"The future of our world depends on the education of our
children. UBAM delivers educational excellence one book
at a time. We provide economic opportunity while fostering
strong family values. We touch the lives of children for a lifetime."

I LOVE this company. I've been with UBAM for almost 3 years, and I absolutely love the privilege of introducing these wonderful books to new moms, teachers, librarians, grandmas, etc. everywhere that I go. I first began this business so that I could build my daughter's library (we're avid readers) and so that I could take advantage of the discount. However, it didn't take long for me to get hooked. I quickly developed a strong passion for promoting literacy among our children in today's society! I feel like our children today are losing a love for books - there's nothing better than a good book!

I do literacy workshops for groups of women in their homes telling them about the importance of reading aloud to their children. I give tips on literacy and how to promote it in your own home. I also work with schools and libraries doing various programs like Bookfairs, Reading Incentive Programs, Summer Reading Programs, and even a Grant Matching Program. I love that UBAM has something for everyone... a way to help every child get great books. I especially love delivering bags of books to children at schools that have participated in our Reading Incentive Program. Their faces light up when they get their books that they got to pick out on their own. It's priceless. Some of these kids don't have the opportunity to get books for themselves so I love seeing them so excited and ready to read!

If you'd like more info on what I do with my Usborne business, let me know! I'd be more than happy to chat with you. My team is expanding now - I love working for a great company and working with a great bunch of a women!!!

I'm also booking for September / October - we have some great incentives for hostesses right now. I'd love to come and do a literacy workshop for you and your friends / family. It's the perfect time with the holiday season right around the corner, and we just had a bunch of new titles released!!!!

Feel free to check out my website at www.ReadingGeneration.com and don't forget to enter the drawing to win $50 in FREE books!!!!

Lessons from Hinton Rural Life Center in Hayesville, North Carolina

2010-08-17T07:15:00.004-05:00

This was where the hubby and I took our college ministry for our missions trip this summer...only about 3 weeks ago. It was awesome! We all have awesome testimonies of what the Lord did in all of us and those that we came in contact with. Let me start at the beginning...

Earlier this year, we decided on taking the group to Camp Hinton. Mark and I both were really bent on taking our 3 kids (yeah, crazy right?). I wanted Mady, especially, to experience what happens on a missions trip and plus I didn't want to even think about a babysitter for 3 kids for a week! So, it was a deal - we were taking the kiddos! We had talked about it, and I knew that I would be staying back during the day while Mark and the students went out to the work site and helped those in the community. I was okay with that - or so I thought...

We left on a Saturday morning and headed for Nashville (a little over half way) where we stayed the night. We attended a church service in Nashville on Sunday morning (SO good) and then headed out to make it to Camp Hinton by 5pm! The babes did exceptional - all except for the last 30 minutes or so...they wanted out of those carseats and so did I (especially with the last hour or so being in super windy curvy roads through the mountains!).

We arrived at Camp Hinton and introduced our group via a skit, we broke up up into work teams, had dinner and received further instruction for the week. Our group was put in the Patterson Cottage - a 5 bedroom, 2 story, 5 bath cottage with a big living room and a balcony upstairs. We let the group raid the bottom and we overtook the top floor which was great for the kids. I ended up putting the babies to bed that evening and then going back down to the main cabin to hang out.

That first night was rough for me... the babies got sick and so I was up rocking them during the night (they were coughing so bad that the only thing that helped was to hold them upright). Then the next morning was stressful as Mark was trying to get the group ready to leave and get last minute instructions so as to not forget anything, and I was having trouble with 2 tired, sick babies. I was feeling overwhelmed. Then, the group getting ready to leave and they were all having fun and all excited, and I found myself getting a little jealous. I had been questioning this trip for a while - just wondering what my purpose would be and what the Lord would teach me on this trip. I knew I wouldn't have the same experience of working with a homeowner and being on the site.

I spent the day praying and reading my Bible (and crying!) just asking the Lord why I was here... I felt like I could have done what I was doing at this camp at home... especially since the babes were sick. I also wasn't able to really connect with the students that much because they were out all day and then when they got home and stayed up late, I was beat from staying up all night with sick kids. I was really struggling.

Just a bit later (on Wednesday), God spoke to me. He spoke to me clearly about what my purpose on this trip was, and my purpose in life. It was amazing! The Lord told me that I was on this missions trip for my kids... YEP, can you believe it?! I was there to be with them... not just be with them in the same house but to really BE with them all day and play with them, teach them, read to them. My problem a lot of the time at home is that with 3 kids I get caught up in doing for each of them and then doing things around the house that before I know it it is nap time and I haven't really spent any quality time with any of them. Sure, I have my good days where they are all read to and all get mommy time but a lot of the times it is hard. On this trip we were all in the same room with no distractions - no computer, no cell phone, no house to clean, no messes to pick up, no dishes to do, NOTHING! It gave me time to be with my kids 150%! and I loved it - even if they were sick.... which gave me time to cuddle with them which I might not have had otherwise. The other thing that He taught me was that I'm too busy and that I need to prioritize my time. With my home based business and 3 kids and a husband, life can take off. I'm looking to slow things down, now that we're back, and really focus on what's important.... my FAMILY, my CHURCH. I'm of course still going to keep my business but it needs to have it's time and place.

The other thing that I think sometimes is a struggle for me is my purpose in life. I forget that being a mom is the coolest thing in the world and that I have the privilege of raising up 3 souls for the Lord. How awesome is that. Thank You Lord for just helping me to see that again - helping me to see that what I do on a daily basis - change diapers, make PB&J sandwiches, clean up, laundry, etc DOES make a difference even if I can't see it right now. Being a MOM is the best job in the world!!!! I definitely feel like the Lord got breakthrough in my life and I totally know now why I was on this trip.

Mark actually switched with me the last day of the camp. He stayed back at the cabin with the kids, and I went out on the work site with the students and painted. It was awesome being able to hang out with the students and serve Mrs. Ledford by working on her house.. what a saint she is! I'll never forget her and the wisdom that she passed on to us.

Camp Hinton was a blessing to me this year. I spent uninterrupted time reading with my kids, playing with them (someone even gave Mady a big ole tub of play dough out of the blue - he brought it with him not knowing why, and then he felt the Lord saying he should give it to mady!), taking walks to the lake with Mady, doing school with Mady, spending long uninterrupted hours reading in the Word and praying, and really listening to the Lord. A lot of the times I think that missions trips are all about serving others, and that's awesome, but this one felt more like me and the Lord - an appointed meeting for us to be together. I also love it that Mady had a great time - she told everyone she came in contact with before we left that she was going on a missions trip. She was SO excited!!! She connected and loved hanging out with the students and we had a great time hanging out together. She even went out on the work site and got to play for a while and talk with our homeowner! What a blessing it is to have my kids learning things like this at an early age! Thank You Lord!

I could go on an on about this trip... Thank you Lord that you had each one of us right where we were supposed to be. I couldn't have been more blessed on this trip.

**Just another note of excitement: We had planned to go white water rafting the last day on the way home. We had it worked out where the kids had a sitter but that fell through last minute (long story). I was definitely bummed that I wouldn't be able to go rafting but completely understood. Long story short, Mark was praying and felt like he needed to make a phone call. He phoned an AG church in the town outside of the rafting place. The youth pastor said he'd love to watch our kids - his daughter and her friend as well - and so we were able to drop our kids off at the church and I was able to go rafting with the group! Thank You Lord!

Weight Update

2010-07-28T10:30:00.003-05:00

I was gone over the weekend for 4 days (Thursday - Sunday) at an Usborne Books and More Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma (more on that later). When I got home on Sunday, Mark had mentioned that the twins had been a little wheezy sounding. On Monday I could definitely tell that they had some congestion and were dealing with runny noses and sneezing! Sam had also been spitting up his food over the last few days that I was gone. We've got it narrowed down that he usually starts his puking episodes when he's getting sick as the draining in his throat tends to cause him to cough which brings things back up. Not Pleasant!

I was a little concerned because we had been puke free for a while. I immediately thought about possible ear infections. Hannah had been extra crabby on Monday and so I assumed that with the colds they were developing ear infections (they've both had a few this summer). I took them in to the doc on Tuesday and both were clear of infections! Thank you, Lord... since we're getting ready to go on a missions trip and we're taking them with us! Sam had some fluid on his right ear but the doc didn't see a reason to treat it. So, hopefully we'll be fine while we're away on our trip! I would hate to have 2 miserable babes!

The fun thing is that Hannah is 19 pounds 1oz now! She's almost hit the 20lb mark ... Sam was 16 pounds 6 oz! He's gained a pound in a month so I guess that's good! July 20th was there anticipated due date so they just hit 14 months old! Keep growing little ones :)

"Easy Like (Satur)day Morning..."

2010-06-26T08:47:00.003-05:00

I guess it's time that I put some thoughts on here. I feel like I need to, so that when Monday morning starts again, I'll remember my priorities.

Sitting here on a Saturday morning drinking a cup of coffee and listening to...silence. What an extraordinary sound. It's really quite settling. Jenn's mom came up this morning and so she, Jenn and Madalyn all went out shopping. Garagesales, that is. The twins were great this morning and about 45 minutes ago, I put them to bed.

I see people bustling around outside on golf carts, and some are mowing their lawns and some are going for a morning run. Not me. I'm sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of joe and periodically staring out my back yard. My phone is ringing, I'm getting text messages, but I'm not answering. Not right now. I'm listening to quiet.

Jenn started a load of laundry before she left and the washing machine keeps beeping. I started it again, and it just sits there and beeps. I think it's broken. So, I turned it off. Not right now. I'm listening to quiet. I could pull out my tool belt and search on the internet for a new electronic motherboard and order it, but not right now. I'm listening to quiet.

The babies apparently have decided to play in their beds. I guess I could go get them, bring them downstairs and play with them some more like I did this morning. Not right now. I'm listening to quiet.

Last fall, when I went through a really turbulent time, I learned a secret to life. I learned that you really can max yourself out. I learned that you really can press yourself to the breaking point...and I broke. Life just became too overwhelming. With the pressures of a new promotion at work, a new supervisor that we were coming to terms with, 2 new babies and a vivacious 2 year old and some other pressures that were stacking up, I hit rock bottom. Emotionally, physically and in a lot of ways spiritually, I was spent. I even started having this really strong pressure in the center of my chest that would last for a day or two during these times. Well, that pressure in the center of my chest is back this morning, so I needed to defuse a little. I'm having a little time to myself, listening to quiet, and ultimately, listening to my precious Savior.

The texts, the emails the phone calls start to cloud my vision. The pressures at home to be available, not only in a physical sense, but in an emotional and spiritual sense, are very difficult when you sometimes work 60+ hours a week. But that's not for now, I'm listening to quiet.

And so, you sometimes need mornings like this, when I put the phone down, I turn off the broken, beeping washing machine, when I let the twins play in their cribs, and listen to quiet. To have a greater sense of spiritual acuity. To not get worried about outstanding contracts at work, or organizing a missions trip coming up in August, or changing dirty diapers. To not get charged up about painting our entryway, hallway, dining room and stairwell next weekend because the delivery guys scratched our stairwell moving in our new bed last week. To just stop, drink my coffee, and allow the grass to grow one more day without running out to cut it, in hopes of keeping up with the Jones' (who really do live next door, Amy Jones just ran by walking their dog).

Thank you Lord for a few hours of refuge. Thank you for revitalization. Thank you for quiet. Thank you for the dishes in the sink and the dirty laundry. Thank you for the blocks that Mady assembled as a house for her play puppies on the living room coffee table. Thank you for Sam's smile and Hannah's hugs and Mady's joy. Thank you for my wife that literally makes my world go around. Thank you Lord for my family, the greatest gift you could entrust to me.

An update on my Sweet boy, Samuel...

2010-06-22T10:33:00.002-05:00

Sammy at 5 months old!

Over the past few months, we've noticed that the continuous cough that Sam had was not going away. We figured that by the time he hit a year old it would be getting better. He coughs after he eats and then a few times while he's awake and playing. We've just never heard a baby cough as much as he does. Mark was a little concerned as he has CF and coughing is a big side effect of it.

Last Wednesday (6/16/10), Mark called the nurse to tell her our concerns. She said that before Dr. H referred us somewhere that he wanted us to bring Sam in so he could take a look at him. This was at 3:20 and they had his appt set up for 3:50. I woke him up, fed him quickly and headed to the appt. He was so happy and flirting with one of the girls there, Melissa, who always calls him "handsome." Unfortunately they all know us so well from being in with all of the kids over the years.

I expressed my concerns with Dr. H and he examined Sam. I'll list out a few of the big things that I remember, mostly for me to remember :)
*During the exam, Dr. H said that Sam had a left ear infection and some sinus issues, especially with draining (visible by a very runny nose). He said that the drainage could be causing the cough. He said that if Sam just had the ear infection by itself that he probably wouldn't give him meds but because of the sinus issues as well, he wanted to put him on some antibiotics for 10 days. He wanted to see us back in a week to check and see how the medicine was doing and to see if it was helping the cough.
*Dr. H said that because I'm not a carrier of CF (i was tested even before we got married), that the chance of Sam having CF was almost impossible. That was a relief even though we knew that deep down. It just hits so close to home that we were a little apprehensive.
*Dr. H said that he was going to do a chest x-ray today but that he wanted to wait because of the ear infection. If the meds didn't help over the next week, then he would do a chest x-ray to see if that was indicative to anything.
*He also said that he would possibly check him for reflux. He said that one of the side effects that goes along with reflux is sinus problems and draining. That in turn ususally causes coughing and then spitting up, among other stuff. Interesting! I've wanted to have him tested for reflux ever since he was tiny because of his puking but they always said that he would just grow out of it. We'll see what happens, I suppose...
*His weight was 15lbs 5.5oz!
Update:
6/21/10 - Yesterday, we headed back to Dr. H for Sam's followup appt. Again, Sam got to flirt with Melissa on the way back :) Little Mr. Handsome! Here's a rundown of the appt...
*Sam has fluid on both ears. Dr. H wants to continue the antibiotics for another 10 days to see if that clears it up. He didn't say much about his sinuses although his nose is no longer running profusely and his cough has cleared a bit... although still present.
*Sam's weight was 15lbs 13oz (up 8 oz in 5 days! go bubby!)
*Dr. H wanted a chest x-ray done today (they asked me during the x-ray if there was any chance that I could be pregnant!! Ha... All I had to do was say, "um... he's a twin!" That answered any questions. This happened back when he was only about 3 months old as well. I said the same thing and got the same response... Nope, not pregnant!!!!") If the chest x-ray comes back abnormal then he'll want to do a sweat chloride test (a main test for Cystic Fibrosis). If it's normal, then he says a SCT isn't necessary at all.
*He put Sam on a relux medicine for 10 days. He also put in a standing referral on Sam's chart for a referral to a GI doc. After 10 days, I'm supposed to call in and let him know how the medicine is working and how it's affecting his cough. If nothing has changed then we are going to be referred to a GI doc who most likely will put a probe down Bubby's throat to see if they can figure out the cause for the cough. Dr. H said he's not so much worried about the spitting up that he's doing because he only does that when he's coughing. He's more worried about the cause of the cough.
*We're also supposed to go back in 4 weeks to check up on his ears and the fluid that's there... Hopefully it'll be gone!
(side note: I heard one of the receptionists saying that this year has been the worst for ear infections in kids. She said that everyone is coming in right now for ear infections. Sam has had one and Hannah has had one... I had no idea Sam had his... Hannah was a little crankly and pulling on her ear. Madalyn never had issues with them. Interesting!)

Update:
Yesterday afternoon, Katie (whom I also know and probably gets really sick of hearing from the Bettinger's! ha) called and said that Sammy's Chest x-ray was normal! Praise God!

Now we'll just wait and see how this new reflux medicine works. As of last night, he's cough has gone down considerably and he hasn't even spit up (even though he wasn't do it very much anyway... only because of the cough). We're putting our trust in God and praying for complete healing! I'll post updates as I get them!

Sent by God

2010-06-10T11:49:00.005-05:00

Last night was an extremely scary night for us! We picked the babies up out of bed and took them straight out to the van and put them in their car seats. We loaded up Mady and pulled out of the driveway. We got almost to the end of our street when we heard Sam starting to cough, what sounded like choke, and then vomit a very large amount. He did this a few times and then I flew into the back to see what was going on. I noticed that he was doing all of the above plus it was almost like he would stop breathing for a second after he coughed. I swept his mouth and felt something but couldn't tell what. Mark pulled over on the side of the road and I handed Sam out of the van...

Now, I'm almost in tears, Mady is crying and Hannah was starting to get fussy. Mark is on the side of the road (at the other entrance to our subdivision) patting him on the back and sweeping his mouth out. Sam is still continuing to choke, spit, cough and having trouble breathing. He's even coughing up a little bit of blood at this point. I looked up for a second and out of nowhere a there was a lady getting out of her truck (she was a state trooper) and a man with blue lights in his truck (he was a paramedic) getting out to assist us. They were off duty but stopped to help us. I know they were sent from God and were definitely angels sent to help us. I mean, they appeared out of nowhere! After a bit, Sam had calmed down and wasn't coughing or choking anymore. She told us that we needed to get him in to get checked out in case whatever was causing the issues had gotten caught somewhere else and later might get dislodged. We thanked them for stopping and then they were gone... almost as quick as they had arrived. It was definitely a God thing.

We put Sam back in his seat and started to head for the ER when he started having issues again. I took him out of his seat and sat in the back with him while Mark raced to the ER running through stop lights and stop signs. By the time we got to the ER, Sammy was acting normal but we wanted to get him checked out anyway.

I dropped Mark and Sam off at the door and went to park the van and get the girls out. When I walked in the ER, they were in the triage room with about 6 nurses. I started to get a little nervous but everything seemed ok. Our friend, Lindy, was working and was actually our nurse so that was nice.

They did an xray but didn't see anything on the xray. The doc said that if it was something small like a piece of cardboard or a bandaid that it wouldn't show up on the xray though so who knows. Mark said he felt something in his throat that resembled a band-aid. I thought I felt something a little more rough. There was a cut in the back of his throat when they examined him either due to something scratching him or us scratching his throat when we were doing the finger sweep?! We were just thankful that his lungs were clear and that there wasn't anything stuck in his esophagus or stomach. Praise God! A lady from peds came down and brought toys and crayons as we had all 3 kiddos in that tiny little ER room (fun!). We were released fairly quick and brought the kids home and put them to bed! What a night!!! Thank you Jesus that my little man is okay!

On a positive note, Sammy was weighed at the ER. His weight was 16lbs 4oz. He was weighed 3 weeks ago at his 1 year appt and was 14lbs 10oz. His weight has been a concern to us and so we've been praying for him. Praise! He's gained over a pound in 3 weeks!!!! Granted he had a diaper on and his wet shirt on last night but I'm still thankful that he's gaining so much weight! Hopefully by his 15 month appt he'll be close to 18lbs at this rate!!!! Go Buddy Go!!!!

What a blessing this little messy eater is! I love you so much, Samuel, and we're so thankful that you're okay!

Welcome back, Bettinger Family

2010-06-09T14:47:00.007-05:00

I haven't blogged in ages! A lot has happened since the last time I posted... one of my favorite things being the twins' FIRST birthday party! I can't believe we made it to a year!!! We celebrated with family and of course lots of birthday cake! The babes LOVED their cake and ate almost the entire thing!! Even Mady had a mini-cake her with name on it! Thanks to my mom for making the cakes.

The babes are doing well. At their 1 year appt, their weights came in at 15lbs and 17lbs... Hannah being the bigger of the two. Doc decided to keep them on formula another 3 months and see how their weights go over the next couple of months. Hannah is on the growth charts but my little man isn't quite yet... It's okay though! I know he'll make it soon! Doc gave us the go ahead to feed them whatever I want to feed them so currently their favorite thing is Peanut Butter sandwich (easy, good, and a good source of protein for weight gain). Doc did draw blood from both of them to make sure there weren't any other underlying issues with thyroid, for example, among other things that would be making them small. He's not super concerned but the next appt we have at 15months will tell alot! Please pray for my little man especially... that he's able to put on some pounds in the next couple of months! Otherwise, they are happy and healthy... an ornery! Just today I found Hannah sitting on the door to the dishwasher. Guess I won't be leaving that down anymore! Sam can climb stairs so we have to be careful about those! Oh the joys that I wouldn't trade in for anything!!!

After their birthdays came what felt like a month of sickness. Both babes had croupe. Mady had the flu. Mark was sick with something and I had a positive strep test followed by a week of a horrible cold or something to that effect. I finally think everyone is starting to feel better! Thank you Jesus!

I'm hoping to get back in the rhythm of blogging. Life has just been crazy. I'll leave you with a few photos though...
It is extremely hard to get 3 kiddos to look at the camera... not to mention getting Dad to do the same!
Before the mess...
About half way through - Sam needed a little break :)
Mady learning to use her new skates
Mommy and her cute munchkins on Mother's Day! I love dressing the girls alike! I'm so blessed!

Wow it's been a long time...

2010-03-31T10:39:00.010-05:00

Just a couple of pics from over the past month or so... I hope to get back into blogging about my beautiful family soon!

The girls having fun. Hannah is in Mady's doll stroller - she loved being pushed around the house!
My adorable little M and M's!
Mom and the kiddos on Valentines Day!
Bubby and Big Sis having a good time together on the bean bag!
My adorable baby girl doing some creative artwork!
These two always seem to crawl to the kitchen floor for some reason... they love playing with plastic bowls and lids! Works for me!

My little dancer.

2010-02-13T13:19:00.003-06:00

Last night our college ministry put on a Valentines Dinner for the couples at our church. We served around 106 people and it turned out magnificently. It was an evening full of good food, good fun and hilarious entertainment! It was great seeing the young people at our church serve the couples and show Christ's love. Amazing!

I got to the church at 1:15pm, put all 3 kids to bed and began decorating and getting things ready. The dinner began at 6 and we left at 10pm... so it was a long night! As we were putting on some of the final touches for the evening, Mady went up on the stage and started dancing. I happened to walk in and see her and so I had to grab my camera. She is always dancing in our living room and asking us to dance with her. I hope you enjoy watching my baby girl do what she loves to do...

Best Numbers Ever!!!

2010-01-29T15:09:00.002-06:00

I just wanted to give a quick update on Mark's routine doctors appointment yesterday! After his lung capacity test, he was given the news that he is at the top of his game! The numbers that he gave yesterday were his best lung capacity numbers in the last THREE YEARS! Praise the Lord! I'm so thankful that he's doing so well and I'm praying that his numbers will even continue to rise.

Just a side note... In May when he went in for his check-up, his numbers were 13points lower! What an increase!

Thank you, Jesus!

Homemade Dave Ramsey Envelope System

2010-01-22T13:33:00.005-06:00

Mark and I have been on the envelope / cash system for almost 6 years now. We love it and wouldn't have it any other way. We love the Dave Ramsey style of working with finances.

I don't deal with the budget as a whole (that's definitely Mark's job as I hate working with money) but I am in charge of the grocery budget and the grocery shopping. I get an allotted amount on the 15th of every month when Mark gets paid. If we run out of money early, then we find stuff in the pantry and the freezer to eat. I could get more money but that defeats the purpose of having a budget. So, my goal is to not go over our grocery budget every month - I even try to have excess. I use coupons like crazy and find good deals everywhere (I'm getting ready to take advantage of a Huggies Diaper Deal that I found - Diapers for less than $5 per pack!).

Anyway, I've been searching for a cool envelope system for my grocery cash each month. I saw some cool ones on Etsy and Ebay but they were pretty pricey. Then I found a blog where I can make my own .... so I did. Here are some pics:
Here's the front.
I made 4 separate envelopes, all the same matching colors. I woke blue/green ribbon through the top and labeled each envelope "Week One Groceries" - "Week Two Groceries", etc.
I put a piece of matching cardstock on the back so that I could slide it in my wallet and the envelopes would stay put!

I love my little system. I may even make up more for other things like "Eating Out" - "Dates" - "Gifts" - etc. I like the idea of separating out the cash for each week. Maybe that will help even more with not overspending... and I'll only buy what I need.

I'm sure excited to use my new system! Now I just need to go shopping :)

Don't ya just love strangers!

2010-01-20T09:56:00.004-06:00

On Monday, we headed out to Hobby Lobby as a family to pick up some things for some projects around the house. Mark was off of work due to the holiday so we were enjoying some time together. We had both of the babies in their carseats and tucked into the stroller. Samuel was sound asleep so we had a blanket over his carseat. Hannah was wide awake and enjoying everything around her, which is pretty typical for her - never wants to miss a thing. She was jabbering and smiling at everything and everyone who stopped to talk to her.

A couple, maybe in their early 60's, came up to us and the wife started talking to Hannah. She made a comment something like, "Aww, look at her smiling at me. She's adorable." Then the husband walked over and said, "Yeah, it's only because she has no idea of how crappy her life will be in this world."

Are you serious? I stood, probably with my mouth wide open, in shock as they walked away. I turned to Mark and made a comment about how apparently our daughter is going to have a crappy life. C'mon! I'm sure he was meaning that the world is so negative and such but I can't be certain. It makes you wonder... I was a little annoyed but then my annoyance turned to sadness for him. It didn't sound like he had any Hope at all.

**On another note, back when we had all of the snow, maybe in late December, we were visiting some store. We had the babies completely bundled up (sometimes to the point they were sweating when we took them out) and Mady was all warm and cozy as well. We were walking from our car to the store when a lady passed us and said, "you should have those kids out in this weather. It's way to cold for babies to be outside." Apparently she thought it necessary to be the parent for a little bit. I'm just so surprised that people would say things like this to complete strangers. Maybe she could say that if my kids were in shorts in the middle of winter but honestly... gotta love strangers!

Sledding Fun

2010-01-09T16:31:00.010-06:00

The past couple of times that it's snowed, our family has taken advantage of the hill out back introducing Mady to sledding. She LOVES it. I think Mark and I end up more worn out as we have to pretty much carry her back up the hill (if we don't want to be out there forever).

A little ways down, on the east side of our house, is I-72. The hill we were sledding down is on the side of the overpass and so much fun (and completely safe - there's no way we can sled onto the interstate!). It's a decent hill with a big field at the bottom so there's lots of room. The first time that we went (a few weeks ago), there were some other kids out there but today it was just us... and lots of fresh, un-touched snow!

Here are some pictures from the last couple of times that we've been.
This isn't exactly of her sledding but I LOVE this photo. There's something about the way the light is hitting her face that makes it a super neat photo!
This was the snow we got in December. Not a huge amount but enough to get the sled out.
Having a ball!
Mady was brave enough to go on her own! She kept saying, "Again, Again, Again!"
Enjoying some hot cocoa after the first sledding adventures
This was today. After a few times down the hill, this is how Mark started getting Mady to the top again. I carried her a couple of times and Mark even put her on his back. This seemed to work the best.
Yeah, I admit... I was a little nervous at first, but I ended up having as much fun as Mady did!
Mark making snow angels... ah, isn't he so cute. Ha!

Won't you be my neighbor

2010-01-09T15:45:00.007-06:00

Speaking of neighbors... we have the BEST neighbors in the world. We've now been in our house for 8 months and we know most of our neighbors. I love them all! Unlike our other home that we moved from, here our neighbors are friendly... the kind that would give you a cup of sugar if you ran out, the kind that invite you over for play dates, the kind that use every excuse to get together and hang out as neighbors, and the kind that shovel your sidewalk... YEP they shoveled our sidewalk for us! What a surprise AND a blessing.

The one thing that we didn't think about when we moved into this beautiful home... S.N.O.W. Because there is nothing behind our house except Staley Road and huge open fields, we get a lot of wind which isn't good when it's snowing. This last round of snow that we got pretty much "snowed us in"... literally. The wind whips around both sides of our house causing snow drifts in different places. We have 5ft snow drifts in the back of our house and in the front over the sidewalk that leads to our porch. I went out and shoveled the deep snow off of our driveway on Thursday only because we had friends coming over for dinner and I wanted them to be able to get TO our house.

On Friday afternoon Mark yelled from the other room, "Jenn, come here and look at this!" Apparently 2 of our neighbors and 2 other guys drove up in their jeep, jumped out, and started shoveling the huge drift off of our sidewalk. They also used a snow blower on the sidewalk by the road and out by our mailbox! What a blessing! We thanked them profusely but aside from that we were at a loss for words. How nice of them! I'm very blessed to live in a neighborhood with such thoughtful neighbors. I'm looking forward to building our friendships over the years and blessing them in other ways as well!

Some pictures:
Out our front door. Our poor little christmas trees are almost completely buried.
another view of the front. It looks so soft and smooth that I just want to run and jump into it!

Our our back door. It's hard to see the actual size of the drifts but I think it looks neat anyway. At some points during the snowstorm the visibility was so bad that we couldn't see past those stick trees - we couldn't see the road!
we DO have a sidewalk! This was after our neighbors came and shoveled it!

Cover to Cover

2009-12-31T06:22:00.002-06:00

Today I accomplished one of the great goals of my life.

I have many goals in life. Some are certainly attainable, others will be a long shot. Some of my goals in life are to author a book, climb a mountain, go to Jersusalem (the Mount of Olives in particular) and to go on a missions trip to Africa. I have many goals in life...these are just a few.

But today I accomplished one of the easier goals: I finished reading the Bible from cover to cover. It took me 2 years...a little longer than the original one year time frame. Over the course of my 27 year relationship with Christ, I've read all of the New Testament (not sequentially), Psalms thru Malachi and Genesis thru Deuteronomy. I've set out to read it all the way thru twice before, but failed. I've read, studied, memorized and preached on most of the other books, just not read them cover to cover.

I learned so much throughout this endeavor and my eyes were opened to the reality of the life of Christ that I am living. I gained a world view that's changed my perspective. I also gained an over-arching vision on how God operates. I also picked up on minor things life how Paul thinks and his perspective in Acts and then his corresponding letters to God's people.

This past year, we went to a lecture on campus and heard a traveling pastor share that he had read the Bible one time for each of the year's he's been alive but he didn't start until he was in college. That's making up for lost time! Even Zig Ziglar reads the Bible and other books and prays 4 hours each morning when he first wakes up...could I?

I'm not sure what my new goal I'll start working on. Maybe tomorrow I'll start with Genesis 1...again.

Sucking a thumb

2009-12-19T15:12:00.003-06:00

We recently got a flip video camera, which is really fun and easy. (It has a flip USB drive that plugs directly into my brandy-spankin new laptop). Essentially, I'm trying out the device. This video was pretty fun as Sam offered his thumb for Hannah to suck on.

The Blessing of Handmade Things!

2009-12-17T20:02:00.007-06:00

Over the past few years we've been blessed with some beautiful handmade things from some extremely close friends of ours. Madalyn has been the lucky recipient of some awesome scarves and sweaters... and even an adorable hat the first winter that she was born. Hannah has since inherited that hat and Samuel received a matching one in blue!

About 2 weeks ago the babies were given super adorable Christmas hats - so cute that I had to show them off. Hannah's is a candy cane and Samuel's is a Christmas tree! They look adorable in these hats. I'm so thankful to our dear friend for making these for us! They are even "stretchy" so we'll be able to wear them again next year! THANK YOU!
Madalyn with her pink hat on - a month old!
Hannah with the pink hat - 6 months old! (isn't the resemblance amazing just with the girls' eyes)
Sam in blue! - 6 months.
my handsome Christmas Tree - 7 months.
a super sweet Candy Cane - 7 months old.

The Babes' 6 month appointment

2009-11-30T08:39:00.004-06:00

Let me start out by saying that I'm a little behind but I have many good excuses :)

About 2 weeks ago we had the 6 month appointment for the babies! Wow! 6 months! I can't even hardly believe it. In one sense it's flown by but in another sense it feels like the days have dragged on at points. It is different because for 2 months I wasn't able to have both babes at home with me as they were still in the hospital. So, I've only had them both home for 4 months. I just can't believe that my babies are 6 months old already. Jeesh!

I headed to the appointment by myself as Mark had to be out of town that day for work. Madalyn stayed at the house with Mark's mom and I braved the doctors office by myself. Let me just say that I wasn't looking forward to it at all. I have no problem taking the babies places by myself - the issue was just the with going to the doctor. I knew they would both have to go through the routine of undressing, getting weighed, getting checked out and then getting vaccinations. It was just a lot to think about doing by myself and I was SO nervous.

The nurse helped me to get them undressed and she took one and I took the other. We weighed them and then took them back to the room to wait on the doctor. While we were waiting on the doctor, both babes were extremely cheery and happy (which helped!). Samuel did decide to spit up all down the sleeve of my shirt which was rather disgusting. It's a good thing I had another shirt on underneath. I played with both kids on the table until the doctor came in.

Samuel's weight - 11lbs 14oz
Hannah's weight - 13lbs 1oz

The exam went well. Dr. H said that both babies are doing extremely well. He put both babies on their stomachs and they are both very strong for their age (their adjusted age is 4 months - 2 months behind - so for developmental stages and what not we go by the adjusted age). Both are developmentally right on track... they are beginning to reach for things, they can sit up when held (good head control) and they are rolling from their bellies to their backs. Hannah is a little bit stronger but that's understandable as she's bigger. Both did well on their bellies - Sam even was a little stronger on his belly. Dr. H said that by next appt (2 months) they should be able to sit up on their own. He then talked to me about getting them flu vaccines and the RSV injection. Because they are preemies, they are recommended to have the RSV injection - which isn't a vaccine but rather an injection of antibodies to help build up their immune system. If they were to catch RSV it would be rather bad as their lungs are less mature than a full term baby. They will each get an RSV injection every month until March.

The bad thing about the injections was that they each got their regular flu shot in the office and then I had to bundle them up and take them upstairs for the H1N1 vaccine. They both were very much upset by the time we got upstairs and I made it worse by having them get another vaccine. I was super stressed out with two screaming babies but I did well for being by myself. At one point a nurse came over and said, "we've been over at the desk trying to figure out who needs the hug more - mom or the babies." I sure was glad when that was over!

I'm so thankful that both babies are doing extremely well. I was given the go ahead with feeding them cereal which the Dr. said should help with Samuel's spitting up. So far it's been going well. They are doing great with it! It's so fun to watch them - I love that they light up when they see each other, that they light up when they see their big sister, and that they are extremely happy babies! They love to hold hands and touch each other when they are laying next to each other. Having twins is definitely a blessing and I'm so excited to be on this journey. As hard as it's been in the past, I'm so thankful for my two beautiful, healthy babies!!!

**As a side, I took them in last week for their RSV injections. I took Mady with me this time so it was me and the 3 kiddos. I had the babies undressed and laying on the table. Mady climbed up on the end of the table to watch them receive their injections. Samuel got his first and let out a big ole cry. I think Mady was surprised because she then began to shed a couple of tears. She kept saying "hold me mommy." I had to remind her that it was okay and that I couldn't hold her right then because I had to hold the babies. She went and sat on the chair on the other side of the room so she didn't have to watch when Hannah got her injection. Samuel had calmed down by this point and then Hannah got hers. She let out a cry, Samuel let out a cry as well (maybe a sympathy cry) and Mady again said "mommy, hold me." So I had 2 babies crying and my Mady just about in tears. The nurse was chuckling and all I could do was giggle. I felt bad but to keep from losing my mind I just had to smile. In the end the babies settled down and Mady got a sticker --- yep, she got the sticker but the babies did all of the "work!"

Happy 5th Anniversary!

2009-11-14T08:26:00.000-06:00

Yesterday, November 13th, was our anniversary... FIVE years! How exciting. There's something fun about hitting the 5th one. I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful husband and such a wonderful dad! I couldn't have asked for anything more. I love you babe... SO much! Thank you for loving me, protecting me, and believing in me. You are awesome!

About 2 weeks ago we were sitting in our Sunday School class at church and we had no idea what we were doing for our anniversary. We had thought about going to Chicago for the weekend but that just seemed to be a little "too busy" for me. In our class we were studying a DVD lesson on Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs and his wife Sarah. It was fascinating. That morning, the leader told us that Dr. Eggerichs was actually going to be in Peoria the weekend of the 13-14th! We both looked at each other and knew we wanted to go! We went home and registered and then realized... we should probably find somewhere for the kids to go!

Long story short, a small group from our church volunteered to help us out by watching our kids for us! What a blessing! Two ladies (one of which had an older set of twins herself) watched the kids from 6pm until 10am the next morning at which time one of the ladies switched out duties with a husband! It was a pure blessing. We are so thankful for church family like that! It was so encouraging knowing that our kids were being cared for and even more encouraging that one of the moms did have twins so we knew she wouldn't stress out too much!

We had a magnificent time at the conference. I would definitely recommend it to anyone if it every comes to a town near you - definitely worth the time. I have a whole new outlook on my marriage. The basic premise was Ephesians 5:33 where it says "However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." We, as women, are commanded to respect our husbands and our husbands are commanded to love us, their wives. Isn't it interesting that we are commanded to do this? We are commanded to do things that usually don't come natural to us. We as women speak a different language than our husbands. We are looking for love. Our husbands speak the language of respect. They want our respect. The model that Dr. Emerson Eggerichs has built is that a wife's respect motivates her husband to love her more and the husbands love for his wife in turn motivates her to respect her husband more.

I could go on and on... That was just a tiny bit of the conference. He also talked about love and respect in regards to our sons and daughters which was just as wonderful. It was just really good! Dr. Emerson Eggerichs has written a couple of books that I would recommend checking out!

It was so fun to celebrate 5 years! I'm looking forward to many more!!! We had a wonderful weekend of rejuvenating our marriage and getting on an even better track for the future. Oh, how important that is! Thank you to our friends for watching our kids and Thank You Lord for the truth and power of Your Word!
This is my anniversary present... a diamond anniversary ring. it's a little hard to see but absolutely perfect! It's almost like my wedding band but has 15 diamonds across it instead of 8. THANK YOU babe! I absolutely LOVE IT!!!

There's never a dull moment...

2009-11-11T22:17:00.004-06:00

Tonight, my friend and a I shopped at our favorite baby / kids sale, One Week Boutique. We look forward to this big sale twice a year and even volunteer by delivering promotional items to daycares so that we can shop early. The public can shop on Friday and we were able to shop today. I can't even explain how awesome this sale is.... everything you could think of for a baby or kiddo is for sale... and usually there are multiples of each item. I usually get birthday and part of Christmas taken care of when I shop. Some of the things I purchased this year: Unopened packages of diapers for the twins at a greatly reduced price, unopened complete dress-up kit including gloves, rings, dress, tiara, necklace and shoes for $5, a princess jewelry box for $1, a unopened power toothbrush with matching dora toothpaste for $2, cans of formula for $0.50, a carseat that goes in our van for Mady's baby.. and the list goes on.... (by the way, she's going to absolutely go nuts when she gets the carseat as she's been hauling her deer around in the van with us wherever we go in her infant carrier). Anyway, I love this sale but back to the point of my story...

My friend and I both sent our kids off to church before we got home. Her dad took her son to church and Mark took our kiddos to church. She had called me on the way and said, "You'll never guess what Dad let "J" out of the house wearing... shorts, a long sleeve t-shirt, and his bright green rain boots!" (Mind you, it's freezing outside!). I giggled until I arrived at church and saw what my daughter was wearing... pants that were too short for her so everytime she sat down or bent over her... well, her dad would say "say no to crack!" ... if you follow me... She also had on flip flops, her hair was a mess, both pockets were inside out and hanging down, and she was wearing her bright blue flowery spring coat!

I stuck my head in her class to joke with Mady's teacher about what she was wearing. She said, "yeah, I knew you didn't dress her because her hair wasn't done up all cute... and everytime she bends over we get a show!" We both got a good laugh out of it! Poor Mads! We love Daddy so much though! I learned later that Mark had fallen asleep on the couch and woke up right before he was supposed to be leaving for church. They were in a hurry to get everyone fed and to the church and not be late so I suppose he has a good excuse..

On another note, Mady said the funniest thing tonight. Mark was in a small fender bender on Monday (not his fault) and he was telling me that his Dad had called and asked about the accident. Here's how the conversation went at our table tonight...
Mark: "He (dad) asked about my accident."
Mady: "Daddy, did you poop your..."
Mom: (cutting off Mady pretty quickly) "no, Mads, we're talking about a different kind of accident."

can you tell what has been talked about in our house lately? And speaking of accidents, Mady is on her 3rd night of wearing "princess panties" to bed in the evening and not having any accidents! She's been wearing a pull up only to bed for about a month now and they are always dry in the morning so this week I decided to get rid of all diapers! I love it that she's not even 3 yet and she's completely potty trained... and she did most of it herself! Praise God that I'm not changing 3 little bottoms.... well, 2 little ones and 1 big one :)

A Salute to a Fallen Hero

2009-11-05T20:50:00.002-06:00

I just got back from a long trip to Cleveland to visit some clients. I don't mind the trip as I enjoy the people at my facilities out in Ohio, but I just don't like being away from my family.

On my way back today, I followed a van into a gas station. He very slowed pulled off of the interstate on the off ramp, onto the frontage road and into the gas station. As each interminable second passed, I got more and more agitated. He was driving so slow. He pulled into the gas station and I zoomed around him. I pulled into my slot, popped open the gas flap, filled completely up, ran inside and used the restaurant, ran back outside, figured out my gas mileage for my trip, started up my car and started to pull out. And that's when it hit me...

I looked up and saw this seasoned gentleman still putting gas in the same van that I followed into the station. I realized that he was taking his time, enjoying himself (unlike some of us). He has learned to slow down, to enjoy life and take a deep breath every once in awhile. So what if I broke the gas fill-up speed record? Who cares that I can run into the restroom, do my duty before most guys even make it to the stall? I want to take a page out of this guys book...to slow down and enjoy life for a few minutes.

I was still contemplating this situation when way down the interstate, I beheld an amazing site...

As I drove down the interstate, I saw all kinds of red and blue lights flashing coming from the opposite direction. As I watched, I saw 16 cop cars followed by literally 200 motorcycles w/ the American flag on their bikes, followed by a black van...followed by a hearse. As I gazed, this hearse was followed by literally several hundred cars all in a single file line on the interstate, and then it dawned on me that this was the procession for the local soldier who recently was killed in Afghanistan and today was his funeral. I pulled over along with all of the other cars going in my direction. I looked up in my rear view mirror, and I saw the most amazing site...the guy behind me slowly got out of his car and with all of the world watching, in his formal fatigues, he stood erect saluting this unknown comrad, a fellow soldier. His intensity was undeniable. His attitude unyielding. His loyalty a proclamation and his passion unparalleled.

Several hundred cars passed with their lights on and a funeral sign attached to their window, and then a I saw a great site: 2 cop cars were following this entire procession with their lights on, not allowing anyone to pass this 5 mile long bereavement ceremony. I can imagine that someone way back in this holdup was getting irate that the speed on the interstate was so slow. They wouldn't realize that they were following a funeral procession, but that they were just going slow. Hopefully the firetrucks and policemen at each overpass on Interstate 74 would give it away, but if not, I learned something today: slow down and enjoy life. Enjoy the life that I have that has been earned through the scars and stripes of these fallen heroes. The American flag that was waving in the wind of those motorcycles stands for a freedom that I've taken for granted but today my perspective has been changed. I want to thank those that have helped make my life possible. My level of gratitude for them is difficult to communicate but is nonetheless very real.

One Year Anniversary!

2009-11-03T13:13:00.002-06:00

I just celebrated my one year anniversary with Usborne Books and so I thought I would blog about it!

On October 20, 2008, I signed up to be an Usborne Book Consultant and I've loved every minute of it! I initially signed up so that I could simply build Madalyn's home library but the more I got involved with Usborne, the more I just couldn't stop.

My family and I love books. Mark and I have implemented a weekly reading night - usually on Tuesday evenings - where we all (minus the babies) spend the evening with a few good books and no distractions. Mady even looks forward to these evenings. I love promoting literacy in my own home and in the homes of others. I'm extremely passionate about sharing my take on literacy and with Usborne I have the opportunity to do just that with many different people in many different circumstances.

Since starting a year ago, I've had many opportunities with Usborne. I am currently doing fundraisers with two different schools in the area in which 100% return goes to the school and the students! Awesome! I've also done home shows and various booth events! I love it! I get to meet new people and introduce them to some great books!

Our books are 85% educational and non commercialized. We have over 1500 titles in our Usborne catalog. 80% are non-fiction and under $10!!! We also acquired Kane Miller Publishing this summer... Kane Miller books are multicultural stories from all around the world. We have about 100 titles in that line. We are also coming out with a new 12 book series later this month. It's called Conspiracy 365. Usborne has the exclusive rights to this series. There was even a big write-up about it in the magazine, Publishers Weekly. It's supposed to be magnificent!

I love selling books part time. I love that I can promote something that is so important to me... and I can do it whenever I want.

If you are interested in seeing some of the books that we have you can visit, www.ReadingGeneration.com

Thanks to all of you that have supported me in this past year! I love what I'm doing (in my free time) and I love introducing parents and grandparents (and even schools) to great books!!!

Happy Reading!!!

Kids say the darndest things

2009-10-31T06:43:00.003-05:00

Jenn's folks came over yesterday to watch the kids while we went to a funeral of a good friend. When they got here, they had brought Madalyn a new minivan for her "loving people" set (goes with her dollhouse). It's actually kinda neat (except for the fact that it makes all kinds of noises = not cool.) It's got 2 little car seats in the back, one's pink and the other is blue. I sat down next to Mady and I started asking her questions. I said "who sits here?" Her response was "Sam sits here, Hannah sits here, the little girl sits here." (herself) I asked her, "well, who is driving the van?" Her response was "Mommy." And I said "well, who's in the passenger seat, here?" Mady's responded back, "That's for the new daddy."

JENNIFER!!! COME HERE!

Apparently, there's not a new daddy in town. I learned that Mady is getting a new mommy and daddy figurine for her new minivan. I still don't buy it...

The "Hiney" Vaccine

2009-10-26T20:39:00.006-05:00

Ok, so I must start by explaining why I call it the "hiney" flu (H1N1). My good friend, who works in healthcare, mentioned that there was a call received at her office the other day asking if the "hiney" vaccine had been released yet. Apparently this particular person on the other end of the phone somehow got the "1's" confused with "i's" and therefore called it the "hiney" flu. I must say that once it's called that - it's hard to go back to H1N1... just because it's so funny. So, in our family it's now referred to as the hiney flu.

Last week, after much prayer and consideration, I took Madalyn to the public health department to get her H1N1 flu vaccine. I have a friend who lives down the street that told me about the public health dept giving them out for free. Mark and I had talked about it and we had agreed that yes Madalyn would be getting the h1n1 vaccine this year. We couldn't afford not to with infant twins in the home and someone who has a lung disease. It would be dumb of us not to get the vaccine.

The easy part was knowing that we were going to have Madalyn get it... The hard part for me was whether to give her the shot or the nasal spray. She received the flumist nasal spray for the regular flu but I was a little more nervous about the h1n1 flumist. Now, I know that it's definitely a weakened "live" virus that's in the nasal spray and I know that it was fine when she received the first nasal spray for the regular flu but something didn't sit right with the H1N1 flumist. I was simply a little worried about the fact that it was a "live" virus - with having the babies and Mark. The chance of something occuring from the flumist is slim but I just wanted to be careful. On the other hand, the shot that the public health was giving out did have thimerosal in it and that made me a tad nervous as well. All of the ones that Carle has are free of thimerosal but they aren't giving them out yet. So, I was in a predicament and I had to weigh the options.

I called Mark's CF doctor and asked what they thought about the flumist and they said that Mark would be fine if Mady got it. I know everyone has opinions on both and I know I probably was making a bigger deal out of it than I should but in the end neither Mark not I felt comfortable giving Mady the flumist when the shot was available.

Mark headed over one night last week to see if he could get one as well but the place was packed and they wouldn't give him a vaccine (only the mist which he can't have!) so they headed home. Mady cried on the way home because she couldn't get a shot. Most kids cry because they have to get a shot and mine cries because she wasn't able to get one!!?? I'm positive she didn't know what was coming. The next day I headed over with her before they began giving the shots. We were already #17. She stayed pretty close to me when we were there and you could tell she was a little hesitant of her environment. When it was our turn I wrapped Mady's arms around me and held her close as they stuck her in the leg. She didn't make a peep! I was so proud of her! She was so proud of herself all day telling everything that she got a flu shot and she didn't cry! She loved showing off her sticker!
On another note, today Mark was able to get his shot as well. I have been praying for days that he would be able to get his somehow because I've been worried about him. He's at higher risk because he has cystic fibrosis... that coupled with the fact that we have infant twins and he works in healthcare just makes it an all around scary situation. So, I've been praying that somehow he would be able to get his vaccine. Today he was in Pinckneyville, IL and he was making some cold calls for work. He happened to step into a doctors office where they told him that they had all just gotten their H1N1 vaccines. The lady said they were free for those who worked in healthcare. He jetted out and headed over to this particular church where he was supposed to be able to get his vaccine. At first she said he couldn't have his because he was over 24 years old. Mark told her that he was high risk and gave his story... twins, CF, works in healthcare. She passed him along to the nurse and he was able to get his vaccine for free! I'm so thankful! I know it's something small but it's definitely an answer to prayer for me. With him visiting doctors offices and health care offices all day every day the risk for him catching something is very high and I am just so thankful that he was able to get his vaccine to hopefully protect himself!

(Mark's additions: Ironically enough, as a Laboratory Sales Consultant, I sell the H1N1 confirmation testing. I'm riding a pretty high wave right now that will probably be crashing down after the turn of the year, but business is business. I also got a boost when the Health Dept stopped doing the testing about a month ago because they were overwhelmed. Interestingly enough, they publicly nominated my lab to do the testing, so I get phone calls all the time to sign up hospitals for this particular testing. I'll do anything to get my foot in the door. Thank you Lord)

I love my programs!

2009-10-16T14:02:00.002-05:00

I have to admit, I love to sign up for programs where I can earn free coupons and products. I'm always looking for a good deal or for a way to get free samples. Last week I got a box in the mail with a free stick of deoderant and coupons for $3 off that same brand of deoderant. Today I signed up via an email that I got to be part of a new toothpaste launch program. For signing up, I will get a free - full size - tube of toothpaste and coupons for that same brand. It's exciting.

My favorite site that sends great packages is VocalPoint. You just become a member by signing up and then every so often they'll send you something new along with some great coupons. The coupon books usually include one coupon to get the product for free which is always nice.

I am also into Swagbucks and MyPoints right now. I'm saving up my Swagbucks for some Starbucks gift cards for Christmas. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with my MyPoints... most likely some type of gift card as well. (if you want to sign up for either one, let me know so I can send you my referral link!)

When we do it, we go all out!

2009-10-16T13:39:00.003-05:00

All three of us (Mady, Mark and I) had the stomach flu or something just as nasty this past week. A week ago today, Mady spent 4.5 hours vomiting - about every half hour - and woke up the next day with it coming out of the other end. This is the first time she's ever really been sick so it was really hard for me to watch her in that state. We nursed her back to pretty good health on Saturday and then Sunday evening around 5pm it hit me. I went to bed early and heard Mark running for the bathroom about 5 hours later. It was awful... We had chills so bad and we were so weak and achy.. not to mention the obvious thing of stuff coming out both ends. We were miserable! The doctor put Mark on Tamiflu but mine said there was nothing that I could do except rest. A HUGE thanks to one of the couples at our church who took all 3 kids for us on Monday evening so that we could rest. That was a huge help! Having 3 kids to take care of when both you and your husband are sick is the worst!!! We are all fine now and thankfully the twins never got sick at all! I am not looking forward to the rest of the cold/flu season. I'm just praying that my family can avoid all the yuckiness out there and stay healthy!!!

Monday Night Football

2009-09-30T13:56:00.003-05:00

This past Monday night, Mark and Madalyn cuddled up together on the couch to watch the Dallas Cowboys play the Carolina Panthers. Football is pretty much on all day Sunday and Monday nights now that the season has started up again. Mady actually likes to sit down and watch the game... sometimes getting up to cheer and always asking "what are they doing, Daddy?"

At one point during the game on Monday, she was "reading" a cooking magazine that I had out. A huge play was made on the screen where a touchdown was almost made. Without either Mark or I saying anything regarding the play, Madalyn looked up at the tv and very seriously said, "N i i i i c c c ceeee." It was so funny! Then she told Dad, "That was a nice play, Daddy!"

It was just cute because she obviously had no idea what was going on except that one guy was running really fast down the field.. Or maybe I'm completely wrong and she understands more about football than I do :)

She made a few more comments throughout the evening - copying things that the announcers would say. Every time she was completely serious just like she was an announcer herself. That kid sure cracks me up - she's got her father's sense of humor, that's for sure!!!!

Meet "Cheese"...

2009-09-24T13:59:00.005-05:00

In my last post, I introduced you to Matt, the praying mantis! I was sad that me, the camera fanatic, forgot to take a picture of Matt. However, I do have pictures of our newest addition... Cheese, the Beta fish!

A few months back we had told Mady that if she starting using the potty all of the time then we would buy her a fish. It didn't work and I had honestly put it to back of my mind. When I'm busy with 2 infants, potty training my 2 year old is the last thing on my mind. Monday night of last week she decided that she wanted to wear big girl underwear so I put her in them. We had done this a few times off an on and she would use the potty sometimes, but it made me nervous to let her run around in underwear so I would always end up putting a diaper back on her. This time she kept the underwear on all evening and told me every time she had to use the potty.

Two days later she was still wearing underwear (except naps and bedtime) and had had no accidents. I was so proud of her! She would go potty and then get all excited! She found it necessary to always yell at us from the bathroom saying, "Mommy/Daddy, I went pee-pee" or "Mommy/Daddy, there's poopy in the toilet!" It was pretty cute. She was doing wonderfully. She had her own routine too, which was cute to watch (she wouldn't let me help - little miss independant!). She would turn on the light, pull her stool over, put on her potty seat, go, then close the lid, wash her hands, and turn out the light.

Now, almost 2 weeks later, we're still going... only 2 accidents... and sometimes she's not wearing a diaper during her nap! We're so proud of her as she basically did it herself! It's so true that kids will let you know when they are ready!

Anyway, back to Cheese... Monday night we went to Wal-Mart to get Mady her very own fish! She picked out a purple Beta and named him Cheese.

We got him a bowl (or a "cave" as Mady calls it) and we put some shells in the bottom for him. Mady loved him! She held him all through the store and kept saying, "Hi little cheese!" We had to take him away at one point as we were sure he was going to suffer a heart attack from all the shaking by the time we got him home! She showed Cheese to all of the neighbors when we got home and then Mady and Daddy went in to feed him! She knows she feeds him 4 pellets every night.

Mady is in love with Cheese! She's constantly talking to him and the last two mornings the first thing she says when she wakes up is, "Mommy, is Cheese awake?" It's super cute.

On the flip side, we have to constantly tell her to be careful as she likes to try to pick up his bowl (not good because it's glass AND full of water) and push his bowl around... I'm sure the poor fish is going to have a heart attack!

Just this afternoon I ran upstairs while Mady was finishing up lunch. She was awful quiet so I came downstairs and started cleaning up the lunch mess. I went to wipe off the table and looked down into Cheese's bowl... And what did I see..... 3 goldfish crackers floating in the fishbowl and Cheese was trying to eat part of them. I took a picture first (cause it was pretty funny) and then sternly told Mady that she can't put anything in Cheese's bowl except his food because it will make him sick. She made a sad face and said, "I'm sorry mommy. I'm SO sorry!" The rest of the afternoon she was constantly asking me if Cheese was okay!

It was so funny and I wanted to laugh so bad but I also had to keep a straight face so that she understood that it wasn't good for things to go in Cheese's bowl! Oh, the things kids do....

I LOVE BEING A MOM!!!!

This is Matt...

2009-09-14T14:29:00.002-05:00

Saturday afternoon Mark found a praying mantis on our screen on the sliding glass door. We put it in a jar with some grass for Mady when she woke up from her nap.

Mark and I left for the Illini game and when we got home we learned for the sitter that Madalyn had named the praying mantis "Matt" and she had requested that he "sleep" in her room for the night. I went in to check on her and Matt was sitting in his jar on her play kitchen.

The next morning she was telling someone that she had a "praying grasshopper" named Matt. It was really cute. She was carrying Matt everywhere - showing him to everyone, including the babies on numerous occasions.

This morning we heard Mady introducing Matt to her dolls and little people. She had the jar with Matt in it sitting in her dollhouse and she was saying, "Matt, this is Mia." "Mia, This is Matt." It was hilarious. I love the her imagination.

Matt wasn't looking so well this afternoon so we let him go in the window well in our basement. Mady goes down frequently to check on him. I can't believe how involved she is with this crazy bug! I wonder if she'll want to catch bugs all the time now??

Throwing Marshmallows

2009-09-11T11:49:00.002-05:00

I guess you could say this is a *Tradition* in our home... well, if that even makes sense. Ever since Mark and I have known each other we've always thrown marshmallows at one another before eating them. It's like a prerequisite to eating them. Weird, I know... but there's just something fun about pelting someone with a marshmallow!

The other day, Mark decided to share this little known fact with Madalyn... so, needless to say, I was hit numerous times that day (glad it doesn't hurt!).

This morning I was craving smores so I pulled out the ingredients and got ready to put them in the microwave. Madalyn came over and wanted a marshmallow so I willingly gave her one. The next thing I know she's telling me, "Mama, I can't eat this marshmallow until I throw it at you." We had fun running around the kitchen, me dodging marshmallows. She got a good laugh out of it anyway :)

It only adds to the craziness that is life here at the Bettinger house.

My Kite! My Kite!

2009-08-30T16:56:00.007-05:00

A few weeks back, we were driving home and someone was flying a kite at the ball diamond by our house. Mady saw it, asked what it was and we told her. After hearing about it, she commented that she would like a kite. Every kid should fly a kite, so last week, we went out and found her one.

Apparently it's not entirely easy to find a kite in August in Illinois. Jenn had to go to several different stores to obtain one. She finally found one, believe it or not, at the dollar store. (for $2). It was some pink and blue one. I don't know.

We got home and I was asked incessantly about flying the silly thing in the back yard. A couple of days later, we unwound it, and away she went! Mady and I had a blast flying a kite for her first time. I was reminded during this little period that this is one of the joys of parenting. She had a blast and the smile on her face was priceless.

Cautiously I let her hold her kite. It was a fairly breezy day, so it flew very well. She loved it. I reminded her constantly to hold on tight to her new kite. I reminded her constantly...

About 20 minutes later, I look over and as she is switching hands, she accidently lets her kite go. She started screaming, "MY KITE! MY KITE! I've never run so fast in my entire life. This thing didn't fly up, it just flew away about as fast as I can run, about 10 feet away from me. I ran around the house, across our front yard, across the street, over the neighbor's flower garden, around a fence and I finally caught up to it on the next street over. I must have looked ridiculous, grasping at a kite string barely out of my reach.

I brought it back and she was thoroughly happy (I was sucking on my inhaler for at least 10 minutes afterwards). We continued to fly it again, but in the front yard this time. Cars drove by, neighbors waved and we were having a great time...until it happened again. This time it didn't go as far and I caught it in our neighbor's yard. Jenn saw the whole thing unfold this time around and laughed hysterically. She also made fun of me, saying that I run funny. Way to bruise the ego of an asthmatic still trying to catch his breathe.

We put the kite away for another day. It was an awesome memory making experience that we can ALL laugh about today.

Thank You...

2009-08-21T19:44:00.002-05:00

I posted a while ago about some different multiple birth programs that I had sent letters to and some that I had called about. I got my first box in the mail two days ago. All I can say is Thank You, Gerber!

In my box were two "I'm a Gerber Baby" onsies, 10 Thank You cards, a bath package for mom, a coupon for a free can of formula and a coupon for free baby food.

It sure was a sweet surprise!

13 Weeks Old

2009-08-13T20:34:00.005-05:00

Wow, it's hard to believe that my babes are 13 weeks old - technically they are only 3 weeks old if you use their "corrected age," as they say in the medical world. Wow! 13 weeks ago we went through a very scary time where we learned that our doctor wanted to take the babies early. I was terrified. Then they were born and they were sent directly to the NICU where nurses told us they would probably be until their due date (10 weeks later) - Hannah was in for 5 weeks and Samuel in for 8 weeks. Now, they are home and doing perfectly fine! Praise God for miracles like my babies. What a testimony they are to His goodness. The time that they were in the NICU was SO HARD but now I look back on it and it seems like only a blip on the radar... We would have never have made it through that time on our own strength... it was only by HIS strength that we made it. And now it's only by His strength that we make it through each day. I'm so thankful for the two precious babies that we have to add to our beautiful family and I give God all the glory!!!

The big question that we are constantly asked is this, "So, how is it with TWO?"

Well, the answer is that it is going well. They were on a schedule when the came home from the NICU (both on the same schedule) so they eat and sleep at the same times. I do have many periods throughout my day where both babes are sleeping at the same time and during the afternoon I have a period where all 3 kiddos are asleep. Now, they are *those* days where things don't go as I would like but overall I can't complain. They are only waking up once during the night (around 1-2) so I really can't complain about that either.

However I must admit that when things get hairy... they REALLY get hairy. This doesn't happen often (thankfully) but there are times where they both are needing attention as well as the 2 year old, as well as my dinner prep, as well as the husband coming home, as well as the laundry, etc... you get the idea. I have mastered picking up two infants at a time, feeding two hungry infants at a time, and I've mastered the art of wrapping the paci in the mouth... it's those little things in life... :)

I wouldn't trade this for the world... as hard or as easy as it is. Having twins brings a joy that you could never experience with a singleton. I'm so blessed to have two beautiful, healthy babies to share the love of Christ with and to share my love with. I can't wait to see the little people that they will grow into and how their personalities will evolve.

Here's some small known facts about my babes:
*Both babies loved to be swaddled. If they are fussy and not swaddled, I'll wrap them up and it usually does the trick.
*Samuel is our laid back baby. He can be swaddled and put in his bed wide awake and he'll lay there until he eventually closes his eyes - not a peep. Hannah is definitely our more "high maintenance" child. She just likes to let you know when she's not happy and then when you fix it for her - she's content again. It's funny because this is what I concluded from their time in the womb... Sam was laid back and Hannah was always the one that was moving in every direction and kicking every square inch of my belly!
*Samuel has a soft, raspy cry that breaks our heart... You can hear Hannah's cry in the next county!
*Hannah hates to sleep on her back while Samuel loves it.
*Hannah loves her paci. Sam could take it or leave it.
*Hannah loves to be held up over your shoulder or in the "sitting up" position. Sam doesn't mind being held like a baby.
*Samuel is still in NB clothes (even those are big on him) and Hannah is pushing to the top of the 0-3 size. They both are super long so we're in 3 month jammies.

Mady is having a ball with two babies around the house. I am always finding her "little people" next to the babies and she likes to read her books to them. Whenever we see pregnant ladies around (we have a few friends that are pregnant), Mady always makes it a point to say "they are having just ONE baby mommy." Yes, Mads, most people have just one baby at a time but God decided to bless us with two. What a privilege to be the mom of 3 little blessings.... ALL under the age of THREE!

Please call me Belle, Mom...

2009-08-03T17:44:00.004-05:00

This is what I hear just about daily from Madalyn lately. My daughter thinks she is the princess known as Belle. She has not seen Beauty and the Beast nor has she been formally introduced to the Disney Princesses. But, her name is Belle and that's that.

A couple of weeks ago a friend sent me an email that there was going to be a princess social at a local church in town. Girls ages 2-6 were to come dressed as princesses and they would get to spend the evening eating pink cupcakes, making crafts, and meeting a princess and her prince. I knew Madalyn would have a ball (as she loves to dress us) and so we planned on going. I got a babysitter for the babes, Mark went to softball, and we went for some mother-daughter time at the "Princess Party" as Mady called it.

I was right - she had a ball. We met up with about 8 little other princesses that go to the same church as us. The girls colored, did a craft of decorating their very own crown, got their picture taken with a princess and her prince, ate pink cupcakes, got Princess tattoos, and watched a brief Princess movie. It was the perfect activity for my little girl... she was having the time of her life.

One of her friends from church, whom she loves to play with, came dressed as Belle - complete with the yellow dress and all. Mady had heard her say that she was dressed as Belle, I'm sure - as I never told her. The next day I asked Mady if she could do something for me. Surprisingly I heard her say "Mom, I'm not Mady... I'm Belle." I politely said "okay, Belle. Could you go do so-and-so" - the whole time I was laughing inside. To this day (3 weeks or so after the princess party) she's still telling us to call her Belle. Sometimes she even says, "You're not mom, you're Cinderella. And Daddy is the Prince." It's super cute. She's into everything Princess right now as well. I love that she gets to excited. Just tonight she said, "these shoes are not Mady's they are Belle's."

So, if you see us out somewhere, make sure to tell "Belle" hi!

Here's my little Princess... Belle.
P.S. A random story from the Princess Party. They had a room set up where they were taking pictures of each girl with the Princess and the Prince, two young college kids dressed up accordingly. Mady was all excited until it was her turn and she wigged out. She held onto my leg and wanted nothing to do with getting her pictures taken. So, we went and did something else and came back later. We had talked it over and she said she was going to do it this time. A couple of the little girls in front of us asked if they could get their picture taken with just the Princess - no Prince. They did that and I explained to Madalyn that she could just sit with the Princess if that would make her comfortable. She said "no mommy, I just want the Prince not the Princess." Oh boy... So, mom had to explain to the photographer that we wanted just the Prince. And then, of course, she gets scared again. She's holding onto my leg not wanting to move. I hear them say "mom, you can go up with her." So, I headed up hoping that it would make her feel more comfortable. Next thing I know they took 2 pictures. Whew... glad that was over. I didn't think too much about it until we got the pictures in the mail a little while ago. I had to laugh as I showed it to Mark... a picture of Mady, A young Prince, and Me. Had I not told the Mark the story and he opened that picture I'm sure it would have been really funny. It's definitely not a picture that's on display but it is one that will go in Mady's scrapbook for many laughs down the road....

Multiple Birth Programs

2009-08-03T17:21:00.002-05:00

Most of you know that I'm always out to find a good deal or to find some good coupons. I love bargain hunting. When I was still pregnant with the babes, I did some research online on "multiple birth discounts." I came across a few sites that had companies listed that participated in and gave multiple birth discounts. I wrote them all down and saved them for a rainy day... or a day when I would have *free* time.

About a week ago I decided to sit down and call some of the companies listed on my sheet... Proctor and Gamble, the makers of Tylenol and Motrin, Beechnut, Enfamil, Similac, among many others. I gave them my information and waited to see what they would send me. Yesterday it was like Christmas at our house... ok, maybe not like Christmas but it was still exciting. I got 3 super thick envelopes filled with coupons for money off and coupons for free products. I have coupons for free bottles of adult and baby tylenol and motrin, coupons for a free bottle of mylicon drops (a $11 value), and coupons for free band-aids, among other things. I also got a ton of of money saving coupons as well as a free samples of baby cereal and 2 free feeding spoons. I am excited to see what else will be coming our way.

As well as calling different companies, I also sent out some letters. Some places required copies of the babies birth announcements from the hospital in order for me to quality for the multiple birth program. We'll see what arrives from those companies. From what the descriptions said on the website that I checked, some of them send free baby products like rattles and teethers and some even send coupons for free boxes of diapers and free cans of formula.

It pays to check into things like this. I know that most of these companies send out coupons for moms who have singleton babes as well. You just have to call and inquire. It's definitely worth the time and effort if you're into coupon-ing.

I'm due today!

2009-07-20T13:08:00.004-05:00

Sam on right, Hannah on left
Wow. Today is my due date for the twins! It's crazy to think that I've had one home for 4 weeks and both home for 2 weeks - they were born 10 weeks ago! I'm praising Him today for His goodness. My miracle babies are doing great and growing like little weeds. When we had their appointments on Friday, Hannah was 7lbs 1oz and Samuel was 5lbs 12oz... a far cry from 3lbs 12oz and 2lbs 11oz! Just think... if I were to deliver today I would have almost 13lbs of baby inside me - ugh! Scary! Haha!

Thank you Lord for seeing us through this difficult time of early delivery and hospital stays! We give you all the praise and glory! You are faithful!

Funny Things Overheard This Past Week...

2009-07-06T14:06:00.002-05:00

It's been quite interesting watching Madalyn interact with Hannah lately. Mady hates it when Hannah whines (I say whine because she only really makes a sound when she's hungry or when her diaper is being changed) - Mady immediately does whatever she can to try to get her to stop making noise. Mady is also quite protective - she has such a motherly instinct already! It's cute to watch her "take care" of Hannah and make sure she's okay! Here are some cute things she's done in the past week...

*Hannah was whining as we were getting ready to leave to go to the hospital to visit Samuel. I was trying to hold off on feeding her until we got to the hospital. Mady went over to the car seat and said "It's okay sweetie... It's okay!"

*Another time we were in the car and I was trying to push the feeding again so Hannah was a bit whiny. Mady was listening to her favorite song on CD, The 5 little monkeys. She tried giving Hannah her "Ma" (her pink blanket) as she said "here's Ma Hannah, you can have her." After that didn't work, I hear Mads say "What's wrong? You don't like this song?"

Here are a couple of other random things that she said that I thought were pretty funny:

*We were playing outside and Madalyn runs over to me and says, "Mom! I have an idea for you..."

*Lately Mady has had an obsession with her babies and acting like she's the mom - taking care of them. She had asked me if I wanted to play and I agreed. I was told that I was the baby and that she was the mommy. She made me lay in her bed and suck on a pacifier. She took a blanket and strategically placed it around the paci so it wouldn't come out of my mouth (she's watched me do this to Hannah, I suppose!) She tucked me in and then proceeded to say, "If you cry, I will take this blanket away!" I started laughing hysterically. We tell Mady every night before bed that if she gets out of bed we will take her Ma away (that's her consequence) so apparently she was going to give me a consequence if I started to cry.

*A few weeks ago Madalyn got into some body wash of Mark's and had it all over the bathroom (I blogged about it if you're interested). I remember at that time telling her that I wasn't very happy with her. For some reason, this has stuck with Mady because now she always asks, "mom, are you happy with me?" She asks this at least 3 times a day. It's pretty cute.

Are the bad mans out?

2009-06-28T14:27:00.002-05:00

Last night, after we stopped by the hospital to see Samuel, we decided to head to downtown Urbana and check out the Blues, Brews, and BBQ festival. Mark is a big BBQ guy and can't ever pass it up so he was especially excited.

We headed over around 7pm and each got our meal (I had yummy BBQ chicken nachos). After walking around, chatting with some people that we knew (we ran into Sam's nurse), and walking through the kids area, we decided to head out. Mark had made a comment - "if we wait around much longer to leave this place it isn't going to be safe for women and children." (Of course almost everyone had a beer in hand and the band was getting started so we wanted to get out of there before things would possibly get rowdy).

Mady was upset that we had to leave and kept asking us why. I didn't really know what to tell her and so I said (not thinking she would really remember) that when it gets dark the people might start doing bad things. I didn't think too much about it and we left. On the way home we started a conversation with Madalyn about why it gets dark and why fireflies only come out when it's dark. Mady then asked a couple of questions about our conversation and then was quiet a bit. She then asked, "Mom, are the bad mans out now?" I asked what she was talking about and she said "the bad mans come out when it's dark and they do bad things."

I guess she was listening earlier when I had told her why we needed to leave the festival. It was pretty funny though and Mark told me that it was "blog-worthy."

As a side note... I've always grown up calling the fireflies "lightning bugs" whereas Mark is the one that calls them fireflies. If you're going to plan on explaining "lightning bugs" to a toddler - make sure that it isn't lightning outside...whew... it was a little confusing there for a second. We did have fun chasing the lightning bugs in the backyard when we got home. I'm glad it was dark because I know I looked like a fool out there! Oh well, Mady had fun and we made some fun memories!

Hannah's Homecoming!

2009-06-25T13:30:00.006-05:00

This is long overdue but better late than never...

Our tiny Hannah is home from the NICU! She's officially been home for a week and 2 days and I've loved every minute of it. She was released last Tuesday weighing in at 5lbs 1 oz. We took her to the Dr. on Friday and their scale calculated her in at 5lbs 8oz. I'd say she's doing a pretty good job of eating!!
I was blessed by the fact that she was already on a schedule from being in the NICU. She eats every 3 hours (yep, even through the night!) and then pretty much goes back to sleep. I've been having to wake her up though and she's not been showing a lot of interest in eating during the night - I'm hoping this is a sign of sleeping through the night in the future! I was already in the 3 hour routine as I've been (and still am) pumping milk every 3 hours for both babies. So, nothing much has changed. Mark takes the 5am feeding so that I can have a longer shift of sleep which has definitely been a blessing. Hannah rarely makes a sound and sometimes I forget that we have another child in the home. She's a real joy. Her smiles, her cute little grunts, and her sheep-like noises that she makes in her sleep all make me smile. She's a precious little girl and we love her to pieces - especially her big sister.

Speaking of big sisters... Madalyn has done exceptionally well with adjusting to having a new baby at home. The first day that Hannah was here, Mady barely left her side. I would find her laying next to Hannah on the floor with her arm wrapped around her, she would constantly ask to hold her, and she loved giving her kisses. The couple of times that we stepped out to go to the hospital together, Mady would insist on helping Mark or I carry the carseat, she would tell everyone "this is my sister," and she was always telling people all about her. We ran to one place in particular and Mady sat next to the carseat when Mark put it down. She said, "this is my little sister Hannah. Sam is still in the hospital because he is too little." She was proudly answering questions about Hannah and making sure that people knew that "you can't touch her." I'm very proud of the way she's handled things and the way she has adjusted. She handles change so well. I know she loves her little sister and I know she will be a great big sister!
The hardest thing about having Hannah home is not having her brother here as well. It's so hard to leave Samuel there and it's even harder being able to visit. I can't take either girl with me to the hospital so I usually have to go when Mark is home and able to watch them both or when we have a sitter. It's trying and tiring but I wouldn't miss a day without seeing my little man. I think we're going on 40 days of me being at the hospital at least once a day! God is definitely using this experience to strengthen me. It's been so hard but I couldn't do it without His strength and His grace.

Sam is doing quite well. He's up to 4lbs 4oz and he's in an open crib now which means he's able to regulate his own body temperature. He's eating 6 bottles a day (8 is goal) and he's doing well with it. Once he gets to eating 8 bottles a day and from those 8 he is taking 80% of the milk from them, then they will take out his feeding tube. They will watch him for a day or 2 and if he does well he'll get to come home! The doctor said probably another 10-14 days so hopefully he can come home soon! I know it will be a trying time when he comes home - trying to balance 2 babies - but I'm so ready for it. I've been surprised at how well I feel I've handled things so far and that gives me some encouragement about tackling 2! I was just telling Mark the other day that I felt more stressed and more anxious about having Madalyn at home when she was a baby than I do now... Maybe it's the 1st time mom thing!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and words of encouragement! You've definitely been a blessing to us! Hopefully soon I can post a picture of us as a family of FIVE!!!

Busted!

2009-06-25T13:17:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Madalyn and I decided to take advantage of the hot weather and we had Daddy put up the pool in the backyard. We had fun splashing around and Mady loved it when I pulled her slide over and put it in the pool. She loved sliding down and splashing into the pool!

At one point we were sitting down chatting (girl talk if you will! ha!) and she looked over at my hand. I had written a tiny note to myself in the crease of my hand and she had spotted it. She asked me, "what's that mommy?" I told her that it was a note so that I could remember to do something. She quickly responded by saying, "mommy, we don't write on our hands. We only write on paper!"

Ouch! Guess I should be careful what I do and what I tell her not to do. She sure is a perceptive little thing!!!

As a side note, I had the note on my hand to remind me to blog about something. Here's the story...
At naptime yesterday I went up and layed in bed with her and we read a few stories. She chose to read from a book of Bible stories. For some reason she was fixated on the story of Adam and Eve and we probably read that story about 5 times. After one of the times she asked me why they didn't have any clothes on (in the picture they were covered only with the fig leaves). I began to tell her the story about how God had made them and they weren't ashamed and they didn't have to wear clothes. Then we went on to talk about sin (yep, I talked about it with my 2 year old) and how that affected them and their wardrobe. She asked me what sin is and I tried to explain by telling her it is the bad things that we do. She turned to me, looked straight in my eyes, and said straight faced "like when I went in your bathroom and played with your lipstick?"

BINGO!

(Earlier in the week she had decided to play with my lipstick and the floor!) It's amazing how kids are able to understand and pick up on things. She knew exactly what I was talking about when I was telling her about sin. I think that's a pretty good grasp on it from a 2 year old's understanding!

Bubbles, Bubbles, and More Bubbles

2009-06-10T09:53:00.001-05:00

Monday evening was supposed to be a relaxing evening for me. Mark was out playing softball and then was going to go to the hospital to see the babes. Mady was put to bed at 7pm, as usual, and I was getting ready to relax and have the house to "myself." I came downstairs and about 30 minutes after Mady went to bed I had this "something isn't right" feeling. I yelled upstairs to ask her where she was to which she didn't respond... the first clue.

To add something right quick... we have a rule in our house that once you are in bed, you stay in bed. If she gets up after we put her to bed, she knows that there will be a consequence for her actions. She's been great at staying in her bed... until this particular night.

I went upstairs to find out what she was doing and I hear her in our bathroom - not a good sign. She hears me coming and starts scrambling. I hear her fall once, cry a bit, fall again, and cry some more. By the time I get to the bathroom I find a mess... of blue bodywash - men's bodywash to top it off. I should've known by the smell as I was coming up the stairs - 2nd clue.

Apparently she had decided to play in the body wash as it was all over her body, all over the floor, and a tad bit in her hair. I guessed from the noise and what I know about Madalyn that when she heard me coming she tried to scramble and fell down in the soap. She got up and tried again and slipped again. When I found her she was laying on her back crying in a glob of body wash. (However, she did smell like her daddy!)

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It could have been a lot worse. However, this was the first thing that she had ever "gotten into." I cleaned up the soap (which was a disaster in itself as every time I wiped it up it turned to bubbles), gave Madalyn her 2nd bath of the evening, and put her to bed with a very stern talking to. At one point I asked her if she understood what was wrong and she said "mommy's not happy with me" through a bunch of tears.

I hope that that doesn't happen again, but like I mentioned earlier if that's the worst that can happen then I'll be okay. Oh, the joys of a toddler...

A Day in the life of Dad Part 1

2009-06-06T09:45:00.002-05:00

We went to the hospital last night to visit Hannah and Samuel who are doing quite well. Sam is up to 3'2 and Hannah is up to 4'6. Mady came with us and hung out with Jenn in the waiting room since she can't go into the NICU. I went in and visited the kiddos.

We left the NICU and started walking towards the elevators. Mady pushed the button to go down and as she was playing around waiting for it to come, she fell down. We heard a loud "Uh oh!"

Mady flipped over and we realized that when she fell, she had already pooped, and (gross!) it squirted up out of her diaper, all over her shorts, shirt and all over the floor. She stood up, started to reek and we all looked at the pile of poop now on the hospital floor. We managed to clean it up, as people gathered at the elevator waiting to go down.

We all got onto the elevator, and we stood at the very back, praying that no one else smelled the odor coming from my daughter's back side. We tried our best to keep Mady quiet as she insited on telling EVERYONE "I pooped! I pooped!" We also decided not to ride the shuttle to the parking lot, instead, we walked. Of course, it took us 5 times longer to get there as Mady wanted to look at the grass, try to find bugs and overall be very pokey.

We got to the car (a rental car as our new van is getting the control board fixed, which we knew when we bought it). We decided to change her diaper in the parking lot. Well, that turned interesting as there was poop everywhere on her. I finally threw her clothes in the trunk so they wouldn't stink up the rental car. I found a trash can in the parking lot and threw the entire mess in there. As we are doing this, people are continuously staring at us either driving by or riding on the shuttle bus.

When we were finished, I started up the car, and pulled out and my left over mexican food slid off the dash board and onto Jenn's lap (and rental car seat). Now Jenn needed to have her pants changed. Unfortunately, she didn't want to change her pants in the parking lot (that would have been hilarious, and probably illegal)...she wanted to wait until we got home...

Just another day in the life of a normal Dad. And I love it! (Of course, I'm not the one who messed their pants!)

A Day in the life of Dad Part 2

2009-06-06T09:05:00.005-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, we tried to get all 3 car seats across our back seat into our SUV. It didn't happen. We lacked about 8 inches. And, it just didn't work. There would be no way for Mady to get into her middle seat. So, we started to do research on a minivan (ala 'manivan'). We absolutely made a pact that we would never buy one, but alas, 3 kids have altered our thinking.

I started to do major research on the stupid things. At first, I thought I would just be able to buy a different SUV (Yukon XL or a Suburban - considering they have 3rd row seating and optional bucket seats in the 2nd row). However, when we looked at them, without going into details, they aren't set up for car seats and they obviously don't have sliding doors, which was a huge plus). Then I started looking at cross overs like the Chevy Uplander and the Buick Terraza. We weren't real hip on these either as there wasn't a lot of room behind the 3rd row seating. So, we started looking at the traditional 'manivan.'

We looked at the Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey, Nissan Quest and the Chrysler Town and Country (the Dodge Caravan fits in the same mold). I realized that to get into a newer Toyota or Honda, we would be spending a little more than I wanted to, and even the newer Nissans were a little high. Having realized all that, we started looking at the T & C. Chrylers (along with most domestic vehicles) lose their market value very fast (I learned this when I worked at the car dealership) so I thought I could get a newer one for decent money, and as long as we keep it for a long time, who cares about resale value. I really wanted a vehicle that would fit a family of 5 comfortably in town and on long trips to South Carolina (where we WILL vacation again!).

I called dealerships all over Illinois, Indianapolis and St Louis and found that I could get into an 08. It wouldn't be the top of the line 'Limited' edition. But nonetheless, an 08 with lower mileage and a good, clean body. The 08 also has the new body style, which looks a little less "mini-vany." We test drove a number of them in the area at different dealerships and I searched on craigslist and Ebay. We went over to Rick Ridings in Monticello to drive a nice silver one. I talked to a good friend of ours, Shane York, who sells there and also goes to our church. They had just sold the silver one that morning, but he told me that they had a couple of others, but the one that he showed us just wouldn't fit. Here's how our conversation went...

Shane: I have this 08 T &C over here.
Me: No, Shane, that won't work.
Shane: Why?
Me: Because Shane, I'm already giving you one testicle selling my SUV and buying a van, I'm not going to give you my other one when I buy a POWDER BLUE minivan!

We ended up test driving it.

We left there and continued our research. We found one down at Pilson's in Charleston. We drove down there this past week. It's Crystal Red. Very nice. Great body. They gave us a whale of a deal on it and on our trade in. Even though it took us about 4 hours at the dealership while in negotiations, we were very satisfied with our purchase.

Jenn loves the sliding doors and the 60/40 3rd row that folds down into the floor flat. It gets about 24 mpg on the interstate (a tad better than the 18 we got in our SUV). I'm not sure how it will handle in the snow (prob not as good as the 4 wheel drive we used to have). It is comfortable and looks like it's going to be a good fit for our family of 5. Now all we need is a 'Soccer Mom' sticker on the window...

Sisterly Love

2009-05-26T19:22:00.002-05:00

This afternoon I went in Madalyn's room to wake her up from a 4 hour + nap. She was still asleep and when the door creaked she rolled over and opened her eyes. She looked up at me and in a very cute, very sweet, very loving voice asked "Is Baby Samuel and Baby Hannah home yet?"

It was so sweet yet broke my heart. It's hard knowing that Mark and I aren't the only ones who miss our babies tremendously. Madalyn has not been able to see Sam or Hannah as she's not old enough to get into the NICU. We show her pictures quite often, and we hear her playing with her babies and talking about "Sam and Hannah." So, I know she knows something is going on. She will tell you that the babies are in the hospital because they are too little to come home - which is also super cute!

She's going to be a great big sister and I can't wait to be able to bring those 2 little peanuts home to meet her! She'll definitely be mommy #2!

3 + 2 = FIVE!!!

2009-05-25T19:47:00.010-05:00

The last picture of me pregnant - 30 weeks.

Life has taken a drastic change since I last posted on this blog. We moved everything from our old house to our new house on Thursday, May 7th and we closed on both houses on Friday the 8th. Monday the 11th I had a random doctors appointment and ended up being wheeled over to Labor & Delivery. I was admitted and our babies, Samuel Charles and Hannah Elizabeth, were born on Thursday, May 14th at 30 weeks gestation. I was released on Sunday and came home to enjoy our new home - sadly, without the babes.

For those of you that don't know the story - here's the basic gist... I went in for my sono / appt on the 11th and found out that I was dilated 3-4cm. The perinatologist said that my Dr would probably want me admitted and the next thing I know I'm being wheeled over to L & D, sobbing the whole way. I was admitted and immediately put on magnesium sulfate to try to stop labor. I went through this whole process with Madalyn when I had pre-term labor with her so I was used to all the meds they put me on and the protocol. I was checked again after being admitted and the nurse said that I was then up to 5cm dilated and 70% effaced. She said I also had a bulging bag of water. Next thing I know, everyone is running around and tensions were high. I actually thought that the babies were going to be making their entrance that day. One of the pastors from our church was there and prayed with us. I was put on more IV fluids and given my first dose of surfactant (steroids) for the babies' lungs. This would help them tremendously if they were to be born early.

I was in the hospital battling with contractions (some very strong ones) until Thursday morning. I was only on the magnesium sulfate for a day but then I was also given a shot of terbutaline. This also helps to try to stop the contractions. I also received the second dose of the surfactant for the babies' lungs. Contractions came and went. I was told that I would be in the hospital until the babies were born. Ugh. I knew it was what was best for me but it was so hard to (1) be away from Madalyn and Mark and (2) not be able to relax and enjoy our new home. At times I was extremely discouraged but I continued to remind myself that the Lord was in control.

Thursday, the 14th, my doctor came in to check me. He said I was still at 5cm but that he could make it 7cm which meant that I could be ready to give birth at any time - my body was heading in that direction. He said he could also feel Hannah's head. He said that at that point he didn't want to just keep feeding medicines into my body if my body was ready for babies to come out. He wanted to check with the perinatologist and he said he would get back to me as soon as he decided what to do. About an hour and a half later, my nurse came in and said that they were going to do a C-Section at 3pm that afternoon to prevent any kind of emergency situation. They wanted to make the birth as stress free for the babes as possible and because they were so small and Sam was breech they were going to have to do a C-Section. I started crying and when Mark came out of the restroom he knew exactly what was going on.

My C-Section took place around 5pm that evening. Everything went as smooth as could be. I didn't freak out too much and I felt absolutely nothing. Hannah was born first at 5:30 and Sam was born at 5:31. She weighed 3lbs 12oz and was 16.5 inches long. Sam was just a little guy at 2lbs 11oz and 15 inches long. Both came out crying as loud as they could (which was an enormous relief for Mark - breathing is key at this point). They were in the OR a little while before going upstairs to the NICU - so we knew nothing was seriously wrong or they would've been wisked away immediately. I even was able to kiss Hannah before they took her upstairs. I was able to go up to the NICU after recovery and see the babies. Both were breathing room air and had only a C-PAP on - this was just to regulate the pressure in the lungs to help open and close. Because they were so small, they tend to "tire" out when breathing so the CPAP helps them with that. Praise that they weren't on any oxygen though. Both were off the CPAP machines by about 3 days old.

Since I've been released from the hospital, we've been at the hospital at least once every day. It's been hard to work around schedules and being with Madalyn as I'm trying not to "push" her to the side but we're making it work. Every day that they've been there has been a step in the right direction.

Just today when we went in to see them we got great news! Both babes are now above their birth weight which is awesome! Praise God! Babies typically lose weight after they are born and for little babies like ours this can be really scary. But today we learned they are beefing up! They are eating every 3 hours now and have even increased the amount they are taking. This is good news because it means that they are digesting well. They both are still under bili lights for jaundice but this is common in preemies. Hopefully now that they are eating more and digesting it better, this will go down quickly. They are doing great and are absolutely ADORABLE! Big Sister Mady talks about them all the time and constantly tells everyone she sees that she is a Big Sister now! She can't wait for them to come home.

It will still be about 4 weeks or so before they are able to come however it could be quicker... we'll see. They will start trying to take bottles here in the next week or so. Hopefully before long they will be moved from the isolet (baby in a box) and moved into cribs - then we can hold them whenever we want (right now we can only hold them once a day during a feeding).

I'll try to post updates more often now that I'm at home and feeling good. I am not feeling any pain right now - just a little tired from pumping every 3 hours. Other than that, I'm doing well. I have to admit that it's good to be home however it's really hard to leave my babies at the hospital. I do know that the Lord has a plan and that they will be home soon. We'll be able to look back on this time as a small blurp on the radar.

Thanks for all of your prayers and encouragement! We appreciate all that everyone has done for us! You are all so special to us!!!

By the way, I wanted to say a HUGE THANK YOU to my husband! While I was in the hospital for a week he spent 50+ hours unpacking and setting up things in our new home so that when I came home I wouldn't have to do anything. Doing this along with taking care of a 2 year old is definitely taxing and so I wanted to thank him! I love you baby!

The first time that Daddy got to hold his SON!

Mommy holding her newest daughter for the first time.

Mom and Samuel
Daddy and Hannah (both sound asleep!)
My baby girl - keeping me company at the hospital!

Big Girl Bed

2009-05-04T09:05:00.003-05:00

We've been wanting to transfer Madalyn over to her "Big Girl Bed" for a while now, but with packing and moving it just hasn't worked out. My cousin graciously gave us the twin bed that her son used when he was little (since he has since moved to a bunk bed), and we've been storing it at her house until the last possible minute. We just didn't want to move it twice before we got into our new house.

Anyway, we have the bed now and it's in storage here. Saturday night we were on a packing spree and decided to take down Madalyn's crib. We simply put her mattress on the floor and called it her "Big Girl Bed." She went bananas. The minute we got the crib out of her room and put her blankets and such on her new bed, she started asking "Will you tuck me in, Mommy? I want to go to bed." We definitely were not putting her to bed at 4:30 in the afternoon! ha! She asked the rest of the evening if it was time to go to bed yet. Finally at 6:30 we gave her a bath and the go-ahead to get into her Big Girl Bed. It was so cute. She was so excited. We did explain to her that there were 2 rules that she needed to obey; (1) she was not to get up in the middle of the night - she had to stay in bed (I didn't want her running around playing) and (2) in the morning, when she woke up, she was to ask if she could get out of bed. Mark and I went back and forth on this one and decided this would be best right now. I wasn't too hip on her walking around at crazy hours in the morning.

The first night in her bed went better than we had expected. She rolled off the mattress once at 12:30am to which she was yelling from her room, "Mommy, will you tuck me in again, please?" Other than that she was in her bed the whole evening. Sunday morning Mark heard her asking if she could get up at 6:30. We have a rule in our house that we don't get her out of her bed until 7am so Mark told her that it wasn't time to get up. At 7 she asked, from her bed, "Mommy, may I get up please?" I went in and she was still laying in her bed. Yay! It was a good night.

Sunday afternoon was the second test as it was her first nap in her bed. We again went over the rules and she did exactly what we asked! I'm so proud of her!

If she is this excited about a mattress on the floor, she is going to be super excited when we put up her real bed and get her new bedding and such. I can't wait!!! On the other hand, it was sad to take down the crib - my little girl is growing up!!!

28 Weeks - 2nd Milestone

2009-04-28T12:46:00.004-05:00

I've officially made it to 28 weeks today! I have hit my 2nd major milestone in a twin pregnancy. Let me explain: There are 3 major milestones to hit in a twin pregnancy, as my doctor says. The first is the 24 week mark. Babies born this early will likely spend at least three months in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), and a third of them will survive with no long-term problems. The 2nd milestone is 28 weeks, when viability skyrockets. Ninety percent of babies who make it to this stage of gestation survive. Long-term complications are still a possibility, however. The last major milestone that doctors like to see mothers of multiples hit is the 34 week mark. Babies born now generally have an excellent chance of survival, without any major long-term complications, though they might not have full lung maturity (which generally occurs between 33 and 37 weeks) and will need to spend time in the NICU.

This morning I had my 28 week appointment. I had my sonogram first and all was going well until the very end when the sizes of the twins were compared against each other. Baby A, our boy, is measuring smaller than average while Baby A, our girl, is measuring a little bigger than average. One is in the 57th percentile and one is in the 32nd precentile. These are things to necessarily worry about until they compare one twin to another. Doctors want to make sure that they difference between the two isn't too large - in other words, one twin would be taking more nutrients than the other one. The sono tech gave us all the numbers and then said "I need to go run this by some others.. I'll be right back." He eventually came back and said that they needed to run more tests - do a doppler test. I was crying at this point. All I could think about was bedrest and the fact that one of my babies was too small. We were then sent off to see the Dr.

Dr. S. said he wasn't that worried about the size difference in the twins but that he wanted to keep an eye one me. I'm going back in a little over a week to have a perinatologist do a sono for me and evaluate what he sees. So, we'll see. This appointment is the week after we move in.

Other news from the appt - Dr. S. told me this morning that he's excited that we hit 28 weeks and now we're shooting for 34 weeks. Once I hit 34 weeks, anything can happen... WOW! to think that 34 weeks is only SIX weeks away!!! Am I ready? I guess I better be!!! Both babies are now head down. Girly-girl has now decided to join her brother in the head down position which is super exciting. I had a feeling one had switched places because things just felt different. Now, if they stay this way, I'm on track for trying to have them naturally! Fun! My blood pressure and urine culture looked good (i know, too much information) and my weight is even good. I have gained less so far than I did with Mady so we'll see how these last few weeks shape up. As for growth, I'm also doing well. At my current point, 28 weeks, I'm measuring 32 weeks for someone with one baby... if that makes sense. So, I'm technically only measuring 4 weeks ahead of schedule. I'm sure that will change though towards the end of the pregnancy as the babies are getting bigger. Dr. S. said I was doing well. He told me again to make sure that I rest lots - laying on my left side - especially on the weekends. I've been making sure that I do get lots of rest during the day. He said everything else looks good! Yay!

Mommy, Daddy, Dinosaurs and Wonder Pets!

2009-04-19T20:29:00.003-05:00

Last night we went out to dinner with our good friends, Paul and Nicole. When we got back to their house, Madalyn was still awake - the sitters hadn't put her to bed yet. So, being completely stuffed from eating too much I plopped down on the couch and laid there for a good 20 minutes instead of immediately putting Mady in bed. She decided it would be fun to act like she was tucking me in bed. She would cover my feet and legs with her blanket, give me her favorite bunny named Ma, hold the sides of my face with her sweet hands and gently kiss my forehead, and then tell me "Goodnight, Mom." I would pretend like I was sleeping and then I would wake up and we would start all over again. We did this numerous times before she said "Mommy, we need to pray." I told her that she could pray for Mommy since she was putting me down to sleep. She said "Thank you Jesus for this food." (a lot of times she prays for us when we eat). I had to give her a quick lesson that she can pray about anything she wants and then she said she wanted to pray for Mommy and Daddy. Here's what came out of her mouth next... "Thank You Jesus for Mommy, Daddy, Dinosaurs, and Wonder Pets. Amen." It was so adorable. She had been playing with Dinosaurs at Paul and Nicole's house while we went out so I'm sure that's why she prayed for them. I have no idea why she prayed for the Wonder Pets. Wonder Pets is a tv show and since I rarely allow her to watch tv I have no idea why she prayed for them. The only place I think she has seen Wonder Pets may have been at the gym. Who knows why she prayed for them... but it was so sweet! (I also loved getting all of those sweet kisses on my forehead!)

House Update!

2009-04-11T08:07:00.002-05:00

Most of you know by now that we've sold our house and purchased another one! Mark keeps mentioning that I need to update our blog with the process so here goes... A short version...

Sunday, March 22: When we had our house For Sale by Owner, one particular guy was interested but never did follow through. He emailed Mark out of the blue tonight and wanted to see the house. Mark passed along his number and the guy called within the hour. He came over at 7:30pm to look at our house and loved it. He said he would definitely be in touch. Meanwhile, Mark called our realtor (whom we just listed with a week ago Friday) and told him about the situation. He mentioned that another realtor had called him today and that her client came by our house this past Friday and was interested in the house and she said that an offer might be coming soon.

The next three days were a bidding war essentially. The guy that had looked Sunday evening came back twice and the realtor's client made an initial low offer. We countered that offer and told the fsbo guy that we had another offer on the table. He then made an initial offer and we went back to the realtor. Her client found out there was another offer and upped her offer to above listing price. The guy made a second offer but it wasn't near hers at all so we accepted the offer from the realtor and her client on Thursday the 26th. We were ecstatic! 19 days on the market and we sold for more than listing price!! Woohoo! It doesn't get any better than that.

We found out that she wanted to close on May 8 (she's moving from out of state and needs that date specifically) so on Friday the 27th, we immediately began searching for houses. We basically had a little over a month before we had to be out of our house so we were in a bit of a crunch. Most of the houses we were looking at had possession dates of 30 days so we basically had about a week to find something so that we could move from one house to the other. Talk about stress! We had been browsing online for months already so we had a couple of ideas on some houses that we liked. We had even gone to some open houses and we were able to weed out some that we thought were potential keepers, but weren't. We were out for about 4 hours on Friday and found one house that we sort of liked. The house that we really liked was unable to be seen so we had to wait until Sunday. Mark's note: As we were driving along, Eric, our realtor from Remax asked me if I was interested in a foreclosure. I said absolutely. We went by to see it. It was phenomenally large! It was well north of 3200 sq ft, 4 BR, 3 bath, colossal kitchen, the works. The neighborhood is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Champaign. The only issue was when they foreclosed on the owners, they turned the power off and it rained, and the sump pump obviously didn't keep water out of the huge finished basement. They hired a company to come in and clean it all out (cut the drywall out about 2 feet above the floor all the way around). But it rained again, and the water came back, so when we looked at it, it had about 3 inches of standing water. We seriously thought about this home (it needed a LOT of work and we were very concerned about mold and water coming back in the future, it seemed like a lot of water for not a lot of rain) but the price was right. It was $110,000 below what the owners purchased it for 2 years ago. 4 buyers looked at it that day right after us and it was sold that night. Addendum: about a week later I was talking with our friends who used to live next to this home, and he told me that there had been water issues there for years. Things happen for a reason...

Sunday the 29th : We went out looking again and we were able to see the house that we had liked online. We fell in love with it and put an offer in later that night. They came back with another number that night and we put out another number also. The next day, Monday the 30th, we couldn't settle on a price and were going back and forth between $5,000. It was not an issue of whether we could go up because we could, but Mark just didn't feel peace about it. He felt like the Lord was telling him not to go any higher. So, we didn't and we didn't get that house. Mark's note: The nice thing about that house was that it had a finished basement. It really didn't need any work, but the back yard was a little smaller than we were wanting. As Jennifer and I really prayed about this house, I believe the Lord was testing our faith. The Lord gave me a number for this house, and he told me to stick to it, for whatever reason. We walked away, and it was one of the hardest things I've done. To be honest, we thought when we walked away, the owners would realize what was going on, and they would lower the price. We were wrong. Ironically enough, we looked on line a week later, and they had lowered the price on the home $5,000. Things happen for a reason...

After being extremely bummed we went out again on Tuesday. Our realtor had some new houses to show us and we liked 2 of them, the second once especially. It was in the Sawgrass Subdivision - a newer subdivision - and was owned by the builder. We liked it but were a little skeptical about getting our hopes up as we had before. We slept on it that night and got up the next morning and took another look.

Our realtor was leaving on Wednesday afternoon for 5 days so if we wanted this house we needed to jump on it and not wait until he came back. We looked at it again on April 1st and put in the offer that afternoon. We got a call later saying the seller wasn't willing to go down that much, but as Mark and our realtor were talking he got a phone call from her. We prayed and waited for a call back. He called back and said that she had accepted our offer. Praise God! Mark's note: We did some fancy negotiations to get our asking price, which suited me just fine. I'm really only happy when I feel like I got a deal. I can't really expect her to do too much to the property before we move in because from start to finish, she ended up dropping the price $32,000.

April 3rd was the inspection on our current home. We were pretty nervous as we've heard these inspections can be deal breakers sometimes. We got word on the following Monday morning that the buyer of our house wasn't concerned with the little things listed on the inspection and wasn't going to have us fix anything! Praise God! We didn't have to fix anything!!! Mark's note: Actually, I've been fixing things for the past 4 years that we've owned our home. We've redone most of the kitchen, the whole bath, a new roof, new light fixtures, rewiring, a basement remodel, exterior window work, and we painted the entire home. We gave her a sweet deal on a nice home. We will miss this home as we've spent most of our married life here, and it's the only home Madalyn knows. There's lots of memories, but better things are to come.

Now we're just waiting. We have our inspection on our new home today, April 10th, and we close on both houses on May 8th! I've started packing boxes here and there and we're getting super excited to move into something bigger before the babies arrive.

Our new house is 2 years old with 4 bedrooms, 3 bath, with a full unfinished basement. The builder, whom we purchased it from, put in an I beam in the basement so there are no beams coming down randomly for support. This was unique to the other homes we've looked at. We are going to finish it off and put a 5th bedroom and a 4th bath down there. I'm excited to have a master bath with a jacuzzi, which we don't have now and HUGE walk in closets! It has a place for Mark's office which we will wall off with french doors and it has a nice big kitchen! The backyard backs up to a commons area, so it will give the kids a place to play as they get older. We have definitely been blessed.

This was probably one of the hardest times that we have gone through with all of the stress and worry but God definitely provided. It's funny that we humans think something is so perfect for us (like we thought the first house was) but God has another plan! You'd think we'd learn that lesson after a while! He gave us an even better home that we will use to Glorify Him! I'm so thankful for the lessons learned through this process, most importantly the lessons of faith and prayer! God definitely knows what's best for us - we just need to trust Him!

Here's a picture of our new home... Except that it does have grass now :)

A Complete Lifesaver

2009-04-10T09:51:00.002-05:00

Lately, I have been perusing a few websites for moms of twins. I have come across numerous posts about maternity belts and how helpful they are. I have been having quite a bit of back pain lately and so I considered purchasing one to see how well it worked. A few days ago, I got on Ebay and checked them out. I found a great deal on one for $12 and no shipping. It's called the Ultimate Maternity Belt by Motherhood Maternity. It came in the mail yesterday and I could immediately tell a difference when I put it on. I wore it all day and my back never gave me any issues at all. It seriously is my new lifesaver!!! It's simply a piece of elastic that you can fit around your back and under the tummy. It basically supports the big ole belly that I have and it definitely does it's job. I even wore it to the gym yesterday and didn't feel like the babies were going to fall out when I was exercising! It's well worth my $12 that's for sure!!

The Funniest Question I've been asked so far...

2009-04-08T15:23:00.003-05:00

I have heard and read from others, that have had multiples before me, that people feel at liberty to say whatever they'd like to say when they find out you are having more than one baby. I've experienced this a few times during this pregnancy - mostly early on. At first it would really upset me and sometimes discourage me, but I've since learned to just let the comments go and even more importantly, just laugh at them. Here are some things that I've heard so far in this twin pregnancy...

"I can't believe you're going to have 2 more kids. That makes 3... One of them is always going to feel left out." - this came from someone I knew!
"I can't believe you're going from one to three kids. That's going to be really hard!"
"Are you ready for this?"
"Wow, you're really big. You were big with Mady so I can't imagine how big you're going to get with this pregnancy." - This coming from my neighbor around the corner who maybe saw me once during my pregnancy with Mady. Plus, she made this comment to me when I was only about 15 weeks pregnant. I wasn't even showing then!
"You are going to be so busy. Are you sure you're up for it?"

These comments crack me up. I mean, seriously, what am I supposed to say?

I've also been compared to the "Octo-mom" (as I like to call her) more than once and that gets old as well! Just because I went through fertility doesn't mean that (A) I'm having 8 kids and (B) I have issues. But like I've said, I've learned to just laugh it off.

All this being said I have to admit that my funniest comment came last night. It wasn't meant to be mean and I know that the person asking honestly had no clue was just being inquisitive. This person is a male and is a good friend of ours. He just has no clue. Here's how the conversation went...

Him: "So, Jenn, you're still working out aren't you?"
Me: "Yep, I'm just not doing as much as I used to do."
Him: "So, how does that work with crunches and such. Are you still able to do those without hurting the babies?"
Me: I about fell off my chair because I was laughing so hard. "Oh no, I can't do crunches anymore nor are they recommended." I went on to tell him how I just have to be careful when I exercise but this is what I was thinking in my head... Are you serious? I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning let alone get my body off the floor to do a crunch! Plus, I have no idea if I even have any abs anymore that I could exercise!

It was quite funny and I know he just had no idea (never having really been around a lot of pregnant womenX. That's why I wasn't upset or offended at all! It was just too funny not to record!

Meadowbrook Easter Carnival

2009-04-06T20:13:00.022-05:00

Saturday was an exciting day in the Bettinger household. We woke up to beautiful, sunny weather! It was a perfect day for the annual Easter Carnival at our church. The carnival is a great outreach opportunity for our community and fun for kids of all ages (and parents too). Throughout the day, Madalyn played games and won prizes, she enjoyed a free hot dog lunch, she watched a program full of dancing and singing, and we ended the day with the much anticipated Easter Egg Hunt. We had been telling her about the egg hunt for a few days and she was so excited to be able to take her Easter basket and pick up eggs that we had earlier stuffed with candy. It was a fun family day and we all enjoyed ourselves immensely - all except for the sunburns that we all came home with! I never thought of bringing sunblock in April. We definitely made some great memories together as a family of three...

I'll let the pictures tell some more of the story....
Walking around and checking things out...

The very first game that Madalyn played was the prize walk. We walked around once and didn't win. She wanted to do it again so we played one more time. When the music stopped, all the numbers around us were taken so we went to the nearest open number... number 20. And her number was called! She won a fun sand bucket filled with cute prizes including her favorite - bubbles!
Playing Games...

Golfing with Daddy! They had a great swing.
Carrying an egg on a spoon! She actually beat Daddy in this game!
Showin' some love to the big puppy! She talked about this puppy all day long!
She eyed the inflatables immediately when we got to the carnival, but I wasn't about to take her down that big slide being pregnant! I made Daddy do it. She was so excited! It took them a little bit to get up the "steps." You can't really tell here but Daddy slipped a couple of times. Apparently it was hard to carry Mads and climb those tiny steps. They did great though.
Check out those smiles! I love it! (if you click on the picture, it will enlarge so you can see better).
Mady "hunts" Easter eggs! She made her Daddy proud!
My precious baby girl. I love this little one so much! She was so excited to have 2 Easter baskets full of eggs! Go Mady!

A Steal of a Deal...

2009-04-06T08:00:00.004-05:00

Friday I started the day out extremely bad by breaking my eye glasses. I was in a hurry to get out of the house by 8:15, with Mady, as the inspector was coming by to do the home inspection for our buyer. I decided to stick my head over the side of the tub and wash my hair and then realized that I still had my glasses on. I took them off, put them beside me on the ground, and washed my hair. Something told me at that point that I probably shouldn't do that but I thought that I would remember they were lying there.... nope! I ended up stepping on them when I stood up. The ear pieces were badly bent and instead of taking them to the store to have them fixed, I tried to fix them myself. I tried to bend them back and SNAP! the earpiece broke off. My heart sank.

Because I had already purchased my pair of prescription sunglasses this year on our insurance, we weren't able to get another pair of glasses at such a good deal until next January. Mark and I were throwing around ideas of what to do.

Saturday morning we went out to a couple of stores, including Lenscrafters where I got them originally, and no one could do anything for me. They couldn't be soldered because the frames were plastic and no one seemed to have frames small enough to fit my current lenses. So, it was looking like we were going to have to spend $200 to get a new pair of lenses AND frames (and that was average)! Not a fun way to spend money!

We decided to check out Wal-Mart Vision Center on a whim and they had 2 pairs of kids frames that would fit my lenses, a brown pair and a pink pair. I decided on the brown pair and had her write down the name of the frames thinking that they too would be a pretty penny, and I still wanted to shop around a bit. I asked the lady how much they were... and she responded, "Ten Dollars!" What?!?!?!? I'll take them for $10.00! So, she fit my current lenses into my $10 frames and I was out the door! What a deal! That made me happy!!!

Another Menards Story

2009-03-24T12:19:00.003-05:00

Our daughter has a serious fixation with Menards. I think it's because her and Daddy go there quite often together and it makes for some fun daddy-daughter time.

Anyway, last night we were all three sitting in the living room and I started brainstorming ideas for Madalyn's next birthday party. I was trying to think outside of the typical birthday party where all of her friends come over, we eat cake, and then she opens gifts from family. I had named off a few things and then I decided to ask the one for whom the party would be given. Here's how the hilarious conversation panned out:

Mom: "Mady, where would you like to go for your birthday this year?"
Mady: after she let out a hmm she was obviously thinking hard. She said in a quiet voice with a big smile on her face... "Menards."
Mom: "Menards? Well, what would be your second choice? Your next favorite thing to do?"
Mady: without hesitation, "Shopping!"
Mom: "Shopping? For what?"
Mady: with another smile on her face, "M&M's!"

Seriously! Apparently this year we will be spending her birthday at Menards. Haha! Kidding! Actually if it were up to Dad, we would!

Another random story from the night:
Mady and I were reading her bible while Daddy was showing the house to some people. We read the story about Jesus' death and resurrection and also read the story of Jonah. She insisted that we go back and re-read the stories about Jesus. She kept saying "More Jesus stories mommy!" So, we read them again. There are questions at the end of each of her bible stories so I was asking her questions like : "Where was Jesus born?" , "Who came to see baby Jesus?" , "Who brought baby Jesus gifts?" She answered with things like, "Stable, Shepherds, Wisemen." Then we moved on to the story of Jesus' ressurection. We talked about the people that made fun of Jesus and how he was raised from the dead. At the end of the chapter, I asked her, "Who does Jesus love?" She answered with "the bad mans, mommy." I quickly realized that she was talking about the men that were making fun of Jesus, as it was put in her bible. It was just cute to hear her say that Jesus loved each of us and even "the bad mans, mommy!"

Walmart!

2009-03-21T13:16:00.002-05:00

The night before last, Mady and I were singing songs in the living room before bed. She somehow got on the kick of wanting to do the "church" song, as she calls it. You may remember it from your childhood...

This is the church, this is the steeple, open the door, see all the people. This is the church, this is the steeple, open the door, where's all the people?

We do the hand movements while we're singing it and she loves it. My mom actually taught the song to her a few months ago and every time she would say the last line "Where's all the people?", Mady would say "bye-bye." It was super cute how she said it and so, of course, we would laugh at her every time and it became the new thing.

When we were singing the other night, we sang through the first verse and then got to the end where I was expecting her to say "bye-bye." But, that's not what came out of her mouth. Out of no where she proudly exclaimed "WAL-MART!" and then proceeded with a ton of giggles. I have no idea where this came from but apparently all of the people went to Wal-mart instead of church?! It was quite comical. What a character...!

I think this just goes to show that we are entering the phase I've only heard about where toddlers say anything and everything, and dull moments are no more! I am loving it!

22 Weeks and a SURPRISE!!!

2009-03-18T13:22:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I hit the 22w mark! Yep, we're on a quite a roll now. I had my check up this morning and we were greeted with such a surprise. If you read my post a while back you will remember me saying that Baby B was definitely a girl, but there were some questions about Baby A. Apparently, today things were different. As my wonderful husband would say, "Baby A's apple grew a stem!" Yep, we are now having a BOY and a GIRL! Mady was right all along when she used to say that Mommy was having "one each" ... in other words... one of each! We already had a boy name picked out so there won't be much to do on that end... Now I just have to find some boy clothes!!!!

I was definitely a little more shocked this time around vs. Mark being shocked last time when they said it was 2 girls. I was used to saying that we were having 2 girls. After all, the sono tech said she was pretty sure A was a girl. I was excited that we already had all the clothes and pink stuff that one household could ever imagine! But, I'm excited to have a boy now - it's just taking a little bit longer for it to sink in. We were praying in the beginning that we would be blessed with one of each so we definitely got what we were asking for. Mark is really excited to have a boy to carry on the family name and to do "manly" things with. He was really cute today when he told me that he was excited about the chance to be able to raise up a strong Christian man in today's world. That really touched my heart.

Both babies look good. They are stil measuring a little small but that's too be expected. Our boy is 14oz and our little girl is 1 pound 2oz. You go girl! According to a singleton growth chart, one is in the 25th percentile and one is in the 45th. Everything looks great though - even the fluid levels around each baby look good. Baby B, our girl, is definitely more active than our boy which seems to be backwards. She is currently feet down while our boy is head down. I am still praying that they will swap places as girl's feet are lower than boy's head making a natural birth impossible at this point. Oh well, there's still time for them to move.

Doc says I look good too. He pressed on my stomach a few times and said "good news is that you are definitely all baby up here." I'm still able to exercise and get around well. He did say that he didn't want me to pick up Madalyn anymore which actually made me shed a few tears. It's going to be so hard to not pick her up unless I absolutely have to (getting in the car, putting her to bed when mark isn't here, etc). It makes me so sad but I have to watch out for the little ones inside of me too. Doc also said that I need to put up my feet at least 1 hour out of every 4 or so - just to make sure that I force myself to rest ... as I tend to stay busy, busy, busy and I forget to slow down.

But, everything is going smoothly. Now I'm just on a quest to find some little boy clothes. Apparently it's time to get some blue in this house....

Dad's response: I'm pretty stoked about being a big boy Daddy. I was pretty scared that I wouldn't be able to tell the 2 girls apart. Now, I can confirm everything anatomically. Now Betty will have a Benny to play with. (Benny and Betty Bettinger). I called my dad, Grandpa Chuck today. He's also very excited about having a fishing, camping, dirt stomping, big belching little buddy. Apparently my mom is relieved that her duties in these areas will be commencing. 2 girls would have been great, but truth be told, I'm very, very excited about having a son. Little Benny Bettinger. Thank you, Lord.

Menards, Daddy...Menards!

2009-03-14T10:35:00.003-05:00

So Jenn left yesterday morning about 6:30 am to go to the "Hearts at Home Conference" in Bloomington. It's the National conference, and it happens to be held at our alma mater, ISU, only an hour away. Jenn has been looking forward to this weekend for quite some time now.

Jenn took off with her girlfriend, Nicole and I looked at Mady and she looked at me and I said, "come on Mads, let's go get pancakes." Her response was, "with sausage?" "Yes, Mads, pancakes and sausage." She is indeed my daughter.

After breakfast w/ all the guys, we came back home. I moved my office to the dining room table and let her watch cartoons for 3 hours. Sorry, I know, it's not healthy, but I had a ton of work to do. After lunch, she took a 3 hour nap. Right before I laid her down, I asked her, "do you want to play with playdoh when you get up, or go to Menards?" She squealed back, "Menards Daddy, Menards! Menards, now! Daddy!" "After your nap, Baby."

She woke up and her first words were, "Menards now, Daddy?" Off we went...

I found oil on sale for $1.68 a quart, so I bought a case. We saw Adam and Lindy and hung out w/ them for awhile. I also found out that Mady fits in the little hand held baskets at Menards, so she hung out in there. I pushed her around on the big flat bed cart while she was in the basket. We bought M&Ms and ate them while we walked around.

We headed home and ate dinner while watching the Illini beat Michigan. After that, we went over to the church. They were having the annual pine car derby. Next year we'll make one. Mady had a great time running around with the tons of kids that were there. Home and in bed by 9:00. She slept in till 8:00 this morning. Hurry home, Mommy....we miss you!!!

Super Duper Diaper Deal

2009-03-12T12:49:00.003-05:00

So, I really should post this on our other blog, Making Cents of It All, but I'm being lazy today. All of my couponing just paid off today, and it reminded me why I cut and print out all of those crazy coupons.

I have a number of blogs that I check daily in order to find good deals at different stores. I've mentioned before that I really dislike buying things at full price so I'm always out to find a good deal. Let me tell you about my diaper deal today.

I printed Huggies Diaper coupons off of www.Coupons.com earlier in the week. I noticed that Walgreens was having a sale on Huggies Diapers - the jumbo pack in the smaller sizes (NB, 1, 2). They were on sale for $10 a piece. I usually buy the Sams brand for Madalyn because they are cheaper in bulk and sometimes I think they are even better than brand name. So, I'm not used to buying Huggies but I thought $10 was a good deal.

My coupons were for $5 off one pack of diapers. I printed 2, had my mom print a few, and my MIL printed some too. Walgreens also has a sale going on now that if you buy $25 in Huggies diapers then you got a $10 off coupon (basically giving you $10 back in store credit but you obviously have to use it there). So, I bought my 3 packs of diapers for $30, used my 3 coupons for a total of $15.00 off, got my $10 off coupon in return and technically paid $1.66 a piece for the diapers! What a deal!!! I'm going again tonight to do the same thing at a different Walgreens. Because the coupons are for the smaller size, I'm starting my stockpile for the twins when they arrive!

It's refreshing when I find a good deal. It gets me energized - ready to find more! You really can't beat $1.66 for diapers!!!

20 Weeks!

2009-03-05T10:30:00.004-06:00

(Notice the date that this was written... I just now published it to the blog so it's a little behind.)

I'm currently 20 weeks and 2 days pregnant! I can hardly believe it! It has gone by fairly quickly. I'm considered halfway for a normal singleton pregnancy and according to my doctor I'm considered over halfway for a twin pregnancy. He says that then full term point for twins is 36weeks so if I look at it that way I'm on my way to being done!

I'm feeling great! I think I've finally, within the last 2 weeks, hit the point where I have more energy, I'm not as tired, and I'm feeling all around great! My doctor said I would hit that mark around 20 weeks or so but that it wouldn't last long, unlike a singleton pregnancy. So, I'm taking advantage of it! I really started to pop out at about 18 weeks and now I look pregnant! I can still wear some of my regular clothes but am beginning to lean towards maternity clothes - ugh! I am definitely feeling the babies move. It's really exciting to feel kicks (or punches) on opposites sides of my stomach at the same time. What a feeling! I'm still exercising and feeling good. I have been having some braxton hicks contractions but according to some others who have twins that I have talked to - it's not out of the ordinary at this point. It still makes me nervous though. I apparently was having BH contractions with Mady but didn't know it. They landed me in the hospital for a week with early labor! I'm praying that I don't have any complications like that!

My last doctors appointment was at 18 weeks. We had an hour long sono and if you haven't already heard ... it seems as though we're having 2 more GIRLS! Baby B is definitely a girl and there was a small question raised about Baby A - however the sono tech is pretty sure it's a girl. I guess we'll find out in two weeks when I go back again.

We just put our house on the market again this past weekend. Please join with us in prayer that we are able to sell our home soon. I'm just nervous that these babies are going to come before our house sells - which wouldn't be a huge problem except for the fact that it would be a lot of work to get the house ready for a showing with 3 kids!!! The Lord knows though! He knows what is best for us - His timing - and I'm just learning to trust Him even more.

Birds Eat Poop!

2009-03-03T16:43:00.002-06:00

Yep, you read it right. I'm ashamed to say that the above phrase is what Madalyn said when we went to pick up Daddy tonight. Let me back up...

Mark's car has been having some issues and he took it this afternoon to the garage so that it could be fixed. He asked me to pick him up this afternoon as he wouldn't have a car. Madalyn, Olivia (she comes to our house on Tuesday afternoons), and I jumped into the car and headed over to the garage. As we sat in the parking lot waiting on Mark to arrive, Mady was watching 3 huge black crows that were sitting on the edge of the road. She was asking questions as usual like "that?", "hurt me?" , and "Doing mommy." (what's that, will they hurt me, and what are they doing?)

Olivia was telling her what kind of birds that they were and explaining that they won't hurt her because they are scared of her. Somehow I ended up telling Mady that birds don't do much besides eat and go poopy. Yep, classy, I know. I need to start being more careful. Anyway, we didn't talk any more about that particular subject.

Mark then arrived, dropped his car off, and came over to the truck. He had not even closed the door on the truck after he got in when Mady proudly exclaimed from the backseat "Birds eat poop, Daddy!"

Yeah, needless to say I got in trouble. ha. I do have to admit that it was pretty funny though!

Madalyn's Memory

2009-02-27T18:42:00.002-06:00

I've been learning, as Madalyn gets older, that she has a very impressive memory. I'm not sure how she does it but considering I can remember what I was wearing on a certain day at a certain place (when asked) I guess it's not too surprising.

Madalyn has been on a kick lately of playing "Doctor" to her baby dolls and to "Ma" - her special bunny. This has been going on for about a week now. She'll get out her basket of baby supplies and doctor things, and she'll spend hours in her room taking care of her sick friends. It's quite humorous to listen to her talking to them; telling them to lay down and that "it's okay."

Just yesterday she had Ma laying on the couch covered with a blanket and I asked her what she was doing. She said "Ma sick, mommy. I doctor." I asked her if she was Doctor Bettinger and she proceeded to say, "No, I Doctor Hill." (Dr. Hill is her doctor at Carle.) Then she proceeded to tell me that she wasn't Doctor Davisson either (which is Mark's Doctor) but that she was, in fact, Doctor Hill. Since she was on a roll, getting two doctors right by herself, I decided to ask her what my the name of my doctor is.

**Now a little background... I had told her a couple of weeks ago when I had to go to the doctor that I was going to see Dr. Shepherd. She inquisitively said "shepherd?" The only thing I could think of to say was - goats and sheep - and I told her that a shepherd helps with sheep. I know, I know... Don't laugh.

So, as I asked her who Mommy's Doctor was she blurted out "Dr. Shepherd" and then she paused a moment and said "GOATS!" It was hilarious! Mark was laughing so hard he almost fell off the couch. But we were proud of her because she not only remembered my doctors name but she also remembered the reference to his name after only being told once.

*** On another note - along the same line... As most of you know, we lead the college ministry at our church and they meet at our house every Tuesday night. We usually let Madalyn stay up through the beginning part and the prayer. A couple of months ago we were praying for one of the students and her job at Red Lobster. Just about 2 weeks ago we were driving along and Mark said something about Red Lobster sounding good to him to eat. Madalyn popped up in the backseat and yelled the name of the student who worked there. She had remembered all that time.

I have no idea how she remembers this stuff nor where she stores it. It sure does catch us off guard though!

My favorite game.

2009-02-24T13:13:00.003-06:00

For a while now, I have CRAVED good deals. I'm always on the lookout for good coupons, great store deals, and great online deals. This may sound funny to you... but I have a hard time buying anything at full price! That's just because I know that I can always get it cheaper somewhere! Just yesterday, I surprised Mark with coupons good for 2 free sandwiches from Quizno's and a code for a free movie rental through RedBox. So, we had a free dinner and a movie! It was great!

Mark thought it would be fun for me to post all the good deals that I find and take advantage of... He's says it's my favorite game! From now on, I'll try to post as often as I can, over on our other blog "Making Cents of It All." If you go to the right side of our blog, a little ways down, there is a link that says "Save a Penny." Just click on that. I will try to keep it updated with fun things that I've discovered lately.

Have fun!!!

Musings

2009-02-23T07:55:00.004-06:00

It seems like so much is happening to us as the days go by, it's almost hard to keep up. Here's a little bit about what's been going on w/ the Bettinger household.

1. We still have our house on the market. We're attempting to sell for sale by owner. We put out the signs, listed on craigslist and owners.com. We've had a number of inquiries and a lot of our sheets have been taken from the box in the yard (probably about 40). We've had 4 showings so far, but you know how the market is. It's only been about 3 weeks. One of our friends at our church is a realtor w/ Remax and he even said that there's no buyers out there. We'll hold tight. We're in no hurry. We've lowered our price about $8k and we've done a lot of recent updates that I think people will appreciate. It will just take that right couple.

2. So, as many of you know, we're having twins. We went to Jenn's sono last Wednesday and found out that we are having 2 girls! I have to be totally honest with you, I was slightly bummed that we aren't having a boy. On the other hand, we have lots of clothes already, but we just will need 2 of everything (2 high chairs, a double stroller, 2 more car seats, another crib, etc). Jenn's been looking around for a double stroller but they're definitely on the higher side. So I told her to look around. Maybe shake the money tree known as "mom and dad." :)

When we went to see "Dr. S", I brought along a book to read. We're going through a series on "relationships" next w/ Fusion, the college ministry we head up and I wanted to start preparing for it. Not really thinking about the ramifications and the hilarity of it all, I pulled out my book.."Boundaries in Dating." Someone sitting across from us could have thought "boy, they should have shown more 'boundaries in dating'...she's pregnant! It's a little late now!" I chuckled at the thought. Jenn hit me.

3. Last week I went in for my annual lab draw w/ Dr Davisson at the CF clinic. I failed my 2 hour glucose tolerance test. I was pretty upset by the news, but it is what it is. I had a number of phone calls w/ my doctor and we met with the dietician last week. Unfortunately w/ CFRD, changing diet and watching carbs doesn't really change anything. My pancrease is getting fibrotic, so insulin shots are the only remedy. We go today to get everything set up in that department. I'm realizing that about 2 hours after I eat a high carb load, it seems as though my pancrease dumps insulin, and that's when I get the "crash" and feel horrible. So I'm really hoping that I will feel better through it all. Jenn's doing a lot of research on it (as she does w/ anything) and thinks that not only will I feel better, but my lungs will be more stable and I might even be able to gain a little weight.

Pregnancy Update

2009-02-16T07:55:00.003-06:00

I'm a little behind on getting this up but better late than never, huh? About 2 weeks ago (at 16w) I had my first appointment with my OB/GYN doctor. Up until now, I've been meeting with the fertility staff and then a nurse practitioner so I was extremely excited to meet my doctor. I'm very excited that I picked who I did because he is wonderful! I hear that he is also one of the top 2 doctors to have when you're carrying multiples so that's reassuring. Here's little tidbits from the appointment that I thought I would share:
* Both heartbeats were strong. One was 180 and the other was 158 beats per minute. While trying to find one of the heartbeats with the doppler, I was having some very sensitive spots on my stomach. The nurse was a little concerned so she had the doctor check it out. He brought in a mini-sonogram machine to check and see if anything looked abnormal. Things were just fine and we got to see the babies flopping around in there. They were extremely active! Both babies had their arms up by their faces so the Doc said that we're going to have some thinkers on our hands!
* I'm doing great. Feeling good besides the typical fatigue that comes with a twin pregnancy. Normally with a regular pregnancy you start to feel better in the 2nd trimester and you tend to get more energy back... not with multiples. I get super tired around 1pm and then again around 8pm. I'm also still exercising about 4 times a week and the doctor said that I could continue as long as I felt comfortable.
* I asked "Dr. S" what his take were on C-Sections. Mark popped up and said "that means she doesn't want one!" And I don't! He said that as long as Baby A is head down then I can have a natural birth, which is what I'm praying for. If both babies are head down, obviously that is ideal but with one head down they can turn the other if they need to. C'mon baby A... Put that head down!!!
* We also just talked about different random things like how a twin pregnancy will be different from a singleton pregnancy. I learned that twins tend to mature faster in the womb because they are fighting for nutrients and will take everything from me. We went over pre-term labor as I had that with Mady. At my next appointment they are going to check my cervix to see if it is shortened which tends to be a pre-curser for pre-term labor. Also, I learned that I will feel contractions a lot sooner with this pregnancy as my uterus will be bigger. My body will then think it's time to deliver earlier.

Currently, I'll be 18weeks tomorrow. That's exactly half way for a what the doctors consider a full term twin pregnancy! Wow! I can't believe it! I'm definitely feeling movement and have been feeling it consistently for about a week. I've been feeling random movements for a few weeks now though. I also can see my stomach move sometimes as the babies move. Things are going well. I'm just continuing to pray that (A) baby a goes head down before delivery and (B) I don't have any complications with bed rest restrictions. I'm scared of bedrest with a 2 year old!!!

We have an appointment this Wednesday where we hopefully will be able to find out what the sexes of the babies! More to come on that.... :)

A Time Away with Daddy

2009-02-12T04:10:00.004-06:00

I'm finding as time goes by, and the days turn into weeks, and then months, that even with concerted effort, I'm missing things that my daughter learns and does. I don't want to miss out on the finer things in life. I want to be able to enjoy things with her. I want to be able to create memories, to cherish our relationship and to teach her things that I've learned. At this stage, I'm Jesus Christ on earth to her. This gives me the blessing that whatever we do, she thinks it's fun. It also gives me the responsibility to model Jesus to her. Sure, we read a chapter in the scriptures and pray every night before she goes to bed. Sure she goes to Sunday school and is involved in programs at the church, but am I really being Jesus to her? Do my words mimic His? Not to quote a cliche, but "what Would Jesus do?" So, last night, we went to Menards.

I find no better atmosphere to connect with Madalyn than with screwdrivers, chop saws and rakes. I've been going on the road pretty early this week (ie 5-6 am) and yesterday was not an exception, so I finished up my work around 3:00. I came upstairs and asked Mady, "do you want to go to Menards with me? I need a few things." (new batteries for our garage door opener, and some drain-o for a slow drain in the bathroom, and most likely some candy)

At this point, she got all excited, and said "orange store?" I looked at Jenn and she at me, and Jenn said "What?" Mady was like "orange store!" Jenn turned and said, "I think she thinks you are taking her to Home Depot." (Home depot has these huge orange carts that have a big race car on the front of them that Mady likes to sit in and drive. They're quite cool. Even if they are Nascar...) We thought it was hilarious that Mady now calls it the "orange store." She's right.

I said, "No baby, we're not going to the orange store, we're going to Menards. Can you say Menards?" "Menarts."

We got ready and took off. I told her that we could call Menards the "green store" if she wanted. "Green store?" "Yes Mady, green store. Menards." "Menarts."

We got there, and low and behold they have this huge green cart that has yet another nascar car on the front that she could sit in and drive. The bonus was that the horn on this car actually honked. At least it wasn't too annoying.

The only really annoying thing was that EVERY SINGLE PERSON that Mady saw, she insisted on yelling "Hello! Hi! Hi!" To which all the lovely people smiled and said HI! (genuinely, cuz it was kinda cute). So, we're just having a good old time walking around the store (I had to buy something, I had just received a free coupon in the mail for 15$ worth of merchandise). So we meandered down about every aisle. We were hanging out by the watch batteries (for the garage door opener) near the check outs, when this dad walks up with his 2ish year old son on his shoulders. He walks up and asks if I'm about to check out. I told him that we were just kinda meandering around the store. I thought it was a little odd, but thought I should answer his question. He goes on to tell me that his little boy is dying to ride in Mady's green nascar (there is only one of these in the store). Apparently this was the whole reason that they had come here, as they had been stalking me for the last 20 minutes, waiting for us to leave!

He asked if I would mind, if we traded out, which I absolutely didn't. I bent down and asked Mady is she would share the car with the little boy. She looked at me and I helped her climb out of the car. I told her to say "there you go" to the little boy, which she did, and he said "thank you" and Mady replied "you're welcome." It was a priceless exchange. I was so proud of her! She didn't cry one bit or whine. I talked to her all about sharing and that Daddy was so proud of her. She kept saying "little boy?" To which I responded, "yup, you shared with the little boy."

I let her even pick out a bag of hershey kisses with almonds, which I told her she would have to share with mommy. We got home and she ran to mommy with that bag of candy and a huge smile on her face.

I'm thankful for that very cool memory making experience. I could have worked on reports for work, but you know, they can wait till tomorrow...

Yellow Nuts?

2009-01-23T14:12:00.002-06:00

Mady has an obsession of watching everything that goes on in the kitchen. She has a step stool in her room to use for things like turning on her own light, washing her hands, brushing her teeth, ect. Lately she thinks it's necessary to pull it into the kitchen and examine everything that I'm doing. It's pretty cute and pretty fun but sometimes it's a little overwhelming to have her right in the middle of everything that I'm doing. It's pretty funny because the minute I tell her that I am going to make something, off she runs to her room and I know what she's going for.

Within the past couple of days she finds it necessary to tell me everything that is in her meal. The funnies thing happened about 3 days ago when she picked up her piece of bread and pointed to the seeds on the top of the crust and said "Yellow Nuts." Now every time she has bread she points out the "yellow nuts" even though I've corrected her many times :)

I love the things kids come up with! The two words as simple as "yellow nuts" make me smile and brighten my day!

Back to the Gym

2009-01-13T15:19:00.003-06:00

Mark and I have been talking a lot lately about him getting a gym pass. With his health issues, exercising is really important. We used to have a pass together at Gold's Gym and we faithfully worked out .. until Mady was born. After she was born, we quit going and canceled our membership. Last year Mark had a pass to another gym in town but didn't really like it. They also closed their doors. During this time, I got into the habit of running and I was running about 4-5 times a week which kept me in good shape.

This past week Mark decided to get a pass to a local gym in town. I was slightly jealous (because I love exercising) but wasn't sure I would use the pass because of my twin pregnancy. I figured I would just continue to use the treadmill in our basement.

The more I got to thinking - the more I really wanted to get a pass. According to my doctor, running is not the best thing for my pregnancy because of the high impact. But, she said that using an elliptical was fine. After talking it over with Mark we decided to sell our treadmill and I got a pass at the gym. The nice thing about selling our treadmill is that it frees up a lot of extra room in our basement. Plus, it was really hard for me to get motivated to exercise in my own house so I barely used it.

So, now I have a gym pass and I'm super excited. I can do the elliptical and if that gets too hard I can just simply walk. But at least I can feel like I'm staying in shape. They also have a room for kids if we pay a small fee a month. This is good if Mark and I want to go together... like we used to before child :)

The one cool thing that I wanted to mention... I was really nervous that I might possibly have pregnancy complications down the road that would restrict exercising (let's hope not thought!). I was nervous that I would have to cancel my gym membership. (I already got a good sign up deal by only paying $18 versus paying the normal $99). I didn't want to have to cancel and then after the babies were born and I was ready to sign up again I would have to pay the start up fee again. Apparently at this particular gym they have a medical option where you can have your doctor send in a note and they will keep you as a member but you won't have to pay the monthly fee for those months that you are unable, medically, to use the gym. Pretty good deal I think!!!

A Saturday Evening with the Bettinger Family

2009-01-10T20:22:00.003-06:00

Last night, I had some things to check on at Sears and Mark had wanted to look at getting some new work out shoes so we decided to make a trip to the mall. We used to go to the mall quite a bit when Mady was younger to let her play at the playground. However, we haven't gone much lately. Madalyn does, however, know that the mall is where the "horsies" are. She loves riding the Carousel when we let her. Tonight was one of those "special" nights.

We turned into the mall parking lot and Madalyn starts yelling, from the backseat, "Mall! Mall!" Then it turned into "horsies, horsies" - mixed in with some high pitched squealing and giggling. It's really cute to see her get all excited. The 2 other places that cause this kind of reaction are the church and the library.

We did some walking around and ended up in a shoe store where Mark was looking at some new work out shoes. Mady was quietly sitting in one of the provided chairs when this young college girl started to sit down next to her and chat with her. The girl had a Hello Kitty key chain on her purse which she pulled off and let Mady look at. Of course, Mady was all over that. They were chatting about what color she was and pointing out body parts. At the end of the conversation the girl asked me if I minded if she gave the key chain to Mady. I told her that she had just made Mady's evening and that was the truth. Mady proudly held that key chain the rest of the time we were at the mall. She had Daddy attach it to her pants and even walked back over to the girl to show off her new prize. It was cute.

Before we left, we stopped off at the Carousel. Mady and Daddy picked the very best horse and she, of course, loved it. I think this was actually the first time that she didn't cry when it was time to get off. I heard Daddy telling her as they were done and walking towards me, "Go tell Mommy all about it." Mady proudly ran to me and said, "ALL ABOUT IT!" Super cute!

Here are some other fun things from the night - we had a good time as a family:
*Mady can tell you what her first and last name are, what city and state she lives in and the name of the street she lives on. So tonight, in the car, I was asking her all of these questions. I got to her name and asked her what her first name was. She replied "Yellow Dino." I then asked what her last name was and she said "Bettinger." Apparently her name is Yellow Dino Bettinger. Some time ago she told me that she was a Yellow Dino and she proudly roared for me. I guess that hasn't changed :)
*Madalyn has done really well by responding with "yes" when she's asked a question or "yes Mommy (Or Daddy) when told to do something. I have been really proud of her. However recently she's started saying "yep" and it bothers me. So, I've been correcting her. We were driving and Mark had asked me a question and I replied "Yep... Oops, did you just hear what I said." To which he responded, "Yep!" We both started laughing. I guess we need to be be more careful about how we respond if we're trying to teach her...

A Whopping 12 Weeks

2009-01-10T12:35:00.005-06:00

Earlier this week, I hit the 12 week point in my pregnancy. According to the nurses, this is a huge step as the rate of miscarriage drops immensely. I'm doing well and feeling great. I think I'm finally over the random bouts of nausea (I never got physically sick just felt "oozy" at certain points of certain days) and also the cramping that I was having earlier in the pregnancy. We've had at least 5 sonograms and about double the amount of doctors appointments so we've been able to see the babies quite frequently. About a week ago I had my 3 hour glucose test. I didn't pass the one hour so I had to take the 3 hour. I wasn't real optimistic as I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Madalyn but much to my surprise I passed the 3 hour too!!! So, as of now I don't have to prick my finger 3 times a day. I will repeat the 3 hour two more times later in my pregnancy though.

My last 2 ultrasounds have been especially entertaining as the babies have been moving quite a bit. The one I had at the end of January was a basic ultrasound to see how things were growing. Both babies were right on scheduling - measuring only days apart from each other. Mark and I joke as Baby A was very calm and relaxed while Baby B was spinning, flipping, moving every part of its body. Baby A's heartbeat is also running about 10 bpm faster than Baby B's believe it or not.

My most recent ultrasound this past Monday confirmed our suspicions that Baby B is going to be the ornery one! The ultrasound tech was measuring the nuchal fold on the back of each baby's neck. She first went to Baby A, who is on my right side, and as we guessed, Baby A was relaxed and just chillin. The tech had a great view of everything that she needed and even commented how Baby A was "so photogenic." Ha! Then we get to Baby B... The tech went in for the picture and what do we see on the screen... Baby B's back! The baby was facing my back and obviously not in the position to see the fold on the back of its neck. The tech had me lay on my left side for a bit... nothing. no movement. Then she had me lay on my right side. Nothing. No Movement. Then she started pressing on my belly to try to "wake the baby up." Nothing. We probably did this about 2 more times before finally the baby rolled over and the tech was able to see what she wanted to see. After the tech measured both babies she went back to get a picture of them side by side. Baby A was, of course, still in great form while Baby B decided to be contankerous again. My picture of my little babies side by side in utero contains a picture of Baby A stretched out - great side profile - and the top of the head of Baby B.

I wonder what this means? Haha. I wonder if Baby A will be quiet and content and Baby B will be ornery? I guess we'll have to wait and find out :)

Twice the Blessings

2009-01-01T20:50:00.003-06:00

As most of you know, Mark and I are pregnant with TWINS! It definitely hasn't been an easy journey to get where we are now but it's been such a blessing. I wanted to give a quick synopsis of the entire process that we went through to get to the place that we are today... 11 weeks pregnant with twins!! Let's back up...

We had to use fertility options to get pregnant and we started back in July. We didn't tell any family or friends that lived far away as we wanted it to be a surprise (only those close to us at church knew what we were going through). Three days before we were to go through the first part of the procedure, Mark was admitted to the ER with all kinds of medical complications. You can read about that here. It was a rough few months of many ER visits for him. He was put on blood thinners and we canceled our round of fertility treatments. Praise God for healing him completely. We are so thankful for Him getting better! He was able to go off of the blood thinners and we restarted the fertility treatments in October.

After all the injections and meds, we had our first procedure on October 27th with the 2nd part on November 2nd. All went well until the 7th of November when I ended up back at the doctors office with complaints that I was having trouble breathing. I just couldn't get deep enough breaths. I was immediately sent over to the hospital procedure center and I had a paracentisis done. Basically I was suffering from a severe case of Ovarian Hyperstimulation. My ovaries were very enlarged and there was a huge amount of fluid collecting on my abdomen and chest. It was causing pain, extreme shortness of breath and abdominal swelling. A paracentisis is a procedure where they locally numb a spot on the abdomen, each layer at a time, and then stick a big needle in the stomach to drain the excess fluid. Ten pounds of fluid was drained off of my belly at this time. I was measuring 4.5 months pregnant! After the procedure was done, I was given more fluids via IV so that my body wasn't so "shocked" for losing 10lbs worth and then I was watched for a bit as my blood pressure got very low. I was eventually released to go home and told to drink lots of fluids.

Two days later, I was miserable. It got to the point where I was cramping so bad that I couldn't move. I wasn't urinating normally and I was extremely swollen again. I was also having serious bouts of nausea. I had Mark call the Nurses Line who in turn contacted the nurse practitioner I had been working with at the clinic. She gave orders to take me to the ER. Who would've thought that the ER would've been so busy on a Sunday afternoon. When we checked in there were 17 people in front of us! I sat in a wheel chair in the middle of the waiting room bent over in pain. At one point I had to ask Mark for a basin because I was feeling very ill. *The easiest way to get into the ER to be seen when it's full is to start throwing up.* The nurse asked me if I was pregnant and I had to say that I could be and BAM! they rushed me to the back and got me in a bed. I don't remember much after this as I got a bunch of pain medications. Our good friend, Paul, was working and he took good care of me. They took lots of blood and even took a pregnancy test (we found out for the first time that we were indeed pregnant! Rather anticlimactic). Eventually they told me that I was dehydrated and that they wanted me to stay overnight. I was admitted, put on a morphine pump for pain, and was given an injection of blood thinner. My wonderful husband Mark went and got us Jimmy John's for dinner so I didn't have to eat hospital food!!!

I was released the next day despite the fact that I kept telling the doctor on call that I felt like I might need to be "drained" again. And sure enough I was back at my doctors office on Tuesday. I had gained 20 pounds in 2 days because of extra fluid retention. Everything on me was swelling.. legs, fingers, thighs, hips! It was extremely hard for me to handle and very discouraging. I did appreciate the fact that the nurse called my fertility doctor (who is based out of Indy) and had him talk to me. I thought that was awful nice of him. I was sent over to the hospital again for another paracentisis and another 10 pounds of fluid was removed! I was sent home and told to drink lots of fluid... By the way, during this whole thing I was drinking about 32-64 oz of fluid per HOUR!!!

About a week later I slowly started to get better and I could see that my abdomen wasn't getting any bigger. I was feeling better and was getting more encouraged. I had this hyperstimulation when I was pregnant with Madalyn but it was definitely mild compared to this.

We had another follow up pregnancy test a few days later and learned that I was indeed still pregnant. My beta had doubled perfectly which led us to believe that there was just one baby in there. The first week of December we had our first ultrasound and were shocked to learn that I was carrying two babies! We were definitely excited but it just didn't seem real. I've had two more ultrasounds since that day and it's definitely feeling real now :) I'm so excited to be carrying twins and I'm excited to see what 2009 holds for us and our family.

I have to say that this was one of the most discouraging times of my life. I've never really had any serious health issues and so this episode scared me a lot. I was on bed rest and couldn't do much of anything. It hurt that I couldn't take care of my daughter or my husband and I hated feeling so helpless. I was extremely discouraged a lot throughout this time but I definitley learned what it means to truly lean on God through the good and the bad! It was a growing period for me and my faith and I'm thankful to my wonderful friends and my amazing husband who helped to encourage me! The biggest lesson that I learned through all of this is that I need to be thankful for whatever the Lord brings my way. He does all things for a reason and even if something gloomy is thrown my way, I still need to be thankful. His purpose is bigger than I can ever imagine! I will praise Him in the calm and the STORM!!!

Christmas 2008

2008-12-27T11:29:00.061-06:00

We had a phenomenal Christmas 2008. We actually had a pretty drama-free holiday and it was quite enjoyable!

I'll try to chronicle our season in a condensed form for you...

Yup, mass chaos as we got together with my Dad's side of the family for a gift exchange on the 14th...

Jenn, Mady and I tried our hand at putting together a ginger bread house. Apparently, they are supposed to be a family memory building exercise. I remember building up steam as the silly thing wouldn't stay together. We laughed about it, and ended up eating all the candy till we were sick to our stomach and threw it away...Mady had a ball!

The Sunday before Christmas, Mady and I were both in the Christmas drama during both services at our church. I was a military commander returning home (in a big Christmas card). I arrived home and Mady was supposed to run to me and give me a big hug and say "Daddy!" She did really well the 2nd service (the musical conductor said that Mady stole the show). The first service, didn't go as well, as she had to be carried out by "mom." I think she had a touch of stage fright that she had to overcome...

And then we were off to my folks house down in Charleston for a great Christmas Eve. We had such a good time hanging out and enjoying ourselves with my mom, dad, grandma and JJ (their boxer).

My mom made us this amazing quilt! The original picture was taken on our vacation down at Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. We love it!

We had a nice little gift exchange, and then we tried a new tradition, FONDUE for dinner! I think everyone really enjoyed it, except Grandma kept dropping her pieces of food into the cheese sauce. We left around 7:30 pm and headed back home. Here a few pictures from the day...

Mady and my dad tickling each other...

Mady and Jenn taking a nap during the movie...

Fondue and throwing paper!

Christmas Day morning, we have a tradition of opening the gifts for just us. And then mid morning, Jenn's family comes up for a big gift exchange. Usually in the afternoon, Jenn's extended family comes over for more gifts. It's a big day, with minimal naps for the kiddos, but there's good food had by all and it's a fun memory making experience.

Here is Jenn and Mady seeing the fully lit tree and all of my gifts for the first time that have been hidden up to this point. Oh, and Mady getting a truck. She loves any kind of truck (dump truck, tractor, firetruck etc...)

Below is Mady learning the power of money (yup they're real) and Mady apparently loves jumping on the big pile of wrapping paper after everything is unwrapped, and notice that she abandoned the dump truck for the true love of her life...baby dolls. Maybe we'll get a boy when we have twins...

Jenn's family (mom, dad and brother) came over about 11. Mady's big gift was a huge kitchen set that Jenn's dad and I put together down in the basement. Of course, any good kitchen has to have all the fixins. Here's Jenn's mom and Mady opening the first of many "accessories." The other picture is Jenn's dad and I putting together this monster. It took us about 2 hours to get it together (the packaging said it would take 3 hours...ha!)

The extended family came over about 2:00 pm for yet another gift exchange. By the time everyone was gone in the evening, we were all pretty wore out. Jenn and I both fell asleep during our annual viewing of "It's a Wonderful Life" on Christmas Day night. We had such a good Christmas. Thank you to everyone who made it so memorable!

In the days following Christmas, Mady thoroughly enjoys playing with playdo and watching the birds and squirrels in our new feeder...

Best Birthdy Gift - Period.

2008-12-23T13:23:00.016-06:00

Da Bears!!!

My lovely wife got me pretty much the best birthday gift a guy could ever dream of...Bears tickets. We went with some friends of ours, Paul and Nicole. We left Champaign about 1pm after our babysitter showed up. We got in to Soldier Field about 3:30 or 4:00. After dropping $45 for parking, we pulled in to our slot to do some serious tailgating.

Here is Jenn and Nicole. Yes, it was very cold. We all wore many layers and coveralls. As did the ridiculous amount of people that joined us for brats, chili and all the fixins...

We hung out with all these people that gradually got more drunk as the afternoon wore on, but we kinda expected it...
We all ate like kings off of Paul's portable gas grill that he brought. We headed in around 5:30. It was about 2 hours before game time, but Paul and I both like to get in to parks early so that we aren't rushing around. This also gave us ample opportunity to walk around and see the sights of the stadium that they updated a couple of years back. I was able to sneak down close to the field and enjoy the sights and sounds...

The following picture was actually pretty meaningful to me. This was the first time that I had seen the field in person. I've grown up watching the Bears with my family. As early as I can remember, they've been on the tube, especially the '85 Super Bowl team. I was quite overwhelmed being this close to the field for the first time, it was almost surreal...

I walked over and was able to see the NFL network preparing and getting things ready for their show (Deion Sanders, Warren Sapp among others are the commentators...

After I was kicked out of the area by a disgruntled employee, we walked over and Jenn got me a Bears hat. Paul and I hoped to get some autographs, so we convinced a security guard to let us go down to the tunnel where the team comes out. We were able to be down there for about 15 minutes with all the other consumed fans...
Probably one of the coolest things that happened the whole night was right after this picture was taken, Robbie Gould, the Bears kicker came running out. We yelled at him, "Robbie, Robbie!" But all he did was turn around, take off his wrist bands and throw them up to the crowd. One hit Paul in the chest, but a little kid grabbed it. The other one landed right in front of me. I was able to snag it. It was a nice keep sake. Especially since Robbie kicked the tying field goal as time expired to send the game into overtime and then kicked the game winning field goal to beat a solid Saints team. Quite a night for him too!

We grabbed a few more pictures before heading up to our seats. They were high up, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves...

Paul and Nicole and Us
The team storming out of the tunnel...

Our seats...they were a great bird's eye view...and very cold...the wind chill got ya pretty good if you weren't prepared...
Lots of "Ta Da!" as they come out of the tunnel...
Notice the ice on the ground behind us...and the snow...this is called FUN! Paul and I figured that if everyone in the stadium bought one drink, they would make about half a million bucks. We bought about 10 hot chocolates just between us...and some guys in front of us easily consumed 4 beers each...

Robbie Gould is congratulated by Greg Olsen after booting a 35-yard field goal in overtime to beat the Saints 27-24 Thursday night.

It was a solid win for the Bears, and it kept them in the playoff hunt. We left the stadium around 10:45 pm, got to our vehicle and had surprisingly very little trouble getting out of the area. We headed to the Marriott for the night (I had points saved up so we got a free room). Woke up the next morning, went shopping for a few hours and then headed home in the afternoon. What a great time. Thanks Babe! I love you!

Do you have a hiding place?

2008-12-21T12:16:00.003-06:00

A few days ago, Daddy and Mady decided they wanted to eat some celery with peanut butter. Daddy fixed her a stalk and she started gnawing on it. After a bit, I noticed that she didn't have the piece of celery anymore but I didn't think too much about it. She's pretty anal about putting trash and food that she doesn't want anymore in the garbage can (I'm not complaining!) so I just assumed that she didn't want it anymore and had thrown it away.

After her nap, I was doing some work on the computer and she was playing with her legos. I wasn't paying too much attention to her until I heard some random crunching coming from her direction. I looked over and the little squirt was eating a piece of celery with peanut butter. I asked her where she had gotten it and she said "pan" and showed me a pan on our bakers rack. Apparently she had decided before her nap that she didn't want the celery anymore so she opened the lid on the pan and stuck it in there for a snack for later!!!

I should have known.. every since she was able to walk I have found various things "hiding" in that particular pan..... shoes, socks, snacks, toys, etc. I guess I should keep an eye on that spot more often....

Madalyn's Very First Christmas Musical.

2008-12-18T20:04:00.004-06:00

On Sunday evening, my daughter starred in her very first Christmas musical at church. And of course I think she did beautifully! It was a really good production and all of the kids did a great job. Mady was in the youngest group. Their job was to walk up onto the stage, bells in hand, and "sing" Jingle Bells, Away in a Manger, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Then they sat with parents while the "big" kids finished the production. I have to believe that Madalyn was the youngest child in her group. About half of her group sang and rang their bells. The other half just rang their bells! Mady - well, she just stood there.. not ringing her bell or singing... And for goodness sakes she was stinkin' adorable!

The day before the play, Daddy took her to her practice at the church. Apparently when it was her group's turn on stage, she froze and just stared, wide eyed. When they got home, Daddy worked with her on how to ring her bell. She already knew how to sing Jingle Bells - we'd been working on that for a couple of weeks. Daddy taught her to ring her bell and where to put her feet up on stage. Apparently the musical director told the little kids to put their feet on a certain line up on stage. Mady and Daddy would practice at home. He would say "ok Mady, where do your feet go?" She would proudly line her little toes on the edge of our red rug in the living room. She knew exactly how to put her feet on the line and how to ring her bell.

On the way to the musical, we again reinforced the fact that she should ring her bell. She would follow us up with a big, proud "yeah!" I was a little nervous how she would react with me being there so when she walked in and up to the stage I hit myself behind some other people. I envisioned her yelling "mommy" and taking off for me. But just the opposite happened. She looked right at me, smiled, and kept on walking! Up on stage she went....

Then on comes the music and the kids start singing and ringing their bells.. well, all except Mady. She stood there looking at the audience, looking at the other kids around her, and every so often glancing down to make sure her toes were still on the line! By golly, if anything else stuck, she made sure she had her toes on that line! During Away In A Manger, the kids had learned hand motions to go with the first verse. Mady did do one arm motion so I was super proud. It was really cute to watch her up on stage and to see how she would react. I think it's every parents secret exciting dream - to see their child up on stage in the church Christmas Musical. I was so excited and so proud - even though she was just standing there. It's almost like she was "growing up" right in front of me. She did a great job and I definitely have some treasured memories.

Now days after the event, I have to tell of her funny stories. She's obsessed with the song "Jingle Bells." I don't care if it's Jingle Bell Rock or the old original Jingle Bells - she loves it! She could be sitting in her room playing with something and when Jingle Bells comes on the radio she makes a mad dash for the dining room and starts singing - yep, singing the entire chorus! It's so stinkin' cute every time she does it (which is alot because we leave Christmas music playing on the radio all day long). She also has a new found appreciation for Away In a Manger. I mentioned earlier that they had motions for that song in their musical. The day after, we were here at home and that song came on. That little scoot did all the motions that they had learned for the first verse. She must have just been nervous up on stage. Now, every time she hears that song she says "Baby Jesus" and starts in with her motions. It's adorable!

I love memories like this. I love my little girl! Thanks for being so cute and for making Mommy and Daddy so proud!

My sad story about sunglasses

2008-12-18T19:55:00.002-06:00

A little less than a year ago I decided to take the plunge and buy prescription sunglasses. Ever since the birth of Madalyn, I started to wear my glasses every day instead of my contacts. I guess it's just easier. Anyway, I went to Lenscrafters, picked out a cool pair of Ralph Lauren glasses and purchased them.

Back in October when we were getting ready to go to Indy, I realized that I couldn't find my sunglasses. I just thought they were in another purse of mine (i switch purses frequently) and I didn't worry too much about it. When we got back from Indy I searched and searched and searched... Nothing! I couldn't find them anywhere! Now, Mark has prescription sunglasses and he wears his everywhere - in and outside of buildings. I never wore mine inside. Whenever we would get to where we were going I would switch my sunglasses back out for my normal glasses and put them in the case in the seat of the car... until I came back out to drive away again. So, I was baffled by the fact that I had lost my very expensive prescription sunglasses.

I waited a few weeks for them to turn up - nothing. I called a few places to see if they had, by chance, fallen out of the car or my bag - nothing. Shoot! We went to Texas for Thanksgiving and I was miserable with no sunglasses.

We went tonight out to Lenscrafters to see what a new pair would cost me. I found a really cute pair of Ralph Laurens and took them up to the nice lady. After some figuring here's what she came up with. They would be $217.00 tonight if I purchased them but if I waited until Jan 27th the price would drop to $112! That's a no brainer. Apparently my insurance coverage restarts in January and would allow me another pair of glasses (we can get one per year!). Sweet! I've waited this long I can surely wait another month! The ever better part is that they can order the frames that I had before if I want them. Now I have to decide which ones look better :)

Our Thanksgiving Vacation

2008-12-16T14:54:00.003-06:00

This post is long overdue but I finally got around to finishing it....

Last week we decided to travel to Fort Worth, Texas for Thanksgiving. We stayed with Mark's aunt and uncle and their kids and we had a wonderful time! It helped that the weather was around 75 degrees! Nice! Here's a little bit about the trip broken down into days:

Monday: We left at 4:45 am and stopped in Tuscola to drop Mark's car off at a friends house to get worked on while we were gone. Then we left for the long day of traveling. We stopped around 9:30 for breakfast. Mady was up the first hour of the trip but then fell asleep for about 2 hours. We learned that after a certain point in southern illinois things just kind of go extinct. We had to wait about 45 minutes just to find a McDonalds to eat. The drive down was pretty good. Mady did well and slept for about 2 hours in the afternoon. We stopped for dinner outside of Dallas at a place called "Soulman's BBQ." It definitley looked ghetto but it was absolutely amazing! Mark was in heaven! We hit some traffic around Dallas and got in to John & Keli's house at about 7:30 that evening. Mady had fallen asleep about 15 minutes outside of our destination but woke up quickly once she met her cousins. We chatted for a few minutes and then headed to bed. Loooong day!

Tuesday: We got up and lounged around until about noon just talking and hanging out. Mady got to play with her cousins and all the toys. She especially liked making bracelets with her cousin, Katie. All we heard all week was "bracelets, bracelets." At one point in the morning Madalyn actually fell asleep in my lap while she was sitting with me which is extremely unusual. I guess it was taking her a while to catch up from the long day on Monday. After her afternoon nap we headed down to downtown Fort Worth where we visited the stockyards. It was really neat. There were a bunch of little stores along the streets and there were even "cowboys" on horses riding along the streets. Mady wouldn't pet the horses though. At 4pm every day there is a cattle drive down the road so that was the highlight of the trip for Mady. The cowboys herded the huge longhorn cattle down the road in front of all the people. It was like a big cow parade. Mady was yelling "hi cows" the whole time and definitley enjoying herself. Daddy let her sit on one of the cows named "Big Jake" and she loved that. I was surprised that she sat on this huge cow but wouldn't pet the little horse. Oh well. After walking around for a while we decided to hit one of the Mexican restaurants in town. So good! I had been craving tacos so it was perfect! It was a good day!

Wednesday:
We relaxed in the morning and gave the kids naps and then Mark's aunt and her son came in the afternoon. Mark's grandma was scheduled to come also but was unable to due to a nasty cold. After they arrived, we spent some time catching up while the kids played in the back yard! Yep, it was still 75 degrees and sunny. Madalyn loved playing on the HUGE swingset with all of her cousins. We then decided to go to a place called Central Market in Fort Worth. It's an amazing grocery story everything you could imagine. A lot of it is fresh and organic. www.centralmarket.com They have a restaurant in the side of it that we had dinner at. The food was amazing. Afterwards, the kids went outside of the restaurant and played on the attached playground while Mark's Aunt Chris and I went to walk through the store. It was so neat to see everything they had. We had fun walking up and down the aisles looking at some of the more expensive things and laughing at the prices. I did buy a few things :) Across the street from Central Market was a big U shaped formation of various stores. We drove through as every tree and every light pole was decorated with a ton of Christmas lights. It was beautiful. Madalyn got a big kick out of the lights! We then rented movies and went home and watched The Bucket List.

Thursday:
Happy Thanksgiving! Mark actually let me sleep in and it was glorious! After I got up we watched the parade with the family and then Chris and her son came over. We hung around and chatted all day and had a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner! It was soooo good! I could've eaten a ton more than I did! We pretty much crashed after that watching the A&M football game! I think Mark and I even went to bed early as we were so tired! Oh, we also said our goodbyes to Aunt Keli and the kids as we were planning to leave extremely early the next morning! It was so sad to leave. We had a great time and really enjoyed seeing everyone.

Friday:
We left the house by 4:45am and were home a little after 7pm. I drove most of the way home. It's funny - I realized that if I was driving then Mady would pretty much stay quiet in the back seat as if not to bother dad. If Mark was driving and she saw that I was "available" she'd would talk, ask for books, want me to play with her, etc. So, I much preferred to drive. And it was great. If she wasn't sleeping then she was just sitting in her seat looking out the window. She did great on both the trip down and the trip back. I was so proud of her! It was also funny as we were driving through Fort Worth and Dallas to see all of the people standing in lines at the major stores for Black Friday Sales. It kind of made me want to be there but that was only for a split second!!!!

Thanks to our family in Texas for letting us visit! We had a wonderful time! Hopefully we'll be able to do it again soon!!!

The Sweetest Thing...

2008-12-06T12:52:00.004-06:00

is when my little baby girl rolls over as we lay in Mommy's bed and reaches out to grab my thumb and falls asleep holding onto my thumb.

Thursday morning Madalyn was doing fine until about 10:30. She grabbed her bunny, Mrs. Bunns, and walked over to me and said "Night, Night." Anyone that knows Mady knows that she never asks to be put down unless something is wrong. I picked her up and held her for a bit and before I knew it she was sound asleep. I let her sleep for about 5 minutes before I tried to wake her up. I wanted her to have lunch before her real nap. I tried everything and she wouldn't wake up at all. I eventually sat her up on my knee - she asked for her bunny, put her thumb in her mouth, and fell over forward sound asleep. I made her some lunch and got her to wake up but she wouldn't eat a thing. I finally put her down for her nap.

About 2 hours into her nap she woke up yelling "mommy, pee pee." I went in and realized that she had peed through her diaper and her clothes and her bed were wet (this same thing happened first thing this morning so this was clothes change #2). I got her changed and realized that she was burning up. It was 2pm at this point. I held her until 7pm that night. She was just sitting on my lap drifting in and out of sleep all day. She had a blank stare to which so I definitely knew she wasn't feeling well. At one point I heard her stomach rumble and the next thing I know I'm getting puked one. We ran to the bathroom and she finished the job in the toilet (this caused change of clothes #3!) Poor thing - i felt so bad for her.

I let her sleep in my bed for the evening as Daddy was out of town for work. I layed her down and reminded her that "mommy is right next to you if you need anything. Just let me know." This is when she rolled over, grabbed my hand, and fell asleep. It was absolutely one of the sweetest things I've ever experienced. There's something about my little girl letting me know that she trusts me and loves me. I can't even explain it with words. I'll never forget that moment!

When we woke up the next morning her fever was gone and she was acting normal and asking for food. It just must have been a weird 24 hour flu bug. Praise God I'm not sick and she's feeling better. It could have been so much worse!

Cheap Gas

2008-12-02T18:10:00.002-06:00

This morning we saw gas at the Meijer in Urbana for $1.49 a gallon! Wow! We had seen it for $1.49 a gallon over Thanksgiving week in Missouri and Mark was actually mad because he didn't get it then. Then we get home and it's $1.49 here!!!!

We filled up our SUV for .... drum roll please.... $28.00!!! Yep, that's right! $28.00!

The most we have ever paid to fill the SUV (when gas was the highest) was $86.00. I'm super glad that the price has gone down... $28.00 sounds so much better!!!!

2 year appointment

2008-12-02T12:16:00.004-06:00

This morning was Madalyn's 2 year old well baby appointment. I made Mark go along with me to take her as I hate being there when she gets shots. I put some goldfish crackers in a bag along with a cup of milk for the post-shots crying fiasco. However, to my surprise she did wonderful.

The doctor went through his different tests. I was sure she would get agitated when he checked her ears and when he checked her mouth but nothing. She just sat there on my lap watching his every move. Then it was time for her flu shot. She was sitting on my lap and I was trying to joke around and make things light-hearted. The nurse wiped her leg with the alcohol wipe (which Mady thought was hilarious) and then she stuck the shot in her leg. Mady didn't even flinch. No tears. No crying fit. Nothing. Just a smile and a comment about her new "bue" (blue) band-aid. So, we made a big deal of telling her how proud we were of her and how she did a great job! She's talked about her "owie" every since we got home and has insisted on wearing no pants so that she can show off her "bue" band-aid.

I was very excited that there wasn't a scene in the Dr's office! No more shots for a while and hopefully she'll do just as good next time!!!

By the way, I should have learned my lesson by now to take a least one diaper and some wipes whenever we go anywhere. I didn't think she would actually poop her pants while we were in the waiting room!!! Good thing the nurses have extra diapers! ha!

Cookie!

2008-12-01T05:38:00.003-06:00

Jenn was gone this afternoon at an Usborne Books show (she's a consultant) so Mady and I hung around the house. I put her down about 12:30. She slept till 2. Woke up with a stinky diaper. I changed her and she slept till a little after 4. She woke up and we watched football and played in the basement.
She started to get a little restless, and she climbed the stairs. About 5 minutes later, I hear this "whack!" that sounded like it came from the kitchen. I waited another 2-3 minutes and I didn't hear any sounds trickling downstairs, which is never a good sign.
I went upstairs to see my daughter sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor, with 1/2 eaten pieces of fudge all around her. (she had pulled the tin off the counter)
I was like "Mady, you don't eat fudge!" And her response was to yell "COOKIE" back at me. "No, it's not a cookie. It's a pound of fudge, and you're going to get sick!"
Well, she didn't get sick, but she did have a tasty snack.

Eggies! Eggies!

2008-11-08T14:25:00.002-06:00

(This might be one of those stories that Jenn and I laugh about for a long time...you on the other hand may not find it that extraordinary, as it might have been one of those "you had to be there" events.)

This morning, I decided to cook scrambled eggs/ham/cheese. It's a favorite of the family and I cook it every couple of weeks.

Evidently, Madalyn likes them...a lot. It probably didn't help that today was probably one of the first times ever that she didn't get a cup of milk when she woke up, so she was probably hungry. I scooped healthy portions for everyone and we dug in. Jenn and I finished our eggs w/ toast and we were waiting for Mady to finish. She was about 2/3 of the way done, and slowing down and Jenn mentioned she was still a little hungry. I reached over, grabbed Mady's plate and started to put half of her eggs on Jenn's plate.

Right when I picked up her plate, Mady's eyes got HUGE and she started yelling "Eggies! Eggies!" I put a few eggs on Jenn's plate, which Mady did not appreciate. I gave her back her plate and she went right back to eating...completely cleaning her plate. Ok Dad, lesson learned. Don't take breakfast from a baby.

A dream come true...

2008-11-08T13:18:00.003-06:00

I think "firetruck" ranks right up there with one of Madalyn's first big words. Anytime we hear any kind of siren, she immediately belts out "Firetruck, Firetruck!" I swear she can hear a siren a million miles away. It's even funny how sensitive Mark and I have become to sirens just because Madalyn lets us know every time she hears one.

This past Thursday, Madalyn and I went to Michaels to meet our friend "MeMe Cole" for a bit of shopping. After we were done and we were walking to the car, a firetruck drove through the parking lot. I rolled down Mady's window so that she could get a clear view of it, and she got so excited... shrieking and yelling "firetruck!" We drove down through the parking lot to Staples where we parked again. As we were walking to the door of Staples.. here came the firetruck again. It was so cute. Mady stopped in the middle of the parking lot waving and telling the firetruck "hi." She was so excited to see it up close.

All of the firemen got out of the truck to and started walking towards the Staples door. I told Mady that we could go down and look at the truck a little closer. We passed on fireman on the way and I told him that Mady wanted to go see the truck up close. The next thing I know he's walking us over and pulling stuff out of the truck to show Mady. She got to touch a fire helmet (she wouldn't put it on!), she got some junior fireman stickers, she got to sit up in the drivers seat and the fireman turned on the lights for her. It was so fun. Her face was absolultely lit up with excitement. It was almost like her biggest dream had just come true. I knew she had an obsession with firetrucks but wow! she loved this! I was able to take her picture with my phone while she was sitting in the drivers seat. Then I took a picture of her sitting on the front of the truck but unfortunately I must have closed my phone before it finished saving and I lost it! Ugh! I am glad that I have a picture in my mind of her huge smile as she was enjoying her time on the firetruck!

We waited outside until the truck drove off. Madalyn was proudly waving and saying "bye, firetruck" as it drove by while all 3 fireman in the truck were waving back at her!

The whole rest of the day all she talked about was the "firetruck" telling me and Daddy that she saw the "helmet" and the "lights." It was definitely the highlight of our day. I am so happy that I was able to be a part of such an exciting experience for her!!!

Loving the Leaves

2008-11-02T18:43:00.006-06:00

Friday afternoon the weather was gorgeous... enough so that we didn't need jackets. I was babysitting for a girl that goes to our church and we decided to take Mady outside to play in the leaves. Mady had never really played in the leaves before then - a few times she would walk through piles of them and kick them but that's about it.

Daddy came outside and started raking the leaves into a pile for the girls to play in. Before I knew it Mady was running across the driveway straight for the pile of leaves. She jumped right in. It was so cute to watch her get so excited. She would run and jump into the pile and then get up and do it all over again. She eventually laid down in the leaves while "Leena" and Daddy piled more leaves on top of her. She was covered up to her chin in leaves and smiling the whole time. Madalyn kept saying "more leaves, more leaves."

Watching her play was definitely the highlight of my day. It was such a joy to watch my daughter have fun and enjoy nature. It did however take a little while to get her out of the leaves to go inside for a nap. And it took a little longer to pick the pieces of leaves out of every crevice imaginable!

Just to show you how much she loves the leaves... Saturday we were getting ready to go down to my moms house and we were loading up the car. Mark said he looked over and Mady was laying in that same pile of leaves... nice clothes, nice coat and all. Silly girl!
She couldn't get the leaves out of her diaper!

I think we've hit that age..

2008-10-22T14:20:00.004-05:00

I have a friend in particular that I'm thinking about when writing this post. She is always telling me stories of how her son loves to wear his costumes around. In fact, she just recently had to take him to Grandma's house in his costume because he wouldn't take it off. I think we're hitting that stage.

I went to my favorite consignment store today to check my balance (I consign with them) and to check and see if they had anything cute that has come in recently. I ended up having a credit so I bought a Halloween costume for Mady. I had purchased a costume for $5 already at a previous kids sale that I had gone to but the husband wasn't too excited about it when I got it home. See, last year she was a baby chick... The costume that I had purchased for this year was a chicken hatching out of an egg. Do we see the same theme here?

When I went to the consignment store today I saw the cutest bumble bee costume. (I was a bumble bee when I was the same age as Mady is now). I tried it on her and it worked perfectly - plus it was $5 ... and that's how much credit I had sitting in my account! Yeah!

We got it home and she went crazy over the thing. It was hard enough for me to get her out of it while we were at the store trying it on but when we got home it was impossible! She wore it around forever! She would look at herself in the mirror and giggle. She was so excited. Then she crawled up in her favorite chair with books and was reading in her costume! We had a time of sadness when I told her that she couldn't wear it to bed for her nap. She hasn't woken up yet but I bet the first words out of her mouth will be "bumble bee" ...
Not only was she reading in her costume, but she also wanted to call Great Grandma Ginnie to tell her what she was wearing. (oh, we're still working on getting her black pants! haha)

A full weekend

2008-10-21T09:40:00.005-05:00

The Bettinger clan is coming off of a super busy weekend. From Friday morning until Sunday afternoon we had a total of 17 people that came through our home. We had some friends staying with us from Thursday night through Sunday. The Sommers moved to Cincy a while back and just recently had a baby boy. So, we were excited to host them and to meet Nathan, their son.

Saturday we had family come up and we all went to Curtis Orchard. My parents had never been so it was fun to show them around. We picked out pumpkins and ate some yummy apples and then came back to the house to have lunch together. It was good to be able to spend some time with family. I also made a huge pot of my grandmas special vegetable soup for dinner - so good!!!

Saturday evening Mark and I went to the Illinois game. It was actually the first time that I had ever been to a night game so I was especially excited to go. We got to see two Army guys parachute into the stadium to start the game which was super neat. Illinois won by a landslide! It was so much fun -- and chilly! By the time we got home the temperature was 49 degrees! I'm wondering how I'm going to survive the Bears game in Chicago in December????

Sunday we had Marks family up for the afternoon. It was relaxing. We didn't do much besides watch football and take a walk.. oh and my 3 hour nap that I took after church was nice too! Sunday evening I hosted an Usborne Book Party which was a blast! I think everyone had a great time hanging out and looking at some really neat books!
Boy were we tired on Sunday evening. I was thankful that Madalyn slept in on Monday! I'm looking forward to a more relaxing weekend coming up...

Praise!

2008-10-14T14:38:00.003-05:00

Ever since my episode in the ER a couple of months back (my PICC IV line causing a TIA - a mini stroke from blood clots that formed), and subsequent ER visits (for a serious peptic ulcer and a lymphadenopathy/hoarseness for 2 weeks), I've been on coumadin (a blood thinner) to help my body deteriorate the 5 blood clots. There were 3 major clots in my veins (jugular, maxillary and submandibular) and 2 other superficial clots.

I went back for a Venus Duplex Study yesterday to have an updated prognosis, and ALL of the clots have dissolved! Praise to God! When I went in for the study, the tech was the same gal that did my original test in the ER. She remembered my situation very clearly. She remembered that when I was in the ER, there were very large clots, that were totally occluding the vessel. Once I started the blood thinners, the Hematologist communicated to me that it would take 6 months to dissolve the clot. The Lord did it in less than 2. I've had a very difficult time keeping my INR therapeutic, hence I've experienced episodes of lethergy and vertigo. Plus, I've had to get my blood drawn weekly (it made me miss a business trip once!) So, it's a relief to not have to worry about that on the schedule. Anytime I can discontinue a medication, I'll take it.

For those of you praying, thank you!!

"Daddy.. D, Y! Daddy.. D, Y!"

2008-10-08T14:29:00.003-05:00

This is what Mady came in the door yelling this morning after we got back from being at the church. Daddy was bombarded with her yelling "daddy, D, Y" over and over again. What she was trying to tell Daddy was that she had helped spell her name in the car. Mommy was so excited at what she had done and kept telling her that we were going to have to go home and tell Daddy. So, Mady was "telling" daddy in her own words.

Let me explain...
Over a month ago, as we were driving to Galesburg to go with Daddy on an overnight trip, I was working with Mady on her letters via a Etch-a-sketch. I would draw letters and tell her what they were. After a while I started writing her name and we would say the letters as we wrote them down ... M - A - D - Y. She would say them as we said them but never really said them together on her own.

This morning on the way home from church, Madalyn kept asking for Daddy. I was explaining to her that Daddy was at home and that we were going to go see him. For some reason I started to spell "home" and have her repeat the letters. Then I went on to her name. I told her to say "Ma-dy" in which she did and then I started spelling it. Here's how the conversation went.

Mom: M
Mady: M!
Mom: A
Mady: A! (pause) D! Y! (spoken very excitedly)

I have no idea how that little booger remembered what letters were in her name let alone in what order. Jeesh!

So, that's what she was running inside telling Daddy about today ... that should spelled the end of her name by herself... D, Y! She was so excited - giggling and clapping her hands!

Up on the rooftop...

2008-10-02T20:21:00.010-05:00

A week ago we started a huge project at our house... Well, I must say that Mark started a new project. Last Wednesday, Mark jumped up on the roof of the garage and started tearing off shingles. Yep, off with the old roof.. on with a new roof!

Let me back up... For a while now, we've been contemplating the idea of putting a new roof on our house. It would really add value to our house and it would look a lot nicer as some of our old shingles were starting to curl. Mark had mentioned his plans to a few people and had gotten a couple of quotes. Long story short, our small group banded together and offered to help us out. What a blessing!!! An email was sent out to all the guys in our small group and before the end of that day a date was set and plans were being made! Wow! Mark and I were speechless!

So, Wednesday through Friday Mark worked both by himself and with a few guys pulling off shingles. By Friday evening all of the shingles were off the house and the garage and ready for new ones to be put on. My job during Friday and Saturday was picking up shingles and nails off the ground that had been thrown off the roof during the tear-off.

Saturday morning at 7am 5 guys showed up and started on the garage. By 8:30am, Menards was here to deliver the rest of our shingles. Some of the wives stopped by to hang out and some even brought food (THANK YOU!) - one wife even watched my daughter all day long so that I could help the guys... which was a blessing in itself. We even had a couple of youngsters here helping me with pickup. We had a few guys that were able to come later in the day too and by about 5:30 that evening the job was done!!! The roof looked great! The guys did a great job!!!

Sunday Mark and I cleaned up the rest of the yard and cleaned out the garage. Mark and I were so sore we could hardly move. But, we were so happy that it was over - and it looked nice!

It just blows my mind about how these guys gave of their day for us. We can't say thank you enough for the huge blessing. We are completely overwhelmed with gratitude!!!
Our old roof
The beginning stages of tearing off
The menards truck delivering shingles - Madalyn had a blast watching
this.
Early stages of the new roof

Working on the house.
Pretty new roof - note the pretty dark brown color.
Pretty new roof on the garage.
Mark decided to clean the garage after it was all over - Madalyn
wanted to help Daddy by sweeping.

Run, Je-nnay, Run...

2008-09-23T13:24:00.003-05:00

This past Saturday I ran my first 5k ever! I had seen this particular fun walk/run listed a while ago in the Champaign Park District Fall booklet and I marked the date on the calendar. I had been waiting for this day for a while.

A brief synopsis of my running background.... well, there isn't one! I have never been a runner or wanted to run. My first (& last) encounter with running happened in junior high. I was on the track team (I have no idea why!) and I ran the shortest relay there was. We had a Saturday track meet at EIU and I remember hopping on the bus to go do my short relay. The coach came up to me and said that one of their mile runners wasn't going to be able to run and she said "Jenn, you can do it. You're going to run the mile today." My throat got tight and I immediately felt nauseous. I ran the mile... well, part of it anyway. I ended up just quitting in the middle and crying because I couldn't go on... or so I thought at that time. So, yeah, I hated running.

Earlier this summer I was encouraged by someone at the church to start running. She said to take baby steps. I would run 1 minute and then walk 3... and eventually I got so I could run a few blocks and then walk.. and on an on. Soon I was running a route that I had establisted to be barely under 2 miles.

I wanted to do the 5k just so I could say that I had run one. My goal was to not walk at all. I had never run more than 2 miles so I was a little nervous about 3.1! But, I did it! I didn't walk at all and boy did it feel good when I was done! I can't wait to run another one! Maybe I'll be able to run a 10k soon????

Madalyn and Mark cheered me on as I left and as I crossed the finish line. Madalyn had more fun playing in the sand box in the park but it was neat to hear her yelling "mommy! mommy!" as I ran past her! It was a great morning and I had sooo much fun!!!

Jesus is her friend.

2008-09-18T10:27:00.004-05:00

Last night we were on our way to church and Madalyn and I were having a dialogue about her friends. She has an array of names that she will ramble off when we talk about her friends... Edie, Emma, Baby Vio, Leena, Abby, Rachel - those are usually the typical ones.

I randomly asked her, while driving, "so which friends will we see tonight at church?" She thought for a minute and then I heard her say "umm... JESUS!" I responded with something like this, "we do learn about Jesus at church and we can meet with him there, but I'm curious which of your friends will be there... like Ally, Ashley..? She responded again with "umm... JESUS!"

Apparently she's trying to tell me that "Mom! Jesus is my friend!"

It was too cute!

A random weekend project

2008-09-16T15:23:00.010-05:00

This past Thursday we had another showing on our house. The next day Mark curiously called the realtor that showed our house and asked if her client had any suggestions on what we could do for improvements. She mentioned that in older homes typically people are looking for hardwood. Mark hung up the phone and I saw him over in the corner of the living room peeling up a corner of the carpet. He excitedly let me know that the hardwood in the particular area looked good. We knew there was hardwood under the carpet but obviously didn't know in what condition it was in. Next, Mark was off in another corner peeling it up to see what was under. And another corner.... I went about by business listening to him in the background going through the scenario that we could pull up the carpet and make our house hardwood because that seems to be a selling point. I didn't think too much about it until I saw him PULLING UP THE CARPET IN THE HALLWAY!!! Apparently Mark got the idea in his head and wanted to get started on the project right now! (this was friday afternoon) By Saturday morning at 9am we had the all the carpet on the upstairs floor pulled up - dining room, living room, hallway. Our bedrooms were already hardwood. We had the tacks and staples pulled up (man, does that make your forearms sore!) and we had it vacuumed and swept and the furniture put back in. Fortunately the hardwood is in perfect condition - 90% of it! We're so thankful. We called our realtor and the first words out of his mouth were "what were you thinking!" Apparently it's a big risk to pull up carpet because you never know what's underneath. The hardwood could have been in horrible shape. But, we were fortunate. We're looking into estimates now on having someone come in and sand it and refinish it to make it nice and shiny! Mark would just do the job himself but I'm worred about the dust and his lungs. I'm thankful that it's livable right now. It's so different having hardwood throughout. It's louder but I definitely think I like it better. It's taking some time to get used to but I think I'm really going to like it. It really makes the room look a whole lot bigger, that's for sure! We haven't put all of our furniture back in yet because we don't want to have to move it twice when the guys come in to refinish it. Here are some before and after pictures....

What all can happen in a 24 hour trip in Galesburg??

2008-09-08T19:55:00.006-05:00

Madalyn and I decided to go with Mark on an overnight work trip last night. He has 3 clients up around Galesburg, IL and he has to be there first thing in the morning (7am) when he visits so that he's able to meet with the night shift and the day shift nurses. So, instead of him leaving at 4:30am we decided to turn it in to an overnight trip. We left yesterday afternoon. We got to our hotel in Galesburg, a Marriott, and got our things up to the room. Mark and I were starving so we decided to go out and get a bite to eat. We had been talking about Outback the whole trip up but when we got to our hotel we found out that there was no Outback... The only "steakhouse" we could find was Sirloin Stockade. It was no Outback. We're just not big fans of buffets and the steak wasn't great. Oh well. I was so hungry I didn't really care.

Things seemed to be going well. Mady was doing a great job in the restaurant. The waitress even commented on how well she was behaving. Very soon after that the excitement picked up (well, "excitement" for us). I went to pick Mady up from her high chair so we could wash her hands and she was soaking wet. I guess with all the traveling and unpacking at the hotel, I had forgotten to change her diaper. We ended up walking back to the hotel (Mady and I) as I didn't want to put her in her carseat (fortunately the restaurant where we ended up was right behind our hotel so Mark drove back and we walked).

We changed Mady's diaper, put on a new swimmer diaper, changed into our suits, and decided to take Mads for a swim in the pool. She had a blast. She loved jumping in and having Dad catch her! It was really fun. Then it was back to the room.. Let me set up this scenario... Hotel bathrooms aren't that big. By the time you open the door, you're basically at the toilet. Well, I was going to the bathroom and Madalyn decided to come right in and play with the door. At that point, dad decides to go ahead and get her and take off her wet clothes and diaper. Ummm... don't mind mom here. So now, we're all three in the bathroom, and the diaper comes off. The bathroom floor is wet so I told Mady to step back on the carpet as I didn't want her to slip. About that time I hear "Oh no, she's peeing." Yep, she peed in the middle of the bathroom floor AND THEN fell in the puddle because the floor was super slick. Oh my. Wow, that was a lot of action and too many people for one hotel bathroom. And of course, Mady thought it was funny so she started running away from Dad, all around the room.

I never knew Mark was so good at making blanket tents. We had a bigger room this time around. We decided to put the pack-n-play over by the door, in front of the bathroom. I was getting Mady into her PJ's and I noticed Mark was over fiddling with her bed. He had that long cover that goes over the end of the hotel bed basically as a decoration. He stuffed one corner behind the mirror hanging on the wall and the other corner was stuffed under the microwave. Then he put a chair in front of the pack-n-play apparently so Mady couldn't see us or the football game that we were watching (or she'd never go to sleep!) From what I hear, Mark's parents did this to him a lot in the good ole days. Now he has that pleasure....

Mark got up this morning to go to his appt at 6am. Mady woke up too and he moved her to the bed with me. Nope, I wasn't lucky enough to have her go back to sleep. She started sticking her fingers up my nose and in my ears and saying "mom-mee? mom-mee?" while I was trying to go back to sleep. I eventually turned on Sesame Street and she watched "Mo-Mo" (Elmo) and "Duck" (Big Bird!) I couldn't get her to understand that Big Bird isn't a duck. She doesn't watch tv at home so this was a treat.

While Dad was at his appts we went swimming again and I'm sad to say that I didn't learn my lesson the first time. She peed again! Yep, as soon as I took that diaper off. This time I won't tell you where it happened... although I will tell you there were no falls involved!

Mads did pretty well on the way home. She slept for about an hour and a half and then we woke her up for lunch. We went to Subway and I had Dad get her out of the car. I was ordering my sandwiche and Mark went to go put her in her seat. She was waddling a little bit as she was walking and then I heard Mark say "oops, I put her shoes on the wrong feet... That would probably be why she's been saying uh-oh for the last couple of minutes." Yep, that would be it! we love you dad!

The adventures of the Bettinger Family in a simple 24 hour period. It was a long 24 hours but I do have to say that it was FUN and that's what we're about. It sure does make for great memories!!!

Another appointment...

2008-09-06T18:51:00.002-05:00

Mark had his appointment with the ENT doctor on Friday. It was originally scheduled for September 11th and then got moved back. Apparently Mark's primary doctor wanted him in earlier because they called on Thursday afternoon and had him come in on Friday. We headed over there not really sure what to expect. We both were a little scared.

The reason that this appt had been scheduled was because of Mark's adenopathy. Basically that's a big word for "large or swollen lymph nodes." His primary doctor was a little concerned because back when Mark was having all the neck pain he also lost his voice. In addition, on the CT scan, they had found some enlarged lymph nodes. Dr. Davison was concerned that there might be something more serious going on. So he sent us to ENT (Ear, Nose, and Thoat).

Anyway, we headed over and the doctor decided he wanted to put a scope up through Mark's nose and then down into his neck to check out his vocal cords and his larynx. It was an extremely uncomfortable procedure for him to go through but he did great. They recorded the procedure on video so Mark could see what we were seeing on the screen. It was actually quite interesting. We walked out with good news. His vocal cords looked fine - no injury there. Good! No polyps or cancerous tumors in his neck. Good! The Dr came to the conclusion that Mark has laryngitis. I googled laryngitis and it said that it is "medical term for inflammation and swelling of the larynx, which is also known as the voice box." There was some redness and irritation around this area and there was some pus or phlem. I know, it's gross! Because Mark is already on a couple of antibiotics right now the ENT doctor just sent us home. He said if he still has voice hoarseness in the next couple of weeks to let him know but that it should subside.

I'm so thankful that it wasn't anything serious! Praise God for protecting us. Now we're working on getting Mark's lung capacity back up! He's started exercising again and is doing treatments to strenghten his body and his lungs! Thank you to all of you who have been praying for him and for our family! We've definitley felt your prayers!