First Ultrasound

On Monday we went in for my first prenatal appointment. One of the main reasons I chose this doctor, aside from his sterling reputation, was the fact that I knew he does a 10 week ultrasound routinely on all of his patients. He likes to date the pregnancy in the beginning, instead of waiting until the traditional 20 week ultrasound. I was really apprehensive about this appointment. I think in most pregnant women there is a part of your brain that is terribly afraid, however irrationally, that there will be something wrong with the baby that is growing inside her uterus. I am not exempt from this fear, and as the day for my appointment neared, I became more and more preoccupied with the worry that there would be something wrong, or that there would be no heartbeat on the monitor. Thankfully, all of my fears were unfounded, and as soon as the doctor found the baby, he zoomed immediately in on a tiny, fluttering heart. My fears were immediately set to rest, and I enjoyed the rest of the ultrasound a great deal. To my great delight, the baby is measuring about five days ahead of my estimated due date, so the doctor went ahead and moved my date of delivery up by about five days. Just like that, I skipped almost a week! I wish ALL weeks in pregnancy were that easy! Anyway, now we're just in a holding pattern until my next ultrasound which will be in about 7-8 weeks. At that point, we can start making real plans! Ammon desperately wants another boy to complete our family-I would love to give him a girl just to mess with his neatly ordered world.

Happy Birthday Kadon

Yesterday was Kadon's 2nd Birthday. We celebrated with a small family dinner on Wednesday night. We only invited my parents and Ammon's parents, but it was a nice low-key gathering. We decided early on that Kadon didn't need a huge party, and I think we're still recovering from the party we did for Jeremy. We made Kadon's favorite chicken dish for dinner and a lovely salad. We also splurged on an ice cream cake from Macey's for dessert. I wish I could have captured Kadon blowing out the candle on his cake, but this is the closest snapshot I got to that moment. The big gift of the evening was from Ammon and I. For weeks now, Kadon has been trying to climb on his older brother's much-too-large bicycle and go for a ride. Ammon and I made the decision a couple of weeks ago that Kadon needed a tricycle for his Birthday, so the night before his party I went to Wal-Mart and found a Radio Flyer tricycle that is just perfect for him. I posted below a picture of his face when Ammon walked in the door carrying it, and that look of sheer joy made the whole night worthwhile. I'm so proud of my baby!

Birthday Pictures

This is Kadon's face when he saw Ammon carrying the tricycle in. He was so darn excited, and the smile on his face is just priceless. I'm glad that Mary managed to capture this picture with my camera.

So many presents to open, so little time. I'm glad we had the preparation of Christmas a few months ago, he knows just what to do with a wrapped box!

Relaxing Saturday

Today we had a lovely, relaxing, fun day. This morning Russ and Ammon ventured out bright and early in a quest for fresh bagels for breakfast. After a leisurely morning eating the bulk of the dozen they came home with, we left again to go bowling. After a couple of tantrums by Jeremy because he was bored with the wait between turns, everybody had a lot of fun. Ammon opted out of the actual game, as he feared it would be too much on his feet, but he had a lot of fun cheering on the kids and the adults. I bowled a personal best, reaching an all-time low score of 27 points. I'm usually a terribly bowler, but this outing reached all new abysmal depths, and I'm sure it will be a game that will live on in the memory of all who were there. My children bowled more than double my score, the little sprites, which I am unsure whether I find amusing or degrading. On our way home, we stopped at a local butcher shop and picked up some very nice BBQ pork that was on sale today, and had a delicious lunch when we got home. After lunch we read books to the kids, and Kadon took a long, much-needed nap.
After lunch, everybody, including my invalid husband (I was so proud of him today!) ventured outside again to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. In fact, we were enjoying the spring weather so much that after Russ and Mary left to go to the theatre with some friends, we threw together an impromptu (and wonderful) grill party. We grilled hamburgers for the adults, and hot dogs for the kids. It tasted lovely, and we even sat out on a blanket to eat. I am so glad that spring finally seems to be here! The smell of the air, the breeze-it all makes me feel so alive and energized! Autumn truly is my favorite of all the seasons, but spring runs a close second, and today it was in full glory.

Lego Trains

Train Show

The first Saturday that Mary and Russ were here, we took the kids down to Ogden for a model train festival, which was held at the historic 25th street station. We spent hours wandering around the enormous building 'oohing' and 'aahing' over the many model trains that were on display from various vendors. There were all sorts of different scales of trains, from the very common HO variety, to the itty bitty Z scale, which was almost too small to see, and certainly too small to make out any detail! The vendors built elaborate backgrounds for these trains, complete with villages, roadways, and mountain passes. There was one set that even had a real smoking mountain. The mountain appeared to be covered with a forest fire, and with the flick of a button it started emitting smoke from the miniature blackened trees. I attempted to get a picture of this, but my camera mostly picked up the smoke, and made it difficult to see the amazing craftsmanship underneath. I think probably the best part of the train show was a gargantuan Lego train display. The display took up half of a large room, and had buildings, trains, models, and people all custom-crafted out of thousands and thousands of Lego's. I'll post a picture of it below, but the picture I was able to get only captured a percentage of what was actually there, and certainly doesn't do the workmanship justice. After perusing all the little trains inside the building, we made our way outside where the boys (including Grandpa) had a grand time climbing on the full size engines and cars. I did manage to get one good picture of the kids on our way out, but this will be a day that I'm sure will live on in our memories far more vividly than any of the photos I captured.

Update

Ammon's surgery went well yesterday, and in fact was even faster than the first surgery. It seemed like the prep took much longer than the actual procedure, which is always nice when you're very nervous. I read Ammon Trivial Pursuit cards during the surgery, and even though he got most of the answers wrong, I think it kept him just distracted enough to keep him sane. Today he has spent the better part of the day holed up in our room, doing homework and working for Yesco as much as he can from his laptop. His spirits have been relatively good, although one of the side effects of his medication does seem to make him a little bit irritable. I'm so grateful for the medical technology that we have, and that we can at least attempt to get this foot problem of his taken care of, it will certainly make our life easier in the future. I'm imagining walking to the park, playing basketball, and wandering around the grocery store this summer without having to worry about how much pain Ammon is in. Hopefully this surgery will work as well as the last one, and he can start living a pain-free lifestyle very, very soon!

Ammon Surgery

Quick post today: Ammon is having surgery this morning on his left foot. A few months ago, he had the same surgery on his other foot, and it seemed to be pretty successful, so we scheduled the second foot while his parents could be in town to help out. He has this entire week off of work, and hopefully will be able to stay on the couch so that he can recover properly this time. He's pretty apprehensive about it, having already been through it once and being fully acquainted with the amount of pain it's going to cause. Anyway, we're leaving here in about an hour, and I will update as soon as I can. Any extra positive thoughts and/0r prayers you could all spare in the next few days would be greatly appreciated by him, I'm sure.

Fireman Kadon

As I'm sure many of you are aware, Ammon's father, Russ, was a fireman for the state of New York for many, many years. He has many old uniforms that he brought with him to Utah after retirement, and when it came time for Russ and Mary to sell their North Logan home last spring, many of the old shirts, fire hats, and uniforms were doled out to the grand kids to use as dress-up clothes. Unfortunately, Jeremy doesn't seem to be much into dress up (perhaps he isn't old enough yet) but a few weeks ago, Kadon expressed an interest in putting the old uniform on. I tried and tried to get a good picture of him with the hat and shirt, but he really wasn't cooperating. Finally, I was able to snap this shot and one other that I thought did a reasonable job of capturing his cuteness. It was made even more cute by the fact that he continually tripped over the hem of the shirt, and the 'short' sleeves reached down to his wrists. I know I'm very partial to my boys, but I still can't help but think there's nothing cuter than an adorable little boy in an overgrown fire mans outfit.

I admit

Alright, I'm copping to it. In the interest of full disclosure, I am making a concession, readers. I, Victoria Fellows, have become an occasional blogger. It's not that I haven't thought of you, my poor abandoned readers, it's just that the thought has never reached past a vague 'I should probably blog something' state. It's not that there hasn't been anything going on, it's just that by now, I feel as though there is no way that I could catch you up. Anyway, that being said, here is the obligatory list of excuses:
Morning Sickness has been fairly brutal. Not 'puking up your toenails night and day' brutal, but a omnipresent, vague uncomfortable nausea that persists mostly in the morning and evening.
Ammon's parents have been staying with us since the day after I last posted. Therefore, I have been attempting to scale back my computing time to a reasonable amount, so that the in laws don't become about the health and welfare of my neglected children and attempt to enroll me against my will in a self help group.
Pure, old-fashioned, unadulterated laziness. Yes, I have had more than usual going on. Jeremy has been in a daily preschool up until the middle of last week, and we also enrolled him in Karate, which has a weekly lesson. I'm still singing with my quartet on Thursdays, and there have been several church activities that have kept me busy in the evenings. However, aside from all of those things, I could have found time to blog if it was truly a priority for me, but again, in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that it's not.
You, my faithful readers, are on my mind. I vow as a March resolution, to attempt to be more diligent about my blogging. I vow to chronicle my most mundane activity both in photo and word, and post it here for your perusal. Prepare to be wowed.