Happiness

Happy Thanksgiving!! We hope everyone had a happy one! Yesterday morning we went hiking up Sugarloaf Mountain (I had baked some pies the day before- so I was pretty much free!). It was very foggy and kind of cold, so we didn't get any pictures. Thursday afternoon we headed to Craig and Ellen's house. They had lots of yummy food and I brought a pumpkin pie, cherry pie, Mom's famous jello, yams (with marshmallows and Asher said "please pass the marshmallows") and green beans. Ellen made everything else-including homemade apple pie- with the help of Lisee and Mary- and it was all delicious. After dinner we all watched Brigadoon- a classic Thanksgiving movie Josh's family watches- and then pie. Lisee helped teach our kids UNO- we have it, but I had felt they were too young for it- I guess not! We got home, put the kids to bed and I started feeling sick. I thought I had eaten too much but I'm still sick today, so I guess not. It's probably the stomach flu. ...

Volunteering at the school today, I was walking Ethan's class down to the music classroom. I saw a student walking by with an aide who I knew was in Ethan's class. "He's with our class." I said. The student looked at me funny. Maybe he didn't know we were going to music. So I said "Get in line. You can be in the front!" The aide encouraged him and so he came. We got to music class and the students all sat down. All was great until a voice was heard saying "Hey- he's not in our class!" Turns out it was Gicozy- from Jonah's class- that I had been in thirty minutes ago. I can't keep their classes straight- hopefully I can keep them straight! I apologized. He calmly said "I can find my way back." Wow. The things that go on in schools today! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

Elizabeth: "Can I go watch tv?" Me: "No. Let's play hide and seek." Elizabeth: "I've got a good place to hide- in the living room, watching t.v!" That girl is too smart for her own good! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

In an effort not to offend the teller of this story, I won't repeat the story word for word but my friend'srprayer has resonated in my mind for several days now. Upon realizing that something was going to happen that she did not want to happen, my friend immediately went to her knees and prayed: "Please, please don't let this happen. But if it does, help me to feel okay with it." A little while later she felt okay with it. She felt at peace. I love that! I love how she was so humble. Lately I'll pray "please let it not happen" and go about my life crossing my fingers, merely hoping and missing out on the comfort that is available to each and every one of us. Yesterday, after opening the fridge, a jar of spaghetti sauce fell out, burst open (I don't screw lids on tight enough) and splashed all over the floor and Josh's work pants. The kids all stood there in shock. This morning I found myself saying "please, please, let the stain come out...

Running! Jonah liked to pull the leaves over his face and hide and then surprise people. Elizabeth in her jammies, because they had a pajama party at school. Asher Ethan Ever since we moved to Maryland we now deal with tons of leaves! They start falling around the beginning of October and end in November. After the first year of raking, we bought a leaf blower and that has helped a ton with our Maple Oak leaves that are thin and tiny. A week ago we raked all the leaves. We put them into the street and then a truck comes by and sucks them all up. It's pretty cool. All our neighbors were doing it at the same time, so it felt good to get it done! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

Look out world- here comes Stephenie Nielsen! She is my new favorite blogger (although not new herself, since she started blogging in 2005). She is an LDS stay at home Mother with four children who survived a plane crash with her husband in 2008. She had burns on 80 % of her body and her husband had burns on 30% of her body. After several news stories covering the story of her survival her blog readership went from the 100's to 300,000! Just today she offered a free Book of Mormon to anyone reading the blog: i.e. 30,000 people. Isn't that just awesome Missionary Work? I will give anyone who reads my blog a free Book of Mormon too! Leave me a comment and I'll send you one. Oh, and her blog address is: nieniedialogues.blogspot.com This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.

I call this potty training 401 because this is my fourth time potty training and they are all so different. I've been waiting for a week without any activities so that I could stay home all day and potty train. Well, that never happened, so last Thursday, I put Asher in Elmo undies and away we went. He stayed dry most of the morning but didn't really want to sit on the potty either. We went for a walk and I had a little discussion with him. It went something like this: "Now when we get home, you can sit on the potty and if you go pee, I will let you choose any Halloween candy that you want." His eyes got big and then we continued walking. I forgot all about it and thought he had too. When we got home, he went straight to the bathroom. I thought "what is he doing?" Then I remembered our talk. He sat there and nothing was happening. It was about 10:30 and he already had one juice box. I turned the faucet on and he went. YAY! First time. He was surprised! I le...

They gave me an epidural and we were wheeled into an operating room, just in case there had to be a c-section. I was amazed that they wouldn't give me anything more if I did get a c-section: an epidural is strong enough already- wow! Ethan- baby a- was heads down, but Jonah- baby B- was heads up. Often they would just do a c-section if that was the case, but my dr. was willing to try and deliver him breech if need be. An intern wanted to see a twin breech birth so he asked if he could watch. I said sure. We had the dr., the intern, a nurse and Josh all standing around waiting for me to go from a 9 to a 10. Finally, after an hour, of just waiting I was at a ten. It was 10:51 pm Sunday May 16th, 2004. A few pushes and out came Ethan. They whisked him away after showing me him. A few more pushes and out came Jonah- he turned after Ethan came out- and they whisked him away too. They took them to a different room and lots of people started rushing in to the room. I told Josh to go inves...

Twin to twin, continued... Everything progressed naturally. We had an ultrasound once a month to check and see if everything was okay and to watch for twin to twin transfusion. Twin to twin transfusion is when the two placentas are fused together and the twins end up sharing nutrients. Usually one takes too much nutrients while the other takes too little. It can be fatal, so they like to keep an eye out for it. For my twins they didn't know if they were fraternal or not because the placentas were all mushed together and they couldn't tell if it was one placenta that was broken or two placentas fused together. At the ultrasound for 24 weeks everything was fine. Same with the one at 28 weeks and 32 weeks. They were getting bigger and bigger and were almost always the same weight. We never made it to the 36 week one. It was a Sunday, May 16th. I was 34 1/2 weeks along. I had just come from a meeting with the Relief Society Sisters from my ward at Church. They asked me when they sh...

This story is for my friend who I recently re-connected with through facebook. She has identical twin girls who had twin to twin like my Ethan and Jonah had. Her story can be found at (www.ccluv.blogspot.com) Here is the story of Ethan and Jonah's birth: starting at week 20. Josh and I found out that we were having twins at the 20 month Ultrasound (our first one). We already had a sixteen month old girl-Elizabeth and so we knew what to expect at the Ultrasound. Upon looking at the screen, the technician turned it away from us and said " Why are you here?" "Uh, to find out the sex of the baby" was our hesitant reply. "Is there something wrong?" I thought. Why did she turn the screen from us? Is the baby sick? Is it deformed? What is going on??? "Okay," replied the technician "but have you been having any problems with this pregnancy?" "Not really. Just going to the bathroom ten times a day and throwing up more than usual." ...

This morning I volunteered in the classroom. I got to go to Jonah, Ethan and Elizabeth's classrooms- only for a short time in each. In Elizabeth's classroom I picked up her journal that they write in every day. The entry was entitled "This weekend I...". Now, this weekend we went to Trunk-or-Treat, got tons of candy, hit open two pinatas, carved pumpkins, went Trick-or-Treating, went to a Halloween Party, went to Church, had dinner at our Aunt and Uncle's house and finally on Monday (a no school day)- after being tired from a long weekend- went to the gym, McDonalds and the park. Guess what Elizabeth chose to write about? That's right: McDonalds. She wrote (and I'll try to paraphrase here, spelling corrected): This weekend we went to McDonalds. This weekend we went to McDonalds. We went to McDonalds because my Mom likes to eat there. She likes to eat a yogurt cup with strawberries." Wow. Next time I'll choose the option to go to the National Zoo. ...

We had a good Halloween this year: pumpkin carving, trunk or treating, trick or treating plus a party at a friends house! It was fun!!! This is my blog. My name is Megan Abbott.