Counting my blessings at 36 Weeks Pregnant

Here they are! My greatest blessings (and Logan, of course, if he ever chooses to grace us with his presence!). Two nights ago Peter found a fun new app on his iPhone and the kids all piled on his lap and around him to play it and watch him and I snapped this picture! How sweet are they? I truly have been so so very blessed! Here are a few more pictures of my darling little kids:

Here's a few snapshots of some recent hairdo's on Maddie. She's such a sweet girl and loves to have me do her hair in some neat way.


I should probably post another enormous belly picture. I've been spending an awful lot of time in my jammies and any other SUPER stretchy clothes as I have grown out of most of my maternity things! Seriously Logan, you are welcome to come out anytime! Today there's an amazing thunderstorm outside so my comfy cozy clothes have been perfect! Anyway, here I am in all of my glorious hugeness at 36 weeks!

I've realized that weekends are my crazy times. Starting every Saturday mid-afternoon for the past month or so, I've started having really painful contractions that continue to get worse and closer together until Monday morning sometime. I don't think I do MORE on the weekends. In fact Peter isn't working so he's helping more with the kids and the housework and so I actually do LESS so I have no idea why things tend to get a little "spicy" in my uterus every weekend. But I've noticed the pattern. Last Sunday was possibly the worst day of contractions I'd had yet. I sat through Sacrament Meeting breathing through my contractions and making sure that no one was moving or breathing too hard next to me. I tried so hard not to let my pain show on my face or in my body language, but I do believe I was in full blown labor at that point! I have had 2 natural childbirths and I felt like I did when I've been at about an 8 when things had to be super quiet and still during my contractions in order for me to concentrate and deal with them. Sacrament Meeting with 4 wiggly kids wasn't the ideal situation for me. At one point Maddie and Emily went to the row in front of us to help Taylor and Jill with their twins and Tyler was out going to the bathroom and Nathan was reading a book on the opposite side of Peter so I decided to scoot in next to him (we'd been bookends for the kids until then) and I started feeling a little bit of relief for a few contractions (which were about 30-45 seconds apart) and then he reached down to help Nathan with something and crossed his legs and I had to put a chair of distance between us because he was too "wiggly". It was pretty bad. Peter made me go home after Sacrament Meeting and taught my Primary class for me (I love my husband). I came home and was going to try to lay down but I was too uncomfortable and antsy. So I decided to pack my hospital bags instead. I realized that if things didn't ease up then we'd end up going to the hospital sometime that day so it seemed like a good idea. I realized that I was running low on whites and decided to put in a load of laundry while I packed things up. Then when I switched the load to the dryer I looked around at my house and realized that I didn't want to leave things messy, so I started to straighten things up just a little bit. After awhile I was so exhausted that I had to lay down. I finally fell asleep just before Peter brought the kids home from church. Luckily Tyler decided to step up to the role of "best son in the universe" and made Macaroni and Cheese for all of his hungry siblings. Then he brought them all down to the basement to play so I could rest a little more. My contractions spaced out to about 2 minutes apart (they'd been about 30 seconds apart for about 3 hours) so I started feeling a little better and decided to make sure that all of the camera batteries were charged and ready to take to the hospital. I started to realize that I wasn't really going to have a baby that day but still wanted to be ready, because if I had another day like that, I was sure it wouldn't stop until he was born. I called my mom and gave her a heads up about how I was feeling and I promised that I'd go in Monday to the Dr. so we could see where things were at so she'd have a better idea of when she should come. We went out to Peter's parents for dinner, and my contractions continued to be super painful but stayed about 2-5 minutes apart, none of this 30 seconds apart business. So I had a little break between them and could rest a little bit and it was bearable. Sunday night I had a hard time falling asleep and I woke up every hour or so and felt that I was still having them pretty painful, and either I was so exhausted that I just zonked out for awhile or they were growing less painful as the night went on. Monday morning I woke up exhausted but feeling a little better. My contractions were about 5-10 minutes apart for most of the day on Monday. I was able to switch my appointment from Thursday to Monday afternoon and I went in and my Dr told me I was not quite dilated to a 1 and I was 70% effaced. The baby was still about at a -2 station. So there was a little bit of progress but not too much. I continued to feel better for the rest of the day on Monday and Tuesday I got even better and Wednesday was great as well. I'm hoping it's the calm before the storm and I'll have a short relief (semi-relief I guess, my contractions are still 5-10 minutes apart, sometimes 2-3 minutes apart, but they aren't as painful) and then he'll be born without another really bad storm and short calm. I'm good with this calm, this is calm enough to have a baby follow! No need to shake things up with another storm! I'd like the next storm to bring us to the hospital and result with a beautiful baby boy in our arms! I'm good with that kind of storm! I guess only time will tell! My mom leaves for Girls Camp this next Monday and will be gone until Friday the 19th (one day after I'm 37 weeks). Then my mother-in-law leaves for North Carolina on Monday the 29th and will be home Saturday, July 4th. So, if you want to know what you can do for me, you can pray that Logan will be born sometime between the 19th and the 29th of June! That's a generous 10 day window we are giving him people!
But really I'm feeling great right now (we'll see what the weekend brings) and I'm getting a lot done these days. We're excited to meet little Logan and I promise to keep you all posted as things get going (or I guess it's already going, so I'll let you know when it escalates to a point that brings us to the hospital).