Another Update

Andrew and his Dad are putting some more mud on our new wall today. They also will be using the left over drywall to finish drywalling part of the garage. After they are done we will only have a 3-4 ft wide section that needs drywall. Not too shabby! This will also open up space on the garage floor. So exciting and ready for the work to be done on the new wall. We still need to prime, add molding and paint the wall. Then we need doors to the new office and a cable jack installed. Lastly, we need to relocate the light fixture in the dining room now toy room. However, the light fixture is the lowest priority. Right now we need to get the new office up and running so we can start on Aidan's Big Boy Room.

I had Andrew take a quick snap shot of me today. One for the memory book. haha...The OB referred me to a cardiologist for some episodes of faintness I have had. They did an EKG in office, an echo in office and sent me home with a portable EKG to wear for 24 hours to monitor if I have any of these feelings. The cardiologist was really nice and said not to worry it all is overkill but he would rather make sure. (As would we!) So, I had Andrew take a picture for the books. I was very happy to take it off. All of the leads were itching me like no tomorrow. Only thing was I had to call Andrew up to help rip them off. I just couldn't do it. I will return it to the cardiologist for review on Monday.

We have chosen a name for our Third Wonderful Little Man. Most already know but for those who don't our third son's name is Daniel Henry. We really wanted to go with the Irish origin names however, there wasn't anyone that stood out. Andrew kept going back to Daniel and I thought of Henry as a middle name. We chose Daniel because we like it and because it is a variation of my Dad's name. We also liked the name Henry and it is a name used in Andrew's Mom's family. So, we figured out last Boy since we couldn't find an Irish name that we wanted needed to have some family type names. Now the hardest part is throwing the third name into the mix. I wonder how confused we get. I often call Aidan Andrew and vice versa. (Hence as why we have to more A, C or L sounding names...) Daniel is a very active boy. I have felt him move for a while now and Andrew has been able to feel him also. With Aidan and Logan I felt them for a good month or so before Andrew could feel them from the outside of my belly. I don't know what Daniel's deal is but I have not yet felt a flutter. Every feeling is a good hard punch or kick. Wonder, if that says anything about his personality. Hmmm...I think we're in trouble. ;-)

Hanging around the house and Numbers!!

Today right before lunch Logan was trying to sit in the Boys Rocker. It was pretty cute. He looks so much like a Big Boy! After lunch Logan went to nap. Aidan stayed up a while and showed us his fascination of numbers. He loves to count and identify numbers. He will ask you to draw numbers too. Well, today he decided to draw numbers on his own. Since he's 2.5 he's a little limited with his abilities compared to us but we were pretty amazed. Amazed enough to want to catch it on multiple videos and write up a blog on it. We sure hope his love for learning keeps up through out his life. The videos get a little lengthy but we want to make sure the Great Grandparents in New Jersey and Ohio and the rest of the family who are not local get a chance to see him "do his thing." :-) (Note: All of the drawing done with a golf club in hand.)

Shake it off...

OK, so tonight Logan needed more to eat before he would fall asleep. Apparently his screaming at the Birthday Party finally kicked up an appetite to override the teething. Andrew was trying to get Logan to "shake it off." Of course he did it more before the camera came on but the first few seconds he does his shake(right around the 18 sec point). The rest is just the typical Silly Logan that we know and love (thankfully it wasn't the screaming monster who accompanied us to the birthday party).

Ansley's 6th Birthday!

Today we headed over to Melanie's again for Ansley's Birthday!! July is a very busy birthday month at their house. The boys are always super excited to pull up to Aunt Melanie's "red door." (Aidan has a thing for colors and numbers. He refers to places by the color of their doors.) The kids bust inside and it's time for partying. The kids had a blast running around together. Logan who was super sleepy, teething and hungry decided to scream probably 95% of the time we were there. Oh well, at least he had some fun! We had dinner and then it was cake time. Cake and present are the kids favorite parts! After we sang Logan decided to make his way upstairs and take over Garreth's train table. This was the happiest Logan was the time we were there. Garreth has TONS of trains. All from the Thomas the Tank Engine series. Logan would just drive the trains on the edge of the train table. I took him downstairs unwillingly so we could eat cake. He ate a few bites and quickly made his way back up their stairs. The kids enjoyed the presents. Tabitha especially liked a pair of shoes Ansley got. They sure are flashy! We took our boys kicking and screaming (like normal) plopped them in the car and home we went. It was a very early night at our house. We ditched nap to head to the party. Kind of nice though, a good bit of quiet time for Andrew and I.

Happy Birthday Ansley!!!!

Aaaaannd Number 3 Is...

THE BELLY AS OF SUNDAY NIGHT:

Baby is quite an active Little Booger. Active enough I can see my belly jump with the kicks. Andrew has gotten to feel Baby moving all around too. So, yesterday we had the screening ultrasound to see how Baby is growing and if Baby cooperates their gender. It felt like we had to wait forever!!! We finally get called back and hit the ultrasound room. We were talking to the Tech and told her of course we want to know the gender but if you tell us the Baby is a girl we're going to be flat on the floor. She starts the scan and there's Baby's Profile with hands near the face. We told her we have two Boys at home and she said, "So you want to know?" Of course we do! We did not really need much help deciphering, but yes there was the money shot and #3 is a BOY!! His heart rate was measuring 151 bpm. His brain looks good, the cord has three vessels and good blood flow. His lungs, kidneys and heart all look great. Right now he is Breech (Logan was too at this point.) Well, he is breech because he is not head down. He is just laying across my pelvis. His head at my right hip and his feet at my left. Wednesday night I when I was laying in bed he got comfortable and I had my hand on my belly and there was a large bump. I made Andrew feel it. Turns out what I was feeling was his rear end. He must be like his brother sleeping with his butt up in the air. He is measuring a little "big" (closer to the dates I had for him being due.) He is perfect. She took some 3D scans of him too. His cord is right in front of his face and he was playing with his hands. It was hard to get good 3D scans of his face because his arms were all over the place. In one his ear looks like a cone. We would see his hand wide open by his cheek, close to a fist, hold one finger up, two fingers up, make a fist, held out his thumb, pointer and pinky (looked a lot like the sign language of "I Love you" and they never stopped moving. Hope you enjoy the Ultra Sound pics! We are so excited. Andrew and I thought we would always have a brood of boys. The little girls dresses are so PRETTY but wouldn't trade our Boys for the world! I am feeling pretty good however, this week had a lot of problems with feeling lightheaded. One time was pretty bad where my vision got dark, blurry and my legs and arms were tingling. I caught myself and sat down. We mentioned it to the OB so they sent a referral to a cardiologist just to make sure everything is fine. The OB said my heart sound fine but just wants to make sure. Her first assumption is that it is a vagus nerve response that can happen in pregnancy. One of the 12 cranial nerves and it when aggravated can case syncope. (Luckily I remembered all of this from college Anatomy and Physiology.Yeah, I am that much of a dork. :) ) I will probably have to wear a portable EKG for 24 hours to see if it picks up an episode so they can be sure it is just that. No worries though. Please enjoy the pictures of our third little blessing.

Logan's 15 Month Check Up

Today was Logan's 15 month check up. It was originally scheduled for earlier in the month but we rescheduled due to the invitation to the beach. Andrew is super busy at work getting his casting equipment ready and has a guy from FL here to help him get the final set up done.
Today I had to take the boys by myself. Usually Andrew comes a long. Of course the appointment was during nap time, both boys fell asleep on the way there. "Don't worry I have a plan!" That is at least what I thought...Aidan stayed asleep getting him out of the car and into the umbrella stroller he went. Logan stayed asleep too and I put him in the Ergo. Then I loaded my purse, the diaper bag and a lunch box (Logan is cutting teeth and refusing food today) onto my shoulder. We were on our way. Both boys started to wake up when I was about 20 from the truck. I wasn't turning back. We made our way inside and the boys wanted to go and play with the waiting room toys. So I put everything into the stroller and they called us back. My sleepy boys were not thrilled with having to give up playing with the toys. Aidan was most resistant since he had to walk. He stayed in the waiting room until he couldn't see me and came screaming into the back. He's two what can I say? We got Logan measured and weighed no problems. Then comes the, "I wanna peepee."-Aidan Aidan used to use public potties no problemo....then he all of a sudden decided that he is deathly afraid of all auto flush commercial toilets. He also automatically assumes that if it is not a home setting then the toilets are loud and flush on their own. He was happy to head towards the bathroom, he saw the door and melted in front of the nurses station. The sobbing and the tears for wanting to use the potty in the car. The Dr. was watching the entire thing and I told him we couldn't go back to the car. The hysterics continued and Logan joined in. I was calm and collected. I pulled out the desperate attempt of, "Do you know Aunt Melanie says Garreth has to use the potty every time he comes here. You know you are going to see Garreth on Thursday. How about you use the potty here and then you can tell Garreth that you used the potty at the Dr. just like him! Aidan's response, "Noooooooo." I was desperate. The Dr. told me she could get a bucket for Aidan to go in. So I asked Aidan if he would do that and I get a teary response of, "FROGGY POTTTTTTTTY!!!!!!!!!!!" I explained the Dr. was ready to see Logan we couldn't go back to the car right now. He was currently face first in the carpet outside the Dr's room. The nurses were taking phone calls and he is hysterical in the background. Luckily you don't get any strange or rude looks. They apparently are used to this. (Me? Not so used to it...) The Dr. was now holding Logan and I picked Aidan up off the ground. He got a hug and calmed down. I then told him he could use a bucket in the room with Mommy and Logan in there. He agreed. Whew! He went potty and very happily took it into the bathroom to flush it and wash hands. Finally we got to start Logan's appointment. About 10 minutes into the appointment Aidan piped in with, "It's not loud. Aidan flush it." Geeez...just like I told him, he just had to experience it to believe me. :-) When Aidan got the pee bucket the Dr. gave Logan a vomit tray to play with full of tongue depressors. I was SO SO thankful for her help. Since Logan never met a stranger he did not really care she was holding him most of the time. Logan checked out fantastically! Not that we doubted he would. He has three molars and the final one is the culprit along with the "I" teeth (canines). When he has teeth coming in he gets fussy, refuses to eat, beats his ears and has yucky diapers. When those symptoms clear up we find a brand new shiny chomper. Logan's 15 month Stats (well, 15.5 month):
Height: 30.75 in (40%)
Weight: 19 lb oz (3%)
Head Circumference: 19.25 in (90%)
Our Logan is holding strong on the skinny side. Which is nice. He is currently wearing the clothes Aidan wore two years ago at 6 months old. :-) Nice to know they were born in different seasons and yet we get the use of the wardrobe!! Wow, we can't believe it has been 15 months since he joined us on the outside. :-) Time flies when you are having fun!

Making Room for Baby

We're a little "strapped" for room for Baby. OK, well we have four bedrooms but right now one of them is used as an office and it's the largest room. We also have recently sacrificed our beloved (not used often at all) dining room to the massive amount of toys. Since we "live" mostly downstairs we keep the toys downstairs and after Christmas had to move our recliner up to our bedroom to make room for all the stuff. After much deliberation we moved the dining room furniture into our kitchen, put the 35 + year old kitchen table from my Parents on craigslist and started moving the toys from the living room into the dining room. When we built the dining room was a combination dining room, formal living. Well, as you should well know....we are not formal! So, we asked for one large room to have extra seating and room to go during family functions. As plans change so do our needs. We have decided to build a wall in the dining room to divide it into the two rooms it was originally meant to be...sort of. We moving our office downstairs to the front portion of the dining room and behind the wall is now the toy room. The toy room is decorated for a dining room minus the toys. In hopes of the day we can move in to a different house with a bigger yard for our crazy bunch of kids and dogs. I have tried to document as much of construction as possible. We are now drywalled as of today!!

We have many pictures of every step. I will hold off on the entire roll of film but will share a few....Big changes are coming at the Rogers' household!!

Oh yes and by the way...I am doing NOTHING. Andrew and his Dad are working super hard and diligently to make probably what is the best most sturdy wall built in our home. :-)

Updates All Around!!!!

Let's see..where to begin...

Let's go youngest to oldest.

Baby #3

Just last night my Grandma Prickett asked me if I have felt baby move at all. I told her, "No." I will be 16 weeks pregnant tomorrow (Tuesday) and then we get home after Garreth's party and finally get to bed...we get to bed late..there are not enough hours in the day and still lots of things left in shambles and undone. So, it was 11-11:30 and sure enough there was Baby #3 wiggling around in there. Not the little flutters, the popping feeling of kicks. Both boys I felt more popping type feelings and after they got a little bigger feel a few "flutters." Baby sure likes to move around. I remember with Aidan I would feel him one day and not the next few (in the beginning) Baby is still letting me feel them today. Next Thursday we find out if Baby is he or she! Can't wait!!

Logan

Logan turned 15 months while we were in SC. He is our little destructive one. Logan enjoy wreaking havoc. No toy left put together, no dish towel left hanging, no dog bowl in the stand, no toy bin left unturned. He thrives on chaos. He is a man of babbling and few words we understand. He does thoroughly enjoy mocking sounds he hears especially others laughing. He and Aidan get to fake laughing and then laughing at their fake laughing and then laughing at each other laughing and so it goes on and on. They have a blast. Logan is starting to play with Aidan more but still mostly entertains himself. He is starting to snuggle more, but mostly especially at bedtime he wants to be in his bed, door shut, and lights off. He may go to sleep quickly or lay there content for 30 minutes then drift off. He laughs at Andrew a lot. He has little fear of strangers or danger. He wants to do everything Aidan does. He waves and says, "Hi" and "Byebye." Hi sounds like Hi but Byebye is a little slurred. He also sounds like he says, "Thank You" if you give him a snack. Logan's voice is very sing song like. Very cute for our Little Bit. He used to say Mama but that is long gone and he loves to say, "Dada" and other D sounds. Next Tuesday he goes in for his 15 month check up look out for stats then!!

Aidan

Today marks the 5th Monday of potty training. Aidan is doing fantastic!! He made the entire trip home from SC with a dry diaper came home went potty and woke up dry! He only uses diapers at bed and nap. We have been able to reuse A LOT, but then there are the nights and naps that he wakes up wet. He currently is waking up after he pee's though.. Those days get a little hairy because he is sleepy from not having a full nap. We are so happy with how well he is doing. Aidan is speaking more clear every day. He LOVES to sing and sing loud too! He claps and dances almost all day. He loves golf, baseball and being outside. (Logan loves outside too! He cries every time we bring him in.)

Andrew

Andrew works long hours. I know a lot of people are away from home 10-12 hours a day with commute, but Andrew is gone that long and the commute is 5 minutes. He is pretty burnt out when he gets home and so are the boys. Some evenings are just unpleasant with all the fussing. I feel bad for Andrew because some days he only sees the boys when they are exhausted. Andrew gets called in on the weekends too. When he has to go in it is because there is a problem to fix. So, not a good thing for him. It is very stressful. If he has to go in he tries to go during nap so he doesn't miss too much time with the Boys. Andrew doesn't have much free time on his hands just having the time to mow the lawn or change the oil in the cars is like finding a needle in a haystack. When he is home we like to spend all our time together.

Carrie

I am home with the boys and missing Andrew a lot of the days. I am finally starting to not feel like death. It only took 16 or so weeks to start feeling "normal" again. I am still super tired. Otherwise just very happy to finally not be so sick feeling. The laundry(it's all clean but not folded or put away) has built an army against me in the sick time so I am trying to dig out of the rut. Luckily my Mom came over and helped me with the boys and folded all the laundry with me. Now to get it put away! We are excited for the next week and a half. We are hosting a Co-ed Bridal Shower for Phil and Emily on Saturday. Then Thursday is the big ultrasound where we get to check Baby's growth and see if they will cooperate so we can find out who is in there!!

Garreth's Birthday!

The summer months are busy with Birthday's in our family. Lots of great people to celebrate! Today is Garreth's 9th Birthday! We headed over to their house after nap. The boys are still pretty zonked from the beach. We started up the steps at Melanie's and Logan just started kicking and laughing. He just couldn't wait to get inside! Aidan was obviously in the door before us. The boys LOVE playing with their cousins. We got quite a few pics and one video. Garreth got a bean bag chair which like for most kids came in a killer box! The kids had a blast. How many kids can you squish into a box???! I don't know, perhaps you can count...also turn the speakers down on your computer. The decided with the excitement to increase the decibels a few louder than normal. It doesn't quite capture the experience but close. :-)

Here's a slide show of the festivities. The kids all play together so well. It's really nice. We'll see how it works out when the younger ones get bigger. hehe.

Last Few Photos and Videos

The Remainder of Vacation

Thankfully we are getting sleep with no fire alarms on the fritz...WAHOO!! We decided to take a day to head down to the pool which is right outside our building. Our balcony over looks the pool. The plan is that it will be so nice to take the day and be right outside our room. Easy for lunch, close for potty (since Thanks to WalMart's auto flush toilets Aidan is now freaked about toilets that are not in a home setting), and whatever we need close by. We had a nice time for about 45 minutes when someone came up and informed us that Health Department tested the pool water and it had to be closed for 2 hours while the chemicals were adjusted. FANTASTIC! We kept our vacation attitude of what ever comes comes and picked up our things and trekked to the beach. Spent an hour or so on the beach and headed to the room for lunch and naptime. Not too shabby! We tried to spent the most time at the beach since we pay to use a pool at home. The boys enjoyed it. Logan loved knocking down sandcastles and dive bombing the ocean. Aidan enjoyed playing with other kids. Having a Brother is nice but they do not seem to count each other as "other kids." Aidan would walk up and sit down next to a group of kids playing and play. Logan would walk up to anyone and everyone just to say , "HI!" We spent another day at the pool, OK well we did not get out of the room until 4P that day but spent the time up until dinner at the pool. We got to meet a lot of people. Logan had a little boy who enjoyed entertaining him and Logan was eating up the attention. Very cute. We had a real nice time. Bedtime with Aidan is still sketchy but getting better. We talked to Aidan and it turns out he was pretty homesick. So we asked him if he wanted to spend one more day on the beach and then head home after dinner. Aidan's response, "OK!" It was very enthusastic. The promise of going home seem to calm him a bit too and in returm calmed Logan. The spent a lot of time this week feeding off of each other's emotions. Our last day was WONDERFUL! We had a breakfast and then packed our stuff to take to the beach. Andrew and I took an initial trip without the kids to take the tent and chairs. Then we got he boys ready and headed down. We spent a couple hours out there and the kids had a blast. Aidan played with Nana in a tidal pool. Logan wrecked sandcastles and played in the ocean. Aidan then asked to come in for nap. We packed up the boys to head to the room for lunch and nap. While the boys actually refused to nap, we packed up our belongings got showered and finished the night out at dinner. The restaraunt was nice. We ate outside on the water, tooks some photos, enjoyed our food and bought a few momentos. Thanked Nana for the vacation and headed home. We hit some traffic, thunderstorms but finally made it home by 1:30 am. Aidan woke up for us to pull in the driveway and was happy to go right upstairs to his bed and go back to sleep. Whew! What a nice vacation, eventful but we had a great time! But as Dorothoy said, "There's no place like home!"

Videos from SC

Hello from Hilton Head!! We had a most eventful first night here. Luckily last night was a much calmer quieter night. No strobe lights with alarm sirens sounding. Was it the entire building you ask? Oh no, just our room. We are in an ADA compliant room. We have now learned wiring for a fire alarm in a room like this is separate of the entire building and on it's own circut. Around 1am Monday morning Kate, Andrew and I were awoken by blinding light, sirens ringing at amazing decibels with a flash of darkness mixed in. We couldn't see where we were going, we couldn't hear ourselves and could not turn the alarms off. It went off for about 3-5 minutes. We walked outside it was only our room. Then as suddenly as they turned on they turned off. Luckily the boys slept though it all. Kate, Andrew and I all had a deer in the headlights look and tried to put our hearts back into our chests. Kate said she would be on the phone in the morning. So about 1:10a we all settled back down and climbed back in bed. Andrew told me he was trembling from shock. I was about to crawl back in bed when the crazy thing went off again. This time it lasted for almost 30 minutes. We're running around like fools. Aidan wakes up hysterical. I picked him up and carried him shirtless in a diaper outside. I yelled at Andrew (because we couldn't hear otherwise) to check on Logan. Andrew couldn't even see Logan due to the strobe lights. He had to turn on a lamp to be able to see Mr. Logan sleeping sound as can be. Andrew brought him outside and he woke up from the outdoor lights shining in his eyes. Meanwhile, Kate is in the room of doom on the phone with the front desk. Andrew and I saw the staff coming flying in on a golf cart. Those two guys were great help. They couldn't figure the alarm out either but saw the boys and started finding somewhere we could go that wasn't outside. They called the front desk and said we had two small kids the front desk needed to do something right away. They got us situated in the break room and realized they could not get the alarm to stop. They then found a vacant room for us to stay in and told us they needed to call the fire department to turn off the alarm. So here we are in a room waiting and hear the sirens of the trucks then the pull up to the building. Not much longer we hear from the staff they psycho alarm went off before the Fire Department got there. This means the fire department couldn't see the problem. We could stay in the quiet room or go back to the scary room. We opted for the quiet room. Aidan freaked out when it was time to head to bed. We had to have a light on, doors open...Then he needed a smoothie. So I went down four floors to the crazy room and made a smoothie. He finally calmed down. Andrew layed with Aidan and I was with Logan. Well, Logan likes dark to sleep. I heard Andrew and Aidan fall asleep and turned off the lights, closed the door and finally at 3:41a Logan had his eyes rolling in the back of his head . Thanks goodness for an end to the night. Logan then proceeded to "wake" up crying. He was not really awake but was screaming bloody murder. I would calm him down and he would rest for what felt like two or three minutes. By 7:15 the four of us were out in the living room. We all then headed down to the scary room to have some breakfast and let the boys play with their stuff. Now the fun part for Kate came. Trying to figure out what to do. She headed straight down to the front desk. Long story shorter, they realized we had a main alarm. When that went on the fritz it set off the other two. We are in an ADA room. Apparently code is to have them on their own circuit of alarms. Which is why only our room was going nuts. The main control panel did not show the alarm because of a low battery and the main alarm was fried. Two nights of good sleep later we feel pretty confident they were right. It made sense to us. Aidan now refuses to go to bed without the lights on. What can you do. Our first day at the beach was a bit of the bust due to exhaustion however, we have had a pretty darn good day yesterday. We're making breakfast right now and will be heading to the beach not long after!! Here are the videos we have taken the first ones are from the Fourth of July and the rest are from yesterday. Aidan kept walking up to other kids and playing with them. Luckily the other kids don't mind. :-) Oh yes and today, "HAPPY 15 month BIRTHDAY LOGAN!!!"