Joanna is born and Jack update

To start off, our little girl was born! Joanna Kate Pulido was born Wednesday, December 19, at 12:12 pm. She weighed 7lbs 9oz and was 19 inches long. I went in at 7am to be induced and they said I wasn't in true labor til about 8am. When Jack was born, I did it all naturally but this time I decided to get an epidural. One time with that kind of pain was enough. So about 9:30 the dr came in and broke my water. At about 10:30 I got the epidural put in. It seemed to help at first, but then the contractions got really strong and it wasn't helping as much as I expected. They said that the baby's head must have been on a nerve or something, so that's why I was still feeling so much pain. Yes, it was quite painful and I really had to concentrate with Kyle's help, but at least I was able to think and relax a little bit between contractions. With Jack, I was pretty delirious and couldn't think straight. It all seemed to go so fast and before I knew it, it was time to get this little girl out. With only one push, little Joanna "Joey" was out and screaming. It was a quick labor, and I am loving every minute with our little girl. She is such an angel and she looks just like Jack did when he was born. Jack has been a pretty good helper with Joey. He tries to help me change her diaper and hold her bottle (when she takes one), but he has his times where he tells me "baby down" and points to the floor. Over all he's done pretty good with her. And if you ask him "what's your baby sister's name?" he will say "Joey". He's one smart cookie!

Now while all this excitement was going on with the birth of our little girl, there was also some not so exciting things going on. To start from the beginning...About a month ago, we were playing with Jack and Kyle noticed a funny bump on the side of Jack's stomach. It was something inside him sticking out. It was a Saturday so we decided to take him to the pediatrician on Monday. I took him down and the dr wanted to have an ultrasound and blood work done. Come to find out, Jack has a mass on his liver. So we met with a surgeon and he wanted a cat scan and more blood work. And to make things harder, Jack was admitted to the hospital the day before I was scheduled to be induced. Thank goodness they let him go home that same night so we could all be together for the new baby's birth. Unfortunately, I got a phone call with the results of Jack's blood work not long after Joanna was born. Some levels were high and it was a pretty good indication that things were not good for Jack. Needless to say, it was a very difficult day. I was very excited for the birth of our second child, but I was incredibly worried about Jack. At least we got to enjoy Christmas at home as a family. The day after Christmas, Wednesday, Jack was admitted back to the hospital. Another cat scan was done and we now just had to wait for the rest of the day. On Thursday Jack had to have a biopsy done to see if this mass on his liver was benign or malignant. About 1:45 Jack went back for surgery and we just had to wait. Waiting was very difficult for me. Finally the surgeon came out and told us some very difficult news to swallow. They wouldn't have final results for a few days, but they were pretty sure just from the surgery that the mass was malignant. Kyle and I were bracing ourselves for this news, but it was still hard to hear and accept. After everything that Jack went through just last year with Kawasaki Disease, he has more to endure. Jack is still in the hospital and we are being given loads of information about the coming days. It's going to be quite an adjustment and challenge for our little family, but I think we will somehow be ok. So if you are reading this post, please pray for our family. Pray that our new little girl will be strong and healthy. Pray that our little boy will have the strength to endure this new challenge. And pray for Kyle and I that we will be the parents that our children need us to be at this time. I love my family and I am grateful to be a wife to a loving and supportive husband, and to be a mother to two beautiful children.

Getting Ready for Christmas

To start off, I'm now 37 1/2 weeks pregnant and so ready for the end. Every day I feel uncomfortable and ready to burst. But the end is near! If nothing happens before the 19th, I'm going in to be induced. The countdown is on! 10 days to go!

Moving on... It has been a little while since we had a family pic, so this is the latest one. It's hard to see our Christmas tree behind us since I pretty much cover half of it myself! haha. Christmas is coming so fast I can barely keep up with everything. We put up our tree and put presents out and Jack is so excited. Everyday he runs over and wants to have a birthday party. He will pull a few presents out from under the tree and look at you like "is it time to open it now??" Of course we have to help him put them back and tell him that we have to wait, but you can tell that he is excited for those presents.

Jack is potty trained (for the most part anyway), so he has a funny pee-pee and poo-poo dance. I know the video is sideways, but it's still pretty funny. Whenever he goes in the potty he has to pretty much announce it to everyone around. I'm just glad we don't have to buy diapers for him anymore.

Jack, as any boy does, likes to play rough and be loud. Since I'm so pregnant, it's hard for me to really play with him how he wants to. So Kyle and Jack do a lot of wrestling and they make a lot of noise! At least Jack is having fun though.

Yesterday I was wanting to decorate Christmas cookies with Jack. We got some sugar cookies shaped like Christmas trees, bells, and stars, and also got some frosting. Last night Jack was so excited to have cookies and wanted to do it all himself. I helped him put the frosting on the knife, but then he put it on the cookie and even put some sprinkles on. He only did a couple before he started eating one, but at least he had fun. We still have more cookies ready to decorate, and I'm sure he will be wanting to do more once he sees them.

35-36 Week Pregnancy Update

Right now I'm a day away from 36 weeks, and this pic is at 35 weeks. I'm a little late on updating, but it's been busy with Thanksgiving. We are getting so close to the end and I'm so anxious! I'm so uncomfortable and haven't been getting any sleep at night. Both Kyle and I are just ready for our little girl to come. The doctors say she's ahead on her growth, so let's hope she decides to come early. 

Trick or Treating

Yesterday was Halloween. As I mentioned before, Jack was dressed up as a lion. He was so excited to get in his costume and go out to get some candy! We just walked around the neighborhood a little bit and everyone thought he was so cute (of course!). He got a pretty good amount of candy and was happy to have a piece of chocolate when we got back home. Another successful Halloween :)

Happy Halloween!

Last Friday night was our ward Trunk or Treat. This year, Jack is a lion. He has a great growl and everything! We got to the church building, had chili and hot dogs, and then all of the primary kids did a little parade in their costumes. The primary presidency gave out prizes for different types of costumes and Jack won the "fuzziest" costume. 

 While everyone was eating and chatting, there was also a policeman with his dog and a fire truck for the kids to go and see. Jack didn't want to get in the fire truck, but he sure enjoyed looking at it. The firemen even had their own bag of candy that they handed out to the kids. 

Of course at the very end was the best part of the night... the trunk or treating! Jack has become an expert on manipulating people to give him more candy. He doesn't just hold out his bag for you to put in candy. He will actually grab it either from your hand or your bowl and ask for more! And with him being so small and cute, he usually gets another piece. I guess the trunk or treat party was a good practice for walking around the neighborhood tonight. (Hey, more candy in Jack's bag means more candy for mom and dad too!) 

 On Monday night, we carved our pumpkin. Jack didn't want to get his hands dirty and help pull out all the insides, so he just ate popcorn and watched Kyle and I do it. Once it came time to actually carve, he sure wanted to help. It was a simple face on the pumpkin, so Kyle helped him carve out a little bit. Once we were done, he really enjoyed looking at it. Now every time we walk past it outside he has to stop and look at it.
Well today is Halloween so I hope everyone has a safe and fun night tonight! Enjoy your candy!

Pregnancy update, Dancing in the Rain, and Temecula Adventures

So far this pregnancy, it's gone by pretty fast. Each week is flying by and I forgot to post my last picture. So to catch up on the progress, this first photo was taken at 25 weeks. The baby is growing quite nicely, and actually looks like she's about a week ahead of schedule. Let's hope it stays that way!

 Now, this second photo was taken yesterday which means it's 30 weeks! We are in the home stretch now. A couple of weeks ago both Kyle and I got pretty sick. We think it was something like a flu bug. I was up a good part of the night, sick. And at around 5:15 am, I started feeling some pretty bad contractions. We waited a few hours until my dr. office opened and they told me to head down to the hospital, just to check things out. We got to the hospital and I was really dehydrated. They had to try both hands to get the IV in and in short... it was not fun. They monitored the baby and I was having contractions about every 2-3 minutes at first. Since I was only 28 weeks at the time, they gave me some medicine to stop the contractions and keep the baby from going under any more stress. Well, after a few hours I was feeling better and we got to go home that afternoon. Everything is ok now, but being sick like that while pregnant is not something I wish to go through again.

 Last week it finally decided to cool off here in Southern CA and we got a little bit of rain. Jack saw the rain coming down out the window and immediately wanted to go out and play. We weren't out there long, but he had fun running back and forth while getting wet in the front yard.

 Last Saturday, Kyle, Jack and I took a drive out to Temecula. There is a pumpkin patch out there that looked more like the ones you see in TN, so we decided to go check it out. Now the most direct route to get there from where we live is to go through the mountain. Anyone who has ever driven through a mountain knows what those roads are like. They are windy and there are a lot of ups and downs.

Well we left the house at 8 am since it's about an hour drive out there. Before we started on the windy roads, Jack had drunk a bunch of milk (he is such a milk junky). We made it all the way through the mountain, and down into the city when we heard Jack let out a huge burp. Kyle looked back at Jack and he looked ok for the moment. A few seconds later, the car was filled with a horrible smell. We looked back at Jack again and this time saw our poor boy covered with vomit. We immediately pull into a parking lot and pull him out of the car to clean him off. We are pretty sure that by him drinking all of that milk, and with the windy roads, his stomach just couldn't handle it. As soon as we pull Jack out of the car, he is standing there crying while I'm doing my best to clean him off with baby wipes and Kyle is trying to clean off the car seat with the wipes as well. There was a Carl's Jr in this parking lot so Kyle went inside and got some plastic utensils and a coffee stirrer to try and dig more vomit out of the car seat. He then ran inside the grocery store next door and bought a car air freshener. I had stripped down Jack so all he had on was a diaper. Since Jack is almost 2 1/2 years old, I don't bring an extra pair of clothes for him like I would when he was an infant. So there we are in a parking lot an hour away from home with no extra clothes. Thank goodness there was a Target not too far down the road. We finished cleaning up the best we could, got back in car, rolled the windows down, and tried our best to not suffocate with the horrible smell. We went into Target, found a shirt and a pair of pants for Jack, and also got some Febreeze to spray all over the car. With both the hanging car air freshener and the febreeze, the car was much more enjoyable to ride in than ten minutes earlier.

So after all of this chaos, we drove around Temecula a little bit and made our way to the pumpkin patch. It's in the middle of wine country, which I thought was beautiful setting. Right off the bat I was having more fun than going to a pumpkin patch in an asphalt parking lot.

 The first thing we did was go and watch the pig races. There were 4 pigs racing at a time and they were actually pretty quick! Jack was making his little pig noises and had fun watching them race.

 Next we went and rode the "train". Jack had been talking the whole day before about riding the train, so we definitely couldn't miss it. It wasn't a real long ride, but we rode around the corn maze and that was good enough for Jack.

 After the train ride, we walked through the corn maze. Kyle and I just followed Jack so we ended up in a couple of the dead ends. We eventually made it out, but following a 2 year old made it a little longer than expected.

 Next up...the petting zoo area. There were little goats, sheep, a llama, bunnies, pigs, and horses. Jack only pet the goat and the sheep a couple of times, but mostly just enjoyed walking around and looking at all the animals.

 Once we were done seeing the animals, we walked around all the pumpkins, let Jack sit on a tractor, and took a few fun pics.

 The last stop of the day was listening to some music. Jack loves music so he liked watching them play for a few minutes.

 After the pumpkin patch, we had to head right back home. We were hesitant to go back through the mountain, but because of the time, it was really our only option. So we said a prayer for Jack, and made our way home. The last thing we were able to see while going up the mountain was a nice view of Lake Elsinore.
Thank goodness we got home without any more chaos, and we were able to enjoy the rest of the day.