The Cathcarts

I can’t believe that I’m already 25 weeks along in this pregnancy.  That means that I am nearing the third trimester.  Holy Cow, where does the time go?!!  I’m feeling really well so far.  I still have a lot of energy; however, this past week breathing has become an issue.  I find myself out of breath with the littlest tasks, which also makes chasing after Jaxson a little more difficult too.  We have started working on the room switching that will be going on.  We got the office/spare bedroom cleaned out.  We just need to put the ceiling fan up and do a little touch up painting and then Jaxson will be moving into there.  Then we will be throwing the nursery back together the same way it was with Jaxson, just with a different name on the wall, which by the way is probably going to be Holden.  I found the name Holden one night while searching thousands of names on the internet and brought it up to Brad.  Surprisingly enough, he had thought of the name also and liked it.  I like it because it’s different and you really can’t shorten it any way to make a nickname. 

Our good friends Mike and Brandy welcomed their third son, Gavin, yesterday morning.  Brandy had a home birth that went fantastic and everyone is doing well.  Jack and Benjamin seem to like their baby brother so far.  We got to see the newest Case Haub this evening and he’s adorable.  Jaxson seemed to like "Baby Avin" too.  I asked him if he wants a baby brother like Gavin and he said, "No, I want two baby brothers."  Oh boy, let’s just start with one for now. 

Gavin McCall Case Haub

Jack and Benjamin loving their new baby brother.

Another great weekend has come and gone.  On Saturday, Brad had another neuro conference that he had to attend since he arranged most of it.  Luckily this one was in town, so not much traveling involved.  That evening, we had some friends and neighbors over to watch the Iowa game.  Sadly, I couldn’t stick around to have any fun because I had to head off to work. . . duty calls.  It sure would have been a fun game to see as the Hawks pulled off a huge victory against Penn State.  On Sunday, Brad took Jaxson back to Gowrie for the day.  Papa, Nana, Brad, and Jaxson all took the boat to Twin Lakes for a little boat ride.  From the stories that I hear, Jaxson got to drive the boat and boy has that made his year!  When I picked him up from the Kid’s Room today, the girls that work there were telling me how they heard all about how Jaxson got to drive the boat and how he drove it through waves and splashed.  It was also the first thing that Cy (our neighbor) heard about when coming home today.  I think he had some fun.

The end to a fun weekend.

We left Monday evening to go to Iowa City so that Brad could attend a neuro conference on Tues. and Wed.  We weren’t quite sure how Jaxson was going to do considering he was already asking where the hotel was when we hit Altoona.  It was totally one of those "Are we there yet?" moments.  Then we got to our exit and he says, "Jaxson want to go home."  Oh boy, this might be a long couple of days.  He was excited when we got to the hotel.  On Tuesday, Jaxson and I started off our day at the hotel pool.  It wasn’t that exciting because we were the only ones there, so that only lasted about an hour.  Then we got ready and took off for the mall, where we spent the remaining of the afternoon.  Jaxson enjoyed riding on the toys and the carousel and playing in the play area.  That evening, after Brad got out of his conference, we went to Clint and Rachel Hinderaker’s house.  Clint and I graduated HS together and Rachel was just a year younger than us.  They have two little girls, Rebecca is 3 and Hadley is 1.  They lived within walking distance of our hotel.  Rachel made us an awesome supper of chicken parmesan and the kids had a great time playing together.  Jaxson and Rebecca got along very well and Hadley just liked watching the two of them.  We had a great time visiting and talking about past times.  Then on Wednesday, once Jaxson and I got everything loaded up, we headed back over to Rachel’s house to play some more.  We took the kids to McDonald’s for lunch and then to a park afterwards.  We let the kids burn off their lunch.  After Brad’s conference, we stopped by the hotel and picked him up and headed for home.  Jaxson was so tired that I think he only said maybe five words on the whole way home.  We had a great time, but as always, it was nice to be home.  Thanks to Clint and Rachel for being a great host and hostess to us while in Iowa City.  We had a great time!

We had to get a picture with Herkie for Daddy.

Riding with Bob the Builder at the mall.

Jaxson and Rebecca getting ready for supper.

Watching the ducks at the park.

Brad and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary today.  Happy Anniversary Honey!  See, I knew we could make it one more year. . . let’s try for another   Anyways, I was lucky enough to have our anniversary fall on my weekend off of work.  We celebrated by going to the Iowa game in Iowa City on Saturday.  We had fun tailgating with our friends Jason and Brandy and some of their family.  The game was a lot of fun since they beat Arizona, but boy was it a hot one.  We would like to know who the idiot was that decided to make it "blackout" Saturday when they knew it was going to be a hot one, but then I decided that we were the idiots for going along with it.  While we were at the game, Jaxson was at home with Nana Kris.  She was pulling double duty by also watching Brady.  Papa Steve came down later on to help out.  I think they all had a good time.  Today, Mom, Grandma and Wendy came down to make a run to Costco.  I always end up leaving there with way more than what was on my list when I went in.  Oh well, you usually get good deals and it’s good food.  We came back here and had some lunch and then all headed to Ames for Kade’s football game.  So far his team is 2-0, which is two more wins than they had last year.  It’s a lot more fun watching him win this year.  After the game we rushed home and got Jaxson off to Jack’s house so that we could enjoy a nice meal out for our anniversary.  We ate at Cosi Cucina and had a fabulous kid-free meal.  After our nice meal, we went to Target (of course), and actually got a good start on Jaxson’s Christmas presents.  It was so relaxing just walking around the store without worrying about Jaxson breaking something or throwing a fit, so we took advantage of it.  Now it’s home for a few hours and then off to Iowa City until Wednesday. 

Here come the Hawks!

Another Hawk victory.

Jaxson and Devon at Kade’s game.

Buddies

Our annual anniversary picture

Dr. Hoegh called me at home today to talk about my situation and whether I should do a C-section or natural birth and what would be the safest for me.  First of all, I have to say how impressed I am with him.  I’ve only heard good things about him before, but now I love him myself.  After reading through my chart, he decided that we could probably discuss everything over the phone, rather than me coming in for an actual appointment.  I didn’t even think that doctor’s did this anymore.  This saved me a copay, a trip to Ankeny, and having to find a sitter for Jaxson.  Triple bonus!!!  So his recommendations were that I get another ultrasound at 37 weeks to see how big this baby is.  If they think he is going to be >9 lbs at full term, then he recommends just doing a C-section to prevent a reoccurance of my last delivery.  Now if I was a betting woman, I would not bet that this child will be 9 lbs or bigger.  So I hope to go with option #2.  If he is <9 lbs, then he recommends doing an induction no later than 39 weeks with an epidural.  This would allow us to have more control over the situation and the epidural would hopefully make things go a little slower than they did last time.  I feel really good about his advice because it is giving us a little more control over things than we had last time; however, I was eight days early with Jaxson, so who’s to say that I don’t go eight or ten days early with this one, which then puts the plans for an induction out the window.  If I could hold out until the induction date, it would also calm my fears about what we are going to do with Jaxson.  With an induction date and time set, I could have somebody arranged to come stay with him, instead of calling someone at the last minute, while in labor, and hoping that we can still get to the hospital on time.  I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Oh, the excitement is never ending.

Peyton, Jaxson, Morgen, and Miah

Our weekend is always good when the Hawks win.  Hawk win = happy husband = happy wife = happy home.  Brad woke up very early on Saturday morning to go to Ames and tailgate with Ben and Tina.  Ben has season tickets to the Cyclones and Brad has season tickets to the Hawks, so they have a deal between the two of them that they always take the other one to the game when the two teams play each other.  Brad left very happy with a win over the Cyclones 35-3; I’m sure Ben wasn’t too happy.  Jaxson and I went over to Ann’s parents house to watch the game.  Miah and Jaxson played while we all watched the game and enjoyed Matt’s chicken wings.  It was a lot of fun watching the game with them because Matt and Ann are Cyclone fans and Ann’s dad is a Hawk fan, so her dad and I had fun giving them crap throughout the game.  I had a good weekend at work and now looking forward to my two weeks off.  It just happens to fall on our anniversary weekend.  We are celebrating by going to the Iowa game this weekend, which will be the only game I go to this season.  Then on Monday evening, we are heading back to Iowa City because Brad has a neuro conference Tuesday and Wednesday.  Jaxson and I plan on hanging out at the hotel swimming pool, going to the Children’s Museum, and getting together with our friends Clint and Rachel Hinderaker, who live right by the hotel we are staying at.  So I am excited for the fun things we have planned. 

We’re #1!

Awwww. . . good friends

We have been having such beautiful weather, so we’ve been taking full advantage of it.  Today, Jaxson got his Chicago Bears bike back from the bike shop and is now a professional cyclist. . . OK, maybe not quite, but he’s good.  Why was it in the bike shop you ask?  Well, not even 24 hours after opening his present from Papa Mike and Nana Pam, I backed over it with the truck and ruined the seat, rear wheel and one training wheel.  We had just put it back in the garage when Miah came over, so of course Jaxson had to get his new bike out to show Miah.  Well, I didn’t know that he had taken it out of the garage and placed it right behind the truck and left it there and then came inside.  So I went to leave and CRUNCH.  I was so mad at myself, but luckily they were able to fix it.  Before lunch he wasn’t real good at riding, he kept wanting to put the brakes on.  After lunch was a different story.  He’s now riding up and down the sidewalk all by himself and even turning around on his own.  So he is now choosing to ride his bike over his jeep, which is just fine with me because he burns more energy riding his bike. 

In other news today, the men in the neighborhood had guys night out.  They were going to go see the new Quintin Tarrantino movie.  They’ve never had a guys night out yet, so I’m glad that they are doing something together.  They must be having a good time because Brad still isn’t home and it’s almost his bedtime   While the men were gone, the wives got together down at Brandy’s house for some of her famous chocolate chip cookies and to let the kids play.  After it got dark, Jaxson and I headed over to Matt and Ann’s (our neighbors across the street) to help celebrate Ann’s birthday.  Matt got her an ice cream cake from DQ, so of course we weren’t going to turn that down.  And I’m not wondering why Jaxson isn’t sleeping yet after eating chocolate chip cookies and ice cream cake. . . it might be a while yet.  Happy Birthday Ann and thanks for sharing your cake! 

In yesterdays news, I had another prenatal appointment.  Everything is looking good.  I’m measuring right on and the heartrate was in the high 150’s.  My midwife said, "Wow, he must be running in there."  They did set me up to go see an OB/GYN to get his opinion on whether I should try a natural birth or just do a C-section. I’ll be interested to see what he has to say.  I’ve also been working on getting the office/spare bedroom cleaned out so that we can start turning it into Jaxson’s new room.  There was a lot of junk that I had to find a new home for. Thank goodness for getting rid of a lot of stuff at the garage sale.  So Jaxson will be moved into the bigger room and we are just going to put the nursery back the same way it was with Jaxson.  Not too exciting, but easy and affordable. 

He’s not going to be able to fit in his toy box much longer.

Jaxson’s pets, Crabby and Kirby.  Crabby was a birthday gift from Papa Gary and Nana Brenda. 

Happy to have his bike back.

Showing Daddy how good he is.

Oh boy, I hope he doesn’t plan on being goalie.

I guess the pictures pretty much tell you what we’ve been up to lately, so I’ll keep the writing short and sweet and the pictures to the max.  Last weekend, Brad and Jaxson went to an I-Cubs game with our church small group and they had a lot of fun.  I guess Jaxson kept them somewhat entertained with his "Go Tubs!" chants. 

My friend/neighbor, Crystal, and I had a garage sale last week and had a lot of success.  We got rid of a bunch of big stuff to make room for the newest Cathcart in the house.

This is how you keep 3 kids entertained while doing a garage sale.  Give them chalk and a box and they will be happy for hours.

Big Papa and Nana Kris came down on Sunday to go on a picnic with Brad and Jaxson at Raccoon River Park. They had a great day for it and had a great time.

Getting some tips from the fishing expert.

Dancing in the water.