Busy, Busy, Busy – A Random Tuesday Post (because Friday is so far away)

I keep meaning to write and I keep getting swept away in the hectic fun of summer.  I had a prenatal back on the 5th of July – we figured I was about 14 weeks at that point.  Everything went great, but the only problem was that try as she might my midwife could not track down a heart beat.  Before Jacob I would have shrugged and said “we’ll get it next time” but with paranoia attacking me, and with the extra excuse of wanting to be sure of the due date (my due dates have a way of never being what we think they are), we opted for an ultrasound.  So in we went on Sat. the 7th for an ultrasound.  Baby is in fact in there. 🙂 We heard that glorious little heart beating away and got to watch the little tyke wiggling and kicking around like a regular squirmy fishy.  So, with all the fun of seeing thing #5 and hearing the heart beat, I am now at ease (at least somewhat anyway) until the ultrasound at 20 weeks where we will check for defects and the like.  My due date is officially Jan. 3, 2008, so I am 16 weeks this week.

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After the children’s great success with the lemonade stand they decided they wanted to do it again last week, only this time they wanted to donate the proceeds to the Children’s Heart Foundation. So work they did – Tuesday through Friday, Friday they actually put in an 11 hour day, I was rather amazed.  By the end of the week those kids had made over $65! We took some out for tithing and expenses to go back to the kids, and had $50 to donate to the Children’s Heart Foundation. (I’ll have more pictures later – we’ll being doing the lemonade stand more in August and then I will get photos of all the kids 🙂 )

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Saturday was the Children Heart Foundation Oregon Chapter’s annual Lionheart Festival and Paul and I were volunteering again.  The kids dumped all their change and money from the lemonade stand and proudly handed it off to a very surprised and elated president of the chapter.  They were even officially recognized during one of the speeches, which thrilled the kids to no end.  We, of course, had a marvelous time volunteering, chatting with other heart parents, and playing to our heart’s delight.  I even got a charming cariacature of adorable Jacob done by an artist volunteering her time and work.  It was also neat to see how the art project turned out, and we now have a poster with Jacob’s artwork on it. 

(All the yellow shirts are kids, and adults, who have a CHD)

(Jacob’s heart that he painted is in the one in the bottom lefthand corner)

Here are a couple of pictures of Jacob at the Lion Heart Art Project:

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After church Sunday I needed to get a couple of quick things done, and Paul was in a meeting. I kept a tight hold on Jacob and asked the girls to “Please wait quietly and patiently against the wall, I should just be a minute.” Yeah right. I really only did take a minute, but the girls did not wait peacefully and quietly. They were sprawled on the floor on top of each other – noisily. There was another ward (congregation) in session (the chapel of course was closed, but sound does carry, even through heavy wood doors). As I scolded the girls for not listening and disrupting the other ward’s meeting I didn’t realized that I had let Jacob’s hand go as I helped the girls stand up. With horror it suddenly dawned on me that Jacob was not anywhere near me. I looked across the foyer, just in time to see Jacob quietly slipping into the chapel. With a sigh of, “what could possibly happen next”, I sprinted across the foyer and whipped the door open, snatching for that rascally arm, but to no avail. Jacob raced along the back row. The chapel was uncommonely quiet (where are all their kids???) as Jacob drowned the lone speaker out with his calls for, “Dadda”, “Dadda!”, “Dadda?” as he ran up to our usual bench. With confusion he looked at the stranger sitting there. So, he headed for the sacrament table, after all, Dad was sometimes up there, but then hesitated as he saw no one. That hesitation gave me my last scrape of luck as my hand shot out and snatched the back of his shirt collar. Mid horrendous embarassment and humiliation I scooped up the squirelly thing 🙂 and marched myself back down the aisle, across the back and out the door. There were many amused smiles and chuckling eyes, this was, after all, the ward I had grown up in. (Then I went home and cried – don’t you love those pregnant emotions?)