Sticker Fun!

I pulled out some stickers for Zack to put on some paper and color around. He thought they looked better on Daddy and him. :-)

Play Ball!

Great-Grandma Delores was in town from Fergus and she and Great-Auntie Doreen stopped by for a visit on Monday. Zack enjoyed showing off his baseball skills that he learned watching Daddy play softball.

37 Week Update

Not much to tell you this time around. No change since last week. RATS!! Still 1 cm and still 50% effaced. I was really thinking I was getting close. I've had a few episodes this week, including today, where I was light headed and having a lot of lower abdominal pressure. I thought for sure this was meaning that the baby was pushing on new things and I was progressing. It turns out these things are all normal, according to the doctor and obviously doesn't mean that changes are occuring. Ugh.

The doctor did suggest that by next weeks appointment, (which is Thursday morning) we could talk about inducing labor if I wanted but she can't guarantee that they'd be able to squeeze me in either because I'm not high risk and there is no emergency to do it. I'd consider it if it meant the baby would be here for the Barry's to meet him or her before they go back to Oregon, (they are flying in for Darin's cousin's wedding in Fargo) but only if they could guarantee it. Maybe the baby's waiting for my Grandma Cooley's birthday, September 4th. Or maybe it will be one day short like I was for my Grandpa Cooley's birthday. Who knows. All I know is that I'm ready.

Update on Prayers Needed

Prayers are working for my Grandma and Darin's Great-Uncle Gene!
Grandma is recovering very well. She was up and walking the very next day and hasn't had much pain until today. We went up to see her today and she is looking great. They did get the results back on the tumor. It was cancerous (malignant) but the doctor feels they got it all so they aren't going to be doing any scans or putting her on Chemo. All good news.

Great-Uncle Gene is also doing better. He is out of his coma and talking again. Also very good news! Thank you!

Baby Frankie is still in need of prayers. He seems to take a few steps forward and then one or two back again. Please keep him in your prayers. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/frankieroth

Testing 1-2-3

Hi, this is Molly, I'm just testing to see if I can figure out how to post on Katie and Darin...oh and big brother Zacky's blog. No baby news yet, just a test message.

Beach Bums & Bubbles

Back to our Nisswa vacation... a happier time...

The kids couldn't get enough of the sand and water. You can tell the first few days at the lake we were real cautious and had their life jackets on. Then...they seemed to disappear. So did thier swimsuits. :-)

Adrienne loved splashing in the water. She was quite the "swimmer" too. She has the busiest little feet, (like her daddy) so when she was in her little turtle she was cruising around quite well!

I mentioned Riley LOVES bobbers. Well while Riley wasn't looking Grandma slipped a bobber in a bucket she had. She was so excited, yet puzzled with what she found. :-)

This is a little activity we used to do as kids at my Grandma and Grandpa Munn's house. Painting with water. The kids loved painting the dock.

Bubbles!!!
My Dad found these at the State Fair a couple of years ago and the kids just love them. Who am I kidding, so do the adults. It was lots of fun watching the bubbles literally bounce of the water!

Turtles and Oxes

While in Nisswa we participated in some of the local attractions.

On Wednesdays in Nisswa they have turtle races. The boys took the kids to see the races, (we were shopping in Walker that day). We've never done this before and were SHOCKED at how popular they were. There were 491 entries in the race! They have heats of 25-30 racers every few minutes.

The kids didn't get to race this year, you have to be 3 years old, but next year they will get a chance. Darin said Zack thought the races were quite funny.





The other event going on in the Brainerd lakes area is "The Ox Trot". It's very similar to the St. Paul Peanuts characters. We saw at least 6 of them while on vacation. Got pictures by 3:

Pequot Lakes (Under the "Bobber in the Sky", Riley's favorite part of the trip)






Riley's showing Adee the "Bobber in the Sky"!


She didn't want to leave it!

Cross Lake







Nisswa

Requesting Prayers Again

Well, I've got a few more prayer requests for this week. The first is for my Grandma, yes, Grandma. No sooner did we get Grandpa home from the nursing home on Friday then Grandma started complaining of pain in her abdomen on Sunday. Dad took her in and they admitted her due to a mass they had found by her appendix. She had surgery today and they removed the mass, (which was the size of a large marble) her appendix and part of the small and large intestine to make sure they got all of it. She will be in the hospital for about a week. The doctor believes the mass was cancerous. It will take a few days to do some testing to find that information out for sure. Please keep her in your prayers for fast healing!

I told Grandma yesterday when I went to visit her that it was supposed to be my turn in the hospital not hers! She is in the same hospital that I will be delivering at which will be helpful if I should go into labor while she is there. My family will definitely get their moneys worth out of parking.

Update on Grandpa: I realize as I write this, unless you read my sisters' blogs you probably don't know what has been going on with Grandpa since my blog on July 27th. After they cauterized the ulcer things went better for Grandpa. He went back to St. Teresa's for therapy again and as I mentioned came home on Friday. He's still doing therapy at home so he still has a bit of strength to gain to be back to 100% but hopefully that will happen soon.

By the way, both of these grandparents are my Dad's parents. So say a special prayer for him and my Uncle Doug. They are on quite the roller coaster these days, (as are my Mom and my Auntie Annie)!

Another request for prayers is for Darin's Great-Uncle Gene who I blogged about on Friday. Darin's Grandma and Aunt were over in the afternoon yesterday and told me that Gene had suffered another Cardiac Arrest early in the morning and was in a coma. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

The last request is for my sisters' friend's son Frankie. I asked for prayers for him back in July. He's the newborn who was born with heart problems. He went through one surgery already and has been dealing with complications of that surgery since. He did get to go home for a brief amount of time but was brought back in last week. Please keep the Roth family in your prayers.

Think that is it. Hopefully the next blog about hospitals will be a happy one. :-)

Cornfest 2008

Last Sunday was our churches summer festival. We go to the church I grew up in so my parents and Molly and Josh also go to the same church. Zack and Riley had fun with the Dip the Duck and the Fish Pond games. So did Grandma Trish and Grandpa Tom! Thanks again!!

The first thing Zack got was this firefighter hat. It was very fitting because my Grandpa Don was a fireman for 20 + years and one of the things we loved about summer growing up was my Grandma and Grandpa Munn's church festival at St. Anne's. We saved our money all summer long for the Cherry tree. The firemen's hat got me a bit choked up.

Zack was quite stylin by the end wasn't he? :-)

Zack and Riley also go face paintings done. We didn't think Zack would sit still for it but HE DID! We asked the person what her trick was! :-)

A Dino-Door!

Smiley Face for Riley