Holidays

It has felt like Christmas vacation for a month. I've enjoyed steaming cups of hot cocoa and all the delicous pies of Thanksgiving. Now I'm ready for cookies. Tonight was our ward Christmas party. I had a nice sampling of cookies and and gearing up for a bake fest either this week or next. I can hardly wait!

Nathan has now been home a full month, adding to the Christmas feeling. Everyday is a holiday for us. We do some school then clean up and go out or watch movies. The past few weeks we've been studying about goats. This week we'll be goat proofing the fences and building a shelter. Hopefully by the end of December we'll have goats. It may seem crazy, but my farm girl roots have been showing and I want to surround myself with barnyard animals. Chickens will be coming in the spring.

I'm rambling on, but thought I'd update the world. We are alive and well.

Back in the USA

It feels good to be sitting up late at night, typing on my own computer, sitting in my livingroom in the good old USA. It's true, we're back. Well atleast most of us are. Nathan is in the final weeks of his sojourn abroad. Sometime this month he'll come home to stay.

It's been a crazy 4 years out of the country, but I'm glad we went. We had great experiences and met some of the best people. But I'm glad to be home. The kids are loving it here, lots of time to play with cousins. I'm enjoying family as well. My Mother-in-law and Sister-in-law and I have been canning up a storm. I probably have enough fruit to last all year plus some. It's great.

Thats all for now. I haven't even been to my blog site for months. This little late night post will hopefully jolt me into writing a bit more.

Our Little Guy

He is a bried clip of our little cutie. I did this with the camera while trying to still hold him, so it isn't the greatest footage in the world. I will try to get something of Hannah and Ethan up here as well. This is my first try with the video so I wanted to see how it works.

Finally, a post about Gabe

So here is our little guy. His official name is Gabriel Seth Potter. However we will most likely call him Gabe. He entered the world on March 18 at about 2:23 PM. He was born at 37 weeks 2 days. A solid 8-10 later than the older children. He weighed 6 lbs 9 oz and was 20 inches long. His good weight and later stage of development did not stop him from having a rough first week. His lungs had not developed to the correct stage and he was not breathing properly. At first the doctor thought he was just not expanding his lungs enough to get the oxygen, but further testing showed he was not producing serfactant (sp) enough to trade out the oxygen for the carbon dioxide, he was getting too high levels of the bad stuff built up. Anyways, after various breathing aparatus, including full ventilation, his lungs kicked in and he can breathe just fine.

It was a stressfull week for all of us. Gabe couldn't be released from the hospital, even after he could breathe, until he could then eat and breathe succesfully. That was a problem as the criteria was really strict. He had to eat 37 ml of milk and he had to do it in 15 minutes every 2 hours. If he did not drink the milk it was then force fed through a feeding tube. That would be a "failed" feeding. Very frustrating for us as he began to fail feedings because he was sleeping. However we had a great doctor who listened to our concerns. He accepted Nathans proposal that he be allowed to eat on demand. As long as he woke up every 2-3 hours on his own, and absolutely didn't go over 4 hours, and he drank a certain amount within 24 hours, he would pass the eating test. He ofcourse did fine. Once he was allowed to eat when he was hungry, he woke up every 3 hours and ate more than he previously had. So it all worked out and he can home on his one week birthday.

He is proving to be a good little baby. He wakes almost like clock work every 3 hours and eats. He fusses only when he is hungy has a messy diaper or is working out gas. The kids are absolutely in love with him. They think he is the greatest thing ever. Hannah would hold him all the time if I let her. Ethan adores his cute face, hands and feet. Both of the kids wanted to see his feet right away. Hannah just says "He's so cute" about 50 -100 times a day. Nate has all but banned her from saying it in his presence.

Any way, as I type the little one is making himself known. He is awake now so I guess this post is long enough.

Family Photos

Okay, I'm back to the picture I can't rotate. Very annoying. But this is me and my sweetheart. Notice he has grown a beard. I wanted it a little longer but last time he went to the barber they cut it down too close.

Me, Hannah and Ethan

The family.

Another one of the family.

Big Mama and the little ones

Me and the kids. I figured I better get some pictures up while I am still pregnant

I have tried to upload these a few times and they always come sideways even though I rotated them and saved them. So crane you heads and see my little boy, soon to be oldest son.

And of course Hannah

This is so lame to put these up like this, but here I am sticking out at 36 weeks.

Baby Update 35 weeks

It's been a busy month for us. I have successfully reached 35 weeks and am having no real problems. I have to take it pretty easy still, but that's fine. I was looking back to when Hannah was born, I believe she was born about 35 1/2 weeks and Ethan was born at 36. Yesterday we went for an ultrasound and the baby already weighs in at about 5 lb 10 oz. That is bigger than Hannah was at birth. So I am pleased with everything that is happening with the baby.

We are all ready though to go to the hospital just in case. The suitcase has been packed for a couple of months, and recently repacked to verify what actually is in it. The crib is made up, diapers are out and all the cute little things washed and ready to wear. A few days ago the ladies at church gave me a great baby shower. So we have added a play mat, bouncy chair, and other great things for our new little one. I have to make perhaps one more trip to Baby Shop for some odds and ends, but nothing that is critical. So give us just two more weeks and we will be very happy to have this baby come. Some days it seems like I may still come early, but when I start getting worried things calm down.

Double Rescue

Well my book is at the printers. YEAH! It will still be a few months before it is formally released. But if you want to get a look at the cover and read the back go to this link

http://www.pdbookstore.com/comfiles/pages/JennyPotter.shtml

I have a lot of publicity work to do before the official release. I'm not really sure what the heck I am going to do here from Qatar and am not in the financial position to throw the money at it that the publisher wants, but I will work on something. If any of you know any one famous I can solicit a review from, PLEASE let me know. Even if the are only regionally well known in your area it will help.

In the future radio interviews with Christian stations, writeups in your local newspaper. ANYTHING AT ALL that wont cost me thousands of dollars and you have my eternal gratitude.

The Miracle Continues

This week we have really seen again just how blessed we are. Friday towards the end of church I was feeling pretty terrible. Nate drove me home as quick as possible, but I was already having contractions. I continued to have gentle contractions every 3 minutes for the next 2 hours. I did my warm bath and tylonal routine, but no relief. Nate gave me a blessing and we packed a hospital bag and went to the ER. In the blessing the Lord reconfirmed that all would be well and I would carry this baby to full term.

At the hospital I was placed under observation. We were at the hospital less than 2 hours. My contractions completely stopped on there own, no medice. My cervix did not change. This is the first time that contractions this consistent ever stopped without medical intervention and without changing my cervix. This is one more example that Heavenly Father is providing healing to me with this baby. It is quite amazing to experience this.

Our family feels greatly blessed. We are so excited about this baby, he must be someone pretty special!

My house shines!

In my last post I said Sonia had arrived. Can I say, cleaner than my mom! That is an achievement. My very clean friend came over and she felt like the house sparkled, she fairly glowed at the cleanliness of the place.

For my Middle East friends, you will appreciate her history. Seven years experience working for arabs in Saudi, Dubai, Kuwait and Qatar. An extremely energetic lady who just doesn't stop.

The kids like her and it is always nice to have another person to play games.

YEAH FOR US! I have NOT done any work since she came, except cook the meals. That alone is a feat for me now a days. So we are really thankfull.

The house help

Well Sonya has begun employment in our home. We went yesterday morning and picked her up from the home of her previous employer. It really couldn't have happened at a better time. I'm finding it quite difficult to get any house work done, including dishes. Nate informed me a few hours before church that we would be having dinner guests. Without Sonya the guests wouldn't have had anything clean to eat with. She was doing the dishes while I was preparing the meal. Normally after cooking I am in no shape to do the clean up. (One of the reasons the dishes have been piling up.) It was nice to leave things in order before bed. The kids benefitted greatly too. They've been wanting pancakes and I've been telling them they had to wait for Sonya to come. I haven't been keeping myself in clean pans. So this morning they got their pancakes. I will also be able to cook lunch and dinner as again, there will be clean pots and pans to use.

This is going to be a different relationship than with Dina, that I can tell. Dina we miss greatly. She fit right into our family and has a place as a member of it. Sonya is going to be a great maid, but I have a feeling the relationship will not mature too much beyond that. She will be capable though and right now that is what we need. When Dina came into our lives I needed the friendship just as much as I needed the house clean. She needed the friendship as well so it worked out well.

Nate did a very good job the first day of keeping out of the way. We had tried to tell Sonya not to go overboard. No need to do it all the first day. But she got into the swing of things in the kitchen and I couldn't get her to take a break from it. Nate commented "I just need to remind myself that it is like having your mother in the house." No disrespect meant Mother. Only that you like to stay busy and can't look at the work and not do it. Sonya will be like that I am sure.

Now we need to make sure all the "I's" are dotted and the "T's" crossed concerning her visa. For the most part I think it is done. Nate needs to do some running around to make sure all the correct documents have been transfered from the old sponsor to him. Oh how fun for him.

All else seems to be well. On a side note. For all those that I told that Sonya was LDS (aka Mormon like ourselves) we were wrong. She is Catholic. How that little error happened make Nate and I laugh heartily when we were alone. Sonya was hired without a second thought because we thought she said she was LDS from Davao. I was certain we would know people in common. A classic example of communication breakdown due to English as a second language. She was trying to tell us she was the eldest, as in oldest sibling. However in the context of the conversation her "eldest" in unclear english sounded just like "LDS" and it fit into the conversation so well we both thought that was the reference she was making. It didn't cross our minds to ask for clarification because it sounded so plausable. (I thought we it was really clear in our interview, now some of her confusion makes sense.) In retrospect I told Nathan that I believe the Lord allowed us to hear this and think this as it assured us a maid at a good rate and good timing. He knew more than we just how necessary it would become for us to have someone in the home.

Alls well that ends well as they say.

Christmas Day

Christmas was a lot of fun at our house. Santa left behind some magic snow, it doesn't melt! Hannah had too much fun throwing it up in the air and letting it snow on her. It was something of a mess but she had fun.

I think this is about how I looked too. But I will spare all of you the pain to you eyes. Christmas morning was lots of fun. The kids loved all their presents. Nate and I would have liked to sleep a little longer, but Ethan was up just after 6 am. Hannah had to be woken up. She had a really hard time falling asleep and had stayed up late.

In the afternoon we went to friends for dinner. That was fun as well. My friend is English and we had a traditional English meal which differs some from our American dinner. We did have a Christmas pudding complete with brandy poured over the top then lit on fire. Any desert that you can light on fire is just plain cool. The pudding itself has a very strong flavor, somewhat of an aquired taste. Not too bad, but I could only eat a small amount.

The holidays were really busy this year. Lots of Christmas activities to keep us going. I'm glad though they are over as we need the rest. But I am glad we all had a good time. Hope you all have a great new year too.