Friends and Football

This weekend my oldest and dearest friend Jade flew in from Chicago to visit me! We met when we were 14 and freshman in high school! She sat behind me in English and I turned around to ask her how to spell activities and we have been friends ever since. Its funny that out of our friendship we have only lived in the same place for 2 years!!I moved to ND when I was 16 and she has lived in IL, MO and TX the last 13years. We try to get together at least once a year, usually in the cities for some shopping but I did make it there last summer and she has been up here a couple times too. Anyways this time since gas was so expensive we decided to do a shopping trip in good Ole Fargo ND! She flew in at 10 am and the shopping began. After stocking up on some maternity clothes( have I mentioned I love them?) we headed to Olive Garden for endless pasta bowls. Yes I did have 2..and ate every last bite. YUM. Anyways after many more hours of shopping we headed home. Brandon had a rough day as stay at home daddy so he booked it out the door at 7pm to catch 2 movies and Jade and I took a trip down memory lane and watched Evita!( Jade was always into musicals and dragged me to see this movie in the theater, she failed to tell me it was ALL singing!!!! I was so mad I almost walked out but by the end I loved it!! I even gave the movie to Jade for her 15th or 16th birthday as a gift...on VHS of course, man I am making myself sound old here.) Anyways after our shopping and movie day it was time for bed. The next day we got the kids all bundled up and headed downtown to watch the potato bowl parade. The kids had a blast and ate way to much candy. After a quick lunch Jade and I headed to the football game( I have to get there really early to set the cheer/dance teams up selling 50/50) We just hung out and did a little tailgating until the game started. Uncle Jordan came over to watch Annie and Daddy brought Elias to the game and Jade, Brandon and Elias watched the game while I coached. The next morning Jade flew home:( It was a quick but very fun trip and I am already looking forward to our next visit!

 Annie all bundled up and ready to go to the parade!

 Mommy and Annie. People say we look alike, what do you think?

 Jade riding in the back of the sweet minivan ha!

 Our once again failed attempt at a family photo

 The ONLY picture I have of Jade and I from our visit

 Annie sharing a snack with Mom

 CHEESEEEEE

 Can you tell which child has sensory issues? haha, he did love the parade though

 hmmm what is this...oooooo its candy!

 Daddy hanging out with Elias at the parade

 Elias and Annie caught on to this whole candy concept and wanted to be in the action

 Trying to get some candy

 watching a dance team I am sure, Annie was clapping and dropping it like its hot

Annie and Elias enjoying a local marching band...Elias not so much.

Suprise!

This fall we decided to tackle a lot of our do-it-NOT yourself home improvement projects. We needed a new garage door, furnace needed to be cleaned, dryer vent looked at, plumbing inspection..the list goes on. Anyways last weekend I was having the furnace and dryer vent inspected and cleaned and the babies were sick so I decided we would cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie. The garage door was open and so was the door from the garage to the house( for the furnace guy) and who walks in my door but Miss Kellie!! Kellie left in August for law school and wasn't supposed to be back until her Fall break in mid-October. I screamed KELLIE at the top of my lungs and scared both the kids and the furnace guy, the furnace guy was confused the kids were delighted( so was I, she brought lunch!) I am not easiely suprised but boy was I this time! She was only in town over night so it was a short visit but it was a very welcome suprise to what was supposed to be a very boring weekend. Now if only all of my friends who leave Grand Forks could come back and suprise me from time to time that would be great!

Kellie snuggling with a sick Annie. Elias didn't want to be in the picture, he was sick too:( 

I love a cop

When Brandon first started working as a police officer, his Sargent gave us a book for Christmas titled "I Love a Cop" It was written by this psychiatrist in California who has dedicated her life to helping cops and their families deal with the stresses that go along with being a police officer. It discussed everything from how to deal with all the crappy situations(child neglect,abuse, the things that really tug at your heart strings) to dealing with not having a normal schedule. The book has helped us both deal with some of these things but that doesn't mean that certain situations don't still really suck. Now for my point: as of late I have totally 100% felt like a single mom.

1.Brandon is not only working full time( plus a lot of overtime) but he is also in his last year of his masters program. There are many days where the kids and I don't get to  see him at all if he is working and has class (we do talk on the phone about 100 times a day though).

2.The other thing that really sucks is going places. Anything from running errands to attending events I almost always have to do alone. Its fine for now since my two kids are easy for me to manage but once we add a third one in the mix I am not sure some of these things I will be comfortable doing alone( in the dead of winter none the less).

3.The last complaint I have is the shift work. We are lucky in GF that our officers do a full year on one shift before they have to change, some places do a month or so each shift then switch. Brandon has been lucky enough to be on days( 7:30am-5:30pm) for the last 2 years. Starting October 1st he has to switch to midnight( 10:00pm-8:00am) and I am NOT looking forward to it at ALL. I hate being alone at night and I have no idea how he is going to sleep during the day with 2 then 3 kids playing. Hopefully its only a year he is on this shift and you never know we may both really like it( this is my small attempt at being optimistic.)

4.I lied there is one more thing too: Holidays, its hit or miss, sometimes you get to celebrate them normal with your family and sometimes you have to work all day. Brandon has been pretty lucky and has had many of the "important" holidays and all of our kids birthdays off.This upcoming year he is scheduled to work every major holiday and on both the kids birthdays..oh joy.

With all that being said Brandon really likes his job and to be honest, even with all of my complaining I do to. There are several really crappy things about being married to a cop but there are also  a lot of really awesome things too!

1. I don't have to worry about getting a ticket for minor traffic violations ever.

2. Brandon gets a minimum of 3 days off in a row sometimes 4! Its a nice chance to get everything done that needs to be done and for him to spend good quality time with the babies.

3. If he needs a day off and can't use vacation he can switch days with someone so they work his day and he works theirs. Its a great way to save up on that vacation time for important things like Disney vacations and new babies!

4. I feel incredibly safe being married to a cop. He is a defensive tactics instructor and Krav Maga instructor so when he is around I am never scared( which if you know me you would know I am scared of everything all the time always.)

5. You get to here some pretty awesome stories, drunk people are the best and say and do the stupidest things and I love hearing about them!

 Christmas eve 2008 Daddy was working afternoon shift( 5:00pm-3:00am) and stopped to say goodnight to Elias

 Daddy went back to work shortly after Elias was born in 2008 . He was pretty new so he didn't have much time off.

 Daddy saying Hi to Annie on break from work in  Early 2010

Brandon's graduation from the police academy in Bismarck 6 days before Elias was born. I didn't travel up there to watch him graduate since I was so close to being due.

Thanks Mom!

This week I had a couple of pretty big surprises come in the mail from my mom! The first was a box from Carter that was filled with clothes for Annie, Elias and baby #3. I was browsing the web one day and came across this sale on the Carter's website and I told my mom about it. Next thing I knew she told me to pick stuff out and order and a week later my glorious package came in the mail. On a side note the best part of online shopping is that UPS man ringing your doorbell a week later!
     Shortly after that, my mom was on a shopping trip with a friend and found herself in a Carter outlet store and what do you know the sale was still going on! A week later ANOTHER big box showed up with more clothes. This box at least had a small purpose since the clothes in it were mostly for Annie for her birthday!
    Brandon was pretty excited about the timing since both delivery days I was pretty stressed out and crabby and those boxes put me in an instant good mood. After doing some baby laundry( the only kind I actually enjoy) I hung all my new clothes up and stood back and admired. So thank you very much to Grandma Judi, because of you I think its safe to say all three of the Eberhardt children have enough clothes to last us through our long winter!! Here are a few pictures of my haul but they don't really do the massive pile of clothes justice.( I think total Annie got like 17 pairs of pants/leggings and about as many tops along with a snow suit , baby E got 15 or so outfits and Elias about 4 outfits).

 Clothes for Baby boy...round 1

 Clothes for Annie and Elias...round 1

 Look at all those clothes!!!

 My mom decided that since we didn't have a name for our baby she was going to name him. Joshua is on our long list of names but we have by no means committed to a name yet. My mother, however, refers to him as baby Joshua.

Annie and BabyE's clothes...round 2!

Pregnancy Highlights 23 weeks!

23 weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

How Far Along: 23 Weeks

Size of baby: According to babycenter.com the baby is the size of a large mango.  BabyE weighs about as much as a large mango -- just over a pound. (Length: more than 11 inches.)

Total Weight Gain/Loss: + 13 lbs

Maternity Clothes: Yes Please. I love them...if you didn't figure that out by now

Gender: Well we had the big ultrasound a few weeks ago and we had zero intention of finding out the gender. When the technician went to measure the femur there it was, oh so obvious...Its' a boy guess next time if I don't want to find out the gender I just won't watch the ultrasound!

Movement: YES! BabyE moves ALL the time, I can even SEE it sometimes, its awesome!

What I miss: Not to much, this is the honeymoon phase of pregnancy for me. I always said if I could be 6 months pregnant always I would be!

Sleep: So much better now that I have a body pillow on both sides!

Symptoms:None right now, life is good.

Cravings: Nothing really recently, hopefully the next craving that kicks in will be a healthy one!

Best Moment this week: It was such a great week I don't know what to pick. Maybe getting a GIANT box of clothes for the 3 kids. Setting up the new video monitor to spy on the older kids, buying a new pack and play, buying our only pack of newborn diapers( we will use our AWESOME cloth diapers once the cord falls off), working out 4 times this week... It was such a  glorious week.

What I am looking forward to:Every second of this month...I Love this stage of pregnancy SO MUCH!!!

What's in a name?

I think for most people,naming their child is a difficult task. Some people like what is popular inthe here and now, some people like old school names, some go with family names..so many choices! Brandon and I both knew we wanted our children's names to have significance either religious or family so that narrowed the possible options down a tish. Long before we were married, Brandon and I were talking about kids and he joked if we have twin boys can we name them Elias and Enoch (2 saints from the old testament who are destined for some pretty awesome things).  I said heck no... but the name Elias grew on me. When I got pregnant and found out it was a boy, Elias was the only choice for his name, we didn't even consider others. Brandon's father died when he was a teenager and so Elias' middle name is Brandon's fathers middle name. Elias Jerome, a good solid catholic-family hybrid of a name.

Again, before Brandon and I were married we were talking about the movie "Passion of the Christ" ( the one directed by Mel Gibson) and Brandon brought up that it was based on the book"The Dolorous Passion" by the saint Anne Catherine Emmerich. I instantly fell in love with that name, it was so classic I just loved it! We found out Elias was a boy and forgot about the name...until I got pregnant with Annie. When I mentioned to family and friends the name I got pretty much the same response: sounds old, sounds like a nun, boring etc. It really discouraged me from the name and Brandon and I went into the delivery room still without a name for our baby girl. Once Annie was born we took one look at her, looked at each other and said Ann Katherine it is! My mom's middle name is Ann so we decided to leave the E off the Anne.  (This experience has also taught me to not share names with family and friends who have strong opinions, if I would have listened to them , our little Annie Kat would be named Sophia or Ava or something cute and trendy but meaningless to us)

Now that we are pregnant with baby #3, a boy, we are faced with the naming debate. Elias and Annie were essentially picked out before we were even married so we are lost as to where we should start. Some ideas are family names( dads, grandfathers etc, )the name I was going to have if I was a boy( which my mother called me her ENTIRE pregnancy until I came out a girl), and of course religious figures: saint, popes etc. One thing is for sure. Our son will not be names Aidan, Braden, Jayden or any of the other popular trendy names( not that there is anything wrong with those names, they are just not for us!) He will have a boring, traditional and meaningful name...just the way we like it!

On a side note, I just went to the top 100 boys names list based off of the Social Security Administration and there are a lot of traditional boy names in the top 20, so maybe he will have a "popular" name after all :)

Elias' new kicks

The much awaited leg braces have finally arrived. I would answer some FAQ about them first since so many people ask questions about them.
1. Why does he have to wear them: Elias is a toe walker and while many toe walkers don't need braces and turn out just fine Elias' Dr. felt he did in order for his muscles and legs to develop properly.
2.Why does he toe walk? Many kids toe walk for many reasons such as experimentation(like in Annie's case). There is a very big correlation between kids with sensory issues and toe walking, though further research is still be conducted to determine why this is the case.
3. If he has always walked on his toes why does he have to get braces now? Toe walking is considered abnormal after the age of 3 and since toe walking is heavily linked with sensory issues it was likely he wasn't going to "grow out of it".
4. What happens if he didn't get them? best case scenario is nothing, he would grow out of it and develop perfectly normal.Since it was believed that his toe walking was linked to his sensory issues and his feet/legs were already showing signs of changing and not it a good way this option was not likley. In Elias' case, his calf muscles were already showing increased tightening so we bought him special shoes with a little insert in them to make the toe walking more difficult. With stretching at home his calf's loosened up a tiny bit and he was toe walking less. He didn't have the "normal" range of motion most kids do since his calf's were so tight so he traded toe walking once it became more difficult for walking with all of the weight on the inside of his feet towards his big toes. After taking him to a orthopedic doctor it was determined braces (or botox then casting then braces) would be the best chance for his legs to develop properly. If we didn't get braces and the walking patterns continued possible long term factors were: Not being able to stand with his feet flat on the floor due to sever calf tightness, bones in his feet shifting inward, joint pain in ankles and knees associated with walking inwards. (There are big fancy medical terms for each of these conditions but since no one reading this is a Dr. I left them out) All of these conditions would require surgery to fix. So while the braces were  technically optional we( due to the orthopedic doctors urging) decided it was not worth the risk of needing surgery later and to get the problem taken care of now.
5. How long does he wear them in a day? From the time he gets up until he goes to bed. He only takes them off for nap and bedtime.
6. How long will he need braces: There is really no way to tell. It could be as short as 6 months or as long as 3 years.

Now for some pictures of our new and improved little man.

 The down side is that Elias has to wear shoes while wearing the braces since they are like walking on ice otherwise, guess we will have even dirter furniture then we do now!

Daddy and the babies waiting in the Dr. office while Elias' braces were adjusted and fitted to his little leg.