We moved! (and a lot of other stuff happened too)

My blog has gone on a bit of a hiatus because, well, life got busy. We moved into our new home and graduated from "first-time home buyers" to "first-time home owners." That still blows my mind. HOMEOWNERS! I'm sure it will hit me hard in the face when that first mortgage payment comes out of the bank account next week. But I will happily eat peanut butter and rice and beans for a year to be able to come home to a place that is ours. 

Continuing with the broke homeowners theme: we do not currently have cable or internet. Thus, I have no way of blogging. That's my excuse. But to be quite honest, life has been so busy lately that I don't think I'd be doing much blogging even if we did.

Owen is doing all kinds of growing and developing and I am really enjoying just enjoying it. He knows about 5 signs (please, milk, more, all done, water) and picks up the new ones I teach him in a matter of hours. He says "ball" for balls and baloons and anything round. He says "broom-broom" for vehicles, anything with wheels, and anything that makes a loud noise. He says "nana" for his Nana and bananas and every other food. He finally says "mama," even if he's normally pointing at something that has nothing to do with me when he says it. I'll still take it. His favorite thing to do his to be held while he points at everything in sight saying "this. that. this. thiiiiis." It's adorable.

He still isn't walking. He has callouses on his knees from all the crawling he does, but he does spend a lot of time lately walking behind all his push toys, and chairs, and anything else he's strong enough to move.

He has quite the voice and he likes to make himself heard. Most of his screeching is out of delight, but still, it's screeching. ugh. He's a naught little goose, too. Before he does something he knows is wrong, he looks back at me and gets this devilish grin on his face. I have to try really hard not to laugh most of the time. If does something to make mommy say "NO!" he thinks its hilarious. Like he falls over cracking up laughing. We're gonna have to work on the whole discipline thing.

Beau was finally released onto active duty yesterday! The doctors are all shocked at how quickly he has recovered from his surgery. I'm not. He was so determined to get out on the streets that I knew he'd push himself to get there as fast as possible. So the 6 days on 3 days off changing shifts begins tomorrow. I must admit, it's pretty cool having a police car parked in the driveway! Like a built in security system. 

And a little brag on my man- he had to be re-qualified to carry a gun so he went up to the training center to shoot the course. The current academy was there doing firearms training, so he shot the course with them. They've been training for the past month or so and he hasn't shot in about 3 months. He blew them out of the water! He got the highest score, by far! 

And now an update on Liza and myself. A lot has gone on since my last post. Four days after I was put on bed rest I had a pre scheduled appt with the perinatologist, because Liza had a marker for Down Syndrome. At my 20wk ultrasound they couldn't find her nasal bone. They had me come back a week later and they still couldn't see it. Because this can be a marker for DS, they sent me to the perinatologist (high-risk pregnancy doctor) at 24wks. She had another ultrasound done and still didn't see a nasal bone. She recommended that I have the Harmony blood test which is 99% accurate at detecting DS during pregnancy. She also switched me from Procardia to Indocin for my contractions and recommended that I start recieving weekly 17P progesterone injections. I had my first injection and a few days later was back in L&D with contractions 2 minutes apart. They gave me Procardia and three shots of Terbutaline, the contractions stopped and I went home. On 7/31 my mom went with me to see the genetic counselor and have my blood drawn. The weekly P17 injections continued and on 8/5 I had my first contraction free day! On 8/14 the results came back and we discovered that Liza is not at risk for DS. By that point we had both come to terms with the idea that she might have an extra chromosome. We were well aware of the equal amounts of blessings Liza would bring to our family with or without DS.

At this point in my pregnancy I don't have much to complain about. Since the contractions stopped I have developed SPD which causes intense pelvic/hip pain. Rolling in bed, getting out of bed, climbing stairs, etc. is almost unbearable. But I would much rather have this pain than the risk of Liza being born too soon, or, God forbid, not making it. Other than that it's just your typical pregnancy symptoms- constantly having to pee, indigestion, sciatica and so forth. 

So there it is. My little update on our busy life. 

I'm a little better about keeping up with instagram, so if you're not already, go follow me there @vegters3

Expect an overload of cuteness by way of #Owengram pictures :)