A.M.A.

Advanced Maternal Age A.M.A is a phrase I am sick of hearing. The way it is said and all of the hoopla that has gone with it is amazing. You would think I am over the hill and pregnant. I just turned 35 in December so I still feel relatively young, but in the world of reproduction I have reached the ripe old age of AMA.

I knew that this pregnancy I would be classified as AMA, but I had no idea it would be so much different than my pregnancy oh say LAST YEAR.... The first time I was given this label was my first visit. A medical student (who was probably in diapers when I was in high school)did my medical history. As soon as he saw my age he started suggesting all of these crazy test that at my age he highly recommended me taking....Next I was informed that I had to have a level two ultra sound performed by Peranatologist instead of the in office ultrasound. I was fine with this because we had a lot of level two ultra sounds with the twins, no big deal, or so I thought.

Yesterday was the day of the big ultrasound. We went in expecting to be an hour. HA HA HA. After we checked in we were escorted back to this tiny room where we met with a Geneticists. She went into a huge spill about chromosomes and age and all that jazz. She had charts and picture and statistics for my chances of having any of these or other Chromosomal defects. Then she did a family history. It went all the way back to my cousins. It was incredible to watch her try and chart my family considering my dad is 1 of 9 kids and my mom is 1 of 7. She was very relieved when she got to Cord's side of the family when his dad has 1 brother and his mom has 2 sisters. It was crazy to try and remember everything.

After our forever long genetic counseling session we went back to the waiting room.
The ultrasound was fast and pretty much painless for me. The Dr. stood next to the tech and read the ultrasound. The funny part was that she would refer to me in the third person. The baby was healthy, the results look great, and best of all we were able to get a great picture of our new little one. No we did not find out the sex.

When all was said and done we were there for almost 2 hours. What a difference one year makes. I love being old.

Out with the old and in with the same old but updated

Well as we are progressing slowly, but surely on our basement. I decided it was time to update our couches that will be going down there. I bought these couches 9 years ago when I moved out to Arkansas. It was my first big furniture purchase. I looked and looked for the perfect couches. From the moment I saw them it was almost love at first sight. I say almost, because I was debating between them and a plaid set of couches. I am glad that I purchased these ones because as you can see they have been very versatile the last almost decade.

The first transformation occured when my mom came to visit us in Arkansas when Tate was blessed. While she was there I got an idea after a few too many episodes of Trading Spaces that we should add some color to the couch. So it was off to the fabric store. I found the fabric and my Mom did all of the work. My mom painstakingly unpicked and recovered some of the pillows for me in my new favorite color scheme Red and Gold. They turned out amazingly beautiful and they have remained that way for the past six years.

Well, as any of you who have been to either our home in Arkansas or Idaho know that the red and gold color scheme over took the entire living area of our house and even the master bedroom. When we moved here to Minnesota I began to have a love/hate relationship with red and gold. Love the fact that I had all of the decor, hate because it was all red and gold. For the past year I have been on a mission to rid my house of the red and gold. It has been a very slow moving process because of the amount of red and gold, and of course most importantly the cost to replace it. These couches were my last big project that stood in my way of the mission being accomplished.

To clarify one thing I love the colors red and gold and I think they are beautiful to decorate with, but due to my complete obsession with the color I am sick of it. I love it in other peoples homes in fact, after seeing other homes decorated in the color scheme my love for the colors deepen, but then I have to remind myself of the six year rut that I am trying to get out of.

This past weekend Kinley and I went to a local fabric store in hopes to find some ideas for my new color scheme. Luckily, I found some great fabrics, and with the help of the stores interior designer I was reassured that my colors would work and it was a great new look. So with the coupons she gave me the cost of the fabric for my couch transformation was less than $14. So with my limited sewing abilities I have spent the last two days redoing the pillows of the couches. I will be cleaning the couches after we get them moved down to the basement (so ignore the spots in the pictures), but just couldn't wait to post the pictures of the transformation.

Here are some pictures of the couches in all of their stages. They don't look bad for nine year old couches.

Here are the pictures.

The couches in their original state


The couches in their Red and Gold


The couches in their new color scheme. You can't see it in the picture, but the yellow pillow actually has green stripe.

Laundry :(

I will preface this post by saying, "I hate laundry". I don't actually hate the laundry itself it is more the process and it's never ending nature. My love and hate relationship with laundry began shortly after Kinley was born and all of a sudden I had all of these tiny little clothes to fold. It seemed that as soon as I got all of the clothes folded and put way there was already a new pile of dirty clothes. I remember thinking laundry for three people was so overwhelming. I now laugh at the thought.

I am constantly doing laundry. I have tried to dedicate one day a week to the effort, but with barfy babies, potty training kids, and all other wonders that my kids can perform. I find myself doing at least 2-3 loads a day except for Sunday. It seems if I take even one day off, it becomes impossible to catch up. In fact, right after Cole was born I started counting how many loads of laundry I was doing in a week. I stopped counting after one week when I did 27 loads (it was of course when Cole had reflux and was spitting up on everything all day long, and Reese and Riley regressed in their potty training and had several accidents each a day as well as some during the night. I am just grateful that I have a front loading washer and dryer, because I don't even want to think how many loads it would have been then.
Luckily, we are down to about 18-20 loads a week.

I have hopes of someday having an empty laundry room, empty hampers, and dressers and closets full of neatly pressed clean clothes. Until that day this love hate relationship will have to continue. My kids loving to get clothes dirty and me hating the world of laundry.