31 Weeks!!!

Today marks 31 weeks! Hooray!!! I am so thrilled and grateful and amazed that we're here! This little boy has now beat out Caden and will hopefully catch up to how far Easton made it. No one knows for sure, but we're definitely hoping! To be completely honest, last time I posted I was thinking maybe we could keep him in for quite a while, but in the last week and a half I've begun to doubt that more and more. We had an appointment a week and a half ago and my cervix hadn't gotten any shorter, but I'm anxious to see what they find next week, because since that time I've gone from 3-4 contractions an hour being the average to now 8-10, almost every hour, all day every day, and they're getting more painful. A normal pregnant woman is supposed to call her doctor if she has 4 or more contractions per hour (assuming she's not close to her due date), and at first I was supposed to call if I had 6 or more, but now they've raised it to 10 or more since I usually have close to that and it's just normal. Basically what happens is the receptors in your brain or uterus (I can't remember which, they're basically the same right? :) )  get saturated with the medicine so as time goes on it doesn't work as well. You can usually get about 4-6 weeks out of the meds before the receptors get too saturated and it quits working altogether. I got about 5 weeks the first time and then went on the magnesium which serves as a washout and allows the receptors to become sensitive again so you can start another round of meds. I'm now at 4 1/2 weeks on my second round and the effectiveness is obviously wearing off so we'll see how much longer it works! When it stops working, I don't know if they'll put me back on the magnesium and start meds again or just let him come but I would definitely love to be able to bring him home with me so I'm hoping they'll put me on the mag (did I really just say that?).  Having contractions all the time and being in pain all day is starting to make me a little bit grumpy so now I'm thinking that being on the mag for a few days and then having fewer contractions for awhile would be worth it. Having already been through this with Caden, I realize that just doing it to keep him in longer is worth it, but now I can see some added bonuses. :)  I guess we'll see what happens over the next little while!
On to Christmas! This was our first year staying home with just our little family and not being around any extended family and while we really missed everyone, we ended up having a lot of fun! I did a lot of Christmas shopping online and Jonathan took the boys out a few times which was actually really fun for him(he HATES shopping normally). He went with friends and took them to see lights and Santa and we had fun doing little Christmas crafts at home and reading stories. Caden loved playing with the "activity"(nativity) and would sit and speak for the different characters, making the wiseman ask the camel for a ride and things like that. On Christmas Eve we went to a friend's house for dinner. I actually got to go somewhere! Don't worry, it was about a 3 minute drive and then I walked straight in and laid on the couch and didn't get up all night. I'm allowed to get up 10 minutes every few hours so I counted this as my "getting up" time. Some friends from our ward and some new friends were there and it was so fun to get to visit and play games for a few hours. We didn't get home and get the boys down till hours after bedtime so we got the extra present of getting to sleep in on Christmas morning! The first thing Easton did when he woke up is run to see if Santa had eaten his cookies :)  We opened presents and played with toys forever and then the boys went to church. Our sweet neighbor had brought over an entire ham dinner with a ginormous ham that we were never going to be able to eat by ourselves, so we invited some friends from law school who hadn't gone home for Christmas over on Christmas day to help eat it. Jonathan was nice since I just laid on the couch the whole time and he got to get everything ready. I think he's going to love when he has a wife back again! Although I did change Caden's diaper today while lying on the couch, so maybe I'll figure out some more ways to help out. Basically all I'm good for now is brushing teeth, combing hair, reading stories and playing games. Anyway, we had a wonderful Christmas and I got my wish of being able to be home for it! While we recorded everything on the video camera, I didn't take one picture! Not even of our tree! Jonathan's parents cut down a tree up the canyon by their house in Coalville and drove it 7 hours down here to us and since our apartment has 10 ft ceilings we got a 10 ft tree! Possibly the only time we'll ever have one that tall and it was sure fun for me to look at every day on the couch. Anyway, it was great and wonderful and I'm so grateful for a season full of music and stories celebrating Christ's love that I get to share with my children. I'm especially grateful for the peace that comes with the knowledge of His life and love and the eternal perspective that brings. What a wonderful holiday!
We did get a very special Christmas surprise, the day after Christmas my family came down to visit! They took the boys all over to do fun things, allowed Jonathan some much needed time to work on a paper due tomorrow, and played a very long game of Settlers of Catan with me :)  It was a blast! I did send my camera with them one day when they went to the park so I have a couple pictures of the week.

Here's Uncle McKay playing soccer with them.

 Here's my dad teaching Easton correct tee ball form. I love how you can actually see the ball flying through the air in this picture. Nice shot Nikki!

 Here's Caden and "The Hun." Don't let her winter coat fool you, it was 65 degrees.

In fact, it's been pretty warm the last few weeks. Our thermostat is set to 66 and our heater has only turned on a handful or times, and those were mostly in the middle of the night. I think the built-in heater is one of my favorite perks of being pregnant. Good thing I live in a houseful of boys who don't get cold, I'm sure once I have the baby I'm going to come home and crank up the heater, but for now it feels great and our utilities bill loves it too! :) 
I hope everyone else had a merry Christmas! I've had visions of our adorable Christmas cards all year and had committed to myself that we were actually going to send some out, but plans change so here's my post-Christmas greeting to everyone wishing you all a Merry Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in a couple of days!!!