Decklyn's 4th Birthday

It's hard to believe that 4 years ago, we were posing Decklyn on the couch taking these holiday pictures as birth announcements. He's grown so much and is not so scrawny anymore. LOL! It's also hard to believe that in a few short months we'll be posing another lil boy for birth announcement pictures. It's always fun to wonder and think how much he will resemble Decklyn. I just asked Decklyn tonight if he was going to teach his little brother all that he knows since he seems so smart for a 4 year old.

Baby Decklyn at just a few days old. What a present he has been!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we also celebrated Decklyn's 4th birthday. His party actually landed on his Grandma Pam's birthday- so he made sure to give Grandma Pam some spankings as well. Below is his birthday cake with his NF Hawk football jersey on it. I know, you'd never guess it, but we had a football party for him. So much different than the pink puppy party we had last year. LOL! Over the past year Decklyn has turned into quite the football fanatic, so it was suiting to have the football themed party. It was also just my luck that Oriental Trading had a bunch of football things pretty cheap in those wonderful Hawk colors.

Decklyn's cake made by Norske!

Getting ready to blow out his candles

Decklyn had lots of help from his younger cousins. He even gave Mason quite a few tries so he could practice for his upcoming birthday party.

Decklyn is especially lucky to have Great Grandparents like these!

Decklyn with his favorite people! His grandparents- Mom and Dad are nothing compared to them!

Ultrasound #2 and family updates

Yesterday I had my second ultrasound to check on the placenta. Last ultrasound the placenta was very low so they wanted to do another ultrasound to make sure things have improved. Thank goodness that the ultrasound showed improvements on that! Always a relief. Baby is positioned breech at this time, but not too worried about that this early- he's always moving!!! They were able to tell me that he weighs over 2lbs. now and they spent a lot of time trying to get a good 4-D ultrasound of the lil man. He's definitely a little camera shy and would not take his hand away from his face this time either. They did manage to get a picture with his hand away from his face and we are able to determine that Baby Heins #2 is going to have his Daddy's nose! Justin's not going to like this, but we may have a Lil Bubba on our hands. :D I will work on scanning the baby's pictures in for all to see real soon! Overall, the ultrasound seemed to go well, now I'll wait til next week to meet with the doctor and go over everything with her.

Exciting news for Mike... he's making great progress in the rehabilitation area and they are tentatively saying that he will be able to come home on Thursday. It sounds like Mike was hoping they would tell him today, but so great to have a date so close for coming home.

I recently have gotten new students at school and become very swamped at work. It was determined last week that I've been working the equivalent to almost two teachers. No wonder this pregnant woman has been so exhausted! LOL! The school is currently looking to hire another full time Instructional Strategist II Special Education teacher to help lessen my case load. What a change this will make for me. If you know of anyone interested in teaching special education, tell them to apply at Valley! Hopefully this means I can be more of the teacher I'd like to be!

Mike's Progress!!!

Yesterday was a better day for Mike. He was able to have the balloon heart pump removed around 10:30am. It was removed and he did a great job maintaining his blood pressure without it. That was a big step in the right directions! Now they are hoping to continue to maintain the blood pressure and within the next few days maybe the ventilator can be removed as well. Yesterday they also took him off of the paralytic they had him on and went back to the sedation medication. Both of these medications were to help him and his heart relax- especially while the balloon pump was in place. Hopefully they will be able to reduce the sedation medication and continue to reduce the blood pressure medication.

As of this morning they had actually been able to take him off his blood pressure medication and another medication (I don't remember what anymore-I'll get back to you). All of these good signs that he is heading in the right direction, but we're keeping in mind that these may need to be put back in place. Overall, improvements are being made and we owe it all the the prayers and thoughts everyone is sending our way. I will do my best to keep you posted on how Mike is doing!

Prayers for Mike

Yesterday was a scary day in our family. Everyone was called into the emergency room yesterday morning as Mike suffered a heart attack. He seemed to be stable and was communicating well with others before he was airlifted to La Crosse. When we all arrived in La Crosse Mike had already had 4 stints put in one of his arteries. The doctors stated that all 3 arteries had blockages and that he would eventually need bypass surgery when he was more stable. He was put on medication to help with his blood pressure and some to help with the blockages. He also had a balloon pump put in to help his heart beat. As of last night his right side of his heart still wasn't functioning but they stated that his heart attack was still going on.

As of today Mike has had his medications reduced and how much the balloon pump is helping has been reduced. Right now Mike is still in critical condition but has been making progress. Mike is still sedated to help him relax, which he is having a hard time doing. Overall, progress is being made. We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers that everyone is sending our way.

24 week appointment

Yesterday I went in for my 24 week appointment. I was not too worried about this appointment because it was just going to be a basic appointment. The doctor comes in to see me and comes in like she is looking under my chair or something and says, "Every time I see you I wonder if I'm ever going to see you look pregnant." LOL Now I must say that this does make a person feel good, but I also had to chuckle at the way she did it. I definitely feel pregnant and I also feel like its pretty obvious at this point too, but that's my view I guess.

The doctor than said she wanted to go over my ultrasound information with me so she gets on the computer and pulls up the chart. She starts reading to me what it says and what that means for me and the baby. Everything seems to be looking good. Then she says that the ultrasound says the due date is January 5th. I about fell off of my chair as that was over an entire month different from Feb. 8th. She got all confused and was trying to figure out if there was a typo or what was going. The more we looked at the results, I noticed she wasn't even on my ultrasound chart- she was reading me someone elses. OOOOOPPPSS!! Once she figured out it wasn't my chart, she got mine pulled up and explained what they saw for me. Things look pretty good for Baby Heins. She did mention that my placenta was low and that they would want to do another ultrasound to make sure things are alright with that. She didn't seemed too worried but explained that if it was still low she'd let me know what that means after the next ultrasound. Kind of a nervous feeling wondering if that has improved or what happens if it hasn't. All I know is that it could mean that the baby is at higher risk for being born early. Let's cross our fingers that there is improvements and we don't have to worry about it. :D

After going over the ultrasound she went ahead to measure how large I'm getting and listen for the heartbeat. She was feeling around and found the baby's head and said she felt that the baby was off on my right side with his head up towards my ribs. No wonder I'm feeling the kicking lower this time than I did with Decklyn. Decklyn always kicked me in the ribs. The doctor was surprised that I wasn't having any pain in my hips with the baby being so far off to the side like that. I honestly never had felt any pain until this morning. But after the day I had at school yesterday, I could just be sore from all the moving around I had to do.

When she went to get the heartbeat we both had to laugh because you could hear the baby's hiccups over top of the heartbeat. That was so cute to hear! The baby's heartrate was in the 160's. Everything seems to be looking good at this point. My next appointment is for my ultrasound on Nov. 8th. I will then have my 28 week appointment the following Monday, Nov. 15th. I'll do my best to keep you posted on what we find out.

As for Decklyn, he's still playing football. As a matter of fact he is begging me to hurry up on the computer so I can play with him. He also asked if he could tackle me. I told him no that we wouldn't be doing any tackling and he said that I couldn't play football then. LOL! Decklyn has been really into how old you have to be to play with certain toys lately- I'm not real sure how it got started, but he talks about it alot now. This morning I hear him ask Justin, "Dad, can you pretend you are 3 for a little bit to play Break the Ice with me?" LOL how cute is that. Decklyn didn't realize the box says 3+, he just noticed the 3 and asked Justin to pretend to be 3 so he could play. What a hoot!

Football Fanatic

Wow... Decklyn has truly become a football fanatic this football season. I swear he has to even dream about football as much as he talks about it. Tonight he's been telling everyone that he is going to play in a real game for the Hawks. He asked me if I thought that would be ok. I just had to tell him to go ask Dad. (Just so everyone knows... he wants to play for the North Fayette Hawks and not the Iowa Hawkeyes, sorry!)

Another typical scene in our house lately is Decklyn setting up his own football field and utilizing whatever is around for his endzones. He likes to use an empty milk bottle from McDonalds for the "milkies" and then uses a Viking or UNI item/figurine for the other endzone to resemble that team. He then uses his hands and plays what he calls finger football and he also commentates what is going on in the game, letting us know when we need to cheer. Justin and I are suppose to be the crowd cheering for the players. He's constantly saying what down and yard line he is on and if there was a fumble. They kick off to start the game and even kick extra points. It is truly amazing to me how much he has learned about football so far this season. I remember teaching him what downs were at the first game. Now tonight he was telling Grandma Pam all about them. Hilarious!

Besides finger football Decklyn enjoys getting dressed up in his football uniforms he has or go as is to play a game outside or in the livingroom with whoever will play with him. He'll take a balloon or a football, whatever is around to play. He's pretty comical about the rules, they always seem to change slightly in his favor. I'll definitely have to try and get a video of him in his glory, playing football and post it for you all real soon.

Tonight Decklyn is hanging with Dad upstairs watching the Vikings! I can hear them from the basement hooting and hollaring. For the most part the cheers sound positive, so I'm guessing they are winning. Justin was pretty excited to watch Randy Moss play for the Vikings again, he was even searching for his Randy Moss jersey. Pretty fun to watch those two show their football spirit. As long as everything goes their way that is. Otherwise look out!

As for Baby Heins #2... we're feeling lots of movement now and I'm definitely feeling pregnant and bigger than I did with Decklyn. I'm also so much more tired this time around- don't think I was ever really tired with Decklyn. Justin jokes with me that I keep getting up later and later in the mornings and that he doesn't know how I still get to work on time. LOL. We've been trying to convince Decklyn to help us pick a name for the baby, but he's still stuck on Zaza. Even Linda at daycare has been working on that with him- we'll just keep trying because we won't be naming the poor guy Zaza. Haha! This Friday will be my 24 week checkup. I can't believe I'm 6 months already- it's crazy how fast time goes... we'll have to be looking for baby names or he may end up being Zaza :S

Allergic to Apples!?!?!?

So Decklyn's been dealing with hives on and off since the start of the school year. A week or so ago he started getting them everyday. Last week he hadn't had them at all during the day and then ended up eating two apples for a snack and within a short time started getting hives that ran down his arms, on his chest, back and his neck. So we have not started experimenting with apples to see if he's really allergic to them. Since last Tuesday he has not had any hives and we've eliminated apples from his diet. So we'll go a few weeks without and see what happens when we try raw apples without skins, as I heard the skin is the worst part for the type of allergy I think he has (cross-reaction birch pollen/apple allergy). Some sites I looked at stated not eating the skin may be helpful, so we'll experiment with that first. I hate to not let him eat apples all together- especially since apples have been so helpful in keeping him regular. I don't need to deal with the constipation issues that he had when he was younger again. We'll just keeping learning about this allergy and see what we can do to help him avoid the hives. Maybe seeing an allergy specialist will be in our future.

Here are some picture of Decklyn's hives that he's been dealing with for the last month and a half. I can't help but feel sorry for the little guy. These pictures don't even show how painful they really look and sometimes are.

Happy Birthday Leyton!!!

First of all, want to wish our nephew Leyton Happy 1st Birthday! This past weekend we celebrated with a birthday bash for the lil man. Decklyn and Leyton got to go out to Grandma Pam's garden and gather up pumpkins. So I thought I'd show pictures of the boys with all their pumpkins. Poor Leyton had to hold on for dear life in the gator with Decklyn driving. I think they both had a great time. Hope you had a great birthday Leyton!!!

20 Week Appointment

I had my 20 week appointment on Friday, Sept. 17th. This was pretty exciting and an appointment that Justin was able to make it to. We got to have an ultrasound and found out what we are having. I shouldn't have doubted that it would be a boy... those boys are pretty dominant, at least on Justin's side of the family. We're all pretty excited to have another lil guy around the Heins Household. Decklyn is still dead set on calling him Zaza. We'll see... maybe we can convince him otherwise.

Anxiously Waiting

It's been way to long since I've made a post. I promised I would try and keep up. This week we've been anxiously waiting for Friday to arrive. Its been busy around our house trying to get everything settled and organized and hopefully ready for baby in February.

Mike and Justin have been working on the bathroom! That's really exciting for me since we haven't been able to use it since we moved in around Christmas time. That's a long time and now that I'm pregnant I get tired of having to go downstairs to use the restroom in the middle of the night. So I'm pretty excited that there is now a tile floor and a tub in place in the bathroom. Can't wait to see it all come together.

Barb has been painting Decklyn's play room in his favorite, Hawk colors. It's a pretty bold looking room, but Decklyn is very excited about the stripes that Grandma Barb is putting on the walls. She has put in a ton of work helping us paint here at the house... not sure how I will ever repay her for all her help! It's looking great!

My mom has helped when she can as well... she's helped me with some organization and is preparing to repaint the floors in the basement after my dad and Mike had an incident with breaking some pipes and water coming in and taking up the newly painted floors. :D I guess they wanna keep my mom busy!!!

Monday we had new furniture come for our Panther Family Room. It's so nice to finally have real furniture down there to relax on. See ya never again futon! LOL! Justin has already moved his DVR box down to that TV and claimed a spot on the new couch. Typical man!

Now we anxiously await Friday to find out if Baby Heins is going to be a Harry or a Zaza. LOL. If it's a girl, Decklyn has the name Harry picked out for her. And no worries... it's not short for Harriet. LOL! If it is a "guy" Decklyn would like to name him Zaza. I think we'll just make sure that both of those are nicknames, but for now that is how we talk about the babies (Harry and Zaza). Look for an update on Friday on whether we'll be having a Harry or Zaza. We are soooo soooo sooo excited to find out. My mom is super excited because Ossian starts their City Wide Garage Sales Friday morning as well... perfect timing! Atleast this time she won't buy both girl and boy. :D

16 Week Appointment

Today was my 16 week doctor appointment. Of course it had to be the first week of school! Even though I missed part of a chaotic day of school I had a pretty good appointment. They did the typical measure my belly, listen for the heartbeat, check my blood pressure and all that jazz. My poor doctor must have been up all night delivering babies because she told me she hoped I got more sleep than she did. LOL!

I got my regular weighing in and I'm gaining weight... that's different than with Decklyn. I think I lost weight the first three or four months with Decklyn and this time I've gained each appointment. I joke that I've gained more weight this pregnancy than I did the entire pregnancy with Decklyn, but its not quite that bad only about 5-8 lbs. to go. HAHA! When the doctor measured me she made a comment about how much I've grown since last time- and she warned me not to worry, some second time moms think they are having twins when they pop so much earlier. I had to laugh and tell her Decklyn's theory on us having twins and the girl being Harry and the guy Zaza. She thought that was pretty cute.

The babies heartbeat was a little slower this time in the 150's and the baby was moving around so we didn't get to hear a long constant heartbeat. Dr. Maker had to keep moving around to hear it. Again, she warned me that she was listening to one baby and that there wasn't another one in there. I'm not sure what to think with all the mentioning of twins- hope that isn't a sign of what is really to come. I guess we'll find out in one month for my 20 week appointment when I get an ultrasound. That will end the twin topic and hopefully Decklyn can say he is going to have a baby brother or sister instead.

Overall, I'm starting to feel better and that taste is leaving my mouth most days. Or maybe I'm just so super busy at school to notice it anymore... not really sure. :D I'm not fitting comfortably into my pants anymore so its nice to have a belly band to expand my pants a little longer. I also did a little school shopping for myself and bought some new maternity outfits to get me through the fall/winter months. I can't believe how out of date some of my maternity clothes I wore with Decklyn already feel.

Gosh... I can't believe the next doctor appointment update will mean we're at about the half way mark! It's gone by fast already and February seems so far away yet.

First Day of School

Justin, Decklyn, and I all started school today. Decklyn was so excited to finally be starting school. I got one of those fun first day of school pics with Decklyn posing at the front door. I'll make sure to post the picture soon. I kept telling him that he couldn't be old enough or big enough for school. He had to tell me that he was 3 and half and that he was big enough for school. Justin took him to school this morning and Decklyn hung out with Dad until he felt ready to go to his room. Grandma Barb got to pick him up and he shared how much fun he had at school with her. By the time I was able to pick him up from Grandma he didn't want to tell me too much about school. I think he was just so tired from all the fun he had at school that he just didn't want to talk about it anymore. :D I guess we'll get to bed early tonight and hope he is in a good mood tomorrow for daycare. Last night was quite a chore getting him to bed. Tried putting him to bed early for school but of course the one night its nice enough to have the air off and windows open someone in the neighborhood has a party and is making noise keeping Decklyn from wanting to sleep in his own room. Took a few hours to get him to stay in his room and fall asleep. Not how we wanted to prepare for the first day of school. Hope that gets better.

As for Justin and my first day we managed to start another school year. Hope the year continues to go well.

Ossian Fest 2010

Last night was Ossian Fest. As usual I spent a few days helping my mom prepare her float for the parade. This year mom's float was Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. I helped mom get costumes and kiddos gathered up for her float.

I made some funny masks for Lucy, Sally, Linus and Charlie to wear. Mom took an old woman's robe and we made a Snoopy outfit out of that for Decklyn. Leyton got to be Woodstock and wore a costume mom found at Goodwill. We even made little caption bubbles for each character to hold. Our float turned out pretty cute.

Decklyn and my mom were joking all day that Decklyn was going to be Snoop Doggy Dog and Decklyn would laugh and say, "No, I'm hot dog diggity dog" haha! I just thought to myself that he was going to be one hot dog in that costume. He loved it and didn't want to take it off when the parade was over.

Decklyn called my mom this morning to ask her if we won the float contest. She told him we didn't win this year and his response was, "bummer". He didn't seem to mind too much.

The kids had fun and I must say the float came together pretty well in two short days. :D

Adventureland

We spent a few days in DesMoines with my sister, Bridget and her husband and lil man. Then we took Decklyn to Adventureland on Thursday. It turned out to be a much better day than our trip to Adventureland last year! No rain and no need for the sweatshirts I had packed. :D

Decklyn had so much fun and wanted to ride so much more than he had last year. Although we started our day by getting in line for the Ferris Wheel which he complained about the whole time saying he wasn't going to ride things that went around and around. haha! We convinced him to stay in line and get on so he could see what else he wanted to ride. Once on he held onto my leg like his life depended on it. He actually enjoyed the ride afterwards.

Our lil man has grown so much he actually was able to ride on more rides. Thank goodness for me that Justin was willing to take him on those that I did not want to. The two of them had so much fun on all the rides. As for me I just made sure to snack on some food every couple of hours. :D

Decklyn's favorite story to tell of the whole trip is of the three of us on the log ride. I must say it was kind of funny. Since Decklyn is still a little guy they wouldn't let him ride up front on the log by himself, so I said I would be the brave sole. Once on the ride we headed down the first and smallest hill and hit the bottom. I tried to duck hoping the water would splash over me and hit Decklyn and Justin who sat right behind me. Well, guess I was wrong. Neither Justin or Decklyn got wet. The water went straight up and landed right on top of me. I was soaked! Just ask Decklyn to tell the story. He is quite the story teller. haha

Overall, we had a great time at Adventureland and loved spending time with Bridget, Matt, and Leyton. I can't believe how much Leyton has grown and how much more he can do. So much fun to watch him.

Baby #2

We have some exciting news to share in our family. Decklyn is excited to say he is going to be a big brother. If you ask him we are going to have twins (a guy and a girl). He has some twin friends at daycare and thinks that would be neat to have. Little does Decklyn know that no matter whether we have one or two babies it will be taking some attention away from him. No matter what, Decklyn will be an awesome big brother- he loves babies.

I had my first doctor appointment yesterday. It was a typical baby appointment except I was surprised that I actually got to hear the babies heartbeat at this first appointment. The babies heartbeat was in the 160's. That was fun to hear and makes things a little more real. At this appointment I was also hoping that they could give me some ideas on how to get rid of this constant bad taste I've been having in my mouth, but not much can be done. I'll just try taking my vitamins at a different time and keep something in my mouth constantly to make it more tolerable. I'm hoping in a few weeks this won't be an issue.

We've posted a poll for everyone to vote whether baby #2 will be a boy or a girl. Justin has already been flipping through the name book and marked a few boy names, so I'm thinking that is where his guess is... we'll see. I on the other hand have no idea. I can say this time it feels different, but not sure if enough different to make it feel like its a girl. We can't wait to find out when that time comes. Until then, we'd love to hear your thoughts!

Getting started!

I want to welcome everyone to the Heins Family blog. Viewing other blogs has inspired me to try to create one of my own. My goal is to make sure we can keep it updated. I hope you enjoy the moments that our family shares.