My Days on Bedrest (87 and counting)

Everyone keeps asking me "what do you do the whole day?" while I lay around and try to not move a muscle (doctor's orders) - terrified that anything will make me go into labor. So, here are some things that fill my long, long days. These aren't in order, so some are from home before I got stuck in the hospital. Like this is a picture of Rivers having a sleep over party with me in my hospital room (before kids were banished from the hospital). She brought nail polish and did my toes, we watched Barbie as Rapunzel, she brought lots of her build a bears and we got lots of "girl time" as she likes to call it.

Here we are snuggling in my hospital bed watching a movie. That was about the last time we got to hang out and it really, really sucks. Now both my kids have H1N1 and we have to use Skype to see and talk to each other. Talk about feeling helpless. I can't even take care of my sick kids.


Believe it or not, I've watched very few movies since being down, but I have renewed my fondness of the TV series Alias from years ago. Rivers watches them with me and tells me I absolutely can not watch any episodes without her and always begs to watch more when an episode is over. Maybe the secret desire to dress up in disguises and kick everyone's booty while going on crazy adventures is genetic.

Sometimes I just stare at my poor atrophied legs. I used to be proud of my muscular legs, and now they closely resemble a chicken. This picture makes them also look amputated.
At home Rivers and I would take big bubble baths together for our dates since I couldn't leave the house or really do anything else. I'm also taking a graduate class on Macronutrients that luckily meets online. I am furiously trying to get my big research paper done before the bitty babies arrive. I've also read lots of books including "The Geography of Bliss", "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society", "Three Cups of Tea" (my favorite so far), "In Her Shoes", The story of Immaculee Ilibagiza, a Rwandan genocide survivor, and "These is my Words".

I picked up a new craft to keep my hands busy - crocheting. I've never done it in my life, and will probably never have time to do it again, but it's been fun creating lots of stuff. Here is Rivers modeling a bag I made for my Mom.

My myrtlewood box full of crocheting essentials.

A hat for Tanner

Booties and hats for friends who had babies




The hat I made for Rivers. She looks so darn cute in hats.

Some of my favorite moccasin like loafers I made up

A few more projects - most of these things are for friends that have kids and have been taking care of my kids and me for weeks. I also made some cute little mittens for CD but they didn't make the pic. I like the brown boots and red Mary Janes. I should start selling these things on ETSY to pay for the many medical bills I'm racking up.

I rub my belly with Bio-Oil

I stare at my picture door I put up on the hospital bathroom door to remember what people look like :( I eat lots of almonds - my snack of choice lately.

At least I have a great view from my hospital room with a huge window.


Here it is at sunrise looking mighty pretty. Of course it looked better in person.


I've read this book Rivers made for me called "My Mom's Life" with great original illustrations many times. She made it for me during recess at school instead of playing. I miss that girl.

I need some bigger shirts. Me at 28 weeks with my belly starting to poke out the bottom.

Rivers and Dwight talking to the babies and telling them bye before going home. Rivers always says "bye, this is your sister Rivers", so this night Dwight said "bye, this is big boy". The hardest part of this whole deal is definitely being away from them.....and lots and lots and lots of other things. So anyway, that's what I do to try to stay sane, but it's not really working.

Happy Birthday Carlos!

Carlos turns 34 today so here are some pics I like - most of them showing what a really good Dad he is. Lately he has been pulling double duty as a provider and single Dad and he's pulling it off without any complaints. He gets the kids up and ready in the morning and off to school or friend's houses, works, takes the kids to their stuff in the evenings, and spends every other second of his time at the hospital with me - smiling and being supportive of me and our situation.
I've been impressed with his juggling skills - only the house cleaning gets left out :) Here he is with Rivers on her first day of school.

I've always thought the kids look just like Carlos when they sleep.

Hope your day is wunderbar Carlos, even though I can't do much to celebrate it. I did crochet you a pretty cool beanie though.

Dwight J. Bushnell

Hard to believe it's been 10 whole years. I'm trying to find my CD with all my old pictures on it of him to put on here, but for now, here are a few to pay tribute on this September 22nd to an incredible Dad.

"All at Once"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1Y5Ln9PzVw

This little post is dedicated to my little sister Whitney (pictured with me above when I was 6 )because I was on iTunes the other day looking up the new Whitney Houston album (I know, I know... but it's been so long since she's had anything out and we loved her when we were little). Anyway, I saw the song "All at Once" from her Greatest Hits album and immediately got this picture in my head of walking into our bedroom when Whitney was about 7 or 8 and she was standing right in front of our awesome ghetto blaster with "All at Once" playing and was trying her hardest to get that verbratto just right as she sang along with all her emotion. You know when the song goes "once......." with all that wavering and soul? Anyway I listened secretly for a few seconds before I burst out laughing and she got embarrassed and mad and yelled at me to get out. Click on the link to see Whitney Houston singing it back in the day.

Here's a pic of Whitney and me in college...

And this last picture is of Tyler, Whitney, and me and something about it always makes me laugh when I see it...maybe it's that unfair look on Tyler's face, or Whitney's thoughtful pose, or my bangs I was trying to grow out.

So it's taken me forever to get these pics from our Santa Cruz camping trip/Nuno reunion from July up because I am obviously pregnant in them and I was going to do some blog first about me being pregnant...with twins, but being on bedrest I can't even get up to get the camera, cord, use the scanner to scan ultrasound pics etc., so I'm doing this in the mean time.

Here are some pics from the boardwalk in Santa Cruz - CD didn't like the whale ride.

Here is one of the beach days. I gave Carlos the camera to take some pics and he came back with these couple shots of everyone. Vote for your favorite couple :)



Yvonne and Ed

Karli and Daniel

Christina and Ben

Carlos and Cheryl

and best for last....Tasha and Carlos

This is Salesi and CD who found a spot by themselves to eat snacks and soon were surrounded by seagulls.

Dwight loved his headlamp and wanted to put it on first thing in the morning.

Rivers and I took off to Capitola for a day by ourselves. She loved shopping in all the cute shops and selected a sea otter in a bikini from Beach Bears (a build-a-bear knock-off) as her purchase for the day and fittingly named her Sandy.

If you can spot Rivs and CD in the stump and eucalyptus tree, this is where they would perch and talk at the campsite.

Looking cute and amazingly clean at the end of a fun week of camping and cousins.