Fun with Aunt Kayla!

My mom left before Christmas and Josh was able to work from home during the holidays (plus DELL takes a week off for Christmas...love that!). After New Years though, Josh had to go aback to work and wouldn't be able to help out as much at home. My parents were really concerned about how I would do here with the kids since I was in such bad shape. I told them I would be fine and that we would work around it. We have a lot of people here in the ward who we can rely on if need be as well as great neighbors. I told them that we would just majorly minimize life! Things would be hard, but we would get by. They didn't like any of those answers so they decided to fly out my sister-in-law Kayla to help out for a while. Kayla married my younger brother Kent and they are currently living in MA with my parents helping take care of my older brother Reed until Kent knows what the plan for grad school is. Currently they do not have any kids (let's keep our fingers crossed that they will soon!) and since Kayla is such a sweetheart she said that she would love to come out and help. It was so nice of her to offer!! Despite my protests (I did not want to take her away from Kent and everything there (she helps with Reed too) because I know how much help they need at home) they booked her ticket. Little did I know that they booked her for 3 weeks!! Poor girl! She flew out just a couple of days after Josh went back to work and the girls were more than thrilled!

She has been so amazing! Life has been so much more bearable (and fun!) around here with all of her help. She has kept things going so well while I have been "down." She helps Ally with her homework, gets up and gets the girls ready for school, makes dinner, keeps up with the house and best of all she just plays and plays with the girls. They love being able to go outside and ride bikes and go to the park and have piggyback rides and so much more. There is no way that I could go outside and play with the girls like that right now at all, so it has actually made my guilt over not being able to care for my girls the way I would like to so much less because they are having a blast with their aunt! I know that this is yet again another blessing from the Lord. I also think it has helped a lot with the cabin fever. Having my mom here for so long, and then having Josh home for a while and now having Kayla here has made it so I have not been alone. It has really been a lot of fun getting to know Kayla better and having the time to hang out and talk; she is such an awesome girl!!

Kayla was supposed to leave Tuesday of this week, but when she found out about the amnio and that potentially I could be having Jake next week she decided to change her ticket. She now leaves next Saturday! She has been so generous and thoughtful and kind and I am just amazed at all she has been able to do so willingly and lovingly for us! She has been a great example to me and I love her so much. I am grateful that I have been able to get to know her better and learn from her. The girls hardly knew her before this and now they will know her so well which will be so much fun in the years to come. I am not sure I could do what she has done. It is a tough thing to go and live with someone else and help with their house and their children (not including being away from your husband for so long!). Our family will forever be grateful to her for everything she has done.

Our hope (not knowing the Lord's will) is that the results from the amnio come back good and we find out that Jake is ready to be born. That way I can have him next week while Kayla is still here. That would be amazing because then Josh and I could be at the hospital and not have to worry at all about the welfare of the girls. We will know that they are in good hands with their Aunt. She already knows the routine and we won't have to worry about farming the girls off to this place or that place while I am in the hospital. We'll see if that works out because my doctor is pessimistic about Jake being ready seeing he will be just over 35 weeks. We can still hope though!

When he is born Josh will take a week off of work and then my mom will come after that and help with things around here. I wanted to get caught up on my blog as much as possible before Jake comes because I know that it will be a while before I am able to blog again. I am excited to meet my little guy in the near future though. It will be crazy if I have him next week though, because my birthday is on Thursday the 4th. Our birthday's may be really really close!