Our first visit to Legoland for "Legends of Chima" event

On Friday my sister, husband and I took our kids to LEGOLAND Discovery Center at Westchester's Ridge Hill, NY, they were having a preview event "Legends of Chima"

We are outside Legoland getting ready to have some fun.

I received media tickets for the purpose of this review. No other compensation was received. Any personal views expressed are always 100% my own.

It was so cool. My daughter and Nephew had a blast. We were able to do almost everything after a while the fun turned into hunger and tiredness but we were able to do all the fun and exciting things.

We got there a little early while the adults waited on line the kiddies were able to build Lego's on a lego mat built on the wall. I thought that was a great idea, The kids weren't asking a million times when can they go in because they were busy building.

These two were my favorite in Mini land, the statue of liberty& The Freedom Tower being a New Yorker of course. I couldn't believe they were made out of lego's that is creativity.

My Husband enjoyed looking at the mini buildings.

 
The talent to do that is amazing. They had so many different ones. The Yankee Stadium, Ellis Island, Metlife stadium etc. Too much to name, so interesting to look at I really enjoyed looking at all of them.

The kids had a ball at the earthquake tables,they loved building the Lego's, pressing the button at different speeds and watching the earthquake happen. I too got a kick out of that.

We continued on to the 4D cinema to see the premiere. It was a cute 12 minute movie "where tribes of animals fight in battles for CHI, a mystical energy source of limitless power and destruction.

Their was wind, smoke,red&green lights and even some snow Leah loved the snow. I was laughing right with her at the jokes it was enjoyable for the both adult and children.

Out of the 2 rides Lego land has we were able to get the kids to go on one of them twice actually "The Kingdom Quest" the first time Leah didn't enjoy it too much she kept her face dug tight into my shirt the second time she loved it was a mini train ride through the kingdom with laser guns zapping skeleton,trolls and anything in our way to save the princess.

That was fun of course, the adults got competitive saying they zapped more skeletons and trolls then the other but they know the truth I zapped more zombies then they did.

The second ride was the "Merlin's Apprentice" since the little humans didn't want to get on My sister and I went on without them.

Now that ride one was fun and a good workout, the ride goes up and a round in circles and you have to pedal as fast as you can to help Merlin conjure his magic. We were big kids but boy was it fun.

I look forward to going back to Legoland with the kids. for more information on Legoland you can look them up on the website www.legolanddiscoverycenter.com

Focusing on the positive

This heat wave is no joke and my electricity bill will be no joke either, we blast these AC's like there is no tomorrow but the Joseph's can't taking being hot down to my 2 year old she knows the word AC and when she feels it too hot and we are taking too long to turn it off she knows where the on/off button too.  The house chores are so last on the list, they are slowly getting done thanks to my husband I help when I can.  This pregnancy I am so... I don't want to say it but its true LAZY *head down* I cant help it if I don't feel like scratch that if Baby Boy doesn't feel like doing anything nothing is done.



On friday I went to my routine OB appointment we got the results from the second part of blood work that was done the week before testing for down syndrome and retardation everything came back negative so now all those testings are finally done I can really look forward to the Level II ultrasound :-)

The part Im holding is baby ignore the rest lol

another pic of me and belly

But that test isn't for about another 3 weeks I cant wait! Get to see my little boy.  Tomorrow I am 19 weeks 1 week away from being half way done.  His moves and kick are getting much stronger no more flutters these are straight kicks but I enjoy every minute of it no complaints here.  kick away my love <3






This pregnancy is so different the pains and aches I normally get in my third trimester i've had since my first trimester.  The back pains, hip pains, indigestion, heart burn oh and how can i forget the palpitations which my OB insisted I go see my medical doctor and get them checked out.  Im not worried my 2 previous pregnancies I had the same issue when I googled about it, it said it was normal in pregnancies and my OB agreed but still wanted me to get an EKG and ECG done.  Today I went to get the EKG done everything was good they did some blood to check my iron and electrolytes everything was normal.  I was hoping since those were good I wouldn't have to get the Electrocardiogram WRONG I do, Tomorrow I will schedule the ECG and once that comes back normal too I can go back to focusing on my pregnancy.


For the past few weeks I have been debating and couldn't decide on weather to have a baby shower or not my little sister wants me to have a shower  but between my older sister and Kevin's older brother we wont need a shower Kevin's brother have to twin boys who are two years old now, they gave us a HUGE bag of clothes we got the clothes like 2 weeks ago and still aren't finish going through the clothes.  My sister is a professional blogger not a newbie like me she's the real deal you guys should check her out at http://www.mommyfactor.net/p/about-me.html she is also giving us stuff we don't need a shower, plus I had 2 already for my girls.  The money we put into a shower we could just buy whatever the baby needs.

match made in heaven

OMG while writing this post I was eating some salt&vinegar chips ( I know not the best snack) and kevin came in the living room with ice cream so then I wanted ice cream, while eating my ice cream i looked over at the salt&vinegar chips and it said to me mix me with the ice cream and I did what an amazing explosion in my mouth it was heaven and I wanted to share my heaven with kevin who totally didn't like my concoction smh I don't understand how he didn't like it.  I know its the pregnancy and once I have our little boy I will probably not like it either.

I will give you pregnant ladies my recipe
2 to 4 scoops of Haagen Daz vanilla ice cream
1 to 2 Hand crumbled lays salt&vinegar chips
Mix the ingredients together and enjoy!

Second Trimester YAY!!!!

I am so loving the second trimester i feel so much better, I have my off days but for the most part it is great no more vomiting, weakness, nausea, fatigue well fatigue is still there.  I am 17 weeks and 6 days tomorrow I will be 18 weeks woop! woop!.  I am starting to get my baby bump some feel  its been there for a while but i feel its more me then baby ha! ha! ha! The top is the definitely the baby.  Lil man is the size of my hand now ;-)





I am starting to feel his moves more and more light jabs  here and there some days nothing and others he's all over the place.  I can't wait to hold my little guy in my arms so excited. I have to fight and keep my excitement I start thinking about Hannah and everything we went through and I lose my excitement thats another reason why I cant wait to hold him just to know everything is ok I am working on not thinking negative, Kevin is a great help with that he keeps me positive.  On Friday I went to get blood work done so hate doing blood work it doesn't help with my anxiety but it has to get done, and next friday I have an appointment with my OB to go over the blood work and listen to the baby's heart beat (my personal favorite).




This weekend was great did some family time on friday we took the kids to the Van Saun Park/Bergen County Zoo It was fun not nearly as big as the Bronx Zoo (which was fine with me) The Zoo had some awesome animals we got to see Mountain Lions they were huge! we saw Owls who were sleeping it was their night time, American elks, monkeys,alligators,python etc we saw a lot of animals.  We also went on the Zoo's train tour of the park and to the park the park was very big the kids enjoyed it but then it started raining :-( for the kids big smile for mommy I was so tired my feet were and most importantly I was hungry.

Mountain lion she was on the move

Kairi reading about the American Bison

Not sure what we were looking at here.

Reading about the Prairies.

 We decided to go to Ihop for lunch especially since kids eat free. Dinner was great besides the fact when my 2 year old leah is done eating its time to go she doesn't want to wait for everyone else to finish eating she wants to leave and thats that, so we have to choke down our food before she starts turning the place upside down other then the outing was great. (sorry no pictures of Ihop too busy eating lol)




On Sunday we went to Point Pleasant Beach in New jersey we are were so excited this was our first outing to the beach in New Jersey, I'm use to the New York beaches which are ok too, I was ready for the New Jersey experience and boy did I get it. THEY CHARGE FOR YOU TO GET ON THE BEACH now some of y'all might be wondering whats the big deal with charging to get on the beach that was a big deal for me that was a first. It was a great and fun experience. I see what we were paying for clean sand and water, the waves were moving i got in the water once and got knocked over twice i was done after that. Kairi and Kevin had a blast leah wanted no parts of the water she just wanted to play with the sand and that she did she got sand all in her hair and everywhere else.  The sun felt good on my skin but I made sure I wasn't in the sun too much we rented the big umbrellas and I comfortably sat under that to cool off.

she needed some shades to add to her coolness

Leah took a picture of me, didn't come out bad at all

love her pose she is too cute

Next post I will have a belly picture for you guys i just want more definition lol. talk to you all soon <3

Friday Doctors appointment roller coaster

I am so behind with my post, I had a busy weekend.  Lets start with my doctors appointment on friday, It was going good until the medical assistant called me to tell me the doctor wanted me to make an appointment with genetic counseling I froze for like 5 mins then said why? She said one of the test came back positive for down syndrome in my mind I was like OH HELL NO this can't be happening again.  I was confused because 2 weeks ago when I called for the results they told me everything came back normal she explained the first results came back normal but the last test I took showed the elevated numbers for down syndrome. I went back outside and told Kevin what the MA told me we both were just quiet. My brain was racing I was so confused,angry. I kept saying God wouldn't put me through this again He just couldn't. I expressed how I felt to Kev, he wasn't worried he was like lets talk to doctor and go from their but we both agreed no genetic counseling.  After what seemed like forever we were finally called in to see the doctor he was very pleasant asked how I was doing? I explained good until I spoke to his medical assistant, he looked at me and said why? so I explained what she said, the doctor said well their's good news and bad news the good news is all your test came back normal the bad news is on the last test you took there was a slight elevation for down syndrome he continued saying but the first test is more accurate then the second test so they are going with that, the test report shows low risk for any of the trisomies and one other genetic disorder  I was so relieved by the news.

He showed me the percentage on the paper it was 0.01% not even 1% chance. After talking the doctor wanted to see if we could hear the heart beat Leah didn't like that and started crying so the doctor said she could lay next to me while he listened. We listened and we listened and there it was my little boys heart beat I was so happy to hear it even leah smiled.  I was 100%  sure my baby was fine. I asked if it was ok for us to refuse the genetic counseling he said yes it wasn't a necessity just a precaution we just had to sign a paper saying we refused and thats what we did.

Now for the Medical Assistant I personally feel they shouldn't talk to the patients until the doctor talks to the  patient and can better explain the situation, talking to her felt like she was confirming it.  She didn't know the numbers or what is considered elevated but she told me I had to see genetic counseling but couldn't explain why tsk tsk.  I was so excited about the news I forgot to mention to the doctor that it's not a good idea to have the assistant tell patients anything about diagnoses or findings. Lets leave that to the doctor.  All in all it was a good appointment and we are feeling good I just thank God so far all is good and I am depending on My Heavenly Father to keep it that way.

Now some pictures of our little Prince at 14 weeks 3days

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The results are in...

My appointment for the blood work was on a friday and i had 14 day to get the results.  On the second friday exactly 14 days I decided to wait until monday I felt if I called exactly on friday they probably would have said the results didn't come in yet wait until monday so i skipped all that and just waited, the slowest weekend ever it......just........ slowly ..... went ..... by.  Bright and early monday morning  called and got great news all testing came back normal and baby is looking good :-), Once we got passed the most important results i asked about the sex of the baby, unfortunately those results weren't back yet which was weird I figured it all would have come in together.  I was told to call back which I did and thats all they kept saying call back call back....



Last week on the 13th I decided I wasn't calling back i would just wait until my doctors appointment on friday on the 21st which was a whole week and  a day away.  On the 14th i had an appointment to do an ultrasound so they can measure the baby and the baby's neck as I was speaking to the tech she asked if I had done the genetic testing I told her I did and was waiting for the results of the baby's sex she was confused because like I thought it should all come in on the report.   On the 17th Monday morning I was talking to a friend and like most of my family and friends who knew we were waiting on the sex was getting impatient, which was funny it's not like i purposely wasn't telling them the sex I wanted to know too, Anyway monday after talking to my friend and she's telling me give her the doctors number so she can see whats going on ha!ha!ha! I decided to give them a call and see if they got any news.




I spoke to the one of the medical assistance and apparently the sex of the baby wasn't checked off the phlebotomist forgot to request it, the lab had to do it they had the results but the person or whoever it was wasn't gonna be in until 1pm I said ok what else could I say right? Right I felt they weren't going to call me back  so I had my heart set on getting the results on friday.  Well, around 2pm I got a call from Kevin saying the lady called him and she had the results so we three way called the doctors office and we were told we are having a BOY!! Thats all I heard the young lady say Kevin was just screaming on the phone YES! THANK YOU GOD! LAUGHING! Then crying he was just so Happy it brought tears to my eyes to see him so happy this is something we wanted and so thankful that God gave us another blessing.  Everyone kept saying we were having a boy and I felt deep down we were having a boy but I thought that three times and three times I had girls who I love dearly wouldn't change them for the world.  This pregnancy is so different I am sick all the time change of smells make me throw up, everything makes me sick its too much to write out I lost two pounds so far I am not complaining and I know the doctors wont complain either ha! Everyone is up to date now. We are having a healthy baby boy I cant wait to see my little man *day dreaming* I will update my blog on saturday about my appointment tomorrow. Stay blessed and highly favored in Jesus.

My Rainbow Baby

 MOST of us know the biblical story behind a rainbow and what it represents, the promise God made to us centuries ago.  I've always appreciated a rainbow the very few times I have seen them anyway, the beautiful colors Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple, The representation.  I grew up in Brooklyn,NY we don't see much rainbows at least i haven't.  Until the passing of my 2 month old last year.  Hannah had Trisomy 18 a chromosome disorder that in the end took her life.    I would stroll through my Trisomy 18 groups and read mom's writing about having there rainbow baby at first I  didn't understand what they meant by "rainbow baby" until one of the moms explained what a rainbow baby was.  A rainbow baby is getting pregnant after losing a baby/child.  When Hannah passed away the thought of another child frightened  me, the thought of possibly going through another pregnancy and finding out that something could be wrong or something as simple as a miscarriage would throw me over the top so Kevin(my husband) and I decided we wouldn't talk about having another child for a least a good 5 years,  maybe 7 months later I started thinking about our rainbow baby and did I really wanted to wait 5 years? We have 2  girls but we both wanted a boy so after talking we decided to start trying in september of 2013.  I discontinued my BC to let my body regulate itself, Well my body didn't take long to regulate because I am 11 weeks pregnant with my rainbow baby YAY!!

At first it was disbelief if it wasn't for the horrible morning, afternoon and night sickness I probably would not have believed I was pregnant plus it was a little overwhelming it took me a little while before  wanting to telling family and friends. After taken a pregnancy test the positive presented itself.  I scheduled an appointment with my gyn, when we went to the doctor did an ultrasound and there was my little rainbow baby and of course I looked for the heartbeat we couldn't hear it because it was too early but seeing it was enough for me the doctor said I was seven weeks along *all smiles*.  My doctor told me I had to come back in when I was 10 weeks to get all genetic testing done that was the earliest it could be done.  The longest three weeks of my life i was so worried every cramp or discomfort scared me, one day i just prayed and decided to give it to my heavenly father all my worries and fears i gave it to him that helped me a lot i still worried but not nearly as much. three weeks had finally came around we went in got the blood work done after the technician was done drawing my blood she asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby when the report comes in  I was like heck yeah I didn't say that i played it cool looked at kevin with the what you think do you want to know look he said definitely and I shook my head in agreement and off went my blood work.   And so we wait...




I look forward to sharing this journey with family and friends.  Most of you reading this read my last blog about my journey with Hannah www.footprintsofhannah.blogspot.com and she was a blessing to so many people so I pray after going through that journey that this new journey will give parents who are going though something similar or just lost a child this can be there shining light in a dark time.