hump day nuggets: weirdness

I have been reading a great little blog for a while and have long thought her "hump day nuggets" might be a good format for some of my ramblings. In the very least, it's an attempt to keep myself from getting to terribly far behind. We should all have goals, right?

So, without further ado, I give you the first installation of hump day nuggets ... two days late :) I may or may not ever actually post on Wednesday. We shall see.

hump day nuggets: little bits of the season in photos and words about the last week.

Finally a break from the heat. The weather has been heavenly. We have been racking up as much outdoor time as possible, park hopping around town and digging our fair share of holes in our own backyard. I love being able to spend 3+ hours outside a day with the girls . Everyone is just in better spirits and the outdoors is such a magical place for kids to explore and play. We watch for planes and spot different figures in the clouds overhead. Well, technically they mostly just make stuff up, but that in and of itself is fun. We swing and dig in the sand. I leave laundry piled on the couch and forget to start dinner.

Juliet loves to swing and talk about life :) Funny thing is that Corinne is starting to join in on our conversations. So, they have been a little less meaningful and a little more silly lately. She wears her sunglasses because her Daddy wears his.

School has started and our garage door goes up less often with surprise visits from family members during the day. We get a little spoiled during the summer and I'm not going to deny a bit of sadness when everyone returns to their lives and can't play with us as often!

On the subject of school, we aren't doing pre-school this year. I am beginning to realize that this decision makes us a little weird. I mean it's one thing not to put your 1 or 2 year old in pre-school or mothers day out, but your 3 year old ... definitely weird :)

We definitely don't have a plan for when we are going to do school and what that's going to look like, but all I can say is that it just hasn't - and still doesn't - feel like the right thing. We've prayed about it and given it more hours of thought and discussion than I ever thought possible and decided that for us, enjoying another year at home together is the right thing to do. I'm not going to say that I feel that it's the 100% right decision every day and don't sometimes wonder if somehow she's missing out on something that I can't give her at home, but I guess that's the case with most of parenting. There's a lot I'm not 100% certain about! So, for now, I am embracing my weirdness :)

Labor Day weekend was exactly what we needed - 3 full days of not much going on. I had the opportunity to snap a few pictures of Juliet and Charlie hanging out while Beetles napped. Juliet has been saying more and more that Corinne is her "best friend," but Charlie has definitely been one of this girl's best friends since the day she was born.

I love these photos of the two of them. Kind of want a big print of the last one to hang somewhere in our house. I think they capture them and their relationship well.

Juliet is looking so grown up I can hardly stand it ... speaking of grown up ... look what a difference a year makes.

Crazy!!

In other crazy news, I am 28 weeks pregnant today! Hello 3rd trimester. So great to see you again. Hope you last a little longer than you did last go round :)

Something crazy like 84 days till my due date ... here's the ultrasound photo of the boy from my appointment last week (27 weeks).

Everything is going well pregnancy wise. I am currently drinking no less than 120 ounces of water every day to keep myself hydrated. Dry mouth keeps me up all night if I don't. Consuming that much water - and going to the bathroom as often as that much water requires - is a chore! My big ol' belly is getting more and more in the way. The girls don't like that they can't sit on the middle of my lap when we read books and I don't like that I can't bend over very easily and feel like I'm leaning forward (and sticking my butt out) when I give Dominic a hug. Admittedly very trivial things. So, we just keep plugging along. Trying my hardest to focus on enjoying these last days with just the girls rather than being anxious about potential pre-term labor, how that would affect things, etc, etc, etc.

Linking to a few videos I've taken on my iPhone over the last couple weeks. The girls dancing, being silly with lots of laughs and screaming, Beet Beet poofing me into all types of animals with her abba-cadabba, and Juliet climbing on the playground over Labor Day weekend.

Life is good :) Happy weekending everybody!

it's a ...

I slept through the night last night. 8 glorious hours. For the first time since late March or so. Geez. I just wish I knew what exactly I did last night so I can repeat it again tonight ... and tomorrow night ...

I feel this kiddo move already. It started pretty early so I thought maybe I was crazy, but it's happened enough that I am pretty sure it's what I'm feeling! We've got a mover and a shaker in there :)

First pictures! Here are all the ultrasound pictures we have gotten so far. I honestly have no idea what you're really looking at in these first two.

At my last appointment (15 weeks) the doctor was able to tell us what we are having! I had the doctor write it down because Dominic was out of town, getting back later that night. I figured I could wait that long :) We had my family over for dinner because we were celebrating Juliet's birthday a few days early with them because two of my sisters (and brother in law) were leaving to go on a mission trip. Seemed like a good excuse for a little impromptu gender reveal party!!

Super fun right?!?!

We had Dominic's mom and sister on Skype and my family sitting around us anxiously awaiting the news as we tore open the envelope.

And here's what we saw.

... hmmm ... hard to read ...

Way to go ...

finally got it ...

does that last line read "a girl?"

Yeah. We couldn't make out exactly what the note said.

Dominic and I were pretty sure he was saying that we were finally having a boy, but that last line ... what did it say?!?!?

The note got passed around. We all analyzed. Made guesses.

We sat not really sure for over an hour!

Thankfully, I have a friend who has my doc's cell phone number and she kindly texted him our somewhat pathetic and admittedly hilarious situation.

He kindly cleared up what he'd written:

DUDE!
way to go!
Dom finally got it
Right!

Hilarious.

"It's a boy" would have done the job, but he had to go and try to be funny!!

So IT'S A BOY! Yay!

baby #3 - twelve weeks

Today is the official 12 week mark for our little plum-sized baby #3.

I am currently loving Wendy's french fries, roasted red pepper hummus, and bread & butter pickles ... all things that until a couple weeks ago I can't remember eating for a VERY long time. Driving around town is hard because salty fast food sounds good pretty much all day long.

My stomach is feeling better. I had my fair share of saltine cracker days this pregnancy. My morning all day sickness lasted for about a month, which was my first experience with that. I am coming to the realization that the girls' pregnancies were pretty easy - early on at least.

My only other current weird pregnancy (completely not awesome) thing is insomnia. I don't sleep for more than 2 hours at a time. For the last 6 weeks. So I am pretty much in zombie mode as I type this ... I typically use the bathroom at least 4 times. I lie awake for hours in the middle of the night. Really hoping this is just a first trimester thing and will go away soon. I remember not sleeping well much later on during my previous pregnancies, but we still have a long time left and the fatigue is wearing me down.

Wah. Wah. I'll stop whining ...

My doc says that a very different pregnancy - symptom wise - can be an indication that you are having a different gender. So it could be a BOY people ... did I need to spell that out for you?!? We shall see ... likely when I go back in 3 weeks cause we are going to find out what we are having this time! The whole surprise thing was fun, but I just want to find out (notice I say 'I' not 'we' ... Dominic would be fine to wait). I figure it will be fun to experience both scenarios (knowing and not knowing). Besides, we've already had our major surprise of the year with the pregnancy in the first place :)

I have some ultrasounds from my last 2 appointments to share, but the girls have decided that my blog time is up ... I'm honestly surprised they let me sit here and type this long!

putting it out there

Geez. I take a month off from blogging and I am overwhelmed and don't know where to start!

So much to share. So many stories to tell.

But, for now, today. Today (at least for me) always seems the most appropriate (and easiest) place to start.

So, this is the girls and I earlier today.



Reading one of their favorite books - Elmo's Favorite Places - and trying to agree on who should and should not open which flaps. Many of the flaps have been torn and taped and torn and taped again.

I love having them both on my lap.

My heart is full.

My lap is full.

Or at least it seems full.

Let's just say it's full for now. (wink. wink.)

If you're thinking WHAT?!?! then you are on the right track. This winter we will welcome baby #3 into the world! No later than December 2nd if you are into due dates. I am not as they have never worked out for me in the past. Ha!

Surprised?

We were too. Like totally. I will tell that story later, i.e. next time my preggo brain can write a coherent thought. For now, I will just say that the surprise came on the most appropriate of days - April Fools Day :)

We are excited and I must admit still a little in shock!


P.S. This wasn't exactly the eloquent post I had envisioned writing to announce my pregnancy. Blame the hormones, the smell of banana bread drifting from the kitchen, or the 2 kids unrolling an entire roll of scotch tape at my feet :) I've just been trying to update the blog with all the stuff from the last month or so and can't seem to do so without putting the whole life altering news of baby #3 out there first.

So there you go.

It's out there.

april fools day

This was our crab apple tree on April Fools Day.



Pretty, eh?



I had been having allergy issues. My dermatographism was acing up and over the month of March I'd changed my medications 4 different times but wasn't having any luck getting things under control. Long story short, my back was itchy and looked like a cat had attacked it. For a month.

So, I had my 18th call into the allergist for help and in my conversation with the nurse around 11:30 she mentioned that perhaps the Doc would need to put me on a steroid to get things under control. Sure. That would make sense.

As I got the girls lunch ready, my thoughts went something like this ...

My period is a few days late ... surely I can't be pregnant ... I don't think a steriod would be a safe med IF I was pregnant ... but surely I'm not ... do I have a leftover test in the bathroom ... hmmmm ...

I put the girls down around 1. My curiosity was peaked, having had the "could I possibly be pregnant?" question swirling around in my brain for over an hour.

The test read positive really fast. And the moment I saw it, I just knew it was true. No need for a confirmation test. I could just feel God confirming it ... Happy April Fool's Day.

And I laughed.

Seemed the only appropriate response.

I'm the girl who is supposed to have trouble getting pregnant, not the girl who gets pregnant by surprise!

Crazy.

God is so good.

I didn't call Dominic at work to tell him. I thought that it would be the perfect day to think of a really fun way to tell him - being April Fools Day and all - but between the diaper changing and child chasing all afternoon nothing ever materialized.

He got home from work. We ate dinner. We played outside. Put the girls down.

The regular.

You'd think I would have been bursting at the seams to tell him, but even after the girls went down I was just at a loss for words. I mean, it's sort of big life altering news to just drop on someone who isn't expecting it AT ALL.

I just hugged him and laughed when I told him. We were in the laundry room.

"Really?" he said.

Then he laughed to.

Seemed the only appropriate response :)