twenty-three

How far along? 23 weeks

Updates on baby: Littlest love is about the size of a mango and may already be used to some loud noises around our house. So hopefully she's not shocked by a rambunctious big brother... :)

Symptoms/Body Changes: This week was... hard. I had the worst stomach virus over the weekend and when I wasn't getting sick I was in bed crying about how awful I felt! I'm finally feeling better, though, and the sickness is only happening a few mornings a week. I realize it could be so much worse, so I'm thankful for what it is! My belly has also become a focal point for C. He points at it and touches it often and tries to climb on all of the time. Ouch! It's also much harder for me to rock him (with his legs around my waist and head on my shoulder) because it puts so much pressure on my new belly. That's my least favorite realization of the week... I don't want to have to stop rocking my baby!

Movement: Sister is a big time mover! It's crazy how just a few weeks ago I wasn't feeling her very much and now almost whenever I am still she kicks like crazy. Pretty neat. :)

Cravings/Aversions: No food has sounded good this week. Michael leaves for church early Sunday mornings and he asked a friend to come help with Caedmon while he was gone since I was so awfully sick on Saturday. She came over and I asked her to make me banana bread... it was the only thing that was finally sounding yummy! Luckily she's the sweetest friend and she made me two loaves and cleaned my kitchen. :)

Getting ready for baby: This morning I started to organize our "yard sale/Craigslist" pile that's in the office. (PS - I never ever have luck selling things on Craigslist... does anyone else feel this way, or am I the only one?) I need to post a picture of the office so I can track our progress. My BabyCenter e-mail this week said to get the nursery painted already... uhm, excuse me?! We still have oodles of time. Right? Oh, and I think I'm liking coral and gray for the nursery - still with yellow, I've just got to see how everything fits together once I start buying things for the nursery. I'll keep ya posted. :)

What I miss: not getting sick or doing laundry or having to take three showers a day because I'm covered in sick. (Unfortunately Caed got the bug, too..) BLEH.

What I am looking forward to: Tomorrow is open gym for toddlers at a gym in town... we went last week and it was so much fun. I'm excited to take Caedmon again!

Weekly wisdom: Rest. Rest. Rest!

22 weeks

How far along? 22 weeks

Updates on baby: Little love weighs about a pound and her facial features are starting to become more distinct.

Symptoms/Body Changes: The sickness is NOT over. I had two pretty hard days this week... Thankful for my sweet hubby who picked up my slack with the house! And I'm totally beat by the end of the day... My bed time is 8:30 or 9.

Movement: lots and lots! She's been moving all the time... I love it!

Cravings/Aversions: Nothing out of the ordinary! I feel pretty normal as far as eating is concerned again.

Getting ready for baby: No news on this front... we keeps saying "We've got so much time still!" and we do... we still have four months!

What I miss: not crying all the time... it's ridiculous. I was definitely not this emotional when I was pregnant with C! AND not being so forgetful. Sheesh! I lost my keys, wallet and retainer this week (surprisingly most emotional about the retainer.) We did find the keys after about 3 days... they were in my purse. My wallet? In my coat pocket.

What I am looking forward to: Is it totally awful that I can't think of anything right now??

Weekly wisdom: Try to have some down time just to yourself... I've been trying to do this at 5:30a most mornings because I'm just naturally waking up at that time. It's super nice when I get it! Although this week teething has kind of taken over that time frame... hopefully next week it'll be more normal!

date night: february edition

I mentioned here that the hubs and I have decided to go on at least one date a month. I figured I would try to do a quick recap each month to help keep us to our little challenge. :) Last month we went out to dinner and then headed to Starbucks... this month it was still a pretty low-key date as well but it was so much fun.

We went to a place in town called the movie tavern - you can eat your meal and watch the movie at the same time. It's fun to do every once in awhile but you definitely miss the conversation that you usually would have with the meal, before the movie. We saw The Vow. It was really, really good. I laughed and cried (even Michael said he was fighting to not tear up!). It was just a really sweet love story.

We said next time we'll do dinner before the movie, then go to the movie tavern and have dessert... if you're interested in checking out the movie tavern - that's how we would recommend doing it. :)

Afterwords we headed to Dairy Queen and split a blizzard while we sat in the car before we headed home and talked about our kids and becoming parents of two. (Eeeee!) Like I said, low-key... but still perfect.

Our super sweet friend Molly watched Caedmon for us - he was a little upset she said up until bedtime but he luckily fell asleep for her the same way he does for us - praise! :)

How far along? 21 weeks

Updates on baby: Baby weighs about the 3/4 a pound and is as long as a carrot

Symptoms/Body Changes: The sickness is over! More or less... I only have had two bouts of sickness this past week. But emotionally I'm all over the place - I'm not usually a crier so I know it's the hormones. Blah!

Movement: feeling baby girl more and more... she moves mostly during the early morning, that I can tell... but still not a ton of movement.

Cravings/Aversions: Portillo's! It's a yummy restaurant in Chicago... for Valentine's day we actually delivered some frozen for us to prepare at home (Something Michael's family does fairly often for special occasions - it's that good!) But it should get here tonight and I CANNOT WAIT. YUM! And cheesy potatoes... I've had a baked potato several days for lunch this week and I'm not at all getting tired of them.

Getting ready for baby: I think we've picked a theme! Yellow and gray... I'm going to a craft store after nap time to see if I can find some good fabric for curtains and then we'll go from there! (I'm not big on the already put together sets - we wouldn't use any of that stuff, so handmade it is!) :)

What I miss: not feeling the need to cry all the time! It's crazy!

What I am looking forward to: We didn't do anything for Valentine's yesterday but we are going on a date Friday night... we're going to see the vow! Very excited :)

Weekly wisdom: Even if you're not going to leave the house... change out of your pajamas, shower, and make your hair cute. It does wonders!

This little boy... he makes my whole day brighter. He's just totally, unbelievably awesome. He makes me want to pull all my hair out one minute and then in the very next second has me beaming with pride over him.

I love reading mommy blogs. But so often I feel inadequate because they seem like perfect mothers with perfect children. Children who are exceeding milestones left and right. I recently read a blog post of a mom with a two year old talking about how she was a big handful and a birthday party. And it was so refreshing! Refreshing to know my son isn't the only one who acts up. I don't want to post pictures of my ridiculously cute son and make you think he's that charming all the time. Because he's not. He's a handful. He's so stubborn (Michael claims he gets it from me) and desperately tries to be wildly independent. Maybe not for all parents... but for us - it's extremely challenging. Wonderfully, delightfully, perfectly challenging.

He's actually upstairs with lip gloss still on his forehead because he's refusing to let me clean it off... and he snuck into my make up bag and got a hold of it within seconds of me not watching him. A lot of times we go out I worry someone thinks I'm kidnapping him because of the way he screams when I pick him up if he's been walking by himself. He always refuses to hold my hand and would rather sit in an aisle than walk holding my hand (BIG time stubborn and independent!) But at the same time... he's a gem. A wonderful child of God that I am so blessed with. Truly.

I don't want to be totally negative, either - just honest. Honest about how things are going with our toddler in hopes that someone reads this and feels that refreshing feeling of, "Hey, glad to know I'm not the only one..." Because you're not... at least, I hope not! :)

:)

lesson learned

So we all learned a lesson last night here in this household. If you come home with a sandwich from Jimmy Johns and you don't bring one to your wife or call to offer her one... there may be tears shed.

I had already eaten dinner with C but I've been perpetually hungry lately. The Mr. got home much later than usual last night and since he missed dinner he brought himself a sandwich home. And when I didn't get one there may have been tears. Luckily my hubs is a sweetie and shared some with me. But, sheesh! hormones, get it together!

toddler plates

I know this post may be a bit random... but I'm going to share anyway. :) So I've read dozens of articles about kids eating better if the food in front of them looks better. As in the way it's presented. Big brother has never been a great eater - he's is a good eater most of the time. But we certainly have our share of days each week where it's just not as great as I would hope.

Well, I went out and bought some toddler plates, in hopes of making meal time more appealing. Before this we would just put food on his high chair tray or use one of our smaller white ceramic plates, or one of his plastic bowls. But I wanted some divider plates... because they're just neat! I hoped that they would help him eat a little more or just be more interested in meal times.

They've been working about a hundred times better than I could have hoped! Plus it's kind of a challenge to me to make sure I'm offering more balanced meals because I don't want to leave a "spot" on his plate empty. He's much more interested in eating and is honestly eating probably close to double what he was eating before. It could be a fluke - we've only been using these for about 4 days now... but man! I've definitely noticed a difference.

So, if you've got a picky toddler.... go buy some toddler divider plates! Apparently those articles are right. :)

it's a ........!

So last we officially decided to find out the sex of the baby. We were on the fence about it - but with neither of us having strong convictions that we should wait to find out. And we were obviously very excited about knowing... so we called it and knew going into the appointment we would find out.

I asked Michael if he would like to reveal the gender to me... like after the ultrasound. It was still more of a surprise than just finding out in the room. Anyway - he was all for it. So we asked the lady to write the sex on a card for Michael to read and then I headed to my midwife appointment (the ultrasound place is totally separate from where I see my midwife this time around so it's two entirely separate appointments - I just happen to make them at the same time when possible). While he and Caedmon headed.... wherever. :)

I came home from my appointment and my boys were waiting for me in the kitchen and there was a beautiful bouquet of PINK roses on the table! We are having a baby girl! He actually had set up a video camera to catch my reaction, too. (No tears - I'm really not too emotional). It was such a fun surprise! I think Caed could sense the excitement between us two because he could not stop smiling and clapping... It was so awesome. Later in the day we even went out and I bought two baby girl dresses that are so darn cute!

We're definitely excited! We feel like we won't quite know what to do with a girl... but I'm fully confident we'll figure it out. :)

Now onto Pinterest for hairbow tutorials and cute baby girl nurseries! :)

twenty!

How far along? 20 weeks! So crazy we're halfway there!

Updates on baby: Baby weighs about the same as a can of coke... and is about the length of a banana!

Symptoms/Body Changes: No new ones really. Except for frequent trips to the bathroom. I asked the midwife about it today and she said as often as I'm going really isn't normal so I'm hoping there's no infection going on... Really don't want to have to go on an antibiotic! And I'm also having to sleep with a pillow under my tummy on my side... it is now super painful to sleep on my stomach. (Boo!)

Movement: At our ultrasound today little one was moving around so, so much! Crazy to watch the movement but not be able to feel any of it. I could feel C quite a bit at this point so I was a little concerned but midwife says to expect to feel lots of movement by 26 weeks and that I'm probably not feeling the movement as much because I'm much busier now with a toddler. But as long as I'm feeling something at least once or twice a day... no worries at all! 

Cravings/Aversions: No meat. I'm still loving the spicy and also anything and everything sweet... really trying to not go overboard! My mom had gestational diabetes when she was pregnant with me and I'm slightly terrified I'm going to get it as well.

Getting ready for baby: Nothing new here, either. I do plan to start some nursery planning soooooon though! 

What I miss: sleeping on my belly!

What I am looking forward to: Telling the news of little loves sex :) We DID find out and just have a few more family members to call before we post it online. :) Story to come tomorrow!

Weekly wisdom: Pinterest has such good ideas! I'm playing on that site now and I just can't get enough. It's awesome!