Archives for July 2017

36-ish Week update

Happy Friday, y’all!! As I await these last few weeks… I’ll try to keep updated on the ole blog… but you know, no promises! This has actually been a fairly eventful week in the life of new baby and us as well!! Saturday the dear old (haha) hubby turned 30 (he’s 3 years younger than me… so he doesn’t feel very old to me!) We had a great weekend with lots of friends over for a BBQ on Saturday and his brother and a couple of his nephews came up for the weekend.  So we had a blast eating WAAAAY too much bad food (ahem… cookie cake I’m looking at you) and the guys hooked up the original Nintendo system and rocked out on some RBI Baseball to relive their childhoods.  This may have also prompted a grown adult tourney of Goldeneye on the N64 as well.  Thank God for hoarding things or we wouldn’t have ALL OF THESE OLD GAMES that we have now moved from house to house to house.  Although to be fair, if I can move 4,301 mason jars and glass vases, a Rubbermaid container of old video games is probably worth the space.  Oh and in case you were wanting a picture of the birthday boy on his birthday, you will be sorely disappointed.  I managed to make it through the entire day and party without taking a single picture of Reese–or the party.  However here is an adorable picture of our child with the balloons Reese’s mom sent to celebrate.  #adultproblems

Anyway, on to the reason you all are here… a baby update! And here is where this week feels like a big update! (or maybe not. hard to tell.) We went in to the hospital to get checked out last Sunday because I was having regular contractions (not just one here and there) every 7-8ish minutes.  And while they tell you later in pregnancy not to go get checked out until they are 5 minutes apart, I’m just at 36 weeks so the on-call nurse thought I should go get checked out.  After spending our entire afternoon at the hospital, it was determined that nope, not in labor, just having LOTS of Braxton Hicks contractions, so to go home and wait it out.  I saw the doc on Monday and she confirmed the same thing.  So… here I am, just having contractions and waiting it out. I’m just going to be real honest here and say that pregnancy can be very confusing! I thought I would know what I was getting into since this is the second time around, but nope… still as unsure as I was with the first! But baby girl is moving around a whole lot, and everything else looks normal, so I’m just taking advantage of these last few weeks and taking it easy! (and trying to stay out of the heat!)

Baby’s Size: No idea.  Our last sonogram was a couple of weeks ago, and to be honest I don’t even remember her guessing how big she was then! She is definitely moving and grooving in there… so I’m pretty sure she is big enough to be running out of room!

Baby’s Progress: More temperature regulation, brain and lung development are the name of the game for the next 3ish weeks.  And hoping she doesn’t make an appearance until later!

Weight Gain: I’m up a couple more lbs, so about 20 total.  And like last pregnancy… I’ve pretty much quit weighing myself, it seems fairly futile.

Sleep: We had a few really rough nights of sleep for Taylor last week, which means no one gets much sleep, but fortunately, when she is sleeping… I’m sleeping fairly well.  So after a few rough nights, we are all back on schedule and sleeping (mostly) well. I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.  I’m also very fortunate to be working from home now, so I’ve snagged more than one lunchtime snooze.

Symptoms: I’ve got some pretty serious back pain that I can’t seem to shake (probably because I added 20ish pounds to my front side and my back is not a fan, but that’s just a guess).  LOTS of Braxton Hicks, and just generally exhausted most of the time, but it could be worse, and its definitely better than first trimester, so there is that!

Also random side note- I forget how GINORMOUSLY pregnant I am, until I go out in public.  Can I just tell you the funny looks I get from people in stores? I went to Hobby Lobby today and I thought an older gentleman was going to trip on his own feet trying to get out of my way.  So funny.  I’m pregnant not sick or dangerous!

Red, White and TWO!

Okay so I promised a post about the nursery, but before I get to that, I want to share about Taylor’s (impromptu) Red, White and Two party!

Red White and Two! | www.amusingmj.com

First I should say this: I struggle with what to do with her birthday since it almost always falls on 4th of July weekend–family only party? just celebrate at the lake (which is what we did for her first birthday)? Party some other weekend with her friends (but let’s be honest–right now she is two and her friends are the kids of my friends)? Add on top of it that this year July 4th was the one year anniversary of my grandmother’s death, so there are a lot of emotions tied up with this weekend! Anyway, we decided not to be at the lake and had sort of decided to just have dinner at our house with my parents.  Well, my brother and sister-in-law happened to be passing through on their way home from the lake two days before Taylor’s birthday, so my mom and sister-in-law called to see if they could just bring the party to us… YES! Perfect idea.

Red White and Two! | www.amusingmj.com

Shout out to Becky for coming up with the theme–and then I’m fairly certain they bought out everything in the local Target that was Red White and Blue! My tasks were the cake and the chalkboard–and I was instructed that they had the whole party in the box, outfits included.

My twin brother, Dad and husband were all good sports about helping decorate, grill the food, and even wearing their costumes!

Taylor LOVED the party.  I wasn’t sure she would get that it was for her, but she DEFINITELY did… and kept pointing to herself and saying: for Tay Tay? for Tay Tay? I’m pretty sure her favorite parts were the toys that make LOTS of noise (thanks Fam) and the cream cheese frosting.  Even a few days later she would see the cake and say: for Tay Tay??

Red White and Two! | www.amusingmj.com

Red White and Two! | www.amusingmj.com

I can’t believe she is two already! These last two years have flown by–and I’m sure the next few won’t be any slower.  I also feel like she woke up on her 2nd birthday and all of a sudden looks like a little kid instead of a baby or a toddler! I think I was prepared for that when new baby sister is born (friends have warned me that all of a sudden Taylor will feel like a GIANT), but I wasn’t quite ready yet!!

Red White and Two! | www.amusingmj.com

She is at a SUPER fun age and we are loving every second (well maybe not EVERY one–she did get my penchant for temper tantrums) with her.  We are going to soak up this last month of being a family of 3 before we welcome baby sister!

 

Week16-34 Recap

Well folks… the best of intentions were overtaken by life.  I really did intend to blog every week of this pregnancy, or at least most of them.  But here I am basically a month from giving birth and I have done exactly 0 updates for you guys. And if future baby girl ever happens to read these blog posts, please do not interpret this lack of posting as representative of my love for you. And someday I hope you have two kids so that some small part of you will understand that it has nothing to do with levels of love and EVERYTHING to do with life and how busy life is with a toddler and a full time job. With that being said, here is an update:

Baby’s Size: a cantaloupe

Baby’s Progress: Baby is almost 5 lbs, is starting to gain more fat which helps regulate body temperature and adds those cute little chunky legs I fell in love with on Taylor.

Weight Gain: Overall I have gained about 18lbs, which is right on track for what I should have gained at this point in pregnancy.  HOWEVER, I feel like I’ve gained about 50… I keep telling Reese when I roll over in bed it feels like I’m a beached whale–he is a great husband and assures me that I’m not. I went back to look at my 34 Week Update with Taylor- and I have gained about the same amount of weight and I also mention feeling HUGE, so apparently I am nothing if not consistent.

Sleep: Sleep is actually still pretty good for me, except for the occasional trips to the potty pregnancy is not keeping me from sleeping.  Taylor however, sometimes does (although I can’t complain, even though she can be a very early riser, she is a GREAT sleeper for 2 years old… knock on wood).

Milestones: Well since the last update, we have had tons of milestones! We have finished the nursery–I’ll post pics soon–promise! We have had 2 sonograms–everything looks fine and healthy, she is right on track for growth and has a lot of hair we could see on the sono, so just like big sister! She moves a lot, so dad has gotten to see and feel her move quite a bit.

Favorite clothing item of the week: Shorts and leggings.  Comfort is key these days! Its starting to get really hot here in Kansas and we have a long week of 100 degree days ahead of us, so I’m just trying to stay inside the A/C and as comfy as possible!

Symptoms: I am actually very blessed this pregnancy that most of my negatives symptoms were stacked in the first half of the pregnancy! I do have some back pain that comes from 18 lbs of extra weight stacked in my belly… and my feet never really recovered from pregnancy #1, so I have to be careful about wearing comfier shoes! And I am still tired ALL OF THE TIME, but I’ve come to accept that as a fact of pregnancy!

Workout: I did go to my workout classes through month 6 of pregnancy, but man once summer came and I got bigger, I quit working out.  I haven’t even been swimming or walking much towards the end of this pregnancy, but I do chase Taylor around the house and still play with her quite a bit… so its not quite a sedentary life for me! I’m sure I’ll regret not working out post baby, but for now… I’m not picking up any exercise routines!

 

Overall life has been great these last few months, and while this pregnancy has definitely been harder than my first, we are super excited to be welcoming baby sister.  We talk to Taylor about it fairly often and she takes excellent care of her ‘baby’ at home… although her baby doll takes a few too many hits to the head when wandering through the house for us to be too comfortable with her ‘caretaking’ skills.

Since I was so neglectful in my weekly ‘bump pictures’ here are the precious few pictures I’ve taken that show off the bump over the past few months.

At a friend’s wedding in KC April 29th- about 25 weeks pregnant.

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A week after that, in Dallas with my BFF and her daughter:

Dallas with Amy

We took a trip to see my cousin get married in New York, so in lieu of bump updates from those weeks, here are a few pictures. The wedding reception venue was BEAUTIFUL about an hour north of NYC at the Brotherhood Winery. I’m about 32.5 weeks pregnant here:

At the Wedding

Hamilton! And one photo with terrible lighting that I snapped for my mom of what I was wearing to go see Hamilton– but it does show off the bump– 32.5 weeks pregnant!

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And just last week at Tanganyika- the local wild animal park where we have a membership and can go feed the giraffes whenever we want–one of Taylor’s favorite pastimes!  IMG_1097

And because I can’t resist a cute photo of Taylor, here is a pic from this weekend showing off her new stars and stripes swimsuit from Aunt B!

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