32 Weeks

Today I am 32 weeks pregnant… we’re about 7 weeks and a few days out from meeting this new baby!  WOW!

Adam took this picture tonight; realized that I hadn’t posted much pictures this time around.  As you can see, I’m lotsa belly.

Up three pounds this week to a total of +4, but lots of it is swelling again.  Oh, well!  Baby is happy as can be and maybe I’ll get another belly video where you can see the little one going a little nutso… Adam got a good show last night.

Still no name picked out though I’ll confess that Adam knows what we’re having now – that was totally a mistake on my part, but hey, I was really sick, so I couldn’t help it much…!

Tomorrow we’re headed to Babies R Us to buy baby some items… yay!  New car seat, monitor, Boppy pillow, and vibrator/bouncy chair… so excited!

Things are going well health-wise… I had to giggle today because my blood pressure was a whopping 104/60… the other day my boss had asked me if I was having any issues with blood pressure or otherwise this pregnancy due to the stress of work and I said, nope, it’s always been good… guess the only side effect is not gaining too much weight… I can handle that.

Hope all is well out there in the world!  We are great here in Colorado… enjoying the beautiful weather and waiting for our new family member to join us soon!

Erin

Ballad of the upstairs hall light…

About 4 days ago our upstairs light in the hallway (between 3 bedrooms and bathroom) stopped working.  Change the lightbulb right?  Well it was the kind with the quick change nubs that cost about $10 each!

Nope didn’t fix the problem.  So I thought, “screw this weird expensive bulb”, I’ll just re-wire it to accept a standard bulb.   Power off, 110V tester,….safe.  Find spare socket in garage, cut old fixture off, rewire, screw in bulb, turn on power, turn on light….nothing!  hmmm, maybe there isn’t power there.

Tromp around looking for multimeter, test and find out regardless of switch on or off, it reads less than 2VAC.  Weird.  Maybe it got loose in the attic.  Find a step stool, oops too short, go into garage and find ladder.  grab flashlight and look in attic.

Ahh, there are three 8” pieces that were all wire nutted together.  must be a bad connection.  I’ll just get a 2ft section and replace them all with a good wire (opposed to the old cloth wrapped stuff).  Back to the garage, wire cutters, wire strippers, flashlight, pliers,…. check!

Change the wire, re-hook everything, back downstairs to turn power back on, back upstairs to check and….nothing!  Dang, is it farther upstream?  Wait, maybe it’s the switch that went bad.  Okay, power still on, unscrew plate.  The switch has several layers of paint gluing it to the wall.  Scrape and cut away paint so I can unscrew it.  Finally get it free to check with multimeter and find out it is the simple switch with no screws, just the holes in the back…but I realize that it is a 3-way switch at this point.  That is when I  had a “light bulb moment”  (get it?)

I walk down into the first basement and see the switch that we never use set at the 1/2 way point.  So I move it up and voila, it works.  Everything was fine, just the other switch was set 1/2 way and therefore was stuck “off”. 

BEST HOUR OF MY LIFE EVER!

30 Weeks

30 weeks pregnant today already! How fun!

My doctor's appointment went well; the swelling is pretty much completely gone and I'm back down to +1 lb gained for my whole pregnancy... Best. Diet. Ever. Ha!

Blood pressure and everything else looks good, and I'm not sure if I mentioned, but I do NOT have gestational diabetes, so that's all well and good too (yay, I can keep having my mochas!).

Baby was moving around good this morning; this one is strong and gets going in the evenings quite a bit... annoys Raven when she wants to lay on me.

I'm home again from work today with Raven as she's still sick... I think she is "better" enough that she could have gone to daycare today, but she was acting weird this morning so we decided to keep her home. Big sister is at daycare today, though, as it is show and tell day and Julia very much wanted to take Hello Kitty and wearing her "pretty dress".

Otherwise... kicking right along. Adam and I need to sit down and "decide our baby's birthday"... I guess we have multiple options now... how do you even pick that date? Weird. Last time I didn't get a choice - not the scheduled date and not when my water broke a day before the scheduled date - and I was very thankful for that... so this is different, but it can be fun in its own right as well. Sounds like I'll get scheduled either at my 32 or 34 week appointment... crazy how fast that is all coming up!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Erin

Hairdo

Today the girls and I stayed home since Raven has a bad cold and fever.  Julia could have gone to school but was more interested in the prospect of staying home with mom.  One of their morning activities involved doing their doll’s hair:

Too cute!

This doll was my mom’s and then the doll ended up in my doll collection and now the girls play with her.  She had a major hair chopping some years ago… I don’t think I did it… but Julia saw no issue… she just saw hair that needed LOTS of barrettes!

And yes, the picture is fuzzy in the corner… my iPhone camera lens is scratched so now every picture I take has a fuzzy corner.  *sigh*  Must. Use. Nice. Camera. More.

erin

29 Weeks

It’s no secret that I’ve hardly blogged a sentence about this pregnancy… baby #3!  Certainly it’s not on purpose; simply a change in pace and lifestyle.  I was amazed today when I realized, holy cats, I am 29 weeks pregnant, which means I have less than 11 weeks before this baby is born… if the baby is born the day we think it might be, that’s 2 months and 12 days from now, or that baby could come sooner… who is to say!

My pregnancy itself has been going well; my numbers are good, I received my gestational diabetes results (I do NOT have it – yay!  I wasn’t even worried…), and I’m already going every other week… wow!

Up until my last appointment, I was at 0 lbs gained – YES, ZERO – but that time it was +3.  However, we think it was due to fluid/swelling in my legs, and the swelling has subsided again, so it’ll be interesting to see where I’m at next Friday.  I can’t lie; it’s a good feeling not having gained much, because I had a little more to start with than the last two times and it’d be nice to lose weight when this baby is born… ha!

Both girls (Julia and Raven) are already “in love” with the baby and like to protect my belly, caress my belly, kiss my belly, make sure it’s covered (Raven fuh-reaks out if any part of my belly is exposed – she wants to keep the baby “safe”), etc.  They are excited to meet the baby… Julia wants to be “The Mommy”… and every time I ask Raven about being a big sister, she tells me that she is a cat, so I can only assume that’s positive.

We’ve had to put a baby gate up in the entrance to the baby’s room, because the girls have re-discovered the crib, baby toys, and baby books, and we have found them in the crib going to town, jumping up and down on the mattress, only to yell that they are stuck and cannot get out (oh, yeah, I’m THAT lucky – neither my 2 or 4 year old has figured out how to get OUT of a crib yet…HA! – unfortunately they HAVE figured out how to get IN!).

Most days I’m pretty excited to meet this new little wonder and to have maternity leave and spend some precious time with the new baby and the girls… and occasionally there are days where I wish I could keep the little bugger in there another 6 – 8 months just to relish being pregnant a bit longer.

Anyway… just a quick update for you all…

Erin

I became a mother yesterday.

Yesterday I leaped over two painful and admittedly selfish hurdles, finally earning my Mom Badge. 

1.) I signed many a piece of paper and bought a minivan, even though I once vowed never to do so.

2.) After many years of professing my dislike for Dora, I succumbed to her ways and allowed my kids to watch Dora the Explorer in epic proportions this weekend.

I figured those two things right there… getting over my two most painful parenting struggles, has finally earned me the right to be called Mom.  Thank goodness, because I’m about to have a third kid and all.

The vehicle buying experience was nothing short of painful, though.  We had no idea how long we would be there or how long it would take, but apparently it takes almost 6 hours to buy a car and after missing lunch and nap time, we finally left the Kia dealership with a new vehicle – though I admit to being the Crankiest Person on the Planet.  The kids, amazingly, did very well yesterday and Raven only had one major tantrum that I recall.  That’s a miracle right there.

This week I will spend time bonding with the Kia Sedona we purchased by driving it back and forth to work sans kids and sans mess before I relinquish the van to Adam so that he can take the kids to school in the morning.  Adam needs no bonding time – he is giddy as a school girl with that thing.  He Loves It.

It was a long drawn out process to come to purchasing a Kia but we’re very satisfied with the Kia and the price at which we purchased it.  We’ll miss the truck but already Adam has gotten over the lack of truck bed thanks to the Buttons That Open Everything on the van.  And I’m pretty sure that I will LOVE the seat warmers on my way to work this week…

Regarding Dora… yet another thanks out to the hub for that one… he found Dora on Netflix a few months ago and occasionally let the girls watch it… I was none to fond… however, this weekend there was a million things to do and Julia had one wish – to watch Dora.  I taught her how to use the Roku remote so that she could keep up with Dora while I cleaned and cooked, and after sitting down and watching a few episodes, I decided Dora wasn’t so bad after all.  And besides, it is crazy funny listening to Julia shout out her own version of the Spanish words that Dora is saying.

Erin

Random

Lately I am complete addicted to bacon.  I think I could eat it every day/night.

Tonight I found a stack of wrapped Ghirardelli chocolate squares in a pile of fabric.  Project quickly abandoned.

I sucked at everything with respect to life yesterday, except work.  Yesterday I slept 6 hours, got up, went to work, worked 10 hours, drove home and made dinner, and worked another six hours straight.  Stupid.  Necessary.  Stupid.

I just started a movie.  I should really go to bed.  There are a lot of really dumb movies on Netflix.  However, I watched “Morning Glory” with Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford the other day – that was cute.

Julia is breaking my heart.  Tonight she cried when I put her to bed because she doesn’t want me to go to work tomorrow and wants me to stay home with her instead.  Darling, darling girl.

Ever since Raven pooped in the tub in December (due to illness), she freaks out when it is bath time.  Julia went through a similar stage.  Raven is scared of fuzz, hair, bubbles, or anything that remotely resembles poop.  If you say the word “poop” while she’s in the tub, she immediately starts standing up and shaking and screaming and wants to get out.  Bath time has not been fun.  This has resulted in the girls not receiving baths as often as normal because I cannot always handle the insane screaming.

All that being said, Raven used the potty all day at school today AND pooped on the toilet at school.  GO, RAVEN!

In approximately 15 weeks we are having a baby.  I cannot fathom this.

We are buying a van soon. I also cannot fathom that.

The night before last, petty thieves opened our Escape and stole all of our electric goods (TomTom, iPhone charger, DVD player).  They didn’t take anything from the truck; it was locked.  Thankfully they were not smart enough to look for a garage door opener and open the garage door and steal things from inside.

I remembered tonight that we are having a load of church folks over for lunch on Sunday.  My house is a wreck.  Must get on that.

In the evenings I want nothing more than to sit down and… sit.  Shut off my brain.  Sit. 

I have this fabulous Noro Taiyo yarn that I want to turn into a pixie hat for Baby #3, but I cannot find a pixie hat pattern that I love.  I saw a woman at a knit shop whip up a pixie hat pattern from scratch that was beyond adorable, but I haven’t been back to that shop since May and I don’t know the woman who made the hat.  Problem.

Work and the new position is going well.  I’m simply still in that “just moved in phase”.

That is all.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to our darling nephew, Dex!  It’s amazing how quickly time flies when you have kids… Dex is TWO today!

I fondly remember Adam’s sister, Claire (and other family members), visit us in Pella when both she and I were pregnant with Raven and Dex… good times!  Although we didn’t tell her, Claire and I were pregnant together this last fall for about 3 weeks before she had Ivy.

Happy Birthday, little boy!  We hope you had a most fantastic day!

Sad, Sad Day

Last weekend I sat down to make this project (new bag for me to bring home my work notebooks):

(Side note #1: On the bag because this post isn’t really about the bag: I saw a post on Pinterest where someone had stitched words onto something, and I have been thinking about this pin for weeks.  I had bought this wonderful bird fabric and wanted to make a bag for me for work and stitch “of a feather” on it. 

Side note #2: I am hooked on Pinterest.

Side note #3: One of these days I will post my New Year’s Resolutions which might just have a resolution related to Pinterest.)

I got everything ready in the new Guest Sewing Room, and flipped the switch onto my sewing machine and… it flickered and died.  I did this numerous times, minus the flicker, and nothing happened.  Plug, unplug.  Over and over and over again with the slowly dying hope that I was living a bad nightmare.

After scouring the machine itself for a reset button or some other thing, looking desperately for my manual (which is usually always by my side but which has been missing since we moved to this house), and finally getting out the volt meter to make sure that it wasn’t the outlet or the power cord, I had to accept that the state of my machine was beyond any knowledge that I had.

So one of these days she’s headed to the shop to get fixed, and holy knows how much money it will cost to fix her.  I was pretty upset most of that night and finally broke out the backup machine we purchased used this last fall so that I had a lighter machine to carry around.  I’m glad I still have the ability to sew, but the current state of this machine ahs me disturbed, as it’s one of the more expensive items I’ve ever owned and I’ve worked hard to take care of it over the years.  And it’s only 8 years old.  *sob* 

Erin

Cowgirl

I seriously do not know squat about the National Western Stock Show, but it’s something that after taking with my lead today, I definitely need to learn about because dang, people, I hear they let kids rid sheep there and it sounds like a whole load of F-U-N. The girls’ daycare “celebrated” the stock show this week and today was Dress Like a Cowboy/Cowgirl Day for Julia’s class.

I had been meaning to make something for Julia to wear for this day all week but due to my change in position at work, I still hadn’t bought anything let alone started a project, I left work early yesterday to go to Joann’s to purchase that which I would need to make Julia a cowgirl outfit.  She doesn’t own boots or a hat or anything cowgirl, but I figured a little fringe and a vest would be perfect for today.  (Who doesn’t love a little fringe anyway?)  Last night after dinner and baths and bed time, I spent 30 minutes futzing with the tension on my backup sewing machine (oh, dear Bernina, how you broke my heart last weekend and you deserve a post of your own), I was able to make a little vest with fringe and add fringe to a jean skirt Julia already owned.  by 9 pm last night I had one cute little outfit for her to wear to school today.

She makes a cute cowgirl, doesn’t she?  And can’t you totally see Raven riding a sheep??????

Erin