camera phone photo dump, sping 2016

Before I dump a bunch of random pictures on you, I thought I would update on the past week's experiences since my last post. First, I received a bunch of supportive comments and love from family and friends over my last post. I wasn't looking for this when I wrote about my woes of weight gain and a practitioner who should know better than to tell a pregnant girl to slow it down, I was literally writing to ease my frustration. But I've since developed an "I-don't-give-a-damn" attitude regarding her comments and my ever-growing belly. And I may or may not have gained 10 pounds...we shall see next week at my next appointment. But over the last week I have learned to love my temporary extra curves and basketball-shaped stomach, and have actually felt better about myself than I have since I learned I was pregnant. Funny! Second, I had a doppler study done on the back of my leg due to a very sore and very ugly cluster of varicose veins that the same practitioner was concerned about, and it was just fine. So other than having a very ugly and sore leg, no health issues. Third, and to me the most important: I PASSED MY 1-HOUR GLUCOSE TEST!!!!!  This is in all-caps because I am screaming it. And I am screaming this because my other two experiences were failures which resulted in fear of developing gestational diabetes and having to then go on and take a 3-hour glucose tolerance test. The 1-hour is miserable enough, but the 3-hour has an even higher concentrated sugar drink with 4 blood draws AND you have to fast!!!! If you have been in my shoes with the 3-hour test you are nodding your head in agreement. It sucks. I celebrated passing the 1-hour test by baking cookies. :)

OK, so now some random pictures!

Finley fights a nap nearly every day. And sometimes I don't have any fight in me, so I let him stay up with me and Keagan. But without fail, every time he doesn't have a nap, he falls asleep in some random location. Like in his chair in our bedroom or at the counter during supper...

Wacky Day at KidsFirst Preschool in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. 

Anytime my children cross a childhood milestone I am blown away... And as little minds are meant to grow and learn, and learning to read and write is just part of growing up, I am in constant amazement of both of my kids as they conquer these typical kid rights of passage, especially with little help on our part. Keagan LOVES to read. You can almost see the neurons synapsing in his brain as the connections are being made. He reads a couple books aloud every day at naptime, and congratulates himself when he finishes. It's pretty cute. And this momma is impressed!

Along the same line as reading, Keagan loves to write. He used to drain us with asking us to spell words for him, but here recently he has been writing his own notes without asking for help at all. Here is one he brought me while I was getting ready for work one day. In case you are struggling with kid-spelling, it says: "I love you mommy so much." (does it get much better?! This is taped on my mirror now.)

Here's another that he wrote to our new babysitter, Ms. Mallory. It says: "I am so happy you are here Ms. Mallory."  He gave that to her the first week she started for us. If that isn't welcoming, I don't know what is!!! She loved it, I asked to snap a picture before she took it with her. :)

Switching gears to our annual Tater Day festival that pretty much kicks off Spring in our county...the boys LOVED the carnival food, especially the funnel cakes. And the corn dogs. And the cotton candy. 

I can't say enough good things about our preschool, they do so much for the kids and engage them in so many fun things. The boys each had "Character Day" where they dressed as a character from a book. Keagan chose to be Sam-I-Am from Green Eggs and Ham on his character day. It is, afterall, one of the first books he read all by himself and he LOVES it. 

Finn's favorite book of all time is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We have read the small board book to the boys since they were babies, but Finley received the pop-up version from Great Grandma Gail a while back and for a while it was literally the only book he would allow us to read him! When I crafted his Character Day costume he squealed and wanted to wear it immediately! He was so happy!!!

Both boys are very much into games. They found a Disney Planes version of UNO in their closet one day and insisted I teach them how to play. So we played open-faced UNO and they loved it! In this picture I was clearly losing!!

My sweet husband knows that one of my favorite candy bars is a 100 Grand. I really don't eat them often, unless I am at his parents house and they always have the fun-size ones so I pretty much clean them out. Well, they clearanced this box at his work so he brought me home a surprise! (are you now wondering why I am surprised about my pregnancy weight gain!? haha...I have eaten them in moderation.. promise.)

A Double Rainbow over our house!!!! The boys and I had just come in to get supper ready, and Josh was outside grilling, when it suddenly started raining. The boys thought it was nuts that it was raining AND sunny! Then Keagan (in another of his moments that blow me away) said "Hey Mom! When it rains and it is sunny, the perfect amount of rain and the perfect amount of sun and the perfect angle creates a RAINBOW!!!" and just as he completed that mind-blowing statement for a 5 year old, Josh busted in and said there was a rainbow outside! Keagan said this was the first "real" rainbow he has ever seen. We then had a discussion about prisms and he reiterated the colors of the rainbow (correctly!) to me. Those wheels, they are a-turning in that little brain!

My smart boy chose to be a teacher for Occupation Day at preschool. We had a hard time coming up with teacher-y items for the "Occupation in a Bag" but he looked like a little professional. The kids even had to do a mini presentation on their chosen occupation. Here he is doing his (I swiped this from the facebook page). He makes me so proud. (In related news, his brother was mad-mad-mad that his class didn't do Occupation Day...he wanted to be a Pilot like Uncle Wesley, and even put on his baseball helmet and pretended he was a fighter pilot!) 

Dream Big and Aim High, little ones!! It is so fun to watch these boys blossom into handsome and smart young men. Now, we just gotta stop the fighting and tattling and screaming and meanness and all will be good!! Ah, little boys...  :)

28 Weeks

They say writing is therapeutic. So I feel like I need to write.Today I hit the 28 week mark. I am lovingly calling this 7 months, but then I know that is really out of 10 months and not the 9 months that pregnancy has been labeled. Today I had a doctor's appointment and my one-hour glucose test. And while I had high hopes of this being a good day, my appointment flat-out sucked. And it basically crushed the rest of my day.

First, my appointment was at 9 this morning, and my doctor was out of town so I saw a nurse practitioner I have never seen. I showed up 20 minutes early to drink the dreaded sugar-concentrated drink. Ick. I tried to not vomit in the 10 minutes I had to drink it. (side note: a young girl -yes, I said young and girl- sitting next to me also was there for her glucose tolerance test and she chugged the drink. I jokingly said she was a champ at that as it nearly made me gag. She turned to me, smiled, and said she thought it tasted good. And when she smiled her teeth teeth had a lot of brown spots and were all jacked up. I get why she liked it. Yes, I am being judgemental. It has been that kind of day. There is more to this conversation between me and this strange girl, but I would make myself look worse if I continued. So in my best interest I will not.) ANYWAYS, I fully expected to be called back within a few minutes of drinking that stuff, but it was actually a full hour of more waiting before I was called back. Then, very long story-short, once a fumbling nurse finally called me back to a room after I had to say something twice to receptionists, the lab girl had to hunt me down to draw my blood for the glucose test. then I waited another 30 minutes in the room by myself. And I finally opened the door and prayed someone would walk by and realize I was sitting in the room, having not been seen yet!

Finally the nurse practitioner came in (after the nurse attempted to weigh me twice, and attempted to take my BP twice, and forgot to even check the baby's heartbeat!) and after reviewing a few things on her computer, proceeded to immediately tell me that I have gained almost too much weight. She explained that I am 28 weeks and I have gained 24 pounds and they like patients to keep their weight gain below their number of weeks. I immediately started crying. Water works I tell you. I couldn't stop, I was frustrated already with my weight, embarrassed that this new face was basically telling me I am putting on weight too fast, all on top of being angry about having to wait for an hour and a half while starving and nearly in a sugar coma from that drink. Yes, I am heavier than I want to be. Yes I am uncomfortable and even some of my maternity clothes don't fit. Yes, Keagan told me tonight that I used to be smaller than daddy, but now I am bigger. But in my other two pregnancies no one ever told me I was gaining weight too fast, so this threw my confidence for a total nose-dive.

Basically, everything throughout the rest of my day didn't line up just perfectly and so my coping mechanisms were null. I cried off and on all day. I was starving and feeling nauseous but couldn't find anything to eat because of fear of gaining another 6 pounds. Everything was overwhelming and pitiful. I need a do-over, and to find some grace. And confidence.

Before I left to my appointment I felt pretty. So I set up my camera on self-timer and snapped this picture of my 28-week bump. I am glad I did this before my appointment, because it sure as heck wouldn't have happened after!

Now I know, this is just another part of being pregnant. And I recognize that my hormones are all over the place. And all pregnant gals have a good amount of crazy in them. So I know it will all be okay and once this sweet babe is in my arms, I will forget about these crazy feelings. And it will all be worth it.

In other news: the nursery is painted, and the furniture is set up. Gender neutral clothes are washed and lots of diapers purchased. Curtains hung and a mobile painted and put together. I ordered a new car seat (did you know those expire?!! check yours out - they do!) and a gender neutral swaddle blanket for bringing baby home. I have chosen boy bedding and girl bedding...and because I have that pregnant-crazy running through my veins have purchased nearly all of it with the plan to return half of it in July. Don't worry I checked in on this and it's all good. Besides, most of what I ordered is back-ordered til July. My nesting phase has started, I have cleaned out random drawers and the boys closet and dresser. And we have nearly finished planning both the boys' birthday parties. Yup.

The baby is so incredibly active that it wakes me up at night. Keeps me up at times. I had a co-worker see my belly move yesterday while I was standing next to her. The boys have been seeing it for a while now. I still have nausea, and nights are still worse. I cannot quite find the magic formula for feeling good. But it isn't as bad as it was in the beginning, so for that I am thankful. I would like to feel great though! I haven't had any strong feelings whether the baby is a boy or a girl, and while I truly don't care which gender it is I do have days where I hope it's a boy and other days where I hope it's a girl. For no specific rhyme or reason.

Now that I have written all this out I have contemplated deleting all of it. But it is me, it is what my life is about today. It is crazy pregnant brain. (p.s. I tried to give a 3 years past expired insurance card to the eye doctor's receptionist this afternoon. Fantastic. I also left the van running and got out after pulling it into the garage. Can you say Baby Brain? Luckily the van screamed at me in a loud beeping language and I realized what I had done. I probably shouldn't be left alone.)

The Children's Tree-2016

Our Japanese cherry blossom tree is getting bigger and bigger...and so are the kids for whom it was planted. It hardly seems possible to me that it is nearly 6 years old, as is Keagan. So I pulled out the pictures I could find from the years. For some strange reason I do not have/cannot find pictures from 2011 and 2012. I feel like they exist, I may remember taking pictures, but I cannot find them.

2010- New Keagan and New tree!

 

2013 

 

2014

2015

2016 - as we welcome Baby #3 to our family! I am 27 weeks pregnant in these pictures. Keagan and Finley are 5 and 3, but close to their birthdays. These two brothers are simply crazy. They are so silly and their personalities are so different. I cannot imagine what Baby #3 will be like!

In chronological order! Baby #1, Baby #2, and Baby #3!!