Happy Halloween

Thanks to Baby for making this year's costume somewhat easy!

THE Outfit

Even though we don't need much baby clothing, I was looking at the newborn stuff on clearance at Target just for fun. Noah pulled this newborn-sized outfit off the rack and wouldn't let it go. He kept saying, "I hold it! For baby! I hold it!" Since he was so attached to the idea of it from the outset (and because Mommy thought it was cute and on sale), I couldn't let it go. We think it's going to be Baby's coming home outfit . . .

Good choice, Noah!

Pregnancy Update

I went to the doctor Tuesday of this week, and all is well. Baby's heart rate is perfect and changes often, indicating he is getting plenty of oxygen from the placenta.

I am measuring right on track, and we had a heart-to-heart about my weight. At first, they told me I had to gain more weight since I was underweight to begin with. Now . . . I think they're wanting me to slow it down, but I got lots of reassurance that I'm doing everything right with continuing to exercise. I am going to try to up my protein intake and see if that helps slow the weight gain down some, but I really don't know what else I could possibly do. It's so annoying to be killing myself in the gym 6 days a week and yet still piling on the pounds. UGH!!!

Overall, I am feeling OK. I get kicked in the ribs and punched in the bladder quite often, which gets annoying after a while--it affects my ability to breathe normally and has me in the bathroom a LOT. My heartburn is getting B-A-D at night, so I think it's time to retire the Tums and move on to the big guns.

Well, that's all for now! I will post a pic of the outfit Noah picked out for his brother later today! It's PERFECT!

Almost 30 . ..

Here I am on the edge of turning 30--in years and in weeks of pregnancy. I am still feeling good for the most part, though I can tell my stamina is waning as my size is waxing. In spite of my best efforts, my weight continues to rise, which I'm hoping translates into a healthy baby and a healthy milk supply! Someone told me today at Harvest Day I should hold up Noah's pumpkin next to my belly and take a picture. Thaaankss . . .

Anyway, here we are!

A Week's Time

We have really gotten into gear around here with baby prep. Nesting has kicked in a little early for us, but I do not want to be 37 weeks pregnant and still working to get things together. If we had to, we could bring Baby home tomorrow and be ready to go. That's great for my mental health--I was starting to get stressed by everything we had to do. I still feel like there's some things we need to do, but not nearly as much as before. Chris did a great job clearing out the guest room, painting the walls, and putting the crib together. Here is the story of our work-in-progress . . .

Preparing to paint . . .

What Chris accomplished while I was at work and during Noah's naptime:

Notice the wall color. Noah woke up from his nap just as Chris was finishing up the painting. So, when I got home from the gym and was about to step in the shower, Noah came around the corner, dragging a paint roller full of that yellow. It was all over the carpet, our wood floors, his pants, his hands, etc. It was such a horrifying sight. If I weren't so shocked and rushed to get it cleaned up ASAP, I would've photographed the scene for posterity's sake. It was quite a sight. We got most of it up, but I can still see a slight remnant on the carpet. Oh, well. Such is life with a two-year-old. I couldn't help but chuckle when I heard Noah telling a surprisingly calm, yet focused-on-cleaning-up Daddy, [with such sincerity and conviction] "Ohhhh, noooo! Daddy paint big mess! I do it!" All Chris could say was, "Yes, you did. You made a big mess with daddy's paint." If you know Chris and could see the stress in his eyes when Noah has his markers out and waves them around with caps off saying, "I color!", this would be somewhat entertaining to you as well. ANYWAY . . .

After the Yellow Paint Incident of 2009, Chris moved on to putting the crib together.

Noah wanted to help . . .

. . . but had more fun playing with the empty crib box.

When it was all done, Noah came in and enthusiastically stated, "Baby's bed! Seep in there!"
Here is a wide-angle view of the basic set-up of the room:

I spent a few hours yesterday going through boxes of clothes and trying to get the closet in some order. We have to get some more hangers for our 0-3 stuff, but this is what we've done so far. We just need to find the bibs box . . .

We got the bottles out and in the cabinet, though we realized we loaned our good bottles to someone. We *think* the people we loaned to moved away a few months ago, so we're going to have to replace them. Oh, well. We could use what we have for a while, though I used most of those for the pump last time. Hopefully, this little one will have more luck with nursing!

Here is the crib, set up and ready to roll!


So, friends, we have all the big things in place, though like I said, we still have some work to do in the next 10 weeks or so!

Progress

The crib we ordered finally came in . . .

The guest room has begun a transformation . . .

And we finally saw a crib set we liked--and it's not blue! I'm pretty sure we're going to paint the room a pale yellow or light green, but we're still a long way off from painting.

Things are slowly coming together, which is good seeing as the final trimester begins tomorrow and I'm technically 8 weeks away from full term/36 weeks. YIKES!

Update

I had a routine doctors' appointment today. It was the glucose test appointment, which meant I had the privelege of drinking a bottle of pure sugar water. It tastes like flat sprite.

Anyway, everything looked fine, normal, for the most part.

• I gained 1 lb. since my last appointment.
• My iron level was better than last time but still low. I have to take an iron supplement (over-the-counter) to see if it is up by the next appointment. If not, I get the prescription again. I had the same issue in Noah's pregnancy, so it's not new.
• I am measuring right on track and not ahead like last time. Very helpful on the psyche.
• The contractions I've been having are due to my need for more fluids. I don't know how much more water I can drink without camping out in the bathroom, but I obviously need to amp it up some. If that doesn't help, I will ask them to check things out at the next appointment. The contractions aren't terribly painful--just kind of annoying.
• Baby's heart rate was strong in the 150's range. It's so funny to hear him sloshing around on the machine. He is not a fan of being poked and already kicks his brother when he's sitting on my lap. And thus, we begin . . .

In baby prep news, we have ordered a crib finally! We found some cute bedroom furniture for Noah on Craigslist, so he will be getting a "big boy" room; the nursery stuff (changing table, closet organizer, etc.) will be moved to the new nursery.

We are struggling to find a theme for the nursery this time. Chris wants to stay away from blue since we did blue with Noah. We also had a pretty obvious theme for Noah with the ark association and all, so we went with animals. This time . . . we're stuck. And nothing really stands out when we look. I have toyed with the idea of re-using Noah's nursery theme, but being a 2nd child myself, I just can't bring myself to do it; I would be betraying my middle child-ness.

Overall, things are going well. I saw on the bottom of my paperwork that I was classified as a "normal pregnancy." I feel like this one has been anything but normal, but we seem to have hit a good stride, I suppose. Praise God for that!

A Public Service Announcement

When you look like this . . . . . . expect to go down a slide like this at high speeds:

We FLEW down this slide, and I guess the physics of the situation (a lot of weight in the front!) contributed to our insane momentum. I have blisters on the back of my feet from this thing, but Noah's laughter on the way down made up for that. It's crazy to think that we'll have a 3-year-old and a 10-month-old when we go back to the farm next year . . .

26 Weeks

Here I am at 26 weeks and feeling larger by the day!