Week 35 and Christmas

Week 35

·  Size of baby:  He's over 18 inches long and tips the scales at 5 1/4 pounds (pick up a honeydew melon). More precise measurements on Jan 7^th!

Weight gain: According to the MILs scale I am between 132-135 depending on how much I ate and clothing. If we are starting from my very beginning weight… 10 pound gain this pregnancy.  
·  Symptoms experienced: Heartburn, sleep deprivation and midget bladder.

·  How I feel: Surreal. We are almost done.
·  What I've been craving: All the Christmas goodies.   

·  What I miss: Eating and then lying down.  Without a hour wait of so for my stomach to settle so I am not in pain.
·  Best moment: Christmas with hubs family.. Snow!  
·  Items purchased: Still nada. Gma L got him a little green jacket to match daddy’s.

Now an update on Xmas. We spent Christmas with Hubs family up north, and left at the crack of 630am Saturday morning the 22^nd to make it up by noon for full family lunch. Hubs cousins and aunts and uncles were all already up there and we wanted to be able to spend some time with them before they left to spend actual Christmas at their own houses. On the drive up (4 hours) we listened to a book on tape and discovered that is the way to travel. Time goes so much faster when you are listening to a book! We made it up there in just under 4 hours… even with stopping midway so I could stretch, walk, and use el bano. We hit NO traffic. It was unheard of. We made it up and this was the first time we were seeing extended family since I became pregnant, and they had all gotten the announcement/invitations the week before so they all finally knew. Everyone was excited for us but surprisingly we were left pretty much alone about questions and ‘how do you feels.’ I'm beginning to question if they were warned to leave off. There were so many people to talk to, babies to hold, and food to eat it was crazy. After stuffing ourselves on delicious food we all settled into smaller groups to play a family staple: Board Games. And card games. Hours and hours. Its like this family was made for me! Games and hanging out continued until Sunday night, and then the extended family went home and we got to be together with just hubby’s immediate family. I pretty much commandeered the tiniest baby the whole time we were up there, and I was ok with that. Sadly one baby and his parents (hubs brother and his wife) had to leave early to spend the holidays with her family so then there were 9. Large Family. Christmas Day was really relaxing. We opened presents and stockings around 830 and ate breakfast together. Homemade cinnamon rolls is a tradition in hubs family. The most fun was watching my nieces (1.5 and 3) open presents and go crazy over all their new things. I made them tutus which they put on and didn’t take off the whole time we were there. We, the adult kids, went to see Les Mis xmas day while gma and gpa watched the little ones and that was really a fun treat. I didn’t know theaters were packed on xmas. Apparently it’s a thing. This was a small town theater so of course the guy in front of us played on his phone half the time and the lady behind us ANSWERED HER PHONE during the movie. I thought that only happened IN the movies. The last day of our relaxing holiday it snowed! I got to eat my year’s quota of snow! Don’t worry. I know all about avoiding the yellow kind.  The home again home again. I got ridiculously sick, now I am mending. And we are planning the month out before baby A comes! I can officially say he’s due THIS MONTH! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Week 34

Week 34
·  Size of baby:  This week he weighs about 4 3/4 pounds (like your average cantaloupe) and is almost 18 inches long. That’s according to the online things. I'm guessing my fatty is closer to, if not over 5lbs.

Weight gain: Still rocking the scale at 130. How is he getting bigger without me getting bigger? That’s like… 3 weeks of 130. Guh.  
·  Symptoms experienced: I have finally dipped my toe into the waters of heartburn. I get it really rarely… but now I get it. My doctor said yesterday that she always comes in expecting me to complain about some kind of symptom but I have had a very easy and happy baby (minus GD). She says I deserve it and I count my blessings that I don’t have anything to complain about other than having to put out a MISSING poster for my feet.

·  How I feel: Starting to get a little freaked out over The List of things to do before A is here. Our house isn’t clean which drives me crazy, and we can’t finish things until we do other things first. It’s a chained loop that is frustrating. We can’t finish A’s room until we can put the shelf unit in (which has been in our kitchen), we can’t do the shelf unit until we put up alternative shelves in the kitchen. We can’t put up those shelves until we go get screws. UGH. Then we cant hang up the curtains I made for his room (woohoo blackout curtains!) until we get a curtain rod (probably the same time we get the screws). So you see. Sejgf:jhg@:EBW;@!!!!!!!!!!!!
·  What I've been craving: All the Christmas treats I have been making… candied almonds, and sugar cookies. Tomorrow making Muddy Buddies and more cookies to take to Hubbys house.  

·  What I miss: Sleeping through the night. Rolling over without mental preparation. Slouching.
·  Best moment: Him being a wiggle monster and getting to see him swallowing and opening his mouth on the ultrasound. And adoring his little hands and feet :)
·  Items purchased: Fabric for his curtains. Which look awesome by the way. And future purchase…. Screws.  

Week 33

Week 33
·  Size of baby:  This week he weighs a little over 4 pounds (a pineapple) and has passed the 17-inch mark.

Weight gain: I’ll let you know on the 17^th at my appointment.
·  Symptoms experienced: Baby hiccups all the time, and him stretching in a space too small for him. It hurts when he moves sometimes! Also extreme exhaustion after any kind of walking.

·  How I feel: Tired all the time. Unable to get comfortable sleeping. Impatient.
·  What I've been craving: Hmm. Popeyes, Apples, Christmas treats. Toffee.

·  What I miss: Nothing really this week. A longer deadline to getting stuff done. My window of opportunity is shrinking!
·  Best moment: A’s Daddy talking to him and feeling his antics. Realizing I look like a manatee in a mirror if I see myself without recognizing myself.
·  Items purchased: A moon shaped lamp and some handles for A’s room.

The Big Reveal

Well. We are finally revealing our pregnancy to the masses. NOT on facebook… but extended family and friends. Baby shower invitations went out yesterday. Imagine the shock on some people’s faces when they get one. They don’t even know I am pregnant and they will be invited to a shower for a baby due next month. I would love to be a fly on the wall for that envelope opening. Haha. I am very slightly nervous about letting people in on our secret. I feel like I have kept it this long and I have it held tightly with an iron fist. Now I have to relax my grip and let people in. why I am afraid to tell people at this point? No idea. The upside is it means I get presents :D. I hope baby A makes it until the shower date (two weeks before my due date) and doesn’t decide to come early. As much as I want him out... I want him as far from Christmas as possible. LATE January.

In other news my baby-loss mom/friend Ali had her baby girl yesterday!!!!! I am beyond happy for her and cannot wait to share in her bliss with my own squaller. I have been leaning on her through my entire pregnancy… actually since a little after we lost Max. I got to share the news I was pregnant again with her. And we both got GD with our rainbow babies and were able to support each other. And I was there for her second loss and now her pregnancy with her brand new daughter. Her being done makes it seem like I should be done too. But we still have 7 weeks on my end. That means I get 7 weeks to ogle pictures of her sweet baby girl and countdown until her future husband Baby A (just kidding!) comes into the world. Who currently has the hiccups:)

So...

CONGRATULATIONS ALI AND TYLER!!!!!!

I Really Should Keep Up This Blog-Thing…

I haven’t been updating much recently... I just have been feeling time escape me. So much has been going on getting ready for the holidays (especially when I am making most of my presents), and getting ready for baby A. This weekend alone was CRAZY. Hubby was gone on a work trip on thurs/fri so he got home late Friday night and we crashed. I haven’t been sleeping very well.I blame A. I wake up every 2 hours like clockwork. Wide awake and not at all rested. It was been a miserable couple of days. Saturday I had a church ladies crafting brunch. I can never turn down crafting. Ever. So I was up and out at 9 to make it to a wonderful time of fellowship and Christmas crafting with amazing ladies. When that ended, I headed to errand running.. Ikea and Lowes for things we needed for A and for Christmas presents. I had to park quite far away from both places (they are in the same parking lot with one other store) and had to huff it to Ikea, then got lost in there for a good 40 min. resisted the urge to buy everything. Caved on some things. Still resisted a duvet.. my dream bedding. And then Marco/Polo-ed my way to the exit via Ikea Maze. Huffed back to the car to store said purchases, then equidistance to Lowes for things from that store. Wandered around for an hour while communicating with my sisters in law to coordinate my MIL’s bday present. Finally got responses and picked out her present, then back to the car a billion miles away. By this point its 2. I'm already exhausted… still on the TODO list for the day: Get my car aligned. Go to December Nights (my cities annual largest free outdoor event), and get our Christmas tree and decorate it. I go home and have about 15 minutes to crash while hubby gets ready to go with me. 15 minutes was not enough. We head out to the car place he found to align us and talked to the guy there who says he wants to save us money on something we don’t need (!) that we don’t need to be aligned, we just need the tires to be balanced. He then sends us to their sister facility saying to tell the guy Mike sent us and they would help us out. Wow. A nice car mechanic. That’s like finding a dinosaur! Extinct! We go across the street and tell them Mike sent us and we think we need to be balanced, so they guy says he will do it for us, and then prints the agreement… cost= 0$.

Hub asks and the guy said he won’t charge us because we were referred by Mike(!) TWO nice car people? And Mike is now my favorite person ever. While we waited we walked to target to get more xmas shopping done. Then walked back, all together about a mile. I was already tired from before… now I’m basically melting and in full on waddle. I STILL want to do Dec. Nights. Its only 2 nights a year and Sat was the last day.We weighed the pros v cons while I closed my eyes and reclined the seat. And Pros won. Traffic to get to the park where it is held is INSANE. It took about 35 minutes to get 2 miles. And cars are playing chicken with pedestrians and each other over spots. Parking itself if a nightmare and the park is only open to foot traffic, so the closest you can park (Prime spots) are still half a mile from the entrance. We find a spot about 4 blocks from the half mile point and nab it. Then realize its metered and we need change. Its 430 and we need 1.5 hours to make it past the After-Six-Is-Free point and only have 35 cents. One quarter buys 12 minutes. So that’s not going to help. We are parked in a residential neighborhood and Hubby quested to change our two dollars to quarters. He actually found someone with the change and then we prepared to walk. Uphill. Many break and about 20 minutes later we made it to the beginning. The park opens every museum for free during this event, there are cottages that represent every nationality that are open and selling food of their country, choirs give converts, a fair sets up games and rides, food booths open, Christmas trees are everywhere, there are multiple bier gartens, lights are strung.. and everyone, their brother, and their dogs show up to enjoy it. News said over 300,000 people came out. We had two museums we wanted to go to and then to find the international food of my dreams to eat. After one museum we found and toured the food-country-choices and got wassail from England, and then Brats and Sauerkraut from Germany. I loooove german food. Especially sauerkraut. Hubby and I had to be on bump-patrol because everyone kept bumping into Baby A and I had to be careful not to be too jostled. Many small breaks were taken while walking so I could rest.. and we hit our second museum choice. The train museum. Why you ask? Because it has a scale model of a loop in Hubs home town. There was a bench in front of it so I was fine spending alllll the time there. I was beyond done by the end of the museum and we still had about a mile to the car and a billion people to maneuver through. We started walking, stopped for sweet potato pie, then headed out. Just as I was wondering how there were so many people and absolutely no one we knew we ran into my favorite child ever and his brother. I watch both of them occasionally for their mom and they are the ones who gifted us so much baby stuff. We stopped and said hi and I got a hug from one and a gurgle from the baby. Then resumed the trek to the car. We finally made it and I collapsed in the front seat while hub walked around. We weren’t even all the way in the car before someone was waiting for our spot, thinking they lucked out. Youd think at this point I would have called it a day and gone home to flop. Nope. I’m not that smart. To the tree lot! Luckily that only took about 10 minutes. We picked a ‘tree’ and headed home to decorate.  Ok so hubby could do what I directed from a chair. While listening to/watching Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Now our house is festive and I am Christmas Happy. Then I went to bed and actually slept! Yesterday we got to light one of the advent candles during thesecond service so we got a little extra sleep and then headed into church to see when our cue was to come up and light it. After church we went home and I took the worlds greatest nap until we had to go back to church for the quarterly member’s meeting, then went with some church friend for frozen yogurt after and finally back home after a whirlwind and time-flying weekend.  I also  convinced hubby to set up our stroller and take the car seat from the box last night… so I could ogle/play with them. It was extremely exciting to see something that has been in a box for months come out and get set up. We went with the Britax B-Ready and Chaperone car seat for A and I can’t wait to see him in it! The stroller was bigger than I remember/imagined.. so that’s going to take getting used to, but the fact that it is easily adaptable to a double will save us in the long run I believe. Plus I’m a baby-wearing believer… so :). The car seat is beautiful and I resisted strapping in stuffed animals to practice. Barely.