Pregnancy Update

I won't lie, this is going to talk about the woes of pregnancy.  But as a HUGE disclaimer I promise not to be too whiny, because even I don't appreciate reading my whinyness.  I also need to write this somewhere so that in the future I don't have to ask Russ "Was it this bad last time?"

The past week has been quite rough.  It actually started the weekend of the 11th.  I spent a lot of time that weekend walking around, bending down, and doing other activities that I know aren't good for my hip problems.  I began feeling the pain start creeping into my hips and pelvic region.  I tried to rest, but it didn't work to well.  Last week it all caught up to me.  I finally got to the point where I couldn't move without my hips popping or grinding, or the pain being so intense that I would cry out.  I also felt bruised in all of my hip/pelvic region.  Not only that but me not sleeping enough caught up with me at the exact same time.  On Thursday I was falling asleep while playing with Allie.  Who falls asleep sitting up?  I felt bad and had to skip a Primary meeting that night because the pain was so intense and I was falling asleep.  Russ took care of the kids for me and I took a nap, a bath, then went to bed early.

I write this not to whine, but as a reminder that I need to take care of myself.  In case you are wondering, no the pain is not gone.  It won't be for at least 3 more months.  Sometime after baby comes it will mostly go away.  I learned from Allie though that it never quite goes away 100%.  The goods news is that the pain has lessened some and I have caught up on some much needed sleep, so I'm not nodding off during the day.  I also feel like I can function as a mother again during the day.  Slightly important when your hubby is gone all day at work and you are at home with the kids :)

Emotionally I was spent last week as well.  I guess the hormones are really kicking in.  I spent a lot of time crying and feeling sorry for myself.  After dragging myself to the General Relief Society thing, I felt much better.  The talks were wonderful and talking with friends before hand lifted my spirits.  I hope I can keep these nasty hormones at bay for a little longer, so I can enjoy this time being pregnant.

Lily's 1st Soccer Game

Saturday we got up early and made it to Lily's soccer game at 8:03.  The way her division works is that they have a 30 min practice before the game.  The game last about an hour.  We were hoping since her game was early in the morning it would be fairly cool, but boy did the humidity get us!  With the humidity we were fairly hot but occasionally there was a breeze so it was enjoyable.  The mosquitos weren't too bad either, YAHOO!

Lily was practically out the door of the car before Russ stopped at the playing field.  She was excited beyond belief!  By the time we got to the field they were just starting some drills.  Since Lily has never done soccer before it was nice to see her couch work with her.  He was very positive in reinforcing what she did well, and kind when correcting her in what she needed to work on.  Here she is practicing with her team....

Lily and Carson practicing kicking the ball

Lily setting up to kick with Coach Perez in the background

 Waiting for her turn to kick a goal.  This has really taught her patience, and turn taking! YEAH!

 So this would have been an awesome picture if I hadn't cut her off.  But I loved this picture so much because she was doing what Coach had just told her to work on.  Follow through with your leg.  Yes it may be a tad high but at least she followed through!!!

 Small kicks

 And during practice there is always some standing around time, LOL!

I was very proud of Allie through out this whole thing.  She spent "practice" time with daddy kicking goals with her soccer ball.  No worries they were on an empty field so as not to get in the way of the "real" soccer players. 

Forgot that I needed to give the camera some "defogging" time so it is a bit blurry.

This picture is so fun because you can see Lily in the background.  Fog still hadn't cleared off yet....sigh!

Allie was a model child after this and primarily sat in her chair or on Russ's lap for the whole game!  She even cheered Lily on a few times.  The game began with Coach helping the kids do a cheer...

Lily sat out the first bit because they play three on three.  She was a bit discouraged, but again learned some patience.  She was all smiles as she ran in for her turn.  She stayed in for most of the game since she wasn't getting too tired.  It was funny to watch her because she is a bit clueless.  A lot of the time she would stand there and watch the ball.  If came towards her she would try and kick it but she just quite didn't get the fact that she should run after it to try and get it to come to her!  I know in her mind this is just a fun game she is playing with friends, not a competition against the other team.

Despite her being slightly clueless I did see Lily have some great learning moments throughout the game.  The first time she got ran into and fell down she cried.  Coach helped her up and got her to stop crying, but let her sit out for awhile.  While sitting out I explained that it was an accident that happens and we don't need to cry about falling down, we just need to jump up and try to get the ball.  The next time Lily fell, she jumped up, brushed herself off, and ran after the ball!  YAY!  

Another enlightenment I saw towards the end of the game was Lily actually running after the ball.  During another one of her breaks she had been sad because she hadn't scored a goal yet, and reminded her how she kicked it toward the goal so some else could kick it in.  I explained she had "assisted" or helped someone, and that is just as important as getting a goal herself.  I think she took this to heart, because I really saw her jump into the game and go after the ball more.  YAY! 

Now those learning moments were my favorite thing to see at the game.  I love seeing my kids learn and grow.  But Lily would probably tell you her favorite part of the game was scoring a goal!  Yep, my little sweetie scored her very first goal!  She was so excited and beamed with pride.  I wish I had captured it on film, but I didn't want the camera glued to my face the whole time.  I wanted to enjoy Lily's game too!  But I did capture a few more cute pictures of the kids playing.  Enjoy these until next week, when I'm sure I'll plaster the blog with even more soccer photos! Hehehehe!

Trace, Lily and McKenna waiting for the kickoff!

Just a fun picture of Lily!  Look at what the humidity did to her hair!  Love the crazy curl look!

New Schedule

Since Lily went off to school our schedule has slowly been deteriorating for Allie.  My happy-go-lucky toddler was turning into a whiny clingy baby.  I finally realized that we needed a new schedule when I saw Allie do this today.  She and I were eating lunch, when she had finished before me.  I asked her to wait while momma finished up and then I would take her out of her chair.  I went back to eating and reading.  I finished, looked up and was astonished when I found her like this.  She had taken her "bib" curled it up like a pillow and fallen fast asleep on it.  Starting tomorrow Russ and I have decided that Allie needs to start eating an earlier lunch and taking an earlier nap.  Hopefully this will work, because I hate to see my little on so worn out!

A few things about today....

• Lily got her soccer pictures taken by herself and with her team. Well, part of her team...one little boy refused to take any pictures.

• Lily's soccer game was promptly cancelled after pictures due to a HUGE rainstorm that stayed around for most of the day.

• Lily was dissappointed.

• Allie now has "the fever"  Should I say I told you so????

• I scored six bottles of Scrubbing Bubbles, one of my favorite cleaners, for absolutely free!!!  And yes I will use that many in a reasonable amount of time.

• I'm going back to the store on Monday to pick up 4 more bottles of them and two canisters of Clorax wipes for free also :)

• My house is still a mess....

Froooogggiiieee!!!

Frogs are a favorite in our house.  Allie has a frog named Ribbit that Russ bought for her with some random gift card he got at work.  And Lily cannot get enough of the Froggie books.  I think we've read every single one in the series at least once, if not more!

With that in mind imagine their excitement when daddy called halt to the soccer game tonight in order to show them this....

We have quite a few of these little guys hiding out in our grass, shrubs, garage, and even our house!  The one in the house totally freaked me out one day, but I shooed it out the door without hurting it :)  The girls were fascinated by it.  Lily wanted to put it in a jar and keep it as a pet.  I figured that wasn't a good idea because I would probably kill it, so I convinced Lily it needed to go back to its family.  Before letting it go we let each of the girls take a turn holding it.  Lily giggled with excitement.  Allie gave it a try but promptly dropped it on the ground as soon as I got her picture.  Daddy returned it to its "home" aka our swimming pool so no one would step on it as the soccer game resumed.

I can't get enough of this picture of Lily holding the frog and Russ holding her hands.  I feel a scrapbook page coming on :)

Soccer Ball

Lily starts soccer tomorrow.  Since she has never played and has absolutely no clue about the rules I suggested to Russ that he take some time to practice with her tonight.  Of course at the mere mention of soccer Allie's ears perked up and wanted to go outside.  Me too, was her reply.  Her short stubby legs can't keep up with daddy and Lily so we made sure to find her a soccer ball she could use all on her own.

While Allie was off busying herself, Daddy and Lily were having a great time "playing" soccer.  I think the biggest lesson that Lily learned tonight involved not crying.  We wanted her to understand that even if someone takes the ball from you, don't cry about it just get it back.  Many times Lily did get it from Russ, many times she did not.  She would cry and we would remind her not to cry by having her stand on the side for 10 secs.  Towards the end of their "game" Lily was doing well about going after the ball instead of crying.  I'm sure with a bit more practice she'll even start scoring some goals.  Course it will help that she will be playing against someone her own age not a 30-year-old-overgrown-child-at-heart! LOL!

Flee, Fly, Flu?

Lily got over her mysterious illness around last Friday.  Her fever went away and was replaced by one bloodshot eye and some stuffiness.  The bloodshot eye went away on Monday but the stuffiness still remains. I ALMOST believed that the whole thing has been some weird case of allergies except that Friday night at dinner Allie did the tale-tell gagging sound.   The second gag and we were cleaning up a mess.  

We raced Allie to the bathtub where she promptly felt better and had a Popsicle.  All day Saturday Allie was a bit cranky but otherwise healthy and active.  So we risked feeding her "real" food.  Again that didn't go over well.  After cleaning THAT mess up Allie was as good as new.  We made her rest Sunday and Monday with a light diet of water, crackers, bananas, etc.  All week she has been doing okay and has even shrugged off the grumpiness for the most part.  I'm now just waiting for round two to start.  Bring on the fever!!! LOL!

This mysterious illness really has me stumped considering the doctor swore up and down that it wasn't the flu, and honestly I believe him.  Who gets the flu where you have 24 hours of feeling "fine" in between potty runs? Hmph! At least Russ and I have escaped the illness :)

Just Us

Yesterday I said the word "slide" in some form and Allie latched on to it.  All day she asked her in her adorable way, "Slide? Swing?"  I kept telling her later since I could barely walk let alone drag her to a park.  This morning she started in again about slide and swing.  I was feeling better and playgroup was today so I figured, "why not?"

We loaded in the car and drove 20 min away to playgroup where I quickly realized it was going to be just us.  Everyone else must have been at the temple today for "fill the temple week"  In the end I was grateful for this us time.  I've really started enjoying having one on one time with Allie.  It has become very apparent to as of late that Allie's quieter personality has been overshadowed by Lily's loud and boisterous personality.  

On these outings that I go with Allie on she reveals more and more personality.  For instance today I was again astounded that she is actually not a daredevil like I thought.  She actually needs a safety net{Lily} to go up the big slides.  She also likes to point out things and explain them to me.  She did this when Lily was around, but sometimes it was hard for her to get a word in when Lily's mouth was running a mile a minute.  Allie also doesn't particularly like doing arts and crafts either because she gets dirty.  She must get that from Russ!

After going up the slide with Allie about 10 times I called it quits and requested that she eat her snack.  She happily agreed and I couldn't help but snapping a few pictures of her and us.

What you doing mommy?

Love this picture...I think it is the scrunched up eyebrows.

Super sweet...

Just Us

As we headed home I head time to think and I kept thinking about all the things I learned today about Allie.  I remembered that I had this same kind of one on one time with Lily.  As I realized this I hoped that I will be able to have one on one time like this with all my kids.  I don't know if that is what the future holds for the new baby, but I do know that I am going to make an effort to find time where I can be with just her and have some just us time.

Why?

Why must she grow up?

Just another random photo I took of Lily that I thought showed her personality.  Those eyes are killing me!  So intense, but kind and loving at the same time.  And that hint of a smile...agh!  Where has my little girl gone to?

Creating an Ocean

A few days before we went to the beach last month I saw THIS cool tutorial on one of my favorite crafting blogs.  I asked the girls if they wanted make an ocean and they enthusiastically said YES!  It took a few weeks after going to the beach to actually get this project done, but we finished it today. 

Me help!  Adding the food coloring to the water.

Allie really enjoyed putting the shells in her bottle.  She completely focused on it.  Eventually we had to take them away or else the whole thing would have been shells!

Lily chose hers very carefully.  She only wanted the really pretty ones.

When finished we of course had to test them out in many different ways!

Upside down...

In our mouths...

Oh and don't forget to put a bracelet on it!

Bubbles, bubbles...

We love our oceans!!

Sickies

Kindergarten has brought all kind of new adventures into our life.  It has all brought one adventure that I wish we could get rid of...sickies.  Every week Lily has brought home some new kind of illness.  Last week was a mystery illness.  Our doctor told us it couldn't be the flu because she was so inconsistently sick.  one day she would be fine the next day her and the potty were best friends.

With the long weekend I had been hoping that she would be able to rest and get better.  It appeared like she was on the mend until Monday morning.  A virus of some sort had been lurking within her all weekend and manifested itself with a 103 degree fever.  Tuesday and Wednesday were spent home with a high fever and a slight runny nose.  I never thought I would hear the end of complaints from Lily about how she wanted to go to school and didn't care if she was sick.

This morning Lily's fever was gone so I sent her joyfully off to school with a runny nose.  I gave strict instructions that if she began to feel hot she needed to tell her teacher.  She happily agreed.  After school I went to pick Lily up from school and from one look I could tell that the fever was back.  AGH!  Lily claimed that she had wanted me to come get her all day but didn't want to tell her teacher.  Double AGH!!

Now I am at a loss of whether do send her tomorrow or not.  These sickies are driving me crazy with how inconsistent they are.  I hate to send her and get others sick, but at the same time I hate to keep her home and have her go stir crazy.

Another Copy Cat

Lily fell asleep on the couch today.  Sickness is the only thing that makes this girl take a nap!

Allie thought it was soooo cool that Lily was sleeping on the couch that she demanded I help her put her pillow on the other couch.  After arranging it just so Allie laid down and pretended to make the appropriate sleeping sounds.  I giggled and figured Allie would jump up after a few minutes of this pretending.  I went about my business, until I came back in the room a few minutes later and found that Allie wasn't playing copy cat any more!  She had put her self down for a nap.  Easiest nap I've ever had to deal with :)

Dance time

Lily started to get bored of just lying on the couch so she begged, and begged some more if she could turn on some music so Allie could dance.  Since Lily's fever had been gone and she had rested quite a bit I let her.  I was laughing so hard at these two!  They each have their own style of dancing.  I have no idea where Lily learned to dance.  The end of this is hilarious because Allie accidentally throws her bracelet across the room, and makes the saddest face.

I couldn't resist posting this one either.  The girls love this chicken dance song.  The love to fly like birds.   Even without music Allie runs with her arms out because of the song.  Oh and her hat!  I need to get a picture of it someday, but Allie is SEVERELY attached to this bucket hat we have for her.  She wears it around the house most of the day.  She will only take it off for nap time and bed time.  I don't remember why we had taken it off, but she found it in the video!

22 weeks

I hit 22 weeks today!  How exciting!  I love when you reach a point in pregnancy that you are able to see that you are getting close enough to the due date that you can start counting down.  I'm counting down months right now!  Four more to go!

Wednesday I drove up to Houston to get my ultrasound done.  I had been contemplating taking Allie with me but around Saturday I decided to leave her with a friend.  I'm glad I did.   The ultrasound itself turned out to be over an hour long!  BGJ #3 just didn't want to roll over so the tech could measure her stomach and heart.  Two of the most important measurements according to the tech.  During the ultrasound I had to do a lot of rolling over to see if I could get the baby to move.  Oh and lets not forget that the tech was really digging into my stomach to see if she could push the baby over.  {I came home feeling sore and bruised from it all}  

The tech was wonderful through the whole procedure.  She was very talkative and pointed out every little thing she saw.  She laughed as the baby fought back against the ultrasound wand.  We watched as she kept punching at it and kicking.  I wasn't feeling a whole lot of the movement but it was fun to watch.  Baby also kept moving her mouth during the whole thing and the tech joked that she was yelling at us to leave her alone! LOL!  Towards the end baby FINALLY turned just enough that we got the measurements.  I was excited when the tech handed me a ton of photos and said that I wouldn't have to come back for anymore ultrasounds.  Which in turn means that she got a complete ultrasound this time {no thanks to baby!} and that my placenta had migrated enough that it is not a concern anymore!  WAHOO!

The doctors visit was very routine.  We discussed that I had gained some weight {5 lbs} which was okay since I hadn't gained any weight previous to this.  It was also a relief to here that my blood pressure was a little bit below normal, which is where it normally resides.  I really think that my blood pressure was going high because I was having so many migraines.  The migraines of course were due to the fact that the nurse practitioner had me go off Clariton.  Lastly we discussed that I would have to take the Gestational Diabetes test next time.  YUCK!  I'm crossing my fingers that since my blood panel two months ago came back normal, that my blood work this time will come back normal.  Oh!  I almost forget the doctor told me that the weight of BGJ #3 right now was measuring at 14 oz, or the 45%.  Still below average and quite a bit below the other two girls!  I hope I'm not just pumping myself up to later be disappointed with a 10 lb baby.  The only problem at the visit was that the doc did seem a bit concerned that the size of my uterus had jumped quite a bit in just a month.  She measured me and hmmm over it.  Even without her telling me what I was measuring I could tell that I had grown about two inches.  That isn't normal :(

After my next visit I will be going in every two weeks.  For some reason this feels REALLY early to me.  I don't remember going in that often this early before.  The only thing I can think of is that they've classified me as a high risk patient because of Lily and Allie's weight coupled with the gestational diabetes.

Well, how's about some pictures?

First off, here's me at 22 weeks.  I jumped a lot in size this month! I'm not so small anymore :) And why can't I have the cute round pregnant belly that everyone else has?  Why most I have the lumpy bumpy one?

And here is BGJ's arm.

Her feet

Her profile

And her working on being an alien! LOL!  I think this was when she was mad about being poked so much! Hehehe!

And just for fun I created this scrapbook page the other day.  What do you think?

Our House: Master Bedroom and Bathroom

Our bedroom is finished!!! Well...it is mostly finished.  I have no money right now to buy decorations for it and I'm tired of having random photos on my wall, like the Mormon Ad poster frame I've had since I was 14 or so.  I want sophistication so I've left my walls blank until I can get what I want.  The good thing about that?  I'm learning what I REALLY want and just what I THINK I want. :)

Lets start the picture journey shall we?

Our bedroom is fairly deep, but it is really long!  There was no way for me to capture the whole thing in one shot.  So lets start with the left side...my side :)

I love that Russell displays all his Lego creations that I  buy him for birthdays and such.  He has them on the corner of our dresser right.  Sometime I hope to buy a floating shelf that can either go in our bedroom or the spare bedroom to more properly display these!

The right side...Russ's side.

This is my favorite part of the whole room.  This little reading corner is so nice to relax into when I'm tired.  There is floor space so the kids can play there too.  Oh and the light!  This is about the only spot in our house that gets unobstructed light {ie no houses or trees blocking it}

Here is a close up of our bed.  Our last bed  was on its leg considering it was 30+ years old.  So when we received some extra money this year we splurged and spent it on a king size tempur pedic knock off bed.  Oh it is so delightful!  We of course had to get new sheets and a comforter for our bed.  I found this beauty on sale at Target.  I love the Japanesesque tree and flowers on it.  Also it was my color scheme!  This also was the first time we've had a true comforter on our bed!  Before we always had large blankets that my mom had made doubling as a comforter.  The bed  set only came with two pillows, so I've still got to buy pillows to go in the rest of the pillowcases.  Plus our "standard size" pillows are looking pretty awful in the king pillowcases so hopefully those will be replaced soon too.

At the end of our bedroom is this neat little personal desk.  It doesn't have a light so it is a dungeonesque and we don't use it much except for storage.

When we bought this house I swooned over the fact that we would have vaulted ceiling or tray ceilings as I've heard them called more recently.  Imagine my delight when I found out they were in our bedroom too!  It does make dusting the fan a pain, but they are so worth it!

Next is the master bath.  Again I was sold on the house when I saw it.  On the left is the tub and shower.  You can't tell from the picture, but that is a jetted soaker tub.  Oh my it feels nice!  It especially helps with the aches and pains of pregnancy :)

The shower is HUGE and has a bench built in it.  Again so nice for pregnancy!

On the right is the cave...oh I mean toilet.  I don't like enclosed toilets like this, but everything can't be perfect right?!

Straight ahead is the double vanity.  I couldn't believe our luck when the previous owners left the beautiful mirrors.  I'm still not sure why the left them, but it certainly saved us some money! Oh, there is two sinks, but again it was awkward to get the whole shot in.

Then there is the master closet.  It was a humongous walk in closet that we knew we would never fill up.  One thing about Texas homes{or at least homes in our area} is that they don't have basements, pantries, or a ton of storage space...unless you count the attic.  Since Russ and I really don't own a whole lot of clothes we decided to convert half of our closet into a food storage area.  We did have to make the shelves ourselves because for some odd reason the owners took them when they left.  This working out quite nice for us.  Is it weird that Russ has three times as many clothes as me?  LOL!  Pardon the messy clothes as well.  As soon as I was done taking these pictures I re hung everything according to color and style.  Not sure how that got away from me for so long, but seeing as I took the pictures drove me crazy!

One room done...many more to go!  Hopefully by the time the baby gets here we will be finished.