March is almost over?

It's Wednesday again, and now I'm 31 weeks along with this tiny girl child of ours.

(Okay, technically I'm 30 1/2 weeks in this picture ... close enough though!)

It's been a bit of a crazy week. So crazy that I know I'm going to miss several items of interest because there was too much and I'm still really tired from the lack of sleep recently.

This past Saturday we got up nice and early so we could drive to Dallas and back to pick up Goose! They think she's pregnant so we'll keep an eye on her, but apparently she can still do just about everything she used to - take walks, go to the dog park, swim, etc. Maverick was especially pleased to have his buddy back home. Now they can fight over bully sticks, wrestle, and sit on top of each other all they want again :)


(on the way home)

We miraculously managed to get all of us back into Tomball about 15 minutes before Bryan's church praise band at 3:30. How awesome are we?

While Bryan was at practice, Ronnie came by with the cradle he built!! (and a mattress and sheet set to go with it) - It is GORGEOUS and just so incredibly sweet. It's hanging out in our room ready to rock Baby E to sleep as soon as she arrives. It's making things feel a bit more real for us to see it resting innocently by windows ready and yet still empty. Only 8-9 weeks left- wow.



The weekend also included a campfire with s'mores with neighbors, church, grocery shopping, dinner with Collin, Laura, Andrea & Chris, and watching one of Regan's soccer games with Aunt Jana & Garrett. It was nice. The weather is warming up so fast. This week we're back to school but only for another 7 weeks or so (how is the school year going by so fast?).

Grandma is not responding well to the chemo she received last Wednesday and was making it incredibly hard for Mom & Dad to keep her hydrated and all of her systems moving. She is also just exhausted and wiped out. Yesterday after my fiasco at Toyota (I won't talk about it because it'll only make me angry again), I headed over to the Conroe Regional Hospital to hang out in the ER with Mom & Grandma until she was admitted, and then stayed until later in the evening. (Mom stayed all night.) They've since been getting her body hydrated and cleaned out. She has slept through just about the entire thing. We hope she'll be released this afternoon feeling MUCH better. Please pray for her healing and for Mom & Dad to see improvement and know that what they are doing is right and effective. They are troopers.

I've got a doctor's appointment this afternoon to see if we can do something about this sinus & respiratory infection I've now had for close to 2 months. I was put on antibiotics but it never went away completely and it's come back worse than before. It cannot possibly be healthy for the baby to be exposed to an infection for that long. Here's to hoping we can do something about it and it will STAY gone!!

(Update: the doc gave me the only other antibiotic known to be completely safe for fetuses. Unfortunately, if this doesn't work, I'm really in trouble because she said the infection is so severe they're next move is to hospitalize me with IV antibiotics while be continuously monitored by an OBGYN. this does NOT sound like an appealing option, so please pray these antibiotics work!)

Meanwhile Maverick & Goose are getting their summer haircuts today ... can't wait to see what they look like when I pick them up :)

30 Weeks

Here we are: 30 weeks yesterday! 75% there :)


Photo credits to Bryan :)

Trimester: 3rd

Sex: Girl ... as far as we know ...

Name: We have one :)

Cravings: None that are super intense, but I've been loving frozen yogurt & pretzels (not together)

Movement: Lots of rolling. Her favorite place appears to be wedged underneath my right rib cage, and the rest of her stays up as high as she can. She spends most of her time there. Thankfully we discovered ice can get her to move if it gets too uncomfortable!

Belly button: Still an innie, but getting shallow.

Stretch marks: Yep. Doh.

Symptoms: Nausea has returned a bit, heartburn, fatigue, my lungs are feeling very cramped, and sciatica (OUCH) in my left hip.

Favorite moments: Bryan likes to talk to her really close to my tummy at night and she almost always responds with tons of kicks and jabs. Daddy's girl already? :)

Painting the Nursery Tree

As I mentioned in the post about my birthday, one of my favorite things from the day was getting a tree painted in Baby E's nursery!!!

Maverick was ready to help:



We borrowed a projector from one of our neighbors (thank you Kristen & Craig!) to get the tree started, although after a little while I started ignoring the image and starting taking some serious artistic license :) Maybe not the best idea when you're not at all artistically inclined, but the worst thing that could happen would be me having to paint over it and start over, right? Plus I think the end result turned out great!



Maverick was a little bemused by this set up:



After a little while we shut off the image and I started to try to make the tree work a little better for the particular space we had to work with. It was also made a little more interesting by the fact that it was in a corner:



Mom & Marissa were so incredibly helpful!! We used stencils (I already mentioned once I'm no artist) to paint the leaves, blossoms & adorable birdies:





I LOVE THIS TREE!!! I honestly can't imagine it turning out better. It's by no means perfect, but it's sweet and adorable and perfect for a nursery. I think I'm going to add a yellow butterfly or two - maybe one landing on top of the outlet? :)



Here it is with the glider in front:



And there's the 29 1/2 week baby bump:



Best birthday project ever!!

Bryan also deserves recognition for allowing me to (a) start the project, and (b) set up the technology and give me direction. Thank you honey!

more bumps

More bumpin'....

Week 27/28:



This counts for the same time (taken 2 days after the one above) - I just couldn't believe how pregnant I looked from the front too!



Pre-Week 29:



Closing in on 75% there!

I'll take one on Wednesday to document 30 weeks :) Please someone remind me, I'm terrible at this!

My 25th Birthday

It's official, we can celebrate my existence for a full quarter century now :) It's really the only day you CAN celebrate the fact that you were born and not sound really really self-focused.

My birthday was technically yesterday, but we've been kind of celebrating all week.

First, early this week Mom, Grandma, Marissa & I were treated to pedicures (thank you Mom!):



Then on Thursday we went to the rodeo!
Bryan and I walked around the shops and found these adorable Cowbabies boots:



And then we met up with Leah & Duncan in the Anadarko suite to watch some bull-riding, barrel-racing, calf-scrambling, mutton-busting and more. Plus we stayed long enough to watch Jason Aldean perform a few songs.



(That's my 29 week pregnant belly hanging out)



Friday night we had dinner with friends & family - Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grady, Marissa, Leah, Duncan, Collin, Stephanie and Bryan & I were all present. We went to Papadeaux and it was delicious. Thank you so much for the thoughtful gifts!









And then Saturday (the 17th) I had a perfect day. Bryan helped me clean the house in the morning, we set up for painting the nursery tree (more on that in a future post!), I was treated to a very relaxing prenatal massage, Mom & Marissa came over to help with the tree, Bryan baked me Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes all by himself, Maverick got to play with Murphy all day, and then Dad grilled quail for dinner. And then Grady treated us to Tutti Fruiti (pregnancy craving for the last 2 months). My family is amazing.





Goose was really missed :( Good thing she'll be home soon!!

And MeMaw & Paw deserve a shout out for the wonderful Tutti Fruitti giftcard!! Thank you so much!!

Tiny laundry!!!!

So I really dislike doing laundry ... it's one of those never ending chores that requires multiple steps and you have to wait around between the steps. Ugh.

BUT.

On the other hand I just did my first load of tiny little bitty laundry!!



Squee!

Washed, dried, and now neatly folded and put away - and I didn't resent a single step :)



Maverick was really interested in the proceedings.
Bryan said he felt like we were playing house with dolls. :)

3rd tri again?

I posted last week about entering 3rd Trimester at the conclusion of 27 weeks, but I forgot to take a "bump" picture. Well, lucky for me the medical field is divided between whether they believe 3rd tri technically starts at the end of week 27 or at the end of week 28.

Today concludes 28 weeks and the beginning of 3rd Trimester according to the other half of the professional field and I did NOT forget my bump picture today! So I DO have a 3rd tri picture :)



Doing a bit of growing over here! And I'm starting to get lots of elbow jabs and kicks to the ribs :)

Weekend Activities

This was a stressful/fun/busy/crazy weekend!

On Friday during school I started having some pretty serious contractions - about 3 an hour, lasting about a minute each. Once you start having 4 an hour, lasting about a minute or more, you're supposed to go to the hospital so they can give you drugs to stop it because that's considered active labor, which isn't good at only 27 1/2 weeks. I finally called my Midwife after a pretty agonizing day at school - I was uncomfortable already, the contractions hurt, and I had to be on my feet for about 7 hours - ouch! She got me some calcium & magnesium and lots and lots of water, and the contractions slowed down, thankfully!

Then we met up with a former co-worker of mine from Nitsch, Samantha, and had dinner at La Maria (yum) and splurged on frozen yogurt from TuttiFrutti too (YUM again) :) It was a good way to end a bit of a stressful day.

Saturday Bryan was husband-of-the-year again when he volunteered to drive Goose (and Maverick rode with them) up to Dallas (well, Ferris) to meet with the Safari Doodles owner so that Goose can be a mommy without me. I spent the morning sleeping in (Heavenly!), getting some work done, driving up to Conroe to see my parents, Grandma, my cousin Jonathan, his wife Sara & their kiddos. Little Joseph is almost a month old and sooo sweet! I loved getting the chance to hold him and help feed him. I can't believe we're about to have a little person like that around all the time!

I had to leave early because I had made plans to meet another former co-worker from Nitsch, Julie, at Panera Bread. I had such a good time visiting with her! She came over to see our progress on the nursery, and hopefully we'll have her and her husband over for a March Madness game to watch up on the projector soon.

Bryan got home, we found a lost dog (looked like a lab mix) roaming around the neighborhood nearby our house. She looked well cared for, and had a collar but no tag. Rather than heading straight to a vet to see she had a microchip, we decided to walk Mav & the lost dog around the neighborhood to see if someone would be out looking for her. We walked by a house and she got really excited, so we figured it was her's. We walked up to the door and a man walked out. Turns out his name is Mike and he and his family WERE missing the little dog- named Hershey. They accidentally left the back gate open - which we found out a moment later Maverick discovered and jumped straight into their pool. It was a little embarrassing but I think the family thought it was pretty funny. Maverick was so happy that he saw an available body of water to go swimming in, he just jumped right in and was paddling away, as happy as any puppy in water :) As soon as we got him out, he started wrestling with Hershey and they had a great time chasing each other around their front yard. Met some new neighbors! Too funny.

Later that afternoon Bryan and I made dinner together and watched Moneyball for the first time. It was a pretty good movie if you haven't seen it!

Sunday Bryan took Maverick for a walk, we got ready for church and decided to treat ourselves to Denny's pre-church. It was New Member's Sunday, and we were introduced/welcomed to the church during the service. I HATE being up in front of people like that without something to do, just smiling and nodding. Yikes, makes me nervous. Thankfully Bryan was up there with me and several others that did the New Member class with us.

After church we grabbed some lunch, ran to the grocery store (we're trying a new meal plan idea which I think is going to help me stay more organized with meal prep and grocery shopping, I hope), and then headed back to Conroe!

We saw my parents, Grandma, Barry & Cody. Maverick and Bryan went swimming (burrr!!!!) and we visited and had a delicious dinner of venison. So good.

Sorry I'm rambling so much, but it was just a good and varied weekend. I hope everyone else had a good one too!!!