I'm pregnant and I know it.

Don't take this post the wrong way. It is written in jest, truly. I am excited to be having another baby, but I'm finding that pregnancy, the 3rd time around, is harder to embrace.

Things you may not remember about being giantly pregnant:

- Well meaning people will comment on the "glow" that you and all pregnant women have. It's not glow - it's sweat. Seriously - I am running 10 degrees hotter than the general population, trying to squeeze my massive belly into some sort of summer wear so that I can still be outside.

- I've gained an insane amount of weight, and no matter what you tell me, I don't believe that "it's all water." Nope. It's fat. It's true. For whatever reason, God decided that I needed to be round, soft, voluptuous, and well padded, especially in the backside area. I'm sure there is some fantastic reason that my lovehandles and rear need to be well padded to protect the baby, but I'm still trying to figure out what we are protecting the baby from!
- getting up to pee 4-5 times a night. Because I'm always so stinkin' hot, I drink ice water like it's going out of style. This is fine during the day, but getting up at night because "OH MY GOODNESS I HAVE TO PEE" only to sit down and think to myself, "trickle, dribble?"

- waking up at 2:30 every night with insane heartburn. Now, I had heartburn much earlier with my other two pregnancies, so again, I can't really complain. But when you are trying to sleep for a few consecutive hours, waking up during the night to chow down on some Tums isn't really on the list of top 100 things I'd like to do instead of sleeping.

- Flip flops are my best friend. Not only does wearing flip flops mean that I don't have to put socks on because I can't handle how they cut into my ankles, but I also don't have to bend down to put them on. Bonus. However, I am extremely clumsy at the best of times and this seems heightened when experiencing the wonder that is pregnancy and I've almost taken a nosedive into the carpet more times than I can count.

- cankles and sausage toes. By the end of the day, my feet are swollen and I swear I can feel my ankles rolling onto the tops of my feet.

- the number of comments you receive when you go out in public. Yes, I am due in 22 days. Yes, I am sure. No, it's not twins. Yup, it can be pretty uncomfortable.


Now, just because I think it's interesting, here are a couple of comparison pictures.

Everyone keeps talking about how my belly is getting bigger, but really, in the past month, I haven't seen a lot of change, and I went from measuring a few weeks ahead to bang on, so I'll let you decide. (And yes, apparently I've spent some time in the sun with the kids in the past month!) Pardon the super serious expression on my face.

And for fun, based on belly shape, I'm still sticking with my theory that this is a boy!

Because I'm having a baby in 38 days, we are trying to make the most of the nice days and fill them with fun activities. Morden had a family fun day that we decided to check out. We were able to get our faces painted by the wonderful "Facepainting by Jo." Usually the line is hours long, but this time, we only had to wait about 20 minutes! Gavin giggled the whole time and kept repeating, "Mom, I Mario. I have mustache."

We also spent a day at the zoo. I'd show you all the amazing photos we took, but when I started blogging I realized that I only had the usual egg photo....

and then a whole bunch of the following photos. The kids fed the prairiedogs THE ENTIRE TIME.

If you are heading to the zoo, just know that these little guys love popcorn twists. The kids at one point had 8 or 9 around them at once. Who cares about the lions, tigers and bears - bring on the "squirrels" as Gavin called them.

And a family walk - it's fun going for walks and adventures without a stroller. Guess we only have a few more weeks of this before #3 appears!

Alright, I know this post is lame, but hey, a post is a post and I'm going to sleep!

Apple, meet tree

So many similarities in the profile of these two. I'm so convinced #3 is a boy and I just can't wait to see how he'll fit into this mix!

It's a great day....

- Today I woke up feel dizzy and hot and grouchy, so I called in sick and stayed in bed until 11. It felt good to wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day. I've been asked a few times if I'll be teaching right until the end of June and that is the plan. I'm only working one on one with students and I'm sitting the whole time, so I didn't think it would be a problem, but I've really enjoyed how I've felt this afternoon, having more energy to do things around the house and with the kids.
- I spent the afternoon at the spa yesterday - scrub, massage, facial and pedicure. It was glorious and relaxing and quiet.

- Chelsea graduated from preschool this week. Next stop? Kindergarten!! Gavin starts preschool in the fall. Where on earth has time gone? They are getting so big!

- We had some friends over for supper tonight for the first time in a long time. It was great to hang out and not stress about the meal. It was supposed to be a weiner roast, but it was too cold and windy so we just hung out inside eating our chips and hotdogs. It was great and we'll definitely be doing it again.

- We still haven't gotten a thing ready for this baby. I'm hoping this weekend we'll have a chance to set up the crib and pull out all the baby stuff. Maybe that will make this all feel a bit  more real. We are having a baby in 52 days. Yikes!!

- Feeling loved and loving. Things are so good.







Stunning Girl!

Another year of dance has come to a close and we are glad. Don't get me wrong. We love dance class, but it runs from Sept - May. It is a very long season.

However, we survived 3 recitals this weekend. She was beautiful and did great. She was so excited to get those magic rainbow roses from Miss Megan's store.

 She danced to a 50s theme "Old Time Rock'n'Roll." It was very cute!

My Little Timbit

She is loving baseball. I am suffering from major mamaguilt because baseball is on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I work every Tuesday at the store and most Thursdays I'm there again doing start up meetings. The good news is that I am starting to train more people to help me at the store so that I can back down, you know, before this baby makes its appearance!

Anyways, back to my superstar. I swear, she is wearing shorts!

 An action shot!!

One of the things that she is loving is that her daddy is the coach. Daddy isn't loving it quite so much, but he is learning so much. It is definitely out of his comfort zone, but I'm proud of him for stepping up.

However, when I asked if we should put Chelsea in soccer in the fall, his answer was, "Sure! But I am NOT coaching!"

Mother's Day 2012

 Feeling overwhelmingly blessed to be a momma to this 2 (well, almost 3). They are my everything.

In true Mother's Day photo fashion, Gavin had no interest what-so-ever, but C wanted a few pics of the baby. As much as I'm struggling with the weight gain, I have to realize there is a purpose and soon, very soon, 57 more days, I'll have a beautiful baby.

For now, I'll concentrate on these two gifts that were given to me.

Don't give up on me just yet

I want to blog. I have lots to say, but simply no time. My IP business is crazy, stinkin' awesome busy and I am barely keeping up. I was going to blog something interesting tonight, but have been doing paperwork for 3 hours instead. Good times.

I will be back soon. Promise.

71 days

So I woke up one day and discovered I was VERY pregnant. Up until quite recently, I really didn't have any symptoms, but lately heartburn has kicked in, I feel huge (to the point that I knock things over with my belly), and rolling over during the night is a big ordeal. On the plus side, the date for the c-section has been set so the countdown is on. 1705 hours until baby #3.

I have a bunch of posts I want to post, but instead, I think I'm heading to bed.  Sleep is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

And no, the dog doesn't sleep in bed with us. This was taken AFTER I was already ready for the day and had woken up Chelsea. Rather than getting ready, she climbed in with her lazy dad who also was supposed to be up for the day. Well, at least Gavin and I are morning people.

Just another day in paradise...

So it was a beautiful day on Sunday. Beautiful. I love going for walks, so we threw both kids into the bike stroller, laced our shoes and headed out for a walk. We walked all along the dike, checked out the bridges and then continued our walk to a small play structure at a local church. Yes, the church part is important to note.
So the kiddies were happily playing and Chris and I were lounging around, enjoying the sunshine, when Gavin comes up doing the pee-pee dance, declaring he has to pee. No problem.

(Just so that everything makes sense, I will confess that we have taught G to pee sitting down.)

Me - "Okay buddy, you can pee standing up."
Gavin - "Okay mommy, I pee," and he promptly starts peeing, pants on, the whole nine yards.
Me - "No!!! Gavin, no!!"
Gavin - "Mommy, I pee standing up."
Me - "Gah! Stop!!"

So now I try to pull down his pants so that he can finish. Seriously - why when he is pretty much drenched is beyond me, but hey I was caught up in the moment.

Okay - now here's my thoughts. How on earth do you teach a boy to pee standing up?? Without going into detail - I'll just say, it's so small! How do you aim? I was definitely not having much luck. By now, he's drenched, I'm being peed on, and Chris is dying of laughter.

Thankfully Chelsea, our fashionista, was wearing a summerdress with grey sweatpants underneath, so we were able to do a pantswap, but of course, I needed to snap a quick photo first!

Awe, the things that happen in front of the local church.

And on a totally different note - check out the beautiful rainbow roses from Bloom. They are a definite hit in our house!

Big 0-5 Celebration...

It was a big weekend this weekend. Chelsea looks forward to her birthday for about 6 months. This year she chose an owl theme. So we made some cute invitations, and decorated the school staffroom and a classroom and got ready to party.

 

 Oh, did I mention owl snacks? We made some cute rainbow cupcakes with sprinkles and owl tags for preschool (thanks Meghan for the tags), and big owl eye cupcakes for day care and the party and cutsie little cakepops for the party. I swear it would have taken me less time to make a 6 tier owl cake than to make the owl cakepops.

We started off with a family party at Grandma's house. Grandma knew C didn't like cake and made her a yummy rice krispie cake with chocolate ganache on top. YUM!

It was a beautiful day on Saturday and we totally could have just hung outside allllll day. So we played outside for a while and then headed in to do the craft. All 8 invited kids, with Gavin and Chelsea - what a great group of kids.

Paint pens and owl suncatchers made for a great craft!

The swinging ropes are always a huge hit!

Opening gifts. Chelsea was pretty overwhelmed!

Time to eat! Chelsea's request - cheese pizza, cheezies, carrots, cheese chips and orange crush. Everything was orange. Weirdo.

Happy birthday cupcake!

There will be a sappy "happy 5 years to my big girl" post coming soon.

True life.

Yes, that is indeed a picture of gitchies.

You see, there is just something about seeing little boy gitchies on the floor that makes me smile. I know, call me weird, whatever. It just makes me smile because chances are G ran from the bathroom giggling, knowing that he's naked when he shouldn't be. And chances are I chased him, just to pinch his little bum.

However, I do not get the same smile on my face when I walk into the bathroom and see a pair of boxers belonging to a 30 year old man. I wonder when gitchies on the floor stops being cute?

Oops

I've now reached that awkward stage in my pregnancy when I reach into the clean laundry, thinking I'm grabbing my son's t-shirt and I realize it's actually my comfy preggo underwear.

Good times.

Mama knows best.

Tuesday was just one of those days where nothing was really going right. I have a wicked sore throat and am not sleeping well at night, so I'm just plain exhausted. I was very much looking forward to an afternoon nap, but our schedule was a little off because I had to drop something off for someone at 1:30. Usually Gavin goes down for a nap at 1:00, so I didn't think this shift would be a big deal.

Well, when we got home, he absolutely refused to nap. He cried and cried and screamed and wouldn't stay in his bed at all, and he kept saying that he just wasn't tired. Well, Chelsea was downstairs quietly watching a movie, so I figured Gavin could just sit next to her and maybe I'd get a 20 minute power nap in.

Four minutes later...

Yeah, that's right Buddy - you weren't tired at all.

First movie experience

Chelsea's first movie she saw in a theatre was Tangled which she saw when she was 3 1/2 and since Gavin will be three in June, we thought he'd be old enough to enjoy a movie. Notice the "we thought". Okay, if you ask us, he actually didn't do too bad, but if you ask the lady in front of us, she might disagree.

You see... Gavin talks - a lot. A LOT. Constant commentary, questions and random thoughts. Personally, I love it, but that's because he's my boy and one of his favourite phrases right now is, "Mommy - you're my best friend. Mommy - you're my best."

Today, however, he said things like, "Look! Flower! Tree! Funny? I want off. I jump on. Can I sit with daddy? Chelsea? Chelsea share skittles? Can I have more juice? Funny animals! HAHAHAHA! Me be quiet? Why? Why no talking? Moustache! Funny bear. Cute bear. 1,2,3,4,5,6 bears! Me like popcorn. I sit here? I love movie. A, b, c, d, e, ... Movie theatre. Look! Sky. My shoe. My shoe off. Clouds! Mommy! My shoe on. Mommy shoe on? Kiss. Chelsea be good? Gavin shhh..."

Get my point?

Did not stop talking. Ah well, it was a great movie and the kids did have fun.