27 weeks. Long post, festive details included.

Oh my word, Christmas was a blast!! How wonderful to get to spend time with my family and get excited for this baby to come (much like Mary and Joseph eh?... eh? *nudge nudge*) Nice right? Wow, i'm a mess, anyway moving forward sorry for the ridiculousness, I couldn't help myself. I absolutely CANNOT wait until he gets here, bright star over the house guiding 3 men on camels or not.  Things got real this week.

I think in the hustle and bustle of things I just kept saying to myself "oh my gosh, next year I get to start sharing traditions for my little man and how can I make things so special for him?". He will be so in love with all of this just like his mommy and daddy. Got me a little teary eyed for sure. Walking past Santa land at crown center, I just had to peek inside to get a glimpse of the big man in red which I normally don't do. I munched on my fudge sample and walked down memory lane a bit and thought about how much he will be surely screaming next year on the old dude's lap. He'll be 9 months then! WHAT?!?  I just can't get over the fact that he is really in my tummy (yes I feel him kick all the time and I can watch him wriggle and move and roll around and such but it's so surreal). It's just going to be a wonderful year of firsts for our little family. We have so much learning to do and so much loving to do too. I'm attempting to prep my heart for him and I know that I will never be able to do that before he gets here but Christmas makes me a big sap anyway and I was so emotional this year just thinking of my baby, our baby, the baby. How I didn't know last year if we would get to hang another stocking up at least for another long while or so and how I wasn't sure if I would get to have tiny baby clothes around the house and tiny socks to look after and toys to step on because if we ended up having to adopt we might get a baby that was a few months old or even a few years old. It blows my mind everything that happened this year and how far we have come as individuals, as a couple, as a family. My heart is overflowing already (and so are my eyes). I put a post up this week about "reasons I cried yesterday." Not to be funny or get responses just because after the fact I thought it was hilarious what I hot mess I've been and laughter is good for the soul.  I cried multiple times last week but one day just got me good and here are the reasons I was a hot mess that day:
*I missed my husband when he was at work this week
*I wanted to put the crib together as a couple and Taylor wanted to wait until this weekend when he had more time (but I would be at work and would miss it)
*I'm tired
*I didn't want to work this weekend all weekend (scheduled for 44 hours in 3 days, yikes)
*My baby was kicking me and I was happy and feeling so grateful to have him.
*Christmas is over, which always gets me.
*I gained 2 lbs over Christmas and feel huge.
*I had a headache (probably from crying).


I kid you not, it's embarassing to admit all of that but I legitimately cried over each one of those things at separate points in the day. I was laying in bed that night with a headache and Taylor rolled over and hugged me and pulled me close to him and put his hand on my belly and I just lost it because I was happy the baby was kicking and because I missed taylor from being at work this week. WHAT ON EARTH! PREGNANCY HORMONES YOU MAKE ME CRAZY! Poor Taylor. The responses I got on facebook were so cute and sweet, so thank you girls. The lesson I learned from posting that is that crying about everything is going to be regular poker for me now as a mother...awesome...not. I like to think I'm a bit of a billy badass but I am definitely not now, whatevs.

So here is what went down this week.
Sunday we went to my grandmother's annual Christmas party and got to celebrate the reason for the season (food, I mean jesus, but I really mean food) and see my dad's side of the family. They are so excited to have a baby around again, especially my 94 year old grandmother. The last baby running around over there (besides the 4 legged furry kind) has been my cousin Jack who is 8.
Monday I got the Christmas miracle call that after my cribtastrophe at nebraska furniture mart, they partially redeemed themselves and let me know our crib was in and we got to go pick it up! Hurray!! It wasn't supposed to be in until mid-january.
Tuesday, Christmas eve I had to work and so I spent time snuggling wee christmas nuggets while their mommies and daddies were at home tending to other children and trying to find normalcy whilst having a hospitalized child, my heart ached for them so I loved those babies extra that night.
After I got off work at 7am I went to pick up my grandma and went strait to my mom's house where Santa Taylor met us with all our gifts for our family. We had a yummy breakfast and then got to opening gifts. (the tree is ridiculous, there are starving children in haiti, ugh I feel gross looking at how spoiled,  blessed we are with gifts, don't judge because most were for baby I feel, moving on. )

This year was obviously special due to the fact that the nugget is on his way. My mom and sister have been truley upset with us for keeping the baby's name a secret all this time. They want to get things monogrammed and call him by name and such, which I understand. 

 

 

 

They told me at one point they are going to come up with a secret and not tell me for 9 months so I can see how it feels. (My sister also labeled all her gifts to the baby with different names since we wouldn't tell her his real name).

 So much like the rest of this pregnancy, we decided to spread out the cheer of the babe's birth just a little bit further, a suprise of a pregnancy in August, the surprise of his gender in October and now the suprise of his name in December which should keep everyone fairly content until he's born I hope.
Now you all know, I can't just say "yo, feliz navidad, his name is _______." and move on with my life, I had to make it special (and crafty, damn my craftiness, it's so time consuming). They all had bugged us and bugged us about sharing his name so long that I felt I needed to make them work for it just a little bit longer and make the suspense last a bit so I tortured them, a grinchy trick to say the least. I had plain white craft puzzles in my craft station for a long time and had no idea what to use them for, yes I stockpile random craft crap, leave me alone. I decided to paint one with a cute design to match his room and paint his name on it as well (so we could frame it later for his nursery). Then I decided to take the puzzle apart and tape a peice of it to each gift we gave out this year (about 20 peices total). I split them between my sister, mom, stepdad and grandma's gifts and they all had to take the peice off their gift and collect them until all the presents had been opened and the peices collected.

I spy puzzle peices taped to things, look closely at the reindeer bag.

 

  Erika's collection.

Grammy is getting excited!

 THEN they could work together to build the puzzle to see what it said. Taylor and I loved every second of their angst because we take turns opening gifts in our family and it lasted about 2 hours this year. HA! suckers!!

But they got it put together and were so delighted to find out our baby's name. Which is.....drumroll please....

HENRY TAYLOR SMITH

 

 

 

 I did the same thing with Taylor's parents (they got their own matching puzzle) and just wrapped half the peices for each of them and made them work together to find out.

Get a load of my mother in law's "ba hum bug" hat we got her, she's not into christmas, but I'm workin on her.

 

 Twas a great way to announce it indeed. I patted myself on the back as I ate my 50,000th sugar cookie. (hence the 2 pounds in like 4 days). We went to Taylor's parents after a quick nap that afternoon and enjoyed yummy dinner with them and gifts and spent time together. Then sugar plums danced in my head as I crashed into a mini-coma that night. Pregnant girls don't do well on 24 hours with no sleep, just a rule of thumb. Naps are key.

Thursday (the crying day) I went with my sister to spend some gift cards we got and ordered munchkin's chair from Babie's R Us (10-12 weeks to get it, is that a joke?!). I got several precious outfits for him and lots of fun baby things for Christmas from everyone but wanted to keep working on my collection of goods.

Then when Taylor got off work we drove to Nebraska Furniture Mart and picked up the crib! We don't have a pickup truck anymore, we have an explorer, sad I know, so they guys were like "uhhh that's not going to fit in there, this box is massive." My husband, smarter than the average bear, told them to cut the dang thing out of the box and put the peices in. Smart because 7 inches of styrofoam later and it fit like a dream.

The elves loading the sleigh.

 

 Eeek I love it!

 

Cora helped, i.e. got trapped in Henry's bathroom with her bone to stay out of the way.

 

Daddy building the crib.

 

Making sure it's perfectly placed.

 

Whallaa! Now we need a matress and crib bedding (which is getting done this weekend)

YAY! Now it really is starting to feel real, I hung up tiny outfits and organized tiny hats and we put his crib together. We got ready for OUR baby!!

I also did this DIY project for his room. My mom found this eh, cute,  lamp/table at a garage sale for $5 and I put it my garage for a year and it was in hers for a year before that, she kept convincing me to keep it for a baby's room someday and refinish it. I will admit that besides thinking it wasn't a cute peice of furniture that I would ever put in my house, I cried looking at it when we moved it from her garage into ours when we moved from our apartment into our house last year because I knew I was "saving it" for a baby's room and we were having such a hard time getting pregnant. I forgot about it after we found out Henry was on the way and she reminded me. I don't think it looks cute and I wasn't excited to have it in his room and was trying to find a polite way to tell her it doesn't go with my theme,

.....until I thought to myself, "self, this is an opportunity for you to be shabby chic and upcycle something on the cheap." Well, myself loves a good bargain so I said to myself "Self, skip on down to walmart and getcha a can of green spray paint and doctor this sucker up." and that's what I did and it turned out AWESOME. I can't wait to make a shade cover to match his bedding. It's going right next to his rocking chair so I can set things on it when I feed or rock him. And so I can have a little soft light in the middle of the night by me. Hurray for craftyness and trendy furniture finds. Thanks mom, I owe ya.

then I worked a 16 hour shift on friday, a 12 hour shift on saturday and another 16 hour shift on sunday and had maself another mini-coma this afternoon. Yikes! I'll say it again, pregnant girls need naps. Enough chatter, onto my whale of a picture, weekly bump pic.

Same shirt, several weeks later....whoa.

Chalkboard time!!!
And for your viewing delight, a video recap of the chalkboard pics so far. (minus this week)....watch it a few times and watch the belly grow. SHEESH!

Chalkboard time!

How far along? 27 weeks, baby is the size Rutabaga. Not sure how big that is but it says about 2.5lbs. WHOA! 

Total weight gain: I gained two more this week with Christmas, I'm now back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Which is kinda scary for me in 28 weeks I lost 18 pounds and gained it all back. It seems that whatever I eat anymore doesn't feel like enough. I am ravenous lately but even when I eat healthy I have been gaining, so I am trying to watch it more closely now. I want to be healthy for delivery and make it easier to lose baby weight afterwards. (*she says after realizing how many of the christmas cookies she actually ate*)

Maternity clothes? yep. 

Sleep: I'm just exhausted, I can't get enough sleep and I dont stay asleep through the night anymore. 

Best moment this week: Christmas! Announcing baby's name and getting his crib here and put together and ordering his chair.

Miss Anything? Having energy, having a conversation without getting out of breath, sleeping on my stomach, staying asleep through the night, not crying at everything under the sun.

Movement: He moves like a crazy person. I can feel him roll around alot now and not just little kicks and taps. 
Food cravings: Peppermint Mochas (decaf), Cookies and comfort food still.

Anything making you queasy or sick: nope

Gender: A boy 

Symptoms: Back pain, tossing and turning when I sleep, swelling ankles and feet, feeling huge (is that a symptom?) 

Belly Button in or out? It's still in but it's getting pretty flat.

Wedding rings on or off? on

Happy or Moody most of the time: I won't say moody, I will say emotional. I've been happy for the most part but I just cry at the drop of the hat anymore. Apparently this is normal according to my facebook momma friends and I'm in for a treat during motherhood. uh oh, poor Taylor. 

Looking forward to: My sono on tuesday followed by my prenatal massage my genius husband bought me and working on his nursery more. 

I'll leave you with this.....