31 weeks

How far along? 31 weeks, baby is the size of a pineapple

Total weight gain: 16-17lbs depending on the day

Maternity clothes? whatever fits, comfy is the name of my game lately. Think leggings, yoga pants, t-shirts.

Sleep: Sleeping well when I crash and having to pee every 2-3 hours so I get interrupted but luckily I am able to nap anytime Henry does still so that's good.

Best moment this week: Working on getting ready for E.J.

Miss Anything? Sleeping on my stomach, moving at my normal pace.

Movement: Still a ton, she rolls all over and I think she is realizing she is out of room.

Food cravings: I honestly haven't craved sugar as badly this week. Peanut butter and pickles for sure though.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing :)

Gender: GIRL

Symptoms: my pelvis and hips are super sore and my lower back too. I can tell things are getting ready for this babe.

Belly Button in or out? pretty flat
Wedding rings on or off? on. :)
Happy or Moody most of the time: Moody, I cried to Taylor this week just because I was being an emotional wreck. I am so excited for her to be here but I truley don't feel like myself and it was really getting to me.
Looking forward to:
Seeing baby E twice! We have our fun sono scheduled with Peeps for tomorrow and then a growth sono at my doctor on tuesday. I can't wait to see her and see if we can tell if she has hair. YAY! Then we are going to Sam's club on sunday to get all things stocked up before baby and that will make me feel more prepared for her.

What we did this week:
We really made some good progress on Eleanor's room this week. We got all of her flowers hung above her crib, her shelf and pegs hung on her wall and decorated, her iron medallion hung on the wall and her bow holder hung by her sink. The last thing we have to do is get pulls for her dresser (harder to find that I had hoped). Hang her gallery wall but I am kind of waiting on purpose to make sure I have everything I want for it before I do it and finish her chair cover.

 This little shelf is just a place for her "pretties". She has my silver baby cup and silverwear, her heart beat bunny from the sono where we found out she was a girl and that dress was mine when I was a baby and I made the tutu. We hung her curtains and the crystal finials match the chandelier perfectly.

Speaking of which, I started working on it. I don't know if I mentioned this project on here before, so I will kind of start with how this started. Henry has an awesome chair in his room that we bought before he was born to match his nursery. Chocolate brown. My thought was that I could use it for his room and in our living room or common areas later when the kids don't need it in a nursery anymore. I didn't think about having a girl that much (because I didn't think it would ever happen) and I don't like slip covers. I think they fit poorly if you can find one that fits at all and to find one with a matching ottoman that fits, forget about it. So I thought well, I have a sewing machine. I know how to use it. I'm crafty and surely this can't be that difficult, just like a big puzzle. So I got on Pinterest and found tons of tutorials that make it look easy, time consuming, but not difficult and lots of youtube videos that do the same and went and bought the fabric before I chickened out. I started working on it on thursday when Henry was at Kid's day out. I made cording for the trim where it already exists on the chair and then I cut out a peice of fabric the size of the top of the ottoman and pinned the cording to it where it exists on the current chair and sewed it on. That's as far as I have gotten because I had to go pick up Henry but I plan to keep working on it alot in the next few days. Taylor is going ice fishing in northern minnesota with clients of his on a business trip at the end of next week so I will have a few nights alone after Henry goes to sleep to work on it and a few nap times too. 

 

Before

I picked Henry up from school on thur and it was so warm and sunny we had to stop at the park and let him play. 

That night I had my sprinkle shower this week for Eleanor. A few girls and I went to dinner at the cheesecake factory to celebrate this little peanut and had a yummy dinner and got the sweetest gifts. Such a sweet gesture. 

 

And because Henry is so damn cute. Some more pics of him. 

 And one of eleanor this week just for fun :)

30 weeks

How far along? 30 weeks, baby is the size of a winter squash

Total weight gain: 16lbs (lost 2 more this week, thanks again suga free diet)

Maternity clothes? whatever fits

Sleep: I've actually slept pretty darn well this week.

Best moment this week: Working on Eleanor's room, spending lots of time with Henry since I didn't work during the week at all.

Miss Anything? SUGAR, wine, not peeing every 5 seconds. Being able to breathe like a normal person lol

Movement: Tons and tons, she starts at 8pm every single night with her big rolling movements

Food cravings: I'll give you one guess....

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing :)

Gender: GIRL

Symptoms: my pelvis and hips are super sore and my lower back too. I can tell things are getting ready for this babe.

Belly Button in or out? pretty flat
Wedding rings on or off? on. :)
Happy or Moody most of the time: happy
Looking forward to:
My sprinkle next week

What we did this week:
I worked on the spray paint project of the flowers and the iron peices. All of the flowers are done now and I just need one more coat on the two iron peices. 

 I decorated the centers of the flowers with rhinestones and crystals to make them extra fun.

Taylor finished her bow holder for me and I put all of her headbands and bows on it. Now we just need to hang it and her bathroom area is finished. I found some wooden dragon flies at the lobby and painted them in shades of purples and glitter. I'm going to hide them by her light switches and around her room and in her gallery wall. I also made her clothing dividers like I made Henry and used the dragon flies to decorate those as well. I need to add the labels on them and put them on her closet rod. 

I organized her closet and put all of her clothing away after I washed it all and inhaled the dreft smell for probably a lot longer than I needed to. I washed her extra sheets and filled her dresser with her onesies and pants and extra stuff. Her room is pretty close to done, just hanging things on the walls and covering her chair and we will be finished.

I had a dentist appt on tuesday (28.5 years no cavities, thank you very much). And an OB appt on wednesday. Everything looked great. Her heartrate was 145 and she is head down still. THANK GOD. She just better stay that way. Dr. Steinbis said my increasing pelvic and hip pain and swelling is all normal to be happening this early in pregnancy for my second round and my braxton hicks that are all the time are normal too.

Thursday we went to dinner at the peanut and I had some sharp stabbing pain at the top of my belly right before dinner started that lasted through dinner. I has having lots of braxton hicks through dinner too and I could barely walk when we left the table because my back and pelvis hurt so bad. The contractions continued and started to get painful and that abdominal pain didn't let up. We went home, took a bath, drank a ton of water and started timing them and they didn't go away so I called L&D to find out guidelines for pre-term labor and when I needed to come in and they said that I should come get checked. Remember, I have never had contractions in my front, just tightening from braxton hicks, all of the real deal stuff just felt like period cramps and back pain because I had back labor so bad with Henry and then I got my epidural before he turned and the back labor let up so I couldn't feel them in my front of my tummy. Taylor's parents came over and hung out (Henry was already in bed) and we drove in. I got to triage and saw one of my favorite nurses and started to get all teary and choked up, I knew I was in good hands then but I was also scared to death. 30weeks and 5days means a lot more to me than a random person off the street. Taylor asked me what 30weeks meant as far as babe and I told him we weren't even going to talk about it.
I got hooked up to the monitors and they started doing tons and tons of tests. I had swabs done and they checked to make sure I wasn't dilating. I also did a urine sample and they took a bunch of blood just to check everything out. They put Eleanor on the monitor too and made sure she was tolerating my contractions, which she was, thank god. The contractions started to slow as they had me sit there and watch me and then when they told me I could go but they had to show the attending my contraction strip, he said that based on how they had picked up and how frequent they were that he wanted an IV and another hour or so on the monitor and a bag of fluids started to make sure I was good and hydrated and that wasn't causing more issues. Sure enough they slowed down a little with the fluids and they think I was just a little more dehydrated than I thought I was. No idea what the sharp pain was from but it started to go away over night and hasn't been back since. I was told to take it easy (yeah right, I have a 21mo son at home and I work) and keep hydrated. Definitely quite a scare but I'm glad all is okay and things have slowed down. 

This week we also celebrated Taylor's dad's birthday and even though I don't eat sugar anymore I made this amazing cake since he LOVE swiss cake rolls. 

 

You take a bowl, line it with plastic wrap, cut the swiss cake rolls into slices about 1/2" thick and start in the bottom center and lay them all the way around and up the sides. Fill the middle with softened ice cream and place plastic wrap on top and freeze it. Flip it over after a few hours, take off the bowl and plastic wrap and slice. YUM. 

 

Grandma and Grandpa got to put him to bed that night too which they all really enjoyed. 

29 weeks

How far along? 29 weeks, baby is the size of a papaya

Total weight gain: 18lbs (lost 2 this week, thanks suga free diet)

Maternity clothes? whatever fits

Sleep: Not enough that's all I can say.

Best moment this week: Working on Eleanor's room

Miss Anything? SUGAR, wine, not peeing every 5 seconds. Being able to breathe like a normal person lol

Movement: Tons and tons, she starts at 8pm every single night with her big rolling movements

Food cravings: I'll give you one guess....

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing :)

Gender: GIRL

Symptoms: my pelvis and hips are sore, things are a movin' around.

Belly Button in or out? pretty flat
Wedding rings on or off? on. :)
Happy or Moody most of the time: happy
Looking forward to:
My appt on wednesday to see how babe is doing. It's been a month and I get a little antsy.

What we did this week:
My mom and I went to hobby lobby to look for knobs and pulls for E's dresser. Found two pretty sparkly flower knobs but no pulls we loved, I'll keep looking.

I also needed something for above her crib and my sister helped me look for something unique and pretty. She found these white massive paper flowers that were amazing but the etsy shop owner wanted $375, uh yeah right. I found tutorials all over youtube and pinterest how to make them and you all know I'm crafty so I was going to attempt it. Until my mom saw some metal flowers at "the lobby" on sale 50% and we started playing around with them. We made cluster after cluster of all different ones on the floor in the aisle and finally found a collection we liked and decided to spray paint them all white. She also helped me find an iron scrolly piece to go over her gallery wall to kind of tie everything in and a huge iron scrolly medallion for her blank wall that I would spray white as well. Success!!
The colored ones are the metal ones we bought, the white are the paper we used as inspiration.

That night Taylor and I went to dinner at J. Alexander's (our favorite restaurant) and a movie, Star Wars. It was a blast to get to have that time together. We so desperately need dates and especially with baby E coming, we need to take advantage of the ease of our sitters (our family) only having one child with a set schedule and me not breastfeeding to get those in. Super important.

28 weeks

How far along? 28 weeks, baby is the size of an eggplant

Total weight gain: not sure, 17lbs I think.

Maternity clothes? whatever fits

Sleep: I wore myself out this week so when I slept, I slept hard. I definitely feel pregnant now though. Rolling over is now comical and I have to flip flop several times each night and move all the pillows to go with it. Poor Taylor

Best moment this week: CHRISTMAS!

Miss Anything? I'll give you one guess. It's made with grapes and is alcoholic. Why do I crave it so badly when I know I can't have it.

Movement: This week she has been like clock work really waking up around 8pm and doing huge body rolls and movements. I can literally watch elbows and knees and booty roll all over.  

Food cravings: Cookies and sweets.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing :)

Gender: GIRL

Symptoms: sleeping crummy, running out of breath, charlie horses. No complaints though, small price to pay.

Belly Button in or out? Getting pretty shallow these days, I actually wonder if it will pop this time, kinda doubt it though.
Wedding rings on or off? on. :)
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy
Looking forward to:
Working on Eleanor's room and a date night with Taylor sometime this week.

What we did this week:
This week was a complete blur. I honestly don't remember what happened on what days. I know I spent the first half of the week getting ready for Christmas.
Henry had a ear infection so sunday morning after I got off work I met Taylor at urgent care to get him started on an antibiotic to kick whatever it is he has been fighting. Taylor dressed them to match.

 He's such a good daddy. We are so incredibly blessed to have him.

My mom came over in the afternoon that day and finished the top coat on Eleanor's dresser, mirror and chair side table so they all match now. I'm ready to go find fun knobs and pulls for her drawers.
I worked monday night and my in-laws had Henry on Tuesday. I finished up some shopping and last minute errands for Christmas. I forgot how quickly I can get a million things done when he isn't with me. Just getting him in and out of his car seat alone is time consuming. My slow pregnant turtle pace is definitely faster without him tagging along. Plus he had a blast with them. I found baskets for Eleanor's closet that fit perfectly on her shelf in there. 

Wednesday we took Henry to see Santa at Bass Pro. My friend said she went on a weekday morning 15 minutes before they opened and spent 15 minutes in line and that was it, I tried the same thing the next day and waited 2 hours. Taylor and his mom met us there so they could be a part of it and H didn't cry at all. He babbled a bunch of jibberish to Santa and then turned around and pointed at several different things including the fake reindeer behind Santa and said "who dat?!" ha. We are now 4 for 4 on Easter bunny and Santa visits without tears, pretty good. I also hit the mail jack pot. 

I had ordered a ton of stuff online for Eleanor that hadn't shown up yet and for whatever reason came all in one day. I got her Chandelier for her room, a swaddle blanket with her name all over it, a hanger with her name formed out of the wire to hang a dress of mine on her wall, a blanket for Henry and her raw silk bonnet and booties to match her going home outfit. Woo hoo! Merry Christmas to me. 

Thur was Christmas eve and we went to Crown Center, because we can't have Christmas without Crown Center. I got Taylor some goodies from the fudge place and we walked around for a bit and took a few pics outside. Then we had lunch at Spin which was a nightmare. My original plan was to go to Fritz's because I knew Henry would be entertained by the trains and eat the food. My sister wasn't really feeling up to the food so we went to Spin instead thinking Henry would eat some cheese pizza. Wrong. He threw a massive fit because I made him sit in the high chair and wouldn't eat a dang thing. It was getting close to nap time and he was a disaster. I was so frustrated because I needed him to eat before nap and by the time we dropped my sister and mom off and then got home he would be an hour later for both lunch and nap. I don't physically have the energy to battle him into the highchair or chase his messy self and all the food if he doesn't sit in it and I didn't have the emotional capacity that day to handle it either apparently because as soon as we got in the car I just burst into tears. Mom. Fail. He fell asleep in the car and woke up when we got home and wouldn't go back to sleep. 

Luckily Taylor came home early and we just said screw it and went to his parents house for a delicious dinner and presents, day saved. We spent the evening after Henry went to bed building toys and such for the little man and putting everything in the living room and eating chocolate chip cookies and milk.

Friday was Christmas. Henry woke up at 7:30 and we played with him upstairs until my mom, sister, Steve and grandma all got there and then video taped him coming down the stairs to find all the goodies Santa left him. He had no idea what to think and went to his chair and bubble bath first and then his grill/kitchen.

We made a yummy breakfast and ate and then took our sweet time opening gifts. Henry would get one thing and play with it and be totally content not realizing there was more. He seemingly got a lot of stuff but he really has outgrown all of his baby toys we currently have for him so I didn't feel guilty getting some large items like his pottery barn "anywhere chair", grill and kids table and chairs. Along with some smaller things like puzzles, art stuff and paper for his table, play food for his grill and some books and bath stuff. We spent the afternoon playing with gifts and Henry went down for nap. We rested and then met my parents at their house for another yummy dinner and a fun game of Head's up. It was a wonderful christmas and we really are so blessed.

 

we had matching PJ pants and got matching necklaces for Christmas from my sister. 

 

 

 I told Taylor that my goal for this weekend was to hang Eleanor's Chandelier and curtains and then I can get the rest of the things for her ready and hang stuff on her wall last. We have 11 weeks and counting until she shows up, potentially less and I'm really feeling crunch time set in. I can't wait to meet her little self.