37 Weeks...sorry no picture right now

Pregnancy Highlights

How Far Along: 37 Weeks...Full Term!

Size of Baby: About 7lbs and 19 inches long

Total Weight Gain: 18lbs....guess I lost a couple pounds, probably because I'm running out of room in my tummy and not very hungry these days.

Maternity Clothes: Uh, yeah! Pretty much everything. I'm starting to realize I'm really going to miss maternity pants and shorts, they are the best!

Gender: Still a surprise

Movements: Evenings and when I go to bed are crazy! Nick still gets so weirded out seeing my whole stomach move. The baby doesn't switch positions at all, so I'm constantly getting kicked in the same spot!

Sleep: Sleep?? What's that again? :) I'll get a few good hours here and there but if I wake up, I can't fall back to sleep!

What I miss: I'm really starting to miss being able to "play" with Cole and chase him around. The other day we were outside and he took off down the sidewalk. There was nothing I could do, I can't run after him! I'm definitely not liking that my 2 year old is faster than me!!

Cravings: Nothing really....besides ice cream

Symptoms: Still feeling like baby is going to drop out of me at any moment. Whenever I sit down, I feel like I can't breathe and I constantly feel like I have to go to the bathroom...fun stuff like that!

Best moment of the week: Realizing we only have a couple weeks left and FINALLY getting the baby's room kinda situated. Finally got everything that is non-baby related out of the closet, washed some clothes and put the crib back together.

Now we are just praying and keeping our fingers crossed that baby holds on till at least next Wednesday when Nick gets home from Atlanta! I keep trying to come up with excuses for him to stay but nothing is working :) Plus, I'd feel bad if he did stay and then nothing happened. I do have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning so we'll know more then. If doctor says it could happen any day, maybe that will be a good enough reason for Nick to stay. So, more baby update tomorrow...and maybe I'll get a picture taken by then.

Our week with Mimi

My mom flew into town last Monday and stayed all week. She was a life-saver! Cole stayed with her all week so it was nice that I didn't have to get him in and out of the car to go to Ms. Jen's house. Although, I'm sure he missed seeing his friends. He'll be excited to see them this week for sure!
I'm not quite sure where my mom gets all her energy, because she literally cooked, cleaned, played with Cole, grocery shopped, went on walks and who knows what else from the time she got up till the time we went to bed. Our refrigerator is stocked with food, probably getting us through till the next time she comes in town, ha!
We really appreciated her coming into town and can't wait for her to come back in a couple weeks.

My mom got Cole this fun bubble machine and he thought it was the coolest thing when we tried it out for the first time. At first I didn't think it would do a whole lot, but there were bubbles all over the place!!! They were all over the yard and Cole would just run all over.
Not sure if you can see Cole's face in this picture, but he was in such amazement when we first turned it on.

 

Being silly with Mimi

My mom even let Cole help her make a carrot cake.

Cole was sad to see Mimi go, when we dropped her off at the airport Saturday morning, Cole says "Mimi go airplane" and then he kept asking where Mimi went. He will be excited to see her and my dad in a couple weeks when the new baby comes!

Resting??? No like!!!

I'm sure for a lot of people, this whole "bedrest" thing would be great, and if my doctor would have put me on it the first 20 weeks of my pregnancy, I would have loved it. However, this point in my pregnancy I'm wanting to clean, organize, get the baby stuff out and do all the fun stuff before baby comes so I'm not really digging having to be stuck at home....doing nothing. Last week, Gigi was a lifesaver! She picked up Cole from Jennifer's every day, took him back to her house and brought him home every evening. I certainly did miss playing with him in the afternoons and didn't like only seeing him a couple hours every day, but it's definitely what I needed!

Friday afternoon we had some crazy winds!!! It really was ridiculous! I let the dogs outside and heard them barking so I went out to see what was going on and this is what I saw. Awesome!!

 

Luckily it was the fence between ours and Ryan and Casey's house and Ryan was already planning on coming into town this weekend to fix other stuff around their house so I knew what him and Nick would be doing for some of the weekend!

Friday evening I drove into Nick's parents and we met them and some other relatives that are in town and we went out to dinner. Yes, I was sitting the entire time!

Saturday, Nick had a long list of things to do, most of which were things that I typically do but can't at the moment. First up, he and Cole went to Ikea to get our shelves for all the toys, a chalkboard easle and a couple other fun things for Cole. Nick put everything together while I sat and supervised, and he did a great job! :)

Next up, Nick got to experience a full-out grocery store trip, all by himself. Nick has gone to the grocery store many times for me, but not for the "we need everything restocked in our kitchen" trip. I made a simple, fool-proof list for him, everything separated into categories and even listed it from the front to the back of the store. Is it sad that I know the layout of the store that well?? Anyway, I think this was a life changing event for Nick. He called me about 3 times, giving me a play-by-play of how the trip was going, ha!

Now let me explain something, when I go grocery shopping, I'll usually spend roughly $150 and that will last us close to 2 weeks. So that's kinda what I was expecting Nick to spend. When he got home, he informed me that he spent $290!!!!! WHAAAAA!!!!! I then realized that he practically bought 2 of everything, which makes it tricky when trying to fit everything into our freezer/pantry/fridge. BUT, I can't complain, I was just so grateful that he went for me.

Sunday, Nick and Ryan fixed the fence, we hung out at Nick's parents for most of the day and then went to our Life Group at church. We had a great time and really got a chance to get to know the couples better. I'm really excited about this group and think we'll make some great friends.

When we got home, it was time to get Cole to bed. I kinda mentioned before that we've been getting baby stuff down from the attic and putting everything in the baby's room. I guess Cole took the liberty to go find the boppy pillow and stashed it in his bed. When I went to check on him before I went to bed, he was all snuggled up with it. What a goof!

 My mom is flying into town this evening and will be here till Saturday. Since Nick's mom will be out of town this week, I needed help with Cole, so Mom Volk is coming to the rescue. It will be great to have her here and help us get things done. I'm sure Cole will be excited to have Mimi in town for awhile and spoil him!

Some Books Before Baby

Today I'm participating in Kelly's Korner Show Us Your Life and today is what's on our current book list. I did not grow up liking to read, my older brother Ross read enough books for all our family combined, so I just never got into it. Maybe that's why he got the brains in the family...hmmm :) Anyway, as an adult I have really come to LOVE reading!!! It's something I do every night now. I used to be one of those that needed the TV to help me to fall asleep but now, I hate having the TV in our room. I would much rather sit and read. And now with all this "resting" I'm going to have to do, I should be able to knock out a few books in the next few weeks!

So here is what's on my list right now:

I am currently reading two books right now, ha! I started this 5-book series a few months ago and I'm currently on book 3. It's called the Redemption series by Karen Kingsbury. They are Christian fiction books and very easy reads! I get through these books fairly quickly and they are just kind of that feel-good type of book.

The second book I'm reading right now is for my book club. It's called Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons. It's funny because this book is about a group of women IN a book club, ha! It's a pretty entertaining book...but honestly, I am getting a little bored with it :)

The next couple books are on my "waiting list" and will probably have to wait till after the baby is here. It's funny when I was pregnant with Cole, I was reading baby books, pregnancy books, breastfeeding books galore!!! THEN, after he was born, I was reading more books, "Baby Wise", "Happiest Baby on the Block", etc. But this time, gosh, I don't think I've read one book or even want to for that matter. So on my very little down time that I'll have when baby #2 comes, these are the books I'm wanting to read:

My mom read this book and she said it was so cute and very fascinating. I guess it's a pretty quick read too, but I can't wait to hear this little boys story!

One of my favorite authors is Francine Rivers. My favorite book written by her is the Atonement Child, but I have recently gotten into another series by her. This is a 4-book series about women in the Old Testament and it tells their story. Sometimes reading the Old Testament can be a bit confusing so these books tell the story as a novel. I read book 1 about Tamar and next on my list will be book 2 about Rahab.

35 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights

 

(Oh my gosh, this picture is HORRIBLE, I look gigantic!!)

How Far Along: 35 weeks and 1 day

Size of Baby: Probably a little over 6lbs now and 18 inches long

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained 20lbs....which I know isn't a lot, but it's scary when you've never seen the scale get that high!!!

Maternity Clothes: All pants and shorts are maternity, but sometimes I can wear regular shirts if they are long enough and some of my dresses are regular. I was in a bit of a dilemma because I really only had cold-weather maternity clothes but the weather sure has been warming up here and on the weekends, I literally had NOTHING to wear!! Thank God for good friends! A friend from work brought me all her shorts and tank tops and I was so excited!!!

Gender: Still a surprise! From the looks of the poll on my blog, it seems as though most everyone thinks it's a boy. Honestly, deep down, I'm kinda thinking boy too! :)

Movements: Funny story...last night Nick and I were sitting on the couch watching House and the baby was going ca-razy!!! Nick was watching and he got so weirded out, knowing that there is a live human being in there, that he stood up and kinda did a funny shake/dance-type thing because apparently it gave him the willies and said, "how can you not be weirded out by that, or even sleep for that matter?". Um Nick....this is not something new, we've been through this before!! Silly goose!!

Sleep: Usually sleeping pretty good, just having bizarre dreams! Last night, I dreamed I played basketball for the Baylor Womens team, ha!

What I Miss: Bending over more gracefully....if you are standing behind me and I have to bend over, watch out!!! It's not pretty! Also, still missing ice cream!

Cravings: Besides ice cream, nothing really

Symptoms: Ok, this is the mom coming out in me to all those teenage girls wanting to get their belly buttons pierced. DON'T DO IT!!! I had mine pierced the first part of college but took it out when I started rowing b/c it kept getting infected. As most girls, I still have a slight scar from the piercing. When I was pregnant with Cole, at the very end of the pregnancy, I started getting 2 itty bitty stretch marks coming off my scar. However, this pregnancy.....those 2 itty bitty stretch marks have gotten bigger and bigger, not pretty!!! What sucks even more, is that it's right in the middle of my tummy where you can't hide them. Sucks! So, I'm blaming my piercing scar on this one!

Best Moment of the Week: I started to get a few things packed in my hospital bag and that made me realize how close it is. With not knowing the gender, it is kind of hard packing stuff for the baby because I don't want to do the typical green/yellow gender neutral outfits. So....I decided that I will pack some for each gender. Obviously I have boy newborn clothes but when I was at the consignment sale last week, I decided to buy one set of girl newborn clothes. They looked almost brand new and I think I paid $3 for them and if I end up not needing them, I can always hand them over to someone else. Then yesterday, I was going through all my crafty stuff and saw that I had ribbon that would match the outfits I got so I even went as far as to make a matching bow. Ok, it took me like 3 minutes to make the bow, so it's not like I slaved over it for hours. And again, if not needed...then someone else can have fun with the cute outfit and bow!!

Ok, yes, I realize I totally contradicted myself, saying how I didn't want to do the whole yellow/green gender-neutral stuff but look at the colors I picked out for a girl outfit...oops! :)

Update: So I wrote this post yesterday but didn't post it yet. Since then things have gotten a little interesting. I've said recently that I've been having lots of pressure but last night it was so bad that I literally couldn't even walk. I hardly slept because it hurt to move any part of my body. So this morning I had to go to the hospital to be monitored for awhile. I'm not dilated at all (which is GOOD) but he said the head is so extremely low that I need to take it very easy the next few weeks. He said I need to pretty much be on bedrest, but without technically putting me on bedrest. Make sense?? Well, it doesn't to me. Not really sure how to do that with teaching high schoolers and then coming home to a 2 year old. Guess we'll have to figure that one out soon! :)

My so-called "nesting" weekend

Friday recap:

Destroyed house, had many good intentions of organizing only to realize I couldn't do most of what I had wanted, sooo, left the mess for Nick to clean up. Poor Nick, I think he stayed up till midnight moving furniture, toys and boxes around while I peacefully was asleep in our comfortable bed. :)

Saturday:

Yes, I actually let Nick sleep in....well, just little bit. We had lots to get done!! We had to take his car in to get maintenance, so while we were out we stopped at Ikea to look at some shelves for our office to hold all the toys and also a shelf for in Cole's room. Let me start off by saying, I haven't been to Ikea is several years and holy cow I love that store!!! We found so many things we wanted to get and the prices are SO right! We do have to wait till next weekend to get our shelves though because we didn't set aside that money in our budget till then, and if anyone knows me, when I want to get something, I pretty much want it NOW!! So, this is kind of torture for me, but Dave Ramsey says we have to stick to our budget so I guess I can wait :) The rest of the day consisted of cleaning up our office. I don't want to post pictures yet till we get all the shelves and toys put away because right now it still kinda looks scary but we had to do a little rearranging and purging and we threw away LOTS of stuff!! I love throwing things away!! Don't ever have to worry about me being on that hoarding show!!!

Sunday:

After we went to church, I tackled our closet. Ok, I'm just realizing that none of these projects have anything to do with organizing baby stuff....hmmm, maybe I should start thinking about that sometime soon. Anyway, I said earlier that our closet looked like it threw up and it was a complete disaster so I spent quite awhile working on that today. We have a spare bedroom set so we brought in the chest of drawers and found the perfect spot for it. This just gives us a little more storage room.

Our top shelf had things just pouring over the edges, purses, bags, shoes, you name it! Now it looks a little better and we can actually see what's up there. And again...threw lots of stuff away, yay!!

Another thing I'm excited about is that we got most of Cole's toys out of our family room. His toy collection used to be in the corner where his little table is now and again, our room looked like it threw up toys. So after we (I mean Nick) got all the toys in the office, we moved his table to that spot and now we also have room for the upcoming baby swing. OH...does everyone see my new white couch pillows??? Yep, these pillows are so completely soft and fuzzy AND we got them at Pier One with a gift card that we got from our wedding.....5.5 years ago!!! How crazy is that??

This evening, Nick and I headed back up to church. I've been wanting to get Nick and I involved in a Life Group at church and tonight is when we formed the groups. We felt kind of awkward initially because it almost feels like speed-dating for Life groups, ha! BUT, once we met some great couples that we had a lot in common with it was a lot more fun. There are about 8 couples in our group, we all have young children or children on the way and we all live really close to eachother. We are meeting 2 Sundays a month and it's great because we are actually meeting at church so they have free childcare :) It works perfectly because Cole loves going and playing with all the kiddos. I'm just really excited about meeting some great couples from our church and building some good relationships with people that are going through the same things we are! Once we got home from that, it was bath time....but of course Cole had to do a little streaking first, what can I say, he's a boy!

Then Cole and dad had to have a little play time before bed time.

Airplane!!!!!! Cole's new favorite thing!

 Whew...what a crazy weekend, but with only a few weeks left till baby comes, I'm trying to get a bunch of stuff packed into our schedules because I know we'll be stuck at home for awhile come mid-May. It's kind of comical if you look at my calendar.....I seriously have something going on almost every day, every weekend...but then May is completely empty....ha!

I seriously have a problem

Call it nesting, call it your "typical Annie"....starting a million things and not finishing, call it whatever! However, I do kinda have a good excuse for not cleaning up all my disasters around my house lately. Yep, it's called being 8 months pregnant and not being able to move or carry anything heavy. So, I do all the destroying, and Nick gets to clean up after me. This works out great huh? :)
It started yesterday afternoon. I got the urge to take out all our winter clothes because our room/closet looked like it threw up clothes. I really do hate clutter, so I've been meaning to fix that problem. My plan was to go buy some giant bins and store our clothes in them. However, I realize that it's kinda hard to buy giant bins when you have a 2 year old taking up half the shopping cart.
So this is what Nick came home to last night......

And this isn't even what was all over our bed!! I even went as far as to take out all my maternity clothes. I know, I know...I still have a month left so I'll probably need those clothes right? Well, I just took out the things I know I'm not gonna wear and the things that are for colder weather. Trust me, the day I come home from the hospital, ALL the maternity clothes will be OUT OF HERE!!! Thank goodness my sister in law will be here so she can take a lot home since she's just starting that chapter in her pregnancy.

Onto disaster #2....we've been meaning to do a little rearranging in our house. Putting the rocker/glider back in the baby's room, putting the pub table that is in our office back in the family room, buying shelves to put all the toys in, transferring all the toys into the office to make our office more of the playroom...whew, with me??
I got the bright idea to start on the office and making some adjustments. Well, I got as far tearing everything apart, "attempting" to move one of the filing cabinets only to realize my uterus did not like that. So this is where I stop....
Pub table in the entry way, pub chairs in the dining room

 

Everything that was on the floor is now in the desk and see, the one lonely filing cabinet I moved myself.

 

Alright....I realize I'll have to wait till Nick comes home to finish my projects, so I thought I'd move onto some kitchen cabinets. I took out all the bottles from the cabinet and have intentions of washing/sterilizing them, but this is what my kitchen has looked like for the last couple hours....

I mean, I can't even pick them up off the floor??? Do I really think Nick will clean up after this mess!!! Um, probably not! It's just, my dishwasher needs to be unloaded, dishes in the sink then need to be loaded, and then I can wash the bottles. However, I'm just not in a cleaning dishes kind of mood right now. So until Nick tells me to move my mess or Cole trips on them, they may stay there for a couple more hours.

Ok, so onto something where I actually WAS a little productive. Last night I went to a consignment sale that our town puts on twice a year. When I was pregnant with Cole I found some great stuff and I found great stuff this time too. However, it was kinda hard buying things for the new baby since we don't know boy or girl.
However, I did find this cute table and chair set for Cole. It's not the exact color we wanted but I figure if we get brave enough, we could sand and repaint it eventually. It does need a little TLC but for $20, I couldn't resist!

 

I also got Cole a few shirts and shorts but the things I really was hoping to find (outdoor play stuff) they didn't have any of that. Ah well!

A Baby Update

Well, I am now having weekly doctor appointments. I can't decide if this will make the time go faster or slower...hmmm. However, I do kinda like going in and seeing how the baby is progressing. I had another sonogram and here is what we discovered: The baby's head is so extremely low that she could hardly get measurements of it. She said that's not real common at 34 weeks but will be great come time to deliver! However, that also makes for one uncomfortable mama. The last few days I had been feeling LOTS of pressure, even in my lower back and now we know why. She also told me that as of now (and I know this can change), the baby is sunny-side up. I guess I wasn't surprised because Cole was the exact same way. Babies are supposed to come out looking down but my babies like to look up, thus, making it much harder to deliver. So let's just pray that this baby flips around in the next few weeks.

My fluid levels were fine, even a little low but not low enough to be concerned. She said there really was no fluid around the head, but I'm not really sure what that all means.

And for measurements, she said baby is about 5lb 13oz. Again, these sonograms aren't completely accurate but the baby is consistent with it's weight gain. She said the baby will gain about a pound every 2 weeks now, so do the math....we are looking at close to a 9lb-er, yikes!

They informed me that with the head being so low and having a big baby, this doesn't necessarily mean I'll deliver early BUT they said that this baby will probably come a lot quicker than the first baby. Since sometimes it takes awhile for the head to drop during labor, I won't have to worry about that part because I'm already there :)

This, however, does make me a little nervous because the beginning of May, pretty much everyone that I would need to be available if I did go into labor early WILL BE OUT OF TOWN!!! Yes, this includes my husband!!! I mean, I really don't mind if this baby comes early, but if it could just hold off till at least May 4th, that would be great! :)

I have my Non-Stress Test next week, and basically it monitors the movements of the baby and watches the heartrate to make sure it doesn't dip or spike and to make sure the placenta is doing what it's supposed to. Should be exciting :)

So all is good on the home-front......YAY!!!! :)

Our weekend

 Last Thursday, Casey, Lexie and Kaylee had to come into town so we got to spend some time together. Cole was BEYOND excited to see Lexie and they played and played and played for several hours. The weather has been great so they were able to play outside.

I had to bring out a little sleeper so that Kaylee could sleep a little bit without Casey having to hold her all afternoon. Of course I would love to hold her more but it is getting to be difficult to hold itty bitty babies. With a giant belly in the way, there isn't anywhere to put the baby, ha! So anyway, I got out this little sleeper and after Kaylee was done sleeping in it, Cole made his way into it and thought it was pretty funny that he could fit into it. He would pretend that he was going "night night" and pretend to snore. Ha! I didn't let him hang out in it for too long because I'm sure there is a weight limit and I'm sure he exceeds that!

 

We also had our friends The Bell's come into town this weekend. They had a wedding to attend Saturday night but we were able to spend some fun times together. Reagan is about 17 months and she loved playing with all of Cole's toys. Cole was so sweet to her and never got jealous of her playing with his stuff. Again, the weather was awesome this weekend and with us finally getting a new patio set, we were able to spend some relaxing time out on the patio.

Ahhh...Cole giving sweet hugs

Miss Reagan has the sweetest face

The kiddos trying to get Nick to play with them :)

Little Reagan brought me this book to read to her and then Cole walked into the room and he wanted in on the action. Not really sure how they both fit on my lap, especially with my belly taking up most of the room. Whew....it was a tight fit!

Sunday afternoon, Nick parents came up and picked up Cole for his first ever "date". Cole has been absolutely obsessed with Toy Story lately and when Toy Story on Ice came to Dallas, Nick's parents asked if they could take him. At first I didn't know if he was old enough or if he would sit still long enough but the evening ended up being a huge success! Of course Granddad and Gigi showered him with lots of toys, hats, shirts and programs so he came home with lots of goodies! I'll definitely have to take pictures of him with all his toys sometime soon.

This is a picture that Tracy sent us from when they first arrived. They got him a Woody doll and they said he wouldn't put it down the entire show.

 Tracy also sent this picture of Cole in his new shirt. It's a little big on him so hopefully he still likes Toy Story in a year or so...haha!!

 

They said the first half of the show, he just sat in amazement and was just soaking everything in. The second half he got more into it, clapping and yelling. It would have been so fun to be there just to watch him but I know the grandparents really enjoyed a night alone with him!

Nick and I were also able to go out on a little date while the grandparents were with Cole. There is a yummy restaurant that we have been wanting to try called Seasons 52. It's a very fresh food restaurant and they change their menu all the time. We invited Blake and Emily to come along with us since we don't get to spend a lot of time with them without little ones around. We had a great time and really enjoyed a relaxing dinner. I'm also excited because I get to go back to this restaurant in a couple weeks for a Mom's Night Out with my mom's group. Can't wait!

It sure was a great weekend and we love spending time with great friends and family. I was totally exhausted Sunday but that's probably just due to pregnancy stuff. I've been super uncomfortable lately, if I was further along, I would say that I could go into labor at any time! I feel like everytime I stand up, my water is going to break. However, I do have 5 weeks left so I'm just gonna have to grin and bear it. I also realized this weekend that all but a few of my shirts no longer fit me! Yikes!!! Also, I have no warm-weather tops so the next 5 weeks will be interesting finding clothes that will fit me. I feel as though this baby gained a pound over night because I swear I woke up Saturday morning and just all of a sudden none of my tops were long enough anymore. So if you see me wearing the same shirt over and over....don't judge! ha! :) I have another doctors appointment tomorrow, do you think if I tell him none of my shirts are fitting me anymore, that will be a good enough reason to deliver this baby early?? Yeah, I'm guessing he won't go for that. :)

We have a pretty crazy hectic schedule the next few weeks and Nick keeps saying we are too busy, but I HATE having down-time, especially just sitting around waiting for this baby to come, I'd rather be doing things to keep me busy. So....bring on the hectic-ness! :)