Marching along

March is filling up, time is flying by! We ordered new carpet--exciting (but yikes lots of money). Once that is in I'll post pictures of how the rooms are looking. I have been waiting for the carpet to be put in to get most of the baby stuff out of the attic. I also ran out of steam on the trim painting, I got the baby's room done and haven't done any since, even though our's and Aubrey's rooms need it. I guess I need to get going on that again...

With plans for a hospital tour, dr. appointments, celebrating St. Patty's day and Mom's birthday before I know it, it will be Easter! I think I am not going to make my self imposed deadline, but that is okay. This baby will probably not be early, although there is a full moon only 5 days before my due date...

We did decide not to get a double stroller and just see how it goes, then once the baby is 6 months I'll look for a second hand double jogger so I can get back in good shape. The stroller that I wanted to get was just so expensive, not a cost I could justify thinking about the handful of times Aubrey has actually sat in a stroller in the past year. I think I'll be fine putting the baby in a front carrier and Aubrey in her stroller if I really needed to have her in one, but she is such a good walker, I think that will only come up rarely.

Winter is dragging on here, I am looking at a forecast with snowflakes on the next five days straight! Happily February is almost over, and March has to be the last month of snow, right? Now if we were in Virginia still we would be looking forward to cherry blossoms and daffodils next month, but spring comes a bit slower around here...

I am really looking forward to getting outside more with the warmer weather. It was "nice" today: sunny and 36 degrees so Aubrey and I went for a walk and spent over an hour outside. It helps the day go so much faster and neither of us get as cranky with a good dose of fresh air. :) I am counting the days until I can trade in my boots for flip-flops.

We are getting closer to getting ready for the baby now, I have one more coat of paint to put on the trim in the baby's room, a lot of stuff to wash, and a few more things to buy, but I feel like it is under control now. Ten weeks to go (provided she comes when she is expected). I'll have to take pictures of her room when it is done, definitely after the new carpet goes in next month.

Aubrey said something really cute today. We were sitting together and I was reading to her and she was looking at my tummy and asked, "The baby can't hear us, Mommy?" and I replied that she could hear us. Aubrey tried to figure out how that worked since she was inside of me. Her solution, "She listens through your belly button?"

I guess I should post more Aubrey updates too: she is getting to be such a big girl so fast! She knows all her letters and can tell you what most of them say. She loves to sit and read each word, letter by letter, out of books with me. Besides books and reading she loves art, just about every day she colors, draws on her chalkboard, paints, and plays with playdoh. Little princess that she is, she hates going outside when it is cold and windy, so she has only enjoyed a few of our winter outings lately.

I' ll leave you with a picture of her latest outdoor fun: building a giant snowman with Daddy.

nesting and exercising...

Hello from here in mommyland! We have been pretty busy doing all kinds of nesting things. Bill and are very close to finishing the painting downstairs which also has included rearranging of much furniture and shuffling around of "stuff." Our guest bedroom is now becoming the nursery/guest room so we had to take out all of the random things that we stashed in there after the move. We also got a new couch for our tv room and have been hanging up paintings that have been in bubble wrap since last year. Nothing like a baby to get you motivated to get stuff done! I have had the strongest nesting urges this pregnancy, I certainly don't remember it being like this when I was pregnant with Aubrey. I have been washing windows, cleaning out and reorganizing the attic, pantry, and closets, etc. It is hard for me to sit still and not be cleaning, I am always thinking of new projects!

All this painting, moving stuff, and cleaning has been hard on my back. So I decided that I would start to do some prenatal yoga--provided I could find a routine that was just about the stretching and breathing and not the more "spiritual" empty your mind mumbo jumbo. We get netflix so I found a good 45 minute routine on the instant play that I have been doing. Can I just say how wonderful it is? I always feel so much better after doing yoga--especially since I haven't been able get on the eliptical machine for a few weeks now (too many BH contractions so my dr. told me to take it easy). My back pain is so much better on the days that I do the yoga. I am also hopeful that doing the yoga will help me in my goal of having a natural, unmedicated birth.

It's a.......

GIRL! We are on team pink again. :) There is a picture of her head on the left and her round little body on the right. Her face is turned toward the viewer, you can see her nose is the white line in the middle. I think that she looks different than Aubrey did--her nose looks longer and her chin a bit pointier, maybe more like her Daddy. It is hard to tell for sure though because we didn't see Aubrey at the same angle for her ultrasound.

Everything looks healthy and perfect--and she was very cooperative for it. She even rolled over when the tech needed to look at her spine. Maybe the cooperation is a good sign. She was waving at us, we could see her eyes moving back and forth and then at one point she yawned and we even saw her tongue come out! Too cute! :)

She had us fooled though, we were all thinking she was a boy. It was such a fun surprise to see another little girl in there. And yes, we have a name, and no, we aren't sharing until she is born. We have to leave something to announce that day!

Cousins in Gramma's Sweaters

Kyle is almost 5 months old, Aubrey is 2 years and 4 months old. Aren't they cute? My mom knit them matching Nordic Christmas sweaters. :)

What's in a name?

As I near the halfway point of this pregnancy, my thoughts have turned more toward baby names. Next week we find out if we are having a girl or boy, but I think it is best to have a name picked out for each, just in case of a mistake! You do hear about that happening occasionally. We are pretty sure we have settled on a girl's name, it wasn't too hard this time around. A boy's name, on the other hand, has been a huge struggle. There is much less room for creativity with a boy, but the traditional names just seem so boring to me. I am trying to find a name that isn't so uncommon that people have to ask you to repeat yourself when you say the name, but isn't so common that everyone knows at least five of them. And then when I think I find a name I like, of course Bill doesn't like it!

Another name problem we have run into is that I tend to be drawn toward names that start with "A." But since I don't want to have a theme with our names we are going to try to avoid "A" names, at least this time around.

Other than the lack of sleep that I have been getting between pregnancy stuff and toddler woes, I can finally say I am feeling good! It took me just about until Thanksgiving to feel myself again, and even then I was having bad headaches. Those are gone for the most part, at least now they aren't an every evening occurance. I just don't understand those women who say they enjoy being pregnant! I am certainly not one of them...I may enjoy the outcome of having a baby, but would much rather just skip ahead to the good part. One thing I do enjoy now is feeling the baby moving around. I can tell the difference between kicks and rolls now--baby is a little acrobat in there. Bill felt some kicks the Saturday after Thanksgiving, and Aubrey got to feel one two days ago. It was fun to watch the expression on her face as she exclaimed, "Mommy, the baby in your tummy poked me!" Now she climbs up on my lap and says, "do you want to make the baby kick mommy?"

Major cravings lately: Grapefruit and cottage cheese (not together). mmm, I think i will go get a grapefruit now.

Fifteen weeks pregnant--have been feeling the baby move for a little while now. The very first time was on my birthday, three little nudges. It is pretty early to be feeling movement, so they are still few and far between. Just yesterday I had my hand in the right place and felt the kick from the outside as well as the inside. :) I am looking forward to when I can feel this little guy consistently--I hope this baby is as active as Aubrey was. Well, maybe minus the kicking in the ribs part.

I have a dr. appointment next week and then I guess I will be able to schedule the big ultrasound! It seems to be dragging really slowly, I really just want to find out the gender now! Everybody thinks that this one is a boy. Interestingly, all my friends who are having babies next year who know what they are having are having boys. When I was pregnant with Aubrey almost every single one of my friends who had a baby the same year as I did had a girl (that is at least six girls!) So maybe this will be the year of the boy...

Election Day

We voted for the first time in our new town yesterday. I love election days--they had tents out front, one for the GOP and one for the Dems. Under and around each tent milled people, greeting candidates, eating from the bounty of food that was provided, chatting and debating. It made me wish I was out there under that tent, providing info for the voters, just like I was three years ago in PA. This was such an encouraging election this time around, as opposed to the last two. In Virginia and New Jersey the GOP gained the governorship--people are starting to wake up. It has only been a year since BO took office, but we knew it wouldn't be too long before people started regretting that vote! We still don't have results in for our small town election here, things move at a slower pace. Maybe that's what I need to volunteer to help with next year--reporting results in a timely manner!

This was Aubrey's fourth election--the first one when I was pregnant with her, one when she was three months old, one year old, and this last one. The funniest one was the presidential one last year, we had to wait in line for hours to vote and Bill and I took turns chasing her around the gymnasium where we were and waiting in line. She kept picking up sample ballots and handing them to people. This time around she was VERY excited about the "I voted" stickers that we got, telling people as we walked by, "look, I got a sicker! And mommy's got a sicker too!"