Baby Minnie: 34 Weeks

Ah!  The countdown is on until this little girl is here! 

And yes, I will be sharing laundry room pics when it's all finished :)

• How far along: 34 weeks.
• Size of baby: 20 inches and 5 pounds-ish?
• Total weight gain/loss: Still only up two pounds!
• Cravings: Nothing really.  Really!
• Maternity clothes: Yes.  And I will continue to wear the shirts for awhile.  Breastfeeding is starting to become real to me once again.  And that requires larger shirts :)
• Gender: Girl!
• Movement: She doesn't stop. 
• What I miss: Sleep... and this week I'm finding that a glass of wine would also be nice. 
• Sleep: Midnight to 6:30 or 7 every day.  I just can't get comfortable and then I'm up every hour to go to the bathroom!  Fortunately my big kids are good about having quiet time, so I do fit in an afternoon nap 2 or 3 times a week!
• Symptoms: Hip pain.  Nesting.  Ligament pain.  And a sudden realization of how much I hate the actual "spinal" part of the C Section.
• Best Moment this week: 
•  Name choices are narrowed down.  There's been actual talk of names.  But no actual name!  
• We got to hear her heartbeat this afternoon at our 34 weeks appointment - she's in the 120's!  I have one appointment in two weeks, and then just 2 weekly appointments stand in the way of our Baby Girl's arrival!
• The laundry room is looking great!
• Our hospital tour was awesome!  The new hospital is fabulous, and the rooms are huge.  It was a little weird because this tour was actually comprised of first time moms and people like me who already have kids, but have never delivered at the new hospital before. It was still informative and fun.
• What I am looking forward to: Apparently we're having a baby name campaign?  Brian and I don't share our names, but we're going to sit down and list the reasons why we love our name choice, and to the victor goes the spoils?  This is so silly!  Wyatt's name was originally a name that I completely vetoed and then fell in love with, Reese's name was one we loved before we even got married, and Hudson's name was my idea that Brian liked enough to say okay to!  Ha!  Hopefully we both love this little girl's name - when she has one!

I Believe It's Called Nesting

I have been hit hard with the nesting bug.  This weekend I was a maniac.

It really started with the cloth diapering thing.  My laundry room (which I love the SIZE of) was in no way equipped to take a beating with diapers.  It's already a catch-all for so many things...Hudson's clothes (we have a hamper in our closet, and the kids have one in their rooms), towels, random clothes that are found throughout the house...basically, it's a mess.  A completely unorganized mess.

So, in an effort to organize it, I cleaned it.  And then I got all ambitious.  I have big plans in my head.  A shelf over the washer and dryer, storage for the ironing board and iron (which I'm not sure have been used since I stopped working.  Brian's cargo shorts and polo's rarely need to be ironed!), nice looking storage on the racks above the washer and dryer...the list goes on.

And then, once it was clean...my mind wandered.  To paint.

Yes, paint.

Like, I really, really, really want a purple room in my house - paint.

So the kids and I went to the Home Depot and picked up some samples.  I found a nice lavender color that I love.  I spent a week during the summer before my senior year of high school at a local Leadership Workshop.  While I was gone my mom sponge painted my room (yes, it was the late 90's).  Purple and Turquoise.  I loved that room. And I still want a freaking purple room.  So I made my own.  In a room that Brian ventures to once a week.

I'm pretty sure that my husband (who had no idea I was doing this) thought I was freaking nuts when he got home from work that night and found me painting my laundry room at 34 weeks pregnant.  But he probably also knows that there really isn't any stopping me when I get these hair brained tasks in my head.  'Cause really, there's no stopping me.

So, it's basically done.  I need to get the top (which I can reach, but can't tape.  So I need him to take care of that), but other than that, it's painted.  And then the next morning I realized that I needed to put things away.

Ummmm...that became a new challenge.  A lot of things that were on the top rack were things that should go in my downstairs linen closet.  But then things downstairs would need to go up.  And then I would need to clean the upstairs linen closet.

So I started there.  And now I have a bunch of photo albums that need to find homes.  But I have really neatly folded towels and sheets upstairs.  And holiday candles, so it smells like Christmas.  And then I moved the toilet paper/paper towel/cleaning product surplus into the linen closet downstairs.  And now my laundry room rack is lined with attractive baskets that have laundry products in them.

There's one big problem with all of this though.

The surplus?  It's all over my kitchen counters.  Soooooo I should probably go take care of that now.  Because that's where my family actually has to eat and stuff.

iPurge

I actually took a few pictures with my phone this week!  I don't take nearly as many as I did with my old phone (and I take way fewer videos since I can't do it on this one), but I still like to be able to send Brian pictures of the kids throughout the day!

Hudson's got an arm.  He can really throw the ball.  Or, you know, he can throw a sippy cup into his brother's head.  Wyatt cried for a little bit (it really did hurt, and Hudson was really close).  I have to take his cups away all the time because he throws them at everything!  Especially if they don't have his choice of drink inside.

Hudson has his own personality for sure, and it does not include the desire to be pulled or pushed around.  He and Reesie constantly go at it because she wants to treat him like a baby, and he is NOT having it.  Yesterday she actually pulled him up on the chair...and he was happy to cuddle!

We're still waiting on our FuzziBunz to get here (the tracking says they'll be here tomorrow!), so we're working our way through our Up & Up's for now.  Yesterday Hudson had a wet diaper, and Wyatt changed it all by himself!  I was amazed and proud...I guess I'll have to teach him this cloth diapering thing, too. 

I am desperately trying to get breast milk stains out of baby clothes!  Look at this pile of clothes, and Reese wasn't even my biggest spitter-upper! I was out of Hydrogen Peroxide (I've read that mixing blue Dawn and Hydrogen Peroxide is a miracle stain remover), so yesterday I just washed them with some OxyClean and regular detergent, and then let them dry in the sun to let it work it's magic.  They all still need to be rewashed, but I feel like it helped some.  And I love looking at all these sweet baby clothes!

Reese's favorite jammies are Christmas pajamas...she wears them proudly.  She also wears them formally.  Or so she says.  She asked me if I wanted to see her "formal pose."  Ha!

Wyatt wanted to give his sister a kiss good night.  He can be incredibly sweet.  Sometimes.

Tonight I got to watch two storms converge in my backyard.  It was super windy, so I ran out to make sure everything was secure.  While I stowed everything away, I watched the storm clouds meet up!  Craziness!

We have no plans this weekend!  The kids have had a lot of fun this week - The Children's Museum on Monday, story time at the library with Mimi and Baba on Tuesday, a doctor's appointment for Reese on Wednesday (which was really only fun for the boys.  They were very happy that my sister's friend Stevie was baby sitting them), a boys' night of video games while Reese and I went to see Ice Age with friends on Thursday, and they spent HOURS with their friends Ryan and Colin today!  They even stayed there while I brought Hudson home for nap time!

I think a low key weekend is going to be best - especially since we have swim lessons again next week.  We have lots to do around the house anyway, but I'm sure we'll have to get out a few times - sitting around the house all day makes for crazy kids - and a crazy momma!

Trip to the Children's Museum

I don't want to say that my pregnancy is stopping us from doing fun stuff on Brian's day off.  But I will say that when we wake up and the forecast involves extreme heat and tons of sunshine, it definitely puts a kink in our plans!  We've been talking about going to the local Children's Museum since we went to the one in Raleigh last year during our hurricane evacuation, so we decided to give it a try!

We had the. best. time.

Especially my little bus driver.

My little Doc McStuffins fan was very excited to be a doctor!  When you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, her answer is always "doctor."  She loves that show so much, and I love that she's curious about it all.

This might be one of my favorite pictures of H EVER. I loved the way he ran up and wanted his picture taken!

Wyatt was able to squeeze in three holes of putt putt.

Hudson and I look so tiny in the big chair!

And Wyatt had a blast trying to use the air to get that ball through the hoops in a section about energy and force!

Our local museum isn't nearly as big as the one in Raleigh.  It kept us busy for about three hours, and the kids really liked it.  We ended up getting the membership here, too. Seriously, we now have Busch Gardens passes (although we only have to pay for Brian and I because they have free preschool passes for little kids), a zoo membership, a Living Museum membership, and the Children's Museum, too.  But even if we go one more time this year, the pass will pay for itself (and I think we'll be there plenty more)!  We've got to find ways to save money and keep these kids entertained!  Ha!  Fortunately we know that we can get plenty of use out of Busch Gardens passes in the fall, so it's not a waste!

I just looked at the calender and realized that Brian only has 5 days off between now and school starting (and my due date)!  That is craaaaaazy!  Fortunately, it means that the summer is winding down, but it also means that I will have a 4 year old in a month.  I can't believe that our Reesie is turning 4!  Time flies by.  Her party is already booked, the invitations are waiting to go out, and I really just have to worry about the paper goods, her birthday shirt, and the cake!  Thank goodness for The Little Gym!

Baby Minnie: 33 Weeks!

I figured that since we're getting so close to the end of the pregnancy, I should probably start updating about it more often.  The last 33 weeks really have flown by!  It seems like I literally just walked out of the bathroom with a stunned look on my face and told Brian that my suspicions about being pregnant a month earlier than we were "planning" had been confirmed - and now we're seven-ish weeks away from meeting her!

• How far along: 33 weeks.
• Size of baby: She's about 19 inches long and my guess would be that she's probably around 4 pounds, 10 ounces now?  That's if they actually put on half a pound a week right now like the books say.  Hudson was my biggest at 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and Reese was the smallest at 7 pounds, 10 ounces, so we'll have to see where she ends up!
• Total weight gain/loss: Still only up two pounds!
• Cravings: Vanilla frosty floats, water, and Pop Tarts. But just the crust of the Pop Tart.  Not the inside. I swear I eat healthy food too, though!
• Maternity clothes: There's no stuffing this belly in regular clothes.  Really.  If I tried to wear a normal dress, it would end up farther above my knees than I find to be appropriate :).
• Gender: Girl!
• Movement: All the time.  Especially in the middle of the night!
• What I miss: Sleep.  Being able to keep up with the big kids without getting winded.  And probably the ability to sleep on my back!
• Sleep: This week it was awful.  Four nights in a row of three hours of sleep.  Last night it was up every hour to pee.  And I love my pregnancy pillow, but it just makes moving more difficult, and my hips can't take me laying on one side all night!
• Symptoms: Hip pain.  It's constant.  Sometimes my left hip feels like it could give out on me when I stand up.  I'm also really hot and tired. And the nesting urge is kicking in big time!  My laundry room got hit last night. Plus you know, my stomach is rather large.
• Best Moment this week: I feel like we've narrowed our name choices down to about 4.  Unfortunately, I feel like Brian and I are not on the same page about those 4.  So her name may be a far off thought.  I love that she kicks when she hears her Daddy at night!
• What I am looking forward to: Getting the house straight and organized and baby ready.  Our hospital tour is tonight, too!
• Goals for this week:  
• Finish planning Reese's 4th birthday party so I don't have to do much when I'm 39 weeks pregnant.  
• Figure out a solution for storage for her stuff since she'll be bunking in our room for a few months (at least).
• Get her a car seat.
• Make a count down with the big kids so they get an idea of when she'll be here! 

Here I am wearing the same shirt at 39 weeks, 1 day with Reesie!

Our Weekend

Our weekend was mostly cloudy and rainy.  Fortunately we were able to get out early Friday afternoon to meet up with Derek and Sophie for a play date at the zoo!  I can't believe that Wyatt, Derek, and Sophie are all 5 years old now.  They are getting so big!

Owning a Yankees shirt is kind of mandatory in this family (Wyatt has 4, and we just added Granderson to his collection).  I showed this picture to Brian and told him he had to guess which one of these kids is his son and which one is his cousin!  He guessed right obviously, but now that Wyatt's hair is shorter, you can't always tell from the back (unless you seem them standing next to each other - Derek is taller)!

Reesie didn't want to be the "little otter," so she skipped out of this picture.

When they switched it up, she jumped in!

The kids had a great time with their cousins, and they left planning their next get together!

Thankfully, Saturday was rainy.  I don't think my pregnant body would have been able to do anything that day.  I was incredibly worn out from walking around the zoo on Saturday.  In fact, I came home on Friday, and I'm not sure that I moved off of the couch unless it was time to feed the kids or put them to bed.

On Saturday we watched Everyone's Hero.  It was Hudson's first viewing, and he really enjoyed it.  Even Wyatt still loves it, and he's been watching it since he was 2.  I guess you really can't go wrong with a movie about a little boy named Yankee that features Babe Ruth!

I wish I could say that I got a lot done this weekend, but really, I didn't.  Except maybe some laundry.  I was seriously shocked at how worn out I was.  But I guess temperatures in nineties and chasing three kids will do that to you.  Brian went to see Batman on Saturday, but I stayed home.  I'm not sure I could make it through a 9:00 showing of a 3 hour movie anyway!

The kids and I went to Target on Sunday, and well, those are the days that make me miss school!  Ha!  I don't know that last time I ventured there with all three by myself, but it was an adventure.  Honestly, they're pretty good in comparison to most kids, but I think I have higher expectations than most people. Maybe I'll count on running errands in the fall on the three days a week that both big kids are in school at the same time. Shopping with Hudson and the Baby Girl sounds like a treat!

How is it possible that we're already getting closer to Labor Day and school starting (and our baby!)?  It's crazy!  I can't believe that in a little over a month we will have a kindergartner and our little girl will be in school 3 days a week.  These kids need that break from each other because they are driving each other insane!  Reese just asked me if I think she'll go to jail if she fights with her brother.  I'm pretty sure it's because she was thinking about starting one, and I'm pretty sure the answer for now is yes :).

Our Cloth Diapering Adventure Begins

I don't think that there has ever been a time in my life where I would define myself as "green."  For starters...I kind of hate being outside.  Brian keeps trying to lure me into camping or hiking, and well, that's not me.  Ever since I was little, I only wanted something to do with Mother Nature if it involved a chair and book.  I don't mind driving through the mountains.  And I mean, I love the beach, but bugs and dirt and roughing it? No thanks.

I mean, I do recycle.  Fortunately I live in a place that gives us a bin for recycling that's just as big as our trash can!  It's usually filled to the top, but I give the vast majority of the credit for that to my husband, who actually is a bit of an "environmentalist." In fact, I've been thinking about getting a second recycling bin because they only come every other week and we run out of room sometimes!

Even though Brian has always had concerns about the environment, we honestly never gave any thought to cloth diapering.  We just plopped them in their Pampers (and Up and Up's - I don't like Huggies), and went on with our lives.  And I think we missed the boat.  Because the idea of cloth diapering has been weighing on me lately.  For economical reasons.  For environmental reasons.  And also because my big guy has some sensitivity issues with his bottom!  I've been splurging on diapers from The Honest Company to at least avoid the chemicals bothering his sensitive parts, but they're expensive!

So, after doing some research (thanks in large part to a group of very helpful friends), I broached the subject with Brian, who thought that I wanted to diaper our kids with the same diapers we use to clean up spit up.  A very 50's version of cloth diapering! Um, not so much. So we watched this You Tube video together.

Source: styleberryblog.com via Brittney on Pinterest

And he was sold!  After a lot of thought, I've decided to start slow.  I've order 6 Fuzzi Bunz diapers, a wet bag to carry in the diaper bag, and another for the laundry room.  I rarely change him upstairs, so there's no need for double trash storage.  I also ordered Rockin Green detergent for the wash (at this point, I am incredibly thankful that we have Amazon Prime)!  I used a combination of websites to get started. I ordered the diapers and hemp inserts for overnight from Cotton Babies.  I ordered everything else from Amazon.

I went with Fuzzi Bunz mainly because Hudson's bottom is so sensitive, and I've read mixed reviews about the suede lining in Bum Genius being bothersome.  If I don't like Fuzzi Bunz, or I feel like I want to give it a try, I might order some Bum Genius diapers, too.  I'll definitely need more, but I don't feel like I'm going to need to go up to 24!

A LOT of people have asked me about the laundry.  Honestly, I'm shockingly undaunted by that challenge!  Wyatt and Reese were both potty trained without the use of pull ups (we tried them, but they were basically pointless), so I have a lot of experience cleaning up those, um, messes.

I'm going to give this round with Hudson a go, and then I think I'll have a better idea about what to do with the Baby Girl when she comes...so I'll keep you updated on our new adventure, but I'm also open to any and all advice!

The Rest of the Living Museum

After we checked out the dinosaurs, we headed out to the rest of the museum.  The kids all love animals (although Reese is not as enthusiastic as her brothers), so they had a great time.

They all thought this turtle was cute, and Wyatt climbed right in.

And then he climbed on top!

I'm going to preface this by telling you that all three of my children are crazy.  That's the only way to explain the fact that they all touched this snake.

The big one.

b

The little one.

And my middle one.  She was last.  But she was brave!

My husband suggested that we go walk the nature trail.  My husband also contributed the genes that inspired my children to touch a snake.  It was a crazy idea.  It was hot.  And I was tired.  And I was probably 25 steps behind the kids and Brian the entire time.  But they had fun!

Swim Lessons: Week 3!

We finished another week of swim lessons yesterday.  Both kids are still in the same stations, but Wyatt has made a ton of progress this week!

He's perfecting his free style.

She's basically just playing!

He's also learning and getting pretty good at the backstroke.

She's blowing bubbles.

He's learning the butterfly - the kicks are what's getting him! He keeps bringing those feet up!

And she's practicing her kicks!

It's crazy to me how hard Wyatt's station is to pass!  The free style, the butterfly and the backstroke all on one station - and he has to do 25 meters with perfect form!  I will say that while we have no intention of doing any kind of competitive swimming, it's fun to see how serious he is about learning it.

I felt a lot better yesterday after talking to another mom who is in the same boat as I am with Reese.  Her daughter won't go under water for the instructor, and Reese will at least do that!  I'm thinking about taking her to my parents house and putting pennies under water.  She loves money - I bet she'd open her eyes to fill up her piggy bank!  

Hopefully we can work on that over the next week and she'll feel more comfortable when she goes back after her week off!  I would love for her to at least learn to float this summer for her own safety and my own peace of mind!

Next week we have some appointments planned - Reese has her follow up at the dermatologist for her bumps, and Brian and I are going on a hospital tour!  The hospital that the other three kids were born in closed down the maternity ward, and we're delivering at a brand new hospital that is only 15 minutes from home.  It's kind of fun to get to do something "new" for Baby Number 4!

iPurge!

These are pictures from my phone and Brian's phone.  Let's just say that there is a definite difference in the quality of the pictures!  Come on October with my iPhone upgrade!

Now that Hudson been sitting at the table with the big kids (sometimes), he's found that Wyatt's toys are within his reach!  Iron Man and Spiderman were "Hi-yaing" each other the other day.  I have no idea where he learned karate talk, but he was definitely doing it!

I took this the other day after our "pool" was set up.  Our neighbors have had the longest journey ever to getting an in ground pool put in, and I know it's driving her crazy!  I took this and posted it on Facebook and said I didn't want to make my neighbors jealous, but our pool installation only took 20 minutes!  Ha!

Um, I wouldn't advise giving him Spaghetti-O's ever again.

Reesie wanted her picture taken with Jessie the other day.  She actually asked for Brian to take it over because Jessie wasn't looking the first time!

Our backyard "water park."  I ran out to Kohl's and left Brian home with the big kids.  And I came home to my red neck backyard!

They did this over and over and over again!  And when Hudson and I got home, Hudson ran over to the slide, climbed up, and went right down - in his clothes! 

On Monday night we went to Target.  We were in the kids clothing section, and Reesie ran off to the women's pajama section right next to it - and she came back like this.  Definitely one of those times that Brian asks me to "take care of this" before he has a heart attack.

Dinosaurs!

After swim lessons on Monday, we took the kids to the Virgina Living Museum.  They have a dinosaur exhibit through Labor Day, and we knew that we had to take Wyatt.  He told me the other day that when he grows up he wants to be a baseball player, a hockey player, and a paleontologist.  But after college, he just wants to be a paleontologist.  This kid!  A few weeks ago he didn't want to go to college because he didn't want to have to live there.  Apparently he changed his mind after I pointed out that his Mimi and our neighbor both work at a local college!  Ha!

Before we went, the kids (all of them) had to check what time it was on the sun dial.

Wyatt with the T Rex.  He has been watching Dinosaur Train since it first came on when he was barely two.  He knows a TON about dinosaurs - so much that he was actually telling us stuff that we didn't know about them!

It was Hudson's first time to be "let loose" while we were in public.  I have never once legitimately thought about getting a child a leash until this experience.  And not because I don't trust him, but for my own piece of mind. Three kids running in three different places is craaaazy!  And something I'm not planning on doing without Brian!

Wyatt with the triceratops!  His "girls," as he calls his collection of dinosaurs, have been "watching their nests" this week.  He keeps telling me that their babies are going to hatch. He cracks me up because he keeps going to check on them!

Hudson got a kick out of this baby triceratops!

...but he didn't enjoy the T Rex as much!

The big kids had fun "digging for fossils."  Wyatt said  that he was just like Dr. Scott from Dinosaur Train, and that he was going to send what he found to Washington DC!

Reese spent most of her time at little stations where she could do rubbings of dinosaurs.  She had a lot of fun doing those!

Hudson wanted to check out the underwater dinosaurs!

Wyatt and I were checking out the sea exhibit.  I can't remember the name of the dinosaur we were looking at, but he turned to me very seriously and told me its name and said, "Mommy, do you know that those are sometimes called the T Rex of the ocean?" 

Reese being her silly self!

They loved this exhibit, and while it's small, it was totally worth the drive!  We walked out of the museum members, because I know that we'll be back more over the next year, probably even before the dinosaur exhibit is over!