First off, guess what releases a month from tomorrow and now is officially available for autographed pre-order in my bookstore??! 😉 So excited for you guys to read the conclusion of Paige’s story!!

I am officially 37 weeks tomorrow!

Jon and I were talking about how crazy it is that we are already full-term! It seems like it was just a few weeks ago that we were celebrating that we’d made it beyond the point when we’d had our miscarriage last time. God has been so good. Baby P is doing a lot of full-term baby wiggles in there – no more kicks but lots of stretches and movements that hurt me most of the time because there is officially no more room in the inn.

I cannot, cannot, CANNOT wait to meet him!!

My big boy!! We’ve been doing a lot of this – bouncing, walking, attempting to make up for almost nine months of very little activity. 😉 The ball has actually helped my back feel so much better – I wish I’d started sitting on it a long time ago! I’ve been having contractions every day still – sometimes every 10-20 minutes for several hours but nothing every comes of them. We’re attempting to talk Baby P out and reassuring him that it’s now officially okay to come but he hasn’t listened very well yet. 😉

Jon’s been reading up on his labor coaching duties in case they are needed this time around. I loved this. 🙂

On Wednesday, my BSF class gave me a surprise baby shower! I was so overwhelmed by their generosity – they went completely overboard. Such a wonderful time!! I’m so blessed and honored to be in this class with these women. Each one has become very dear to me and I’ve learned so much from all of them!

Thursday, I walked into the kitchen after doing some of my little workouts in the morning and decided my entire kitchen was disgusting. So next thing I knew, my “big helper guy” and I were scrubbing my stove under the burners with toothbrushes and baking soda. Nathan was SUCH a help yesterday – he cleaned, he took out the trash, he helped me wash down the walls and baseboards. We were both exhausted when we were done! At one point I said, “Nathan, you’re such a great helper!” and he said, “Well, you’re such a great mom.” And then I teared up. Which is when I realized I was standing in my kitchen, barefoot, holding a toothbrush covered in a baking soda paste and crying.

There isn’t too much more than screams “NINE MONTHS PREGNANT” than that. 😉 So I treated us both to Keva Juice just to make it even more apparent.

Nathan was so excited to show Jon our “brand new kitchen” and decided we should keep it a surprise for him. Jon told Nathan that he was very excited to see the surprise we had and Nathan said, “Well, I’m not excited because I already know what it is.” Ha! Once we got into the kitchen, he kept asking Jon if he “recognized the place”. 😉

I’m working on Baby P’s name sign and his crib sheet this weekend and hoping our gorgeous weather holds up for more fun family walks!! What do you guys have planned??

We are officially off the medicine and off the bed rest!! YAY!! So so so thankful to be up moving around again. And very thankful that it was the medicine making my ankles swell so much – I was starting to wonder if this was how the rest of the last few weeks were going to be. 😉

So we are all cleared for Baby P’s delivery – now I’m just anxious to know when he will come. (And yes, it’s your official hint as to what the baby’s name will be!!) 🙂

On Saturday, we made a little family trip to Costco. If you were there, you would definitely have heard us if not seen us. Nathan was ridiculously giggly/crazy. At one point, he was standing on one of the benches in the food court with his hands on his hips, dancing and singing at full volume.

Oh that boy. I didn’t know whether to laugh, quiet him down or pretend he wasn’t mine, so I just took pictures instead. 😉 Ha!

Sunday afternoon, the weather was absolutely gorgeous so we took a family walk over to a park a little ways away. My parents got us an amazing stroller that will eventually seat both kids (thanks so much, Mom and Dad!!) and I’ve been anxious to try it out, so we brought that with us since the park we were going to is a long way from the house – just in case Nathan needed a ride home.

He, Jon and Kody ran most of the way home, so I think the only who actually needed the stroller was me. 😉 Ha! I was exhausted by the time we got back!

This is why God gives boys dads – to give them someone to spit into the arroyo with. Blegh. It was totally a highlight for Nathan though. I will never understand males. 😉

This is our real life boy – hair all messy, nose skinned up from face planting while racing Jon last night (thankfully he was wearing his baseball helmet. Ha!), Batman shirt and eating a cookie. Jon told me this was exactly what he pictured when he used to think about having kids. 😉

I love these sweet moments. He was basically asleep on me while we were reading books last night but he was completely out by the time we finished praying with him. Love when he’s in a snuggly, sleepy mood!

We have an appointment to check on Baby P this afternoon – not too much longer until there are two messy, stinky, scraped up boys in this house!! We are so blessed, friends. Continuing to pray for you all!

Well, since our week was a little weird last week, I didn’t get to actually plan anything for Valentine’s Day, so it was pretty low key. 🙂

We spent the day with my mom and dad who helped me with Nathan (I honestly don’t know how we would have done last week without them!!), came home and Jon had roses for me and made me chocolate covered strawberries. So sweet. The medicine they have me on to stop my contractions makes my ankles swell terribly, so we spent our evening icing my ankles and keeping them propped up while we ate our strawberries and watched the Olympics. That, my friends, is the definition of romance! 😉

Jon painted baby brother’s room this weekend, we got the sheets on and a few loads of little person laundry done and I feel MUCH better that at least the “big stuff” is done for this little guy’s arrival!! He officially has clothes and a room – sweet boy. I have been going in his room quite a bit lately. I get so overwhelmed sometimes at what an answer to prayer this baby is. 

Yesterday, we had another ultrasound and a doctor’s appointment. Little man is estimated at 6 pounds, 8 ounces (pretty big for being only 35 weeks along!!), he’s head down and that little head is already measuring 37 weeks. BIG boy!! I haven’t started dilating, so my doctor said that I don’t have to be on bed rest necessarily anymore, I just need to take it semi-easy. Which is easier to do when I’m still having quite a few contractions throughout the day (usually the 2+ hours right before I take my meds) and my ankles keep swelling every time I stand up. 😉

Since there is the chance that he could come anytime, we decided we should go ahead and do a family date night last night. Nathan has been a trooper through all of this but yesterday we could just tell that he was needing some intentional time that wasn’t involving getting stuff done for the baby or doctor’s visits. Sweet boy. He soaked in dinner last night.

We let him stay up a little bit late and watch the Olympics last night. I could not stop laughing at him – he is definitely the cutest little bobsledder I’ve ever seen!! 😉 I absolutely ADORE his imagination!  One of the things I prayed for the most in a future husband was a man who loved to play with his kids and I am so thankful I have that in Jon. Nathan can rope him into playing pretty much anything and it just makes me that much more in love with my Jon. 🙂

Today, I’ve been taking it easy while attempting to get a few more things done around the house in between keeping my feet up. Nathan has been my “firefighter helper guy” all day and I very much appreciate him making sure my surroundings weren’t on fire and my pulse was good. 😉 Ha!

Baby brothers make good mountains, it would seem. And mamas keeping their feet up have the perfect legs for airplane runways. 😉 It’s been a good day.

Right now is one of those times where I can look back on the last few days and I just know that God had His hand in everything that happened.

On Tuesday night, the sweet Lunch Bunch totally surprised me with a baby shower when I thought we were just having a girls night hangout. SO fun – they were far too generous and we had a fantastic time just talking and laughing. We left there about 9:30 and when I got to my car, it wouldn’t start.

I was so frustrated. Nathan was already in bed and I was way across town, so my parents were so kind to come try and help me jump it. We tried about 25 times to jump it and it wouldn’t even try to turn over. My car is only about 1.5 years old, so it was still covered under warranty, but so annoying at that time of night. We ended up leaving my car there and Mom and Dad took me home.

I slept terribly that night. First thing Wednesday morning, we called the dealer and the roadside assistance and a few minutes later, I drove Nathan and the little girl I watch a few days a week back across town in Jon’s truck to meet the tow truck with my keys. Wednesday was a rough day. We had a big potty training accident with the little girl, I was already overly tired and stressed because of the car and talking to the dealer. So when we got into a little fender bender on our way home (in Jon’s truck), I just couldn’t stop crying.

We were all fine – the kids didn’t even realize we were in an accident we were going so slow and Jon’s truck didn’t even have a dent on it – but I was so upset. I called the doctor and they reassured me that baby brother was fine, I just needed to keep doing kick counts. My mom came over and helped distract me until Jon got home and they went and picked up my car which was done by then. Looking back, I’m so thankful that I was in the truck – my car sits a lot lower and it’s not made of cement, like Jon’s truck seems to be made of. 😉

About 5:30 that night, I started noticing that I’d been having a few more Braxton Hicks contractions than I normally had been having. Three hours later, I called the doctor because they were coming every 7ish minutes and were getting painful. Amazingly, my doctor was on call (I don’t think that ever happens!) and he had me try taking some Tylenol, laying down and drinking a lot of water. They didn’t stop, if anything, they just regulated more. When I called our doctor back at 9:30, he told us to come meet him at triage and get checked out. I just knew they were going to say it was all in my head and to go home, so even though Jon wanted to pack a bag, I told him I doubted we would need one. Mom and Dad came over and stayed with Nathan (so thankful for my parents and siblings this week!).

We got to triage, I got hooked up to the monitors and by then, I was having consistent contractions every 2-4 minutes. They gave me an oral medicine to see if that slowed or stopped them and it didn’t do anything, so we got admitted and I got started on an IV of magnesium to see if that stopped the contractions. They gave me a huge dose at first which made me feel so weird – my whole body just felt incredibly heavy but I didn’t get sick like the nurses warned, so that was a blessing.

Love the wallpaper my sweet boy made for me! 🙂

My contractions finally started to slow the next morning after a sleepless night. We were so thankful. And I’m so thankful that my doctor was the one on call. By 1:30 in the afternoon yesterday, my reflexes were pretty much nonexistent, so they took me off the magnesium and thankfully, my contractions didn’t speed back up and stayed irregular. After watching me for the afternoon, they decided to send me home with a prescription for an oral medication that will hopefully keep the contractions away – at least for a few more days.

So, I’m out of the hospital now, I’m taking my meds, keeping an eye on baby brother’s kick counts and I have to lay low for a few days – at least until we get to 36 weeks, which is next Saturday. I’m so excited to meet my boy but I don’t want him to come just yet!! Whatever happens, I know God has a wonderful plan for this baby and I can trust in that.

Thank you SO so much for your prayers and sweet messages and comments over these last couple of days!! I teared up so much in the hospital reading all of them – such a blessing to know that this little one is so prayed for!!

So glad to be back with this precious boy and excited/very freaked out (ha!) to see what the next few weeks hold for us! God is good. SO thankful for that.

I swear I’m not purposefully avoiding this blog. I’ve been writing as much as I can every time I get the chance, so between that, playing with my crazy boy, fighting sleep and feeding my chocolate milk and strawberry cravings (not together), I’ve been keeping pretty busy over here. 🙂

A few things we’ve been up to:

Love these last few days of me with my only boy. 🙂 I’m starting to get very sentimental/emotional about EVERYTHING (“this is the last tube of toothpaste we’ll buy until after baby brother is here!”) but nothing makes me tear up faster than sweet snuggles with my boy.

We finally got to have a birthday party for my dear sister-to-be Nicole!! After having to postpone it twice, we had a fantastic time at the Clue themed party – now you get to guess who everyone was. 😉

On Saturday, it was such a pretty day and we’d had snow a few times last week, so we took Nathan up to the back side of the mountain to do some sledding. He LOVED it.

We were so excited that Uncle Bryant came with us!!

Here’s what I did. 😉

The boys all built a snowman at the bottom of the hill. So adorable.

When we got home, we took a super hot shower and sadly the “snuggly jammies” Nathan wanted to wear were in the dryer and nothing else would apparently work in the meantime, so he opted to eat in the nearly-nude. There really is nothing better than pizza and movie nights in the living room. Especially when they are followed up with leftover birthday cake. 😉

We watched Planes for the first time and it was absolutely adorable. Nathan loved it so much that he had to draw his own Dusty the Airplane after the movie was over (jammies were done by then). 😉

Monday we had a little Valentine’s thing with the Lunch Bunch (we’re missing a few kids here thanks to moves and naps). Such fun. We love our little friends.

And today we had more fun when Evie and Gracie and their sweet mama came to play this morning! It’s been so beautiful that the kids spent most of the time outside digging in the dirt. Which I’m convinced is the main reason to be a kid. 😉 These two were just so fun to watch play today – it’s so weird that he’s getting big enough to play with friends without needing me around to constantly supervise. It was so nice to just sit in the sun and talk with Eryn while the kids entertained themselves.

We took another picture of me (FINALLY, right??! I told Jon that if we don’t get on this, this poor child is going to have zero documentation of being on the inside!). Here I am at 34 weeks – I already weigh more than I did when I delivered Nathan…I’m telling myself it’s because baby brother appears to have chubbier cheeks than Nathan did. 😉 This picture was taken at 11:30PM, so please don’t look too closely at my very tired and nearly makeup-less face.

I’m getting so anxious to meet this little guy. The countdown has officially started and so have the lists of everything that needs to get done before he comes. The last of our two-week appointments is this coming Monday and then we switch to weekly. It just makes everything so much more real.

SO, with that, Moms of more than one – what are some things I should be prepared for with this baby coming???

Well, we thought we were out of the woods when Nathan started acting pretty normal again by Wednesday – he just didn’t have much of an appetite still. But Thursday night Jon came down with the bug and Friday night we got woken up to Nathan throwing up again.

Oy.

I’m SO ready for spring!!

Today, Nathan is actually back to eating his normal horse-like proportions and things seem to be working better intestinally. 😉 Thank You Lord! We are praying that was the end of it!

So, we’ve had another weekend of just laying low and doing lots and lots of laundry.

Sunday morning, Nathan woke up and we had a quiet morning at home watching movies. I looked over at one point while they were watching a police movie and found this. SO cute. Sick or not, he still has to dress the part. 😉

Jon and I got a project partway done. Just need to find some small clocks to go under the pictures! I’m going to have them stopped on the times that the boys were born and then stop the one under our picture at the time we got married. Love those sweet babies up there – I can’t wait to find out the details about baby brother. Next month, friends! SO so close!!

Since Nathan was still kind of germy we decided to be kind to our sweet friends and not go play with all their toys at a Super Bowl party. We were very bummed to miss out on the fun. My brother Bryant and his fiancee Nicole braved the germs and came to watch it with us which was very fun. 🙂 I don’t really care that much about the NFL but I do like football. It was fun to eat all kinds of heartburn inducing foods and laugh at the commercials.

Moms of two or more out there – question for you! I’ve got pretty much everything from Nathan’s babyhood that I’m slowly unpacking. What was helpful with #2 that you didn’t have with #1??

Have a great evening!