PG 4

This is me today. 38 weeks and counting.
I feel like every time I'm pregnant it gets that much harder to wrap my mind around what pregnancy it is. This is my 4th pregnancy, but I only have 2 kids and when she gets here I'll only have 3. Sometimes I tease and say this is baby 3/4ths. I guess in a lot of ways I keep thinking that it will get easier to... understand... accept... I don't know but it's it's still a little weird and frustrating (if I'm being honest). I don't know if I'm saying that right because it's not a clear feeling or feelings and they come and go but hopefully that makes some sense.

I can't act like I have difficult pregnancies however this time and last time the last 10 weeks or so I've struggled with pelvic bone pain. Both my doctors have said it's because I carry low so there's a lot of pressure.  It's embarrassing because it literally makes me feel like an old lady. Even though I've gained more weight this time and last time when I need help getting up its because my bones hurt. It's weird to roll over at night and suddenly be in tons of pain and have to roll over extra slow like I'm a cripple. My waddle also has very little to do with my size and everything to do with bone pain. It's pretty cute to have a pregnancy/cripple waddle before age 30, trust me :) That's when I get most frustrated about having had more pregnancies than babies. My first two pregnancies were bone pain free, I just wish that the non-pain would have lasted more than two times. I'm hoping it will go away as soon as I have the baby like it did with Macy, fingers crossed! 

Other than that I'm all fluffy (like my fingers, toes and feet) and my fatigue has come back, but really just pregnancy life as normal. This picture is proof and it weirds me out. I normally have boney ankles and feet (thank you mom) so to not be able to see my ankles is just super weird to me. Did I mention that I kind of also hate feet? They are just kind of gross so to see my own feet look all bloated is extra yucky.

Along with extra weight gain I have come to the conclusion that since I live in Florida and we have a pool in our neighborhood I am spending time in the sun. Not a lot almost literally the daily recommended amount (15-20 minutes). I figure if I can't tone it ("it" meaning my ginormous pregnant self) I'll tan it. I feel like it's been really nice to dedicate time as often as possible to be in the sun. It does a body good. I figure if I have to spend the rest of the hot summer all fluffy post baby the least I could do is not be pasty white haha.

This week I'm 38 weeks along and it was only two days ago I actually pull out the little baby girl clothes and start washing them so they could be ready. And JUST today I finally ordered a bassinet. True story. With Davie we used our pack'n'play (which was just too big to have on the side of my bed) and with Macy we were able to borrow a bassinet so we've never actually owned one.

I've managed to take both kids to my doctors appointments the last 3 to 4 weeks. While taking the whole crew is not my favorite thing to do I can honestly say that it's not been too bad so far. No breakdowns or crying or anything else that made me feel like we needed to leave immediately so that's always good. No other major progress to report on that front but I'm still hopeful since all my babies have been born within a couple of days of D-day.

Right now I'm desperately trying to clean up the last couple of messes in our bedroom the fourth bedroom and the office. I'd say it's nesting but I've been trying to clean them up for months now and I think it's more like desperation at this point. The reasons why these areas have been neglected so long is because they could be closed off from small children but also because those spaces are really hard to clean with small children present... at all.

The 4th bedroom

We had visitors that spent the night last night and I BARELY managed to get the 4th bedroom under control by the time they got here. But not without absolute heck from Davie and Macy. Seriously yesterday my kids were THE worst. I hate saying that but yesterday it was true. They were all kinds of naughty to each other and all about making cleaning impossible as much as possible. As well as just literally following along behind me and destroying what I had done. ALL DAY LONG. Sometimes I think David worries about having more kids when I have days like that, but all I have to say is I really believe the part that frustrates me so much about days like yesterday is the fact that I know my kids can be SO well-behaved when they want to be. But aren't we all that way? And even more so as adults??

As far as this little gal goes she is a MOVER. Not the constant swishy/re-situaing type movements like my other babies have done but huge and often internally painful movements. There have been many evenings where her constant large movements have given my a tummy ache. Other nights I can watch what has to be one of her limbs move around as if she is trying to escape through my side! The plus side is I've never had to question if she is alive in there. I'm super curious to see what her personality will be like since both of my kids are so independent and busy. After I had Davie my mother-in-law said she didn't want any vanilla grand babies. I tease that Macy is my strawberry flavored baby and Davie is chocolate so I feel like I can have a vanilla baby now haha. A mom can hope!

This is me at 36 weeks and some change watching her try to escape from my stomach. Its extremely strange to watch and feel your entire belly move like that.

Other than that my family comes next Saturday and will be here for my birthday! Yay! And somewhere in all that hopefully we will have another baby girl. So at the end of the day there really isn't much to complain about. Life is good.

Adulting Win

I once watched a little video on Facebook that followed a young man while he posted updates on his Facebook. The gist of the video was that if he posted the truth no one liked it and if he posted something positive everyone payed attention. For example he posted that he was sad about his girlfriend breaking up with him and no one really said much and then he posted something like "Yay, I'm single" and everyone noticed. I REALLY liked this video and while I am in a totally different stage in life (marriage, house, kids) the point was clear. We share the positive and we edit the negative, in our posts, pictures and blogs. Even if we are going through a difficult time in our lives, which is unfortunate because that is when we should be sharing the most so we can receive support. 

So in order to NOT edit out the negative in my life and only share the positive, here is my rather long time coming adulting win I was finally able to experience mid February.

I feel like ever since I got pregnant I have been behind on house chores (and life but this post can't be that long). I didn't get sick per-say this time (more on that later.... maybe) but the fatigue was crippling. I was so tired! I have never been that tired before and it was not fun. I started babysitting at the beginning of September about a month after we moved in and then a month after that I got pregnant. In between all of that we had some visitors, holidays, game nights and just life. For the longest time we were just trying to clean up, organize/ unpack. I also was also not exercising, at all which of course made me feel even more crappy. Then December hit. We put up our tree, we got a TV, we set up our living room and cleaned for a game night. I was finally starting to feel like "yes! Our house is doing so great and we can do this!"

That was a Friday night. Macy got sick the next morning, thankfully it was only once, and all we had to do was clean all of her bedding and a small spot on the floor. Then on Sunday evening Davie got sick, for a full 24 hours. BUT Davie didn't just get sick. He got sick all over the carpet (as in we had to go out THAT night and buy a wet/dry shop vac to clean it up) and all over our NEW couch AND some of the couch pillows..... uuuuughhh. It was awful. We had to clean it immediately. Our couch was out of commission for several weeks until we got it cleaned professionally (totally worth the money we paid when we bought it) thank you upholstery protection plan! The carpet took forever to dry and basically we were up to our ears in laundry. To add to that later that night I got sick too. The kind of sick where you CANNOT eat anything for several hours or it just comes right up. Shakey, clammy awful. ALL NIGHT. I haven't been sick like that in YEARS. Probably about 15 years to be exact. AND The next day I had to babysit (sad face). 

So between getting sick, being fatigued, life and all our other projects I was feeling constantly behind. UNTIL the week of about February 15th. That's right. It was February and I was just barely feeling like we have hit the same level of cleanliness and organization that we had finally accomplished in December. Our computer/office room is still a disaster, but it's full of papers and things that are impossible to sort through with a small child even vaguely present (ESPECIALLY Macy), our bedroom because we don't have dressers means the clothing is out of control and our garage a LITTLE. Our garage isn't too bad though because we can park the Sequoia in there which is a HUGE car so I'm calling it an almost win. 

Anyways I guess where I am going with this is that sometimes in life I get feeling just soooo overwhelmed, like to the point of anxiety, and I feel like I will never get ahead, or even catch up, on my chores and life "things" in general. And way too often I don't think about times like the week of February before we visited Idaho. That last week at home before our trip was great. It's sooooo great to see and feel like we are making progress! I just hope we can all take a moment to enjoy our progress when it does FINALLY happen. I'm still working on getting my daily steps up (thank you Fitbit), but I'm feeling quite positive! There is a light at the end of the tunnel and to prove it I am finally posting some pictures of our house.

 Our Entrance area, to the left of our entrance is the office.

A small glimpse of the office

My super crafty office filing cabinet make over. What you can't see is how un-even the sprays turned out. Most are a matte finish (regardless of what the can said) and the top silver is nice and smooth. Oh well I still love it and the metallic sprays are useful for everything! 

 The downstairs bathroom/guest bathroom is to the right of the entrance area you can see the door. After the stairs is what they call the Drop Zone. It's basically an open coat closet that they built shelves in (not as an upgrade I might add!). It's a life saver. Of course ours only seems to looks this nice and clean about once or twice a week or when company comes :)

 The 4th bedroom is also down there, and even though it is actually pretty clean I didn't take pictures, it's really just an empty-ish room with storage items and my sewing machine.

First floor bathroom/guest bathroom.

This is my super cheap shower curtain from Kohl's, I think I ended up spending like $8 on it. I was excited haha. Mom life no? Trust me it was exciting. I had a very small budget for this room so it took me a while to get the towels and shower curtain. The flowers, mason jar and bird were nice because they were maybe $3.

Isn't that little birdie so cute? Davie found him for me at Habitat for Humanity for like .39 cents and then I painted him gold. I just love him!

 Living room if you go into the house from the entrance area.

Our amazing electronics cabinet that keeps little hands out of everything. I'm basically in love with it.

 Kitchen

Breakfast in the kitchen

Our cabinets

Looking at our front door from the kitchen area

Back to the entrance area and up the stairs.

I finally cut all the little plastic strings hanging out of our carpet and trimmed off the little paint spots left by the painters (don't even get me started).

TOYS! Of course they all leak downstairs and into the kids rooms, but I do try to round them up once a night and get kids to "clean up" completely once a week.

Kids rooms

Macy's pretty pink room

Lamp I re-did. I love gold spray paint

Craigslist dresser for $50. I wish it was a little more sturdy, but for $50 its great.

Davie's green room. I'm not in love with it. I actually kind of hate the green. I can't decide if I went to dark, or too yellow based or if I'm pregnant... etc. Either way I don't like it.

We had initially bought a red book shelf, but I exchanged it because it was just too much red and green with the red chair next to it. Again I can't decide what to do with his room now, it just seems so loud. I have always loved his decor before this and now I finally got to paint his room the color I always wanted to and I don't like it. I'm sure I'll figure something out eventually. I just don't want to/ can't afford to again paint for a while.