Month 9!!

4 Weeks left!! Maybe. This week people have shared they think it will only be two more weeks. I'm hoping for Oct. 23ish. A little earlier would be great for obvious reasons but it also wouldn't interfere too much with my time-off plans for work. I have Jan. 10 scheduled at the daycare and return to work at both my full time and part time positions. We'll see about the part time job. I still enjoy it and it's my individual activity but I may decide I want to be home as much as possible with Garrett and Baby. I have been making food for freezing so we can still have healthy food the first couple of weeks after Baby arrives. I've made Lasagna, chili, chicken noodle soup, biscuit dough and cookie dough and put it all in the freezer. We still have a lot of pork that we can also eat on. Our freezer and deep freeze are getting full, mainly because of the pork, so I'm not sure how much more I will prepare. That is in part because I'm running out of ideas for things that will freeze well and because of space. If anyone has any suggestions I am open to them. I've been buying extra toiletries and still have other items to get so we can limit going to the store except for fresh food items.

I've been having more regular Braxton-Hicks and continued swelling in my hands and feet. I've been taking baths every few nights to help with the circulation and all over aches. Baby has definitely dropped as I can breathe so much easier and eat more :). It doesn't matter how much I eat or what I eat, Tums are always nearby. Last night and the night before Baby has been very active during my sleeping hours. During the day she has her legs and arms to the left of my abdomen but as I sleep she stretches out and her backside migrates up, putting her little legs next to my ribs. After applying constant pressure for a few minutes to the edge of my ribs she finally stopped, and woke me by doing it again. At least she isn't doing it during the day also. With all this nighttime movement, this also means many more trips to the restroom. The nice thing is that the weather has been fantastic so we've had our windows open, allowing me to sleep very well when I am asleep. My shirts barely fit over the expanding belly but that's how it has to be for these last few weeks. We ordered a carseat that arrived last Friday. It's an infant seat that will last up to 35 pounds or so many inches long but I don't remember that part. I was surprised at how much space it takes in our car's backseat! It won't fit behind the driver's seat with either of us driving so we have to have it on the passenger side with the front seat up pretty far. It's quite uncomfortable but our only option would be to get a different car. We really like our car so we'll see how it works out. We may just take the truck when the three of us go somewhere together or one of us rides in the backseat with the baby. We looked into the convertible seats that are rear facing up to 35 pounds, then forward facing up to 65 pounds but they won't allow any more space for the front seat passenger than the specific infant seat does. I'm glad we bought the Ford because a carseat absolutely would not have fit in the extended cab of the Tundra.


Garrett worked so hard this past weekend and finished all the trim work in one day in the baby's room. It looks wonderful! It's amazing how big of a difference it made. We're also putting in new doors that will match the doors in the rest of the house. This should increase the value a lot with only spending about $800 for new doors, trim, hardware and miscellaneous supplies for the entire upstairs. As we're working on things we're going through boxes and getting rid of stuff that we haven't used/don't need. Every time I've moved I have cleaned things out and taken a load to Goodwill. Garrett said that every time he's moved, he has boxed everything up and never threw out anything. At least we're taking care of these things now. We'll have quite the loot to take to Goodwill.

My work has slowed down this week. We haven't had much work so I think things are starting to slow down for the holidays already. Garrett's work has kept him busy. They have a big tour coming through next week. In the building that they lease, there was space available so they extended their space and had some walls taken down and the space prepped for the work they do. The construction was completed only a couple of weeks ago so he and fellow workers have been rearranging the projects and equipment to prepare for the tour. Garrett plans to take next Friday off from work to get more gravel to finish the dog pen and to add more to our driveway. It will be nice to have the dog pen finished so I can put Huntley outside if need be. He really is great when we're home but it would be nice to have the option so we can have uninterrupted naps.

My next appointment is next week so we'll see how things look then.

Happy Thursday!

35 Weeks

Hi there. Things continue to go well for us. We bought trim for the entire upstairs and Garrett is going to start putting it up soon in the baby's room. We hadn't really cleaned up from the work we've done on the office room and baby's room so we started cleaning things up last night and will do more of the same tonight. We will shuffle a few things around so we can get at least the crib and changing table put together in her room. I'm also going to put up the wonderful wall hangings we've received. I will post pictures on facebook as soon as the room is ready.

My co-workers had a baby shower for me last week. 32 people came and they presented me with a generous gift card to Target. The girls I first worked with when I started at the company 4 years ago chipped in together and bought us a pack n' play. It will be very nice to have that on our main floor of the house so I won't have to go up and down the stairs to let the baby rest away from the pets. The cats may still be able to get in with her but at least she'll be out of reach from Huntley's tongue. It also has an attached changing station that hangs over the inside of the "crib". I've had a few people say they think I've dropped in the past week. Garrett just says I'm getting ginormous. Lol! I for sure feel quite large all over. Not just the belly.

I seem to be getting more and more sleepy and hungry. Chocolate milk is still fabulous and I have to keep limiting myself to only one glass each day since the calories are quite a bit more than plain milk. Don't worry, I get plenty of calcium between the plain milk, chocolate milk and my Tums. Ugh, the heartburn. Oh, I also get calcium from the ice cream, of which we have very little left. Perhaps we can talk someone into bringing us some Central when coming to visit us. My hips continue to be painful at night, then achy during the day. I've also developed carpal tunnel. I wake up in the night from moving my hands as they are sore and stiff. My hands have also been going numb when I haven't been laying on that arm. I called the doctor's office after looking it up and they said the same thing as what I read, that it's caused by the extra fluid in my body and should go away after delivery. They offered to refer me to a physical therapist to get fitted for a brace but I said I'd rather just deal with it for the last few weeks. It isn't severe right now and knowing that it's only temporary, I can get through it. The swelling in my feet are still an annoyance so I continue to take breaks and put my feet up every chance I get. Work has been busy so it's been a challenge some days but I make sure to do it anyway. I got my hair cut 4 inches off last week as you can see in my profile photo. I intended it to be about an inch longer with more layering towards the bottom but my hairdresser had a different idea. I showed her a photo I had of the back of my head from a cut I had a few years ago that I really liked but she wasn't able to cut it the same way. It took a couple of days for me to start liking it and I know it will grow. I think it's cute now and takes less time to dry and less shampoo. When I went to work the next day one of the girls in the lab said "Aw, you got a Mom cut." I didn't realize there was a "Mom" cut but apparently that's what I have. I just wanted something different and a little shorter since I've had my hair long for about a year.

At my appointment last week the doc said everything looks great and that I'm "textbook." My belly measurements have been right where they should be, Baby's heart rate is perfect, my BP is great and my weight is fine. He's now thinking she'll be 7-7.5lbs, IF she's on time. I sure hope so. I have my hospital bag packed when the time comes. He was impressed at my lack of stretch marks. Thank you Mom! Everyone at work thinks she'll come 1-2 weeks early. I'd be ok with that. She is still head down and growing, growing, growing. I can almost make out the outline of a foot that she's been stretching out the left side of my abdomen. My appointments have become about a week off due to scheduling so my next appointment is 3 weeks from my last one, so two more weeks from today. At that appointment they will do the normal measurements and weight check and also test me for Strep B and check to see if I'm beginning to dilate. Doesn't sound fun, especially the Strep B check. Oh well. After that appointment I go in weekly. I'm really getting excited and I think Garrett is, too. I plan to cook up some more food for freezing in the next few days and possibly make more applesauce now that our red apple tree's apples are more ripe. The farmers have been harvesting all over our countryside and the landscape is looking quite bare. It was such a great season and not too wet like last year that everything is being harvested sooner. They harvested the corn next to our house last week. Last year it wasn't harvested until the week before Thanksgiving. I'm sure the farmers will be happy to have more completed before the holidays. I have the house decorated for Fall and I just love it. Now if the weather could stay in the Fall temperature range that would be great. These couple of 90 degree days need to head south.

I'm sure there's more I wanted to post but I can't seem to remember at the moment. I hope everyones week is going well.

Catch up to you soon!

Not much longer

We're getting into the last few weeks before the due date. Only 6 more weeks and we'll have the little one to snuggle with. We're really getting excited. She's just as wiggly as ever. I can feel what I believe is an elbow glide across the lower left side of my belly that has been there for about a month. Her hiccups (getting stronger) are still down low and her bum is reaching towards my right ribs. Sleeping is really starting to be difficult. My hips are really bothering me and she has started waking me up a time or two in the night. That's on top of being hot, going to the bathroom, and now getting leg cramps. I've been careful with my salt intake and am still craving dairy. I've been drinking a lot of chocolate milk and regular milk with my cereal or a brownie. My feet have started swelling in the past week along with a little swelling in my face and hands. That's enough about my symptoms.

The past couple of weekends we've been able to make applesauce from the apples on our apple trees. It's oh so delicious. We cut the apples into slices with an apple slicer, cook the apples until they are really mushy, grind them with our Kitchen Aid mixer and the meat grinder attachment (this is the first time we've used the attachment), and then smooth the sauce further with a hand crank sieve. Then I add a touch of sugar and it's ready for canning. I was telling a friend of mine about it and she called me a domestic goddess! She doesn't cook or bake and I'm always telling her about things I've tried making and she heard this nickname some where. I said she could call me DG for short. She came back to me a few minutes later in the lab and said that DG also stands for duck girl and promptly starting quacking at me! I'm definitely waddling now so I couldn't argue. We had a good laugh!

I finished painting the office room and got the baby room painted this weekend! We tried a gray-toned purple and a light pink separately in the baby's room and neither of them were to our liking. The previous owners left their remaining paint in the basement so we took in a gallon and had it color matched. We went with a light tan that our bedroom is also painted. It will look nice with the farm animal theme and won't need to be repainted hopefully for a while. Now Garrett will put up new trim and it will be done!!

Work has been quite busy for both G and I. Hence, why I haven't been able to post for a while. My next appointment is tomorrow, then one more in two weeks, then we start the weekly appointments. We're getting closer and excited! Have a great week everyone!

Labor Day Weekend!

Woo Hoo! It's a 3-day weekend! I plan to gets lots of rest and also lots done at the house. It's supposed to be beautiful outside so perhaps I will clean up some landscaping. Last weekend I was able to paint all but one wall in the office room. It needed a bit more spackle in one spot but it's ready to be finished. We painted it a slightly dark shade of sage green. It's a bit darker than we'd planned but it looks nice and will do for now.

Baby is doing well. We had another appointment on Tuesday and her heart rate is great at 150bpm. My bp was 98/60 which is lower than typically for me but the nurse wasn't concerned. I gained 2 lbs which is perfect and I'm measuring right on for 32 weeks. Baby is getting hiccups on a daily basis. She is still in the head down position and growing, which means she is now reaching my ribs with her feet. Ugh. But she continues to be quite active and wakes me up around 5:30am from her wiggling. She hasn't been moving too much throughout the night thank goodness. The tour last week was nice and the childbirth class was good, too. Last night I went to a breastfeeding class that was very beneficial. I learned a lot of information.

While we were in MO for the baby showers, neighbor Frank's pigs, yes plural, all of his pigs got out of their enclosure one night and he woke up to finding them rooting around all over his yard and a couple of them in ours. They dug a few holes in our mulched landscaping that we need to fill in. He rounded them up and took them in for processing soon thereafter. He told Garrett last night that he won't be getting any more livestock until he puts up better fencing. I'd say! This is the second time and people drive fast down our gravel road. What if someone hit one or we take Huntley outside and Hello Piggy! There's always something interesting going on with neighbor Frank.

I found a changing table on Craigslist earlier this week that matches the crib we bought. It was half the price of a new one in the same model so we went and picked it up. It's in decent shape with only a few scratches. We had intended to use a dresser but haven't been able to get one to the house, nor do we have much time/money to go shopping for an antique dresser so this will do for a while. Her room is small anyway so it won't be so cramped. We hope to put primer and possibly paint her room this weekend so we can start getting it organized. I've done a number of loads of baby clothes in the laundry so when we get paint and shelving finished I can start putting her clothes in their place. I think we have enough clothes to last her through 1 1/2-2 years of age! Good thing her closet is big!

Work is letting everyone off early today so I will wrap us this post. I hope everyone has a great weekend and enjoys the weather. Love to you all!