Oh Happy Day!

Guess what? I'm back in my pre-pregnancy jeans as of today! I'm a little muffin-toppy, but right now that doesn't matter. It's nice to have something feel normal.

And, I needed to give a shout-out to my sister-in-law Kelly. She had her boy Jack last Tuesday. Here are some pictures of the cutie (thanks, Amy!). Congrats, Kelly and Mark! Hopefully it will be sooner than later when we get the chance to see him in person.

Also, I promise when I get the chance and am feeling in control a bit more, I'll post more pics of our Ivy. Right now I still feel a bit like her:

The Ivy Cometh

Ok, off the bat, this isn't Nat. This is her loving, kind and endearing husband Pete fresh from the hospital with pictures of our new bundle of joy. Ivy Marie P. was born this afternoon at 1:06 PM after two phenomenal pushes by her loving mother. It was good times. Here are the pictures to prove it.

So here she is. I think she looks a lot like Brock when he was born. Maybe a bit less hair, but those cheeks sure have chub potential.

Here's all of us at the hospital today with our new addition. Gotta admit Nat is looking really hot for having birthed a child today.

Here she is just moments after being born.

And here's another shot of her all cuddled up in her blanky. So cute! (yeah that was kind of girly, but I don't care)

Here's my girls. Nat is surely going to kill me for posting this one lol.

K, so this one is mostly for my mom to show her how much hair my Ivy has. All my kids were born with loads of hair. This is just another example of this phenomenon.

If You Don't Like Raspberries, Don't Look!

Yep. My boys love blowing raspberries. And my belly is the perfect firmness, ripe for the fabulous "ppppfffftttthhhhpppp" noise.

And, because you already think I'm super amazing, here's a little poem I made up that you'll love (or you'll love me anyway, in spite of my poem) :

'Twas the night before baby, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The mom had cleaned everything,
Except the gross floor
Though her pelvis was hurting,
Then she said, "Hey, no more!"

The boys were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of baby sisters danced in their heads.

The dishes were done,
The hospital bag packed,
The camera batteries charged,
Not a thing did she lack.

The mom enjoyed her final moments with three
While baby girl kicked in her stomach with glee.

The excitement arises,
The moment has come!
In the morning I'll be drugged;
From waist down I'll be numb!

And then it's all over,
And soon I will birth "it"!
We'll see our new baby-
The waiting well worth it!


I know, I'm totally Dr. Seuss in the making!

Nesting Gone Wrong

Dear Duckie shower curtain:

I'm so sorry I accidentally maimed you. You were a good curtain. You've been with me since college. I've loved you, and moved you, and enjoyed the privacy you gave me.

I didn't want to hurt you. Actually, I was trying to clean you, and thought I'd take the easy route and put you in my clothes washer. I didn't know you would take it so hard.

Well, so long, Duckie. It's been a wonderful friendship. I'll have to try and replace the irreplaceable.

With love, your brokenhearted former owner, Nat

Baby Update

Guess what? My countdown thingy is officially wrong after today's doctor visit! My little girl has been resting her head on a nerve or something, and it's made what was a slight discomfort after long-ish walks into excruciating pain at all times across my pelvic bone and into both of my legs. So, my awesome doctor has taken pity on me and will induce me this coming Sunday-Mother's Day! YAHOO!!! Unless I go into labor sooner, which is a possibility given my boys have all come about 2 weeks early. But Sunday is the end of this long, long, long pregnancy! *sigh* I love modern medicine.

Stuck

Sometimes my life seems to be like the movie "Groundhog Day", where Bill Murray lives the same day over and over, but with little variations every time. For instance, my little pregnancy countdown thingy on my blog by Lilypie.com. Isn't it supposed to move down? Although today I had the epiphany that I think it's moving UP, counting weeks finished instead of days left. But still, I kept looking at it, thinking, "MOVE, you silly thing! I want this pregnancy to be progressing one way or the other!" Okay, I'd prefer it progressing just one way, but you get the idea. Stuck.

Or cleaning my house for example. I'm continually looking at things and I'm like, "I JUST cleaned that, didn't I?" Last night I had the boys clean up their toys downstairs, and this morning at about 9:30 ALL of the toys were ALL over the floor. What's up with that?!?!? So instead of organization and cleanliness, I have chaos and messes. Always. Stuck again!

And my doctor totally hasn't helped the "stuck" feeling. Last week at my appointment I got checked for any progress. And he said, "Yeah, there's nothing. Looks like your due date will be right on." Huh? Come on! How about throwing a poor girl a bone? Like, "Well, nothing yet, but you never know, eh?" Although, I don't know which is worse: Comment A, as mentioned above, where you leave the office depressed, or Comment B: "We'll see you next week, if not before then in the hospital!", and then you leave all hopeful and come back the next week depressed. Maybe tomorrow he'll have better news for me. Like, "Well, you've done your misery time. How about we induce you right this second?" I know, I know-in my dreams!

To top it off, Mother Nature seems to be stuck as well. Just when I notice my cute little tulips getting ready to bloom, BAM!-we get snow. None of this get warmer, hopeful, springtime crap in Idaho, oh no! We need MORE winter, because this last one wasn't long enough! But, for all that, my kids decided they wanted to play "Snowball Fight" outside today. Eh, my freshly mopped floors weren't going to last much past lunch anyway, why not? They had a blast!

So, we can cross "stuck inside" off the stuck list! Thanks, boys, for showing me that we're still moving forward, even when it doesn't feel like it!

Do as I'm Doing

Just me and my cuddle bug. No, I'm not embarrassed; I got super sunburned on Saturday. You'd think after 28 years of fair skin that I'd actually remember sunscreen every time I go outside, but I still forget. DOH!

What I should be doing:
Cleaning…pretty much anything in my house. It’s filthy!
Writing thank-you notes to the amazing people that have been so kind to me lately.
Hanging blinds and putting smoke alarms back together
Running errands-tons of places to go
Setting up my nursery

What I wish I were doing:Getting another massage.
Giving birth to my baby girl. I’ve had enough pain and discomfort!
Sleeping! I’m definitely not getting enough right now!
Eating something chocolate and drinking Coke!

What I’m actually doing:Trying to breathe. I have some kind of sinus thing going on, and the sinus stuff I took totally isn’t helping.
Blogging (that’s obvious!)
Sitting, because walking is super painful for me right now. My baby is resting on a ligament or tendon or something, so my right leg is killing me. Even lying down can be painful.

So, what are you doing (besides reading the best blog in the universe) , should be doing (don't worry, this blog is SO worth every second you spend on it!) , or wish you were doing (reading my blog...wishes really do come true!) ???

Painting the Roses Red...

...or the rooms yellow! This is a YAHOO! post, by the way. So you'd better share my enthusiasm, dangit! I've been SO busy this week! We've been trying to get our other two bedrooms downstairs finished to make room for the new baby coming. Saturday after my baby shower April came over with her little fam. She and I primed one room while our hubbies took care of the kids and played Rock Band. Then that night Pete primed the ceilings.

Then Tuesday my awesome mom came over and we painted, painted, painted! What's funny is I bought some paint called "Antique White", which is what we have in the rest of the house. FYI, not all Antique Whites are created equal. It looks more yellow than white, though depending on the light it seems more of the antique white. Here's our primed ceiling (primed in white) and the newly painted walls:



Yellow, huh? But I like it, I really do! And with the ceilings the same color now, thanks to Pete's expertise at ceiling painting, it looks great. Then Thursday morning Carpet Mart came over and put new carpet down. YAHOO!!! Now our rooms really are rooms!




Granted, we still have to set stuff up, but last night we put Jakob and Brock in their new room. Jakob had been asking all week if he can sleep in his "new big room". He's worried about the books that we read to them and keep in their old room on the shelf, and also about his clothes.

While we may or may not figure out the book thing right now, I bought a new dresser for the boys' clothes. Last Friday night when it was time to get ready for bed, Brock decided to be a big helper and get his pajamas. We've kept Jakob's clothes in the bottom three drawers of a dresser in their old room, and Brock's clothes are in the top two. So Brock proceeded to pull out the drawers to climb up to get his jammies, and the whole thing fell over on him! Luckily he was unhurt, but it really freaked him and the other boys out. Since we needed a new dresser anyway, I got one that's 3 drawers high and 2 drawers wide; one side will be Jake's and the other Brock's, and they can both reach their stuff. Another YAHOO, please!

So we're well on the way to getting everything settled. I can't wait to have a scrapbook room, the baby's room set up, and the boys' dresser together. And if my dang pelvic bone would stop hurting, maybe I can get it all done today. Even if it does hurt, though, we can probably get most of it done anyway. As the nurse said while I was in labor with Jakob, "Breathe THROUGH the pain." And I replied, "Yeah, right! Give me the epidural!" And hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be having that same scenario! But today...no epidural; maybe some Tylenol though. YAHOO for nesting!

Frozen

As is tradition on our street, this last Wednesday cute cute Arin threw a baby shower for me-a frozen meal shower! It is THE BEST idea in the universe! I don't know who started it, but when we all moved in about three years ago (our neighborhood is fairly new) this custom also started. Everyone on the street-or whoever can make it, I guess-comes to one girl's house, brings a frozen meal for the girl expecting, and we sit and gab and fringe a fleece baby blanket. Arin made a wonderful dessert, too. Then you can use the frozen meals after the baby is born, or when you want to, I guess. I think last time I used most of my frozen meals before Troy was born because I just didn't feel like cooking. Thanks, Arin-you're the best!


Krista and Rachel


Arin and her cute baby Stacy


Deann

Showered in Pink!

Saturday my mom and sister threw a baby shower for me. YAHOO! As I've only had boys thus far, getting girl stuff was SO needed! I hope we actually have a girl, now that I'm all set up! If the ultrasound lady messed up and she comes out and ends up being a boy instead, he'll end up wearing girl stuff anyway!

I'm normally anti-games at baby and bridal showers, but we played some fun games that Kar came up with. One was name the baby name for animals (quick: what's the name for a baby bee?), one was finish the nursery rhymes, and one was guess what food is in the baby jar. (All meats mushed look the same!)

Then I opened a bucket-load of presents, thanks to the generosity of the fabulous ladies that attended. After that we ate a really yummy chicken-y salad with lots of goop (I LOVE "goopy" salads!), rolls, yummy cupcakes, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. My mom is a fabulous party planner! She should do it as a real job-planning receptions, and open houses, and showers...she would rake it in!

Here are the guests:

Vicki and Debbie


Kar and Arin


Me and April


Joan, Ann, and Aunt Terri


Mom and Marilyn


Maggi and Vicki


Arin and April were the official camera handlers. And man, do I make REALLY weird faces! Here are a few of my favorites:















I got to take home some of the cupcakes. Here's a "before" shot, of how cute they were, and an "after" shot, when my boys discovered them:





Thanks, Mom and Kar, for throwing this shower for me! It was tons of fun! I really appreciate it!

Rant and Rave

So. I know you're probably sick of hearing about me whine about my pregnancy. So I'm not going to right now. Let's just say I'm really, really, really ready to have this child, and if she's not out in three weeks like her brothers were, I'm cutting my belly open myself to retrieve her. Okay, I'm not, but I'll want to.

Instead of a rant, you'll get to read a rave. Here is currently what is fabulous about my pregnancy, or what's fabulous right now in my life. And it's for real; I'm not being sarcastic.

1. First of all, a shout-out to Isaac and Heidi for having their baby earlier this week. Congratulations! And super props to Heidi-I've not had to squeeze that much human out of me before. 9 lbs. 12 oz.? Yeah, that's about 3 pounds more than mine have been thus far, which makes a huge difference. If you don't know from experience, just trust me on that one. She's a doll, so go check out her pictures on their blog! It makes me excited to see my own girl soon.

2. Today I've conquered as many weeks as I have days left. 35 weeks down, 35 days left. How awesome is that?

3. My kids have been awesomely self-entertaining today. They even fed themselves lunch! We had pizza last night, and Brock the raccoon got it out of the fridge and his brothers joined in. They still claimed hunger when the actual lunch time rolled around, but didn't really eat, as eating most of a whole large pizza between the three of them filled them sufficiently. Yeah, if I collapsed somewhere in the house I wouldn't have to worry at all about them starving to death.

4. And because I was weeping in agony last night, I needed a laugh today. Hollywood posted this on her blog a while back, and I laughed my head off! It's from a book called Safe Baby Handling Tips. And apparently there's a Safe Baby Pregnancy Tips as well-I'll have to peruse my local bookstore and get it! I don't know if this is it in its entirety, but it's what has been posted. I hope you laugh as much as I did! (Please excuse the spacing on it-blogspot was having picture posting issues, and I'm sick of trying to make it look pretty.)