Poll has Closed!

The results are in to our Baby #2 sex poll. It was a very close race between the two, however boys came in first by a hair. The results were BOY-8 and GIRL-6. What a close race! We will see in just a few short weeks who was correct. Thanks to everyone who took a second to vote as to what they thought I was having. Brent, Josie, and I are all so excited and can not wait ourselves to find out.

34 1/2 Weeks

Yesterday was a super busy day for me. I had work all day, a doctor's appointment after school at 4:00 PM, then a PTO meeting at 6:30 PM. I did not get home from my long day until around 8:30 PM. Lets just say that I was exhorted.

Everything at the doctor's office went smoothly as usual. I gained another 6 1/2 pounds in 3 weeks this time. WHAT! I know. The doctor could not believe it because I do not look like I gained that much. He stated that with me he is not concerned since I was under weight at the beginning. I know this is the same talk every time. Last month, we blamed it on Christmas, but I had no excuse this time. Darn. This puts my current weight up to 132 lbs at 34 1/2 weeks pregnant. Not bad right?! What am I saying, my god!

I am 30% thinned out and am dilated to a 1 already. He said it could be more, but he was not going to force it. He ran some additional tests that are standard 6 weeks out, so everything is on track.

I am having some joint issues. It kills to lift my legs and things like that. He stated it is like having arthritis. So those people that have arthritis I feel for you. I feel your pain. I however can not take any medication for it, so I just have to deal with it. I did not have this that bad with Josie, but every pregnancy is different. I feel sometimes that I can not even walk. He just said it is common, which I knew because the body is preparing to give birth. I had problems awhile ago and they went away and now it is back at full force. I sleep with pillows between my legs, but does not take away the feeling. The baby this time is sitting very very low. At times, I think it is ready to pop on out for a visit. He or she is sitting so low and adding a lot of pressure, which is making my legs at the hip hurt. The doctor just said to rest laying down to take the pressure off of the hip joints for some relief. Sitting does not really help because of the position of the baby, it still causes pressure and weight.

I was instructed to stay way from salts to keep swelling down. Which may help some of the pains I have been having. All the blood is running to different areas and swelling occurs. I have also been told to elevate my feet when I get home from school since I am on my feet all day long. You can not teach sitting down at least good teachers can not. So, I am milking the keeping my feet up after work. I have not experienced any real in my feet yet, but as it is quickly approaching I very much may.

I have a scheduled appointment in 2 weeks and then we are down to every week. Can you believe it already? I will go in 2 weeks and then the next appointment is my last sonogram unless there is a need for another one. They are doing the sono a week early this time since Josie was over 2 weeks early that way they can get a true reading of how big and what kinds of things to expect at delivery.


Photo taken January 26th - 34 weeks pregnant 132 lbs

Make Up Already?!

This is not a very good picture of Josie, but who is really photogenic at 6:15 AM.


At what age do you start allowing your child to start wearing make-up? That is the question. Josie watches me put on my make-up every morning before I head off to work. She loves watching and even wants some herself. So, being the nice Mommy that I am, I pretend to put some on her or give her the brush and act like I have already put make-up on it and let her do it herself. She thinks she looks so "pretty" in her words and struts her stuff when she has it on. Oh, and she has to have lipstick too.

Well, the other morning I was putting on my make-up as usual and she was sitting on the toilet seat watching. Like any other morning talking to me as I get ready for work. She grabbed the brush and was putting on make-up(well not really since there was nothing on it) and grabbed the mascara. I told her not to open it, it was something that only Mommy could put on her. She said ok and then put it back. I continued to do my hair and finish putting on my make-up when I looked down at Josie and saw that she had gotten out the mascara again and this time had opened the tube and put it on herself. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head. I quickly asked "what did you do?" Her response all cute like was "I put on make-up. Pretty Mommy!" I wanted to die laughing.

At such a young age she thinks she needs make-up. Oh goodness. Even when she goes over to Grandma Debbie's she always has to make sure to put on her make-up also.

The black lines that you see are the mascara that she put on herself. She knew that mascara goes on the eyes, but obviously her aim was a little off.

We have been robbed?! Or have we?!

We have been robbed!?! Or have we?!?

No, we have not been robbed, but one might think we have after viewing this photo. Lets just say Josie had a blast this morning, as you can tell. She was up for hours last night coughing and tossing and turning in Mommy's bed, so needless to say Mommy got hardly any sleep. Even though she had little sleep herself, she was up bright and early this morning at 6:30 AM sharp as usual. Come on Josie it is a Saturday and you were up late last night playing with Jacob and Presley who came over to visit. Why didn't you sleep in? For sure I thought she was going to.

Brent was good enough to feed her breakfast and keep her entertained when he got home from work until around 8:00 AM, but that was not enough time for me to get my needed rest. She wanted to play in her room, so she told be to go sleepy and nicely tucked me into bed. How nice of her. She left the door open and kindly went to her bedroom to play. I never really slept, but just rested. I could hear her playing in her bedroom and occasionally she would come and check on me. Just like we do for her. About an hour later, I got up and this photo is evidence of what I saw. I did not know what to think at first other than, oh my god. There was nowhere to walk through her room. I thought to myself, was her bedroom robbed, did a tornado hit it, but Josie corrected me by saying "Fun Mommy! Play?!" She had everything you can imagine out. All of her stuffed animals, every toy from the toy box, all her shoes out of her closet, all her shoes out of her closet, and don't ask me why but the step stool she uses to turn on her bedroom light was on her bed. What?! I know why in the would was her step stool on her bed. Thank god she didn't use it for something standing on her bed. There is nothing on the wall by her bed so there would be nothing to go towards. The only reason I could think of would be she had no open floor space and needed to move something to play. I mean her bed was even coated with toys.

All I can say is the once clean bedroom she had was destroyed. Josie attempted to pick up some of her toys, but you all know who in the end will get this dirty job. Just like all the rest, Mommy.

Man, I miss those days when I was young and I could destroy my bedroom/playroom and Mommy would help pick up. I guess that means, I want a maid. Get real I know.

This was not Josie's first go around with becoming a human tornado, oh no. Take a look at some other times Josie has had a blast playing in her bedroom.

Photo evidence of Josie having a blast last weekend

Vitamin C Crazy

Josie enjoying her orange juice from a big girl bottle in her monkey jammies.

How has everyone been feeling? I hope the nasty flu has not made it to all of you this wintery season. There is nothing worse than being sick and not feeling well. Josie has been cutting a molar now for several weeks and by the looks of it she will continue to cut it for weeks to come. We have been pumping her full of vitamin C to keep her going. She has had the runny nose thing that goes along with teething and just the other day woke up with a nasty nasty cough. Her cough is due to her runny nose, which is due to her teething. Bedtime is a disaster. You know how it is when you lay down you seem to cough more and more often because of the draining. So, nighttime has been a little sleepless lately here in our house and of course since she is "sick" in her words wants to sleep in Mommy's bed all night, which means that Mommy gets zero sleep also. Let me just say when I have to work I am super tired the next day.

So, keep pumping that good old orange juice and vitamin C!

I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for ICE CREAM!

I do not know what it is about the winter months, but ice cream just tastes so much better in the winter in my opinion. Do not get me wrong it is awesome in the summer time too, but it just seems like it is a little better during the winter months. We have been eating ice cream here at our house lately like it is going out of style. Almost every single night, we enjoy a bowl full of our favorite ice cream. Mine is mint chocolate chip. I have to say that Josie is taking a liking to this flavor as well. I give her the option of vanilla or mint chocolate chip and every time she chooses mint chocolate chip. She thinks she is the stuff when she gets her very own bowl. Well, who could blame her.

Tonight, Josie had the basement destroyed and when I say destroyed I mean toys everywhere. Brent told her he was getting himself a snack of ice cream and that she could not have any until the basement was all picked up. She did not like that response. He left her and went upstairs and told her to pick up her mess if she wanted some yummy ice cream. Lets just say that all of her toys did get picked up, but tears were shed in the process. I could not help but laugh. I was upstairs at the kitchen table doing some school work to prepare for my maternity leave, Brent was scooping up ice cream, and I could hear Josie crying, but also see her walking back and forth to her toy box picking up all of her toys like a good little girl. Minutes later she came upstairs wiping off her face and goes "Daddy I picked up. Ice cream now." It was so cute, but sad. When looking over her work, he agreed that yes she could have some now since she picked up 95% of all of her toys and put them where they belonged. She got lots of ice cream (twice as much as what Mommy gives her), in her own little bowl, with sprinkles on top. Now, you can not say Daddy is not a softy there when it comes to his little girl. She didn't even ask for sprinkles and he gave her some. I don't even give her sprinkles. Brent's response was "she deserves it." Man, what a sucker!

We ended our night as a family all three of us sitting on the couch eating some yummy ice cream. What a way to end the night!

Boy verse Girl

As most of you know we are in the home stretch with this pregnancy. Things have gone great! I could not have asked for a better pregnancy. Knock on wood! I have to say this time was easier so far than with Josie. It possibly could be that I have not gained as much weight (I have gained less than 1/2 of what I did with Josie at this point) and I am measuring 3 weeks smaller (I was huge with Josie and am currently measuring 3 weeks small. So picture my belly with 3 weeks growth added to it and that is where I should be at this point). We are quickly coming close to my due date which is March 8th. I am planning on working up until this date unless I go early and then be out of work for 9 weeks. Yes! This means that I will go back to work for 2 short weeks and then be off for Summer Break. Could not have planned it better I know. I could be out for the rest of the school year, but I did not want to have to put a sub through the hassle of closing my room, plus I would eventually have to go in to do work, so why not go and get all the work done before Summer Break begins.

Anyways, it is time to do the Boy verse Girl poll. What do you think this baby is going to be? On the side of the blog you will see a poll. Please take a second and vote as to what you think the sex of the baby will be. We did not find out the sex of the baby and will have one more sonogram and will not find out then either. Do you think boy? Or girl?

Brent and I have been working on names lately and I can proudly say we are getting there. We have 1 boy and 1 girl name picked out, so that just means 1 more boy and 1more girl name to go. We always go in with 2 names for each sex that way we can look at the baby and see which name fits better. We have the boys names left from when we were pregnant with Josie and that is one of our names, but we are exploring other options for our second choice. As for girl names, we were starting from scratch. Before you ask, we are not sharing our names, so don't ask because we are not spilling the beans on our names.

How much longer do I have? If you scroll down to the middle of the blog you will see some new items. One of them tells you how long until Josie turns 3 and the other is how far I am in my pregnancy and how many days until my due date. We are only looking at around 48 days until my due date. Can you believe that only 48?

Don't forget to vote on the sex of the baby!

Your Blocking My Camera Shot!

Brent thinks this photo is absolutely hilarious. As you know, we took our very own Christmas card photo this year using our expensive camera. It has a timer, so we were running like crazy to get into spot before the camera went off. In this photo you can hardly see Josie. My big belly and growing chest shades her so much. Each time Brent sees this photo he gets a kick out of it, because she is completely being blocked by the camera. It was not like I meant to do it or anything, it just came out that way.

Thought perhaps it would make you laugh like it makes Brent.

Oh Boy!

Brent and I were talking the other day about how doomed Josie is. Brent and I both wear glasses, so we think perhaps she will have to have them to eventually in her life. She decided to put on some glasses the other day and I cracked up because I thought she looked just like Brent in them.

Check it out for yourself. What do you think?

Love'n the Snow!

Josie loves to play outside in the snow. It does not matter how cold it is out as long as she gets to go outside and play. She is such an outdoors type of a person. Her main thing now is to throw snowballs. Brent taught her how to do that, so now she thinks each time she goes outside a snowball needs to be thrown at something or someone. What a little stinker!

Next American Idol Star

Josie is going to grow up to do lots of wonderful things we say. The newest trait to add to her growing list is the Next American Idol Star. On New Years Eve, she played a little Rock Band with the family at Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Terry's house. She rocked out singing just about any song that they played. Obviously, she did not know the words, but acted as if she did by far. She knew exactly what she was singing whether you knew it or not. She had to be the one who held the microphone and sang her heart out. Sorry, Aunt Lori for her being such a microphone hog. She is just like her Daddy always hogging things.

She is singing songs all the time it seems like. For instance, at night time I always sing her a song. Now, she starts to sing with me every night. It is so cute. She always says "Mommy sing Rainbow" or "Mommy sing "Mazing Grace." Meaning she wants me to sing her Somewhere over the Rainbow or Amazing Grace. She is picking up the words very quickly it seems like at times.

Here are a few photos of our little up and coming star.


I guess I can share my microphone with you, but no touch.


American Idol here I come!


Just waiting my turn.


You can not tell she loves her Mommy or anything, huh?!

Oh Christmas Tree...

I know Christmas is gone and over with, but I never posted this photo and think it is absolutely adorable. Josie is acting like she is a Christmas Tree. Isn't that just so cute?!

OMG!

I know I have posted a lot lately about my very strong hatred towards mice, well today my posting is icing on the cake. Over the weekend, we decided to put the Christmas tree away finally and pick up the storage room that is a complete disaster. Since, the baby is due in 8 weeks we decided to get out all of the baby items that we stowed away since Josie was to big for them and clean them up for the new arrival. In our efforts to get prepared, we ran into some not so happy things.

1. At some point, mice had gotten into a box underneath the steps where all of the baby items are. They had then gotten into a zip lock bag that had about 25 infant baby spoons inside and had a field day. By a field day, I mean this:





They had eaten the rubber coating off of the infant spoons down to the metal centers. The pictures may be hard to see put they are completely eaten. OMG! The spoons were clean, but must of still had a food scent to them or something. So, now once our little one starts eating foods to the store to buy new infant spoons I will go. Since, I no longer have ANY! Can you believe that?!

2. Not only did they eat the spoons, oh no that would be just lucky for us. They ate the plastic lining of the highchair also. That is right the highchair also. The high chair had been thoroughly cleaned before stowing it away under the steps also, but again must of still had a scent to it, because they got that also. My $100 high chair ransacked by little rodents I can not stand.

Now, I have to see if I can either buy a new liner for the high chair or buy a completely new high chair or one of those space saver chairs. This really makes me mad. If you know of anyone that has a chair that their little one has outgrown and is trying to get rid of it, I may be interested so keep me in mind. I will not need one obviously for around 6+ months, but it is better to be prepared. Perhaps I can fix the lining I have, but who knows. I mean that would just be gross.

So, I asked Brent what are we going to do now. We placed these items in the house to keep them from being mice food, but somehow these darn things are finding their way into the house and we can not find out where. Lets just say we better find the source and fast because it is really ticking me off. Brent is going to call the bug guy tomorrow, so hopefully we can get some help getting rid of all of these varmints. I mean this is like 7 now and I walk around the house on egg shells all of the time.

If any of you have some solutions on how to get rid of my pest problem, I am open to all suggestions. My suggestion for Brent was to move, but he did not go for that one.

32 Weeks along

Photo taken 1-5-10 day of doctor appointment

Yesterday marked me being 32 weeks pregnant. Can you believe it? Only 8 more weeks or less to go. Man, time has really flown this time around. It feels like just yesterday Brent and I found out that we were expecting our second bundle of joy. The baby's room is coming together. Slowly, but surely. Over Christmas break, we had a friend of ours who paints for a living come over and give us a much needed hand and he did an excellent job. If you are ever in need of a painter, I got the guy for you. Now, all that I have left to do is some little things such as make a valance (since one does not come with the bedding), put up shades (I have to get some that will fit due to a weird window size), and decorate the walls up a bit. Plenty of time, right?!

Tuesday, I ventured to the baby doctor for my appointment and everything went excellent. I am still measuring in small. I measured about being 29 weeks and am actually 32 weeks. Still, no big deal. Especially, since in the past 4 weeks I gained 6 1/2 pounds. 6 1/2! I blamed it on the holiday and my doctor got a kick out of that one. He told me he would except that answer, but not to keep gaining like that unless I want a huge baby on my hands. I have to say though that so far I have gained a lot less then what I did with Josie thank goodness. My doctors appointments will now be sooner. I am suppose to start going every 2 weeks, but we decided to wait and go in 3 weeks instead of 2 since everything is going good unless I come across a problem. Then, after my appointment in 3 weeks, I will go in 2 weeks and then every week. We are really getting down to the wire now. So, much left to do, so little time. At my next appointment, they will start measuring for dilation and thinning, plus run a few tests. No biggy.

Brent and I do not even have names picked out yet. What have we been up to? We still have the boys names that in case Josie was a boy we were going to use, however Brent wants to explore new options. As for girls names, we have none. We thought Josie was a boy so with her we really did not have girl names until we were on our way to the hospital. We always have 2 girls and 2 boys names picked out since you do not know which name fits until you see them in person. So, what about the other girl name we had, well it is no longer an option. So, back to the drawing board we go.


31 weeks 4 days pregnant

Out With The Old...In With The New

They say on average that a mattress lasts around 10 years. Well, Brent and I have been together but not married for over 10 years and ever since I have known him he has had the same bed. When we got married, we got rid of my bed because it was a water bed and kept his. So, how old was his mattress? No, one knows. Brent does not know where he got his bed from and either does his parents. It is that old. You could no longer read the tags on the bed and when you slept on it, it felt like you were sliding towards the middle and your feet were higher than your head.

Last year, we decided to purchase a new bed for us as a Christmas present to ourselves, but when we were quoted $1200+ we quickly changed our minds. So, for the past year we have been sleeping on this same old mattress. This year we thought we would try again, surely we could find a bed cheaper than that. We thought well we have to buy Josie a new big girl bed, so now is the time to look. And guess what we found a new bed for both us and Josie and we did not break the bank. Josie got a new Twin size bed and us a new Queen size bed. We really wanted the King size since Josie is in our bed for at least half of the night and of course is a bed hog, but after doing some measuring we did not think it would quite work out that well in our room. Since, we purchased 2 beds they gave us an additional discount and even through in a free bed frame for Josie. How nice of them! On the plus side, they even delivered it for FREE! YEAH!

So, how much of a deal did we really get. Well, 2 beds (mattress and box springs: 1 queen and 1 twin), twin bed frame, delivery, and mattress protectors for both beds all under....$850. Can you believe that? And no these mattress are not crappy they are really good quality. Lets just say in the future I will be returning to this factory direct store for all of my bed needs.

Now comes the tricky part, getting Josie to sleep all night in this new big girl bed. In her toddler bed, we had no problems at night she would happily climb in and go straight to sleep, with this bed it is a whole different ballgame. It now takes us around 1 hour to get her to bed when in the past it was about 10 minutes max. Poor us!

Christmas All Over Again

It may be January, but here in our household it is Christmas all over again. As most of you know back several months ago, Brent finally got the tractor of his dreams. At the time is did not run properly and needed some work done to it, but it was all his and no one elses. Over Christmas break, it was finally finished. A friend/cousin of ours has been working on his new toy and finally got everything going good. When Brent went and picked it up, he thought it was Christmas all over again. We had a little bit of snow then, so of course he had to play on it in the dark since he did not pick it up until after 4:00 and it gets dark by 5:00.

Today, we woke up to around 6 inches of additional snow on top of what we already had. Brent was so excited that way he could get out and play on his new toy. For him it was like Christmas all over again. However, when Brent went to the window, his huge happy face quickly went to a sad face. I did not think anything of it, but then he became really crabby for some reason. I looked out the window and had found that our nice neighbor had plowed out our driveway for us. How nice is he! I must say that I love that the neighbor was kind enough to do this for us, but since Brent just got his tractor it saddened me that he beat Brent to it. Our neighbor did not know that Brent had gotten his tractor already. He knew he was getting it at sometime, but did not know when.

Even though our neighbor was nice enough to plow us out, Brent let it sit for a while with the wind and then of course had to get out on the tractor and re-plow and fix the drive so that it was up to his standards of plowing. Funny I know. It is freezing outside, but he did not care as long as he got to play in the snow on his new toy.

With all of the snow, I got the day off of school. YEAH! So, Josie and I watched Brent play from inside where we stayed warm by the fire all day. What a life! Sat by the fire and never got out of our jammies.

Here are a few photos from the day after Brent got his new set of wheels. Enjoy! Brent does.

SNOW!

Today, Brent and I both had to go back to work after having almost 2 entire weeks off. It was so hard to do for several reasons. One - I had to get up early which was the first in almost 2 weeks. Two - It was cold outside and did not want to get out of my warm bed and jammies. Three - It meant that I had to leave Josie. Where did the 2 weeks go?

Even though, we had to both go back to work today, we had a blast over Christmas break. We got to cuddle up by the fire and drink hot chocolate, sleep in, and of course play in the snow with our Josie girl.

When we went sledding it was a little on the chilly side outside, but we made sure that Josie stayed warm all bundled up. In fact, she was sweaty when we took off her snowsuit. She did not like sledding by herself, oh no. She had to have someone with her and then she was having a blast.

Here are a few of our first sledding adventure this winter.