28 Weeks

The last and only belly picture I've taken this pregnancy was at 17 or 18 weeks.  I noticed I haven't really blogged about this pregnancy that much either.  Never told the story of how we found out or how the kids reacted when we told them (other than showing the pictures which wasn't the whole story.)  I never talk about how I'm feeling as things progress.  I guess there's a couple reasons for all that.  One, if I don't talk about it maybe it will go by faster?  (Wishful thinking.)  Two, I can get a little anti-social the further along I get in my pregnancies to be honest.  Not that I don't like being around people and need friends, it just depends on the day and the situation I guess.  It's hard to explain.   Reason three, I try not to complain and sometimes if I talked about pregnancy that's all I'd do.  I know it's a huge blessing (we struggled with infertility several times) and yet that huge blessing is really hard physically and emotionally. 

Back to the belly pics though.  I finally asked Dan to take one last week since it had been 10 weeks.  I've felt horrible about how much weight I've gained since it's been more rapid than my other pregnancies no matter what I do, so I didn't look forward to my picture taken.

I was very excited when what feels like a huge, over-sized belly in front of me didn't look so bad in this picture!

I figured it was probably because I was wearing black so I made Dan take another one with a different shirt on.  Yep, the black definitely makes me look smaller.  :)  (Funny how many comments I get at church when I'm wearing black as well.)  But I still don't feel horrified by this picture.  Especially when I put it next to me pregnant with Lacey at this point.

One more wardrobe change for fun to see if it made a difference, and my girls wanted to be included this time. 

So how are things going you may wonder?  Depends on the day.  Today's a good day so I'd say well.  But other days not so much.  Some days my ribs absolutely ache by evening (something I've never had before,) and sometimes her kicks are painful or really uncomfortable.  Many days I'm a little too quick to get angry with my family.  I look forward to having this body and my emotions back in a few months.  I feel like with this being baby #4, my body is just fighting harder against doing this.  I've never had ligament pain nearly as bad as I have this time.   And Lacey's really good at sticking her elbow in just the right spot to send a horrible shooting pain down my stomach all the time.  She knows there's a baby in there, but she also thinks my tummy is her personal pillow.  Matty's probably the one who's most excited about this baby.  He loves to feel her kick and move around.  He talks to my stomach more than anyone. 

I had a checkup today and she seems to be head down already, measuring right on, and heart rate is perfect.  She's extremely active most days.  My other kids were usually sleeping when I'd be grocery shopping from all my movement, but not this one!  She will kick up a storm even when I'm being active.  I warned Dan that my doing Zumba this whole time (yep, still going strong!) has probably messed her up.  She'll be our baby that can't be rocked to sleep because it's not enough movement.  We'll have to dance her to sleep.  :)  Oh, let's hope that's not true!

A LONG Time Coming!!

Matty got a "big kid bike" back on his 5th birthday.  I was fine letting him have training wheels that first year since the bike was still a little big for him.  Once he hit 6, we tried several times over the years to teach him without the wheels, and he was always just so scared to death and couldn't balance.  He'd always end up crying.  It felt like trying to teach him just wasn't worth it.

With his 8th birthday coming up, I was determined that he wasn't going to be a training wheel kid anymore!  (After all, I don't think they supply those for missionaries, do they?)  I told him this past Saturday that we were going out and he was going to try again.  I gave him this big pep talk about how it's okay to fail, how it's okay to fall, how he'll get better every time we try, yadda yadda yadda.   The first few attempts didn't go so well and I was sure that "today wasn't going to be the day," but at least we would practice.  I thought maybe I was just a lousy teacher since frankly I haven't ridden a bike in 10 years.  However, once I stopped running alongside him while holding on and just gave him a push start instead, he totally got it!  Within 30 minutes he was doing LAPS around the church parking lot!  He was so proud of himself!  He hasn't been able to put his bike down since.  He just wants to ride all the time, even to a friend's house 2 doors down.

This look CRACKS ME UP!!  It's so him!  The one eyebrow raised look of determination while trying not to smile at mom.  Love this kid!!

What It Takes to Build a Temple

We talked about temples for FHE last week.  After our discussion, we each got to build our own temple with mini marshmallows and toothpicks.  Lacey didn't actually "build" as much as she just poked holes in marshmallows and threw them and sticky toothpicks on the floor. 

We were blessed enough to have Spider Man and Rapunzel over for FHE this day because . . . well, I guess they need the gospel, too.  :)

(Mom's, Jossy's, Dad's, and Matty's creations!  Lacey's pile of mutilated supplies are in the background.)

Making Use of That Weddding Dress

 Jossy has been asking for more than year to try on my wedding dress.  I told her of course she could but I wanted to take pictures of her when we did it.  (I had seen this idea where you take pictures of your girls in a wedding dress when they're little then display them next to their real bridals when they get married.  I LOVE THAT!)  It wasn't until today that I was setting up stuff for a shoot tomorrow when she reminded me about it, so we got out the dress and had some fun!!  Lacey was determined to have a turn as well, though she didn't last nearly as long as Jossy did.  Both girls were pretty much falling out of the dress of course, but we did the best we could.   

These are just a few of our fun times!

 

Love the bright chipped nail polish?  Me too.  LOL

 

 

  

  

  

Jossy really wanted me to try on the dress, too, so that she could take pictures of me.  I warned her it probably wouldn't fit with my big baby belly, but we got it all zipped up!  In fact, it was still much loser on top than when I got married almost 11 years ago.  SCORE!  I remember being nearly in tears that day when I went to put it on and it was super tight.  I had felt like I couldn't breath!  And here I am 6 months pregnant with baby #4 and it fits better!  HA HA!  Made my day!

Pardon the lack of makeup and hair not done.  We were just having fun.  :)

Field Trip to the Aquarium

Since Jossy and I have preschool at home, I try to make sure we're still doing fun things like field trips.  Last month we went to the Planetarium after learning about planets, and this week we got to go to the Living Planet Aquarium after studying fish and ocean creatures for a week.  We'd never been before.  Despite a lot of elementary students on field trips, we were able to enjoy ourselves.  Our favorite things included the jellyfish, sea otters, penguins, sea horses, sharks, starfish, and snakes (Jossy's favorite, not mine.)

Jossy's favorite thing was petting the gray shark in the touching pool.  The pool was way too deep for her to be able to reach much even with me lifting her, but the shark stayed near the surface and kept going around and around poking it's head out like a puppy looking for people to pet it.  Weird.  She loved it though.  I was really proud of her for not being scared.  Lacey wouldn't even stick her hands in the water.

 We also loved seeing the giant fish from the Amazon.  Wouldn't want to go swimming with those!