Sunday, November 26, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, here we are, wrapping up Thanksgiving weekend! Where has this year gone? 

We had a wonderful and low-key Thanksgiving, which is pretty much the norm for us since we tend not to travel over this holiday. We slept in and ate a yummy breakfast and then spent most of the day pulling out some of the Christmas decorations (S is always pretty adamant about waiting until the day after Thanksgiving, but I played the pregnancy card this year. In my defense I'm moving a lot slower these days and I'm not sure I could have got up all the decorations on Friday like I normally do!) and then playing at the park with some friends. We made the typical Thanksgiving fare for dinner that I love, like stuffing and sweet potatoes and cream corn, but we always like to switch up our meat dish since we aren't going to do a big turkey for just us. This year I had S make his dad's pot sticker recipe. A little out of the ordinary, but they were delicious and the kids loved them too! 

Anyway, here's literally the only three pictures I took. Oops, mom fail!




After dinner we were all watching a movie on the couch when I told L I though I heard a weird sound and to go check and see if the printer was on because I thought I heard something printing. He went to check and..... there was a note from Frosty! That sneaky little elf sent his note this year to our wireless printer! 



At first the kids were confused since we got the note but they didn't see Frosty, but after doing some looking we discovered that he had snuck into the loft, bringing back his book and his annual gift of Christmas PJ's for the boys.





Welcome back, Frosty!











Monday, November 13, 2017

Third Trimester!

Alright, third trimester here we go! I hit 29 weeks tomorrow! Things are still going well, although I'm definitely leaving behind the "cute" pregnant stage and getting into the uncomfortable and "over it" pregnancy stage. I'm still only up about 9 pounds this pregnancy, but I lost a bit in the beginning when I was so sick and baby is growing perfectly! (I also started this pregnancy a good five pounds heavier than I normally am!) I did fail the one hour glucose test and am currently waiting on the results of my three hour. I'm nervous because, but I'm trying not to worry to much because I always fail the one hour in all my pregnancies and then pass the three hour. It's just annoying because I don't hit any of the risk factors to have GD so it's frustrating to have to go through this every time.

We are still holding strong on not finding out if the baby is a boy or a girl, and I"m just so excited for that moment in the delivery room when we find out! We have been throwing around lots of names but haven't settled on anything. We have middle names and I think we are closer on settling on a boys name, but girls names are hard! Overall I feel good except for the ever present rib pain. I'm still making it to the gym 3-5 days a week and trying to focus on getting weights in at least two of those days. I did a spin class yesterday for the first time in forever, and Oh my God it was so hard! Lol, it's amazing how much harder everything keeps getting just week by week. I'm still wearing mostly non maternity clothes although I can't button my pants so I have to rock a belly band with them. It's probably time to just move into maternity jeans. Most of my tank tops still stretch over the bump fine, but I have pulled out a few shirts that I have been wearing occasionally. 

I can't believe we are less then 80 days from meeting this baby!!

And here's a few pics of the bump. The top one is a few weeks ago at about 25/26 weeks, and the bottom one was this weekend heading into 29 weeks!



Fall Soccer 2017

We just wrapped up our first soccer season where we had all three boys on teams! It was pretty hectic and S and I took on coaching both R and L2's teams, but it was really fun. L really improved this season too, and finally seems to be really getting and enjoying the game!

Anyway, just wanted to drop in a few pics of our soccer studs!




R turns four!

This little dude turned four last week.


FOUR!!! I think he officially a little boy at this point, no longer my baby and not even really a toddler anymore. It's pretty amazing to watch this little person he is growing into, but man, it's really freaking bittersweet too. 


He had school on his birthday, and was super excited to wake up to a room full of balloons (our birthday tradition for all the kids) and then take cookies to his classmates, but first we made a special mommy/son date for donuts after we had gotten the two big boys from school.


The rest of the day/night was pretty low key. My parents were in town so we had them over for a pizza dinner, cupcakes, and of course presents. R was very excited for presents, he's been talking about them every since L's birthday back in September. 




He made out pretty well, with Lego's and books and toys, and a new pair of rainbows (because rainbows are his jam!) and a lion sweatshirt that he has been asking for every since he saw it in the store.




Oh, my sweet R. You are hard to even describe. You are our wild child. You are stubborn and feisty. You have a fiery temper when you don't get your way, you like to torture your brothers but you are fiercely protective if anyone tries to mess with them. You give the sweetest cuddles and kisses but you also have the most mischievous little grin that usually means you're up to something. You already love the baby in mommy's tummy and are pretty insistent that it is a baby sister (we will see!), but I'm a little worried about how you will react when they baby actually gets here and you are no longer the baby. You are a mama's boy without a doubt, you love being near me, but your daddy is one of your favorite people in the world. I have no doubt you are going to take this world by storm. We love you so much, my little monster!




Happy fourth birthday, R!







Saturday, November 4, 2017

Pumpkin Carving and Trick or Treating!

Well, we've kicked off the holiday season with yet another successful Halloween! The kids (especially R) were counting down the days and asking if it was time to trick or treat yet for basically the last two weeks. Needless to say they were pretty excited. Off course before we could do anything we had to carve our pumpkins! It's still so hot here that you really can't do your carving until a few days before, otherwise the pumpkins just disintegrate, so we did ours two nights before the night.





R and L2 had me help them draw faces on theirs, and then they "helped me" carve them (AKA, I carved them while they gave me instructions and danced around!). L actually wanted to try one of the more complicated pictures this year and did a majority of the carving himself, with some help from Daddy. His turned out really cool and he was pretty proud of it!





And then, finally, it was time for costumes and trick or treating! This year we had a red power ranger (R) and blue power ranger (L2) and a ninja (L). Apparently our days of cute, cuddly costumes are over! But they all still looked pretty darn cute and they loved their costumes.




We usually trick or treat with our good friends and their kids, which we did again this year, and we also had some other good friends join us. We ended up with eight crazy kiddos, but it was so much fun!



I had originally planned on only going for about half an hour with them and then going home and handing out candy. I"m starting to get pretty uncomfortable as I move into the third trimester and I wasn't sure I would be up for a whole night out. But I ended up surprising myself (and I think everyone else!) and staying out the whole time. I even went through a haunted house with L and R! (R had to be carried after the first minute, and L2 wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. He followed us in about five steps, saw the first scary person and booked it out of there!)




It was a really fun night, even if I was wiped by the end of it! I"m so happy we, and the kids, have such an amazing group of friends and such a fun neighborhood do make all these memories with!



Happy Halloween!