The best of intentions...

That's what I had when I wrote my last post on here, the best of intentions to resurrect the blog & give quick updates before new girl arrived. Well new girl isn't here yet so I guess I technically still have time, right? And right now both of the other members of my household are still asleep so well see what I can get done before they wake up!

New Girl's 37 week ultrasound, just a side view of her forehead & nose, her
hand is covering her mouth & chin.

Let's start with new girl: She's a busy, active growing girl (recent ultrasounds have verified she's still a girl, relieving a secret fear of mine that she'd come out a boy! Nothing wrong with a boy except we've been preparing for a girl!)! She was flipping head down to head up for a few weeks there, between 32 & 36 weeks, which felt late for her to be flipping so much, but the dr's assured me it wasn't anything to stress about, she was probably small & just had the room to do so, she'd settle in eventually, etc. but of course as a mom I worried. But she proved them right & settled at head down around 36-37 weeks & has stayed that way since. Because we were concerned about positioning I had an ultrasound at 37 weeks to verify she was head down & see how much fluid she had around her. Everything checked out fine & it was nice to get to "see" her again, as I didn't have any ultrasounds this late with E. Then I had another ultrasound at 38 weeks because the doctor felt I was all of a sudden measuring big, when all along I've been measuring small or normal. That kind of freaked me out again, but the ultrasound verified that new girl was ok, they put her in the 60%tile for size, and estimated her at 7lb 11oz, give or take 1.5lbs. But this was at 38 weeks - still 2 weeks to grow & for me to have to push put a large baby!! E was 7lb 1oz, and the dr's have been estimating all along that new girl will be right around the same size, so I was not expecting to hear "big baby"! But she is what she is at this point, no changing that, and no point in stressing about it I suppose! So all in all she's doing good. She's pretty active all day long, definitely more in the evening, but not bad throughout the night. But even though she's not disturbing my sleep, my constant trips to the bathroom are! I am starting to feel like she's grown bigger & is taking up most of the space available to her. I'd say im definitely ready for her to come out now! :-)

The crib is finally here!

On to baby prep- after ordering our nursery furniture about two & a half months ago, the final piece (the crib!) has finally arrived & is ready to go! This is crib number three that babies r us has sent us - the first two arrived damaged. At least they threw in assembly this time for us. The dressers have been here for awhile & are stocked with clean clothes, blankets, burp cloths, bibs, and of course cute hats & headbands! It's nice that we are able to reuse all of the "ancillary" baby items, i.e. non-clothing items, with new girl. We'll be using most of E's baby clothes of course, but with E being born in January & new girl coming in April the seasons are off just enough to not be able to reuse everything. I've bought a small amount of warm weather clothes in newborn & 3 mo sizes, but I've tried not to go crazy since we don't know how big new girl will be. Other than furniture, the only other stuff we had to buy new was bedding, decorations, and a second monitor camera. I'm sure E doesn't really need that monitor in her room anymore, but I'm not ready to give that up! :-)

Emmy at 27 months old

Speaking of E... She's doing great! But she's growing too big too fast! Dan & I have a discussion at least once a week about how fast time has flown, how big she is, and wonder where our little baby has gone?! She's a pretty amazing little girl, and I know that all moms think that about their children, but she really is. She's so smart, fun, funny, silly, she's a thinker & wants to understand and figure everything out, she's independent and wants to do everything by herself, and it's just so much fun to watch her learn & grow. Her play has become really imaginative, she still loves playing baby dolls & with her "peoples" & princesses. She also loves playing kitchen, tea party, and her latest is doing puzzles! She's really good at them! She's moved beyond simple 6-9 piece tray puzzles & can now do bigger 24 piece puzzles! She needs a little help with new ones the first few times she does it, but after that she's good at matching the colors to fit it all together! Emmy also recently watched her first full length movie! With all the hype about Disneys Frozen we finally decided to check it out. I wasn't sure that E could sit still for a whole movie at a theater, so we brought it home & started our Friday night movie night tradition, which includes putting all of our pajamas on, pulling out the couch bed & making popcorn to watch the movie! We tried watching a new movie two weeks ago, Happy Feet, and although she talks about it & seemed to like it, she didn't sit still for as long as she did with Frozen, and I think the story line may have been a bit over her head. But either way, Friday night movie night has become a fun tradition for us! And I'm sure we'll be expanding what she watches (& how much) even more once new girl arrives!

Haircut #2

Emmy loves painting!

Puzzle time!

It's pretty amazing though; she doesn't know exactly what's coming when baby sister gets here, but she knows something is coming and changing. She's been super clingy to mommy lately, almost as if she knows her time as the one & only is coming to an end. She's also just in the last week or so started to pretend to be a baby. She will fake cry or "baby talk" to us, but we can usually persuade her out of it with all the ways it's better to be a big girl, mostly watching shows/movies & playing with big girl toys :-) That being said, she also seems very excited to have a little sister soon! She tells us all the time "I'm the big sister!", and she always asks to "see" baby sister (i.e. lifts up my shirt to talk to or kiss my belly), it's pretty adorable! (Except when she wants to see sister when we're out in public!) She also really likes seeing sisters room. I think it's helped that we didn't have to move her room, or give her crib to the baby or anything like that. She still has her "stuff" and now sister has her own stuff too! For the big baby items she does have to share with sister (the car seat, bouncy chair, etc.) she seems to like talking about how "she used to be in those things when she was a little baby "yesterday", but now she's big!" :-)

Practicing with the baby carrier

Giving baby sister some love <3

Dan & I are both doing good as well. Dan has been pretty busy at work these last few months, but he's been winding down some jobs this past week in anticipation of having a few weeks off for his paternity leave. My last day of work was Thursday April 3rd, as we had the following week off for spring break, and I started my maternity leave on Tuesday April 15th. I'm working part time this year (T/Th/F) so I had plenty of sick days to take off through the end of the school year. I did decide to go back the last Tuesday & Thursday in June just to help wrap things up & get things ready for the fall. I figure I'll be ready to get out of the house for some adult interaction by then & it will make coming back in the fall easier for me if I know how things are being left in the spring.

My last day of work - 38 weeks!

Speaking of spring, with the recent rise in temps we've been enjoying being able to be outdoors again! We took our first spring trip to the zoo, have gone on runs/walks, have visited the parks, saw baby animals at Wolcott Farm, and even had an early Easter egg hunt at a friends house! We're planning on doing a few more outdoor activities this weekend; Bunnyville at the zoo, another egg hunt & a couple of friends birthday parties, all weather & baby pending of course! We do have grandparents joining us for Bunnyville & the egg hunt, so E will be able to go even if we need to be at the hospital! The nicer weather has also allowed Dan to run outside again! He hasn't officially started his training yet, but he just found out he got into the Chicago marathon in October, so he's excited for that! Emmy shares daddy's love of running, and when she goes with him on runs in the jogging stroller she loves getting to run herself the last block or so home!

Checking out the Tigers at the zoo!

Petting a baby goat at Wolcott Farm

My Easter treat

Playing "run & scream", her favorite outdoors game!

Going on a run with daddy

Park play date!

Testing out the monkey bars

Wheee!

Visiting with the Easter Bunny!

 

Hunting for eggs!

Last family photo as a family of 3?!

Well I started at 7:30am, and it's now 7:30pm, but it's bedtime for little E so I think that's going to be it for today! Maybe the next time I post it will be of new girl?!