August 28

Hi little one,
Happy 33 weeks! We are down to 50 days until your arrival!!! I'm not sure if Daddy is more excited about that, or the fact that Kansas State Football starts this Saturday.

Okay, okay. I'm kidding :) He was just telling me today how excited he is to set up your Pack and Play in the living room. (But I'm 99% sure he's equally excited to be able to cuddle with you while he watches college football this season!)

Ice, ice, baby: We went in for our penultimate two week appointment today. Crazy that there's only one more of those, and then we go every Monday until you get here! I asked for my iron levels to be checked because this crushed ice thing is getting out.of.control. I've also developed another strange craving (licking chalk...how WEIRD and embarrassing), so that was kind of a giveaway that something may be a little off. We'll get the iron results back early next week and go from there! Until then, I'm hiding the chalk. Just in case.
In better news, Dr. Shipman says you're measuring perfectly, and she is pleased with my weight gain (1 pound, even though it feels like WAY more). Which leads me to the next segment of this week's blog...

On Wednesdays we wear sweatpants: Couldnt help this one, since itself so very true. One pound weight gain = somehow impossible to fit in clothes!

Upcoming: Daddy's new desk was delivered today! He's going to assemble it tomorrow and then I'll be able to take pictures of the office. I did get around to giving the new chalkboard wall some TLC last weekend, but I didn't want to take pictures of it because daddy's computer is temporarily covering it up. With the long Labor Day weekend, I have lots of plans to finish up various house projects! ((And since he's leaving next Tuesday for Ohio, I might tackle the decorating part of your nursery and the upstairs hallway. It would be so nice to get things done before our baby shower next weekend!!))

Room 801: Here are some pictures of my newly improved classroom that I promised! It's such an awesome space. And you can see Daddy's handiwork on the white shelves. I'm proud of him, and my students!! They make our classroom feel like home. I'm still in the process of hanging student work, but I got so excited and wanted to show you!

I think that's all for this week. I love you, tiny 4.5 pound girl!! 50 days...50 days!!!!-
Love,

August 21

Hi little one,
Whew. 32 weeks and Mommy is wiped out! I'm sorry this entry is a little late, but I had to break up working on the chalkboard over a few days. I'm sooooo tired! And dumb...I wrote 33 weeks on the board the first go-around. Ugh.

Sympathy Weight: I was lamenting about how hard it is to be this pregnant, and Daddy just wasn't understanding. So I stuffed some clothes up his shirt and made him try to look at his feet. I think he finally caught on :) And I got this picture, which I kind of adore. He's not too excited about me putting it on the blog, but I previewed the next section and he backed off...

A wee pee: When I started writing this to you in February, I promised myself I'd detail the good and the bad stuff. I think it's safe to say that the bad has come:: I accidentally peed myself the other day.  You just love to sit right on my bladder and then move really suddenly and BAM. Pee. In my pants. God.

Oh Bloody Hell: Not to mention the bloody noses that I'm getting almost daily. They haven't happened in public yet, which I'm grateful for. But seriously, just about every morning I'll wake up, pee for the millionth time (in the toilet), blow my nose, and then blood everywhere! Yuck.

Wedding Pictures: We got a few more wedding pics in, and the rest will hopefully come in the next few weeks. They're SO PRETTY and I'm absolutely in love. I can't wait to see the others!

October Brain: And, finally, I saw this online and couldn't help myself. It's 100% true, and every day that we're closer to meeting you, the more excited we are!!

I love you, baby girl!

August 14

Hi little one,
Happy 31 week chalkboard! It's SO CRAZY that we are in a single-digit weekly countdown now. I'm so excited, and a little bit terrified (but in a good way, I promise!).

Back to School: What a week it's been. As you can tell from the picture, I started work again this week. Words cannot express how exhausted I am as I type this. Don't get me wrong...this year's group of kids is AWESOME, but I totally forgot how much work it is to walk around a classroom, be on constant alert, and those trips back and forth down the hallway to the office? No thank you. Daddy and I visited my classroom last Sunday and we got a lot done before school started, which made me really happy! I want to wait until all of my classroom decor is up before I post a picture, so be sure to stay on the lookout next week. (I keep telling myself that slow and steady is best, but inside it sucks that my room wasn't 100% ready before classes began.)

Here Kitty, Kitty...and Doggy: It's also been quite the week for all of the pets! The "back to school" vibe must be contagious. As you can tell, Dolce learned how to raise her hand when she has a question ("Bone? Did someone say bone?").

Meagram put herself in what I like to call "crib jail". She was playing around the nursery last week while I was painting it. I think this is a very appropriate picture, given that she likes to get into trouble so much.

Disco has just been hanging out. I was walking by the office and perfectly timed this picture. She looked at me like, "Who IS that big fat lady coming down the hall??"

...and this is your pup, Rusty. He is a very chill dude-like doggy, in case you didn't know already.

Harlowe had a little bit of a scare this week. I won't post a picture of it because it scared the crap out of me, but just know that she is getting better. I went downstairs to feed her and give her some love, and noticed a bunch of bloody scabs around her ears and on her tummy. The awesome vet at Banfield saw her yesterday and gave her an antibiotic shot and a steroid shot, and said we need to monitor her for a food allergy. We also had to move her litter box out of the utility room because her allergy might have had something to do with the concrete floor. Either way, though, she looks 1000 times healthier now. And her boyfriend, Baxter, is still doing great. He just likes to meow every second of every day. :)

Sleep? You Mean Nighttime Nap?: I have had the worst time sleeping lately. I've developed Restless Leg Syndrome at some point during this pregnancy, and I just thrash around in bed. It's awful, and I wake up grumpy every morning. (Or maybe that has something to do with going back to work? Hmmm.)  But while I've been restlessly thrashing, I did manage to get the Registry Must Haves and Back To School Must Haves collages done. I will give you a preview of what they look like now, and then add them to the Favorites section of the blog this weekend. I'm really happy with how they turned out!

                                                     

It's Dead to Me: This last picture pretty much sums up my entire existence at this point, and I laughed my butt off when I saw it. Bending over is a huge HELL NO. Have I mentioned how much I can't wait for you to get here?? ;)

That's all for this week, sweet little girl. I can't wait to see you in 64-ish days!! I love you SO much.

August 6

Hi little one,
Happy 30 week chalkboard! Can you believe we are 75% done with this pregnancy? It's unreal, because it seems like just yesterday that we found out you are coming. 30 weeks...man. Crazy.

Not bad, considering I had to take it myself this week, right? I'm happy it only took 10 tries. Next time, I'll do it in one by kicking out all of the pets who ruined my first nine attempts :)

We Miss You: Daddy is traveling for work in Orlando right now. It's been really hard on mommy to have him gone. Not just for picture taking ease, but because everything is harder for me while he's away. I miss him a lot, and I'm sure you can tell a difference. Since you can't talk exactly yet, I made this for you. I hope it puts a smile on your daddy's face when he sees in in Florida.

For the Love of God: I have had no complaints about this pregnancy, little girl...up until now. You're making it almost impossible for me to get any sleep! Around 10pm every night (without fail) you start going crazy in there. So I start moving around in bed. I'll try sleeping on my left side, but then you start kicking the bed. Then I'll flip over and lay on my right side, but you start kicking my rib cage. I'm not sure why you don't like to sleep exactly, but to say that you're a night owl is a huge understatement. I think you must sleep through the day and then want to party it up at night. It's exhausting, baby girl!! We need our beauty sleep!

Y U NO?!: One morning it go so bad that I grabbed my Kindle and made these two memes. I was up all night with your incessant kicks to my bladder and your cartwheels and somersaults, and then daddy got up at 5am (just as I was finally getting good rest) and made a smoothie and vacuumed the litter box. I. Could. Have. Killed.

         

Nursery Update: The walls of your nursery are complete! I'm so happy! The closet needs work, but that will get done tomorrow during breaks from working on back to school stuff. The paint puzzles me, because it looks like two different shades, depending on the light in the room. You'll have to trust me, it's gorgeous. You can also see two of the prints I'm going to put up in your room, after we get your crib assembled. Aren't they so stinking cute?

 

The Office: My new, amazing craft desk got put together this week! Daddy did a great job, and it looks fabulous against the newly painted *chalkboard wall* in the office!! Since we still have to clear daddy's desk out I couldn't get a good picture of how everything looks, but I'll definitely have some next week. It's all coming together, baby girl..finally :)

Okay, little baby pumpkin. I also made this for you, in honor of only having 70 days to go. The countdown is on! And we can't wait.

Love you, love you, love you.

July 31

Hi little one,
Happy 29 week chalkboard!

Daddy will be gone traveling next week, so I hope I can figure out how to take the picture myself!  He'll actually be gone quite a bit in the next few months before you get here, which sucks, but I guess we'll get used to it. We don't really have a choice :(

Nursery: I got the walls of your nursery painted this past week. I love it!! And I hope you do too. The closet didn't get finished, but that's okay. I really need to start taking it easier than I have been...I just want you to have the most perfect room to sleep in :) Here's the progress. Aren't the colors very kick ass?!

Around the House: Not much else has gotten done around here, I'm afraid. Daddy spent a majority of the weekend pulling weeds in the backyard, so house projects sort of took a back seat. It's fine, I guess, because now we have a backyard that is clear of weeds and you have two MUCH happier doggies who get to rough house without accidentally eating grass or dirt!

About Us: While Daddy was at work, I veeeery sneakily wrote the "About Us" section on here. Daddy didn't know that your grandma Gigi gave me a picture of him when he was only 6 months old, but now it's out there for the WHOLE WORLD to see. Hehehe!

Hiccups and Sleep: You literally get the hiccups once a day! It's crazy to actually feel them!! Daddy loves it when you get them...I say, "Honey, she's got them again!" And he has the biggest smile on his face while he puts his hands on my tummy to feel you in there :) it's the sweetest thing! But we do need to address this sleeping issue, baby girl. I can't tell you how many times I've woken up to a) pee, or b) because you are kicking me! In fact, I found this picture and was like...BAM! SO TRUE!

Extreme Nesting: I'm starting to have full-blown panic attacks around noon almost every day because things just aren't getting done and you're scheduled to arrive in only 77 days. Daddy doesn't understand why I go into panic mode, but I don't want to wait until the last minute. I just can't! I'm definitely more of a planner and it's hard to get other people to understand. I feel like we have a lot of the "fun" stuff out of the way- your nursery painted, a bunch of clothes bought, a bassinet and a few Rock 'N Plays. But the big stuff? We have nothing. No crib, no bottles, no diapers for you. It makes me want to cry just thinking about all of the stuff we have yet to get and just how unprepared we are. If something happened and you came early, we'd be scrambling to figure out how to take care of you! I know that's just first-time-mom speak and it's totally normal to freak out, but whoa. Every day is closer to your arrival! It's starting to get real, baby girl!

That's all for this week. Blogger just erased two paragraphs about the pets, so I'm trying not to be frustrated and instead taking it as a sign that I'm rambling and need to eat a snack and go to bed :) no one likes a fussy mommy!!

I love you, baby girl.

July 25

Hi little one,
We finally got our act together and took the 28 week bump picture. Technically it's 28 weeks and 2 days, but you get the idea :)

Painting: I made a lot of progress on your nursery today! The bottom half of your walls and part of your closet got painted. I have *big* plans to finish painting this weekend, and probably would have gotten a lot more done today except I ran out of paint. Your mommy has no idea how to calculate how much paint she needs to cover a given space. I hope your math/spatial skills are better than mine...

Just wanted to write this really quickly. I love you so much. It's hard to believe we're down to 83 more days!
Mommy

July 24

Hi little one,
Happy 28 week chalkboard! Sorry I'm not actually in it...daddy hasn't been home the past few nights to take my picture and I got tired of waiting to put up this post. I think it's my favorite chalkboard so far. You'll just have to use your imagination as to what I look like while I'm carrying you this week (Hint...it's not a lot different than last week!)

Nursery: Your nursery is coming along great! While daddy is at work (or downstairs playing on his iPad...ahem), I've been slowly but surely painting it. It's a little hard for me since I can't move around easily, or stand on a ladder, or seem to find a comfortable position on the floor to paint or tape, but I've been doing everything I can to make sure it's perfect for you. I'm happy all of the wood trim has finally been covered up. It was so evil! Now you have pretty white trim. See?

My plan is to finish painting the lower, gray half of your walls tomorrow, and then tackle your closet this weekend. Daddy took off the closet door, and I'm using this picture I found on Pinterest as inspiration for what it'll look like when it's finished. There's still a long way to go, but I'm excited because it'll be just lovely when I'm done.

Wash me: The laundry room is slowly coming along, as well. The cabinets are up and installed, and now we just need to put up the shelves and then I get to decorate! I made some wooden letters that spell out "wash" and I'll hang those once I figure out what else I want to go in there (and the letters may need something extra too, like sparkles or glitter or bling. Not entirely happy with them just yet). I found a really nice picture frame on clearance at Hobby Lobby last week, but it might be just a tad too big to use. Either way, though, it'll hopefully get done this weekend and I'll finally be able to post completed project pictures next week!

Newest member of the family: Last but not least, BIG congratulations are in order to your Uncle Eli, Aunt Sally, and cousin Griffin. Their family welcomed sweet little Reagan Avery into the world on Monday. We're so happy that mama and baby are doing great, and we couldn't be more excited that you'll have a precious cousin to grow up with and share all things girly.

That's all for this week. I love you, baby girl!
Mommy