Some pictures from Rachel's bridal shower and bachelorette party. Two very fun weekends. I loved getting married and celebrating with everyone and I'm so glad that I can help make my best friends wedding celebrations joyful as well:)

33 weeks prego

Ugh:( Where do I begin? I am so uncomfortable these days. Today I had another ultrasound to check on baby's measurements, and this little butterball officially weighs more now than Cecelia did when she was born! Cecelia weighed in at 4 lbs, 4 oz. at birth and this little peanut is now 4 lbs, 6 oz. We got a few 3D pics of her today and she looks like a little chunk in her face, poor kiddo, she also looks like she has a very swollen nose and mouth (but apparently, they all look like that...must be from being in the water). The only bad news is that this babe is in the breach position. She still has a few weeks to flip around but I'm worried that she won't. At 36 weeks we will check to see if she has flipped into vertex and if she hasn't yet we then have to talk about them doing an aversion under anesthesia or scheduling a C-section! Yikes! I pray this doesn't happen. I Really don't want to have a C-section. My legs are swollen up to my knees...specifically, I have 2+-3+ pitting edema. I can't wait to have this weekend off because I am going to put my feet up and relax. I need it badly! We headed down to Kansas City last weekend for Rachel's bachelorette party. It was fun, but the weather didn't cooperate as much as we would have liked, and we walked around the Plaza shopping and I probably should have stayed by the pool instead because my poor legs are paying for it now.

We still have yet to agree on a name. Aaron has picked out 2 that I like and I have a name picked out that I love but Aaron doesn't love it. Since we can't agree, I'm just going to hold our until I get my way...or at least try to. I doubt that will happen but wishful thinking!

Baby shower on Saturday!!! Yay! I'm excited because I've been nesting like crazy and can't wait to find out what else we need to buy for the baby to finish preparing. Plus, I can't wait for all they yummy food my sisters are planning on making:)

Rachel took Cece shopping early for her birthday the other day. I stayed at home and nested for the baby, organizing clothes, setting up the bassinet, swing, changing table, etc. I told Rachel to not let Cecelia swindle her into more than 1 outfit. After I finished nesting the girls weren't' back from their shopping yet, so I jumped in the shower, when I got out of the shower I was surprised to walk into the dining room to find my whole kitchen table covered with new clothes...the majority of them from Justice. Cecelia loves Justice but it is usually pretty expensive and I try to steer her towards other stores for the sake of my pocket book. Rachel promised me everything was on sale and that Cecelia did not in fact, talk her into buying her anything she didn't want to buy her. Cecelia adores Rachel and asked me the other day if Rachel and Stephanie and Karissa were really her aunts ( they aren't...they are my best friends and are practically like sisters). When I tried explaining this to Cecelia she came up with the term frauntie (friend + auntie). Sounds good to me my cute little clever pumpkin!

Cecelia has been enjoying her summer break so far and can't wait to have Kiley home with us too. We have fun summer days planned for the girls and Cecelia knows we try to hold off on doing the really fun stuff until Kiley gets here in the summer because we don't want Kiley to miss out on anything.

So, I'm now 30 weeks pregnant. I had a little scare with my 1hour glucose tolerance test 2 weeks ago. I failed miserably. My blood sugar was 160. Normal is 90-110, and 200 would have been a definate gestational diabetes diagnosis. Because I failed the 1 hr test, I had to go to the hospital at 7:00 A.M. on a Saturday morning to do the 3 hour test...which is sooo much worse by the way because you have to be fasting when you go in. I was miserable and felt light headed and nauseus so they had me spend my 3 hours sleeping in a relaxation room. The would come in once an hour and draw my blood but other than that, after I got to lay down it wasn't so bad. But, I passed the 3 hour glucose tolerance test! I'm so happy because if you have gestational diabetes your chance of having type 2 later in life, dramatically increases.

We have come up with another name to take into consideration for the baby, and we were able to eliminate one of the names on our list...so we are pretty much no closer to picking a name as we were 6 months ago. This is going to get interesting.

Cecelia started squirtball. She's pretty good at catching and throwing but she needs to work on hitting the ball. Aaron has been working with her quite a bit. It's pretty darn cute.

Cecelia got her hair cut the other night. About 3 inches taken off, so her hair is just below her shoulders. This is great because it's so much healthier than it was now, and if we hadn't done this then her hair would have just sucked up all the chlorine and sun all summer and would have been even more damaged.

Cece's last day of school is tomorrow. She had a field trip last week to the Downtown slides and her teacher's father's firestation that he works at. I try to go to as many of her school events as possible. I don't know how first grade teachers do it. God bless them. After about 10 minutes on the bus, I was ready for a nap:)

The biggest news of all on our home front is that we decided to build a home! A hearthstone to be exact. The house is a 4 bedroom, 4 bath with a walk out basement. The neighborhood is Kingsbury Hills which means that Cecelia will be switching schools. Unfortunatley the house won't be finished until mid-October. Which means that we will be cramped in the condo with the new baby for 3 months. We are so excited to be homeowners but it's pretty scary at the same time. It's such a large purchase and so much responsibility. We really wanted to find a home we could grow into and I think that with 3,000 square feet we will have the room we need for our growing family.

The next 4 weekends are filled with fun. This holiday weekend we plan to do as much as the weather will allow. Next weekend is Rachels bridal shower, the following weekend is her bachelorette party in Kansas City and the following weekend is my baby shower. Time is flying and we before we know it Kiley will be here for the summer too.

I haven't updated this thing in a while. It's probably because I'm exhausted when ever I have a chance to actually do this. These days are filled with lots of having to get up to pee in the middle of the night, sciatica, lower back pain, calf muscle cramps in the middle of the night and swollen ankles. All as I'm just starting out my 7th month of pregnancy! Niether Aaron or I have any clue how I am going to make it 3 more months! This little pumpkin is also moving sooo much inside my big belly. I'm beginning to feel heels, elbows and knees coming out of my sides. My best friend Jade who has a 9 month old daughter has given me thousands of dollars worth of baby clothes and gear. I feel so blessed to have such amazing family and friends!!! We still have yet to agree on a name, but we have a few ideas. I joked with Aaron that if he doesn't get on board with my choices in names that I may just sign the birth certificate and name her when he wasn't at the hospital.
In other news...Cecelia has finished the swimming season. She passed to the next level, like we knew she would. She also has only one more week left of gymnastics. They did testing at the end of last month and Cecelia has been passed from beginner girls to intermediate level. I may be biased because I'm her mom, but I really feel like she excels at whatever she tries...some girls have all the luck! We also signed her up for softball this summer. Games are on Saturday mornings and she will have a practice one night a week throughout June and July. I'm excited to see her try this new sport.
I'm off orientation next month. I'm excited but so nervous! Critical care is serious stuff and I'm a little scared to be on my own but I know that I am surrounded by a very supportive nursing staff to help me when I have questions.

THE BABY IS A...

Well, it appears that we are having another girl! Poor Aaron, I guess it's his luck in life to be surrounded by beautiful women:) He was hoping that this baby was a boy, but hopefully, we will have better luck next time! My Doctor believes that since Cecelia was born weighing only 4 lbs, 4 oz, that she may have suffered from intra uterine growth restriction or IUGR. Because of this, with this baby, she wants us to have ultrasounds every 6 weeks from now on to measure the baby's growth. And, if she starts to fall off the growth chart, then she would want to induce me early. I'm happy with this and that my doctor is being proactive instead of reactive. I also had to have some blood work done to test me for clotting disorders (if my blood is too thick, then the baby isn't getting adequate nutrition, since the baby is getting all of her oxygen and nutrition via my blood). I plan on having them reconfirm the baby's gender at each ultrasound.

For now though, the baby is weighing 11 ounces and measuring 8 inches long. Meaning she is in the 75th percentile for height and weight. She is also in the vertex position; head down and in the fetal position. Which is great since that is what she needs to be in for delivery. I'm so glad that we held on to many of Cece's cutest clothes so we have a little bit to start off with.

We just had parent teacher conferences for Cecelia. They went great. She is reading at a second grade level and her math skills are "phenomenal". So proud of her! She is having a musical at her school next week. They will be performing The Sound of Music. I anticipate hearing lots of yodeling! LOL

So I actually LOVE working overnights! I thought I would hate it and be sleep deprived but I have had no problems so far. It helps that I have a completely supportive husband who is a hands on dad too! I like that it is so quiet at night and that I have time to actually learn instead of if I worked on day shift, I would be sooo busy that it sometimes is hard to learn.

Cecelia lost a front top tooth! She looks like a little jacko lanturn:) Here's the story: Yesterday, Cecelia and I decided to go see the Justin Bieber movie. We invited my cousin Megan and her daughter Tealyn with us. The girls are less than a year apart and have fun together. So after the movie we decided to head back to Megan's house so the girls could play SING IT on the Wii (which was so much fun by the way). Well Megan has a 1 year old son who had just gone to bed. At one point the girls were having so much fun that Cecelia was screeching and I instinctively put my hand over her mouth to silence her so she wouldn't wake up the baby.Well...I bumped the tooth that was already very loose and it was ready to come out. So my cousin talked Cecelia into letting her pull it out with a tissue. I will put up a picture but for now the computer is not cooperating!

Oh, and I have to include this before I forget. Stanley has become extremely protective of me and my stomach. He has always been my little man, constantly following me around the house, and wanting to go where ever I go in the car. Suddenly, Aaron is no longer allowed to put a finger on my belly without Stanley jumping to my defense. We have made a game about this and it's quite funny. In fact, as soon as the computer wants to upload I'm going to post a video of Stanley freaking out. It's hilarious!

I'm beginning to feel the baby move! Actually, just last night, I felt the baby kick externally. I thought I felt the baby kicking and put my hand to where I thought I felt the kick and sure enough....3 kicks in a row! I just wish Aaron had been here because he specifically asked me to tell him when I felt the baby kick so he could try to feel for it too! He is soooo sweet! I can't wait till next Tuesday when we find out the sex! Aaron had originally wanted a boy but at this point he says that he really doesn't care as long as the baby is healthy. Cecelia however would like a boy. She says because a sister "would take all of her toys and clothes". She has a slight complex about her possessions. I think this stems from the fact that for most purposes Cecelia is an only child about 85% of the year. Cecelia and Kiley have to share a room and Kiley takes home almost everything she receives as gifts from us and family. That means that Cecelia must share all of her possessions in addition to her room with Kiley when she is in town. Which is fine, she should share. However, when Kiley is in town the girls often fight over items because Cecelia has a hard time sharing everything all the time when she's not used to it, and Kiley believes that since she is never here she should get to play with whatever she wants and not have to share with Cecelia. On top of that, the girls are just over 2 years apart in age and are sisters. And sisters will be sisters (they will fight, no matter how sweet and innocent they can be at times)! To say the least, the girls have some unfortunate family dynamics that they must deal with. We wish that it wasn't so, but Kiley moving, never would have been our choice but we must deal with dynamics that it now leaves. We are hoping to find a 4 bedroom home and that having the girls have separate rooms will alleviate some of the needless arguments but until then, Cecelia still would like a brother over another sister:( I don't care what the sex is either way, I just want to know so that I can start shopping for the kiddo! Although we have decided to try and stick to neutral colors and themes when buying the bigger items because we would like to be able to save and reuse everything for the next baby as well. I'm already thinking ahead to the next one! HA!!! Poor Aaron:( My belly popped out about 2 weeks ago. It seems like it happened overnight! All of the sudden we both agreed that I suddenly looked obviously pregnant. Which is fine by me because I was kind of self conscious of whether people thought that I was pregnant or just overweight!

Cecelia is back in swimming lessons (in addition to gymnastics). She's happy to be back in. She's a pretty good swimmer and it's definitely a self esteem booster for kids when they can excel at a sport. Last week I went to Cecelia's school for her 2nd grade classrooms "Writer Celebration". Parents were invited to come to the classroom and be present while the kids read stories that they had been working on and proofreading and adding to for a few weeks. Cecelia wrote her story about a fiasco that occur ed when a little boy in her 1st grade class was asked to give all the kids a squirt of hand sanitizer in preparation for the teacher to hand out cupcakes to celebrate another child's birthday. It turns out that the boy grabbed the hand soap instead of sanitizer and the kids didn't notice it until almost all the children had it on their hands and were rubbing it in! Everyone chuckled at that story!

My best friend Rachel is getting married in September and I'm the maid of honor and Cecelia is one of the flower girls. I've been a little busy getting measured for my dress (not fun seeing as how I will be 1 month post partum and not really sure about how large my breastfeeding boobies will be), I've had to get Cecelia measured for her custom made dress as well. I'm also planning her bachelorette party with the help of another best friend who is the maid of honor. We're planning a weekend in Kansas City. Shopping, manicures and pedicures, laying out and swimming, a nice dinner out and then heading out to the power and lights district....imagine me 7 months pregnant having to be the designated driver for a bunch of drunkies! LOL!

Our house has just finally gotten over a terrible cold. I think that I got the worst of it. I didn't sleep well for over 4 nights. Which totally sucked since I started my new job that same week. All is well now though:)

Sadly, I just found out that our beloved pediatrician will be moving out of state this summer. Our pediatrician's husband works as an intensivist in the ICU and he shared that they were moving back to his wife's (our pediatrician's) home state to be close to her family. We absolutely love our pediatrician and I'm very sad that I now need to seek out a new one.