The A-Team

Today was my last OB appointment for little Miss Abilene. All is well. Her heart rate was in the 130’s to 140’s and going strong. My doc is funny. He says “well, you are officially out of room.” Do you think? I have been complaining about that for weeks! But really, I am very thankful to be at the end of this pregnancy with a healthy baby so far.

So Monday is the day!

Today I took a little Mommy time. I had my OB appt and then went The Woodhouse Day Spa for an AMAZING pedicure. Lastly, I treated myself to a sunless tan session and homeward bound I was to my loving family who had a blast out at the pool today!

So now it is rest and more rest until the big day! Here are some pictures of Abilene’s room and me with Abilene:)

38 weeks 3 days

Miss Bean-bean's room

I love this cupcake bank that I found at Target!

Loved adding little Ladybugs to her room

This is just one of 3 crib sheets that I made her:)

Here is our May!

Our annual trip to the zoo - The kids loved it!

Abel was really into all of the animals this year. It was so neat to watch him!

This was one DETERMINED duck to get at some snacks under our table!

Abraham very proud of his first 150 piece puzzle completed "all by himself."

It was a nice morning and I decided to let the boys paint! Thank goodness I took them outside for this!

These two had so much fun:)

Mini Marathon time! We saw Daddy off at the beginning of the race.

Here's a photo of Aaron crossing the finish line in 1:39:08 that was snapped by a photog on the course

We were waiting for Daddy to cross the finish hoping to get a picture...no luck. He was too fast!

Celebrating Daddy's good finish!

Ham also fist-bumped Papa at the finish but I could NOT capture it on camera.

Abel was so cute at the race. He carried around his "Doggie/Buddy" and "woobie" all morning.

Abel thought his booster seat looked great as a hat!

This was taken just down the street from our house. They have started construction on some new homes and the kids got to "ride" in the equipment!

Ham's first foot race! Getting ready to go!

Ham in line at his 1st race.

This picture is awesome. Notice the cup and what it says...

We took Abel and Abraham to Bounce Spot since I still had a freebie admission and Abel was still free too! Abel actually enjoyed this until he came down the slide and couldn't find a way out fast enough. After that, there was NO going back in ANY bounce house.

Abel and I played games instead - Skeeball...a fave for both of us!

Daddy and Taters

35 weeks 3 days (Abel's birthday too) - As you can tell, I am VERY pregnant!

This kiddo is so big, he actually fits his brother's booster. We already bought him one but he likes to unbuckle himself. We will stick to the 5-point harness car seat just a tad longer.

Abraham and Daddy quite proud of the new 300 piece puzzle that the 3 of us put together in just about an hour.

Buddy pile - they had WAY too much fun with this:)

Abel's first run at the "shooting" game at IPC!

Just to let you know I haven't forgotten about our daughter - here is a picture of the curtains I made for her!

This is a close up of the pattern of the curtains. It is still blue but much more girly!

That was our May (except Abel’s 2nd birthday stuff…see later post) and we enjoyed it greatly!

Ok, so that is a pretty lame use of a “sports” theme especially since we aren’t a sports oriented family…oh well! I still will share our March via a photo show!

Playing in the laundry basket AKA "the boat"

Hail storm that we had to seek shelter from!

Watching Daddy's 10 K race from the car...it was WAY too cold outside!

Ham "freezing" in the backseat while waiting for Daddy to finish his 10K

School time!

They LOVE the new whiteboard we purchased for the school room

Abraham did these all by himself! I was so proud of him! He really doesn't like writing.

We had some fun with water outside in the month of March! Crazy!!

Abel enjoying the outside toys.

Ham is now a total pro at riding his trike!

I caught him doing a PUZZLE! This was huge as Abel has shown NO interest in puzzles!

Aww...taters is snuggling some buddies at bed time

I even caught Abel "reading" books! Again, he hasn't shown much interest in books! So this was huge!!!

27 weeks!

Cheese!

Aww...brotherly love

Super double CHEESE!

Abraham in his adorable "robey robe"

We transitioned Abel to his big boy bed and he loved it!!!

He even pretended to go "night night" for a picture:)

Massive Island of Sodor!

His first time in his new big boy bed and he went right to sleep!!!!

Abraham accepted Christ!

Aaron's goodbye to our bassets

My goodbye to our beloved bassets...thankfully you can't tell I am sobbing in this picture.

We found Hammy like this one afternoon. He crawled up in his bed and crashed!

Insane play time...ham did this ALL on his own!

Sweet little taters

March was crazy and lots of fun but it was also very emotional for us as we had to make the difficult decision to give up our bassets. With the news of Aaron going off for training and everything changing, we just couldn’t keep them any longer. But they found a great new home and are loving it (we have seen photos!).  I hope to get April up here by the end of this week!

I am only 22 weeks, I assure you, but I sure don’t feel like it! I have felt great this past week other than my stretching abdomen! It is getting huge already! I mean seriously uncomfortable…like split belly button type uncomfortable. Ah well, the sacrifices and suffering we go through to bring about a new life. Once she is in my arms all of these things will fade quickly and I will remember nothing!

This was taken at 18 weeks...I need an updated shot but man belly is big!

We made it to the doctor yesterday with much thanks to my mother-in-law who watched the boys all by herself for a few hours! Thanks!!!

Baby A#3 first ultrasound

The appointment went well. It is so crazy to see a picture of this new little life growing inside. It makes it very concrete. The baby is growing well and even measuring ahead of dates already! The heart beat was 143 bpm and sounded super strong. I think about how much has already taken place in the development of this baby and we are only at 7 weeks! Some women don’t even know they are pregnant yet at this stage and maybe haven’t been as careful as to what they have put in their bodies (caffeine, medication, etc…).

We are very excited for this new little person to continue to grow strong and healthy. Please pray that this would be the case. We have been surrounded by more families than I care to list that have suffered losses of their babies in recent times. It is very painful for me to see their loss and then I start to worry about my babies. Please pray for peace for me and also those families affected by the loss of their children. I know God is sovereign and will not let His people suffer beyond what He can offer comfort. Just pray that these families will also lean on God to get them through.

Anyway, I have been asked by several of you “how are you doing?” with pregnancy #3. This one has been a bit tougher. I had cluster headaches for the first 3 weeks that I could do NOTHING for. Not fun. But thankfully with 1 caffeinated beverage a day, that has gone away! Nausea has been a biggy this time around. I believe most of it stems from my calorie restriction that I have been rather used to but this baby wants none of. If I eat small, frequent meals (totally not me) I feel much better. So I am having to get into the habit of eating snacks (healthy ones) and dinner (ugh). I despise dinner. I never want to eat at night. I used to have a yogurt and maybe some fruit or a veggie. Never anything much. Well not anymore. This baby says “if You don’t eat, I will make you sick!” So I now eat a dinner much to my chagrin. Oh well. It keeps things interesting, right? I am also exhausted. Duh, right? I am very tired and it shows come 2 pm. I usually CRASH and crash hard. So we have family nap time around 2 pm and we nap for about an hour to 2 hours. It is glorious! I am still tired but not super sleepy and am recharged enough to handle the rest of the afternoon/evening.

The boys have been fabulous with this new pregnancy. We had to stop going to BSF because it was just tearing us apart – Abel wouldn’t get his morning nap and fall asleep on the way home which meant mommy didn’t get her afternoon nap, food was rushed, and even Abraham would get super grumpy by the afternoon because of our early day. It just wasn’t worth it. Maybe next year? Anyway, the boys took it well (ham was a bit disappointed but he enjoys his school time with mommy). We don’t go hardly anywhere any more. I love to just stay home and keep up on things. Sometimes we get restless and run out to the library or something or while it was still warm we hit the park or just ran around outside for 10 minutes or so. It is actually quite nice hanging out at home most of the time!

That about sums up this pregnancy so far! Love to you all and can’t wait to see everyone during the upcoming Holidays!