Pictures from Michael's Birthday

On March 4th we celebrated Michael turning 2. I can't believe he time has gone by so fast already.

Daddy let the boys have some leftover frosting after he decorated the cake.

We had a store bought cake, but Jason put the Blue from Blue's Clues on it.

Snuggle brothers, relaxing before everyone got there.

Playing balloons with Poppy and Grandma

Ethan posing for mom.

Opening presents!

Cousins on the trampoline

Fun with balloons

With Charlotte and Papa Don

Helping Dad build his motorcycle from Ryan and Hilary

Jason's brothers raided Ethan's dress up box...and this pictures came about.

The birthday cake

Sitting with Papa while blowing out the candles.

Michael had a great party and everyone had fun. It was so nice to spend the day with everyone!

26 weeks

I'm 26 weeks pregnant now with our 3rd boy. I still can't believe it, even though I can feel him moving all the time. In 3 short months, our lives are going to change again, but I feel like I will be able to roll with it better this time, since I've done it twice before and know what to expect. Balancing a newborn and a 2 year old will be the hardest thing, but I'm not too worried.

I have been lax in taking pictures of myself this time around because my clothes are uncomfortable and I don't feel like I look good. But I will try to be better at taking my picture.

This time around, I have had a little more back pain than I have in the past and my hip joints hurt more, but overall I feel pretty good.

Michael turned 2!

Well, earlier this evening, I tried to get pictures from Michael's birthday uploaded to my computer from the camera chip and it would not work. Finally Jason got it working for me, but I didn't feel like blogging then. My back started hurting again this evening and all I want to do is lay down and do nothing. Ugh.

Anyways, I did want to say that Michael had a great birthday. I can't believe he's already 2! He had a blast at his party and I can't wait to post pictures because it seemed like everyone had fun. Jason's brothers raided Ethan's costumes and they all ended up with super hero helmets on. It was great.

I'm going to try and soothe my back with the heating pad before falling asleep. I sure hope it feels better tomorrow.

Late Night

It's after midnight and I'm sitting with Ethan in his room, waiting for him to fall back asleep. His nose has been stuffy and it's hard for him to get comfortable, so sometimes Jason or I end up in here with him until he falls back asleep. That's where blogging from my phone comes in handy! Keeps me from falling asleep in his room. :-)

Today I had a pretty good day. Yesterday I was very irritable and cranky. Today I went out with the mindset that I would be in a better mood. I also did all the dishes and tidied up most of the kitchen. I probably did more than I should have because my back hurt at the end of the day. But I feel so much happier and calmer in a clean house. Tomorrow I'm going to try to get some laundry done and organize the office. Also clean out the car. I'm not sure how far I'll get but I'm going to try my hardest.

Aidan is giving me some kicks right now, which is a bit distracting, but I love it. It's the coolest feeling/sensation in the world. :-)

I am looking forward to meeting this new little guy. Will he be as active as his brothers or will he be the calm one? My gut says active. I still can't believe I will have 3 soon. Crazy!

Well, I think Ethan is back asleep, so I'm going to try and sneak out and get some sleep. This mama needs it!

Update on Random Stuff

Today my hormones hit me, along with a sore back. Could be worse, but I hate not being able to function at my full potential. Jason was out of town last night for work and it's hard to sleep without him here anyway. But Ethan kept getting up and I couldn't get comfortable. My boys also rise early in the morning, so I did not sleep well. I got Ethan to school and on the walk back, the hormones started to hit. All I wanted to do was go back to bed and sleep it off and I couldn't I tried to hold back the tears, because I know that it is a silly thing to be upset about. But the tears came. I cried good and hard for about 5 minutes and then I was done. Sometimes that's all you need. I was able to sleep while Michael took a nap, but those days are short lived with a new baby on the way.

Speaking of the baby, we are naming him Aidan. And he's starting to move around and kick me, which I love. It's nice to know he's doing his thing in there. It's surreal to think that soon we will have 3 children. I don't always feel like a mom, and then I think about these boys I have and it's strange and wonderful to think that I am their mother. The one thing I always wanted to be. It's hard, but so rewarding. :-)

Here's hoping I sleep tonight. I also hope my back gets better. It's hard to do all I need to get done when I'm in pain.

I'm sick of being sick!

Actually, I'm fine. Ethan has been fighting a cough and this past weekend he got a high fever, but we got it down. Then Jason came home from teaching in San Diego. He got hit with a 102 fever, sore throat, ear ache, chills, sweats....ugh. So I took him to urgent care. Strep Throat! So he has been passed out for a couple days but is starting to feel better. Now I'm just trying to keep everyone else from getting sick. I'm exhausted. It's not easy taking care of the house and sick people while being 5 months pregnant. But at lease I'm not 8 months pregnant trying to do it. That would suck.

Ultrasound Pictures!

On Feb. 6th Jason got to go with me to find out if we were having a boy or a girl. Tada! It's another boy. Big surprise there! Anyways, I'm just now getting around to posting the ultrasound pics.

Here is the undeniable evidence that it is another boy!

Side view

That's his knee up there by his face.

Front of his face

Anyways, we are excited. We have all the boy stuff so it will be fun to pull it all out again. And, let's get through this pregnancy and a year or so down the line before asking if we are trying for a girl next. Haha.

Halfway

I am about halfway thru my pregnancy. 20 weeks baby. And that means I can get my ultrasound to find out if we are having a boy or a girl. I'm nervous and excited. I feel like there is a lot of pressure on me to have a girl, since we just have boys. It's not bad pressure, heaven knows I would love to have a girl. But I don't want anybody to be disappointed if it's another boy. The running joke is that we make the boys and everyone else makes girls. The only boy cousins are my brother Dean's kids in Idaho. The rest are girls.

The ultrasound is Monday. Jason got the day off so he gets to go with me. My mom will be coming up to watch the boys for us.

I was re-reading my past blogs from my pregnancy with Michael, and was reminded that this was the time when I found out I had placenta previa with him. (It fixed itself before a C-section was needed) But it got me thinking: am I at a higher risk for it again since I had it before? I did some research, and yes I am at a higher risk. I'm mentally preparing myself for it so I won't be shocked if I have it. And it's actually making me worry less about the gender of our child, because really, all we want is a healthy child and pregnancy. It doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl. Not in the grand scheme of things.

I haven't taken any pregnancy pictures yet because I haven't felt like I look pregnant. Today I did. So maybe I will get some up here soon.

As with all my pregnancies, I lost weight in the first trimester. I started out at 188. Yikes! At my last appointment I was laughing, because the nurse said I gained 2 pounds and I was 180. So that means I lost 10 first and then gained to back. Pregnancy: Best. Diet. Ever. At least for me. I'm glad I don't tend to put a lot of weight on, because I have such a hard time losing it afterwards.

I didn't have much morning sickness with this one either. Slight nausea but no sickness, and it didn't feel as bad as it did with the boys. I've felt pretty good so far, though recently my pelvis has been stretching and moving, so it hurts a little when I try to shift my position. But other than that, it's a very easy pregnancy. If I have cravings, once I feed it, it goes away. Like, I really wanted peaches, which aren't in season, but I bought some canned ones and once I had them I was good. Overall, I've preferred to have healthy, fresh foods over processed or overly rich foods. Double helping of salad please!

Anyways, I hadn't really written any pregnancy stuff down, so I wanted to get it out before I forgot. It was really nice to look back on my previous blogs, so I want to do the same again. Thanks for listening!

Yuck!

Well, I wasn't going to blog about this but sometimes life is gross. And I'm exhausted so I need to post to get it out of my system.

Wednesday Michael awoke from his nap and I discovered he had thrown up. He had been showing no signs of illness, just a slight runny nose. I thought maybe he just gagged. Nope, that night he threw up 2 more times. Great.... The next day my mom came out because I had a doctor appointment. He made it through his nap fine, so we thought he was ok. Nope, threw up again shortly after he went to bed. That was last night. He made it the rest of the night but woke up very sniffly and not wanting to do much. He has only thrown up once today but that was more from gagging on a tortilla chip I made the mistake of giving him. So Ethan has been fine, but this afternoon, he said he had a stomach ache and then threw up all over my bathroom floor. At least clean up was easy. It was mainly juice but it rattled him. He's feeling better now but I'm wary.

On top of this, I've been dealing with this pretty much by myself. Jason has been out of town so I've been single mom. I'm proud of myself that I could deal with this alone, but I'm looking forward to him getting home. I'm so blessed to have someone who will help me clean up the messes of life. But mostly, I hope my boys feel better soon. I hate seeing my babies sick.

Monrovia Canyon Park

Today we were trying to figure out something fun to do as a family. We decided to go on a nature hike. We've been meaning to do one of these for quite awhile but it's either been too cold or too hot. It's been warmer this week but not too bad, so after Michael's nap, we packed up a picnic lunch and headed out on an adventure. Very spur of the moment.

We got to the park and started on our way. It was about a 30 min walk from where we parked the car to the end of the trail, which was a waterfall. The hike up was a bit steep but manageable. We would have stayed longer at the falls but there really wasn't anywhere to sit so we took a couple of pictures and then headed back to have our picnic.

We ended up back at the car at 4:45 only to realize Jason had left is phone where we stopped to picnic. So I stayed in the car with the kids while he made the walk back. He was pretty winded when he got back to the car. But he found his phone! Yay!

We got home around 6, gave the boys some dinner and now they are crashed. We might be calling it an early night too. We need to get out more and be more active! But we had a great time together!