Michelle checkup...she is 4!

Monday last week I took her to the doctor for her 4 year checkup.  She is still little, 37.25 inches and 28.8 lb, which is the 10% for both height and weight.  Bigger than before when she was 8%.  Poor kid was not too happy with shots, but did really well and was very happy with the sucker she got.

Outside play

My kids had fun playing outside in the front yesterday.  Daddy set up the bounce house, and later we saw this little guy in our live oak trees out front.  Then I got these guys to sit on the front porch to take their picture. They are so silly, but really growing! 

4 missing teeth

My sweet boy lost another tooth a week ago, for a total of 4 missing teeth!  Now he has the classic big gap in his mouth which he is proud of.  He has one adult tooth coming in on the bottom.  He was excited to get his 4 quarters from the tooth fairy.  If Matthew shows off his missing teeth, Michelle pipes in with, "I still have all MY teeth!"

20 weeks! It's a .... BABY ... GIRL!!!!

I had my 20 week prenatal appointment on Wed. the 16th, including the anatomy ultrasound. Blood pressure is still good 110/80, urine test was fine, weight I am down 1/2 lb for a total gain of 7.5 lb, fundus is right where it should be at my belly button. Since about 19 weeks, I have been feeling a lot more movement in there so the baby is definitely getting stronger and bigger. All is looking great!!! :)

My kids' reactions to finding out it is a baby sister? Michelle is over the moon excited (she has been saying all along it is a baby girl), and she insists that the baby's name is Sarah. We have not yet decided on a name, but will keep that one in mind. She told me that when the baby comes out, if she cries, Michelle will give her a hug and hold her hand. So sweet! Matthew was hoping for a brother, but I think he will be fine with another sister once she was here. He says we need to have another baby after this so he can have a brother. Chris told him NO WAY! He says we'll have our hands full with these 3.

My sweet funny little girl!

I go in to get Matthew up this morning for school and she hears me. So she is basically his shadow all morning before he gets on the bus, getting dressed when he does, putting her shoes on when he does, sitting at the table to eat breakfast when he does, "helping" him feed the dog and make coffee (he pushes the buttons for me). Then his bus comes and she is so excited, she runs out with him and says she wants to go to big kid school and ride on the bus too. "That's Matthew's bus 222!" she tells the bus driver. This girl just ADORES her older brother and wants to do everything he does. She misses him during the day too, and I know she is excited to start at her school next Wed. She will go to prek4 Wed, Thurs, and Fri. When you are just about 4, though, it is hard to wait!

Oh, and night before last, at 4AM I hear "WAAAAAAH, WAAAAAH!" outside my door. I ask her what was wrong and she had wet her bed. No big deal, I said just take off your wet pjs and put them in the laundry room and I will get you some dry ones and dry sheets. As soon as she got those off, she was all talkative and cheerful and chatting on and on about here is my doggie and my kitty cat and my baby dolls, etc. while standing around naked in her room while groggy preggo mom is working at changing sheets. I keep telling her to please put on her dry clothes, and she is just chatty as can be. Finally, I got her back in bed, and she is like "night night, Mommy!" with a grin. Amazing how everything is SO tragic at first, then can change to wide awake happy at 4 in the morning! What do I do with her!

I have a first grader!

Matthew had his first day of school Monday, the 24th. He was pretty excited to go, but a little nervous about finding his class room and getting used to the routine. His teacher is Mrs. Marrs, and he recognized a couple of kids from K last year. We got up and were waiting for the bus, but it turns out the bus got stuck in traffic, so I ended up bringing him to school. Which I think was better anyway, as that way we could walk him to his class room. I think he will have a good year, his teacher seems really nice, nice class room, and he seems pretty excited to be a "big kid" first grader. He has 3 missing teeth which he has been proud to show everyone too. I love my sweet boy!

16 week prenatal appointment

I had my 16 week appointment last Friday, the 21st. Everything is looking good...bp was 108/80, weight up to 182 (2 lb gain), urine fine. Baby's heart rate was strong at 144 bpm. Michelle came with me (Chris had the day off so Matthew stayed home with daddy to play Star Wars Lego on the Wii), and was so excited to discover they had some stuffed animal ponies in the basket of toys in the room. When the nurse did the Doppler, she pipes up with, "that's the baby's heartbeat!" We got to schedule the next appointment for Sept. 16th...the 20 week one with the u/s, so hopefully we can find out what we are having! Afterwards, we came home and met Daddy and Matthew and all went to lunch at Pei Wei. So all is well.

Purses

I have made 2 purses so far. One for myself first and then one for my best friend Wendy for her birthday. The black one is mine and the blue one is hers. I bought 3 coordinating fabrics and quilted them for the body of the purse, then added a pocket on both inside and outside. Upon close examination the craftsmanship is not perfect, but then it does the job and works well. :)

My new top and sick little girl

I sewed a new top for myself yesterday from a Simplicity pattern and fabric I got at Hobby Lobby. So here is a picture Matthew took of me this morning in it. I got to wear it a total of 30 minutes before Michelle puked all over me. Poor kiddo, she was so pale and lethargic today, and threw up like 4 times. Thankfully we caught the rest in a bowl rather than on mommy. She is doing much better this evening though, and even ate dinner. However, she is still pretty tired and went to bed early. Hopefully the rest of us don't get it and we have a better day tomorrow.

Prenatal appointment

I had my second prenatal appointment last week at almost 13 weeks. Blood pressure was good; 110/60, and total weight gain at about 5 lb so far. The cool thing was listening to the heartbeat with the doppler this time. Matthew thought that part was really neat, and enjoyed "helping" the nurse take my blood pressure by squeezing it after she took the offical reading. Next appointment is August 21.

Intelligender

Okay, so I guess I am nuts, but I have really been wondering about the gender of this baby now lately. So, I went out and bought one of those new Intelligender tests to see what it says. Here are pictures from the "girl" and "boy" sides. According to what I see, the color looks more like "boy" (greenish instead orangish) to me, which is contrary to my gut feeling for a long time. Gut feeling based on feeling similar to Michelle's pregnancy, ovulating about 3-4 days after when I think we DTD to conceive, and that several people have said they think I am having a girl. So really, I guess I need to just wait and see for another couple of months till we have our 20 week ultrasound and hopefully can see something!

Pregnancy/new baby

The new baby I am now carrying came as quite a surprise to both of us. Here he/she is at almost 9 weeks of pregnancy. I had a clear pattern of ovulating on day 18 the four or five months before we conceived, and that month I O'ed on day 16. So while I thought we were outside the "window of opportunity", we weren't. I guess God had other plans for us. Even so, we are excited about what this new little one will be like. So far, all has gone smoothly in pregnancy. At about 7-8 weeks, I was feeling kind of nauseous and really, really tired, but now at 13 weeks that is easing up. I definitely have a pooch, and look more like I did at 20 weeks with Matthew. I guess that happens third time around. I have been to one appointment so far with the nurse-midwives, and I go again in 2 days.

Michelle

Michelle is my little sweetheart. She is almost 4, and a girl in every sense of the word. Here she is dressed as "Dancy Dancy" (Fancy Nancy) in her dressup clothes. She is a drama queen, stubborn, and extremely loving and smart. She did preschool for the first time last year, going 2 days a week, and will start PreK4 next month going 3 days a week. She turns 4 the end of next month. She is way into My Little Pony, baby dolls, dressups, and all things "girl". Her favorite color is purple, followed by pink. She cracks me up with some of the stuff she says too. She is little for her age, but thinks she can do everything her big brother does. She takes gymnastics once a week with him and loves it too.

Matthew

Matthew is my oldest and my sweet boy. He is going into first grade next month, and just lost his first tooth last month. Here he is holding his tooth fairy pillow that his mommy made for him. He is on the autism spectrum, so has a few special needs. He has done really well in PPCD and kindergarten last year. He has occupational therapy once a week, and the results have been incredible. A year ago, he was just starting to write and not consistently holding a pencil correctly, and now he writes sentences! He actually talks in conversations now whereas he used to just ignore you. I have a lot to be proud of. He is way in to volcanoes now, but still loves ice, penguins, trains, cars and construction vehicles. He is pretty adept on the computer and is having fun playing on the Wii too. Starting next week, we will alternate weeks of physical and occupational therapy as his fine motor skills have improved that much. He also takes gymnastics once a week to help with core strength and flexibility. This boy is full of questions and I LOVE the stuff he comes up with!

First Post

Well, I guess I should introduce myself. I am Jill, a 36 year old wife of 13 years and mom of 6.5 years. My husband is Chris, who works hard as a chemical process engineer so that I can be home with our kiddos, Matthew (6.5), Michelle (almost 4), and new little one on the way due end of January. So I stay busy caring for household, kids, and doing some sewing projects. I also like to read, surf the net, take walks, and of course, play with my cutie pies. More later.