Pregnancy Update ~ Week 26!

Can I get a Whoop Whoop! Less than a 100 days to go! 98 to be exact... but probably less. With a scheduled C-Section in my future my doctor will do it around 2 weeks early!

Here are some of the most recent pictures of our little cutie-patootie from last week's doctors appointment.

I love love love that I get to see him so often. For as crazy nervous as I am right now, I am beyond thankful that I get such a wonderful reassurance every two weeks that he is still ok! I have noooo idea how I made it through my older boys pregnancies with hardly any ultrasounds!

Pregnancy Update:

How Far Along: 26 Weeks!

Size of Baby: About 13-1/2" long and around 2 pounds. I'll find out next Tuesday how much more he has grown!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Surprisingly holding steady. I don't think that I gained or lost weight this past week or two.I thought that I would have gained a ton of weight with the steroid shots. I could tell a lot in my face that I was retaining tons of water.

Maternity Clothes: All the time. Nothing fits anymore. At all.

Gender: Still a little boy cooking away in there!

Movement: Some days he's a rock star (thank goodness both yesterday and today) and moves all the time. Other days it seems like he just wants to take a break and its just tiny little flutters only here and there that drive me crazy!

Sleep: This has been getting better this week! (I know I just jinxed myself...) My regular OB said that it will be hard for me to sleep now while on partial bed rest. The lack of movement on my part accompanied by the lack of sunlight will really mess with my internal clock.

What I Miss: Being a regular active Momma that can completely take care of her family! I know that I'm doing what I need to do for this baby right now but it still makes me sad that I have 3 other guys here that I can't take care of like I'd like to.

Cravings: Red meat (I can not get enough hamburgers right now!) and cole slaw. Yummy!

Symptoms: I'm starting to swell now in the Texas heat! Other than that I feel pretty good physically!

Best Moment This Week: Knowing that the 3rd Trimester is just around the corner! Some Internet sites I look at say that this starts at 27 weeks and others say 28 weeks. What the heck? In the past I've always gone by 28 weeks but considering that 27 weeks is just next week for me I may change my mind and start my 3rd Trimester then! :)

House of Stink

Ya'll, I have been about to puke for over a day now. Can you guess why?



The offending popcorn bag...



+

Burned up inside of my microwave...

=



The worlds worst smell EVER!

I have been trying to get Graham just a little bit more independent this summer. One of the things we've been working on is microwave popcorn. We've made popcorn together a million times. We've read the directions together and I've showed him which buttons to push on the microwave. (We have an older built-in microwave that came with the house and there is no "popcorn" button.) Yesterday I let him do it on his own. He asked if it was ok and I had said yes. I heard him start the popcorn and then for some crazy reason I made the worst decision EVER. I.got.in.the.shower. Midway through my shower Graham came to the door and said that the microwave was SMOKING. I jumped out and removed the still smouldering popcorn and tossed it outside. I was upset with Graham that we had a popcorn problem in the first place but really its mostly my fault for letting him and not observing better :(. I was very proud however that in the time that it took me to jump out of the shower he had managed to turn on the ceiling fan and opened the back door to let smoke out...

Long story short, our house STINKS. By late afternoon my throat hurt from the smoke that I guess just wouldn't go away?? And now I have no idea how to get the smell out of our house. I would febreeze everything that we have but there are almost no soft-surfaces downstairs for me to spray it on (we have leather couches and no curtains). We have mostly tile or and hardwood floors and just one area rug that might be holding odor. I had thought about going to the store and buying like 20 boxes of baking powder and just leaving them open and out in hopes that they would absorb the smell. Blech! My nose is already crazy sensitive from just being pregnant. I can almost not stomach the burnt popcorn smell I have going on over here!

Does anyone have any ideas on good odor removal. Help!!

A Big Thank You!

So to be totally honest, it's been a really rough morning for me emotionally. I've cried off and on and wondered endlessly about the health of this baby. I'm sure that 90 % of what I've been thinking and feeling is all in my head. I can't stop myself from wondering if he's ok. I can not stop over-analyzing if that baby is moving enough or not. I don't want anyone to panic. He has moved today, but in my mind all I can think about is "Has he moved enough?" and "Last week his kicks, punches, and rolls felt stronger, right?", "What if he's in some kind of fetal distress and I just don't know about it yet". I know I've said this a couple of times before, but I just can't seem to stop the catastrophic thoughts from rolling through my head. I feel as though I have laid around half of the morning either watching the boys play and praying to God to make all of this work out. In some moments of desperation I pray to God to help make the baby move for a second to give my mind just a little bit of peace. I know that if I would just suck it up and buy a hospital grade Doppler I probably would have the peace that I crave but I'm just soo worried that I wouldn't use it right and then not be able to find the baby's heartbeat and really scare myself for no reason.

I know that a lot of you ladies that I've connected with while blogging have lost kiddos, but not so many of us seem to have come out on the other side yet of a successful pregnancy after such a great loss. For those of you who have did you feel like you experience similar anxiety? Did you feel like you compared one pregnancy against the other too much?

Now that that is off my chest, I wanted to say a quick thank you! Amidst my praying this morning I checked my email a couple of times and read some super awesome comments with ya'll reminding me that you guys are praying for us too and that I'm not all alone over here. Your loving comments were a God-send when my head was in too dark of a place this morning.

Lots of Love to all of you and thank you thank you thank you!

My Dog and I Both Have 'Roid Rage

All I can say right now is "what a freakin' week it's been". It feels like for.ever. since I've posted (technically it's been almost a week since I did!). I know my sweet hubby did a quicky post update for me on Tuesday night but I might as well do a better re-cap of all that's gone down.

I went into my specialist appointment on Tuesday morining all sunshine and roses expecting to have great cervical results! I had been feeling awesome "down there" since my last appointment. I had no pain, no pressure, and most importantly no sense of fullness. The previous appointment 2 weeks before that I had pretty much all of the above symptoms but had great cervical measurements! I just knew that my lady bits were going to be getting an A+! How wrong wrong wrong I was. They always start my sonograms with the interuterine cervical check first. The first measurement was great at 3.5. The next went down to like a 2.8 and just kept on going.... down. The tech and I were basically sitting there watching my cervix change while I was laying flat on my stinkin' back. The last measurement she took was 2.2. Overall the lowest being at 2.2 is not really all that bad. They said than anything below a 2.5  was defiantly short though. Great news was that the baby looked awesome. ( I promise to post songram pictures maybe tomorrow).  He was in the 74th percentile for size and weighed in at 1 pound 15 ounces (although when they gave me paperwork later about the visit the data had changed to 1 pound 13 ounces and 69 percentile. How the heck does that change from what an ultrasound machine says to what their computer system says??? I must ask next time...). My doctor was actually on vacation while I was there for my appointment so her nurse came in to speak to me. She was really positive about everything and basically explained that the "final piece to our puzzle was steroid shots" for the baby's lungs. Cerclage - Check!, Bedrest - Check!, Progesterone - Check!, and now Steroid Shots - Check! The nurse made it sound like all I had to do was run on over to Labor and Delivery to get the first shot then come back the next day for the next one. No biggie right?? I got there and they said that my regular OB who had been already notified of what had happened wanted me admitted for observation. Ugh.

The portion of my story about being at the hospital is not nearly as exciting as the doctors office. I layed there. Alot. They barely even checked on me except to move me 3 times to 3 different rooms during the middle of the night. They had better not charge me for the sleeping pill that they gave me that I didn't get to even enjoy. :) After my 2 shots and 2 days it was concluded that I was having almost no contractions and the baby's heartbeat (when they checked it) looked great.



Here is lumpalicious me. I swear to God that I can now thank the steroids for enabling me to now see my own cheeks out of my own periferial vision!!



I went in on this past Thursday for my regularly scheduled OB appointment. My doctor is still so sweet to me despite my bitter complaining about having to stay in the hospital. She just kept telling me that she wanted to be sure that I was ok after "our pervious loss". I realized then that I was just being stupid. The whole time with Caroline all I ever prayed for was more time or another chance. Now I have both and I'm being a stink about my care?? I need to shut up and stop complaining. But, while I'm at it .... :) The steriod shots make me feel like crap. I woke up with all of my joints aching and feeling a little flu like. I feel hung-ver and dehydrated but with out the fun party from the night before. I got my first shot on Tuesday morning and here it is Sunday and I still feel like I've been run over....

My awesome doctor also told me that while it was great that we reached my first milestone of 24/25 weeks gestation she would love love love it if I were to make it to 28 weeks. She said that while I may have already achieved viability the chances of having a baby with blindness, deafness, neurological problems etc. goes down tremendously at 28 weeks. She was practically doing a cheer for "3 MORE WEEKS, 3 MORE WEEKS!". I adore her and her tiny goals she sets for me.

Later on that evening I took a step out onto our back patio area and promptly tripped and fell to the ground. I managed to fall only onto one knee and then flop crazily onto my side. I was totally stunned for a second (and shed some hormonal tears) but picked myself up and went to lie down. That night I woke up around 1 am to use the bathroom and realized that I was spotting. CRAP. Really?! I thought to myself! All that I had just been through the past week and one stupid trip and fall is going to be the end of it all? (I was super tired and thinking only catastrophically at the time). I went back to bed, on my left side, perfectly still only to get up once an hour to check for more spotting, for the rest of the night. Thankfully there was no more. I called my doctor first thing in the morning dreading what she was going to say. She only wanted me to go back on strict bed rest for the rest of the weekend again thank goodness.

One would think that the drama would end right there huh? Not a chance. While all of this was going on our little dachshund Crash started to act funny. He wouldn't hardly move at all. Bobby and I have had a dachshund before that we had to put down because of a slipped disc in his back (it tends to go right through their spinal cords and its horrible) and Crash was acting a lot like him. Crash finally made it to the Vet on Thursday when I got out of the hospital and sure enough, he has a slipped disc. The doctor hopes that if we can get the swelling to go down then the disc might slip back into place and stay there for a number of years. Guess what Crash is on now?? STEROIDS AND BEDREST. We are both bitter Betty's right now...

***Also, I swear I just hit spell check and nothing came up as misspelled. I can not believe that with how long this post is so no comments about my horrible spelling ok? ****

Hillary's Cervix Of Doom Part 2

Hi All! This is Bobby, Hillary's hubby. So Hill went in for a check up with the specialist today and they found her cervix has shortened again. 2 weeks ago everything looked great, now today not so much. They are not super worried about it since she has a cerclage in, but admitted her to labor and delivery to observe and administer steroid shots to help the little guy's lungs develop faster. She has been in there since before lunch time today and will probably not get out till after lunch tomorrow. Please pray that this is just precautionary and will not be needed soon.

Much Ado About Nothing Monday

I have a lot of random, jumbly things going around in my head right now so I'm going to use bullets again today. I love those little things! :)

• Graham and I were talking this morning about really nothing in particular and he told me very matter of factly "I hope that nothing tragic happens to my baby brother." (He watches waaaaaay too much tv and has become more than a little dramatic at times....) I told him that I hoped so too and that we needed to just keep praying that God keeps him healthy and safe. He told me (again very dramatically but now with a very "like duh" tone) "Mooooommmm, I already do. I pray everyday for him!" Despite the tone I teared up. I had no idea that he had private moments with God where he prayed!

• I woke up this morning, checked my email and noticed that I received a comment. I love comments! That is until I read it. I was pissed.

"Frameless Shower Door has left a new comment on your post "Keepin' It Real Thursday":

These days all Frameless Shower Door are very fashionable and are popular with many people for their sleek modern look. All frameless shower doors are made from thick tempered glass that is incredibly hard to break. This means it is possible to get years of performance out of an all frameless glass shower door.



Posted by Frameless Shower Door to Our Hopeful Life - Welcome to the Mueller Family! at June 20, 2011 3:24 AM "


Seriously??? I try soo hard to be the nice blogger who lets people comment anonymously etc. but then you go and stick a sneaky little Ad on my blog? I remember this post. It was a funny spoof on how yicky my shower door was. Does that  mean that they went searching for people with yicky shower doors to try and sell them something??

For real Frameless Shower Door Company. I want some payment for you Ad placement!! A-holes.

• On to better news, I have an appointment tomorrow at the specialist! Yea for getting to see the little guy again! If everyone could say a quick prayer for great cervical length (I know, super gross to pray for my lady parts but I'm not proud anymore...)!

• I plan to ask my doctor tomorrow about the Progesterone shots I've been taking. I started out with no problems at all. I scoffed at all that I had read about bad reactions and praised my amazing body for handling them so well. Until about 3 weeks ago. My rear is now covered in bumps, lumps, and puncture wounds. All of those bumps, lumps, and puncture wounds ITCH like crazy. And bleed. And bruise. That is what I get and deserve for being so smug.

• I lost some followers a couple of nights ago. All at the same time. There were there and then they were gone. I was pretty sad about it on Saturday. I don't feel like I'm either all that controversial or all that boring. I don't feel that I've suddenly changed my topics of discussion that would turn people off. Oh well! What can I do? I refuse to be a 35 year old Middle School girl that will worry about this anymore. I really just felt like talking about it for a second to get it off my chest. (you know, if they are secretly still reading and now feel a teensy bit bad about hitting the "Unfollow" button)

• Bobby made the best food yesterday for Father's Day! Ok so just the meat, but it was sooo good!



I totally  made Bobby pose for this picture. He thought I was crazy but I'm sure that he secretly really liked me taking pictures of the smoke ring on his meat! :)




Here is a random picture of the rest of our Father's Day lunch. (Made by me so you know it was good too :)





Hope that you all are having a fun random day too!

Happy Father's Day To The Two Best Dads!

I feel that right now I am the luckiest lady alive! I have been blessed to have had such a wonderful Daddy and now I have the best husband ever who is also such a amazing Daddy!

Bobby, my love, I am soo thankful every single day that our boys are blessed beyond belief to have you as their father. I know that as they grown into strong, capable, independent young men they will see that they have gotten these amazing qualities from you! Their sweet, fun, and spunky personalities are due to your guidance and support.

They have (and are still) learned so many things from you in their short little lives. They both share your love for the outdoors and nature. They will both grow up to be avid hunters and fishermen. I could not be more proud of their ability to be self-sufficient if they ever needed to be! They both love and respect their parents, friends, elders, and God. It warms my heart soo much that they have this compassionate nature that they inherited from you!

At the tender ages of 9 and 3 they are both already amazing little guys and I can't wait to see how much more they learn, grow and develop with you as their Daddy!

We all love you soo much!



Sweet Bobby holding Graham for the first time! Poor guy, I think he was soo scared (if you couldn't tell by the look on his face :). I completely understand though. Graham was a pretty sick little guy who spent his first 4 days in the NICU. I also think that Graham was the first baby that he ever held!






Here is Bobby and Graham on the day that he was released from the hospital. They had finally brought him to my room and we were beyond relieved. I'm soo proud of my Bobby. Look at how natural and self assured he is holding Graham just a couple of days later! What a pro! :)

 This is Bobby and Grady when he was about 2-1/2 months old. I love love love this picture!

 

Here are my sweet boys several days after Grady came home from the hospital. Can you tell that Bobby already needs toothpicks to keep his eyes open! :)



 I also couldn't do a Father's Day post without stopping for a second to talk about my Daddy. Sadly he passed away in November of 2008 and I miss him soo much!

Circa 1976



Daddy's little girl!



I miss him soo much. So many times I want to call him on the phone when I have a problem that I need his advise on. Now, I just stop and think "What would he do?" and that is usually my answer! :)I feel so sad that he will never get to meet our newest baby but at the same time feel so fortunate that our dear little Caroline has a Grandparent in Heaven to watch over her. My dad was an amazing husband, father, architect, grandfather and so much more!

I hope that everyone had just as great a Father's Day as we did! Bobby made us all some of the most amazing BBQ that deserves its own post for tomorrow!

Viability

"O Lord, grant us success. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." Psalm 118:25, 26


I have to start this post by saying once again that I seriously can not believe that I'm actually at the point of viability. I never thought that I'd make it this far though I've been praying multiple times a day to just get to this point. The day that we found out that we would most likely be delivering our baby Caroline into Heaven I prayed so hard to God and then begged the doctors to find us a way to get just 3 more weeks with her to give her a chance. It was of course a chance we never got. But, we have it now and for that I am beyond thankful. All I have ever wanted was just a chance, a glimmer of hope.

I've been looking around online and each site that I've visited has different percentages. Here is the most common ones though.

21 weeks : 0%

22 weeks : 0-10%

23 weeks : 10-35%

24 weeks : 40-70%

25 weeks : 50-80%

26 weeks : 80-90%

27 weeks : >90%

30 weeks : >95%

34 weeks : >98%

Some sites were more dire than others. If you visit the March of Dimes website they list a baby born at 24 weeks as only having a 34% survival rate whereas many others list what I have above which are considerably better results. I like to think positively and imagine that this little guy might be ok if he were born tomorrow but then again it's the March of Dimes folks. Who else would know better than them as to fetal survival rates! I was all sorts of excited to get to 24 weeks (and truthfully still am) but after reading all that I have, my next goal is 26 weeks. It's less than 2 weeks away now and look at how much better the odds go up!!

As I've crept closer to 24 weeks and started to have a little bit more hope I've started to actually look online at baby stuff. This was something that I've not let myself do until recently. I know in my heart that I won't order anything for the baby until he gets here but at least when the time comes I'll already know in my head what I'd like his room to look like.



I love love love the colors in the bedding set! I went very plain and traditional with Graham almost 10 years ago with everything being pale blue and white. With Grady's bedding and room everything was neutral tans and soft greens. With this baby I wanted a little bit more punch of fun color. I think this set does just that!!

It is very nice to know also that having two older brothers, our little guy is already stocked up on all the baby clothes, furniture, toys, bouncy seats, swings, car seats, etc. that he will ever need (and thus I won't have to worry about getting much of anything ahead of time).

Another thing that I let myself do yesterday as a small celebratory thing was to start putting all of our ultrasound pictures in a proper photo album. Before yesterday they were just being held in an envelope. :)

I of course still have some fear and sadness in my heart because I would love love love to start planning his name instead of waiting until he's here. I would love to order little onesies with it one there and find "big brother" shirts for Graham and Grady to wear at the hospital. I'm just too scared. I guess I'm just scared that I'll be "counting my chicks before they hatch" even though I know in my crazy head that the simple act of any online ordering on my part will not cause the demise of our little guy. I'm still hoping that as time passes and I get further along I'll find the confidence to do these things. And, if I can't and don't then it still won't be the end of the world. I will still be over the moon to have a healthy baby here and not have things be all "perfect and fun".

With all that random gloom and doom being said, I really am so glad that I finally have this hope creeping back into my heart! I know that we are far from out of the woods yet but I feel safe enough to start getting excited!

Pregnancy Week 24!!!

***** Can I just interrupt my own post quickly to say how stinkin' aggravated that I am right now with all the problems that are still going on with the Google Accounts!!! I was able to freely comment on others blogs for ONE whole day this past month (and that was only after spending a ton of wasted time changing my account around with them) and now it is back again to not working!!! I hate it! I feel terrible that other blogging ladies might see my comment absence as not caring but that could not be farther from the truth! Please know that I still read and pray for ever.single.one.of.you.  I changed my comment settings in hopes that it will be easier for ya'll to leave me comments again. Leave me a comment today :) and tell me if it really is easier for you now! ******



Are you totally astounded at the sheer awesomeness that is my picture taking skillz?? :) Sadly, this is the best of the bunch.... Can you see my littlest shadow in the background? He kept darting in and out of the bathroom this morning and I'm pretty sure that is what confused my camera. It just didn't know what to focus on... Yeah, that was the problem... I'm sure of it....

On a radom and kinda TMI note, my Nana's are huge right now. Its getting soo hard to find maternity shirts that will fit me up top. My breast milk came in very shortly after they place the cerclage (I checked with my doctor because I was completely freaked out and she said that it was the anesthesia that did it... crap.)

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 24 Glorious weeks!! A few weeks ago I had some serious doubts that I'd even make it this far. But, here we are! God Is Great!

Size Of Baby: At last measurement the specialist estimated that he was already 1 pound 5 ounces and 72 percentile. We go back this coming Tuesday get get further updates on his growth. I hesitate to use what the Internet says at this point as he seems a little larger than average. I have always had small to normal sized babies and the fact that this one seems to be much larger than my boys ever did - gestation wise- I'm attributing to the glorious Progesterone shots I've been doing. The specialist said that she thought that it would improve the quality of my placenta and I know that a good placenta/great blood flow = healthy baby!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: This question is fairly hilarious to me at this point. I was told to eat normal (HA! whatever that means for a pregnant/hungry/hormonal lady!) but you combine normal with little to no physical movement for the better part of most days and yikes! I am totally packing on the pounds. Neither doctor has said much of anything about it yet to me because truly what can I do? Restrictive eating will do nothing to help our little guy get as big as he needs to so here I am. Large and in charge! :)

Maternity Clothes: No brainer. All of them are now maternity! I can no longer fit into my beloved t-shirts!

Gender: Still our little boy hanging out in there!

Movement: Ahhh. The bane of my existence. I worry constantly about his movement. I just got done having a super great week where I felt him move every.five.minutes. Now the past couple of days he has slowed down. I keep a running mantra in my mind of "he's still really little" and "for God sakes Hillary, you are only 24 weeks!". Sometimes this helps and other times I have to take a break for a while and just stop and pray for God to grant me piece of mind! (he almost always does and the baby pokes me for a while :)

Sleep: See above comments! I fall asleep easily but then when I get up to use the restroom around 1 or 2 am I stay away and wait to see if I can feel the little guy move. Sometimes it's a couple of hours before I can fall back asleep. It's really starting to catch up with me! :(

What I Miss: Sleeping on my stomach, clothes that fit comfortably, and the ability to do what a Momma needs to do (aka no bed rest!)

Cravings: Hamburgers! I just am in love with red meat these days! I may have to pull a steak out of the freezer for tonight now that I'm talking about it. :)

Symptoms: Just the usual. A little heartburn here and there and swollen feet, ankles, and calves. Nothing terrible!

Best Moment This Week: This is an easy one! By far the best moment this week is making it to 24 weeks! Whoo- Hoo for viability! (a whole other post coming up on this topic!)

Family Pizza Night!

Despite having pizza for lunch at The Jumpy Place today, Graham and I decided that we needed more for dinner! (The little man growing inside of me right now might have had just a little bit of say in this too.... :) I remembered that I had pizza dough (the crazy easy just add water kind) in my pantry and pretty much if that is there then I'm all set!



I have 4 individual pizza pans that I got from one of my besties, Deborah.  Her dad used to have his own pizza place with the best pizza ever!! To say that these pizza pans are well-seasoned is an understatement!



I love making this pizza because you can pretty much put on it whatever you have in your fridge! Next time we plan on doing this when we have some leftover chicken and using an Alfredo sauce and mozzarella cheese! Yum!

For our pizza tonight we used just the regular jarred spaghetti sauce that I had in the pantry, shredded cheese, diced onion and green bell pepper, and crumbled breakfast sausage (told you that you could add anything!). We have some other ideas to try this also as a Mexican pizza next time with picante sauce instead of tomato sauce, taco meat, Mexican cheese, the topped (but not baked with) lettuce and tomato!

I had some very cute little helpers!



This is what the pizza looked like that Bobby and I had! It was beyond good!





This was Graham's pizza. Notice the lack of veggies?? :) We are still working on that...

I need some more ideas! Do you ever make your own pizza? How would you make it differently? 

Why Hello There!

I just don't know what has gotten into me lately and all this no blogging non-sense! I guess part of the time I figure that if I have the energy to sit at my computer and type then I really should be using that time to lie down before one of the boys needs me again! :) I have tons of fun pictures to post and little things about the boys and myself to blog about from the past week.

• Graham had his last day at camp and they put on the greatest show for the parents! Lots of fun songs and games followed up by individual awards for all of the kids! Graham won the award for being "Good Natured".



(I have no idea why this picture came out so blurry! :( ) This was the room full of parents and kids during the camp finale!



Graham and his two sweet counselors.



Grady was bribed with a snow cone to hang out in his stroller for the program. Poor guy, it was over a 100 degrees that day and he was stuck in his stroller. He did soo good though!!



• This past weekend was one of my besties birthdays! (Happy Birthday Amy!) She celebrated by coming into New Braufels to float the river. I wasn't able to go with her this year but I did get to get out of the house for an hour and go and see her and one of our other friends, Tami for a little bit that morning before they left for their river trip. I miss these girls soo much! We had the greatest time in college together!



Tami and myself.





The Birthday girl Amy!



• The boys got a cute little blow up pool for the backyard this weekend. It's small but does a great job keeping them cool and it staves off the "I'm bored" comments for a couple of hours! :)

• Today has been a wonderful, low-key day. My awesome friend Deborah came this morning and cleaned up the house a little bit for me and then watched the boys while I took it easy this morning. Late yesterday afternoon I think I overdid it a bit. I was feeling a little "trickily" down there and was having a little bit of pain I'm guessing where my cerclage is. Then I started thinking that I wasn't feeling the baby move quite as much as from before. I rested most of the evening and bunches today and I feel much better. I still think that the baby's movement isn't quite as much or as vigorous as he had been before (don't get me wrong he is still moving around in there) but I keep telling myself that I'm only between 23-24 weeks and I should still have a couple of weeks before intense movement starts right?? Despite having other children I'm drawing a blank on this situation. 

• I'm super excited that the day after tomorrow I will be the magical 24 weeks prego! I'm thinking about doing a post just exclusively on that milestone and starting back up with pregnancy posts like I was doing before the cerclage.

I hope that everyone's weeks is going well so far!

Camp Cutie!

Today is Graham's last day and camp and he has had the best time! He asked me just the other day if he could go back again next year. I of course said YES! He then asked how much longer he could keep going and I told him that he could keep going until he was old enough to be a camp counselor. He was beyond thrilled with that idea. And so am I!!

I took a couple of pictures of him before he left the house yesterday morning and then again this morning. He's so clean cute!



Each day of the week the camp has a different theme going and the kids get to dress up to match. Yesterday was by far Graham's favorite. He would live in camo clothes every.single.day if I let him! :) They had a fun "war games" event that went on and he was so tired and exhilarated by the time he got home.



I can not believe how grown-up Graham looks to me in this picture!



Today at camp it is Alpha vs. Omega day. Alpha's and Omega's are the two different groups that the kids get split into when they sign up for camp. Last year was Graham's first year and he was assigned to be an Omega. It's really neat because from here on out he will always be an Omega!

I will probably be doing one more post on Graham's camp tomorrow! This afternoon they are putting on a special program for the parents and then handing out awards. It should be an awesome afternoon! 

Keepin' It Real Thursday

Reality in our house these days is pretty amusing.

I realized that I had the funniest thing going on in my bathroom the other day. If you are a neat-nick, OCD cleaning machine, or otherwise inclined to judge my house-keeping you might want to stop reading now! :)

For a while now I have been letting Graham take a shower in my master bathroom. After a couple of days it occurred to me that he was taking for.ev.er. in there to get done. The other day I realized why.

Folks, that's not steam on the awesome 80's gold shower door. That hard water deposits. And Graham has been doing his art work in it. When I took a closer look there were 6 hearts, 9 tic-tac-toe games and a variety of swirls and other lines. Maybe next year we'll start practicing our spelling words here and kill 2 bird with 1 stone! :) HA!

To say that I need to enlist  Bobby's help to clean up in is the understatement of the year!



Grady decided that he needed to jump in the picture too! I love love love my little excuse for not getting anything done around here!



Hope ya'll are having a great Thursday! Any "confessions" going on in your house this week??

What I'm Loving Wednesday!



This week I'm joining up with Jaime again to participate in What I'm Loving Wednesday! We have had soo much stuff going on lately that I'm just full to brimming with what I'm loving! This is also an excellent opportunity to get everyone caught up with what we're up to since I've been a little behind in the blogging this week!

{1.} I'm Loving this little guy!

I'm soo thankful that my appointment went really really great! Our little guy now weights around 1 pound 5 ounces and is in the 72 % for his gestation (22 weeks and 5 days). This is awesome news because they want him to get as big as possible since there is a chance of him making a very early arrival. Dr. M said that my cervix was kicking butt this week and measuring at around 3.5 cm which is an improvement over 2 weeks ago. Love Him!

{2.} I'm Loving my in-law's next door neighbors that have a great pool!

They are beyond the kindest people ever and have pretty much given us a permanent open invitation to swim almost whenever we want! The boys love it and sleep and eat soo good afterwards!

{3.} I'm Loving my big kitchen sink! HA!

My youngest son is developing a serious addition to water (see above pool pictures and below). I'm glad that he still fits in the sink for a quickie bath in the evening sometimes. This is such a saver on my back these days. I was having problems convincing him to get out however. Then I realized that he was scared of the drain... (I might be the bad Momma that took advantage of this and pull the plug when its time to get him out and boy does he scramble out! :)

{4.} I'm Loving The Jumpy Place!

I know that I've blogged about this place before but for those new readers its a wonderful jumpy house place here where we live. I couldn't get any pictures of Grady jumping because he spent 75% of his time hogging the drinking fountain. 400 drinks, 9 hand washes, and 1 narrowly missed hair wash (yes he totally tried to stick his whole head in it...) and it was time to go. Like I said earlier, the child is obsessed with water! :)

{5.} I'm Loving the Sally Hanson Salon Effect  nail polish strips!



I was introduced to these by my SIL Melanie and I love them! It was soo much fun! I opted to try out the zebra print for some summer fun nails! I really need to get some longer nails going so I can keep practicing my technique.

{6.} I'm Loving that Graham started day camp this week! He's been attending T Bar M camp in New Braunfels and it's been the most rewarding experience for him. Its a camp that is Christ centered and he has grown so much while he's been there. This is only his second year to attend and I already can't wait to see how he grows and matures in such a wonderful environment in the coming years!

First Day of Camp!



I hope that everyone else is having a great week! What are you loving this Wednesday? 

Baby Love, My Baby Love

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

Deuteronomy 6:5

Please forgive me, I'm soo behind in blogging! I have soo much to blog about right now and can't seem to find the time to do any of it! I did want to share one of the most recent pictures of our sweet baby boy! I went to the specialist this morning for a checkup and the ultrasound tech got this great picture for us. I am so unbelievably in love with this baby! How sweet is that face?? :)

I'll update again later this evening with all our happenings and details on today's appointment!