Last day of April

2 weeks before and 2 weeks after my due date is May. So he HAS to be a May baby. Addilyn chose to be a May baby even though she was due April 25. Tomorrow, I will be 38 weeks. After Thursday, he can come. Why? Because that day I'm doing my last grocery trip.

She just loves shoes

Before

After

 

I snuck in a hair appointment this morning. I decided it was probably best to do it before this little guy comes, because it will just be a whole heck of a lot easier to manage! I tend to get my hair done about once a year...so it needed to be done.

Today we visited Alexis Jane Smith. Kayla just had her this past Saturday and came home from the hospital yesterday. I was lucky enough to be able to text Kayla for most of the day that she was in labor, getting updates and such. I felt like I was apart of it but didn't have to be there! Her sweet girl is just darling. It's a good thing I don't have to wait long to satisfy my baby hunger.

Addilyn was a natural at holding her and being around her. She desperately wanted to hold her. She was super jealous of me and kept trying to get her from me. I've said it before, but I'm smidge bit worried at how much of a "help" she is with babies. I might be defending her brother from her oodles of kisses.

I bought this doll crib from Goodwill for $5 and took a week to paint it (sand, prime both sides, paint both sides). Tonight I finally got around to sewing a little mattress in it. This is Addi's gift from her brother. It is in hopes that she will be occupied with it while I feed the babe and such. She already makes doll beds out of anything she can find. She also saw it when I was sanding it and was trying to take it from me. I thought I could get away with doing it in front of her, but she's a little smarter than I thought. I know she will love it. I also sewed her a mini boppy pillow- a replica of my boppy pillow that I use to nurse with. Again, in hopes to give her something to do while I am nursing. Sorry, no picture tonight.

1 day shy of 38 weeks

And in case you missed my belly in my hair shot, here it is. I'm trying to keep consistent with angles and poses for our baby book of my growing belly. I'm feeling a bit stretched out.

Full term

When I was a wee past full term with Addilyn, I was graduating college. Here is the post from that week. Actually, the day I was full term with her my group was giving our final presentation for our ad campaign that we had created over the entire semester. I don't know why, but I volunteered to be the executive to our account and played "boss" for my group. (We beat the other team) However I did volunteer myself to sit out on that final presentation and we only had 2 present. My team thought it would be funny if I painted my belly with a big "M" on it since our mock campaign was on M&M's. hahaha....not. :)

36 weeks

Anyway- I had another Dr appointment. Seeing as how I'm down to every week now I see them a lot. There's 11 Dr's at that practice, so I rotate through most all of them. Once again, I was measuring smaller than a normal 37 week pregnant person would. However, I did grow, just not an impressive amount (2 lbs in 6 days! I think that's a lot). So my Dr was asking about Addilyn and how far along I carried her (41 weeks 2 days) and how much she weighed (8lbs 15oz). She was completely impressed how big she was since I am currently so small if I have a history of having larger babies. I quote, "Wow. You my dear hide your babies very well". Thank you, I think. I believe that is why I think he is stronger than Addilyn, because he is so compacted in there he just doesn't have the room like his sister did.

37 weeks

So now that I am 37 weeks, I'm considered full term. He can come now and be OK. Over the last couple of weeks my braxton hicks have really picked up (which I didn't think was possible). And as of the last 2 days or so they seem to be really regular and harder for them. I'm not trying to get my hopes up or anything...but it would be nice if they did turn into real contractions. Well, after my final grocery trip and hair cut, then he can come.

My beautiful girl

Addilyn has been LOVING the weather. Me too! That means lots of walks and going to parks. Since her vocab has been expanding so much lately her number 1, 2, & 3 words are "Walk?"  "park?" and "play?" This pic above is from this morning. We were waiting for a thrift store to open up that was having a sale. She's a shopper what can I say.

You've heard me mention my friend Kayla here....well she was due Saturday the 20th. Still no baby. A few months ago I had had a dream that she was late and I was there helping with her labor etc. Then I took her to the hospital and while we were there, I put myself into labor and I had our baby 1 1/2 weeks early and she was 1 1/2 weeks late. Because really, that could happen. And she would hate me if it came true. bahahahahhaa

This weekend

 Addilyn had such an exciting weekend. Thursday there was a free morning at the Children's Museum. The last time we went was a little over a year ago. Check out the difference! She wasn't even walking then, just crawling. She had a blast. 

She insisted on getting in there even with the two older boys.

She loved the horse, of course.

 One of the 2 rooms she really loved- the baby room. She went over to where the crib was and hauled it all the way back to her own rocking chair. Addilyn truly has the mommy gene. My only concern with her brother is I'm going to have to hold her back on her helping...

 The other room she loved was the grocery store. She went and collected food, made pretend ice cream, and played most of the time at the cash register.

 There is a park near Scott's work that is soooo cool. We went after we picked him up and the two of them had a blast. Addilyn has definitely become fearless when it comes to slides...no matter the size. It's been fun going to parks with her lately because she's getting the hang of climbing up things and getting around the toys.

The slides were probably 30 feet high!

 Did I mention she loves shoes? It doesn't matter who they belong to...

Saturday morning we went to the temple in Raleigh. Our friend's Sean and Michelle got married there. Luckily there were enough people outside that they could watch Addilyn while we got to go in. It was such a beautiful day. Low/mid 70's and no humidity. Gosh I love the spring here!

After the temple we went into downtown Raleigh. We ate at Clyde Cooper's BBQ. It wasn't bad, their chicken was definitely the best. Addilyn loved the potato salad, fries, and hush puppies.

mmmmmm

 After lunch we went to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science. (we walked through the gardens of our state capital building between lunch and the museum, that was neat) The museum is massive! It's 2 buildings, 4 floors each. We only had a few hours before we had to head back home for the wedding reception so we only saw 1.5 floors of one of the buildings. We didn't mind that we could only be there a short time because everything was free.

Checking out the butterflies!

Unfortunately I didn't take too many pictures in the museum. The lighting wasn't that great and we were all over the place (and my hands were swelling). We did learn in one of the exhibits that out of the 30-some-odd snakes in NC, only 4 are poisonous and 1 of those 4 live in our area...the copperhead. Which is nice to know! The copperhead is extremely easy to identify. However, that does not mean that any of the other snakes are any less terrifying, although completely harmless to humans. Like the rat snake. That was the first snake we encountered here in NC and they are uberly intimidating. Click here for a look. They get up to 7 feet long. Yuck.

The fishies.

Today in nursery Addilyn tripped on the blanket that they lay out for singing time. She got a massive fat lip and bled on my friend's shoulder as she was carried to me. Poor thing. She doesn't seem to be bothered at all by it though. But it's definitely fat. As my friend Kayla said, people pay lots of money for lips like that!

Did I mention how extremely lucky we are to have Addilyn? We are completely spoiled rotten with her. Just for example, Saturday was such a long day.... We left just before 8am to get to the temple and didn't really sit down until the car ride back when we left Raleigh at 4pm. Addilyn changed her nap from 1-3 to 2-4 over the last 2 weeks and she did not complain one moment that she was tired. We could see a physical change in her, like she was resting her head on Scott's shoulder while we watched an exhibit. But that was the only cue that she was tired. Even when she got into the car, it was about 5 or so minutes of her just sitting there and then she was out. She didn't whine or give any signs that she was tired. And she's always been like that. Then once we got to the reception, she was wild! Running around like she had all the pent up energy in the world. The only time she obviously showed her fatigue was when we got home around 8. We forced her into a bath (she had sand in her hair from the volleyball pit at the reception) and then within 20 minutes she was in bed passed out. I'm pretty sure I can handle 30 minutes of a tired Addilyn compared to a tortured soul all day. I am just so worried that this little guy is not going to be as forgiving. Please be good!!!!

*Blink*

Oh is spring coming? BLINK it came and went. Well, actually, I think I've decided spring here is the warm time when it's not humid yet. So I guess over 80 and not humid is spring in the south? We had the missionaries over for dinner tonight and I asked them if they were hot yet. The poor Elder from Preston, Idaho (cue Napoleon Dynamite fans) started going on about never being so sticky before in his life. He has only been on his mission for 4-5 months now. Granted he is in a biking area...but so is most of the Charlotte Mission. Poor guy doesn't know the meaning of sticky. Bless his heart (as they say here in the south).

Keeping cool

 I guess her little pool was too much like a bath tub. She didn't last long in her new swim suit before she stripped down into the nude. It's so funny watching her and Cabo. He's sweating bullets and lies in any piece of shade he can find. That is until Addilyn spots him, looks at me and says "shhh" with her finger to her lips (indicating that he's sleeping), and then proceeds to run screaming at him. Cabo then runs to escape her and find another spot of shade until the next ambush.

 Do you remember me talking about the stray cat that hangs around our street? Do you remember me mentioning that she got pregnant? Well, our neighbor across from us decided she couldn't stand to let her have her babies outside (which by all means is where most all animals have them) and took her in. She had 6 babies 2 weeks ago. The good thing is that my neighbor is trying to give them away instead of keep them all. Sunday morning Addi and I walked over there to see if we could see the kittens but as we walked up, they were coming out to leave. So she said we could see them the next day. About 5:30 on Monday I got a knock on the door and she and her daughter brought over the whole litter. They said mama cat was not happy they took them! But Addilyn was sooo good with them.

The one she's touching in the top picture was trying to escape and Addi did such a good job nudging her back in. Towards the end she got enough confidence to pick up the orange one and held her for a few moments before she wanted to be back in the bed.

Meow!

Well here I am, in all my 35 week glory. And I have a funny story about it. After the event happened Scott said, "You're going to blog about this aren't you?" You bet I am!

35 weeks

The only way I can get my upper back popped and get a back massage is if I am on my knees leaned over beside our bed. So last night I had this idea that Scott should try lifting my belly while I was in this position. That way it could just temporarily relieve the weight on my back. So the first round of him doing it lasted about 3 seconds. He immediately said, "Holy cow. That is heavy and it is not my job to carry it." And then he let go. I was so in shock he said it, and I'm pretty sure he was too because it was just his automatic response without thinking. So we started laughing.

me: I can't believe you just said that!
Scott: I know, but it's true!
me: Yeah, I know it (my belly) is heavy! That's why I wanted you to hold it for me for a minute. Just a minute please?
Scott: uuuuhhhhhggggg....Ok. Fine.

He then held it for what seemed like 20 seconds but he claims he counted a very slow 60 seconds. But that short time was so heavenly. And then he let go. I can't remember what he said after that, but I did say something to the effect of he should carry my belly more often and just a minute is not enough for the time I have to carry it.

34 weeks. Or is that almost 36?

Do you remember my post back in February? (here) At the bottom I gave a pregnancy update mainly me complaining about my pelvic pain. Well today, I got an even better answer why it is. My Dr's have all said that since I've had a baby already I'm extra stretchy-true. I also have always known I'm carrying this guy much more different than with Addilyn-true. The last 6 weeks or so the Dr's have said (from my perspective looking down at my belly) that his head is towards my bottom right side and his back goes up my belly and his feet are on the left-FALSE!

Today at my apt. I was measuring almost smaller than 2 weeks ago. And it seemed that baby hadn't really grown much. So the Dr wanted to be sure things were OK and had me go into an ultrasound. In the ultrasound, the tech was having a hard time even getting a glimpse of his head because it was so far down into my pelvis! She was apologizing and saying she didn't want to hurt me (she wasn't) because she was pushing on my pelvis to try and get a view of him. The tech was very positive that the reason he seemed to be measuring small was because his head was SO far down into my pelvis. That the part we though was his head was in fact his shoulder. However, it is true where his feet are- nice and squished up into my uterus. In fact, he's not measuring small at all. He was averaging 1.5 weeks ahead! According to the ultrasound he's about 5 1/2 pounds already.

I'm only 34 weeks as of yesterday. I know past 20 weeks it's hard to guess gestational age because by that point they just start putting on weight (and all babies are different sizes when they are born). So it's not always accurate what they guess past then. BUT here is to hoping and praying that he is born in fact a wee bit early!! Actually, 1.5 weeks ahead would put him exactly on Addilyn's birthday....

So back to that post about me complaining about my pelvic pain. There's your answer. Or at least a very large contributing factor to the answer. His head is so far down into my pelvis that the tech was agreeing that it very much was the cause of that pain. My mom said hopefully that means he'll also come out faster! Oh blessed day.

Photos thanks to Kayla Smith

Easter

Scott had Friday off of work. So in the morning we took some family maternity pictures (I wrote about that in my last post.) Then we went to the temple with a couple for them to receive their endowments. They asked Scott and I to be there escorts. Basically we just follow them and be a familiar face. Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to clean the church building so that we could go on the hospital tour (wrote about that too). Once Addilyn woke up from her afternoon nap, we left to go to the park. It was such a nice day. We ended up going to an elementary school near by us that is fenced in and let Cabo run around while Addi went up and down the slides. Since it was such a nice day, we knew that there would be people at Hobby park flying their airplanes. Well not only were their airplanes, but there were RCR people racing their cars on the track.

On Sunday the closing song was a choir/congregation hymn. Well, during the closing speaker before the song I was noticing the organ powering on and off on its own. During the closing song, the organ shut off right as the congregation was supposed to join in. It was hysterical. It came on and off for the rest of the song but everyone kept singing thank goodness. (hahaha!)

We went to Scott's coworker's house for potluck and an Easter egg hunt. Addilyn was so funny. There were two older boys (like 8 and 14) but Addi was kicking their hinies when it came to finding the eggs. At first she wasn't sure what was going on, but she definitely go the hang of it. Here are some lovely pictures:

Grandma Jadwin sent a box and requested that we video her opening them. It's a little long, but she's funny.