32 Week Survey (and a belly photo!)

 Beautiful Mother's Day flowers my Dad sent. They smell so wonderful!
 

How far along? I was 32 weeks last Friday.

Total weight gain/loss: At Friday's appointment, I was at 27lbs gained. It's going to be close to keep it to the 35lb goal I set!

Maternity clothes? All the way. Except for some stretchy knit skirts that fit below the belly.

Stretch marks? Not yet, at least that I can see. I haven't done a full body inspection, I admit.

Sleep: Not bad! Probably because I'm so exhausted every night from running around after the boys all day. I'm up once a night still for a potty run.

Best moment this week: Mother's Day was pretty fantastic! I always love it when Nurse's Week runs into Mother's Day, and being pregnant for this one made it extra special!

Movement: Lots of rolls, punches, hiccups and the like. She's a mover and a shaker!

Food cravings: Still anything sweet...fresh fruit...nothing too out of the ordinary.

Gender: Sweet baby girl!

Labor Signs: None, thankfully.

Belly Button in or out? In, and getting bigger by the day.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

What I miss: Going to go with running again. I think about it on a daily basis...when I hear a song that I think would be a good one to run to, or when I see someone out jogging. I can't wait to start training for another half-marathon! (I know I said I'd never do one again, but pregnancy cured that. I.Want.To.Run.)

What I am looking forward to: Our vacation to St.Augustine! Oh, to place myself in a large body of water.

Weekly Wisdom: Nap when I can. I'm having a hard time sticking to that one, feeling like I need to be uber-productive all the dang day.

Milestones: Planting my container gardens for the summer. They are beautiful, and I know I will love looking at them while on postpartum lockdown.

 With my boys last night at the park for Food Truck Tuesday. Ian was looking terribly cute in his Blue Jays uniform (he had a game earlier in the evening), and he agreed to give baby sister a little hug. Elijah, obviously, is a blur of activity behind us. As usual. :)

On Mother's Day...

...we took zero pictures. Well, except for one very poor quality cell phone photo snapped at the coffeeshop yesterday morning. Which doesn't count because neither child is looking at the camera, in fact they are fighting over who gets to play Cut The Rope on the iPad. 

So, yeah. All those sweet "mama and kiddos" photos that kept appearing in my facebook feed yesterday? I don't have any.

BUT. That's totally OK. Because what matters is that I spent the whole day with my little munchkins and was treated to all kinds of special treats, and I think if I had tried to force a photo it would have ended poorly. As most staged photos tend to.

My day included: breakfast at Rev, church, lunch with the family (including sweet cards and flowers), Pinkberry (chocolate.hazelnut.froyo. I died.), and a trip to Paul's favorite place in the WORLD! (I'm being sarcastic here) He took us all (me, his mama, his sister) to the mall, the L'Occitane store specifically, and instructed us to have ourselves a little shopping spree. I ended up with some sort of super fancy pants almond body oil that promises...PROMISES, I tell you!...to do wonderful things for my pregnant belly. I'll report back. It smells amazing and feels great, so I'm pretty happy. 

Then it was back home with two tiiiired little boys. I put together some puzzles with Ian while Paul heated up some leftovers for dinner, and all was well. It was a great day.

Here's a Mother's Day post from the Internets that especially spoke to me.

I read this and realized I want more than anything to be a Velveteen Mother: Ann Voskamp's Why Mother's Day is for the Birds.

Book Club

A while back (like, in the fall I think...) I posted about a book club that I was getting involved in. I think I may have made some sort of commitment about posting each book we read and what I thought about it, but I'm too lazy to look it up and see if I actually did make that promise. ;)

We had our 7th book club dinner last night to discuss John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Keeping with our tradition to eat at a restaurant which serves food that goes along with the location or "theme" of the book, we chowed down at the OK Cafe, a down-home Americana style restaurant here in town. That also serves pie. Which is featured in a memorable chapter in the book (which also takes place in a diner). I didn't have any pie, but I did enjoy a good 'ol cheeseburger and some great discussion.

We all agreed upon a couple of points: It is a blessing to have not experienced the suffering  and degradation of the Joad family, tenant farmers forced from their Oklahoma home. The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl made for some serious hardship, for sure. It's hard to believe that things were so difficult, and not that long ago.

Next up on our list is Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption. 

I've wanted to read this one for quite some time, so I'm excited to be tackling it. Oh, and we've already decided that Ethiopian food will be on the menu again! (Surprisingly...I LOVE Ethiopian food. So good.)

Here's the list of our other reads, in case you need some new reading inspiration.

Cutting For Stone. Where it all started.

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas.

Kindred.

Anna Karenina. Notably, the only one I didn't finish. All that Russian drama...I just couldn't.

 Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal.

Gone Girl. Don't judge us. ;)

I will warn you, we don't tend toward the lighthearted, so the above list may not be your jam. BUT, we're always up for stories of redemption (Little Princes satisfied that!), so I'd welcome any suggestions to that end. 

What are you reading right now? Before I start Kisses from Katie I've got to finish Call The Midwife...have you seen the series on PBS? Did you know it was based on a book of real life experiences? I can't put it down. Literally, my nose is in it all.the.time. 

Hooray for books! I leave you with this little wanna-be reader, who had his photo snapped by the librarian today while I browsed nearby for books. He and his brother were each sitting on a step stool, engrossed in books they can't read yet. I had her email me the photo, and then I had to sign a release form. A RELEASE FORM! Elijah might be going famous within the Cobb County Public Library system, people! 

Signs of Spring

Trips to the strawberry farm...

 

 

 

...and backyard popsicles in the evening.

It's going to be a great one!

30 Week Survey

How far along? I'll be 30 weeks tomorrow. For some time now, I've been a week behind in my mind. It was a good surprise at my appointment this morning to hear that I'm a week ahead of where I thought I was! That's definitely how you know it's not your 1st baby...with Ian I could tell you exactly, to the day, how many weeks I was.

Total weight gain/loss: 23lbs. I lost a pound between these last 2 visits! Which is interesting, since I'm fairly certain I'm keeping the dairy industry in business with my nightly ice cream serving.

Maternity clothes? Of course! Full panel is my best friend.

Stretch marks? Not yet, at least that I can see. I haven't done a full body inspection, I admit.

Sleep: Up once a night.

Best moment this week: Taking Ian to my appointment with me this morning and watching him listen to the baby's heartbeat. He looked like a sweet little fish with his mouth open in a perfect "O"...he loved it! Then he got to listen to his own heartbeat, which he thought was the coolest.

Movement: Lots of squirming and wriggling. And rolls and kicks and such.

Food cravings: Aforementioned ice cream. Milk. Cheese. Moo.

Gender: Sweet baby "grill", as Ian has taken to calling her. :)

Labor Signs: None, thankfully.

Belly Button in or out? In, and getting bigger by the day.

Wedding rings on or off? On.

What I miss: Being as active as I'm used to being. This has probably been my numero uno complaint. I took the boys to the zoo Tuesday morning and was WIPED out by the end of it. And that was after skipping the gym that morning!

What I am looking forward to: Finishing up the nursery...it is now my favorite room in the house. It's so calm, and peaceful, and sweetly girly in there. Sometimes I go in and lock the door to escape the madness. (Kidding, kidding!)

Weekly Wisdom: Rest when I can.

Milestones: We started potty training Elijah last week. It's actually going really well. I'm fully expecting it to be a work in progress for a few months, but I think he "gets it" more than Ian did at this point, probably because he has Ian as an example. Let me tell you, though. You truly haven't lived until you've gone to the zoo at almost 30 weeks pregnant with your curious explorer of a 5-year old and your potty-training 2-year old.

Very Berry Friday

Friday I met up with my friend Jamie and we all piled into the good 'ol minivan for a roadtrip up to Berry College. Jamie and I both attended Berry together, and so this was a trip down memory lane.

Another big reason we trekked up there was to see the fabled bald eagles that have made a nest on campus. Did you know eagles mate for life? Well, this mama and daddy eagle had little eaglets in January! They are just starting to stretch their {giant} wings and figure out how to fly.

We stopped by the nest around lunchtime and discovered "Eagle Watch 2013" going on. Seriously...there are some hard-core birders all set up out there with camping chairs and long-range lenses. There wasn't much to see besides the {giant} nest...it literally filled the entire top of the tree. Apparently mama and daddy were out and about, and the eaglets were being shy.

We went on with our day, walking all around main campus and marveling at all the new buildings and beautiful landscaping...then headed up to mountain campus so Ian could see the church where mama and daddy were married. We fed the swan and saw the old mill waterwheel, and then decided it was time to head home. On a whim we stopped by the nest again and, hooray!!!, there they were. We got to see mama eagle fly away, and the eaglets stretching their wings. So fun!

Oh, and there's even an eagle cam, if you're so inclined. Check it out here. 

Elijah looks like such a little boy here. Frost Chapel, behind him, is where we were married.

Feeding the swan. Swans are not the sweetest of animals, let it be known. This one hissed at them a few times.

Oh, to be in college again. How good we had it. We got to live here!

Do you see mama eagle?! She's getting ready to take flight here.

One eaglet stretches his wings...

And then another hops up!

Little Fish

I've been meaning to give the South Cobb aquatic center a try for a while now, but haven't had a good opportunity until today. As I was planning our spring break week activities, I checked the forecast to see which day had the highest likelihood of rain, which is how we ended up giving it a try today!

I invited a friend last night, but neither of her kids are able to swim so she bowed out...which made me consider for half a second if perhaps I was being a little crazy to schlep the boys over there (Ian is fairly water safe, Elijah not so much) all by my pregnant self. I decided to go for it, though, and we ended up having a blast.

I did eventually put life jackets on both of them, even though the entire area around that contraption behind them was only 2ft deep...just because it made me feel safer. Plus the lifeguards at this place are CRAZY watchful...probably because there's usually tons of wild children there.

Speaking of that contraption, it had fountains shooting out of the top of it which the kids could control using these levers and wheels...plus, needless to say, there's a water slide. A mini one. Ian was in heaven. 

Also, a lazy river. Which was actually pretty fast moving and what prompted me to slip their life jackets on in the first place. 

If you're a big kid (like, taller than 48 inches) there's a massive, twisting water slide that looked like SO much fun. Both boys were devastated upon learning that this was a "big boy" designated activity.

We were there for almost 2 hours, and at just over $11 for the 3 of us I'd say it's a pretty great deal. It's a nice change from our usual rainy day activities. We'll be back!