Badge of honor? Seriously?

As I enter week 35 of this pregnancy, and as Grace continues to drop lower and lower I have discovered something that I dreaded. Stretch marks. Blasted stretch marks.

I managed to get through all 39 weeks of pregnancy with Jack without a single stretch mark on my abdomen. How? Probably because I allowed myself to become the size of a small whale while pregnant with Jack. I guess growing all over prevents stretch marks on your belly because the weight is everywhere instead of all in front.

This time, however, I decided to be more healthy, more active and NOT gain as much weight. My reward? Back pain, belly pain, and stretch marks.

"They" say that getting stretch marks during pregnancy should be like wearing a badge of honor.

I say Bull. These suckers don't go away.

I don't care how superficial it sounds. I guess I'll throw out all my bikinis.

Grace's Room, step 1 complete

Who's idea was it to move just a couple months before having a baby?

Oh right.

Well, we've been so busy with the house that I am now completely unprepared for this kid. That being said it was time to set a date to paint her room. My mom and sister were so kind as to help. I suppose we could have done it on our own but I'm finding my independent spirit starting to wane in these last weeks.

A couple months ago I was browsing baby bedding online and found a set that I fell in love with. I happened to be on the phone with my sister and sent her the link. I NEVER would have purchased the set. Sorry, I don't like spending more on my kids crib bedding than on my own bedding. So my wonderful, generous, fabulous sister offered to buy it. She insisted, so who am I to refuse? Weeeee.

So there is the base for the room. Now to branch out from that. I took the little pillow with me to Lowe's to pick out the colors for the walls. I knew that I wanted a beige color for the walls with a wide pink stripe around the center to accent the pink in the bedding. In the 5 minutes that I was at Lowe's I managed to pick the perfect colors (if I do say so myself).

It's always a shock when you put that first roller of colored paint onto a white wall but wow am I pleased with the way it looks. I still need to do the stripe (duh, can't put tape on wet paint), and I still need a lot for the room, but the basics are done now. I have a crib, bedding, rocker (which DOESN'T match! *gasp*) and a couple outfits.

Oh, and as a side note, Leah also gets double bonus points for packing all of my painting supplies into a clear bin so that I could find them in the wall of boxes that is now consuming my basement.



Jack even got to help.



Apparently Phoebe approves of the bedding as well. Darn cats.

Do we have a mad pruner in our midst?

Eric's parents bought us a cute little hibiscus tree when we moved into the house. I put it out front between the front door and the garage. Well, it lost a few leaves from being transplanted and in a new kind of light, but no big deal. After a week or so it stopped loosing any leaves and it still looked half decent. Well, maybe another week passed and I caught a glimpse of it and it seemed more sparse than I remembered. I went to take a look and sure enough on the back of the tree there were branches missing! How strange. I thought first that it was animals but the cut was perfect, like it was cut. Eric suggested that maybe he hit it somehow with the weedwacker but then the branches would have been on the ground.

But I dismissed it as just being strange.

Then on Saturday I took a look at it again and MORE branches are missing! Cut off perfectly like with clippers or something. My poor little hibiscus tree looks so pathetic!

What an odd thing to happen.

33 weeks down, 7 to go

And frankly, I'm exhausted! The shame of it is that I haven't had any time to just wallow in this pregnancy like I did with Jack. Not with staging a house, selling a house, packing a house, moving, unpacking a house, watching a 2 year old and taking care of my family, all with a full time job. Wow, that sounds so much worse in writing!

But over the last few weeks, when I wasn't really paying attention, Grace has continued to grow into her tight quarters. And boy is she a squirmer! I really need to remember to video the little acrobatic performance she likes to put on for us in the evening when I finally sit down. I tell everyone what a mover she is but they are all absolutely amazed once they finally see it.

There! She must have felt me talking about her because she just ran her foot under my rib.

But the good news is that now that the house is unpacked, pictures are hung and we have 7 weeks to go I can finally concentrate on getting ready for Grace. Of course, that still doesn't include any rest. LOL. We need to bring all of Jack's baby stuff over from storage (pack-n-play, swing, highchair, clothes), paint Grace's room, buy her a dresser, I need to paint some wall hangings to match her bedding set, acquire some clothing essentials and feeding essentials and then maybe, just maybe I'll have a couple days to relax before she makes her arrival!

Exhausted yet from reading all that work? I am!

How young is too young?

So we've moved into our house. Jack loves the freedom he has with the addition square footage. And we love that we have "freedom" from Jack with the ability to keep an eye/ear on him.

So I'm getting dinner ready and Eric is on the computer in the office and Jack is driving his tractor in circles around the house. Suddenly it's quiet. Eric comes into the kitchen and starts laughing. Apparently we had just left TBS on tv and Sex and the City had come on but none of us were paying attention. Well, except for Jack.

There was my two year old, leaning on the coffee table, popping grapes in his mouth like they were bon-bons, totally absorbed in the episode of Sex and the City.

*Note - no one in this house had seen a single episode until today. But Jack's a fan now.