thirty-four

Thirty-four weeks down, less than five weeks to go! Crazy how fast this pregnancy has gone by. I have 8 days of work left, my last day of work is Friday, August 20th, this will also be the kids' last day of daycare. I'm looking forward to having 2 full weeks to spend with the kids before our baby girl arrives. We had an appointment with my OB on the 27th of July, everything is pretty much a go for the first week of September. His nurse will be calling me this week with the actual date of the c-section, it'll be nice to have that down so I can plan a little better for the kids. Amelia's first official day of school is Wednesday, September 8th and she'll be a "Buccaneer". So I'm hoping we can by pass the 8th as being the date for the c-section, I'm hoping for the 9th, I'd even take the 10th. I just want to see her off to her first day of school!

I had my regular appointment with my family practice doctor on Thursday, everything is looking good. I've been having quite a few contractions, but he didn't seem real concerned about it, told me to just monitor them and if they get worse to come see him or if they are too bad to go to labor and delivery. He said "Some babies are just ready a little sooner" I'm hoping that they don't get worse and we can make it to at least the end of August.



We took Amelia school shopping yesterday. In the morning the kids and I went with Mary while Kevin and Ron golfed. Grandma got Amelia two outfits at Penney's and got her two new pairs of tennis shoes for school, a pair of new Puma's (Amelia's favorite!) and her first pair of New Balance tennis shoes, she all of a sudden seems so grown up! Of course Grandma couldn't leave Paul and Addie out either, so Paul got a new pair of Puma's and Addie got her first pair of Nike's. I'm putting them all aside for now, because I don't want them to get them dirty just yet and it's still nice enough for sandals and flip flops! Then in the afternoon Kevin and I took her shopping "all by herself" for her school supplies. We also picked up a couple shirts and a sweatshirt. I need to evaluate what I have for clothes so far and need to see what else I need to get for her. She had a great time shopping and kept saying "I really like shopping with out my brother and sister, Thank you!" We also hit Ikea to browse as long as we didn't have the other kids and we took her out for dinner at Old Chicago. She pretty much thought she was top dog being out with mom and dad by herself! I'm still having a hard time believing that she's going into kindergarten this fall, where did the last five and a half years go?!

That's about all on us for now. I need to try and get better about blogging before the baby arrives!

32/33 weeks

I'm a little behind here, but thought I'd get this one posted and I'll need to post my 34 week picture later today!

Meeting our new niece...

Over the weekend we made the four hour trek to my moms house for a visit and to meet our new niece Baby Hazel. She is absolutely beautiful and super snuggly! I could have held her the entire weekend! The kids really enjoyed holding her too, even Adeline. While we were at my mom's we met up w/ an old friend and she took family, maternity and kid pictures for us, I can't wait to get them back, it's time to update my pictures on the wall!

Here are some pictures of all of us with Baby Hazel.

30 weeks!

I had my 30 week doctor appointment today, it lasted all of about 15 minutes from start to finish! Gotta love those nice short appointments. My blood pressure looked great again, which I'm always thankful for, towards the end of my pregnancies it usually raises a bit, but I'm still in the clear it was 106/69. I haven't experienced much swelling yet, thankfully!! Paul was my only pregnancy that I endured most of summer with and I wasn't even 30 weeks until the end of August when I was pregnant with him. I'm hoping I can make it through the rest of my pregnancy without having any swelling. It's hard to believe we only have about 9 weeks left until we get to meet our little girl. She's a busy little lady already, it's fun watching my stomach move all over the place. Amelia and Paul are getting more excited for their baby sister to arrive. Kevin and I have an appointment with my OB scheduled for July 27th for a consult to set up the c-section, so that's kind of exciting. Then I go back to see my regular doctor on August 5th.

We have a lot of changes coming in the future at our house, aside from adding the sixth member of our family, I am also quitting my job to be a stay at home mom. I'm very excited about this opportunity, as are the kids. They are asking me every day if it's my last day of work and if we're staying home. I feel bad having to tell them that no, I have to head to work. I have applied for a home daycare provider license and am in the final stages of that. I talked to one of my bosses about my plans on Friday the 2nd of July and I told my other boss and my co-workers the following week. I think it went over well. I know it'll be bittersweet putting on my scrubs for the last time, but I'm really looking forward to being home with the kids. I feel like I've missed out on 5 years of them growing up and I don't want to miss out on another 5 years. I plan to do daycare to provide a bit of income to our family to help cover some of the bills and health insurance, since heaven knows those costs are so ridiculous. And with Amelia going to school this fall, it'll be nice to be home when she gets home from school as well. Tentatively my last day of work will be August 20th, and that should give me a couple weeks to spend time with the three kids, get things in line for baby's arrival and to prepare everything for Amelia to head to kindergarten!

Afternoon at the Zoo!

Kevin had to work today, but he called me at 10:30 and said "I'm taking off at noon, lets take the kids to do something" So I said "Let's go to the Zoo", we renewed our MN Zoo Membership but had yet to use it since we renewed it. So this was the perfect opportunity to get out there since we hadn't been there since April. Our friends Katie and Ryan along with their kids Taylor and Clare went with us to the zoo. We had lunch at A&W Drive-In on our way to the zoo, the kids thought that was pretty cool to sit there and be able to eat in the car. It rained off and on during the afternoon, but that didn't seem to stop the kids, it was really nice because it wasn't overly crowded there and we could actually see the animals up close.

The bears were especially active today, we've never seen all there bears at once and it was fun watching them fight and play together!

Running for rain puddles...Adeline's new found favorite activity!

Amelia, Paul and Taylor checking their wing span at the end of the MN Trail.

Addie loved the fish and these were the only things she actually called by the correct name, everything else was a "Puppy"

Kevin, Ryan and the kids checking out the shark

Happy Independence Day!

Happy 234th Birthday America!

I love the 4th of July. This year we decided to just lay low and hang out at home most of the day. I'm tired of getting in the car and chasing all over the place, so it was a nice change of pace! We went to Mass last night so we were able to just relax this morning. So we had a lazy Sunday! We made a big breakfast, then put the kids all down for naps because we were up late Saturday evening,  Then this afternoon after the kids woke up from their naps we watched a bit of the Twins game and then ran to my dads shop to grab some firewood, when we got back we started a bonfire and made steaks and baked potatoes on the grill, we sat out in the backyard as long as we could before the mosquitoes got too bad and were almost carrying us away!

I got a couple pictures from this afternoon of the girls in their cute Fourth of July dresses, Paul on the other hand was camera shy and then my batteries went dead when he did decide he was ready to have his picture taken, I would have liked to get one of the three together, oh well!


About 9:00 we were trying to figure out what we'd do for fireworks, we haven't seen any for the last few years, so we thought since the kids were very excited about it that we should take them somewhere to see them this year. So we popped some popcorn and loaded the kids up in the van and headed East to a dinky little town to watch fireworks, we parked along side of the road and we were able to see quite a few different towns and other people shooting them from where we were sitting. The best party was the noise factor was low (good for Amelia) and we didn't get eaten alive by those pesky mosquitoes. At one point we were looking out our windows waiting for the fireworks to start and the mosquitoes were swarming our van, we didn't even open the doors to let the kids out of their carseats, we hopped over the seats to unbuckle them! I think they enjoyed them, Adeline would smoosh her face against the windows when they would go off and she started using two new words tonight while watching them "Cool" and "Wow", she's so funny!

Waiting for fireworkds to start...

Adeline LOVES popcorn!

I would have NEVER given it to Amelia at this age, I may have been a little more lax with Paul, but apparently I've thrown that all out of the window because I let Addie have it, though I know it's a major "no-no" and choking hazard, but I give her a piece at a time.

We hope that everyone had a fun and safe 4th of July!

Happy Birthday Papa Matt!

Today is my Dad's 47th birthday. Happy Birthday Punky! We love you!

We celebrated my dad's birthday and Father's Day, last Sunday. We had the pleasure of entertaining my dad and Mary Jo for the afternoon/evening. We enjoyed the beautiful weather out on the back patio, grilled some steaks and had birthday cake. We hadn't seen my dad for a while and when we have seen him, it's been because he's been hear working on our house! So it was nice to enjoy a day with him and be able to kick back and relax. He got a kick out of watching the kids run around the backyard and he got to witness many of Adeline's daring tricks, including climbing the Little Tikes slide and standing up on top of it and waving.