Crash & burn.

My computer crashed.  My hard drive crapped out.  And now I have a new one.

In other news:

We had our ultrasound this last Wednesday and it was pretty awesome.  Even though it's number three, and that whole holy-crap-I'm-going-to-be-a-mom feeling has worn off long ago, the ultrasound is a pretty amazing thing.

Yes, I've already seen two little ones flopping around in my belly before.  The first, we decided to not find out the gender.  And the second, we saw we were having a boy.  This time around we are happily settled on being surprised again.  I've done it both ways, and I will surely tell you that waiting until delivery day is one of the best surprises you can give yourself.

(Note: We do have the picture from the ultrasound with the gender sealed tightly in an envelope.  I believe it to be a boy because of how fast she determined the sex.  She looked for about .2 seconds and said she was done.  Therefore, I think she saw boy parts because they would have been easy to find.)

(Another note:  No.  I am not at all interested in peeking into the envelope.  The surprise is too good to cheat and look now.)

Currently, I am 20 weeks along and feeling pretty good.  I truly can't believe that I've made it to five months.  When I was so sick with morning sickness in the beginning, I thought my pregnancy might last 2 years because of how slow time went.  I'm not sure if I've said this before, but morning sickness feels like your worst hangover that never ends.  Your muscles ache.  The thought of most foods makes you want to yak.  And you just want to lay down, close your eyes, and pray you don't have to find a toilet in the next 5 minutes.  The only thing is, when you do get sick, it doesn't feel any better.  You feel just the same.  Ech.

This pregnancy is just as easy as my others have been, but with the added bonus of already having two little munches I have to take care off.  Although, working part-time has helped with that stress.  And, I already kind of knew what to expect because of having Emma when I was pregnant with Dean.  Although Dean is a whole different kind of kid.  He's getting to be so fun, but he finds everything he shouldn't, and makes a quick mess.  He's pretty great.

On another note, my oldest is growing up before my eyes.  I'll be taking her to college before I know it.  She had her first dentist appointment yesterday.  She was so good, and listened very intently to what the dentist had to say.  She left with a picture, a Disney toothbrush, a treasure chest toy, and a strong desire to brush her teeth!

As for me, I'm off to clean.  yay.

how far? really?

In my first trimester, had you come up to me and asked me how far along I was, I could pretty much tell you to the minute.  I was so sick and exhausted that I was literally counting.down.the.days until it would hopefully be over.  The sickness actually faded around 11 weeks, and the exhaustion about a week ago.

And when I stopped to calculate how far along I really am, I realized I didn't know.  I had to look it up.  I guess that's what happens when it's baby #3.  After I discovered that I am, in fact, 16 weeks & 5 days, I got a little nervous.  I'm going to have a (another) baby and he/she is going to be here before I know it!  My brother gets married in September, and then we'll have Halloween and football to keep us busy.  Thanksgiving will be right around the corner, and then Christmas!  And I'm due right after Christmas!  Like, the I'll-be-lucky-if-I-don't-go-into-labor-on-the-25th-of-December kind of due.  See, now you're nervous too.

On a less nervous note, it's been am-aze-balls to have my energy back.  I went to the library and went straight to the cookbooks and not the baby names books. (P.S. I hate the baby names books.  They have only worsened the situation by giving me millions of stupid names to choose from, and making me feel more nervous than ever that I will never find one because if I can't find a name in a book filled with 35,000 of them, something must be wrong.)  And....breathe.  Back to recipes.  Wonderful, amazing, recipes.  Have I told you I LOVE to cook?  In the last week I've made breakfast burritos (that I froze, and can be reheated whenever you choose), grapefruit popsicles (where we squeezed 6 giant grapefruits to get the juice we needed), brown sugar twists, taco pizza, and homemade salsa with tomatoes from the garden.  It feels good I tell you.  Good for my soul.

But.  After this is all done.  I can't.  Let myself.  Sit down.  Because I'll never stand back up.

All of my exhaustion that I should have been feeling all day catches up to me in one fell swoop and I crash.

Which is fine.

Because I still feel good.  And I'm glad I feel like cooking again. 

Now, what's for dinner?

feeling it.

I've been really feeling fall lately.

It's been unseasonably hot here in good ol' Indiana.  We have record low amounts of rain for the month of July.  We mowed our grass ONCE this month.  We have been staying in instead of going to the pool.  The thought of packing up everything we need and trekking to and from the heat-stroke heated car sounds exhausting - and hot.

So lately I've been thinking about all the fun fall things I look forward to every year.  It's especially fun because Emma is at an age where she really understands carving the pumpkins, costumes, and santa & the elves making toys.

It's not to say I can't wait for fall to get here, I just won't be disappointed when it arrives.  I'll be getting bigger and bigger which means I can wear stretchy pants and football jerseys on the weekends.  (Nice visual, eh?)  And even though I can't drink any beer, I sure can eat another bowl of chili wtih extra cheese because I'm eating for two.  (Yes, I'm going to use that as much as I can, as this should be my last pregnancy and I'll never be able to eat like this again.)

Emma's already excited about looking at halloween costumes.  I think she wants to be a princess.  Doesn't every girl try that out for at least one costume growing up?  She likes the one that costs $45.  I am going to to my best to make one for $5.

And right around the corner, before the fall weather hits, is my brother's wedding.  It's the first weekend in September and plans are coming right along.  Emma is a flower girl and is very excited.  My project this week is to scour Etsy and find the perfect hair accessory for her outfit.  I want her to feel like the prettiest girl in the world that day.  This might be a memory she has forever and I want it to be a good one.  The whole weekend should be a blast.  We're staying in our first hotel as a family of 4.  We all have spiffy new outfits to wear.  And I'm going to make sure there are lots of pictures taken.

As for now, I'm finally getting some energy back and it feels good.  Cleaning has resumed at about 50%, and I feel less stressed about it all.

My garden has exploded with tomatoes and so I'm off to make my first-ever batch of homemade salsa.

Taco pizza anyone?

I think....no wait, I KNOW.

I'm ready for this to be my last pregnancy.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not miserable.  I don't hate it.  I'm just ready to feel like myself again.

It's like I got a sneak preview of my life with multiple kids when Dean was born.  But I was so damn emotional that I didn't appreciate it like I should have.  I guess it was my lesson in life.

I also was only NOT pregnant for 9 months.  (We got a positive when Dean was 10 months.)  I didn't even put my maternity clothes away.  Bottles are just staying in the cabinet for #3 to come around and use them in SIX MONTHS.  <---whah?  no way.

I was telling David last night I just want to wake up and have some energy.  I want to wake up and drink my coffeeeeee.  Oh, I miss my coffee.  I want my house to be clean.  I want to go grocery shopping.  Like, big time grocery shopping.  I know it may sound weird, but I love when my cart is full of healthy snacks for the kids, organic fruits & veggies, and ingredients for a new recipe I'm going to cook that night.  I love cooking a meal that I know is David's favorite.  I love when Emma says she is "hungee" for a snack, and I have one for her.  It sounds simple, I know.  But lately it's been more of a stress to find any food in this house, and the LAST thing I want to go do is grocery shop for food that won't sound good to me.  This baby is a picky one.  The pickiest yet actually.  I usually find something I want at the store, bring it home, and let it go bad in the fridge because I (baby) decided we didn't want it.  I bet we have eaten out more times in the last 3 months than the last year combined.  It's not great for our finances either.

I want to go running and feel sweat down my back.  I want to breathe hard and lift some heavy weights.  I want to feel stronger and healthier.  I want to put on my running clothes and just go, jam to music, and de-stress by myself for a short while.

I know this list is filled with wants, wants, and more wants.  But it's my blog and I can want if I want to.  (See what I did there?)

I am making a conscious effort to really ENJOY this pregnancy.  I am becoming more aware that this will be my last and I am at peace with it.  I am ready to move past the baby stage of life and get this toddler-show on the road.  :)

It's what I got.

Hello?

Is any one still there?

I fear I may have lost you.  I've been gone a while.  But for good reason.

I've been really tired.

And hungry.

And nauseous.

And pregnant.

Yep.  I'll give you a second to take that in.

Baby #3 is on the way.

And it is wiping me out.

Being pregnant the first time with Emma, I had all the same symptoms, but no other babies to take care of.  Therefore, I could take a nap when I wanted, eat when I wanted, and ignoring the laundry only affected me.

When I was pregnant with Dean, I was living with my in-laws.  I didn't have to take care of the entire house, did much less grocery shopping, and had tons of help.

But now.  Oh, now.  I have my own house I'm responsible for which is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain because of my "I'd rather be napping" attitude.  I do the grocery shopping with 2 muchkins in tow, which on average, take about 1 hour more than it should.  And finding something to keep them busy is easy in the summer, but it wears me out pretty quickly.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to regret complaining about the hard summer I've had when I'm trapped inside the house this winter with two rowdy kids and a newborn.

Here's the deets:

Due Date: January 11th, 2012

How far along: 13 weeks today

Weight Gain: As of last appt (6/22), I had lost 1/2 a pound. (thank you morning sickness)

Maternity Clothes: Yes.  Everything yes.

Feeling baby:  Yes!  I have felt a definite kick two days in a row.  :)

Food Cravings:  Not so much cravings as aversions.  No garlic.  Ever.  Eck.

Gender:  We won't know until the baby is born!  Surprise!

What I miss:  Drinking in the summertime.  (Didn't I say that last year?)

What I love:  Baby kicks.  They never get old.

Looking forward to:  Finding out what the gender is.

Milestone:  Getting over the morning/noon/night sickness.  Thank goodness.

I certainly did not expect to be pregnant so soon, but what a blessing. 

And, now since I don't feel like yakking on my keyboard anymore, I should be updating more often.

Thanks for listening.

you never know.

Today we cleaned out the playroom.

We have a small room upstairs.  It's hidden away.  It holds a massive amount of toys, my old play kitchen, and the easel my brother made for her.

This room holds every toy she's ever received.  True story.  I have never thrown one thing away because, well, we have the room for it, right?  Plus, I throw toys in there and never think about them again.  They are very much out of sight, out of mind.  So, after many weeks of telling her I would go up and clean her playroom, I finally did it.  While I was cleaning, she "cooked" me a meal of toast and peanut-butter-and-jelly-and-carrot-juice in her tiny play blender.  Then when I pretended to eat all of it, she told me I didn't finish.  Then when I finally finished to her satisfaction, she asked if she could make me more.  "Of course, Emma Kay, you can make me more."

She used a pizza cutter to peel the carrot before she put it in the blender.  She kept telling me she was "almost dun peewing the cowwot for the juice."  I like when I catch little moments like that.  Where I see her doing something the same way I do, where I realize that she is learning from me, even when I'm not teaching.  It fills me with a sense of pride. 

I must be doing something right.

The playroom was clean for about 5 minutes.  Deaners tore some stuff down already, and I'm pretty sure he ate something he wasn't supposed to.  Emma kept saying "Mama, look at this!"  "Mama, look what I found!"  After picking up the first layer of princess clothes and wands, we found some stuff we all forgot we had.  It was a big task and I'm glad it's over.

Now to take a nap.

Yeh, right.

up high. to the sky.

Raise your hand if you feel like all the time in the world has gone away, and us moms are left to pick up the pieces/clothes/diapers/trash/dishes/toys/socks/bibs/shoes/pacifiers/sippycups/dogpee/hairties.

And we need to do it as fast as we can. 

Because before we know it, it's 9:47 pm and the laundry you folded is still on your bed.  But you can't put it away because the kids are finally asleep and the last thing you are going to do is wake them up to put away some stupid folded jammas.  So then maybe they go back in the laundry basket.  And maybe they just sit there for 2 days while you go to work, pick the kids up, make dinner, give baths, read stories, clean up dinner, brush teeth, and put two little munchkins to bed.  Then, maybe the kids really need some clean underwear/socks/jammas and the only place they are is in that damn laundry basket.  And when you're digging through the clean, once-folded-but-now-wrinkly clothes to find your daughter her princess undies, maybe you curse.  Just a little.  Because you're so sick and tired of having something almost done, but just not finished.  And you're tired of digging through that basket for clean clothes because they really should just be in the kids' dressers by now.  But then you think back on how much time in the last 3 days you've had to put said clothes away, and you realize that the only time you really had was when you were sleeping.  Eh, priorities, schmriorities.

If you haven't noticed, I've been m.i.a.  To be more accurate, I've been at work.  I picked up muchos hours in April and am feeling the effects.  More money, yes please.  Less time to do what I need at home, no thank you.  It's definitely a juggling act, and it's a hard one.  I'm pretty sure I've got more than 3 things in the air any given minute.

On a brighter note, the hubs & I just celebrated FIVE YEARS married.  Isn't that insane?  I can't really say that I feel like we got married yesterday.  I mean, we've been through 2 houses & 2 kids in that time.  I'm pretty sure it's felt like 5 years.  But in a good way.  :)  I've got myself a good guy.  We celebrated by going to dinner sans kids & stuffing our faces until we couldn't move.  It was awesome.

So for now, that's what I got.  Totally worth the wait right?   Right?

Now to go find some extra time.  Any ideas?