40 weeks

Here is me at 40 weeks pregnant. Past 40 weeks actually.

I'm 3 days past my due date of Wednesday, January 26. Babycenter.com says baby is approximately 7 1/2 pounds and 20 inches long.

Noah was a week late, 6#13oz and 19 inches.

Evie was 2 days late, 7#5oz and 19.5 inches.

So who knows. I appear to grow bigger babies every time. From the photo and mirror, it appears to be a pretty big baby in there!

I'm hanging in there, though a little disappointed that I didn't go early...or on my due date. Just holding out hope that I don't go "too" late (over a week would not be cool to me). So that's what we're praying. I've had to adjust my sour attitude many times in the last week. My parents arrived on Wednesday (the due date) and will be here til I kick them out. They are helpful but I hope baby doesn't keep us all waiting for too long.

noah's pictures #2

Noah begged me to let him take more pictures this morning since Gramma and Grampa arrived last night (for the baby's eventual birth...). He took much less than yesterday but still a lot. I just really enjoy looking at things from his perspective, so here is another round of his shots.

How cute is this one of Evie?

Gramma drinking her morning tea.

Grampa obliges Noah by saying "cheese"

Apparently daddy was giving some orders...HA!

Daddy goes to work

Evie playing downstairs with her necklace/headband

My parents dog Bo, an English Setter. He looks a little dead or something with those red eyelids. Apparently the loose, droopy eyelids are not ideal for a hunting dog. He looks sad all the time!

Noah's pictures

While we were playing outside today I taught Noah how to take pictures with our camera. Of course I put the camera strap around his neck and warned him to be very, very careful. He was. After he went ran down the batteries on the camera, I plugged it in to the computer and discovered he had taken 360 photos!!! I went through and erased the blurry ones but there are still 240! This boy likes to take pictures. And here are just some of his better ones, omitting the ones he took of my backside...

He even captured the nose licking

That's right. That's me, pregnant, on my due date, about to get on the trampoline. Gotta get things moving somehow. My parents arrive today so it's time.

And this is me... I thought it was pretty funny.

What an artistic angle right?

He took tons of Snap dog pictures.

I guess he was trying to get himself in a shot.

Noah's reflection in the dining room window.

Pretty outstanding one of Snap!

Here is what daddy is reading to the kids.

Here is mama doing laundry

Here is a common view of the stairs to Noah but one I've never had. He lays at the top of the stairs, puts his head under the railing and looks down. Took the camera with him...

The toys were a favorite too.

2 kids

We have two quite adorable kids. And as my mom reminded me this afternoon, I should enjoy the two before they are three and we never have this time back again. So here are some shots of our cute kiddies.

I like how Noah is hugging his sister as requested but still looking out of the corner of his eyes at his toys. Obviously, is would rather be playing.

Evie is always up for a photo op though.

unsettled

What the heck is this, you might ask? It's my view of my feet.

Don't see any feet? Don't worry, they're there - just hidden b/c of the large basketball/watermelon shaped baby in my belly.

This large baby is causing some unsettling things to happen to me at night. I had the most wicked heartburn last night. It perhaps had something to do with my delicious homemade pepperoni pizza and puppy chow. A bad combination? So, I did not get much sleep last night. In fact, after getting up to try sleeping in the guest bed and on the couch, I woke Terry up seeking any kind of help.

See my bedtime set-up? Lots and lots of pillows, ear plugs, Tums and pop?

Terry is amazing. He woke up, felt sorry for me and drove up to the building to get me a Sprite to ease my indigestion/heartburn/gas/sour stomach. He did this at 3am!!! Again, Terry is awesome.

I was hoping after a night of very poor sleep due to being 9 months pregnant that baby would decide to come today. After all, today would have worked for Evie, who came after a baby appointment and shopping trip to Walmart - which is also what we did today. But baby did not want to do things the same as Evie. So for now, I have some Zantac and Sierra Mist in the fridge.

the comedian

Noah has become a comedian. He thinks he's hilarious... But I'm not so sure. Most of the jokes are about pee and poop.

He asks: Knock, knock

Me: Who's there?

Noah: Patti

Me: Patti Who?

Noah: Patti Poo Poo (snicker, laughter, snicker)

He's been inserting "pee" and "poop" in his daily language a lot lately. I'm not sure where he got this idea. Perhaps it's out of his own head. But it's not always appropriate...

He inserts these words while we're listening to music, praise music for instance. So instead of singing about God, he'll start singing about pee and poo. He did this last night just as we were starting dinner so I told him that's it's not okay to say poo instead of God (kind of a difficult concept to get across to a 5 year old!). Noah said, "It's okay. It's just pretend poop."

38 weeks

Here is me and baby at 38 weeks.

For the last 38 weeks I've been looking forward to Fridays when I get emails updating me on how the baby is growing. I am going to miss that. Also, I will miss reading nightly from my baby book as well as all the baby appointments that I really do look forward to (our next, and potentially last, appt is Monday). Pregnancy is amazing, though it's quite uncomfortable now. And yet, we're almost done! I may not even have the time to do another baby blog until after baby is here. Wow.

I have been having lots of practice contractions that are painless, but uncomfortable. Though yesterday I had two that were genuinely painful and felt like the real thing. I was even woken in the night with one! No baby yet though but could be any day now.

Baby is about 6#8oz heavy (like a round watermelon) and 19.5 inches long (like a leek). Noah was 6#13oz and Evie was 7#5oz so it will be interesting to see what this baby comes as.

And here is a shot just for Steph. Hey, don't knock it. After another night of poor sleep due to that weird contraction and Evie getting up to pee, a stretchy dress is just what I needed.

naughty

Why is Evie crying on mama's shoulder?

B/c daddy said she was naughty when he saw what she had done while on the potty.

Nice job Evie. Brand new roll of toilet paper that needed to be fished out of the toilet and thrown in the garbage. But in her defense, daddy didn't brush her hair at all while I was at work. Since she ended up looking homeless all day, perhaps she was getting back at him.

sweet

I just had to post this.

We received this little honey bear nativity as a pastor appreciation gift from a bee keeper. So cute!

I regrettably used up all my old honey and had to start in on these guys. One tablespoon from baby Jesus half emptied him!

sledding here?

Well, apparently it is possible to sled here. We just never have before. It's nothing like home (sigh), but I guess the kids will never know what they're missing.

On pizza night, Sunday, we decided we had to get out of the house even though it was frigid and had been snowing all day. We took the kids to the "hill" behind the lake by the Senior Citizen Center and daddy helped them climb up and down, up and down.

I think this was Evie's first time going down and she got a face full of snow blown back at her. Yeah, she didn't like that so much. Every time she went down, daddy had to carry her back up. After having already shoveled for 1.5 hours that day, Terry was pretty tired come bed time.

He's such a good daddy

They look like they enjoyed themselves

Weeeeee!

I got new boots 50% off at Target, but they hurt my ankles. I thought they'd be a definite upgrade from the others I had - my brothers 7th grade (?) boots. Yeah, that would make them like 15 years old or something and they didn't even fit or keep my feet warm. I just can't win.

snowmen

I came home from work yesterday to an empty house. Terry had both kids outside in the backyard making snowmen. It was nearly 50 degrees yesterday making the snow perfectly sticky for rolling. It was so nice to prepare dinner in solitude and know that the kids were having so much fun outside.

Look at all that chin! Evie's hat always falls over her eyes. I wonder if she can see anything at all.

It's blurry, but Terry took this right after their first snow man fell down. I watched from the kitchen sink and it was quite funny. They were just standing there looking at it when it just tipped and fell.

Seems like the boy did a pretty good job at rolling...

...and packing the snow down.

He's a good brother. He pulled Evie in the sled for a long time. He even did it again this afternoon.

It was about 6pm and dark but they didn't hardly wanna come in, even for waffles.

Just before they came in they were attempting to knock the second snow man down. Noah was taking running shots at it to no avail. Each time he tried, he would back up a little farther and run at the snow man. They finally got it down when they went at it from behind, pushing from a different direction.

as for that mess...

We had three parties at our house this weekend - New Years Eve, Rehmerts for pizza and a youth group leader Christmas party. After we had three nights of all those messy shoes piled up on towels at my front door, we finally caved and got a rug.

How lame to write a post about rugs, but I'm quite excited about them. And I like having an excuse to take photos of my cute kids. And this will show off how much they love their pillow pets, a gift from my sister.

Here is Evie on the front rug with her Unicorn and blankies. It's nothing spectacular - the rug that is. But it's big and it's sturdy and it will keep our wood protected (Terry installed that himself you know). Put shoes there.

Noah is on the back door's rug with "Sacko," the name of his dog pillow pet. I have no idea how he came up with that name, but he's actually remembered it so it's here to stay. And so is the rug.

Oh, and on a side note, when Noah needs help putting Sacko's strap on to change him from a pillow to a pet, he says, "Help me make this into a cuddly animal." I think it must be from the commercial. Where else would he get such a phrase? Or perhaps he's smart...

New Year's Eve

Last night was the last night of 2010. For the last two or three years Terry has taken youth group students to a camp just up the interstate from here. We decided to do it at our house this year.

Evie even got to stay up a little later. Noah was melting so he had to go to bed (he was upset that mommy brushed his teeth instead of daddy and would not get over it).

Rebecca brought her new dancing Wii game. Terry tried it and I should have recorded it. All he did was move his right hand b/c that's where the sensor was and was all that mattered. He still did terrible but I pry wouldn't have done any better, pregnant or not.

Terry brought the Wii and projector from the building and put it in the dungeon, which was a good place for the rowdy dancing, Nerf gun wars and competitive Risk game that took place.

After playing a couple group games, the students dispersed - this room was for a movie. At midnight everyone came up for the countdown. We wouldn't let them scream since the kids were asleep. I saw a complaint about that on facebook so perhaps we'll do the party at the building next year. But I think they did have a nice time. And isn't our couch great for parties? That's the idea!

And this is what happens when we stay up til 130am and Evie wakes up early b/c her pull-up failed.