27 Weeks

Don't I look happy? haha, I hate taking these pictures, but here's the 27 week belly pic(they are usually in church clothes because my "weeks" start on Sundays, since I'm due on a Sunday). Not quite a blimp yet, but definitely on my way. I'm now entering my 3rd trimester! Yay! Except most of the time I still don't really feel like there's an actual baby in there, or like we're going to be having another baby in our family in such a short amount of time. I want to be all excited and think about it nonstop, but things are just different this time around. More "other life" going on I guess. Part of me does feel guilty about that. Need to work on the nursery or buy baby things and maybe it'll start sinking in. Lots to do!

Baby size: average baby weight at this stage is almost 2lbs!
Weight gain: honesty is always the best policy I guess.... 20lbs so far
Baby movement: he/she is definitely moving a lot, and I am thinking this one is going to have a little spunky side, because they will be totally not moving at all for hours, and then just wildly freak out out of nowhere! It catches me off-guard, and really makes me jump haha. Josh was able to actually sort of grab onto an arm or foot or leg or something the other night that baby was poking out at us. It was a first time for that so far.
Contractions: yes. of course. getting more used to them now. still about 3-4 a day, sometimes none and sometimes as many as 10. sometimes they're short, most of the time they're long, and only in the lower half or so of my uterus(from my belly-button down). I'm also having more rib pain and other cramps and stuff too.
Cravings?: ummm... on bad days, chocolate. I don't really know if it's actually pregnancy-related(but it's certainly a good excuse, right?)
Doctor's Appointments: going well - I passed my glucose test! No gestational diabetis! I failed it with Kyler and barely passed the second one, and he was so big that I was really nervous this time around. I am a little anemic now and need to take iron, but hey I'm fine with that! Anyway, I'm now starting to have my appointments every 2 weeks, so we're getting closer :) Just wish there were ultrasounds at every visit like with Kyler. I'm thinking that may be part of why it doesn't seem as real or exciting this time around....?


Other than all that, keeping up with things around here as usual. Having emotional days and then superwoman days, and I've started to just let myself have whatever kind of day that comes and trying not to get upset about not getting this or that done. Hopefully it all evens out in the end. Having a hardworking and supportive husband always helps of course. Josh's been really great about getting things done around the house, even if it always seems to feel like we're behind. So that's the update! Definitely going to be exploding in size from here on out...!

Nursery plan re-do...

Okay, so here are the "new" nursery fabrics... sorry the pictures are sorta blurry. My original plan with the pretty aquamarine was thwarted when JoAnns no longer had my fabric available! ahh! So, not to be trodden down by one speedbump, I started again and found this. And I only need to buy a few more yards of the brown polka dot(which Hobby Lobby assures me they will NOT discontinue anytime soon), and I'll have all I need! No more worries! Now I need to make curtains and a crib skirt out of the brown polka dot.
Then, "girl" bumpers out of the flower print and brown polka dot, and get a pink crib sheet. And "boy" bumpers out of the multicolored stripe and brown polka dot(and I'm considering appliqueing some airplane silouettes on them too), and purchase either a blue or green crib sheet. Once baby is born and we know what it is, I'll add a wide satin ribbon(at some point) across the bottom of the curtains and crib skirt, in either pink or blue to finish it off and tie it together. Whew!

We're hoping to paint the nursery this weekend, so I'll update pics as we do stuff. Not totally certain what we're doing, this is sort of a figure-it-out-as-we-go project, but hopefully it'll come out okay. I'm getting to be not so picky anymore, just want it done!

Spring Break

For spring break this year(which is sort of meaningless to us, since we have no kids in school...) we did a mini version of the usual Chapman-family-indoor-waterpark trip. There was a new one that opened up right here in Des Moines and Josh's parents booked a night for all of us(except Ang and her kids were in Texas this year), and we went bowling before we checked in. Don't be fooled by Kyler's smile in the picture, it was only fun for about 5 minutes until he realized that it wasn't always "kyky's turn" like he wanted...

Then we went to the waterpark, Kyler was horrible at the restaurant because he could see the waterpark and giant pirate ship from the window of the restaurant - bad idea. But, the water was freezing cold so once he got to play, he didn't want to do anything that would get him very wet. So he walked laps around the boat in the shallow water, and luckily Josh had the patience to walk with him for those 30 laps or so. After getting hotel soap in his eyes in the shower and peeing on mommy, we bundled up in jammies and had Isaac and Leah come play in our room and watch movies and eat candy while we played "Cashflow" with Jake and Jenn... our new favorite board game :) So, even though Kyler seems to be going through some sort of difficult stage right now, and things rarely run smoothly with a 2-year-old anyway, it was still a fun little break from the everyday.

Then the above picture is from the St. Patty's Day parade in downtown Des Moines that Kyler and I went to with Jenn and the kids. Kyler loved seeing the "cycles" and the trucks, but it was definitely a little too freezing cold to be super enjoyable!

"Mommy Daddy.... Poop!"

So... this is what potty-training at our house looks like right now! Kyler has some major privacy issues we are trying to work through, and he has always gotten emotional when he goes poop for some reason, he just hates it. Anyway, he went poop in the toilet for the first time on Sunday, and then did again today! It did take long periods of time sitting on the toilet, with books or even a show on my laptop one time, and of course chocolate bribery too. We still have a SUPER long way to go I think, but we're trying to get there!

Yay! Thumbs-up for pooping in the toilet!

Jess's Baby Shower!

FINALLY I can post about all the baby shower stuff! My sister-in-law Jenn and I threw a baby shower for our cousin-in-law Jessica(in the middle) this past weekend, and we've been working on it for months! It was soooo much fun, we handmade so many different things and although we thought we were crazy at times, we did have fun doing it :)

The games consisted of the all-time favorite, name-the-melted-chocolate-bar-in-the-diaper game, a "what would Daddy Jeff do?" questionnaire, a belly-size guessing game with string, and gift bingo.

The "poms" we made out of tissue paper and hung from the ceiling, they were SO cute and fairly easy... needless to say I hung onto 3 of them to hang above our crib if the baby is a girl ;)

Jenn made the party favors above, the "cake slices" that were filled with hershey's kisses and handmade marble magnets. Then below is the BOOK BASKET, which was the best idea ever! The guests were invited to bring new or used books to "buy" raffle tickets with to win a kitchen-themed gift basket. It was a huge hit! The basket overflowed and then some, Jess went home with around 50 really great books!

(here is the kitchen-themed raffle gift basket... I made an apron and a baked potato pouch, and we filled it with lots of other kitchen goodies)

Here is her diaper-cake that I made, this was probably the most fun project for me, it was simple but still cute. Then below is the food table, it was a morning shower so we made homemade mini muffins and fruit and donut holes for the chocolate fountain.

And yes, we wrapped the forks in napkins and then put a mini "pom" on each one... it was Jess's idea and we couldn't resist.

(Below is the prize basket, just a bunch of random things)

And last, but definitely not least... the CAKE! Josh's aunt Colleen made the small round cake and a bunch of cute little cupcakes, I was SO glad that she was willing to do it for us, even though she had to leave on vacation the day of the shower and couldn't even actually come... she just took a decorating class at Michaels' a while ago and has been busy doing cakes for different things ever since. And I can't begin to tell you how YUMMY her cakes are... you can always tell that it was made by Colleen with one bite, they even smell great!

I don't have a picture of the wreath yet, Jenn made a wreath for the front door with pink cherry blossoms on it and a cute "G" and ribbon. Then I also made a scrapbook of Jess' pregnancy pictures and ultrasound pictures and some of her blog entries too. Okay... I think that's it!

Sewing Projects

The above are pictures of a nursing cover that I made, which I'm sure I'll get lots of use out of with baby #2! Then below I finally got up the guts to cut and alter some jeans I bought to make "maternity" type jeans. Since I'm so tall, it's virtually impossible to get tall and maternity jeans, so this was my solution.

I was SOO scared to cut them! ahh! But then below you can see, I like my jeans super low in the front, especially when I'm pregnant, and I really like a tie to hold them up, so I put in some cording that is attached to the original waistband so I can tie them tight just below the baby belly. Then, in the bottom picture, I can fold down the belly panel if I want to hide the cording. They are comfortable, and stay up just as well as any maternity pants can. Yay! It only took an hour to do TWO pairs, and I'm so glad that I did it!

(oh, and please pretend you don't see the surgery scars and stretch marks!)

Josh's Birthday

Here are some pics from Josh's birthday(feb 20th)... he's getting so OLD! Haha, he's still only 28 this year, but he'll be knocking on 30's door pretty soon :) I've gotta give him a hard time since he's a cradle-robber, it comes with the territory. We had a big birthday breakfast, and then Josh and I went out to a baptism, dinner & and a movie.

22 Weeks

Here is a baby-belly picture of me at 22 and a half weeks or so. I can't believe how much it has popped out in the past two weeks! I had an ultrasound, probably the last of my pregnancy :( at 20 weeks and it was fun - but NO we didn't peek at the gender! The ultrasound tech even said that since baby's legs were crossed(as you can see) we might not have been able to see anyway.
So, here's the pregnancy update...


Weight gain: 14lbs! ahh! this is exactly what I'd weighed when I was pregnant with Kyler at this point...
Baby size: at the 20 week ultrasound the estimated weight was 13oz.
Contractions: yes, some braxton hicks-type contractions, up to 3 or 4 a day, which is new since I never had any contractions at home with Kyler
Movement: noticing them every day now, baby is most active late morning and late evening, and Josh can actually feel the kicks too!
Sleep: interesting topic. Josh has been sick so he's been sleeping on the couch lately, which means I've been sprawling out all over the bed and actually sleeping! I miss him... but have to say I've been enjoying the rest.

Lastly, baby names! We have made some progress with girl names, but still have some decisions to make for boys. Brynlee Aline is our favorite for a girl, she could go by "Brynn" for short. And for a boy, our favorite is Hudson Robert, but the issue is that I wanted to use my Dad's name, Stephen Robert, and I feel it's more meaningful to use his first name, but Hudson Stephen Chapman doesn't sound right(all ending in "n), so we have these two other options: Jonah Stephen, and Enoch Stephen. We'll just see!