Baby K - 37 Weeks!

July 18, 2016

Baby K is getting so close to birth size! Maybe over 6 lbs and 19 inches long! Baby is the size of a skunk this week (I've definitely had more exciting animals than this one!). Baby has good reflexes now and is still packing on some baby fat. I think my app is running out of cool things to tell me since it seems to be mostly repeating itself now. I have noticed baby moving quite a bit when I go outside in the sun after being out for a while, so I think it may be reacting to the sunlight. 

As far as symptoms go - they're pretty much the same. The most predominant ones right now are swelling, carpal tunnel, heartburn, a little lower back pain and LOTS of peeing. I had been sleeping pretty well, then I had 2 nights in a row where I woke up around 3:30 and had trouble getting back to sleep. I'm definitely uncomfortable, but not like I expected to be at 37 weeks in July. I do avoid the heat as much as I can though, so I'm sure that helps. :-) I'm really looking forward to meeting Baby K, but I'm enjoying this last bit of pregnancy while I can.

This week was a super productive week for us! I took Wednesday off to get some work done and we worked a little on Friday and a LOT on Saturday to finish things on our to do list. We set a deadline for us to finish projects this week and we pretty much finished them all! We'll still work on things slowly, but we're really going to focus on relaxing more for these last few weeks. We got the garage organized a little more and we put a new chest freezer in there - so yay for more space for freezer meals!!! On my day off, I got the Explorer washed and detailed and I brought it home and thoroughly cleaned and conditioned the leather and floor mats then we installed the car seat! I also got the oil changed and Josh changed the cabin filter, so we're good to go on regular maintenance for a bit. We got the car seat inspected and it looks great! Josh painted and installed the bookshelves for the nursery, which is almost finished. We ordered a print to go above the dresser, so we're just waiting for it to arrive and I think we'll be finished with decorating in there until we get newborn photos done! I'll try to post some pictures once the print arrives. Josh installed the diaper sprayer, so we'll be all ready to start with cloth diapering once the meconium days are over! Yay for progress! We haven't finished EVERYTHING that we put on our to-do list when we first made it, but it was a very ambitious list and we've allowed ourselves a bit of time for enjoyment, so I feel really good about where we are right now.

Sunday was a very relaxing day! I already knew this, but I have some amazing friends! Anna and Kristian treated me to a great day of pampering! They organized a scavenger hunt for me and our first stop was lunch of my choice. I chose Panera and it was SO good! Kristen met us there and hung out with us for a bit! Next, we got mani/pedis, then Kristian, Anna and I went to get a massage! It was a SUPER relaxing day! After our massage, we came back home to meet our guys for dinner. They had built a shelf in the garage, which I am SO thankful for! We enjoyed each other's company and some delicious food!

 Lunch

Pedis!

Baby K - 36 Weeks!!!

July 11, 2016

Y'all - we could have a new baby living in our house in less than 30 days!!! 

Baby K is the size of a chihuahua this week - weighing in somewhere around 6 lbs and 19 inches long! What a big baby! Most of the baby's systems are fully developed at this point, except the digestive system, which will continue to develop through when baby reaches the outside world and begins to eat. I'm feeling the baby up in my ribs more. It's still not painful, just weird feeling.

My symptoms are still staying mostly the same. Some swelling, sore feet, lower back pain, carpal tunnel and not so great sleep. Baby has dropped a little and I can definitely feel that pressure on my bladder more. I try to go pee before I really feel like I have to. If I am sitting and I wait until I feel like I have to pee, once I stand up, there's more pressure on my bladder and it is super uncomfortable. Basically, if I'm near a bathroom, I just make myself go pretty much all the time, just to be safe.

I have a new craving that isn't cereal. Hummus. I have been eating it every day for the past week or 2. I'm loving roasted red pepper hummus and I purchased some individual sized serving packs to bring to the birthing center for a snack. At least it's a decently healthy craving.

I'm feeling so many emotions. I'm excited to meet the baby, but I'm sad that pregnancy will be ending soon. Maybe it sounds silly, but I will miss my bump. I will miss these little kicks and nudges. I know I will have other things in return, like baby coos and smiles (and lots of poopy diapers and cries). I'm sad that I'll get even less sleep than I do now, because I really do love sleep. So, mostly I'm a mixture of excited and sad. I'm not scared yet. Hopefully I won't be, but I'm sure I will be as it gets closer. I'm staying optimistic and regardless of how things unfold, we're both committed to making our delivery and bringing Baby K into this world the best experience we can! 

As far as progress, we've done some decorating and organizing in the nursery. Things are finally starting to come together! We took care of a couple more big (and small) purchases and we have our baby monitor now! We feel confident that we have everything we'll need for at least the first few weeks. Over the weekend, we installed a pallet of sod in the back yard (not baby related - but it was on our must do list before baby arrives). We got my dad to install dimmer switches in our master bathroom and in the sitting room where we will keep the baby in the early days. I think this will make middle of the night diaper changes a little easier. Now, I think we may have him install one in the baby's nursery the next time he visits. That way we will be able to check on Baby K during the night without turning on a bright light. We also caulked the the area where our granite meets the backsplash in our kitchen. This is something that has been on our to-do list for a LONG time, so it felt great to get this done. I organized the area under the kitchen sink (which had become a disaster area) as well. We both feel really good about our progress this past weekend! We celebrated our productive weekend by going out on the boat with Andrew and Kristian!

We've set a goal for ourselves to be finished with projects by the end of this coming week, so Saturday is supposed to be it! After that, it's just supposed to be maintaining the house and such. This will give us the opportunity to relax a bit before the baby comes if I go full term or late. If I end up delivering early, at least we've gotten our must do items done (assuming the little one waits until at least 38 weeks) and it will be a little less stressful for us.

Josh is getting more excited too. He still has daddy time each night with the baby and I love it. It's probably the cutest thing in the world to me. I can't wait to see him interact with the baby on the outside. 

Back yard progress - SOD!

Last summer, we planted grass seed in our back yard, then in the Fall, we got our patio put in. The grass seed didn't come back as well as we hoped it would this year and we were starting to have some erosion issues near the patio, so we decided to put sod in around the patio. We were also not very happy with the grading around the patio, so we wanted to build it up a little so there wasn't so much of a drop off. Josh sprayed out all of the grass and weeds the week before last and we spent this weekend putting in new sod! This is something we've talked about doing for quite a while, but Josh has gotten really motivated to get it done over the past month or so. I guess this is his form of nesting. :-)

These are a couple before pictures. Unfortunately, this is all we had. There are definitely some in between photos, but this will do. 

 This is what the back yard looked like shortly after we moved in. This area is where we now have a flower bed and patio. 

This is immediately after the patio was installed. Pre deck extension and pre erosion issues. 

I had Friday off and Josh took it off. We spent a good portion of the day prepping the area. Josh picked up top soil and dumped it in the area we would be sodding and I raked it out. We ended up getting 3 loads of soil, so that was lots of wheel barrel loads for Josh! After we got it about how we thought we wanted it, I walked on it a bunch to pack it in a little since it was supposed to rain that night. Next, we went and picked up the sod! Josh arranged for Bryan to come help put the sod in on Saturday morning, so we wanted to make sure everything was ready to go. We went to Home Depot to rent a lawn roller and it POURED while we were gone. We were worried we would get back home and a lot of the topsoil would have washed away. Luckily, it pretty much stayed in place! Yay!

 At this point, we were pretty much finished with the grading, we just needed some nice, fertile soil for the sod.

 This is after one load of 50/50 compost/topsoil. That dropoff at the landing below the steps used to be HUGE, so we built that up quite a bit. It's MUCH better now.

From the other side.

 This is our sod right after we picked it up on Friday. 

Josh decided he wanted to get one more load of soil (we used a 50/50 compost top soil mix for the top 1/2 inch - inch), so he and Bryan went to pick up one more load Saturday morning before getting started with the sod. They ran over it with the lawn roller to pack it down and level it out before putting the sod in. Once they started putting the sod in, they made really fast progress! 

 After one more load of 50/50

 All packed down and ready to sod!

 Getting a good start on the sod!

 After LOTS of hard work!

After all the sod was laid, Josh and Bryan took turns going over it a few times with the lawn roller, then it was time to water. It looks so much better! We still have quite a long way to go, but we're one step closer to having the back yard we want!

Since the baby is coming so soon, we're not planning on doing any more sodding this year, but we do plan to eventually do the whole back yard. This Bermuda should spread a bit between now and when we're ready for another pallet, though.

Bryan was a HUGE help this weekend. I could have helped Josh with some of this, but he would have been left to all the heavy lifting himself and the process would have taken SO much longer. We're very thankful to be close enough to family so that they're able to come out on a weekend to help us out like this!

Baby K - 35 Weeks!!!

July 4, 2016

Baby K is the size of a mini lop rabbit - about 18-19 inches long, weighing in somewhere between 5 and 6 pounds this week. Baby's skeletal development is almost complete and baby might be moving farther down my pelvis. If so, it's right on time since this is my first baby. It kind of looks like my belly is lower this week to me. Baby's lungs still have a little developing to do, but they're almost done!

We had our birthing class this week and we learned about transition and different ways to cope with labor pains. I really feel like we're learning a lot in our class and we both feel much more prepared. We have one more class next week. 

Things are mostly the same with me. Sleep is good some nights and bad others. I pee all the time. Carpal tunnel in my right wrist still sucks. My feet hurt a lot more. I have been working out more this week, but I would like to increase it a little more next week. I like going for walks, it's just SO hot and it's hard to get motivated to get up before the sun when I'm not sleeping well. I would love to at least go for a short walk every day and do yoga a couple times a week. That will be my goal for this coming week. I do feel some soreness on my belly. Baby K's movements are quite strong now and it feels kind of like it's bruised.

We checked off some big things over the weekend, including purchasing a recliner for the nursery! 

Our friend...Chuck

So, a few weeks ago, Josh was cutting grass and he came in and told me he saw a black snake. Then he was gone. Well, the other day, he was cutting grass again and guess who was back? Yep. I decided to name him Chuck, but we still chased him out of the yard. He was actually a pretty chill snake. I'm cool if he lives in the woods behind our house. He can eat any little Copperheads he comes across. We're not so cool with him living in the yard. 

Baby K - 34 Weeks!!!

June 27, 2016

Baby K is the size of a Quokka this week! Seriously, a SUPER cute animal! This also means Baby K is getting so big - about 18 inches long and around 5ish pounds! Baby's lungs are almost fully developed at this point. Baby is peeing up to a pint a day and I'm peeing WAY more than that! Baby's movements are so strong!

I'm noticing swollen feet more often, although they're still not always swollen, so that's good. Sleep is so so. Some nights are fine, others are awful. Carpal tunnel is here to stay until after baby comes. I didn't have a chiropractor appointment this week, but my back is still doing great considering the extra weight I'm carrying around. We didn't have our birthing class this week, but we pick back up next week and we have 2 more.