Easter 2014

I think I decided that Easter is my new favorite Holiday.  It's a beautiful time of the year, it's getting warmer outside, flowers and trees are blossoming everywhere, and it smells so good everywhere.  I love talking about the resurrection with our family.  It makes us excited and hopeful to be with Holland again and with each other.  And then of course, I love a lot of Easter candy :)

Papa took Briz on a date to see the Easter Bunny at the mall.  She thought it was a little strange that he had glasses, but still gave him a lot of hugs.

Briz dyed eggs with Nick the day before Easter.  Lots of interesting art work.  They also made sugar cookies.  What a domestic dad.

We had a wonderful ward Easter egg hunt and breakfast the day before as well.  We had a huge turnout, and it was a nice chance to remember the purpose of Easter as there was a small program about the Savior.    

Easter morning was really fun at our house. Papa and Nona came over to join in the festivities.  Before our Easter Egg Hunt, we had a lesson about the Savior's atonement, crucifixion, and resurrection.  Briz and Nick then went on an Easter egg hunt outside, and we opened our Easter baskets. Briz was most excited about her miniature Ariel and the movie, Frozen.  She kept asking, "How did the Easter Bunny know that I wanted these?!"   

You can't quite tell from the picture, but I curled Brizzy's hair before church, and she loved it.  She liked to walk with an extra bounce in her step so her hair would bounce up and down.  I told her she looked like an Easter Princess, and I am pretty sure she took me literally.  

After church, we went to the Cottle family Easter party.  It was fun to see everyone, but by then I was a bit maxed out.  My contractions were really bad that night.  I couldn't stand up without being in quite a bit of pain, and had to get into labor mindset to help with the contractions (that involved a lot of intense breathing and my loud labor moaning).  Strangely enough, still not too worried about anything because there has been no bleeding and the contractions are very irregular.  Just need to learn my lesson and try not to do too much.    I blame Easter.

7 months! Yahoo!

So I am around 7 months.  I'm not gonna lie, I get a little confused counting months.  Counting weeks makes more sense to me, but for some reason I got excited thinking about being around 7 months pregnant.  It makes her arrival feel closer.  

I am definitely in the third trimester, and I know this because . . .

1.  I started itching.  Which means blood taken every week and a lot more doctor's appts.  My Dad took Briz on a date last week, and he asked her what we had done that day, and she said, "Oh we got some bloodwork done."  She is learning a lot about needles and conquering her fear vicariously through me.  I look forward to getting my blood taken.  No really I do.  Its feels relieving.  I have to assure them every time I'm not a heroine addict.

2.  I am getting rather large.  Here is my belly at 29 weeks.  I swear this picture makes me look smaller than I am.  I feel pretty huge.

Much of my old maternity clothes that I wore up until the end of my last two pregnancies no longer fit me.  It makes me feel really good about myself.

3.  I am getting more and more excited for her to arrive.  I bought my first baby item for her: a car seat.  Sounds boring but I was excited.  I am in nesting mode, wanting to organize and clean everything.  Which is problematic when I am supposed to be lying down.   I think it takes me up until the third trimester to start getting anything ready for babies' arrival.  

4.  My belly is constant entertainment.  She is still moving a ton, and I love to just sit there and watch her kick and roll.  It's my favorite (and probably only thing I actually like) about pregnancy.  Nick is still pretty weirded out by it.

Now we just need a name.  Any suggestions?  

It's Friiiday night

I am pretty sure when I try to think of titles for my blog posts, about 94%  of the time, they end up being lyrics to rap songs.

We started a tradition a few months ago, in an attempt to avoid sitting around at home on the weekends (this is obviously Nick's idea).  On Friday night, we try to do something fun with Briz.  By the time we all get home from work and school, it doesn't leave us much time, so we usually do something small, like play a game, watch a movie, etc.  And since I've been pregnant, we haven't been as diligent about keeping up the tradition.  But with it getting warmer outside, I get excited about our Friday nights.  I love walking down to the ice cream store, going for bike rides, playing tennis.  Clearly, I can't do any of those things right now, but I get excited thinking about it.

Last Friday, we had a coupon for a frozen yogurt place to try out.  I was laughing looking at our selections of frozen yogurt because it seemed to fit each of us quite well.

Brizzy's chocolate sorbet complete with fruit loops, sprinkles, and gummy bears.  Sick.

Nick's overload of peanut butter and chocolate.  

And my obsession with all things fruity: blackberry sorbet with blueberries and strawberries.  Eating is pretty disappointing these days because I get so full so dang easy.   And not to mention the heartburn.  I have reverted back to my usual pregnancy tactic of carrying around a costco size container of Tums in my purse.  

Life has been much more simple the last few weeks and I'm learning to get used to it and even enjoy it a lot of the time.  But I love having little outings with these two goofballs.

Nick and Briz

I don't love taking pictures of myself when I'm pregnant.  But I still want to capture a lot of   moments of our family, so I end up with a lot of pictures of Nick and Briz.  It ends up being really sweet, because I feel like I can really see a lot of their relationship through the pics I take.

Briz has been very sweet to her parents lately.  I get a little worried at times about how close she is to  us/how aware of us she is.  But I'm also hopeful that with a little sister, that will change things some.  I always knew that for our family, we needed more kids, and if nothing else, to help Briz.  But in the meantime, I love the cuddles and all of our sweet times together.

Briz loves letters  and reading, but she doesn't seem to love math so much.  Nick, determined to turn her into a businesswoman, has taken it upon himself to try to teach her math.  Here he is doing some addition with his freakishly long fingers.  He turns everything into fun for Briz.

This is a face he makes all of the time, when he gets all excited with Briz.  Pretty scary.  He turns everything with Briz into a fun game.

Nick is growing his hair out right now as well.  I love it.  It looks a little bit like a 90's AC Slater haircut when he doesn't style it.  Nick's got a lot of hair, so it can get pretty big.  But I am encouraging him to grow it out as long as possible.  I told him that he can grow it out to his shoulders, and then I can cut my hair, and everyone in our family can have the same hairdo.  He wasn't a big fan of the idea.

A game of Twister one night.

Dad was pooped after and mad at me for taking his picture.

Briz was devastated that she lost.  Losing is not her strong suit.

Reviewing right hand and left hand.  She seems to know them very well when we practice piano, but in Twister, she was struggling.

From my Camelia bush in my backyard.  Love all of the flowers blooming in the spring.  Normally I go a little more crazy and am picking flowers/planting flowers every day, but cutting them down from my yard once was ambitious enough for now.

It has been sunny and warm every day, and I am trying to take advantage of it the best I can.  We decided to paint Brizzy's birdhouse outside.

She thought it was so fun!  I love this age and how she gets excited about literally everything.

Briz giving her Dad some cuddles.  She was most likely sad about some sort of injury.  She gets about 10 "owies" a day.  It is really funny though because half of those are oddly similar to some of my physical problems, i.e. "Mom, I have a really bad headache;" "it just hurts really bad when I bend over;" "my arms just itch really bad."  Hmmm. Curious.

Briz looks so much like her Dad.  Her hair is darker than its ever been and so I keep freaking out about how much they look alike lately.  

Can you tell Briz likes her Dad a little from this picture?  Doing some wrestling with the Papworths. 

Briz went out one morning after the birdhouse had dried, got a chair from the backyard, and hung it on our apple tree.  She is so proud.  Every day she asks why Birds aren't going inside.  I haven't yet broken the news that its a ridiculously small birdhouse, mostly for decoration.

We like to visit Holland's grave around Easter, and we figured next Sunday would be busy enough, so we went this last Sunday.  Briz was so excited to bring her some pictures.  Briz doesn't really remember Holland, but she loves the idea of her.  In particular, she loves to tell people that she has two sisters!  

Briz and Dad talking about death and life while searching for some pine cones.  Briz always has a lot of questions, many of which she has asked before.  I love watching her little brain figure out these complicated matters of life.  And I also love watching her get excited about Heavenly Father's plan for our family.

She drew Holly her very own Easter basket.  And she drew clouds with each of their names on them to show that they will be together in heaven.

Some more cuddles with Dad.  Nick can't get enough, particularly since I only let him touch me if he is willing to scratch me :)

And in baby news, my itching has started to get bad.  Ugh.  There was a tiny tiny part of me that thought maybe I would be spared this time.  The worst part about it is the lack of sleep.  I have been pretty good about not drinking caffeine this pregnancy, but that just went out the window.   I plan on  hooking up a diet dr. pepper IV.  Also, my belly is huge!  I feel like a giant waddling whale.  My belly is so big, I can't believe I have another 8 weeks.  And yes, my waddle is embarrassing.  Most of the time my belly and southern regions hurt so bad that I can't move them at all, so I walk with my feet about 4 feet apart, facing outwards, and just moving my arms.   But the positive side of that, is I discovered today that I can rest my food on my belly now.  I get to take advantage of that for a whole 2 months!   

Grateful

The last week or so I have been feeling extremely grateful.  I found out two weeks ago that I had to be on moderated bed rest.  I initially felt extremely sorry for myself and just overwhelmed as to how I was actually going to do that.  I had been trying to take it easy, but limiting myself to being on my feet or sitting just a few hours a day seemed impossible.  After a few days of just being sad and angry, I decided to start planning so that I can do what I need to, to keep this baby and myself healthy.   Planning absolutely saved me, and since then I have just felt blessed.  My ward has completely taken over, with bringing me meals, offering rides for Briz, trips to the grocery store, playdates for Briz, and babysitters, I feel completely taken care of.  Not to mention the fact that I have so many friends/family who have offered to help.  I can't begin to describe how grateful I feel.  I have learned a lot about letting things go, asking for help, and making life more simple.  So in these past couple weeks of simplicity and service, here is what we've been up to.

Briz and I try to make a quick weekly trip to the library and stock up on books, movies, CD's, etc.   I also have been reading pretty much nonstop.  I love having the excuse to read books that I have wanted to for a long time, but never felt I had the time.  Here is Briz watching one of her favorites, Oklahoma, and doing some interesting dance moves.  She keeps me entertained while I am down.  I am grateful for my Brizzy Boo.  She has been so sweet and thoughtful of me.  She is very protective of me right now, and wants to be helpful.  She also gives me and my belly a lot of hugs and kisses.

 

Part of getting these movies has been me indulging in some horrible kid movies.  I mean, they are extremely painful.  And I swear Briz gravitates towards the worst ones.  The lower quality the better!  I try to get out of watching them as much as possible, but since Briz has been out with friends so much, I feel guilty and force myself to sit next to her.

This past week, our friend Ella turned four (Brizzy thinks she is her cousin).  Ella is so funny.  She calls Nick, "Nicky."  She also came up to me and asked, "Does Bwiz have any bwuddas?"  I told her no, but she has her sister Holland in heaven, and her baby sister is still in my tummy.  She then proceeded to rub my chest while she said, "Awww, baby sisteh."  Nope, the baby is not there.   Just a bit farther south.

I am grateful for Nick who has been such a good sport.  I am not an easy pregnant woman to live with, particularly when I'm trying to figure out how to delegate to him.  But he forgives me every day and has a positive attitude.

Auntie Sandy came into town, and it was so great to see her.  Briz loves her "auntie" and loved her even more after she bought Briz a necklace kit that they did together.  She also knitted me some adorable boob hats.  (I'll post a pic sometime).  They're hats that have nipples on them and look like boobs.  Perfect!  We're sad that Sandy and her family live all the way in Alaska.  We don't get to see them enough.

And I am in my third trimester.  Hallelujah!  When people ask me how far along I am, and I tell them, they usually give me a sympathetic look, as if to say, "Oh geeze, you have a ways to go."  Most of the time it feels too long, but then sometimes when I think about it being two months, it feels soon.  I have finally started to get excited about preparing (again about 90% of that is because I can't wait to not be pregnant). As I start to think about all of the things I want to get or do before she comes, it makes me excited to meet this little girl.  I love wondering what she looks like and what her little personality will be.  I am a little bit strange and in the past have loved being a mom to a newborn, so I am excited for that phase.  Lots of cuddles, kisses, spit up, diapers.  Sounds glorious right now :) 

Here is the ultrasound from 25 weeks, and she is sucking her thumb.  At one point she was kind of chewing on her whole hand.  Always moving though.  I think she's kind of a little maniac.

I am grateful that everything with her so far is healthy.  She is a strong girl, and watching her move makes me feel like I don't have much to worry about.  I wonder if I just notice it more because I am lying down so often, but its one of my favorite things to just sit and watch my stomach shift and move while she does her funny movements.   Last week I had a lot of contractions and a lot of times I feel a lot of pressure and pain, but in the end, I still have a feeling that everything will be okay and that while I need to listen to my doctor, I don't have anything to worry about.  Plus the itching hasn't gotten bad yet (keep your fingers crossed!!!)

And I continue to be grateful for work.  I am grateful that I am still able to work!  It has been a lifesaver, because even though I am down, I have endless lists of things to occupy my mind; things that I want to do.  At times I feel like being a therapist is selfish, because I always leave with a greater perspective on my own problems and uplifted by being with others who are trying to figure things out just like I am.  I feel like perhaps I get more out of it than my clients.  

And even though I can't enjoy it as much as I would like to, so grateful for all of the beautiful blossoms and the spring time.  We were supposed to be going to Hawaii this week, so I am glad I will get at least some bits of sun :)