October: Scorcher in Texas

It still feels like summer here in Texas with 90+ degree days! One evening our HOA had a party by our park and swimming pool when Brent was at class. They had this blow up obstacle course which Ava was crazy about. I was a little worried to let her go in it at first since she was smaller than all the other kids going through it. If she couldn't reach to climb out, I did not want to get in there 8 months pregnant to help her! Luckily she's our climber baby and made it just fine. Over and over.

 They were grilling hamburgers and everyone in the neighborhood was out enjoying each other's company. We have a lot of LDS people in our HOA so we saw quite a few people we knew.

Here's Ava and I playing one day- she decorated our faces with stickers.

I've been trying to give her lots of attention and one-on-one time since I know the days of just the two of us are limited. Now I understand why it makes moms feel kind of sad when it's almost time for the new baby to come! She has been very attached to me and wants to sit in my lap and gets a little frustrated when there isn't room anymore.

In the past week or so she has started acting like how I imagined she would when the new baby comes- extra tantrums, screaming, crying, wanting my attention. I'm not sure if she can just sense the baby coming or what is going on! Poor little thing, she's had some really rough days. Here she is all tuckered out after tantrums:

And you can see she has been extra clingy with her baby doll.

Some more mommy-daughter time: picnic at the park.

  (Case in point: wanting to lay in my lap)

We made roast and potatoes and gravy. Ava is a huge gravy fan. She made sure every last bit of her gravy was off her plate, and off her hands.  

She is still a great eater, although some days are "non-eating days" and she just doesn't want to eat 

much. But when it's an eating day, she'll eat anything (except chicken a lot of the time). It was funny after dinner one day she still had one piece of broccoli on her plate. Brent told her to eat her last piece (she had eaten like 8 pieces) and she said, "no, daddy eat it." And I looked at Brent and said, "yeah dad, you eat some broccoli." Hahaha.

A week ago, Ava's best friend, Lillian, had a birthday party at the park. (Lillian's mom has been watching Ava once a week for about a year and they are such cute little friends. When we drop off Ava at the house, they hold hands and run off together). 

When Lillian opened Ava's present (girl clothes) Ava asked, "baby brother??" She thinks everything and anything is for baby brother.

Ava loves story time at the library! 

At the end they have the kids line up at the wall and sing a little song. Ava gets a little nervous to go up there for the 30 second song and as soon as it's done she bolts back to me, so proud of herself :)

Yesterday at story-time it was a special "donuts and dads" theme, which was fun! 

Last Sunday we had a Disney movie night and our friends brought their dogs so they didn't have to be cooped up and left at home. Ava went crazy for the dogs and was trying to pick them up, letting them lick her face, etc. It was the first time I've seen her play with dogs. She usually likes them but doesn't actually want to touch them.

Here's a video of her playing with the dogs:

One sweet moment this week came on Monday after Ava had been a little monster with apparent pre-little-brother-invasion syndrome. I have been recently starting to have FHE with real lessons for Ava and this Monday I thought we should still try even though she would probably just throw fits during the lesson. We did a 5 minute lesson on the Book of Mormon and she actually sat still and listened! Then I asked Brent to tell Ava his favorite Book of Mormon Story. He told her about the Tree of Life. I wanted to remember the look on her face so I took a picture:

 Here she is "reaching up for some fruit"

 And here she is saying "mmmm" because Daddy told her the fruit is so yummy.

One small victory in what felt like a week of tantrums!

We went to my doctor appointment this week for another ultrasound and check-up (apparently I get ultrasounds every time because I'm high risk? I guess the diabetes does that?)  You can hear at the beginning of the video, Ava kept saying during the ultrasound that it was her baby brother!

After the appointment we went to get hamburgers and the restaurant had this cool chalkboard, which Ava loved. She thought it was soooo funny to erase my drawings!

A few weeks ago I made a big list of everything that needed to be done before baby #2 comes. I have been working steadily on it, choosing just one thing every few days to get done. I have cleaned the baby car seat, gotten Ava some activities and crafts together for when the baby arrives, bought Ava a new car seat for our small car that will fit better with the baby's car seat, and washed baby boy's newborn clothes.

Washing clothes makes it feel more real.

We also bought a mattress and a base for Ava to sleep in a big girl bed. It will also double as a guest bed so we bought a twin mattress and put it on a low base so that it will still be ok for Ava (and hopefully the grandmas can still get out of the bed with it being so low ;) I also spent time picking out a comforter and sheets. Brent got the bed set up this week. Checking things off, slowly but surely!

The other thing on our to do list that we checked off yesterday was to clean out Ava's room. She still had 18 month size clothes hanging up in her closet and everything had just eventually become a mess in the bins on the wall. We needed to make room for baby #2.

Here's a before and after of the process:

 Finally to end, here's a picture of me at 35.5 weeks!

Baby #2

When I was about 10 years old my parents were talking about how a couple they knew had gotten pregnant "on accident." I piped in with, "I know how you get pregnant. And that doesn't happen on accident!" 

I think I jinxed myself. 

Enter pregnancy #2. This baby is our little 5-months-sooner-than-anticipated "accident." 

Around the middle of March things started to get a little suspicious, and so after a few days I told Brent I should probably take a pregnancy test to rule that out. It would be a waste of money, he said. But before church one morning I went into the bathroom to take a test. (Perfect timing planned by me so that if it was positive Brent couldn't kill me because we would be at church in a few minutes, after all). Ava followed me into the bathroom watching my every move. Brent stayed in bed, completely sure that nothing would happen. I gave him second by second updates from the bathroom. 

Jen: there's only one line- it's negative

Brent: yep, I told you

Jen: whoa whoa! I think a second line is showing up

Brent: yeah right

Jen: no I'm serious!

Brent: not possible

Finally I ran to show Brent. He took a look at the test and said, "the test is probably old and not working." 

Hahahaha. Oh boy. At least it was time to go to church. 

Now for some FAQ. 

When is your due date? November 18.

How have you been feeling? The last month of busy season (until April 15) was pretty miserable as I felt queasy and nothing at all sounded good to eat. After that I have felt great.

What have you craved? Pasta and sweets

Girl or boy? It's a boy! As soon I found out I was pregnant I just felt like it was a sweet, mellow boy. The boy part turned out to be true and we will see if the sweet and mellow part turns out to be true. So far in the womb he moves a lot less than Ava did and feels calmer.

You're so tiny! I have been so much smaller this pregnancy than with Ava (comparing my measurements I took around the circumference of my belly, I'm about one month smaller). I have been carrying this baby inside versus with Ava I was all out front.

Does Ava understand? At first she didn't at all. During just the last few weeks she has started to notice my big tummy and I think it's making more sense now. She saw my tummy recently and said, "baby BIG!" She now kisses my tummy and talks about "baby brother." She does, however, sometimes talk about the baby in her tummy. So her understanding is limited.

Are you scared after your first delivery? After the recommendations of both my first doctor and my new doctor here in Texas, we are going to do a C-section. For some reason I sometimes feel like I need to justify this to people who might think I'm taking the easy way out or not letting my body take the natural way. But considering that I still have issues from when I had Ava and I never fully healed and probably never will without surgery, I don't want to try to send another baby out that way.

What are you going to name him? I hate this question. And it's the most common question :) We have our favorite names and want to look at him before we decide. The reason why I hate it is because people will then ask what names are we thinking of? It's usually too weird to say we don't want to tell you, so we usually give our list of names. :) And then people will ALWAYS give their opinion on which name is best and lots of times try to tell you why you should not choose one of the names. It's weird. Names are hard.

Here's our little gummy bear at our first visit in April. I was so nervous if there was really a baby in there since I hadn't been taking prenatal pills at the time I got pregnant (it doesn't seem logical now, but I was really worried!). It was such a relief to see this tiny gummy bear moving all around and to hear a heart beat.

At the end of June we went to the Fetal Studio at the mall in Utah to see what we were having. Our doctor had given us a guess at 16 weeks before we left for Utah, but we wanted to be sure so we could get prepared with clothes. Brent thought since we were paying so much for the ultrasound we might as well bring people :) We had Brent's mom, sister, brother, and my parents come. At the ultrasound we were told it was a boy! My reaction was, "yep, it is!"

Now for some belly shots!
May 23 (14 weeks)

June 1 (15 weeks)

June 23 (18 weeks)

June 28 (19 weeks)

 July 6 (20 weeks)

July 23 (23 weeks)

 August 1 (24 weeks)

August 13 (26 weeks)

August 24 (27 weeks)

September 8 (29 weeks)

September 18 (31 weeks)

September 24 (32 weeks)

October 11 (34 weeks)

General Conference & the End of Summer

As soon as we got back to Texas I went to a dietician to learn how to take care of myself with gestational diabetes. Basically I need to eat 6 small meals a day and each meal is assigned a certain number of carbs that I can eat at that meal. I have to eat healthy or else my carbs will be used up in one cookie and I'll still be starving :) I also learned how to use my glucose meter for testing my blood sugar 4 times a day. Since I've been craving sugar so much this pregnancy it's been a little hard, but not too bad since I can still eat almost everything in moderation.

Here are some of my healthy meals since I've been on the diabetes diet:

Here is a random paparazzi picture I took of Ava in nursery just because she looked cute. She lives for the times she can play with her friends and gets SO excited to do anything social.

We went to Chris to his Evangelical church for a musical program. The choir was very good and sang very very old chants and things.

 The organ was up on the balcony behind where we sat.

Here's a funny video of Ava reading a book with me. She loves to read books right now and also loves to rest on my belly.

One of our favorite things to do still is to bring lots of blankets and pillows into the living room to make a blanket pile. Ava gets so excited, she just squeals as we pile up the blankets.

I've been taking a lot of selfies of the belly because I have to tell you, I like being pregnant and I love the baby bump. Look how much I grew in one week! The left is Sept 18 and the right is Sept 24.

Target was having a sale of 40% off Halloween costumes so we let Ava pick out what she wants to be. She was able to choose from quite a few different princesses and she was very adamant that she wanted Aurora. We let her try it on that night and so far since then she's had about 5 tantrums because we won't let her wear her Halloween costume yet. 

On Friday night we went to SouthLake which is a nice part of town to get Brent's new iPhone at the Apple Store. The shopping area is really pretty around there so we also walked around for a bit.

New iPhone= happy daddy

Afterward, we went to Chick-fil-a because I'm loving that place these days. Ava was so funny in the play place because she loved this boy and was making him play with her. He was being a good sport and he totally let Ava boss him around. 

Is this picture a glimpse into Ava's future relationships? Haha.

We tried to take advantage as much as we could before the pool closes for fall. Look at my belly and look how we always had the pool to ourselves!

On Saturday night I went to the broadcast of women's conference at my ward with Rita. Our relief society had a potluck dinner before and it was fun to be with the sisters! No picture with Rita, just me when I got home because I did my hair that day :)

On Sunday evening we went on a walk to watch the lunar eclipse. Brent was so hot that he wanted to dip his toes in the pool to get cooled off. He still has a dream of swimming on Sunday even though I tell him no :) We brought popsicles and enjoyed the eclipse.

Brent has been taking Ava to library time since I work on Thursdays now. This week was the fire station day! It's next door and the firemen teach the kids about what they do and let them look in the trucks.

This week we went to Chris' house to celebrate CJ's birthday. I wish you could see their dogs in real life. They are soooooo big. But they are so gentle. The gray one weighs 180 pounds.

We were driving around the corner so Ava got to sit on daddy's lap and she thought it was super exciting.

On Friday evening we went to Denton Square to walk around for my exercise since I'm supposed to get 30 minutes a day. Afterwards we went to Mr. Frosty's for some french fries and a shake (I had one sip, don't worry!)

On Saturday we watched conference in our house. Brent hooked up our computer to the TV so it was perfect! Rita watched 3 of the 4 sessions with us and thoroughly enjoyed it all. I loved all the talks and feel so boosted now! The one that really hit me the most was Elder Holland's talk on mothers. It was so perfectly put into words how it feels to love as a mother. Right before his talk started I was laying Ava down for a nap looking at her perfect little face thinking, "how is it possible that I can love another person THIS much?" Then I came back to the living room and Elder Holland gave his beautiful talk.

On Saturday evening we all went out to Mexican food and then came back and I listened in on Brent's priesthood session since you can do that now :)

Ava feeling the music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She was dancing so cute :)

 I bought Ava some beads and string because she loves necklaces. On Saturday she couldn't manage to string the beads since they are pretty small holes in the beads. She handed them to me and said, "I watch you." Then that evening I saw her sitting on the floor concentrating hard, and she had threaded the whole necklace. On Sunday she wanted to practice her new skill over and over again. It was perfect for keeping her entertained during conference.

We were excited to get three new apostles this conference! Brent and I were talking about how they all seem so different from each other, which will be perfect because you need some of each personality in the Quorum.