40 weeks with #3

Here we are, finally made it to my due date. In some ways I didn’t want to see this day come…at least with a baby still in my belly instead of my arms. I was hoping for a July birthday but in the grand scheme of things, it really doesn’t matter. I’ll gladly remember another August birthday.

My appointment went really well today. The ultrasound results showed nothing to be worried about. The baby was in the 19% and they only worry if it is under 10% or over 90%. The estimated weight for the baby at 39 weeks was 6 lbs 2 oz. It will be interesting to see how close that weight is soon enough. I was hooked up to the monitor right away which is routine at the 40 week appointment. The baby was doing great and I was having contractions but not really knowing it. I was dilated to 3cm and 70% effaced. My doctor stripped my membranes and I was then dilated more to 4cm. All these things considered my doctor was thinking the baby would be born soon…as in maybe tonight yet or tomorrow. The contractions have already picked up so we might be heading to the hospital sooner than we thought. It is hard to comprehend that the day could really be here. We could meet our little one very very soon. Ahhhh!!

I believe this should be the last weekly shot of me pregnant with this child.

I am very excited that Carissa and I were able to get some pregnant belly photos together this time around. Isn’t she the cutest! Me at 40 weeks on the dot. Carissa looking great at 21 weeks.

And it’s off!

Cohen had his cast removal appointment this morning and everything looked good. Good news is he shouldn’t have any lasting affects from the fracture since it wasn’t near his growth plate (which is good because he might not grow a ton to begin with, haha). The doctor said he might favor it for a while but he also could be acting normal within hours. He did walk on it right after but cautiously and sort of like he still had the cast on. It will definitely be another adjustment period for him because he was really cruising on the cast this past week or so. As for the rest of us, we’re happy to not have a cast to worry about stomping on our toes or kicking us in the ever so sensitive male area :)

Weekend Happenings

Well we made it through what we hope to be our last weekend before this baby arrives. And I feel like we did a great job of fitting in as much as we could. There was A LOT of work but also fun mixed in as well. I cleaned like a mad woman. Baked some amazing brownies which everyone enjoyed Saturday night. (I recommend you try them out, click here) I was able to sneak in a little time with the power tools to help Troy with the deck. What is it about me, late pregnancy, and construction?! :)

Troy finished building the deck. So our bodies were exhausted but my mind was definitely thankful to have gotten so much done. Besides the boring work stuff we managed to fit in some fun to help make Sevea feel special before the baby (Cohen joined but he really has no clue what is about to happen and really he’s content with snuggles with mom to feel special).

Saturday morning after breakfast, Sevea, Troy, and I enjoyed playing Minnie Bingo together. I purchased this game for Sevea for Christmas and we just now remembered to play it. I could definitely see this being a weekend tradition if Sevea chooses. Bingo is fun at any age so it is a game that Troy and I enjoyed much more than other kid games. Cohen was even to help for a few rounds by helping mom pick out her bow from the bag.

On Saturday night our friends Matt & Keeley had the gang over for supper. We had a great meal along with good conversation. And the best part, all the kids entertain one another so a little break for all of us! 

Sunday morning what else is better than go to this place?

Can’t tell where we are? Maybe this picture will help.

Yep, those are rainbow pancakes from PERKIN’S. Sevea definitely has a love for them and we decided we’d make one last visit before the baby. Sprinkles and cool whip sure make a girl feel special!!

I got my one last weekend before the baby so now I’ve switched to telling the baby it can come anytime now. Let’s just hope it listens and we don’t have another weekend to try to make special :)

Backyard water fun

I’ll let the pictures do the talking on this one. An afternoon of fun outside a couple weeks ago.

39 Weeks with #3

Down to the last week (or so). I just cannot believe that the end is near. This pregnancy went by extremely fast and for which I am grateful but also it is bittersweet. All the unknowns will soon be answered. All the new experiences we’ve anticipated will soon happen. We will be in the new stage of our lives instead of just dreaming and wondering about it. Troy and I are VERY anxious to meet the baby and get to know all about him or her. Since this is our third child, we have two other special little kids to compare this one to. Will this one look anything like either of them? Will this one be more like one or the other in personality? One thing we do know is this one will be unique in its own way and we are very excited to see all of those ways.

Besides meeting the baby, I’m not overly anxious for the pregnancy to end. I’ve again been blessed with a relatively easy pregnancy. I haven’t experienced too much in regards to discomfort especially compared to many other women. Even with the extreme heat of the summer I haven’t experienced swelling this time around either. I’d say this is one of the symptoms I’m glad only happened with Sevea. Heartburn subsided around 37 1/2 weeks. Probably largely due to the fact that the baby dropped at that time. At my 38 week appointment I was dilated still to 1 cm and 30% effaced but instead of being at a –3, I was at 0. So the baby dropped 3 cm and it was clear in my symptoms. I could feel more lower. But I also had more room for food and the heartburn went away. I’ve still been experiencing some round ligament pain like I had with Cohen but also have been experiencing numb tingling hands that I had with Sevea but not Cohen. I feel like I have a giant baby inside since a lot of this baby’s movement as of late makes me think it is trying to just push out through the skin. However at my appointment on Wednesday I my fundal height had stalled. I measured 36 this week, as well as the week before, and just 35 the week before that. So the doctor ordered an ultrasound to make sure the baby was still growing and my fluid was good. The tech didn’t said there wasn’t anything alarming. The baby is measuring smaller but with my past babies it wasn’t a real concern. I haven’t heard anything from the doctor so I’m taking the “no news is good news approach.” I’m thinking this baby will be similar in size to the other two then.

Besides needing the ultrasound my appointment went well. I had made progress and was now dilated to 2 cm and 60% effaced. The heartbeat was strong at 145. So all there is left to do is wait and get to the hospital timely this go around.

Freckleface Strawberry

A couple weeks ago we received an email from Troy’s work saying that the owners of the company had recently purchased the Old Log Theater in Excelsior. They invited all employees including their families and friends to come out to the Theater’s summer children’s production of Freckleface Strawberry. The best part was we could attend for free the first week. Troy graciously took over the daycare one Friday morning so that I could take Sevea and her daycare friend Eloise.

Off we go. They were both super excited for our special field trip!

The musical is based off the book written by Julianne Moore. It was a super cute book and since the tickets were free I purchased the book for each of the girls.

They did so well during the show. Being it was a musical I expected it to be music more geared towards kids but a lot was more Broadway sounding. They still enjoyed it but the couple times when more rap type songs were performed they really got into it. The story is about a young girl who has freckles and becomes embarrassed by them. She tries to hide them but in the end realizes they make her special. I was happy that the girls really listened to the story and took away a good lesson from it. Both of the girls were trying to find freckles on themselves after the show. Sevea has some on her cheeks already and I’m guessing with the amount of freckles Troy has she’s only bound to get more. We’ll continue reading the book to her in hopes that she’ll never be ashamed of her cute freckles :)

First and hopefully last

People always say there are drawbacks to either sex of a child. Girls tend to be whinny and dramatic. Boys you’ll have to worry about all the crazy stunts they’ll pull and the broken bones because of those stunts. We’ve dealt with our fair share of whining and we’re certain we’ll deal with drama and all that is girl with Sevea. Cohen has proven to be much more of a climber than we were used to with Sevea so we figured the broken bones would happen eventually. Eventually…as in a couple years from now or at least not before his 2nd birthday. We were wrong.

At almost 23 months Cohen has his first cast. We’re hoping it is his last. We can dream right :)

On Friday while I was sitting on the floor Cohen was playing behind my back. I grabbed his hand to bring him in front of me to play (like I or Troy have done numerous times) and instead of both legs moving his right just didn’t really follow and twisted and he fell down to the ground. Immediately I thought something was wrong. It just didn’t look good. Did I think broken bone? No way. I was thinking he maybe sprained his ankle or his knee. He cried for 15 minutes straight and you knew it wasn’t just that fake cry where they just need to figure out how to calm down. You could tell he was hurting. Once the crying stopped any movement of the leg you heard from him. We got the next available appointment and took him to get checked out. In the end the doctor determined he had a spiral fracture or also known as a toddler fracture. Common in toddlers because their bones are so soft yet. It is associated with a low energy trauma sometimes with a rotational component. Exactly what we saw happen with Cohen. The doctor set his leg in a splint and we were sent home to return for his cast today. When we got him home he tried to pull the cotton out of the splint but after that he left the splint alone. He did really well adapting to having to wear the splint. He woke up the first night a couple times I think out of discomfort getting used to the splint but nothing a drink of water didn’t fix. Other than that he slept well and played as well as he could. He figured out how to crawl (even though he wasn’t a fan) and would kneel and stand up as well.

We went in today for his cast. After another x-ray it was clear that it was a fracture and a cast was necessary. We did however get the best news possible. Instead of having his cast for a month like we thought, he would only need it for two weeks. Since a fracture like this is so minimal and the healing time for kids so fast, when we go back in two weeks he should be cast free. The other and even more exciting news (being it is July) we got a waterproof cast!! We are so excited that we can give baths like normal and still try to enjoy these last couple weeks we have to swim before it becomes harder with the new baby. The doctor said he should be able to walk in the cast so it will be interesting to see if he takes on that challenge. This momma could use a break from carrying two babies around everywhere :)

I had to include these two pictures. So funny. The first picture with Cohen giving his best cheese smile that I adore so much. The second you get Cohen with a nice smile but with Grayson having a meltdown in the background. He wasn’t happy with Cohen trying to stand up in front of the toys he just put on the entertainment center…even though he wasn’t playing with them, haha.

And the red cast of course comes from his love of Cars. He seems to gravitate towards most red cars since I am guessing he associates red ones with Lightning McQueen.

Magic

Sevea to me: Mommy what are the magic words I need to say?

Me to Sevea: You mean: Abracadabra?

Sevea: Yeah!

Sevea standing over Cohen with the blanket over him waving her hand: Abracadabra. She pulls the blanket off and he is still there.

Sevea: Mom why did he not disappear? He’s still here. I’ll try it again. Tries it again.

Sevea: Mom it didn’t work again. Why?

Me: I think it only works for real magicians.

 

She was so cute! She’s done magic stuff before but this was the first time she really questioned why it didn’t work. And side note: did you know abracadabra is an actual word? Try typing it out, your spell check will recognize it :)

37 weeks with #3

I had an appointment on Monday and all was well. The baby had a good heartbeat and is doing well. The doctor checked me and I was 1cm dilated and 30% effaced. Looking back to Cohen I was 1.5/2 dilated and 50% effaced. We’re still thinking this one will follow suit and come around my due date. The baby is definitely head down though which is a nice relief. So we’ll continue to wait and enjoy the time as a family of four.

Sevea is getting very excited and asks a lot about when the baby will come. She knows it is now July and that is when the baby should be born. Too bad she doesn’t understand it is likely going to be the very end of July. She still really really wants the baby to be a girl and refers to the baby as a girl at all times. I think it will be very interesting to see her reaction if the baby is a boy. Even though she knows it could be, I have no doubt she’ll react in some way if we tell her it is a boy and not a girl.

With only three weeks left (give or take), I am surprised at how relaxed I am about preparing for the baby. We just put up the pack n play/bassinet in our room. We’re hoping that the baby will do well in our room so we don’t have to move Cohen around just yet. Sevea was too noisy of a baby so we moved her to her own room at 2 weeks. Cohen started out in his own room from the day we brought him home. I’m trying to be relaxed about it since I know it won’t be too difficult to move rooms if needed later. We have to move the rocker out of Cohen’s room into our room yet and figure out where we are going to stash the baby clothes. Otherwise I think we are set for the baby to come home. I washed the neutral newborn clothes we have so the baby will have something to wear until I get out the boy or girl clothes once the little one reveals its gender on delivery day. I need to pack my bag and I think we’re set for when this baby comes. Typing this out though makes me wonder.

4th of July Festivities

Oh boy we packed in the fun this year. We definitely took advantage of one of the last weekends before baby #3 comes. Since the 4th was on a Thursday this year we (or I decided and made Troy go with the plan :) took off Wednesday and Friday to make it a very nice long weekend. Our first stop was at Gma and Gpa Appeldorn’s where the weather couldn’t have been more perfect to swim all day long.

Sevea was a pro by the end of the day at jumping in all by herself. Okay she wore the swim wings the whole time but she’d go under and pop up without it phasing her. She enjoyed herself so much that when she went to swimming lessons she was bummed that they didn’t let her jump in on her own. Cohen absolutely loved the water and did not like being in or on anything that kept him out of it. No floatie action for him. He really enjoyed playing on the stairs where he took time to practice blowing bubbles. We are bummed that our chances to swim again with gma and gpa are not very likely with the new baby coming soon. Thanks for an incredibly fun day Gma & Gpa Appeldorn!!! You can be sure we’ll try to make it more next year!

After our fun filled day of swimming we headed to see the cousins. We packed in as much fun as we could on Wednesday night until we left Saturday morning. It was exhausting to say the least but soooooo worth it. We enjoyed a lot of time outside, fireworks, and a trip to the zoo.

At daycare we I made shirts for all the kids to wear. It was a pinterest find and I think it turned out great. A cheap way to get into the holiday spirit. And if you notice Sevea’s hair I can thank pinterest for that as well. If you can’t tell there is a star shape there. It was simple to do and Sevea thought it was really neat.

On the 4th we spent time with Brock’s family. They do a get together every year and were gracious enough to allow us to join in on the fun. We get to see them quite often when we visit the Buchert family and they are always great at making us feel welcome. Most of the adults partook in the bean bag tournament while the kids had fun running around the yard and playing with the cars and playhouse. Eventually it was time for a tradition they do every year. They shoot off fireworks that are parachutes. All the kids went across the street to a big field next to the park and waited for their turn to chase down the parachute. This year the wind made the whole event a little interesting to say the least but the kids LOVED it. A tradition I can see why they keep. A fun time was had by all.

We ended the night back at the Buchert’s house and once it got dark the fireworks came out. The kids really enjoyed getting to play with the sparklers and watching the big ones lit off by Brock. We may not have gone somewhere to see a big fireworks show but enjoyed our night just as much with what we had. And the best part was their neighbors put on an incredible show the next night. Briella put it best, “You pay for them, we watch them!”

As you might have seen Brezlyn was in a cast so swimming or water activities weren’t on the agenda. We decided to go to the zoo in Watertown, SD for a day of fun. After a picnic lunch we braved the heat and set out to see the animals.

Cohen loved this big fish. He tried to kiss it through the glass (yes, gross…dirty germ filled glass). The fish was really cool in that if you put your fingers on the glass it would try to get them.

There were a lot of baby animals and it was fun to see how the parents interacted with the babies. We got to see a monkey feeding its baby. Despite the heat the kids enjoyed it. I think the slushies we got helped :)

After the zoo we enjoyed ice cream and made our way back to the Buchert’s. We enjoyed another night by the fire and felt thankful for all the time together. This little vacation was so great for quality family time. Even though times like this leave you exhausted and feeling like you need a vacation to recover from your vacation, we feel so grateful for such good times with family. It’s what life is all about!