34 Weeks!

Baby Girl is growing by leaps and bounds! I cannot believe that she is due in just less than 6 weeks. This entire pregnancy has flown by, but now that the holidays are upon us and my focus is elsewhere, it's really going fast. I went to the dr. today, but nothing new to report. Everything seems to be right on schedule. I told her I just want to make it through Christmas and get my tree down, and she said she was confident that I would. I go back in two weeks and then every week after that. I cannot believe we are to that point already. Despite battling a bit of a stomach bug and some sinus issues all in the last week and a half, I actually feel really good. I'm not planning on running a marathon or anything, but other than just being ready for bed around 7:30 or 8, all is good!

Last night, when I laid down with Grant the baby was moving a lot. I stopped reading his book and told him to watch my belly. It was going crazy. He's felt her move several times, but I'm not sure if he'd really grasped what he was feeling. I told him that's baby sister moving around. He said, "she's poppin out!" He was totally amazed by it. When he was saying his prayers a little later, he said, "Thank you God for baby sister poppin out." So cute....He also thanked Him for the car we saw when were eating out last night that was "dressed" like Rudolph (the car had antlers sticking out of both windows and a red foam nose on the front).

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend at home. I think I spent more time at my house these last 4 days than I have since I was on maternity leave with Grant. It was nice (though not really quiet and relaxing), but I'll have to say that cabin fever was starting to set in. Wednesday night, we started cooking and Grant and his mammy made Turkey cookies which he enjoyed eating all weekend long. His letters for his wall also finally came in and we hung those....pics to come later. We had family and friends at our house on Thursday for dinner for the 3rd year in a row. I love having people over and would like to entertain more, but our house just isn't built to have that many people in it. I wouldn't change the layout so much, but the size would just need to be increased in order to accommodate everyone. If any of my brothers ever decide to get married and procreate, we're going to have to move this shindig somewhere else. We are simply out of room! All of that being said, the meal was great and we enjoyed seeing everyone.

Friday was the most relaxing day of them all. I had seriously considered getting up and going shopping at 12 am but I was too tired to even consider it when it came around. I actually woke up at 5 on Friday morning and thought about it then too, but decided to lay on the couch and watch all of last week's Oprah's on the DVR instead....sad, huh?! That's really the only time to watch them is when the boys are asleep or gone. I LOVE my DVR!! We didn't do much the rest of the day. I sorted through bags and bags of baby girl hand me downs from by sweet niece and spent the rest of the night separating, washing, and organizing all of that so we were ready for our out of town guests on Saturday.

They got there just in time for the big UT/UK football game. My husband is the UT fan of all UT fans and our friends both went to UK, so that was interesting. Meredith and I actually left the kids with our husbands during the game and ventured out to the mall. Much to my surprise, we didn't hit any traffic and had no trouble getting into or out of the mall. We were gone for maybe 3 1/2 hours, but the marathon game was still going on when we returned. Apparently, our husbands forgot there were 3 kids at the house with them because the house was absolutely destroyed when we got home, and Grant met me at the door taking his clothes off.....never done this before! Order was quickly restored and then some of our other friends came over with their 2 sweet girls. Grant seemed to really love the babies (fingers crossed he likes ours too) AND got to take his first bath (and maybe one of the last) with 2 girls, and really enjoyed playing with all of them. He is such a little people person. He loves having people at our house and gets soooo upset when they have to leave.

Sunday morning after our friends headed to Gatlinburg, it was already too late for us to make it to church, so we decided to get our Christmas stuff down out of the attic instead. I didn't get everything out that I normally do since the baby is due so close to Christmas, but we got the tree up, and Grant loved decorating it. The hard part is going to be getting him to actually leave the ornaments on the tree. I can already tell Christmas is going to be a blast this year. He loves all the lights and anything Christmas and/or Santa related.

All in all a wonderful weekend...got lots of baby stuff separated, down from the attic, etc. and spent lots of time with family and friends. BUT check out that ticker....time it's a flyin' by!!

A Successful Weekend & Name Help

At least successful in my eyes.. I got quite a bit of little man's Christmas shopping done and the house is mostly clean. We, of course, will have to clean the floors again before Thursday because they look like they could be cleaned everyday. We spent all day Saturday shopping and Grant was a real trooper. He left the house at about 8:30 to get a haircut and besides a brief stop by the house to change clothes, we were gone until about 8:00 Saturday night. We went all over the place and made a stop at Phillip's Toy Mart to see what Grant might want Santa to bring him. That was our first trip there, but certainly not the last. He had sooo much fun, and didn't even cry to take any of the toys home with us. It was a little overwhelming for me, but they had lots of neat toys that I haven't seen elsewhere. We then headed to the mall and spent the rest of the night there.

Yesterday after church, we drove around until Grant went to sleep and then WE came home and did marathon cleaning. After all of the cleaning and dinner, I ventured out to the grocery store (which I never do on Sunday night) for my last task of the weekend. I think I should have most everything we need for Thanksgiving and for our company next weekend. Daddy had taken Grant to Maggie Moo's while I was gone, and he was on a serious sugar high when I got home. He was crazy like I've never seen before, but he finally calmed down enough to go to sleep around 10:00! I don't think I sat down for more than 10 minutes or so yesterday and that was to eat dinner. When I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, my feet were so stiff I could barely walk...lesson learned, but the sense of accomplishment is worth the pain!

So...everyone keeps asking what we're naming this baby, and I've been a little non-committal. I was very set on a particular name early on in the pregnancy, but I've since decided that I'm pretty much ok with whatever...not sure where this came from, it's totally not my personality. As I've said before, I'm still not totally convinced that this baby is a girl, so even if we decide on something I'm not writing it in stone anywhere. That being said, we've pretty much decided we're going to call the baby Claire, but aren't sure what the rest of the name should be. We've talked about Sarah Claire (Sarah was my grandmother) and Claire Morgan. Either way, she'd just be called Claire. This is all subject to change should I think of something I like better than Claire in the next month and a half. In the meantime, which one do you like better or do you have another suggestion???? Even though Sarah is a family name, I'm not really leaning toward either one. Can't believe I'm asking this, but otherwise, we may never decide. All comments are appreciated!!

A Not So Fun Day

Yesterday was not such a great day for Grant and I. It began at about 2 am when I heard what sounded like the hiccups coming from his room. I went in his bedroom to discover that he'd gotten sick in his sleep all in his bed. The rest of the day was more of the same. It was not fun! It's not easy to explain to a sick 2 year old why he can't have milk or whatever he wants to eat. That was the weird part... every time he ate or drank, he got sick, but he kept asking for food and/or drink. Anyway, he seemed pretty ok by bedtime and held down some chicken noodle soup. This morning when I dropped him off at his nanny's, she asked him if he wanted pancakes, and he was all too happy to go to her and see me leave. After a day at home with me withholding food from him, I guess he didn't care to spend another day like that. Every time he got sick, it made me just want to cry for him. It makes me so thankful that he has been such a healthy little boy because it just breaks my heart to see him uncomfortable or hurting.

So, we've had two Thursdays in a row with Grant sick and missing school. I hope this Thursday (Thanksgiving) doesn't fall into pattern with the last two because we'll have a house full of people. Our house is not big AT ALL, so it's always a fun (stressful) day for me! I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished this weekend, but I think I have that same optimistic outlook every Friday...only to come back to work on Monday without actually getting anything done. Oh well!

32 weeks

I'm on a roll this week, three posts in a row. Not much to say today, other than that I went to the dr. this morning for my 32 (yikes) week appt. Thankfully, my weight gain has stalled out and I hasn't brought on any more comments from the doctor. My bp seems to be holding steady at borderline and since I was having contractions over the weekend, they made sure everything still seemed "secure." Thankfully, it did. They did some other test, but I haven't heard the results on it yet. If it's positive, it means I'm having some signs of preterm labor, if it's negative, it means that it's not likely I'd deliver in the next two weeks. I'm not even considering that an option, so I'm certain it will be negative. So, things seem to be where they should, and hopefully we won't have a baby for say another 7 or 8 weeks. I really want Grant to get to enjoy his Christmas sans baby sister!

Oh yeah... and the truck is gone :-(! I'm not sure whether to cry or celebrate, but it doesn't matter much anyway. Apparently, they came and picked it up while we were at work yesterday. It's really odd with it not there! On to bigger and better things!

A Day Later....

And a day later, the truck is sold! I posted it on craigslist yesterday and was overwhelmed by the amount of interest we had. Pookie was in training all day yesterday so I was fielding all these emails about a truck I've barely driven. A guy came by last night, paid for it, and left with the keys. The truck is actually still sitting in our driveway, but they're supposed to come back and pick it up today. I feel sorry for the poor kid that he's buying it for, but maybe he'll fix it up a little for him. Pookie tried to get back in it last night. He was feeling a little sentimental about the whole thing. It's the only vehicle he's ever driven...his trademark, so it's a little hard to see it go. She's been a good ole girl. We've had to do very little maintenance on it, and by this I mean, he only gets the oil changed about every 8,000 miles (not because I don't tell him to do otherwise). He just doesn't think about routine maintenance. I'm glad he's not the same about shaving or cutting his hair. Anyway, the truck is officially gone! I never imagined we'd part ways so soon. Here's to hoping our current vehicles last as long as it did!

A Big Weekend

Well, Friday marked the end of an era at our house.....that of the little red truck. We actually purchased another vehicle, and we are ready to retire the truck. We didn't get anything fancy, but a nice used SUV that will have a lot more room for all 4 of us. The other big bonus is that we now have 2 vehiclees that can transport children, rather than just 1. That has been a huge pain sometimes, but we've just dealt with it for the past 2 1/2 years. We still have to get carseats, but that's a small hurdle we hope to have resolved this week. Grant loves the new "big tar." I think he likes sitting higher up because he can see so much more than he's used to. Here's a pic of the truck...it's not pretty, but it still runs 186,000 miles strong. My husband has had this truck since he was 16, so it's going to be like cutting off a limb to get rid of it, but I think he's ready. If anyone is interested in buying it, please let us know!

Saturday night, Grant spent the night with his Mammy. We didn't have any big plans while he was gone, but decided to take advantage of it and go see a movie. We were pushed for time so dinner was nice and romantic at Taco Bell, but who cares... I got to eat without worrying what anyone else at the table was doing. We went to see Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. My husband is a huge fan of The Office, so I didn't have to talk him into this one. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was much more of a romantic comedy than I had anticipated. I actually shed a few tears toward the end of the movie. It was a really good movie, and I would definitely recommend it!

Grant was still battling a cold when he spent the night with mammy on Saturday night, so I sent his night time cough medicine to her house so he wouldn't cough all night long. I forgot to send the daytime stuff, so mammy gave him the night time medicine before church on Sunday morning too. He was exhausted and actually slept for the entire church service. It was the most of a sermon I've heard in a very long time! Then, after church he went home and slept two more hours. I'll have to remember this trick or maybe I'll just try it again next Sunday, haha!!

In other Grant news, our son is officially obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. We've watched it 4 times this weekend, and the requests for me to sing "the wizard song" seem to be never ending. The witch always kind of freaked me out (along with the flying monkeys) so I hope I'm not fueling future nightmares by allowing him to watch it. He just really loves all of the singing.

On the potty front, we've had a wonderful weekend! I haven't mentioned this lately because after several brief stints of doing great, we keep regressing. I'm hoping this weekend was a real turning point in our pt, and maybe the end of Pull-Ups is in our near future. We haven't had much trouble getting him to go pee on the toilet, but the pooping has been a different animal all together. The weekend has been great with regards to that, so keep your fingers crossed for me... I promise I'll stop writing about it as soon as it's no longer an issue. I'm sure no one cares about this as much as I do.

All in all, a wonderful weekend for us........too bad my house didn't get cleaned (again), and I still haven't made it into the attic to get baby stuff down. I'm really going to have to get around to that soon while I can still climb the ladder! I've had a few contractions over the weekend that I hope were just Braxton-Hicks, but who knows! They were more painful than normal, so say a little prayer that our girl stays put for awhile. I'm not physically or mentally ready for this baby just yet!

Recent Grant Sayings

About the frame in baby sister's room..The frame says "Twice Blessed" and was a gift from Nicole', eventually it will hold a picture of both kiddos, but right now is a pic of two unknown little boys: "Mommy, what name are these boys?"

Conversation about getting another car:
Me: Grant, do you want mommy to get a new car?
Grant: Yes, I ready to go get one right now!
Me: Well, we're not going to get one tonight!
Grant: Are you gonna get a blue one?
Me: Well, I don't know what color it will be.
Grant: I want a blue one. Let's go get it right now!

Tuesday night after dinner I was exhausted and decided to do nothing but lay on the couch until bedtime. I never do this, so Grant is really not accustomed to it at all. He wanted me to get up for something, but daddy told him I had a fever (I didn't) so he'd understand that I didn't feel like getting up. He looked at daddy and said, "It alright daddy, she's feelin better." The look on his face while he said this was the best part though.

Grant is a little under the weather right now so I let him lay in bed with me and watch the CMAs last night. I sang along with alot of the songs, but there were some that I didn't know at all. Whenever I'd stop singing, he'd say, "mommy, sing!" This is funny because when we ride in the car and I sing he yells at the top of his lungs, "mommy, you stop singing, just drive."

Another CMA moment, when Kid Rock came out with Gretchen Wilson to present an award Grant put his head under the covers. I didn't really think anything about it since it was getting late, I thought maybe he was just going to sleep. A minute or two later he said, "mommy, I not like that man with the crazy hair. It is over?" Apparently, Kid Rock was the guy with the crazy hair and he did not want to see him.

Last week we had dinner at Chili's. Our server had a tattoo that encircled her wrist and lower forearm. I was trying to get Grant to tell me what he wanted to eat, but he just kept saying, "What's on your arm? Somebody color on you? It's a flower?" I wanted to crawl under the table!

I was cooking dinner one night last week and having an emotional breakdown. At the time, I was really upset, but now I have no idea what it was about. I'm allowed to have these moments because I'm pregnant remember? Grant came over and said, "mommy, what's wrong?" I picked him up and he wiped my face and kept saying, "no more tears, mommy." It was very sweet.

I really cherish all of the little conversations that I have with my little guy. He absolutely cracks me up, and I find myself laughing at things I probably shouldn't be laughing at. He is all boy and a million miles a minute, but he is also my little cuddle bug and still loves hugs and kisses. He has started saying I love you at all the right times, and it just melts my heart. I miss him alot now during the day and call him sometimes just to hear his little voice. He is definitely momma's boy, but he wants me for the cuddling and basic needs. Daddy is the one he wants to play with him, probably because he's a lot rougher and does stuff that I would never do. We are so lucky to blessed with this sweet child!

Baby Stuff

As I mentioned last week, some of my friends from church gave me a baby shower on Saturday. It went great, and I got lots of clothes and other stuff to get us ready to welcome our new baby girl. Surprisingly, I have not bought a lot for this baby. I am trying to be frugal, so I just stay out of the good stores. It helps that I don't work in the "big city" anymore because lunch break trips to the mall(s) are now a thing of the past. We just don't have quite the selection of stores out here that I was used to. I will admit that it's probably what I miss the most about my old job (except maybe a friend or two...haha!). Anyway, everyone gave us lots of great stuff, now we just need a baby. Although, I'm in no hurry! Here is a pic of me and the girls that helped put the shower together.

A couple of months ago, we painted both Grant's room and the baby's new room. I haven't posted any pictures of either because they're not totally done. However, the baby's room is as done as it's going to get until after she gets here. I want to get letters to spell out her name or get it painted on canvases, but I'm waiting until she gets here to do that (gotta make sure it's really a girl). I got a little basket for diapers and stuff to put on the dresser, but it needs her name embroidered on it. Once again, I'm waiting until she gets here. So the pictures are below, but the walls are a little bare. If you've ever seen the rest of my house, you know this is not like me. I think we had pictures hanging in our house the day after we moved in. I'm not a fan of empty walls, so I'm sure they won't stay that way long after "baby sister" moves in. After the huge amount of trouble we had hanging the three pictures over the dresser, I figured I'd just wait on everything else.

As far as Grant's room goes, there is stuff on some of the walls, but I've ordered some more, and I'm waiting for it to come in. If they ever get here and then his room is actually clean and the bed made, I'll post pictures of that too. He is really proud of his room these days. He shows it to everyone that comes to our house, even if they've already seen his "big boy" bed. I'm just thankful that he actually likes sleeping there.

My Little Dragon

We had a full day of fun on Halloween. It started with a morning at the doctor for me where Grant got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time. He was more interested in the tape measure and the gel they were putting on my belly. He asked what it was and I told him it was like jelly. He then asked if you eat it with pancakes. I have issues with the smell maple syrup, so Grant eats his pancakes with jelly instead. They had to draw my blood again, and he didn't like it at all that they were giving me a "boo boo." He covered his face through the entire thing.

After the doctor, we went to my old office to see some folks and we were supposed to have lunch, but Grant was really scared of the Wicked Witch so the lunch plans got called off. We went to one of the photo studios in town after that for their Halloween special and got his picture taken. He did great with that, but I don't have it yet to post. We went and visited Mammy at the hospital, where he got totally loaded up with candy and then we dropped by his Nanny's. By this time, both Grant and I were exhausted. I had to drive around town for what seemed like forever to get him to go to sleep though. In the mean time, I was having a horrible time staying awake.

After a nap and dinner, it was off to church. We had classes first and then Trunk or Treat. It always amazes me how much some people decorate their trunks. I don't know where they find the time! Once again, Grant was petrified of all of the scary costumes that the bigger kids were wearing. I had to look ahead in the direction we were walking to see if there were any costumes that I thought would freak him out. I hope next year he's not as scared of some of them because I kind of felt like I was torturing him, rather than showing him a good time. After way too much candy, Grant holed up in the back of his friend Rebecca's car and hung out. It was a VERY long day, but I think, for the most part, he had fun. He said last night after dinner, "Now it's time to go trick or treat." I explained that Trick or Treating was over for the year, and he looked at me and said, "It's Christmas time?" Soon enough, soon enough!! I'm hoping to start my shopping this weekend. Really, I'm just glad it's time to retire the Dragon costume. That thing takes up way too much room in his closet! I think he's pretty much forgotten about all of the candy that we now have....I wish I could do the same.