27 Weeks

Yesterday I turned 27 weeks! That means we now have less than 13 weeks until Emily is here, it's crazy!!! I don't want to rush it because I want Emily to stay in there and grow healthy and strong, but I have to say I am sooo done with pregnancy. Haha.
Don't get me wrong, there are things I love and will be sad to have behind me forever--I LOVE feeling Emily kick and move, I love the anticipation of her--who she will be, imagining her future, wondering what she will look like and act like, it's exciting. The journey has been exciting--wondering if you're having a boy or a girl, picking out names, preparing for her, etc. But the physical aspect itself, I can't say I will miss it at this point. Lol. It's just been rough. On top of the stuff I mentioned in the past, since July I've also been dealing with issues of painful varicose veins and other stuff that I will spare readers from. I know it will all be worth it once she's here though.

Here are a few belly shots, and also a sneak peak of the wall decal I put up in her room...so cute, it made me even more excited about putting her room together!

Coming together

Emily's room is starting to come together!

Over the weekend Matt and I worked hard on Emily's furniture. Our good friends Beth and Peter  loaned us their baby furniture (a long term loan for the next few years). Their parents had bought the set for them, but now that their daughter Ana is getting older they decided to have her share a room with Eve and got her different furniture to go in there.
The nursery furniture is actually a high end, really beautiful set. The only issue with it was that after 2 kids using it, it had a lot of bite/chew marks all along the railings of the crib. So Matt and I worked hard to sand the railings down, stain it, and then put a layer of clear coat on. I must say, it came out pretty good. It still has some imperfections when you look real close, but all in all it looks real nice.
I still wish we could have bought her new furniture to be fair. I also really wanted to do a white furniture set this time, as it would have gone better with the bedding set and wall color. But as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers. Again, it's one of the sacrifices we chose by me being home most of the time. I feel that my time, love, one-on-one attention and teachings are more important than things. Plus eventually Beth and Peter are going to need their set back, and at that point we can get Emily a new set. And now that we fixed the damages, it really is a nice set.

Also speaking of the bedding, aside from the bumper I quickly ordered when I finally found one, grandmom (and grandpop) were really sweet and bought the rest of the bedding/matching accessories for Emily's room.  I felt bad because apparently she was going to order it all and surprise me with it, but then when the whole bumper fiasco happened the surprise plan got messed up. But surprise or not, it was so thoughtful and generous! I have to wait until the "sprinkle" (mini shower) next month before opening and setting up though. It's going to be tough waiting! Lol.

Grandma also bought Emily this really adorable wall decal that I love as well. Now that we've got the furniture done and set up I can figure out where to put it.

I can't wait to see it all come together!!! Yay! It just makes it all seem more real.

Also, on Saturday I turned 26 weeks....On the baby countdown I noticed we are now out of the triple digits, and only 98 days left at that point. Wow! It is flying.

Anyway, here are a couple of sneak pics of the furniture along with a pic of a couple cute outfits grandma sent Emily.

On a roll

Wow, I've been on a roll with blogging lately. Just a couple quick updates.

First, I had to share pictures from Ashley's 18 month photo shoot taken last month. I LOVE the big smile on her in the one.

Also, good news! I passed the test for gestational diabetes this time! Yay. I still don't know what made the difference. The only thing I can think of was that last time I purposely drank a big glass of orange juice each morning in an attempt to get one of my fruit servings in for the day. Perhaps the sugar from not being a "fresh" fruit?? Who knows.
I suspected that I didn't have it this time. With Ashley I remember being real thirsty and hungry (2 signs of it apparently)--however I never had any normal pregnancy to compare it to, and you always hear how people having cravings and are hungrier and or thirstier, so I assumed it was that. This time I noticed I didn't have that same thirst level. I had suspected and hoped I didn't have it, but it was still nice to hear the news :)

Well that's it.

Just an Ashley update

I've been busy keeping up with the belly shots and baby updates, I realized it's been a while since I've had "just" an Ashley update. So I figured I'd take a minute to write about her latest happenings.

First, I have to say Ashley is such a great little girl... She really is. She brings us so much joy, laughter, and love. There is not a day that she doesn't put a smile on my face or warm my heart.

I had forgotten to mention that I had signed Ashley up for a summer camp for the last 3 weeks in July (only 1x/week for a few hours). I figured I would do a trial run to see how she did, and if it went well then I'd consider continuing in the fall and spring class. It's nice because she is in her friend Ana Pistolis' class, and she is able to socialize with other kids. In the summer they do water play and other fun structured activities. It's also nice for me because it gives me a few hours of "me time", which sometimes I spend taking care of errands or cleaning, but most times I use to do things I couldn't normally do with Ashley around. I also figured it'd be helpful in the fall when the baby comes, because it'd give Ashley a chance to get out of the house and have some fun rather than being cooped up, and it'd also give me a chance to have some one-on-one time with Emily and maybe even a chance to nap if Emily's napping. She did pretty well. Her teacher said how she was so impressed with how polite Ashley was, with all of her please and thank you's.

Ashley has been doing lots of fun things. Recently she started humming or "singing along" to songs when we play them. It is too cute! She also tries to say the bedtime prayer with me.

She is also becoming aware of the baby I think. I point to my belly and tell her that baby is in mommy's belly. For the longest time I don't think she really understood (and she still may not to some extent), but one time she pointed to my stomach on her own and said "baby". I was impressed.

I think she is going to be a great big sister. My friend/neighbor Kenia just had a baby a week or two ago. Ashley and I went over to visit and meet the new baby today. Ashley was absolutely fascinated with the baby--she wanted to be around her the whole time, touch her, give her hugs, she even wanted to hold her. It was sweet.

Speaking of babies, one of her favorite things to do is push her "baby" around in the toy stroller. She also loves to play peek-a-boo, blow bubbles, and her new thing is putting things on her head and walking around the house. She also likes pulling tissues out and "blowing her nose", or sometimes just tearing them up. She cracks me up.

Ashley also likes to help get Maddie ready for a walk. She can reach up and get Maddie's collar, and she even attempts to put it on her. She also likes to actually hold the leash when we go for a walk.

She also loves having her picture taken now. She just started saying "cheese" when we have the camera, and often will get right in front of the camera so I will take her picture. She's a little ham!

Speaking of pictures, when she sees animal pictures in books or when we see an animal out, she makes the sound that the animal makes. She also likes to sometimes read to you now, and turn pages.She also continues to talk more and more, and is picking up lots of words.

She has also been improving on climbing up and down the stairs (she's been doing the climb up for a while, but is working on and improving coming down)--she likes to come down like a big girl--holding your hand and taking steps rather than scooting down.

I think Ashley's 2 year old molars are coming in. She's had a slight fever and has been a little cranky the past couple days. She doesn't let you get a good look in her mouth, but we're pretty sure we saw at least one. She's been a good sport though.

Lastly, Ashley is such a sweetie. She is pretty affectionate now. She is always coming up and resting her head on you and hugging you. She also blows kisses a lot. I love it!

Well that's all I can think of for now. I love my little girl!

25 Week Pics

Yesterday I was 25 Weeks. Here are some recent belly shots...

A few updates

Well I've had a few pics to post and updates to make, but before I got a chance to Ashley broke our laptop. Uh oh! I was skyping on the computer, and washing dishes at the same time. I had put the computer up on the counter when Ashley reached up and pulled it off. It was further back (not hanging off at all), but she's just getting to the age where she can reach up and grab things now. Luckily they were able to repair the computer rather than needing to buy a new one, although it still cost us $300 we hadn't planned on spending. Good thing she's cute...haha.

So along with learning not to put the computer up on the counter this week, I also learned never to go painting a room based on a bedding or fabric until you actually have it in your hands. I had quite the little nightmare happen last night....
As you know we were set on Emily's bedding set, and had painted her walls a color that matched with her bedding bumper (light turquoise). Well the bedding set could be sold as a package, or separate individual pieces. Since I am primarily home and only working one day a week, money is always tight and we are on a budget. It is a sacrifice we chose to make during this season of our lives because it's very important to me to stay home with the kids for the first few years. Even if we lived 2 minutes away from our families and if any of our parents were retired, I would still choose to be the one to stay home with the kids. They are only little once for such a short time in their lives, and I don't want to miss out. Not to mention there are a lot of benefits to a parent being home with the kids. So anyway, went off on a tangent....But my point is, due to our choices money is tighter these days so I thought it would be more practical to list all the bedding as separate items on a registry for when I have my "sprinkle" (mini shower that people sometimes have for their 2nd baby). Then whatever wasn't ordered, I could go ahead and order afterward.
Well, I was going to order a sheet to have to match the color with the other fabric we need to get to make the curtains and recover a rocking chair. I went on the site yesterday (after just having been on it a day or two before), and suddenly the bumper said it was no longer available. Everything else was other than that. They still had a bedding package set available and on sale that included the bumper, so I texted my friend who works at PB and asked her to please go ahead and order it for me that day in case that ran out/was no longer available as well. Well, between the time I texted her and the time she responded just a little over an hour later, that was sold out/no longer available either. Mind you, the bumper is the only part of the whole bedding set that has the color of her room in it. We based the whole thing around that one part.
So I begin calling multiple stores and customer service numbers searching for this bumper. No one has it anywhere. Apparently it was a set that is only available online. No one had it in the back or in a warehouse anywhere...it was like it had fallen off the face of the earth. I even called the corporate #. She gave me a couple more stores to try that sometimes had things in that other stores didn't carry. But it was Sun night and they were now closed.
So I went ahead and posted something on FB in case any friends or friends of friends had the bumper or set that they were willing to sell. I even posted a couple ads on Craigslist under wanted section and "searching for" in baby section. I did get one response from a woman who had seen an ad posted 3 hours away in GA. And of course you don't want to send money until you've seen the item and have it in your hands with the scams out there. I tried anyway, no response back.

I was so bummed. I know it's just bedding, and I know that in 20 years from now it totally won't matter. But it meant a lot to me. Plus I feel guilty because when Ashley was born she had a beautiful brand new furniture set. With Emily, due to the change in my working status and budget, we have to make sacrifices so I can be home with the girls and we can't afford to buy her new furniture. We are using hand-me-downs, so it was important to me that she at least have a nice bedding set and special room.

Now that we have already painted the room teal, I started searching around to see if there were fabrics online that could match to make a bedding set in case it didn't work out. When I originally looked for bedding, I didn't see any fabrics that I really loved to begin with. And now that we're limited to a color scheme, it narrows it down even more. And I looked online for a couple hours last night trying to find pre-made baby bedding that matched the color, but everything was really cheesy and would definitely be settling. I was really disappointed.

Thankfully it all worked out. First thing this morning I called one of the two last resort numbers that corporate had given me to try. The first place I called started off with the whole "unfortunately that set was only available online", but the guy went to check the back just to be sure. He came back and told me that someone had just recently returned that very bumper to their store!!! They were worried that they wouldn't be able to sell it since it was just the bumper and they didn't carry any of the other pieces. I was thrilled!!! So they are shipping it to us.

Since the people all said the set is probably being discontinued and they weren't getting any more in, I decided to go ahead and just order all the other pieces now rather than risk losing them too. Matt's mom was very sweet and offered to get it/or part of it for us. Yay, so glad it worked out!!

Anyway, the first pics are from last week's belly shots at 23 weeks. The next set of pics are of Ashley's new big girl room all set up for her. I will post some Ashley updates soon.

One last thing--we finalized Emily's name. Instead of using the middle name, Denine, we are going to go with Emily Dena Shohen. Dena is after Matt's grandmother. I had really wanted to combine the middle names since my grandmother was so special to me and such a big influence in my life, but it really meant a lot to Matt to use Dena for those same reasons. I wanted to sacrifice and let Matt get the name he really wanted since it means a lot to him. Plus Matt never got a chance to meet my grandmother, but I had many years to get to know and love his grandmother. She was a good woman, and after being with Matt for so long she felt like a grandmother to me as well. Lastly I had wanted to use Irene for the middle name for longest time for our first kid, but then given my issues and not knowing if we'd even be able to have children, I thought Grace was much more fitting to symbolize God's amazing grace in the situation. We had had a few names picked out when naming Ashley, and I told Matt he could choose the first if I could have Grace for the middle. So since he could compromise for me, I figured I would do the same. Marriage is about compromise. So Emily Dena it is :)

We also decided to compromise with the nickname. I love the name Emma for the first name (it was even one that I had on the list when choosing Ashley's name), but Matt didn't want it since it's one of the "top names" right now. He wanted something less trendy. We both liked Emily so we went with that since it's less popular but similar. But Matt said he'd be fine with calling her either Emily or Emma for short for a nickname. (But since we have friends and a cousin's daughter with the name Emma, we will go with both names and then just stick with Emily when around them so it's not confusing). Lol.

Anyway, the first pics are from last week's belly shots at 23 weeks. The next set of pics are of Ashley's new big girl room all set up for her, and some cute shots of her.

Well, I ended up writing a novel so will be done for now.