In 48 Hours...

In 48 hours we will know if baby 3 is a he or a she!!!  It's hard to believe it's already here!  I will be exactly 20 weeks that day.  Sadly, Adam will be out of town so I will go for the ultrasound alone and have them write it down on a piece of paper.  It will be a new experience to find out that way - we have always found out in the ultrasound room.  This sweet baby hasn't gotten much blog time, but that doesn't mean we aren't over the moon excited about our new addition!  We simply cannot wait to meet the little person who is going to complete our family.  Here are some old wives tales and some quick predictions about the gender of this little bean:

Mother's Intuition: GIRL

Cravings:  Nothing in particular and no food aversions either...so who knows?

Sickness:  BOY

Chinese Gender Predictor: GIRL

High/Low:  They say if you carry high it's a girl and low it's a boy...so BOY

Legs:  If you gain weight in your legs, it's supposed to be a boy and if your legs stay the same, it's a girl..so BOY

Moodiness:  If you are extra moody, it's a girl...so totally GIRL

I personally think it's a girl, but only because I have only had girls and can only imagine having girls.  Maybe we just make girls??  This pregnancy has been very different from the other two - but they were also very different from each other.  The heart rate for this baby has stayed exactly in the center of the normal range, not fast or slow... I literally mean dead center so I don't have a heart rate to use to figure it out.  I haven't really had any strong feelings one way or the other, but I have also been busier and more stressed about moving and packing so I haven't had a lot of time to think about it.  I guess we will see in just a couple of days!!

Sweet Baby 3,

It doesn't matter if you are a boy or a girl - we love you no matter what!  We cannot wait to find out WHO you are.  So excited to see you!

My belly at 19 weeks, 5 days.

On the day you turned TWO...

Precious Ann Parker,

You turned two years old on Sunday, April 20 - Easter Sunday.  The day before, we spent the whole day celebrating YOU! We went to McWane, took you to our new house, went a walk, ate Mexican (one of your favorites), ate cupcakes, and opened presents.  Mimi and Papa and Kiki and Josh came to visit.  You are one loved little girl.

When we woke up on Sunday, the first thing you did was go to see your Easter goodies.  You got lots of fun things and tons of candy!  After that, we went to church.  You loved putting fresh flowers by the cross and actually tried to take other flowers off so you could do it again.  We came home and had brunch (waffles, eggs, bacon - one of your most favorite meals). Then we went to a new park to play and have an egg hunt with Kiki and Josh.  We stopped for a Popsicle at Steel City Pops.  You got vanilla.  We had hot dogs for dinner - another favorite of yours...notice a theme? 

We had such a fun day celebrating Easter, but we also loved celebrating YOU.  It's hard to believe that it's been two years since you were born.  We have loved every single second of your life and cannot wait to see what life has in store for you!

A few pics from your two year old birthday...

You will probably not remember the day you turned two, but I always will and I will always treasure the memories from that sweet day.  

Easter 2014

Easter is usually one of my favorite holidays...this year it was still one of my favorites but it was probably the most stressful holiday of the year too.  For starters, Ann Parker's second birthday fell on Easter Sunday.  On Good Friday we spent the day anxiously awaiting news on the offer we put on our new house - which was accepted (talk about Good!!).  There is so much going on right now and I cannot say I am enjoying it.  Adam is out of town for business and Ann Parker isn't feeling well -never a good combination when trying to finish packing, organize movers, gather information for the new loan, and get everything else done.  It will all be worth it though.

On Wednesday before Easter, the girls had their Easter parties at school.  They had sweet little dresses to wear, but it was freezing outside!!  They both still managed to have bunnies on their dresses, but they got covered up with sweaters.

On Friday, Adam came home and dyed eggs with the girls.  They LOVED it (and I think Adam was having a good time too).  They were so proud of their eggs.  Adam has been the egg dyer ever since Caroline was born and I think this will be a tradition.  I love seeing all my favorite people together :)

On Saturday, we spent the day celebrating Ann Parker turning TWO (more to come on that).  They were exhausted by bedtime and it was a good thing because the Easter bunny came to visit and was very good to these sweet little girls!  They got new fairy dolls, bathing suits, dresses, candy, cups, sidewalk chalk, dress up shoes, little animals for their zoo, play doh, Dora toothbrushes, and candy..did I already mention that?  I think the bunny may have brought too much candy...

We went to church as a family and came home to eat a delicious brunch.  It was such a fun day!!

Celebrating Baby Boys!!

No...I am not having a boy - or at least we do not know yet!  However, I did spend a whole day celebrating the upcoming arrivals of some sweet baby boys last weekend.  I totally pulled these pictures off of a friend's blog since I didn't bring my camera to either shower :( I only took some iPhone pictures, but none of people...go figure. We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends and I loved celebrating these sweet babies.

Here is a picture of the hostess at baby Jackson's shower.  His due date is the same due date that Caroline had - although she came a few weeks early.  It was one of the cutest showers I have ever seen!!

After some lunch, a nap, and an outfit change Adam and I headed out to celebrate baby Charlie.  We had such a wonderful and loved catching up with some our college crew.  We have all been friends a long time and I am so thankful for these wonderful people!

(Most of) the boys at the shower.

And the girls.  This picture has demonstrated that I don't need to wear that shirt while pregnant again.

Regardless of the shirt, we had a fun night - and the girls were at home watching Frozen so I am pretty sure they had a fun night too.  (It's always fun when Frozen is involved)

Holy Moly....almost FOUR!!!

In six weeks our sweet Caroline will turn FOUR years old!  I just cannot believe that we will have a four year old and that kindergarten is right around the corner.  Where did the time go?  She is at such a fun stage right now and I love every minute with this sweet girl!  Here's a look at my first little love:

This is her Kandid Kids photo from school. She loves school and all her classmates.  She has learned so much this year - writing letters, recognizing some words, days of the week, months of the year, ww of songs, and so much more.  We are so proud of her!

She is such a sweetheart! She complements everyone and everything and it's adorable.  Even when we do small things, like get her some water, she will say "oh thank you mommy! You are the best!" I love this about her.  She tells the three of us that we are her best friends (along with Sydney). 

She is doing great at dance. She always follows directions and gets so excited to go to class. I cannot wait for her recital next month!

These are four of her best buddies.  They will be splitting up and going to different elementary schools not this coming fall, but the next.  I hope they continue to be such good friends! (Notice how C looks huge - she is still quite tall for her age!)

She has a wild imagination and loves to sing and act things out for us.  She can do almost all of the frozen movie and she is often a cowboy or a pirate.  She loves to rescue us, especially by pulling us out of the mud.  She loves to run and race.  Wrestling AP is also a big favorite!

She is such a daddy's girl...which is okay since AP is such a mama's girl :) Her personality is so much like Adam's as well (which is funny because AP is so much like me).  We often joke that we have "his" and "hers" kids.  Her favorite things to do with daddy are sing songs, snuggle and watch shows, and watch him play frozen free fall.  It's similar to candy crush.  It was a free app that had frozen characters on it and I didn't know what it was so I downloaded it for her.  I had never played candy crush before so I couldn't figure it out and she asked Adam to help.  He figured it out right away and that was so cool to her so now she just likes to watch Adam play.  Also funny, Adam and I have both gotten addicted and play every night.  We don't like the actual candy crush game, but frozen free fall is awesome.  I know feel a little bad for making fun of people that would play games like that...

She loves going to the zoo, McWane, parks, etc. She loves to be going and doing all the time.  She has endless amounts of energy, but come 8:00-8:30 she is down for the count.  She sleeps so well at night and we are so thankful.  I never thought we would get here.

I still cannot believe she is almost four.  Four sounds so big and she still seems so little at times.  She will start going to school five days a week this fall.  I know it will be good, considering I will have a newborn to take care of, but I am still so sad.  My first baby is growing up.  I will never have her home during the week again.  Next year she will only go until 1:00 so I have afternoons for one more year.  If I could freeze time I would do it in a heartbeat.  

I really hit the mommy jackpot with this little girl! She has my heart for sure.  

Dance picture day!!

Last week c had dance pictures!! She looked like a doll, as did her little buddies in the class. We got an ad in the recital book with these five cuties! I just love these girls and their mama's!!!

Seriously...could they be any cuter??!?

Baby 3 Update

In true third child form, Baby 3 has gotten very little blog time.  Between packing and trying to find a new home and his/her two big energetic sisters, this mommy hasn't had very much time to sit down for longer than a minute or two!  Since my brain doesn't work half the time and I don't remember everything I am doing one of those silly pregnancy update things:

How far along: 17.5 weeks

Total weight gain: Not sure, but not a lot.  The doctor said that I need to be gaining more weight.

Maternity clothes: Some maternity shirts, but not pants yet.  This baby sits higher so I can still button up my regular pants although I get uncomfortable about midday.

Stretch marks: Sadly I have noticed a couple on my thighs.  I never got them with the other two and I do not like this at all!

Sleep: Sleeping well, occasionally I will wake up about 3 or 4 and cannot go back to sleep for a few hours but mostly pretty good.

Best moment of this week: Pregnancy related?  This is a stupid question...

Miss anything: Wine.

Movement: Haven't really felt the baby move a lot.  Trying not to worry since this can be normal with third child and also I have an anterior placenta.

Food cravings: No food cravings or aversions with this one.

Anything making you queasy or sick: not really...the thought of not finding a house and bringing baby home to an apartment makes me feel a little sick but I don't think that's what the question is about.

Have you started to show yet: Duh

Gender: Still don't know!

Labor signs: No, thankfully

Belly button in or out: Still in

Wedding rings on or off: On

Happy or moody most of the time: Haven't really noticed any mood changes with this pregnancy...although I will say I am much more sensitive about certain things.  I have spent months and months (seriously) researching school systems and neighborhoods so we would know where to look for a new house.  Several people have decided that they should tell us where we should live and why or why not some areas are good/bad/etc.  It makes me want to punch them in the face.  If it happens again I just may punch them in the face...don't think I would normally do that.  So in short...keep your opinions of where I should live to yourself unless you are going to pay my mortgage!  This pregnancy has made me a little mean at times...as you can tell.

Looking forward to: Finding a house so I can start on a nursery (along with the rest of the house...) and finding out the gender!!

Overall I have felt good.  I haven't had any issues with this pregnancy and we often forget that I am pregnant - which is a good thing most days with all the other stress going on.  We are so excited about seeing who is going to complete our family, although we don't have names picked out.  We haven't even talked about them!!  I know we will pick out the perfect name though.  The girls are so excited about this baby- but they both want it to be a girl and name her Julie.  I don't think they will be disappointed because I feel like it's another girl.  After having two girls it's hard to imagine anything different.  Caroline has been telling people that baby Julie is in my tummy and I have to keep explaining that this is her wishful thinking when I get congratulated on another girl!  So funny!  Ann Parker will sometimes say she wants it to be a boy but still wants to use the name Julie...  

That's all I can think of for now and I am sure that I have left a ton of things out.  So sorry baby 3!!!  Despite the lack of blog updates, we are so excited that you are coming!  While you may get less blog time, you will not get any less love on the outside!!  See you soon!

Frozen (yogurt) Party!!!

Yesterday, we celebrated Ann Parker's upcoming second birthday with a frozen yogurt party at YogurtLab.  Her actual birthday is Easter Sunday and the next couple of weeks are super busy, so we celebrated early.  She loves the movie frozen and she doesn't like cake but loves ice cream/frozen yogurt so this seemed like the perfect thing.  Plus...we are moving/packing and I am almost 18 weeks pregnant - I needed something easy!

This sure was just what we needed - easy and FUN!!  The kids had a blast and it was so fun catching up with old friends and seeing their sweet kids and getting to know the parents of the kids in her class.  We did a "kids only" party to keep it simple.  We invited the kids from her class and then the kids that she plays with from outside of class.  We didn't invite our friends (just those that had kids her age and/or that she plays with).  We somehow filled the place with 20 + kids and their parents.  I hope that YogurtLab was prepared for the noise we brought!!!  (Because it sure was loud and crazy - but so fun!!!)

She had a wonderful time and that is the most important thing!

Ann Parker and William loved giving each other hugs!!  It was the cutest thing! Happy party day AP!!  So glad that you had a fun day!