Rock Walk

I am so glad we didn't move to suburbia last summer. One, we have new neighbors with small children who also like to drink wine. Two, I love that in less than 10 minutes, we can either be: 1. Downtown, 2. at Nordstrom Rack or 3. at Bull Creek. So, we don't have a park with a playscape that we can walk to; we were KRAZY to think of leaving!

Yesterday, the sun shone for the first time in days. After church, we took the boys to Bull Creek. I love spring in Austin. I am a 60-70ish degree person. Between the sun shining and the pretty natural setting, including a RUSHING STREAM(!) (a rushing stream after our horrible drought the past few years!!!), my soul was so happy.

Noah is such a cute stink.

With that vest on, he looks like a Marquette frat boy and I love it.

John Michael has his eyes closed, but I love that he's wearing his "work gloves"

The boys threw rocks into the water for about 45 minutes. Happiness is a good rock.

De-pacifying

John Michael loved his paci, but had a stage about age six months where he didn't seem to care that much about it, and reading every parenting book possible, we wisely took the pacifiers away and it was no big deal.

Now, Noah was the second child. I didn't read one parenting book. He loved his paci at six months, but for one reason or other, we never took the paci away when he was too little to care. Babyhood goes by so much faster with your second child! And, every time we talked about taking away the pacifier, we seemed to be taking a trip soon, Noah was teething or sick. Hence, at almost 20 months, Noah was still sporting that pacifier. Usually just in the bed, but sometimes when he woke up early and was crabby or we were on a long car trip, the paci came out during the day. As we were getting closer to baby H3's arrival and closer to Noey turning two, we finally had a weekend where no one was sick, teething or traveling, so we did it!

After some Facebook parenting advice (the good kind), we cut the end off a paci one Friday naptime. It was not a pleasant process. Poor Noah was in his crib and cried for about 45 minutes saying "eee broke!" trying unsuccessfully to inform us idiots that he had a problem in there. I went in a few times and felt terribly guilty assuring him that the paci was fine (clueless parents) and ultimately he fell asleep. Over the weekend, I kept giving him the broken paci and by Tuesday, he was totally indifferent when it went "bye bye."

Really the process wasn't as horrible as I had anticipated. The downsides beyond that first hour of heartbreak when he cried for it are mainly in that he has been waking up an hour earlier than normal. 6:30 is not cool, Noah. He also is taking shorter naps, as a whole. I am hoping that with time, this will just be a season of life and my previously 3 hour-napper and late riser will learn to self-comfort and wake up later. If not, at least he won't be like I was at three, completely traumatized when my parents took my pacifiers away and I really, really needed those things.

It's been a crazy and fun week at our house, one of those weeks where our routine has been pleasantly uprooted by lots of visitors and welcome change of scenery! We had two of our friends over for dinner on Wednesday whose husbands were out of town and six kids four and under between us. Noah had a little playdate with one of JM's little friend's sisters and he really seemed to enjoy having someone his own age to hang with. Thursday, my in-laws stopped in for a night on the way to see my sister-in-law. My mother-in-law and I were talking about how much Noah has grown up in the past two months. For one, he had an ear infection the other week and we discovered that he has gained almost 5! pounds since his 18 month well-check. Apparently I wasn't the only one enjoying the Christmas sweets! He is talking up a storm and just acting a little more "big boy." Finally, he will hold my hand in a parking lot. He still doesn't watch TV, though. :(

Since the loss of the paci, Noah has especially embraced his four (yes, four!) blankets! His crib is quite crowded as he has also added Beh-bee to his list of must-haves for bedtime. My sister in law gave him this boy baby for Christmas and he loves it!

32 Weeks

It's taking a lot of pride-swallowing to post this belly picture. Yes, I know I am gestating a precious little life, but oh my Moby Dick! As you can see, I've gotten to the point of the pregnancy where my belly is literally hanging out of both my shirt and the top of my non-maternity yoga pants. Klassy! It's safe to say that it's probably the last time I will be wearing this white ruched T-shirt and pulling out all my "big mama" wear: the muu muus, the over-the-belly pants, etc. No intervention necessary. I know y'all love me, but I know you don't want to see my belly hanging out, neitha.
And, to give y'all an adequate picture of where my mind is right now, not only did I forget to take a 28 week picture completely, but I realized during this post that I never posted 24 weeks, either. So here tis. Merry Christmas!

Anyway, 32 weeks! I'm feeling pretty good. I've had VERY few contractions since I started starting off my day by getting up early and forcing myself to chug 2 Camelbak bottles full of water before the boys wake up. One of the nurses from Dr. S's office suggested this. Chug before the kids wake up. I highly recommend for any of you other moms pregnant with subsequent babies. I'm also not feeling that worn down. I think my L&D trip was majorly caused by stress from our kitchen project and more than anything, dehydration. I feel like I drink more water than a lot of people, but apparently this whale-like body needs LOTS of water.

The baby is coming in 7.5 weeks! That is almost two months, but really not a lot of time. We're transitioning from kitchen stuff to baby preparation. Last weekend, Michael cleared out our guest room and set up what will be Noah's crib in there. Yes, two cribs in this house! No way in hell am I moving Noah to a big boy bed when he is sleeping well in his crib. I'm not making that mistake, again. (When Noah was born, I had to deal with JM getting out of his new bed all the time, aye yi yi! No bueno). Anyway, Noah is moving out of the nursery and into the VERY girly guest room. Our plan is to keep Noah in there for a few months until the new babe has settled in and then the "big boys" will share JM's room. JM is very excited about it. Until then, sorry Noah about the pink and green! (Wouldn't it have been such a lovely little girl's room? :sobs:) Noah, I'm going to try to "man" your room up in the next few weeks.

Next week, we are painting the nursery. We are going from blue and navy to grey and yellow. I think my husband pretty much rocks for letting me do this even though the gender of our baby is not changing. But, seriously, think of the money we're saving not having to buy hair bows, tights and smocked dresses! It's fun to get ready in a new way for this new little life.

And, I think we might have a name for this baby! Michael and I have both agreed on a number one choice. I had been stressing for a long time, but I think I finally came around to the name Michael liked the best. Sorry, we're not telling in case we change our minds! You'll find out soon enough unless you can wrangle it out of loose lips John Michael!

Cooking with Gas

I am sitting here guzzling water and putting my feet up, as Noah plays in the playhouse. No contractions at all yesterday, so I'm feeling better about things. I think the water is helping tremendously. As of yesterday around 2pm, we have new countertops, a kitchen sink, a dishwasher and appliances! Last night, I made a dinner that was not a casserole, we ate on real plates and with real silverware, then put our dishes into the new dishwasher just like any other American family and it felt NICE!

Let me take you on a tour and show you my favorite things so far....
1. Our breakfast bar is 37" wide. Our old one was about 15" and completely useless. This one has 15" cabinets underneath, so I have extra storage. I see a lot of homework and art projects done at this counter

2. Farm sink. Love. Can't wait to bathe H3 in here in 9 weeks or so. (Hear that H3? I said 9 weeks!!!)
3. Cookin with gas! Did any of you see the Bachelor with Charlie O'Connell? There was one episode where he used the term "cookin... with gas" about 50 times to reference his making out with all the ladies. That guy was such a goob. Not my favorite Bachelor season, but I guess he was entertaining. Anyway, I think of this when I'm here, although I really am cooking, with gas. I am so happy to have a gas stove! Making eggs and sausage this morning (I have my glucose test this afternoon, usually we're more cereal people), I felt like a line cook and I looooved it!

Anyway, I had a lot of trouble finding a gas range. My backsplash is only 5 inches high, so I couldn't have anything that had your typical controls in the back. I also wanted a double oven with a warming feature. Honestly, because I love cooking so much, I started out looking at the really elite stuff (Bluestar, Capital Culinarian, Wolf, etc.), but my practical nature drew me to this drop-in double oven from the GE Cafe series. I'm pretty sure it was the only range out there that had all the features that I wanted. Those Wolves, etc. may be fancy, but some don't have self-cleaning, delayed cooking settings, nor the ever-important child locks. This range has a convection oven on the bottom, space for me to cook both a turkey and a pie at different temps at the same time and the middle part of the top burners switches out to a griddle, so I can make pancakes and quesadillas on there. I like that GE is an American company, too.
4. The pantry. My old pantry was approximately 30 inches wide, with weird cut outs that made it hard to reach items in the back. This pantry is nice and wide, with slide-out shelves that make finding things easy. Being a Virgo, I took great delight in organizing the new pantry with containers and baskets from the Container Store. 5. The dishwasher! Our old dishwasher was probably 15 years-old. We had to run the pots and pans setting to get anything clean and worst of all, our gigantic Pottery Barn dinner plates did not fit very well in there. We could only fit 4 dinner plates in the old dishwasher, which was no bueno. This new Bosch puppy that I got has adjustable shelves, a top rack for silverware and can fit an entire 10 piece placesetting of our dinnerware in it! I splurged on the dishwasher, but as we use it every day, I wanted the BMW of dishwashers. I feel very blessed and hope this guy lasts us a LONG time.

6. Lil coffee counter
Our kitchen designer suggested this area for our coffee pot and I love it! It's nice to have a little space to put things down when you walk in the door and I like having all the coffee stuff away from everything else.

I am sure there are going to be things I hate about this kitchen, but so far this is awesome! I spend a lot of time in there, so I'm not missing the 1960's setup at all.

Labor and Delivery

Oh, it wouldn't be a Mary Beth pregnancy without at least one pre-baby trip to the hospital, would it?
(John Michael- pre-term labor at 39 weeks)
(Noah- ER visit for chest pains at 8 weeks)

.... And, last night we had our first with H3. It all started Monday morning. I got up, took a shower, did my prayers, straightened my hair, ate breakfast, got JM up, made lunches, let the contractor in and heard Noah crying on the monitor. By the time I got to the top of the stairs to get him, I thought I was going to pass out. My heart was racing and I was short of breath. I had to sit down. I've had that feeling before and immediately took an iron pill from a previous pregnancy, but this time, I couldn't shake it, despite sitting down for a good 20 minutes after that. Getting JM to school that morning pretty much took every ounce of energy I had. I called Michael and thankfully his schedule was flexible that morning, so I could just chill for a bit.

Monday night, I started having painful contractions that didn't go away. In the middle of the night, I was guzzling water and that helped. Yesterday, they were better, but I was still getting a few every hour. Come 5:30 when we were at our lovely friends the Jowers for dinner, they started coming on every 5 minutes and were painful enough to freak me out. I'm only 30 weeks! It felt like the baby was ready to come out, so we called Uncle Peter to come over and headed over to good old labor and delivery.

Short story in a long story. They hooked me up to the monitors. They did a pre-term labor test. I was contracting the whole time, but they never got worse than they were around when I got there. They checked my cervix and it was the way it's supposed to be (whew!). Pre-term labor test came back negative, which means that it's not likely I will go into labor in the next 10-14 days.

The bad news is that I may continue to feel contractions. I'm already having them today! The triage OB told me that labor is kind of a mystery and can come on at any time, but it's good I don't have a history of early babies. I do, however, need to make a concerted effort to take it easy and to drink water. My body is really telling me to slow down. It's so hard for me to do this! I am not a homebody. 25 pound Noah is constantly wanting to be carried. It's not like I can just lay here with two toddlers and say "get your own water!" or "wipe your own bottom." Moms, if you want to see how much you are actually needed, I encourage you to try to sit on the couch and put your feet up and see how long that lasts. I know I need help and will definitely seek it out, but I also know that a lot of this is going to be a challenge for all of us, because a babysitter, Mike or family member is not going to be "me" which may or may not be acceptable to Noah and John Michael. Yes, they will get over it. Yes, I am prideful to think I am irreplaceable. :) It's going to be hard for me to let others help me. Oye, I truly hope that this period of feeling exhausted and needing to take it easy doesn't last 10 weeks until delivery! I know it's better than bedrest, but this is an interesting lesson for me to learn. I am used to being able to just go, go, go without thinking anything about it. I don't like being slow and incapacitated!

I am so grateful for my little "helpers" the past few days! Michael is just wonderful, in general. Thank you to the Jowers for dinner! Uncle Peter totally rocks for coming over in a pinch and putting on cat videos and putting to bed a JM who was totally wound up on brownies from dinner. Thank you to the Hot Chicks who prayed for me after a text SOS. And, thank you to the Academy. j/k Anyway, I'm pretty blessed!

Remodel: Day 14

.... or the "Let me see your grilles" post (shout out to my boy, Nelly. "You wanna see my what?!!"). Okay, I know I've totally lost a few of you, here, like my mom. Mom, there was this song by a guy named Nelly called "Grillz" about showing off these rap guys' mouth jewelry, or diamond encrusted teethguards, aka their grill. I digress.

So I've previously mentioned that I love cabinets with glass doors, but I don't love the idea of displaying everything inside a cabinet. One night when I was looking at fancy houses (or is it houzzes?) on houzz.com, I saw this fancy kitchen that an equally fancy interior designer had done using decorative screens instead of glass. My interest was piqued. The designer was kind enough to share where she had purchased said screens and sure enough, I found the company which makes said decorative grilles in the UK and ordered some.

I feel so cosmopolitan having these screens from England in my house. And, seriously the world has gotten so much smaller because it only took two days!!! to get these puppies via FedEx, once they finally cut them (which took about 4 weeks).

Anyway, I'll show you my grilles:



To be honest, I am not sure I LOVE my grilles. One part of me thinks they are a little too dark, a little too "grandma"-y. Another part of me loves that our kitchen is so different and I kind of like the retro vibe. I like the closer shot here where you can see the detail work under the lights, but from a distance, like the first picture, they seem really dark to me. I am getting black countertops, so I hope it doesn't feel too dark in what I want to be my sunny kitchen. The good news is that the grilles are just screens, so if I get sick of them, I can put glass or something else in there.

Good news! They just called and our countertops are cut (5 days later) and they had a cancellation for tomorrow/Tuesday, so we will be that much closer to being done tomorrow. Sadly, I will have no more excuses for not cooking. After that, they put in our appliances and more importantly, get our blessed running water running again in the kitchen. This weekend, they'll do our backsplash so it really will be about 3 weeks total of work. Not bad! It's all coming together.

Kitchen: Day 10

Day 10 of our kitchen remodel. The cabinets, doors and hardware are installed! I'm missing doors under my sink and at the top of the pantry, but other than that, we're getting closer!

We're just waiting on the countertops, now. They should get installed next Wed. or Thurs. Can I tell you how much I have loved working with Under Budget Kitchens on this project? They have been extremely knowledgeable and meticulous throughout the process and I do think that we'll finish out this project near our budget. They did my mom's and my neighbor's kitchen, so I knew they came well recommended.

One of my favorite features of my new cabinetry is the feet on the ends to make it seem a little more like furniture.

One of my not so favorite things about these cabinets is that they didn't perfectly fit over where my old stuff was, so stained concrete sticks out in some places. I'm not sure how we're going to fix this. Right now, my eyes are drawn to it, but maybe with the appliances, etc it will be less noticeable?

I can't wait to get our sink and appliances in! So far, I am happy with my choices!