Ch-ch-changes

Sorry I've been away a lot lately.  We've had A LOT of changes going on around here.  First off, my body is changing a lot.  You know, because I'm having a baby, which translates to I'm tired a lot.  I hope I'm not foretelling anything by my lack of posts about sweet baby #3 ("the little nudger" who feels more like a sumo wrestler as each day passes).  Maggie certainly has not lacked in pictures being child #2 (although I'm guilted by the fact that I have not written a growth update on her in a while).  In fact, she is a little easier to take pictures of than my not-so-cooperative three year old.  And so while I have not been good about my pregnancy updates, I'm sure that #3 will be equally loved and adored and doted on in pictures once he or she is here.

So here is a quick update on my pregnancy:

We heard the heartbeat on February 11th.  I told Dusty the night before that if the heartbeat was low I would have a hard time not thinking that we are probably having a boy (an old wives tale).  Especially with how different this pregnancy has been.  This baby's heartbeat was in the high 140's/ low 150's.  The girls both had heartbeats around the mid/high 150's.  So...not a huge difference there.  Not enough to lead me down any rabbit trails to which I am thankful for because I like still feeling super excited about the surprise.  We had our ultrasound in April.  The baby looked great and had a sweet little profile, just like the girls.  It has been my most active baby and I even got an ultrasound pic of the baby with it's leg stretched all the way up to it's head and the foot stretched behind the head!  Talk about flexible!  It weighed 2 oz. at the time which was a little higher than what my pregnancy book said the average was.  Eek.  Scared that this baby will be even bigger than Maggie!  Overall I've had a great pregnancy.  I felt great the second trimester and am just starting to feel a bit more cumbersome and tired as I'm entering the third trimester.  Here are some pics of the progress:

17 weeks

18 weeks

22 weeks

26 weeks

27 weeks

Me and the hippo--the hippo is on the right.

I hate seeing myself in pictures because I feel like I look like a hippo.  Many people have been making comments to me that I look like I'm ready to go.  However I have three more months!  Sometimes I groan at that fact and other times it seems like such a short amount of time before we get to meet this little one.

Another change (not related to my lack of blog posts) is that I cut my hair and got bangs for the first time since like junior high.  Still getting use to them and undecided about how long I'm going to keep them around.

And finally, we sold our Element

bought a mini van

and bought a HOUSE! 

(practically in the same day, and unexpectedly--more details to come.....maybe).

Craziness!  We close on our house this Tuesday and are in process of trying to sell our current home.

So that's what's been going on around here:  cars, and houses, and babies, OH MY!

After Dinner Activities

Jumping off the coffee table

March 2011

and Dance party USA (often in "high heels" and fancy outfits)

April 2011

Other activities also include using Papa as a jungle gym and reading books.

Girl Talk

It looks like they are having "girl talk." : )

The girls were imitating Mama leaning on the table like this.

I'm addicted to cuties...

 Of every variety.

Maggie's first French Braids

A Bun in the Oven

The first time I caught Natalie sleeping with a baby in her shirt I didn't get a picture for fear of waking her.  However, she has continued to do it here and there and so I made sure to get some the night I found her like this:

Creativity

I am SO far behind in things to share with you.  We went to a special wedding in February in CANADA! (more on that later...I hope.)  Did I tell you we were having another baby?  Oh, I did.  Well, good.  We still are.  Anyway, I have so much to share still and somewhere in the midst of it all, I got really far behind.  These next pics were taken in February.

I'm enjoying watching the girls grow in creativity.  Right now Natalie can draw a snowman and a rainbow.  She also likes to make little squiggles all over like she is writing words.  She can make the letters M and N.  Here is one of her rainbows she made on the chalkboard.

I planned a painting day on the same day as bath day.  Maggie was a little bothered at first about her messy hands.  She often likes to have a napkin at meals to keep them clean too.  I had to work a little to convince her that is was okay to have messy hands while we were painting.

 Natalie's all about experimenting with mess.

 Maggie finally let it the issue go.

Natalie showing me her "hand-i-work" and Maggie in the background doing the same. : )

They both had a great time and Maggie made the cutest little handprints.  My 18 month old's first saved and framed artwork. : )

 This was another day in February that we got creative with play dough.

 But Natalie expressed her creativity in other ways too . : )

Focused.

Another play dough moment in March.  I'm pretty proud of this one because Maggie made the most interesting sculpture all from her own creative juices.

She inspired her sister and Natalie made a pretty cool little setup with multiple sculptures, even using the play dough tools.

Concentrating hard.

I think I had planned to share these pics with wittier comments and better description but my creative juices are pretty low right now.  But I wanted to remember these days in our "journal" and tell the girls how I much I love to watch them create, learn, and grow.