6 weeks to go (of work)!

Here is a belly pic from 31wks with Jacob:


And here is a belly pic from last week, 31wks with Brody:The countdown continues... I've got 6 more weeks of work left and 8 weeks (give or take) till Brody comes!

I was explaining to Kyra last night that I don't think I'm expressing myself very well. I often tell people that I am ready to be done with this pregnancy and ready for the baby. As much as I am excited to meet this little guy, I'm not necessarily 'done' with being pregnant... yet! I think that I am just eager for March to be here more so than to be done being pregnant for two reasons. 1, I CAN'T WAIT to be done working and 2, having the baby here (full term) will mean that Spring is upon us and I am looking forward to safer roads, grass and being outside. But as far as the pregnancy goes, things are good. Brody is REALLY moving on me, giving me big crazy tumbles that I love and I am getting really excited as the big day approaches with anticipation of what labor will be like with this guy, how much he will weigh, what will he look like, how much will he resemble Jacob and what will Jacob think of the little guy. So as much as I'm ready to be done working and for nicer weather, I'm trying to enjoy being pregnant as much as I can and enjoy the alone time I have with Jacob, who has been more and more loving lately! Such a nice treat! Although, he still loves to abuse my belly with headbutts, slapping, kicking and climbing. Brody is sure to be born tough.

In other pregnancy related news, I experienced a maternity wardrobe-malfunction. Maternity shirts often have strings that hang in the front or back to enhance the empire waist or something. Well, when using the bathroom at work this week I stood up and felt a drip on my legs. I was like "what the..." when I suddenly, regretfully, realized that my bow had come undone and dipped into the lovely toilet bowl that I had just urinated in. Yuck!

**Note to self: double-check status of all hanging clothing BEFORE using toilet**

Home from Utah!

On the plane, Jacob looking mischievous:Here is Jacob being uncooperative for our group photo:
Natalie's mom let us come over and play with the standard poodles she breeds - Jacob loved it! (11 puppies and 5 adults!)
Grandma and two of her boys:
Best baby ever, Owen at 3.5months:
The view from our room:

Our view of the beginner slopes at Brian.head Resort:
Jacob enjoying "Cars" while dad snowboarded at Brian.head:

We had a great time in Utah and really enjoyed our time with Tom, Natalie and Owen. This was the first time Aaron and I got to meet Owen and boy is he cute! He is such a good baby, it really is like having a doll in the room! He LOVES to look at faces and gets so excited when you smile at him.

Aaron and Tom had a great time riding quads and being boys. Mom, Natalie and I got some shopping in (I think I've found Brody's coming home outfit!). One day we also drove an hour or so to a ski resort so Aaron could go snowboarding. Jake, mom and I hung out in the lodge enjoying lunch and watching the skiers and snowboarders. I guess the resort, Brian.Head, is the highest elevation ski resort in Utah. Mom noticed it a lot, but it didn't bother Aaron and I generally felt the same as I do everyday being 30wks pg (dizzy, tired and short of breath).

I think the trip was very worthwhile as we finished up taking care of the rest of dads issues and I think Tom needed the company. I think he is still struggling with things and my hope is that it gets easier with time. Now the plan is for the three of them to come out to Michigan this summer and we will head to Harrison to take care of the ashes. They seem to be doing great in Utah though. Tom's store is HUGE and although we didn't visit it, we drove past there quite a few times and Aaron admired all the toys from afar. Natalie is mostly recovered from her terrible staph infection although she still has hard abscess that she can feel :( Her store (Bone Appetite - all natural pet foods and treats) is doing well and is super cute. Roxy LOVED the lamb trachea she gave us!

Traveling was NOT as easy as I expected it to be. We didn't purchase a ticket for Jacob because 1, he would prefer to ride on our laps and 2, the 1st leg would only have 2 seats in a row anyway, so we wouldn't even use the 3rd seat. But I was kicking myself big time on our 2nd leg - a 3hr flight, plus we sat on the runway for 1.5hrs. It didn't even occur to me that we might enjoy the extra room! Ugh, so I was miserable. The entire time we were in St.George I was dreading the ride home and made a few calls to see how much it would be to upgrade to 1st class (not available) or purchase the extra seat for the way home ($750). Fortunately, the ride home was MUCH better. There were two extra seats on the plane and we managed to get one in our row (free of charge!)... can't figure out why no one wanted to sit next to a pregnant lady, her husband and her very active 20 month old?! And, I also made the determination that no matter how much I wanted to hold Jacob, I would ONLY hold him when Aaron needed me to and that made a world of difference. The kid is just so darn rough on me and Brody! On the flight out, I just couldn't resist holding Jacob and really wanted to experience the flight with him. Although he has already flown before when we went to Florida, I think he actually realized what was going on this time. And he LOVES planes, so just being at the airport was very exciting for him. He wasn't too sure at first though and cried/whined when we first boarded the plane and when they closed the door, but after that he was all smiles.

In other news, I made the announcement at work that I would not be returning after my maternity leave. Everyone took the news really well and it was a HUGE relief to get that out. Even better, the girl that took my position when I was on maternity leave for Jacob is interested in the position. I would LOVE it if they decided to hire her, because that would mean a minimal amount of training and much less stress for me! My coworkers are the types that think training can occur in an hour and after that, I should be able to do twice the amount of work, because after all, there are TWO of us working now! I gave my official final day as March 14th... seven more weeks (which feels like an eternity), let the countdown begin!!!!

Updates...

Top pic is from yesterday and the bottom one is from a month ago - I don't really notice much of a difference - Go figure! And to respond to Charissa, yes I am always in tank tops (and some sort of sweater or zip-up hoodie when out of the house)! Hey, I wear whats comfortable!

We had our ultrasound on Monday to check on the placenta position and everything looks good! The placenta has moved far away from the cervix, so that is no longer a concern. She checked the heart (heart rate was 144), stomach, kidneys, brain, fluids and cord and all look great. My cervix measured 3.3cm and anything between 3 and 5 is ideal there, so that is good too. I was a little disappointed that she didn't do measurements to get an estimate on Brody's current weight, but I guess I can wait until the next one (if he continues to measure big). Oh, and he is definitely still a boy :) Brody was head down and looked long and cramped in there! He kept his little hands up by his face the entire time, but we were still able to get a few pics (some in 3d - I'll try to scan and post on Friday). We also saw a very clear yawn and it was pretty darn cute.

In other news, Bruce's mom passed away over the weekend. She suffered a pretty bad stroke on Christmas and hospice was called in at that time. She was released back to the nursing home and making good progress, but unfortunately suffered another stroke and passed away. We will be traveling to Lansing tomorrow for a Memorial luncheon. My favorite memories of Grandma include fried bread, antique road show, visiting them in Florida years ago, how she single-handedly was responsible for 99% of my precious moments collection and how she insisted I call them Grandma and Grandpa - way before Bruce and mom were even married. She is in a better place, but she will be missed. Please keep the Look family in your thoughts and prayers!

These posts don't blend well, but I just kept writing and then couldn't cut and paste, so just pretend like they are two separate posts....

28wk Appt.....

Yesterday we had our 28wk appointment and everything is looking good! I only gained 3lbs and was feeling really good about myself until I realized that was only in 10 days, not 4wks like I've been used to! Still not that bad, but not as good as I thought I was doing! Blood pressure looks good, heart rate about 135 again. My fundal height was up to 31cm now, so about 3cm ahead. The doctor said that since we had an early u/s that my due date is probably correct, so we may just have a big baby. Not too much of a surprise since Jacob wasn't exactly tiny at 8lbs 8oz, but he always measured even or +1cm ahead though. I would love to have another 8lbs 8oz baby, seemed like a perfect size and I know I can handle giving birth to a baby of that size... not sure about any bigger! If the baby continues to measure ahead by more than 2cm, we will have ANOTHER u/s closer towards the end of the pgncy to double check on his size. Of course, we love ultrasounds, so no complaints there! Could just be a growth spurt for the baby though, so it's just one of those wait and see things. Speaking of ultrasounds, we still have the one on Monday to check on the placenta position, we'll keep you posted!

Rough week...

Poor Jacob. January is NOT his month. The first two pictures were taken last night, then one from this morning and the last one was taken about one year ago.

January 14, 2006:

It all started on Monday when we were all sitting in Jacob's new room. Jacob decided to climb into the new chair that I insisted we purchase for him. Of course, my little shorty can't just sit down in it because it's a tad tall for him, so he has to climb in it and then in slow motion the chair tips over. I was sitting on the bed with my legs crossed and just couldn't get up fast enough. Aaron was standing next to him and somehow couldn't get to him fast enough either. Of course he fell right onto the worst possible toy in his whole room to fall on and bruised the left side of his face from his eye to his ear, but you can only really tell in the pictures the eye bruise. Stupid, evil chair. If only I had $80 more so I could buy one of these chairs from Pottery Barn:

Although, I'm sure Jacob would find a way for that chair to fall over, too. If anyone knows where to find a less expensive chair like this though, please let me know!

So now onto last nights injury. We generally don't keep a coffee table in our living room to provide for more play area for Jacob. Usually we keep the coffee table we do have in the 3rd bedroom, but since we are now getting that ready to become Jacob's big boy room, we've moved the coffee table back out to the living room. It's been there a day. So Aaron and I are getting dinner together and listening to music. Jacob likes to 'dance' by running circles in the living room. So there he is running, running, running and trips over his feet flying right into the coffee table with all this toddler momentum. I, unfortunately, saw the whole thing and it just looked terrible. He had a little cut on his eyebrow too, but looks like the neosporin did a good job of healing that one up overnight.

I think we will keep Jacob in a helmet and protective suit for January 2009.

Jacob's New Room!

We made the executive decision to stick with the furniture we have and transition Jacob from crib to full size bed in the next couple of months. It just seemed to make the most sense to use the furniture we have and only spend money on bedding, decorations and a new mattress. I'm slightly concerned about how Jacob will do, but Charissa assured me that Kyra did just fine transitioning to a full size bed, even before she was 2. Also, Jacob still has lots of time in the crib because Aaron purchased a bassinet for Brody (and me) for Christmas that we will keep Brody in for the first several weeks. I notoriously underestimate the poor kid, thinking he was years away from things like snowboarding and using a potty, so who knows, maybe he will surprise me here too. The other thing we keep hearing from others is that now he will be getting out of bed all the time. While I definitely see that happening in the future, the funny thing is that right now when we lay him down in our bed for naps (which he is always already asleep for), he always yells for us to come get him when he wakes up, even though he can get on and off our bed all on his own! So silly.

The top two photos were taken before the new mattress and quilt arrived. The bottom one (don't mind Aaron's mid-yawn face, sorry hun!) was taken WITH the new HUGE mattress. We decided to remove the box spring so that Jacob could actually reach the top of the mattress without even needing to stand on his tippy-toes, imagine that! Poor kid! We are still waiting on a new lamp, a step stool, we need to hang some shelves and the tv will be going.

Jacob seems to love having an extra room for his toys, but I don't think it's occurred to him yet that someday he will SLEEP in there!

Feeling Huge

Yikes, I've got 12 more weeks to go! The nurse called Wednesday to let me know that I passed my gestational diabetes bloodwork (yeah!) but I need to start taking iron 2x a day (boo!), but I had a feeling anyway because of how tired I've felt, etc. So at least that will make me feel better but the extra iron comes with it's own undesirable side effects (boo!).

Jacob is back to normal! Thank God! And mom reports that he and Noah got along very well the past couple of days. Speaking of which, some of you may have noticed I edited my last post and deleted some information. Forgive me, I'm a biased mom :) To better describe Jacob's Christmas with my family I should have better described it as: Jacob.Hates.Sharing. Unfortunately, he probably gets that from me. As Aaron usually says, "I missed that day in Kindergarten". Although we are now realizing it starts way before kindergarten, who knew? So needless to say, Christmas with a kid coming down with an illness, that doesn't like to share, and a bunch of new toys is just asking for trouble! We all survived and Aaron is aggressively working on teaching Jacob those important skills: Snowboarding. Oops, I mean sharing. We will try to get it right and if not, well, then we will make sure Jacob is in school on the day they go over that in kindergarten.