The Countdown Begins...

I am now 34 weeks pregnant. At my appointment on Friday, my doctor pointed out that I'm only three weeks until "term," meaning that they won't stop labor at that point. I've been telling people at work that I only had 4-6 weeks left because I want to at least make it through February, but three weeks seems so much shorter than four.

My doctor's appointment went well. The baby had the hiccups, and I got to hear them when my doctor went to listen to the baby's heartbeat. I also got a surprise when my doctor told me she wants to do another ultrasound at my next visit on February 12. I didn't think we'd get to see our little boy again until he was here. Now, John needs to rearrange his work schedule a little to see if he can be there too.

Here are my 34-week pictures. A lot of the goodies from our shower as well as some of the diapers we've picked up from sales this past week are in the background. We're keeping that stuff out of the baby's room for now until we can get everything straightened up in there, and hopefully it won't be too long before we have everything ready. Actually, it can't be too long since we don't have that much longer until he's here. :)

In Rememberance

Last week was a week of birthdays, and this week was the ninth anniversary of a very low point for us. This week in 2001, we lost my great aunt, John's grandpa Gwin, and friends in the OSU plane crash all within five days. Those people were on our minds a lot as we went through the week.

Monday, January 25

We hadn't really settled on a theme for the baby's room aside from "jungle/safari." That is, until I found these cute wall hangings and ordered them today. Now, we actually have colors to help us pick out what colors we're going to use to paint the room.

Tuesday, January 26

Mara loves her cheese. She'll get a handful of it and put it all in her mouth at once and then go back for more.

Wednesday, January 27

With my due date around the corner, we've been trying to spend more one-on-one time with Mara. Tonight, we went out for a mother and daughter dinner at McDonald's.

Thursday, January 28

We broke out Mara's Princess dominoes for the first time tonight. She did a really good job playing with them – winning the first four games we played. She was doing so well that we pulled out our set of double six dominoes, and she had fun playing with us. Both John and I grew up playing dominoes with our families, and it looks like Mara's going to enjoy doing the same thing.

Friday, January 29

Tonight, we had dinner at Steak and Shake. Mara really enjoyed her cheeseburger, and we were even able to include Granddad in our "three things about your day" discussion that we've recently started doing during dinner.

Saturday, January 30

Mara got to go to Chuck E. Cheese for the second time this week. This time, it was to celebrate her friend Hayden's birthday. She had a lot of fun, and we stayed the entire time. We even had a sketch of the two of us made while we were there. She's slowly getting over the fear of the robotic mouse in the party area. She even went to the front of the party area and played in front of the camera that put her on the overhead TV. However, I still don't think we'll ever have one of her birthday parties there.

Baby shower!

My friends and family are so wonderful, and they all got together to throw us a baby shower today. It was nice that they all wanted to get together to celebrate our son. The event was more of a "sprinkle" since we had a lot of big things left over from Mara, so most of the gifts were diapers, wipes, and boy clothes. I am so thankful for all the great gifts everyone gave us. Mara and Lani had a lot of fun helping me open them.

Before the shower, Mara attended a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese for her friend Gracie. She had a lot of fun and wasn't too disappointed that she missed out on the part of the celebration that included the robot mouse. She'll get to see him next week, though, since she is going to another birthday party at the same CEC next weekend. :)

And after the shower, we celebrated Myra's birthday. It was a very good day overall.

Me with my shower hostesses – Shari, Myra, Sherri, and Melissa

The material Diane is going to use to make the baby's quilt

Week of birthdays

It seems like this week is just full of birthdays – both in our families and with Mara's friends.

Monday, January 18

For some reason, Puck is enthralled with our ice maker and comes running anytime we get ice out of it. We're not sure what the fascination is since he doesn't eat any of the ice we give him.

Today is John's mom's birthday, and we want to wish her a very happy birthday.

Tuesday, January 19

We have less than two months until the baby is here, and we haven't done much to his room yet aside from basically kicking the cats out. It's still a junk room, though, and one of John's projects during his vacation this week is to get the junk out. Maybe we'll be ready to actually paint the room when he has another week of vacation next month. This is how we were with Mara. I think both of us work better under a deadline. :)

We found one of our old cell phones while cleaning out the room, and Mara had a lot of fun playing with it and wearing it on her waistband.

Wednesday, January 20

Today would have been my mom's 72nd birthday, and we honored that by going to eat at her favorite restaurant – Olive Garden. When I was telling Mara about what today is, she asks, "How did she become alive again?" So, we had to explain to her that she didn't and that we're just honoring her. It still amazes me how well Mara handles the circle of life and doesn't really bat an eye when we explain things to her.

Thursday, January 21

Each year, I make a picture card for Mara to include with presents when she goes to birthday parties for her friends. Since the first birthday party of the year is tomorrow night, we had a little photo session so I could have a more recent picture of her to include on the birthday card.

And a happy birthday to my sister-in-law Myra!

Friday, January 22

Mara went to the first of two birthday parties this weekend for her friends. It's hard to believe that this will be the last birthday party she goes to for most of the kids since they'll all be going off to different schools next year for kindergarten.

Saturday, January 23

Diane went on a sewing retreat this weekend, and she asked Mara to go and check on her cats, Manny and Tatiana. Mara had a lot of fun feeding the kitties ham and playing with them.

Changes

As I was watching Mara sleep this morning, I was thinking of a lot of the changes we'll be going through soon. Despite the fact she's been wanting to be a big sister for a long time, I wonder if she realizes that things won't be the same once the baby is born. She has been our one and only for almost five years now, and in just a few weeks, she's going to have to share that limelight with someone else. We have our routines that we've established over the years, and those are going to be changing very soon.

Hopefully she'll adjust quickly to whatever happens, but I guess we'll see how that goes when the time comes.

Hospital Tour

Mara participated in the "older sibling" hospital tour today. It was only her and another little girl, and it worked out perfectly. They were able to get individual attention, and it was fairly laid back. Mara got to spend a lot of time on the postpartum floor when my dad was in the hospital back in October, so she knew that floor pretty well, but we also got to see the labor and delivery area as well. I think she got a lot out of tour, including not to touch anything red in any of the rooms where I'll be staying at the hospital. We even learned a few things that have changed since we had Mara there.

The tour also helped us start talking to Mara about what will happen when the baby comes and where she'll be staying. John and I had talked about it before, but we hadn't really discussed it with Mara.

I am now 32 weeks pregnant, so it's not much longer now. I am now going to the doctor every other week, and I'm still measuring right on target. I still don't know where the time has gone since the Fourth of July when I first found out I was pregnant.

Second week of January

Monday, January 11

We're cleaning out a bunch of the storage rooms at work, and one of the first to go was my department's decor storage. I brought home a ton of seashells from there, and Mara helped me go through them. We're going to keep some of them ourselves, but most of them will go to Mara's school. The teachers are really looking forward to getting them.

Tuesday, January 12

I didn't know what to use for my picture today, so I asked Mara. She said it should be of Puck, and she promptly grabbed her camera and took a picture of him for me. Later, I remembered that I had taken a picture for today before I went to work. Ironically, it was of all four cats, who have quickly adjusted to their food bowls being moved. Guess Mara and I were on the same wavelength today. :)

Wednesday, January 13

Ground turkey and ground chicken were on sale this week, so we decided to pick up a couple of pounds of each to see how we like it.

Thursday, January 14

I have been long overdue for a haircut (I got my last one before our wedding anniversary), so I decided it was finally time to cut my hair before the the baby came.

Friday, January 15

We stopped by Kroger tonight, and they had smaller carts for kids to push around. Mara loved pushing her items around in the cart.

Saturday, January 16

We didn't have much scheduled for this weekend even though it is the beginning of John's vacation, so we decided to go to Mikey's hockey game in Grapevine. His team won, and Mara had a lot of fun playing with her cousins.

Getting back into a routine

Most of our time this week was spent trying to get back in a routine while also working on getting the house more organized. It's not too much longer until the baby is going to be here, and we still have a lot to do.

Monday, January 4

Both Doxy and Brownie love to curl up in my lap in the evenings, but I have never had both of them there until tonight. Doxy didn't care that Brownie was already there, and apparently Brownie didn't mind the company for once. :)

Tuesday, January 5

Mara is becoming quite the helper around the house. She is wanting to help us make meals more, and tonight she insisted on tearing up the biscuits herself for the chicken and dumplings.

Wednesday, January 6

Mara loves to sing and dance. I was adding more music to her media player tonight while John fixed dinner, so I was letting the music play. Mara was having a blast dancing around the family room.

Thursday, January 7

Mara has taken a real interest in the Wii recently and has been doing a good job using the controls on her own. Tonight, she decided to start the Disney Princess game on her own and made it pretty far with very little help from us. Note: She ended up finishing the game completely on Sunday.

Friday, January 8

I got a powered sweeper from work today, and Mara was having a lot of fun using it in the kitchen. We're thinking that might just become one of her chores since she likes it so much. She was actually disappointed when the batteries died.

Saturday, January 9

The day after Christmas, my dad's dog Buffy escaped from the backyard, and we weren't able to find her. On Wednesday, my dad got a call from someone who found her wandering along the side of the road (11 days after she escaped). She was dirty and had lost some weight, but she was still in good health. We stopped by my dad's house tonight because Mara had been wanting to see her ever since my dad got her back.

Sunday, January 10

Today, we decided to move the cats' food out of what is soon to be the nursery to the hallway beside the pantry. We also took down the Christmas decorations and packed the tree away until Thanksgiving. When I told her the plan for the day, Mara asked if we could just leave them up all year. I was tempted, but we'll need to start using the space for baby things within the next couple of months. :)