37 weeks

 Here we are, 37 weeks! Warning, these might be the worst self pregnancy pictures to ever grace the internet.

crooked

straighter. Hello baby!! :)

So I've had a trillion thoughts on pregnancy lately and have been tempted to type them out and share them several times in the last couple of weeks, but I end up restraining myself and not. Because honestly, I'm just a roller coaster of emotions. Why put YOU through all that drama? Let's just say, some days I feel like this baby will be here before I know it. Other days it still feels like forever and how can I sleep one more night (or rather not sleep) with this large human being inside me?? I'm so aware of him as a person at this point of the pregnancy. Let me try to explain. When I can feel a knee or leg or foot, when I change position during the night I have to like "bring" him with me... it's hard to explain. He is there. He is big.

But I'm not ready for him to come yet either. His room has a purple wall we are planning on repainting. I finally bought the can of paint today. I haven't washed the 0-3month clothes yet. But I bought the Dreft. His infant car seat is in the trunk of the car. It will make it into the bucket seat eventually. I bought the fabric to make the curtains for his room, now I just need to get the sewing machine out of box and sew them. Every day it feels like I get so little accomplished on the small projects and loose ends that I'm trying to get done before he comes. And I know it's because I have two small children and a currently swamped with work husband. I pinpointed today that what's making me all antsy to get this stuff done is that I need time to just be, and peacefully await this baby. I don't want to be doing projects till the day he comes. I need to be at peace and feel calm and ready, not stressed.

Not to mention prepare for his birth. Which I love doing and spend time doing almost every evening, reading and listening to the relaxation scripts of my Hypnobabies program, but it means those projects still don't get done.

And they will get done, I know they will. I try to remind myself daily to just live TODAY well. This blog is one of my favorites. I haven't stopped thinking about the wisdom in this post and have been carrying it in my heart all this past week.

I want to love being pregnant as best I can, till the end. We are about to receive the most incredible gift and miracle into our family. And reminding myself of this often helps keep everything else in perspective.

This is our life

Tuesday night is Luke and my date night. We don't always go out, in fact, we probably go out once a month. But date nights in can still be special and great too, not to mention, easy on the budget :) I love knowing that no matter what the week looks like, no matter how hectic, I can count on some quality time with my husband on Tuesday night. Especially during the first two months of school when Luke's hours are insane and irregular.

This past Tuesday we didn't have anything planned, hadn't talked about it, I actually thought he had something on campus to go to that night. Turns out he didn't, so at 7pm when he got home and was eating dinner, I asked him if he wanted to go to a movie with me. He was shocked and immediately asked who I got to babysit! I told him we were going to a movie in our living room, (silly goose) at 8:30. I had bought a movie off DirectTV. This is something we rarely do, usually we try to find something on Netflix but I didn't like anything they had. And it was soooo my turn to pick a movie so I didn't even run it by him.

Wellll, I wish there had been a 9pm showing to choose, or 9:30.....8:30 was too soon it turned out. We were trying to rush through the kids bedtime routines to get them in bed in time. And they knew it. Casey threw a fit, Hailey threw a fit, there were lots of tears. And whining. But they were in their beds and our movie was starting.

Oh I'm sure you can imagine what happened. Hailey kept coming out, making Casey mad and therefore cry. We kept taking turns going in to tuck them in and missing parts of the movie. Then we'd be filling the other person in and missing out on what was happening at that moment. It was all frustrating. Because we couldn't pause it! grrr!!! Then Luke ended up carrying Casey out, of course Hailey followed and they were laying on our laps on the couch, totally sleepy yet curious as ever.

It was definitely one of those moments where you look at each other, laugh and say, "this is our life. Look at us."

And next time, we'll get a babysitter. Or at least something from Redbox that we can stop if needed! Lesson learned. Buying movies off of cable, not worth it.

(we watched Now You See Me and it was just ok. I'd give it a B. Maybe even B-. But the cast was fun - Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, the guy from Social Network, the girl from Confessions of a Schopaholic, and the old guy from Batman Begins)

Foam Party!

When Luke lived in California he saw a flyer for a foam party at a club in Hollywood. 8 years later, we're throwing a foam party in our yard! It's part of the team's beginning of the year outreach efforts. I had no idea what to envision until they were setting it up and testing it yesterday.

Check that out!! Ok, so this stuff is made of some crazy formula....it's light and airy, not sticky, you can rub it between your hands and it will disappear leaving your hands dry and not sticky at all. The machine uses water to make the bubbles so your clothes get wet but I just can't explain it, it's not gross. You don't feel like a gross mess. It's amazing.

Here, the foam is not being contained in anything. It's just creating a pile on the grass, and eventually with lots of walking through it, stomping on it, it goes away. Again, zero mess.

Casey took a bad and weird fall yesterday involving him pushing the fisher price shopping cart in the driveway and his entire finger nail on his ring finger ripped off. He won't keep a band aid on and even managed to get off the "gauze wrap/taped to his other finger" job we did earlier in the day. So we had to resort to the long sleeve pajama shirt with a mitten duct taped to the sleeve so he can't get to the band aid.

Bubble heaven.

Who needs pants?!?

Luke and TJ are outside right now finishing building a sort of pen to contain the foam for the party tonight and surrounding it with tiki torches. Add music, over 100 students, food and drinks....it's going to be crazy!

We moved!

The last time I posted, August 6th, Luke came home from work that day and told me we got the go ahead to move into the new house! As in, move in tomorrow if we wanted! Yes please, but cue Megan panicking! I had nothing packed!

Quick back story, the university told us the house would be available as of August 1st but our lease at our townhouse went through the 31st. Since we didn't want to pay rent in two places we were just going to stay put till the end of the month. I know I blogged about how the timing would be terrible, school would be starting, it would be getting closer to my due date, etc. I had SO much stress over it all. We told the school we couldn't start paying rent to them till September but asked if we could still move in 2 weeks early, August 17th-ish, to make the timing of everything a tiny bit better. That's when they got back to us saying, move in now! It's totally fine, and we won't charge you for August! Even as I type this I'm still so amazed at their generosity, and God looking out for us.

I turned into a packing mad woman and got everything ready to go in three days. Granted the townhouse was small and a lot of our stuff was in storage in the shed and in the attic, but I still had closets and all the stuff we live with daily to pack up. And with Hailey and Casey underfoot. Gosh, that is never fun.

We moved on Saturday, a week ago yesterday, and everything went so smoothly. We had 8 people helping us and it seriously went like clockwork. Hailey was so adorable marching her possessions up the ramp and onto the truck, she even told me, "I ride truck. I sit with Mommy, I ok, I not cry." Meaning, she wanted to ride on the truck with all her things. It took a lot of persuading why she couldn't. I will always remember her that day. She wanted to wear one of my big chunky necklaces and it made noise when she ran and she would kind of ruffle it with her hand as she ran to make the jingling noise more. She was running all over the place that day and you could always hear her coming and know where she was. She was bouncing with excitement and always wanted to be in the middle of everything. Seriously, it seemed everywhere I looked, there she was. She got so sweaty! Her face was flushed all day and wherever she went she had her Disney princess thermos with her guzzling water.  It was all so sweet and such an improvement from the last two moves where she would see the boxes and moving truck and cry!

Anyway, needless to say, we are so in love with this house. I will post pictures eventually, when it looks better :) But we have a garage for the first time, I have a laundry/mud room again, we have a fenced in yard! a big driveway for the kids to ride their bikes, and there are so many gorgeous trees on the property. It is so peaceful to sit outside and just soak in the trees, and all the green. You can partially see the mount that the school is on from our driveway.

I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

And exhausted. Since the move I've been having what I think is sciatic nerve pain and it is really painful. Even wearing my support tank doesn't help a ton. Doing some stretching and icing it seems to help the most. I'm trying to take it easy and not overdo it each day but I get super impatient to just get everything unpacked. I hate living among boxes and plus the kids just get into them. So it's partly necessity too.

The little things make me feel at home too. Like hanging the clock in the living room and the crucifix in our bedroom. We hung the kids special crucifixes in their room last night and they were so excited. After bedtime prayers, they always give Jesus a kiss goodnight and they were literally jumping up and down as we hung them by each of their beds. I think they slept better too. We put the rest of their special pictures on the walls as well, and they both seemed to take it as, we're staying for good. The first few nights they were restless, even waking up and crying in fear, but not anymore ;)

We are here to stay, kids. At least till next summer.

32 weeks and counting

So, baby is 32 weeks old this week! I'm starting to get really excited. And have moments of freaking out. And then go back to being really excited. I mean, you are excited all along, but as it gets closer and this little person is seriously getting their grove on all.the.time...and making you pee every 10 minutes and you can touch your belly and feel parts of their body and feel them hiccuping....it becomes VERY real that they will be here soon! I'm aching to hold and snuggle and nurse him. I love nursing my babies. Yes, it's time consuming, and I freak out thinking about what in the world the older siblings will be doing while I'm nursing all day long and how I will keep them happy and occupied. But I can't stop thinking about this little boy about to join our family. What will he look like? How is Casey going to react to him? Hailey is a pro at this big sister thing and acts like he's here already with how much she interacts with my belly, so I'm not as concerned about her.

Sunday Mass attire

side veiw, comfy lounging evening wear

I have been dreaming about his birth literally almost every night. In a good way, not weird or anxious. Some days 8 more weeks feels like an eternity and some days it feels like it could be here tomorrow. Mostly on the days I feel blah and my hips hurt and I get heartburn 5 minutes after eating lasagna I think "how in the world am I going to do this for 8 more weeks?" And it's going to get harder! My sweet husband reminded me, "you've done it twice already." At that point I think I became a puddle of tears and hugged and thanked him.

Oh yes, did I mention emotional? I feel like my mood swings are back to super crazy. Beginning and end of pregnancies seem to be worse for me in this area. The 2nd trimester is thankfully a breeze. But goodness gracious. I can cry at the drop of a hat these days. Or because I forgot blueberries at the store. Luke, who was doing work on his computer got up saying, "its ok, I'll go back and get them for you." Making me cry more....why is he being so wonderful? 

In fact, did you know that a man's testosterone decreases right before the arrival of a new baby and after? I think it's God's way of softening him a bit to meet the needs of his wife and new baby. Thank you Jesus.

Now I'm off to eat a bowl of cereal. Followed by tums I'm sure.

150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg

Gettysburg is practically in our backyard and so we go there often. Naturally! :) They have an awesome outlet mall, and there is also a Rita's Custard stand in the cute downtown area. It is our Sunday evening tradition to go and get Rita's. If you've never had it, you need to. It is the best custard you will ever have. 

But aside from those two things, it kind of happens to be the site of one of the most historic battles in the history of our nation. 

And this year was the 150th Anniversary. We have been through the Smithsonian-esque (read: amazing) Visitors Center museum and on tours of the battlefields multiple times since living in this area. Whenever people come to visit us, it is probably the first place we take them. Luke has become quite the capable tour guide himself. So when the big anniversary rolled around at the beginning of July, I was on the website, checking out events and figuring out what we were going to try and go to. Luke was like, "we go all the time, it's mobbed over there right now!" I told him, yes, but this is actually when it is more exciting to me! The place was coming to life with re-enactments, there were so many special things going on. So on July 3rd we headed over, hoping to see the memorial walk across the field where Picket's Charge took place. It was for tourists to participate in, you could either be on the Confederate or Union side. I knew we wouldn't make it in time to join in, the kids were napping late despite my best efforts, so I figured we would just watch and it would still be cool. 

Wellllll, we were not prepared for the number of people in Gettysburg. I knew it would be bad when we started seeing signs a couple exits out saying stuff like, "exit here for parking for Gettysburg." But we forged ahead and after crawling at the slowest pace ever, we finally made it into town. And Picket's Charge was well over. I was super disappointed. It had been the last major event of the day and I had really wanted to make it to it. So instead we got dinner at one of our favorite Irish restaurants in town. (I should also mention we go on most of our dates in Gettysburg and always find new fun places.) 

After dinner we headed over to one of the battlefields where a daily evening program was held called "Voices of the Day." Actors and actresses narrated the events of that day, and what it was like for them - women who lived in town, a union and a confederate soldier. I really enjoyed it and the best part about it was the kids could run around. 

I am glad we went and got to do one small thing. Just being there in and of itself was cool. And we are still learning what we can reasonably do with such small children. In the end, it was just right.

Boy in a cupboard

This was the night Daddy discovered Casey fit in the little cupboard. Casey thought it was the best thing ever.

Luke was sort of asking for it. haha, watch out!

Dads are the best.

The end. :)