28 Weeks: It's Getting Rough...

Well, I am 28 weeks tomorrow, and I heard back from my OB regarding my blood work last week. He left me a voicemail because I was in a meeting (which is typical), but for the very first time I heard, "Hey Allison. Your labs came back with some abnormalities, so please call me when you get a chance so we can go over them."

CRAP.

I had been feeling "off" and very tired for the last week or so, but I figured it was just the third trimester kicking in, the heat starting, the end of school, etc. Not so much. Apparently, my blood sugar tested high after my glucose test, AND I'm iron deficient.

CRAP.

So, now I get to start taking some lovely iron supplements which I hear are very unpleasant for your stomach, and I get to go sit at the doctor's office for over 3 hours on Friday morning to take the fasting 3-hour glucose tolerance test where I will be stuck with 4 different needles and more than likely either faint or vomit at the end.

DOUBLE CRAP.

This baby girl is kicking my BOOTY. She better be cute! :)

27 Weeks: Oh, hey, third trimester!

How far along: 27 Weeks

Baby’s size: ~16 inches and ~2.5 lbs (the size of a cauliflower) 

Sleep: This is becoming problematic - it's getting very hard to get comfortable at night with the extra 15 pounds I'm wearing around my waist, I'm waking up several times to visit the bathroom, and this time of year has been crazy schedule-wise with work coming to a close, so I'm having a hard time turning off my brain at night. Thank goodness for coffee or else I'd be a MESS!

Best moment of this week: Getting my precious baby shower invitation in my email from my sweet co-workers. They are throwing me a going away party/baby shower with a "Storybook Princess" theme where they are all supposed to bring me books for Kate's nursery with notes inside. Plus, the shower is purple! They know me well. :) 

Miss anything: Advil, excessive amounts of coffee, being able to slouch without pressure on my lungs/ribs, sitting comfortably for long periods of time.

Food cravings: Not so much this week - I've noticed that I've really enjoyed chicken salad sandwiches and Sprite this pregnancy more than normal. 

Queasy or sick?: Due to not sleeping well, the headaches have returned. :/

Have you started to show yet?: People keep telling me that I'm small for nearly 7 months, but I feel HUGE. 

Gender: Girl! (Kathryn Reese Ezell)

Belly button in or out: Out...I was actually asked by a student this week who noticed by protruding belly button whether or not that was the baby's foot. Ha. Nope, honey, just another ugly pregnancy side effect. 

Happy or moody most of the time: Becoming moody...especially in the mornings and after 7pm. I do okay in the middle of the day.  

Looking forward to: Being DONE with work (9 more days of teaching!) so I can really just focus on my family, fixing up our house, getting our garage sale done, and planning for baby girl. I'm getting very tired of feeling "stretched" between so many obligations. I cannot believe how blessed I am that I am going to get to stay home with my kids in just 9 short days...God is GOOD.

Overheard on the Monitor this Morning...

Carter woke up singing this little diddy this morning..."Hi, Gish. How you doin? How you doin (sounded like DO-INNNN), Gish?" (repeated about 40 times before I got him out of bed.) 

Told you that kid loves his Gish. :) 

The Newest Ezell...Gish

For Carter's 2nd birthday, we decided to get him a fish because it was cheap he loves the ones in the aquarium at his school. We already had the tank and plants that was handed down by my parents, so it was a very easy gift. He had so much fun picking out his orange and white "gish" at Petsmart, picking out his "geen" rocks, and helping me put it together the night before his birthday. Every night before bed, he watches as we feed it and Gish goes "up, up, up" to the top for his food. He also insists on kissing Gish goodnight on the top of the tank. So sweet.

As fascinating as all that is, I really wanted to include Gish in the blog because I witnessed one of my favorite Carter moments EVER the other night as he was chatting with Gish. Every day after school, we ask Carter about his day. We ask what he did, who he played with, what he ate, etc. Well, apparently Carter has decided that Gish goes to school too because I overheard this little conversation in his room the other night while Carter was supervising meal time.

Carter: Hi, Gish! School? (pause) Yeah. Play? (pause) Yeah. Eat? (pause) Yeah. Friends? (pause) Yeah. Sleep? (pause) Missed you! (kisses tank)

I just about died.

I know everyone says the 2's are supposed to be "terrible," but I say bring them on! If this is any taste of the fun that is to come now that he's talking, I CAN'T WAIT. :)

Holy. Moly.

Carter's 2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Carter's 2nd birthday last Saturday afternoon (May 4th) with a monkey-themed party at his favorite place in the world, MY GYM! Thanks to all who were able to come and make it so special. :)  He definitely knew it was HIS day!

 AMAZING cake by my sweet friend, Roxane!

 Sweet Leigh and baby Blythe!

 Circle time...the parents were such great sports. :)

 Trapeze rides!

 Story time.

 Such well-behaved kiddos!

 By far, the greatest 90 seconds of this kid's life to date...riding a MOTORCYCLE!

Happy 2nd birthday, Cartman!

Mother's Day 2013

We have just returned from a wonderful morning celebrating Mother's Day. Blake let me sleep in until 8 (AMAZING!) and woke me up with Carter bringing me coffee and my amazing presents - new running shorts (desperately needed) and a beautiful turquoise necklace/earring set. They are wonderful! After a quick walk, we got dressed and headed down to meet my parents at Royal Oaks Country Club for a delicious brunch. (I think we could all skip dinner and be just fine...holy food!) Afterwards, we went out into the courtyard area for some quick pictures since we hadn't had any taken as a family in about six months. Pictures are always iffy with a toddler, but we actually came away with a few good ones.

Fountain!

All the girls...Kate counts, too! :)

"I running mama!"

So blessed to be this kid's mama EVERY DAY.

Almost 26 weeks with sweet baby girl! Growing like a WEED...although I swear some of that bump is from all the food...

Afterwards, we headed back to my parents' house to exchange gifts and then came home to nap. Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers out there! Hope everyone felt as blessed and spoiled as we did today. :)

2 Year Check-Up

We had our check-up with Dr. Newton this morning, and everything looks good! (How rare to hear with our little booger!) Carter is weighing in at exactly 27 pounds (50th percentile) and is measuring about 35.5 inches (75th percentile), so he's right in the middle of the pack for weight and above average height. Dr. Newton said we can expect him to be tall and lean as a kid/adult, as percentiles generally stay consistent after age two. His head circumference was in the 90-95th percentile, so I'm thinking that means he is my little smarty pants. :) Tough guy got one shot and only cried for about a minute afterwards, so he got a lemonade from Sonic for being so brave. Given how advanced he is for communication, we were also encouraged to start getting Carter used to the idea of a potty seat since he'll tell us if he needs to tee-tee and has no diaper on after a bath. YIKES. Looks like we are going shopping! The only other suggestion he had was to take Carter to the dentist sometime before the age of 3. Wow, that'll be ugly! He's about to break his last two baby teeth on the bottom, so as soon as those get in, he encouraged us to go. Again, YIKES. Glad to hear we have a healthy, growing boy, though! :)  

Carter is 2!

Baby boy, you are 2 years old! Part of me wants to cry at how fast you are growing up, and the other part of me LOVES watching you change and grow into a precious little boy. You are most definitely no longer a baby - you know what you want, you know how to ask for it, and you have definite opinions if you don't get your way. We have started to have to discipline you a lot more because you have frequent meltdowns/tantrums over the most ridiculous things - i.e. I won't let you eat ice cream for breakfast, you have to put on a diaper, I take away the scissors, I played the wrong Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode, I give you milk to drink after you asked for milk to drink...you get the idea. You push limits and challenge us daily - a very normal and healthy thing, I know, but very challenging at the same time. We've started using the "Love & Logic" theories of giving strategic choices, and it works most of the time, but we occasionally just get "NO!" out of you when you don't want to do what we say. Then, we have to be the "bad guys" and force the issue which never ends well for anyone, so we are still working on it.

Let's talk routine - you have started going to bed and waking up a little bit later thanks to daylight savings, and we have decided to let that be. You go to bed between 8 and 8:30 at night and typically wake up between 7:15 and 7:30. On school days, you nap from about 12-2, and on weekends, you nap more like 1-3, but it's typically a good two-hour stretch. You have started sleeping with a pillow and blanket in your crib in preparation for the big boy bed transition (which I'm dreading), and I can't explain why watching you sleep on a pillow is so cute to me, but it just is.

You eat a LOT - usually three meals plus at least two or three snacks each day - and you drink even more! You LOVE any kind of sweet beverage - orange juice, apple juice, Fruitables boxes, Crystal Light fruit punch, lemonade, flavored milk, etc. You are pretty spotty on food, though, and you frustrate me with how finicky you can be. I've learned to accept that just because you loved a food yesterday doesn't mean you will eat it again today. Ugh. You refuse most meats, but your tried and true favorites that don't vary are fruit (you love them all - bananas, strawberries, applesauce, blackberries, peaches, oranges, cantaloupe, watermelon), french fries, tortilla chips, turkey dogs, rice, peas, yogurt, cheese, and any kind of sweet. You are currently obsessed with Oreos, but you really only want to eat the cream (which you call "meem"), and you love ice cream ("i-meam"). We've discovered you are pretty weird about combining any foods though - for example, you love tortilla chips and cheese separately, but when I make you cheese nachos, you won't touch them. Quirky little thing. Hopefully that's just a phase...

You are talking up a STORM! In the last month or so, you've started combining words together (ex: "mama car" or "basketball hoop"), and we've even caught a few very basic sentences lately. ("Carcar/I did it" or "Momo go too") You can count to ten in both Spanish and English and know all of your basic colors. You surprised me yesterday when you identified a few basic shapes - circle, square, heart, star - and you are starting to do more imaginative playing. You will take your helicopters or airplanes and "woosh" them around in the air as if they are flying.

You are definitely in a mine ("mise") phase, and you are obsessed with what belongs to who. You've also started wanting to "trade" with us - you want our fork if we get yours, for example. Odd, but at least you aren't just taking our stuff! :)

We are starting to wean you from the lovey by telling you that Momo is napping or not hungry or whatever - some days it works, some days it doesn't. We'll get there.

You are starting to like TV (praise Jesus!), and you love when we turn on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. You will also watch Elmo or Dora/Diego for short periods of time, but unless we sit there with you, it doesn't last long.

You are going to be the absolute BEST big brother. You know your sister's name and you love to draw her pictures and "pat" her in my tummy. I know you don't fully grasp what is about to happen, but given your age, I'm very impressed with what you DO understand. You can tell me where her room is and point to her in my belly. You gave her a kiss the other day which about melted my heart. Your newest cousin was born last week (Grant) and you were obsessed with him at the hospital. You gave him kisses and wanted to pat him and loved watching me giving him a bottle at your birthday party. You are going to be the sweetest when it's YOUR baby sister!

Love you, angel boy!

And she shall be called...

Kathryn Reese Ezell :) 

We have a name!! I finally committed to her name and ordered a monogrammed decal for above her bed last week. Kathryn is a family name on Blake's side (his grandmother's sister) and mine (my sweet cousin Katherine Lowrey), but we both liked the spelling of the Ezell's side better. Kathryn means "pure" which we also thought was a very sweet sentiment for a little girl. We will most likely call her Kate until she's old enough to have an opinion on that. :)

In choosing her name, we tried to keep in mind that we had honored my side of the family with Carter's middle name (Wade), so we wanted to honor his side with her name somehow, and Kathryn was definitely our favorite name on his side. As far as Reese goes, we instantly agreed that we both loved how modern it was and knew that would probably be her middle name regardless of the first...we were originally torn between Abigail, Hannah, Kathryn, and Caroline. I liked how her first name was somewhat of a throwback and Reese made it very modern. Her loopy, swirly monogram is SO cute. I cannot wait to post pictures once the nursery is done and it's on the wall!

24 Weeks

How far along: 24 Weeks

Baby’s size: ~12 inches and ~1.5 lbs (the size of an eggplant)

Maternity clothes: Oh, yes.

Sleep: Can't get enough! Beginning to feel tired a lot and REALLY struggling to get up in the mornings. 

Best moment of this week: Blake FINALLY felt her kicking last night! I've felt it for about 9 or 10 weeks now, but she has become very strong lately. Blake was finally patient enough last night to wait a few minutes with his hand on my belly, and she kicked her daddy for the first time. :) 

Miss anything: This is going to sound bad, but I would KILL for a margarita lately. Oh, and an extra cup of coffee or two in the mornings!

Food cravings: Mexican food, Mexican food, and more Mexican food! Plus sweets, soda, and strawberries - stereotypical girl, huh?

Queasy or sick?: Occasional headaches when I get tired, but not really!

Have you started to show yet?: Um...I'm huge. And have SO MUCH left to go! :/

Gender: Girl!

Belly button in or out: Out...very, very out.

Wedding rings on or off: On - this was never an issue with me while pregnant with Carter, so I'm hopeful that it won't be an issue now. 

Happy or moody most of the time: Mostly happy - I've found myself being a little more moody in the mornings or when I get tired. And I get annoyed...quickly...I sometimes feel bad for my morning classes. I'm just not a morning person.

Looking forward to: Hosting Carter's birthday party this weekend (HOW is he already TWO?!!) and being done with work! 5 more weeks!!!