Single Digits

In exactly nine days we will have another baby girl!

Nine days from this minute she'll be about 5 hours old and will have met a few family members and a friend or two. I'm excited to meet her, and almost just as excited to not be pregnant anymore. I've reached the I'm too big to enjoy sitting or standing or laying down stage. Isabella has run out of room and the familiar feeling of a small person pushing against my rib cage has returned. I don't know what it is about my girls but they have both loved camping out under my right ribs during the end of their stay in utero! I'm fully embracing nesting and even recruited Jared to help me wipe down doors and woodwork yesterday while Addiston took a nap. He had planned on having a nice relaxing afternoon of video games, but he obliged... I think he likes me!

With the to-do list about complete and the bags packed, the house ready and me feeling like I swallowed a watermelon whole things are pretty interesting around here. I hate to admit it but I feel like my fuse gets a little shorter the more uncomfortable I become. Jared has been a champ about telling when I've done enough and need to go rest or that he'll take over, and Addiston continues to amaze me with her genius (that she gets from her dad) and sweet spirit, but I know there are days when I am too harsh on her, or am to strict, to demanding about potty training, or finishing all of our vegetables. I know this is a phase (for both of us) and I remind myself of that often! Jill Churchill said, "there's no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."Sometimes, we will mess up. We'll flub up responses, reacting too harshly or not harsh enough. We'll yell when we should have hugged, lose our cool when we should have sighed and smiled, or retreat behind our bedroom door praying the kids won't find us when we should have faced our problems. But amidst all the chaos Addiston is at such a sweet stage and I don't want her milestones and sweet quirks to get overlooked through everything thats changing.

So just as much for myself as you I wanted to have a list of some Addy things, before she becomes a big sister!

-She's obsessed with stickers! They are golden. We used to give her a graham cracker for going on the big girl potty (she thought they were cookies) but now the best prize for potty success is glittery stickers.

-She has a little umbrella and has developed an obsession! Whenever it's even drizzling she requests one and disappears underneath it.



-The girl hates messes! On herself and in the house, if she's eating and gets food on her fingers she instantly puts down everything and asks for a napkin. It's precious! The other day Jared took her down in the toy room to watch veggie tales and she told him they had to clean up first because there were toys everywhere. She totally gets that from me, and while we both agree it's nice that she picks up he thinks it's a little crazy that she'd opt to clean before she gets to watch t.v

-She's a cuddler (and she gets that from the daddy!! I am NOT) every morning when the sun's up we let her come into our bed so she'll sleep/rest an hour or so longer and you better believe that whole hour she's attached to Jared.

-She loves cereal, she has it every night before bed, most mornings and if she spy's anybody in the house eating it she climbs up in your lap to steal some.



-She loves to sing & music of all sorts, some of her favorite songs are ABC's-which she can sing all by herself, Wheels on the bus-with motions, itsy bitsy spider, twinkle twinkle little star, and Jesus Loves Me. Sporadically throughout the week she asks for music and we dace around her room and ours.

-We read, A LOT! Probably 3 hours a day are spent reading. She has favorite books and books that she'd rather you just make up a story to because she likes the pictures, I get a crack out of her when she "reads" the story with me because she knows the book by heart. Some of her favorites right now are "I'm a new big sister," "Where's my truck?" The Bible-seriously, it's the sweetest thing! "Rise & Shine" and "I love you through and through"-we all have that one memorized, Jared can "read" it to her over the phone when he's on a work trip. 

-She still loves outside, it's been over 100 more days than I'd like to count the past month and our time outside has grown slimmer and slimmer but she loves it! 

-She's smart, like I'm her mom and I think she's of course the smartest kid there ever was but when random people who encounter her at church and out mention it I tend to believe them! She knows her ABC's, and can recognize all the letters individually, she knows all the colors, shapes, and fruits/vegetables, animals and their sounds, she can count to 14, she knows how to start a car-not that thats a good thing, she's grasping the concept of opposites and rhymes. 

-She loves to pray. The other day she prayed all by herself, for no reason, just sat down, folded her hands and muttered something I couldn't understand and shouted AMEN. It was by far the sweetest thing she's ever done. We pray before every mean and recently during meals as well. One morning we prayed between every bite of breakfast-it took an hour to finish the meal. She's discovered that prayer is one thing I won't say no to and when she's suppose to be in bed but not wanting to be she'll slip out of her room and ask me to "pray more"

We still are pretty stingy with what we let her eat. She rarely gets sugar, and never gets deep friend things. She gets to watch t.v once a day for less than an hour-except when I'm sick then she can watch a whole disney movie-if her patience allows. We're pretty firm on listening the first time you're told and she's no stranger to the time out chair. She has gotten one spanking-for running into the street. She can get pretty much anything out of Jared, he's a softy and knows it when it comes to her. 

I think she's going to be a great big sister. She's at a great stage, but I know that there will be an adjustment period. I know I'm going to have to remind myself that she's only two and not expect too much of her. But like Jill Churchill said, "there's no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one."

Addiston's big girl room

Well as many of you probably noticed and as my husband pointed out we took all most of Addiston's stuff to make Isabella's room. He was left feeling pretty guilty about the whole situation, where as I was excited to turn her room into a big girl room that I knew she would love.

It didn't happen in one fair swoop as I'd hoped it would, but isn't that how life goes? We plan for something, make preparations and then everything gets thrown all out of kilter?!? With the nursery being delayed in it's completion the nesting crazy mom-to-be in me wanted to get everything done I could. First things first we got rid of the crib, Addiston was so ready to be in a real bed and it really has made our lives a lot better (for those interested-NO she still doesn't sleep from the time we put her down till morning, she usually gets up at least once during the night but will simply come in our room to say "hi" and then Jared walks her back to bed-where she stays till sunrise, upon which she climbs into bed with us, since her room faces east and ours is completely blacked out!) At first we just threw a mattress on the floor and let her get used to the concept before we hoisted her 3 feet off the ground.



She is sleeping in my first "big girl bed" a day bed that my sister Heather and I shared at my dad's house and the bed that I slept in until the night before my wedding. My parents offered to upgrade my bed when I was in high school but I love that bed, and I love that Addiston loves it too. It did have it's fair share of dings and paint chips from being moved three or four times so I touched up the white parts and those bronze parts on the posts used to be brass, so it has had a minor facelift!

The second thing to go was her dresser, I was anxious to start washing baby clothes that had been in storage for nearly two years while I still had energy and could carry and laundry basket up and down stairs. I needed a place to put all these clean clothes so one afternoon we pulled the ol' switch-er-oo.
This dresser is low and Addiston loves that she the top, and see in all the drawers. We found it online and I refinished it to match her room.



Jared's parents got Addiston this sweet rocking chair for her 2nd Birthday. She loved to sit in the glider rocker with me and read and I knew that was going to be her biggest adjustment at having her room redone. Luckily she is in love with this little "addy sized" chair and I find her sitting in it several times a day reading to her dolls.

The rest of the room took some careful matching of shades of pink, Addiston's room was very carefully painted to match the nursery bedding and I didn't want to change it or move her to a new room and while I love the shades of pink in there, they are more of a dusty rose and peony pink as opposed to the bubble gum-hot pink that is so easy to find in little girl decor.



She loves her new room and hasn't once gone into Isabella's room and said or even eluded to the fact that just about everything in there used to be hers. We've worked really hard to try and squash the m-i-n-e word that she picked up from her cousins. I don't know if her easing going-ness will change once there is actually a baby sister here using all of the furniture but for now we're happy, and so is she!

Oh and she got a new chandelier too...gotta love the vaulted ceilings that let me do frilly stuff to my girls rooms!

Isabella's Nursery

So In just a few short weeks our sweet little one will be joining us and with the light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter and brighter the type A side of me has been getting more and more stressed at her room not being complete.

I know she won't sleep in there for a good 6-8 weeks and that she wouldn't know the difference if it were still bright orange with flecks of army green showing through but I'll know and thats apparently good enough for Jared! :) (or maybe it was the to-do lists that kept popping up all over the house!) Either way it's done and I love it!

My dad-who painted Addiston's room, said that he would come down and paint Isabella's room as part of my birthday present, he's a pro and can do a better job than Jared or I and in half the time.  I was thrilled to have him and Jared was thrilled to get out of painting. The week before he was scheduled to come my mom broke her ankle so his trip got delayed...8 weeks. A few of my sweet friends offered to come paint the room for him since they know how I can be, but I declined and waited for my dad to come down.

He and my grandmother came down the week before Addiston's Birthday and not only did he paint a formerly bright orange room a beautiful shade of champaign but he painted it again when I decided that the color I had originally chosen was just a hint too light! (Yes sometimes pregnancy does make you irrational!) Thanks Dad!

We are using the same crib and bedding for Isabella as we did for Addiston, so it looks similar but I think it's just different enough. Jared has been feeling a little guilty about "stealing" all of Addiston's nice stuff but she has gotten new "big girl" furniture-which will be shown at a later date!

Incase you don't remember here was Addiston's nursery


Here is Isabella's









Where I'm told Addiston will read to her baby sister!

I got a lot of my idea's for the room on Pinterest.

Pink ceiling!

tree/shelf

When we first saw our house, we both said that this would be the first room that was re-done, it was a boys room, painted bright orange (and only one coat) so the previous two colors shown through. ICK! Well as it turns out it has been our second to last room on the remodel list, only leaving the master bath-which we won't be touching for a while! I know we are both relieved that Isabella's room is done. Now all that's missing is the baby girl to go in it!

9 months

Today starts my ninth month of Pregnancy. I'm measuring a week smaller than I should be but I've held steady on weight gain and measurements this whole pregnancy so the doctors aren't worried. Here's a brief overview of this pregnancy.


4 months


5 months


6 months


7 months


8 months


9 months

In just 27 short days we will have another baby, and officially be a family of four.  I'm excited to meet our new little one, I wonder if she'll look like Addiston or have her own unique style and I can't wait to see what Addy thinks of her.

False Alarm

This past weekend we decided it was a good idea to make the 8 hour trek to Ohio. Leaving Thursday afternoon we ventured to Cincinnati where we had a layover at my parents house and I got my fill of Cincinnati food that I had been craving. Friday morning I got to go wedding dress shopping with my big sister, and while I can't post a picture (because those sorts of things are suppose to be a surprise) her dress is beautiful! Friday afternoon we continued our venture to Jared's family.



Saturday afternoon was Kara's (Jared's sister) Bridal shower. A ton of people came out, and she got a lot of really nice things!



I may have overdone it with the shopping and shower helping because towards the end of the shower I started to have contractions. I have had these a few times so I more or less ignored them and continued doing whatever I wanted. Oops! Probably not the best idea, because my contractions continued and got stronger and closer together. After 6 hours Jared and I decided it was time to throw in the towel and after a call to my doctor and consulting some of my mom friends we headed home.

Hoping to make it the whole 8 hour trip Jared stocked up on sunflower seeds, coffee and some strange sort of energy drink (the one that promotes his favorite video game) after about 2 1/2 hours in the car I turned on the heated seat and as luck would have it that helped slow my contractions. 90 minutes later we felt safe enough to stop at my parents house for some rest.

Sunday morning we headed South and when we finally arrived home I was still having contractions, not regular but still pretty strong, some friends came over to watch Addiston so we could both go to the hospital per my doctors advice.



After a few hours and a few tests, we were told I needed to take it easy and that a 16 hour road trip at 35 weeks pregnant probably wasn't my best idea! I'm doing much better now, still the occasional reminder that I'm carrying another human around and need to slow down but in our panic of Isabella joining us early we did get a few things done!