Second Tri Second Time

Hello second trimester! I am not surprised that this milestone snuck up on me. Between the last few days of the pregnancy hangover feeling, school, the girl, the husband, the house, and the dogs I haven't had much time to actually think about being pregnant. Thank goodness for this nifty Ovia app that keeps me up to date on what is going on because I definitely don't have time to read any books or calculate how far along I am this time around. It is strange how this pregnancy feels like it is creeping along and flying by all at the same time. Before we know it we will be rolling past Christmas and if you are a teacher you know it is all down hill from there. I know I wrote last time all about how different this pregnancy is from last time, but it is so true. Everything is different from what I am wearing this time around to how I forget every week to take my weekly belly pictures this time. I have maybe taken 3 or four pictures this time compared to the religious weekly pictures I took last time around. The good news is both kids will be equal on baby books because I still haven't finished Mckinley's and I might make one for the sweet pea. 

The 4 pictures I have taken over the last 14 weeks. 

I started this new chapter of this pregnancy with a bang or maybe I should say an itch last night when I forgot to take my gluten free soy sauce to the sushi restaurant last night. I decided to say screw it let's dance gluten and I bet you can guess who won that fight. Good news is no hives just some swollen red and lots of itching. A little Benadryl and I slept better than I have slept in the last 3 months. It is funny to think how differently I ate during my last pregnancy. I wasn't yet aware of what was making me miserable and itchy and it wasn't until Mckinely was about 2 that everything changed.  Now that the thought and smell of food doesn't make me want to run screaming out of the room I can hopefully get back to eating healthier. I am definitely in a better place than I started when I got pregnant with Mckinley and I am hoping my eating habits and activity level this time will help me not gain 50 lbs. this time. 

So far this week I feel as close to normal as you can possibly feel while growing a human in your uterus. I do get pretty tired a few days a week, but I will take a little tired over completely exhausted any day. I still haven't felt any movement that I can recall. I have had a few tickles here and there but nothing I would consider as big movements. Hopefully in the next few weeks this baby will give me some reassurance that he or she is doing ok in there. I go back to the dr. next week so I am praying for a nice strong heartbeat. My next appt. after that will be an ultrasound appointment and we are hoping to see which name we will be choosing come April/May. I am still trying to figure out how to break the news to everyone, but I haven't decided on anything just yet. Last time I made cupcakes after we found out to share with our family over dinner, but this time I want to let Mckinley be a part of the celebration. 

If anyone has any good ideas send them my way because this mamma was up all night and stuck at home today with my sickly coughing first born and I am bored out of my mind!! Hopefully baby doesn't mind the three cups of coffee I snorted today!

This Time Around

Everyone has told me over and over again how each pregnancy is completely different and I can definitely tell you this is true. I am not sure if it is because they truly are different or if you just handle things differently the second time around because you have suffered through it all already and you now know what to expect. During my first pregnancy I remember every new experience being wonderful and magical. I read every book, knew what fruit baby was the size of, and wrote down every little detail. This time around this kid is lucky if I get to sit still long enough to remember  how far along I am. Thankfully there is an app for that. I have gone back and reread some of my blog posts I wrote during my first pregnancy and it has been interesting to compare how things are different this go-round.

Sleep

First Pregnancy-During my first pregnancy In my first trimester of course I was exhausted. I would come home everyday after school and pass out  nap on the couch. I had no one to care for (I didn't forget about you Brent you just could care for yourself) and all the time in the world to sleep. I slept great through the first and second trimester and of course once my need to pee every  minutes and my belly got bigger sleep became virtually nonexistent.

Second Pregnancy- ha ha ha nap what's a nap?!?! This time I come home everyday and have another person to keep alive and happy so napping is completely out of the question.i am not going to lie, I have played many many board games in the bed and bribed the girl to snuggle with me in bed with me and watch Frozen and Cinderella. As far as sleep goes this time around I have basically slept like crap from the beginning. I am having crazy hormone dreams that are waking me up several times a night along with the need to pee. I have involuntarily passed twice now and slept for about 13 hours, but I am hopeful things are on the upswing.

Morning Sickness

First Pregnancy- Last time I remember feeling sick from the time I woke up to the time I fell asleep. I only got sick once but I just felt like I was dying all day long. I still have no clue how no one realized something was going on. I ate chip and drank ginger ale all day long.

Second pregnancy- This time I have actually felt relatively good every other day. Going to work actually helps and keeps my mind off of the I want to die feeling this time around. I have definitely eaten my fair share of potato chips this time around, but baked potatoes and french fries have been my mainstay on the days nothing else has sounded good. Sadly I mistook the stomach virus for the beginning of my morning sickness at around 6 weeks I had been feeling great and then all of a sudden I was getting sick all day. I toughed it out and worked a full day with a smile on my face and sadly it wasn't until the girl got sick later that day that I realized I was a pregnant fool.Thankfully my dr. gave me some amazing medicine that has gotten me through the worst of it, but I still have my days where all I want to eat is a biggie fry and only drink sprite 

Body
 
First pregnancy- Last time my belly popped around 15 weeks. I ate eggo waffles and peanut butter all day long and was just down right unhealthy. I wasn't working out because I had ovarian cysts before getting pregnant that made me feel like I was going to pass out if I did any major movements so I was on a sad pregnant rollercoaster.

Second pregnancy- This time my weight gain is already much slower and I am all around much healthier. Before becoming pregnant I 80/20 paleo which meant I wasn't eating any processed foods and was much healthier to begin with. was The past few weeks I have eaten a lot more carb laden foods because it was the only thing my body could dtand to look at. I am slowly returning to my paleo ways and am now craving fruits, celery with ranch dressing, my mom's homemade soup, and spicy Indian and Thai food. I have only gained 2 lbs. at 13 weeks, but my belly has definitely popped and depending on the day the belly bloat can make me look way more than 3 months pregnant.

12 weeks with Mckinley and sweet pea

So far this pregnancy has felt like a lifetime, but I am hoping all of the holidays coming up and the fact that I have no time to even remember that I am pregnant will help these next few months fly by. Until then I will continue having my panicky moments that the baby actually has to come out and the rest of my time praying for a healthy and safe pregnancy and delivery. Thankfully we have already gotten back our first tri screenings and everything is normal so that is a huge weight off of our shoulders.

No matter the difference between the two I can't wait to meet this sweet pea and fall in love with whoever he or she will be. 

Here We Go Again

Yesterday we finally broke the big news that we would be welcoming a new member to Team D. My due date is April 30 so we could have an April or a May baby so we will just have to wait and see if this pregnancy is similar to Mckinley's and I go over or if things are different. Either way I pray I don't go into labor during school!! 

We are so excited to add this new member to our family. Life is definitely going to be more interesting and I can't wait to see how this tiny little person adds to the dynamic of our little family. 

No one is more excited than Mckinley. She is already telling everyon le that she is the big sister. The night we told her we were snuggling in bed and talking and she asked me if God had really put a baby in my belly. Then she later her head on my stomach and said she could hear the babies heart beeping (beating). I just love her so much and I can't wait to see how she handles this big change. 

We have already started talking about how things will be different but the big things we will try to keep the same. One thing I know we will work very hard to continue is our nighttime bedtime routine.  I used to put Mckinley to bed each night but I felt like Brent was missing out on this so we starte tag teaming it. Now Brent reads the books and I snuggle and say prayers with her before she lays down for the night. We are going to try our best to continue this because it is such an important part of our day so we will just trade off and maybe move bedtime around to make sure we can still get all of our snuggles in. 

It has been interesting to see how different this pregnancy is than when I was pregnant with Mckinley. I have definitely had many days where I have felt hungover, but for the most part it has been an easy pregnancy so far. It is definitely different being pregnant he second time around especially with your first born wanting to play my little ponies and Uno everyday. 

I haven't taken any belly pictures yet because nothing has really changed. Once I pop I will try to take weekly pictures again. I love looking back on my pictures and seeing how my belly grew and changed. 

I am not sure when we will find out what baby D is, but I go back in 2 weeks to take a peek and do some tests. I will only be 12 weeks which is usually too early to tell. Mckinley of course wants a girl baby and mommy would love a boy baby, but a sister would be fun and easy because we have soooooooo much girl stuff. 

Now all we can do it sit and wait to find out and pray I keep feeling good. Wish us luck and send any advice you have for raising 2 kids (gulp)!

Feeling All The Feals

My sweet sweet girl started 4k this past week and I am not sure how I feel about this. I think her birthday and the beginning of the school year being so close together is just too much for this mamma to handle. To make things worse when it was time for her to go to her classroom she started running out of the room without a kiss or goodbye and I had to force her to come back and act like she loves me more than school. I guess I should be happy she loves school and doesn't mind leaving me but she could atleast pretend like she is a little sad to go. 

 I can't believe how much my baby has grown since the first day of school last year! She has lost so much of her baby face and is really starting to look like a big girl. 

I know she is going to have an amazing year with Mrs. Nicole and Mrs. Veronica!

Fail To Plan. Plan To Fail

Holy cow Inservice starts this week!!!!! Which means school starts next week!!! I feel like there is so much to do in my classroom and there isn't enough time before now and then to get everything ready!! I have list upon list of things to do I am so ready to start checking things off!

Before I wrap my head around the upcoming school year with coaching cross country and getting the girl to soccer practice I have to remember to feed myself and my family. That means it is time to get back to meal planning and putting together my freezer meals because for some reason having everything all planned and written out just gives me a sense of calm and peace in this mess I call my brain.

I have already purchased all of the ingredients for 8 meals (5 dinners and 3 lunches) so we are off to a good start for the first few weeks of school. Some of these meals I will also be splitting in half and swapping with my friend who is a making a bunch of meals so we can swap. That means I will have at east 12 meals that I don't have to think about! If you can find a friend to swap meals with I highly recommend it. You get a variety of meals and it is fun to get together to swap meals, grill yummy food, and drink yummy drinks.

To make things even easier on myself I have a very loose schedule of what types of meals I make each day which helps me plug everything into my nifty difty handy dandy dry erase calendar. Every Monday I use one of my crock pot freezer meals because it is Monday and I am usually exhausted on Mondays plus the fact that it is Monday makes me sad so I want to make everything as easy as possible. Tuesday is Taco Tuesday and we typically make turkey tacos or chicken fajitas or some sort of stir fry this day. Wednesday we have spaghetti or some sort of pasta (zucchini noodles with chicken meatballs, inside outside ravioli, etc). Thursday is typically another crock pot day because it is the end of the week and I don't really feel like cooking. Friday isn't really planned out because we usually have leftovers or we have date night so we usually grill out and every now and then we go out. This is a very tentative schedule and we throw in a meatless night every now and then to shake things up.

I shopped at Costco and Kroger to collect everything I needed and since I already had all of the spices, gluten free soy sauce, and the chicken for the fajitas I am not including them in my Grocery List and final total

What I am making

Beef and Broccoli
Mongolian Beef
Pepper Steak
Chicken Fajitas
Stuffed Pepper Soup
Sweet Potato Chili
Hamburger Soup 
Zucchini Noodles With Pesto and Chicken Meatballs

 What I Bought

8 lbs. Ground Turkey $20.00
4 lbs. Flank Steak $32.81
Ground Chicken $3.99
Pesto $5.39
3 Yellow Onions $1.21
1 Purple Onion $.79
Tomato Sauce $7.99
Diced Tomatoes $5.99
4 Boxes Beef Broth $8.37
Bag of Carrots $1.99
2Red, 2 Green, 2 Yellow Bell Peppers $7.58
Bag Red Potatoes $2.00
Bag Sweet Peppers $4.99
Frozen Bag Broccoli $1.50
4 Zucchini $1.93
4 Sweet Potatoes $2.97
Balsamic Vinegar $4.99
Sesame Oil $3.99
Almond Meal $7.99

What I Spent 
 $126.47

Tomorrow to save my sanity while cooking I am taking my child to the redbox and letting her pick 2 new movies which I will let her binge watch while I cook, prep, and bag everything! Typically I would be doing all of this on the weekend while Brent is home, but I know my child and if I don't entertain her somehow she will ask me every 5 seconds when I will be done cooking so we can play hungry hungry hippos. Now don't get me wrong I absolutely love playing with my girl and we spend most of our time at home playing hide-n-seek, hungry hungry hippos, hi-ho cherry-o, sneaky snacky squirrel, puzzles, my little ponies, to name just a few things. Tomorrow I need about 2 hours of non interrupted cooking time so I figured I could let her watch a couple movies for a few hours kind of like how I am watching The Office right now.

Wish me luck and  pray the girl picks 2 really good movies and lets me cook and drink a few cups of coffee for a little while.


 

Summer Lovin

Summer break is coming to an end and the new school year is approaching all to quickly. Before we jump headfirst back into our routine I wanted to share a little bit of the fun we have had during our time off.

I am so very thankful that I have a job that lets me spend all summer with my favorite girl and this summer has by far been my favorite. Now that my girl has made it around the sun one more time I can reflect back on  our previous summers and why this one has been the best so far. For me this summer has been the best because this age has been the best for us.Our first summer was spent trying to survive as new parents, our second summer was spent running around half naked because we were potty training, and last summer she was 2 so that speaks for itself. We never had knock down drag out terrible two's, but 2 was definitely the longest year for us because we did suffer through about 2 months of tantrums which made me think we might never have another kid. Thankfully looking back I realize we made it out alive and it really wasn't that bad so maybe we won't make her be an only child.

This summer was so relaxing and so much fun! It may or may have been because we didn't have to drag a ton of stuff around with us and could just get up and go without a lot of thought and preparation. To start off our super fun summer we made a summer bucket list of things we wanted to do and I think we did a pretty good job of having fun as we possibly could this summer. 

We started off our summer slow and easy

We built every type of fort we could possibly build.

 

We spent many many days at The Children's Museum with Yaya

 We also spent many many many days at the zoo 

 

 

We traveled to Nashville 

 And then we brought Nashville to us

I think my favorite part of summer was our week at the beach. We hadn't been since mom was sick and before Mckinley was one so it was really special to get to spend this time with our entire family and it was so much fun watching the girl really enjoy herself this time.

Last summer Mckinley took swimming lessons, but I wasn't too happy about their technique of basically forcing the kids to do things so this summer we decided to let her get go at her own pace and now I can happily say my four year old can swim. She still needs to grow a little bigger so she can touch the bottom, but this kid has turned into a fishy this summer.

 Besides all of the fun we had this summer we also have to talk about the fact that we just celebrated my girl's 4th birthday which I am still trying to pretend like I didn't happen!!!

 How oh how is this precious angel already four. I still remember everything about the day I had her so there is no way it was four years ago! We had a small party at our house with pizza and princess cupcakes and spent the day with our family at the Children's Museum and it was perfect!

This summer has seemed so long, but now that it is almost over it feels like it went by way too fast. I don't know if next year can live up to this one, but we will sure try to make it just as special.

 We have definitely had as much non napping, wet hair, red cheeked fun that we could possibly have summer!! I can't wait to see what next summer brings!!

Life Lately

We try to spend as much time as we can with our families which is pretty easy to do since they all live relatively close by. The grandparental's are always requesting sleepovers with the wild child so she gets spoiled by one set or the other practically every weekend. Now that it is summer time we are spending even more time with family especially my mom since she is a crazy get up and goer like us. We have also tried to squeeze in as many play dates and grill outs with friends to squeeze every bit of fun out of this summer.

We met up with some girlfriends and their little for a Day of Merry Making at a local park and even though it was blazing hot we still had a blast.

Good food, cold drinks, and ice cream for the kids = parental relaxation time

What we do any day we don't have anything else to do. This girl has definitely gained confidence in the water this summer. We decided not to take swimming lessons and I feel like that was the best decided for us. We really didn't care for the forceful way they made her do things she didn't want to do and it made her more afraid of the water. Maybe she was too little or maybe they were really mean, but for us swim lessons did more harm then good. This kid is now a fish and has developed an obsession with the water and she will swim without her puddle jumper when she is stronger and ready.

We recently bought a bike trailer off of a local resale sight and plan on doing some family bike riding on our local green line. It has been a little too hot lately and we have had plans already set every weekend so we are hoping to hit the road soon. We have been practicing in our neighborhood just to get the feel of things and someone has definitely been enjoying the ride.

Mckinley has also been practicing riding her bike with Papa and Yaya and she has gotten pretty good at it. She also got a new to her red flyer for our house and has been flying around the house past few weeks and terrorizing the dogs.

Water balloons with Car Car and Nonni

We have made quite a few blanket forts which are perfect for eating picnic lunches and watching movies with popcorn.

Zoo day with the boys

God bless the bounce house!

I am still not sure if she enjoyed The Pink Palace or was terrified by it.

 

I am going to go with terrified

 Splash pads and snacks

We are still soaking up every minute of this summer break and have so many more fun things planned!

Squeaky Clean Jelly Bean

We are only 4 days into summer break and I am already exhausted from my girl asking me when we are going here or there. I racked my brain to come up with something that would help her not make me crazy everyday and I finally thought maybe if she had her own calendar she would stop asking me 20 times a day when we were going to camp. We ran to target hoping to find a poster board calendar like you might find at a school supply store, but of course that wasn't available and I knew we would have to make what we wanted. I wanted to let Mckinley pick everything out to make it more fun and to make her think this was all her idea because that is sometimes the only way to get them to do what you want. Once we found the poster board section I could see the gleam in her eye when she spotted the shiny silver hologram poster and I just knew that monstrosity would be hanging in my kitchen. Next we had to figure out a way to put all of our info. on our calendar but it had to be easy to move around and change since our plans always seem to change as soon as we make them. Thankfully we found a small pack of colorful sticky notes which would be perfect for color coding activities for the girl and easy to remove when our plans change. Last, but not least we had to figure out how we would section everything out and that was when I spied the washi tape section and prayed the girl didn't choose the hot pink leopard tape. Thankfully she chose the perfect accompaniment for her super shiny poster board and highlighter colored sticky notes, the polka dotted washi tape (My girl fears no pattern). Now that we had all of our supplies and I found a new bathing suit cover for our beach trip we were ready to head home and get to work.

Someone was really hungry when we finally got home so after our inaugural summer break lunch picnic we were ready to go.  

cantaloupe, grapes, pepperoni, a chocolate peanut butter sandwich (Justin's hazelnut butter), Cheetos puffs, and taco soup

 Now that the girl was fed we could get to work on our new calendar. I started off by deciding how it would be layed out. I knew I wanted an area to write the month, a row for the days of the week, and enough rows, to make an entire month. I also wanted it to do a little double duty and created a place to add some chores in for the girl. The green sticky notes are days not filled with activities just yet, orange sticky notes are the days we have summer camp, pink sticky notes are days we are hanging out with friends or going special places like the zoo, and blue sticky notes are swim days. So far the color coded system has really helped Mckinley be able to decipher what we are doing each day and not ask me over and over again We have already added and changed a few activities and the sticky notes have made it very easy to change things up without having to redo the entire board.

As I mentioned earlier we have started incorporating a few ways for Mckinley to help us around the house and these things have just happened naturally because she, as most little kids do, love to help. Their idea of help may not be exactly what the parents had in mind and may seem more like a nuisance when you want to get tasks done quickly, but the more you let hem help the more they will want to do and it won't be a struggle when you ask hen to help later on. We started with simple tasks that she requested to help with like stirring batters, washing bowls (I pre washed them just to make sure they were really clean), making the beds, and her favorite task sorting the utensils which does double duty because she is helping with the household cleanup, learning of help, and learning how to sort objects with differences in size and use. I am still helping her with many of these tasks, but as she gets more efficient I will let her do more and more by herself. 

 It's funny how so many things I use at school carry over into my home life. I was trying to figure out how we could mark when McKinley does each of her chores and my awesome sister suggested using clothes pins like I use at school so McKinley could be on charge of marking each one which is another twofold skill. She is using her fine motor skills to squeeze each clip and she is learning to be independent by making sure we are completing each task. To me is doesn't matter  if she does everything perfectly it just matters that she is learning to help and having fun.