Hollon Elizabeth

Hollon Elizabeth Bush was born on Tuesday, August 26, 2014 at 12:51 PM. Everything went smooth with her delivery and my c-section. She weighed 6 lbs & 15 ounces and was 20 inches long. She has black hair and blue eyes, but I know both of those can change in infants (I had black hair when I was born as well). We went home on Thursday and we are all adjusting well. Jake is liking being a big brother so far. He is the expert on Hollon (according to him) and loves to give her kisses.   

I will be back soon with pictures and her birth story. In the meantime, my sister took these pictures (click here) when she came down to visit us in the hospital. Her pictures look a million times better than mine anyway!

Thank you to everyone for the calls, emails, texts, visits and prayers. We are blessed to have such a wonderful support system. Can't wait to be back soon to tell you all about our little girl!

Night Before Hollon Comes

I was going to post pictures of her nursery, but they were taking forever to load, so those will just have to come later. While I was waiting for Jake's weekend pictures to load, I was looking back at another online album that had our ultrasound pictures in it. Our first one with Hollon was at five weeks, back in December. That seems like so long ago, but yet just yesterday. This journey has been so much longer than just the 9 months of carrying Hollon. It goes back to that first ectopic pregnancy, then that year of struggle to get pregnant, then followed by a miscarriage and then another year of struggle to get pregnant. Even when we got pregnant with Hollon, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I wouldn't feel comfortable until we could hear the heartbeat. Then it was make it to 12 weeks. Then it was to get past the 20 weeks tests. Then I was worried about making it full term. I'd love to say that she'll come tomorrow and then all my worry will be over. 

But it doesn't ever go away, you just worry more!

I love her so much. I cried for her, I prayed for her, I feared she might not ever come. But the Lord heard my cries and answered. Maybe not exactly the way I thought he would or in my timing, but he did it his way in his timing and was always there with us. Just as I know he will be with us tomorrow. I am so excited to meet this little girl. Who knows what her future holds, but I do know two things. She has a Heavenly Father who formed her and made her before we even knew of her and he loves her so much. And she has a family, that will love, support and protect her fiercely. And she was the missing piece from our hearts and our family.

Welcome Home Hollon  

Last Weekend as an Only Child

Since this was Jake's last weekend as our only child, we tried to plan as much fun things as possible (because nothing makes you enjoy a sibling like having a really fun weekend followed by many more bored at home with a newborn).

After I picked up Jake from school on Friday, we went & got ice cream.

He ate about 5 bites and then said he was full.
So we brought it home for daddy for when he got off work.

 That night, we had a picnic upstairs, built a tent & watched any movies, Jake's choice. (He picked Jungle Book 1 & Jungle Book 2) 

On Saturday, we took him to Chuck-E-Cheese

You can barely see it on the screen, but his face was the cartoon character's

He wanted dad to play anything possible with him

My Trip to Chuck E. Cheese

Both Robbie & Jake were starting to come down with something (well, Jake had it first and then gave it to Robbie over the weekend). So we tried to let them relax & rest some and build back up their immune system for the rest of the weekend (because nothing keeps you healthy like a trip to Chuck E. Cheese). They both still have a little cough, but are getting better. They should be all ready for Tuesday!

Jake seemed to have a really good weekend, I hope so. He really is excited about having a baby sister, but I know it will wear off quickly (as soon as he stops getting big brother toys). He was our first born, our only child for over 5 years. He has had my whole heart. I'm excited to see our love expand and multiple when little sister comes along.

But he will always be my #1 bestest little boy.

Weekend in Review (plus a day or two)

On Thursday, Jake's football team had a scrimmage. Jake's team is made up of K & 1st graders all under 70 pounds. The team they were practicing against was 2nd & 3rd graders under 80 pounds. We of course got beat, but held our own. (When the regular season starts, we will only play other K/1st grade teams.) Watching these little kids run around in football uniforms is hilarious. 

Jake is #44. (No, he is not that tiny! #50 for us is our largest player)

Jake plays center, so you can't see him, but he is the one snapping the ball to the quarterback.

Jake & I had the whole weekend to ourselves (Robbie was still away traveling.) Friday night, we had dinner with Mimi & Granddad and then Saturday morning, Jake had football weigh-in. (They have to make sure all of the kids in Jake's division are 70 pounds or less.) We were there for an hour to do something that basically took 5 seconds. And parents had to wait outside, so we were standing in the hot sun for an hour. Fun times.  

Afterwards, we ran some errands and then came home. I promised Jake that I'd watch a movie with him. We both feel asleep 5 minutes into the movie (around 5:00). Jake ended up not waking up until Sunday morning. He was one tired little boy!

On Sunday, daddy came home. YEAH! (Which he is back traveling this week, but after he gets home this week, no more travel for a while!) I finished up the last piece of furniture for the nursery. Everything is almost complete. We just have to hang the curtains and things on the walls. Once things are hung, I'll do a blog post on the nursery. 

 On Monday, I had my last doctor's appointment. Which also means my last NST. 

No more monitors like this at doctor's appointments

And no more contraptions hooked up to my belly! 

Robbie gets back into town Thursday and Jake has a jamboree football game Thursday night. Also my mom is coming Thursday & Friday to learn our routine, since she'll hold down the fort & Jake while we are at the hospital next week. We have a special weekend planned to do lots of fun things with Jake and then on Tuesday, we finally meet baby sister. Can't believe we are only 6 days away!

1st Week of Kindergarten

I meant to write this on Saturday, but that of course didn't happen. I do want to make sure I write it though, because I want to remember Jake's first full week of school.

Monday - He was really excited Monday afternoon because they got to visit the library. The library is one of the things Jake was looking most forward to. Considering in 5 years, I've took him to the library once, I'm not sure he gets the love of a library from me. I give that credit to my mom who is a retired children's librarian. She had built him a pretty nice book collection before he was even born and has added to it since. Because he had so many books, we read a good bit. Jake loves for you to read to him. The librarian read the book Pete the Cat Goes to School. That is one of Jake's favorite books anyway, so that was icing on the cake for him. And I'm sure he didn't interrupt the librarian not even once to tell what happens next (which is one of his favorite things to do when I read to him). The only thing he was disappointed with, is that they didn't get to check out a book.

Tuesday - They got to visit the computer lab. He thought it was okay, but was disappointed that they didn't get to play any games and there were a lot of rules. (Which he couldn't remember any of them, so that's a great sign.)

Wednesday - Finally on Wednesday they had a lunch that I thought he would eat, so I let him buy his lunch from the lunchroom. Getting the whole thing setup was a disorganized nightmare, but that's a story for another day. Just in case something happened & Jake couldn't buy his lunch that day, I sent a lunch as back up. The lunchroom menu was cheeseburger or corn dogs, with the sides french fries, apples, & salad. I knew Jake would eat the cheeseburger, fries & apples. When I picked him up from school, I asked how eating the lunchroom food was (he has been so excited about it). He said he ate all of his fries & apples, but he didn't eat the corndog. I asked him why he didn't get a cheeseburger & he said they didn't have any. He said they gave him a corndog. He said he smelled it and didn't like it, so he didn't eat it. So basically he had fries & apples for lunch. As soon as we got home, he ate everything I had packed in his lunchbox. He told me the next day maybe I could just send his lunchbox. So the lunchroom food has lost its appeal after one day. I'll still let him eat in the lunchroom when they have food I think he'll like, but I'm at least glad to know I won't be fired for sending his lunchbox now.

Thursday - I knew this day would come at some point & I've been dreading it. The day Jake cries and says he doesn't want to go to school. He had been fine all morning. As soon as we turn into school, he says he is scared. I ask him of what, and he says he doesn't know. I give him a nice speech, I ask him some questions to see if I could figure out if he was really scared of something or was just being dramatic. Jake has a history of doing this. He did it in daycare, preschool & camp. He'll just randomly one day cry before dropoff and say he wants to stay home with me (aka - stay home & watch tv & eat snacks all day while mom works). As soon as he realizes the tears won't work, 5 minutes after I leave, he is playing and has a great day. It's like he just likes to test us at random times to see if it will work. So this isn't my first rodeo with this game. But it's a whole different game when it's big kid school. By this point, we are far enough in carpool line, that he has to get out. That's when the tears start falling and he is crying saying he wants to go with me. Even though he has done this before, when I've left him, it has been in the arms of his teacher. You can't walk them in at Jake's school and we had a line of cars behind us waiting for us to move on so they could drop off their kids. So I had to just tell him that he had to be a big boy and everything would be fine and I'd pick him up in the afternoon. Thankfully one of the carpool monitors saw him, and held his hand and walked him into school. As she was walking him away, he turned around and looked at me with tears falling down his cheeks. I'm not going to lie, it wasn't my proudest moment, but I burst into tears crying. (I'm going to blame it on being 9 months pregnant.) I quickly jump in my car, so I don't embarrass myself in front of others with my uncontrollable sobbing. It is a wonder that I didn't have a wreck on the way home, I was crying so hard. It broke my heart and it was all I could think about all day. Needless to say, I was one of the first cars there that afternoon for pickup. When I pick Jake up, he hops in my car, happy as can be. I asked him if he had a good day & he says yes. I ask him why did he cry when I dropped him off & he says he doesn't know. He just wanted to stay home with me. He says he likes school, he had fun and he is not scared. So I guess everything is fine. Until the next time he tries this.

Friday - After cry-gate on Thursday, I was nervous about Friday morning. Usually Jake tests the crying game 2 mornings in a row. The one saving grace was his new tennis shoes were delivered Thursday evening. Jake was so excited about them. The bad news was that they were a half size too small. They just did fit, but I knew he'd outgrow them in just a few months. So I planned on sending them back and ordering a half size larger. I had hid them Thursday night in hopes he would forget about them and just wear his old shoes on Friday. Friday morning, I made the horrible mistake of answering a few work emails before I left to take Jake to school. Once I start working, the emails flood in and it is so hard to just walk away. I knew I was pushing it on our time to leave. I finally just walk away from my computer. Everything was all ready for us to walk out the door, I knew I just had to put Jake's shoes on. When I walk downstairs, he has already found the new tennis shoes and put them on. I try to convince him that we need to send them back and get a bigger size, but he refuses, and states they fit perfectly. I try bargaining with him and everything, and nothing works. We are now 10 minutes past the time we need to leave. I was going to have to pry those new shoes off his feet. (To add a fun element to this story, Robbie was out of town, so I was holding down the fort for 4 days on my own.) I don't know if it was the "right" decision or not, but I let him keep the shoes. I mean, they fit. I just don't know for how long. But considering his tennis shoes from last year were worn out by the time Christmas came, there are worse things in life than having to buy 2 pair of tennis shoes in the same school year. As a parent, you just have to sometimes make the decision that is right for that moment. I'm sure there are some that would say I made the wrong decision by giving in, but for the sanity of both of us in that moment on that day, it was the right decision for us. And thankfully we made it to school just before the tardy bell (I mean, how embarrassing to be tardy in the first full week of school?!?!).

So I count the first full week of school as a success. Especially considering we had football 3 of those nights and Robbie was out of town 3 of those days. We only had tears once (by Jake, mom was a different story) and at the end of the week Jake was still happy & liking school.

On Friday, he was telling me how much he liked school. He said "We had a good week mom, I love school. Is it over now?". I had to break it to him. It WAS over for 2 days, but he'd have to go back on Monday. For this year, and the next 12 years.  

Baby Update

Last week, we had our 36 week appointment and had an ultrasound. I was super excited because we haven't had an ultrasound since 20 weeks. With Jake, because of complications, we had so many ultrasounds, I got to see really good pictures of his face & profile. So I was excited to see this baby's. Of course all I was able to see was a great shot of the back of her head. The ultrasound tech got great shots of everything she needed to see (something they were never able to do with Jake), but we got no good pictures of her face. So we'll just have to see in 12 days what she looks like!

They have scheduled our c-section. As long as the baby & my body cooperates, her birthday will be August 26, 2014. On Tuesday, the 26th, we'll check into the hospital at 10:00 and surgery is scheduled for 12:30. I was really excited about the times. We'll be able to take Jake to school and hopefully by the time school is out, we'll be in our room and he can come visit & meet his new baby sister.

I'm still having the weekly NST. They are showing contractions, but they are not consistent or painful. The baby's movement, reaction & heartbeat are good. Hopefully we keep this up another 12 days!

I realized that I never formally said what the baby's name was! I hate secrets & surprises, so I'm not the type of person to keep my child's name a secret until they are born. We've just gotten so used to calling her baby sister, I sometimes forget she actually has a name! Her name is:

Hollon Elizabeth Bush

We were deciding between Hollon (family name) & Charlotte (non-family name, just a name we liked). (And if you like Charlotte better, then please don't tell me now!) Hollon had the biggest pro & biggest con. The biggest pro was, it is a family name. It is my maiden name. Out of us Hollon's, there were 4 granddaughters & 1 grandson. Of course the grandson had 2 girls, so I liked that this baby would be carrying on the Hollon name. Even if it wasn't as a last name. The biggest con was, I didn't want a name that would be misspelled or mispronounced. And growing up, my last name was both misspelled and mispronounced all the time. (Most people spelled it "Holland") Plus, it was my last name for 28 years, so it was weird to think of it as my daughter's first name. But in the end, the pro won out, and we now have a name for our daughter. Her middle name, Elizabeth, we knew all along. It is a family name on both sides. It is my middle name (not that she is being named after me) and my aunt's middle name. Basically every generation of my family has someone with the name Elizabeth somewhere in their name. (As does probably every family!) We are primarily naming her Elizabeth after Robbie's grandmother. I love to hear Robbie's stories of spending summers with his grandmother so it makes me happy to think that Hollon will have a piece of Rob's grandmother's name in her name.

Nursery is almost done! We've got to hang curtains and finish painting the last piece of furniture. Once it is painted, good & dry, we can move it into the nursery. Then I can start putting things in their place and we can start hanging things on the wall. Only other thing left is to wash all her precious little baby clothes.

Coincidences

I love a good coincidence, and Hollon has 2.

1) On my dad's side of the family, for several generations, it had been all boys. Until I was born. I was the first girl in several generations. After I was born, it was all girls born. My cousins April & Tiffany, my sister Lindsey. Then we started having kids, and still, it was all girls. Maddox, Isabella, and Marrell. Then I got pregnant and for the first time in 30 years, it was a boy. Jake. After Jake, it has been all boys. Jackson, Woody, Gaines and Deacon. Then I got pregnant and once again, the gender switch flipped. It's the first girl since I was pregnant with Jake. What would really be interesting is if it continued to be all girls until one of my kids had a boy!

2) This is Robbie's parents 3rd grandchild. It is Robbie's grandfather's 6th great-grandchild. It is my parent's 6th grandchild. It is my grandmother's 9th great-grandchild. Hollon's birth order on both sides is a multiple of 3.

Weekend In Review

I kicked off the weekend, Friday afternoon by picking up Jake from school. It was his 2nd day. He says he still likes it. 2 funny stories:

• Jake gets in the car Friday afternoon and tells me, "Mom, I told you to NOT send my lunchbox to school. I want to eat in the lunchroom. They had ice cream today and I didn't get any because you sent my lunchbox. You did not listen to me. DO NOT send my lunchbox again. If you do, you are FIRED."                                                                                                                                       

1) He has started calling me "mom" more & more. I will admit, I was a little worried about how long he would call me "mommy". I mean, I know it is not appropriate for a 18-year-old to be calling their mother mommy. But I wasn't ready for him to make the switch at age 5.                                       

2) I had looked at the school menu and I knew he would not like anything they were serving on Friday, other than the ice cream. Therefore, I packed his lunched. Which evidently made me a terrible mother that is about to lose her job.

• The other day, Jake & I had a discussion on how someone has to invite you over to their house. You can't just show up because you want to play at their house. Well, Friday, he tells me, "I remembered someone's name today. Bryson [sp?]. And he invited me to his house. So I can go there tomorrow! He invited me."                                                                                                                             

1) I have no idea who Bryson is, where he lives or who his parents are. Needless to say we didn't go to Bryson's house Saturday.                                                                                                              

2) I asked Jake if he knew where Bryson lived & he said no. But that didn't matter. Because Bryson invited him, that meant Jake could go to his house & play.                                                                  

3) When I had my original talk with Jake, I should have added the disclaimer that even if he gets invited to someone's house, I have to know the parents and at least know where they live!

Friday evening, our friends from Chattanooga were on their way to the beach and spent the night at our house to break up their drive. So glad we all got to hang out, even if it was for just one night!

The kids playing on the iPad Saturday morning

Later Saturday morning, we started project time. On the agenda:

This piece for the nursery. Robbie got the fun job of stripping and sanding this antique piece of furniture I picked out from my family. Poor Robbie. I'm pretty sure if he could go back & add something to his list of "things I want my future wife to have" one of them would be a love of new furniture. I adore antique furniture, but the work that goes into them is draining. But the piece is now stripped for the most part, so it is ready to be painted. Hopefully I can get it painted this week and we can move it into the nursery this weekend.

Curtains for the nursery. My original plan was to do plain panels and then have a tall valance with a greek trim. When we moved the bed to a side wall, I knew my bed canopy was going to be too close to the window. I would have to do a simple window treatment. I didn't want to just hang the plain white curtains, plus I needed a little length added to them. So I went in search of some fabric to add to the bottom.

Now, I'm not a chevron person. But I was at Hobby Lobby with limited budget, time & resources. They don't make a lot of fabric options with gold in them, that don't look like a prom dress from the 80's. So when I found this fabric in the right weight, fabric type and colors, I knew it was my only option. So chevron it was. Of course the fabric pattern was going in the wrong direction for me just to add it to the bottom of the curtain panel. So unless I wanted chevron running up & down, to have the pattern run side to side, I was going to have to piece it together to make it wide enough. Argh. I almost called my mom or mother-in-law to help, but I put on my big girl pants & knew I could figure it out. I wasn't a C average student for nothing. The curtains panels are put together & made. Now I just need to purchase a curtain rod & we can hang them (and see how much longer one is than the other).

First Day of School

So Jake had his first day of Kindergarten yesterday. This post is going to be full of boring stuff that will not interest most. But it is all of the stuff that I want to remember about his first day of real school. Drop off went fine. On the first day, they let you walk the Kindergartners into the school foyer, and then a teacher would take them to their class. Jake & I had talked about what was going to happen & he told me he was a little nervous. He asked me if I would find a song he liked on the radio. When I walked him into school, he was clinching my hand and his eyes were big. A school bus had just dropped off, so there were kids everywhere. Jake didn't get upset, he just looked overwhelmed. Thankfully a teacher was gathering all of the kindergartners and was going to help them get to their classrooms. Jake grabbed her hand. I kissed him on the cheek and gave him a hug & told him I'd pick him up that afternoon. He mumbled okay. I was proud of him, he didn't cry or ask me not to leave. I had to just leave him there looking around, overwhelmed. Suddenly, he looked like my little 2-year-old. It was everything I could do not to pick him up, throw him in the car and head back home. But I knew he would be fine. 

I expected carpool pick up to be a mess, especially the first few days, but holy moly. I was there 20 minutes before the carpool students were released, and I was pretty pleased with my position in line. Finally an hour later, Jake was actually in my car. Rob asked if I left the car running the entire hour. Um, I'm 9 months pregnant and its in the 90's mid-August. What do you think? Once I finally got Jake, I was excited to hear about his day.

He gave his typical, one sentence response. "It was good." That was it. So I had to ask 1,000 questions, to find out what all happened. He said that he really like it and he really liked his teacher. He got a sticker for being a good listener. He said that he played with the other kids, but he couldn't remember their names. He was disappointed that they didn't get to go outside and play on a playground. He liked that the teacher read them a book about animals that go to Kindergarten and were scared. He said his favorite thing about the day was playing a game with colors. I asked him if he wanted to go back the next day, and he said yes. It will be interesting to see what that response is in another month! 

The funniest thing he said was he told me that they had to go to a place called the lunchroom to eat lunch. He said "Mommy, there were kids that didn't have a lunchbox. They had to go in a little room and get pizza & milk and put it on a tray. What happened to their lunchboxes?". I had to explain to him that not all kids bring their lunch, some kids buy lunch from the school. I asked him if he ever wanted to buy his lunch from the school. He said maybe. As long as he didn't have to eat salad or broccoli. In preschool, you always sent their lunch and they ate it in their classroom. I didn't think about the lunchroom and buying lunch being a whole new experience for him. I'm not sure if I trust him yet to just pick out his own food for lunch. I can only imagine what all he would pick out. I'm taking baby steps in letting go of my control! Maybe next month we can try buying lunch from the school. Don't even ask when I will feel comfortable enough to let him ride the bus. (Please refer to the post from 2 days ago where I stated that I was the crazy one and Robbie was the stable one.)  

Token first day of school pictures. I guess I've ruined Jake by taking so many pictures of him since he was born. He completely will not cooperate anymore for pictures. He either wants to make a silly face or has some goofy expression on his face. Just take a look at these photo winners below.

The best one out of the bunch

On the eve of starting kindergarten

So Jake starts Kindergarten tomorrow. Last night, Rob & I went to parent's night and met the teacher. His teacher is Mrs. Rmeily. She seems very sweet and I was excited for Jake to get to meet her.

Last night, when I was taking Jake to bed, I had a long talk with him about school, fears and it's okay to be nervous. I told him he could always tell me anything. I go on & on knowing I'm giving him this great encouraging talk. I'm making sure the communication lines are open so he feels comfortable coming to me with any questions. At the end of what I feel is an award winning talk, I asked Jake if there was anything he wanted to talk to me about or ask me. He looks at me with those big blue eyes & asks "can I wear my transformers shirt?". Seriously? That is what you got out of the talk? Needless to say, he had no in depth questions or discussions.

Today, was the day you brought your child, so they could meet the teacher. Jake didn't seem nervous at all. In fact, he was pretty excited and kept asking when was it time to go. We took his supplies and I showed him where his room will be. Mrs. Rmeily has it decorated with a Dr. Seuss theme, so Jake really liked that. He found his seat and was excited there was  goody bag. He walked around the classroom checking it out and told me he was most excited that there was a globe (random, I know!). He played blocks with another little boy. He really seemed to enjoy everything. (Of course, that might have been because mom was there and we were only there for 30 minutes! We'll see how he does all day tomorrow and when I drop him off.) I really like Jake's teacher. She seems so sweet and I think she will be a good fit for Jake.

Rob is out of town on business, so Jake and I had a night before school starts date night. We went to Target and I let him spend his chore money and then he got to pick where we ate for dinner. He is becoming a young man, but he will always be my precious little boy.

So how do I feel about tomorrow? I have a mix of emotions. There is a lot of anxiety, but it is not over the fact that Jake is growing up and will be in Kindergarten. It is anxiety that this is something new. I had the same feeling the night before he started daycare and the night before he started preschool at Westwood. Big boy school is something new, something different. Different teachers, different kids, different environment, different rules. It takes me a while to get used to change and I get anxiety over it. And when you combine that with the pregnancy hormone, lets just say I've been a tad bit crazy. One minute, I'm so excited for Jake and the next I'm holding back tears. It doesn't help that Rob is out of town. He is the stable one. He is the one that calms me down. Poor Jake is just left with crazy on the first day of school.

There is a part of me that wants to just wants to wrap Jake up, keep him home with me and never let him go. But that's not my job as his mom. My job is to teach him, to love him, to protect him and give him the tools to go out there an experience all this world has to offer. And school is one of those experiences.

I've been praying for so long for when Jake would start school. I can't believe it's finally here. I pray that school is a good experience for him. That he enjoys it and he learns a lot from it. I pray that God keeps him safe. We live in such a scary world, I just want Jake to come home safe to me every day. I pray that he loves his teacher and that she is a good fit for him. I pray for his classmates, as he will be around these kids a lot. I pray that Jake is kind to his classmates. That if there is ever one that is feeling down, left out, or alone that Jake would be a friend to them. And if it is Jake that is in that position, I pray that a friend would do the same for him. I pray for the administrators at the school and the decisions that they make. I pray for those kids, that don't have a parent or someone praying specifically for them. I pray that Jake has a wonderful day tomorrow.

I've got his bag packed, our carpool tag ready and clothes laid out. I'm a huge nerd and already practice drove the route to school (for carpool I have to go a different way, so that I can turn right into school because turning left takes forever). He is excited & ready for it and therefore, I am too. Hopefully drop off goes smoothly and I can't wait to pick him up to hear how his day went.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua 1:9

Summer: Week 10

Sigh. Last week was our last full week of summer. It has been a busy summer, but a great one. Of course I didn't do one single thing on my great fun summer to-do list. But we had a fun summer anyway. 

On Monday, Jake had his last YMCA summer baseball game. 

Then after the game, he had his first football practice. (My disclaimer about football at the bottom. Not that you care.)

They got their equipment

For Y baseball, they got medals. Jake insisted that he sleep with his the first night.

On Tuesday, we had our 35 week doctor's appointment. Everything still looks good! On Wednesday, Jake had his last summer camp field trip. They went to the McWane Science Museum. 

On Thursday, Rob's work had a little shower for us at lunch at a local restaurant. He works with an awesome group of people and we are so thankful for their generosity. For dessert, they had baby bites. I'm not sure if everywhere has baby bites, the bakery in Birmingham that makes them, touts they are the home of the original baby bite and they are the only bakery around here that makes them (and Birmingham has some pretty awesome bakeries). These things are so amazing good. Kind of like a cake ball, but 1,000 times better. There were 2 left over from the shower, so they were sent home with us. I was nice and shared one with Jake. I almost ate them both on the car ride home.

After the shower on Thursday, that is where our good fortune started going down hill. On my way leaving the lunch, I start getting electronic warning messages on my car that it is turning off the A/C, then it is reducing power, so forth & so on. The car is still running, but it is warning me that something is seriously wrong. Long story short, I end up at a Goodyear, hoping that maybe we just need to add to coolant. Of course the answer was not that easy & cheap. There is a hole in the water pump and it has to be replace. The part is not that expensive, but the labor is. Evidently, the way the engine sits in an Acadia, it is very labor intensive to replace this part. Yea us! It is always fun to get a major car repair bill the same month you plan to give birth. But that's life. I got my car back Friday and we were back on track.

On Friday, I was having dinner with some friends of mine. I LOVE a girls night. It was so fun to catch up and we always end up staying until the restaurant is literally closing around us and pretty much kicking us out. While I was at dinner, Robbie took Jake to the golf course to play a few holes. 

Then Saturday, things went back downhill. We had our tax free weekend, so I had planned to get up early, beat the crowds, go back to school shopping and then get home and start tackling projects. Robbie finds out Friday night that he has to go to a last minute city wide football meeting Saturday morning, so that meant I had to take Jake shopping with me. We were in Target with a cart full of stuff, when Jake throws up everywhere. Then he proceeded to slip & fall in it. It was a mess. I flag down a Target work (who was basically a high school boy) to let him know we needed a clean up on aisle 10. The boy looked absolutely disgusted and just stood there. Look, I get it. No one likes throw up, but something has to be done. Unfortunately I don't carry around a mop in my purse, so I was limited. Finally the boy calls someone to clean it up. I take Jake to the bathroom to get him cleaned up. I was scared he would throw up again, so we just abandon the cart and leave the store. Which causes Jake to have a meltdown because he had picked out a transformer tee shirt that we were leaving behind. So I basically have to carry my crying child with throw up all over him out of the store. Fun times. Jake keeps declaring he is fine. We pull into our driveway and then he throws up again, this time in the car. Really, you couldn't wait 2 seconds until you were out of the car? I get Jake in the bath tub, I clean out my car and send Robbie a text that basically said "man down, get home asap". Of course it was my luck that Robbie had ridden with another coach, so he didn't even have his car there to leave. Pretty much after that, the day was shot and we got hardly anything done. Which cause me to then meltdown. Sorry family! On Sunday, Jake threw up one more time, which prevented us from going to church, but that did allow us to knock out some projects. Poor Robbie. I think he was fearful of his mean pregnant wife, so he spent the day doing stuff like this....

Fun times indeed.

**Football Disclaimer**

When we've mentioned to people that Jake is playing football (it's tackle football with pads) we've had a few raised eyebrows. I completely understand, because I was one of those eyebrow raisers. Robbie played football in junior high & high school, and always said that he wouldn't want Jake to play at too young of an age. We also figured that the games would be on Saturday mornings in the fall, which would mean we would miss half of them. But as we've gotten involved in the city league sports, Jake has made friends and Robbie has become close with the coaches. The games are on Thursday nights and the head coach was one of our baseball assistant coaches. Coach Joe lives in our neighborhood and we really respect and like him a lot. Plus Jake really wanted to play because so many kids from his baseball team were playing. Robbie talked with the coaches and parents of kids that played last year. We prayed about it & we decided to let Jake try it. We figured we'd let him try it this year and if he doesn't like it, we'll hold off for a few more years until he is older. So far he loves it. Robbie is helping with the coaching, so that makes me feel better. The kids look so funny out there in the pads & helmets. They are all 5 & 6 year olds and all under 70 lbs. Trying to coach 5 & 6 year olds in football is like herding cats, but the coaches have been patient and have been so good with the kids. Jake has been tackled a few times, but he has never cried or gotten upset, so I'm grateful for that. (Jake is not an aggressive child at all and tends to be a little tenderhearted.) So far, it has been a good experience.I'm pretty sure we've lost our marbles letting him play football which starts the same month he starts Kindergarten and the same month that baby sister comes. But I don't think we had that many marbles to start with anyway.  

August 1

July Nursery To-Do List:

• Purchase bedding for crib (bumper, crib sheet & crib skirt)
• Create canopy & hope Robbie doesn't kill me (Update: I described my plan to Robbie & he didn't kill me or think it was horrible. Unnecessary? Yes. But he agreed to it. We've bought the supplies, now we just have to hang it.)
• Purchase/refinish piece of furniture to go on wall with rocker (Update: We've found the piece of furniture we want to use. It is an antique piece that has been in m y family forever, that's just been sitting unused. My sweet parents brought it up earlier in the week. The piece is actually in pretty good shape, just needs to be repainted. I had hoped that I could sand it & paint it, but in typical antique furniture fashion, it has about 13 different layers of paint on it (the bottom 6 layers probably being complete lead-based paint). So Robbie will have to strip it to get to the actual wood base and then we can paint it. Robbie can hardly contain his excitement.)
• Paint rocking chair & have cushion made / pillow recovered
• Decide what to hang on walls (Update: We have everything that will go on the walls, just haven't decided what to hang where.)
• Hang curtains (Update: We have the material and the curtain panels, just have to put everything together and some minor sewing.)

August Nursery To-Do List:

Okay, so July wasn't quite as productive as I needed to be. I've got to really be on the ball for August.

• Finish all of the things not crossed off above from July's list
• Wash all of the baby clothes & blankets
• Actually hang things on the wall

August Non-Nursery To-Do List:

• Clean off our camera memory stick
• Install carseat bases into cars
• Get Jake's school routine down
• Give the house one more good deep clean
• Finish my audits & projects for work
• Have baby (but not until the last week of August please). Not trying to cross that one off early.

Updates:

• We are 30 days away from our due date! At next week's doctor's appointment, they'll do an ultrasound, and hopefully we can schedule the actual c-section date. If she came as early as her brother came, we would have her next week! YIKES! Thankfully, so far, it doesn't look like that's happening.
• I've been seeing my doctor weekly for the last few weeks and having weekly non-stress tests done. So far, everything is routine & looks good.
• The baby is still on my right side. She is head down. Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy down. But she hasn't dropped or anything. Her hiney is up at the top of my belly. She likes to poke her bum out. She seems pretty content & comfortable. 
• I'm not nervous about another placenta abruption happening. My doctor keeps trying to ease any worries I might have about it, but I keep telling him, I'm not really that worried about it. (Maybe I should be??) It was just a freak thing that happened last time. There was nothing I could do to prevent it, so there is nothing that I can do this time around to prevent it. If it happens, it happens. Thankfully, once again, we are only 5 minutes from our hospital. I know what to look for and as soon as I see the signs, we would go straight to the hospital. I pray about it daily and I have peace about it. But let's just hope it doesn't happen again!
• I'm more nervous about what is going to happen after she actually gets here. I hope we've got Jake into a good routine with school. We've not had a newborn in our house in over 5 years, so we are a wee bit rusty. I'm not taking maternity leave with work. I'll take a few weeks of vacation & sick days, but since I work from home anyway, I'm just going to have a flexible schedule for a while (in theory). I work for a small company and a lot of what I do, I'm the only one in our company that handles these things. And I handle a wide range of random things. To try to teach someone all of this that may or may not come up in a 6 or 12 week time period, it honestly is just quicker for me to do it myself. Even with a newborn. The other people in my department for a while will handle the everyday tasks that I usually handle, so that will help a great deal. I did it with Jake and that was a thousand times harder because at that time I was still working in our corporate office and I didn't have a boss. I didn't have an office in our home or any of my files with me. The working from home with a newborn wasn't so bad, but the back & forth was a nightmare. We survived that time, so hopefully we will once again. Or this could be a humongous disaster. We'll see. I do have a Plan B.
• I feel like I've been very Pollyanna this entire pregnancy. I wanted this pregnancy for so long, I truly did not care about all of the annoying symptoms that come with pregnancy. I didn't care about all of the doctor's appointments, the shots, the pills, the nausea, the swelling, any of it. It didn't bother me, I was just happy to finally be pregnant. I've loved being pregnant. Until this week. I hit my wall. I'm fat, swollen & tired. Seriously, my feet make Fred Flintstone's feet look anorexic. It's uncomfortable when I sit for long periods, when I stand, when I lay down, it's basically just uncomfortable to move. Something with the pregnancy is making my right arm tingle. It feels like it is asleep and it's a dull pain. It is extremely annoying. I have so much to do, but yet I am so tired. That's so frustrating. My boss is out of the country for 2 weeks, so I'm handling both our jobs. I had my meltdown Tuesday. (Sorry Robbie & Jake!) I'm better now, but I'm torn. I'm ready to not be pregnant and to meet this little girl. But yet there is so much more to do, I really need her to just stay in & keep cooking. 
• I remind myself that no matter how annoying or painful a pregnancy symptom is, it doesn't compare to the pain I felt each month when we found out we were not pregnant. Or the pain I felt over the 2 pregnancies we lost. So bring on these last 4 weeks. Because they just get us closer to this little miracle that I've cried over and prayed for, for so long.