05.17.13 | 31 WEEKS, ALMOST 32

claire, at 32 weeks

only just over eight weeks to go, so long as everything goes according to plan. we have another doctor appointment on monday but since i never did an update after our last appointment, i'll use those stats.

//claire is growing right on schedule. as of three weeks ago, she was measured at weighing three pounds, one ounce. that's pretty much smack dab in the middle of babies at that week.

//i am still measuring large BUT not as large as before. a few weeks ago i measured at five weeks ahead. then a month later it was down to four weeks and just this last appointment, i was down to only three weeks larger. so, that's a good thing!

//my doctor upped my thyroid medication and my iron intake, unfortunately. i've still been feeling pretty tired, more so recently, but i'm managing. BUT! i don't have gestational diabetes so that's exciting!

//i pretty much don't fit into anything i own besides maternity dresses so summer (or just really nice spring weather) needs to hurry on up and get here already.

//i have my baby shower this weekend which i am really looking forward to. it seems so crazy that it's already here! i'm really excited to spend some time with friends that i don't get to see very often.

//i got my first migraine yesterday. let me tell you, it killed me. i spent the majority of the day crying. crying because my head hurt, crying because justin was unable to come home from work to take landon to my mom's house and crying because i basically forced my child to watch more tv that he wanted to because i was feeling so terrible. the worst.

//because of my horrible day yesterday, i took a unisom before bed and what do you know?! it helped me sleep for almost six hours straight! and that, my friends, is a miracle. lately, i've been waking up every two hours, LIKE CLOCKWORK, and it's been horrible. so six hours straight was, like, unheard of and when i woke up this morning, no migraine! i felt so good that landon and i made banana oat muffins and i filled the dishwasher and got a shower in. seriously, 100x better than yesterday. 

i'm also really looking forward to this weekend because tonight i get to do a little prep work on my upcoming shower, we get to go to old navy in keizer tomorrow so i can buy a couple more maternity t's (and hopefully a cardigan) ANDDD we'll finally be able to watch the finale of the office (since we don't have tv). and if the weather is somewhat decent, we might even be able to get ripley together with my sister's dogs. wouldn't THAT be nice?

05.13.13 | MY MOTHER'S DAY

yesterday i celebrated my third mother's day. it started out with such a good surprise of sleeping in and pancakes for breakfast. then from there, it got busy. 

we spent a teeny bit of time with justin's mom, just visiting and giving her our gifts. when we realized it was 1 o'clock and we still wanted to head to portland to do some shopping, we decided we had better get home to eat out lunch. (we're gonna have leftover hot dogs, potato salad and baked beans for quite a while, thanks to justin's birthday bbq. and we're totally fine with that!) 

we ate our lunch and then hit the road! i had some items to return/exchange and justin had some cash burning a hole in his wallet from all of his birthday gifts. we made it to portland a little before four, i exchanged my stuff and got some money back and while justin tried on some clothes, landon and i hung out in the section of the mall that has a little water fountain with some koi fish in it. landon is pretty much obsessed with fish. then we drove across the street to good old target because i had my sights on this really comfy maternity dress. unfortunately, they didn't have it in my size (and neither did our store here in town!) but the one in wilsonville did. we drove down there, justin ran in and got it for me and we headed for home. except there was one hiccup: justin took the wrong exit and ended up going north on the freeway. oops! so, we had to drive a little ways before we could take another exit to turn around on and by that time, i was hungry and landon was hungry (and tired since he didn't nap). so, we stopped in at red robin where we waited forever to sit and then waited forever again to get our food. and of course, my order was incorrect. go figure.

by the time we got home, we were all exhausted. we put landon to bed, watched the most recent episode of the office, had our leftover pound cake from justin's birthday dinner and then called it a night.

and you know what? even with all of the driving and not getting to eat chinese food (which was like, one of two requests i had for mother's day) and my fingers and feet swelling up to super uncomfortable proportions from the muggy weather and landon being fussy by the end of it, i wouldn't have had it any other way. because i got to spend it with the people that mean the most to me: my little family. and that really is the best mother's day gift. that, and my little garden gnome that i got that ripley won't stop peeing on. c;

05.09.13 | HUSBAND

it's been almost nine years since i met my husband. and in those nine years, my love for him has grown exponentially. he is the kindest, warmest, funniest, nerdiest, most loving, considerate, helpful, unselfish man i have ever known. he works a (sometimes) very stressful job that he loves and has another after-hours shift that he works every couple of weeks, all so i can stay home and take care of our child(ren). and when he does come home after a particularly stressful day, he never complains when i ask him for help. he does all the dishes so i don't have to, he kills all the spiders in our house without rolling his eyes, he puts landon to bed basically every night so i can get a bit of a break (and because he loves it), he gets me numerous glasses of water a day so i can keep my feet propped up, he drives us everywhere, he is definitely the cleaner of the two of us, he's never complained about changing a poopy diaper, he's sat through too many hours to count of sarah's house on hgtv, he compliments me on all of my cooking and tells me he loves me every single day.  he never goes to bed without kissing me goodnight, even when i'm being a pain, and i hope that never changes.

today, he's 29. one year closer to being 30. definitely late twenties. c;

i've known him for almost nine of his 29 years of life. i am so incredibly lucky to call this man my husband, the father of our children and ultimately the best friend i could ever ask for. i love you so.

05.07.13 | LANDON'S 2ND BIRTHDAY(S)

so basically, it's taken me almost a month to do landon's birthday post. and really, i'm only doing it because my sister-in-law has been bugging me about it. apparently, being too lazy to sit on my computer upstairs and just get it done isn't a good enough of an excuse. so, without further ado, here is landon's birthday party post!

we started the morning off with balloons and streamers hanging from the outside of his room. that's how my mom used to start my birthdays so i figured we would do it for landon, too. it's safe to say that he absolutely LOVED it. i mean, he pretty much ran through those balloons and streamers for the first 30 minutes of the day. it was pretty awesome. 

and then we had french toast for breakfast, with powdered sugar. because really, who doesn't want french toast for breakfast on your birthday? i know i do!

for party number one (we split the party into two separate parties because we have so many people in our families. it was just easier that way, especially since we wanted to have it in our house and 30 people in our house would have been crazyyyy!) we had veggies, fruit salad, cheese and crackers, tiny pb&j sandwiches, chocolate-covered pretzels, lemon cream cupcakes and a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. and then punch, of course. party number two had the rest of the cheese and crackers, the rest of the veggies, more punch, more pretzels, more cupcakes, lil smokies, potato salad and a chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. (apparently, i didn't take a good enough picture of that table. oh well.)

 ^^that's landon's "smile" face. it's pretty amazing.

we had a construction theme party for landon this year, because he's big into all sorts of trucks and cars and trains and basically, anything that has an engine! yeah, he's definitely a boy. c; we put caution tape up on the windows, across the front door and i found some thick cardstock signs that we put up around the house, too. i also picked up a pack of yellow balloons and a pack of black balloons from walmart that we blew up and justin hung all over the house. seriously, justin pretty much did all of the decorating, and it was awesome. i ordered some kids "hard hats" from oriental trading (i think. i can't remember.) and wrote the kid's names on them that would be attending the party. no one really wanted to wear their hats at the party but they all took them home nonetheless. (landon didn't want anything to do with his until about a week later.)

he really loved when everyone sang "happy birthday" to him and when he got to blow out his candle. forget about presents, i think that may have been his favorite part of the day. 

^^see what i mean? "smile" faces are impossibly cute. i think it's my favorite. landon ended up with some awesome loot from his parties, too. and the only thing he got multiple of was a book! he got four copies of the same book, hah! he also scored big with a water table (which he's gotten good use out of this week with our awesome weather), TWO different cars that he can ride in, a new train set (which might be his favorite thing ever), LOTS of clothes (and that makes this mama VERY happy), some new shoes, a yankees jersey that he'll fit into when he's old enough to play baseball himself, a handful of new books (and that also makes us happy since the old rotation was getting to us), bubble bath, play food for his kitchen, legos, a couple motorized annoying cars/trucks that people just have to get him c; a new wooden train that he loves and some money for his savings account.

we had such a good time and we are so lucky that so many people in our lives love our little guy almost as much as we do and take time out of their busy schedules to celebrate him. 

05.02.13 | PAPER LOVE

i am pretty much obsessed with all things paper these days. if i could, i'd scour etsy all day long (and other sites, like the ones above) and click "add to cart" just so i'd be able to have all of these pretty things in my house for me to look at. and if it can be used in baby girl's room, that's just a big bonus, especially since it seems like all i want to do is search for cute girly things. 

most of you know that i write letters to my son landon on a pretty regular basis (although, not as regularly as i'd like). some of those letters get put here on the blog while a lot of them go into a cute little journal i made a while ago, just for him. i've written a few letters to baby girl so far but still need to actually get a journal so they aren't just sitting on my computer. this one from rifle paper company would be perfect.

watercolor paintings from yao cheng design are to die for. i love watercolors, especially of flowers, and this one just screams "put me in a girl's room!".

so far, our design for baby girl's room is colorful. we've got a really pretty seafoam dresser, and we just need to go out and buy some yellow paint for the walls. the so happy together art print by sycamore street press would go perfectly in her room.

i'm also really big into animal alphabet charts. i had every intention to make one myself for landon's room and then (a.) never got around to it, and (b.) we ran out of wall space. this one by rifle paper company is too adorable. i love how natural it feels.