100 Days to go?

My friend Kathy posted on her blog that she has less than 100 days left until her son is born (or due, rather). As I am due the day after her, that means I have 100 days to go until my due date. Oh my! That just sounds so close! I'm not one for delivering on due dates, but still!
On the nursery front, we made some more progress today. I'm blogging from my little computer, so I'll post pictures tomorrow when I have the big computer back. We set up a twin bed for Miss Joanna in the kids' room, and she's very excited to sleep there tonight! We're going to wait until this transition is all done (smoothly hopefully) before trying to move Natalie over to the toddler bed. I'll think she'll do fine, and we may try for next weekend for that move. I personally am looking forward to both girls being able to get themselves out of bed and come find me. (8am girls, not 5 -- okay?) I'm wondering if they'll try to sleep together. As of now, Natalie can't get herself up on the twin bed without help or a stool. I bet she'll figure it out pretty quickly though. She's a climber.

This afternoon before dinner we went over to Mamma and Pop's to visit. They had the trains running outside on the big track and the girls enjoyed watching them and drinking bottled water! I enjoyed sitting on the couch inside under the ceiling fan. :) Natalie says "choo choo" when she sees trains or wants one. We checked out a Thomas video from the library a couple of weeks ago and watched it a bunch of times. Now Natalie will hand me the remote and say "choo choo?" when she wants to watch Thomas. It's very cute. We don't have the video anymore though, and sadly Thomas only comes on TV Sunday mornings. I don't understand this because there are plenty of obnoxious shows that come on at least twice a day every day on the same channel. Oh well. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. :)

Quick Pregnancy Update

Because I spent the last 15 minutes looking up when I started feeling Braxton Hicks with pregnancy #2, I'm updating now just in case I want to know later.
I am 25 weeks 1 day and I started feeling Braxton Hicks for sure today. I've had several this evening, along with some super fun back pain. So I've been sitting on the couch since dinner working on a project. :) I like my couch. Sure there's laundry to fold and dishes to wash, but I'm expecting those household fairies any minute now. Ha!
I started feeling them at about 26 1/2 weeks with Natalie, so this is just about on schedule! It was later with Joanna and I don't think they were particularly strong or frequent.

25 Weeks

24 weeks, 6 days; I took this one at the church while I was thinking about it.

How Your Baby’s Growing (from Babycenter.com):

Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.

How far along: 25 weeks

Pregnancy symptoms: constant need to pee; right hand numbness/weakness – this is mostly at night and not all the time.  This is  how my carpal tunnel syndrome started last time.  I’m hoping it either moves slower or doesn’t get any worse.  That was pretty miserable.  It went away almost immediately after Natalie’s birth though.

Food Cravings: fruit, chocolate, Cheetos

Sleep: good!

Measurement: inches

Movement: lots; he just loves to jump up and down on my bladder (or that’s what it feels like!)

Labor signs: I think none.  Every now and then I get the feeling like I might be having a little Braxton Hicks contraction, but I really don’t think they’ve started yet.

What I miss: being able to lay or recline at all on my back.  I get woozy almost immediately.

What I’m looking forward to: I can’t really think of anything.

Milestone: This isn’t exactly pregnancy related, but I found a dress for my 10 year reunion!

Thoughts from the Girls: nothing is coming to mind

Doctor’s visit: none this week

Two Pink Dresses and a French Braid

My mom brought these dresses for the girls and they wore them to church yesterday.  I LOVE matching dresses!  When we first put the dresses on the girls, Joanna started practicing a little “ballelet” and her sister copied her.  It was SO precious.  These are pretty good for twirling.

I tried to get some good sister shots, but it just wasn’t happening.

Joanna sits with us for 11:00 church these days.  We’re slowly moving toward her staying with us for the entire service.  Previously, she just had to make it to the sermon, then we’d take her to Sunday School.  Especially this summer, though, Sunday School for her age is essentially nonexistent at 11:00.  They really struggle for volunteers at that hour, and they have all the preschoolers grouped together.  They’re cared for really well, but there’s no lesson or story time, it’s just a few minutes of playtime, then a video and snack.  My kids watch plenty of TV, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t like the idea of them watching videos every Sunday morning.  It’s such a short time and I’d rather it was filled with Bible stories and crafts than Magic School Bus.  But notice I’m also not stepping forward to volunteer to fix it.

Anyway, I kept Joanna occupied through some of the sermon by French braiding her hair:

It was hard to get her still enough for a no-flash picture.  She immediately took it out, but that’s okay!  I love how you can see all the different colors in her hair in the braid – pretty!

Rambling from Today

I feel like I haven't posted in forever, although Tuesday is not so long ago. :) I guess it's just been kind of a busy week. And I've been reading. When I get hooked on a book (even if it's a re-read), I tend to let myself get sucked in to the detriment of most everything around me!
After the birthday party today we decided to get a little shopping done. I returned a sippy cup to Babies R Us that didn't work for us and then we headed down to Rice Village. I'm having bra issues (is this over-sharing?), and my FAVORITE bra store is A Woman's Work. Nobody else seems to have anything that will fit me. Anyway... we also stopped into maternity store (there's a TON of shopping down there) to look for a cocktail dress for me. There were actually a few options! And fortunately some were on sale, which made them just expensive, instead of impossible. I tried on a couple of short (knee length) options, which seems more cocktail-y than long, but they just didn't work. One was a possibility, but I knew I'd never find a bra to work. (Did I mention I'm hard to fit?) I tried on a long black one that fit well. It has plenty of fabric at the top to hide a bra. :) And I really do feel more comfortable in a longer dress anyway. Black means shoes will be easy; I may already have some. It feels so good to be done with that worry!

Fashion and Parties

Earlier this week my cousin Christiana came over to watch the girls for a few hours.  She brought a few dress-up things, too!!  The girls both love this big straw hat.

And check out these boots.  Joanna LOVES them, and walks amazingly well in them!

My mom brought the girls matching pink dresses back from her last trip.  We put them on the girls (24 months for Miss Natalie!), and Natalie went to find some shoes.  She came back with one of Joanna’s sandals and one of her black dress shoes, and she put them on all by herself.  She LOVES “dressing up” in Joanna’s shoes.  :)

Today we went to Aidan’s 4th (oh my, FOUR!!) birthday party at Jumpin’ Joey’s.

Joanna LOVES Jumpin’ Joey’s.

It took Natalie a little while, but as soon as she figured out it was fun and not scary, she was on the move!

Sadly I didn’t get any good pictures of the birthday boy, but you can see him here in the blue shirt drinking a capri sun.

Happy Birthday Aidan!  We love you!  Thanks for letting us come celebrate with you.

Sliding Friends

Aiden's dad was filming Aiden slide and caught some of Joanna (and Abby) too. Here it is!