Even with as little attention as I give them, a couple of my rose plants still manage to produce flowers from time to time. YAY GOD!!
Joanna with her “Joanna Rose” plant that he received for her 1st birthday!
This is my most hearty plant – five blooms at one time!! One for each of us.
I know my roses could be absolutely amazing if I’d spend any time on them at all. Life is like that in a lot of ways. :)
Last week Joanna had Super Kids Day at school, and I got to go up and hang out for about an hour! (Well, minus the 10 minutes it took me to find her!) My mom came over to watch the littles.
She was having a little snow cone break when I found her.
After her group finished their snow cones, they did some more games. I followed along with my camera like the mommy blogger stalker that I am. :)
Getting her wristband marked:
Egg race:
Joanna rocked this game. She had to keep a ball between her knees and bounce to the cone and back.
Potato sack race!
Some kind of weird tennis-like game. The girls were terrible at it. :)
But such a look of concentration!
Similar look here. :)
On this one they had to roll the blue ball and try to just move the yellow ball. So it was almost like a cross between bowling and golf.
The classic spin around the bat and run to the cone and back game.
She’s going down!
Dizzy. :)
I had to leave after that, but I snapped a picture of her sweet group – cutie pies!
I’m glad I got to go and watch a teeny bit of Joanna in her element!
Before I found Joanna I found her teacher and another K teacher and we chatted for a minute. They shared something with me that made my proud mamma heart just swell up! Joanna had shared it with me too, but hearing it from an adult makes it more real. So to tell the whole story… On Wednesday evening we had our last children’s choir rehearsal of the season, and each class did something for the parents. Joanna’s class I think basically took turns having little solos (I missed it, so I’m not exactly sure what the format was). Apparently Joanna and Anna sang a little duet of the song they had sung on Sunday, Master Builder. The next morning, I suggested to Joanna that she might share with her class (they have “share time” each morning) about how she sang in front of her choir with her friend. Well, she did, and Mrs. M asked Joanna to sing for the class.
AND SHE DID!!!! She sang by herself in front of her whole class a SONG ABOUT GOD!!!!!!!
The kids were apparently pretty impressed, as was Mrs. M! Joanna told me how Mrs. M pointed out to the class how Joanna sang the high notes and the low notes. Mrs. M told me how beautiful and pure she thought Joanna’s voice was. Sniffle… sniffle. So proud of Joanna for being brave enough to do that!! One thing that I have been so so so so so so so impressed with this year is how much Joanna comes home singing – from school! Mrs. M gets it! Music is so important to learning!! And of course I’m so excited that Joanna feels safe enough in her class at school to do something so personal. She’s a pretty confident little girl, but she doesn’t exactly seek to be the center of attention.
This was over a week ago (I’m just so timely in my posting these days!). I had such a craving for nachos and s’mores. I dislike going to the grocery store these days, but it was either go myself or bathe and put the kids to bed so Matt could go for me. :) I braved the smell of the grocery store. I picked up some Julio’s chips, some store-made guac, a dragon roll, and the s’more fixins.
I should have paid a little more attention and NOT eaten the chips and guac because I had the HUGEST most horrible heartburn in the middle of the night. Oh it was bad. The chips were really good, but I’m not sure anything is worth that level of heartburn. Well, except babies. Babies are worth that. But not food. :)
The next day I bribed Natalie and James with s’mores to clean the living room, and it worked!
They looooooved them!
I think my mother brought French fries that day as well, and James discovered they were pretty delightful dipped in guacamole. :)
Every week when it’s time to take my weekly preggo pic (as in, when I am dressed and do not looked like a slob), I make Matt stand in my spot so I can get all the settings how I like ‘em, then we switch, and he takes my picture. So I have a few of these…
There were a couple of weeks where I just put the camera on Auto and let him take the picture, but I really wasn’t happy with the results. I’m addicted to shooting on Manual. :)
Today is Sunday, when I would have normally taken my weekly picture to post tomorrow. But I totally played hooky from church this morning which means I never got dressed. So I’m going to try really hard to actually get dressed tomorrow and take a picture then.
Not this past week but the previous week – “week 10” – I actually had several days where I didn’t feel nauseous in the morning. It was wonderful! I could get things done and get some good food in me. This past week though (“week 11”) has not been like that. I’ve been nauseous absolutely all the the time. I must admit that it is really wearing on me. I mean, it’s totally worth it, but it’s hard. It is so hard to do anything around the house or for the kids, and any kind of meal prep is just so very very difficult. I finally took a Zofran this afternoon, and I think it took the edge off. (I feel like blogging anyway!) I really really just needed a break from the constant yucky feeling. And I feel a little like I got it.
I have, for the most part, been sleeping well. Unfortunately it’s because I kicked my husband out to the couch. :( I tried to let him come back, after I’d “caught up” a little, but I was awake for 3 hours that night. I’m hoping we figure out some kind of system that works for us, but we’ll see!
I’m definitely complaining a lot, but I like to record this stuff. I need to make it very very very clear that absolutely ALL of it is completely and totally worth the babies I’m carrying. I am so so so so excited to have them in there growing, even with all the yuckiness that comes with it. I’m really looking forward to listening to their little hearts beating this week at my appointment as well! (And ask my doctor all the million questions I’ve come up with in the last four weeks.) Pregnancy is such a crazy amazing thing, and I’m so thankful to be experiencing it again.
To end on a happy, sweet note:
I picked up a few all the twin books from the library last week, and the girls have been enjoying leafing through them with me. I LOVE the look of concentration on this girl’s face when she “reads!”
James brought home this butterfly he had made one day, and he really wanted to play with it instead of letting me hang it up. So I made sure to take at least a quick pic in case it was destroyed. :)
I love the get-ups this kid wears sometimes.
I can’t remember exactly how it came about, but James decided it might be okay to wear big boy underwear one day. Fortunately I had some very gender neutral white ones in the closet.
He could totally be an underwear model, am I right?!
It only lasted a couple of hours, but it was fun. :)
I think this was last Sunday – Joanna was the train and James was the caboose.
LOVE them!!
James put on Joanna’s birthday crown, and he and Natalie built a Lego birthday cake for him to blow out the candles on.
I really could watch them play all day long. :)
Saturday evening we went to Uncle Mark’s for cake and ice cream to celebrate birthdays in April!
The kids’ cousin Jenny turned 24, Daddy turned 45, and Mamma turned 75. What a great month!!
The birthday crew:
It’s good they can share. :)
The kids just love to play with family – Natalie is trying to avoid being tickled by Uncle Mark here:
Aunt Missy and Aunt Mindy were playing tug-of-war with James.
Somebody must have said something interesting…
There were so many cards to open!
At some point James’ jeans fell down.
Joanna tried to put them back on but just couldn’t, so Uncle Mark told her to bring him over, and she did. I’m kinda thinking this should go in the wedding slide show folder, yes?
There was much wrestling on the floor with cousin Jenny. Joanna is laying on top of Jenny, who is laying on her stomach. Joanna grabbed Jenny’s legs so Jenny grabbed Joanna’s. :)
It was such fun to celebrate with everyone. Happy birthday Jenny, Matt, and Mamma! We love you!!
11 weeks
How Your Baby’s Growing (from Babycenter.com):
Your baby, just over 1 1/2 inches long and about the size of a fig, is now almost fully formed. Her hands will soon open and close into fists, tiny tooth buds are beginning to appear under her gums, and some of her bones are beginning to harden.
She's already busy kicking and stretching, and her tiny movements are so effortless they look like water ballet. These movements will become more frequent as her body grows and becomes more developed and functional. You won't feel your baby's acrobatics for another month or two — nor will you notice the hiccupping that may be happening now that her diaphragm is forming.
How far along: 11 weeks
Pregnancy symptoms: nausea, tiredness, bloating
Food Cravings: s’mores, baked goods like muffins and pastries (most especially a cream cheese Danish), “dinner bread” like the kind you get at a restaurant, Skittles
Food Aversions: salad, eggs (unless they’re in a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit), Cheetos, toast, peanut butter and jelly, most cold cereal; a lot of other things that don’t sound bad until I’m faced with the prospect of eating or smelling them :)
Sleep: I had quite a few good nights but then some bad ones. Poor Matt slept on the couch for me last night, and I was able to catch up a bit on sleep.
Measurement: 40 inches around
Movement: I feel things that could be babies moving, but are most likely not since it’s still so early. But it stops and makes me think for a minute!
Labor signs: nothing yet
What I miss: I miss being hungry pretty much ever. I miss not being nauseous, although this is better than a few weeks ago.
What I’m looking forward to: I’m looking forward to hearing the babies’ heartbeats next week!
Milestone: Nothing feels very milestone-y right now.
Thoughts from the children: text
Doctor’s visit: next visit is late next week
Other thoughts: I am really struggling with making it through the last few weeks of school. It’s not exactly pregnancy related, but I’m just so looking forward to having a more relaxed schedule – getting to play outside in the evenings and sleep in if we need to. I think 7 weeks left.
Baby-related projects:
