34 Weeks Pregnant

I cannot believe I'm 6 weeks away from my official due date and only 4 weeks away from the point in which I delivered Grace. This is NUTS! This poor child is very neglected already, so I've decided to designate this blog to baby #2. No Gracie pictures or updates allowed.



I did manage to take a snapshot of myself this past week. Mostly because I was getting dressed and ready for the day and caught a glimps of myself in the bathroom mirror. My first reaction was, "Wow, I don't look THAT pregnant from the front." Then I turned sideways and my reaction was more of a "WHHHOOOOAA". See for yourself.



Conclusion: Black is an extremely forgiving color and I should throw away any shirt that isn't black.



I serioulsy feel huge this time around. I've gained about the same weight as I did with Grace, maybe even a little less, but this baby is so low that it just makes me look much bigger. (see my post from Grace's pregnancy) I'm actually to the point of having to go buy more maternity shirts because my belly is hanging out of the bottom of all the ones I currently have. Never had that problem with Grace because she was so high. Of course, I had heartburn for about 6 straight months....



Other than the sheer girth of my belly, I'm feeling pretty good. Certainly lacking energy and feeling all other things that come with pregnancy, but I'm just happy to be done with some of the more serious health issues I had early on. If exhaustion and swelling is the worst of it from here on out, I'll be a happy woman!



I keep having dreams about the gender. Still no clue, although this pregnancy seems to be getting its share of "boy" votes. I'm kind of leaning that way as well, since the pregnancy is so different from the first, but only slightly leaning that way. Like maybe 60/40. Thoughts?

The Potty

One of the many things I never realized before having kids is the amount of time my life would be consumed with talking about poop and pee. I always knew I'd spent a ton of time cleaning up those things, but talking about them? Eeek! Well, our life is now consumed with talking about going potty. We have started potty training at the Gore house and, for the most part, it has gone really well. We've been working on it for about a month.

After trying to get Grace interested in the potty for what seemed like FOREVER, I decided to try an Elmo potty chart with Elmo and Sesame Street stickers. That did the trick! She was hooked and would sit on the potty to squeeze out a teaspoons worth of pee just to do the sticker chart. After the 2nd week, I could swear we were "almost there" and she was having only about 1 wet diaper a day. Then we went out of town for a few days and had a major setback. But, we're back on the potty train and doing really well. I'm sure we'll be at this a while and the new baby in our lives will probably cause a major set back, but we are still going full speed ahead. At the very least I'm saving tons of money in diapers and Grace get's to clap for herself and be excited at her accomplishments on a daily basis.

A few other random pictures of my little Gracie. Have I mentioned that this girl is 100% girl? She loves, shoes, moisturizer and lip gloss. I catch her quite often slumming around the house in my gold flower shoes.

With our rescent kitchen remodel came Grace's very own spa tub. She loves a good bath in the sink and I love the fact that I can do it standing up instead of trying to figure out how to get on my knees in the bathroom and bend over the side of a tub with my massive baby bump in the way.

Other than potty training, we have been enjoying all things outdoors this summer. Grace loves to be outside and we are out in the back yard all day, every day. We start our mornings off with a little SPF 50 and then head outdoors, only to come in for nap time. I picked this little picnic table up at a yard sale down the street for $10. We love it!

Of course, a little time in the pool is a MUST. Aaron and I have even been known to join her once in a while in the kiddie pool. We love summer!

Because 3 separate birthday parties are always fun when you're 2.

Wow, what a busy weekend we had. Grace and I headed to Roseburg for her third birthday party. Yes, that's right, she had three, 2 year birthday parties. Hey, why not? We had one with our playgroup, one with just the three of us at home (blogpost and photos to come) and one in Roseburg with the rest of the family. Here are a few highlights from our weekend.



Presents:

This girl LOVES to open gifts. Sometimes, she enjoyed the event of opening much more than the actual gift itself. Such a difference a year makes. Last year she didn't really care much about anything...including eating the cake.



Her Aunt Jana had this Panda made for Grace. Grace just LOVED it. She has a true love for pandas anyway, and when she received one that she could hug and ride, she was in heaven. I asked Jana to hide the gift until the end. Good thing we did that, I don't know if Grace would have opened or played with anything else if the panda was sitting right there with her.

Her very own purse was a real hit as well, compliments of Grandma. It came with her very own chapstick. Again, a HUGE hit. She occasionally naps with her purse and insists on taking it everywhere. It's so cute. And, by the way, the other side of the purse has a giant sequined pink heart on it. Sweet.

Enter, the Elmo cake. This was almost more than she could wrap her head around. She was thrilled. Thanks Marcie for taking over the frosting duties after my super hot, pregnant hands kept melting the frosting in the frosting bag! Of couse, Marcie

A little help from mom to blow out the candle.

Grace also received this awesome car from our friends Dena and Zoe. She loved it! I mean, she seriosuly couldn't get out of it the entire weekend. She spent hours just opening the door, getting in, closing the door, driving around and honking the horn :Repeat: I think it was the sole reason she actually slept well at Grandma's house in the Pack N Play. Thank you Dena and Zoe!

After all the "open se-sants" as Grace called it, came to an end we spent time just hanging with family. Grace loves going to Gama and Pop Pop's house and was thrilled to be their little shadown all weekend. I was thrilled too, because it meant she wasn't being MY shadow and I could actually sit down and put my feet up :-)

Early Birthday Party

I hosted a little birthday party for my playgroup this morning. What a blast! Only about half of the kids were able to come, but it just happened to be the kids whose birthdays are within a few weeks of each other. All of these kiddos turn 2 in the coming weeks - something I'm still trying to wrap my brain around.

Since it was going to be super hot today, we decided to celebrate poolside - kiddie pool side, that is. Sun, big backyard, a side and 2 kiddie pools made for a guaranteed good time. After getting the kids all tired out from play, we BBQ'd some hotdogs and then let the kids decorate their own cupcakes. It was a huge hit. Since one of the kids has an allergy to chocolate (I know, cruel fate huh?) we had mini marshmallows and nerds to top our funfetti cupcakes with orange creamcheese frosting. Since Grace was my 'helper' with the cupcakes, she already had a sugar buzz going from this morning when we made the frosting. More sugar that afternoon was a real treat.

I hope the sugar high was followed by a sugar low for the sake of nap time :-) Grace is snoozing away and I hope everyone else has the same luck!

May the 4th be with you

We made our annual 4th of July trek to Rockaway Beach this year. We love this little town. Our friends have a beautiful beach house and always have friends over for the festivities - which include a cute little town parade. We enjoy it every year and this year was no exception.

Grace was so excited to get going. She has been doing a lot of things "self" like putting on her sunglasses, taking her shoes on and off and trying to get dressed. She also enjoys having her "hair done" and makes different requests every day. Some days are "pony" days and others are "bow" days, usually with multi-colored bows. As you can see from the picture below, yesterday was a 'bow' day. Here she is on the way to the beach.




She was a real trooper for the parade and was especially thrilled to see that people just throw candy at you. Note to readers: if you want to totally clean up on candy at a parade, it helps to have a cute toddler with you. This was her first 'candy' experience and she thought it was the coolest thing ever. She stuck close to daddy during the parade since he was helping round up the candy.


A rare family picture. It's hard to believe the last time we were at the parade we were a family of 2. Now we're almost a family of 4!

After our fill of candy and all things BBQ, we decided to head down to the beach. Grace was so excited. She also loved this backpack. Riding on daddy's back was a total thrill in itself.

Once she was at the beach, the sand took some getting used to. We haven't been to the beach since she has been walking and it was a totally new experience. It didn't take long before she was playing in the sand and walking in the surf.

Since she decided to fall in the water, we were on borrowed time and had to head back after being down there an hour or so. She was also totally exhausted. She turned to me in the middle of digging in the sand and said, "Mommy, jammies...nap". So, we headed back to the house for a quick bath. It was only a 5 minute walk from the beach but the motion of riding on Aaron's back put her to sleep about 3 minutes into the walk! This was one tired girl. She played all day and took in everything new...all without a nap. She was in a great mood and was going strong until the very end and then just crashed.

After a quick de-sanding bath, we were in clean clothes and in the car. She was out in about 5 minutes. A long day for her but she did so well.

If only Aaron and I could have slept on the way home! Luckily we were so tired, that we were able to crash at home despite the loud fireworks. Thanks Ron and Shirley for a wonderful time! Can't wait to do it again next year!