Our trip to OBX

So we've been feeling bad that March and June haven't done much this summer. No summer camps, only one trip, and that was to Santa Rosa to see family. So we planned a trip to the Outer Banks, NC to spend a few days on the beach before school starts again.

The girls did, in fact, have a great time splashing around on the beach and of course June ate all the seafood she could shove into her little mouth.


June is occasionally a wild child, and this was one of those times. She hurtled herself into the waves, not caring a bit when they knocked her to the ground. She just got up again, dug the sand out of the inside of her bikini, and went into them again. She even found herself a new boyfriend there:


Our son, however, is NOT a good traveler so far. First off, he absolutely cannot fall asleep in his car seat. So he was cranky and screaming most of the drive up and the drive back. Rather than making the driver (DH) stressed out from the constant screaming, I chose to hold B in the backseat for much of the drive.

Secondly, B found the sea air to be extremely appetite enhancing. In other words, he ate every two hours the entire time we were there. I fed him in the car, in restaurants, on the beach, in the hotel, and just about everywhere. This from someone who is not especially keen on revealing her boobs to the general public. And of course, every time I modestly covered myself and him with a blanket, he thought it was a fun game to take the blanket off!!

Finally, B didn't seem at all impressed with the beach itself. He did not smile or laugh at 1) toes in the sand, 2) looking at waves, 3) sitting on the sand while the waves approached, 4) entering the water while the waves splashed his legs and belly. Not that he cried or anything. Just didn't seem particularly amused. He did complain occasionally when the water didn't make it all the way to him, but that might have been coincidence.

We had to come home early so that March and June (and fortunately DH not me) could attend a Demi Lovato concert.


After a long bath, B felt much better:

I'm back!

So I'm returning to blogging after a long absence to have my baby and spend some sleepless nights with him. But I know my friends want an update and of course some pictures.

So here's the update. B is now 3 months old. He still spends a lot of his day either sleeping, or trying to sleep. I confess that because we know he'll be our last baby, we spent way too much time holding him in our arms. But his sleep in our arms is so much deeper and longer than in his crib, and selfishly we just want to savor every minute of this time with him.

The question everyone asks: is he sleeping through the night? Well, no, not really, not most nights. Most nights he sleeps from 10 or 11 until aroun 3am, gets up to eat, goes right back to sleep (actually eats while sleeping for the most part), gets up again around 6 or 7 to eat, and goes back to sleep again until 10am. Honestly, it's not that big of a deal waking up to feed him-it takes about 20 minutes and then I'm right back to sleep. DH doesn't wake up at all!

He's definitely smiling at us now, and smiling less often at inanimate objects, although he still smiles at our curtains sometimes, and this lion in his car seat:


He's holding his head up pretty well now, and really likes to be in any kind of sitting up position. We recently bought him a jumperoo, which he can sit in, bounce when he kicks his feet, turn around, and play with some toys that are attached. He seems to love the monkey (just like June!) and laughs hysterically at it.



But his favorite place to be above all else is here:

It's only fair...

There's no way my daughters are going to put up with an unborn baby getting a cooler looking room than they have. So, of course, SuperMom that I am, I had to do something special in their rooms. In the past, this would have been done within a few weeks of our moving into the new place, but hey, I think I get a little bit of a break for doing this while pregnant!

Somehow, this has also gotten more complex as we've moved. The first room they had (which they shared) I stenciled bright colored flowers around the room, some pink and purple for March, and some yellow and orange for June. Then, they separated into two new rooms in the next house. So March had lovely blue walls, with butterflies stenciled around, mostly on one wall. And June had a nice mango-colored room with monkeys stenciled all over her walls.

This time, stencils just weren't enough. SuperMom was asked to do murals on their walls. March wanted giant cats playing on the wall, and June wanted hot air balloons flying around her room!!

Anything for my darlings!




In case you're wondering, those are (left to right) Thing (from Addams Family), our cat, Jupiter, Kirby, and "dodo", June's favorite doll since she was about 2 years old, now tattered and worn.


...and here's June herself in a balloon, next to a Webkinz rabbit who's spying on her.


...and the new love of her life, a llama!


Too bad for the monkeys who used to be her favorites before she became a llama lover!


June insisted on drawing me in a balloon, keeping my eye on her in her bed!

Snowed in...

We were actually literally snowed in on Monday!!! How awesome is that?? I've always seen on tv where people couldn't get out their doors because the snow was too high to open the door, but it's never actually happened to me! Okay, so I lived in Southern California half my life, and didn't get too many opportunities to be snowed in, but still, this was big time excitement for me.



This is our screendoor NOT OPENING!


Okay, really we were able to squeeze ourselves out the door :)


When life gives you lemons, make lemonade...when life gives you snow, make a snow kitty!

More on the Baby's Room...

Here's how the stickers turned out on the walls. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but we painted the walls a baby blue color first.

Decorating the baby room...

Somehow, despite an entire wall of bedding options at Babys R Us, we couldn't find a single one that we liked. There's a lot of brown out there these days...brown just seems too depressing for a baby's room to me. So we did some online shopping and found these crib sheets and wall stickers that were just perfect!!







Now, we just need to find some nice matching accessories. This isn't one of those ready-made themes that comes with every possible accessory. We may have to get a bit creative here.

Freaking amazing!

Technology is really freaking amazing! 15 years ago, every detail of what was going on inside a womb was a complete mystery. Women noticed they were pregnant, doctors measured women's bellies, and one day a baby came out. It was either healthy or not.

Today, they not only can measure every bone and every organ in the baby's body, they can track the blood flow in and out of the baby's heart, can do an echocardiogram of the heart, can look inside the skull at the brain. Even freakier, you can pay to have a 3D image of that baby, so you can decide three months before its born whether it has Dad's chin or Mom's nose!!

Yesterday was my fifth sonogram. I really do love the quality time I'm getting to spend watching my baby grow. Yesterday I actually saw him move and felt it at the same time. Just awesome!

I've been derelict...

Okay, clearly I've been totally derelict in keeping up with my blog. But I have a very good reason. The thing that's been occupying my thoughts most for the past few months has been something I couldn't blog about. At least not until now. So, here's why I haven't been posting:



Yes, it's true! I am 20 weeks pregnant! I decided my blog did not need to include all the first trimester complaining, worrying and obsessing. But, lucky you, you will get to hear it for the rest of the pregnancy.

So, yesterday was our sonogram (also known as ultrasound). The tech was a bit crabby at the start, especially when March and June followed us into the room. But she warmed up to us after a bit. And proceeded to give my children a very nice anatomy lesson. They learned about the parts of the heart, all about blood flow into and out of the heart, about the brain, and of course, about gender anatomy. She refused to say the "P" word in front of the girls, but, yes, our baby most certainly has "boy parts"!

While I thought it would be great to have a boy after two girls, I admit that I've had a few other unexpected reactions to the news. First, I mourned just a teeny bit that we wouldn't be buying cute pink dresses for the baby. Then, I had a sudden panicky lack of self-confidence. What if all the things that I know I've done pretty well in raising my girls no longer applies to this boy? Can I expect anything to go the way it went for the girls? Okay, I'm calming back down now.

Good grief, now we just have to think of a name!