another catch all...

Time seems to be continuing on. I had a minor freak-out on the treadmill last week, when I realized that we will have another child in four months. I am mostly worried about how we will actually care for two children and not go completely crazy, but I know we will eventually adjust. This time around I am not thinking about preparing for the new baby, but how we can prepare the baby we already have. She will still be so young.

Enough of that. In other news, we had a wonderful time in Texas last week. The flight was less than pleasurable, but it was likely our last one for a long, long time.

Since being back we were given a brand new dryer from my mom and I have been giddy with excitement. I have been in the process of painting the laundry room all week and can not wait for it be a cute area. Unfortunately, I can not seem to pick the right color paint for anything. I have been trying for red, but ended up with pink. 

I am also one class away from finishing my third graduate school class. This class was the hardest for me, I think because of all the time away Will had. I also had to write the longest paper yet. But, I am almost finished. Just one little step closer to that degree. 

I spent some time growing this week. 20 pound weight gain and I am just a little half-way through. Oh well, it is what it is. Madison and I managed to go to the gym every day this week. Mostly because it is my only real reason I have to leave the house.

And now for some pictures. I actually took some this week.... 

22 weeks pregnant

As soon as Madison sees the camera, she comes running. She just wanted to showcase her new big girl shoes. 

 

 She found my box of accessories and tries them on for herself. My little hipster baby. 

 23 weeks pregnant

 

 After Will finished taking my picture, Madison stood in the same spot I did and signed, "please" and pointed to the camera. She was telling me she wanted her picture taken also.

Amazing what a difference six months makes. She is such a big girl now, I can hardly believe it. The transformation takes place so quickly.

Well, I think that is about it. Hopefully  I will have my laundry room finished this week and I can show it off. Its the little things in life that get me now, like matching washers and dryers. Life changes real quick, ha.

Happy Valentine's Day

why I will never make it in the blogging world

I have spent a little bit of time debating whether or not I want to use this blog for something other than keeping my family and friends up to date on our lives. 

So many of the blogs I read say, "I just started off to keep our family updated and now I have 7,000 followers." 

But the more thought I put towards expanding my blog, if you will, I decided it is just not for me. 

I could never keep up with the constant social media rat race. 

I could never blog enough, twitter enough, facebook enough, take self-portraits enough to build my own little blog empire. 

I even bought an ipod hoping I could be cool like all the iphone people and take such cute, perfectly edited, instagram photos, but turns out the ipod camera is really not that great. 

And the majority of the time, the ipod is uncharged in a totally different room than where my daughter is doing that super cute thing. So our lives go mostly undocumented because try as I might to be a good documenter I can barely keep up with my phone, let alone a camera. How, oh, how people have their phones on them to catch all those pictures constantly, I will never know. Lets not even talk about all the things people tweet, I mean their phones must literally be another appendage. 

I am not on Facebook, not on twitter, and obviously could never sustain an instagram account because I would rather spend my time face to face with my memories instead of behind some form of technology to document them. 

I often feel like I am letting my whole life slip by because I did not take a picture of a certain event or I did not write a certain thing down, but its another lesson in not comparing myself to others and giving myself a break. 

 I am literally with Madison every waking moment of the day. I think that I am storing away enough memories because I am not really missing any part of her life, I get a front row seat to it all. 

All that to say, I will still try to document as much as possible, it will just go a little something like this.... 

 

This was my attempt at trying to capture my growing belly and the fact I actually got dressed. My little photo bomber had a different agenda, ha. 

Happy Monday!  We head to Texas tomorrow. Crazy to think it will likely be our last trip back for a long, long time. Traveling with two kids and paying for three plane tickets, probably not going to happen.

 

half-way

20 weeks

 It seems we are finally on the up and up. Will came back early Friday morning and we have been trying to regain our sense of normalcy. 

Friday morning we went to a family breakfast at a local eatery, it was wonderful. Then we headed over to the children's museum and let Madison play, while I pretended to ignore all the germs. On Saturday, we had a quick little valentine's photo shoot with a mom friend of mine that is a photographer. Madison was less than cooperative, so who knows how they will turn out. Sunday was a beautiful day. We went to church and went on a family bike ride to get ice cream.

So I think we did a sufficient job of enjoying each others company again. Its amazing how much energy having a little help gives me. Even when Will leaves for work in the morning now, its not that bad because I know he will at least be there at night to help me. I am thankful for the time I had with just Madison because I think  needed to prove to myself I could handle my own child, but I am really thankful I have help again. It was pretty lonely around here. 

Which brings us to today, the anatomy ultrasound for our second little peanut. Even though I was a bit distracted with our crazy toddler running around and crying, I was still in awe that another soul is being formed inside of me. I showed great restraint and refrained from looking at the screen when the gender parts were in view, so we will have to wait until June to know. But my gosh, these siblings look the same. I compared Madison's ultrasound to this one and it is almost identical. Exact same profile!

 

It seems strange to say, but I know that this baby is already acting different than Madison. I hardly feel this baby move at all, maybe it is just positioned differently, who knows. However, I felt Madison constantly from about 15 weeks on. Crossing my fingers that means this baby is just slightly less busy. 

So here we are, 20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go, yikes! With Madison I could hardly wait for July to arrive so I could meet her, but with this baby, I am a little less anxious. Imagining two children is still too much for my mind to handle sometimes. 

all I can muster...

18 weeks

I think we might just conclude this winter is a wash. It is nearly February and I have been sick nearly this entire month. If you include the morning sickness stuff, I have been sick all winter. I just keep thinking it will clear, but maybe it just isn't, and I need to find some sort of peace about being sick. 

I am also flying solo this week. I didn't want to mention anything in case there are crazies out there, but if the crazies want to come and get us then best of luck to them.

My classes this semester are in full swing and attempting to write a paper while wrangling a toddler proves to be quite difficult. Why, oh, why did I ever think college was so haaard??

There are some silver linings in this little storm we are in. Like it was finally above 15 degrees this weekend. The sunshine helps me tremendously. It is supposed to be in the 50s all week, hallelujah!

i wish I could find something to write about in regards to this pregnancy. I have just been so preoccupied with everything else I do not notice it most of the time.  I hoping that when we have our ultrasound in a week, I will feel more of a connection to this babe. 

Madison seems to have recovered just fine from her stitches, but has been reacting to her shots she received last week. She weighs a measly 21 lbs. I fed her spoonfuls of peanut butter yesterday so maybe that will help her put on some weight. She just never sits still, even in her sleep she moves constantly. She burns too many calories to keep any weight on.

We are heading to Houston in two weeks or so. It might be one of our last times back before we have two kids, eek. 

This is all just a bunch of rambling, but I finally finished my paper and this is all I can manage. Here are some pictures of our mischievous baby. She knows what she isn't supposed to do but does it anyway. Pretty typical, I guess.

I am actually 19 weeks pregnant today, but unless Madison can figure out how to work our camera, looks like I won't be taking a picture. Poor, poor second child. 

still in a rut...

This was how our week ended, stitches on Madison's forehead. 

This little incident actually starts much earlier in the week, with me getting sick, again. 

I thought I had found some new energy, new outlook for the new year, but that quickly came crashing down about seven days into it. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I had gotten a gym membership and was incredibly anxious to use it. I have used it once, new year fail. 

After class on Monday, a cough began to develop and then just take over my body. It is still lingering today, which is not really compatible with working out at the gym. 

So all last week I was trying to care for someone else, while trying to grow another human, while trying to get over another silly cold. That left little time to go to the grocery store and by Friday our pantry was bare. 

So Friday morning rolls around and my wonderful husband decides to take Madison to Starbucks and bring us back some breakfast. However, on his way into the store, while holding Madison, he trips on the curb. While he was trying to catch himself, Madison's body bent backwards, almost out of his arms, and her head made contact with the stones lining the walls of Starbucks. Blood then went everywhere. Followed by our first emergency room visit and stitches. 

Will feels awfully guilty for all of this, but if I had just not gotten sick, then none of this would be an issue. 

Madison has recovered quite well. Acting like her normal, crazy self. 

Until last night that is, when she was up half the night with a possible fever. 

Which means we were up with her half the night. 

Here is hoping that this week will actually improve and we can attempt to regain some control of our lives. Being controlled by sickness is pretty miserable for me.

Here is also hoping the next post will at least contain some pictures of me dressed, an update on Madison's growth (she is 18 months today), an update on the baby inside of me (I have a dr's appointment this week), or at least something other than me complaining about being sick.