An interview with Chloe

What’s your name?
Chloe!

How old are you?
free! (holds up four fingers) Oh, this is four. One, Two, Free. I free (holds up the right amount of fingers)

What’s your favorite thing to do?
Umm.. play with Jack and Mimi and Papa..

What is your favorite book?
La La Loopsy

What is your favorite animal?
hippopotamus

What do you like to watch on TV?
Daniel Tiger

What is your favorite song?
Lalalalalalaaaa

What does daddy do at work?
Umm.. at his office!

What do you want for your birthday?
A cake. I love cupcakes and cake and cookies!

What’s your favorite color?
blue and green, orange, pink, and all the colors of the rainbow

Where is your favorite place to go?
Umm.. on the frip outside

What is that?
Umm.. a doggy (I am confused)

What do you want to be when you grow up?
Umm.. eat dinner!!

Who is your favorite person?
Achelle (This is how she says the name of one the teenagers in our youth group!)

What is your favorite toy?
Umm.. my favorite toy is…. a dollhouse!! The one I helped daddy build with daddy’s beautiful wrench.

What makes you happy?
Daddy! Daddy makes me happy.

What scares you?
Monsters ARRRRRRRR!!!

When you get sick what makes you feel better?
medicine

What do you think we should name the baby?
umm.. grass!

What is your favorite drink?
Milk and Juice!! and chocolate milk, too.

Who is your favorite princess?
Umm….. Addi!!

What is something that mommy always says to you?
Umm… just don’t listen to not listen to not clean up my room to not get something out

How old is mommy?
Umm.. I don’t know.. How old are you?

How old is daddy?
Umm.. I don’t know…

What did you do today?
I dunno

What is love?
love me!

What do you like to wear?
Umm.. clothes. With hearts. Look there are hearts on my shirt! See? See mom!

What is your favorite thing to do in the summer?
Umm.. go to the beach and eat lunch at the beach!!!

What is daddy’s favorite food?
Umm.. tomatoes. Red tomatoes.

What do you know about Jesus?
Umm.. He loves me. God loves me, mommy!

What do you like to go shopping for?
To pick some red tomatoes so he can.. he loves red tomatoes.

What is something you like to eat?
All the things for my tummy to.. I can grow bigger and bigger.

Are you excited to get a baby sister?
Yep. and Addi, too.

Where is your baby sister?
(points to my belly) down here.

What else should we tell people about you?
Umm.. I have to tell everyone to everything outside. Well, there’s lots of garbage outside.

24 weeks pregnant

How far along? 24 weeks

Baby is the size of: I think she is supposed to be about 1 1/3 pounds now and a foot long 🙂

Total weight gain: I am avoiding the scale this time. I am trying to just make healthy choices and embrace what my body is doing.. it’s hard though. 🙂

Maternity clothes? Yes

Sleep: I have really been struggling in the sleep department lately..

Worst moment this week: One of my children has really been testing her boundaries all week long.. so that is making every day hard.

Best moment this week: Well, both moments are totally unrelated to pregnancy, but my niece asked Jesus into her heart last night!!!! Also, we just had our mission’s conference at church. I have such a heart for mission’s and am so thankful for the sacrifices that they make to reach the world for Christ.

Miss anything? normal clothes.. I spend Saturday at the mall and it was almost depressing walking around thinking about all of the things I can’t fit in. (to not be a total downer, I am thankful that really flowy tops are in style because there are a lot of pretty colors that I can actually wear now!)

Movement: A LOT!! I could feel an elbow or knee pressing out and swishing back and forth yesterday morning. 😀

Food cravings: nothing.. I can’t eat a whole lot right now without feeling miserable.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Still heartburn.

Gender: GIRL

Labor signs: I have been feeling a lot of discomfort lately, but I am hoping it is related to the fact that I apparently really “popped” over the last week.

Symptoms: Big belly that moves, heartburn, hands going numb every night (so annoying!!!)

Belly button in or out? seems to be half and half right now! haha!

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or moody most of the time: Mostly happy

Looking forward to: getting the walls in the nursery done so that I can get started setting up her room.

23 weeks pregnant

How far along? 23 weeks

Baby is the size of: She weighs a little more than a pound now.

Total weight gain: not really sure..

Maternity clothes? Yes

Sleep: blagh

Worst moment this week: Yesterday was a really rough day in our house.. Neither of the girls napped and there were a lot of potty accidents..

Best moment this week: My husband brought Frozen home today for us to watch!!! 😀

Miss anything? not expanding

Movement: lots and lots of movement happening.

Food cravings: I can’t think of anything that I am really craving.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Heartburn. I hate heartburn!!

Gender: GIRL

Labor signs: nothing

Symptoms: anything that you can imagine being a symptom

Belly button in or out? in.. sorta flat..

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or moody most of the time: Mostly happy

Looking forward to: Spring. It officially starts in two days and I can’t wait to decorate for it! Nevermind that there will still be snow on the ground here, I am putting out bright colors and flowers!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Having children just makes holidays 100% better! I have always loved holidays. Every single silly one. My mom always did special things for my sisters and I for every holiday. I have always been the same way since getting married. Scott never complained about having to eat themed food, but something about making it for the girls is so much better. They get excited about it! Like when mommy pulls out a gallon of green milk!

Green pancakes were a big hit, too! (Especially since they were topped with green sprinkles!)

If anyone has a trick to not getting them to look brown, let me know! 😉

We also had a gold coin hunt. The girls love carrying baskets or purses around and filling them with goodies. I found plastic “gold coins” at Michaels on sale this past weekend and decided to use them in a fun way. While they were sucked in by Finding Nemo, I hid gold coins all over the house. They had so much fun running around and collecting them. The only downside is that Addi is convinced that they have chocolate inside. (One time of giving them the chocolate gold coins, and we can’t live it down!)

The girls helped me make green cupcakes for dessert. I frosted them once they were both in their rooms for nap time with some delicious Hershey’s chocolate caramel frosting. I can’t make cupcakes (or anything really..) without sprinkles, so green sprinkles went atop the deliciousness. I put some Andy’s mints on top of one for me to eat. Scott and the girls don’t like them, so I did mostly just green sprinkles. I left the mini cupcakes frost-less, because, my toddlers do not need any additional sugar.. seriously.. they are wild!

I hope that there are a lot of shenanigans happening in your house today, too!

Let your burdens go.

A few weeks ago, my husband preached in our morning service. His message was all about burdens. We are meant to share some burdens with others, we are meant to carry some burdens, and some burdens were never meant to be ours in the first place. I have been carrying the burden of fear and worry with this pregnancy since the beginning. FEAR IS NOT A BURDEN WE ARE EVER MEANT TO CARRY!! I picked that burden up and attempted to take off running with it. The thing is, worry is such a heavy burden that it has pretty much crushed me. I would cry in the car on the way to every doctors appointment because I was so terrified that something could be wrong.

I went to the altar, gave Jesus my burden of fear, and I left it there. I didn’t want to pick it back up. The thing with leaving things at the altar is that so often, as soon as we say “amen”, we pick up whatever we put down and take it with us. STOP IT!! I was on my way to my first doctor’s appointment since then. I realized while singing praises to my savior that I hadn’t ONCE thought about my fear of something happening to this baby or something being wrong. I smiled, and realized how freeing it had been to let it go. It helps a lot that this baby is on the go constantly, so maybe my faith is puny. OK, I know that my faith is puny. I am working on growing my faith.

Anyway, I go through the usual OB stuff. “Here, let me weigh you with big numbers right in your face so you feel like the heifer you really are.” Ok, so she didn’t say that.. but it sure feels like it when the numbers on the scale rapidly start increasing at this point. Ok, now go pee in a cup and awkwardly hand it to me when you are done. I wait for my doctor in the waiting room and realize that I feel TERRIBLE. I forgot to actually eat a breakfast and had only had a small mug of milk to drink. It was almost ELEVEN. Dumb. Dr. pretty comes in and tells me that everything looks great other than that I still have blood in my urine. You know how I discovered that I was having a miscarriage with the last pregnancy? Blood. Somehow I still felt peace. She checks the baby’s heart beat, and it is perfect. She tells me that she is concerned about the blood because SOMETHING is obviously going on. Usually the culprit is a UTI or Placenta Previa. I don’t have either. I honestly do not know what it could be, and she is pretty stumped, too. “Are you sure you aren’t feeling any pain?”

I am not worried for my baby. My baby is in the hands of Jesus, and He is going to protect her far better than I ever can. I am a little concerned that I will end up being put on bed rest if it keeps up because any amount of blood is not normal. Please pray with and for me that they can figure out what is going on. I am trying to avoid google so that I don’t convince myself of something horrible. I laid the burden of fear down at the altar weeks ago, and I refuse to allow Satan to convince me to pick it back up. My back hurts too much to carry it anyway!

21 weeks pregnant

How far along? 21 weeks

Baby is the size of:

Total weight gain: probably around 10 pounds.. I find out on Friday.

Maternity clothes? Yes, though I am still squeezing into my regular sweaters and such because I don’t have maternity ones and this winter WON’T END.

Sleep: Yep.. terrible still.

Worst moment this week: The same “well-meaning” person from church commenting on how BIG I am, and am I sure there is only one baby in there. If one more person tells me that I look to big to just have one, I am going to flip out. It is my THIRD pregnancy to go this far.. I always get HUGE, and my weight gain is perfect for where I am at.

Best moment this week: All of the fun stuff I ordered has come in, and I am having fun planning for baby girl’s room.

Miss anything? coffee..

Movement: Baby girl still moves a TON and is getting much stronger. I love it. 🙂

Food cravings: ice cream, but that is a normal thing for me. 😉

Anything making you queasy or sick: Still fighting heartburn, and not feeling so hot today. I gave in and took Zofran again today. 😦

Gender: GIRL

Labor signs: nothing

Symptoms: heartburn, bladder kicks, belly

Belly button in or out? in.. sorta flat..

Wedding rings on or off? On.

Happy or moody most of the time: Pretty happy, just feeling crummy today and it’s making me a little grouchy.

Looking forward to: SPRING!! I am SO TIRED of winter it is not even funny.