I love my compression hose... and other tidbits from the final month of pregnancy

I thought it might be time to do a little "Baby Boy Whisler" update. What? I hadn't actually even posted that the baby is a boy on the blog? Oh dear, I really am behind.

I'll be 37 weeks tomorrow. That means I am officially "full term" and the final countdown has begun. I have to admit though, I'm still having a hard time really imagining that very, very soon we will have three children! I'm trying to envision myself taking Gabriella to school wearing my pajamas and not brushing my teeth for a couple days at a time. I think its good to try to be mentally prepared for such things.

This is probably the easiest pregnancy I have had. Zofran helped me survive the first 18 weeks and although it wasn't super fun, I barely even lost weight this time. Since then, it has been pretty much smooth sailing. I move a little slower and I get tired a whole lot quicker, but for the most part I feel pretty good. I'm even sleeping great... which is a huge blessing for an extremely pregnant mama.

I do have one lovely little gift that this pregnancy has given me... varicose veins. I noticed my first little varicose vein at 23 weeks and since then, things on my right calf have just not been pretty. I finally broke down and bought some knee high compression socks a couple weeks ago. I was amazed at how much better my legs feel since I started wearing the compression socks. They pretty much eliminate all the achey, burning pain that I was having in my legs. It has also greatly improved how they look, giving me hope that I might still actually be able to wear shorts again someday.

The girls are both still extremely excited. They love to feel the baby bump and roll in my tummy. They ask questions about him all the time and are just so in awe of the whole process. Juliana often crawls in bed with us at about 6am for some morning snuggles. One morning she sleepily curled up around my tummy. The baby shifted positions and I wondered if Juliana would even notice it. Without opening her eyes she laid her hand right on the spot on my tummy where the baby had moved and patted it gently. Moments like that are amazing and priceless.

So much of the last month has been about preparing for Christmas. Now we need to get ready for this little guy. We've crossed off a few of our big to do list items in getting a mini van and in moving the girls into the same room. The move actually went much better than I thought it would. I thought Juliana would pester Gabriella to death because she tends to be a little bit harder to get to sleep, but most nights they do pretty well (although I won't say there is never any pestering.) Now we need to do all those little things... house cleaning, baby clothes washing, hospital bag packing, getting some final baby items, etc...

I'm trying to slow down and remember to enjoy these final weeks with this little guy on the inside. This will be my last pregnancy and I want to be sure to record little details as I can and savor little baby rolls and kicks... and maybe savor a little bit of that sleeping thing that I mentioned earlier.

Pumpkin Patch

Just a few favorite photos from our October trip to the pumpkin patch...

Three skeletons, a doctor and a peacock.

Where have I been? Oh you know, making kindergarten lunches, helping with classroom parties, working, making a small human being from scratch, reading "Mama Rex and T" over and over and over to a toddler, negotiating toy disputes, going to work, running a photography business... the usual.

This year Gabriella decided to dress as a doctor for Halloween. I tried to suggest she dress as a doctor last year (knowing that she would get hours and hours of play time out of the doctor costume as she loves to play doctor.) However, if I remember correctly, I was shot down and told something along the lines of, "Thats not my cutest." This year I threw out several cutesy girly suggestions and Gabriella bounced around several of those ideas, but when we came across some cheap scrubs at Target she finally decided that it would indeed be very fun to go as "Doctor Gabriella." Add a white lab coat from the dress up box (a second hand find Aunt Amy made last year) and a photoshopped doctor ID badge and she made a pretty convincing MD. I have to admit, I was a little annoyed that we heard several, "Oh what a cute nurse!" comments while we were out and about. Nurses don't wear lab coats and I'm pretty sure that if she was a little boy in the same costume not one person would've assumed she was a nurse.

This face cracks me up. Clearly she is still not into having her picture taken... yet I have to admit that it is a very "Gabriella" expression.

At least she is smiling on her badge.

Juliana had a bit less say in her costume. Fortunately, her only real desire was to dress up as something... anything really and that made her pretty easy to please. She doesn't remember Gabriella's stint as a peacock two years ago and she was delighted with her costume. A good thing, because I really love the peacock costume. Do you think I can get away with putting their little brother in it? (Just kidding!)

I could just eat those blonde spiral pony tails for breakfast. Deliciously cute.

My costume was truly pulled together at the last minute. I needed something appropriate to wear for the kids at work on Friday so I googled for maternity costume ideas. Thursday night I took a black shirt and some cheap felt I had on hand and pulled together a darn cute "Pregnant Skeleton" in about an hour and a half. I used fabric glue to secure the tiny pieces of the baby skeleton to a piece of black felt and then very loosely basted the adult skeleton parts and the black felt square containing the baby skeleton to the black maternity tee shirt. Unfortunately, I ran out of felt and didn't get a chance to make arm bones and the adult rib cage was done very hastily (and the very loose basting started to fail me before long). Nonetheless, it was a really fun "costume" to wear.

(Yep, thats my belly in the vanity mirror of the van. You should always be sure to properly restrain your children in the car.)

And now... a whole ton more pictures...

16 weeks

Really its more like 16.5 weeks... but who is counting? (Other than me. I am totally counting.)

I finally drug Jonathan outside this evening to take a couple baby bump pictures. They are the first we've taken for this baby and I was starting to feel guilty that this poor third child was already suffering from a lack of pictures/ general documentation. Jonathan hates to be forced to take pictures and to be honest, I'm MUCH more comfortable on the other side of that lens. We both managed to make it through a few frames and I'm at least willing to post these two on the internet....

After Jonathan was finished with his official documentation he turned around and snapped this picture of the girls. They had followed us out of the house. Gabriella was brandishing a stick, and Juliana was clothed in a shirt, undies and a play silk. I love this picture. It is such a "partners in crime" picture. I'm so jealous that when Daddy is holding the camera they are evidently willing to ham it up. I guess I'll have to hand it over more often.

Summer Visits

My dad and Barb came and visited us two weeks ago. We hadn't seen them since we were last in Iowa. Miss. Juliana was just taking her first step then... the girls have changed so much. It was a good visit and the girls basked in all of the grandparental attention. Gabriella ate her body weight in spaghetti and Juliana gave away lots of free hugs. Also, Gabriella got a wedding dress, but that thing deserves its own post.


This is my favorite picture of my Dad with Juliana.

Farmers Market

Juliana: I'm off to work!

Me: "Where do you work?

Juliana: The Farmers Market

Me: Oh. What do you grow on your farm to sell at the market?

Juliana: Peaches, rice and chicken.

Me: I would like to buy some of your peaches. How much do they cost?

Juliana: All of your cents.

S'mores

Now that is my kind of summer grilling.

Let's back up a bit, shall we?

So... back to May... which seems to be where we left off.

Jonathan graduated from seminary.

(Excuse the snapshot)

I can hardly leave that entirely unblogged. We moved to Oregon for seminary. It was a four year full time endeavor. Jonathan translated countless pages of ancient greek, wrote papers, poured over counseling case studies, read approximately 5,6785,093 books and delivered sermons. Yet all of that doesn't really even begin to define the seminary experience for either of us. There were trials, some "Aha!" moments, some heavy duty reliance on God and hopefully some spiritual maturing and deepening on both of our parts. I'm really proud of Jonathan, not just for the work he did, but for the man I've watched him grow into. I won't be able to wrap everything up in a neat and tidy package so maybe I should just leave it to...

Jonathan graduated from seminary.

The inevitable question is... what next? The short answer is still... we don't really know. Our hope is that Jonathan will find a full time ministry position that is a good fit for his skills and gifts and for our family as a whole. We have some preferences (like staying in the Portland area), but really we're resting on God's assurance that he will provide for us. It might not look exactly like we hope it will/think it should and we're OK with that. I'm at a much better place of resting in God's promises than I was four years ago.

Also... we totally found out that we were expecting our third baby the exact weekend that Jonathan graduated from seminary. Good thing I had four years to learn about trusting God, eh?

New life in a poor dead blog

Two months without a single blog post. You know, there are very few good excuses for such a long blogging hiatus. I hope you'll agree that this is one of them...

This tiny babe will be joining us in January. This was our 12 week ultrasound. I'm 14 weeks now. In fact, with an estimated due date of January 20th this babe threatens to steal my very own birthday out from under me (January 23rd.)

As to the blogging hiatus... I've mostly been in survival mode. Fortunately the miracle drug zofran has spared me the horrible level of sickness that I experienced with the girls (especially Juliana... the little scamp.) However, I've been going to bed when the girls do, getting up early to make it work at 7am and working more hours in general that I do during the school year. That said, I may be able to keep most of my food down, but I'm wiped out! With going to bed at the same time as the girls and arriving home from work after nap/quiet time is over, most of my "me" time for things such as blogging has vanished. I'm officially finished with that less than fun first trimester and I'll cautiously admit that I just might be feeling a bit better, but with the girls the full on sickness lasted until 16-18 weeks (respectively) so I'll probably have a few more weeks before I'm fully functional. And then, you know... only a few weeks after that until I'm huge and don't feel like doing anything again.

Other things you may be dying to know (or not.)....

What do the girls think about it?

Gabriella is sooooo beyond excited. She has been asking/praying for a baby sibling ( a brother to be specific) for the longest time. Even though we told her that she just might not be getting any more siblings... I guess she knew better. That has been one of the funnest parts of this pregnancy so far. Gabriella is so excited to see pictures of fetal development and learn about the whole process. She will be one fabulous second time big sister.

While I'm sure that Juliana has no real clue what a new baby will actually mean for her life, the wheels have been turning in her head and she is developing her concepts of the tiny baby in Mommy's tummy. She paid super close attention during the ultrasound and afterwards she was able to point out body parts on the pictures we were given. Her preference... a little sister.

What was the heart rate?

I'll admit, I don't buy the heart rate gender guessing, but I did check out this baby's heart rate vs the girls at this stage. Baby is 160s, Gabriella was 170s and Juliana was 150s... so firmly in between the two girls.

Were you trying for a boy?

Ummmm no. We have always wanted girls (Jonathan even more so than me) and we are beyond thrilled to have two of them. We'd love to have another girl to share in all of the girly fun, but we would certainly welcome a little boy (also Gabriella would be over the roof with excitement.) However, if we do have a little boy we're going to need some name input. We can't ever seem to agree on boys names. Girls names are no problem, but boys names are tough! We might have to go with Gabriella's suggestion... Spiderman.

Are you really showing already?!?

Yeaaaah. I won't even tell you how long I've been in maternity pants AND I've already had a stranger ask when I was due (wearing a loose fitting tee shirt, not a maternity shirt.)

So there you have it. The Whislers are going from 4 to 5. (Anyone have a good minivan recommendation?)

Mothers Day Tea

Gabriella's preschool hosted a super cute Mother's Day tea today.

I was given a lovely necklace to wear...

Attended a fabulous performance...

... and afterwards Gabriella gave me a copy of a book the class had made titled, "I Love My Mom." Gabriella's page read, "I love my mom when she comes home from work." I was also given a lovely drawing of yours truly wearing pink Hello Kitty pajamas. Now that I know what I look like in pink Hello Kitty pajamas I might just have to find a pair.

Then, we all had cake and juice. Juliana even got to try on the ears.

Pretty great stuff.

April

Oops. I missed an entire month of blogging. It is just a bit crazy here right now... Jonathan will finish off his four year Masters of Divinity adventure in just a few short weeks. Except right now those "few short weeks" feel more like a few looooooooooong weeks. There are still Greek passages to translate (just looking at those pages of translation and grammar diagramming makes me a little ill), papers to write, binders to compile and the list goes on.

Not that the girls and I aren't finding ways to keep busy as well....

In over my head

Gabriella and I were discussing vowels. They are one of the tricker parts of learning the written English language. She knows what the vowels are, but still often mixes and omits them.

Me: Every word has at least one vowel and some words have more.

Gabriella: "Brrr doesn't have a vowel"

Me: (not sure I've heard correctly) "How do you spell brrr?"

Gabriella: "B-r-r. (makes a shivering gesture) See? No vowels."

Me: Yes you are right sweetie, almost every word has a vowel.

Mama needs to stick to teaching art.

Riverfront

Just a few more from the riverfront...

Riding the MAX rail across the river is always a fun time.

Making instruments at the Saturday market and dancing to live music isn't too bad either

Cherry blossoms are the icing on the cake.

***

So why the shortage of Gabriella pictures?

Gabriella simply does not want her picture taken very often these day. She flips into a full blown scowl if she even thinks I might be pointing the camera her direction. So, I don't press her very often and I try to make sure that the camera doesn't dominate our family outings. I do, however, have some fabulous pictures that Gabriella took (on our old point & shoot camera) the same day these were taken. Hmmm.... more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it? I have no idea where she would get that from.

Sunshine

Cherry Blossom

Portland Japanese Gardens

Hmmm... I'm thinking that I'll start passing off last weekend's outings as this weekend's outings. That way you can all think that I am keeping caught up on my blog, no?

Anyhow, last weekend we went to the Portland Japanese Gardens. There were three very good reasons to go.

1.) It was the Hina Matsuri Doll Festival... also known as the celebration of Girls Day (and we just happen to know two little girls that would be impressed by the ornate dolls.)

2.) We were having our own celebration weekend for a very special Daddy that happens to love the Japanese Gardens, and really Japanese culture in general.

3.) It was free admssion day.

It was very crowded because of the free admission day so we made it a relatively short trip. The girls loved finding all of the things on the "treasure map" they were given at the entrance and they enjoyed the doll display. They were also able to try a bit of origami and make their own paper doll. Gabriella was very pleased with herself at the rock garden because the tour guide who was addressing a large group said, "This is the only garden that does not have a water feature. Why do you think that is?" and after a moment of silence from the entire group, Gabriella's little voice piped up, "Because the little rocks are like the water." The tour guide was pretty darn impressed at Gabriella's conceptualization of zen aesthtics ;)

And a happy birthday month to this guy:

I still melt a little bit at those blue eyes.

Weekend Adventures

We enjoy our mini-weekend adventures at the Whisler house. In honor of Jonathan's birthday we visited one of his favorite places last Saturday. It helped that it just so happened to be "free admission day." Any guesses on where we went?

Signs of Spring II

Signs of Spring

Just a few little glimpses of coming spring Gabriella and I found on the way to preschool.

Oops

Giggle Giggle Quack

Last weekend we received four free tickets to see the Oregon Children's theatre's production, Giggle, Giggle Quack. I was excited to take Gabriella downtown to see her first real play in a real theatre. I didn't take many pictures to share, but it was a fabulous afternoon. Gabriella was entranced by the super cute production, Juliana was entertained and sat through the entire play quietly (a big deal for a 2 year old) and I will have the song "Giggle, Giggle Quack" in my head for weeks.

Gabriella waiting to have her program signed...

A lovely day to enjoy downtown Portland...