Today is January 2

Today is January 2nd.

Today is my first day back full time from maternity leave.

No, I’m not that sad about it.

Today is my 1-year work anniversary.

Yes, if you’re doing the math right now, I got pregnant literally a week into my new job.

Today is my first official day in my new role.

Yep, I got a promotion.

2014 was pretty rad. I started a brand new job, scared out of my mind. Nothing but good has come from it and looking back I can’t believe I was so nervous. Our family grew by one whole person and filled a void none of us knew existed. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time home these last few months…more so than I can say for my other two maternity leaves, if I’m being honest. But I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. Back full time, with a new role on top of it, won’t come without challenges but I’m ready.

Today is the real kick-off to 2015. I have a feeling it’s gonna be a good one.

Cheers!

An urge to write

Every so often (actually, quite often) I get this urge to write. It could be about a specific story- maybe about one of the kids, maybe not-, about a cool project we’ve been doing around the house, maybe recipe, or like now, just a little update about things and such. Unfortunately, when these impulses arise, I am rarely at a good place to drop everything and write. But hey, here I am, with the urge to write, no kids around, and my laptop in front of me! Man it feels good.

So, well, lots of things have happened since the last time I blogged. {Which, even before that was becoming more and more sporadic.} We welcomed our third baby. THIRD. Lincoln William officially stole our hearts. We are a family of five. It’s insane. Sometimes it’s insane good. And other times it’s insane good. I seem to live in a constant state of “just on the edge of being overwhelmed.”

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I have the “holy crap I have a boy” realization multiple times a week. It’s STILL kind of unbelievable to me. No joke, the very first thing I said when the doctor put him on my chest after he was born was “HE REALLY IS A BOY!” I was smiling and may have shed a tear or two of joy. Speaking of birth. Yep, it happened. It was fast. Too fast for drugs. I have one thing to say about that: Freaking OUCH. Okay, I guess that’s two words, but whatever. He’s already two months old. Time is flying. Life is busy and homeboy is just along for the ride. He’s a pretty good sport, but definitely more opinionated than his sisters were at this age. He also things sleep is for losers compared to his sisters. I’m trying really hard not to compare him to his sisters so I stop living in a state of sleep disappointment.

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I’m back working two days a week and it’s fantastic. I missed it.  I’m happy to be back. It’s good for all of us. I’ll go back full time in January. I’m ready. Though, I do have to say, I have enjoyed my time home with Lincoln more so than my other two leaves.

Christmas music is currently filling my headphones. I’m very excited for the holidays this year. For the first year, Rylee was talking about our Advent Activity calendar long before December even started. I won’t lie, it made my heart really happy that I started a tradition that she now looks forward to every year.

Speaking of Rylee. Wow, this girl. I am LOVING school age. She’s having sleep overs with friends, she’s playing sports, she’s just generally pretty awesome. Sure, we still struggle with general sassiness (by we I mean her and me, she’s never like that with Andy), but she is growing such a fantastic little person. She is such a good help with Lincoln. Her sense of humor is on point. She works really hard in school, she is reading at a mid-year second grade level, AND Andy has been teaching her multiplication. Future engineer? Perhaps. Wouldn’t that be so awesome!?

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Reese is as fiery as ever. She is in full-on two year old mode, Lord help us. She loves her brother something fierce. Like, a little too rough kind of fierce. It’s sweet and scary all at the same time. Eating is still one of her favorite past times, but lately we’ve added dancing, reading books and playing baby doll to the line-up. She’s also becoming quite vocal and opinionated {and sometimes physical} regarding her sister. Good times. She constantly blows me away with different things…the way she memorizes songs, her proper use of the word “comfortable” and her love for caesar salad.

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Ok, I suppose I need to get back to it. These workflow emails won’t write themselves.

Yep, that definitely felt good.

I always have the best of intentions with this blog, but more often than not it goes on the back burner. For my own sake, I want to write more here. I don’t know when I’ll be back to blog again, but I do know I’m not ready to give up this space, my outlet, just yet.

Oh Boy! 36 Weeks Belly to Belly to Belly

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How far along? 36 weeks, 3 days
Total weight gain/loss: +27
Stretch marks? Still with the one right over the top of where my belly-button ring used to be.
Maternity Clothes: Yes and no. My favorite skirt to wear right now is not maternity. Most all my tops are “tenting” at the bottom, maternity or not. I realllly wish I could wear yoga pants to work.
Sleep: So inconsistent. One night I will be up 5+ times to pee and toss and turn just uncomfortable in general, then the next night I will sleep like a rock and only wake up once to pee at 5 am.
Best moment this month: Getting all 3 car seats in our cars. What a huge stress relief!
Movement: A lot. Afternoons about an hour or two after lunch it’s like he has a dance party with the moves.
Gender: Boy!
Labor Signs: Turns out crazy dance parties with your kids will make you have contractions. B-Hicks off and on, but nothing out of the ordinary. Last night as I was sitting in the living room I was having dull, achy period like cramping…I don’t think things are too close, but things are definitely progressing. We’ll see next week what the state of the cervix is.
Food Cravings: Sure. I’ll take whatever you’re having.
Belly Button in or out? Outtie like whoa. My OBGYN actually talked to me this week about needing to watch it because it is pretty herniated and I’m having soreness to the right of it. We’ll see how that all plays out.
What I miss: Being able to comfortably snuggle my girls on my lap.
What I am looking forward to: My ass being back to my regular size. I have a feeling it’s going to take a bit longer than a couple of weeks post-baby. Thank goodness my work’s new office is going to have a built-in gym!
Baby Milestones: Baby weighs close to 6 lbs now and is putting on about 1 oz  of weight per day.
Other Goodness: The way Reese pinches my outtie belly button and says “BROTHER!” The girls are officially sharing a room…overall it’s going well so far. We figured out a way to get all three car seats in the car with only minor irritation! That should buy us another year before we have to get a new car. Thank goodness!

And for the ultimate pregnancy fun…here’s a 36 week belly comparison for all three of my pregnancies!

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  Rylee Reese Baby Brother
Due Date: May 22, 2008 July 23, 2012 October 4, 2014
Gender: Girl! Girl! Boy…or so they say.
Name: Before conception Sometime late in the 3rd Trimester 34 Weeks
Weight Gain:  + 27 lbs + 30 lbs + 27 lbs
Morning Sickness: NONE! Lots of nausea in first trimester Nothing worth mentioning
Cravings: None. Ever. Taco Bell chicken quesadillas and/or anything candy/dessert/sweets related Nothing worth mentioning
First Kicks: Week 20 Week 15 Week 14
First kicks felt by others: Week 23 Week 19 Week 21
Up to pee: 3-4 times/night 1-3 times/night 1-5 times/night
Maternity Clothes: 22 weeks 20 weeks 15 weeks +/-
Belly Button: Sometime after 30 weeks… 27 weeks So early I have no idea.

 

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Back to School

Today was officially back to school day in our house.

Rylee heading to first grade. Full day! and Reese heading back to daycare, only this year she will be full time in the two year old class.

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Rylee was a nervous/excited hybrid for her first day of first grade. Last week I took her in to find out who her teacher is for the year, look at her class list, check out her classroom and drop off her supplies. Her teacher is a mom of one of her daycare friends and her best friend is in her class. That helped ease the nerves a bit I think. She asked me to take her to school nonetheless.

We dropped Reese off first. Reese was super excited as we were walking in the door at daycare. She had even been cheering on the drive. But the second we walked into the drop-off room she froze up and wanted to be held. She laid her head on my shoulder and didn’t want to get down. I could tell she was right on the verge of tears. It was sweet and sad all at the same time. But cereal bar and banana to the rescue! Crisis averted. We kissed goodbye and as Ry & I walked out she was happily munching on her cereal bar.

As Rylee and I drove back to the school we chatted about the after school plan, since she will be riding a different bus than she did last year. She was clearly annoyed I kept bringing it up. I asked her if she was ok with me just dropping her off in the drop-off line and she asked that park and I walk her up to the school. I had to park across the street from the school and as we walked up, she held my hand. As soon as we got to the door of the school I asked if she was good or if she wanted me to walk with her all the way to her classroom. She asked me to walk all the way with her and I obliged. I mean, how many more years will she want me to do this, I thought. The second we walked in the school? She dropped my hand and walked 2 steps ahead of me. Ha, go figure.

I made sure she was settled in her room, threw her a high 5 and told her to have an awesome day. She wrapped her arms around me and squeezed tight.

This year is going to be pretty great.

 

Currently…

There’s this thing about blogging…where you can go weeks or even months without blogging and don’t feel a twinge of anything about it, but then you decide to write a post or two within a short period of time and all of a sudden the fire is reignited and you want to blog all the time the only problem is you don’t really have any cohesive thoughts to blog about.

That’s where I’m at right this very second. I’ve posted a few times within the last week or so and I don’t want to stop that momentum…if you can even call 3 posts within 2 weeks momentum. I have some things I want to blog about, like how I hate the word “feminism”, interview tips for working moms, my #MapleThread weekend and DUH Reese turning two!…I just don’t necessarily have the time to put complete posts together for any or all of those. I want to…I really really want to.

And I hope I find the time, but for now? Enter “currently”.

My girl Lindsey hosts this with another blogger each and every Thursday. And each week it’s a different set of prompts. A fun way to keep up with what’s going on in a don’t really need to think about it too much sort of way.

Lately we’ve been watching a lot of movies from RedBox. Or should I say, Andy has been watching them and I’ve been falling asleep during them. Oops. The other day I rented the Lego Movie, hearing great amazing things about it. Rylee ended up getting in trouble that evening so she was sent to bed early. I completely lost interest and fell asleep about 10 minutes into it only to wake up at the end to Andy looking at me saying “don’t ever listen to a movie recommendation from whoever told you that was a good movie again.” 

Still searching for a name for this little guy. Much like with Reese we’ve got a couple that we’re throwing around, but aren’t completely convinced yet that we’ve found the one. Last night we were watching the movie Rango and Andy said, “hey let’s name him Rango!” As Rylee enthusiastically agreed I looked at him like he was crazy and he just said, “what? after some of the suggestions you’ve had I don’t think it’s that bad.” 10-ish weeks to figure it out. See also: feel free to leave your boy name suggestions in the comments below.

Missing city league softball. Totally random, I know. But a few of us here at work were talking about it this morning and I got to thinking about the summer that Andy & I put together a team and how much fun it was. I think I’ve convinced our “activities director” that we need to put a team together next summer.

Growing. I can just leave that one as is, right? Ha. If you ask the guy at my work, that’d be totally fine.  Actually, to be honest I’m growing anxious of the summer days dwindling down. I love having Andy home during the summer and the transition of him going back to work pretty much just sucks. I’m not ready for summer to be over, so I’m going to soak up the next 5-6 weeks as much as possible.

Ignoring the bridesmaid dress that’s hanging in my closet. No point in putting it on until I know just how big I’m going to be at my sisters wedding, right? Thank goodness it’s my mom doing the alterations on it so we don’t have to do it way in advance.

And just for fun we’ll wrap up this totally random post with some totally random photos off my phone, because why not?

Like this one of Reese who decided last Monday that she just had to wear a winter hat. Please to be noticing the fact that her ears are not covered…homegirl has to have easy access to those things.

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Or this one from my walk on Tuesday morning down my road. Just Dante and me at 6:00 in the morning. The silence was deafening, the sunrise brilliant. And I can’t wait to do it again.
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