Oh Honeybean, your family would like to meet you sometime this year!

Waiting....

i really expected honeybean to be early and boy was I wrong!!! these last couple of weeks have felt like forever... I've been packing and unpacking my hospital bag. taking it in and out of the car to Christmas parties and events and bringing it back home every time. every day i think is the day and then it passes. i didn't really have to go through this with emmett's pregnancy because i went into the hospital 4 days before the due date.

i have to say that with each day passing, i have had extra time with emmett and it's been so nice having special time with him. getting up and down from playing with him on the floor has been brutal and lifting him too, but it's so worth it. i am uncomfortable but i am no where near desperately wanting to get induced. i got a non stress test done yesterday and they checked my amniotic fluid and both tests went very well. the nurses couldn't believe how much he moves around. i guess i've just gotten so used to it the past few months. he really is a mover and a shaker. i also could see my contractions on the heart rate monitor that they hooked me up to for the non stress test. i have been feeling contractions just like these for weeks, but still nothing.

tomorrow i have an appointment with my ob, so i can at least find out if i am dilated. i saw my chiropractor yesterday and she seems to think that things are progressing because my misalignment in my back was different than anything she's ever seen before.

we'll see when this cutie decides to come!!! i am ready whenever he is!

Will he really be a Christmas baby???

38 weeks!

NURSERY is officially done!

Nursery is complete, hospital bag is packed. now i just need to finish de-cluttering my house and thoroughly clean it then I'll be ready to go into labor!

the final countdown

my pregnancy is coming to an end and i'm starting to remember how rough it can be the last few weeks before delivery. i'm working and getting maternity plans all lined up for my 6 week leave, caring for my 20 month old toddler, getting the last few details done in the baby nursery and feeling the normal pressure everyone feels for the upcoming holidays can be quite overwhelming!!! my blood pressure at my last 2 OB appointments have been way high which isn't good. i'm trying to just calm down and go with the flow. maybe not everything i am hoping will get done will be accomplished before my baby comes and i have to accept that. i've decorated the house with some christmas decorations but i don't think i can go too crazy this year. i am definitely going to reconsider ever having a baby around christmas time. it's just way too much!! thankfully i was organized and got my christmas shopping done early. i still have a few more last minute gifts to pick up, but otherwise i'm done on the gift front. phew!

i am so grateful to eric who has been so supportive. he's had so much going on too and i think we both have been really stressed lately, but we have been such great partners to each other with support and understanding. listening to each others lists of things to do and trying to help each other out as much as possible has made us a stronger couple. i don't know what i would do without him.

i am so excited to share photos of the baby nursery! it's pretty darn cute and it's totally done in eric and molly kid-friendly fashion which of course is awesome! it's a very special room decorated with love, just like e's room. i'll post pics soon!

Honeybean goes to a blackhawks game!

HAWKS WIN!!! Keith made his 250th goal in the game. I love this sport soooo much. Can't think of any other sport that even comes close. I got a few looks when I was walking up to the top of the stairs at United Center getting to my seat with my huge belly! they got 4 goals so honeybean was doing some dancing with me in the Madhouse. The hawks were in the playoffs and after watching a very intense game, i went into labor with Emmett. Maybe they'll help me out with Honeybean too!

Nursery Time!

Honeybean's room is starting to really come together. We are setting up the crib this week and picking up a used changing table this weekend. I've made and bought some cute art and Eric turned our guest bed that's been in there into a murphy's bed that goes up on our wall and looks like a shelf!!! It's amazing and beautiful! I am going to paint the chest of drawers navy blue or grey (can't decide.) We still haven't hung up the school map yet. I think this room is going to be pretty incredible! I'll post more pics once things are actually set up. Here are a few until then..





Honeybean's room is starting to really come together. We are setting up the crib this week and picking up a used changing table this weekend. I've made and bought some cute art and Eric turned our guest bed that's been in there into a murphy's bed that goes up on our wall and looks like a shelf!!! It's amazing and beautiful! I am going to paint the chest of drawers navy blue or grey (can't decide.) We still haven't hung up the school map yet. I think this room is going to be pretty incredible! I'll post more pics once things are actually set up. Here are a few until then..

School Map for Honeybean's room

The room is painted, a few decals have been bought and now I'm starting to make some of my own art for Honeybean. I'm dreaming up a lot of map/travel inspired ideas and also paintings and collages of woodland creatures (owls, bears, racoons, etc). Seeing how much of an impact Emmett's room has had on him as far as the animals go makes me really want to include animals in the new nursery. I can hear Emmett making different animal noises in his crib in the mornings and I know that he is entertained with his jungle room. I remember the first time he pointed to some of the artwork that I made for him and I can tell that he really does love it. That makes me so incredibly happy and I want the same for my newbie!

We have an old shelf and drawer piece from my Grandpa Gil that we are going to re-paint in a dark grey. I can fill the top glass part with books and little stuffed animals and then store some of honeybean's clothes in the bottom drawers. I am really looking forward to re-purposing this old item.

Eric is going to turn the bed in the nursery into a murphy's bed that can go up on the wall and will look like a a wall of shelves when it's propped up. That way when we have guests stay over, we can still use that room and have honeybean stay upstairs with us in a pack n' play. I think Eric is a genius!!

Lots of plans and not so much time! Less than 3 months to go! YIKES!

One more from our 20 Week Ultrasound

20 Week Ultrasounds

We could tell right away it was another BOY!!

13 weeks Ultrasound

The first two are full body pictures and the last one is a close-up profile. He's a cutie!

how cute would this be for my halloween costume this year???

25 weeks down!!! 15 more to go!

Christmas will be here before we know it!! We have so much to do before then! I haven't bought a single Christmas gift for anyone and I haven't gotten honeybean's nursery set up at all. On top of that, I still have no idea what I am going to call this baby!! YIKES! By this time with Emmett, everything was pretty much set up and ready to go.

My goal for this week is at least to pick a paint color for the nursery. If anyone knows of someone who has an extra crib that we can buy, let me know. We are going hand-me-down with this room.

these socks are ridiculously cute!

they are are must have for the newbie!

is this sign a sign?!

Charlie is one of our names for honeybean, but I am still not quite sold on it. I did see this cool Charlie sign while I was in LA. Do you think it's a sign?

my heart is beaming with love!

emmett leaned over tonight on his changing table and touched my belly and said, "baby." this makes me so incredibly happy... i almost starting crying. i am so excited for my sweet little bug to be a big brother.

First Shirt!

While I was away in LA over the weekend I bought honeybean his first shirt!!! I am kind of in love with it.

still brainstorming names for honeybean

So far we have got Charlie and Max as runners up, but we are still thinking about it. We may just decide after he's born for fun.

I have been getting more and more excited about having another boy. Picturing Emmett with a little bro makes me smile. It's going to be fun!

change of plans

i've decided to go for a map/travel theme for honeybean's room. i've already got great ideas!

Another BOY

so my gut was right with this one... honeybean is a boy. i could actually tell during the ultrasound before the technician even told us. i caught a glimpse of the genitals a couple of times (mostly because i know what they look like!). even though for most of this pregnancy i had a feeling it was a boy, i couldn't help but hope that i was wrong. i know that every one says, "it doesn't matter as long as the baby is healthy." i really think that that goes without saying, but as humans we have hopes and dreams for ourselves and having 2 boys was not one of those hopes. i know that expressing how i currently feel in this situation is frowned upon in our society but i think that honesty is important. i should be able to be open about how i feel right now. when i found that i was having another boy it did not exactly make me excited for myself. when i think about eric and how i know that deep down he really did want a brother for emmett because of how close he and his brother are, that makes me happy. or when i think about the brotherly bond that will hopefully form between emmett and this newbie on the way, that of course makes me happy. but when i daydreamed years ago about starting a family of my own, i dreamt about having a girl. i thought about helping her with boyfriend problems, going dress shopping and helping her plan her wedding. when i was younger and i had the superstitious hand trick done to see how many babies i would have, it said that i was going to have 4 girls! boy was that wrong! however, the more i think about it, the more i remember how much i had struggled to form friendships with other girls growing up. i could never understand the catty and insensitive nature that i saw in how girls treated each other in my life. i didn't feel like dealing with those personalities and for many years my closet friends were all boys. i had a hard time relating to girls really until college when i met genuine and sweet women to befriend. is it that i maybe can't handle raising a girl? i can tell from being out and about in children settings that girls do seem to be more difficult to raise. but i always thought that i would be up for the challenge and that i could raise a girl to be a good person in the world of prissy and catty girls. i have always liked that i have a rougher side to my personality that gets me out camping, playing a sport or hiking and then a more feminine side that is very sensitive and into girly things. but who is to say that i would even have a girl like this?? i guess it's ingrained in me that i always wanted to have a girl like myself, rugged but girly. i think a lot of people want to to think their children as an extension of themselves, but probably most of the time, they are a completely different human being. what it comes down to is that God wants me to have these two boys for a reason and i know that pretty soon i'll get over the no girl baby blues and start to get excited about planning for another boy. i should and will feel grateful that i am fortunate to be able to carry babies, especially after having miscarriages.

i fell in love with honeybean right away, especially during this last ultrasound. if you have ever had your own ultrasound you know that overwhelming feeling of love that you feel when you see your baby..it's indescribable. it's even more indescribable when you really first meet them for the first time. i am in love with this baby, i just need a little bit more time to fall in love with the idea of having another boy. I'll get there soon, i promise.

19 weeks belly bump!

the first photo is my 19 week belly bump with Emmett and the second is my 19 week bump with honeybean. I am definitely looking bigger with this one... yikes!

Mini Gender Party!!

August 8th is approaching quickly-- yeah!!! That is the day we (fingers crossed) get to find out the gender of honeybean. We are going to have the ultrasound technician write down the gender (without telling us) on a piece of paper and then we are going to have a bakery right by our house make a cake with the inside filling either pink or blue. My parents are coming over to help us cut into the cake and Eric's parents are going to skype with us from Wisconsin. I am thinking I'll put the cake in front of Emmett and have him reveal the surprise. I'll have to get this all on camera and post it up on the blog. Cant' wait to find out!!!!

3 more weeks...

and i'll know if i am having a boy or girl!! every day i have a different gut feeling. i just really don't know! hopefully the next 3 weeks will go by fast.

Different baby, different pregnancy symptoms

I have to say Emmett's pregnancy was a breeze compared to honeybean. I have way more symptoms with this newbie on the way. From nausea, I have moved on to dizziness, being out of breathe and headaches on average, every other day. My body just must be surging with hormones!! I have an appointment this Thursday, so I am looking forward to hearing some solutions to my headaches and hope to get a new inhaler soon too. I was reading that for some women the 2nd half on the second trimester can be better for us prone to pregnancy headaches. Fingers are crossed!

I am finding myself to grow more and more impatient with finding out the gender. I just want to know (like NOW!) :)

We have a girl named ready to go, but me and Eric have got to get our boy name lined up. It seems like a total mix of gender guesses for honeybean. Some of my family thinks I am a total boy mom and other people are thinking that I am having a girl. I can see it either way working out well. A new brother for Emmett to be close with sounds great and having a sweet baby girl for me to pick out pretty dresses with sounds great too. Only a month to go, and I'll know!

15 weeks and going strong!

I am almost 15 weeks along! In just 5 weeks, I'll be half-way through this pregnancy. Isn't that crazy?? So far, the second trimester has been much better than the 1st. I am having fewer little spells of nausea, plus my energy level is going back up which feels great. I have a baby bump forming much quicker than with Emmett. It's kind of at that stage where I look like I have a beer belly. Although I have had some strangers catch onto the fact that I am pregnant. Every week I feel like honeybean is expanding my belly little by little. My belly is reminding me how I looked when I was pregnant with Emmett, which is another reason that leads me to think I am having a boy. We are still talking names for boys and girls. Once we find out the sex on August 8th, then we will get more down to the name game.

Here is the bedding I am debating on... I have a whole vision for the girls and boys room. I can't wait to get going on some new paintings and collages for honeybean to go with the room theme.

the best discovery!

it's summer time and this preggo is CRAVING an iced cold beer!!! thankfully i have discovered the joy of drinking non-alcoholic beer. i can't believe i didn't think of this before when i was pregnant with emmett.

13 weeks 2 days Ultrasound

saying, "hi!!"


profile pics

Toddler + OB Dr. appointment = CRAZY

I brought E to my OB appointment with Dr. Goldberg and he was ALL over the place!! Thankfully I brought toys and the office actually had a bunch of kid toys, but even still, it was tricky. I was answering questions and chasing him around the little room and then when it came time to exam me, he wanted to see everything Dr. G was doing to his momma. He's such an inquisitive little boy. Hopefully he won't remember much.

My favorite part was when I had E sit next to me when I was lying down on the chair and we both got to hear honeybean's heartbeat together. That was very special.

honey bean

i have decided to name my newest baby on the way, honey bean. my sweet baby is due on Christmas day! so far, i have been fortunate enough to both hear and see the heartbeat. hearing the heartbeat brought so much joy and relief, i could barely contain myself at the appointment. after having miscarriages, i try not to get too hopeful in the beginning stages of pregnancies but when i heard the heartbeat, my heart grew full with hope for this baby. i'll be 12 weeks this sunday and i am feeling very confident. i announced to my school today that I am expecting again with some sweet chocolate treats. it doesn't feel like it was very long ago when i was announcing to my school that i was pregnant with emmett. the two of them will only be 20 months apart which to me, sounds perfect. i have always loved seeing the closeness between siblings close in age. i wish that same special bond for emmett and his brother/sister on the way.

i have an OB appointment coming up next week and should also be getting another ultrasound in the next week or so. i cannot wait to see my honeybean again!