Proud

I am a proud mommy today.  Ok, I am proud of my kids all the time, but extra proud today, and just wanted to brag about them a little.

Shelby
The other night we went to the mall and we stopped to get a pretzel.  Shelby took the pretzel from the girl and politely said, "Thank you".  The girl then said, "Oh, you are welcome!  Would you like a sticker?".  Shelby quickly asked if she could have two, and I started to get embarrassed thinking, "Geez, greedy much?", when Shelby told the lady, "I think my sister would want one too."  Aww, so sweet.  The girl thought it was so nice that she said, "You are so polite and nice!  You know what I give polite kids?  Free drinks!", and promptly gave Shelby a free blue raspberry frozen lemonade.  I was so proud of Shelby and her manners and thankful for the girl at the pretzel place who recognized and reinforced the good behavior.

Joey
Today I was on the phone with a coworker when I heard Joey yell, "I need to go potty!".  I knew my conversation was no where close to being done, so I quickly put my phone on speaker, ran to the bathroom and opened the door and told her to go and prayed she would make it on her own.  Five minutes later I hung up, and ran to the bathroom, dreading what mess I was going to have to clean up.  To my surprise, Joey had moved the stool to the potty, gone #1 and #2 (sorry, TMI), attempted to wipe, and was about to flush...all by herself.  I was so proud of her because we normally fight about #2.  She will eventually go, but it takes some convincing.  So I was so proud of her for being such a big girl and going by herself.

Baby Girl #3
We are already so proud of baby girl #3 and love her so much.  I went yesterday for my appointment at the high risk doctor for my monthly ultrasound.  They usually spend a good amount of time doing them, but both the u/s tech and the doctor took extra long just staring at each organ in amazement at how perfect they were.  The compliments they give are so funny- "You have a rock star baby!", "Look at that heart! Just perfect!", "Oh my! Those kidneys! Gorgeous!".  Haha!  I often feel bad when I go in for my ultrasounds, because I know they spend a good portion of their day looking at ultrasounds of babies or mothers that have problems.  They always tell me it is a joy to look at such a healthy, perfect baby and that they could just look at her all day long.  I could too!  Here is baby girl at almost 23 weeks:

Boring

Last week was stressful.  I was trying to handle stuff for church, battled a horrible cold (thank you flu shot!), a youth temple trip, and then Jeremy had a death in the family so things were crazy trying to figure out if my brother would still come into town to run in the race he, Jeremy, and Shelby were going to run in, and then arrange for a babysitter that could drive the girls to the other places they needed to be on Saturday.  So even though things were really busy, nothing really exciting has been happening around here other than me getting bigger.  I am hungry ALL THE TIME!  I feel like I have gained so much weight in the past week.  I really haven't- 6 pounds so far in all- but it feels like way more.  Baby girl (who I can't think of any names for) has definitely made her presence known and in Jeremy's words is "pokin' out purty good" (he was teasing).  I love that she is super active and the kicks are getting pretty strong.  The other night Jeremy would talk to her and she would kick back in response.  Here I am today at 22 weeks 4 days:

 

 

Just like with both of my other pregnancies, I vowed at the beginning to exercise my way through to the end.  And then reality sets in and I have just been exhausted.  And then there's the bleeding issues that I had with Joey that have popped back up in this pregnancy, so I actually HAVE to just rest sometimes and put my feet up.  Our YW are doing a temple walk in November where we will be walking 18.1 miles and I REALLY want to walk the whole thing with them.  We are walking every Saturday and are encouraging the girls to exercise as much as they can at home so they are prepared for the walk.  I am sure they will all do great- I just hope I can make it!  These pictures from one of our walks crack me up.

Joey is about 95% potty trained now.  We still ask her a lot if she needs to go potty, and she might have an occasional accident if I happen to be on the phone when she yells that she needs to go, but other than that she is doing great!  We have also started transitioning her and Shelby into a room together.  They have been sleeping together the past three nights and they are doing great.  Actually, Shelby was the one I thought was going to have a hard time.  Normally we put Joey down in her crib, shut the door, and she goes to bed.  Then I go and lay in Shelby's bed with her and she is normally asleep within 5 minutes...but I have to be laying with her.  Since we have put them together, we now put them both down, shut the door, and Shelby is asleep withing 5 minutes, but Joey will sit there and talk or call for us.  We usually have to go in once or twice and tell her to be quiet and go to sleep, but after that she falls asleep and they are fine.  So now I can cross potty training and room transitioning off my list of things to do before the baby gets here. 

That's about it for an update.  Boring, I know.  I do get to see baby girl again tomorrow!  I think it will be our 5th or 6th ultrasound.  I love getting to see her so much.  Hopefully she will cooperate and let us see more of her face!

Poor Little Piggies

My feet hurt!  I feel like I haven't sat down since I got off of work yesterday.  Last night was Shelby's first soccer practice.  She was so excited and looked so cute in her shin guards and cleats.  Once the other girls got out there she reverted to "Shy Shelby" though and almost acted as though she had never played soccer before!  Jeremy was getting so frustrated watching her.  I had to remind him that she was the same way at her first gymnastics class.  She just has to warm up and get to know the girls and she will do fine. 

While Shelby was at practice I took Joey and walked the trail at the park.  I'm not that out of shape that that's what killed me.  What killed me was the fact that I was wearing my inserts for plantar fasciitis after not wearing them for a while.  I forgot it takes a while to get used to those hard plastic things.

When Jeremy and I realized we had a cold front coming through last night and that the weather was going to be beautiful, we decided to surprise the girls and take them to Six Flags today.It was so fun to see their faces when we pulled up.  Last week when we went to Six Flags in San Antonio it was incredibly hot, humid, there was no shade anywhere, Joey could not ride ANY rides, Shelby could only ride a handful of rides, and the splash park had no water because of water restrictions.  The one positive thing they had going for them was that the water park was included with admission to Six Flags.  In Arlington, Hurricane Harbor is a completely separate park and is an additional $30+.  But, even though the water park is not included here, there is so much more for kids at the Six Flags in Arlington.  Joey rode 11 rides, and Shelby rode something like 15.  We never waited more than 5 minutes for a ride.  It was great!  And pretty much everywhere you walk is shaded.  We seriously had the best time with the girls.  We were there 5 hours and would have stayed longer but we needed to get home.

Shelby pretended she was scared after the pirate ship ride...

...but soon she was all smiles.

 

 

Once we got home I immediately had to get ready to chaperone the stake youth dance tonight.  For some insane reason I decided to wear pinchy heels.  But I had a fun time tonight embarrassing lots of YM and YW.  One of my pet peeves is to see youth not participating at activities- especially dances!  So I was literally grabbing guys by the arm and pulling them to our YW and making them dance.  One of our YW thanked me profusely afterward, so I think it was worth it!  Now time for bed...maybe I can convince Jeremy to rub my feet.

MMR

This weekend we had a Mini McGrath Reunion in San Antonio.  We met my mom and dad, Ryan, Brianne, Jordan, Tristan (and all of their spouses and kids) for a long weekend of fun.  We went to Sea World, Six Flags, and had lots of fun hanging out at the hotel.  I asked Shelby what her favorite part of the weekend was.  I thought she would say it was seeing Shamu or riding her first roller coaster, but she said, "Playing with my cousins!".  Awwww.  Sad that everyone isn't closer, but we are going to try and meet up more often. 

 

 

 

Kindergarten!

After much anticipation, today was Shelby's big day- her first day of Kindergarten!  Last night we picked out all her clothes for the week, she received a blessing from Jeremy, and got to bed.  She told me she was so excited she could hardly sleep last night.  But, I know she slept pretty well because when I went to wake her up this morning and it was still dark outside she said, "What?!  Mom, it's still the nighttime!".  But she quickly popped out of bed, excited for the day.  She ate about one bite of breakfast (which was yummy quiche, by the way) and stopped because she "didn't want her tummy to hurt in class because she ate too much".  After a bath and finding her "Monday" clothes in her closet, we were ready to go. 

 



We got to the school a little early and I showed Shelby where she will sit in the cafeteria with her class while they wait for Ms. Logue.  As other kids came and sat down I tried to get Shelby to say hello to them but she told me she was too shy.  Shelby has always been the type to just go up to random kids at the playground and ask them to be her best friend- I think it was just a little overwhelming with all the kids and parents there.  Plus, maybe a little intimidating with 5th graders sitting just one table over.  (Still not sure how I feel about that!)  She kept fidgeting with her necklace and twirling her hair- it was cute!

 

Then the bell rang and it was time to line up and walk to class.  They went in, put their backpacks up and sat in their desks.  And then there was nothing left but for me to say goodbye.  Before I left I was trying to get Shelby to say hello to the boy sitting next to her, but she wouldn't.  I could tell she was feeling a little clingy so I reminded her that she was nervous the first day of preschool but then she made great friends like Jorrin and Skylar and that this would be just like that.  She gave me the biggest hug and kiss and said, "Thanks, mom!".  When I walked out I looked back and saw that the boy sitting next to Shelby was tearing up and I just prayed that him being sad wouldn't make Shelby sad too.

 

 

I was so excited to pick Shelby up and hear all about her day.  She told us they learned about what to do at school if there is a fire, and she was really excited that they got to visit the computer lab.  They did not go outside for recess "because of the mosquitoes" (good to know they are taking this West Nile thing seriously).  And then she said the sweetest thing of all.  She said the two best parts of her day were "playing with the marbles with Riley during centers time, and knowing that we loved her".  Awww!  She also gave me a huge hug when she asked if she could go back tomorrow and I said yes.  I hope she stays this excited about school!

Not a seamstress

Yesterday I found some cute, simple maternity dresses at H&M.  They were stretchy and comfortable, and only $14.95.  Sweet!  The only problem was they were just a tad too short.  So, I bought two- a plain black dress and a black and light tan striped dress.  I stopped by Hobby Lobby and picked up a little fabric, came home, and got to work.  So this project would probably take a normal person like 20 minutes to do.  But seeing as how I am terrible with sewing projects it took me about 2 hours.  It's not perfect by any means.  If you look closely you can my hemline on the dress, even though I was trying to match it up with one of the black stripes so that it'd be hidden.  The thing that took the longest was the pink sash/tie I did.  That sucker took forever to turn right side out!  Anyway, here I am this morning right before church.  Like I said, not perfect, but it did the job.  The dress was nice and comfy at church.  I got some gray fabric to add to the bottom of the black dress, and now that I have done it once, hopefully it'll go a little faster.

Almost 19 weeks

Seeing Spots

I am a little over 17 weeks now, and I have been feeling much better lately.  The nausea isn't 24/7 like it had been, and now I usually only get sick if I wait too long to eat or after I eat too much.  I am feeling big- I swear I am bigger at 17 weeks with this baby than I was at 27 weeks with Joey.  Other pregnancy symptoms include lots of stuffiness at night which has resulted in waking up with a migraine every single day for the past week, pregnancy brain which resulted in me forgetting a key to the church on Wednesday night (the one night The Colony ward wasn't there early, so we ended up having our class presidency meetings outside), fat face (I always gain weight in my arms and face first), and lovely dark spots on my cheeks (I didn't have this at all with Shelby, and with Joey it happened during delivery so I thought it was just a reaction to the epidural.  It is actually a reaction to hormones.)  But on a positive note, one of the best symptoms of all is that I have been feeling the baby for a couple of weeks now.  It's just little taps, mostly at night when I am laying down, but they are getting stronger and more frequent.

Since I have been feeling better, at least with the nausea, I decided to really make an effort this past week with dinner.  I have been wanting to try out a few recipes from the "Our Best Bites" cookbook, so I wrote out a menu plan and we stuck to it all week. 

                     Sunday  -   Roast with potatoes and carrots
                     Monday -  Creamy corn and potato chowder
                     Tuesday  -  Coconut chicken tenders with roasted ranch potatoes
                     Wednesday  -  Zaxby's (Hey, I planned on not cooking this day since it is so hectic trying to get ourselves and the girls ready for mutual.)
                     Thursday  -  Red beans and rice
                     Friday  - Homemade pizzas

The girls had a lot of fun making their pizzas last night, and I love when they can help cook dinner.

As you can see from the pictures, the girls were in need of haircuts so we woke up nice and early this morning and took them in.  They had the best time at the little kiddie salon.  Joey was in Heaven because the movie they put on for her was "Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper".  Each of the girls got over 2 inches trimmed, and then they braided their hair (I hate that they parted Joey's hair down the middle.  Oh well.), and then each girl got their nails painted and sparkles on their faces.  Of course Shelby LOVED it all, but it really surprised us how Joey reacted.  She kept posing in the mirror and telling everyone to look at her.  It was cute.

We ate some lunch and got back with enough time to do a little swimming before the rain hit.  I am so proud of Shelby.  Without any lessons she has learned to swim under water, dive in and swim to the steps, etc.  It eases the mom guilt a little about not putting her in swim lessons.  I know we probably won't have too much swim time left this summer since Jeremy has to go to New Orleans next week, then school starts the week after.  And then she starts soccer soon after that.  Whew!  I am getting tired just thinking how busy everything is about to become.  Anyway, with not much swim time left this summer I am just hoping that Shelby remembers all that she has learned once we start swimming again next summer!