And in this ring we have....

36 1/2 weeks and so ready. I have reached what I am calling Spectacle Status, as everywhere I go, the belly is the main attraction. One little girl at the park pointed at me and yelled, "Look Mommy!!!" Her mom just said, "Yeah she has a baby in her tummy huh?"
The unending doctor's appointments have begun, starting this past Tuesday with a trip to see the surgeon who delivered Caelen. We rehashed Caelen's birth and why exactly it ended up in an emergency C-section. Apparently the vedict was after 22 hours of labor, I never dialated past 4. They call it Failure to Progress. But with the reason being the cord around her neck and that she was presenting her ear instead of the back of her head he checked me out to see if my hopes of a VBAC could possibly come true.
So far, so good! And he said I'm an excellent candidate for a VBAC. He felt her and said she's a small one, probably won't be any bigger than Caelen's 7lb 2ozs. (Right before he delievered her he felt my belly and said she was probably going to be 7lbs, so I think he likes to play a little guessing game with himself, but he seems to be good at it!) Anyway, her small size is an advantage (he said, she'd slide right out. I have a feeling that wouldn't be how I'd describe it.) He did an ultrasound and we saw her head positioned right where it should be. He was happy with my weight gain (or lack thereof: 20lbs total) and said they would let me go to 41 weeks before they would have to preform a C-section.
So I left feeling very happy and knowing that whatever happens, it's up to the Lord anyway. But at least everything we humans can control and forsee looks good.
Then I started my weekly NSTs (non-stress tests) at Labor & Delivery which is crazy because you have to get admitted to the hospital, go into L&D and get hooked up to some monitors. They monitor her heart rate along with activity and the ultrasound to measure the amniotic fluid. If either looks bad, they deliver your baby right then & there (either through induction or, in my case, C-section.) So you're totally admitted to the hospital should they need to do anything. Of course, I knew they wouldn't. In my case (a bad APF blood result, which was what had us sent down to the city to make sure our child would survive 20 weeks ago) rarely has any bad results during a NST. So of course she looked great and away I went.

Baby Shower!

Yesterday was a date that I have been looking forward to for at least a month, so much so, that I can't believe it's past! It's like I had a blind spot for any dates on the calendar that were beyond this magical date, and now here we are. I'm hoping I'll feel the same way about Addison's birth, that it came quickly :) It was my baby shower thrown for me by Adria and it was so fun to have some of my most favorite people in the world all in one room.

My mom, sister, mothers-in-law, ex-co-workers, and best girlfriends and even my little brother-in-law made up the party. The food was fabulous with home made cupcakes for dessert. We played one game (because as my girlfriends know, I'm not keen on shower games LOL) but it was an awesome one: a word scramble called Addison, Welcome to Your Life. It was words about Addison's soon-to-be world all scrambled. Adria was very creative. Then I got to open all my presents and everyone was so generous! We're very thankful to you all.

This is the crib bumper from Pottery Barn. (I'll post a pic from the catalogue in a second). My mom got this for me and you can see her in the background helping keep track of who gave me everything. The girls' Auntie Heather took the pics :)

Tina, Angie and the hostess Adria.

My 10 year old brother-in-law Ryan came and gave Addison her first stuffed animals. So thoughtful!

This is the "D" for spelling her name. I'm going to place them on a shelf in her room.

I was so excited to get this Bouncy Seat from Josh's girlfriend Amy. The one I registered for was unavailable but I liked this one SO much better!

It was just an awesome time and it really fueled my excessive obsession to nest. SOOOOO.....

Thomas has been hard at work in the nursery! I wish it looked like this LOL, but this IS NOT our nursery. This is the inspiration for our nursery and the exact bedding that we got from Pottery Barn:

In this shot you can kind of see the crib, and the color of the wall in the background. We kind of did a reverse of the walls in the catalogue because we already have white wainscoating in the room. We had to paint over some really dark red paint but I think it's come out well.

I just have to touch up the paint around the crown molding and the painting is done. Thomas has been working in the closet adding a second shelf and rod just like in Caelen's closet. Our dresser, changing table, mattress and a few other items are being shipped so as those arrive I can complete the room and take more pictures for ya'll!

QUICK CAELEN STORY: When she goes on time out we tell her that she can sit there and "think about it." So last night Thomas says, "OK Caelen, let's go take a bath!" She says, "No! Mommy do it!" We explain that's not an option, mommy is doing the dishes and it's Papa's turn. Thomas says, "Caelen may I give you a bath?" She points her little finger at him and very calmly says, "No Papa. You go sit on the couch and think about it."

She proceeds to gently guide him (by the highest point she can reach, his legs) to the couch and says again, "Come on, you go sit on the couch."

Well he did, and that good sport jokingly pretended to think about, asked her again and she said, "Yeah!! Come on Papa!"

We were doubled over.

For you Mom

This is me on my due date with Caelen.
This is me 5 weeks away from my due date with Addison.
Pretty close huh!!!??

The beach and a beach ball.

When our alarm went off at 6:15 this morning, we looked at each other and said, "Sleep in?" "Yep!" Thomas has worked Mon-Sat and Caelen had been getting up extra early, plus multiple times in the night all week and we were whiped out. So we turned the alarm off and stayed in bed until 7:30, followed by a leisurely breakfast of waffles.
After deciding it looked like another gorgeous day, we made plans to head for the coast. It was very windy, but the temperature was 76 degrees so it wasn't that bad! We made sandwiches and brought toys for Caelen to play with. She immediately took her shoes off so she could feel the sand between her toes. It was a lot of fun.


On Caelen's first encounter with Sea Gulls, she couldn't quite remember their name, so she kept saying, "Go away sea monsters." But aside from the terrifying name, she seemed to like them, and watched carefully as our beach neighbors fed them.

This is what you get when you say, "Smile for the camera Caelen!" LOL!

She wouldn't look at me for this shot because the sun is behind me, besides, the sea monsters are too interesting.

And here it is folks, the reason people are asking me why I haven't had this baby yet. This was taken today. I'm 35 weeks tomorrow. 5 more weeks!

What an imagination

Caelen drew a big red scribble in the bathtub with her tub crayons and told me it was a sea monster. All of a sudden she makes this very uneasy sound, her eyes as big as saucers and begins to stand up out of the tub. I asked her what was wrong and she said, "It's scaring me!" I explained that since it was her own creation she could erase it and asked her if she wanted to. She continued to panic, said, "No, it's too scary. All done." and got out of the tub.

Missing one girl but so enjoying the other.

I don't know how many people (maybe 8) that I've run into this weekend who have asked me when I'm due and when I told them six weeks they were truly shocked. Okay, EVERY person who has asked me recently thinks that I'm due any day because of how huge this belly is. (The picture above was taken OVER a month ago!) The most common reaction is a dropped jaw.
This is actually no consolation for me as I'm feeling huge anyway and impatient, so to have it confirmed that I am massive and should be giving birth any day, doesn't make me feel better! ;) The waddle is ridiculous. And today in church when I dropped my pen on the ground while sitting in the pew, I said, "Aww man!!!" a little too loudly and had to ask Thomas to do some interesting contortions to get it for me.
So 6 weeks. The thing about this stage of pregnancy is that you're kind of in a catch-22 situation. You desperately don't want to be pregnant anymore (unless you're one of those people who LOVES being pregnant, in which case I don't have any clue what planet you're from and so your opinion doesn't count) but at the same time you're dealing with the trepidation one feels before they embark upon a journey of which they have no clue how anything is going to work out. Some days I'm terrified of her coming out (not scared of her, I've done babies before, nervous about having two, I've never had a toddler AND a baby before) but that "terror" drains away the moment I realize that would mean staying pregnant and there is no way I'd sign up for that.
But mostly I just want her here, want to see her and meet her and watch her grow. See the girls together and new relationships begin. See her own little personality begin to emerge and watch how she does things completely differently (or similarly) to the rest of us. So I think that yes, the being physically huge and unwieldy is annoying, but the thing that makes this stage of pregnancy the hardest, is missing a child you've never held but know that you will hold for the rest of your life, and you just can't wait to have them in your arms.



Switching subjects to the amazing world of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: If you're not familiar with the show, you might not know that the correct way to call Santa (yes, like one would call a dog, or fairy godmother) is, "Santa Santa HO HO HO."
Caelen was saying this over and over in the car. She'd ask me or Thomas to say it occasionally. Then she says, (and I quote exactly) "Come on Mom, do it with me! Put your hands up and say, 'Santa Santa Ho Ho Ho!!'" I had tears streaming down my face, the enthusiasm over what she was saying was just hilarious. I had visions of her onstage trying to get a crowd all rallied up.

Crowd participation must be very important to her. When we picked her up from Sunday School all her teachers were telling us how during story time when they asked, "Who loved the thankful man?" Caelen looked around at her silent peers, threw her hands up in the air like a good Pentecostal and said, "Jesus!!"

Countdown: 46 Days til due.

So the baby is head down already! And she's not stuffed under my ribs making it impossible to breathe like Caelen was. It makes me wonder how long Caelen was tangled up in her umbilical cord for her to have never moved down. But Addison seems to be doing exactly what a baby should :) Now we just need to pray she comes early so they don't C-section her too.

Caelen got a thank you note from "Tyler" (aka Tyler's mom) today for coming to his birthday party. I told her it was mail for her and read her the note. She carried it around super excitedly and would occasionally stop and "read" it to herself. I could hear her reciting some of the words from memory and speaking about the gist of the note. She was so excited to get some mail and I had to pause and just watch the adorableness unfold in front of me.

Current cravings: oranges, iced tea and Oreo cookies with milk. (Not all together LOL)

If we're little then that makes you...???

My daughter calls me "Little Mama." I'm not kidding.
"Come one Little Mama!" "Hold my hand Little Mama."
About 50% of the time this is what she's calling me. I think I called her Little Mama a couple times when she was feeding her baby doll or holding the true live baby Daniel really well. But the best was when she was requesting Thomas' company and (you guessed it) said, "Come on Little Papa."

Merry Christmas!

It was Caelen's 3rd Christmas but it was the first one where she understood what was going on. (given that for her first Christmas she was 3 weeks old.) The anticipation of presents and Santa Claus was so intense that she still asks if Santa will come before she falls alseep every night (we told her he will come next year, so she's started saying that and I don't think she has a clue how far away that is), and yesterday she found a roll of wrapping paper and told me she wanted more presents as she proceeded to try and unroll the whole thing.
It was so fun getting to watch her enjoy, not only getting presents, but watching others open their presents. She would stand right next to whoever was opening their present at the time asking over and over, "What is it? What is it?" and would dutifully gasp with surprise when each gift was opened. She has taken over the roll of present-passer-outter from her mother and auntie. I still remember being about 10 and passing those gifts out from under the tree on Christmas Eve and so it was a little weird to be handing them to my toddler and watching her take them to their respective recipients. She loved her job and was very good at it!
So here are some pictures from Christmas Eve and then Christmas day which we spent home by ourselves as all of Thomas' side of the family was out of town, and for various logistical reasons, my parents couldn't make it to our house for Christmas dinner. It was odd and a little bit lonely to be by ourselves completely on Christmas, but looking back I already see that it'll be probably the only time that ever happens and it was so relaxing and intimate. We had a very Merry Christmas and I hope you all did too!

Here's Caelen enjoying the usual and much-anticipated Christmas Eve spread. Her favorite was the onion dip. I seriously crave Christmas Eve food all year long and was pretty bummed that my huge pregnant belly and horribly shrunken stomach prevented me from gorging myself.


Caelen and Auntie getting in a little "Mickey Mouse Saves Santa" before we open the presents.
The new generation of "Present-Passer-Outter". Give Addison a couple years and she'll be right in there too I'm sure.
Thomas showing her her new bathtub crayons as she crumples the wrapping paper to give to Grandpa.
Helping Auntie open her gift.

My beautiful girl with her new Tinkerbell umbrella.
Putting her new Wonder Pets and stuffed elephant to sleep.

And then Santa came!

She would open a present and then play with it awhile before realizing there were more.
Sleepy face opening her stocking.
Making Papa play with her Littlest Pet Shop with her.
Cozy on Christmas playing with stickers.

Picture Catch Up

(Blame the double postings of pictures on pregnancy brain!)

Lately it's been so cold! There was snow on the mountains that you could easily see from the freeway. We've had highs in the 40's some days and we've woken up to 21 degrees. Caelen still wants to go out and play so we just bundle up like this:

Here's Caelen with Grandma and Grandpa at the Annual 'Round the Table Carol Sing that our church puts on every December. She loved the music and would close her eyes and rock out the really soulful ones. Girl after my own heart!

Then her little friend Tyler turned 3 (10 days after her birthday) and we had another party at the Party Central play area where her friend Maddie had had her party 2 months before. This time Thomas got to come and it was much more fun for Caelen. She even ventured down the big slide with him.

Since everyone helped her open her presents she got right in there and helped open Ty's. She kept asking for more. When we got home and I asked her if she had fun she said, "Yep, I opened my presents!!"

More Quotes from Caelen

Caelen has been watching a lot of the new Wonder Pets Christmas special, The Wonder Pets Save the Nutcracker. It's actually pretty entertaining and has bits of all the great music from the Nutcracker that the wonder pets sing to as they try to get their only Christmas present, a nutcracker, back from the Mouse King. One of the songs they sing (that isn't from the Nutcracker) is Be Happy With What You Have, right after they've realized there's only one present for all of them under the tree on Christmas Eve. All that to set the scene for: Caelen sitting at the table watching me make breakfast says, "Mommy?" I say, "Yes." She sings, "Be happy with what you have!" After I stopped laughing I said, "That's good advice honey!"

She also thinks it's really cool that the Nutcracker comes to life at the end and dances and sings. While watching it the last time at her Grandparent's house and holding my mom's nutcracker she looks at it and says, "The Wonder Pets' nutcracker came to life Mommy! My nutcracker come to life too???" As she breaks his arm off and it drops to the ground. LOL

On a non-nutcracker note, this afternoon while I was making lunch for everyone, Thomas said something that indicated to me that he had not been listening when I was sharing my feelings with him earlier and this irritated me. Pregnancy hormones have definitely been sucking my patience away. Without going into boring details on why, I began, in a VERY firm but escalating voice, to explain why I was frustrated and that I need him to listen when I speak and yada yada yada. After a pause, Caelen says, "What's happening Mommy?" I said, "Oh honey, Mommy's just pregnant." She replies, "You pregnant at Papa??"

How's that for fireworks

When I wake up in the morning it is about 56 degrees in my house. No joke. Our furnace blew up about a month ago. Luckily we have 2 space heaters and a TON of firewood. My husband works all summer to squirrel away as much firewood as he can. To be quite honest I get a little jealous of his affair with the firewood, but I have never been more grateful in my life that he took all those weekends to work his butt off.
The amazing thing is that you DO adapt to the cold. Yes, even me who is cold when it's 75 degrees outside. I woke up the other morning and thought, "Hey it's not that cold in the house!" It was a whopping 60 degrees. And the cold doesn't seem to really bother Caelen. She still tries to take her clothes off and run around naked. I try to tell her she needs her clothes because it's cold, but I don't know if she believes me or just thinks I'm pulling her leg!
Anyway, we have a fire going almost 24/7 and we recently discovered you have to remove the screen to get any amount of heat out of an open hearth fireplace. Thomas also started placing a fan in front to move the hot air. He tends to build the fire up really high and I'm constantly nagging him about my fear of it falling over and going into the fan. I think he thought I was crazy until yesterday when it happened. Yes, my friends, the blazing wood all collapsed onto the hearth and the fan sucked up the pieces and sprayed them into our living room!!! I ran for the plug to the fan, got the fan stopped, Thomas ran to get the big chunks back in the fireplace (because then the house was filling with smoke) and the last task was to get the burning embers up off our (thankfully) hardwood floor. Thank the Lord it wasn't carpet and I happened to be washing all our rugs. Nothing was worse for the wear, not even my floor.
When I asked Thomas if maybe after living with me a few more years and having these "fears" of mine come true all the time he'd stop thinking I'm over reacting and crazy, he said, "Um yeah, maybe. But probably not."
LOL At least he's honest!

I personally LOVE sleep

Dear Caelen,
What's so bad about sleep?
Seriously. Are you afraid we might be having fun without you? Are there things you want to do that you just can't be bothered with a nap? Are there just too many thoughts going around in your head? That must be it because you lay in there talking and singing to yourself about everything in the whole wide world.
When you call me in saying, "Mommy, I need my _____ " I know you're just trying to get me in your room so you can start trying to convince me that you're "awake now!" but I know you never even slept.
I do appreciate that you don't try to come out of your room, but Mommy can't relax when you're in there whining and hollering. I blame your father for this. Lord knows HE didn't even take naps at this age. At least you take a few a week.
Lord have mercy!
Mommy

There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Grey

Here are some picture from our crazy weekend, and since a nap is calling my name louder than my child from her bed (where she doesn't want to nap as usual) I'll make it short and sweet. Friday was Caelen's 2nd Birthday party and it was super crazy! But it was fun :)
She got a new "baby" and a highchair, stroller, carseat etc. to go along with her and Caelen's whole world is complete. She got lots of others things too that she's enjoying equally as much and Mommy is enjoying to new clothes for Caelen :)

Everyone is singing Happy Birthday in this pic.

Who needs to wait for a fork, just dig in!

Having Uncle Josh color with her after the party was over.

Then Saturday we went to get our Christmas tree. God bless Thomas for getting this adorable picture of her! They're rare these days as Caelen doesn't like having her picture taken and frowns or covers her face in all the shots.

And the final tree, which I like but hate at the same time because it's apparently not strong enough to hold an ornament. I think every ornament I've put on it has fallen off since and one of the glass ones even shattered. Stupid tree. But the house is Christmas-ready. Now after the baby shower, Thanksgiving, Caelen's birthday, getting ready for Christmas and all the other time consumers and fun events in between, I'm exhausted and in need of a week long hybernation period.