Third Trimester

We've entered third trimester territory. 

My belly stayed relatively small riiiiiiiiiiiiight up until this point...

And then full on pregnancy belly emerged and I was instantly SO uncomfortable and borderline miserable. Basically overnight my lung capacity decreased by at least 50%, my need to use the bathroom increased by at least 50% and my overall weight gain increased by a solid 50%.

Also I have a hernia? Or abdominal separation? Or both if those are different things. My doctor always stares at my belly in what I've determined to be amazement/confusion when I go in to my appointments now. From what I've gathered, I seem to have nothing holding baby up in the middle of my stomach. Maybe this is normal? Anyway. At around 30 weeks, I really began feeling my lack of any kind of muscle support in my belly area. At the end of the day, my whole underbelly would be so sore. I think the baby was positioned weird and it felt like his bum was always jabbing me on one side as his legs were trying to kick out of me on the other side. It was awful.

I have had smooth, mostly painless pregnancies with the other two, so it was startling to have such discomfort with my due date still so far away. I was dreading the coming months. Luckily baby must have repositioned or maybe I've been taking it a little easier, because all that pain has mostly subsided. Whew! I still get the occasional, expected uncomfortable jab here and there, but they aren't really painful anymore like they were for a couple of weeks, so we may happily make it all the way to 40 weeks after all!

Here is my 31 week picture. The program I use to cute these pictures up weirdly stopped working on me, so here is the less cute version. 
My biggest pregnancy symptom has definitely been nesting. I've had the nesting urge for a couple months now, but this month it was kicked up a notch. I went totally bananas. I think Christmas is what did it to me. The boys got a bunch of new toys, so we had to find a new place for everything which resulted in every closet being organized and everything put into a labeled bin. I was a crazy person. Every closet is now tupperwared, the pantry is suddenly neat and approachable, and even my computer went through a cleansing to clear out and back up all my old pictures. Now to see if we can keep everything in ship shop shape for the next 6 weeks.

Heartburn is a nightly occurrence with chocolate still the biggest offender.

Braxton Hicks now happen basically any time I do any kind of mildly strenuous activity. Like standing up for example.

My raging appetite has returned! Let's just say my day no longer consists of defined meals, but is now a constant stream of large snacks. Every half hour.

The boys are still cute and getting more excited about baby. We've been working on the nursery, and they get almost as giddy as I do when we rummage through all the baby stuff together. Carson the other day said while holding onto his stomach, "My belly is kicking too!" Then he sheepishly ran off as he realized there wasn't a baby in his belly after all.

My biggest source of anxiety comes from thinking about the hospital food. I'm delivering at the same hospital where I had Carson. My most vivid memory is how terrible the food was. I realize this is a completely irrelevant fear and will likely be a non issue once I'm actually there, but for some reason this is the one thing about the hospital experience that keeps me up at night. Ha. 

I have also begun to get anxious about where/when/if my water will break. My water has broken both times so far. I LOVE going into labor with my water breaking. It makes the whole am-I-really-in-labor debate fairly obvious and the hospital can't turn you away, so it's the way to go. But what if this time my water broke in a public place?!? This thought first struck me at church today. How embarrassing would it be if I popped in the middle of Sacrament Meeting?? Please baby, let my water break, but let it happen when I'm in the comfort of my own home like your brothers have been kind enough to do for me.

I think that's all of my unnecessary items of paranoia for now. Mostly we are just so so so excited to meet Baby 3. It's all we can talk about anymore. I can't wait to see what he will look like and how Eli and Carson will be with him. And I'm definitely to the point in my pregnancy where I'm excited to not be pregnant anymore. It feels like it's right around the corner! 

The Last of Christmas

Carson has been such a...two-year old lately! He has been oozing with personality and attitude the last few months. It either completely cracks me up or completely drives me crazy! One day, fresh out of the bath I threw him up on the counter while I finished getting ready and he seized the opportunity to test out a few new faces to add to his repertoire.

I only curl my hair about once a year, so on days that I do, it calls for a shameless selfie with my littlest crazy man.

Eli has been such a...four-year old lately! Ha. And by that I mean he has been pretty angelic and calmed down leaps and bounds from his wild days as a two-year old. However, he is starting to try to outsmart me more and more often.

He is our summer clothes boy. Every morning we have to remind him to put warm clothes on because he is strictly a shorts and t-shirt kinda guy. One day after a bath and after being reminded to wear warm clothes, Eli slipped into my room with a guilty smirk on his face. After noticing his pants looked a bit garbled, I went over to inspect his outfit, only to find he had put on shorts and a t-shirt under his warm clothes. He was so proud of his clever defiance.

How heavenly is the week after Christmas?!? I have had serious nesting urges. Like completely declutter and organize the entire house nesting urges, and I have been able to do it because the kids have been so enthralled with their new toys! It's been so serene around here lately.

There is one problem though. Legos.

Legos are a neat-freak's worst nightmare. Jeff has started calling me President Business (from The Lego Movie) because I am so controlling over the Lego situation. I've tried to instill the rules of only playing Legos on a blanket and no dumping out the tub of Legos. I have even taught the kids to shout out, "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" If someone is about to either walk off the blanket with a Lego or dump the tub over. So far our only rule breaker has been Jeff, and so far my blood pressure has surely reached unhealthy levels since bringing this highly sophisticated interlocking brick system into our house.

Jeff always hates pictures so he sometimes purposely looks like a goof when I whip my camera out. But joke's on you, Jeffery because this picture is now internet accessible in an effort to teach you to always look cute for my pictures. We got a dutch oven from Jeff's parents for Christmas. We made our best batch of peach cobbler to date for a New Year's Eve party and it was clearly something to be excited about!

Have I told you yet that Carson is finally on a consistent sleep schedule? He's even started sleeping through the night once a month so that's encouraging. But have I told you yet that the process of getting him to sleep is...well...a process?

Last Friday was time to cash in our Jazz date. While I was putting Carson down for his nap in the afternoon I realized just how intricate and specific his bedtime routine is. Since my mom was going to have to put him to bed that night, I decided the best way to set her up for success was to write out a detailed list of the necessary steps for a successful night with Carson. And then I laughed out loud when I saw how ridiculous it is, and I can't believe we go through this literal song and dance two times a day.

We had a great time at the game. In the nosebleed section. Our seats were so high we were breathing in everyone's stale body heat the whole game because we were basically in the rafters. But luckily they had huge TVs that made us feel like we were right on the sidelines. We skipped out of the game a little early to have a kid-free City Creek experience. It was roughly the same experience as having kids there. We don't really love that place either way, but it was fun to be out on the town.

No. I wasn't on drugs. But I was kid free which is kind of like the same thing and explains my crazy eyes.

We got home at 10:30 to a little Carson boy who was still wide awake. Not due to my mom's lack of trying. Lo and behold, Jeff just had to walk in his room and say, "Go to sleep." And Carson was out like a light. I guess Jeff is the irreplaceable part of the routine that my mom didn't have access to. Curse my children and their obsessive love of Jeff! :)

Carson had a whole slew of funny quotes when he woke up the next morning. As I was praising Eli for being such a good boy for his Grandma, Carson sheepishly looked at me and said, "I got out of bed. Grandma's mad at me." Ha.

Then as we were eating breakfast I said, "Who missed me last night?!?" Eli cheerily replied, "Me!" While Carson shouted, "Grandma!"

And then my favorite quote happened as Carson was looking towards the kitchen window. He kept saying, "Mom, the bird is cold." I kept looking out the window trying to figure out what he was talking about. Then I realized he was looking at this duck my mom uses to hang her hand towel on in the kitchen. Apparently it looked like a cold duck in a blanket to Carson.

My mom still uses a lot of the decorations around her house that she had when I was a kid. I remember playing with these snowmen when I was little, so it was fun to see my boys take the same delight in playing with them all morning.

They also attempted another one of my favorite childhood memories -- sliding down the stairs. Though they haven't learned yet that sleeping bags make the trip a lot quicker, so they resorted to jumping down the stairs instead.

My mom babysat for us and then treated us to Texas Roadhouse the next day! My kind of babysitter! Carson spent his time waiting for his meal licking the outside of the peanuts. When we opened the shell up for him to eat the nut part, he gagged like that was disgusting and went on licking shell after shell.

Eli was super excited about his new church class today. He even combed his hair all by himself in anticipation of his big day!

His "V" hairstyle did not stay, but his excitement did. When I asked him after church how his new class was, he immediately replied, "It was...AWESOME!"

Then he spent the next 20 minutes chanting, "CTR, Choose the Right, CTR, Choose the Right!"

Post Christmas Adventures

A couple days after Christmas we went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity? Or something? Not 100% about the name and too lazy to look it up. But it was a blast!

Eli discovered his first magnifying glass while the adults discovered how hilarious it is to see a little kid try to use a magnifying glass.

Newland was a natural.

Jeff was sick over Christmas, so he needed a day to rest and get some work done at home. I recruited my mom to be Carson's chaperone and thank heavens I did! My boys were really good, but they each wanted to run in opposite directions, so it was definitely mandatory to have a set of eyes for each ball of energy.

I think the water room is the room Eli was the most content and interested in.

Eli was really proud of himself when he climbed up several scary nets to reach the airplane for a test ride.

My favorite exhibit was definitely this one:

It was my favorite exhibit because it was hilarious and also because it unexpectedly provided us with a group shot when Carson attempted to be a floating head but never could figure out how to turn the light on for longer than half of a second.

The boys also took a liking to the veterinarian room.

These pictures are backwards. Jump back to Christmas with me. On Christmas afternoon we went sledding! Fun was had by all...

Except for Carson...

It probably didn't help that I accidentally face planted Carson into the snow two times in one minute as I attempted to carry him halfway up the hill. I am pregnant and unbalanced and the ground was slippery. We toppled and he was not too happy about it. I gave up after that and sat on the sidelines with Carson snuggly in my lap as we spent the rest of the time documenting everyone else enjoying the snow.

Ben taught Eli the fun of snowballs.

Before long, Eli was fully loaded and ready to peg his unsuspecting cousins cruising down the hill.

He eventually found a cousin that was willing to join him for a snowball fight, but after one hit Eli was done with that game and ready to go home.

The day after Christmas we thought it would be fun to test out the new scooters and play a few Reindeer Games.

The two littlest boys kept escaping to play in the snow. They were being too adorable to coerce back into the gym though, so we let them be.

My dad had just had shoulder surgery, but he pulled himself together long enough for the games.

We played the reindeer version of Duck, Duck, Goose and Musical Chairs which were my two favorite games of the morning. It was hilarious to see Carson and Newland try to catch on to the rules of the games.