The Last Weeks Before Sister Comes

Well, we are on the countdown…ready or not! Savannah’s due date is now less than 3 weeks away. For as much as we still have left to do, that doesn’t seem like a lot of time :) A lot has happened since I’ve had time to blog last, so I will do my best to make this a thorough update…

Pre-op Baby Shower/”Sprinkle”: Laura, one of my best friends at work, threw a small shower or “sprinkle” for Savannah last week on March 31st. It was over lunch, so everyone brought food and we just ate lunch together and then Brooklyn and I opened a few gifts. It was so sweet of Laura to plan it, especially since she’d planned the last shower I had before Brooklyn was born. We had a great time! Brooklyn enjoyed helping open the gifts, and she had fun entertaining everyone too. She’s such a ham once she warms up! :) As for gifts, we opened several packs of diapers and wipes, a few clothes, some bath stuff, and some gift cards. It was perfect!

The food table

Laura is so creative! She made this “wreath” out of diapers!!

She also painted this door hanger to match Savannah’s nursery. I love it!!

Me and Big Sister :)

Laura went above and beyond organizing the shower! She definitely spoiled us!

Easter Weekend: Last weekend was a busy one! On Friday, Travis and I both worked, so Brooklyn went over to Uncle Tyler’s for the first time to hang out with him and Carter. Tyler says she did great that day and was very helpful. Hopefully it wasn’t an anomaly, and she’ll be that good next week too. We’ll see :) I forgot to get a picture of them when I picked her up…oops. Anyway, after work we all got ready and headed to Cullman to Mikayla and Brent’s wedding. It was a fun evening! We got to see a lot of people from Tuscaloosa that we rarely see anymore, so that was a nice bonus.

After the wedding, Brooklyn and I headed to Trussville, and Travis went to the lake house with Tyler for Nate’s bachelor party. They spent the night at the lake, went golfing on Saturday, and then ate supper at Texas de Brazil in Birmingham. I don’t have any pictures from their weekend, but apparently they had a great time despite getting very sunburned on the golf course :) Brooklyn and I had a fun time with Paw and Rae Rae on Friday night/Saturday. They are officially all moved into their new house!! They still have a lot of boxes to unpack, but that will just take time to do. I really like the new house…it’s very open on the main floor and has a nice big living room and dining room. Great for holidays down the road with lots of grandchildren!! :) Jenn and Chandler came for lunch on Saturday, and we helped unpack a few boxes, and then Mom and I picked up Travis from the restaurant that evening, and he helped move some more boxes into the house from the garage. I didn’t get any pictures of their new house, but hopefully next time we are there I will remember to do that. Brooklyn definitely approved of it! She loved running around inside and chasing Bo in the backyard. Ever since we got back home on Saturday night, she has been asking, “See Paw and Rae Rae?” multiple times a day :)

Easter Sunday, we went to Cici’s for lunch after church and had hot wings (I think it was Emily’s request since we were also celebrating her birthday). Then, Brooklyn hunted Easter eggs in the backyard after lunch! It was a fun afternoon! I didn’t take many pictures the whole weekend, but we did remember to get some on Easter itself.

She refused to look at the camera and smile, so this is the best we could do :)

She wanted to give Cici’s flowers a kiss…

…and a hug! Whenever she gives someone/something a hug, she always makes a face like she’s squeezing tight and says “Mmmm MMMMM!” It’s pretty cute :)

To disguise Travis’s sunburn, this year’s Easter pictures of all 3 of us are in black and white…haha!

When it was time to hunt eggs, it didn’t take Brooklyn long to figure out what to do! It’s crazy to think that last year on Easter she wasn’t even walking yet, and we just scattered a few eggs in the grass and let her crawl around and play with them. This year was a lot more fun! She didn’t want to carry her Easter basket, so she ran around collecting eggs and bringing them back to the basket…haha :)

Cici put surprises in each egg like Goldfish, chocolate candy, and Nilla wafers. She knows what Brooklyn likes for sure!

How many eggs can you carry at once? :)

Next year, it will be even more fun with Carter walking (and maybe even Savannah too…who knows!).

Outdoor Fun: We’ve been trying to get out and enjoy the nice weather while it lasts. We have been to different playgrounds several times and have played out in the backyard lots of mornings too. Brooklyn loves to be outside! I know once Savannah gets here, it won’t be quite as simple to get out and do that kind of thing (unless it’s just in our backyard), so I’m trying to take advantage of the time we have left :)

We have also eaten lunch and supper out in the backyard a few times, and Brooklyn really enjoys that too. She does more playing than eating (it’s too tempting to get up from the table to do fun stuff!), but that’s okay :)

On this particular day, we ate lunch and supper outside. It was great!!

First Trip to the Dentist: One of the many things on my to-do list has been to take Brooklyn to the dentist for the first time before Savannah came. I just figured it would be a lot simpler to take JUST her the first time instead of having to take both of them. So, I called a couple of weeks ago to make an appointment, and they were able to get us in earlier this week. We decided not to put Brooklyn on our dental insurance this year because we estimated that it would be cheaper to pay for her 2 visits out of pocket rather than pay the increase in our insurance premiums by switching to a family plan. But, we went ahead and chose a pediatric dentist who accepts the insurance we use so that when we decide it’s worth it to put Brooklyn on our dental insurance, we won’t have to switch dentists. Anyway, we ended up going with Dr. Beitel, who has an office in Huntsville and Madison. I was already familiar with him from working at the hospital and liked him, so it wasn’t too hard of a decision.

So, the appointment was Tuesday morning. Brooklyn went with me to the dentist for my checkup back in February (and did great that day), so I knew she was at least familiar with going to the dentist. We also got her a book about tooth brushing for her birthday :) The only negative of the morning was that we had to wait quite a while to be seen, but Brooklyn did great in the waiting room. There were several other kids in there, and she did fine waiting the whole time. I’m hoping it was just a very busy morning, and a long wait like that won’t be the norm for future visits.

Once we got back there, they took us to a room where Brooklyn got to pick out a sticker and a plastic turtle :) Then, it was time to see Dr. Beitel! He came in and looked at her paperwork, and then he looked at her teeth. He did a great job with her! I sat with her on the chair, and she laid there very still and did great. I could tell she didn’t really like him looking in her mouth, but she never cried the entire time. She even let him put the little mirror in her mouth. I was very proud of how well she did! Dr. Beitel said he could tell she is a thumb sucker by the overlap of her top teeth over her bottom teeth, but he said it isn’t too bad at this point as far as thumb suckers go. He didn’t tell me to start trying to get her to STOP thumb sucking, which I was really grateful for. I can’t imagine fighting that battle with her and dealing with a newborn at the same time. He said we are doing a great job brushing her teeth, but he wants us to start flossing her teeth 3 times a week, especially now that her 2 year molars are starting to come in and her mouth will be getting more crowded. That should be interesting! :) Overall, it was a good morning, and Brooklyn really did great! I think the next appointment will be very similar…he will just look at her teeth, but no cleanings or x-rays for at least a year or two unless there are problems :)

Pregnancy: At this point, I’m ready to NOT be pregnant anymore, but I’m not ready for Savannah to get here either. Can’t have it both ways though! :) I think if we had the nursery put together, my hospital bag packed, and the car seat bases in the car, I’d feel more ready. Here’s to hoping we will get a lot done this weekend! As far as how I’m feeling, I really can’t complain too much. I’ve gotten used to not sleeping well at this point, and I’m not extremely uncomfortable during the day. I’m definitely exhausted by the end of the day though, much more so than I remember being at the end of my pregnancy with Brooklyn. I think it has to do with constantly picking up after a certain toddler…and toting HER around too. She’s getting close to 30 pounds at this point, which is no light load on top of the belly I’m toting too :)

36 weeks

37 weeks

At my 36 week appointment, we had a growth ultrasound done, and they estimated that Savannah weighed 6 lbs 2 oz at that point. I looked back at my blog post from last pregnancy, and they thought Brooklyn was 6 lbs 13 oz at the same appointment. I don’t put too much stock in either estimate because they are pretty unreliable, but hopefully that at least means that Savannah isn’t going to be a whole lot bigger than Brooklyn was at birth :) I was pretty shocked and excited when my doctor came in after the ultrasound and said that if I still want to VBAC, she doesn’t think it’s going to be Savannah’s weight that will be the issue…it’s whether my body will cooperate. I was halfway expecting her to come in and try to convince me that she thought Savannah was already too big at that point and that I just needed to schedule a c-section. So, we are still on track to attempt a VBAC! I’m still not dilated (as of yesterday at my 37 week checkup), but my cervix is “soft”, so I guess that counts for something. We will see if anything has changed next week at my appointment. I’ll leave you with a comparison collage of how much progress we had made in Brooklyn’s nursery at 36 weeks vs. Savannah’s at 36 weeks…