33 weeks

Tomorrow I will be 33 weeks pregnant. THIRTY-THREE WEEKS! Okay, that's out of my system now. It's not so much being 33 weeks, but only having 7 to go. Realistically I probably won't be having her early, but I've known plenty of people who have their 3rd babies earlier. Her room is mostly ready. Amazingly we didn't have to paint the room. Brooke's room is Kayla's old room and the blue color matched perfectly with the new bedding. I haven't washed anything yet, but I'm not in a rush to do that. My mom said she'd come over and help with that. We still have to hang things on her wall, purchase a few needed items, baby stuff to pull out of the attic and get cleaned, and I have a stack of thank you notes that I need to write and get in the mail. Normally I wouldn't be worried at this point, but throw in Thanksgiving, potty training, and enjoying the Christmas season with my family and time seems to fly by. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I can post some pictures of the nursery. Oh and usually I don't like decorating for Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but since we have so much going on and will probably be putting the decorations up a little earlier this year, I told Marc we could put the trees up this weekend. Remind me, how many hours are in a day?

You Are Getting Very Sleepy...

One trick we found with both our girls when they were babies was to softly rub from the center of their forehead down cheek. It calmed them down fast and put them right to sleep. Now that we have a 4 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old we haven't done that in quite a while. For some reason Marc started doing this to Macy while we were waiting in the car one day. I'd say it still works!

All Alone

UPDATE #2: I finally managed to fall asleep around 2:00, heard them inside around 7:00, and went back to sleep until 10:30! Marc said they slept pretty well. Kayla was hot and cold all night. She'd get hot in her sleeping bag, so she'd open it up and then wake up cold and cover back up again. Marc woke up at one point and Macy was on top of her sleeping bag. While he was trying to move her she woke up and said "no, I sleep here, I sleep here." She crawled right back to where she was on top of her sleeping bag. Not 15 seconds later did she say she was cold so Marc helped her get tucked back in. He said they all fell asleep by 9:30, Macy woke up at 7:00, and Kayla woke up at 7:45. I'd say it was a pretty successful adventure, although the tent is being retired until at least the spring.

UPDATE: It's 1:30 and I can't get to sleep. They are still outside, and it's about 47 degrees. I had a minor breakdown about how bad of a mother I am allowing them to sleep out in the cold and how they aren't dressed warm enough. After some prayer and a mindless computer game I think I might be able to fall asleep now. Am I totally crazy? Should I blame it on the pregnancy? I tend to do that with a lot of things - poor Brooke takes all of the blame these days!


ORIGINAL POST:
I am alone in the house tonight, well just me and Brooke. I am alone because the rest of my family is doing this:

Kayla has been wanting to go camping FOREVER. Well unfortunately her mama is NOT the camping type. Besides, I think it is against the law for a pregnant woman to have to sleep on the ground. So Marc got a tent from his parent's basement, bought them some sleeping bags, and now the adventure begins. It was just going to be Marc and Kayla camping, but of course Macy has to do what big sister is doing. It has taken us a while to find a night they could do this when we didn't have anything going on the next day. Unfortunately the low is supposed to be 43 tonight. Of course I'm worried about them being too cold, but Marc assures me they will be fine. I trust him, but I still worry about it. Here are the things that are keeping me from going crazy about it:

1. It's a small tent so they will be keeping each other warm.
2. Kayla is old enough to understand that when you wake up cold you pull the covers back up.
3. Macy is her own personal heater just like her daddy.
4. They are just in the backyard, so they can come inside anytime.
5. I'm sleeping with the telephone in case he intercoms me in the middle of the night.
6. I fully expect the girls to not be able to settle down and they will be inside shortly.

Going against me:
1. Kayla is super excited about finally being able to camp.
2. Both of the girls are totally worn out from today and could probably fall asleep anywhere.

I know they are having fun, and I love that they have a daddy who wants to do this with them. It's just the 43 degrees that worries me! I'll keep looking on the positive side: if they do stay out all night they won't be waking me up bright and early and Daddy will keep them downstairs so I can sleep. That I can deal with!

Brooke Nichole Dutton - 29 weeks

We had a 3D ultrasound done tonight. We didn't do one for Kayla or Macy, and we thought this would be something special to do for this pregnancy. We were able to have all of the grandparents, my sister, and the girls join us. Kayla has been giddy all day and was so excited to see Brooke. About halfway there Macy started saying "see Brooke, see Brooke." As soon as the first picture showed up on the television she screamed, "Brooke!" It was so cute! She was even naming body parts when she would see them.

Profile


It looks like she is holding a ball, but the part that looks like her hands is the umbilical cord. Somehow the change in depths made the section in the middle (her chest) look like a glowing ball.

Here she is sticking her tongue out.

It's hard to see, but this is her sweet baby foot.

A Perfect Saturday Morning

The girls woke up early this morning. Well, not too early, but earlier than I wanted to get up. Marc got up with them and let me go back to sleep. I went back to sleep, and the next thing I know it is 1 1/2 hours later and the girls are bringing me breakfast in bed. Kayla really wanted to make grits, but we are a cheese grits family and there was no cheese in the house. Her response was, "but we have enough bacon and Mommy likes bacon." So I had bacon, toast with yummy homemade jelly (I didn't make it though), and juice. After sharing my bacon with 2 little munchkins they took off to their room and are playing so quietly together. Marc has gone back to sleep and I am laying in bed with the computer. Such a sweet morning.

Pumpkin Patch

We went to Burt's Pumpkin Patch again this year. We met up with a good friend and her family. The kids had such a great time. Marc and I had both cameras with us so we were the crazy camera family. We've learned that if we both have a camera and just keep snapping we are bound to get a couple of good shots. Worked out for us again this time!

Our crazy girls "sleeping" in the wheelbarrow.

This is Austin. He is Macy's first crush. He is actually 2 days older than Kayla, but Macy has quite a little infatuation with him. While we were waiting for them to arrive she kept saying "where Austin, where Austin." On the hayride he would tickle her and she would laugh so hard. Here they are during our picnic. I can't remember what he was doing, but Macy thought it was hilarious. She also chased him around for quite a while.

Los Angeles

After spending a couple of days in San Diego we drove up to Los Angeles. We actually flew in and out of LA for scheduling/pricing reasons. On the way up there we stopped at Downtown Disney and bought the girls a few presents. Unfortunately that put us right in the middle of downtown LA during rush hour at the same time everyone was trying to get to the ball field for a baseball game - some playoff, but I can't keep it all straight. If the Braves aren't playing then I have no idea what is going on. It took forever to get to our hotel. The traffic was worse than Atlanta, but the people (excluding the crazy motorcyclists) were pretty good drivers. None of this jumping lanes just to get one car length ahead. Most cars just stayed in their lane which was very helpful for us.

We took the Sony Pictures Studio Tour. It was really neat to hear the history of the studio, see some of the sets for upcoming movies, and we even hung out at the empty Jeopardy set for a while. I would recommend this tour to anyone who is headed out there.

Of course we had to get a picture of the Hollywood sign.

Rodeo Drive. None of the stores were open when we drove through, not that we could afford anything anyway.

Santa Monica Pier. We took a lovely walk in a park area right off of the beach. This pregnant lady had done enough walking on this trip that I wasn't about to walk down to the water. The distance to walk down to the water from the parking was ridiculous!

Next we drove up to Malibu. We saw some crazy huge houses, but I'm not really sure why this area has such the reputation it does. Maybe if we had driven more of the 22 miles of Malibu we would have seen something more spectacular. See all of those little dots in the water? Those are all surfers. I'm not sure how long they have to wait to get a wave.

We have so many more pictures of the things we saw and did, but since I'm a single parent for a few days this will have to suffice. Our flight arrived around 8:30 on Saturday night and Marc was back at the airport for a 5:00 flight Sunday evening. This time he is headed to the Miami area. I'm not sure what he'll do with these cold temperatures when he gets back!

San Diego

Marc had a business trip right outside of San Diego, CA and I was able to join him thanks to frequent flyer miles. While he was working I spent my day playing around on the Internet, watching television that did not consist of cartoons, and reading a book by the pool. It was fabulous! This was the view off of our patio.


He finished working mid-afternoon so we drove down to San Diego and drove to a state park that overlooked the city. It up a mountain and it was gorgeous! Unfortunately the park closed at 5:00 so we didn't get to stay long. Those park rangers really wanted to get home because they were shooing everyone back to their cars.

We drove back down to San Diego the next day and spent some time walking around Balboa Park. The grounds were beautiful. There were many different gardens to walk around and the architecture of the buildings was stunning.

We made a stop at the beach before heading north to Los Angeles. I have never been to the Pacific Ocean and wanted to check it out. I am a Gulf Coast girl - I love the powder white sand. In California it is dark sand and the water was frigid! For the temperatures to still be as warm (I mean HOT) as they were I can't believe the water was that cold! We didn't stay long, but at least I can say I've put my feet in the Pacific Ocean.

The Beginning of a Lot of Updates

Kayla has been going to Home Depot with her Daddy for quite a while now and making fun little projects. She absolutely loves this time together, but our schedule has been so crazy that they haven't been the last couple of months. This month we had some errands to run, so we decided to take Macy. At first I was just going to wander around the store while Marc and Kayla did their stuff, but with the fire trucks and live broadcast from Radio Disney, there was a lot going on. We decided to take Macy over and we picked out the easiest project for her to do. They both had such fun and are so proud of their projects. When we were leaving a Home Depot employee actually stopped us to get a picture of Macy with her sailboat. Since the projects are really set up for older kids I guess they don't see many 2 year olds walking around so proud of what they made.



When I went in to kiss the girls one last time before going to bed I couldn't find Macy. I went to Kayla's bed and found them snuggled together. This is the first time that Macy has climbed into Kayla's bed to sleep.

Ever since Kayla found out we were having another baby she has loved putting a baby (or bear, or horse, or whatever she can find) under her shirt. She then has her baby and we wrap it up in a blanket and she starts taking care of it. Of course Macy has to join in the fun, although she has no clue what she is doing. All she knows is she is doing something just like her big sister.

Hide and Seek

The girls are playing Hide and Seek with their Daddy. I personally can't stand the game. I think at some point in my childhood I was scarred by being chased or something. I can't handle it when Marc comes up quickly behind me on the stairs. I've come to accept my issues and move on, but even being chased by my 2 and 4 year old stresses me out. Tonight during Marc's turn to count Macy hides in the coat closet. Pretty creative for a 2 year old that usually picks one of the same two spots or just hides with her sister. Well as soon as Marc says "ready or not, here I come" she jumps out of the closet and says "I found you" to Marc. I guess we need to better explain the rules.