At that point

This post is a pregnant woman's hormonal venting session just to give you fair warning.

 

So to begin, I just want it known that I am over joyed at being pregnant.  We were praying for this, Axel is a answer to prayers and we cannot wait for him to join us out of the womb.  That being said, I am DONE being pregnant.  I never felt this way that I can remember with Archer except for the last few days where I decided that I was not getting off the couch until he came and low and behold he was born the next day.  I don't have that luxury this time unfortunately.

So let the venting begin.  As this pregnancy has gone on, I have remembered slowly what pregnancy was like the first time. 

 

Some things are not so bad, like the following: 

*The constant bathroom breaks, I really don't get annoyed with these, they are like mini break sessions from motherhood and wife hood.

*The cravings, some good, some weird, I have learned to cope with and even not think about or overcome without gaining a million pounds. 

*Even random people coming up and stroking my big belly doesn't really bug me anymore, unless they are creepy about it and do it for long periods of time. 

*Feeling Axel wiggle and move.  There are times when I want to cry out because he is pushing on a organ or is crowding my ribs and lungs, but there is a complete and total awesomeness to watching my stomach move and shift

 

But there are a few items I would really like to be done with.  Here are just a few:

*Constantly having to hold my breath to pick up a toy, tie my shoe, change a diaper, pretty much do anything that requires me to bend or hunch at all.

*Having Archer and Axel fight.  Yes it is already happening and Archer thinks it is funny to push or "spank" Axel and watch him push back. 

*Not being able to walk after sitting longer than 10 minutes.  You would think that I am 80 not 25.

*Waking up feeling like someone has taken a bat or metal rod and beaten me over and over in the pelvic/groin area all night.  Never experienced this with Archer and never want to feel it again.

 

Now like I said, in the beginning, I am so grateful to be able to have children and be pregnant and be healthy through both my pregnancies thus far.  But sometimes being a girl stinks.  But I look at Archer's face and the ultrasound pictures of Axel and all the negative things that I just listed vanish and the love for these boys overcomes all the hormonal rage.  Because being a mom rocks and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  But really can't the husband take a turn at least once!?  :)

Here are a few kid and pregnancy pictures to go with my tantrum.

Dustin's birthday (I'm not even going to try to play catch-up)

Archer playing at the park

3D ultrasound of Axel at 32 weeks

32 weeks pregnant

36 weeks pregnant

February

This February, Valentines Day holiday, was so fun.  To start off our holiday, Dustin gave me one of the best gifts a mother can ask for.....sleep.  He built a fort/tent in the living room the night before and him and Archer slept in it together so I could have some uninterrupted sleep the night before Valentines day and the day after.  It was blissful.  We had a pizza, ice cream, and movie party the night before the 14th, and then had a romantic breakfast that morning.  I spent over an hour decorating after Archer went to sleep and when I woke up the it had all fallen down.  Oh well E for effort.  

Dustin also suprised me with a overnight stay at the Destinations Inn in Idaho Falls.  It could not have come at a better time.  I have only left Archer once overnight and was so ready to have a kid free evening and morning.  So thanks to the combined efforts of my mom who watched Archer before my sister Heather came home, Heather who watching him in the evening and overnight, and Tammie who watched him from the time Heather went to work until we came back, we were able to go and relax and sleep.  I take advantage of doing things like eating without having to share or being touched, sleeping without getting woken up, or doing nothing and not feeling guilty.  And the fact that I got to do all these things with Dustin made them even sweeter. 

Archer has become so busy.  I feel like I am trying to always keep up or clean up after my little tornado.  His latest games are building birthday cakes out of cans for everyone and singing happy birthday.  He was really angry one day that I wouldn't put candles on his cake, so we put candles in his dinner instead.

  He is constantly climbing jumping and running everywhere.  We play animals, mostly tigers, which is how his face got eaten off and Dustin wrapped his face like this. 

The new animal that we pretend to be is beavers.  It is funny, but his idea of how a beaver is, is a little more angry and wild than I thought it would be.  This is him being a beaver "eating people", which is what he claims they eat.  Poor Dustin he never had a chance. 

 

January

So normally January and February are the slowest months of the year for me and I dread them starting after Christmas.  But this year they have flown by.  I can not believe that it is already almost March.  This January was full of fun activites and good news.  The good news is that Dustin has been accepted into the MSAT program at the University of Idaho in Moscow.  Wahoo!!  Grad school here we come!  It starts June 4th so we will be heading up there sometime this May.  That could be one of the big reasons that time is flying, since my to-do list is longer than Archer.  Other than that, Archer and I have been trying to fill the days while Dustin is at work.  I am loving this age that he is at.  His imagination is growing and he is so active, which some days being 6-7 months pregnant, can be a challenge but I am loving it. 

Our month was filled with baking,

me finally caving and allowing Archer to put on my make-up.  He wasn't a fan, he wanted to wash it off as soon as it was on.  I know the feeling.

Making forts and slides out of blankets and mattresses,

finding out that Archer LOVES the snow.  After a weekend of getting dumped on we spent like 4 days out in the snow building snowmen (out of nonsticky snow, not that simple), building train tunnels, and going sledding for the first time.  He was frozen but loved everysecond.

 

Just some stats on Archer for the month of January, he was 29 months, around 30-35 pounds, and asks why, what, and how for everything.  My beautiful sleeper is now having problems but has officially transitioned into sleeping in a big boy bed.  We are slowly getting closer to being interested in potty training, but are not quite there.  Sometimes I wish that time could just stop since I feel like he is getting big so very fast.

Holidays Part 2

So to start off our Christmas vacation, Dustin and I decided to not drive the whole way to Washington going down.  Before we had kids it wasn't the most fun drive, and it really isn't now.  Archer does really good for a 2 1/2  year old, so I'm not complaining, but to be able to stop half way was a dream come true.  We weren't rushing the morning to leave since we weren't worrying about driving after dark, Archer was a champ, and I didn't even get to restless (or swollen).  Dustin has always wanted to stop at this place called the Come on Inn (its' spelled way cooler).  And so that's were we decided to stop.  It was a beautiful inn, with a game room for Archer, hot tubs all around and a huge swimming pool (that we did not use since Archer was still too scared to go in), and a nice waterfall in the middle.  We let Archer stay up later, and then put him in a roll away crib and went just out our door to where there were overstuffed chairs for relaxing.  The next morning we got up and finished the drive, which other than a accident that caused us a 45 minute delay, was peaceful and shorter than it would have been otherwise.

The holidays were filled with family, games, and laughter just like always.  Archer was so fun to watch and be with as every gift no matter whether it was clothes or trains he was so happy.  And we got to find out what the gender of our baby is which is a boy!!  I already suspected this since the Dr. office slipped at the appoinment, but it was still a surprise for everyone else.  I took the lazy way out with matching pj's this year, and did same color different prints, which I actually ended up liking.

Some of the fun things we did:

*Went to Dustin's grandparents house for a Christmas Eve evening

*Played lots with cousins

*Had D'laney's and Judds open house which was beautifully decorated by Lisa

*Got to leave Archer for the day and spend it with Dustin and the married couples and got to the temple and dinner

*Relax and do nothing :)

*Spend the day in Tri-Cities for Pierce's birthday, and go to Chuck-E-Cheese

*Listen to Dustin give a great talk at church

*Go to some good movies

*Spend a lot of needed time with Dustin's family

Some of the things that were not so fun:

*Archer not sleeping well, so having him in our bed everynight and getting very little sleep for the majority of our stay

*Having some random ulcer problems, I guess Washington water is no good when I'm pregnant

*Having to drive the whole 8 hours back home

 We decided to not take all of our gifts to Washington and celebrate when we got home.  We told Archer the whole time that Santa had come while we were gone.  He was so excited when we got home and he came in. 

 Mostly for his first bike!! 

We are in the process of trying to teach him, but mostly he likes to be pulled around by one of us with a belt hooked onto it.  But hopefully by Spring he will get the hang of it.  We had a great Christmas holiday and can't wait until next year to spend it with our new addition Axel too.

 

Holidays Part 1

So November and December went by in literally a blur.  I remember it being awesome to be able to spend time with family and friends, but I also remember having what felt like no time.  So here is a quick catch-up on how November thru part of December was.  I finally reached the point in my pregnancy of not wanting to vomit everytime I walked and or stood up which was blissful.  The first half of the month was me finally starting to feel normal and act normal once again.  The second half was filled with thoughts of Thanksgiving and spending time with family and thinking about what I was grateful for.  Thanksgiving this year was so fun and chill.  Other than the Hall Turkey Trot, which I am still trying to figure out how to post the video on here, the day was filled with good food, games, and laughing.  I'm pretty sure it is safe to say a good time was had by all!

Then December started and to kick off the month we had my sister Heathers birthday!!  She is such an amazing person and I am so glad to have her in my life to look up to and have be around my kids.  She easily is the favorite aunt.  For her birthday this year we made candy trains.  Archer has been obsessed with trains lately so he was in heaven.  All you can eat candy and being able to run around and make train noises?  His life was complete. 

I also started this year a new tradition of the 12 days of Christmas for Archer.  Not that this kid is not spoiled enough, I just thought it would be something fun for us to do each year.  The look on his face was the same everyday as he looked in the stocking and saw another present. 

He even got another Ty beanie baby to add to his collection.  Welcome to the family Bamboo.

We have also really been practising our crazy faces.  He gets pretty creative.

 Another big thing we had this holiday season was Dustin's sister D'laney got married in the Rexburg temple.  It was beautiful.  Dustin made the cake!  It turned out amazing.  Everyone kept asking him if he was going to change his career.  I was mighty impressed.

I almost missed the ceremony, which is my favorite part, because some little helper decided to take my temple recommend out of my bag and throw it behind the printer.  But thanks to my moms advice I was able to attend.  Archer had so much fun playing with his cousins and seeing family but was one tired kid by the end of the day.

Halloween

Halloween this year was so fun.  This whole fall season has been fun with Archer.  He has really started to notice everything and is understanding the different holidays.

Since he is older I decided to make it a goal to make sure that he has fun and hopefully starts making memories.  I don't want him getting older and looking back and thinking my parents are so lame.

To start off the Halloween day we carved pumkins.  For some reason I didn't think that Archer would like this very much, but boy was I wrong.  He loved scooping the guts and stabbing them in the bowl.  Over and over he kept saying "ewww guts". 

 Since Dustin takes his pumkin carving seriously I was in charge of carving my pumpkin and Archer's.  I am not very good at this particular craft but they could have turned out worse.  I asked Archer what he wanted his pumkins face to look like and he glared and frowned and said, "a mad mad face like this".  This kid cracks me up.

Archer's, mine, and Dustin's pumkins.

When we asked Archer what he wanted to be for Halloween we didn't get a real answer, so we chose for him.  He love's Toy Story so we picked Woody.  Easy costume that would not be complicated or itchy for him.  If you can't tell by the pictures his hat was his favorite part.  By the time Halloween was actually here, it was so deformed from him pulling it on his head and stepping on it but he didn't seem to mind and I thought it added character. 

We went up to my sister Heather's work to trick-or-treat at her office which was so much fun.  That seemed to be good enough for Archer.  The rest of the night he just wanted to pass out candy.  I have a feeling next year will be different.

 Dustin and I this year got to go to a kid free Halloween party! (thank you dad for babysitting)  It was with our friends Katy and Taylor Wilson, Dustin's sisters Davi, Devon, and D'laney and her fiance Judd.  It was so much fun.  It was costume of course, we had an old couple, some blimpz, and a cat burglur and a kitty cat.  Dustin and I were a disco diva and her sugar daddy.

  We had great food, Minute to win it games, and just a great time.  I am so grateful for great friends and family that we get to spend time with.