Quinnism

Every day before we leave work, Q has a favorite routine of "working on Mommy's computer." To deter her from just pounding on the keyboard, I started letting her choose a couple letters from the ABC section of starfall.com. She LOVES this and can't wait to "do my ABS's" every day. Today she chose "Lynda's letter" (L) and when each picture comes up, she always tells me what it is. She's good at this--she almost always gets them right. Today this screen came up.

She said, "Pee."

"What?" I asked her.

"It's where you pee," she informed me, very matter-of-factly.

Guess you can tell we were camping this past weekend! And the bathrooms were out of order. I'll let you put the rest together.

30 Weeks...and sure I have feet down there somewhere!

Not a lot of new developments in this last week, Bacon Bit. You weigh around 3 lbs now, you're still a wiggle worm and I love sitting with my hand against my tummy in the evenings, following your movements. You've had some times where you rearranged my whole belly with your squirming. You also find my ribs occasionally, which hurts. And sometimes when I drive in the truck and am sitting so upright in the seat it becomes a little hard to breathe with you pushing up against the top of my belly. I'm continuing to have some braxton hicks, especially when I am walking or right after.
We went for an OB appt this week. She had a hard time keeping the doppler on you again because you were moving so much. Your heart tones were good and I was measuring on-week. She felt around on my belly for quite a while and determined that you are head down on the left side of my body, your spine curves up my left side, and your feet and legs are curled over on the right side. Which explains the majority of your kicks coming on the right side. I also think you like to lift your bootie up under my right ribcage. My belly is pretty much always lopsided, with a bigger bump to the right (see above picture!). Other than that she encouraged me to up my protein and water intakes and we'll go back in 3 weeks.
I am still feeling well and maybe even have a bit more energy than I did last month. I am sleeping well with just one extra pillow between my knees and I only get a LITTLE grumpy after 9pm, right Matt? :) Work is gearing up and next week we'll have 40ish elementary students ready to learn about Space.....So ready or not, little Bacon Bit, we've entered summer school land!!

Long weekend=we're camping out!

Some of our friends that live in Dallas invited us and another set of friends to meet them at Pedernales Falls SP for a Memorial Day weekend campout about 6 months ago. Long before I had announced I was pregnant and when I was still bumpless and a lot less winded.....Back then it sounded fun and Pedernales is one of our favorite SP's, so of course we agreed! As we were packing up last week I was a little nervous how I would do in the heat with no ac, 3 nights on an air mattress, and no bathroom close by for my middle-of-the-night needs. Turned out Bacon Bit and I came through like champs! We weathered the 100 degree days (seriously....Matt checked at the park headquarters when he went on an ice run Saturday afternoon), managed 3 nights in the toasty tent, huffed and puffed my way up and down the crazy-steep rock-covered hike leading to the river (multiple times) and even did my share of in-the-woods-peeing, since the nearby bathrooms were under construction (of course....). We cooled off in the river all afternoon each day, ate popsicles and drank gatorade, the kiddos splashed in a pool (my feet also did some soaking), we ate mighty fine, I did some reading in the hammock, Quinn poured her baby shampoo all over the inside of the tent while she was supposed to be napping, our family protector, Matt, flicked a scorpion off the side of the tent, we found shells, sticks, rocks and lots of cactus, one of us ran around with a guacamole mustache, and we just plain had a great time!

The prego's.....Jacque is about a month behind me....We had to get a pic of the babies on their "first" campout! We already have their first "out of body" campout planned for October. We're breaking these babies into the camping scene quickly!!

More camping pics to come!

Salsa!

Made some roasted salsa with our garden treasures. Our big tomatoes are now ripening, so we added onions, jalapenos, garlic (store bought, but I am totally planting some in the fall....), cherry tomatoes, and yellow tomatoes to our salsa! Oh yea and some garden cilantro!! It turned out delicious, but next time I am definitely adding more jalapenos. not quite spicy enough for our taste. Quinn loves saying the word "jalapeno." So cute.

Quinnism

According to Daddy.....I was at Starbucks with friends, when I got home he told me this story from their bedtime routine.

Daddy: "Who loves you?" (they do this every night at bedtime...Matt asks and she names a bunch of names of people who love her.)

Quinn: names a bunch of names....then says, "Who else, Daddy?"

Daddy: "Alie and Beaux love you."

Quinn: ponders a moment and then says, "They're ANIMALS, Daddy."

Matt: "Yes, but they love you."

Quinn: ponders another moment. "Do DEERS love me?"

Matt: "No, Alie and Beaux love you because they are around you all the time. Deer don't know you so they probably don't love you."

This morning when she woke up and came into our room she informed me: "Daddy said deers don't love me. Do skunks love me?"

One of the things I love about the way Matt parents Q is that he's always honest with her and doesn't sugarcoat things when it's not true. If she asks if medicine's gonna be "spicy" and it is (Robutessun), he says, yep. When she asks if somethings gonna sting on her boo-boo, he tells her it will but she'll get over it. And when deer don't love her? Nothing but the truth. :) He just says it matter of factly and moves on. One of my pet peeves is parents that lie to their kids....like saying shots don't really hurt, etc., etc. So I love that he tells her how it is and she always does fine with that.

29 weeks...and no hiding this baby bump!

My very favorite piece of maternity clothing has to be my camo pants. You'd better believe I had to have a pair of those....

Bacon Bit, you are growing, growing and moving and jiving! I wake up in the night/early morning to your movements and it makes me smile. I can feel individual body parts pushing out instead of just general pressure now.

I'm craving grapefruit juice mixed with seltzer these days.

I've been waking up several mornings around 5am to go to the bathroom and then ending up wide awake for a couple hours. Argh. I don't want to get up cause I know I'll be tired all day if I get up that early. Usually I end up falling back to sleep a few minutes before my alarm goes off.

Other than that I am still feeling pretty good, no major aches or pains or complaints. I go for my next OB appointment on Wednesday. I had my blood glucose last time and it was fine, so this will just be a quick check/measurement.

Randy's 60th

Last night we went to Randy's 60th birthday party, which, as you can see, was a Hawaiian-themed party.

Randy's family comes from the same part of Missouri that Matt's does. Randy's parents and Matt's grandparents were friends way back in the day. Randy and Bob (Matt's dad) met in kindergarten and became great friends through their childhoods in Missouri. Many years (and many miles...as now the story moves to Houston) later, Matt and Joey meet as kids and become great friends. So our two families go way back and we're excited that our little ones, Quinn and Joseph are now becoming pals!

I keep telling Matt that our kid has something strange going on with her eyes. She can roll one of them up freakishly high when you tell her to "do your eyes."

The girls! Jacque, Lindsey and me. Jacque's baby girl is due at the end of August, so we're gonna have lots of little ones to run around together!

Cupcakes at the kiddy table.

Trying to make Joseph laugh....
Quinn has developed Daddy's habit of chewing on her fingers constantly. It drives her teachers at school crazy. I tried to break her Daddy of that habit for the past 12 years to no avail, so I've just pretty much given up on Q's chewing.
The boys playing the Old Fart Game. They had to put on the old fart clothes then push the lawnmower around the course. The fastest team won. Not Matt's team, sadly. :(

Quinnisms

Via Mimi:
Mimi (explaining to Quinn how Q has to follow Mimi's rules): When you're at Mimi's house Mimi is the boss. Who's the boss at your house?

Q: Matt and Daicia. But at Mike and Lynda's house I'm the boss.

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Quinn loves to use the word "decorate" now. Sometimes correctly, sometimes not. One day she rolled her eyes and looked at me out the side of them and said, "Mommy, I'm gonna decorate my eyes at you." Last night she and Daddy were playing in the playroom and Quinn told him they had to "dec-ke-rate" the table for Pink Baby's birthday. She learned the word from a little book her teachers sent home from school about Mother's Day. It's one of her very favorites to read right now and in the story they make the mommy breakfast in bed and decorate her tray with a flower and a card.

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Yesterday morning when we were getting dressed Q came into my bathroom and said, "Mommy, Alie's as curious as can be."
No clue where that came from. :)

7 months=28 weeks

It just struck both Matt and I that we are in the final stretches of time before our new little one arrives....and we are all about taking it slow and enjoying this stage of life. It has also started feeling very real that I am pregnant these past couple weeks....I sprang out of bed in the middle of the night a few days back, shrieking and hopping around with a super painful leg cramp. I had forgotten about those. :( Matt was so sweet and just muttered, "Come back to bed and I'll rub it for you." Thankfully it subsided pretty quickly, but my left calf muscle has been sore ever since. I also have to ask Matt to slow down several times on our walks now, as I lose my breath quicker and get sideaches. And Saturday we were doing yard work all day and Sunday it felt like every part of my body was dragging through mud to move s-l-o-w-l-y and with lots of effort. About 8:30 every night my body is just about done for the day and my abdomen area is sore from carrying a kicking little guy or gal all day. We've been doing lots of HGTV on the couch in the evenings (or shows about Pawn Shops if Matt beats me to the remote). I am fully in maternity clothese this past week. Regular shirts have gotten too short and my regular pants too uncomfortable. So into the stretchy clothes I go! Still lots of my maternity pants from last time are not fitting me quite yet, I definitely am more out in front this time as with Q I am realizing I went more to the sides. Which makes EVERYONE tell me it's for sure a boy. We shall soon see! My mom has told me several times her pregnancies with my sister and I were like that--so completely different from each other that they (and everyone else) were just sure that Chelsea was a boy. So I am not making my mind up for sure either way.
I started back to work this month to teach a session of summer school (which I hope I can survive...summer school is rather intense when I'm not pregnant....so a little anxious to see what this summer brings) and all moms love to put their hands all over my belly. So guess I'd better be getting used to that. :)

Well, where would you EXPECT a cat to sleep?

On the floor???!!!
Quinn would NOT be happy about this.....

When Daddy gets home.....

Time to check the strawberries....

And harvest any we find!

Then grill up some dinner....

All of the veggies courtesy of our garden! Tomatoes, yellow squash, onions, green pepper, purple pepper, green beans, dill. Yum!!

Us.

My friend Erin faithfully snaps (unbeknownst to us) an amazing beach shot of my family every year on our spring beach trip and here's this year's. Even little Bacon Bit is making an appearance bursting around the sides of my used-to-be waist. Love it! Thanks, Erin!

More beach fun

We found a jellyfish on the beach. Quinn wanted to hold it by the top and she learned not to touch the tenticles. Daddy was carrying it back to our chairs so she could show her friends and he brushed it against his leg. Ouch. When Quinn retells the story she says, "Daddy brushed that jellyfish on his leg and it burned him!"

Quinn learned about getting buried in the sand! She loved it for a few minutes, but didn't like all that weight of the sand on her legs, so she'd quickly bust out. Then want me to bury her again. :)

These are a few of my favorite things.....

sandy swimsuits, sandy toes, sandy babies....

I can't resist taking her picture whenever she wears this dress.....

27 weeks, beach bums and a baby bump!

Not many things make our girl happier....

....than a weekend spent on the beach!