It's a...

We went for our ultrasound today, and perhaps the biggest miracle of the day is that I managed to not pee myself. They required that I drank 36 oz of water no later than one hour before my appointment, so that my bladder would be full, pushing the baby forward in my abdomen, thereby making the baby easier to see. By the time the ultrasound tech came out to get me I was doing the potty dance in the waiting room, wishing I'd worn Depends or at least brought a change of clothes! She came to get me, and after apologizing that we were still waiting for the room to be cleaned, she informed me I'd have to wait in the dressing room...where the bathroom was...for just a second. I almost lost it at the sight of the bathroom door. Thankfully I made it through the first couple minutes of the ultrasound, when she determined that I was far enough along in my pregnancy that it wasn't necessary for me to have a full bladder - THANK GOD!

Past that, the morning went wonderfully! We got to see the baby in detail, and learn just a little more about this wonderful gift inside of me! We counted 10 fingers and 10 toes, 2 arms, legs, hands, and feet, 2 eyes, a healthy spine, and one BIG, strong heart chugging away at 141 bpm!

Here's the baby's profile. You can clearly make out the nose and mouth of this beautiful little being.

Here's the baby looking straight at you. The ultrasound tech said the baby was sticking it's tongue out!

Chris and I each had "That's my kid" moments during our ultrasound session today. Mine was when the tech happily told us that the baby was 'very photogenic', since she was easily able to find everything she needed to look at.

This was Chris' 'that's my kid! moment'....

Yep, it's a BOY!!!! It was the first pregnancy that even I could make it out before the tech told us. I said, "It's a boy!" The tech said, "Yeah, there's NO missing that." Then I quietly marvelled at Chris' restraint and silence, since I knew he was thinking proudly, "That's my boy!"

We are extremely excited. While we would've been thoroughly happy with either a girl or a boy, Chris and I both feel that a boy will be the best fit in our family. As much as Clara wanted at baby sister, I think she'll get more from being our only girl, our princess...more so than Jonathan would get from being an only boy. Not to mention, logistically, we live in a 3 bedroom house right now and we own a 3 bedroom house in VA that we hope to get back to in about a year. That being said, it will be easier to get the 2 youngest to share a room if they're the same gender. Could you imagine Clara, as a 5 year old having to suddenly share a room with a baby?

Now to start getting rid of old baby girl clothes...ask me again in a couple weeks as I travel down memory lane, looking at Clara's old clothes, if I'm still glad this little one is a boy!

According to Clara...

Yesterday Clara was excited about the knowledge that Chris and I were going for the ultrasound today that would tell us the gender of the baby. After a little thought she asked Chris, "How can they tell?"
Chris said, "If we're lucky they'll be able to see the baby's bottom."
To which Clara replied, "I know, If there's something hanging down, then it's a boy and if there's nothing hanging down it's a girl!" Smart kid!

Clara also informed me. "When I tell you I love you 'This much' (holding her arms open wide), that's not all I love you, but I can't reach anymore...but as I get bigger, I can reach more 'cause my arms will get longer. But don't worry, 'cause I'm growing a little bit all the time, so as my arms get bigger I'll love you more! I'll love you more and more each day!"

Big Boy

One of my neighbors took this picture of Jonathan the other night and I am in love with it. You can see in this picture, he's turning into quite the big boy, losing all the baby features...a fact that might make me a little more sad if it weren't for the baby we have on the way! You can see his big blue eyes, wide open and can even see the mischief in his smile...complete with brownie crumbs all over his little face. How I love this little boy!

Old Wives' Tales

Apparently I was wrong, the old wives' tale actually states that if you're carrying high, it's a girl...and low means boy. I certainly carried Jonathan much higher, it was difficult to sit later in that pregnancy due to the pressure he'd put on my ribs. However, there's another myth that boys are carried more in the front, where with girls the weight is distributed all around...maybe that's what I mistook for Jonathan being higher than Clara.

I went in search for other wives tales last night just for fun. I found a couple websites with quizzes compiled of questions based on old wives' tales. According to the 3 quizzes I took, the probability is higher for a girl. I'm still thinking boy though, mainly due to comparisons with my first 2 pregnancies. The myths that I did find to be true for me: My weight was distributed more 'all over' when I was pregnant with Clara (but then I had preeclampsia to account for most of that weight). My face was rounder with Clara and longer with Jonathan. I broke out with some serious acne with Clara and not with Jonathan. And finally, the morning sickness was worse with Clara than with Jonathan.

By all those accounts, I'm still going with boy as my guess. My weight is only in my belly so far this time, no more acne than usual and I've retained my longer face shape. The only thing that differs is that the morning sickness this time around has been the worst of all 3.

There were other old wives' tales about cravings, how cold my feet are, the color of my urine and how fast the hair is growing on my legs. Most of those pointed my probability towards girl, but those are negligible since I always crave salty foods over sweet, whether pregnant or not. My feet are always warm, the hair growth on my legs has actually slowed in each of my pregnancies (that wasn't an option on any of the quizzes) and the color of my urine depends on my water intake...just like anyone else.

So now it's just wait and see if I'm right or the quizzes are :)

20 Weeks

Time for a new belly shot. The belly has gotten bigger, though I still think I'm much smaller this time around, not that I'm complaining...I'm sure it will catch up with me soon enough.

One week from today, is our appointment to find out exactly what's growing in there. So make your guesses now and I'll tell you in a week if you're right or wrong.

With my first 2 pregnancies I stayed true to the old wives' tale about carrying the boy high and the girl low. Judging from this pic, my guess is a boy.
Time will tell!

Chris and Jonathan thought you'd all like to see how this pregnancy is effecting their bellies as well, so here's their 20 week belly shot, too.

Dentist

Clara got to head back to the dentist today for her 6 month check up. She's been excited since sometime last week when I told her it was coming up. From the time she got up this morning she was constantly asking one of us, "Guess what?! I get to go to the dentist today!!!!!" You can certainly tell she is my child -- who else gets this excited about going to the dentist!

Clara in the waiting room -- she was beaming until the camera came out, then the goofy smiles began!

Even Jonathan was excited for her!

Chris was off from work this morning so I sat out in the waiting room while Chris and Jonathan accompanied Clara into the back. Chris doesn't get to go along for Dr./dentist visits often due to work, so he's always excited when he can go along and hear/see how well things are going. Plus,I want to get Jonathan used to seeing how things work at the dentist, so that when it's his turn, he can truly share in Clara's excitement, and know there's nothing to fear. Still I stayed in the waiting room, just in case Jonathan should get a little unruly or become a distraction. He never came out, until the appointment was over.

Clara's flashing those pearly whites.

Time for fluoride

One final rinse.

Clara did great! Still no cavities and stellar marks on her brushing! Jonathan still wouldn't sit in the chair at the end of the appointment...maybe in 6 more months!

Bunny Breakfast

Easter morning, I decided to attempt to make some bunny pancakes for breakfast. Some of them actually did look like bunnies.

Here's Clara ready to chow down on her bunny pancakes.

Jonathan pouring syrup on his want-to-be-bunny pancakes. At least they still tasted yummy!

Sunday night we had 3 other families/neighbors over to share Easter dinner with us. Everyone brought a side and it was ALL delicious. We all ate way too much. I wish I had taken some pictures of the food and friends we had gathered around us last night. I am so thankful for the friends we've found here. We had a great time and we are so blessed to have such great friends to share these times with.

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Easter Egg Hunt

Saturday morning, all the families on our street got together for an Easter egg hunt. Here's all the kids lined up and ready to go.

There were a few families out of town for spring break/Easter, but for the most part these are all the kids on the street

Jonathan's ready for the hunt!

They let the little kids (Jonathan and 2 others) go first. I was surprised by how observant he was. He was actually able to find a good bit on his own.

Each kid had a quota of 12 eggs to fill.

Surprisingly Clara needed a little more direction, which speaks more to her laziness than it does her observation skills. She's actually an extremely observant child, but is also the child who will spin around in circles looking for the toy that you just told her was at her feet and asked her to clean up.

Found another one!

The dad's hid all the eggs while the mom's held the kids back. Some dads (like Chris) thought it would be fun to hid a few where even the big kids couldn't reach them on their own -- so Jonathan needed a little help to get this one from behind the rain gutter.

Purple! The day before, Chris' squadron had a picnic and they also did an egg hunt. For that one, each kid was allowed to find 5 eggs. Clara found 5 purple eggs, passing up other colors for all purple!

After the egg hunt, Jonathan decided to pick a fight with one of the other little ones over a swing, so he had to sit in time out. Here he is working the pitiful face for everyone to see!

Clara and Jonathan each got to pick just one egg -- it was only about 10am after all. Jonathan's had chocolate!

Clara found jelly bellies in hers!

Jonathan was helping Chris give some of the other kids 'underdogs' on the swings.

It was a fun morning. A great Easter egg hunt -- lots of friends and lots of loot! Followed by playtime at the park - what more could a kid ask for?!

Bunny Cake

We started a new tradition this year that I know many families have -- the Easter Bunny Cake! It was a lot of fun to make, each person got to do a little part.

Chris helped the kids make the cake. Since Easter got away from me this year, we just used a box mix, but next year I think we'll do carrot cake, of course!

You can't forget to lick the beaters!

Yum!

I cut the shapes out of 2 round cakes and frosted it the night before, so the kids would be able to put the finishing touches on.

Here's Jonathan helping with the mouth.

Clara got to finish up once Jonathan decided he'd rather eat the mouth!

Licking fingers, looking at the finished project!

Ta-da! The Easter Bunny!

Easter Bunny

Easter kinda got away from me this year. I didn't realize it was this weekend until about Tuesday when I invited a neighbor to join us for Easter dinner since her husband is away right now. Upon that realization, it also dawned on me that we hadn't taken the kids to see the Easter Bunny yet either! So Friday after Color Me Mine we headed across the street to the mall to see the Easter Bunny. Both Clara and Jonathan were excited, though I wasn't too optimistic about Jonathan actually sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap.

While we waited in line Clara practiced her smile.

Wouldn't you know Jonathan went right up to the Easter Bunny and climbed up to him all on his own...even gave him a big hug when he was done...And wouldn't you know he would choose the one time that I hadn't gone through the trouble of putting the kids in nice matching outfits, and I chose not to fight the shoes-on-the-wrong-feet-battle (or rain boots, in this case) AND I forgot to spike up Jonathan's hair. Not to mention, it's probably the dreariest springtime picture set I've ever seen, but look, there's Jonathan buddying up to the Easter Bunny!

Clara had just one question for the Easter Bunny, "How do you move your mouth when you talk?" I don't believe she ever got an answer to that one!

Storytime With Pooh

With Clara on Spring Break last week, we took a break from the usual routine. Monday through Thursday she went to Spring Camp at the Little Gym from 9:15am - 12pm. She had a blast. I dropped her off every morning, and she was ready to go. Monday morning was a little rough when Jonathan realized he wasn't going to get to stay and have fun with her, thankfully he didn't seem to mind as much the other days. I didn't get any pics of her fun there, but I do have both of the kids signed up to take classes there over the summer. Both kids are REALLY excited about that!

Friday we went to one of our favorite places, Color Me Mine, for Story time with Pooh. It was a special one day camp and as a special treat Chris was off work, so he was able to come along! WE had a great time, I can't wait to pick up their finished projects!

First the kids gathered around to listen to a Winnie the Pooh story.

Then we got to paint! They had put a transfer on the plates that had a Pooh and Friends scene to use as a guideline. We started by painting the grass.

Here's Jonathan painting the grass, too.

Almost everything we painted on the plates was done with the kids fingerprints -- it was really a cute idea. Here's Clara putting the leaves on the tree.

I helped Jonathan put the leaves on his tree.

Here's Clara's plate when she was almost done. We added just a few more finishing touches. She insisted that I put her full name on the front of it, too. Like I said, I can't wait to pick these plates up, they turned out really well!

Slug Bug!

The kids and I went into town today to run some errands. While we were stopped at a red light, Jonathan suddenly yelled, "F*** up!" Shocked, I asked, "What?!" as I looked at him in the rear view mirror. Once again he yelled, "F*** up, red f*** up!" and pointed out the front windshield. I followed his point and saw what he was referring to - a slug bug, a red slug bug! I taught Clara how to play the game when she was younger (minus the hitting) and Jonathan caught on quickly as he got older, but this was the first time 'slug bug' came out sounding like that.

Of course, I had to get him to say it again on video when we got home so I could share it with you all!