All About Baby #3!

Since I'm officially just FIFTY days away from my due date with baby #3, I thought I'd share a little bit about this pregnancy and how we are preparing for this baby! 

When is the baby due?

October 20th! I'm 33 weeks along :)

Do you know what you are having? 

Amazingly, we decided to be surprised! With Miles and Leo, I could not WAIT to find out the sex of the baby! Shortly after we found out we were expecting this baby,  Evan told me he wanted to be surprised with this one and on a whim I agreed! Fast forward about 14-weeks, the doctor is asking us if we wanted to know the sex of the baby during one of my appointments. It took EVERYTHING in my power to say no - but Evan held me to my earlier word! At this point, I'm really glad we decided not to find out and I'm super excited to be surprised. It feels like it is the icing on the cake for the glorious day we get to meet this little one! 

Do you have a guess? 

If I had to guess, I would say another boy. Evan is one of four boys and his mom has six brothers (She is the only girl!) so I just kind of feel like boys are in the cards for us! My three year old Miles INSISTS it is a girl though.... we'll see! I'm SO EXCITED and can picture our life either way! I love the idea of having a sweet little girl and guiding her through life, but I also totally love the idea of having three brothers. Can't lose! 

Do you have names picked out? 

We definitely have a girl name, but not 100% sure on a boy name yet! Regardless, we are keeping it a surprise until the baby is born! 

Any food cravings/aversions? 

So many! My number one weird craving has been Diary Queen ice cream. We typically never get it, there isn't even one very close to us, but with this pregnancy I've wanted it constantly so I've made the family load up in the car many, many nights to drive across town so I can satisfy this craving (plain vanilla soft serve, to be exact!) Also bagels, blueberries, pickles, cheese and crackers, Cheerios, and though I'm embarrassed to even admit this - Taco Bell Mexican Pizza! (Again, something we never eat, but when I'm pregnant, there are times when nothing sounds better! I craved Taco Bell with all three pregnancies!)  In terms of food aversions, meat, peppers, and chocolate would make me feel super sick during my first trimester, but at this stage in my pregnancy all my aversions have pretty much gone away. At this point, this baby is so big that I'm at the point where I always feel full, so I pretty much avoid big meals and just snack on fruits/veggies/crackers throughout the day. 

How Far Apart Are Your Kids in Age? 

Miles and Leo are 23 months apart, and if Baby #3 comes on schedule, Leo and Baby #3 will be 21.5 months apart! This is almost the exact same distancing apart as I am with my siblings, and I love it! Not too close, but not too far apart in age. Still, I know having three kids age three and under is going to be CRAZY for awhile!

Was this baby planned or a surprise?

Definitely planned. This baby was conceived after 7-months of cycle tracking, fertility drugs, and meetings with my RE/OB-GYN at the Cleveland Clinic. Definitely a baby we have prayed and prayed for! 

How did you find out you were pregnant? 

As I mentioned, I had been tracking and I knew I wanted to take a pregnancy test first thing in the morning 12 DPO (Days post ovulation). On this particular day, however, I woke up at 2:00 in the morning because Leo was crying and needed a bottle. Half asleep, I decided to take the test once I got him back to bed. I didn't have very high expectations because with my last pregnancy I didn't get a positive test until 14 DPO and I wasn't feeling any pregnancy symptoms (plus I've probably had about 1000 negative tests in my life so I know not to get my hopes up, sadly) but sure enough - two lines quickly appeared! THAT woke me up! I was so excited I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. It took everything in me not to wake up Evan, but he is the heaviest sleeper in the world and I knew I would get a major zombie response so I anxiously awaited until the morning to tell him. I showed him the test as soon as he woke up, and we have pretty much been on cloud 9 and super excited every since!

Epidural or natural labor? 

If I have a choice, I will definitely get an epidural! With Miles I did and it was wonderful. With Leo I didn't (there wasn't enough time) and holy cow I was seeing stars I was in so much pain! Miles' labor was so much more enjoyable and calm. I'll definitely choose to get one if I can!

How are you feeling? 

Blessed, excited, miserable, and nervous? So so thankful for this baby and that we are both healthy! So excited to meet him/her and have them as part of our family. We are already so in love. However, this has also been a much harder pregnancy than my last two. I was SO incredibly nauseous until about 20-weeks along. It would hit me out of nowhere and I would just turn green!  There were so many days I'd be at work, feeling great, and then basically just have to run out the door because the sickness would come on so strong and so quickly. NOT fun! I tried several different medicines but either they didn't work or they gave me really bad side effects. I used up all of my sick time very quickly, which totally sucked (until I decided to quit my job anyway!)  I've also had terrible heartburn, restless leg syndrome, a constantly aching back, and crazy Braxton Hicks contractions. It is also extremely tiring chasing after two VERY active toddlers all day while basically having a basketball in my belly and not feeling very well. Still, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It is worth it a billion times over, but it has been hard. 

I'm also very nervous about labor this time around! With Leo, my labor from the first symptom until the time he was born was just 36 minutes. We barely made it to the hospital! I basically just had one contraction at exactly 10:00 at night and JUST KNEW we needed to go to the hospital immediately.  Evan had fallen asleep in Miles' bed while putting him to sleep, and I went and woke him up and said we needed to go. He was in zombie sleep mode and I remember having to very quietly but very fiercely yell at him "EVAN! NOW!" He got up but I don't think it registered at all! The original plan was for Evan to call his parents to come over, who live 10-minutes away, but I knew we didn't have time so I called my next door neighbor to come stay with Miles until Evan's mom could get here. We loaded right into the car and drove straight to the hospital! Evan dropped me off at the entrance while he parked and as soon as I made it to the doors of Labor & Delivery I pretty much collapsed and said I needed to push. They didn't even have my name in the system yet, no IV, no monitors - and little Leo made his entrance into the world at 10:36pm! No one could believe it! It just happened so fast. Amazing labor, amazing recovery, but I literally had panic attacks for days afterwards wondering what would have happened if we would have made a split second decision differently! So glad I just listened to my gut and went full speed ahead to the hospital... I just don't want to go through that again! I've since learned it is called "precipitous labor." This pregnancy, we are taking every precaution to avoid a super fast delivery, including bed rest starting in October and strict instructions to come to the hospital at any sign of labor. Thankfully we have lots of family and friends helping us out the last month. Just trying to have faith and pray for a healthy delivery and healthy baby! 

Will you have more kids or is this your last? 

I'm 99% sure this will be our last! That being said, we've often said we wanted four kids, so I'm not quite ready to say that we are definitely, totally, for sure done. We decided we'll see how we feel in a couple of years and make our final decision then. (But still, 99% sure we're done unless God decides to surprise us!)  

New Phase of Life, New Goals

Any kind of fresh start or new beginning always makes me think about my goals. I absolutely love goal setting and seeing my dreams down on paper. It helps me make decisions and gives me a sense of purpose in the sense that I'm working towards something!

As I enter this new phase of life that consists of me being a stay-at-home mom, I've been thinking a lot about how I want to raise my children, care for my family, be a better member of my community and steward of the earth. I'll be sharing bits and pieces of these goals on the blog and how I'm making progress on them over time! Here's what I've got so far: 

• Provide unstructured time for the kids.. a LOT of it! (This is actually one of the main reasons I decided to take the leap and be a stay-at-home mom.)
• Learn to love cooking. Eat more whole foods, eat a balanced diet, drink way more water, try new recipes, get in a good flow of meal planning/grocery shopping. Confession: I hate cooking.  Evan has typically done most of the cooking - he enjoys it and he is WAY better at it! However, with me staying home it makes way more sense for me to make dinners and take on most of the grocery shopping. So yeah, I don't just want to suffer through it every day/every week, I want to find ways to really enjoy it! 
• Swap my make-up and bath products for more "clean" products
• Swap my cleaning supplies for more "clean" products
• Simplify our "Stuff".  Get rid of the crap. We have so much crap. So many toys and clothes and baby stuff we can hardly fit in our house! I want to PURGE and only keep what we really want/need. Along with this, I only want to buy things I really love, and want to make conscious decisions not to buy more than we need. Donate what we don't use and appreciate what we have. 
• Be more earth friendly. While we are pretty darn good at recycling, I know there are so many areas we can be more earth friendly and reduce our footprint. 
• Garden. Growing up, my next door neighbor was a psychiatrist and she told me that if everyone would garden she would be out of business. (20-years later, I still remember this!) I love the sentiment and totally believe gardening is good for the mind, body, and soul. If we ever move to a bigger house with more land, I imagine planting a HUGE garden. In the meantime, I at least want to plant our own herbs, vegetables, and some beautiful flowers in our own yard, and make gardening a regular activity during our summer days off. 
• READ! While working, reading for pleasure got away from me. In the few shorts week I've been home I've already picked it up again and forgot how much I loved it (How is that even possible? Another huge sign I was stretched way too thin). I want to make bi-weekly trips to the library, start reading magazines again, and re-read the 9000 coffee table books I haven't touched in 5-years. Also, I want to read no less than 10-books a day to my kids. Along with that, it is pretty much eliminate screen time as much as possible. 
• Pay off our House. If we don't end up moving, our goal is to pay off this house in the next three years. Personal finance is one of my absolute favorite topics and I'm pretty much obsessed with budgeting and financial planning. These goals are more important than ever now that we eliminated my income. Can't wait to share more on this topic! 
• Blog because I love it! I never have had goals to be a top blogger or make an income from this blog, I do it because (now more than ever) it a fun, creative outlet for me to share what inspires me with an awesome community of people.  Seriously I've made some great friends who live across the country and the world. I don't have a ton of close friends who are as passionate about decorating and DIYing as I am, so it is so great to have this community. Still, sometimes I look at the bloggers who for every single post work with professional photographers, graphic designers,copy writers, and stylists and think "oh my gosh what the heck am I doing? My blog is a joke!" Well, maybe to some it totally is but I still love it and want to keep doing it for the joy that brings me, even if I'm the smallest fish in the biggest pond. 
• Don't forget to invest in and treat myself. Moms, career women, people in general... you know where I'm coming from! We easily can shift ourselves to being last on the list and put everything before ourselves. I want to remember that if I don't fill my own cup first, I won't have much else to give anyone else. (I crash on burn on this cycle far too often.)  

All of this being said, I know life is about to get CRAZY with the addition of another little babe in October! While I have all these great goals, I know we'll just be in survival mode the next few months and therefore, I'm not putting any pressure on myself to strive or accomplish ANYTHING during that time other than being a caring, kind, patient mom and take care of my family. (And even then, my bigger goal is to live each day with an abundance of grace!) 

Anyway, can't wait to expand more on each of these topics and share my detailed goals under each category and our progress! Just may take some time ;) 

2017 Goals

Hello 2017! As a person who loves goals, to-do lists, fresh starts, and clean slates - I've always been pretty huge on New Years Resolutions. Most of the time I even accomplish them! Put it on a list, I will almost always get it done!  This both good and bad, which I will explain, but let me start with saying that for 2017 my goals are less tangible. They are more about changing my perspectives and mindset and less about scratching things off of lists. While I still have a list somewhere around here,  my main focus this year is more about tackling my major mental hang-ups and finding a better way to live life. There are two major ideas I'm thinking of here:

1) The first thing I keep coming back to is the question "What are you saying yes to?" Let me explain... 2016 was crazy in a lot of ways. I constantly felt like I was swimming upstream and fighting the current. There were so many things I was trying to juggle and stay on top of, and it left me feeling frantic and scrambled. I was always rushing from one task to another and I know for a FACT I got less sleep in 2016 than in any other year of my life, by far.

I kept telling myself I needed to slow down, but until recently, I didn't time to sit down and think about what that really meant. Between getting advice from my mom, reading the book "Present over Perfect", listening to the Lively Show podcast, getting multiple pep talks from Evan (he is awesome), praying, and really reflecting on life, this question... "what are you saying yes to?"... keeps coming up.

I've never been more acutely aware of how much I need/want to do and how quickly the days go by. I know I can't do it all, but honestly I never really stopped to make a conscious decision about what I AM going to do and what I'm going to allow my days and my life to be filled with. I think before I had kids or a house and before reaching a certain level in my career, just moving forward and tackling all things was fine because there was enough time for it all and it felt great! However, I can tell you with complete certainty that is no longer the case!  As I reflect on this, I've been realizing I'm taking on roles, chores, obligations, and stress because I'm subconsciously just assuming I have to or because I'm just being reactive to a situation that has presented itself. Sometimes I'm even saying "yes" to things are that intrinsically good things, but maybe aren't the best fit for me in my life and therefore continue to add to the problem. It's tricky! Time to re-evaluate and be more intentional with where I'm putting my time and energy.

Reading the book "Present over Perfect" reminded me of a great lesson in that with everything I'm saying yes to, I need to realize I'm saying "no" to something else. Opportunity cost is real. From the big things to the small things, from the tangible things to the intangible things, this lesson has hit me hard! When I say "yes" to worrying about things at work, I am saying "no" to feeling the joy of the other blessings in my life. When I say "yes" to constantly checking Facebook or Instagram, I'm saying "no" to sooo many other productive or peaceful things. When I say "yes" to new clothes and new toys, I'm saying "no" to a clutter-free, manageable house.  When I say "yes" to pop and donuts (which I do far too often!), I'm saying "no" to losing that last 10-lbs of stubborn baby-weight and my health. These are small examples, but let me tell you, I've been practicing this mindset in my life the last month and the little things do add up.  I'm applying this in big ways in life too, but maybe am not quite 100% ready to share them on this blog just yet :) Wait and see!

Overall, my first goal is to consistently ask myself and reflect on what I'm saying yes to. Time to get more selective and carve out the activities/feelings that drain me and say yes to the ones that fill me up. And friends, I WANT TO BE FILLED UP!  I think if I'm more intentional and aware of these choices, life will subsequently start to feel slower, richer, and sweeter.

2) My second realization = Willpower is for the birds. Honestly, I am SO GOOD at using willpower. It has been a huge key to my success! However, I'm so completely tired of it and my willpower well has run dry. I don't want to feel like accomplishing my goals is like winning an exhaustive battle or running a marathon.  I want to be led by joy, peace, and motivation, not by willpower. To me, willpower has become this nagging voice that is saying "ready, set, go!" And then, because I am a driven person, I muster up all my energy to fit a round peg in a square hole. I can almost always make it work, but not permanently and not without it taking a toll on me. Truth be told, I'm at a point in my life where I HATE willpower. Time to let go of being so type A and trying so hard all the time! I'm an inspired, creative, energetic person, and I feel in my heart and my gut that if I just let myself go with the flow a little more (or a lot more!), I will probably accomplish the same goals but do it with a lot less resistance. Jess Lively of "The Lively Show" podcast has been talking about the concepts of "flow" and "alignment before action" on her podcast recently and it has truly spoken to me!

Overall, I feel like these mindset changes will help me gain control while giving up trying to control everything and help me accomplish my goals without trying so dang hard to accomplish my goals.

So while I do still have a list, the way I'm going to go about scratching things off of it is a completely different approach than I've taken in the past. Here's to a healthier, happier, easier year!

My Little Family

I'm so excited to share some of the family pictures we had taken last week! Our photographer Kayla from Full Bloom Photography is absolutely incredible! This is the third time she's done photo shoots with us since Miles was born and I cannot speak highly enough of her talent. Just look at how cute these turned out! *Sigh* I love my little family.