We're off to the fInish line!

As of today I have only 4-6 weeks before my little girl is born. This means that in 4 weeks I will be 37 weeks pregnant and if I go into labor they will not stop me, and that 6 weeks will most definitely be the end of my pregnancy at 40 weeks. So either way, the end is VERY near!

A lot has taken place this last week. Wednesday night we had Kimberly and her boyfriend Todd arrive, then later that night my other sister Kelly and my mom and dad arrived. So in my little house we had 7 adults, 3 kids and 3 dogs for 2-3 nights. It wasn't nearly as chaotic as I thought it would be at first. Everything went pretty smooth!

Thursday we got up early and made a big breakfast and then went to Holly's house for T-day dinner since Tony's brother JB and his wife Amanda and my nephew Blain were going to be there (and Holly's house is a LOT bigger and has more space). So we spent the day there and came back that night and we all crashed from exhaustion.
Friday we got up and got ready to go and the guys took the boys and went to Holly's house to eat chili, and watch football while us girls loaded up and went to my friend Sheila's house for my baby girl baby shower. There weren't many people there. The party consisted of me and my mom and sisters, Holly and Amanda, Sheila of course and my friend Alicia. Though the party was not huge, the food was yummy and I got LOTS of clothes. Super cute clothes might I add. My friend Alicia has a little girl that is 18 months old and she dresses SO cute, and she brought me a ton of her baby clothes (which I can't wait for her to always pass these off to me). Then Sheila got me a bag of super cute baby clothes. Holly and Amanda and my mom all got me baby clothes as well. Holly had the CUTEST crocheted baby hats made by a co-worker of hers and I adore those. My mom and dad have bought us a crib as a baby shower gift which we are eternally grateful for and Tony's dad bought us a car seat and stroller combo that we are also eternally grateful for.

After the shower we headed back out to Holly's where we were going to meet up with everyone and head out to eat pizza, but unfortunately in the parking lot of the pizza place Owen threw up all over himself in the car, so we just took off and headed for home, where he proceeded to throw up the rest of the night and throughout today. But if that is not bad, Tony started throwing up today and now Raymond has started throwing up tonight. So those three have been quarantined between my bedroom and the bathroom and are equipped with a can of Lysol that they are to spray on the toilet after they are done throwing up. I will be sleeping on the couch in the living room tonight to be on the safe side. Meanwhile Judd has been in the living room watching movies while I started washing Tess' clothes so I can finally start putting them away. We are trying to stay away from those three with high hopes that we don't end up with it. But to be on the safe side I only fed Judd a bowl of chex cereal for dinner with water and I ate some too.

But this afternoon a daycare mom of mine came to the house to drop off a baby gift for me and it was in the shape of two huge cardboard boxes. To my amazement when I opened them they were FILLED to the brim with baby clothes ranging from 0-3 months all the way up to 6-12 months! There were tons of sleepers (which is what I needed) and a TON more! I was so surprised but completely grateful. Now I feel like I hardly have to buy anything for Tess minus accessories for her first 12 months of life. How much better could that be?

I go to my next dr. appt. on Wednesday for my 34 weeks and hopefully will be discussing my birthing plan and what she has planned for me and so forth. I hope it is enlightening. I think because of exhaustion and dehydration and overdoing it the last few days, last night I was having very mild but real contractions, not the braxton hicks ones, so I am also anxious to discuss that with her. So it was a great Thanksgiving, a wonderful baby shower (thanks for all the gifts to everyone) and now besides day to day things, I have nothing else to do besides do a little light Christmas shopping for the boys and get ready for my little girls arrival. I feel like a huge chunk of stress has been lifted off of me with all of these things on my list being checked off finally!

I hope everyone else had a great holiday too and got to enjoy their families just as I did. I have posted a BUNCH of pictures below for your viewing enjoyment. More to come later!
Judd and Me (I'm at the end of 32 weeks here with Tess) I KNOW I'm HUGE!

Dad and Mom relaxing on Thanksgiving

Kelly and Tony relaxing on Thanksgiving

Me (and Tess at the beginning of 33 weeks) at Thanksgiving.

Tony and me on Thanksgiving

Kimberly and her boyfriend Todd on Thanskgiving

Totally cute red pea coat from my friend Alicia (her daughter has the CUTEST clothes, so NO complaints about hand-me-downs here! :) ) P.S. Every little girl needs a red coat!

The CUTEST stinking little girl hats ever! Made for me by a co-worker of Holly's! LOVE THEM!

My mom being silly with the baby hats.

Pile of baby blankets and dresses made for me and my sisters when we were babies.

Mom feeling Tess flip flopping all over because she loved all of her new clothes so much! :)

Mom feeling Tess kick

Me, my mom, Kelly and Kimberly

Me and my best friend Sheila who threw me the baby shower.

Kimberly, Me, Kelly, Mom and Dad (The Sears Family)

Raymond with Grandpa Sears

Owen with Grandpa Sears

Owen and Raymond with Aunt Kelly

Raymond and Owen with Grandma Sears

Raymond and Owen with Grandma and Grandpa Sears

Raymond and Owen with Aunt Kimmy and her boyfriend Todd.

Judd with his Grandma Holly.

Kimberly, her boyfriend Todd, Judd and Raymond

Phew!!!

This last week has been a somewhat crazy hectic and exhausting one. Every night this week there has been meetings or something going on and I haven't made it to bed until at least midnight and then have to turn around and get up at 5:30am each morning.

Tonight I finally did something for myself though. I went to the hair salon and got my hair trimmed and shaped up and lots of choppy layers added and thinned. I love it when I do this. Every couple months I try and get it done because it grows back out so quickly and thickly that it's crazy. When it starts to grow out it gets heavy and weighted down and looks frumpy and ugly. So now I feel like I have light and fluffy hair again with a cute style.

Last week Tony's brother Nate came to visit and that was a good time since we never get to see him. It's too bad that he can't be here this week for Thanksgiving when everyone else will be here.

This weekend I am going to be crazy cleaning and organizing woman because we will have a house full of people from Wednesday night until Sat. morning, but I don't mind. I just want my house to be clean and it's been slacked upon a TON lately, so it's not very presentable or clean at the moment. So my goal is to get all the major stuff done this weekend and then next week it will just basically be dusting, vacuuming, and picking up stuff.

Friday is my baby shower and I am looking forward to that a lot because I am excited to see all the little girl stuff that we get for Tess. It will be fun to see all of those things. Plus my family will be here for it, so that will be fun too.

Tony and I had decided that we wouldn't be buying a new crib for Tess because she had a cradle to sleep in for the first couple of months while Judd still used his crib, then we'd transition Judd into a twin bed. Now, Tony brought up that he would really like to find a new crib for Tess so Judd can have a toddler bed for a long time, which his crib converts into. It makes sense, so I found a crib on Wal-Mart.com that would be not too expensive Christmas present for us... (hint hint) :) It's the Graco, Sarah 4 in 1 convertible crib, walnut. In case you want to check it out! ;)

I will have Tony take my picture tomorrow of my belly to see how HUGE I am at 32 weeks, just like all my other pregnancies, but time is flying and she will be here so soon, it's crazy!

For now I have posted just a couple of pictures from this week and one of my before hair and after hair cut. See the difference??

Before (this picture doesn't show it as bad as it really was, but you can tell how heavy it was...)

After...much better in my opinion.

Let the countdown begin!

The baby ticker on the side of my blog says 67 days left....which could seem like a long time, but let's put this into perspective. I officially have 9 1/2 weeks left if I go completely to 40 weeks. However from 3 prior babies, my experience is that they like to have me come in about a week early to be induced, so my inclination is that this will happen again with her. We'll see. In that case I could technically start my countdown to 37 weeks instead of 40 just for the fun of it and that would mean I only have 6 1/2-9 1/2 weeks. Now it seems way less doesn't it?? 6 1/2 weeks???? That's NO time at all. Especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas and all that those things entail. Time is going to FLY!

So, what do I have left to do?? Everything! :) I still need to finish clearing out Tess' room, and setting it up. I still have the entire house to clean before company comes for Thanksgiving and do meal menus for that time period as well. I have two baby showers, one for friends and family and one that the church is throwing for me. All this in addition to my normal daycare, preschool, Raymond school stuff, Owen school stuff, other meetings I have to help with and teaching Wednesday night church, and in general home stuff and family time! Phew. It sounds exhausting. I hope it will all get done!

Onto other news...things are going pretty well here but we are all exhausted. Tony has had to work 3 weeks straight. He typically has Wed. and Sun. off of work, but he has no Assistant the last few weeks so he has had to go in for 4-5 hours on his days off to do ordering and stuff. So he is tired and stressed out and not much help once he gets home cause he's just exhausted. Then the fact that I am getting bigger and bigger and have so much going on, is making my life a little stressful right now. I say it again....I can tell that Tess is to be our last baby because I am anxious to have my body back completely and to not be pregnant anymore. I have NEVER felt this way during a pregnancy, so I know that this is God's way of telling me that our family is complete. As terrible as it sounds I am anxious to lose weight, be able to walk up and down stairs and carry kids without feeling like I am going to hurt myself or baby, and I've been CRAVING a really good beer or glass of wine. I'm not a big drinker, but I do like to partake in my occasional beer or glass of wine, but over the course of the last 6 years, that has rarely happened. So I'm a little anxious to have those opportunities back where Tony and I can be adults, leave the kids with a sitter and go "have a drink" as they say! :)

Poor Judd started to be cranky this weekend and today has had a runny nose and tonight is not sleeping well already and is having trouble breathing through his nose and now has started wheezing again. So I guess I'll be taking him back to the DR. just to make sure it's nothing more than a cold, however I fear ear infection, maybe another sinus infection, but hopefully nothing more. So please say a prayer that I can get him well and keep my boys and me and Tony well through the rest of this sick season.

Below there are only a couple cute pics of the boys playing in the leaves and a couple at a daycare kids birthday party at a bounce house place. I hope you enjoy!

30 weeks pregnant

I have always carried my babies straight out front, for all 4 pregnancies. People are always shocked to find out either that I'm not due the next day or that I'm not carrying multiples. Imagine if I were carrying multiples!!!!!

It's not that my babies are big, they've ranged from 7 lbs 13 oz - 8 lbs 5 oz. It's also not that I gained a lot of weight. With Owen I gained like 21 lbs, Raymond 26 lbs, and Judd 30 lbs and so far with Tess about 15 lbs with about 10 weeks left. So all around the same range. The thing is I just tend to carry my babies straight out in front of me for no apparent reason, but it makes me feel a little self-conscience when I walk into the Dollar Tree and some woman says" Oh my gosh girl you are about to POP!" and then I think to myself, yeah but I still have 2 1/2 months left!

This pregnancy is no different. Little Tess is up very high and sticking straight out so I look 10 times bigger than I should at 30 weeks along. I feel like I am 9 months pregnant because I waddle so much, but the only way I can picture her in my stomach is with her the top of her head against my spine, reclined with her arms behind her head and her feet sticking straight into my belly pushing out. That's the only way I can be sticking straight out like that.

Part of the problem is that I have NO abdominal muscles. They must have been that way even before I got pregnant with Owen. Those muscles naturally separate during pregnancy, but my permanently separated and after each pregnancy has not gotten back together no matter how many sit ups and crunches I do. So after I saw a physical therapist for my back about a month ago, she wants me to start coming on a regular basis after I have Tess so we can hopefully remedy that problem. I REALLY hope it works. I 'm not looking for a six pack, but I am looking for a tummy that will hold my insides in after I work hard on my sit ups and such to not have that rounded belly look.

I have found pictures of comparison for all 4 pregnancies. I cannot say with the utmost certainty at what stage in my pregnancies the other pictures were taken, but I'll take a wild guess. Enjoy!Pregnant with Owen, 2 days before he was born (40 weeks)

Pregnant with Raymond, 3 1/2 months before he was born (around 21 weeks maybe) I was HUGE and miserable with Raymond though.

Pregnant with Judd, a week before he was born, 39 weeks

Pregnant with Tess, 30 weeks. At least I look better than my other 3 pregnancies! :)

Trick-or-Treat!

Halloween is done, and we had lots of fun this week. I am thankful it is done because now my schedule clears up except for a few meetings here and there, but now I can concentrate on working on my house and getting caught up on things around here (hopefully) and getting ready for Thanksgiving guests!

Thursday I had my Daycare Halloween party, Friday was Orange day at our house and Owen's Harvest party, and then Sat. we were going to go to trunk or treat at the church, but the boys lost that for naughty behavior. Then we went to a daycare kids birthday party later in the afternoon and had fun, then went to Holly's house to take the boys trick or treating.

This year Raymond was a blue Ninja Turtle (Leonardo), Owen was Wolverine (the superhero) and Judd was a cowboy (Woody from Toy Story). Judd is understanding that when he dresses up like someone else, even if it's putting Owen's shoes on, he will say he is that person. So last night when we'd put on his cowboy costume he kept saying "I'm Woody". Then he'd take off his cowboy hat and say "yee-haw!". It was too cute. All the boys had fun, but we definitley didn't go to as many houses as last year, which is good because they DO NOT need that much candy.

Anyways, without further ado. Here are a BUNCH of pictures of the last couple of weeks, including our halloween pics. By the way....Tony dressed up for work with a co-worker and he went as Mario and she went as Luigi. His costume turned out pretty good for thrift store stuff!

I didn't dress up of course...I just went as a 30 week pregnant woman. :)

It'sa Mario! (said in a Mario voice)


Judd put on Owen's shoes and said "I'm O-wee"

This picture CRACKS me up...it reminds me of me and my sisters - they put their shirts over thier heads when they were getting ready for baths and then started crawling all around the room. Judd was right there in on the fun as usual....SO funny!