Almost 36 weeks

I had another doctor's appointment this morning to check on baby #3. All is going well. I'm currently 35 weeks and 5 days and now get to see the doctor weekly. This has been a long pregnancy but suddenly it feels like it flew by! I guess I need to get my act together and finish any projects that need completing before he arrives (like tagging clothes for another consignment sale that's coming up in early June and buying birthday gifts for the girls!).

At this appointment Malakai's heart beat was at 160. That shocked me since that's the fastest heart beat any of our kiddos have had and for the past few months he's been in the 130's-140's. But the doctor wasn't concerned and said he sounded good. He was also moving a lot and the doctor joked that it appeared he was attempting to do flips or something. He has definitely been the most active baby so far.

It also appears that he has dropped and is sitting much lower. The doctor asked if he felt lower and at first I wasn't sure but then I thought about the number of times I need to visit the restroom and the fact that some of my shirts don't seem to cover my belly as well as they once did. The doctor also thought he was lower than the last visit. My belly is measuring in at 34 inches which is actually a little small since most of the time the measurement corresponds with your current week of pregnancy. The girls were always right on target so it's surprising that this time around I'm measuring smaller even though I feel and look bigger.

I still continue to have braxton hicks contractions. They haven't increased or decreased but have stayed about the same over the past couple of weeks. All of this is making me wonder if Malakai will wait until June 20 and the scheduled c-section or make his debut early. I guess we'll see.

Prepping for baby

On Monday, since Nate had off, I painted Malakai's room. I got a majority of the painting done while Layla napped, but both girls had to help. And who can blame them. It's not everyday that mom lets you paint on the wall! The old color was some kind of yellow/tan and not that pretty. It was a weird color that didn't match well with much. So I changed it to the same color as the girls room and the color that I used at our house in Texas. It's called Oregon Coast! It's a nice neutral color, but the name is awesome!

Sanaa does a great job of helping me paint. She's very careful and I'm pretty sure she'll be my painting buddy in the future.

(And yes, painting in a butterfly costume is a must! It just makes it so much more fun.)

This was the first time Layla was ever allowed to paint a wall! She loved it. I let both girls come help me with the last small section in the room that way they were there when the room was finished.

Here is a before and after shot of the room's paint color.

The room is definitely not ready for a baby, but I figure I still have a few months before Malakai will actually use the room. It's funny how I've changed with each child. With Sanaa I had to have everything finished and perfect before she arrived. I didn't do anything for Layla except buy a second crib since she was going to share Sanaa's room, but at least her crib was put together before she was born. And now for Malakai I don't even have the crib completely put together or his room finished! The girls still really enjoy using his room to play in and I figure I won't stop them until Malakai is actually here and they can see and touch him. Right now I think he is still too much of an abstract idea even though we talk about him a lot.

Just another Monday

Today is a rainy Monday morning. We have had a lot of nice sunny weather the past couple weeks so I guess we're due for a rainy day. Today we're stuck at home waiting for the internet repair guy to arrive. We've had sporadic outages the past couple weeks and have made numerous calls to our provider. They finally figured out there was something wrong with the box on the side of the house. 

Since we're not planning to go out anywhere I let the girls pick whatever outfit they so desired and this is what they picked. I guess today is Halloween here!

Looking out the window at a slug.

The only other thing we might be doing today is potty training Layla. This morning she has requested to sit on the potty 3 times. She doesn't want to use her little potty but insists on sitting on the big potty like her sister. Guess we'll see how it goes.

Morning routine

Layla often finds me in the morning and hangs out while I get ready so she has become very familiar with my morning routine. For the past few days Nate was out of town due to work. I'm not sure why we were blessed (I'm being very sarcastic!) with early risers but we were. I attempted to get up at 5:45am each day to beat the girls but it never failed that at least one of them was up by 6:00am. My attempts to get them back to sleep failed but at least I was able to get a quick shower in each morning before they woke up.

In the mornings what Layla will do is climb up on our toilet and then climb onto our counter where she sits and watches most of the time. On this particular mornings she found a makeup sponge that I don't use and sat there applying her makeup while I did mine. When I moved onto my hair, she needed to do her hair as well. Many mornings this can be annoying because I just want to get ready by myself but I know I'll look back at these pictures and wish I could return to these days, so I'll try and enjoy my lack of privacy for the time being!

Quick pregnancy update

Last Friday (May 11th) I had a doctor visit. I thought I had updated about that but when I checked the blog I realized I hadn't done anything since Sanaa's spring program.

The doctor's visit went well. The little guy is doing well and continues to kick at the doctor whenever she attempts to listen to his heart beat. We also talked about the date to schedule my c-section. The date the doctor and I settled on was June 19th. I was hoping for the 15th mainly because Layla's birthday is on the 1st and Sanaa's is on the 30th, so I thought it would be cool for our third to be born on the 15th. But the 15th was two days before my 39 week mark and the hospital has strict rules about not performing c-sections before the 39 week mark unless they are an emergency.

So, since my doctor is off on Mondays, we went with Tuesday the 19th. However, this morning I received a call that my c-section has now been moved to Wednesday the 20th because the 19th was booked up. Really? Wow! My actual due date is the 24th, so with the c-section only being 4 days before it I kind of wonder if I'll go into labor this time. With Sanaa I dealt with false labor for about 2 days before being induced and then ended with a c-section. With Layla I didn't have any labor signs (didn't even feel braxton hicks!) before heading in for my c-section. But we will see what happens this time since I've been experiencing braxton hicks for almost two weeks. This pregnancy has been different in nearly every way that if I do go into labor before the 20th I won't be surprised at all.

My next appointment is Friday the 25th.

Mother's Day weekend

For Mother's Day weekend we drove over to my parents house for dinner Sunday evening. Not only did we celebrate Mother's Day, but we also celebrated my dad's birthday (which was a couple days before Mother's Day). My brother and his wife and daughter were also there. Both Sanaa and Layla were very excited to see their cousin. 

The big gift for my dad this year was an ice cream churn. On Saturday night I cooked up the ice cream mix (yes, I had to cook it since it had raw eggs in it). Nate told me he had never churned ice cream and sat there and churned the ice cream for 40 minutes. I didn't think he'd last 40 minutes, but he had to prove me wrong!

Sanaa was fascinated with the process and she even had a short turn churning the ice cream. She looks like our little movie star with her sunglasses, dress, and flower headband!

Layla didn't care about churning. She just wanted the ice. The fact that the ice had salt on it did not stop her from chewing on the ice.

As the ice cream becomes firmer, the bucket begins moving more. So my brother sat on it to keep it still. My dad reminisced how as a boy it was quite often his job to sit on the ice cream churn while the others churned the ice cream.

The other memory my dad shared was how his mom and sisters would always clean the beater completely never leaving any ice cream on it and he always wished he could just lick the beater clean. Well... he finally got his chance to lick off the ice cream and he taught two of his granddaughters to do the same.

The ice cream was really good! I don't normally enjoy vanilla ice cream, but this was good and I actually enjoyed the plain vanilla quite a bit! I think the ice cream churn is going to get pulled out a lot this summer.

Like I said earlier, Sanaa and Layla were excited to see their cousin. Layla got right down on the floor with Ariana and the two chatted about something. Sanaa was busy fanning them to make sure they stayed cool.

Spring program video

Here is the video from Sanaa's spring program. The first video is 8-9 minutes long. I taped it with our camera and zoomed in so you could see Sanaa. It is definitely shaky so if you get motion sickness easy you've been warned! :-) Also, towards the end of the video, the person sitting in front of me kept getting their head in my way! Sanaa did much better at this program and it was fun to see her actually singing.

(Yes it does end abruptly because my memory card was suddenly full.)

These final two videos are ones that Nate took with his phone. They are the final songs of Sanaa's program. It's hard to see Sanaa, but she is in the second row on the right side of the screen roughly 4-5 kids in. Good luck finding her!

(If you find the girl in the back row with the big white bow on her head then you should hopefully be able to spot Sanaa in front of her every once and awhile. The girl in front of Sanaa often block her from our view.)