21 Weeks, Its a...

BOY!!!

Another week has gone by. Friday was our "big ultrasound". I've known for weeks that it was a boy but my girls didn't. 20 weeks is normally the first time I ever get to see my babies and a tradition that we've developed is that we find out what we are having but not at the ultrasound. The ultrasound tech prints a picture with what it is and we look at the picture at a nice lunch or dinner. My girls have really been looking forward to this tradition and I wanted to keep it up so I didn't tell them even when I knew what it was. This drove Alexis crazy!! (she's a like me, we don't like to be held in suspense just tell us now! Secrets drive us nuts!!)

Alexis has really wanted it to be a boy and Ariana wanted a girl. Ariana's reasoning makes me laugh. She wanted a girl because she has a baby toy that she loves that she is convinced she must share with a boy but not a girl. What is it? A stuffed yellow, blue and green giraffe rattle. If it was a girl she has a pile of "girl toys" that she doesn't want any more and is ready to pass to a little sister. Nice Ariana! : ) She wasn't really too upset that it is a boy. She has gradually been warming up to the idea of a baby. She's starting to talk about pushing it in a stroller and helping give it a bottle. Alexis can't wait on the other hand. From the time we started talking about maybe having a baby come she has been jumping with excitement. I think they are both going to be great big sisters. It will be nice having them be a little older and able to help more.

I've felt the baby moving a lot more this week. This morning I could even tell he was all curled up on the left side of my belly. I let Ariana feel it. She thought that was really wierd. I feel like I have started showing more this week and sleeping certain ways and exercising in some classes and on some equipment has gotten a little uncomfortable. Nothing to bad just enough to remind me that I am pregnant : )

Twenty Weeks

Twenty weeks! I can't believe I'm already half way there. Just ignore the fact that I look tiered in the picture (because I am). I know there still isn't much showing and I wish I had profile pictures from the girls so I could compare. Oh well. Its still exciting to be half way done. Bring on the stretchy pants, shirts and dresses because I'm sure I'll be big soon enough. : ) There hasn't been much change between last week and this week beside maybe gaining 2 lbs which is due in large part to eating dinner with friends, block parties and end of school year celebrations. YUMMY! Thank goodness food tastes good again! (or maybe not ; ) )

Sleeping Buddies

Ever since Ariana moved into her big girl bed when she was two my girls have slept in the same room. Over the last year they have stopped using their own beds on a regular basis preferring to sleep together on the ground in their room or my room or when Justin is gone on my bed. Alexis is a crazy sleeper and Ariana is not. I'm surprised that Ariana can put up with her sisters sleeping habits but it does make for some good laughs every once in a while:

This is from our trip to Disney Land on May 1, 2011
Just this morning (June 5, 2011) around 7am she was using Ariana as a pillow

Baby Ashby is 19 Weeks

My sweet little baby is 19 weeks and growing well. I'm starting to be able to feel the movements and know for sure that its the baby. I feel the baby at night right before bed and in the morning the most. I've been REALLY stressed the past month and a side effect has been little sleep and weight loss which scared me. (normally weight loss is good but not usually when you are pregnant) I was surprised when the doctor didn't seem to care on Friday because my weight loss just brought me back to my starting pregnancy weight. So good news is I might not be completely huge by the end of this but who knows maybe my stress will swing my weight the other way now that I can kind of eat again. Regardless, the baby is healthy and right on track with the due date of October 28. I'm not showing very much at all. People who know me might be able to tell but strangers would be rather daring if they asked me yet if I'm pregnant. I thought with my third I would "pop" really fast but I guess waiting so long in between pregnancies helped that not happen. Well and now that I think back I don't think I was really "showing" so it was obvious with the girls until later as well. Its not a bad thing just not what I expected this time around. I'm sure I will still be huge come October : )

Lots of Laundry and Fun

Laundry is the bane of my existence so I tend to ignore it. A Saturday a few months back I looked out into the back yard to see this. The girls had very carefully and sneakily taken all the clean twin size sheets outside to enhance their fort. Cute yes, fun for sure. I wish they had asked though because I would have given them the dirty sheets from their beds and mine that needed to be washed anyways instead of making an entirely new load of laundry for me. I told them to have fun and then they were doing the laundry. : )

Ariana's 5'th Birthday Party

This year Ariana decided she wanted a Tangled birthday party. We decorated with lots of lights, lanterns and streamers. Ariana decided she wanted her cake to look like a flag from Tangled. She picked chocolate cake and helped mix the batter. I made my own home made fondant to make the sun (my first personal expierence with the stuff) I think it turned out pretty good or at least it looked like the flag : ) The party started with water color painting, then watching some tangled movie clips from disney's website, reading a tangled book. Then playing pang the Flynn Ryder on the head (pin a frying pan on Flynn Ryders wanted poster). The girls loved this game. Next was lunch time with pizza, grapes, and pink lemonade. Another fun game was the Pascal party blower. The girls all decided Justin should be Flynn and chased him around trying to stick their "tounge" in Justin's ear. We then played a treasure hunt game to find the missing satchel. Time for Pinata which was our version of Maximus the horse. Ariana had a wonderful day. She kept telling me it was the best day ever all day. I love her so much and can't believe that she is already five.

Pretty Princess

We are starting not to dress up as much any more and it makes me sad. So when Ariana was invited to a princess party and was excited to be Cinderella I was thrilled to help her dress up. She was soo cute in her outfit, makeup and hair that I had to take pictures and a movie of her walking down the stairs like a princess.