I have a high paying job and an office with a view

Today (Monday) when I was at the beach, I again appreciated life and how lucky I am to be where I am in my life, thankful to Karl for supporting me as a stay at home mom, and thankful to my girls for being amazing.

So I don't get adult conversation during the day, but I do get this...

and no adult conversation beats this...

 Elli Dew makes an appearance too...

 The girls working on their 'project'

 I love this job!

Mounds of clothes...

Up until now, I have been saving EVERY single piece of clothing my girls have ever worn. Which calculates to about 15 buckets (totes) of clothes. Well, now that I know that we will have another lovely lady to enjoy all these clothes and I am getting rid of them...hahaha seems backwards right? Well, I was waiting for the sex of Elli Dew so that I could know whether to downsize completely or just somewhat. I will obviously be saving the hand-me-downs, but I can't feasibly save the three and half years of clothes that will be between Reese is Elliot. I brought down some of the buckets last night and Brady decided she would help me go through them...by matching up outfits. This is her handiwork.

I love this outfit that includes panties, skirt, socks, shoes, shirt and hat. 

So I sorted through what to keep, give away, and what needed some serious stain removing TLC. Brady helped me sort my GIANT mound of keep clothes into sizes.  She loved climbing onto the bed to get clothes from the top of the pile.

Then would either toss the clothes at me or climb down and bring them to me and tell me the size. I was proud of my big helper and of myself for downsizing my load by two buckets. Hopefully I have it down to where I will be storing only six buckets of clothes at a time. 

Sleeping Beauties Part Three

As I have mentioned in the past I LOVE taking pictures of my girls sleeping. Reese especially always gives me a good laugh. I thought I would post my collection of sleeping pictures over the last couple months. 

One night Reese got out her favorite coat to sleep in. And no, it wasn't a cold night. 

The girls love playing sleepover and so we let them try it again. Reese fell asleep over an hour after Brady but she did choose the spot next to her sister to rest her eyes. 

Speaking of sleepover, the girls (who would really love to share a room) now sit at their doors and talk to each other at bedtime. Our rule is they can do anything in their room after bedtime but must not leave their rooms. Last night, they both fell asleep at the doorway, this is Brady tonight...um well Reese is still awake as I type at 9:45.

I posted about this before, but I still love this one...

Gotta love the cliffhanger

My diva, Brady

Reese loves having someone in bed with her!

Elliot DeWees Orthner

Today was an amazing day at the doctor! We (Karl, Reese and I, Brady choose school over seeing the baby) got to see a beautifully healthy baby on the screen today. Measuring right on track, calculated to be a baby due 6/9/2012. Several times we saw a beautiful spread of long fingers on the screen, a heartbeat of 150 bpm...all great great stuff...

And yes, we saw a cheeseburger on the screen... Karl and I happily introduce to you Elliot DeWees Orthner!

We already have Brady BOO, Reesey Poo, so now to the mix we are adding Elli Dew. Yes, we intend on calling her "Elli Dew"!

We are honestly very excited about the news of health and girl parts! We humbly believe we do an excellent job raising little girls and look forward to the opportunity to love another little girl. I have got this girl thing down (for now).

Now for more pictures of this beautiful baby.

I have to start with my personal favorite: Her fingers...I LOVE IT!!!! Awesomeness is in this picture

The profile shot is the first one above, see the characteristic button nose our girls have? Here is the scary alien shot from face on.

Most of the time, when she wasn't spreading her fingers, she had her palms together and resting her cheek on them....so sweet. See if you can tell in this picture... Her head is bottom center with hands just above.

foot... to the left

Cheeseburger in paradise...girl parts

And one more profile to close out with. I love how she is stretching her neck out! I love baby stretches!

Can't wait to meet this angel in June!

XX or XY?

Tomorrow is the big level 2 ultrasound for which we can choose to find out the sex of our baby. We have obviously talked with the girls about whether we think they are going to have a brother or sister. So tonight at dinner we decided to get the final vote.

Here are the results:

Brady- boy
Reese-girl
Karl-boy
Me-girl (I said it to even out the vote, but really still clueless)

Of the votes on the sidebar to the left, 8 of you think boy and 4 think girl.

So I said to the girls tomorrow the people with a correct vote should get a prize. We decided on a piece of candy at dinner. Reese immediately looks concerned. She says "I changed my mind, I think it is a boy" So she voted girl but when candy is on the line her vote is for a boy. We all start laughing, then Reese pipes in again "Can I have my piece of candy now?" Like I have said before but Reese keeps our family laughing!

I decided to share with the girls the adventure of trying to reveal their sex when they were in womb. They thought both stories were funny. I decided to share them with you in case you haven't heard yet...

With Brady, we went in for our 18 week big ultrasound. They measured her for growth, on track, checked out her heart, on track... then we were asked, do you want to know the sex....we said yes. Right as the tech moved down to examine between the legs, Brady politely placed her hand over her 'privates' and would not move it. Therefore we walked away from that appt. not knowing and it took a couple more attempts to find out she was a girl 4 weeks later.

With Reese, I had an ultrasound at 15 weeks. This appt. happen to coincide with Karl's birthday. He did not make the appt., but my doc said she could tell the sex, and wanted to share with me. I said Karl and I like to find out together, so she printed out the picture and sealed it in an envelope. She sent me off saying she was 95% sure of what she saw. I was so excited to give Karl this birthday present. He opened the envelope with me looking over his shoulder and sure enough it said boy! Three weeks later, they saw pink.

So with that said, I am somewhat skeptical that I will come home with an correct answer. At week 16 they had to do an ultrasound, she said she may have seen boy parts, but couldn't tell if it was cord. How do you think the story goes from here?

Change of Heart

As I previously posted, Reese did like the idea of my pregnancy during the first trimester. Constantly tell me it was a pretend baby in my belly. She has really had a change of heart lately. She plays with friends babies. Talks about her future sibling etc.

Tonight she feel asleep like this:

Yes, that is a baby doll in her night gown. I love the sweet hand draped over her belly in the first picture, just like a pregnant lady. She tells people that she is naming her sibling 'Snowflake' and it will be a girl because Snowflake is not a boy name!

7 more days until my ultrasound!

Nostalgia

The girls got lots of crafty gifts for Christmas. We got make our own stuffed bears, paper airplane kit, color by number, sun art, cardboard castle to color, tie-dye, etc. I love these type of gifts for several reasons:

-the girls are very into crafting now
-they are consumable (teacher speak)
-it gets me involved with them (I have been lazy lately)



Remember Shrinky Dinks?!?!?! I was pretty pumped about sharing this experience with the girls because I have such fond memories of Shrinky Dinks from my childhood.

 Karl even had to get involved...these are so fun!

 Coloring was done and I told the girls it was time to put them in the oven. Reese was distraught that I was going to cook her 'fairy'. We told her she didn't have to and we would just do the others, then she was distraught that we wanted to put ours in the oven.

 Reese watches cautiously as the Shrinky Dinks warm up.

 The girls loved watching them dance and flip!

 After:

 Now Reese is all smiles and wants hers to have a chance to warm up and dance in the oven...

 The kit Andi gave us had wings to put on the fairies, gems, and glitter glue! The glitter glue was definitely the girls favorite part!

 The kit also came with a tree and stands to create a scene with our new figurines. 

 Reese's fairy on left (with mommy help) and Brady's (all by herself) on the right

 Just in case you forgot how much they shrink...here is the before and after shots. 

Thanks Auntie Andi for all the nostalgic fun! I think I will have to go buy more.

Brady's Bike

I am so proud the improvements Brady made in the week since we have had her bike. She loves riding it everyday. I have to show you the video of her the first day, just to show how far she has come along.

For those that didn't know, previously to this Brady couldn't even peddle her tricycle for we have really enjoyed seeing her on her bike. Santa choose a good gift!

Operating Room

Our girls have a new little game they like to play. It all started when I left a laundry basket out and Reese flipped it over next to a stool to create a patient table like she had seen at my OB appt. She would lay on it with her belly hanging out. Well, with a 3 and 4 year old mind working together this quickly progressed with an OR with c-sections being performed. (FYI: the girls have seen photos of me on the table during Reese's c-section.)

1. Pregnant patient lays on the OR table.

 2. Patient gets comfortable with an owl pillow.

 3. Doctor covers patient with a blanket (think the sheet that blocks the head)

 4. Doctor 'cuts' the baby out.

 5. Doctor quickly gives the patient medicine (yes meds are given orally with a Mr. Potato head nose)

 6. Patient holds her baby that is washed and clothed!

They do this over and over switching roles. I had to laugh at myself when the doctor asked me at Reese's three year check up if she does 'pretend play.' Also, they asked if she interacts with her peers. Check and check!!!

Baby Bump: Week 17

New Year, New Baby Bump Photo!

I have to laugh to myself. I am not a huge new year's resolution kind of person. I try to assess areas that need improvement throughout the year and deal with them then. For example, September I made a goal for myself to be 10 pounds lighter by 2012. Here I am at the New Year and I am 20 pounds heavier. I however can't complain that I didn't meet my goal, some goals are worth breaking ;)

Well, without further ado, here is the belly shot of the month, then of course followed by the previous shots for comparison.

I am happy to say I don't think my thighs and face swelled up quite as much this month. I went to the doctor this past week and again everything looked great. Actually, I only gained 5 pounds in the four weeks (this is good for me) and my blood pressure is back to being low. :)

Once again, they tried to use the machine that you hear the heartbeat and once again it didn't work, so I got an ultrasound. I had Reese with me since I had her three year old check up the same day. As they were doing the ultrasound, they referred to 'the baby' and Reese exclaims, "HER name is Baby Dale!!!" The OB looks at me for affirmation, so I go onto to explain that our family uses a 'womb name' and I think she thought I was crazy. 

Also, during the ultrasound, they tried to get a sneak peak at the genitals. Like with my other two pregnancies, they baby is SO active that they can't get a good view. So we will have to wait a little longer. Also, I have decided to not have the sex revealing party. Lots of factors in this decision, so stay tuned later this month, for I will reveal the sex with the name on here ;)



Happy New Year!