Two more weeks and she will be here! What a crazy but exciting thought! The question I keep getting now days is "Don't you just want her to get here?" My answer is definitely yes I am excited for her to be here, but I honestly am just fine with waiting a couple more weeks. We've waited 38 weeks for her so far, 2 more weeks should not be a problem-especially if it means a healthy baby in the end.
These last couple days has been extremely cool temperature-wise. Fall feels like it has "fallen" and I have enjoyed it. I love the crisp smell in the air and all the leaves as they start to change. I am looking forward to pumpkin and apple picking and hope that all will go well with the delivery so that we can take this little girl with us! (when I say "looking forward" to apple picking.. I really mean that I am obsessing over it. I can't wait! My dreams are now of me picking and eating apples and producing apple juice for the baby instead of milk!)
Here are the latest and greatest of the pregnancy journal! Photos courtesy of Rachel McAllister!
Brian has one more week of his psyche rotation and then he will start his family medicine rotation the week of the baby's due date! We have been so blessed to have his rotations nearby. His family med rotation is in Libertyville not far from the hospital that baby girl will be delivered at! So if I go into labor that week-it should be easy for him to get to the hospital! Yay :)
I feel like growing up I was kind of skeptical about maternity pictures.. I wanted some but then again I didn't and then I would just flip flop back and forth.
When the time came around for me to decide, it turned into a firm YES I am going to take some pictures! This pregnancy has been such an amazing and new experience that I couldn't help but want to capture that and keep a little bit of it in our memories forever. I want this little girl to see how excited her parents were at her arrival.. and how much we truly love her though we haven't even met her yet.
My very talented friend Rachel McAllister took some maternity pictures for us and I just love how they turned out! I love how she was able to not only capture our surroundings of this baby being born here in Chicago (our other kids will probably not have that opportunity) but she was able to capture our genuine excitement in meeting this little girl!
I am so glad we have these photos to look back on! This baby will be here in just a couple weeks and we are SOOOOOOOO ecstatic!
Another long update! I honestly thought that with me having the summer off from working that I would have a ton of time to catch up on blogging and my personal journal. That has not been the case. There is so much to do to get ready for this baby girl! I will be 37 weeks tomorrow so here are weeks 30-36 of my pregnancy journal!
I have learned some wonderful things about pregnancy
You can no longer do dishes without completely soaking your belly.
Pregnancy brain is very very real. Sometimes you can be looking right at an object and be completely blank at what the name is or even the color.
You have built in table-whether you want it or not. It's great to hold a bowl of cereal but when trying to hold a laptop? Not happening.
You have an excuse for everything-even when I don't want one. "Oh it must be pregnancy brain!"
You are never alone and never bored. And if you forget that then the baby may give you a nudge or two to remind you.
Sometimes you try to squeeze past people in a crowd by turning sideways and then realize that you are actually wider sideways than you are frontwards.
It's easy to make new friends when you go out because everyone wants to touch-and-tell. That means: touch the belly and tell you their pregnancy stories or their friend's sister's sister-in-law's daughter's birth story.
Bumping your belly into door nobs and counter tops is a many day occurrence and usually painful.
Pregnancy cravings are completely random and they don't always make sense or having any nutritional value.
Pregnancy dreams are absolutely ridiculously crazy and you have multiple a night in between bathroom runs.
I do have to say-I have loved being pregnant. I really have no complaints and love this wonderful opportunity that Brian and I have been given to start our little family. This big belly is a reminder of what is to come very soon and though I am excited to meet my baby girl, I am certainly savoring the time I have left carrying her inside.
July is here! We are down to less that 3 months before this baby girl comes. I've been really behind in posting because Brian and I both caught a really nasty cold and kept passing it back and forth, back and forth to each other. So after 4 weeks, I finally feel back to normal! Here is the latest Pregnancy Journal Updates.
As you can see this bump is out and getting bigger! Weight gain for me has been really odd. It hasn't been steady at all. All pregnancy I will gain a lot of weight at one time and then nothing for a few weeks and then it just cycles. I just didn't expect that at all; everyone is different I guess.
I have really loved pregnancy so far. Who knows if I will say that with all our future children, but this has been such an amazing experience. It is so new and exciting that even the "tough stuff" isn't all that bad. I have no doubt that there is a God above who loves us. I truly feel incredibly blessed to have this opportunity to raise one of God's little spirits. This just wouldn't be possible without a loving Heavenly Father. I am sure of that.
I grew up playing a lot of games with my family. The Kendells are pretty big into their Sunday family board games-Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Sequence, Blokus, Perudo, Rook, SkipBo, Labyrinth, are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head. Brian's family was pretty into a game that I heard of but never really played much: Mad Gab. I remember the first time I met his family over General Conference weekend in October of 2010-we sat down to play Mad Gab and I was blown away because I had no idea what I was supposed to do or how the heck I was going to keep up with Brian's older and younger sisters Sarah and Mandy (they are wicked good at that game).
When we found out we were pregnant-I originally wanted to tell everyone in a way that was both fun and traditional. So I made this card below:
I changed the bottom saying from "Might Sit Hairs Praying Nut" to Might Ought Hers" and "Might Breast Ends" depending on who I sent it to.
Anyway.. Brian is busy studying for boards and I'm busy enjoying my last few weeks of work with my adorable kiddos. It's going to be hard to leave them-it always is! With all 3 families I have worked with since being out here in Chicago, I have really grown close to all of the kids and it is hard to leave. I do know that with the busy summer that I have ahead of me-and preparing for this baby.. It will be really nice to have some time off to visit family, connect with Brian, and do a bit of "nesting" as well.
Can you believe that we have reached the halfway mark until this little babe gets here? I will flat out admit that I was one of those girls that kept multiple lists of baby names that I liked in the back of my journal or church notebook. No shame here!
Now, looking through those names I am completely at a loss for what I would name this baby. It all seemed so simple back then, but this is for real now. No more Barbies or house games where favorite names changed by the season or even hour. This is serious business! I know I have plenty of time to figure it out and that finding out the gender will help in that category (I hope), but it doesn't change the fact that this is so much bigger of a decision than I had ever imagined! Here is the updated Baby Larson Pregnancy Journal!
It has FINALLY started to warm up here in Chicagoland.. but I really shouldn't complain because I know with being pregnant through the summer, I'll soon be complaining about the heat. But it does feel so nice to be outside without goosebumps! And not just go outside but to break out the bikes for a nice ride or go down to the beach (have I mentioned how much I love living by Lake Michigan? I know I have but let me say it again, I LOVE LIVING BY LAKE MICHIGAN!)
Oh ya-random side note-but not so random.. Trying to fit my new belly into clothes is the weirdest feeling. Thinking that only a few weeks ago I could button my pants blows my mind. Now I have to use an elastic through the hoop as I try to figure out this whole maternity pants thing. I mean seriously, they are awesome.. but they also take some time to figure out what I like and for me to get used to them. It will happen I am sure, I just thought it would be easier! Ha!
This video was going around on Facebook.. so I decided to watch it and was amazed at how much it hit home for me.
Let me take you back in time-back to September 9, 2010. This was my first date with Brian. I had a rule back then that I wouldn't bring my phone with me on dates because I didn't want the distraction. Brian and I were meeting his roommates for a night hike to the concrete playground and were driving up Logan Canyon. On the way we got lost and couldn't find our roommates. Brian's phone was dead, and he was driving an old beat up car that didn't display the time. We had no way to get a hold of anyone, and no way of knowing exactly what time it was. And so.. we drove on, half hoping to find his roommates, but the other half wanting to just continue talking together.
We ended up in Bear Lake. We stopped at a gas station and bought squirt guns, drove up on the beach and tried to have a water gun fight but the squirt guns wouldn't work.. so we turned up a CD of country songs and swung danced on the beach. And then? Because we still didn't know the time (though by this time it had to be almost midnight). We jumped in freezing Bear Lake for a midnight swim. And then it was back to Logan.. laughing and blasting the heater. I got home well past midnight, but I didn't know that. I wasn't being constrained by time or by a device itching to have me take a picture and show everyone what we were doing. It was soley for us.. him and me.
But Imagine if we had? If we had, had our phone we might have been able to call his roommates and find out exactly where they were. We might have been able to look at the clock and see 10:28 pm blinking back at us and knowing we should probably be turning around soon.
I'm not saying don't have a clock or a phone on a date.. This video just made me think about what I might have missed if we had both been distracted by our phones. It made me think about what we currently could be missing out on-even in our married lives. And it has made Brian and I both sit down and talk about what we need to do right now to look up.
