Rainy Day

Oh, I am in love! We’ve recently discovered the brand Naartjie
(I know, a little late in the game) and it is just adorable (and affordable) stuff! Someone once told me, “it’s like the Old Navy of South Africa!” I am officially hooked…and may have to get more colors in this set when they have their next big sale.

Today we had it on our calendar to venture down to the aquarium and see the penguin exhibit. Unfortunately, it has been raining all week and today was no exception. Even though the aquarium is indoors, I just couldn’t rally to brave the long walk from the parking garage. That, and the place is a literal zoo if you don’t get there early. So, no aquarium for us…instead, I pulled out these cupcakes that I originally bought for Charlie to enjoy on her birthday, but ended up saving for a rainy day. Today was the day! We’ll venture out to see the penguins next week.


A Rite of Passage

We HAD to go to the grocery store on Wednesday night. We were out of everything, but I was majorly procrastinating and really didn’t want to go at 7 pm after Charlie was down for the night. We made the executive decision to go as a family after we picked Daddy up from the train. I’m not sure I would recommend this. Here’s why:

One time at Costco we let Charlie ride in the shopping cart without being strapped in, that is, she stood up in the cart WITH the food. Now of course, she refuses to go back to the “old way” of doing things. I just couldn’t concentrate worrying she was going to fall forward out of the Jewel shopping cart, so I made Vann hunt down…you guessed it…one of those behemoth car-carts that we swore we would never, ever use.Guess what?? You’ll do anything if you need to just get your groceries and get out of there. Notice that Vann is not in these pictures. I think maybe he made a break for it when we weren’t looking…

Pumpkin Patch #2

Wednesday we skipped ballet to go with our Mom’s Group to Goebbert’s Pumpkin Patch, rescheduled from last Friday’s downpours. It was such a beautiful fall day, no coats needed! Charlie and her friend Tad enjoyed running through the vast fields of “pumpins” and especially loved all of the animals in the animal farm. After lunch, we split a gigantic iced sugar cookie and it was DE-LISH!! We brought home some peanut butter fudge for Daddy, so that he wouldn’t feel left out…

An Update

Now that I’ve caught up on my posts, I wanted to share that I had my 34 week check-up and a follow-up ultrasound yesterday. Ms. Kim graciously kept Charlie for me, and I dropped her off around 1 pm so she would (hopefully) get a good nap in.

My ultrasound detected a couple things: my placenta is still low. This shouldn’t be an issue as I’m already scheduled for a c-section. I will most likely go back for another follow-up ultrasound in a couple weeks and we’ll keep monitoring it.

The other thing is that the baby seems to be measuring small, particularly in the abdomen area. Dr. Roth wanted me to stay and have a fetal non-stress test done (commonly called an NST) so that we could monitor her heartbeat and make sure she’s active, etc. Well, I know for a fact she’s active because she’s waking me up all hours of the night (way more than Charlie ever did) but I called Vann and he picked Charlie up so I could stay.

Pretty non-eventful…everything was fine. I didn’t leave the office until close to 7 pm. I was tired and hungry, but it was good to have the long train ride home to think and reflect on the day. Aside from the abdomen, the rest of the baby is measuring perfectly. She is around 4 pounds right now…but Vann and I know that we make small babies (Charlie was a flat 6 at birth) so I am honestly not concerned about her, with 5 weeks to go. Dr. Roth looked me in the eye and told me she was not worried. We will go back next week for another NST, but after that I will be seeing her once a week anyway, so it stands to reason I will be visiting her office quite a bit in the next month.

Life is so fragile, isn’t it? I think that we all take it for granted that a healthy baby is a given. The nine months of pregnancy really are the ultimate test of trust. All we have to go on are some grainy pictures of her profile and a doppler reading on her heartbeat every couple weeks. You feel the affects of the changes going on in your womb: heartburn, pelvic pressure, shortness of breath, etc…but you don’t really know this child until you are holding her in your arms.

As we near the final days of this pregnancy, I am struck at how miraculous and faithful God is. Lord knows, my prayer life has seen better days. I am often afraid that I have run out of God’s grace…that I am nearing the end of His goodness. But I know that God doesn’t work like that. He continues to knit together this tiny being in my belly and will be bringing her into this world in a short, short time. All that we can do is pray and prepare as much as is humanly possible.

Please pray for our little girl and her development in this next month! We are so excited to meet her and see her for the first time.

Wishlist Time

So anyone who knows me knows that I am TERRIBLE about buying things for myself around the holidays that might make great stocking stuffers (for me FROM Santa). Case in point: This heavenly Philosophy set at Nordstrom stopped me in my tracks last weekend when I spent the afternoon with Auntie Em, just divine!!!

My logic is, why wait until Christmas day when it makes more sense to get as much use out of this scent as POSSIBLE before the end of the year?? I didn’t buy it…thought about it, but decided to wait. This is hard!!

Also at Nordy’s, I stumbled upon this pair of eggplant-colored Uggs. I live in these boots for 3/4 of the year, so I think another pair is totally justifiable. However, Vann would murder me if I came home with them on my own, so these are on my actual wishlist for Christmas. I *heart* them!!

Charlie’s Quick Change

Charlie and I had to make a run to the mall yesterday to check out Gymboree’s new holiday line. Since we most likely won’t be going to any parties/events this Christmas, we aren’t in need of any “fancier” outfits…but I did want to get something festive for her to wear when the snow starts falling. After settling on this sweetness (minus the boots plus a different shirt)…

…she played in the playplace for a bit while Mommy sipped her latte. She’s wearing two different dresses below because the sleeves on the first dress were simply not acceptable to her. I don’t know who told her she was allowed to start having opinions about this kind of thing, but because this is a dictatorship, I simply told her that her attitude was not acceptable to ME.

And then changed her clothes so she’d stop whining.

Sunday

Sunday morning Charlie wore her smocked “witch” dress to church. This dress has been a source of conversation around here…as in:

Me: Are you going to be ok with Charlie wearing this dress to church?

Vann: It’s fine, if you want your daughter wearing something so sacreligious to church…it’s your call.

(Silence.)

Me: I laid out her white tights and black patent leather mary jane’s to go with it.

After naps, we spent the evening at the Mouse House carving pumpkins. Of course, Charlie and Lauren’s attention span for carving was all of fifteen minutes, so most of the time we visited and roasted marshmallows while the men toiled over which design they wanted to carve. Ms. Liz and I are married to perfectionists, so you know this process took some time. How lucky are we that we now have perfect pumpins!!