Update - I know you have been waiting for them

So I have been remiss in my blogging since we moved into the house. There are many excuses that I can give but I won't. I will just pick up where I left off.

31 Weeks -

I have definitely grown over this pregnancy. Here are some pictures that I have taken. I have not taken pictures each week like I had wanted, but you can still see the progress. I have kept my weight gain to a minimum but I have a feeling that I will start to gain weight pretty rapidly in the last few weeks of this journey.

So the front view has not changed too much from what I can tell. Yes, I did grow out of the striped shirt. It was not a maternity shirt so I am amazed it lasted as long as it did.
Here is the side view and yes there is some major change seen here.
Here is a picture of my belly. The shirt I am wearing did not really show the true size of the baby incubator. Yup, there is a place to rest a plate, and yes, the belly has gotten in the way a lot. I have a nice bruise on my ribs from where I tried to dodge the belly and hit my side instead. I can only imagine how much bigger it is going to get.

I had a dr's appt on Monday that went really well. I am measuring right on track and baby is about 3 1/2 to 4 pounds. She is sitting head down and on my left side. She is definitely a hula dancer because she is moving pretty much all the time. I feel these really weird rolling sensations and sometimes she kicks so hard I think she is making a break for it through my getting-to-be-non-existent belly button. You know you are blessed to be a baby incubator when you lose your belly button. Brad has been making fun of this fun pregnancy trait for a few weeks now. It is really weird looking and I really hope that it returns to the nice inny that it was before. The baby had hiccups a few days ago. Truly a neat but weird experience. I can understand why people get annoyed with them when they happen. It is really a rhythmic thumping that is not as hard as a kick and definitely not as random. They did not last too long, but I have read that they can occur pretty regularly and for long periods of time. I can't believe that I only have about 8 weeks left.

We did the labor and delivery tour at the hospital. We saw the rooms baby will be born in and then the rooms that we will stay in for the duration of our stay in the hospital. Very nice and very large. Some of these rooms are big enough to have about 20 people along with the medical teams needed. There are some rooms that have whirlpool tubs and others with showers. There is no nursery, so once baby comes out she will be with us. We will all get special bracelets and baby will get an ankle monitor to wear as she will be in house arrest for all the trouble she caused me during her incubation.

Now is the time that we are getting down to the wire getting all the accoutrements ready for the little one. Do you know how much stuff a little one needs??? And on top of that, have you seen all the extra crap that is marketed as being a true necessity??? I am pretty sure that neither Brad nor I had some of these things and we turned out just fine. Some things will be nice to have because of technology, but some things are just ridiculous. For example, I am loving the video monitoring systems that are out. We will be able to see what baby is doing via a night vision camera and TV. Two friends of ours have a system that they love. I am going to be one of those voyeuristic parents that likes to watch their kid sleep, but I will do it from afar so as not to wake baby up. Yes, I will watch her up close but I hope not to wake her up by opening her door all the time. I think this is a great advance in technology that is well worth it. One thing that we will not be spending the money on is a vibrating mattress. What baby really needs this feature that pretty much doubles the cost of the mattress? Are we really going to raise our baby with this feature that years ago cost a quarter in a motel??? No I don't think we need that. The list of money grubbing contraptions that you really don't need goes on.

Okay enough about the little one that is not here yet. We do have two other kiddos that run the house right now. Here are some pictures of the girls newest napping place. Ruby was helping me unpack the linen closet this past weekend. The girls love blankies like no other dog I have ever had. I don't know what it is but you can pretty much cover them up with anything, even a dry washcloth and they will curl up and be quite content. So below here she is in the linen closet. She is up on the second shelf from the bottom. She had to climb her little way up the shelf with the help of the stuff below and then crouch down to get in between the shelves. It took her about 2 seconds to get comfy and relax.

I actually walked away for a few minutes and I came back to see that she had taught her sister how to use the linen closet as well. Rika being a taller dog did not stay as long as Ruby. Rika would rather be on the recliner in the other room, but she doesn't like to share with Ruby so that forces Ruby into the closet. Crazy little dogs!!!

Other than that everything is going really well here in Hawaii. We are getting pretty much settled and finding places for the things that we need to and actually purging those items that we don't need. There is still a storage issue but for the most part we know how we are going to handle them. I have some more pictures that I want to share but that will have to wait for another day.