Early Christmas Planning

I know it's not even Halloween yet, but I like having a game plan when it comes to Christmas activities, especially when I'm pregnant and I can count on my brain to fail me at any minute.  Every year we do an advent calendar with the boys, and we have an Elf on the Shelf.  I always come up with our advent activities before hand so I can print/laminate them, but I usually just plan Pal's daily shenanigans on the fly.  Well, last year I ended up spending more money than I ever wanted to to help Pal do crazy things every day, and I decided I wasn't doing that this year.  I used some of our every year classics with his calendar, then I threw in some new things.  I did the same with our advent calendar, so I think the boys will really like both things this year.  I'll have a more detailed post on these closer to Christmas, but I thought I'd share a snapshot of my calendars in case anyone is totally unoriginal, like me.  We start our calendars the day after Thanksgiving, so that's why we've got a little bit of November in there.

Pal's Calendar 

Advent Calendar

Baby Abel Update {20 Weeks}

Today marks the halfway point of my pregnancy!  I can't believe we're at 20 weeks already.  I guess it's because I'm so busy with the boys, work, and life in general, but this pregnancy really has flown by.  I didn't really feel that way with the boys, so I'm thrilled!  I know it'll really pass quickly now that the holidays are approaching.  We'll be busy, busy, busy through the end of December, then we'll turn around and it'll be March and we'll be in the hospital!  I'm really looking forward to his arrival.  I know I did a little update last week, but I went to the doctor yesterday, so I thought I'd give another update and share some pictures.

Everything looked great at my visit yesterday.  The two big things they always look at with me, my blood pressure and urine, were great, and my weight was great.  I had an ultrasound right off to check all of his anatomy.  My mom came with me to see him, but we both couldn't hardly decipher a thing on the ultrasound without the tech pointing everything out to us.  I was always pretty good at pointing things out with Cooper and Clark, but Abel has been a difficult little dude when it comes to ultrasounds.  For some reason I got panicked (not really the right word, it would've been fine) that maybe the first ultrasound was wrong because it was so early and that he'd end up being a girl at this visit, but after searching for awhile, we finally saw the boy parts again!  My whole frame of mind is geared towards a boy, so it would've really thrown me off my game if we had a little surprise yesterday.  She told me his belly was big, which she acted a little concerned about at first, but she got some more accurate measurements and said it was fine.  All of his other visible anatomy looked great, so that was a relief.  Another concern she had was that my placenta is low lying, which you don't want, so that's something else they're going to keep an eye on and keep scanning.

After my ultrasound we met with the doctor.  She said everything looked great, but she was a little concerned about my placenta as well.  I knew you don't want a low lying placenta, but I didn't really know why.  My mom and I asked tons of questions, and probably got a lot more information than we really wanted to know.  My doctor assured me that most of the time it travels up with the uterus as the baby grows, but with repeat c-section offenders (such as myself), they really keep an eye on it because it can invade my previous incisions and cause a ton of horrible issues, so now I'm worried sick about that (I just sat and read a ton online about it, which was a huge mistake).  Because of this issue, she really encouraged me to pray about getting my tubes tied (or completely removed as they do now), so I really have no clue what decisions will be made from here on out.  I'm just hoping at my next scan in 3 weeks the placenta will have moved and will be out of the way of everything.  So, just keep that little issue in your prayers if you think about it.  We're really hoping for a smooth delivery with this guy.

Here are a couple of pictures that you can actually make out from his ultrasound yesterday.

Trunk or Treat 2015

Last night we took the boys to the annual Trunk or Treat at the church down the street from us.  We've been doing this since Cooper's first Halloween, so the boys always look forward to it.  It was packed, as usual, but the boys had a great time.  The weather wasn't too hot or too cool, but the boys still ended up sweating in their costumes.  They got TONS of candy, so Clark should be a happy camper for awhile - I'm sure he could eat every piece of it if we'd let him.  Cooper wanted to hang out with the big boys all night, so he was hard to snap a picture of.  I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted in general because we were chasing the boys all over the place, but here are the few I got.  Oh, and here's past trunk or treating pictures I've got, too.  All I'm missing is the first year we did it.

2014

2013

2012

The Corn Maze

We took our annual trip to the Rock City Corn Maze yesterday with our friends, Colt and Jessica.  The boys had been already for a field trip with Cooper's class, but I wanted to take them again.  They loved it, and the weather was perfect.  They pet animals, played in a corn crib, did the maze, shot corn slingshots, and did a hayride.  There was more we could've done, but for some reason, leaving the corn maze always brings out the absolute worst in Cooper.  Last year, and this year, he pitched an absolute fit (one where I just wanted to hide from embarrassment), when it was time to go, so we cut a few things out.  Anyways, it's one of our fall traditions, and I love that it's only 5 minutes from our house!