Kicking off 2020 at 6 Months Pregnant

The first month of this year has been interesting. It’s been long, like most Januarys, but we’ve also been busy…in a different way. Being 6 months pregnant makes busy days a bit more exhausting. I started AND ended the month being sick…nothing too bad, just a cold…but man, these colds have kicked my pregnant behind! Having a cold while pregnant is a lot worse than I remembered…I’m already tired and out of breath all the time, and I didn’t have many options for any medications to give me any relief. I’ve mainly relied on nasal spray and rest. With a busy working husband and two kids who need dropped off, picked up, and ran around to their various activities…rest is few and far between. Luckily I’ve had help here and there with a few mom/mother-in-law visits!

Here is a recap of our month…

Prepping for the big move

We’re planning on putting our house on the market in March, so the first step is LOTS of decluttering. It’s been tiring, but mentally satisfying for me. When I’m pregnant, my nesting drastically kicks in, and my mind can’t rest. It’s almost like taking Adderall – I have a hard time not being productive. Even though I don’t have a nursery to prepare for unil we move, luckily I’ve had a whole house to clean…fulfilling my nesting needs. We rented a storage unit to keep our stuff that we’ve cleared out of the house, which the kids have been weirdly obsessed with. They don’t like storing any of their stuff, but they LOVE taking runs to the unit and helping load it up!

Trampoline Park Day

Before the kids started school after Christmas break, they needed to get some energy out, so I took them to one of their favorite places, the trampoline park. Even though I wasn’t physically able to jump with them this time, luckily they entertain each other pretty well and had a great time!

100 Magical Days

Kinsie was super excited for her 100th day of school. At the school in which I used to teach, celebrating this day was more of a lower elementary thing, so as a 5th grade teacher, I never really got to partake in the fun. Being the mom of a Kindergartener though has given me that chance! Kinsie and I went to Hobby Lobby together to pick out her supplies and made her shirt together. Her shirt had a rainbow made out of 100 gems, a unicorn, and the words “100 Magical Days!” She was so excited to show it off and loved telling me about all the different 100 Day activities they did at school that day.

Rare Outside Time

If Arkansas gets any cold weather, January is typically when it happens. Overall, it’s usually about 30 degrees in the mornings and evenings, and then gets up to the 40s, MAYBE 50s during the day. Not too bad compared to an Indiana January, but still. We’ve had TONS of rain this month, which is what has kept us from being outside more. We did, however, get a few rare opportunities to spend some time outside, which always fills the kids’ buckets.

Community Helpers Unit

Kinsie had her first big unit at school, community helpers. They’ve been learning about different community helpers and what they do, and they’ve even had several guest speakers (her daddy being one of them!) All the Kindergarteners had to pick a community helper and create a poster and present it to the class. Kinsie picked doctors because she is so proud that her dad is one. She worked so hard on her poster, and it turned out great! I helped her physically put it together, but she did all the research (Ryan was her resource), and all the writing. She was a little nervous to present to the class, but she ended up going first and did an awesome job! She was so excited to have Ryan come speak to the Kindergarten classes about being a doctor too!

Baby Updates – 6 Months

I’m kind of freaking out at how fast this pregnancy seems to be going this time. Between life with two other kids and keeping up with all of their activities, plus starting the process of moving, each week is flying by!

Updates and Symptoms-

• Baby is a little more than 1 pound
• His hands are always by his face
• He is VERY active. I absolutely love feeling him move, but he is getting bigger and stronger, which makes some of his movements somewhat painful!
• Continued gigantic hiccups
• Intense need to “nest”
• Mild carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms – I’m hoping this one is more from the work I’ve been doing around the house rather than my pregnancy. If you recall, my carpal tunnel pain was SO intense near the end of my pregnancy with Brax, which continued for several weeks after he was born. It was so terrible being in horrible pain even holding my newborn baby. I eventually had to get cortisone injections is both of my wrists. I am trying to be very proactive this time to avoid it getting that bad again.

Early in the month, we had our anatomy scan. Even though we already knew it was a boy, I loved every moment of the ultrasound. The tech was extremely thorough and even gave us a free DVD with the entire ultrasound on it. We got lots of great views and pictures of our crazy little guy, including a quick 3D view of his sweet little face! He is very healthy and right on track with his size!

 

This picture was taken at 22 weeks – baby was the size of a red bell pepper

 

This picture was taken at 24 weeks – baby is the size of a pomegranate (notice the size difference in just 2 weeks from the previous picture!)

I found some of my old pregnancy pictures from my last 2 pregnancies, and compared the pictures all at 24 weeks. It is so interesting how different each pregnancy has been! As you can probably see, I was the biggest at this point with Brax. With this baby, I’d say I’m in between how big I was with Kinsie and Brax.

The kids were excited to get in on the action with pictures this time! They are SO excited to meet their baby brother!

Real life with these two…

That’s a wrap for our January. Life is going to continue getting crazier as we get closer to the arrival of our little guy, and our big move back to our home state. It’s a lot all at once, but I keep reminding myself that it’s all good stuff. God is blessing us abundantly and we couldn’t be more grateful for his goodness!

Enjoy our first 1 Second Every video for the year 2020!

Our Month of MAY-hem

Wow…we had SO much happening in the month of May. It seemed to fly by, but then again, it seems like the beginning of the month was a year ago. We had lots of fun, and were also very busy this month, so brace yourself for pictures galore!

Brax’s First Birthday

Brax turned one on May 2, and while we already had his Lumberjack party a few days earlier, we still had to do something for our boy’s special day. He received an Orange Leaf gift card as one of his birthday gifts, so we took him for his first frozen yogurt experience. He loved it, and of course, Kinsie didn’t mind it either!

Kinsie and Mommy’s Day of Fun

Any fans of the show “Friends” out there? Well just like Joey and Janice, Kinsie and I had a special day together this month. Her school had a Mother’s Day Lunch on a Friday morning, so I took the morning off to go with her. We had a great lunch together at her school, then I had to get ready to leave and head to work. Her brown eyes had big ol’ crocodile tears in them when I told her I had to leave…so I thought about it, and since it was nearing the end of the school year (my students checked out LONG before this anyway), and the rest of the afternoon at school was our PTO Walk-a-thon, I thought, what the heck, I’ll bring her along! We had a great day together! She loved playing on the playground, silent reading time, and being my little helper at school. My students LOVED having her there, and they were great with her. It was a much-needed Mommy and Kinsie day.

Dr. Matthews

It’s official…he’s a doctor now! After 4 very long years of medical school, my husband is now an MD. Two years of living in different cities with a newborn baby, two years of countless rotations with long and crazy hours, throwing another baby in the mix and surviving on a teacher’s salary…and we made it! I know we still have a long road ahead as he starts his residency, but we have come so far. We did it as a team, and that’s how we will continue our journey.

First Swim of the Season

This usually happens WAY sooner, but it has been a crazy April and May. Lots and lots and lots of rain and below 50 degree temps. But a few weeks into May, we finally got these kids in the pool! Kinsie did her happy dance all around the pool, and Brax splashed and giggled and did his happy shout the whole time!

Lake Time

Ahh, the lake. Our favorite. Our happy place. We have spent two weekends at the lake this month…we are trying to soak in as much lake time as we can before we move. We spent all of Mother’s Day there, and Memorial Day weekend. We have our staple activities that we always do while we visit…including lots of fishing, golf cart rides to the playground at the Marina, and lots of boat rides. This last trip even including Brax’s first time on the paddle boat, and both kids took turns driving the boat. Both of the kids (and the adults) are SO happy while we are at the lake. We all drag our feet when it’s time to leave and head back home. It really is all of our happy place.

 

Outside Fun

We haven’t had quite as much outside time as you would think for the month of May, but the few times it has been nice enough, we try to get the kids outside. Even if we don’t want to, they drag us out. They have enjoyed wagon rides, playing t-ball, family bike rides, and running around in the backyard finding frogs and other critters.

Soccer

Kinsie loved her soccer season! She absolutely loved playing with her cousins, and getting a snack ticket after every game. She improved SO much this season. She became more competitive and aggressive…all she needs is a little bit of speed and she’ll be a soccer star! Whether it was raining, freezing, windy, or sunny (I think this only happened twice), the kids were troopers and had a great season. They always had a great fan club too!

Some “Lasts”

Within one week, Kinsie had her last gymnastics class, her last soccer game and her last day of preschool. All of these lasts weren’t just for the season, but her last doing all of these things in our current home of Indiana. She had such great experiences for all of these things, especially her preschool. We were so sad for her to leave this school, we really loved it there. She loved her teachers and her friends, but she is very open-minded about finding a new preschool and new friends (we’re hoping her optimism rubs off on her mama a bit). We were so lucky that she had all of these great opportunities to help her learn and grow, and we know we will get other fun opportunities in our new home.

Last week was a tough one, because I had to say goodbye to a job that I love. I packed up my classroom, turned in my keys, and said “see you later” to some amazing fellow teachers that have become my best friends. I taught in this community for 5 years, and while it often completely drained me, it was so fulfilling. Even though I won’t be teaching at this school anymore, I feel in my heart that my teaching career is far from over.

That just about wraps up our month. It was busy, crazy, exhausting, but amazing. We are counting down the days to our big move, which is happening in a couple of weeks. While we can barely walk through our house because of moving boxes everywhere, we are still trying to relax, soak it all in and enjoy our time with our families and friends before we pick up and move our lives to Little Rock.

Our September

Our September was busy, exciting and hard. As I mentioned in my last post, Ryan was in Cincinnati for the majority of September. The kids and I stayed with my parents during this time…thank goodness for this, I probably would still be hiding in a hole somewhere had I dealt with the kids by myself the entire month. We all missed him, but Kinsie took it the hardest. Luckily, we stayed pretty busy throughout the month. Here is the rundown of our month…

Kinsie’s Soccer Season

This kept us very busy this month with practice twice a week and games on Saturdays. It was good for Kinsie though to be outside running around. It was a great season!

Grandparents Day

Kinsie’s school had Grandparents Day early in September. Both my parents and Ryan’s parents were able to make it, and I guess Kinsie was the only student in the school who had all 4 grandparents come! They all seemed to have a blast!

Birthday dinners

September is a busy birthday month for our family. My dad, my sister and Kinsie all have birthdays in September. On the evening of my dad’s birthday, we went out to dinner to celebrate the September birthdays.

Start of football season

These precious kids are enjoying dressing in their Colts gear and watching games with our family!

Cincinnati Zoo

This was one of the big highlights of the month. Since Ryan was in Cincinnati and couldn’t come home very often, we went to visit him and the zoo! Kinsie was super excited not only to see her daddy, but also to see her favorite animal, hippos! This was an AWESOME zoo and we had an amazing day.

Kinsie’s Birthday and Dinosaur Party

As you’ve probably seen in my previous posts, Kinsie turned three this month! We had a dinosaur party for her at the lake. It was a huge success!!

We had a great month, but like I said, it was hard not having a piece of our hearts with us. We are so glad to have Ryan back home and excited for the fall season!