That's right, just 3 more weeks until summer comes to an end and school begins! I'm not sure if I'm happy or sad about this. I guess the best word would be relieved. Relieved that we made it through summer. Relieved that the boys will be in school to stimulate their minds and give them others to play with. Relieved that the excessive heat will (hopefully) be gone. Relieved that Rylan will get some "alone" time away from her brothers to learn to be more independent. Relieved for so much.
But the last 3 weeks will not be spent laying around being lazy. Nope, we've got lots to do!
Jake has been in Arizona for the past 10 days visiting and he and my Mom will fly back here tomorrow so that Chris and I can go to Chicago for a family wedding. Its not often that Chris and I get to escape for a kid-free weekend so we were thrilled when my Mom said she would be able to make it work. And I was thrilled when I discovered I still have ONE dress that fits for the wedding - I really didn't want to have to go buy a new maternity dress, I can think of a thousand things I would rather spend my money on. Its going to be really nice to get out of town and relax for a couple of days.
Next week and the week after Chris has to travel back to Michigan for work. With him gone it makes it harder to get everything ready for the start of school. Luckily, while my brother was here he took the boys shopping for back to school supplies. So with most of that shopping done there shouldn't be too much more to track down for the start of school.
I also signed the boys up for a new soccer league,
SCSA. It seems to be one of the more popular leagues and it starts next week. I have heard from Brenden's coach and he will have practices on Wednesday nights for an hour starting August 8th. And they will begin games once a week on Saturdays starting August 25th and going until the end of October. I'm hoping to hear about Jake's team soon and also hoping it won't conflict with Brenden's since I know there will be lots of days Chris will be traveling this fall. The boys had so much fun at the beginning of Summer with soccer so I hope they like this league.
August 13th will begin the transformation of our
kitchen counters. I spoke with the contractors and they have our granite slabs at their place and they said they look great. They'll be getting them cut and ready so that the 13th they can remove the old counters and sink and on the 16th they will put in the new granite counters and most important the new sink! I'm so excited to see how it all turns out. As I clean my kitchen daily I just get more and more excited to be rid of our awful sink and our very blah counters. Really makes me feel old when this is what I get excited about :)
And then August 17th will be Rylan's 2nd birthday! I can hardly believe it! We will be going down to Cleveland on her birthday so we won't have a party, but I'm sure we'll do a small celebration with family either that night or the next day. With the boys we never did more than have cake and presents for birthdays 2-4. We just think at the those younger ages that's more than enough, they get to feel special and we celebrate them and isn't that what a birthday is supposed to be. Anyway, I'm thinking of taking Rylan to get her ears pierced for her birthday. I know 2 seems young to some, but she is just fascinated with jewelry and earings. I said I would take her when she was old enough to ask and even though she hasn't said "Mom, can I get my ears pierced?", she's pretty clear in her limited vocabulary that she would like to get it done when you talk to her about it. I'm actually kind of excited to go do it :)
We are going to Cleveland the 17th for an action packed week. On Saturday we will be giving Ginger and Pete their 40th wedding anniversary gift. They celebrated their anniversary in April and as a gift Chris and Meredith told them we would have a family picture done for them. Since they were in Florida at the time and Meredith was 7-8 months pregnant we decided we would wait until summer to get it done. So we will have Pete, Ginger, Meredith, Todd, Dylan, Gavin, Chris, Me, Jake, Brenden, and Rylan all together for one big photo. It should be wonderful and what a better tribute to their 40 years together than to have a picture of the family that has come out of those 40 years :)
On Sunday we will have Gavin's Baptism. Chris is supposed to be the Godfather, but that has been some issues with the Church so that is up in the air a bit. We are all just hoping that it all works out and Gavin is able to be Baptized while we're in town.
Tuesday, August 21st will be Chris and mine's 8th wedding anniversary. Since I will have to go back to Cincinnati with the boys that day so they can start school the next day we will have to celebrate a little early. So Chris and I are hoping we can spend a night in hotel and leave the kids with Ginger and Pete to celebrate, or at least have a nice night out to dinner. Whatever we do, I'm sure it'll be lovely.
And there you have it, the next few weeks of crazy. And 5 days after all of that we will have our 20 week ultrasound and hopefully be able to find out what we're having- don't forget to put in your guess on the link to the right! On this note, I'm starting to get really NERVOUS to find out. I know it'll be fine either way, but I really do want another boy and Rylan is such a handful I wonder what having another girl would be like. My instincts still lean to boy, but I honestly just don't know and the 27th seems so far away! Good thing we're so busy so it should fly by - At least that's what I'm hoping.
I had my 16 week check up on Monday. With all that I have gone through it seems like I should be so much farther along. Anyway, it was the first time since this all began that I have gone more than a week between appointments. And we're hoping that things will stay good and I will finally be able to go 4 weeks between appointments. The baby sounded great, 150 bpm for the heart (which is about where it has been for me on the
home doppler). They took some blood for some who knows what test, checked my blood pressure, and of course the weight check - 12 lbs so far. The weight thing has me down a bit. It took me 6 months to gain this many pounds with Rylan. And I know I gained lots with the boys, especially Jake, but that was 8 years ago when my body could respond a little better. Its just frustrating because I'm hungry ALL the time, but I really don't feel like I'm going crazy. I have 3 meals a day and some snacks in between to keep me full. Oh well, I guess this kid just wants mamma eating a lot! The doctor didn't say anything about it so it must not be too bad, but its definitely on my mind. Most important though was everything is good with baby.
And here is my 16w, 3d pic. I feel like I'm only growing in the butt and boobs right now, how wonderful.....:)
