Third Trimester

This is what the beginning of the third trimester looks on me. So.much.baby. I passed the 27-week mark last weekend and boom, suddenly I am horribly uncomfortable and some of the pregnancy quirks I've been waiting to experience again hit with a vengeance. It's not really a fun way to spend the last few days, but oh well. I'm two-thirds done and so happy about that.

I switch my kids' rooms around all the time, trying to find the optimal setup. My mom is going to come out when the baby is born, and I want to have an actual bed for her, not just an air mattress or a couch. Plus, I made the kids bunk beds in the last couple years and Spencer's is horribly squeaky now and the legs on Genevieve's are just a bad design, so I'm making a couple new beds for them, getting rid of their bunk beds, and we pulled out the toddler bed for Aaron. He's in absolute heaven over that, Genevieve's bed is in the midst of being stained/finished in my carport and she can't wait for it to be done, and Spencer keeps asking when we're going to make his. All good things.

One more thing. I took down the crib today. That's right. I'm having a baby in 12 weeks and I took down the crib. A friend of mine had a fifth baby and really didn't have room for one in her house, so her youngest has slept in the pack 'n' play her whole life and will just transition to a bed straight from there. It struck me that I could totally do that with Chloe and it would work so much better in this little house of mine. She'll never know the difference. If we go on vacation she'll never have to adjust to a new bed because we'll bring it with us!!! We'll see how it all goes down, but I like the idea right this second, especially as I just took down the crib and have a whole extra wall in one of the bedrooms. Huzzah!

Things that happened this week

I'm working through a haze of exhaustion today. We've had way too many nights in the past three weeks with very little sleep. Aaron got diagnosed with RSV last Friday, after having a double ear infection the week before. Needless to say, sleep has not returned to normal for any of us. Last night Genevieve made her way into bed with us without me even noticing until she was already there. King size beds are wonderful, and definitely an improvement on smaller ones when kiddos join you, but this pregnant lady needs more space to move than having her there allowed. So today is a push through the exhaustion sort of day. But here are a few things that have happened of late.

Spencer sends me and Bill selfies everyday as well as typeing all the letters of the alphabet out in uppercase and then in lower case to the zoo friend letter of the week that he is at in preschool. He's to U this week, so I get a daily text sharing that. :) 

Like I mentioned, Aaron has been sick for at least three weeks. He hasn't been sick this much his entire life. Usually he is the picture of good health. He's slept or cuddled on me more for hours every day. Since that hasn't been the norm in at least a year, I'll take it. He has started just today being willing to run around and play again and it's nice to see his happy self coming back.

Chicken pot pie for Pi Day.

This is how Genevieve rode on our new lawn mower when we picked it up earlier this week. She's laying on the box that is sitting on top of the cart.

Aaron got to have his own mini cart yesterday for the first time at the grocery store. He was in heaven. Everyone in the store that saw them it put a smile on their faces. It made me happy.

This is the table I refinished last week. I like how it turned out. It was pretty trashed before. 

Acrobatics

Sometimes when Daddy gets home we do acrobatics. And we have to carefully screen out Daddy so as to keep it all modest, lolol. The kids love it.

There are blessings in even the hardest experiences

I've struggled a bit with the idea of writing anything about the last 10 days here on my blog. My world got flipped upside down as a result of a simple phone call two Mondays ago informing me my dad was back in the hospital after a visit the previous Sunday. That phone call triggered a series of events that included all of my siblings scrambling to get to Utah as fast as possible to get to my dad's bedside. We all made it. We were all there surrounding him as he passed from this world three days later, now a week ago.

I haven't experienced a week this difficult in my recent memory. It was so, so hard. At the same time there were blessings interspersed throughout. It was incredible to be with my siblings together a mere six months after our last time doing that, when before that it had been 13 years. The spirit we felt throughout the experience was tangible. I felt bigger emotions than I've felt in many years, both good and bad, but all were poignant.

And through it all I got to celebrate a wonderful man, one who cannot be replaced and will be missed greatly. I've attended a lot of funerals. My dad's was special, and not just because it was him. He was a special man, unique, and the stories that were shared, the songs that were sung, all showed that.

It still blows me away that he is gone so quickly. I will miss him more than words can express. It is going to be a long time before I see him again, but I know that I will indeed see him again. He will no longer be in pain. His body will be perfect. And it will be worth every moment we've been apart.