31 weeks, 4 days

Hello, hello.

I would say that the lack of blog posts this week is due to being busy..but that would be a lie.  Basically, it is due to laziness and a return of my lack of motivation.  I have been at least attempting some amounts of productivity a day, but honestly, I have thoroughly been enjoying going to bed early and reading a few chapters of my book before falling asleep.  Or doing some crocheting.  Now that I finished the blanket I was working on for Bob, I made him/her a neat little hat and then Jesse put in a request for one, too.  I really have no idea what I'm doing, so we will see how his turns out!  Considering how busy we have been, just having time to sit in the evenings and know that if I didn't get everything done during the day, there is always tomorrow because we have no plans.  It is nice.

To go with that, last weekend was just nice and relaxing.  I honestly don't remember everything we did or didn't do, but I do remember Jesse grilled out a lot last week and it was fabulous.  That has been his new favorite thing: grilling on our charcoal grill.  If you don't have a charcoal grill, I don't care what you want to say about a gas grill, you are missing out.  Period.  We had our good friends, Chris and Jen, over on Sunday afternoon/evening for a grill out.  Not like we did anything fancy, but it was delicious and the company was phenomenal, so it really doesn't matter how fancy it was or wasn't!  It was so nice to have a whole evening where we could just sit and talk with them, even if we didn't get any board games in.  Next time you guys come out, you will need to bring Delta and the dogs can go exploring while we play games!

This week hasn't been anything overly exciting.  I am 90% done painting the baby's room, and I am so excited about how it is turning out.  I will post pictures when it is all done because I don't want to give away bits and pieces before I can show you the finished room, but for my female friends who either are pregnant, or will be sometime in the future, do NOT get it in your head that having one of your baby's wall's painted an argyle pattern is what NEEDS to be done.  Do this when you aren't pregnant.  Seriously.  You, your husband and everyone else in your family and circle of friends will thank you.  I love how my argyle wall has turned out so far, but my goodness, what a ridiculous endeavor.  More on that after I finish my dumb wall.

Oh, let's see, what else can I tell you.  I checked today and I see two more teeth popping through in Lily's mouth-- one on top, one on bottom-- and the only other two left are swelling on the other side.  I blame this for the crabbiness.  Although, she has been super ridiculous and funny lately.  I can't even describe to you how much more fun she is every day (that she is in a good mood).  She is trying to say more and more words, and even if "buckle" and "bubble" sound the same, we understand for the most part what she is trying to say.  Her favorite words right now are "cheese," "more," "horse," "Zeeeee" (Zeke), "wa wa" (water), "teeeea" (iced tea) and "Fiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!"  Jesse and I are agreeing more and more that children do not mimic adults, but adults mimic children.  This is evident by the fact that he and I both enjoy calling cheese, "cheesh" like how Lily pronounces it, and laugh every time.

Bob is still hanging in there.  I officially had 2 months left on the 25th, and am 31 weeks, 4 days along. And since it drives me nuts, yes, 32 weeks seems like it should be 8 months of pregnancy (32/4= 8, for the non math crowd), but in reality, it is only 7 months.  It took me all of my pregnancy with Lily and a decent amount of time into this one to figure out it, but here goes my figuring: doctors predict the due date based on the start date of your last period, and count out 40 weeks from then.  Since you are on that for a week, then depending on when you ovulate, there is another week or two before you actually even conceive.  Bottom line: the first "month" of your pregnancy doesn't really count because you're really not pregnant.  And if you look at it that way, it makes sense why I can be almost 32 weeks and only 7 months pregnant.  Sorry if I lost you/bored you, but that's been bothering me for awhile.

Anyway.  The baby is doing well, as far as I know!  I have really enjoyed everyone's comments when they hear that we really don't know what the sex of the baby is and we really aren't going to be finding out.  A bunch of my friends "can't wait!" and a few have told me that I need to find out because it is killing them not to know.  My favorite happened the other day, though, when I was talking to a 20something guy friend who I hadn't seen in awhile.  He asked when I was due and if I knew if it was a boy or girl, and I said "oh, we don't know" and before I could say "and we aren't finding out" he started laughing and said "wouldn't it be funny if people just didn't find out until the baby is born?  And the baby pops out and all of a sudden it's 'yaaaaaay!' (if it's a boy) or 'aww...' (if it's a girl)." And I laughed, trying to figure out if he was serious and then he said "so seriously, when do you find out?"  When I told him "when I deliver the baby" he said, so eloquently, "shut up, what I said really is going to happen!?"  Totally made my day.

I guess that's it..I thought I had more to blog about.  Apparently I don't.  Go check out my picture blog here, I updated with pictures from the past month.  You know, since I'm doing so well at updating the day to day picture..

we have been letting Lily help us feed Zeke.  she discovered tonight that she can open the container by herself.  AND reach the food.  Zeke ate well tonight.

catching up. again.

As promised, stories and pictures!

Jesse, Lily and I headed to Findlay on Good Friday to spend time with my side of the family for Easter.  We all had a great time, enjoyed coloring Easter eggs and having an egg hunt.  The Easter egg hunt is a tradition that my grandparents have continued for Jessica, Joel and me into our adulthood, and Jesse, Richard and Kimmy have been added into the numbers within the last few years.  This year was the first year in a loooooong time that we had someone a little more age appropriate participating, and as you can imagine, Jesse and Lily found all of the eggs with every little competition.

coloring eggs for the first time

mooching

family picture..we were cheesy and all somehow ended up wearing the same color.

Jesse had to head home on Sunday afternoon so he could go to work that week, and Lily and I stayed in Findlay for a few extra days for some much needed visiting time with family.  I should mention at this point that Jesse had left his cell phone at our house in WV over the weekend- so I was already kind of paranoid about his 5 hour drive home from my parents house- and had asked that he have one of his parents to text me when he arrived there (about half way, a good bathroom stop!) and when he was taking off again.  I received a message from Dad H telling me Jesse had arrived, then one that Jesse had left, and then another saying Jesse was back because he had hit a deer!  Jesse has since admitted that he is just all around bad with having a cell phone.  Regardless of that nonsense, he was fine, my car was just dinged up and is in the shop this week getting fixed.

Lily and I had a good time in Findlay, and even got to go over to Muncie, IN for the day to see Jess, Richard and Joel and get a short tour of where Joel and Richard are in grad school at Ball State.

One of Lily's favorite past times while we are in Findlay is watching my parents cuckoo clocks.  Yes, plural.  One clock was a wedding present to them and is the one that Team Pagano grew up hearing.  I know some people say that the ticking gets annoying, but I promise that if you live with it, you get used to it and really have to concentrate on trying to hear it.  The newer clock is one that my parents surprised us with when we were in Germany over Christmas my senior year of high school.  I love both of the clocks and fortunately, Jesse likes them too, so I think I have a good argument for getting one some day. Plus, Lily is fascinated and kept pointing saying "cuckoo, cuckoo?" and was most upset that it only went off every hour.

On Monday, Aunt Kathy arrived to spend a few days in Findlay on her spring break.  I'm so glad that everything worked out that I was able to stay in town long enough to see her as well and spend some time with her (and my parents and grand parents, of course), but it's been a ridiculous amount of time since I had seen her (and most of the family, unfortunately) and she had never met Lily!  So I'm glad this was remedied!

Mom brought us back to WV on Thursday and stayed for a bit before leaving on Saturday.  While she was here, Lily showed her how much she adores bubbles.  And that I need to make some more bubble solution.

And now, just some filler pictures.  I had a hard time narrowing down which ones I wanted to post, so sorry if there are too many!  SOMEONE was getting feisty with me that I was hogging all the internet and that he couldn't play his computer game..(I jest).

dear Chanell, Lily adores these boots.

 Oh, and I felt like baking today, so I made English muffins!  They turned out sooooooooooooo delicious.  

AND, I finished the blanket I've been crocheting for Bob!

Speaking of Bob, I am 30 weeks and a few odd days.  I had an appointment on  Monday where I had an ultrasound, my glucose test to check for gestational diabetes, got my rhogam shot (ugh) and got some blood work done.  A busy day at the doctor's office!  I've been feeling pretty good, but I can tell you with certainty that Bob is riding low.  I've had the same tech for both ultrasounds and she commented on how low the baby is both times.  I could have told her that, but I guess she gets paid to make official comments like that.  She also commented that Bob is measuring larger than just 30 weeks, which meant that either I was due sooner than June 25 or s/he is going to be roughly the size of an elephant, but by the time she was done measuring, the tech made the official statement that it all evened out to 30 weeks and right where I should be.  Excellent.  The baby's head is way, way down and she had a hard time getting a good picture or I might have had a 4d picture to share.  As it is..

shot of the face, with a hand up over the mouth.  kind of hard to see..but I apparently have a finger sucker in my tummy! the really dark slit is the eye (on the left side of the picture) if that helps you see a face..if not, just take my word for it.

While I think that overall I am carrying Bob the same as Lily, this baby still moves and acts differently than she did.  Something, I assume an elbow, has planted itself behind my right hip bone and likes to push out.  Which is just a neat feeling I can't describe beyond odd.  I think I was so excited about maternity clothes when I was pregnant before that I started wearing them as soon as I could.  I'm curious how long I could have fit in my regular jeans then because I can still zip and button most of my regular pants now.  So who knows.

ugh. feeling like a whale already. that's not good.

 Also, I believe that these pictures were taken around 30 weeks with Lily.  I was so tiny.

Tuesday. Thankful.

I'm glad it's Tuesday. My attitude has been getting grumpier and grumpier for the past few hours, and I remembered it was Tuesday and I have more to be thankful for than grumpy about.

1. The safe, happy and healthy arrival of my niece. Who I have not received nearly enough pictures of, but I will let my SIL off the hook for now. Please anticipate pictures sometime soon.

2. Gorgeous weather and new running shoes! Even if I can't use them for a few more weeks.

3. A healthy weekend! First weekend in 2 months I haven't been sick!

4. Friends loaning us a car this week while my car is in the shop.

5. Said car had diapers in it! I ran out while Lily and I out running errands and of course she had an explosive dirty diaper. I was not amused. But thankfully, her little size 4 booty fit in a size 2 diaper. I don't know how, but it got the job done until we got home to get more
Of the appropriate sized diaper on!

I was going to blog a life update last night but patio sitting and dishes got in the way. Soon! With stories and pictures.

thankful Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I have so much I am thankful for this week. Well, always.

1. A wonderful Easter weekend with family where we could celebrate Christ's resurrection! I will post pictures and tell about Lily's first egg hunt adventure later.

2. Everything worked out that I could stay in Findlay this week and visit with family more with Lily.

3. Even though Jesse decided he COULD NOT wait until this next deer season to get his first deer and he would bag his first doe (?) with the front end of my car on his way home, that it was a small deer; he wasn't hurt; since he didn't have his cell phone that he was close enough to his parents to go back; and that Lily and I weren't with him. In my pregnant, hormonal state, I would have been an absolute mess.

4. DEFINITELY thankful for good insurance!

5. Jesse, Lily, Bob, the rest of my family and friends. Generic, yes; 100% true, yes.

I will post a for real update with pictures when I get home and to my computer so I'm not blogging on my phone!

Tuesday. Thankful.

I definitely need/ed a reminder today about just how blessed I am. Lily has been a trooper over the past few days, but several later nights in a row are catching up with her and she is just a tired little munchkin today. Work was a challenge this morning, as a result of her being tired and grumpy. But I am thankful and blessed.

1. My niece, Koleen, is estimated to arrive this weeked. C'mon kiddo, your favorite and only aunt wants to see pictures!!

2. I get to see my parents, grandparents and siblings this weekend.

3. My awesome friends who watch Lily and don't complain even when she melts down over seeing dogs. Outside. That she has known for the majority of her life. Ah, the wonderful and random stages and phases that kids go through.

4. Speaking of awesome friends, that Betsy was kind enough to just laugh at me and not make fun of how naive I am when I said it would be ideal if Lily got through te "Terrible Twos" before Bob shows up.

5. My job. I really need to remind myself of this some days, but you don't get much better than what I have. Paid to play with your kid? I'm very thankful. It's more of a challenge than others some days, but I get to be a full time mom AND bring home a small paycheck to help out a bit. I wish some days I had a "real big kid job" but am so grateful that I can do this and be the one to raise my little girl.

thankful.

So, I have realized that my posts are all basically the same: updates on life, what we've been up to, Lily and Bob.  And so today, I'm just going to [hopefully] keep things short and sweet and mention some of the little blessings that we have and things that I am thankful for; because honestly, I don't think that I am grateful enough, or take the time to notice them as often as I should.  These will be in no particular order.

1. my family.  All of it.  Immediate family, family I added when Jesse and I got married, adopted siblings, adopted aunts and uncles..I'm so glad I get to see so many of them several times throughout the year, and those who I only get to see on a special occasion, I really look forward to those times!
2. Jesse, Lily and Bob.  Obviously.  Considering I thought/assumed I would never get married or have children, I consider them a huge blessing in my life.  And even though I tell Jesse that he messed up my life plans of becoming a US Marshall and traveling the world or something equally awesome, I couldn't be more thankful.
3. that Lily is imitating Jesse more than me in her food preferences.  Seriously.  He and I have joked since she was born that we hoped she had his (lack of) sweet tooth and my metabolism.  The other day, she handed me a half eaten Oreo and signed "all done," and tonight at dinner, when she and I split a bowl of cooked carrots [I foolishly thought I would get most of them] she ate the whole bowl and asked for more.  Keep in mind, this is without touching her sloppy joe OR baked potato.  I'm so thankful she loves vegetables.  
4. our house.  I admit to still being in the "honeymoon phase" of home ownership, but I love it and am having a blast, annoying expenses and all.  
5. spring.  ahhhh..I don't mind winter, but I like it for as long as there is a decent snow on the ground that I can play in.  No snow, no cold: move onto warmer weather [of 60-70F for spring, please].  Now that the weather has been warmer, we have been loving everything we can do outside together as a family.  Which, you should already know if you have read any of my past 10 blogs..and it just makes my heart smile when Lily starts signing, then saying "shoes."  And if we haven't figured out exactly what she means and that she wants to go outside [where she throws in a few signs of "outside"], she will BRING us her shoes.  And then a pair for me and a pair for Jesse.  She's brilliant: the shoes always match and go to the right person.  I'm amazed.

Yes, these were generic, but I hope to [maybe] make this a weekly event and have posts pertaining to the week.  We will see if I succeed.  I decided I needed goals in my blogging, or at least things to look forward to so I blog more often and don't just post rambles about what we've been doing.  So be on the watch for that.  Or just ignore the emails/posts if you choose :)

a baby shower and some gardening

Well, this past weekend went way too fast for all the driving we did, so our little family took a mental health day today and all stayed home from work.  I'm very grateful that Jesse and I both have jobs that are flexible enough that we can do this, so thank you to Jodi or whoever ended up covering for me this morning.

We headed to Zanesville Friday evening after dropping Zeke off at the kennel so that Jesse, Lily, Mom H and I could head out bright and early-- and by that I mean 5a!-- to go up to Michigan for Erin's baby shower.  Jesse and I realized that 7.5 hours is the longest we had ever asked Lily to be in the car at once so far, and really, she did fine.  I was tired and therefore had a much shorter temper and sense of humor about the whole thing than was necessary, but I'm still learning how to be a mom and how to travel with a kid, but let me tell ya, it is NOT the easiest thing I have ever done to keep her entertained for ~6 hours, especially since she didn't really want to nap.  

my niece's cake!  Koleen Echo Hildebrand xoxo

All that aside, I'm really glad that we were able to go to the shower and we could ride along with Mom.  We picked up Matt, headed to the church and Jesse and Matt went off to have some brotherly bonding time and look at guns and things while Mom, Lily and I went to the shower.  It was very nice, the food was delicious, and I got to see my SIL who is just an adorable little pregnant person, as well as a few members of Jesse's side of the family.  The few hours we all got to spend together was way too short for my taste, but I enjoyed what time we had.  Once Lily got over her grumpies, she had a blast running around the shower with two other little girls and playing with Nikki, who quickly reminded Lily of who she was and how awesome she is by sharing M&M's with her, and letting her get some drinks from the drinking fountain.  It was so much fun having the extra family there, because Lily was able to happily run from Aunt Patty, to Aunt Melony, to Jill, to Nikki, to Grandma, look around and find me, and then be off again.  

After the shower, we headed over to Springhill Camps where Matt and Erin both work for a quick tour.  Ironically enough, I went there when I was in high school with a friend's church group, so I remembered some of it, but they have definitely changed and added some things.  Jesse took charge of Lily so I could stretch my legs and walk around with Erin and Nikki while Erin went to check on a few things.  When we got to the zipline so she could check in with some of her staff, they asked if either Nikki or I would want to go.  Uhm, yes please!  No sooner was I getting in my harness and telling the girls NOT to mention this to Jesse because he would be jealous that I had gone off to play while he had to watch Lily than Jesse and the rest of the family drove by and saw us.  Oops.  The zipline was of course fun, even though I'm slightly petrified of heights.  I'm pretty glad that I'm not farther along in my pregnancy than I am because once I had finished zipping and was hanging at the end waiting for the staff to get me down, the harness started to put some pressure on my belly and I wasn't too big of a fan.  Fortunately, they got me down first, so it wasn't bad.  With a tummy any bigger, I don't think I would have gone, though.

Sidenote- I officially entered the third trimester today.  I am so unprepared for a newborn right now it isn't even funny, but what is funny is how little I care right now..I'm much more laid back about this whole pregnancy thing than I was with Lily, and I thought I was pretty laid back then.

When we had finished at Springhill, we went off to a tasty little BBQ joint for dinner.  Lily was still being decently pleasant, but was definitely starting to get tired and wasn't content sitting still any longer, so it made for a more trying meal than Jesse and I typically get with her when we go out to eat, but thankfully, Matt and Nikki sat at our booth and helped out a ton with her.  Lily was absolutely done when she smashed her forehead into the corner of the table..oops.

27ish and 38ish weeks

pregnant sisters!

Jesse and I headed all the way home yesterday from MI (9.5 hours, plus bathroom and food stops), so needless to say, we all slept well last night.  Lily got up at her normal time this morning, so she and I got some breakfast, bummed around then went to check Dick's Sporting Goods for a certain pair of running shoes I want [which they didn't have] before heading up to the kennel to get dog.  Even though it was about 2 hours earlier than nap time normally is, Lily fell asleep on the way home and slept almost 5 hours!  Hopefully she feels better and caught up on her rest!  Jesse had gone into town to get a ton dirt to try and level out the spot where we will be putting our garden.  He and I shoveled that out and began working on getting things level; we realized about half a ton in that we would be needing more.  We weren't too surprised by this, so he went off to get some more dirt and then we worked some more while Lily continued to nap.

shoveling dirt.  I helped, too, but then there was no one to take a picture, so just imagine it.

after we got the space mostly level, we looked and realized we had leveled it in the wrong spot.  so we had to move the whole thing.

bed 1.  also, see that field between our bed and the neighbors mess?  that's the neighbor's, but they said that if we wanted to, we could plant our garden there!  so we will also be tilling up a bit of that area and using it for the tomatoes, maybe some corn and I don't remember what else Jesse had decided would go there.  we're pretty excited about the extra space, though.

my clothesline, step 2: we decided it will go here-ish, just have to dig the hole.  Jesse wouldn't let me do that, but promised he would get it dug and the pole sunk this week.

load #2.  note the dog just chillin' in the way.  and also how low Jesse's truck is to the ground..

so, he went and got some peat to put in the beds.  as he threw the bag of peat on the ground, this sucker shot out.  ....?!? 

Speaking of our garden, the technique we are using is called "Square Foot Gardening," and you can check it out here.  We are going to be filling our beds with a mixture that is 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat and 1/3 vermiculite.  We mixed some of this up tonight to fill a bed and oh my.  If plants don't grow in it, I don't know what will because it is so light and fluffy.  Just need to keep Zeke out of it..

some of the components for our fill

more filling stuffs

helping Daddy

It was a great weekend, but I am so thankful that we could both take today off to be home since we were gone.

Oh, have I mentioned how much Lily loves reading now?  I wasn't really the new mom that would just sit and read stories with Lily when she was a newborn: we would read an occasional story, but it wasn't something that was her favorite.  I'm not really sure what changed, but almost overnight, she is now obsessed with books, and sitting quietly and patiently, listening to the whole story.  It makes my heart so happy and I love it.  Her favorite book is [of course] the Dr. Seuss ABC's book.  And by favorite, I mean to the point that THAT book is "book" and all others are ok but not the same.  I already have it memorized, and Jesse is well on his way [his favorite is "F" with the "four fluffy feathers on a Fiffer-Feffer-Feff"].  I have tried reading several other styles of books, but really, if it doesn't rhyme, she tends to shut the book and goes to get another one, so Dr. Seuss it is!  I have absolutely no problems with this, except that I don't have a very wide selection.  She LOVES the Cat in the Hat, though.  In fact, I found out that The Cat in the Hat Comes Back is one of Jesse's favorite's.  And I found this out because he was driving yesterday back to Zanesville and was listening to me read the Cat in the Hat and he missed his turn so we had to go on a detour.  The funny part is, we were in Findlay and he has driven that stretch and turned on that road countless times, he was just paying more attention to me reading than where he was, and was eagerly waiting for his favorite part of the book, which is unfortunately in the other Cat in the Hat.  Oh well, we made it safely to Zanesville and then back to our house.  

lemon tree buds

Sorry if this was a boring post, I'm kind of tired still, but I wanted to blog while I had time and share some of these wonderful pictures.  Speaking of pictures, I finally updated my picture blog.  Almost a month later.  So go check it out for lots of precious pictures of our precious little munchkin!

Last thing, seriously: I am realizing that my blog title is no longer accurate, as we no longer have fish, and that when we add Bob, it still won't be right.  So I am now taking suggestions on a new title.