The Nursery and My Noah Belly

Okay, here is what we did with Noah's nursery. We got it completely done with about 3 weeks to spare. I like the way it turned out and now that he is here, he LOVES the stars. Almost every time I change him on his changing pad, he smiles and stares at them from across the room. I think he approves. We bought his bedding at Target and decorated to match the blankets and sheets.

The wall color is Mid-Day Mocha and I love it. It does remind me of a hot, gorgeous cup of coffee. The view from the door...

The closet, play corner, and some of the stars on the wall...
The crib and stars...I bought these little wooden stars at Hobby Lobby and hand-painted them to match the bedding. The girls helped me paint a lot of them.
The wall across from the crib...I have it changed up a little now, but it's mostly the same.

Now, I did not take pictures of my belly every single week. Especially during the packing and moving period of the fall. That's okay though. I am pretty sure I got enough to show him one day how big I was with him in there. :)

I also left out some of the bare tummy pictures. I am just not sure those are blog appropriate. I was huge at the end. At 36 weeks, I measured 42 weeks. :) At this point, I got an extra ultrasound because we wanted to estimate his size. This was one of the factors that led to the c-section. Once a baby is over 8.5 pounds, a VBAC becomes more and more risky. At 36 weeks, by his body measurements, he was estimated to weigh 7.5 pounds, which was about 1-1.5 pounds more than the average baby at that gestation. His head measured 41 weeks in diameter and was above the 97th percentile. :) We knew he would be around 9 pounds if we let him go full term, and thus, decided for a 39 week c-section.

On that last ultrasound, we also saw the cause of my TERRIBLE heartburn...he had tons of hair. You could literally see the fuzzy stuff on the sonogram. :)

So without further ado, the growth of the Noah belly...

7 weeks

10 weeks

11 weeks

16 weeks

19 weeks

23 weeks

30 weeks

33 weeks

36 weeks

36.5 weeks

Lexi snuggling her baby brother, 37 weeks

38 weeks

He was born at 39 weeks exactly...January 10th!!

Two Weeks To Go...

As December came to a close, we already knew we were having a c-section with Noah. It was officially in the computers at Scott & White...yikes! I was super nervous about it too, but had a peace that we had made the right decision for his birth. Now all I had to do was calm my nerves, not think about it, and just enjoy my last two weeks with my precious girls.

I did lots of cleaning and organizing, went grocery shopping to stock up on as much stuff as I could, and had fun with the girls. I took the girls to the gym to play, Chick-Fil-A for lunch and playground time, took walks, went to the park, read books and played board games, and had some fun snack times at Starbucks. The girls absolutely LOVE to sit down at Starbucks and drink an organic vanilla milk while I sip on something else. We also had a movie day and got pedicures. Now that was quite a feat trying to paint my toenails while 38 weeks pregnant. At least my toes looked good for the surgery. :)

One day, while we were drawing on the Magnadoodle, Lexi tried her hand at a letter A. I thought she did GREAT for her first try but she is too much the perfectionist and was frustrated since it wasn't perfect. Sweet girl!

My Dad and stepmom sent these awesome Cinderella shoes for the girls that light up when you walk. The girls still wear them every single day at some point...
I was thankful for the mild winter too. We spent a lot of time in the sunshine. :)
Such sweet sisters!
I managed to finish this painting that I had been working on slowly for weeks. I wanted to have it done before Noah came and thankfully got it done.

One of my other worries, besides the surgery, was leaving the girls for the hospital. I had some of the best ladies I know lined up to help me care for them, but I hated to leave them. I have never spent a night away from them before and teared up just thinking about it. Eric planned to come home every night at dinner time and sleep here with them, but I knew I would miss them.

So a few days before I went in, I bought the girls these headbands...

Headbands are their favorite hair accessory right now, and they had begged for these at Christmas. I got them as a "when you look at these and put them in your hair, remember that Mommy misses you and will be home soon" present. If you ask them today what those headbands stand for, they will tell you that they mean their mommy loves them and misses them. :) They even wore them in their hair when they came to meet Noah for the first time.

Family Pictures

My dear friend Miranda was kind enough to take some family pictures for us year. I didn't want to go get professional ones done until Noah arrived and I could get some of the 3 kids together. She offered and since she takes REALLY good pictures, I thought it was a wonderful idea. Here are my favorites. I know there are lots of them, but you should see how many she actually took. :)

They were taken on November 24th...