The zoo, the park and 40 weeks

On Thursday at my doctor's appointment, I learned that my doctor was out of town so if I went into labor before Monday, the on call doctor (a male whom I've never met and isn't part of Dr. Hunt's practice) would deliver Mason. The physician's assistant I saw wanted to me have a non stress test done today (Saturday, my due date) if Mason hadn't come yet. So this morning I went down to the hospital to have it done and in less than 30 minutes he had passed with flying colors. While I was there, I did meet the on call doctor and learned from the nurse that Dr. Hunt shares on call with him on weekends as well as shares on call during the week with three other doctors. That's when I decided it wasn't super important anymore that Dr. Hunt deliver Mason and that I just wanted him to be here.

So after I got home, AnnaBeth and I had lunch and headed to the zoo for a couple of hours. She had a ton of fun and it wore her out! She slept on the way home but woke up when we went to visit Daddy at the shop. After we got home, I walked her to the park (about a mile one way) so she could swing and play on the slides. Here are the pictures.

I've noticed a little bit of an increase with contractions but nothing that indicate that labor will start soon. He seems to be very content in there but I really want to have him here, on the outside, to hold and love on. I'm just praying he comes soon! I have an appointment scheduled with Dr. Hunt on Tuesday morning if he hasn't come by then so we can talk about induction. And since I'm 40 weeks today, I took a few belly shots. It feels so huge and my stretch marks look like a tree. Mason also tends to lean to the left when I'm sitting so my belly is all lopsided. If I shift my weight to the right, I can literally feel him slosh to the other side of my uterus. It is such a bizarre feeling! I feel this mass just slide on over to the other side. It's just..weird.

I don't have stretch marks anywhere else (that I can see anyway), just on the front of my belly. And my veins are really noticeable too. I wonder what it will look like after Mason is born and it's no longer so stretched out....

Annual DBacks Game

Last night we went to our annual Dbacks game. 

AnnaBeth managed to stay in her seat quite a bit more this year and did a fair amount of cheering. Before the game even started she was yelling "you can do it!!"

 The one thing I want every year is one of the super huge $9 specialty hot dogs. This year I had the Arizona dog that's topped with chorizo, nacho cheese and tortilla chip strips. Mason quite enjoyed it! 

 Enjoying a tasty gummy worm

 The night before our game, the DBacks won and clinched the Division Title!

 Ian Kennedy pitching

Being silly with Grampy

In the bottom of the 1st inning, the DBacks went through the entire rotation and scored 6 runs. The Giants replaced their pitcher after that. This is a picture of the bases loaded with Ryan "Tatman" Roberts at bat.

  During the 4th inning, Baxter is in his den to sign autographs. The line was horrendous so we just went up to the front area to take his picture.

 Snagged a picture as he was trying to get out there!

AnnaBeth was pretty excited to see the "big kitty" and Mason was making sure he was noticed too :)

 Having some licorice

 Watching with Grampy

  Laughing at Uncle Mike being silly

 Uncle Mike still being very silly!

 At one point during the game (I think in the 6th), the main lights in the ballpark went out. Total surprise to everyone and we had about a 20 minute game delay while we all waited for the lights to come back on. The escalators also went out during this time and I think even the air conditioning shut off.

  Once the game resumed, the DBacks continued their slaughter of the Giants and the final score was 15-2! It was the first time we have been to a winning DBacks game in 5 years!

Celebrating a win!

Yelling "Let's Go DBacks!" with the hiccups

Last night was a ton of fun (at least for me) and I can't wait to go again next year! Although, it will be a lot more challenging next year to have a 3 1/2 year and an almost 1 year old when we go but we'll still enjoy our family time :)

36 Weeks (sort of), a progress update and Mason's party

Well I totally forgot to take a belly picture at 36 weeks so here's one from 35 and one from 37. 

 35 weeks

37 weeks

Last week at my 37 week appointment (I was really 36 weeks and 5 days), I was 2cm and 50% effaced. I wasn't too surprised by this since I had been having some very irregular and non painful contractions over the week leading up to my appointment. Over the last week, I've been having more and more contractions. Still not painful and still irregular but definitely increasing. When I went today for my 38 week appointment (I'm 37 weeks and 5 days), I was 3cm and 70% effaced. I've been working half days all week so I can get a nap in while AnnaBeth naps. It has definitely helped with keeping the contractions away for the most part. Most of my contractions this last week have occurred at work. So, with all of that, today was my last day of work. I'm still officially starting my FMLA on September 30th and thankfully have enough sick time to be off all of next week leading up to when my FMLA time kicks in. I'm so looking forward to spending this last bit of time with AnnaBeth before Mason arrives! And the naps of course. I definitely need the extra rest! 

Last weekend, my sisters threw a celebration party for me and it was so much fun! Instead of gifts for Mason, everyone gave me gift cards for retail places and restaurants (and I still need to do thank you cards...hopefully this weekend!). It was a wonderful idea!! I got gift cards for various places and all will be so very useful! I've only bought one thing so far and that's a double stroller. I had been doing some research to see what's out there and what would work for us. I was able to find one that has multiple seating positions (both forward or both facing the parent, an infant seat plus the front seat, both seats facing each other, or removing the rear seat for extra storage) and will accommodate our infant car seat. I was going to get a used one off of Craigslist but decided to check Target's website since I got the most money in gift cards for there plus I had a coupon for 20% off an online purchase. The one I had been planning on getting off of Craigslist was on there plus the newer version of it and the newer one was only $25 more! So, I ended up getting the newer version which also happened to qualify for free shipping (which saved me $39). The coupon I had saved me an additional $45 and with the gift cards, I only had to pay the tax plus a few dollars that the gift cards didn't cover. I ordered it on Saturday and it came yesterday. I can't wait to use it! The only feature it doesn't have is it can't be converted to a sit n stand in the event that AnnaBeth not only doesn't want to sit in the seat but also doesn't want to hold on to the little handle that's on either side of the stroller and walk. I will probably see if Kent is able to fabricate some sort of platform for her to stand on as well as a bench seat if she wants to sit, that we can attach/detach whenever we want. Here's what it looks like: 

And last but not least, here's the slideshow from the party. 

Labor Day 2011

Over Labor Day weekend we spent time with both my family and Kent's family. First we stopped at Nanu's so she could see my ever growing belly before we headed over to my parents. At my parents we had a delicious lunch (Dad grilled hamburgers and hot dogs) and had a super fun time swimming and playing in the pool! I'm so happy that AnnaBeth is comfortable in her floaties now and can have fun in the pool! With Kent's family, we all gathered at Aunt Kathy and Uncle Archie's house to have a surprise 60th birthday party for his dad. To get him there, Kent told him that Uncle Archie wanted him to do some restoration work on the old Impala in the garage and he needed his dad's and Wayne's help loading it into our trailer. He never suspected a thing and was super surprised to see us all in the living room when the three of them walked in! I thought for sure that he'd end up figuring it out given that he's a detective and all but he totally fell for the story that was given and it was awesome :) Kent and I had a blast swimming with all of the kids in the pool and had a yummy dinner (Uncle Archie grilled hamburgers and hot dogs)! We topped the evening off with 3 different kinds of homemade ice cream cake.

Maternity Pictures

Laura was kind enough to do some maternity pictures for us while we were all over at Aunty Kathy and Uncle Archie's house for Kenny's surprise 60th birthday party over Labor Day weekend. I'm so happy with how they turned out!! Enjoy!

"Dresser" on a Budget

For awhile now, I've been looking for a reasonably priced dresser for AnnaBeth's room but haven't been able to find one that I'd be happy with. I've found super cheap ones but they're small and any that are of decent size are at least $100. A few weeks ago, I found these book cases at Walmart for $12.88. I got two so I can use one for her books and take the smaller one and put it back in the nursery.

For that price it isn't particularly horrible but it's not the greatest either. The cardboard backing for one, wasn't cut properly and didn't fit as well as it should...it's crooked. But, not the end of the world. I decided that I wanted to use some sort of basket to hold her clothes and I found a 3 pack of these at Ikea for $15 and got two packs.

I wanted the purple ones but they didn't have them in stock so I had the idea of getting some fabric and would figure out a way to attach the fabric. At Walmart, I found little packs of fabric remnants (I got 2 because one of the patterns I wanted only had one piece in the set) and also got ball point straight pins. Some sort of stitching would work better but since I don't know how to do that, this was my solution.

The pins hold the fabric on the cubes well enough for what I need and look really cute!!

The bottom cubes...one for tops and one for bottoms.

The top cubes....one for jammies and one for sweaters (obviously in the summer, jammies won't take up nearly as much space as in the winter and instead of sweaters, I can use the other one for swim stuff).

The bin on the left has her headbands and socks. The middle container has all of her barrettes. The bin on the right has all of her training underwear (which we have yet to get started with but they will be easily accessible when we do start potty training).

 Jammies on the left and sweaters on the right

 I discovered tonight while putting the clothes in the cubes that AnnaBeth is terribly short on winter shirts. She's set for pants, jammies, sweaters and socks but only has a few shirts. Good thing our winter doesn't start for another few months...gives me time to clearance shop!

We still have to get it in her closet but I'm happy that I've got it finished and that I'm happy with it. We still have two cubes left that I will use to store stuffed animals and who knows what else.

Llama Llama Red Pajama

My friend Crystal gave AnnaBeth the book Llama Llama Red Pajama and we recently started reading it every night before bed. AnnaBeth just LOVES it and she can't go to bed without reading it. Last night I tried leaving off some words at the ends of some of the sentences to see if she could complete them. And to my surprise, she could! So tonight, I tried it on most of the pages and she did really well. After we read it, I grabbed the camera and we read it again, this time with me recording :) I am just amazed that she can do this!