Thoughts on Having a Third Girl

Yes, you read that right, we are adding to our girl tribe and having our THIRD girl! Now let me point out that this entire pregnancy, so far, everyone has been asking if we're hoping for a boy. I have NEVER said I want a boy and a girl child and that would make me happy. Sure, it's this semi-ideal norm so you can say you have one of each, but since I know you cannot control the gender as much this is not something I'm prepared to work myself up over.

Larry and I have always agreed to having between 3 and 5 kids. I have made the decision that 5 kids is WAY too many for me to handle, so I'm settling on 4 being our good, even number, no matter the gender.

When I was pregnant with Cara, I thought FOR sure I was having a boy. I had always envisioned having a boy first to be a big brother to any other kids (didn't care what we had after that). When I found out she was a girl I was so sad and scared. I had NO idea what I'd do with a daughter. I immediately had visions of her being 7 and hating me for picking out an ugly shirt (pregnancy hormones do those crazy things to your head haha). Once I got used to the idea I LOVED it. I'm also not one to say she's a girl and can only have girl/pink things. I want ALL my kids to feel they can do or be anything they want. The sky is the limit! Once she was born and having watched her grow over these almost 3 years, I couldn't imagine having any other kid than Cara. She's a GREAT first born and older sister.

When I was pregnant with Gwen I had the same thoughts, we were having a boy this time. When I found out she was a girl, I thought raising sisters would be SO much fun. I was more nervous that Larry would be upset at not having a boy. When I asked him he said it didn't matter to him, he was used to having a girl so it didn't make too much of a difference to him. I think he saw that girls can be pretty fun too.

Now with this baby, I have had those "boy" feelings, but then told myself everytime I felt that, it ended up being a girl. Since conception was a total surprise for me I wasn't sure what to expect really. I just knew we'd be happy with either. If we were having a girl then she'd be the cheapest girl because we have EVERYTHING except a coming home outfit and new bedroom decor all at the ready (toys, clothes, blankets, even our carseat was still good. Everything else would be a hand me down, because I'm not one to buy ALL new things just because it's a new baby). If we found out this one was a boy, then I'd have fun going shopping, but he still wouldn't need much since I like to get mostly gender neutral items to be saved and used over and over. 

Once the tech said girl, I just had to laugh a little. Larry always joked we wouldn't have any girls. Whenever I'd talk about having a daughter he'd say "don't get your hopes up. I have all uncles, all brothers, we're not having girls. Only boys run in my family." I'd tell him he was going to jinx us with only girls so I had to point that out after we were done with our ultrasound. Luckily, we both agree as long as the baby is healthy we really are okay with what we have and we love our kids unconditionally. They are the best things in our lives and we're so grateful we are even able to have babies (as I know a few people who can't and it's heart breaking to hear those stories).

So that's our "we're having a girl" post and why we are okay with it, so please don't assume we're sad or have any gender disappointment going on here. Maybe in 15 years we might be singing a different tune though haha.

The Best Idea...

You know what I discovered? When you have duplicate kid gifts that you know could've came from Wal Mart then the best idea is to return them to Wal Mart and get a gift card in exchange. Then you take your kids down the toy aisle and let them go crazy! They get to pick out what they want and you get to be a fun parent.

 

That's what we did today and I tell ya...I'm going to take advantage of this while we get little kid toys for Christmas as much as possible! haha. It was fun being the fun parent for a day and the kids got some good stuff :)

Treehouse Museum

 Man I love new adventures and going to new places. We had a plan to go look at a new housing community in northern Utah (half for fun, half out of curiosity) and it was such a quick trip we decided to stay up there for the day. I  knew of a Treehouse Museum in Ogden that we might not have another chance to go to again so we stopped there for a fun few hours.

If you haven't been, let me tell you: this place was SO much fun and had so many different areas for different ages and I would recommend it to so many other families.

Gwen was so excited to crawl along this bridge and I was watching her figure out how to go up and down both sides and coordinate her legs and arms to accomplish going across. There was a firetruck to play on that the girls really loved as well and a treehouse area to climb up and walk through.

When we went it happened to be a really cold, snowy day and so it was a great way to pass the time through that. The girls definitely didn't want to leave and we literally had to drag them kicking and screaming out of there (Larry ended up losing his fitbit from the whole ordeal). So that was fun, but at least we know they liked it.

I have a brother who lives up there and I feel bad I didn't think to reach out to him about if he'd want to bring his kids and hang out with us, but we'll definitely have to go again!

4 Months (weeks 14 - 17)


Compare/Contrast: The mucus this time around has gotten to be insane! I've had it this entire time, I go through 20 tissues every morning (it hits every morning after I brush my teeth, before I do mouth wash). After I blow my nose over and over until it feels clear enough, I feel I have so much phlegm in my throat.

I'm still on my meds for the sickness. I tried to go off it a couple weekends ago, but I did end up feeling a little nauseous towards the end of the night, so I'm going to wait until I'm closer to 20 weeks to stop it.

I'm still waiting to feel movements. With Cara I didn't feel for sure movements until closer to 19 weeks, with Gwen I felt it around 16/17 weeks (and SAW outside movements at 19 weeks). This pregnancy is reminding me a lot of Cara's so far.

Best Moments This Month: Celebrating the holidays with families. I wish we could've bought baby stuff, but not knowing the gender makes it a bit difficult (it's not like we need toys, and if we have another girl we don't need clothes). It does make me excited for the holidays this year since this baby will be around 6 months old then!  

Of course, I always love our Monday check ins with the doppler. So far the heartbeat has been around the 150s and feels like it's getting stronger every time I check.

I've really been soaking in my girlies lately. They've been playing and bonding and acting so cute and it makes me so excited to meet this newest little one. Regardless if it's a boy or girl I know he/she will be loved and cute and the girls will make their games threesomes and I can't wait to see another amazing little personality grow up with us!


What I'm Looking Forward To: Finding out the gender for sure! I'm really looking forward to the whole anatomy scan just to check on everything. I can't wait to see the fingers, toes, bum, the organs, the fluid levels, and watch the little one move.

2020 Goals

Okay, this year is a big one for me. I’m not sure why, but I suddenly had so many goals that hit me in December that I really wanted to accomplish this year. So here goes with what I hope to accomplish this year:

• Perfect doing a French braid. I’d like to have this one done before this baby is born so I can do my own hair for the labor part. I am planning on practicing this each night as I watch my movies/shows…practice makes perfect as they say.
  
• Learn how to make an omelet. This is a silly one, but I really would like to find a way to do this for a Sunday breakfast occasionally. No time frame on it, just something I’d like to do.
  
• Start and keep to a skin care routine. This is one that I thought of as I was looking in the mirror with my face next to the girls’ faces. Their skin is just so pure and pretty and clear and mine looks like I’ve spent 30+ years doing nothing for mine. I need to start washing my face a lot more often. I’ve got tons of muds, masks, and exfoliating products I can start using. Just so many things to help me. I think after the baby is born I might try and include taking cooler showers (not cold, just not scalding hot like I’m used to) to help my skin and start using lotions.
  
• Read more. I have a goal to have all my magazines (I have about 90) read before the baby is born and have all my current unread books ready by the time I go back to work from maternity leave. If I can’t finish my books by that point then I’d like to have them done by the time I’m done pumping.
  
• Learn more about football. Another silly one, but I’d like to learn more about the positions, the AFC/NFC teams, and the rules. I love watching the games, but I need to know more so I can understand the calls.
  
• Work more on the house. This is one where I’m constantly making lists of things I’d like for the house to make it nicer, but I never implement. This year I’d like to start actually getting the things, maybe setting aside a monthly budget for each thing and just doing it already! I also want to update our toy bins for the girls. Right now we have y big bins that have random toys in them for Larry to leave out for the girls – one per day. I’d like to change it to types of toys, get rid of crap ones, and help them learn more about cleaning up. For example, we’d have a bin for blocks, bin for action figures, bin for soft toys, etc. Then Larry would pull out the blocks and let the girls play then they’d clean them up to start a different bin. Fingers crossed this one works out.
  
• Stick to weekly plan. This includes cleaning, visiting family, doing fun family stuff, learning throughout the week, etc. 

Like I said, ambitious, but I think I’ll have fun with it. I’ll keep the complimenting strangers and trying to stay on top of the blog. Other than that, I have specific post-partum goals I’ll post about later. Unfortunately, as of this point in time, we don’t have a family vacation planned for this year, we’re thinking we’re going to do a staycation again after the baby is born, and then we’ll play the 7 month trip for next February (2021) and that’s our plans for vacations for now.

Happy 2020!

I’ve been so looking forward to New Years Eve for at least 10 days now! Christmas used to be my absolute favorite holiday, but for some reason, this last year it’s been New Years. I can’t keep mentioning why I love it, but it’s the best to have a fresh start. I think this year I was mostly looking forward to it because I couldn’t stay up last year. 

This year, though, I was so excited to play games, have pizza and root beer, get some sparkling cider, and watch the ball drop! The only thing that didn’t work out like I had hoped was that the ball drop show didn’t even start until 11 (grr!). So, we decided to put on a movie on Netflix (Night at the Roxbury – didn’t pay attention to a second of it) while we played games. We decided to do an I pick one, he picks one, then I pick one way of picking games. I was so excited to play Scattegories…turns out we don’t have that game somehow (I could’ve sworn we did), so I let Larry pick the first one. We played Monopoly (he won), Quarto (tie game), Life (he won), and then it was my turn, so I made Larry dig up an old N64 and Mario Party 64 and we played that. It was SO much fun! Larry still won (again), but it reminded me so much of being a kid and playing that game again. The bonus was that we finished it RIGHT at 11:56. We turned on the ball drop, grabbed the last of the sparkling cider (Larry drank a good chunk of it at dinner time), and did our midnight kiss.

Luckily the girls went to bed on time, even with some fireworks going off, and stayed asleep while we partied down stairs (I’m not one to let kids stay up till midnight just yet – too young and they can’t play our games so why not just let them sleep?). So now that it is officially 2020 I’m so excited for this year! We’ll be finding out how healthy and what the gender of the new baby is, we’ll be welcoming said baby, I’m hoping to have Cara Potty trained and get her into preschool by the end of the year, we’ll be enjoying a fun summer (which I’ll be on maternity leave for), and it’ll be a great year! I’ve got a lot of goals for the year, so I’ll be doing a separate post on how ambitious I’m feeling this year 😊

Happy New Year Y’all! Make it a great one!