The past week has been busy, busy!  Paul and I are beginning to think that Xander has entered the terrible two’s.  Why? He has started throwing extreme fits, and not only when he doesn’t get his way.  We’re dealing with random fit throwing–even when everything appears to be going his way. He’s also constantly throwing toys, food, and anything else he can get his hands on.  Yesterday he sat in time-out three times in a row and probably would have ended up there a few more times before I just removed him from the situation completely.  I know he’s just slowly gaining much-needed autonomy so I’m trying to not get frustrated with him–which can be hard when he repeatedly throws food on the floor that you just mopped, or hits you HARD because you asked him to put away the blocks.  Joys of parenting!

38 weeks, definitely feeling like a whale now!

 Not only are we dealing with a wild one, we’re also dealing with the joys of pregnancy.  Multiple times in the past week I’ve started timing contractions because I thought it could be time.  Of course multiple times I have been wrong and I’ve realized it within a few contractions.  His kicks are getting wild just like his big brother’s attitude.  A couple of times in the past week I’ve put Paul’s hand on my belly and he’s always shocked at how crazy the kicks are.

He has a little “lion bath scrubber” that I give him to dust and windex with.

Besides my boys being wild, I also have to say how sweet Xander is.  Today I wanted to clean the house since Paul has had me on lock down as far as over-doing it.  (Since I’m past 38 weeks I’ve decided Paul can take his over-protective sweet self shove it and I’m going back to my normal life as long as I feel okay–and I mean this to be sweet, I have REALLY appreciated him taking charge of X and doing all the stuff I usually do around here!)  So, today while Paul was taking his nap (he’s working the night shift!) I swept and mopped and Xanderbug helped the entire time.  He carried around the dust pan and mini-broom and helped me sweep up the piles, and then carried around the spray bottle that I use when I mop.  After his nap he helped dust and windex all the glass, and helped pick up all his toys also.  He can definitely be a sweet boy when he wants to be, and for that I’m very grateful!

The world wide web is full of clothing tutorials for little girls. And when I say full I mean FULL! As in, the good Lord knew what he was doing when he decided I should have two boys, because all I’d be doing if I had girls is sewing cute little clothes!!! Anyways, instead of posting a step-by-step tutorial for the onesie dress I just made my cousin’s little girl, I’m just going to include a few links for different ways you can make your own!

I used Prudent Baby’s tutorial and all in all it took me about 15 minutes. That’s ironing and everything!  Also, if you’re just beginning to sew her website has a lot of different tutorials that are all fairly simple but are also super cute!

Shwin&Shwin’s tutorial is a bit more involved, but I think I really like it.

Precious Spare Moment’s tutorial makes a really cute dress also.  It doesn’t leave the snaps as part of the dress, but I love the ruffles at the bottom!

Finished onesie dress for the princess.

They’ve already started calling the baby a Princess, which I find pretty appropriate since she’s the first girl amongst the great-grandchildren.  I think I might have to add a necklace to the onesie though, because what’s a princess without her jewels?

I had an amazing Mother’s Day!  Last year Paul was deployed and I just cuddled with my sweet little man, but this year from start to finish I had a really good day thanks to the boys.. (Well almost start to finish, but I’ll get to that!)

At breakfast with my little man

My day started off with Xander sleeping until 9:30–the day before he woke up at his becoming normal 7 AM, so 9:30 was heaven! Then Paul got up with him and the next thing I know here comes Xander running as fast as he can with a box. He’s starting to talk more and more and he brought me the box and said “here go” then took off again. I barely got that box opened when he was back with another box!  Spoiled as I am I got four boxes containing different kitchen items that I have recently asked for!

After the parade of presents ended Paul told me to get dressed so we could leave. The boys took me out to breakfast, and I didn’t have to pick the place–which I absolutely hate picking so that made even better. Plus the place Paul had picked out had freshly squeezed tangerine juice that was amazing and my eggs benedict were perfect. Xander was a little piglet and ate an entire adult-sized portion of French toast!!

We came back home after breakfast and here’s where the only bad thing that happened all day occurred. We put X down for a nap and while he was sleeping Paul went on a bike ride. I laid down to rest while I could and a little after Paul got back I had a gush. I honestly thought my water had broken. We called the dr and he wanted me to come in just to be sure, so we ended up spending 3 hours at the hospital because I was having contractions (shocker, since I’ve had them for so long now!) and they didn’t want to send me home if I was in labor. Thankfully the contractions didn’t pick up, and the test ruled out my water breaking–I probably just peed myself. Awesome right? Lol.

So other than the short hospital stay I had a pretty amazing Mother’s Day, and I’m extremely thankful to have such sweet men in my life.  I told the boys that Liam was so jealous of how well they did for Mother’s Day that he wanted to come early just to show them up! Thankfully he’s still safely tucked inside and hopefully will stay that way for a few more weeks, although no one seems to think that’s going to happen.

One of the benefits of having our second baby so close to Xander is that we still have EVERYTHING. I kept all of X’s clothes and thankfully we’re having another boy so we won’t really need to buy anything.  That being said, I really want Liam to have some clothes of his own! I also want some cute “big brother” and “little brother” clothes! Xander and I made Liam a onesie with my embroidery machine, but he pulled a couple of the threads and it ended up having a couple of holes.   After that I decided it might be better if I do my crafting without Xander.. So a couple of nights ago I printed out my design and did a freezer stencil thanks to instructions that you can find at Cheri’s blog.This isn’t my first rodeo with the freezer stencils–Paul and I made skeleton shirts to match Xander’s Halloween costume when we announced the pregnancy back in October.  Those turned out great, but I feel like the shirts for the brothers are much cuter!  Just a few more weeks and I’ll be able to share pictures of them IN the shirts! So exciting!!!

The finished shirts.

Next week I plan on sharing a couple of shirts I’m making for my cousin who is due a couple of weeks after me with a baby girl!  Can’t wait!  Thanks for reading!

The past week has been a little rough.  Xander has been acting out and having some major meltdowns, which I have nothing to attribute to and I’ve been dealing with the joys of pregnancy–including Braxton Hicks contractions and constant exhaustion.  Only four-ish more weeks to go though.

Looking out at all the different fish

Tonight the boys took me out to dinner and on the way back we stopped alongside the road at one of the little boat ramps/fishing areas and watched the fish.  Since I have ZERO knowledge over what all the fish are named here I can’t relay what all we saw, but I know we did see lots of spiny lobsters and little yellow/black fish swimming around.  Right as we were going to leave we saw a 4 foot long shark!  Again, I’m no marine biologist so I’m not 100% sure what kind of shark it was, but after googling the sharks in the area and photos of each one it looks most similar to a nurse shark.  So crazy to realize there are actual sharks here!!!!  I’ll be even more careful with my little ones in the water now–even though X is nearly always held when he gets wet, it still makes me a little nervous!  Days like today make me want to get some fishing poles ASAP so when we’re by the water and there are all the fish like today then we can try to catch some.  I think that Xander would love to see the fish up close and personal.

36 weeks down, and feeling HUGE!!!

Like I said before, I’ve got about four more weeks left–if Liam and I make it to the due date! I definitely FEEL pregnant now, but I’m still enjoying it.  The crazy kicks make me think that he’s definitely going to be a soccer star, or maybe a punter!  Either way, he’s much more active than Xander ever was!  We’ve been working on the nursery and little by little it’s getting finished.  I still want to make curtains and a crib skirt.. But I think I’ll have to order more fabric to do either.

Thanks for reading!