Keeping in Teutsch

Pregnancy Update: WEEK 32
Size of baby: weighs around 3.75 lbs. and is around 16.7 in. long
Weight Gain: 25 lbs. Hoping to keep it around 30 total and I just might be able to!
Movement: All the time, except it feels like he is doing flips more instead of kicking.
Sleep: I'm sleeping pretty good. Thankfully, I haven't gotten to the stage where it's hard to get comfortable and sleep. Maybe I won't!
Symptoms: Back and feet are still the main things that hurt (but not all the time). Other than that, everything else is good. Still no swelling (yay!) and my blood pressure has been perfect this entire pregnancy, so I'm hoping that doesn't change in the next 7 weeks. I have to say that this past month has been quite pleasant and even though I didn't think I was really tired when I found out my iron was low last month, the iron supplement has helped give me a little boost of energy. Or maybe it's just the nesting kicking in!
Cravings: Nothing really. I've noticed that my appetite is diminishing since there isn't much room in there anymore.
Best Moment of the Month: Finally getting the "nursery" (John Hayden's part of the room) finished, and getting to see him yesterday on the ultrasound. He weighs 4 lbs. (although the weight they get from the ultrasound is not always accurate--it can be a pound off in either direction) and he is measuring a week ahead. (That doesn't mean he'll come a week early...just that his measurements are a week ahead. That also doesn't mean he'll be big. Juliette's measurements were a week ahead most of the time I was pregnant with her and she was 6 lbs. 15 oz., but had long arms and legs, so that may just mean he's long. It also could mean that he just had a little growth spurt early and will even out by delivery time, so you can't really predict how big he'll be with these measurements. Based on what he weighs now, though, and how much babies grow on average in the last weeks of pregnancy, he'll probably be around 7ish lbs.) He also is head down, which is where he should be now (but isn't really necessary since I'll be having another c-section), but good that he's getting ready!

Below are pictures of his side of the room. (And, I think I've said this already on Facebook, but not here, and I'm just going to say it again one more time because as the third of four children who shared a room and bed with my sister until she got married and moved out, it annoys me that I've had more than one person make comments about the fact that Juliette and John Hayden will be sharing a room. Ironically, these people have only one child! Anyway, they will survive. He won't be in her room for the first two months, and many, many people have their children share a room with a baby and everyone turns out fine.)

Also, at the end is a picture of some of John Hayden's outfits that I monogrammed this past weekend. (Monogramming his initials on some of his clothing made me even more excited for November 6th to get here!)

I've had this pail-like container sitting on my kitchen counter for years that I stuff recipes in. For the longest, I've had intentions to type them all out in a cute font, print them, and then glue them on cute scrapbooking paper backed with cardstock and put them on a ring with cute ribbon tied on it. The thing is, though, recipes take FOREVER to type out and when I would start typing them, I would lose interest pretty quickly. So, year after year, they've just been sitting there and every time I would need to find a recipe or want to look through the recipes I had saved, but hadn't tried yet, I had to go through every one of them. This was happening almost weekly and it was getting really old. I knew I could just buy a picture album and stick them in there by category (or even some specialty recipe book), but I wanted something a little more creative. So when I ran across a picture of a recipe smash book on the blog Joy's Hope that linked to this recipe smash book, I knew I had found the perfect solution for all my loose recipes.

All you need is a smash book (that's what it's called literally as you can see) by K & Company (scrapbooking company), some tabs (that are sold in the same section--I found my smash book and supplies on an end cap at Michaels), some pockets to glue in to your smash book, and the best part--the really fun looking tape! (If you decide to make one, the smash book with the pink spine has pictures of food in it if you want to keep with your "theme." Also, the supplies aren't that expensive.)

Juliette turned 6 on August 24th and this year was the first year in three years that we didn't celebrate her birthday multiple times over multiple weeks. (That's a good thing, because it was getting kinda crazy with all the celebrating!)

Since we've been in Lafayette, we have taken Juliette to Chuck-E-Cheese's every year on the night of her birthday, but this year she wanted her birthday party there, so we just went to Chick-fil-A for her birthday dinner. Since we live in a small apartment, we obviously can't have birthday parties at home. (Well, we could, but I'd rather not!) Chuck-E-Cheese's made hosting a birthday party so incredibly simple (and I literally got to sit down and talk with other moms for most of the party...doesn't get much easier than that!).

Here are some pictures from the party:






Every year I like to do a Q&A with Juliette to see how she changes. Here is the one I did recently: