24 weeks for lovely Anna!

Today we've reached 24 weeks for Anna! All continues to go well overall....so not too much to report! I continue to experience Braxton Hicks if I am too active & do a lot of flipping at night. Slip on shoes are a must or Eric has to help me tie my shoes :) I'm still in major nesting mode & we have the upstairs to my liking & are working on the basement & garage. We might put together a garage sale in the spring so we'll see how motivated we are! After some clearance shopping myself, grandma gifts, & clothes swapping with a friend, Miss Anna will be well dressed! I haven't even gone to consignment or garage sales yet! Girls clothes are the cutest & while I still like simple, some frilly is okay....& WHOA....the pink!! :)

My next appointment with my midwife is next week at which time I'll drink the yummy gestational diabetes juice....can't wait! I'll also get the order for my Rhogam shot for my Rh- incompatibility. It's amazing that modern medicine has essentially eliminated any issues with Rh negative blood types.

Eli started to do this funny thing lately. He lifts up his shirt & wants his belly to kiss my belly....so cute!! Here's my blog entry from Eli's 24th week.

24 weeks

Fun 24 week fact: Her lungs are developing "branches" of the respiratory "tree" as well as cells that produce surfactant, a substance that will help her air sacs inflate once she hits the outside world (babycenter.com).

What's Eli been up to??

Typically, Eli's days have looked like this:

6:30/7:30am Wake up with daddy, eat breakfast, "daddy" time
9:30ish Mommy & Eli go to some fun activity that may include: Toddler Town, Music with Mar, playdate, mall play area, or other fun play place. If we stay home, play with mommy & daddy
12:30pm Lunch with mommy
1/1:30pm Nap (although somewhat hit or miss these days) with either mommy or grandma (daddy on weekends)
3pm Snack with either mommy or grandma
3:30pm More play with mommy or grandma
6pm Dinner with either mommy or grandma
6:30pm Bath with mommy
7pm Quiet play with mommy
8pm Bedtime with mommy

So, the word used most often is "play"!! The below pictures show just a few of the fun things we've been up to!

We attended "Tunnel Voyage" a couple weeks ago & Eli LOVED it. Definitely have to return with daddy. Here's Eli sporting his Tunnel Voyage pirate hat:

Eating a bedtime snack with chopsticks with daddy:

Daddy was able to attend "Bump City" with us last week....another Eli favorite:

Eli's latest fascination is the "game on t.v." or Pac Man:

A weekly (or sometimes 2 or 3 times a week!) favorite....Toddler Town!! Eli likes to "help" push other kids around on the riding toys. Usually the boys think it's fun & the girls HATE it & I have to remind Eli to let them have their turn :):

Eli checking in to see if she wanted to be pushed....she didn't:

A doctor's waiting room favorite!:

Eli getting his own turn driving:

Today we attended a playdate at a playgroup mommy's gym they own. More fun times!!:

Tunnels!:

Eli practicing his gymnist skills:

Who knew tires were so fun....or made your hands so BLACK!!!:

We continued to be showered with love from Eli daily....what an awesome age. I remind myself that some day, not too far away, he will not want to kiss or hug :( He is doing better with picking up his toys, saying "please" instead of whining or begging, & allowing mommy to give hugs & love while SITTING. He insists on kissing my belly (bare is his preference) multiple times a day & likes to see her sonogram pictures. He likes to say he is a brother, too. We read books about a new baby & will soon get him his own doll to "practice". He shows such love & concern to our playgroup babies so I know they'll be no lack of affection for Anna. Independent play can still be hard, but we're working on it :)

23 weeks for Miss Anna!

Today is 23 weeks in utero.....she's a mover! I feel her more & more all the time. This week babycenter says she can hear a lot better the outside world so while working today, she just kicked & punched all day! Hopefully that means she will finally allow daddy to feel her!! I feel bigger each day & continue to feel random Braxton Hicks. Sleeping is about the same....some nights better than others! Otherwise, not much else to report!

Fun 23 week fact: With her sense of movement well developed by now, your baby can feel you dance.

I plan to post again this week about Eli so keep checking in!

P.S. I forgot to add a link to Eli's 23rd week update...here it is!

Random

Some of you noticed that your comments don't show up right away. I activated comment moderation due to getting a couple strange spam comments or something...who knows. This means when you comment, an email is sent to me & I then have to accept or reject the comment. THEN it will post to the blog. So, no need to publish a comment numerous times. Sorry for the confusion!!

Anna's room

Anna's room is complete, for the most part, except for cleaning out her closet, which is now storage, & of course, filling her closet with clothes!! :) You may wonder why I felt the need to finish her room so soon before her arrival, & I'll tell you! I will start to cover my supervisor's maternity leave the 2nd week of February & will be working about 25-30 hours a week for 12 weeks. This is a great financial opportunity for us & will look good on my resume so I'm glad I can do it. My supervisor will return 3 weeks before my due date at which time I will be done with work! YAY!! More on that later.....Regardless, I really wanted to get Eli & Anna's room done, living room organized, closets cleaned out, & several other chores done before I started this job. Plus, I feel good right now & I know later, I won't be so motivated!

We decided upon finding out we were pregnant that we would re-use Eli's nursery decor & furniture for baby & buy new bedding/decor for Eli's room to make his more "big boy" & save money. Thankfully, we had bought gender neutral nursery items for Eli so this has worked out great! While I know Anna will spend at least the first 5-6 months in our room to sleep (or more if like Eli), I like giving her her own space....maybe more for me than her :)

Anna's room used to be the guest room of our 3 bedroom house & it's pretty small. We had to be creative about furniture spacing. The previous owners painted it a dark brown & had white shelves on one of the walls. We decided to keep the shelves to save space (& money) by not having to buy a bookcase. Because the bedding already has brown in it, we decided to keep the walls brown & paint a stripe as we did in Eli's room. We chose green, since the bedding has a lot of green, & color matched paint at Home Depot. What's great about gender neutral or multi-colored bedding/decor is if you focus on one or two colors, it transforms the look. For Eli, we focused on the browns & blues. For Anna, we focused on green, brown & cream. In the end, we have only bought paint for the stripe & letters for her name.....yay for saving money!! For fun, you can compare pics here of how the same bedding was used in Eli's room....now for pictures!!

Eli's room is almost done, too. We have some more decoration to put up before posting pictures but I love it so far!! It's much more toddler friendly & thankfully we (grandparents did as part of Christmas I should say!) only bought the bedding, a lamp, a bean bag, & a few fabric toy bins. We're attacking closets this weekend....fun!

22 weeks

Our lovely little Anna is 22 weeks in utero today. I continue to feel good & sleeping, for the most part, has been going well! I haven't needed to bring out my body pillow! I sleep the best elevated, as I did with Eli, so I'm sure eventually I'll be sleeping that way all night. Whatever works! She's becoming much more active, but sadly, only I can feel her so far. Soon daddy & Eli will get to feel her kung fu kicks!

I have so enjoyed looking back at Eli's blog & journal entries to compare week to week to Anna. One symptom that I have enjoyed not having with Anna is pregnancy acne. Who needs reminders of high school while carrying your child?? Other symptoms have been improved with Anna's pregnancy, so let's hope that trend stays true!

Anyway, fun 22 week fact: Her eyes have formed, but her irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment.

22 weeks

Our sweet girl shall be named.....

Anna Lorraine Clarkson

For Eli's pregnancy, we had several girl & boy names picked out....mostly girls....not because I preferred a girl, but I guess girls think of girl names, & boys...boy names! I knew I wanted to use our first letters (A & E) but was not sure if we would use an "E" name for a boy & "A" name for a girl or vice versa. Along with Elijah, we (moreso me) liked Evan, Ethan, Alexander, & Ashton. For girl names, I liked Abigail, Alexandria, Ava, Emma, & Eva. We decided to use an "E" name once we found out Eli was a boy. Then, as time went on, Elijah (we knew we would call him Eli) really stuck with me. I just kept going back to it! As for his middle name, Lee, it is a family name being my dad's & Eric's mom's middle name. Here's our post about naming Eli.

So, for Anna, once again, we just liked it. For the longest time I thought we would name her Abby, short for Abigail or Abilynn. But, Anna just stuck in my mind for a couple of months! Plus I think it is a very sweet & simple name.



As for Lorraine, it is my grandmother's middle name (the one I always refer to as the great cook, amongst other wonderful things). My grandmother loved birds, red birds in particular. Their house has a 3 window breakfast nook with a tree directly outside of it where they would very diligently maintain bird feeders. My grandmother loved sitting at the table & watching the birds....the red ones being her favorite. My sister, Holly, came up with the idea since my grandmother's passing about 6 years ago, that when we saw red birds, it meant grandma was near. These last couple of weeks I have seen several red birds around...just randomly sitting in a bush or tree outside my window when I happened to look out (of course this isn't TOTALLY odd since our neighbors have several bird feeders :). Regardless, it seemed to be a small sign to me that we needed to give our little girl her middle name.

So, there you have it, Eli & Anna....how cute is that?? :)