Living the Smith Family Dream: Countdown: 8

Better late than never! Hopefully Jackson doesn't take that frame of mind and decide to hang out longer than expected before he greets us! I just realized last night that I was in a crappy mood last week and NEVER posted any pictures. Shame on me. I was also very busy last week so that's probably the bigger reason. There's been a lot going on these days and it's so easy to lose track of time.

Last week started exams for me. I had two back-to-back presentations, an exam last Wednesday and an exam last Friday.. yikes!!! I want to say that I worked Friday night, but to be completely honest, I don't remember, ha ha. Regardless, the weekend was spent cleaning and studying and running errands. We FINALLY got all that card board off the porch this past weekend (you know... the HUGE boxes from the baby furniture that we got MONTHS ago). AND, I even weeded the garden a little while Justin cut the grass.

This past Sunday was my first mother's day-to-be celebration!!! We started out the day with church where we learned how mother's day was created and all the ladies received a carnation (the Mother's Day flower). Then we headed to my parents for lunch. It was practically a meal fit for Thanksgiving and it was quite yummy. I got cards for Mother's Day and we gave gifts to my grandma and my mom. (Our mom's got a great gift from Jackson this year: a sketchbook picture frame with a belly note from him in it).

My favorite thing about being there though was having my grandma there and seeing her eat an entire plate of food!!!! It's been difficult for her since her stroke but she even had an extra serving of bread afterward. :) After lunch we scurried off to Justin's parents in Havre de Grace to give his mom her mother's day gift. We had dinner here (grilled burgers and hot dogs... which was great because I'd been smelling people grill near our house and it makes my mouth water). We hung out for a bit and came home bearing some new plants/seeds. I got a Hasta root so I can attempt to make a yard destroyed by dogs presentable and she gave us some Black Eyed Susan seeds, which I plan to plant next week sometime. When we got home, I had some studying to do for my Monday exam and we had a few episodes of Harper's Island and Breaking Bad to catch up on.

Now... my Mother's Day gift from Justin: We had originally decided that instead of a gift, he might take me shopping for clothes, which seem to scarcely fit me these days. Well, he decided to get me a gift anyway, and after some advice from a female co-worker he picked up a very nice, compact coach bag for me while he was out on travel. This is the gift that all girls love.... All girl's except me. Unfortunately I think I'm the one girl in the world who is NOT a coach fan, mainly because of their prices: I just don't think that it's worth it! The bag is very nice, and I feel terrible about it, because most guys probably would not just go out on their own and get a girl a coach bag, but we decided we would try to take it back to the outlets this weekend. I'm hoping to find a wristlet instead (which I think will be easier to shove into a diaper bag or to take out to nice places) or we'll just return it and get something more practical for me (like a $20 purse at american eagle or something). Either way, he tried to make this day special for me, and i totally ruined his suprise, but it was special no matter what.

On to this week. I had three exams this week on Mon, Tues, and Wed and i also worked Mon and Wed night. On Tuesday, we had my first HUGE emotional pregnancy breakdown. We've been trying to let the dogs have run of the house when we're not home, yet despite the fact that we close all the doors and pick things up, they always seem to get a hold of something, and it usually ends up being something of Justin's. Well he decided that we would have to start locking them up again. When we lock them up, we put a baby gate up so Jiff has run of the kitchen, but Carlin needs to go in a cage because he jumps the gate. But, Carlin is severly running out of room in the current cage we have and Tuesday morning I just felt sooooo bad leaving him in there (especially when I knew I was going to be gone from 9 am until 6pm) so just as I was about to leave the house, I picked everything up and let them have the run. When Justin realized I hadn't put Carlin away, he was furious because "I never take into account what he says." I felt really bad because I knew he'd feel that way, but I also felt really bad about leaving Carlin in such a small space, so I just sat on the couch and cried. This of course made Justin feel bad and so we decided to look for another option. So... we will either have to buy a bigger cage from petsmart (which is crazy expensive) or we'll use my brother's method of putting up a plank of wood so that the gate can be high enought that Carlin can't jump it, which will give him run of the kitchen with Jiff. While at petsmart, we picked up the Kong (the rubber chew toy that you can hide treats in) to hopefully give them something to chew that's NOT the remote, or my Dr. Scholl's inserts, or Justin's work stuff, and so far, they love it.. but we definitely need to invest in another one so they don't fight over it.

Anyhow, after a long three days, it's needless to say I was pretty tired Thursday. We also decided to hang out with some of the other Ramshead crew after work this past Wednesday (the B-52's played) and Justin had quite a few drinks involving the new iced tea vodka. I wasn't sure he'd make it to work the next day, but he most definitely did! I had a doctor's appointment yesterday: my 32 week check up! And the doctor says everything is right on still AND I've not gained any more weight yet. I'm hoping to keep that up for another couple of weeks :) After the doctor's appointment we had some errands to run and some Hastas to plant outside, then Justin joined me to take a tour of St. Joe's Labor and Delivery and Mother/Baby Units. While we were waiting for one of the nurses, Justin started asking TONS of questions about how would they know if something's wrong, could they tell if he has this or that at this point. You could tell that just being in the hospital right outside of triage where a woman was being admitted because she was in labor made him REALLY nervous. More nervous than he's let on this WHOLE time. It was pretty funny. We also got to see the nursery which made him smile a little :) After our quick tour we grabbed dinner and headed to red box and home to watch Taken. And I must say, it was a very good movie. I questioned a lot of things after, but it was good.

Anyhow, so this past Tuesday was 32 weeks (and I did take pictures) which leaves us with just 8 weeks to go before Jackson. I'm hoping that I can get my practicum done as soon as possible, but I'm not to worried about it seeing as I'll be following a nurse who works at St. Joe's on the labor and delivery unit. So, if anything goes wrong, I won't have to go far :) This weekend is surely another busy one for us though. We'll be traveling to Frostburg tomorrow (after working tonight) for my sister's graduation from grad school and for a hopeful stop at the outlets. Then, it's back to Baltimore tomorrow night and then to my brother's house (about 4 minutes away) on Sunday for my sister's graduation party. On Monday we are excited to start our 50 day countdown (finally) and hopefully I'll be able to start my practicum next week as well. The next two weekends will just be work focused and then we have our baby shower on June 6th.. which I can't wait for. It's really hard to NOT buy things that we need but I know that I need to wait until after the shower.

All in all, I've been feeling pretty good, although increasingly more uncomfortable, but despite the discomfort, we are anxiously looking forward to July 7th!!!!

Here's some 31 and 32 week pictures! Enjoy the weekend!!!

31 weeks.