33 weeks comparison

Here are the pictures from me now at 33 weeks (top) and below with Maci Rose at 33 weeks. I'm definitely bigger this time around.

Stay tuned for the extremely long birthday weekend post. We're exhausted!!

Birthday Princess!!

2 years ago today I had the pleasure of becoming the mommy of a beautiful baby girl!! I love her so much and can't believe she is turning 2 today! She has been everything I wanted and more and I pray God gives me many more wonderful years with her!!

 Happy Birthday Maci Rose!!

(Wow..I've never noticed how much hair she has gotten in the past few months)

We have a big weekend ahead of us! We rented a birthday cake moonwalk for her birthday party so I'm hoping it will be a big hit for the kids! I will be sure to post some pictures of all the festivities!! Have a great weekend!!

Confirmed....

I went back to the doctor this morning, and yes I have confirmed my conclusion from the other day... my iron level has dropped again. It was 34! Which is not too bad, but like I said before I can tell a huge difference between today and last week at this time, so I bet it was even lower than that last week. Those iron pills have been in my system for a week now and what an improvement it has made in my energy level!! I've also been eating a ton of steamed broccolli. Yum! Maci Rose has eaten more veggies in the past week than she probably has in the last 3 months. I have a hard time getting her to eat her veggies but she's been chowing down on some broccolli with melted cheese lately with me. She'll say.. "I want more boc mama."

Other updates: I weigh the same as last time again, which still has me right at 23 pounds gained total so far. My stomach is measuring 30 1/2 cm which is about 2 weeks behind, but nothing to be concerned about. Baby's heartbeat was 140. I go back again in 2 weeks. 

Everything is looking good! 7 more weeks till my little one makes his appearance...can't wait!

This pic is from 31.5 weeks. I will update soon because my stomach is growing so much more daily at this point. It even sticks out in a t-shirt now.

Last minute planning

I've been so busy with school and work lately that I'm just now getting started on Maci Rose's 2 year old birthday party which is this Sunday. I went out and bought all the plates, napkins, cups, etc. and I bought  little sand buckets with shovels at the DG and filled them with play dough, bubbles, and candy for party favors. I'm not going all out like last year. Jeremy rented a moon walk to put in our backyard and we are just going to do cake and ice cream.

Maci Rose definitely has her moments that I've blogged about before, but this past week and weekend she has been the perfect little angel! We have had so much fun planning and doing all this stuff together.  My brother came over to play with her on Friday night and she loves  when "Matt Matt" stops by. She was taking the play dough out of the party favors and he would open it for her and she would take it out and play with it for about 2 minutes and then put it back and grab another color out of another bucket. I guess each play dough will already be used by the time each kid gets to open it. Ha!

Now I'm trying to get Jeremy to finish a few projects around the house before everyone comes over this weekend and I must say he has been very helpful & productive lately. He bought more paint & touched up the kitchen above where the new cabinets were installed a little over a month ago. He also has FINALLY finished the desk that a friend was so nice to give us. (Thanks Lindsay!) Now I just need to buy new knobs to go on it & a rug for the baby's room. I also need to clean, clean, clean!! It wears me out just thinking about it, but hopefully it'll all work out for the best and we'll have a great turn out and great weather on Sunday!

I've finally come to a conclusion

This is a long and detailed post to spare some of you, but I really thought this might possibly help someone else out there in the future and it was interesting info to me!

Some of you may remember this, but a few months ago I thought I was having panick attacks because I would get so light headed and almost faint. The doctors ran a ton of tests on me including a thyroid test, overall blood count test, a heart monitor analysis, and stress test to determine what was going on and everything came back normal except the fact that I was really low on iron.  Well I've now determined that is what is making me have these fainting spells. I'm a little relieved to know that this should JUST be something that will go away once I'm done being pregnant and it's not anxiety attacks. Phew!!

Here is how I came to my conclusion...I had been taking iron pills for about 2 weeks when I started to tell a HUGE difference in my energy level, weight gain, exercise level, and no more fainting spells in over a month!! (Still not knowing that my iron level was the cause of the fainting and having my doctor tell me that shouldn't be what is causing it)  I quit taking them a few weeks ago because they were causing some stomach discomfort and I felt like I didn't really need them anymore. ( I had been taking them for about a month a half total).

Well 2 weeks ago when I went to the doctor my iron level was 36 (they like for a pregnant woman to be 35 or above), so 36 is really good for a woman in her 3rd trimester. My iron level was 32 in the 2 visits before that so you can definitely see the improvement the pills made. I told the doctor that I could really tell a difference in my attitude & energy in the past 2 months. She told me to still continue to take them every other day now, which I didn't listen and decided I would take them when I felt I needed them.

Well last Wednesday I started work back part time and while I was sitting at work I was feeling really drained and like I had absolutely NO ENERGY. So I decided I needed to start taking my iron pills again. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday, besides a few classes I would just lay on my couch all day. Seriously!! I could hardly get up. It's not a tired feeling it's more of a lazy feeling. You feel like you have weights in your legs when you move.

Well on Saturday, I had another one of those dizzy fainting spells while just sitting on my couch. I decided to google low iron because at that point I just knew that had to be causing these dizzy spells since it had been so long since I had one.

Google confirmed what I have been feeling. Iron is what creates hemoglobin in your blood stream or oxygen in your blood stream. If you are really low on iron you don't create enough hemoglobin or oxygen and therefore you can feel really dizzy and faint or pass out. I am sooo glad to finally know what was causing this!

I've had my iron pills in my system for about 5 days now and I've been loading up on spinach salad and steamfresh bags of broccolli. I can already tell a huge difference from last week. I go back to the doctor on Wednesday and I guarantee they will confirm that I'm low on iron again.

I will definitely be taking them every day from now until June 2nd! I'd rather have stomach aches than passing out spells and no energy. In another week or so I should have my energy back hopefully! I have a baby shower and birthday party in the meantime to throw, so wish me luck! (Another post to come on that!)

What she's been doing....and doing without!

Maci Rose has been into all sorts of fun stuff lately

Hanging out of her carseat in the car

Riding in her barbie car

Writing with sidewalk chalk

Playing peek-a-boo

Playing at the park

Playing with play dough

Watching t.v. and doing puzzles

Playing in her pool

But one thing she hasn't been into is her PASSIE!! Notice that she doesn't have a passy in any of these pics as well as any of my last few posts. She has gone without it for a little over 3 weeks now and I'm so proud of her! Every once in a while she asks for it at night and I let her have one but as soon as morning rolls around she gives it back to me. She's also been talking up a storm since we've gotten rid of it. And even saying a few complete sentences. My little girl is growing up so fast!!

Hoppy Easter!

Easter Sunday is always such a busy day for us so we do Easter Bunny on Saturday night to avoid the morning rush. I still don't think Maci Rose quite understands what Easter is necessarily except that Jeremy and I get all excited and she gets to eat lots of candy. Maybe next year she will understand better.
(As soon as I figure out how to download videos off the video camera I want to post the one of her pulling items out one by one of her Easter basket & throwing everything aside besides the candy).

 We laid everything out on her bed this year and hung some new clothes up, but the big surprise was outside!!!

Jeremy spent all day Saturday building it........

A SWINGSET!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the view looking from our bedroom window and that is her at the end of the slide. She has played on that thing for at least 4 hours this weekend alone already. Before church this morning she begged to go slide and pitched a fit because I wouldn't let her in her Easter dress. This may be more of nightmare than a blessing, but at least we have a "little park" in our own backyard finally!

Today, we went to church and then to my Aunt's house (dad's side) to eat lunch and hang out with cousins.

Maci Rose WOULD NOT look at the camera once today, so hopefully you can see her pretty dress because unfortunately you can't see her face.

We took some family pics....of course I look like a whale in all of them and Maci Rose wouldn't cooperate, but they were as good as I could get.

After we left there we headed to my grandparents house (Mom's side) to hang out with more family around the pool. We played hard this weekend and I'm completely worn out, but it was so much fun and great to hang out with all my family! I have another very busy week ahead of me and 2 tests so I'm off to bed.

I hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!!