BillyandAshlee.com

Wow, has it really been several weeks since I updated on here? Well, here goes.

Pregnancy

I am 21.5 weeks pregnant with a little soccer player. I can’t believe how much this baby boy is constantly moving/kicking vs. how Lauren was, she was much more calm. eek. He is especially active from 9pm-12am every night. That might be just because I’m sitting more and am noticing though. I am up 8.5 pounds which according to what I’ve found online, means I’m just a bit under in hitting a total gain of 25 pounds. Fine by me! But the weight gain has picked up in the last 3 weeks, as I expected, I finally have an appetite for the first time in 4 months! I’m really feeling pretty good, except hip pain when I’ve been sitting too long (such as at work all day), every time I stand up to walk it’s shooting hip pain. It had stopped with Lauren by now, oh well, hopefully it will be soon. Lauren felt a really strong kick last night and her eyes got super big and a huge smile. No progress on names, Billy veto’s everything I suggest. I told him if he veto’s much more, he’s going to lose his vote! We have our level 2 sono a week from Tuesday to check on the baby’s heart, I’ll make sure I update then.

Lauren

Lauren is doing great. She’s still a little affected by the move, even though she’s never said anything. When we leave her in a room alone, she freaks out and starts yelling “I’m all by myself!!! I’m all by myself!!”. That never bothered her in our old house. I’m sure she’ll get adjusted just in time to move again. There are 2 little boys that live next door and she’s forever watching for them to go outside so she can go play with them. Our little social butterfly. She makes sure to wave and yell hi to every neighbor, even if they’re 1/2 a block away. She’s always super cuddly and loves sitting on your lap and gives tons and tons of hugs and kisses and “I love you mommy/daddy’s”, in such a sweet, thoughtful, sincere voice with direct eye contact, I soak up each of those moments. She spends most of her free time playing with all her various “babies and kids” (which range from dolls to stuffed animals), pushing them around in strollers, feeding them, putting them in time out, etc. It’s pretty freaky to open closets and find dolls face down in there…but heaven forbid you move them, because they are in time out. If she’s not playing with dolls, she’s playing teacher…either with us or with her dolls or with Brody…she’s a very bossy teacher. She’s begging to go ride horsy’s again as they’re her “faaaaaavorite animal”…if we have a break in the rain over the weekend, we’ll definitely take her to Deanna Rose to ride them a few times…she really does have a love affair with all animals, never fearful, but overwhelmingly loves horses. Hmmmm, riding lessons in her future perhaps?

New House

It’s moving along great!! I’d love to post some pictures, but each time I ask Billy if I can upload to Picasa yet, he tells me that computer isn’t set up yet. I have no idea how many computers we have in this house, but apparently the one I need he must not need as it’s low on the priority list. I’ll bug him over the weekend. Anyway, framing is almost complete!! We have our “post-framing” meeting with our construction manager tomorrow where we discuss electrical, plumbing, insulation, and kitchen/bath cabinet layout. The entire thing is framed, all the windows are in, the roof is on, and they’re running all the ductwork for the hvac now. I’m really hoping we’ll get a rough idea of when we’ll close tomorrow!! Hoping for late July or early August!! We are still working through a few final things like selecting blinds, but we are pretty much done with almost all of the decisions, just sitting back and waiting for it to be done! We go out there almost every night, it’s very cool to walk through what will be the house we’ll raise our family in, and likely the only house Lauren (and definitely her brother) will ever remember.

Just as I thought, it felt great to have some normalcy back in our lives!! Here are the highlights of my fab day!

- mailed our taxes…done!!! I always have a huge weight off of my shoulders when I drop those returns off at the post office!

- I got an audit done and into my director for review…only 2 more and I’m all caught up!!

- After work, Lauren and I stopped at the gas station for gas and a snack (keeps her happy so we can drive by the new house) and drove by the new house…and fabulous news!! The floating slab garage floor had been poured!! And the entire first floor was being framed and we could actually “see” our house!!! They were still there working when we drove by after 6pm, so I can’t wait to see the progress after work tomorrow, Billy is dying of anticipation of seeing it himself. I think we’ll probably get out of the car and walk through too!! I felt weird enough taking pics with my phone while the guys were working, I didn’t want to walk a 3 year old through by myself with them there:) It’s ssssooooo exciting to be at this stage!!

- Billy had a Board meeting tonight, and the weather was gorgeous!! So when Lauren and I got home, we spent some time outside blowing bubbles with her new bubble blowing stuff she got in her Easter basket (she’s been begging, but it’s been raining since Easter until today)…then we took Brody on a walk in our new neighborhood. Brody on the leash, Lauren on her tricycle (hers has the push handle thank goodness as she gets “tired”)…but let’s just say a pregnant lady, 115lb dog that’s been cooped up inside because of rain since Saturday, and a 3 year old on a tricycle was probably pretty comical! But we loved it. We found a little park and playground a few blocks away and Lauren played and made friends with another girl a few years older. Then we came home and ate dinner and watched Peter Pan and I was selfish and love our mommy/daughter nights and kept her up way past her bedtime, I think it was 9:40 when I left her room…oops!

I should go fold laundry or work on an audit I brought home, but I’m totally enjoying sitting on the couch, feeling my baby boy kick, putzing around on the internet, while watching Real Housewives (I love having control of the tv when Billy is gone!). I love today.

We spent from 9am until almost 8pm yesterday moving. I spent the day today unpacking and am 99.9% done (Billy still has to work on his office), just some organizing of our bedroom closets to go. Lauren and Brody seemed to have made it through ok, we’re all just exhausted.

A special thanks to Shane, Katie, Damon, Paul, Ryan, Meggan, Price, and Nigro for all of your help…we couldn’t have done it without you!!!

Tomorrow is moving day #1 (#2 will hopefully be in August!). We are *almost* ready, just a few boxes left to pack…a few things in the kitchen and bathroom. We would have been done last night, but I sat down when we got home after 8pm and was asleep before Billy even put Lauren to bed at 9. Too many late nights in the last few weeks getting ready for the move and everything else that’s been going on. We’re all pretty sad it’s our last night in our current house, we’ve lived here for 8 years. It wouldn’t be so sad if we were moving to our new house…but we aren’t all that excited for the temporary house. We met our neighbors at the “in between house” this week and they have little boys around Lauren’s age, so I’m sure she’ll love that after not having really anyone in our current neighborhood to play with. We have an army of people helping us tomorrow morning, so we’re hoping it goes pretty quick.

At our new house, the basement is complete and the floating slab garage floor has been prepared except for pouring of the concrete. The weather hasn’t been good to do that, so instead, they started framing yesterday!! We drove by last night and it appeared, through the rain, that the basement is framed!! With the rainy weather today, the framers aren’t working today and our construction manager said that if we get rain all next week like they’re calling for, we’re going to be behind schedule. Oh well, we can’t control the weather. The good news is that we have a pretty flexible lease on the “in between house”, it’s through the end of July, but we can just let them know when in August (hopefully) we’ll be out and they’ll prorate the rent. Hopefully it won’t be raining this weekend and we can get some pictures of the house to post!

Lauren is really excited about her baby brother. She talks to him every night before bed and gives him lots of kisses. I’m sure he’ll get bossed around quite a bit, but I’m positive she’s going to be a fabulous big sister! We are totally excited to have one of each. I’m a bit nervous about the high energy level of boys, but at least he’ll have his sister to keep him entertained. And double toys in our house…girls and boys. We may have to do some additional purging! Once we are settled in the “in between home”, unpacked, and our taxes are done (CPA’s personal taxes are always the last ones done!), I can’t wait to start planning the decorations/theme for the kids joint bathroom and playroom. Mom and I already pretty much have the baby’s nursery all planned out, she’s been very convinced since the day I told her I was pregnant that it’s a boy (as was Billy), so her and I have spent hours planning a boys nursery and barely talked about a girls. So there shouldn’t be too much for me to do there, although she’ll be busy sewing and quilting all of the bedding and curtains! We have everything from Lauren (pack n play, stroller, car seat, high chair, etc), but we will definitely have to buy a few new things that we have only in pink…such as blankets, burp cloths, hats, changing pad covers, etc. I can’t wait to start doing a little shopping! We promised Lauren she could pick out a present for her baby brother as well, so we’ll probably do that over the weekend, if we can squeeze it in around moving and Easter!

As I said it’s a boy!! Here are the details!

At the beginning of the scan, my bladder was *too* full, so as soon as we started, the tech made me empty my bladder! When I came back, she asked if we wanted to know the gender, we said we did…that we didn’t find out with our daughter but we are this time and she asked if we were hoping for boy or girl and we said we didn’t care but that Lauren wants a girl. A few mins into the scan, she was pointing out stuff and said “uh oh” and there was silence, Billy said, “uh oh what?” and she said “omg - I should never say uh oh during a sono, I just meant that your daughter is going to be disappointed!” so Billy said “does that mean it’s a boy?” and she said “yes, it’s a boy!”. I honestly wasn’t surprised because my mom is ALWAYS right on gender and she’s been saying this is a boy since I got pregnant! Of course, I don’t want to be one of those people that is told one thing and have the other come out (I’m probably paranoid about this since there was no room for error with Lauren as we found out at birth!) so I asked if she was positive (she’s been a tech for over 20 years and is awesome, was our tech with Lauren also) and she said “there’s never a 100% guarantee, but I’ll give you 99.9%!”!! And she proceeded to take pictures of boy parts from every angle imaginable for us so that I would believe her!

The baby was crazy busy, moving the entire time, changing entire positions every few minutes. No wonder I’ve been feeling him move for so long, he’s crazy! And what’s interesting is that my placenta is on the front wall of my uterus, so it should be acting as a cushion meaning I don’t feel it as strong…imagine what I would be feeling if it weren’t in front! I also have a low lying placenta again (I had it with Lauren too), so she did a transvaginal u/s as well to make sure it wasn’t over the cervix (placenta previa) and it’s not, but really close. So, unless I have any bleeding (which I haven’t), I can maintain normal activities and I’ll just some extra sono’s to make sure it resolves itself like it did with Lauren, which they full expect it to (otherwise I’d have to go straight to csection which I don’t want to do).

All the measurements on the baby were great, he’s actually measuring big…10oz at 18w0d (my babycenter update says he should be 7oz this week!)! In total, he was measuring at 19w1d, so about 8 days ahead, with a due date of 8/31 instead of 9/8, but the dr. decided to keep my due date the same. We watched his hands open and close many times and she said that’s a great sign the baby doesn’t have Downs, as Downs baby’s usually keep their fists clenched. No cleft lip. I forgot to ask about heart rate, but when we listen at home, he’s always in the 120’s (Lauren was always in the 150’s). Our tech said that given second babies usually come sooner and he’s measuring big, it’s a good possibility I could have him in August! eek! I’m not sure they house will be done by then!! And I’m totally going to forget she said that, because I don’t want to think that’s going to happen and then it not, ya know? I’ll just assume the baby will be induced a week late, like his sister!

The only weird thing is that his heart looked good, with 4 chambers, but there was a hyperchromic nodule in one of the chambers. The tech said they’re usually nothing, sometimes they’ll refer you on to a level 2 sono, but that she’d put it in her report.She said we have a very active baby boy!

During my actual dr. appt, I weighed in and have lost 0.5 pound since my appt 6 weeks ago. The dr. wasn’t concerned, thank goodness. So, I’m at a 3 pound gain at 18weeks (I think it’s actually 4lbs based on my at home weigh ins which are more accurate, so a 0.5pound gain in 6 weeks according to me). Hopefully that means I won’t gain 45 this time! He wasn’t concerned about the placenta, said we’d watch it, I’d get extra scans, but he was pretty confident it would resolve. No changes to my activity unless I have bleeding. As far as the heart, we asked what it usually means and he said “nothing, it never means anything”. I asked if it would go away and he said sometimes it does and sometimes it’s just the baby’s anatomy. I asked if it could be a marker for Down’s (we’ve declined all testing as we also did with Lauren) and he said no, and by itself really not. So he said sometimes they send people on for a level 2 to make sure it’s nothing, so we said we’d like to do that, so I have that appt with a perinatologist in 5 weeks (they prefer you to be around 24ish weeks to look at the heart) followed by an appt with my dr. the next day.

All in all, everything looks good!

When we got home tonight, Lauren was eating a snack, I sat down beside her and Billy had the video camera. I told her that I had a dr.’s appt today and that she’s going to have a baby brother!! She got huge surprise eyes, and then that quickly changed to a very mad/upset look and she said “but I want a sister!!” and she put her hands under her chin and sat and pouted. Poor kid. I felt terrible I couldn’t give her what she wanted (even though we’re thrilled with a boy!). So, she started playing with Brody and we kept videotaping while she sang songs, recited her phone number, spelled her and Billy’s name, etc., then we mentioned having a baby brother again and she had a total change of heart and was like “my baby brother!” so excited. Thank goodness!! She talked about her “baby brother” many times throughout the evening and is excited to paint his room blue and we told her we’d take her to buy him a present soon which she liked. At the end of the night, I asked her if she wanted to say something to her baby brother before bed and leaned over and whispered into my belly “I love you baby brother”. aaahhhhh, how cute is that? I *knew* there was going to be initial disappointment, but I’m so glad it only took about 5 mins for her to come around!!

And to top it all off, Lauren was able to feel the baby kick for the first time tonight!

BOY!!!!!

We’re very excited!! One of each!! I’ll type up the details of the sono tonight!

My sono is tomorrow at 12pm and I can’t wait!! We honestly can’t decide if we want to hear “it’s a girl!” or “it’s a boy!”…we’re going to be shocked either way I think!

When Lauren goes to bed, she usually kisses the baby goodnight and says something to the baby…tonight I told her to tell the baby “I will find out tomorrow if you’re a boy or you’re a girl” and she whispered into my belly “you’re a girl”. Eek, tomorrow could be a really good or really devastating day for her! lol

I’ll be back tomorrow with the results!

Work

Work kicked my butt this week. You know those weeks where you get things you’ve been waiting on to finish projects, but you get them all at once for 5 different projects? Yea, that was my week. Tuesday, I worked until 10pm in my office. Last night I had to come home bc Lauren had gymnastics and DH had his weekly meeting for the organization he’s VP of the Board for…but I started working about 10pm and finished at 1:30am. And thanks to the insomnia I have during pregnancy, I didn’t get to sleep until about 3am. And got up at 7am (well, awake about 6:30 laying in bed awake thinking about needing to get up)…and you wanna know something funny? I’ve woken up with a migraine everyday for the last few weeks (which is not normal for me, normally sleep makes them go away, during this pregnancy, sleep seems to be causing them…or perhaps it’s the stress?), but after only 3.5 hours of sleep, it was the one morning I *didn’t* have migraine. Weird. Anyway, my week is technically over. But I’ll be doing work from home in the evenings over the weekend. Such is this time of year for CPA’s, even auditors.

Current house

We had our roof repairs done today (only $350, our only inspection repair, woohoo!). The buyer had the appraisal done on Tuesday and no news is good news. Yesterday our realtor took the sign out of our yard and the lock box off of the front door. I scheduled shut-offs for all of our utilities yesterday. We close a week from Wednesday.

Duplex

Over the weekend, I heard back from a duplex I’d emailed earlier in the week and we went and saw it Monday after work and it’s perfect. 3 levels. 3br, 2.5 bath, one car garage, open floor plan, 2200 square feet, 3 living areas. Main level is living room, dining room, kitchen, 1/2 bath, laundry, pantry, deck (but no stairs down to the yard, which isn’t fenced, but good space for Brody anyway), and garage. Upstairs is a loft (we’ll use as playroom) and 2 bedrooms connected by a jack and jill bath (so we’re on the same floor as Lauren, yea!!). Lower level is a family room (we’ll use as office and storage), several storage areas, full bath, and the 3rd bedroom (we’ll use as a guest room, aka “grammy’s room”, and storage) which has sliding glass doors out to the backyard. It’s about $80 more per month than the other one, but that is worth not having the bedrooms split up like the other one, and it’s much more space, too! We paid the deposit Wednesday, and tonight we signed the lease, got our keys, and paid our first month’s rent. When we went over to it tonight to sign the lease, Lauren saw it for the first time….at first she started complaining that she wanted to stay in our house with Brody, but when we told her Brody is moving with us, she seemed better. Poor kid (and dog), such a transition to just move again in 4 months.

New House

Our basement is complete…plumbing is in and they poured the concrete floor this week. They started working on the floating slab garage today and plan to be done with concrete work early next week and start framing!! I’m so stoked. We’ve been watching the progress on the house behind ours, which just so happens to be some of our neighbors from our current neighborhood (weird, huh?)….they’ve been framing for 3 weeks if I remember correctly and the outside is done, the roof is on, and the windows went in today. So crazy that in 3-4 weeks, we’ll be able to actually see and walk-in our house!! I’m so excited!!

Pregnancy

I’m 17.5 weeks. This baby has been crazy active this week. Billy felt him/her move again on Tuesday night. Seems to love the hours of 10pm - 12am. Good thing I’m a night owl! As of yesterday, still up just 3.5 pounds. Oh well. I know I’ll gain my fair share eventually. Only 4 days until we find out what this baby is!! I’m on pins and needles!! I really don’t care either way, I just want to know! From everyone that has rendered a vote, it’s hands down votes for a boy and only a couple for girl. Interesting. If it’s a boy, I’m not sure how we’re going to break the news to Lauren.

Lauren

She’s such a sweet kid. The things she says cracks me up. Last night we were driving to gymnastics after school and she says to me “Can my boyfriend come to my house?”…it took me by such surprise and totally off guard and felt so weird hearing from the backseat in that tiny voice, the word “boyfriend”, I asked her who her boyfriend was and she said “Jack” (a little boy at her school, different class, but we all go to the same gym and his mom and I take some of the same classes so they spend time in the gym daycare together too…I ran into his mom the other day and she said Jack talks about Lauren constantly and always calls her his girlfriend…too funny!). Then we went to look at the house last night after gymnastics and it was the first time she’s seen the basement floor done and she said “mommy, look!!! we need to tell daddy about this!!!” and I said “did they finish our floors?” and she said very sincerely, “yes, we need to call and tell them thank you!! they are beautiful!!”. Too cute. Tonight at dinner, Ethan told her that she was mean (she’d poked him with her fork, who knows if it was intentional or not) and she just curled into my lap and bawled her eyes out….her feelings were totally hurt and she did not want to be viewed as mean. She only calmed down when I assured her that she isn’t mean and is a great friend and I think she’s the sweetest girl I know. She really is a sweetheart. Her and I have a girls date for Mickey and Minnie on Ice in the morning…she’s over the top excited…I’m excited to do something like that just the two of us (while poor daddy stays home and packs!). I hope she makes it through the move ok…I’ve already talked to her lead teacher about it and basically tried to explain any acting out that may arise in the next few weeks. I’m actually less worried about her making it through the stress than I am about Brody. Hopefully he does ok….he’s going to lose his doggy door and the ability to go inside/outside at will…but means he’ll get more walks, not sure which is better in his eyes.

The next 1.5 weeks is going to be hectic, but after that, we can relax and enjoy spring/summer and all the activities we love to do like the farm, farmers market, zoo, parks, pool, outdoor concerts, etc. I’m very much looking forward to May - July.