Last Hurrah

This weekend I thought it would be a good time to spoil the girls and ourselves a little bit before the baby comes.

We started by stopping by the donut store. Emily has been asking me for months if we could get donuts for breakfast but I like it to be a special occasion so we made a quick stop to surprise the girls and got a few donuts.

 

 

 

Then we went down to Irvine Regional Park to go to the OC Zoo.

We really like this zoo. It's the perfect size for the girls and only $2 each.

Emily was so excited about all the animals. Her favorite was the oselot that looked like a cheetah.



 

 

The girls and me in all my pregnant glory. I am so ready to be done being pregnant.

Love the daddy-daughter moments. They really love their dad!

 After the zoo we went to find the pony rides. They loved it.

 

 

After that we found a park and let them play for a bit and then headed home for lunch and naps.

 

While Allyson was taking a nap, I got a pedicure (my only request right before the baby comes).

Then that night I picked up our babysitter and Mike and I headed out for a last date night for I'm sure a long time. We went to Lucille's (thanks Johnny and Verlanne for the gift card) and then to a movie where we saw Warm Bodies. It was cute.

 

It was such a great day and I hope the girls felt special.

 

Sharing

Yesterday we had a super busy day. On Friday I taped off Allyson's room to paint and then Saturday morning we got started painting. Her room is going to turn into the baby's room so we wanted to give him something besides pink walls. The girls helped us paint for about a half an hour and then got bored but were really good while we finished. After that we all showered and went to Ava's birthday party. Then after that we headed home and got back to work putting the girls' room together and the baby's room together. We still have some things to do for the baby's room so I will post pictures of that later.

 

We were both really nervous about the girls sleeping in the same room. They are very different sleepers. Emily will not get out of bed for anything. Sometimes in the middle of the night if she has a bad dream or something but she never gets out of bed and usually falls right to sleep. Allyson, on the other hand will sing or talk to her baby for a good 10 minutes before falling asleep and we have had to lock her in with the child door lock. She also likes it dark and Emily likes a night light and the door cracked. Since Allyson didn't get a nap yesterday we put them to bed and we were completely shocked when we didn't hear a peep out of them! I thought for sure we were going to be dealing with Allyson for a while but they both fell fast asleep in a few minutes! I also put a rolled up towel in their window sill because the previous owners cut the blinds for some strange reason and they did it really uneven so a lot of light gets in. They slept 12 hours! I had to wake them up at 8am for church! I'm sure it won't happen that way all the time but it was amazing!

 

Bells Palsy

This pregnancy has been really easy on me. I wasn't sick at all. I was exercising for longer than with my girls. I felt good. But something weird always has to happen with me and pregnancies. (With Emily it was a blood clot, with Allyson I had high thyroid levels) At 30 weeks, I got Bell's Palsy. On Sunday about a month ago, I noticed my taste was off and by dinner my tongue and lips on my left side were numb. I had Bell's Palsy before when I was a freshman in high school so luckily I knew that's what it was and didn't freak out too much. It has similar symptoms to a stroke. I just got annoyed and obsessed over it all night. Mike thought I was crazy but I asked for a blessing and sure enough, Monday morning I woke up and my left side was completely numb. It wasn't that bad but over the next 3 days or so, the left side of my face went completely paralyzed. This is probably 5 days into it. I was trying with all my might to smile completely and raise both of my eyebrows. This is all I got. I'm not going to lie...it was a really hard couple weeks for me. It's hard not smiling. I would avoid going places and when I went to drop off Emily at preschool, I would wear my sunglasses and give one word answers. I'm sure her teachers think I am so grumpy. I had to drink out of a straw and use eyedrops during the day.

I went directly to my OB on that Monday morning because I know you have to get medicine right away. I got some anti-virus medication but he was worried about me being on steroids (which is the main thing people take for this) and my blood thinners that I have to be on every pregnancy. I was so frustrated for the first two weeks. I went back for my next OB appointment and told him I hadn't seen any recovery so he suggested I go see the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. I went and he prescribed me the steroids even though it had already been two weeks and usually you have to get it within the first three days, but we figured it couldn't hurt. That morning I had actually seen a TINY bit of movement in my left nostril and was a little more optimistic. I would stand in the mirror and just try my hardest to raise the left corner of my mouth and nothing would happen. Luckily things started to get better and now it's been about a month and I am about 90% recovered. I notice little things but I'm sure most people can't tell.

Apparently this is common in the third trimester for pregnant women either because of swelling, a virus like a cold or stress. Mike was so amazing and he would take the girls to play at the park for a couple hours and let me rest. He helped so much and I was able to really try to recover.

 

It's funny how much you don't realize what you have until you lose it. I HATED not being able to smile or talk to people. I didn't feel like myself. Luckily it's almost gone (It can last from 3 weeks to a year). I have a lovely cold now and am pretty much done being pregnant but I'm thankful that I can smile at my kids. 

Big girl bikes

For Christmas, Emily got a bigger bike from Santa. So Allyson got Emily's smaller bike. A few days after Christmas we taught Ally how to ride the big girl bike and Emily took off on her bigger one. It took a few days but she got it and she loves riding a bigger bike and just the other day, she hopped on Emily's and took off. I'm not used to having a tall kid.

Christmas 2012

I am so behind on my updating. I am going to start with Christmas. This is us the Sunday before Christmas. Love my cute girls!

 That afternoon, we made Christmas sugar cookies. They had so much fun helping me.

 Allyson's go-to silly face.

 Our end result.

This year my parents came for Thanksgiving so we weren't able to see any of my family. We did spend our usual Christmas Eve with Mike's family though and had a great time!

Grandma and Grandpa Johnson got her this doll and we made the mistake of letting her open that first. This girl LOVES babies so we had to work hard to get her excited for other presents.

 On Christmas Day, we opened our presents from each other and saw what Santa brought us. I took a little picture after Santa came before the girls woke up.

 

 We got Allyson another baby as well. Her usual baby was pretty beaten up so we got her a replacement doll.

Emily and Allyson are really starting to understand the concept of Santa so it makes it so fun!

We had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed doing so many festive things during that time! 

Big sister

Emily has really been stepping up lately. Sometimes I look at her and wonder where my little baby girl went. She is such a kid now. She's going to kindergarten in September, understands so many more things and is just a sweetheart. She has started the question phase too and as annoying as it is, I love that her brain is starting to work that way!

 

You'll have to excuse the really crappy picture quality but I had to get pictures of this. Every day when Allyson has to take her nap, Emily wants to do it. She wants to rock her (even though I hardly ever rock Allyson), sing her a song, give her a hug and kiss, give her water, tuck her in, and close her door. It's the cutest thing ever!

 

She also is getting better about doing things on her own. For a long time and still a little bit, she needed someone to do everything with. Whether it was Allyson, me or Mike. Anyone.

She loves watching old classic Mickey Mouse cartoons on Youtube.



 

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On the other hand, Allyson is not adjusting well to me even being pregnant. She did fine for a while and in the last couple weeks has been SO SO clingy. She wants me to hold her or snuggle with her constantly. All day long.

She has been waking up multiple times per night just wanting me. I have to go put her back in bed and try to comfort her a little and then go to the bathroom for the 67th time that night and it takes me a good 10 minutes to fall back asleep. I find I am pretty tired during the day. Even if Mike gets up with Allyson, she freaks out if he even gets out of bed to get her and I wake up so it takes a while to fall back to sleep. It's going to be interesting when this little boy comes.

I try to make sure she knows how much I love her and spend time cuddling with her but sometimes I really can't just hold her all the time. 

Family pictures

We rotate years for Thanksgiving so this year my whole family came down. We are all seperated now. My parents in Utah, my brother in Colorado and Kelsey and her family in Twentynine palms, which might as well be out of state. I thought it would be a good opportunity for us to take some family pictures since we don't know when we will all be together again.

 

Unfortunately, since the flu was going around, we didn't get a ton of good ones. Audrey was grumpy because it was almost her naptime, Allyson didn't feel well and I just felt large and in charge. I called up our go-to photographer, Jessica and she came out and took some good pictures.

 

Mom and Dad

Brady

Audrey

Emily and Allyson



Emily (she is used to family pictures so she looked pretty cute in all of them)

The family

Our little family

Travis, Audrey and Kelsey