Celebrating Jack

This weekend my Mom hosted a sprinkle/brunch for baby Jack and me. I knew I didn't need a full-blown shower since this was our second baby but I'm glad we did a little something special to welcome our son. And we're just so excited it's blue this time!

 

The brunch was at 10:30 am so we had easy, breakfast foods-fresh fruit, blueberry muffins, a sausage casserole, cinnamon rolls, juice and coffee. This is totally my type of menu.

The women in my family did an amazing job pulling this together for me. Originally it was scheduled for the beginning of March but 15 inches of snow cancelled that occasion. We knew it was a risk rescheduling it so close to my due date but everyone was tied up the other weekends leading up to it so March 28th it would be, one day shy of being 38 weeks!

I bought this dress about a month ago so I was worried I wouldn't be able to squeeze in it but I did. Literally s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d in it.

Big sister came along to the brunch of course. She was excited to go to Gammy's house but when we got there and she realized it wasn't going to be play hour with Gammy she wasn't as excited ha! She had a good time though and got to play with some of her friends and cousins.

 

My sweet momma. I honestly don't know what I would do without her. She helps me in so many ways and is the best Gammy to Georgia and will be to Jack too.

All the Porter ladies. My mamaw and sister helped with the brunch too, they are such blessings to me!

All of the women in Marcus's family. They helped prepare food and did a great job as always. If I ever ask them to do something for me they do it no question and usually go above and beyond. I am a blessed daughter-in-law!

My Mamaw Novis, she made her famous cinnamon rolls that were delicious.

Jack received so many wonderful gifts. In the south it doesn't matter if it's your first baby or your fifth baby, they receive equal amounts of love and presents :)

And who doesn't love the facial expressions caught when someone is opening gifts. Especially gifts that describe cute baby things.

I mean come on this is special. ;)

This may be my favorite picture from the day. The terrible twos somehow didn't seem to hit until about 2.5 for Georgia and she was showing some tendencies on Saturday. She had just declared to everyone that "No" she didn't want to open the gifts that friends and family had specifically got for her and then in one of her gift bags was a bag of cheetos from my cousin Charla and her whole world changed. She knows the way to her heart :)

 

 I've mentioned Chris before, he's our handyman that has taken on a lot of house projects for us (he just finished building us cubbies for our laundry/mudroom-woohoo!). His wife Gina is equally talented. She made this adorable diaper cake for me. I plan to display it a while before using it, I love it!

 

And a very special gift I was given is a bassinet. My mom found the bassinet at a yardsale but it was upholstered for a girl. I asked Grandmomma if she could modify it for me and she agreed.

 

Big sister checking out Jack's bassinet. I'm sure I'll be seeing this a lot soon.

 

Here is the finished product. I cried when I saw it for the first time. It was everything I had imagined and more. It has wheels so I can move it from room to room. It's perfect.

 

Two sets of best friends! Roman was the only male at the sprinkle and wore the crown proudly. Jack has received a lot of Roman's hand me downs, I'm so grateful we have a baby friend that's older and will be in the same season of clothing.

 

My best friend Ashley who has spoiled both my babies rotten. We hope to be doing the same to her future baby(ies) soon!!

 

My awesome friend Mary Beth came in from Louisville to be at the sprinkle! It made my weekend that her and John made the trip to celebrate with us. John and Marcus are college buddies that have stayed connected despite the distance between them. We call them our old papaws. They are so much alike, they send each other food items in the mail, have a passion for cigars and could be brothers separated at birth. They spent the day together while we brunched so it was a fun day for everyone.

 

Georgia Grace, Mary Beth and John Ford-three people with such awesome middle names you have to call them by both :)  

 

Saturday was a perfect day which concluded with the Cats squeaking out a victory over Notre Dame to advance to the Final Four! I somehow stayed calm and did not go into labor. Thanks to everyone who helped us "sprinkle" Jack with love this weekend, he is loved by so many already.

37 weeks

I'm 37 weeks! (Technically I was 37 weeks on Sunday so I'm 37.5 weeks now but who's counting? :)

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 37 Weeks

Size of baby: Jack is about the size of a watermelon

Total Weight Gain: Gained 23 lbs

Maternity Clothes: I'm down to a few outfits I can squeeze into and I refuse to buy more at this stage in the game. Thank goodness spring has arrived and I bought a few springy "canopy" tops and dresses ha!

Gender: It's a boy! Jack Porter Harrison

Movement: Still feeling lots of rolls and wiggles, especially at bedtime or after drinking juice

Sleep: Not great. I'm up and down a lot going to pee through the night and have to sleep with multiple pillows. 

Cravings: No cravings except juice, just hungry all the time.

Symptoms: Pressure on my bladder (some days are worse than others) and tiredness but all in all I feel good to be this far along!

Best Moment this week: Picking up his rocker and imagining my view from it very soon

 

My doctor's appointments are on Tuesdays and this week I learned that he is low but not as low as he needs to be for delivery so I should be able to hold on a while longer. I'm 1 cm and 50% thinned, my doctor thinks I can make it to my due date. I think most moms are ready and hoping their babies come early but I am content waiting the full 40. Now if we get much past 40 I may be singing a different song ha!

 

I'm still working and trying my best to conserve my energy as best as I can. Marcus has been a HUGE help around the house and with Georgia. I can't really physically bathe GGH anymore so he takes care of that part and I do the lotion/pajamas/brush hair part. We make a good team in our new, redefined roles. We also hired a housekeeper at the beginning of the year and having her come has been wonderful. Marcus and I agreed early on that if I continued to work and we could financially afford it we would get help with cleaning so my time at home could be spent enjoying my family. I don't regret this decision one bit.

 

I'm being asked often if Georgia Grace is ready for sisterhood and my answer is yes. Sure there will be days she probably wants to send him back but she is such a good girl and loves babies. She is mature for her age so even though they will just be 2 1/2 years apart I forsee it feeling like more. And I'm already prepared for the feeling that she is going to be so big now. I'm sure I will have mixed emotions about that.

 

Just 17ish days until we meet our boy! We're all so excited at the Harrison camp.

Daddy Georgia Date

Last Friday night was another big night for our Georgia Grace. We didn't have anything planned so Marcus asked me if it would be a good night to have their daddy daughter date. It sounded perfect to me, Friday afternoons I'm totally pooped so I was looking forward to a restful night at home for myself.

 

He came and knocked at our front door to pick her up. She started squealing when she heard it. I've never seen her so excited! He brought her a bouquet of flowers. He's always been a flower man, my mother-in-law says they owned the local flower shop when we were dating ha!

 

Checking out her fresh bouquet of lilies. His intent is to teach her how a boy should treat and date her. He is setting a very high bar!

 

Kisses for Daddy of course.

 

You can see the excitement on both their faces!

 

And they were off!

 

They went and ate at Mellow Mushroom for supper. There was a live band and she danced her little booty off! She wanted to ride the carousel again so they went to the mall and threw in a little shopping. They went to Target for candy and then headed home for the evening. She came in telling me all about their night. She woke up the next morning and said "I want to go to the restaurant" ha!

I'm thankful for a husband that takes his role as daddy so seriously and does it so well. My kiddos have hit the jackpot in the dad department.

Week in Review

It's time for a little blog catch-up. We had a fun week celebrating St. Patrick's Day and welcoming spring. Even though I'm near the end of my pregnancy, these days continue to pass quickly and we're trying to soak them up the best we can.

 

I snapped this picture at Grandmomma's house one day while I was there visiting at lunch. She's still the baby of the group with the littlest shoes but she won't always be. Some days I wish time would slow down a bit. Just call me the sentimental, hormonal mom :)

 

St. Patrick's Day 2015

 

Her AKK preschool group. Their St. Patrick's Day party is one of the most anticipated days of the year. A leprechaun always visits and makes a big mess and leaves them treats. GGH was unsure about the idea of a leprechaun at first but she was reassured he wasn't scary and was just having fun.

 

He turned their school room upside down!

 

Her reaction-priceless!

 

Daddy was working on house projects and I didn't have energy to cook so my Mom took us to Garcia's for supper. I'm thankful for our family that has helped us out in various ways here lately. It's been a HUGE blessing! She made friends with the party next to us who just so happened to be celebrating a birthday so of course she had to wear the sombrero too.

 

And y'all this tells the tale. Both pictures were taken on almost the exact same day of each pregnancy (about 36.5 weeks). Georgia is on the left, Jack is on the right, and Owen is in both ha! This pregnancy has been so different obviously. I'm large and in charge but happy for him to stay in and grow as long as he needs to. Grow baby grow! But if you would move off my bladder a bit I wouldn't mind.
 

I'll do a separate post for this event but Daddy and Georgia went on their first date this weekend. I've never seen her so excited!

 

The Cats have made it to the sweet sixteen, Easter is in two weeks and Jack is due the week after. My excitement for the days ahead is over the top!

Mommy Georgia Date

We are a month or so away from welcoming a new baby in our home. I seriously can't believe we are already this close. It's been a busy pregnancy full of moving, buying a house, moving again, remodeling said house, a new job for me and raising a two year old. I'm sure those things are to credit for why it feels like these last nine months have went in morph speed.

 

As we get closer to my due date, my momma heart has been particularly fixed on our Georgia Grace. I have no doubt she will be a great big sister because she is such a loving, sweet child. I know she will love her baby brother endlessly. But I do know we will be in for a transition period. She was our first child, the first grandchild for both our families and the first great-grandchild on all four sides. She has received a lot of attention in the past two and a half years and I'm sure there will be days that it's hard to relinquish some of it to a baby brother.

 Our goal for the next however many weeks is to make her feel special and get her excited about Jack. Saturday night we went on a Mommy-Georgia date! I told her about the plan before naptime and she's never went down for a nap so easy in her life :)

 

The weather is feeling very spring-like now so we busted out some color. This is one of my favorite outfits that she has, it's actually second hand from the Stamps' girls!

 

Our first stop was for dinner and of course she picked and "Chic-a-flay" it was. Dinner at CFA is much less crazy than lunch by the way.

 

Next, it was to the mall to ride the "forseys" on the big carousel. She got spoiled to them this winter when we were looking for fun stuff for her to do and now it's one of her favorite things.

After we rode the horses we did some grocery shopping. That doesn't sound like a fun date night but she loves it so I snuck it in. Bless her heart she was such a trooper. I am to the point that I have to pee constantly. I drank two big cups of CFA lemonade and we were running to the bathroom every stop but she just tagged along like it was nothing.

 

We ended the night by shopping for Jack. I let her pick out a gift for him from her and she could pick it out all by herself. We talked about what she was going to get him and she had decided before we went into the store it would be "bath stuff" but when we got to looking around a colorful, musical worm caught her eye and that was the gift. We are going to wrap it together and she will bring it to the hospital to give it to him. He has a little something for her too.

 

This was one of those nights that I will always remember from my life as a mom to just one child. These days are so precious and fleeting and I want to fill them with happy memories. A Daddy-Georgia date is in the works now, I can only imagine what all they will get into.

 

My heart is full. I love my Georgia peach so much!

Finally Friday

This was our first week of routine in a long time due to all the winter weather so I am very glad to see Friday! Getting out of routine is so easy but getting back in is not. We don't have any big weekend plans, just spending time at home and watching college basketball and wishing we were at the SEC tournament with my family! Maybe next year.

Thursday afternoon the temperature was 65 so we took to the outdoors and enjoyed soaking up a little Vitamin D. It was a LONG winter. And since we moved in our house in November we haven't been able to spend any time outside. Georgia had a big time playing on the back patio and then decided she would love on her Mommy and baby Jack a little bit :) She's going to be the best big sister. She wants to play role reversals and be the mommy and me be the baby ALL the time. I hope she is like a second little mommy to our baby boy.

Speaking of baby boy I finally decided on a diaper bag for him. I knew I wanted something smaller than what I had with Georgia Grace and something more versatile that I could use as my purse as well. I've had my eye on this one for a couple months and it turned out to be the one! It's medium size, has insulated pockets and a wipe off exterior but yet looks like a handbag. Plus it was cheap compared to the $200-300 ones I had found. I hope I love it even more when I start using it daily!

I received this from my mother-in-law after I dressed GGH in an Easter romper. The girl can undress quicker than anyone I know and couldn't care less who saw her! I just had to laugh and apologize for sending her to preschool in a complicated outfit for pottying :)

She also came home with this in her bag from preschool. Our obsession with babies and their accessories continues!



Tonight has been a girls night for us! Daddy is hosting a lock-in with his 4th grade class at his school (he is a crazy man but I love him for it!). I'm not the most fun play buddy these days since my big belly gets in the way of playing sometimes but we still had a fun night doing what she wanted to do. We sure did miss Daddy though!

The countdown is officially on. I measured myself tonight and I'm 40" around at my largest part. Marcus doesn't see how my belly can get any bigger than it is. I assured him it can. I'm down to about 4-5 outfits I'm alternating that I can still squeeze in. As long as he's growing and healthy I'm content to keep growing too :)

Happy weekend friends! I'm so glad spring is here and my spring baby will be here before we know it.

36 weeks

I'm 36 weeks! 

 Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 36 Weeks

Size of baby: Jack is around 6 lbs - about the size of a crenshaw melon

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained 22 lbs; I've gained 9 pounds in 2 weeks!

Maternity Clothes: I wear maternity jeans and pants but everything else is regular. I'm down to just a few things I can still fit into. ha!

Gender: It's a boy! Jack Porter Harrison

Movement: He continues to be very active, especially at bedtime.

Sleep: Doesn't come easy. I'm up 3-4 times to pee and have a hard time getting comfortable. I may be in a recliner soon...

Cravings: Eating anything and everything I can.

Symptoms: Leg, hip and pelvic pain but I'm taking it easier so that's improved.

Best Moment this week: Our final ultrasound revealing a healthy boy!

We had our final ultrasound on Tuesday to check his position and size. He continues to be face down head down and is lying right on top of my bladder. I've known that for a while now :) His measurements were great and it appears he has a large head. As in measuring four weeks early head! And my doctor estimated his current weight at 6 lbs 4 oz. I think we're going to have a big boy! We were so thankful for a good appointment. 

We started a nightly countdown with Georgia Grace as part of our bedtime routine. I've started brainstorming ways to start preparing her for the transition. I'm not too worried about how she will do but I want to prepare her the best I can. 

I've working on a baby pool like we did with GGH and I've started my "To-Do Before Jack" list. There's still a lot but we're just taking it one day at a time and more importantly enjoying our days and nights as a family of three. We will never get this time back and we're going to savor it.

In Like A Lion

I'm starting to sound like a broken record and I'm running out of snowy titles. Snowstorm Thor hit Wednesday night and we woke up Thursday morning to fifteen inches of snow! This was the most snow we have seen in southern Kentucky in decades. It was by far the most snow Marcus and I have seen in our lifetime. 

Needless to say we were snowed in again. Even though it's March and you think spring when this month rolls around, these snow days have been a blessing. This extra time we have both had at home with Georgia Grace couldn't have come at a better time as she will quickly lose her only child crown next month. I will always be thankful for the extra one-on-one time we have had this week. 

However, as much as I have loved this snow, spring better immediately follow :)

Here is what our week has looked like:

Monday was Dr. Seuss' Birthday and Georgia Grace and her preschool buddies celebrated the occasion. I asked them why she was holding up the #1 sign and we think either she thought he was turning one or she was participating in the countown until they took the picture ha! I love it either way.

Our big girl has turned into a budding artist. I was impressed with this picture she colored (in her free time) for her Aunt Shanna (who is also her preschool teacher). We bragged and bragged on her and I'll be sure to upload it to her Artkive.

Now flashback to Wednesday night when snowstorm Thor arrived. It started as rain, sleet, ice, and then snow. 

We let Owie out for 5 minutes to do his nighttime business and he came back inside looking like a powdered donut!

The next morning Daddy, GGH and Owen played in our fresh, thick blanket of snow. Mommy and her big ol' belly watched and hollered out the upstairs nursery window. The snow was up to Georgia's waist in some places but she had a ball! They didn't stay out long because it was bitter cold but they had their feel.

You better believe we all enjoyed some snow day napping too. How did I ever get so lucky?

I could sit and watch her sleep all day.

The next day Marcus decided it was time to shovel the driveway if we wanted to get out anytime soon. Our driveway is one tenth a mile long so this was no quick or easy task. I appreciate my family man!

Friday night Marcus's parents came and got us and took us out to eat. I wanted to remember this once in a lifetime snow so my mother-in-law took this picture of our family of "four". It's my new favorite. So many blessings in one picture.

When we came back home we made monkey bread for dessert. I had intentions of doing a before and after picture but we tore into it too fast for an after picture ha! It was so delicious.

Since I've had more free time this week I've been able to go through Georgia Grace's closet and get some outfits ready to sell. This will be the last one I do for a while but I knew once Jack got here this wouldn't get done so it's now or never. I'm selling around 40 items/outfits and I still have several bins saved just in case there is ever another Harrison baby girl :)

Saturday was in the 40's-50's so we spent more time out in the snow. Georgia's Pa brought Marcus's old sled and they pulled her around in it in the yard. They were sweaty and winded, she was laughing and smiling :) 

And then they built a snowman! He was an impressive snowman, the snow was perfect for packing.

She has been holding back her snowman building skills :) 

The snow is melting and hopefully we will be back on a regular schedule this coming week. Breaks in routine are nice but routines are nice too. This break has given me time to rest, prep for baby and spend extra time with my first baby. It has been snow days well spent.