Bridget's First Day of Kindergarten

Bridget's first day of Kindergarten is finally here!

She was excited and a little nervous, but she's so ready for it!

In some ways it seemed like this day couldn't come fast enough. For a while now, she's been getting so bored in the afternoons while Felicity is napping. More often than not she expected me or electronics to entertain her, so this will be a welcome change for her - especially since it's full-day kindergarten.

On the other hand, it seems like it was just yesterday that she was a baby. I have a vivid memory of rocking her in the rocking chair when she was just a few days old and thinking to myself how quickly she would grow up, and that she'd be in kindergarten before I knew it. And here we are!

Several months ago, I wasn't sure where I was going to enroll her in school. The elementary that's about a 3 minute walk from our house is a Title 1 school meaning the majority of students are low-income. I wasn't sure if I wanted her there and considered charter schools as well as another elementary in the district that's a 5 minute drive from our house. I went ahead and did a boundary exception request to have her go to the other elementary school but was told we had to go ahead and register her at the one by our house, and we would find out just before school started if they had room for her. As the months ticked by, I realized more and more that she would do really well in full-day kindergarten which they only offer at the Title 1 schools in the district, so that's where she's at. I haven't been super-impressed so far, but hopefully volunteering in her classroom will help me feel better about it. I also know that what we do at home to supplement her education is more important than school. I'm determined to move within the next couple of years so that she won't have to continue there.

Anyway, as I walked her to school and dropped her off in her classroom, I was excited for her to start this next part of life and couldn't help but walk away a little teary-eyed. I hope she does well, makes friends, enjoys her teacher, and has fun. Our days at home will certainly be much quieter without her.

31 Weeks

As of yesterday I'm now 31 weeks along, so I figured it was finally time for a profile shot of my belly. The good thing is looking at this makes me feel like I'm not as huge as I feel like I am.

 

Today I went for another check-up and got to have an ultrasound to see if he's head down yet, and he is! Let' just hope he stays that way. This picture is just a profile shot of his face. I actually got to have a lengthier ultrasound at 27 weeks simply because the doctor didn't seem to be in a hurry and the baby was breech at the time making it hard for her to get the good pictures she was wanting. Sadly, Nate wasn't with me because I didn't know I was having an ultrasound that day, but I loved watching our little boy for several minutes. I even got to see him swallow which I've never seen on an ultrasound before.

Everything is still going well with my pregnancy. At 26 weeks, I opted to skip the 1-hour glucose test (which I failed with both of my girls) and go straight for the 3-hour test at the hospital. Luckily, I passed just like I did with both of the girls.

Also, about the start of the 3rd trimester, I started having some pain in my inner-thigh and groin area. This isn't anything I've ever had before, and it's getting worse the farther along I get. Some days it makes it very painful to walk or rotate from side to side in bed. Nothing seems to help it either. From what I've read and since discussed with my doctor, it's due to an over-production of the pregnancy hormone relaxin. It causes my pelvis to misalign at times especially when climbing stairs or doing anything weight-bearing while standing or walking. It's actually not uncommon in pregnancy and many women have it to varying degrees. A friend of mine gets it so bad that the entire last trimester she's on bed rest and has to use a wheelchair. So far, I'm managing okay most of the time, but I'm trying to follow my doctor's advice by staying off my feet a little more, not lifting Felicity unless I absolutely have to, and trying to minimize going up and down stairs as much as possible. I just hope it doesn't get much worse in the coming weeks. Other than that, I've been doing pretty well. It's been one of the hottest summers on record which I haven't enjoyed, so hopefully some cooler temperatures will come our way soon.

Kimberly's Birthday

My birthday this year turned out to be a very nice day, although if you asked Nate he would disagree because it didn't go quite like he had planned.

He made a nice breakfast, took care of the kids the majority of the day, cleaned most of the house, did a bunch of yard work, attempted to make a birthday cake from scratch for me, and made dinner. He felt bad because he ran out of time to get the whole house cleaned, didn't get the yard work finished, and then the cake fell quite a bit after he took it out of the oven. He made the exact same cake for me last year, so we're not sure what happened, but it was too late in the day to try and make another one so I told him to just take the girls and go buy one. Bridget's a chocoholic like me and picked out a beautiful and delicious cookies and cream cake.

We also met Megan and my cousin Lisa at Macaroni Grill for lunch. We hadn't been there in several years, but it was one of my favorite restaurants when I was in college. Sadly, it was not nearly as good as I remembered. The free birthday dessert I got was really good though, and they sing happy birthday in Italian to you so it wasn't all bad.

Like I said, it really was an enjoyable day for me. And now I'm hopefully another year wiser as well as older.

The evidence that he did in fact try to make my cake.

The cake we ended up enjoying