I had to post these, just got them today! My Uncle Sam took these on Sunday while the boys were playing. Bo & Parker absolutely love each other!!! As they are getting older they are definitely starting to look more like cousins! The boys are actually second cousins so it’s wild to see the similarities even down the line!
This is my favorite! Looks like he has Parker in a head lock but it really was a hug!
Thursday afternoon two packages arrived at our house and made a very happy mommy and Bo! I was so excited to receive our first real gift…my Brother and sister in law, Emily sent two precious baby outfits! I can’t wait to use them. They also sent a great package for Bo, he was absolutely thrilled!! Thank you both so much, we loved it all!
Bo would also like to thank Papa Lee & Grandma Sherry for the sweet books they sent and Pop & Bebe for the Easter Egg they sent. My mom sent a hand painted Easter egg from a local store in Jackson. I had some from there when I was little and now it’s so fun to see Bo getting them!
Buzz & Woody light up sandals!
His favorite…chocolate cars!
How far along: 34 1/2 weeks
Size of baby: Over 5 lbs and longer than 18inches. About the size of a honeydew melon
Weight Gain: Not going to tell, but I am on track not too much or too little according to the doctor
Gender: Still don’t know, but can say that almost everyone I know thinks it’s a girl. I honestly have no clue, apparently I don’t have a good mother’s instinct! If you ask Bo he always says girl and little sister, so who knows. My mind changes daily!
Movement: still lots of movement but you can tell peanut is running out of room in there! It’s become much more uncomfortable and actually painful at times.
Sleep: Not getting much. I toss and turn all night. The weight of my belly has me so uncomfortable and then I typically wake up around 3:00 and will be awake for about 2 hours.
What I miss: ENERGY!!! I can’t even begin to tell you how exhausted I am. I do not remember being this worn out with Bo. I also wasn’t chasing a 3 yr old around all day either. Even my friends can tell I’m just worn out, I don’t even have to say anything! I keep telling myself just 4 more weeks, certainly I can make it. At this point with Bo I was already on bed rest so maybe that’s why I don’t remember the exhaustion.
Cravings: SWEETS, SWEETS, SWEETS!!!! I am waiting to hear back from the dr’s office on my fasting glucose test I did yesterday. My glucose has been high so my doctor took me off of all sugar and artificial sweetner. It was the longest two weeks of my life!!! Yesterday when I went in there was no glucose in my urine so the doctor seems to think I could just be borderline diabetic. She said I can have sweets in extreme moderation! So I basically I can treat myself every now and then which is much easier to live with!
Dr. updates: Everything is still looking good. BP yesterday was 117/74! So far the only concern has been the glucose. I have been having a ton of contractions and night before last I was actually scared it might be time. I woke up with pretty painful contractions, back pain, cramping, and I was very nauseous. To the point I woke Jarrod up and asked if he felt okay because I was wondering if I had eaten something that made me sick. It continued for about 2 1/2 hours and I was finally able to go back to sleep. I knew I had my appointment the next morning so I didn’t want to call unless I just had to. It’s much different when you have another child at home…you can’t just up and go to the hospital at 3:00am! I was surprised to hear the doctor say that at this point if I went into labor they wouldn’t stop it. Not sure if that made me excited or scared!!! She told me to get a bag packed just in case! If nothing happens we are still scheduled for May 27th at 12:30pm!!
Bo: This little boy has had a MAJOR turn around. I kept my friend’s little girl last week and he was in heaven “helping” me with her. I don’t think he quite understands we are going to have our own baby soon, but it gave me a little bit of hope seeing him so attentive to her. He likes to put his little basketball under his shirt and walk around like mommy!
I was so excited about finding this for Bo. I’ve been wanting to get him a book of Bible stories that he would actually enjoy listening to. He’s too young for anything too complex. I would always end up disappointed when I’d look even at a “toddler” Bible because it didn’t really teach a lesson that he could relate to, it was just a Bible story about people that he has no idea who they are!! I came across this and thought it was just perfect. This is something we now read one story every night. There is a devotion type story that a 3 year old is going to be able to understand…stories about children not telling the truth, or the animals at the zoo in relation to Noah’s Ark, there is even one on time out. Then following that little story is a story from the Bible that relates to it, along with a small Bible verse for them to learn. If you have small children I would highly recommend this. It keeps it short and sweet, easy to understand, and a great message to follow!
If you click HERE and click “Look Inside” you can see a few pages!
What a fun filled and VERY busy weekend we had!! It wasn’t quite as low key as I would have liked, but regardless it was still fun!! We started off with daddy having Friday off which was such a treat! It was a yucky day here so our plans of being outside quickly changed to taking Bo to a movie! We took him to see Rio, which was really cute and he loved it. However, the Cars 2 preview came on before the movie started, so throughout the entire movie he kept saying he wanted Cars. It’s a little hard to explain to him that he has to wait until June 24th!
Saturday was crazy busy! We had a birthday party for one of Bo’s friends, Callie. It was a pirate & princess party and he loved it!! He and Callie absolutely love each other so it was really fun to watch the two together. Daddy approves too because she’s a TN fan!! After the party we ran a ton of errands, my phone broke so we got to spend an hour at AT&T to get a new phone, then after a long day in and out of the car we came home, dyed Easter eggs, and while Jarrod got Bo fed, bathed, and in bed I was busy cooking for Easter lunch. From 7:00am-10:30pm I was on my feet the entire day! Whewww!
Sunday we went to church, which I have to take a moment and tell you what an experience it was. We typically go to the 9:00am service and it’s always full which our sanctuary holds somewhere between 3,000-4,000 people. Now Easter Sunday was a whole different story. The sanctuary was full by 8:30, the two overflow theaters were full (luckily we made it in time to be in one of those), and they had to put 200 chairs out in the lobby…this was just for the 9:00am service!!!! The parking attendants eventually had to start turning people away. We also had an 11:00, 1:00, and 6:00 service and they were ALL full and this was just the main campus, not including the other 2 campuses we have! I got an email today and they said there were approximately 19,000 people in attendance including all 3 campuses! After church we came home and did Easter bunny and hunted for eggs, ate lunch, and all rested afterwards. Later that afternoon we were invited over to my aunt and uncle’s house for Easter dinner. It was a last minute get together, but ended up being tons of fun, especially for Bo!
It was a great weekend, but when you’re almost 9 months pregnant it’s pretty exhausting!
Today was Bo’s Easter party at school and he was SO excited. He’s been talking about hunting Easter eggs all week! After their hunt we went back to their classroom where they had lunch, decorated cookies, made a craft, and listened to the Easter story! Janice and I helped Ms. Jenell hide the eggs for the kids, which really wasn’t hiding more of just putting them into the bushes. We asked her if the kids knew what was going on and her exact words were “Your two DEFINITELY do”! Apparently Bo and James had been talking all morning about hunting eggs and getting candy! I must brag for a moment because there was a moment where he and this little girl went for the same egg and of course Bo got it, but then he turned to her and said “here ya go” and put it in her bucket…I was very proud of that moment! I was somewhat dissapointed in the candy. We each had to send in 12 eggs with candy for the hunt. Bo came home with 8 pieces of gum and 3 of those red hot, atomic ball things…I’m like WHO gives this stuff to a 3 year old!! It’s not like they didn’t know because their child is in the class. I felt bad because almost everything Bo opened I had to tell him he couldn’t have it but I did “trade” with him and give him some chocolate candy we had leftover from stuffing his eggs. Apparently he got all the eggs that child sent in. Oh well! It was so much fun and what a difference a year makes. Last year he didn’t quite get but this year there was no confusion…Eggs=CANDY!!!
The calm before the storm!
Every boy and girl for themselves!
Class picture with Ms. Jenell & Ms. Karyn
James & Bo
Time to decorate our cookie
Listening to the Easter story
I just had to get a picture of Baby Maggie, James’ baby sister! Isn’t she just the cutest!! She is eagerly awaiting for her playmate to get here!
I just had to share this recipe. I’ve been searching for new recipes particularly ones with low carbs, lean meats, and of course no sugar. I came across this and had to try it and I am so glad I did. It is sooooooo yummy and super easy to make! I will say there is a lot of cheese, as if that is ever a bad thing! I used all low fat/fat free cheeses and it did just fine. The recipe also calls for the no cook lasagna noodles, which I am just not a fan of, plus you can’t get them in whole wheat. So I used regular whole wheat lasagna noodles and again it was just fine. You have to try this, everyone in this house loved it!
Click HERE for the recipe! Enjoy!
So I just had to share this recipe! On Monday at my appointment the doctor mentioned there being a high amount of glucose in my urine. So after I heard that I discussed with her the glucose numbers I had at the hospital a few weeks ago. So she told me to come off of sugar, sweets, artificial sweetener, etc…for the next 2 weeks, this is quite possibly the worse thing she could have told me, okay not really, but you have no idea how much I LOVE sweet things right now!!! At my next appointment on the 25th I’ll have a fasting glucose test done to determine if I could possibly have gestational diabetes. I was shocked because I passed my 1 hr glucose test a few months ago. Apparently just because you pass, doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. Well after doing a little research I found that basically EVERYTHING has sugar in it! I can basically have lean meats, all the veggies I want, limited fruit, and limited carbs, everything must be whole wheat, which is what we eat anyway, but very small portions! Right now I can’t even have “sugar free” stuff because it also has artificial sweeteners in it and those are all chemicals so I really don’t want that in my body anyway. We actually cut out things like Equal, Splenda, Sweet n Low about a year ago after I learned what all was in it. I forgot to ask about Stevia, which is the sweetener we use now. So we are having to revamp all of our meals, the hardest meal is dinner since Jarrod is eating too. I came across this recipe the other day and decided to try it last night. It was SO good! Everyone loved it, even Bo ate it up!!!! We had this, a salad, and some whole wheat bread.
*it wouldn’t let me link up so I just copied it from their website!
Grilled Stuffed Zucchini
recipe by Our Best Bites
2 medium zucchini (about 10″)
4 oz Italian turkey sausage (that’s 1 link of the kind pictured here)
1/4 C diced red onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium tomato (about 1/2 C diced)
1 1/2 T chopped fresh basil (or abt a teaspoon of dried)
2/3 C Italian cheese blend (the kind pre-bagged with parm/mozz/asiago/etc)
1 T Italian style bread crumbs
kosher salt
black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
Slice zucchini in half length wise, leaving the tops on.
Scoop out the centers, saving them in a bowl. Leave at least 1/4 inch around the edges and bottoms. Take the good parts of the zucchini guts you just scooped out and dice up 1/2 C. This will go in your filling.
Drizzle the zucchini shells with a little olive oil and use your hands to rub it on all sides. Sprinkle with some kosher salt and black pepper and set aside.
Preheat your grill outside and then start your filling in a skillet on the stovetop. Start by browning the sausage. When you no longer see pink, add the onions, garlic, and diced zucchini. Cook for 2-3 minutes until onion is tender. Add tomato and basil, 1/4 t kosher salt and a few cracks of black pepper. Remove pan from heat and set aside.
You’re gonna add that cheese in just a second! First take your zucchini to the grill and put them hollow-side down.
Grill for about 5 minutes on medium heat. They should have nice charred marks and look tender on the inside.
Take them back inside. Add cheese and bread crumbs to filling mixture. Stir to combine and then divide the filling between the zucchini. Top each zucchini with about 1T cheese and sprinkle with 1/4-1/2 t bread crumbs. Lastly, give them a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
Place them back on the grill (filling side up- please!) Close grill lid, and cook for another 5-7 minutes. Larger/thicker zucchini will obviously take longer to cook.
If you’re doing this inside, it will take a little longer seeing as you can’t close the lid to keep in the heat. You also might want to broil them in the oven when they’re finished to help the cheese on top get nice and bubbly.
That’s it folks. Quick and easy!
You can serve them as a main dish or cut them into thirds for a side dish or appetizer. Either way, you’ll be lovin’ the zucchini!
This morning Bo and I kept Baby Maggie because Janice had to take James to the doctor. When Janice was telling me about needing to take James I told her to let me keep Maggie. I knew it would help her out, because I dread the day I have to take Bo and a newborn to the doctor at the same time. Not knowing how baby will act, will they need to eat, etc… and this was an appointment that Janice needed to be able to talk to the doctor and hear everything being said. I also thought this may be good “practice” for Bo. Just yesterday I got out our bouncy seat and swing to get them washed and ready for our peanut. He enjoyed helping me put them together and getting them ready for Maggie to come use while she was here. Up until now he hasn’t been interested the least little bit in any baby, to be honest he usually completely ignores them! Well today I was certain I had a different child in my house! He LOVED having her here. He was such a big helper!!!!
One of the first things he did was to go get his sippy cup of milk and put it in her lap! When I explained she had to have special milk he said “okay mom, baby Maggie is hungry she needs to eat a hotdog”. I then mentioned I was going to get a blanket for her to lay on. So he came upstairs with me and said that he wanted to give her his Lightening McQueen blanket! I almost fell out!!! He also helped give her, her bottle and pacifier! She had a little bit of a fussy period and he would come over and say “it’s okay baby” and he even gave her his “night-night” which is his lovie that is HIS and no one else’s. Once I knew what was wrong, she had really bad gas, I remembered a few tricks from Bo and sure enough they worked. So I swaddled her, put her in the swing and gave her a pacifier, sure enough she was asleep in less than 5 minutes. Bo “helped” by holding on to the swing and “swinging” it, at least he thought he was doing it. He was SO proud! He even ate his snack next to her because he wanted to take care of her. When it was time for her to go he even said he wanted her to stay.
I’m HOPING that this eagerness sticks around long enough for us to get our baby home! I realize it will still be a huge adjustment for him and it isn’t always going to be fun and helping but this gives me a little hope!!!
giving her Baby Puppy!
I heard him talking and looked in to see him telling her about how he squished the caterpillars, a big story from the weekend!
