Labor Day Weekend/ 35 Weeks

Hey Everyone,

We've gotten a little behind on posts so here we go. Over labor day weekend, Sterling and I celebrated his recent annual work review. I bought him a cookie cake and some beer and put some streamers up in our kitchen and living room :). The next day Sterling's mom, dad, and sister came to visit us :) Kristen brought her precious new addition, a little 1.3 pound yorkie poo named Grizzly :) He's so teeny tiny - he looks like a little stuffed animal. On Saturday, we went to the Rice/UT game at Reliant Stadium. It was pretty fun - the combination of outbursts from the boys was more entertaining than the game, haha. John would be mad and Sterling would be standing and cheering obnoxiously. Then the very next play, Sterling would be pouting and John would be smiling from ear to ear. I was happy that the game was in an air-conditioned stadium :)
The guys and Kristen got in a game of golf on Sunday and Tammy and I took Grizzly for his first vet appointment to get his little ear checked out. Here are some pictures from the weekend, as well as a few of the belly for those who are interested in the progress of my expansion!

Dinner at Star Pizza and Dessert at Amy's Icecream after :)

I'm up around 35-36 pounds now, 35 weeks pregnant. Good Lord someone please stop those scale numbers from going up more!! Well, it's not really the numbers that I'm all that concerned about to be honest. My weight gain is in the range my doctor wanted me to gain so all is good there. I guess I just had hoped that by some miraculous feat I would be able to avoid the "gathering nuts for winter look" in my face, legs, and arms that 95% of all pregnant women get in the last trimester...unfortunately, not the case. BOOOOOOO. That too, is normal due to fluid accumulation/swelling in the very last part of the third trimester. On one hand, I'm fine with it because pregnancy is what it is. I'm suppose to gain weight, I'm suppose to be larger, I'm suppose to be puffy because my blood/lymph volume has more than tripled over the course of ~9 months....but on the other hand, GAHHHHH it's so hard seeing myself looking so "jolly" and round (like Santa) in pictures and in the mirror. Very hard to feel attractive at all. I'm ready for baby Lauren to get here so I can get my workout routine going again and get my body back! Hopefully, in the future if/when we decide to expand our family again, I'll be able to workout during successive pregnancies...with the placenta issues of this one, I haven't been allowed to work out. At the very least, it would help me keep my arms and legs toned so I have less of a Michelin man look :)

My sister Janna (along with the help of my mom and sister Jessica) threw us a nice baby shower over this past weekend. We got a ton of stuff for the baby - she is going to be so spoiled rotten :) My dad and Jessica flew back to Tennessee this morning; Janna will be flying back home to California tomorrow morning, and mom is staying with us for a week. She's still pretty restricted with her mobility (still isn't allowed to bear weight on her left leg) so we will mainly just be visiting and keeping each other entertained. I imagine our main project will just be to finish up organizing all of the presents into the baby's room and then getting the last few little things we'll need for the baby from Babies R Us and Target. We'll post some pictures from the shower on the next post.

I'll be 36 weeks this coming Friday so she could be here anytime between Friday and October 15th. CRAZY!!!

Hope everyone is doing well!!

-J&S