in our 30's, together

Our baby has entered his 30's with his Daddy and me! Rachel likes to talk about how we're all "30 something" now. We've entered the final stretch of this pregnancy and I'm happy to report, everything looks great! Baby has one nice, strong heart beat at every appointment. I still cry when I hear it; such a miracle to me. He's a bit ahead as far as growth goes, but not so far ahead they want to move my due date or anything. Plus, since I miscarried in early/mid July, we pretty much know I couldn't have gotten pregnant any sooner than I did.
His kicks and movements have gotten much stronger. Its fun to not only feel body parts, but we've had times when we see toes and a fist and can actually tell what's poking through.
He so reminds me of Ethan with his movements. The girls both moved as if they had lots of energy and were playing around. Ethan always moved as if he was trying to stretch out, but couldn't. And it totally fit his personality once he was born - he was our child who hated to be swaddled and actually laid with arms outstretched from the time he was a week old. I have a feeling this little guy is gonna be the same way.

all excited to actually feel baby brother kick! 

{back at 26 weeks}

I think back to my other pregnancies and remember never understanding the comment "this pregnancy has gone so fast - we're not ready for this baby yet!" and I never did understand it. I always wanted to comment back with, "you've had 9 months. And its a baby for goodness sake, what on earth do you really have to get ready for??" but here I am, 31 weeks pregnant and said those words to my husband just the other night - "my due date is fast approaching and I'm not ready!"
I'm mentally ready to meet him... more than I've ever been. But I feel like we still have a list of things to do before he arrives. They're still in the realm of 'sillier' things and even if they don't get completed before his birth, he won't know the difference. The beautiful thing about babies is they pretty much need Mama and some diapers :)
A couple weeks ago I checked off a HUGE job of sorting through all our bins of baby/toddler/children's clothes. I want to say we have about 18 beens total. I hope its not that many, but I think its close.
Took me about 5 hours, but every bin is organized and labeled. I can't tell you how relaxed that makes me feel, knowing I won't have to go dig around out there, looking for the right size of clothing for each child.
We still need to buy a few things for this baby, like a car seat. I guess we'd need that to bring him home in from the hospital ;-) and we wanted to paint his bedroom before he comes. But again, he'll probably sleep with us for a few months, so its not something terribly urgent. Oh, we also need to take the hospital tour.

Kara wanted to hold up 4 fingers, since he's our 4th baby. 

*my Mom ended up being right! This isn't Kara's hand - its Rachel's. 
Good call, Mom :) 

Our kids are getting very excited as we near the 40 week mark. Kara especially is slowly understanding what's about to happen. She's had moments where its like a light goes off and she says, "wait... he's gonna come here and live with us?!" and "will he always be our baby or are we just baby sitting him and then giving him back?" She knows his due date is very close to Easter, so now she has a real vested interest in when Easter gets here. I think every morning lately I get asked, "is today Easter time?!"

29 weeks and probably the last time I'll wear that sweater :) 

I finally began a work out routine. Only took me 30 weeks, I know. I was feeling so sore and achey and sluggish and my midwife kindly suggested doing an actual aerobics work out. She told me since its something my body is used to, its probably been hard on my body to not be doing any sort of work out for the past 9 months. So I started working out and have felt SO much better! Kind of kicking myself for taking this long to do it.

this was taken just the other night. 

all the kids say good night to my tummy and give kisses to the baby, 

but Kara especially is quite cuddly with him and refers to him as "my baby". 

We're all super anxious to meet him in person; to kiss his little cheeks and tell him how much we love him and how long we've waited to have him in our family.
I'm looking forward to the calmer, quieter days with a newborn. I love the way life slows down when a new baby enters the house. Suddenly nothing seems as important as taking naps during the day,
watching baby coo and make cute faces and enjoying our family as it grows.
This little boy has no idea how special he is to us. All our kids are special miracles, but having to go through 3 miscarriages before being able to enjoy the blessings of a healthy, full term pregnancy - makes you realize just how miraculous this process is.
I'm thankful that its given our small kids an appreciation of life and the journey of pregnancy.
It amazes me how much awareness they have at their ages, since they've walked through the loss of more than one brother or sister.

So as we do the final 9 week count down, the anticipation and excitement sure grows each day :)