Nora Kate's Baby Shower

Today my Aunt Arlene and Cousin Rachel hosted a perfectly pink baby shower for Nora Kate.  Karen and Emily also helped with the food and delicious strawberry cake!  I was very excited when Arlene offered to host a shower for Nora Kate, since she is our third child I wasn't expecting a shower...BUT it was so nice to get adorable little girl things since we've only done blue before!  :)  It was also a wonderful excuse to celebrate Nora Kate and see lots of family and friends!

They had everything decorated so cute in pink a lots of delicious food!  It was a brunch shower so we had fruit salad, hashbrown casserole, quiche, grits, biscuits, ham, banana bread, and strawberry cake.  We also had pink raspberry orange juice punch!  Check out all the yummy food and cute décor!

 

I loved getting to visit with everyone at the shower!  I am very blessed to have such wonderful friends and family to come celebrate Nora Kate's upcoming arrival with us!

Lauren, Mom, Alice, and Kristin.

Faye, Janice, Linda, and Hayley.

Lauren drove all the way from Atlanta to come to the shower today!  What a great big sis!  :)

Sigma Kappa picture!!

Cassandra drove from Asheville to come to the shower!

Amanda (AT) has a daughter who is going to be almost exactly a year younger than Nora Kate.

Left to right Cassandra, AT, me, Lauren.

Andrea, our wonderful friend we originally met in Alabama who now lives here, came and brought her sweet daughter Olivia!

Kristin, my oldest friend, came to the shower too!  Kristin and I grew up together, lived across the street from each other, took dance together, and went to school together! 

Karen, Mom, me, Arlene, and Rachel.

Me and the hostesses!  They did a great job!  Everything was perfect!!!

Mom and I.

Me and Nora Kate (33 weeks) with Nora Kate's Nana and Lolly.

 

Not only was it fun getting to visit with everyone, but we were also given a lot of wonderful gifts!  Here are a few pictures of some of the gifts we received.

 

I cannot wait for Nora Kate to wear this adorable tutu!

We got a lot of cute things with Nora Kate's name on them!  Check out this cute burp cloth!

Olivia was such a good baby at the shower.  She enjoyed playing in the wrapping paper.

Hayley didn't want to miss out on the wrapping paper fun either and was also such a happy little girl at the shower!  And she's so sweet and thoughtful, she gave Nora Kate pacifiers! :)

Cassandra MADE this adorable blanket for Nora Kate!

Nora Kate's Lolly gave her this sweet gown monogrammed with her name!

I can't wait for her to wear this in the hospital and for her newborn pictures, just like Dawson and Carter did with their monogrammed gowns!

Carter was not left out!  Here's his Big Brother Carter

shirt that matches Nora Kate's gown!

And Dawson's Bigger Brother Dawson shirt!

Can't wait for the boys to wear these matching shirts to the hospital when they come to meet Nora Kate for the first time!!

 

We are so very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends to help us celebrate and prepare for Nora Kate's arrival!!!

 

 

Nora Kate 33 Weeks

We are only 7 weeks away from Nora Kate's due date!  Although this seems completely impossible, we have finally been making progress in preparing for her arrival!  Her room is now painted, you guessed it-PINK!  I have cleaned out, organized, and put her clothes in her closet.  All of these tasks were very time consuming!  First, the walls were previously green in the room, so a good coat of primer was required before painting it a light pink.  John finished priming and the room sat with white primer for a couple of weeks as we were too busy with VBS and John with work to have time to paint it pink.  Last Friday, I took the boys to swim with some friends and John and Pop painted the entire room pink while I was gone!  I was surprised at how quickly they were able to work with us out of the house.  Now the walls are bare, so that is my next task-decorating!  I have a couple of things to hang on the walls and several ideas, but I need to get started this week on the decorating! 
In other pregnancy news, I am feeling great today!  I had a rough week last week.  This pregnancy has been so easy and I've felt so great that I was surprised when I started feeling really achy (think flu-like aches) and began having A LOT of Braxton Hicks contractions and a fever!  After this lasting the weekend and not being able to have enough energy to do anything last Monday, I went to the doctor.  Thankfully I was not in pre-term labor, but the most likely reason I was given for everything happening was overdoing it which was possible since I had had such a busy week with the boys, Splash Country, and VBS every night leading up to when this all began.  In the end, everything checked out fine, and after A LOT of rest last week I am back to normal...100%!  I'm feeling better than I was with Carter or Dawson at this point, and other than the week of VBS when I was on my feet constantly I have really not even had any swelling yet!  (Yay!)  My gestational diabetes is great, it's right in the range where it should be. And best of all, (other than last week), I'm still feeling great!  This has by far been the easiest and most enjoyable pregnancy of the three since I have felt so well.
Nora Kate is doing well.  I had a check-up this morning, and everything was great.  When the doctor asked what questions I had or what I wanted to talk about at my appointment today, and I told him I didn't know of anything (I usually have a few things to ask), he said, "Well, you're a pro now.  This is number three. You could write a book!"  Haha!  I go back in 2 weeks, then I will go every week (how is it this time already?!).  Nora Kate is SO active.  She's constantly moving and kicking, and while it's fun to feel her movements we really enjoy SEEING her movements now! 
My Aunt Arlene offered to host a baby shower for Nora Kate since we have two boys and are preparing for a girl this time around.  We thought it would be fun to celebrate her coming arrival, so her shower is this coming weekend!  After learning that we were going to have a shower we headed out to Target and Babies R Us to register...all four of us!  The boys did awesome registering-Dawson, of course, got to scan all of the items which he thought was so cool and Carter was bribed in the shopping Carter with snacks! :)  Looking at little girl things is so fun, and Dawson enjoyed being a part of this too.
Dawson is excited about Nora Kate's arrival.  He has asked if he can bring balloons to the hospital like he did when Carter was born.  He remembered this on his own, so I told him yes that someone would let him get balloons to bring to our room.  He has also mentioned several times that when we "go to the hospital where the doctor got Carter out and is going to get Nora Kate out of Mommy's tummy you park in a big garage."  Apparently parking in the parking garage at St. Mary's was impactful because he has talked about this several times!  haha!  I do think it's fun though that it is recent enough in his mind that he remembers and knows what to expect (somewhat), so I won't be as worried about what he's thinking when he comes to see us in the hospital.  And, of course, Carter will be too young to be worried.  I am interested to see how Carter will react to Nora Kate, specifically me holding and taking care of her since he's usually the one in my arms or being carried around.  Seven weeks (or so) and we'll find out!!

Look how excited Dawson was to get to scan the items for Nora Kate's baby registry!

 

Friday I started making hair bows for Nora Kate, and so far I've made about 20!  These are most of the bows I've made this far.  I'm excited about these because I can clip them on headbands when she's little and doesn't have any/much hair, and then when she gets enough hair I can clip them in her hair.  I have some more ribbon I haven't used yet and a few styles of bows I haven't tried yet, so there are more bows to come!  John has given me a hard time that I've become obsessed with making them over the weekend, but they're so fun. 

Now that the walls are painted pink (good job, John & Pop!!), I love how the bedding looks in the room!  It's pink and taupe damask.  The underside of the comforter is minky fabric and the ruffle on the bumper pad is satin. 

33 Weeks!

Carter at 14 Months

Carter is 14 months!  He is so fun and full of personality, we are constantly laughing at him!  If anyone is laughing, Carter joins right in even if he has no idea what we're laughing about.  Such a happy little guy!  No one can get him laughing like Dawson, though!  It seems when the two of them get started, the laugh and laugh uncontrollably and John and I usually don't have a clue what is so funny! In the end, I think they are both just laughing at the other one laughing. 

Carter loves any and all attention he gets from Dawson!  He always has to know where big brother is and usually wants to be playing with the same thing Dawson has.  "Monkey See, Monkey Do" is the name of the game this month more than ever!  ANYTHING Dawson does, Carter tries to imitate it.  Here are some examples we think are funny-
-Dawson jumps non-stop (he's always done this), he just stands and talks and jumps!  :)  Carter has learned to jump this month.  It's funny to watch because he is so focused when he jumps, but sure enough both feet leave the floor at the same time!
-After two weeks of swim lessons, Dawson requested a whistle like the lifeguards.  Obviously, we weren't too smart because we bought him a whistle (we may all be deaf by the time you read this post)!  BUT Carter saw Dawson put the whistle around his neck, in his mouth, and blow so now Carter gets the whistle puts it over his head, in his mouth, and he doesn't understand that blowing makes the noise so instead while the whistle is in his mouth he makes a loud yelling noise to imitate the whistle!  It's hilarious!  (Yes, I realize it's dangerous they put it around their necks, but they only play with it when I'm in the room.)
-Dawson can sit on furniture by himself (obviously), Carter has learned that by slightly moving the sofa pillows he too can climb on the couch and sit.  (This makes me so nervous because he's not very careful).
-He saw Dawson pretending to make a toy plane fly through the playroom, and now he loves to hold this plane up in the air and make it fly!
Monkey See, Monkey Do!

Even though these two have so much fun together, they are doing great sharing a room and actually sleeping in it!  :)  They both love their shared room, and I love seeing them run down the hallway and in their room together!

I'm so thrilled that Carter is enjoying books even more this month. Now when I ask him if he wants to read a book, he will come sit with me and wait for me to start reading.  He still won't sit through 20 books at one time like Dawson would at this age, but who can blame him when he has a big 4 year old brother to keep up with!?

He talks NONSTOP!  Two weeks ago when we picked him up from church nursery, the ladies in his room commented that they thought he was going to be a preacher because he didn't stop talking the entire time! haha!  Carter knows a lot of new words, and it seems his vocabulary is growing every day in addition to the constant strings of gibberish.  Some of our favorite additions to his vocabulary include, "happy!" "DD" (which he now calls Dawson DD part of the time and Buba the rest), Lolly (if you say it he will repeat), Nana (if you say it he will repeat).  When we ask him what a doggie says, he responds,  "Goggie? woo woo" which kind of sounds like a bark when he does it!  When we see a dog in person, on tv, or in a book he says, "Goggie!  woo woo!"  Sometimes he also calls horses doggies too.  :)  When he sees a truck, especially a toy truck, he says "beep beep!" and when he plays with trains or hears one when we're outside he says "choo choo!"

Carter also continues to be VERY affectionate!  I love how we will be playing and he will randomly stop what he's doing, walk across the room and hug me while saying "awwww."  He's a cuddlier too! As much as he loves to be rowdy and roll around with Dawson on the floor, he loves to cuddle in my arms or on my lap.  We took the boys the Splash Country (the water park) this week, and Carter and I spent A LOT of time floating through the Lazy River.  He would randomly lean over, hug me, and pat my face as we were relaxing on our shared inner tube!  I love how affectionate he is.  He is just as affectionate with John and with Dawson too!  Speaking of John, he's become really attached to John lately-so sweet! 

He still only has two teeth-the two bottom middle ones.  BUT he is working on cutting one on top, and it's so close that it may even have broken through the gums by tomorrow.  To not have many teeth, he does fairly well eating.  He's off his peas and green beans kick, but is doing much better eating meat-especially chicken!

As for sleep, Carter had stopped doing his morning nap several months ago much to my dismay, BUT it seems he needs this about 1 or 2 days a week (it's strange).  IF he takes a morning nap he can go down no later than 9:30am and he only sleeps 30-45 minutes, but it's like this little time a day or two a week makes a big difference.  He ALWAYS naps in the afternoon at 1pm when Dawson naps which is so nice because I get about an hour (sometimes a little longer) where they are both asleep to rest or catch up!


One more thing I want to record so I will remember about Carter at this age is that he loves music and dancing.  In the van, he will point to the radio and whine until I turn on music.  Then he happily dances the rest of the car ride.  We have discovered several episodes on Hulu of Kid Songs (shows with kids singing from the 80's-actually John is convinced that one of the girls is me when I was little haha!).  Dawson and Carter both love watching these short episodes.  They both dance around the living room to the music!  Originally Carter's moves consisted of just bending his knees and bouncing up and down, but now he has a variety of moves including spinning in a circle, jumping, bouncing, twisting the top half of his body, leaning his head side to side, and shaking his hips.  It's so cute to watch! 

On to the pictures...

(Ignore the white primed walls in the background-when we took these we were still in the process of painting Nora Kate's room!)

Swim Lessons

Dawson first took swim lessons from the YMCA in Alabama when he was 2.5.  Then he took lessons after we moved to Tennessee from the Wellness Center before he turned 3.  I knew I wanted to sign him up for something at the beginning of this summer, so back in February I signed Dawson up for the two week session class through Parks and Rec.  It's great because it is every day for two weeks, and the kids spend 30 minutes working one-on-one with an instructor and then 30 minutes practicing what they worked on with Mommy or Daddy.  Also, it's outside where as all of our other swim classes have been in an indoor pool! 

We have all enjoyed his swim lessons.  John got to take him two different days that he was off over the course of the two weeks, and I have gotten to swim with him the other days.  Dawson loves it, and has looked forward to it each day.

Dawson is very strong and a good swimmer-but he still has to have 1 noodle or float to grab on to.  We worked a lot on getting his eyes wet-he would get his hair, ears, nose, and mouth wet and blow bubbles in the water, but when it came to his eyes, he never wanted to do it.  After this swim class he is A LOT  better about it (I think it helped that we went every day, so he got really comfortable and used to it).  Today he was laughing and saying he wanted me to put him under again and again!  Then he yelled to his teacher to watch him go under!  He knew it was the last day of lessons, and he got really brave and went under a ton today!  Now I wish we were doing lessons for an additional week, so that he could work on swimming with his face in the water!

He's way more comfortable in the water than before (not that he wasn't before), and I can tell he's an even stronger swimmer.  AND we all had fun, so it was well worth it!  Now we're ready to swim in the pools and lake this summer!

 

 

Here's Dawson on Day 3 of swim lessons with his instructor Alexis.

Day 5 of swim lessons!  Dawson was so excited each day to go!

The second time John was off work and got to do swim lessons with Carter, Carter and I tagged along and had fun splashing around in the baby pool!  This picture was taken as soon as Carter got in, and I think the cool temp was a little surprising to him.  After he adjusted, he loved splashing around in it though!

Carter, Mommy, and Nora Kate (30 weeks) in the baby pool while Dawson was swimming in the big pool for his lessons.

 

Summer School

Lately I have been feeling really bad about the lack of school-type of activities I've done (or not done) with Dawson.  He and I used to have what we called "school" two or three mornings a week where we would work on letter recognition, days of the week, counting, shapes, calendars, crafts, etc.  But unfortunately in January when Carter started crawling really well, we basically stopped because Carter wanted to do everything Dawson was doing (and of course he couldn't) and this would frustrate and distract Dawson.  I have felt bad about it because I always thought I did a pretty good job, and then once we quit we just never picked back up.  Also, Dawson picks up on things really quickly so teaching him is a lot of fun, and he enjoys it! 

A couple of weeks ago, though I realized we had 12 weeks until he starts 2 day a week preschool in the fall, and that we should really try to start working together at home again. 

I decided to put it on the blog, so maybe it will hold me to making sure we do this each week for about 2 or 3 hours no matter what Carter is doing!  :)

So far, Dawson is really enjoys it! 

I wanted to have very simple goals, so I divided our 12 weeks into two 6 week sessions.  The first 5 will be covering material and the 6th will be review before starting new things.  Our goals for the first six weeks are pretty basic, but I want to make sure we have these things down pat 100% before we try anything too new!

First six week goals:

-Recognize all capital and lower case letters (Dawson can already do all his capital letters and a lot of his lower case, but we want to get this 100%)

-Begin site word recognition of simple words and family names

-Improve on coloring INSIDE the lines

-Improve on cutting on the lines (really he's good at this, I just want him to have a little more practice with it-he loves using scissors)

-Recognize all of his shapes even trapezoids (he knows all the basic shapes, but I want him to learn more like trapezoids, hexagons, etc)

-Improve on sequencing (big to small, small to big, etc)

-Improve on writing his name

-Memorize the days of the week (he almost has this when we sing the song-for some reason we like to leave out Wednesday)

-Work on counting higher

So far, in the first two weeks things are going great!  We are currently in the middle of the 3rd week.  Here are a few of the fun things we have done...

 

 

Glued Black Beans on a capital and lower case B

For each letter we read and sing the little songs/poems in this book that correspond and then Dawson uses a dry erase marker to circle all the capital and lower case of that particular letter on the page.  He loves that he can write in this one special book and erase it!

We reviewed the letter E and did egg matching where Dawson had to match up the capital letters with their lower case letter...here are a few of the eggs-I will say they don't all match up by color!

With the letter H we matched upper and lower case letters written on Hands...again all the colors didn't match up perfectly, so he had to look at the letter rather than the color.

He really enjoyed practicing writing F's and was really into everything we did this morning.  Look at all those awesome F's he wrote by himself before circling the F's on the page!

When we did the letter G we Glued string on top of the upper and lower case G's.

These are just a few of our activities so far, but Dawson is loving our school time.  I'm hoping we can keep it up and keep Carter happy and entertained while we do it.  I really have a lot of fun teaching Dawson everything, and each day Dawson can wait to show Daddy what we made/learned/did in "school!"

Big Boy Brothers Room

Saturday, May 25, we took on the task of moving the boys into the same room!  Luckily our house has large bedrooms, so even though Dawson and Carter are now sharing no one is cramped for space.  The room we had been using as Carter's nursery was the biggest of the bedrooms and had two closets, so it was the perfect room for us to move the boys in to.  We decided to continue the dino theme that we had already started for Dawson in his room.

For the boys' birthdays, Lolly and Pop gave them new matching plaid comforters for what Dawson started calling "the big boy brothers room."  We got a new crib for Carter, and Nora Kate will use the crib and nursery set that both boys have used (we wanted all of the kids to use the same furniture in their nurseries).

The boys spent Saturday morning playing at Lolly and Pop's house so we could work on the room!  Grandad came, and helped John assemble the new crib, take the other crib apart and then reassemble it in Nora Kate's room while I worked on the bedding, arranging, and hanging things on the walls.

It was a little sad to take down all of Carter's nursery décor, but it was fun putting up big boy things for him!

So here are some pictures!

 

The view from the hallway looking into their room.

The little red rocking chair was mine when I was little.

The closet pictured is Carter's

Dawson's closet can be seen on the left and

his name and dino décor over the bed.

I made the lamp shade and all of the things on the wall in this picture, so I wanted to find the perfect place for them to be used again in their new dino room!

Here's Carter's side of the room!

I love seeing the matching comforters and pillows in Carter's crib and on Dawson's bed! 

I didn't want Carter to be left of out having his name on the wall, but I wanted something a little different.  So I made these out of blocks of wood, wooden letters, and fabric (the same fabric I used for the frame with Dawson's name over his bed). 

When we picked the boys up from Lolly and Pop's house, Dawson was so excited to come home and see his room!  This picture doesn't quiet show his excitement, but he ran in and immediately checked everything out while jumping up and down.

Carter immediately ran to the crib to check things out!

Both boys loved their new "big boy brothers room."

Carter picks up all the dinos in the room, hugs them, and says "doggie."  At least he likes the décor?!

 

So far the boys have far exceeded our expectations on sharing a room.  We had one day where they had trouble settling down at naptime in there together, and one day Dawson informed us he climbed into Carter's crib to wake him up (ahh!) and then climbed back out (nervous Mommy and Daddy!!).  We weren't sure if this was true, but he showed us just how he did it.  We have had several talks and he's not going to do this anymore!  :)  Overall, though they are doing AWESOME about sharing a room, and they both love being in their new room together!

Sweet brothers!

Nora Kate 29 Weeks

We are now at the end of the 29th week of pregnancy with Nora Kate!  I will be 30 weeks tomorrow!  I'm still feeling great (despite horrible allergies right now), and Nora Kate is getting more and more active by the day it seems!  She's constantly moving!

I had a doctor's appointment Friday and got a good report!  Her heart rate was 148 and everything checked out perfectly. 

 

Here are two pictures from the last ultrasound we had that I mentioned in the last Nora Kate update when I said her nose and lips look JUST LIKE Carter's.  The image here isn't as clear as it was on the screen when we were at the doctor's, but I still think you can tell in the picture above and below that she looks like Carter.

Hello 28 weeks.

And 29 weeks.

 

 

We have started making a lot more preparations for Nora Kate this past week.  We moved the boys in together (a blog on that tomorrow!), and thus have been able to start transforming a room into Nora Kate's! Even though we haven't painted yet (the walls will be pink, not green like in this picture!), I was too excited to wait to put the bedding on- so here are a few pictures of the bedding.

I absolutely love the bedding!!  I feel like the pictures don't do it justice especially against the green walls right now.

It is light pink and taupe with a damask pattern.  The ties and ruffle on the bumper pads are satin.  The bed sheet is minky fabric.

 

We are having fun finding cute girlie clothes.  I think this soft pink dress looks just like it would belong to the sweet baby girl who will sleep in this crib!

I saw this lamp I LOVED at Hobby Lobby a while back, but John said it looked like a fire hazard (haha!), so we didn't get it.  BUT after going in Hobby Lobby a couple of different times to see it, John came around!  :)  So now Miss Nora Kate will have this girlie pink feather lamp in her room!

 

We have also started to look at paint colors!  John began priming the walls on Friday and then hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can finish the priming and paint it pink!!

We are both excited to be putting together a new nursery, and we're having a lot of fun working on getting it set up when we have the time!  We can't believe we're just a few days away from being TEN WEEKS from Nora Kate's due date!