Friday Night = Fun Night!

Our weeks are pretty hectic around here. So on Friday I try to make up for it doing something special with Sophie or I will pick up a little surprise for her like a movie from Redbox or a drink from somewhere. Little things go along way with her! I usually try to have cookies on hand to cook Friday night after we eat dinner. She loves helping me cook. That got me thinking about tonight's surprise. I decided that we would make pizzas together. I mentioned it to my friend Tammy as I was leaving work and she said they made a personal size pizza and that her boys loved to make them (they are in 4th grade). I figured that may be the ticket because my appetite is everywhere with this pregnancy and Sophie only wants cheese and Klint wants a pizza with lots of meat! So I ran to Wal-Mart (Ugh!) and got what I needed. Everything cost right at $20 which is about what ordering a pizza would cost.

When I got to Sophie's school, I asked her if she wanted to help me make dinner. She got excited and said yeah....when I said it was pizza, her reaction was priceless! She was ecstatic! That is all she talked about on the way home. She talked about what she was going to put on her pizza and how we would make cookies later and it really made me happy that she was so interested in cooking because it is something I love to do and I wanted her to have that love and joy of it also.

When we got home, she went to her kitchen and found her play pizza. She had to show me what her pizza was going to look like. Excuse her dirty feet! We were fresh from daycare and she wears Crocs...you can only imagine! And her hairstyle is due to the fact we are growing out her bangs! Maggie will never have bangs if I can help it!

I laid out all of our ingredients first and told her what everything was. She loved the cheese and the Canadian bacon. It took some convincing to get her to want to put tomato sauce on her pizza but she finally agreed. Here are a few pictures of her making her pizza!

First we had to spread olive oil on the crust!

Next came the sauce.

Lots of cheese!

Her pizza! (She was chewing up cheese...that is the reason for the goofy face!)

We had the best time. Here are a few more pictures!

 Sweet tea break between pizzas!

Daddy's pizza!

Watching them bake....

Looking good!

Our matching hairdos!

 All done!

Cheese pizza!!! Yummy!

Here is a movie of her spreading on the oil. Sorry for my nasally, southern hick voice!

If you haven't made pizza with your little ones I highly recommend it! Sophie loved it and I can see it being something we do again one day!

Comparing my girls!

I have heard many women say that every pregnancy is different and I really believe it. While there are a lot of similarities, there are more differences.Below is an ultrasound picture of my babies. They are only a few days apart in these photos. Sophie was 19 weeks 5 days. Maggie is 20 weeks 3 days.

Sophie

Maggie

Similarities

• I found out the day before my missed period I was pregnant both times.
• I lost weight with both pregnancies due to nausea and lack of appetite.
• I was so tired in the beginning with both pregnancies. (My first clue I was pregnant!)
• I got a sinus infection right away.
• They are both girls (I know that may seem silly to put, but it is a similarity.)
• I wanted Taco Bell with both of them.
• They are both going to be born in the same season.
• Both girls started off measuring smaller than they should have and their heart rates were really low. It took them a week or two to catch up.

Differences

• I spotted right after I found out I was pregnant with Maggie. Didn't spot at all with Sophie.
• I lost more weight with Sophie than Maggie, but I gained it back a little quicker with Sophie. I have yet to gain any back with Maggie.
• I started showing sooner with Maggie, but that happens with a second baby. 
• With Sophie I craved Taco Bell soft tacos. With Maggie, I craved Taco Bell nachos.
• More foods have made me nauseated with Maggie. 
• I felt Maggie move sooner than I did Sophie (Around 11 weeks). I am not sure if that is just because she moves more than Sophie did or I just knew what to feel.
• Maggie moves a whole lot more than Sophie! In all of her ultrasounds, even the one at 8 weeks, she was moving. She just doesn't stop! Sophie moved, but not in her ultrasounds like Maggie and not all the time.
• With Sophie I craved more salty snacks and oranges. With Maggie, I want sweets. Mostly chocolate milk or ice cream. I have also craved pickles this pregnancy. I have always loved pickles, but we have three jars in the fridge now which was unheard of before. The other day Klint came home and I was eating sushi with a bowl of chocolate ice cream. I got a weird look! I guess I have developed weird food cravings more with Maggie (however Klint would say my favorite snack with Sophie consisting of cucumbers, bacon bits, cheese and croutons smothered in ranch dressing was pretty weird). I have also craved Coke with Maggie and I am not a Coke drinker. Weird!
• Maggie is LOW!!! Sophie always kicked high, but Maggie is always really low when she moves and my muscles in my lower stomach hurt more. Maybe her being low will work to my advantage in the end and she will come a little sooner.
• Maggie's heart rate is lower than Sophie's was. Sophie's ranged between 150 and 160. Maggie's runs between 130 to mid 140s.
• My hips and lower back have hurt more with Maggie and they started hurting sooner. This is causing me to waddle by the end of the day.
• I have started nesting sooner with Maggie, but it probably doesn't help that I have to clean up after a three-year-old.
• Sophie reacted to sounds. Maggie reacts to food and the lack of movement.
• I was emotional sooner with Maggie. I have already had several emotional breakdowns this pregnancy over stupid stuff!

Here is proof that I am a lot bigger with this pregnancy than I was with Sophie. The first picture is me with Maggie at 19 weeks. The second is with Sophie at 25 weeks. My belly is the same size in both...I am worried!!!

I have loved being pregnant and honestly, minus the confusion with Maggie in the beginning, I have had very easy pregnancies. If I wasn't 30 and scared to have more after Maggie, I may consider having one more (which we still debate sometimes), but for all intents and purposes, this may be my last pregnancy and I am fine with that. I am enjoying every second and relishing every little movement hoping I will never forget it!

20 Weeks Check-Up!

Last Monday, I had a little scare and went to the doctor to get checked. I won't go into the specifics, but everything is fine and Maggie was wonderful! While I was there they went ahead and did my anatomy ultrasound so I wouldn't have to come back that Thursday. Maggie was wonderful! Here are some photos from the ultrasound.

 A shot of her face! For a brief second I saw a shadow of her mouth and I think her and Sophie are going to have the same mouths. Klint and I can't decide whose mouth it is, but we are leaning more towards mine.

We confirmed that she is a little girl! She is measuring a day ahead, but her weight was a day behind. So, I am saying she is right where she needs to be. I tried to get the technician to predict how much she would weigh when she was born and she wouldn't. I looked at the growth chart and predicted that if she keeps going like she is she will be around the same weight as Sophie. The technician said that I can expect her to be a little bigger....we'll see!

I little hand to the side! Can't wait to meet our little girl!

I didn't take a picture at 20 weeks because I was out of town. This was at 19 weeks. I really didn't change that much between 19 and 20 weeks. 

Maggie is a mover and a groover which made me think about the differences in her and Sophie already. I will post about that in my next post!

OK to Wake Alarm Clock

We finally got our "Ok to Wake! Alarm Clock" from Amazon. I love ordering from Amazon! They have always offered great customer service and they offer all sorts of things! This time we did have a little hiccup. My box came in on Friday. I was so excited because we had the weekend to try it out and get her used to it. When I opened the box, there were two jars of hair pomade! Did you even know they still made that stuff??? So I immediately went online and ordered a return label. Amazon said they would go ahead and send my replacement and it came today and it really couldn't have came at a better time! Here is an update from my previous post (you can see it here).

Sophie has been doing great! She has slept in her bed all night since we started her chart. We cheated this past Friday and gave her a treat early after five days instead of six, but she has continued to do well and I am so proud of her! Below is her chart with her smiley faces! This Wednesday is her next prize day! Sophie is proud of herself too. She even said the other day on the way home that she had to stay in her bed so she could get a smiley face on her chart. I reinforced her and told her she was right! She is working so hard!

:)

Now, we are to the reason I am so glad the clock came in today. Sunday, Sophie woke us up calling from her bedroom asking if she could get up. I told her no that it wasn't time yet. She waited an hour and hollered again. I told her she could come in. I just knew it was going to happen that she would start waking up and asking to come out of her room, thus my reasoning for ordering the clock. The same thing happened this morning with her waking a little before five.Thank goodness the clock came in today. Here are some pictures of it.

It came with two face plates. One is the daisy shown and the other is supposed to make it look like a bug.

It has a night light mode that stays on for two hours and then goes off. The clock runs on batteries so it has different power saving tricks. I didn't use this feature because she already has a nightlight.

When it is time to wake up it turns green and the animation changes on the clock to a face and its eyes move. It is pretty neat. 

The controls are concealed in the back. A toddler could get into it. So we have her clock on a high shelf, but she picked where it is so she can easily see it from her bed.

I showed her what color the clock turns and how that means she can get out of bed. I let her pick the spot that it went and she is so proud of it! She even asked me why I was taking pictures of her clock. I will update this post with how it works. I am not expecting an overnight miracle, but I hope it at least is a reminder for her to stay in bed and not yell to us about getting up. 

***Update***
The clock has worked great so far! Sophie stays in the bed until it turns green. We have one time of her climbing in the bed with us since all of this started and I am not sure she was completely awake when that happened. We did have to replace the batteries in it already but that was because I used whatever I could find in the house to put in it. We put brand new batteries in it and I am hoping it will last longer this time. I do wish it had the option to plug in. Sophie loves the night light feature on it which I am sure is part of the reason the batteries died, but it doesn't stay on all night. I think it goes off after an hour. I still recommend this clock! We have really enjoyed it!

Toddler Growing Pains!

Sophie can sense there is a change coming! She is acting out more, wanting me to hold her in my lap, and needing attention (good or bad). It has been rough!

One thing that had gotten really bad was Sophie's nightly visits to our bedroom. Sophie always goes to bed in her bed and very rarely fights us on it, but the sleepovers were getting bad! We are talking about coming in at 2:00 and us putting her back in bed at 3:00 and then being back in our room at 4:30 or 5:00 at which point we would just let her stay because we were getting up soon. We would tell her over and over that she needed to stay in her bed at night and that she was a big girl. We talked about when Maggie gets here she is going to have to be quiet and that Maggie may be in our room because she is a baby and we can't wake her. We tried every angle and nothing worked.

It came to a head this past Sunday. Sophie came in our room at her usual 2:00 and Klint put her back in bed at 3:30. We went back to sleep. She came back in our room between 5:30 and 6:00 (I was half asleep so I really don't remember.) She decided she wanted to sleep on top of my pregnancy pillow (Side note: This is the best pregnancy pillow ever!!! I highly recommend.) Well, she kept rolling off on top of me or on top of Klint. It was awful! Then, Klint tried to roll over and get away from her and banged his arm on the night stand. He just got up and went to the couch at that point. Sophie went and asked him why he left and he told her she needed to stay in her own bed. She came back and asked me if what he said was true and I told her yes. I repeated again everything I have said to her a million times. She told me okay and went back to sleep in Klint's empty spot. I knew that we hadn't gotten through. Well, because we had hardly any sleep the night before, we were really late for church. Another turning point for us in this battle...it was starting to interfere with everything.

Sophie likes to count down things and she really needs something she can physically see. So I made a chart to help her track her nights in the bed. I showed her the chart and explained that every night she stayed in bed she would get a smiley face on her chart. We explained again how she had to stay in bed all night and she could get up when we called her. She agreed and we hung it on the fridge. She has to make it six days in a week to earn a surprise (A movie from the $5 at Wal-Mart). Below is the chart.

Sunday night: Was rough! Sophie did stay in bed all night, but she had me up all night! At 1:00 she needed another kiss and a hug (as tired as I was, how could I deny her that?) and then at 3:30 she woke me up to tell me she needed to go potty. The next morning we told her we were so proud she stayed in her bed and didn't get in bed with us, but she didn't have to wake mommy and daddy to go to the potty. We told her she had a night light in the bathroom and she was a big girl and big girls go all on their own! She did get a smiley face.

Monday night: No Sophie in the bed! Woo hoo! Another smiley face and she didn't wake me or her daddy up for anything.

A friend, Jessica, suggested I order her an alarm clock that tells her when it is time to get up. I ordered it Sunday because I wasn't sure just the chart would work (in fact I am still a little skeptical it will continue to work.) and I thought I don't want her to yell to ask if she can get up when we have a sleeping baby in the house. This clock is really neat. You set the time and when it is that time, the clock turns green letting them know they can get up. I thought it was a very neat concept and one that would be easy to teach her. She is also interested in time right now so we can maybe start teaching her time with this clock. I'll update once it comes in on how it works.

So, two nights in and we are doing good so far. We reminded her again tonight about her chart and I hope that inspires her to stay in bed. Wish us luck!

Look at that face!!! So sweet! (And no, she did not wear this in public!)

Teacher Projects: Meeting Binder and Lesson Planner

Wow! I have missed blogging! It has been a couple of weeks and school is in full swing. Now that we have our routine back down, I will try to post more often.

I shared my Pinterest teacher projects in my post here. You can go back and see what I made. Honestly my favorite thing from the whole post is the To Do Frame. I used it everyday! It keeps me straight and make sure things that need to be done stay on my radar!


Another idea I saw on Pinterest was making a Binder for everything important. I decided to do this for my meetings that I attend through the school year. Normally I just use a regular notebook and it is so unorganized. I couldn't keep my notes straight. I couldn't find something I had written down from a previous meeting...it was horrible. So I decided to make a binder for all my meetings and after setting it up, I realize I go to a lot of meetings! Here is my notebook.

I put a copy of my roster in the front to have easy access when meeting with teachers or in case of a drill.

 I keep my calendar in the pocket so it is always with me and in easy reach.

 

My first section has all of my schedules. I have my personal schedule, my meeting schedules, and the district calendar.

I just hole punch my notes and put them where they go. So easy and organized!

All of my tabs! I go to a lot of meetings as I said before!

My lesson planner is something I started last year. I have to plan for three grades and I really didn't want to take home four different binders and other materials home to plan. I also didn't want to have a ton of stuff spread all over my desk. So, I put it all in one notebook and I love it! It is easy and compact and absolutely wonderful! (Can you tell I love it?) Here it is!

:)

My first section is my personal schedule and my roster of students. In the pocket I keep the rosters for my classes and any other information I might need.

The next section has my lesson plans. (Once again, an old lesson plan)

I divide the rest of my notebook for my grades. This is where I put my CCGPS. Our school district sends home what standards we will cover by nine weeks. These haven't came out yet, but when they do, I will add them to this section.

I also printed these posters to use too. I put them in my lesson plan book, but I may move them if they start taking up too much room. I got these here. (Thanks, DeeAnn for sharing the link!) They are free. You add them to your cart and then they email you the link to download them. So easy!

There you have it. My super organized binders. I hope I can keep it up for the rest of the year. I just love my binders!

Baby Kelly Update: The Big Reveal!

We went to the doctor today for my 16 weeks checkup and to take a peek at the baby to see if we could tell what he or she is...kind of getting old referring to the baby as "it"!

The doctor told us that all of my bloodwork for possible genetic problems came back fine and showed no problems. She said I was measuring right on and the heart beat was good. We asked her a few questions about traveling and I asked about getting the pertussis vaccination while I was pregnant. This was something my mom was horrified about and we heard a report that it is at an all time high for this year. She said I could get it after 20 weeks or I could wait and they would do it in the hospital. I want to go ahead a get it. I don't want to take any chances.

So she sent us to take our peek. We were so excited and Sophie was ready to see the baby. Here are a few pictures.

We were able to find out what we were having! She was about 85% sure. Here is what we found out!

As for the name, it will not be Kelly. Her name will be Margaret "Maggie" June. Margaret was Klint's grandmother's name and June is my mom and grandmother's middle name. We are so excited and can't wait to welcome Maggie! Keep praying for us!