A Christmas Post...Finally!

Christmas is now a month behind us, but I figured I should still post some pictures from our adventures. We had a great trip home, and enjoyed seeing all of our families. We never seem to be able to spend as much time with everyone as we'd like though. We'll have to start planning another trip home!

Peyton and Patrick finally got to meet my nephew Owen. So. Stinkin'. Cute.

Peyton got to help Papa make a tanker.

Peyton also got to help Lulu make rice krispy treats. He might have licked his fingers. A lot.

The Harrell Christmas tree is filled with special ornaments that they've collected over the years. This is one of my favorite from when Patrick was young...I think I see a little bit of Peyton in there, don't ya think?

Peyton got to hang out with Gramps




And play with his cousins......

Baby Girl Harrell even got a few fun gifts!



And of course Peyton got to eat some beignets!! There's just no avoiding getting the sugar everywhere!

And my favorite video of all time.....Peyton returns to playing the guitar. He made up his song, of course, and I'm hard pressed to interpret exactly what he's saying, but something about Christmas trees, Christmas presents, and Christmas lights. Be sure to catch the ending as he cuts off the song with his hand.

Peyton's new room!

We bought a dresser for Peyton at the habitat reuse store and Patrick and Peyton have been working hard to sand and paint it. Peyton was excited about his new dresser and therefore we hoped willing to give his old dresser and bed to his baby sister once it was ready. He declared he wanted dump trucks on his new big bed too, so Santa Claus brought him a new bedroom set.

Fixing up the dresser became a much bigger project for Patrick than he anticipated (of course),requiring several trips to Home Depot and Lowe's for parts, but I really like how it turned out. He worked really hard and it turned out very nice - it looks great in the room!

How Embarrassing!

Kids are often brutally honest and don't have much of a filter. I've heard horror stories of the inappropriate things that kids say out in public. Now I'm getting to experience it first hand. And for whatever reason, Peyton has taken to calling people out on their weight.

As he and Patrick were grocery shopping the other day, they passed someone that Patrick admitted was on the larger side of size. Peyton suddenly belted out (not so quietly), "Dad! That guy is FAT!" He's pretty sure the guy heard him. This led to a discussion about the things that are not so nice to say to people. But trying to explain where this line is to a 3 year old is not exactly easy.

Then this week, Peyton's class had a Christmas party for all of the parents to attend. Another little boy in his class has a dad that I've met and chatted with on a number of occasions, and as we made small talk at the party, Peyton interrupted, "You have a big fat belly!" This led to my mumbled explanation of how we've been joking about my big growing belly as I totally avoided eye contact, apologized, and slinked away. This guy wasn't huge or anything, and he took it in stride, "Oh! That's from all the cookies I've been eating!" Thank God Peyton didn't say it to his wife that gave birth to their child a few months ago now. As I tried to control my rising blood pressure and red face, we had a discussion about how we don't say things like that to people.

So, I would like to apologize in advance to anyone out there that my son insults. We're working on the issue, but I can't promise he won't be perfectly blunt with you during your conversation with him. He's certainly not learning these bad manners at home!

Heaux Heaux Heaux

Our Santa Picture - 2011. Isn't Peyton so handsome in his argyle sweater vest?!

A comparison

I'm now 29 weeks along, which means only 11 more to go (more or less). After a round of steroids, my back is a little better, and I'm able to tolerate sitting and/or standing for longer periods of time. I'm not ready to do cartwheels or anything, but I"m thankful to have a little more function back. The physical therapist told me that it may not be until after the baby is born, possibly not until after I'm finished breast feeding, that I actually feel fully recovered. But I can at least sit through a meal now without having to choose between laying down for some relief and getting enough food in my belly.

One side effect of the back issue is that I waddle a little more than a normal pregnant woman, apparently causing the woman at Sam's last week to ask me if I was due on Thursday. Uh, no, I have 3 more months to go. She responded that I must be having twins then. Uh, no, there is only one. She told me she thought one might be hiding in there. Gee, thanks a lot! But I wondered whether I seem to be smaller, bigger, or the same size this pregnancy as with Peyton. So I pulled out a picture from 29 weeks with Peyton (left) and took another picture today to compare (right).




















I don't know...maybe I was bigger with Peyt? I will say that I don't think I've gained as much weight this pregnancy. However, today I was measuring 30 weeks, which is about a week ahead of schedule. According to my 32 week post with Peyton, I was measuring 32 weeks....who knows. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how big this little girl is .....in 11 weeks!

Halloween!

Halloween was a little quieter this year. Unfortunately, no trip to the pumpkin patch :( But next year, we'll go back and have a great time! These days, our activities are limited to things where I can find a place to lay down so we strategize before we do anything. I was feeling up to going to Trunk or Treat, though, so we did get to have a little fun. Families decorate the trunks of their cars and kids go around and collect candy. I knew some friends of ours would have their trunk decorated so I would be able to sit in their car for little breaks. There was also a little green space where the kids were running around so I was able to lay down in the grass. Because I'm now visibly pregnant, it seems to be slightly more socially acceptable for me to lay down in strange public places.

Several months ago, I asked Peyton what he wanted to be for Halloween. We discussed several possibilities but he seemed to settle on being an astronaut. I'm not really sure where he came up with the idea or why that was what he wanted to be, but I was happy to honor his request. A little shopping on amazon later, I found a few for him to choose from and he picked the one he wanted. As soon as it arrived, he wanted to put it on. He even posed in front of the fireplace for a picture. (He's not too much into taking pictures these days).

We usually like to do some kind of family theme, so Patrick and I thought about how we could complement Peyton's costume for the Trunk or Treat event. I settled on being "outer space" and Patrick was an alien. We managed to get a family picture, although certain participants were not willing to look at the camera.

Trunk or Treat was a week before Halloween, but I assumed Peyton would be an astronaut for Halloween as well. The day before Halloween, a friend asked Peyton what he was going to go dressed as for Halloween. I fully expected his response to be an astronaut since that's what we talked about for months. Nope. A pirate. I reminded him that he was going to be an astronaut. Nope. He was an astronaut last week for Trunk or Treat. He needed to wear a different costume. Like he's 16 and can't wear the same dress to a second prom, even though no one was going to see him twice in the same costume -there's totally different crowd in our neighborhood!
I know my son well enough to know that when he has an idea in his head, there really isn't any changing his mind. Luckily, I had a pirate costume in the closet from a kindergarten teacher friend that had a bunch of extra dress up costumes that she passed on to me. I'm not sure I could have pulled off buying a pirate costume with less than 24h notice.

It poured down rain in the early evening on Halloween, but it finally stopped long enough for us to walk around our neighborhood and gather some candy from a few houses. There aren't many kids in our subdivision, so we only saw two other families out and about, but Peyton still had a fun time. And I was happy to get to see him run around in his pirate costume gathering candy that I would subsequently get to steal and eat myself.

23 Weeks and Counting!

I figured I haven't compared my growing baby to any fruits or vegetables yet during this pregnancy, so I'm way overdue! I'm at 23 weeks and at this point, an average baby is about 11 inches long and weighs about a pound, about the weight of a mango. But then again, I don't have average sized babies, apparently, so who knows how accurate this is.

The other night, Peyton put his ear up to my belly to see if he could hear the baby. Whatever he heard, he thought it was the most hilarious thing he'd ever heard. We caught a little of it on video.




I'm still living life confined to the floor, unfortunately. The consensus is that I have a herniated disk in the L4-L5 region of my spine. Because I can't have any imaging done while I'm pregnant, its unclear how bad it is. But at this point, imaging won't tell us anything that would change the course of treatment of a pregnant lady. There are a few more options once I have the baby if its still a problem. But for now, chiropractic care, physical therapy, and depending on how much longer this goes on and whether anyone will write me a prescription, possibly steroids to help reduce the inflammation of the disk. Its still unclear to me whether this will get better anytime soon. When I initially started seeing the chiropractor, she said it would take about a week and a half to help me feel better. I'm three weeks in to the chiropractic care, and I would say I'm only marginally better. And a lot of that may be that I've really given up on trying to have any kind of a life and I pretty much just stay off of my feet. I will start seeing a new physical therapist on Tuesday, one of only 2 in the area that has a special training in spine health. I guess as long as there are options and possibilities on the horizon, I should remain optimistic. But I'm 6 weeks into the back pain and everyone thought I would be better by now. I'll continue with the combination of PT and chiropractic care for now, and see where that takes me. I'm managing to get myself back and forth to work everyday, sometimes driving myself, other times depending on the generosity of my hubby and my fantastic coworkers. I have a mat and a pillow on the floor of my office, so I'm able to stay comfortable most of the day. The students that I meet with sit at a table and we discuss the task at hand with me on the floor. They're all pretty used to it and don't find it odd at all anymore. Some days are better than others, but here's to hoping there are more better days than bad days to come.

As for our house, we didn't have any luck selling it. The market is especially slow this time of year in our neighborhood. The time to sell here is March - June. We just felt like it wasn't worth continuing to lower our price, so we've decided to take it off the market. We had already decided not to build a house in Apex, as we had planned earlier this year. Patrick's new job in its new location didn't warrant such a long commute for both of us. But we still have our hearts set on living in a bigger house, both for our expanding family and to accommodate guests and visitors. With me on the floor and another little one on the way, we especially need our family's help now, so we'll need a place for them to stay! We've decided to put our house up for rent and hope that this will be a much quicker process than selling it. We'll go ahead and rent a bigger house for now as we consider school districts and ponder trying to sell our house again in the coming years.

Stay tuned for exciting updates from the Harrell household...