Pregnancy Update - 37 Weeks

Full term. Could go in to labor any time and it would be fine. How? How are we already here?

A few updates:

Physically: I mostly feel pretty good. I feel like my belly is small for basically being at the end of the pregnancy, but I think I feel that way every time. My measurements have been right on throughout the pregnancy, though, so even though I feel like I'm small, I'm right on track.

One of the not so fun parts about this stage is the heartburn/reflux - it's not my favorite, but I try to deal with it as best I can. I'll be really disappointed if this babe comes out with minimal hair. I've actually joked that he'd better come out with a full head of hair and ZZ Top beard, for all the heartburn I've had. Ha.

As far as aches and pains, I've only got one, but it's pretty intense. It started a couple of months ago, if I was walking too much (which, for me, isn't actually very much..) I would get really sore in my thighs, specifically the inner thigh. It wasn't debilitating at first, just a minor annoyance.

I can't recall exactly when, I think somewhere around 33-34 weeks, it started to get worse. Not only was I feeling the pain in my thighs, but in my pubic bone. Lifting my legs into pants or to climb in a car became so painful, and my ability to walk normally has disappeared.

My understanding is that pregnant women waddle when the baby's head sinks into the pelvis, which makes walking with the legs close together more difficult. For me, the waddling began because of pain. I don't know if I could even call it waddling, it feels more like I'm limping.

The pain is fairly constant, but there are definitely good days and bad days. These are determined by my activity level. For the most part, I am walking and trying to be on my feet a lot less, but there are days when I need to get errands done or whatever, and end up pushing my body too hard which can take days to recover from. Aside from taking it easy, there's not much I can do about the pain right now. The only "cure" is to have this baby.

I still experience moments of panic and anxiety  but we've been doing a lot of solid work in therapy, so I have a bunch of tools to calm myself down when I start to freak out. I think one of the most valuable tools is the realization that it's okay to feel the fear. Simply by validating myself for feeling afraid, the intensity of my panicking diminishes. It's been really amazing. I've felt the panic come on, acknowledge it for what it is, validate myself, and am able to talk myself down from there, before it can escalate. It may seem like a small thing, but for me this is huge!

Mr. Boss thinks this little one will come early, but I'm fully prepared for him to be like his sisters and come 2 weeks late. Either way, we won't have to wait too much longer to find out! It's equal parts exciting and overwhelming. I honestly cannot believe how soon our newest babe be here. Time is moving too fast!

An Afternoon at Silver Lake

A few weeks ago, while scrolling instagram, I saw some posts from Silver Lake, a beautiful spot up in the mountains that was putting on quite the autumnal show. Mr. Boss and I had been up the month before, on an anniversary date, and there were a few signs that fall was coming then, but the pictures I was seeing on ig showed that it had changed a lot. I wanted to see it for myself.

I wasn't sure when I could get up there, but I was feeling desperate. One morning, I shared my feelings with Mr. Boss, and he suggested I go that very day, as soon as the kindergartener was home. So that's what I did! I spent the morning getting myself and the youngest two ready and packing up lunch, so that we could leave as soon as S was off the bus. 

The drive up the canyon was distracting, there was so much color. I wanted to stop so many times, but kept on going until we reached our goal. We had lunch as soon as we arrived, and then started our walk around the lake. I was in heaven, and the kids had a blast, too, climbing on rocks and seeing ducks and fish in the lake. 

We also ended up taking a little detour up one of the more difficult hikes that branches off from the path around the lake. I wanted to show the boys where their dad and I had seen a deer when we were up the month before. We didn't quite make it to where Boss and I had seen the deer, but that was fine because we got to see our own deer! It was pretty awesome. After that, we headed back down to the lakeside path and finished our walk. 

By the end, the kids were done. They had been amazing, walking so much and sitting themselves down from time to time for me to take their picture. Even when their behavior started to deteriorate, I understood and didn't really mind, because of how excellent the general experience had been. 

Now for the pictures:

We got so many comments on her candy corn hat,
which I definitely appreciated!

I shared this one on instagram.
I think it looks like an album cover.
And it's definitely one of my current favorite photos.

The end.

Back to School Feast

Now that school has been in for a month and a half, I want to share about the back to school feast we had this year.

This is an idea I've toyed with for a while that we'd never actually done, but I really wanted to do it this year. Planning was very last minute and I wasn't really sure if I would actually attempt it or not, pretty much until the day before, but I was able to pull together a fun night, and I feel pretty proud of that.

One of the things that I really got stuck on in the planning process was coming up with a theme. I wanted something that would be applicable to our whole family, not just the ones going back to school. (Specifically, something that would be applicable to me with this pregnancy and the upcoming birth that I'm still pretty nervous about most days.)

I had all sorts of ideas, but I started to think that I needed to pull our theme from April's General Conference addresses. I don't know if this is the same for everyone else in the Church, but I feel like there's one particular quote from President Nelson (from this talk) that keeps coming to my attention, in lessons, meetings, and personal study. He said, "In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost." It felt so right. 

I think the theme was one of the things that held me up the most, like I couldn't do the whole feast without it, so having that chosen made going forward with the rest of the planning went a bit easier after that.

I set our table with a brown packing paper covering, a vase of sunflowers in the center, and two jars full of #2 pencils on either side of the flowers. I also wrote out a few scriptures to go with our theme that we could read and discuss during dinner. And I wrote our theme quote on a full sheet of cardstock with fancy lettering to display at dinner as well as to hang in our home for the year to come.

Because pancakes are kind of the center of basically all of our celebrations, it only felt right to do breakfast for dinner, featuring delicious apple pancakes + syrup. We also had a potato + egg scramble, a rainbow fruit plate, and orange juice. It was all so tasty!

We ate and talked about the year ahead, our theme, and how we can invite the influences of the Spirit as mentioned in the quote. After everyone ate, the pencils came out of the jars and nearly everyone was doodling on our paper table top. As the evening came to a close, the kids were given their backpacks. (Normally I let them pick out their own, but due to some less than awesome circumstances, I did this year's backpack shopping solo.) Inside their packs they found a few pencils, a folder, and a notebook that I had written our theme into the cover of, as well as some ideas of how to invite the influences of the Spirit and a little message from me. 

As with most of our parties and celebrations, there was a lot I wanted to do - specifically decor-wise - that I just couldn't accomplish with our limited budget and my last minute preparations. Things like balloons and twinkly lights and all manner of beautiful ideas from Pinterest. And you can only make it look so nice with mis-matched, dingy old folding and camp chairs. Ha. But, even though it didn't look exactly how I wanted, it was still a lovely evening. I'm really hoping to make this an annual tradition.

First Day of Kindergarten

After a week of kindergarten, I think S and I are in agreement that half-day kinder is a huge tease, and we both wish he could be in school all day. Unfortunately, that's not an option, so we're trying to make the best of it.

These photos from his first day, though, they make me so happy. ❤️

First Day of School

We made it! Summer break has ended and school is back in session. Hallelujah!

And it's not just mom whose excited. The kids were up and dressed before I'd even gotten out of bed. There was time for me to do E's hair in pigtail braids, take lots of photos, and have family prayer.

Of course, not everyone started today, although he's in the group photo, our new little kindergartener won't actually start until Thursday. He can hardly wait!

I wasn't able to get a group shot with all 6 babes, like in years previous, because the two youngest slept until quite a while after the older kiddies had gone. Which, yeah, I'm definitely praying that that continues, can you imagine the quiet, peaceful mornings with kids either gone or sleeping? I could do anything with that time! It's gonna be magical.

End of Summer Update

School is starting soon, hooray!! Honestly, I'm totally stoked. It's been a rough summer without a car, and I think we're all feeling stir-crazy and ready for some structure and routine!

I've been thinking about it all and realized that I haven't been grateful for the things that were great about this summer. Thing is, I'm super great at wallowing in self-pity, and not always the best at being grateful when things are hard. But this summer hasn't been a total bust, even if it didn't look how I'd initially envisioned. I noticed I started feeling really bummed about it after reading another person's blog post about how great their summer has been. I let their good times get me down. I've been thinking about it more today, and spent some time looking through some photos from our summer, and am feeling a lot better about it than I was. I shared a bit about my new perspective on ig today.

I'm still stoked for school to start, though. Ha. 

We're finally in the process of car shopping, which is not the most fun, but I am grateful that we can finally start on the road to finding a new family vehicle. Although I kind of dread this part, I'm also hopeful that we'll find a van that fits our ever-growing family, is in good condition and doesn't totally break the bank. Prayers/good thoughts are appreciated.

And we've sort-of started on back to school shopping, but we have to do it in waves, ha. Over the weekend I took our soon-to-be kindergartener to get some new shoes for school. (Just don't get me started on how I feel about my 4th babe going into kinder.) The one I think all the bosslings are most excited for, though, is backpack shopping. I'm kind of excited to see what each of them choose, I think a lot of their personality shines through when they choose their pack, and it's fun to see.

Are you excited or bummed that summer is nearly (or already - I'm looking at you, AZ) over?? 

Bossling #7!

I assume most of you who read this have already seen via Facebook or Instagram, but I figured it was time to blog about it, too.

We are expecting our 7th little bossling babe later this year!

I'm due mid - November, but I'm basically calling the entire second half of the month, since I assume I'm most likely to go over.

That puts me just over halfway, which means I also know that we're having ...

Another little Boy!

I did want another girl, so I felt a little disappointed at first, but as I see my boys doing sweet things here and there, it makes me feel more excited for this new little guy.

Cute stuff like comforting his big sis
because she was upset about getting another brother.

Physically, I'm feeling pretty good. I struggled a lot with intense food aversions for the first while that made eating extremely difficult. Aside from that, I'm still one who doesn't get very sick, and I don't have a big belly or the discomforts of later pregnancy, yet. Except heartburn. That started up the past week or two. It comes on just about every evening, and it is not my favorite.

22 weeks

Emotionally, well that's a big can of worms. Usually I feel really excited to be pregnant, I am one of those weirdos who enjoy being pregnancy, and the thought of a new tiny babe is usually thrilling enough to help me remain positive through any discomfort I might experience. But... I haven't really been able to feel those excited feelings this time around, as I've been fairly consumed by some pretty intense anxiety.

23 weeks

I developed an ever-increasing fear of labor and birth after my fourth was born. I worked pretty hard to work through my fears leading up to my last birth, and I had really hoped that it had been enough, but within a few days of the positive test, I began having some pretty severe panic attacks and anxiety.
The fears were so intense, I couldn't even look up midwives without a near meltdown. I was 12 or 13 weeks before finally contacting midwives to interview, and didn't officially choose one until 15 weeks.

24 weeks

I finally came to the conclusion that I needed help to work through these issues, and have since started seeing a therapist. It's still early, but I'm hopeful that we'll get to the bottom of and work through my fears.

Aside from that we're all pretty excited for a new baby brother. He's growing so fast and I'm feeling him more everyday, it's scary and exciting and surreal.