When Life Hands You Lemmons...: Lately With The Lemmons...

So, what have The Lemmons been up to over the past several months? By the looks of our family blog, not much! :-) This Mama has made a resolution to strictly prioritize everything we have going on and unfortunately our blog sometimes falls to the wayside. Although I can't promise our updates will become any more frequent in the future (especially with two precious babies two and under about to change our worlds :-)), I have resolved to leave our blog in tact. I am proud of the memories created here for Sam and hope to have at least a few to share with little Miss Sloane when she arrives in May. However, I refuse to let this blog become yet another culprit of "mom guilt" and eat away at me when my energy and time really should be focused on other things, like spending time with these boys and the baby girl in my belly! :-)

Little bit of catch up on our family lately...

1. Sloane Caroline- As of today, I'm just over 21 weeks with our little cupcake! Although we felt strongly she was a girl from day 1(mostly because of the night and day differences between pregnancies), we were still overjoyed (tickled pink to be precise!) when we learned a little princess would be joining our family this Spring. What could be more wonderful than having both a little boy and a little girl to love?!? I have such a special bond with Sam I know I could only obtain from having a precious little boy. Similarly, little moments get me so excited to share them with Sloane when she arrives- like when I saw a little girl getting her first pedicure in the nail salon the other day! :-)

How Far Along: 21 weeks

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Around 13 pounds gained. Not ideal, but not as terrible as I know it could be at this point! I’m staying on the same track as with Sam and looking like I will gain a total of 30-35 lbs total with her, as well. Those 35 Sam pounds were lost after about a year (YEA!) but before I knew it I was pregnant AGAIN with Sloane after only a few months! :-) I am thankful that I at least started my pregnancy with her with my previous baby weight gone.

Maternity Clothes: Just made some purchases this weekend (jeans, work pants, tops) to help me through the next few months thanks to gift cards and Christmas deals. It’s amazing how much wear and tear your maternity clothes have the second time around!

Best Moment this week: Thinking about next Christmas with our TWO precious babies and getting fabric swatches for Sloane’s nursery. We are keeping Sam’s nursery walls the same sage green and Tiffany blue and have decided to add in coral to make the room a bit more “girly.” This way, we get by with not painting again and the color scheme is so beautiful! Our next steps will be custom designing how we want her bumper, skirt, pillows, etc. to look and placing an order.

Gender: GIRL! Sweet Sloane Caroline. :-) Like any woman, I just love talking/thinking about baby names (and who doesn’t love this subject) and especially enjoy talking about them with my Mom (who has wonderful taste in names, BTW!). One day, she was reading the newspaper and stumbled across the name Sloane. She called immediately to share it with me, and Jonathon and I were both immediately in LOVE! Not only is it the perfect sibling name for Sam, it means “strong woman” which is everything I want my little girl to be. :-) The name Caroline has been a favorite of mine since I was a little girl (I can actually remember naming my baby dolls Caroline!) and means “beautiful woman”. The way it flowed with Sloane let us know it was the perfect choice for our angel. We are in LOVE with her name and can’t wait to meet her!!

Movement: MUCH different from my little soccer player, Sam, who is still just about as active as little boys come! The kicks I feel with Sloane are much less frequent and also much lower than with Sam. I’m thinking she could be breech at this point, but still has plenty of time to turn. We should have a better idea of her position at my next appointment on 1/4/12.

Food Craving: Early in my pregnancy, I wanted NOTHING to do with meat (UGH) and everything to do with cheesy baked spaghetti with marinara sauce. YUM! I have also consistently been craving smoothies! YUMMY!

What I miss: I have to say that during my pregnancy with Sam I never missed alcohol. Not once. This time, I am a little sad I won’t get to enjoy champagne on New Year’s Eve as we celebrate with friends. I just love those tiny bubbles! I think a mocktail will have to do this year. :-)

Sleep: Not great, but some nights are definitely better than others. I think the most frustrating thing is waking up at night for several hours when EVERYONE else is snoozing away and then needing to muster up enough energy to get up at my regular time and perform my routine at 100%. My night wake ups happen for a variety of reasons, but mostly due to sickness.

What I am looking forward to: New Year’s Eve with friends… Will be nice to dress up a little and have a fun adult evening, pregnant or not! :-)

Symptoms: Still suffering from bad all-day and night sickness, unfortunately, but Zofran really helps. I have also experienced a whole host of other symptoms I never encountered with Sam which my Dr. attributes to “all those extra hormones this time.” So thankful for this sweet blessing, even though she has given her Mama a run for my money already!!

2. Samuel Paul- My sweet, handsome ALMOST 2 year old who steals our hearts EVERY day a MILLION times a day…

He is the cutest, smartest, most loving child (and of course I’m not the tiniest bit biased). He is speaking very clearly and has a diverse vocabulary (words like lawnmower and umbrella- not just “ball” and “car”!) and has the cutest little personality. Every day, he makes us laugh hysterically and just swell with pride. I tell everyone all the time that it means a great deal to hear you have an adorable child, but it means even more to hear that he is kind and loving. These are the compliments I consistently get from his caregivers and teachers at school. He truly is a perfect little boy (ALL BOY) and we are SO BLESSED! Christmas this year was especially fun since Sam started to really understand it all. He LOVED Santa, as you can see below!

His favorite toy from Santa was his police motorcycle (“bike”) and his alphabet Elmo (“Melmo”).

We are getting excited to start planning Sam’s move to a new big boy room in the next couple of months as well as his big 2nd birthday party! Previews of planning for both are below… :-)

3. Jonathon and Lauren- We are plugging along and doing well! A little apprehensive about what the future months will hold with two little ones but we know God will lead us through and have His arms around us. Our jobs are fabulous and our responsibilities at work continue to increase, along with those at home. Never a dull moment! We both feel so blessed to work for family-friendly, strong organizations and love what we do. God is good and we never stop thanking him for his tremendous blessings.

4. Ella and Addie- Still the cutest dogs in the world and still annoyed that yet another baby is about to turn their once spoiled worlds upside down! That’s about all I can say about those sweet pups. :-) This is my favorite pic of them BTW...