28. That was my volleyball number one year. The sequel.

On Monday August 25th my not-so-little bean and I toasted to achieving 28 weeks of togetherness.  (See here for my 28 week post with Em-ykins.)  In terms of how I was feeling- it was basically status quo.  As I've mentioned previously, I was already feeling pretty exhausted most days so sliding into the third trimester didn't change much for me.

I started my bi-weekly appointments at 25 weeks.  Somehow that seemed to come waaaaaay faster than it did with pregnancy #1.  The biggest story in terms of my and baby's health in this time frame was that at 28 weeks I failed my glucose screening.  My blood sugar level was a whopping 193 when the goal was 130.  WHOOPS.  It wasn't really until 29 weeks that I went back for the longer version of the test to confirm whether or not I have gestational diabetes, but spoiler alert- I failed that one.  Grand prize: an appointment with a dietician and pricking myself 4 times daily to check my blood sugar.  More on all of these shenanigans in the 32 week post though.

26 Weeks.  I believe my 25 week photo was lost in the great iPhone 5 meets pool debacle of 2014.  Don't mention it to Ryan.  He still has flashbacks.

27 Weeks.  Mama is looking large and in charge.

28 Weeks.  This shirt is now bordering on too short.  Sad, sad.

This period of time was a bit more productive in the arena of Getting-Ready-For-Bucket than the previous ones had been.  So what all did I get knocked out?  Let's see - I ordered Christmas outfits for the little misses.  I ordered a going-home outfit for sweet Bucket.  I ordered a few newborn shoot items.  I pre-registered at the hospital.

Big sister was a lamb and little sister is a mouse.

Part of a Christmas ensemble.  Apparently I was feeling hats between 25 & 28 weeks.

Oh, and the biggest to do was that I finally decided on my plan for the girls' rooms.  This may sound small, but I was really struggling with the decision of what to do about getting their accommodations sorted out. Why?  Well, as you may have noticed- there was never a blog post about Emery's nursery.  That, friends, is because this naive first-time Mom didn't finish it before her arrival and thought I'd have plenty of time during maternity leave to knock it out.  Ha.  Hahahaha.  Ha. Silly lady.  Clearly that was false.  It works out well though because Emery moved to the room down the hall to make room for sister.  So I went back and forth in my head about whether I should just finish the nursery the way I intended to for Emery or to try to make some tweaks.  I knew that re-painting was out of the question because Ryan's detest for paint is well-documented here on the blog.  

Ultimately I decided in the name of individuality that I would make some tweaks so that the nursery was clearly defined as Bucket's room rather than Emery's old room finally finished.  My Mom was kind enough to indulge me and agree to make more fabulous bedding for our newest angel baby.  I picked some fabric and ordered samples.  That's as far as I believe mission: room make over got in this time frame.  Baby steps, right?  (See what I did there?)  When will Emery finally get a room of her own worthy of a blogpost?  When Mama decides to switch her to a toddler bed, which is not on the horizon because her highness has recently cultivated a hatred for falling asleep.  More on that in her 18 month post.

My "inspiration" fabric.  Queue 80's music.

The goods.

Overall I would say this was the beginning of productivity in the Martin household.  Three cheers for Ryan and I getting our butts in gear!  See ya at 32 weeks when life is a whole lot more protein-laden (see: gestational diabetes).

Eastbound & Up

So as I have alluded to previously, dearest Bucket has acquired a mini passport for herself this summer- 2 of the 3 stamps courtesy of Mama's job.  The first was in early June with a week long jaunt to Finland and the second was in late July with a week long trip to London.  I neglected to post about either of these trips for a multi-part reason: 1) well, you see how grossly behind this blog has been and 2) I generally don't post about work.  However, because my job isn't one that historically has required a lot of travel and now that Ryan and I have started this little zoo family, I foresee my travel plummeting for the near future.  I decided that it was okay to post some pictures of some of the extracurricular, non-worky things we did on each trip.  I'll save you the snoozefest that was the purpose of our trips as I assume most of you aren't accountants and thus don't get amped up about things like "spreadsheets," "rates," and "site visits."  I personally was very excited and felt fortunate to be able to go on each trip- I really have some amazing co-workers/bosses.

First up, Finland.  This was my second time to travel to this charming little nordic land.  It was mainly as I remembered it- chalk full of light headed people with a strong affinity for fish and potatoes.  The difference was that this time we went in the summer rather than in the winter.  This meant that the daylight lasted like... all day.  Seriously.  I kept waking up and seeing the sun coming through the curtains of my hotel room and having a mini-panic attack that I'd overslept only to look at the clock and see 4:00 am.  It was weird.  Fate did not mean for me to be Finnish and I'm comfortable with that.  I'll perform narration of our trip through photographic commentary.  Isn't that everyone's favorite anyway?

Because seeing people in PPE never gets old.  The men are definitely rocking it better than yours truly.

 The yard HSE coordinator was a Houston expat and he took us to dinner on this little boat.

I'm looking very travel-worn but this serves as photographic evidence that we indeed ate on a boat.  I had... wait for it... fish.

On another day the same week our awesome expat tour guide took us to lunch at this little place on the water.  The fare?  You guessed it- fish.

Preeeeeeetty jazzed about our fish.  Actually, one night this week the guys took me to Chef Jani's restaurant, Bucco, and it. was. amazing.  I did not eat fish... I ate scallops.  It's too bad I was busy stuffing my face and didn't take any pics.  If you ever find yourself in Pori you should definitely go visit him.

Did you know that Angry Birds was created in Finland?  No?  Then you clearly haven't visited Finland.

The last day of work my boss made us be rebels by stopping off at the Yyteri beach on the way to work.  It took us about 20 mins to find the beach down this rickety walkway clearly not made for a pregnant woman in wedges, but it was well worth it.

On a totally unrelated note, it's hard to get sand out of wedges.

Because Pori is so small, we had to fly to Helsinki, stay the night and then fly out to the states the following morning.  While in Helsinki our last evening, Chef Jani recommended a restaurant for us to go to called Bronda.  It was heavenly.  Like seriously maybe the best meal of my life but certainly top 5.  I'm not a photographer of food, but I'm going to subject you all to these so I never forget it.  I don't remember what much of this was other than delicious though.

Scallops.

Osso bucco and something else that was also amazing.

Dessert.  Equally as out of this world.

While wandering around the city trying to walk off some of our fantastic dinner we happened upon a car show in the middle of the city which apparently takes place the first Friday of each month.  It was funny to me to see so many American cars.  There were lots of 1997ish mustangs like Jen had.  Oddly none of them were headed to Sonic like we usually were though.

Good to know that some of America's obnoxious bumper stickers have made it across the pond.

Old Ford.  That's about as technically savvy as I get when it comes to cars.

Uspenski Cathedral.  We walked by it, I took this picture and had no idea what it was until I just googled it.  #besttouristever

Really awesome old ship.

Everyone else had a beer and pretzel in the United Lounge pre-flight out.  This was my pregnant lady substitute.

Next up- London!  I have also traveled to London a time or two for both work and for fun.  It was just as I remembered it- chalk full of people with intelligent sounding accents, snappy dress socks and a strong affinity for beer.  The difference in this trip was that the office that we were going to visit had changed locations to right by St. Paul's.  So we got to know a new 'hood, which was fun.  Unfortunately the self-proclaimed photographer of our previous trip did not make this one, so I fear that I have less visual proof that this trip took place.  I'll see what I can find in my photostream for you though.

We ate dinner over at the Cinnamon Club one evening and got to walk by Westminster Abbey.  Delish food- highly recommend.

We also went to see Jersey Boys and I took zero pics (who's shocked?)  So I hijacked this one from the interwebs.  It's hard to say whether I enjoyed the performance by the actors or the performance by the several older women in the audience who were singing and dancing in the aisles.  Either way- it was definitely a win in my book.

Here's a view of St. Paul's after walking out the doors of the office we were working from.  Did you know this is where Diana and Charles tied the knot?  My boss' wife did.

My boss and I snuck over here during work hours for the quickest tour ever on the last day we were in town.  Shot of the ceiling.  I wasn't supposed to take this picture.  Please don't report me!

The building in the forefront between the two towers is where we were working.

We climbed all the way to the top.  They put this little hole in the floor at one point just so you can see how quickly your blood pressure can rise.  This is a view of the very bottom floor.

London Eye, the Thames, etc.

View of the office we were working out of from the highest observation deck.

Ta-da!  The front.  We were so lucky to have such gorgeous weather while we were there.

And that, my friends, about sums up the fun touristy parts of my two work trips this summer.  I hope you have enjoyed this short break from my pregnancy catch up tour as much as I enjoyed these jaunts across the pond.  Oh, and OF COURSE, a huge shout out to my Baby Daddy (plus Nonnie & Pawpaw for their assistance) who took such incredible care of our princess for two whole weeks so Mama could play career woman.  Sure I picked her up from school in pajamas one Friday upon my return but overall, he could not have been more successful.  I don't know what I did to get so lucky, but I sure am glad I did it.  Thank you, love!

Pretty amped up about her impromptu jammie day at school.

24. Not the One with Jack Bauer. The Sequel.

So, on Monday July 28th, baby girl and I crossed the 24 week finish line.  (Here's my 24 week post from pregnancy with Emery.)  High fives all around!

Goodness gracious - between the old age, the insane amount of posts I'm behind and the pregnancy brain, I am having a somewhat difficult time recalling the important accomplishments and highlights of each of these 4 week chunks of time.  I hope that baby Bucket will forgive me!  I promise I'm doing my best, baby child.

 As you can tell from the pictures below, the main highlight of this period was that I started showing in a serious way.  As anyone who's been pregnant can tell you, this is a very exciting time period because the knowing smiles people shoot you are more of the "ohhhh, you're pregnant," than "ohhhhh, you are having a torrid affair with McDonald's," variety.  This is a major milestone.

Much like I mentioned in the previous post, the most remarkable difference between my pregnancy with Emery and my pregnancy with Bucket continued to be just feeling generally tired all the time.  My UP band continued to applaud my sleep but I somehow never, ever felt well-rested.  I think this is probably just life's way of getting me prepared for having 2 busy little misses to chase after.  Well played.

21 weeks.  Not just rocking the hair bump any more.

22 weeks.  It appears that between weeks 21 & 22 either baby girl doubled in size or I ate very, very poorly.  Smart money is probably on the latter.

23 weeks.  I took this from my hotel room in London.  You can't fully see that spaceship looking shower, but I feel confident that my third trimester self would not have fit in it.  Good thing I'm not European.

24 weeks.  I haven't stated it thus far, but I hope you know to just ignore the constant state of disarray of our bathroom.

I would like to spout off all kinds of exciting things that Ryan and I got accomplished in this span of time, but unfortunately there aren't a TON of things we got accomplished.  This is partially due to the fact that work was still preeeeeetty busy and partially due to the fact that with #2 you have already taken all the classes and you have all of the baby paraphernalia.  So trust me, we weren't completely slacking.  Our biggest mark through the to do list for this time frame was... wait for it... we ordered Bucket's furniture!  I was starting to get irrationally concerned that she was legitimately going to have to share a bucket with Emery's practice baby, so it was quite the relief for all parties.

In order to keep the peace but allow for some individuality, we ordered the same items we ordered for Em from the same manufacturer, but a different line and in white.  I'm sure your next question is... omg, omg, how are you going to do the nursery?  That's a story/picture for another day, sweet reader.  In the mean time- bask in the awesomeness of this furniture, huh?

Oh, I forgot to also mention that Bucket scored her first non-hand-me-down piece of clothing.  That's another big milestone, right?

Also, Ryan and I made a significant amount of progress on names during this time.  At this point we had picked her middle name for sure and were at about 95% sure about her first name.  A place to lay her head AND a name?  How lucky can one little lady be?!  

I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-(C-E)

As I stated previously, the 3 day weekend summer holidays are some of my favorites and no matter how much or little we do, I always feel the need to try and capture them on here.  Luckily for the birth of our great nation I seemed to be a little bit more on top of my camera game.  Not much though.

We started our holiday weekend festivities off by deciding to attend our first school picnic/event at Emery's school on Thursday July 3rd.  Prior to this she had always been in the infant class and we didn't feel like she was old enough to really understand or interact anyway.  Unfortunately, the weather was awful and the picnic got moved inside.  On the one hand this meant reduced attendance but on the other it meant more BBQ for the Martin clan.  I think Ryan and Emery chalked this up as a point in the win column.

I thought we were gone for the day.  How did we end up back here Mama?

Daddy- you sit right here.

I love this nugget enough to plant my pregnant behind in a chair made for a pre-schooler.  That's a whole lot.

Perhaps the only documented picture of Ryan with his eyes open when someone else's aren't.

Friday morning was July the 4th and we decided to start it off like any good Americans- at Cracker Barrel.  Some choose to get tattoos of bald eagles- we choose to eat our body weight in bacon, pancakes, flaky biscuits and other breakfast goodies.  The love of America is a many-splendored thing.

Hmmm?  Were you saying something, Dad?  I was just thinking about biscuits.

Yeah, yeah.  You guys keep trying to distract me with these checkers but how can I focus when I know the eggs are juuuuust inside those doors?  (You may think I'm exaggerating but this kid looooooves herself some breakfast.  "Mo," "mo," "mo!" is about all that she says once she hits the seat.)

Our little business professional getting some last minute work in on her puppy laptop.

After breakfast, we hit the road for Conroe to go play with Nonnie, Grampa, the Herndons, Rachel, Morgan & Uncle Matt.  Per usual, I got way too relaxed hanging out with everyone and forgot to take pictures.  Also because it's been many moons and pregnancy brain ago- I can't even recall exactly what all we did.  If it helps you to feel like all my posts don't all sound the same, we'll pretend that we slayed dragons and had deep discussions on how to end world hunger.  It's more likely that we ate too much, drank too much and laughed way too much though, but hey- I aim to please around here.

Her face foreshadows exactly how successful putting her in that float will be.  It lasted 5 seconds.  If America is free, she wanted to be too.

Dad, that shark looks a lot like Grampa.

It was BYOB in the pool this weekend, clearly.

My amazing Mama made me my very own pitcher of virgin margs.  I hope I'm half as incredible to my daughters as she is to us.

Thank you muchly to all who participated in the making of another fantastic birthday for our great nation.  I look forward to many, many more!