Tomorrow will mark week 27 in this pregnancy. Eli is due exactly 3 months from today! I'm happy to report that he is doing great as far as we can tell and I'm feeling great 95% of the time too. I also looked up how things were going at this point in my pregnancy with Lydia and was thrilled to see that my total weight gain this time is the same (or possibly less) than it was with Lydia. I was so nervous because I gained a weight a lot earlier this time, and with Lydia I had some major weight gain around 25-26 weeks. If I did the same this time, I'd be HUGE! But Eli has kept me gaining steadily and it's now evened out with my first pregnancy. I weigh around 145 right now and was 119 at my first weight check. With Lydia I started the same and ended just shy of 170. I know that's more than the "suggested" weight gain, but it came off fine the first time and my doc wasn't (and isn't) concerned about it. Though ultimately I'd like to stay under 160 with this one.

We had some maternity pictures taken around week 25. Always a fun time! We had trouble getting Lydia to do much with us since 1) there were toys to be played with and 2) we haven't done much working with her on hugging or kissing Eli. But we got a few cute ones anyway! Check my Facebook page for some of my favorites.

On Monday this week we had the pleasure of going in for a 3D ultrasound! I loved having that done with Lydia and was thrilled to get some of Eli. We had Lydia's done around 26 weeks as well so it is fun to compare.
Lydia at 26 weeks 4 days


Eli at 26 weeks 2 days

This is what a typical day in our house might look like right now:

Lydia wakes up around 7am and begins talking, singing, and "reading" her books on her bed. I always make sure to leave a few books on the end of her bed after she falls asleep so she'll have them there when she wakes up. She LOVES books and we commonly wake up to hearing her chant "books! books! books!" As soon as she sees me coming to get her, she will either grab a book or toy to give to me or will say "skooch skooch" as she scoots herself off the bed (usually to grab a different book off of her bookshelf). We regularly spend the first few minutes of the morning reading through a couple of her books. She loves it so much that I have a hard time getting her to let me change her diaper in the morning!

After the diaper change we go hang out with Daddy and make sure he is up for work. Then it's time for juice and breakfast! Lydia drinks a sippy cup (8oz) full of a juice/water combo first thing in the morning, then has water for the rest of the day. She doesn't care for milk much unless it is chocolate, so we stick to cheese, yogurt, and milk on cereal for dairy intake. Lydia continues to be a pretty good eater and uses lots of words for her favorite foods including cereal, waffles, chicken nuggets, apples, bananas, pizza, and spaghetti (aka "getti"). She cracked me up yesterday at a birthday party when she kept begging for cake as we were getting ready to do candles. I didn't realize she knew the word cake so well!

When breakfast is over, we usually have a laid back morning. Lydia loves to watch the shows on PBS. Her favorites are Word World, Super Why, and of course Elmo on Sesame Street. We try not to watch too much in any single day, but letting her watch a little while she plays in the playroom can't hurt. She is usually running all over the place playing with her toys and puzzles while the shows are on anyway. Rarely does she sit still for more than a minute or two!

Naps continue to be unpredictable (what's new?). We have tried going to one after-lunch nap, but I feel so bad making her stay up when she's super tired in the morning. I stuck with it for a week or so in hopes that she would adjust, but it didn't really work. Some days she just really seems to need a break in the morning. But of course, some days even if she is acting completely worn out (rubbing the eyes, yawning, sucking her thumb, and even lying down on the floor), she will decide it's play time after I put her down in her bed. Most of the time I can at least get a 1 hour afternoon nap out of her, but as always she is hit or miss.

Afternoons vary around here. After lunch and cleanup, sometimes Lydia naps (if she didn't rest in the morning) or we will play or go out until she needs a nap. We don't have a lot to do to get us out of the house, so we try to enjoy our trips to the grocery store or when the weather happens to be good enough to go outside. Unfortunately this pregnancy makes it quite uncomfortable to be outside in the heat... and this summer has been one of the hottest on record! As a result we don't get out as much as I'd like. Poor Lydia, she loves being outside! Oh and one other thing I wanted to mention is that Lydia can now go both up AND down stairs. I'm pretty sure she learned how to go down because just a day before she started to do it I was telling some other moms that she wasn't figuring it out no matter how I tried to teach her. Guess she didn't like sounding incapable! She scoots along on her rear-end from stair to stair and is getting quite good at it. This makes me feel a little safer knowing that if she encounters stairs and I'm not right by her side there's a chance of her safely navigating them.

So mostly we hang out and get things done that need to get done while we wait for Daddy to get home from work. Lydia loves her Daddy! She will excitedly run up to him yelling "Daddy!!!" when he walks in the door, then often promptly runs off to grab a ball so they can play. Balls are still amongst her favorite toys, along with her rubber ducks, fish bath toys, and any toy letters we have. She loves music and will dance and sing all around the room. When we are in the car and the radio turns off, she will start singing and making her own music!

There isn't anything in particular that Lydia dislikes. She continues to be pretty easy going. Sometimes she has a rough time still when we clean her off after meals or when she lays back in the bathtub to have her hair washed, but even then she can usually be distracted away from a tantrum pretty quickly. Lydia gets a bath every two or three days, depending on how messy she has gotten, and she continues to enjoy bathtime. She especially loves her foam letters and numbers and nearly knows them all now! 99% of the time she can get all of the letters correct except for "R" "X" and "Z". She's still working on learning those. We haven't worked as much on numbers, but she usually gets 1, 5, 7, and 8 correct. The foam letters are also great for learning colors. Lydia still tends to respond "blue" to any question involving a color, but when not prompted she has been known to point out yellow, pink, purple, and orange objects. I swear at the rate she is going the child will be smarter than us by the time she's 3. Yesterday when we were saying bye bye to Brent, Lydia informed me that he was going to "work." When I told her she was right, that he was going to work and he'd be back later, she looked at me and said "minute" ... as in, he'll be back in a minute. Ha!

Bedtime routine around here is pretty simple. Bathtime comes first if it's bath day, then pajamas and a diaper change, bedtime story, then down for bed. Lydia is doing great in her big girl bed (twin mattress on the floor). No regrets about moving her out of the crib! We don't use a sheet yet, just a toddler-bed-sized blanket that usually has to be put back on her after she falls asleep. She also has a flat pillow to help her not squish herself up against the wall and because she just likes going night-night on pillows.

She falls asleep pretty quickly most of the time, sometimes after a few minutes of talking to herself, and stays asleep throughout the night. Brent and I sneak into her room before we go to bed to place her back in a good position on the bed, re-cover her, or just to give her a little kiss to end the day. I love ending the day kissing my sweet angel... and starting each new one listening to her sweet voice!
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25.5 weeks pregnant now and feeling great! I keep meaning to look back and see how I felt at this point with Lydia, but pregnancy brain combined with chasing a toddler around makes me incredibly forgetful.

Currently I get comments ranging from "you're so tiny!" to "you don't look like you can make it until November!" so I'm not sure how I really look haha. Tomorrow will mark 100 days remaining until Eli's due date. It's really going by fast lately!

Lydia and I took a quick trip down to Cincinnati this past weekend to visit with a friend who was passing through. While he had the house to himself, Brent took the opportunity to do some work on Eli's room. The guest room is no more (for now). The guest bed has relocated to a corner of the playroom and the crib & changing table are assembled in its place. Brent is super handy with Photoshop and graphic design, so he decided to do a mock-up of what he thinks Eli's room will look like. Here's what he came up with (bad quality on here, but you get the idea):

You have to imagine that folded up into a cube, but there it is. I really like it! I'm looking forward to getting the paint picked out and seeing the room come together. We may make some changes as we get going, but this is our starting point.
In other pregnancy news, we had some maternity pictures taken last week. I'll be sure to share them when I get them back!