stick a fork in me...

... i'm done! finally, i've reached 37 weeks which means that the baby is now fully developed and could survive in the outside world. now, we just need to convince baby mays that life out here is more fun so that he or she will make his or her appearance!! i've officially gained 20 pounds, which, according to my midwives is excellent. other than my discomfort, i've been experiencing a lot of swelling, which is awful (to say the least). from my knees down, i look like a marshmallow. surprisingly, it's very painful and annoying. i spend most of my nights either soaking my feet or resting them on pillows, high above my heart. i know it'll be worth it in the end! we have my 37-week check up tomorrow and we're hoping that i've somewhat progressed as i've been experiencing legit contractions for the last two weeks. so needless to say, i will be devastated if i'm not at least dilated to one centimeter.

37 weeks. i'm a planet.

may (and this half of june) have gone by all too quickly. my 25th birthday was on the 26th and morgan threw me a small surprise justin bieber birthday party, complete with a spongebob pinata. my whole family chipped in and got me a kitchenaid mixer - awesome! i've already used it to make a batch of monster cookies and it saves me so much time - love it!

my sweet bieber necklace :)

we have had new problems come up with kash - he had a seizure last saturday and lost control of his bladder. the vet says that medication could severely harm his liver, so he doesn't want to jump to that just yet. we are supposed to keep an eye on him and document every instance in specific detail so we can try to find a pattern. hopefully it was just a fluke thing.

my sister-in-law, steph, threw me a baby shower last weekend and it was so lovely. she was born to plan parties -- she's so creative!! i am so thankful for my friends & family who came out that day to celebrate baby mays and for all the amazing gifts. :)

my adorable diaper cake - handcrafted by stephanie maine!

i know this is a pretty sad excuse for a blog, but i need to go put my cankles up and get some rest. i haven't been feeling the best lately (hoping this is a sign of baby) and sleep usually does the trick. i hope to be blogging about a sweet little baby in the coming days!!

-the mays'

crazy may

how is it may 18th already? i can't believe how quickly 2011 is flying by. it's already time for summer break & baseball games!

we have been keeping busy with the house. we are desperately trying to get the house completely put together before baby is here, however, due to our lack of motivation, it is proving to be quite the difficult task. we have gotten a couple rooms painted, but we are nowhere near our goal... and we are only 7 weeks or so out from baby. i'm sure everything will come together when it's supposed to, so we're trying not to stress. besides, there's still so much more to get done for baby - which is far more important!

we ran into another bump on the road regarding baby furniture. all i can say without going into a five page rant is that toys r us in the bane of my existence. in a nut shell, they screwed us over and we are now unable to get the baby's dresser/changing table combo that we ordered in february. the dresser is now out of stock and cannot be purchased ANYWHERE. so we had to go with the next best thing, which was a similar, but different, dresser combo for the room.. which does not match the crib or tall dresser. i'm finally done freaking out about it -- it is what it is. however, i am done with the davenport toys r us for all of eternity. other than that, the baby's room is almost complete. we are now piecing together the decorations and trying to find the right curtains that shut out the right amount of light. we are very excited to have it 100% completed... but mostly for baby to be here to enjoy it!

my pregnancy is going well. i am currently a little over 33 weeks and i am just exhausted! i can't complain too much because this has been quite the easy pregnancy, but i think every woman starts to get a little tired toward the end. i'm just ready to have my body back to myself (in some respect). comfort does not equal scrunched up organs and separated ribs. on a positive note - i've only gained 15 pounds so far, so i'm hoping that my body goes back to my semi-normal size quickly after baby is here.

belly at 33 weeks.

we have been taking a birthing class for the last 3 weeks and we are so happy we decided to enroll. our instructor's name is char and she is a registered doula. long story short - we ended up hiring her and couldn't be more confident in our decision! she will help us carry out our birth plan (basically an all natural, intervention-free delivery) and will ensure that the midwife, nurses, and other hospital staff do the same. i am hoping that having an extra person of her expertise around will help me to stay focused on the task at hand, as well as keep the thoughts of narcotics and epidurals out of my head!

morgan's job is going really well and is about to get super busy. he was recently told that he'll be moving from a cubicle into an actual office, so he's pretty pumped about that. poor guy has been doing traffic counts for the last 2 days and coming home with quite the sunburn. i told him that he gets the crap jobs because he's still a newbie... he didn't like that too much. :)

i guess the last real thing to update is that we have a new nephew! on monday, may 16th, my brother and sister-in-law welcomed their fourth baby boy into the world. his name is kinnick kenton maine, and he is definitely a keeper. he weighed only 8 lbs. 10 oz., which i know is a lot to most people, but all of his brothers weighed over 10 pounds! he was 21" in length. we can't wait to watch him grow and play with our sweet baby... won't be too long!

- the mays'

kinnick

his goofy big brothers - krue, kaedon, & kalen.

sweet baby kinnick!

my mommy mobile

oops. we bought a new car. (although we're both very happy with our purchase, even if it was made a few weeks earlier than we had planned.) we are now the owners of a (slightly) used ford edge. we love it! the safety ratings are tremendously amazing, which was our main reason for wanting an edge. this will allow for baby mays to be safe (as well as us and kashmir!)

we did not intend to go into davenport on saturday to purchase a new vehicle. in fact, we had planned on simply looking at edges and getting an idea on pricing, etc. we had actually planned on buying a new entertainment center for our living room! (we never made it to a furniture store.) a few hours later, we were leaving the quad cities without my beloved G6, but instead with our new family car. we smiled as we thought about the baby sitting in the backseat (likely with kash) as we cruise the streets. :)

that's about all the newness in our lives except for the fact that my pregnancy just keeps flying by. we are officially at 30 weeks today and boy am i starting to notice! sometimes little baby mays' movements are painful because s/he is running out of room in there. it's very obvious to us where the butt/feet are at any given time. i generally look pretty lopsided because s/he likes to stick his/her butt up as far as s/he can on my right side! we can't wait to meet this baby.

can i just say that skirts are the most comfortable things in the world?

hope you all had a happy easter! we had quite a busy day - and even got to have an easter egg hunt for our nephews!

-the mays'

spring changes

we have been busy, busy, busy for the last few weeks! it seems as though we never have any weekends to relax on the couch anymore - which i suppose has its good points. we have taken it upon ourselves to start renovating our house the way we want it - which has caused us to start on three rooms at the same time - yikes! this means we have several unfinished projects and countless trips to menard's in our schedule for the next few weeks. can't wait to show you all what we've done.

anywhoo... since my last blog, we've been to des moines twice, we've acquired an 18-month-old for a weekend (practicing, i suppose), and we've had a dumb dog readmitted into the pet hospital. shall we begin?

topping the list of march events - a visit from zach maine! that's right. he came home, or came to iowa (as he calls it) and spent time passing judgement on our computers and schooling small children at nintendo games. that's what makes him feel whole inside. haha. we brought our camera and got some family pics, but none of them take the cake like this one:

in better - and probably more interesting - news, morgan's brother logan wrestled in the state tournament in des moines at the end of march and won the title for his division. WOOHOO! congratulations logan! he pinned his way through the first day, and then made us all about jump out of our seats the second day. but, of course, he pulled it off. it was quite amazing! after the tournament, we had about an hour left to stop at jordan creek mall and take a gander in pottery barn kids. (adorable.) we even had time to check out gap maternity, which was amazing since there isn't one anywhere around here.

on april 2, i threw my sister-in-law, steph, a baby shower. she is due to have her fourth boy on may 23. it was so much fun! we even got a few pictures of steph and i belly-to-belly. we are only 6 weeks apart! the following weekend, morgan and i got custody of krue (our youngest nephew) overnight while jake & steph took the big boys to fun city. i had to leave during the late morning for a while, so morgan got his first try at being alone with a child in diapers. by the time i got home, morgan and krue were best friends. krue truly wanted nothing to do with me, and even had the dog jealous! we had so much fun with him, even though he woke us up about 5 times in the middle of the night, and was up for the day at 6 am. (guess we better get used to it!!)

in regards to our dog - boy, we are having the hardest time with that pup. since his accident in november, it has been pretty difficult to get him to eat much during the day. the vet decided that he was underweight and told us to switch his food, and to even start giving him canned food. it was sad because he wouldn't even eat that! then he stopped responding to the fact that we had come home from work at the end of the day. he would just look at us and lay his head back down. finally, my mom agreed to take him to the vet for us. come to find out, the dork and swallowed a rawhide bone whole and it was blocking his stomach. (seriously, kash? seriously?) so he had to be kept over night and given high dosages of laxatives to break down the bone so he could pass it. yuck. he came home the next day, but wasn't himself until about two to three days after that. now he is back to his rambunctious, adorable puppy self. thank goodness:)

our poor skinny mini :(

as far as the pregnancy goes - we are successfully up to 29 weeks - 11 weeks to go! woohoo!! to be honest, i'm over pregnancy and just so ready to meet this sweet baby. i keep having extremely vivid dreams about the baby coming home and it gets me super anxious! not to mention i'd love to be able to breathe properly, walk without waddling, and see ankle definition at the end of the day. i truly can't complain though because overall this pregnancy has been absolutely wonderful and just a breeze. i will definitely miss the feeling of this little babe kicking away! (however, i will not miss the constant jabs to my bladder!) also, watching morgan bond and play "knock knock" with my belly will never get old.

me at 29 weeks!

we are getting close to being prepared for baby. the room is painted and all the big furniture is either already assembled or being shipped to us. morgan is working on baby's closet shelving as i type. all that is left are the decorations and little odds and ends to add warmth to the room. weasley and kashmir have been extremely curious about the construction in baby's room, especially since the door has been shut and it has been considered OFF LIMITS. i caught weasley sitting on top of baby's dresser this morning. he quickly learned that that is not acceptable! i'm sure he sat there all day while i was at work just in spite of me.

hopefully time allows me a little more blogging - otherwise - i'm sure i'll be posting again in a month or so!

-the mays'

an update in pictures

i can't believe i haven't blogged since january 29th! i'm turning into a ginormous slacker. i guess we'll start from february 1st and work our way to march... (don't worry, we haven't done much. we're lazy.)

on february 2nd we had quite the snow storm rip through town, leaving both morgan and me snowed in and unable to go to work (bummer). total, we had about two feet of snow, which was quite impressive to kashmir. he ran, jumped, and ate snow for the majority of the day. that weekend, the two older boys (kaedon and kalen)  came over and played on the huge snow mountain in the church parking lot with uncle morgan and kash. they had such a good time!! of course i couldn't stay and play because i had some shopping to do... hello williamsburg outlet mall!

me sitting on our sidewalk.

party on the mountaintop! kash, morgan, kal & kaed.

we celebrated two birthdays in february. kaedon charles turned 6 and kalen jacob turned 4. it's so hard to believe that they're not babies anymore! kaedon started kindergarten this year and kalen is in his first year of preschool. also a big milestone - kaedon lost his first tooth... or should i say TEETH? he lost his first two teeth in ONE night, and, because i'm a loudmouth (and i often forget he cannot sense sarcasm yet), he demanded $50 from the tooth fairy. the "tooth fairy" was NOT impressed, and promised to corrupt my child like i've corrupted theirs. yikes.

kaed's teeth. he was very unsure of the new feeling in his mouth.

birthday boys with crazy uncle morgan.

gorgeous krue.

oh, and how could i possibly forget this little detail: we officially passed the "half way" point in my pregnancy on valentine's day! and, our gift was an ultrasound to see how the little babe has progressed. it was absolutely amazing. it was hard, but baby mays' gender is still unknown. however, if we had to guess, we'd say BLUE based on the fact that the little sweetheart was in a wrestling stance for much of the ultrasound! :)

baby mays' profile @ 20 weeks.

at night, morgan and i like to sit on the couch and watch the baby try to kick its way out of my belly. it's quite hilarious. sometimes it looks like there is a bit of a dance party taking place in there, and other times it looks like s/he is taking judo chop lessons from jackie chan. regardless, we enjoy watching the little movements and wondering what exactly is going on in there!

little baby feet!

me at 23 weeks. (moo!)

march, thus far, has not been too eventful. we finally chose our color swatches and got the baby's room painted. we went with a neutral grey for the paint and an owl theme for the overall room. we had a custom bedding set made for us on www.etsy.com, which should be ready in the next couple of weeks. also, we officially ordered the baby's furniture set and we should be able to pick it up in the next couple of weeks. we are so excited that it is all coming together. all we need is the baby to make it complete! i will be 24 weeks tomorrow, which means we have about 16 weeks of baby baking left. here's hoping the time flies by!

baby's custom crib set. LOVE!

painted room (and lots of stuff)

piggies!

last weekend, morgan's brother's sow gave birth to 11 little baby piglets. we were so excited (at least i was -- i love little piggies!) so we took our nephews kaedon & kalen out to see them. kaedon was all about it - kalen, not so much. i think he was a little worried to upset the mama pig, so he kept his distance. they are so little and make the cutest little piggy noises.

the boys got a bit of a chuckle when they realized that one of the piglets had taken a poo on uncle morgan. apparently this is the story that their parents heard quite a bit of. ("one of the piggies pooped on morgan and it was yellow!") leave it to the maines to obsess over poop!

we finally decided on a design for the nursery as well as the furniture, which is a HUGE relief. my friend jamie has been helping me with the tedious details -- she is amazing!! she knows how to turn me back into a sane person. little baby mays is quite active, i must say. s/he is all over the place, and kicked me a pretty good one this morning! we are still unable to feel his/her movements from the outside, so daddy still hasn't gotten to be involved. :( should be about 2-3 weeks before daddy will be able to feel him/her. we have our 20-week ultrasound on february 15 which is generally where they determine the sex of the baby, but as we previously mentioned, we are not going to find out. we agreed that this is one of the last surprises left on the planet, so we want to enjoy every second of the surprise. people's reactions to our decision not to find out the sex or to share our names has been pretty shocking! some people are just absolutely appalled and hound us every day, saying, "you'll change your mind!!" trust me, we won't. :) we're very content with our decision, and besides, you'll all know when we do!

-the mays'

weekend endeavors

last weekend we took a trip down south to kentucky so we could have christmas with morgan's sister, martina, her husband, billy, and their daughter, reagan. normally the 9-hour drive isn't all that bad, but when you have to pee every hour it becomes a bit of a nuisance. we left friday morning at 4:30 am and drove through the thickest fog and the hardest downpour of rain to get there. needless to say, when we finally reached our hotel, we were beyond relieved. (especially me, who spent a great deal of the car ride bawling in a state of panic, convinced we were going to die.) we were doing great and then i caught a little bug later that night (new year's eve) and ended up falling asleep around 8:30. i was quite excited to wake up the next morning feeling 100% better. we couldn't wait to see everyone. the rest of morgan's family had driven down there earlier in the week, so the whole mays family was together. it was our first time seeing miss reagan since she learned how to walk - so cute! it's incredible how quickly kids grow when you don't see them every day. she is even saying words, which is so cute to hear her little voice! we spent a great deal of time trying to get some family photo ops taken (thank you jon & laura) but in general, it ended up being simply hilarious. logan & jerome are quite the comedians to say the least. on the way home, we got to stop at an outlet mall in indiana which was AWESOME. we spent a bulk of our time in motherhood maternity scoping out their sales, as well as in baby gap. (which, ps, they have hardly any gender neutral outfits - such a bummer!) although we enjoyed our time in kentucky, we were very happy to be home and in our own beds. weasley missed us terribly. kash didn't seem to mind - he got to spend the whole weekend out at granni's.

this is how you fit 10 people on a couch!

we assumed that this past weekend we would take it easy since we had been on the go so much last weekend. umm...zero. martina, billy, and reagan made the trip to iowa so we headed over to morgan's parent's house to spend time with them. how lucky were we to get two weekends in a row with them? saturday was a long day for us -- i discovered the day before that my chosen cloth diapers for the baby were being discontinued and thought i had a few weeks to purchase them before they were gone. by saturday morning, they had been completely removed from the website and i was in a state of complete & total panic. not to mention we decided to discuss the baby's nursery which ended up in a bit of a disagreement. the extinction of my diapers plus the dying vision of my dream nursery equalled several hours of tears for me. can i just say that the absolute WORST part of pregnancy is the hormones? for. real. it is quite the roller coaster ride and trust me, you have zero control over it! we finally came to a consensus, and just then, we discovered that the crib set we adored only came in black & white. GRRR. we need expresso to match our wood trim! back to square one. (however, i did discover early this morning that my cloth diapers were back on the site! $350 later, we have our complete stock of bumgenius all-in-ones. whew!)

crazily insane mays boys

on an even better note, this last week was when i started to feel little baby mays moving around. i'm only feeling little flutters, but it's enough to make his or her presence known! very, very excited for this, and definitely can't wait for the stronger kicks and movements to start! (that way daddy can be a part of it, too!)

reagan & uncle morgan

-the mays'