When my mom first saw me on the day that the picture was taken she squealed and said “Awww….you had a Minnie Mouse costume when you were a baby that looked just like that!”.

Sigh…..just the look I was going for 😉

Minnie Mouse aside, I have two of these (non-maternity) dresses in different patterns, and I swear to you, they are the only comfortable items of clothing left in my arsenal these days! Pants are way out (have been for two weeks now – that hideously uncomfortable ship has sailed), and recently leggings have been getting on my last nerve too (I’m not loving how they sit UNDER my belly now, and tend to “roll” when I try to pull them up OVER my belly)…..grumble grumble. I only have 10 work days left (!!!!), so basically, 10 days that I have to wear real clothes, and the rest of the time while I’m off and waiting for Babe to arrive, I’ll just sit around in a bathrobe. 😀

Over this past weekend, Matt and I were out and about on the Niagara Peninsula on a bit of a “babymoon” to Niagara on the Lake, and a quick stop-in at our friends cottage on Long Beach as well. The weather was a bit crazy and cold,  but truth be told, I love the cooler / rainy weather, and usually actually enjoy being at cottages when it’s not the “ideal” beach day, so I was happy as can be!

Niagara on the Lake was beautiful as it always is, and we got to stay at the super fancy Queen’s Landing hotel, which was actually a wedding gift from the same friends whose cottage we were visiting (thanks Bailey and Graeme!). We had a fireplace right in our room, and the most gigantic bed I think I’ve ever seen, which was nice for Babe and I.

That being said, I realized just how amazing our bed at home actually is, because after the night in the hotel, I woke up a bit sore and uncomfortable for pretty much the first time this entire pregnancy, and was up in the middle of the night a couple of times with twangs of pain from rolling around, that I normally don’t get at all in our bed at home. Sleeping in our own bed on Monday night confirmed that it was totally bed related, because everything was 100% again sleeping in our bed.

We had a pretty low-key weekend in Niagara on the Lake; we went to a super fancy (and very delicious) restaurant for dinner on Sunday and were sweating bullets that they wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t really bring any fancy clothes, but thank goodness they decided to slum it on that particular day 😉 this restaurant actually served me my first steak that I didn’t feel like I had to nuke because it was under-cooked in this entire pregnancy! Woot!

Once we got home from Niagara on the Lake, I turned my attention to starting to pack our hospital bags, which we have a good start on now. I’m still missing a few items for my bag, but Babe’s bag is in good shape. Matt’s we still need to dig out of the basement, but his will mostly be food and entertainment anyways (since he refuses to pack pyjamas – which he will come to regret, I’m sure). It’s a bit hard to know what we will actually need in these bags; every Google search seems to return a handful of new things that I had never even thought about / heard about before…..but here’s hoping that we’re at least close. I figure over the next few weeks I’ll probably add to all of the bags and they’ll each be 50 lbs by the time we actually take them to the hospital.

We had a great midwife appointment on Tuesday of this week, and she commented that Babe is actually feeling like a baby on the “smaller side” which threw us for a loop (because we’ve been picturing him as a total muncher this entire time, ever since they bumped up our due date by a week because of his size!). She reassured us that that wasn’t a bad thing at all, and probably would make for an easier labour. She (totally) guessed that he would be somewhere between 7 – 8 pounds at birth, but not heavier than 8. Time will tell!

Symptom wise, still not a lot to complain about, my back pain and pelvis pain is actually improving day to day, or at the very least, not INCREASING, which is nice. I’m not loving long walks at all (though let’s be honest – I never did anyways lol), and just feel a bit awkward / uncomfortable when I have to walk for long stretches these days, but I’ll do it if I have to! BodyPump is still feeling great however – and I ended up teaching one more Wednesday class solo tonight, so there you go! I’m going to try to really hold myself accountable to getting at least 2 solid workouts in per week for the next few weeks until our due date; I’m a bit worried that without a class on the schedule to force me into the gym that I’ll end up just phoning it in and lounging around for 4 straight weeks, which won’t do Babe or I any favours in the long run.

I have my first prenatal massage appointment on Friday which I’m looking forward to, and we are also doing our last maternity photo session on Sunday evening at Andrew’s Scenic Acres (the apple orchard / pumpkin patch where Matt proposed!). I’m trying to keep my mind off of the fact that our prenatal classes don’t start until NEXT Saturday…….*hyperventilates*……SO not smart of us……so not smart…….

Anyways, like I’ve written before on this blog, I’m caught in a bit of a cross-hair between wishing that time would go by faster, and trying to savour every last (increasingly STRONG) kick and push on my belly (seriously….boy has been doing his squats, it feels like he’s going to push his foot THROUGH my skin some days lol). It will be so surreal to have Babe on the outside and to have to share him with everyone, and I’m trying to enjoy these last few weeks of our special little bond as much as I can. I know that even with the ups and downs, I will miss these weeks when they’re gone.

Hope you’ve all had a wonderful week, and are settling back into routine with the arrival of September. September / October have always been my two favourite months of the year, and I just love the fresh new feeling that the crisp Fall air brings with it. I hope that this year it brings great things for all of you.

-Sara & Babe xo

Hello  Hello!

A couple of people have sent me messages asking if Babe was HERE since I hadn’t posted our 34 week update!! LOL!!

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m still here, and still very much pregnant! In fact, 34 weeks felt like a bit of a seismic shift in just how pregnant I’ve felt. Up to this point, although I’ve been getting huge for a while, I honestly haven’t really felt too much different aside from some aches and pains in my back and pelvis, but this past week I’ve been noticing how much tougher it is to do simple things like stand up (lol), roll over, bend down to pick up things, and the greatest athletic challenge of all…..

Tie my shoes.

Dear god, that was an experience.

I feel like Babe has been on a bit of a growth spurt because my appetite has been voracious again (well, let’s be honest with each other, I don’t think it ever really  became NOT voracious, it has been since about 20 weeks lol), and I’ve definitely grown a bunch in diameter this past week. We have our next midwife appointment on Tuesday after the long weekend, and I can’t wait to see how I measure…..I bet you the change will be significant!

It was another fairly uneventful week for Babe and I; I did end up coming down with a bit of a cold towards the tail end of last week / last weekend, but a few days camped out on the couch and lots of sleep over last weekend managed to prevent it from exploding into a full blown disaster, and we’ve been feeling pretty much back to normal this week, although maybe a bit lower energy than usual.

I’ve been really busy at work with trying to wrap-up projects and hand things over to my replacement, and I’m so grateful that we have such a long crossover period to train / transition, because it’s already been 4 weeks of us working together, and I’m still feeling like I have so much to cover with him! I’m not sure if work is contributing to this, but I’ve found myself pretty beat in the evenings this week, and have been crashing on the couch before I even make it upstairs to bed most nights! This is why my 34 week post is coming a few days late as a matter of fact!

This week, my boss and I went over to Supperworks in Oakville to do some freezer meals. I don’t know what I was thinking before, but clearly Supperworks is the answer to all (or at least some) of my freezer meal planning! My boss and I have been doing it for the past 2 years, and I seriously don’t know why it never occurred to me that these meals would serve just as well as post-Babe freezer meals as they have  for Matt and I……… sheesh.

Supperworks is a GOD SEND for anyone like me who isn’t keen on cooking or meal prep, and strapped for time. Basically Supperworks is a place where you go, and prepare freezer meals off of their pre-set menu for the month to store in Ziploc bags, or sometimes in casserole dishes / aluminum foil. They have all of the fresh ingredients prepped and ready to go for each meal, so you literally just move from station to station and follow the recipe for each meal that you’re preparing (which is as simple as: dump 1/2 cup of chopped onion into the bag, dump 1/4 cup of corn into the bag, add 1/2 tbsp of tomato sauce into the bag etc etc etc). It takes about an hour to make 6 meals, and you can make 3, 6, 9 or 12 meals per session!

Some meals are more work to actually cook at home then others, and they don’t always make full meals (i.e. this time I made a bunch of “cheesy, panko crusted chicken breasts”…..but would  need to serve them with something else to make a complete meal), which is why I was kind of leaning towards doing some different freezer meals on my own that are more complete meals, and even less work to cook then some of the Supperworks meals.

I’m talkin’ two steps: 1) remove from freezer, 2) place in oven.

Anyways, with about 9 Supperworks meals in our freezer, I’m feeling a bit better that we at least have something up our sleeve in case our little monkey decides to arrive early, but I’m still planning to work on a couple more over the next few weeks. Plus, as I get lazier and lazier, chances are we may dip  into some of those meals before he even arrives so…….yea 😉

I taught my last “official” BodyPump class on schedule this past Wednesday, and I seriously felt GREAT teaching / working out?! I had a couple of weeks in a row several weeks back now where I was feeling pretty uncomfortable teaching, and kind of assumed that it would only increase exponentially as the weeks rolled on, but it hasn’t been the case at all! In fact, about 90% of my pelvic pain is GONE now?! WTF?!

The fact that I’m still feeling so great in the studio is one of the greatest miracles for me, sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed with gratitude to be honest. Although my heart hurts to not be able to do BodyAttack or BodyStep anymore, BodyPump has truly allowed me to keep sane for this pregnancy, and I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated this program so much in my entire 10 year teaching career. Without BodyPump, I would have been out of the studio / teaching completely at about 6 months, and that would have been so, so hard for both my mental and physical state. Probably more mental than physical to be honest.

I’m still feeling like I’ve got at least a couple of good weeks left in me to team-teach and / or participate, but am going to step back from teaching on my own now that I’m almost 36 weeks along, and lord only knows what plans Mother Nature has for Babe and I! 😉 I’m feeling good about the decision, and really happy that I still have the option to team-teach / participate at this stage. I know how lucky we are, and I don’t take that for granted.

My last (2) updates from this week are that no, I haven’t yet packed my hospital bag, but I’ve been gathering like a winter squirrel, and just need to get organized on what actually needs to go in the bag lol…..for some reason I’m much more concerned about packing Matt’s bag and making sure that he has enough food at the hospital (why do they always totally ignore feeding the husbands?!)….so that’s on my list to tackle this long weekend at some point in and amongst other fun.

We are on our way to Niagara on the Lake for a night this weekend for a mini baby-moon getaway, and spending some time at our friends Bailey and Graeme’s cottage as well which should be nice (although a bit chilly I hear?! Helloooooo sweet, sweet Fall – my very favourite time of year!!). Tonight we are on our way to Burlington Ribfest, but no, I won’t be eating much from there lol…..pregnancy completely aside, the last three times I’ve eaten meat at Ribfest I’ve ended up puking in the middle of the night, and this gal is done turning into a salmon for this pregnancy thank you very much!

Fries for me please! 😀

FINALLY…..I’ll leave you with a few of our favourite shots from a mini-maternity session that we did with the very talented Sarah Martin from Sarah Martin Photography back at 25 weeks / our baby shower! Hard to believe the change since then! We have another maternity session scheduled for next weekend at 36.5 weeks…..where does the time go….

Happy Long Weekend to all!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

This week has been one for the books! As I was writing about last week, Babe and I were downtown for the Can Fit Pro World Fitness Expo from Friday – Sunday this week, and between getting ready to go, and recovering from the weekend, it feels like that was pretty much all we accomplished this week!

I’ve been to the Can Fit Pro conference every year for the past 10 years (my first year was 2007…..I just can’t believe how the time flies!), and I wasn’t about to miss this year if there was anything I could do about it! This conference is one of the highlights of my year every year because it’s such a great opportunity to get together with like-minded fitness professionals from every walk of life across the industry and learn, learn, learn. It’s also a great weekend to spend with our friends from all over the industry, and just re-fill the old inspiration bucket (as if it could ever really get low when it comes to group fitness!).

The million dollar question that all of my friends and family from outside of the fitness industry always ask every year is….

So like…what do you do at these conferences?

And it’s a fair question!

The part that everyone sees on social media (sorry about that crazy tsunami of posts and pictures BTW, it only happens once a year for us and we get a bit excited!!) is what we call the “masterclasses”. These masterclasses are specific to Les Mills instructors, and basically, our team of Canadian Les Mills national trainers, combined with special international guest presenters from our educational DVDs (including some from New Zealand – sometimes even our Program Directors if we’re really lucky!) will take us through the NEXT round of new releases for all of our Les Mills programs coming to GoodLife clubs in the Fall, but on a huge, Lady Gaga style, rock-concert stage, with awesome lights and sound that would make Tiesto swoon.

These events have really gotten to be huge over the past several years, and we’ve really been to some MASSIVE classes (I think the biggest being the 2,000+ person BodyPump class that a few of us got to do in New Orleans back in 2014). It really is a pretty unbelievable experience to pack that many Les Mills nuts into one room, it’s nothing short of a miracle that none of these convention centre buildings have come crashing to the ground yet, I swear!

The OTHER, less publicized, part of the weekend is the more cerebral, lecture style learning that takes place, where we get to register for all different types of education sessions taught by world class presenters from all over the industry on everything from nutrition, to different mental health topics, to supplementation, to fitness for specific populations, to coaching, to injury rehab, to new fitness industry trends and fads, and the list goes on and on and on! Although slightly less sexy than the Lady Gaga style masterclasses, if you pick the right ones, the lectures can be really fascinating and really inspiring as well.

SO….normally, this weekend involves about 9 hours of pretty intense exercise in 2 days, pretty minimal sleep / food, and a fair bit of alcohol in the evenings (cause you know….balance). This particular weekend, as you can imagine, looked a little different for Babe and I!

I’ve been a little stressed about how on earth I was going to keep up with these masterclasses / workouts given that I can’t really jump or run anymore at all, and my back / pelvic pain has been ratcheting up and up with each passing week. I also had a bit of an emotional freak-out on Thursday night when I realized that there was literally NOTHING good / healthy that I could pack to eat for lunch on the Friday at the conference since there are no microwaves or anything like that at the convention centre (and there’s no way that I would eat meat or much else in terms of cooked food that was cool, or even at room temperature), and really no place to buy anything decent to eat on-site (or at least anything that meets my food safety OCD standards these days).

I finally defaulted to bringing bagels and cream cheese (packed in about 4 different ice packs) to get me through Friday. Eye roll.

I did my best with all of the masterclasses that I could, and was pleasantly surprised at how much Babe and I were able to do. We managed to do: RPM, SH’BAM, BodyPump, BodyStep, BodyJam and BodyAttack. Not too shabby for 33.5 weeks!!

I would have loved to have done more, and to be able to do the classes that we did do at full impact / intensity, but it just wasn’t in the cards this year, and that’s okay! One of my favourite takeaways from this year’s conference was from the Opening Ceremonies keynote presentation by Tony Horton (the creator of P90X; one of the Beach Body at home workout programs!) where he talked about the 6 steps to living a simpler, healthier, more fulfilled and productive life. And the very first step:

Something about that little tidbit really stuck with me and has become something of a personal mantra for me, and I’ve realized how true it is in so many aspects. All we can do is our best at any given time. Sometimes, our best isn’t really good enough, but that still doesn’t change the fact that our best is all we have to give. It’s all we have!

There’s no sense worrying about comparing our best effort to someone else’s on a given day, or to what we think the right way to do something is, or what life tells us is “the actual best”. All we can do is our best. Period. And I did my best all weekend long, so I can feel good about that!

By the end of the weekend, Babe and I were pretty exhausted from not much sleep, not great nutrition, and just general fatigue from a big weekend away. I’m coming down with a cold now, and fighting it off as hard as I can!! Please, please stay away cold!!

In terms of other pregnancy updates, I’m getting more and more uncomfortable, especially in the evenings, with aches and pains in my upper back / mid back. Sleep seems to regenerate me completely, and I always wake up 100% pain-free in the morning, but the pain seems to settle in as the long days in an office chair progress. I’m really looking forward to my osteopath / massage appointments coming up in early / mid September!

Eating has gotten a little better for me (in the sense that I’m slowly getting a little bit of mojo back for cooking / planning meals – even very simple ones) and I’ve been pretty happy with the balance of foods that I’ve been getting every day. I’ve still got my eye on that McDonalds meal, and the time is fast approaching…..mua ha ha ha. I’m also unapologetically eating a Nestle Drumstick a day.

Still not sorry.

Recently I’ve been finding myself in a bit of a panic mode that OMG Babe will be here in 6 short weeks, OR LESS. I don’t know what the hay my Type-A personality was thinking, but our prenatal classes aren’t scheduled until September 16th / 23rd…. 37 / 38 weeks?!?

WHAT. THE. EFF was I thinking?! He could so easily be here by then?!

My goal for the next 2 weeks is to get organized with some video / book resources and start doing some more home learning, JUST IN CASE little duck has a mind of his own and decides to come ahead of schedule / ahead of prenatal classes. Our hospital bags are getting packed at 35 weeks as well, so that really only leaves another week to gather that stuff together! Eeks!

Well, I think that’s all from us for this week, I hope that all of my teacher / parent friends and family are enjoying the last few weeks of the summer, and are feeling refreshed and ready for back to school! I’ve always, always loved the Fall, and the first week of September always feels so fresh and new. If you’re finding yourself stressed / overwhelmed leading up to September, give my new mantra a try….it works wonders for me in just about all situations!

-Sara & Babe xo

Hiya Friends!

Colours! So many colours!

I thought it would be fun this week to do a little side-by-side comparison of the past several weeks, since it’s been such a huge growth spurt for Babe and I! Check it out!

Left Side: 32 Weeks, Right Side: 27 Weeks

We’re getting there! My BabyCentre app tells me that today (the very start of 33 weeks), Babe weighs about as much as a pineapple. An interesting visual, but we’ll take it!

I thought that I had made a break through with the whole maternity pant thing last week when I bought two new pairs of pants from the Gap with a “demi-panel” (the last style that I haven’t yet tried / failed at for maternity pants). I was very pumped when I first tried the pants on because standing up they were super comfy! Sadly, when it comes to sitting down all day (or even for 5 minutes for that matter), it turns out that they were sent straight from Hades, and will never be worn again.

I give up.

This week I’ve officially thrown in the towel and am just wearing my Lululemon leggings to work, even though it’s wildly inappropriate. Screw it, I’ll figure out the whole maternity clothes thing for my next pregnancy. Maybe.

This week has been a pretty quiet one on the home front, Matt took a trip out to Winnipeg to visit with our friends Jeff, Sydney and their super sweet little babe Alexandra, who was born several weeks early back in June. She’s been doing so well, and it was so nice that Matt had a chance to get out to see her and Jeff and Sydney before our Babe arrives! I was a teeny tiny bit nervous while he was gone that something crazy would happen and I would go into labour while he was a plane ride away, but thankfully the most eventful happening of the weekend was a movie date with my best friend Lindsay to watch the (fairly mediocre) Fate of the Furious movie and eat my (rather impressive) weight in snacks.

Mmmmm snacks.

I had a wedding shower to go to on the Sunday, and got myself into a bit of a mood over nothing because I was feeling so frustrated with having to be so concerned about what I’m eating all the time. If you’ve followed along with my pregnancy since the beginning, you know all about my paranoia with food safety, and although I’m happy to say that it’s gotten much better as I’ve progressed further, I’m still avoiding a ton of foods that make eating out (or anywhere where I’m not controlling the food for that matter) pretty challenging.

The wedding shower was a Spanish Tapas theme (so cool!), and a total “foodie dream” complete with a live chef preparing the appetizers right in front of us, but I found that I wasn’t able to eat 95% of the food because I couldn’t get out of my head about the cheeses, the spices, the meats……on and on.

My family went out for dinner after the shower, and lo and behold, there wasn’t ONE SINGLE THING on the menu at the fancy-ish, foodie restaurant that we went to that I really felt comfortable eating (seriously – foodie spots, NOT FOR ME, at least not during this pregnancy)….please for the love of god just give me a simple pasta or a thoroughly-cooked protein, carb and vegetable (without soft cheese and other craziness all over it) ……….. please!!

My pelvic pain definitely bumped up a few notches this week on the pain scale, to the point where I thought I would mention it to my midwife at our appointment on Monday. I’m rocking a pretty sweet “waddle” these days, and if you’d like to try and imitate what I look like (you know….for some reason…. LOL), then perform this simple exercise:

1. Stand up
2. Attempt to walk 25 feet in a straight line without moving your pelvis in any way

Annnd there you have it. The Sara Waddle^TM

She referred me to an osteopath in Burlington, and I’ve booked an appointment with him for early September, so here’s hoping that he can help! She also referred me to a pre-natal massage therapist, who I’ve also booked an appointment with in a few weeks time, so I’m very hopeful that between that and the osteopath that relief is on the horizon!

My back has been acting up a little bit over the past few weeks as well, more towards the second half of the day, as I spend most of my day sitting at a desk. This is definitely more manageable, and I think if I did a better job of getting up and stretching throughout the day, I could probably help to mitigate some of this for sure.

I’m forcing myself into a bit of a holding pattern on a couple of remaining tasks like packing our hospital bags, doing freezer meals and stock-piling household items (shampoo, toilet paper, paper towels etc etc) just so that I feel like I have some productive things left on my list to do to fill up those last few weeks when I know that time will slow down even more than it already has (seriously…..crraaaaaazzzzyyyyyyyyyy slow moving weeks lately). I’ve got my eye on 35 weeks to get our hospital bags ready, and start freezer meals. Maybe shortly after that to start stock-piling.

I think we have just about everything that Babe needs now (I had a bit of an OCD flip-out over the weekend and took every single sleeper, onesie and article of clothing out of his dresser, re-folded half of it using a different folding method, and hung up the other half of it in the closet….don’t ask…..), but I still need to pick up a few things for myself like nursing tanks / bras and some “in-between” clothes that will be comfortable to transition back to my regular clothes (SOMEBODY SAY HALLELUJAH).

This weekend is completely spoken for as I’m off to the Can Fit Pro conference in Toronto for my 10th consecutive year! This year will look a lot different than it normally does for me, because I’m just not able to do 9 hours of intense exercise in one day this year, but I’ll darn sure be doing my best to keep up with my super-fit friends and the rest of my tribe! I’m hoping that Babe won’t mind the busy weekend!

Well, I think that’s about all from Babe and I this week, and so I’ll finish off this week’s post on a bit of a more somber / serious note. What’s going on south of our border recently has really shocked and horrified me (as it has all of us really). I’m fearful every day that this escalates about the kind of world that me and the rest of us are bringing our sweet little babes into. What kind of world will we leave for them to inherit? Will I seriously have to be concerned about my Babe falling in line with the wrong crowd some day and carrying a torch down the street at night screaming that white people will never be replaced? Or on the other hand, feeling so helpless and horrified by the situation, that he goes to a rally to protest the behaviour, and ends up being rammed with someone’s car?

I guess I’ve always kind of lived by the motto that we need to be the change we wish to see in the world, but these days, it hardly feels like that is enough.

Anyways – just where my head and heart is at this week. Sending much love to all of you – and to your extended circles as well. I count myself so lucky to be surrounded by such a wonderful network of truly good people, and to live where we do.

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

First of all – I wanted to say a HUGE, massive thank you for the all of the thoughtful condolences and well wishes that I received for my Grandpa last week – and also for the all of the good news that was shared with me!! Each and every piece of good news put a big smile on my face, so THANK YOU for that!!

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, but much smoother emotionally then last week for sure. We drove back up to the Sault on Thursday morning and arrived in time for the celebration of life on Thursday night. Lots of people I know say that they don’t want a formal funeral, and my Grandpa was one of those people, but I just know that he would have loved what his kids put together for him! It was a really nice night, and a lot of fun! The whole thing started with a mix and mingle at the funeral home with desserts and drinks, nothing formal, just a chance to visit with family that we haven’t seen in a long time. Then the party moved back to my Grandma’s house, where we ended up passing around my Grandpa’s last bottle of brandy and telling funny stories about him (no brandy for Babe and I – don’t worry 😉 ). Everyone that told a story had to take a shot of brandy afterwards, and it ended up being a ton of fun. He would have just loved it!

**A quick side note of clarification from last week: I realized that when I initially wrote my 30 Week post that I was a bit unclear about my Grandpa’s name / Babe’s middle name!! Babe’s middle name will be Walter in honour of my Grandpa (and future Babes will also take their grandparents names as their middle name as well!). We won’t be announcing Babe’s first name until he arrives….sorry!! 😉

We drove back home on Friday, and Babe and I were quite happy to get out of the car after spending 36 hours on the Trans Canada in 6 days!! Thankfully, the long weekend was waiting for us when we got home, and we had a few days to relax and unwind!!

It honestly did take me a full day and a half to recover from the crazy car rides, I wasn’t feeling 100% on Saturday, but by Sunday was pretty well back to normal. My sleep has been pretty good, but I’m definitely dealing with more aches and pains over the course of the day, particularly in my upper back and my pelvis. Babe, babe, babe….. you’re getting heavy in there little fellow!!

He’s been such an active little monkey again this week, it still just cracks me up to see my belly moving around through my shirt. My midwife was right, and most of his movements have changed from short little jabs or kicks to more “rolling” type movements as poor little man runs out of room in there!! I’m having a hard time imagining that he will likely DOUBLE IN WEIGHT between now and when he is born…….EEKS!! How will he fit?! My back?! My pelvis?! LOL!!

I’ve seriously lost my nesting mojo (thank you LORD that I was so productive in the second trimester), in particular when it comes to cooking. Few things in life excite me LESS these days than standing in front of the meat section at the grocery store trying to figure out what the F we should have for dinner in a week. Matt’s been very helpful thank goodness, but I’ve been super unimpressed with myself the past few weeks. Come on Sara…GET IT TOGETHER.

I have a big giant list of things that I need / want to get done before Babe arrives, but like I said, my mojo has been fading fast!! I’m trying to give it a few more weeks before I dive into making freezer meals (because I don’t want them to go bad sitting in my freezer for months, and also because, let’s be honest, I’m a terrible cook, and I’ll be a hot mess trying to make freezer meals), and I’m also thinking of having a cleaning service in to do a deep clean of our house at some point. I’m still grappling with myself over the hair colouring thing, but I think I’ll just get over myself and do it a little closer to my due date so that at least I don’t have to worry about it once Babe is here….

At work, my replacement has officially started which is CRAZY, because it really does mean that the end is near!! We have a long 6 week period of crossover, but I’m super stoked to be handing projects over to him sooner than later (read: my earlier comments re: mojo).

I got a very cute basket of baby gifts delivered to my office from one of our suppliers this week, and guess what the feature animal was?!

*quack quack*!!

In general, time seems to have really slowed down this week, it feels like Week 31 dragged on and on….but here we are on the other side, and I’m ready for Week 32!! Matt is off to Winnipeg this week to visit our close friends and their super sweet little babe Alexandra (our Babe’s future buddy for life / wife), and I’ll be busy with errands, a movie date with my best friend and our hot guys driving fast cars (Fast and the Furious……kind of a tradition lol), and a wedding shower for my neighbour.

As per usual in life – I’m finding myself caught in the struggle of eagerly anticipating what’s to come and wishing for it to arrive, and trying desperately to live in the moment and enjoy the journey. Some days I’m the latter, and some days I’m the former!

Well, that’s enough out of me for this week, for now, Babe and I are off for our daily Drumstick!

*Insert happy dance from Babe*

F it, I’m not even sorry anymore.

-Sara & Babe xo

 

Hi Friends,

I just love these crops, so much in fact that I’ve decided I won’t be wearing them for the rest of this pregnancy, I don’t want to stretch them out and wreck them! I ordered these from my friend Renate’s Silver Icing online boutique, and I just love all of the clothes that I’ve ordered so far (believe it or not, these crops are the only workout clothes that I’ve ordered – the rest of the pieces are all “real life” clothes)! If you’re in the market for some cool new clothes, check out her website here!

(On a side note – it is seriously time for me to clean this mirror….it’s so dirty!!)

So….although I’m really thrilled to be on the other side of my 30th week, I have to admit that I’ve had a really, really hard week.

Things really turned south the morning after I posted my 29 week update last Wednesday, when I woke up to a text from my Dad that my Grandfather in Sault Ste. Marie had taken a bad fall in his retirement home, had suffered a fractured skull and had bleeding on his brain. Given the fragile condition of his heart, the decision was made by the doctor team that he could not survive the brain surgery that he needed, and was therefore transferred to palliative care.

With so much uncertainty about how much time we had before he would pass, we decided to go up to Sault Ste. Marie right away on Friday morning. We made it there by Friday evening, and had a chance to say our goodbyes. I was also able to share with him that we plan to give Babe his middle name (Walter). He passed away about 7 hours after we got there.

Things were very uncertain, and very unclear for the rest of the weekend. We had no idea for a few days what would be happening in terms of a funeral / celebration of life, but finally learned on Sunday afternoon that there would be a celebration of life on Thursday evening. This made things difficult for us because both Matt and I would be missing an entire week of work (on top of the Friday that we had already missed). We made the decision to come home on Sunday, work Monday – Wednesday, and then drive back up this Thursday (tomorrow).

Unfortunately, best-laid plans didn’t really hold true on the way home, and a huge accident on the Highway 69 closed the road for 5 hours. It took us nearly 12 hours to drive home from Sault Ste. Marie (normally a 7 – 8 hour drive) and we ended up having to double back all the way to Sudbury to take an alternate route.

I was so extremely anxious and worried about being in the car for so long with Babe, and being so far off the beaten road and far away from a hospital as well. The whole thing was really not a good scene. The rest of this week has been exhausting in it’s own way. I’ve felt a complete and total, absolute lack of support from my family this week that’s really upset me and put a lot of stress on Babe and I.

In lighter news, OMG you guys, Babe has never been more active then he has been the past week! It’s seriously hilarious! He’s squirming around in there all day long, there is a very rare minute where I can’t feel him! His movements are so strong now that I can see them through my clothes! It just cracks me up (Matt too!). When we were up in the Sault, he was moving around so vigorously that we could see him through the quilt on the hotel room bed! LOL

I had an ultrasound at the end of this week, and Babe clocks in at 3 pounds 9 ounces (above the 3 pound 3 ounce average for 31 weeks)! I can’t believe I have an almost 4 pound baby rolling around inside of me! The big news from the ultrasound was that he isn’t transverse anymore…..little guy is head down, and ready to go!! WOOHOO!! Thanks Babe, you heard my desperate plea from last week!! Maybe all of that vigorous moving was actually him making the flip….

My pelvic pain has been about the same as last week, but thankfully it hasn’t gotten any worse! Now that Babe is head down, I’m super hopeful that this will let up a bit. Time will tell…. maybe I have a few burpee tuck jumps left in me for this pregnancy after all??? (I kid, I kid….;)).

My energy levels have been low this week for sure, but I’m chalking that up mostly to stress, and struggling to eat decently while traveling. I’ve still been sleeping decently despite it all – so THANK YA JESUS for that.

To finish on a happy note, I had a great dinner / catch-up with some work friends yesterday night, and so many exciting things are happening for my friends these days (both work and not!). One of my friends announced that she was pregnant, one is  off to do her MBA, one is coming back to work after her maternity leave, and one of my oldest and dearest friends from outside of work just got engaged! It is the season of celebrations and good news….

I’m trying really hard to focus on all of this good and to let go of the bad, but I’m not perfect, and more often then I’d like this week I’ve found myself slipping down a dark road into the negative. I’m really hoping to turn around these thought patterns for next week – so if you’ve got some good news to share, PLEASE, I’d love to hear it!! Tell me what is going wonderfully in your life so that I can celebrate with you!!

9 weeks to go….single digit weeks….ACK!!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

 

I’m happy to report that Babe is a natural in the great outdoors! He did great with the camping trip this past weekend, and really gave me very little trouble overall for the 2.5 days that we were out there!

The most challenging part of camping while 29.5 weeks pregnant was the whole washroom situation. Our original campsite that we were assigned to was nowhere close to a washroom, which was a bit of a problem considering I have to go about 33,000 times per hour now, including in the middle of the night (my god I miss my old camel bladder…on the day of our wedding, I didn’t go to the bathroom for over 16 hours, and still didn’t really have to go when I finally took off my dress at 3am!?).

Thankfully, Matt was great and sprung into action before Neil and Kaitlyn even arrived at the site, checking out other lots that may be better situated for Babe and I, and we managed to snag a different campsite that was a short walk from the “real” washrooms (you know, running water etc). Thank goodness.

We were camping in Balsam Lake Provincial Park, which is located right on the huge lake, and we spent most of the day on Saturday out in Matt’s canoe, much to his delight! Few things make my Matthew happier then the great outdoors and being in his canoe, so it warmed my little heart to be out there with him. We ended up paddling somewhere between 6km – 8km all the way across the lake, around a point and down to another Provincial Park (Indian Point) where we had a little picnic for lunch.

I know what you’re thinking.

What in the name of all that is holy would Sara be willing to eat out of a picnic basket while camping in the woods without Lysol wipes and a stove to burn the life out of all the food? 

And the answer my friends…..

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh baby.

Matt and his brother grew up taking long interior camping trips with their dad and brothers, and they seriously know what’s up when it comes to surviving in the wild! Neil brought his single burner stove and a little tiny pan out in the canoe, and made us probably the best grilled cheese sandwiches I’ve ever had in my LIFE out on that island. 8km paddle / fresh air aside; I would put this sandwich up against any I’ve had before, seriously! I (of course), ate two. One for me, one for Babe. Duh.

On the way back across the lake after our picnic, things got interesting! Matt had brought his fishing rod and some new lures with the hope of dropping a line in and maybe catching a Muskie (read: Muskellunge: a species of large, relatively uncommon freshwater fish native to North America). It was after 2pm by the time we set back across the lake, definitely not the ideal time for fishing, but figured, what the heck, why not toss the line in on the way back across. Neil’s girlfriend Kaitlyn took the first turn with the rod as we started the long paddle back.

Within about 5 minutes of paddling, Kaitlyn called out that she thought the line was snagged. She gave it a couple of good tugs, and thought for a minute that a fish might be on…..but then decided, no, it was just snagged. She was struggling to get the snag free, so we circled back and she handed the rod over to Neil to try and get the line loose again.

Neil took the rod, gave it a couple good tugs, fixed some settings on the rod…..and then the rod nearly got yanked out of his hand as the “snag” started to pull back!!

“THERE’S SOMETHING BIG ON!!!”

I think at this point I literally started just screaming my head off (seriously, zero chill over here) while Matt frantically rooted around in our canoe for the net and Neil handed the rod back to Kaitlyn to reel in her haul.

As she started to reel and the fish got closer to the surface, Matt flipped out and yelled “OH MY GOD, I THINK IT’S A MUSKIE?!” (more screaming from me). We caught our first glimpse of the fish in the water close to the canoes, and it was a beast! It looked like an alligator coming to the surface!

When all was said and done, they grabbed the fish in the net, assessed that it wasn’t a Muskie, but rather a very grumpy looking Northern Pike (much more used to being the predator as opposed to the prey!), took a few trophy pictures, and tossed the grouchy thing back to go and prey on some more innocent fish (lol). Our “finger” measurements told us that it was somewhere between 26 – 28 inches long!! Way to go Kaitlyn!!

All in all, it was a really good weekend, and I so appreciated all three of my camping buddies taking care to make sure that there was food that I was comfortable eating, and probably taking it a tiny bit easier then we may have otherwise (you know – 16km paddle aside). Oh, and to Matt for giving Babe and I the entire double air mattress to sleep on while he slept on his little cot on the side lol

Camping at 29.5 weeks pregnant can be done! 🙂

Aside from camping, it’s been an okay week. I took Monday off work and got an extra BodyPump class in which was great, but I’ve been dealing with a bit more lingering pelvic pain these days (not just after workouts, but all the time). I’m starting to get a tiny bit worried that I may have the start of SPD (Symphis Pubis Dysfunction), which basically means that the bones in my pelvis are getting slightly misaligned (very common in pregnancy). The pain is definitely manageable, I’d give it maybe a 3 – 4 out of 10 at the most, but it’s there, and it’s there most of the time now, which is a little worrisome.

My next midwife appointment is on Monday of next week, so I plan to mention it to her and see if there is anything I can do to help with this in the meantime. I really can’t complain, I’ve been so fortunate so far, and have really had to suffer through so little in this pregnancy, so if I’m in a bit of discomfort from here on out, then I can live with that. Would be jolly grand if I didn’t have to though! 🙂

I’m still eating like Michael Phelps (caved and bought another box of Drumsticks this weekend….I hate myself!!), and still gaining weight like it’s going out of style…..sheesh!! Make it stop!!

Sleep has been pretty good, although pelvic pain is sometimes waking me up in the night if I turn a certain way. I’m quick to get back to sleep though, so no biggie.

I’m starting to think about freezer meals for post-Babe arrival, and will probably get started on some of those in August….August is shaping up to be a very busy month for us though, with Matt headed out to Winnipeg for a weekend, wedding showers, CAN FIT PRO (eeeeeee!!) and possibly one more trip for me up to Sault Ste. Marie as well, so I’m sure that it will just fly by.

Hope all is well with you – have a wonderful week!

-Sara & Babe xo

If there was one word to describe this week from start to finish, I would probably say “emotional”. When I say “emotional”, I don’t necessarily mean “sad”, I just mean that every emotion I’ve been feeling seems to have been magnified a bit this past week. Happy, sad, excited, anxious, strong, hurt…..it’s been another roller coaster of a week!

For one of the first few times in my pregnancy this week, I really started to miss my pre-pregnancy body, and what it used to be able to do. I don’t think I ever realized how much intensity was a part of my personality until I’ve had to pull back from many things quite significantly, but when I look back on things that I used to do without even thinking about it (here’s looking at you burpee tuck jumps!), they now seem about as feasible as renting a unicorn for the day and flying to Narnia.

It’s all good – and the sadness didn’t last too long, but I definitely felt some pangs this week.

Food-wise, O.M.G; I still can’t get enough. I totally hate myself for how much I’m eating, and I know I’m going to have a bitch of a time getting this extra weight off after all is said and done, but I.just.can’t.stop. I actually find these days that if I go more then about 2 – 3 hours without eating, I start to feel really faint and woozy and need a really significant snack to boost me back up again.

And I ain’t talkin’ about no trail mix or piece of fruit.

Snack stadium…..I die…… LOL

My guilty pleasure this week has been…wait for it….Nestle Drumstick Ice Cream cones!!!! Ahh my heart…..Matt left me alone in the grocery store for literally 2 minutes while he ran back to get something in the bread section that we had forgotten, and came back to our cart just in time to catch me casually tossing in a box of Nestle Drumsticks (which we’ve never bought, nor eaten in our 8+ years together LOL). The look on his face was worth the extra 2 months it will take me to get the weight off, I swear to you.

I can’t explain it, but something about those drumsticks just spoke to me in that store…..and oh baby, I like what they have to say! I’ve been averaging one a day for the past 3 days, and thankfully there’s only one left in the box, so after today, no more.

Maybe I should just stop going to the grocery store….. hmm…..

Sleeping has been really good, I haven’t had any issues with waking up in the night or getting to sleep, which has been really helpful for my frame of mind, especially when emotions are running higher than normal. Hormones + exhausted = problems. I am so thankful that I was an exclusive side-sleeper before I ever got pregnant, as I know lots of people that are really struggling to stay on their sides / get comfortable on their sides. Business as usual over here!

We had our 28 week midwife appointment just yesterday (the last day of 28 weeks!), and found out that Babe is still laying in a transverse position on his side. Baby boy has been laying like that since week ELEVEN?!? Guess little guy has found a comfy spot, and he ain’t movin’!

The transverse position is apparently known to be quite a painful one for the mother as the baby gets bigger because it puts quite a stretch on the uterus and a lot of pressure on the pelvic bones. This could (and probably does!) explain why I’ve had trouble keeping up with my high impact classes due to pelvis pain!

Babe, I know you’re comfy there, mama is happy to oblige and I’ll deal with the eventual discomfort….but here’s the deal….you’ve got to flip for me before the big day, mmmmkay? Not loving the idea of a planned C-Section if he doesn’t turn!! Remember my ducks in a row? That would scatter them all over the damn barn!!

The other big finding from this week was related to a vaccination that I found out about while doing some research for our midwife appointment called the TDAP vaccine, which is supposed to protect Babe from pertussis, whooping cough and a bunch of other things in the first two months of his life before he can get his own vaccine (I would pass the antibodies onto him in-utero for now, and these would last until he gets his own shot). I brought up the vaccine with my midwife and was a bit disappointed that she didn’t seem overly enthused about it, although she did admit that it was “recommended” that all pregnant women get the shot in their third trimester, and was safe to get in your third trimester. I’ve done a bit more research on it, and think that I will go ahead with getting the shot from my family doctor. Just to keep things interesting, we’ve also learned that Matt had this shot as a baby (as we all did) and was allergic to it and had a crazy reaction to it……….so of course, that’s now stressing me out a bit as well. Anyways, I’m putting my faith in the medical system and in my family doctor, and if she tells me that it’s okay to get it, then get it I shall.

Apart from some minor issues with my blood pressure (chronically low low low), I think that’s all to report from this week. I was feeling kind of crappy on Sunday morning after teaching a BodyPump class, so we took a drive over to Shoppers Drug Mart to measure my blood pressure, and it came in at 99 / 54; on the low side for sure. I find when my blood pressure gets low I start to feel a bit woozy and dizzy, so I’ve been trying to stay on top of my fluids as much as I can to help keep it up where it should be. No salmon episodes to report; thank goodness!

We are going camping this weekend with Matt’s brother Neil and his girlfriend Kaitlyn (at 29.5 weeks – I must be out of my tree) – and my number one concern (of course): getting enough food. Dear god. I’ll be the one with my pockets stuffed full of snacks all weekend long…..just in case 😉

Hey, maybe there will be an ice cream chest with Nestle Drumsticks at the lodge?!??!

Have a great week – wish Babe and I luck in the great outdoors!! If his Daddy has anything to say about it, our little man will be spending a lot of his life out in the woods, so I guess it’s only fitting that we introduce him at a young age!!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

 

Hello from our guestroom (aka the new home of our full length mirror now that Babe’s room has been setup in the old office)! I thought that I was alone for this selfie, but it turns out that a certain someone was lurking just behind the bump…..

Hi Blake!

My parents and brothers and Matt’s parents have all been on vacation in Lebanon for the past two weeks, and we’ve been looking after my little panther fur ball which has been nice (except that he seems to really hate poor Matt for some reason – which I’ll chalk up to jealousy). He chased the poor guy all around the living room earlier this week hissing and swatting at his feet!

Sheesh Matt puts up with a lot…….!!

We had our last “monthly” midwife appointment right at the start of week 27, with my primary midwife this time, who I really like. We got to talk a bit more about my salmon episode from 24 weeks, and she made me feel so much better about the whole thing, and reassured me that a lot of people had been coming in to them with major gastrointestinal issues, and that although passing out is super scary, it won’t affect Babe if it’s just for a short moment.

We also talked a bit about hair colouring (which she assured me was fine to do, but I’m still wrestling with myself over it….I hate the mousy brown colour that my hair is going with months of no highlights, but also hate the thought of Babe being around the chemicals for 3 hours….sigh….) and cord blood banking (which I brought up because it’s a topic of super interest to me given our family’s history with blood cancer / stem cell transplants).

At this appointment, we also talked a bit about pre-term labour and signs that I should be  on the watch for. This is something that’s weighed very heavily on my mind from the very start of my pregnancy, as several very close friends of Matt and mine have delivered their sweet babes early, so she really didn’t give me any new information that Dr. Google hadn’t already told me about. I guess all I can say is that I’m placing my trust in Mother Nature and in the universe; Babe will come into the world on his own schedule, whenever that may be, and we are grateful for every day that he gets to snuggle in close to me in there!

This week was the very first time that I felt any anxiety or nerves over actual labour / delivery itself. Up until this point, I’ve been pretty chill about the whole thing, promising myself that I would go in as educated and prepared as I could, but with very few pre-set expectations. Lord knows that even if I went in with a best-laid “Sara plan”, most likely it would all go to hell within 5 minutes anyways, and that would only frustrate me more.

Enter Stage Left: winging it.

 

Anyways – brief anxiety episode aside, I’ve put the whole thing out of my mind for now, figuring we have some time before we get to that bridge, and worrying about it now won’t do any good.

It was a pretty uneventful weekend, Matt and I did a bunch more purging / cleaning, including a total overhaul of our storage room (OMG – such a difference, I’m in love with our basement / storage room right now!). We’ve pretty much nested our entire house top to bottom now, so I said to Matt that we’re going to need to find a new hobby for our weekends…..there’s nothing left to purge!!

Symptom-wise, I’ve been feeling pretty good, but definitely noticing an increase in back pain (specifically my upper / mid back) as the day goes on, and sometimes it’s hard to find a comfortable way to sit / lie. My belly is growing like MAD now (I can’t believe the change from 26 weeks – now!), and I think the extra weight / diameter is throwing things off a bit! I’m a bit afraid of HOW big my belly will grow LOL….I’ve been on the small side for most of this pregnancy, but feel like I’m on an uncontrollable growth spurt now and GET OUTTA MY WAY, because I’ll over-take you all! LOL.

The gym has become increasingly more and more uncomfortable, with the exception of BodyPump, which is still feeling fine. I’m just about finished teaching BodyStep for this pregnancy unfortunately, but am planning to get at least 1 – 2 more classes in to teach the new release (which launches next Tuesday!) before I hang up my stepping shoes for a few months. Sigh.

Even though I am bummed to not be teaching anymore cardio classes for this pregnancy, I’m also kind of looking forward to the chance to do some more experimenting with other low-impact classes and different types of workouts as well. I just have to make sure that I don’t get too lazy without the added incentive that I have to be at the gym to teach!

My appetite has still been VORACIOUS, and I’m eating my weight in food every day it feels like (no easy feat when your weight is sky-rocketing the way mine is!!!). I’ve been pretty happy with the balance of foods I’ve been getting in, and am trying to stay pretty chill about the weight / belly gain (okay, okay, I can cool it with the treats a bit….but just a bit ;)). I’ve also told Matt that at some point in this pregnancy, we’re going to McDonalds. Yea McDonalds, like….yellow arches, red fry boxes. And I’m getting a McChicken. AND my own fries. My very own fries! I haven’t eaten at McDonalds in probably 10+ years, but I’m cashing in this pregnancy thing and we’re doing it at some point for sure. Matt’s suggestion is that we wait until I’m even more huge and uncomfortable, and in need a morale boost. LOL.

Sleeping has been pretty good, although I definitely feel a bit more uncomfortable finding a good position. Once I get to sleep though, I’m out for the night, which is good. My energy levels have been pretty good overall as well (I thought that they were dropping way off a few weeks back – and really worried that that was going to be it for my second trimester energy burst, but nope, seems to be back and doing okay for now!).

Well – that’s all from this uneventful week! Our families are home safe and sound, and Matt’s parents left for home today, so our house is feeling awfully quiet again! We’ve been graduated to our weekly midwife appointments now that the third trimester starts next week (29 weeks) – so we’ll be meeting with our midwife again next Tuesday. I just can’t believe it.

It’s true what they say….the days are long, but the weeks / months / years are short.

Have a great week all!

-Sara & Babe xo

 

 

Okay, it’s not my imagination, I really am getting rounder every day now!

This week has been a great one, but I can’t deny that I’m feeling more and more pregnant with every passing day. In general, more (minor) aches and pains, a little more fatigued, definitely larger in general and more awkward moving around and slower overall. I really can’t complain – we only have 3 months to go now – truly in the home stretch!

Since my last update, I was off for 4 days for the Canada Day long weekend and O.M.G you guys, we got SO.MUCH.DONE. I am so wildly proud of Matt and I for the amount of stuff that we managed to get done this weekend – it was actually a little bit insane!

For starters, when I got home from work / class on Thursday night, Matt had been working his tail off all afternoon / evening on moving ALL of our office furniture out of Babe’s room and downstairs into our basement.

To this day I claim there must have been some black magic involved here, because I seriously have no idea how the hell my husband managed to move that gigantic futon and desk all by himself down two VERY twisty / windy sets of stairs.

Our basement (and really our whole upstairs with the exception of Babe’s room) was a total and complete gong show, but the important part was that the room was empty and ready for nursery furniture to arrive, which it did, the very next morning!

I guess I shouldn’t be so quick to accuse Matt of wizardry, because I watched the guy negotiate the gigantic dresser and crib boxes up our stairs all by himself with my own two eyes, and it made for an impressive combination of ingenuity, strength, and sheer stubborn will. I sat by offering my praise and encouragement from the sidelines.

Hehehe.

Anyways, while Matt attached the furniture build with a vengeance, I set into the task of unpacking all of our baby shower gifts, organizing by size / stage of life / item, and discarding all of the wrapping (which saved a ton of space in the end). Seriously – little boy stuff is just to die for. I can’t handle it. We got a great mix of stuff for our baby shower, lots of cute clothes, but also lots of useful gizmos and gadgets that we will totally use once Babe arrives! I washed my first of (so, so, so) many loads of baby clothes and had them ready to fold up in the dresser once Matt was done!

We took a trip over to the dump to get rid of all of the cardboard and packaging from our shower gifts, plus some more stuff that we had purged from our closets / basement as well. We are unstoppable I tell you. Just make sure you stop us if you see us driving down the highway with our TV on top of our car in the direction of the dump.

Over the next two days, I just can’t believe how quickly the nursery came together. We’ve had bits and pieces sitting around our house for weeks now, but to see it all come together was nothing short of magical for us. We’ve gone with a blue, white and grey theme (not the most original – I know, but we like it!), and are incorporating elephants into the design for now (we decided against painting anything on the walls so that we can change this up pretty easily if we get tired of the elephants down the road). I hesitate to share pictures because we don’t have our curtains up yet, and the black curtains really throw off the colour palette of the room, but if you can imagine the pictures below with a white and grey chevron curtain instead of the black, then that will be pretty close to the finished product!

I just love our nursery already, it’s my favourite room in the house by far, and I’m guarding against clutter or anything ugly getting anywhere near it with a ferociousness I didn’t know that I possessed LOL I’ve already gone in there several times on my own and just sat rocking back and forth in the glider for a few minutes, lost deep in thought.

Ah serenity.

**As an aside – if you were wondering, our gigantic ruler was a wonderful gift from one of our close family friends at our baby shower, it came from a local garden centre!! We just love it!!

By Sunday, most of the hard work was done in the nursery. We took another trip over to the dump to get rid of some more stuff from our basement, but it was closed much to my dismay. I was kind of grumpy that the dump was closed even though it wasn’t a stat holiday and they hadn’t posted anything on their website about it being closed. Around this time, Matt started being weird, and insisted that we were going to go out for lunch to make me feel better. I was a bit confused about this because, as annoyed as I was, I didn’t think I was quite at the point where I deserved a meal out to make myself feel better (lol), and told him instead that I would just have some of our leftovers from the night before for lunch instead. I should have known better when he insisted that NO – we’re going out for lunch, that something was up…. 😉

Sure enough – when we got to the restaurant that Matt had said he wanted to try (another dead giveaway – Matt and I don’t “try new restaurants”, we’re the simplest, most easily pleased eaters you could ever imagine in your lives), A WHOLE GROUP OF MY FRIENDS FROM GOODLIFE WERE THERE TO SURPRISE ME?!!?

I was so shocked / confused that Matt literally had to push me in the direction of the table LOL – I couldn’t believe that my friends had gone to all of that trouble just to celebrate Babe and I (ESPECIALLY when they had all been at my baby shower the previous weekend!!). I’m still blown away – I have the greatest friends!!

We had a lovely lunch at Jackson’s Landing and then back to my friend Kathy’s house for some of the best damn cupcakes I’ve ever had (that one in the middle with the crumble on top??? Oh baby…..). My friend Marie-Sjaan had the great idea to cut them into quarters so that we got to try some of each one, and I’m pretty sure that I had about 10 quarters, making approximately 2.5 full-sized cupcakes, but seriously, whatevs. SO good.

My afternoon out with my friends was exactly what I needed, and I didn’t even realize it. I came home feeling so much lighter and more positive, and ready to tackle another day of purging / building…..mua ha ha ha

On Monday, we went over to Ikea and bought some shelving units for the inside of Babe’s closet to help keep his paraphernalia organized. I came up with this idea to put a shelving unit right inside part of our master bedroom closet about 5 years ago now when we first moved into our house, and I was struggling to find a solution for my gym clothes (you think they build a drawer big enough for all of ’em? Not in all the land my friends, not in all the land….).

The Ikea open-faced shelving unit in my closet is a GOD SEND – it has 6 square cubes for storage, and I separate my “Reebok tops”, “GOOD Reebok tops” (you know the ones), “non-Reebok tops”, shorts, capris & leggings, sports bras & socks into their own cube. Works like a charm. I knew that I wanted to do something similar in Babe’s closet because the system works so well for me. So off to crazy-town (I mean Ikea) we went!

Matt still won’t let me park in the pregnancy parking spots at stores (something about if I’m still teaching BodyPump, I can walk the 25 metres to the store *eye roll*) so we parked back in Timbuktu, and were in and out within 45 minutes. Impressive for a pregnant person – no?!

More building – and yes, one final trip to the dump to get rid of the cardboard / garbage, and lordy – we were toast. Exhausted, but feeling so, so happy and accomplished with ourselves, we took our “after pictures” (above) and talked about how awesome we were for probably about 10 minutes before we moved on to the next topic (LOL).

Aside from the CRAZED nesting that took place over the long weekend, I did get out to my BodyAttack class on Saturday (just to participate – and mostly low impact), and my friend Kellye’s BodyVive class on Monday morning as well. I really enjoyed BodyVive – it’s a low impact workout that incorporates strength training using the resistance tube as well, and it was absolutely perfect for what I was looking for! I got a great sweat, good burn, and still felt like I had lots of energy for the rest of my day. I’m going to try to make this a class that I get to for the rest of my pregnancy (and beyond!) for sure!

My appetite is still similar to that of a bear fresh out of hibernation, and it’s showing, I feel like I’m gaining weight faster then I can say “gaining weight”, but all I can say is that I’m doing my best, trying to balance my diet as best I can, and get lots of water, fruit and veggies into me each day. My stomach has been well-behaved this week, thank you God.

We have our 27 week midwife appointment tomorrow – and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to chat with her a bit about my last salmon episode, and a couple of other things on my mind as well. I can’t get my head around the fact that we are entering the third trimester next week…..it feels like 3 weeks ago that I announced to the world that we were 16 weeks along. How time flies.

To my teacher friends or those that are off for the Summer – I hope you’re having a wonderful start to your vacations! Have a great week all – Babe and I will chat with you soon!

-Sara & Babe xo