Harder the second time?

I don't know if it's just that I don't remember it being tough when I was pregnant with Kate, but I'm fairly certain that being pregnant this time around is considerably more difficult. Maybe it's chasing a two year old around. Maybe it's that I'm not in as good shape as I was with her. Maybe it's just that every pregnancy is different. Or maybe it's a combination of all of those things. Whatever the case, I am finding pregnancy number two to be a little rougher.

Nonetheless, I am thankful. Being a mommy has always been one of the answers to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" for me, so to double that title is a huge blessing. Last week I had my check up and we heard baby's sweet heartbeat rockin' away at 156 bpm. Almost spot on with what K's was about that week... funny! The old wive's tales say that fetal heart rates over 140 bpm = girl, but my instinct says 'boy' this time. Now, I guess it kind of did with K, too, and we know how that came out, so we'll see. We have a little online baby pool going on and only 3 out of the 14 guesses are for a girl! Won't we all feel silly if it's another girl? Well- 50% chance! We will find out on February 25th... I CAN'T WAIT!

We're in the exciting, but exhausting, process of moving! We got our keys last week and Matt has been over there doing all kinds of work getting it ready for us to move on up. Still to be done: paint our room, paint Kate's room, install new shower in master, install new bathroom vanities, buy some furniture, install wainscoting in breakfast nook and... move. Oh... that last one is going to be a lot of work. We've got to be out of our current place by February 11th, which originally seemed like a ton of time... now, all of a sudden, he first of the month is less than a week away and I am panicking! I hate packing everything up! Luckily, we can start gradually moving things over there as we want, so that should take some pressure off... as long as I actually get on it. It is very exciting, though... it feels great to finally be making a place OURS, you know? Painting where we want and making any changes we feel up for. Love it! The adventure of home ownership begins!

And since I've been terrible about taking pics of the girl... here are a couple of crappy ones from my phone. Home shopping at Cost Plus ( sweet hat, no?) and hanging out on the steps at the new place (stairs will be a whole new adventure!).