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!).

So much for slowing down after the holidays...

You know how you go through a really busy time, and tell yourself, "It will calm after XYZ...". Well, I think I have been saying that for about 6 months. Seriously.

And, just when I told myself in early November that everything would slow down after the holidays, I found out that we're pregnant again! Well, I am pregnant... Matt is just along for the gig. So shortly before Thanksgiving, we found out. Exciting!

Once we knew this information, and had an ultrasound where our little one's heartbeat was good and strong, we started thinking about our house and that we're already so overrun with Kate's stuff... we'd be needing to make a move. So the house hunting began. We looked at a couple of different places, put in an offer on one, got outbid, and started over again. Recently, we found a place we really liked, and they accepted our offer! We're in escrow right now, but soon we'll be homeowners! So exciting!

So... in the near future we'll be moving. I'm unbelievably excited, but it is still moving. Moving is never all that fun. It never ceases to amaze me just how much crap we have accumulated in our almost five years together.

Speaking of which, February 5th will mark 5 years of marriage for Matt and I! I can't believe how fast the past 5 years have gone. We had talked about getting away for a bit for our anniversary, but it looks like we'll be right in the middle of renovations and moving, so we'll have to post-pone a bit. Que sara, I suppose.

So hopefully the new year will bring much health and happiness to everyone, including us in the Conrad house!