HELLO, MAY!

Let me just start with...YAYYY! May is by far my favorite month! It's mine and Christian's (along with 527 other people I know) birthday month, and I've always been a lover of birthdays! Plus, the flowers bloom, the weather gets warmer and I get to plant tomatoes and patiently wait for tomato season to start. However, we are only a week in and I can already tell this month is going to fly by. Dustin is opening a new store that he has been working so hard on, so between his work schedule, family photos, school stuff for Christian & birthdays, we literally have something planned almost every single day this month. I think I counted 5 free days with nothing going on. That's insane. I can't imagine what life will be like when the boys get older and start doing outside school activities. 

Our first week has already been crazy busy, because I got the bright idea to start on the boys' shared room. I'll post a blog all about that as soon as it's finished...which all I'm waiting on now is for a spare hour to finish putting together the closet. Then that room will be complete and I can start thinking about the nursery...my husband just loves pregnant, nesting Bessie. ;)

May started out with the oldest's 4th birthday. He was born May 1st, 2011 at 1:55 in the afternoon by emergency c-section (that was fun....). He shares his birthday with the same day the Navy Seal team found and killed Osama Bin Laden, so guess what we watched on the news the entire hospital stay?? I thought about sharing his birth story (and I might one of these days) but to be honest, I don't remember a lot of the details, so I feel like a lot of it would be guessing & going off what Dustin has told me happened. Regardless of how he entered the world, he was a healthy 8lbs, 5oz and 22inches...at 2 weeks early! Thank goodness he decided to come early, that would have been a LARGE baby!

He is my sweet, sensitive, dramatic & super hyper little man. He is so independent and thinks he can do everything all by himself. We butt heads a lot because I am a control freak, and giving him control to do stuff literally makes me crazy. BUT, we are learning about this whole parenting thing together & I think we're doing pretty good so far. At 4 years old, he is 42 inches tall (89th %ile) and weighs 33.6 pounds (26th %ile). He is in his first year of preschool, and is obsessed. He counts down the days until he gets to see his friends, learn a new letter & sit by his best friend Addalyn. 

For his birthday this year, we took donuts to his classroom & his teacher told me they sang happy birthday to him. Then when daddy got home from work, we took just him to dinner and to pick out a new toy. It was a very laid back birthday, but he loved it and that's all that matters!

The entire way home from preschool, he kept telling me, "Mom, I just love Gavin. He's my favorite brother." Then I looked in the mirror and saw this. 

My heart is still in a puddle on the side of the road.

And to end the day, he got to sleep in his new bunk bed. Obsessed. 

On Saturday, we spent the entire day working on the room, took a break to let the boys play outside & then called it a night.

On Sunday, we took an early birthday trip for me up to IKEA. We spent the whole day together without kids, and it's just what we needed! 

This week, we've been putting together all of our IKEA goodies, and I'm in love with how this table turned out! I got the idea to stain it from another blogger & now I want to stain everything else in the house this color.

I'd say Gavin approves, too. 

At Christian's 4-year check-up...all was great until they poked his finger. Like I said, he's a little on the dramatic side. ;)

And we celebrated Cinco-de-Mayo with a ladies trip to a Tapas restaurant, followed by ice cream. It was really a send off for our bestie, Kayla, who is off to Texas for her husband's next duty station. Gosh, I'm going to miss her!

I hit my 5 month preggo mark this week. I've gained about 8 pounds and I'm currently having horrible cramping. I'm assuming they are ligament pains, but it's insane to me how every pregnancy is much more intense than the previous. I feel like my ligaments should be plenty stretched already, so give it a rest please! But that's what I've been trying to do the past couple days...rest, water & a heating pad. Other than the cramps, I'm doing great. Sleeping well, still have lots of energy & starting to get endlessly hungry. Did someone say pizza, french fries, mozzarella sticks & an ice cold coke?! Because that's all I've been wanting lately. Good thing I throw in a healthy smoothie and salad in between all of these cravings!

Belly bump from every angle...including the dreaded front view. I've said before in past blogs that my "lovehandles" seem to be taking the brunt of my weight gain. Excuse me, but there is no baby in there, so that can stop now. ;)

Since I'm trying to get lots of rest, yesterday was a snacks on the couch and endless amounts of Bubble Guppies day. Luckily the boys obliged pretty well and we're insanely adorable.

And when Dustin told Christian to go pick out a book & crawl in bed...this is what he came into 5 minutes later...Buzz Lightyear ears, toothpaste crusted face & passed OUT. We cracked up over this for a good 30 minutes. Considering he normally needs 2 books, 2 songs, a drink of water, to pee just one more time and then to come out 3 more times to ask if 1) he has school in the morning and 2) if daddy has to work, we couldn't believe this sight. It made for an easy bedtime routine & Dustin and I actually got to watch American Idol in real time on the couch (GO CLARK BECKHAM!).

I'm hoping to get the boys' closet finished later today and then be able to finally share the room with everyone tomorrow. Wishful thinking, probably! 

Hope everyone is enjoying May as much as we are...thanks for reading!