Full Term, Baby.

Yesterday, I hit a monumental time in a pregnancy, the magical 37 week mark. This means that my baby is officially 'full term' and is given the go ahead by most medical professionals to come out and meet the family.

Friday I had an ultrasound to gauge where exactly Mr. Owen's growth is. Now I use the term 'exactly' loosely, because ultrasounds can be off up to a pound +/-. On Friday they estimated his weight to be around 7 lbs. He's approximately 65% in his statistics, EXCEPT for the dreaded one. His head. His head is measuring at about 41 weeks. You do the math. It's big. My doctor assured me though, that his head, while giant, is still smaller than Julian's was. So that's a relief.

As of Friday I was 1.5 cm dilated and 70% effaced (and that was before I was 'full term').

Here's a picture of the littlest Palizzi.


Oh, and looking at this picture, his head is on the right, looking right at you. He has huge cheeks, and you can even see his lips.

So here's what I want you to do. If you read my blog. Comment, and tell me WHEN you think he's going to be born. How much he will weigh. How long he will be. And last, but definitely not least, what time you think he will be born. The winner will get something fabulous. Not sure what, yet, but I assure you. Fabulous it will be.

So comment info (on the blog, not on facebook)
When
Weight
Height/Length
Time

Obviously this contest will be over when I have the baby. Whoever is the closest will win said fabulous prize.

For the record,
Julian was born on his due date, weighed 8 lbs 2 oz, and was 20 1/4" long/tall. He was born (I think) at 6:26 pm.



Gabriel was born at 38 weeks 2 days, weighed 8 lbs 3 oz, and was 20 1/4" long/tall. He was born at (I think again) 6:38 pm.

The Most Beautiful of Weekends!

So I don't know if you remember, but last year, this same weekend, in Des Moines, it SNOWED. Like snowed, snowed. And I was not at all prepared for this. If you want you can read back, here. This weekend? High 80's. Sunny, no wind. Just, perfect.

This rotation has been kind of crazy for Barry. Some days he's home by 5, others not until 7. It just varies, depending on the nursing home they are visiting, the patients, the doctors. Oh yeah, he's doing geriatrics. Friday afternoon, I got a call from him at about noon, which isn't completely unusual. He sometimes calls before he goes to the nursing home. This time? He said, "Doctor gave me some orders. I have to come home and spend time with my wifey-poo." The boys and I had a lunch date planned with the ever-wonderful Sandy, and he decided to meet up with us! It was such a nice treat not having to chase around the boys 100% by myself. Don't get me wrong, my boys aren't that wild, or out of control (most of the time) I'm just getting big. And tired.

Friday night I had my first 'official' not my kids, photo shoot. I'm still in the process of editing the images, but I think they turned out pretty well.

Saturday morning, we got dressed and drove out to Winterset for the Covered Bridge Festival. Then we saw how busy it was, and didn't have a stroller for the beasts, and I got all panicky and decided I wasn't up for the crowd at this stage of my pregnancy. It looked like a ton of fun. But we ended up going to Howell's Pumpkin Patch. It was so cute and fun, though a bit pricey, I mean $24 is a lot for kids to play in a corn pool, swing on tire horses, and slide down this weird huge slide. It was fun, but there were WAY too many people for me. I have kind of an aversion to crowds as of late.

There were chickens


Pretty Fall Leaves


A cute mini horse?




One of those funny face-things


The swings were a lot of fun!




We learned how tall the boys are




The giant slide, I referenced it earlier.


Gabe was a little freaked to go by himself, though only slightly comforted by daddy taking him down.


Gabe wasn't so good with the steering


Neither was J.




I <3 Iowa


Here's a cool self pic


And just the beautiful weather we've been having!

So lame with the blogging

I wish I had some great excuse as to why I haven't been blogging. I just haven't.

So here's a little September recap.

For drill weekend, Barry's unit had a BBQ! It was really, really fun, and some of our best friends, The Hubbards were there. I actually remembered to bring my camera (shock!) and was able to get some cute pictures of the kiddos.

Now I'm just going to say. I do not love Gabe more than Julian. He is just such a poser that it's SO much easier to take photos of him!





Cheeseball


Gabe looooves watermelon! (That's my boy!)


One of those rare moments that Julian cooperated with me.


Gabe was so excited to be in the tree, like J.


Gabe and his 'cute flower'


Julian has preschool on Mondays, and Gabe and I have been enjoying our dates together. We usually do something silly like go to Target, or play at the park. But I really love spending that one on one time with him, and he really does too. This last week though, he cried because he couldn't go to preschool. I definitely take that as a good sign!

I'm 35 weeks pregnant, as of Monday! Holycow! Gabe and I went to the hospital on Monday to drop off my pre registration paperwork! Owen is considered full term in just less than 2 weeks! Freaking me out! The room is almost done, I should take pictures for it. And we ordered the swing last night. I do need to wash the car seat fabric, cover, whatever it's called, but then I think we're good to go.

I want to show you the swing. I am sooo stoked for it, and I have a few pregnant mamas that might read my blog.

It's called a MamaRoo.
http://www.4momsonline.com/mamaroo

And I can thank my super talented friend, Jackie for introducing me to it. I'm so excited. I got the silver, in case you're curious.

We also went to Jackie's little boy, Brogan's birthday party a few weekends ago. It was really fun, and Brogan was so lucky to get a train table. It was a Thomas themed party, so I got the idea to applique a shirt for the birthday boy.


I think it turned out pretty cute! Jackie also made the most spectacular cake I have ever seen.

Seriously. She made this.


And not only is it beautiful, but it was DELICIOUS. The first part was chocolate cake with peanut butter filling. Are you kidding me? And the bottom was almond cake with white chocolate ganache filling. (I didn't eat two slices of cake, I've had her almond cake and white chocolate ganache before! Delish!)

September was a busy, but good month for us! October is proving to be just as busy! Today the boys have preschool, and I'm the mom in one of the classes! The Waukee fire department is bringing by a firetruck, and I know a certain two year old who is going to be ridiculously excited!

SwagBucks

So if you're my friend on facebook, you've seen the many, many posts that say, "Christia has just won 7 swagbucks by searching the web" or something to that effect. Swagbucks, is bar none, the coolest thing I have ever done on the interwebz.

I mean you search for stuff all the time anyway, right? Why not get 'paid' to do it?

So here's how it works
Click Here

That is my referral link. If you sign up, and search, I get Swagbucks. You can then turn the swagbucks in for gift cards, prizes, pretty much awesome stuff. I've been saving them up for Amazon.com gift cards! I've been doing Swagbucks for a few months now, and have received over $100 in Amazon gift cards! Pretty impressive for just searching the web.

I downloaded the Swagbucks tool bar. I use the toolbar to search for everything. Literally. Blogger, check. Gmail, check. Facebook, check. You don't get swagbucks for searching everything, they randomly reward you, but that kind of makes it more fun! Fridays are extra bonus days, you have more opportunities to win!

I know, it seems too good to be true, but I have nothing but positive things to say about Swagbucks. I think you all should sign up!

First Day of School!

In my futile attempt at 'catching up' I'm going to post some pictures of my boys' first day of preschool. It happened exactly 2 weeks ago, September 8th. Gabe was not so enthused about going to preschool, despite many failed attempts at sneaking into Julian's class last year. To say that I was nervous for my baby would be an understatement.

Gabe was really excited to wear his backpack, like J.


Julian goes to class 15 whole minutes before Gabe does. So we had some time to kill. Before class started, we ran into one of Julian's best friends, Mya!


J is obviously thrilled for mamarazzi to be in full force.

I think in this picture, he was trying to tell me that his class is this way...


Julian, as expected, adores preschool. Loves his teachers and is generally excited to go. The one drawback for him? The clothing requirement. I think he'd like school much better if he were free to wear his undies.

Gabe on the other hand, he's taken some convincing. Today was the first day he didn't cry. The first day he played with his teachers, and the first day he didn't look at me like, "OH MY GOSH MOM YOU SAVED ME" when I picked him up. So we're gonna take that as a good sign.

Gabe's first day of school stamp. (I totally remember Julian LOVING the stamps in the 2 year old class! Gabe's following suit)



I just love his profile.


And Here Ma hold my backpack

Labor Day, already?

Another 3 day weekend has come, and passed. I can't believe the unofficial end of summer has already graced us with its presence.

Typically, labor day is spent out in nature, or camping, or something adventurous like that. Not for the Palizzis. We prefer a different sort of adventure. The Mall of America.

Now for those of you that have never been before, let me just say it's massive. Like whoa, overwhelming, and CRAZY! Luckily we got there shortly after opening, so we were able to find a parking spot relatively easily. We got to park and enter at my favorite, favorite store, one that I miss so much. Nordstrom. I didn't get to shop much though, 2 kids, and an impatient husband will do that. But just being there, made me feel good. We also got something special outside of Nordstrom, See's Candy. Now I've heard rumblings that there is a store in Des Moines, I just haven't had the luck to find it. But after purchasing a pound of dark chocolates, we were good to go.

I have some friends, that I met online, FIVE years ago! On a parenting forum, for people due in March 2006. They live in the Mall of America's general vicinity, and I was lucky enough to meet up with them back in October of 2008! We were lucky enough to meet up with Ginger and her two girls at the Rain Forest Cafe! Which was super fun for the kids, and had delicious food! I got the nachos, which is an appetizer, but is huge! And Barry had fish tacos (No idea where that one came from, straight outta left field!) And the boys had good ol' Mac and Cheese and Chicken Nuggets. But they were good eaters, and ate quite a bit of their food.

Oh! Something I forgot to mention, Mall of America has an amusement park, INSIDE of the mall. Like a full fledged amusement park. And it's Nickelodeon themed! Which means all of the boys' favorites, Spongebob, Wonderpets, and Dora and her cousin Diego! They were stoked to see all of the decorations, and were able to ride 2 rides really quickly with absolutely no line! After lunch, it was a different story. We had 6 points (I guess it's like tickets)and waited FOREVER for the carousel. The boys were satisfied with their 3 rides, though Diego's rescue ride scared Gabe. Barry said he was shaking :( Poor baby.

They also have a LEGOS store. And I don't know what magically happened, but Legos? They're the shiz around here. The only thing Julian wants to play with, the only thing he wants to look at, when we go to Target. So a whole Legos store? Heaven for the kid. Apparently there's usually a HUGE store, with huge Lego figures and crazy things, but this store chocked full of Legos was enough to satisfy my little block head :)

Here are some pictures from our little trip-
The kids outside of Rainforest Cafe


Waiting in line for the aquarium


In the Aquarium, my little fish


At the touch tank




In Sharky's Treasure Chest

To Fringe...or Not To Fringe

So I have a hair appointment tomorrow! Yay me, yay for time away from kids, and time for just me. So excited.

But I have a problem. My bangs/fringe. Do I recut it? Do I let it grow? Do I keep it somewhere in the middle?

For the record, this is what we're dealing with currently:


Me with fringe


Without-(For the record, this picture is almost 2 years old! eep!)



So vote, if you will. Yes to fringe. No to fringe. I need help.