Allergy season.

For most people, the end of summer means state fairs, back-to-school and cooler weather.

For Otis and myself, it means allergy season.

And this week, allergy season has arrived in full force.

Poor Otis. He's given himself scabs on his eyebrows, ears and leg pits (I guess that's what you call where his front legs meet his torso.) He spends half the night scratching instead of sleeping. We're trying to help ease his discomfort as much as we can. We give him Benadryl and we've been giving him extra baths with anti-itch shampoo. This week I ordered him another shampoo and a leave-in conditioner to try that one of my co-workers recommended. He just looks sad and miserable. For those of you that know Otis, you know he is miserable when he doesn't even want to cuddle. That's right. He doesn't want to cuddle. He just lays on the cool tile floor. Thankfully, our efforts seem to provide him some relief and hopefully our new shampoo will arrive soon and will provide him with even more relief.

And yes, I'm dealing with allergies too. I knew this was going to happen. My third trimester and my allergy season were going to coincide. And here we are. For the first time this whole pregancy, I've had to break down and take medicine (doctor-approved, of course). But it just doesn't provide the same relief as my prescription allergy meds. Constant itchy eyes and a runny nose. The extra dander floating around the house from Otis' scratching doesn't help much either. But there isn't much I can do, but deal with it, keep tissues handy and pray for an early frost.

All right. Enough complaining. Happy Friday!

J.B.

28 weeks. 7 months. 3rd trimester!

Ok. I've now made it to 29 weeks, but I have to back up a little bit and give you a 28 week update, since I had an doctor's appt and had a photo taken (a really good one too!...if I can say so myself.)

My 28th week started with a blast. I went to the wedding of my friend, Carrie, along with my friends from high school. In true high school fashion, we went without our significant others (since we never had boyfriends...haha). We got together before the weddind to get our make up ready and hair done and all dressed up and ready to go. The wedding was a ton of fun. We laughed. We danced. We ate cake. We danced some more. Boo is already a hit with the ladies on the dance floor. I got home around 1:30 a.m. in the morning. I don't even remember the last time I stayed out that late.

The next day was not so much fun. I was exhausted. My internal alarm clock forced me up by 8:00 a.m. I'm not sure why, but I can never sleep in when Dave and I have a day off together. I guess I'm always too excited for the day to begin. So we made fried egg sandwiches and bacon. Yum. But by 10:30 a.m., I was sleepy and needed a nap. I slept for 3 1/2 hours! I've been known to take 3 hour naps, but not 3 1/2! It was a hot, hot day. Dave and I ran some errands, which mostly meant go buy things for Boo, I guess. Some books is what we intended to go find, but we were diverted from our mission when we drove past guys standing on a street corner holding signs for a furniture going out of business sale. We found a great rocker/recliner for Boo's room. It's so comfy and I can't wait to rock him to sleep in it. After that diversion, we got back on track and made our way to the book store. We found a cute children's book about a dog with no tail. Just like our pups! The dog looks just like Cooper -- even has blue eyes -- except in the story, the dog's name is Henry. We also found a bored book that has the same name as our baby boy.

Yes, that is right my friends, Boo has a name.

After the book store, we stopped at the grocery store. But the heat had definitely started gettting to me. We had to make it a quick trip to that store, as I was starting to get light headed and dizzy. We made it home. I made my way back to the couch and pretty much stayed there the rest of the day.

We also took our first daycare center tour. It was really nice, but it's probably out of our price range some. We have some leads on some other places too, so I'm sure we'll be able to find Boo a great daycare that fits our budget too.

Then I had a doctor's appointment. Boo is doing great. His heartrate was 150 bpm. He appears to be growing right on track. The not-so-good stuff had to do with me. I failed my 1-hour gestational diabetes test. And my blood platelets have dropped more....enough that my doctor called the next day to have me come back in again and get retested. So Friday, I went back to the doctor for more bloodwork. I passed the 3-hour gestational diabetes test! Hooray! And I got the platelets retested, but since they're just monitoring them, I probably won't get the results until my next doctor's appointment. Which is only a week away now.

It's crazy how fast time is going. I'm already in the third trimester. Boo is going to be here in 2 1/2 months. I'm excited to meet this little guy who keeps kicking me. I'm excited to see if he'll get my brown eyes or his daddy's blue eyes. We are getting close to being ready for him. We even got our car seat yesterday as a present from my aunt and uncle. So we can officially bring our little guy home from the hospital with us.

So now what I'm sure you've all been waiting for....the picture....although it's the same picture that was on Facebook, so it's probably not even new to most of you. Sorry for the tease!

J.B.

Boo's nursey

We're done with Boo's nursery! Dave did so much work putting it all together for me -- from painting to assembling the crib and hanging everything. From the beginning, I wanted a "retro" theme, so my mom and I spent time going to antique stores to see what we could find. Then Dave and I went to Ikea and fell in love with some star lights. So on one wall we had baseball, another wall had circus and another wall had stars. None of it really went together, but it wasn't too overwhelming one theme over another. I wanted one more thing for the wall, but didn't want to throw off the balance. But I found the perfect canvas at Target last weekend. It was an alphabet with a different objects for each letter of the alphabet -- it has stars, a baseball glove and animals -- representing all of the room decorations and more. I'm so happy with how it turned out. I can't wait until Boo gets to see it! Can you tell what stuff my mom and I found at the antique stores? Hint: the pups are not antiques. Here are some pics...

J.B.

Yoga

This morning I had my first prenatal yoga experience. I really enjoyed it. I hadn't realized how much I missed taking yoga classes. And it felt great to be exercising a little more than walking. There was one move I was doing -- going from a plank to a lung (you have to bring one of your legs up front.) I was like, "whoa. There is a stomach in my way." But other than getting used to that one move, there wasn't too much that was different. Although it was kinda weird when you're supposed to be concentrating on relaxing, breahing and poses when the little guy starts kicking. He apparently wants my focus on him. Lol.

Well, I'm going to try and get some cleaning and organizing done around then house this afternoon. I better quit procrasting and go do something.

J.B.

Summer fun.

Here are a bunch of pics from our spring and summer. I've spent too much time looking over these pics and am now starving...so this post is all in pics. Lots of Twins games (and on the field for batting practice!), Jameson's baptism, Grandma's Marathon (see if you can spot Dave...he's got a yellow hat), a day trip to Pepin and relaxing with the pups.

J.B.

The Boo Report

I had my 24 week appointment today. Everything is looking healthy and normal for both Boo and me, for which I'm grateful. His heart rate was 145. And I'm growing right on track. I was a little nervous (well, not really), for the big weigh in. The doctor's scale always says more than my scale at home, and this appointment was in the afternoon (versus the mornings for all my previous appointments when I generally weigh less). But it wasn't so bad. The doctor said it was fine anyway. As well as my blood pressure. Like I said, healthy and normal.

I'll have the glucose screening at my next appointment to test for gestational diabetes as well as more blood work, so they'll be checking my platelets again. The doctor said if they go to 100 or below, the epirdural becomes questionable. And as far as I know, they are still above that (I think she said it was 140).

As far as other Boo updates go....he's kicking A LOT more. Dave can feel several kicks in a row now. And on Sunday, we both saw my stomach move. I love that he's making his presence known. It makes things seem more real. I read somewhere online that 24 weeks marks the edge of viability. I pray that doesn't happen....but it's reassuring to know that doctors would do whatever they could to keep our baby alive if he was born this early.

6 months!

J.B.

Oh blog, how I ignore you.

Time is moving quick. And that combined with a lack of anything really blogworthy and quite a bit of laziness makes for not a lot of posting.

Here's a quick Baby Boo update. I'm nearing the end of my 22nd week. As you can see in the pic below, Boo is making plenty of room for himself in my belly. Or else, he keeps growing bigger. Hmmm...yeah, he's probably growing bigger. Once thing seems to be getting smaller -- my belly button. I really hope it doens't pop.

As you can also see in the pic, we've painted the room and set up the crib. Once it's all decorated, I'll post more nursery pics. This is just a preview. Shortly after we learned Boo was a boy, we went to Home Depot and picked out paint colors. Then I came home from work one day and the room was all painted and the nursery set up. All I can say is that my husband is amazing and I'm excited that he's so excited for Boo that he'll paint the whole room by himself. It was a really nice surprise.

Me and Boo at 22 weeks

Boo is definitely getting more active. It's lots of fun to feel him kicking. It's even more fun when he cooperates and Dave feels the kicks.

These days the pregnancy thing is going great. I feel good. Boo seems to be growing. We're starting to get some things organized. We're pretty much down to two names -- both of which we both like, which is a good dilemma to have. Live is just pretty sweet right now. We're so excited to meet this little guy. I keep daydreaming about it -- but as much as I daydream about meeting Boo, I know it's going to be so much better in real life

J.B.