I have very few complaints about this week, except for a general lack of sleeping that comes from later kid bedtimes due to late sunsets and pregnancy insomnia. I still feel like I can sleep for 18 hours straight if given the opportunity. I will probably feel like that for the next 2 years.

Sunday:

After church coffee hour has the best snacks (if you are 5)

Looking at this picture makes me want to bake another cake

Mother’s Day bubble bath

Monday:

Who care’s about hearing the baby when there are cars to look at?

Kissing Brutus goodnight before naps

My tree has a child infestation

Tuesday:

Merida wears cloth diapers

Linc loves selfies

**PRAISE HANDS**

Wednesday:

Wise choices

He refused to eat those fries because they are shaped like faces

One billion photos were taken

Thursday:

That’s a lighthouse you can almost see, because this is New England

Throwing rocks with friends is the best

He LOVED the sprinkler

Friday:

It turns out bouncing is more fun with friends

Seriously, Mom, can’t we get AIOs? I’m so tired of stuffing diapers.

Your weekly twinsie photo update. They’re getting so big!

Saturday:

Fun fact: bounce houses are really slippery when they get rained on

Hello Long Island!!

FINALLY planting time

Today’s weather feels like March, not May. It’s actually probably a good thing, since the warm, beachy weather was making it REALLY hard for me to keep doing boring stuff like sending the kids to school or enforcing healthy meal choices or going to piano lessons. I have a serious case of End Of The Year Mom and I’m not even sorry. Since it’s too cold for the beach today maybe I’ll actually get some laundry done instead. Maybe.

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We actually found out we were having a boy a looooooooooong time ago. I had some extra genetic testing done around 12 weeks because my first tests were “borderline”. That testing includes the option to find out if it’s a boy or a girl. As much as I loved being surprised when Linc was born (I also REALLY loved not having to have the following conversations with a million people: Are you happy it’s a boy? Do you have a name? Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll have a girl next time. Well you can always try again…) I felt strongly that I wanted to find out this time. Partly because I was expecting it to be a girl and I didn’t want to go through my whole pregnancy convinced I was right and have to deal with my feelings when I was already dealing with birth hormones, and partly because if it WAS a boy I could get rid of a TON of girl clothes. Also, I already have 3 kids and I’m pretty busy on a regular basis. I am definitely not spending a ton of time sitting quietly and deeply connecting to the new life I’m growing. Knowing it’s a boy and thinking of him as a HIM has definitely helped me feel more in touch with this baby.

Also, we have NO BOY NAMES, so it’s good we have so much time to think about it. All suggestions welcome.

Please note: Evan is not actually sad it is a boy. After the video, he started laughing and said “I was just kidding. As long as Caroline doesn’t get to be the boss of me.”

More photos from our reveal (plus some fun in the orchard):

p.s. Don’t you love my orchard? It’s FULL of treasures.

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It was another very dark, very rainy week but according to my weather app the next few days should be GREAT. I am clinging to the promise of sunshine.

Sunday:

Very important food

Caroline might not have a career as an artist, but she sure LOVES painting

The cat is obsessed with my bump

Monday:

Jurassic World was on TV so we watched it for the 200th time

New RocksBox, my favorite kind of mail (if you want a free month, use: bebehblogxoxo)

His new selfie face

Tuesday:

He loved my dentist because of this fish

Shopping helper

Brother love

Wednesday:

Jack doesn’t judge me when I take naps

Go awaaaaaaaaaay

Suffocating your sister is hilarious

Thursday:

My orchard looks terrible in this photo, luckily it looked GREAT for my shoot

Normal

He’s ready to dance as soon as Nashville plays music

Friday:

Babies helping babies

No-nap baby loves coming to the bus stop

Piano lessons

Saturday:

Fishing tournaments are more fun if the fish show up

Linc doesn’t understand why we are standing in the rain

An excellent way to end the week

I had a very nice Mother’s Day today, with lots of sitting down and someone else doing all the baby work and children who regularly asked if I was having a good day. I didn’t get to plant any Mother’s Day flowers yet, but since this week should be warm and sunny I’ll fix that as soon as possible. I’ll also be able to FINALLY do the blue-or-pink reveal for this baby with the kids (we know what we’re having, they do not, so I want to tell them before I blog it). I’ve never bothered with a big gender reveal before, so I wanted to do it this last chance I had.

Fingers crossed for sunshine.

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Remember when Wordless Wednesday was a thing and I could just post photos and people still came and looked at them?

But don’t look at these too much, for some reason the colors look terrible. Ugh.

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While I was at Mom 2.0 at the beginning of May, I ended up in a bunch of photos. And since this is 2014, some of those photos ended up on Facebook. And because it’s Facebook, I ended up tagged, which meant all my friends – from my 4th grade classmates to the girl who lived on my floor in college to my mother’s second cousin who lives in Sweden – saw them.

I did not like it. They were not flattering. They were candid, and that is what I look like in candid photos, but they made me sad.

**insert literally 1000 words I wrote then deleted about how being fat sucks here**

You know what’s a huge waste of my time? Being sad about being fat while pregnant. I feel a compulsive need to mention my doctor is unconcerned – I don’t have high blood pressure or gestational diabetes or any other weight-related complications – so all my sadness is purely vanity-related right now.

I do a lot of maternity photo sessions and my clients are always GORGEOUS. Because that’s who wants maternity photos – people who look adorable even at 8 months pregnant. People who look like me spend 5 minutes on Pinterest and realize no lacy dress and oversized sun hat will ever change the size of their arms or shape of their face. But this is what I look like. This is what I look like right now while growing baby #3 and walking around in the world and there is nothing wrong with wanting photos of myself OR with showing those photos to other people.

It’s like that meme about how to get a bikini ready body: Buy a bikini, put it on your body. Done.

Here’s how to take plus size maternity photos. Be pregnant in front of a camera, get someone to press the shutter button. Done.

I owe my husband a huge thanks for helping with these. He very patiently posed for all my pictures so I could adjust the manual camera settings and then I had to explain exactly what I wanted – “The sun should be shining behind us to make haze but not TOO much haze and don’t get the sun actually in the picture and try to get the focus point right on the kids and tell me if my bra is showing [it was ALWAYS showing] and does my arm look OK like this or should I hold it differently?” – and he did all of it standing in the buggy, snakey orchard without complaining. He doesn’t really understand WHY I wanted 400 photos of myself standing in an orchard, but he knew it was important so he helped. He’s a good guy.

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