A bunch of miscellaneous

Just like I'm currently doing in my life - trying to wrap up loose ends before the baby arrives - I want to do that on my blog. Post about all the random things going on to make sure they are properly captured.

So here goes...

Emma is 18 months old! I still can't believe how quickly the last 6 months have gone by. Oh my goodness, she is at a fun age. She has a fun personality, is talking so much, is so affectionate, and we can actually play together with the interactions going both ways. I think I must tell her that "Mommy loves her SO much" about a hundred times a day.

• I love all of her expressions and silliness
• She loves to sing and has quite a repertoire of songs that she knows
• She adores baby dolls and has gotten into changing their "stinky diapers"
• She doesn't watch much TV but does enjoy Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Bubble Guppies
• She's getting quite independent and wants to do things herself, like put her shoes on, which is just fine with me
• She can follow multi-step directions, like "take your socks off and put your shoes on" or "take this to the trash and throw it away"
• She is developing very good manners, saying "thank you, mommy" and "please, mommy" without prompting (melts my heart!)
• She acts like such a big girl...just yesterday, about 8 neighborhood girls ranging from 2nd to 5th grade came over to get Emma to play with them. It was just too sweet. I don't think Emma realized she wasn't their age.
• She talks a lot about Baby Kate (she says "Kate" so sweetly) but I'm sure she has no clue what is about to happen! We're working hard on teaching "be gentle!"

Here's Emma in her Virginia Tech gear for football season...go Hokies!

And another sweet one from last month. I think she's up to about 12 teeth!

The House! As you may recall, we made a big move this past March back to where our families live in Virginia. Since then, we've been slowly settling in and doing things around the house. The house had an unfinished basement that we JUST finished. I'm so happy to have that over with - took about 2 months! We've also added in new deck steps, changed out a lot of light fixtures throughout the house, and gotten a new refrigerator and microwave. New leather living room furniture is getting delivered tomorrow because I realized that the dark grey furniture we bought when we moved in is NOT cat friendly and WILL NOT be kid friendly.

The new baby! If baby comes when scheduled, we have 8 days left. Crazy! At my dr's appointment yesterday I was almost 3 cm dilated (that is a topic I never thought I'd voluntarily talk about!). I've gained 32 pounds so far, which is already 3 pounds more than I gained with Emma.

While I'm fine with baby staying in for as long as possible, I am done with this sciatica pain and just feeling big and blah. It's not that I'm not anxious to meet her, she's just much easier to care for in utero!

Here I am at 38 weeks.

I think that's about it. I'm guessing my next post will be a "baby is here" one so stay tuned!