37 weeks and 3 days!

Crazy...I can't believe I'm 18 days away from my due date. It's scary and exciting and just WHOA!
You all better notice that I don't have stubbly pits in these pics, nor am I wearing my disgusting ratty bra lol You can, however, see my markings of motherhood...stretchmarks. I never got any with Nova, and I got a few with Faeryn in the last week I was pregnant with her but you never could actually see them, you could only feel them. These little guys started showing up a few weeks ago. Part of me felt really upset about it, as I was sooo happy that I never got any stretchmarks previously. But I decided that I am just going to accept them as my children's mark on my body...one more thing to add to the womanly changes in your body that come with pregnancy and childbirth. And, really, they're not that bad at all. I have friends who have stretchmarks and they go a beautiful silver over time, kind of like a natural tattoo :)

So, let's see...where to begin. It has been a looong time since I last blogged (happy now, Becky?!! lololol)
We finally got our line of credit on the house and we've already started doing some things!! The carpet has been picked out and ordered and will be installed on August 8. Woot!! It's going to be a really nice sand coloured short shag carpet...very soft. I am looking forward to it after living with our disgusting baby blue beaten up carpet for the last 5 years. Not to mention the baby pink carpet in the computer room and the purple carpet in Nova and Faeryn's room. Ugh!
Before the carpet is installed we'll be ripping out the fireplace in the corner of our living room. Some might feel this is total sacralige, but really it hasn't been used in years and is currently filled with candles and silk leaves (and a few rotting mini pumpkins that I forgot were in there since Halloween...ewwwww!!) I never thought I would rip out a wood burning fireplace, but since the kids have come along we really have found it impractical to use and a pain to clean, so one day I cleaned the sucker out really good and put candles in instead. I'm excited as this will open up the room a lot and allow us to actually change the arrangement of the furniture in the room for the first time in 5 years!
We're also going to paint the living room and hallway a really lovely yellow-orange called Marigold Blossom. Currently the living room is a bright blue and the hallway is YELLOW (I say it in caps because it is one farking bright yellow lol).
Other stuff we plan on doing;
- replace the lino in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room
- replace all the baseboarding throughout the house
- install new windows in the living room, kitchen and bedrooms (5 in total)
- replace all the doors and frames in the house (7 in total)

Oh!! And get this!! I get a new washer and dryer. Fucking wooooooohoooo! (Yes, I am well aware that I have reached a new level of pathetic being excited about a washer and dryer lol) Our current dryer takes 3 HOURS to dry stuff, and the washer isn't big enough to wash our comforters. So, today I went to Sears...as of next Saturday we will be the proud owners of a new Kenmore HE5t washer and dryer! I am very very stoked about getting high efficiency front loaders.

As far as pregnancy-land goes...I am feeling pretty good :) Not sick of being pregnant yet, but I haven't ever really reached that point in any of my pregnancies (lucky me, I know). I am, however, getting very curious to meet this baby! And excited because my waterbirth is really going to happen this time!!! We have everything we need, the birth tub is inflated, baby clothes are washed...all I need now is the baby. Oh and I guess installing the carseat would be a good idea, too ;)
We're having a birth party, it seems. There will be a total of 10 people there when I am labouring and giving birth! Jesse, Nova and Faeryn, of course, as well as my two midwives, my doula friend Tracey, my good friend Jen (who is also a brand new doula in training), my friend KC (who is a fellow midwifery student) and my best girl Karys (who will be driving down from Edmonton once I go into labour). This is my last baby, most likely, so I guess we may as well celebrate it to the fullest, eh? Poor Jesse, stuck in the house with all those females lol

One thing we are totally stumped on is a name for a boy. We have our girl's name (it will be Ivy Soleil...and in all honesty I really hope this baby is a girl because I love that name and I want to use it!!) but we cannot think of a good boy's name at ALL. If you know us, you know we like unusual beautiful names, so if you have any suggestions, feel free to throw them my way!

I guess that's it for now...