Belen being difficult ;)

Here's my little girl! I am starting my 2 week visits to the doc now....eeek! I look at my countdown calendar and see single digit numbers and start to panic a bit. But ready or not, she's coming so I just need to deal with it, right ;) These pics are so fun...call me crazy, but at least from this angle, she looks a lot like Asher, with a little less scowl.

She is measuring a little over 4 lbs which puts her in roughly the 75th percentile for pretty much everything (no surprises there). But the little stinker is still breech and won't flip! I have been having some weird nerve problems (my back going all numb and tingly, my feet and legs going completely numb and jell-o like, getting stuck on the floor (personal favorite), etc. So I was glad to have a reason for all of this stupid body insanity I've been having lately. You always hear how each pregnancy gets progressively harder, but I was still one of those naive idiots that secretly thought That won't be me! Yet here I am :)

I really really really really REALLY don't want a c-section, but as you can see from her pics, she is having a good old time with the cord (the twisty swirly thing right next to her face), so I'm almost just as nervous for her to flip and get caught up in it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Liah was breech for a while, but she ended up turning herself around, and if I remember right, it was before 30 weeks. But I also had placenta previa with Liah and that went away too, so you never know.

Pluggin' right along...

My doctor told me today I only have 3 weeks until my next appointment, and after that, I will start coming every 2 weeks! I'm a little freaked out! Even though physically I already feel like I did with the other kids at 8 months pregnant, I am not not not ready!!! Nights are my favorite...I go between having nasty bad charlie horses, and the bottom half of my body going all tingly and numb. The doctor said today that each subsequent pregnancy tends to ride a bit lower. Not sure how that's possible since it feels like she's about to fall out, but he says all is well so I'll take his word for it. Don't let my complaining scare you, I am SO excited, and feel very blessed that Bella is coming. I knew what I was signing on for, and I would do it again in a heartbeat (though after this one, I'm not sure how many more times I will do it again). I really have it pretty easy, I'm just a woman who likes to be comfortable, and there's not much that's comfortable about gaining 40 lbs in 6 months...knowing that another 20-40 are lurking behind the next corner.

Before she comes, I have divided my to-do's into needs, wants, and gets.

I need to get my home organized, and also my life. I need to make Liah some school clothes. I need to make Belen's bedding for her crib. I need to make Asher and Belen's Christmas stockings. I need to figure out halloween costumes, because I can promise I'm not going to want to be doing it 3 weeks after having a baby (granted, the kids may change their minds by then about what they want to be, but oh well).

I want to have our family tree wall done. I want to have the kids rooms more organized and decorated better. I want to get my mom-in-law's christmas present from 2 years ago finished finally (that's a long story!). I want to get thank you cards made in advance so they're ready to go. I want to have birthday presents through December ready and done. I want to get a jump start on Christmas.

I get to work in the garden today...we have lots of squash, tomatoes, eggplants, tomatillos, and peppers starting to come on...so exciting! Gardening is my happy thought. The heat, however, I could do without.

I get to paint Liah's nails today for the 4th of July. I've been promising her a patriotic makeover, so I'm excited to get a little girly with her.

I get to help Zerin with his stamp collection today. He loves sorting and organizing them, so it should be a nice QUIET activity ;)

I get to sing the monkies and the alligators with Aeden today while he sits on the potty, praying that maybe today we can get him to put #2 in the big boy potty. Oh how I would love to get him potty trained!

I get to soak Asher in the tub for an hour tonight...you have never met a little boy who can turn tub water black faster than this little guy. The blacker the water, the better the day :)

And her name is gonna be...

Not to be anti-climatic when she gets here, but since my kids are already calling her this any time they pass my belly, I figure the cat's out of the bag, so we might as well share. And the reason they know is because they all started calling her "Hannah Montana"... not just Hannah, but Hannah Montana, so we didn't want them to be completely crushed in October when we told them the REAL name. Actually, Liah called her "Hah-Nah" for some reason...even better right!? ;) I am probably jinxing myself, telling everyone this early (I am 22 weeks...5 months along this weekend). This baby will probably either end up a boy, or I'll end up being pregnant forever, but we're taking a risk...go us :) So...without further ado...

Belen Hale Skelton

"Belen" (pronounced Bay-LEN) means "Bethlehem" in Spanish. Bryan served an LDS mission in Barcelona Spain, thus the Spanish. And as a sidenote, Belen is also the city in Costa Rica where my sister served her mission that the LDS Costa Rican Temple is. The Christmas Season has a special meaning for both of us so we wanted that to be tied in somehow. The birthplace of Christ, the house of bread, is where Christ's mortal journey began. We hope that our daughter's mortal journey will serve as a reminder for others of the unconditional love of our Savior for us all.

"Hale" is for Emma Hale Smith, a woman who weathered the storms of persecution and adversity throughout her life with grace and strength. As we have gone through our own little windy moments, I have come to realize what a heroine this woman truly was, and the strength of character she had to possess to be entrusted to endure so much.

Bryan wants to nickname her Bella (pronounced BAY-yah) for short which means "beautiful" in Spanish.

Belen was actually the name we had picked out for Asher when we thought he was a girl, but we had a different middle name, so it doesn't even feel like the same name...weird.

This was our first pregnancy we couldn't come up with a single boy name. Especially strange since we had a better chance at having a boy, or so we thought. We had one we both liked a while ago, but it was the name of one of our close friend's babies, so we didn't really consider that one. For girl names, there were really only 3 possibilities, Belen, Brighton, and Caris. Brighton fell out of consideration quickly because we would have had to be ultra-creative to have the meaning match the rest of the kids. Plus, it seems to be getting popular, and yeah, can't have that ;) I loved Caris (pronounced CAIR-is)..it means "love" in welch, or "follower of Christ", but it was taking a while to sell Bryan on the idea. So when he came up with Belen Hale, I was sold.