Baby, Family, House, and Life Updates From the Dekkers

Wow — I can not even begin to tell you how blessed I’ve felt these last few weeks.

I have gotten more emails, facebook messages, tweets, and comments asking how things are going with my pregnancy, with our international students, with finishing our house projects, and everything else we have going on over here at the Dekker house.

Well, I can assure you that although we are busier than ever, things are going great!

Baby Updates:

As I looked back through my recent posts, I realized it had been several weeks since I gave any type of baby Dekker update — so we are definitely way over due {no pun intended!!}

I am currently about 33-34 weeks along — or about 7 1/2 months.

Yes, that means only a few more weeks until our baby girl is here… in our arms! Everyone is SO excited, but I have to be honest — I’m somewhat terrified! 

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know that I’m big on “planning ahead” however, almost everything I’ve been told about newborn babies is that there is NO planning ahead, there is NO schedule, and there is NO “normal”.

YIKES!!  I can do this…right?

Dave has been so great and is putting up with me inadvertently waking him up EVERY time I get up to go to the bathroom and every time I need to change sleeping positions — which is way more work than what it should be!

He loves watching my belly as it moves all over the place from our little girl kicking and moving. Sometimes I feel like there is an amusement park inside of me — and I wonder if she ever sleeps!

 {love, LOVE this photo}

I still haven’t had any baby showers yet {I have 3 coming up in a few weeks} but we’ve already received so many adorably cute baby girl things from friends, relatives, and garage sales {thanks to my mom}!

There are only a couple things we actually NEED yet, everything else will just be fun to have.

 {adorable baby boots — ready for the Michigan snow!}

I just checked out a few books from the library thanks to a suggestion from a very experience mom and lovely blogging friend of mine. And we finally registered for our child birth class through the hospital. I was kind of putting it off because I really didn’t want to go, but I suppose it will offer a lot of helpful information.

I feel like I’ve literally doubled in size these past couple of weeks and my belly button is about ready to pop. I can’t imagine getting even bigger… at least I have a very long torso which has definitely helped to spread things out a bit 🙂

Bending, squatting, and crouching are all getting more difficult; and last weekend, I realized that tablecloths are not a good thing for big bellies — with one simple turn at the waist, I nearly pulled the plates right off the table at Dave’s parent’s house!

Oh, and I got crafty last week and figured out how to make those super cute newborn headbands! I’ll share the tutorial sometime soon.

All in all, things are going as good as we can expect. I’m so thankful that I’m still feeling great, and besides a little difficultly sleeping, minor back pain, and very restless legs, I’ve hardly had any pregnancy “side effects”. Praise the Lord!

International Student Updates:

Dave and I are both happy with how our two girls have transitioned into a totally new culture, family, peer-group, school, and continent! Yes, there have been some akward moments and we’re still working out a few kinks, but overall things are going really well.

Both girls are getting excellent grades and they study all the time. They’ve been pretty helpful around the house, they are keeping their rooms clean, and they’ve even done a little cooking {it was delicious!}

 {assembling and frying spring rolls}

Our pantry is now filled with all sorts of ethnic foods — and seriously, some of them are so smelly! Dave and I have tried almost everything they offer us… and for the most part, it all tastes good, but some of their snack choices are just crazy {like dried seaweed}!

We quickly realized that even though they DO get along with each other, it is best if we talk to each girl individually to get their REAL thoughts and opinions. So we’ve started sitting down with each of them every so often to talk about school, homework, friends, life, family, etc. We get much better feedback when we chat one-on-one.

I would say the biggest change for me to get used to is that the dishwasher, showers, and washing machine are all running constantly! I can’t believe how many dishes we go through with just 2 extra people. And the laundry is way more than double too — just wait until the baby comes!

Both girls are excited about the baby and often ask me questions about how I’m feeling and if I’m craving anything — it’s cute and I think they will both be excellent “baby sitters” if I need to get out of the house for a few minutes and Dave isn’t home.

 

House Project Updates:

I’ve been working furiously to finish up all the little details like curtains, wall decorations, last-minute furniture pieces, and other decorative times. I did manage to put up  most of our Fall decorations last weekend, and I’m so excited about that… I just LOVE Fall!

I already showed you the super cute curtains I made for our bathroom, and I gave you a peek into our new home office… now the next project is finishing the nursery! 

I’ve started sewing the crib bedding and painting some of the nursery furniture — which has more time-consuming than I was originally planning on, but I’m sure it will be worth it in the end. I just hope I keep feeling well enough to continue crossing these final projects off my list! 

I’m also looking for a smaller, but still really comfortable rocking chair. Any suggestions?

I’ve been cooking and baking like crazy too — trying to fill our freezer for those days when I might not feel up to cooking. Although I’m also hoping to get lots of food gifts after the baby is born… hint hint!

 

Life Updates:

Dave and I are both busier than ever… but loving {almost} every minute of it.  Dave is a month into another school year, head of student counsel, and helping out with all sorts of other things at school. He will not be coaching this year {which I know he’s bummed about} but he figured that with a new baby scheduled to arrive the week of basketball tryouts and 2 international students, he just couldn’t be gone every afternoon and evening at sporting events.

I did not put up much of an argument!

I just launched a bunch of new features on my website yesterday and am glad to get that weight off my shoulders. The new web design was supposed to be finished a few weeks ago, but there were a few small issues… better late than never though, right?

We’re still pretty involved in different committees and groups at our church, although we’ve both scaled way back this year due to everything else we have going on. I can’t tell you how great it feels to be home almost every night now!

So that about sums up everything that’s been happening with the Dekkers for the last several weeks. And I just want to reiterate how thankful we are {especially me} for all the emails, comments, and other words of encouragement I receive on a regular basis.

Thank you SO much! 

Just for fun, here are a few more maternity photos — taken by my blogging friend, Jodi Michelle.

 

 

 {We actually wrote the baby’s name in chalk on the driveway with an arrow pointing to my belly — so I had to black that out for the website. I can’t wait to start sharing her name once she’s actually here!}

Happy Weekend!