Anja loves insects and 36 weeks

Anja loves insects! We have to look a little harder around here since there just aren't as many as say, Michigan or Louisiana. But it's pretty easy to find ladybugs and crane flies, which are pretty good go-to creatures for Anja's bug house.

And she likes to sing songs too. Unfortunately we aren't very good at teaching her seasonally-appropriate songs, but Jingle Bells is a year round favorite here: "Jingle Bells all the way, crashing through the snow, hey!"

Just had another prenatal appt. I'm finishing up 36 weeks now. 37 is considered full term, so we are really nearing the end now. Heartburn has been bearable, with a lot of tums and a lot of propping my head up high at night. Not very pleasant but at least I'm able to sleep. Baby is still the right size, heartbeat is strong, and she is still head down, so all looks good. I've gained 23lbs now, which is also just right. I'd be pretty happy with gaining only 25lbs total, and it looks like I'll be close to that. With my stomach so small right now I've been trying to focus on high calorie foods mainly: meat, fat, ice cream, etc. I really pounded through our stash of on-sale Breyer's that we had in the fridge.

The plan for this weekend is to finish some stuff around the house that we want done before the baby is here. We will be putting the baby in our room for a while, so we still have some reorganizing to do there. Luckily our room is pretty big so we can dedicate half of it to the crib, dresser, changing table, rocking chair, etc, and still leave the other half for ourselves. We will also finish putting in our garden. I'm not really sure what we can grow well here, so I'm planting a little of everything this year. The hardest part will be keeping everything watered, since it doesn't rain here all summer. We'll try to be creative with reusing our grey water, and the garden is partially shaded, so that will help with evaporation. Anja planted her own sunflower seeds. They should be fairly durable when they come up, and will regrow quickly in case they get stepped on or otherwise loved a little too much. And the petunias she planted are looking great: