Baby Girl #24 Weeks

Elijah wanted to be in the picture, as you can see :)

I've/she has had a major growth spurt the last couple weeks. My stomach feels huge. I think I'm carrying further out in front with baby girl than the boys. She is growing healthy and strong and has a great heartbeat. Doctors appts are a breeze and my doctor loves that baby girl and I are easy. I haven't had any sciatic nerve pain like I did with the boys, perhaps because she is resting out front instead of on my back.
I've been getting more headaches lately, so I've been drinking water like crazy, cutting out the sugar and eating more protein. That seems to help. I've been so stuffy/congested this whole pregnancy, I'm sure the cold/dry weather doesn't help. I've gone through 4 boxes of tissues in about a week. People keep saying, "Being pregnant during the winter is the best." I've had two other pregnancies during the summer and I'll gladly take summer over winter pregnancy! Winter opens up a whole new can of worms that I don't have the energy or want to deal with (someone is always sick, snot is flowing abundantly around the house, humidifiers changed frequently, I feel like I've had a cold for 2 months, I don't have quite as much energy to do all the fun Holiday stuff I want to do, I'm missing our early morning walks to beat the heat, I like that I don't have to wear any makeup during the summer and can wear my hair up all the time and blame the heat, skirts, flip flops, boys can run around with nothing on and it takes 5 seconds to get them dressed, no fighting about coats/pants/socks. I could go on and on) I think it's safe to say I've been converted to Texas summers :) Am I complaining? I hope not, but I may plan the next one differently.
 Baby Girl is very active! She moves and kicks a lot. I love it. My favorite part of pregnancy. Maternity clothes are out and being actively used! I finally caved and busted them out. I was tired or rubber banding my normal pants together. The maternity ones are still a bit big but much more comfortable. I look forward to my chamomile tea almost every night. I think it helps me sleep. I've been talking about baby girl a lot more lately to the boys and every so often the boys like to "listen" for her on my tummy. So cute. One of the main things I love about being pregnant is the excuse to slow down our day to day pace. Prioritizing is more necessary, we read more, play more, say no to more unnecessary things and keep things more low key instead of running from one thing to the next. It gives me the opportunity to relish my growing babies (who aren't babies anymore!!). Can't wait to meet this sweet little nugget!