She's here! Our newest little pink princess :)

Our little princess was born May 26th at 4:11 AM! Her name is ***** (but I will probably remover her name from this post in a few days) and her second name is *****.

The labor went quick (again). I woke up at 1.30, thought the baby was resting on my blather again. But at 2ish I realized there was more going on :) Birth story will follow soon! :)

Here are some photos!

It's going to be a girl, do you know a name? AND have you ever seen....

one of those *shocking* documentaries on *really* obese people? The kind of documentary that has little to do with humanity but is there simply to shock and to provide shocking footage of 1000+ pound people, confined to the prison of their beds. Showing them with little clothes and lots of food? Until the firedepartment comes and break away an outside wall and rescue the food lover with a crane?

That's me.

37 weeks pregnant and I am totally utterly HUGE.

I can't see my toes when I stand.
I THINK I have maintained a decent bikini line, but it might as well look like a part of the rain forest where they've taken down trees randomly; I could not possibly tell you.
It would be nice if I can clip my own toe nails.
It would be nice if I can bend.
Or get up without shifting my weight back and forth to tumble myself up.
Etc.
Etc.

But I can't complain. Physically I am doing great. Mentally too (that is, when I'm in the presence of chocolate). The baby is now head down (not breech as the midwife suspected for a little while). I've been having Braxton Hicks for the last 30 hours or so. Like every 5 minutes. So... my guess is... Baby 3 is not going to wait a whole lot longer. BUT Baby 3 could might as well sit there until firemen my gyno takes down a wall gives me a C-Section.

So for now the plan is to deliver at home with a midwife (oooh, the Dutch are a little old fashioned :)) We're within a 2 minute drive from a hospital, so if it by any chance isn't going as "smooth" as expected, we're there in a blink of an eye.

PLUS T. was born in 3.5 hours... L.. in 1.5 hours. Hardly time to get to the hospital in time anyway.

Anyway... we're expecting a girl. Did I mention that?

Now, we have come up with a first name! But we want a second name too.

Any suggestions? The first name is American/ English and not very traditional. But we LOVE the name. But we also love traditional. Really, you'd of great help if you comment your favorite girl names! Traditional, not traditional; it's all fine!

And one last note: we finally bought a good sized car. We have packed our family of four in a TINY Volkswagon Polo for the last 4 years. It wasn't easy sometimes (vacations/ roadtrips) but we managed. But with 3 children... You know...

So we bought this one... today:

It's a Chrysler Voyager. Second hand. A few years old, but we love it!

And then 4everlaundry commented on the car on Twitter with this movie:

The Swagger Wagon. SO. FUNNY.

Big decisions; quitting, starting my own business and having a 3rd baby

I tend to cluster big decisions. I don't know why, it's ever so inconvenient.

First:

I quit my job a month ago. It didn't make me happy. And leaving my children two days a week to spend somewhere that made me unhappy, just didn't feel right. I mean, who could leave these babies, right?

And also I hope that my children learn to make decisions that make them happy. And when a day job at an office isn't that, I hope they follow their heart and pursue their dreams. That believe helped me make this decision. I want to be an example of what I believe in, and not just say "follow your heart" when not doing so myself.

So my husband and I talked about the finances. Agreed on taking a step back in spending and we both trust I can replace a part of my income by freelancing. SO by writing a letter I gave up my good income and plunged into the uncertainty of freelancing and being a WAHM. A MOMpreneur. Or whatever fancy name they gave it.

I'm glad I'll be spending more time with my children. My two little ones Monkey and Roo AND the third one (expected May 29th). See how big my belly is:

It's even bigger now (that photo is 3 weeks old).

So as of now (with a little break once the baby is born :) I'll work from home an average of 2 days a week. I teach baby signs (which is highly uncommon here) and I hope to do some freelance communication/ PR assignments. And recently taught an (evening) communication class at The Hague University for a semester. Which I enjoyed VERY much. And they did too; I can teach it again in 2011. Hooray!

Cutting back in spending and having all these things going on, we decided on staying in our 3 bedroom apartment for at least a couple of more years. 3, 4, we don't know yet. Which is fine. The apartment has a garden and despite it isn't large; it's not exactly tiny either. I like the place and for now it's good. Monkey and Roo share a room now and they LOVE it. Monkey has always been a little afraid of being alone, and having his little sister in his room somehow boosted his self confidence.

A while ago we started looking at bigger places, but it didn't feel right. The timing sucked (why move when you have a little one on the way; the hassle!) and we felt we were doing a wrong thing because we still would like to move to the US one day. So it felt like we were doing something opposite of our dream.

So there you have it. Big things over a casa Nadine. Maybe my next update is the birth announcement of baby 3?