19 Weeks

These are two of the kids I babysit during the summer.  They're helping me out with the board because let's face it, they're way more adorable than I am to put in pictures.

They're pretty excited too for little baby Koch to make an appearance.  (Aidan is pointing to my belly while Ella is touching my belly)  They've already started lists of possible names for the baby.  They also have started making a present for Daniel about advice he needs to be a good dad.  It's pretty adorable.  More on that next week.

How far along? 19 Weeks

Total weight gain/loss: 5 pounds gained!!   Still waiting on my actual baby belly to get here.  I give it permission to come any day now.

Maternity clothes? Sorry but none.  I did break down when I took my kids swimming this past week and realized that none of my swimsuits fit anymore...the top part that is.  I try to dress conservatively around my kids and that includes swimsuits so needless to say, Momma is going to be looking for a new swimsuit this weekend because I can't have my ta-ta's out and about like that around kids.  The only thing that stinks is that I assume my belly is going to be expanding sometime in the future and my knockers will also continue getting larger (thanks mom for those genes!  I'm content with where they are now.  They can stop growing anytime now) so what size of swimsuit should I get because I'll only be fitting into it for a few weeks?  Ugh!  And I've been scouring through pictures of maternity swimsuits online and most of them are just so ugly!  So I need your help!  I'm not the most fashionable person (mostly because I can never find clothes to fit my awkward body type [couple that with my body expanding at this moment in time], but that's a whole different issue) but I would like to attempt to wear a cute swimsuit for this year with the bump and all.  Please send me links to any cute ones that you know of.  I usually count on my sisters for all of my fashion advice but they live 3 1/2 hours away so I can't physically steal any of their clothes (not that they would fit my expanding body anymore) like I used to do (and still do when I'm home) in high school.

Stretch marks? No. Still lotioning up my body non-stop.  Loving the coco butter smell of the creams I'm using!

Sleep: I slept fantastic this past week!  (Maybe that was because Dan was gone for work for the week and I got to take over the entire bed or maybe it was because my body is finally getting a break. Who knows?) My back and neck still hurt when I wake up a bit but not too bad.  Still taking 2+ bathroom breaks a night. Woof!

Best moment this week: Dan and I went on two hospital tours!  Now we get to choose which one we like better.  It made everything so real!  Dan didn't really have an opinion on which one he liked better, "Ummm...they're both good.  They were hospitals I guess."  I'm only going to be giving birth there, No Big Deal.  But overall both were pretty similar in amenities and safety so we just have to pick one now.  All I really need is a nice room, place for Daniel to sleep, my mommy there with me (I might die if she's not there so this is a must), lots of security for my nugget, good doctors and nurses, and a place for my visitors to see us!

Miss Anything? I miss taking scalding baths (I have to take "warm" ones now. ugh!).  Cookie dough, beer, wine (Gosh i would love a good Pinot Noir right about now), champagne, margaritas by the pool.  I also miss fitting into my old swimsuit tops.  I miss roller coasters, water slides, and skiing.  (Wait Jackie...it's not winter!  You can't ski right now anyways.  Well so what?  If it was, I couldn't ski.  Doesn't stop me from wanting to go ski and build a snowman. I not-so-secretly love winter and the snow and wish it was Christmas all year round.  We just celebrated Christmas's half birthday btw, in case you didn't know/celebrate.)  

Movement: Nothing. Wah!  I've been having crazy dreams about my baby moving though...like ones where you can see the baby's hands on your stomach.  O and my baby talks in my dreams while it's in my belly.  I have weird dreams.  Dan probably thinks I'm the craziest person he knows (he's stuck with me though).

Food cravings: Ice Cream!  Just hand it over and no one gets hurt.  And the correct toppings for ice cream are as follows: Cookie Dough, caramel, pecans, and hot fudge.  There are no other right answers.  Coconut is NEVER a right answer for ice cream. That stuff is gross!  I also love cheese quesadillas (fitting because my nugget is the size of a Chipotle burrito this week....mmm that sounds good.  Maybe I'll have one today).

Anything making you queasy or sick: Hot dogs and boxed mac and cheese.  Momma loves her homemade mac and cheese so the idea of making mac and cheese from a box (ONLY EXCEPTION....SHAPED MAC AND CHEESE...that stuff is delicious and got me through the morning sickness part of pregnancy) is gross but my kids insisted that I make them mac and cheese and hot dogs for lunch and it just about made me sick.  The smell of it was just stomach churning.  I'll stick with my Boost shakes instead...they don't taste amazing but they do the job.  Still taking things slow when it comes to eating.  I don't want to chance this half decent stomach feeling.  Also, the smell of fish makes me gag so hard. Ugh!  I'll pass on that.  I've never been fond of cigarette smoke (I have a very sensitive nose...good for food but bad for the intensity of bad smells) but the smell of it on people is also super gaggy.  I almost had to leave church this week to visit the facilities because the couple in front of us smelled like cigarette smoke.  (Might have had to do that a few times during the morning sickness phase....not my favorite days in church)

Have you started to show yet: Maybe a little?  I push out my tummy to make it seem like I really am showing for pictures.  I feel like I still just look like I have a pooch and not a belly yet.  It's coming though....that's what people say.  I just want that cute belly, STAT!  Hurry up kid and move up my abdomen!

Gender: Don't know yet.  We might or might not be finding it out next week at our next appt....maybe!!!!  My mom is going crazy right now because she doesn't know the gender but is dying to buy clothes and God knows what else for the little one.  I think she calls me every time she goes into a store and sees anything remotely relating to babies. My mom is in official Grandma mode.  My kid is going to be so spoiled with Grandma and Grandpa love...and my sisters are dying to be aunts.  I'll probably never see my kid again because he/she will be making so many trips to visit the relatives within the first year+.

Labor Signs: Nope.  Thank God!

Belly Button in or out? In...Belly button is still rather cavernous.

Wedding rings on or off? On.  Actually kinda loose.  I take it off, when I remember, when I put lotion all over me.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Pretty happy.  Wishing my hubby was home from work so I could spend time with him.  I feel like a puppy waiting for him to come home and take me for a walk....waiting with a leash in my mouth.  (How's that for a visual?)  More anxious that anything.  Just wanting to see my fam, friends, and do a lot of fun things, especially prepare for the nugget!   I only cried once this past week.  The priest who married Dan and me is going to Peoria and leaving our parish.  Our parish had a going away party for him and there was even a sing-along and open bar!  (best party ever!)  We went to his last mass and after his homily, everyone stood up and applauded him.  It was enough to bring tears to anyone's eyes...not just a hormonal pregnant lady.  We finally got to tell him the good news that Dan and I were expecting and he was pretty excited for us. He told us to raise our pagan baby right and get it baptized. He also mentioned that we need to raise it to be a Cardinals fan--yeah right!  That's never gonna happen.

Looking forward to:  Feeling the baby move.  Packing up our stuff and moving to our new place.  Visiting home next week.  Our upcoming appt!!!  And I'm also looking forward to the Blues, Brews, and BBQ festival this weekend!  Bring on that BBQ!  (sad I won't be able to partake in the brews part of it but Dan is pretty stoked to have a DD.  ugh! boys!) (I'm excited about a lot!)

Anything Else:  I started walking for a couple miles this past week.  Trying to get my stamina up for our mountain hikes in Montana in less than a month!  It's taken me this long to be able to feel well enough to start doing "exercise" again.  Gosh I felt like such a lazy and worthless bum when it felt like all I could do is sit on my bum and lay down.  I can definitely tell I've lost a lot of muscle tone in addition to weight and stamina just from the past 4 months of inactivity.  Ugh!  So depressing!  Time to start walking!  I did sign up for an pregnancy aqua aerobics class that I'll be starting in July...just gotta get the doc to sign off on it.  Pretty excited for that!  (yet another reason I need to get a new swimsuit)

18 Weeks

How far along? 18 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: 3 pounds gained after 17 weeks of losing 20 pounds!  Never thought I'd be so excited to report that I've gained weight!
Maternity clothes? Does the gynormous bra that I had to get for my newly humongous knockers count?  If so, then that's it for maternity clothes.  Can fit into all my skinny clothes that used to sit in the back of my closet.
Stretch marks? No.  Dying to get my baby belly though. (No stretch marks please!)  I've been lotioning up my body like it's my job in order to prevent them for whenever my body decides to grow.
Sleep: My back and neck hurt when I wake up and Dan likes to flop at night.  I'm rather tired from having to 2+ bathroom breaks at night.
Best moment this week: EATING BLACK DOG!  Not once did I get to eat Black Dog, but I got to go there twice!  This officially marked my first real meal I was able to eat in its entirety!  Mmmm! Pulled pork and sweet potato fries!  Then the next day I had Burnt Ends with sweet potato fries!  I'm drooling just thinking about how amazing this was!
Miss Anything? Hard cider, margaritas, Jimmy John's ham and cheese sandwiches, raw cookie dough and brownie dough
Movement: Nothing yet but desperately looking forward to that first kick!
Food cravings: BBQ (if that wasn't obvious), ice cream (that's not unusual or only found in pregnancy for me), anything spicy (but I know that's a bad idea. wah!)
Anything making you queasy or sick: Too much food at once makes my tummy hurt.  Still trying to stretch out my stomach from when it shrunk.  Brushing my teeth makes me queasy sometimes.  Waking up too fast.  The smell of eggs or broccoli (also not unusual for me....I hate that broccoli stuff.  I don't care what anyone says, it's disgusting.  Why would God make something smell and taste so horrible if He wanted it to be good for you? He wouldn't.  Therefore it's probably really bad for you.  I don't want that stuff in my body).  Leafy greens make me gag which is sad because I actually want to eat a salad. But good news is that I haven't thrown up in over 2 weeks! (yes I'm keeping track and you would too if that's all you've done for the past 4 months)
Have you started to show yet: Sadly, no.  The doctor said that it is because I'm so tall that it's taking so long for the baby (and all the other stuff inside of me) to get big enough and move up my abdomen to make it look like I actually have a baby inside of me.  I do have a baby inside of me...I promise.  I guess that's good for later on, but I would kind of like my bump to be here....like stat.  Because right now it just looks like I have a little pooch instead of a nugget growing inside of me.
Gender: Don't know yet.  Would have come in handy though when I was garage saling (yes that's a word) this past weekend, scouring for awesome deals on baby stuff.  Everything was gender specific and I wanted it all because there were soooooo many great deals but I couldn't allow myself to do that to my future kid.  Gah!  Do you think they'll have some more garage sales in a few weeks when we do find out? I did manage to find an awesome bassinet for $10!
Labor Signs: No
Belly Button in or out? In...Dan is convinced I have the world's deepest belly button so he's pretty sure it's not going to get anywhere near flat (or out) during pregnancy
Wedding rings on or off? On.  If you've ever seen my unusual (awesome) wedding ring (it has hinges!) then you know that my ring will most likely be on for the entire pregnancy.
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy now that I'm FINALLY feeling better and no longer feeling like a dragon. (If you've ever felt like a dragon during pregnancy then you understand what I'm getting at)  Feeling that I can finally start enjoying pregnancy instead of just being the recipient of some of the horrible symptoms that go along with it.   I can only tell that I'm moody when I wake up in the morning (also not exclusive of pregnancy.  I've never been a "morning person" and don't understand people who are).  Dan would probably tell you other times that I'm moody or "not rational" in his words.  I think I'm the most rational person on the planet.
Looking forward to:  More garage sales!  Hospital tours with Daniel this next week! Finding out whether we're having a boy or a girl.  Moving to our new place in July so we can start putting together the baby's room!


(How many times is a person allowed to use exclamation marks in one blog?  I fear I might have exceeded the number of permissible uses of an exclamation mark in this one.  But I'm just so darn excited that I'm finally feeling better!!!!!!)

Chalkboard Creativity

First off, I want to say that I'm in love with this blog: http://littlebabygarvin.blogspot.com/
and it gave me inspiration to create my own chalkboard.  So I went to Good Will and found nothing worth transforming.  Then I went to the Salvation Army and found this little gem and couldn't resist attempting to get creative with it.  So here she is!  She was originally a mirror and I turned her around to see her non-porous back side and thought it would be perfect to transform into a chalkboard since it already kinda looked like one!  (way to really think outside of the box, Jackie.  O well, I'm sure there will be plenty of original crafty moments for me in my future)

Her frame needed a little love, aka paint, so this is where I called in my husband to help.

What I was most excited about was the price!  Originally $12.55, she was marked down to $10.05, both of which would have been amazing deals but I got the best one!  Talk about a cheap craft (plus primer, chalkboard paint, brushes, and some homemade thank-you cookies to my husband for his manual labor)!

Next came time to separate the frame from the mirror part.  Then, make my husband shameless hold the frame as I snap pictures of him.  I love taking pictures of him mainly because I know how resistant he is to being a subject in them (note the scowl and blank stare).

Then he hams it up for me.  I would kind of love to have this as an actual picture in a frame to put up on my wall but he might disown me and I can't risk that with a baby on the way and everything. lol

This frame is post-painting so it is all nice and un-crackly now.

Next step was to put a primer on the back side of the mirror to help act as both a protective agent for the surface and as a bonding agent for the chalkboard paint to stick to when we put it on.  (I think I got that right.  My husband graciously agreed to do all the manual labor for the craft because he knew that if I did it that he would just have to fix it later.  Smart man he is)

Next step: Begin painting with the chalkboard paint.  This is the beginning of the first coat.  I believe we put at least 3 coats on.  By "we" I actually mean Daniel and me this time.  I was allowed to paint because it was black and there was very little room for me to mess it up.

Next we attached our dried chalkboard back to its painted frame and like magic: a finished chalkboard appeared!

So naturally I had to try it out right away.  Note: I have absolutely horrible handwriting so this is probably the only time you'll see my actual handwriting on the chalkboard.  (I tried really hard to make the words look nice.  I even erased a few of the words multiple times to try and make them legible.  You can still make out the down slope of the words due to my chicken scratch/angle-y handwriting.)  I will most likely be having either Dan or the kids I babysit during the week write on the board from now on.  Either way, it is guaranteed to look better than the nonsense that comes out of my hands.

The point of this story is: Even Dan and I have our creative moments and we thought that this would be a fun way to start our little journey off.

Excited For Our Little Nugget!

As many of you may already know, Dan and I are expecting a baby come November 15!  We're pretty excited about this amazing adventure and we are both equally excited and terrified to be parents.  We found out in February that we were expecting and soon after we told our mommies who promptly squealed (yes squealed is the appropriate word for the sound that came out of their mouths) with delight.  We then swore them to secrecy which practically killed them.

Then began the 3+ month long battle with Morning Sickness and a bunch of other "wonderful" symptoms that can be found in the First Trimester of Pregnancy.  During this time, Dan was my rock.  I have no idea how I survived this period in my life because there were days that I could not even feed myself or get out of bed.  Also during this time, I was still a full-time Graduate student who had to attend classes, do group projects, homework, tests, papers, and my practicum at a local middle school.  Needless to say, I had to skip a few classes and make arrangements with my professors to make up work that I had missed.  I don't mean to sound super depressing about the first trimester (and some) but it was not as glamorous and stress-free as I originally thought it would be.  I lost ~20 pounds and even had to make a trip to the Emergency Room for some fluids.  The only thing that really helped me has been time.  We just started Week 18 and we believe that I'm finally starting to turn a corner.  Wohoo!

I would have started this blog sooner but my postings would have been primarily negative and graphic and I know that you wouldn't have liked that.  Also, since I lost ~20 pounds, I haven't been looking "pregnant" enough to justify putting up pictures of my belly.  So please be patient with me as I figure out this whole blog thing and work up enough courage to post my sad belly pics.  There are many benefits to being tall, but developing a nice-looking pregnancy belly early on isn't one of them.  Because I am tall, there is more room available for the baby to fill up which has caused my early pregnancy belly to look more like a pooch than an adorable belly.  Terrified that I wasn't developing correctly (every pregnant woman's nightmare) I asked my doctor if there is in fact a child in there and if I'm looking normal.  She assured me that yes, there is a baby in there and that the nugget and I are both developing on track and "normally".  What I really like about my doctor is the fact that she told me that I can feel free to add butter to whatever I want to!  Gah!!  She must have known about my love for dairy products because she said that I'm more than fine to eat milkshakes, butter, cheese, etc. in order to help put some poundage on me.  I think she and I will become close friends.  I already thought this because she is my normal gyno so on our first visit we got to be really close.  I think I might have made an awkward joke about her going to 3rd base with me....gyno humor obviously.

Anyways, I thought I would start this blog as a way to document Dan and my first child experiences.  I will include the good, bad, and the ugly. Well, I'll try to hold back most of the ugly.  This blog thing is easier to read than my handwriting so documenting my journey on paper wasn't really an option for me.  I'll try to put as many pictures up as I can.  So come and join Dan and I on our journey towards parenting.  We know it's not going to be easy but we're determined to have some fun while figuring this whole thing out.  We're so blessed to have such amazing friends and family who are so supportive and loving especially during this time.  I've seen God work in amazing ways during the first part of our pregnancy and I've been blown away by his love and grace everyday.  I cannot imagine what else He has in store not only for the remainder of this pregnancy but for the rest of Dan and my life together...all I know is that it will be nothing short of spectacular.  Thank you everyone for all your love, support, and prayers and we're excited to share our journey with you.