The Halfway Mark!

Sometimes it can be hard for me to figure out how to start out a blog post.  With this one, I'll start out with saying that I AM HALFWAY DONE WITH MY PREGNANCY!!!  It is such an exciting realization on how fast time has gone.  I am starting to count down to when school is out for the summer (47 school days!) and realizing that when I am done with school, I will only have about 2 months until the baby is here.  I know that I have plenty of time to finish the nursery and get everything we need for this baby girl, but I also have this feeling that time will sneak up on me and then boom, baby is here!  And life as we know it, is changed.

Anyways, I think that getting to 20 weeks with this pregnancy without any real complications or problems is something to celebrate and document.  Honestly, even though my first trimester was awful because of how sick I was, I really can't complain since everything else has gone great.  The baby has had a consistent heartbeat and I haven't noticed any abnormal things happening with my body.  I am going in for my 20 week ultrasound appointment on Monday, where they look at everything and every part of the baby and point it all out, so I'll be able to understand what is going on with this baby growing inside of me.  Scott said that this is the appointment where we'll get to see the baby in 3D.  I don't remember them saying that, but I sure hope so!  I want some more ultrasound pictures to put in a memory book that I'd like to do later.

I do have to admit that I can fall into believing things that I read online or in pregnancy books.  When I got my new phone, I had to download all the apps I had before on my old phone.  This time, I downloaded an app with the website Baby Center.  I put in my information and now it sends me e-mails weekly about what is going on with the baby and other good-to-knows.  Sometimes the e-mail talks about things that are pertinent to what is going on right now and other times it will talk about future things to happen.  Half the time, I can never distinguish between the happening now and future stuff.  One e-mail even had some quotes from people saying that pregnant women worry too much and that there is no need to.  I try, but as this is my first pregnancy, how can I not worry?!  Some things I'll research more in detail to know whether or not it is an issue to take seriously (like when Scott wanted me to dye my hair, I read that it can be dangerous, but it was mostly an opinion about it, not scientific fact).  I'll just take the worrying as part of the pregnancy experience.

I had Scott take some pictures of me and my belly with my nice camera, but when I looked at them, I didn't like any of them.  So, I took a self portrait with my phone.  Not that it's much better, but I can put it up on the blog and feel okay about people looking at it. 

Here is my newest questionnaire!

How far along?: 20 weeks! Halfway mark!!
Total weight gain/loss?: About 10 lbs (according to my bathroom scale at home), which from what I've read, I am right on track.
Maternity clothes?: Yes, but I'm still wearing non-maternity clothes as well.
Stretch marks?: Nope. I hope not to get any until the end of my pregnancy or not at all!
Sleep?: Sleep is going good. 
Missing anything?: Can I have my regular hormones back please?  These pregnancy hormones are being difficult. :)
Movement?: Yes!! I am mostly feeling the "quickening" right now.  You wouldn't be able to feel a kick if you put your hand up to my belly.
Food cravings?: Sweet treats!  It's bad, but I crave to eat something sweet quite often.  I try not to give into every craving, but it's hard.
Anything making you queasy or sick?: Not anymore!
Have you started to show yet?: I'm going to say yes.
Gender: Baby Girl!!
Labor signs: No way! 
Belly button in or out: Still an innie.
Wedding ring on or off: On 
Happy or moody most of the time: A little moody at work, but I'm pretty happy. :) 
Looking forward to:Finishing up the nursery!

Going along with the last statement about the nursery, I feel like I need to get looking on dressers or buying baby hangers soon.  We have been getting adorable baby clothes from family and friends.  I even got cute baby socks from a student the other day (her mom bought them for a baby shower, but couldn't attend and then didn't know what to do with them).  I feel bad for keeping all this cute baby stuff in the box they came in, but I have no where to put them yet!  It is so thoughtful and we appreciate it so much.  I can't wait to continue buying more baby things.  Speaking of, we saw the most perfect swing at Wal-Mart the other day.  I didn't do much research on the swing, but isn't it cute?!

Pretty gender neutral and elephant themed!!

Things are going really well in all aspects of our life together.  This baby is just blessing us beyond measure and we are so grateful.

Latest on Life

Yes, so it is catch-up time with the blog.  There are so many times where I think about something and that it would be a good blog post, but then I always forget later what it was I had thought about.  I really should start writing those things down.  That being said, this might be a random post.

Let's see...I haven't taken a belly picture for a bit, but I think I'll take one for sure this coming Thursday because I will be 20 weeks.  Did you hear that?  20 weeks!! I am almost half way there!  How did that happen?  It's such a surprising thing to say to people when they ask how far along I am.  And I'm sure it will continue to be surprising throughout the rest of my pregnancy.

We have been having such great weather this past week that it got us motivated to get started on painting the nursery.  We invited family (Brita, Lane & family, Kyle & Brianna and mom) over to help and have a BBQ.  We got primer and one coat of paint done.  It is amazing how much paint can change a room.  I love poking my head in the room and seeing it with this new paint color because it is becoming more real that it is our baby girl's room.  It is going to be fun to continue putting this nursery together little by little and I can't wait to see the finished product.  Here is a picture to give you an idea.  It will look better with the second coat and without all the tape on the walls.

It's probably too early, but I think the "nesting" they talk about in pregnancy is starting to kick in because I want to paint the whole house now!  We actually did buy paint for our upstairs bathroom, so we are planning on painting that sometime soon.  We are trying to decide what color we want to paint our entry way, kitchen and the wall up the stairs.  Right now, it's all the same color and all the rooms are connected in a way that it would be hard to break it up to do different colors.  I might ask for opinions soon, so stay tuned!

After we painted and ate our food, we (with Kyle, Brianna and mom) went to the first REAL (pronounced separately: re-al) soccer game of the season.  My Uncle Chris got the tickets for us and we had great seats up close behind one of the goals.  It was great weather too and it was just fun to get out and do something.

This is from two weeks ago, but I was able to hang out with one of my very good friends, Elissa!  She had just returned from her mission in Canada and was traveling to see friends and family.  We didn't go out and do anything too exciting because it was just so nice to sit and talk with one another.  I love good friendships like that--ones to where it can be a long amount of time not seeing or even talking to each other, but once you do, things pick up right where they left off.  I sure hope her transition to real life from mission life goes well for her.

Oh, I almost forgot!  Scott & I went shopping at ROSS not too long ago and Scott saw a new cat scratching post to get for Maddie.  She started to tear apart her other one, so it was time for a new one for her.  I hope she loves all the attention she's getting now because she probably won't get as much once the baby comes. :)

I thought that was going to be the last thing, but Scott reminded me of something else!  Scott has been so great dealing with meals around here.  They are not consistent at all.  During my 1st trimester, I was so sick that cooking was out of the question for a month or two.  It's been a little hard to get back into making consistent meals during the week now that I've been feeling better.  One night, Scott stepped up to the plate and made a great meal for us.  I was very impressed and I love him for how much he does for me and I have no doubt he will be a great help when the baby comes.

As I said earlier, there are many things that I think about turning into blog posts and I always forget to write one. As I've been writing this blog post, some of those things have started to come back.  I'm going to write those down now before I forget so I can write a blog post tomorrow!

A Little Princess

Man, you would think I would be better at posting more frequently, but I am just lazy in all honesty.  Anyways, so my last post was about how excited I was to find out the gender of the baby.  So, obviously Tuesday came and went and we are so excited to have a BABY GIRL!!!

We had this feeling that it would be a girl ever since I got pregnant and then those "myths" are just for fun, but only one of them pointed to a boy.  We weren't too shocked when the ultrasound tech told us, but we were a little disappointed coming out of the appointment.  When I made the appointment, they told me that I needed to make sure I drank something sugary so that the baby would be active and that I needed to have a full bladder.  I really wanted to make sure that I did everything I was supposed to so that we could find out the gender that day.  I woke up at 8:00am and even though I had to go to the bathroom, I didn't because I didn't think I would be able to drink enough to have a full bladder by 10:00am.  Apparently my bladder was too full because they couldn't get a really good full body shot of the baby.  Our ultrasound picture is of the baby's legs and bottom.  Worst picture ever.  I'm not going to post it on here, but if you want to see it, I'll show it to you.  I'm glad my baby has a butt, but I want to see it's face and see a hand waving at me again!

Once we started calling people, we got more excited about the news.  I still hadn't told a lot of people at school, but I wanted to do something cute to announce it.  I saw the idea on pinterest and it worked great!

It was funny because at the beginning of class, I gave a bowl full of these to one student and had them take one and pass it around.  Some of them were completely confused as to why the "she" was colored in pink, some had a suspicion on what it was and then others were just excited that I was giving them chocolate (one even asked if it was because they were good for the substitute the day before. haha!).  It is definitely a relief that people know now.  For one, it was getting hard to hide my belly with my shirts and two, there were quite a few students who had a feeling I was pregnant, but didn't want to ask so it was time to let them know.

We have a few girl names in mind, but I think I'll wait to announce those on the blog.  We might do a little survey to see which name is liked best or we'll just surprise announce the official name.  Who knows, we might be debating names up until she is born. 

It is so funny/cute to hear how excited both of our moms are about us having a girl.  My mom wanted a girl because my brother's last 3 kids are boys, so "it's time for a girl" and my mother-in-law likes girls because they are just "way more fun for grandma".  I totally agree.  I told Scott I wanted a girl because boys are boring and his mom totally agreed with me.  I love it when that happens. :)

The only ideas for a nursery so far are lavender purple (we're going to paint the walls), gray and elephant theme.  I am excited to get that going and I'll of course keep you updated as it gets put together.  Let me know if you find anything cute along those lines!

Well, that's all I can think of for now.  I should probably do a post non-baby related because there is other stuff going on in our lives (not much, but a little) that I should record (like how I didn't have a phone for the past two weeks and Maddie's new present we bought her).

Oh, this little princess of ours is going to be so spoiled!  Can't wait.