Merry Christmas!

I helped set the table for dinner. Notice the carefully folded napkins. :)

Playing the game of Blockus we got for Christmas. That cat sitting on the table is Monkey.

We had a wonderful break this Christmas season--we headed up to Tim's parent's home where we enjoyed some good R&R and FOOD! Along with some delicious home cooked food (green chili, turkey, vegan mashed potatoes and other sides), we enjoyed an overpriced Cafe Rio salad, some cheap authentic mex-mex at El Gallo Giro, and some all-you-can-eat Hot Pot (yum!).

We spent the bulk of the vacation with Tim's parents, one of his brothers, and 3 cats (Monkey, Rue, and Tripoda aka Noel). Luckily, our trip overlapped for a day-and-a-half with Tim's other brother (and two sons) that flew in from PA. We also managed to see my brother and his family for a couple hours--they dropped off some treats from my mom before heading to cabin. I love family!!!

Though it would have been much more fun to have had more little-tikes running around to play with, it was definately cool to do grown-up things this Christmas. We played games (like Quiddler and Blockus), watched movies (like "Luther"), and shared some of our favorite scriptures about Christ on Christmas Eve. VERY cool.

Cat Details:

Cats. Tim's brother has two awesome cats. One night he wanted to find and check-up on them. He only found one--Monkey. Then we hear some meowing. We all look around to try and find the other cat--Rue--but to no avail. How strange! The sound seems to be coming from outside! Tim or Mom look in the entertainment room and hear the meowing outside the basement-window-well-window. How did he get outside?? We openened the window, and Tim's brother called out, "Rue! Rue! Come here!" Suddenly, a little cat head pops through the window.

"That's not Rue!" he exclaims. It's another random cat...(still a kitten?) It had a hurt paw, and had fallen into the window-well. It was COLD outside, so if we hadn't found her that night, she probably would have froze to death. We took her in and nursed her back to health. And because her paw was hurt, someone decided to name her Tripoda ("Tripod", but the feminine version).

Pictured (L to R): Monkey, Rue, and Tripoda.

Gas

Yes, gas. So the other night I posted that I felt like my stomach had exploded. Yes, it has definately GROWN, but I think that night I also had a lot of gas (my stomach seemed slightly smaller in the morning). Bad gas, too. Especially since we had some fresh cherries for breakfast...and lunch snack... and dinner. :)

This morning I thought I may have felt some slight baby movement...but then I tooted. So it must have just been gas.

Explosion

Holy cow. Today my stomach EXPLODED! After every meal I ate I seriously felt like my stomach was growing... and by the end of the night I was running to pee every 10 to 20 minutes. AND after looking at myself in the mirror...yeah. Definitely had some major belly growthage today. Ew! Now I REALLY feel old and NOT ready for this! :)

InStyle (Germany)

So this is pretty cool... awhile ago I helped a friend with some product shots for his laptop accessory company. I found this image on his website, and I THINK that one of the images I took is used in the InStyle magazine (Germany).

It's the gold laptop case in the top-left of the 4 laptop images at the bottom of the page. It's called the Goldfish from Isis dei. (Granted, I could be TOTALLY wrong, and they could have reshot those products... but then again, it could be the one I took!)

2nd Trimester Update

So I had another appointment the other day. After waiting a long 40 minutes in the waiting room, the actual appointment was a breeze. Blood pressure: perfect. Weight: great. Baby's heartbeat: still beating. Cervix: growing. Any questions: no.

I have SO much more energy and feel less sick all-the-time (though I still have my occasional moments). AND (unfortunately for Tim and possibly some of my coworkers) my patience level has dropped a TON. :P A couple weeks ago, we left church early because my patience had run REALLY low and I just couldn't take it anymore. :D

ALSO! My MEMORY is going going gone! ;) Well, not completely...but Tim and I BOTH have issues with remembering things. A few weeks ago we played an AWESOME brain game on our friend's wii...well, we just played it with them the other night, and we really could NOT play--our minds are like mush. Things go in one ear, and out the other.

My tummy is slowly getting bigger. Just tonight, Tim wrapped his arms around me and said, "I feel like I'm holding a pumpkin." haha.

I can eat a lot more now, but I'm a much more picky eater. I don't really have any strong cravings. Every time it's time to eat, I have to seriously think about WHAT I want to eat, and what kind of AFTERTASTE I think the food will leave in my mouth. I've found that french fries taste really good, but they leave a nasty sour taste in my mouth. Grapes and bread do, too. I keep a toothbrush and tongue scraper in my drawer at work to clean my mouth everyday after lunch (at about 2pm).

The lease of our one-bedroom appointment is up in a week, so we've moved into a nice two-bedroom apartment owned by one of Tim's co-workers. We LOVE the place! Two-beds, two-baths. There's SO much more room! It's so much homier and calmer. I'll post pics later once we're more settled.

Hmmm... what else. We almost have names picked out for the baby. Well, we have a boy's name picked out...and POSSIBLY a girl's name... but these will not be revealed until AFTER we know the sex of the baby. I think we're pretty set on the boy's name (so to all: Beware! If you happen to choose this name for your own child, we'll probably still name our boy "the name"). :)

Dreams...recently, I've been having quite vivid dreams. Sometimes, I'll wake up and ask Tim, "Did you tell me this?" or "Did we go and do that?" Vivid dreams and a faulty memory = disaster. haha!

Books

So for the past...oh...4 months, or so, I've been reading some good baby/pregnancy books. Some were recommended to me by a gal that cuts my hair... some were lent to me by my sister (-in-law), and some were highly rated on Amazon.com.

1. The Happiest Toddler on the Block. Insightful ways to calm a toddler...I'm not quite there yet, so it was hard to get-into. But I'm excited to try some of these techniques one day.
   
2. Mayo Clinic Guide to Pregnancy. Nice guide book. Maybe I'll have to get one one-day (depending on how things go).
   
3. Hot Mama. Cute cute book about being a cute "hot mama" and not a Miss Frumpy.
   
4. The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy. Hmmm... I've only read the first couple chapters. Pretty good, though!
   
5. Belly Laughs. Funny fast read. Great "real" pregnancy POV.
   
6. The Happiest Baby on the Block. Loved this book. Will definately use the techniques.

Baby's #2 Ultrasound

This ultrasound was actually performed so that we could do a ... (hmmm...don't remember the name)... some sort of test. They did the ultrasound to measure the thickness of skin behind the baby's neck, and drew blood from my arm. Luckily, the blood-drawing was VERY easy (I guess my sister had to have a few stabs AND a special needle to get HER blood drawn).

Christmas Vacation!

Hurray hurray! We're in the airport and on our way (well...after an hour delay) home to celebrate Christmas with the fam. I'm hoping the plane will not be delayed much longer than it is...but I guess you never know!

"You don't know ANYTHING about MY baby..."

The title of this post would be one of Tim's favorite phrases to tell me. It usually comes after one of the following situations:

1. We're driving down the road. Someone cuts us off, the roads are messed-up, or something else happens that annoys Tim. He "curses" a bit (we don't really curse...it's more like "crap, crappy, freak, freakin'" etc.)
   I say, "The baby is starting to cry."
   Tim responds, "You don't know ANYTHING about MY baby."
   


2. Anytime Tim teases me (and I pretend that it really hurt), I'll say that he's made the baby sad, and he'll respond...
   


3. If I bump my stomach, Tim will laugh at me a little. So I rub my belly and say, "Daddy did it." To which he will respond... along with, "Hey! Don't tell Him that!"

Hmmm... I was trying to think of some more (since he uses that phrase a LOT), but I can't think of them right now. I'll have to write them down as he uses them...

At my first appointment...

The bestest husband in the world...

10 Reasons Why Tim is the Bestest Husband in the World:

1. He's super-duper excited for the baby. (I think he's ever MORE excited than I am!)
   
2. He asked the lady-mama's at his work about their docs, then setup my appointments for me (about a week after the pregnancy test).


3. He makes me AMAZING proportioned breakfasts (now that I can eat "normally") of one (1) sunnyside-up egg, about a half-cup of chunky hashbrowns, one or two slices of lean turkey bacon, and one slice of whole wheat (double fiber) toast.
   

   






















4. He reminds me to take my prenatal vitamins at night.


5. He's been doing a fantabulous job of cooking and cleaning...and laundry!


6. He takes care of all our bills and keeps detailed records in Quicken.


7. He's leveled my Mage from 35 to 75 in the past few weeks.


8. He thinks of the cutest (and strangest) nicknames for me: love, sweet pea, tinkles (b/c I'm always going pee during the night), chunky ("Only because you are NOT chunky right now. When you get bigger, I won't call you that.")


9. He'll talk to my sisters when I'm "too tired" to talk.


10. He makes me laugh...even if it ends up grossing-me-out at the same time.

Life during the first trimester...

Pregnancy does a funny thing to your brain. You somehow forget the awfulness of being pregnant. I think I had heard about the phenomenom before, but I never realized how FAST it happened. (I can imagine many of you laughing at me since I'm JUST entering my second trimester.)


We were at a dinner party the other night, and one of our friends asked me how my first trimester went. I replied, "It was good! It wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be."

Tim's head immedietly whipped around. He gave me a flabbergasted look, and exclaimed, "What are you talking about?!? During the whole time you kept saying how AWFUL it was!!!"


Hmmm... is that right? Honestly, I think I feel so much better now, that I've completely forgotten how AWFUL I felt. It reminds me of a time when I was little. I remember eating a TON of ice-cream, and my mom saying, "Don't eat so much! You'll get sick."

Well, I got sick. And I remember that as I sat on the toilet with a throbbing tummy, I prayed in my head, "Heavenly Father, PLEASE make my tummy stop hurting! I promise I won't eat ice-cream EVER again!!!" But, lo and behold, as soon as my pain subsided, back into the freezer I went. I love ice-cream!


So, let me think about it for a sec... okay. Here are some things that I *think* I remember:

1. Getting extremely tired, and HATING the fact that I'd have to wake up in the morning and go to work.


2. Hating work. Wanting to lay under my desk and curl up in a ball.


3. I remember thinking that I would NEVER want to do this again.


4. I remember thinking HOW IN THE WORLD WOULD ANYONE WANT TO FEEL THIS WAY?!?


5. Having a conversation with Tim after Stimpy the Cat died--Tim would rather go through days of feeling nauseated than going through the pain of a loved one dieing. I felt the opposite--I would rather go through the pain of a loved one dieing than to feel the nausea.


6. At one point, I thought I would rather be back on an 18-month mission (out biking and contacting people all day) than in my current state.


7. Feeling sluggish all day long.


8. Getting the feelings of nausea and hunger-pains mixed up... having a hate-hate relationship with food. I'd "need" to eat to feed my body, but I would NOT feel like eating at all. Sometimes I wouldn't even feel like I had an appetite, but my stomach would start hurting like I'd gone too long without eating. I was so sick sick SICK of eating food. PLUS, nothing would ever sound good. For about a week or two, the only things that sounded decent enough to eat were: cookies, chips, and any other junk food I could find for free at work. I'd have to set an alarm on my Outlook to eat something once an hour (sometimes once every 45 minutes).


9. I didn't feel like doing ANYTHING. No eating, no cooking, no cleaning, no dishes, no computer, no facebook...nothing. Ugh.


10. Tim brought me extra doughnuts from his work. One morning, I was going to eat one, then decided against it b/c I had only eaten junk food the day before. He teased me and said, "If you don't eat it, then I will have to." He proceeded to put the doughnut in his mouth. I "freaked out" a little, and started to cry. :P WEIRD!


11. As soon as we found out I was pregnant, and as soon as the food-anxieties and whatever changes started to set in, I would tell Tim, "I just want the baby OUT of me!!"


12. Sometimes I would get so hungry (but would NOT want to eat anything) that I would tease Tim and say, "I'm eating the baby."


13. Sometimes I would obsess over getting something to eat (like Panda Express or Korean), and then we'd go get it, and it'd be totally gross! And now I don't want to eat them ever again. This also includes Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Strawberry Yogurt, Frozen Fruit, Pistachio Jello, Korean, Japanese, Spaghetti, Pizza, Mission Burritos... on and on. Watch out, there's not going to be much left that I'm going to want to eat!


14. To make sure I got the nutrition I needed (along with the pre-natals from the doc), Tim bought me a ton of Ensures to drink. The Chocolate ones were good. The Vanilla ones were good. The Strawberry ones (Plus) were GROSS!


15. My stomach started getting slightly bigger...but Tim didn't believe me.


16. After eating, a nasty film is left over my tongue which also leaves a gross sour taste in my mouth. I finally brought a toothbrush and tongue scraper to work that helps alleviate that problem... but it still abounds. Yuck! This makes it harder to choose food to eat. (Any type of bread or cookie would leave the sour taste. So would apples. And cereal. And certain chips.)
17. Sleeping has become slightly uncomfortable. Perhaps it's because I'm sleeping for longer periods of time (my back gets sore).

I'll have to see if there's anything else to add... otherwise, this seems like a long-enough list. :)

Baby's #1 Ultrasound

During our first visit to the doctor's office, we were able to get an ultrasound of the baby. It was an interesting internal ultrasound. Hmmm...

Anyway, here's the baby's very first ultrasound. We were able to see the heartbeat as it flashed on the screen like ambulance lights. Wieerd!


We attached this image in an email to our family, announcing our good news.

PPP: Pre-Pregnancy Planning

Contrary to what we may have told SOME people, it was planned. Completely planned. SO "planned" that even my SISTER knew the week we'd OFFICIALLY started "trying". (A little wierd, I know. Even wierder still is that she knew the exact NIGHT for someone ELSE in my family!)

For some reason, Tim thought we'd have problems getting pregnant. And for some reason, *I* knew that we would not. HE would have liked to start earlier than we did (while I could have waited another month), but we had to time it PERFECTLY with a January '09 Family Reunion coming up--a cruise, to be exact. And cruisers are not allowed on the ship if you're more than such-and-such weeks along.

In August, we bought an ovulation test kit to see if we could determine my most "fertile" days. Sounds fun, eh? The kit didn't work. According to the pee-strips, I don't think I ever ovulated. :)

In September, it was time. We tried "timing" it to get a girl. Tim thinks we won't have a problem having a girl (since my sister has 4 girls, no boys). I think we won't have a problem having a boy (since his TWO brothers only have boys). Whether we have a boy or a girl, we'll be happy. I just think it would be *nice* to have a girl first. :) SO, we tried the "timing" thing. We'll let you know if it "worked" for us in a few weeks. (Of course, we weren't very good "test subjects" since there was that ONE night...)

October finally came and went. TOM (aka Time Of Month) did not. For some reason, I thought we might just "forget about it", then 6 months later realize that we were pregnant. (Honestly, how do some ladies do that?! Don't they feel the "fatness" coming on?? Or the sluggish feeling??? Or the TIREDness?!? Come on!!) *I* at least TRIED to forget about it...but Tim was like a watchdog. "You're three days late... you're a week late, can we get a pregnancy test? ... You're over a week late, let's get a pregnancy test." He went and bought a two-pack test. I pee-ed on the stick. It changed colors. One was dark, the other light. Tim scoured the internet about the results. Apparently, seeing TWO lines (regardless of shade) means you're pregnant. I wanted to wait a week before using the other one (just in case). He insisted I use it the next day. :) IDEALLY, he would have had me use it that same night, but I didn't want to "waste" it for the same results.

Again, I wanted to try and keep the news "under wraps" for a while, which was a little hard since my sister has the memory of a computer hard drive and knew the date of my last period AND when we "started". We figured that once SHE knew, then "everyone" would "don't-tell-them-I-told-you-but..." know. :) After avoiding her questions (and sometimes phone calls) didn't work, we finally spilled the beans, and were surprised to find that she would keep our "secret" for a while (unless her girls were in the room and overheard the convo. Smart sister she is, she told them that our "secret" was that we were getting a dog).

So! We are very lucky and very blessed. Since moving to Texas, I have met SEVERAL couples who are having various issues with getting pregnant. I am definately grateful that we were blessed to get pregnant so easily and so fast. And I DO/DID try to remind myself of that...but that first trimester was a killer. :P

Prepare for my next post...

Welcome!

Welcome to our new blog! All of our past blogs are (well, have been recently) privatized...but this one we will leave open (at least for now) to make sure all of our friends and family can access it.

We have also decided to remove links to our favorite blogs (of friends and family) so that any random visitors to this blog will not randomly surf-over to their blogs.

Enjoy!