More Belly Dancing

This is a really short clip that I captured of some slight belly dancing (note: the "clicking" in the background is me "fishing" for Tim's character in WoW):

This is a better video... I'ved edited so just the "dancing" is in the video. (This reminds me of watching those ghost-hunter/paranormal shows on T.V....)

33.6 Week Photoshoot (Bed Rest Day 8)

I've been meaning to shoot some more photos of myself, but have just kept putting it off.
Well, for some reason, I decided Today was the Day! I figured that my hair would only grow longer, I would only feel grosser (as each bed-rest-Day passes), and I will probably only get plumper. Haha... (BTW, my skin seems to be much smoother and clearer the past couple of days...niiice.)

Here are some of the better pics I took...
(I don't have Photoshop installed on my laptop, so I had to use a Canon program to try and edit/crop the pics...they turned out okay).

I feel like my belly is HUGE! I feel like it's SO much bigger... but then again, I don't know if it HAS grown any bigger. Hmmm...

33 Week Appointment (Bed Rest Day 7)

So yesterday we went in for my weekly checkup. The wait was loooong. Oh well.

Everything was good!
Weight: 130lb
Blood Pressure: Good.
Baby's Heartbeat: Good...she kept moving around, so it was hard for the nurse to find it and "read" it.
Uterus Size: Good.

I guess I'm dilated 1 cm, and still effaced at about 80%. Still in bed rest...

My doc said that if we can make it to 36 weeks, then she'll take me off the drugs and bed rest.

I must say, it was SO nice to get out of the house. But even then, I started to get tired and just wanted to go home and lay on the couch. :P I guess I should have taken a pic of my "outing". Oh well...

Bed Rest Day 5

I'm laying in bed right now. Munching on some cold red grapes. Mmmm... I have my work Remote Desktop open so I can see if I have any new emails.

Not too shabby. :)

It's actually quite nice and relaxing to be able to work from home. Though, I think if I thought about it TOO much (being in bed rest for several more weeks), I might start getting antsy and crazy... but I just take it one day at a time. It reminds me of running on a treadmill (since I hate running outside). Once I get on a treadmill, I can't think about how long I'm going to run/jog for...I just have to do it. I have to focus on the T.V., or music, or something. The moment I start thinking, "Ah! 30 more minutes!", I feel like I can't do it.

So I try to space my day out so that it's still relatively "normal". I've been able to wake up easily at about 5 or 6am...usually I'm begging the alarm clock for more time, but maybe b/c I'm working at home, it's actually fun to wake up. :)

Anyway. Then I'll read some scriptures, then get up and brush my teeth, then head back to "bed" and login to work on my laptop. If nothing's going on yet, I might start working on a project...or grab something to eat. Then I try and do job-related stuff for a while... I basically try and stay in the bedroom until about lunchtime when Tim comes home. Then I get back into bed. Find something to do, and just keep myself busy till about 4pm. Then I usually feel better about going into the other room and watching T.V. (as if I had just returned home from work).

The days ususally go by w/o any problems... it's when it starts getting dark...and I have to stay inside. And just sit there. :P

Today I set aside some time to clip my Sunday Coupons and put them away in my coupon-folder-thing. I also registered online with my hospital, and went through other paperwork that I have to complete.

Pic of my setup...

My point of view...

Another couponing deal...

Look what I bought for $7.00:

But the $7.00 DID come out of my Walgreens gift card. So I actually didn't have to pull out my credit card or cash for this one. Not too bad of a deal, considereing the EDGE shaving gel retails $3.99, those TUMS retail $9.99, the face moisturizer retails $9.99... yada yada yada...

The hair dye (that's auburn) had a coupon...but I couldn't use it b/c it would have made Walgreens OWE me money. But from what I've read online, I can take it back, RETURN IT, then start another transaction where I use it to buy other things (it was on clearance for about $1.30...and I have a $4.00 off coupon).

Still working on it... Oh. And I ended up returning 8 Vitamin Waters to Randalls b/c they only double coupons on the first item. (This probably will only make sense to one or two people reading this post).

Bed Rest Day 2

Day 2. This is how I spent most of my day. Hmmm... I'm "back-posting", so I don't remember what I was going to write about this...

Anyway, it's me just lying in bed with my laptop.

Bed Rest: Day 1... and just one more shot...

Should we always reserve a couple hours when we visit the hospital? For some reason, it always sounds like we're just going to a quick in-out thing. Nope. We went to the hospital for my second shot, and were there for at LEAST an hour and a half. I guess part of the hold-up was that there weren't any standing "discharge" orders for me...so they had to call my doc (or the person on standy-by) to see what they wanted to do with me.
So I guess this was a stress-test for the baby. Everything went perfectly fine. Got the shot in my hip. Ouch. And we were good...

Oh, and this was Day 1 of my bedrest. Went very well! Got setup to remote access my computer at work...nice.

On our way to the hospital, we stopped by my office building and Tim ran up to grab some of my stuff (i.e. my birthday flowers, some of my snacks/treats, my rice heat pack, etc.)

Baby Bjorn and Hot Sling

So here I am playing with the baby bjorn (practicing with it) and a new sling that Tim's parents sent me for my birthday. Very cute! (I'm wearing my LuLuLemon capris and a tank...trying to do a quick photoshoot...maybe I'll post those later).

Baby Shower with Ward Friends

My friend Jan threw me an awesome baby shower with ladies from church a couple nights ago. Lots of good food! Lots of good people to mingle with!

The "gift table"...

Pics of me opening gifts. :) Not posting other pics of peeps sitting on couch watching me b/c you probably wouldn't care too much to look at them anyway. :) (But I've posted them on facebook).

Got some great things! Already wrote out 20 Thank You cards that I'll send out soon...

32 Week Appointment

Tim took a pic of me in the waiting room...

Let the fun begin...

We went in for my 32 week appointment today.

Weight: good. 30 lbs.

Blood pressure: good.

Urine sample: good.

Uterus size: good. 31 inches.

Baby's heartbeat: good. 151(? Don't remember what it was exactly).

Things looked great! Chatted with the doc a bit, then Tim was like, "Okay. Cool. Are you going to check her cervix now?"

I don't know if the doc was planning on doing that, but she was like, "Okay, let's do it."

So she checks my cervix. Everything still seems quite fine and dandy... she mentions that it's thinned more and that she's glad that we've still made it this far.

Tim probes her about the thinning cervix thing, and my docs like, "Yeah, it's pretty thin now. Last time it was about 50% effaced, and now it's about 80% effaced."

What?! Tim was like, "Uh, so 'work'. Should she quit?"

And my docs like, "Yeah. Don't go in to work tomorrow. I'll write you a doctor's note."

Woah! Just like that. And I'm done. CRAZY!

She gives me a prescription for something that will reduce my contraction (Braxton-Hicks?), and then sends us over to the hospital across the way to get some shots to stop the contractions AND to help develop the baby's lungs (in case she decides to come sooner-than-later). It sounds like it should be a quick trip.

3 hours later... :P

Another urine sample. Then they put a baby-belly monitor on me and measured my contractions for a while. Then they gave me a shot in each arm (spaced out about 30-60 mins...i don't remember) to stop/reduce the contractions. They monitored my heartrate to make sure it worked right (it made my heartbeat race for a bit, and made me feel jittery for a little while), and then gave me a shot in my hip for the baby's lungs.

Those little shots "stung"! :) Tim couldn't watch the nurse give them to me (even though I asked him to...hehe). When the nurse was going to give me the shot in the hip, Tim's eyes went bug-eyed and he was like, "Woah! That's big!" TOTALLY freaked me out a bit...but it was pretty much the same as the two in my arms. I slapped him (on the arm) afterwards and told him not to scare me next time. ;)

Then the nurse brought me a menu to order some food. She never exactly said how long we'd be there. Tim was starving so he went out and found a vending machine. I ordered some food from the menu...they said it'd take about 45 minutes. So we sat around...and waited... and watched T.V. (Seinfield...the Nazi episode).

FINALLY, it's almost 8pm and the nurse finishes up. She schedules me for the final round of contraction-shots for the next day at 5pm. . OH! And I guess I have a urinary tract infection. Who knew?! She called our doc to let her know the results of our visit, and our doc called in a prescription for some UTI medicine for me. This is getting complicated. :P

On the way home, I called my manager and let her know my situation. We'll see if we can set me up to access my work emails and files from home so I can continue to do design work while on bedrest. Ugh. Bed rest.

It'd be one thing if it were like a "bed-rest-cation'...but I'm supposed to ONLY get up to use the potty, to shower, and to grab something to eat. Otherwise I'm to stay down. No walking around. No shopping. No eating out. No church! :(

My next doc appointment was supposed to be in two weeks, but she wants to see me next week. So more baby updates in one week...

Car Fixes

So a summer or two ago, the fabric part of the roof of our car began to fall off (just in the back). I guess it was getting too hot for it, or something, and the glue was coming undone. (I have a "before" picture on my cell phone which I'll have to post).

UPDATE: 5/5/09 - added picture taken from my camera. See how the fabric was breaking off of the foam? Gross!

I remember one time, we tried to "fix it" with some elmer's glue. It worked for a little while, but I noticed recently that it was falling again... AND spreading! (It used to be just the corner...but it was heading across the entire width of the car).

Everyday I'd look in my rearview mirror and see it. And every day I would think of different methods I could use to try and fix it. I researched online. Nothing. Everyone would say to take down the entire ceiling and fix the entire thing.

One day, I finally had a genius idea! I took some extra seam tape (that I had from my temple bag), got some heat-resistant no-stitch glue from JoAnn's, and glued them together!

So here's a close-up pic of "after".

And this is a pic from outside the car (very bad pic...maybe I'll have to see if I can take a better one)... the purple lines illustrate how the fabric USED to hang down. It was nasty! But now it looks great!

Belly Dance

Wanna see a belly dance?

(I FINALLY got some good movement on video!)

Happy Birthday!

So for the past few days, Tim has been bugging me about what I want for my birthday. Usually I'd go for a shopping spree where I can venture from store to store and buy random stuff. But being pregnant and all, that didn't sound too much fun. Plus, Tim wanted to do something "different" for me this year.

I had no idea what he would do...ESPECIALLY since we spend most of our time TOGETHER.

Well, being the cutie that he is, he found a good way to surprise me.

This morning after waking up, he presented me with a pair of REALLY nice Yoga pants. Lululemons. I had never heard of them until this morning... I guess he went to the store and talked to the sales reps and they helped him pick out a pair for me. He said that there were a TON of other ladies at the store shopping the Lululemon line (while wearing their Lululemon items).

So today while at work, I did some research on this "Lululemon". (Pronounced "lu-lu-lemon").

It's a company based out of Canada...and a TON of yoga fanatics (and celebrities) LOVE their line of clothing and accessories.

Tim bought me a pair similar to the ones below... Black Capri's with a blue/turqoise band-top-waist. Their reversable, so on one side, the band is all blue. And on the other side, it's blue and white-and-gray striped.

They look like this on a mannequin (from a Japanese website):

And the long pants look like this on a real person (a very slim un-pregnant person).

I tried them on this morning... Ooh, are they comfortable! AND they give me a nice bum! haha! (Granted, this pregnancy thing has already given me a more booty-licious bum... but those pants sure give it an extra kick.)

:)

At work, I received a beautiful bouqet of roses:

That (above) is my cubicle. We've been in the process of transitioning our systems... so I have two phones on my desk (one is behind the roses). Notice my garbage can with foam board and a blanket on top...I put my feet up every so often.

After work, Tim took me to a nice steakhouse (that his co-workers recommended to him... they had just gone their the night before). The place was so cute!! We sat out on the deck and enjoyed a view of the green bayou.

We ordered their restaurant special, which allowed us to order a 4-course meal, including dessert. This is what we ordered...

TL: My appetizer, some sort of onion and red onion dish. Yummy! Tim ordered a bowl of French Onion soup (not pictured).

TR: Our side dishes...I ordered some German Potatoes (left), and Tim ordered some grilled Cheese Macaroni (right). Double good.

ML: Tim's entree, a 6oz Filet Mig.

MR: My entree, salmon...mmmm...SO GOOD!

BL: My dessert, Apple Strudel with vanilla ice cream. Delicious! I would go back JUST for the dessert!

BR: Tim's dessert, Raspberry souflee...VERY good!

At one point during our meal, Tim was like, "Ugh...I think I'm done. I can't eat anymore." A minute or so later he burped, and said, "Ooh, I feel better now. I can keep eating." haha!

Hairy Back...

So I've mentioned before (or at least I THINK I mentioned before) how I think my belly is getting a little hairy. Maybe it's because I have some of Tim's genes in me. :P (Tim doesn't think it works that way...but I SWEAR my belly is getting more hair on it! Thus, I wax it).

Anyway. So Sunday morning while I was still laying in bed, Tim lifted up the back of my shirt to scratch and massage my back. He says to me, "Woah, love!" (That's one of the nicknames he uses for me.)

So he says, "Woah, love! Your back is a little bit hairier."
"Really?!" I respond.
"Yeah... just right here," he says as he outlines an area with his finger. "Just this triangle area. The pores are larger, and there's more hair."
"How do you know?"
"I don't remember it being there before. Here, I'll take a picture."

He hops up and grabs a camera. After a few minutes (and coaching from me on how to use our camera), he shows me the following picture and says, "See."


"GROSS!" I exclaim.





Tim then starts laughing, "Hahahahaha!" and says, "That's my arm!!!"
SICK! We both had a good laugh, though.

But he says my back IS still a little bit hairier than "normal". Here's a pic (kinda gross...sorry).
SEE! Ugh... If it were any hairier, I'd DEFINATELY make Tim wax it for me. But I guess this is bearable for now...

So far, Tim has told this event to his teenage Sunday School class and probably his co-workers. Every so often, he'll just bust up laughing and say, "That was the FUNNIEST thing I've done to you! I wish I could have let it go on for longer!"

And I simply tease him and say, "You were so excited that you couldn't hold the joke in for any longer."

What a cutie...

Baby Shower with Tim's co-workers

This past weekend, our good friends (from Tim's work) threw us a nice baby shower. It was so much fun! About 12 people showed up (mostly couples... and mostly peeps that had interned with Tim a couple summers ago). Our friends Karen and Andrew went way out on this shower!

Below: Baby Food Taste Testing game... the person who guessed the most correct flavors won a prize.

Some of the food that they had for the party. The cake came later...

Our friend Stephanie won a prize for guessing (the closest to) my current pregnant waist size. It was funny to see how some of the guys guessed WAY too large! :)

After eating and playing some of the games, everyone sat around as Tim and I opened our gifts.

And here's the cake our friend Stephani got for us... Italian Cream cake.

These are the gifts we received... we laid them down outside of our door so I could take a pic.

Girls Night Out

So the other night, I went out with my friend Jan for her birthday, then we met up with some gals from church at a nearby chocolate shop that only sells chocolate desserts. Yum!


This is what we all bought/shared.

Baby Jogger Stroller

Since receiving the free car seats, we finally pulled out a boxed-up stroller that we received for Christmas from Tim's parents. It was fun putting the wheels and canopy on. Niiice!
I guess if we wanted to, we can buy an attachment that would allow us to put the car seat in this stroller... if not, we'll just use the free one.

No baby yet, but we're already loving this stroller!

Awesome $20 Finds! And other stuff...

A few weeks ago while in "nesting mode", I was constantly on "the hunt" on craigs list for good deals. And what did I find? Some awesome deals! (Well, at least *I* think so...)



I purchased the following two items for $20 each.


Black Baby Bjorn (I washed it in cold water instead of warm, and it cracked the logo thing on the front...so I unstitched it off).


Pink Bumbo Seat with Tray.

A lady in my ward gave me two car seats, a car seat base, and a stroller for free. They're "done" with having kids, and have no more need for them. One of them might be too "old" to use... but I have to double check on that.
Yesterday (Saturday), Tim had to go into work, so I spent some time wiping them all down with some Clorox wipes, washing the covers in the washing machine, and then washing all the plastic in hot water. Nice and clean!!!

Puppy!

Our puppy-friend Murphy is growing so fast! Here are some pics of Tim playing with him this past weekend...

Wierd Clothes

These pics are for my sister... because that yellow shirt was hers. :)

Speaking of my older sister... I was going to wear one of her long dresses that she gave me this past Easter Sunday... (it was a blue and yellow gingham-type dress). Tim said it was still too big for me, so I changed. Then at church, he told our friends that it looked like one of those polygamist dresses. Hey! Rude! :) haha...

Mexican Food

We've been on a Mexican kick recently. There's a decent authentic Mexican place nearby, but lately I haven't been a huge fan of it. So we've driven a bit further out to a nice sit-down place that's pretty good. These are some pics from our most recent Mexican-food-outings...

Tim and his queso fondido with chorizo.

My first torta... mmmm... didn't look like how I imaged, but tasted gooood! (Meat, lettuce, tomatoes, and avocado/guacomole inside of a nice sweet bread).

Some tacos (or something) that Tim ordered from our favorite Latin-fusion restaurant. :) More pricey, but still good.

Me (in a MOST unflattering picture) and my order of pork Papusas...DELICIOUS!

Back at our good-'ole far-away Mexican restaurant... Tim ordered a Tepatitlan Platter special, and I got two Sopes. Mmmm...