Can I have some ice cream with my pancakes please?

34 week belly bump!

You might have heard something about how pregnant ladies have cravings during their preggers journey.  Well, I have to tell you, this feeling is very strong right now for me!  I love, love, love, anything chocolate.  Honestly, pretty much anything sugary and would probably fall in the ‘junk food’ category.  Also, there’s been some pretty weird & bizarre food items I want to eat in the same meal.  Below are some of the things heard around my kitchen table lately:

• Can I have some ice cream with my blueberry pancakes please?

• Is it ok if I have a few baby pickles along with my red velvet cupcake?

• And… probably the most bizarre (or maybe disgusting) thing I’ve eaten together– Last Friday night we had linguine & clam sauce and I wanted to drink my chocolate protein drink with it!  You should have seen the look on hubby’s face! :)

One of the biggest cravings I have at the moment is my desire to eat a box of those oh-so-delicious Girl Scout Samoa Cookies.  The problem is that they seem to be sold out in my area.  I’ve been to two different places today looking for them and I get the same answer, “sorry, we’re out of those” :(  Really?  How is this possible?  Can you point out the last person that bought that coveted purple box of cookies and I’ll follow them to their car?  Maybe they’ll take pity on a pregnant lady.  Is there some sort of preggers hotline I can call to get me a box of those yummers a.s.a.p.?

celebrate good times!

Wow!  What a week of BIG FUN I just had!  My sis and my mom flew out from SoCal to celebrate both my birthday and my baby shower.  What a treat!  I couldn’t even remember the last time we were all together for one of our birthdays… we were thinking it was my 21st; so it’s been quite awhile!!! :)  It was so much fun to have so much girlie time with them.  I really enjoyed having them here to share in all of the excitement and celebration.  Dear hubby says he wants a t-shirt that reads… “I survived estrogen fest 2009!”  We’ll see if that can be arranged ;)

A few pics from my birthday (click on the thumbnails to make pics larger)-

And check out the slideshow I’ve made of all of the baby shower FUN!  To make the slideshow bigger– Do you see all of those arrows pointing four different directions in the lower right of the slideshow screen?  Click there.  Wahhh-lahhh.  Big time slideshow.  :)  Enjoy!

31 weeks

Here we are at 31 weeks!  Wow!  I really can’t believe how fast the time has gone.  My preggers appointments are now every other week and when I hit the 35 week mark it’s every week to see the doc until little man makes his big entrance!  Everywhere I go people are asking me how I’m doing… I’m actually feeling just fine.  I eat like a horse, my energy level is pretty good, and I’m loving feeling our little guy move about it my tummy!  :)  It’s the greatest!  Oh, and… hubby has even felt the nut; he felt a pretty good kick-a-roo the other night.  Pretty exciting!

Since it seems like my belly is growing by the minute, my plan is to have hubby take a pic of me and the nut weekly up until delivery time.  Here are a couple of pics of us taken in our backyard this afternoon.

I’m off to watch the Super Bowl! Hubby and I have made a few friendly wagers to make things interesting… here’s what my $ is on:

-Steelers to win… and I’ve even given 7 points to hubby to start, yes– I’m that confident!

-Cards win coin toss

-Steelers for the first passing touchdown

-Cards for the first rushing touchdown

-Over/Under Bet- I’m saying under by 46 1/2 points

Wish me luck!!!

happy, merry, very belated: new year’s, christmas, chanukah, and my favorite– festivus!

…And any other holiday I might have missed! ;)  I hope you had a very merry holiday season.  Mine was jam-packed full of your typical holiday activities.  I think the best part was having family visit from the west coast.  We had so much fun while the fam was here– It’s fun having visitors; it gives us a chance to be tourists in our own town.  A big thank you to those who made the journey to our home for the holidays– thanks for making our first turkey day, Christmas, and New Year’s so memorable in our new house.  Love you guys!

Did you receive a merry holiday wishes card from our house to yours? You say, you didn’t?  Don’t worry if you feel left out, nobody did.  My bad. I’m actually thinking of starting a new tradition of sending Happy Groundhog Day cards to friends and fam to give myself plenty of buffer time for that task or maybe pushing it out even further to 4th of July.  Don’t be surprised if you receive a holiday card from us in February :)

You may be wondering why couldn’t we send a holiday card sometime during the entire month of December???  Hubby and I have been very, very, busy bees since about a week before Thanksgiving through New Year’s entertaining friends and family and even squeezing in a trip to the northeast for hubby’s holiday party.  That’s our story and we’re sticking to it!

So here’s to wishing everyone a very happy, merry, very belated: new year’s chistmas, chanukah, and my personal favorite, festivus!  And a happy and healthy 2009!

For your entertainment… Here’s some pics taken during the holidays.  Check out that preggers belly!  Don’t you just love the pic of me playing Wii???  I think it’s hilarious!  Enjoy!

cooking the turkey- check out our fancy new cooker!

taaa-dahhh- turkey is done!  Mmmmm…..

our outside Christmas lights

our tree

X-mas morning– I’m so excited over my measuring spoons… and check out my footie jammies!

cooking the X-mas roast beast!

Christmas dinner– don’t ya just love our hats?

Christmas Wii Mini-Golf tournament… check out that 25 week preggers belly in action!

mom, me, Janet, and 25 week nut bump

dad, rick, mom, uncle bob, jeff, and elvis!

me, elvis, and 26 week nut bump!

dad, multi-tasking :)

holding hands

23 week preggers update

Cute little face pics

Yesterday we had our 5th visit to our most awesome baby doctor (I really can’t say enough great things about her; happy she’s part of team meandering delivery!)  She says our little man is doing super fantastic.  He weighes in at 1 lb, 6 oz; according to BabyCenter he’s about the size of a mango this week.  We got to hear his little heart; it’s beating around 145 BPM.  And, we got to do another ultrasound, which was great because we got more pics.  Check out the pics above… I know, I know, you have to use a little imagination to see his little face.  But I think it’s pretty cute! :)

As for meandering mommy… things are just fine in the preggers department.  I have an incredible appetite now– if I’m not dreaming about our little guy then my thoughts are pretty much consumed by food :)  I keep thinking, is that ok? And… I have finally started to feel the nut ‘fluttering’ about.  It’s very exciting!!!  No kicking yet; just a butterfly kinda feel.  I love it!

I do have something to whine about… preggers has a COLD.  It was bound to happen.  Hubby was sick last week, and the week before when we had our family visting for the gobble, gobble holiday, one family member brought us this lovely present that just keeps on giving (or should I say sucking the energy from you!  It’s bad enough that the nut has pretty much eaten my brain; now with this cold, what am I’m I gonna do?)  Thank you very much for this early present (don’t worry, you haven’t been transferred to my naughty list :) )  I’m not a very good sicky patient when I’m not preggers BUT being sick and preggers… Ugh!  I basically just have to suck it up until this cold goes away.  I’m thinking about strapping a kleenex box to my face and my throat is so sore (whine, whine, whine).  I can’t take any of those ‘good meds’.  No Nyquil for me.  I know, I know… this too shall pass. I just want this cold to hurry up and go away already!

Off to make some hot tea and settle in for some TiVo watching.  sniff, sniff!

22 weeks!

Wow… Are we in December already?  I can’t believe it.  And, I can’t believe I’m a little over halfway through this preggers experience.  I’m feeling soooooo much better!  The second trimester has been great!  That whole ‘all day sickness’ experience is a distant memory.  Thank goodness :)  Next week we have our 5th prenatal appointment– can’t wait to hear how our little man is doing.

Here’s a pic of what my belly bump looks like at 22 weeks.

B is for…

I’m a BOY!

Looking at us

Boy Feet

1st Outfit

Yesterday we had our big ultrasound appointment and are VERY HAPPY to announce that we’re having a little BOY! So if you voted for a boy (and it looks like 52% of you did), give yourself 10 gold stars:)

Our little man gave us a really good show (sorry, I won’t post that pic– I don’t want that to bite me in the butt later.)  Here’s how the first 3 seconds of the appointment went:

Tech:  Do you guys want to know the sex of the baby?
J & J:  Yes!!!
Tech:  You are having a boy!!!
J & J:  (looking at the ultrasound screen)… oh, Yes, yes, yes, that’s a BOY all right :)
J & J:  (BIG SMILES on their faces)… YAY, the nut is a little boy!!!

We couldn’t believe how fast the news came!  My biggest fear was that we were going to walk away from this appointment not knowing what we are having.  For the remaining 29 minutes of the appointment (besides not thinking about needing to pee really badly) we got to watch our little man wiggle around; we saw his heart beating, the top view of his brain, fingers, toes, knees, and tummy.  It was the best show I saw all day!  And, I was very proud of myself for being able to hold it for so long!  (Ladies, if you’ve been through this you know what I’m talking about!)

After the appointment we had to go to the mall and get our boy his very first outfit.  Check out the pic… we found a little onesie with acorns on it.  Get it?  Because we’ve been calling him our little nut.  His 1st outfit- complete with socks, a hat, and pants.  It’s sooo cute!  Next mission… we have to start working on some boy names.  And hubby is starting to plot on how soon we can enroll our son in soccer camp.

We are soooo excited to finally know what this nut is!!!

baby belly bump at 16 weeks

It’s Friday, so that means the nut and I have reached 16 weeks today!  Hubby and I thought we’d better start taking some belly pics to document my preggers experience.  Here’s the first one.

Also, we thought it would be fun to see what you guys think the gender of the baby is.  So what do you think???  We’d love to hear all of the guesses!  I’ve created a poll (do you see this in the sidebar on the right?) to keep track of the votes.  You have a little less than a month to vote; we find out what the nut’s gender is on November 12th.  Is the nut a baby boy or a baby girl????  Stay tuned…

the sweetest sound

Today we had our 3rd prenatal visit.  The doc says that mommy and baby are doing just fine.  We didn’t get to do an ultrasound today (boo!- I like to see what’s going on in there) BUT we did get to hear the most sweetest sound– the nut’s heartbeat!  It sounded like if you were in a tunnel and hearing horses galloping by.  So sweet!  Just made my heart melt.

Our BIG ultrasound is scheduled for next month.  During that visit we’ll find out if the nut is a little boy or a little girl.  I can’t wait!!!

15 weeks!

Wow!  I can’t believe that today marks 15 weeks of this preggers journey!  BabyCenter says that our little nut is about the size of an apple today.  That’s pretty amazing to me as I look down at my belly thinking, I can’t believe there’s something in there the size of an apple! I really don’t have that big of a bump yet; must be a small apple :)  Another book I have says that the nut is the size of a navel orange.  There’s no way my nut is the size of an orange– but all of this fruit talk is making me hungry for an ambrosia salad!

Now that I’m cruising in my 2nd trimester, I thought I’d share some thoughts of my 1st trimester…. a word of warning– especially for my readers who haven’t yet experienced this wonderful journey, what I’m about to tell you is the honest truth of what could possibly happen to you! :)

First (and this is a big one!)– Morning sickness happens not just in the morning.  If that were really the case, that would’ve been a dream for me!  I’ve been dealing with this 24/7.  That’s right.  No exaggeration (and I’ve been known to do that!).  I’ll spare you the disgusting details– just know that there’s been some really gross moments.  I got all sorts of advice on how to deal with this and tried it all.  But what really worked for me is trying to keep my tummy full (of  what I could keep in my tummy), snacking on green apples, saltine crackers, no fatty/greasy foods, and eating crystallized ginger.  This has been the most exhausting and frustrating part of being preggers– but I’ve had a really awesome support team to help me deal with all of this.  Special shout out to hubby for always being there to hold my hair back!  Wuv!

The good news is that I think (and I don’t want to jinx myself!) I’m really turning the corner on this.  I’m really starting to feel much better.  I’ve felt like I have had more energy this week, and I feel like I want to venture out of the house more and more.  I still have some moments where the heaves and nausea sneak up on me, but I can deal with that.

I also know that I’m starting to feel better because I’m starting to crave certain food items.  For example, I was at the grocery store yesterday, in the ice-cream aisle, and pretty much wanted to eat all the ice-cream.  I even considered opening up a box of fudge pops right then and there.  This is funny to me because I’ve never really been an ice-cream person, but now I am!  I also have big cravings for chocolate, cupcakes, and cookies.  Guess the nut has a bit of a sweet tooth?! :)

Another funny thing that has happened to me is that my meandering mind is WAY out of control!  I have become soooo scattered in my thoughts and I’ll totally forget things.  Yesterday I drove past my house on my way home from getting my hair cut.  Who does that?!  I think I was so consumed by my thoughts that I forgot what I was doing!  At least I realized what I did right away!  And, don’t even think about giving me a list of things to do and think I’ll remember it.  I won’t.  Everything must be written down.  I never used to be like this.  I’ve also been known to be hunting for my shoes, car keys, and purse.  Maybe I need to write myself a note on where I put these things down. Am I losing my mind?

I’m also discovering the wonderful world of pregnant lady clothes.  I had a sad moment last week when I tried on my favorite Lucky Jeans and I couldn’t button the top button.  Yes, I really cried about it (people, emotions are very high right now!).  I’ve officially had to make the switch to maternity jeans and I have to say they are really comfortable!  I never thought I’d be so happy with an elastic waist.  But I am– and proud of it!  No more zippers or buttons jamming themselves into my tummy.  Elastic jeans rock!

By far, the best thing that I’ve discovered in this wonderful, wild, crazy world of being preggers is despite some of the gross things I’ve been through, I wouldn’t change a single minute of it.  Crazy, huh?!  I know that in a blink of an eye our little nut will be here and my days of being preggers will be over.  I try to soak in all these moments; especially the great ones like day dreaming about the nut, or when hubby and I talk to the nut or when hubby kisses my tummy every night before bed.  That’s when I just want to freeze time and take a picture.  Oh no!  I’m starting to get teary thinking about it… off to find some kleenex!

Next week we have our 3rd prenatal appointment.  I’m excited to hear the nut’s heartbeat and maybe I’ll have another pic for ya!