29 Weeks

I have been wanting to do a post for a while now, however Greg and I are trying to finish his fall semester by sharing my computer until his can be fixed and with finals going on right now you can bet there isn't a whole lot of sharing!

On Sunday baby girl and I reached 29 weeks! I just absolutely can't believe it. It makes me so excited to think that she will be here so soon and then again.. I just want to go into panic mode. 

This Saturday we fly home to WA to spend Christmas with my family and then on Dec. 27, Greg and iIwill fly to Denver to bring in the New Year with his family.

While we are in WA Greg and I will be celebrating our two year anniversary. Its weird because it feels like it hasn't been that long and then I think again and it feels like it's been wayy longer- and in reality it has. We've known each other/dated for nearly four and a half years now.  I'm so grateful he is my husband and that I was crazy enough to wait for him like I did.  I'm so happy I get to spend every day of my life with him. He really is my best friend.  Days like today its all I can do not to wait by the front door for him to get home. Because he treats me like a princess, I already know how he's going to be with our little girl.  He is going to be a great dad and she is one lucky girl to have him.

Speaking of Greg, he celebrated his 26th birthday at the end of November and we got to spend the day together.  We went to the PSu vs Nebraska game and then saw Catching Fire that night. It was a good time.

Happy Birthday!

Greg sporting his new coat the PSU football game.

For Thanksgiving my parents flew to PA and we had a nice quiet holiday together.  While they were here we drove to NYC and got to see some pretty cool sites. It was just a quick trip but after two days of crowds and rain I was ready to head home. We made lots of good memories though and I will always remember my first trip to the big apple was with them. :)

Greg and I at Liberty Park 

Mom and Dad in Central Park

Photo bombed by my dad at Liberty Park 

Greg overlooking NYC. (Pic taken from New Jersey)

Time Square

Anyways, back to the baby.  She has been kicking a lot lately and its to the point where its getting uncomfortable and almost painful? Hard to think a little baby foot can do that.  She is active most of the day and I like it that way.  I love the little reminders that she is doing okay and that I've got some company.

Again, its been all I can do not to want to start shopping for her. I mean- I have a little bit, but not a lot, which Greg may or may not agree with... And all these little Christmas dresses, I just love them. I can't wait for next year when I can put her in a poofy Christmas dress.

Today I had my Glucola appointment and I don't know what all the fuss is about.  I didn't think it was bad at all! It was an orange soda type of drink, which I don't know if that is the same for everyone. But I didn't mind it. Cough Syrup, GI cocktail and Milk of Magnesia is worse. Hands down.
Baby girl is doing well. Heart rate of 142 which has been her normal heart rate pretty much the whole pregnancy. I find out the results from my blood work sometime later today. Now for the Baby bump!

Week28

Week 29

How far along? 29 Weeks 3 days

Total weight gain: 19 lbs (I gained 10 lbs in 5 weeks, ha)

Maternity clothes? Full time maternity clothes.Stretch marks? Nope.Sleep: I sleep pretty well. I have been waking up every night to go to the bathroom though, sometimes more than once.  My back hasn't been hurting me as bad as it was around week 24-26 which is nice. I have noticed that when I wake up my arms are tired and I think its how I position them under my pillow because I can't roll onto my back as I usually would..maybe?

Best moment this week: Greg was in his office studying and I came in to talk for a minute and he touched my belly and realized he could feel the baby and got all excited and wanted me to feel what he was feeling. I thought it was cute. I told him to keep his hand there because I feel her all the time. 

Miss Anything? I miss things like lunch meat, not feeling guilty when I sneak a little bit of cookie or bread dough while baking- which results in me spitting it out, don't worry. I miss being small and feeling cute.   

Movement: She has been pretty wild the last week. She has upped her game.  Its starting to be really uncomfortable and I can watch her to her thing through my belly and it just starts popping out all over the place.

Food cravings: For a while there I was really craving Pop. Diet pepsi especially and Root Beer. Thats one of the more real cravings I have had. Everything else has been mild. 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing has been making me sick or queasy. I have gotten over my issue with maple syrup and have been enjoying it once again.  

Gender: Baby Girl                              

 Labor Signs: None yet, however I did have some cramping on my right side during week 27-28. That wasn't fun. Just muscles stretching I think.

Symptoms: Slight cramping, I have been shedding a lot of hair.

 Belly Button in or out? Out. It feels really weird like there is a lot of fluid behind it.  

Looking forward to: Christmas in WA & New Years in CO, and then my next appointment is on January 10. During Christmas I am excited to see my nephew and niece who just had their first birthdays. I can't believe how much they have grown. 

24 Weeks

It is so amazing to me how fast time flies.  I swear we just moved to Pennsylvania. But actually- it has already been almost three months. When we moved in, I was about 13 weeks pregnant and here I am 24 weeks pregnant. Halloween has come and gone and I am shocked that it is time to start getting excited about my parents coming to visit for Thanksgiving and for our trip to WA and CO for Christmas/New Years, and then before we know our little girl will be here! AHH!

In one of my recent posts I mentioned that I had been craving some specific fast food restaurants and I am happy to report that I got my fill at KFC a couple of weeks ago when I was visiting a neighboring town with a friend. This is the picture I sent to Greg. I plan on eating at Arby's when I go back. 

We also were able to visit Way Fruit Farm a couple of weeks ago with some friends.  They have a touristy little shop there where you can buy produce and cute country home decor. They also had a tractor hay ride out to the pumpkin patch. The patch was 10 acres of pure pumpkin fun. It was huge! After roaming for about a half hour we finally found one to adopt and bring home. 

I carried this pumpkin all over the place and in the end we didn't even buy it.  :)

After getting our pumpkins we were ready for Halloween. This year we greeted Halloween in a different fashion. Usually we would go as Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, however we found these Ninja Turtle pajama onesies at Walmart and couldn't turn them down.

I added some red flannel to Greg's costume because he wanted to be Raphael.  I also grabbed these tin cooking pans from the dollar store and painted them to look like shells. We had a lot of fun wearing these and the overall response from our friends made it worth it. :)

Week 23

Week 23, Day 4

Week 24

How far along? 24 Weeks, 1 day

Total weight gain: 9 lbs 
Maternity clothes? I am pretty much wearing maternity full time now.  I can still squeeze into some jeans if necessary but they put more pressure on my bladder which I don't love.
Stretch marks? Nope.
Sleep: I sleep pretty well. I have been waking up every night to go to the bathroom though. And sometimes when I lay down to go to sleep I just ache in my lower back and hips. But that has only happened a couple of times.
Best moment this week: I woke up to baby girl's bum sticking out of my belly. I was really lop-sided. 
Miss Anything? Still missing some Arby's but I really just miss family and not getting to share this with them.  
Movement: She moves all time. I notice it mostly when I wake up and go to bed.  She has started to really kick and dance all over my bladder. 
Food cravings: No crazy cravings, I eat a lot of cold cereal though just because its so easy. I eat so much and its hard to get creative after a while. Cold cereal fills the gaps. 
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nothing has been making me sick or queasy. However, I have not been able to eat maple syrup in a while.

Gender: GIRL. We are going to outnumber daddy. :)                               Labor Signs: No, thank goodness. :)

Symptoms: Really hungry, and I can eat a lot.  Greg has been laughing at me as I go through bags of cereal.  My lower back has been hurting which is a nightly/daily thing. My hips were hurting last night and today my left hip flexor is bugging. I also have been having to go to the bathroom sooo often. My hands are dry from always washing my hands.

 Belly Button in or out? It's pretty much an outty now. I have such a deep inny belly button too. I thought it would take longer.
Looking forward to: Appt. on Nov 18, and then Thanksgiving when my parents will come out and visit!!!

Nursery Updates

Recently I have been feeling the relief that comes with second trimester. Because I have had so much more energy I felt I better tackle some of my larger projects before I get too tired and before the weather here in PA gets too cold!

When we moved from Colorado, Greg's mom sent with us an old toy chest that he and his siblings used while growing up.  I have been excited to give it a more updated look and match it to our nursery theme. I also just really like this kind of project so I was really excited to finish it!

About two weeks ago I started nesting. It started with Greg's childhood memory boxes we inherited from his parent's house, (all six of them) and I was able to downsize to five. Success.
I am sad to say that these are the only before pictures I captured.  While I was cleaning/organizing Greg's boxes (notice all the clutter on floor), I snapped these pictures and sent them to my mom telling her about how I planned to refinish them and I am SO glad I did.

BEFORE

AFTER

The beginnings of our nursery

After a light sanding, I used a small roller and started painting. It took many many coats of paint and lots of light sanding in between coats to get a nice smooth finish but I am happy with the outcome. I sprayed with polyurethane semi gloss finish and to Gregs relief finally put all my crafting tools away. :)

Eventually I am hoping to find some foam and sew a cushion cover for it and put it on top of the toy chest so it can be a seat too. Another day!

I finished this project at 22 weeks and here is a belly update for Week 22. (I am 23 weeks now... picture to come!)

Week 22

20 Weeks Pregnant

**I'm quite aware that my blog up to this point has been the most boring blog in the world, but I decided I wanted to document this and this is the easiest way.**

On June 19 we found out we were about 4 weeks pregnant and have been thrilled ever since. Considering we had just only started "trying" the month before, we were pretty shocked it happened so soon, but we're so grateful. We got to see our gummy bear baby for the first time on July 10, 2013 and reality really started to set in. 

Week 7

Day 1 of week 6 the nausea came and I was always trying to pack my stomach with food to make sure it never got empty, and as the books predicted it left quite abruptly in week 12, however, I have had a lot of headaches since week 14.

On August 11, 2013 we moved from Colorado to Pennsylvania.  I rode with Greg in the moving truck and thanks to me we made multiple restroom stops along the way.

 Just after moving in I hit 13 weeks and we slowly saw my tummy starting to pop out just a tiny bit.

 Week 13

Week 15

Week 16

Week 17

At week 16 it became more and more pronounced, and at 17 weeks I felt some baby movement or "butterflies" as I have heard people describe it, but I never truly felt a kick until week 19 and Greg got to feel one at 20 weeks. 

On Oct 7, 2013 we had our 20 week ultrasound.  We were so nervous to find out what gender our baby was and also just hoping that everything would look okay and healthy.  The night before was like Christmas Eve.  We could hardly sleep and then we woke up a little earlier than usual. We were excited! I was pretty convinced it was a boy, but was hoping for a girl. I had convinced Greg it was a boy, and Greg's family and my family for the most part thought it would be a boy.

 Prior to my appointment I was asked to go to the bathroom an hour before, drink 40 ounces of water, and then not go again until told to at my appointment.  As we started to make our way back to the exam room my left back started killing. The U/S tech had me sit on the table so she could start taking measurements with the U/S. Immediately she said whoa your bladder is full, go to the bathroom, so I did, came back and my back was still killing me.  At one point I could hardly even scoot back for her (lack of abs and hurting back) she then goes to say "I think your poor kidney is working over time with all the water you drank and she then began to ultrasound my kidney!  And what was funny, is I only drank 25-30 ounces of the 40 ounces they asked me to.  The pain luckily started to go away and the appointment wasn't ruined.  At first, our baby was asleep with a heart rate of 142 (previous HR's of 148, 149, and 168), and then it woke up and started moving around all over. When the moment came for the gender reveal the tech asked to make sure that we wanted to know and we said yes, and then she said "oh good because this one is not shy at all! It's a Girl, FOR SURE!"  And then we realized what I was thinking was a penis was a leg and yes, she was giving us a show!  The rest of the appointment baby girl was swimming laps in mommy's tummy and they could barely get the last measurements they needed, but they did and we were on our way! Shocked to say the least!

After finding out its a girl, it is all I can do not to go shopping and find cute summer clearance clothes that she will be able to wear next year. Girls clothes are sooo fun. I also made 8 burp cloths yesterday and am itching to do more (so typical of me). I need to just slow down and save some projects for when I'm not working the couple months before she comes.

If you look closely here it looks like she is smiling. :)

Baby Girl's feet and her toes she got from her dad.
LOVE her.

Burping Cloths I made from flannel. Greg picked out the elephants and I picked out the lady bugs
The dark and softer pink are on the opposite sides of the cloth.
Loved making these

I love shopping for baby girl!

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Week 20 Day 4

How far along? 20 weeks 4 days

Total weight gain: 1.5 lbs
Maternity clothes? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I have been wearing maternity shirts so I don't stretch my regular ones, and I have been wearing maternity pants and pants I had before that were loose fitting.  When I don't wear maternity clothes I can hide my bump pretty well. 
Stretch marks? Nope.
Sleep: Like a BABY and sleeping in too. Love my life. 
Best moment this week: We got to go in and have our 20 week ultrasound. Loved seeing my baby be so active and lively on the screen. :) Found out it's a GIRL!
Miss Anything? Family and West Coast & Arby's and KFC. 
Movement: Oh yeah, I love it.  I wake up every morning to baby girl swimming laps in my belly. 
Food cravings: Just food in general.  Earlier in pregnancy I went through a jar of pickles in a week and really wanted a cheeseburger one night but nothing since. 
Anything making you queasy or sick: Um when I see zombie commercials on TV or when I hear people do voice impersonations of batman or any of his enemies. IDK why but yeah. woof. 
Gender: Little GIRL!
Labor Signs: Nope!
Symptoms: Feeling really good this week, however sometimes I have noticed a little bit of a loss of appetite.  I'm hungry, but nothing sounds good. Belly Button in or out? In, but its slowly changing! I have a really deep belly button and its getting quite shallow. 
Looking forward to: Halloween, but mostly Thanksgiving when hopefully my parents will come out and visit!!!

Harry Potter World

It has been so long since my last blog post and even longer since I have added an update on where we have been and life in general!
In Decemeber we gradated from BYU-Idaho and moved to Utah in January to finish our internships.  After our internships finished in March, I flew home to visit my family in WA and Greg flew out to University of Minnesota and Penn State to interview and look at grad school options. After our mini vacations we went on a big vacation to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida with Greg's parents and his little sister, Sariah.  We spent many hours on the beach and by the pool and had a great time.  While we were in Florida we took a trip to Orlando and went to Universal Studios to go to Harry Potter World! It was a belated birthday present from Greg and his parents and lets just say it was pretty awesome.

Our view of the beach from out Apartment.

Greg and I with our Chocolate Frogs!

 Greg and I outside of the Zonkos joke shop

 The Three Broomsticks!

Hogsmede

 Hogwarts Express

 The Hog's Head Pub

 Ollivander's and you can bet we got our own wands...

 The Owl Post

 Greg and I sampling our Butterbeer.

 Hogwarts

 Gladrags robe shop

 Honedukes

 The Owl Post

Hogsmede

Inside the Three Broomsticks

 Hogwarts up Close

Hogsmede again

 Jurassic Park Ride

AND My Loot. Please excuse the Pillow without the case! I had thrown it into the wash!
Prior to going to Harry Potter world, Greg made me take the Personality test which decides what Hogwarts House your in.  I didn't know what it was for and after 120 questions we found out that I was in Gryffindor! I was thrilled. Greg is in Hufflepuff. haha. Anyways we each got a banner for our house and a wand- which I don't know what we'll do with but oh well.

After our vacation we came home to Colorado and were forced to make a decision we had been putting off for a while.  We have decided to attend Penn State and are really excited for what is in store for us and for the unknown in general! We look forward to our big move in August!