boy vs. girl

boy | girl

boy sweater | boy pants | girl sweater | girl pants

boy | girl

boy vest | boy boots | girl vest | girl boots

in exactly one week from today brian and i get to find out the sex of the baby!!!!! eek i am so excited. most bets are on a boy, but to tell you the truth, i have NO idea what it is. i really don’t care at this point if it’s a boy or girl, just as long as baby is healthy and soo sweet…which is a given (the sweet part:). i drive myself crazy looking at all these cute clothes and accessories for boys and girls. i told brian when we find out i am going out and buying an outfit first thing! this might be the longest week of my life…although i have a feeling that around 37 weeks, those might seem like the longest weeks of eternity! haha, maybe i will not be ready and want this little bugger to cook good and long. who knows! i come from a family of all girls, brian has two sisters, so the jury is out on what we will end up with. this baby is just keeping me on my toes! i will inform everyone in my 20 week post what we are having.

my winter essentials

 

scarf | coat | skirt | leggings | collar | boots | heels | earrings

although i hate being cold, there IS something to be excited about in winter…the clothes! from a casual day all bundled up, to a holiday party where you can be glitzy and bedazzled, you get the best of both worlds! as long as i am not scrapping snow off my car, or shoveling the driveway i am a happy camper. the winter also means bringing on the holiday spirit. warm fuzzy blankets and christmas lights, hot drinks and soups, family and friends are just some of the things that make my winters stay warm.

week by week: 18 weeks

 

ok, so i am not pushing out here…brian keeps saying “are you pushing your stomach out?” ha…no. this week has been really great! with the break from work, we were able to get a lot of baby talk off our minds. we actually decided to switch hospitals this weekend. this was a decision we made together and we both feel really good at it. we went and visited our new hospital and it was just gorgeous! brian’s cousin is a labor and delivery nurse at this hospital. i always told brian how much i would love to have her as my nurse while delivering. she seems like she would be a hard core nurse…no babying, yet understanding and getting me to really focus on delivery. so this weekend, she took us on a tour of the birthing suites and the recovery rooms. she was so informative and helpful, and the hospital was so clean and quiet. it made our decision really easy.  i am not going to go into specifics about why we considered changing in the first place, but we are ultimately really excited and happy about our decision. it was really quite funny, when we were in the birthing rooms and brian’s eyes started to widen. i think seeing those stirrups made it a bit more real! haha!

this weekend i did a bit of shopping too. i actually got a diaper bag which i am totally pumped about. it was 50% off, can’t beat that…well i guess when it’s a bizillion dollars to begin with it doesn’t really count…but it was a bag i REALLY wanted so being 50% was a no-brainer! i also bought baby a chambray shirt…duh, again, no-brainer. overall this week i have felt great! sometimes i forget i am pregnant because my body isn’t beating me down. i still haven’t felt baby yet, and i am getting really anxious. soon, soon…and we find out the sex of the baby soon too! yippie!

thankful for

i am thankful for a lot this thanksgiving, and these are just a few. hope everyone enjoys themselves this thanksgiving and eats lots of turkey. i know i will! the average person consumes 4,500 calories on thanksgiving…that’s scary…i am shooting for 3,000 🙂 happy thanksgiving!

life lately

1. thai dinner yumminess
2. a cat that loves to sit at the table
3. yay elections are done!
4. girl’s night
5. an over cheesy smile
6. nice saturday=open windows=cat’s heaven
7. a snuggly kitty
8. an old family pic
9. this doesn’t happen very often
10. we won some awards at work, and our clients were happy
11. watching a nasty youtube video…it was soo gross
12. visiting my midwife

week by week: 17 weeks

 

so this week i started experiencing some ligament pain, like pain in my belly. i have read that it is because the ligaments holding up your uterus are starting to get pulled and stretch as the uterus gets bigger and moves further up. ouch…not fun. but besides that i feel great! i am still working out and keeping my same routine that i had before i was pregnant (plus adding in saturday prenatal yoga, yay!). i have been able to keep up pretty good so far, except for in pilates. i feel like i am losing my strength in my abdomen, probably because i am…i have also done a lot of reading regarding pilates during pregnancy. some people say no, some people say modify, some people say no after 4 months…my midwife said as long as you don’t feel uncomfortable, go for it. well, i feel uncomfortable because i SUCK at it now. haha…it’s kind of embarrassing in class when i have slowly started to super suck at everything and no one knows i am pregnant. besides pilates i am still going strong. i want to try to keep up with this routine for as long as i can. i know soon i will not want to jump up and down as much or at all, but all the classes i take have modifications i can make. so fingers crossed i can make it for the long haul!

as the weeks dwindle down to when we get to find out the sex of the baby, it’s starting to become more real. like, geez this is going kind of fast…and then once we know the sex, the planning begins. brian knows that when i am in planning mode i can become a bit of a weirdo. i kind of obsess over things and won’t sit down until it’s done. some people may think this is nesting…but i do this with every stage of my life. i will have project after project after project to complete…but what’s wrong with that? there is so much planning that needs to go into a baby, and trying to figure out where to begin can be a challenge. i will let you know what i dive into first! ps. who is soo excited for thanksgiving and a long weekend! me!

happy weekend

after a very long and stressful week, i am looking forward to dinner and a movie with a couple of my best girlfriends. also, next week is only a three day work week. Hooray! last night my family came up for my mom’s birthday and we went out to dinner and came back to our house for some yummy vegan cupcakes that my sister made. i have never had a vegan cupcake…but they taste just like regular cupcakes. my sister is vegan and is slowly introducing my family to vegan recipes, and they are slowly warming up to the food. with thanksgiving coming up, i will have to find some good vegan recipes to bring to our family thanksgiving. well, hope everyone has a great weekend!

happy birthday mom

it’s my mom’s birthday today. i just wanted to share some great photos of how pretty and adorable she was! that first one is of my mom and i. doesn’t she look so happy! i can’t say enough good things about my mom. she is the woman i have always wanted to be; smart, creative, loving, caring, beautiful and most of all a great mom. as far as i can remember back, my mom has always been a very strong, solid woman. juggling a career as an artist and photography professor, all while making sure there was a home cooked (healthy) dinner on the table. i look at all she has done for my sisters and i and it makes me realize how amazing and determined she is. my mom would do crafts with us, she taught me how to draw, sew, sculpt, clean (ha, she was a stickler!) all while showing me that being unique was right. she always said “only boring people get bored”…i hated it when she would say that…but she was right. i would then come up with some grand idea for something fun to do, like dress my cat up in doll clothes, or make jewelry out of fimo clay.

soon when i have to take on the mom roll, i hope i can be as memorable as her. i hope you all have memorable women in your lives, and if so, tell them you love them and you are proud to call them mom. happy birthday mom!

our house: the bedroom

i took these photos of our bedroom a while ago, when it was warm, sunny and the cats loved to bask in the sun on the bed…now it’s cold and we are lucky if it’s sunny. for our bedroom i wanted to keep the colors somewhat neutral. this is neutral for me folks. the other side has the dresser that i refinished which really helps it stay neutral. i love the mint/aqua color, just enough to give into my love affair with color. i am thinking about some of that color in the baby’s room (which i can’t wait for). our bedroom is very modest in size and it doesn’t bother me a bit. i love that it is cozy. it isn’t so big that i need to add a sitting area that would eventually end up being a place where clothes get tossed. brian wants to upgrade to a king bed..but i am not sure it will fit…but we also don’t know how we are both going to fit on the bed with that dang pregnancy pillow a friend let me borrow. that thing is huge! i hear they are life savers though. i am not quite big enough for it yet (like i am not loosing sleep) so we will see when the time comes.

for me the bedroom is a place to just relax at the end of the night; read, snuggle, watch tv and unwind. so i don’t need something extravagant. what about you, what do you love about your bedroom? does your closet need to be 90% of the space? ha, i guess i wouldn’t mind that 🙂

week by week: 16 weeks

16 weeks…almost half way there…kind of 🙂 this week has been pretty easy. i feel great, i am not as tired, and i have no weird effects that everyone loves telling you about 🙂 i feel like i have a little bit more control over my emotions, which brian is loving. we went to the doctor last friday, and it went great. we got to hear the heartbeat; it sounded like a little train just chop choo-ing along. it was much stronger and louder than the first time we heard it…that means baby is getting bigger.

speaking of bigger…i am feeling a lot bigger these days too. i have been having a really hard time getting ready in the morning. all i want to wear is stretch pants…but then i don’t have enough tops that are long to cover up my butt….and i don’t want to look like i am ready to go to bed either. any of my girlfriends will tell you, when i can’t find something to wear…i am a crank! well to help solve this dilema, my girlfriends came came up to omaha for a little shopping and lunch date. they were so very sweet and patient with me, helping me pick out clothes and try them on. i think they liked it too 🙂 i finally got some maternity skinny jeans! and they are colored! so i will feel a little more like myself when i get dressed in the morning.

i am starting to have baby dreams. very vivid…and sometimes i don’t even think it’s our baby. i wonder if this means i am starting to actually realize i am pregnant? haha. it has been so strange so far because it seems surreal and i haven’t felt the little bugger move yet. i wonder if when i feel a flutter it will be more real? what are any of your experiences of when it really sunk in that you were having a baby?