shower cookie making day

Today mars one week till our baby shower.  So today also starts my week of last minute shower prep and baking.  I started my day off with picking up my sister and heading to my grams house to meet two of my aunts so that we could make cookies for the shower... not plain old regular cookies but cute creative cookies.  After lots of research we settled on foot cookies with blue frosting and baby face cookies that aloud us to be a little more creative.  Here are a bunch of pictures of our fun day with cookies.

 My brother and sister decorating feet cookies...  my brother figures hed stopped by to judge our cookie work and help a little.

                                             Here is how the blue cookies turned out, Cute i'd say!

                                                                   Me and the cookies.

                                                            All my cookie helpers = )
                                                                               

                                                     I love how the face cookies turned out.

           And after decorating about 75 plus cookies we were all a little silly... guess who's belly is real??

                                                            Yay for cookie favors!

31 weeks

Today marks 31 weeks for me and my little guy... Thinking he will be here in 9 weeks or less seems so much closer than 10 weeks away.  I'm going to make a prediction here and now about his possible due date.  He is due to join us on January 11th but I think he will join us on December 29th.  I know its a bit early but the 29th is an important number to me.  My grandma that past away last year had a Sept 29th b-day and left us on August 29th and I really think her being in heaven was a huge part in us having this little guy.  I think he will share a lot of her qualities.
So in the last week my hubby finally got the crib and other baby furniture put together and we also got new carpet for our living room and bedrooms (its so nice and soft).  so my pictures this week will feature the baby furniture in the background. 

In this picture I'm showing an owl hat my mother-in-law made for the baby.  I really hope she makes all kinds of cute stuff for him to wear.

This picture is funny because my  dog max came and sat right next to me while i was getting ready for the camera timer to count down... he wouldn't leave my side until the flash went off = )

Baby's dresser, I can't wait to fill it with tons of cute baby boy clothes.

Changing table with storage, for now it just hold a few of the baby's stuffed animals.







I've still been feeling pretty good.  I get a little nauseated at night sometimes but it's never really that bad.  I think I'm up about 16 lb's in total... I unfortunately didn't gain any weight from my 28 week appt to my 30 week.  I've been trying to add a few extra snacks so hopefully next weeks at my 32 weeks visit I will have put on a  pound or two.

holly cow my little guy could be here in less than 10 weeks

Wow I'm 30 weeks along today.  It's amazing after everything we have been through in just 10 short weeks (or less) we will have our little boy in our arms.  I can't wait to see who's eyes he has and if he will have my lips and my hubby's ears. 
Today I had my 30 week checkup and all is great.  Doc says i measure well and everything looks good.  I feel so blessed that I've had such an amazing pregnancy thus far. 
My baby shower is 2 weeks away... I'm so excited to get stuff for the baby and to finally be able to decorate his room and start my nesting process.  As of right now we have the crib, dresser, and changer built but it will be nice to get his bedding and fill the drawers with little guy clothes.  I can't wait to share all the pictures when we have the shower.  A friend of the family offered to take pictures of the event, so hopefully we will have a lot of nice pics.

Here is a picture of me taken by my friend with my brand new camera... we were playing around taking pics at the park.
and another picture of me being silly.

We are going to go out this weekend and take some more pictures that will hopefully involve the hubby... It's been really cold outside so we probably wouldn't get too many.

Oh one more thing to add... I went this week to a cute little mothering store near my house that sells natural items.  I'm planning on using cloth diapers and having a natural birth, this store carries a lot of different cloth diapers and lots of natural toys and things that will be great for the baby and for me.  We plan on stocking up on a combo of all in one diapers and pre-folds with cute covers.  I also can't wait to get them and share pics, there are so many different cute styles to chose from.

26 & 27 weeks, getting so close!

I've almost made it to the 7 month mark.  Its still so surreal that in just about 3 months we will have our little man in our arms.  At this point in the pregnancy I defiantly feel pregnant all of the time but I still have thous moments of disbelief... After so long of waiting I still have the flashes at time of wow is this really happening? Crazy! A lot has been going on lately.  My mom and I have been trying to figure out the details of the baby shower, while my husband took charge of the invites and him and the ladies at his work made them and sent the out for me.  Here is how they turned out = )

Also in the last 2 weeks my hubby has been dealing with plumbing issues, ugg!  We replace the shower liner and put on new fixtures a few weeks ago and ever since then it has been issue after issue for him, on top of that he is trying to finnish our cabinets that he started at the beginning of summer.  Cabinets still need a few weeks of work but good new is we can use the shower again... no running to our family members houses to use there shower. 
And because I'm always behind on my weekly updates here is my 26 week belly pic.

I just love looking at my belly, watching my little guy wiggle and poke out from different spots.  My hubby even got a good belly session.  One night before bed we layed in bed and he got to feel pokes and kicks and rolls... every time he felt something different he would make a sound.  So cute, and so glad he got to feel so much movement.
Also this last Sunday (October 14th) was our 5 year anniversary.  5 years married and still as happy as ever.  We didn't do to much to celebrate this year, but my hubby did buy me an amazing can.on reb.el t3 dslr camera that should arrive any day.  I can't wait to play with my new camera... I've wanted it for so long.
Also on Saturday a good friend of mine who lives a little over 3 hours away go married.  We choose to drive up for the wedding and back home the same night (kinda an anniversary weekend adventure).  Here are a few pictures from the wedding and my 27 week belly.

me and joe

What I get to look at = )

Me and my friend tiff and 2 of her kids

I've been feeling the baby move so much  lately and I love it, I always encourage him to keep moving and growing.  I think I'm up to 126Lbs now (up from 112 starting weight)  But I'll find out my weight for sure on Friday at my 28 week checkup. 
As far as clothing, I have a few pre maternity shirts I can still fit into but for the most part i'm wearing all maternity clothes.  Thank goodness for my friend Amber who gave me a tote of clothes at the start of my pregnancy.  I still don't really have a lot of cravings.  I love sugary things and chocolate and could probably eat pizza and drink ices on a daily basis... Mmmm Pizza!  I think I know whats for lunch.
Another interesting this is that within the last few weeks strangers have finally stated asking me about my pregnancy or just saying things like "oh wow when are you do?"  I think it would be funny to say "oh I'm not prego" but I just can't do that I love being pregnant and sharing it with everyone.

I'm putting myself on probation due to my bad blogging.

First I must say, Wahoo I'm 24 weeks as of yesterday.   And My little guy is moving all over the place... I even got jabbed so bad last nigh under my ribs, wow it hurt.  But I love every jab he gives me.  The hubs has even got to feel him move a few times, even though when he puts his hand on my belly it almost seems like the little guy knows we want to feel him so he stops.   Even yesterday at my 24 week checkup when the nurse was cheeking his heart rate he kept moving away from the doppler, it was so funny then i started to giggle (that wasn't helping, lol).

So back to my opening statement for a moment... I'm putting myself on blogger probation.  One week ago at 23 weeks I realized I hadn't blogged in 3 weeks, gosh I hadn't even taken a belly picture. Then some how another week went by.  How in the heck was time going by so quickly? At the beginning of my pregnancy I wanted to take amazing pictures every week or more... and now time just seems to go by so fast.  How I don't make 5 mins 1X a week to take a picture is beyond me.  So anyway I vow to be better at keeping track of this pregnancy, I vow for my self, for my little man, and for the fact that I know how amazing it will be to look back on this whole journey. 

Ok back to my little boy = ) Oh how I can't wait to meet him.  Who will he look like? What color will his hair and eyes be?  It's so exciting to think of all the ways he could be like me or like my hubs.  And to know that we only 4 months to go,  gosh I remember when we started trying and 4 months into trying time seemed to be going so slow from month to month and now 5 plus years later with only 4 months till we meet our little guy it feels amazingly close. 
I can't exactly say I'm nesting yet But last week we registered at Bab.ies r u.s and Tar.get and that really helped.  Now that we have an idea of how we want to decorate and the theme of baby's room, and we should receive his furniture later next week.  I can't wait to set up his crib, and then to get all his things in there. Yay I can't wait.
                                     And without further adeau... week 23 & 24 belly pictures.

24 week bare belly

 

 

never mind all the junk on the floor, we are re doing our tub liner in the bathroom so now the whole bathroom is on the floor in the baby's room.

I'm still feeling really good.  Sleep is a little more restless... just lots of flipping from side to side due to my numbing hips.  I honestly don't really get craving, I often want sweets and junk food, but I think that is normal.

Am I really at the halfway point? Ya baby!

Friday marked a huge milestone for us... I'm 20 weeks pregnant.  Ahh it feels good to be halfway.   We had a 20 week Ultrasound to make sure our little one was on track, great news baby is perfect.  We also found out the gender of our little miracle (which I'll share soon).  Here are a few of the better pictures from our visit.

 Its was great to see my little one move around.  My hubby loved the part when we got to see our baby grab its toes and try to eat them.  So adorable.









We decided (well I decided) to share the news of baby's gender in a cute way, instead of over the phone.  So the day before we found out I baked 2 dozen chocolate cupcakes and set aside some blue frosting and some pink frosting to inject inside the cupcakes so that when our family's bite inside they would find out the gender... Its went over great.  Everyone was so excited and loved the sweet treat too.

                                                          Here is what everyone found = )

          Yes that's right, your eyes aren't deceiving you thats blue filling you see... We are having a baby boy, we are so excited to be able to start planning for our little man.  I've had a lot of friends on facebook                                for a belly picture so here is how I shared the news on there.

20 weeks prego.

I've been feeling good still.  I don't have headaches anymore which is amazing because they are no fun.  My sleep is getting more interrupted lately.  I'm starting to use the bathroom a lot more and due to sleeping on my sides my hips and my shoulders are sore throughout the night.  I'm open to any suggestions to help my hip and shoulder problems. 

Cravings: I still don't really have any craving, but i know I have plenty of time for that to change

Weight gain: I'm up to 120, my starting weight was 114 (i think).

Maternity clothes: I'm wearing 98% all maternity pants and I'm still in my pre pregnancy tops.  But thats mostly because I like to look pregnant... I don't want to wear baggy shirts that would cover up my baby bump.

Movement:  Yes I've defiantly been feeling my little guy move.  The other morning he must have been inspired by the Olympics because for about 2 hours he was flipping and turning.  It was crazy but awesome.  Since that day he hasn't moved that much... But he does like to get a little rowdy in there when I'm hungry,  and he also moves more when I'm at work, I think he's telling me he wants me to go home and not work.  I wish!

I'm sure I left something out of this post but the main point is yay I have a healthy baby boy growing and I can't wait to meet him <3

I hope you like pictures, and I'm 19 weeks.

This is going to be a quick update about me but mostly a picture post.  I've been on vacation for the last few days (or should i say staycation, cause I'm not going anywhere) and I don't have to go back till next friday. yippy!!!!!!  We celebrated my 29th Birthday yesterday,  we went to breakfast and dinner and i hung out with family all day... it was really nice.  Even better than my birthday today I'm 19 weeks prego and in one short week we will know if our little bean will be a boy or a  girl.  It's so exciting, time is just flying by and before We know it the new year will be here and I will be holding my long awaited miracle will be in my arms.

Me at 19 weeks prego

I had to ad this into this post because i found it in my closet from when I was in High school.  We had a child development class and we had to have egg babies for a weeks... well part of the project was to make a journal and this was mine, a project I was pretty proud of.  One one my proudest parts of the book was a page in which i drew a silhouette of a women with her growing belly and added a picture inside each growing belly of what the baby would look at during that stage of pregnancy.  It's so funny to look back on this book now that I am pregnant.  What a good memory.

Journal from my high school class

page from the journal

this is a cake cookie my sister made me for my birthday, yum!

Me and my hubby (oh and my new haircut)

This is my mom, me and my sister on my bday

me and my brother and the cool cherry cake he made me

me and my nephew Gabe, he told me a little secret today.  He's going to be a big brother and my little one is gonna have a little cousin.  lol not even born yet and my munchkin isn't the youngest in the family any more.

...and last but not least here is a beautiful picture frame my hubby made me for my birthday (with a pic from out honeymoon inside)

i've got pics

I had my 16 week checkup with the doctor today.  Everything is good and I even got another little sneak peak at my little miracle. 

ultrasound at 16 week

And because the only time in life its ok to take side profile pics is while your pregnant...

Me and baby

I didn't think my belly was this big but looking down i realize my feet are fading away like the moon, lol!

16 week belly close up... again I didn't realize my belly was getting this big = ) 

My pups laying at my feet as I take pictures of myself.

I hope everyone enjoyed my pics = )

i'll admit it, i'm bad at updateing. But i'm 16 weeks so yay!

I realized (a while ago) I'm terrible at updating.  My intentions are always good and then I open up my computer and poof my brain goes blank.  Can I blame my brain farts on my hormone?  I think so. 
I think each week that goes by is a milestone in my pregnancy but it does feel good to be at 16 weeks.  Four more weeks and I'll be halfway, that's a crazy thought to have.  From where I've come 5 years ago at the  beginning of my TTC journey to now I never would have thought I'd actually be experiencing this.  Amazing!

A few little things happened this week... earlier in the week I became a friend i never wanted to be.  I'll explain...  I have a friend from work, I'll call her J, we are good enough friends where we've gone out to eat a few times and text or call off and on.  We connected a few years ago because we where both dealing with infertility.  She dealt with recurring  miscarry and me of course with just infertility.  I never wanted to be that person who didn't share my pregnancy with another infertile friend (i know the hurt it can cause when it seems like someone isn't telling you something to "protect you").  Well I didn't do it on purpose, and honestly time got away from me.  I wanted to tell her at 12 weeks and poof before I know it I'm 16 weeks and haven't told her yet.  So I just did it. Two days ago I was thinking about what I would say in my test so i kept it short and sweet and just hit send.  And guess what... she already knew.  I hope I didn't hurt her by waiting to tell her. 
The other thing this that happened this week was a donation I made.  So a while ago I did a post called Expiration date It was pre pregnancy and I decided that we would do another round of IVF next spring before our leftover meds expired.  Well I've been thinking a lot lately about what to do with it.  I probably had 3 full vials of Follistim, and 2 full Gonarilex (sorry if that's spelled wrong).  I wish I had a friend I could give it to, but i don't... so I donated it to my old fertility clinic.  When I dropped it off they where so happy to have it.  And me as a hormonal prego person I was almost in tears as I walked out saying please make sure a couple in need gets this medication.  I know i'll never know who gets it, but What a gift it will be to a couple without insurance.

On to me  = ) and baby.
I've still been feeling really good.  I've had a few headaches but a lot less than the weeks before.   A little more of an apatite this week I'm sure that's due to my quickly growing baby.  It's crazy to think there is a 5 inch long baby inside me that could fit in the palm of my hand. <3
I haven't weighed myself in a few days but i think I'm up to 118 which is about 6lb's up in total (I think I was 112 pre pregnancy).  I'm finally to the point where I'm out of pre prego pants to wear, unless they are stretchy of course.  But thanks to my friend who gave me a large tote of clothes I have a few smaller maternity clothes to choose from.
Over all I think I'm definatly starting to really look pregnant and not just really bloated.  sorry no picture today.  I haven't really had a chance where I looked decent enough to snap a pic... maybe i'll try to get a quick pic tomorrow and post it.

14 weeks and baby stuff

Friday marked my being 14 weeks = ) yay.  Each week past the danger zone seems so much better than the last.  I still don't look too prego but I'm starting to feel extra bloated and I can tell lots of my clothes are getting tight.  I even had a spurt of energy the other day and got rid of 2 big bags of clothes i know I'm never going to wear again.  It felt really good to clear some space, even though i have A LOT more clearing of space to do.  Here is a picture of me at 14 weeks... Ignore the non matching pajamas it was late when i decided to take my picture.

I've still been feeling really good... less headaches this week but they still happen from time to time.  I've also been off work for the last week so I've had lots of time to rest.
This has also been a good week for me for deals and freebees... On Friday i went to a friends little one's 2nd birthday and while there another friend brought me a huge tote of maternity clothes.  Even though i wouldn't be able to wear a lot of it for a while its nice to know i have it.  There was probably 4 pairs of dress pants, 2 pairs of jeans, a few dresses and more than 15 shirts and sweaters.  I guess its paying off to be prego last out of everyone i know.  I also couldn't help myself and i bought a pair of dress pants for work that I can wear now, and a pair of shorts.  Even though I'm not showing a lot I just don't feel comfortable using hair ties to hold my pants together, lol.
Another really good deal i got this week was a basic baby monitor.  Its an older sony model, but it's still brand new.  I work at Walgreen's and happened to put the monitor on clearance 75% off so after the discount and my employee disc I only paid $10.  On top of all that I got a few free samples.  Here's all my cool stuff...

Oh I almost forgot my hubby bought me a fetal dopplor, and I have to say i love to lay and listen to baby's heartbeat... I even think sometimes if I lay really still and get the heartbeat really good I'll hear a "swoosh" which i like to think is the baby moving.

Rachel

Sorry for my MIA, I've been napping.

I'm so sorry for being missing for so many weeks. I'm doing wonderfully other than being so tired all the time. Aside from working all the time all I want to do is nap. I haven't even had any motivation clean my house, or check my email, I feel like a comlete sloth. And the longer I didn't blog the harder it became to know what to write. So much and nothing at all has been going on. Today marks my 13 weeks of. Ring pregnant and me and baby are doing amazing. Last week we had our 12 week appt and we got to here the heartbeat for the first time, again amazing. Our little baby bean had a heart hate in the high 160's and doc also let us quickly see how baby was doing. It was so cool to see him/her wiggle aground in there. My heart definately melted. Even though at moments It still feels surreal. I'm beyond happy, not to mention we made it passed the danger zone. (huge sigh of relief).  Here is a little sneak peek into my uterus, lol.

 And because I've been a bad blogger I'm going to get off my lazy ass and get back on the blogger train.  In one of my next few posts I'm going to try and do a weekly progression picture with all the weeks I missed updating.
So my next appt is at 16 weeks and my next ultrasound isn't untill 20 weeks, unless I beg my doctor at my next appt.  we will see.

How i've been feeling update:
up to about week 11 My breasts where soooo sore, but faded quickly halfway though week 11.  I haven't had any morning sickness, just a few nauseous moments around dinner or when i eat things that have squishy textures.  My only other symptoms are headaches, peeing alllll the time, eating more, and feeling overly bloated (i know that's the baby growing) all the time.  Like I said earlier I feel pretty good overall.  And again I'm so sorry for leaving everyone who reads my blog hanging.  And thank for caring, especially the few ladies who send me e-mails and messages encouraging me to stop being lazy and do an update.  I'm going to do my best to continue documenting this amazing time in my life.
I hope everyone else is doing amazing as well.    <3

update, update, update.. so busy but all good!

Wow so much has been going on since my last post... I fully intended on faithfully doing my weekly updates, but oh man between life, working, and my many many naps I haven't even found time to open my laptop.  I guess the level of fatigue is more than normal, and in turn for me being prego I'll take it.

So where to start... last Friday was 8 weeks pregnant and boy was I bloated (or at least that's how I felt).  I was In a friends wedding that day and prior to the wedding, prior to knowing I was pregnant I had purchased a bridesmaid dress that was too big... so of course I had the dress taken in (by the brides mother-in-law). Well a few days before the wedding I got my dress and when I tiered it on for the first time... umm... it didn't zip.  It was so uncomfortable, there was no way I could wear that dress to the wedding.  Luckily the morning of the wedding my sisters neighbor was able to free her morning and rip my dress completely apart (not a cheep task) and make it fit perfectly.  I didn't have the heart to tell my friend or her mother-in-law, but it fit so that's what matters.  Here is a pre dressed up picture of me and then a few pics from the wedding.

The wedding went well, we stayed up way to late but it was a fun night.  I don't much remember Saturday because i'm pretty sure I slept most of the day... lol! That's what prego's do best I guess.  Friday was my brothers birthday so we spent the day hanging with family.  A nice weekend but a busy one. 
So that brings us to Monday.  Yaay ultrasound day.   My hubby and I got to the doc about 8:45 for a 9am ultrasound appt.  Its was a mostly happy appt, but there was a small amount of sadness, but overall lots of happiness.  Let me explain, I'm laying there on the table goo on my belly me staring at the monitor.  And I say to the ultrasound tech "there was two sacs at my last appt on the unofficial ultrasound" and she looks at me and replys "hmm oh, those are the things they don't tell me" fallowed by silence.  So the little but of sadness was that one of the sacs is no longer in there... but the AMAZING news is that we have one healthy baby with an amazing heartbeat of 156.  It was so awesome to see the little flicker of the heartbeat... just amazing.  I was 8 weeks 3 days at my appt and baby measured a little small at 7 weeks 4 days, but I know that's ok, we'll catch up.

my little bean, oh how I love you already.

So all in all I've been feeling really good.  I've had a few really bad headaches, and daily spurts of nausea they can last from 10 minutes to hours... but I haven't had to through up yet so that's great = )  And my breasts are still really sore, and I have a really hard time getting through the day without a nap. But i think thats all really normal.
Tomorrow I  will be 9 weeks prego, yay!  And my next doctors appt will be right after I reach the 12 week mark.  We will be able to hear the heartbeat and just make sure everything is going normal.  After that appt my hubby promised to by me my very own Doppler so that way i can become obsessed with listening to it  = ).  We don't get to see the little bean until 20 weeks but I think at my 12 week apt I'm going to ask my doctor if it would be possible to have another one sooner, I just think I might go crazy waiting till 20 weeks to to see my little bean again.
To ad to my busy week we've celebrated my dads birthday, my mother-in-laws birthday and I went to my nephews kindergarten graduation.  Mixed in with a full week of work.