24 Week Update

A 24-week old fetus

Everyone says that the 2nd trimester is better than the 1st, but I'm not sure that's true for everyone. And I'm sure if I had been sick during the 1st trimester, then I would agree with the masses. But, since I had a very easy 1st trimester, the 2nd one doesn't really seem that much better or harder, just different.

Slightly more energy: I have more energy than I did during the 1st trimester, but I'm still not running on even close to 100%. I hear that the 3rd trimester, you get really tired again... great.

Backaches, backaches, backaches: Oh my. This is probably the worst and most prominent symptom I've had to date. Not a day goes by that I don't have back pain. It makes me feel like an old woman. I'm so used to sitting cross legged in chairs, and sitting on the floor for hours, and I just can't do that anymore. Even sitting normally on the couch gets painful without a pillow in the small of my back. And church is starting to feel really long in those uncomfortable benches and chairs. Though, on the upside, at least Eric is more prone to give me backrubs now :)

Lack of control of my own bladder: Umm... yeah. Let's just say it ain't pretty if I my bladder is full and I sneeze. I've learned to run at the first sign of a sneeze. On a particularly bad day, Eric bought me "What to Expect When You're Expecting" to cheer me up, and because one of the ladies in the movie had the same problem. If you haven't seen it yet, you need to, so many good laughs.

Acid reflux: I've heard many women complain of heartburn, and luckily I haven't had heartburn once... yet. But I have had my fair share of unpleasant acid reflux. It happens with no matter what I eat or drink, even water.

Swollen fingers: If I don’t drink enough water or exercise in the sun my fingers swell, bad. And it’s extremely uncomfortable. Luckily I usely work out in an air conditioned gym, and drink plenty of water, but if I haven’t, I can quickly tell. I'm just hoping I can keep the swelling down to a minimum... I really don't want to have to take my wedding ring off or get cankles...shudder.


Disappearing belly button: I knew this, I expected this, but it sure is weird when it starts happening to you. It’s only just begun, and I’m sure I’ll end with an “outie” before we’re done, but can I just say that I have a huge aversion to outies? I think they are abnormal and downright creepy, (I really hope baby girl doesn't get one!) so I’ll be glad to have my old belly button back.


Aching feet: When I spend a lot of time on my feet, which with a desk job is uncommon for me, but when I do, my feet ache, a lot. Last week when I picked raspberries all morning and spent the mid afternoon making jam, my feet were in serious need of a massage.

Lots of kicking :) She has been kicking a lot lately. It took me awhile to really feel her kicks (around 19 weeks) and when I did they felt kind of like cramps and kind of like gas and kind of like something really weird. So, even though it was so neat to feel her alive and kicking up a storm in there, it wasn’t my favorite thing. As they have gotten stronger and more frequent they feel less like cramps or gas and more like a baby kicking—which is still so weird and amazing.

Eric has yet to feel her kick, she’ll only kick a few times in a row and by the time he his hand in position, she’s done. She really likes to kick mid-morning too, so Eric has fewer chances to feel her kick. I’m hoping this is a good sign, that she doesn’t wake up and start having a party when I’m trying to sleep, and is instead awake when I’m awake.

And today for the first time, I not only felt her move, but SAW her move. Boy was that weird, and it was only a little tremor! I’m a little terrified for the day when I see my whole stomach move with her! Definitely having half-vampire baby nightmares here (thank you Twilight...not)!

I'm well on the way to getting things ready for baby girl's debut in 16 weeks. 

1.I'm in the middle of crocheting 2 baby blankets (1 for her room, 1 for her baby blessing)
2. I'm half way done with the bird mobile. 
3. Her crib is painted white and ready to be set up.
4. I have fabric to make her crib skirt, binkie clips, hair bows, and throw pillows for the armchair (that we have yet to get).

But I'm in no rush for her to get here just yet. She can stay nice and cozy inside and that's just fine with me. Though by 34 weeks I'm sure I'll be wishing she would come early.

Gender Reveal

The fateful Thursday finally dawned and I could not have been more excited! Uncharacteristically I woke up before the alarm, and cheerfully said (shouted) in Eric's face, "Today's the day! Aren't you sooo excited?!?" And I then I laid back down and feel back asleep until after the alarm went off a few times. Eric was exhausted, but I tried to rub off some of my enthusiasm onto Eric (he was excited, just not quite at that decibel that early in the morning). I felt like a kid on Christmas, and I honestly don't think I've been that excited since our wedding day.

Unfortunately I had to go to work until 2:00. So I spent the morning failing to focus on work and my articles and talking to my co-worker Madi about how excited I was.

Finally, 2 o'clock came and I was outta there! I raced home to pick up Eric. Eric, unlike me, didn't want to leave right away and be early for our 3:00 appointment. Eric got out otter pops and made me eat one. Bad choice, it takes me forever to eat those. So, after eating half of it I made him finish it so we could leave.

After months and weeks of waiting, we were finally in the exam room with the ultrasound tech. She asked us if we wanted to know the gender. To which, Eric replied, "Oh, yes. She can hardly stand it."

"So, the sooner you can tell us, the better," I added.

I came prepared with OJ (which Eric made fun of me for), just in case the baby decided to be shy and uncooperative. But, fortunately our baby wanted us to know their gender, because the very first shot the tech got of our baby was a clear shot of the babies bum.

The tech said, "Oh they're obviously not shy... (Eric and I look at each other and both think, 'Oh that must mean it's a boy')... it's clearly a girl!"

Eric and both try to disguise our surprise and say, "Oh that's great!"

For quite some time I had been pretty certain that it would be a boy. I'm not really sure why. Maybe, it's because I knew Eric wanted a boy so badly, and I thought the idea of seeing Eric with a baby boy would be just too adorable. Maybe it's because my sister Heather just had a baby boy a few months ago, and I've fallen in love with him and his adorableness. Or maybe I just didn't think I would get have a girl the 1st time around, just because I wanted one... Either way, I didn't think it was going to be a girl.

The tech showed us the three lines that indicate that she is a girl.

The tech asked us if we had names picked out and we said that we just had a long list of possibilities, but nothing beyond that. (Though we had two boy names, first and middle, picked out and ready... lol).

The tech continued to show us some cool shots of our little girl.

After we had gotten the clear "girl" shot, she decided it was time to be more ladylike and crossed her ankles for most of the time.

She gave us a thumbs up :)

She kept waving one of her little arms at us, so it took about 5 tries to get a good measurement and picture.

The tech even gave us some 3D shots. I didn't know that was an option, so that was pretty neat. Unfortunately the placenta kept getting in the way, so her face is always partially hidden. Oh well, I had no delusions of knowing exactly what she looked like from an ultrasound--that big reveal will just have to wait 'til January.

After the tech finished, we waited about 20 minutes for the doctor to come in and tell us the baby is healthy and looks great... don't you love what you wait around in a doctor's to hear? Lol, but we sure are glad that she is doing great. Then he told us something that I never imagined to come from a child from my womb!

That our child at 20 weeks weighed 15.6 oz (according to babycenter.com a 20 week baby weighs 10.5 oz.) and was in the 61st percentile! Um, never in my life have been in the 61st percentile for anything height or weight related! My family are small people! This just goes to show that the "other half" gets some say in the matter too ;)

My sister laughed out loud and said, "Oh man, that's gonna hurt!" when she heard... heres to hoping that the other 20 weeks will give our baby time to even out. I'm really not planning on a big baby. And since I was only 7 lbs 4 oz and Eric  7 lbs 2 oz, I really think we have good chances for a normally sized baby.

After the ultrasound we went to Walmart to buy a baby outfit to get excited about our baby! Though it was a pretty poor selection, we did find one outfit. The whole night I just kept looking at it. Baby clothes are so cute and tiny! I probably refolded it about 20 times.

That night I made gender reveal cupcakes with this recipe (they turned out delicious--though I just used a box for the cupcakes and followed the recipe for the filling and frosting).

On Friday we drove down to Utah for the weekend and met my family in Bountiful to do the big gender reveal (We planned to go shopping for gender specific things right afterwards).

Before we let them eat the cupcakes we asked everyone to guess what they thought it would be. Everyone except for Aleksa guessed boy, apparently we weren't the only ones! Well you can see everyone's reaction for yourselves! I think this picture is priceless!

We were hoping to do a similar thing with Eric's family in Nampa, but unfortunately do do bakery's only baking in the morning, his family would have had to wait until Saturday to find out, and we decided they had waited long enough so we told them on Friday too. They are so excited, especially his mom.

Though we were a little surprised, we are so excited to be having a little girl! Bring on the bows, shoes and pink!

Stay tuned for more pictures to come--we left our camera in a friends car.

Nursery Inspirations

Even before we thought about having a baby I was going nuts on Pinterest, trying to find the perfect nursery decorations for both a boy and girl. I was baby hungry in the sense that I was so excited for little clothes, baby blankets, newborn photos and adorable nurseries. Eric and I would laugh about how I was so excited for all these "material" parts of having a baby, but none of the realistic parts. And it's still partially true. When ever I have a particularly long or tiring day due to pregnancy, I console myself with adorable baby things on Pinterest.

Well, now that we are 20 weeks along, as of today, plans for the perfect nursery can start to come to fruition. We find out on Thursday what gender the baby is, then the plans can really commence. But, I thought I'd share my ideas for a nursery with you and get some feedback.

Baby Boy Nursery Ideas

This is the crib that we have... well close to it. We bought it off of craigslist, and it was a light stain color, so Eric is in the process of sanding and painting it for me :) I absolutely HAD to have a white crib, no matter the gender.

We want a dresser that doubles as a changing table also in white.  I also like the simple letters for a name above the crib.

For a boy, the colors will be more neutral whites, beiges,  grays, etc.

This while be Eric's next project. If it's a boy, it will either stained or a earth tone color. 

Sheepskin rug: This is a must, thank goodness IKEA has an incredible price on this!

I want something like this for the wall, either above or next to his crib. I've seen other variations, paper mache, or  just antlers. Now I just have to decide which variation and buy or DIY.

I love this wall art. 

I LOVE this. 

This is so neat, but may have to find a way to DIY this. 

I want something like this for the corner, for blankets, toys and such. 

Baby Girl Nursery Ideas

Again, this will be the crib.

Again, need a dresser/changer like this. 

Because we're not supposed to crib bumpers or much at all in the way of crib bedding, I want to spruce it up with a ruffle crib skirt, not necessarily these colors. 

This is the exact chair I want! But alas, they are $$$, so I think I will find a chair or rocker on craigslist or at DI and reupholster it. I've read a lot of blogs to understand the reupholstering process, looks tricky, but I think it's worth the try considering how much you can save. 

I want a pouf like this, but in the right color. I think I can also make this. 

I have to have a rug like this if it's a girl! And I'm considering putting her initial in a frame like this for above the crib. 

Love this mobile! So colorful and unique!

Have to have shelves somewhere for all the books, I mean it will be my baby :) so it must love books!

This is basically my color pallet: tiffany blue, corally pink, with some yellows and other bright colors mixed in there,.

I like the idea of doing embroidery hoops surrounding her name.

So, this is what has been in progress on my Pinterest for the past 6 months or so. Let me know what you think, or feel free to direct me to other ideas!

18 Week Update

18 weeks, it seems like such a large number. Just two weeks shy of the half-way mark. All at once I feel that this pregnancy has gone by very quickly, and that it will last forever.

The first four weeks of the 2nd trimester has brought its fare share of new symptoms.

Baby bump: The baby bump slowly grew until all of sudden it was visible to others, and not just myself. I've had mixed feelings about my growing baby bump. It was exciting and thrilling to see that the baby is actually growing, and buying maternity clothes is kind of exciting. But also, It kind of felt like an alien was taking over my body and changing it in undesirable ways, and I started to realize that my body as I previously knew it, is never more. Happily, spending an evening holding my adorable nephew Hudson, made me feel better about the changes. It made me feel like it will be worth it, and that there is a prize at the end. Though I'm still anxiously awaiting the "quickening" so I can feel more of a connection with this "alien" growing inside me.

Acne: Ugh. The bane of my late high school and college life has come back with a vengeance. Well I don't know if I can say "come back" because it never really left. Adult acne plagues my family, and I've grown to accept and deal with it. But I was not prepared for this volatile-level acne. It's calmed down a little as I've become more diligent with washing my face thoroughly several times a day. I'm crossing my fingers that it doesn't get any worse.

Backaches: I anticipated having lower back pain, but not this early in the game. Though I've read that if you've had lower backaches in the past, then they may be your constant companion. Well, that's me. I've always had bad lower backaches during that time of the month, and sometimes the only way to find relief is lay down. Luckily, it hasn't been that bad, but it is pretty much a constant dull ache, which quickly jabs me if I bend over. What am I, eight months prego?

Round Ligament Stretching: Those weird, jabby pains in the groin, upper thigh, and lower abdomen. Yeah there's a name for those--round ligament stretching. Now that's a mouthful. These don't really bother me, but are kind of a funny reminder that my stomach is growing and stretching.

RH Negative: So, um apparently my blood type is O-. Who, knew? I certainly didn't. I always thought I was A something. So, since my RH factor (negative or positive part of the blood type) is negative and since Eric's blood type might be (long story, that ends with the army being incompetent) positive I have to get this horrible shot in a horrible place. This means that the baby's blood type could be positive and if our two blood types were to mix at any time my body would try to attack future fetuses. Scary huh!?! So, good thing there's this shot. Too bad I HATE shots. Such is life.

But the best part is that in two weeks we get have another ultrasound to see how our baby's doing and find out the gender. Which if you've talked to me, you know how impatient I am to find out.

The one dilemma I'm having is how to have the gender news broken. Do we just have the doctor tell us and have an emotional moment mid-ultrasound? Or do we have the doctor write down the gender on a piece of paper and "open" the news privately at home after the ultrasound? I'm torn because I'm impatient to find out. But I also would like it to be a private experience, between just Eric and I. I really don't like letting strangers see my emotions. So, thoughts?

Boise Vacation

A few days after graduation, Eric's sister Heidi and her family flew out to Boise to visit, so I took a few days off and we went to visit too. We definitely had a full house, but it was a fun full house. Eric and I hadn't seen Heidi and her Husband Craig or their son Ethan since Eric's 2-week leave from Iraq in April 2011, and we hadn't even met their newest addition Elizabeth, their adorable 8-month old baby girl. Elizabeth was born a few days after we got married, unfortunately leaving them all home-bound in Virginia for our wedding. So it was great to catch up and see everybody. It was also great to see the rest of Eric's family.

We made a lot of fun memories.

Swimming at a Lake

Floating Down the River

In the middle of the river there is this cool zen-like rock garden.

We floated down the river with Eric's family summer 2010, right after we got engaged. That time I helped push Eric in the river. Of course he retaliated and I went in too. And well that led to an adventure all on its own when the raft floated away before we could get back on and had to fight a nasty current to make our way back to the raft. It was scary and I thought we were going to die, it was a dramatic moment for me that is somewhat embarrassing now. Well, being pregnant, I knew that I was at least safe from being pushed in :) All the boys had their fair share of being pushed out of the raft--which is great fun, when it's not you :) Somehow Mark, Eric's dad, escaped. I'm still not sure how.

Ethan came along too, and had a blast throwing flip-flops and water bottles over the raft, again and again, and watching everyone panic.

Afternoon Picnic In McCall

As we were saying our goodbyes, Eric, who was holding an ice cold water bottle, told Ethan (who was only wearing a diaper at the time) that he should give the water bottle a hug too. Well, being the trusting 2-year-old that he is, he hugs it. He hugged it for a second, looked down at it, gave it a weird look, and slowly let go of it, and looked at his now very cold arms and stomach. Oh goodness, the look on his face was priceless! We all laughed really hard. Later, as Eric and I were remembering it, we started laughing all over again. But then it occurred to us how mean it really was. This poor 2-year-old, who doesn't know any better, listens to his uncle that he trusts, and what does he get? A very cold experience with a water bottle. As awful as it is though, it still makes us laugh. Sorry Ethan, Eric really does feel bad!

How We Are Surviving

After suffering through most of the summer with one fan we decided something had to change, our apartment was simply unbearable. While our parents were here for graduation, both dads mentioned "how easy" it would be to replace the ceiling light with a fan/light combo.

So Saturday, after everyone left town we went on a little date night Home Depot to see about a ceiling fan. (Side note, I will never again make fun of people who go to Home Depot on date night. We had a blast designing our dream, yet feasible kitchen.)

We got home around 8:30, but wanted to set up the fan then so we wouldn't be tempted to on Sunday (Sundays are the worst with the heat-- we spend the day inside, we bake more elaborate meals and the apartment quickly becomes an incinerator.)

Well about 3 hours later we got the fan installed. It was a pain because we don't have a ladder, so it tested both of our patience, our arm muscles and the stability of our piano bench turned makeshift ladder. But at last, we have a little more relief from the heat. Though that doesn't mean that we aren't anxiously awaiting the arrival of fall!

Pomp and Circumstance

Eric has probably taken the longest to graduate, and still graduate in only nine semesters. Between an LDS mission, Basic Training, AIT, a year deployment to Iraq and taking some extra classes because his calendar year changed, its incredible that Eric graduated in seven years, but only nine semesters! Go hubby! I'm so proud of him!

Since Eric got home from Iraq 11 months ago, he hasn't really gotten a break. Poor man went to class the day after coming home and spending days traveling... not to mention that he had already missed a few days of classes! We got married a month later, and he missed a week of classes for our honeymoon. It wasn't an easy first semester back. Thanks to BYU-Idaho's short semesters with their equally short breaks in-between he barely had a chance to catch his break before another semester started. So I think he definitely deserves a little "time off" while he searches for a job. Not that he's sitting around lounging on the couch... nope, he's currently out on our 4 X 5 porch nailing and gluing together the gun cabinet he's making--Love him!

Most of Eric's family and my parents were able to make it to Eric's graduation. It was great to share that moment with them and for them to experience first hand the hottest summer Rexburg, Idaho has ever produced in our tiny, second story apartment without air conditioning while we waited for everyone to arrive, now they believe us when we complain about the heat.

Anyways despite the crowds and traffic we made it time to commencement and then ended up sitting and waiting until it actually at 6:00. Eric was one of 1,700 sem-odd people marching in. I didn't get a picture of him at actual commencement. And because BYU-Idaho loves us oh so much they decided to make convocation directly after commencement, so we booked it up to the Hinckley building, saved seats and grabbed some pictures before it started at 8:00 because we didn't think we would get out of there before the sun went down.

A nice pictureEric with his parent's Holly and Mark.

And this is what happens in between pictures :)

Eric with Andrew, Annie and Ben.

Eric and his signature "stance."

Waiting in line to get his empty diploma cover.

A little blurry, but I think it's a great picture.

As soon as convocation was over we grabbed some Papa Murphy's pizza and some ice cream and went back to our little apartment to celebrate and eat because at this point we were all starving.

The next day we went to Grandma Andrus' place and had an awesome potluck luncheon with lot of delicious food and great company. Thanks to all the family that came!