28 week bump

Now that we are in the final trimester of this pregnancy, I feel like I am getting bigger by the second. The funny thing is, I haven't actually gained that much weight yet I feel like I look ginormous. As of today we are officially 29 weeks in, but this last bump picture was taken a week ago. As of now we still don't have a set date yet for the c-section but I have a doctor appointment this Wednesday so I am going to ask about it then. I will be really surprised if I actually make it that far. Little man is sitting very, very low and I constantly feel like he is trying to make his escape. I've had a few moments where I felt like I might be experiencing contractions but after relaxing for a bit the feeling goes away. Let's just hope he stays in as long as he needs to!

How far along? 29 weeks (in this photo 28 weeks.)

Total weight gain: 13 pounds. My doctor said I should gain somewhere between 25 and 35, so we will see where I actually end up.
Maternity clothes? Nope. Still normal clothes. Leggings are my favorite thing in the world.
Stretch marks? None! At least not that I have seen anyways.
Sleep: A bit uncomfortable. Sometimes I like to sleep on my stomach and that isn't really an option at this point.
Best moment this week: Spending time together as a family of three while the husband had a few days off. Not too much longer now that little man will be here and we will be getting used to being a family of 4!
Miss Anything? Still having a lack of energy/motivation to get things done. And honestly, a margarita sounds absolutely amazing. One day... (for the record, I hardly drink. But every once in a while a good margarita or pina colada sounds wonderful.)
Movement: Little man is constantly on the move. It's funny to watch my stomach move and see Amelia's reaction to him. 
Food cravings: This week it has been burritos. Not sure why though.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Riding in the car when anyone else is driving is still a bit of a problem, but luckily it's getting better.
Gender: Baby boy =)
Labor Signs: Nope. I am curious as to if they will happen early though.
Symptoms: Just the normal stuff. Tired a lot, super hungry.
Belly Button in or out? Out.
Wedding rings on or off? On.
Happy or Moody most of the time: Mostly happy with a few moments of grumpiness. 
Looking forward to: The next 10 weeks to go by so we can meet the little guy. I have a feeling that it is going to fly by. The husband is trying to get as much work in as possible while he can, we have our baby shower date set for the beginning of April, and I'm trying to make a to do list of EVERYTHING I need to get done before his arrival. 

28 weeks

 And since my little bug loves being in front of the camera...

About your daddy and me.

Day 3: Describe your relationship with your spouse.

(Your daddy and I on our 5 year wedding anniversary)

Dear Kids,

This is the story about how I met your father ;)

I always find it hard to put into words exactly how to describe our relationship. At this moment, we have now been married for a little over 5 years and 3 months and it has been one heck of an amazing journey. To make a long story short, your daddy came into my life when I was going through a bit of a trying time. I had made a few different mistakes and was dealing with the consequences of them, and was quite unsure of where I saw my future heading. I hadn't been making the best decisions for myself (thank you stubbornness) and had reached a point where I wasn't truly thinking about how my actions were affecting others around me. Then I met your father and within a matter of months my whole life was completely different. We dated for a short period of time, got engaged, and shortly after got married and have never looked back. Should we have dated for a longer period of time before getting married? Probably. Do I regret it now? Not at all. I have learned so much about my husband, life, and mostly myself over the past 5 years. Things have not always been easy and I think that's the way things need to be in life. Because it's realistic. Nothing ever goes completely smoothly...and even if it did, what fun would that be? Life is about growing and learning, and with marriage you learn to do those things together. We have had so many wonderful times and hearty laughs throughout the years, and I know that at the end of the day I can always count on him. And seeing how much he loves Amelia (and Ben soon enough) absolutely melts my heart. Not every man is fit to be a good dad for whatever reason, but your dad is one of a kind. Our dads were not as active in our lives when we were kids as we would have liked, and I think that is part of the reason why your dad wants to be so involved with you. So he doesn't ever miss a thing. And I am right there with him. Your dad truly is a great man and my best friend, and we are all very lucky to have him in our lives. 

Love,

Mommy =)

(Our wedding day. November 3, 2007)

(One of the many concerts we used to go to before babies came along)

(The proudest dad in the whole world with Amelia)

(When our princess turned 1)

(Trip to Chicago - June 2012)

(Trip to the zoo)

Now we just need baby Ben to be here to add to the thousands of photos we have ;)

Three legitimate fears

Day two of the challenge and it's Valentines Day! The husband is at work today so I have been spending quality time with the munchkin. Unfortunately, we spent a good portion of the morning doing my two hour glucose test which is never fun. When I took it with Amelia the test only took an hour and you were done. I guess the one hour tests don't always give the best results, so they have found that it's better to draw blood once in the beginning, have you drink the yucky drink, take blood in an hour, and then an hour after that. Not too much fun but at least it is over with. Munchkin was a trooper and just hung out with me and played with some toys. We are almost to week 28 of the pregnancy so that means we have roughly 11 more weeks to go! It seems like it is going by pretty fast, but I am still anxious for little man to be here already.

When thinking about today's question, I had to really think about things that legitimately scare me and it wasn't as easy as I thought. Now, I'm not a tough cookie all the time by any means. But I feel like I can handle most things. Scary movies are usually not that scary and I constantly watch shows and documentaries about murder, crime, blood, etc... None of that gets me at all. So coming up with three different things was a bit of a challenge.

Day two: Three legitimate fears

1. Deep water. I mentioned this on day one but this would have to be my biggest one. I don't know if I had a really bad experience as a child or something, but ever since I can remember I have been terrified of deep water. Baths and pools are no problem, and I will go in the ocean. But as far as going scuba diving and going into deep, deep water....that's another story. When we went to Maui a few years ago we went snorkeling and even though we were close to the top of the water, I still had a few mini panic attacks. I really want to try to overcome this but I'm not quite sure how.

2. Dying. Now, I know this is inevitable. When I say that this is a fear I mean that I have a fear of dying and missing out on things before it's truly my time. I want to be able to spend as much time with my husband as I can, and watch our children grow up, and maybe one day have children of their own. I don't want to miss anything in any of their lives and I want to be there for my family as long as I possibly can. I know that this is something that I have absolutely no control, and through the years I have seen so many people who were taken at such a young age that had their whole lives ahead of them. I want to get to know my kids as they grow older from toddlers to kids to young adults to adults. And I want them to get to know me for as long as they can. 

3. Small spaces...sometimes. I'm not one of those people who is totally claustrophobic where I can't do some simple things like go in an elevator, but I don't think I would ever want to go crawling through any tiny caves and mines. I would be so afraid of getting stuck and not being able to get out. So I guess you could say that I am selectively claustrophobic? My dad has it really bad. He refuses to go on any airplanes or elevators. It could be 7 flights of stairs and he will still take that over the elevator. I hope I never get to that point because I like travelling too much to avoid airplanes, and unfortunately you can't drive to all the continents ;)

30 Things my kids should know about me - Day 1

After seeing a few other lovely women in the blog world making these lists, I decided to jump on the bandwagon as well. I'm always looking for questions that make me think about my life and I think this list will help with that, as well as giving my kids some information about myself. You can check out the list over here and I will try my hardest to do one of these every single day.

Day 1: List 20 random facts about yourself.

1. Even though I took 3 years of Spanish during high school, I hardly remember any of it. I would like to work on this seeing as how many of my in laws speak only Spanish and it would be very beneficial for my kids to learn it as well.

2. I used to pride myself on having an excellent memory. Since having a toddler and being pregnant, I'm lucky if I remember to take the trash out. And it seems to be getting worse by the day.

3. I'm deathly afraid of deep water. It took a lot for me to be able to go snorkeling when we went to Maui a few years ago. I highly doubt that I would ever be able to try scuba diving because I would have a full blown panic attack.

4. I can be a total cheapskate when it comes to certain things, but if I want something that is a bit more expensive and better quality I will definitely splurge.

5. I love being a stay at home mom, but I do often think about the possibility of going back to work. I tend to go a bit stir crazy being home and not keeping myself as occupied as I could be.

6. I have recently become obsessed with paying off all of our debt. This technically should have been a priority a long time ago, but I guess better late than never. My goal is to be completely credit card free by the end of the year, and to attack our car so it will be done sooner than later. (This may be a whole other post sometime soon...)



7. I love to read but I find that I don't actually sit down with a good book as much as I would like to. I imagine this is only going to get more difficult once little man joins our family. 

8. I have dreams of one day travelling all over the world with my husband and our kids. I feel like I didn't travel nearly as much as I should have when I was a kid, and I think it's a crucial thing for my kids to see how life is all over the world and to experience different cultures.

9. I am terrible at math. Like absolutely terrible. I tried avoiding it as much as possible when I was in school, but that only made it that much more of a challenge when I was actually required to take it.




10. I love using coupons when I am able to, and I wish I could understand how those extreme couponers actually do what they do. I wouldn't have anywhere to stockpile stuff, but who doesn't like getting things for cheap or for free?

11. I tend to get frustrated more easily than I should. This is something that I am constantly working on.

12. I have an addiction to coca cola. Not anywhere near as bad as this lady but I do enjoy soda. I have cut back quite a bit with being pregnant and everything. But if I do try and stop completely cold turkey, I will get a severe migraine.

13. I'm totally obsessed with Pinterest. I wish that I had been able to use it to help plan my wedding in 2007, but I guess that just means I need to convince the husband that we should renew our vows ;)

14. To do lists are my favorite. Actually, making lists in general. And they have to be handwritten where you actually check off when you do things. I just can't get into the whole digital to do list thing.

15. I do not enjoy cooking. I wish I could be one of those women who love spending time in the kitchen and trying out new recipes, but it was never something that I found enjoyable. Luckily I have a husband who is an awesome cook.

16. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't take more photos during my junior high and high school years. Looking back now, I would have loved to have had those to show my kids. Definitely took that for granted.

(Don't judge. You know you all took these mall pictures when you were in high school)

17. I am totally not a morning person. I'm a complete night owl, but I am trying to change this. My daughter is the same way that I am. I'm curious as to how little man is going to be once he gets here.

18. I taught myself how to play the piano when I was 7 years old. I wish that I had actually taken up my mom's offer of getting piano lessons, but I was too stubborn. (Still am actually...)

19. The biggest turn off for me (in anyone, not just men) is someone who smokes. In my teenage years and after high school, I dated a few different guys who did smoke. As I've gotten older I have realized how much I really dislike it. I think it also has to do with being a mom and not wanting my kids to have to suffer from secondhand smoke. The people who do it wherever they want, whenever they want are what bother me.

20. If I could have my life be like any television show it would have to be How I Met Your Mother. I would kill to have the bond that all of them do and go on some of their adventures. And let's be honest. Having Barney as a friend? Would be legendary ;)

Viva Mexico!

With only about 3 months left to go til we meet baby boy, the husband decided to surprise me with a cruise to Catalina Island and Ensenada as a short babymoon while we still had the chance. Even though January isn't the warmest time to take a cruise, it was still absolutely beautiful and nice to be able to get away for a little while just the two of us. And thankfully for us my mother in law was kind enough to watch Amelia while we went away. 

Now, in all honesty, things did not go as smoothly as I had hoped when I was preparing everything for us to go on the cruise. With pregnancy brain going at full force and me being the forgetful person that I am lately, I made sure to make a pretty thorough list of everything we might need for the cruise. I also had the husband look at it to make sure we weren't missing anything. We packed everything we thought we might possibly need (and then some) and made sure we were out of the house by 10 a.m. the day of the cruise to get down to Long Beach in time. The cruise was set to leave at 5:30 that evening so I figured that gave us plenty of time. Here's where we encountered a few different issues...


Problem #1. Not remembering to print out boarding passes. - I suppose I should have actually figured that one out since I have flown before and everything, but from everything I had read I thought we would just need our birth certificates and photo ID's in order for them to let us board. I didn't read about the boarding pass part until we were about an hour away from actually getting on the boat and sitting in LA traffic. Perfect. So I call Expedia who was so helpful and explained to me that I wouldn't need them, and that I would just need to fill out some paperwork once we got to the boat. No worries. Then they 
mentioned another perfect little fact....


Problem #2. Even though the boat was set to leave at 5:30, they would stop letting people on at 4:30. - Here is where I start freaking out. At around 3:30 we were sitting in a bit of LA traffic (which if you have never been to LA this can mean anything from a few minutes to a few hours) and we still had a ways to go before even getting to the boat. And throw in the paperwork that I now needed to fill out and I was having a meltdown. I was in tears telling my husband how they were going to leave without us, and that there was no way we would make it on time, and that we couldn't even get our money back if we missed it because it was non-refundable. Luckily he is usually able to remain calm and collected and assured me he would do everything in his power to get us there on time. So all I could do was hope for the best and try to relax. I figured the best way to do this was to make sure I had everything in order so that once we arrived we would be able to rush and not have to search for things like our ID's and whatnot. Let the next breakdown begin...


Problem #3. Pregnant women not allowed on cruises. - While I was getting the paperwork together I started to read some of the tiny print on one of the itineraries. One key piece that I had missed said "If you are less than 24 weeks pregant, you will need a doctors note stating it's okay for you to cruise. If you are more than 24 weeks pregnant, you will not be allowed to cruise." Now I know there are a lot of restrictions on things when you are pregnant, but for some reason I didn't even think about this one at all. I had just hit 24 weeks pregnant the day before we left for the cruise and now all I could think about was that even if we made it to the cruise on time, they would turn me away for being too pregnant. And since I'm clearly pregnant when you see my stomach, I just felt really hopeless. After a little bit of thinking my husband had the brilliant idea of having me wear his sweatshirt once we got down there to help "hide" my stomach a little bit so they might not notice. So we just decided to give it a shot. 

By some miracle the traffic cleared up and we were able to make it down in time, with enough time to spare to get checked in and do paperwork. I put on his sweatshirt in the parking garage and just hoped for the best, and somehow it ended up working. Not one person questioned me and the paperwork we needed to do was done in less than 3 minutes. They scanned our luggage and away we went!

(One thing I will say is I do understand why cruises do not want women who are at a certain point in their pregnancy to sail. As you get further along you never really know what might happen, and if you did need medical assistance they are very limited as to what they can do for you on the boat. One man had a mild heart attack on our cruise and they had to send out the coast guard to come and get him. A woman in labor? A whole different story. So I do respect and understand their reasoning behind this.)

Overall the cruise was a huge success and it was nice to be able to relax a bit before we become parents of two in a few months. I do wish that I had taken more photos than I did, but I am glad that I got a lot of the ones that I have. So without further ado I give you "Babymoon 2013 - Cruise to Catalina Island and Mexico." =)

(Some of the cutest cottages you could rent in Catalina.)

(Our home for the week. The Carnival Inspiration)

(Want to know one of the best things about the cruise? 24 hour frozen yogurt.)

(Even though you can hardly see it, our ship is behind us)

(Me and the baby bump in Catalina)

(The company we rented our motorized bicycles from. So much fun!)

(Taking a break from the ride to figure out where to go next. Those little bikes can go up to 20 mph! And of course, the ship in the background.) 

(The Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Garden in Catalina.)

(Making new friends in Ensenada, Mexico)

(Me and my amigo, just hanging out)

(La Bufadora, one of the largest natural blowholes in North America. Legend says that a mother and baby whale were swimming in the area, when the baby decided to go in towards a cave to explore. Baby whales grow at a very quick rate so the baby got stuck and the water you see spouting out today is from the now full grown whale. It's only a legend though ;) right?)

(Who needs souvenirs when you can meet a baby lion? We didn't want to spend a ton of money on things we didn't need while in Ensenada, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture with a lion. Kiara is about 6 months old and already weighing in at over 100 pounds. That's a pretty big "baby" if you ask me.)

(Towel animals that house cleaning will leave you. I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was about this.)

(The girls from our nightly dinner table and myself, enjoying a late night comedy show. The comedians were hilarious and it was awesome meeting some nice new friends.)

(The husband and myself on the last night at dinner. I love this guy with all my heart)

Until next time Mexico!