22 Weeks

Well, I'm at 22 weeks now... or the baby is 22 weeks old rather. And, by popular demand, here are a couple pics of me and my baby belly.

Matt has been sick for over a week now. He has the cold that never wants to leave. Two nights ago, Matt sneezed (he has really loud sneezes) and I felt my whole stomach jump. Apparently, the baby heard the sneeze and was startled. Now, every time Matt sneezes or I hear a really loud noise, the baby jumps. She is, apparently, aware of sounds and is frightened by them. While I am ecstatic that the baby can now hear sounds, I am also wary by this new frightened jumping because what if my baby all skitish of sounds when she is born? I want a baby who can sleep through anything so that we won't have to be quiet when the baby is sleeping. Hopefully, this is just a stage and the baby will get more used to hearing noise.

I'm feeling pretty good right now. I still get really tired very quickly, but I am able to leave the house in the evening for a few hours before I am completely drained. I am getting more and more uncomfortable. My back hurts every day and standing only makes it worse. Additionally, my belly is very sore. My belly muscles are becoming completely useless. I often can't sit up without assistance and it hurts to try on my own. My muscles rebel against being used. Additionally, the skin on my belly really hurts as it is stretching out to compensate for the ever expanding baby. It kinda feels like a backwards pinch. It is the same stinging sensation that a pinch offers, only it is a stretching of the skin rather than a pinching. It really smarts!

I didn't realize how trying pregnancy would be. It is a complete body change, so that I don't even feel like my body is mine any more. I don't feel or look like me. Plus, I'm drained of energy all the time and dependent on my eating schedule (if I go off my eating schedule, I get sick to my stomach). I'm like a child myself. I just didn't think that it would be this hard. My sister in laws made pregnancy seem a lot easier. Oh the tangled web of lies!

Despite all the unpleasantries that this pregnancy has come to offer, I love my baby very much. I am so excited for the time when I can finally hold her and see the product of all this work that I'm putting in. This baby better be very cute and very worth it.

Last Weekend

Well, I am suppose to have a belly pic to post, but my digital camera is fighting with me. The batteries die as soon as I put them into the camera and I think that the camera is an evil battery eater. We bought a camcorder that we can take pictures with, but it doesn't have a flash, so the lighting has to be really good to get a good picture. I can't seem to take a picture I like anyway. I make funny faces in all the pics. So, the belly pic will have to wait until next time.

Last weekend, Matt was not feeling well, so we mostly sat around the house, but we did manage to get out for a little while. My maternity jeans no longer fit me (curse that my belly is not the only thing to grow), so we headed to the motherhood store in search of some jeans that I can wear. DJ came along because he was told that we would only be getting a pair of pants and then leaving. I think Matt was foolish to think that he can take me to a clothing store and not expect me to try on more than one thing.

The sales lady was very helpful and grabbed a selection of items for me to try on. I ended up with four shirts and two pairs of pants (I wanted a sweater too, but I was holding back). Hopefully, these clothing items will last me until the end of the pregnancy. I tried to buy a little bigger so that there was room to grow. I feel like a child when I say that because my Mom used to buy clothes that were a little big for us so that we could grow in them. Curse children and their need to constantly be changing sizes. They are the bane of Matt's wallet's existence.

Matt and DJ were forced to wait while I tried on clothes and snacked on a Subway sandwich (cuz I was very hungry). Then, the register computer went down and the sales lady had to ring us up manually and it took forever. Matt and DJ survived, but just barely. I don't think that DJ ever wants kids now.

Matt and I attempted pork ribs this weekend, but we were not entirely successful. We didn't have a recipe, we were just wingin' it and it turned out much too salty. I blame me because I was in charge of the salt. Here's hopin' that we get a recipe and do better next time.

Usually, we are fairly good cooks, most people enjoy our meals (me and the baby). But, I have been branching out since my pregnant tastes are not inclined to eat chicken. So, I search for redder meat recipes. I've picked up a few that I enjoy, but the search is still on. Now all I have to do is teach Marie how to cook from scratch. It may be a lost cause, we will have to just wait and see.

Week 20

My Baby is Skeletor!

Well, I am at 20 weeks now and that means that we went in for our official ultrasound to make sure that all the baby's parts are there and to verify the gender. I am glad to say that Norm was right, it is still a girl. Norm checked all of her major organs and they were all there, which is excellent. Unfortunately, she was being a naughty baby and did not want to stay still for the ultrasound. This made it difficult to check her organs and get good pictures of her.

She has a lot less room in there than she did last time we saw her. So, it was difficult to get a picture of all of her from head to foot. Plus, her legs and arms were all bent and stuff.

It was weird because a lot of what we saw of her was her skeleton. We could see all the bones in her arms and legs and her whole spine. It was kinda cool, but weird at the same time.

She snacked on the placenta a little while we were watching her. Which I thought was really gross, but apparently that is just what babies do. Babies are disgusting.

This pic is a shot of the back of her. She was often showing us her back. She moved around a lot the whole time and it made me a little sick because when she wiggles a lot, it makes me nausiated.

I'm feeling pretty good at this stage in the pregnancy. I find myself to be very hungry a not small amount of the time. And, if I don't eat at the scheduled time that I usually eat, I get very nausiated and then not goodness ensues. Weekends are the worst because it is different from my daily schedule and I often forget to eat and then I get all complainy and then it is hard on Matt.

I can feel the baby wiggling a lot! She really likes to wiggle and move around and it kinda drives me crazy because it makes me sick to my stomach. Jill says that this will pass though and I will start to feel some solid kicks and less wiggles. I hope so because I don't like it when she moves. It is reassuring to know that she is healthy and moving, but it is very uncomfortable.

I have some of my energy back now, which is nice. I have actually stayed up until 10pm the last few nights this week. This is a record for me. I am usually all complainy and upset if I'm not in bed and almost asleep by 9pm. Matt is loving that I am able to stay up a little later and not get upset.

Now that we know for sure that the baby is a girl, we can finally go and start buying gender appropriate baby stuff. I know that I will probably get some stuff from baby showers, but babies apparently need all sorts of stuff. Jill sent me a list of baby things that I will most likely need and the list is quite lengthy. Who knew that something so small could need so much.

Well, that is all for now. I will post another belly pic when I finally charge the batteries in my camera. I blame the french for my slacking on that one.

Our New Floor

Last week Matt began work on our new kitchen floor. We decided to go from ghetto linoleum to awesome tiles! Matt ripped out the linoleum earlier in the week and I neglected to get pics of the floor before hand because I'm the worst! Then, on Friday, Matt started laying down all the tiles. Here is a shot of the beginning of the process.


Matt's hands took a beating during the process. His right hand was all cracked and not good looking, so he is showing his displeasure at his ruined hands in this pic.


Matt got all the tile down on Friday night. Then, on Saturday morning, Sarah came over and helped Matt grout and clean the tile. I was not helpful for the whole process because I'm all pregnant and deficient. It is hard for me to get down on the ground and move around on my hands and knees (as is required for tile work). I blame the baby entirely. Luckily, my prettier and less fetus like Baby came and was a good helper.

Here is a pic of the floor after all the grout is in. It has been cleaned once, but it is still all grouty.

Then, on Sunday, Matt cleaned the floor again and moved all the large appliances back into the kitchen. Which I loved because I disliked my refrigerator in my dining room. Matt is showing off his mad dust panning skills in this pic.


And then we were done and I have a brand new tile floor. I love it! It matches the cabinets better than the green linoleum and it is less white trash. It also makes the kitchen feel bigger. Kudos to Matt for all his awesome and efficient work on the floor. I really did nothing during the process. I fetched food for my husband worker and took pictures. I take no credit for all the floor's brilliance.

Post Halloween Pics

Well, I finally uploaded some of the Halloween pics from my camera, so here are my belated Halloween pics.
We carved more pumpkins on Halloween. So, I did Trogdor and Matt did a scary skeleton thing.



Here is Lucy, she was a strawberry. And, little Carlitos, who was a dragon. But, he didn't like to wear his costume, so it was difficult getting a picture of him.

A Simpsony Halloween

Every year on Halloween, my company gives each department money to decorate their cubicles for Halloween. Then, there is a contest to see who has the best decorations. We did The Simpsons in my department. Here is a sample of what our area looked like.


This is the great Jebidiah Springfield, after which the town is named, he turned out really well.


This is what our cubicle isle looked like. It was very crowded with Simpson characters.


For those of you who cannot read the chalkboard, it says, "The capital of Montana is not Hannah."


I drew this squishee machine myself. I ended up keeping the squishee cup because it is awesome.

The Nuclear Power Plant.

Blinky the Three eyed fish.



I also drew this Duff sign from scratch. The Duff signs that I saw on the internet weren't cool enough, so I made up this design.

Anyway, we drew and painted and decorated for a month before Halloween in the hopes that we might win that blue ribbon, but alas, we did not. Marketing won... again. I kinda hate them more than a little. It is their jobs to be all creative, and half of them are artists! They did Monsters Inc. and they won. I think it is a total jip though because they have a much larger cubicle space, and they took over two conference rooms to put their decorations in. Whatever.

We still had fun decorating, it was a good time.