Long Weekend

So last weekend was a long weekend for Nick, AND it was my birthday! It is always awesome when my birthday falls on President's Day Weekend, which it does on occasion. We took advantage of the free time and spent Friday in Atlanta! This was our first time & we really liked it. We ate good food (Five Guys Burgers & Chipotle, yum, it's been too long!) and checked out the aquarium, Olympic Park and IKEA (where we got our baby furniture).

The aquarium was especially cool because they had the world's largest indoor aquarium (6.3 million gallons) with FOUR whale sharks! Just to give you some perspective, this is one of the whale sharks:



And here is the same whale shark as compared to humans.


And they have FOUR of them in the same tank, as well as:

Manta rays

Hammerheads

Sand tiger sharks

Giant groupers

And tons of other little fish

Needless to say, we were completely mesmerized and spent a lot of time at that exhibit. They also had a walk-through tube. SO cool! And, obviously, Nick got some really good pictures (he took over 70), most of which look like he's actually in the water.

The rest of the weekend, we put together the baby furniture and we celebrated my birthday on Monday! We had some delicious roasted chicken and mint chocolate chip ice cream cake, YUM! And, of course, I had lots of phone calls and birthday wishes from family and friends. I can't believe I'm now a quarter of a century old!

Being the birthday girl

Overall though, it was just nice to relax and spend some quality time together. If only every weekend was a 4 day weekend...

Baby Belly Wednesday- 30 Weeks

30 weeks pregnant today-only 7 more weeks to go until "full term" (meaning they wouldn't stop it if I went into labor)! I'm still getting my head wrapped around that concept, I think. I will be "full term" in mid-April, eek!

Nesting is in full swing! I just wish I had more time to do it. We have officially gone from "busy" to "really busy". We got a whole bunch of baby stuff this past week, and I'm dying to get it organized!!! Thank goodness we've gotten this much of a head start. We went to IKEA this past weekend and ended up buying a crib & dresser/changing table, and put them together. We also started transitioning the "dog room" into the nursery! It feels really good that it's all starting to come together. Here are some pictures of the nursery so far:

The dresser/changing table

Nick putting together the crib

Trapped in baby jail!

The finished crib!

I'm feeling alright still, although definitely getting more and more uncomfortable as time goes on. Like today, I woke up when Nick left this morning at 5am, and proceeded to toss and turn until 6:30am. So weird! And the baby wasn't even kicking all that much, so that definitely wasn't it! Otherwise, just minor discomforts here and there. I had my latest check-up today and everything is still looking good. My glucose test came back totally normal, my weight is still on track and blood pressure is totally normal. I'm now starting to have appointments every 2 weeks instead of monthly. Progress!

The baby is as big as a head of lettuce- as long as 18 inches and about 3.2 pounds. The heartbeat got checked again today & is holding strong around 150. I think it's definitely starting to "get into position" (head down) because that's where they found the heartbeat and I think I've been seeing a little baby bottom up near my ribs (it's new favorite place to hang out). I've felt some hiccups a couple of times too. Oh, and something interesting (not really a developmental milestone) is that the baby is surrounded by 1 1/2 pints of amniotic fluid at the moment, although that will decrease as it gets bigger.

The baby isn't doing a whole lot except for getting bigger, but here are some developmental milestones this week:
- Can perceive information from all five senses (although they can't smell much more than amniotic fluid at the moment though)
- Forming connections between individual nerve cells
- Lots of pedaling with the hands & feet (oh yes, ALL the time!)
- Eyesight continuing to develop- has about 20/400 eyesight at the moment

Here is this week's belly picture:

Looking a little sleepy at 30 weeks!

My Trip to California Day 2

Day 2 of my trip to California was baby shower day! My awesome sisters threw me an amazing baby shower at my parent's house and it was absolutely wonderful! I got to see some of my best friends and hang out with family. Couldn't have asked for a better day! I can't wait to bring Baby D back to meet everybody! Here are some pictures from the day that I stole from Alice:

Hanging out with my precious nephew Luke before the shower

Everyone was so amazingly generous!

Hilarious gift from my sisters-in-law! They will obviously be teaching grammar to Baby D

Because no Army baby should go without an ACU onesie! Thanks Alice!

For more pictures, check out my sister's blog again, because she is such a wonderful photographer and blogger and I wouldn't be able to do her pictures justice! Off to write more thank you notes!

Baby Belly Wednesday- 29 Weeks

Today I am 29 weeks pregnant. Only 11 weeks until my due date, 8 weeks until "full term" (37 weeks). At one point, I thought about the fact that I'm only a week away from the last 10 weeks of my pregnancy. That totally put things into perspective! It's amazing how fast things seem to be going now! Also, we went on a tour of Labor & Delivery yesterday as part of our parenting class. Seeing the place where our baby was born really started making it all real. I have to admit, it made me a little nervous/anxious/excited. Thanks for the Scripture for labor, Hill! I will definitely be using it!

I'm still feeling pretty good, but I'm definitely feeling uncomfortable at times. My sciatic nerve is acting up a bit, and of course, I get the regular backaches of pregnancy. I've also definitely been nesting, since it's really hitting home how soon the little one will be here. So far, I've proceeded to organize our hall closet and do an inventory of our baby clothes. I also want to move around the stuff in our kitchen cupboards. Nick thinks I'm baby crazy, ha ha. This long weekend is going to be major nesting weekend, as we're getting some furniture for the baby and hopefully moving boxes out of the future nursery. I'm slightly overwhelmed by all the stuff we still have to get for Baby D, but I've been finding some sweet deals online and we're going to go through what's left on our registry and try to prioritize what we need when.

The baby is continuing to be a little kicker (shocking, I know). And the little one is really enjoying floating and kicking up near my ribs or hanging out on my bladder. So much fun! Baby D is now the size of a butternut squash- 17 inches long and 3.1 pounds. Some developmental milestones this week (not a whole lot, mostly it's just getting bigger):
- Grooves and indentations forming in the brain
- Increased amount of brain tissue
- Bone marrow now producing red blood cells
- Lanugo (soft, downy hair on the body) is disappearing
- Bones soaking up 250 milligrams of calcium per day for the hardening of the skeleton

Here is this week's belly picture:

29 weeks!

Check out the angles on my belly- not sure if it's just the baby or if my belly is just not round anymore

My Trip to California Day 1

Oh man, life has been so busy lately! Along with the parenting class we just started, we've been going to youth group, our Bible study through church, Nick started a bible study with youth group boys, and I have the 2 other Bible studies I'm a part of. Phew! It was a bit crazy to jump back into, but thankfully, due to lots of naps, I am finally back into the routine.

So, I am finally getting around to talking about my trip to California! I had a really good time, despite all of the travel difficulties. I have never had so many problems flying before. I'm just so glad I wasn't more pregnant! On the way out there, my first flight got canceled due to mechanical difficulties. So, I ended up flying through one extra airport and getting in about 5 hours after I was supposed to. Good times. The way back was way worse though. Due to the crazy weather in Dallas, my flight was canceled/rescheduled FOUR times! And I was delayed over one full day. I'm just glad Dallas has a USO because I took full advantage of it both to & from Georgia! I loooove the USO! They are seriously so good to the troops & us "dependents". It is much appreciated!

So as usual, I totally neglected to take pictures because everyone else is just so much better at it. This is the only picture I took on my camera:

My nephew Danny & I making silly faces

Although Danny did take these:

My dad is quite surprised


Danny is quite the budding photographer

Baby belly!

So, I will be stealing pictures from my best friend Alice (who flew out from Texas for the weekend!) or linking to my sister's blog because she put a bunch of pictures from the weekend on it. So anyway, we'll start with day one! On my first full day home in California, Alice & I toured around L.A. taking in the sights. Of course, we had to start off at the most essential California place:

In-n-Out Burger, of course!

Alice enjoying her first taste of deliciousness

Then, we visited my alma mater:

Ya, I didn't quite look like a college student anymore

Alice enjoying the sweet view

Then, we hit up:

Checking out Rodeo Drive and all that good stuff

And:

Hooray for Hollywood!

Where we saw:

Grauman's Chinese Theater and a bunch of crazy impersonators

The Kodak Theatre and the Walk of Fame

And then ate at:

Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles, yum! This was my first time and I was pleasantly surprised

Then, we met up with my sister and her kids at the beach where she took some amazing pregnancy photos for me!

The photographer in action

Here is a wonderful sampling of the beautiful pictures she took. We then got to eat dinner at her house and enjoy some quality time with the niece and nephews before heading back to my parent's house and seeing the rest of my family as well as my mother-in-law & sisters-in-law! So that was day one! Hopefully Day 2 will be coming soon!

Baby Belly Wednesday- 28 Weeks/7 months

So since I pretty regularly update you all on the baby belly on Wednesdays, I have decided to officially name it "Baby Belly Wednesday"! This week, I'm 28 weeks along (12 more to go until full term, whoa!) or 7 months. Third trimester is definitely in full swing and has me taking lots of naps. I keep getting kind of uncomfortable in the morning, and we've been busy, so we haven't necessarily been getting to bed terribly early. It's obviously been a little tough getting out of bed in the morning some days. A couple days ago, I ate breakfast & ended up going back to bed, ha ha. I'm trying to take advantage of the time I actually have to sleep since I know a little one will be keeping me up not too long from now.

Also, the belly is big enough that I'm having a harder time seeing my feet. And, I went to yoga yesterday and, I think partially due to the fact that I haven't been in awhile, but also because of the increasing mass of my belly, it was a little more of a challenge than normal. I think it's just getting a little harder to move all of this extra weight around. Definitely slight discomforts here and there otherwise, but still feeling pretty good.

We went to our first parenting class this week, which was very informative and interesting. And we're slowly starting to get things ready for the little one. My nesting instinct is starting to kick in, because I'm realizing we have a lot of preparing to do still! I also had my glucose/gestational diabetes test today- they make you drink a realllly sugary drink and then they draw your blood after an hour. I should hear the results in a few days, but I'm not really too worried.

The baby is doing great! Still kicking like a little champ! I don't even have to do kick counts because once it starts kicking, I reach the number 10 in a matter of minutes (you're supposed to count 10 movements in an hour). It's now the size of a small cabbage- about 17 inches long and almost 3 pounds! Some developmental milestones this week:
- More fat deposits under the skin
- Billions of neurons are developing in the brain
- Bone marrow is making red blood cells

Here are this week's belly pictures:

7 months pregnant!


Close up on my baby belly- which I am currently using to hold my pretzels as I type this

27 Weeks

I hit 27 weeks yesterday! I would've updated earlier, but I was home in California this past weekend and because of the crazy weather all over the country, my flights got canceled/rescheduled FOUR times! I was originally supposed to get home on Tuesday afternoon and ended up actually getting home last night. That's a whole other post for another day though.

Back to the pregnancy, I am officially in 3rd trimester! By my calculations, I was actually in it last week (if each trimester is 13 weeks), but different people believe different things. Either way though, I'm now 2/3 through the pregnancy! Anyway, only 13 weeks to go! Crazy that it's just over 3 months. I have lots of nesting to do! Still a few backaches and tons and tons of kicks, which was great when I was home so people could . These next couple weeks are when the baby is most active and apparently it got the memo! Nick is even surprised at how hard it's been kicking! It's new favorite time to kick hard is I'm sleeping too, which has been interesting. Nothing too terrible, but definitely hard enough to be distracting when I'm trying to sleep! I also think I felt some hiccups this week! So cool!

The baby is now as big as a head of cauliflower- 2.5 lbs and 16 inches long. Some developmental milestones this week:
- The baby may be able to dream! It has definite sleep cycles and possible REM sleep
- Can cough, breathe better and suck more intensely (possibly on it's fingers)

Here are this week's belly pictures:

27 weeks, whoa!

Nick said I look "very pregnant", ha ha!