I had my follow up ultra sound on Thursday and all appears well. Our little boy is already 1 pound 6 ounces (up from 11 ounces a month ago) and growing exactly how he should be. The doctor that did the ultrasound this time said she thinks it's "a whole lot of concern over nothing" and that he looks good. He was also breech at the ultrasound but since I'm only 25 weeks it's not a reason for concern yet.

We scheduled another follow up visit in 6 weeks just to make sure he keeps growing like he should be...but so far so good. Yay! At this ultrasound he was opening and closing his mouth (the doctor said he was "smacking his lips" xD) and at one point he had his fingers in his mouth -- it was so cute.

We moved a couple weeks ago and are now in a 3 bedroom townhome instead of a two bedroom apartment. We're still working on unpacking but so far we like it a LOT better than the apartment.

I have to admit I don't like unpacking (or packing for that matter) so it may take us a few months to get everything unpacked and organized.

Here's the latest belly picture at 25 weeks:


That picture was taken in the baby's room. There really isn't much to see because it's mostly empty...aside from a few boxes in it. We're planning to get the baby furniture in the next week or two so I'll have something to post about again soon. :D

It's a boy!

I had my 20 week ultra sound today and we found out that we're having a boy! We're planning on naming him Matthew Steven. (We would call him Matt.)

I have pictures from the ultrasound but don't want to post all of them. If you want to see them e-mail me or let me know and I can e-mail them to you.

It was kind of funny while the doctor was trying to take measurements the baby wouldn't close his mouth. The doctor thinks he was asleep with his mouth open and didn't want to wake up xD. We did get to see the baby's tongue a few times though...I wouldn't have known it was the tongue if the doctor hadn't pointed it out.

There was some thickness in the back of the neck that the doctor was a little concerned about. It's not too thick, but it's right at the top of the "normal" thickness range. Apparently that's a symptom of down's syndrome, which we didn't test for. He checked all the other common signs of down's syndrome, such as a hole in the heart and/or dialated kidneys. Everything appears to be normal. The doctor said that some babies do have thick skin in that area and don't have down's syndrome but they check just to be safe.

At this point Mark and I aren't too concerned but the doctor scheduled a follow up visit with us in a month just to check and make sure everything is ok...and see if the baby will close his mouth!

Since I'm 20 weeks I decided it's time to take a belly picture, so here it is:

What a few past weeks it's been! I'm glad they're over and hopefully it all goes better from here.

We started having problems with our Kia (it would die at stop signs) so we took it to the shop...a few days after we took it to the shop they told us what they thought the problem was (catalytic converter and some sensors) and the price. We weren't thrilled about the price but weren't ready to buy a different car yet. (We've already put more money into the Kia in repairs than it's worth so we decided we were going to get a different car before February when the baby is born.) We told them to go ahead and fix it. They called us back a couple days later and said that they replaced the parts but the car was still having the same problem and they didn't know why.

We called them back a couple times over the next week and finally were told the car needed a new motor and it would be several thousand dollars to fix it, plus we would have to go to a salvage yard and get the motor ourselves and bring it to them. (I think it took them several hours to even get to the motor...and that was with all the tools they had!) That's when we decided we're done with it and it's time to get a different vehicle. The car shop decided they would buy the car from us and not charge us for any of the work they did. (I think the mechanics decided to make it a shop pet project.) It was nice that they wanted the car...cause I don't know if the Kia could have made it to a junk yard without dying.

So, I took today off work and we bought a car. Here's our new (to us) car:

It's a 2002 Ford Explorer and the best part is we didn't have to get financing for it!

It's good to have two cars again. Hopefully we don't have as many problems with vehicles any more. It seemed like the Kia was in the shop at least every other month. I also have to say if this all had to happen, I'm glad it happened now and not after the baby is born. I think the entire situation would have been even more stressful with a newborn to worry about as well.

Also, here's some pictures of my growing belly:

This was at 13 weeks.

This was at 16 weeks (last night in fact)

I didn't realize how big the changes were until I compared the pictures. Now it's starting to become more obvious that I'm expecting. Around the end of September we're supposed to find out (hopefully!) if it's a girl or a boy.

We also decided that we're moving in mid-October. We got approval for a place so all we have to do at this point is wait for October to pack up and move. I'm so excited to be moving! We've been in the apartments we're in for almost 2 years and it's just time for a change. The new place is only about 10 minutes away from where we currently live. I'm so excited to be moving that I've already started packing what we don't use often.

So we actually have something to post about -- we are having a baby!

I'm due February 9, 2011 and I'm offically 12 weeks as of yesterday. I haven't had really bad morning sickness -- I've only been sick twice. Although for the past few weeks I've had nausea off and on pretty much the entire time. Not fun, but at least I'm not throwing up all the time. That's especially nice since I'm working full time.

I haven't had extreme fatigue either. I'm usually as tired as I normally am. Although some times, especially days where I'm nauseous I run out of energy faster than I otherwise would. Thankfully that hasn't been very common so far.

I haven't been super sensitive to smells either except the trash can xD. Unless it's a brand new bag with nothing in it I have to hold my breath when I throw things away or make Mark do it. xD I also have a hard time eating any kind of breakfast cereal (which is tough for me because that's what I would usually have for breakfast.)

I've had some food cravings - the latest is Beef Ramen Noodles, actually namely just the juice...but it doesn't taste right without at least cooking the noodles along with the flavoring. A few weeks ago I really wanted potato salad and then when we finally made it I didn't want to eat it any more xD. The food cravings haven't been too weird though, nothing like pickles with ice cream. Most of my cravings have actually been healthy...ice cream just plain doesn't sound good.

Here's some pictures: These are from my first appointment. I was 9 weeks.




They had me come back the next week to let them know our decisions on genetic screening. When I went to my appointment at 10 weeks they decided to just check on the baby since I was there. The nurse tried using a machine to find the heart beat but was unable to find the baby. She let the doctor know and the doctor decided we'd better do another ultra sound just to make sure everything was ok. Everything was fine. The little squirt was just hiding :P. So I got some more pictures:



The doctor said the smaller circles are the arms and legs. I can kind of see it but seriously, if they weren't there telling me what was what I would have no idea. I also got to see the heart beating at my first appointment.

Mark has school on the days appointments work best for me so he wasn't able to go to either appointment. Hopefully when his schedule changes in September he'll be able to come to the appointments.

We're pretty excited and all our family knows. Mark's grandma wants us to have a girl. We don't really mind if we have a girl or boy...we're excited to just be having a baby. We were going by a "if it happens it happens" philosophy for like the last 2 years or so and then in May we decided we were going to actually start trying...and that's when I got pregnant. How convenient xD.

I'm not really showing much, at least in my opinion. Although sometimes at work I get the feeling that some of my co-workers are getting shifty eyed or watching me out of the corner of their eyes, suspecting but not wanting to ask :P Maybe that's just me. I'm sure they'll tell me what they were thinking when they find out. I'm not really sure when I want to tell my co-workers. My manager already knows, but once I start showing it's going to be pretty obvious.

I finally got pictures of the plants I was talking about in the last post.

Here are the very dead peas:


Here is the tomato planter. There is a tomato plant in the top and a tomato plant in the bottom. AND we have 2 tomatoes forming! So of course I had to include a picture of that:



I got tired of having dead plants/containers of dirt just sitting on the balcony so I put it all in the trash...all we have now is empty planting containers. Who knows, maybe at our next place they'll get more use.

Yesterday we happened to drive past an oil painting sale. I convinced Mark to come with me so we could go look at some paintings and we ended up buying a couple. The first one is my FAVORITE and it's hanging in our living room now:


We also got this one for Mark's mom since she really likes horses. It's in our dining room until we can get it to her though.


They are oil paintings but they look more like photographs. I love it when paintings look like that. The artist said that since the houses aren't selling his paintings aren't selling very well either. He was having a 75% off sale on them when we stopped by and wanted to make a sale bad enough that he said that HE would pay the sales tax on them. (If they weren't 75% off we wouldn't have bought them though. I'm too cheap to pay full price on something like that.) Normal price was any where from $15 to $90 each depending on the size. I think we got a good deal and we're very happy. Both of these paintings are 2 feet by 3 feet...so they're certainly decent sized.

I've been looking at our walls lately and they're pretty sparse as far as decorations go...so I've been keeping my eyes open for art/good pictures to put up. I'm really excited about these paintings.

Mark REALLY likes his new school (YAY!) and loves the classes he's in. Hopefully the 2 years or so he'll have to spend at this school won't seem so long since he likes the classes.

His pinky finger also seems to be healing well. At his last doctors appointment the doctor told Mark to grip his hand and Mark couldn't because of his pinky. He has another doctors appointment in a about a week and a half to see if it's completely healed yet. Mark hasn't quite been able to grip yet but he can move his pinky into a fist position which is more than he was able to do last week. He hasn't lost his finger nail either. Hallelujah that the body can heal it's own injuries in most cases! We're both glad that the injury wasn't any worse.

Mark changed schools. A few weeks ago Mark was getting ready to enroll for fall classes at the community college and found that the classes he needs to take for a networking degree are all offered when he can't take them. He talked to the counselor and the counselor told him that he needs to change what he's going to school for then. (I was like "What!?" when I heard that.)

So we decided it was time to look for a different school. After doing some research I found some info on ITT Tech and filled out a request for more information. Mark got a call the next day and was able to go on a tour and get more information about how it works and if it would be a good fit for our situation. From what we've heard it sounds like it will be excellent. Mark is excited to start classes, which is good, because class starts this Tuesday.

Their semesters aren't like other schools. The classes are year round and last for about 3 months each. The school chooses the classes he needs to take as well as the schedule. They are day time hours and they just tell him what day and time. (They're all finished by 1:30 PM so he will have time to get to work.) Once he gets a degree they'll also help him find a job to use the new degree at. Mark is working on an associates degree, and some of the credits from the MCC may transfer, which is fantastic!

On Thursday (June 10) Mark's left hand pinky finger got smashed at work. We thought it just got bruised because it was black and blue, bleeding slightly, and was pretty swollen. On Friday Mark went to work like normal and it started hurting a lot worse and swelling again so he decided to go to the hospital to get it checked out. After the hospital took x-rays they found he broke the bone in his finger tip. They put it in a splint and told him to tape it to his ring finger. (I didn't take a picture, it's really gross.) Also they are pretty sure the nail is going to fall off in a few days, but it should grow back within a month or so. His finger should heal in a month or so as well.

So Mark gets to start class with a broken finger. Hopefully it heals quickly and correctly.

Our potted plants are not doing well at all. The peas all died. :( (I'm almost embarrassed to post a picture xD!)
I think part of why the peas died is because the roots weren't able to get deep enough...maybe we put too many in the container as well, who knows. Container gardening is harder than it looks. The top soil seemed to help a little bit and then the next time I checked them they were dead. I can't remember if I forgot to water them or what. We decided we're not going to plant a garden again until we have a yard we can plant in.

Well, that's the latest. It seems like a lot has happened these past few weeks. Hopefully it calms down for a while. I honestly don't mind our life being so boring there's nothing worth blogging about :P

TV

Well on Thursday night (when I posted last) our TV stopped working. This was a pretty old TV we got from Mark's parents a couple years ago. This TV stopped working about 6 months ago as well and Mark's dad (who works on TVs for a living) came and fixed it for us.

On Thursday (well, technically Friday morning) when Mark got home from work we decided to go to Walmart and "browse" for TVs. We went with the intent of looking and buying if we found something we like. We found a TV and TV stand that we liked so we went ahead and bought them :D!

As soon as we got home we started making way for the new TV, so I forgot to get a real before picture before we started moving everything around. So we'll just have to make do with what pictures I could scrounge up of the old TV and set up.

Since the above pic was taken there were some shelving changes...here's as close a picture as I can find to really show it:

(So all you have to do is take both pictures and merge them in your mind to get a real sense of what it looked like xD!)

Here is our new TV (and we had to get a TV stand thing too.)


I REALLY like the new TV and the TV stand we got. I also really like the shelves and space that the TV stand gives (which is why we got it.) The window on the right side used to be half covered up by the white shelf (viewable in the 2nd picture). I can't believe how much room it seemed to open up.

Well, I figured I'd post about this because it's pretty much the biggest change in our lives at the present. We don't have a very interesting life, but that's exactly how I like it!

I figured it was about time for an update on the plants.

Our peas have grown a lot. Here they are last week:


Since then I decided to build some fence things for them to climb. I didn't realize how hard container potting can be. We used normal potting soil and I think the roots are running out of room. I got some top soil today and put some of that in the container, so we'll see how they do.

Also our tomatoes aren't doing so great. I really want some tomatoes to grow so we bought a couple tomato plants (like 6 inches tall each) and put those in a special tomato planter. I hope they do well. Maybe I'll take a picture of them next time.

Mark only has finals left of school and then he's finished until the fall semester. Yay! That's about all for us.

Planting a garden

Mark and I decided to plant a garden this year...At least as much as we can. Since we live in an apartment we're limited to container gardening. We decided to try planting peas and tomatoes (and some flowers.)

Last Sunday we planted the peas and today I noticed they're starting to sprout. =D!!
I'm so excited to see the sprouts so of course I had to take pictures.


Here is a view of about half the container. If you look closely you can see specks of green.


Here's an up close view.

I can hardly wait to harvest peas! I hope our tomatoes and flowers will start sprouting soon. I love seeing progress especially since this is the first time since we've been married that we tried to plant a garden.

Ohio trip

Kaelyn's blessing was on Sunday, February 7, so I went to Ohio to be there for it. (Mark wasn't able to come because of school so it was me, mom and dad.)

It was tons of fun and I'm so glad that I went. This was the first time I have ever been on a plane before and it wasn't bad at all. I especially like take off. When I was in high school I wanted to be a flight attendant when I grew up...I've definitely changed my mind on that. I don't mind flying, but I wouldn't like that for a job. Plus I'd be gone all the time and that would stink.

Anyway, the trip was awesome. We got to Ohio on Wednesday evening just in time for dinner. We got to hold Kaelyn and she's absolutely adorable! I know Lynette posted this pic on her blog already, but I can't resist:

This is Kaelyn's confused look. Often when I was holding her and Lynette talked she'd make this look. She didn't seem to know what to think. xD

On Thursday it was snowing a lot and me and Lynette decided to go make snowmen. Dad came out and helped after a few minutes too. I didn't bring any snow/cold weather gear, so I had to make do with what was available. (the middle snowman is holding a news paper)


Here's one of just the snowmen. We made 3 big snowmen, a baby one and a dog.

The snowmen didn't survive the storm :( They tipped over into each other and by the end of the week our snowmen looked like a wimpy attempt at trying to make a snow fort. xD It was snowing most of that day though, and the snow was wet and heavy.

A few times me and Lynette goofed off with the camera, here's my favorite goof off picture:


We went on a tour to a chocolate factory. Here's the outside of the building:



The tour was pretty cool. It was neat to see how much work goes into making candy. Then of course we went to the candy shop. I ended up getting a few things:


The letters are made of chocolate and they had the entire alphabet plus 0-9. That was pretty cool. (I got L for Linda and M for Mark, of course) I didn't take any pics of the inside of the store because I didn't know if they would get mad.
I also got two candy bars, one for me and one for Mark.


and a couple of these, which are bags of black licorice.


Overall it was pretty cool.

On Monday we went to Kirtland, OH with everyone, including Steve's parents.

Kaelyn was so cute while we were getting ready to go, so I snapped a few pictures of her:




There was snow in the trees and I thought it looked awesome so I got a few pics:



The tour in Kirtland was pretty cool. I got a lot of pics there but don't really want to take the time to post them all. Here's one of all of us that were there:


While we were finishing up the tour I got a call from the airport saying our return flight on Tuesday afternoon was canceled. We were planning to fly back to KC Tuesday afternoon but ended up rescheduling it for the morning. It was a good thing too. Columbus was getting snow and so was Chicago. By the time we got to KC the Chicago airport was shut down so there's no way we would have been able to get out at that time.

Overall it was super fun but I'm glad to be home now. It was good to be able to meet Kaelyn finally and to see Steve and Lynette again.

Update

Wow. I didn't notice I haven't made a post since August. It doesn't seem like it could possibly have been that long. Oh well. We haven't really had much going on worth writing about.

A week before Christmas we got new couch covers, so that's what my post is going to be about today. I've been meaning to post this for several weeks now but finally just got around to it.

Before:




After:




I definitely have to say I like the after ones a whole lot better. We decided it was time to get new ones because our cat liked to try and chew on the old ones. That hasn't been a problem with these new ones, which is fantastic!

As far as life goes, we're both working and Mark is going to school. All of that is going well.