I've been meaning to post but have kept putting it off. Not any more!

Everything has been going well. We had a follow up ultrasound on December 2 to check baby's growth and development and he appears to be doing very well. We don't have to have any more follow up ultrasounds. :D!

Starting next week I go to weekly doctor appointments until the baby is born. It's amazing to me that our baby is due in a little over a month! Where has the time gone!?

We've finally gotten our nursery ready...at least the furniture in place. Here's some pictures:




I have never really gotten into decorating the nursery (or any room for that matter) so the walls get to stay the color they are. Plus when the baby is born he likely won't care what the room looks like.

Also I've got a lot of belly pictures. I'm trying to take weekly belly pictures from week 32 until the baby is born since that's when most the growth happens. Here's the latest belly pictures:

29 weeks

32 weeks

33 weeks

34 weeks

I didn't realize how big my belly really is until I saw the pictures I just posted. I haven't been knocking stuff off counters (yet) although it is getting difficult to bend over. I'm also not to the point of being ready for him to be born any time. I'm trying to mentally prepare (as much as I can anyway) for the big change this will be as well as all the changes that will result from it. I imagine as we get closer to his due date I'll be ready for him to come though.

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