Full term baby... And my bags are packed!

I can't believe I am full term! This pregnancy has been wonderful, seriously. Yes, I had a little bit of morning sickness (but no throwing up) and some aches and pains but I absolutely LOVE being pregnant. This kid has been good to me :)

So far, I have gained 22 pounds. Not too bad! I haven't had any heartburn, praise Jesus! And this girl likes spicy foods too, so I haven't had to sacrifice in that department :) The only stretch mark I can see is right above my belly button and it's about 1/4" long. I will tell you I have got quite the outtie and this pregnancy has done a number on my cute little belly button that I used to have...oh well :)

My 36 week appointment went well! The baby is head down. What a relief! I honestly thought they were sideways sometimes by the way I could feel movement on both sides of my bump when baby was practicing some dance moves. So, I don't have to worry about the baby being in the wrong position for delivery! My midwife thinks the baby is about 6-6 1/2 pounds. I tested negative for Strep B, so no antibiotics! Yay! And I'm 50% effaced and she thinks 1 1/2 centimeters dilated. That's 1 less I have to go during labor ;)

Erin and I have hired a Doula to help us with the birth and we are really learning a lot from her and feeling confident about the whole birth process. We just have to make sure we bring our hospital bags with us for the next few weekends. We are going to a wedding on the 14th and Erin is in a wedding on the 21st. Remember my due date is the 22nd? Oh boy!

Speaking of hospital bags...they are all packed!

Birthing ball, diaper bag, and suitcase all ready to go

I was originally going to pack in an over-the-shoulder, cute duffel bag but then realized a rolling suitcase will be much easier for us to take in/out of the hospital. And by us, I mean Erin :) I also thought about bringing my nursing pillow but feel like that's a luxury I can save for home and I can just use pillows in the hospital. Plus, it's one less thing to carry. That ball is awkward enough, haha.

The car seat has been in my car for a few weeks now, so we're all set there! We'll have to carry that in/out of the hospital, too!

Did I show you my diaper bag yet?!! It's adorable and I am so blessed to have amazing friends :)

Petunia Pickle Bottom is the cutest!

 This is what I have packed in my diaper bag with lots of room to spare:

Nursing cover, 1 set of disposable nursing pads and a pair of reusable pads. Pretty sure my milk won't be in but I thought I would pack them just in case. I also have some Earth Mama nipple butter.

Girl socks and boy socks! Since we don't know what we're having, I'm bringing them both :)

 

 

Vaseline to put on their butt before the meconium diaper! I hear it helps clean it up so much easier. Earth Mama bottom butter, Honest Company hand sanitizer and a pacifier just in case. I actually don't plan on using one for a while but thought I would throw it in my bag. 

Little hair bows, another neutral pair of socks and baby mittens. Also, 2 white onesies.

I'm bringing one Aden & Anais swaddling blanket and a burp cloth.

A going home outfit for baby boy or baby girl :)

I read a lot of posts on Pinterest about what to pack and felt like there is plenty the hospital will provide and I don't need to waste space packing my own. I'm not about to bring my own  diapers!They will be taking care of that for me. In fact, I'm sure I'll be stocking up on things to take home :)

As for "our" bag, here's what we got:

 

For me:

-1 pair of sweatpants

-1 tank top

-sports bra

-nursing bra

-1 pair of underwear- I am planning on stocking up on lots of mesh panties to take home

-1 pair of socks

-flip flops

-going home maxi dress

For Erin:

-1 t-shirt

-sweatpants

-swimsuit and flip flops-in case he helps me labor in the shower or wants to shower himself

Other things:

-birth plan

-medicine ball pump

-toiletry bag for me

-snacks

-camera 

-phone chargers

Toiletry bag:
-shower cap
-lotion
-make-up remover towels
-small mirror
-toothbrushes/toothpaste
-chapstick
-deodorant

Not yet packed: make-up bag and hair brush. I'll grab those hopefully at the last minute :)

Things I might still pack: laptop. But, I will have my iphone if we think we want to send out a quick e-mail or something. We only live 15 minutes from the hospital, so if there's anything we think we can't live without or need to stay longer than overnight, Erin can easily grab it or family can help us out :)

Anything I am clearly missing? Help me out!

Guess What!?!

Guess what???

…I’m pregnant! Just kidding, you already knew that:) The short answer is: we moved! To Dixon! Because that’s so much more fun than Midtown, Sac :) This last week was one of the busiest weeks of my life and definitely the most challenging one of my entire pregnancy. And wouldn’t you know it, my most hormonal one, of course.

Why the move? A couple of factors helped us make the decision.

1.     I want to quit working as a waitress. I have definitely been cutting back on my hours at Black Bear and was ready to stop all together. There aren’t really any opportunities throughout my 6-7 hour shift to sit and rest. I have to carry heavy plates of food all day long, which was really killing my back at the end of my shift. And pregnant hormones don’t allow me to put up with much crap from stupid customers ha-ha. Let’s be honest. I was over it. And it is physically hard on this mama.

However, on a nice busy day I would make around $20 an hour. So in order to help our household income stay afloat, we decided to cut back.  We found a much more affordable place to live with utilities and laundry (and free pool access) included :) And it’s sooo much more quite than midtown.

2.     We have been thinking about moving out of our side of the duplex for a while and knew we could bring in more money if we rented it out to other people and we lived somewhere cheaper. Make sense?

3.     We have some friends who have a granny flat/1 bedroom apartment on their property in Dixon and were looking to rent it out. So we jumped on it. Did I say 1 bedroom? Yep. Talk about downsize ;) But we really like it and it brings me to point 4.

4.     We are closer to family. My mother in law lives in Dixon and my parents and father in law live in Vacaville, which is 15 minutes away! And with the baby coming, that will be nice to be closer so we can take the kid to them and take a nap. Hey Grandma!

5.     But the most exciting reason of all is: WE ARE BUILDING A HOUSE IN VACAVILLE THIS YEAR!!!! This has been a plan of ours for a few years now. We will be able to save money for the house/make new house payments on that while I can stay home with the baby! Praise the Lord! We have officially got the financing done and contractor ready to go. We are hoping to have it done within a year. No problem right? Because everything in new construction is totally easy and always on time ;) Right….

That about sums it up! My main concern is the small space with the baby. But, I am excited to downsize, minimize and do something new. The baby wasn’t enough change this year, so we added a few more things...

I’m glad this week is over. Last Saturday, we hosted a dinner at our house. It was my last night of the house being cute and hosting in our home. Waaaaahh. Then on Sunday, we started packing after church. We singed the lease on the apartment Tuesday night and got the keys. We stayed in Dixon Friday night and finished moving everything out of our home by Sunday. DANG! 7 days. A lot of our stuff is being stored at my father in laws, which is where we are building the house. Makes sense to store it there: free and that’s where the new house will go, so we won’t have far to move it all next time. Bonus.

My sweet husband worked so hard and we had some nice friends help lighten the load. Did I mention our house is 95% move in ready, too? We moved out and cleaned it in 7 days. Since I can’t do any heavy lifting, I puttied, painted, scrubbed, dusted, and vacuumed like a maniac so that we could get it ready to show as fast a possible. And I worked 3 days last week at my job. Dang. We are hoping to get it rented out in early April and start making some mulah. 

Ok, this post is long enough. I will keep you all updated on the new house plans soon. But right now I need to unpack our apartment. Wish me luck! And energy. And storage space miracles.

Pregnancy Update! 22 Weeks

I'm not that great at blogging regularly. I know, big shock if you've read my blog over the last few years. Ha ha. Being pregnant isn't really changing that. I'll try and fill you in on the last few months!

I'm now 22 weeks and 4 days along in this pregnancy! I had a super easy first trimester, with only 2 weeks of "morning sickness" like symptoms but never any throwing up. The second trimester is going just as great! I am still working about 20 hours a week at the diner and 4 hours a week with my friend Amy who runs her own Etsy shop out of her home (The Belle and The Beau). Working at the diner is definitely getting harder. I'm pretty beat after I get home.

The baby is doing great! I always hear really positive things at all my appointments. Thank you Lord! Baby Rice was measuring a week ahead at my last appointment, so it may be possible that my due date could be as early as June 15. My normal due date is June 22. I won't hold my breath. This baby will come whenever baby wants to come (or so I hear that's how it goes). :)

We did not find out the sex of the baby. We held strong! For someone who doesn't want to find out, we have sure had plenty of opportunities. I had food poisoning last week which brought me to the ER for fluids and then back again 2 days later for pain management. I am all well and recovered now and the baby was doing perfect the whole time. They did 2 more ultrasounds last week just to make sure, making our total at 6 ultrasounds this pregnancy! Ha ha that is at least 3 opportunities we had to find out and luckily no one slipped up and told us :)

Here are my "bumpdate" pictures!

16 Weeks

17 Weeks

18 Weeks. This is the week we felt the baby move for the first time!

19 Weeks

20 Weeks!!

20 Week Ultrasound

21 Weeks! A little small after all the food poisoning issues lol

22 Weeks!

We have been making some progress on the nursery! We moved out the guest bed and some smaller bookshelves. Now we need to install our new window, pack up the last books and swap out the last bookcase. All we need is the crib and it's pretty much done!

I didn't paint the room since I really liked the existing color and it's gender neutral. I got our changing table/dresser from a friend who was moving and didn't want it anymore (thanks Leslie!). I painted it and love how it turned out. My Nana bought me the white chair from Ikea and my Aunt bought the rug from Target. My parents are getting us the crib! We are so blessed and are feeling the love.

15 weeks!

Baby Rice is coming along! I am officially starting to show. The bump made its reveal at 13 weeks and is the biggest after dinner :)

12 weeks

13 weeks

14 weeks

15 weeks

I'm not sure we have enough pictures of our kid.

 

And here is a little video of the rice cake. Can't feel 'em yet but they are moving so much! This is from my 13 week appointment.

I have been feeling great! I really had it easy for the first trimester and try not to complain very much. I am still working part time at Blackbear Diner and that leaves me feeling super beat after work, but I'm only working around 25 hours a week. However, I am on my feet for 5-6 hours without a break...so that is rough. The couch and I have become great friends.

When I was having my two week "rough patch" I lost 6 pounds. I'm not sure if I've gained all that back yet since my scale's battery conveniently pooped out. It's a special battery, so we'll see when I get around to replacing it. I have been playing around with some maternity pants and shirts. I don't really need the pants yet but they are suuuper comfy. The problem with wearing them is that I have to wear a maternity shirt with it to be long enough to cover the stretchy-belly part.

Erin is out of town right now, so naturally I went shopping. Yesterday I bought our stroller!! YAY! I had been thinking about getting a BOB for a while and knew we would only be using one stroller and it might as well be a jogging stroller. We received some Christmas money from Erin's mom and put it towards the BOB. I am tempted to open it up and put it together, but it will just sit collecting dust until June. We'll see how long I hold off ;) Also, I had pizza for dinner. Don't tell Erin.

This thing is amazing and no one will tell you otherwise.

We decided right away that we didn't want to find out the sex of the baby! So we won't! A lot of people find out and I think that's great and maybe we will for our next kid, but we truly want to be surprised. Please don't try and talk us out of it, it's our kid ;)

We plan on using our back bedroom as the nursery. Currently it has our guest bed, dresser, and some bookcases in there. We can move the bed into our craft room/office and store some books in the basement. The nursery will need to be gender neutral! However, it will not be full of yellow and green. It will be cute! I don't even need to paint because the color is fine. It's like a grey/blue/pastel color.

I've been painting a dresser/changing table a friend gave me with antique white chalk paint for the nursery. I like this crib. A lot! (Not really the mattress cover)

And this rug!

This is an old picture of the back bedroom but this is the color we will be keeping.

So far I have a picture of what I want, but it's hard for anyone else to see it :)

We Made a Baby! Yay!!

We are officially sharing the most exciting news we have ever had-we're pregnant! Erin and I decided to start a family and praise the Lord it didn't take very long :)

When we first got engaged, I wanted to be on the 10 year plan! I thought we would be married for a long time and be selfish and enjoy our time together, party of 2 ;) Let's be honest! But, our hearts have changed and after 3 years of marriage and a "babymoon" to Kauai (one last hoorah), we decided it was time to start a family. If it happened, it happened. It was such a comfortable and exciting place to be in! We were totally willing to see what happened and it was all in the Lord's timing.

I found out I was pregnant in October :) 2 days late and 3 tests later (all possitive), Erin said, "Well, I think you're really pregnant!" I definitely told him the same morning I took all the tests, we were both excited and like, "Wow. Ok, now what?!" It was hard to go about our normal routine, seeing friends and co-workers everyday and having to hide such exciting news! We told our family around week 6, I think... I had my first ultrasound at 7 1/2 weeks. It was all becoming so real!

Praise the Lord I only had 2 weeks of "morning sickness," from week 6-7. Ha, more like all day sickness and through the night sickness. But I only suffered nausea and never any throwing up, thank you Jesus!! If you really know me, you know barf is just NOT my thing. I lost 6 pounds in 2 weeks from absolute lack of appetite. I would have crackers by my bed so in the middle of the night if I got hungry I would nibble on a cracker. Erin thought he was sleeping next to a little mouse. I had to have a cracker before getting out of bed and would stratagize how fast I could make it to the kitchen from bed and shove a piece of toast in my mouth before getting hungry and then nauseous. Hungry=nasuea. However, I had no appetite and eating 2 bites made me feel "I'm so full, I'm gonna puke," to 5 minutes later, "I'm so hungry, I'm gonna puke." Do I sound crazy yet?

Anyways, now I am past all of that and onto the more fun symptoms like gas, bloating, constipation, hormonal induced headaches and fatigue. Yay! Ha Ha really though, I am loving being pregnant. I am still working, attending social functions and visiting with friends. But if you come over to my house after 5pm, don't expect any homemade dinner or me to get off the couch...Erin has fond memories of when I used to make dinner. He is being so sweet and doing a lot of dinner cooking for us. I'm pretty content with a bagel and cream cheese but he can only take so much of that ;)

Wow this is getting lengthy! Here are a few belly shots from the last few weeks. Sorry, not really any bump yet. But let me just tell you, gas baby is no joke.

8 weeks!

10 weeks!

Kauai- Day 9

Today was our last full day!! :( So sad! We could easily stay for another week, it's crazy.

This morning we went on a boat tour of the Na Pali coastline. So fun! We left about 8:30am and the water was perfect. No wind or white caps. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip and I would highly recommend this tour. It was the Blue Dolphin Charters. Use them if you are coming here. All of the crew was super friendly. The captain was awesome. They are remembered our names throughout the day. We had fruit and cinnamon rolls for breakfast and a deli lunch. They walked around and made sure everyone had something to drink. Soda, fruit juice, water. The captain even bartended after the snorkeling!

A great view of Ni'ihau. Did you know only 200 people live on the island and ONLY hawaiians can live on the island. No one else is allowed on the island. 

We were guaranteed to see dolphins and we sure did. This video is just a small glimpse of them. There were tons. These are spinner dolphins. Seriously, they spin out of the water. It was so fun to watch. Jumps, spins, flips and everything!

The captain drove the boat right under a little waterfall. It felt really nice. We were on a large catamaran but some smaller boat tours go into the tunnels.

Gorgeous water. It looked like it was glowing in the dark.

We snorkeled for about an hour and it was amazing. We saw tons of fish, warm water, great visibility. And we saw lots of turtles! On the ride back, we had all you can drink mai tais. Good time all around.