{Fabulous Friday} & Easter Yummies

Happy Friday to everyone! Also, Happy Good Friday and Happy Earth Day! I hope you are able to do something good for the environment this weekend.

This weekend is Easter. So many reasons to be thankful and celebrate. We'll be celebrating a little on our own this year. Lucky for me, I have this weekend off - wahoo!! I have quite the dinner/meal planned for Sunday. Upon talking with some of my family who will be cooking back in Colorado, I was inspired to make something up very similar to what they will be doing. So it will be just like we're there together to celebrate. I'm going to make my Grandma's homemade BBQ sauce and make pulled pork sandwiches. Can you say mouth-watering?! Her BBQ Sauce is soo amazing! 

Easter is another holiday that is hard for me, since I'm missing a very close family member, but it will be good that I'm cooking and making some yummy food that I know he'd be here to share with us. I'll be thinking about everyone back home who will be celebrating and be together. Josh and I will enjoy our hopefully quiet Sunday together.

 I hope you all have a great weekend in store for yourselves! I'll be posting a weekly update tomorrow on how Baby Dewey is doing. Thank you all for your sweet comments and thoughts.

{Belly Picture & Weekly Updates}

Pregnancy Highlights:

Woah, I have 154 days left?!

How Far Along: 18 Weeks Today
Size of baby: size of a Sweet Potato (and weighs 6.7 oz and is 5.6 inches long :)
Total Weight Gain/Loss: gained about 5 lbs.
Maternity Clothes: Wearing maternity pants, and some shirts.
Gender: We don't know and won't know until September when I'm due :) and topic under debate.
Movement: I've had a few more "popcorn" or "flutter" feelings...
Sleep: Have been super tired and now starting to get uncomfortable
What I miss: Nothing really.
Cravings: Food?! I'm just hungry now, which is a GREAT feeling!
Symptoms: None, just finding a comfortable sleeping position.
Labor Symptoms:Nope
Milestone: Have two more Doc appointments coming up this week, starting to feel some flutters.
Best Moment this week: Seeing my belly picture that I took. Starting to look more pregnant and not just fat?!

What I'm looking forward to: My belly growing and feeling movement!

 

And here is a photo I took of my belly, and a new shirt I got, at 18 weeks. This was Friday so close enough to 18 :)

It's a cell phone picture. Had to send it to my mom :)

Also this week, I went to Babies-R-Us to look around and start working on the registry. Um...can I just say Overwhelming?! I know there is a lot to do and get. I need to organize myself and start in one area and move to the next. I think I'm making progress though.

More info on the {Great Debate} discussion that I posted last week, info to come later :)

Happy Weekend & Weekly Highlights

Happy weekend! My weekend starts promptly this morning as I end my string of overnight shifts, yay! This was a hard week for me, just didn't get enough sleep. Looking forward to this weekend as we have more visitors: Josh's parents and his sister and her family. Another house full for us (condo full in our case) but we're excited to have everyone and see them. Thought I'd throw out some highlights since today is my weekly change over. Seems like time is flying by right now...

 Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 17 Weeks Today
Size of baby: size of a Onion (and weighs 5.9 oz and is 4.6 inches long :)
Total Weight Gain/Loss: gained about 5 lbs.
Maternity Clothes: Wearing maternity pants, mine are too tight!
Gender: We don't know and won't know until September when I'm due :)
Movement: Not really, though I've had a few "popcorn" or "flutter" feelings...
Sleep: Have been super tired and now starting to get uncomfortable
What I miss: Nothing really.
Cravings: Food?! I'm just hungry now, which is a GREAT feeling!
Symptoms: None, just finding a comfortable sleeping position.
Labor Symptoms:Nope
Milestone: Had another Doc appointment this week, starting to feel some flutters.
Best Moment this week: Feeling some flutters here and there...could it be?!

What I'm looking forward to: My belly growing and feeling movement!

Nothing too fancy this week, fairly low key. Had my regular appointment on Wednesday and everything is checking out just fine.

This was 8 weeks ago, when I was 9 weeks. Need a new one!

The Great Debate

Not so much a debate among others...but more so between me, myself and I.

While it has long stood in my mind that when I got pregnant I did not want to know the gender until birth, I am now contemplating finding out. Let me first start by saying that no one person or people have influenced this idea. I've always been strong willed in everything I do and one of my favorite things are surprises, hence not wanting to find out. 

{image found here}

I've had many friends and family who have been pregnant over the last few years and I've always asked so many questions and been so curious about the whole pregnancy process, and excited for when it would be my turn. I've told many people that I knew I didn't want to find out when I would become pregnant and believe me I've gotten the looks and the "How could you possibly wait?". I've always thought how cool and special it would be to wait until birth to know if you had a little girl or a little boy inside that belly. After all, waiting 9 months to see what she/he looks like, why not wait to know if it is a he or a she?? I have a few friends who have waited and they've told me what a surprise and how fun it was to wait and the anticipation that built up made the labor process that much better; for one taking your mind off of other things. My parents waited to find out what I was and they were pleasantly surprised. My dad always told me he just knew I was a girl. Back 20-30+ years ago there wasn't the technology to find out the gender so everyone had to wait .

Now for the other side. 
{There is the whole planning and buying gifts bonus to knowing.} But I don't want to know just so people can buy me a blue blanket versus a green/brown/yellow one which I would love to use for either a boy or a girl. True, it would be much easier to plan the nursery, clothes, themes, equipment and such especially since this is our first child and we can use all the help we can take. But I'm completely fine with decorating in gender neutral colors. I personally love the greens/browns/yellows/blues and I would happily dress or carry or be seen with a girl or a boy in those colors.

{The name decision process.} While Josh and I have talked about kids' names for years, both knowing we wanted kids in our future, it is always fun to talk about possible names. This is one of the things I love about being pregnant and knowing we are creating a life. Names are so unique to each person's personality, I just think it is fun. It is just as easy to come up with one gender name as it is to come up with one name of each gender. However, I do agree with the argument that by knowing the gender and calling the baby by his or her name I would feel more like I "know" him or her and get to know him or her better. More personalized than talking to my belly saying "hi baby" for the next 6 months. Also, by knowing the gender, we can really decide if we like that name or not, but I feel like we are basically set on our names.

I suppose those are the two biggest factors in my mind on "to know or not to know". So hard. I know how most other people stand on this topic in my family and circle of friends. And I appreciate so much those that tell me "it's your baby, in your belly, you do what you want". Which is great. And I'm honestly not letting people influence me at all, I'm really taking this all into consideration. For one, Josh has told me how he feels: he really wants to find out, but I know he'd support whatever decision I make. I don't want to make a decision with the mind set "this is my baby" because it is our baby and he should have a say and an opinion in the matter. Such tough decisions!

I'm not to sure if you can opt to find out the gender after the regular 18-20 week window, so I suppose we'll have to decide soon. I go in for the ultra sound a week from Monday. 

Anyone have any tips/advice/suggestions/pros or cons to the topic? I know it is ultimately a personal decision but it's nice to hear what other people think/have done.

{Fabulous Friday} & Remembering

It is Friday..finally. But for me, it is Thursday and the end of my Thursday. How's that for confusing? I've been working overnights this week so my day is nearly done and I have one more shift to go before my weekend starts.

We have more visitors coming, how lucky are we?! Josh's parents and his sister and her family are coming. We are so excited to see them all! Josh's sister is pregnant too and about 7 weeks ahead of me, with her second child. I'm so excited to be pregnant with her, just wish we lived closer.

Should be a fun weekend. We don't have a lot planned, but that is what is nice about having visitors, it's just fun to hang out and be together while we can.

I've been thinking a lot lately about my Dad and Grandma. Makes me sad to know they aren't here anymore. It has been a very rough couple of months for me, but I'm here and making it work. I've had dreams at night with them in it and it is just so real to me. I constantly think back to different times when we were together and just seeing their face, hearing their voice is so real to me. I am very thankful to have these memories.

Alright, time to put a smile back on my face and head home from work here soon to go to bed.

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

Action packed weekend with great friends

This weekend was such a blast! So much fun that I hadn't been on the computer to post, check, nothing all weekend since last Wednesday. Tried to take some pictures here and there but mostly enjoyed everyone. 

Josh and I were lucky enough to get a long weekend off and our friends came to visit. Josh's best friend Brian came from Colorado. It was great to see him. He'd never seen the desert or been to Arizona before (I believe?). John & Rebekah and their little guy Landon also came from Colorado to visit. We had a house full! It was so great having everyone here, I loved having the house full. We grilled out just about every night and hung out by the pool just about every single day. No sunburns here though, we did good! 

Landon is a hoot to be around! He's walking and moving and talking up a storm. He grabs things and then trys to give it to you only before he takes it away again. He was in love with chasing Lucy around the house. I'm sure she is enjoying the quietness of not having him around anymore. She was a good sport though.


We cooked up some pretty amazing things this weekend, and of course I didn't take pictures of the food. I plan to cook these again very soon, so I will post pics then. 

 We even got to go to a Phoenix Coyotes vs. Colorado Avalanche Hockey game while we were out there, little surprise from the Davis's to us. Such a great time! The Av's are our favorite team and we don't get to see them play much anymore. The Av's won too! I'm sure we were the only row of Av's fans, appropriately dressed too!


We loved having our friends come visit and can't wait to see them all again!

It's been....16 weeks

I didn't post this on Saturday like I should have, we had a very busy weekend! So a few days late...And I promise I'll get a belly picture up soon. I'm actually starting to get a belly!

 

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 16 Weeks on Saturday (April 2nd)

Size of baby: size of a Avacado (and weighs 3.5oz and is 4.6 inches long :)

Total Weight Gain/Loss: zero.

Maternity Clothes: Wearing maternity pants, mine are too tight!

Gender: We don't know and won't know until September when I'm due :)

Movement: Not yet, though I've had a few "popcorn" or "flutter" feelings...

Sleep: Have been super tired and now starting to get uncomfortable

What I miss: Nothing really.

Cravings: Food?! I'm just hungry now, which is a GREAT feeling!

Symptoms: None, just finding a comfortable sleeping position.

Labor Symptoms:Nope

Milestone: Another Doc appointment this week.

Best Moment this week: Realizing I'm 4 months pregnant already?!

What I'm looking forward to: My belly growing and feeling movement!

So not too much going on. My belly is starting to grow a bit, though at times I think it looks like a beer belly so we'll see.  Excited for all of our visitors that we had this weekend and more to come next weekend and in the weeks to come. The weather is warming up here, we've hit our first 100 degree day already, April 1st (No fools joke there). I'm also working on cooking up some more goodness (of course) since so many things sound good right now!