Project List :: I think I can

Things I need to accomplish this weekend:
~Finish the wall decor that I started weeks ago. All I have to do is find my hot glue gun and glue it together.. is that so hard?? apparently it is, because i do not know where the glue gun is and i don't even know where to start looking.

~Put up the decor that I got from Urban Outfitters above our bed and then take a picture. Shouldn't be too difficult or time consuming, right? I might as well add in here that we desperately need to move the bed and vacuum under it (the cats love it under there and i'm pretty sure it's covered with hair) and clean the whole room. It gets messy so fast!

~Buy some more of the magenta fabric and create the bed skirt that will match the roman shades. Oh and finish the roman shades! There's only one left to do.

~Spray paint a shelf that I got at a yard sale a few years ago and then hang it.

~Hang the other frames while i'm at it.. after i figure out what to put in them.

~Choose the pictures to hang on the wall. I think this is going to be a tough one and I might just have to wait until we get our maternity pictures done.

That sounds like enough, right? I have lots of other non-baby related things I want to do, like Christmas decor but I figure I have plenty of time for that after Thanksgiving. Not to mention the extensive list I have going of things that need to be cleaned prior to the baby's arrival.. most notably, the refrigerator and the master bathroom. Where will I find the time? Oh, let's say the first week of December, prior to some guests arriving!

I wonder how many things I can check off my list on Friday night? :)

And for an extra challenge.. can I manage to take a picture of all of these things on my list??!?!!

Busy Week Kids

Feels like such a busy week already which is going to be flooding into a busy weekend. I enjoy it too, because that just means time is moving faster toward the holidays and then baby!

Let's start with Monday. We grocery shopped, Alex made tuna steak and brussel sprouts for dinner and then went to our Birthing Class where we learned about medicated childbirth. We watched another birthing video and then did the hee hee hooo relaxation breathing on the super hard floor. I did not enjoy this technique and I could not look at Alex while he was breathing with me. It made me laugh too hard. Imagine me laughing in a room full of other couples taking it seriously. I did a silent laugh but my body was shaking like crazy (it felt like)!

Tuesday, we didn't have to do anything that was scheduled. So we cleaned and relaxed and I printed out some envelopes for my baby shower. That was a pain in my rear end. The printer would NOT listen to what I actually wanted so it took over an hour! And Alex made yummy cabbage and beef for dinner.

Wednesday, we spent the early evening prepping for the Nowaks and McHenry's to come have dinner with us. Alex did all the cooking of the super delicious meal which consisted of stuffed pork tenderloin, roasted fingerling potatoes and sauteed broccoli. I helped with some of the prep, set the table and did dishes that he was done with. And finished my sparkling cranberries which I plan to share the recipe for tomorrow (yum!). So overall it was an amazing meal. And it was nice to catch up with the two couples and see baby Evander. He's growing up so fast already! He was super well behaved though and slept most of the time. He's such a little angel. Anyway, the girls watched Bad Teacher and the boys did.. boy things? Alex and I had a great time and hopefully everyone else did as well!

Thursday (today), after work we'll be doing more dinner prep. Then we'll head off with both sets of our parents to Womb with a View (again) to try and get some pictures and a better DVD. Baby girl is in a much better position currently and I'll definitely be drinking some OJ prior to going to the appointment. Then we'll have the parents back for a Chicken Fajita fiesta! Pumped!

Friday, we're celebrating 11/11/2011 with friends!

Saturday, Alex is working, then hopefully we can hit up Target real quick to register for our carseat and stroller since there's one so close by now in Lititz and then we're headed down to DE for Nick and Laurel's Wine and Cheese Party!!

Sunday, I have a baby shower to attend and some nursery projects I just have to finally finish!

I'll do my best to take pictures of all of these events (even if it's just a snap with the iPhone) so that these posts are a little less wordy! mmkay?

Look out for the Sparkling Cranberry recipe tomorrow. So delicious and seasonably appropriate!

Rug Fail

Welp, I talked about the new rug we got..

It's going back to the store. Despite the fact that the cats wouldn't stay away from it, it was actually shedding fibers all by itself. That's what I get for getting it from Home Goods I suppose but honestly, I'm not disappointed. I know we'll find a rug that I like better.

Anyone know a place to get cheap (but good quality) rugs? I like a modern style and won't do anything too floral or traditional. Thus begins an actual rug search. I'm thinking at least 8x10 feet now since we know the 6x8 or whatever that was didn't fit the room correctly.

We'll see if I can find one, rug shopping is tough, yo!

What's a weekend without..

..seemed like a good title. But i don't have the answer. Fun? Family? Shopping? Sleep?

Friday night we went and got me an iPhone. We didn't get the 4s because I couldn't bring myself to do it. I don't need Siri to do my dirty work, I can do it. And I don't need 8 MP when 5 is good enough. So a 4 is what I got. I'm loving it. It makes me want to text people because it's so much better than a blackberry in that regard. After we got the phone we hit the blockbuster box by the grocery store and picked up Limitless. I really enjoyed it. I think Alex found it entertaining as well. It's a good way to kill a couple of hours, that's for sure.

Saturday, Alex was up bright and early to help his dad put on a roof. I, on the other hand, slept in til about 10. It was glorious. I watched Grey's Anatomy on the DVR and thought about going to JoAnn Fabric to exchange the felt glue for more fabritac. This didn't happen. Alex arrived home earlier than I thought he would and we needed to go to the grocery store before heading to my parents. We hung out at my parents for a while, visiting for my mom's birthday. We had a delicious dinner at Carrabba's. That place is sooo good. I don't know how I fit all that food in my stomach. Dessert might have been the best part of the meal!


Sunday, we slept in. We're trying to soak it up while we can ;). Alex installed all the new fun stuff he got for his kegerator and then eventually went to the farm to see the roof and then to Dan's to watch football. I watched Private Practice and then vacuumed and then cleaned the vacuum. Fun! Then I finally hit up JoAnn Fabric and then the grocery store for a snack. My mom and Julia came down to do some shopping and I did some damage at AC Moore and Home Goods. Christmas decor in the Brubaker house is going to be awesome this year, I can just feel it! When I got home I watched Something Borrowed, which was a cute movie and then Alex came home. I took him to Home Goods to show him a rug that I liked earlier and we ended up getting it. I don't know how much I currently like it in the living room (i imagined it being bigger and maybe more square?) but we have a while until the return by date, so this is our little test drive. The cats have been driving me crazy with it already. They were smelling it and I am terrified they will 'knead' on it pulling up the fibers so much that we couldn't return it even if we wanted to. We ordered Bun salads from SaiGon cafe which were delicious (and filling) and then I wrote a couple of blog posts before hitting the hay.

Such a fun weekend but it went way too fast. Slow down weekends but speed up weekdays, amiright?

iPhone 4 or 4s?

I'm struggling to decide what phone I should get as an upgrade from my current phone, a blackberry. I really don't use the blackberry for email or even web, just phone calls and texts. The iPad is my primary tool for email and web, as it should be.. it's larger and easier to read/write content on.

I know I want an iPhone but I don't know if the new 4s is really something that I need. Here are some of the main pros and cons. We'll start with the cons first.

Cons of buying a 4s:
-Price.. obviously. A 16gb 4s costs $200 while the 16gb 4 costs $150 and the 8gb 4 costs $100.
-I don't really need the personal assistant Siri. I don't do business on my phone, so I don't make appointments that need to be changed/moved and I can type my own text messages.
-iOS5 is available to all iPhones.. not just 4s. So i don't need the 4s to get iOS5 and the new apps/features that come with it.
-The iPhone 5 will probably be out in a year. If i take the 4 now, it would make it less expensive to upgrade when the 5 does come out.

Pros of buying a 4s:
-The camera is better in the 4s than it is in the 4. From 5 to 8.. plus the 1080 HD video capability. With a baby coming in January, it would be nice to have the 8MP over the 5 but is it really necessary?
-The A5 chip makes it faster. Twice as fast as the 4. But the 4 is still pretty fast.. what's another nano second?

Obviously I have more cons listed than pros. I still don't know what this means in whether I'm going to get an iphone4s or not. Part of me says, you don't need it, those extra features aren't good enough to warrant another 100 or even 50 dollars. The other part says, you probably should get the newest technology. The MPs in the camera are going to be better.

Anyone have any thoughts?!?!!!

Hot! Peppers

For the last couple years, Alex has been growing hot peppers (or chiles). We generally use the jalepenos and serranos for salsa and guacamole and Alex puts them on lots of other stuff too.

 He's grown a few other varieties that aren't easily found in grocery stores and farmers markets in our area. Most of these pepper will never even get close to my lips because they're all past my heat tolerance.

With a lot of these pepper plants, he gets a bountiful harvest and can't decide what to do with all of them, so he strings them up to dry in our dining room. The ones he currently has strung up in the dining room are Thai Yellow, De arbol, Punjab small and Assum. Honestly, I don't know what's what in the pictures. There's lots of orange this year which is perfect for fall and halloween and also some red which will carry into Christmas. He uses them as much as he can (since I can't really tolerate levels of spice greater than a serrano) but some of them end up going to waste when they've been dried and hanging for over a year.. there's just too many to eat.

He has to wear gloves or else the peppers will burn his fingers!

If anyone is interested in trying any of the varieties I've listed. We'd be happy to give you one of the peppers to eat/use in cooking/trick your friends (though that last one could be dangerous, literally).

The Crib + Baby Registry+ Evander + Football

If i had to sum up the weekend in one word, I would say, productive.

Finally, the meyer lemon tree has lemons!

Friday night, my parents came over with Makayla for dinner and to help set up the baby crib. Alex made a flank steak which was delicious and we introduced my parents and Makayla to quinoa which I think they all liked. After everything was done, I was too tired to do anything else so we just hung out a little before going to bed.

Saturday morning we didn't sleep in too much, Alex went to work on the farm and I watched Grey's Anatomy, followed by a trip to JoAnn Fabric for some supplies. I started on two projects and watched Private Practice. It's best to watch those shows on Saturday when Alex isn't home. He doesn't love them. Later when Alex got home we went to Hoss's for dinner (yum) and then watched Bridesmaids while I created our baby registry. Those things are not easy folks. Hopefully I did it right and didn't miss anything, though Courtney was giving me tons of good advice yesterday about registries so I'm sure i'll be updating it over the next couple months.

Sunday, Alex headed over to Dan's to help with an electrical project and I slept in.. a lot. I worked some more on my nursery projects. Alex came home for a little bit before heading back to Dan's to watch football. I'm pretty thankful for this because I don't generally enjoy watching football and usually when I do so I end up sleeping which is not my idea of a good Sunday, but the fact that Alex has been heading to Dan's to watch football gives me lots of time to do solo things. I went to visit the Nowak family for a couple hours and baby Evander is so freaking cute. Babies are so tiny.. it's unbelievable to me even though i've seen it with my own eyes. I also cannot believe that i'm growing one (sorry if I sound like a broken record).

Anyway, it was nice to catch up with them and get some new parenting insight. I really needed to go to JoAnn fabric again on my way home but decided I would just go later since it's really only 5 minutes down the road. I had some lunch and relaxed a little more when I got home, followed by working more on the projects. Around 6 I decided I should hit up JoAnns before they close since it's Sunday. Little did I know they close at 6. After arriving at 6:15 to a locked door, I went to the grocery store instead. I really miss having our garage door working.. it's kind of a chore having to carry 3 or more loads of groceries in through the front door instead of just in from the garage to the kitchen. Especially since I can't really carry heavy groceries for far distances. Luckily this time, Alex came home in time to help with the last trip inside. After unpacking all of that, I took some pictures of the things I was working on and wrote a couple of blog posts. I made us some dinner and messed around on my ipad while Alex watched more football or something.. soon after we called it a night. The end.

Interesting..

Just some interesting tid-bits from yesterday/today..

Yesterday at work we had a biometric screening (to see if we're all overweight) to save us money on our insurance. I didn't know if they'd be taking pregnancy into account and they kind of did/kind of didn't.

The finger prick went well.. last year the lady squeezed the bejeesus out of my finger bc I guess she didn't prick it hard enough and the lady this year got lots of blood right away. Maybe it's because i'm pumping more through my body this year (thanks baby girl). Obviously, my waist size and my weight are going to be above average for someone of my height. This resulted in an over-exaggerated BMI. Obviously. They also told me that my LDL cholesterol is too high, my HDL is awesome and my triglycerides are great. Did you know, that pregnancy can increase your cholesterol levels? I just found out yesterday after I googled it because last year my cholesterol was normal. Interesting stuff. It couldn't possibly be all the ice cream i've been eating..... ha!

As I was waiting for my blood results to come back (2 minutes), the finger pricker lady asked me how far along I was. I said 5 months. She said, "wowww!" and I said, "I know, right" and I don't know if she was referencing my tummy size in a "woww you're huge" sort of way or a "woww you don't look 5 months" .. I'm going to go with the former. Regardless, she also told me not to sit with my legs crossed. Not because it cuts off circulation but because crossing your legs over and over again can wrap the umbilical cord around the baby's neck. I did not know this. And it's absolutely false. I googled it. I guess it's one of those pregnancy myths that people pass around as fact, like Mister Rogers (of Mister Rogers neighborhood) was a war veteran covered in tattoos which is why he wore sweaters all the time (this is also false, thanks wikipedia).

This morning I was taking my healthy survey (that follows the screening) we were asked lots of interesting questions to gauge how healthy we are, etc. Other then having to work on my cholesterol, I also need to work on the fact that I never get angry. I mean, I get annoyed, but rarely angry. I guess this is a bad thing. So i'll be working on getting angry sometime soon. This survey also didn't take pregnancy into account because at the end of it all, I needed to put goals to lowering my cholesterol and waist size. That should be easy when i'm not pregnant anymore.. cholesterol will go down and so will my tummy (eventually). Therefore my completion dates for these goals is in March. I just wanted a spot to write.. I'm pregnant, so this is skewed.

If anyone wants to read an article related to a healthy lifestyle, Alex found a good article on yahoo today, here is the link: The 7 Laws of Leanness

Have a happy Wednesday. I swear a Nursery post is coming soon. I already wrote it and now just need to add pictures!

Thursday Randoms

* My shoes don't really fit but I haven't purchased new shoes to go with my new black maternity pants so i'm sucking it up while walking and while sitting in my desk chair I am barefoot. You'd think i'd attribute this to pregnancy.. but no, it's always been like this. Apparently I don't know how to purchase the correct size flats on more than one occasion.

* OJ gives me throat burn (which is essentially, heartburn). But i looove OJ :(  I did bring tums with me to work today though!

* I might have a nursery breakdown. That's a bit dramatic but i am having trouble picking fabrics for the quilt that will serve as part of the bedding which will determine what fabric i use for the crib sheets i want to sew, which will have to go with the rest of the room in an aesthetically pleasing way. Longest sentence ever?

* Today marks Alex and I's fifth anniversary of the day we met. We're going to celebrate tonight with a fresh Lobster dinner. Homemade. Suck it Red Lobster.

* The past couple nights I've been having vanilla ice cream with the chocolate magic shell stuff and those little sprinkle balls. It's been awesome. I'm sad to report that last night I ate the rest of the ice cream, so I won't be having it again until I get more. Tragedy.

* The baby is currently rolling around inside my tummy. I think she likes OJ too.

* I'm way more freckly this year than last.. I wonder if this is going to continue to increase.

* I'm really glad tomorrow is Friday. I don't think anyone would disagree with that statement. And with that, I will end this post. Baii!

Delaware +. Ikea + Bachlorette + Baby Shower = Busy

Busy weekend!

Friday after work, we headed down to DE to spend time with Nick and Laurel. They made a delicious dinner, we at Gelato on Main Street and played Mad Gab, which was hilarious to say the least. I almost touched their cat Dilla, which is pretty much a success because he's the shyest kitty on the planet (but also possibly the cutest).

Saturday morning, after breakfast we headed to Ikea in Baltimore. It was awesome. I hadn't been to Ikea in about 6 years so it was nice to go back and see the whole showroom setup. We ended up getting a bunch of stuff for the nursery. We got a 4 cube shelf, some picture frames, some little globe-y lamp things that I want to use as 'night lights' as well as the image to the right.. I pinned it a while back but didn't actually look to see where it was from. Pleasant surprise to find it at Ikea, at obviously an awesome price. Now i don't have to try to recreate it myself! We also got some new bathmats for the bathroom up there as well as a new shower curtain. I'm going to try to add pops of color in there as well. Why not! The last thing we got was a shelf for the dining room to go over the kegerator to hold beer glasses. Alex put it together and we put it up yesterday, so i'll snap a picture of it and include it in the post about our new mailbox that Alex also installed. He's so handy! Anyway, back to Saturday. After Ikea, we hit up PF Changs (and weren't overly impressed due to the amount of hype we heard prior) but it was still good. I love fried green beans and they give a huge plate as an appetizer.

After this late lunch we parted ways. I had a bachelorette party to go to in the evening which started at Jen's house with silly cookies and sangria that looked amazing (but I couldn't drink, obviously). We headed to dinner at Cultura's and it turned out I had an awesome coupon for 50% off food. Cultura's is a tapas restaurant so we probably ordered 30 plates of food to share between 10 people. It was delicious as always. I thoroughly enjoyed my two raspberry (virgin) margaritas as well as some red raspberry ice cream from the Strasburg Creamery. After dinner we headed to the bride's sisters home to hang out, play games and watch a movie. We played Mad Gab, which was hilarious again and then watched Bridesmaids which I was so excited to see. The movie was funny but had some slow parts. That whole night, I probably did more laughing then I have in a long time. That group of girls are hilarious! I ended up getting home around 3am. Crazy! Time had just flown by and I didn't realize it. I knew I would have to do some hardcore sleeping in the next morning.

And that's exactly what I did. I finally got up around 10:30am. I putz-ed around and then vacuumed the house. We put the shelf up above the kegerator like I mentioned above. Then we headed to our friends Courtney & Derek's couples baby shower. We'd never been to a couples shower before but it was so fun. They had some cute games like guess the baby food flavor (which baby food is pretty gross, even more reason why i'm probably going to make my own food, although the fruit was much better then the meals) and bobbing for nipples, which Nick won! We got to meet Dedra and Justin's brand new baby boy, Jack, who was super cute wrapped up in Dedra's (what i'm assuming is a) Moby Wrap. He was so tiny at 2 weeks old, which is completely normal obviously, and when Alex was holding him he looked like a complete natural. Cue the awes. After the shower, Nick and Alex watched the Eagles game we recorded and Laurel and I watched Bridesmaids.. long movie, the funny kind of dies off in the end and is brought back with the Wilson Phillips. There was a small break at half time for them to move furniture though which was a huge help. I'm so glad that's completed and now I can actually take picture of the nursery and get moving on all my other things related to it. After Nick and Laurel headed back to DE, Alex went over to the Herr's to watch the night game and I really needed to go to the grocery store, so I did that, plus I hadn't eaten anything since lunch so I made some spaghetti/meatballs and spent the rest of the evening facetiming with Julia and then my parents. Gosh facetime is amazing.. it's going to come in SO handy when we have this little bundle.

That sums up our super busy weekend. I can't believe it's already the 2nd week of September. This month is flying by already! Tomorrow I will take a picture of my 21 week bump to share with you! It's definitely getting bigger!

What a week..

Well this week just FLEW by, which is something I love about weeks after a holiday weekend.

It was supposed to be a 4 day week anyway but due to the flooding, I actually 'worked from home' yesterday. This just means accessing email since I can't actually do any other work at home. It was weird to be off on a middle of the week day but also nice.

We didn't have any damage from the flooding, our basement didn't see a drop of water which is a relief. We have a large patch of wetlands behind our house that held the water from the creek, at least for us. Some of the other neighbors down the street weren't quite as lucky. We also live at the top of a slope, so i don't think it would've gotten to us anyway. It's nice that it's not raining at the moment. Hopefully it'll be a nice weekend.

Sorry for the reflection but it was raining and I wasn't going outside.

So yesterday, with a whole day off (Alex came home as well).. we weren't sure what to do. We decided to make homemade pizza for lunch so I started the dough around 9:45am. We went to the grocery store for some ingredients we didn't have. We watched The Wire (or Alex did). We made delicious pizzas. One pepperoni, one cheese, and one onion/pepper. They were probably the best pizzas we've ever made. I should've taken the opportunity to photograph the process, maybe next time. After we stuffed ourselves with pizza, Alex accompanied me to the mall to buy some maternity clothes. Shopping while pregnant is no fun thing to do. 2 pairs of pants later and we were done. I found out later that I bought a pair of skinny jeans instead of bootcut. Which is fine, except I need a pair of bootcut, so I guess i'll have to get them at some point. Skinnies make me look huge these days. Anyway. After the mall, we stopped by the Herr's which turned into hanging out at the Herr's for a couple of hours. Alex was downstairs playing old school NES and Steph and I were upstairs having a great conversation and watching Brutus be the cutest rotty ever. When we left it was around 5:30pm. We didn't think the day was ever going to end. So when we got home, Alex made dinner and I probably just sat on the couch, I can't remember. Then we watched the Packers/Saints game and I went to bed at 10.

Here we are now. I'm finishing up work for the day and then we're headed to DE to visit Nick and Laurel. Tomorrow we're traveling to Baltimore to hit up the Ikea and then I have a bachelorette party to attend in the evening. Sunday we're busy too. Nick/Laurel are coming over to lend a hand moving furniture upstairs since I can't help Alex. I can't wait to have that stuff put into storage so I can really get a good look at the room that will be the nursery. And of course, before pictures will be taken! Hopefully we can get some sunny weather so I can spray paint the crib and we can put it all together. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures of that too (look at all these promises!). I feel like my excuse is that I have a blog that people look at but don't comment on. LOL. Things really went up since I posted it on Facebook. I'm not surprised by that though, I'd be doing the same exact thing. :)

Have a great weekend! Maybe we'll welcome baby Snyder into the world?!

5 Random Thoughts

We're getting closer and closer to the big reveal. I bet you're all on the edge of your seats, aren't you. HA!

I just wanted to jot down a couple random thoughts from today.

{pin}

Thought #1: I wish that I could sew my own clothing. I say this because i'm having some real trouble finding anything that I would even remotely want to purchase on any of the maternity clothing websites i've browsed (gap, old navy, motherhood, jcpenney, the expensive ones like pea in a pod, etc). Even H&M was disappointing last time I was there. Is there no where to get cute maternity clothes?? Forever21 has a line but it's way little.. by little i mean there isn't much to choose from, tanks, camis and leggings. I could live in those, sure, but they aren't quite 'work appropriate'. I have a pair of Forever stretchy jeans that still fit (and button, woo hoo high five!) so i'm thinking maybe i'll just buy normal jeans a size or so bigger so that they're slouchy and can button easily. I just don't get maternity tops. My mom commented to me a couple weeks ago (while I was wearing a normal tank with a cardigan) that they make looser fitting tops for pregnant people.. implying i should probably start wearing them. No offense to the clothing I got from my older sis (from 5 years ago!) but it's outdated and i'm not going to walk around wearing a shirt that says baby in rhinestones. I want to wear clothing like the picture above, but in adult sizes. Why do they make the cutest clothing for kids (at an awesome price by the way) and not have the same styles (albeit a little different) for adults. It's some kind of joke, isn't it? Anyway, back to sewing. Obviously, I don't know how to sew.. if i did.. i wouldn't be complaining. I mean, maybe I should just learn to sew, and then learn where to buy all the 'cool' fabric so that I can make my own cardigans and maternity tops and then i'll start a fashion line and rule the world. bahaha, just kidding. What a long thought, am i right?

Thought #2: We decided on nursery colors. I plan to do some posts on this including before and after and i wish i had an inspiration board to share but to be honest, i don't really know how to make those, and the inspiration is more in my brain than on an image that already exists (but check out this post or this post for some of the nursery related thoughts). Oh, you want to know the colors? How silly of me not to mention them. I can't possibly tell you the colors without revealing the gender.. so this will have to wait. I even wrote everything out and then thought, what the heck.. everyone will know if I write all this now. Sorry charlies.

Thought #3: Headed to the gym today again. Looking forward to it. Then i'm going to make dinner and probably do more laundry. I should probably mop the kitchen too.. it's a cream colored floor so it shows so much dirt so easily. But that means I have to vacuum first. We'll see if I have time for all of these things.

Thought #4: Every morning when I get in my car to go to work.. I wonder how long it's going to take to get used to driving this new car. This reminds me that I haven't taken a picture of it yet. Put that on my list of things to do this evening as well!

Thought #5: Tomorrow is Friday!!!!! Add to that the fact that I might get out at 3pm due to the holiday weekend and also we have off on Monday! I live for these work holidays even though they only come 10 times a year. That seams like a lot but it isn't.

It's the small things..

Yesterday, I decided that I need to be healthier. Not that i'm not healthy.. I've just kind of let things go a little bit when it comes to eating (for instance, I had 2 bowls of ice cream Saturday night). The fact that there's a baby who needs my nutrients is about 75% of the reason. The other 25% is so that I keep healthy habits going throughout pregnancy making it easier to stick to them post pardum.

I've decided to stop eating processed foods and excess sugar except for special occasions. I've also decided to start back to the gym on a more regular basis (perhaps, 3 times a week) just to get my heart rate up a little bit. Yesterday, I successfully did 20 minutes on the elliptical. Granted, I started out faster and ended up slower but I still did it, and I felt pretty accomplished. I was also excited because it didn't make my back hurt like walking on the treadmill does! So I figured I can do 20 minutes a day, 3 times a week and then throw in some yoga on off days if I feel like it. I feel like a balloon filled with water recently, (and i know, i know.. i'm pregnant!!) but if it helps my self esteem even a little bit, it'll do wonders for my day to day life.

Not to mention the fact that I spend my allowance on lunch every week instead of shopping or other things I want to buy. Packing a lunch will help with saving money and eating healthier.

Milestone :: Movement

It's official. There's a real life baby in there.

Saturday in the evening, while enjoying a delicious bowl of Turkey Hill Choc. Chip Cookie Dough Frozen Yogurt, I felt a thud in the tum tum. Not a normal thud or anything I've ever felt before and since i've been waiting for movement/signs of life in there, I knew what it was. I've been feeling it every once in a while ever since!

Hooray! The baby's limbs appear to be in working order. Of course we'll find out how many fingers and toes in a couple hours here at the ultrasound. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you the gender until Saturday for secrecy purposes. Don't be mad ;) I will post a picture when I get it scanned into the computer!

Earthquaaake! and other news

Yesterday I felt the 2nd earthquake I ever have in my life, right here in PA. (the first earthquake was 2 years ago, late at night, it felt like a train was going down our street, NBD- no big deal).

I was sitting at my desk after joking with a coworker about something when my cubical started to shake. I asked Kyle if he was shaking my cube, he laughed and said no. But our cubes were shaking. It lasted about 5 full seconds. I could feel the ground beneath my feet moving. It all made me a little dizzy.

We didn't know at the time but we assumed it was an earthquake. The epicenter of the one two years ago wasn't even a mile away and so we used our brains to make an assumption. Little did we know, the earthquake was a 5.8 in Virginia. Thank you facebook (and cousins) that broadcasted that and the US geological survey website confirmed it.

It was very eventful. I'm sad it did not make us lose power though (what a selfish thought) for then we would've been released from work (maybe).

In car shopping news..
We've completely changed gears (haha, get it?) and are now about 99% sure that we're going with the Honda Pilot. Yep, you read that correctly.. this was a car that wasn't even on our original list!! Monday during work, Alex mentioned it. I said, I didn't like it due to the serious boxiness and the fact that it looks like an elongated Ford Escape. BUT.. it does have a flip up 3rd row seat if we needed it, it comes with 4WD at a decent price, it comes with a tow package, the cargo space is frickin' huge when that 3rd row seat is hidden, and it rides like a dream boat (basically). We still have some time but if we get a price we are comfortable with, we might ride up to Harrisburg tonight to test drive it and maybe even ride home in it (i don't know if that's possible, it depends on the dealer, as some don't have the LX in stock).

Does everyone hate it that I constantly switch from using a capital I to a lowercase i within the same paragraph?? I (i) do but I don't feel like fixing it.

Anyway, in other news, we had our friends Matt and Britt over for dinner last night. We made turkey breast, baked garden potatoes and grilled garden zucchini and eggplant. Britt made delicious chocolate/pb special k squares which were awesome and we got to keep the leftovers (woohoo). We had a really great night, the time just flew by! Britt is a few weeks ahead of me (pregnancy wise), so we always catch up on what's going on with that. It's really really nice to talk to someone who's 3 weeks ahead (or even behind) because it's nice to hear another person's point of view (that I'm not reading about on the forums).

I slept like a baby last night with the window open, my favorite weather to sleep in (chilly). It was a dream, literally.

A Kittie Story

One thing we found out recently is that our cats LOVE ice cubes in their water.

Domino also enjoys drinking while i'm filling up the bowl, so I think we'll be getting them their first present ever soon.. a pet water fountain, lol.

Here are a couple pictures of them loving the ice cold water!

Just another typical Wednesday

Everytime I spell this word, I think it this way

I'm here at work, on my lunch break, eating (free) pizza. The pizza part isn't typical but the other part is. I do enjoy Wednesdays because of the 'hump' factor though and then it's a nice slide into the weekend.

This weekend we start car shopping. We're pretty excited because we've never purchased a car together before. I having never purchased a car at all. So test driving should be a blast. We're going to take pictures and take notes and I'm probably over-thinking it all but who cares! New car, new car is all I keep thinking. Time to get rid of the little green coug that drove me back and forth from college for a number of years.

The cars we're currently looking at are:
Ford Edge
Honda CRV
Hyundai Tucson
Hyundai Sonata
Honda Accord

We probably won't get a sedan but we threw it in for good measure. I love the look of the sonata and all it's curves, but I just think it'll be too small. We already have a sedan, so having a crossover as well would be ideal. Alex has recently fallen in love with the Honda CRV. The cargo space is really great and from what I hear it rides like a sedan. I guess we'll see! The hard part will be not purchasing anything and waiting another couple weeks until Labor day weekend. For the sales!!

Those are our main plans this coming weekend, as well as heading up to the 'burg for a birthday party! Should be a great weekend overall!

The weather is gorgeous out today so hopefully it's like that a least a little bit over the weekend (though i'm fully aware it's supposed to rain). Summer showers are unpredictable sometimes though so you never really know.

Happy Hump Day!

ABC's

The ABC's of me. I saw this on another blog and thought it would be fun (mostly for me, a little for you).

 

A. age :: twenty six

B. bed size :: king.. love

C. chore you hate :: cleaning garages and basements, ew spiders

D. dogs :: zero (but say it in a french accent)

E. essential start to your day :: i don't have an essential.. but i do love OJ

F. favorite color :: purple

G. gold or silver :: silver

H. height :: five five (some might say six)

I. instruments you play :: piano just not all the time

J. job title :: marketing coordinator

K. kids :: baby in utero.. gender undetermined

L. live :: Lancaster, PA

M. maiden name :: Elscheid (haven't typed that in a while)

N. nicknames :: Mitch? Babe?

O. overnight hospital stays :: none that i'm aware of

P. pet peeve :: bad drivers

Q. quote :: "The best love is 

the kind that awakens the soul, 

that makes us reach for more, 

that plants a fire in our hearts 

and brings peace to our minds" 

from the Notebook

R. righty or lefty :: righty

S. siblings :: three sissies

T. time you wake up :: weekdays: 6:50am + two snoozes; weekends: around 9am

U. university attended :: Millersville University

V. vegetables you dislike: I can't think of any so it's probably an uncommon one

W. what makes you run late :: nothing.. i'm super aware of the time

X. x-rays you’ve had :: dentist and i once had a chest xray

Y. yummy food :: mexican; guacamole; ice cream

Z. zoo animal favorite :: elephants, definitely

Thanks for reading along.. :) Happy Friday!

An ironic fortune

I got this fortune out of a cookie back in May when I probably shouldn't have been eating sushi. Little did I know, I was pregnant. At the time, I took this fortune as more of a doomsday the world is going to end so enjoy yourself while you can type of fortune. And I didn't even think twice about it when I did find out I was pregnant (though I do still have the fortune).

Now that a baby is coming in January, Alex and I are fully aware that things are going to change drastically. We aren't put off by it in the least. We're actually welcoming of it. We know it's not going to be easy and we're going to lose a lot of sleep and it's going to test our relationship but what could be better then bringing a baby into the world and then raising it to be a good human being.

I'm not much of a worrier and I'm pretty stress free. I haven't given much thought to the 'what if's' that I read other first time moms or current moms wondering aloud about on the babycenter forums. I don't know if it's because i'm a little uneducated in what could go wrong but I just feel like, i'm doing my best to stay healthy and whatever happens, happens. It could also be because this pregnancy is going by so uneventfully that there isn't much to worry about in the first place.

I guess the fortune is half true, I should enjoy myself while I can.. but I'll also be enjoying myself after we bring the baby into the world, maybe even more than I ever have.

Wedding time!

Tomorrow I will be rocking a pregnant tummy in a gorgeous bridesmaid dress for my brother in law and future sister in law's wedding. It's going to be amazing and I'm super excited!

I'll be sure to post a picture later on because I'm hoping I'll look lovely even with a protruding belly. Speaking of, I need to try my dress on again tonight.

I'm just so excited. I love weddings and especially weddings for people I love.

Perhaps an impromptu baby bump picture is in order?!

Have a great weekend! I know I will!