10 Things :: V7

10 :: Blogging. I suck at finding time to do this. Yes. I. Do. I like blogging and I don't really have trouble finding things to write about it's just finding the time to do it. I'll work on it.. :)

9 :: Alex and I started watching Lost together on Netflix. It's interesting so far to say the least. I might have ruined it for myself by reading the wiki on it but it doesn't bother me.

8 :: I'm finally back to my pre-pregnancy weight! I hope this breastfeeding thing can help me shed even more pounds.. now if i could only stop drinking soda!

7 :: Look, I made it through the first three without mentioning Scarlett, I do have a life outside my baby! ;) She's awesome by the way, I'm currently trying to teach her how to go to sleep on her own (while I lay beside her) it's kind of inconsistent though. I also think she's teething, which means she wakes up crying for no reason sometimes. Ouchies.

6 :: We just returned from the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Post coming on this!

5 :: We're really enjoying our CSA this year so far. Alex has been making us some yummy dinners with our fresh organic veggies and the fruit share has been decent as well. Tomatoes are ripening.. this means unlimited salsa is on the way!

4 :: I've been following the bachelorette this season and next week we get to find out who wins. Team Jef for sure. Arie's family just doesn't seem like the right fit for Emily and Ricki. I hope she makes the right choice and it sticks.

3 :: We had a sushi making party with friends a couple weekends ago and it was de-licious! I wish I would've taken more pictures but maybe I will write a post on all the prep and planning that it took in case someone wants to do it on their own. Making sushi is surprisingly easy!

2 :: Somebody might be crawling now. I'll try to take a video to upload. It's good, but also.. not so good. A lot comes along with having a mobile baby and I was kind of hoping to keep her immobile for a little while longer. Oh well, there's no stopping this girl!

1 :: I have so many iphone pictures to put on here but surprisingly, I don't take as many as I used to. I'm not sure why this is and when I think about it, i usually end up snapping a ton at one time. We have been trying to use our regular camera though and I want to get a picture of all of our family members faces so that I can make her a faces book so she can learn everyone faces and names. This goes along with me wanting to make a digital scrapbook each year for her, I should probably start that now so I don't have to do it all at once, huh?

10 Things :: Volume 6

Jumping right in..

10 :: The cats. Their winter hair is shedding and our one particular kitty, Domino basically refuses to groom himself properly which has resulted in an enormous amount of mats, mostly on his back leg area. So I have resorted to cutting them out. This makes for a very weird looking cat. Alex and I really want to get his hair buzzer and just buzz his whole body, minus his head but I don't know how well he'll tolerate it but really, something has to be done. Ugh!

9 :: I got my legs waxed last Wednesday by my sister, Nicole. All seemed fine except that I sweated a lot over the weekend while outside in the heat (duh) and now they're irritated. Gah!

8 :: Revenge.. the show. Can you believe the season ended like that? First of all, I didn't know there was going to be an episode 22, so I was surprised to see that but glad because then we could find out what happened to Nolan, obv they couldn't kill him. I kind of wish she would've killed the white haired guy, then he couldn't have blown up the plane! I'm surprised they killed Victoria, unless she's not really dead? Won't they need to keep her around for flashbacks at least? Season two is going to be awe-some. Alex said he kind of wished they would've killed off Daniel at the engagement party, but I think they took it in the right direction. In order for a season two to work, she still needs to want revenge, which now she does, plus her mom? Wow! They could take that in so many directions!

7 :: Scarlett is definitely ticklish in her belly. It is hilarious to make her laugh. We need to get it on camera here soon so that we have it! Her laugh is infectious!

6 :: We bought this coleman beach shade for our upcoming beach trips! We cannot wait to try it out when it arrives on Thursday. It will also be perfect to sit in the yard and watch Alex in the garden or the birds at the water bath! I also plan to get her a little inflatable swimming pool for this summer. She loved the pool at Richmond so much so why not get a little one here she can splash around in this summer and keep cool!

5 :: Father's Day is coming up, I need to get on my planning for Alex's gift that Scarlett and I are going to make. Oh pinterest, you are too awesome!

4 :: I've decided I'm going to do push-ups and the plank plus take a walk everyday starting today. Yesterday evening I did push-ups and the plank and thought that it's a good way to keep moving this summer, even if it's hot outside! Scarlett will enjoy the walks as well so it's a win win! Maybe i'll get up some courage to do some interval training with C25K as well!

3 :: The Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop that we're a part of has been giving us some yummy greens. We've made kale chips twice and lots of other fresh veggies including strawberries. The fruit share starts this week and I can't wait to make this recipe next time we get strawberries. Alex's garden has also been producing some yummy foods including broccoli and sugar snap peas!

2 :: Volleyball has started back up and I'm super excited about it! I love playing and I love my teammates and it's so fun to play! Thank goodness for them!

1 :: Summer is officially here. I feel like after Memorial Day weekend, it's official summer. Not to mention the hot hot weather we've been having. I can't wait for the cookouts and the bonfires and swimming at the pool and spending time with family and friends, going to the beach and going to the mountains and showing Scarlett what summer is all about!

10 Things + 1 :: Volume 5

11. The Lancaster Farm Fresh Coop starts this week. I am so excited to see what we get! We got half of a veggie share and a fruit share. Yum yum yum, organic and fresh and healthy. Perfect for making baby food, am i right? Speaking of baby food.. we got some asparagus seconds from the farm yesterday and I'm definitely going to use some of it to make baby food to freeze now, since asparagus won't be in season when Scarlett will start eating it. I have a feeling she's going to love it!

10. I'm currently obsessed with a new salad that Britt introduced me to almost a month ago now. It's called an Oriental Chicken Salad (i think?) and it is delish. I've since took it a couple of places to share and it got great reviews. I'll post the recipe soon!

9. Super excited for some upcoming trips! First to Richmond to see family and watch some volleyball and soccer. Scarlett is super pumped to meet her aunts, uncles and cousins! And then to Rehoboth Beach with friends where Scarlett will put her feet (and probably hands) in the sand for the first time. I hope none of it ends up in her mouth but who am i kidding? I'm sure it will.

8. Honestly, I'm regretting not getting the iPhone 4S.. just for the camera. The camera on the 4 is fine but I take so many pictures with my phone that the 4S would've been worth it. Oh well, next upgrade is in December, looks like i'm either getting the 4S or waiting a little bit longer for a potential iPhone 5!

7. Hoping for good weather for both of those trips above!! The weather this year so far has been interesting to say the least. No snow or really any super cold weather, which has been nice. I hope it gets warm and stays warm soon. The flip flopping and not knowing whether to wear a coat in the morning is getting a little old.

6. Scarlett will turn 4 months on the 20th and I'll do a whole post on it but one big thing she did a couple weeks ago was she rolled over! First huge milestone accomplished! We also hope that at her 4 month dr appointment we'll be able to start some kind of solids. Maybe then she'll consistently sleep longer at night!? :)

5. Alex got a charcoal grill for his birthday and let me just say, food cooked on a charcoal grill really does taste better. It's kinda crazy but so so yummy. Alex is looking for any and every opportunity to use it. I see lots of backyard cookouts in our future for this summer!

4. Post baby bod update. The weight is coming off.. slowly but surely. I'm trying not to rush it but the last couple of weeks I've been trying to eat healthier and that killer salad in #10 has been helping! I try to take walks on my days off with Scarlett and starting this week I'm going to try to get a pilates sesh in everyday. My core is definitely in need of some toning.

3. Speaking of post baby bod.. I'm gonna need some new swim suits for this year. More mom-appropriate but also stylish. I think I might have to search pinterest for this. These days I search pinterest for everything!

2. Mothers day is this coming weekend! My first official, baby outside the womb mothers day, since last mothers day I was pregnant but didn't know it. We're excited to spend the day together doing lots of fun things! A yummy breakfast, maybe a picnic lunch.. fun!

1. This blog design still needs a lot of work and I'm working on it when I get a chance. I need to look into the coding of some other blogs I follow to see how they get things arranged so nicely because I don't really like the spacing on the right between the different pages. I should really just hire someone for a new design.. I'll be pondering that now.

36 Week Update

Just wanted to give an update since I haven't been in here all week to do so.

Lots has been going on recently because baby girl is breech. My stress level is much lower than a couple weeks ago but this hasn't changed her position, yet. I'm staying optimistic. Here are the updates..

Tuesday we had an ultrasound to confirm her position. The ultrasound tech was.. short. She didn't give us an estimate of how much the baby weighed and she didn't talk much other then answering the questions we had like, "what are we looking at?" etc. Big difference from our 19 week anatomy scan.

It must've been a busy day because we went back out to the lobby for at least 20 minutes, then went back to an exam room for the normal OB appointment and waited almost another 20 minutes. A (midwife/nurse practitioner, I do not know which) came in and said she just reviewed our scans. It had to be a midwife, why would a NP be reviewing our scans?? Regardless, she did not review them WITH us. She barely even mentioned them other than saying yes, the baby is breech.. we knew this because we were there at the ultrasound, obviously. Needless to say, this midwife was not helpful in the least. She asked us if we knew about ECV (External Cephalic Version where they can try to manually turn the baby) and tried to get us to schedule one for the following week and then talked c-section a little bit and said we should schedule that too. We were pretty taken aback. First of all, I thought midwives were supposed to have options of things to do to keep labor/delivery as natural as possible. Second of all, she couldn't answer ANY of the questions we had regarding the ECV or having a breech baby. Needless to say, we were pretty irritated after leaving there but we did schedule a consult with an actual OB for Friday.

Thursday, I went to see Laurel's mom who is a Chiropractor so we could start doing the Webster Technique to get me aligned so that the baby has a better chance of flipping. This went well and I felt more relaxed afterward which was a positive sign.

Friday morning bright and early we headed to the consult with the OB. We (again) waited a long time, which seems so abnormal compared to my previous visits, but the OB was very friendly and seemed like he would've spent more than an hour with us if we wanted which was comforting. He told us that they would not do a scheduled c-section prior to 39 weeks and we would try (if we decide to) the ECV right before the c-section to see if we could get any movement. He was very helpful and informative. One thing however is that he said he will not force the baby during the ECV, if she does not want to turn around, he is not going to 'force' her more than she is willing. We have a 2nd opinion consult with another OB in the practice this coming friday to talk about the same thing (which was suggested by this OB). It was comforting to hear that we don't need to schedule the c-section until after 39 weeks (if it comes to that) and that the baby still has plenty of time to turn naturally, something the midwife did not say ONE TIME! We left the appointment feeling better. We're almost 100% sure that we will be trying the ECV prior to going on with a c-section.

This morning, Saturday, I had another appointment at Dr. Kegel's for another adjustment to stay aligned. Baby girl moves around a lot and has been teetering to the transverse position so I think she's just prepping herself to make the big turn. Staying optimistic. I have also been relaxing a lot more on my sides and drinking more water at the doctor's suggestion.

Everything else, not breech related, is going well. The OB said the baby is the average size currently so not too big or too small or anything. I got all of the baby stuff organized this past week and with the help of Nick and Laurel we have the pack n play set up and the carseat/stroller ready to go. I need to focus on packing a bag though and getting the small stuff taken care of. This coming week at work is going to be quite busy as I tie up loose ends prior to leaving for maternity leave.

I think i'm still in a bit of denial that we're 3 weeks or less away from having a baby girl. We're very excited and cannot wait to meet her but it's definitely one of those things where you don't believe it until it's happening. I have not had any false contractions (probably because she isn't sitting in my pelvis head first) which is a positive because then I probably won't go into labor but I have no idea what i'm in for.

The next couple weeks are probably going to be pretty crazy but we're going to try to keep it as relaxed as possible and spend a lot of time together since pretty soon we won't be alone anymore.

Please keep your fingers crossed for us that she does make the turn to head down. We'll keep everyone in the loop if she does flip! That will be an exciting moment which will be followed by me doing about a million jumping jacks so that she gets wedged in there and can't flip back!

Hope everyone has a safe and happy new year!

Our weekend with Makayla

We were lucky enough to have my 6 year old niece Makayla join us for the better part of Saturday and Sunday. She is the cutest and the smartest 6 year old i've ever met. Here's what we did to entertain her while she was with us!

When my sister and mom brought her down, we all headed to Isaac's for some lunch and then to the mall for a little bit. Makayla and I sat on Santa's lap (because she wouldn't do it alone) and despite almost crushing his leg, he basically granted my christmas wish to have a baby girl. (Like it was a choice?) Since we weren't allowed to just take a cellphone picture from inside the santa area, Alex took one from afar.

After the mall, we headed home and got down to gingerbread village business. I bought the kit at the grocery store and it was 4 or 5 tiny gingerbread houses. I had to whip up some more icing (that we kind of didn't really use) and our houses weren't exactly the most attractive or.. well, stable. Makayla did a great job though and she barely got messy! Alex and I on the other hand were quite messy and I'm pretty sure there are still candy sprinkles on the floor.

When we completed our village, we sat down to a nice dinner of Velveeta shells and cheese and broccoli. We needed to hurry a little bit so we could make the movie we planned to see, which was The Muppets. Honestly, and I can say this because Makayla doesn't read my blog, the Muppets was cheesy. I know it's a family movie and stuff but cut down on the cheese and maybe I would've liked it more. It was fine though. I can't say I laughed at all but I know there were some people beside me cracking up, so something must've been funny. We were asked for popcorn quite a few times but reminded the little miss that if she got popcorn at the theater, she wouldn't get ice cream when we got home. She choose the ice cream, as any smart person would do.

At home afterward, we ate ice cream and played some Mario coin runner and then put Makayla to bed in the middle of our King Size (thank god we have a king size). Alex and I hung out a little bit before joining her. The good thing about Makayla is she's always been a really good sleeper. Even when she was younger, all you would have to say is "close your eyes, keep them closed and when you wake up it will be morning" and it worked. At least anytime I've put her to bed. She is a mover and a shaker though. I think I got hit in the face once.. Alex probably got hit a couple of times. She turned diagonal in the bed with her feet in my back. I specifically turned my back so she couldn't kick my stomach, lol. It was an interesting night to say the least!

So now I have a song from the Muppet movie in my head called "Am I a Man, or Am I a Muppet?" sheesh!

Anyway.. Makayla woke up Sunday morning at 7am! I gave her my iPad to keep her busy but this didn't last all that long before she was asking for pancakes, since she knew we planned to make them for breakfast. We tried and failed at making pancakes with cookie cutters, unfortunately. But the pancakes tasted good and I would totally make that an every Sunday deal if Alex would let me. After pancakes we did some coloring. We played more coin runner and I made our pizza dough for lunch later on. We decided to go to a nearby park to play for a little bit and when we got home, Makayla and I made our pizzas (ugh, i missed taking a picture of this!) and watched Alice in Wonderland. After the movie, I took her back up to home base and we ended up going to Hoss's for dinner with my mom and Julia. YUM!

I totally get (more than before) how 24/7 being a parent is. Granted, with your own kids you don't constantly have to entertain them, but adding in fun activities spices things up and keeps things interesting! We're really lucky that Makayla is so well behaved and mature for her age so she can keep up with us really easily and we can keep up with her. We had a great time, and hopefully when our baby girl is a little bit older, she can come visit us again!

Halloweeeen

Saturday night we went to a super fun halloween party at Gretchen and Eric's. We were introduced to these things called 'walking tacos' which were frickin' amazing and perfect for a party (and i will be stealing this idea). Walking tacos are regular taco fixings shoved into a snack size bag of doritos. All you need is a fork! Genius! I should've taken a picture of this!

Anywho, we had a great time! We played some games and chatted and ate yummy food, plus my trick or treating through Gretchen's clothes, it couldn't have been better!

Take a look at the pics!

Hugh Hefner and his bunnies (and JFK in the background, typical?)

If Marilyn Monroe lived, you know she would've had his baby, right?

This would've won best costume if there were such a competition at the party!

The girls! :)

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!

New Car, Barnstormers, Friends, and Hurricane Irene

After what was the longest and most tiring work week of the entire year thus far the weekend was finally here. I (luckily) got off work a little after 2pm which was a relief. I was super tired and all the manual labor from the past couple days was taking a toll. I got to relax a little bit before we headed to York to close on the car.

The only picture I took all weekend.

We bought a Honda Pilot. I will post a picture soon. So far, we love it. We don't anticipate that changing anytime soon. It's basically perfect for what we needed (and wanted). Plus, Alex did a killer negotiating job and we got a great deal. (Thanks Apple Honda) Closing on said car took 2 hours. When we got back home, we immediately headed to the Barnstormers game with Matt because I had won tickets the week before. Unfortunately Britt was working and couldn't join us. We left during the 7th inning or so due to sheer boredom and headed to the Cat's Meow where she worked though to visit. Had a good time overall. Ate some yummy soft serve at the baseball game.. mmm.


Saturday, Alex went to work at the farm and I headed up to my parents house to show them the car and hang out for a little while. (I should've been sanding the crib) And when I got home, I took Alex over to the Nowaks for a Fantasy draft, where I returned later that evening to hang out/help Court put away the cutest nursery stuff! What a learning experience. Babies get a lot of clothes at showers, (duh) but really.. a lot of clothes! After all that, we got to check out Laurel's Bachelorette photo shoot images which turned out really great. I'll be sure to post a couple of my favorite on here once I get them from her!

Sunday we slept in nice and long.. Hurricane Irene had given us a slight pounding from 3pm on Saturday and was basically over when we awoke. The hardest rain/wind I thought was from about 11pm to 6am. I think Alex read his parents rain gauge at 4 inches. Anyway, back to Sunday. We had to get ready to head over to the farm for lunch, so we got moving. We got to check out a lot of Nick and Laurel's honeymoon pictures from Hawaii which were beautiful. It looked like they had a great time. I was jealous and wanted to be back there again (perhaps with the body I had in 2009).

We left around 3:30 to get ready to head to Hershey to meet up with Erin and David for dinner. We ate at Houlihan's. It was yummy. Unfortunately, Nicole and Jimmy couldn't make it but hopefully we'll see them soon. It was nice to chat with Erin and David about the upcoming babies (for both of us) and get some perspective on daycare stuff. Erin has a wealth of knowledge since she works at a pre-school. We had a great time, I love the laid back feel of hanging out with them.

When we returned home, we just relaxed before another work week starts. Today we find out the gender of the baby!!!!! We've been waiting 19 weeks for this!

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.