19 weeks and 20 weeks

Yesterday, I was 20 weeks along. Officially halfway!

Things are still going great! Still feeling great (despite minor backpain brought on by too much walking). I feel the baby girl move at least once a day and really have no complaints!

Here are the pictures from 19 weeks and 20 weeks.. since we all know that I procrastinate!

19 weeks

20 weeks

In the 20 week picture, don't worry.. that wasn't my martini! Just thought it would be funny to pose with it since I was out at a bar, dancing with my belly ah la amy poeler's snl skit. More pictures from that night in the next post recapping the weekend!

Not much left to say about 20 weeks, other than.. it went relatively fast. Hoping the next 20 go even faster!!

The Nursery {part 1}

These posts will be in pieces due to the 'work in progress' scenario that we're currently in. I won't reveal the whole nursery until the last post but there are bits and pieces that I would like to share. Starting with color.

With aqua blue walls that aren't being repainted, we decided to just do splashes of color around the room instead of deciding on one or two other colors to focus on. Here are the paint chips that I have for inspiration. I haven't decided yet between the lighter or the darker of the two sets. (Sorry for the blurry left one).

We bought some shelving board at Home Depot that Alex is going to cut down into 12" x 12" pieces that I'm going to use for the wall decor. Some of the 8 pieces will be painted and some will get scrapbook paper adhered to them for some pattern.

All furniture will be white, as you'll see in part 2 but i'm not quite sure yet about the rocking chair. Our friend Glen had a great suggestion this weekend to help me get what I want with the chair in this post so I need to explore those options a little bit more.

And despite my sincere distaste for the state of the bathroom upstairs, the most I will probably do is remove the wallpaper and repaint it. Maybe i'll go into detail about the rest of the bathroom in another post, maybe not. ;)

Obviously we have more plans for the nursery that haven't come to fruition in our minds yet to even speak about but I have plenty of ideas.. including sewing my own (or asking my MIL for help) crib sheets so that I can make sure to get the pattern/colors that I want. Exciting things to come!

It's a..

GIRL!

That's right, we saw girl parts on the screen at the ultrasound on Monday. We are beyond excited to add yet another girl to the family. I know my niece is going to be super pumped (though I'm sure she would be either way, every time I see her she asks to see my belly.. with my shirt up, hilarious!).

Doesn't looking at the picture from this post just scream girl now that you know? Such a dainty little nose. We're still surprised it's a girl. We would've been surprised if it were a boy as well. It's just crazy knowing the gender in general. There's a little girl in my belly! She'll join her newborn little girl friends baby Snyder and baby Hix and she'll meet some cute newborn boys too, baby Doutrich and baby Nowak.

I also cannot wait to get my niece's baby clothing. Perk!

We just told our parents by giving them a copy of the picture and having them guess the gender. They are beyond excited as I'm sure you all are (lol)!

Sorry to everyone who thought boy ;)

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.

There's a real live baby in there!

Reaching out with the right hand toward us!

Say hello to our little baby bru!! (Gender to be revealed on Saturday)

Here's a play by play of our appointment:
I arrived early and they called my name to go back before Alex even arrived. Luckily, as we were walking back he was walking in the door.

Our ultrasound tech Kelsey was the sweetest! She was very social and asked us lots of questions and kept us informed through the whole thing.

It was crazy to see a baby inside there, a real live baby. Since I took Britt's advice and had some chocolate beforehand, the baby was moving around like crazy! Closer to the end of the ultrasound, the baby settled down so that Kelsey could take some final measurements.

Back to the beginning.. May Grant is awesome because you don't have to go to the hospital to have the ultrasound, they do it right in the office. You lay down on a bed and look up at a flatscreen monitor near the ceiling in the room. Kelsey (or whoever) looks at her own machine. Kelsey was busy busy typing as she saw things, she measured lots of stuff. I don't remember all that she said but we saw the stomach, the kidneys, the spinal column, the diaphragm, the brain and of course, the heart and it's 4 chambers beating away. The baby's heartrate was 143 this time around. One of the first things she did was look between the legs. It was obvious to me what it was, but we waited for her to confirm. I wish I had a picture to share of the experience but Alex and I were pretty caught up in the moment to take pictures. We could've stared at the screen all day watching the baby move around.

At the end we got some pictures, including the one shown above. It's going to be hard not to tell our parents the gender until Friday but that'll just heighten it even more. We're still surprised (as we would be with either gender) and it's going to take some time for it to sink in. We just love knowing that it's a little boy or girl in there and that it's healthy, that was the #1 thing. I swear, if there were reviews for ultrasound techs, Kelsey would get a 20 out of 10. She was awesome!

After the ultrasound, I had my normal appointment. Nothing too interesting. We just need to start looking for a pediatrician. We looked at the baby's pictures a lot through the evening. The miracle of life is truly awesome!

Check back Saturday for the reveal!

Nursery Layouts

While thinking about all the things (and making a list of things!) I'm going to need for the nursery. I started to think about the layout.

Things to consider (from what I read):
- Don't put the crib by the window due to the temperature changes. Windows are obviously colder in the winter and hotter in the summer. The sun actually rises on the back of the house onto the only window in the room. While positive for winter, it's a negative for summer. We will be getting great curtains that hopefully retain heat in the winter (and our windows are from 1998 so they aren't inefficient) but we probably won't be putting the crib by the window.
- Don't put the crib by the window because when they grow and can stand in the crib, they could get tangled in the blinds. No brainer.
- Keep the Crib and Rocker/Glider close to one another for grab and feed sessions in the wee hours.
- Keep the dresser and changing table close to each other for 'within arms reach' clothing for necessary changes. We won't have a dresser out in the room, so the changing table will be stocked with essentials.
- Place the diaper pail and a trash container by the changing table. No brainer.
- Put a nightstand or place the bookshelf close to the rocker/glider with a light on it just in case you need to access one quickly in the middle of the night. Or use it as a place to set things when you don't want to get up.

Okay, that's enough tips. Here are the layouts I designed on babysdream.com.

 

Okay so, I'm partially not following a rule when it comes to the crib by the window in the top right layout but I still like it. I need to run these by Alex as well to get his favorite. I also like the crib in the middle of the room but i'd probably have to see that in person to get a feel for it. The fact that there are 3 doors in the room (the main entrance is the lower right door, the bottom door goes out to storage and the top right door goes into the bathroom) and two large closets takes up two of the walls already and a large window takes up most of the 3rd wall, leaving only one full wall is challenging. And that's really the big wall I wanted to decorate, so we'll have to see how it goes. I do like the idea of having some living plants in there to purify the air a little bit.

Which layout do you like best?