Thoughts From A Preggo | So What Wednesday…

*Linking up with So What Wednesday’s from Life After I Dew.

Yep, its hump day…so I’m here with my “so what’s” to get over the hump!  Two more days till the weekend, yay!

So what…if I’m on an ice cream fix this week.  I blame it on pregnancy ;-)

So what…that although I’m happy we are having some cooler weather here in Va, that I’m not ready to let go of the 90-degree days.  What can I say, I’m from the South.

So what…if my toes need to be painted.  Do you know how hard it is to paint your toes while 7 months pregnant?!

So what…that I’m over summetime tv.  Although I’m not quite ready for the Fall, I’m ready for Fall tv.  I’m not sure how much I will be watching with a brand new baby, but any little bit I can squeeze in will be good.

So what…that I totally wish I could work half days at work.  I get sooo sleepy after lunch.  I’ll take the extended lunches, in which I usually nap for about 30 minutes in the meantime.

Alright party people, that’s all I got for now.

Happy Hump Day, or as I like to say Happy Hump Day, Bump Day!

xxoo,

Thing's I'm Loving | The Top 10 [7.21 - 7.27]

Here's what I'm loving lately! What about you??

 

1. Tide Vivid White & Bright Detergent

2. Nature Valley Granola

 

3. Coupons

 

4. Cranberry Coast Dried Cranberries

 

5. Chocolate Milk

 

6. Baby Kicks!

 

7. My cell phone cover

8. Skirts

9. Cantaloupe

10. Nectarines/Plums

 

*Bonus:  Jay-Z's Tom Ford

 

Happy bumping!

 

xxoo,

 

Just Thought to Share

Greetings all and HAPPY MONDAY!

As I get my day started at work I always check out CNN.com for the most recent news.  As I was scrolling down the homepage, I saw an article of the BlogHer '13 conference.  Of course I had to click on it, since I vicariously attend the conference through all the posts, articles, and tweets about it.  The article itself was pretty straighforward and had nothing altogether too negative or postive about the conference or bloggers for that matter.  It gave some surface level insight into the current blogging world, mainly focusing on how the bulk of these bloggers are "blogger mommies".  They describe these women as stay-at-home moms who pretty much are able to make a job out of their blog and draw some substantial income, comparable to that of a full-time job.  This is the true for many in the community, but not all.  I'm an active duty service-member who works full-time and blog part-time.  I'm also an expectant mother, that has been blogging for years, but this is the first time I've actually stuck with it and gained a following.  I will soon be taking on the role of stay-at-home mom once baby gets here and if I can still contribute to society in some way inside of the home,while drawing an income then hey, I'm all for it.

Anyhow, just wanted to share the article with you all since the comments were pretty colorful.  I even logged in an replied to one, because it was such a silly one putting down bloggers, or at least "mommy bloggers".

Here is the original article for your viewing and reading pleasure:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/26/living/women-blogher-conference/index.html?hpt=hp_bn11

Happy bumping!

xxoo,

Strawberry Infused Sweet Tea~Lemonade Popsicles

I had the wise idea to whip up some popsicles, since I had been jonesin to use my new molds.  I figured, “what creative twist can I make on the ol’ fruit infused popsicle?”. 
Well, I am here to tell you that since I had just made some sweet tea and had some Country Time Lemonade on hand, I decided to combined the two and throw in some strawberries and voila!  Out came these fun and unique popsicles.  They are somewhat of a fun, mature summer time treat.  The recipe is super minimalist, only requiring the three ingredients and popsicle mold. 

What I used:
Sweet Tea – you can visit this post for my recipe on how to make sweet tea
1 scoop of Country Time Lemonade
4 strawberries
How I did it:
The mold I used makes 6 popsicles, so I only needed about 1 cup of sweet tea.  I combined the sweet tea and 1 scoop of Country Time lemonade in a measuring cup.

I diced the four strawberries and dropped equals amounts of them into the molds. 



I poured the sweet tea-lemonade mixture into the mold, put the tops on them and froze them until solid. 


*Prior to removing the popsicle from the mold, run the mold under the water so that the popsicle will release from the mold smoothly and the holder coming out of the bottom of the popsicle.

You can make these with unsweetened tea and fresh lemonade if you want to get fancy, I just used what I like and had on hand.  Another take on these would be to add mint for a refreshing feel to the popsicles.
I had a little bit of sweet tea~lemonade left over, so I enjoyed a lovely glass of it while waiting for my popsicles to set up.

The finished product!


Happy bumping!

xxoo,

2nd Trimester In Review

Since I’m officially in the third trimester, I though I’d post a review (in pictures) of me throughout the second trimester.

I have been doing updates on my blog since 17 weeks, so I’ll spare you an entire recap on the trimester. You can always read through what was going on in each weekly update.  I also have a Youtube channel where I post weekly update videos, so you can see me live and kinda in person there.

All in all, the second trimester wasn’t bad at all.  I’ll say that I didn’t really have the whole honeymoon affect that they talk about.  Your supposed to get this great boost of energy and feel great, but I pretty much felt the same as I felt in the first trimester. The major differences were appetite increase (although not much!), my growing belly (pretty inevitable), and no nausea - I think I only threw up once during the entire trimester and that was because I got car sick.

I’m looking forward to riding out the rest of this third trimester and I am so excited for baby to get here in October.  I’m so happy to be able to take you all on this journey with me.  Stay tuned for weekly updates and other baby-themed posts as I progress through the next 12 weeks.

Happy bumping!

xxoo,

28 Week Appointment Update

This past Monday, I had my 28 week appointment. I must say it went much better than my 24 week one.  No issues with weight gain or anything like that, so that was definitely a plus.  I had all the standard stuff checked out, plus the 1 hour glucose test.  Basically, I drank the drink at the beginning of my appointment, got checked out by my PA, scheduled my next appt, then waited about 30 mins to go down to the lab to have my blood drawn.

Alright, so here's the rundown on my appointment:

Weight:  141 - according to their scale w/ clothes on.  I'm about 139ish on my scale at home with no clothes on.  This means I'm up about 4 lbs from my last appt, because I apparently only weighed in at 137 at my 24 week appointment.  I'm supposed to put on an lb a week, so again, all is well with that.

Blood Pressure:  108/60, its usually 100/60 so nothing out of the ordinary.  I had also just eaten my two eggs that I was supposed to eat about 30 mins before I had my BP tested.

Fundal Height: 29 cm, I was 27w6d at the time so I was measuring really good.  Yay for baby growing good!   Good baby grow!

Baby's heartbeat: 141.  Nice & strong.  Its been in the 140s lately, I take it that it will stay around there. SD:  Baby was so active that the PA had to chase the baby around to find the heartbeat, on top of the baby kicking and jabbing at the Doppler.

1 hr Glucose test:  Short and sweet...I had the fruit punch flavor, it was chilled and good and I didn't mind it at all!  Its been 4 days and my PA said she would call me the same day if ym results came back abnormal, no new is good news!  Yay for passing!

Other stuff:  We talked about taking the Dtap vaccine, but I decided to wait until my next appointment, since I was already having blood drawn.  PA asked me about birth classes, which I'm already signed up for next month.  I confirmed where I will deliever, as long as I'm in Va at the time, so reassurance with that!  Hubs & I would would kind of like to know where to go when baby decides it times to come.  My appointments will remain at being every 4 weeks until my next appt, so I'll have an appointment at 32 weeks and then they will start being every 2 weeks.  That's actually good news, because the less they need to see you, the better.  I asked my PA if baby was head down since she found the heartbeat low, and she said it probably was but that they aren't concerned with the baby's position until 36 weeks.  Reason being is that baby still has plenty of room to flip and move around until about that time.  Some baby's even flip even while mom is laboring, so you never really know until its time for the baby to actually come. 

That's pretty much the gist of everything that happened at my appointment.  I'll be updating you all gain at 32 weeks.  I can't believe I'll be in the single digits the next time I update, that's wild!

Happy bumping!

xxoo,

Friday Confessional | 7.26.13

Here goes, another Friday confessional!  I had a pretty uneventful week and as I always say uneventful in my book is always good!

I confess:  I could have slept in every day this week. – Of course I didn’t, but it would have been nice too!

I confess:  My house is not nearly as clean as I would like it to be, ugh! – I did laundry last Saturday (I think!) and it was in the dryer and didn’t get folded until this past Wednesday.

I confess: I did not go grocery shopping until yesterday. – We were out of my mainstays, fresh fruit and milk.

I confess: I did not want to cook at all this week. – Hence the lack of recipes post :-/  First trimester fatigue is setting back in, oh no!

I confess:  I totally fell off my morning protein drink regime.  I didn’t even make a smoothie this week! – In all fairness, we were out of milk, so that nixed my morning protein drink! :-)

That’s all the confessing I have for this week!
*P.S: Bonus confessional…I totally jacked up this post and pretty much wrote over last week’s!  That’s what I get for taking shortcuts!

Until next time…

Happy bumping!

How I Organized My Baby Shower Gifts

Going off of my previous baby shower post, I promised I would do a post on organizing baby shower gifts.

Getting a plethora of gifts, especially for a baby that isn't even here yet, can be overwhelming.  I know it was for me!  As I mentioned in my previous post, we drove back with a car full of gifts, which I was pleasantly surprised we managed to even fit most everything into the car.  Upon arriving back home, Hubs unloaded everything, but didn't exactly organize when he brought it into the house.  I didn't expect him too, but I also didn't expect him to dump everything on our living room floor.  To be fair it was midnight when we got home, and after the long drive and traffic, I'm just glad he brought everything in.  I'm one of those people that has to unpack as soon a they return from a trip.  I unpack all my clothes, throw them in hamper, set all my toiletries back up, and put away anything else that I bring back with me from a trip.  Now at 12 o'clock at night I wasn't going to do all this with the presents.  However, the next day its got done and it got done fast.  Hubs & I could possibly be moving before baby gets here, so right now we have forgoed a setting up the nursery.  This means that right now, everything has to stay downstairs until we get word of if we need to move.  I saw no reason to lug everything upstairs if we have to end up packing it up anyways.  Even more reason why I needed to have everything organized and put off into a corner. 

The first thing I did was take everything out of the bags and wrapping that was in one. I needed to get a good idea of everything we got, so leaving stuff in bags was a no-go.  I picked a designated spot in my living room, and began to stack all the packaged items, like diapers and such up against the wall.  We received lots of diapers and wipes, so these were easy to put away.  Next I put all other gifts around this, so it would serve as a platform for smaller or fragile things.  As I stacked everything, I was able to record exactly what we got, so I'd have an idea of what we still needed.  I recommend this tip for anyone in my position.  Don't just bring everything home and not keep track of what you got.  Its important to do this, not only for you, but for the purpose of updating your registry(ies).  It helps me to have everything right out in the open, so that when I'm thinking about what we still need to get baby, I can look right at it.

Before

After

So, as you can see there is light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to getting organized.  I pride myself in my organization skills, and I'll definitely be doing more posts on organization.  Just remember practice makes perfect, organization requires maintenance and diligence.  Take it step-by-step and one day at a time.

Hope this is helpful to you all!

Happy bumping!

xxoo,

Baby This Week | 28 Weeks

28 Weeks Pregnant

Oh my goodness, here we are again!  Another week of pregnancy completed.  I can't believe little one will be here in just 12 short weeks! 

At this point baby weighs 2 1/4 pounds about the size of a large eggplant and measures 14.8 inches from the top of her head to her heels. He or she can blink their eyes, which now sport lashes. With eyesight developing, baby may be able to see the light that filters in through your womb. Little one is also developing billions of neurons in their brain and adding more body fat in preparation for life in the outside world.  The hair on baby's head continues to grow. Muscle tone in little squirt's body steadily develops, and even though baby's lungs are now capable of breathing air, it would be difficult for him if they were born now.

Baby - Can we say super duper active this week!  I mean, I know I say this every week, but this little guy orgirl is getting stronger by the day.  Its the craziest thing, because I thought I had a pretty laid back little squirt in there, but nope!  To my pleasant surprise this baby is hyper like me, and a night owl too.  I'm really starting to think this baby doesn't sleep.  I can feel him or her all the time, and everywhere, up high, down low...all over the place.  I love it though and it is so reassuring, given the fact that I have no way of knowing what's going in on there outside of what baby tells me from the inside out.  Like me, this kid likes to eat and it the most active when its time to eat.  After eating, baby calms down a little, but a few hours later its back up and going.  I'm also starting to see baby's personality which is really funny.  I simply just look at my belly and laugh sometimes when I see the movement, because I seriously wonder what baby is really doing in there.

Me -  I have been good, good and tired lately.  Well more like sleepy in the afternoons.  I have been napping most days or dozing off.  Its like return of the first trimester tiredness.  Fortunately, its not that bad and I'm still able to function.  My belly as always is itchy, but that just means I'm applying more Palmer's to it.  No stretch marks yet, yay!  I'm still growing gradually so, I'm hoping that will be my saving grace.  My belly was measuring 34" last I checked and I'm up to 139-140 lbs, which makes my overall gain about 14-16 lbs.  With 12 weeks to go, I should gain no more than 30 lbs, so I'm happy with that.  I'm also still not having any signs of preterm labor, thank God! I do think I've been having some Braxton Hicks lately.  They mostly happen when I need to tinkle, so I try not to get into a tight.  It also helps the more active and mobile I am.  If I'm sitting or lying down for a long time I tend to feel the tightness.  Speaking of sitting down, I notice when I'm at work, sitting in my office chair for long periods of time makes my hips hurt.  I'm not sure if it bad ergonomics or what, but it gets really uncomfortable.  Overall, things are pretty uneventful, and I hope it stays that way.

Hubs - We celebrated his birthday yesterday by going for Cold Stone Creamery.  He had chocolate topped with strawberries (fancy I know, right?!).  It was nice to spend the day together and he was able to spend sometime harassing the baby too, lol!  He like to wiggle and poke my belly to make the baby move.  Most times the baby kicks him back.  He has even gotten kicked in the face by the baby, because he will be up close to it talking to the baby and the baby will kick.  Its so funny!  Hubs also told me that the other night whilst I was asleep, he placed his hand on my belly and the baby was moving all kinds of crazy.  I think he thinks its as funny as I do.  We're both getting more and more excited for baby's arrival!  The only thing we need to figure out is where we are going to be living, but that's a whole other conversation for another time.

Until next time...

 

Happy bumping!

 

xxoo,

Baby Shower Version 1.0 {Recap}

This post is list 3 weeks overdue!  I actually wanted to take my time and type out this post, so that I could paint the best picture possible.  Okay, not really, I just knew it was going to be a long post and have been procrastinating to write it.  I already have another post in my drafts about organizing baby shower gifts, so that on will be up soon.  The thing of it is that I have another shower coming up in two weeks and that one will, I'm sure, be completely different than my first one. 

I sent the invites out last week, so everyone should be busy RSVP'ing at this point.  Fortunately, my mom is taking care of all the RSVPs so I don't have to deal with that aspect of the shower.  I did hand make the invites, save-the-dates, and thank you cards, and help out financially as well, so I definitely had my hands in the mix.  My mom, bless her, handled about 80% of the shower planning.  She booked the venue, did the favors, and put together most of the guest list.  Mom did consult me on the menu, favors, theme, etc, etc, etc... So again this shower coming up will be completely different than the one I had over the 4th of July weekend.

Hubs & I got in town on the Wednesday before the shower to spend time with the fam and celebrate the 4th.  We went and saw Kevin Hart’s comedy special Let Me Explain with his bestfriend and his sister and to a cookout with the parental units and my sister-in law on the 4th.  The following day, we went to the mall, had lunch, and stopped by Hubby’s old job to say hey to his former boss.  She was really nice and excited about the baby.  We retreated back to the house for the remainder of the evening, where we watched tv and played with the dogs.

The next day, the big day , everyone got up and out and let me to my own devices at the house.  Even Hubs was commissioned to help set up and run errands for getting the shower underway.  He unfortunately did not get a chance to rest all morning like I did.  I was able to wake up, catch up on some blog reading, watch some tv, take a bubblebath, get dressed, and just relax.  No one would let me help :-/  I’m not used to being in such a position, but I did embrace it and sat back and relaxed. 

My Mom and brother came down to the shower, and they arrived about an hour and a half before the event.  Hubs and his parents got home in the nick of time to change over and head back out to the shower.  His parents left a little bit before we did, and Hubs & I, and Mom and bro left.  We arrived at a really nice clubhouse decorated with the super cute bubblebee theme.

I even got a corsage!

And of course we were dressed to the nine I our yellow and black, in homage to the bumblebee theme. – Check out the tiara I got and ribbon Hubs got! ;-)

Sissy in-law made this adorable diaper wreath. – Girl has skills! 

Mom & I

We ate, we laughed, we played games, and of course we opened presents!

Did I just say presents?! Yep!

We drove home with a carload, yep 10 hours back to Va with all this!  I unpacked and organized the following day.  We left the stroller, crib, and changing table at my in-laws, so we will eventually get that when we are ready to set up the nursery.  Hub & I couldn’t believe how much stuff we got, especially considering that we were getting two showers.  My in-laws and sissy in-law took most of the pics, so I’ve only included a few my bro took from my phone.

Overall, it was a lovely shower and I didn’t have to lift a finger.  That was the best part!  It was really so lovely so have so many people be excited for us and the baby.  I felt so blessed and can’t wait for the next one (that is shower, not baby…not quite yet, lol!).

Stay tuned for version 2.0 in about two weeks.

Happy bumping!

xxoo,