Random Fun and Cuteness!

We have been receiving a lot of great baby items lately from my brother and sister-in-law. They have three kids, 6, 4, and 2, and they have completed their family, so we are lucky enough to get all of their hand me downs. I'll definitely post pictures of some of the stuff they've given us once we get the chance to put the nursery together next month, but Jonathan is most excited about the Baby Bjorn. It has been his most wanted item since we found out we were having a baby. Every time we see somebody in public wear one, he thinks it's so funny and cute. The other day he was over at our brother and sister-in-law's house visiting and picking up some stuff, and he decided to practice using the Baby Bjorn. I think he plans on wearing it pretty much all the time whether he's in the house or out and about running errands. What a precious daddy to be!

Someone I haven't mentioned much on this blog is our favorite miniature dachshund, Izzy. Izzy is having a fabulous summer as an only child and has no idea what is about to hit her this fall with the arrival of her new brother. We got the most adorable onsie the other day from my friend Sara Shepherd.
I told Jonathan that I wanted to get Izzy a t-shirt that says "My brother is a baby," but he thinks Izzy will be traumatized enough by having to share all of the attention without trying to dress her up too.

I was trying to upload a video of Izzy trying to swim the other day, but blogspot didn't want to cooperate. Izzy has always had a little bit of a love hate relationship with water. She hates baths, but she gets so excited when she gets in water that is up to her belly or a little bit above. She has such a huge desire to be a swimmer, but she sinks like a rock when she gets into deeper water. She's gotten herself all revved up to jump into a few rivers and lakes, but we usually have to reel her back in since we keep her on her leash in case she sinks. I'll try again to get the video up later since it's super cute. Instead I posted a few pictures of Izzy's other hobby...sleeping.



Jonathan went fly fishing with his dad, uncle, and brother up in Fairplay, CO yesterday. He needed to get a fishing license the night before, so we went to Walmart. While waiting for someone to come help us I had a little bit of fun dressing up in some of the hunting gear. Here I am sneaking up on Jonathan:


And try to find me in this one:



Good times, and more to come!!!

Summer Fun

Today marks 23 weeks and 4 days, and I can't believe that I am a mere 3 weeks away from the third trimester. It's kind of amazing how quickly things are moving along. Before we know it, our lives will be forever changed with the entrance of our baby boy. While still trying to adjust to the looks of a pregnant self, it still makes me laugh every time I see a picture of myself as time goes by. I swear I'm delusional, because I don't see in the mirror what turns up in pictures :). People at work laugh at me, because I'm always saying how I really don't feel like I'm getting that much bigger. One thing that I've really loved in the past few weeks is that people no longer look at me playing the game "Fat or pregnant?" in their minds. One woman in Kohls randomly turned around and told me that I may want the baby to come out, but it's so much less work the way that it is now. I think she was having a bad day handling her children...haha. People don't even hesitate to guess that I'm pregnant and give their unrequested advice.

We are getting ready to move into our new two bedroom apartment August 18th, and I am so excited since this means we get to set up a nursery. Slowly but surely we are starting to acquire baby items and are looking forward to having a room to set them up in. I'm getting the itch to get things ready, but we have to hold off just a little bit longer. For the time being we are trying to enjoy the summer here in Colorado. We are really wanting to go camping sometime before I get too huge, but I feel like we are running out of convenient weekends. My parents were in town the past 2 weekends, and Jonathan's parents are getting into town tonight. His mom is staying for 2 weeks, while is dad has to go back to South Carolina after a week. It'll be nice to spend a little bit of time with them since we don't get to see them all that often. It's kind of a rarity that we see both sets of parents all within the same month since we all live in different parts of the country. We are also extremely excited to be taking a trip down to South Carolina/Atlanta July 30th through August 3rd. I've been missing friends from down there, and I'm looking forward to meeting my friend Ashley's baby, Skylar, for the first time. Ashley told me she was pregnant at our wedding last year, we got to see her while she was at about the same point in her pregnancy this time last year as I am now, and now I want to meet this beautiful little girl. For those of you that know Ashley from our wedding, you can get an update on her family at www.skylarmariejones.com.

I feel like I have not included Jonathan's lovely face on this blog very much so far, so I have included a picture of us. We rarely have pictures together since it's usually just the two of us together and no one to take a picture of us. I wanted to document the event of a couples picture, because I wish we got more of them. This is a picture of us from 4th of July hiking up in the Pine, CO area with my parents.


I have this weird thing where I hate when couples dress alike, and Jonathan loves to get under my skin when possible and try to have twin day. I put on a black shirt that morning, so he had to put his on too and refused to take it off. I just wanted to make a note so people don't think we walk around as twins all the time lol :).

Our First Baby Items

Now that we know we are having a boy, we have gotten a few clothing items. It makes everything way more real...to me at least. My parents were in town the 4th of July weekend, spent some time around Colorado, and are back this weekend. When they got here they arrived with our first baby outfits as a gift.



One of my friends, Emily, from our gym is also pregnant, and is due about 4 weeks after me. She was absolutely certain in her mind that she was having a boy, so she went out and purchased a couple of boy items. Well, surprise, she is having a girl! She was sweet enough to pass on her boy items to me since she would not be using them.


I am also soooo excited about my diaper bag that we purchased as my birthday gift last week, and we are waiting for it to come in the mail. It is a Petunia Pickle Bottom diaper bag. I had never heard of this brand before, but one of my co-workers is pregnant as well, and she told me about them. I got an amazing deal on mine, and it is the cutest thing ever! It looks more like a messenger bag, but it is silver with yellow accents on it, and it includes a changing pad and case for wipes. The straps also adjust to more like a backpack so it can be easily strapped onto the stroller. It kind of makes me laugh that I'm at the point in life where a diaper bag makes me want to jump up and down with excitement...haha :).

I held Jonathan captive at Babys R Us on Monday for about 2 hours trying to get our baby registry started. It was a little overwhelming when the registry people show you this HUGE list of all the stuff you "need." It's a miracle that any of us in this generation and the ones before us survived, because I know our parents didn't have all this stuff. My big task now is to pick out the bedding so that I can plan all the other stuff in the nursery around it. We did most of our registry, but I'll tweak it once I figure out bedding since I'm a super matchy matchy person. We're lucky enough to have nieces and nephews that are out of the crib stage, so we inherit a crib and changing table, and we are purchasing an armour from my sister-in-law, Amy. We are going to strip it, change the knobs, and make it match the crib. Once we move mid-August we will start setting up the baby's room...very exciting!

As for the pregnancy update, we're just truckin' along, and I'm getting bigger as expected :). I am 22 weeks and 3 days as of today. I can feel him move around much more often and more distinctively. He's also started to develop a little bit of a movement schedule. He is most active in the morning and late at night. I also feel a lot of jolts after meals. I hadn't felt him too much yesterday until I had a chocolate shake, and he went a little bit crazy. He obviously is an ice cream lover like his mom :). I was laying in bed last night after getting back from Sonic, and I saw my stomach start to get a little visible wave and then a huge jolt on the right side where I could SEE him kick from the outside...so neat! I felt bad, because Jonathan's at training this weekend for the National Guard and missed it. Not too big of a deal, though, because I know there's a lot more of it to come!!

It's a Boy!!!

Jonathan and I had the halfway point appointment yesterday where we got to find out the gender of the baby. I barely slept the night before, and I popped up earlier than I had to for our appointment from excitement. The ultrasound was so interesting, because you get to see the development of different sections of the brain, the four chambers of the heart, structures of the heart, valves, he has two kidneys, etc. It's amazing how much you can actually see on all that gray. The sonographer was even able to give us a close up of his nostrils and lips. Midway through the ultrasound I got extremely dizzy, nauseous, and ridiculously hot and had to ask to sit up. I guess I looked like I was losing color, and the sonographer said it's just from laying on my back for a long time and cutting off some blood supply from the weight of the growing belly. I always wondered what the big deal was about laying on your back after the fourth month until feeling like that yesterday. My blood pressure had dropped to 96/58 when the nurse took it. They gave me some time to recover, and then we were able to start over again. So, the very last part of the ultrasound is where you get to find out the gender. She scanned between the legs looking up and there was no mistaking that we are having a BOY! Now the real fun begins in planning for a little boy and preparing myself since I've hardly been around little boys in my life.

How far along: 21 weeks, 2 days
Total weight gain/loss: I pass on this one.
Maternity clothes: All the time, and they'll probably only need to go up in size.
Sleep: I've been sleeping pretty well. I'm usually most comfortable on my back, so it's taking me time to get used to sleeping on my side. I also tend to wake up really early and have a hard time going back to sleep.
Best moment this week: Jonathan is just now able to feel little kicks. He says they're still pretty faint, but he can feel them. A few days ago he put his ear to my stomach and could hear the movement of kicks as I felt them. Kind of weird!
Cravings: MILK...Jonathan calls me his baby cow.
Gender: BOY!
Labor Signs: None.
Belly Button in our out? In, but it's starting to morph.
What I miss: Venti Starbucks coffee drinks and other fancy summer drinks that either have too much caffeine or alcohol.
Weekly Wisdom: If you lay on your back too long after about 20 weeks, you have a good chance of either passing out and/or throwing up :).
Milestones: Finding out the gender, feeling kicks from the outside faintly, and getting scared/caught off guard from how the kicks feel from the inside (they're getting harder and will startle me!)