12 week update

Sorry for no picture of my "baby bump" but I haven't done that yet.  Still not sure if I will or not, but we'll see.  As for the update, here goes!

How Far Along: 12 weeks

Size of the Baby:  According to my "What to Expect" app, our baby is the size of a peach this week (3 inches long), and according to my "Sprout" app, he/she is the size of a key lime (1/2 ounce).  Those two fruits seem a bit different in size to me, but whatever they say!



Total Weight Gain: I'm not 100% sure what my weight was at my 6 week appointment, but I think I have gained 3 pounds, which is amazing it hasn't been more because I was STARVING for a good little while and ate everything in sight.

Maternity Clothes: None so far, although my pants are starting to get a little tight.  But, I'm wearing them until they are uncomfortable, so we'll see how much longer that is!

Gender: We'll find out at Week 16, but so far, I have no predictions.  One day I think girl, the next boy.  We're excited to find out, but are mainly concerned that our baby is healthy!
Movement: I'm not feeling any movement yet, but at our appointment, we had a wiggle worm on the ultrasound.  The ultrasound tech had to "chase down" him/her to get the heartbeat.  If this continues, I'm sure I'll be feeling plenty of movement soon enough!

Sleep: I'm sleeping like a champ, which is not out of the ordinary, but I do have to get up several times a night to go to the bathroom, which annoys me because I don't like to be disturbed!  Hahaha.
What I miss: I'd really love a good Blue Moon or a glass of wine, and at a baseball game last night, I really wanted a hotdog, but other than that, there's not a lot I miss right now except maybe feeling energetic enough to go for a run.  Did I just say that?! Someone, write it down!
Cravings: I haven't had any crazy cravings yet.  I could eat cheese toast every day of the week, but I'm not sure that's any different than any other time.
Other crazy symptoms: So far, I've had major indigestion, but that as been all but cured with Prilosec.  I had no nausea, and I think that boat has sailed right by me- praise the Lord!  I have the occasional headache, but the air is full of allergens, so I don't know if it's a hormonal headache or an allergy headache.  I have had nosebleeds...again, not terrible, but I have a little bit of one every day, it seems.  Other than that, I've been tired, but seem to be getting more energy each day as we approach the 2nd trimester.  And the worst symptom for me has been how bad my skin is.  I have never had great skin, and I was on a low-grade antibiotic to combat it, but of course, had to stop taking it.  So, my face looks like a teenage boy's.  I guess that just goes hand in hand with my voracious appetite. 

Baby's milestones:  From Sprout: This week, my uterus is the size of a small melon and moving forward, the fetus is beginning to demonstrate reflexes such as sucking, grasping, and hiccupping.  So, there you have it :-)  The doctor told us that Baby G is coming in at the 83rd percentile.


Best Moment this week: The best moment of our week would have to be everything about our 12 week appointment.  We loved seeing our little wiggle worm on the ultrasound and hearing the heartbeat (150 BPM) was amazing.  We were told that our pregnancy is deemed to be low-risk at this point, which is always a sigh of relief!  And, we found out that we can pay a little extra to have an ultrasound to determine gender at our 16 week appointment, which is a month before we would normally.  Sign us up!

Tap, tap....is this thing on?!

Hello! Anybody out there?  Yep, didn't think so!  But, in any case, I'm back after quite the long blogging break, and hopefully, I'll have more to update this time around.  Key word, hopefully.  I can't make any promises that I won't flake out again and forget about the ol' blog, but I'm going to make a better effort.

So, a lot has happened since I last filled you in.  WEG and I got married on October 29th  at our perfect cotton wedding (I'll do a post with pictures one day soon)- best day of my life, had a wonderful honeymoon in St. Lucia, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas with our families, turned the big 3-0 in March, house hunted for hours on end, and said goodbye to WEG's grandmother at the end of March/first of April (we miss you, Granny!).

But, that's not where the major life events stop- oh no!  I am happy to announce that we are expecting our first bambino on November 5th.  This is the main reason, I'm back to blogging.  I need somewhere to document our journey, for myself in years to come, and this is an easy way to remember how my pregnancy went and keep our family informed! 

I'll do another post on how everything has gone so far, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a gratuitous picture from our honeymoon- man, what I wouldn't give to be relaxing in St. Lucia again!

At Rainforest Hideaway restaurant in Marigot Bay, St. Lucia.  If you get the chance, it's delicious!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....cards, that is!

I can't believe it's been three months since I have updated my blog.  I'm not really sure I even have any readers left!  Life has been busy.  Work was crazy the whole month of September and there's this little thing happening in nine days that has kept me busy otherwise- my wedding!  It's still hard to believe that I had just hit double digits when I posted 90 days ago and now I'm at 9.  Time is zooming.

But, that's not the main point of my post.  I'm back to tell you about the greatness that is Shutterfly.  Have you ever used it for anything?  I got my Christmas cards from them last year, and I couldn't be more pleased with the way they turned out.  I also made a photo calendar for my parents, and my mom says it was her favorite gift and has already requested another one this year.  Additionally, I had a gallery wrap canvas made of one of our engagement pictures.  Shutterfly is so easy to work with and their shipment is quick and easy.  It's a breeze!  And the quality is fabulous, to boot.

So, enough about what I've bought!  Do you want to see what they have to offer?  Here's just a sampling:

They have tons of beautiful Christmas cards.
Here's one of my favorites:

If you don't celebrate Christmas, or prefer to be politically correct, they have holiday cards.
One of my favorites of those:

Or, if you need to thank your friends and family for all those gifts, check out their holiday thank you cards.
I love this one:

And, if you're still reading and want 25 free holiday cards from Shutterfly, the first 3 to comment will receive a promotion code- happy commenting!

Double Digits!

Today marks double digits until our wedding- 99 days, to be exact!

Time has absolutely FLOWN! 

And with the way I have been posting lately, my next post may be as a married woman. . .   ha, ha, ha!

I'm not sure whether I should be excited (because I am REALLY excited!) or nervous that I am forgetting something major (I don't think I am, but I can't help feeling like that!)

Either way, it's a fun time right now, and I can't wait until October!

Have a great weekend, friends! That is, if any of you are still reading.

Prayer Request

Do y'all know Jane over at Dissecting Jane?  If you don't know her, I highly recommend you head over to her page and check it out (but not before I tell you what you're praying about).

If you do know Jane, then you probably know about her sister, Lo.  Lo has cystic fibrosis.  Today is her birthday.  In 5 days, on July 5th, Lo will have a kidney transplant.  Jane's and Lo's dad is the donor.  For Lo's birthday, Jane has asked that all who read her blog mention this on their blogs and cover Lo and her father in prayer.

I think it's a simple request, and I firmly believe in the power of prayer.  So, today I'm praying for Lo and her dad in honor of her birthday.  And I'll be praying up until the surgery and after for God's healing and power to give Lo a second chance at life.

I hope you'll pray, too.  And if you haven't already, I also hope you'll go over and say hello to Jane

Weird Wedding Dreams (Nightmares)

Yes, I've been MIA again, but I think that's just becoming my norm, so let's just go with it, shall we?

Last night, I had a weird wedding dream.  Well, some might call it a dream, but my OCD/Type A personality calls it a nightmare.  The ultimate nightmare.  And it's not the first one I've had about the wedding.

This time, we were in a weird church- not my church where we are getting married- and nobody was there.  It was time to start, 5:00, and the church was literally about 1/3 of the way full.  Nothing was going right.  For some reason I was sitting on the steps at the front of the church with my bridesmaids and the ceremony wasn't going on.  We were just sitting there.  The florist was still bringing in flowers, people were milling around, and to top it off, one of the few people that were there mentioned that half of our invitations said the ceremony was at 6:00.  Which could explain why the church was only 1/3 full at 5:00!  And, to make matters worse, there was a teeny bopper band singing random songs that had nothing to do with a wedding.

Bizarre. 

And that's not the first time I've had one of these "nightmares."  I have also dreamed that 200 people showed up to the rehearsal dinner expecting to be fed, that we didn't have a ceremony order the day prior to the wedding, that we didn't know how many people were coming because I didn't ask for RSVPs (I know people do this, but not me- no way!), and other random things, all of which send me into panic mode.  It makes me wake up and think, "Hmm, what am I forgetting?"  I think I have it all down- in fact, I'm sure I do, but these dreams make me crazy!

Did any of you have crazy dreams before your wedding where everything seemed to go wrong?  I'm sure I'll have more as the big day approaches!

Slacker

I'm a slacker, what can I say?  Well, obviously, I don't have much to say since I haven't blogged in a while.
We did, however, get our engagement pictures back from one of my friends.

Here is my favorite unconventional shot:

I think I am going to have that one put on a canvas that I have a Shutterfly Groupon for.

And here's the one we will use for our engagement announcement (I think- if not, it will be similar).

And in other news.  The GAMECOCKS ARE BACK HOME IN OMAHA!!  The defending national champions are ready to make a run at a back-to-back championship after sweeping both the Regional and Super Regional.  If we win it all, we'll make history as the last team to win an NC in Rosenblatt Stadium (the old site of the College World Series) and the first team to win in the new Ameritrade stadium.  Sure hoping we put it in the books!