seven weeks

That's almost how long it's been since I last blogged.

The days seem to have been flying by. What have we been up to?

I've been sewing alot lately. Working on brand new ideas for my etsy shop. I'm hoping to relaunch it.. eventually.

Parker is potty trained!  After trying to get him to start using his potty months ago, and failing miserably, we decided to let him decide when he was ready. Well, about 2 months ago, he started bringing me his underwear. We talked to him about how he had to use the potty if he wanted to wear them, and he just started doing it. A month ago he was in his underwear about half the time, the rest of the time.. he asked for diapers. We just went with it, hoping we weren't totally screwing things up. It's been 2 weeks since he has had a diaper on. He does great when we are out. Actually, the few accidents he has had have been at home. He does wear a pull up at night for now.

Big Brother started! We look forward to this every summer. & yes, I know how lame that sounds.

Still poking my finger five times a day to test my blood glucose. I'm used to it now, and it's not as hard to put my meals together anymore. Gestational Diabetes is the biggest reason I'm ready for September. I miss sweets and pasta! I'm not a huge junk food person, but I went to a wedding last month and couldn't have cake. Sad. I have a list of meals/food to have after I have the baby. At the top of that list is lasagna, cake, cheesy chicken and rice. Yum. Oh, I also have a milky way packed in my hospital bag! :)

Ben's new classes start on Wednesday, and I'm a little terrified. I'm hoping I can adjust easily to having two kids instead of one. I don't want to depend on needing Ben's help when he already does so much. He doesn't like to tell me when he needs time to study/do homework, and I just don't want to ask too much of him.

Other than that, it's just the daily activities. Cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. We're kind of boring right now, because I can't stand to be out in the heat (even when I'm not pregnant), and I can't walk more than 50 feet without getting winded. We're trying to spend as much time together as we can while it's still just the three of us! Even if it's just going to a movie, or playing cars & blocks inside. Baby will be here in a month or less.. crazy!

add it to the list

Life is funny sometimes.

Like how I JUST posted my plan for figuring out what is healthy for my family. I've had those issues stewing in me for months, and just the past couple weeks I finally figured out where to start. I've done countless hours of research. I have recipes, and serving sizes, and menu plans. Well, I got a call from my doctor, the NEXT DAY. I failed my 3 hour glucose tolerance test. Cue hysteria.

At first, I was so confused. HOW did I fail it? Yes, I know that we don't always eat great, but I'm not overweight, I don't sit around eating cookies and ice cream. Turns out, I had no idea what Gestational Diabetes means. My doctor told me, (at least in my case) it has nothing to do with my weight, or what I eat (although, controlling your diet helps manage it). I'm also feeling like I have already had so many problems with this pregnancy that this is just another thing to add to the list. It's frustrating. Everyone says that things happen for a reason, or that God doesn't give you more than you can handle. I'm losing faith in both of those statements right now.

So, I got about one thousand pages of info, food logs, etc. I got my glucometer, and an appointment with a dietician. I'm close to a week in with monitoring my blood sugar, and logging everything I eat. It's a lot of work, and I'm finding I have even more questions than I had last week. My numbers are great (I think). They're usually a little on the low side, if anything. It's hard to do a lot of research because everyone is different with what they can eat and how it will effect them. I've honestly found that I can eat almost exactly how I was before I started all the monitoring. The biggest change I've had to make is adding more protein. Also, everything I eat is measured so I can log how much of it I'm eating just incase my numbers go crazy. I also don't really have any sweets anymore, except at my night-time snack. Let me tell you, I can't wait for the day when I can have a Milky Way if I want! :)



when it rains, it pours

So, I've been away for a while. Not because I didn't have anything to blog about, and not because I was too lazy to blog, but simply because all the stuff I would start blogging about was just.. negative. All of it. I found myself half way through a post several times, and I realized I sounded like nothing more than a whiny teenage girl. I didn't want my blog to become that.

The truth is, a lot of bad things have been happening lately. Or, at least it seems like a lot. Honestly, when I sit and think about it, it's just a couple things that snowballed, and my attitude was bad, and so it made it feel like a lot of stuff. I was living in a constant sea of anger and depression, and I was starting to drown.

We can touch briefly on some of the issues that were keeping me down.

-Dealing with all my emotions of this unplanned pregnancy. I know I said before that I was "happy about it now" but that wasn't the truth. It's just what I was telling everyone in hopes that it would just be true. (will try to write more on this another day)

-Toddler tantrums. Okay, I know everyone deals with the toddler tantrums. I know that we don't have it as bad as some, and we have it worse than others. But with the state of mind I've been in, I haven't been dealing with the toddler issues so well. It was just one of those normal, not fun things that added in with everything else made me feel like I was falling apart. (Absolutely more on this in the future).

-Modified bed rest. This just popped up in the last 2 months, and it has been HARD on me. It sort of correlates with the emotions of the whole unplanned pregnancy thing. But then it adds to it the feeling of being a bad mother because not being able to be active=lots of inside time & TV watching. (Again, more on this another day.)

While I didn't want to bring a bunch of negative junk to my blog, I also didn't feel right about just popping in to post about the happy, pretty things. This blog is supposed to be about my/my family's life. That life is filled with good and bad things. It's so easy to post about the good, and so incredibly terrifying to post about the bad. This post is just my little stepping stone at getting back to the blog. I'm hoping to find the courage to tell you about the bad, and I can't wait to share all the good.

life. death. things.

We've had plenty going on. Just nothing really that fun. Can I make you a list?

1. Our dog, Abby, messed up her back and we thought she was paralyzed. We took her outside to play about 2 weeks ago and her back legs just weren't working. She didn't seem to be in pain, but she was just dragging her legs around. We've had 6 vet visits so far (4 last week, 2 this week) and we have 2 more next week. She has to keep going in to get a laser treatment on her back to help with the swelling. She is getting better, but it has been a slow and hard process.

2. My Grandma passed away. I don't want to get too into this one, but I'll just say that it was basically expected. The funeral is on Saturday.

Ok, so this doesn't look like a very big list. It's only TWO things. But those things feel like they carry the weight of twenty things. I've just been so overwhelmed with it all. Last week we not only had the 4 vet appointments, we also had a check-up for Parker. Then this week we had the 2 vet appointments and a check up for the little babe in the belly. (That appointment was actually fun!) Everything is looking good and I got to see the little one looking very baby like, and even moving around a ton.

Here, have a picture or two.

I go back to the doctor in 2 weeks for my next check up & ultrasound! Then we have the usual at 20 weeks and then the ultrasounds will stop for a while and I'll resume the normal schedule of check ups (as long as everything stays looking how it is now).

I'm not going to make any promises on when I'll be back or how often I'll be posting, because it seems like I haven't been keeping my word. I can tell you that I WILL be back, just not sure how soon! :)

pregnancy details

First of all, this pregnancy was/is a total surprise for us. We were not trying. Quite the opposite actually.Ii was charting to avoid. We didn't even have sex during the "fertile window". I'm still kind of in shock that it even happened. Let me take you back 4 weeks..

January 2 - All morning I had been having a tingling feeling in my boobs that felt like let down sensation. It was really strange, but I just put in on the back burner in my brain. Later that day, I got in the shower and noticed that my boobs were leaking. I honestly thought I was going crazy and just seeing things. I looked again. Yep, leaking milky stuff. I think at this point I exclaimed 'What the hell!?' and jumped out of the shower, shaking. Fast forward about 10 minutes.

I was getting dressed and debating with myself on what this could mean. Is there something wrong with me? Can random leaking happen 1.5 years after breastfeeding? Am I pregnant? I looked at my chart. 7 dpo. Surely too early to take a test, plus it is VERY RARE to leak that early. I decided to just call my doctor and ask what I should do (come in for a blood test, wait another week and take an hpt, or go get some labs for whatever else could be going on b/c there is NO WAY I could be pregnant. Unfortunately, my doctor's office was closed for New Year's Day. Crap.

So I let Ben know what was going on, and decided I would take a pregnancy test in the morning just so I could let my doctor know I got a negative hpt.

January 3 - Woke up, peed on a stick. Brushed my teeth while I waited. Grabbed the stick..

super duper light positive.

Called my doctor, explained how there was just no way this could be right. She ordered a few blood tests, one being a pregnancy test. The others were to be ran only if the pregnancy test was negative. After a fiasco at the lab, I finally got my draws done, and waited almost all day to hear back from them.

My phone rang and my hands started to shake. The nurse said that the test came back positive, but the numbers were really low, and I needed to go back in 2 days. Well, the next day I took another hpt, and Thursday I took another. Both were positive, of course. After my second draw the nurse called to congratulate me because my numbers were doubling perfectly!

We had a few days filled with shock, frustration, and how are we going to do this?! But we're getting excited now. I had an ultrasound last Thursday and baby is perfect, we even heard the heartbeat. I have another ultrasound this Wednesday! Oh, due date is September 17th!

i've been MIA

what's been keeping me away?

this.

more to come later..



the past few weeks..

i did my first TWIN photoshoot. to top it off, they are about Parker's age so it was interesting. such a great learning experience and I actually got some really great shots!

i've reopened the shop

i've been working on lots of new products to put in the shop

i've been chasing after a crazy {almost} 2 year old

i've been working on LOTS of dinosaur themed things

basically, life feels crazy. i have tons of posts coming up with pictures, recipes, and more iteresting things.. i promise! but for now, have a picture.

hello December.

How is it December?

How is it that I am supposed to be sending out the invitations for Parker's 2nd birthday party, today?!

I'm supposed to be sending them out today, but they aren't finished yet (oops!) so they will hopefully be going out Monday.

Speaking of Parker's birthday party..

All my ideas for it are really coming together! If you remember, I was kind of waffling on the colors of the party. I loved the sprinkles I had, but it just didn't feel right to put the whole party in those colors. So I've incorporated some tan, red, and leaf greens. The dinosaurs are still going to be in the bright colors. I decided to make mini lava cakes, which I am SUPER excited about! I'm also a little nervous, because it will only be my second time making cake from scratch. (No more box cakes for us since we switched to Real Foods, again I promise to post more on this at some point). My first cake ended in almost disaster. The middle didn't cook. I had planned on layering ice cream on top of it, but saved the cake my scooping the middle out and putting the ice cream in there. I still don't know what I did wrong, but I'm hoping since these will be cooked in cupcake pans, that it won't happen again.

Other than the ideas, I basically have nothing done. This just isn't like me. But with everything that has been going on, I haven't had time to do anything! So now I have 6 weeks to get EVERYTHING made and ready. I can do this.. I hope.

Blog Much?

Wow, I've been super committed to this blog, huh?

I've kind of been distracted with a lot of personal things lately. Nothing too horrible, but still, nothing I feel I can share on the interwebs. sorry! & yes, everyone is ok.

I've shut down my etsy shop for awhile. I just have too much going on right now & I can't give it the attention it needs. I'm hoping to open it back up around February.

So what have I been doing? We've been going to the park a lot, trying to get all the outside play time in that we can before it starts snowing.

I took some fall pictures of my sisters-in-law

sydney

jozie

journey

Yep, my sisters-in-law are little. Sydney (who is actually step-SIL) just turned 9, Jozie is 8, Journey is 10. MIL and FIL had the boys, then waited 14 years and had the girls. Got divorced just a few years ago, MIL remarried. There is also Preston who is Syd's brother, he's 11. Their house is usually madness and I have no idea how they survive.

Anyway, I've also been:

Writing (not on the blog, obviously)
I made Parker's Halloween costume (he was quail man!)

Working on a baby shower present for my best friend Heather

Started NanoWrimo

Started twitter! You could follow me ya know! ;)

Switched almost completely over to Real Foods, more on this another day.

I'm sure there is more, but the point is, I've been BUSY. I actually came to the blog to escape my NanoWrimo. I just needed to write something other than that story.

Oh yeah, I write. Not professionally or anything, but seriously. Most people in real life don't even know this about me. It isn't something I like to talk about. Mostly because I'm afraid they'll ask me what I write about, and I'll have to say 'murders' or 'destruction of the world' or 'stalkers' and they'll give me that look like I'm crazy. I used to write poetry in High School. I just recently picked up writing stories, but I haven't finished one. I'm hoping Nano will push me to just finish one. Maybe one day after that I can talk about it more. Or maybe not.

Ok, this was a nice long distraction, but I feel like I'm rambling now. Hopefully I'll be back in a few days!

three years

Three years ago, we boarded a plane and flew to Vegas. Only a handful of people knew. Three years ago, we got in a limo and went to a chapel. We walked down the isle together, with only two witnesses watching, and vowed to love each other forever and ever and ever.