Birthday and Mother's Day

I wanted to blog about my first Mother's Day and my 30th birthday, because they are both very important events!  I wrote the previous entry early on Mother's Day morning.  When I logged into Facebook that morning, there were so many posts on my feed about Mothers.  I saw so many nice posts from people about their moms, and so I got really teary-eyed.  It was probably the hormones combined with the fact that it was my first Mother's Day, but it was impossible not to cry.  As I wrote my previous entry (you can read it by clicking here), I cried all the way through - happy tears of course.

I set a goal when I finally decided to have kids that I would try to be pregnant before I was 30.  I am grateful that I pushed myself to accomplish that goal, because it wasn't easy.  I still want to write my Trying to Conceive blog entry so I can share some of the things I did to prepare myself to start trying to have kids.  Some believe it is really easy, and for some it is.  For some it is not, and so I feel like sharing my story will help some.

After I wrote my blog entry on Mother's Day morning, Arthur and I spent some time together watching the Mother's Day specials on TV that we'd recorded.  We watched Ellen's baby shower special and everyone in the audience was pregnant.  It was so funny.  While I watched TV, Arthur made me breakfast.  He made me a delicious omelet.  I ate almost the whole thing.  It was nice to eat breakfast in bed.  :)

Arthur then brought me my Mother's Day gifts.  He got me some cute baby outfits and a first Mother's Day snow globe.  The snow globe made me cry, because it was so sweet and thoughtful.  It is all silver and it has 3 ivory colored seahorses in it, swirled around by silver fish.  It was personalized with an engraving on the front. 

It says:
1st Mother's Day
May 12, 2013
Love, Arthur

Here are some pictures of it:

I really appreciated having something that would remind me forever that I got to spend my first Mother's Day pregnant, and before my 30th birthday.  :)

I also got Mother's Day flowers earlier in the week, and they are beautiful:

For my 30th birthday, it was the next day on May 13.  I took the day off so I could spend it with Arthur and do something fun.  I slept in a bit and relaxed in the morning.  Before we got up and got ready, Arthur brought me my birthday presents in bed.  I got some really nice ear buds, some baby clothes and a brown Fossil watch.  Arthur told me that I had one more present that was downstairs, but I had to go see it because it was too big to bring upstairs.  I went down to the main living room, and there was a box with a stroller/carseat combo in it!  I was so happy!  I made him put it together right away. 

I pushed it around the living room for a few minutes, and then we went to get ready for the day.  I had plans to go to a restaurant in Salt Lake called Finn's.  They serve breakfast and lunch and the style is Norwegian.  After I was ready, Arthur took my picture by the door with my new stroller because I was so excited about it before we left.

Here's my new stroller and me in my birthday outfit with my new watch on:

We got in the car and started driving towards Salt Lake.  I realized that we didn't have enough time to go to Finn's and go see the Mummy exhibit at The Leonardo museum downtown.  So, we decided to go to Finn's another day and spend more time looking at the Mummies. 

We parked at The Leonardo and went in and paid.  We walked around and saw all of the Mummy exhibit.  It was really cool!  I loved studying about ancient Egypt when I was in elementary school and junior high.  I had always wanted to see mummies like that, and so it was a great activity on my birthday. 

After we went to the Mummy exhibit, Arthur took me up to my pregnancy massage appointment.  He'd gotten me a massage back on Valentine's day and I hadn't traded it in yet.  He dropped me off and I went in.  The massage table was amazing, they had pillows that lifted my body up that allowed me to lie on my stomach - which I haven't done in months.  I used to sleep on my stomach before I was pregnant!

The massage was great, very relaxing.  I appreciated having such a relaxing time on my birthday.  Arthur picked me up an hour later and we went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner.  I ordered the Thai Salmon with jasmine rice.  It was so good!  Afterwards, we shopped around at the mall a bit. 

Overall, it was an amazing birthday and I was really grateful that I had such a fun husband to share it with.  One of the main reasons why I married Arthur is because he always makes holidays so special.  I never have to worry about being forgotten on my birthday.  :) 

Nursery Progress

On both my side and Arthur's side, our families are both really excited for Baby Finn to get here.  We have been gathering gifts since we found out we were pregnant.  We've had Christmas, Easter, and both of our birthdays happen since we found out.  So, there have been ample opportunities for our family and friends to get us stuff.

My little brother Mike has been living with Arthur and me since before I found out I was pregnant.  He's been in the guest room, which would be the nursery.  He just moved out this past week and so Arthur and I were excited to get started on Finn's room.  I've been saving every piece of clothing and toy in my office next to Mike's room, and so I was ready to start having somewhere to store Finn's stuff.  Is that what Nesting feels like?!  ;)

Mike moved out on Thursday, and Thursday after work Arthur and I went to Home Depot to pick out some paint colors.  We ended up choosing a really light blue and a light tan color. 

Finn's nursery theme is going to be Under the Sea, with ocean creatures like fish, whales, etc.

Arthur also got some white paint for the ceiling, baseboards and closet.  Arthur spent a good part of the night cleaning up the room by washing the walls and blinds.  We will still need to get the carpet clean, since we've never done that in there. 

Thursday night Arthur stayed up late and painted the ceiling first.  I went in there on Friday morning and got this picture of the ceiling painted and the current paint color on the walls:

Once he had the ceiling painted, he got started on the blue walls.  He was able to get 2 coats on Friday while I was at work.

Once that was dry, he painted the accent wall the light tan color and finished up the closet and painted that white.  I was so anxious to move some of Baby Finn's stuff in!  Thank goodness I have such a hard working talented husband to take care of the entire nursery in just 24 hours!

Here is the corner  where the blue wall and the accent wall meet.  You can see the start of Finn's toy collection.  I love the colors!

Here is the back side of the room by the closet.  You can see the start of our clothes collection.  Arthur did such an excellent job with the paint!

Here's the other side showing the other blue wall.

We have a lot of stuff to still move in.  Our next steps are to first get the carpets cleaned, next to move his crib in and buy a mattress, then to move his dresser and my rocker in.  I'm glad I still have 2 months left to get this stuff done!  :)  If you want to see pictures of my crib and dresser, click here to go to the blog entry about it. 

So far, here are the toys that are sitting on his window seat:

Here are his clothes in the closet!  The left side is entirely full, and the right side has some of the bigger sizes.  We are doing pretty good for only having had 1 baby shower so far!  I'm still excited to get some more great stuff though.  :)

Arthur has also collected a few things on his own for Baby Finn.  He did a bit of shopping on Disney.com and was able to get a few really cute Finding Nemo things.  He even got a cute towel with Finn's name stitched into it!

If you can't tell, we are extremely excited to get Finn here so he can enjoy his new room.  :)  I'm still really excited for my other 3 baby showers.  We're having 1 with my Bountiful friends and family in Mid May.  We're having another one in Boise with my cousins who live up there.  My grandma also lives up there and so I'd love to have her involved as well.  That will be over Memorial Day weekend.  My last shower will be with Arthur's family, which will probably happen in June.  A few people have asked about our registry.

We are registered at Target and Babies R Us. 

Click here to go to the Babies R Us Registry
Click here to go to the Target Registry
 

First Baby Shower

I love my job and the people I work with.  I have one of the most close-knit teams ever.  I have been working on the Quality Team since September of 2010, about 2 and a half years.  There are 6 girls and 1 guy on my team, plus my boss.  Since both my boss and I are pregnant at the same time, my team decided to throw us a joint baby shower at work.

One day I came back to my desk and there was a cute little envelope on my desk with a bubble gum cigar next to it.  I opened it up and it was the invitation!

The big day came this past Thursday, May 2.  My team scheduled a hour in a meeting room and we all gathered in there.  The decorations were so cute! 

 Here's the door to the meeting room and some of the decorations on the wall:

 

Here is the table with the party favors and the plates.  The party favors had little blue candy in it like suckers and butter mints.  For snacks, we had peanut butter Cheerios balls and Cinnamon Roll cake.  So delicious!  I'm glad I have someone on my team who knows how to bake so well!

 

Here is the banner and the white board where they wrote congratulations on it.

Here are some of the members of my team and some of the gifts at the end of the table. 

I got a lot of really great stuff.  My boss got me my diaper bag on my registry, which was pretty amazing.  I love my diaper bag!!  I know it looks a little boring in this picture, but really it's not.  I picked it because it's brown (my favorite color), and it has a million pockets for stuff.  It also has a long strap that I can wear over my shoulder so I can be hands free.  Arthur also won't feel weird carrying it.  :)

I also got this pretty sweet Baby Donald outfit.  I will have to explain the Baby Donald story in another blog entry. 

Overall, it was an awesome first baby shower.  I still have 3 more to go.  :)

19.5 Weeks, Almost 20!

I seem to blog on Sundays because it's usually the day I wake up super early and can't go back to sleep.  This Sunday is no exception.  I was up at 6:10 or so, because KitKat was meowing at the door.  Her new favorite thing is to go outside and play with the deer that live on our mountain.  She doesn't get too close to them, she just likes to watch them and occasionally run around them.

Since she was bawling at the door asking to be let out, I figured I'd just get up and eat something before I started to feel gross.  I made myself some hot chocolate with whipped cream and cinnamon sugar toast.

This week was good, nothing too crazy happened at work.  One thing I really like about my job is that it's very consistent, week over week.  It doesn't happen very often where something will throw me off.  I like to know what my schedule is in advance, and so my current position is really good for that.  I'm definitely a planner.  :)

This past Thursday was Valentine's Day.  Valentine's Day for Arthur and me is usually pretty low-key, and we usually have dinner at home together.  Ever year, we switch off to cook for each other.  Arthur did the cooking for us for the first few years of us being together, because I was never really a good cook.

I was looking through some old Valentine's Day pictures, and I found a few from the past.

Here is us on our first Valentine's Day together.  We hadn't even known each other for a year yet.  Arthur made me a delicious dinner and we opened presents and decorated Valentine's cookies.

We look so young!

Here's another one from a long time later, 2009 I believe.  This was our first Valentine's after we were a married couple.  Arthur made me an extravagant dessert display and we decorated cookies:

In 2011, Arthur outdid himself, and made the biggest display of treats ever.  I don't think I took any pictures of us that year.  Just the delicious treats:

I was in charge of dinner in 2011, and Arthur likes to call that the "Disaster Dinner" because I burned everything and it all tasted horrible.  We switch off every year now to cook, and of course 2012 was amazing because Arthur cooked.  He made beef wellington and risotto.

This year was my year to cook.  Because of the disaster dinner 2 years prior, I was stressing it pretty bad, pretty early on.  I took care to plan the menu in advance, and thought up a few different options in case something went bad.  I ended up on New York steaks, cheese and spinach ravioli, asparagus and sauteed shrimp.  The steaks were marinated all day in a red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce.  The marinade recipe was called "Classic Steak Marinade".  It was really good.  Here is a link to the recipe:  http://bbq.about.com/od/marinaderecipes/r/Classic-Steak-Marinade.htm

Arthur ended up cooking the steaks for me on the grill because I think he was a little scared that I would burn them and ruin delicious thick steaks that were not cheap.  He did an amazing job, and they came out perfectly.

We both sat down at the table and ate together.  We opened presents and had dessert.

Here is a picture of our table.  You'll be able to see my fancy dinner and the wrapped gifts we got for each other:

I got Arthur a hoodie and a gift card to the fish store.  I also got him orchids and Reese's peanut butter cups.  He got me the "Holy Trinity" of Valentine's presents.  He calls it the "Holy Trinity" because there are 3 things that every girl needs on every Valentine's Day.  Flowers, Chocolates and a Teddy Bear.

He also gave me a cute "easy to do" scrapbook and filled out the first page.  This, along with the sweet card he wrote for me made me cry.  I was so emotional!

The pictures of Finn made me cry the most of course, and then the picture of my fake belly made me laugh.  Arthur's cute little cutting job of the pictures into heart and oval shapes are the best part.

Arthur is so thoughtful, and always makes every holiday super special.  One thing I definitely want Finn to know someday is how much his parents love each other.  I think that is so important, and I never want him to question what a happy, healthy relationship looks like.

You can see over the years that I've never had a Valentine's Day where I haven't felt super loved and important, and I can definitely thank Arthur for that.  :)

How far along:  19 Weeks, 3 Days
How much time left:  20 Weeks, 4 Days

Top two symptoms:  I've started to feel a lot better.  I have the occasional headache and nausea when I haven't eaten, but for the most part, I'm feeling pretty normal.  The newest symptom I've been feeling is cramps in my abdomen area.  They aren't like period cramps, they are more like growing pains cramps.  If they were in my back, I would worry a lot more... but they are more in the front panel right below my belly button.  I think he's growing.  :)

Favorite thing I ate today:  So far today, I've only had hot chocolate and toast.  My favorite thing I ate this entire week would probably have to be our Valentine's Dinner.  I'm starting to have stronger cravings more often.  Uh oh!

Mood:  My mood has been mostly stable, with the occasional cry fest.  Most happy or sad things make me cry at the drop of the hat if I'm watching them on TV or on the computer.  I have a very low tolerance for dumb people these days.  My ability to smile at people and just let them be their dumb selves has gone.  I am more likely to get grumbly and complain under my breath if someone is driving me insane.  I'm not sure if this is normal, but it is what it is.

Worried about:  I worry about a lot of things, most of them being related to getting ready for Finn to get here.  Things like finding a crib, and getting his nursery ready.  Things like knowing my birth plan and understanding all of the options available to me.  Things like how I will handle telling everyone my birth plan.  I think I will make my 20 week appointment the milestone that will force decisions to be made.  :)

Excited for: My 20 week doctor's appointment!  It's this coming Friday in the afternoon!  I have a longer appointment scheduled so we can have our ultrasound and he can do all of the measuring.  I am so excited.  I would like to record it with my video camera.  That will be Arthur's job!  :)

Surprise!

I was so sleepy tonight after dinner. When I was coming up the stairs to go to sleep, I noticed that Arthur had vacuumed the hallway which is weird on a weeknight. I moved closer to my office where I realized that he'd vacuumed in there as well. When I turned on the light, I saw that he had cleaned it for me! There were also flowers on my vanity! He also got a present for our baby, a set of three books by Eric Carle.

When I saw these things, I started to cry. I ran out to him and said thank you!! He said that his favorite book when he was little was the Hermit Crab story by Eric Carle. So cute!

Tonight is the first night that I felt the excitement that I think I should be feeling right now. I couldn't imagine having to do this alone!