Amazing

The Snoogle. Quite possibly the best invention I've run into in quite a while. After a particularly terrible night sleep on Thursday night, I headed to Baby R Us to try to find something that could make me more comfortable. I'd done some research online prior to my expedition, and the Snoogle seemed to get some pretty high marks. So after weighing the options at Baby R Us, I took the plunge and bought the worlds largest pillow. This thing is amazing. I had been sleeping with a pillow on my back and one by my head, but having it wrap behind me, and go through my legs has made quite a difference! I slept sooooo good Friday night. It was amazing. It may just be having something in between my legs but my back ached so much less when I woke up Saturday morning. The pillow does make me hotter than I usually am, but I just cranked the AC down another degree or two and was good to go on Saturday night. Once my belly gets bigger I guess I will want the support and might flip it the other way, but for now having it wrap around my back has been great!

Oh, and when you're not using it to go to bed it doubles as a dog bed... LOL. I walked out of the bathroom this morning to find this:

Apparently, Ella and Maggie like the Snoogle too!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and restful weekend!

Half way there...

I can't believe I am half way there! I can honestly say there are still moments that I can't believe this is actually happening.

I had a really cool experience this weekend. I was at the beach with girl friends for the weekend and I felt really distinct movement for the first time. I was sitting up reading a book in my beach chair when my tailbone started to hurt. So I laid the back of the chair down and flipped over onto my stomach. As soon as I got comfy, I felt a tap, tap, tap, tap, tap in my lower abdomen. Its was so cool and was the first time I felt something I could definitely say was the baby. Of course I immediately flipped over, assuming this was Lillian's way of tell me I was squishing her by laying on my stomach. LOL. It was pretty cool. I can't wait for DH to get to feel her move.

I'm starting to feel really overwhelmed. There is so much stuff to buy and so many decision to be made. I've been pretty relaxed my whole pregnancy and all of the sudden I feel like its time to get my butt in gear. Its amazing how much time you can spend researching something and still have no idea what is the best thing to get! ugh!

Baby Furniture

So on Saturday my mom and I decided to go shopping for Baby furniture. I learned that apparently my taste in cribs has not kept up with the times. These days the convertible cribs are all the rage. We went to the store where all of my friends have bought their furniture, and all they had were these big heavy/chunky convertible cribs. I guess I see the appeal of having a bed for life, but given that the room which we are using as the nursery is on the smaller size, a large chunky crib just wasn't going to do it. So we headed home to look online. We finally found one we both liked:

It's Emelia by Restoration Hardware.

We'll probably also get the matching dresser also

We looked for bedding as well. I think we're going to go with Kate by Serena and Lily, but I'm not 100% sure on that yet.

 

I just can't decide if it will go with the crib, or if we should do something solid and more muted like shown with the crib on the Restoration Hardware site:

Thoughts and Opinions Welcome..

Big update...

Wednesday right after I posted, I left work to head to the Drs office. I was set up to tour L&D at 3 and then had a Drs appointment at 3:45. When I pulled into the garage the Drs office called and said he had emergency surgery. I told them I was already there, so they shuffled some things around so I could the NP who practice is in the office. I went on my tour of L&D and then headed to my appointment.

After giving my urine specimin, I noticed I was spotting. I mentioned this to the NP when I saw her and so she did internal exam. When she finished I noticed a good amount of blood on her glove (sorry that's gross and probably TMI). She told me were were going to do a ultrasound to see what was going on.

I was excited to see the baby because I hadn't seen it since 10 weeks and 2 days. It was so cool to see it moving around and it looked so much more like a human. Everything looked fine and they thought it was probably just some cervical irritation causing the bleeding. She also said she was 99% sure what the baby was and asked me if we wanted to find out the sex...

Those are a legs, a bum and girly parts!

We're having a girl!! I was in total shock. Like seriously shocked. I have thought we were having a boy since day one. She said she was 99% sure, but because it was still kind of early to save the receipts if I went on a pink shopping spree :-)

I felt really bad that DH wasn't there with me to find out. I had told him not to come since I was just seeing the NP and I didn't realize I was spotting when we talked. I wanted to do something fun to tell him since he wasn't there. I ran to our local kids store and grabbed a really cute onsie. I had them wrap it up in neutral paper with the ultrasound picture.

DH was so excited when I got home and he opened his gift. He'd always thought we were having a girl, so he was pleasantly surprised when he opened his gift and his suspicions were confirmed!

I had also decided to make a run walmart on my way home so I could get all the supplies to tell my family in a fun way. I decided to make a shirt which I would wear on the plane the next day. So after I told DH and we celebrated together, he helped me make my shirt. Well, really he just watched and laughed at how un-artistic I am but we had fun doing it ;-) Our finished product:

On me the next morning...

(looking a bit rough because

its very early in the morning)

It was really funny to see how long it took for people to figure it out. My sister who picked us up didn't really get it at first, but my one of my other sister's got it as soon as I walked into the house we were staying at. My mom came home a little later and didn't get it at all. I finally had to ask her what she thought about my shirt and she replied "did you run a race or something?" LOL. I sent a picture text of me in the shirt to my other two sisters, who both got it right away. But when I sent it to my dad, he thought it meant we were having twins. Its funny though because DH and I thought it was so clear, since all our family knew we were going to use the name Lillian for a girl, but apparently not! Nevertheless, they were all really excited about our little girl once they figured it out!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

This weekend we are headed to Bridgehampton to celebrate my sisters 30th Birthday. I have two sisters who live in NYC so I am really excited to get to see them both for the weekend. We were supposed to fly up Friday, but because of Hurricane Earl we are headed up there tomorrow. I'm hoping the weather doesn't turn out to be a drag!

We are staying at a friend's house and planning on throwing a party for her on Saturday night. We've decided to cook some of our southern favorites as a treat to her and all her yankee friends!

On the menu:

Emeril's Chicken and Andouille Gumbo

Barbeque Shrimp

(we have a family recipe, but these are pretty close)

And a half and half doberge cake to top it off!

(From the best bakery in the world)

 I hope you all have wonderful Labor Day weekends!

Happy Saturday

Maggie and I started our day off with a trip to the vet, and now we're snuggled up back at home hiding out from a ton of rain. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Send Help

Please send help because I seem to have awoken a beast. We finally finished our Chocolate Mint Chip ice cream this weekend, and when I was cleaning out the storage container on Sunday DH made the decision that we just had to make strawberry ice cream this week. So on our trip to whole foods for this week's groceries we got all the ingredients. And in about 2.5 hours we had turned this:

Into this:

When I'm complaining about my weight gain tomorrow, please feel free to remind me that homemade strawberry ice cream does not contribute to a well balanced diet ;-)