34 weeks

Sunday, March 20th 2011 - 34 WEEKS!

And so the countdown begins. THIS was the week I really started to feel it. My belly is officially uncomfortable. It's no longer soft either, but firm and full to the brim of baby boy. Putting on my own shoes takes a lot of effort and leaves me breathing heavy. I have to raise my arms and put my hands behind my head to make room for my lungs to get a good, deep breath. I can see the pregnancy in the swelling of my face, bleh. But I'm feeling proud of myself, because all of these symptoms came on a lot earlier in my pregnancy with Wendy, due to the fact that I didn't take any steps (no pun intended) to monitor my weight gain the first time around. I'm still walking every day, but I think I'm done with things like Disneyland trips until after the baby. I'm down to weekly visits to the doctor instead :)

Pregnancy #2 - Fun Facts:
RE-OCCURRING NIGHTMARES

• Harvey is born a 6 month old girl
• Ryan is cheating on me
• I can stretch the skin on my belly & see my baby's face as clearly as if a balloon has been stretched over it. Everyone around me is grossed out, but I love it.
• I end up giving birth to SIX boys, but get sent home with 6 plastic baby dolls to take care of while they get bigger in the NICU

Lucky Number 7

Today I have been married to my best friend for SEVEN years! That sounds like a long time. Well on our way to a decade. I don't think I've ever stuck with anything for that long. Except for maybe piano lessons. People talk about the "seven year itch," but besides rarely seeing each other (Ryan's nights are filled with either school, work, church, or a'capella practices) I still consider him my best friend and boy friend.

During these last 7 years we've...

• learned how to read each others mood and know what to do to cheer each other up
• lived in 2 creepy apartments and one amazing rental home (and I have a feeling we might be here for a long time)
• been through 3 pregnancies and blessed with 1 and 9/10ths children
• traveled to Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Hawaii, Mexico, France, Belgium, & Taiwan (next stop? I'm thinking Italy.)
• blown through 3 dogs, a tortoise, lots of fish, and 18 birds
• worked through some random jobs to support each other
• attended a combined total of 4 years of schooling... only about 3 more to go!
• figured out how to cook some decent meals and manage a checkbook without overdrawing
• grown closer as best friends and developed a deeper love and appreciation for each other

abcd

*some of our favorite spots at the Ghetti Center

Every year, for our anniversary, we explore a different city. We stay in a nice hotel, go out for dinner and go a little crazy (like order an appetizer AND fancy non-alcoholic drinks instead of water and trying to stick to the cheapest things on the menu - like I said, at least one of us has been a student for a while).

Last year... we did Paris. This year we went ALL the way to Los Angeles. We tried to do LA on anniversary #4, but ended up with the flu and spent the night taking turns hovering the toilet of the rad hotel room we stayed in. So this year, we lived it up. We stayed in a different rad hotel, The Luxe. It's hidden on acres of lush, green LA jungle and used to be an apartment building in the 20's. We went out for a night on the town in Westlake Village, ate dinner at Jerry's famous deli, got a kick out of our wacky lip injected waitress, window shopped hand-in-hand, waited in line at Diddy Riese for the best ice cream sandwich you'll ever get for $1.50, snuck our desserts into the old fashioned movie theatre and saw "Limitless," closed the black out curtains and got to sleep in til 11AM!, had an overpriced breakfast at our hotel at lunch time (banana blueberry pancakes mmmm), then spent the day exploring the Ghetti Center, were both relieved to admit that we were ready to go and hour earlier than planned (he was freezing and I am uncomfortably large) and spent the last hour of our LA anniversary driving around the mansions in the hills of Bel Air, picking out our dream home. It was a much needed get away. I almost forgot how much I love being alone with Ryan.

*balcony of our hotel room

Happy anniversary babe!

Here's to another 7 and hopefully another 2 kids & another college degree by then :)

Strollin' with the hommies...

I have waddled my sciatic nerve ALL OVER Babies R Us, Sports Chalet, Bergstroms, you name it, trying to test out double strollers to see how well they glide, fold, lay back, ect. NONE of them had the strollers I was looking for (even though they claimed they did online). Then I took Wendy to Disneyland last week... WHY didn't I think of this sooner? Disneyland is a stroller shopper's DREAM! I worked up the guts to interrogate strangers on why they love/hate these three strollers, but I was too chicken to ask if I could actually pushthem around for a second. I wish I would have inherited some of my mom's gusto and just gone for it.

P.S. I have to apologize. This is a selfish blog post. It's solely for me to organize my thoughts and maybe get some good advice. I feel like I'm buying a new car. I need this thing to last. I've narrowed my double-stroller hunt down to 3:

1. Baby Jogger City Select

2. Phil & Teds Inline Buggie

3. Baby Jogger City Mini Double 2011

These are the features I'm looking for:

Large Sun Shade Canopy

Smooth ride (not too heavy to push)
Easy to push through doorways (not too wide)
Separated seating (difficult for the kids to mess with/reach each other)
Relatively easy (for a double stroller) to fold up and throw in the trunk

Ability to lay both seats ALL the way back (for a newborn & in case both kids are asleep)

Decent storage space

Any advice?

This is pretty amazing.

I usually just skip to 1:13 minutes in when it becomes a double.

THE door

Ryan & I rent a home from my in-laws. It has been one of the biggest blessings and I thank my lucky stars for it almost every day. Before we lived here, Ryan's brother & his family lived here. They have the oldest grandchild - Charlie. Charlie made this art when he was 2. He's now 10 and has lived in Arizona for 6 years. My mother-in-law wouldn't let me paint over this door for a while, but I convinced her to let me take some pictures of Charlie's artwork, then paint over it with chalkboard paint so Wendy could make some art of her own. I've been wanting to do this for a long time.

To be honest, I think I finally sanded, taped, primed, and painted (like a crazy woman, til my bones were sore) because it was one of the things on my "before baby to-do list" that I could get out of the way pretty quickly. I'm feeling overwhelmed and this was something I could do relatively quickly and actually SEE the results of my labors instantly. But now what? I feel like my head is spinning. I don't know where to begin, and I don't think the other "projects" will be so easy.

Thank you Bobbi for giving me the creative freedom most renters don't have. We love our chalkboard door.