For your viewing un-pleasure

As promised last week, I braved the camera, and had Justin take a couple of pictures of my growing belly. We pretty much forgot to take any pictures last week on vacation, let alone the "official" 30-week pictures, so instead, we have official 31-week pictures. For those of you with weak stomachs, you may want to look away :)

30 weeks down...10 to go!

That's right, folks...only 10 more weeks until we meet this little buddy of ours! I have to admit, the first 30 weeks have gone unbelievable fast for the most part, and we are really hoping the last 10 go that fast as well. We have a super busy fall coming up, so hopefully that will help. I have a couple of showers coming up, so it will be good seeing family and friends I haven't seen in a while, and we are going to IU for a football game so we will be seeing friends and visiting Bloomington. We are also going to a Columbus Crew/LA Galaxy game, where I will get to see the second love of my life...David Beckham :) I am in a wedding in October - when I will be 35 weeks pregnant...so I will be waddling down the aisle!! And I saved the best for last...Katie and Jonah will be coming to Indiana in a couple of weeks, so we will get to see how much Nephew Newt has grown. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there we have to finish the preparations for the arrival of our little guy!!

This week, we are in Phoenix with Justin's parents taking advantage of our last vacation as a family of two. Little buddy has made it difficult for me to relax, however...he has failed to adjust to the 3-hour time change, so we wake up every morning at 4:30 and are ready for bed at 7:30 and also some morning sickness has begun to rear its ugly head again! Great timing!! Regardless, we have big plans for the week that should keep us VERY busy...yesterday we watched the Bengals attempt to play football (very weird watching NFL at 10:00 am!), and the Reds (holy cow - they are still playing baseball?!?!) are actually playing the Diamondbacks, so we went to the game after the Bengals disgusting display of football.

We have our camera and will be taking a lot of pictures for updates (including a 30-week belly shot, if I am brave enough, and can get one that doesn't make me look too fat :). I forgot the cord that hooks the camera up to the computer, though, so as disappointed as I am sure you all are, the pictures will have to wait until next week.

Pregnancy Cravings

Um...I heart McDonalds!!. If Justin would let me, I think I might be able to eat it every night. There is just something about a big, juicy quarter pounder with cheese (minus the onion), golden french fries, and even a thirst-quenching diet coke (once I got past the first trimester, I allotted myself one caffeinated beverage per day) that I can't get enough of!

I have read in my pregnancy books/magazines/websites/etc that sometimes you should give into your cravings because often times, it is your body telling you it is deficient in something. For example, sometimes vegetarian women may crave meat - this is their body telling them it is low on iron and protein. Apparently, my body must be lacking in grease and sodium, because I have been craving McDonalds like none other!

Unfortunately, my body isn't responding well to my love for McDonalds :(. My back has become one giant fat roll, my arms no longer have any definition, my lower body looks like a weeble wobble (or whatever those toys are that have round bottoms that just roll around!), and when I smile, my cheeks are so chubby, it looks like someone is pushing them together!!! I feel like an oompa loompa or something.

For those of you who are already thinking you need to call social services because Justin and I are going to be abusive parents, don't worry, I do eat lots of healthy foods! :) I have been craving bell peppers really bad - I eat multiple entire peppers per week. Green ones, yellow ones, and red ones! I can't get enough!

It will be interesting to see how Little buddy's taste buds develop once he is here and as he grows!

Hooray...he's not an alien!!!

After meeting Nephew Newt and hearing about Justin's cousin Laura's awesome experience with a 4D ultrasound, we decided to fork out the money and go for it.  We just couldn't wait 12 more weeks to meet our little guy!  We wanted to see what he looked like, see how he was growing, and make sure he was indeed a little dude, and not a little dudette!  I actually think that was more a concern of mine...for some reason I had a giant fear we were going to go in, and they were going to be like, "Um, you are an idiot...you're having a girl."  

Thankfully, he was indeed a boy - we have the pictures to prove it, but I will spare him the embarrassment of posting it on the internet for all to see!  He also was not an alien.  :)  In our 20 week ultrasound, he totally looked like an alien!  Check out the pictures in our very first post to see for yourself.  It was kind of scary!

Some other things we found out about our Little buddy...

• We might need to change his name to Big buddy!  He is a chunky monkey!  He has at least one super chunky cheek already (that we could see) and he even has a fat roll!  And he's only about 2 1/2 pounds!!  Just wait until he's 8 or so pounds!  
• He is currently in a frank breech position, meaning his head is up and he is butt down.  He should be the other way around!  Hopefully we can get him to flip around (although, we have plenty of time!)
• He kept his legs crossed and completely in front of his face the entire time.  In fact, his toes were almost digging into his forehead throughout the ultrasound.  He did not want to be moved - what a stubborn little guy!
• He also kept his left arm curled up in front of his face nearly the entire time.  It made it difficult to get some good face shots, but we managed to get a few.  He even gave us a quick grin!

Now for what you really want to see... :)

Here he has his big toe smashing into his forehead...yes, that thing coming out of his head is his toe!!!

Here he's flashing gang signs.  Just kidding :)  He's just saying "hi" to everyone!

Take a look at that chubby little cheek!!  McDonalds and Chipotle are doing his body good.

Here is his precious little grin :)  For all you IU fans, he is also practicing his first down cheer for when he goes to his first football game next fall.

We hope you enjoyed your first glance at Little buddy...we sure did!  It makes us super excited for the next 12 weeks.  We can't wait to meet the little guy!  

A busy baby week!

We have had a busy baby week (hence the name of the title).  :)  I could probably write a post about each one separately, but you all would probably rather have multiple root canals than read about each one in depth, so we'll do a quick recap instead.  

Tuesday night, we participated in Round 1 of registering.  Yuck is all I can say! :)  I suppose it was a little fun picking out all of the stuff Little buddy will soon be using, but it was stressful!! We spent a good 20-30 minutes looking at the car seats and strollers!  And after 3 entire hours, we had only completed about 60% of our registry.

Wednesday night, we picked up our nursery furniture (we ordered a crib and a dresser).  When we ordered it, we were quoted a shipping time of 10-14  weeks.  We got a call three weeks after ordering it that it had arrived!  We had some trouble tracking down a pick-up truck to use to pick the furniture up, but we were finally able to get it.  Once we opened the boxes to admire our brand-new, beautiful nursery furniture, this is what we found...

That's right...a great big, ginormous explosion of crap that is supposed to be the corner.  And, I didn't even post a picture of the drawer that was messed up and causing damage to the other side of the dresser.  Needless to say, Sam at Treehouse Kids Co., and I are not exactly the best of friends at the moment :)  

On to things that are fun and actually went well...My dad came over from Columbus (my mom was down in SC visiting grandson #1a), and we took advantage of the three day weekend to work on the nursery for grandson #1b.  The room had actually been our guest room, but we emptied it out a while ago.  Unfortunately, because I am pregnant and all of my brain cells don't currently function, I didn't take a "before" picture when it was set up as a bedroom.  However, we do have an empty "before" picture...

You may be thinking "Oh, how convenient...they are having a boy, and the room is already painted blue!"  That would have been way too convenient, however!!  As you will see, we did paint the room, blue, twice actually (funny story), but a different shade of blue.  I still don't think Justin understand the difference, but it looks way better!  Here is the transformation to our newly painted nursery (we still have MANY finishing touches, and we aren't even close to being finished, so the completely finished nursery pics will have to wait!)...