Kreativ Blogger

I am so stoked and honored! Jess from Here Comes the Sun gave me the Kreativ Blogger award! Thanks Jess! If you guys don't follow Jess' blog you definitely should. She has the cutest little boy and is expecting baby #2. 

With this award I tell 7 things about myself and then pass it on to 10 other bloggers. Fun!

1) Here's another closet Twilight fan. I absolutely loved all of the books and read them in record time. I'm not completely crazy about the movies, but I've watched each one anyways. I just finished the Hunger Games series too and LOVED it. Have I just put myself into nerd status?

2) I love to crochet and would really love to learn to knit. I won't say that I'm awesome at it, but I really have fun with it. My problem is I take on too much and once and then get burned out for awhile. I'm feeling the itch again! My friend, my cousin, and my SIL are all also expecting right now and I want to make some baby stuff. Actually, there are so many craft things that I want to do, but I need a sewing machine to do them and someone (that would be you husband!) got the wise idea to get rid of my hand-me-down sewing machine during one of our moves. An old sewing machine is better than no sewing machine! I loooove to craft when I have the time.

3) I'm STILL in school (a fact I have mentioned before), but I'm so sick of it! I have 1 class left to finally get my Associate's (woohoo!), but then I think I'm going to slow way down and take my time with my Bachelor's. I can't wait to be done, but I need a mental break and I'm in no hurry to re-enter the work force so I figure why not slow down?! I know... I'm ridiculous! I'm tired though.

4) I have a brother and a sister. My sister and I are BFF's and I wish that we lived closer together. I miss her! My brother is in the Marine's and is on his millionth deployment. I hate it when he's gone, it's so scary.

5) This is really gross and not a random fact that you need to know, but it's on my mind. (Grossness alert... skip #5 if you don't want to read about it). My stupid big toes have been infected or sore for over 13 freaking months! I had ingrown toenails and after 2 failed antibiotic treatments I had the sides of the nails removed. They wanted to make it permanent by following the surgical procedure with acid, but couldn't because of the infection. So, a few months after the 1st procedure, I had a 2nd done with acid. That was like 3 months ago and they still aren't healed and are sore and infected! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! I know some of this has to do with lupus, but this is insane. I did 2 more rounds of antibiotics and it healed everything up, but a few days after they would look nasty again. I go to the podiatrist on Friday and I'm scared to hear what he'll want to do next. Yuck! I'm just ready to have none sore toes and to actually be able to wear something other than flip-flops. Jess you probably regret giving me this award and having to hear about my toenails huh ;). 

6) My 4 year wedding anniversary is in 6 days. I'm excited! I don't know if we'll do much because right now my husband is insanely busy with work, but I'm just excited to have four years under our belts.

7) I keep forgetting how old I am. I've been telling people I'm 27, but then sometimes I think I'm 29 and have to do the math to figure out how old I really am. I'm 28. Ridiculous!

It took me way too long to come up with 7 things. I'm boring ;).

I'm passing this award on to:

1) Marjorie at For the Love of all That is BABY

2) Amy at Our Journey Together

3) Becky at Reverie of an Old Soul

4) Nikki at Sew Hormonal 

5) Tiffany at The Pifer's Journey

6) Christy at Fearfully.Wonderfully.

7) Jenilyn at Grits and Giggles

8) Ashley Paige at I Love You More Than Carrots

9) Sarah at Life {Sweet} Life.

10) Kristin at Our Growing Garden (I know you just got this award from Jess too, but I love your blog that much) 

13 weeks

How far along? 13 weeks- well I'm technically 13 weeks tomorrow, but I figure I better post this while I can.

Total weight gain/loss: Per my appointment yesterday I'm +1, but we'll just say I haven't gained any ;)

Maternity clothes? I'm wearing mostly maternity shirts because they're so much more forgiving and comfortable. I feel like a fatty in my regular shirts that aren't baggy. I'm still fitting in my regular jeans as long as I wear my belly band. I do fit in a few of my maternity pants and I'm sure I'll be wearing them soon.

Stretch marks? Nothing new, just the stretch marks on my hiney from Corbe.n.

Sleep: It's been pretty much the same, except now I have to take a nap during the day. Last night I went to bed at 8pm, but that's probably just because I missed my nap due to a doctor's appointment.

Best moment this week: Having a great doctor's appointment.

Movement: I've been sporadically feeling light flutters and other stuff, but I'm looking forward to it getting stronger and being able to say that it's for sure baby. 

Food cravings: Wendy's spicy chicken sandwiches, Gatorade, Jolly Ranchers, pasta, and I've really been wanting ice cream sandwiches, but haven't given in yet.

Gender: I'm really thinking girl.

Belly Button in or out? In

Wedding rings on or off? On

What I miss: Having energy; I'm so tired all the time. It's getting better though and it's totally worth it.

What I am looking forward to: Feeling strong, regular movement and getting a bigger belly. My belly is here all the time and it's gotten noticeably bigger the past few weeks, but I can still suck most of it in, so I'm thinking a lot of it must be bloat.

Weekly Wisdom: Well, I'm still struggling with this one, but I keep telling myself that it's okay to take it easy and not feel so guilty about the house and not getting as much done as usual.

Milestones: For the past 2 weeks I've been able to hear the baby on the doppler, which is awesome and I'm in the 2nd trimester now! That feels awesome!

Corbe.n wanted in on the picture :). We're also hanging out in our pj's today, but I'm just proud that I managed to get my makeup on before noon.

Sign Language

Yes, I'm shamelessly about to brag on my little guy. My cousin was born deaf and I used to be pretty fluent in Sign Language, so I always knew that when I had kids, basic sign language was something I wanted to teach them. I've been doing a few signs to Corbe.n for a long time, but it isn't something he's really picked up... until now! He just busted out with it one day and now signs and correctly applies "more", "eat", and "water". He is so happy that he's able to communicate his exact needs and gets the biggest grin on his face when he signs "more" and I give him more of whatever food he's eating. Normally he eats dinner at 5:30, but last night he came up to me at 4:30 and signed "eat", so I started getting his dinner together and avoided a meltdown. Score! When he was eating and wanted another bite he signed "more eat". I'm so proud! However, he is against manners, haha; I've been trying to teach him "please" and "thank you" and he just laughs at me each time. 

NT Scan

I'm in love! I'm in love! I'm in love! I had my NT scan today and baby has grown so much and is so adorable! The baby kept putting it's hands up by the face and was kicking straight out. S/he looked so comfy in there and was definitely relaxed. They had to jiggle my belly, have me cough, and drink cold water in order to get the measurements. The good news is that baby looks great and everything is within normal range! I'll take and post a belly picture later. I was so excited that I couldn't wait to share the good news.

11w5d

Saying Goodbye To Some I'll Nevers

In regards to parenting there are several things I've said that I'd never do, and for the most part I've stuck to them, however I've also learned that sometimes the "I'll never"'s need to go right out the window in order to preserve sanity. 

One of mine was "I'll never let Corbe.n watch T.V. until he's much older". Then we went to visit his Momo (my MIL) and she was playing Yo Gabba Gabba for my nephew. Corb.en's little face lit up and he was immediately so into that show, laughing, and dancing all over the place. It made my husband and I so happy to see him so full of joy. Momo got him a Yo Gabba Gabba DVD set and now we let him watch it about once a week. I honestly don't feel bad about it, even though the characters are totally weird, because they teach some really good lessons and I've yet to see him so in to something. 

My 2nd "I'll never" to go out the window was "I'll never let Corb.en use my phone for entertainment". I was too worried about the radiation and I just don't want him dependent on electronics for entertainment. Well, now we've moved and we're only an hour from family. We are lucky enough to make trips often to see them, but they aren't always pleasant drives with a toddler. I just remembered about the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Apptivity Case. It's a case that you can put your iPhone in that protects it from drool and other nastiness, prevents the home button from being pressed, and gives your child a large area to grasp and hold. We scooped one up immediately and the only thing I have to say is hello happy road-trips! I call this thing "The Lifesaver"! We downloaded episodes of Yo Gabba Gabba and on our last trip to visit family Corb.en was quiet and happy the entire drive. It was SOOOOO wonderful. I do feel a small pang of guilt, but the happiness I felt from a peaceful drive overshadows that.

Hello Friend!

Cloth Diaper Problem Solving: Hard Water & Funk

We recently moved from an area with no water problems to an area with extremely hard water. Yaaay (yes that is sarcasm). It has been such a pain with everything from dishes to our cloth diapers. We started getting stains, then a strong ammonia smell that burned your eyes when we were washing the diapers, then progressed to getting that lovely ammonia smell right after he urinated in the diapers. Woowee! His diaper pail smelled RIPE!

After taking it as long as I could, I finally wised up and decided we needed to switch to a new detergent. We were previously using bumGenius detergent and had recently tried Country Save. FYI, both worked great, but I preferred BG. Anyways, with the hard water issues we switched to Rockin' Green's Hard Rock detergent. It's specially formulated for hard water. I did the overnight soak like they recommended and immediately noticed an improvement. The stains were gone and the diapers didn't smell like ammonia as soon as he urinated. However, they would build up a really strong ammonia smell after being in the diaper pail for a day. Not cool. I did a diaper strip (I'll detail that below) and then a regular wash routine and I've been good to go ever since. Thank goodness! Cloth diaper issues can be so frustrating, but it's such an awesome feeling once you solve the problem. I'm pretty pleased! I think that doing just the overnight soak routine with the Rockin' Green would have been enough had I attempted to solve the problem earlier on. I had forgotten about the symptoms of hard water and it took me a minute to get with the program. I'm so happy to be back with good smelling diapers!

Diaper stripping- This can be done whenever you have detergent or "funk" buildup in your diapers. Here's how I do it.... Run a hot wash cycle with detergent. I then move my diaper shells to the dryer and leave just the inserts in the wash. I add 1 tbs dawn original dishwashing soap (the blue stuff) and 1/4 bleach (some people omit the bleach, but this is what works best for me) and do a regular wash cycle. I then do 4-6 rinse cycles with warm water or until suds can no longer be seen. Then I dry everything together.

I Have A Secret

Sooo.... there's a reason that I haven't really been blogging for a few weeks. It's because I have a big fat secret that I've been trying to keep in.

Can you guess what it is? Okay, I'll tell you.....I'm pregnant! The Lord blessed us just a few weeks after the miscarriage. It's been such a scary time! I'm currently 6w4d, which is 1 day away from when I started bleeding last time. Part of me was wanting to hold things in a little while longer, but since I got to see my precious baby bean with a heart beat of 120 on ultrasound today,  I decided to let you guys in on my secret. I've told my immediate family, but we're going to wait a few more weeks before telling everyone else. I really appreciated all of the love and prayers we received during the miscarriage and would love if you could pray for a strong, healthy baby this time. I've been feeling really nauseated and "morning" sickness is getting worse (trying to spare you the details), so I'm taking that as a great sign! Oh and I'm due June 21st! 

The ultrasound picture from today wasn't the best as you can just see a little tiny baby, but I'll post another one from my next ultrasound in 2 weeks! YAY!