16 weeks- Baby X

Can I just say that I can't believe I'm this far along? When I was pregnant with Jade, my entire world revolved around that pregnancy. This time it just can't be that way.. my entire world is Jade, with dishes thrown in on the side. (Of course, I love Jesus. And my husband. I'm exaggerating a bit but you get what I mean!) Because of that difference, I just keep surprising myself with how far along I am and how big the belly is getting.

Pregnancy: 16 weeks (belly photo taken at 16 weeks 2 days)

Weight Gain: 4 pounds so far. In the name of full disclosure, my chart at the midwifery center says 9 pounds. But that's because at my first appointment (8 weeks) they asked me what my pre-pregnancy weight was and I spouted off "105". Now keep in mind I do not own a scale and do not make a habit of weighing myself. At that 8-week appointment, I weighed 110. Now there is no way that I gained 5 pounds in my first 8 weeks. I had absolutely no belly and although I was not puking all the time, I was nauseous and did not have much of an appetite. So I'm ignoring those first 5 pounds and just counting the weight I've gained since then, which is 4 pounds. I apologize for the incredibly long book I just wrote there, but I promise not to do it again- from here on out I'm counting my weight gain starting at 110. And here's to hoping I don't gain 45 pounds like I did with Jade!

Sleep: Let's just say that I'm exhausted. Insomnia strikes a few times a week, but even when it doesn't I can barely keep my eyes open during the day. I really thought I would have moved past this by now.

Gender: We find out at the next appointment!

Name: Although Chuck and I have actually agreed on a few names this time, I don't think we're actually going to tell anyone. Not 100% on that though.

Feeling: Good... just tired. And anxious! Tomorrow morning (EARLY) I am hitting the road with Jade. And driving 8 hours. By myself. With a 13-month-old. But oh well. I'm spending the weekend in Atlanta at my friend Meg's new house, then heading to Mississippi to spend a week with my friend Jessica and her little boy Caleb, then stopping at home for a bit to hang out with the family, then back here on July 12th. It's a bit nuts, but I do love road trips. Now I should just pack...

Movement: I started feeling the baby moving this week! It took me a couple days of movement around the same time to be convinced that's what it was, but now it's fairly consistent every night when I plop myself down on the couch!

Next Appointment: July 19th to find out the gender!

16 weeks

I definitely owe you guys a 16 weeks post- considering I was 16 weeks on Friday. But I was waiting until after my midwife appointment today and somebody ::coughchuckcough:: accidentally took my laptop to DC.

But he'll be back tomorrow so I'll get it posted soon.

Spoiler alert: everything at my appointment went great :)

And because a post with no pictures is boring- Jade in the Costco food court yesterday:


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Just one photo

Yesterday, I got what might be my favorite iPhone picture of Jade yet.

Baby girl was fussy, so we were playing outside even though the skies were threatening rain. She loves the tricycle grandmama and grandpapa gave her for her birthday and she was "riding" that around.

The tricycle has a bell. A bell Jade frequently tries to ring and fails at for one reason or another.

But yesterday she got it. It rang, and it rang loudly. And little miss was happy.




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Fun with friends!

Last week, my good friend Leah and her husband Caleb came to visit. They did some stuff on their own, but Wednesday Jade and I went to the beach with them, Friday we went to the outlets in Williamsburg and Saturday we all went "hiking" and had a picnic.

It was so nice to have a distraction from our normal day-to-day stuff. That and it's always awesome to see my friends! I miss them :)

Here are some pictures to document their visit:

Jade really does just love the dogs.

Love this picture.

Kid doesn't know how to smile for the camera :)

Leah and Caleb at VA Beach.

Jade and I at VA Beach.

The longest she's ever kept sunglasses on- 30 seconds.

As close as she would get to the water before I had to pick her up.

Leah hanging out with the dogs while Chuck and I were getting Jade ready.

This was after Jade had decided she was done with the carrier. First on daddy's back, then mama's front... good thing the shoulders are always an option :) Poor thing just prefers the woven wrap, but I was hoping that Chuck could wear her instead of me. Oh well!

Happy couple :)

Yay for family.

Jade "walking" Belle.

Ok, that was a lot of pictures! Oh well- it was so good to have them here! I can't wait to see Leah again in just a few weeks!

Pregnancy- 15 weeks

Somehow this baby has been named "Baby X". Not sure how or why but that's what Chuck and I refer to shim as. (Shim being she/him- it's just easier).

I realize that I am very behind on my pregnancy posts. There are a variety of reasons for this but they're all just excuses so I won't bother.

So here are a couple belly pics:

13 weeks

14 weeks

Two things about those pictures:

   1. I'm wearing the same shirt. My "it's a 110 degrees outside" wardrobe consists of tank tops. Apparently I should buy some more colors.

   2. I can't believe I already have a belly.Trust me, I know that I will be getting MUCH bigger, but sometimes I see my reflection and I'm still surprised that I'm pregnant and that I look pregnant. The problem is that no stranger would say "hey, that girl's pregnant"... I just have a belly that makes me look fat. Oh well. That will change. 

And finally, my 15-week picture!

This belly might also be influenced by the fact that I had just eaten a huge dinner.

I officially cannot wear my jeans anymore. Luckily (I suppose it's lucky??), I have worn so many different sizes in the past 2-ish years that I'm still not in maternity clothes, just in the next size up. 

My next Midwife appointment is Tuesday, so I'm excited about that. I just joined the Y (running when it's 110 outside is no fun), and would also like to start doing some weighlifting. But since I haven't lifted weights since we left Alaska (no joke!) I wanted to check with her before starting. Running is still going well... I'm doing 3 miles a day and generally doing some other form of cardio as well, either walking the dogs or doing the elliptical at the gym. I am determined not to gain as much weight as I did when I was pregnant with Jade.

And that is all! Hopefully my next pregnancy post will contain just one belly pic and not be quite so random!

Photo dump

Yesterday, I realized I've taken quite a few pictures that I haven't posted. So here they are :)

We bought her a water table to keep her entertained while we're doing yardwork. She dumps all her toys on the ground and then puts them back in. Over and over. 

Walking in the swimming pool- because that's safe.

Dumping the toys out of the pool. For the record, there are shorts that come with this rash guard, but they fell off when they got wet. Diaper butt it is.

So intense.

I love this picture. Or I would, if it wasn't blurry. Sigh.

Another potentially good picture- stupid shadows.

"I really want this hat off!"

Almost there!

Success!

Climbing up the slide in the pool.

Enjoying pulling everything off the shelves.

"Hey mom, read this to me!"

And just to throw this out there- I bought a book on photography recently. I really want to take good pictures. So we'll see. Hopefully they'll get better.

Jade grows up- 13 months

I briefly considered stopping the "Jade grows up" posts at 1 year, but she is still growing and changing so much that I felt it needed to be documented. Not sure when I'll stop. I'm sure before she's 5 the monthly updates will be a thing of the past :)

The biggest thing this month is that she finally got around to walking! She is just so absolutely proud of herself. She still crawls to get most places, but she's walking more and more each day and it's adorable.

She loves to play outside, even if it is 100 degrees. She will sit and play in the dirt for an hour and still loves racing her walker wagon up and down the driveway.

She's still sleeping well at night, but naps are getting more and more inconsistent. Most mornings, she still goes down fairly easily but every now and then she says "I don't need a morning nap today, thank you". And that's that. Luckily on those days, she does sleep longer in the afternoon.

This month was our first major hiccup with food. She went for a little over a week with eating nothing but eggs and toast and breakfast and hot dogs for every other meal. My kid who used to eat anything would pitch a fit and throw everything over her tray if it wasn't a hot dog. Go figure. Luckily, she is basically back to normal now. Still a bit picky, but she's eating some vegetables again and will at least try other things.

Most of her 13th month, she was nursing 4 times a day, but somewhere in there she cut it down to 3. So she gets 2 cups of soy milk a day and generally likes it, although some days she barely drinks any. I wouldn't be surprised if she's completely weaned by 14 months, which honestly just makes me sad. I never intended to wean this early but with Baby X on the way I feel like that's the right decision for us. At this point, Jade is the one cutting out sessions. I was planning to nurse until the end of the summer but she's started refusing certain sessions so I'm letting her take the lead with that.

Some of her Carter's 6-9 month tops are starting to get a little tight. She could easily move up to the 9-12 month tops, but the pants are still just huge.

Bath time is definitely still one of her favorite things. Now, when we get her clothes off we say "Jade, are you ready for your bath?" and she gets all smiley and crawls the whole way to the tub. It's adorable watching her little naked self crawling, haha. I'm sure she'll love me for saying that one day :)

She still loves the dogs and consistently wants to play with them when they aren't too thrilled about it. Her most consistent word is still "dog". I expected her to be talking more by now but I really think she'll just explode with words one day. At this point, she manages to communicate quite well without words so I'm not worried.

I'm amazed every day by how much I love her and can't wait to see what time has in store for us!