New Blog!

Okay, basically, I was having some issues with unwanted readers on my last blog. Some people were reading my blog and taking my pictures and then posting them on Facebook without telling me or even asking me if they could, and they were pictures of ME.

I struggled with what to do. The way I saw it, I had 3 options: make my blog private (which I don't like), stop blogging altogether, or make a new blog and NOT link it on my old one like I had with my second one. So, as annoying as it is, I just went with creating a new blog.

I tried to import all of my old posts into this blog, and I got most of them, but the comments are weird and if you try to leave a comment on any old posts, you get a weird error message. Really, I'm not concerned about that and I have no idea how to fix it, so I'm just going to go with it!

Coming to you live!!

From my very own computer!! Haha, why do I feel like my life is better with a computer? I have no idea, but I do. It took me about a year, but I finally talked Lee into letting me get a MacBook. It's definitely going to take some getting used to, but so far I like it a whole lot :)

We had a very productive weekend, and I, for one, love daylight savings time even if it means losing an hour. We registered for baby stuff on Friday. That was perhaps the most stressful thing I've ever done in my life. We made it about an hour and then I was exhausted and a little frustrated so we left and finished up online.

We also picked out new carpet for the bedrooms! You know you're old when you're excited for new carpet :) We have to go back (hopefully) this week to finalize our selections and then schedule a time for them to come and install it. Yay!

Let me tell you, I get worn out pretty easily these. On Saturday, we went to 2 carpet places, lunch, and one store in the mall and there is no way I could have done anything else if we had needed to. On Sunday, I ran 2 fairly quick errands and I was so tired I came home and laid on the couch! So weird. My feet also hurt a lot. And I mean, they hurt. Not like I'm wearing uncomfortable shoes, it just feels like I've been on them all day when I have only been on them for as little as 30 minutes. My hands are also swollen and my wedding rings are getting reallllly snug on there!

I have also started to lose my mind a little. I haven't been particularly forgetful, mostly because I'm so paranoid I'm going to forget something that I compulsively write everything down and make list after list. But, I have a hard time formulating sentences. Someone can ask me a simple question and I will have absolutely no idea what to say! I also have a hard time telling stories. I can get a couple of words out and then I am silent because I don't know what I was going to say or I get distracted or something! Haha, this is something that Lee has ALWAYS done. He can never get his stories out and I get frustrated and I'm like "AND?!?!" And now I'm the one doing it!

Cooper moves around ALL the time now! I've mostly heard it described as "fluttering" or bubbles, but to me, it feels just like a twitch. And I feel it almost 24 hours a day. I swear, he is only still for a few hours while I'm sleeping and other than that, he is going crazy in there. It makes me want to watch Look Who's Talking because I wonder what he's doing in there! Lee has gotten to see a lot of movement. He can see it from across the room, that's how much Cooper moves around. The other night, my entire belly jolted to one side and Lee was like "Whoa, was that you or him?!" And it was definitely not me!

This was the other night, just a few days past 27 weeks.

I hate the pictures with my face because I feel like I look so worn out, but I usually am because I always forget to take a picture until it's time to go to bed.

Here are my disgusting puppy dogs. They have a hair appointment on Thursday and that's about 3 weeks too late, ha! I'm a bad mom, but in my defense, I have a hair appointment on Saturday that's at least a month too late, so there's that.

Well, hello there

It's been a while, yes? Well, they blocked all social networking sites at work. I know, wtf, right? That's what I thought. And technically we don't have a home computer. Lee has a work laptop that he brings home. He is pretty, uh, busy on it in the evenings, you know, with "work" things such as reading about football for hours at a time. Yes, very important business, so you can understand how it might be difficult for me to borrow the computer for my very important business. :) But, I'm going to try and get back into posting more often, hopefully once a week or so. Because I know that you all miss me. :) I have been able to keep up with all of my favorite blogs. I can get to most of them, but I cannot see pictures (which is really the best part!) and I can't comment on any either!

Let's see, what has happened in the past 2 months? A lot, and not a lot at the same time. Let's start with the obvious. When I last posted, I looked something like this:

And today, I look something like this:

Just a little different :) I am 26 weeks this week, only 14 to go! I had a doctor's appointment today. This time when I stepped on the scale, I couldn't see my weight because my belly was in the way! First time that has happened. Turns out, that it might be a good thing that I can no longer see what I weigh. So far I have gained 23 lbs, 8 of which was in the last 4 weeks, haha. You can totally tell in my face :( As much as I would like to blame the baby, let's just be honest that it's really due to the fact that Easter candy is now out (Cadbury Mini Eggs are my ultimate weakness in life) (I might have eaten a bag a day for a few days) and my girl scout cookie order has arrived. I didn't order 9 boxes. No, no. I would never do that.

And here I was at 20 weeks:

The day we found out that this little one: (look at that little nose, it's my favorite part :) )
is a BOY!! To be honest, we were super surprised, because we were so sure that it was a girl. Or, as Lee put it, he was "preparing himself" for it to be a girl! Haha. He practically jumped out of his seat when she said "it looks like you guys are having a little boy" I mean, seriously, he was trying hard to contain his excitement because I was, not exactly disappointed, but just surprised. No joke, I asked the tech if she was sure! She said she was and showed us the goods. So that was about 6 weeks ago and now we absolutely cannot wait to meet our little Cooper Ethan. I mean, seriously, he can't get here soon enough, I am so ready to hold him!

Annnd, that's about all that has happened! I haven't done a thing to his room! We did order furniture, and much to our surprise, it was here in less than a week! We thought surely it would be 4-6 weeks for delivery, but it was more like 4-6 days. I have a few ideas of things that I want to do for his room, so I'll probably do a post on that sometime soon.

Other than that, I've been studying a lot for this real estate class I'm taking, surviving work by counting down the days to my maternity leave, and doing a whole lot of nothing.

This weekend we are registering at Babier R Us. I'm a little intimidated by this whole process, since I really have absolutely no idea what we will need. Usually I'm a huge planner, researcher, list-maker, etc. But, this time we are winging it. I've researched the big things, like safety features and such, but other than that, we're just going to go up and down every aisle and touch everything.

I'm also going to Oklahoma City this weekend for the John Mayer concert / my best friend's birthday!

AND we are going to look at new carpet for the bedrooms! VERY exciting, huh? I am excited because I have been begging for new carpet every since I just had to rip up the old carpet to reveal our very damaged hardwoods :) Lee told me that I shouldn't have. I never listen to anyone, I'll admit it :)

Why am I sitting on paper?

Name that movie!

Yesterday I had one million doctor's appointments. Okay, it was actually more like 3, but still, that is a lot of paper-covered benches for one day! We saw the baby doctor and got to hear that little heartbeat :) Officially less than 2 weeks until we find out the sex! I'm having a hard time being patient. I asked lots of questions that I had been forgetting so I left feeling a lot better and loving my doctor more than ever. Lee has gone to every appt so far (not sure that it will or should continue because they are kinda boring at this point!) and every time we leave, he talks about how much he likes her. I searched and searched for this doctor, trying to find one that I really liked, and it took like 4 years, so I'm glad that he likes her too!

We are having a really difficult time with the dogs lately. Mostly um, bathroom issues. Yorkies are difficult to housebreak, so FYI in case you ever want to get one. Isabelle and Zoe do really well at my parents house, and I'm convinced that it's because that's where they learned to "potty outside". At our current house, it's hit and miss. We have literally had to just throw away 2 rugs. The next time we move, I'll definitely treat the new house like they are new puppies and train them again because I think that is what I should have done when I moved out of my parents'. Lately we have been having an especially difficult time. I never know if they want outside to go to the bathroom, or if they just want to play/chase rabbits and squirrels/bark incessantly at our neighbors and their animals. And they have started just not coming inside. They just stay out there and ignore us and I am getting to the end of my rope. Yesterday morning I had a huge breakdown because Isabelle just would.not. come inside. It was like 12 degrees and pitch black and Lee was in the shower and I just lost it. We have started going out with them, making them go, and then come right back inside, but I still get nervous if they ask to go out because I don't know why they want out! Ugh, this is ridiculous. I think that we are going to take them to a training class. I have wanted to for a couple years (they are 3) but I never could talk Lee into it. I think my over dramatic breakdown yesterday did the trick :)

In addition to that, some pretty shitty things have been going on at work lately, the culmination of which was yesterday and I am officially done. For your sake, I will not get into it, but I have completely checked out. I am full on searching for a new job, regardless of my current uh, pregnancy status. With the market like it is, I will probably have this baby before I find something anyway, so there's no reason for me not to actively search. My ultimate hope is that something comes up in another department at my company. I have seen a couple of things in the last 3 or so months that I'm now kicking myself for not being more serious about. At this point, I'm willing to do about anything except my current field. At this point, I would be happy if I could quit and go work some meaningless job at PotteryBarn or something. (not that I think you are meaningless if you work at PotteryBarn! I am actually jealous) And I'm not lying when I say I would do just that if it was financially feasible :)

So boo to you, the first week of 2010! I know you're going to get better (hello, baby!) so let's just kick it into gear.

I'm Baaa-ack!!

Did you all miss me? Did you even notice I was gone? Haha. As you know, I was off work for a GLOOOOORIOUS 2 weeks, and I don't have a computer at home so I was not able to blog about anything!! Yes, this computer-less situation must be remedied before I go on maternity leave. Not that I'm thinking I'll have that much time to blog then but, you know :)

Don't you worry, I fully intend on catching you all up with my holiday festivities, although I must admit that we were really boring this year and I can probably sum it all up in about a paragraph! I'm sure that I will drag it out for a little more than that :) I never could tell a short story.

Let's see... why don't I just start at the beginning. The Saturday before Christmas, we went to the Christmas Train! It was our first year to go and we weren't sure what to expect but it was really fun! It is an event put on every Christmas by a local church. Years ago, for some reason a western-style movie set was built in a little town in Oklahoma. I'm not sure about the exact history and I'm too lazy to look it up and I'm sure you don't much care anyway. So, long story short, this church bought the set and it is used for all sorts of things, including this event. It really is just like an old western town :) Here we are with my mom waiting for the train ride, where they tell you the story of Christmas. p.s. It was like 20 degrees outside!

I found out in advance that they have a Santa there for pictures, so I made my whole family take a picture. I don't know why they had me sit while everyone else was standing, it's kind of awkward but whatever. Lee hadn't shaved in a couple days and I think he looks like a lumberjack :) He said that I didn't tell him that we were going to take pictures!

Then, on Christmas Eve, it started snowing. Well, this is Oklahoma, so first, we had to have about 3 hours of freezing rain/sleet and THEN an actual blizzard. Under all of that fluffy white stuff was several inches of ice. Typical of this damn state. I must admit that I am a grump about snow. I HATE it when it snows here because our city is not equipped to deal with all of the ice and snow and basically the whole city has to shut down and everyone gets stuck inside for days. Bah Humbug!! Anywho, Lee and I decided to go on over and stay at my parents' house on Christmas Eve so that we didn't have to worry about getting over there on Christmas morning. We stayed until the 26th and then braved the (un-plowed!!) streets back home.

I have no pictures of Christmas day because, well, I was feeling pukey, sorry but I was, so I wasn't in the mood for pictures. And I wasn't really into Christmas for some reason this year. I was kind of blah about all holidays actually. I don't know why, I'm usually excited for them. I'm sure I will be next year :) We actually had a really boring Christmas day. We opened gifts early, which took about 5 minutes because we didn't do much in the way of gifts this year! Lee and I didn't even get each other anything. We watched The Hangover (I mean, what better way to celebrate the birth of Christ than by watching The Hangover) (i didn't think it was that funny, maybe i had too high of hopes), ate lunch, laid around, and watched the Dark Knight.

Here is a lovely view of the snow from my parents' porch. Lovely because I didn't have to get out in it :)

And here is one of the side yard in back. Those are snow drifts that were probably, I don't know, maybe 3 feet high? That new fence is 9 feet, so that might give you some idea.

On New Year's Eve, we went over to some friends' house. It was a fun night, and I even stayed awake the whole time and we actually ended up leaving because Lee wanted (ahem, needed) to go, not me! I was surprised that I didn't get tired but I didn't. I also participated in several games of flip cup :) Of course, I was drinking root beer, haha! It was actually fun. (don't get me started on my new obsession for root beer! i went through a 2 liter a day over my little break, and i still could but i made myself stop!) Lee took full advantage of having a designated driver. We will just leave it at that ;)

Other than that, I was a lazy bum the entire 2 weeks I had off. And I mean lazy bum. It's kind of embarrassing. I had every intention of cleaning the house and doing so many things, but I just didn't have any desire to, and in reality I ended up laying on the couch most days! It was kind of frustrating because I wanted to get a lot of things done, but that's the way it goes I guess. I did get in my fair share of lifetime movies! It's really hard not to lay down and cuddle with my puppies too! They love to lay around with me :) Isabelle has been particularly needy lately and it's really funny and cute how much she wants me to hold her. She also lays on my belly all the time, Lee said he thinks she knows that I'm pregnant. Who knows, it's really cute though :)

And we had to start Zoe back on steroids because of her itching. It was all.the.time. Constant, and not only was it sad for her, it was really annoying to us, especially during the night when all she would do was scratch. So we put her back on the 'roids last week and seriously in the same day we started, she was not scratching at all!! I think that we are just going to keep her on them until further notice, she might have to be on them forever. But, since she has been taking them again, she has not stopped eating! She is the smaller one, and she could seriously care less about eating, she could take it or leave it. She rarely eats her breakfast and Isabelle usually ends up eating it for her in the evening. But, for the past week, she has gotten up in the morning when Isabelle does (which is EARLY) and eats her breakfast (we make it for them every morning. they are spoiled. well, we don't MAKE it every morning, we make it about once every 10 days and dish it out from the fridge) and then she usually eats her dry dog food that we just have out for them several times a day! It's so funny.

Okay, this post was all over the place. I'm hoping to go back to a regular blogging schedule, but January is a really busy month for me at work (shocking I know, it really just means that I'll have things to do, ha!) so we will see. We have a baby dr appt tomorrow, and we find out the sex in TWO WEEKS!! I might whine about it tomorrow and see if I can talk the dr into taking a peek then! It really isn't fair to make us wait for no reason :)

LOST: My desire to cook

Has anyone seen it? My husband might pay a hefty reward if you found it! Er...well, maybe not, as was evidenced by his request last night: "Can we have McDonalds tonight?" Haha. (For the record, my response was an eager "Yes, I don't want to cook!")

I don't know what my problem is. Maybe it's because nothing sounds good to me. Why would I want to cook if I have zero desire to eat the food? The foods I do desire to eat? French fries. That's pretty much it. Oh, and Twizzlers. Yep, that's about it. It's not morning sickness or anything like that. The thought of cooking doesn't make me want to go running for the nearest toilet or anything, like it did during the first trimester. It just sounds like a horrible idea. This is so foreign to me, since I really love to cook usually. (I also really love to eat usually, so not having the desire to eat anything is REALLY weird and I'm having a difficult time getting used to the idea, i.e. I have actually cried, real tears, because I knew that I needed to eat but I just didn't want anything!) I'm just hoping that this change will eventually go away. Even if it lasts the entire pregnancy, that's fine, just as long as it will come back after, because that would be really sad for me. I don't know how you people who don't like to cook do it, because right now, all I can think about it the fact that I promised Lee that I would make chili for dinner, and how much I just don't even want to make it at all. What would I rather have? Well, nothing comes to mind. Except maybe some waffle fries from Chick-Fil-A. But even that's pushing it :)

I've even been doing my regular holiday baking (begrudgingly, and only because some of our friends and co-workers have come to expect their annual treat box) and I haven't sampled one.thing. Not a cookie, not a pecan, not a piece of toffee, nothing. This is NOT normal! One second thought, maybe I should plan all of my pregnancies around the holidays if this is what happens. Yes, every other Thanksgiving and Christmas I will be pregnant. That way I won't gorge myself on pounds of sugar and chocolate during that time frame. Although I will still be gaining weight, so I'm not sure if that logic would really work.

I have been extremely busy at work this week (I know! I can hardly believe it myself!), and it's going to last until I leave for the holidays (my last workday of the year is Tuesday morning, then I'm off until the 2nd!) So I haven't really had time to blog lately, and now that I'm sitting here, I've forgotten all of the great blogging ideas I've had over the week! So, I'll just leave you with this, my 12 and 14 week bump pictures. I finally took one last week!

Week 12: Nov. 21-27

Week 14: Dec 5 - 11

And a totally gratuitous picture of Lee and the girls. Isabelle is smiling :) (Ahem, ignore the open shelves that we have yet to get doors for. It's only been 5 months since we finished those things)

Holy crap, 6 months is not that long!

I have posted a lot this week! Mostly random stuff, but still. I think it's mostly because I'm very bored at work. Want to know what I've been doing this morning? Staring at my first of seriously, at least 50 spreadsheets with 60,000 plus lines, looking for inconsistencies in numbers. Yes. I will need a new contact prescription by the end of next week :( Intermittently, I go to look at the new intercompany job postings, lol.

As I sit here, probably causing my eyes to age prematurely, I just keep thinking about everything that I really need to be doing instead! Don't you hate that? I have so many things that I really need to get done! But by the time I get home after work, I'm so exhausted that I just can't do it. Work is really a waste of my time :)

Yesterday I bought a Christmas/birthday present for my very best friend in the whole world. She has been having a rough time the past couple of months, and it took me forever to figure out a great gift for her! Now that I have it, I'm really excited to give it to her! She doesn't read my blog, but I still don't want to give the secret away yet, but I really want to tell. I'm giving it to her tonight :)

Today is December 11. I am exactly 14 weeks today, and I am due in exactly 6 months! I plan on taking a picture tonight of my growing belly. (I have also had this same plan every day for the past 2 weeks, so no promises!) Just yesterday I noticed a little growth spurt, and it is starting to become more noticeable in my everyday tops. We have a little Christmas thing for Lee's work on Saturday night, and I tried on what I was thinking about wearing the other night, just to make sure, and I'm glad that I did! Uh, I'm not sure if it's going to work! The top is a little too short now and it's kind of awkward with my maternity jeans, and especially with the fact that I still need the bella band to hold them up. As much as I like the maternity jeans I have, I think that they stretched out a little when I washed them. I think that my regular Gap jeans did that too. Oh well, I'll figure something out.

I kind of feel like we are in limbo with baby stuff. Even my doctor the other day was saying how it's kind of boring right now because we can't really plan anything! Haha, I didn't want to be the one to say it, but it kind of is! I've never pretended to be a patient person. This whole 6 more weeks until we can find out is killing me. I have NO idea how people wait to find out! I have NO idea how any of our parents did that! It would be one thing if we weren't planning on finding out the sex, because we could still decorate and stuff like that, but the baby's room will be VERY girly if it's a girl and much different from that if it's a boy, so really we have no choice but to wait! One thing that is hard for me to wait on is something that I want to make for the room. I know that I definitely want to hand paint letters for the baby's name. And I already have a ton of ideas on how I want to do them, so it's really hard for me not to start that! I mean, that's something that I could really start for either name, and just not use it yet if that's not what we're having, right? :) Who am I kidding, I wouldn't even have the energy to work on that right now even if I could!

My friend Jenny and I are having a baking party on Saturday!! I do a lot of baking for the holidays and I'm excited to get to share it with someone else this year, instead of just standing in the kitchen all by my lonesome like I have for the past couple of years. And then on Sunday, I think that Lee and I are going to do some Christmas shopping. I have planned on doing that the past couple of weekends, but I was too lazy, so this weekend we are definitely starting. And hopefully finishing! We are also going to look at kitchen cabinets. I think that we have decided that we will probably just redo the whole kitchen, contingent upon a couple of important things, but I think that it's going to work out! I'm hesitant to get too excited about it before we've made the absolute final decision, but I'm optimistic that it's going to happen!! Yay!