Nerves

There's been a lot going through my mind since finding out that my life is about to change completely. What if I'm a bad mom? What if I drop the baby? What if I fall down the stairs when I'm nine months pregnant? What if the baby is allergic to anything? What if the baby cries when I'm holding it like most babies do?

 

Frankly... all of this is incredibly frightening. I don't know a single thing about babies, and I've certainly never changed a diaper. GROSS.

 

These thoughts are what I fondly refer to as Pregnancy Meltdowns. A doctor might call it a hormone imbalance, but "metldown" is more animated. This thoughts often occur to me inbetween morning sickness sessions (which by the way... happen all day, not just in the morning).

 

Here's a view from one of my favorite vomit locations, the balcony at work. Just on the other side of that hill is the Hollywood sign! Neat huh?

 

 

I quickly realized that getting educated about what's about to happen to my body would probably help... BIG MISTAKE. THE INTERNET IS A TERRIBLE PLACE!!

 

I switched gears and decided to start small by checking out the baby section at Target, and maybe Babies R Us. Whoa... talk about overwhelming! There are all kinds of gadgets and trinkets and toys, it would put Barbie to shame! What the hell is the difference between a burp cloth, a receiving blanket, and just a regular hand towel? Breast pumps are $300? There's an entire isle devoted to nipples at Babies R Us?

 

AND WHAT THS HELL IS THIS?!?!?!

 

I had to walk away. It was just too much.

 

But now that I've made all this "Facebook Official," and I have wonderful people like you reading this, I can reach out for help and advice. I'm going to need a LOT of it, and I've learned now that there's no such thing as TMI.

 

When our first trimester screening came up and I got to see my little gummy bear again, all the stress and fear went out the window.

 

Here's baby at 13 weeks old.

 

The first thing we noticed was the GIANT nose, but don't worry... we've already started saving up for his/her eighteenth birthday nose job. He/she was wiggling all over the place, and for a moment we got to hear the most incredible sound... a heartbeat.

Pregnant

I'd been feeling funny for a few days and had strange cramping, so I assumed it was just that time of the month. Four days passed with the same strange feelings... so when Bryan left for work one morning I decided to take a test. We'd been trying for a while, so we were no strangers to disappointment, and I figured if I took the test alone, only one of us needed to be let down.

 

While waiting for the results to show up I made the bed, folded some laundry, then strolled over to the counter to look... and my jaw dropped. Holy sh*t it's positive! I started shaking and saying, "Oh my god," over and over again, and with shaky hands, called Bryan. No answer. I called again, tears streaming down my face... no answer. Finally the third time I hear an impatient "What?!?!" on the other end. "Bryan I'm pregnant!"

 

 

 

And here we are now, 14 weeks later and as excited and terrified as we could be. The first trimester was ROUGH. I developed a food aversion to BBQ sauce, iceburg lettuce, fried onions, and a handful of other things. I was bed ridden with morning sickness and spent my time either crying, or heaving. It was the most difficult secret to keep, especially at work, but when we had our first ultrasound, it was all worth it.

 

Here's our little guy/girl at just 8 weeks old, and the size of a gummy bear.

 

 

The whole concept of creating a human being from scratch is still so amazing to me! Right now he/she is the size of a navel orange and getting bigger each day. My pants are getting snug, and I'm already slowly transitioning into maternity clothes.

 

This is happening... we're about to be a family of three, and I can't wait!

 

Baby is due April 27th, 2012.

July

My favorite room in the house would have to be our front room (AKA "The Formal Living Room" or "The America Room.") Marrying a history major made decorating a whole lot more fun. The room is filled with antiques, and treasures from our travels. I really wanted a cool Betsy Ross flag to hang over the fireplace, but they were harder to find than I expected, so my parents made us one! All we need now is a mantel.

Hope you all had a happy Fourth of July!!

Flowers

Come and take a walk through my garden.

The sunflowers are mutants...

The Gladiolus are blooming...

The Bell Peppers are popping...

The Sweet Pea never smelled sweeter...

The Hydrangeas are vibrant...

The Black Eyed Susan are taking over...

The Roses are incredible....

And the Kangeroo Paw is jumping.

I love the smell of fresh cut flowers in the morning.

New

We've had so much fun filling the house with furniture and really making it our own. Every day I can't believe how far we've come. One of the great things about my husband and I, is we have very similar taste, and I've finally convinced him that antique stores and Home Goods can have great finds for great prices.

For our one year wedding anniversary last September, we went on a bit of a shopping spree and picked up these goodies.

I'm in love with this antique china cabinet. My husband promised to get me a china cabinet as my wedding gift, but I warned him that I'm very picky, and I really wanted an antique. It only took year, but I finally found "the one." We have a small formal dining room, so we needed something small, and this was just too cute to pass up. And wedding china looks great in it!

Then we went to Home Goods, "just to look," and left with these! The bench below the window is great because it's upholstered with a burlap material and has maps printed on it. It also opens up and holds all our games.

Probably the best investment we've made is our bannister. The picture below was taken before it was finished, but you get the idea. I can't believe we went a year without it, and I only fell down the stairs once.

We also got a handrail put in.

And last but not least... we got this beauty. For years we've been sleeping on my old Ikea queen bed, and it just wasn't big enough for the two of us... our two cats... and our two dogs. It was time to upgrade. We wanted to get a bigger bed years ago, and we even registered for King sized sheets on our registry, but we never got around to it. We went to Living Spaces recently to look at getting a new couch, and we left with this. I can't get enough of this bed. Sure it's huge, and probably way too big for the room, but there's no better feeling than stretching out and looking to my left to see my husband stretched out too... and both cats... and both dogs. We have so much room now!

Hopefully we get blinds for our windows next, and maybe some art for the walls. Can't wait to see the finished product!

Whoops....

We accidently put a hole in our wall. We opened up the front door a little too fast, and the door knob went straight through the wall. A normal person would patch it up and move on with life, but we're anything but normal.

Maybe I read too much Nancy Drew as a kid, but I was always searching for trap doors in old houses hoping to find notes and treasures from the past. I never did find anything, but I decided it would be fun to leave a treasure in the wall for a future adventurer to find. This is what we decided on.

The letter to the future reads as follows: "To whomever finds this. We got married on September 11th, 2010 and moved into this house on April 20th, 2011. We LOVE this house. Currently, gas is about $4.86 a gallon, it's $100 to get into Disneyland for one day, and minimum wage is about $8 an hour. If you're reading this, it means the world didn't end with the Mayan Calendar, but it's possible that we're haunting this house..."

That's sure to scare the pants off someone. I also included a picture of us and our dogs to add to the creep factor.

So I put the magazine, letter, and picture in the wall, and our handy man Scott sealed it up!

I love being able to do stuff like this!

Again

Hey! Long time so see! Quite a bit has happened since we last spoke, and quite a bit has gone wrong with the house. Surprised?

We threw the first big party in our house a few weeks ago and it was a blast. We had lots of old friends, lots of fondue, and LOTS of feces shooting out of our shower drain. Here we go again...

We called out the plumber who walked in, looked around, said he couldn't help, then left. Wait... what? Turns out, there is no access to the main sewage drain to clean it out, so he had to leave until one was installed. An hour later, another plumber shows up to run a GPS down our toilet to find a spot in the yard where he can access the pipe and install the clean out. The opening in our toilet wasn't big enough... so this happened.



The plumbers located the main pipe in our front lawn, and they told us we could dig it out ourselves if we wanted to save some money. Save money? YES! Easier said than done, because after a few hours we only got this far.



The ground was rock hard and no matter how many times we filled the hole with water to soften the dirt, it just didn't work. We gave up and had the plumber come back and dig it up. There's is NO way we would have been able to do this. It took him four hours and LOTS of power tools.



Four feet later, they reached the pipe!






They broke that sucker open, installed the clean out valve, and to save money... we got to fill the hole in.



Overall, this whole process took three days, and more money than I care to mention. Turns out, there WAS a clean out valve at one point, but the previous home owners planted a palm tree on top of it. Genius. I hate those palm trees....