Better late than never

I wanted to blog about our weekend last week but I just haven't gotten around to it. It's been a hectic week andi it's only Wednesday. I was in a 2 day training seminar the last two days and by the time I got home I was exhausted.

This weekend was a very relaxing weekend, it was just Tom and I. Brandon started a new job at the Moracco, a restaurant near our house. He's going to be bussing tables and washing dishes. Hopefully they can give him some pointers and he can start doing dishes at home. LOL

So it was just Tom and I all weekend, it was pretty quiet up there with only 2 or 3 campers around us. Friday night we enjoyed dinner at the club house, we were too lazy to cook our brats we brought up so we headed up for Bluegill, but it wasn't on the menu anymore. I was very disappointed and settled with cod. It was OK, not as good as the bluegill. We had to wait forever for our food and usually they are pretty good, not tonight, we waited over a 1/2 hour just for our salad and bread. And I was starving so I was getting a little cranky.  By the time we got done it was dark out so we headed back to start a fire. We didn't last long because I was tired and wanted to go to bed but it was a beautiful night.

Saturday we slept in and enjoyed the peace and quiet. We got up and made breakfast, bacon and eggs, and then decided to take a road trip to Prairie Du Chein. They have a really cute/fun store called The Canary, it has everything, even an ice cream and chocolate shop. We ended up with a few Halloween items. I can't wait to decorate for Halloween however I don't want the cold weather to come. After The Canary we headed to Cabela's we were after some new chairs and we found a sale! So we ended up with 2 new camping chairs then headed to the campgrounds in Prairie called Sportsmen's club or something like that. Tom and Noreen, my aunt and uncle are permanent there and have been for some time. We camped there once so we decided to drive through to say hi if they were camping. We found there site and only Tom was there, Noreen was in town shopping, go figure, so we chatted with Tom for a while then headed back. On the way out of town I wanted some ice cream so we stopped back at The Canary finally I found the website so you can check it out. We stopped for an ice cream cone, they have the best ice cream aside from Beecher's frozen yogurt. We each had a waffle cone with 2 scoops. I had Moosetracks and caramel waffle and Tom had moosetrack and caramel pecan, I think. Both were delicious.

We got back to Whitetail about 4:30 and set up our new chairs for the race and the Bears game. We can bring our TV from the camper outside and mount it on the camper. It's super cool and unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the TV but I got a picture of the chairs.

It ended up being a cool night so I snuggled up with a blanket and read some of my "expecting" books while Tom watched the TV.  We got a fire started shortly after dinner, we had steaks and cheesy hashbrowns, we threw everything for the cheesy hashbrown in a crock pot before we left for Prairie and it worked out great. They were so yummy! So were the steaks.

Our fire was beautiful. Tom threw in some Xmas lights that, of course don't work anymore, and they make the prettiest flames. We had to share the pictures.

We slept in again on Sunday morning, it feels so good to sleep and not have to get up for anything! We got home about 2:00 and cleaned the house and did some laundry.

We are looking forward to this weekend, Labor Day! We have a 3 day weekend and we will be camping! The last 2 holiday weekends were not spent camping. Memorial Day weekend we had to come home for Micayla's graduation and 4th of July weekend we were coming home from California. We are not complaining, we wouldn't have missed any of this for nothing. We are just excited to spend this holiday weekend at Whitetail with out any interruptions.

8 Weeks

Today was the big day I've been waiting for, our 8 week ultrasound, it was amazing. We got to see our little peanut. We didn't get to hear a heartbeat beat but we sure got to see it, it was fluttering away at 171 BPM. The technician said everything looked perfect and was right on track.

Our baby's webbed fingers and toes are poking out from his/her's hands and feet. He/she is about the size of a kidney bean and baby H is constantly moving and shifting, though I can't feel it, but we could sure see baby H moving in our u/s. It's amazing how they grow and develop.

Tom and I had an amazing day today, I got off work at 12:15 and went home to pick him up and headed up to Finley for our appointment. When we got there, Tom's mom and dad and my mom were all in the hall way waiting to go into the office along with about 10 other people. The door was locked to get into the doctor's office, which was very odd, but we all figured they were at lunch and would be back at any moment, finally about 1:05 someone came out and didn't realize the door was locked, she blamed it on one of the doctor's. So we all headed into the office and I was the only one there for an ultrasound so I got right in. The first thing I said was I have family members here who I would like in the room with me. I did call up the day before to ask if it was alright and they said that was fine. Well the tech was like "you know this is a vaginal u/s right?" I said yes and that was fine, it's not like they can see anything. And who care's for that matter we've all seen it before! LOL So after I got all situated and ready to go the tech called in everyone. Here come's my husband, mother & father-in-law and my mother. They all squeezed into the room and we got started. It was quite funny actually but once we got to see that baby it was all worth it. After several scans and pictures we were done. Tom and I met with the nurse to go over our family history and any questions we had. The nurse was super nice and knew exactly what she was talking about. I did have to go to the lab to have 2 test done that were not done in Iowa City, so we stopped there on our way out.

After we left we stopped over at Grandma's she was so excited to see us. She loved seeing the pictures of little baby H and I'm so glad she's around to see all this. We sat and chatted with her for a while and then headed out to get a pedicure and manicure. It was so relaxing and it felt so good to get pampered. Both of us got mani's and pedi's, Tom has never had a mani and I think he really liked it.

After being pampered we headed to the mall to putz around. I ended up buying a few things at Bath & Body works but that was it. It was now about 5:00 and I was getting hungry so we headed down town to Vinny Vanucchi's for some good pasta. We walked around downtown before going to eat but we couldn't wait long, so we headed in for dinner. I got the Seafood Italiano and Tom got Pasta Ala Vinny, both were delicious. Oh and we ended our dinner with a Taramisu dessert, yummy!

We headed home after that and relaxed on the couch, I was in bed at 9:00! Its getting earlier and earlier every night but I love the rest and how I feel in the mornings.

I've decided to try teaching Jazzercise again. I did ask the nurse and she said it was fine as long as I wasn't overdoing it. I will be doing 2 classes a week, one aerobic class, which I will do low impact, and the 2nd class will be a body sculpting class, which I won't be doing much sculpting myself as my baby growing inside me will be doing that for me, however some muscle work will not hurt me by any means, so I'm going to give it a shot and if I feel I can't do it then I will tell them I can't. I'm not afraid, I know I have to protect this baby!

Starting in a couple of weeks I think I will starting taking weekly pictures. I'm already feeling like a balloon sometimes and I guess I better start tracking this little baby's progress.

Brandon's 1st day of High School

Today is Brandon's big day, his first day of High School at Senior High! Can you believe it? I can't, he was just finishing 4th grade at Irving when I came into his life, crazy how time flies.  He seemed excited to start school again, at least I didn't hear any grumbling when I woke him up this morning, we'll see how tomorrow and the rest of the week goes. Good luck Brandon!

This weekend we stayed home from camping, we had lots going on. Friday night was Dubuque and All That Jazz, we  haven't been to one of these in forever and our Jazzercise group was doing a FLASH MOB check it out! It was so much fun, unfortunately, I wasn't a part of it because I have not been Jazzin since Vegas. I'm waiting to talk to the doctor on Wednesday to find out if it's a good idea or not. The docs in Davenport said I could do low impact, but I'm just really nervous until I find out that everything is OK after my first ultrasound. Speaking of U/S, I had a crazy dream last night about it, it was kind of scary, I won't go into details, this was a first of scary/crazy dreams. I've heard they just get worse. Great, can't wait.

After All That Jazz, we went home and crashed, I was tired, even though it was only 9:30 or so, I tried staying up to watch a movie with Tom but I was out within about 10 minutes.

Saturday we got to sleep in and it felt great, I got up about 9:30 or so and made breakfast, sausage and eggs, then started to clean the house, it was much needed. That took us to about 3:30, we got showered up and ready for the Corn Boil at Judy and Mike's house in Dickeyville, WI. She's a Jazzercise instructor and they have a corn field in there back yard and every year around this time they have a corn boil. We usually are camping and since we decided this year to go we stayed home. Tom whipped up a delicious pasta salad to take with us and they had hamburgers and just a ton of food. Oh and of course, sweet corn, it was so good. The only bad thing was it was raining. We headed home about 8:30 and again I crashed when I got home.

We got up early the next morning to go to church, it's been forever since we've been and it felt good. After mass, everyone shakes hands or hugs the pastor and he always gives me a hug and he said "I heard some good news about you and Tom the other day" and he gave me a big hug, it was awesome! I said lots and lots of prayers for good things to come. That afternoon we headed over to East Dubuque where they had a benefit for the flood victims. They had different bands, food and vendors. Linda and her sister made necklaces and they sold quite a bit and half the profits went towards the flood victims. It was beautiful day out. We headed home about 3:30 so Tom could take a nap before work that night.

I'm so looking forward to this week, only 2 more days of my Progesterone shots, today and tomorrow, and Wednesday is our big ultrasound day. We have decided to ask our mother's along and I think they are both coming! I think I'm more nervous now that they are coming, just because I hope all is OK with the baby. I just haven't had any "real" symptoms yet and that scares me, but everything I read says it's normal, everyone is different but it all lies in God's hands. I keep praying every night! More to come on Wednesday!

7 Weeks

Yesterday marked my  7th week of being pregnant. I wish I could say the time is flying but it really isn't.

Well, my baby's hands and feet are emerging from developing arms and legs - although they look more like paddles at this point than the tiny, pudgy extremities I'm daydreaming about holding and tickling. My baby is still technically considered an embryo and has something of a small tail, which is an extension of his/her tailbone. The tail will disappear within a few weeks, however its the only thing getting smaller. Everything else doubled in size since last week and now measures half an inch, about the size of a blueberry.

I'm still feeling great, the constipation has backed off, thank God, because that was painful, however I think it will be back. I'm guessing the grapefruit juice I'm drinking every morning is helping so I'm just going to stick with that for now. I have been peeing a lot! Last night at Los Aztecaz, I think I was in the bathroom at least 5 times in the hour and a half I was there. But I did have at least 3 glasses of water but wow, that's a lot of bathroom trips in one evening.

I haven't had an nausea yet, I'm hoping this will pass me right by, but I have a feeling I'm might not be so lucky, but time will tell.

I have been pretty hungry lately and I think it's starting to catch up with me, I really need to be cautious about what I put in my mouth. But everything I think I'm hungry for, I'm not, if that makes any sense. I will be hungry for something but after I eat whatever it is, I don't feel satisfied. Now at lunch today, I had a bacon cheeseburger from A&W and wow, it was so good and I feel satisfied and stuffed! LOL

Next week is the big ultrasound day, I'm getting nervous but excited at the same time. And Tuesday is supposed to be my last day of my Progesterone shot so I'm super excited about that. I think Wednesday after our U/S Tom and I are going to treat ourselves to massages. I'm not sure yet if I can get the rest of the afternoon off but if not we'll do something special that night. Next week is going to be so exciting!

Weekend recap

Weekends go by way too fast, I can't believe it's already Monday, however I'm thankful it's going fast because I'm anxious for the 24th!

This weekend was another beautiful camping weekend, we got up to Whitetail about 5:30 Friday night and got all settled in and on our way up to Whitetail, we stopped and picked up fried chicken at the Potosi gas station. We've heard it was delicious and whoever told us that was right, it was very good. I was only disappointed because they don't have mashed potatoes and gravy and I was kind of looking forward to that. Who has fried chicken without mashed potatoes and gravy? We ended up getting a macaroni salad and coleslaw, they were both very good. We got 12 pieces of chicken in hopes to have leftovers. Brandon brought a friend up, Keiffer, and the two of them  hung out all weekend walking around the campgrounds scoping "chicks" out. We didn't see them too much this weekend only when they were hungry or thirsty.

After dinner we headed across the street to visit with the others, Tom started drinking Captain and cokes and I had water. It was a chilly night outside but a perfect one while sitting by the fire. Me and couple other girls went for a golf cart ride and we left the guys hanging by the camper, listening to music and when we got back, I don't know what got into Tom but he was hammered! He could hardly talk or walk and it was only like 10:30 at night. I don't know what got into him because he only had a few Coke's left and me being sober, I wasn't too happy. So he kept getting louder and louder and finally I said "come on, we are going to bed" We walked over to the camper with a little help from Jeremy, our neighbor, and into the camper we went and unfortunately he didn't make it to the bed, he made it to the couch. I haven't seen him this bad since we were at The Ozark's and if you were there you know what I mean, maybe he wasn't that bad but I wasn't too happy. At one point I was in the bathroom and next thing I know, I hear something and have no idea what it was. Here it was Tom trying to get out of the camper and fell down and he's lying outside on the patio and the screen door handle is broke. I wasn't too happy and was about to leave him there because I can't pick him up but he did get up on his home and made it back to the couch again. I went to bed and next thing I hear is him banging his foot against something then banging his foot on the floor. He was freaking the dog out because she jumped up on the bed with me and this not like Patches, so her and I slept in the bed together. Finally I was sick of whatever Tom was kicking so I made him get into bed and there he crashed. Oh and one other thing, while we were on our golf cart ride, I left Patches with Tom and come to find out that one our neighbors took patches and put her in our camper and I left the leftover chicken out on the counter. You guessed it, Patches got about 4 pieces of chicken, bone and all. Not the best thing for dogs and you she could not stop "shitting" Saturday morning! Thank God, she didn't puke or anything the camper then I would have been really pissed.
Here's a scary picture of Tom passed out on the couch. I didn't realize his eyes were open, kind of creepy.

The next morning I got up and made breakfast because I was starving and Jeremy came over with the lawn mower so I made Tom get up and help mow the lawn. He actually didn't feel as awful as I thought  he was going to and the first thing he asked was "what did you put in my drink" LOL I made him one drink! Come to find out Jeremy was mixing him Jack and Coke's and if anyone knows Tom, he's NOT a whiskey drinker so that's why he was so drunk. Also come to find out that "thing" he was kicking was the side window, the window was open however he managed to kick the screen out of its track so Tom has lots of work to do next time we are up there.

Saturday was a little rainy off and on, when I woke up around 6:30 to let the dog out, there was a beautiful rainbow over the campers. I managed to get a picture.

It was a quite Saturday night, it was another beautiful night for a fire, this time we had our own fire, but did go and visit the neighbor's for a while until we were ready to eat. We had hot dogs over the fire, one of my favorite meals camping. It was an early night. There were bands playing all day on Saturday so we hung up at the pool area for a while but we could hear them just as good from our campsite.

Sunday morning we got up, made breakfast and headed home. The Hendricks picnic was at noonish so we came home, showered and out the door we went. I had Tom made the pasta salad Friday before we left for camping so everything would be ready to go. It was a gorgeous day out. We stayed until about 3:30, Tom was supposed to work early but that canceled so he got to go in at his regular time so he went home and headed for bed, after my shot of course.

Here's a picture of dad wearing mom's hat. She was in her wheelchair all afteroon.

I don't think I blog about our last weekend camping, it was quite interesting on Saturday afternoon, 27 girls all went tubing. I don't have any pictures of this because my camera or phone would have definitely gotten wet but it was so peaceful and relaxing. We went down the grant river and for $10, it was well worth it. We got to stop about 3 different times, there were a few beaches up but it was a busy day, lots of tubers and canoes out. I actually didn't have to pay because my friend, Ellen, brought a friend who had a couple tubes we could use so it didn't cost us anything. It was about a 4 hour trip, we could have made it in about 2 1/2 hours but we took our time. Once we got back, Tom and Linda, we there to spend the night with us. Now that I'm typing this I might have blogged about it, but no pictures. Anyways, right after dinner, I was asked to drive a couple girls to an accident. I guess one of the girls who was canoeing decided to drive home, to let her dog out, with 2 young girls, one was her daughter and the other was a friends' daughter. I was the only sober one, so off we went. It was about 15 minutes away on the way to DBQ where the accident was, all I can say is they were lucky! The girl driving had no business behind the wheel of the car, here's a few pictures.

This car could have rolled and rolled but thank God it didn't. It's a windy road and they are very lucky. When we got there the girl driving, Amy, was charged with DUI and she possibly could receive felony charges because in Wisconsin if you are driving drunk with minors, it's a felony, so this girl has a long road ahead of her. I don't really know who she is but she's a friend of a friend and was tubing with us and you know how the sun and alcohol mix. She should not have been driving.

6 Weeks

Today I am 6 weeks pregnant, I think I will start taking pictures when I'm about 12 weeks, I don't think if I started now you would be able to see anything but fat, so I'm waiting!

My baby is making major developments: The nose, mouth, and ears that I will be spending much time kissing in about 8 months are beginning to take shape. My baby has an oversized head and dark spots where the baby's eyes are marked my small depressions on the sides of the head, and the arms and legs are beginning to protrude. Also the heartbeat should be beating now, almost twice as fast as mine. Right now he/she is the size of a lentil, not quite sure what that is but it's about half the size of a quarter when I looked at one.

I have been feeling pretty good, no nausea or anything, but I have been constipated, I know TMI right? Well, the last week or so I've been having a hard time going to the bathroom and my bowels are just going stir crazy. Today is actually the first day in about 2 weeks that I feel good! I was told to drink grapefruit juice or of course prune juice, but I refuse to drink that because my Grandma used to make us drink it. So I bought some pink grapefruit juice last night and had a glass last night and this morning and so far so good. I have to start watching what I eat because I think everything I put in my body affects me and my baby.

I have also been really tired lately, last night I was in bed at 8:00 but fell asleep on the chair at 7:00. I just couldn't keep my eyes open so I laid down and went to sleep. I felt great this morning!

I can't wait for my ultrasound on the 24th, two more weeks!

The weather has been perfect this week, highs in the upper 70's, lower 80's, we finally got to turn our air off after having it on for over a month. I love the fresh air and getting out for walks. I've been walking at lunch time but trying to get out more after work, I've just been so tired but I know it will get better, right?

5 weeks

Today I am 5 weeks pregnant. I don't know when I should start taking pictures and blogging about them but for now at 5 weeks, no picture! LOL I have to figure out a "spot" to take them. Everyone's blog that I read has a perfect spot picked out and they blog and take pictures of how big they are getting. I love reading them!

So I read today that my baby is the size of a sesame seed, wow that's tiny. I also read some of the symptoms that I may be feeling or will be feeling in the next couple weeks are:

Nausea - nothing yet
Sore Breast - maybe a little but not like I've heard from others.
Frequent urination - yes, definitely.

They say this week, my baby's tiny heart begins to divide in chambers and beat and pump blood, this is so exciting for me and it makes me think about everything I put into my body and what I do with it.

It's also talking about exercising, I got the release from my doctor that I can start low impact exercising, so today at lunch I went for a 2 mile walk with a co-worker, it felt great to get out and do something again. I'm still not teaching Jazzercise, I'm waiting for my first ultrasound on the 24th to make sure everything it growing good and I get the OK that it's OK. So I'm hoping to start teaching in September, however I will only be doing 1 or 2 classes a week, not 3 like I used to and it will we be low impact. I'm just excited to share all this with my customers since they've been on this journey with me.

A few gifts I received!

Wednesday when I found out I was pregnant I had to call everyone who was waiting to hear and one of those people were Nikki and Lexi. I got to wake them up! I called at 10:00 and they were still sleeping and when I told Nikki the news she screamed and Lexi ran into the room to find out what was going on and they were so excited that I woke them up.

Later that day as I was sitting here at my desk I see a vehicle pull up, one that looks like Nikki's, sure enough it was her and Lexi coming in with a little gift. I didn't know if it was for me or not but I had to go out and find out, sure enough it was. Nikki couldn't believe I came out but duh, she parked right in front of my window. I guess she didn't know where my new office was, she thought I was down farther. So her and Lexi came in and saw my office and gave a few things. They gave me a single pink rose and on the card it said:

 In the envelope that came with the flower was a few post it with little special messages on them from Lexi. Here is what they said:

 

 

I told her I'm holding her to each and every one of these. LOL I also got a card in interoffice mail yesterday from my friend Jenny and Eric Harrington, she was my best friend all though High School and now we work together! We try to go out for lunch once every other month or so just to keep in touch. When I told her she ran down here, she works on 3rd floor, to congratulate me. This was right before seeing Nikki and Lexi walking in. The card says:

I am just so excited about all this. I can't wait for my first ultrasound on the 24th of August!

Party at Shari's house

Saturday night we went to Tom's Aunt, Shari's, house for a get together. We were all supposed to be canoeing however with all the rain we got a few days before it was canceled. We were all so bummed because it was a perfect day. The sun was shinning and it was gorgeous, so instead of canoeing we went to Shari's house, since we all were going to bring snacks canoeing we brought them all to Shari's house. Here are a few pictures of the night.

Here is Shari's new patio, they just had this done a few weeks ago, it looks awesome. Later that night we even had a fire, not that we needed one because it was hot enough out but the fire was perfect.

Tom's cousin, Missy, had a bunch of friends over, actually they were all going to canoeing too. She's the wild one, as you can see here they are starting to do "flabongo" shots, they fill the pink flamingo's belly up with beer and drink it as fast as you can. I might have tried it if I wasn't with baby but I know I would be hurt the next day.

This is the famous gigantic "bag" chair, it's a friend of the family's chair, not sure where a chair like this was ever found but we all had our pictures taken in it, here's one of Brandon. He had so much fun with Missy and her friends. They all kept calling him "beibs" like Justin Beiber,  he has the hair like him but refuses to cut it. It's driving us crazy!

And the game called "tippy cup" they got Tom involved in this game. They are all playing on a beer pong table, wow, I'm so out of it because I've never seen one of these tables before nor have played beer pong or tippy cup, but it looked fun and Tom was having a blast.

And one other "thing" these young kids had was called a "dong bong" you can only imagine and only Missy would come up with that name. She's crazy! And yes, that's her holding the dong bong. LOL

 Here's Tom and I in the big chair, my phone camera does not take the best "night" pictures but it does take pretty good "day" pictures.

It was a great night and I'm glad to be the DD. I feel great in the mornings that's one thing I love about not drinking. But I do miss the occasional beer but it's all worth it.