Blessed

This past weekend was awesome. The best weekend I have had while pregnant. J and I decided to finally have the get away we had planned for early December, which we canceled because we found out I was pregnant. We stayed in a lovely B&B in Luray, VA. We had reserved one of their cottages, which meant we had an entire mini-house all to ourselves. Our cottage backed to a small farm with lots of cows. It had just been birthing season, so there were all these baby cows that were playing. It was really enjoyable to watch. We found some nice local places to eat, and breakfast was delivered to our door via picnic basket each morning. It was so lovely just to get away from all the busyness and just be with one another.

On Saturday, we decided to go to the Luray caverns. It was off-season, so we had a pretty small tour group, which was nice.

I think one of the funniest parts of the tour was when our guide asked if anyone has any questions. A little boy raises his hand, and you can just tell that the mom is so happy her son has taken an interest, so she's encouraging him to ask his question. His question: "When is the tour going to be over?" haha. J and I got quite a kick out of it. The poor mother was mortified. The rock formations were really cool, and a little creepy. But, it was amazing how big the caverns were.

I loved the drapery rock formations. So neat.

After lunch, we did the garden maze at Luray, which is essentially a corn maze with trees instead of corn. It was actually really fun to do, especially since nothing was crowded.

I was actually pretty tired by the time we got back on Sunday, despite how relaxing the weekend was. I was so happy we did the trip and J and I agreed that it was a lot of fun.

I am feeling... okay. I still have nausea, especially in the evenings. I threw up Sunday evening, but I had gone a whole week without doing that, so that was fine. I am kind of accepting this low level of nausea as a new normal for me. I was reading back through my journal on Sunday night, and I came across one of my prayers, dated 11/3/2013 (excerpt): "I pray that you would guide us in the decision to have a family. And I pray that direction would be made clear." My pregnancy started 8 days later. That just amazed me. As much as I have struggled through the past 19 weeks, we have been extremely blessed. God has given me strength and perseverance that I have never known. And I am finally feeling a few kicks. :) So, no matter what happens, even if I am nauseous the rest of the pregnancy (as some women are), it will be okay. I love the little life inside me. There is a ton to do before August, but I am so excited to meet this new member of our family. Our anatomy scan is Friday. I have been so nervous about it. Not because of the gender thing. But because I want our little baby to be healthy. And I have to keep remembering to just trust God through it. He got us this far. :)

Puppy Love

Hello! Can you believe it's snowing? Again!?! Ugh! I am SO over this winter. It doesn't help that my morning sickness pretty much started with the cold and lasted the whole winter. I think I have a mental association between snow and throwing up. Hopefully, this is the LAST one! As promised, I am back with a post about the stuffed puppy I have been making (and you can too!).

I showed you these in progress pictures in my last post.

I made the puppy using Haan Crafts. Here is the final result!

The puppy backstory: Back in December 2012, J's mom sent him home with a box of old stuffed animals from his childhood. When we were going through it, J exclaimed, "Puppy!" (this would be the puppy on the right in the picture below). Puppy was not quite finished though, and still had some straight pins in him. He was a home economics project back in middle school. I sewed him up (and fixed some less than quality stitching). Well, then I wanted to sew a puppy of my own (at $10/pup, the price is right). So, I sewed the puppy on the left (let's hold off on the judgement - J and I are young at heart). When I found out I was pregnant, I realized our kiddo would need a puppy of his/her own. So, I ordered a new kit from Haan.

The new puppy turned out quite a bit bigger than the other two (I guess I didn't use as thick of a seam), which has made us giggle a bit. The "baby" puppy is bigger than the other two. :)

Anyway, we love our new puppy and hope our baby does too!

As for how I am doing (if you are curious)... On the whole, I am doing better. I went 6 days this week without throwing up. I was a little disappointed to lose it again, but I wasn't all that surprised. This week (week 17), I have started craving meat. Considering this is supposed to be a food aversion, I find this a little weird. I am thinking it means I am low on protein. But, I have been eating a lot of eggs, chicken, and beef this week. It's weird, but carbs kind of gross me out right now. Except fruit. I am enjoying fruit at the moment (especially watermelon and bananas). I also really enjoy celery and milk (considering I never really liked bananas, milk or meat before, I find this all a little funny). I am continuing to workout nearly every day, which is nice. When the weather was nice, I would take some nice walks. Walking has helped with the nausea and my overall mood. It's nice that it's a little lighter later now. I did have a vivid dream that our baby was a girl. It surprised me quite a bit since I have been thinking it’s a boy. I am getting so excited for the gender scan. I wish it would be here sooner! I have felt some movement, but it's sort of feels like being tickled from the inside. Nothing strong yet. I do have an anterior placenta, so that may be why I don't feel too much yet. I'm hoping I start feeling more consistent movement soon though! Oh, and 2 nights ago, something a little funny happened. I was sleeping and must have had a nightmare (common in pregnancy), and I started screaming in my sleep. Well, this woke J up:

J: "What's wrong?"
Me: "There's someone in the hall?"
J: "Who's in the hall?"
Me: "Mimes"
J: "What?!"
Me: "Mimes" (I fall asleep)

When we talked about it the next morning, I could not stop laughing about it.

Anyway, hope you are all doing well!

Organizing, rearranging and cleaning

Hello readers! Enjoying Spring Forward? I must admit it took me by surprise. I had a friend stay over, and I was super confused when she wanted to say goodbye at 8:30 when she said she would leave at 9:30. It took me another hour to make the connection. I am looking forward to some daylight in the evenings though.

I'll update you all with some pregnancy and house updates. I took this photo around 16.5 weeks (I'm now 17 weeks). I'm definitely getting a bump, although I've only gained a pound since my 12 week visit. I'm still heavier than I have ever been in my life, so that's a little weird for me.

 I'm still vomiting. That seems to be the question that everyone has. "Still?" "Yes, still." I'm going longer, though. I can go 2 days without throwing up. The third day isn't so great though. I still have a lot of nausea. But, I still have hope that it will get better. I have been tremendously touched by the people who contacted me after my last post. You all have encouraged me and helped me through this rather difficult time. I really love you guys!

J and I are in the process of getting the house in order. I have been slowly fixing things around the house. Like this hook for our bathroom that I had broken (I forgot to show the fixed hook but you get the idea).

And I patched up some cracks in the walls.

I'm also in the process of making a puppy for the baby. I'm going to dedicate a separate post to this once it's done though.

We (J) also did a fair amount of re-arranging in the basement. We are slowly moving everything from the baby room down to the basement. The big picture moved to the opposite wall from where it was.

And the TV stand was moved from the extra bedroom to the pool room, where our old TV now lives. I actually like this arrangement way better than the way we had it before.

This will be where the big bookcase will go.

J moved the white bookshelf from the baby room down to the extra bedroom.

This will be where the desk will go. (By the way, anyone in the area should feel free to volunteer to help J move the big bookcase and desk down 2 floors. We can pay you in beer). :)

I've also been making the house a bit safer for us. For one, I installed a new fire alarm/carbon monoxide detector down in the basement.

I also installed a carbon monoxide detector on the main floor and bought 2 new ones for the upstairs (since the ones we have currently are a bit dated). J has also been what I can only assume is the equivalent of nesting. He has been organizing and going through all his papers and random items that we moved here and haven't looked at since. It's really nice to have the house finally organized instead of having stuff in random places all over the house. We also realized there is a fair amount that we don't use and can either store in the attic (sentimental value) or donate to goodwill. We both went through all of our old college notes and got rid of stuff that we both thought we would never need again. Doing that freed up space in our bookshelves, which was really nice. Our joint goal is to have the baby room empty by the time I hit 20 weeks (in 3 weeks). Once we know the gender, I know I will want to start painting and getting the nursery ready. :) I'll keep you guys updated as we get the house in order. Last Friday, I finally got motivation to clean, and I cleaned the whole house top to bottom (which made throwing up on the bathroom floor on Saturday night even more frustrating). I figure this delays me a little while before hiring a maid... Until next time!