Let's see...last Wednesday I had another OB appt. I have officially graduated to going to the Dr. every 2 weeks now! We've tagged third base and we're on our way home now...

I had a Glucose Tolerance test, which I'm assuming I did okay on because they didn't call me to come back in and I felt great the whole time. Andy and I did basic stuff like hearing the heartbeat, etc. We were also told that she has moved into place now and I hope she settles there and stays that way! I also had a lovely cervical exam and found out I was NOT dilated yet - yay. I gained three pounds, I believe, so total weight gain is around 7.5/8lbs. Right now I am 29 weeks and the baby is measuring about 5 days bigger, so either we're off on the due date or she's going to be a big baby!

We are still undecided on names, but Andy is leaving all next week for a trade show in Nashville that he has to go to for work, but he is planning on taking all the baby name books. I've already finished reading them and am happy with our 2 names choices, but I want him to read the rest of them to see if anything else pops out at him. I want to have a name picked by our first baby shower because that is the big question everyone asks you!

And speaking of baby showers, Amanda worked super hard this weekend and got all the invites for the Indy shower out yesterday, so everyone should start receiving them soon! I look forward to seeing them because they sounded really cute over the phone!

Valentine's Day/weekend was wonderful this year and I hope everyone else enjoyed theirs, too. Andy and I relaxed all day on Saturday and ran errands. Then he asked me what I wanted to do for dinner and of course, I was being a bit crabby about it because I hate thinking about cooking food or figuring out what won't give me heartburn. So I walked into our kitchen and he had a whole dinner (not made yet) laid out on the island. He had 2 strip steaks, a baked potato, rolls, and a spinach salad with apples and feta. It was all so very sweet! And he had hid the whole thing from me in the fridge and cabinets! But, that morning I had come down with a really bad cold/allergies and wasn't feeling too well, so we decided to put off this dinner until Monday evening. So, we went to good old McDonalds and got ourselves some dinner there instead. Andy also presented me with a couple gifts and a sweet card. He bought me this amazing necklace that I wanted so bad to wear now and to my baby showers. It is supposed to represent a seed growing or something like that, but regardless, I loved it and what it meant to me becoming a new mother. He also got our daughter a new sock monkey for her nursery. It is really cute with more of pastel colors and what not. So, Monday rolled around and he made me a wonderful steak dinner and he made a fire and we watched The Bachelor (of course). It was perfect. Thanks, sweetie!

Andy and the baby have also come up with a little "game" they like to play in the middle of the night. He pushes on my stomach until he wakes her up and then she pushes him back. They go back and forth and it's really the sweetest thing ever. I honestly believe she is sitting in there giggling and knowing that she is playing with her daddy. But, really, it's so cute and I love that they do it.

I have been sick all week with a cold, etc. and yesterday morning I woke up shaking for like 10 minutes and couldn't stop. I felt like I was freezing, but I didn't have a fever. Andy and I went into the dr. that morning, and basically I just have a virus and have to let it run it's course. My heart rate was super high though. One time it was 122 and another time it was 148! But, that's when Jack was in the room with me running around while the Dr. was trying to talk to me and I think he made my heart rate skyrocket! I have a rapid heart beat anyway, so it wasn't really a surprise to me or anything alarming and the dr. didn't think anything of it. I'm definitely out of shape, carrying more weight than usual, and have higher levels of stress. It could be from any of those, really.

That's all. Andy will be leaving me for 6 days starting on Tuesday so please keep me company and check on me while he is gone!

Apparently, I am seriously slacking on my blog. I don't agree, but Andy called me from work and told me I needed to write another blog update. I do have stuff to chat about, but I am NOT a slacker! : )

Tomorrow I will be 7 months along and I cannot believe how the time has flown by. I am really enjoying being pregnant. It's amazing to feel something inside of you moving all the time. She has been much, much more active lately. I can actually feel her kicking when I am at work and moving around. She seems to go crazy when I am around alot of people, so we are hoping she will be a social butterfly like me. : ) She is also lying in certain places and we can feel those, too. She's really pushing against me pretty hard these days. After my first three months of misery, I am really starting to like this pregnancy thing. Andy has even requested that I be pregnant all the time. Uh, no. But, with every pregnancy and every hormone imbalance, there are good days and bad days. Here is a list of what I think the good things of pregnancy are and the bad things:

Good Thing:

getting my belly rubbed all the time by Andy

Bad Thing:

random people wanting to rub your belly, even 50 year old bar owners...

Good Thing:

shorter shifts at work!

Bad Thing:

shorter temper and lower tolerance when dealing with the public

Good Thing:

getting asked a million questions and getting to answer them/tell stories

Bad Thing:

people's opinions of names; hearing pregnancy/labor horror-stories. Who does that, really?? Shut up.

Good Thing:

food!

Bad Thing:

trying to decide what food I actually want to eat...my apologies to everyone having to deal with this (mostly Andy!).

Good Thing:

baby showers, friends, and family

Bad Thing:

stressing out about address spreadsheets, registering, and traveling.

Good Thing:

getting kicked by the baby/feeling her move

Bad Thing:

getting scared or jumping everytime she does it!

Good Thing:

No more nausea!

Bad Thing:

hellish heartburn

Anyway, these are just a few of the joys/sorrows of pregnancy. You take the good with the bad, and for me, the good always outweighs the bad.

Again we have been talking more and more about names. And yes, I did buy a silly book from Barnes and Noble, but it was quite the conversation piece last weekend when we had people over for the Superbowl. But, I like different names because it can spark an idea of how to change that name and make it your own. We do have two front-runners, though, and one of them is very recent. Stella is one we've had FOREVER. I remember sitting in the McDonalds drive-thru with Jack and asking him to say the name Stella. This was way back when I found out I was pregnant. Andy takes credit for thinking of this name, but it has always been one in the back of my head, too. I was really set on "A" names because I wanted my daughter's initials to be the same as Andy's, which are AKH. Since I knew we would be using my mom's name (Kathleen) as the middle, I thought an "A" name would be perfect. We both loved Abigail and Ava, but soon learned they were two of the most popular names in the last couple years. I even wanted a couple names of Andy's past "loves", Anna and Allison, as I think those names are very pretty and simple. But, as time went on, I let go of the "A" name idea and have looked on to other wonderful options. Back to Stella...we absolutely love this name. It's funny, though, because my boyfriend all throughout high school had a mother who was originally from Poland and she would always call me Stella. It was sort of a slang Polish term for a girl. My mom thought this was a riot, also, and would call me Stella, too. Obviously, you know that my mom passed away from cancer in 1997 and sadly, Erick's mom passed away from cancer, too, in 2007. So, in a way, the name keeps wonderful spirits alive and I think it would be a neat story for our daughter to know about. The other name that recently came about and we both are really liking is Nola. I have liked this name ever since I saw the movie Matchpoint, which is one of my favorite movies. It offers a pretty dark story, but the name is absolutely beautiful. It's the name of Scarlett Johannsen's character, who ends up being killed at the end of the movie, but the name is still lovely. See how much you have to really think about these names? It's so stressful!! So, it's between those two.

What else...?

We have a dr. appt. on Wednesday morning for the lovely glucose-tolerance test, so let's hope that goes well! I received my own invite for my first baby shower (the NWI one) and they were gorgeous! I want to thank Nicole, even though I have already told her this, for doing such a wonderful job on them and basically doing exactly what I would have wanted and I didn't even give her any clues. That's a BFF. So, if you received one, please note that my best friend Nicole created these! I've also been working with Amanda on my Indy baby shower on invites this past weekend. Her and I went out shopping to a couple stores to find the ingredients to make the invites. I think we just may have it and after that, I am setting her and Autumn free to handle the rest. I am officially on pre-maternity leave and no longer watch kids during the day. I still work about 12-15 hours a week at the pharmacy, but like I said, I love my new shifts and schedule. Anyway, my little Chloe started preschool today so my last day watching her was on Friday. I had to be done watching kids sometime, as it was becoming stressful and harder for me to do things. Jack is also staying home with his mom now during the day, but I am still taking him on Wednesdays because God knows I gotta have my time with that little devil. I seriously missed the kid. He is such my little buddy around the house when it's just me and him and I love it. We have awesome conversations. He tells me stories and about the dreams he has. We talk back and forth like adults. He's also really good about helping me with things like letting Roxanne outside and in for potty breaks and he also feeds her. He gets the mail for me, brings me dirty dishes, throws his garbage away, and cleans his room. Small blessings...let me tell you. But hopefully he will be starting PreK soon, too, as he starts kindergarten in August.

This was all a big ramble, but that's what I do when you get me started. Andy and I will write more after our dr. appt. and about the upcoming baby showers and name decisions.

you can call me nannerpuss....

so, no new news on the baby name front. jenni and i went to get some MORE baby name books this weekend, and picked up a few. one of the ones jenni picked could be considered "unconventional", and had a section of video game names and rapper names. we'll see how that goes, though we have found a few new options. naming kids is stressful. but we've set a target date of march, and i know jenni will hold me to it, so we should have a final decision by then. then i can start calling the baby by name, instead of just "her". and speaking of "her", she has been kicking a ton, which is always fun. she's been pretty active the last 4 or 5 days i'd say, and she was doing her thing last night at bedtime, so that was cool as always. anyone who knows jenni knows how jumpy she is, and it's pretty damn funny how it makes her jump when she gets kicked. and with that said, anyone who knows jenni knows her temper and knows how mad she gets when she gets scared, so it's funny to see her contain herself. i'm looking forward to when she is a bit bigger and we get to see the arm or foot push up and move across jennis' belly. good stuff.
i was talking to jenni the other night and realized that i will now have a new person to get valentine's gifts for. i never thought of it before, having just boys and all, but when i was thinking of valentine's presents, i was like, oh wait, i'll definitely have to get something for the little girl. kinda realized that this will be one of the million of new things with this being a girl this time around. i'm a little freaked out by that fact, but excited. just want to make sure i do all the "daddy's girl" things.
Speaking of spending time with the little girl, jenni and i had a few people over and watched the super bowl. sorry arizona, sorry edge. it would have been nice to see you get a ring, but i wasn't mad as i do like me some pittsburgh. not a roethlisberger fan, but i love the steelers defense. even though they have burned the colts more than once, i still like em. there were some upset people in the house when jenni kept cheering for the steelers, but what can you do. and if you watched the superbowl, you saw the awesome nannerpuss in the above photo. it's a lot like the hot dog octopi that i used to make my boys, except mine didn't sing a song. a super awesome song. i think that's why i liked it so much, it reminded me of that song i loved from snl, like the only funny thing that they have done in about 6 years. not the subject of the song, but the music. whatever. it's snowing here, so the song is appropriate. http://www.spike.com/video/snl-christmas-song/2783184