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.