Thanksgiving Weekend

Hope you all had a great weekend filled with yummy food and fun times with loved ones. We had a very low-key holiday. Cooking and eating on Thursday, packing and relaxing on Friday, and decorating on Saturday. Get ready for the photo dump!

Red Lobster biscuits

Pumpkin Pie

Turkey

Aaaaand Andrew ate none of this haha

Sparkling Juices

Starting out the cooking!

Homemade stuffing

Snicker Salad

Green Bean Casserole

Cheesy Potatoes

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

25 & 26 week updates!

How far along?  25.5 weeks!

Total weight gain: Up 3lbs from pre-pregnancy

Maternity clothes?  Oh yeah. Although I’ve been living in old dance shorts and a tank top for a few days haha

Stretch Marks?  Haven’t noticed any new ones so far

Sleep:  Pretty decent. Still shifting throughout the night most nights but not bad.

Best moment this week:  Honestly? Just spending time with my hubby.

Worst moments this week:  Munchkin falling and hitting the same spot on his cheek/ edge of his eye twice within three days.

Miss Anything?  Hard Cider, Moscato, being able to drink at social events…. SUSHI

Movement:  Oh yeah. Lots of soft kicks in my pelvic area, normal kicks above my hip bones and super strong kicks just beneath the center of my ribs. She likes to kick my bladder when I need to pee but am too lazy to get up and also gives me gentle kicks in the ribs when I have bad posture haha

Food cravings:  Hot Cocoa. I’ve had about 5 or 6 cups this week. Also one day I must’ve spaced out and realized at the end of the day that I’d almost entirely survived on sweets. Not good.

Anything making you queasy or sick: The smell around the kitchen sink/ dishwasher and dirty diapers.

Gender:  Girl!

Labor signs:  Nope

Symptoms: Mainly this week it’s been a bit more common for me to get heartburn/ acid reflux, needing to pee – a LOT. And baby girl sometimes likes to nuzzle up into my ribcage in the mornings which gives me TERRIBLE mid back pain until I can get her to shift downwards. Otherwise she pretty much stays down below my belly button.

Belly Button in or out?  Usually it’s nearly flat, sometimes one tiny part of it is pushing outwards.

Wedding rings on or off?  On!

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!!

Looking forward to:  Next weekend’s fun events and getting some answers about what’s next for our family!

Compare with Andrew here!

*******************************************************************

How far along?  26.5 weeks!

Total weight gain: 3 lbs last I checked. 

Maternity clothes?  Yes, and now my non-maternity shirts are starting to not quite cover my belly haha

Stretch Marks?  Haven’t noticed any new ones so far….

Sleep:  Could be better. Have been dealing with a bit of insomnia and combined with soreness, shifting, etc can make nights a bit rough.

Best moment this week:  My first successful attempt at baking bread EVER!

Worst moments this week:  Some issues with our bank account left us broke and because of that we couldn't get to Andrew's weekly music class :-/

Miss Anything?  Hard Cider, Moscato, being able to drink at social events…. SUSHI

Movement:  Lots of kicks and movement. Still pretty often in my pelvic area but getting more common for them to be on my sides.

Food cravings:  Hot cocoa, chocolate, fruit, tacos, anything with onions….it’s pretty odd haha 

Anything making you queasy or sick: Smells and acid reflux.

Gender:  Girl!

Labor signs:  Nope

Symptoms: Sore hips, stiff back until I crack it in the morning, heartburn, still a bit of acid reflux, overheated, strained eyes, stuffy nose, frequent trips to pee, etc haha

Belly Button in or out?  Almost always consistently flat with it poking out just the tiniest bit in the middle. Weirdest thing ever.

Wedding rings on or off?  On!

Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy!! 

Looking forward to:  The weekend! 

Compare to Andrew here!

"Lazy Parenting"

Anybody else immediately panic when you read that kind of a title and wonder if you're going to read on and discover you're the worst parent ever? No? Just me? Okay.

Those were my thoughts when I saw this article on Facebook the other day.

And I feel so much better about life now. It's hard to not feel self-conscious about your parenting skills when you see those perfect Pinterest moms making their own play-doh every day and doing all these activities and stuff.... my kid is an independent soul. I try to play with him but once he's done, he leaves. And it's EXACTLY like I was as a kid. I just wanted to play on my own. I wasn't opposed to playing with others but when I wanted to do something else, I did. 

Andrew plays with his trains and trucks and books and blocks all day long. And while he runs up to me from time to time to show me something or 'talk' or have a cuddle (which I gladly indulge in), he ultimately leaves after a few moments to go do his own thing. It can make me feel like a bad mom but he's a happy, confident little boy. He's growing up to be very strong willed and independent and I kind of love it. So as long as he is happy, we will continue what we are doing :)

Just for giggles ;)

Day Three: When I grow up.....

5 Year Old me:

"...I wanna be a ballerina!"

26 Year old me:

"I want to be a mama for a while, then maybe work for a museum, and finally, become an archaeologist."

I am in love with History. European mainly, the Holocaust and Ancient Egypt being my two biggest passions to study. 

I wrote before not too long ago that I dropped out of college in what would probably be my Junior year. I switched majors so many times from Biology to History to Theater to History again. Credits didn't transfer well from University of Wisconsin-Superior to University of Minnesota-Duluth so I ended up having to kind of repeat a few classes.

Anyways, I believe I only need around 18 credits for History and then I need to finally nail down a minor. I have changed that a billion times as well. I'm thinking of doing either Education or Art History, whatever the online school I use will let me do.

So obviously I am applying to online Universities in the Spring and hoping to take one or two classes each semester until hubby graduates with his Masters (Fall of 2016) and then go full time until I'm done. 

I am writing a novel right now, fictional based on facts from Ancient Egypt. I'd also be interested in writing one about the Holocaust but I should probably wait to finish and have no one publish my first haha ;-P

Ballerina to sitting in the dirt cleaning bones and stuff with a toothbrush. What a change of mind, aye?

Hahaha

TTFN! <3

The weekend!!!

This weekend was pretty chill, but we did manage to have a pretty good time.

Saturday we had nothing planned so we decided to bite the bullet and do the spring cleaning of our balcony. Our apartment management did a really cruddy job with our balcony so it requires a LOT of upkeep. Which we usually don't do haha, we mostly only go out for laundry. BUT it's almost summertime which means we need some good patio-lounging days!

The floor is really badly ridged so mopping leaves a disaster and sweeping only gets so much but we did what we could. We dusted everything prior to sweeping, gave the cushy tiles a good rinse and then laid them out in the corner.

As mentioned in my *previous* post, I splurged and got Andrew a baby pool for the patio-- here it is all set up!!!

Unfortunately we didn't do any grilling but I'm sure we will sometime this week.

Sunday we  headed to the Tampa Bay Yankees game/ kids market.

It was a little touch-and-go at first because we had no idea where we were going and got wrong information from one of the workers BUT we ended up in the right spot. It was Andrew's first baseball game! He got to see the mascot, ate a WHOLE hot dog bun and all, and sat through 3 1/2 innings! Our team was losing pretty bad right around then so it was a good time to duck out anyways haha....

This is the FIRST thing little man did once we pulled out of the lot, I kid you not.

So worn out!!

My super, duper sexy tan lines from the game, lol

After we got home, there were naps all around! Later we ordered pizza and ate in the living room to a Spongebob marathon. Poor little man was so tired, he passed out in about half a second after we put him down for the night.

Hubby and I cleaned up his toys quickly, got the dishes rinsed, scrubbed and in the dishwasher. Then we somehow had the energy to put all of Andrew's outgrown clothes and shoes in the appropriate tubs, hang up and put away all of the clothes, tidy up the bathroom, etc. Our room looks so much better! Now I just have to tackle the desk area tomorrow.

Hubby and Andrew had a little impromptu reading break before putting on PJs :)

TTFN! <3