The Bump and Other Pregnancy Related News

I'll be 35 weeks pregnant this coming Wednesday.  For those of you that hate the "week thing", that would be 8 months pregnant.  We're in the home stretch, people!  I feel bad that I've let the blog go for the past two months, but I feel I have good reason.  Namely:  I'm pregnant and feel like I don't need to justify anything that I do or don't do.  Haha.  I kid.  But for reals, I've thought about blogging all the time, but by the time I sit down to the computer to write, my brain is fried for the day and my back is twitching and the baby is practically BEGGING for me to get ANOTHER ice cream cone.  I may have lost over 10 pounds in the first trimester, but have had NO PROBLEM whatsoever gaining it right back.  :)

Here's a progression of "the bump" for those that are interested:

I've seriously loved my bump throughout the whole pregnancy.  With that being said though, I have to laugh a little when I look at these pictures.  Obviously, only really Dave or I could tell I was pregnant until about 23 weeks.  Before then, it just looked like I had a "food baby".  Weeks 24-30 were what I like to call my "cute bump days".  I felt great.  Not fat, just pregnant, you know?  Then 30 weeks hit and I felt like a house.  I know, I KNOW, I'm small.  So help me, if one more person tells me how small I am I'm going to sit on them and crush them like a bug! "Oh yeah, do I FEEL small!?"  :)  But, I digress...

I still think I look pretty good at this stage.  Definitely starting to get that lovely plump pregnant face.  :)  AND, I know one one else cares, but I have yet to get a single stretch mark on my belly, which I have to admit, I'm astonished by.  I'm not getting my hopes up though.  I'm fully prepared to have a "road map" of a belly by the time this pregnancy is through.  Other than the fact that I'm battling a wicked cold/cough at the moment, I'd say I've been extremely lucky throughout this pregnancy.  Sure, turning over in bed is a chore, and I feel like I never sleep at night (baby likes to have disco parties at night...he's going to be so fun); but I'm just so grateful to be at this stage in my life, that it seems silly to complain about anything.  

Dave has been awesome (as always).  We like to keep things pretty humor heavy (is that even a thing?) over here, which has made pregnancy (and all the wonderful things that come along with it) that much more fun.  For example:  Dave likes to make sound effects for me when I perform almost any task: walking up the stairs and turning over in bed are his favorites.  Also, my new favorite saying is "I'm fat" to which he kindly replies "yeah".  If you know us, then you know that's just how we are.  

I can tell I'm rambling here, but these are just a few things I wanted to document before my pregnant brain forgets them.  Which btw, YEAH..pregnant brain?  Totally a thing.  

We're so close to being done with the nursery.  I'll post pictures soon.  I just need to find my motivation to finish those last few projects.  

AND, because I'm tired and ice cream is calling my name (seriously guys, it's a problem...) I'm going to end this post as abruptly as I can.  There.  

The room is DONE!

I just wanted to document that our room is finally DONE.  We've seriously been working on it since we moved in (almost a year ago), so I'm thrilled to finally have that checked off my list.  Here's some before pictures for those that are interested...

So, what did we do??

Removed wallpaper...NEVER AGAIN

Installed board and batten

Repaired water damage...Ugh

Painted

Repaired water damage a second time...in the same place..

Re-painted water damaged wall

refinished ALL the furniture.  SO time consuming but so worth it!

installed new light fixture

installed new rods/curtains

made a new quilt (BIG thanks to my mom on this one!  She helped me so much!)

Hung my gallery wall (Dave was SO happy about that one...)  :)

Here it is!  What do you think?

I love it.  Which is good because I'm not changing it any time soon.  Like ever.  Too much work.  :) 

Thoughts on Baby Bland and More...

• I'm 21 weeks along in this pregnancy and it's really weird to say that out loud.  We're thrilled of course, I just can't believe we're more than halfway done!  Wow.  
• We had our "big" ultrasound a few days ago and it was seriously so neat.  It was so comforting to hear that everything looked great and that HE's right on schedule!  
• I know I'm biased, but I already think he's adorable.  I know to everyone else he looks like an alien :), but seriously.  

• Can I just say that I hate taking weekly "bump" pictures??  It's super awkward and I always end up looking like a psycho in them.  That being said, my sisters have asked repeatedly to see pictures of me since they are both on missions.  So I finally just started taking some so they could see my nonexistent bump.

• I seem to show a lot more at night.  And YES, I know I'm small.  :)
• I love our dog.  Did you know that!?  ;)  I love that you can see his little face in the picture below.   He's right in front of the Christmas tree.  He sits there for hours and just looks out the window.
  
   
• We got a little gift from our neighbors the other day and I about died over how cute it was.  They gave Dave and I each a chocolate covered pretzel and then a mini one "for the baby".  Haha. Cute right?
  

• I totally spent like three hours last Saturday making paper snowflakes.  And then I made a garland of snowflakes to hang in our kitchen.  No, I am not 7 years old.  And yes, it looks fabulous.  
• Dave received a remote control helicopter from work and is playing with it now.  Scout loves it.  He's not afraid of it at all.  ;)  It's going to be a fun Christmas break...

A Very Scattered Update

I'm not sure what happened to summer, but it's over.  I can't believe I haven't posted since June.  June!?  Really?  I suck at this.  

So here's a really fast and scattered update...with pictures!  Oh joy!

If you followed my picture blog, then you know that we had a hummingbird nest.  I. Was. Obsessed.  The hummingbirds came, and they were so cute.  And yes, that is hummingbird poop surrounding all areas of their nest.  I know.  Gross.  I really really REALLY wanted to clean it, but was afraid the momma bird would freak out and leave the babies.  They left about the second week of September.  It would be cool if we got another set of eggs next summer.  I've left the nest there because I read that sometimes they will come back and reuse it.  We'll see.

Scout is adorable.  No news there.  :)  Here he is in his new bed.  We've decided that he's not allowed on the furniture anymore, so we got him a bed to chill on.    

But the biggest update news is probably the fact that we're going to have a baby this coming April.  We told our parents about it and they are so thrilled!  My Dad was so sweet and sent me a bouquet of roses to congratulate us.   

I'll be 13 weeks tomorrow.  YES...Finally done with the first trimester.  It's been rough, people.  :)  I've been so sick, but I finally feel like I'm returning to the land of the living.  It's been hard, but amazingly I haven't missed any work.  I'm so grateful that I teach in the afternoons and that my other job is flexible and let's me choose my hours. We'll have our first ultrasound next week and might be able to find our what we're having.  I'm not getting my hopes up since I'll only be 14 weeks, but I'm just excited to actually see our baby for the first time.  

Get excited!!!  This blog has just turned into one of those really annoying blogs where all you hear about is pregnancy this and pregnancy that because you know, NOTHING is more important in anyone's life than my pregnancy and baby.  

PLEASE tell me you could sense the sarcasm there.  Good.  But for reals though, you'll probably see a lot of posts about baby Bland.  Sorry.  :)  

Eddy Shimai #2!

We dropped Megan off at the MTC yesterday.  It was a beautiful day!  We're going to miss her so much, but know that she will be a great missionary.  It's weird to have both of my sisters gone.  Even weirder that they are both serving in Japan.  If you're wondering, NO, I will not be updating a blog for her.  If you started reading my missionary blog for Carlie, you know that it was a COMPLETE fail.  I feel bad about not keeping it updated, but now that they can e-mail anyone they want, I feel that if people want to stay in contact with them ,THEY can email them directly.  It's not that it's hard to update the blogs, it just got to the point where I kind of felt uncomfortable posting Carlie's e-mails to a blog that anyone could read.  So anyways, there's that.  

  

It's summer! Time for a HUGE update!

I'm am FAILING at blogging lately.  I feel bad that I've let this thing go for the past few months.  Summer is finally here, and with school being out I feel like I finally have time to update.  So, here's a little taste of what has been going on.  A lot of these pictures are going to be duplicates from my photo blog, so if you've already seen them, I apologize. 

FURNITURE RENOVATION

I've been working on furniture renovations for months.  We were given our bedroom furniture from my parents when we first got married.  It was my parents first set of furniture when they were married too, so it's pretty sentimental to me.  Because this furniture was from the early 80's it had quite a bit of  "character", if you will.  I've wanted to refinish the set ever since we got them but have never had the room, nor the time to do it.  Well, now that we have a ginormous garage, and I'm no longer in college (WAHOO WAHOO!), I've been able to put in the time to do it.  It has been a process.  Let's just say that refinishing furniture is not for the faint of heart.  It takes a LONG time to make it look good.  This has definitely helped me learn how to be patient.  I've finished two pieces so far and am close to finishing the third (just put on a coat of poly last night!).  I've been really pleased with how they turned out.  I'm pretty proud of them because I've refinished them all by myself.       

FIRST YEAR OF TEACHING: DONE!

I finished my first year of teaching a couple of weeks ago.  It went by so fast!  I had a blast, but am glad that summer is here.  I'm currently working full time with HCA in the office, so life is good.  I still can't believe how blessed I am to have the jobs I have.  I enjoy both of them so much!  I will continue teaching part time with Karen next year as well.  It's amazing how everything just fell into place last summer.  Everything worked out so well.  Having two part time jobs is really the perfect balance for me.  I'm excited to teach again this fall.  Karen and I will be moved to a different classroom next year, but at least we'll still be together!   

Saying goodbye to our class on the last day.  It was a bittersweet moment.  I miss seeing my class every day.    You get so attached to your students, so it's weird to go from seeing them almost every day to not seeing them at all.  

CAKES

Megan and I have done two weddings so far this year.  The first one was for Carlie's friend Carlee Petersen.  This was our first buttercream wedding cake.  As with ALL our cakes, this one had it's share of OMG moments, but it turned out beautiful in the end.  It may or may not have slid off the cake stand and smushed into me on the way there.  SO stressful!  As we delivered the cake, the wedding planner said something that made me smile.  She said "I've always said that the most stressed out person on the day of the wedding is not the bride, it's the person who makes the cake."  HA!  So true!  We were able to fix the backside and it turned out beautifully!  We also made our cousin Casey's wedding cake.  This was our first four tier wedding cake.  It was SO beautiful!  I know I'm bragging a bit here, but I was really proud of it.  Pretty sure it's my favorite cake we've done so far.  It will most likely be my last for awhile too.  :(  Megan and I ALWAYS make our cakes together and she's leaving on a mission (in less than a week!!  More on that later)... so alas, I don't think I'll be doing any wedding cakes for awhile.  

TRIP TO CALIFORNIA and...MEGAN IS LEAVING!

HCA is celebrating their 25th year in business this year!  To celebrate, we flew out to California to have lunch at the Ritz Carlton.  It was amazing!  I have never, nor will I ever again eat somewhere that nice.  It was such a wonderful day spent with all of us at HCA.  The timing of the trip worked perfectly, because I had planned on coming to California the next day with my parents and Megan, so I was able to just meet up with them the next day.  Megan is leaving to go on her mission to Japan next week, so we wanted to take a little trip to spend some time with her before she goes.  It was just my parents, me and Megan.  She wanted to go to Disneyland so that's what we did.  It was so much fun.  I missed Dave SO MUCH though!  A week away from the hubby is too long!  

Megan's invitation to her farewell.  Isn't she gorgeous!?

 My ahi tuna salad from the Ritz Carlton...yes, I took a picture of my food, and no, I'm not ashamed of that.  

 And yes...I took a picture of the bathroom.  It was SO NICE you guys!  Pictures don't do it justice!  

 My in house made sorbets.  The coconut was my favorite.  So delicious!

 The view

 First time driving in California!  I'm finally old enough to rent a car!  Woot!  Definitely a moment to celebrate!  Haha  :)

 My mint julep from the Blue Bayou restaurant in Disneyland.  Yet another place that I'll most likely never eat at again.  

 My dad is a saint.  Disneyland is probably the LAST place my dad would want to be, but he came anyway, because he's awesome like that.  

 The new Cars ride is really well done.  It was so much fun, AND it didn't make me sick!  Bonus!

 Dad and I went to an Angels/Yankees game one night.  

 At the World of Color show.  I was impressed.  If you ever go to Disneyland, you'll want to take the time to watch it.  Pretty neat. 

 Beach day for Father's Day.  

Driving home!  

Pretty sure this has been the biggest update ever, but I feel much better now that I have it written down.  It's gonna be funny when no one in my family cares about family history and this all goes to waste.  :)  To end, I have to show a picture of my dog, because he's the greatest and I can't believe he hasn't been in any of these pictures so far.  He turned one about a month ago.  Such a stinker, but so adorable! 

We sent these birthday invitations to our parents as a joke.  NO...we were not being serious.  We DID NOT have a birthday party for our dog.  Please slap me if I ever do something insane like that!  I'm not that weird people.  It's a long story, and you wouldn't get it unless you were in the family.  We all had a pretty good laugh over it.  I'll have you know, Scout only ruined 6 party hats before I got that picture.  :)

Until next time.  Hopefully sooner rather than later.