24 weeks .....The second trimester is almost over

I can't believe it has already been 24 weeks and that we only have 16 weeks until this little one is going to be making her arrival.

I read somewhere that my uterus is the size of soccer ball this week and Baby Girl is getting close to being a foot long and is weighing in at a whopping 1.5 lbs. If at this stage, she were to be born, there is a chance of survival with modern medicine, we of course are praying that she stays put for a few more months.

I had my monthly doctors appointment and everything looked good:

Blood pressure - good
Weight - good
Measuring right on schedule with my estimated due date
No signs of pre-eclampsia or any of those nasty pregnancy things

At my next appointment I get to drink the lovely sugary nastiness and then get my blood drawn to make sure I don't have gestational diabetes, this is just one of the normal tests as all you Mom's out there know. After my appointment in early September I start going every 2 weeks and then we are taking our prenatal (birthing and breastfeeding classes) in early October. I have a feeling that this fall is going to fly by!!

Happy Wife....Happy Life

Isn't that how the saying goes? That is what I said to Adam at about 11:00 pm on the night he finished the pantry and I was finished unloading our lovely plastic tote of food into the blessed little pantry.

I then realized I had lived for over a year and half with all of our food either in this large plastic tote seen below or on our counters. If you know me I might be disorganized in other ways but a messy kitchen drives me nutso, so how I lived this long without organization in my kitchen I don't know.

I think Adam was a little surprised at my cat like reflexes (from a 5 month pregnant woman at 10:00 pm) to unload that tote and some of our cabinets into the newly finished pantry closet.

It has been so nice to see what food we actually have and to not be afraid of spilling an entire box of spaghetti into the monster tote while looking for a can of salsa! I think all in all I'm an easy wife to please if all you have to do is put a few shelves in a closet and call it a pantry!!!

Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the bathroom and laundry room to put in the blog soon, they are nearly done. We have actually been refinishing and painting some cabinets that were in the old kitchen for the laundry area, that process has been much easier than I thought it would be. Adam's answer to that was that sanding and painting cabinets are things normal people do in their normal home updates, not our normal crazy shanangins, he's right!

20 weeks and Old Wives Tales

So here is the basketball at 20 weeks, I keep getting comments about how high I am carrying and that I am all out front so I have definitely heard the basketball reference.

Last week before our ultrasound we tested out some of the old wives tales. The Chinese chart thing said I was having a boy, a list of all types of OWT that you answer gave me a 57% chance of having a boy, and the necklace thing (if it spins in a circle its a girl and back and forth is a boy) says I'm having Girl, Girl, Boy (wowah, I don't know about 2 more kids). So who was right??????

Well without further ado here is Little Miss, yes that's right we are having a perfectly healthy little girl (I'm not sure anyone that actually reads this didn't already know that, but anyway). Our ultrasound tech got some great profile pictures and we even got to see her in 4D. So far so good and all of her vital body parts and development look just great.

I am definitely feeling movement now and she has even thrown a few Tai Chi or Kickboxing moves in this week. I got one kick or punch straight up at my stomach, that felt a bit odd, and then one towards my back. Usually they are pretty low, but those two were after I ate a few M&Ms so maybe I made my poor baby spaz :) This could get pretty interesting as she gets bigger and starts running of room with her crazy gymnastics.

I've done pretty well as far as the shopping so far, I made one trip into Children's Place and they were having mark-downs plus another 40% off that price so I got here some stuff for next summer and then I went into the Carter's store at Keystone and they were having a clearance sale so I picked up a few things there. Since I got that out of my system I think I'm now focused on getting nursery furniture picked out and the all the fun decorating from there.

In case you want to know we are not going to be divulging the name, but we currently have a list of 3 that Adam and I can both agree on, so we'll see if we can make a final decision before we are on our way to the hospital.

Next up:

Nursery Furniture

Crib Bedding

Calling a pediatrician

Getting scheduled for our Childbirth and Breastfeeding classes (probably won't attend till October)

Getting this crazy house done and enjoying each other before our little girl comes to turn our lives into pure blissful craziness!!

Sprouting a Sweet Potato...18 weeks

This week our baby is approximately the size of a sweet potato, about 5.5 to 6 inches long and about 6.7 ounces. This is what Baby P is busy doing this week, passing the hours yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. The baby can now hear external sounds, especially mama's voice and may even be stimulated or respond to certain voices that are familiar. Wonder if this will make Adam start talking to my belly, or maybe I will start requiring it so his voice will also soothe the baby at 2 a.m.!! Everything I read says I may start to feel movement. I have occasionally felt "something" but when you don't really know what you are supposed to be feeling its hard to identify what is what. I read something that said the baby's feet are about 1 inch long, so they are definitely not real identifiable kicks yet.

At the Phillips home we are also sprouting zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and green beans. Our garden has really taken off the last few weeks and we should actually have edible food here in a couple of weeks.

Last but not least, we have made some substantial headway on the laundry room and 2nd bathroom area. We nearly have everything painted and Adam plans to start tiling in the next few days. Thanks to Mom and Dad and Michelle and Steve for their help painting this weekend, I was feeling a little useless because I was banished from the area, but we couldn't have gotten it all done so quickly without them. Adam also got one window replaced in the nursery so there is one more to go and we will have replaced every single window in our house. Our remaining items are to get the fixtures into the 2nd bathroom once the tiling is finished, finish drywalling the closet in the nursery, blow insulation into the walls in the nursery, some finishing things on the cabinets in the kitchen (mouldings and such) and installing the hardwoods in the kitchen and dining room. That might seem like a bit of stuff, but compared to the list I made at the beginning of this year, seeing less then 10 items left on the list for the interior of the house to be finished makes for a very happy me!!

The Pop @ 15 weeks

I really don't particularly like this phrase but I guess you can say I have popped. Here is a belly picture at 15 weeks. I'm hoping the popping slows down a bit from here on out or you are going to be able to roll me to the hospital at 40 weeks. The one part that makes me feel good is that I've only gained between 4-5 pounds so that assures me that this is more baby than french fries and frostys :)

One of many parental decisions made

We made our first of I know many more parental decisions by choosing a daycare center to take Baby Phillips to after I come back to work. We toured 3 centers last week and the final decision came down to between a great place called Small Blessings at 96th and Zionsville Road and an equally great place called Heartland Hall at 116th and Meridian. Initially we were probably leaning more towards Small Blessings, in that we liked some of the things that applied more to older kids (like not until they were at least 2 maybe even 3), but after discussing our options it just made more sense for us right now to enroll with Heartland. Some benefits of Heartland are that it is literally right across the street from my work which means not only convenient drop-off and pick-up but also the ability to go visit the baby once I'm back to work full-time. Another benefit, obviously not what we based our decision completely on but a nice benefit, is it is at least $2000 cheaper a year plus add in the additional gas of getting to over to Small Blessings and we can all go on a nice family vacation for the difference.

We are excited that this decision is out of the way and as of last week they had openings in March when we needed to start, so hopefully I get a call soon to confirm our spot. If you can't tell I'm just a bit of a planner, so knowing that something is taken care of and moving on to the next thing makes me feel much more comfortable then having something up in the air.

Now it will be moving on to finding a pediatrician. I don't think I was realizing that I needed to start looking quite this early but after talking to a few other moms they said they looked for a pedi about the same time as daycare.

Its crazy how much planning there is for a little person that isn't even born yet :)

Next post: I'm going to try and take a 15 week belly shot to insure you all I'm starting to look pregnant and not just fat!

Other things under construction.....

Wow it has been forever since I posted anything here. I really do need to update some pictures of the house, but thought I would update any blog readers still out there on some other news. We have a little Phillips under construction and scheduled to be completed around December 1st. We are super excited and relieved to have made it this far in this pregnancy after experiencing a miscarriage last fall. We are very thankful for a healthy pregnancy and baby so far, and pray that things continue in that direction.

This news does affect the house, in that there is a definite deadline for completion and it isn't waiting until November 30th, that might result in a really grumpy pregnant lady that would not be fun for her sweet husband. We hope to have most things wrapped up by mid-summer. If we have some random things like crown molding or something like that to do, I don't care, but the big things will be done.

Thanks if you still follow this neglected blog and I will try to be more faithful about updating it, but you might not just get house updates in the future :O)