Belly shot at 20 weeks.

Here is the rapidly expanding waistline! At least "the girls" seem to be giving up the race with the belly... so far! I don't know what I'd do if they didn't? What comes after D? E? DD? I have NO idea?? I was a B in high school and C for the rest of my life. I NEVER thought I'd ever reach D much less anything after that! I'm a D right now so let's hope they stay that size then go back down to normal. Seriously....what comes after a D??

It's 36 degrees here! It's like freaking spring for MN the last day of January. I'm going to go outside and sit in the sun! Or I'm at least going to go outside and shovel off the walkway so the rest can melt. Today is also Ugg's 3rd brithday! Happy Birthday kitty:)

Uggs as a kitten!

(How can that be comfortable??)

Uggs at 2.5 years old.

Still belly up! I don't think he got the memo that cats do not sleep on their back with all the ~goods~ or where there use to be goods flashed for all the world to see!

(That's Maui, our other cat's, tail Uggs has a hold of. )

Yellow cupcakes w/ chocolate frosting....

Last night Lance asked "Could you come here cupcake?" All I heard was CUPCAKE! Mmmm, I want a cupcake! Not cake but a cupcake. So I told him about my plan to make yellow cupcakes with chocolate frosting. We had yellow cake mix but no frosting. No problem! I decided I would make the frosting from scratch, which I've never done. First off, it was so easy! Secondly, it was fabulous!! Much much better than the can stuff. Plus it calls for things that everyone would have in their kitchen... well everyone but Lee. He only has ketchup, yogart and occasionally milk! The cupcakes turned out great! Yummy!!!

Miss Thing is doing well. She apparently loved the cupcakes too as there was a lot of movement out of her after milk and cupcakes were consumed last night.

Today is going to be filled with more work, a little play and hopefully a few cupcakes. We've got a couple special events in the works... more on that later.... which we'll have more solidified this weekend. We're working on a guest list for the baby showers which is proving to be a large task mainly due to our large family & friend base. What a problem to have;) I still need to finish the last of my painting for Miss Thing's room. Plus I need to get my horse into the trainers in the next month so she can get back to her regularly scheduled show season.

One last item... is it too soon to be thinking about this...

for Miss Thing?? What girl doesn't need an Esca.lade?? Lance found one for her. He hasn't bought it yet but give him time! Plus who am I to tell him that she doesn't need a Caddy? Not me!! I'm a Caddy girl myself;)

Just got off the phone...

with my OB. He's very pro-active in keeping us up-to-date with any and all Miss Thing information. I love this as my overactive brain needs some kind of suppressant occasionally. He said the baby looks perfect... absolutely nothing to worry about! HIP HIP HOORAY!!! He already had us scheduled for a Level 2 u/s with a perinatologist (the end of Feb) just as a confirmation for us due to our history with Lily. Since Miss Thing decided yesterday was not a good day for her picture to be taken, we're going to keep the Level 2 instead of canceling that and rescheduling another regular u/s. Sounds good to me! I'm all about extra checking to make sure everything is ok given our 1st pregnancy. This will help me to relax and enjoy this even more instead of waiting for something bad to happen. Our next appt is Feb 10... just a regular OB appt at 22 weeks. Then our Level 2 on Feb 27 at 24 weeks. THEN the 3rd trimester is right around the corner!! EEK! Anything after 21 weeks is new to me so I welcome it with open arms!

We are officially half ways done with this pregnancy tomorrow! I can hardly believe it. It seems even more odd that I'm 6 weeks from the 3rd trimester! YIKES!!

Today I'm finishing my portion of the painting in the nursery...just some acrylic painting of the drawings Lee did. Then Lee needs to finish all the hard stuff plus add some girlie accents. He's much better at the drawing/painting thing than I am so I leave all the hard stuff to him. I'm also finishing up some cleaning as I have some new cleaning products (Nor.vex) or actually they are just cleaning towels that work by just adding water. They are absolutely amazing! Especially the window/mirror one. So I have the 2 lower levels to finish cleaning and then I'm going to take a nap:)

Bring on the....

lavender and purple and hot pinks!!! It's a GIRL!!!!

Seriously, anyone who knows me knows I'm a purple freak!! This is so great because Lance would not be impressed with his son being decked out in lavender or purple.

We were totally shocked because we thought it was going to be a boy due to the complete difference in my symptoms this time around. We are SO excited!!! She is apparently quite stubborn as she wouldn't cooperate with the u/s tech and let her get all the measurements the tech needed. I'll have to go back in at a later date for another u/s so we can try for the other measurements. Hopefully Baby Girl will cooperate! She totally gets that from her father;) She was so much more interested in her hands then in the u/s tech. She was looking at her hands like she was in need of a serious manicure!! Poor Lance!!! I think he's got 2 of us high maintenance women!! EEK for him!! I love it:)

So now we need to look at girl names! I have a few in mind but we haven't really discussed any yet. Oh, we only got 1 u/s pic because Miss Thing didn't want her picture taken at that particular moment (must be the manicure thing!!) and even that one is not very good. She would put her hands up or turn away anytime the tech tried for facial measurements. We'll get more at the next u/s... hopefully!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!!

Tomorrow morning at 10:50am we have our big u/s. I'm surprisingly calm about it today. I'm sure that will all change tomorrow. We have been given absolutely no reason to be concerned with the health of our little baby but with our history with Lily, we are a little freaked out. I really shouldn't say we because Lance isn't concerned or at least that's what he says. I, on the other hand, am looking forward to just getting it over with. That way I can relax a little more when I get true confirmation that all is well. I am REALLY excited to find out if it's a girl or boy!!
Anyone care to venture a guess??

Here are some comparisons with Lily vs Baby2:
Lily:
-severe all day nausea for 3 weeks
-very mild heartburn occassionally
-no weight gain
-super sense of smell
-hair didn't grow faster...it actually slowed
-couldn't stand chocolate or Diet Dew
-wanted lots of fruits and veggies

Baby2:
-no nausea or morning sickness at all
-when I was hungry, I had to eat immediately
-lots of heartburn
-I'm up 7 lbs
-super sense of smell
-crazy fast growing hair...I'm having to get my hair cut every 5 weeks currently
-I can do chocolate and diet Dew without any problems but don't crave them as much as non-pregnant days
-had to have grape juice all the time for about 5 weeks
-crave burgers and fries this time all the time

So what do you think??

I'll let you know tomorrow afternoon:)

Big sale!!

For those in need of baby items... Ta.rget has a huge sale going on right now with lots of items 30%, 50% and even 75% off! We made a haul!! Here is a pic of all our loot!!

Here are a few pics of just normal happenings at our house. It's like the wild kingdom!

Today we're finishing the painting in the nursery plus cleaning the house! It really needs it!! Hopefully I can line up a nap in there and maybe even some quality time in my scrapbook room. I haven't scrapped in months! Plus that needs to be organized/cleaned/over-hauled too! Is this nesting?? Isn't it too soon for that?

More pics!

Here are some more pics of Baby2's bedroom. We cleaned the carpets last week (by we, I really mean Lance) so it's all ready for the finishing painting and decor then furniture. We have the furniture picked out but not ordered yet. We don't want to jinx it so we're planning on waiting until after the ~big~ u/s which is Mon, Jan 26. Can you even believe I'm already to that point yet? It seems like we've been waiting for forever but it still seems so soon. We are really excited and slightly anxious to find out exactly how Baby2 is doing in there and where it's a boy or girl! We already know Baby2 is a mover and shaker due to the almost constant movement plus s/he is on the large size.

We're off to the cities for work again this week. Lee is still in Tahoe so we're still squatting at his place! It's SO nice to not have to haul our stuff in and out of a hotel. Do you know how many pillows a pregnant woman needs? Lance does! He refers to himself as my sherpa! Sometimes it's very true! Speaking of fabulous hubby...this morning we're both wide awake at 4am. I'm hungry for fruit but decide to try to go back to sleep. Lance gets up to do something...can't remember what?? About 15 mins later he comes back with a big bowl of fruit and granola for both of us. Such a great guy!! Especially at 4 am!!! He's a keeper!

Standing at the door of the nursery.

The full mural.

Freaking BRRRRRR!

Why oh why do we live in MN?? It was -20 below in Brainerd this morning and B'ville was even worse. ICK! Right now we're crashing at Lee's apartment while we're working in th cities and he's in Tahoe. I'm actually using his computer too. I threated to change all his favorites to cat sites and scrapbooking!! He was less than thrilled:)

We had a dr appt last Friday that went great. I'm still gaining weight but not very much and my OB was completely good with it especially since this little monster is measuring 2 weeks ahead. I was at 17 weeks and I'm measuring 19 weeks. He wasn't concerned as he told us with Lily that we're going to have big babies as she was very big for her age and condition. EEK!! We heard th heartbeat again plus my OB started laughing as the baby was apparently bouncing all over the place. He could feel it with th doppler!! How cool is that? I couldn't feel the baby moving at that time but other times it's like a circus in there. Especially around ice cream, Rafferty's pizza and the horse barn!! I especially love the last one;)

The belly is winning!

It's been a race for the last couple of months between the boobs and the belly. This is quite a feat for the belly to be winning as I currently resemble Dol.ly Pa.rton! EEK! Lance has been loving the race:/ We'll see how he feels when ~the girls~ smother him in his sleep!


Now for some pics!! I thought I had better mural pics but I don't. I'll take some for tomorrow. It is finished except for a few touchups so this is the ~in between~!

The Belly! It says 16 weeks on my belly but it's hard to read.

I've got a To Do list that is a mile long so I'm going to kick that in the butt! I'm scheduling in some time on the treadmill plus going out to the barn this evening! It's actually above 0 degrees so it's going to be a good day!

How much snow is too much??

We received another 7 inches of snow yesterday. Now I know I live in MN but come on!! We haven't had this much snow for years...probably since 1997. When I let Teddy out he doesn't even want to go play in the snow as he can't tell where the raised patio ends and the snow drifts begin. He thought maybe he'd try peeing on our firepit thing. Endless to say I was out the door yelling at his lazy ass before he could get his leg all the way up. I think he decided for his safety that the snow drifts are less frightening than the screaming pregnant lady with crazy bedhead!! We need to shovel and snow blow so I'll clean off a path for Ted Ted so our firepit is not his aiming target. Ick!

Lance and I are in full cleaning mode! He has all the Microclean stuff everywhere so that needs a home. I have all the NDQHA awards everywhere but those are on the way out on Saturday. The nursery needs to be finished (painting) but that is going to be put off for a couple of weeks until things slow down again:) Here a little sneak peek at the nursery....

Lee & Lance pulling off all the trim which makes painting so much easier & looks better.

Lance, Lee & Maui priming the walls. OK so Maui just appears to be holding down the plastic!
Lance, his parents (aka Grandma & Grandpa) and Lee's butt.
More painting!

I'll leave you in suspense...tomorrow I'll post pics of the mural!!!