21 Weeks!

So no chalkboard this week – we’re in California for the holidays! So this will have to do ;)

How far along? 21 Weeks!
Maternity clothes? Can anyone tell me where to find a good maternity band? My jeans are pretty much not fitting anymore…and I’m drowning in fabric when I wear the maternity jeans! 
Sleep: My hip cramps are getting worse! Yucky.
Best moment this week: Um. Christmas. Duh. ;) Best thing ever to have our families open their Gender Reveal Boxes and it’s so nice to not have to call my baby “it” anymore!
Miss Anything? Mmm…clothes that fit ;)
Food cravings: Still no cravings, but I still enjoy sweets!
Anything making you queasy or sick: So we went to see The Hobbit last night and that giant goblin king totally made me gag with his overlarge chin flap/thing. Disgusting.  
Have you started to show yet: Yes!! So excited! Though I have a hard time imagining myself getting bigger! Eek!  ;)
Belly Button in or out? In…but it’s starting to change to out! It’s freaky looking! Ha!
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy! I love the holidays and I love that we could announce Nathan’s gender on Christmas and life’s good.
Looking forward to: Planning my Mustache Bash baby shower!! :)

It’s a…Gender Reveal!

Okay!

This is it my friends. Time to tell you who our little Mini-Moffat is!! Are you so excited?! Because I sure am! I can’t believe we managed to keep it a secret for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Longest 2 weeks ever. ;) Now that both of our families have opened up their “Christmas Reveal Boxes” (I’ll be sharing the details later), here is our Merry Christmas to you!

Introducing…(drum roll please…)

Mr. Nathan James!

It’s a boy!!! YAY!! We are so excited!! Though I do have to tell you that both John and I were a little surprised and a teensy bit disappointed, as we both thought we were having a girl. Call it a feeling, if you will. But rest assured that we are both thrilled to have little Nathan joining our family in just a few short months now! Eek!

Now I feel like I can tell you about the ultrasound, since I can now refer to my sweet baby as “he” :) The ultrasound was amazing! And Nathan was sooooo wiggly! It was kind of strange to watch him roll around in there and not be able to feel most of it. It was incredible to see all his little fingers and toes!

Sometimes he’d have his hand behind his head with his elbow up, like he was kicking back. I think he gets that from John. :) And he did not leave us with any doubt that he is a boy. He was quite happy to show us. *ahem* ;) And one of my first thoughts was “oh, I hope he doesn’t end up being one of those boys that wants to pee on trees all the time”. Ha ha ha! Random, right? John says one of his first thoughts was “YES! The Moffat name will live on!”

Thankfully he has all his vital organs in all the right places and he is developing right on schedule. The doctor said he weighed about 9oz when we went in 2 weeks ago. The ultrasound took a lot longer than I expected, they really try to get a view of everything to make sure we’re good to go. Given that he was so wiggly, they never did get a view of his face; they needed to look at his nose and lips. But he was not having it. Already stubborn. He probably gets that from me. ;) To my growing discomfort (as about halfway through the sonogram, I REALLY had to use the restroom), the sonogram technician (and then later, the doctor) would bounce the wand/transmitter thing on my abdomen, shaking Nathan around – as though that would make him cooperate?! But of course, he responded with what I thought was a perfectly natural reaction: he put both arms in front of his face. I imagined him thinking “WHAT is happening to my safe little bubble?! AH!” But as a result, I will be going back in for another sonogram next month. The doctor also informed us that one of his kidneys is dilated bigger than normal and although it typically resolves itself before the baby is born, they want to keep an eye on it.

And there you have it! Looks like I’m going to be outnumbered ;)

I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas!

20 Weeks!

I know, I know, I missed last week. Turns out I was crazy busy. The result of a rash promise made to my mother. It went something like this:

Mom: Now, if I buy this Silhouette for you for Christmas, you have to cut out whatever I want till the end of time.
Me: Of course! (I really wanted that Silhouette)

Which resulted in my cutting out 45 ornament boxes and making 45 accompanying ornaments. Along with another vinyl order. Add that to teaching YW in Church that Sunday and several other things that I have already forgotten. But it was busy.

Anyway, enough excuses. 20 Weeks!

How far along? 20 Weeks – Officially halfway through! Um crazy?! Yes. Yes it is.
Total weight gain/loss: No idea. Maybe I should only have this up once I get back from a Dr.’s appt… 
Maternity clothes? Still in that kind of annoying in between stage…though fewer and fewer of my tops are fitting…but if I wear a maternity top…it’s like I’m wearing a tent… 
Sleep: I’m still sleeping horribly, had the worst night’s sleep ever this past week…though that could have had something to do with the paper-thin walls of our apartment and the fact that I could hear our neighbors’ shrieks of laughter well after midnight…
Best moment this week: I’m going to cheat and say the best moment was our ultrasound! (Even though that was last week) Seriously awesome to see our little person! And just be patient a few more days my friends…gender reveal on Christmas!!
Miss Anything? I’m thinking my clothes, most particularly my cute jeans ;)
Food cravings: No cravings really. I’m almost disappointed! 
Anything making you queasy or sick: Had a few episodes of queasiness that came out of no where from foods I’d been eating all week…so that was weird… 
Have you started to show yet: Getting a little bigger! I’m so glad I’m starting to actually look pregnant! Yay!
Belly Button in or out? In
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy! I love being able to refer to our little person by the name we’ve picked out. Though I had my first hormonal meltdown last week. Hopefully those stay infrequent ;)
Looking forward to: Christmas!! And telling everyone what we’re having!! Hurray!

“Business. It is the American Way”

Points to whoever gets that movie reference. ;) It’s also fits in this time of year. That’s your last clue. hee hee

Anywho, so I’m sure I’ve mentioned on here somewhere that my parents went back to school (and have been in school for the last 2 years) to get their masters’ degrees. Well, it’s finally winding down. Whew! I was able to go down to VA this past weekend and celebrate my Dad’s completion of his MBA! Hurray! His course work has actually been finished since June, but his school doesn’t have commencement ceremonies in June. So here were are in December. Finally getting to see him walk for his graduation.

We headed down to Danville, VA (the middle of nowhere), about 3 1/2 hours from my parent’s house. My Dad got his degree from Averett University, so that’s where we headed for commencement. The graduation was very nice. The speaker was blessedly brief, as I was dying of starvation (okay, not really, but I’m pregnant and need to eat more often than the average human being) but I survived (barely) and managed to get some fun pictures…on someone else’s camera (one of my Dad’s classmates had a sweet DSLR that I got to use. I need to get me one of those). The ones I have on my camera are kinda lame. But I’m going to put them up anyway :) Maybe when I get copies of the ones from the nice camera, I’ll remember to post them. Or not. We’ll see ;)

You’ll have to forgive my siblings – I don’t think they realized we were going for a nice picture ;)
Hurray!! He did it!
Congratulations Daddy! We are so proud of you! :)

18 Weeks!

How far along? 18 Weeks
Total weight gain/loss: I am up to 113, so not too much
Maternity clothes? It’s been a mostly sweatpants week ;)
Sleep: I’m sleeping horribly, but I slept that was pre-pregnancy, so you’d think I’d be used to it. I’ve had to sleep with a pillow between my knees already to help with the weird side cramps I’m still getting.
Best moment this week: I am feeling honest-to-goodness movement this week! It’s seriously the coolest, most amazing (and freakiest) thing ever. The first time I felt it (and actually recognized it as baby movement) John and I were sitting on the couch and John was on facebook or something and I gasped out loud when I felt a little kick! John was all “what’s wrong?!” and I said something like “it MOVED!” And it was awesome.
Miss Anything? Not missing anything too badly this week.
Food cravings: Still eating lots of salad, but still not really craving anything.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Nope! Always a good thing. :) 
Have you started to show yet: Little by little! And certain (tighter) tops make me look more pregnant than others.
Belly Button in or out? In
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy! I’m loving feeling those little flutters of movement almost every day now.
Looking forward to: TUESDAY! We have our ultrasound on Tuesday and we will hopefully be able to see what our baby is!! I AM SO EXCITED!!

It’s December!!

It’s officially Christmastime!!! HURRAY! Now if Maryland would just give us some snow instead of these fluke 65degree days…the awesomeness would be complete. But I’m not here to talk about the weather (I mean, we’re going to southern California for Christmas for crying out loud. I promise you there will not be snow. But there will be family, and that’s what counts! :), I’m here to give you a non-baby related update on our lives. ;) Yes, even though my energy levels are still depleted from their normal go-crazy levels (I think I’m also still recovering from Thanksgiving – whew!) we have managed to do lots of fun things since the ‘official’ start of the Christmas season (please, my Christmas season started like 4 weeks ago. I march to the beat of my own drum on the matter. I just try to keep it under control for John’s sake. ha!).

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned on the bloggy here that at church I’m the Young Women’s Laurel advisor. That means I get to teach the 16-18year old girls on Sundays. It’s awesome. The girls are great and I’m loving it so far. Well, one of our class activities on Thursdays was coming over to decorate cookies :) I gave them a few pointers on how to hold the bags and put the icing on…and then pretty much let them have at it. **This picture has 3 of the 4 girls that come regularly, one is hiding in the corner reading a book she found on the bookshelf after she finished her cookies. The YW president is 2nd from the right in this picture.** 
Their lovely cookie masterpieces :)

We also scored a great Craigslist find last week. We have been looking for a hutch/cabinet/something to go behind the dining table for some extra kitchen storage. I know. I’m never going to have a big enough kitchen. Well, we found a nice black cabinet with glass paned doors up in the Baltimore area for $75! John went up with a friend to check it out. It barely fit in the jeep. Like, they had to move the seats up in the front to make a little bit more room. So they were a little squished coming back home, but it all worked out. And we love it!

This is the all cleaned up and finished version. It was missing several knobs, so we went to Hobby Lobby the other day and bought some fancy new ones to spruce it up a bit. AND all the knobs were on sale for 50% off. SCORE! You know how I love me a good deal.

John made the ‘mistake’ of telling me I could pick whatever knobs I wanted to put on here. It’s probably a good thing he accompanied me to Hobby Lobby. ;) At least then he had some input. But I think we both agree that we ended up with some nice choices.We had to drill a wider hole on the inside of the drawer for these to fit, but I. love. them.
We didn’t have to replace the knobs on the glass doors, but I’m glad we did. These black stone-type ones we found complement the drawer knobs quite nicely.
And here it is one more time ;) We still haven’t quite figured out what’s going in there yet, and if I’m going to have to do some sort of frosted glass effect on the doors (you know, to hide unsightly food storage items ;) but for right now, it’s good to go!

This past weekend we made it down to the temple to see the lights and the international nativities. This is seriously one of my favorite things about Christmastime in the DC area. To get into the spirit of the thing, we made Christmas pizzas! (okay, so I had just planned on making pizza this night…and decided to jazz things up a bit at the last minute)

We just used my Christmas cookie cutters to make them. We had stars and mittens too, but the mini circles and trees turned out the best. It was so fun. Well, I had fun. John just laughed at me and my excitement over tree shaped pizzas ;)

Then we went to the temple!

Love it! We had a very nice time at the visitor’s center looking at all the nativities.
Germany! Yay!
This display from Jordan was one of my favorites. The woodwork is just beautiful!
Had to get a picture of the display from Spain for our missionary there! :)
Oh yes, and another German display. The Christmas pyramid. If you are unfamiliar with these, you light the candles at the bottom and the heat makes the fan blades spin. Usually the fan is connected to the displays on the inside of each level, so the whole thing spins. And it’s beautiful.

After walking around the lights outside for a little while, we decided we were cold and it was time to go home ;)

AND! We are allll decorated and ready for Christmas! Oh yeah, the tree totally went up the Monday after Thanksgiving. We do not waste time around here! And John is okay with switching to Christmas mode once Thanksgiving is over. ;) And all my Christmas shopping is complete and wrapped! So I needed a place to put the the gifts!

I’ll have to enjoy being able to have the presents out this early before we have a little one crawling around next year! And most of those are for family members. If we just set out the ones for the two of us, there would only be like…3. ;) I chose a wrapping theme this year and I’ve had SO much fun with it. What?! Can you blame me?! I live to make things cute!
I used brown kraft paper with red coordinating washi tape and tied the tags on with red baker’s twine. I LOVE the effect. And how it TOTALLY matches the tree and skirt. (I know you might be rolling your eyes at me. And I don’t care) The monogram tags are made from dictionary pages of the corresponding letter. Like that D for Dad there was cut out of a page in the D section of the dictionary. I know. Can I even get more ridiculous? That’s a dangerous question…and remains to be seen. ;)

My Silhouette CAMEO (my early Christmas present from my parents – you know, the one we waited up for and bought online at midnight on Black Friday?) came last week and I’ve been having the time of my life getting used to it and experimenting and cutting things out. It’s seriously awesome. I’m quite convinced it can do just about anything. I used it to design and cut out my address labels for our Christmas cards this year and I made these super cute ornament boxes for these ornaments I made for church/neighbor gifts. I’m almost more proud of the boxes than the ornaments. And I made the ornaments! I just had the CAMEO cut the boxes out! ha! ;) Even John was impressed when I showed him that the box’s design comes with a locking flap-thing at the top to keep the ornament from rolling around.

As a result, the coffee table in the living room has looked a little like this for the last week or so:

Hee hee. Well, I guess that’s it for us for now. I suppose I better go and finish my to-do list for today. (hey! at least getting this post up was on that list! one item down, 2 to go) Because I may or may not still be in my pajamas…