My Husband Cracks Me UP!!!

so, i'm at work (i work in a small office with all men, and it is very quite all the time), and i see there is an email from my husband to his family with this as the subject line "Who can make the ugliest face? Let's keep sending some to each other...."

so, i scroll down through his dad and his sister's reply and find these photos attached...

needless to say i burst out laughin in my very quite, full of men, office....

makes me also wonder the purpose of these so called "office hours" my husband is supposedly doing every day.... :)

i love my man and how he makes me laugh!

Banana Photo

Here is the banana photo (clearly we are talking about how long the baby is now)...

Also, with regards to people's comments on the hair: I am starting to feel fat (I know, I know, I'M PREGNANT), and since retail therapy is pretty much not an option I decided to chop the hair since it would give me a much-needed change. While the straight hair looks great and is beyond simple (it literally take me about 3 min to get it ready once i'm out of the shower), the curly hair (which takes a whopping 7 min. longer to get ready) is much much cuter... Thank you to Pablo for being so understanding and being ok with me chopping off my hair. :)

week 20 & 21

OK, so again, I am a week behind (I will update both week 20 and 21 today), but I also come with more updates, not just baby-centered.

Week 20: Cantaloupe!!!

Holy Crap! clearly from the photo below I do not think that I have a cantaloupe-sized baby in my uterus!! But then again, both my stomach and my bladder are shrinking considerably, so the space is filling up with something... And here is what The Bean was up to during that week: Bean's digestive system is busy creating meconium (a tarry black substance made of swallowed amniotic fluid, digestive secretion and dead cells), which will fill the first diaper after birth. And, the baby's genitals are now FULLY formed!!! The Bean is appx. 6.5 in long and 10.6 oz. crazy huh? doesn't sound like much but I have seen what 10 cm dilation looks like, and that is serious business... clearly The Bean bulks up later on in the pregnancy to necessitate such a large opening to squeeze through.

Pablo has been able to feel The Bean kick a couple times, which is still so cool and new to us both!

Week 21: Banana!

The Bean is now appx. 10.5 in long, weighing 12.7oz (where they come up with this weight measurement, really beats me). Here is what has happened this past week: The Bean has been downing amniotic fluid every day, both for hydration and nutrition and to practice swallowing and digesting. And, these days, those taste buds actually work! Like I said before, I have heard that babies like the foods that their mothers eat while they are inside, so it will be interesting to see what The Bean's faves are when born. :) Sadly, I do not have the photo to upload for the banana, but I will do it tomorrow.

Here are some photos from our ultrasound as well...

can you believe these!!!!

Along with growing a baby, Pablo and I have been very busy that last few weekends trying to get our house fully ready for the baby. Here are some things (not too exciting, so keep your expectations low) that we have documented (we have done a lot that we have not documented, so don't think we have been lazy!):

1. Pablo installed a dog door for the girls yesterday -- this is wonderful! it took the girls some getting used to, but chicken and rice treats really do a wonder with training. :)

2. yesterday I painted the red stripes on one of The Bean's walls. The ceiling will have black and white checkers, and the other 3 walls will be dark grey. I am SUPER excited about how the room is coming together!

3. we bought beds for the girls (they have been sleeping in our room lately -- I was sick and tired of having their huge crates in our living room for them to sleep every night -- originally on just spare blankets, but we decided to upgrade). we brought the beds in and put one on the couch (where both girls like to hang out sometimes) and immediately Laila hopped up in one and hung out in it the rest of the day. it was a little ridiculous, but at least it has been a hit! :) You can see the dark grey walls in the background -- we painted 3 walls in our living room last weekend (once I have put up the artwork this week I will post what the whole room looks like -- so far in my head it will be AMAZING!!).

Week 19: Mango!!

Well, according to my weekly update, The Bean wasn’t incredibly active this week in any new exciting development. I mean, the baby is now covered in vernix (a white substance made of baby hair, oil and dead skin cells) which protects it from the amniotic fluid, but other than that, they didn’t tell me anything more exciting. But, The Bean is now the size of a mango – and my belly is definitely popped out now (no more beer belly for anna). (please excuse Laila's crazy eyes in this photo)...

I can give you some other, not technically developmental, updates on how Baby Bean and I are doing/growing…
1. I am definitely feeling the baby move all over the place. Typically around 3:30pm or so is when the most movement happens. Pablo was even able to feel a kick (or punch) on Saturday evening as we were watching TV. It was very cool.
2. My belly is big. This weekend we started painting the baby’s room and I was sitting on the floor doing the baseboards and my boobs literally rest on my belly and i started to sweat there – this is something completely foreign to me.
3. A couple weekends ago Pablo and I went and did our baby registry – thank goodness Gillian Lawson (baby extraordinaire) went with us. I swear, when we walked in to Babies R Us, I literally was like “what the heck is all this sh*t?!” Had she not come, Pablo and I would have not only had nothing on our registry, but we would have gotten into a gigantic fight, I just know it. But, both of these things were averted. Not only did we register for the things that we needed, we learned about things we had no idea to ask for i.e.: a rectal thermometer. It ended up being a great time and got me really excited about doing the baby’s room. Pablo’s parents already went on the register and bought us our car seat (which was delivered last week), so we have a car set in our house… this is for real folks!
4. Pablo and I went and watched the move “Life as We Know It” (if you haven’t heard of it go to you tube and watch a trailer), it was hysterical! We both laughed really hard throughout the film, but when we left I was in tears because I feel so unprepared. I guess it’s a good thing that we still have just over 4 months to prepare of this little baby. :)

Well, I think that is about a good an update as any. Pablo and I have been working very very hard the last couple of weekends to get things on our house “to do” list done (we painted both the living room and the dinner room as well as started on the baby room)… so I will be putting up photos of those – that is, as soon as we take them… :/
If you choose to pray for us, please pray for us and that God would just allow us to have more time together, both to do things on the house, but also to just be together and to nurture our relationship and prepare for the arrival of this baby. Life has become quite overwhelming and stressful and it’s so easy to just sit in front of the TV instead of investing in one another. We would definitely appreciate it.

Love to all of you!

Week 18 photo

Alright, so it's a couple days late (I don't get on the internet during the weekend) but here is the picture from last week, week 18.

A couple of notes: 1. yes, we took the photo in the middle of the grocery store (I didn't want to buy just one russet potato, and I already had my menu for the week planned out) -- thus, it's not the best picture of the belly to produce ration. 2. the week was supposed to be a sweet potato, but the sweet potatoes at our local produce shop must have been on steroids because they were about as big as my head -- and no way is Baby Bean that big -- thus, we had to imporvise.

All that said, here is week 18: