Baby Mitchell #2: 15 Weeks

How Far Along: 15 weeks J

How Big is Baby: the size of a naval orange (4.5 inches long); I must have had the wrong size last week L

Sleep: sleeping great!  No pregnancy insomnia.  In fact, I have the opposite problem.  On Monday night I fell asleep on the couch before 8.  Wes woke me up and we both went to bed at 8:15.  That is a new record for us.  I remember being tired last time around, but I just don’t remember being this tired.  I don’t know if it has to do with my earlier start time at work or having Emma but sometimes I am just exhausted.  Also, still sleeping on my tummy J. 

Diet/Cravings/Aversions: I still hate the smell of regular coffee.  Some people make it at work and I want to tell them to STOP- it makes me gag.  I am trying to eat more protein because I am literally hungry all of the time. 

Symptoms: heartburn.  Seriously? It’s not supposed to start this early.  Maybe this baby will have a head full of dark hair like me?  There is always hoping J.  Also, I can just feel my body starting to slow down and taking longer to recover after taking long walks (or really cleaning the upstairs). 

Movement: Yes, I really think I felt the baby this week!  One day after lunch, I leaned forward at my desk and my belly was touching my desk and I felt the flutter, I leaned in a little closer and felt it again.  I have felt this same flutter for the last two days just a couple of times a day. 

Gender Prediction: my mom had a dream that the baby was a boy!  It was a funny dream.  In the dream she couldn’t believe that we were having a boy and told us that we couldn’t have a boy because we didn’t know what to do with a boy.  So maybe this baby is a boy?  After I told my husband that story, he asked me if I cared either way what the gender is- and the answer is I really don’t have a preference.  Anyone that knows me, knows I wanted a girl so badly with Emma.  I would jokingly tell people that I had to find out the gender because I would need the next 20 weeks to recover if we were having a boy.  This time I feel so differently about it.  I would love for Emma to have a sister.  But I would also love for her to have a brother.  Seriously no preference this time around.

What I am worrying about: not nearly as much this week.  As a follow up to last week’s worries, Wes did a few “fake” heart attacks this week.  Turns out Emma just laughs at him and moves on J

What I am loving:  that my belly bump is growing.  I really think I look less like I gained 10 pounds and more like I am having a baby now J

What I am looking forward too: I know this is way far ahead, but I have already been daydreaming about breastfeeding our newbie.  In case you didn’t know, I am 100% pro breastfeeding. 

Best Moment of the week: Wes painting Emma’s big girl room J a clean upstairs- it feels great not to be drowning in paperwork anymore!

Emma's Big Girl Room: Progress

We have decided to move Emma to a big girl room to make way for her little brother or sister moving into her nursery.  There are a couple of reasons for the move.  The nursery right now, is relatively gender neutral with a few doses of pink in it which makes it fitting for a baby girl or baby boy addition to the family.  In addition, her new room will be bigger and it has carpet which is important for a walking (soon to be climbing) almost toddler.  And we need to add some pink to our house.

Emma is moving into what we affectionately refer to as the spongebob room.  The people before us painted it teal and put up spongebob squarepants stamps in pink and yellow all over the room.  It was gross.  I have always hated the paint in that room and now that it's painted I am not sure why it took us almost three years to paint it.

My husband has been telling me to pick a color almost since we decided to move her.  We went to Home Depot and picked out all kinds of pink samples and of course I brought home a sample of my favorite grey.  Wes taped up all the samples in the room and told me to go look.  I just couldn't decide what color I wanted.  I mulled over it and then finally decided to go with grey.  I know some people may not love grey.  But I do.  Like love love love the color grey.  The paint is called Graceful Grey (I mean doesn't it even sound pretty).

So once that was decided my husband taped off the room and got right to painting.  Here is a panoramic view (using our iPhone of course) of the room before.

Once he cut in on all the corners and edges.

And finished!  Just waiting to dry!

So so so happy with the results.  And so glad I went with my gut!

Also, for the other biggest change: the fan.  I love white fans.  When we were getting Emma's nursery ready, we went to Home Depot to price white fans.  Oh my goodness, the cheap fans start at $100.  We had perfectly good fans at home, so I told Wes that he would have the pleasure of painting our fans.

Here is the before of the fan in Emma's big girl room.

It's amazing to me what $7 and two cans of spray paint can do.

It just makes the room feel different and less antiquated.

We also moved in the other chair that my parents gave us.  There is an identical one in Emma's nursery.  You can also get a better idea of the color grey in this picture.

So where does my need to inject pink come into play?  Well we bought Emma a new to us Jenny Lind style crib and Wes is going to paint it pink- ballerina pink to be exact!!! I can just imagine that it is going to be beautiful and coordinate with the grey so well.

Thanks for all your painting babe!  You're the best!

Random Updates (As Told through iPhone Pictures)

1. Have I mentioned my love for lemon water?  Every morning I walk down to our cafeteria and fill up a cup of ice water and squeeze at least three lemons in it.  So delicious.

2. Emma's new favorite toys are pots and pans.  She had shown no interest in opening cabinets and I thought maybe she would just skip that stage.  Nope, girl loves to open all of the cabinets and go to town on pulling out the pots and pans.

3.  Emma's cut healed up nicely, she had this scab for a few days and then it fell off!  So glad it wasn't any worse.

4. Wes made baked potato soup for dinner one night- it was sooo yummy and rich.  It almost tasted just like Blue Baker's soup!

4.  Emma loves to play outside for the rocks.  Her and Wes can go out there for an hour and she will just babble and hold and touch all of the rocks.  Love this facial expression here.

And this is what happens when the rock gets taken away from her- priceless.

5. This picture is so blurry, but I cant believe how grown up she looks here- what happened to my itty bitty baby????

6. Happy Birthday, Grandpa!  Emma loves you :) and the rolls from Texas Roadhouse.

7.  Then they got out the saddle to sing my father in law happy birthday!  He was such a good sport!

8. We got a preview of Emma's 9 month old pictures.  Love this girl! Emma- you have the most beautiful eyes!

9.  Another blurry iphone picture where our girl is looking so grown up.  I cannot get enough of her in summer clothes.  I am so glad spring is on the horizon- I do not prefer winter clothes for my baby girl.  

Then I noticed that daddy took a picture of him feeding her a bottle.  Glad to know that shes still our baby and drinks a bottle.

10.  Starbucks loves to jump over the baby gate.  We will open up the other gate for him to come through and he will run to jump over this gate.  He has perfected this move.

11. My mom called us on Saturday night alerting us to some teak armchairs that my dad had found out on his motorcycle ride.  She told us that they looked like they were out for the trash.  We had just returned home from running errands and had a cranky Emma on our hands, but we loaded her up in the van and went to go look at them.  It was dark and we couldn't really see them.  I felt bad about taking them if that's not what they were out there for.  So I decided to knock on the door- sure enough, they were up for grabs.  Wes loaded them up in the van and we came home.  We didn't get a good look at them until Monday night.  They are nice!  We looked them up online and they sell for $450 each!  Our lucky day!  So happy my mom and dad clued us in on this find!

Emma's Best First Christmas: Part 3

I promise by the time January is over, I will be done talking about Christmas.  

I woke up around 7:30 Christmas morning and could not believe that my brood (Wes and Emma) were still sleeping.  I snuck downstairs to assemble Wes's stocking, just in time for him to come downstairs and make coffee.  We watched a little bit of the news- it was going to snow afterall!  and then we decided to open our stockings.  I couldn't believe that Wes wanted to do this without Emma, but he made a good point that we would just be distracted.  

Here is our tree just waiting for our muchkin to wake up.

We were not supposed to get gifts for each other, but Wes made me the cutest picture book from our trip to San Francisco.  Here I am opening it and Starbucks and I are gushing over it. Just in case you are wondering my presents were wrapped in the Huggies box- we don't just leave our diaper boxes out like that!

My mom texts us good morning and we tell her that Emma is still asleep.  We let her sleep until 8:30 and then decide we need to wake her up so that we can have Christmas at our house before heading over to my parents.  I go to get her upstairs and have Wes take a picture of us coming down the stairs.  I can still remember that all four of us waited anxiously on the stairs and had to get our picture made before going to see what Santa brought us.  

As you can tell, Emma is dying from the anticipation.  

And here she is seeing what Santa brought her for the first time.  She got some added help from her fur brothers.  

Different angle- not sure she understands the concept of waking up and having new toys just put out for her! She has been such a good girl, Santa brought her a Fisher Price Zoo and the toy with the beads on it (not sure what it is called?).  I think the penguin was her favorite animal.  

Now time for her stocking.  She was still really confused by what was going on.  

I imagine her saying "I love Santa".

Now time to start opening presents.  Have I mentioned yet that Emma is a SLOW present opener.  Yes, she is SLOW.  Here she is opening Aunt Kelli's gift.  

We really had to help her with this round of present opening because we were running late for my parents house, but don't you love that face?  We love the puzzle!! I think it is really going to help her learn how to spell her name!  Thanks Aunt Kelli!

Here is Emma opening another one of her presents, reaching in...

We stopped opening presents after this point, and decided to save them for the afternoon with the boys.  

Next, we attempted to get a family shot before heading out the door. Ummm, who invited you to this picture brother Starbucks?

Awww, much better.  Although, I am not sure why Emma is looking up at the ceiling!

Next, we headed over to my parents house.  Here is their pretty tree with the fiesta lights and all the pretty presents underneath!

We were all starving, so we ate breakfast before opening presents.  

I just need to take a moment here to talk about my favorite Christmas tradition- it is breakfast at my mom's house.  For as long as I can remember, we have had Sara Lee coffeecakes for breakfast (we get one pecan coffeecake and one butter coffeecake) and they are delicious.  In recent years, my mom has amped up Christmas breakfast with egg casserole and fruit salad.  Besides watching Emma look at her presents for the first time, it is my favorite part of Christmas. 

In case you couldn't tell by my words, here is how happy I am :)

 Sisters!

After we finished breakfast, it was time to open up presents!  Close up of the tree!

Proof that Emma did in fact warm up to Adge!  Awww, they love each other!

Emma opening up her stocking from Nonni.  Her favorite- puffs!  Although, in the back of her mind, I am sure she was wondering why she didn't get candy like the rest of us!

My pretty mom opening up her stocking!

Adge with her new coat!

Emma's turn!  See that tiny piece of paper she has in her hand! 

One of my favorite books from my childhood!  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

Ally, what did you get? Is it shiny? Is it new? Is it expensive?

Does it have an apple on it?

Nonni didn't forget her grandpups!  Do they look a little excited or what?

Emma opening another present!  This time in Nonni's lap!  At about this time in the morning, Emma became my mom's shadow, she wanted to be held the whole time and followed her everywhere!

Dad opening up his special coffee from Blue Mesa- it was delicious!

I stole the camera from Wes and told him to give me a smile.  He is probably not going to like that I put this picture in, but it is the only one I have from him at my parents house!  He is excited to be opening up some Maple Pecan Nut coffee from Central Market or our family zoo pass (I cant remember what was in this bag!).

Here is Emma opening up her bath letters from Nonni- trying the bag approach this time.  See the death grip on Nonni's hair.  

Here I am opening our Wes's hedge trimmer! yay!

Now for one of my favorite presents from Christmas (except for the zoo pass!), my I love you, blogs and coffee print!  It is currently hanging in Emma's nursery, but will soon be relocated to my office!  

Emma was over the present opening at this point, and decided to move onto the tree.  Hmmm, which of these ornaments can she eat?

  

 I don't want to bore all of the blog reader's with more pictures of our presents, but let's just say that my parents are super generous!  We love them and more importantly love spending time with them!  They have done a great job making Christmas special every year and I hope I can do the same for Emma.  Here is a picture of them with their favorite grandchild (hehe, I can say that since Emma is currently their only grandchild).

Then, they took a family picture of us.

What a great Christmas morning!