random thoughts.

THE NURSERY: ...is finally done! it took a lot of time, thought and effort (and i'll admit, STRESSING on my part!) but with some patience, lots of improvising/creativity and lots more shopping frugally, we were able to piece together everything we needed, get some really awesome deals and really just make her nursery fit the casual, low-key style of "us." and i think that's what makes me love it the most. i keep trying to post pictures of what it all looks like, but unfortunately they just will not load...so the pictures will have to come in time.

THE CARSEAT: is actually the only necessity left for baby at the moment! i kinda laugh (in a very stressful way) as i think about how this is probably the most important in that it actually gets her home! nonetheless, i hope we'll have it by the end of this weekend which will lay some of my maternal concerns to rest! =)

HALLOWEEN: i can't believe it's here already. crazy how time flies. for the life of me, i cannot remember what we did last year to celebrate the occasion. the memory loss that comes with pregnancy kills me as i know we didn't pass out candy...bleh! this year we have a few bags of candy for however many kids might come by. i won't lie though, i'm secretly hoping no kids will come by so i can indulge in the candy myself. muahahahahaha.

baby b's nursery

so i think we are finally done with baby b's nursery...

 it took a lot of time, thought and effort (and i'll admit, STRESSING on my part!) but with some patience, lots of improvising/creativity and lots more shopping frugally, we were able to piece together everything we needed, get some really awesome deals and really just make her nursery fit the casual, low-key style of "us." and i think that's what makes me love it the most. i find myself wandering into the room a lot and just rocking in the rocker, touching and imagining her in all her little pink clothes or staring down into the crib where she'll soon lay. it makes me teary-eyed to think of how much we both love this precious little un-born girl and how much she will bless all of our lives. life truly is miraculous.

31 wks.

well i'm definitely feeling pregnant as we move into the final stretch of the baby baking (9 weeks til D-Day...YIKES!)

here are some pictures of the (huuuuuumongous) belly as it seriously feels stretched to its limits.

from the side:

and from the front (this one totally looks like a huge ball is under my skin):

i can seriously feel the difference of the past few weeks and i'm sure it will continue to get worse as she definitely is running out of room. faux contractions have continued each day and quite frankly i can't sit, stand or walk for very long anymore before getting sharp pains in my sides and back. and on top of that, i'm exhausted ALL the time (even after 8-10+ hours of sleep) and i have a horrible time breathing!! it's quite a miracle though to feel her move around and think about how this baby was conceived from just pure love. hard to believe she'll be here so soon.

baby hiccups.

this past weekend i started feeling the baby hiccuping. at first i thought, what is she doing?? then i realized with the position of the movement and the rythmic jolts every couple seconds of so, that she had the hiccups!! seems like it's been a common thing too, as she has them a couple times a day. so cute and so funny!!

30 wk appt

today was our 30 week doctor appointment. seems that baby b's been doing a lot of moving around and getting ready for her big day. doctor says she has a strong heartbeat and that i'm measuring at 32 inches now. yikes! considering i'm only 30 weeks and 1 day, i'm on the bigger side of the measurements!!

myka and i then asked the doctor which way the baby was positioned, seeing as how i only feel her in the lower left and right sections of my belly. we figured she hadn't turned head down yet and that she was still lying left-to-right. doctor surprised us by turning on the ultrasound and showing us that she indeed has turned and positioned herself for labor/delivery. she also is curved in almost a U or C shape, with her spine on my left, her butt at the top of my belly and her feet and hands on my right. we were definitely surprised by her length and the size of her head. can't say it helped much with my apprehension on labor though!

with the 30 week appt, we found out that we start our bi-weekly appointments. meaning we'll be at the doctor's office every two weeks until the very last few weeks, when we will be there every week. it's so scary...she's almost here and already growing so fast!!!

the beginnings of baby b's nursery...

so...this past weekend was seriously awesome.

in addition to our wonderful baby shower, i found an awesome changing table and crib on craigslist to complete the furniture for the nursery!!! the best part...i found the changing table and crib for under $100!!! AMAZING!! we were so lucky to have found both. and in addition to all that great news, we found them both in white...which means we don't have to re-finish the rocker & glider we bought a few weeks ago from children's orchard. i'm pretty stoked that our entire nursery was furnished for under $150, as myka and i are trying to be as thrifty as possible. and now all that money we budgeted for more expensive things, can go to other necessities!!

originally we had planned to go with oak and/or black for all the baby's furniture, but i'm so glad it worked out differently. the room looks so light and baby-ish. myka and i are going this weekend

to pick up a mattress and hopefully finalize the bedding/colors for the room. wooooohoo!!

here's a "before" shot of the room that we used as a guest bedroom:

and here's an "after" shot with the baby furnishings 

(pardon the mess, we are in the process of organizing/washing everything!)

as you can see, she has lots of goodies already!! =)

in addition, tonight after myka's big birthday feast, we went down to "babies r us" to purchase some more fun necessities for baby. we got a first aid kit, a set of bpa-free bottles for her, and a boppy breastfeeding pillow. 

then, we headed down to big lots...which may easily be one of my new favorite stores. there we found her brand-name crib mattress for $45, a brand-name changing table pad for $15 and the same boppy we bought at BRU for $15!!! woooo-hoo!!

soooo, everything is almost in order. we only need to find her bedding this weekend, find some extra sheets, receiving blankets, lap/burp pads and some other small things and we're all set.

today marks 30 weeks...10 weeks/70 days til baby's due date. YAY! we're so excited.

to myka...

dear husband,

it's hard to believe that a whole year has gone by. seems like only yesterday we were getting massages and eating dinner with family at Dots for birthday #28. [ yummmm sizzling hamburger steak ;) ]

as each of our birthdays, holidays and special celebrations throughout the year come and go, i am more and more excited with the fast passing of our life together. you are my best friend, my rock, my soulmate and i consider myself lucky and honored to have ever met you, nonetheless to have fallen in love and married you. 

time goes and years fly by, as everyone keeps telling us, and i'm so excited to see how the road winds and turns as together, we face the adventures ahead.

so happy, happy 29th birthday. here's to another year down and many, many more to come =)

i love you,

your wife

the baby shower.

this past saturday, my mom and gramma hosted an awesome shower for baby b, myka and i. we felt so blessed to have so many family and friends attend and share with us the impending joy of our little one. we're really lucky to have so many great people in our lives that love us and who are just as excited as we are to be welcoming her into our lives.

and with no further delay, here is a short video i made of the pictures from our shower, photos courtesy of my dear old friend bob kunihiro at rkphotography

poor sport

i'll admit, i'm a huge poor sport. i'm not sure why exactly and no matter how much i try and control it, for some reason, it always creeps up on me. and seeing as how i married one of the most competitive people i have ever met in my life, my husband doesn't help the situation. i remember one night while dating, we played the board game risk into the wee hours of the night because i was determined to win. we must have played 3 rounds of the game and he, of course, won all three games. i finally got so frustrated, i threw my little army men on the bed and stormed out of the room.

well bless his little heart, because tonight he decided to pull out monopoly for a little family fun. and i have to say, with the blend of his competitiveness and my poor sportsmanship, PLUS all these wacky baby hormones...we were doomed from the start. and monopoly was no different than times past, especially when luck always seems to be in myka's hands and he ends up racking up houses and hotels within a few turns. it makes me mad! and throw in these wacky hormones, and i swear, we were lucky i didn't tear my fake little money in half and shove the house/hotels in places that are not appropriate for the blog.

so unfortunately, game night didn't end up as fun as it could have been...with me pouting and myka gloating. (he'll swear he didn't gloat, but he always does, which just adds to the frustration!) but thankfully my husband still loves me despite this horrible trait and i'm praying that baby b has his competitiveness and not my sportsmanship!

28 weeks.

so we're officially in our third trimester. the other day we realized that baby will be here in less than 12 weeks. we were a little overwhelmed when we thought about how big and far along we were thought we were back at 12 weeks!!

i feel like the belly has definitely ballooned and each day it sits a little differently....high, low, pushed out, hidden. it cracks me up.  

my mom and i started measuring around the belly every weekend. we were shocked when we realized that i have grown 3 inches in a week!!

toasty.

i've always been a fan of this time of the year...as the temperatures begin to drop and you can feel the brisk winter weather on the horizon. i love it. it makes me look forward to the days when i'll need to bundle up in sweaters, scarves and jackets, with my face pale white with rosy cheeks. and this past week we've started to feel the beginning of it as temperatures have dropped to the low 70s-high 60s. myka gets as excited as a little boy about the morning fog and the fact that tonight he needed his sweats and sweatshirt to feel remotely warm while taking the dogs outside. so as we shivered on our walk, we decided that tonight would be the perfect night for something we've been looking forward to...our first, nice roasty fire in our fireplace.

and what a nice, warm, romantic family night it turned out to be for us. and when myka opened up the front door later on in the evening, yume and i burrowed and cuddled into each other more as a very, very cold brisk draft swept into the living room. the cold is just around the corner and we can't wait!!

these boots were made for walkin...

on a recent, unplanned visit to the children's orchard my mom, gramma and i found these and for $1, we could NOT pass them up.

how cute will she be in these?!?!

nesting.

it's official, "nesting" has kicked in. tonight, i got up and said, i'm going to clean the house. so i cleaned the entire front room/kitchen/dining room, had myka rearrange the entire living room, cleaned out the junk in the spare room, carpet cleaned a few items of furniture and just rearranged everything. i then scrubbed my kitchen down and "swiffered" all my wood floors. now to some, this wouldn't seem odd, like c'mon heather, that's called house-cleaning. and you're right, it should seem odd, only that it was like 9P and it's continuing now at 12:45A. in addition, i keep walking around the house envisioning where the baby's things will be set up and how i would like to rearrange things furthermore. obsessive, probably. i'm sure myka is loving it though, as i'm usually too lazy to tidy up and he does it for me =)  i'm so lucky. he's the greatest man i have ever met.

to add to my "mommy/nesting mode," we found an AWESOME glider and ottoman today for $50 at the children's orchard. perfect for baby's room and exactly what we were looking for. i googled it when i got home and it normally runs for about $150 so i was stoked.  as you know with us, we LOVE projects so we'll probably refinish it (it's white and we'd like for it to be wood stained) and maybe do something with the upholstery. i'll be sure to post pictures of it as time goes on, because lucky for me, i found my small digital camera tonight (thank god for cleaning) and won't need to lug out the big camera as much anymore for small things.

all in all, today/tonight was awesome!

i'm HOT

i think i must have gotten a new batch of hormones in because no matter what i do or wear, i am burning HOT. thank god this batch of hormones isn't affecting my mood...yet at least. hahahaha. but seriously, it can be 70 degrees outside and i feel like i'm in the desert and the temperature is 105. wouldn't matter so much, as i love the heat, but try lugging around a beach ball deep in your belly and it gets very uncomfortable. doesn't seem to help that a heatwave decided to hit this week after our rogue thunder and lightning spectacle earlier this week. bleh. so in combination with my scorching hormones this week, i am all sweaty and hot and want to be naked and in an ice cold bath all the time. and even that doesn't help. UGH!

baby kicks.

i've noticed that as baby b's space grows increasingly smaller, her movements are definitely more noticeable (duh!). but i've noticed that some things make her even more "bouncy" than others.

1. MYKA - when myka gets home from work and in the hours following his return, i usually feel her kicking a little more (and not to mention harder) than during the rest of the day. i'm guessing that she's reacting to the sound of his voice and his energy, but i think it's adorable nonetheless.

2. MY BROTHER, KYLE - for some reason, the minute my brother talks or walks into a room, the baby starts kicking like crazy. myka, my mom and i think it's a combination of his crazy and loud energy and voice. but seriously, today he came over to pass time between class and all he did was eat and lay on the couch watching tv, and she kicked and bounced the entire time he was here. once gone, the kicks have been slim. it'll be so fun to see how she reacts to him out of the womb.

3. KEITH URBAN - ok, maybe not only keith urban, but i realized today, as i played keith urban that she kicks whenever she hears music. and usually to songs that her mommy and daddy like. i love it! and she seems to love classical music, which is so nice and relaxing!

4. DOGS - funny thing about this, is that she doesn't kick so much in response to our two dogs, but definitely in response to our neighbors dogs! if their dogs start to howl or bark (which has become a constant recently), she kicks like crazy. it's almost like she's echoing my thoughts in thinking "SHUT UP!"

5. VIBRATION - the other day i had my cell phone resting on my belly and every few minutes it would go off in response to a new text message. and everytime it did, she kicked the phone off. so naturally i would put the phone back on my belly, where she would again, kick it off the next time it vibrated. in addition, i have an amazing heating/vibrating back pad from my poppy for my incessant back pains, and any time i lay on it for relief, she goes crazy, like "WHAT IS GOING ON OUT THERE?!?" it always make me laugh out loud.

she's definitely a little jumping bean and we love learning more and more about her personality as the days go by!