25 Weeks

How far along? 25 Weeks (Cauliflower)

Maternity Clothes? Still loving the pants and shirts...although it's so cold I need to get more long sleeved shirts. Hopefully I got pants big enough that I'm good there and don't need to get more.

Sleep? It's going good. During the week I can usually make it to my alarm. Weekends we have a new routine that the cats wake me up at 3 to feed them. I feed them and then fall asleep back on the couch. Luckily the couch is REALLY comfortable so I can usually sleep in a while after that. It's rough, but it works.

Best moment of the week: We started planning the baby shower now so that's been fun. Oh and I got a step stool for the (not baby) shower so now that is SO much easier. We're in the process of getting the cats ready for a baby so I got some baby lotion to wear so they can get used to the smell...I love it because I smell amazing and the cats get used to it (win-win). I also started planning things for each weekend between now and the end of April so we can make sure we get it all done in a timely manner (things like registering, looking at pediatricians, taking classes, etc.). Which reminds me, we booked our Baby Moon to Vegas for a weekend (we probably won't be able to go there anytime soon after she's here). So that should be a lot of fun!

Miss Anything? Sleeping on my back and being able to cuddle with the cats without feeling like I'm squishing my belly. It's all related to sleeping these days haha.

Movement: Very much so! She's the biggest wiggle worm at certain times. I love it!

Cravings/Aversions: Root Beer! Like seriously bad! We went out to eat and I could smell root beer in the restaurant and I was so excited to get one haha. I also love getting ice cream.

Gender: We have a little miss swimming around :)

Labor Signs: Nope, and it better stay that way for a while!

Symptoms: Back Pain, need to pee, my belly button is basically flat now, and I'm starting to get swollen...my ring probably won't fit too much longer (sad face!)

Moods: Nothing new. Still pretty happy most days. I cry easier (new record is crying to the song from Tarzan where the parents die and I thought "how sad, they didn't know if their kid was even going to survive" and started to bawl).

Looking forward to: Getting furniture and the things for each weekend done. I've got my glucose test coming up and I'm strangely looking forward to that, but it won't be for a couple weeks :)

Home Happenings

We've had quite a few eventful weeks going on lately. I thought I'd do a random "Home Happenings Post" since neither of these really require their own posts.

First, we've had quite a few new fish babies. Our Dalmatian Molly had babies within the first week of us having the fish so that was exciting (only two made it out of the 6 we saw). We were told both females were pregnant, but after a month of nothing from our Red Platy and noticing the female Molly was swollen again we just assumed the Platy wasn't pregnant so we weren't going to expect those babies. Then one morning we had red babies swimming around (so exciting)! It was around the time we had to do the first cleaning (around the 10th of the month) we were fishing the babies out so that we didn't vacuum them up and saw we had 6 red babies! Right now we only see about two of them, but they are pretty small, there might be more that are good at hiding. Then, as if that weren't enough fish babies for us, a few days later we noticed we had more white babies! We saw 6 in one day so I'm sure there were more, but since we have red and white babies we aren't sure exactly how much are still there and if any are hiding (because they are REALLY good at that). We'll have to wait till our next cleaning next month. We're thinking we may have to fish the babies out into a smaller tank from now on and try and sell them or give them away or something...if they are going to be having them this often we can't just have fish babies taking up all the oxygen in there.

red babies

Next, we've had so many days of snow, it's been insane! It's been very pretty to look at, but very much a pain in the butt to drive in. On Thursday it took me 2 hours to get to work (no joke!) because of how slowly people were going and how bad the roads were. I told my boss that's not happening ever again for me. If it's ever that backed up I'm done driving right away. But watching it come down while staying inside the house is so lovely! I absolutely love all our windows and just seeing it fall. Larry even made a couple snowmen for us (I forgot to take pictures...awful I know!) for our front yard and now we're seeing others build them in their front yards too :)

Woke up and 3 AM and saw this outside
Had to take a picture...so pretty!

We also got news on Thursday that our poor Otto got either kitty Chlamydia or Herpes...we're not sure. I just noticed after naps he'd wink his left eye a lot and he had tons of eye goop in the corner of it. Then after a few days I noticed his eye was REALLY red. It had me worried it was an infection of some sort (Larry thought it was fine and wasn't that important). Well after calling the vets and them telling me "eyes aren't something we like to wait on" I decided we needed to make an appointment. Now we have to put this awful goop in his eyes 2-3 times a day. He HATES it and I feel so bad that we have to hold him down for it. I try and feed him and let him attack my hands after so that he can "take down the enemy" and feel strong. Hopefully by the time we take him in for his booster shots next week they'll tell us he's all better and we can stop doing that. The good news is it doesn't spread to humans and it's mostly just a respiratory/eye issue, rather than an STD-like issue. As sad as it is, it's kind of funny to say "my cat got the clap" haha.

Just a random silly one of him with his
Tongue hanging out :)

Lastly, last night Larry and I decided to have a fun game night and all the kitties decided to join us. I actually got a picture of ALL of them hanging out together. This is rare since Otto loves to play so much that the girls tend to avoid him. Oscar loves playing with him, but acts like he doesn't. But it was nice to see them all around each other and not hissing at each other. I mean it helped that we opened the blinds so they could look out front, but still!

So that's what we've been up to lately....for now. More to come later though ;)

24 Weeks

Ignore my double chins...ew!

How far along? 24 Weeks (Cantaloupe)

Maternity  Clothes? Oh! My! Gosh! The Pants, the shirts, all of it is amazing! I'm sorry to all those I laughed at for telling me to just wear them. As Larry put it one day "do you know how much easier your life would be if you'd just listen to me more often?" Haha

Sleep? It was a rough week this past week, I could NOT sleep until my alarm. I was up before it each morning. Granted part of that was excitement over the new kitty, part of it was needing to go to the bathroom and it was close enough to my alarm that I just got up, part of it was heartburn, but after Monday I was finally able to sleep until my alarm and it felt SO great!

Best moment of the week: The Dr appointment for sure! We got to have another ultrasound so they could check the other side of the heart, we got confirmation that she's still a girl, and they even gave us a 4D picture of her cute little face (the nose!!). I'm so in love with this little lady!



I wonder who she'll look like.
I think she definitely has my nose so far.

Miss Anything? Sleeping on my back some nights. Going side to side is really hard when I feel sleeping on my back would feel so much better. I always thought as long as I propped my back up I'd never notice, but that's a lie!

Movement: Oh yes! She's found my bladder so that's been fun. She was just hitting around it before, but now she's very much hitting right on. There are moments where I have to stop what I'm doing immediately so that I can get to the bathroom as quickly as possible haha.

Cravings/Aversions: I got my first real pregnancy craving this week...root beer! It's odd, but I feel like I need it every day. I also want either ice cream or popcorn, whenever we watch a show or movie I just wish I had some. I finally got some ice cream and felt much better, but I would love popcorn still haha.

Gender: We have a little lady swimming around :)

Labor Signs: Not even and it better stay that way for a while! Especially since she's breech right now

Symptoms: Back pains is the biggest one, wanting root beer and being hungry a lot, peeing, and baby brain are also thrown in.

Moods: Usually I'm in a great mood, I have my moments where I read into things wrong and I want to freak out, but then realize I just heard it wrong. I also am nesting pretty hard core lately so that's taken up a bunch of my time and energy.

Looking forward to: Because of the nesting feelings I'm REALLY getting excited about getting more house stuff set up. I'm hoping to have it all set up before my shower (details about that to come).

Sweetest Husband Award!

So this past week has been pretty amazing for this lady and it's all pretty much thanks to the hubby :)

First, I'd like to give him a shout out for being literally the most amazing husband during my first trimester (I was looking for an opportunity to put this out there). This guy just let me sleep when I needed to sleep (which was ALL the time for a while), he'd come hold my hair anytime I "lost my lunch", even if he wasn't around me or was playing some game and even though I told him not to watch and to go away haha. He never let me lift anything more than 2 or 3 pounds (since I was on that awful pelvic rest) and would help me with laundry, groceries, and making dinner almost every night (and by help, I mean he basically did those for me). He'd rub my back ALL the time and get me any food or drink I needed when I knew I couldn't move and always made me laugh even though I was basically the most useless human being. He's seriously the greatest ever (and I know he's going to be the best daddy!).

Anyways, this isn't a pregnancy related post, this is why he's great aside from all that. With everything going on with BB and the new kitty and all that I had forgotten that he had already ordered my new computer as my backup Christmas present so it was a nice surprise when I came home on Wednesday to it all set up in our office...it's so pretty!

He tells me that it has the most storage you can basically get with a computer (which I REALLY need since I'm a picture hoarder), it's wide so I can still have to "two screen" effect without having two screens, and it's an "all in one" sort of thing so I don't have an ugly tower crowing the desk or around my feet. I can't wait to play around on it and see all that it can do :)

Then Thursday I was at work and got an email saying I had a delivery at the front desk. I went to pick it up and when I got back to my desk I saw he had gotten me the prettiest roses for a random mid-week surprise.

 

They smell so pretty! I wish I had a better vase, but they didn't come with one and I had to use one I just happened to have in my cabinet. I love surprise flowers from him :)

And just when I thought all the surprises were done with I came in to work today and got another email saying I had a delivery (again), but this time it was a treat.

I got the biggest order of chocolate covered strawberries I've ever seen (the picture only shows what was left by the time I actually remembered to take a picture). I shared them, of course, with my co-workers, but I still took quite a few home to eat this week...yum!

Anyways, I just had to brag a little bit about how amazing he has been and how lucky I really am.

23 Weeks

How far along? 23 Weeks (Grapefruit...woah!)

Maternity  Clothes? Guess I should eat my own words because I finally caved and got some maternity pants. As long as they were a size or two bigger than what I usually wear they were comfortable. I also HAD to since my other pants were too tight on my hips and were causing more pains than anything. So I guess I'm glad I switched over haha.

Sleep? Sleep is going better. I don't take naps as much, but I do go to bed earlier now. Although the heartburn wakes me up sometimes and that's not as much fun.

Best moment of the week: Finally getting maternity clothes (yes I really do like wearing them now) or getting our Otto and my new computer (not related to pregnancy, but it has been a great part of this week).

Silly picture of the best pants EVER!

Miss Anything? I mean I miss not being able to eat whatever I want or do whatever I want, but it's still minuscule compared to what I'm getting out of this.

Movement: Same as before, she is a wiggle worm at night, but not enough that it wakes me up or anything, just fun to feel. I can almost tell what time it is at night from the movement pattern haha. She's getting strong punches and kicks lately, which I'm loving. She also swims around a lot. One minute I'll feel a kick/punch on my right side, then wiggles along the bottom, then punches higher up by my belly button. It's pretty cool

Cravings/Aversions: I'm back to eating yogurts and fruits and loving it. Not that they are cravings, but they are no longer aversions :)

Gender: We have a little lady swimming around :)

Labor Signs: Not even and it better stay that way for a while!

Symptoms: Peeing, back pains, hunger, and baby brain like crazy some days! That's actually been there for a while, but I kept forgetting to put it on here...of course. I now have to write notes all over for things.

Moods: Happier, I cry when I see pets that need to be adopted...not sure why, but I cry a ton whenever we see those animals haha.

Looking forward to: My next Dr appointment is next week and we get to do another (most likely last) ultrasound so I'm really excited to see little miss at that point :)

Welcome Otto!

So, yeah, it may sound a little crazy, but we added another fur baby to our family :)

 

Let me tell you it wasn't our plan to add a kitty anytime soon. It kind of started back when we got our newest cat condo/scratching post. Larry made a joke about wanting another kitty to see him jump all over it. I used to tell Larry that IF we ever got another one I'd want to get a Siamese or Persian kitty. We agreed if we got one soon it would be a boy, need to be young, and if I could get one with blue eyes I'd love it.

Larry mentioned he was going to build me a computer as a secondary Christmas gift (we kind of decided to do a Christmas After Christmas thing between the two of us), but he said if I wanted a kitty I could choose that instead. Well I was really torn, but told him let's go to The Humane Society (because if I could rescue one rather than getting a free cat on KSL that would be so much better) and if we could find a male kitten that felt right I'd be okay with that, but if they didn't have that then I choose the computer. We went to the shelter, but they only had two female kittens available (both were cute and Larry almost talked me into getting them both, but we can't really have FIVE cats), so we left feeling that the computer was the better decision for our home.

Well today I randomly looked at KSL (I haven't been on that site for cats in so long because looking at the cats makes me sad so I avoid it as much as I can) and saw an hour before a male, Siamese, 3 month old kitten was for sale for cheaper than Siamese kittens usually go for. I sent Larry a text message telling him that he was the perfect kitty. I was only half serious about the kitty, but then people at work started talking about who was going to get him, and I realized I had to have him. I couldn't let anyone else take him home.

I text Larry to convince him to let me get him, text the lady to make the arrangements, and then once I left work (or rather, Larry picked me up so we could meet them together) I was ready to head up to get him. The trade off was actually quite quick and painless; he's such a fun little boy. He fell asleep on my lap on the road home after walking around the car for a while and it was so sweet. I haven't had a kitten get so comfortable so soon, we also talked about names. My vote was for Tucker, but Larry thought we should do one that has a different sound, so we settled on Otto. After Larry dropped me back off at work to get my car and we showed up at home together I saw that Otto had fallen asleep on Larry's lap the whole way home, so sweet!

We brought him home and the other cats weren't thrilled at first, which is pretty standard. They hissed, but were so curious about him they wanted to follow him around to see what he'd do. We got him some food and water and showed him the litter box and he took to it all really quickly. He also wanted to play with the other cats right away. We found his new game with them was to jump over to them until they hissed at him and then he'd back off, then he'd find another spot to jump at them from. It was so hilarious to watch! I've never had a kitten get so playful so quickly. He's going to be so fun to have around. It's literally the perfect fit!

Anyways, blogging world, say hello to Otto! We are very happy to have him in our home. Stay tuned for our adventures with him :)

22 Weeks

How far along? 22 Weeks (Eggplant sized)

Maternity  Clothes? I officially love the shirts, but pants I don't think I'll ever get to.

Sleep? I'm sleeping deep still, but she wiggles around at 3 AM so I always look forward to that. In fact there have been a few mornings I wake up past 4 and get bummed I missed the wiggles haha.

I did have my first really weird pregnancy dream last night (I mean I always have weird dreams, but this one was crazy). It had to do with eating a chocolate kitten that was alive and giving it back to the owner half eaten and I was surprised the half I ate didn't grow back haha.

Best moment of the week: Celebrating New Years. It was fun playing games with the group and having BB wiggle close to midnight. I am also loving the wiggles and finding patterns..it's kind of my obsession right now haha.

Miss Anything? Probably having no back aches. It's like right at 8 AM I've been upright too long and my back gives up. Once I get home from work I immediately lay on my side on the couch for a bit to take the weight off..or whatever is causing the pain.

Movement: Oh yes! I know she loves to wiggle around 9 PM and then again between 3 and 4 AM and then it's just during the day at random points. I also know if I eat a Mott's Medleys snack she'll wiggle more around then too. I could NOT get enough of it. If I squish up too tight at night I'll feel kicks and punches like it's her saying "hey! I need more room here!" haha. Today I was listening to the radio on my way to work and I started to sing one of the songs and she started wiggling around...not sure if it was dancing or she was trying to get me to shut up, but I loved it.

Cravings/Aversions: Nope, I'm eating mighty fine these days.

Gender: We have a little lady swimming around :)

Labor Signs: Nope, feeling great!

Symptoms: As usual - peeing, hunger, back pains. That's about it.

Moods: I don't cry as much, I feel like. Other than that I'm doing pretty good, staying pretty stable. I'm mostly in good moods. But that usually happens to me around New Years :)

Looking forward to: Still looking oh so much to seeing her! Also we'll probably start getting bigger items (crib, dresser, car seat, stroller, etc.) this month and next month so I'll be excited to get started on that.

How To Make 2017 Great!

I like to start these posts by recapping the previous goals to see how I did. For 2016 I had:

• Stay healthy
• Cross off items on our bucket list
• Exercise more
• Keep busy (make more non-vacation memories)

How I did:

• I think I did well on the stay healthy and exercise more (they can be lumped together)...for the most part. We didn't do as many hikes as I would have liked, but that seems to be the norm lately. Once I got pregnant all bets were off. For one, I wasn't even feeling remotely good enough to work out. Second, I was put on pelvic rest, which they made sound much scarier than it is. And third, I could only eat certain (unfortunately, very processed) foods for the first couple/few months. I tried sticking to my healthier options, but my stomach was not having any of it. Once I felt better I got back into eating fruits and adding veggies to dinners again.
• For items on our bucket list...that's a good one. I'm not going to lie, I got discouraged mid-year about if we'd even have kids so I took the page off the blog (it's still typed up, just not published anymore). We got to the point that we thought it wasn't going to happen so I took any signs that we were going to have kids off the blog and we just moved on with our lives (that sounds much more depressing than it was. I really was content, at the time, with that decision). So no, we didn't do any more with that particular bucket list.
• As for keeping busy...I didn't think I accomplished this one, but seeing all the new things we did in my review post (St. George, cliff diving, ghost tours, plays, Slide The Cities, floating the river, keeping busy with a new house, etc. ) I think I actually did really great with this one! Enough so that I might want to make it a regular goal each year. We may not have done vacations, but we sure had a blast last year.

So for my goals this year (call them resolutions if you'd like, but I like goals better):

• Stick with eating healthier still. I get hungry all the time now, but I'm doing my best to snack on fruits instead of candy. I was going to try and do a no sugar thing all year (I really believe I could do it, I just need to know saying NO is okay), but then Larry bought the world's biggest supply of candy so that goal is out the window. I may try and limit it to once a week though. I don't need BB getting diabetes before she's even a day old! I also can't wait to get back into working out once she's out. I'm sure I could start stuff now, but since I'm going on 20+ weeks without working out I can't really push myself now like I'd like to.
• Keep Busy. Like I said, I really liked this goal. We may not get very many vacations this year. I had planned a whole bunch for us, but a baby sure can change those in a second haha. I'm hoping we'll get a couple in again and then figure out some great ones for next year (I'm a traveling junkie, I can't NOT take a vacation of some sort, so I'll do what I can to hold me over, but I'm making up for it!)
• Be better at blogging. I got everything typed up like I wanted, but I didn't post them until months later. I'd like to try and find one day a month to get them put on the blog so that I'm not scrambling so much later to get it done. Fingers crossed on this one!
• I'd like to find a stranger to compliment as often as possible. This one sounds strange, I'm sure, but this one came about because one day I saw a girl with purple hair. I'm not always a fan of the different colors in hair, but this one just fit this girl's face so well I wanted to tell her. I didn't really have a chance for multiple (boring) reasons and I wished I had later. I want to find a way to cheer someone up as often as possible if I can (plus I think hearing something looks good from a stranger means a bit more than a close friend or relative that you feel HAS to give you the compliment).
• I would also like to get more organized. I take a million pictures and keep them all. Even if they have a blur in them or I took a second, much better shot. I still hold onto the bad ones. I think it's okay to get rid of those now. I also want to get my emails and computer more organized since both are a mess right now. I can keep planners and do a daily to-do, but I need to go deeper on this one.
• My biggest goal of the year is to get the house put together. We knew once we sold the condo we wanted to use our savings for new home stuff and now that the first part is done we are slowly, but surely, working on the second part. I'd love to get the guest room and nursery put together, get us an adult bedroom set (we have a nice mattress, but my dresser and night stand are from when I was a teenager...time for an upgrade). I'm thisclose to getting my Christmas Tree/Craft room put together (I've got all the elements, just need to actually do something about them), and our living, dining room, kitchen need some added touches to them. I'd also like to get our bathrooms more coordinated and get some decorations hung up. Eventually I'd love to get our gaming/reading room put together, but that one is going to take a lot of work so it's further down the list...kind of closer to finishing the basement. We also have to get a fence up and put a backyard together this year...but I'm sure we'll start with the fence and then slowly work on the yard part as time goes on. My goal is to get as much of this done before May (when BB will be here) so that we don't have to worry about too much of it after...I'm sure we'll be plenty of busy at that point.

Other than that, lets enjoy the moments we have, try not to get too far ahead of ourselves with future planning (a VERY hard one for me), and just enjoy what we have. I hope everyone gets what they wished for this year (as long as it's reasonable and doesn't hurt anyone else...you gotta have those disclaimers haha)!

That Time We Celebrated {Another} New Year

Hello World!

I'm always so excited for a new year. I'm sure I've written that on here before. I love a clean slate, a fresh start, a new beginning. I simply cannot wait to see what 2017 has in store for this Bradsby family! Here is a (bit long) recap of how we spent our night/morning:

As is tradition in our home, we played many games while watching the ball drop in our pj's (or comfy clothes). This year we had an added bonus of Andy and Rachel joining us. It's great because we don't really see them together a lot (they only get date nights on Saturdays and who wants to spend their date night with their pregnant sister in pj's at home? I mean I am cool, but that's just not how you'd do it I suppose). It was so much fun because we have a few games that are only 4 players and so Larry and I haven't gotten the chance to play them so we did those ones first.

We started with Ratuki. It was a lot of fun (enough so that I forgot to get ANY pictures of that), but was pretty intense for a first game so we only played one round. Turns out I accidentally cheated...but still lost somehow? We then switched to Taboo, which we ended up playing for longer than we expected. By the time we decided to stop and see who was in the lead the scores were tied so we played an intense couple tie-breaker rounds haha (Andy and Rachel ended up winning). I forgot to take action shots of that game...whoops! We then played Wits and Wagers. This one was a new one for all of us so we had to learn as we went...turns out we all don't know a whole lot on subjects we thought we'd know. We played one round of that game and then went onto a new one (I actually got pictures of that one a little bit).

The best games of the night were the last (of course!). We played Mad Gab, where I could NOT stop laughing at my brother trying to figure out the cards. He had never played before and kept saying his brain didn't work that way to make the cards make sense. Larry helped him with a few practice cards during each set up and he eventually caught on. I'd like to point out I'm a MASTER at Mad Gab! Larry and I play that one often so we were pretty awesome at it. I felt bad because all the laughing I did must have woken up BB (I normally am in bed much earlier so she was peacefully asleep and then I shook her up so she gave me some nice jabs to remind me she was still there haha). Then to ring in the new year we played a game of Aggravation. Larry won, Andy was second, so it was Rachel and I dueling out the final parts. Lets just say that part started with me having 2 in home and 2 on the board and her having 1 in home, 2 on her start, and one in play...and somehow we ended up with both of us having 3 in home and just waiting to roll the number we needed to get the last one in Home haha. I ended up coming in 3rd, but it was REALLY funny (at least it was to me). The ball dropped during that game so we all got our New Years kisses in and wishes of a great year ahead.

After all that excitement we had to call it a night. It had been fun, but I'm definitely not used to being up that late.

I had decided that this morning we're going to have a waffle bar for breakfast. Since Rachel was staying the night and we had an awesome new waffle maker (one of those flip ones they have in hotels..thanks Santa!) I wanted to do something fun to start it off. We went and got some fruit, waffle makings, and other miscellaneous items (Pam spray, syrup, etc.) yesterday and got it all made this morning. It turned out so great! Better than I expected (you just never know when trying new things sometimes). We all got stuffed silly and felt pretty good about ourselves haha.

So to everyone out there who reads this blog, thank you for being a part of our year. I can honestly say it was a great one and makes me excited to think how we can make this new one even better! Happy 2017 (resolutions and such on the next post since this one got a little bit longer than I realized)