A Real Chip Bump!

   Last night when I got home and got changed into comfy clothes, Michael made a comment that I had "a real bump" and that it didn't just look like I ate a lot of food anymore. And that's great since I was hungry when I got home. In these pictures I am 13 weeks and 2 days pregnant! I think I look more pregnant in the first picture where I'm holding Sasha. =)

A few more notes: so far 13 weeks is giving me very detailed dreams that I don't like.

   The first one was about some girl calling for help on the non-emergency line (instead of 911 so we could check where her phone says she is) but somehow I was able to watch a video of what was happening, but since she wouldn't talk to me, it took her 30 minutes to stand next to a street sign when I could finally send the call with an intersection. And then I ended up going to that neighborhood area -- why?! -- and was getting chased by the bad guy who was already handcuffed. That's when I woke up, so I was very tired on Wednesday. But I did see a cute raccoon at work!

   The next night's dream was about some homeless guy who kept asking me to give him a ride, but I told him I only had my bicycle, so then I started riding home on my bicycle even though my car was parked on the other side of the building. What the heck?

   Chip's heaviness comes and goes at night. Sometimes I can sleep comfortably on my back, sometimes I can't, but then sleeping on my stomach feels fine. My tiredness is a little bit less. I still take 20 minute naps in my car on my lunch break at work (but I also did that before I was pregnant). Some nights I am able to stay up until 10pm and other nights I still go to sleep before 9pm.

   ** I had my first random crying/ hormones hit: Michael and I were sitting on the couch and he started tickling my feet a lot and once he stopped, I was still laughing, which quickly turned to crying with me covering my face. He asked me what was wrong and I said, "I don't want you to divorce me!" (We will never get a divorce, by the way so it was kind of random that I said that.) He laughed a bit and changed positions so he was laying next to me and kept giving me hugs and kissing my cheeks. He kept saying things like, "It's okay. It's just your hormones." And when I told him that I'm going to cry so much when Chip is born, I started crying a bunch then too. Just thinking about having that gross, slimy, perfect baby on my chest for the first time.

  Am I imagining it or have there been way more diaper commercials on TV lately? And they are all showing moms in the hospital right after the (clean) baby is born. Those sweet first baby yawns. Ugh 183 days until July 2nd!! Maybe I'll be really lucky like my friend Tonia whose daughter Ashlyn was also due on July 2nd this year, but was ready for the world a bit sooner and born on June 23rd.

2nd Christmas

On Monday I drove to Gainesville to celebrate Christmas with my family. Michael has the week off from VAMP, but he is working Grinchmas at Universal some of those days, so he wasn't able to come to Gainesville with me. I still had a lovely time and on Tuesday my mom and I ran to Walgreens, CVS, Hobby Lobby, Books A Million, and Target and got a bunch of half off Christmas items for next year. Got to star those festive photo shoots with Chip next December!

 For some reason Peyton doesn't seem to like presents very much. When she was standing next to someone who was opening a present, she would whine, "No, no, no, no, no, no." And keep pushing the item out of their hand. (She did the same thing for her second birthday last month.) However while I was passing out all the presents, she started upwrapping one of hers so I grabbed the camera to capture the rare moment.

 She seemed to like the two gifts I gave her. One being a set of bracelets. Since Halloween, any time she sees me wearing bracelets, she takes them off my arm one at a time and puts them on her arm. Then she'll put them back on my arm, smile and say, "Pretty!" (In October it was just "Preeee!")

 Mommy's bag that had four more presents inside!! And Grandpa opening the Tic-Tac tree I put together for him. We went out to breakfast the next morning as usual.

 The second gift from Aunt Rachee- a Veggie Tales devotional book. Although she probably won't be able to read it herself for three more years, it can be read to her! Each page has a different topic, and there is a page for every day of the year and some Bible verses to learn at the end. I bought one for Chip too because they were on a great sale at the Family Christian Store when I bought two CDs for my mom last month.

 Mommy made a delicious Christmas dinner, which was like a slightly smaller version of Thanksgiving, but included my favorite macaroni salad. For dessert she made her annual Jesus jello cake to celebrate the reason for the season! At 7pm Sharanya came over to make graham cracker houses with us again.

 Back at home last night, Michael opened the five presents from my parents that were specifically picked out for him. While in Gainesville I opened the presents for me, for both of us, and the two for Chip. Judging by how much Peyton and Helena got, Chip should have a huge pile next year! ;)

First Christmas in our House

   So apparently if someone random was reading my blog, they might think that we don't often celebrate Christmas. I was looking through old posts and there is nothing about Christmas from the past two years. I promise we celebrated it! And I've never even posted any Christmas pictures at my parents' house. Well I made sure to pull out the Canon tonight when I got home from work. And I'll do the same tomorrow in Gainesville.

 Aside from working on the deck in the backyard, Michael also installed this light fixture into the living room!! It made such a wonderful difference being able to see what we were doing. That light was originally in the dining room- came with the house- so I'm glad he made great use of it! You'll see I promptly ditched my sweater and changed into a tank top after the tree photos. Welcome to Christmas in Orlando.

 My favorite picture after I asked Michael to, "Hold up the fox like this.."

   Michael apologized for not "really" getting me any gifts. He got me a bunch of onezies for Chip, which I did ask for! Christmas gets me in a semi-bipolar funk, but it wasn't too bad this year. Just a mix of "why is everyone so greedy? Christmas is about Jesus anyway" and "no, seriously there isn't anything I want for Christmas" (especially since my main/ expensive gift is us going to see Wicked in three weeks!) but still, part of the fun is opening presents, so it was a bit disappointing when nothing had my name on it from Michael. A lot of the presents we opened were from his parents. Besides, he already gave me what I had been asking for all year! =)

Remember December

   I should probably get at least one post done this month, being pregnant and all. *blushing emoji* I'll be 13 weeks on Monday (I was 11 weeks in the photo above with my "barely there" bump) and I'm so thankful for each day that passes where Chip remains safely snug in my body. Basic quick info/updates to remember- our first "real" doctor appointment for Chip was on December 2nd when we got a sonogram done at 9 weeks and 4 days. (The first appointment was November 30th but the sonogram nurse went home early.) Actually seeing a baby snowman growing -and dancing!- in my body was way better than only seeing an empty gestational sac like we did with Shrimp in March. I was smiling the whole time and kept looking over for Michael's reaction. He commented on seeing the heart flicker. Although we couldn't hear the heartbeat, the nurse measured it at 136 BPM! 

Our dancing snowman! ^^

   My next appointment was scheduled for the 22nd but I cancelled it because it was the genetic screening one and I didn't want that done. Even the eight viles of blood being taken from my arm seemed unnecessary if they can tell all the same stuff from safe digital measurements at the 20 week sonogram.  So the next appointment (just to talk to my doctor?) is January 5th, since she wasn't working at that office the day we had the sonogram done.

   I enrolled in the Pregnancy Program through my insurance so I will be sent a journal which I'll fill out for the next 6 months, then after Chip is born I should qualify for a $400 gift card. I have been to Gainesville both of my weekends off this month. The first was to meet my newest niece, baby Helena Rey. I really liked holding her as she slept on my chest since it made me dream about July when I'm doing the same with Chip!! 

   The second visit was because I wanted to do more holiday things and my mom is great about that. We made buckeye "cookies" (peanut butter rice crispy balls dipped in melted chocolate) while listening and dancing with Peyton to Christmas music. The next night we drove around the neighborhood looking at the pretty houses with lights and decorations outside, then watched Rudolph. Later in the week, back at home, I watched Love the Coopers, Christmas with the Kranks, and The Santa Clause. Apparently Elf is not on Netflix. Le sigh. I really want to start new/real traditions next year with Chip, like really decorating the tree with all of our ornaments (instead of me being lazy and only putting up 5 of the 15 "fun" ornaments- plus Michael's glass bobbles) and sending Christmas cards mid-month with a cute family photo. This year I asked Michael to pick up our tree himself because I felt like we waited too long to get it. (He bought it on the 5th.) 

   I have also been very thankful for all the time I've been able to spend with Michael this week. We've been on three dates and enjoyed time laughing in the car and holding hands while we ran errands. We ate at Bahama Breeze when I got back from Gainesville last Sunday. On Wednesday Michael got off work early so Sasha and I sat in the backyard and talked to him for two hours while he dug up more of the grass. (He is going to help me write a Pinterest-y post with lots of before/ during/ after pictures once it's all done!) Tonight he finished digging up the area he had marked off and he'll build a deck for our new patio furniture, which he is hoping to complete by New Years Eve. Then we had dinner at Chevy's and walked around Downtown Disney for about 30 minutes.  We went to Cracker Barrel on Thursday, then stopped into JoAnn Fabrics for ribbon.  Another big announcement is that Michael has lost *20 pounds* since mid November!! I am very proud of him and he likes that he's had to buy tighter pants and shirts. 

  How I've been feeling the past month: Sasha has kind of been annoying me because she has to go outside one to three times every night! That is not normal for her. She's slept through the night since we moved in here, especially since I'm permanently on day shift. Maybe because she is 9 years old- about 67 in dog years, but this is supposed to be the last few months I get peaceful sleep before it gets uncomfortable. I'm not ready to be getting up three times each night yet for someone else. At the beginning of the month my stomach felt very tight and kind of hurt. It felt like I had a balloon in my stomach that someone was slowly blowing up, but I assumed that was the baby growing and I'll feel it again soon. Chip is the size of a lime now, rather than a tiny seed like six weeks ago! I haven't gotten sick, but often feel crummy when I go too long without eating. Meaning I often feel bad each morning before work and sometimes don't know I need to eat until its "too late". But Michael reminds me that eating will make me feel better, and even feeling sick maybe once a day is still way better than feeling that way all day every day or actually getting sick a lot (Jessica) or having to get an IV for fluids (Lindsey). My prayers are with you!!

   Those are all of my updates for now, with pictures from my phone. I'll try to pull out the Canon for nice Christmas photos tomorrow and Monday then post those before 2017!! Michael has the week off from VAMP, but is working Grinchmas some of those days. He'll work on the patio some of the other times. Also here is one of the three beautiful fox water colors he has drawn and painted recently: This man is uncovering talents left and right this year!!