Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Riding in Style

This past summer, my sister bought her dream car.  I don't know a lot about cars, but I can tell you that it's a Mercedes and it's a convertible.  That's really all you need to know, right?  


Anyway - she came down this fall for a visit and drove her new car.  We went over to my mom's house to see her, but then we were going to my dad's house for a meal.  I know this is crazy but yes, my parents are divorced and, yes, they live in the same neighborhood.  I'll admit - it's pretty weird and a little awkward at times.  


My sis is super comfortable with driving Ben around in the Mercedes, but I'll be honest - I don't know if it's something I could do with LL.  It makes me pretty nervous.  However, I really wanted to drive the car, so I decided to drive it to my dad's when we went - and take LL with me!  It is literally probably less than a mile (and obviously I didn't even have to leave the neighborhood), so I didn't feel nervous about it at all.  I mean, we didn't even get over 35 mph. :)  


Here are a few cute pics from our wild and crazy drive!

We look awesome, right?  ;)


LL LOVED it, but she shouldn't get used to it at all - mommy totally doesn't drive anything close to a convertible - haha.



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Monday, January 30, 2012

Locks of Love

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time (no pun intended - ha) it's no surprise to you that I've been growing my hair out for Locks of Love.  My friend, Sarah, did this several years ago and it really inspired me.  I put it on my "bucket list" of things that I really want to do.  


I finally got my hair long enough, but then couldn't decide if I wanted to cut it or not!  Finally, around the beginning of December I started to get REALLY tired of it.  I just felt like there was hair EVERYWHERE!  I decided that I would wait until after Christmas and if I still felt the same way, I'd cut it then.  I wanted to give myself a few weeks because I had been debating it for so long!  Remember when I was asking for advice back in October?  


After Christmas, I still felt the same way.  I knew it was time!  I actually decided to donate my hair to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths because I could donate a little less hair than with Locks of Love.  With Pantene, I could donate 8 inches, whereas with L.O.L you donate a minimum of 10-12 inches.  I knew that I wanted to do this, but I for sure wanted to keep as much length as possible!


Last morning fixing my long hair!!  It was a little bittersweet.  :)

I have NEVER had my hair this long before!  Crazy!

Getting ready for the cut!  8 inches measures right to the top of the ponytail holder at the top of the braid.

It's gone!

Wow!

The final product!


I am so so happy that I finally did this.  It feels SO GOOD to accomplish a goal that I set 2 1/2 years ago!  I know this sounds silly, but I already know that I'm going to start growing it back out immediately.  I don't mind it short, but I REALLY liked it long.  But this time, I'm growing it out for ME and I won't have this feeling that I HAVE to cut it hanging over my head.  That will be nice!  I'm so happy that my hair will towards making a wig for a woman out there who is battling cancer.  I understand how, as a woman, you feel like your hair makes you more "girly" - whether it's long or short.  I can imagine how dealing with cancer completely just rocks your world, and hopefully this can be something that helps make a woman just feel that much more "normal".  It was definitely worth it!



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Friday, January 27, 2012

Family Traditions: The Christmas Tree Farm 2011

Just like every year, we headed out to Hambrick's Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our tree this year.  You can see our trips in 2010 and 2009 for a look back at our tradition!  This trip was during LL's "I refuse to look at the camera or take any pictures phase", so we didn't get any gems like we usually do.  But here's a look at our trip, anyway!


                 Wasting no time heading out to check out the trees!

She said she was "getting the spiders out of the tree".  :)  I LOVE her imagination!


Alright, so, here we go for "trying to get a pic of LL in front of 'the' tree" take 1...

Take 2...

Take 3...  (now you know why I haven't been taking hardly any pictures lately!)

And "trying to get a family shot" take 1...

take 2...

take 3...

Finally, we just gave up and decided to cut down the tree and head home - haha.  Count your losses and move on!




Gigi and Poppy came, too (also a tradition) and this is the best pic I got of them.  Not too bad!

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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Showering Baby Blitzen

Back in October (I know - I'm still playing catch-up!) I hosted a shower for Emily and Baby Blitzen.  This was my first time every hosting a shower for someone who didn't know the gender of the baby.  I wanted to keep it neutral, but I am NOT a fan of the green/yellow route.  Ashley and Crissy offered to co-host and help me with the food and that really helped me out a TON!  Thanks, ladies!  This was also the morning that I found out I was pregnant, and let me tell you, holding it in during a BABY SHOWER is tough work!


                            Waiting for people to show up....

One of my gifts for Emily.  It's a blessing ring.  I found it on etsy.com at this shop and fell in love with the idea!

         This is the card that explains the concept of a blessing ring.

                                     A note for the guests....

The food

I told the girl that I wanted a gender neutral cake and I ended up with one with pink all over it!  Funny, since Blitzen turned out to be a girl, huh?  :)

The guest of honor!  Doesn't she look GREAT?

We played some pretty fun (but classic!) games.  First, a "what's in my purse" game.

Next up, candy bars in diapers, of course!


Finally, guess that babyfood!


                                  Me and my lovely co-hosts!



It was a pretty intimate shower, but I think it was still fun.  And it's always fun to celebrate a new baby!  Emily did a more detailed post on it here if you want to read it!


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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

17 Weeks Pregnant

Baby Growth: Baby Mullican is a little over 5 inches from crown to rump and weighs about 5 oz.  The baby is about as long as a pencil and as plump as an avocado.  This week, the baby isn't doing any tremendous growing, but is instead learning how to utilize the brain to move the body.  Slowly, the baby's movements are becoming more and more purposeful.  This is also the week that baby starts to put some fat on that little body - meaning that I'll probably start putting on the pounds, also!
Can somebody tell me why in the world this poor baby has a gigantic nose?  That's terrible!



My Symptoms:  My nausea is still present in the early morning.  And I’ve mentioned before that I have to get up at 5:30 when school is in, so this isn’t the best of combinations.  I didn’t get sick this week, thank goodness.  I felt like I was going to on Saturday morning, but never actually did. 

I’ve started having more headaches than before, but I’ve found that if I take some Tylenol and drink a little caffeine, they go away immediately.  I don’t mind them as much if I have an easy trick to get rid of them!  I’ve also had some moodiness this week.  Nothing too terrible, but still some moments where I feel like I don’t have control over my emotions. 

I’ve still got a good bit of energy this week.  I’ve been getting TONS done around the house.  Some nights I’m pure exhausted by about 9:00, but others I feel perfectly fine and have to make myself go to bed!  My belly still feels terribly heavy and I think this isn’t going to go away.  My back also hurts pretty much all of the time.  If I stand for longer than about 5 minutes, it hurts like crazy. 


Weight:  Alrighty, so the scale says I’m back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  So that means that I’m sitting right at 0 lbs gained/lost.  Honestly, I think that the majority of this has to do with the fact that I’ve been mega constipated the past few days.  I think if I was “regular” right now, I would still be down about ½ a pound.  I guess we’ll see next week!  The good thing is, even if I gain 1 lb per week from here on out, I’ll only gain 23 lbs.  Not too shabby!  I gained 25 lbs with LL, and I don’t want to go over that with this baby.


Belly Pictures:  Here the first pic of me in maternity clothes!






Gender: I'm 100% team girl now - no changing my mind!  We should know in a few weeks!  Have you picked a team yet?  Go to my gender baby pool (and giveaway!) HERE. 
  Maternity Clothes:  Thanks to several AWESOME friends, I now have a plethora of maternity clothes.  I had two really sweet friends bring me a huge bag of clothes each and another friend who should be bringing me some soon.  Isn't that amazing?  I'm blessed to be surrounded with some awesome girls!  Most of the clothes are more wintery (which is good for now), but I'm going to be lacking more in the summer department when it gets here.  A portion of what I have will translate into summer, but I'm sure I'll need to pick up a few things myself.  But at least for now, I'm good!  I did start wearing some maternity dresses this week simply for the fact that they are SO much more comfortable!  I'm still fitting into my regular clothes fine, they're just not as comfy.  I'll probably start alternating between regular and maternity from now on.  I'm holding off on maternity pants for as long as possible because I HATE them.  I'd prefer to just use a bella band and my regular pants instead.  I'll tell you something though, there's no denying that I have a belly, but it is MUCH more pronounced when I put on something maternity!  It's crazy!



I’m still in regular clothes about 80% - 90% of the time, but I have started wearing some maternity dresses.  This is simply for the fact that they are so darn comfortable.  I probably could get away with not wearing anything for the next week or two, but it’s just so much more comfortable.  I would imagine that I’ll keep wearing a mix of regular/maternity for awhile.



Movement:  I’ve been feeling the baby a TON lately.  The movements still aren’t that much stronger, but I’m feeling them more often.  All of my pregnancy stuff says that the first movements that you feel are usually described as feeling like you have a butterfly in your stomach.  Not me.  Usually, I only feel thumps and rolls.  Monday at school, I was sitting at my desk during my planning time, and it LEGIT felt like a butterfly against the wall of my stomach.  It was so cool!  It’s still not nearly strong enough to feel on the outside yet.


Sleep:I seem to alternate between sleeping very well and sleeping terribly.  I’ll have a few nights of GREAT sleep followed by a few nights of TERRIBLE sleep.  I’ve been wanting to sleep on my stomach SO BAD lately, but I definitely can’t do that at all anymore.  I always go to sleep on my side, but I often still wake up on my back.  I’ve been having really vivid, crazy weird dreams lately also.  I’m sure that that contributes to my sleeping poorly.


What I Miss:Probably the biggest thing that I miss is not having my back hurt.  It pretty much hurts all of the time.  While I’ll gladly deal with it (SO worth it!), it does wear me down after a while.  I try not to say anything to coworkers, friends, family, or even Matt about it, but it’s pretty much a constant pain for me.  I better just get used to it, I guess!


What I'm Looking Forward To:We have LL’s 3 year pictures coming up this weekend and her birthday party the weekend after that.  I’m getting SUPER excited about both! 


Cravings: Orange juice – STILL!  I tend to go through an entire container in a week.  I only drink one glass a day because I don’t want heartburn and it has a ton of sugar, but that glass tends to be pretty big.  J  I also craved Chinese food this week and when I finally got some, it was SO GOOD.  I loved it.  One thing that has really surprised me this pregnancy is that I’ve been craving something that I’ve never had: sushi.  I’ve had the cooked kind, but never the raw, but I’ve been craving it ALL!  Obviously, I would never eat raw fish while pregnant, so I really just try to ignore the craving.  The other night, Matt got himself some sushi for dinner, and it was a sampler platter that had a little bit of everything.  It had a few shrimp rolls in there that looked SOOO good.  It was a crab/avocado/cucumber roll with a little bit of shrimp on the outside. I totally couldn’t resist and ate ONE piece (don’t worry – it was all COOKED!) and I almost died.  I was in HEAVEN.  It was SO GOOD.   I’ve been thinking about it a TON since then and totally want a lot more.  Obviously, I probably won’t eat any more any time soon, but it is for sure on my mind!


Best Moment of the Week: I really don’t know?  We got a call from the preschool we picked and LL is definitely enrolled for next year!  That was pretty exciting!  I also got my plane ticket booked for my spring break trip with my sister – California here we come!


My Concerns or Questions:I need to talk to Marie about several things: 1- I’m thinking about going natural.  I *almost* did with LL (I made it to 8 cm!) and my goal was to do it completely with the next one.  When I got pregnant, I thought maybe I would just do an epidural and not worry about it, but now I’m starting to change my mind about it.  I want to talk to Marie and get her opinions.  2- I was induced last time because I wanted to be guaranteed that Marie would deliver the baby.  I REALLY want to go into labor on my own, so I need to talk to her about if she’ll come in, etc.  3-My back pain. I need to see if there’s anything I can be doing to help it out.


My Goals for the Week: Get all the last minute stuff for LL’s party planned!  I did my huge pile of laundry from last week, but there are still some things around the house that I need to get done.  I need to finish cleaning my closet out – I started, but haven’t finished.  I also need to start going through her clothes from this past summer for the kid’s sale!
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