12 Weeks

I have a few of these to catch up on. Dan and I are already tired of taking weekly pictures. We joke that the second baby will be much less documented than the first. 

I have seen these weekly surveys. I think weekly is a little much for me to keep up with, so I thought monthly might be better. You'll only see these once a month. But so far so good for the weekly photos.

How far along: 12 weeks.

Baby is the size of a: Lime.

Weight gain: 0 pounds.

Symptoms: Fatigue and nausea. Also, I get up around five times a night to go to the bathroom. I thought that wasn't supposed to happen until much later.

Cravings: None.

Aversions: Almost everything. Specifically coconut, cloves, garlic, and the smell of anything microwaved.

What I miss: Eating food and enjoying it.

Looking forward to: Feeling better, and then feeling the baby move.

Best moment this month: Seeing the little peanut sucking its thumb on the ultrasound, hearing the heartbeat for the first time, and realizing that there actually is something in there. :)

Worst moment this month: Gagging at work because someone said the word 'spaghetti.' Luckily I have allergies and played it off as a coughing fit. 

How I've Been Feeling

Since many people have been so sweet and keep asking how I have been feeling, I thought I would be honest here.

MISERABLE. 

Haha. I'm not exaggerating. I have been nauseous 24 / 7. People say 'morning sickness.' That's just mean. Using the word 'morning' means that it would go away at some point in the day. The only time I didn't feel sick was when I was sleeping. 

Almost every food made me want to throw up. If something sounded remotely like I could get it down, I would eat it. Once I ate something, I never wanted it again. Dan got a lot of leftovers!

One night I had croutons for dinner. Another night, canned pears. 

The best part was if I was slightly hungry, the nausea was a million times worse. So you know when you are sick and you just kind of don't eat or just eat crackers until it passes? Not an option. So I had to force myself to eat foods that sounded gross, just so it wouldn't get worse.

Every smell made me sick, even my own lotion. Dan was not allowed to microwave. We did not go to any restaurants. And don't get me started on walking past the microwave at work, or using the work bathroom. 

I started getting car sick. Luckily for me, I have to commute 70 miles a day for work. 

Also, I was tired. Now, I had heard this before. People who are pregnant saying they are tired, and honestly I never really got it. I can do tired. I did all nighters all through college. I can manage on hardly any sleep. This was so different. Driving to work in the morning, I would have to call Dan to keep me awake. Here I had been up for about 2 hours, and I already couldn't keep my eyes open. The second I got home from work, I could go to bed. I would get up on a weekend morning, workout, run an errand, come home to start cleaning and end up laying on the floor. Like I had the flu, my body would just shut down.

I never once complained (and still wont!) because I know that this is all worth it! I'll do it over and over again if it means a healthy baby! No matter how miserable it makes me!

I did try to be semi honest when replying to the 'how are you feeling' questions. Especially if we had to bail on something with friends. But I always ended with positivity - "I think I'm starting to feel better" I would say. It wasn't ever true.

Until now! I can honestly say, that at 15 weeks I am feeling much better. I can eat most all foods. I even ate all of the catered meals in Vegas with no problems. Smells are not bothering me nearly as much. I have gone an entire week not feeling nauseous (which makes me think this is real, and I'm not just jinxing it). And, in Vegas, I was staying up until 11pm. That's crazy!

Dan has been a saint. I can't even imagine a better husband at this time. When people were pregnant and complained about being tired or sick, I didn't have much sympathy. I had NO idea what they were going through! So for Dan to be so sympathetic, without ever knowing what it is like, is amazing. 

Since it is his busy season, he has been working from 8 am until 1 or 2 am, and putting in a solid 8-10 hours on both Saturdays and Sundays. Every morning he would get up with me an hour and a half earlier than he needed to, in order to pack my lunch because I hated thinking about / planning food. He would do the dishes around 1 am in a fog. He ate all the leftovers so I didn't have to. He talked to me on my way to work to keep me awake. He would let me order two meals for takeout, and then he would eat whichever one I didn't think I could stomach. He got 0 homemade meals for two months. He did most of the grocery shopping because the rotisserie chicken case gave me nightmares. He even went on a rampage to rid the kitchen of anything clove because I was convinced the smell would be the demise of me.

All of this without me ever once asking.  I actually apologized for being a bad wife by making him pack his own lunches! He reminded me that he is a grown man and can feed himself. I couldn't be more thankful for all of his help and support. And now that I am on the other side of the first trimester fun, that boy is owed some homemade dinners!

Now you have the honest answer. Remember that every pregnancy is different and many people feel perfectly fine during the first trimester, with no nausea. Also remember, that if that is the case, we (the sickies) really don't want to hear about it!

The First Trimester Pictures

I 100% took this idea from Pinterest. From this pin actually. I thought it was so cute, and love the condensed version of the photos, instead of week by week. 

I asked Dan if he wanted to come down to see the first three side by side. He replied 'why? so I can see that you haven't changed?' Wow. Spoiler alert. You know when you tell someone a joke, and they know the punch line instantly, and it's such a let down? That's exactly how I felt.

But, here we are, the first three months:

Vegas

I had a work trip to Vegas this past week and had all these plans to get completely caught up on the blog. I thought that I would have some down time in the hotel, but that was not the case. Alas, blog-catch-up is starting right now, so I'll have posts all this week.

I was not very excited about heading to Vegas. To be completely honest, I was dreading it. When we get to the 'how I've been feeling' post, you'll understand why. I knew it was a good trip for my career, and I knew I would learn a lot out there. But I thought Vegas might actually kill me.

We stayed at the Luxor, which is definitely not the nicest hotel in Vegas. I had pretty low expectations based on the reviews I had read, but was pleasantly surprised when we got there. The hotel looks older, but the rooms were nice. 

We had about a mile walk (inside) from the rooms to the conference center. Thank goodness I ditched my usual heels for flats. 

Sessions were from around 7:30 am until 5/6/7 pm, and then they scheduled social / networking events for later. The first night we got to hear Sir Richard Branson speak, and that was incredible. As a huge nerd, and lover of business / economics, he has become my idol. I could do an entire post on how incredibly smart of an entrepreneur he is. And don't think that the leather jackets, crazy lifestyle, and lack of censorship is 'who is he' instead of just another part of his brilliant marketing strategy.

After that, they rented out 1Oak, a night club in Vegas. If you watch the Kardashians, you've heard Rob talking about it. I'm so cool now. 'You guys wanna head to 1Oak?' 

After 1Oak we decided to walk the Vegas strip and see the fountains at the Bellagio, which were incredible. I didn't take my camera on this trip, so I have hardly any photos.

The second night they rented out Mandalay Bay beach. The pool area at Mandalay Bay has a handful of pools, a lazy river, and a wave pool. The wave pool area has sand all around it to mimic a beach. In the middle of the wave pool is this tall stage. They had the Goo Goo Dolls performing. Around 5000 people were there all standing around in the sand, trying to get a closer spot to the band.

After a few minutes, we noticed some people walking out into the wave pool to get closer to the band. Once they got out there, we realized it was about ankle deep. So we waded out there too. Not many followed suit. So out of the 5000 people, only about 100 were in the water. 

View from where I was standing (these are awful pictures, I apologize): 

The view of all the people on the beach behind me:

To my right, in between the blue hammock looking thing, they shot off the best fireworks show that I had seen. Much better than Charlotte on the Fourth. And the building in the background is the conference center.

The last night we walked all around the Venetian and Cesar's Palace, walked through the indoor gardens at the Bellagio, and had dinner overlooking the fountains at the Bellagio. I promise we got a lot of work in. But yall don't care to hear about our IT sessions. The sight seeing was much more fun.

Overall, I am SO glad I went. I am also glad that I actually walked around and saw some of the sights instead of just crashing in the hotel. My next trip to Vegas though will be with friends, not pregnant, and hopefully involving much less work. Who's in?

More Guess What Onesie Pictures

I hope you guys saw our announcement yesterday. I think most of those who read this already knew - but those who didn't, now know why this blog has been pretty lackluster the past two months. More on that later ..

I have a little bit to catch you up on, but let's start with the 'Guess What' onesie. I wanted to do something unique for our announcement (and Facebook - which we will post sooner or later). I think the "our family is growing by two feet" pictures are adorable, but there are so many of them, that I wanted something new. Now, I'm sure this has been done before, but in my googling, I didn't find it. 

My parents were in town the weekend we found out that I was pregnant. My dad works on a Navy ship and is gone for four months at a time, so he missed Christmas this year. We were doing a little "Christmas in Charlotte" to give him his presents. It was so soon that the news hadn't fully sunk in for Dan and myself, but I knew it was our only opportunity to tell them in person.

I went to Michael's and bought fabric paint and a pack of onesies (who knew they sold them at Michael's?) I simply painted the words "Guess What?" on the onesie. Originally I choose orange as a gender neutral color, but it works well for an October baby! 

We printed a little sign that said "Our first little one is due October 19th, Merry Christmas Grandma and Grandpa!" and added some scrapbook paper as a border. (I think the original said 10/16 as the due date (my dad's birthday) but that has since changed by 3 days).

That was all wrapped up in a white box. I told them that it was for both of them, but that it was something dad specifically asked for. They were thrilled!

My poor mom wanted to keep the onesie and I told her I would have to mail it to her later. I really didn't want to paint another one!

Anyway, here are a few more pictures from our little photoshoot. 

The onesie was ironed immediately after taking this photo.

I love how happy Dan looks in this one.

I was testing the lighting when Dan decided to pose. I love this photo!

And we can't forget our first child!

Guess what?

We are thrilled to share that we are expecting a little pumpkin on October 19th!

With much love and excitement,

Dan and Kelley

Yogurt

Three rows high and three rows deep. I think we have a problem. 

Kiawah Island 2013

The weekend before last, Dan and I headed to Kiawah Island to meet his mom, brother, and grandfather. We semi took Friday off (worked a little in Kiawah), took the puppy, and headed down there for the weekend.

It was a little chilly. I know you can't expect beach weather in March, but it was definitely unseasonably chilly. We spent a few hours at the beach in long pants and blankets to take in the scenery, but we were not nearly as brave as the highschoolers who tried to lay out in bathing suits. I wish we could have gotten a little sun, but it was so nice to have a relaxing weekend out of town with family.

We did a lot of walking -- around Kiawah and on the beach. Koda even clocked in over 10 miles one day! Dan's mom also rented bikes so we were able to bike around the island as well. 

For the second year in a row, Dan's mom got involved in making a March Madness bracket. This then led to her following each of the basketball games. It then led to her watching all of the games, and might have slipped into a borderline obsession (teenage boy style). 

She had us watching the games throughout the weekend, and I was recalling the rules from the high school basketball games I used to attend. What's double bonus? How long is the shot clock? 

Before we knew it, I had a vested interest in the games and got incredibly excited as the scores got close. I might even make a bracket next year. Might. This could all blow over. 

We had two wonderful dinners. One at an Italian place on John's Island, and the other at the Sanctuary hotel on Kiawah Island. We then ended up at the Sanctuary on Sunday morning for Easter brunch. Everything was delicious. 

I am so sad that I didn't get a picture of us all dressed up for Easter. 

The weekend went by too fast, and before we knew it we were back at work with a handful of unpacking on our to-do list.

Jalapeno Cheddar Cream Cheese

I don't normally like flavored cream cheese - but this one turned out delicious. I think its because the flavors were fresh ingredients instead of chemicals or powders blended into the cream cheese. 

This was so easy, it is more of an idea than an exact recipe. 

1/3 cup of cream cheese

1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese

2 T jalapenos (or to taste - esp if you bought a spicy one!)

Mash all of the ingredients together with a fork.

It'll keep in your fridge for a few days. I think this amount topped 4 bagels. 

I can't wait until later in the spring when my jalapenos are growing - to use fresh ones from the garden.