Today was really nice out, and after a quick morning at the Farmers Market (Got some delicious asparagus and some rhubarb) we decided to take a trip down to Kendrick, which is a small town about 30 minutes outside of Moscow. We stopped at an old graveyard on our way back and took some pictures.

I feel like my belly has really expanded a lot in the last two weeks.

Feeling pretty good, other than the regular pregnancy things, heartburn, backaches, still throwing up a lot, but I guess that just can’t be helped, it is what it is, and I’m 2/3 the way through it, so I’m counting that as a blessing!

We had a lot of fun today driving around the country. The Palouse is such a scenic place to live, and while there may not be tons to do in Moscow, the scenery makes up for it. Especially on nice days like today!

It’s my birthday today (the big 25!), and on the eve of my birthday I got a birthday present. I got to look at my cute little baby for an hour!

So that’s not my newest ultrasound picture, because I didn’t get around to scanning them quite yet because I’ve been busy packing for our trip to Tacoma! I am so excited because my baby brother is getting married on Saturday and then the weekend afterward Paul’s friend Eric is getting married in Portland, so we are just making a week of it and heading out of town. I am so excited to be getting out of Moscow for a bit! And I haven’t seen my friends in what feels like ages (It’s really only been about 3 months, but it feels like forever, plus I’ve pretty much doubled in size since then!)

Speaking of doubling in size… apparently my baby is huge. He is measuring 2 weeks above his gestational age. The ultrasound tech told me that babies his age are typically around the 13-14 ounce mark, where mine was measuring nearly a pound and a half! She said if he keeps growing at this rate we might end up with a 12-13 pounder. Eek. Although, I have heard of that happening to several people and by the time 40 weeks rolls around they are average 7-8 pound babies, so I am trying not to freak out about having a giant baby! (But Paul’s mom has mentioned a few times that Tongs apparently just have big babies…) But also in good news, he’s perfectly healthy and it took a long time to get a good picture of him because he was super active! The tech said she hasn’t ever seen a baby quite as active as Togglebuttons, at least not this early in the pregnancy. He was dancing and squirming around in there so much that it was making me laugh, which in turn made him dance around all the more!

Well, we are off, so blogging might be a bit light around here for the next week as we will be enjoying some vacation time (and Paul will be done with school for the summer, and I’ll get my husband back!) I’m so excited! (but not super excited to spend 6 hours in a car… I’m thinking there will be a lot of bathroom breaks!) I’ll try to come back and post some pictures of the lovely wedding later this week. Have a great weekend!

So I am almost at the 22 Week mark! Sleeping has been getting a bit harder, especially since I have always been a stomach sleeper, which obviously doesn’t really work when your belly is sticking out so far.

I’m still choosing to do the black and white pictures since my skin hasn’t been really very pretty lately…

I’ve even started waddling a little bit. It’s kind of embarrassing, but you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s not because my stomach is so big, it’s just because of the pressure pushing on my lower back. I know it makes people look at me funny, but you know, pregnant women just kind of get to do what they want, right?

Sorry I haven’t been blogging much lately, other things have been taking priority. I think I’ve started the ‘nesting phase’ this week… This morning I did the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, vacuumed the house, scrubbed the bathroom, folded laundry, cleaned our bedroom, sorted my fabric, cleaned the craft room and tidied up Paul’s study area, and that was all before Paul got home for his lunch break, so I think that was a pretty productive day. So now I have to run some errands and pick up some extra guitar picks for my husband because he’s playing at an Open Mic night tonight. Sadly I still have no voice because I’ve been sick for the past week, or else I’d be singing alongside him… maybe next week.

So, 40 some-people thought that little Togglebuttons was going to be a girl, but the 14 who guessed boy were right! We’re going to be having a little boy in September! We’re totally thrilled.

(TinyTong gave us a good profile shot! He looks like he’s got a big nose…)

The ultrasound tech saw pretty much right away that he was definitely a boy! We even got a picture to prove it, but I don’t think it’s really ‘internet appropriate’, so we’ll just keep that one for the baby book.

I have to admit, I was completely convinced that it was a girl! I even told the ultrasound tech when she asked what I thought it was going to be that I was fairly certain it was a girl. It only took about 45 seconds for her to prove me wrong, but I couldn’t be happier about having another man around the house.

So now I am riffling through tons of knitting patterns, getting excited about making little boy hoodies, sweater vests (So he can be just like dad!), booties, hats and baby blankets… and my baby will be born in the late summer/fall, so it’ll be just in time for sweater season! Hooray

We (hopefully, if the baby isn’t feeling too shy) will be finding out the gender of our little Toggle-Buttons on Tuesday, and you should make your predictions for the gender in that little poll over there on the left side of the blog!

So go ahead in the poll and cast your votes on what you think it’ll be!

So  I am not 19 weeks for two more days, technically, but I felt pretty good this afternoon and since I have to work tomorrow and then my mom, sister and nephew are coming into town later tomorrow I figured this would be my chance to get any blogging done before Tuesday.

So here’s what nearly-half-way looks like on me. It’s funny that I am just now starting to ‘feel’ pregnant. I mean, I’ve felt the nausea and morning sickness and tiredness, but they all just felt like symptoms and not pregnancy… does that make any sense? But now that I have a visible belly and can occasionally feel the baby bumping around in there it seems much more real. And then on Tuesday we find out what the sex is, and I can imagine being able to put a name to the baby will make things even more ‘real’.

So apparently this is how big our baby is this week:
Just ONE of those, not all three, obviously. This picture is from one of our Farmers Market trips last summer.

Um, there’s a picture of me smiling, because I just realized I look kind of grumpy in that last picture and trust me, I am nothing but happy today. My second to last day of work, the sun is shining, my mom and sister and nephew are coming tomorrow and it’s shaping up to be a real good week indeed.

Also, this was totally cracking me up… I wonder if my baby is actually doing the contortions that the baby on BabyCenter is doing… (picture from Babycenter.com)

I wouldn’t be surprised if TingTong was all cramped in there, being as big as an heirloom tomato already and squished into my belly!  And I know TingTong is only going to get more squished as the days go by (which is happening at a rapid rate these days. I can’t BELIEVE I am almost halfway done with this pregnancy!) September 4th seems right around the corner, and I just can’t wait for summer to start and warm up around here. Mostly I just can’t wait for the pool to open so I can go float down the lazy river all summer!

Alright, alright, I gotta go fix some dinner and then get on with enjoying my Friday night!

P.S. to all of you moms out there (who constitute about 95% of the people reading my blog.. maybe more?) I want you to tell me what was totally essential during your newborn/baby stage. I am trying to get away with buying the least amount of stuff possible, (both to save on cost and also because we’re really limited on space) but I still want to be prepared so that when the baby comes home from the hospital we’ll be all ready for TingTong and not having to still run around to be picking things up. (P.S.S. I don’t know if this changes anything, but we’re planning on cloth diapering, too) So, in the comments you should let me know what you really, really loved having during the newborn stage, and what things you ended up buying that you didn’t really need. So far we’ve only got a carseat, a stroller and a sling and a bassinet, so I know we’ll still need a crib, but other than that what items would you, in your expert opinions, consider essential?

You know, Craigslist is an amazing thing, although sometimes it can let you down and when it does, it usually lets you down hard. But this is not one of those stories. Since I live in a pretty tiny town and good deals only come around so often I’ve been searching Craigslist for the last two months or so for the baby necessities that I really didn’t want to buy new, mostly because we’re poor, and secondly because the baby really isn’t going to care if he/she is looking fashionable in his brand-new designer crib. Anyhow, last night I saw a few great items at great prices and called on them to see if they were still available. And (surprise!) they were! Over the past few months I’ve called at least a dozen people asking if their product was still available, only to have my hopes dashed because it had already been sold. So I set up my times, made sure to have cash on hand in case I did, in fact, want to buy their supposedly ‘brand new carseat’ or the ‘fantastic shape, no stains! stroller’ and it turns out I wanted them both. So I got both. I got both for a combined price of $50. And they’re cute!

This carseat is pristine. The stickers aren’t rubbed off, there is not a crumb nor stain to be found, all of the parts are there, and while it may look a little boy-ish, if it’s a girl we’ll just throw a pink blanket over here and call it good, right?

The stroller is in great condition, too, just a few crumbs in the folds of the fabric, but nothing big. I am just so excited to have started to collect baby stuff, even though I know it’s kind of early, but deals like this, you just gotta jump on ’em!

I know I promised you guys a maternity picture, but you’re just going to have to wait for a couple more days. Sorry dudes. Tonight it was just not happening. After working all day, then running around town to pick up the stroller and carseat (at different ends of town, naturally) I got home and started feeling really crummy. After 1/4 a sandwich, a Phenergen (for nausea) , two Tylenol (for the splitting headache) and then a Zofran (because the Phenergen didn’t quite cut it, don’t worry, I talked to the on-call OB nurse and she said it was fine to take them both) I was just too tired and grossed out to do much of anything, so I took a bath and ate an entire bag of popcorn by myself. So there.

And that’s all I’ve got for you today, people. No craftiness or knitting to show (although I am working on a rather fun little present for one of my favorite babies first birthday present, but since her momma might see I can’t post pictures until after the birthday next weekend!) but hopefully one of these days I’ll get back to posting craft related stuff…