"Beat of my Heart"

No, not the bad Hillary Duff song, the baby's heartbeat! We finally got to hear the heartbeat today at my Dr appt. I was a little nervous(my blood pressure proved it) but once we heard the strong beating, my nerves calmed down. What an amazing sound!! Evan was equally excited and amazed! The Doc laughed because she had to keep moving the doppler around so much to keep up with our active baby and told us the loud thump over the heartbeat was a kick.....hhmmm, it seems to be taking after it's daddy, haha. I don't have my mind set on what the sex may be. I have no gut feelings and haven't had any crazy dreams about boy or girl. The only way for me to keep sane is to just not guess and not have my mind set on a certain one because I will be equally happy for either a boy or girl!! May 30th is our big day...I am going to make sure I eat some chocolate before the ultrasound to get the baby all reved up..haha.

Happy Mother's Day!!

I had a great first Mother's Day and celebrated with the other two moms. Evan surprised me and bought us my other "baby", an SLR camera!! Photography has always been a favorite hobby of mine and I have a lot to learn about this camera! I had to test it out on the new mom and daughter......

And I had to get a couple of me and my baby daddy :)Happy Mother's Day to all the other mothers and mothers-to-be :)

Baby Talk

Well, the first trimester is over, I am 14 1/2 weeks. I can not decide if the first 14 went by fast or slow...hhmmm, March 7th(the day we found out) seems like forever ago, but then again, only 4 1/2 weeks until halfway! We have our nursery furniture ordered and it should be here the beginning of June. May 30th is the day....hopefully.....we find out if our baby is a future lacrosse player or future princess(Evan says). I will be 16 1/2 weeks at that point and they said 16 weeks is the earliest at the 3D ultrasound place. Should be pretty exciting!!! I am so ready to find out and then start planning the nursery. Evan is really excited, he said he wanted to pick out paint the weekend we find out.....he's so cute, and he will be such a cute dad! :)

We found a really cool store in Carboro called the Red Hen.

They have new boutique-ish type things as well as consignment items like clothes, toys, strollers, etc. We found some cute clothes, gender neutral of course. They are always getting new things in, so it will definitely be a place we will go every now and then to find some good deals.

We have had some good "new" baby experience with our sweet little niece, Stella.

She is spoiling us because she is such a good baby. Evan changed her diaper all by himself the other day and of course I had to watch since I have never witnessed him changing a diaper. He did such a good job, I thought I would be correcting him over his shoulder every 5 seconds but I was very impressed, such a natural. Just wait until he has to change a poopy diaper on a moving baby......haha.

Baby!

Surprise(to anyone who reads that doesn't know already).....We are pregnant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been keeping a secret for such a long time so it feels good to get it out! Family has known from the start and I just told my co workers last week. Time is flying by, which is GOOD right now, considering how I have felt the past couple months. I am going to try to enjoy the second trimester before it is gone too. We are so excited to bring a child into the world and to be parents!!!! I went to the doc last week and had an ultrasound.......11.5 weeks! It was so amazing to see the life bouncing around inside of me. Evan described it as an astronaut in space floating around. The doc said it was REALLY active so once again, that made Evan think boy. I have no hunches yet either way but everyone else seems to think boy. We will find out in 5 weeks!!!
Yesterday, we went to Greenville to visit my parents and go look at cribs with them! We also picked up my craddle that I slept in when I was first born, which my dad built by hand. It is so pretty! I will post a pic of it later. We went to a store my mother had already been to and found a crib that was perfect. My mom has a pretty good taste in cribs! The store was so cute, it was all baby and toddler beds and accessories, with all the cribs decorated and the walls painted like little rooms. Evan is going to start cleaning out the future nursery(his man room....whoop whoop!) next week and we are going to start putting some things in the attic to make room for baby stuff!

We are an Aunt and Uncle!!!!

Stella Caroline was born on Thursday night!! She is so beautiful and such a good baby. We were able to visit at the hospital and welcome her home on Saturday. I am looking forward to being an auntie and spending lots of time with my new niece :)

Updates

So yeah, haven't really posted anything for a while! Not much has been going on here, just getting ready for the spring. Doing some cleaning around the house, adding some things outdoors like bright colored pots and flowers and our deck furniture. Also, my sister in law had her baby shower and is getting close to bringing her daughter into the world! Here are some pictures of the baby shower and our deck makeover. Oh, and the snow from the first week of March.!

I finally fufilled my craving.......

I have been craving chocolate covered strawberries for months so I finally made some.... and ate about 10 of them Friday night!

New Floor!

We finally have the floor I have been dreaming of since we moved in! Goodbye grandma flowered floor that you can see every speck of dirt on...Hello dark, modern floor that does not show dirt...and looks MUCH better!! My mom and dad came on Saturday to help put down the floor(more my dad, not so much my mom). The men worked hard measuring and cutting and measuring some more while my mom and I picked up lunch and went to this cool antique store called Everything but Grannie's Panties...good name.

My parents left before the floor was finished and Evan was too tired to finish the floor so we decided to wait until Sunday. We started where we left off and then realized we need like two more planks. So...instead of going to Evan's lacrosse game, I went to Home Depot, got the rest of the floor and we finished it tonight! I am proud to say I did about 1/10th of the floor. The very last 10th. I would like to thank my wonderful husband for putting up with my nagging and my awesome father who is smart because he measures twice and cuts once....and made our floor look wonderful!

Here is before.......

and here is after!

Our kitchen is pretty much complete, the only things we have left to update are the stove and dishwasher. They work fine so those will stay around for now. And maybe one day I will get around to painting the side door white!!

Should Have Knocked on Wood......

instead of particle board.....this is kinda funny(but not really)....
At work last week I was talking with a co worker and a parent about all the yuckiness that just keeps getting passed around from kids to therapists to parents to kids. etc and I said(big mistake) that I was surprised I never caught the puky stuff that kept going around, I thought I had done pretty good. Well, they laughed and said you better find some wood to knock on and the closest thing was the fake stuff....it didn't work. I had the stomach flu all weekend. Not fun. So much for a romantic Valentine's Day! This was the first time Evan had to take care of me and he did a great job putting up with all my beckoning....a trash can, ginger ale, gatorade, motrin, water, soup, jello, more gatorade, my computer, socks, ice in my gatorade, less pillows...I was pretty pathetic. But hey, thats love, right? We actually had a pretty busy weekend considering I felt like poo ran over twice. We picked out our Valentine's presents together on Saturday, which were new tires and wheels for Evan's truck and.......a new kitchen floor for me!! I was excited to go pick out the floor so I blocked out all sick feelings and tried to have fun. Here is a sneak peak of the floor, we are going to put it in next weekend.....

Evan didn't want to be left out so here is a picture of his new tires and "rims"......

We also went to my sister in law's ultrasound at Prenatal Peek to see the baby. She only has a couple months left! This was our first experience at an ultrasound...very cool. We saw her on a big screen, moving, sucking her lips, kicking herself in the face(haha) and of course, the heartbeat. The creation of life is so amazing! Afterwards all the fam went out for dinner and I fell asleep right when we got home.

Today we went to Elmos diner for brunch( I REALLY wanted banana pancakes but had to go with cottage cheese and fruit....stupid stomach) and Evan has a lacrosse game tonight(I'm going to have to pass on this one) Whew! Time for bed......at least we don't have preschool in the morning, so just a few kids to see tomorrow and then back into the groove of things Tuesday. Okay, I'm done. :)

Beach Weekend

Last weekend, I went to Wilmington with some good friends from high school for a girls weekend at the beach. Evan was left to do manly things like chop wood and do some work around the house(which he did!) The weather was SO nice, it felt like summer already, which made me want to say buh bye to the cold stuff. We had fun shopping, going to a movie(He's Just Not That Into You...it was cute!) and walking along the beach soaking up some rays.

Ahhhhh.....sometimes I wish we lived at the beach....