I needs some energy

So, I totally gained 50 lbs while I was pregnant. Yes, that is an obscene amount of weight BUT, it was all for a good cause. At any rate, my daughter is now 3 months old and I still have approx 27 pounds to lose. That's a huge problem but, the biggest problem is that I find myself more lazy than I have every been in my entire life. I force myself to do the 30 day shred at least 2 times a week but, I really should be running on the treadmill at least every other day and I just don't have the energy to do it. I really cannot stand this extra weight. I have no fat clothes (aside from maternity clothes) and I refuse to buy jeans in a larger size.

Everyone told me that breastfeeding would melt the pounds away and unfortunately, that has not been the case with me. In my opinion, breastfeeding increases my appetite! I always tell Larry that I still have the appetite that I had while I was pregnant. It's ridiculous if you ask me. I feel doomed now that the Holiday's are right around the corner.

I'm really interested in running the OC Marathon in May. If I commit to doing so I would like to join a training group that meets every Tuesday and Saturday and that may conflict with my school schedule so I'm trying to figure out exacty what my schedule will be next semester.

Well, my daughter is babbling away so I'm gonna play with her and put her to bed. I'm sure she loves her chunky mama!

I have reached the ultimate stage of uncomfortableness. o-m-g, you will not believe how big I am. I have to remember to take a picture. I don't think I've been around a camera for the past two weeks. At my last appt., (which was Monday), I was 3cm dilated, 100% effaced and Avery was at 0 station. This is all wonderful news except, I'm having NO contractions whatsoever. Or maybe I am and I just can't feel them. At any rate, I'm definitely in the early stages of labor but this could go on for weeks. It is now hard to eat, sleep, walk, talk, laugh, etc. I mad an appt to have a Mommy to Be massage and mani/pedi at Glen Ivy tomorrow and I'm hoping this will put me in a wonderful state of relaxation.

On a totally unrelated note, have any of you tuned in to watch Guilianna and Bill? I've watched the last 2 episodes and I love them. They are too adorable.

I have tons of pics to post but ehhhh...i don't wanna download them. Yes, I'm THAT lazy. It's horrible, I know.

I'll keep you guys posted :)

xo

Chunky Monkey

So it looks like Avery may be a lil' chunker. I had and ultrasound on Friday and I learned that Avery is approximately 6lb 6oz. My doctor predicted that she would be around 8lbs 6oz if I make it to my due date. I'm 1cm dilated and 80% thinned out. I'm pretty sure that Friday will be my last day at work. I'd like to have a week off before her arrival so I'm hoping she doesn't make her debut until the week of August 10th :) I still feel pretty good. I'm tired this morning but I had a super busy weekend and didn't sleep well last night.

I just wanted to post a quick update. Back to work I go!

Hope you all have a great week.

xo

9 Months baby

As of today I'm officially 9 months pregnant. I cannot believe it. I'm so, so, so, sad about this. I feel like my pregnancy went by way too fast. Of course I'm more than anxious to meet my lil' girl. My body is over being pregnant and I'm super uncomfortable. But I will so miss this. I know I will.

Apologies for ignoring the blog. July was a busy month. I'm pretty sure August will be super hectic as well. I'm wrapping things up at work, preparing for Avery's arrival and nesting all at the same time. I'm still feeling pretty energetic. I'm just frustrated with not being able to bend over and pick things up and move as quickly as I'd like to. We went to the OC Fair this weekend and after two hours of walking, I was pooped.

Last weekend we had our huge shower and it was amazing. We had so many guests and received sooooo many amazing gifts. We are truly blessed and our daughter is extremely loved.

I have to hop in the shower but I wanted to post really quickly. I didn't take any pics of my 9 month belleh today but I'll post a few from the baby shower.

xo

mommy & daddy

my daddy & i. yea, he always looks angry...lol.

some of my beautiful girls

Besties

yummy cake (i have no idea why blogger uploaded this picture off centered but it's late and I don't feel like battling it out with stupid blogger)

Me in the 110 degree heat. Yes, 110 degrees!

Blogger is out of control with the pic formatting so I'll end with this pic. I'll post more later.

EEEEK

I have approximately 7 more weeks to go. How did this happen?! Where has the time gone?! I have tonnnnns to do before my princess makes her debut. On one hand I need time to slow down, on the other hand, I'm anxiously looking forward to being comfortable in my body again. 8 months pregnant + Southern California Summer = No Bueno.

Just wanted to say a quick Hello. Must get back to work.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

xo
Oh, btw, I watched The Business of Being Born over the weekend. I'm pretty sure Maegan suggested it but I'm not too sure. I know somebody in blogland posted about it. Anyways, it was AMAZING. Total eye-opener. I so wish I would've seen this documentary months ago. Makes me wish I would've done things completely different. I strongly suggest watching it if your pregnant, trying to get pregnant or heck, just to be informed. It was AWESOME.

PRAYER REQUEST

Tomorrow we go for our BIG ultrasound. PLEASE pray for us, more specifically Avery.
We wanna see a healthy baby girl!

Sorry for the absence. I've been busy, busy, busy. I've finally relocated and I'm now officially living in Orange County. I have had so much going on. I haven't had time to catch up on anything. I feel so behind. We don't have internet yet so I'm posting from work per Katleyn's request :)

Here is my almost 21 week belly shot. This was taken this morning before work. **Excuse my stark white walls, I'm trying to convince the bf that we should paint them a grey-ish color. We'll see.

Anyways, Avery is moving so much now! It's the most amazing feeling e v e r. The other day she kicked me so hard I jumped. It's hard not to when you have no clue when to expect those lil' kicks and movements. I feel like she's positioned very low in my pelvic area. I want her to move up already. I'm sure she will eventually. As you can see, I'm officially showing. I still have yet to inform my boss but he's been out of town for two weeks and I think it's kinda lame to shoot him an email, no? You would think he's my father or something the way I'm avoiding having this conversation with him.

We had a beautiful Easter. I enjoyed bf's church but I REALLY missed my church. I just wanted to hear MY pastor, I wanted to be in MY familiar place and I soooo badly wanted to enjoy IHPC Praise & Worship. I'm going to watch the sermon online but unfortunately, the Praise & Worship is not available online :( boo hoo!

I have to get back to work now. Hope everyone has a great week.

xo

let's par-tay hun-nay

i've been a very busy girl lately. i've just gotten back in the swing of things, you know, not being tired 24/7 means i'm actually ready & willing to hang out with my friends. One of my good friends Danner had a very naughty birthday party and of course Aug, Lona and I had to make an appearance. There was a stripper, there was a pole and there was LOTS of alcohol. Of course, I did not partake in any of the madness but it was fun taking pictures.

The first picture displays Lona preparing for her pole debut. The second picture is Lona pretty much feeling herself. It took a couple of people to get her off that pole.

This was the ghetto-fab instructor. She was hilarious.

This is pretty much what I did the entire night, sat on a chair chattin' with my bestie. Don't let her innocent face fool ya though, she was slidin' down the pole too.

Next up, we celebrated Lona's 23rd birthday (she's the baby of the group) and she requested Karaoke. Not my cup of tea, but we all had a great time. I was exhausted. Drive from OC to the valley, 8 hour work day, drive home, meet friends, drive to Hollywood all on a monday night. ummm, no. I started getting grumpy around 11 but I was a soldier. I stayed till about midnight.

Some random guy (whom we did not know) serenading Lona with a sexy rendition of Happy Birthday.

And finally, one of my best friends Elroey threw her daughter Nevaeh the most adorable second birthday party. It was way too cute. In case you couldn't tell, it was Elmo themed. Her daughter HATED the Elmo. It was the funniest thing in the world.

This is definitely Neveah's fake smile.

and here's her "what the hell is going?" on face

And just for good orders sake, here's my adorable sister! I just wanna eat her up!!!

Hope you guys have a great weekend. Tomorrow will be my 24th Birthday. I cannnnnot believe it. I'm getting O L D!

Boy or Girl, that is the question

So I tried scanning my ultrasounds but the quality was horrible. I'll wait till I have my official 20 week ultrasound and then I'll post those ones but, I will not make you wait for the big reveal. We are having a............

B A B Y G I R L!!!!!

Of course we thought we were having a boy but we now cannot wait until Lil' Miss Avery joins us. My official due date is August 28th and I'm praying for a healthy baby girl who doesn't cry much and loves to sleep through the night :).

I have much to blog about (that isn't baby) related but I'll have to do that from home. Hope you're all having a great week.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Part Dos

Seriously, reading Nie Nie's blog brings me to tears sometimes. I cannot even imagine what she must feel like. I just read her most recent post and it made me think of something I heard yesterday(can't remember if it was in a song or what) "Live as if you were dead before" which is kinda similar to "live every day as if it were your last" but then it's not. Can you imagine dying and having the opportunity to come back and do it all over again, as YOU?! The thought of that is insane. Anyways, here I am rambling..on to my post...

I've been so "over" blogging lately. I have no clue why. I still enjoy reading what others but the thought of updating my own seems like such a task. Maybe it's because I'm approximately 15 weeks behind on real updates. My life has been completely transformed within the last 2 months and blogging about it hasn't been a priority. At the same time, I keep kicking myself for not posting because I'd like to some day look back on this time and reminisce..anyways.let's try this again...on to my post...

So, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive and surprisingly, I did not freak out. Which is weird. Looking back, I wonder why I didn't cry or get upset or scream. I guess because I immediately knew what would and wouldn't be happening. I was going to be a mom because I definitely wasn't having an abortion. BTW, I am 100% pro-choice. I believe that every woman has the right to decide for themselves what route to take but, I myself didn't consider it.

My boyfriend is and was %100 supportive. We were both scared out of our minds and I did NOT talk about for the first two weeks. I was DEPRESSED. Actually DEPRESSED doesn't even scratch the surface. I didn't talk to any of my friends and all I wanted to do was sleep. I was ignoring calls, text messages, emails everything. I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone and honestly, I could barely tolerate my boyfriend. We fought soooo much. For some strange reason, I thought the way to fix this was to break up with him...looking back on that I can't help but laugh because really, that is such an idiotic thought but seriously, that's how I felt. I just felt like everything was over. My life would be over. I'm not married, I'm not ready, this is not what I wanted. How and why would this happen. Everything in my life was sooooo perfect and then I had to go and get pregnant. And I pretty much continued to feel that way until I woke up one morning and I was bleeding. I called my doctor and informed him of what was going on. He told me to come in to his office at noon. That day at work, I was a nervous wreck. I kept thinking "omg, what if I had a miscarriage?" "Is it because I was so negative, is it because stink and I were fighting so much, is this my fault, is there something wrong with me?" I started seeing things from a different perspective. It was one thing for me to not want this baby and to feel like this was such a horrible curse but it was another thing for me to realize that there was a possibility that maybe I wouldn't even be involved in the decision making of this child's life. Maybe he/she would be taken from me and how horrible would that be? I started pleading with God. I was praying my lil' butt off. Prayers that went something like this: "Please God, don't let me have a miscarriage, I promise I will stop complaining and being ungrateful". "Dear God, I'm sorry for getting so upset over nothing, I didn't mean to hurt the baby, If you give me another chance I'll neeeeever do it again". To make a long story short, I didn't have a miscarriage. I had a subchorionic hemorrhage. After hearing that lil' heart beat, I promised myself that I was gonna drop the "Why Me?" plea. Because really, having a child is a blessing. I don't care how you look at it. No this isn't the way I wanted to do it and my life will NEVER be the same but, at the end of the day His plans are far greater than mine so why fight it?

So that's the story. A long one, I know and I apologize but there was a lot to cram into one post. So it's official, I'm having a baby! ahhhhhh! I still can't believe it. Sometimes I'll be driving and it'll hit me like a ton of bricks. It's still hard to believe.

I'm 15 weeks along and I finally have a lil' baby bump. We do know the sex but I'll wait till my next post to share that info along with a picture of my baby bump :)

Have a great weekend!

xo

the BIG update Part 1

Sorry about the spacing, blogger is ridiculous and will not allow me to space out my own damn post!!!.

So in my previous post I mentioned that I had some big news and that my friends, was putting it lightly. I have some major, life changing, scary, semi-exciting news. Let me start off by saying this is all new to me. I'm still not 100% sure as to how I feel about this whole situation and I'm sure that my feelings and emotions and thoughts will change on a day to day basis and I can deal with that. Some of the things I say/write may sound harsh, wrong or crass but I cannot discuss this situation without being 100% real because it is a very REAL situation. I will say that no matter how I feel, no matter what I want or think I want at this time I know that I am blessed and I will NEVER forget that. Oh and another thing this may be a lil' graphic..sorry but we're all adults, if you don't like what you're reading, skip ahead. kthx.

So, I'll start from the beginning. In early November I went to have my yearly PAP which is already a horrible appointment to begin with but it's a must and I'm a trooper so of course I went along with it. My appointment was with a Nurse Practitioner because my (amazing) Gyno was out of town. Maybe I should give you a lil' background, I previously had a cyst on one of my ovaries so I was familiar with the pain associated with having a cyst in your girly areas. That cyst appeared about a year ago and was monitored closely and eventually went away. This time around, I had been experiencing some pain but wasn't really sure if it was the normal discomfort I experience when I'm ovulating or if it was pain that could possibly be caused by a cyst. Also, the pain that I experienced upon first finding out about the cyst that I had a year ago was excruciating and this was nothing like that. So, I figured I was good but mentioned it anyway.

Well, the lovely Nurse Practitioner suggests that I have an ultrasound to check it out, so I do. She tells me she thinks I have fibroid's and I immediately freak out. My first thought? I will NEVER be able to have children. In retrospect, I handled it pretty well though. I didn't tell anyone, not even my boyfriend and figured that I wouldn't even think about it until my next appointment.

Next appointment....My (amazing) Gyno is back! yay! He tells me that Nurse Practitioner lady is nuts, I do not have fibroid's but I do have a large cyst on my left ovary and he is a tad bit concerned. He switches my birth control and actually puts me on a higher dosage with hopes of me ovulating more regularly. He tells me to come back in four weeks after my cycle so that he can have another lookie. This is great!! I'm feeling much better. I immediately go and pick up my new birth control and go on my merry way.

Fast forward to the four week mark. I haven't gotten my period which doesn't really worry me too much. I know that I've been taking the same birth control for years so the new one may have thrown me off a bit. I reschedule my visit. Christmas comes around, New Years comes around and I'm so caught up with all of the Holiday hoopla I don't even think twice about it. That is UNTIL I spend a week at my boyfriends house and I am a complete and utter emotional wreck. The thought that I could possibly be pregnant still didn't cross my mind. My boyfriend mentioned it and I quickly shut him down. We hadn't even seen each other much in November because he was covering for another manager and working weekends and I was preparing/studying for finals so I seriously didn't see how it could be possible. The funny thing is shortly after I returned home from his house he called me and told me that his mom called him because she had a dream that I was pregnant, I seriously thought he was lying and he was just trying to get a reaction out of me. The next day his mom called me and told me she had a dream that I was pregnant and I gave birth to a fat baby that looked Asian. I laughed, told her that was not possible at this time and we changed the subject.

I hung up with her, ran to CVS and bought a test. I was too afraid to do it alone, so I went to one of my best friends house. I took the test and what did I see? Two PINK lines.

Gettin' My Scarf On

So about a century ago (naw, not really, just a lil' bit over a month ago) I participated in a scarf exchange and ended up getting a really cute scarf from this girl. I've worn it a couple of times and always forget to snap a picture but, I was just downloading pics off my camera and found a couple of my sister snapped of me trying on the scarf the day I rec'd it in the mail.

*disclaimer--yes, i am a dork and no i did not actually wear the scarf with that flannel, i was just trying it on people.

I am still alive

I have not disappeared, I just needed a blogging break. I spent some much needed QT with my boy over the break and I also caught up on tons of sleep. Christmas was perfect, New Years was great and being back to work sucks.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I'm so looking forward to everything to come in 2009!!

just found a new blog that i'm in love with! Her style is amazing. Everything looks good on this girl. Anyways, while i was browsing I found these cute Minnetonka boots and immediately fell in love. They're so cute. I think they'll will be cute with skinny jeans, a v-neck and a grandpa cardigan. They'd even work with leggings and a long plaid shirt. I bought them from Zappo's last night and should have them by tomorrow woot woot! (i hope mine don't look that long though..haha)

Minnetonka look by britsaprincess

I CUT MY HAIR!!!

Saturday I chopped off about 6 inches of my hair. not all over, but I now have layers which is super funny because i just grew my hair out so it was finally one length..(except for my bangs) and i chopped it all off again! I kinda freaked out but, it's just hair, it'll grow back. I'm at work so I don't have a picture of what my hair looked like this time last year but it's completely different. I just took a couple of pics to send to Audrey so I thought I'd share. I still have my length but it's definitely shorter. I'm worried about what my ponytails are going to look like.

While we are on the topic of hair, let me just share one of my pet peeves. I hate being asked if my hair is my "real" hair. It's so rude and inappropriate. Yesterday my boyfriend and I were picking up pizza and this girl complimented my hair. I of course thanked her and turned around to finish talking to my boyfriend. When we were leaving she said "Can I ask you something, where do you buy your hair?" my boyfriend started cracking up. I didn't even respond, I just kept walking. Don't ask someone if their hair is "real" or not. That is extremely lame. For the record, in case you are confused readers, it is indeed my real hair, no tracks, no glue, no sewing--just scalp and crop, thank you daddy!


p.s.--i have no make up on so be nice & i have NO clue why my noise looks that big in the second pic. nose job maybe?! annnnd i was turning my arm backwards, so it kinda looks flabby. oh gosshhh, this is ridiculous, JUST LOOK AT MY FREAKING HAIR K?! THANKS!

p.s.s-- please excuse the fact that the text is two completely different fonts and sizes. blogger is on drugs.

Blame it on the politics

You can most definitely blame my lack of blogging on the DNC & RNC and all the other political happenings & I guess the long weekend had something to do with it too. I am l o v i n g all this. I surprisingly found myself liking Sarah Palin and her family. Do I agree with her positions? Heck no. But, I must admit that her family is quite an entertaining bunch. I was glued to the television during her entire speech yesterday and i'm still unsure as to whether or not I actually enjoyed it or if I was just waiting to hear more of her shit talking. Apparently over 40 million households tuned in to check her out so I guess we were all somewhat interested (as we should be).

On another note, yesterday was the first day of my African American studies class. I have no doubt that this class will be extremely interesting. I had the hardest time concentrating though because this guy who sat right in front of the teacher had a huge hole in his boxers and of course his shorts were so low so his crack was just staring at the rest of the class the entire time. and of course he was that student who asks 20 million questions and comments on everything.

That's it for now, I'll leave with this quote from Sen. Obama's acceptance speech:

"I realize that I'm not the likeliest candidate for this office, I don't fit the typical pedigree and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America, something is stirring. What the naysayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me; it's about YOU."