You will be missed Chewy!

It is with deep sadness i write that Chewy our family dog died on Saturday night. As we were gathered with the family at our Godfathers house, Chewy went to be with the Lord while coming down the stairs. She will be missed, as she received a lot of love during the 11 years of her life. She was a good dog, and will never be forgotten. Caeda and Chloe will miss their wonderful friend.

2nd Dr's appt - 12 weeks :)

We had our 2nd Dr's appointment yesterday afternoon and I am happy to report ALL IS WELL! We met our OB for the first time, (our first appt we met with the Nurse Practitioner, who we also love). He was very nice, and what Adam called "very traditional" which we both love. He sat us down and answered any questions we had, which to be honest wasn't many. I asked him about my headaches i have been getting pretty much for a month straight from about 2 pm until the next morning. He asked if they were annoying or excruciating. I told him i never got headaches prior to being pregnant so they were really frustrating. Adam then stepped in and said that they keep me from sleeping sometimes, which they do, (good husband) and so he decided to prescribe me with some medicine to help. He assured me the medicine is safe for the baby, and that is really all that mattered to me. Then i hopped up on the table to listen to the heartbeat. To this point we had never heard the heartbeat because when i was in at week 8 they weren't able to hear it, which is why they chose to do the ultrasound where we SAW the heartbeat. Sure enough little baby Heeren's heartbeat was loud and strong. You could hear each beat, which seemed a lot slower than what it looked like on the screen during the ultrasound. I think it seemed that way because we were a lot more nervous and anxious at that point. Dr. Locher told us that he could hear the blood pumping through all 4 ventricles which was a great sign, and pretty much put our rate of miscrriage at 0. Dr.Locher told us that between the heartbeat you could hear static at times, and that was the baby moving! It shouldn't be many weeks until i can start to feel it move! That is SO exciting! The only other helpful information that he gave us was preparing us for our appt in March where we will have the full ultrasound. During this ultrasound they measure EVERYTHING on the baby: limbs, lungs, kidney, head...to be sure everything is moving along well and the baby is healthy. I am not able to pee for like 5 hours or some crazy number before the appointment, and the appointment is like 2 hours long...not pee that whole time...i don't know if i will manage :) Dr told us that the person who conducts the ultrasound is a tech, so they won't be saying much, and if they do, to not take anything they say literally because they are not trained to interpret the results. He told us that some couples think that because the tech doesn't say anything that something is wrong. He assured us that the tech take the measurements and gives them to our Dr, and the radiologist and they read us our results at the next appointment. This made me feel good knowing he didn't want us to freak out for no good reason. I called my mom and dad and grandma after the appointment to share the good news, and went to the pharmacy to pick up the medication and headed home. Once i got home, of course, i had a splitting headache and took some of the wonder drugs that the Dr gave me. 15 minutes later, no headache, and NO HEADACHE ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. It was like a fog that i have been experiencing for the last month had lifted away. It was amazing, and it makes me much more comfortable knowing that they work. When i tried to take Tylenol (which to be honest wasn't all that often) it worked for maybe 20 minutes, and the headache was back. It is the kind of headache that you feel the only way to rid it is to have someone massage your scalp and temples for like 8 hours. All in all, i am so grateful that there was something that i could take to alleviate the pain. The Dr said the headaches should subside on their own sometime during the 2nd trimester, so hopefully i will not need to take them long, just long enough for my body to take over and make them stop on their own. I am still thankful it is just headaches and i am not throwing up constantly :)

Tonight we are going out to dinner with Ali and Luke at 3 Squares in Maple Grove...i will have to share my 3 Squares experience from last weekend at some point (maybe next week)! I am going to stop at the grocery store on the way to pick up some grocery's for some recipes i have to make for Saturday night. Saturday around noon my whole family is going to my Godfathers house to spend the day and sleep over. This is an annual thing that he invites us over, and we play games, and eat pizza. It is a lot of fun. Sunday, we will probably be relaxing and doing stuff around the house. Until next time!

Mess - Don't even think about coming over

Our house is a complete mess! Like i said in my previous post we are tackling a lot of projects right now. It is making me freak out a bit! Here is the list of the things i have to freak out about...

• There has been a shop vac in the entryway for a week
• The dog's hoover vacuum has been sitting in the hallway for a week
• There is currently no bathroom mirror (I have had to get ready in the living room where the mirror we will put up...someday is sitting on the floor)
• Dishes are PILING up in the kitchen. Partially because i have been too exhausted to do them.
• Our washer has been moved to the basement and hooked up. The dryer is still in the upstairs laundry room. (which makes it hard to do laundry if i was motivated enough to do it.)
• Kitchen table really needs to be cleaned off and unburied from all of the clutter.
• Our sheets...need to be washed, and the clothes in the bedroom need to be picked up.
• The dogs REALLY need baths!

All in all, there is a lot of stuff that needs to be done around the house, or finished being done. I am not blaming my husband at all because i know he has a lot of projects to start and complete, and he is really working hard getting them done. I, on the other hand, have just been so darn tired to have motivation to do much. I think i probably apologize to him everyday about it too. "Sorry the kitchen is a mess," "Sorry, all i feel like cooking today is a frozen pizza," "Sorry that i really feel like just sitting on my butt on the couch." He has been really great helping me as well. I constantly have been asking him to get me things or help me with things, and he has been really wonderful and has not complained once when i have asked him to do something for me. What a sweetie pie!

I am approaching week 12, which is the end of the first trimester, so pray that my energy level rises!!!

I have been having these really odd dizzy spells. I have realized it is because i simply need to be eating more often, as i am getting them when i realize i have not had a bite to eat for quite some time. I am going to start keeping little snacks in my car/purse/desk...and eating snacks more often. Sunday when Adam and i were at Menard's and we were checking out, all of the sudden i totally felt like i was going to faint. Adam gave me the keys and i walked out to the car as quickly as i could as my vision continued to tunnel. This morning when i was taking a shower towards the end i had to get out and lay on the bathroom floor because i thought i was going to faint. Both times i think it was because i just needed to get some food in me.

Last weekend was a good one. Friday we came home from work and played a few games. I was really tired and ended up falling asleep at like 9:00. Saturday, we met our friends Angel and her husband Joe (Angel is about 31 weeks pregnant), and our friends Katie and Sam at the Waterpark of America. It was a blast. The guys and Katie went down slides most of the time, which was perfect because there was 4 of them, and Angel and I spent our time floating down the lazy river. It was so relaxing and was really nice to talk pregnancy with Angel. Afterwards, Angel, Joe, Adam and I went out to dinner at the Mall of America. Sunday was a relaxing day with a trip to Menard's for Adam to buy stuff for the "projects."

We have been able to purchase a glider and ottoman, crib and changing table for the nursery so far which has taken some of the larger purchases off of our minds.

Finally, we rescently found out that some good friends of ours moved about a mile away from us! They lived in Eagen for a long time which made it a bit more difficult to see them often. They were married in October, and Adam and I are looking forward to hanging out with them a lot more often!

Until next time...i need some lunch!

Water - Vomit - Syrup?

My pregnancy is going really well thus far! I have not had the urge to praise the porcelain God, nor felt woozie. I have a feeling if we decide to have multiple children, which i think we both will, and the pregnancy is not like this one, i will understand what most women experience their first trimester. This week has definitely been a hard one to get used to after being spoiled with the long break! I have been really tired, and just sort of "out of it" as my dad would put it. Most of the day i feel my mind is just somewhere else. I love to cook, but it has been resally hard to have the desire to get in the kitchen and cook lately.

Some recaps from the past week. We have done what i would consider "MAJOR REMODELING" at our house. Major to me would be anything that involves removing or installing anything. So far we removed a shelving unit that separated our entryway from our living room and it has really opened things up. We removed the linoleum from the entry way and are going to lay laminate flooring in it's place. Right now we have a large brown rug covering the gross wood floor. I also went through all of the kitchen cupboards and removed the clutter that was ever piling up. I don't think i have gone through them since we moved in over a year ago. With all of the extra clutter in the cupboards gone, i managed to remove a large microwave stand that was in our kitchen holding our pots and pans and put them in the cupboard which made for much needed space in our kitchen! We also got rid of our loveseat/coffee table/end table, and purchased a large powder yellow chair and ottoman to put in it's place. Our living room is also much larger as well! Finally, Adam is 1/2 done removing the medicine cabinet from our bathroom that was SO UGLY, and we purchased a large bathroom mirror, also on craigslist, that he is going to install tonight! CRAZY HUH!

Cadea and Chloe are doing well. They are adjusting to sleeping in their kennels. After i go to bed, which is earlier than Adam, he takes them out of my arms and puts them in their kennel. Then when he wakes up at 5:30 am, he takes them potty, and let's then run up the doggie stairs and into my arms under the sheets where they get to sleep another hour with their mom. I have been trying to keep Caeda from jumping off of things onto my stomach. She is getting better but still needs some training.

The only weird thing i have found to be true with pregnancy so far besides being tired and out of it is how heightened my sense of smell is. My friend Angel said this multiple times on her blog, and now i am experiencing it. I have been smelling vomit and syrup everywhere. My dogs smell like syrup, and random things places smell like vomit. The other thing i have been craving is Olive Garden. Not sure why, but totally weird? Also, i have been really wanting to be submerged in water. We finally decided to go to the Waterpark of America this weekend just so i can float down the lazy river. I am going to avoid the slides, but how nice does the lazy river sound? Probably because i want to be in water, and boy i sure am lazy!

We're Pregnant!

So it is official! We are going to have a baby!

We had our first Doctor's appointment on December 23rd and we were able to see the heartbeat. The Doctor tried to hear the heartbeat and couldn't so we had our first ultrasound, and there it was. So incredible!

The little bugger had a heartbeat! It was very exciting and put our minds at ease that we were really going to have a baby. They determined that i am due August 5th, so i am about 9 weeks now. I have felt really great. No morning sickness...i have not gotten nauseous...it has been pretty darn easy so far. The downsides are the exhaustion, and breast tenderness. But besides that i feel pretty blessed to have a comfortable stomach, and feel good. I have managed to conduct my workouts indoors, being that it is pretty hard to take walks/run outdoors when the ground is icy. I have found a few great shows on FitTV, and Exercise TV on Demand (Thank you Comcast) that i really enjoy, and can workout right in my living room. We have officially decided NOT to figure out the sex of the baby...and this came with much deliberation (on my end). Adam didn't want to find out from the start, and i was on the fence, but after discussing, we decided that we will just do neutral, and be surprised when the baby pops out. I think we both have a feeling it is going to be a boy. Adam has that feeling because he really would like to have a boy (for obvious reasons), but continues to say, that he can't keep saying that he wants a boy because if we have a girl he doesn't want to make her feel bad. I think it is a boy because my grandma was super sick with the two girls, but when she was pregnant with my uncle, who unfortunately died when he was a few days old, she wasn't sick at ALL! I have been told by a few friends with boys and girls that they or their wives weren't sick with their boys...I guess we will know in August! We told our families and relatives and it was so fun to do so. We decided to have all of the relatives/parents pose for a pictures at the respective times we were with them, and Adam pulled out the video camera and explained that our video camera took pictures. He then said, "Ok, on the count of three, say it with me...Ana's pregnant!" You should have seen their faces...it was great! It will be nice to have that moment captured forever, and be able to show the little bean once he/she is older.

So i could post more about Christmas, but i think the highlight was the joy of telling our families that we are having a baby. I am excited and nervous about what the next 7 months will bring, but know i have so much support from friends and family, and can't wait to meet the little bean! Here are some crhistmas pictures to leave you with...

Amazing, Amazing, Amazing

That pretty much sums it up. I have NEVER been to such an amazing concert. LOVED every minute of it!

Celine Here We Come

Tonight is the Celine Dion concert and i can hardly wait! The concert is at 8 and the doors open at 7. I am pretty sure we will be there at 6:58 to get in, get seated and prepare for the big night.
Even though i am bringing Adam, i really think he will like it. He likes music, and he things Celine has an amazing voice. I saw her in Vegas and man can she put on a show, so i think he will enjoy it. I will update tomorrow on how the concert was, but i am sure i will have NOTHING BUT GOOD THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT :)