Thirteen Weeks

Sorry guys! Still no camera. Don't worry. I'm not showing anyway. Well, there's a bump there, but it's more of a food baby than Little Baby. Haha!

How Far Along: 13 Weeks
Size of Baby: Little Baby is about the size of a medium shrimp. Now, to me that seems smaller than a lime, but he/she is now 3 inches.
Total Weight Gain/Loss: I'm not for sure, but I think it's somewhere close to last time. I mean, I only ate 2 pieces of Easter candy.
Maternity Clothes: Nah...not really. I can only fit in a few pairs of my pants now, but I have enough stretchy fabric to hold off wearing maternity clothes.
Movement: Nope. But I can't wait to start feeling it.
Gender: Still unknown.
Sleep: Sleep's not great but it doesn't have anything to do with Little Baby. It has more to do with insomnia and thinking about what needs to be done at school.
What I Miss: Feta?
Cravings: Brothy or clear soups like miso and chicken noodle
Symptoms: Still pretty tired and a little nauseated but hopefully that will end soon.
Best Moment This Week: Getting verbal Congratulations. It made it seem more real.
What I'm Looking Forward To: I'm looking forward to having a chilled, relaxing week/weekend. I don't really have any plans so I'm going to lay on the couch as much as possible.

Nash-viz Days 1 and 2

Eric and I went to Nashville to visit Haley and Josh and it's been pretty fun. Much more fun than the last time I was here.
Tuesday was spent driving....all day. We left around 9:30 and went through Birmingham, then up near Huntsville, and on to Nashville. We went to Arby's for lunch so we didn't have to spend a lot of time eating and could spend more time in TN. It was a pretty long drive. Not gonna lie. When we got here Haley was still at work so we chilled out around her house until she got home. When she got back we decided to eat at the house to save some money then go out for dessert and Hunger Games. We drove down to the Opry Mills mall and had some Marble Slab ice cream. I was so excited that we were going to get to see Hunger Games on IMAX. Like, too excited probably. Well, turns out they were only playing Wrath of the Titans (yuck!) on IMAX so we had to watch it on a regular movie screen. I was dissapointed, but I quickly got over it because I really wanted to see the movie. It was a really good adaptation from the book..except for Peeta. Josh Hutcherson was really not how I pictured Peeta. I don't know who I would cast for him but I don't think it was J. Hutch. Anyway! We got back to the apartment around midnight and went to bed. It was a long day.
Wednesday we woke up early(ish) and went to the Pancake Pantry for breakfast. It's apparantly a staple of Nashville. The line was out the door and around the corner. Haley said it's like that all the time. It was really good! I had the small appetite meal with 4 silver dollar pancakes, eggs, and bacon. I didn't even finish the eggs. Eric had the choclate chip pancakes which were REALLY chocolatey chippy. After we ate, Haley had to go to work so we drove around Nashville with Josh. We went back to the place called The Gulch and saw where Taylor Swift lives. She lives in a penthouse in Nash-viz. I was pretty disappointed that she didn't live in this huge house, but whatevs. After driving around, we came back to the apartment and chilled a little bit. Then Eric and I took off on our own and went to downtown Franklin. It was soo cute! There's all these stores and restaurants in a little area. We ate at a little Irish pub and eatery. It was legit. I had shepherds pie and Eric had fish and chips. Then we walked around some more and went to Sweet Cece's, this ice cream place that's ALL OVER Nashville. We came back to the apartment to wait for Haley to get home. We had plans to go play lazer tag and eat steak and spaghetti but we were all pretty exhausted so we postponed it to tonight. Instead, we ate some pizza at Perfect Pizza and it was really good, too. It's nice having our own personal guides here.
Today was low key, too. I'll post about today and tomorrow when we get back to Jackson Friday night. Can't lie. Really looking forward to seeing Kaleb again. It's been almost a week since I've seen him! That's the longest I've ever gone. Anyway, Haley should be home soon so we can go tag it up.

12 Weeks

So we finally got to tell people that we're expecting a baby in October! I've been keeping it a "secret" (as much as I can) for 6 weeks. That's probably a record. I plan to do an update post every week with a picture, but in order for that to happen I have to find/fix my camera. Don't worry. I'll try to have that done by next week.

How Far Along: 12 Weeks
Size of Baby: Little Baby is about the size of a lime
Total Weight Gain/Loss: I've actually lost 4 pounds! How is that possible? Oh yeah, I haven't been eating as much this time as with Kaleb.
Maternity Clothes: I probably don't NEED to wear them, but since I wasn't allowed to say anything for a while it was really the only thing that made me feel pregnant. I probably need to wear some of the maternity pants or some really stretchy fabric.
Movement: According to BabyCenter Little Baby moves with I poke my stomach, but I can't feel it yet. Of course, I imagine I can sometimes.
Gender: Pretty sure it has one, but we don't know it. We're toying with the idea of not even finding out this time.
Sleep: I haven't gotten to sleep as much as I did with Kaleb because, well, he's awake during the days and wants to play. I try to crash early in the night though. I'm sleeping fine, but I'm starting to wonder when I need to stop sleeping on my back. I'm trying to hold off as long as possible because I remember really missing that.
What I Miss: Nothing yet
Cravings: I'm kind of going the opposite direction. Nothing sounds good most of the time.
Symptoms: I've had more nausea this go around. With Kaleb I wasn't sick very much at all. Every now and then when I didn't eat I would start to feel bad, but it wasn't everyday and I certainly didn't have to take medicine. This time I've been a little queasier. I haven't thrown up at all, but sometimes I have to teach sitting down.
Best Moment This Week: Finally telling people! I was overwhelmed by the amount of congrats and likes on Facebok.
What I'm Looking Forward To: I'm looking forward to seeing people now that they know. I'm also looking foward to Easter Sunday and I'm going to try to cherish it as our last one with just Kaleb.

Tithe vs. Offering

For the longest time I was confused when someone talked about your "tithes and offerings" because I always thought those were the same thing. The more I've thought about it, I've realized that tithes aren't an option. Tithe is the 10% you give back to God because He told you to. It's His money anyway. We've gotten into the habit of  giving our tithe every month and it's become so routine that it's no longer a sacrifice. I think that's where offerings come into play. An offering is what ELSE you give to God because YOU feel like it's what He wants you to give. Annie Armstrong, missions, Lottie Moon, etc. are offerings. I have to admit that we fail at this Christian discipline. I've really been convicted about this the past few weeks. The musicians played "The Wonderful Cross" today and as I was singing the words in my head the line "Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small..." really stuck out to me. The whole realm of nature would be too small an offering for Him and yet I'm not willing to give a few hundred extra dollars? What kind of Christian does that make me? In my head I think - if I give this $100 or so to Annie Armstrong, we won't be able to put it in savings or go on a trip or something else like that. It's the sacrifice that makes it worth doing. That's just something I've been thinking about lately so I thought I'd share.

Random Thoughts

• I really want to be more intentional about our family traditions so I'm starting one this year. We already have Kaleb's basket planned, but Eric and I need to do baskets as well. I'm thinking we can do each other's baskets with maybe a $30 limit each. It might be fun, right?
• I haven't even started studying for my comps yet. I don't feel too worried about it and I'm just going to cram closer to time. Honestly, I don't have time to study now anyway.
• Someone's coming to look at our house Wednesday so we're in super clean up mode today and tomorrow.
• I'm ridiculously excited about going to Nashville over Spring Break to see Haley and Josh...and to have a little alone time with Eric.
• I'm equally excited about going to California at the end of May for Brad's wedding. It's going to be  a short trip because of Eric starting school, but it'll still be fun.
• Kaleb named his truck Cardboard. What?!
• Exciting things are on the horizon!! :)

Easter Basket Preview

This year Kaleb's Easter basket is going to be really fun. He's at an age now where he can play with toys and try new things without me freaking out that he's going to hurt himself. So here's what we're planning for his basket this year:

 Play-Doh because he's never had any before. I've been too scared he'd eat it.

 A monster truck...obviously. We've actually already bought this from Cracker Barrel. It's not this exact one, but it's something similar, only yellow.

 A bat and ball. He played Wii baseball a little bit and thought it was super fun and now he's using a drumstick and bouncy ball to play. I think it's about time to get some a "real" bat and ball.

 Skittles are his new favorite treat (wonder where he gets that from). He gets them when he goes to the potty. He just saw the picture on the blog and asked for some. I don't really want to chock his basket full of candy, but he needs a little something.

We also already got him this. It's a big boy cars cup.

Depending on how full his Easter basket is after all of this, we may add some other things like bubbles, some clothes, and books. And who knows? He may get really interested in something between now and then. I can't wait to put his basket together and show it to him. Since I got rid of my fancy Internet phone and my camera doesn't quite work right now, pictures are on hold til I can work something out. :( sorry

At A Loss

Well, it's happened. My sweet, perfect little boy has become a biting, kicking, screaming, crying, stomping, hitting toddler. It started a little earlier when he would hit us or someone at daycare occasionally. We would reprimand him and tell him it was bad and that he should be a sweet boy. It has now become a more and more frequent occurrance. Today he got in trouble for it so much that I had to go get him from daycare. I don't want him to be the kid no one wants to play with, but I can't figure out what's going on. Right now we have two theories. 1- We spank him when he's acting out so maybe he thinks that hitting is acceptable when someone does something you don't like. When we ask him why he hits or bites he always says because s/he (insert something he didn't want to be happening). I guess in his mind if Mommy and Daddy can hit so can he. 2- He wants attention. Eric's gone alot for band stuff and I have homework and schoolwork so maybe he feels like he's not getting enough one-on-one time. In either case, what we're doing isn't working so we're going to have to change something. Instead of spanking or pinching we're going to try a different form of punishment. Anytime he hits, kicks, bites, etc., he's going to go straight to time out. If he gets a bad report from daycare or continues to do a behavior after being in time out, he's going to lose priviledges. He lost his trucks and Cars movies today. I don't know if he's old enough for this type of "grounding," but we're going to try it. When he's being good we're going to give him a lot of good attention. Eric and I are going to try to be more deliberate about the time we spend with him. We'll try this out and reasses at a later date.