baby pictures, take 2

from our latest ultrasound to check for scary diseases (elective test we decided to go for... mostly for the extra ultrasounds hahaha)

click to enlarge :-)

not much to report here.

i would update more frequently if i had something exciting to say, but i've just been working a lot (really long hours last week especially), which is totally wearing me out. also, pregnancy is humming along... not sure if it's going well or poorly since i have nothing to compare it to. time passes, my symptoms change, it'll still be a while before we know if it's a girl or boy and before i can feel it move, but i'm now 12 weeks along, which means just 6 months till baby.

my time and thoughts have pretty much been consumed with work, so i haven't had a lot of time to relax and reflect on anything life-wise. luckily, the holidays are coming up, and i'll get a little time off then, and andrew and i have planned a trip to boone for homecoming during october, so at least we'll get a little change of scenery. house repairs are slowly moving along, though we haven't begun working on the nursery yet, and other than that... not much to report here.

let the renovations resume

well, andrew and i had an excitement-filled four days for this labor day break... we laid around, watched gilmore girl marathons, took naps, and pretty much did nothing - UNTIL TODAY! my mom, who is fantastically motivating, came over and got us jump-started back into getting this house in order. i have limited house painting abilities at this point because of the whole not standing on ladders or stools, and not inhaling fumes, due to the inherent danger to the bean, but luckily team-paint did a great job getting the first coats to the entire dining room/hallway/one wall of the kitchen done!

the wainscoting will definitely need another layer, as this was only primer, and we'll see how the taupe part looks on the top part of the wall to judge whether it needs another coat, but i'm SO excited that it's well underway and we're back in action on the renovation front!

i made 7-layer dip!

tonight, andrew said, "hey, i want some more of that yummy 7-layer dip we had!" i'm not sure if he said "yummy" but it was something to that effect. so we called our local grocer, you know, the one that's not more than 15 mins away, and asked if they had any. lo and behold, they did not. i can't say i was surprised. so we decided that spreading 7 layers in a pyrex dish couldn't be too hard to figure out. when i looked online for a recipe, i was pretty surprised at all the different variations for the 7 layers... and all the recipes that had like 20 ingredients.

i chose to play it simple and layered (bottom, up) refried beans, guacamole dip, sour cream seasoned with taco flavoring, cheese, olives (two kinds), tomatoes, and chives.

end result: delish!

aaaand, we ate it with multigrain tortilla chips, so it was "healthy."

2 years!

august 25th was our 2 year wedding anniversary!

andrew got all romantic and planned a nice dinner with a surprise at the end. i was working all day, and i'm still not feeling great, especially when it comes to food, but i did my best to enjoy it! he surprised me by taking me to 518 west, where andrew had the car valeted, then we got a nice table upstairs right on the balcony so that we could see the whole place. we had calamari appetizers, andrew had the baked pasta, and i ended up with a modified chicken parmesan. see, usually the chicken parm comes with penne pasta and no veggies, but i was trying to be healthy, so i got the chicken with whole wheat linguini, and i had them add spinach to the sauce - yay for accommodating restaurants! the only thing i was missing was a nice glass of wine to go with it... oh well.

then, when we were finished and waiting on it to be boxed up, i started to wonder if our waitress was going to bring the dessert menu, but instead, she brought out the second surprise - andrew had a replica of the top of our wedding cake remade and had delivered it to the restaurant! he had it made at the stick boy in fuquay, and he even called the stick boy in boone to make sure the flavors of the cake and filling were right! how sweet!!

we didn't have my camera there, so we took a picture on andrew's phone, but it's really dark.



and to think, next year we'll have to get a babysitter to go out to our anniversary dinner...

first baby pics!

we went for our first ultrasound on thursday, and...
there's something in there!

the picture scanned upside-down, but i think it actually looks more like a baby and less like a blob this way, so i didn't bother flipping it. with the pictures oriented this way, the small blob at the bottom is the "yolk sac" and the baby is the larger blob at the top. in both pictures, the head is at the top, though i think you really have to use your imagination to see a baby. [if you click on the picture, it will enlarge]

so it's official! i'm pregnant, i was about 7 and a half weeks on thursday based on the size of the baby, the heart rate was 149, and everything looks good so far. yay :-)

being pregnant is...

pretty lame so far.

so when i thought i might be pregnant, i stopped drinking alcohol... which isn't a huge deal, but when you've had a long day, it's nice to sit back with a glass of wine, or go to a mexican restaurant and drink a margarita with your vat of cheese sauce (or a vat of margarita with your cheese, either way). but that is all over for the next, oh, year or so.

then i became exhausted all the time, i'm tired, i ache all over, some days i feel like my joints are coming unhinged (and apparently, thanks to one of the hormones, they kind of are! in preparation of baby-havin'). this problem is complicated by the fact that i no longer consume caffeine, if possible, so that morning espresso is no help in shakin' these tired blues.

after confirmation of the pregnancy, came the nausea and food restrictions. many things i LOVE and base my diet on are no-no's for pregnancy. to name a few: soft, unpasteurized cheeses, sushi, steak any pinker than well done, deli meats, and certain types of fish. oh, but what can i eat? pre-natal vitamins, which in and of themselves will make you wanna hurl. even without these magical baby-producing-vomit-inducing pills, most of the foods i eat left me with an unpleasant feeling in my tummy. and don't even get me started on smells! ugh! even things i liked before like my own perfume, or febreeze send me running for the door! (who knew your sense of smell was so heightened during pregnancy.)

now, i am enjoying the world of full-on morning (or afternoon, or evening, or all day) sickness with my first actual hurling episode yesterday morning before work. let's just say that i no longer want to see v8 in any of its forms, and i'm pretty sure that vitamin didn't get "fully absorbed". i'll take some saltines and ginger ale please. andrew brought me some at work, where i still managed to be the first one there, even after my porcelain prayer session.

work is a whole nother list of "don'ts" - don't play in cat poop (kind of hard when it's one of the major aspects of your job), don't take x-rays, don't be around iso, don't touch that drug, or that one, or that one... wash your hands after touching that, oh that cat has toxoplasmosis! dont' pick up that dog, don't stand on that ladder to get that bag of food that's too heavy for you to carry all of a sudden, and on and on ad nauseum (man a lot of pregnancy is about nausea)...

i guess the only good thing is that people tend to feel bad for you when you ask them if they will take your shifts (so you're not in overtime again while feeling like poop), and i did get to take today off thanks to amy deciding to work for me today.

i am sure that some day soon, there will be a more encouraging positive benefit to all this negativity i'm feeling about my current "condition" - for now, this is your non-shiny-happy emily, signing off.