Parents :-)

This week my mommy and daddy sent me gifts from Florida (Yay!) and my in-laws are visiting from Indiana this weekend (Yay again!... except for having to clean my house which I have not done yet...). My daddy sent me Florida State shirts so I am all set for football season. Hopefully this baby is the boy I think he is, because while I am sure my daughter would be good at anything she puts her mind to, I really don't want me daughter to be a "quarterback in training". My mommy got me dressier work clothes. It will be SOO nice to not have to wear the same pants my entire next work trip like I did this last one.

Other than that not much exciting has happened this week. The baby is kicking all the time. He seems to be very active around 11am and 9pm. It amazes me that he is already beginning to have a schedule and, in my mind, personality. I have never been pregnant before, but I feel like he is much more active than most babies. I think he is going to have a lot of Adam's personality. I don't know why I think that I just do. But he loves flipping around in there and kicking up a storm. I think he is already trying to kick his way out of captivity.

Oh! Adam and I found a really good brunch place this weekend. I had french toast and BLT Benedict. SO good. It was the first time since I became pregnant that I missed the ability to dink or wanted a drink at all. They had a drink there called the "Scarlett O'Hara"($2 for brunch), which, if I remember correctly, was champagne, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice. Yummy.

Here are the pictures:

I'm cool

FSU Baby

Belly

New Shirt

New Pants

My Little Soccer Player

I will be 18 weeks on Monday and I am officially in maternity clothes. The problem is I only have one pair of pants and 3 shirts. It is just so difficult to spend money clothes I know I will only wear for the next 6 months. I need to go to a consignment store and find some cheap ones. I tried just getting the belly band, but it was uncomfortable and didn’t really work well for me. I think I will just get a pair of jeans and have one pair of nice pants, one pair of jeans and several shirts and make due.   I am realizing I am having the same problem with maternity clothes that I have with regular clothes. Everything is too big. Apparently have the freakishly small shoulders because EVERYTHING is always too big in the shoulders and chest.  I thought maternity would work better than regular clothes because my belly was bigger, but nope I have freakishly tiny shoulders.

Adam is happy because our little one is already brushing up on his soccer skills. He is quite the little kicker. I am feeling him move daily now. Sometimes it is still just fluttery movements, but more and more it is actually kicks. Adam finally felt him for the first time tonight. I felt the first solid “kick” about a week ago but Adam couldn’t feel it. I could occasionally feel it from the outside, but I think it was partially because I could also feel it from the inside and knew what I was feeling. But tonight Adam actually felt it. I think I may have been more excited than he was (but he also just doesn’t show emotion like I do…). I have felt bad that I could feel it and he couldn’t… but not anymore!

August 21 is the big day of our ultrasound. While I am pretty much positive it is a boy, hopefully we will find out for sure then. I will be SHOCKED, and really a little disappointed if we find out it’s a girl. I originally wanted a girl, but I have been thinking of him as a boy and planning for him to be a boy now, so it would almost be like losing my boy if I find out it’s a girl (but I am sure I would get over it very quickly… the first time I go shopping for girl clothes… if not before…) I will update you when I know for sure. 

Here are some of my new maternity clothes (I haven't taken a real belly pic this week yet. These were right at 17 weeks and just phone pics).

 How far along? 17 weeks, 5 days
Total weight gain: 4 lbs. from pre-pregnancy, up 12 lbs from my low point (I had gained 10 lbs in the 4 weeks between doctors appointments... eek! more than I planned...)
Maternity clothes? Yep!
Stretch marks? none yet... I DEF need to start to cocoa butter soon, or this answer is going to change...
Sleep: I am sleeping pretty well...if I have my pregnancy pillow... I thought I could make do without it in Chicago this week ad just use a bunch of hotel pillows... I was wrong....
Best moment this week: Getting new clothes (and spending a relaxing day today with my hubby just driving around enjoying each others company. 
Miss Anything? Sleeping on my stomach…
Movement: Pretty much daily now, and getting REAL kicks that even Adam can feel!
Food cravings: Really just anything but meat.... Still liking eggs instead of meat and still loving fruit.
Anything making you queasy or sick: Being too hungry.... I threw up for the first time in several weeks yesterday because I forgot to eat until noon.
Gender: Still feeling boy, and excited to meet my little man.
Labor Signs: No!
Symptoms: Back pain and round ligament pain, with the occasional cramps... and swollen ankles if I walk around too much.
Belly Button in or out? In but stretched REALLY tight now.
Wedding rings on or off? On
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy… usually…unless I am not...I burst into tears the other day over Audrey and Haley hanging out and having fun together because I was alone in Chicago....

 

Big for 16 weeks….

So apparently I am “big for 16 weeks”... I *think* that is a compliment; at least I am taking it as such. I guess I have finally “popped”. 

I went to the family reunion this weekend, and it was exciting seeing my dad and grandparents and having them be exciting about their impending grandchild or great-grandchild.

On another note, on Sunday after the family reunion we went down to Gatlinburg for a few hours and walked around and then I drove the 4 hours home. I don’t know if it was the walking or the riding in the car, but by the time I got home my ankles were pretty swollen. I always thought that that was something that didn’t happen until later in pregnancy. I guess I was wrong. Thankfully after a good night’s sleep with my feet up, they were back to normal. But that means I am not anticipating my business trip to Chicago next week because I will be doing A LOT more walking than I did this weekend. Oh well.

Also, I have also already outgrown the new bras I got when I got pregnant… I guess I should have bought even bigger nursing bras than I did. Oh well again. It means I get to go shopping soon. YAY!!!

I am now feeling the baby move pretty much daily. It is really funny any time Adam lays his hand on my belly to feel it the baby goes crazy moving around. It is cute. He/She really loves their daddy.

How far along? 16 weeks
Total weight gain: -2 lbs. from pre-pregnancy, up 6 from my low point
Maternity clothes? I haven’t bought any yet… but I need to. I am down to just yoga pants and dresses.
Stretch marks? none yet.. . need to start to cocoa butter soon, so I don’t get them. J
Sleep: Sleeping pretty well. I really have to use my pregnancy pillow as I can no longer sleep on my stomach because it hurts, but really with the pillow I still sleep ok on my side.
Best moment this week: Seeing all my family!!!
Miss Anything? Sleeping on my stomach…
Movement: Pretty much daily now… Yay
Food cravings: Really just anything but meat.... Oh and Egg Salad earlier this week!
Anything making you queasy or sick: Being hungry.
Gender: Feeling like it is a boy… but holding out a little hope for a girl
Labor Signs: No!
Symptoms: Daily headaches and cramps
Belly Button in or out? In, but stretching tight
Wedding rings on or off? On…
Happy or Moody most of the time: Happy… unless I am watching/talking about anything the least bit sad or touching, and the I am crying…

Forced Growth (and not just my belly)

I will be 14 weeks on Monday. I cannot believe how fast this pregnancy is going by. I definitely have a bit of a belly now, although it really only looks like fat, unless you already know I am pregnant. Although, this week I did have my first person ask me if I was pregnant (granted I was rubbing my stomach and had just eaten, so I was extra big, but still.) It was nice to have someone acknowledge that I was not fat.

I used to wonder why pregnant people were always rubbing and touching their bellies, and that question has now been answered. Because it always hurts. Not a truly "in pain" kind of hurt but it just aches, and feels stretched constantly. Especially after a big meal. It feels like a balloon is slowly being inflated from the inside (which isn’t too far from accurate.)

My big news for the week, is that I am now 80% sure of the gender! Rebekah is impatient and couldn’t handle waiting until August to find out, so she bought me the Intelligender test. It has an 80% accuracy rating and it said BOY!!!

I don’t claim to understand God, but sometimes I feel like I know how he works, and I knew he was going to give me a boy, no matter how much I wanted a girl. I think one of the whole points of parenting is to force you to grow (not just literally), and I am too comfortable with girls (which is why I wanted one). Excluding Robert and Hannah who I was really too young to remember their young infancy, I have “raised” 4 (or more) girls their first year of life, and 0 boys. I am not really sure what to do with a boy baby. I am sure they aren’t THAT much different from girls, but all the boys I have nannied or been around have been over 2 (and those were mostly the quiet indoor type boys).

For whatever reason, I have never really been around boy babies. So I knew I HAD to have a boy. God had to push me out of my comfort zone. Having a child at all is significant growth for Adam. It will be for me too, but ESPECIALLY for a boy. I am a bit out of my element with a boy. I would be too confident with a girl. Not the case with a boy. Rather than me feeling that I have more knowledge it will be a new growing experience for both of us to figure out together, and I am looking forward to that. I am just more scared of my chance of failure with a boy.  I will want an outdoorsy boy, but I am SOO not outdoorsy. Boys are so much more active and I am just not sure what to do with that.  That will all be Adam’s department.

God has been very kind at slowly acclimating me to the idea of a boy (I think I would have panicked if I didn’t have any inclination and just found out at my ultrasound/birth that it was a boy). I have had the feeling since pretty much day one, and then I took the baking soda gender test and it said boy, and now this test. There is still the chance that my ultrasound will tell me different, but I highly doubt it.

It is so funny how I can be so much more scared of one gender over the other. They are both babies who are going to completely disrupt my life. Boys are just a lot scarier.

Despite my fears, in some ways I am glad it’s (probably) a boy. I have not even thought of what I would do for a girl nursery, but I have a picture in my head of what I want for a boy nursery. If only I could find what I want online, but I think I am going to have to make it… but that is a topic for another blog post.

Since I am still not confident enough to buy boy things, but I want to do something for our little boy, I have changed my blog to look a little more masculine... 

Here is my gender test from today:

It's (probably) a boy!

Tiny Flutters...

Ok I am finally writing another blog post. 

I am finally feeling a little better most days (and then a day will come when morning sickness comes back full force and bites me in the butt). I have pretty much quit having to take my anti-throw-up medicine.

I finally have a little bit of a belly, but am realizing a “little bit of a belly” sucks. It basically means “I look fat”. I want to live in an ideal world where I go from looking thin and cute (with the new big boobs) to obviously pregnant. I think twins may do that for you, but the more I am thinking and planning for a baby the less ideal twins sound. One at a time sounds just right to me.

We went to the doctor this morning. It was a very quick appointment. I only gained a pound, have a great blood pressure, and heart the heart beat! My OB warned me that it might take her a minute to find it so not to worry or panic. But there is was nice and clear as soon as she put the Doppler down! ( I was secretly hoping that because of my tilted uterus she would have a little bit of a hard time finding it and make me go get another US to I could see my little gummy bear again… No such luck, but I was still VERY happy).

Also, because of where the Dr. found the heartbeat, I am also now sure that I felt the baby move this week!!!! It was nothing big. It is hard to even describe it was just the faintest of little flutters (although flutter is not a good description). It is not a feeling that I have ever really felt. I am looking forward to it getting more pronounced, and turning into kicks and having Adam be able to feel them.

I am still feeling like it is a boy, even though I am leaning towards wanting a girl. So I think Adam is going to win that one, but we will not know for sure until the end of August.

I am going to start including this little “survey” at the end of my blog posts to keep up updated on the “basics”

________________________________________

How far along? 12 weeks, 4 days

Total weight gain: -8 lbs. ( up one from my low point)

Maternity clothes? Nope, but most of my pants need to be unbuttoned. I will probably invest in a belly band soon.

Stretch marks? none yet.. . need to start to cocoa butter soon, so I don’t get them. J

Sleep: I am finally able to fall asleep on my own again. Most nights. Although ever since getting pregnant I have been waking up at like 6:30am. I guess my body is preparing for a baby.

Best moment this week: Hearing the baby’s heartbeat!

Miss Anything? Enjoying food.

Movement: The FIRST LITTLE FLUTTERS!!

Food cravings: Fruit. Tangerines especially this week.

Anything making you queasy or sick: Food.

Gender: Feeling like it is a boy.

Labor Signs: No!

Symptoms: Morning sickness

Belly Button in or out? in

Wedding rings on or off? On…and it seems like looser than ever.

Happy or Moody most of the time: Well since happy is one of the MANY moods I go through in a given day, I will go with moody.

Looking forward to: Enjoying food, having the 4^th of July off work, not look fat, and finding out the sex.

13 week belly Pics!

With shirt down I just look chubby.

With Shirt up you can see a little belly.

Our Redneck Paradise to beat the 109 degree heat this weekend.

The green thing on the tube was a mister that was hooked up to the hose lightly spraying me with cool water, the purple thing is a water gun to shoot Adam :-)

What to expect (and not expect) when you are expecting….

I consider myself pretty well versed in kids and/or pregnancy. Granted this is my first time being pregnant, but I feel as though I have studied it more than the average or above average person. But I have still been thrown through quite a few loops.

Symptoms I expected, that were (mostly) as expected:

• Boobs growing and hurting (hurt a little more than expected, but still not outside of the realm of expectation)
• Increased sense of smell- This is really no worse than I expected. What I didn’t expect is the influence this has on morning sickness… and the fact that it seems like the only things I have an increased sense of smell on are smells I DON’T like. Good things don’t smell any stronger or better… just the bad ones.

Symptoms that I expected, but were NOTHING like I expected:

• Morning Sickness- I even expected it to not JUST be in the morning…but I did not expect 2 months of non-stop endless misery, puking almost all the time, and even when I got meds for puking having NOTHING sound or look good to eat.
• Fatigue- I expected to feel tired, want an afternoon nap etc. I did not expect to feel like my body weighs a ton, and getting off of the couch is an effort.
• Mood Swings- I expected it to be PMS like, and I really didn’t expect it so early. I thought it was a later pregnancy thing. I definitely didn’t expect to go from being a royal witch with a capital B, to cry about the fact that I was a witch with a capital B, 5 minutes later.

Symptoms I didn’t expect at all:

•  Psycho Dreams- I have been having the weirdest craziest dreams ever. And I remember the EVERY night… and I NEVER remember my dreams.
• Increased Saliva- I didn’t expect the disgusting increase in saliva. I have even had to have a spit cup some days. It is gross.
• Insomnia- I expected fatigue… I didn’t expect to be constantly tired and not able to sleep for the life of me.
• Itching- I have been constantly itching. It is almost like I am allergic to being pregnant.
• Cramps- No one told me I would have period like cramps not constantly, but frequently. They don’t really hurt they are just annoying and I didn’t expect them. 

On that note, here are two "belly" pics. (Does anyone else see issue with the fact that I am bigger at 7 weeks than I am at 10 weeks? Yay for morning sickness weight loss....You can even see the stronger puking abs..)

7 weeks

 

10 weeks

 

 

 

A Roller Coaster of a Day: One of the Best and Worst Days of my Life.

So I haven’t written a blog post in a while, because I have been feeling so sick, but I had planned to write one today no matter what. This post is turning out a little differently than I had originally planned. I planned on it to be upbeat and exciting and full of all of my good news, but I am really not feeling it right now.  No worries, the baby is ok. (S)He is growing well and right on schedule with a heartbeat of 174 beats per minute. :-)

But let me go into the details of one of the best and worst day of my life:
This morning started out like any other morning, except instead of waking up puking my brains out I woke up excited to see my little one today. We left in plenty of time to get to the Dr. for my 9:30 appointment, knowing that we would probably hit all sorts of traffic trying to get downtown at that time of day. We got a little lost on the way to the Dr. as I have only had one appointment at this location previously.

Driving downtown around the hospital with a million signs pointing a hundred different directions can be quite confusing, and we almost missed our turn, and made a quick left to try to make it…. Right into the path of another car. She was almost able to stop before hitting us, so thankfully no one was hurt, just delayed an hour and a half while the police came and wrote up a report etc. I called my Dr. and they said they would do their best to work me in still.

By 10:30 we were back on our way to the Doctor. My wonderful doctor was able to get us in and we saw our first pictures of our “beautiful” baby blob. (Pictures below… you can even see what I think is a tiny leg in one of them.)

After an hour and a half at the doctor where they drained pretty much all of my blood, we went out to lunch at P.F. Chang’s (It was 12:30 and I still had not thrown up!!). I called my mom and my MIL and let them know that their grandbaby looked good, as they were waiting anxiously to hear.
Fast-forward 3 hours. I am sitting at home trying to get my whole day’s worth of work done in a few hours, while being distracted by my beautiful blob, and I get a call from my daddy. I answer excitedly thinking he is calling to tell me he saw the pictures and to talk about his grandbaby…I was wrong. (Although he was kind enough to start with that and not send me into full shock.)

No, the reason he was calling was to tell me my sister’s base in Afghanistan was attacked by suicide bombers and she had been airlifted to the hospital over there. My stomach sank through the floor. I have never gone so quickly from such an emotional high to an emotional low (and I don’t think it was pregnancy hormones.). I still don’t know all the details, just what was relayed to me from him, by her in a pretty addled and shaken up state.  Thankfully, as far as we know, she is not *SERIOUSLY* injured. She “just” has a really bad concussion, shrapnel injuries to her forehead and hands, and POSSIBLY a broken bone in her neck. (Hopefully we will know more soon, and I personally think those are pretty serious, but I guess relatively speaking…).

As far as I know, (based on every news article for any part in the world that I could get my hands on combined with what I know from her) the Taliban drove a truck into the middle of her base, close to the base restaurant where she was sitting with some people eating, and blew it up. She blacked out, as she was about 45 feet from the explosion, was dragged into a bunker where our guys proceeded to kill all the (excuse my language) *^%^%^%#@^*&^%$^@. She was then airlifted to a civilian hospital in Kabul, where she was able to call my parents.  That is really all I know. I hope to know more soon, as I am really just writing this as a distraction to keep myself from thinking about it and crying.

As a Pollyanna, who always likes to see the bright side and silver lining, my one hope is that because of all of this my sister will get to come home and be a part of my pregnancy and the birth of her first niece/nephew, whereas otherwise she was planning on being over there until March.

On that note, here are pictures of my beautiful baby blob. :-)

Close up of baby. (head is at the bottom, it is attached to me at the top)

Another Close up. You can see a little foot/leg sticking out. :-)

Futher away, closer to actual size...it is the size of a kidney bean :-)

Another one far away.

If Morning Sickness= Healthy Baby ours is a champ.

I made a big mistake early in my pregnancy. I said the words "No, I am not feeling sick at all. Maybe I won't get sick", and proceed to have a mild fear that I wasn't really pregnant or that something was wrong because I wasn't feeling too sick. I think that is the equivalent to praying for patience because God answered.

My morning sickness really started to kick in on Sunday, aka Mother's Day. God gave me the gift of reassuring me that I really was pregnant and on my way to being a Mommy. While I had nausea here and there when a wrong smell hit me, this was this fist day I felt yucky ALL DAY, and it seems to have gone down hill from there.

I finally told my one female boss on Tuesday, just because I had to mute myself and sneak out of 2 meetings to go throw up, and I didn't think I would be able to hide it well. I had originally planned to tell my whole team when I went up there in June, right after my first Dr.'s Appt.

I have decided that they call it "Morning sickness" is because it seems like the only respite you have is approximately between the hours of 1-4pm, and the rest of the time (mostly "AM" hours) you are sick. I threw up no less than 6 times between the hours of 12am and 3am this morning, and at 7:45 when I woke up again, I literally started crying because I knew that consciousness equaled throwing up and I couldn't handle throwing up anymore because my head and throat still hurt from the last round.  

Since I had the day off work anyway, because my awesome hubby is remodeling our bathroom this weekend, so I can finally have a bathtub (YAY!!!). I just took two 2-hour naps where I forced down a couple swallows of food in between them. That seemed to work alright.

While I still feel a little nauseated, it isn't so bad, since I am on my 1-4pm break right now, and I slept through the morning round.

One bit of information that I forgot to mention in my earlier posts: You know how I wrote a whole blog post about worrying about giving up Dr. Pepper? All for naught. Two days after implantation, I no longer liked it. I never had a caffeine withdrawal headache, or anything. Since I stopped liking it over a week before I knew I was pregnant, I actually thought they may have changed the formula a little or that maybe our area had a new bottler, because it just tasted weird. So that was one weird first symptom, that made my life a little easier, and took a worry away.

Oh! Here is the first belly picture I promised you. All future ones should be with our new nice camera that the fedex man is supposed to be bringing today! This was taken May 4, at 4.5 weeks.

We made it a week and a half...

FYI- The previous post was written the night we found out (May 1), but I stopped and planned to write more..and didn't. In the future I just need to learn to post it once it's written.

As proof of how good we are at keeping secrets, I made it 12 hours without telling anyone, 24 without telling my parents, and a week and a half without telling the rest of the family. I was just too excited. My logic is, I should tell anyone who we would tell if I miscarried, that way they would still be able to experience the joy first, just in case something did happen. It was pretty sound logic in my opinion (sound enough that I was able to convince my hubby :-) )

So to update on my pregnancy symptoms. I had my first puking session today when Adam made coffee. It was terrible. I was feeling a little queasy this morning, but nothing bad...until he made coffee... and I immediately ran to the bathroom and got rid of the crackers I had just eaten to settle my stomach.

Outside of that my only symptoms so far has been moodiness. It is like PMS on steroids. I go from wanting to kill someone, to wanting to cry, to deliriously happy in the course of 15 minutes. (You can ask my husband, I literally did all of those in that order in about an hour time span today). So this next 9 months is going to be fun....

On another note my boobs are HUGE (for me), but they hurt if I look at them funny. I think I am going to like this part of pregnancy. After 26 years I can finally get cleavage. Yay!

My first doctor's appointment is June 1. I am super excited to see my little sesame seed (that is the size he/she is right now). I am torn because I have to wait so long, but the fact that I get an ultrasound when I go makes up for it a bit.

Well I am going to go eat the hotdog (with cheese...right now I want everything with cheese on it... this is definitely my husband's baby) and veggies (I also can't get enough veggies right now- this baby is definitely mine). 

I will put my first "belly pic"  and pics of the test up soon for people to see. I think I will finally make this public since we have told enough people that will want to follow it.

Two Pink Lines!!!

So obviously this idea of "getting in the habit of blogging before I got pregnant" didn't work out so well. But the good new is... IT FINALLY HAPPENED!!! I took the test tonight and (shockingly) saw two pink lines. I didn't think I was because I got a negative a couple days earlier, and I have convinced myself that I was so many times when I wasn't, I began treating myself like the boy who cried wolf.

After wanting this for my whole life, my first reaction is fear. After a few minutes it was excitement, but fear and shock definitely came first.

The big task now is keeping the secret. Adam says I have to wait til 12 weeks to tell anyone... I am not sure I can wait that long. Hopefully blogging will help.

Why Caffeine?

So in beginning to think about pregnancy, I have been thinking about all the eating/drinking things I need to change. The biggie for me is caffeine... (and sushi)... but mostly caffeine.

I have been going back and forth over whether or not to completely cut it out, and if I do should I start now? I really don't drink THAT much... it is mostly just Dr. Pepper. I LOVE Dr. Pepper, and unlike coffee, I cannot just switch to decaf.

I actually found out a few months ago that caffeine-free Dr. Pepper does exist.. and I got super excited... until I realized that the closest store that sold them was in a different state.

Which begs the question of why? Why is there caffeine in soda?

I love my Dr. Pepper (DP from now on), but I don't want to HAVE to have it everyday. It is not good for my health, it is not good for my teeth, and it is not cheap like water or sweet tea (my second favorite drink). But because I drink it as frequently as I do, if I don't have a DP by 11am, I have a migraine.


When did it become ok to add addicting drugs with full on withdrawal symptoms to our beverages? I have quit caffeine 2-3 times over the past 10 years, and it usually lasts about 2-3 weeks (well a month if you consider the week of miserable migraines while I quit) until I want a soda, usually a DP, and as soon as I have one, I have to go through the whole withdrawal process all over again.It is frustrating.

Is it too much to ask to have soda without extra drugs readily available?

At a restaurant the only caffeine-free soda ever available is Sprite.. which really isn't soda. You can get diet everywhere, but not decaf.

In the stores, you can usually find regular coke in decaf, but anything else you find in decaf is also diet, and I HATE diet.

This caffeine addiction is soo epidemic that "The Headache Medicine"- Excederine, has caffeine in it. (There are many days when I am out of DP when I will just pop an Excederine to get rid of the headache). It is frustrating.

I am not saying we should ban the use of caffeine or anything like that, but I think it is a little shady of the soda companies to put a flavorless, unneeded addictive substance in their drinks and not give you a choice.

So my plan is to start special ordering Caff free DP, and stocking up on it... and then try quitting once again. Maybe once I start special ordering it, it will be more readily available in my grocery store and I can stick to my quitting.

We will see...

In the Battle of Crochet vs. Knitting: Crochet Wins

So I started this post a week and a half ago, and stopped because I wanted to add photos... and never did. So I am going to add photos and updates before I post this. (this is why I am practicing a blog so I can get in the habit.)
_________________________________________________________________________________
Last year I decided I wanted to learn how to create things with yarn. I wanted to be able to have a hand-made blanket for my children that I put love and effort into and made with thought just of them that they can keep forever. I still have blankets and quilts made by grandmothers and great grandmothers for my parents and grandparents. I feel as this got a little lost in the last few generations, and want to bring it back for my kids. I honestly didn't (and in some ways still don't) know the difference between knitting and crocheting, except that one uses one needle and one uses two. So I decided to learn how to knit (since that is what they all did in that one episode of Grey's Anatomy)... I made it halfway through a scarf before giving up, and had decided that I have my mother's crafting ability and there was a reason this skill was lost.

This weekend we visited my in-laws house and my mother-in-law (who is much craftier than my mother) taught me how to crochet... OMG... it is a MILLION times easier. The funny thing is they aren't all that different. I still cannot tell by looking at something if it is crocheted or knitted. The main difference in my mind is one uses one helpful hook for making stitches, and helps you keep the stitches on and grab the right stitch, and one has 2 needles that are difficult to manage, and the main concentration is making sure they do not fall off of said needle. In the 4 days week and a half I have been crocheting so far, I am almost done with have finished a scarf (it started out as a blanket, because that is what my husband wanted me to make, but I decided that it is more important that I feel as if I can finish a project, so I changed it into a scarf.)

The Pink scarf is my knitted scarf. I worked on it on and off for about 6 months before giving up. I will say, I taught myself how to knit, and not knowing that tight stitches are not best, I made very tight stitched, so it took a long time and was difficult.

The multicolored scarf is crocheted, I once again made very tight stitches which makes it harder, (apparently I like it hard....). This took me 2.5 weeks (working on and off).

So that being said I put my 2 cents into the knitting vs. crochet debate, LEARN CROCHET! It is sooo much easier.

First Blog Entry....

So this is my first blog post...ever. I am not really the blogging type. I have never had a blog before, but I wanted to have one when I had a baby, especially since I am so far away from all of my family and friends, so I started this one.

I have made the blog private, at this point,  so that I can practice posting without anyone being able to see anything yet (the problem is going to be not posting TOO private of thoughts now, because they will be public later).

Adam and I have recently started "family planning". We are in no rush to get pregnant (well, he isn't I would be OK being pregnant at any time.) We have decided to not not tell anyone we are even really talking about kids yet, and even when I do get pregnant we are going to wait until 12 weeks before we tell anyone. We will see how well I do at that, because I can't keep a secret to save my life (although that may not be true, as I have never had a life or death secret).

Part of the reason I have started this blog so early is I want to document every bit of my pregnancy. I don't want to miss anything, so I figured starting a private blog now, it will already be in place and I can post thoughts without telling people anything too early. It will also help get me in the habit of blogging, and I can let people see it later.

I know I am setting myself up for a little bit of disappointment by starting this before I am even CLOSE to pregnant (not that pregnancy has a 'closeness' scale), but it is really the only way to get in the habit, and make sure I don't miss a minute. (And I think people may enjoy reading about this part).

So here goes nothing....