23 weeks

I can't believe how fast time is going.. or how much this sweet baby of ours is growing. I can now watch him kick and move under my clothes. He sure is an active one. Steve also got to feel him kick for the first time on October 20th. I could tell he was starting to kick hard and had him put his hand on my belly and He got to feel. He was pretty amazed.
At our recent centering group, they passed around an anatomically correct baby mold at 22 weeks. We got to hold it and see exactly what our baby is looking like and how heavy he would be if we held him now. He was pretty big. I snapped a photo, can you believe how big our boy is getting? By the feel of his kicks, I believe it.

baby mold of a 22 week old baby

My cravings as of lately has been chocolate, Arbys, and Sprite soda. I am completely off of Caffeine beverages. Wooo, go me! I started getting even more sensitive to the caffeine and my heart started skipping beats real bad after drinking a Pepsi and my husband almost had to take me to the emergency room. I just can't drink them anymore. That was a month or so ago and I have not touched them since. Decaf drinks only for me.

I have been feeling pretty good... when I am relaxing. haha. My feet will start to swell easily and my back will start hurting pretty quickly into a shopping trip. I try my best to walk at night and started doing pregnancy stretches and it helps a bit. I try to save my energy for keeping up with house chores, I think I am in full nesting mode. I don't even like dishes being in the sink. Everything must be clean!

Another week and I start my kick counts. (how cute is my pen from my centering group?) Also showing is my Centering notebook. I keep track of all things mommy and baby in there. Info that the doctors have, I have. I love that about Centering.

23 weeks along. Baby boy is growing.

Anatomy screen

I am now 21 weeks. We got to have this very long ultrasound that was an hour long, its called an Anatomy screen. The Sonographer looked over everything. Then the doctor looked over the photos and came and did a screen himself. Everything looked great. Baby boy has ten fingers and toes. He is one pound and one ounce. Its amazing how they can determine that while in the womb.
It was so sweet to just sit there and watch him move, kick, punch, and flip. Every ultrasound so far, they have always mentioned how active he is. There was one point when he had his arm bent the under his head and the other arm scratching his bottom. We all started laughing and said yep, that's Stephen's boy. Like father like son.

Baby boy at 21 weeks and 5 days

Washington DC

Another trip on our 'to-do before we leave' list is done! The husband, the pup, and I drove over to DC and got to see the sights. It was probably the best and worst time to do it. Since the government is shut down, nothing was open. We couldn't tour the museums that we wanted or get a drink anywhere since all the park refreshments stands were closed. I got very dehydrated and my poor husband had to walk a bit down to a hot dog stand out of the way to get Gunyr and I some water. Even with no one working around there, parking was still scarce and we had to park in an all day parking complex and walk the whole tour. I am 20 weeks pregnant and walked about 10 miles or so in 80 degree weather. I was pretty much crawling, crying, and cursing by the time we got back to the car. Poor Gunyr was not too happy either. We were all ready to go home. But I am glad we got to go and next time, we are going to plan better and leave Gunyr at doggie daycare.

The US Capitol

Hubby and I in front of the US Capitol

These signs were everywhere

The Washington Monument behind us

The Washington Monument

WWII Memorial

At the WWII Memorial

Lincoln Memorial. There was a guard there to make sure no one came up it because of the shut down.

Lincoln himself.

By the Vietnam Veterans memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Vietnam Veterans Memorial

Gunyr enjoying his water and I am admiring my snow cone which I have been craving for weeks now but could not find one anywhere.

The White House

Hubby and I in front of the White House.

Awesome bridge

pretty ocean view

Gender Reveal!

Are you ready?! Sorry in advance for the overload of photos. I had way to much fun revealing the gender to family and friends. We could not do any gender reveal party since we live so far away so I came up with something fun, memorable.. and suspenseful! I started a mass text to family and closest friends with one photo every half hour until we eventually revealed the gender. I got a lot of "hurry" and "tell us already". It was definitely suspenseful for a few who was dying to know such as our moms, sisters, and close friends. Our Moms got to know first and then family, and finally friends and social media. It was fun to chat with everyone and know what they thought the gender was. It was so much fun to prepare, decorate, and execute.

Its almost time! He or She.. Open to see!

Three

Two

One

ITS A BOY!

Call it Mommy's intuition but didn't I say I just had a feeling it was a boy? Funny how that works.

When Steve's mom finally got the news that we are having a boy, she started bawling. I could barely hear her words though sobs. We talked on the phone for awhile and it was great to hear her reaction. It was so special.

20 Weeks

I anxiously awaited this day. We finally got to do the volunteer ultrasound to help the residents of the hospital learn how to take good photos. It was really weird to have a bunch of lab coats hovered around me as each of them had a turn to measure the baby's leg, head and what not. It was so cool to see the baby in 3D and got to see him/her have the hiccups. Can you believe we are half way there?!

Look how many photos of baby we got!

No paparazzi please! Daddy almost started crying when he got to see his sweet baby. Such a memory.

I can't wait to hold my sweet baby in my arms.

20 weeks along. Half way there! Woohoo!

King of Prussia and new phones!

My first huge (and I mean HUGE) mall! I was in heaven. We drove up to the King of Prussia mall which is the second largest mall in America. We ate lunch there and I finally got my Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks (decaf of course) and got to see as much of it as we could. So much fun. Here is a few photos we grabbed of our day.

Such compact parking.. small town girl is not used to this.

Love this cool looking clock

I have missed you, Pumpkin.

After we got back to Delaware, we stopped in to Sprint to pay our bill and inquired about when it was time to upgrade our phones. Well needless to say, we walked out with our two new Samsung Galaxy S4. I am so in love with my new phone. I am happy to be rid of Apple. If I knew when I know now, I would have gotten Android instead of Apple in the first place.

We love them.. our first Androids!