I am officially in my 3rd trimester and feeling much better. It has not been fun, poor Evan. And for all you moms that say there is a hormone that makes you forget the first, horrible part - shame on you for not warning us! Yes though, now that the first part is over - these last few weeks/month have been really great. There seem to be a trillion other people that are pregnant right now. About 4 from my neighborhood, a few back at my unit in Ohio and random others here and there. Baby Boomers 2011?
I even "came out" on Facebook and announced that we're pregnant - which I didn't think I was going to do, but there it is. We found out that we are having a girl and we have chosen the name Neva Rose. "Neva" is "Evan" flipped and twisted and obviously you can guess where Rose is from. Since it's my chosen name (we all know about Trang) I didn't think it was too vain. She's doing well, baby bump growing, pounds going up and it's been awesome and overwhelming and crazy and just yeah.... "and" is where I'll leave it. I realize more and more each day that I have ZERO idea what life is going to look like. I've ordered 7 books and it still doesn't give me any hints. It's like basic training. People can tell you their story and how it happened, but it will be different for you - times 4 million.
Ashley Colmenero just had a baby and recommended a book - which I bought - whiiiich was the hugest book I've seen in my life. Not shocking.
Jessie and Courtney
have been sending me "registry tips" where if you look at our registry, it's basically a carbon copy of everything that they have/had or wanted to have ever along with any other mom friend that I can pick their brain and get info. People have started loading us up with lots of hand-me-downs and new stuff and all kinds of stuff. Jess got us these stickers that are such an amazing idea. This way we can take a picture of her with each month. Aren't they the cutest?? Who would have ever thought of this! We've bought a glider and a crib
which we got at this store called Baby's 1st that has literally stopped at least 2 mental breakdowns for me this pregnancy. We do love the glider - and the room it's in is in the office, not the baby room. The baby room is a light green "Celery Sticks" to be exact and that took Evan and I quite a bit of time to pick out.
W
e have been avoiding buying clothes because people have offered to give us their kids stuff and my mom, I'm sure, has already bought 1 million dresses for her - but we were in a store and Evan found a little dress he loved and seriously - Evan will be the most amazing, incredible dad EVER... I can't even describe how already he's just .... awesome (((insert surge of hormones)) and story will stop there before I call Evan and leave him a blubbering voicemail about how awesome he is.
We have received 3 packages from the "Cincinnati Maxie's" and it's just crazy and the cutest stuff and just stuff I never would have thought of, stuff from our registry that they already have and are letting us borrow and so on and so forth. I don't have a picture of everything, but here are a few highlights:
OU Pacifiers - the Maxie's have been sure to share the OU pride with our little growing family. First a collar for Charley and now pacifiers. Thank goodness we live in a Sooner friendly neighborhood in Texas. This package came with shoes and toys and clothes and just everything. The first package from Courtney was a blanket she made with airplanes on it. Super cute! Oh and my only maternity shirt to date. Yes, I'm that girl that hasn't bought maternity clothes and am squeezing in my old stuff - and by squeezing in - it's like never before :) The next picture was a huge box that arrived today. So generous!
Gosh, so much. Evan's mom, sister and grandmother sent us the stroller we registered for which is SO nice! Kristina and Kathy are also throwing us a baby shower in Oklahoma and we just received the invitation and it was so, so, so adorable! Jess and Mom are in the process of planning my baby shower in Ohio and again - so nice and we are so lucky that people would want to throw us showers! Living in Texas puts a spin on the invite list. I was like this with my bridal shower too, I didn't know who exactly to invite. So with the baby shower, I just gave them a list of people that I've talked to that seem excited about the baby. I know that everyone is excited... but I've never been good at things being "about me" and I don't want to bug anyone with a shower...it's silly, I know, but yeah. The Ohio shower is happening at my baby sister's new apartment. I'm super excited to have it there and I think she is too :) Lots of stuff, lots of stuff.
The other newest thing and I know people will think we are crazy, but we are adopting another dog. Haha... I'm addicted, yes, BUT I know everyone who has had a dog when having a kid say their dog is so neglected and kind of put to the side. They still love it, but there aren't enough hours in the day. And
Charley (previous post linked) is blind and we adore him.
We think having another dog will help to still give him socialization and exercise - which we still plan on doing, but obviously will have another priority that may trump giving Charley 2 walks a day instead of 1. We are getting her from the same rescue,
Scouts Honor which is seriously the most amazing organization I've dealt with here. They sincerely know their dogs and take time to pick out the right family for the right dog. They don't just push a dog out the door to make room for another. It's great. So we've been doing doggie dates with Charley and Niki and it's been going great.
They seem to be best buds so far and we really hope it's the best decision for the two of them and especially the right decision for US. We'll keep you posted.
And my last new adventure is couponing - I know I'm late to the game, but I was a little busy in Cincinnati and let's face it - those of you who had been to and/or lived in Riddle, you know we only had one shelf in the refrigerator. So my first little shop was a mini success. It's not anything close to those extreme coupon people that get $8000 worth of stuff for $5, but who wants 90 boxes of cous cous? Anyway, I (with the help of my neighbor couponer and friend Iris) bought about $90 worth of stuff for $40 and one of the rewards was a $10 dollar gas card. Again, not a HUGE success like you see on TV, but I'm considering it a win for my first time. And since we've decided that
we are going to try having me stay home (yes, can you believe it) I figured, I might as well try to learn this couponing thing. My friend Iris had a baby a little over a year ago-ish and hasn't spent a dime on diapers or wipes in that entire year thanks to couponing. She said she hasn't spent money on toothpaste or toothbrushes in like 3 years or so. She has a stockpile room that is pretty impressive.
Other than that, things are pretty much the same. Evan has been working more than usual. He bids "reserve" which means on call and so far, it's really worked for us. He is at home "on call" so technically working, but summer has given us a slight wake up call and he is called much more often. All the traveling you people do in the summer is messing with our life, so chill out, would ya :) We're hoping that when fall comes, things will slow down, he'll be home more again, especially after Neva is born. It's still MUCH better than in Cincinnati when he was gone for weeks at a time though!
I think that's it for now. I am going to try to figure out
Google+ a little bit...
g in the 90th percentile - that's average to big apparently
We're registered at the hospital and ready to go - relatively speaking. Everything looks normal and well. We also signed up for a child birthing class to learn all the breathing and what not. If there was anything I received at my two showers, it was ADVICE and graphic images...so I'm rereading some books and trying to be as prepared as possible, but I know it'll all slam me in the face when it starts happening.
