Baby Shower #2.

My wonderful mother-in-law, Christy, threw me my second baby shower, this one for family members.  The room was beautifully decorated (in lots of pink!) with lots of great food.  

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We had another good turn out for this shower.  Many of Trevor's aunts and a few cousins came as well as one of his grandmas.  My family is much smaller and somewhat spread out, but I still had a good turn out from my side of the family, too.     

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Everyone who came was invited to decorate/personalize a onesie for the baby.  They all turned out great and I can't wait to put her in them!  Also, they filled out a Wishes for Baby sheet with things like "I hope you learn..." and "I hope you know..."  These are very special messages from loved ones that I can't wait to display.  I have them from my first shower, too.  We were, once again, very spoiled with very thoughtful gifts from our generous loved ones.

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Baby's aunties got her all set up with cute Nike, Puma, Under Armour, Vikings, Twins, etc. gear.

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Trevor's aunts on his mom's side all chipped in to get us this Beco Gemini baby carrier that we're both so excited to use!  I did a lot of research into the parents' favorites and came up with this one and the Baby K'Tan that we'll be getting with some gift cards.

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 My great aunt Louise put together a very thoughtful gift for us.  She made the card with one of my own baby photos on the front!

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This was part of my gift from Louise.  She is my grandma's sister (my grandma passed away when I was almost 7).  My grandma made this quilt for Louise when she started having her own babies.  Louise kept it around for her grandkids and thought my grandma would have loved to know I had it (I was her first grandchild and this would have been her first great-grandchild).  It's still in excellent shape and I'm so excited to have it and tell our daughter how awesome her great-grandma was!

As you can tell, it was another wonderful shower.  I'm still gushing over how loved this little girl is and she's not even here yet.  It just makes me that much more excited to bring her into this world knowing she'll have so many people looking after her.  Thanks again to everyone for being so excited with us!

-A   

Festival of Trees.

(I'm playing a bit of catch up.  Had to figure out some photo hosting bees-wax, but we're back in business now.  Thanks, Adam!)

There are Festival of Trees events all over this time of year.  Owatonna has one, too.  It is put on by a wonderful organization, Advocates for Developmental Disabilities, that provides support, advocacy and service to families of children and adults with developmental disabilities in Steele County (that's their mission statement).  Every year (for 22 years now), generous community members volunteer their time and talent to decorate Christmas trees in a variety of sizes.  Often times the trees have a theme (a specific movie, "Up North," candy themed, etc.) which makes them even more fun.  Then, more wonderful community members and businesses step up as underwriters and purchase the trees.  The tree they actually get to take home is chosen based on a lottery system the night of the Festival.  Underwriters and community members are invited to come view all the trees at the event, this year at our new Steele County Historical Society building.  It's always a great night and such a sight to see all these absolutely beautiful trees.

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My dad's business, Dresser Family Dentistry, gets a tree every year.  For the past couple years, they have decided to turn around and donate the tree to a family in need through my work.  So, I have gone along for the Festival to select a tree that would be a good fit for that family.  It's very difficult to walk through and decide on favorites because they truly are all so beautiful!

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Of course, this Christmas by the Sea tree was my favorite.

-A

Yeah Buddy!

A couple weeks ago was our good friend Adam's birthday.  Trevor and I and a group of other friends got together with Adam's parents for food and drinks at Whistle Binkies in Rochester.  It's a pub with hundreds of tap and bottled beer choices (beer menu is longer than food menu) from all over the world, and it's one of Trevor's favorite places.  We had some good food and lots of laughs before heading to the Prof concert at Whiskey Bones in Rochester.  Prof is one of our favorite hip-hop artists and he's from Minnesota which makes him even more awesome.  His music can get a bit outrageous, but if you can see past that he's a riot.  

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We had some more laughs with our group while waiting for Prof to come on stage.  Music was to start at 9:30, so we were anticipating Prof starting at about 10:30, but he didn't go on stage until shortly after midnight.  In the mean time, Trevor spotted Ant (one half of another favorite local hip-hop group, Atmosphere) and went to talk to him for a while.

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I was stoked to see Prof perform, especially in such a small venue (I've seen him before at Soundset but that's at Canterbury Park).  However, it was getting to be a very late night for someone who is 30 weeks pregnant and has to work the next day.  All the people bumping into me (and I wasn't even near the stage, unfortunately) didn't help, but I tried to keep on my happy face while waiting!

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Prof performed.  It was awesome.  I would have loved to be down on the floor right in front of the stage, but with as tired as I was, and pregnant, I didn't think that'd be a good idea.  It was still a great show with great people!

(Yeah Buddy is one of Prof's songs, a fun one of course.)

-A

Appreciation.

I'll admit it.  It's nice to be appreciated.  Last weekend we got a whole bunch of that.

Friday night was Military Night at the Minnesota Timberwolves game.  So, we got free tickets for us and some friends, met up with more friends on our way in, and ran into even more friends once we got there.  We had a good time at the game, Cory and Ashley even shared some cheese curds with me-bonus!  There were multiple announcements about it being Military Night, video of players thanking service members, even a giant Thank You card fans could sign.  We even got $1 off our Hardee's (don't judge) on the way up to the game with our Military IDs.

Saturday evening was a different kind of appreciation night for us.  Legacy Farms (the farm Trevor's dad and his partner run) had an appreciation dinner for everyone who helped with harvest this year.  Trevor helped every spare minute he could, but many of these guys helped even more than he did and they've been doing it for 20+ years.  I already know most of them, plus a few new faces, and it was a nice night to see everyone and be treated for all the hard work.  Is it strange to say we appreciated the appreciation dinner?

And, finally, Sunday was Veteran's Day.  We watched the Vikings game at my dad's house then went out to eat with Cory and Ashley at Applebee's.  Veterans get about 8 options off the menu they can get for free on Veteran's Day.  Good food with good friends!  Of course, we both got quite a few "thanks" for Trevor's service and his/our sacrifices throughout the day as well.  It's nice to hear, but sometimes I/we don't know how to respond.  Neither of us could really picture our lives any differently and just do what we need to do for our family, whether Trevor is home, at drill or on a deployment.  It's such a part of our life now and, like I've said before, we wouldn't change a thing.

Oh, I almost forgot, Trevor got a delicious free breakfast at Hy-Vee on Monday as their thank you to Veterans.  Like I said, it's nice to feel appreciated, so thanks for all the thanks!

-A

29 weeks

No picture this week, but I've got quite a few updates.

Last Sunday was my first baby shower.  Everything went very well!  The next day we had a follow-up ultrasound and the first of my bi-weekly doctor visits including the glucose screen (to check for gestational diabetes).  Honestly, the whole day was a bit of a mess.  To start off, Rowdy ate some cocoa powder.  We got that situation under control then headed to Mankato for my 2:30 ultrasound appointment at the pathology center.  I had a 3:30 doctor's appointment with a 3:15 check in time (to drink my sugary drink for the glucose screen).  We didn't get seen at the ultrasound place until 3:40.  Trevor had class at 4:00 so he was barely able to see the scan and get to class on time.  I rushed over to the clinic, ran down to drink my sugar drink then realized I forgot my urine sample in the car.  (I have to bring a urine sample to every doctor's appointment.)  So, I ran out to the car quickly only to find out that the sample had spilled all over the cooler.  I went upstairs to check in at the OB desk and finally caught a break.  All that running behind and waiting would have been annoying enough, but knowing I had to sit for an hour after drinking that stuff so they could take my blood (it didn't taste nearly as bad as what I've heard, by the way) made it worse.  After all that appointment craziness, we rushed home, scarfed down some food and headed to our first night of baby class to learn about labor and delivery.  I've never thought I'd go through child birth without pain meds, but after hearing more about them I'm a tad overwhelmed with the options.  I've had an epidural/spinal block before with surgery so I'm familiar with side effects, just for different pain.  I've come to the conclusion that I'll see how it all goes and decide on pain management as needed.  Anyway, that's all the "bad" news.  The good news is baby girl still looks healthy at 2 lbs 12 oz, she's still a girl and the choroid plexus cysts on her brain have disappeared just as we were told they probably would.  My glucose screen went just fine so I seem to be in the clear for gestational diabetes.  Normal iron levels are 12-16 and in pregnancy it typically drops a little but they don't like to see it below an 11; I'm at a 10.5, so just barely anemic.  Baby is getting what she needs, but that leaves me a little short, so I started taking iron.  No big deal, just have to be sure to be proactive against constipation (side effect of iron supplements).   

I think that's all for this week!

Question of the week: What are your diaper bag must haves?  Diapers and wipes are an obvious, but what other things have you found very helpful to have in your diaper bag?  For example, someone suggested a clean shirt for mom, never thought of that, but what a good idea.

Baby Shower #1.

One shower down and it was perfect!  Quite a few of those invited were able to make it which was such a good feeling.  Angie and Michelle did an awesome job planning it-they went with a Fall theme since I'm still getting used to the idea of shiny pink glittery things.  We had the shower at the Owatonna Armory that has wall and furniture colors from the 1970's which tied right in with the theme.

I loved reading what people wrote on this Wishes for Baby sheet!

   We ended up having to spread out the tables and add more chairs as people kept coming.

 We ate lots of good food then played a couple games (baby trivia and celebrity baby name game).  Stacey aced the celebrity baby names-I was clueless!

Meanwhile, Angie measured my belly and passed around some yarn.  Everyone had to cut off a section to guess how big around my belly is.

The two winners were Amy (also pregnant and similar in size, gotta use what you can!) and Brenna.

Brenna wasn't the only kiddo who came to join in the fun.  Orelia and Georgia had a blast playing with the balloons.  Roger, too!

I was overwhelmed with all the gifts for Baby Girl.  She's already spoiled and she's still months from arrival!  Many who came brought a baby book for her-it will be so fun to read the books with her and be able to read the messages from our loved ones, too.  Everyone was so kind with what they wrote-I told Trevor we'll have to make Baby Girl sit down and read those some day when she's mad at us for being the meanest parents in the world.

 Thank you so much to everyone who came - it really means a lot!  I could say this a million times...we are so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives, and thankfully we'll be able to say the same for our daughter once she's here (80 days til due date, but who's counting?)!  And a big thank you to my two awesome hostesses!  The shower was amazing!

-A

$345 cocoa.

Rowdy is a very good dog. 99% of the time. This morning he ate two packets of hot cocoa mix. Trevor called the vet and, to be safe, they said we should bring him in. I guess cocoa is even worse than plain chocolate because of the amount of certain ingredients. They induced vomiting, fed him charcoal stuff, hooked him up to an IV and monitored him for the rest of the day. He was a very good boy for them and ate his medicine and bland mushy food just fine. He seemed perfectly normal when I picked him up. Now he's on a diet of bland canned food and a couple meds to make sure his tummy settles just fine. $345 later we have a happy, healthy puppy. And as much as it hurt paying that vet bill, it would have hurt a LOT more if he weren't okay. We've been pretty lucky thus far with only the standard vet visits, so it seemed our time had come.

But seriously, look at his cute post-cocoa, post-charcoal face!

Appomattox.

This is a total slacker post, but I kid you not Trevor lives in front of the computer these days. So, I'm blogging from my phone.

Every year my work has a raffle as part of our fundraiser. We get local donations and some bigger statewide items, too. They're all great prizes so we usually but quite a few tickets and win a handful of prizes. Last year we won two tickets to a Guthrie Theater performance-one of the top prizes. We finally decided we should use them so we went to see Appomattox on Friday night. Trevor was agreeable to go, but not overly excited. The play was a comparison of sorts from 1865 and the Civil War to 1965 and the Civil Rights movement. We both enjoyed it, we're thoroughly entertained and even had some good laughs throughout. Trevor thanked me for talking him into going. It was fun to have a date night and do something different. On the way into the theater we talked about how much more complicated it'll be to do stuff like that in just a few short months!

-A

28 weeks

Ok now we're definitely in the third trimester! And we made it to viability time-if baby girl were born now she'd have a good chance of survival (with medical assistance, of course). I'll drink to that! Oh wait...

No new symptoms really. I've felt round ligament pain a few times when going to the bathroom, but felt it for the first time while turning to look while parking my car last week. I'm starting to feel more fatigue again, but not too bad yet. I still have mucous in my throat-I'm guessing that won't go away anytime soon.

As most of you know, I'm not good at asking for (or even accepting) help...at all...not even a little bit. Tonight I asked Trevor to get something off a shelf for me-stretching/reaching up is getting a little tricky. This was a big deal!

I'm officially into my all-maternity clothes wardrobe. I wonder what it will be like to zip my pants again someday...

This weeks picture was taken after a big supper, so I'm about as stretched as I get. I forgot to weigh myself today, but we have a double appointment on Monday so we'll see then. Ultrasound (to check on those Choroid Plexus cysts the radiologist called "likely insignificant") then a regular appointment with my glucose test/gestational diabetes screen. Oh, and my blood pressure has been good all along, too. I generally have very good blood pressure. The Red Cross people always ask if I'm an athlete when I donate blood-ha!

Baby shower #1 is Sunday, looking forward to seeing lots of my pals!