Our Boy's Name

We have a name for our growing boy...

I must say, it feels so nice when you arrive at the right name. I first fell for the name, Finn, about a year or so ago. Just stumbled across it and it's been in the back of my mind. After we found out we were having a boy, Rob was set on Finn and we both found ourselves loving it. Isaac was a special one for Rob, as it means laughter. I love it.

Can I mention my number obsession again? Lol, although, I must say this one wasn't planned. I'm not that number crazy. But I noticed when the name was written out that each name goes from 4 letters, to 5, to 6. Apparently my name does the same. Rob's not so much, but that's okay. He's still special. :)

Looking forward to meeting our little Finn.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Finding Balance

I'm a big thinker. I think a ton in this brain of mine and I tend to have an obsessive nature too when I get excited about something. I'll over prepare or over think the crap out of it.

This can cause priorities to get messed up and for me to get a lost feeling like I've been feeling lately. Usually my feelings are over-fueled, so I try to remember that and try to reel those dang feelings in. But lately, I've felt like an aimless wanderer. Not sure where I'm going, but just trying to be there for my man and others.

I'm not saying I need "me" time, cause I definitely don't think that's it. I have plenty of it and will definitely realize that more when our son comes. I've just been feeling a little purpose-less.

As someone who believes in God and my salvation in Jesus, I often feel like I'm never getting it right. (I've been told I don't give myself much credit) I get disgusted with my nature/thoughts. I'm one of those I guess that strives for perfection, so my relationship with God is often filled with guilt, definitely not how God wants it. This perfection expectation is from my mind, not God's. And I should also mention that this isn't just how I am with my relationship with God, but with others as well.

I can put the weight of the world unnecessarily on my shoulders.

Rob and I have had some deep conversations about this. He's helped me a lot. I do believe I try to work on this, but sometimes when things get off-balanced in my brain, I'll realize I've gone weeks thinking the wrong way.

Don't misunderstand, I'm very happy. Goodness, I'm happy. One of my traits I'm thankful for is that I love to live in the moment (as each day isn't guaranteed) and soak up it's goodness and the many blessings in our lives. I can just think my way into this topic when my brain is mush and I don't know where I'm heading or what I'm doing.

Well, I guess that's why I love that song that I heard sung by a Denmark choir back when I was in Master's Commission (almost 10 years ago, whattt??) They sang a simple song that melted me...still does...

We fall down, but we get up

We fall down, but we get up

We fall down, but we get up

For a saint is just a sinner who fell down

And got up

We all have our battles, right? Even if you're not a follower of Jesus, we all need the reminder that we all fall down or fall short. There's no need to wallow in that mess and feel worse about yourself, but just tell yourself to get back up. Take a breath...and keep going.

Love to you all! :)

Bump Update - Over Halfway There!

How far along? 21 weeks

Total weight gain/loss: Gained about 7 lbs so far.

Maternity clothes? I've still been wearing my regular jeans and just unbuttoning them, however, it's just getting to be too uncomfortable. So I just ordered two pairs of maternity pants. Rather get them now than wish I had gotten them when far later in the pregnancy. 

Stretch marks? Nope

Symptoms: A little bit of lightheaded-ness sometimes, and really starting to feel the tension in my belly.

Sleep: Sleeping great, however, I see that the benefit of some back support might be appealing pretty soon.

Best moments this week: Booking Rob for his trip to New York! He's going to be taking an improv intensive class for a week at a famous comedy school. So excited for him and this amazing opportunity.

Movement: Feeling lots of little kicks, especially after I eat. I love it.

Cravings: Nothing unusual still

Gender: BOY :)

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out?  In

What I miss: Being able to sleep on my back

What I am looking forward to: Ah, so much...but the most recent thing I'm looking forward to is Rob's trip to NY

Weekly Wisdom: One day at a time...and to live in the present, as opposed to live only looking to the future, otherwise you'll find yourself missing out what's happening right in front of you.

Milestones: Feeling our baby kick and finding out the gender! Both were two awesome milestones. So thankful. :)

Love to you all!

Some Living Room Updates

For the party we rearranged a few things in our living room, which I guess kind of inspired me to do a few things in there.

First, we got a new rug. Here's what we had before:

We've had that thing for over 4 years. It's done us well, but it was time for something bigger. We might still get it cleaned up really good and use it in the front room when we get furniture in there one day.

So we stumbled across a rug in Homegoods that was big and beautiful and shag and gray. It almost looks identical to the original rug, however much bigger, hopefully less shedding (it's a different fiber) and free of Jack's puppy pee-pee/chewing phase. (even though we would clean the rug, it still feels tainted!)

Here's the new Mrs. Shag:

We love how much bigger it makes the room feel simply by covering more area (hard to tell by the above pics, but it really does) It now goes under both of the couches, not leaving a gap anymore like the previous rug. And it's so plush. I'm thinking it'll be perfect for laying a blanket on it and having tummy time with our baby boy. :)

Well then that inspired me to make a much less expensive purchase. A pillow for the back of our newly placed chair. This one was from Ikea for $12.99. The pillow case is a thick velvet material and the whole pillow feels like it would cost like $25-$35 at Target. Nope, just $12.99.

Thank you for your service, Ikea. Especially for those of us who really don't enjoy spending money.

I've come to figure that investing some money in the room that we spend most of our time in is well worth it. Goodness, I might be inspired to actually put something on the walls now and update the mantle a little. Who knows.

I hope you all are having a great week!

Gender Reveal Party

Baby Dunkin is a...

...BOY!!!

We are elated to know our baby's gender. Still gonna take some getting used to to not having to refer to the baby as he/she or it, but we're excited. Oh, our growin boy. :) :) :)

Well, I wanted to share our gender reveal party. I know some people have their thoughts on them as being overboard, but really it was just like a normal party of getting together with family and friends, and just finding out some fun news together. I really didn't feel stressed or anything, I made myself just enjoy the evening.

So for those of you who don't know what these parties are...when you have your anatomy sono, instead of finding out the sex of the baby there, you have the technician write it down and place the gender in an envelope. You can then either give the envelope to a bakery to bake a cake with the filling as suggested in the envelope (blue or pink) or I've heard of people who have balloons made and placed in a box for the surprise.

We did the cake route, and it worked out really well. (Shout out to Publix!) We're definitely planning on thanking them personally.

So here we go...here's some pictures of our party. I'll try not to caption too much. :)

So I started out by planning on making all the directions. I didn't want to spend any money, just used what I had.

I had seen that for some of these parties, mustaches were used for the boy, however, with Rob and his everpresent beard, we thought this fit a little more. (for any basketball fans out there, this beard template I found online is James Harden's famous beard :) 

We even personalized our cups...lol

Food was delicious, my sweet mother-in-law made her amazing lasagna and my dad's famous family meatballs...

We then took group shots of each with their choice. The beards crack me up.

Those thinking the baby was a boy...or just hoping... :)

And those thinking little one was a girl...(ladies man in the center!)

Some cookies my sweet step-mom made...

The cake...I ended up just wanting a simple white cake from Publix, and I made the little diddy to go on top of it...

Then it was time to cut the cake...

Here's our initial reaction...we were pretty excited :)

Overall, it was a wonderful time with family and close friends. It's one of those moments you gotta just stop and count your blessings, as we all have so many. We're looking forward to the day we get to meet our precious son. :)

Love to you all! :)

Seeing Our Little One For The First Time

I just wanted to take the time to document our awesome (in every sense of the word) experience we had at our anatomy sono on Thursday.

Right as Rob was about to go explore some books on a bookshelf in the waiting room, my name was called. A sweet lady named Kathy walked us back to a much bigger sono room than the one we had been in when I was 5 weeks. At that appointment the baby was no bigger than a grain of rice, so I count this sono as our first time seeing the little one. :)

As Kathy is walking us, my adamant self comes out and I start explaining to her our predicament of how we're going to have a gender reveal party and that we don't want to see the gender. She was very familiar with it, which was a relief, and said she'd put the results in an envelope for us to give to the bakery. We didn't even mention that we were giving it to a bakery, but she just knew. Lol.

Once we were in the room and all was set up, Rob's sitting on the little bench close to where I am and the big flat screen comes to view as she places the equipment on my belly, and there's our little one. So beautiful and sweet looking. Little legs and arms moving around. It's amazing what you can see.

She then moved through all the different body parts taking pictures, the baby's little brain and heart and organs. When it came to measuring the legs and thigh of the baby she had us close our eyes as the baby's legs were wrapped up right in the  area. :) Then she showed us a picture she had taken of both of the little feet (so sweet!) Lastly she was looking at my cervix, and then she laughed and pointed out that our little one's booty cheeks were in the top left corner bouncing on my bladder. The shot she had looked like as if someone was xeroxing their booty. It was too cute and too funny. I can only imagine when the baby is bigger what that will do to me, lol, but I can't complain.

It truly was one of the best experiences ever, and definitely made everything feel a little more real. Love this little one so much. :)

one of my favorite shots with baby's booty in the air, so sweet :)

The Kicker

**I'm calling it! I felt my first "kick" yesterday around noon! Felt like a big pulse, but definitely more than a pulse and not just my stomach or anything. Oh sweet little one.**

Lots of stuff on my brain, mainly thoughts for other people going through hard times right now. The verse "Come to me all who are weary..." came to my mind. I was curious to see what The Message translation would be, and it really is quite simple and beautiful...

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Come away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me - watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." Matthew 11:28-30

Ah, lightness and freedom does sound good. I hope the lightness this verse gives me can be passed on to those going through hard or frustrating times. We don't have to have everything figured out. Just a bit of faith in a comforting God, and things start feeling lighter.

Such a welcomed reminder for hard days.

Bump Update

A pregnancy update for ya...I'm-a-growin :)

How far along? 19 weeks in less than 2 hours! Woo-hoo!

Total weight gain/loss: Don't know, will know when we have our appointment next week

Maternity clothes? Yep, I got my precious skirts in the mail, I'm wearing one today actually, love the fact that they're not really maternity so I can wear them afterward too. These skirts and cotton dresses are going to be my friends during this pregnancy.

Stretch marks? Nope, um...and let me say, that this cocoa butter lotion makes me smell like a yummy dessert. My goodness, that stuff smells amazing!

Symptoms: Nothing to complain about, had a little leg crampage for a couple of days, but that went away. Then had a bit of light-headed/dizziness, but feeling really good. Again, can't complain at all.

Sleep: Still sleeping great. I just rotate my sides that I sleep on. Still just getting up once a night to relieve my little bladder.

Best moments this week: Hm...overall it's been a good/normal week

Movement: Starting to kind of think I might possibly feel something, but I'm not calling it yet. I'm sure it's coming soon.

Cravings: Well, my natural cravings right now are for those buffalo chicken fingers that I mentioned in the previous post...I need to get over to TooJay's stat! Still haven't had any "out-there" cravings for me.

Gender: Unknown...one week from todayyy!

Labor Signs: None

Belly Button in or out?  In, but it's kind of looking different lately, I won't go into detail about the exact changes of my belly button, but I definitely notice a change, lol :)

What I miss: Subs, can I eat those yet? Oh, and I've been on this kick of wanting to try new things, well it's not the best time to try new things when you're pregnant. Rob and I got passes to Busch Gardens and Adventure Island...didn't really think about the fact that I can barely do anything at Adventure Island but float in the river...it's still nice though. :)

What I am looking forward to: So looking forward to next Thursday to seeing our baby on the sono for the first time...and then also next Friday finding out the gender at a little party with the family and friends.

Weekly Wisdom: Oh, I'm sure there's a bunch, just can't think of any off the top of my head.

Milestones: The baby can hear us now! We're also starting to go through our closets...the time for getting organized has finally come.

Belated Birthday Post

Well, I turned 27 last month. How the heck did that happen? I was 18, like 2 days ago? As many may know, I have a thing about numbers. For instance, our wedding date was aimed to be 11/11/06. However, the place was booked so we had to do 11/12/2006. Which still in my mind works because 11 and 12 are consecutive, and then 2x6 (from the year) equals 12 (the day). Lol. Yeah, numbers.

All that to say that I found out that my mom was 27 when she had my brother, Greg. So now, being 27, even though it's an odd boring number, is now a sweet number knowing that my mom was the same age when she had her first-born. :)

So it was my last non-mommy birthday (if you don't include Jack, which if you're my sister, you would never include Jack! Lol, love you sees!) It was celebrated eating at TooJay's eating my favorite buffalo chicken fingers and then some bowling. Time spent with my precious family and friends, can't beat that.

Great, now I'm thinking about those buffalo chicken fingers...

Sunday, Fun-Day

Can I just say how thankful I am that the one guaranteed clear channel Rob and I get is the channel that the Olympics are on? I'm not used to this watching TV stuff, but I-am-loving-the-Olympics. Something about the world and countries coming together, as well as good sportsmanship that brings a smile to my face. It's the peacemaker inside of me. :)

On to other randomness. I just want to say, I love this growing baby so much. Still haven't seen an image and am very excited/anxious to (less than two weeks!), but my heart is just beating deeper and deeper with love for our little one. It's been and still is a process of adjusting my mind around this. I'm amazed by the thought that God already knows our little one so closely and intimately. It reminds me how thankful I am for my loving parents...they truly are the perfect parents for me.

Love you two. We're some lucky kids. :)

Happy Sunday night and new week to you all!