Saturday was a great day!

Saturday was packed, but it was fantastic to see Ben and Nate, as well as to finally meet Sarah!

Saturday Trina and I woke up early to head off to her last gymnastics class.  Ben arrived on Friday night so he and Ryan stayed up chatting and having a few beers.  Trina improved quite a bit in her gymnastics abilities.  Her coach, father, and I all hope that she continues gymnastics when she goes back to Minnesota because she's naturally built like a gymnast and really seems to have a lot of fun doing it.  Here's a picture of her class and her coach:

 

Trina became pretty good friends with the little girl on the right, Peyton, so her mom and I will have to plan a couple play-dates on before the end of August.  Maybe they can even be penpals until next summer.  Here are a couple of shots of Trina doing her two favorite things:  the vault and the uneven bars.

After gymnastics, we met up with Ben and Ryan and went to Panera for lunch.  I was geeked that it was Baked Potato soup day, so I loaded my belly full of that stuff.  Then, time to see Captain America.  Ben and Ryan really wanted to see it and we were eating pretty close to the theater, so we headed over and ended up having a movie starting in 15 minutes...perfect timing.  The movie was decent, pretty much what I expected it to be.  Definitely better than any of the last three Spiderman movies.

Then, I had to stop by St. Joe's for a re-check of the crazy thing going on with my face.  Ryan, Trina and I ended up at St. Joe's Urgent Care on Friday after work because my face had gone from a tiny little red mark to the picture below in less than 36 hours:

Because it had gotten so bad so quickly, the Urgent Care doctor on Friday asked me to come back on Saturday for a re-check.  The doctors still aren't totally sure what it is because it's showing signs of a number of different afflictions (i.e. contact dermatitis, infection, etc).  They have me continuing on the antibiotics for my sinus infection and also placed me on a 6 day round of steroids to try and get the swelling and progression to reverse.  Today (Sunday) my face looks a lot better...the mark is still just as big and long but the majority of the swelling and redness has dissipated. 

I got back to the house around 5:45 just a couple minutes before Nate and Sarah arrived.  They brought their cat Jade with them, which my cats apparently did not like at all.  There was a bit of growling and then my cats disappeared and Jade took over the house, lol.  After taking Nate & Sarah on a quick tour of the house it was time to leave for dinner.  We had 7:00 reservations at Gaucho's.  Trina has been nagging since she got here to go eat dinner at the "meat place" and Ben LOVED it when he was here in January, so we decided we'd go this weekend.  As usual the food was superb.  I tried a new Brazilian soda and it was awesome:

We all tried to go Man v. Food on dinner, but unfortunately, Gaucho's won.  Nathan said it was a victory for him that he was able to just get up and walk out of the restaurant on his own two feet.  We did manage to save room for dessert and Ben was totally geeked that the special that night was his TWO favorite desserts:  New York Cheesecake & Key Lime Pie.  There was a rather long discussion about how it was amazing that out of a hundred billion possibilities, the restaurant picked HIS TWO favorites.

After dinner, we sat in the living room talking and looking through Ben's pictures of the home renovations he was doing with his friend on the east coast.  I tried to sneak a shot of the brothers while they were looking at the pics, but they caught me:

  Eventually, it was clearly time for Trina to go to bed because she started getting super crabby, whiny-pants.  She made quite the show of having to go to bed and continued to keep coming downstairs with every excuse imaginable to stay up late.  The boys and Sarah all went out to go sing Karaoke and I stayed home with Trina.

All in all, an end to a great Saturday!

Halloween at Camp

This week was "Holiday" week at camp.  Friday is Halloween, Trina's favorite day of Holiday week.  This year she went as The Corpse Bride:

 Since we can't buy Halloween make-up right now, we decided to use some of my everyday make-up to make her look "dead." 

This picture doesn't show the make-up as well as in person, but we used eyeliner smuged under her eyes for the circles, I found some purple eyeshadow and we used that for her top lids and then I used my white shadow all around her eyes, eyebrows, nose, and cheeks to give her a kind of ghostly palor. Farmer Don (the camp director) loved her make-up and commented on it immediately so Trina was thrilled.

In other news, so far I haven't yet broken out in hives from these antibiotics.  So, I'm going to take that as a good sign...I think I'll breathe easy if I make it through today without any problems.  I did, however, wake up this morning with the ability to breathe a little bit and also, my face no longer feels like it's going to explode.  So, well done Dr. W...you're my hero of the day!

And, I thought I'd throw another bump picture out there for Jayne, so here you go mom.  This is me this morning at 17w2d with 6 pounds of weight gain (right on target):

Ben shows up tonight for his visit, and Nathan & Sarah will be here tomorrow.  So, we have a busy busy weekend.  I'll probably post pics on Monday.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!!!



I learned two new things today.

1)  Pregnant women are at a much higher risk for sinus infections.

Turns out, the congestion I've had for two weeks now is really a sinus infection.  I haven't had one in over a decade, so I was pretty surprised when I got the diagnosis.  Although, at the same time, the worry of one is what finally drove me to the doctor today.  This thing started out as some drainage and a sore throat and within in two weeks turned into full on 100% congestion with a side of "OMG my face is going to explode."  I tried all of the usual natural remedies and none of them even helped a bit.  Despite my strict rules to avoid any medication whatsoever, I finally broke down and tried Sudafed AND Benedryl yesterday, but neither did a lick of good.

2)  I am allergic to the two antibiotics considered safe during pregnancy to treat a sinus infection.

What are the odds?  The ONLY two antibiotics I am allergic to turn out to be the ONLY safe antibiotics to treat my current ailment.  Wow.  Both allergies, interestingly enough, I developed as an adult.  I had taken amoxicillin and the Z-pack multiple times in my life without issue...and then I hit my twenties and BAM, hives everywhere!  My doctor told me I really had him scratching his head on this one, because a) I'm allergic to the two drugs known to be safe, and b) all the other drugs he can prescribe are Class C which I absolutely refuse to take.  So, after 20 more minutes of research, he finally found a random antibiotic that is Class B and safe to take during the 2nd trimester.  The catch you ask?  Turns out it's related to amoxicillin somehow so around 10% of people allergic to it are also allergic to the other antibiotic.  Sweet!  The doctor also told me that this antibiotic is significantly stronger than amoxicillin, so if I do end up being allergic, my reaction could be a lot more severe than it was before.  Awesome!  Oh well, 90% are pretty good odds, so I'm giving it a try.  But, I did warn Ryan that we might make a trip to the ER at some point.  LOL. 

The backyard is done!!!

Well, the landscaper finally made it out to do our backyard today and I could not be happier with how it looks. 

Here are some of the before pics:

 Here's a good shot of the weeds I fight every year from the forest.  Unfortunately, I ended up with poison ivy from weeding this year, so I'm even more glad that it's gone now!

 And here's the main reason for the work....the flooding.  The whole back 1/3 of our yard stayed a swampy flood plain from May through about September.

 And here is my wonderful new backyard all finished and beautiful:

 Close up of the left side of the yard with the redbud tree, rhododendron, hydrangea, hibiscus and hostas:

 Here's the middle with our brand new spruce (beautiful!), and my ornamental grasses.  I absolutely love the zebra grass on either side of the pine:

 And finally the right side of the yard with pretty much the same stuff as the left:

I could not be happier with how it turned out.  I love all of the river rock in front, which should definitely help with the flooding issue.  If you need some work done and are in SE Michigan, I would night recommend Lucas Nursery (they did my parents' fire pit too)!!!

YAY!!!!

I had an OB appointment yesterday and met with the 5th and final doctor!  She was fantastic, honestly.  I think she might be my favorite out of the bunch (obviously excluding my regular doc).  I had blood drawn for the Quad Screen (it looks for anatomical problem such as spina bifida).  Yesterday also marked the first time the docs were able to find Baby Ram with the doppler...heartbeat was nice and strong.  And I found out the on-call delivery schedule:

Monday:  Campbell
Tuesday:  Gordinier
Wednesday: Markowitz
Thursday (day only):  Obron
Thursday night & Friday:  Cornelius
Weedends:  Rotational

After meeting all of the OBs I can honestly say that I like every single one of them and have no hesitation about any of them delivering my baby.  Although, I'd be lying if I didn't have a couple favorites!

The ABSOLUTE BEST part of yesterday, you ask?  I got to schedule my anatomy scan!  We will be checking in on Baby Ram and finding out if we're Team Pink or Blue on August 12th!  I can't think of a more fitting day for big news like that (<3 you Kaaron)!

In other news, we finished the baby furniture.  Now we just need to move all the playroom stuff to the new playroom in the basement:

Up next on my "Baby To Do" list is to sign up for birthing classes. 

Bob the Builder! Er, should I say Ryan the Builder.

Last night Ryan and I sat down and decided to put some of the baby furniture together.  It was mostly because I wanted to make sure nothing was broken so we could return it if there were any problems.  So, we began with the crib.  Here's Ryan putting on the finishing touches:

Aaaaaannnnnnd, TaDa!!!  The finished crib:

I have to say, I really like the crib.  It's pretty spiffy looking!  The Black Cherry finish looks really good against the green paint on the walls.  I know it's pretty hard to tell in these pictures, but that room is actually a beautiful shade of mint.

We felt ambitious after getting the crib together and decided to tackle the changing table as well.  Again, I really like how it turned out:

Tonight, if we're feeling it, we're going to get the dresser put together.  Once that is done, all the furniture is ready to go.  We still have to move all of Trina's playroom furniture and toys down to the basement.  I'm not in any sort of rush, so that will get done eventually.

I'm antsy

...to know whether Baby Ram is a boy or a girl.  I feel the need to start getting things ready, but I don't want to go do our buy anything until I know if we're Team Pink or Team Blue.

I tried to con my OB into making a sex prediction at my last ultrasound, but he wasn't having any of it.  He laughed and told me I'd have to wait until the anatomy scan.  Bummer.

I have another appointment next week for a blood test and I'm hoping they'll have me schedule the anatomy scan then.  Maybe I'll feel less anxious if I have a date to look forward to.  I know that my OB schedules them between 18 and 20 weeks, so that means the first three weeks of August.  We're getting close!

Favorite Things - Part 5

Ryan and I go to the Renaissance Festival every year with Jill & Aaron.  We always have an absolute blast and I start really looking forward to it around this time of year! 

We're considering making a second trip this year so that we can take Trina since she will be here for opening weekend.  I definitely wouldn't mind that at all! 

If you haven't been, I'd strongly suggest going as it's a total blast (especially if you like people watching):  http://www.michrenfest.com/index.htm

This is what 70 mile per hour winds do...

This is what we came home to:

As you can see the tree takes up pretty much all of our backyard.  We were really lucky that it didn't end up hitting the house and only damaged the fence.  Our neighbor across the street didn't fare so well...his tree came down on his house and his brand new hot tub.  Ouch!

The tree in our yard is our neighbors, so he said he was going to take care of it.  We're leaving it where it is until he decides whether he wants to cut it up himself or make a claim on his homeowners to fix the fence.

Obviously, I wasn't home with the storm came through.  Ashley and I were sitting at Panera having lunch when all of the sudden the sky opened up and the wind started kicking.  The power went out at Panera.  The wind was so strong it was blowing over the metal tables and umbrellas outside of the restaurant.  The rain was so heavy we couldn't see more than a couple feet out the windows.  It was pretty intense and wicked storm. 

Ryan and I took a drive through the neighborhood and there are a LOT of trees down.  I hope no one had any serious damage, but I think it's almost unavoidable with the size of some of the trees and limbs that came down.

I know Illinois caught this storm too...so I hope all of my friends and family made it through the storm unscathed. 

Art in the Park

I love Art in the Park.  We go every year and have a blast checking out all of the different artist.  I think Trina appreciated it a lot more this year than she did last year.  She also had a blast checking everything out...whereas last year she really only cared about the booths that made things geared for children.

Some of my favorites were the banks made out of beautiful wood and old P.O. Box doors.  They were SO cool!!!  One of my favorite artisans from last year was back this year...he is a magician when it comes to doing wood inlay.  All of this work is absolutely beautiful and flawless.  Honestly, if you have a bit of time you could check out his website...if I had an extra couple thousand of dollars to throw around I would *definitely* buy something from him.

This year we were able to park really close (thanks Lion's Club for the $5 parking) instead of dealing with the hassle of shuttle.  We ended up running into one of our other favorite vendors right away!  Last year, we bought my parents a really beautiful oil candle...and this year, my mom bought us one:

It goes PERFECT with the wine theme we have for our dining room.  Once I finally have my wine cork board finished the room will be complete!  I love this candle so much that I doubt I'll ever burn it.

It was supposed to be in the mid-80's on Saturday, but actually ended up being in the mid-90's and the sun was soooooo strong.  So, after walking down one street of booths we were already baking our brains out.  We decided to detour to the park (where there are a lot of trees aka shake as well as benches to take a load off) where Trina could have fun with some of the kids activities.  She immediately gravitated to the face painting.  She loved her humming bird so much last year that it took her about 15 minutes to pick what she wanted this year.  Here's what she went with: 

 Then we stopped at the candy stick booth.  She basically got to make her own gigantic pixie stick.  The booth had at least 50 flavors so it took her FOREVER to do. 

 After making it through the park we walk down another street of booths and ran into the chalk drawer from last year.  This year she was doing various famous paintings like Starry Night.  She was actually there drawing this year, so we took some time to watch her.  I was pretty impressed that she was drawing all of these paintings from memory because she didn't have anything with her to copy off of.  By the time we got to the end of the second street we were dying again, even with an Italian Ice snack, so we popped a squat in front of City Hall. 

 We ran into a couple other pretty cool things.  Like this guy standing in the intersection:

 He would remain frozen as a statue until someone walked up and gave him money in his bin.  Then, he would start doing magic tricks.  I have to admit, the one was saw was pretty good.  Trina and grandpa tried to get him to move from his statue pose by pretending to steal his bin of money, but Trina chicken out just before she did it...so he never moved out of his pose.  Then we saw this:

 I couldn't really get the right angle where it REALLY looks like he's a part of the painting because there were too many people, but I think you get the idea.  Finally, one of the last streets we went down had a Beatles Tribute Band.  They were AWESOME!!!  We found an area with a little bit of shade and watched them play a few songs. 

 As we were leaving they started playing some songs that weren't Beatles, like Johnny B. Good so I danced my way down the street until I couldn't hear them anymore.

One of the other purchases we made is fantastic!  My mom and I found the booth on our first pass down the street and we went in.  I turned around to ask Ryan if we should get one and he was no where to be found!  We found him, grandpa, and Trina at nearly the end of the street.  So, I made Ryan come back into the store with me on the way back and he got as excited about it as I did!!!  So, we bought this for the baby:

 How cute is that?!?!  I love that it's little Velcro monkey hands that make the strap!  There's a little adjustable band on the back, so this hat will fit the baby from 6-24 months!  I can't wait to use it!!!  We also picked up a frog one for Ashley.  Trina wanted me to model it:

In you love these things as much as we do, you should check out their website because they have a TON of super cute hats.  My mom's favorite was a kitty with snowflakes, but it was pink and we don't know if this little one is a boy or girl yet, so we had to pass.  After our last purchase, it was time to go home.  Grandma and I were both extremely overheated and I saw started to get a sunburn.  So, we headed out and went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner.  After dinner, we went back to my parents' house.  The girls got to throw some of those popping firecrackers around.  As you can see, Ashley wore her frog had all night:

Then we had a bonfire, cooked a bunch of smores, and chatted.  Before we knew it, it was 11 o'clock (way past Trina's bedtime) and time to go home!  We had a great day!!!  Can't wait to see what Art in the Park has next year.

Gymnastics!

Trina had her first gymnastics class today.  She was really nervous about going at the beginning because she has never done gymnastics before and she missed the first day of class (that was the day we picked her up in Marquette).  She ended the class by asking me to buy her uneven bars and a balance beam to practice.  LOL.

Her coach said she did a really good job for her first day of class, and I have to admit...she looked pretty good out there.  Here are a few pics:

Trina wanted a photo shoot before we headed off to class so she could show off her new gymnastics outfit and hair!

 Trina made friends with a little girl named Peyton.  She's also 7 and going into the 3rd grade.  It cracks me up how shocked Trina is every time she meets someone who started school early like she did.  Last year, she met two little girls in the neighborhood who did the same thing.

Trina says the uneven bars are her favorite, but I think that's probably just because she got to play in the chalk and smear it all over her hands.  She did a really great job on the balance beam.  I think she could probably be good at the vault too, but she hasn't yet grasped that she's jumping on a spring board first.

Here's a little clip of her first class:

Surprise Ultrasound!

Today I had a normal prenatal appointment.  I actually got to see my regular OB today which was nice.  He went over my ratios for the NT Scan.  Everything looked fantastic:  Trisomy 21 is 1:1600, Trisomy 13 is 1:10000, and Trisomy 18 is 1:10000.

Then he tried to find the heartbeat on the doppler but couldn't.  So he decided that since baby was being stubborn, and because the tech had such a hard time measuring the baby last time that we should do an ultrasound just to make sure everything is okay.

I was completely shocked when he led me into the ultrasound room and the performed the ultrasound himself!!!  I think we was having a lot of fun because he verified a very strong heartbeat and that baby was definitely on track for growth in the first 30 seconds, but kept checking things out.  He had the screen angled toward me the whole time, so I got to see baby dancing around, clapping, and sucking it's thumb.  At one point, baby fanned it's fingers out and my OB got all excited about how cool it was.  LOL.  I seriously heart that guy.

Anyway, I thought I'd post a few of the pics from today, especially for Jayne (my mother-in-law).  I love the first one because I think it is SO cool how you can see all of the individual fingers!

 This one is also one of my favorites because you can see the spine and ribs!!!  Freaky, but sooo cool!

 And finally, one that is zoomed out and showing the heartbeat at the bottom!

I have another appointment in two weeks for another blood test.  This one apparently tests for spinal and brain defects.  But, my OB said that based on what he saw today he highly doubts there will be any problems.