Baby Bump: 21 weeks & ultrasound

We've made it to 21 weeks.  We are over halfway to the end now!  I've never actually made it to the 40 week point with either of my kids so i'm not sure what to expect this time.  Anything is possible though, so this time around I'm keeping my mind open.  When I was pregnant with Luke I had expectations that everything was going to be similar to what it was with Alyssa.  I was so wrong, so this time I'm going with the flow on everything.

                    

Sorry for the picture size but the first is me at 21 weeks with Luke and the second is me currently at 21 weeks with #3.  To me it looks to be able the same.  Maybe i'm seeing things though.

How I'm Feeling:  I've been feeling pretty good still.  My right hip is starting to give me some troubles, but I have been expecting it and it has been a gradual shift.  I'm definitely starting to really feel bigger.  I know I've got a LONG way to go, but i'm feeling the awkwardness of being pregnant now.

Sleep:  Sleep has still been pretty good.  I haven't had to whip out the body pillow yet, so to mean that's winning.  I've been sleeping really hard too which has been awesome until it's time to wake up.  Then I just plain don't want to get out of bed.

Movement:  Movement has become more noticeable.  I feel it every single day, and baby is starting to have some kind of a routine I would say.  I think Brett even felt a little kick this weekend.  I would love the kids to feel baby move, but it's too early still.  They definitely don't have the patience to wait to feel something so small.  We'll give it another few weeks.  Then this baby is going to be kicking them in the back when they try to sit on Mom's lap.

Food Cravings:  Lately I haven't really had any great cravings. I just want food all.the.time.  Pretty much if you suggest something and it clicks in my brain, then i want it right now.  Like the other day someone suggested those little pastel colored mints with white sprinkles on them...yup I wanted some immediately.  Also mini starbursts have been suggested.  So, moral of the story is don't suggest food around me unless you have it on your person.

Maternity Clothes: Definitely in mostly maternity clothes.  I can still wear some pre-maternity shirts that I have.  I am so glad that it's finally starting to cool off and feel like fall though.  I'm ready to wear my boots and sweaters!  I've been planning out fall maternity outfits inmy head for the past month already, so here we go!

Anatomy Scan:  We had our anatomy scan on September 24th, and baby is developing right on track.  It's heart rate was 148 bpm, and baby weighed in at about 13 oz (in the 57th percentile!).  That's the great news!  My doctor then took a look at the placenta which is supposed to be flat against the side of your uterus.  Well, mine happens to have what he thinks is a large placental lake, which is kind of a bulge in the placenta that has excess blood in it from what I understand.  Because of this, he wants us to get a second opinion from a specialist in Denver.  The good news is the specialist makes trips up to Wyoming, the bad news is that they couldn't get us in when they were in town.  But they could fit us in when they are in Cheyenne, so bottom line is we still don't have to go all the way to Denver thankfully.

I've never had anything "wrong" with either of my previous pregnancies, so this is all new to us.  The other two have been quite normal and very uneventful as far as my doctor is concerned.  He always tells me that that's a great thing to not have to spend much time at the doctor's office.  I think he's right too.  Anyway, it doesn't sound like there is a lot to be concerned about at this point, but this placenta issue could end up not allowing baby to get the amount of nutrients it needs/wants thus resulting in a smaller birth weight baby.  This is my understanding of what could happen.  So we will wait and see what the specialist has to say and go from there.

Here is a picture of our little baby #3!  Baby wasn't being very cooperative, sounds like my child.  It's little arm was right over its face the whole time.  We also, obviously, did not find out the sex of the baby during this ultrasound.  We just like finding out at birth.  Besides, we already have one girl and one by, so this one is just a tie breaker :)

What am I looking forward to: I'm looking forward to my next appointment which will be on October 16th. 

Main Floor - Everything else...kind of

The rest of our home consists of the master bedroom, an office, what eventually will be our guest bedroom, a guest bath, the mudroom, and of course the living room and dining room.

Once again the color palette came from Sherwin-Williams.  It's their Liveable Luxe color palette from HGTV.  I just love how it's so calming.  We pretty much used all LED recessed lighting which i LOVE!  It's so bright in the house, whether it's natural light or all the light from the LEDs.  I'm going with what I call a rustic chic look, so right now it's hard to see my vision probably.  Once we get some furniture and stuff in the house, hopefully it'll make more sense.  I love the chandelier i finally landed on.  I actually got it off of Amazon.  I'll have to get a closer picture of it when we go back to the house next.  It's a cool rectangle light with lots of crystals dangling off.  I was kind of surprised that Brett was ok with it!  Score for me.

I actually don't have any finished pictures of the office, but right now it really just looks like a square room with a window in it.  There are french doors leading into the room at are pretty awesome...so i guess i'm going to have to do a better job at taking pictures.  It seems that I just snapped overall pictures, but nothing much for the details at this point.  I'll fix that and get back to you.

Our master bedroom is awesome.  I'm not going to lie.  I'm super excited to decorate it and live in this awesome space that is just for me and Brett!  Obviously kids will invade...but maybe we can have it to ourselves for a few minutes at least.  I am excited that we decided to go with a dark blue for the paint color as well.  this is probably the only color that we didn't choose from the Liveable Luxe color palette.  This is a Sherwin-Williams color and it's called Naval.  We figured it's a big room with lots of light, let's go for it!  

Our master bathroom turned out really well too.  It's fairly simple (meaning it has just the normal bathroom things in it), but it's definitely going to be the biggest bathroom that I've ever owned.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE how the shower turned out.  It's exactly what I had envisioned.  I love the tub too because I envision myself spending a lot of time there sans children.  Who am i kidding...they're probably the ones that are going to be spending the most time in my bathroom.  The only part that I'm not 100% sold on is the step going into the bathtub.  I just don't know if that was necessary.  It looks nice, but i probably could have done without it as well.  

Then, the last finished pictures I have of are the main floor guest bathroom.  I think it turned out pretty well.  I love all the tile that we ended up picking out, which we purchased from Wyoming Flooring and Tile Outlet.  They were really great to work with and very helpful too.  

One thing that I do have to say is that it's super hard to build a house when you live 6 hours away.  I say that because there are so many little things that I wish I would have had more control over.  Things that I never would have thought about otherwise, such as light switch and outlet placement, the location of my doorbell, and just little things like that that make your house the way you want it.  Don't get me wrong because I'm definitely not going to complain about those little things and I LOVE our home, but it definitely would have been nice to have just a little bit more control.  

Ok, so I guess this post didn't really cover the rest of the main floor because I just don't have pictures of everything.  I guess my goal for next time is to actually get pictures of the finished mudroom, and just random other details in the house.  So next time I write a post about our home, I will have some more of the more interesting details that are within it.  

Baby Bump: 18 weeks

I'm 18 weeks pregnant this week.  I know people say this all the time, but i truly can't believe how quickly it's all going by.  Things have been going really well up to this point, which i am very thankful for.

How I'm Feeling:  As I said, I've been feeling pretty good.  I've been having some, what I would say, normal aches and pains.  I've also been having some more hip pain throughout the day, so I know things are happening in there.  I have the worst hip pain when I'm pregnant, so I'm definitely not looking forward to this, but I also know that it won't last forever.  Something else that I've been experiencing a lot this week is that i'm SO hungry!  I want to eat all the time, and I really think I could do it.

Sleep: I have actually been able to get good rest lately.  I'm expecting this to end shortly, but for the time being i'm enjoying every good night sleep I get.  I'm ready for the cooler temperatures to set in to help with my sleeping as well.  I always sleep better when it's cool and I can get all bundled up in my blankets.  As Brett would say I create a nest in the bed.

Movement: I've been feeling movements for a couple of weeks now, and they are just getting stronger and more regular.  I definitely feel little pokes every day.  That part has been fun so far because they are such nice little pokes, and it's fun to know that the baby is ok in there.

Food Cravings: This whole pregnancy I have wanted savory and salty foods.  I'm starting to get back into my usual cravings of sweets just a little bit.  Just the other week I had a weird craving for Mexican food.  I never want to go out to a Mexican restaurant, so that was so weird for me, but I really wanted the beans and food smothered in cheese.  I think we might have to go back sometime too because just thinking about it is making me want it again.

Maternity Clothes: I've been in mostly maternity clothes for awhile now, probably for about a month.  I can still wear some pre-pregnancy tops, but definitely not bottoms.  Baby bump #3 pops out a lot quicker.  This week, I've decided that I'm already bored of all my clothes.  Not good.  I'm hoping that it's just because the majority of my maternity wear is for winter, and it's been decently warm out still.  I believe that's all coming to a close here though, so hopefully I will be happier with what I have over the next month.  We will see if I'm correct.

What am I looking forward to: I'm really looking forward to being 20 weeks.  Half way there!  We also will have our anatomy scan on September 24th.  It always eases my mind once the doctor has taken a look and we know that things are happening the way that they should be.  It's coming up so fast!

Other: I bought our first baby #3 purchase.  We don't need much because we have two already (one of each), but there are still a few things that the baby will need for itself.  Therefore, I purchased a couple of nice soft blankets for this little one.  I really love the Carter's Boa Blankets because even after you wash them a bunch of times they stay so nice and soft.  I purchased two, one with monsters and one with an elephant and a giraffe.  First purchase in the books.

Main Floor - Kitchen

I talked a bit about our basement level of our new home, but I haven't shared about the upstairs/main level.  So here we go.  The main level is basically the living area.  This consists of the usual rooms like the living room, dining room, kitchen and a bathroom.  We also have our master bedroom suite, what is going to be baby #3's room, our office, and a really great mudroom for Brett when he comes and goes.

The main living area is awesome and large.  I'm so excited for it b/c there is just so much space for our family to spend time in together.  I honestly can't wait to get furniture in it, but that'll come.  All the paint colors are from Sherwin-Williams from their HGTV Collection called Liveable Lux if you're interested.  The first picture gives you a good idea of the whole space looking out from the kitchen.  I love how the cabinets turned out and the flooring.  I LOVE the counter tops which are quartz.  I went with the quartz counter tops for many reasons, but my top 3 reasons are:

                                 1. I love the look

                                 2. They are low maintenance (meaning I don't have to seal them)

                                 3. They are nonporous 

The next thing that I'm in love with is my kitchen sink.  I don't know if this is a great picture of it, but it is a slate sink, which being a geologist i love having natural stone in my home.  The coolest part about this sink is that it was custom made for our house!  That sounds expensive, but when I was comparing it with other stone sinks it really wasn't much different.  This sink was created and shipped all the way from Maine from a company called Sheldon Slate Products.  They were so very wonderful to work with and I would do it again in a heartbeat if i had something like this again that I wanted to create.  It's beautiful and I can't wait to actually get to use it!

Another piece of the kitchen that I thought was really amazing, but most of you probably will think I'm silly, are the under cabinet lights.  I knew that I wanted them from the get go, but I figured that they would be these big cluncky light fixture like things.  Well...I was wrong.  It's a tiny little stick on strip of LED lights, and boy are they bright!  I am always going to be able to see what I'm doing in my kitchen, that's for sure!

Now that's I've gone over the basics of the kitchen maybe I'll wait and tell you all the rest of the things I love about the main floor another day :)