For honesty???

So my friend Nicole has this awesome blog http://mikkfam.blogspot.com/ and she got an award. She passed the award on to me, yippee!! Thanks Nicole :) So now I have to post ten honest things about myself. Shouldn't be too hard, right? So here's me, honestly :)

1. I am the biggest crybaby. I cry over just about anything, sad movies, mean people, if the store happens to be out of something I need, you get the point. I'm hoping the baby will take after James! He's dead inside ;)

2. I have many secret embarrassing loves. I LOVE old reruns of crappy TV shows like Full House, Fresh Prince, Saved by the Bell etc... I also LOVE some pretty awful music including but not limited to, Clay Aiken, Paula Abdul, Jessica Simpson, Styx etc...

3. I also dislike a lot of stuff. I hate feet, other people's especially. But I also don't like mine to be touched. My friend Anabelle had to drag me kicking and screaming to my first pedicure, which I survived and can now tolerate. I HATE bugs with a passion! Not just ugly bugs but the so-called cute ones like ladybugs and butterflies too! I'm pretty convinced my child will LOVE bugs!

4. One of my favorite things to do in the whole world is... sleep. Pretty sad and pathetic, I know. I also know that those days are quickly coming to an end :*(

5. If I could have, I would have been a professional dancer. I just wasn't good enough. I started dancing when I was about eight and I loved it! I continued through high school. After high school I continued dancing and thanks to Nicole, we discovered line dancing! Sounds dorky but it was sooo fun! Dancing was also how I met James. I haven't been dancing in a while but I'm hoping it's just like riding a bike :)

6. I have an uncanny talent for memorizing lines/scenes from TV shows and movies :) I'm especially good at Disney movies, Monty Python, Friends and Seinfeld. Don't be jealous!

7. Schedules, times and routines are my bag baby! I do everything according to a schedule. My daddy taught me well, we do NOTHING without a plan. This includes Disneyland!

8. I have been watching Days of our Lives since I was about ten. My days is complete when I have watched the episode from that day. DVR has helped me do this a lot more often and I am very thankful for it! For those of you who watch, I am very excited that Vivian and Carly are back! I still remember back to the summer when Vivian buried Carly alive! Now that's good TV!

9. I am a junk food maniac! I am all about fast food, sweets, fried food and whatever else is bad for you. I'm trying desperately to be healthier but it is so hard when good for you food doesn't taste NEARLY as good. Lucky for me, I have a great metabolism, I'm hoping it sticks with me so I can lose the baby fat!

10. I am petrified of giving birth!!! Before I got pregnant, I was petrified of being pregnant but that hasn't been too bad... yet. Now I'm really scared of what come AFTER the being pregnant part. I've heard so many horror stories of painful, long, complicated births and I'm so scared that will be me too! I'm trying my best to be positive but it's hard when you know what is coming!

Whew! It was harder than I thought. I hope I didn't scandalize too many people with my honesty. Since Nicole tagged most of the blogs I read for this award already, I'll just put it out there, if you wanna do it, go for it! :)

Round ligament pain

No idea what it is? I didn't either! The good thing about being pregnant is that you learn something new everyday! (Do you like how I'm trying desperately to see the silver lining here?!) Anyway, late Wednesday night I started feeling some pain in my lower abdomen, nothing excruciating but still very uncomfortable. I told myself it was nothing and if it was still there in the morning then I would call my Dr. Well I woke up the next day and still felt the pain. I went to school figuring I would call during my plan period. I have duty in the parking lot in the morning so I went out, still concerned about what was going on. As I was standing out there, who should drive by to drop off her daughter but my parent/favorite nurse! She nicely asked how I was doing. Funny you should ask! So I explained what was going on and she listened. When I was finished she said three words... round ligament pain. Oh ok! Wait, what is that? Thankfully she was patient enough to tell me about it, apparently as the uterus grows the muscles that support it have to stretch and that is the pain that I've been feeling. I felt such relief to know that everything was ok and that it was perfectly normal! I really am so thankful that my nurse just happened to be there and was nice enough to answer a random question in the school parking lot! She also gave me some tips to help ease the pain. Water and rest. Water I can do but rest... ha! So I've been trying to drink a lot more water and I've been TRYING to sit more at school and walk slower when I'm up and about. It's been getting better but I still have some aches and occasional shooting pains as I'm changing positions. I shouldn't really be surprised by these pains since my tummy has been growing A LOT lately. It's hard to tell on the belly pic below but I certainly FEEL bigger ;)

I'm about 17 weeks, 2 days here.

It feels much bigger than it looks!

On a side note, James and I went to Winterhaven last night with my mom and sisters. It was a lot of fun! I always enjoy the awesome light displays :) Since I've been experiencing some pain with a lot of movement, I've been having to walk slower. I have always been a fast walker. I do what my family refers to as the "Disneyland walk." You walk very quickly to get somewhere and this how I normally walk, yes, even through Winterhaven. Well this year was a bit different. The rest of my family could still do the Disneyland walk whereas I could not. I had to keep asking them to slow down and I even had to sit once. I thought that I did very well considering I'm more than four months pregnant and we stayed for nearly two hours and waaaay past my bedtime. James and I were excited to think that next year we'll have a little one to share Winterhaven with! :)

It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday

Are you singing the Boyz II Men song now? :) There are so many things you cannot do while you are pregnant. I've gotten used to almost all of it by now. Yes, I still miss taking drugs that work, I miss drinking, I miss clothes that fit, etc... But there is one thing that I am still clinging to. Don't worry, it's not bad for the baby or anything but it is something that needs to be gotten rid of sooner or later. I'm talking about my belly button ring. I got my belly button pierced (much to the dismay of my mother!) when I was 18. I've never taken it out just because I really liked the ring and, I'll be honest, I was little afraid to take it out. All the stuff I've read says I need to take it out before my belly gets too big. I just can't bring myself to do it! It's like the last shred of my young, crazy, former self. James asks me every night if he can take it out. One of these days I'll have to let him. He keeps telling me that taking out the belly ring will be NOTHING compared to labor... gee, thanks! So please enjoy the last pics of my awesome belly ring and try not to be jealous :)

Look how cute!!

From this angle, my belly really looks round!! But still cute, right?

Now I need to do another belly pic from the side :)

Trees, trees, trees!

I thought I'd steal from Ami's blog and talk about Christmas trees! In my family we have a tradition of getting not fake trees, not cut trees but actual living trees. These trees are potted and live through the season and can be planted after Christmas. It is our little way of helping the environment :) When we lived in El Paso, we had this one tree nursery we went to every year. We'd all go out as a family and pick out the "perfect" tree. We'd argue over which had the right number of branches, the right height, etc... We would eventually find one we could all agree on, my dad would buy it and then one of us would sit in the back of the van to make sure the tree didn't tip over or fall out! Not very safe, I'm sure! But fun for whoever got to do it! When we moved to Sierra Vista, we were a bit lost. We'd been going to the same nursery for YEARS and now we had no where to go. Thankfully, we could usually find a suitable tree at Home Depot or Lowe's. However, as the years went on, it became harder and harder and HARDER to find a potted, living Christmas tree. Since they are not popular, they are hard to find. Every year we lucked out and found one... until this year. We found out that the tree nursery that provides the potted, living trees to Home Depot and Lowe's had burned down!!! We had NO WHERE to find a tree!!! Thus began the Great Tree Search of 2009. Since Tucson affords more options than Sierra Vista the job fell to James and me. James started calling places to see if anyone carried the living trees. It's amazing how few people understood what we were looking for! Nobody seemed to have anything. I met my friend at Starbucks on Wednesday and thought I'd go myself and check our Home Depot. As I was walking to the garden section, a Home Depot employee told me the garden section was closed and asked what I was looking for. I told him I was looking for living Christmas trees, he looked at me like I was insane and pointed toward the huge lot of cut trees. I explained what I was looking for and he said they didn't have anything like that. That's the LAST time I go to Home Depot alone again! ;) So Saturday, James and I ventured out DETERMINED to find a living tree. We went to Civano, a couple Home Depots and Lowe's with NO success. On a last ditch effort we went to the Magic Garden nursery on 22nd and Pantano (plug, plug, plug!) Right away we saw living, potted Christmas trees!!! Yippee! Finally! So then the phone tag began. Keeping with tradition, we wanted to make sure everyone had a say in which tree we got but it was way harder when half of us are in another city! I called Lizzie so she could come help us choose. James called my dad. I called my mom. We sent pics to my mom and Emily. After about an hour of decision making we found the "perfect" tree! Mission Accomplished!!! Now what? We still had to get it to Sierra Vista. So James and I gave up our Saturday night (we really WERE going to go out to the moon that night!) and drove the tree down to SV. I hope that my family enjoys the tree, which Lizzie and I named Herb. Another part of the tradition is we name the tree! Now that was A LOT of work! Since all the pics of that tree are on my phone and I have NO idea how to get those on here, please enjoy pics of the fake tree James and I did at our house a few weeks ago.

Our lovely (and easy!) fake tree :)

I'm with Nicole, I'm not sure if I like the pic better with flash off like this:

Or flash on like this. What do you think?

I hope you enjoyed my ridiculous story of family traditions. It's a pain sometimes but I love our family traditions. I'm looking forward to sharing these traditions with our little one next year :)

It's not all bad

My last post seemed a little negative so I thought I'd balance things out and talk about the positive things about being pregnant.

* Extreme happiness - I feel so happy to be able to be pregnant. I know it is a blessing and I try to treat it that way everyday. I'm excited to be able to give James a baby! He is so thrilled to get to be a father and he will be a great one!

* People have to be nice to me - James has been wonderful at getting me every strange pregnancy craving, doing the dishes when I'm too tired and decorating the nursery. My family has been nice to me too. Which in my family, is a big deal! My mom has been buying me clothes, shoes and making sure I eat well. My students have even been a tad bit nicer to me :)

* New clothes - Granted they are not the most stylish clothes, but hey clothes are clothes and I love shopping :) I also get to wear lose fitting clothes which are waaaay more comfortable and people don't look at me funny when I wear sweats to work!

* No pressure to be skinny - I have been skinny my whole life and any time I gained a pound, I felt fat. Now there is no pressure to look skinny or have a flat belly. In fact, people ENCOURAGE me to gain weight! I don't have to suck in my belly, I get to stick it out!

* Great hair and nails - The prenatal vitamins and crazy hormones have been great at making my hair silky and smooth and my nails grow quickly and not break! It ALMOST make up for the bad skin ;)

* Eating for two - I know that I am not "technically" supposed to be eating for two, but I like the saying anyway. I can eat pretty much whatever I want and not worry about it. I was in line at Subway the other day getting myself a nice footlong (don't worry, I got it toasted!) and this woman in front of me asked, are you going to eat that whole thing yourself?! I was a tad insulted but then replied with, I'm eating for two! I hope I made her feel awful!!

That's all I can think of for now but I am sure that I will have more positives too :)

Pregnancy symptoms nobody tells you about

Everybody talk about morning sickness. I knew I had that coming. What I didn't know was the myriad of other symptoms I'd have to deal with along with it. I thought I'd share a few just in case you are like me, totally clueless ;)

* Fatigue - I knew that after having the baby, I'd be tired but I didn't realize quite how tired I'd be just being pregnant! When you think about it, I am trying to grow a person so it makes sense. Thankfully, that has MOSTLY passed.

* Breast tenderness - A very nice way of saying... MY BOOBIES HURT!!! I could not believe how sore my boobs were. I could not sleep on my side, drive over speed bumps or even get hugs. I would hold James's arms down at his side when he hugged me so there was no danger of pain being inflicted from hugs. I could not really explain this to kids at school so I took to doing the side hug where I'd just put my arm around the kids. Luckily this has MOSTLY passed too.

* Acne - Yeah, I feel like a teenager again! Apparently that lovely pregnant "glow" is all oil! So not cool. I'm waiting for this to pass soon too!

* Rhinitis - Have no idea what it is? I didn't either!!! Apparently pregnancy does mean things to your whole body including your NOSE! I went to bed one night and could not breathe to save my life! I thought I was coming down with a cold but had absolutely no other symptoms and it didn't go away! I finally freaked out enough to check my baby books and lo and behold, it's a pregnancy symptom. Luckily Ami and Anabelle informed me that breathe right strips work wonders. Now I can breathe at night. If only there were a cool way for me to wear them during the day. Thankfully there is a cure... having the baby!

* Lack of belly - I know this is not technically a symptom but I feel it's relevant to mention. I thought for sure that by this point I would LOOK more pregnant. I'm about four months now and to me, that seems about time to have a pregnant belly, however, I have what looks like a beer belly!

I may discover more later but that's enough for now :)

Now we have a glider too!

Yesterday the glider was delivered! James was quick to put it together. It works great and is very comfortable, despite the fact that it's not quite as "squishy" as I might have liked ;)

The nursery looks a bit more complete now. I think the next thing we need to get is a rug for the floor. Tile is great but probably not so great for the baby to play on!