Three Things

#1 - Pumpkin season is my favorite season of the year.  Ya know, the one where you can find pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin lattes everywhere you look?  Being pregnant this time of year has intensified my need for pumpkin flavored products!  I finally found one of my favorite pumpkin products yesterday, now if I only had a nice slice of pumpkin pie to go along with it...

#2 - We have been trying to decide if we want to move Kara into a toddler bed or just make the jump to a twin bed.  We figure if we put her in a toddler bed that she will outgrow it in a year or so, so we have started looking for a twin bed.  I happened to come across this twin sized quilt in the clearance aisle of Target, originally $64 marked down to $16!!  Score!

#3 - I am the world's best mom.  Why?  Because Kara has been asking for light-up Dora shoes for weeks and weeks, and I found some last night!  I forgot to snap a picture of them, but I still wanted to let you all know that I am the world's best mom.

The Naming Dilemma

Many, many moons before Joe and I had really even talked about having kids we decided on the names Kara and Cameron for our future children.  Yet, while I was pregnant with Kara we couldn't agree on a name and finally decided on her name a month before my due date.

FF to the present day.  Pregnant with baby girl #2 and our girl name has already been taken.  I always preferred Cameron for a girl though, so that has been a top contender for baby girl #2's name.  This whole pregnancy I have been trying to find different ways to spell Cameron so it's more feminine (I didn't want her to grow up and start a job and get emails addressed to Mr. Cameron)...there's Kameryn, Kamryn, Camryn, Cameryn...but I really couldn't fall in love with any of these spellings, and we couldn't find a middle name that we loved.

I LOVED the name Macy while I was pregnant with Kara, but Joe wasn't so fond of it.  I don't want to say that I have been harassing Joe with the name Macy over the past few months, but I have kind of been harassing him with the name Macy over the past few months.  I just love it so much.  If I saw other people were going to use that name for their baby, or just saw it online or written somewhere I got a little sad that I would never be able to name my child Macy.  I'm not sure what happened, but something changed in Joe and he was coming around to the name Macy.  Now that Joe was coming around to Macy, I was set on Cameron... afterall, we had had the names Kara and Cameron picked for years and years, and they just sounded perfect together, so it was hard to think of using any other name to go with Kara.

I am happy to announce that we no longer need to refer to baby girl #2 as baby girl #2, she has a name!!!  And it's......drumroll, please......





Macy Mae!!!



Yay!!  So glad that we have finally picked a name, and we can start calling her Macy instead of baby girl #2!!

Summer Wrap Up

We have had record high temps this summer.  I'm pretty sure that spring never happened.  We went from -32 and 15 feet of snow to 106 degrees overnight, it's true, that's how it happened.  After a weekend of highs in the 90s again we are finally headed back down in temperature with a high of 65-70 tomorrow and a high of 55-60 on Wednesday!  FINALLY!!!  This pregnant lady can't handle anymore 90 - 100 degree days.  I want to have the windows open and not have it be hot and sticky in our house, I want to wear sweatshirts, I want to be coooooooooold and have a nice cup of hot chocolate(with whipped cream, of course!)!  I'm hoping that we have a nice long fall and we don't go straight into winter, I know Kara still wants to spend a lot of time playing outside and at the park! 

It is kind of sad to think that summer is over now though.  I never went to the zoo this summer, or the pool (obviously I am not about to get into a swimsuit right now), only went fishing once.  I think summer seems a lot longer and less enjoyable when you can't enjoy a nice cold beer.. can't wait for next summer!

Things we did do:  Joe turned 29, Kara turned 3, weekend at the lake, weekend in Bemidji, lots of time spent swimming at Grandma Julie's house, Rock the Garden, parades, Minnehaha Falls, went to Woodbury Days where I won a sweet bike, celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary, went to the state fair (watch for a full post on that with all the food we ate!).  We made 4 or 5 trips to the Surly brewery this spring/summer, which was horribly difficult for me... have you ever been in a brewery and smelled the delicious aroma of hops and other people's full pints of beer and not been able to have on for yourself?  It's not easy, and it's not fun.

Kara at the lake:

I brought Kara to her first rap show, and we got to take our pic with Sims! 

 

Kara's birthday party

Things I am excited for in the fall:  Having the windows open, going to the apple orchard, carving pumpkins, eating pumpkins, drinking pumpkin beer, the leaves changing colors, fall colors, fall smells, apple cider, Grey's Anatomy!  I love fall, it's one of my favorite times of the year.

As far as my pregnancy goes...I finally felt the baby move from the outside at 23 weeks.  Now I'm feeling her and seeing her move on a daily basis, but I would still like to say that having an anterior placenta sucks!!!  Kara will snuggle with me and lay her head on my belly and say "oh, the baby is kicking my head".. haha, I'm pretty sure that Kara has never really felt the baby kick, but it's pretty funny.  Baby name = Penelope!  Not really, but I'm about 98% sure that we have a first name picked out.. but I'm not going to tell you what it is! :) As of today I have 96 days until I can have a beer my due date, not that I'm counting or anything.  I am totally set on not going past my due date this time around, so I really hope this baby doesn't have her own plans...  We have been majorly slacking on preparing our house for the arrival of baby girl #2.  With only 3 months to go, we should really start working on that.  We have to find a way to fit both girls, a crib and a bed, and 2 full wardrobes into one rather small room.  Joe, Kara and I also brewed up some beer that should be ready right around my due date.  It's an Imperial Espresso Stout that we plan on calling Up All Night Stout!  I can't wait for it to be ready and to try it, it smelled ridiculously good while we were brewing!  After we were done brewing Kara said "The baby is going to be sooooo happy that you made her beer!"  haha, how cute is that?

Ooooh... I found the most amazing onesie at Target, how perfect is this!?  And it was on clearance for $1.12!!

I sewed this blanket/quilt for the baby, I love it and I want one for myself! 

Hopefully Joe and I can get motivated to get the house ready for the baby soon.  We did switch our computer room into a toy room, that should help keep the clutter of toys around the rest of the house to a minimum, I hope!  Next I think I need to go through all of Kara's old clothes and decide what we can reuse and what we need to get rid of! 

One last thing.. we have tickets to go see Yo Gabba Gabba live on Thursday night!  I think it will be lots of fun and Kara will absolutely love it!  I'll be sure to take lots of pictures! 

Feeling Uncomfortable In My Own Skin

A little back story on my weight loss journey...  My weight has fluctuated a lot my whole life, constant ups and downs, but mostly ups... I was overweight when I got pregnant with Kara, gained about 30 pounds during my pregnancy, lost 28 pounds within 6 weeks after her delivery and then put 20 pounds back on my first month back to work... at that point I realized I had to make some changes, lose weight, be active and be healthy!

Me at my heaviest - Christmas 2008

I changed my eating habits and started counting calories and the pounds starting falling off! 

On my way to being skinny! 

Over the course of the next year I lost about 70 pounds by eating healthy, counting calories and starting daily workouts, sometimes even waking up at 4:30 am to workout!!  I was doing things that I never imagined I could do.. like completing the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred and I started running.. me?... running? who would have ever thought!?!?  I was really proud of my accomplishments!

Over the next year I maintained my weight loss and fluctuated + or - 10 pounds, but I was at about 80 pounds weight loss and feeling great!  By no means was I skinny, I was still about 20-30 pounds away from where I wanted to be but I was comfortable with my weight, confident, liked the way that clothes fit me and just overall felt good about myself. 

Fast forward to April 2011 - I was suddenly having problems breathing while I was running, having weird cravings, exhausted all the time and just generally feeling crappy.  Why this sudden change in how I was feeling?? 

That's a pretty good reason to feel like shit, right?  Being pregnant has pretty much put a halt on exercising and eating healthy.  I have severe food cravings and aversions, constant nausea and heartburn and zero energy.  Every time I  try getting back on a workout schedule I survive a day of working out and then am too sore to workout for the next week... so that's not going so well.  I've been packing on the pounds over the last few months, and quite frankly I am terrified to know how much I will gain this pregnancy!! I am really hoping that I am just gaining really fast at the beginning and it will slow down and I won't have much weight gain between now and the end of my pregnancy.

And a shot from last weekend @ 22 weeks pregnant ...bleh...

I am back to feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, which is really hard to deal with after so recently being so proud of my accomplishments and weight loss.  I guess the moral of my story is that this is just a chapter of my life, I am growing what will soon be my beautiful daughter and a little bit TON of weight gain is totally acceptable right now.  I know that I can get back to where I want to be, it will just take lots and lots of work after this little baby comes! 

Oh My Growing Belly!

I've been a horrible blogger.  Here are some horrible pics of my growing belly with baby #2, hopefully this makes up for my horrible blogging skills... 

And here is a picture of baby #2 from our 20 week ultrasound!   Isn't she pretty?  Yes, it's another girl!!  Kara was right all along!  

That's all that I've got for now!  I've been trying to get back into sewing, and want to sew some things for the new baby... I'll be sure to post pics if I get around to making anything!