Trump Card

Yesterday, I wanted to go shopping at the maternity store in the mall with a gift card that I had. When I got there, the parking lot by J.C. Penney, where I usually park, was extra full because a lot of the mall parking lot had been invaded from a carnival that's set up right now. So, I'm driving slowly down the main aisle looking at all the cars, wondering how far away I'm going to have to park, when I get to the front and see a nice pink sign and pink lines painted on the pavement next to the blue handicapped parking spots - Expectant Mother Parking!!! So, I whip out my "pregnancy trump card" and park 3 spots away from the front door in the midst of a very crowded parking lot! Hey, as long as I have the belly to prove it, why not take advantage of this little bonus? :)

Double Digit Countdown!

The countdown to my due date is now in the double digits!!! As you can see from the pregnancy ticker above, I have 99 days to go until July 4th! Obviously, God may pick a different day for Luke to actually arive, but that's at least an estimate. :)

I just had to enjoy this "milestone" in my pregnancy and share it all with you! :)

6 Months

So, here I am, 6 months pregnant - and on the brink of the 3rd trimester! One source I'm reading says that I'm in the 3rd trimester as of this week (25 weeks), but the other sources aren't there yet - probably next week.

I'm feeling good. Luke is moving quite a bit - very fun to feel him throughout the day! So far, things seem to be going well. My uterus was measured for the first time at my doctor's appointment Wednesday, and it seems like I'm the right size. His heartbeat is still strong. I'm still seeing the nurse practitioner and will again next month - so I must only start seeing the doctors at the VERY end. I found out that my blood is RH negative, so I have to have a rhogam injection in three weeks and then again after birth so that my body won't develop antibodies against the baby's RH positive blood that could jepordize subsequent pregnancies. Technology can be a good thing - because I definitely would like more than one child! :)

I finished another cross-stitch! I was working on this sand castle cross-stitch since just after Christmas. I bought the pattern a little while ago because the designer (the same one who designs the fancy ladies I like to do) was discontinuing several patterns - this being one of them - and I really liked it. I thought it would be a nice picture for a kid's room, so I started working on it now that we'll have a place for it! :) It has a lot of beads on it. Some designs have the beads as only accents, but this one used them also for some of the main content and color of the design - very interesting. I used invisible thread for the beads for the first time and it turned out pretty well - kind of hard to use thread you can't see, though!

These past couple weeks have been crazy busy for me because the pregnancy center had their annual fundraising banquet this Tuesday - and I'm the event coordinator. I worked all day almost every day last week (I normally only work 16 hours a week), and then, this Tuesday, the day of the event, I worked 13 hours in just that day! Needless to say, after our wrap-up breakfast meeting the next morning, I came home and took a 2 hour nap! :) Thankfully, the rest of my time at work will not be that stressful. I will be able to wrap up this event and work on instructions for my successors - only a month and a week left of working!!!

And, today, after I got back from attending a quilt workday at church (we worked on making baby quilts for various ministries), Nathan and I ran some errands together. That was much-needed time together since we haven't had much of it these past couple weeks. We added a few more things to our baby registry, did a little shopping, and shared a smoothie at Robek's. Nice and relaxing. :)

This was a long post, but I haven't had time to make smaller posts along the way. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more frequently in the weeks ahead. :) In all of this, God is faithful and sustaining:

"The steps of a man are established by the Lord, when he delights in his way; though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the Lord upholds his hand." - Psalm 37:22-23

Heat & Head

So, another couple random items for you:

1) We set up the patio umbrella for the season on Saturday. We had it closed up over the "winter", but it's gotten hot enough that we and our plants are going to need its protection. We got it at the end of the season last year because one side of our patio gets really hot in the afternoon, and actually overheats our second bedroom. And, to top it all off - the sun killed our mandarin orange "crop" last year! My dad got me a dwarf mandarin orange tree for my birthday two birthdays ago, and it came with a couple large green oranges, which ripened nicely. However, when the tree started to produce its first "crop" under my direction, the cute little green oranges (about the size of peas), literally burnt under the 110+ degree afternoon sun. :( So, we're hoping the umbrella will help protect this year's crop from being cooked on the vine - we already have several flowers and new leaves all over the tree!

2) I mentioned in a previous post that I thought I was starting to feel Braxton Hicks contractions - which is when your uterus contracts painlessly, as kind of exercises. While I suppose it could still be that, I think it may have actually been Luke's head pushing against my stomach really firmly. Because it has usually been more on just one side and it's really hard. Today, I felt it on the other side once, so that kind of confirmed my suspicions that it's probably just him pushing his head outward rather than the entire uterus doing something.

(and if you caught it above, we pretty much decided on the name Luke Patrick for our little guy! Barring unforseen circumstances, that's probably what our little bundle of joy will go through life as. Luke, just cuz we both like it, and Patrick, after my dad.)

Random Thoughts

I feel bad that I haven't posted in awhile, but I don't really know what to write about. I've had several small things to say, but nothing that could be the subject of a quality blog. So, I'm breaking down and will just share a few highlights of the past week or so. :) (Most are pregnancy-related, but that's a big part of my life right now!)

Nathan felt his first baby kick on the 1st! He had felt little flutterings a few weeks before, but hadn't considered that the "real thing" yet. So, now he has "officially" felt our baby move! Unfortunately, Nathan's schedule and the baby's schedule don't seem to be meshing very well, and he hasn't felt him very much since then. :( I, on the other hand, feel him moving ALL THE TIME!!!

I treated my friend, Joanna, to lunch at The Olive Garden last week. I needed to go there anyway to get a gift card, so figured we could have our regular lunch date there while I was at it. Lets just say I'm in love with their breadsticks! I ate 4 while we were there! The lunch was also a sort of celebration of Joanna's pregnancy - she's about 8-9 weeks along!

This Friday, I went to visit Nathan at his work for the first time EVER! We've been together for 5 years and I'd never seen where he works. It was nice to finally have a picture in his head of where he goes every day. :) We went to lunch at The Olive Branch (I'm sensing an "olive" theme here!), which is a Persian restaurant that mainly serves kabobs. His boss is Persian, so his work buddies have been there quite alot. Very good food. :)

After that lunch date with Nathan, I met up with my friend, Kristy, who lives down here now. We're friends from high school youth group and hadn't seen each other since my Oregon bridal shower almost 5 years ago! We had a fun time catching up and looking at each other's wedding pictures. :) Very girly!

Then, yesterday, we bought fabric to make curtains for the baby's room! :) We're going with the "Champ Snoopy" theme and already have most of the items to go with it. (The wall decor stars are still left to be purchased, the stuffed animals in the picture are not actually part of the set, and we're not going to use the wallpaper border.) I am going to be making some solid blue curtains to go with the Snoopy valance that goes with the set. I'm very excited about having it all come together. :) We'll probably wait until after my California shower to start setting up the nursery for a number of reasons: 1) It's entirely too early in my pregnancy right now to start rearranging the whole house to make room for baby furniture; 2) We don't even have all of our baby furniture yet - just the crib; 3) My mother-in-law wants to use the Snoopy stuff to decorate the shower; and 4) I'll be done working at that point and can then start to spend more time working on stuff at home!