A Little Thing Called LOVE: January 2011

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Big "M"

MOVING that is.
We are moving back to into our home in Raleigh, NC. 2 years ago BK and I moved from that home in Raleigh to Philadelphia, PA for his job.
It was hard.
It was hard to leave our newly purchased home (side note: 5 days after we bought our first house, his company gave him a wonderful opportunity for career advance.....however, that career advancement was also known as "Move to Philadelphia").
It was hard to leave family.
It was hard to leave friends.
It was hard to leave a place that you know and love to take on a new city that you didn't know, didn't know if you would like (much less love), didn't have any family around, and barely any friends.
But......

We did it!
We did it together, more importantly. Moving to Philadelphia was the best thing that ever happened to BK, myself, and ultimately our marriage.

I We struggled in the beginning, the first couple of days after we moved BK's grandfather passed away and my parents hit me with the "we are getting divorced" talk. We even struggled some throughout our 2 years here. It's Easter Sunday and there is no extended family to have brunch with, we want to have a long weekend away in NYC there is no family to leave our beloved dog child with. We hear about fun evenings out from our far away friends and wish we were there to participate. But that's OK. It might have not been OK at the time of those events, but it is OK. It's OK because those trival situations made us grow closer, made us branch out of our comfort zone, made us realize how independent we are as individuals and as a couple.

Looking back over the past 2 years we have spent here, we have been able to find a love, respect, and partnership I think few couples find or ever achieve. The road to finding this, though at times, was difficult and filled with tears, arguments, and horrible communication, was the BEST thing that ever happened and I would do it all again if I knew the result would lead me to the place my marriage is at with my husband today and hopefully forever. Most importantly, I know BK and I could live anywhere in the world and be just fine, in fact, we would be more than just fine...we would be perfect.

So am I happy about this move back to a place I so longed to be at when we first moved, OF COURSE, but the decision did come with some tears as leaving Philadelphia is more than just leaving a city. It's leaving a place where our marriage began and blossomed into something indescribable, it's leaving a place where I grew to find myself, make career changes, and ultimately find who I am as a wife, daughter, sister, friend, etc.

Cheers to the next phase of our life together.....parenthood is looming, yikes and yippie!

Monday, January 10, 2011

24 Weeks and Other Baby M happenings

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 24 Weeks

Size of baby: Baby M is the size of an ear of corn

Total Weight Gain: 13 lbs

Maternity Clothes: I wear all maternity pants - love the jeans and leggings! Everything else is my normal stuff

Gender: We shall find out when this little bundle of joy arrives

Movement: ALL the time especially after eating

Sleep: Not that great due to backaches and the amount of effort it takes to roll from one side to another

What I miss: Raw sushi, a fabulous nights sleep, occasional adult beverage, and a really great (read: hard) spin class - as I now must take the bike in the back row, leave early and can't turn my resistance all the way up due to the 1.4lb child I have sitting on my pubic bone

Cravings: no real cravings, rather just hungry ALL the time

Symptoms: backaches

Best Moment this week: BK and I watcing my belly move through my shirts, and hearing Baby M's 150 beats per minute heart rate at our 24 week appointment

And here are previous weeks bump pictures - keep in mind, no matter how many times I try to do a practice smile, put on make-up, and make my hair look "like I didn't do it, but it's still cute" - the bump pictures of me are just HORRID. In fact, yesterday I told my loving and dearing husband that I'm going to start chopping off my head in these pics, because it is doing no justice. He said, "Stop it" ...........until I made him take the 4th picture.

23 weeks - after the gym picture

22 weeks - Holy cow

21 weeks - I think this hairstyle went out in the 90's and is now replaced with the infamous poof

20 weeks

19 weeks - Holiday Bump Picture

18 weeks

In other fun news, 2 weeks ago we bought Baby M his/her crib and mattress. I had been searching high and low for a white or off-white traditional wood crib. Let me tell you, it was extremely hard to find! Luckily, we found a baby boutique near our house that had the crib of my dreams on display.

Lovely, (minus the bedding) if I do say so myself.

Next, crib bedding. Let me tell you how difficult it is to find GENDER NEUTRAL crib bedding that doesn't have a theme (i.e. - Abc's, monkeys, owls, etc). All I was looking for was something with the color scheme of chocolate brown, lime green, and white that had stripes, maybe some dots, and solids - no themes please! The task of finding this proposed crib bedding was beyond difficult. So after scouring the internet, I finally found a woman who will custom make the crib bedding to our liking..YAY. Below are the fabrics that will be used for the crib bumper, crib skirt, and hanging toy bag or diaper stacker.

As for where we will be living, that remains a mystery, ha. However, we plan to figure that out in the very, very near future!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

I really am THAT lame

When I started this blog, I had the best of intentions of updating daily. And, well, if I couldn't update it daily then I would update it every other day. My last blog entry was on November 21, 2010. Today is January 4, 2011. How lame am I? Unfortunately, life was knocking and I just had to answer.

So here we are 2011, HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2010 was such an amazing year and I feel so incredibly blessed. Here is our 2010 recap: