17 weeks- onion

Well I am going strong in my second trimester.  Starting to doubt I will get this surge of energy that usually comes with second trimester.  I probably would have it if this was my first child, but I am on my second and have a three and a half year old that always wants to be doing something.  I am also babysitting the most adorable 2 month old which keeps me on my toes but it's also really good practice for when the new baby arrives.

So besides when they ask me how I am feeling, people seem to like to know how this pregnancy is comparing to my last one.  Let me tell you it's very different.  I never really got sick with Alexis.  I had my moments but nothing like the first trimester with this one.  Thankfully the sickness has passed.  The other thing that is different is my dreams.  I have had very weird dreams this time around.  My dreams usually stem from the last thing I have watched on TV so if it's been something intense my dreams can get pretty weird.  I know Casey doesn't like when I have weird dreams because I am all over the bed.  Last night was my first real baby dream.  We have our first ultrasound in a week and a half and last night I had a dream about the ultrasound.  I don't believe in dreams being premonitions.  Especially this dream because I know there is no way that this is the way the ultrasound will happen.  Although when the tech told us the sex he said girl.  Now that part could possibly be true.  Granted there is a 50/50 chance of the sex of the baby part of the dream is true.  I am excited about the ultrasound.  With Alexis they did a dating ultrasound very early in my pregnancy so I got to see her more then once so it was fun to compare how much she grew and changed between ultrasounds which was about 10 weeks apart.  Now with this one, I have heard the heartbeat twice but haven't been able to see anything so it will be fun to see him/her actually looking like a baby when I first get a peek.  I am excited to see how Alexis reacts to seeing the baby on the screen.  I am unsure if she will understand what is going on , but she was impressed when she heard the baby's heartbeat at my last appointment.  I know she will be thrilled to find out if it's a boy or a girl.  She really wants a sister so if it's a girl she will probably be really excited.

I am excited to start finding a name and figuring out what color we will paint the bedroom.  I have been waiting to get my hands on that bedroom since we moved in.  The previous owners painted every room of the house except the third bedroom.  They did put a wallpaper boarder up that i couldn't wait to get down.  I got most of it down just need to finish getting the wallpaper off and paint it.

I haven't taken too many belly pictures but I did take one last week at 16 weeks 2 days.  It's just of the belly and not my face because it was looking awkward.

April Showers

I am sure everyone has heard the expression 'April showers bring May flowers'.  Well in good ol' Grand Forks, ND our April showers are SNOW showers.  We got at least six inches and it's still snowing but not so hard.  It's the thick wet packing snow.  Already took Alexis outside to play.

Lemon-14 weeks

I am now successfully into the 2nd trimester.  Thankfully my symptoms have started to lighten up.  I am still tired, but then again I have started babysitting an 8 week old on top of caring for my 3.5 year old.  It's nice getting 'practice' having two kids.  Most of my nausea has subsided.  Hoping my appetite will increase now that I don't feel sick anymore.  No real cravings yet and no other aversions expect for taco salad.

I have another appointment next Wednesday the 17th.  Just a basic routine one, and hopefully during that one we will discuss when I can have my 20 week ultrasound done.  I am excited to find out boy or girl.  I know a lot of people have various reasons to either wait until delivery or find out at an ultrasound.  I have a few reasons for wanting to find out.  If we have another girl I will know I just have to wash and reorganize all of the clothes from Alexis, and if we have a boy then I will know I have to try and sell our girl clothes and buy boy clothes.  Thankfully all of our big stuff is gender neutral because we knew that we would want another child and best to not buy gender specific big stuff so it would save us money.  Plus finding out the gender will help us pick out a name, I would rather focus on one name then trying to make two different lists.  And lastly I would rather get the room painted before hand then trying to squeeze in painting with a newborn.  Plus I think everyone else is excited to find out what we are having.  My dad has asked several times if my appointment is the one I find out boy or girl.

Not much else going on.  Still waiting for spring to arrive, just took a look outside and there is actually snow falling.  I am tired of this weather.  Here is to spring finally showing up.

'Safe' Zone

Well I have passed the twelve week mark with my pregnancy.  Hitting the twelve week mark is considered a milestone and your chance of miscarriage decreases greatly.  Now nothing is guaranteed and I am not completely in the 'clear' until I give birth to a healthy and happy little baby.  Technically I still haven't made it to the second trimester, when you use the 40 week timeline second trimester doesn't start until 13 weeks and like 3 days so I am inching ever so close.

I am excited for my second trimester to get here.  Usually in the second trimester the nausea subsides, and you get energy back.  I am looking forward to getting my energy back and thankfully my nausea has already started to decrease.  I have come across one food aversion so far.  Taco Salad.  I have had it for dinner twice and both times the outcome later in the evening was not pretty.  Of course now that we have had it, my husband keeps wanting it but I am not going to be wanting to eat it for the duration.  I really need my energy back and fast because starting tomorrow I am going to be babysitting an 8 week old.  It will be nice practice for both me and Alexis to have a baby around, I just don't want to be tired all the time, but that's something I will have to get use to.

In other news, I have officially registered Alexis for preschool for this fall.  It's kind of bittersweet.  I cannot believe she is old enough to start school, but then it will be good for the both of us.  She will be going three days a week for three hours a day in the afternoon.  It will be nice for me so I can get stuff done around the house and then once the baby is born I will get some one on one time with the baby.  I am kind of sad that my little girl has grown up so fast.  I look at her and wonder where the last 3.5 years went.  I am excited to have another baby so I can experience all the first over again with a new little one.

We had a wonderful easter.  Alexis had so much fun dying easter eggs, she woke up the morning we dyed the eggs begging to get started before we were even out of bed.  The town has an easter thing they do every year.  This year that made it over two days which was nice.  On Good Friday, at the university's football stadium(indoors) they had all sorts of inflatables set up and some other activities so we took Alexis for a couples hours during the day and then Casey took her again after dinner.  She loves bouncing on inflatables, and there were not that many people there on Friday so she practically had the place to herself.  She had to try all the inflatables at least once and then would go back to her favorites over and over again.  We did splurge and pay for her to do the bungee bounce they had set up.  It wasn't bungee jumping.  She was harnessed in and it was connected to bungee cords and she would jump in an inflated trampoline.  Once she got the hang of bouncing with the harness on she had so much fun doing it.  I have a feeling it might a thing she does every year.  On Saturday they had their annual egg scramble.  Thankfully this year they put it in a separate room from the inflatables.  It was a bigger space then in the past.  Basically all they do is have thousands of eggs just laying on the floor and when they say go the kids run out and collect as many as they can.  Because of the popularity of it we ended up getting there at least 20 minutes early to find a spot and waited.  She had so much fun collecting eggs, we actually did two different scrambles.  She did the one for the 2-3 year olds and then after realizing it was too crowded where the inflatables she wanted to do another scramble so we got her into the 4-6 year olds.  Thankfully they don't check ages.  The second one she didn't as many eggs  but that one wasn't so much about getting many eggs as it was to having fun.  Easter morning Alexis woke up early, thankfully came into our room first(as opposed to last year when she went straight downstairs and found all the eggs before we woke up).  Once she was awake all she wanted to do was go downstairs and see if the Easter Bunny had left anything and hid eggs.  Thankfully we got her ready and we all made it to church before she went egg finding crazy.  She just loves finding eggs around and we usually keep the plastic eggs out for several days because she will hid them over and over again and we will take turns 'finding' them.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday.  Here is to continuing to get more energy throughout this pregnancy and to the spring that is finally arriving in Grand Forks.

Two Down, One to go

As I pay the bills we have this morning I realize we have successfully paid off balances on two credit cards and have one remaining to pay off.  We are not so much worried about this last one because it still has another year of interest free on it, but we will most certainly be paying it off well before the year mark hits.  It's just so wonderful to know that we were able to go to from almost being dependent on the use of a credit card to using cash or out debit card(which is the same as cash).  Let me tell you it wasn't completely easy.  We had to start making grocery lists and not just deciding what we wanted in the store.  Price comparing may seem like it is too time consuming but if you have several different stores in your area that offer the same products, price comparing can save you a lot of money.  Basically you go where the best sales are.  Coupons are good too.  We are not extreme about cutting coupons  but we will search out coupons for the items we tend to purchase quite a lot and that helps especially when we find a good sale.  Matching a coupon with the best sale will save you the most amount of money.  So we get the Sunday paper every week and look through the coupons and all the ads and find out where the best deals are for the items we need.

So far it's been working out great.  We have used my weekly paycheck to pay for the day to day items and depending on if it's time for us to put gas in our cars we may have enough to fill up one car.  We never fill up the cars in the same week and we never let our tanks get to empty.  Our local grocery store has gas coupons but it's only for so many gallons.  So we usually try to fill up when we reach that point so we are maximizing our savings.  Sometimes you have to let it go for a little bit longer but we never run our tanks all the way down before filling up.

With a second one on the way, saving money has become more important then every and we seem to be doing a good job about it.  I know it will become harder as we have to start buying diapers and formula and other baby needs but if we keep to a budget and strict shopping lists all of that stuff will work in nicely to what we are already doing.

We decided to stop using our credit card when we purchased our new truck which was right before Christmas and since then only one purchase has been put on the card and it was for a work trip for my husband so he got reimbursed for it so we were able to pay it off fully and right away with the reimbursement.

Here's too a successful first almost 1/3 of the year without using the credit card and going even further without swiping it.

Announcement

So if anyone actually reads this:

Due Date is Oct. 10, 2013

We are very excited to finally be adding a second child to our wonderful family.  So far this pregnancy has been different then my first one.  A lot more tired and a lot more nausea.  Hopefully once I am out of the first trimester it all goes away.  I am currently 9 weeks along.  Two more weeks until my first appointment, which I know will be both a wonderful appointment because I should be able to hear the heartbeat but it will also be a long appointment as most first appointments are and I am not looking forward to having blood drawn but it's all part of the process.

Enough!

I know it's been a long time since I posted anything, but life has been pretty busy.

I just have to say I am sick and tired of winter and snow.  We got another snow storm last night and I can probably say with confidence that the snow is probably up to my knees.  I am just glad Alexis isn't asking to so outside because we could probably lose her in one of the snow drifts.  There is now way to get out of our sliding glass door.  Thankfully where we live they do snow removal so our sidewalk and drive is clear.

I just want it to be spring time.  I want the snow to melt and be able to take Alexis to the park every day and not have to bundle her up in boots, snow pants, coat, hat, and gloves.

With all this snow we will probably have a flood this year which thankfully we live far enough away from the river we won't be effected but it will cut us off from the other half of town.  Oh well, it happens I guess.

Here's to finally warming up and the snow finally melting.