Painting the Baby's Room

(From 3/1/09)

Thank you Cristina, Adrian and Olivia for coming over to help John paint the baby's room! You guys are awesome!!!!!!!!!! I don't know what we would do without friends like you.

I will post before and after pictures of the room once I've actually decorated it....Remember, I'm a huge procrastinator so it might be a while.

Congratulations Amanda and Ricky!

(From 4/4/09)

Amanda, my sister-in-law, and Ricky were married on April 4th in VA. We send our love and congatualtions!

We wish we could have been there but were afraid to travel so far in my 3rd trimester. Here is a picture of the happy couple!

Belly Pictures

(From 5/8/09)

Here are some maternity pictures we had taken at a studio and a picture John took that shows my true belly size!





Yep, that's me full term pregnant and I can still touch the floor without bending my knees. I can also do the Yoga Tree pose. I'm quite proud of myself because you're supposed to lose your center of balance when you're pregnant but I really haven't. I have no idea why my body is doing so well. I almost feel better pregnant than I did before. It must be those happy pregnancy horomones.

Due Date Came and Went

(From 5/14/09)

My official due date was May 11th and here I sit on the 14th waiting for the baby to arrive. I've had such an amazing pregancy and am definitly not rushing to induce labor. I feel really great and if she's not ready then that's fine by me. I've actually been getting very annoyed at my doctor's constant talk of inducing labor. They started bringing it up at 38 weeks, 2 whole weeks before my due date!

I can't help but get the feeling that they've just become so accustomed to scheduling c-sections and inducing labor that they don't want to have to be called in the middle of the night to go deliver a baby.

Braxton Hicks and Procrastination

(From 4/27/09)

I was sure I was going into labor on April 27th and went running to the doctor's office. I was cramping pretty badly and it was very frequent. Come to find out I was severly dehydrated and they were just Braxton Hicks. I guess it was good we had that false alarm because it really motivated me to finish up some OLD paperwork like legally changing my name!

Yep, I have procrastinated changing my name for almost 10 years. When I thought I was going into labor I started to cry because I realized the baby's birth certificate would have my maiden name and she would think we weren't married when we had her. So the following day I go to the Social Security office and hand the teller my marriage certificate from 1999 and my application for a name change. The lady just looks at me and says, "What happened, did you forget?". It was pretty funny.

Easter

(From 4/12/09)

We stayed at home for Easter and my mom, Grimmy and Josie came over in the evening. My mom did a little Easter egg hunt with Josie in our front yard that was so cute. Unfortunately Jesus was on call and had to work that day.

Baby Shower

(From 3/22/09)

A big Thank You to all who attended our beautiful baby shower. We had such a great time being with our friends and family.

Our little helpers. They are so cute!

And a big thank you to Blanca, Grimmy, Jennifer, Cristina, Chana, Maria, and Mariela for helping coordinate the shower and decorating the room. It was so beautiful.

My Birthday

(From 3/20/09)

Happy Birthday to me! Here I am with my best birthday gift yet, my baby belly!

Olivia and Alex partied hard and were ready to call it a night! They are soooo CUTE!!

Baby's 1st Bikini

I saw this at the store and just could not resist. I can't wait to see our little FL baby in her bikini at the beach or pool.

Pregnancy Brain

It's a true affliction and it reminds me of those commercials with the egg in a frying pan and the announcer saying, "This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs." I've never done drugs (I'm a true nerd, I hate to admit) but pregnancy brain just has to be worse. Here are a few of John's favorite moments:

My hands were really dry and my knuckles were starting to crack. I apply hand lotion in the car and John starts to complain about how strong and awful my lotion smells. (For those that don't know he's all about soap and unscented deodorant and nothing else. He hates perfumes and scented anything) I start to defend my lotion while commenting that the lotion is burning my cracked hands. I pick up the bottle to read him the name of the lovely scent when I realize I had just applied SHAMPOO to my hands! Worse yet, I had been doing it for several days! It was one of those hotel samples that I had laying around the house. They're the perfect size for a purse and I was sure it was lotion. No wonder my hands were dry, I had been letting shampoo air dry on them. John almost wet his pants when I realized what I was doing.

We've had the same alarm code since we got married almost 10 years ago. One day as we walk back into the house I go to turn off the alarm and can't remember the code to save my life. I have all the right numbers but they are in the wrong order. After 3 failed attempts John calmly states, "Please, just step aside."

Our microwave has one of those radio buttons to adjust the timer. Spin it to the right to increase the time. I wanted to cook something for 90 minutes but the microwave seems broken. I yell out to John across the house that our microwave is 'skipping' from 59 to 100 and I can't cook my meal for 90 seconds. John replies, "You sure it's skipping and not just going from 59 seconds to 1 minute." Duh!!!!! Sad thing is, we've had this microwave for 6 years and I've never had this problem before.

Gasparilla

(From 2/7/09)

Here are some pictures from Gasparilla 2/7/2009. My mom and I were supposed to go just to be in the Krewe of Mambi 10 year anniversary picture. As it turned out we were too late for the picture and decided to just jump on the float and do the whole parade. It was so much fun! Although since I was completely sober the parade seemed to last FOREVER. I never realized how much a few adult beverages really help the parade atmosphere. :)

Hope

(From 1/7/09)

I know this post is 5 months late but I just can't seem to move on without honoring Hope's memory. My awesome sister-in-law passed away on January 7th. For 5 months I've been thinking about what I could write as a tribute to her in my blog. I'm a horrible writer and I'm afraid to not do her justice.

So I will keep it simple and just say, "I love you and I miss you Hope." I'm sorry I'm not so great at the speeches and emotional sharing so I'll post a link to a few really awesome tributes. Please click on the person's name below for a link to their blogs. Check out Jake's heartfelt post, Jen's beautiful photo tribute, and Ann Marie's touching celebration recap.

Truth is, when it comes to subjects that really matter I'm usually speechless. I can BS w/anyone, anywhere but don't ask me to talk about something really important to me because I just clam up...even with John.

The book Twilight Zone

OK, I'm officially getting weirded out (if that's a correct phrase) on how books are finding their way into my life.

On Oct. 29th I blogged about how my sister-in-law Grimmy wanted me to get the book Your Pregnancy Week by Week. Then a few days later we visit my other sister-in-law Hope and that's the very book she pulls out for us to borrow.

It sort of happened again.

This time I was at Borders on New Years Eve with Gayle, my stepmother-in-law. I saw this book titled 50,001 Baby Names and it caught my eye. I literally walked through the entire store carrying this book. When I get to the register I tell the cashier I changed my mind and am not going to get that book, just the other item I had picked up.

Last night we go to our friend Blanca and Ernesto's house to borrow some baby items and what does Ernesto pull out? You guessed it, 50,001 Baby Names! It was surreal. He said they had several baby name books but this one was the only one that had names in it they actually liked.

Has anyone ever had anything like this happen to them?

Happy New Year!

Happy new year everyone!

We hope you all had a great time ringing in another year. We ended going to be before midnight and slept right through it. That was the most relaxing way we could think of to ring in 2009. 8-)

Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas Eve started at home with John's little brother Zachary joining us for his first Noche Buena (Christmas Eve Dinner w/Cuban food). Then we headed to Melbourne that night to catch-up with the family and back to Tampa Christmas afternoon to drop off Zach at the airport as he headed back to Iraq. We wrapped up the night by stopping by Jesus' house for dinner and presents and were completely exhausted by the end of the night!

Noche Buena: Christmas Day:Zachary being attacked by Nathan and Reese with their lightsabers:

Merry Christmas Eve

Here's our 20 week 3D sonogram we had done yesterday. It's official, it's a GIRL!!! She's on the left facing towards the right with her hand under her chin.

And here are some pictures from Thanksgiving...I know, I'm late. Better late than never.

The Reyes part of the family sitting on the left, the Todds on the right. Our neice, Josie.Grandpa with all his grandkids...even the one in my belly! ;-)My sister-in-law Caitlin with our nephew Mason.The Todds hanging at Hope's house.

Happy Birthday Aunt Hope!

We love you!!!

VA and NC trip

We're back from our trip to Virginia and North Carolina and had a wonderful time! It was so great to catch up with our friends and family. The leaves were changing and the drives were unbelievably gorgeous. Unfortunately I'm suffering from 'pregnancy brain' and didn't think to take pictures of us with everyone including the Todds in NC and the Banks in Langley. We'll have to make it right next time!

A big 'Thank you' goes out to Amanda and Ricky for letting us stay with them. They were incredible hosts!! Thanks!

Here are some pictures and video from the trip:

Driving into James City County:

Driving on the Colonial Parkway:

Video of Brian providing entertainment for the family at his apartment after dinner.

http://www.youtube.com/v/vYG846_Bgl4

http://www.youtube.com/v/DF0DNqxI0Ek

Us on the Blue Ridge Parkway:

Crabtree Falls

The Yankee Candle Store in Williamsburg...that's not even the whole building. There was a blue section on the left.

Inside the Store and the Christmas Room:

Video of the Yankee Candle Store animated entertainment and the Christmas Room. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGfvrg7g9dw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Sgv1m0WuM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAmkz_neZTw

2nd Trimester

We had our second doctors appointment today and everything went great! We are officially entering the 2nd trimester and the baby is extremely active, has a good heart beat and is already 6 cm long. The technician said that according to the sonogram measurements I was actually 2 days further along which would make my due date May 9th. I told her to keep moving it up because we had Amanda's wedding in VA to go to on the 16th!! I laugh, but it's true. John is my witness that I said it.

At the visit I was a little concerned because I've lost 8 pounds since getting pregnant, 4 pounds in Sept. and 4 in Oct, despite my belly growing. The nausea has been so bad that I just have to force myself to eat at least 3 meals a day...and they're tiny meals at that. But the doctor said the baby is healthy and I'm on the high end of a normal weight anyway so she wasn't concerned. She said a lot of women lose weight in the first trimester. So that was very comforting to hear. That's also why I haven't updated the blog in a while. I just felt like crap.

But on to the biggest news of the day. The ultrasound technician said she personally was conducting a study and asked if we were interested in participating. She's trying to gauge how accurately she can assess the gender of the baby at 12 weeks. Usually the soonest they can tell is 16 weeks and most times they have to wait until 20 weeks. 20 weeks for me puts me right at the last week of December or 1st week of January. That's a long time out! She told us we weren't allowed to go out and paint the baby's room or tell our family the gender yet (yeah, like I can keep a secret). Her success rate so far is 89% and she's only been wrong 3 times out of 27 total. I thought those odds were great so we agreed! According to her, she thinks our baby is going to be a GIRL!!!!!!!!! And that coincides perfectly with what Reese has been saying all along, without hesitation. So Hope, I wanna borrow Reese for a few hours on Saturday to go down to the 7-11 and pick out some lottery numbers. I promise to give him right back.

I think it's so exciting to know (or somewhat know) the gender of the baby. Although I could think of pros and cons for boys and girls because that's what I do best... lists of pros and cons for EVERYTHING...John hates it. I did promise John I wouldn't buy anything gender specific until we knew for sure.

Oh, and this is so cute. When we told Jesus and Grimmy that I was pregnant Grimmy immediately jumped up to get some champagne to toast. Then she went running to her office to get me some books on pregnancy and baby names. The one book she really wanted me to read was 'Your Pregnancy Week by Week' but she had given her copy to her niece. I few days later we go to Hope's and Hope pulls out 'Your Pregnancy Week by Week' and lets me borrow it. What are the chances of that?!?!?! I was blown away. Hope also gave us a book on teaching the baby Spanish that she had bought 6 years ago! Wow!! I can't believe she didn't give up on us and hung on to a book that long...especially with as much as she likes to clean and organize. Thank you aunties!

It's Official!

This is the baby's 1st picture! Woo Hooo!!!!

Today we had our first Dr.'s appt. and everything went well....mostly. According to their initial calculations I'm 8 weeks, 2 days and the due date is May 11th. This whole pregnancy thing is really weird because they calculate how far along I am based on the 1st day of my last cycle, not on the actual conception date.

OK guys, get ready for TMI (Too Much Information)!

The reason I said 'mostly' is because of another weird pregnancy thing. I had never heard of this but apparently every pregnant woman gets a cyst in her ovaries when she's pregnant that creates the hormones for the baby's yolk that feeds the baby until the placenta takes over. (Or something like that...) I've been having lots of pain on my left side and they decided to do the sono early to make sure everything was OK. Leave it to me, my cyst with the hormones ruptured which is what is causing the pain. But they said that was fine and no reason for concern. They'll just do another sono in 2 weeks and in the meantime they told me to back off the sit-ups, which I haven't done since Middle School!, and the yoga, which I had been doing. But other than that, the baby and I are both fine. Yippy!!!!!!

The only time I teared up today was when Hope called to ask how the appt. had gone. We had actually just finished the consultation and exam but were waiting for the sono. It was so special that Hope took the time to call and ask how everything went. I was so moved I started crying when I told John she had called and what we talked about. But all of those tender feelings quickly dissolved as we headed back to the Dr.'s office for the sonogram. John asked "Why are we even doing a sonogram, is there anything to see yet?" I've been doing some research online and knew that at 8 weeks we pretty much had a head and body and the legs and arms were starting to develop, kind of little nubs right now. Well, John said, "Oh, we have Bob!" Bob? Why Bob? What's Bob? I couldn't believe his response. "What do you call a man in the ocean with no arms and no legs?" I don't know if it was the hormones but I didn't think that was funny at all!!!!!! Anyway, despite his awful joke that he kept repeating, the sonogram was AWESOME!!! We got to hear it's heartbeat and actually see the heart beating in the chest. It even wiggled around for us a bit. It was the neatest thing ever!

Alright, I guess I should be wrapping this up because I don't want to de-throne Jake of the long blog posts throne. 8-)

Thanks for all of the congrats, well wishes and comments! They really mean a lot to us.