36 weeks...getting SO CLOSE!!

36 Weeks!!

Well, I am officially 36 weeks! It is crazy that we will have a little baby girl here with us in less than a month, and I am SO excited to meet her! Things have been going really well throughout my pregnancy. I feel really lucky! I haven't been sick, haven't had heart burn, haven't had an achy back, haven't retained any water (yet...at least!) and have been able to work out the same (well mostly the same) as I did pre-preggo. My first 20 weeks pregnant I gained weight way quicker that I should have. I was so worried that I was going to gain like 60 pounds and be this huge blob. Well, much to my relief, I stopped gaining weight at about 23 weeks and have actually lost weight since then, weird- I know! My doctor doesn't seem too worried about it, and baby keeps growing, so I guess all is well. It's just crazy how different pregnancy is for everyone. Matt kept telling me "everyone is different, don't compare yourself or worry about it." I didn't listen to him, and should have. He was right, and usually is. :) I don't know how I got so lucky with feeling so well during this pregnancy. I keep thinking that I'll get it on one end or another, and that my labor will be just that- LABORIOUS! Let's hope not.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow. I am now going in WEEKLY! EEK! That means things are getting close. I hope my doctor checks me tomorrow to see if there is any progress going on down there. We will see!

My belly literally grows every day, it's crazy! Now when she moves it's not kicks, but rolls and elbows and knees jabbing and making my stomach all lumpy and lopsided. It is so fun to watch. Matt and I just laugh and watch my belly at night. Who knew belly watching could be so entertaining!? I am so curious to see what she'll weigh, how long she'll be, if she'll have hair, who she'll look like...etc. etc. It's such a mystery! I am going to make some predictions and see how close I am:

Weight: 7lbs. 2 oz.
Length: 19 inches
Hair?: Yes, dark.

We will see how close or how totally wrong I am.

I am still working and hope to work up until the day she comes (hopefully my water doesn't break while I'm teaching! My kids would be horrified!) My kids are so cute and are getting so excited. Every day when I give the kids a hug before getting on their bus I have a couple cute little girls that will hug me and then hug my belly. It's so cute. I think working is really good for me. It keeps me busy and makes the days go by a lot quicker. I do wish I had more time for "nesting". I wish I had more time to do motherly things like make quilts or bows or something, but there is just no time in my day! Maybe when I'm not working I'll have more time. I want to get a sewing machine so I can do these things, that would be fun. :) Her nursery is pretty much all set up and we are basically ready for her to come. I still need to pack my hospital bag and a few little details like that, but for the most part we are now just waiting for her to make her big debut!

Baby Update...35 Weeks

Yesterday we were able to get another ultrasound! (Just an awesome perk of having your husband work at a doctors' office!) Baby is getting SO BIG!! It was crazy how much she has grown since our last ultrasound. Instead of being able to see her whole body at one time, we were only able to see parts! But oh, were they cute little parts! She's still a girl (sigh of relief, we have bought EVERYTHING pink!) My mom said that if she didn't know, she would think that I was having a boy by the way I'm carrying her. She got me all freaked out and let's just say I was relieved to see girl parts still. :)

Her arms are getting so cute and chubby as well as her little cheeks. She was sucking her thumb (which I think is just adorable!!!) and even got the hiccups during the ultrasound. She gets the hiccups at least three times a day, poor thing! She's a very active baby...she's always kicking and latley I can feel her little hands and fingers wiggling around. It's become a nightly ritual for us to lie in bed and just watch my stomach dance around. I could do it for hours, and it has easily become my favorite part of the day, as well as Matt's.

Today at my doctor's appointment my doctor felt around on my belly and said that baby's head is already down and rearing to go! He also said that he'd induce me before my due date if I was ready, YAY!! I'm almost 35 weeks now, only 5 left if I go full term! I am so dang excited that I can hardly stand it.

Last weekend we were able to go home and while we were there I had two showers. Holy moly were people generous!! I got SO MUCH stuff for baby! She is one spoiled little thing. Her nursery is so cute! We got her crib and dresser a couple weeks ago, and we just love them. Sometimes I'll just go sit on the chair in her room and take it all in. It's surreal that I'm going to have an actual BABY in that room in about a month! I can't wait to rub that baby lotion on her cute little head. :)

24, 28, and 32 week belly shots...

24 weeks...
28 weeks...

32 weeks!

Well, as much as I tried, I have failed at keeping my blog updated. I thought I would be better now that I'm pregnant, but it turns out I'm not! I just don't have time to blog, and when baby gets here, I'm sure I'll be worse! Anyway, here are some pictures from the past 8 weeks. Baby is growing and changing everyday. It is so fun to watch my belly dance around. I could seriously sit and watch it all day long. Pregancy is such an amazing thing, I am constantly amazed that the whole process actually works, and in the end, I will have an actual baby! It's super exciting and super intimidating at the same time. I can't wait for her to get here!

We ordered her crib and dresser yesterday, and I'm so excited for it to get here!! I want to get her nursery all set up and ready to go. Here's a link to what crib we got: http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11363879

...and here's the dresser:

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11363878&prodFindSrc=prodCrossSell

We're pretty excited about it!!! Babies R Us is having a deal right now where if you take in any used baby item you can get 25% off of anything! So we took full advantage of that. :)

Only 8 weeks left to go! It still feels like it's never going to get here though. I feel like I've been pregnant FOREVER! PATIENCE!!!!! :)

20 Weeks

Last week, we went to
our 20 week doctor's appointment. It went really well! It was so fun to see her
again. I just love getting ultrasounds. She is such a little wiggler-she didn't
stop moving at all the entire time! We got some really cute pictures. I was a
little disappointed with the 3D ultrasound picture that we got. She was facing
inwards and wouldn't stop wiggling, so we couldn't get a very good shot of her,
but it was still really neat to see her. She currently weighs 11 ounces and is
about 10 inches long- about the size of a banana. Here are some pics..

20 week belly shot.

Look at those muscles!! :)

Cute little fist.

Here's the 3D shot. You can see the side of her face with her arm up by her chin/jaw area. The dang cord was in the way, so her mouth is covered up. Still a pretty neat shot! :)

Zoomed in on her mouth, nose and chin. She's sucking her thumb!! :) SO CUTE!!

Praying arms! :)

Cute little foot..

Poking mommy..

Cute little profile shot.

This week was a big milestone- 20 weeks- half way there! We can't wait to meet our baby girl! :)

Lately..

About a week ago, I felt my baby move for the first time! It was so crazy..i was sitting in the computer lab with my kids, and all of the sudden, I felt it. This little flutter in my tummy. At first I didn't think anything of it, but then it happened again, and again, and then it hit me, she was kicking! It was so neat. Ever since then, I've felt her every day. Matt has even felt her kicking a few times now, and it's so fun. It makes everything more real. It's still crazy to me that in a few months we'll actually have a REAL baby here with us! I've finally gotten to the point where I'm used to being pregnant, but not that I will be a mom! Don't get me wrong, I'm so excited, but it just doesn't seem real. It feels like it's so far away that it'll never happen. We are so excited, and I just wish the time would go by a little bit faster!

I'm almost 18 weeks now, and growing rapidly!!! I have been SO TIRED this past week. By the end of the day, I have no energy at all! Exercising helps, but running is getting harder. It's frustrating not being able to do some of the things I could do before I was prego, but I guess that's just how it goes. Hopefully my energy will come back soon!

Here are some belly pics..six weeks, 12 weeks, and 16 weeks. :)

Baby Girl Maynard!!!!!

Profile shot. You can see her little hand right under her chin.

Cute little thing!!

I think she's sucking her thumb! You can see a full

body shot here.

Cute little hand

Blood Flow

Back view, I love her cute little bum!!

Her brain!

So cute..

It's a girl!

Well, we're having a baby GIRL!!! My due date is April 1st, and I am about 16 weeks today. We are SO excited, she can't get here fast enough. This is the first post I have done while being pregnant, I'm just too busy to keep this thing updated! I'm going to try and be better about it, now that I'm pregnant. I'm going to try to use it as my journal throughout my pregnancy. We'll see how it goes!

We found out we were pregnant July 23rd. I had a feeling I was pregnant, but Matt really didn't think I was. We had only been trying for a month. We both thought it'd take at least 3 months or more, so he figured I wasn't pregnant. I decided to take a test anyway. While we were waiting for the results, I left the bathroom and went into the kitchen for something. Matt stayed anxiously bent over the counter two inches away from the test, waiting to see what would appear. Within one minute he said, "ummm babe?? you might want to come look at this." Sure enough, two little pink lines appeared!! So I did what any other girl would do, I took another test, and another, and another, and well about 3 more after that. It started to become a little game, it was so fun seeing the test result each time!!

I haven't really been sick. Weeks 6 to 8 were a little rough (which also happened to be when we were in Mexico, bad timing!!), but nothing too bad. I don't know how I got so lucky. I'm just crossing my fingers hoping it will stay this way throughout the rest of my pregnancy. I'm still teaching, and I think working everyday and keeping busy is real good for me. I don't have time to think about being sick and it just keeps me going. By the end of the day I am EXHAUSTED!! I'm still exercising every day, which is actually frustrating because the scale is still going up, up, and away every time I get on it. I guess that's normal for being pregnant, but it's still frustrating!!

We have had three ultrasounds now. The first one at 8 weeks at the doctor's office was so cool. We were able to hear her little heartbeat and see a cute little blob. The next ultrasound we did at Fetal Foto's and that was AMAZING. We did it the day after I told my family we were pregnant. That's right, I didn't tell them until I was 15 weeks!! It was so hard to keep it a secret. I told my parents at week 8, but I wanted to wait til my brother Michael (who lives in Chicago) was in town to tell the rest of the family. It was so fun, and I was so glad I waited. My entire family was there, and it was so fun.

She had grown SO much from week 8 to week 15, it was incredible. Everything was formed and she actually looked like a baby! She moved around like crazy the whole time. We saw her puckering her little lips, wiggling her legs and arms arching her back, it was so neat. When the ultrasound tech told us what we were having I just started to cry. Knowing that "it" had a gender made it so much more real to me. I am so excited that she is a girl. I can't wait to dress her up, it'll be so fun! The pink wardrobe has already started to fill her closet. :)

Our 3rd ultrasound was today. Matt works at the school's heath center, and the ultrasound tech he works with needs hours for certification, so she offered to do ultrasounds for us. Of coarse we couldn't pass a chance like that up!! It was so neat, she spent a good 45 minutes with us checking everything and making sure everything was growing and forming how it should. And sure enough, the entire time she was wiggling and moving around. It was amazing to see her little fingers moving and legs kicking. She gave us a CD with all the pictures she took, which was great! Above are some of the pictures she took.

We are SO EXCITED to be parents, and can't wait to meet our little bean!!

Bear Lake

I can't believe it..summer is flying by!! It had been such a relaxing time. Summertime always reminds me why I love teaching so much! :)

Not much has ben going on..matt's got another week of this trimester then he gets a 7 week break, yay! We just booked a trip to playa del carmen, mexico and I am so dang excited to go! I need a beach asap!

Matt's doing really well in school; I'm so proud of him. He's taking such hard classes (pre med) and getting amazing grades. He just got the highest score on his chemistry test out of the whole class! He studies and is such a hard worker. I really admire him for that. There's no way i could do it!

We went to bear lake last weekend for a family reunion, it was so much fun! Here are a few pics..