Honeymoon Baby....

Did you know? That miss Brynlee is a honeymoon baby? Last night I browsed through our honeymoon pictures and just relived that moment. Wow did we ever have a BLAST! That was the best week of my entire life. Between marrying Ryan and going on our honeymoon, how will anything else top it? Maybe the birth of our sweet baby girl! :)

Just thinking back to all the memories we made on that trip, it will always be something we remember just knowing we created our sweet little life there. It will be something we can tell her in years to come, that she in fact was a honeymoon baby! I would do anything to go back... maybe in a couple years I can convince the grandparents to watch the baby girl and we can relive that moment? I think so!

6 weeks to go!

I realized that I hadn't really updated on how the actual pregnancy has been going in quite a while! I guess no news is good news right? But there has been a lot that has been changing. I am definitly getting bigger which means a lot a more uncomfortable. To say I have slept thru the night in the last couple weeks would be a lie, I dont remember what that's like. I know its my body getting prepared for having a baby, so I guess I would rather have it this way now so it's not as hard when she gets here.

The "kicking" has turned from sudden kicks, to more of a jello like feeling in my stomach. It feels like she is rolling around and a lot of the time you can see the rolling on the outside of my belly. It's so alien like!!

One thing I have been dealing with that isn't completely normal is pelvic pressure, like BAD. It hurts more than anything at night during the middle of the night when I try to turn from side to side, to the point where I cannot move my legs. Not fun!! So today I called the doctor because last night I woke up in tears from the pain. To say the least, we went to OB Triage tonight to get checked out to make sure that I wasn't in preterm labor. They checked me for dilation and apparantly I am a "fingertip" so slightly dilated. And also was having what the nurse thought might be contractions, although I didn't feel anything. Anyways, baby Brynn is doing great, heartbeat is great and she is super active. So they will check me again on Tuesday to make sure I am not dilated anymore.

We aren't ready for a baby yet... we are "ready" as far as the stuff goes, but I am not ready quite yet! Still haven't packed my hospital bag, installed the carseat etc. All of those things are on the list to do in the upcoming weekends... I don't want to do it too soon and get the anticipation rolling too soon!

Because I am REALLY trying for an all natural delivery, I am not expecting her to come early, so if I get to 40 weeks and no baby, I dont want my initial instinct, to get induced. I want her to come when she is ready, I know she will!! :)

We are full term after February 17th so my goal is that date at least!!!

Nesting? Who knows....

I am not sure I have ever really believed in the term, nesting. Being pregnant, I know that when I start to clean more towards the end is what would be considered nesting, but to me, its just cleaning! Yeah sometimes all I think about is organizing that closet or deep clean the whole house... but to be honest, I thought about those things before I was pregnant too! (and I think most women do, its just related to nesting when your pregnant).

Soooo anyways, this weekend as I was "nesting" we took off all of Brynlee's tags and decided to clean all of her clothes, sheets, blankets etc. Basically anything that will be touching her skin! We opted for All Free N Clear vs. Dreft simply because of cost and I know it does the same thing. Anyways, as we got started we separated her clothes, as we do when we do our own laundry. Usually its whites, dark's and brights. But for miss Brynn, it was whites, dark's and PINKS. She had enough pink stuff to take up an entire load. Ha!

We ended up with piles like this....... (holy cow this girl has a lot of clothes!)
After all of the washing and drying was done we started separating her clothes into "months" so I could organize them in her drawers and bins accordingly. (We really don't need her 6-12 months clothes out for now!)

The dirty piles turned into clean piles like this....
And then I folded all of the onesies, separated the "hang up" stuff, and folded the pants...

Which turned into piles like this :)

And voila! All of it was sorted in her drawers, nicely put away in her bins (which are now all full with blankets, clothes etc) and hung up! Baby girl, your clothes are ready for you!!!
(And yes, she has a shoe problem, she admits it!)

Baby Shower for Miss Brynlee!

On Saturday we celebrated our daughter! Our closest family and friends joined together for really just a celebration of HER. I am the type (if you know me) that doesnt like a lot of attention and it makes me very uncomfortable so this was perfect for us. We got to hang with our friends, everyone else got to drink but me haha, and we ended the night with a few good rounds of dance kinect! We are so thankful for all of the amazing gifts! The only "large" item we didnt get was our monitor, we were SHOCKED and ever so grateful! Here are a few pics of our celebration :)

Mommy and Daddy to be!

Grandpa Jim and Aunt Kara drove all the way from Ohio to see us and celebrate miss Brynn!

Some of mom's best girlfriends :)

SO excited we got the Mamaroo swing!!!!

And of course... it wouldn't be the same for me without my SWEETS! :)

Daycare.... why is this SO tough for me?

So maybe its not only me... but maybe it is.

Choosing a daycare has turned from what I thought would be an easy task, to what has been the most difficult decisions I have ever had to make. I know that we still have time, but to me we dont have much. To cut to the chase, we have still not decided on any daycare, basically we have gotten nowhere. But one decision we have made, is we have decided against an actual daycare, and are planning on going with either a nanny or in-home daycare.

In a nutshell, we decided against an actual daycare because after touring 2 of them... it was an easy decision. Nothing at ALL against people who take their babies to daycares, but it just wasnt for us. There is no particular reason but I think the biggest thing was more the "feeling" to us. Which everyone tells us, go with your gut feeling. So there you have it, our gut feeling is its not right for us!

On to the next step... finding an in-home daycare. Jeesh this is hard too! We both decided we will not go with anyone who is not some sort of referral based or knows somebody who has used the person. But the main thing is getting the word out, that we are LOOKING for an in-home daycare. I have joined a site called "sittercity" that is a benefit I get thru my work, that only has background checked and accredited babysitters. So I posted a job on there... and I have gotten a few applies, but nothing that has completely stood out.

A glimmer of hope... we meet with an in-home Montessori school tomorrow after work. I am really excited about this one. The lady has been doing it for 25 years and comes highly recommended from a co-worker who's daughters have gone to her in the past. There's only one problem, the location. It is located on Ray and Mcqueen... which is slightly out of the way from Maricopa, Haha! But I told Ryan, it would be worth it to me to know she is in the right place...

So I will keep you all updated how tomorrow goes. I am also looking into a few in-home's here in the local Maricopa town who are being referred by some friends as well.

It is our #1 priority right now and we are hoping to have a decision made before the end of the month. I do not want to go into February with this still on my mind. And we are definitely making a decision before she gets here! Wish us luck, we NEED IT!!!! :)

Hello 2011!

{31 weeks pregnant}

I have been waiting for this year to come with a lot of anticipation! This is the year that we will always know as our first baby's birthday year! That is so exciting! We spent New Years weekend in San Diego for my birthday and a last trip before the baby gets here, call it a babymoon if you will! Can I just say how amazing it was? The weather was perfect, the views were amazing and it couldnt of been a better trip. We had no plans the entire time we were there so literally, we would wake up, look up a place for breakfast (always on the beach of course!) and take our day from there. On Sunday we walked 2 miles to breakfast... and yes, 2 miles back. Lets just say... the walk back was a little rough on the bladder from all the water and orange juice I had at breakfast! We definitely got to know San Diego better as we shopped in Ocean Beach, visited Sunset Cliffs, shopped in Pacific Beach and went to Fashion Valley mall. I didn't even know any of this existed and I am so glad we were able to get around the town and see the city! We welcomed 2011 with open arms and we cannot wait for our baby girl to get here! Here are just a few pictures of our trip!