Tomorrow is April 1st.  And I love the first of the month, it feels so fresh and new, like we can start over with some things.  Well, this past month is what I like to call a serious budget FAIL.  We spend a ridiculous amount of money on food, and an even more ridiculous amount of money on gas.  Mark and I do a really good job of keeping track of pretty much every penny we spend, so we know almost exactly how much we spend on things like groceries, restaurants, home repair, etc etc...  So the other day, as Mark updated our budget, we were shocked to see some of the totals in a few categories.  As in, if we continue to spend money like that, we will be broke in no time!!

So, as I said, tomorrow is the 1st of April, and I am getting serious about spending less.  These past couple of months I really haven't given much thought to what I buy in the grocery store.  If I want some ice cream, I buy some.  If we want to grab some candy or muffins, we get them.  I never make a grocery list, and I simply wander through the aisles and pop things into my cart that I think we need.  But oh no, not any longer.  I now have an exact list of the things I need for the entire week, and I am only allowed to buy other things if I come in under my set budget (I told you I was serious about this).  Unfortunately for Mark, this means that his cookie consumption is going to take a serious hit.  And we are going to start drinking a lot of water. :)

I have also planned out all the meals I'm cooking for the week in advance, so I know what meats and veggies to buy, and I am all organized and  ready to test my theory.  My goal is to save $100 a week this way.  And if I actually think I can save that much, I'm sure you can only imagine how much we were spending per week!!!  It seriously gives me a headache just thinking about it.  I'm sure there are families of 5 that don't spend that much on food.  And I know I'm pregnant, but I'm not eating THAT much!  So, we'll see how it goes!

Oh yes yes yes, how could I almost forget, APRIL 1ST IS MY SISTER'S 25TH BIRTHDAY!!!  Happy Birthday Jennie!!! 

One more week until the 3rd trimester!!  Woohoo!  And another exciting thing... we are now in double digits, as in, 98 days until baby's due date.  (Humor me here, it's the small things that get me excited these days).  

New things to report: Ummmm not a whole lot?  For some reason I keep waiting for some monumental change or something, but no, nothing like that.  I'm getting a little more tired, yet not really able to sleep well, so that's not fun.  Still feeling baby moving around all the time.  No crazy heartburn, swelling, or stretch marks.  My belly is growing steadily, and I expect it will continue to do so quite quickly from now on.  I would say I look pregnant now, but it's still easily hidden depending on what clothes I choose to wear. (Although I think the pictures make me look a lot bigger than I think I look in real life, so maybe I'm just in denial).

Baby facts: The baby's lungs are developing, and she's practicing breathing movements.  Baby's eyes are still sealed shut, but they are now fully developed.  She is able to recognize my voice as well as Mark's voice at this point!  I think sometime this week (I'm never sure how to interpret some of this information), baby weighs about 2 whole pounds!  According to babycenter, our baby is the size of an eggplant now.  According to a more "manly" week-by-week guide, baby is about the size of a 13 inch boot.  Hence the pictures above.

About me: Supposedly I could be feeling Braxton Hicks contractions now, but I don't really think I have been feeling any. But I think I can tell my belly is growing because it is getting itchy, which I'm pretty sure means the skin is stretching!  Nothing else is really too different from last week. 

Highlight of the week: One night I slept from 1am to 6:30am WITHOUT WAKING UP.  This is a big deal people.  Usually I wake up every 2-3 hours to either use the bathroom, or get comfortable, or drink some water because I get thirsty.  But one night, I woke up once at 1am, and then fell back to sleep and slept for 5.5 hours in a row!!  Success!  Now if only this could happen on a regular basis...

Weight gain this week: One pound.
Total weight gain: 9 pounds.

What I'm looking like these days...

On another not-as-exciting note, now that the 3rd trimester is almost here, I am going to be even more limited in my exercising, so I've decided to start doing yoga (on a DVD from the comforts of my own home thank you very much) and lap swimming (this, unfortunately will require me to be in public in a swimsuit).  I've heard from tons of people that they LOVED swimming in late pregnancy, so I'm going to give it a go.  I'm hoping to start sometime next week!

Look how pretty!!  We still need to clean all the excess mortar off the bricks once they are all dry, but you get the general idea...

Mark has been working like crazy today, and made quite a bit of progress on our brick fence pillars!  It's kind of a slow process because you can only put down a few layers at a time so the mortar can dry, so it may be quite a few more days of work before these guys are totally finished, but he is definitely making progress!  Can't wait until we can actually attach those pillars to the fence so they don't just look like random free-standing bricks.

And apparently our neighbors are thoroughly impressed with Mark's DIY skills!  Mark is definitely a man of all trades: a brick layer, fence builder, gardener, tile layer (patio), chemist, teacher, soccer player, husband, soon-to-be daddy, soon-to-be doctor (ok maybe not toooo soon), and I'm sure there's more! Can't wait until this project is done and we can show you the finished product!  And then... time to build a BBQ.  :)

Today was my 4th midwife appointment (I think), and it was the very first time I actually had any questions for her (and I only had one, so it hardly even counts).  Every time I have come to see her, she asks if I have any concerns or questions, and I always say no because, well, I just don't have any!  Things are going smoothly, I'm feeling well, I'm not worried about anything in particular, and all the bigger more important questions need to be saved for closer to delivery day.  So overall, my appointments (which she allows an hour time slot for) take about 15 minutes.  I get there, she takes my blood pressure, I have to pee on a stick to check levels of protein and somethin' else in my urine, and she feels my uterus and listens to baby's heartbeat.  Then, that's about it!  Not very exciting, unfortunately.  Although it is always exciting to get to hear the heartbeat.  And today was the very first time that she actually measured my belly, which means it really is growing!!  So from now on she will measure the fundal height, which is from the pubic bone to top of uterus.  Mine is 26cm right now, which apparently is actually in the 60 or 70th percentile for 25 weeks!  Who would've thought!   But anyway, now I don't have another appointment for 5 weeks, and then we move to appointments every 2 weeks for a while.

In other news, I have hit the baby clothes jackpot.  I was searching for bargains and deals, and I found this person selling "everything you need for your baby girl for the first year."  Sounded good to me, and while the price was a little bit high ($150), there were over 200 items, so I figured it made it worth my while.  So I made a split second decision, and bought it.  Well, I picked it all up today, and HOLY MOLY baby clothes everywhere.  Literally. I took all the baby clothes I have and put them in a big pile (since there is no point in putting them away in drawers since I have to wash everything still), and the clothes literally covered the entire floor of baby's room!!  See?
 

I decided to at least organize the clothes, and see what kinds of things I have... and I have a lot!  And yes, this photo below is the "organized" version of the room. 

But look how cute!! (the last one is a sleeper and it says "wondersuit")  

Since becoming pregnant, I swear I have had some of the CRAZIEST dreams/nightmares of my entire life.  I heard this was pretty common, although I have no idea why.  But some of them are actually rather comical, so I thought I would share some of the more memorable ones...

(1) A "bad guy" injected my sister Katherine with some unknown substance that was going to kill her... Her symptoms?  Obesity.  Seriously.  She was gaining weight at an alarmingly fast rate and she only had 3 days to find a cure before she got too fat and died.  The whole rest of the dream turned into like an episode of House, where we all were trying to figure out how to cure her... In the end, I apparently determined it was something to do with her liver... that's all I remember.

(2) Same sister (Katherine) was flying a helicopter and she crashed it into the ocean, but don't worry, she lived, and I visited her in the hospital.

(3) I was attacked by a rabid mouse/chinchilla sort of animal in my bedroom and I squashed it with a pillow.

(4) This one is recurrent: I am sitting on a bed or couch with a baby, who is either sitting or laying beside me, and then all of a sudden, the baby rolls over or falls off the bed!  In response, I lunge for the baby with both arms to try and grab it before it falls to the floor, and that's when I wake myself up because I actually do lunge to "save" the baby in real life.  One time Mark was actually still awake when I had this dream, and not only did I reach out for the baby, in the process, I knocked my glass of water off my night stand, spilling water all over the floor.  He thought I had absolutely lost it!

(5) We were being attacked by a tiger in our own house (which had the interior of our current house in Whitby, but the exterior of my parents' house in Moraga).  The tiger looked nice, but then it started trying to get into the house and attack us.  That's all I remember really.

All these dreams are really vivid and I can remember so many details when I wake up, but then unless I write them down (which I never do because, why would I?) I forget most of the details!  But these are just a few of the many I have had recently!

Ok so there are a few standard questions you get asked when pregnant.  It goes something like this, "When are you due? Is it a boy or girl?  Have you picked a name?"  There are some other ones as well, but those 3 are almost guaranteed.  Now the first two answers are pretty straightforward.  Everyone has their due date ingrained in their mind, so that's easy.  And well, you either found out your baby's sex or you didn't, and so that's that.  Then we come to the third question.  The name.  Now here's the thing, I'm a little weird about the baby naming process.  I mean, it's only natural to want to know what someone is going to name their baby.  Before I was pregnant, if I knew someone who was pregnant, I would want to know what name they picked.  But now that I am pregnant, I wouldn't ask another pregnant person what name they picked for their baby.  Nope nope nope.  "Why?" you might ask?  

Here's the thing.  (1) Everyone has opinions when it comes to a baby's name.  And often times, I don't share those opinions.  So you see, I don't want to tell you what name or names we are thinking about, only to have you say, "Oooh, I knew a [insert name here], she was a real brat."  Or how about, "Oh [name]?  Well that's... nice" (when clearly the person saying that does NOT like the name).  But once the baby is actually born and has been given a name, is anyone really going to tell you they don't like it?  Me thinks not!  I prefer to be blissfully ignorant and assume everyone loves the name we've chosen, rather than know in advance these friends and those family members don't like it!!  But maybe that's just me.

Second reason... I don't know why, but I think it's weird to refer to our baby by her name before she is born.  Maybe I think I want to see her in person or something before she actually gets a name, or maybe it's hard to refer to someone in my uterus as a real live person yet, but there is something weird to me about referring to her by a name.  Which means it would be even weirder if we chose a name, and OTHER people referred to her by that name before she was born.  That's just a weird quirk I have, I'm not sure why!

So then, how do you answer the question of, "Have you picked a name?"  Originally my plan was to keep it 100% a secret.  As in, just me and Mark, and nobody else.  Not even telling our parents!!  BUT, that was clearly never going to work, because when our mothers ask us about names, the old "it's a secret" excuse was never going to fly, and telling them "we haven't really thought about it" would clearly a lie.  Mark suggested telling them like 5 we were considering, but leaving out "the one," buuuut we ended up just not being able to keep a secret, and we just had to be honest and reveal the names we really were considering.  :)  Lucky them.  And, actually, no negative responses so far!  In fact, all have been pretty positive!  So ok, we have shared with family and a few close friends some names we are considering... but what about strangers, or people not that close to us?  This one lady asked me the other day, "So do you have your list of super secret names yet?"  and I was like, "yeah, we do."  And I thought we were on the same page here, since she said "super secret list" and all, but then she just looked at me, waiting for me to tell her what they were.   Oh no no.  Key word there was "secret".

So my question is this... when we come up with a name (which we may or may not have already chosen one), do we tell everyone, or tell only close family and friends, or keep it a secret??  We already told you it's a girl, shouldn't something be a surprise for when baby is born?  If we do decide to tell you all, just know in advance, whatever you think about the name, unless it's overwhelmingly positive, just keep it to yourself and lie to me and tell me you love it. :)  


So summary: I will think about it.  Maybe you get to know the name in advance, maybe not.  We shall see!

Simply more of the same, I'm afraid.  Well, actually, there are a few changes.  No heartburn this week (yay!), and I might be looking a little bit bigger, so you can scroll down and look at the picture and decide for yourself.  Other than that, same symptoms and feelings as last week, although there were a few days this past week where I was much more tired than usual, yet unable to fall asleep at night.  That's the worst!  The only thing that's really noticeably different to me is where I can feel the baby kicking.  She is definitely expanding, or actually my uterus is expanding up up up.  Before I mostly felt her move below my belly button, and now I can feel her 2 or 3 inches above.  She'll be kicking my ribs in no time, seeing how I possibly have the shortest torso ever.  In fact, the other night, she was kicking from about 10:30pm to 1am (and yes I was awake the whole time, unfortunately).

Oh and in other exciting news, only two more weeks until the 3rd trimester!!  Holy cow!  I can't believe it's almost April already!  AND that means that I start having my midwife appointments every 2 weeks instead of every 4 weeks.  And I have to say this pregnancy is flying by.  I've heard the last 10 weeks go by pretty slowly, so we shall see!  I feel like I have a LOT going on over the last 10 weeks (Momma visiting, birth classes, hospital tour, etc...)  I could be taking on this new job, and my plan was to work right up until baby's birth day, but I think I'm changing my mind and going to take some time for myself leading up to her arrival.  How much time, I'm not sure yet.  But with this "new" job, I will be looking after THREE kids (ages 1, 2, and 4, plus a little newborn sometimes) and I think that is going to be too much for me to handle at 30+ weeks pregnant.  Maybe someday if I have 4 kids of my own, I'll be ready for it, but that time is definitely NOT now!  Basically I have no idea what is going to happen, but I need to figure it out in the next 2-3 days.  

Anyway, some stats...

Weight gain this week: Half a pound
Total weight gain: 8 pounds.  Now this doesn't sound like a lot, since the recommended weight gain range is 25-35 pounds, but here's what I figure.  Before getting pregnant, I could probably have stood to lose 10-15 pounds anyway, and not that I was really "overweight," but if you are a little heavier for your height, you don't need to gain as much during pregnancy (seeing how you already have sufficient far stores and such).  So, I've gained 8 lbs, but I think I'm right on track.  Especially if I want to lose those extra 10-15 pounds after baby is born, then I'm already up to between 18 and 23 pounds to lose post baby.  Eesh!  But, if I gain one pound per week (the average) for the rest of pregnancy, I will be up to 23 pounds gained.  Perfect!

25 week"baby" pictures (you didn't really want to see my face, did you?):

Oh and I got my very first present for baby!  One of the moms of the babies I look after gave me a little wooden rattle, a kiwi onesie, and a book called "My mum."  Cute cute cute!

Lookin' good!

Ok so while there aren't any real visible changes from the pictures I just posted, we had quite a productive day!  Mark has laid 2 of the 3 concrete footings for our soon-to-be brick pillars, and dug the hole for the 3rd.  This of course means we had to decide where exactly those pillars/posts were going to go, and we decided to change from our original plan.  You will have to wait and see until we have done the final product to see what we came up with (if you like it, it was my idea, and if you don't like it, it was Mark's idea).  And we spent all day in search of the same bricks that were used on our house, and I think we may have found them!  We'll know tomorrow when we go visit the store, but we shall see.  

Now although you can't really see any fence progress, there are definitely a few noticeable changes!! 

 (1)  We finally got rid of those huge bags of sands and the wood pallets that were taking over our lawn!  A neighbor needed sand, we had a ton, and so he was able to take all our leftovers!  Now we can try and regrow yet another patch of grass that we killed. :(

(2) I finished my little garden in front of the retaining wall!  We basically dug those beach grass plants up from the front of our yard (which eventually is going to be redone as well), and replanted them in the back.  The bricks we used to outline the little planter were free, so all we had to do was some manual labor, and buy some bark for ground cover!  Voila!  And this has been primarily MY project since Mark has been busy with actual fence building and concrete and all that stuff, so I'm proud of my little creation!!

The goal: to finish the fence by the end of March.  That gives us about 2 weeks.  We have done quite a bit already, see? Everything you see here is new!  First we have the retaining wall we built, then all new fence (complete with a gap for where the gate will eventually go).  And if you look to the bottom right, you can see the beginnings of a little garden we are putting in front of the retaining wall!  Pardon the lame looking grass, we really messed it up with all these projects, so we have to replant grass seed and just wait for it to grow!

But unfortunately, the hardest part is yet to come.  We have to do the part of the fence that can be seen from the front of the house, so not only does it have to be perfect, it has to have some nice curb appeal.  Which means we have decided to make some brick pillars/fence posts to break up the wooden fence.  Now we just have to learn how to make the pillars, find out where to buy the appropriate bricks, and do all the work in 2 weeks.  Sounds like it will be quite the challenge.  

Anyway, a few more pictures to give you an idea of what it looks like now.  Finally every car that drives up that street is not able to look straight into our windows!

Hopefully more pictures to come by the end of the weekend!