Okay, that's it.

Time to pull out the maternity clothes.

I'm not yet big enough to look actually pregnant, but I certainly am big enough to look really chubby.  At least with maternity clothes I look like I'm supposed to be getting bigger.

So, today's project?  Clear out room in the closet for my maternity clothes.

I forgot to take a "before" picture, but trust me, it was crammed, mostly with stuff I haven't worn since before I got pregnant with Parker.  I'm finding it hard to let go of my old work clothes.  Granted, most of the stuff hasn't fit for the past two years, but my wardrobe was one of the best parts of my job!  So, for now, everything is in the closet downstairs.  But, if anyone needs a great outfit for an work, let me know!

Before:

After I cleared out everything that doesn't fit now and/or won't fit for the next year:

After I add in my not-so extensive maternity wardrobe:

Not much difference, huh?

I'm determined this time to be a little more generous with my maternity wardrobe.  Last time, I was hesitant to spend any money on clothes that I was only going to wear for a few months.  So, I bought two pair of casual pants, two work pants, and five tops.  By the end, I was so tired of EVERYTHING I hated it all.  And when you figure that I probably wore each pair of pants about 50 times each, the $30 investment doesn't seem so bad.  So, I'm determined to get a few new clothes this time.

Where did this kid come from!?!?

Parker has been SUPER cranky lately.  I think he's teething, but I think he's also confused why Daddy's gone, after being home three days over the weekend.  The past two days have been a series of raising his arms to be held, then kicking me in the stomach because he wants down, followed by raised arms again.  All to a soundtrack of hysterical screaming.  I'm not sure what's setting him off; but this morning, I hit my head on the car door, and he started screaming.  It's just been one of those days.

So, yesterday afternoon, Parker was fussy and in exasperation I asked him, "Can you PLEASE just point to what you want?!?  I'll give you (almost) whatever you want if I just knew what it was!"

What did my little guy want?  Bran Flakes.

Seriously.

I gave him a little cup of them, he politely sat on the floor and proceeded to happily eat the entire cup.

The second cup ended up on the floor, of course, but he ate them off the floor as well.

These pictures are from yesterday, but he did the same thing again today.

We have goldfish, cheese, and animal crackers, and you're going for the Bran Flakes?  What a weird kid.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Keith & I learned several years ago to never go out on actual Valentine's Day, so we usually go out on the 13th or 15th, once the crowds die down.  This year, I think we'll be celebrating some time in March, there's no way we're blowing our entire Restaurant budget on one meal unless we're really sure that I'll be able to enjoy it.

But, Keith's been such a trooper lately, doing all his work, along with mine, I thought it would be nice to try to make a special meal for the two of us.  I found a pot roast recipe I thought he'd like, so today seemed like as good a day as any to try it out.  Of course, if I REALLY loved Keith, I would have made pork chops, but everyone has their limits.  (I did manage to remember the crock-pot liner, so he doesn't have to spend the entire evening scrubbing pots)

And, I made Kahlua chocolate chip cupcakes with chocolate butter cream frosting.

I pulled out all the stops, I'm wearing red, I have a fancy do-dad in my hair, and I'm wearing makeup (for probably the first time in weeks).

I even set the table with real china & everything.

The goal is to put Parker down for an early bed-time and have dinner just the two of us, we'll see how that goes.  We'd like to make this a bi-weekly date-night (if we can't do it now, there's no way we'll be able to do it with two kiddos), but that plan has been on-hold until we reached the 2nd trimester honeymoon period.  This will be a good dry-run to see how it goes in the future.

Parker's been pretty cranky and sleepy this week, so he actually went along with the early-dinner and early-bedtime idea.

Especially when he realized that he got his own cupcake (minus the Kahlua and frosting, of course).

So we just needed to pour the wine and enjoy!  Red for Keith, White (Grape Peach juice) for me.

Just don't look too closely at the cupcakes, they're not my proudest accomplishment.  I realized far too late that we only had a quarter of a pound of powdered sugar in the house (that's enough for about 4 cupcakes).  Then I added too much milk, and there wasn't anything I could do, since the powdered sugar was gone.  So, they were a little mushy.

Mushy frosting aside, we had a great evening hanging out like grownups.  We even stayed at the dinner table talking until 10:15.  Okay, that's not soo late, but for this pregnant Mama, that's WAY past my bedtime.

Happy Valentine's Day!

15 Weeks!

(I'll spare you the photo of my face this week, it's best for everyone)

I had my 15 week appointment this morning, everything's going great.  I got to hear the baby's heartbeat, eventually.  This baby's a mover and refused to stay still for any period of time, making the nurse's job a little harder than necessary.

I'm still fighting the fatigue and nausea, although things are starting to get a little bit better.  At this point in my pregnancy I seem to have two kinds of days: either I feel crummy all day, or I feel really good in the morning and really, really crummy all afternoon/evening.  Unfortunately, the good mornings tend to be accompanied by an energy burst right when I put Parker down for his nap, usually leading me to skip my own nap, in-turn causing the really crummy afternoon.  You'd think I'd learn, but my desire to do SOMETHING productive seems to win-out every time.  Seeing how I'm blogging at 1:30 in the afternoon, this does not bode well for this evening.

Lest you think I've forgotten about Parker, I have one he'll-kill-me-for-this-when-he's-older story.  I don't usually share this kind of stuff, but I thought it was pretty entertaining (and I'm never going to get around to a baby book, so this is all I've got).  We're not really potty-training Parker at this point, but we do sit him on the potty several times a day.  When we started, Parker was quite often successful at using the potty, but lately, no matter what I do, he refuses to sit still long enough to do anything.  It drives me crazy, I'll sit on the floor with Parker, reading him books, feeding him crackers, and tricking the dog into coming into the bathroom so Parker can pet him on the potty, all to no avail.  Keith however, plunks Parker down on the potty, then walks away, and Parker goes nearly every time.  So, today, I tried it Keith's way.  To my surprise, I came back a few minutes later and Parker had successfully used the potty...and then proceeded to stand up and pee allover the bathroom floor.  Whatever, I'll take what I can get.

Cheese!

At some point in the past few weeks, Parker has learned to say "Cheese!" whenever the camera comes out. So now, nearly all his pictures come out like this:

I don't know where he picked this up, I certainly never taught it to him.  I have a feeling it might have come from his older cousins, but they somehow manage to say cheese without looking like this.

Cheese!

Cheese!

Cheese!

As a side note, one of Parker's current favorite foods is, you guessed it, cheese.  He also says "cheese" every time the refrigerator door is opened.

Maybe he just likes showing off all his new teeth.  He got two new ones on Friday, made for a rather grumpy kiddo all weekend.

Children's Museum

Keith's office doesn't get President's day off, but they do get a floating Personal Holiday they can use anytime during the year.  Keith took this Friday off, seeing how his holiday expires next week.

Of course, by that I mean that he crammed 45 hours of work into Monday-Thursday and Saturday afternoon, but a day off is a day off and I'll take what I can get.

So, we headed down to the Children's Museum in Factoria.

It went far better than last time, although it did take him a little while to warm up to the place.  For a little bit I was convinced that I'd paid $16 admission so he could play with a beach ball.

But eventually he started to enjoy himself, although he remained terrified of this squirrel the entire time.

Scary squirrel!

Without question, Parker's favorite part was the Hydrology Exhibit, um, I mean the water toy.

Daddy taught him all about hydro-electric power, currents, and a bunch of other stuff I wasn't listening to.

Parker mostly enjoyed the splashing.

He was pretty much soaked head to toe by the time we left.  (We discovered they had bibs available a little too late in the game)

He had a great time, and was fast asleep before we drove out of the parking lot.

14 Weeks

As of Monday, I have officially entered my 2nd Trimester.  Which, according to the books, means that I woke up Tuesday morning feeling fabulous, full of energy, and without a moment of nausea.  The books would be wrong.  Although I've had a few mornings without outright nausea, even when I'm feeling sorta-okay, it's still always a cloud over my day.  But I hold out great hope that very soon I will start feeling better.  Granted, I've been saying that for the past three weeks, but eventually (I hope) I will say that and it will actually be true.

In the meantime, the baby is continuing to grow, and I'm kind of starting to show.  In reality, what I'm really showing is the extra three inches of belly fat that Parker left behind, but the Dr assures me that underneath that the baby is actually growing.  All my clothes are still fitting at the moment (at least all the ones that still fit post-Parker), but I might start wearing my maternity tops soon just so it's clear that I am pregnant, rather than just chubby.

Okay, enough about me, how about a cute photo of Parker?

He still has no idea what changes are around the corner for him.  At the moment, he just doesn't understand why we never leave the house anymore.