19 Weeks and 1 Day.

This post will have an absurd amount of photos. You've been warned.

I'll start off with the invitation I made by meticulously placing hexagons on a background in PowerPoint (no, seriously).

I took off with the the black and yellow bumblebee theme instead of pinks and blues. 

Ties or tutus? I found these on Etsy and decided to try to

save $50 and made them myself. They didn't come

out as nicely as they would have if I bought them, but I

like them all the same.

Milk Martinis with chocolate chip cookie garnishes. And a few

extra cookies for good dunking measure.

Photo wall!

When the guests arrived, each picked either a tutu or a tie pin to wear to make their vote visible. I also requested (required?) each guest to wear either a pink or blue shirt so there was absolutely no doubt.

My mom and sister were both voting Team Tutu

My in-laws, Tom and Diana, were a split couple. Tom voted Team Tie,

and Diana voted Team Tutu.

Aunt Sarah didn't surprise anyone when she showed up supporting Team Tutu!

Not pictured is Hubs and I. We decided about a week in advance what Team we were on. He was Team Tutu, and I was Team Tie.

We ate some pizza, enjoyed our milk martinis, and then I forced excitement on everyone in the form of four Minute-To-Win-It games.

First was Balloon Head. The premise was that each person had to keep a balloon in the air using any method except their hands (and area below the elbow). 

We battled two at a time, to save some time, and then had a show down of each winner to come up with the final winner of the game! Sarah and Melissa ended up winning- they kept their balloons in the air way past the minute-mark, and didn't show sign of dropping them in any near future. 

Second game was Dizzy Dummy. Each contestant (again, two at a time), had to spin the fastest to get all their toilet paper off the roll first- in under a minute. Since I didn't have enough rolls of the cheap TP, the winner of each round got a mark on the scoreboard (somehow no picture of the scoreboard has surfaced yet). 

Sarah used her ballet-spotting abilities to not get dizzy. 

Hubs' motion sickness got the better of him after this round, and he is kept

company by the fiercest dog in the land.

The winners were Husband, Melissa, and Sarah. 

(If you're counting, that give Sarah and Melissa each two wins, and Husband one win.)

The next game was Junk in the Trunk. I may or may not have tied a tissue box with 6 ping pong balls to the butts of my family, then made them shake what their mother gave them to try to get the balls out.

There is no shame here. (Thankfully!)

If I were playing, I would have won. I got 3 balls out of the box. Diana and Husband got out 2, so they tied!

And lastly, we played Stack Attack. Each player had to build a pyramid with 28 solo cups, and then stack them into one stack in one minute or less.

That's not what you want..

Mom is doing well, except for those few falling off the table on her left.

Sarah won this game, as did someone else who I can't remember :(

If you've been keeping score, you know that Sarah was the winner of the big cash prize!!

A 100 Grand snack bar.

Melissa and Hubs ties for second place, so they each won a Payday bar.

The next activity required less physical exertion, and more mental exertion. We decorated gender-neutral onesies!

Neutral onesies designed by (clockwise from top left): Aunt Sarah, Grandpa Kipper,

Daddy, Mommie, Grandma MiMi (my mom), Grandma DiDi (Hubs' mom), and

Aunt Mita (my sister).

Once we all finished our neutral onesies, we called in some family for some FaceTime fun for the actual main event of the party- the Big Reveal!

Team Tutu greatly outnumbered Team Tie. Pictured are: Aunt Sarah,

Aunt Mita, MiMi, DiDi, Aunt Sydney (on iPad), and Hubbin.

And on Team Tie is Kipper, Yours Truly, and Uncle Brian (left iPad), and

Uncle Ben (right iPad).

I have to say how cool it is that even though some of our family was far away, that they were able to participate in the evening. They couldn't play the games or decorate onesies, of course, but they were able to be a part of the most important part of the night!

Sassy Puppy says "Do you mind?"

Then, "What the heck are these people doing?"

The big moment!

It's a boy!!

Yaaaaay!!!

After a stint of congratulatory hugs and maybe a tear or two, we got back to work on Boy-specific onesies!

"I mustache you a question" by Aunt Sarah, "Rocket Boy" by Kippur, "H"

by Daddy, "Mom's Stud Muffin" not surprisingly by Mommie, "DiDi loves me!"

by DiDi, "Cutie Pie" by MiMi, and "Guess what I did today?" by Aunt Mita.

And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for: 

Hugo Thomas

Total weight gain: +2 lbs! Finally in the positive!
Maternity clothes?: Maternity pants, yes. But I'm still wearing mostly pre-maternity tops.
Sleep?: Very well, except for Hubs' snoring. He's been sickly and stuffy/congested the last week or so, so I've been having a hard time staying asleep. Also, I'm used to sleeping on my back, which isn't recommended anymore, so I've been trying to get accustomed to sleeping on my side.
Peak of the week?: Definitely the Shopping Extravaganza with MiMi, DiDi, Aunt Sarah, and Aunt Mita last weekend after the gender reveal.
Pit of the week?: My two midnight shifts this week were pretty rough on this always-tired soon-to-be-mom.
Missing anything?: Energy. The nausea medicine I take 3x daily is half sleeping pill,so I spend most days feeling like a zombie.
Food cravings: Hubs' grilled cheeses. 
Anything that makes you feel sick or queasy?: The same things as before, plus the thought of whatever the Top Gear hosts made in the V8 blender. *gag*
Happy or moody?: Still happy overall, but I'm getting moodier now. I can tell. I have a harder time sitting up from a lying-down position due to a growing Hugo, I feel crampy and tired a lot. And also, still, when someone gets between me and my food. Or when I'm promised one type of food, then it's taken away. In short: don't mess with my food.

Looking forward to: Continuing to set up Hugo's nursery, and washing little baby clothes and towels and socks. 

And here is a picture of the Grandmas inspecting high chairs. They did everything short of asking to borrow someone's baby. After much inspection, it was decided that Hubs and I had registered for an acceptable high chair. 

DiDi and MiMi hard at work.

16 Weeks Now.

So, at 16 weeks, Brownie and I have been feeling ever so slightly better. With a daily dose (read: 3 times daily) of nausea medicine, Zofran in between, and the occasional Preggie Pop for immediate relief, I've managed to gain some weight. I still feel rather nauseous randomly, and yesterday it hit hard.

Gaining two pounds between January 7 and January 14th kept me from being taken out of work, put on bed-rest, and having a full-time nurse to administer nausea medicine to me through what is essentially an insulin pump. Yay!

One perk of having been so naturally small, and having lost so much weight due to being so sick, is that Hubs and I will get to find out the gender of our baby a full month earlier than planned! It was  originally planned for February 24, but as I'm so small, our doctor reassured us that it would be a cinch to check out 'the goods' (or lack thereof) at the end of January! So a week from today, on January 27 at 11:30AM Sir-Hubs-A-Lot will take his first gander at the special places that our child has developed.

I've chosen to remain in the dark until the mini Gender Reveal party we are throwing for just our immediate families, which will be the following weekend. Hubs will have a hard time not using pronouns to talk about Baby for those 4 days!

A few updates (categories stolen from a pregnant friend):

Total weight gain: -6 lbs, up from -12 lbs
Maternity clothes?: Not required, but dang these jeans my mom got me are comfy. (Side note- all the maternity clothes I have acquired are from my mom- countless tops, several bottoms, dresses, and swimsuits.)
Sleep?: Very very well. I take a daily nap if possible, and typically have no issues falling - and staying- asleep all night.
Peak of the week?: Learning we can find out Brownie's gender four weeks earlier than expected!
Pit of the week?: Definitely spending yesterday morning married to the toilet being sick, after several days of not having been sick,
Missing anything?: The ability to get up in the mornings. 5:30am comes quickly, no matter what time I go to bed.
Food cravings: Steak. Sweet unhealthy things. Cold things (ice cream, super cold water). Cheese.
Anything that makes you feel sick or queasy?: Oranges, store-bought pizza (Papa John's, Kroger, etc), the smell of basically any super meaty sandwich that Hubs loves, pink lemonade, being a passenger in a car (as opposed to driving), and whatever it was that Hubs ate/drank yesterday that was just not acceptable.
Happy or moody?: Happy overall, but definitely get moody if you get between me and my food, or me and the possibility of a nap.
Looking forward to: next week's appointment so Husband can learn Brownie's gender, and our party next weekend so the rest of our family and I can learn!!

Brownies.

First things first:

Hubs and I are expecting our first Baby Brownie in July 2015!

I told Hubs on Thursday, November 6, by giving him this giraffe. This stuffed giraffe is something I've been eyeing at Target for years. Literally, years. Since 2006. But I never had a reason to buy him (yes, it's a "him") until now. 

Husband was thrilled. Of course. We'd been trying for about half a year.

Weeks 5-8 went by without a hitch. Thanksgiving was in the middle of Week 8. I'd convinced my mom to fly up under the pretense of "Melissa just got married and will be wanting to spend the holiday with Lu, and they'll probably go see his family, and I found this plane ticket, and it's not crazy expensive, and yada yada." She came.

We told.

During Week 6, we decided how we would tell, so we got to work on the details.

We colored.

 We made each person who was going to be at Thanksgiving dinner a personalized place card. So, we made 10 different place cards with crayons! We love coloring!

And we made this special one:

Once we'd prayed as a family around the kitchen island, and everyone had loaded up their plates with all the delicious foods and made their way to the dining room table, Hubs slowly and quietly made his rounds around the table to hand out the place cards. Everyone was all "aww this is so sweet!" 

Then he sat back down next to me, and said, "Oh, and we have one extra." He held up Brownie's place card or all to see (mostly our moms). Instantly, my mom got it. Tears ensued. Hubs' mom got it very soon after, as well as his father, brother, and our sister-in-law. 

For the rest of the evening, I swear any time I'd look over at Husband's mom, she'd just be staring at me, smiling. My mom didn't stop crying for about a week, roughly.

At the beginning of Week 9, I started to feel sick. Nausea and morning sickness on and off for a few weeks, and then the week of Christmas (Week 12), I had a couple of really bad days. I was able to enjoy Christmas Eve and Christmas without much nausea excitement, and then, at the end of Week 13...

I was admitted into Crestwood Hospital after 3.5 ours waiting in the ER, 2 hours in a room in the ER receiving IV fluids and nausea medicine, and 6 weeks of fairly non-stop nausea and vomiting causing nearly 12 pounds of weight loss. 

I was admitted overnight and was set up in a room on the maternity ward (shout out to my down-the-hall neighbors Amanda and Wade).

I was so severely dehydrated that I went through several- a handful- of IV fluid bags. I had my blood drawn a total of 4 times that week- three from my left arm and once from my right. I had a bad reaction to the nausea drug Phenergan Friday night in the ER (thankfully I was in the ER!). The nurses and doctor wouldn't let me eat anything until Saturday morning around 10am. So I was one hungry, nauseous, pregnant lady. 

I was happy to be able to go home Saturday afternoon. 

I'm so grateful that my in-laws and Hubs were there with me. I couldn't have gotten my blood drawn, or gotten the IV, or listened to the doctors without their eyes and ears. My mother-in-law is the one who ran down the hallway in the ER to get the ER doctor to come back after I started having the bad reactions to the Phenergan.  My sister-in-law help my shoulders and helped me be brave while I was having a meltdown when the doctor came in with the tools to put in the IV. Ole-Blue Eyes himself stayed the night with me and slept on what had to be the most uncomfortable pull-out chair ever invented. Hubs also ran down the hall when my IV started to beep because it was running low on fluids. They were an invaluable part of my hospital stay- which happened to be the first weekend of 2015.

So far, the rest of Week 14 has been hit or miss. I've been sick overall, but I've also felt generally better overall.

Long story short, we're having our first baby and we couldn't be more excited!

Hubs holding our first ultrasound, where Brownie is 8 weeks. 

(Token Puppy shot, of course.)

Bedroom Redo.

It has been a long time coming, but it's finally done.

The changes started out small and relatively insignificant:

The bottom photo shows a grey box spring bed huggy instead of a naked one.

Then the changes quickly escalated.

Behr's Dark Ash

The big changes slowed down for a bit due to our trip to the Mediterranean, a few weddings, work and life in general. So I focused on the smaller bits.

I love the bright yellow with the dark grey. 

In other news, it turns out my knowledge of curtains is extremely limited, and the curtains that I bought (and loved!) were about 3' too short. Whaddya know. So then the epic search for curtains began.

While still searching for our curtains, I decided that I was ready to start getting the bigger pieces moved in. Here are before-and-after shots of our nightstands.

Here, I use the term "nightstand" fairly loosely

on my side of the bed. Let's be honest, it's a stool. 

Look at those nightstands with those awesome lamps. Majestic. I

probably could have spent the extra two minutes to make the bed.

Then began the saga of the bed frame. When I was making the purchase online, I had convinced myself somehow that we had a full-size bed, when I've known for the three years we've been married that our bed is a queen. I even bought the box-spring bed huggy in the right size on the first try, thereby proving that I knew what size bed I slept in night after night. 

But like I said, I convinced myself we had a full. 

Then when the bed frame was delivered, I spent 3 hours putting it together with Puppy on the morning of Tuesday, August 9.

Very nice.

Except for one thing:

I cried for 20 minutes, then spent an hour hastily taking apart the bed frame, so I could put it all back in the boxes, shower, eat lunch, and make a meal for me to bring to my swing shift (3pm-11pm).

Defeated. I didn't even have time before I needed to leave 

for work to dress the bed. It wasn't a good day, over all.

To continue the trend of failed bedroom-renovation events, I ended up working a series of midnight shifts before we got new curtains and resorted to this wizardry:

Yes, that's right. I resorted to taping a towel up to the window

on my side of the bed so I'd be able to sleep when I got home at

7am. It cast a delightfully eerie green glow upon the room and

gave me weird dreams, but weird dreams are better than not

being able to sleep.

A few weeks later we finally packed up the wrong bed frame and returned it, and received our new bed frame and two dressers. 10 boxes in all, and they took over our living room and dining room for a little over a week.

I finished the first dresser, and we realized that they're quite a big larger than they looked online.

Expertly built, by yours truly.

Before I got around to building Hubs' dresser, Tom, Diana and Sarah came by to take our 3rd anniversary pictures (Sarah) and to help with hang the curtains that finally arrived and were deemed perfect.

Shameless anniversary picture:

Taken on the steps of a beautiful house in Providence that was up

for sale and we were unreasonably worried that a realtor was going

to come out and we were going to have to buy this house. But would

that have been so bad, really? Yes, but only because we

enjoy things like food.

Curtains. If you think the room looks amazing now, just you wait.

That weekend, I built Hubs' dresser, and in doing so, completely destroyed our newly good-looking room.

We slept with our room in painful disarray one night...

..with his poor unfinished dresser and dresser-fillings out on top.

I filled up his dresser as I saw fit (and let's face it, it'll probably stay the way I did it forever because who actually enjoys emptying a dresser to reorganize it?), and got to work on the new bed frame, crossing my fingers that it would work.

Undressed the bed.

Removed bed-like items.

Actually I just stood the box spring and

mattress up against the opposite wall.

Of course Puppykins helped.

Common occurrences in our bedroom during the last

several months.. Church books, nice bracelets, tools.

And then- voila! A bed frame. Thank heaven. But.. does it fit?

So much satisfaction and enjoyment ran through my body

when that box spring slipped right in there ever so perfectly.

Of course, Dogly is in the middle of the photo.

I had only a few things left to do, but they wouldn't get done this day, so I made my trek to Target (where I basically live) to find something for the tops of our matching dressers that would tie the yellow in to the room. I ended up with:

His and hers matching placemats. It's the best I could do.

I think it's easy to tell which dresser is mine. That's right! It's the one with one bowl and the Knicks cologne. OK; just kidding. I found nice little bowls that have been an excellent place to corral bracelets, earrings, and rings, and I also have my Certification Corvette, as well as a few watches. Hubs' dresser is a little less decorative. The placemat is really just acting as a location to put his pocket-things at the end of the day- his change, receipts, other random things. I tried to not decorate his in a way that he'd find ridiculous, and I was pleased when one of the first things he said was that he really liked the matching placemats!

Then finally, earlier this week, Tom came over to do the last of the hanging. He expertly hung a mirror *on the wall* over our bed, and hung up the curtain pulls.

A final picture:

 TL;DR:

Before and after.

The to-do list:

Done.

I'd like to send a huge shout-out and thank you to my in-laws for helping in so many ways- from finding suitable curtains, to hanging those curtains and more.

** Paint color: Behr Dark Ash 770F-5

** Yellow Storage Bench: Target (though they seriously jacked up the price since we bought ours in April)

** Yellow Lamps: Target

** Nightstands: Ikea

** Dressers: Ikea

** Bed Frame: Ikea