Voyager's Thoughts

Belly Watch

2012-01-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

28/29 week mark belly shot. A couple days ago, James told me: "Mommy, I want Pippin to be born NOW." Me too, kiddo. Me too.

Hello Third Trimester!

2012-01-19T14:06:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of this week, I hit the 28 week mark; just 12 weeks to go! However, we are a bit suspicious that I might actually be 29 weeks...but anyways.

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday, all with good news. No danger of gestational diabetes (even with all of that Christmas chocolate!!) and I am apparently getting PLENTY of iron. My appetite has drastically increased and I've started really gaining weight. I've now gained a total of fifteen pounds and will probably gain ten more this trimester. Pippin is already coming in at close to three pounds himself, if not more depending on actual gestational age.

He kicks and punches all day and sometimes all night. I can consistently count on him checking in for activity every other hour of the day. Yesterday, he kicked at the fetal heart monitor for everyone's pleasure at the appointment.

Also, it is now finally obvious that I am pregnant. I thought I was quite obvious, except I've had several people mention today they thought that they heard wrong or something because they didn't actually believe that I was with child. This was followed by several comments to me or to others of, "Well, she's tall."

So. The pregnancy continues to go well. No anomalies. No defects. None as of right now, anyways. Just a healthy, active baby.

New Orleans

2011-12-27T09:47:00.000-08:00

Some pics from our trip to NOLA:

Beignets and cafe au lait from Cafe du Monde.

Joan of Arc:

The Cathedral.

24 weeks pregnant at time:

Faulkner's (as in the author William Faulkner) house on Pirate's Alley:

At the Gumbo Shop. Amazing Gumbo, Po Boys, and pasta :)

Piazza d'Italia:

Cafe Beignet:

Christmas Cookies!

2011-12-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

How to make cookies with James:

Cut out fun shapes. And use the rolling pin a LOT.

Bake cookies.

Bandage up burns after touching hot items from oven.

Meanwhile, in the land of James...

2011-12-08T14:07:00.001-08:00

James was playing on his magnetic writing board thing (what are those called?!?) and brings it to me. "This is me," he says. I look at what's on the board and he has written J-a-m-e-s. My kid can write his name. I'm pretty blown away. We haven't encouraged reading and writing at all, instead taking a Waldorf approach to education. WE read to him all the time and encourage James to act out his favorite scenes in his books and what not. But James had been staring at one of our Christmas tree ornaments that spells out his name and he copied it. Well done, Jas.

21 Week Ultra Sound

2011-12-07T09:26:00.001-08:00

A week ago I had a high-res ultra sound done to check baby no. 2's anatomy. My OB/Gyn scheduled this with the hospital because of what Nick and I went through with James. We are still waiting for official results, but what we saw on the monitor looked good. The heart seemed to be in the right place of the chest. Organs appeared in their correct place. Baby moved all over, flipping onto the tummy and stretching out limbs. So far, so good :) And he's definitely a boy.

Some cool pics of the legs:

At the time, I had just turned 21 weeks. However, some of this little guy, who we've nicknamed Pippin, measured almost two weeks in advance. I don't know if I'm going to make it to my due date...

The Nutcracker

2011-12-06T18:58:00.001-08:00

Nick and I got to see the Houston Ballet perform The Nutcracker!!!

Wortham Theatre:

And the beginnings of our own Christmas tree :)

Dickens on the Strand, Galveston

2011-12-06T18:40:00.001-08:00

On Saturday, we joined Nick's Grandma May, Aunt Linda, and Uncle David and his family for Dickens on the Strand: a Victorian Era Christmas Festival, located in Galveston.

Me with one of the Steampunkers:

James with some pirates:

Jas and our cousin Jared:

St. Nicholas

Some Bobbies:

Fire Brigade:

Our view from the restaurant we ate at after all the sight-seeing:

At the beach:

Wanted to get a pic of Nick & me, but forgot I had zoomed in...but clearly we're having fun :)

Happy Leftovers

2011-11-27T08:01:00.001-08:00

Turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, dressing, broccoli casserole, and turkey enchilada on lettuce with sour cream.

Our Thanksgiving feast turned out awesome. We had Nick's lab mates over to celebrate the holiday so we had lots to be thankful for, including having lots of people to help us eat this meal!

I had cooked a near 14 lb. hen that came out perfect and still had tons of meat after we all had our fill. So Nick and I boiled the turkey carcass all night and made turkey enchiladas the next day :) Thanks to my Dad's side of the family for this awesome heirloom recipe and MUCH thanks to my Mom for actually helping with the execution via many phone calls!

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and had the time to give thanks for friends, family, food, and PEACE before the crazy shopping began.

Painted by Numbers

2011-11-18T08:03:00.001-08:00

Not really painting by numbers, title of this post happens to be Jas' favorite song right now. That and "Fire of Unknown Origin" by B.O.C. for some reason (ok, maybe it's one of my favorites too!). All I know is he runs around the house singing "A fire of unknown origin, took my baby awwaaaaaayy!"

To Clarify:

2011-11-18T07:56:00.001-08:00

Right after I bought this cheese board, another shopper commented that I'd got myself a mighty fine paddle to keep kids in line with. But really, we use it as a cheese board. Besides, who says that inside a Williams-Sonoma???

Belly Watch

2011-11-17T14:42:00.001-08:00

This dress proved extremely revealing when it came to the belly. Nick's reaction: "That wasn't there yesterday..."

See? I told you I was getting bigger!

Things We Know About This Baby:

2011-11-13T11:51:00.001-08:00

1. Baby is extremely active. And I say we know this because I'm not the only who can feel this kid move. Nick had the pleasure of feeling whatever kind of shenanigans the little tyke gets into yesterday morning. At 18 weeks.

2. Baby uses lots of space. I can feel him move up and down my belly, and side to side. Sometimes it's a quick pace. Sometimes it's more of a lumbering along. And sometimes he likes to bump me all the way til journey's end.

3. He's territorial. Just like James was in utero. Also, my MacBook keeps telling me that I'm spelling "in utero" wrong but Nirvana would never lie to me, right?!? Anyways, anything squishing against his home and he bumps against it. Unless said object is cold, then he shies away completely. This kid, however, doesn't strike me as curious as James was. For now, anyways.

Learning all of these habits of our new little one is definitely painting a personality picture in our minds. Nick and I have been discussing and settling on favorite baby names, but now we're fitting names to this kid's personality. It seems just as natural to name a kid based on what he does on the inside than to wait until we get a peek at him. 1) that just seems shallow, and 2) most babies look exactly the same at birth so we don't really see the benefit.

So when it comes to names, I learned something very important from Nick. Our leading favorite names for boys are of Irish origin. So, this naturally brought up the name Declan.

According to my husband, the name Declan is apparently the Nickleback of names. The only people who like them are females. And even amongst women, that is not a consensus. I, for one, don't even like Nickleback. And thankfully haven't heard of them since that one album came out while I was in middle school or high school or something. If you are a guy and you like Nickleback, congrats on not being afraid of social conditioning. As for the name Declan, Nick can cite the entire fourth season of Psych for backup. Oops. Fifth season.

Pregnancy Update

2011-11-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

We are now 17 1/2 weeks in to our pregnancy. And changes have started.

1. I have started feeling the baby move. So. Awesome. I had a doctor appointment on Halloween and trying to hear the heartbeat proved difficult as the little one kept moving all over the place. But, still a good heart beat to report.

2. I am now in the "what clothes to wear" dilemma. I've finally said goodbye to my Abercrombie & Fitch Skinny jeans...for now. My J.Crew Matchstick jeans, however, still fit great. So, I'm mainly supplementing my wardrobe with some of my maternity clothes until that belly comes.

3. My nausea is almost fully gone, and with the weather cooling I've been able to resume most activities. Before, any time I tried to exercise or do chores, I would get sick. I think a part of it was the extremely hot weather here and I was over-heating.

That's it for now...almost halfway through this pregnancy!

Crib Bedding :)

2011-11-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

So. We will be turning our guest bedroom into the nursery. My favorite thing about the guest bedroom is that it feels retreat like for me. It's light and airy and most of my favorite paperbacks are in this room. So, I'm not exactly keen on transforming it into some Rainbow Bright multi-color baby boy room.

Crib bedding has been a hard thing to find. Everything I found was just too much. You know, too overboard on caricatures and colors. Also, though I had a crib bumper for James, the American Pediatrics now definitively recommend NO bumper due to suffocation and strangulation. So, no bumper. Therefore, I'm looking for bedding that will keep with the guest room's established calming effect while having a focal piece to play up the crib and still say, "Yeah, this is the nursery."

I found this crib skirt at Restoration Hardware:

And this quilt at Pottery Barn Kids. I must confess: I feel like I've sold my soul to the devil purchasing from Pottery Barn. Like full on Crossroads journey. But this is the only one that I like...

Anyways...I think I'm going to like how this looks...when it's actually put together a few months after the kiddo's born in April, since he'll be sleeping in a cradle in our room at first :)

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

My helper with Split Pea Soup

In his dragon costume ready to trick-or-treat!

My boys in costume :)

With Uncle Dave

Best part of the night: two kids about 30 ft away yelling out, "Dr. Horrible?!?" and then running over.

Preschool Halloween Party!

2011-10-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Jas' preschool celebrated Halloween! They had lots of fun trick-or-treating to the other classrooms, playing fun activities, and enjoying a pizza lunch that Nick and I got to enjoy too :)

James is a dragon this year!

With his classmates

Belly Watch: 16.3 weeks...no sightings yet (just pudge)...and still waking up slightly nauseous.

Candy!

Jas' classroom

Bed Making

2011-10-24T17:40:00.000-07:00

I came across this picture while perusing through the camera. I asked Nick what was going on. He replied that he simply started making our bed with James in it.

Rain

2011-10-24T17:35:00.001-07:00

Soaking up the rain :) The rain jacket served its purpose for the first 20 minutes before admitting defeat to the downpour.

And More Food

2011-10-24T17:33:00.000-07:00

So awhile back, I posted on focaccia bread and how I made corned beef and cabbage because it sounded good (I know, how dare anyone make corned beef outside the month of March?!?).

Anyways, corned beef and cabbage leftovers make for a delicious wanton soup:

Wantons, chunks of corned beef, chopped cabbage, shrimp, chives, garlic, etc. in chicken broth. Will probably do this again for St. Patrick's next year :)

Our Expanding Family

2011-10-18T10:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone!

We've been mum on the latest news, but now that we've reached the safety of the second trimester...

Yep. We're having a baby!

Today marks 15 weeks for me, and our doctor's visits have shown us a very healthy baby. In fact, the ultra sound we had yesterday showed a very cozy baby BOY.

I didn't expect to find out the gender until around the 20 week mark. And I was of course hoping for a girl. Except that I knew I was having another boy. My doctor didn't want to go on record saying for sure, so I guess there's some room for change...but it's slim. As soon as the doctor made the comment, "Wow, baby's in a great position to look for gender..." I immediately noticed we were having a boy.

We did also get to see the heart working, and hear a very healthy heart beat. We saw him flex his limbs and scratch his head.

And when I say "we", that includes James.

James was so excited to see his new sibling, and it really was a great moment for all three of us to see such a well developed (and a bit large) baby. Head circumference is measuring spot on for weeks along (like, EXACTLY spot on), but torso measured a full week more advanced. After learning that James was a fairly big baby (7lbs. 11 oz., 12 days early), my doctor decided to keep so far with our original due date and to expect another large kiddo.

Our due date: April 10th, 2012.

We are super excited and can't wait for our new little one. I'm still waiting on a belly and am not in maternity clothes yet, which is surprising since this is my second time around. I did show later with James too, so it's not a concern. I am, however, still occasionally experiencing nausea, especially if I wait too long to eat. I do have much more energy than before. My first trimester was horrible. The only time I felt relief from the nausea was while dead asleep. James became my personal cheerleader during vomit sessions with "Go Mommy Go!" and "You can do it!" while rubbing my back :)

I have another appointment in two weeks, so hopefully we'll have a more definitive answer for gender and can post some updates on how baby's doing.

Love,
Steph (and Nick and James and little one)

Finally Cooling Down Here

2011-10-03T18:54:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning confused. I spent five minutes trying to figure out this feeling I was having and couldn't identify it. I kept thinking to myself, What IS this? What is this FEELING? before I realized I was cold. It was 74 degrees in the house. How sad is that? To forget what being cold is?

More Baking Projects

2011-09-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

For Nick's birthday, he picked out a vanilla cake/chocolate frosting triple layer. I think I had four bites of the finished project before getting full. It was so deliciously rich :)

I loved watching the batter mix (slowly adding liquid in turns):

Nick gives thanks to our mixer:

Finished!

After tupperwaring most of the cake, here's what the inside looks like:

Today, Nick & I baked some rosemary/sea salt focaccia bread:

Most amazing bread I've ever had. Perfect density. We used it to eat cold cut corned beef sandwiches :) I actually made a full on corned beef and cabbage dish for lunch so that we could all partake in corned beef sandwiches for dinner (this is what happens when you're at the grocery store and suddenly home cooked corned beef sounds amazing but it's too late to cook it that night and, by the way, your husband isn't going to work on Monday so we might as well eat all day, right?!?).

So Responsible :)

2011-09-12T12:16:00.000-07:00

James received a Melissa & Doug Calendar and Chore Chart from my Aunt Kathy. James especially loves his chore chart, which he fills out every night before bed. Some of the things he is responsible for include: getting dressed, brushing teeth, being polite, cleaning up toys, and showing respect. At the end of the week, he gets a special treat so he of course loves counting down the days. Thank you so much Aunt Kathy for such a wonderful and fun tool that keeps my kid helping out around the house!

SF Giants vs Houston Astros: 8.20.11

2011-09-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Last month the Giants came to Houston...and they lost the series. I wasn't surprised; that's usually how they roll. Usually the Giants win against the toughest of opponents, and then lose to the worst teams in baseball (like the Astros). Still, fun was had. Minute Maid Park is particularly lovely (and cool, check the photos) even if they don't allow food brought in (Argh!) Oh! And James' ticket was free since the Houston Astros are desperate for attendance (again, they play HORRIBLY). Extra bit - favorite part of the event: before the start of the game a man kept "psst"-ing at Nick, who wasn't paying attention. So I answered. He then told me he's trying to get my husband's attention, so I gave him a nudge. The stranger then asked Nick what the score of the previous night's game was, which Nick didn't know (he doesn't follow sports at all, he's much more of a doer than a watcher) and I of course did know so ended up answering anyways. But apparently women just aren't supposed to know sports scores...

Anyways...random statue of a blacksmith:

The enclosed (and air-conditioned!) park:

Obligatory picture with obligatory Mickey:

City of Houston outside the windows: