Pretty and Pregnant: Heart Burn

When I was pregnant with Oliver I had crazy heart burn starting in the 3rd trimester. This time around, I have had heart burn the entire time. Before being pregnant I had never experienced heart burn before and the first time it happened I thought I was having a heart attack and called my doctor. It was pretty embarrassing. It was late at night and I made Austin call because I thought I was dying. He told me to take some Tums. Sorry to bother ya, doc! This time around I knew what was happening and I was sorely disappointed that it was happening so soon! I am still not successful at treating or preventing it so this post has no good advice. Just me complaining.

I do think it is time to do an update post on this pregnancy. Just this week I have noticed my tummy grow. It was suddenly difficult to shave my legs, put on shoes, climb back and forth from the front seat to the back seat in the car, etc. Over night I got uncomfortable. I'm not that uncomfortable yet, it just all came so suddenly and it brings on horrible memories of just how uncomfortable I'm going to be from here on out. My wedding ring doesn't fit on my sausage finger anymore, and I cannot cough, laugh, jump, sneeze, or think about any of the aforementioned acts without peeing a little. And I do Kegals! Well, kind of. They actually make me have to pee if I do them for too long.

Up to this point my pregnancy has been so incredibly easy that I forget that I am pregnant most of the time, besides being self conscious about my bod. I'm always worried when I go out in public that people can't tell I am pregnant, they just think I am fat. Which I am, but I want to use the pregnant excuse while I can. I'm carrying weird. Baby sits very high and I am gaining weight all over rather than all tummy. I was shopping for maternity clothes recently and the cashier actually asked me if I was expecting, I told her yes and she said, "I couldn't even tell!" Grreeattt... you think I'm a fat lady shopping at a maternity store because I like pants with stretchy waist bands. Fantastic. If you work at Motherhood Maternity, don't ask someone if they are pregnant. They are. And if they aren't, you are embarrassing them by pointing out that they are a non-pregnant person buying giant maternity clothes. Not cool.

Oliver is getting tougher and tougher to tote around on my hip and I get winded pretty easily carrying him up and down stairs. I'm glad to have Austin home for a bit helping me out. He's the bomb. Oliver is going to have a hard time with a new baby, I already know it. He is pretty rough with babies, he likes to maul them. And he is pretty selfish about his mamma. He still enjoys being held by me a lot. I try not to take that for granted however, because I know one day very soon he will not ever want to be held by mommy anymore so I am soaking up the time I have with him in my arms.

Here is an awkward tummy picture, I don't take a lot of these. Notice even my arm is gaining weight, no don't. But for documentation, and because I have a hard time doing a post without a picture, here she is:

And I can't leave out this beauty. Overalls and a tractor for Christmas from his Idaho grandparents! 

Happy Birthday to You!

Austin turned 25 years old on the 30th. He is sad to see 24 go. December is a loaded month for us and I  never want Austin to feel shafted or left out because he comes last in the month. So, we celebrated about 3 times. I always buy his Christmas and birthday presents at the same time and try to save the more impressive ones for his birthday. The problem with that is when Christmas rolls around I get so excited about his birthday presents I want to celebrate early and open them NOW! This year I got him some pretty boring basic stuff for Christmas (new dress socks, new dress shirt, pants, shoes etc.) and for his birthday he was getting a pretty sweet tool box and a gun. All of the brother in laws wanted to go shooting on Christmas day and really wanted me to give Austin his birthday gun. I did and he loved it SO much. We sang happy birthday to him and he opened up his new pride and joy. I actually felt bad at that point because we hadn't even sung to Oliver yet and it really was his birthday!

We celebrated again a few days later up at our cabin. We did some pretty great sledding, lit fireworks, sang to him again and ate a lot of ice cream. I gave him the tool box portion of his present at this point and he seemed to really like it. 

 Watching the show. Oliver was beyond terrified of the fireworks. He would lay on my shoulder and play dead for a few seconds right before he started kicking his legs like mad, as if he were trying to run away.

            I'm not good at photographing the actual fireworks. This is the closest picture I have.

                                                   Grandma doesn't look all that impressed.

 Early morning view of the lake, I love the pink sky as the sun was rising. Oliver gets us up early enough to witness these little everyday miracles, bless him. 

On his real birthday (Sunday) I kind of forgot about it until after church. I whipped up a little cake very similar to Oliver's birthday cake and told him to take his clothes off and eat it with his hands. He said no. So we sang to him again and had more cake and ice cream.

I had to make do with the candles that were hanging around in my mom's baking drawer. I came up with "13" and 12 other candles to equal 25. For some reason no one understood that. They kept looking at the cake and saying, "13? That's it? Isn't he 25?" Didn't they notice 12 other candles sticking out of that tiny cake? 

                                                                    Patiently waiting...

 Taste test...

...Approved.

 A few party guests

Firsts

Oliver was born on Christmas day in 2011 so I suppose this is technically his 2nd Christmas. However, he did not get to enjoy much of his holiday last year and I'm sure the trauma from being squeezed through a birth canal ruined anything good that happened that day. So this year is Oliver's First Christmas/First Birthday. I will do an official 1 year old post after he goes to the doctor this week and we see how he is measuring up. This post is just a million adorable pictures of our Christmas and Birthday celebrations because words can't say how awesome it was. We had my whole family gathered at my parents home this holiday and it might not happen again for awhile (more on that later).

Christmas eve we all opened a pair of matching Christmas jammies, listened to Grammy Pie read the Christmas story, sang Christmas hymns, watched The Grinch, and had a fantastic hot chocolate bar. It was magical :)


Getting a group photo with the auto-timer was a bit tough. I was trying to set up the camera and take practice shots and this is about how it went....

This is what we ended up with which still isn't great but everyone has a face in it, kind of. 

Grammy Pie reading the Christmas Story

 Kate and Jared singing Christmas hymns

 Our Christmas had a monkey theme this year. My mom went around to several DI's and bought out all of the monkeys and dressed them up very festively to hang on her 12' tree. They were pretty cute. 

 My mom and dad

 Kate and Jared

 Hot chocolate bar ... mmmm!

 Ellie was trying to make a snow angel in the carpet

 Story telling that prompted the snow angel making.

Oliver's birthday breakfast consisted of an old favorite, eggs, and a new favorite, left over Christmas Eve ham. He ate that for about 6 days. 

 There aren't any pictures of Christmas morning which is just as well because Oliver didn't participate anyway. His main concern was finding food. 

My niece Ellie got an InnoTab which she walks around the house referring to as her IPad. Kind of cute. 

 Aneleise got "so many presents I can't remember any of them" and this awesome diary with a lock! 

 Oliver spent the majority of the day getting spoiled with junk food. Chocolate milk and brownies from Grammy. Snuggles on the side. 

                                  In the afternoon we had a rockin' birthday party for the little dude.

                                       He got a lot of fun presents and some cute new clothes.

Mom found this beauty on the internet for sale from a guy in Ririe. Had to have it. He was the star of the show. Giving him to Oliver for his birthday caused quite an uproar with the other cousins which may have resulted in the gift being taken back by grammy to leave at her house for everyone to play with. I'm still going to try and sneak it out when we go though.

                Lounging around in his throne with a candy cane in hand. He has never been so sticky.

 One of Ollie's favorite snacks is toilet paper. He got a roll of it for his birthday and promptly started to eat it. 

 He got this partially finished blanket from his grandma. Ollie Wog is her grammy nick name, she says.

                      Holding daddy's hand, waiting for cake. The anticipation is just too much!

                                                           Just giving him a little help.

 I wanted him to taste the actual cake part and not just the frosting so he might dig in a little deeper.

                                              But he preferred the candle over any of it.

 He ended up in the tub after the cake which is why he is naked from here on. 

Enjoying his horsey in his birthday suit. Nothing better. 

 Dad had to pull him off to give some one else a turn and he wasn't too thrilled. 

 Luckily he had more amazing toys to quickly distract him. I love how happy Ellie looks in this picture considering how much these two make each other kick and scream.

 I have never seen such genuine joy. This is a happy baby.