75 More Days to GO!

75 days until my due date but who is counting, lol!  Wednesday I was officially 29 weeks, I had the lovely glucose testing done that everyone dreads (it actually was not that bad), got my Tdap shot (I know a lot of people are not for vaccinations, I am and to each their own, no judgement here), had some blood work done and got a quick look at Benny!  Our little Benny boy is weighing in at 3lbs. 1 oz. and looks perfect from what we could see, he was head/face down and in a kind of twisted position so we did not see much of his face.  The last two weeks or so he has been camped out on my bladder which is really fun and the heartburn/acid reflux is horrible.   I had to venture out to CVS in the middle of the night to get some Zantac, while I was out I had to keep reminding myself that we live in a very safe city because the folks that were out at CVS at that hour are very odd!  I am starting to feel stronger kicks and punches, due to my anterior placenta I haven’t felt much but now that he is getting bigger and stronger I am feeling a lot more which is a huge relief.  A week or so ago I hadn’t felt him move in what felt like an eternity (more like a day) and I had pretty much convinced myself that something was really wrong, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown and spent way too much time contemplating what to do when I should have just gone to the doctor or to the hospital.  Everything was fine after I fed him everything spicy from Chipotle, drank some caffeine, laid down and cried, next time I am going straight to the doctor and they can check the crazy lady box on my chart.  I finally preregistered at the hospital, which turned out to be nothing since they had all my info, picked a pediatrician (thank you to a couple friends and the Residents of Aliso Viejo Facebook page for the recommendations) and signed us up for the new parent night on May 4^th.  And the most exciting part of this all drumroll please….I filled out my FMLA paperwork for my 14-15ish weeks of bonding with my new baby!  My coworkers are going to hate me, I am leaving them at the busiest time of the year, eeek!  Oh well, nothing I can do about that besides wish them good luck and hope I covered all things necessary in the manual I made for them, hopefully the newborn snuggles will make up for it when we visit.  I start my every two week appointments now, crazy, before we know it July will be here! 

This was taken a couple weeks ago, one day I just popped!

Glucose test! 

He still has huge feet, my little swimmer boy!

Not the best picture of his face, he was also showing us his biceps!

A Baby Shower For Benny!

Oopsie, I forgot to post this!

 My bestest paddling friends threw me and Benny a baby shower this past Sunday (April 15th, I know this was not last Sunday), it was a small group that ended with a lot of loot for the little guy.  It was perfect and a great time to see my people!  We met at Hennessy’s in San Juan Capistrano, sat out on the patio and enjoyed lunch together.

Benny will be our little rainbow baby so this cake was perfectly fitting for us!

(For the record, those little booties were made of fondant, Gracie found them in a bag, quietly took them into Mr. Pie's room and destroyed them along with a bunch of tissue paper, ugh!)

The most unflattering photo but I love it!

Colin was the perfect 3 year old party guest (seriously, he was so well behaved the entire time), he provided the entertainment towards the end of the shower and I have a funny feeling these shenanigans will be part of my life in three years!   

Thank you Ricki and Jackie for putting this together, it was perfect!!

Backyard Renovation!

I know I have said it before but I am going to say it again, this nesting thing is no joke!  Our backyard has needed some serious attention pretty much since they day we moved in but we have been preoccupied with a few other things and have not tended to it much.  The last two winters we have put a temporary band aid on the hillside/mudslide problem with large sheets of plastic, more than our fair share of free sandbags from the City of Mission Viejo and fingers crossed that the weatherman is wrong and it will not rain much.  Well enter in pregnancy and I could no longer sleep at night knowing that we really needed to get this done and it really needed to get done before Benny arrived!  So, several retaining wall quotes later, a lot of artificial turf homework and a palm tree removed we were ready to go!  I have to say it all happened a lot quicker than I had anticipated it happening and I could not be happier (and I can now sleep again at night, well kinda, I still want to get the house painted inside and out but I think the Sheriff will for sure have another stroke if I even mention the mere thought to him).  

This is before the project started, overgrown trees, the palm tree that needed to go because it was in the way of where the wall needed to go, concrete that needed to be chiseled out and plastic, sandbags  and dirt everywhere! 

I tried to get pictures of the entire process just for our records, I got a few  but I did not do a great job with that, but I tried! As you can see Ebo and Gracie were our stand in inspectors each day!

Everything was such a mess, we had these old railroad ties that were soaked in some poisonous chemical and my wood loving dog thought it would be a great idea to eat the wood, seriously have no idea how that damn dog is still alive! 

Here you can see the wall is DONE and the grass is starting to grow!  

And it is done!  A quick trip to Cost Plus World Market for a new umbrella, one of the workers broke our other umbrella when trying to close it up, I was not heartbroken, I have wanted a new one for awhile so it all worked out!

Our pool took a beating throughout the process, there was so much dirt and debris but thanks to our seriously amazing pool guy Bryan, it was all cleaned up Monday morning!  Seriously, he is amazing, he knew we were doing work in the yard and changed his schedule so he could come Monday instead of his normal day on Thursday.  If any of you need a pool guy, call me I will give you his number!

This is my daily view now, I could not be any happier, Benny and I are ready to spend our summer poolside!