We're Having A...

BABY BOY!! We found out yesterday and I'm so excited! We had guessed that it was a girl because this pregnancy has been pretty different from my last one, but in the back of my mind I suspected a boy because we thought it was a girl, if that makes any sense. Everything looks healthy and normal with this baby, which is a relief. It's good that we're having a boy because John wanted a brother (he doesn't care much for girls yet), and we'll save a lot of money since we already have boy things. Plus I just love baby boys. I've been intensely curious as to what I'm carrying and it's so good to know now.

So far, I've gained about 12 pounds and my tummy is getting progressively bigger (duh), although I haven't had to start wearing maternity shirts yet, just jeans and pants. In the last two weeks I've started feeling the baby move, which is one of my favorite things about being pregnant. I've been tired a lot, but it hasn't been nearly as bad as the first trimester. My appetite has been BIG and my nose is always stuffy. My hair hasn't been looking so hot lately (not that it ever looks particularly hot) but my skin has cleared up pretty well. I'm 19 weeks now--halfway there!

Here are my "pregnancy progress" photos so far. I'll post more as the weeks and months go by. I have Peter take my profile picture every four weeks to track my tummy's/baby's growth. We did that when I was pregnant with John and it's really fun to go back and see the growth month-by-month.

8 weeks in January. Peter was traveling, so I had to take the picture myself. I did the best I could, but I still ended up headless.

12 weeks in February. There was more of a baby bump by this point.

16 weeks/4 months in March.

One more note: We don't know what we're going to name this baby! We had a girl's name picked out, but we're stumped as to what this child's name will be. I want to choose an original but still kind of classic name. Peter is letting me choose as long as he agrees with it. It's a fun challenge to have and I may need your help with it!

10 Random Things I Love

1. Clinique Happy perfume












2. Chocolate-covered strawberries. (Especially dark chocolate)

3. The Hallmark Channel. It has some great movies, and of course, my good old Murder, She Wrote re-runs. (Don't laugh at me! It's one of my favorite shows!)

4. Mitt Romney. Sigh. We were in the same church stake in Boston when I was growing up, so I've admired him from afar for a long time. I knew he was presidential material back in the mid-90s. I really did!


5. Colonial times in America A cool sign in Salem, Mass.

6. Lemonade. My favorite brand is Simply Lemonade. It's authentic, all-natural, and VERY good!

7. The Body Shop. Excellent-quality natural beauty products that are ethically made! Their Tea Tree Oil face wash has saved my complexion, and their orange Satsuma scent is the best.
8. Being organized

9. Ballet






10. Fireflies in summer

Easter Best!

We spent our Easter weekend up in Massachusetts with my family, and it was a good time! In the vein of high school senior superlatives, here are the "best of" moments of the weekend...

Best way we made lemonade from lemons...
-On Saturday morning when we were still home in Connecticut we were going to take John to the town Easter Egg Hunt. It would have been his first. But the weather wasn't very good, so we went out to breakfast at our favorite local restaurant instead (even though we'd just eaten dinner there the night before!).

The newest experiences...
-John decorated Easter eggs for the first time ever. I hadn't dyed eggs in many years myself. It was fun and kind of nostalgic. And MESSY!


















-John's had an Easter basket in years past, but this year he understood it all better and was excited about it. I think it reminded him a little of Christmas.

"Wow. The Easter Bunny is AWESOME."

-First Easter Egg Hunt! (Held in the family room. Yeah!!) John's likes the game of Hide & Seek, so he loved this, especially when he discovered that there were actual treats in the eggs.

Biggest thing to work on for next year...
-Learn how to open those tricky eggs!

Two biggest "Oops" moments...
-I didn't pack a maternity skirt because I thought I'd still be able to fit into one of my regular-sized skirts. I was wrong. I had to wear the skirt I brought with the zipper halfway down so that it would fit around my belly. Oops. Good thing my sweater covered it!
-I brought a huge jar of Jelly Belly jelly beans to share with everyone. The lid wasn't screwed on all the way when my brother Nathan picked it up. OOPS!


Best food...
-The potato salad and strawberry shortcake. I made up for the lack of solid food I've gotten in the days after my surgery and ate many servings of both! Sooo delicious.

Cutest Baby...
-My new nephew Rocco, five weeks old! I love him!

Me with Rocco, and Elizabeth with him (she's the mommy)

Best family photos...
-We took some great pictures of the three cousins/grandkids. I was tempted to stick my belly into the side of one of the pictures since there's a fourth cousin/grandkid in there, but I didn't.

-And the cute new family: my sister Elizabeth, Justin, and Rocco.

I hope those of you who celebrate Easter had a good one as well!

Recovering from Surgery

Yesterday at this time I was enduring surgery in my mouth while fully conscious, and it was not fun. I guess that goes without saying! Four implants were drilled and screwed into my gums, right up in the front of my mouth, two on the top and two on the bottom. The surgery was originally going to take place at the beginning of January, but when I found out I was pregnant it had to be postponed until the first trimester was over.

I wasn't able to have the anesthesia to put me out like we'd originally planned on since it's not safe for the fetus. Instead, I had several shots of Novocaine and was fully conscious and aware of everything as it was happening. I would have much preferred being knocked out if it were only me I had to worry about. The surgery was kind of scary and painful at times. But I'm relieved that it's done and that I'm on the path to getting the permanent teeth and hopefully beautiful smile that I've wanted for so long! (Some of my teeth never came in, so I've had a bridge for about ten years. Before that, I had a retainer with the missing teeth attached to it. Kinda weird, but it worked!)

The recovery is going well, too. My mouth is a little sore and uncomfortable, but it doesn't hurt nearly as much as I feared it would. I don't even have to take the Vicodin that was prescribed; Extra Strength Tylenol seems to be doing the trick (plus anti-swelling medicine, plus penicillin). And for the next few weeks I get to eat a soft diet of smoothies, scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes, and things that are cut up very small, making sure not to let it touch the front area of my mouth. That's going to be fun!

Anyhow, I just wanted to fill you in on what's going on. When the work is all done in a couple of months, I'll post pictures!

I Subscribe to Too Many Magazines

It's April and I've got the spring-cleaning bug! Partly because of that, I've been motivated recently to simplify my life in a number of ways. One of these is that I've decided to cut down on the number of magazines I subscribe to. I subscribe to way too many and it's hard/impossible to find the time to read them all. Organizing experts say to subscribe to no more than three. For now, I'm going to whittle mine down to five. Baby steps! These are the magazines I currently subscribe to:

1. Parents (a good parenting magazine with fun stuff for moms thrown in)

2. Cookie (an upscale (snobby) Manhattan-centric parenting magazine that sells practical things like $500 Burberry coats for your infant)

3. Good Housekeeping (I like it but I think I'm a bit young for its demographic...I don't really need to be reading articles about menopause and hormone replacement therapy yet.)

4. All You (a fun women's magazine that is the complete opposite of #2 above)

5. Time (it helps me to stay on top of the news--when I get a chance to read it, which isn't all that often. It comes every week, and some of the articles are long and boring.)

6. Family Fun (a good family magazine with crafts that I'll never do but some fun ideas and articles anyway)

7. Brain, Child (an intellectual magazine for mothers. Some of the articles are written by very liberal women whose viewpoints sometimes make me mad but also make me think. This magazine requires me to use my brainpower more than most of the others. And that's a good thing, right?)

8. The Ensign (my church's monthly magazine. This one's not going anywhere! It's by far the most valuable to me.)

9. Plus the free extras--like our alumni magazine and other magazines and newsletters for various organizations that we belong to (like AAA, which has some great travel articles)

So, I've decided that these ones are getting cut: Time (too time-consuming--no pun intended), Good Housekeeping (too old for me right now), and All You (too repetitive and basic). If I'm really missing one of them after awhile, I'll re-subscribe but end my subscription to another one. This leaves me with mostly parenting and family magazines, but that's okay because that's the stage of life I'm in right now. Aaaah, that felt good!

Do you have a favorite magazine? And are you doing anything to simplify your life this spring?