I'll miss you, bread and butter....

Well, I had another doctor's appointment this morning... everything sounds like it's going great. Aly's heartbeat was nice and strong, and I'm measuring at 33 weeks! I jokingly asked the nurse, "So maybe I'll go a week early, huh?!" She laughed and said that's not always the case, though. It's still a nice thought!

The downside...I've gained 3 pounds since my last appointment.(Which I didn't think was SO bad for a month!) Doc told me I need to watch my carbohydrates.

(sniffle sniffle)

But.... but... I love carbs!

As I've said before, my major craving is cereal. And of course I eat more than the serving size specified on the side of the box. Carb city, I know. Oh, and bread. I've had such a thing for either bread and butter or grilled cheese sandwiches. I'm just gonna have to cut back... which sucks. I have, IDEALLY, 2 more pounds I can gain before the baby's born... 4 at the most. This is gonna be rough... lol. I go back in 2 weeks, so we'll find out then if I've done a good job.

But anyway.... enough talk about that or I'm gonna get sad. :-P

I called the place where I'm having my baby shower (oops, started to write BRIDAL shower...lol!) and gave them an approximate total of guests that are coming. He told me that I can even call him as late as the middle of next week if things change, so that's cool :-)

It's so hard to believe my shower is next weekend already! It's on May 5th. I talked with my mom today and we're going to go to a party supply shop tomorrow and get stuff for the shower... I still need more thank-you cards (we're gonna have guests address their envelopes at the shower and use that as a way to hand out prizes), and we want to buy pink and purple balloons, baby confetti, and some baby shower banners if they have them. We already have baby block centerpieces for the tables, and foil balloons in baby shapes. :-) The owner of the restaurant where I'm having the shower told me if I bring things early, they will put everything out for me. We don't have much to do though, so I'm just going to go over earlier that day and help my mom put everything out. (I couldn't TOTALLY not be involved!)

Not much else to talk about from my post a few nights ago... just enjoying my days off. Russ is going out of town tomorrow for a work thing, but he'll only be gone until Saturday morning. I'm just gonna take advantage of the alone time and do some stuff in the nursery, then I'll be heading over to my parents' house for dinner and some SHOPPING! :-)

Have a good night!

Yes, I WOULD like some cheese with my 'whine.'

Heartburn. Dizziness. Swollen ankles. Stuffy nose. Round ligament pains. Shortness of breath.

All of the above are signs/symptoms that I 'might' be experiencing now, according to what a pregnancy website had to say about Week 31.

"Might?" There's no might about it. I AM experiencing it. ALL of it.

I now have to be VERY picky about what/how much I eat, because my stomach will let me know I've done wrong VERY quickly. And the dizziness.... now THAT sucks. Sometimes I'll just feel so lightheaded and have to sit down. I'm assuming my blood pressure is down in the toilet at that time, but who knows. As for the swollen ankles, they're not that bad. I only get swollen after I work night turn, thank goodness. Once I put my feet up and take a nap, things are back to normal. No 'cankles' as of yet!

And is anyone else's nose stuffed up 24-7? This doesn't help with the shortness of breath I'm experiencing!! I told Russ that my lungs feel like they are being pushed up to my throat. Heck, they probably are, huh?!

Lastly, round ligament pains. Ugh. I now get off the couch at the pace of an 80
year-old, for fear that one of those sharp pains will attack me suddenly, as they so often like to do.

So that's what I'm going through right now. All of that, with some strong kicks in the ribs all throughout the day. Fun fun! :-)

I just keep thinking, "Two months to go.... two months to go......" Though I will miss feeling little baby Aly kicking and moving all around inside, I can't wait for her to be born so I can feel 27 again and not 87! :-)

Rambly randomness

Hello :-)

I’m bored so I just wanted to write in here… it’s probably going to be one of those “I don’t have anything to write about, so I’ll probably just end up rambling” type of posts.

Unfortunately, I’m not feeling very well tonight, so I reported off work. I’ve been dealing with a ‘stomach thing’ over the past few days. Nothing major, but enough to make me feel crappy. No pun intended. I’m just kinda achy and crampy now, so I figured I’d just take tonight and rest, since I’ve been pretty busy lately.

Yesterday Joelle and I went to Pittsburgh with her kids… we ate lunch at Olive Garden (YUM!) and then did some shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond and Old Navy. I laughed and told Joelle, “Yeah, you can tell I haven’t been out shopping in awhile.” I wanted to buy EVERYTHING. BB&B is definitely one of my favorite places…. soooo many cute things for the house!:-) At Old Navy I got everyone a little something. I bought pj’s and tank tops for me, some cute onesies, pants and shorts for little Aly, and some polo shirts for Russ.

The kids got a little cranky after all that shopping, and I had to admit I was a little tired too, so we skipped the mall and just came home. It was almost 4:30pm anyway, and I knew my husband would be calling me whining, “What’s for dinner? When are you going to be home?” God forbid he has to (gasp) HEAT SOMETHING UP! Or worse… MAKE SOMETHING HIMSELF! I think hell would freeze over. Or maybe the world might end. One of the two. Does anyone else’s husband act helpless sometimes? LOL.

Anyway…. Before shopping yesterday, Russ and I went and looked at a few houses. I don’t even know why we bothered, but we did. The realtor guy we deal with called Russ out of the blue about a week ago and told him about this house close by that just went on the market… it’s in a really nice neighborhood, very kid-friendly. Though we haven’t been looking to move by any means, we decided we’d take a look at it, along with another one on the same street. Russ really liked the first one, though the WHOLE HOUSE needed new carpeting. I tried to get past the godawful carpet and paint job (not to mention the owners’ bad taste in decorating) and look at the structure of the house. The house itself was nice. There are beautiful stone fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom, and the same stone is in the foyer. And the kitchen was spacious, with all oak cabinets.... and, um...that’s about it. I just couldn’t get past all the things that needed fixed.

The second house was just ‘ok’ to look at from the outside. It’s a newer house, mostly brick, but no ‘wow factor’ from the outside. The inside was really nice… all the carpet was new, and there were hardwood floors in the kitchen and living room. I liked the fact that not much needed done to the place, while Russ said he just didn’t like the layout OR the house. Russ and I just have two different ways of looking at things… he figures we can get a nice big house for a decent price and just put money into fixing things up; I want something that’s pretty much move-in ready that we DON’T have to fix up a lot, though it might be more money. So needless to say, we’ll probably be in our current house for a LONG TIME….lol. We’ve just put so much money into our house over the past 3 years… hardwood, ceramic tile, deck and hot tub, new windows, bathroom, etc…. now we’re getting ready to renovate the upstairs bathroom since we’ve never done anything but paint it. We’ve never had any reason to use the upstairs, but now with the baby coming, everything’s changing. Another reason why I hate to move… having little Aly is going to be a MAJOR life change, and I’m not going to be adjusting to having a child AND trying to pack up and move. That’d be a little much for one time, don’t you think?!

See, I told you I’d be rambling in this post.

Last but not least… dealing with having a new baby. For all you mommies-to-be who read my blog…. Do any of you feel TOTALLY overwhelmed right now? Like do you feel you’ll NEVER be ready to have a baby? Or at least just not for awhile?? It’s just that on one hand, I feel ready to have a baby, but then on the other hand I’m just plain freaked out about it. I keep thinking about all the things I still need to do. The things I don’t know HOW to do. The things I still need to buy. Will I be a good mom? How will Russ take to being a daddy? How will my DOGS take to the baby?



Ugh… so many thoughts in my head. I guess the fact that I’m nearing the end of my pregnancy has started to sink in, and I realize that I will be having a little one in a few short months. It’s still so hard to believe!

Alright, enough rambling for tonight. Have a good night.

Lazy Day!

Afternoon, ladies :-)

The rest of the weekend went really well. Saturday night we went to dinner in Pittsburgh and it was awesome! The restaurant was great, and the food was even better. 5 stars all the way. (Although the bill came to (gulp) $200 for 4 of us.) But Russ said, "Honey, it's not like we do this all the time, ya know?" Each plate averaged about $35-40, and of course we had to get appetizers and desserts afterwards! Russ's buddy Joe's birthday was April 12th, so he and I got our desserts for free, which was great! The waitress sang us happy birthday as she was giving them to us... it was too cute. The dessert was so good, I just kept thinking, "This is so wrong." LOL. Russ hadn't really had dessert since he found out he was a diabetic, but we all said what the heck, it's a special occasion. He ate his AND what I had leftover of mine! He figured he'd be paying for it later in the night, but his blood sugar was only about 15 points over what it normally is at night. He goes, "Wow... maybe I can do that more often!" But he's back to being good now...lol.

Anyway, since Saturday was a dreary crappy rainy day, we just came straight home after dinner. Not much else exciting to report about that day.

We ended up waiting to go over our friends Dean and Joelle's until yesterday... we took little Jillian's gifts over there early in the afternooon. She loved everything, so I was happy about that! While we were there, one of Dean and Russ's friends called and asked if we all wanted to go out to dinner. We ended up going to a local rib place called Dee Jay's.... it has THE best ribs in the area. I wasn't TOTALLY hungry, but couldn't resist getting a half rack of ribs :-) Oh, and a virgin strawberry daquiri. Theirs are AWESOME, and I like them better without alcohol anyway!

Dinner was a good time... Dean and Joelle had their kids, and Brandon and his wife had their little son. They kept asking me, "So are you ready for a little one?!" I told them I'm as ready as I'm gonna be, I guess!

Lastnight after dinner, Russ and I came home and lounged around and watched tv... our normal routine on Sunday nights, where we sprawl out on the sectional downstairs and watch the Sopranos. Too bad I work the next few weekends... he's gonna be watching it by himself. :-(

So that was it for the weekend. All in all a great bday weekend! Today I'm just taking advantage of the fact that I have NO PLANS made whatsoever. I slept in this morning (in fact, I didn't even want to get out of bed at all!!!), and am proud to say that all I have done today is tidy up the house a bit, and sit on my pregnant butt watching tv. Russ joked and said, "You have the life, you know?!" I told him I'm just enjoying my day off. I guess I could go hop in the shower and do something with my day... maybe shopping. Yeah, that sounds good. Or maybe just nothing at all... that kinda sounds better right now. I'm just having one of those lazy days. I just know that if I don't at least get a shower and get myself looking half decent, today will be a day where Russ says, "So-and-so is coming over in 15 minutes", then I'll be running around like a mad woman. That always seems to happen to me.

Alright, I guess I'll get off the couch now. Have a great day!

All Aboaaaaaaaaaaaard! Ha ha ha!!

Good morning!

Well, my birthday turned out to be a great day!

Like I said I would in my previous post, I fell asleep and slept right through my ACTUAL birth time. I awoke to the front door opening and Russ coming inside, carrying a dozen red roses for me! They are THE most beautiful roses I've ever gotten! I placed them right in the middle of our dining room table. Here's a picture:




I eventually fell back to sleep and slept until about 2pm. I called my parents on their cell phone, and they were out at the mall. My mom was all excited and said, "We have some presents for youuuuu!" They asked if I wanted to meet them for dinner, but Russ had my vehicle so I had no way to meet them. They ended up coming over around 4:30 and brought Russ and I dinner, along with lots of presents for me! Not to sound greedy, but it's nice to get something for ME instead of just baby gifts for a change...lol.

My parents bought me a spring wreath for the front door (which I've been wanting!) and some Bath and Body works lotions, body spray, and a home fragrance kit in the same scent which comes with one of those tea light holders and fragrance oil. (Cause they know what a candle freak I am...I can never have enough!)

Here's the wreath... it looks so good on the front door. They bought it for me because it has my favorite flower in the whole wide world on it... tulips :-)




My parents stayed over our house until about 6:15pm. Around 7pm, Russ and I picked up our friends and the four of us went to see our local indoor arena football team, the "Steubenville Stampede." This was the first arena football game I've been to, and it was definitely different! Russ decided what the heck and bought box seats for the season, so we got to sit right up front, which is kinda exciting and freaked me out at the same time, considering those footballs fly in the crowd constantly. I joked that I would be happy just to get out of there without being hit in the head with a football!

The Stampede ended up winning 65-55. It was a pretty exciting game! Now they're 3-0 for the season so far.

What I didn't think about before the game was the fact that there obviously would be VERY LOUD music there... lol. With every song, little Aly kicked the crap out of me. They played all the usual sporting event "get the crowd into it" music, during which all you felt was the vibration of the bass in the music. Aly seemed particularly affected by the beginning of Ozzy Osbourne's "Crazy Train," where he screams, "All Aboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard! Ha ha ha!" I think that freaked her out a bit. Poor girl... she was probably wondering what the heck was going on and what crazy place mommy had taken her.

We got home from the game around 10:30pm, and both of us were ready for bed. The rest of the evening was, unfortunately, uneventful (lol) but all we could both think about was sleep. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. (With a dog on either side of me and surrounded by more pillows, of course!)

So that was my bday in a nutshell.

Today we're leaving around 4pm to head to Pittsburgh for dinner. It's not a 'suit and tie' kinda place, but more casual dressy. I'm excited to be able to get dressed up and go out for a nice romantic dinner. We haven't done that for awhile.

Our friends Dean and Joelle (I have pics of their kids on here a few posts back) are having a birthday party today for their little daughter Jillian. I'm not sure exactly what time it starts, but they know we have had dinner reservations for weeks and may not be able to be there for the party. I'm going to run (well, drive) over there early this afternoon to visit for awhile and give Jillian her birthday gift. We got her a drawing pad she can lay out on the floor and color on... it comes with a marker that you just fill up with water and it draws only on the pad. She can reuse it over and over, and mommy and daddy don't have to worry about markers on the carpet. I thought it was a neat idea. Also, we got her a cute little stuffed puppy that barks and wags its tail when you pet it. It comes with a little plastic bottle... supposedly the puppy burps and falls asleep after you 'feed' the bottle to him. Russ had been joking with Dean that we were going to get Jillian a real puppy for her birthday, so I thought this would be cute. I told Russ, "Well, you can still tell Dean we got her a puppy for her birthday!"

Alright, that's it for now. I've been up since 5am (due to the usual middle-of-the-night bathroom trip followed by not being able to fall back to sleep)... so I'm gonna try to lay back down for a few hours.

Have a great weekend, everyone!! Oh, and I updated my pregnancy blog, so check it out if you get a minute! (Sorry for any repeats between the two posts!)

Computer anyone? It's on me!

Happy Birthday to me... happy birthday to me. Happy Birthday dear meeeeeeeeeeeeeee, happy birthday to me!

Yep, today's my bday. The big 2-7. 3 years from 30---yikes!

I just finished up work this morning, so I'll be spending part of my day sleeping. More than likely I'll be sleeping through the exact time I was born. (10:51am!)

This afternoon my parents are coming over, then Russ and I are going to celebrate in style (lol) at a local indoor arena football game with a few friends. Tomorrow we are going to dinner up on Mount Washington in Pittsburgh... ought to be a good time!

Other than that, not much exciting going on. Unless you count the identity theft I found out I've been a victim of. (Grr...)

Yesterday at 4pm, Russ answered the phone and it was a lady from Dell computers, asking if I had opened up a dell account and purchased a computer. (Um... no?) So Russ put her on speakerphone so we could both hear. She said that I needed to contact one of the credit bureaus, and gave me the number for Experian. I had to put a temporary alert on my credit report, and now if anyone tries to open up an account in my name, I'll get a phone call to verify that it is really ME doing so.

This same damn thing happened to me in December of 2005. Someone opened up a dell account and attempted to purchase a computer in my name. I had to go through all this same BS back then. I just can't believe it happened again. Evidentally whoever is doing this hung onto my personal info and figured they'd try their luck and see if they'd be able to open an account again.

Yesterday while we had the Dell girl on speakerphone, she told us they will be sending me out an affadavit to fill out. She said they will be investigating this whole issue. Russ goes, "Well, obviously you have the shipping address there, can't you just do something with that?" He kept asking her to tell us where the computer was going, and all she'd tell us was that the shipping address is located in Georgia. She wouldn't give us the city or anything though. So now today we have to file a report with our local police department---again--- and hope that they'll investigate things a little further. (Yeah, right.) Happy frickin' birthday to me, huh?! Just what I want to be doing... talking to cops on my birthday. Fun fun.

Well, I'm off to take a nap. Hope everyone has a great day today!

Pics to share...

Happy Easter everyone :-) Hope all of you are having a great day so far!


Lastnight our friends Dean and Joelle came over with their kids. The guys went in the hot tub while Joelle and I stayed in the nice warm house with the kids. Afterwards, we cooked out on the grill even though it was SNOWING out.

After dinner, we were all lounging around and I couldn't help but snap a few pics of the kids. Dean was sitting on the couch with Russ, and his little 9 month-old son Guy was just crawling over Russ. He kept reaching over and grabbing Russ on the nose... it was too cute. It looks like Russ is sleeping in this pic but he's just looking over at Dean...lol. I told Russ he'd better get used to having a little one crawling all over him!





Once I took a pic of Guy, Jillian was saying "Betsy, Betsyyyyyyy!" then crawled up on the coffee table for a photo op. I said, "Do you want me to take your picture too?" and she got this big grin on her face and said "Yep! Take picture!" She is toooo cute.



All in all it was a nice evening with friends. We need to do that more often. Hopefully next time it will be nice and warm out so we can all spend some time outside :-)

OH... one more thing.

The bedding Russ's mom got us for the kid bed we have in the nursery came in yesterday!! It is gorgeous... even prettier in person, with little embroidered hearts all over it. The pale lilac is THE perfect shade for the room, too. Here's a pic of the bedding. The pic on the website only shows the full set in pink, but it should give you some idea. :-)



Well, that's it for now. Just wanted to post these pics real quick. Have a great Easter!