It's a...

...healthy baby! He or she was quite the little wiggle worm this morning. Everything is measuring perfectly and as it should be, which was awesome news! I'm in love already. Though still super curious if Ben will have a brother or a sister!


Hi, mama! Look, I have five fingers!


And a pretty lil face. Bet you wish you knew if I was a boy or girl!

I blew those resolutions out of the water!

Okay, I mostly blew those resolutions out of the water.

You may or may not remember that at the beginning of the year, I laid out a whole bunch of resolutions that I said I might get to. Or not. Usually I'm terrible at them. But rather than think of them as resolutions, I just started calling them my goals. And hey, I guess that worked. I know I planned on re-evaluating them every month but obviously I'm not very good at doing things I say I'll do. I promise that before I had a child, I actually was.

Today while doing dishes it occurred to me that I hadn't looked over that list in awhile but that I think I'd accomplished (or at least begun to accomplish) most of them. So I found the old post and what do you know? I actually did!

1. Grow my marriage - Okay, so we haven't gone on a monthly date like I'd said I wanted to BUT we did finally find a great sitter at our church and we've been on a few dates! We implemented a Friday night date night, too (an in-home date night, that is). We might have gotten away from that - ahem - but we'll get back there. We did take a Love Languages class at church and that's been great for us! On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm giving myself a 7 here.

2. Grow my relationship with God - This is an ongoing process but one I feel very good about! We've found a church home, we're serving in the church, I got an AWESOME Bible I love and most importantly, God's in my heart now. We talk. We've bonded. We're tight. ;) I'm planning on getting Baptised soon!

3. Set a budget & switch to an envelope system - We started out strong, then, as often happens, my fire for this one burned out. But I'm happy to report that this month we've gone back to the cash/envelope system and are sitting down and doing budgeting again. In September. :) I guess I only get a 6 for effort.

4. Get organized for real - Ahem. I get a 2. 'Nuff said. I'm no good at this.

5. Get in shape for good - And then get knocked up. Hey, I did get in shape! "For good" probably wasn't the best choice of words on my part as I knew I would get pregnant again at some point. But at least I lost all the baby weight and was actually working on some muscle definition. That means I know I can do it again so I'm not quite as depressed about the current state of my weight as I otherwise would be. A major bonus is that I'm a good 12 pounds lighter now than I was with Ben at this point in pregnancy. I'm giving myself a 10!

Since I do better with "goals" than "resolutions," I'm setting some new ones now that I've (mostly) conquered these! Another post for another day, though. My little guy beckons from his new toddler bed. Adios!

18 weeks

So another few weeks have gone by without a post from me. Seems this is my new trend, huh?

I'm facing a dilemma that is killing me. Being on team green is easy when your 20-week ultrasound (aka the "big u/s") isn't looming just around the corner. Turns out being on team green is MUCHO difficult-o when you're a planner like me with no ability to delay gratification and your big u/s is exactly seven days from today. I have people on both sides of the fence trying to sway me and they both have good arguments.

Why should I find out? Because I can plan, first and foremost. Do we need to set money aside to buy a stash of pink newborn outfits or are we set with all of Ben's outfits? Can I buy a few pink diapers or do I need to keep with the current green-yellow-girly blue theme? You get the point.

Also, one of my biggest motivators in waiting is because I don't want to experience gender disappointment. In case you don't already know this (somehow), I want a daughter like mad. If I find out next week that this is another boy for us, there's such a finality to that. This is our last child (according to me) and if this one isn't a girl, that means I will never have that daughter. Really, I'm okay with that. I would love another squishy-faced boy like I have now! He's the GREATEST! But I know myself well enough to know that there will be a few moments of disappointment should the u/s reveal another little dangler. Now, if I wait until d-day, I can't imagine that I could feel a shred of disappointment should they hand me another precious boy. But those on the "find out the gender!" fence bring up a good point. It could still happen. And, worse, I could feel double the guilt because I hadn't expected to feel disappointment. Eek!

And finally, I'm dying to know, so there's the sheer fact that I'll be quelling this obsession to know the gender growing in my belly. And the fact that I might have a better chance of closer bonding should I be able to put a gender to this little one kicking and pawing away inside, keeping me up at night. But the truth is, I never had that motherly bonding with Ben pre-delivery, even after I knew his gender. Sure, I loved him with all my heart! But I just didn't feel that bond until I held him in my arms.

Why should I wait? Because, first and foremost, it's what my hubs wants, and I want to give him that experience!

I also can't imagine anything cooler than the moment our new one arrives, Tim swoops him/her up in his arms and announces, "It's a...." while handing our miracle to me. AH! Dreams are made of those moments!

I imagine that the thrill of that "We're about to find out the gender of our baby!" moment will really help distract me from the pain of labor and childbirth. Then again, labor was painful, dude. I'm not sure anything can distract me from those core-rocking, breathtaking contractions.

Finally, if I find out the gender next week, that means I'm done daydreaming over girl AND boy names. It eliminates an entire world of possibilities that are swirling around in my brain! And, let's face it, naming your baby is fun! Spending nine months coming up with all sorts of cool male and female names is so much cooler than four months.

Now that the brain dump is over, let's lament this ginormous belly.

It's so hot outside!

I mean really, it's unbearable. Heat indexes in the 109s+ scare me. And that's what we've been dealing with. AND I'M PREGNANT. I went to visit an old college roomie over the weekend in Oklahoma. I didn't think it could get any hotter than it's been in Kansas, but apparently it can. We skipped out on the baseball game we'd planned in lieu of putting on jammies, popping open some sparkling grape juice (she's preggo, too!) and watching chick flicks. I must say, it was an awesome weekend.

For those who asked, here's the newest belly picture. I had such great ambitions for doing a weekly picture in the same spot in the same outfit but, well, it hasn't happened. Maybe this week will be the week? Ha, unlikely. 14 weeks and counting! Did I ever mention we're staying on team green? Well we are. And now it's KILLING ME. I keep thinking how we found out with Ben at 15 weeks and that's only one week away! I could know in one week! Oh, the torture.


I think I've shrunk since 12 weeks?

In other news, I'm apparently fantastic at making manly men. Exhibit A (and this was NOT staged, believe it or not):



Do you think I could be as good at making girly girls? We shall see. Sometime in...oh, January. :(

I almost forgot! We got to see the bean in the belly last week! I'll spare you all the details of our TERRIBLE appointment with the most unprofessional ultrasound tech I've ever dealt with in favor of the mushy stuff. The baby picture! S/He still looks pretty ghost-ish, but cute, right? ;)

Diet follow-up!

Thanks so much for all the patience and e-mails! Wow, I didn't realize how many of you were still interested (and, consequently, how many of you have been patiently waiting for me). I'm sorry for being SUCH a procrastinator on this one. I'm working on getting everything together to send out a mass e-mail, so thanks again!

The diet stuff!

Okay, new plan. For several reasons, I'm not going to be posting the diet on my blog. Please e-mail me (even if you already did back when I posted about this originally) if you are interested in knowing more and getting a spreadsheet.

chelseasaidso at gmail dot com

Thanks so much! Sorry I can't put all the details up here.

Happy 4th!

Popping on really quickly to say Happy 4th of July to everyone! It's been a whirlwind weekend for us. Yesterday began at 5:45 a.m. since Tim wanted to run a local race. He placed 42nd out of 1500 which is pretty incredible and 4th in his age bracket, earning him an award! Way to go, babes!

Then we made it to our city's parade which proved to be one gigantic advertisement for local politicians and stores. It was kind of annoying but lesson learned. Then it was lunch & naps for all, followed by some old fashioned popcorn making (Popcorn! On a stove! Who knew?) and a stupid comedy movie to appease Tim. Oh, and then let's not forget about our flooded laundry room that we discovered at 11:00 last night. Man, I love home ownership.

Today's been church, lunch and some more lounging and tonight we're off to see FIREWORKS! Let's just hope my child can handle staying up 'til 11:00 tonight. It's never happened before!

For those who asked, behold the monster belly. No need to tell me, I'm already aware that "it might be twins!" or "man you're huge!" Thanks. Somewhere between 10 weeks and 12, my baby exploded in size.