Farewell January, Hello February ... & Valentines Day

So as you can see by the name of this post I am quite excited to bid adieu to January and say hello to what could possibly be the best Valentines Day/February ever.  If you have read below we are finding out the sex on Valentines Day (as long as little one cooperates that is) and I am over the moon thrilled to see who is right and what jersey the peanut inside me will wear!

Another week has come and gone & I am as of tomorrow, 15 weeks and 5 days preggo! I really feel like I just sort of "popped" last night! I swear my belly normally gets smaller when I sleep, but today I woke up and bam there it was all nice and hard like...now don't take this the wrong way I am not complaining, it will be nice when KB finally doesn't ask me "are you sure there is a baby in there?" lol, its a nice thing to feel pregnant for once (I am sure I will be biting my tongue about this later!)

So here are my pics, I was bored over the weekend so I took one Friday as well (official 15 weeks) as well as one tonight! (mainly for my board with other future July mommies as we do a Hump Day Bump Day post each Wed..I cut my face out for those though!).

So yea I def feel bigger between the two and the baby did move up (I confirmed with the help of my handy dandy Doppler!) so he/she is growing in there!

All in all its been a pretty uneventful week with the exception of an incident involving KB (he is ok no worries, just a minor incident!).

Also I have devised a little survey I stole from another bloggers/preggo moms page to add each week so here goes...

Survey Says....

How Far Along : 15 weeks, 5 Days (as of tomorrow, its 9pm so it counts)

Size of Baby (in produce terms) : Navel Orange!

Symptoms : Still need a nap after work, slight heartburn..nothing out of the ordinary

Craving : SWEETS! (which is a sign its a girl if you follow those old wives ;)...)

Food Aversions : None, almost everything sounds good these days again

Next Appointment : February 14th!! having A/S scan & gender reveal

Weight Gain/Loss : Back up 2lbs shy of where I was at my 9 week appt (I was prev down roughly 5-6lbs)

On that note I am calling it a night...hope you all enjoy!

Another Day, Another Headache....

Hello World,

So we are officially in the 2nd trimester (woohoo) as of last week (I am going by the 13 week 3 day trimester timeline, others say 12 some say 14, but I am a numbers type of girl, 40/3 = 13.334 ). I am a little behind on pics, sorry about that!  Between a migrane last week and then this lovely sinus infection my wonderful coworkers gave me the past couple of days I have been a lazy bum.

Ok so here are my 13 and 14 week pics....I feel like this week the baby has def gotten bigger, I feel a lot more stretching and even a few flutters every now and then, which is awesome!

Not too big a difference, but I like having the weekly pics for comparison later!

(KB thinks I am nuts to be taking pics of my belly, he doesnt understand its quite common these days lol! men....what else can I say?)

On anothere note, had my meeting with my loan officer and we should be submitting all the information for loan approval within a week or so! Can you say exciting?! We are both so ready to get out of this apartment. It seemed so big when we moved in, but is quickly closing in on us and with a 5th member (including the kitties) joining the family we need to add some more square footage, plus another bedroom...well more like 2!

I will try to stay on top of things, I have some great DIY ideas I have almost completed for my "will you be my bridesmaid, maid of honor, flower girl" gifts and will share them once I get them completed and sent off!

I have also been researching some ideas for the nursery that I can start on as soon as we get into the house and I can get the sewing machine up and running (and of course once we learn the sex of the LO inside me!) to get working on them!

So sit tight and I promise there will be lots of fun coming soon!

Thanks for reading!

Locks of Love

So on a whim Saturday, I decided I would go in and see about cutting my hair off for Locks of Love.

Back Story: Ok so about 2.5 years ago, after the last time I cut my hair, I decided that the next time I grew it out that I would make sure to grow it long enough so that I could donate it to Locks of Love. See my cousin has donated to them before (her hair grows a million time faster than mine) and I like the idea of my hair being used to help a child as opposed to going in the trash!

Ok, so Saturday afternoon I went to Mitchell's and had a wonderful stylist! He was very supportive of me cutting my hair and helped to edge me along in the process, although he was NEVER pushy.  I was nervous as first, but decided that it was time. So after much reassurance from him that it wouldn't be too short, I told him to go ahead and lets do it!

So for the process he had to split my hair into three sections, one on each side and then one in the back.  Afterwards he asked me one more time if I was sure and like a brave person I said lets do it (yea I had complete fear in my eyes..lol). So there it went and he sat it on the table in front of me, ahh it was weird.  After that it was pure bliss! Got a nice shampoo and condition rub down, then I let him use his skills and cut my hair to what he thought would work best for me, which by the way I love as I can do so much with it now! Don't get me wrong I loved having my hair long, but really there are only so many things you can do with long hair, plus it feels soo much healthier now.

Ok so here is my pic of it cut, sorry if its bad, it was taken with a cell phone :)

Work Pic :)

So thats my Locks of Love story, I have the hair at home in a baggy just have to run by Wally World today to grab a padded envelope then its off to Florida to be made into a wig!

Hopefully tomorrow, Wednesday I will be posting a new cupcake recipe.  It is one of my coworkers bday's today (she took the day off today..lucky!), so I want to make some tonight for her arrival back to work tomorrow.  Since I have my energy mostly back I want to try and make every Wednesday, Hump Day/Cupcake Day! So be on the lookout for that as well.

 

Baby Update : my next appointment is February 14th, which is...Valentines Day! What a great day to find out such great news right, oh yea we & are finding out the sex!! We are super excited to find out and I will be sure to update once we do although we are keeping the name hush hush until the baby is born!  Also I will continue to update my weekly bump pics..although the next ones will be a little more creative, hopefully! ;)

Surprise!

So as you all know KB and I have some exciting news to share (heck you wouldnt be here if you weren't following my blog or saw my post on FB that brought you here!) So I guess instead of keeping you guessing I will go ahead and announce our news.....

Did you guess yet? No...ok I will tell you :)

We're Expecting!!

9 week ultrasound picture

 

That's right a little me or kb will be coming into the world, with an arrival date of July 20th, 2012!

Yea I know what you are thinking, but your planning a wedding and buying a house!...YUP now we are going to throw in adding a new little one to that list as well!

 I told you 2012 was going to be a crazy year for us!

More updates to come as time goes by, but as of tomorrow morning I will be 13 weeks along..3 days shy of 2nd trimester woo! I decided to make this known to the world after a great 2nd appt with my OB this afternoon where I got to hear the most lovely sound in the world, our little ones heartbeat pumping at 164bpm and they even kicked for me!

So far this has been a relatively great pregnancy, no morning sickness only a bit of nausea and some strong food aversions around 6-9 weeks but lately the only really "strong" symptom I have experienced is exhaustion...I have been falling asleep after work and then going to bed at 7pm. So really all in all it could be worse!

This is the 13 week picture I took tonight....

Not much of a "bump" really yet (well to me there is since it was flat before), but I will be doing a picture weekly or so from here on out so be on the lookout!

Thanks for reading!

Nicole

Wedding Salon/Location Visitation

Hello World!

Just got back from spending a wonderful 30hrs or so with my mom.  We made the 3.5hr ride out to Pine Knoll Shores/Atlantic Beach yesterday afternoon for a Wedding Salon, the Crystal Coast Wedding Salon to be exact.  I will have to say I wasn't initially jumping all over heading out there for this, but once I found out KB was headed to TN for work, I decided it would be fun to get out of the house and spend some time looking at venues with my mom!

I will say it was most definitely worth the trip and was a blast! The absolute best part for us was the hummer limo ride around Beaufort this morning to look at venues.  I have always known I wanted to get married outside and near the coast...initially I was thinking the beach, but since I would have to wear heels (KB is 6'3 and I stand a mere 5'2) the sand would just not work.  I since decided since we both love the water, boating and he LOVES to fish that somewhere on the sound or near a marina would be perfect!

Well I will keep you in suspense from there (as I dont want to give away TOO much too early), but I think I found that "perfect" location.  Just walking up, I felt like I was home and it just suited him and I to a T. 

On another note I now have 3 bags full of business cards, flyers, prices, cookies, candies, ect from all of the locations & vendors from the tour and show, so you know what that means.....I am spending my Sunday looking for a way to ORGANIZE all of this fun stuff!

Here are 2 I have looked at so far online...

 I like this one due to the 3 hole punch included so I can add things as necessary

This one seems like it would keep me well organized and had good reviews!

More updates to come later but for now I'll leave you with that ;) New cupcake recipe should be posted soon, I have a recipe I have been dying to try and KB is gone all week soooo Hello Baking!

Hello/Introduction

To those of you whom I know welcome to my blog, for any newbies this is just a quick intro!

My name is Nicole, I am a mid 20's college grad (business/finance) with a great career, new fiance!, soon to be new home and a knack for baking and a new love for sewing!

My general idea for this blog is to share ideas, recipes, and keep family/friends up to date on mine and KB's lives looking ahead.  We are currently living in NC in a small (seemed larger when we moved in) 1 bedroom apartment with our two kitties age 1 & 2 (Oliver (ollie) and Sophie).  KB is originally from Baltimore, MD and I am a southerner/GRITS (girl raised in the south) born and raised with an ALL northern family, yes I was the one not born in PA!

This year already has great prospects at being a very eventful and exciting year with lots of firsts.  First thing first...buying our FIRST HOUSE! We are currently waiting on the last steps of qualification and then its house hunting and hopefully getting out of our now tiny apartment before the spring is over! After we get into the house I will begin posting great DIY idea's I come up with for the home and also once I start on the details of wedding planning I will post great DIY's for that as well.  Speaking of wedding to all of our family, we did set a date, note countdown below.

Well I believe I have bored you enough for one post! Keep your eyes open for new updates, exciting ideas and lots of trials and tribulations with my cupcakes :) oh yea and ....

WELCOME!

After he Proposed : 1 mile high @ Grandfather Mountain!