bump - fifteen weeks

Without further ado, here's a picture of the bump!

Having a fixer-upper house (still lots more to be done!) and a new puppy means that Austin and I are really busy people! I hadn't been taking bump pictures because A) there wasn't much of a bump.. at all and B) we've been really busy!

I feel like I exploded over the weekend (yikes) but hey, I knew I had to start showing at some point! Why not at 4 months?

Also a cool thought: our mondo-baby (we all know s/he
will be enormous) is growing at his/her own rate now! For the first trimester-ish all babies are about the same. You can still track about how big the average baby is via the baby tracker, but I have a feeling ours is a little bigger :) and not just because I think the doctor has our due date off by about 5 days! Anytime in the next two to three weeks, I could start to feel baby move!


Getting excited about finding out if it is a Hannah or an Ethan (though apparently, everyone thinks baby is a Hannah!). Four more weeks!!

Love,

PS -  does anyone else think the shadow on this picture reminds them of the Shallow Hal movie cover?

meet Bear!

Bear is our new puppy, who we are obsessed with - partly by choice/force of cuteness, and partly because if we weren't, he'd poop and pee all over our house! He is twelve weeks old, and he is a mix of a Border Collie and (we think) and German Shepherd. He loves to play and have our attention. He is slowly learning to go potty outside, but he is also way too smart for that game.

Bear playing with his dad!

We read that we should just calmly pick him up when he starts to go inside (harder than it sounds when most of your house is carpeted) and take him outside. It's a long walk to go outside unless you're in the garage or our bedroom, which he almost never is. At some point, he learned that he gets to go outside if he "goes" inside, which ended up with countless trips outside (I think four times within 1 hour on Tuesday). So we started positive reinforcement (treats) when he "goes" outside. Works like a charm! Indoor messes have been significantly cut down. :)

Bear enjoying being outside... eating our grass (that's a no-no) sniffing EVERYTHING, playing, and going potty!

All this puppy sweetness just reminds me of the joys of babies. Bear got poop on the walls, and I read an article about babies doing the same the other day (I'm thrilled for that). I have little/no time to myself if Austin isn't around, I get ready within 15 minutes each day (I sacrifice the makeup) and spend all my time watching him. He isn't a baby but he sure is training me! All I have to say is... thank GOD that the baby will have diapers, and not have to run outside like with a puppy. The potty training will come later. And, thank God that babies aren't instantly mobile!

I'm excited for our baby to grow up with such a sweet and playful pup. S/he will have some awesome memories!


Love,

grandpa the fireman

Baby Haynes,

Your grandpa is a hero - a real, live hero. He fought fires for over 35 years before you were born. I promise that he will take you (lots of times) to go see real fire trucks and sit in them. His stories are pretty cool, especially the ones about him playing pranks on other firemen... but we'll wait until you're much, much older to tell you those!

I bought this for you today (couldn't resist).



Love you already,

Mom


PS - if you're a girl you'll wear it with a bow and a tutu, even though this is for boys :)

PPS - it would only be more perfect if it said 5 instead of 25!

heartbeat - week thirteen!

Today marks the end of my first trimester! Whoo hoo!!! I'm celebrating by going to the gym :) We have been working so hard on the house that we've neglected our workouts. It was nice to have a "lazy" Sunday - all we did was workout, laundry, change the locks (finally!) and watch some Game of Thrones! Trust me, compared to our last few weeks, that is a lazy Sunday! It's wonderful!

We heard baby Haynes' heartbeat again today, but I was a grumpy mama because I thought we were getting an ultrasound as well. Apparently I only get TWO, and I already used one! The good news is that we don't go back until May 6th, and when we do, we WILL have an ultrasound and we will find out if it's a boy or a girl! We will have to have some kind of gender reveal to go with it :)

Austin cheered me up (as usual) when we were in the office. The doctor picked up a machine that lets us all hear the baby's heartbeat, and it sounded like static/wind, so of course he made some joke about the baby trying to fight all the wind in there or something. Then we got a major case of the giggles, so we couldn't have heard the heartbeat even if we tried! The doctor finally got it and we all calmed down a little bit. Austin was recording it (I don't know how well it turned out) so if it's any good I will post it later.

I can't believe we will know if it's an Ethan or a Hannah in just six weeks! Lots of people have/are speculating about whether it's a boy or a girl. I'll occasionally feel one way or another, but it isn't consistent. It will be nice to finally know, so we can start planning the room (see previous post! It's going to be awesome/require a lot of time).

If you ever read this, little baby, know that your parents didn't care which one you were. We're blessed to be welcoming you into this world, excited for your future, nervous about being parents, and really just pray that you are happy and healthy. Oh - and tall, so we know you're ours and the hospital didn't switch you out. ;)


Love,

UPDATE: Here is a clip of the heartbeat! It's a video of nothing but it's cool to listen to.

the nursery

I'm a planner -  it's no secret. So is it a surprise that the nursery designs are already picked out? Here are the pins I'm basing the designs off of for either little Hannah Rosalie or little Ethan Michael.

If baby is a Hannah:

If baby is an Ethan:

Of course, I won't get the hubby to paint anything until May (after we find out the sex of the baby). We find out on my birthday week - what an awesome gift! Austin, this doesn't mean I don't still get presents!

Also, whenever we get around to it (soon), we will start taking bump pictures. At 12 weeks, I will finally say that my tight pants are getting a little tight. I'm thankful for my not-tight pants that will last me a few more weeks!

Love,

our busy life

We got back from Hawaii just under a week ago, and we hit the ground running with our bathroom remodel. Fortunately, I haven't been as tired as a I was a few weeks ago.. or maybe I'm just adapting :) I could always use a nap, though!

As of today, I am 11 weeks pregnant. I had to sit down and calculate that out. The baby is the size of a lime (that is crazy!), which makes me feel a little better about how chubby I feel! It's hard to believe it went from an olive to a lime in two weeks!

We still haven't told all of our friends, and we are slowly making that circuit. It's been hard to do with the move and the trip to Hawaii and the bathroom remodel. It sounds like a lot for a pregnant lady, but if you know me, you know that is my life! I'm always on to the next thing. I'm not the only one - Austin is really excited about planting a vegetable garden next weekend. I guess you could say I am rubbing off on him... :)

Our trip to Hawaii was great. I worked about 80 hours in one week, which made for a crazy week for me! When Austin got there, he rented a T-top Jeep Wrangler, so we got to enjoy Maui with the top down. We drove most of the West Maui Mountain and the entire road to Hana and back. It was an adventure!

Our last day there, I went into a little boutique in Paia and fell in love with a book for the baby. It's the first book we've bought for our first baby!

Here's the sappy note I wrote:

This is the book, which I love. The artwork is fabulous, and the poems are good, too:

XO,

seeing and hearing baby for the first time!

That's our baby! We heard the heartbeat, too - this mama cried! I had a better grip of the fact that I'm pregnant than Austin did, but it still struck me hearing the heartbeat that this is a baby! If you look hard enough (or use your imagination) you can see where the head and legs and arms are. We could even see the heart beating on the ultrasound.

I thought I was due on September 25, but the doctor pushed me back because the baby measured at 7 weeks and 6 days on Monday, so the baby is due September 30, and I am 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant! Disclaimer, this does mean Austin is only getting a baby from me for his birthday. I know, that may seem silly but it's really expensive to have a baby! We already got the bill, and my jaw dropped right in front of the receptionist.

I leave for Hawaii on Friday (Austin will join me next Thursday) and we will be back.... eventually! By the time I get back, I'll be 10 weeks pregnant! I go back for a checkup in about a month. They can run a special test ($$$) to find out the baby's gender as early as 11 weeks, but we will wait until 20 weeks, which would be around May 13th! That'll be my  birthday present. :)

Excited about our little raspberry!

how we told the grandparents..

I still want to come up with a unique way to tell everyone (read: post on Facebook) that we are pregnant, but this is the photo we used to tell our parents:



We got the idea from a couple who used their Rainbow sandals (daddy shoes, mama shoes, baby shoes) to do a baby announcement, and I liked it, but I thought wine and beer suited us better :) I also put October on here, but I'm pretty sure my due date is September 25th, though the doctor will determine that on Monday, when we get to see our child for the first time! I'm excited about that, because maybe then it'll really click for Austin that we are going to be parents. He doesn't see a belly so somewhere in the back of his mind he doesn't think I'm "really" pregnant!

I was excited to see what my parents would want to go by, but I think they're going to be a traditional grandma and grandpa, which I think suits them. Austin's mom goes by "GiGi", and his dad is "Grumpy", I believe. :)

I also keep getting the question of whether I think it's a boy or a girl - and I honestly don't know. I go back and forth, so I joke that maybe we'll have both a boy and a girl! ;) Austin likes that idea, but twins don't run in our families, so it's pretty unlikely, and I really don't think it's twins.

I'm really excited about little Ethan/Hannah, but really glad we have another 7-8 months :)

baby tracker!

TheBump.com is my favorite baby website so far, probably because all the other ones send me way too many emails. I'm excited to be pregnant too, but calm down with the emails!

They gave me this awesome pregnancy tracker, too:



That ticker will change with time, so check back every so often to see how big the baby is! Tomorrow makes 7 weeks, so baby is the size of a blueberry! I need to get on taking pictures of the "bump," but I have been too busy packing up our lives to get around to taking bump (or lack thererof) pictures. I do want to have some kind of progression pictures because I think those look awesome, so I will definitely get on those soon.

As a side note, one of the "sizes" they give for the baby is a banana. What? My baby is suddenly long and skinny? The rest of the fruit are more round, and I think this was intentional... but the banana thing is weird. That won't happen til this summer, though.

Thankful for my little blueberry,

UPDATE: I got a new due date, so that ticker is wrong (though I still think it's right, so whatever!). My doctor pushed it back five days (almost a week!).  Here's another ticker:

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baby names

Fortunately, I've been able to get a lot of hand-me-down baby books from my sister-in-law, Kristin. Jackson is now 3 months old (almost 4 months) so she doesn't exactly need a baby names book or "What to Expect when You're Expecting".

Both books have come in handy for obvious reasons. The baby name book helped us pick a boy's name yesterday. We had Hannah Rosalie picked for a girl's name a while back; we think Hannah Haynes sounds pretty sweet, and Rosalie was my late grandma's name. She was one of the most loving and giving people I've ever met.

Boys names were much harder to figure out. We knew we wanted Michael as a middle name, because it's Austin's middle name, and because it was his Papaw's name and his uncle's middle name - you could say it runs in the family! I was flipping through the book, reading all the names to Austin as we traveled to Austin, Tx to get a refrigerator and other furnishings from his Grammie (thanks Grammie!) late last night. I read so many names to him (and even joked about naming our kid Duke E. Haynes) before he decided he liked the name Ethan. I'm pretty open with names unless its totally off-the-wall, so the credit for this pick goes to Austin - plus, it was the first name we both really liked.

So, if we have a boy, he will be Ethan Michael Haynes. If we have a girl, she will be Hannah Rosalie Haynes. And Ethan and I would share the same initials :)

We won't know whether it is a boy or a girl until April or May. Until then, we will just keep praying that our sweet bundle of joy is healthy in mommy's belly.


Still getting used to the concept of being a mommy...