Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Warrior Dash!

Over the weekend, C and his cousin Bryan participated in their first Warrior Dash. The guys had a great time and got good and muddy by the finish! Here are a few photos:


Warrior Dash-Before
The kids in the Warrior Hats
Fresh off the finish line and covered in MUD!
Enjoying their beer and turkey legs post-race

Kim (Bryan's wife) and I both missed out of the fun because we're both pregnant!  Maybe next time the boys can watch the kids and we can participate....but after the Ruckus last year, I may still be banned from adventure races :)

Happy Birthday Chris!

Last week, I tried to blog for C's birthday but I was having computer issues...which seem to be resolved so here's my belated birthday post for my husband!

 We were blessed to celebrate C's 29th Birthday last week!  He was lucky enough to celebrate three times: once with our parents, his god mother and his grandparents over the weekend,  twice when we went out to dinner at Sweet Melissa on Tuesday and then we had a special grilled birthday dinner of steaks, asparagus and twice baked potatoes on his day (yep, we even grilled the twice-baked potatoes)!

I thought it would be fun to share some photos of Chris over the years:

Baby Chris with his Mom, Sharon
4 Generations of 1st born sons
Chris and his best friend Zak, Boy Scouts
Eric, Brittany, Alicia, Danielle and Chris-Siblings!
Chris and I, the college days
College Friends
College graduation and commissioning
Skiing in 7 Springs
Chris and Eric at Family Day at Ft. Bragg
Getting his bike after deployment
Marriage Retreat Weekend in NC
Coming home from Afghanistan

Here are a few posts celebrating some of his other birthdays:

25th Birthday
26th Birthday
27th Birthday
28th Birthday

Meal and work out planning

We've had several weekends on the go, making it hard to meal plan but we did have some time this weekend to put something together:

Monday-Sausage, Kale and potato soup (here's a recipe from Pioneer Woman.  I don't use any half and half, cream or whole milk.  I use 1% milk instead.  It's thinner but still delicious)
Tuesday-Chicken Masala and Naan
Wednesday-Mexican Quinoa
Thursday-Hot Wing Pizza on the grill
Friday-Left overs/going out

Here's my workout plan for this week (note, we walk the dogs every day it's not raining):
Monday-rest day
Tuesday-Strength class at the gym
Wednesday-cardio
Thursday-Yoga at the gym
Friday-rest/walk
Saturday-Strength class at the gym
Sunday-cardio

So what are you up to this week?  Any new recipes or workouts on the books?

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Lovin for our little one

We have been so blessed with love and support since making our baby announcement a few weeks ago. We truly are grateful to the wonderful family and friends who are supporting us on this journey to becoming parents. Just check out the cards and gifts our little one has received so far:

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

14 Weeks: Bought my first pair of pregnancy pants

Week 14 of pregnancy brought my first maternity purchases, a milestone as C called it:  maternity jeans (skinny cropped jeans in indigo, since I'm short they aren't cropped on me and I hope to wear them with riding boots in the fall) and a top from GapMaternity and a stretchy tummy tube so I can still wear my pre-pregnancy pants.  I don't need the jeans or the top yet but both were on clearance and I know I'll be needing some bigger jeans in the fall so I picked them up early (and on sale as maternity clothes are pricey!)

Over the weekend, we attended a family wedding in WV.  So great catching up with my family and talking to my cousins who've already had babies and getting advice from them!  I'm blessed with a LARGE family so there are many who have been down this path of pregnancy before us.  I will say that hanging out with a bunch of folks who were lucky enough to enjoy some wedding cocktails while pregnant isn't so fun.  I was ready to go by the night's end.  We were also able to catch up with some of my old roommates, which was so nice!

Pregnancy Symptoms: I don't really have any food aversions but veggies are still not my friend and I have to force myself to eat them.  I do eat a lot of fruit and try to sneak veggies in when I can.  I've always been clumsy but pregnancy has made me drop everything...including my phone multiple times!  We ordered a new heavy duty phone cover from Otterbox for my iphone to help it survive pregnancy.  Max and Lila are enjoying my case of the "dropsies" and are on standby in the kitchen for clean-up duty.  I'm also experiencing forgetfulness and left my purse in church after the wedding....not so fun as we had to go back the next day.

Last night I laughed as C and I both got into bed with our baby books.  I'm reading "The Happiest Baby on the Block" which addresses crying and sleep cycles.  I'm about three chapters in and it's very informative so far!  Chris is reading "Be Prepared, A Practical Guide for New Dads", which he's finding comical (that's good, I guess!).

I would say the #1 question we are getting (after how am I feeling) is if we are going to find out if the baby is a boy or girl.  At this point, we are leaning towards no...but haven't made a final decision.  Either way, I want to do a gender neutral nursery.  I'm a planner by nature so I think it would be really nice to know so I could be prepared with clothes for the first year before the baby comes but I know it will work out.  We think the surprise will be really fun!  Our friends Alison and Steve did a gender-reveal party with their families and said it was so fun finding out the sex surrounded by family so maybe we'll think about something like that.

WV-certainly wild but not so wonderful

Over the weekend, C and I made our way to Morgantown, West Virginia for a wedding. Beautiful country, no doubt but getting around was rough! Our GPS clearly was having issues and we ended up on gravel roads more than once :). But it was worth it to see my cousin Darin and his lovely bride Mallorie tie the knot and spend time with family.

Pregnancy symptoms were not left in Ohio as I left my purse at the church and we had to make the 40 minute trek back there before heading out of town. I wasn't too worried about it being stolen, after all a church is probably the safest place to leave a purse!

As an added bonus, on our way home we were able to have brunch with newlyweds Kelly and Altay! So good to spend some time with them and hear about their honeymoon in Maine.
Gravel roads AND a giant puddle????  We turned around!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Country weekend

Over the weekend, we made an impromptu decision to head home for the weekend to hang out with C's family. We had a fun (and hot) get-together on Friday night and a (again, hot) family reunion on Saturday where we got to spend some with these cuties! They also had an auction at the reunion and we walked away with a fresh, homemade loaf of bread and two farm raised chickens to be delivered in 8 weeks. :).



While we were there, we gifted with lots of fresh veggies from the garden and we've been enjoying them all week! Gotta love country living :)

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Baby's first photo

On Friday, Chris and I went in for our first ultrasound and my 13 week checkup. All went well (after our 45 minute wait because they were running behind schedule). We heard the baby's heart beat, 161 and got some great photos of the little one!



I've gained 2 lbs since my initial checkup at 5 weeks but it feels like 10. I can certainly tell everything is shifting but have been able to keep wearing my regular clothes, thankfully, but I know these days are limited. I'm feeling better and starting to gain more energy, which is good! We've started to make lists of what we need to work on over the coming months, or at least I have :).

Over the weekend, baby received its first outfits-little sleeps from C's parents, so cute!


So momma friends, maternity clothes are on my horizon (or at least any bigger clothes), where were your favorite places to shop? Any tips and tricks I need to know?  Remember that I need to be presentable for work 4 days a week in business dress (yoga pants are acceptable in my home office!).


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Back at it-meal planning

Finally feeling good enough to think about what we're going to eat this week.  I also made bread dough, bought groceries and cleaned...getting back to a regular Sunday!  (well except for the afternoon nap).


Sunday- Corn and shrimp enchiladas.  These were tasty but next time I'd add some more spiciness.
Monday-steak, potatoes and sautéed green beans
Tuesday-Mexican quinoa with black beans and avocado
Wednesday- BLT's, corn on the cob and grilled squash
Thursday-I'm traveling so C's on his own
Friday-left overs


Glad to have enough energy to do some planning!  Hopefully that continues over the next few weeks (my midwife assures me I should feel a lot better by weeks 16).