Go Bears!, my new haircut, and seeing friends

Some hilarious images that I posted on facebook this week! Trash talking before the big game! LoL

Dos Equis XX sponsor photo edit.. lol! hilarious!

Urlacher !!!

On Friday, I went out to dinner at Rock Bottom with some of my Delta Sigma Pi friends to Rock Bottom. It was delicioso! :) I hadn't seen baby Addison in forever so it was nice to see Nick, Renee, and their lil peanut. She's gotten so big.. she's pushing 8 months. Her birthday is late June and Renee says she's on formula and home-made food! Renee says Addison likes her veggies and is teething.  I also saw Megan and Doug. Doug brought us some sneaky Chicago Bears football, bear towels. He works for the Bears so he was able to score us some souveneirs from today's game. So of course we talked football and he says he's loved working this season. :) Megan is doing well and is going to be an aunt for the third time as her sister is due late May... a few weeks behind my due date :) We'll see... we could end up delivering on the same day as due dates are always like +/- 2 weeks! That'll be cool! I also saw Sondie and we caught up a lil about her work and we talked a lil about me and my pregnancy. Dave had to work at Outback on Friday night so he missed out on the fun this night but he was there in memory. :)

On Saturday, I woke up bright and early to head on over to the salon. I decided to chop my hair! I know I didn't need or want a mom haircut but my hair has been getting really knotty and thick lately.. so I wanted to chop it. I got a lot of layers so my hair looks really a lot shorter than it is. It hits right below my shoulder. :) I'll have to post pix soon :)

Then, I headed up north to see my lil nephew, Mason. :) He was adorable as ever but had a cold. :( He was fussier than normal and had a hard time with his congestion. Poor thing. I hope he feels better! My brother and I discussed the housing market and things like that. We both are in hopes of the market picking back up so we can have some equity in our homes. It's so sad for first time homeowners that made purchases with 20% down payments like we had... and well, it's all gone because of the marketplace. It really sucks how responsible people who pay their bills and make good choices and investments have to suffer because of stupid financial firms and MORE stupid consumers who do not know how to pay their bills and foreclose. Grr.. I digress.

I stayed up north until about dinner time and then headed back down to the burbs. I was feeling run down.. I had a busy day. So I came home and did some chores as Josh was flying into Midway to visit for the weekend and have some Bears game day fun! Go Bears! By the time Josh got back from Midway and running some tailgating errands, it was like 10:00! So we did not have a chance to head on out to really celebrate at the bars, and visit some friends like we had hoped to.

On Sunday, was BEARS SUNDAY! Josh and Dave went to the game and I stayed behind to watch the pups. Unfortunately, the Packers ultimately played better and our QB, Cutler was having a bad day.  Time winds down and it was too lil too late... Bears lost 24-17.

tailgating video 1

Josh flew in from FL for the game. Here he is in front of the corrolla!

tailgating at the South Lot

view from the 50 yard line seats! Boo to the cheesehead

Go Bears!

PACKED STADIUM for the game of a lifetime!

after the game view of the field.. 21-14 L for the Bears.. oh well.. Go Steelers! LOL!

People were really BADMOUTHING Cutler after the game... one dude even burned his Cutler jersey. Dave caught it on tape!

Perhaps next year... with better coaching.. better plays... and MORE heart will bring home a W and a superbowl  trophy!

25 weeks- sm bag of sugar

Georgie is 25 weeks tomorrow! 105 days to go!

• We have our week 25, appointment at 5:50 p.m. at the Rolling Ridge branch of DuPage Medical Group (south Naperville) on Monday the 24th.
• Georgie tips the scales at 1 1/4 pounds and is more than 11 inches long
• Think of a small bag of sugar
• Did you know in the last third of pregnancy, Georgie will double and triple his/her weight!?
• My Georgie can touch and hold his/her feet and make a fist
• Dave allegedly can hear his/her heartbeat by pressing his ear against my belly
• Georgie has a regular sleep schedule now and active and inactive periods
• Georgie's nostrils, which have been plugged, open up.

According to my bump.com checklist, I'm only one thing behind... and that is on the names. Dave and I have decided if she's a blonde (Ellie) vs brunette (Avery). However, if it's a boy we can't agree. I've loved the name James forever but I hate Jim/Jimmy as a nickname for a boy.. sorry to the Jim/Jimmy's out there.. I'm sure you hate my name Kathy, in return.  James is a family name for Dave's side of the family but Dave says he'll call the boy Jimmy as a nickname and I can't stand it so it's been taken off the ballot as first name, and bumped to middle name. Dave continues to like Michael/Mikey/MJ.. and I love the sound of Benjamin Nash or Brady Nash but he hates Benjamin but he is a strong maybe on Brady.  So we'll see.. we are going into the delivery room with 2 lists and once the baby comes out, it'll have a name depending on the look. Who knew actually solidfying a name would be so tricky!? I've never liked my name and I always thought it was so common! So I like unique names but I also don't want to name our baby a top 10-20 baby name as then the kid will feel so 'trendy'/'modern'/'common'. I dunno. It's a tough decision to make. Who knows if I see her I'll even think she looks like an Ellie or Avery? Who knows if I see him, he'll look a Michael, Benjamin, Brady, etc.? :/ I just hope Georgie likes what we call him/her. Dave told me he loved his name growing up.. and I told him I hated my name growing up "Kathy"... blah. :P

Upcoming! Weeks 26-28 I have to take the glucose tolerance test. I will go to the dr. and be prepared to stay there for 1 hour. I drink this stuff.. and 1 hour later they run all sorts of bloodwork to see if I'm diabetic. I've heard it's nasty... but I have a sweet tooth so perhaps it won't taste bad since I love pop.

I took some questions from thebump.com to prepare for Monday's appointment since these last 105 days will fly by and now I'm starting to feel like I should get some questions answered. Usually, I never ask questionst at my appointment. I pee, I get weighed, I get my pulse taken, I get my blood pressure taken.. and then the nurse looks for a Heart Rate /noise with the machine for Georgie's HR (usually 140-160 bpm). I'm outta there in 15 minutes. This Monday's appointment, won't be on my lunch break so I'm actually going to ask a lot of questions, FOR ONCE! I'm sure the dr. will be annoyed.

1. Is it safe for me to paint my nursery?
2. Do I need more Omega-3?
3. What happens during a glucose tolerance test, and what's it for?
4. Should I preregister for giving birth at my hospital?
5. What's the point of a maternity ward tour?
6. What should I ask when I tour the maternity ward?
7. Do I actually need a birth plan?
8. How will a breech baby be delivered?
9. Who should I invite to be in the delivery room with me?
10. When will I start feeling my baby kick? ( as I feel "flutters" only now)

If you feel like helping me pick out paint samples and prime/paint the nursery and closet, let me know :) :)

Baby Shower Planning

I told my mom I would take care of ordering invites as she's not super duper technically advanced with ordering invites. She's used to going to the factory card outlet. So, I ordered our invitations from vistaprint to send to our family and close friends. They'll be ready in 14 business days. Now that I think about it, I used vistaprint.com for our engagement party/housewarming party in 2007, save-the-dates at our 2009 wedding, as housewarming presents for Alexis/Adam in 2009, business cards for Dave's PrePaidLegal business in 2010, and other odds/ends gifts. I highly recommend them. They consistently offer us low prices and quality products :)

front of our invite

back of our invite

I wasn't sure about doing this diaper gift and raffle idea but at least 3 different friends really recommended doing this as a game at our shower. Allegedly, babies go through diapers fast! hahaha!

My coworker Donna, showed me an example of what she said she'll do for our centerpieces at our table :) She threw her niece a shower awhile back and used them. Very cute!

She's so creative!

24 weeks

Throughout this 23rd week, I've felt Georgie a little bit more. Sometimes I won't feel Georgie at all in a day.. and other times I'll feel Georgie more often. Also this week, I continued to register for Georgie online.  I really like BuyBuyBaby's customer service and layout more than Babies'R'Us.. but Babies'R'Us has a 15% completion discount over BBBaby's 10%.. so chances are I'll register for similar items at both stores and then that way people can shop with their coupons and the store closer to them. :)


On Friday, I spent the evening with Elizabeth. It was great to see her and show her my baby bump. She and I receive the "world's fastest manicures/pedicures".. We showed up at 6:30 for mani/pedi to the salon on Dundee/Quentin corner and the 4 lovely asian women were speedy to give us our mani/pedis.. and no joke WE WERE OUT THE DOOR BY 7:15 p.m. Not sure if everything was really dry.. but they closed at 7:00 so it was nice of them to squeeze us in. LoL. We gabbed about Elizabeth's amazing, new endeavor... a cookie business! Her business is called CustomICED cookies and she's doing it out of Inverness.. she's getting her website up and ready but I love her work. She gave me 4 new recipes to test try: chocolate chip, red velvet, lemon/poppy seed, and red velvet with chocolate icing. Or maybe it was 3 new recipes? Nonetheless, they were tasty. I actually really enjoyed the lemon/poppy seed a lot. I hope to use her cookies for our future, baby shower.  So... we then went to Chili's after our speedy mani/pedi's to gab some more. We had the most unusual waiter ever! lol! seriously he made us laugh a lot this night. Haha. We reminisced about some friends, high school memories, and I probably talked too much about Georgie. LOL.


On Saturday, I went with my mom to Jameson's Charhouse on Dundee, in Arlington Heights. I researched a few places and this place had the lowest tax/gratuity and best overall package of soup/salad/3 entree choices for our guests.  Plus they are a formal restaurants with white tablecloth and napkins and they are including a free punch bowl for us :) I think this will make my mom happy. My mom is throwing us a shower! My mom is from Poland, where baby showers are not really common. She'd rather give us hundreds of dollars to spend on items from our registry rather than throw us a party. So it was very very nice of my mom to do this for us! I'm very excited :) :) My coworker Donna said she'd put together some cute centerpieces too :) Yay! I'm so thankful for my mom and Donna for helping out with the shower! :)


Speaking of showers... I went to Julie's shower at noon on Saturday. Her due date is March 1st. I think she may name her lil peanut, Christian James Franklin. I'm not sure if it's set in stone but it was nice to see Julie, her bump, and meet some of her friends, coworkers, and family members. Her mother, Sue threw such a lovely lovely shower. Julie got tons of cute items for the nursery, the baby, and stuff for the diaper bag/changing! :) Good stuff! Here are some pix from Julie's baby shower.

Julie's cake

a basket of goodie from her mom to Julie

Julie & Jimmy's goodies for their son

Jeanne & Kaylyn

what 33 1/2 weeks vs 24 weeks looks like. Haha

I think the picture of the day! I love their reactions :)

Overalls!!

After the shower, I went to my parents house as we were going to Champs Sports Bar & Restaurant soon. We went to dinner there for my brother's 32nd birthday. We saw lil Mase man! :) He's like 5 months. Here are some pix of us!

The Reids

Mason sucking his thumb

Me & Dave @ Champs

Mom & Dad

Another pic of Mason, 5 months

On Sunday, I woke up and just had a lot to do around the house. I did chores and laundry and the house looks nice and clean. I feel a lot better when I clear up the house! It's nice coming home to a clean house.


So that's what's new with me & Georgie! :)

23 weeks

On Friday, I went to Uncle Julio's with my girlfriend Angel.. Boy was I full. It was nice seeing Angel and catching up with her and showing her my bump :) We chit chatted about work, our boys, and how our holidays went. It was good and as usual, the food was tasty. Georgie ran out of room down there after I ate 2 tacos and chips'n'salsa.. I was so full! :/

Afterwords, I went to buybuybaby nearby in Downers Grove and registered... or began. I was there until 9:15 p.m. zapping away. lol. They suggested I register for a lot as I get a completion  discount of 10% off of all remaining items on my registry up to 3 months after my due date. I have a lot to clean up still off our registry but I started at least . It's been decided that it's hard to register for neutral stuff. . If I get anything pink or purple.. it's obvious.. but if I get things blue and green it's obvious. There's only so much yellow out there when it comes to passifiers and bibs.. sadly... I tried to stick to the royal colors like red/blue/green and registering for those items.   I saw some really cute sippy cups from Toy Story 3 so I zapped those as well. I saw the stroller/convertible system I think we'll get. I'm kind of torn between the Graco Hathaway or the Maddox. Both are pretty neutral and are light-in-weight and hold up to 30 pounds. :) We registered for a Britax Convertible car seat as well.. $279. yikes! I'm going to register at BuyBuyBaby as I like their customer service and store layout but I'm also going to register at BabiesRUs still as that store is like 5 minutes down 59 so I have a feeling we'll be going there a lot for our completion discount. I just wish there were more than 4 locations of BuyBuyBaby in Illinois.. I love how you can use the 20% or $5 off coupons everyone gets in the mail for BedBath&Beyond since they are partners with BuyBuyBaby. The only catch is that you cannot use expired coupons at all at BRUs or BBBaby... they both honor each others / competitor coupons as long as they are not expired.  I called to check!

On Saturday, we had 2 more contractors/fabricators come out to offer me granite/new sink quotes! And, Dave's Uncle Kirk came over to fix the ceiling dry wall from where the ceiling fan was installed. So Saturday I just did lots of laundry and hung out at the house. My car wassssssssss so dirty so I got my car detailed and then picked up some stuff from Costco as well. Low Key day and night since Dave had to work at Outback on Saturday night!

Today, I woke up and did some more chores... and then, went to Kristen/Mike's to pop on over to visit them and they graciously gave us some goodies for Georgie. :) A bottle warmer. A lamb papisan chair for soothing. Bottles. And, a baby carrier. Totallllllllllly was not expecting the goodies. Holy cow. We are super excited and grateful!!! Can't wait to read up on how to use the stuff and get the nursery ready this spring :)

We wrapped up the weekend by popping on over to see my dad. Mom is in Poland so he's probably kind of lonely. Dave did some grad school homework and we watched playoff football at the same time. All in all.. a good weekend :)

Georgie is 23 weeks now. Here are a couple of updates from this week's alerts:

• Georgie is more than 11 inches long and weighs just over a pound (about as much as a large mango)
• Blood vessels in Georgie's lungs are developing to prepare for breathing, and the sounds that its ears pick up are preparing him/her for entry into the outside world.

22 weeks

Dr. Weeks called me today and left me a voicemail while I was at work. He said that everything looks terrific after reviewing our December 20th ultrasound appointment. The only thing he said was that he didn't get a good look at the baby's heart due to the baby's position.. so he wants me to come in for another ultrasound 4 weeks from now. 2/2/11

Bonus! Another ultrasound. :) Very good! So we have that to look forward to at around 26 1/2 weeks.

What's going on with Georgie....Baby is size of box of sugar or a bag of coffee beans or a papaya...

• Georgie is almost 1 pound.
• Georgie's lips, eyelids, and eyebrows are becoming more distinct, and he's even developing tiny tooth buds beneath his gums.
• Georgie's eyes have formed, but his irises (the colored part of the eye) still lack pigment.
• Inside Georgie's belly, her pancreas-- essential for the production of some important hormones-- is developing steadily.
• Real estate is getting tight, with growing baby leaving little room for your lungs to, well, breathe!
• I agree! I'm huffing and puffing already!
• There's not much room for your belly button, either-- it'll pop out any day now.
• I agree.. what I dubbed "the grand canyon of belly buttons" is getting more and more shallow!
• During the next month, the baby's weight may almost double
• Her skin is filling out as the first layers of fat are deposited and her muscles grow
• By weeks 23-24, my baby is now about 8-11 inches long and weighs 1-3 pounds.
• What began as gentle wiggling will become poking and even sharp kicking.
• Georgie's settling into sleep cycles, snoozing about 12 to 14 hours a day!
• Watch what you say --- Georgie is NOW able to hear outside noise from down in the womb!
• uh oh! this means no more sailor mouth Kathy.. or I'll try to bring it down a notch.
• Nipples are starting to sprout, and that little face is fully formed.

Q: Why does Georgie kick sometimes and not others?
Allegedly, babies are sleeping a lot nowadays and when I'm more active, Georgie is sleeping. When I'm inactive, Georgie is more awake. Here and there I feel Georgie. It's not all the time but Georgie's there. On Monday night, while I was watching "The Biggest Loser" Georgie was moving and shaking! I actually felt Georgie move my hand a little bit. :) I wish Dave was there to feel Georgie. I'm sure Dave will feel Georgie soon but he's really busy so nothing to report yet.

I hope Dave will feel Georgie move.. tonight we're going to Sweet Tomatoes.. Yum!

Babymoon

Dave & I went to Orlando, Florida this past long weekend for New Year's Eve! Dave left to go to Orlando on Wednesday and I joined him late on Thursday evening. I wish we could have stayed longer but I only had 1 personal day left to use since we went on 2 vacations this summer. Oh well. Dave enjoyed going golfing on Thursday with Josh and they went out on the town on Wednesday and Thursday evening.


On Friday, we spent the whole day in Epcot. We went to the liquor store to pick up some hard alcohol to sneak in :) Then we headed over to the park. Josh said the parking lot was really really crowded and that he hadn't seen it this crowded. I picked up our tickets at will-call and then we 'drank around the world'... only thing is I couldn't really drink. But the boys did. Josh's wife Stacie and lil Zack were going to meet up with us a little bit later once they were done getting ready.  In addition to not drinking it really was not okay for me to go on some rides. I wish I could have gone on Race Track since I missed it when we were there in June. You would not believe the crowds. I took pix of it...

Me in front of the big ball... front of Epcot

Week 22! technically 21 weeks 6 days... but who's counting ;) <3 the tree!

Holy crowds... in front of the English Pub, in England

So Dave and I got there in the morning, and started off walking towards England. We popped into the pub for a drink and to get out of the heat. It was like 78 degrees.. haha!! We are not used to the sunshine and heat since it's been like 13-18 degrees this winter. Burr!! We caught up and heard some stories from Josh and his travelin' days with Stacie. :) Of course we talked about Zack and how different he is at 8 1/2 months, from our visit in June when he was probably 10 weeks. :) He's a cutie pie. We then went on over to Moracco and Italy :) to get more drinks.

Josh & Dave as we walk around Epcot

Me in front of Moracco, in Epcot

I was really excited to be in Italy. lol.

I wanted to document my clammy hands care-of FLORIDA humidity

Dave & I on the bridge, in Italy. :) This is as close as we'll get to Italy until we go there. :)

I needed a 'sit down' break so Josh & Dave were chilling and talking on the bridge, in Italy

Stacie, her sister Laurie, and lil Zack came in for the fun.. we went to Mexico for some food and we also went France for food. I ate like a mad woman at Epcot. I ate a pretzel in Germany, an ice cream cone near France, chips/salsa in Mexico, a ham/cheese on French baguette in France, and funnel cake in America. YUM!!! SO much food! LOL.  I have to say the funnel cake was the best :) I recommend. Here are some pix of Zack once he came...

little Zack, 8 1/2 months

Me & Zack getting in line at Mexico, for dinner

Stacie's sister, Christie and her roomie, Tom met up with us at France so we had dinner and chit chatted while the guys got us food and waited in line. It was so crowded so most of the food/drinks lines were rather long. Oh well. :) It was fun to people watch in their NYE get ups. After France we walked over to Italy to find a spot for fireworks. We didn't know if we wanted to go to China for the fireworks or watch them at Italy. We decided to watch them at Italy. Stacie's parents Lyle & Carol were there and her younger sister Tammi and brother Timmy also came. So there was a nice crowd. I really need to learn how to put videos up on this blogger because I took so much more video than I did pictures of Epcot. I videotaped the entire fireworks! Here are some pix though from the NYE night...

Now we found our way to Italy for fireworks! Here in Italy they have a lot of house music, lasers, and young people having fun!

Dave was jamming to the music... lol. A few drinks in ;)

Partying for NYE 2011

Holy crowds!

Crazy glowing sticks, necklaces, swords, & everything came out for sale in Epcot

Josh accompanied me for my sit-down break, hahaha.  My feet were so sore after walking around for 10 hours!

Christie, Josh, Tom, and Dave

The rest of the weekend we really just relaxed with the Busbys. We watched football and bowl games the entire day of Saturday. Josh and Dave hit up the grocery store and Josh prepared ribs for us. The Busbys were very giving and gracious hosts. We enjoyed our stay. We slept in until about 11:00 a.m. as between Epcot and me DDing' the boys to the Waffle House for drunk food. LOL. I was so tired, I even took a nap next to Dave on the couch while we were watching football.  Here are some pix from our Saturday together relaxin'. Overall the babymoon was a lot of fun and restful!!!! Epcot was everything I thought it'd be and I enjoyed the fireworks and company very much. I did not feel baby very much while I was there but I'm not sick, tired, and had 0 side effects of traveling at 22 weeks pregnant. :) So I'll be the first to put a stamp of approval on traveling in your 2nd trimester. 

Recuperating from NYE 2011, lol.  Having dinner! mac'n'cheese!

Zack cuddling with Dave for his afternoon nap.

Zack getting burped by mom. Zack has 3 teeth

Jewels being cute

Mommy loves Zack :)