Thank you EarthFare!

Right before New Years, EarthFare (one of my fav. grocery stores) held a contest on Facebook asking to share your New Year's Resolution. The winner would get to spend $100. Well, you can guess what happened since I'm writing about this!

Yes, I shared my resolution and I won!! How amazing and awesome is that?! Sprout is just becoming one lucky baby!! First REI, now this. I'll soon be offering belly rubs for good luck.

This is what I wrote:

"2013 marks the year I become a mom for the first time! So my resolution is to instill healthy habits to our baby that will carry on through life, by the products and food we give and through our own actions. And since I'll be pregnant for almost the first half of the year, what I eat and the products I use can also affect the baby. So, I aim to eat better and make sure any products I use are safe for the baby."

On Sunday Rob and I headed on over to the store and had fun with our shopping spree! Since it was sprout who inspired my resolution, it was only right to buy baby things. EarthFare has a great selection of natural and toxic free baby products. We got a few glass bottles, a sippee cup, a training sippee cup, hair brush, nail clippers, pacifiers, a nipple attachment for water bottles, teether and some extra nipples for the bottles. I also treated myself to some pregnancy tea and ointment.

I am truly grateful to EarthFare for choosing me as the winner and allowing us to buy such wonderful products that I know are good for our baby. I can't express how much I love that this store is just down the street. It feels good to go in there and know that I don't have to worry about what's in the food and products I buy.

27 weeks

Again no official belly shot this week. I think we may need to find a new spot since I can't foresee the guest room getting cleaned out any time soon.

I'm at the point now where I lose track of what week I'm at. Being pregnant is all I know and can remember. It's who I am. Was I really that skinny girl over 6 months ago?

Today we bought our nursery furniture! I finally got to go to Ikea and buy the furniture I've been looking at for so long now, over a year maybe? Before we started, we needed to fuel up with some coffee (decaf for me) and a slice of chocolate, because, as you all know, Ikea is exhausting. That's so why Ikea has a cafeteria, they know you need all the energy you can get to go through their store. But we did it! We got a crib, a mattress, a dresser, lamp and night stand. There's more we'd like to buy, but I need to see the room with the basics set up to really picture it. I'm also so happy that Rob and I totally agreed on everything, which made it so much easier.

Currently we only have the crib and nightstand put together. The trip to Ikea and our weekly shopping tuckered us out. The room already looks amazing! I'm incredibly happy!

Other than that, I'm feeling pretty good, 'specially after Monday and the doctors visit on Tuesday. My growing belly is really starting to stretch on top. I often feel burning and tightness. I'm totally loving Trader Joe's Coconut Body Butter. And last night I watched my belly tremble as sprout moved around. No creepy alien pushes yet, which I really hope I don't see, heh.

It's all really starting to sink in now. At this past Bradley Method class, we talked about the first stage of labor. That was really the first time I felt anxiety over going into labor. I know feeling like that won't help, so I took a deep breath and shook out those negative thoughts. This is something I has no choice but to go through and while it my be hard and painful, this is what having a baby is all about. This is why we are even taking this class, to prepare each other for that final moment before we have our baby. As long as I keep taking good care of my body, doing the stretches, exercising, practicing relaxation, keep smiling and have having positive thoughts and study what we've learned, then I've done all I can do and that's more than enough, even more that what most people do.

Pregnancy Ups & Downs

This week..

Pregnancy Ups

- We picked our day care! This was a very overwhelming experience since it's hard to make a decision like this when you haven't even had the baby yet. At first I was hesitant, but now I'm just excited picturing our baby going there and learning and having fun.

- Rob has started reading Good Night Moon to the baby. It feels a little silly, but it's fun and cute.

- Painting the nursery was such a exciting first step to getting the nursery ready. I often go in the room just to look at it. This weekend I think we're going to buy the furniture. I can't wait to put the room together.

Pregnancy Downs

- I had my first real pregnancy "scare"-ish. Monday late afternoon I had string cheese. Now I'm sensitive to dairy sometimes, I can have things like pizza, yogurt and cheese on sandwiches, but something like cottage cheese or massive amounts of cheese, a big no no. Apparently string cheese falls into that now since two hours after I had it, I was in SO much pain and had to lay on the couch for the rest of the night. I couldn't even eat my dinner until much later. Thankfully sprout was active, so I wasn't too worried, but worried none the less since I was in a lot of pain up until I woke up the next day. I called the doctor and they wanted me to come in, just in case. As was well of course....it was just the string cheese. A simple piece of freaking cheese. The doctor gave me some suggestions and tips on what I can do next time. On the plus side, I got to hear sprout's heart beat!

- My poor ribs just get so sore sometimes from all this growing. I started brining the heating pad to work since sitting all day does not help.

Baby List

Is it really that time to start thinking about registries?!

Actually, I feel like that about everything baby related lately. To which Rob likes to remind me that we have just a few more months.

So yes, it's time to start thinking about these things.

I happened upon Babylist while reading my fav. geek girl blog The Mary Sue. Basically it's an internet wide baby registry where you can add baby products from any site like Etsy, Amazon, Target, ThinkGeek. I really like that idea because I see baby products everywhere that I'm like, "I totally want that and it'd be cool to have something like that on a registry."

So naturally I thought we should start one (just cuz it's so cool). We live in a far away state and I would think that it'd be easier for our friends and family to shop online. I believe I can link other registries of ours to it too, like say Target. I was excited to see that I can also add something like a gift subscription or service, like I added Honest Diapers, a eco-friendly diaper service, which we get told often that babies need diapers more than anything.

I'm still playing around with it, adding a few things from here and there. We still need to do our brick and mortar registry for people who like touching things and not ordering on stuff on the web (and for those things that I need to touch and see as well). But for now, we've got this going on.

Check us out: Baby Biddiscombe

26 weeks

No belly picture this week. The room that we take the photos in is currently filled with furniture from the old guest bedroom. But let me tell you, I am getting bigger and rounder!

The old guest bedroom is no longer a guest room! It is now officially the nursery! We painted the walls this weekend. I have been waiting to do that for months now. As you can see in the photos, we went with a grey, which when you first hear it you'd think it's a weird color for a nursery, but it's actually a really nice and fun color when decorated with accent colors. I'm so excited to finally get this room looking like an actual put together room. Even when it was just our guest bedroom, it was just thrown together. But soon, it'll have real furniture and decorations and all that good stuff. And because we are moving the guest bedroom into the other room across the hall, we'll have to fix that room up as well. And when buying paint for the nursery, we bought paint for our bathroom, which is another room I've been dying to paint. Painting these rooms just makes this house more ours.

Another thing I did this weekend was crochet something for the baby. I made one of those stuffed animal heads that's attached to a blankie. I've seen those around and thought it's a great idea for kids. Kids like stuffed animals and kids like blankies! I made a sprout one! I didn't follow any sort of pattern other than how to make a crotched ball and some leaves. I think it came out pretty cute. I used some green cotton yarn I had laying around since I wanted to make this now and not have to go to the store. It's funny because I had *just* enough yarn. I really hope our baby will like it.

Other than that I've been feeling pretty good. Earlier this week I was feeling pretty achy and uncomfortable around my tummy. A lot of growing is going on in there and it's stretching me out. Such a weird feeling. But I did some yoga and I keep up with my stretches every day to help. Since I've been feeling good, I even took the dogs on a good walk on my own this afternoon. I was so happy to make the entire route, which I haven't done in months. It's not like it's a long route or anything either. It felt good to get some sunshine and fresh air and I know the dogs enjoyed it too.

Sprout has been moving more and more. I think we may have a schedule here too! Sprout is most active around 9:30-11 at night, then a bit in the morning around 7:30-8. The night time is just fun. I was bugging sprout on Friday by pushing on my belly. Sometimes it'd respond back, like "Ugh mom quit bugging me!" Last night I think it got the hiccups, it was small movements that repeated a few times. I just love it!

Pregnancy Ups & Downs

This week...

Pregnancy Ups

- Rob got to feel sprout move this week! Sprout gave some hard kicks the other night that you probably would've been able to actually see. Rob was able to feel a couple of those. Yay!

- I did yoga and my exercise dvd this week. I did yoga just because I wanted to and knew that I needed a good stretch for my body.

- Now that the holidays are over, it feels good to be eating normal again. There's so much fruit and healthy yummies at home.

Pregnancy Downs

- I've been pretty uncomfortable this week. My belly is either getting in the way or it's been achey from all the growing and stretching.

- Not a good body image week. It's ok, I'm allowed those once in a while.

- Being close to my third trimester and such, I started to get paranoid about preterm labor, if the baby will be born healthy and all that fun stuff. I know I don't have anything to worry about, but..well, I can't help worrying over nothing sometimes.

Hello 2013!

Happy New Year!
This is certainly going to be one of the best and amazing years I'll ever have!
For my resolutions this year, I adopted one of my fav. authors Sarah Addison Allen's 3 Word Resolution, which she shared on her Facebook page.

My 3 words are...

Create - Me and the couch have spent too much time together this last half year. I barely do any crafts, sew or draw anymore. My goal is to create more.

Move - Again, me and the couch is not good. My goal is to keep moving. Big or small. Running or just stretching. Anything that gets my body moving.

Mother - I'm going to become a mom this year, that's huge! While I know those first few months will be us getting into our roles, I want always be a good example to our baby. I want to teach it to be healthy, to be kind, patient, open minded, grateful, creative, positive and happy.

I'm not going to be strict on myself either. As long as I know I am trying and as long I as DO something, that's good enough.