27wks 2days - Getting ready for baby... in so many ways :)

The past few weeks we've been looking at our finances with an eye toward the upcoming year. I will hopefully be staying home with the baby, which definitely affects what we'll be able to spend and how we'll be spending it. When we started looking at how we spend our money now, we realized that we've fallen into a pattern of buying groceries with the intent to cook healthy meals (read: organic food and lots of fresh produce and lean cuts of meat), then coming home to work overtime and spend our "spare" time on the bathroom, and eating out because there's no time to cook or clean it up. This means we spent a rediculous amount of money for two people for food. This month, we cut that in half, even with the trips to my parents house and visitors. The fun part was living off of the food that we already had in our house for the first few weeks. It is amazing how much food we had between our cabinets, our upstairs fridge and freezer, and our deep freeze. I finally ate all of that cereal I had leftover from my first trimester. (there were ten different boxes sitting on my kitchen table for months!) And I've become very creative with the meals I make. Dan, however, has not been as creative with the names he gives my dishes. A big batch of "gop" lasted us almost a week =) Despite the less than stellar name, he did like it and ate it all up!

We're also getting ready for baby in another way. This past week when meeting with my mentor, we were talking about my car and how it still seems to be running. We had thought a couple of months ago that we'd have to buy something new soon, but then the car kept going and so I told my friend that I'm not sure when we should buy something, since the car is still working just fine. So what did we do? When praying, she specifically asked God for wisdom for Dan and I to know when to buy the new vehicle. The next day, on my way to work, ding!ding!ding! goes the idiot light for the engine temperature. My car's overheating... hmm... I call Dan, and pull over, and refill my coolant resevior with water which we keep in the trunk because these things come in handy with a car this old. A few more miles down the road, and it happens again. Only two miles left to get to work, so I wait for it to cool down, and make it into the parking lot as the guage is topping off again.

Also, during all this, the engine starts doing this funny chugging/lurching thing. I tell Dan what we prayed for, and he just laughs. At the end of my shift, I refill the coolant with more water, and I only have to stop once on the way home, but the temperature is maxing out again as I pull into the driveway. Dan spends the weekend cleaning out the coolant system, and changing the oil to see if this helps, and getting the paperwork together for a car loan. It does help, for a little bit, but the next time I go to work (which is in Baltimore), I drive the truck and since he works in Annapolis, he takes the car. It overheats again. Off to the mechanic it goes. And me? I'm car shopping! Minivan land, here we come!

26wks 4days - We're growing a gymnast :)

I'm hoping to post some pictures when I get home from work tonight, as we've had a couple of sonograms since the last time I posted them. Even though life keeps going and things keep happening, time does not stand still in utero to wait for me to be finished dealing with my "regular" life and be ready to focus on Baby. So, in the past couple of weeks, her movements have grown, her body has grown, and *my* body has grown!

I was in gymnastics as a child (LOVED it) and I think this little one is practicing already. Even as I'm sitting here, I can feel her flipping from head down to feet down, and back to head down. She gets herself turned sideways, and stretches my belly out and I just have to stop and wait, and then flip! there she goes again. Her movements are strong enough that you can see by belly do this little bounce thing when she kicks.

And my belly! It's getting bigger! I mean, it's not huge yet, but it's in the way sometimes. I find myself trying to squeeze past people at work, or between a chair and wall, and just getting stuck, because I forget that I don't fit anymore. I did some weeding on Monday, but when I bent over to pick out the chickweed clumps, it was actually painful--there's just no room for me to bend over like that anymore. So I ended up sitting crosslegged and leaning forward, which gave my belly more room. And while it all still fits, some of the smaller maternity shirts are getting full. I can see that they will most likely not last into August. I look down at myself and wonder how it can get much bigger, how much more size do I have left to gain?