20 Weeks (5 months)

Almost to 20 weeks (on Friday) , which is the half way mark.
Which is TERRIFYING and EXCITING at the same time!

                                                                           18 weeks

I just wanted to share some of the good, the bad and the ugly of things up to this point.
(I promise more good than anything!! )

Everyone has questions for a new mom.
 "how are you feeling?"
"how did you tell everyone?"
"any crazy cravings"
"what names have you picked out?"

soooooo
To start off, we found out pretty early, like right at 4 weeks, which is crazy bc in reality the little thing was only 2 weeks old and just a speck of dust in my body.
I had to go to the DR right off (which confirmed the two lines) because I am A- blood type which requires me to get a shot so my body accepts my baby and it's blood and doesn't decide other wise, ALSO so my body would accept more babies in the future. Of course that is the lamens summery of events, but you get the just :)

                                                          8 weeks. This is also how we told my Brother in law.

It was so hard not to run around telling everyone!
Like really hard!
But we did get to tell our families :)

I gave my mom a pair of big Ol' granny panties and made her figure out why I would have given her nude panties that go up to her bellie button... Watching her figure it out was very so funny! At first she was offended, then confused and finally all the dots connected. I am evil and laughed the whole time :)

For C's parents we were able to casually work it into a conversation, which was really funny to. His grandparents are coming to stay this summer, so we just mentioned that they should move their dates to ensure that they will be here in June. This was also entertaining to watch the thought process happen.
Really, am I evil??  ;)

Overall I have really been blessed to feel pretty good.
I had some sickness in weeks 6-12. Mostly in the mornings but sometimes it lasted all day.
And some times I would just feel crappy. Un-comfortable. But I know other women who have (had)  it way worse! Thus, I won't complain to much.
I was able to keep going by keeping food in my belly. I really noticed an increase of crapyness when I had an empty stomach. (and I sleep, a lot.)

I have good energy levels now too which is really nice!
We lived in an un-decorated house until the end of November when my mom came over and helped me make it feel more homely :)

Smells!! Oh smells... I have always had a really good sense of smell(when I don't have allergies)    which became even more magnified with pregnancy. Police departments could seriously pay me to sniff out drugs or bombs money.
You know how all houses have a certain smell that you associate with them? Like your grandmas house or a childhood best friend.And they would always smell like that to you.
Well, our new house came with its own smell. It didn't stink. But I hated it and I was apparently the only one who could smell it! When I traveled out of town I could smell it on my clothes and I would gag!
I had scentsy and candles EVERYWHERE!
Thank the lord it has gone away! Or I have gotten used to it. Or I lost all sense of smell....

                      8 weeks. I think I was just bloated here. This was when I could "smell" our house.

FOOD. yummm food..
Well yum to some foods... Some of my tastes have changed a little, my GAG reflex has really increased, and sometimes I just have no control over it..
Like when brushing my teeth.
Or smelling fried food.
Or trying a new food that I'm unsure about....
Anyway.
I really haven't noticed a super increase in appetite, and I try to keep it that way. I eat when I need to , don't worry!!!
No crazy cravings or food combos yet. With the exception of having the ability to eat crunch tacos everyday if I needed to.
Most other cravings are of the "seefood" variety, and come from seeing something or hearing about something and then I HAVE to HAVE IT NOW! Example: a cokefloat vs rootbeer float debate on Facebook,  which  instigated stopping by the store for rootbeer and ice cream, immediately.

Oh yeah how could I forget!
I pee alot.
ALOT!
Night time is the worse! I guess the little bugger sits right on my bladder when I lay down, so I get up at least once every two hours :( The most disappointing part is when I only pee a little, but it feels like I have a tank full. (hahaha ;) )

Buck or Doe??? Nine days until you will know!
We find out tomorrow, but we will tell everyone next week.
Maybe you will be lucky and get a name too.
Maybe not.
We have not decided if we will share that yet ...

Cupcakes and Diapers

My girlfriends and I went on a recent adventure - to further my research on cloth diapers . 

(more to come on that soon. hold you opinion) 

In order to keep spirits up, I brought them to my favorite bakery.

This place is plucked from my dreams! 

I mean for real!! Does it get any cuter than this??? 

And they have chalk board walls everywhere! 

And super cute trinkets you can buy 

But the treats!!! SOOOO CUTE AND  YUMMY

We decided on these 3 (full size) for this trip. 

We were not disappointed :) 

Have you heard of PicMonkey?

This is for all my Blogger friends and mommies too:

Yes I realize I may be behind on this, so forgive me. But It's still a really cool online (FREE) editing program. 

Yes, I know some of the super cool folks have and know how to use Photoshop, but thats too advanced for me.

 PicMonkey is very user friendly! 

It's perfect for bloggers and picture projects for all my new mommie friends

Mommies can make cards like below

This is my god-daughter.Isn't she PRECIOUS!!

See obviously I need to keep practicing but you get the just.....

Here is the clickable link :) 

Free Day of Royal Membership

Let me know your thoughts on this program and esp if you try it out, tell me what you think :) 

Ringing it in

Happy New Years to All!
 I hope everyone had a blast celebrating. Weather you fell asleep at 10 with your love, stayed up until 5am rocking and rolling it or pushed yourself to watch the ball drop then said peace out 2013 .

We rung in the new year in a small but fun little get-together at our casa with all the Haltermanns. C had some cousins in town from Germany, so we wanted to show them some Texas fun. Sadly I have very few pics to show  : ( But I do want to share some of our fun, so I'll just use the links from the ideas I used or pics that do justice :)

Portioning is not my strong suite when it comes to planning food for groups of people. I ALWAYS make too much food..... Including too many appetizers. Oh well the boys always eat it late at night.
The boys wanted to fry some chickens and have french fries, so I had to balance it out with grilled veggies.
They use a big ass pot and heat it up over the propane burner. It makes the BEST chicken! We had 8 individual small chickens, we ate 5. (See I told you too much food)

photo credit;  http://x111.com/blog/commsie/page/5/

It's not breaded or anything. We just season it and cook it, and it comes out so nice and juicy! 

Fries are done the same way except we like to eat them with fondor,  curry ketchup and mayo. (yes it's a German thing) 

Next time you come over we will share this awesome-ness with you! You must try it at least once :) 

PS Only C and I ate the veggies.. waaa waaa

http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/easy-grilled-vegetables/

After dinner we played Pictionary. I printed words from The Game Gal  just to make my life a little easier :) 

I printed the New Years Eve list, and a list from Easy, Medium, Hard and Movies as back up. I loved that I didn't have to spend brain power on thinking of words bc the Baby is stealing all my brain power .

 Thanks Game Gal! And because I'm so awesome, I translated the New Years words in German too. 

I was really proud of everyone wanting to play and having AND keeping a good attitude! If you have ever played games with us you know how competitive C and I can be with each other, so it's best if we are on the same team. 

During the game I served Champagne Jello shots and I got the recipe here from That's So Michelle. 

They were a huge hit! Even with the guys! 

I didn't cut them into hearts, I just did squares and sparkle sugar on top. 

After a long stint of game playing, the boys were itching to blow stuff up so we moved outside. 

While the girls stood at what we though was a safe distance (soon to be proven wrong), the boys decided to forget any common sense they had - as well as any knowledge on safety- and held the bottle rockets in their hands to shoot off.  Two out of three of them burned their hands!! One of which was big papa bear and he actually burned through the gloves he was wearing!! (but that's what saved his hand from being much worse) Needless the one German boy didn't even want to try to shoot anything off.... 

They redeemed them selves when it was time for the big artillery shells. By the time midnight rolled around it was time for the big finale and they had it down! 

After I served champagne and everyone said their wish and got their kiss we watched at they shot 6 artillery at a time up into the perfect cloudless sky! It was awesome. 

While we were outside, Abby was inside eating the remaining 3 chickens.. SIGH. She was fine, luckily! 

No Haltermann night/party would be complete with out S'MORES! 

So to wrap up the evening we stood around the bon fire and taught the Germans how to roast S'mores. 

(my image) 

C and I aren't big on making resolutions. 

BUT I do want to become better at taking pictures! Remembering to take them as well as the quality of image I can create. I've been working on it this past year, and esp with the baby coming I need to get better about remembering to actually take pictures! :) 

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