Twenty-Three Weeks.

Here we are, week twenty-three!

(and still looking the same as last week...I think my tummy growing has temporarily come to a halt. lol) 

The week is almost over and boy has it been a rather eventful one! 

Brian and I started our week on Tuesday together because he has been down at base working; these three and four day long work periods are really starting to get to me! I hate when he is away; particularly because I am always afraid that something will happen and I will not be able to reach him right away. 

When I moved down here, his schedule was hard to adjust to, but then it got a little bit easier as I made more and more friends. Now, with being pregnant, I feel so much more attached to him that when he is gone I am just miserable. It amazes me how much you can become attached to someone, especially when that someone is your husband and the father to your unborn child. 

Aside from my feelings of loneliness and intense boredom, this week has been pretty decent to us. 

I now have a ring back on my finger!

It isn't nearly as beautiful as my wedding set, but it will do for now. :) It is just a plain, sterling silver, 3mm sized band. I wanted something that wouldn't cost us a fortune, especially considering that I will probably only be wearing it for the last four months of pregnancy and maybe a little while post pregnancy (or until the swelling goes down); which was why we went with the sterling silver. 

We got it from this tiny little jewelry store in St. Marys; I loved the atmosphere of this place! It was so small you almost wouldn't think that they were even open anymore! The owners were genuine and honest with us about what to do given my situation. Plus, they were the only jewelry store out of all three in the town that I live in that were open during the entire week of the 4th of July (with the exception of the 4th of course)! Brian and I decided to go with them because of their dedication to stay open for the public despite it being the week of a national holiday; the other stores had these ridiculous little signs on their doors that said "In honor of the holiday, we will be closed Monday through Thursday". WHO DOES THAT?! Why on earth would you need to be closed for FIVE days (because they are closed on Sunday as well) in observance of Independence Day? I mean, I understand it being a pretty important holiday but I have never seen that before unless it were for Christmas. It also could have been my pregnancy hormones making me a little bitter towards them for not being open when I needed them to be. =P 

I guess what I am trying to say is that I am happy with our choice and feel so much better knowing that I can wake up in the morning, put a ring on my finger, and walk around town and know that everyone knows that I am married; too bad there isn't a way to announce it to the world that I am married to the most amazing guy that I have ever met! Ooh, wait, I can just tell you! 

I AM MARRIED TO THE MOST AMAZING GUY EVER!!!

For those of you who may not know (although, I can't see how you wouldn't know considering it is all I talk/post about on Facebook!), Brian and I will be coming home in 28 days! I am very excited about coming home particularly because I am pregnant. Of course I am not looking forward to the eighteen hour drive (one way!), but it will all be worth it to have my family and friends see me while expecting. 

I am also looking forward to the baby shower that my mother-in-law has been planning! We have come across a few bumps in the road with the planning process, but in the end it was all worked out. 

Basically, Brian and I had searched everywhere for the perfect shower invitation and we ended up finding two that we loved at Office Depot. The issue we ran into was that the Office Depot back home did not carry either of the invitations, so we had to have everything done down here; which was totally fine, of course. So we go online and order the invites that we wanted and have everything set up so we could go and pick them up in the store (since the closest Office Depot is 30 minutes away) and have them printed there as well. 

Well, when we arrived to pick them up, somehow something occurred and the invites were absolutely nowhere to be found! They didn't even have them in the store anymore! I couldn't understand that at all considering not even two weeks prior they were there (or else we would not have chosen them). So we were refunded for those and went with our second choice, since they had them in stock. There I was thinking that everything was going to work out now that I had the invites chosen...WRONG! The ones that we chose kept jamming up the printer and there was no way to prevent it from happening due to the size of the invite. So the manager came up with the idea of making them from scratch; which kind of had me bummed out because if I would have wanted to make them I would have had Brian's mother make them in the first place. 

After standing there watching them create my invitation, they were finally printed and handed back to me. At first I was not happy with them because somewhere along the way, the font size was changed and everything ended up being the same size font when I wanted some things a different size, but Brian assured me it wouldn't matter and that they would still look great.

We went to the craft store and picked out some ribbon and stamps to put on the invites to make them a little more unique and the end result has grown on me: 

Here it is! 

It is simple and sweet and to the point. :) Obviously the blacked out parts are not blacked out on the actual invitation. So, everyone keep an eye out for your invitation in the mail! I hope that I didn't forget anyone; my pregnancy brain always seems to get the better of me when it comes down to remembering such things. I am very anxious to see everyone!

Brian and I experienced a new "pregnancy milestone" this week as well! 

We both have officially felt our baby kick from outside of my belly! It was truly a fantastic moment! We were both sitting not he couch after a long day of running errands and I felt her starting to flip flop around in my belly. So, I grabbed Brian's hand and put it on my stomach and asked him if he felt anything. She kicked and I asked him if he felt it and he said no, and as if on cue Baby kicked so hard that he felt it and my stomach bounced! His face was priceless. <3 I then asked him, "Did you feel THAT?" It was another one of those "best moments" experiences. I can't wait for him to be able to feel her more as she grows bigger and stronger! 

I have also been witness to my belly "jiggling" on its own and that was a crazy moment the first time I saw it happen. Some days I still can't believe that I am pregnant until I feel her flop around, kick, or jiggle my tummy. It is a nice reassurance, almost as if she were telling me, "Mommy, you are no longer really alone anymore.". 

Something else you all should know is that Brian and I have also been looking more and more into how we want to raise our daughter together; something that I absolutely love talking with him about, particularly because we both grew up in different types of households (him as the youngest with three older sisters and me as the oldest with a younger sister, him being in private schools up until middle school and me being in public schools my entire life, etc.). 

So as pregnancy progresses closer and closer to an end, we have decided that we would like to give cloth diapering a try. It has been something that I was always a little curious about (along with cloth wipes), but never really considered until my friend Aubrey told me some wonderful benefits about it. Her and her husband will be cloth diapering their child as well and I kept thinking, "Well, if they can do it, why can't we? It must be really beneficial if they are considering it.". 

When I first mentioned it to Brian he was a little turned off by the thought of cloth diapering because it sounded straight up gross; honestly in the back of my mind I felt kind of the same way. But the more I looked into the more I realized how actually "un-gross" it is. With Aubrey's help/advice I have learned so much and we have decided that we do want to cloth or at least try cloth for the first six months of her life and then see how it goes and how the transition from milk to solid foods go with using cloth and then go from there. I am feeling really good about our decision! 

We have also decided that in the event of road trips, long day trips, etc. we will carry disposables around with us because the only thing that I have not liked about cloth diapering is having to carry the soiled diapers around with me. Of course, my opinion on that may definitely change after she arrives and we learn new things about C.D. But for now we will have some "sposies" on hand just in case. :)

If anyone has any questions in regards to our decision to use cloth diapers, please, don't hesitate to ask! If I wouldn't have asked Aubrey, I wouldn't have been told of all of the wonderful benefits that helped us in deciding on what to use. 

So despite Brian only being home for two days out of the week, it has been a pretty decent one I think. I have been dealing with some crazy hormones making me extremely irritable, but that is pretty much the worst of it, I think. 

How far along? 23 weeks and 5 days. 

Total weight gain: Still unsure (other than the 5 pounds they told me about in May). 

Maternity clothes?  Yes. 

Stretch marks? Yes. 

Sleep: I have finally figured out how to get some restful sleep...I basically make a nest! 

Best moment of this week? Brian officially feeling our baby kick. 

Miss anything? Still missing cooler weather!! 

Movement: Ooh yes! 

Food cravings? Beef and lemon poppy seed muffins. 

Anything making you queasy or sick? Nope.

Gender: Girl!

Labor signs: No.

Symptoms: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome symptoms, slowed digestion, round ligament pain. 

Belly button in or out? In.

Wedding rings on or off? Original bands off, but wearing a temporary replacement. 

Mood? VERY irritable.  

Looking forward to: GOING HOME!! And starting our cloth diaper stash.