17 weeks

I am now 17 weeks pregnant. Sure seems like more than that. I went to the doctor today for my monthly check-up. She said everything looks and sounds great, except that I'm gaining my weight too fast. She said, "You're going to be mad at me when you get to 40 pounds." I said, "Well I did gain 40 with my 1st pregnancy." And she said, "Not this fast you didn't!" Which is true. I've gained 7 pounds in the last 6 weeks and that's no bueno for this early. I'm going to go ahead and blame that on Easter candy and spending 10 days out of town. :) When we listened to the baby's heartbeat I asked her to tell me if the beats per minute were of a boy or a girl and she said a girl! Yay. But then she said that really means nothing, and it could be either. Dang. But then she told me to look at the Chinese calender to predict gender because it's 65% accurate, so tonight I did that, and it said a girl! Yay. I'm sure soon enough I'll get the public's opnion about how I'm carrying or if I look fat from behind to predict which gender I'm having. Can't wait for that. ;) I would post my 16 week picture for you guys, but it still looks like I'm arching my back a little bit, so I'll spare you for a couple more weeks. For now, check out how cute Amelia is on her new tricycle:


Also, for all you Grand Junctioners, Amelia constantly sits on my lap and says, "pony, pony, pony, whoaaaaaa!"

Home again, home again

Whew, what a crazy 2 weeks it's been. A couple weeks ago we had gotten a couple e-mails from my Dad saying that my Grandma Gustavson's health was quickly declining. Of course, with all these crazy pregnancy hormones I've got goin' on right now I was a huge emotional mess, so I decided I better go to Junction to have one last hurrah with her and see my family for a little peace of mind. Well, Jonathan had a store manager meeting to go to in Denver 2 weeks ago Wednesday and Thursday, so I thought I'd go with him to spend a couple days at Kirsta's house and then continue on to Junction for said hurrah. Well, I sure got my last hurrah. I arrived in Junction at 2pm on Friday, and at 4pm Grandma Gustavson died. Yep, just like that. Pretty crazy and fast and unexpected, but she's gone. :( I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that she's in heaven being so nice and kind-hearted to everyone, which was something she was often unable to achieve here on Earth. Love you Grandma!

Grandma told me that "Amanda" was her favorite :)


Hawaii 2008



While the loss of Grandma was sad, funerals are always great because they bring people together. It was so much fun to get to spend a few days with all my Aunts and Uncles and their families, and of course seeing Karl was awesome. It was a great trip, and now we're back to normal life.

Easter

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you all had a great day! We started our Easter celebrations on Friday night at our friend Kristie and Weston's house, where they had tons of people over with a big egg hunt for the kids, and of course it wouldn't be a party in Pueblo without a pinata! :)




Amelia had a great time collecting the eggs, and she was even more excited when she figured out that there was stuff inside them!

This morning we got dressed in our Easter best for church:




After church we enjoyed a yummy Easter lunch with Melody, Tom, Jeff, Whitney, Justin, Polly and her son Jaxon. After that Amelia got spoiled by 4 different Easter bunnies! Lucky girl.

Swing Set

Melody and Tom, who don't spoil Amelia AT ALL, just bought her a new swing set!! :) I know where we'll be every day this summer!

Almost done!


Helping dad screw on the slide


So happy!


Wheeeeeeeee


We appreciate SO much everything Melody and Tom do for us, and we DEFINITELY know how much they love Amelia.

1 down, 2 to go

I'm almost through my 13th week of pregnancy, which means I'm starting my second trimester! I would be really excited about this, except that my first trimester hasn't been bad. Lets reflect:
** For a while no food sounded good unless someone else made it. That led to a lot of fast food and bland cold cereal.
** Aversions include garlic, canned diced tomatoes, and chicken, amongst other small, day-to-day things.
** Cravings include orange juice, apples, blt's. I seriously feel like I could eat a blt every day. YUM!
** My weirdest craving came one night after I had fixed Jonathan dinner and the whole time cooking I thought, "This looks and sounds disgusting." (I don't remember what it was.) I just hung out with him at the dinner table and made pleasant conversation :) Then about 7:00 I said, "Let's order omelets from Ihop!" Best. Omelet. Ever.
** I've been extremely tired, and I feel like that's been the biggest difference from my last pregnancy. Last time I was working full time, so maybe I just didn't think about it as much, but this time I just feel like I could sleep ALL the time! I go to bed about an hour earlier than usual, sleep until Amelia wakes me up (around 8am), and I take a nap every day when she naps. I do feel my energy coming back now, which is a relief.

With my last pregnancy, I couldn't wait to start showing! I was so excited when we went on the cruise at 19 weeks and I had such a tiny little bump, enough for me to notice, and other people to think I was chubby. So this time I was thinking I had a good 20 weeks before I got to bust out the maternity clothes. Wrong. Although it does depend on what I'm wearing and what time of day it is (obviously at night all my food has settled into my belly) I definitely already have a little bump. I haven't had to wear maternity pants yet, but I'm sure it's not too far in the future. I'm just going to try to embrace my belly, instead of being sad about showing too early. Anyway~ here I am:

The cup

We finally got rid of Amelia's beloved sippy cup! Not for any other reason than the last of the 3 finally got a hole in it so it needed to be thrown away, and I thought it was in our best interest not to replace it, just so all our pictures wouldn't look like this:

7 Months

9 Months

14 Months

17 months


I feel like that cup has been part of our family! For the past couple days since we got rid of it there's been lots of whining for her "juice, juice!" Which was used about 30% for thirst and 70% for comfort. I think today she's finally realized that the green cup is not coming back, and she's been doing better about drinking out of the other kinds that we have around. It's always these smaller things that you don't realize will be obstacles in parenting. I'll consider us lucky that a sippy cup it our biggest problem. :)

Shoes

I've been buying Amelia new summer shoes. Raise your hand if you're shocked. They're just so tiny and cute and pretty cheap. People always say that shoes stores put their smallest size on display because they look cuter.. Well, just imagine that in baby size! Love it. Anyway~ Jonathan and I stopped by the Ross Dress For Less in Las Vegas and it had quite the selection of shoes that I just couldn't pass up.

Like these:


And these:


Pink Birkenstocks!


And my favorite ones of all I bought at Target. They're going in Amelia's Easter basket in a couple weeks.



I used to think I could be someones personal shopper, but now I KNOW that I could DEFINITELY be someones child's personal shopper. And actually, maybe just someones little girl's personal shopper. :)