Pregnancy

The pictures you've all been waiting for are finally here. Here's the photos we've taken along the pregnancy journey so far.

9 Weeks 1 Day: I ran a 5k that day and felt great! I even beat Damien.


15 Weeks


16 Weeks


17 Weeks


18 Weeks 2 Days


19 Weeks: We found out we're having a girl! (We're still having troubles figuring out a name for her.)


20 Weeks 1 Day: Thanksgiving


21 Weeks 1 Day


23 Weeks

24 Weeks


25 Weeks: After the Christmas eating fest.


26 Weeks 2 Days


27 Weeks 1 Day


28 Weeks 1 Day: Start of the third and final trimester!


I've had some really bad nausea, but it has gotten a lot better the further along I've gotten. Baby is very active these days! So active that sometimes it hurts. Whenever I have doctor appointments and they go to listen for her heartbeat, she always moves away from the monitor and they have a hard time keeping track of her. She even punched/kicked at the monitor during one of our visits!

Damien is very sweet with her and always rubs my tummy before he leaves for work in the mornings. Sometimes he's not so sweet to me though and pokes her when we lay down for bed. She's usually pretty active when I lay down anyway, but this just increases her crazy night-time acrobatics.

The Rest of Christmas Break

Christmas Eve:

Tricia cut the pecans for the monkey bread we had on Christmas morning. She's very particular about how she likes her nuts!


Christmas Morning:

We had to split the gifts into two piles. Gifts that were labeled and those that weren't. Both sides of the family had most of their gifts sent from Amazon and they were all addressed to both Damien & me. We didn't know what was in the boxes or who they were for until we opened them. Thus we took turns opening the unlabeled boxes and deciphering whose gift they were. It was fun.


Rita & Tricia got this little onesie for the baby when they were in Little Italy.

My mom got these adorable little tops and leggings for the baby. Baby is going to look adorable!


Our good friends gave us this family heirloom sweater for the baby. It's hand knitted and beautiful!


The Week After Christmas:

We met up with some of Tricia's family at a Turkish restaurant we had never tried. It was a bit tight trying to sit on the floor and eat considering the baby bump is in the way. I managed quite well though!


Dane flew out to meet his girlfriend's family here in Georgia. We got to spend the day with him and Lindsey. We started out by having lunch at our favorite Italian-style pizza place, Antico Napoletana Pizza. It was delicious as usual!


Then we met up with Damien's Uncle Erik, Aunt Minhee, and cousins Spencer and Ella, to visit the World of Coke. (Damien's uncle is the brand manager for Diet Coke so he got us a sweet deal!)

Erik, Minhee, Spencer, and Ella in front of the vault that holds the secret Coke recipe!


Then we got to taste different Coke beverages from around the world. I would say the most memorable was the Beverly. This drink is supposedly popular in Italy. It tasted horrible. Just like the ointment dentists use to numb your gums before they give you shots. Blah. I think the kid in the forefront of this picture must have just tasted it!


Rita, Tricia, me, and Damien at the World of Coke!

We had a great Christmas break! The baby made out like a bandit with gifts and she's not even born! Damien is still trying to adjust to the baby getting more gifts than him. It may take a few years though!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

We were able to enjoy having Christmas in our own house this year for the very first time. My mother-in-law, Rita, and her partner Tricia came to celebrate with us for a week. A lot happened here during that week so I'll start you out with the story of our Christmas tree.


About a week before Christmas we decided to get a real tree. We went to about five different places looking for a tree stand before we found a place that had one. We got our tree and brought it home to set it up, Damien decided the tree stand needed to be hammered onto the tree so the metal prongs would be secure in the tree trunk. While hammering it on, the tree stand cracked in three different places. We didn't know this until we filled the stand with water and it began to leak!

Damien dragged the tree outside and tried super gluing the cracks. The glue wouldn't dry because it was too cold out so he had to drag it back in the house. While the glue was drying some of it managed to leak onto our hardwood floors! (We're still picking it off.) Once dry, we put a small amount of water in it to see if the glue would hold and we didn't see any water leaking out! We put a towel under the stand just to be on the safe side, filled the stand with water, and set the tree up with gifts underneath its branches.

Next we had to get decorations for the tree. I drove around to about seven different places looking for white lights for the tree and had to settle with some dim LED lights because every single place was sold out of the regular white lights. Who knew Atlanta would be sold out of everything you need to have a real tree the week before Christmas? We did finally get the tree decorated though!

On Christmas eve, Damien wanted everyone to open one gift. He started digging through the gifts to find the one he wanted to open and discovered all the packages were wet. So much for the superglue holding. The towel under the tree was soaking wet and many of the gifts were damp. We had to move all the packages out away from the tree to dry overnight. The gifts were still damp in the morning but nothing was ruined!


Two days after Christmas Damien decided he'd had enough of the Christmas tree and coerced me into helping him take the decorations off. He dragged the tree out the door and threw it off the front porch. It's still lying in our front yard with the stand still on. I'm hoping one of these days it will be removed.

My Birthday

I had an awesome birthday this year even though I feel like 25 sounds a lot older than 24 for some reason.

I started out my birthday week with a prenatal massage. (Thanks Mom & Dad!) Then on the day of my actual birthday, Rita made banana pancakes for breakfast! They were delicious!


I got to open gifts.


Here is one of them. A little preview of the baby bump too!


I spent the afternoon sewing!


While Damien played video games, Tricia played on her tab, and Rita baked.


Damien surprised me by taking us to dinner at Nava. Damien and I have been to Nava once before just for dessert when we first moved to Atlanta. I've been wanting to go back for dinner because the food looked so good.

They serve southwestern style food and it is delicious! They play a lot with interesting flavor combinations like the black bean, feta, and pineapple burrito we tried. Very good food!

All four of us at Nava.


Then we took a stroll around Atlantic Station, an outdoor shopping area. They had it all decorated with lights for Christmas with fake snow falling every hour. The Band Perry was performing while we were there. None of us are big country music fans so we listed for about 2 minutes!


We ended the day by enjoying the amazing chocolate cake with chocolate fudge frosting that Rita made!