Our lil' kicker

It is crazy how quickly things have progressed in this pregnancy. Tomorrow, I will be 25 weeks pregnant and our baby is due in 3.5 months. My belly is getting significantly larger, and I feel him/her move every day now. In fact, our baby moves so much that Joe gets to feel it daily too. One thing is for sure, he/she is a mover and a shaker, and judging from all of the kicks I get we have a little soccer player on our hands :) (Well, if it is a girl. Joe says if it's a boy he'll be a football player because "there's no such thing as 6'7" soccer players.")

Anyway, a few weeks ago we had our 22 week ultrasound. Although we are waiting to find out the gender, it was still so much fun to get a sneak peek at our little baby. The doctor says that he or she is doing well and growing nice and big :) Here are some pregnancy pics below- click on the video to see our baby's heartbeat, so cool!

Me at 21 weeks (I am much bigger now, btw!)

Hi baby

His/her arms and legs were all over the place!

Foot :)

Profile shot, my favorite

Press play on the video to see our baby's heartbeat. Coolest thing in the world. 

2 month recap

Soooo, I thought once soccer ended life would be much easier and I would have much more free time to do things such as blog. Turns out I was wrong. Instead, I have spent more time focusing on teaching and keeping our house and sleeping just a tad bit more (which was VERY necessary). But to look on the bright side, even though I still work late most weeknights I have been able to dedicate ONE entire day off per week: Saturday. Sunday is still my planning day and consumed with reading textbooks, working on powerpoints, creating assignments, etc. But Saturday has become my day of freedom- my day of creating a better work-life balance.

So, the past two months I have spent my Saturdays/weekends doing things that I neglected for the previous 3 months: like spending time with family/friends and taking time to be sane. I have been up to Portland several times, been to Corvallis for some Beaver games, and even spent a couple of Saturdays just relaxing (gasp!) with my amazing husband and dog. I must say, it has been nice and I have loved every minute of it.

Because there is really too much to write about in detail in one post, I will briefly highlight some of the fun things we've done the past couple of months. And of course, the pictures to illustrate...

1. Rachael's Bday Pub Crawl

 The birthday girl!

 The theme was mustaches and wigs: 

Ironically, most of the girls wore mustaches and the guys wore wigs :)

 Some abnormally large men in attendance

Our mustaches itched like crazy, so they came off pretty early :)

2. Meeting little Brynn Richards

 Mama Merissa with her sweet baby girl

She loves her so much!

 Auntie Mo soothing Brynn

 Swaddled and sleeping :)

Two tired goldens... the sweetest ever!

3. Hanging out/eating with friends and family

 Dessert at Papa Haydn's with two of our favs... just wish we lived closer!

My happy place: Portland, friends, dessert,  and my man :)

 The Newton clan on a family walk through the woods

 Sinah looking cute as always

 Wyatt: future baller

Tre climbing up the bball hoop 

4. Civil War- While we all know it wasn't pretty in the end for the Beavers, it was still fun to cheer on our team with my man in our favorite little town :)

 Starting the day off right with a cinnamon roll from New Morning Bakery

A beautiful December day and our seats weren't too bad either

 Best uniforms ever. 

 Handing off to Quiz AKA the man. 

 Touchdown and PAT Beavers!

 Had to get a picture of the scoreboard when we were winning :)

Look at the disgruntled Duck fan in the background, haha

There were lots of other fun things that we did in these two months, but shockingly I don't have pics of them all. (Gucci's bday party, skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows, more trips up to Portland, etc.) I will be back shortly with posts on: baby, Maui, and Christmas. But for now, it is snack time and then snuggle Jack time... priorities people!

Just in case...

you were starting to worry, yes, we are still alive. Just busy. Very, very busy. Here is what's been going on in our lives in the past two months.

Joe: working crazy hours, including most weekends in September. (I'm talking 60-70 hrs. per week here.) When he hasn't been working, he has been helping coach a 5th grade football team, taking a woodworking class, supporting my team at our soccer games, cooking me dinner, and traveling to Beaver football games, both near and far.

Me: Also working crazy hours- just as much (if not more) than Joe. Apparently being a 1st year full-time teacher and 1st year head soccer coach doesn't leave a lot of free time. With the exception of a weekend filled with food-poisoning and all of the fun that brings, I literally haven't taken 1 full day off since Labor Day weekend. Mon-Fri is teaching/coaching, Saturday is grading day, and Sunday is lesson planning for the upcoming week. However, the end (of soccer season at least) is almost in sight. We finished our last league game on Thursday (we are 7-5-2) and ended up 3rd place in our league. We have a play-in game next Thursday, and if we win we are in the state tournament. It has been a blast coaching and I love my girls, but I'd be lying if I said I am not going to enjoy having more free time whenever soccer season ends. Then I can go back to working just 50 hours a week, instead of 60-70 :)


Other news:

• Joe turned 27 a couple of weeks ago. I wish I had fun pics to post or a fun night to blog about, but in all honesty this was the evening I got food poisoning and it was miserable. We had a reservation for the one good restaurant in Roseburg, and then had to cancel when I starting puking 15 minutes before we should've left the house. I continued vomitting all through the night, and had to go to the hospital the next day to receive IV fluids because I was so weak and dehydrated. At least I got to make him a nice breakfast before the sickness set in (see pics below).
• Apparently October is a busy month for preggos! One of my bestest friends in the whole world welcomed her first baby into the world on Oct. 7th. Brynn Lorene Richards is doing great and I can't WAIT to get up to Portland and meet her soon. Aside from Merissa, some of our friends from the Seahawks also welcomed a son recently. Congrats to both the Richards and the Carlsons :)
• While I'm on the subject of babies, I should probably include that Joe and I are expecting our first baby as well :) As some of you already know, we are 16 weeks along and our little baby is due on April 14th. While it has thrown a lot of challenges our way in this already chaotic time for us, we are VERY excited. I can't say it's made teaching/coaching any easier, as I have been very tired and experienced a consistent dose of nausea so far, but it is worth it to know I have our little baby growing inside of me. Can I just be honest for a minute though? Those women who claim they just "loved" being pregnant and would do it their whole lives... what are they smoking? I am exhausted, nauseous, can't eat half of my favorite foods/beverages, and feel the most unathletic I have EVER felt in my life. (I am serious- I am pretty sure my 7 year old self would kick my ass in a race right now.) Don't get me wrong, I am more than willing to make sacrifices to know I have a happy and healthy baby. But let me just say I am glad this state of being is temporary, and I can't wait to eat sushi, drink coffee, run at a pace that isn't pathetic, and not feel sick on a daily basis come next spring/summer.

Ok. That's all I have for now. It is time to get started on my grading, so I should go. I will leave you with the few pictures I have taken this fall...

Preggo wife, making pancakes at 5am for her man on his birthday... I must really love this guy!

Finished product... so delicious!

First pic of our baby, 8 weeks old

It has little nubs for legs :)

Seeing its heartbeat for the first time was the most amazing feeling ever

There he or she is... all 15mm :)

11 weeks

Starting to look like an actual human :)

Looks like it's sucking on its thumb here

View from the top

43 mm long. The doctor said it was a little long for this stage, which made Joe really happy and me a little nervous :)

Celebrations

Ok, I admit it- I have been an awful blogger lately. The sad thing is, with soccer and school already underway I am probably going to continue being awful for the next couple of months. (Perhaps with some encouragement I can muster up the energy to blog more often...) Anyway, since school begins Monday, I thought I'd take a few minutes to share some of the fun celebrations August has had to offer: Wyatt's 1st birthday and Merissa's baby shower.

Wyatt and his proud parents

The ice-cream cake madness begins

Learning that direct mouth to cake contact is the quickest way to consumption...

Brrr! A little too much ice-cream cake = brain freeze for Wyatt

Proud Mama Jessie 

Our niece Sinah decided Wyatt shouldn't be the only one having fun with the sweets...

(Notice how she is using a dolphin as a spoon? Love it!)

Because ice-cream cake just wasn't enough...

Handmade quilt for Wyatt by Grammy Kathy

Cousin fun!

And now moving onto Merissa's baby shower.....

The hostesses :)

The mama-to-be

The ribbon game

Merissa's mom really knows how to boost her daughter's confidence :)

This is going to be one spoiled baby!

Glowing :)

Love her and my little niece mucho. 

Merissa with the hostesses