Wisconsin – Playing House

It was a SNOWY, COLD, and BEAUTIFUL Wisconsin weekend. As with most of our weekends lately, we were overbooked and jam packed. Here’s the update…

Friday we had a lovely dinner with some of our favorite new parents and their sweet little baby. It was great! The pup came with and “played” with their GIANT golden doodle. My friend gave me the book, Belly Laughs, by Jenny McCarthy. I’m pretty excited to read it.

On Saturday, I got my nails done with my mom, sister and niece, then got my hair done. It was a nice little morning. Then, it was off to celebrate my friend’s birthday with some cookie making and dinner!

Apparently this is what 29 looks like… one martini and three waters. CHEERS!

Little Erica making a wish!

The birthday girl.

And look at the sweet little onesie my friend, Carrie, got for the babes…

The apple of my eye.

On Sunday, the snow began. While it’s a pain in the butt and obviously very cold, it’s also pretty darn fun! I think Toby is a fan…

Then, we trekked our way out to have a Santa brunch with my parents, grandparents, sister and her fam. It was delicious and a blast. It’s not every day that you get to hang out with Santa AND his reindeer.

Winter Wonderland…

The Reindeer!

Making sure Santa knows exactly what we want this year… one healthy baby, please!

Of course, I must include photos of my cute little nephew.

And another…

Post-brunch, we went back to my parents house to curl up on the couch, watch a little football a shitty movie (word to the wise, skip Girl Most Likely… it was painful!), and relax. We did watch the show Naked and Afraid, which was pretty awesome. Also, my parents – who are crazy Brewers Baseball fans – gave us a cute little presie for the new baby!

First little sports outfit! Can’t wait to take the tiny child to a game… and eat so many hot dog nitrates 🙂

And now, it’s back to Monday… the work week begins… again. But, on the positive, at least everything is looking beautiful!

Pulling out of our neighborhood. Beautiful snow, beautiful sky.

Symptoms

The biggest symptoms lately have been my emotions and my boobs. Holy smokes are they sore. And giant. It makes me quite sad. I’m not a fan of my growing chest and am starting to worry about just how big (and painful) they’re going to get. I’m going to have to get special bras if they keep this growth spurt up. Yikes. And they are definitely very tender and achy. The other prevailing symptom is my roller coaster of emotions. I am a very snappy, tearful, bipolar version of myself, which is REALLY exhausting. One minute I’m ecstatic, one minute I’m crying, and then the next, I’m threatening someone’s life. It’s too much. This week, my goal is balance and mental stability. Think centered thoughts, think centered thoughts.

Yes, I will be making a onesie that says exactly that… Because, as far as I’m concerned, our little lentil (yes, today, the baby is the size of a lentil) was conceived on our belated honeymoon. Technically my fertile week fell partly in Fiji and partly in Wisconsin, but I’m sticking with a Fijian conception. Much more romantic than the Cheese State.

The Honeymoon

My husband and I originally planned to get married on August 25, 2013, but due to my impatience and a slew of other reasons, we moved up our wedding to March 17, 2013. Our date adjustment turned wedding planning into wedding planning on drugs. We kicked it into high-gear and had an amazing wedding planned in 3 months. During that time, I also started a new job, and we purchased and moved into our new home. I think the saying is, “go big or go home,” right? We decided to go big and then go to our newly purchased home.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that with all the chaos surrounding our move and wedding, we had decided to delay our honeymoon until we could a) spend more time planning it, b) make sure we had enough (or any) money, and c) breathe. So, after months of online shopping for a honeymoon destination, we finally broke down and went to a travel agent, who led us to Fiji. From what we could see online, there was no way we could go to Fiji on the budget we had set, but with some buy-one-get-one-half-off airline tickets, we were convinced we could fit it into our budget. Of course, the trip was way over budget, but that’s beyond the point. The reality is that it was so darn worth it. We were able to relax and celebrate 6 months of marriage in the happiest and most beautiful place in the world. We also got to explore the underworld on 10 SCUBA dives and check out the air above while parasailing. Did I mention that we hung out with dolphins and saw humpback whales? I miss Fiji.

The happiest place on Earth.

Body Prep

So, some background: about 3 or 4 months before the wedding, I decided to get off of birth control. I had seen my sister and a friend struggle for a year to get pregnant and just knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle that. So I figured, I would cleanse my body of birth control so that when we were ready to try, my body would also be ready. To note, beginning a few months before we started trying to conceive, I also started taking prenatal vitamins. They were gummy, but regardless, I was taking them.

Now fast forward back to the honeymoon… we had decided that it would be just about the coolest souvenir in the world to bring home a baby from our honeymoon, so we decided to officially stop trying not to have a baby in Fiji. Now, don’t get me wrong… we weren’t trying… we were NOT not trying…. I think there is a difference.

So, the moral of the whole story is that we went, we didn’t not try, we had the time of our lives, and along with a beautiful golden Fijian pearl, a hand-carved bowl, tons of random knick-knacks, and an endless amount of photos and videos, my husband and I brought home a baby.

Future parents…

Symptoms

Today I woke up feeling amazing. I was happy, energetic, and ready to take on the day. So far, I’ve only had very mild nausea and I’m just feeling good. Maybe my little baby is celebrating her 6 week birthday and in doing so, has granted me a little break. Or maybe it’s just part of the swing of things.

Speaking of swing of things, last night I had the most absurd meltdown with my husband over a pillow. I’m not going to get into the details, because honestly, it was bizarre and hard to explain without rambling, but it ended with us “playing” tug-of-war with a pillow. By the time we were physically pulling on the pillow, we were both laughing, but the “pillow mishap” did not begin as a joke. So bizarre. Whatever… I’ll write that off as a pregnancy snafu.