32.5 Weeks

I'll post more later, just wanted to get the picture up before I left for work. Stay tuned...

Busy Day

Today is Wednesday, which is my favorite day of the week because its my day off!!! I wish I had more of them..

Anyway, I had a busy day, I had a dentist appt in the morning, then went to target and got a few outfits for baby, then went and priced some stuff out for work at garden ridge, then got my hair cut, then went to my doctors appt, then went to babies r us to exchange the car seat base that was the wrong color, then went to ulta to return some makeup that i got that i do not like at all, then to walmart to price out some more stuff for work, then came home and ian and i went to rudys for dinner, then we went to sams club to buy some milk and bananas, and now finally home. i am tired.

anyway, every day we just keep getting more and more stuff for baby, either gifts that are starting to trickle in (we have a big mound of boxes in our kitchen that need to get recycled) or things that ian and i are buying. just last week we purchased the crib, changing table, pack n play, travel system, xtra car seat base, stationery entertainer, bedding set with mobile and art work, and even some diapers. whenever i am out and see something on clearance i get that too, so we gradually pick up clothes, shoes, blankets, etc (not too many, just a handful). now dont you all worry, there is still plenty left for anyone to purchase that wants to spoil the baby (i have heard many ppl ask about this), we registered for tons of stuff, there is enough to go around. the problem now is the nursery isnt ready (we are gonna have someone come in and professionally steam clean next week since the room has belonged to dogs for 2 years), so in the meantime all the baby stuff is just kinda chillin in the guest room. so i took some pictures a few days ago (an now we have more things so its even more crowded than it was), but in 2 weeks or so the nursery should be ready for baby stuff to move across the hall.








you can see that the baby could really use more clothes :) i want to buy every outfit i see, they are all just so darn cute!! he does actually have some more that just arent hanging in the closet, but im trying to control myself cause i realize there is more stuff we need to buy and i cant spend all of our money on clothes

As for other things, my dentist appt went fine, no cavities so thats always great. my doctors appt went fine, i will have 2 more 2 week visits and then start the weekly ones (today was the start of week 30). i am measuring right on track and baby's heart rate is 140. im feeling good, starting to get more sleepy because i just cant get comfy at night (a combo of getting huge plus the darn dogs and ian taking up far too much of the bed), just learning to adjust to this big belly. dinner at rudys was super yummy, they have the best coleslaw in the whole universe, and i got a coke icee at sams club, and now will be heading to bed soon. its been a good day...

Rodeo of Austin

A few weeks ago we went to the Rodeo of Austin, which is really a big fair, plus a livestock judging contest, plus a rodeo, plus lots of concerts, etc. In fact we went over 2 weeks ago and its still going on, its a long event. Luckily the day we went was just beautiful outside, so it was a very nice way to spend it. We ate tons of fair food, we had cotton candy, caramel apples, funnel cakes, bbq ribs and freshly made potato chips. luckily borden milk was there in the petting zoo area selling milk, juice, water and iced tea for only $1 (which is great to find at an overpriced fair) so we kept going back there for the drinks.

one of our favorite things was the "swine sprints" which is exactly what it sounds like, little piggies sprinting around a racetrack. the winner got an oreo cookie. it was super cute, we got some video (no pics) but i dont want to deal with posting that right now, maybe later.


these were some of the baby goats (thats what was being judged the day we attended). ian really wanted to bring home a baby goat, they were very cute.


this goat just loved me, he was trying to get out of his little area to get closer to me. at 1st i thought he just wanted my cotton candy, but he really didnt seem to care about me until i pulled a piece of paper out of my purse. i really think he just really really really wanted that paper.




its elsie the borden cow!!! i was very excited about this :) she was a beautiful cow, i wanted to take her home ;)


this is beau, the baby borden cow. not sure if he is supposed to be elise's little cow or not, but he was also super cute and soft, and i wanted to bring him home too

basically what that means is that we left the fair feeling very full but also trying to ignore the void in our hearts that can only be filled by 2 cows and some baby goats!!

Baby Shower

I know a few people have been waiting but to be honest, i just dont feel like typing all about it. I'll post some pictures with some captions and hopefully that does the trick. Thanks Katherine, Brooke and Judith for a fun day!!


It was a jungle theme (like the nursery will be) plus I didnt want a bunch of blue. I think the ladies did well :)


Geri, Laura & Kat were all waiting for cake right then, but didnt want to admit it :)


Judith was preparing for our onesie decorating activity, it was fun!


Ian even decorated one (it took us like 10 minutes to make him do it, but he finally got into it)


rob made a golf course (he was our golf course guy at lost pines) and geri did a very simple matter of fact one (just like geri)


brooke made a frog and a lion, she was trying to stay true to the animal theme


i of course made one about the dogs, and kat made annie (keep in mind we had limited colors to choose from)


judith did the view from our living room window, and of course ian made something from mario


katherine made a fire truck in honor of rob and laura made some super cute blocks (she thinks she isnt creative, but i really liked hers)




we also did a game where you had to draw a baby on a plate on top of your head, it was funny what they looked like. brookes ended up looking just like mine but 10 times bigger and rob actually won because his looked like a picasso so i picked his as my favorite


of course we did gifts, this is me making fun of the wrapping job on this gift. this was 1 of the gifts from rob & katherine, however, rob & ian went to pick up the crib & changing table so rob had to buy the gifts when they were out together. babies r us has a gift wrapping station in the store, so ian was put in charge of wrapping (bad idea) and as you can see, both ends of this gift were completely exposed. it just cracked me up. plus, they were gone for like 1.5 hours, we dont know how 2 men spent so much time alone in babies r us :)


this is one of the super cute bathrobes i got, this one was from mom, gotta love puppy prints :)


mom also got us a bunch of cds/dvds of kid songs, i was attempting to make fun of the incredibly cheesey smiles the people on the cd cover had. dont know if i did a good job, but just keep in mind, that is me making fun of something, not trying to actually look pretty while smiling


this is the gifts after they were all open, later today i will post pictures of the guest room which has been taken over by baby items (most of which ian & i have purchased ourselves, many of the big items)

but that is all for the shower, im gonna post some more things later tonight from the austin rodeo and stuff, so stay tuned...

Same old stuff

Been busy as usual, the wedding season has officially begun so it will be pretty crazy for me from now on, add in trying to get all this baby stuff done plus dealing with the increased size of my belly, and its gonna be a long couple months...

We have finally done a few baby things, we did register (still tweaking the lists, but its mainly done), figured out the crib, changing table, stroller and bedding set we want (going to buy all those this week most likely), got on a waiting list for a daycare, and have almost decided on a 1st name for baby boy so things are moving along. we have also decided what room will be the nursery and where to put the kennels, and then where to move the dvd towers (since the kennels will take their place), and then decided if the baby is going to live in a room that belonged to dogs for 2 years, we should get it professionally steamed cleaned (along with the rest of the house), so we will be doing that soon too.

I go for the glucose test on wednesday (which i am not looking forward to thanks to all you ladies who have complained about it in the past) and then after that start my 2 week appointments which just seems crazy that 7 months have already passed!!! Baby boy is moving around alot but not too much that he is hurting me or really kicking me, I dont think he likes it when i work so much, i have found on the days when i am on my feet for 8 to 10+ hours he doesnt really move around until i get home and lay down (or maybe i just dont feel him because my feet are in so much pain i think im gonna die)

anyway, i wanted to post a new picture, its from this afternoon so 27 weeks and 4 days. it just keeps getting bigger and bigger!! so enjoy...

Hmmm

Nothing in particular to post about today, but Lisa yelled at me for not posting enough so I figured as I eat my breakfast I could update the universe on the Richardson Family.

Ian - Doing well, actually in Indiana as his grandfather is very ill with cancer. Staying busy with work and listening to me tell him everything we need to get done around the house in the next 2 months (I want everything done by May not June, you just never know). He will be back in Texas on Sunday.

Me - Getting bigger, this belly just keeps expanding on me :) Evidently officially in my 3rd trimester now, that kinda caught me off guard. Very busy with work and made the mistake of creating a baby to-do list and now freaking out about how much is on it. Starting to make all sorts of noises everytime I get up or move in bed, etc (which Ian just laughs at). Been enjoying the olympics, but wish I could DVR them or watch them in bed because they are on far too late into the night.

Baby - All good from what I can tell :) Heartbeat still at 150, moving around a lot, but not enough yet where it hurts when he kicks or anything, just feels like big bubbles. Has decided he likes sweetened iced tea (which i do not typically) and he still HATES chinese food (which i typically do not) but otherwise nothing funny on the craving/aversion front. He is a steak & potatoes kinda boy which is fine with me :) Ian and I are close to decided on a name, but not sure how much longer it will take for us to 100% confirm it. We also toured daycare facilites yesterday and are going to signup for 2 today and get on their waitlists. So baby has a few things set in life, and has a few cute outfits I got him, but otherwise still has no room or furniture or anything else :)

Annie - Still her grumpy old self (just kidding, kinda). She has been enjoying the cold but sunny weather and the little beagle behind us who is trying to dig through the fence to play. Right now she is sitting all royal like staring at the TV (which is not on by the way). She is also making more noises everytime she moves, but for very different reasons than me.

Jaska - Still a pain in the bottom. Still woo-wooing and running everywhere. Still rubbing against me like a cat and getting her hair all over my pants, still making me want to kill her at one point of each day. She is now sleeping with her butt on the dog bed, her front end on the carpet and her head on the kitchen tile (pretty normal for her). She just slept 9 hours with me, but I guess that is just not enough

Hamsters - Still have 2 babies in there, they are big now with hair and eyes open (not full size yet, but big). That means something happened to one of them but we dont know what. They created a whole tunnel infastrucure in their cage that we dont want to disturb so all we do is drop some food in for now and once the babies get a little bigger Ill let Ian deal with the mess. Its so smelly over there I can really stick around for long without getting sick.

Well, thats a brief update, time to go shower and head to work.

Day 4 of 9

Today I am stuck at work (for only 4 hours, but still). It is day 4 of 9 in a row, then Ian and I are heading to San Antonio for the 13th and 14th for a little weekend trip. Its like super quiet and I should be very productive, but yesterday was the same way so I just dont want to be productive today. I have a feeling Im gonna be a giant crabby pants by the end of this week. I already spent all morning yelling at Ian for being lazy before I left for work as it was. 9 work days in a row is never good, but mix that with pregnancy and I think they are asking for a disaster :)

Belly Pic #1

Here is the belly at 21.5 weeks. It keeps expanding everyday (as Ian loves to point out everyday). I look like I'm 1/2 asleep and my hair is a disaster area in this picture, but I hate pictures, especially if they are of my belly, so we just took 1 picture and it had to work.

Lisa also told me I had to make my blog more baby friendly, but I dont really like blue so I didnt want to do that, so hopefully the new font colors and the polka dots did the trick. If not, live with it because I am done for the day...

The Big News

Im starting early with the embarrassing photos of baby, I'm sure he wont like knowing this was on the internet, but what a cute way of telling the world that he is a boy!

Everything looks good, he is 12 oz, so evidently right on track for the june 2nd bday. Two hands, two feet, nose, lips, vital organs, so looking good! Got a few cute pictures of him (my favorite is the foot) so I'll post them all below.



The next big decision is the name, so I have a feeling Ian and I will take awhile with that one. We did go out and get him a few onesis today, ian found a batman one at GAP so he got the 0-3 months and the 3-6 month size, and is trying to talk me into buying him a starfleet uniform! I'm gonna need help keeping ian from geeking this baby out, im afraid....

20 Week Update

So this is a big week for baby, 2 appointments, 1 down, 1 to go...

Today was the monthly visit and all is going well. Baby's heartbeat is at 150 (so going down as it should every visit) and I am on track with weight gain. Still havent felt baby move yet but they assured me not to worry, so I wont, but am looking forward to finally feeling the first little flutters in my belly :) Been feeling great (aside from feeling fat) and actually have some energy back and not falling asleep everyday at 7pm. Still trying to get about 8 to 10 hours of sleep otherwise I am sleepy, and if I go too long without eating something the lovely feeling of needing to hurl comes rushing back, but otherwise am not complaining. I'll take this over the 1st 3 months for sure!!

Tomorrow is appointment #2, we go for the ultrasound and to find out the gender. I will be nice to see the baby again, last time it was at 8 weeks and it was just a tiny little dot, so it will be awesome to see baby looking like an actual baby. We will be sure to post some pictures along with the big news tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Our Trip Part 1

Ian & I have been enjoying our trip to the cold gloomy midwest for christmas. We are not of course enjoying the cold gloomy part of it (neither is our poor car) but the puppies like that element, we just like being with family and playing all of our new board games and beating lisa :)

The dogs have taken mom's house over and are loving it. At home they are not allowed to sleep on the couches but sara's futon (or the click clack bed as we call it) is in the living room and it smells like dog from her past apartment, so we covered it with a sheet and let the dogs lay there, well, they spread out so only they can sleep on it, nobody else is allowed. Plus Annie decided one day when her & Jaska were home along with mom that the click clack bed isnt cutting it, and so basically demanding of mom (yes, she knows how to do that) to put a small sheet on the couch so she could lay next to mom. From that point on the click clack bed wasnt good enough for annie girl (or chabu chabu as mom has been calling her) so the couch has now become hers. She was sleeping soundly when ian came over and starting annoying her, you can see the annoyance in her eyes, but i still think its a super cute picture

We went to chicago to spend christmas eve with dad's family and christmas day and lisa & shawns. We had a good time, lisa posted about it so if you want to read about it and see pictures go to www.pisa9923.blogspot.com and check it out.

My poor car is having a rough time with the cold, probably all due to texas. Before we left I tried to find an ice scraper plus wiper fluid that was meant to be used under 32 degrees. Needless to say we never found an ice scraper or wiper fluid for cold climates in Austin, we had been doing ok with this until we tried to leave chicago. We were leaving the city and out window was just so cloudy from the icky type of snow that was falling, we were trying to clean the window and the wiper fluid just wasnt coming out. ian thought we were out, i knew we werent, i knew it was frozen. after about 20 minutes of panic on my part i finally got ian to stop at a gas station and sure enough there was a giant frozen block of ice in my engine. we purchased some wiper fluid meant to cold temperatures and luckily it starting breaking through the ice and we could finally see though our window. But since the original wiper fluid was starting to come through it was freezing on our wipers and feezing over the holes the fluid come through, it was a disaster until we finally got passed indy and it wamred up to 34 degrees!!

We are off today to the mannings for our final christmas celebration and then off to pick up the dogs so they can see their auntie lisa (they got kenneled when we went to chicago) so i am done typing for now, but look for more to come, plus we are gonna get some pictures of all of us later today or tomorrow!

June 2nd....

will be the date when baby richardson is supposed to join the world :) which means, to anyone on facebook that didnt see our beautifully written updates, that "yes, the rumors are true, i am 4 months preggo"

17 weeks along and finally happy to be feeling better and not so tired all the time, but that has just been replaced with being hungry all the time, not sure which is worse. but baby and i are doing fine, and we will find out the gender in less than a month (jan 13th) so im looking forward to hearing that news and seeing baby again, since last time i saw he/she it was at 8 weeks and we all know it was like the size of a grain of barley at that time :)

anyway, i promise to keep this thing updated more often now, i know many people will be relying on it for info, so as long as baby doesnt zap all of my energy like the first couple months i will try my hardest to stay on top of this

oh - and merry christmas eve everyone!!

Excited but not..

i am getting very excited that in less than a week ian and i (along with the puppies) will be in indiana visiting family and celebrating the holidays. however, i am not excited that in less than 1 week i will be trapped in a car with ian and 2 dogs for 16 to 18 hours straight, to only have to return in just a little over a week. yup, not excited about that at all.....

Is it seriously December already???

I can not believe its already December, very happy it is, but still shocked. Work has again been crazy, especially since I took off 6 days for Thanksgiving to spend with Mom & Eric for their visit. It was fun and we took some pictures of our Thanksgiving feast, but now I cant find the plug for the camera to upload the pictures, so hopefully when I get a day off on Monday or Wednesday I will really search and look for it.

Ian & I will be driving home to IN for Christmas, thats right, driving!! We decided to drive and bring the dogs along for a couple reasons. One, it will be nice to have our own car when we are there; Two, we wont have to kennel the dogs for the 11 or so days we will be in IN; Three, plane tickets were just crazy expensive, and as much as Im not looking forward to a 16 to 18 hour drive in one day, I know its the best decision. We will be leaving in 2 weeks tomorrow so it will be here in a heartbeat, I am getting quite excited. The trip is packed with trips to Chicago to see family, Muncie to see family, Indy to see family and Parker to see family, so it wont be at all relaxing, but will still be nice to be home for Christmas which hasn't happened in awhile, especially with both Ian & I home together.

Anyway, I have to get ready for work but I know its been awhile so I thought I would say hello to world. Have a Happy Holiday Season!!!

Sorry

Its been super busy for both Ian & I, but we are alive and doing well. When things calm down in a week or two I'll write a proper post, but right now all I could talk about would be work which just isnt much fun :)

Babies!

For anyone that hasnt heard yet, our two female hamsters (my bday gift from ian back in april), had babies. Clearly that means they were not both females as the pet store guy assured ian. so anyway, we have somewhere between 4 and 8 hamster babies. They seem to be doing well from what we can tell, phebs (the mom) keeps them hidden in the fluff, but does move them around a lot so we can see them a little bit. Daisy is evidently the dad, so really he needs a new name, but we dont know what else to call him, he has been daisy for 6 months after all.

I took a cute picture of phebs because she had decided to make her temporary home (for her and the babies of course) the wheel, which i thought was so funny. but then i realized you can actually see a little bit of the babies in the picture.


they are tiny little pink things, but i did notice today they are a little bigger and are even getting a little hair. i bet they will be so cute when they are super little cotton balls!!

in 1 to 2 weeks they will be old enough that we need to separate they boys the girls so we dont have tons of babies, and also need to start finding people who will take pairs of hamster babies for us. plus i guess that means we are going to have to learn how to tell apart the boys & girls, something the people at the pet store clearly dont know how to do :)

woo hoo!!

we are off to indy for a weekend of wedding festivities!!! congrats lisa & shawn!!!!

San Antonio Zoo

Ian surprised me today by suggesting we go to the San Antonio Zoo, and who am I to turn down a chance to see animals, so off we went. It was insanely hot, and we were only there for about 2 to 2.5 hours (and it took us 2 hours round trip to get there) but it was still worth it. We took a lot of pictures but I wanted to post some of my favorites, so I hope you all enjoy without having to sweat like we did :)


These are not actually crocodiles, but like a cousin to the croc. They are the smallest ones around. We just thought it was funny how these turtles were just using them as resting places, but they didnt seem to mind one bit!




Of course there would be some pictures of big cats! This top picture is a jaguar and the bottom is a black leopard, dont you just think those green eyes are freaky! Thats not the flash or anything, thats what color their eyes really are!




You didnt actually think I wouldnt post pictures of my favorite animal of all right now, its the river otter (although let it be known that i love all the otters, sea, river, i dont care)!! I still really dont see why i cant have one of these, they are little and i have a big yard, i think i can build a water area big enough. anyway, i got tons of pictures, there actually were two otters but my favorite 2 pictures only had 1 of the otters in it. I also got some video but dont want to mess with that tonight, so ill do that later. I LOVE THESE THINGS!!!


So these next few pictures are not of animals, but just cool things at the zoo. This 1st picture is an actual banana tree!! But not only did it have the bananas growing from it, it also had that crazy pink thing hanging down. I just thought it was super neat looking but especially loved the bananas since Ian loves those so much!


This was the sign for their toad exhibit, i just thought it was really clever and everytime i would see the sign i would smile. I did check to see if they had cane toads in the exhibit for lisa, but there were none :(


San Antonio has lots of stone and old looking things all around the city (that alamo feel follows you everywhere) so there was a lot of this kinda stuff all over, but what was neat about this is these steps connected 1 water exhibit to another, and they were the "bridge" to get from one exhibit back to the main path, I just thought it was unique, but the steps were actually a decent distance from each other, so they might be tough for really young kids (of course there was an alternate path for strollers, etc, you werent forced to walk on it).

Since i was taking pictures i dont have anything to prove this, and i am sure lisa is thinking i am making this up, but we were near the bird exhibit (which of course i didnt want to go in) and we were just standing outside and a bird swooped down and sat on my head, I about died!!! Stupid birds!!!

Doggie Videos

So I just learned how to do this and I promise I wont just post a bunch of stupid videos of my dogs, but I know Mom said she wanted some more pics of the puppies and few people want to see Jaska do her "woo woos" so here you go. Enjoy!!



Annie & Jaska always get into a little fight when i get home. This time Jaska was a little out of it since she decided it was the perfect time to also start hacking up a furr ball (ok, so not really a furr ball, but thats what i like to call it)



This is Jaska being her normal Siberian Husky self and woo wooing at me for no reason at all. I also love that in the middle she stops to wimper and cry for a moment. Also notice both dogs are in the kitchen since it is Annie's favorite place to be.

Jaska

So, this is the noise I get to hear ever waking second of my day. Im gonna try and get her woo woos too, they are just so much fun :)