2 weeks late!! Oops!

Hi All,

So sorry we're so late on this blog. We didn't have a chance to blog in OK and once we came back to LA we hit the ground running with work stuff and finalizing details for our Brazil trip (we leave in 11 days! wow!) So here's what's been going on in our lives over the past two weeks:

The night we left for Oklahoma, we went to see the Glee Tour!! Here's a link to their opening number.

It was so AWESOME!! Anyone that knows me knows that I HATE concerts. I mean I truly HATE them. People are sweaty and smelly and are way too close to my personal bubble space. That being said, this was THE BEST concert EVER! You would have thought I was one of the 15 year old girls down in front the way I was acting!! I'm sure the people near me have decided never to go to a concert again because they wouldn't want to be subject to such horrendous singing by a fan. Oh well, we had a fantastic time. At one point I was screaming so much I thought that I might pass out and since that's a big no-no when you're pregnant, I had to calm down. I owe Farns big time for taking me to that one!! The group that opened for Glee was LXD (The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers). Steven worked on a few of their webisodes and fell in love with them. You can see a clip of the amazing things they do here.

So the Glee tour ran late, and we had to get from the Valley to LAX by midnight in order to catch our shuttle to the airport. We were definitely cutting it close. At that point, I was really grateful for a flight that departed at 2AM! We tried to get as much sleep as possible on the plane, but it's pretty uncomfortable, especially when you have to pee every hour. We survived and made it to Tulsa by the next morning.

We had a great time in Tulsa celebrating Shane and Macy's graduations. It was like a party weekend, going from one party to another. So much fun! My wonderful mom even threw me 2 graduation parties (I completed my degree in Psychology in March) because she was so proud. It took 8 long years for me to finish, but at least I finished, right! It was a fun time to celebrate with everyone because of the news about the baby and we got some very memorable gifts. My favorite gift is the blanket that Grandpa Schwing crocheted. I can't believe Uncle Vern and Aunt Mary Ann gave that to us. I'm so glad I didn't open that one in front of everyone, I was a tearful mess! THANK YOU GUYS!

So our trip back was a bit more eventful, our first flight was delayed over an hour and I thought we would definitely have to stay in Tulsa another night, but unfortunately we made it back to LA on time. Frank was very grateful that we made it!

This week has been busy with cleaning our apartment (I guess I'm hitting the nesting phase) and finalizing all kinds of things for our trip to Brazil. I can't believe we leave next Saturday!! I have one more dr's appt before we leave to make sure all is well with our trip and baby.

Steven finally broke down and let us join the YMCA! I'm so glad, I've been swimming a few times since we've joined and it's like heaven! That baby will come out knowing how to swim right away!

Speaking of baby, we made it to 16 weeks. HOORAY! That means the baby is the size of an Avocado, is 4.6 inches and about 3.5 oz in size.



The bones in the baby's ears are starting to develop so he/she can begin to hear and recognize my voice and soon will be able to do the same for Steven's. And since the baby has nearly quadrupled in size in the last few weeks, it appears that so am I! I definitely am starting to look pregnant for real. I can't wait til we go to get the structural ultra sound in a few weeks so we can find out if it's a boy or a girl. Hopefully then things will start to be more real for me. I'm still a little in denial, but the bigger I get the more I can't deny that this is really happening.

Since we had a nice long weekend I decided to cook (insert exclamations of shock here). I made Lasagna in the CROCKPOT! Who knew you could do that! It was so delicious. Recipe is here:

That's about all for us. Please pray for us while we're in Brazil, that we get through customs smoothly, that we get to tour Rio and have lots of energy and that we have fun and that Steven will get to take lots of pictures! :) Keep in mind while your praying that it's Steven and I and my cousin Jeremy and his pregnant wife, Lynnette going with us. She's about 6 or 7 weeks ahead of me so we're praying for lots of comfort on the flights!

Hopefully we'll write again before Brazil but if not, just know we're having a blast in South America!!

Lemon baby at 14 weeks

We're 14 weeks along now, officially into the second trimester, and I have the slightest little baby bump. I actually bought my first item of maternity clothes - shorts, because it's hot and I'm going to be huge and pregnant during the heat of the summer in the Valley and do not want to get cranky! :) And I don't care what anyone thinks about my blindingly white legs either! My morning sickness is pretty much gone (knock on wood) and the dizziness I was having was associated with my super low blood pressure. The doctor told me to start putting salt on my meals to try and raise my blood pressure. I'll tell you, salt in my morning cereal is not so awesome! :) Too bad I don't have Dwight Schrute's superior genes (just click on any picture to make it larger):



So I'm sure you want to hear about the baby. He/She is the size of a lemon and is growing really fast:




I went to a conference this week and got to hear Father Greg Boyle speak about Homeboy Industries - a great gang intervention program that serves about 12,000 a year. See their website here. Unfortunately, right after he spoke the news broke that he had to lay off a quarter of his staff because of a $5MIL shortfall in funding!! What a devastating blow to those in our community trying to make a better life for themselves. The article is here . Pray for this organization to bounce back.

Steven and I went to the beach today in the hopes of getting a little sun, but it was completely overcast and only 60 degrees!! We only stayed for a couple of hours but got a couple of cool pictures while we were there:

Steven says "Let there be waves!"


The somewhat non-existent sun was right in our eyes, thus the cute squinting!



Get ready Oklahoma, we're headed your way next week!!

13 weeks along (and a few days)

Well, we made it to 13 weeks and celebrated in beautiful San Diego!! Actually, we went to San Diego to celebrate my friend Traci's birthday and my graduation!! It was a fantastic weekend! We hung out by the pool, the non-working fireplace and just had a good time with good friends! Steven and the others went to the Wild Animal Park on Sunday (I opted not to go since my nose can detect a fart from 17 blocks away, I didn't think I could handle the manure, etc.). So my friend Betsy stayed back with me and we just enjoyed the beautiful weather and good company. Here are some pictures from Steven's adventure (he's also using these as a test to prove that he needs a new digital camera, let me know what you think of his mad skills):








So about the baby....he/she is the size of a peach! See below for more info on baby Farns.



Newest cravings of the week are olives, beef jerky (slim jim to be exact) and pickles. I don't really want any sweets, just salty stuff. This is quite the strange adventure for Steven and both! Although, I must say I am so enjoying the fact that I'm blogging right now and Steven is doing laundry, cleaning and has just started vacuuming, hmmm.......this pregnancy is working out quite well to my advantage.....gotta love that boy!!




That's about all this time. Not much exciting to update you on. We are coming to the great state of Oklahoma in a week and a half to hang out with our fams and celebrate Shane and Macy's high school graduation! For the record, dad, I have not wished for any T-storms while we're out there so you can't blame me for the crazy weather this year! :)

Down's Syndrome Screening DONE!

We went in today for the California Prenatal Screening. It's state law that all pregnant women are offered tests to check for Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 13, etc. So we went in for that today and it was a 2 1/2 hour appointment. I wondered when we got there why they had so many snacks at the counter, but after being there for so long, I realized they had to do whatever they could to keep us pregnant ladies happy! We had an ultrasound and the tech warned me she was going to try to push the baby around to wake him/her up. I was unaware that "pushing the baby" was really "punching the mom" in the stomach. My muscles are insanely sore not to mention that she spent 15 minutes playing bouncy ball with the baby and my bladder! They took some blood to double check that everything is ok, but the doctor was really confident. She said when we came into the office, just taking my age as a factor, we had a 1 in 900 chance that the baby would have Down's and after using the baby as a punching bag, that number went to 1 in 2207. That's a good thing! They get concerned when it's about 1 in 200. So hopefully we're in the clear on that one! Here's some pictures to make you smile (or go "Hey, what is that thing?")




Other than that, life is moving pretty fast. Tomorrow morning we're off to get our visas for our last trip as a childless couple!! Hooray for Brazil! It's 8:45, waaay past my bedtime so I'm signing off! Don't forget to leave funny, witty or interesting comments for me to read! :)

12 Weeks and some drama....

This has been a bit of a scary week for us. On Tuesday, I fainted in the shower and did not have a good week at all in regards to morning sickness, headaches and (my new favorite) dizziness!



I didn't really think much of the fainting thing since I'd read about pregnant women who have fainted in their pregnancies. However, when I called the doctor on Friday to ask about medicine for headaches I mentioned it to the nurse that I had fainted on Tuesday. The nurse sounded concerned and asked for a detailed description of what happened and told me she was going to pass the message on to the doctor. I didn't hear from the doctor until I was at dinner that night with Steven. Normally, she is very calm and doesn't seem to be alarmed by much, but this time she was very concerned. She even tried to get me to go the ER if I felt out of the ordinary at all. I kept explaining that I felt fine but she insisted that I come in to see her the next day since she was going to be in the office anyway for something else. That put a little kink in our date that night so we just came home. I was a nervous wreck all night long while Steven slept like a baby with a severe sinus infection (I mean how does someone snore that loud and not wake themselves up?) So we went to the doctor first thing the next morning and got a quick ultrasound. The doctor first tried to hear the heartbeat with just the doppler and couldn't find it (which is common this early in the pregnancy, so I tried not to freak out, but I did). Then she pulled out the little handheld ultrasound from 1974 and we got to see the baby. Evidently she couldn't find the heartbeat because the baby is a little busybody (like me) and just couldn't sit still for more than 2 seconds. So we saw the heartbeat and the baby's head and hands waving like crazy. WHEW! What a HUGE relief! We don't have any pictures from that one, but we go on Tuesday for the 3D ultrasound so we'll put those pictures up asap. The doctor thinks I fainted for a number of reasons 1) I was in the shower, which was probably too hot; 2) I hadn't eaten since about 5:30 the night before; 3) I always sit in the shower at first in the mornings and stood up too fast; 4) I have a tiny iron deficiency which I had before I was pregnant and is a bit more exacerbated now; and 5) I have always had low blood pressure but being pregnant sometimes makes that worse too. So it looks like it was a one-time thing and I'll just have to be more careful now about eating constantly and watching the dizziness.

So that was the most eventful part of our weekend. Today, we went to the Dodgers game with some friends and had a great time.



I am now the color of OU's uniforms, but we had fun!



Now, for info on the baby. He/She is the size of a plum and I have the tiniest bump where you can almost tell there's something there, but really it just looks like I'm getting fat (even though I've lost 12 pounds since getting pregnant!). So the plum is pretty much double the size it was 2 weeks ago and is growing rapidly. All of the vital organ systems are in working order and we've made it through the most critical stages of pre-natal development! Hooray!!






This week is pretty eventful for us. Steven might have his first ever jury duty, we get the 3D ultrasound on Tuesday and then on Wednesday we go to get our Visa's for our trip to BRAZIL!!!




Then, this weekend we are going to San Diego for a little Graduation Celebration put on by my Couch girlfriends!!! I'm super excited to get away for a bit and just relax in the sun (hopefully this sunburn will be gone by then just in time for a new one!).



Don't worry mom, I'll use sunscreen this time.

Ok, that's all for now. I will leave you with a fantastic blog that provides all kinds of funny thoughts:

http://www.dweebist.com



Check it out, you won't be disappointed!