Christmas Stockings

First year I have ever bought Christmas stockings. Previous years, I was never very festive since it was just me and him. Now that baby makes three or four- if you include dog, I need to get into spirit.

Husband surprised me with the tree last night. He rang the doorbell and waiting for me was the tree!

Thinking of ordering ornaments on CB2.com. Hoping they come soon once I do order.

I ordered our stocking on Etsy:



From left to right- Husband, Cooper (dog), Oliver and Mine.

Yipee!

Sweet Purchase

My wonderful company gives their employees Work Worth Doing Rewards. It's basically a gift card to a list of companies. When I receive one, I usually go to Amazon.

This past reward, I got a $50 GC. I was in need of new black shoes. Since I'm on this platform phase, I was look for black platforms. It took about 3 tries online to find the perfect shoe.

It was even better when I clicked "buy".

The shoes were $110. I had a $50 GC. That totals it to $60. I must have been super lucky because the shoes were on sale. This was not noted until I was ready to buy. In the end, I only bought them for $35. It was free shipping, too :)




bebe Women's Hestor Platform Pump



I've had many compliments on these. They are not too bad to walk in either.

All I need is love

I love my husband.

Halloween

This year we spent Halloween in Dallas. I wanted Oliver to spend his first with his cousins. Plus, the family wanted to see him before Thanksgiving. Now that we have been splitting holidays between families, we have to plan accordingly. It's easy with two families, but we have three. Ahem. So imagine the planning. Actually, rewind, it's not so bad. I would fly to California any day.



Cousins helping feed Oliver




Daddy monkey eating baby banana



Family <3

Narcissistic Baby

Oliver's first set of shots was a couple of weeks ago. While waiting for the doctor to come in we played around/took pics. Michael took a video of him laying on the exam table while he kicked and made silly noises.

Michael then decided to play it back to him. Here's a picture of that moment:



Oliver stopped what he was doing and was enamored....with himself.

Like father like son? Most will probably say, "Like mother, like son".

That's a joke, but it's ok.

4 months later...

Eeek.... it's been months. I'm no longer pregnant. I now have a beautiful baby boy. I've somewhat learned to become a mother. I love my son. Especially in the morning when he is happy to see me. Love him more as the days, weeks and months goes by.

Now that I've settled into my new life, I've slowly gotten back into shopping. Oh how I've missed you.

Current obsession....neutral platforms. I was never a fan of platforms. One, I couldn't walk in them. Two, I couldn't walk in them.

Well, I'm learning and it makes my legs look long and lean.

Recent purchase- Steve Madden Caryssa Blush Patent

I can't wait to meet you.

Best Mother-to-Be Day

I wasn't expecting to celebrate Mother's Day this year since, technically, Oliver's not born. The husband felt otherwise. He took me to Mark's on Thursday for dinner. Then on Sunday he surprised me with:

A Risom Rocker from Design Within Reach.

I know you are probably like, uh...ok. At this moment in my life, preparing for the baby is taking number 1 priority. Well, I need a rocker to feed and put the baby to sleep.

He surprised me oh so cleverly, too. I was in the kitchen preparing breakfast (which, btw, has now become a ritual). He was getting things out of his car. He comes in from the dining room and says to me, "Honey, look at all of these magazines you have". There was a stack of magazines I had not read, is what he was referring to. I said, "I know. I need to catch up". He then proceeds to rummage through the stack and tells me, "Oh and look this mail is for you".

I look at the envelope, addressed to me, and saw that it was from Design Within Reach. The night before, coincidentally, we had been looking at the website for rockers. I thought to myself that's weird, we were just looking at the site last night. I look at my name and noticed that the handwriting was familiar. I noticed there was no stamp. Finally a light bulb lit up. *Ding

It was his handwriting, full name and address. I informed him that it was his handwriting. Not looking at me he began to chuckle and told me to just open it. I did and found a sweet card with a picture of the rocker above and the color swatch of the rocker.

Needless to say, I was ecstatic. It was the exact rocker I told him I liked.

Then I realized the price of this rocker. I thought to myself, "Oh, shit. How am I to top this for Father's Day?"

Soon

I am ready to have my old body back.

That is all.

First Step

We, or rather the husband and sister and law, started priming Oliver's room. His room was previously painted with UT orange. It's the same color we wanted for the walls, but not the same shade.

So while they painted, I snapped pics:


So it begins

Sis-in-law decided to draw a picture of Oliver. I think I'll spell his name as "Oli" rather than "Ollie" for short.

A tiger head with Cooper's body.

The end product the next day. The room looks so different with white walls.

11 weeks to go. That does not seem very far from now. Time to kick into gear with the baby's room.

Let me leave you with a picture of my niece. We finally met over the weekend in Denver. It sucks that all my brothers and sisters live elsewhere. We can't be with the nephews or niece as often as we would like.

Continuation

Continuing from a previous blog, dated March 15, I'd like to add this:

An article I found at my doctor's office.

That is all.

Crystal Clear

So my liquid intake is limited. Very limited compared to before. I basically drink water, juice and no caffeinated soft drinks. I do, luckily, drink one cup of coffee every morning. After my 5mos of pregnancy I had to ask my doctor if I can drink coffee. I was given the go and go I went.

So that took up my one caffeinated drink per day.

Now, I don't drink enough water as is. I can go all morning without it. *So bad.

With being pregnant, water is your best friend. Whether you want it to be or not. When I don't drink enough , I get cramps on my belly. That's not fun. To make it more fun I have opened up my water options. With what you say? With.....



I have forgotten this existed. They come is so many flavors. It does make my required water intake a little better. You know what? It's low in sodium (less bloating), no calories (yay) and no caffiene (yay x 2). It's like my dream water.

I bought five flavors to see which one I like. When I brought it home, husband said people drank this when they try to lose weight. They would drink this in replacement of soda.

Interesting. I doubt people think I'm trying to lose weight.

Music Galore

It's nice to have a DJ Friend whose music I enjoy/love.

Thanks, Danny, for all 15,000 indie/retro songs

Fork

Went to the Bayou City Art Festival this year. It marks the second time in a row we've gone. This year was far better than last. Perhaps it was because we managed to find art/jewelry we liked and bought them.

We found two paintings, from an artist from Chicago, for Oliver's room. Once his room is complete, I will show the world. Right now all we seem to be doing is buying accessories. We have yet to paint and put the crib together.

Then I found a ring for myself. Really happy about my purchase. It's so hard finding fashion jewelry I like. I guess that's why my accessories stash is not so grand. I buy and buy, but only end up wearing a few. We got to a jewelry stand at the festival. They made rings, braclets, etc. out of silverware. How cool is that? So cool, I bought a fork ring. I was trying to find a spoon ring I liked ,to make a set, but they were boring. I've seen spoon rings before, though. Anyway, here is my recent purchase:

So basically, it's a fork wrapped around my finger.

Dying shopping habit

Shopping online has declined tremendously because of three things:

1. My growing mid section. I never know what size it will be next week.
2. I can't shop maternity clothes because they are too big for me. I could get medium size clothing, but do I really need that many mediums? I'm betting on going back to small/extra small :)
3. Taking # 2 into consideration, I'm limited to purchasing maxi dresses and pants that have elastic waist. This is very limited. Maxi dresses end up looking the same. Who wants the same black maxi from different brands? Elastic waists? Pfffttt...good luck. I managed to find two so far.

Currently, leggings are my best friends right now. Oh and when your breast gets bigger, your veins pop out more. Just an FYI. So showing your chest area (even to show off your brand new knockers) can be embarassing.

Looking foward to getting pregnant now?

Just kidding. It's not that bad. I just wanted to vent a little because I love to shop. When my habit slows down, I get a little sad.

In the end, I get a Oliver.

I don't want it.

I've often been asked if I get upset with people touching my belly. Surprisingly, I tell them no. Then again, it's only the people I know who have been doing it. It's the strangers that will give me the creeps.

What I do get upset about is when people (especially those who never had a child or carried one) gives me pregnancy advise. I mean, come on, what experience are you drawing from? The next set of people are strangers and distant family members. I can take immediate family. Aunts, uncles can keep their mouth closed.

We all have different views of taking care of our children. If I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. Don't give it to me unwanted. It just makes me upset.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to fight this morning sickness off. Blah.

Lazy Dog

We moved this past weekend. Even though the men did the heavy lifting, I was not allowed to do much, I was exhausted. Packing and unpacking is just as tiring as heavy lifting.

The previous tenants of our new place (Whom I hate, btw. Simply because they are dirty) decided to leave several items behind. When I say several I mean food, clothes, junk, etc. It's like the things they didn't want, they left behind. Oh did I mention how filthy they were? They were three guys living like frat boys. We met one of them when we viewed the house. This dude's room smelled like weed. We were later informed that he works for our current mayor. He looked like a total douche.

Anyway, we don't know yet what to do with their things. So Michael decided to place them all on one pile and cover it with a sheet.

I found Cooper like this:

That's him on top of the covered pile. He's used to napping on our couch, only when there is a sheet on top of it. I guess he thought this was our couch. We don't currently have one, which comes in on Wed.

Oliver Morrissey Dinh

I'm in love with Oliver Morrissey Dinh and he hasn't even arrived yet. His daddy bought him his very first outfit!



All clothes from Flora and Henri. They have an awesome selection of clothing. I already have my eye on a few items.

Just look at how tiny they are. I put them on top of a manila folder for comparison. He had gotten one more piece, a onesie/crawler, but that was too difficult to take a pic of.

So Oliver Morrissey Dinh, huh? Yup. I love the name Oliver and Morrissey is my favorite musical artist. We somewhat already have a name for our next child. hah. One at a time, Tricia.

Two posts in one night?? Why yes.

Since finding out about my pregnancy, I have been in pregnancy exile. Knowing you have a child inside, it makes you not want to be out. Plus, I should be taking care of myself. Why surround yourself around drinking when you can't do it? I will be the first to admit that I need at least one or two drinks to have fun. How else would I be able to put up with so many of you?

Finally, after hitting four months I decided to head out for the evening. Plus, I got most of my energy back. Not only was it for one night, I went out twice. Can you believe that?

I'll tell you, your life changes when you are in my state. No complaints, though.

So here's quick summary of the weekend :

Julia's Bachelorette. I was the warmest out of the group. I opted for comfortability over outfit. That and you can't really wear much when you midsection is growing.

David G's bday.

That's all folks. I told you it was a quick summary.

Quiet NYE

NYE 09-10 was a quiet one. Since I could not "celebrate" as we usually do, we decided to head out of town for the evening. We decided to go to a bed and breakfast in Brenham, Tx. We booked it for 2 nights, but only stayed one. I woke up New Year's day and was ready to go home.

So here we have our NYE celebration. Please try to contain your excitement:

Michael finally figured out why the tripod was not functioning correctly. Silly man. I have no idea why he is smiling. It was supposed to be candid.



Our NYE snack and read.



On our way to the breakfast part of bed and breakfast.

Currently reading

On top of my usual leisure sci-fi/urban fantasy reading, I am also reading:


I love how they refer to the baby as "model". Like it's some kind of merchandise. It's very informative, although, I have not read too far into it. Some info I already know from experience with other babies. Definitely when it comes to mine, it's going to be different. I actually have to take it home. When it cries, it comes to me. Not me handing it off back to the mom. I'm actually the mom. Yikes.

I'm excited and scared. Typical feelings, right? Right?

Perhaps once the house is in our grasp and we start registering it will feel more real. That or when I actually do start to show. I still look like I ate too much.