Marty Party

Saturday night was my first night out with friends in almost 6 months and boy did they all tire me out! As you can tell by the pictures we were involved in a high stakes beer pong tournament that ended with Heather and Nat dancing, oh yeah it was that kind of fun. I actually didn't play in the tournament itself, I'm no good without beer, but luckily after the tourney ended they let Nat and I play against Deb and Rob. We didn't win, by a large margin.

The tournament was held at the 4th annual Marty Party, a charity event to raise money for Pennsylvania kids through "The Second Mile" foundation. "The Second Mile" was founded by Jerry Sandusky, former defensive coach for Penn State, and our good friend Mark DeRose's father Marty was a huge contributor and cheerleader for both charitable organizations and the Nittany Lions. In honor of Mr. DeRose spirit for giving and for fun, the Marty Party is held every year, Mark's band Ernest Good Life plays the tunes, and we all eat, drink, and play pong. Most of all we have a blast and all of the money we spend goes to help a group of kids have a better shot in life, how cool is that!

As for the results of the tournament, well, let's just say that round one knocked out 2/3rds of our group. Deb and Rob were the only bright spot, making it to the semi-finals before succumbing to an old guy with a band-aid on his nose. In the 2nd tournament Nat and Michelle actually went up against Heather and Brandon in round 1; Brandon and Heather took that game to advance to round 2 but that was about the time that Heather kept wandering away to talk to people, and dance, so Michelle had to step in and finish out the game. That was where the hopes and dreams of Pong Championship died, no big wins in our group.

In the end it was fun, so much fun that I woke up at 2am with leg cramps and a head ache. Nat and I didn't win anything, beer pong or raffles, but we got to spend much needed time just enjoying the day with friends. Sure there was talk about the baby but there was also laughter, jokes, trash talking and good ol' fashion mockery and that is the stuff you can't just muster up on your own. Thanks for the good times, oh and Deb next year it's sooooooo on, you better get your tickets now!!!

In case anyone was interested in more information about The Second Mile here is their website:
http://www.thesecondmile.org/welcome.php

 

Moving Right Along!

We had our monthly visit with our OB/GYN Monday evening and as it stands we are looking good and moving forward. Katie's heart was nice and strong at 150 bpm and I have offically gained 14 lbs. from my lowest point and the doctor told me I can resume a regular diet now, no overeating to catch up! He also measured my belly, actually my uterus, and the measurement in centimeters should match-up with your development in weeks and I was dead on at 22 cm. So I guess I am average for once, who thought that would ever make me happy!

I will say this about being pregnant, I look in the mirror at myself and wonder how in the world my body is ever going to recover! I am enormous and to top it all off I still weigh about 14 lbs. less than I did when I first got myself into this position. My mind can't seem to wrap itself around the fact that I'm going to keep getting bigger and that I still have a LOT of growing to do; how does my skin keep stretching like this? I just keep reminding myself what my friend Michelle said after she had her daughter Makenzie, "It's not like we were strutting around in bikini's before we got pregnant!". True.

I am enjoying this part of being pregnant, this mostly calm 2nd trimester. Gone are the IV's, the constant trips to the doctors office, the constant trips to the bathroom to get sick, the not eating and not being able to leave the house. I feel almost human now, part of the world again; I can even drive my car!! There are still some food issues and this stupid heartburn that is a constant 24 hour friend, but overall I would say that compared to about 8 weeks ago I am sitting pretty.

Well that's it from me for now, I have to go eat something..............
Talk to you all soon!!!

Just shy of 22 weeks!

Ok, it's offical, I'm enormous! Laugh all you want, I'll wait.......

Done?

Well, in the news here is that Nat was able to feel Katie kick for the first time on Monday night. It was pretty cool, she would move around and start kicking and then the second I would place Nat's hand on my stomach she would stop. We played that game two to three times when Nat leaned over my stomach and started talking to her and off she went. I guess she recognized her daddy's voice becuase she gave him a few nice solid shots.

I'm just starting to feel her with consistancy and on a schedule and as we found out yesterday, bananas make her go crazy! She is still really low and I'm pretty sure she is on or near my bladder because I'm heading for the bathroom more and more every day and night. It's all really fun and exciting and for the most part I'm enjoying all of the changes, although my chest can stop itself from it's rapid expansion at any time. It's getting a little out of hand.

Ok well I have my next doctors appointment on monday so hopefully you will all hear from me at some point next week. To all my teacher friends and family, welcome back to the school year and good luck! 

Katie's Room

Here are a few pictures of the nursery, or what we have so far. The dresser was actually Nat's changing table when he was a baby, my sister Liz sanded it down and painted it for Katie to use. We are going to paint the room a light lime color and are looking into gliders but that will be it for furniture, it's a very small room so we didn't have much wiggle room. Well that's about it for now, I'm just photo happy................ 

Week 21:

I don't know if I was at a weird angle in this picture or what but you can barely see my bump. In case you aren't familiar with this group, from the left is my brother-in-law Doug, sister Liz, me, Nat, sister Sarah and brother-in-law Tim. Yes I'm really pale and with my dumb luck Liz and Doug just returned from the beach so I look like death. We were at Sarah's friend Brandy's wedding tonight, which was my first big event out and wouldn't you know the only other pregnant person there was wearing the same dress as me. (and she was skinny too!!)

Anyhow in bigger news, I'm finally eating so I'm getting bigger all of the time now. I have been eating almost everything that passes in front of me with the one enormous exception being chicken, go figure? I don't know what I have against it but it grosses me out right now so I'm avoiding it like the plauge. I am enjoying Italian Ice's , at least twice a day, and tonight I rediscovered ranch dressing which might finally bring vegtables back to my plate. Everything else is coming back little by little but due to my troubles with heartburn I have to be very careful with the size of my meals and the quickness to which I inhale it.

Well it's late and a bit past my bedtime so I'm going to make this a short post. Have a good week and hopefully I'll be in contact soon....... 

Half Way There! (20 Weeks)

Well first let me explain the noticable change in the background...... I'm bored and it's girly; Enought said. (Everything is pink right now, it's a sickness, I can't help it!)

Secondly, look at that big bump I'm wearing, can you believe I'm only half of the way there?! The funny thing about the belly is that I'm still about 15 pounds less than I was when I got pregnant and I'm only up about 7.5 from my lowest point. What I'm trying to say is that I'm going to be very rolly-polly in a few months, like Violet in "Willie Wonka" when she ate that flavored gum and had to be juiced. Oh yeah, I pulled that out of the memory vault, but I think it's an accurate compairison, or it will be.

Other than my rapidly expanding mid-section there isn't much to report. I'm starting to branch out with my eating, I had a slice of pizza last night for dinner and another slice today, yummy. I also had a miniature candy bar today, first chocolate tasting in over 4 months, is was so good I don't really care if it makes me sick! It beats the crap out of Triscuits that's for sure. I'm still slamming orange sodas for some reason and toast with cream cheese is my meal of choice, although I'm hoping that will fade as I can eat real human meals again.

Well Katie and I are going to try and take a quick nap while Nat and his dad are out at the fairgrounds checking out the plans for York's new minor league baseball team, the York Revolution. (We bought season tickets.) Oh by the way Katie's middle name is still being discussed, I thought we had it down to two options and now Nat isn't sure so the field is wide open again. Ugh. Have a good weekend, enjoy the break in the heat!