Week 22! Happy Halloween!!

Halloween has never been my Favorite holiday.  It has always seemed like a weird day to celebrate to me.  But, I think I haven't enjoyed it because it usually falls in a really busy time of the year for us.  If we aren't busy with school, then I am usually at work.  2 years ago we did get to go to a Halloween party.

We love Harry Potter.  I may or may not have worn Michael's Harry scarf to the premier of the last movie...(our kid is going to think we are SO cool! Hah)

This year, we just have not had time to decorate or buy costumes for Halloween.  We do have candy for the trick-or-treaters though.  We just have way too much going on with my Comps on Friday and our party on Saturday.  No time to decorate for Halloween and then quickly take it all down and decorate for the party.  I can't wait to do Halloween with a baby though!  I just love baby costumes!

(My FAVORITE holiday is CHRISTMAS!!!  I absolutely cannot WAIT to decorate for Christmas and wear cute pregnant Christmas outfits!!!  I will probably decorate for Christmas as I take down our decorations for the party!  And, then I can't wait to find all kinds of gluten-free Christmas candy recipes!!!!  This will also be the first year in a while that I shouldn't be forced to work!!  This is going to be the Best Christmas Ever!!!)

22 Weeks!!!

 I always said I would Never put up a bare belly picture.

But, being pregnant makes you do crazy things!

I have to say that 22 weeks is probably going to be my favorite so far.  I mean, an ultrasound and our baby reveal all happening around the same time.  Most people wonder why we are waiting so long to find out the sex of our baby, when you can find out around 18 weeks.  Well, the smart person that I am, signed up to work every single weekend in October.  So, we had to wait.

What is new this 22 weeks? 

• Michael has DEFINITELY felt the baby kick!! (He got so excited and snatched his hand away from my belly while saying "I FELT IT!!!")
• Symptoms: Nose bleeds (embarrassing, annoying, but not painful or dangerous), Round ligament pain/Back pain (story to follow), Inability to get comfy and fall asleep at night
• I don't have stretch marks yet (don't worry, they are coming, they run in the family, so don't get jealous) and my belly button is still an inny (but it looks majorly stretched to the MAX)
• Cravings: Hot cocoa (best with whip cream), Life Saver Gummies (Michael is also having sympathy cravings for these, haha)
• We have learned that Baby is a night owl (Oh No!!), because he/she moves a little during the day but will Not Stop Moving at night!

I have to tell a little (embarrassing) story about round ligament pain.  So, I woke up the other morning at 5:30 to go pee.  When I came back to bed I had some Horrible flank (back) pain!!  No matter what I did I could not get comfortable or make the pain go away.  It just felt like I had a muscle cramp that I needed to stretch some kind of bad.  Eventually my pregnancy hormones got the best of me and I started crying, which woke Michael up.  Of course, upon waking to your pregnant wife crying in pain, you insist upon taking her to the ER.  Well, Michael did this.  However, we finally talked it through and decided to just go to employee health when they opened($12 bill versus $200 bill? We opted for the $12).  Michael has had kidney stones before and said that everything I described sounded just like kidney stones/kidney infection.  We knew that these are both common in pregnancy (sometimes being students in the medical field can be a bad thing).  So, we made it to employee health, saw the NP, peed in a cup, and everything came back clear.  The NP said she felt that this was just round ligament pain and that the baby was probably in no harm (b/c the pain was nowhere near my uterus and I was still feeling baby movements).  But, she made an appointment for me to see my OB just in case.  Later, I started feeling better and called my OB's nurse and told her the situation.  She agreed that it was round ligament pain and cancelled the appointment for me.

SO, long story just to say: If I can't handle round ligament pain, how the Heck am I going to handle LABOR??!!! Ok, lets not think about that right now...

Recipe Time!!!

Homemade Hot Cocoa

Ingredients

• 1 Can Evaporated Milk (pet milk)
• Refill that 1 Can with water
• 1 cup (or 3/4 cup) sugar (depends on how sweet you like stuff)
• 2 tablespoons Hershey's Cocoa
• 1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring

Directions

1. Pour pet milk and water in a small pan and begin to heat at med-high heat.
2. Mix sugar and cocoa together (mixing them together dry will keep the cocoa from clumping up) and then add to the milk.  Heat until desired temperature (I like mine to be scalding so I get to hold it in my hands and let the steam warm me up while it cools).  Once reaches desired temperature, add vanilla flavoring.
3. Pour into coffee mug and add Marshmallows!  Enjoy!!

 

I might be drinking this cup as I type.

As much as I would like to claim this awesome recipe, I got this from my mom.  I would always beg her to make me this when I was little.  She would put tons of marshmallows on mine, and let me use her tall teacher coffee mug that I loved.