Crochet Project # 3

Ok, so Ed decided he wanted me to make him a scarf, but it couldn't look foo foo like the other two looked, with the frills and crocheted the long way. So I went online and looked for ways to crochet using a cool stitch. So, if I am not mistaken I was trying out a scarf with a double stitch but I failed and it became a single stitch, although it still looks pretty cool. This bad boy took be three days to make and two spools of yarn.  The yarn was quite rough so it serves its man purpose.

I could have made it longer by going out and getting one more spool thingy but he said the length was good because he didn't want the scarf to hang out of his jacket. His dad saw it and liked it and he asked if I could make one for him as well. After me talking about all the scarves I have made so far, my sister asked for one too...So I guess I have a busy vacation making scarves!  After completing this scarf I realized I could probably start making my first baby blanket. Guess where I will be headed later on this week?

Crochet Project # 2

So this is the second attempt in making a scarf suitable for a short person. I still used a long chain for this scarf but I measured it against one of my existing scarves so as to not make it for a giant.  As I was making this one it seemed to go by faster. I mean I finished this one in one evening after work so I was quite impressed with myself. I had my scarf model try this on to see what it would look like and it wasn't too shabby!

I liked the chocolate color with the pieces of light blue and tan to adorn throughout the scarf. It looks a bit raggedy or grungy if you will but I think it would complement any neutral colored outfit this winter season!

Crochet Project # 1

You might be asking yourself, "WOW! Where did you buy that cool looking scarf?" Well, believe it or not, I MADE that scarf! I know, right?  When did I learn how to crochet? Well, walking through Joann's I saw a huge spool of yarn (are they called spools? lol) and told Ed, "I gotta have it! I'm going to make a scarf out of it!" And so it was. We got the yarn, and went home and began my crochet adventures. Well, that lasted for a weekend and then I set it down and I got real busy at work so I kinda forgot that I had started the scarf. It wasn't until a few weeks ago when Ed went airsofting that I sat down and actually finished it. It took me FOREVERS (I know, it sounded so hispanic right now lol)! Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to use it...

As you can see the freaking scarf was made for a person taller than Ed, so you could only imagine where it hangs for me (all the way to my feet) :(  I was so sad that it turned out to be so long. I guess I can trim the frillies at the end and make them shorter but then it's going to look weird. Oh, well. I guess I have to try again. Hopefully I will meet a real tall person this holiday season and I can gift it to them.. :)

12 weeks! (December 1 & 2)

So we had back-to-back appointments in December. The first was on the 1st and it involved the 12 week sonogram where they do a nuchal translucency screening.  This screening can tell you about your baby's risk for Down syndrome and other problems.  Again, week 12 rolled around and there really isn't a belly to show, so it's still mind boggling that I am pregnant without looking like I'm pregnant.  (Ed says it's all in my head lol) Well, we go into a small dark room where the sonogram technician squirts warm jelly stuff on my belly (no hoo-hah action this time) and begins rolling the sonogram "mouse" on my belly.  At first we just saw a big black oval-shaped thing with nothing in it (part of the uterus).  But as she kept on moving the mouse thingy we start seeing what looks like an actual baby! It was surreal! (See picture above lol) It was amazing to see it move its little arms and fingers and hands and see little feet on the sonogram! She zoomed in so we could get a better look at it and I was just blown away! To think that inside my belly there is an itsy bitsy little person growing!! There were no words to describe the feeling that came over me right then and there as I saw the baby move and turn and raise its little arms... unbelievable!  Ed was smiling the entire time (at least every time I looked at him lol)

Well, the sonogram technician had to take numerous pictures of the baby and the nuchal fold and measure it to determine the risk for the bad stuff but she was unable to disclose any information regarding the information she acquired. She informed us that we had to wait until our 16 week appointment where more blood would be drawn and then combined with first trimester blood in conjunction with the sonogram pictures to give a better prediction of down syndrome and what not.  All we care about at this point is that our baby is healthy and growing strong every day.

The next day we had our appointment with our NP (nurse practitioner) who happened to have seen me a few years back for some lady business. I sure didn't remember her but she "knew" who I was because she checked my chart and saw that she had taken care of the yearly lady business. Anywho, she went over my first set of blood work and said everything looked normal. Then she proceeded to start a brief physical exam--stethoscope, deep breath in, out, blah, blah, blah--and then she takes out her doppler so we could hear the baby's heartbeat.  Baby's heartbeat was a strong 150 bpm so she said that was good. Then she did the pelvic exam to check where the uterus was at (somewhat uncomfortable) and that was that. She asked if we had questions. I inquired about sleeping positions, the ongoing nausea and the horrible taste in my mouth. She was very informative and thorough when answering the questions and she gave practical solutions that were easily followed.


At this point in the pregnancy...
I feel nauseous still but not the entire day. It seems to hit me more when I'm at home. I've thrown up several times but not to the point where I'm losing mega nourishment.  We took a trip to Babies R Us to find the infamous "Preggie Pops" to help the nausea. They did their job and also curbed the bad taste in my mouth because the sour ones made me salivate like Pavlov's Dog.  Switched my cereal AGAIN from Honey Nut Cheerios to Multi Grain Cheerios. Ed has been putting his foot down in the food department and making something and I am, well, eating it...at least some of it, that is...

As far as food goes...
I am favoring fuji apples! I love them love them love them! I'm eating like three almost everyday! Granted I have puked a couple but they are still tasty!! (not when coming back up though...)

Other thoughts running through my head...
I am uneasy about not gaining any weight still. My weight started increasing but it's up to 110 right now, not that the baby is weighing an enormous amount but still. I had to switch my vitamins up from the huge horse pills I got at GNC to gummy prenatal vitamins. Pre-pregnancy my gag reflex was sensitive. Now, it's even MORE sensitive! Ed even tried to break them in half but it was still making me dry heave (sometimes not so dry lol)

I am excited about picking out baby stuff, going to the clearance racks and getting baby clothes and going to Joann's to pick out fabric to make blankets and swaddling cloths (I think that's what they are called...) and yarn to start working on projects!

8 weeks! (October 31, 2011)

So we had our "8 week" appointment on October 31st.  Here we were in the doctor's office waiting patiently for the doctor to come in and confirm the pregnancy. Ed had never been in the OB/Gyn department so he was very quietly sitting looking at all the posters that were around of vaginas and ovaries and baby development stages. He looked a little weirded out lol. Anywho, the nurse asked me to undress from the waist down for the exam and then shortly after some other random chick walks in, mind you...i just have some sheet covering my nether regions and my ass was probably exposed...and she was looking for some paperwork she left behind! Now, these doctor offices are not very big, kinda like when you go to the eye doctor...maybe a tad smaller...but anywho, there was ed by the door, I'm sitting on the bed looking thingy and this chick is looking for her paperwork, not that there are many places she could have left them. Oh well, she leaves, then the nurse comes in looking for the chick's paperwork! And all this time I'm getting more and more anxious about the doctor walking in so we could get this show on the road! Well, finally the doctor makes it in and she starts the test, which is not on your belly by the way, it's up your hoo-hah...cold and a bit uncomfortable. But there you have it, we looked at the screen and saw our new addition to the DeLaO clan at  7 weeks and 4 days based on the length from crown to rump.   Our estimated delivery date is scheduled for 6/14/12

At this point in the pregnancy...
I feel nauseous ALL the time! It's hard for me to eat my cereal in the morning. It used to take me like five minutes to chow down on breakfast. Now it's taking me like twenty minutes! Had to switch from my favorite Honey Bunches of Oats to Honey Nut Cheerios. Also, we changed the milk up to Lactaid instead of the regular reduced fat stuff. It has helped with the gas. My sense of smell has gotten ridiculously sensitive! And I always thought pregnant women were making shit up!When I'm brushing my teeth I can smell the drain...I know gross. Every smell seems to be stronger! Pre-pregnancy I was an avid fan of air freshers and plug-ins. Now, I can't seem to have them around because I start to feel nauseous with the smell. To tell you that I had to make a hurried trip to the bathroom at work because the air freshener I had in the classroom made me gag at the end of the lesson! Thankfully it was toward the end of the period and I had an aide that I left in the room while I made a run for it!


As far as food goes...
I am favoring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on wheat bread. It seems they make my stomach happy. It's getting more and more difficult for ed to find something I am ok eating.

Other thoughts running through my head...
I am uneasy about losing weight. I know that sounds dumb and some of you are probably thinking, "What weight does she have to lose?" Well, when we went for the "unofficial" doctor appointment with my family doctor, I weighed in at 114. As of now I'm at roughly 106 so I'm a bit worried.

I am excited about starting a family with Ed. We have been together for almost eleven years and the talk of kids has been around for quite a few already. We finally decided this summer to stop using birth control and based on conversations with a few friends conception was probably six months to a year away since I was using contraception for a while. Well. It only took three months. lol

It has begun...

So the first five and a half weeks of this pregnant business weren't too shabby. People would ask me, "How do you feel?" and I would respond with, "oh, I feel great!" Yea...not anymore...

It all started on Wednesday. We were going to my sister's for dinner and I was really looking forward to it. We got there the food looked delicious and I had an enormous appetite, but for some reason, I found myself taking very small bites and it was getting progressively more and more difficult to get them down...I then started thinking about when this was going on before and it turns out I had been having a difficult time getting my cereal down in the mornings, and my lunch in the afternoon, and dinner...hmmm...then I got to thinking...Is this that "morning sickness" women speak of?

So, for the men out there who are actually reading this, if any, this feeling that has come over me feels like the day after you party hard and drink too much, but without the headache. You look at food and it doesn't look appetizing. Just a constant bout of nausea looming in your stomach. Of course come late evening of that day you start to gain your appetite back and then you forget about what an awful day you had and drink hard the following weekend. Well, the feeling hasn't gone away from me. To tell you that on Friday night Armando made some killer tri-tip and I had none of it. It made me quite sad. I never say no to any meat Armando cooks! It's madness I tell ya!

Well, for those women who have been there and done that, some words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated. I know I'm not the first woman in the world who's gotten knocked up, but this is all new to me. I will keep you posted on the nausea status...lol

Martin Stewart

So... before I get into the what the typical Martin Stewart project would be I wanna share some shenanigans... I was trying to come up with a cool/funny pic for this portion of the Blog. The goal was to try to somehow combine a Martha Stewart face pic with mine. The simple solution was just to cut and paste my face onto a Martha Stewart pic I poached from the internet... This was the result:

Pretty standard right? It's rough and shows zero technical skill, but it gets the job done. Then I remember coming accross this site that lets you take two photos and blend them together to get one pic. I figured this was ideal seeing how the whole gimmick to this segment was to show a manly version of Martha Stewart... Well... the result of the "blend" was ... disturbing to say the least...

Pretty horrific right? So now I'm debating on whether or not to attempt this again or just use one of the two pics... Its like watching friggin' surgery.... I wanna see what's going on, but it hurts to look at.

Well... Enough of that. On to point of the segment!

That's our sewing machine right there... its all shiny and new... and green. Then if you look in the back you can see Claudia all concentrating on something. Then if you look really close you can see part of Claudia's bike, and behind that is our blinds and a lamp... Notice how we never took the manufacturer's sticker off the lamp? Yea, we don't pay much attention to details like you obviously do...

The reason I highlighted all that was to divert your attention away from the terribly crafted yellow balloon monster with legs thing sitting on the sewing machine... (Did it work?) Well, that's the first completed Martin Stewart project! I took some 29 cent felt, drew a super simple monster design on it, cut two pieces, sewed those bad boys together with our trusty sewing machine, stuffed it with some shredded old tee-shirt (I'm not gonna pay for friggin' stuffing...), and viola! We have a 40 cent crappy stuffed animal/dog toy/paper weight/blog subject.

If you look close you can see some terrible hand stitching on the left side of the terribly crafted yellow balloon monster with legs thing (it would technically be the right side of the terribly crafted yellow balloon monster with legs thing). I know I had to leave a hole for stuffing, but I have no idea how to close the hole without showing the stich... If anyone out there (supposing anyone reads this) knows how to do that, or can just tell me what the stich is called so I can do a bit of Google research on the hows and whys of the stich let me know!

Welp, that's it for the first Martin Stewart post. If anyone has any suggestions or, like, patterns laying around the house they'd like to see me fail at trying I'd be more than happy to attempt it. Stay safe and remember: when changing your spark plugs, don't cross the wires.

(The website I used for the blend was: http://www.morphthing.com/)

Baby Books!!

So you guys know how much I LOOOOVE to read....so much that we actually decided to stop by our local Barnes & Noble (mind you, Borders was our bookstore of preference but the losers closed down) and picked up a couple baby books.  Now if you are still believing that I love to read, I really don't. Actually, I utterly and passionately despise reading! I think it's in part because as a child I was never read to by my parents but mostly because the crap we had to read in school was hella boring! I mean, really? Who can stay awake reading through Great Expectations (for those of you who actually can, I don't mean to offend)! Anywho, on another side note, the service at Barnes & Noble is ridiculously terrible! I asked the lady to point me in the direction of pregnancy books and she was a total bitch telling me that there was another "customer" that was waiting to be helped so she had to tend to her and I had to wait.  What was so difficult about her just lifting her fat ass arm and point towards the baby books?!? Believe me, if I was trolling with my ghetto attitude (which I hardly ever do lol) I would have socked that bitch up (verbally, of course!)

So, back to the books...I finally found the baby book section, no thanks to Fatty McMuffin customer service rep lady...and then we both just stand in front of the section. Just stand. And read the titles. And stand some more. Until I grab the #1 Bestselling Pregnancy Book in the World!!!

Then we do more standing. And scan the rest of the book titles. Go through a few more books. You know, stuff a MAN can read without feeling like a pansy because he's trying to understand his spouse on this long journey. So, finally, after much discussion, Ed settles for this one...

So there you have it. This is what we will be reading throughout the pregnancy. I'm super bummed my book has no pictures but I did learn that I was able to skip the first chapter because it was for those women who were  trying to get knocked up...I already was...so on to Chapter 2 for me!

Buckle Up!

Holy smokes we're about to have a kid... I was in disbelief when Claudia showed me the "proof," but then a follow up test, and finally a doctor visit confirmed it. There was some initial anxiety that set in, but after like a day of reflection it all kinda fell away. I realized that we can sit around stressing that we didn't have enough boxes checked off of our life's to-do list, but would we ever? So instead of spending energy contemplating countless minor (and some major) details, we can spend our energy gearing up for the biggest step of our lives in a positive way.

With that said we've rolled out some pretty cool goals for the next 40 or so weeks, and we'll try to share all of that with you guys.

Here's what's to come:

Martin Stewart

We bought a sewing machine last week because we were thinking how can we go through parenthood without one right? Future rips and tears, potential Halloween costumes and the like all demand that we have this appliance! The kicker is, neither of us really know how to use a sewing machine, especially me... Since I'm the one with the goal behind Diaper Count, I figured I'd better get crackin' on developing some sewing machine skills. So, Martin Stewart will showcase some attempts at different sewing machine projects with the goal set on getting good enough to make a quality reusable diaper... Let's see how it works out!

GrizzliED vs. Baby Bump

I had this idea of growing a 'Maternity Beard.' The goal being that I don't shave my face until the delivery day. I can see it in my head now... Our first picture is gonna have an exhausted and frazzled Claudia and a grizzled foot-long beard on either side of this pink little baby. So we'll be updating the status of Claudia's belly along side my soon to be glorious face-fro.

Gain One Lose One

We all know Claudia's gonna be putting on a few extra pounds during this whole ordeal. We thought it would be cool to see if I could keep up the inverse of that. Throw in a little trash talk and I think we have an interesting little game here. Only question is, can her minor weight gain keep up with my major weight loss? I. Think. Not.

Diaper Count

I really wanna try to use reusable diapers... But, I wanna take it a step further and make those diapers. So, we'll be updating a diaper count, hopefully a picture of like a diaper tower or something...

This Week in Outfits

This really won't kick off until we find out the kid's gender, but the idea is to pick up an outfit a week and post something about it.

"Holy Toledo?!"

This is going to be a segment on interesting tidbits we didn't know about pregnancy, or babies, or whatever, or things that just blow our minds. For example, I was talking to my brother who told me his newborn is going through, "easily 10+ diapers a day," to which we replied, "HOLY TOLEDO! 10+ a day!?"

That's the plan! We're gonna have as much fun and stay as positive as humanly possible during these next months! So buckle up, it's gonna be an interesting ride!

Ding!

So Yea...It has happened...we are with child!

We found out Wednesday, October 5th 2011! How did we find out you ask?  Well...we took a pregnancy test and...VOILA!

We were in disbelief at first, attributing the positive test to a faulty "generic" pregnancy test, so we went and boughtt a "first response" one and it said the same thing lol.

We hope that you will be a part of this journey with us! Please leave us any words of wisdom as we embark on this epic adventure. If you have baby stuff gathering dust anywhere in your house that you wouldn't be sad parting with, we would be more than happy to take it off your hands...lol.

Ed and I are EXTREMELY happy and can't wait for the lil guy, or gal, to join our lives!