I'm quickly reaching that point that all pregnant women come to where I'm getting very tired of being pregnant. I'm tired, lethargic, and huge. My legs are stretchy all the time, my acid reflux is horrible and nothing helps and because of that, my stomach just feels really sour. My hands are constantly numb and tingly from carpal tunnel. It's hard to take a deep breath cuz she's probably pushing up on my diaphragm.
I actually cried tonight cuz I feel sorry for myself. What a putz!

I can't believe things have been SO busy around here that I literally haven't had ten minutes to write in this blog! And that's no exaggeration - it has been NONSTOP activity ever since about the 4th of July!
Nutshell version of the shower at Mom's this past Saturday: It was terrific! Wonderful guests, good food, and lots of fantastic gifts. I am floored at people's generosity. Some people gave me huge gifts bag FULL of baby things. Mom gave me the stroller I wanted, Steph gave me the matching carseat, Rachel gave me the space-saver high chair seat and the BOPPY! (Don't know why I'm SO excited about the Boppy...they just look so cool and so useful!) Tons of adorable clothes and jammies, little tiny sockies, toys, books....I am so very blessed and this baby girl already is too!
I worked on her room all day Monday...putting away onesies and jammies in her dresser drawers, hanging clothes in the closet, organizing things on shelves....Was a lot of work, but FUN work! Feels awesome to be getting so organized ahead of time!
Had another doctor checkup this morning that went very well. Got a Rho-gam shot (in the rump!) that will protect from Rh incompatiblity. Belly measurement's perfect, blood pressure's perfect, and her heart rate was 153 bpm today. The doctor called her a "little engine" when she heard the heart rate again today and I thought that was cute! After the appt, I treated myself to a double cheeseburger, fries and a chocolate chip cookie at McDonald's. Yum!
Now I'm ever so tired and gonna try to take a nap. Will come back and post some pics of the nursery soon! I hope!
*zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*

I've been able to "do" more lately, despite the watermelon-belly. Over the weekend, we massively re-organized the garage - shuffled through every single box in there and pitched a bunch of junk, then organized the boxes and bins on a shelving unit. Scott did the vast majority of it, but I did what I could.
And today I managed to work for about four hours (with frequent breaks!) in the room that will be the nursery - sorting through everything in there and clearing almost everything out so it can be painted. I made two "piles" of stuff in the hallway - a trash pile, which is surprisingly large, and a store-in-the-garage pile. So tomorrow I hope to move some of that stuff down into the garage. Some of the boxes are pretty heavy, though, so I'll just deal with the lighter ones.
Our friend Jennifer is coming to visit on Wednesday and is gonna help Scotty paint the nursery!! Dude! Once it's painted, the sky's the limit! It will be SO much fun to start putting stuff in there and making it begin to look like a baby's room! I can't wait to put her little clothes in the drawers and on hangers (mental note: Buy those bitty hangers I've always thought were so cute), and just get things looking all cute in there! OH and I even lined her dresser drawers with contact paper today too!
I hope I have enough energy to do a few more things around here tomorrow like I had today. If I take plenty of breaks and drink lots of water, I do pretty darn well. Gonna try to post a couple pictures with this entry, but Blogger hasn't let me do that lately, so we'll see. HEY, it worked! That's one of the two dressers that Scott did a very nice painting job on. Tried to post a couple more pics but it will only let me post one. Grrr.
She has been moving, moving, moving lately! 'Course, most of the time I only feel her when I'm sitting or laying quite still. Today I felt her off and on but since I was moving so much, she wasn't...lol! BUT - this afternoon my belly looked all lopsided, kinda bigger on the left than the right, so I think she may have had her butt sticking up or something. It was way funny! I still am just totally obsessed with feeling her move. I love it soooooooo much!!!!

"Fit Pregnancy" is a REALLY cool magazine.

This drawing shows about how big Alyssa is now! She weighs about 2-1/2 pounds and is about 11 inches long from the crown of her head to her little butt. :D

Well, this morning I had the refreshing treat of the massively-sugar-filled orange drink for the glucose test. LoL! Honestly the stuff isn't that bad....I'd had it before and didn't mind it. It is very sugary but I think my body's pretty used to sugar so it didn't faze me much! I drank it right before I left for the doctor's office and they took my blood exactly an hour later. So everything's fine so far. They'll call me tomorrow to let me know the results. I am reeeeally praying the results are fine because if they're not - then I have to go back and have a 3-hour glucose tolerance test. And that's a fasting test which means I'd be really hungry and weak and it would suck hugely. I had the 3-hour test several years ago and it was no picnic, and that was when I wasn't pregnant. I would LOVE to avoid that if I can!!

Other details from today's doc visit: Belly measurement was good.....I gained 4 pounds since the last visit which is better than 9 (from the visit before) and she didn't say anything about it, but I still wanna watch my sweets and stuff cuz yikes!....Her heartbeat sounded great (153 bpm) and it was kinda amusing because she was moving so much while the doctor was trying to get her heart rate that we kept hearing "thump, bang, boom..." LOL! Oh, and she recommended Liquid Mylanta for my bad acid problem. She said liquid antacids tend to work better than chewables. So I bought some on my way home and sincerely hope it helps!
From now til Alyssa's born, I'll be seeing the doctor every two weeks instead of once a month!

Scott and I are going to a "Taking Care of Baby" class next month. It's just one class on a Saturday morning. I'm looking forward to that. We both need to learn the basics so that when we get her home we aren't clueless!

I really think the next 2-1/2 months are gonna go pretty quickly. I sure hope so!!

Alyssa's favorite hobby: Doing jumping jacks on mommy's bladder!

WOW - what a fantastic 4th of July we had!!

The ice cream mix-in contest was cool (pun intended). I got voted "Most Outrageous" for my ice-cream-belly-with-pickle-belly-button idea. Hee! And my niece, Betsy (16 yrs old) loves pickles SO much that she took the pickle belly button out and ate it, with ice cream on it and everything! She's a really shy girl, but when it comes to doing nutty things like that she's always up for it! We actually got some video footage of her eating it - lol! And LOTS of other video footage too - Scotty was having a ball with the camcorder!
My mom and dad got there at about 1:00 and we all had lunch (sloppy joes and a bunch of other stuff) and then just relaxed and chatted. The weather was PICTURE PERFECT on their lake. About 77* and a beautiful breeze - and NO humidity!! They had this lawn game called "Blongo Ball" set up and lots of us took turns playing that. It's a pretty cool game!
Then....at about 6:00, Kathy (mom-in-law) and Koreena (sis-in-law) brought out a bunch of food for dinner and started moving tables and chairs around. I was sitting across the yard with my mom and some others and was completely oblivious as to what they were up to. Finally, I casually turned around and they had this huge bunch of balloons and decorations up, and a big ol' pile of gifts under the tree!! As soon as I glanced over there they all yelled "Surprise!" Everybody sat in a half-circle (there were about 25 of us there altogether I think - maybe more) and watched as Scott and I opened the gifts. There were even a couple of shower games, with prizes for the winners and stuff. It was really, really cool and I was so touched that I started crying a little but stopped myself cuz I didn't wanna look like a complete dork in front of everybody! The gifts were just amazing! So much *wonderful* baby stuff - clothes, booties, a tiny white fuzzy bathrobe, the infant bathtub I registered for, the giraffe swing, books, and best of all -- this AWESOME burley/jog stroller from Scott's parents!!! I wanted one SO bad for Alyssa but thought we'd eventually just buy one ourselves cuz those things are not cheap and we didn't expect to get one as a gift!! You can attach it to the back of a bike OR add a third wheel to the front and it becomes a jog stroller! In my non-pregnancy days, I do a lot of "power walking", so this thing will be sooooo great to have!! Up there is a picture of what it looks like. Cannot wait to use it!!
....By the time the shower was over and the food was all cleaned up, it was getting dark and my BIL, Corey, did his annual fireworks display. It was beautiful. By 10:45 I was totally beat and went in to bed. It was so cool to have my mom and dad there again - they had a terrific time. This morning, Scott and I and our parents went out for breakfast before we headed home. Traffic was great both to and from, so that was nice!
And during our little trip, my little stinker moved a lot. It was too funny - she was really boogying in there during the fireworks. No doubt she could hear them and probably wondered what in the world was going on! Scott's afraid that now she'll be born deaf cuz of all that noise last night! I think not! ; )

Tomorrow I have the doctor appointment where they'll do the glucose test. I have to drink that really sugary orange stuff an hour before the appointment. I pray that I don't have any gestational diabetes issues!!

We're hoping to work on Alyssa's room next week. We have lots of stuff to clear out of there before Scotty can start painting and we can move some of her things in there. I hope we manage to get a lot done - it will be SO great when that room starts looking like a nursery!!

Reflux. Maaaaaajor acid reflux. Soooo uncomfortable.
I pray that it won't be bad on the 4th. That would really stink!