Merry Christmas and stuff!!

First off, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy new year and I hope that everyone had a great Christmas. It was relatively quiet in the Nichols household...actually it was VERY quiet. We had biscuits and gravy, opened presents, and I can't remember what else we did but it was very relaxing. I am currently taking down all the decorations and trying to finish cleaning the guest room. :s 

I am 37 weeks along and am getting anxious to meet the little person inside of me. He is always moving and causing me to have heart burn/indigestion but only at night so I can't really complain. The baby's room has yet to be finished but I have washed all the baby clothing. 

Maya graduated from Intermediate Education class...yay! Which basically means that she listens to us. :) Haha, she can do lots of things...sit stay, lay stay, stand stay, heeling, waiting at the door, etc. It's been really fun taking her to these classes. It lets her interact with other dogs and people. She has learned to not jump on people (for the most part) and that she has to sit if she wants loving! Her next class is the advanced education class. It should be fun. 

36 weeks

Had my lovely weekly appointment today. I got checked and then tested for StreptB. I am 1.5 cm dialated. I got all excited about it til I found out that was normal and I could be at 1.5 cm for awhile...thrilling. So we'll see. I haven't been feeling any contractions or Braxton Hicks yet. The doctor says that the baby is of average weight...6 or 7 lbs...yay! No 10lb-er here, that excites me. For the past couple of days he's been up in my ribs having a field day. Other than all that, things are just plain, flat-out normal. I'm still awaiting that "nesting" phase. Perhaps during the Christmas break. Needless to say, I'm really excited to be getting closer to meeting the little man that keeps kicking the snot out of me!! I'm anxious to see who/what he looks like (even though he will change a gazillion times in the first couple of months). Still curious. Pictures of me and the weird cat, Raisin.

Happy Thanksgiving!

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing holiday. Next is Christmas! Yay! I hit the 32 week mark this week...yay! Crazy really. I'm anxious and nervous...every feeling you can think of. There really isn't much happening with this pregnancy and I'm grateful for such an easy pregnancy. Although, I can say that I can't wait to get back into my regular clothing. I think my biggest complaint at this point is if I sleep too long, I get sore. Haha! Not so bad. I am anxious to meet the little guy...assuming the u/s technician is right! The picture taken of the belly is more like 32.5 weeks...32 weeks and 4 days. Fun times!

And here's a picture of our cute cat. She doesn't like the camera flash. Here's a quick little story about RYAN'S cat...so I think we've decided that she eats too much (she is getting fat). In an effort to control and minimize that amount of food she WAS eating, I was only going to feed her once a day. Ryan and I had sat down to dinner. I noticed she was scrounging in the bag that contains Maya's (our dog) treats. These are the treats that we use to train the dog. She grabs the bag of the mix of treats. THIS is not a small bag of treats. It's a sandwich bag half full of treats. She starts running off with them. I jump in front of her thinking that I'll just grab the cat but she drops the bag and runs off. So now I'm half worried that she'll think if she tries to steal the treat bag...I'll feed her. She ate half her bowl and now she's passed out on my lap. Such a tough life being a cat. 

28 weeks and slacking...

So I'm at that 7 month mark...just passed it. The only thing I can really complain is my bra size (I fear if I grow one more cup size, I might have to find a whole 'nother website to buy bras from)...oh, and it's starting to get harder to WALK. For pete's sake, I climb 3 stairs and I feel like I've run a marathon. I haven't learned to slow down so when I go see a person at work, I'm out of breath when I get there. "Are you okay?" I always get that. Me..."Yes, just pregnant..." It's nice to know all my vital organs are jammed up in my rib cage.  I'm thankful though, that it's getting cooler. Well, I guess I can jump straight to it's finally nice and cold during the day. Feels good. It's 36 degrees, I'm in capris, flip flops, and a t-shirt. People actually ask me if I'm cold. Would I wear that if I were cold? Does everyone forget I'm a walking incubator?

Doctor's appointments...I don't think I've seen a doctor (or been in a hospital) so much as I have in the last 7 months and it increases to twice a month now. Ooooohhh, goody. I get to pee in a cup semi-monthly. The only thing that excites me about this is me getting into work by 10am (also means I get to sleep in a bit).

Baby moves like crazy, ESPECIALLY at 3am. Nice little wake up call I could use about 3 hours later.

This last doctor's appointment was slightly traumatic. I had to do that glucose test. And all you know that I'm hypoglycemic. You take my breakfast away from me I'll be puking in no time. So I downed that sad excuse for an orange drink at 7:15 am (before we left for the appointment) as instructed. Get to the office, they call me back, the nurse weighs me. I SEE I have gained 11lbs. That's all fine and dandy. She takes my blood pressure, Ryan asks me how much I weigh, I look at the chart and apparently she has me down for gaining 20lbs. You're kidding. 20lbs in a month. Panic sets in. We get to my little room and she forgot to do the blood test! Well, darn, she has to run out and get her stuff. Meanwhile, Ryan and I discuss the fact that my weight gain must clearly be a mistake. We must ask for a re-weigh...we need a do-over! She returns, pokes my finger, applies pressure for what seems like ages. Scurries off, returns with the results telling me I will have to return to do the 3 hour fasting/glucose test. I'm sorry, are you saying there's a chance I'm diabetic??? Not only has this nurse added 10lbs to my weight gain but she wants me to starve myself and shove containers of orange sugar drink down my throat. I realize I'm getting hot and sweaty. I start looking for a place to puke. Run to the bathroom, proceed to dry heave for about 5 minutes (in the midst of crying) before composing myself and returning to my room where I grab a granola bar from purse and gobble the stupid thing down so I won't have to hang over a toilet any longer. My DOCTOR comes into our room to inform us of GREAT news. I had passed the dumb glucose test. I was borderline so she considered it passing (yay!!!) plus she didn't think I'd make it through the fasting of the 3 hour glucose test (someone with common sense!).  Then she brings up the weight gain...Ryan and I tell her our version of the story, she requests a do-over and all is right with the world once again. (HOW do you mis-weigh someone? The last person you'd want to weigh incorrectly is a pregnant person. I have a complex AS IT IS. I don't need someone messing with my head about my body weight. Arrrggghhhh.)

25 Weeks & Stuff!!!

Won't say much, but will show some pics.  Enjoy!!!

The outside of house finally completed!!!

Shauna @ 25 weeks!!! Can't wait till January!!!

Maya's Puppy Education graduation day!!!

Slug we found in our Garage.  We think it was lost.  Apparently it smokes too... don't ask me how it actually uses the regular size lighter???

Our new Kitty Cat "Raisin".  She's a Tortoiseshell Tabby.

I am 22 weeks and some-odd days. I just know now that I'm popping cuz everyone keeps asking if I'm pregnant. It's kind of weird to hear people ask that. Heh. This picture is from last weekend after church.

So our house is finally finished. Vinyl, windows, and gutters. It's a nice feeling to have it done. We can already tell the difference in efficiency of changing out the windows with new double-paned ones. I've posted some before and after pictures. The only thing missing is the gutters (in the pictures). Although, the gutters HAVE been done...I've been lazy in taking pictures. That and my camera battery is dead and again, I'm being lazy.

A pic of the house before and a pic of how well our gutters didn't work.

   

After with the vinyl and windows minus gutters. :)

21 weeks PREGO!

I'm actually 21 weeks pregnant this week. I didn't get a chance to post belly pictures last week due to the MIA of my camera. Catch-up number 2! I can still rubber band my pants, although, I prefer to wear forgiving clothing. As always, I find myself wanting to wear dresses more. I feel the baby move more and more everyday especially at night. It's the weirdest feeling. I think he headbutts my cervix several times a day. I feel a lot of pressure, kind of like a bearing down in my uterus. Just something we're keeping an eye on. Fun times. I'd post my 20 week ultrasound picture but it's frightening...however the dvd of the entire ultrasound is great to watch! Teehee! 

California pictures....

So, I found my camera. It was hidden in a Lowe's bag. Heh. Don't even ask how it got there. Regardless, I'll be doing catch-up on the past couple of weeks, starting with Sarah's wedding. I just have some pictures from rehearsal and some from the "bachelorette night."

        

As you can see, we all got our In N Out shirts with our titles stitched on. The gazebo with the line-up. I got paired with THE TALLEST guy...hehe. That was our wall and the bride and groom stood behind us. It was a nice place, very green, lots of stairs! 

  

We stayed at the Pine Rose Cabins in the Christmas Cabin!! It was way cute. Lots of junk food and movies. I think we made it through one complete movie and busted into maybe 5% of the junk food! 

  

Next morning we went to Belgian Waffle Works!! YUM! Great breakfast to start a great DAY! The wedding was enjoyable after a couple hours of stressfulness. I don't have any pictures of the actual day because I was busy being a Bridesmaid! But it was fun and great to see lots of people! Congrats to Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Jarvis!

Back from Cali and other fun stuff

We have returned (like a week ago) from California from a very enjoyable trip. I have SOME pictures but not a whole lot but as soon as I find my camera, I will post them. Sarah's wedding was beautiful and fun. It was great seeing everyone. It's just a bummer that it was such a short trip. One would think a week would be enough to see people, but no, of course not. Secondly, I've hit the 20 week mark (half way there!!!) today in my pregnancy. I had my doctor's appointment and got a 23 minute video of the ultrasound plus 4 ultrasound pictures. I've been experiencing pelvic pressure, not sure what that means in regards to the baby but the doctor says everything is fine. Yay! And again, as soon as I find my stinkin' camera I will put up some belly pictures. 

California here we come!!!

This is a quick post to let you all know we will be in California for the next week from the 17th to the 24th.  Hope to see as many of ya'll as we can!!!  If we have time we will post some recent and current events that have gone on like Maya's puppy graduation and friends.  Laters!!!

Things aren't fitting...

Okay, so here I am at 16 weeks. The few things I have found out...I need to own more stretchy pants. They are a girl's best friend. Not diamonds...stretchy pants. I find myself searching my closet for dresses for ONCE in my life. Secondly, bras in size F are NOT at all, in any way, shape, or form attractive. My husband, bless his heart, went online to save the day a.k.a find me a 32F bra because I was still in denial. He finds one and has me pick out a color, he orders it. I get it, I put it on...I cry. Madonna boobs...for one...3 clasps that are 2 inches apart from each other...two...three, the straps are about an inch thick. I look like I'm wearing a tank top with the bottom half cut off. I don't look sexy, I don't feel sexy. I'm sad. My only prayer at this point is I stop growing in the boob area. Everywhere else is fine, in fact I now encourage it as long as it doesn't end up on top. Hooray for being at the 16th week though! I still have nights that I feel a bit ill, my doctor asked if it was indigestion and being as it I have never experienced it, I could not answer. I was told to try pepcid AC. THAT STUFF makes me sick. It's suppose to be flavored but I don't know if you can call that flavor. Formed chalk pretty much sums it up. No thank you. I'll deal with whatever it is that might be ailing me at this point. Not everyone at work knows I'm pregnant so it's interesting to see people staring particularly at my belly. Not to mention, I'm feeling the baby move. Weirdest thing in the world. Usually before I eat, I'll start feeling flutters. Kinda tickles from the inside. I've noticed my center of balance is GONE. I'm still trying to recover it. I'm tripping up all over the place. Not to mention the extra couple of inches of hip-age. I run into things especially things I used to be able to avoid...like closed doors and corners. Anyways, enough talk, here are some pics. I think I look bigger in these pictures than I really am...but that's just me.

And here is a picture of Maya attacking her kong. We had just put peanut butter in it and she was all over that thing!!

POISON IVY SUCKS!!!

Hello all,  this is Ryan and this is my first blog on here that I wrote completely.  I have helped Shauna with a couple of the previous ones but didn't finish them.  So I would like to tell you a story that happened a long time ago before I tell you the current story.  

Back when I was a teenager I was visiting family up in Oregon.  I decided that I was going to learn how to ride my cousins motorcycle, granted I had never really been all that interested before.  Upon going back and forth, up and down the street, I was on my way back to the house and was approaching the last turn before I headed down the driveway to park it, and be done for the next umpteen years, I... for some reason... decided to accelerate right after I downshifted.  As you can probably guess right now the rest is going to be funny for you, not so funny for me.  So basically what happened at this point was, picture if you must, me on a motorcycle, going straight instead of turning, busting through a fence, crashing into a tree and scratching the heck out of my arm, and then to top it all off... fell over into a patch of POISON OAK.  Go ahead... laugh it up!  So after the crash I had such a bad reaction to the poison oak that my forearm was rock solid.  Mind you not because I am built like a Superhero, but because my arm was so swollen and full of puss you could knock on my arm and it sounded like knocking on wood.  So after a few emergency visits to the hospital and a month or so later, the doctor tells me I shouldn't worry about poison oak anymore and that I am now immune to it.

So on to the current situation...  Was weed wacking some ivy in order to remove it from a wall next to our house and apparently we have frickin POISON IVY mixed in with the non stinging, non painful, regular ivy.  A few days later, low and behold I have spots all over my arms and on the back of my neck where all the shredded ivy had landed from the weed wacker.  I am now in a lot of pain, just like the poison oak from oregon.  Only this time the pain is worse.  I now have craters on my arms and neck that keep oozing puss and spreading even more all over my skin.  This sucks!!!  A person should only have to go through something like this once in there lives.  I am now on my second.  It has gotten to the point now that I can't even go to work because I can't use my arms.  Try lifting 30 ceiling fans using nothing but your hand strength and what little back muscle you have left.  So after attempting to work for a couple days like this and a really bad kink in the back later, I have had to call in.  This sucks because I just got written up for being late to work when dealing with the rodent problem Shauna wrote about already.  My work blows.  They have no consideration for anything or anyone.  Anyhoo...  poison ivy sucks and I wanted to make sure you all know.  I will post some pictures later of my sores for the not so week stomached people.

13 Weeks...

Here is a picture of my belly. I'm 13 weeks. Nothing fits. I'm at that stage where my clothes are uncomfortably tight but I'm not quite big enough for maternity wear. It's annoying. I walk around work with my pants unbuttoned/rubber banded. Heh! It's usually not so bad in the mornings but by late afternoon I feel fat. Not to mention, MY BOOBS...32F????? ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME? WILL IT EVER END? I look forward to the days I'll be able to fit back into a C. *Sigh*  (P.S. Please excuse the hair. My hair gets poofy at night.)

Critters in our chimney

So what does one do when you have critters living in one's chimney? It never occurred to me that I'd ever wonder that. Wednesday night, I, of course, having gone to bed at 7 pm and Ryan going to work at 9 pm, this little thought came upon me. Ryan on his way to work had heard noises coming from our fireplace. I awoke to him imitating those noises (like something that had come from the movie, The Ring). He wanted me to come down to hear the noises. In the state of my exhaustion, dragged myself out of bed to hear these freakish noises. I told him that he would not be going to work tonight until he got whatever was in our chimney out. Bring up the computer, search for animal control, calling parents, friends, anyone has any ideas? We block the kitchen entrances and build a barrier between our living room and the rec room. Ryan ties the dog leash to the fireplace handle. I open the door, camera in hand and tell him to go. He struggles the door open...there's NOTHING in there. We look a bit closer and the flue was closed. The noise was above the fireplace. Close the doors, open the flue, here some stuff fall into the fireplace and do the whole scene over again to no avail. So, Ryan goes off to work and I go to bed. Next day, we try again and no luck. FRIDAY comes along I get a text at work, of a picture of 2 raccoons...

Ryan says he's going to wait until I get home. 

NOPE. He decides to chase them out and this is the story that he told me. He made a path that led to the front door. Opened up the screen and the first raccoon ran out, no problem. Second one...directionally challenged I guess because it climbed up over the barrier and down into the rec room, back up to the corner of the living room, down to the rec room, behind the couch, up to the living room BEHIND the front door and tried to get out through crack between the jamb and the door. So Ryan put a box and scared it into the box and then made sure it only ran out the front door. It took about 20 minutes to get the second one out. 

Cockroaches and bunny droppings...oh my...

First off, I want to say that Maya is strange. We have rabbits. The come from our neighbor's property (the one that owns the 10 acres behind us). We get about 3 or 4 of them a night in our yard. No big deal. We were out back working on her training. We had treats in our hand but she kept running down to the back of the property. Her nose is straight into the ground and she is viciously eating, at first what looked like grass. Pulled her away and it's rabbit droppings. We couldn't get her to stop eating the stuff. Blah. That and not to mention the dead baby opossum.

SO, my main reason for this posting is to describe the events that occurred 3 hours ago. I (Shauna)  am currently home sick from work today. Ryan and I were sitting on the couch watching "Be Kind, Rewind" (I was not impressed). A cockroach runs and sits on the arm of the couch. Ryan just about flips. I tell him to hurry up and knock it OFF the couch. He grabs a stinking water bottle and it runs between the couch cushions. We tear the couch apart looking for it before we decide to just sit down and finish the movie. Not more than 20 minutes later, I hear Ryan scream in a very high pitch tone. Ryan kicks his feet off the coffee table and I see a cockroach do a 360 in midair. He's grabbing his feet. I am laughing...half hysterically. Again, we rip the couch apart for the second time in a half hour. We search high and low for this bug. Finally it crawls out under the fooseball table. Ryan sprays it to death, literally. I spend the entire day reminiscing of this memory. Heh. It's a great day.

New things!

Hello All!!!

This is our first official Blog.  Thought we would give you all an update on how things are going down here in the South!!!

There has and will be a couple new additions to our family... the first being our puppy Maya.  We had gone to the pet store with intentions of getting a hamster for Shauna but instead ended up going home with a dog.  We saw her and had no choice but to adopt her.  Unfortunately for us we didn't know she would be sooooo expensive

 so quickly.  Poor Maya had Hookworm anemia meaning that she had hookworm long enough that she had no blood left in her itty bitty body.  We ended 

up having to take her to the animal emergency hospital where they gave her a blood transfusion using Pit bull blood and were going to keep her 24 hrs.  Needless to say 5 hours later they gave us a call to come pick he

r up because she wouldn't quit yapping. She was happy to be home with us. Now she is the most rambunctious, lovable puppy ever. She is going through some puppy classes right now, it is quite entertaining. 

Next on the headlines, Shauna is prego... again. But this time it's sticking. Yay! Today, she is 11.5 weeks and counting. Sickness hits at night which isn't so good when you have to be at work at 6am the next morning. Sundays (for some reason) are the worst and the drugs don't work that night??? She usually pukes until 5:30am Monday mornings, heads off to work. Few people know and that's how it's going to be for a little while until after Sarah's wedding in August.