Christmas Bumpdate: 27 Weeks

At 27 weeks, I was loving being with my family in California, playing games, eating yummy food and celebrating the Christmas season! Everyone got to feel the bean kick, which was super special. 

I couldn't get enough time with these soon-to-be aunties! 

 Plus the cutest pup in the world: 

Sweetest nap time picture! 

Christmas Eve we went to a candlelight church service and also snapped this family of 2.5 photo: 

Christmas morning was filled with fun pajamas, 
 ...lots of presents,


...and lots of love! 

My favorite: the annual sisters+puppies pic! 

And one with the best husband ever: 

Thank you, mom and dad, for such a special Christmas!!
2

Oh, Christmas Tree!


Once again, we selected a ginormous (11.5 foot!) Christmas tree this year! It makes me soooo happy! I love everything about it: pulling in the driveway and seeing the lights twinkling through the front window, serving dinner in the formal dining room so we can admire the tree, piling presents underneath, and of course the best part was unearthing all of our special ornaments. 

After our honeymoon in 2009, we started a tradition of picking up a Christmas ornament on all of our foreign travels. I love placing them on the tree and remembering all the fun we had on our trips...

London 2010: 

Grand Cayman 2011:

And most recently, Tortola 2012!

I can't wait to add more ornaments as the years go on! :)


0

Bumpdate: 26 Weeks



It's the most wonderful (and busiest!) time of the year! So busy in fact that I'm way behind on posting my 26 Week update. It's all so much fun though: holiday parties, wrapping gifts, eating dinner in front of the Christmas tree... I love it all! Baby is loving the pears that my Aunt Liz sent for Christmas, yum! 
0

6 Months Along :)




Total Weight Gain/Loss: +20ish

Maternity Clothes: I’ve been breaking out the summer maternity ensembles since we’ve had a bit of a November/December heat wave here in Scottsdale!  

Cravings: Jalapeño anything! I ordered jalapeños on my hamburger over Thanksgiving in Dallas (which I’ve never done before) and was piling them on leftover turkey! Still loving jalapeño kettle chips and most recently jalapeño popcorn!   

Movement: Little one moves like crazy every night starting around ten and must move all night because I wake up to dance parties in my stomach! The bean was moving all about at my 25 Week check-up and the doctor called baby a Wild Child!

Aversions: None these days though if I get too hot I get nauseous which is not fun.  

What I Miss: Nothing… well, I’d take one or two nights of good sleep without getting up a zillion times.

Best Moment: Watching the bean move from the outside with Max!

What I'm Looking Forward To: More holiday fun while preggers!

0

Follow the Bump

Where has the bump been this week? 

Tim Mitchell's Christmas Tree lot where we've purchased an Oregon grown tree for the past 4 years (we chose another mondo one this year: 11 1/2 feet tall!):

The Hot Chocolate 5K walk with my high school friend Krissy:

And out to the neighborhood streets where we have some resurfacing going on (obviously this was solely for the cute photo opp!):


2

Bumpdate: 25 Weeks



The kids at school remind me every time I see them "Your baby is getting bigger!" Indeed, little one is now the size of an eggplant, and my uterus the size of a soccer ball! I've been keeping up with my weekly prenatal yoga (which I love) and have been trying to get more walking time in. 

Baby is loving all the holiday treats out right now, specifically the Mint Christmas M&Ms and Starbucks Peppermint Hot Chocolate. I did have a tall Peppermint Mocha this week, which was my first caffeine in quite a while and the most I've had my whole pregnancy. It was well within the "okay" allotment being only half the recommended limit of caffeine and still I was a ball full of energy! I forgot how awesome coffee was : )
1

WILW: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year Edition


Holiday music, peppermint soap, here's what I'm loving this 80 degree December day...

I'm loving Christmas pajamas! (Though I need to pair them with a tank top because we're running 10+ degrees above normal these days in Arizona. Couple that with being hot and pregnant already and we've actually ran our air conditioner this month... in December!) 

I'm loving that we now have an Elf on the Shelf! With a little one on the way I thought it was finally time to "adopt" one : )


I'm loving bringing out old Christmas goodies like our 2008 Christmas photo! 

I'm loving that our fabulous school PTO has decorated the Staff Room with a Christmas theme! 

I'm loving that The Nutcracker is in our school curriculum! I can't wait to share the music and the story with my sweet Kinders, Firsties and Second Graders! 

I'm loving seeing Christmas lights everywhere! And since Saguaro cacti are found only in the Sonoran Desert, I know the green-light-wrapped cactus is quite unique!


What are you loving?? Link up here
3

A Baby Bump for the Royals!

How excited am I that Kate Middleton is expecting?!? Yay! I love that I'll be pregnant at the same time as the Duchess; she's the cutest!! (I love it even more because my mom was pregnant with me when Princess Diana was pregnant with Prince William!) I'm eagerly waiting for the palace to announce a due date... apparently the Duchess is in the "very early stages" of her pregnancy so I'm estimating June... we'll see! 


Full article and photo from here : )
2

Bumpdate: 24 Weeks


Baby is loving Clementines and pickled ginger! Max took me out for (cooked) sushi so I could basically eat an entire plate of ginger! Baby is also loving salt which makes sense since I got my lab work back which indicated I was low on sodium, and dehydrated. Oops. I'll be trying to sip more water in the upcoming months. 

We toured our hospital today and timed how long it took us to get there (15 minutes). It's so exciting to think that in March we'll be doing "the drive" for real! 
2

Bumpdate: 23 Weeks



The holiday season is the best time to be pregnant! Thanksgiving dinner is a million times better when you're eating for two! 


Max and I got to spend our Turkey Day (and week) in Dallas. What fun times! 


In other baby news, the bean has found my bladder. Yes, I will get random kicks right on my bladder. It definitely makes me jump. I've been battling some nausea this week, too, plus a fainting episode! I've also started to wake up during the night with bad leg cramps. I'm crossing my fingers that it all goes away soon.

Max has been able to feel lil' one kick more and more and we both saw movement while we were in Texas! Baby had been kicking and we looked down and saw it right through my shirt! So much fun!
0

Studio Movie Grill, I Heart You


Twilight Breaking Dawn Part Two opened last Thursday night with 10pm showings. I usually avoid even opening weekends of movies - standing in line for hours is not fun, and rushing in to get a good seat is just gives me anxiety! However, I found the perfect solution: Studio Movie Grill! I'd been to the SMG in Scottsdale a few times before; I hear that it's similar to iPic theatres in that you get a big cushy seat and can have snacks and beverages delivered right to you. iPic tickets are pretty pricey though, and Studio Movie Grill offers tickets for the regular theatre rate. In fact, they discount tickets for weekday nights after 10pm so when I went online to buy Twilight premiere tickets for me and two friends, the tickets cost only $5.50 each! I haven't paid $5.50 to see a movie since maybe junior high. 

The best part, however, was that I got to select our seats when I purchased the tickets. So on the big night, we walked in five minutes before the movie started (just enough time to order popcorn and sweet potato fries) and our smack-dab-in-the-middle seats were open and waiting for us! I felt like I was cheating, seeing Twilight on opening night without having to jump through any of the normal premiere-viewing hoops. 10pm is normally when I'd be in bed, though, and it's normally when Baby Klein likes to move around so baby was going crazy during the whole movie! We joked that perhaps baby is already a Twilight fan ;)
1

Bumpdate: 22 Weeks


At 22 Weeks, Baby is loving Baskin Robbins Rainbow Sherbet on sugar cones. Delicious! Baby is also kicking up a storm every night! Max has been able to feel it a bit, and we've even tried listening for the baby's heartbeat with a stethoscope (yes, my crazy husband just has a stethoscope lying around!). 

The average sized baby weighs one pound at this point, though at my last doctor's appointment the bean was measuring a whole week ahead. So it's fair to say Baby Klein has passed the one pound mark by now! 
0

A Beast of a Banister

When we moved into our house 2 1/2 years ago, we inherited light colored pergo floors and a white-washed banister. The banister had a bit of a pinkish hue to it, all the rage I'm sure in 1992 when the house was built, but we always planned to update it. Before even moving in, we had new dark walnut floors installed but the banister proved to be more of a challenge. We figured the painters could just stain it for us while they were painting the rest of the house. Unfortunately, it was too big of a task for them and they said they couldn't even attempt it (that's what we get for going with someone called "Fast Eddie" ; ) So we moved into the house with the banister looking like this, figuring we'd get to it soon. But it's a beast of a banister. Seriously. 


Our goal is to have something similar to this house, dark stain on the top and bottom and white painted spindles. 

It's taken until now though for us to start the project (and by "us" I mean "Max" since staining involves nasty fumes I shouldn't be around being preggers and all). Before anything can be stained, it must be sanded and then wiped down with a tacky cloth. This part I can help with (but seriously 99.99% of all the work has been my incredible husband who started the whole project when I was out of town).  


This is the stain Max chose, which is working out quite well!

The below pic was taken earlier today. You can see the handrail is now complete - check out the close-up in the bottom right. Beautiful, no? (And ignore my barefoot which is resting precariously close to the tack strip- eeek! Going barefoot is a total home improvement no-no.)

When I wasn't holed up in our room avoiding the fumes, I ventured out for another action shot: 

And this is where the banister is right now! The bottom needs another coat of stain which will make it darker, and then all we Max will have left is to paint the spindles white!

Yay for home improvement! 
2

Babymoon to the BVIs - A Review of Frenchmans

When Max asked me what I wanted to do for my 30th birthday, I said I wanted to spend it snorkeling on a tropical island. I was half joking, as this was a wild "if I could do anything in the world I'd want to do this" wish. My incredible husband, however, started researching top snorkeling destinations! We decided upon a Babymoon in the Caribbean and I came across a tiny boutique hotel called Frenchmans, located on the British Virgin Island of Tortola. It had great reviews on Tripadvisor and Frommers, so we decided to give it a go and explore someplace new! 

Frenchmans is located on Frenchmans Cay at the far end of Tortola. The entire resort consists of just nine villas and a restaurant with a private beach (you can spot the nine villas in the arial view below). 

We weren't sure what to expect when we got there (as online reviews can sometimes be off) but we couldn't have been happier with our choice! Here are the villas all nestled in their tropical foliage glory. The photo does not do the place justice - it was gorgeous! 

Our villa was Star Fruit : )

It had a full kitchen and sitting area downstairs, and a bed and bath upstairs (bigger than my old California bachelorette cottage!). 

The sitting are opened up to an outdoor patio that overlooked the ocean. Here it is with my 19 week belly, just for fun: 

Frenchmans offered a complimentary breakfast in the outdoor restaurant each morning. It was an incredible way to start each day! This was also the only time we saw any of the other guests. When we arrived, just one of the other villas was occupied (with an attorney from the U.K. who was off on business the whole time) so it literally felt like we had the entire resort to ourselves. It was amazing! By the time we left, two other couples had checked in, but it still felt like it was just me and Max all alone : ) I loved it! 

Here's the path that led from the villas down to the restaurant, pool, tennis court and private beach: 

Frenchmans had a small pier that we used to enter the water for snorkeling. We found it to be the best snorkeling on the island! The first day we were out we saw tons of sea life including Lion Fish, Sea Stars and Parrot Fish. We also spotted Jelly Fish, which freaked me out a bit! They had very short tentacles instead of long ones, and were a purple iridescent color. I was stung last year in Cayman by a tiny jelly the size of a dime, and I remember my arm hurt for some hours afterward. I did not want to see what these grapefruit-sized jellies could do! 

We later found out (from our nice Frenchmans staff) that what we saw were Moon Jellies, and they were semi-harmless and had just a mild sting. In fact, by the end of the trip Max was picking them up and taking them out of the water for a better view! I had always thought that Jelly Fish were hollow, however when we felt them we realized their bodies are actually firm and solid. They reminded me of those gel shoe inserts. 


We always had the beach area to ourselves! I had to laugh one day as Max was off climbing on the rocks (being such the boy) and I was at the shore looking for seashells (totally being a girl!). 

There were also great spots to relax after being in the water: 

While we loved Frenchmans, we realized that it (and Tortola) isn't for everyone. Frenchmans was pretty isolated - there was a small marina with a market, shops and a restaurant that was a five minute walk away, and that was it. We found Tortola as an island also to be pretty remote. The resort itself was not a hopping place either - it's definitely the type of place where you go to escape everything and just enjoy the company you're with (making it the perfect Babymoon destination for us!). 

If you're looking for large resort type amenities, this also isn't the place. The pool was pretty small (which again for us was fine because we never had to share it and we only used it for rinsing off after the ocean anyway), and there was no room service. In fact, being on "island time" the hotel restaurant was closed for dinner twice a week and didn't serve lunch (this also wasn't a problem for us as we took advantage of our villa's kitchen a couple times and cooked for ourselves, and had a car to drive elsewhere to meals). 

The hotel's front desk wasn't staffed through the night, something that's a given at larger hotels. Upon our 10pm arrival on the island, we were picked up at the airport by a taxi driver who works for the resort. We had a 45 minute drive across Tortola, then he led us through the windy path that to our villa, collected the key from the drop box and let us in. There was a welcome letter from the resort with in-case-of-emergency numbers, but we didn't actually meet any hotel staff until the next morning. 


So, if you're in search of a loud and crazy place with tons of entertainment, Frenchmans is not it. If you're like us, however, and in search of a gorgeous, totally private and isolated destination, your own villa, and great snorkeling, Frenchmans is the place for you! 

1
Powered by Blogger.

Search