Twenty-One.

21 and I still can't drink...what the heck?

How Far Along: 21 weeks

Total Weight Gain: 12.6 pounds.  I gained .8 pounds this week.  I am more than fine with this less than a pound a week business.  Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Maternity Clothes: I am still (for now) done shopping.  I have found that when I wear maternity clothes I look kinda prego, when I wear my regular clothes, I look like I drank too much beer (which is obviously not the case).  That being said, as often as possible I am rocking my maternity stuff.

Sleep: Unfortunately I don't believe this is going to change.  I did tell my doc that my back hurts pretty bad.  He recommended getting massages.  When I turned to Jake to say "see you really should be massaging me when I ask you to" (he normally does, he's actually a pretty great husband), the doc said "no, like the real ones, the ones you pay for."  My response: EVEN BETTER!  Now I need to find a good prenatal masseuse, preferably one that looks like Christian Grey, or Channing Tatum, or Jackson Avery (does he have a real name or is he just that hot black guy from Grey's with the dreamy eyes?).

Gender: Just to reiterate my excitement from last week, I am so so so excited that we know what this little monkey is now.  Having a gender and a name has really helped me get over the I'm pregnant but no I'm not super excited because my boobs are huge and my back hurts like a mother and I can't drink alcohol or eat Subway and I don't sleep through the night and I'm growing a beard on the right side of my face mode and into the wow there is a little baby girl growing in my belly and her name is Samantha and she is going to be our little girl mode.  It does make the horrible pregnancy symptoms suck just a little bit less.

Best Moment this Week: **SAP ALERT #1** Kelly and I have been working for months on a surprise anniversary party for my parents.  On Saturday, we actually pulled it off.  From the "I smell bacon" comment as my mom was walking up the stairs (I am SO my mother's daughter), to the priceless reaction she had when she saw everyone in her kitchen, it could not have been more perfect.  I loved planning it with my wonderful sissy, and I loved that we were able to do something for my awesome, fabulous, generous, thanks-for-setting-a-great-example parents that have done so much for us.  Today is their 35th anniversary...WOWZA.  I can only hope that one day Jake and I can set an example for our kids like my parents have set for me, they truly are an example of how hard work, patience, dedication, and unconditional love make and sustain a marriage.  Happy Anniversary Love-Birds!!

Movement: The flutters I felt last week must have been gas or muscle twitches, because I am not feeling movement at all anymore.  At the ultrasound last week when she was hiding her lady parts, the ultrasound tech jiggled my stomach and we saw her head bobbing around like shaken baby syndrome, so I know she's moving in there, I just can't feel her yet.  This week she is the size of a large banana or pomegranate.  How do these even come close to being the same size?  What is people who determine these fruits are dumb for $1000.

Food Cravings: We went boating a few weeks ago with my sorority sisters and someone brought the pre-packaged Rice Krispie treats.  When everybody left on Sunday, somebody left the Rice Krispie treats too.  We discovered them a few days later.  I am not ashamed to say I ate 2 back to back one afternoon.  When we went to Sam's on Wednesday last week to buy stuff for my parents' party, we may or may not have bought a huge box of jumbo sized Rice Krispie treats and I may or may not have eaten one every day since then.  Sorry about it!

Symptoms: I don't think I have any new symptoms this week.  Just my typical larger than life jugs, sore aching back, dry flaky skin, growing at the speed of light fingernails, and growing but still kind of looks like a burrito grande belly.  The usual.  I think I mentioned my beard before too - I have some extra special, extra long, extra thick, extra blond hair growing on the right side of my face but not my left.  At least it's blond and not dark brown?

What I Miss: Is it inappropriate for me to just leave this column the same every week?  I am not going to get over any of this until Miss Thing makes her appearance, and then I'm going to have a slew of new things to complain about.  I will say that I am finally getting used to socializing without having alcohol.  I'm not saying that I don't still want a beer while everybody else is downing them, but I'm learning how to function like a human being without a beer in my hand at a party.  Seeing as this hasn't happened since basically high school, I'd say this is a pretty large accomplishment.  I think I deserve a cookie, or ten.

What I am Looking Forward to: Three day weekend!!!!!!!  JB is coming in town this weekend and I am so excited to see her I can hardly stand it.  We will also be saying goodbye to Jake's brother and his wife this weekend as they head to New York, and to JVDS and her hubby as they head to Washington DC!  I'm excited to see friends and family but sad to say goodbye.  wah.wah.

Noteworthy Items:

-**SAP ALERT #2** I spent some time this weekend (I had a lot of time to reflect on some things while I was sober at a party with 50 drunk people, okay?) thinking about how lucky I am to have such an amazing husband and how lucky Samantha is going to be to have such a great dad.  Sometimes I sit here and have to ask how I got so lucky to be blessed with such a wonderful life.  I have not found the answer, but if I do, I'll be sure to let you know.  One thing I do know is that I'm still madly in love with Jake and I can't wait to raise a family with him. 

-The dresser is finished!  Because I know people are going to ask, I'm just going to walk through the steps we took to get this old and ugly piece of furniture looking so much better than it did before:
1. Lightly sanded all of the wood with a cheap orbital sander I got at Harbor Freight tools.
2. Painted two coats of Zinsser oil-based cover stain primer.
3. Painted two coats of Valspar satin paint (for both the paint and the primer Jake rolled the big parts and I painted the small details with a brush).  I would recommend a semi-gloss paint for this step, but we had a satin paint and didn't want to spend another $25-30 on another gallon.
4. Coated the entire dresser with 3 thick coats of Rustoleum clear finishing enamel.
5. Installed the new knobs we bought at Lowe's for about $1/piece.

The texture of the dresser isn't the most wonderful thing in the world (I would highly recommend a paint spray gun but we just didn't feel like spending $75 on that), but it looks so much better and it's perfect for a baby's room!  Here are the before and after pictures:

-I crafted on Sunday for a few hours while the Reds SUCKED against the Cardinals.  I made a ribbon wreath to hang on the wall in Sam's room:

It's not done yet, I still want to hang a wood block in the center and put her name on it and it still needs a big pink bow in the upper left corner.  I'll post a final picture once it's done.  This was super easy to make and I loved that I was able to pick my own colors and sit on my couch and do it fairly mindlessly.  Warning: this was not a cheap project. I know sometimes ribbon is on sale, but cute ribbon is hardly ever on sale and I didn't feel like waiting around for it to go on sale because then I would be pregnant with #2 and still dreaming about this cute ribbon wreath I wanted to make my first baby.  I spent about $40 on ribbon and the wreath frame and like I said, I'm still not completely done.  I know that's not completely terrible, but it wasn't exactly the $25 figure I had in my head when I headed to Michael's yesterday.

-My second craft was hot gluing colored buttons onto this old nasty lamp shade and it's going to go in her room also (this project was much cheaper, I spent about $9 on the buttons).  Again, this project is not quite complete because I want to glue some white and clear buttons in the blank spaces, but here is a sneak peak:

I think it looks adorable and it definitely has much more pizzazz than it did before.  Thank you Pinterest for helping me be crafty!

-When I stand up straight and tighten my core muscles like I did before I was pregnant to hide any extra cheeseburgers I had eaten, I hardly look pregnant.  When I just let it all hang out like a lazy ass, I actually look kinda pregnant.  So I'm faced with either letting my core muscles go to crap, or walking around feeling like I'm squishing my baby all day because I'm tightening my abs.  Dilemma.

-In case anyone was curious: Yes, I am still wearing my 4 inch heels to work every day.  No, they do not hurt any worse than they did before.  I will continue to wear them until my feet don't fit in them any longer.

-We spent about 2 hours at Buy Buy Baby registering tonight.  To say we are overwhelmed would be an understatement.  We still have a lot of work to do tidying it up and making sure we have our bases covered, but I'm glad we at least got a start.  Jake's comment when we left the store - "that's not as much fun as registering for a wedding."  Thank you Captain Obvious.  You are correct, registering for baby bottles does not quite have the same appeal as registering for awesome wine glasses.  But we're on our way!