20 weeks ~ Half way there!

Oh.my.word!  I am half way done with pregnancy, which is so wild in my mind!!  I am grateful that I've had such a great pregnancy that it's flown, but a part of me is sad that I'll never get this time back!  However, I'm so content with where God has me and how He has gotten me to this point.  I am trusting Him to keep us all safe up to delivery and after.  I cannot wait to meet this precious baby girl that's kicking my bladder up a storm!  I feel her kick daily - I've pretty much felt her daily since 18 weeks.  Her busiest time is in between 2-3, when I'm hungry, and at night.  AND Luke got to feel her kick for the first time on last night!!  So fun for him to feel part of it :) 

As far as how I'm feeling I just feel awesome.  This weather helps and I like that you can actually tell I'm pregnant now!  I had a girl at Home Depot comment on my tummy when I was picking out Mums :)   I'm still jogging 1-2 miles about 2 days a week and doing a pregnancy workout video 2 other days a week that involves resistance bands, free weights, and an ab ball.  It's helping my view of myself while getting bigger, but it's still hard.  No stretch marks as of yet, so I'll keep lathering up with Vaseline Cocoa Butter, but my tummy feels SO tight!  My appetite has slowed down some, but I still eat a lot! 

I am participating an an observational research study here in Memphis called C.A.N.D.L.E.  CANDLE is an observational research study of the development and ability to learn in children from birth to age three.  This week was my first visit.  The Candle study will enroll 1500 healthy pregnant women in Shelby County. The study name "CANDLE" stands for Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Learning in Early Childhood.  I am one of the 1300 women currently involved in the study.  This last visit they took blood, urine, and went over my nutritional analysis, which made me feel like I eat tons!  They asked me every detail.  They even asked what shampoo and lotion I use.  This study seems SO neat.  I will go one more time during pregnancy, they will visit me in the hospital to get cord blood and a snippet of the placenta, do a couple of home visits with me, then I will go back when Miss Toot is 1, 2, and 3 years old.  It will be so nice to have a second opinion on my growing child and for them to give me all the measurements and results of growth and development!  AND not to mention I will get $500 in Walmart gift cards over the spread of all the visits :)  More about it here: http://www.candlestudy.org/

This past weekend we volunteered with our church our church, Second Presbyterian Church.  There was a church wide initiative to take the weekend to serve local ministries we support.  Our class, Marriage 101, was assigned Brinkley Heights Urban Academy.  The boys helped tear down their existing dilapidated playground while the girls helped organize their clothes donations.  Look at my hunky hubby working hard :)

The weather has been SO great!!  Luke, my friend, Courtney, and I all went on a 11.5 mile bike ride on Sunday on the new Shelby Farms Greenline.  It was BEAUTIFUL!  We had so much fun and got some good exercise.  Along with that exercise, Luke and I came home and he worked on cleaning the side of the house and got 2 of the shutters he built up!  Now, they are not complete - lacking a middle slat and the black wrought iron shutter dogs and touch up paint, but I'm seeing the vision and I like it!!  You cannot tell, but the darkest color in our roof is that charcoal gray color.  I still don't know about what color to paint the door, get a wood one, or just leave it...hmmm.  Luke was unable to put the shutters up on the brick because he needs to rent a special drill to put them up.  He also was unable to remove the black wrought iron porch rail across the front.  Luke has done one amazing job on these shutters!!  They will last forever :)  While he did that I pulled weeds and trimmed bushes - that always feels so productive!   I love a good visual outcome of effort :) 

Last night we finished up meeting with our "On Becoming Babywise" group.  It has been lead by a sweet couple that are ministers at church - Mike and Heidi Stokke.  It has been great to meet up with about 4 other couples that are pregnant and just talk the book out in practical ways.  I feel prepared now, but I know each baby is different and I will just have to take it blow by blow.  I'm getting so excited though and I cannot even believe that I'm halfway done - did I already say that?

Something else I did this past weekend was make this Chicken Spaghetti sans onion, pepper, and pimentos ;)  Pioneer Woman get's all the credit!  It was YUMMY:

My friend, Amber's, wedding is this weekend, so off to Nashville!! I'll have to report what the Dr. says at my 20 week appointment today next week...we are dropping by the office on the way out, so I will share the details of that later.