21 weeks

Happy Birthday to my sweet sister, Charity, this week!!  I look forward to many years as family together and cannot wait to meet Miss Toots' cousin :)

Luke was gone at the beginning of this week for work, which was a little bit lonely, but I worked on purging and rearranging the closets (and being lazy)!  He wasn't able to take a picture of me until today (Friday).  Let me just say that I feel so FAT, exploded, and not feeling cute at all right now - low self-esteem week for sure.  It probably didn't help that I was rushed by Luke to dry my hair (freshly tossed up from blow-drying upside down - hence the poof), throw on some makeup and smile for this picture.  Oh, and I've switched to long sleeves for the fall/winter.  One book specifically said that you should be feeling great and that your belly shouldn't be in your way at all.  Um, not true!  Feeling pretty sluggish.  I just spoke with my sweet, encouraging sister today and she told me she was going to get me a shirt that said "embrace the belly." haha.  I need to.  More like embrace the butt, thighs, and extra maternal stores that come with it!!  I've always looked at pregnancy as a beautiful thing, but it is hard when it's happening to your body!  I just don't want people to judge me and I know I'm being way too critical of myself.  My eating habits - being hungry all the time - don't help my view of myself either.  I have my small group praying for me and you can too!  I know I need to find my identity and beauty in Christ alone and am falling back on that as I reflect how much I need His grace!!  I am so selfish.

This past weekend was Amber's wedding.  It was beautiful!  I was glad to be a part of it.  It was a beautiful outside location on a pond (a little chilly)!  I was definitely tired when I got home and have started to get a little sick, but I'm resting so hopefully it will ward off anything brewing!  Here are some pictures of this past weekend:

While in Nashville I stayed with Mom and Ken and mom got to feel Miss Toot kick!  It's so fun :)  When I was at my Dr. appointment this past Friday the Dr. said my blood pressure looked great!  I asked her about my weight gain...this is a little embarrassing, but I'm going to throw it out there because it's the truth...and she said 7 lbs. - whoa!!  (maybe this is the source of the said low self-esteem week).  That seemed like a lot to me even though I knew it would be significant based on the growth of my belly (and boobs and...) within the last month.  That scared me, but she said to be 14 lbs. halfway through was great and that I shouldn't worry.  But you know me, I am worried and don't want to gain too rapidly!  But at the same time I'm trying to be relaxed about it.

When I was waiting for the Dr. to come in I felt Miss Toot moving around, put my fingers on my belly, and then she kicked them into the air!  I took them off and saw her kick in the same spot again and could see my belly actually move...pretty wild!  She's an active little one!! When Dr. Mestemacher put the heart doppler on my belly and she was like, " whew, you hear that? That's a lot of movement!" (which just sounded like a scratchy noise to me).  Her heart rate was 156 :)

Look what my mom found for me at home this weekend - my infant baptism dress!!  So sweet and fun to imagine on my little girl!  The lace is to die for!!  However, I'm not sure she'll be using it.  Luke and I still need to study up on infant baptism and whether or not that's the route we want to take :)  Luke was sweet last night and saw the dress laying in the crib and just stared at it and thought it was so neat to envision our little girl in the crib.  He thinks she is going to be so small in that huge crib!  He said we could fit many of little babies in it ;)  Oh, and he also said an even stranger thing - he said he better not ever find me in the crib.  I was like, "what!?"  He thinks that I'm going to want to get in with the baby - odd.

This weekend we'll be around town, but busy!  Tomorrow morning we're having a multi-family yard sale (http://memphis.craigslist.org/gms/1993536737.html), celebrating the new Shelby Farms Greenline, I'm helping plan a baby shower, and finish organizing the house after tearing it up for the yard sale.  I also hope to work on registering at Babies R' Us and Target - my friend Mandy has offered to help and go with me.  However, let me just say I highly suggest registering at Amazon.com -  many more options and much cheaper prices!!  I'm just not sure how the returns would work out...