Hello from Scottsdale, Arizona!

John and I are enjoying a little spring break vacation, and I thought I would keep you updated on all of the fun things that we are doing. John’s brother Joe is able to join us for the weekend on this trip so he is traveling along with us. Currently I am sitting on the balcony of our condo writing this blog enjoying the beautiful weather.

Yesterday we checked into our condo to be greeted by this fellow on our bed, I am such a sucker for these things-so cute!

Then it was off to the Cubs spring training game. We had lawn seats and really enjoyed being able to spread out on the grass and watch the game. It was quite crowded, but a fun group to sit around. The Cubs killed the White Sox something like 12-0. It was record heat, sunny and 89, anyone who knows me knows that I love hot weather, but I think that being pregnant is affecting my thermostat, because it was a little warm for me. But hey compared to the 20 degree weather in Chicago I am not complaining. Enjoyed some nachos and lemonade at the game (first cubs game not having a beer and a hotdog-so sad).

After the game we decided to go for a hike, there are some beautiful mountains to hike around here, all with great trails to follow. John and I love to hike but this time I was a little cautious and decided we should go for a really easy hike, I didn’t want to slip and fall. So we decided on Pinnacle Peak, an easy hike. We went just prior to sunset so that it was cooler, and had a nice time. The pictures here don’t do the views justice.

We are about to hike this

Views from on the way up

Here we are at the top

On the way down the sun started to set and you could see the moon, it is at the very top of the picture, a little crescent.

Close up cactus

Driving home we watched the sunset.

After the hike we were starving so it was time for a shower and then off to a Mexican restaurant where we had some really good food. After that I was exhausted and promptly fell asleep leaving the boys up to burn the midnight oil.
On the agenda for today is lots of time by the pool, In and Out Burger for lunch and just relaxing. The boys are going to hike Camelback Mountain later today which sounded way too dangerous for a pregnant woman-so jealous. I’ll be posting every time I get some new pictures so check back.

Happy Valentine's Day

Feeling much better here, and never had to use the Neti Pot =)

Exciting day today, woke up and attempted to purchase Billy Joel/Elton John tickets, for anyone who doesn't know they are playing at Wrigley Field in July. After some aggravation at the website tickets.com which wasn't prepared for all of the traffic, John was able to get us some pretty good seats, lower deck row 1 a little to the right of home plate. I was excited to be in the first row for 2 reasons; 1) I am short and will therefore be able to see much better, and b) By July 21 I will be almost 8 months pregnant so I will hopefully have a little more space in the 1st row and not have to walk up as many stairs. I am REALLY looking forward to this show. I have seen Billy Joel a few times and he is wonderful, and last time he toured with Elton John I missed it, and was dissappointed, so this show should be awesome-not to mention seeing them play at Wrigley!

Not much else to report here, hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day!

All Stuffed Up

Just about a week ago I remember thinking *Wow these prenatal vitamins must be magic I haven't gotten sick in a while!* For those of you who don't know I work with 14 two year olds that are constantly coughing and sneezing on me, and I frequently have a cold as a result of this.

So here I was thinking how lucky I was and then BAM! I got hit with a cold. So I have spent the last two days home with a general feeling of not being able to breathe and a cough. I am technically allowed to take Sudafed and Tylenol but I really don't trust that, and feel it's best to just stick with fluids and rest. My boss suggested a product called the Neti Pot, John and I had a good laugh googling that and watching the instructional video. I am sure it is helpful but I don't know if I can do that, we'll see how desperate I get.

So not much else going on here, lots of surfing the web, daytime television (I love The View) and magazine reading (I'm all caught up on Us Weekly, People, and Pregnancy). Apparently we are experiencing a heat wave today, high of 63, so I may step outside for some fresh air. Thank goodness all of our snow is finally melting.

Hope you all have a good day!

Twins?

One month ago today John and I found out some exciting news…

Yep that’s right I'm pregnant. Although some of you already knew this news, I had been waiting to post on my blog until my first doctors appointment. Being one of the first of my friends to go through this process I thought this would be a good forum to provide you with the details of life as a pregnant woman.

People often ask you how you’re feeling when you’re pregnant, and I can only describe it as feeling like someone has taken over my body, which I guess is true. I can no longer rely on the things I know I love to eat. For example the baby has broken up my relationship with bacon, a food I have enjoyed a love affair with for almost 29 years. I have always been a person who NEEDED coffee to function and truly loved the taste of a good cup of joe-well no longer. Going to the Superbowl party was interesting. A day I used to look forward to being able to eat all kinds of yummy treats, was reduced to taking a bite of many favorites only to find out that they tasted disgusting to me and handing them off to John. Don’t worry there are some foods that I now find I love. In the last 3 days I ate an entire box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch, bagels and cream cheese are a favorite, pasta, granola bars, and frozen yogurt are up there too.

Even my nose has turned on me, requiring John to do things like clean out the refrigerator, clean the litter box quite often, and basically get rid of anything with even the slightest odor. My assistant at work last week even had to take out a garbage filled with half eaten bowls of cheerios for fear I would throw up on the kids.

And I’m not even going to get started on the amount of time I spend peeing lately.

Other than those issues I have been fortunate enough to feel okay, I know many women have it MUCH worse. And I am told these “symptoms” (except for the peeing) will subside after the first trimester.

John and I went in for our first ob/gyn appointment last Wednesday, everything went well, I appear to be in good health and the baby is doing well. Our Dr. tried to freak us out a bit by thinking that she saw two heartbeats, (you can imagine our own heartbeats at that moment) but it seems the baby was just in a curled position that made it “look” like two heartbeats. So no twins for now. Here are some pictures from the visit.

Deck the Halls

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I know I did. We hosted this year and I was lucky enough to have 10 friends and family over. Everything went splendidly and we all ate a ton! Of course I had a lot of help from my mom, Steph, and John too; thanks!

With Thanksgiving over I wasted no time getting ready for Christmas. I feel like it all goes by so fast, so I like to decorate right away. This is our first Christmas in the new place. Here is the tree, which I was able to put in the front window.



It's Sunday which is football day in our house. John's brother Joe and his girlfriend Kari came over to hang out and we decided to get in the holiday spirit.

Christy Kringle

Father John Christmas

Joe St.Nick

Kari Claus

Morgan wanted to know what all the fuss was about

Santa Morgan

Have fun getting into the Christmas spirit at your house!

I'm back!

Okay so obviously it has been quite some time since I last posted, sorry about that. So I thought I would post some pictures to fill you in on what I have been up to since August.

On Labor Day weekend we went to Lake Shelbyville in Southern Illinois with some friends and had a great time. The lake was beautiful!

Mikey and me
Sometimes it just impossible to take a nice picture, lol!

Kari, Joe, Becky, John, Me, Mikey, Stephanie, Kaliani, and Diven

Then in September we had a chance to see Zambrano pitch a no hitter; it was a great game. I know the season had a horrible end, but that game was amazing!

I don't think I have ever seen John more excited.

Me, John, Joe, Kari

John and I had not taken a vacation in quite some time, so when a friend of ours was getting married in Las Vegas we couldn't help but say yes! A few of us traveled out to party and see the wedding. We had a great time. The wedding was really interesting; a traditional Indian wedding in the hotel Paris. The dresses were just beautiful. We stayed at the Flamingo, which I love for the central location and the pool. John didn’t do quite so well on the gambling scene, but I had my first winning trip to Vegas. With my winnings I treated myself to my first designer purse!

On our way to the pool.

Joe was really hungry that day!

On the night before the wedding we had a great time at this piano bar, lots of singing and

dancing into the wee hours. Needless to say, getting up for the wedding was not easy.

In October we were lucky enough to spend a weekend at Becky’s family cabin at Lake Thunderbird. It was a beautiful weekend spent eating, playing games, wandering around an apple orchard, and spending time with good friends, what could be better?

Lots of pumpkins ready for picking.

We decided to try out the cornmaze. Some people were better at leading than others...I kept getting dizzy. But it was a fun time.

Lexi, Scott, Becky, John, and Me

A view of the lake from Becky's dock.

The drive home, lots of beautiful fall colors.

Finally a few weeks ago we celebrated Halloween. This year we based our costumes off of a friends party theme-the 80s. After lots of thought I decided to go as Rainbow Brite and John decided to be Scrooge McDuck. John’s costume cracked me up-too funny!

Scrooge McDuck

Rainbow Brite

Becky was a newsreporter.

Joe was Stan from the tv show Southpark, and Kari was a Geisha. I love this pic b/c Stan always throws up on the girl that he likes in the show, so Joe was pretending to throw up on Kari-funny.

Well I think that pretty much catches us up… As always we are busy so I should have some more pictures and stories to share with you soon. I will try to not let so much time pass between posts. Hope everyone is doing well!

KC baby!

This past weekend John and I took a trip to visit Adam and Marena in Kansas City. We flew in Friday evening and started off the trip by going to see their new place. They live in a very cute part of Kansas that is very green and hilly. Their new house is just perfect for them. They have plenty of room for everything; they even each have their own offices (jealous!). They have a great backyard with a deck and a tree house! Despite having only lived there for about 3 months they have everything painted, decorated, and functional. It looks beautiful. I am very happy for them and you can easily tell how happy they are too!

Then I got meet the new loves of my life, their puppies Stella and Jasper. They are adorable, and I wanted to steal them. Well actually I just wanted to steal Stella, we had a special connection.

After seeing the house and meeting the puppies we went out for dinner, to a great place with a nice outdoor deck. We enjoyed some good food, good beer, good weather, and caught up. Saturday we just kinda hung around, which I know Adam and Marena felt bad about but honestly it was just nice to get to relax with our friends. Marena made us a fabulous breakfast-I know I was amazed too. Apparently Adam doesn’t let her out of the kitchen so she’d gotten pretty good at cooking. Then Saturday night they had a fiesta with some friends. It was great, we got to see Curtis and Erica, and also meet some new friends. Marena and Adam put out quite a spread of Mexican food, and we all ate a ton. We also had some fun with a piñata, which was a first for me.

Sadly the next morning we had to leave. But it was a great trip and we can’t wait to go back. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

John and Adam

Marena and Jasper

Me and Marena
Me and Stella
John and Stella
John and the pinata head he won
Me and the pinata

Check out all that food, Yum!