8 weeks and a giant belly

I seriously look like I am way further along than I am. No I am not sticking it out, it's that big. I found out I was pregnant and a week later I am already in my maternity jeans again! Its crazy. It's not just me right? I look really pregnant for 8 weeks. This was me at 8 weeks with Lily. You could tell I was pregnant, but not nearly as big as I am now. This was me pregnant at 15 weeks with Lily. And at 17 weeks.

My OBGYN says that you show earlier after your first child since your stomach muscles are already stretched out the first time around, but this big? I'm worried.

Maybe there is more than one in there? (Signs include extreme morning sickness....yep that's me, you are tired beyond belief....me again, you are always hungry.....as soon as I am done eating I want to eat again, clothes don't fit already.....check, your hormones are out of control.....anything makes me cry right now I am so emotional. I cried at a commercial the other day because a kid was riding a bike and it made me sad to think about Lily riding a bike....I'm losing it. You measure large....I am measuring at a whopping 40 inches. You have an elevated HcG level.....my HcG level was 15 and my number should have been around 5 according to the blood tech. You hear 2 heartbeats....when we went in at 7 weeks they only heard one heartbeat that was at 100 beats per minute. Which is normal at this stage. The doctor said that sometimes the baby's heartbeats are in unison and its hard to tell this early on. So who knows at this point? Whatever it is, I hope for healthy.

Or I am having a giant baby. Like the 17 pounds 1 pounce baby that was born in China. That terrifies me.

On that note. I'm calling my doctor to schedule another ultrasound since the first one you couldn't see much of anything since I was only 7 weeks or so they think....we'll see.

{Tesch Family Looks for Spring}

This morning I was doing my normal routine of checking my email, morning tea and catching up with blogs before I started my work day. I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Jones Design Company and she is entering design your look contest with http://www.jesslc.com/. Emily over at the Jones Design Company decided to do a Style sheet for her whole family's spring photos. I fell in love with the idea so I decided now that our family is growing .....husband, step daughter, baby girl, and another baby on the way, I would like to start doing yearly family photos. Here is our first family photo together taken by Burntblack Photography, my very talented cousin Charrone from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada. In this photo we all wore white and I had matching shirts made for the girls that said big sister and baby sister.

Tesch Family 2009 I loved her idea of not being too matchy matchy, but coordinated. For the contest you have to come up with a style sheet of your favorite spring outfit and include two pieces of her jewelry line for your chance to win a very generous prize. I'm in love with Emily's design sheet and I think she has a pretty good shot at winning. I just did mine for fun. Never know....I might get lucky and win!!!!!! SO I came up with these looks. (To enlarge just click on the image) I loved the idea of having our family have happy spring colors. I own nothing in this light orange color so lets try something new.

Well, what do you think? Do I have a chance of winning? It was really fun looking for looks for my whole family. I think we have a pretty adorable little family and if we won this contest and these outfits, we'd be even cuter.

{Surprise Tesch}

Last week my husband and I discovered that I we are having another baby! We were very surprised since this was unplanned and I was on birth control. We were wanting to try again for another baby when Lily was about 2. Space them a good age apart, be able to save some money, develop a plan...... Apparently God had another plan for us. We are very excited, but scared. When the new baby is born Lily will be 18 months, so I will have 2 babies under 2. I was just starting to get the hang of one! I can do it, I have faith that everything is going to work out and we will be blessed with an amazing and healthy baby.

I think I'm more scared about how this pregnancy will be on my body then I am about having 2 kids under 2. If you have been following me for a while, you know that I had a pretty rough pregnancy with Lily. You can read my post about when I went to the hospital for Hyperemesis Gravidarum or read my post about how I retained an insane amount of water and got Cankles. I went on my first round of bed rest at 21 weeks along since I was going into preterm labor. Way to early to be going into labor! I did bed rest again at 30 weeks, 32 weeks, and then when I hit 34 weeks. You can read about when I was put on bed rest at 34 weeks here. I had surgery on my cervix to remove polyps which were causing me to go into labor at around 34 weeks. Then I had a urinary tract infection that was causing me to have contractions that were very very painful. The doc told me that those pains were worse then actual labor and she was sooooo right. I was on nefedipene (I have no idea how to spell this) pills to stop my labor since 21 weeks, when I went to the hospital for various visits they gave me a shot of trabudelene (I have no idea how to spell this either) to stop my contractions. It was rough......but in the end, I gave birth at 37 weeks exactly to a beautiful 7 pound, 14 ounce baby girl who has become my everything.

If I have to be sick through this pregnancy to have a healthy baby, then I'll do whatever it takes. I am going to do a few things different this time. I'd like you to hold me accountable....be my Team Nikki.

• Workout 4 days a week even if its a workout video at home or walking with the stroller.
• No soda....I love root beer and it loves me, but its just too much sugar and I really don't want to gain as much weight as I did in my first pregnancy....60 pounds. ( I have lost all but 10 pounds of that by the way.)
• More fruits, vegetables, and protein. I hate vegetables with a passion, but this isn't about me. I'll will do my best to eat more veggies. Not broccoli though....never!
• Go to sleep instead of staying up till midnight to clean the house, prepare meals, and do laundry.
• Take it easy and not be so hard on myself to have everything perfect, clean, and organized. I will still continue to do all of those things cause that's who I am, but I will try and cut myself some slack this time.

So my due date as of now is November 8, 2011 and I am 7 weeks along. I am currently throwing up.....sorry I couldn't think of a nicer way to say it.....about 8 to 10 times a day, but I am on Zofran now to help with that so hopefully I won't be sick as much. It amazes me how quickly I am showing! Here I am with my little Lily and baby bump at 7 weeks. Sorry for the iPhone photo, its a little blurry.

Weekend

Weekends are my favorite. Quite possibly because I get to spend time with my family, friends, do things at home, go to church, and relax.....and cause of moments like this.

Bath time with Lily and her cousin Audrey, Mohawks are so cute.

My husband Brad holding two sleeping beauty's, our new niece Madison and our baby girl Lily.

Daddy and Lily napping together.

Our little ducky after her bath in her robe and bunny slippers.
I can't wait till next weekend.

Madison West McGill

I am so happy to announce that my sister in law Jennifer and my brother in law had their first baby yesterday. They wanted to wait and find out what the sex was and boy was it a surprise! Its a GIRL! I was sure it was a boy. I even bought boy outfits! Here she is world!

Madison West McGill was 8 pounds, 4 ounces at 21 inches long. She is perfect in every way. Cute little eyebrows and curls on her ears, pouty lips, and long fingers.....such a pretty little lady.

Last night we got the call during dinner. We were so excited to get going so we ate dinner than we have ever eaten before and packed the baby up and drove to Kirkland to meet our new niece. Jenn's due date was March 3rd, so we were waiting for the call to happen at any time.

Mama Jenn is feeling great and looked great too! After I had Lily I was swollen and puffy. Jenn looked like she just showered and did her makeup, you would have never guessed that she just had a baby. Lily was born on May 7th and Madison was born March 7th, so they are exactly 10 months apart. Its so nice that they will be so close in age! Another weird fact about all of the Tesch babies.....they were all born on days with 7 and some were born with 7 in the time too. Crazy! That's 6 babies in a row. I am so happy to be an aunt again. I can't wait to hold her again and spoil her rotten like every aunt should do. I'm also excited that Jenn will be living in Oak Harbor so I can go visit whenever I want! I'll maybe even talk Jenn into being my gym buddy to get the rest of my baby weight off of me. Congrats again to Jenn and Brian and Happy Birthday to our niece Madison!

Here are a few pictures that were taken. (Warning....This camera is awful, I am so upset the my camera is broken right now, but its being repaired, so I had to use this one. Thankfully, I was using Jenn's and Brian's camera to take some nice photos so I'll post more soon!)

Proud Mommy and Daddy

Uncle Brad holding princess Madison with the happy Mama Jenn.

Aunt Nikki, Aunt Anna, and Mommy with Baby Madison!

Looking at how beautiful my new niece is!

Aunt Nikki and Uncle Brad holding baby Madison.

{ten months}

My baby girl is now 10 months old. Can you believe it? Only 2 more months and I get to have a first birthday party! So excited! I better start planning! At her last check up on February 18th Lily was 21 pounds and 29 1/4 inches long, our tall baby girl. She is in the 80th percentile of weight and 93rd percentile for height! Since this appointment Lily has grown more and is now 23 pounds! Time to change out her car seat and replace it with a new one. So sad.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures this month. Lily looks like mini mouse in this outfit. I made the bow for her hair, its so mucte!

Like father, like daughter. Watching sports and playing with the remote. SO adorable!

Playing at Aunt Anna and Uncle Marc's house!

Look at that big grin :)

{Under the Kitchen Sink}

I am continuing to work on my challenge from a favorite blog of mine, a bowl full of lemons. Next task.....under the kitchen sink. I don't think I have touched this since we moved in. Its really a spot I don't go to since I just throw cleaners down there. When we moved in the previous owners left all of their cleaning supplies behind and I kept them all. We have lived in the house almost a year and a half and I still haven't touched some of these so it was time to donate them to someone else, so I got a bag together for our church Grace Community. I am a part of the cleaning crew that cleans the church once a month, I take turns. Perfect job for me. So first thing first.....empty it all out! Do I really have this many cleaners? I don't even recognize some of them. Next I scrubbed the bottom with bleach. So gross.

I am totally embarrassed to show you this. BEFORE:

Since it was snowing and I couldn't go out to the store to buy supplies I had to use what I had in my home, left over pieces of cabinet liner. It isn't perfect, but it serves its purpose. I also found a need for all of those scraps I had left over. AFTER: Left Side: Looks so much better. I put the cleaners that I have back stock of or don't use very often like scotch guard towards the back. I put sponges and clothes in a canister that I made fancy. I put the cleaners that I use on a day to day basis in the front in this handy dandy carrier. So now when I am cleaning the house I carry this thing around with me. Not only does it save me time running back and forth to get cleaners, but now I know where everything is. On the right side of the sink, I have a bucket for mopping the floors, trash bags, and dishwasher tabs. I even decorated the canister that the trash bags go into Here's how I did it: I took a round canister. I used a finish tab holder, formula cans, and Gerber snack cans. I save them thinking that I'll use them for storage for something. I found a solution! I then recovered them with scrap booking paper to match the color of my kitchen and make it look a little fancier underneath the sink.
Voila!

Alright, your turn. Go clean under your kitchen sink and tell me how it went. I hope I am inspiring you to get your home organized!

{Clean out your fridge}

While we were snowed in I had a lot of time to get projects done.....what do I do first? I wanted to figure out what to make for dinner. The task I hate the most. I never know what to make. So I opened up the fridge and thought, I have to organize this, its driving me nuts.

Alright here's the BEFORE: So first thing first. I emptied the entire thing out and scrubbed it from top to bottom. Its amazing how dirty a fridge can get in a short amount of time. I did it not too long ago and it needed to be done again. You put your food in there....make sure its clean! Lily wanted to help too :)

AFTER:Top shelf- water bottles, butter, yogurt, applesauce, baby yogurt, and pudding.

Second shelf- cream cheese, ricotta, sour cream, and in the front left is where I put Brad's lunch box items for the next day. My lunch box items go on the right hand side.

Third shelf- meal for the day, that I have made ahead with instructions on top so Brad can stick it in the oven before I get home from work. I also put meat items on this shelf. Cheese drawer Fruit and Veggie Drawer Door

Top- eggs and cheese

Second Shelf-most commonly used sauces

Third Shelf- juice and milk

Forth Shelf- Salad dressings, jams, sauces, and jellies

Fifth Shelf-Spicy sauces, taco sauce, salsa. I wish their was a cleaner way for this to be organized. I'll try and find some containers that look nicer that I can transfer the sauces too.

So there it is....my fridge. All organized and clean. There is always room for improvement, but now I know everything that is in my fridge, how long its been in there, and where to find things. Now do your fridge and comment back here to tell me how it went!

.Snow. Snow. Snow.

Last week we had a horrible snow storm that hit the Pacific Northwest. Work was closed so I stayed home snowed in. Brad tried to drive to work, but this is what happened.

Brad was okay and the truck had minimal damage to the front end. We were lucky that the lake was semi frozen and turned into frozen mud or Brad's truck would have gone into the lake! It was nice to be snowed in and relax for two days in our pjs with Lily, have family time, doing projects around the house that I haven't had time for, and enjoying the beautiful snow.

Over at my sister and brother in law's house the kids were making this awesome snow fort to protect them from snow balls. They did a great job making it. I wish we could have gone over and had a snowball fight with the kids!