Life, Love, and Lorelai

Locks of Love

2012-01-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time (no pun intended - ha) it's no surprise to you that I've been growing my hair out for Locks of Love. My friend, Sarah, did this several years ago and it really inspired me. I put it on my "bucket list" of things that I really want to do.

I finally got my hair long enough, but then couldn't decide if I wanted to cut it or not! Finally, around the beginning of December I started to get REALLY tired of it. I just felt like there was hair EVERYWHERE! I decided that I would wait until after Christmas and if I still felt the same way, I'd cut it then. I wanted to give myself a few weeks because I had been debating it for so long! Remember when I was asking for advice back in October?

After Christmas, I still felt the same way. I knew it was time! I actually decided to donate my hair to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths because I could donate a little less hair than with Locks of Love. With Pantene, I could donate 8 inches, whereas with L.O.L you donate a minimum of 10-12 inches. I knew that I wanted to do this, but I for sure wanted to keep as much length as possible!

Last morning fixing my long hair!! It was a little bittersweet. :)

I have NEVER had my hair this long before! Crazy!

Getting ready for the cut! 8 inches measures right to the top of the ponytail holder at the top of the braid.

It's gone!

Wow!

The final product!

I am so so happy that I finally did this. It feels SO GOOD to accomplish a goal that I set 2 1/2 years ago! I know this sounds silly, but I already know that I'm going to start growing it back out immediately. I don't mind it short, but I REALLY liked it long. But this time, I'm growing it out for ME and I won't have this feeling that I HAVE to cut it hanging over my head. That will be nice! I'm so happy that my hair will towards making a wig for a woman out there who is battling cancer. I understand how, as a woman, you feel like your hair makes you more "girly" - whether it's long or short. I can imagine how dealing with cancer completely just rocks your world, and hopefully this can be something that helps make a woman just feel that much more "normal". It was definitely worth it!

Family Traditions: The Christmas Tree Farm 2011

2012-01-27T10:00:00.000-05:00

Just like every year, we headed out to Hambrick's Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our tree this year. You can see our trips in 2010 and 2009 for a look back at our tradition! This trip was during LL's "I refuse to look at the camera or take any pictures phase", so we didn't get any gems like we usually do. But here's a look at our trip, anyway!

Wasting no time heading out to check out the trees!

She said she was "getting the spiders out of the tree". :) I LOVE her imagination!

Alright, so, here we go for "trying to get a pic of LL in front of 'the' tree" take 1...

Take 2...

Take 3... (now you know why I haven't been taking hardly any pictures lately!)

And "trying to get a family shot" take 1...

take 2...

take 3...

Finally, we just gave up and decided to cut down the tree and head home - haha. Count your losses and move on!

Gigi and Poppy came, too (also a tradition) and this is the best pic I got of them. Not too bad!

Showering Baby Blitzen

2012-01-26T10:00:00.000-05:00

Back in October (I know - I'm still playing catch-up!) I hosted a shower for Emily and Baby Blitzen. This was my first time every hosting a shower for someone who didn't know the gender of the baby. I wanted to keep it neutral, but I am NOT a fan of the green/yellow route. Ashley and Crissy offered to co-host and help me with the food and that really helped me out a TON! Thanks, ladies! This was also the morning that I found out I was pregnant, and let me tell you, holding it in during a BABY SHOWER is tough work!

Waiting for people to show up....

One of my gifts for Emily. It's a blessing ring. I found it on etsy.com at this shop and fell in love with the idea!

This is the card that explains the concept of a blessing ring.

A note for the guests....

The food

I told the girl that I wanted a gender neutral cake and I ended up with one with pink all over it! Funny, since Blitzen turned out to be a girl, huh? :)

The guest of honor! Doesn't she look GREAT?

We played some pretty fun (but classic!) games. First, a "what's in my purse" game.

Next up, candy bars in diapers, of course!

Finally, guess that babyfood!

Me and my lovely co-hosts!

It was a pretty intimate shower, but I think it was still fun. And it's always fun to celebrate a new baby! Emily did a more detailed post on it here if you want to read it!

17 Weeks Pregnant

2012-01-25T21:17:00.001-05:00

Baby Growth: Baby Mullican is a little over 5 inches from crown to rump and weighs about 5 oz. The baby is about as long as a pencil and as plump as an avocado. This week, the baby isn't doing any tremendous growing, but is instead learning how to utilize the brain to move the body. Slowly, the baby's movements are becoming more and more purposeful. This is also the week that baby starts to put some fat on that little body - meaning that I'll probably start putting on the pounds, also!

Can somebody tell me why in the world this poor baby has a gigantic nose? That's terrible!

My Symptoms: My nausea isstill present in the early morning. AndI’ve mentioned before that I have to get up at 5:30 when school is in, so thisisn’t the best of combinations. I didn’tget sick this week, thank goodness. Ifelt like I was going to on Saturday morning, but never actually did.

I’ve startedhaving more headaches than before, but I’ve found that if I take some Tylenoland drink a little caffeine, they go away immediately. I don’t mind them as much if I have an easytrick to get rid of them! I’ve also hadsome moodiness this week. Nothing tooterrible, but still some moments where I feel like I don’t have control over myemotions.

I’ve stillgot a good bit of energy this week. I’vebeen getting TONS done around the house. Some nights I’m pure exhausted by about 9:00, but others I feelperfectly fine and have to make myself go to bed! My belly still feels terribly heavy and Ithink this isn’t going to go away. Myback also hurts pretty much all of the time. If I stand for longer than about 5 minutes, it hurts like crazy.

Weight: Alrighty, sothe scale says I’m back to my pre-pregnancy weight. So that means that I’m sitting right at 0 lbsgained/lost. Honestly, I think that themajority of this has to do with the fact that I’ve been mega constipated thepast few days. I think if I was“regular” right now, I would still be down about ½ a pound. I guess we’ll see next week! The good thing is, even if I gain 1 lb perweek from here on out, I’ll only gain 23 lbs. Not too shabby! I gained 25 lbswith LL, and I don’t want to go over that with this baby.

Belly Pictures: Here the first pic of me in maternity clothes!

Gender: I'm 100% team girl now - no changing my mind! We should know in a few weeks! Have you picked a teamyet? Go to my gender baby pool (andgiveaway!) HERE.
Maternity Clothes: Thanks to several AWESOME friends, I now have a plethora of maternity clothes. I had two really sweet friends bring me a huge bag of clothes each and another friend who should be bringing me some soon. Isn't that amazing? I'm blessed to be surrounded with some awesome girls! Most of the clothes are more wintery (which is good for now), but I'm going to be lacking more in the summer department when it gets here. A portion of what I have will translate into summer, but I'm sure I'll need to pick up a few things myself. But at least for now, I'm good! I did start wearing some maternity dresses this week simply for the fact that they are SO much more comfortable! I'm still fitting into my regular clothes fine, they're just not as comfy. I'll probably start alternating between regular and maternity from now on. I'm holding off on maternity pants for as long as possible because I HATE them. I'd prefer to just use a bella band and my regular pants instead. I'll tell you something though, there's no denying that I have a belly, but it is MUCH more pronounced when I put on something maternity! It's crazy!

I’m still inregular clothes about 80% - 90% of the time, but I have started wearing somematernity dresses. This is simply forthe fact that they are so darn comfortable. I probably could get away with not wearing anything for the next week ortwo, but it’s just so much more comfortable. I would imagine that I’ll keep wearing a mix of regular/maternity forawhile.

Movement: I’ve beenfeeling the baby a TON lately. Themovements still aren’t that much stronger, but I’m feeling them moreoften. All of my pregnancy stuff saysthat the first movements that you feel are usually described as feeling likeyou have a butterfly in your stomach. Not me. Usually, I only feelthumps and rolls. Monday at school, Iwas sitting at my desk during my planning time, and it LEGIT felt like abutterfly against the wall of my stomach. It was so cool! It’s still notnearly strong enough to feel on the outside yet.

Sleep:I seem toalternate between sleeping very well and sleeping terribly. I’ll have a few nights of GREAT sleepfollowed by a few nights of TERRIBLE sleep. I’ve been wanting to sleep on my stomach SO BAD lately, but I definitelycan’t do that at all anymore. I alwaysgo to sleep on my side, but I often still wake up on my back. I’ve been having really vivid, crazy weirddreams lately also. I’m sure that thatcontributes to my sleeping poorly.

What I Miss:Probably thebiggest thing that I miss is not having my back hurt. It pretty much hurts all of the time. While I’ll gladly deal with it (SO worthit!), it does wear me down after a while. I try not to say anything to coworkers, friends, family, or even Mattabout it, but it’s pretty much a constant pain for me. I better just get used to it, I guess!

What I'm Looking Forward To:We have LL’s3 year pictures coming up this weekend and her birthday party the weekend afterthat. I’m getting SUPER excited aboutboth!

Cravings: Orange juice– STILL! I tend to go through an entirecontainer in a week. I only drink oneglass a day because I don’t want heartburn and it has a ton of sugar, but thatglass tends to be pretty big. J I also craved Chinese food this week and when I finally got some, it wasSO GOOD. I loved it. One thing that has really surprised me thispregnancy is that I’ve been craving something that I’ve never had: sushi. I’ve had the cooked kind, but never the raw,but I’ve been craving it ALL! Obviously,I would never eat raw fish while pregnant, so I really just try to ignore thecraving. The other night, Matt gothimself some sushi for dinner, and it was a sampler platter that had a littlebit of everything. It had a few shrimprolls in there that looked SOOO good. Itwas a crab/avocado/cucumber roll with a little bit of shrimp on the outside. Itotally couldn’t resist and ate ONE piece (don’t worry – it was all COOKED!)and I almost died. I was in HEAVEN. It was SO GOOD. I’ve been thinking about it a TON since thenand totally want a lot more. Obviously,I probably won’t eat any more any time soon, but it is for sure on my mind!

Best Moment of the Week: I reallydon’t know? We got a call from thepreschool we picked and LL is definitely enrolled for next year! That was pretty exciting! I also got my plane ticket booked for myspring break trip with my sister – California here we come!

My Concerns or Questions:I need totalk to Marie about several things: 1- I’m thinking about going natural. I *almost* did with LL (I made it to 8 cm!)and my goal was to do it completely with the next one. When I got pregnant, I thought maybe I wouldjust do an epidural and not worry about it, but now I’m starting to change mymind about it. I want to talk to Marieand get her opinions. 2- I was inducedlast time because I wanted to be guaranteed that Marie would deliver the baby. I REALLY want to go into labor on my own, soI need to talk to her about if she’ll come in, etc. 3-My back pain. I need to see if there’sanything I can be doing to help it out.

My Goals for the Week: Get all thelast minute stuff for LL’s party planned! I did my huge pile of laundry from last week, but there are still somethings around the house that I need to get done. I need to finish cleaning my closet out – Istarted, but haven’t finished. I alsoneed to start going through her clothes from this past summer for the kid’s sale!

2012 Goals

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

I think it's important to set goals every year. Some years I have more than others, but even having some is enough. We all should be working to improve ourselves every year. Statistics show that people who write down their goals have over an 80% higher success rate of achieving them over people who don't. That's a big jump! So here we go...

1 - Start a family bible study at least 2 nights a week. While I think that we should be doing this more than 2 nights a week, I think that this is a good place to start. Realistically, going from 0 nights to 7 nights is pretty slim to just accomplish, so I'm trying to set a realistic goal. Once we reach this, we can adjust it higher.

2- Make time in my own life to have more private time with God. Isn't this an area that we can all ALWAYS improve on? Who ever reaches "enough"? I don't think anyone. While I don't ever think you reach the top on this, I'm pretty low on the list. I need to work on this for sure!

3 - Continue to support Matt and be an encouragement to him. He has a really hard job, and I need to stand behind him and be his biggest cheerleader. I need to be his biggest fan and supporter. His kind words can stick with me for DAYS, and I need to remember that mine can do the same for him!

4 - Organize our house to it's maximum capability. While the reality of us moving out of this house any time soon is really slim, we can really improve on how we use the space that we have. Sure, our house isn't huge, but it isn't as small as I like to think sometimes. We've started to organize it better, but we have a long ways to go!

5 - Enjoy my one-on-one time with LL as much as I can before the new baby comes. The reality is, I only have six more months with my baby before our world changes for forever. It'll never be just her again. I need to cherish these times with just her before Baby Mullican comes along!

6 - Continue to take care of myself. I think that 2011 was my best year in keeping myself up. I want to continue on that same path this year!

7 - Be more of an encouraging, thoughtful friend. I need to start writing on more Facebook walls, sending more cards, writing more texts, etc. I really want to be the kind of friend that I would like to have!

8 - Continue to keep a clean house. I've done better on this than years past, but it's still a work in progress. Keeping up on laundry is a big one for me! I need to plan a "schedule" for keeping house and stick to it!

9 - Work with LL on manners and becoming more of a participant in our household. Her manners are pretty good, but I'm really working on making them consistent. By the end of the year, I'd like her saying please, thank you, yes ma'am/sir, no ma'am sir, etc. completely ON HER OWN every time. She's also in a really big "I want to help" phase and we need to turn that into regular duties at home. She's really bad about just throwing things down when she's done with them, and she needs to know to put them back where they go. This ESPECIALLY applies to the car. She'll play with toys in the back and then just throw them on the floor instead of putting them back in the bucket. We need to start working on this NOW!

10 - Stay current on Facebook photo albums. I'm SO BEHIND on these right now. I need to get caught up and STAY caught up.

11 - Continue to do even better at blogging than I did last year. I know that I can, I just have to do it!

12 - Have date nights with Matt. I know this'll be harder once the new baby comes, but we need to keep this a priority. Our marriage comes first!

13 - Breastfeed the new baby as long as I can. With LL, my milk dried up not long after I went back to work. I tried to still pump/nurse at night, but my supply didn't hold up. I'm hoping that even after I go back to work this year, I can find a way to pump during the day to keep the baby on breast milk as long as possible.

Alright - this is about it! Do you have any goals for the year?

Baby Mullican Gender Guess (Giveaway!)

2012-01-23T17:15:00.002-05:00

Emily did this with Blitzen and I thought it was such a great idea! (Em, I stole a lot of your rules...I hope you don't mind - haha) So here's how you play...

Rules:

Only guesses submitted on the bebepool site will count! You can leave comments here, but they WILL NOT count for the baby pool or the prizes!!!
You must leave your name and email address when you submit your guesses so I know how to contact you if you win.
US residents only.
Anyone may enter to win - including immediate family members and people who don't know me at all!
Only ONE submission per person on the bebepool site. If you submit more than one then your first submission will be the one I use.
I will be writing a blog entry with name clues, once we know the gender, and will be doing a separate giveaway for that.
Guesses submitted to the site after we find out the gender will not count.
This link is ONLY for gender! The other pools will happen later!

How it works:

After we find out the gender, I'll take all the people who guessed correctly (hey - you have good odds!) and number those entries. Once those entries are numbered, I will use random.org to pick a winner.

Prizes:
You have two different options when it comes to prizes:

A $20 gift card to Target! Who doesn't love Target??
A $20 gift certificate to Lorelai's Closet. Don't know what that is? Check it out! This can go towards anything on the site OR towards a custom item of your choice!

After we know the gender, we will ONLY be telling people initials. Once those are known, I will host a second giveaway for people to try and guess the name.

Finally, there will be a third and final giveaway for another baby pool (when I start to get closer) about birth date, time, weight, etc. So look for many more giveaways to come!

Alrighty...here's the link to the pool...

VOTE HERE

Happy voting!

2011 Goal Review

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

At the beginning of 2011 I set a list of goals that I wanted to accomplish in the year. Let's see how I did...

#1 Continue Blogging - I think that I did AWESOME at this! While I did have periods where I got behind or didn't blog as often, I did really good compared to past years. In 2009, I had 65 posts. In 2010, I had 80 posts. In 2011, I had 187 posts! I increased my posts by 107 in a year! Pretty good, right?

#2 Print a Blog Book - Ugh. I didn't do this. And I still REALLY need to. I'd be devastated if I lost all of my blog posts, so I need to remember that and get it done!

#3 Re-furnish our house - We didn't do this AT ALL. I don't think we bought one new piece of furniture! We did buy several new accessories though out the house and made it look better than it did before. We do have some big plans to re-finish a lot of the furniture that we already have this year.

#4 Take a vacation - We did this! Our trip to Disney was amazing to take as a family, and Matt and I enjoyed going to Triple Crown by ourselves. We didn't go a ton of places, but we did have fun on the trips we did go on!

#5 Strengthen My Walk With Christ - I don't think that this is an area where you ever say, "yes - I did this. I'm good now." But I do think that I made leaps and bounds in this area this past year. A lot of that had to do with our miscarriage, but if that's what it takes to bring me closer to God, I'm okay with that.

#6 Try New Recipes - I think I did okay with this, too. I still have a long way to go, but I did start cooking a good bit of "new" things this year. Some were a hit, some weren't, but at least I tried!

#7 Continue to keep a neat house - I'll be honest, this is an area that I struggle with, but we did do a LOT better this year than years past. I have to remind myself that this is a process, and we're definitely making progress!

#8 Have date nights with Matt - We did great on this! We didn't do them crazy often (probably not even once a month), but we did much better than we have in years past! It was great to put our relationship with each other as a priority this year. I think it really shows, too. Matt and I are closer right now than we have ever been and I'm loving it!

#9 Make some new friends - I think I've done well in this area, too! A lot of my friendships are still "developing", but I really put myself out there a lot more this year and made an effort to get to know people. This was a hard one for me, but I feel like this is a goal that I definitely worked on this past year.

#10 Have more patience, especially at home - While this is an area that I think I'll always struggle with, I think that overall I did better. But I guess I'd have ask Matt to get the real answer on this one. :)

#11 Be a supportive wife - Again, Matt is the only one that can truly answer this one, but I think that this is an area that I really shined in this year. Having a husband start a new career (and one that is 100% commission) is a BIG change and I really tried to be the supporter and cheerleader that he needed. I think a lot of people didn't think he could do this, but he's been doing GREAT. He surpassed his monetary "goal" for 2011 and I'm super proud of him!

#12 Have an awesome summer with LL - This one is a little iffy. This summer is when we had our miscarriage, so it was a pretty wonky summer. While I did enjoy LL, our time was also tarnished by experiencing something so heartbreaking. We did try to make the best of it, though, and I think she enjoyed herself.

#13 Dress cuter - I think I did well at this! I hardly ever wore my hair in a pony tail this past year, and I've done much better in my dressing! I think this is one of my "best looking" years yet! I need to keep it up in 2012!

Overall, I think I did well on my goals for 2011. Up next...my goals for 2012!

16 Weeks Pregnant!

2012-01-18T22:01:00.000-05:00

Baby Growth: Baby Mullican is now about 4.5 - 5 inches long (about the length of an avocado) from crown to rump. I don’t guess that I’ve ever explained this before, but these measurements that I post every week are all crown to rump. This means that they are not measuring the legs (usually because they’re pretty folded up anyway). So the baby is 5 inches from the tip of the head to the hiney. Baby is also weighing in at a whopping 3 – 3.5 oz! Toe nails are starting to grow this week. The baby’s head is also erect this week and not tilted inwards like it has been. The very early stages of hearing are starting now, but it will not be fully developed until about 24 weeks.

My Symptoms: Well, I spoke too soon. I said last week that I thought I was over my morning sickness. And then yesterday morning I threw up again. So I guess I’m not. Maybe this is just something that I’m going to have to deal with every once in a while for the rest of the pregnancy? I really hope not, but if I am, at least it’s not too horrible.

I’m still feeling like I’ve got a good bit of energy back. And this week I do feel like my emotions have been more in check than last week. My belly is still feeling very heavy. It just feels so FULL. Not like my stomach where I eat food, but my belly where my uterus is. It just feels big and heavy and full!

My skin looks terrible this week. I have very acne prone/ irritable skin to begin with, but it is not looking cute right now! Pregnancy glow? Ha! Yeah right!

Weight: Still down 1.5 lbs. I really have no idea how. I feel like I’m eating like a pig. I guess I don’t need to feel bad, though. It’s not like I’m watching what I eat. Because I’m really not. If I’m hungry, I eat!

Belly Pictures: You've been warned about the joys of 6am belly pictures. :) And try not to be crazy jealous of my awesome school shirt.

Gender: Alrighty, you’re either gonna laugh or roll your eyes (or both!), but I’m back to thinking girl. SOMEBODY has to be team pink, right? Everybody else (with the exception of my mom, I think) wants this baby to be a boy. So I’m putting in my official vote right now: I think Baby Mullican is a girl! I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks! For about the past month, LL has consistently said "girl" every time we ask her what the baby is. She even said "baby sister" for the first time the other day and it was SO cute!

Maternity Clothes: Nope. Not yet. I’ve got a bag of maternity clothes that I need to go through, though. I really have NO maternity clothes from LL. I borrowed a TON from a friend when I was pregnant before, and then gave them all back after I had her, so I literally have NO clothes. I need to go through the little that I do have because I think I’ll be needing them soon!

Movement: I have been feeling it so much more lately! It’s still not every single day, but it’s more days than it’s not. I love knowing that I’m just going to be feeling in more and more and that it’s just going to keep getting stronger and stronger. It really is one of the best feelings in the world.

Sleep: Not too good this week again. I can’t seem to get comfortable. I’m very restless and sleeping very light again. I’m also wanting to sleep on my stomach a ton, but it’s starting to get really uncomfortable so then I get mad that I can’t sleep like that – haha.

What I Miss: Christmas Break – haha. Going to work is for the birds!

What I’m Looking Forward To: Same as last week – our gender ultrasound next month. And feeling this baby move more and more!

Cravings: Orange juice still. I bought some more and I’ve been enjoying drinking one glass a day. Cheeseburgers. I even made some home-made cheeseburgers Monday night and they were soooo good!

Best Moment of the Week: Hearing the heartbeat! And getting lots of stuff done for LL’s birthday party. I’m getting SO EXCITED about it! It’s gonna be awesome! We also took Friday off to go check out preschools for LL next fall and we had a BLAST and are so excited about the one that we picked! Post to come!

My Concerns or Questions: After feeling the baby for like 4 days in a row, I went two days this weekend and didn’t feel anything. I started freaking out, but Matt reassured me that it was fine. And then yesterday I asked the nurse at school about it and she said it was fine. About 4 hours after I asked her, I felt the baby move – haha. Of course.

My Goals for the Week: The huge pile of laundry that I have to do. I need to order the favors for LL’s party. Pick a spring break destination for the girl’s trip I’m going on with my sister.

LL and Ben at Wild Adventures

2012-01-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

This post is slightly out of order, but at least I'm catching up, right? At the end of October, my sister and brother-in-law took their 10 year anniversary to Hawaii. While they were gone, Ben was here in town. We decided to take him and LL to Wild Adventures one afternoon. Ben had never been before and LL always loves it. Ben was a little apprehensive about all of the rides and stuff at first, but once he saw LL with no fear, he was right there beside her every step of the way! Here are some cute pictures from that day:

The petting zoo!

Isn't this the cutest thing ever?

Our whole clan.

My sweet little family. :)

Disney Day #4

2012-01-16T10:00:00.000-05:00

On our last day at the parks, we decided to go back to the Magic Kingdom. Because it was so crowded, there were still just a few things that we hadn't been able to do. We also wanted to have kind of a relaxed day and didn't really want to tackle a whole new park.

On the monorail headed into the Magic Kingdom!

We headed into TomorrowLand because in our previous two days, we hadn't even made it into that section of the park! We headed there first thing to get fast passes to Buzz Lightyear. While we waited for our fast pass time, we headed over to the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. While I don't think LL particularly loved it, the adults sure did.

As soon as we got done with that it was time for Buzz Lightyear. I thought that LL would love it, but she wasn't a big fan. She's never seen that many glow in the dark things before, and she had no concept of shooting the things with the guns. One of the realities of having a girl, I guess! She rode with Daddy on this ride while Grammy and I rode together. This picture pretty much sums up how LL felt about the whole ride - haha.

I didn't realize this, but they take pictures of you during the ride. Here's me...

And Grammy. Her face is priceless - haha.

And Matt and LL. You can REALLY tell how into it she was - haha.

We did go back and do some of LL's absolute most favorite things: the carousel. One of the last things on our agenda was to get LL some ears! You can't go to Disney without getting some ears, right?! I wanted her to get some cute pink and white polka dot ears, but these were the ones that she was sure that she wanted. :)

She's not a big fan of wearing hats, but she did really good with these! And it was so cute!

Bye-bye Disney World! On the monorail for the last time...

We really had a FANTASTIC trip and I can't wait for us to go back again. I don't know when it'll be, but I'm looking forward to it all the same. LL was so tuckered out the next day on the way home that she napped in the car - something she NEVER does anymore.

If this isn't a sign that we had a good time, I don't know what is. ;)

Disney Day #3

2012-01-15T12:09:00.000-05:00

For our third day at Disney (for those of you keeping track - this is the Monday before Thanksgiving) we decided to take it a little easy. Because we had stayed out later the night before at the Magic Kingdom, I knew we needed to make sure to fit in some rest time. Sunday night, I actually was up a pretty good bit of the night throwing up. This was actually the first time that I had actually thrown up this pregnancy instead of just feeling really nauseated. Because this was how I spent my night, I was pretty miserable the next morning, too. We all got up at pretty normal time, but we were ALL still tired! We actually decided to just hang around the condo, let LL take an early nap, eat lunch, and then head out to Hollywood Studios. Gentry and Gray decided to go to Animal Kingdom this day, so they went ahead and left. LL (and Grammy!) went down for a nap about 10 and slept until 12. Matt and I went to pick up lunch at chick-fil-a and we ate that before heading to the park.

Also this day, the weather decided to be super nice and rain on us. And by rain, I mean POUR. Oh well, we didn't let it slow us down! We still had a park to see!

I LOVE how all of the streets and stuff look at Hollywood Studios. All of the buildings on the left and right in this picture are real, but all of the buildings straight ahead are not. Pretty cool, huh?

The biggest thing that we were excited about for Hollywood Studios was that LL could meet Lightening McQueen and Mater! She absolutely LOVES the movie Cars and she was pumped to get to meet them! We only had to wait in line for about 30 minutes to see them - that's not bad at all! It was over 2 hours to see Woody and Buzz! The rain really helped us out a TON! She was SO HAPPY to see them and still talks about it all the time!

One thing that I REALLY wanted to do at Hollywood Studios was to go on the backlot tour. Did you know this? Hollywood Studios is actually a WORKING studio. In this I mean that they actually do still film movies here. On our tour, we got to see so many cool things! Anyone see the movie Flight of the Navigator? I used to watch it a ton when I was younger! Here is the spaceship from that movie.

They also have a working costume shop. They don't just make costumes for Disney World here, they actually make them for movies, also.

Another view of real and fake buildings.

When we got done with the backlot tour, it dropped us off in a gift shop (shocker!) that had tons of clothing from "villains" in movies. Here's the outfit for the Queen of Hearts from the newer Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp.

Here's Captain Barbosa's outfit from Pirates.

Here are the two outfits for the wicked queen in Enchanted.

The other thing that we really wanted to do at Hollywood Studios was to take LL to the Disney Junior show. I never could have predicted how much she really LOVED this show. It's a live show with puppets from all of the popular Disney Jr. shows - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, and Little Einsteins (LL's FAVORITE!). LL was so stinkin' adorable during this show. She never took her eyes off of the stage, she danced, she sang, she did everything they asked. It was SO CUTE!

Here's a video of her dancing her heart out while we were waiting for the show to start!

Here's a video of LL participating during the show in her favorite part - Little Einsteins!
And finally, here's the last video of her dancing her heart out at the end of the show!

Even though we got a late start, and even though it rained, we had a BLAST a Hollywood Studios! Up next: our last day at Disney World.

15 Week Doctor's Appointment

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

Thursday, I had my first doctor's appointment in a month! I'll be honest, it was a little nerve-wracking having to transition from going to the doctor every week (like I did from weeks 6-11) to having to get on a more "normal" schedule and waiting 4 weeks. While I knew that things were fine, it was still hard to wait that long for confirmation!

We had decided several weeks ago that we wanted to take Lorelai to this appointment with us so that she could hear the heartbeat. We hadn't take her when we heard the heartbeat at earlier appointments because we just wanted to make completely sure that we knew things would be fine when we went. One of the things that I was always so thankful for was that LL was not at the doctor's appointment with us when we found out that we lost the last baby. I just never wanted her to be a part of anything like that.

All of that being said, this is the first time that we have ever take LL to a doctor's appointment that wasn't for herself. I was a little nervous as to how she would behave since it's an environment that she's never been in before. I'm happy to report that she did awesome!! She was completely wonderful the entire time that we were there.

They weighed me while I was there and confirmed that I'm still down from my pre pregnancy weight by 1-1.5 pounds. My blood pressure was completely fine, too. It was 120 something over 60 something.

When I got back to the room, that's when the nurse went to get Matt and LL. While we waited for Marie, LL enjoyed finding pictures of herself on the wall. She also took turns between sitting on my lap (and putting her feet in the stirrups! haha!) and sitting beside me so that we could read books. :)

Marie came in and the first thing she did was to look for the heartbeat. She found it immediately (yay!) and I was surprised at how high up she found it! At my 11 week appointment, she had to find it VERY low on my tummy. This time, it was only about an inch below my belly button! She said that it sounded absolutely fantastic and was reading in the 140bpm range.

I totally didn't realize it, but Matt took a video of the heartbeat. I'm SO happy that he did! :)

After that, she asked if I had any questions/problems. The only thing that I asked her about was that sometimes the lower part of my abdomen just gets really tender. It doesn't hurt. It's not a cramp. It's just tender! Sore, almost. She said that it was probably just my uterus stretching/growing and that I might feel it worse if I really have to pee because my bladder is pressing on my uterus. Overall, she didn't seem concerned at all.

Really, that's all we did this appointment. We asked LL later what she got to do, and she said "Listen to the baby's heartbeat and it said 'woo woo'". :) I'm excited to keep taking her to appointments from now on!

15 Weeks Pregnant!

2012-01-13T18:59:00.001-05:00

Baby Growth: This week, baby Mullican is about 4 inches long (about the length of a large apple or a navel orange) and weighs about 2.5 oz. His/her body is now longer than the head and he/she can move all of their extremities very well! Even though the eyelids are fused shut, the baby can sense light. This means that if we put a flashlight up to my belly, baby might even move to get away from it. If we were to have an ultrasound, it would be pretty plain to see if the baby was a girl or a boy. Ossification also begins this week. This means that all of those teeny tiny bones are starting to harden!

My Symptoms: Well, I'm crossing my fingers that I am *mostly* over this dumb morning (ha - more like all day) sickness. I haven't thrown up at all this week and my nausea has been getting MUCH better. Really, the only time that I'm nauseated is if I get up super early in the morning (which I do every day now since school is back in) or if I get super hungry. Other than that, I typically feel pretty good!

I can also tell that I have really gotten a lot of energy back. While I don't feel up to running a marathon or anything, I for sure don't feel like I'll die if I don't go to bed at 7:00 pm anymore. I'm loving the feeling of starting to get my energy back.

I have noticed that I have been extremely emotional this week. Maybe my hormones are getting adjusted again now that I'm in the 2nd trimester? I don't know. But I've been sort of a crazy person. I'll be happy one minute, crying the next, and then mad as a hornet. And I can't seem to control it at all. I do not like feeling emotionally unstable!

Also this week, my stomach has felt so HEAVY. Like, literally HEAVY. I've even taken a bath several times (something I rarely do!) because it takes the pressure of my belly off of my body - haha.

Weight: I've weighed a couple of times, and each time I get a different reading. It ranges anywhere from gaining half a pound to a pound. This puts me at either -1 or -1.5 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. Either way, I'm still doing pretty good!

Belly Pictures: So here's the deal. Now that school is back in, I have two options. I can either take my picture super early in the morning before school (like 6 am!) and look not so great because it's crazy early OR I can take them after I get home from a long day and also not look so great. Either way, you can see the outcome - not looking so great! This morning, I opted for first thing in the morning. Mornings and I don't really get along, so you have been warned.

Gender: This is totally weird, but I have COMPLETELY flipped and now I think the baby is a boy! How weird is that?!? So now I'm completely confused and have no idea what in the heck is going on. We should find out in the first part of February, so we'll know soon!

Maternity Clothes: Nope. Still not at all. But I'm probably going to have to start wearing my bella band soon because some of my pants are starting to get pretty uncomfortable when I sit down.

Movement: Yes! Especially in the later part of the week! It's still not mega strong, but I've been feeling it every day! I love it!

Sleep: I have been sleeping much better this week! I'm sleeping very lightly lately which is odd for me. Is that a normal pregnancy thing? But while I'm sleeping lightly, I'm not restless so that's a very good thing. Also, I've been sleeping on my stomach a lot this week. This kind of came out of nowhere. Kinda weird? But it's still comfortable, so I'm not worried about it. I haven't woken up to my legs/arms being randomly asleep/numb, so that makes me feel better, too.

What I Miss: Nothing really! I'm loving this stage of pregnancy, so there's not much to miss!

What I'm Looking Forward To: Our upcoming ultrasound! And finding out the gender! And just knowing that these movements are going to get stronger and stronger!

Cravings: Still orange juice. I drank a whole container this week. And it was SO good! I'm going to have to get some more this week! Also, Hershey Pie. Oh my gosh - this was my first legit "I've got to have it or I'll go crazy" craving. I've been eating some every day and it's soooo good!

Best Moment of the Week: Hearing the heartbeat! (Post to come). Also, Matt and I took some time for ourselves and had a date night. It was so nice to make some time just for us and we had a really good time!

My Concerns or Questions: Not really. Feeling okay about everything right now!

My Goals for the Week: Get more stuff done for LL's birthday! It's coming up soon and we have to get ready!!

Disney Day #2

2012-01-08T20:02:00.002-05:00

On day #2 at Disney we woke up ready to go! We got up super early because we wanted to be at the park super early! Gentry and Gray came in late the night before, so they would be spending the day with us at the park. Our plan was to go back to the Magic Kingdom since we didn't get much done the day before and because Gray had just gotten in town. Because we got there so early, the monorails weren't working yet and we had to take the ferry.

Obviously LL was super pumped to get her picture taken on the ferry - haha.

First thing on the agenda? Meet the princesses! The wait time was only 10 minutes, and I knew that it would be CRAZY long later.

LL meeting the princesses = epic FAIL. She HATED it! They must have freaked her out because she wanted NOTHING to do with them! In thinking about it though, it is a pretty strange concept. She's only ever seen them on TV, and then all of a sudden they're right in front of her but they're huge and look different. I can see how that would be kind of scary.

Trying to show her Cinderella's shoes. She didn't care.

Daddy's turn. Meeting Belle. Again, she didn't care.

After we met the princesses, LL said that she wanted to see Mickey. I don't know if she knew what she was asking for, but we got in line anyway (only about 15 minutes). This was a FAIL, too! She didn't want anything to do with them! Oh well, at least she isn't crying in the picture!

When we asked LL if she wanted to get a picture with Mommy and Daddy in front of the castle, she said no. Shocker. So we did it anyway. :)

Next up: It's A Small World! Now this was a hit! LL LOVED IT!! I know it looks like I'm squishing her to death, but I'm just trying to hold her up - haha.

This is how she looked the whole ride - just fascinated!! She remembered the song all on her own and still sings it all the time!

When we got done on It's A Small World, there was a guy blowing bubbles. LL and Gray had a great time playing there for a little bit!

Don't you LOVE LL's outfit? Grammy made all of her clothes on the trip! You can get them, too, on our etsy!

Isn't it so pretty?? I love how everything looks!

Headed back to the condo for nap time!

This was the day that we decided that we would for sure go back to the condo for nap time. We weren't going to skip nap two days in a row, and I really wanted to stay late enough to see all of the Christmas lights.

It was all decorated so pretty for Christmas!

This was also a day that we decided to eat a meal in the park. Most meals we either ate before we left, or took our food with us. I had seen people walking around with turkey legs and I wanted one so bad! And it was soooo good!

Isn't it so pretty?? I loved the the castle was all lit up for Christmas! We stayed for the lights parade (that didn't even start until like 9!) but LL ended up LOVING it so it was totally worth it!

Disney Day #1

2012-01-08T15:10:00.000-05:00

Way back at the beginning of 2011, Matt and I decided that we wanted to make sure to take LL to Disney World this year. There were several reasons for our decision: we knew it would probably (hopefully) be the last year that LL was an only child, she's at a GREAT age for Disney (everything was completely REAL to her), and we haven't been on a big vacation in a loooong time. We decided to go over my Thanksgiving break because it's a long break that's already built into my school year and it's not crazy hot.

I got out of school for the week on Friday, November 18. We left pretty early Saturday morning (the 19th) for Disney. Grammy (Matt's mom) was also going with us for the trip. Then, Matt's cousin Gentry and her son, Gray, were meeting us down there late that night.

We got to Orlando right at lunch time, so we stopped at a Burger King pretty close to the park to get lunch. Because, obviously, Burger King has crowns everywhere, LL thought that Burger King WAS Disney World - haha.

The only downside to our plan was that we were arriving to Disney World right at LL's nap time. We very rarely have to skip her nap for things. She has done it before, but its for sure not something that we do often. We decided to spend our first day at Magic Kingdom. I mean, isn't that the park that we REALLY consider to be Disney World?

Have I told you that my child is VERY anti-pictures lately? She totally is. This was us walking into the park. She was as happy as could be, but wanted nothing to do with the camera! So here you are, sweet baby girl. Your very first picture in Disney World.

First view of the castle! One of the other reasons that we chose to go over Thanksgiving was that we were told that it wasn't busy. Umm...WRONG! Out of 1-10 (10 being the busiest), it was an 7-9 every day we were there. We won't make that mistake again!

There's was a parade going on when we got there, so we stopped to watch.

Honestly, she was a little confused at first. She was tired, at a place she had never been, there were LOTS of people, and she had no idea what was going on.

The first ride that we went on was Snow White's Scary Adventure. Maybe it was pregnancy brain (I was 7/8 weeks on our trip - and YES, already showing), but something didn't register to me that this ride may actually be SCARY. But guess what? It totally is. LL was TERRIFIED. Maybe it wasn't the best decision for the FIRST ride for us in Disney World!

Next, we headed to the Carousel. Hands down, this was her favorite ride the entire trip. We probably did it 5+ times over the course of 3 days. She loves carousels anywhere, so she loved how big this one was!

This face right here was worth the entire trip!!

Next we headed over to Winnie The Pooh. The wait time said about 45 minutes. Long, but do-able. I don't know what the deal was, but on this one specific ride, the FastPass people (not us) made our wait a LOT longer. As in we ended up waiting a total of almost an hour and a half! Thankfully, they had a lot of stuff to keep the kids busy while in line. LL loved playing with these bees!

This ride ended up being worth the wait - LL really enjoyed it and still talks about it all the time.

Next, we headed over to Philharmagic. LL has never been to anything 3D before, so I wondered how she would do with having to wear the glasses and the effects.

She totally surprised me because she LOVED this! We ended up doing it again another day because she liked it so much!

By this point, it was getting close to dinner time, we were all exhausted, and Matt and I still needed to make a run to the grocery store for food for the rest of the trip and to keep in the condo. We had to make sure to take a picture in front of the castle before we left!

Disney Day #2 coming soon!

Pretty Girl

2012-01-05T14:03:00.000-05:00

I know I'm still really far behind, and trust me, I'm working so hard to get caught up. I'm also trying my best to catch up in chronological order, but sometimes you just have to get out of that.

I took LL outside today because I *have* to get some pictures of her for her birthday invitations. Her birthday is one month from TODAY and I have to get on the ball! Lately, getting her to do anything but put her head down in a picture is a miracle. I wasn't too optimistic about how our picture session was going to turn out today.

Before we went outside, I explained to her that we needed to take pictures for her birthday invitations so that she could invite people to her birthday party. That must have done the trick because, compared to what she's been doing when the camera comes out, she did WONDERFUL!

Here are a few of my favorites from today:
#1

Now comes the hard decision of picking which one to use on her invitations!

2011 Recap - Part 2 (July - December)

2012-01-04T15:02:00.001-05:00

July: We had family pictures taken.

We celebrated the 4th of July.

While the guys were on a work trip, Emily and I took the kids to the Atlanta Zoo and the Georgia Aquarium.

LL and I worked like crazy on potty training!

August: We went to Atlanta to celebrate Ben's 2nd Birthday!

Matt and I took a weekend trip to the Suwannee River with some friends.

September: We started enjoying Downtown Farm Days.

We went to Atlanta to visit Aunt Laura, Uncle Gino, and Ben again.

We took LL to her first Lowndes football game!

October: We went to the HoneyBee Festival.

We took our annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch.

I threw a babyshower for Emily.

We took LL and Ben on one last trip to Wild Adventures.

I found out that I was pregnant again!

November: Matt and I went on our first Aflac trip.

We went on our first BIG family vacation and took LL to Disney World!

December: Took our annual trip to the Christmas Tree Farm to cut down our tree!

We celebrated the first real Christmas where LL legitimately knew what was going on!

I FINALLY achieved my goal by cutting my hair for Locks of Love!

While we definitely had some ups and downs this year, overall it was a FANTASTIC year! I can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for us!

14 Weeks Pregnant!

2012-01-03T20:21:00.001-05:00

Baby Growth: The baby is averaging in at a whopping 3.5 inches! Roughly, he/she is the size of my clenched fist. Baby also weighs about 1.5 ounces right now. The baby can now suck his/her thumb and move all around my belly! Baby is also starting to get a thin covering of hair all over his/her body.

My Symptoms: Well, I thought that I had moved on from morning sickness, but I threw up again Friday morning. We were getting ready to leave for Atlanta and it just hit me all of a sudden and I had to make a run for the bathroom. I felt pretty terrible the rest of the day. And, randomly, for the next few days I had a VERY upset stomach when it came to using the bathroom. I don't know where that came from, either. I'm finally starting to get over the sinus junk that I was dealing with and I've (for the most part) stopped coughing. I am starting to get some of my energy back, but not by tons. Just little by little. My lower stomach was also pretty tender yesterday and I just overall felt like poop. I'm pretty sure it was just round ligament pain, but it was not too fun.

Weight: Well, I gained one pound back, so now I'm at a -2 pounds. Not too upset about that! I'm thinking that this will for sure start picking up now that I'm not so nauseated as much now.

Belly Pictures: I didn't get dressed today until Matt had already left for work, so my pics aren't gonna be so great today. Today is also just a stay home/cleaning day today for me, so I did not get dressed up cute.

Gender: Still mostly feeling that this is a girl, but I did have a few moments this week where I thought it could maybe be a boy. I guess I'm just as confused as ever!

Maternity Clothes: Nope! I did buy a few tank tops that were on sale this weekend because I KNOW that I'll be living in them when it gets warm. They weren't maternity, but I don't mind if they get all stretched out because they were mega cheap.

Movement: Not a ton, but definitely some bumps here and there!

Sleep: I have NOT been sleeping good lately. I've been very restless all night. Waking up for weird things. Not being able to go back to sleep very quickly. Basically, it's no fun. I have had the urge to sleep on my stomach a few times, and when I did, it was still pretty comfortable. I've also been having issues with waking up to either my hands or legs being asleep?? Random.

What I Miss: Not a whole lot. I have been feeling not great, so feeling better would definitely be a plus. I miss not being so picky about food. Stuff sounds either REALLY good or REALLY gross. And that can be REALLY frustrating.

What I'm Looking Forward To: I'm pretty content right now, so not much. I do have a doctor's appointment next week, and we're going to take LL so that she can hear the heartbeat. I'm pretty pumped. We should also schedule our ultrasound at that appointment.

Cravings: Orange juice. I'll probably get some when I go to the grocery store this week, but I need to remind myself to drink it in heavy moderation because it gives me super bad heartburn.

My Concerns or Questions: Why am I waking up to numb/asleep body parts? This this okay/normal??

My Goal for the Week: Enjoy my last few days home with my girl and REST!

2011 Recap - Part 1 (January - June)

2012-01-02T16:57:00.000-05:00

Wow. I can not believe that 2011 is already over! I swear, once you have kids, the years FLY by! It all needs to slow down! Here's a little re-cap of how our year went:

January: We had a pretty relaxed month. We took LL on her first trip to Wild Adventures.

She also got her first "fancy dress" made by Grammy and looked SO CUTE in it!

February: We celebrated LL's 2nd birthday with an owl-themed birthday.

The weather warmed up for a few days, so we celebrated with our first picnic of the year at the park!

We also started our garden for the year.

March: This is the month where we really started to get busy! We celebrated Kye's 2nd Birthday.

We went to the Azalea Festival in Valdosta.

LL and I took our annual girl's trip (plus Ben!) to Macon for the Cherry Blossom Festival.

I got a new car - and my first NEW car!

April: This was another busy month for us! We took LL to the local strawberry patch to pick some berries.

We took another spring trip to Wild Adventures.

We celebrated Matt's 31st birthday!

We celebrated Easter.

This is the month that we also found out that we were pregnant.

May: We took LL fishing for the first time.

LL started swim lessons.

My sister and I took a girls' trip to Savannah, GA for a long weekend.

June: This was the month that we started slowing down a little. Part of it was due to losing the baby, and part of it was due to the fact that we were trying to beat the summer heat!

We celebrated Father's Day.

We spent a lot of time taking LL to the pool and the park.

LL continued swim lessons and did was doing great!

Triple Crown

2011-12-29T14:50:00.002-05:00

One of the perks of Matt’s new job with Aflac is that they offer TONS of incentive to do well within the company. I LOVE that and think that it’s a great way to encourage and motivate your employees! I also think that it’s great because it’s ever changing – meaning you’re not winning the same things every single year. Some of the incentives are products, money, and, best of all, free trips! Matt has been working his behind off (I am SO PROUD of him and how great he’s been doing!) and this summer he officially qualified us for our first trip. The upside: it’s a free trip. The downside: it was to Atlanta. Ha. For people who live in Georgia (and have family in Atlanta), this doesn’t initially sound like the best trip. This trip is a trip that you can ONLY qualify for in your first year. Meaning, if you don’t make it the first year, it’s just gone and you miss it. A lot of the other trips “cycle through” meaning, if you don’t make it- you have a chance to go back to that same location in a few years. The reason that this trip is to Atlanta is because the Aflac national headquarters are in Columbus, GA which is very close to Atlanta. So for us, it wasn’t the coolest city to visit, but to people from somewhere like Arkansas, I’m sure it was more exciting.

Another thing that Aflac does is they give you the option of either flying or driving (if it’’s not too far) to your location –– expenses paid. Matt and I drive to Atlanta ALL THE TIME. Literally, we make the trip at least 5+ times a year. It is absolutely the worst drive in the world to me. On the other end, we NEVER fly anywhere. Ever. I’’ve only flown once in my life and that was in highschool. Since it was paid for us either way, we opted to fly. Why get there in 4 hours when you can make it in 1? I’’m not gonna lie, we got TONS of crap from other people for this. Especially other Aflac people who were either going or had been on this trip before. Regardless, we stuck to our guns and decided to do our vacation how WE wanted, not how other people thought we should.

Our trip was Nov 3-6 which was a Thursday –– Sunday. This meant that I had to miss 2 days of school (bummer). Our flight was scheduled to leave Valdosta at 11:10 Thursday morning. We got up, packed, took LL to Grammy’’s, and then headed to the airport. Grammy and Pop were going to bring LL by when it was closer to take-off to see us before we left. We got there, printed our tickets, checked our bags and proceeded to wait. LL got there about 10:45ish and not long after we started to go through security. Grammy, Pop, and LL continued to stay so that LL could see the plane take off. We went through all of security and waited in the terminal right where you board the plane. Let me go ahead and tell you, while I was really excited, I was also VERY nervous. I was newly pregnant on this trip (we had literally JUST found out the week before), I’’m afraid of heights, and I had only flown once. I was a nervous wreck on the inside!

Waiting to go at the airport.

They finally started boarding the plane and calling by sections. This is when things started to go downhill. Matt and I were both looking at our tickets and couldn’’t for the life of us find what section we were in. Matt finally went and asked the guy who was boarding everyone what section we were in and they guy told him, “"You’’re not in a section because you don1’’t really have a ticket. You’’re on standby.”" Umm……..what?!?! We had no idea about ANY of this! They called the last section, and Matt and I were able to talk to the guy a little more. Basically, there were 4 of us on standby (and NO ONE on the list knew they were on standby!). Delta, in an effort to make more money I guess, oversold the plane. This is actually pretty standard practice because in bigger cities, you have TONS of people not show up for their flight. In Valdosta, not so much. Basically, there were 4 of us on standby and 1 empty seat available. Matt and I were #’’s 1 and 2 on the list, so we have first pick of that seat. Umm……I wasn't flying by myself, and I sure as heck wasn’’t going to drive while Matt flew. So we gave up that seat to the girl who was behind us. This is the part where we started to get REALLY pissed. I mean, we had just been at the airport for 2 hours for a flight that we weren't going to get on. They said we could get on the next flight, but that one wasn’’t until 5:00pm –– NO THANKS! Matt demanded that they get our luggage off the plane because we knew at this point that we weren’’t going to be flying period.

They made us go back out into the lobby of the airport and this is the point where Matt got on the phone with Aflac. Initially, we thought this was an Aflac problem and something they had done wrong. After Matt talking to the lady with Aflac, and me talking to the people at the desk at the airport, we quickly realized that this was DELTA'S fault - not Aflac. But here was the problem - the next flight wasn't until 5:45 that evening. So if we took that, we'd miss all of the Aflac stuff going on that evening. Plus, we'd be stuck waiting around Valdosta for another 6ish hours. Our other option was do drive up there ourselves - but the problem with this was that since Aflac had already paid for our plane tickets, the wouldn't reimburse us for gas $$, meaning we'd have to pay for the trip out of our own pocket. Not cool for a trip that was SUPPOSED to be free.

Then, I really started talking to the guy behind the counter and he started explaining that they would reimburse us for our ticket amount if we wanted. At first I thought, "Okay, so what. It's only from Valdosta to Atlanta. The tickets can't be more than $200." That's when he said, "It should be somewhere around $1,000.00. Each." Ummm...EXCUSE ME?!?!

Turns out, Aflac books your flights pretty close to the date that you're leaving. Hence why we were on the standby list. But what else does that mean? Tickets are more expensive! The guy at the airport ended up cutting us a check for $1300 each, AND we have travel vouchers for plane tickets in those amounts, too. How awesome is that?! Needless to say, we took the money and ran with it! It was funny to us, because SO MANY people made fun of us for flying there, but we're the ones who ended up laughing all the way to the bank!

We ended up driving to the hotel ourselves and got there around 3ish. We checked in and rested for a little while because we didn't have anything to do until about 6. At this point, I was still VERY early pregnant (about 5 weeks), so I was exhausted and welcomed the chance to rest. Especially after our crazy morning!

Not so upset anymore!

The inside of the hotel.

View from our room.

The next day, Aflac had scheduled for everyone to take a bus to the national headquarters in Columbus, GA (about a 2 hour trip). I wasn't feeling great at all, plus I knew that it would be TONS of walking, so I decided to just stay at the hotel and rest. Matt was really cool with it, and it was nice to have a day just to myself. It doesn't happen often at home!

I had to get lunch from a shop in the hotel since everyone was being fed while they were on the trip. This sandwich and a drink were like $20! Not cool, but I didn't really have another choice.

Enjoying my day to myself!

Aflac headquarters

This is Paul Amos. He is one of the founding brothers of Aflac. He's in his mid 80's and he still goes to work every day!

That night was our dress up night at dinner. We don't get all dressed up much anymore, so it was fun to get to do that!

One of my new fav pics of us!

The names of all of the people in Matt's district who made the trip.

Quite possibly the FUNNIEST thing from the trip was when Emily's mom, Jodi, (who, obviously, also made the trip) talked another guy from Matt's district, Jason, into going up front to "dance" with her after dinner. Then, when they got up there, she somehow got the band to pull him up for a solo. He had to sing by himself ("Aint No Mountain High Enough") and he was NOT a good singer AND he had no clue what the words were. I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard in my life!

Saturday was our activity of choice. Since it was his trip, I told Matt I was okay with whatever activity he chose. He picked the aquarium. While we've both been (several) times before, we've never actually been together. It was neat to get to experience it at the same time. Plus, since we'd seen it all before, we could just take our time and not be in a hurry.

In the penguin tube!

That night was our last dinner with Aflac. They also had an "Aflac Idol" and you KNOW Matt had to participate. He's a music guy AND he loves attention so it was right up his alley. He ended up singing "Hey Jude" and he ROCKED it! I took tons of pictures, but they all turned out blurry because it was so dark. Honestly, he was a shoe in for winning the whole thing (really!) but then some old lady came out and completely rocked it to "I Will Always Love You". She totally stole 1st place from him! But she did do great, and Matt still had a blast.

All in all, it turned out to be a GREAT trip! I can't wait for many more to come!

13 Weeks Pregnant!

2011-12-27T15:39:00.001-05:00

Yay! Hello, 2nd Trimester!

Baby Growth: Baby is now about 3 inches long and about the length of a peach! Our sweet little one now has finger prints and even may be starting to sprout a little hair. If baby is a girl, she already has about 2 million eggs in her tiny ovaries. He/She can now put his/her thumb in their mouth and may start to suck it soon. Both the nose and lips are done developing this week. The baby is also starting to form the voice box, even though it won't be used for about 7 more months.

My Symptoms: This week has been pretty crazy. At the start of the week, I did not feel good at all. I was even throwing up still. I've also been battling a cold, so I've been coughing (and unable to sleep some nights) and feeling terrible. Then yesterday, I really started to feel better. My nausea has decreased significantly. My cough is almost gone. I feel like I might start to be getting some of my energy back! I'm still VERY picky about my food and things either sound really really good or really really bad. My back is still hurting pretty badly if I stand for a long period of time, but I think it's just something that I'm going to have to deal with for the duration of the pregnancy. It's for sure not going to get better as the baby gets bigger.

Weight: I'm still at -3lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight. This REALLY surprises me because I have for sure been eating. I'm thankful for it, though! I know those pounds will start to pack on soon enough!

Belly Pictures: I got my belly stickers in this week! Yay!

Gender: Starting to really feel like this is a girl. To the point where, in my head, I almost always think of this baby as a girl. I think it'll be funny (and totally fine!) if this baby turns out to be a boy and I was completely wrong. Maybe I'm thinking girl because that's all I know? When I was pregnant with LL (and my sis was pregnant with her son) my mom did the needle test on us. Basically, you lay on the floor and someone (my mom) holds a needle on a string over your belly. Supposedly, if it swings in a line, it's a boy. If it swings in a circle, it's a girl. With both LL and my nephew, it was right. We did that this past weekend, and it swung in a circle (girl). Then, there's another trick that I heard about (I think from Emily??) where you can see all the children you already have and the one you're pregnant with. For this one, you put your wedding ring (or some kind of metal) on a string and hold it over your wrist. From the first time, it will tell you all of your kids in order. So for me, it swung in a circle first (because I already have a girl - LL). Then, it swung in a line (confirming what we thought about the last pregnancy that we lost being a boy), and then for the third time, it said girl again. After we tested it on me, we tested it on my mom. For the first and second time, it said girl (that's all she has - two girls, no miscarriages, etc.). On the third time, it sat still. Weird, huh? Then we tried it on Matt and my step-dad, and it held still for them (they have kids, but haven't carried them in their bodies). Crazy!

Maternity Clothes: Nope! None at all!

Movement: Yes! In fact, on Friday (the day before Christmas Eve), I felt this baby moving ALL DAY LONG!! It was awesome! I didn't feel anything the next two days, but I've felt a bump here and there yesterday. Such a good feeling!

Sleep: This has been pretty terrible this week because of being sick. Now that I'm starting to feel better, I'm also starting to sleep better. I've stopped sleeping on my stomach, but it wasn't anything that I really decided to not do. It just doesn't sound comfortable anymore.

What I Miss: I don't think anything right now! I'm starting to feel better, I'm not at work - life is good!

What I'm Looking Forward To: I think we might go see my sister this weekend, so I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to feeling this baby move more and more. I'm also excited about getting more of the office cleaned out to make room for this little one! I've also started searching for ideas for LL's birthday party, and I'm starting to get REALLY excited about it!

Cravings: Still not really anything. Super picky about food, but not really craving anything.

My Concerns and Questions: I'm struggling with fear right now. I'm used to going to the doctor every week, so waiting for 4 weeks is a scary change. Satan is using this to sneak in and tell me horrible things. I've just been praying to keep him away and staying as positive as I can!

Goals for the Week: Enjoy being home with my girl!!