Hello friends and family. I've been saying hello to an even bigger belly lately. Today the baby is 16 weeks and 3 days along! Belly bands and maternity jeans are a necessity with almost every outfit already. Except for with dresses... I am liking the simplicity of those and may be wearing them the majority of the summer to work.

Garet and I were on a mission this weekend to get me some comfortable shoes for my achy feet as I am on my feet a lot at work and all of my flats are worn out and offer almost no support. I had a pair or two of crocs that I wanted to try on for comfort, but despite visiting two crocs stores I wasn't able to find the ones I really liked. I got a code for free shipping from crocs so I might order them offline and try them, but I would really like about right now, so we'll see how long shipping would take or if I'll go back and try another style. Sometimes I wish I could just wear tennishoes to work as they offer comfort, but then I remember that my feet will probably swell up enough in the 100 degree weather down here this summer that my feet won't fit in tennishoes anyways. Thankfully, the crocs I am looking at are super cute (not the icky clunky original crocs).

I did end up getting a few good deals at the Old Navy outlet. Even while pregnant I've found that Old Navy is still my style... and fits my budget pretty well with their sales! The Motherhood store had some adorable dresses, but I certainly wouldn't have spent $40 on a dress before and am not about to do it now. Their "secret belly" pants fit really really weird on me too... I'm not sure what kind of body those pants would even fit. Target's line of maternity clothes are bad either... I have a pair of maternity jeans from them on clearance that I am in love with!

The weather has been a little taste of summer down here lately. It was 80+ for a while (87 one weekday) and it's not cooling off much past 65 or 70 anytime soon. It frightens me to think about if it's this warm now, how hot is is going to be this summer. Especially when I am 8 months pregnant at the end of July. When we moved down here last July 30th we had a streak of 100+ weather for almost a week. Not cool. Wish us cool weather and minimal humidity please!

Fun news... I can feel the baby moving sometimes... in the evening especially when I'm just chilling! At least after talking to other moms and my doctor I am pretty sure it's the baby. The doctor told me that from what I'm describing it is definitely the baby and that I'll start feeling it more consistently soon. It's pretty crazy. Although, I'm not so sure that it's a good thing that I'll be feeling it so much soon because I am going to be SOO distracted at work!

We had our 3rd doctor's appointment last Tuesday. Garet wasn't able to go because he has his cross-cultural module all the way over in Edwardsville, IL (even further away than my work in Belleville) on Tuesdays, but it was short and sweet so it was easy enough to do on my own. The baby kept moving away from the doctor as she was trying to check the heartbeat. The doctor said that the heartbeat was strong and normal and from what I report the pregnancy is progressing well. Such good news! No med student at this visit, but my doctor was entertaining as she looked like she was about to pop out her baby at any point... she waddled and had a hard time sitting down on the stool as she is a small asian woman.

A coworker who had her baby at the same practice gave me some tips about the med students... basically she said that 99% of them are awkward and that if you don't want them around staring at you when you give birth to speak up. I doubt I'll be hesitant to speak up... I might even be a bit demanding by that point, but who can blame me, right?

We went to a "garage sale" event at the local cloth diaper/baby store 2 weekends ago where we got some cloth diapers like we wanted for a third of the price you would normally pay. Yay for savings! We decided a while back that we wanted to do cloth diapers as it would save us money in the long run. We can't imagine shelling the money out every month for diapers when we could just pay the money once and use the diapers until the are potty trained. We realize that it will be more work overall, but we bought a washer and dryer last year, so it just makes sense.


We don't plan on using the diapers right away as we'll use disposable diapers for probably the first 2 or 3 months while we adjust to a new schedule and no sleep. Or we'll just use them until the our initial supply is out. We'll see. The diapers we got are adorable if I do say so myself. They are very similar to the ones pictured on the right as they are a "pocket diaper" and have snaps that adjust to be used for a baby 8lbs to 36 lbs.

I hope you made it through this whole blog! Long one... I know. Feel free to comment... I like to know what your thoughts are too!