My Journey Through Pregnancy: 18, 19 & 20 weeks. [[oopsies]]

hello my beautiful friends, I am so so sorry that I have been a little blog slacker. I got busy with Christmas and New Years and I didn't make the time to blog or even post the bump pics!!!! I'm horrible I know! Anywaysssss. My Christmas and New Years was fabulous and I hope that all of you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! For Christmas Eve the whole fam bam came over to my mamma's house to celebrate including my brother Nic (who currently lives in Phoenix,) my BFF Nikki and her boyfriend Joel! So we had a few guests of honor! :) Mom usually cooks a big ole' Christmas dinner but this year, since we sort of have a new family (my stepdad and my boyfriend and my unborn little pumpkin) we decided to start a new tradition and we got Chinese take-out! Hahaha it reminds me of the movie 'A Christmas Story' where the family goes and eats Chinese on Christmas because the neighbors dogs destroyed their Christmas turkey! The food was fabulous and it was such a fun new tradition! Then we all exchanged gifts and let me tell you I think Lilliana got more gifts than anyone, and she isn't even born yet! I can tell our little girl is going to be SPOILED just NOT rotten! :)

At Christmas I was 18 weeks pregnant and miss Lilliana started to move a TON by that week, what a fabulous Christmas gift! :) Feeling your baby move is the most incredible feeling and there is really no way to describe it besides to say that it just feels like strong flutters inside your belly, below your stomach! By 18 weeks I really started showing!

18 weeks, we have a kicker!

Our New Years was really good too, the fabulous thing was that I got a 3 day weekend from work two weeks in a row, Christmas weekend, and New Years because Christmas Day and New Years Day both fell on a Tuesday! (My work is always closed Sundays and Mondays) So I had Sunday Monday and Tuesday off two weeks in a row!!!!! I loved having that extra time but man I sure kept busy and didn't get that much done! Well New Years Eve is kinda crazy in my world because not only is it a fabulous holiday but it is also Sam's birthday!!! So New Years Eve I cooked ALLLL day to make a special meal for my man! I made Penne Rosa with Parmesan Crusted Chicken, Garlic Breadsticks, and for dessert NY Cheesecake with the choice of Cherry or Strawberry topping. It was SO delicious and I was very proud of myself! I also broke open the Sparkling grape juice in place of the champagne in celebration of the coming New Year! ;) I might have gained a few pounds over the holiday season, not sure if its the baby or how much food I ate, or maybe a combo of both!

Sam's home-made birthday dinner! YAY ME!

sweet potato baby! :)

Okay so right now I am 20 weeks! I am at the halfway point in my pregnancy, 20 more weeks to go, give or take a couple! I went in for my 20 week Dr Appt. today. Unfortunately I had to switch Doctors because the Dr. I was seeing only comes in on Wednesdays and I can only go in on Mondays, so I had a new Dr today, but guess what?! I love her even more than my other Doctor, so its not really that unfortunate after all! :) Today Sam had to work so my Mom and my Stepdad came with me to my appt. We were expecting to do the 20 week ultrasound where you find out the gender and all that (which we already know thanks to Enlightened 4D Imaging!!!!) but my Stepdad really wanted to see the baby and the clinic needs to look at the baby to see if everything looks normal and healthy, aaaand I just wanted the clinic to confirm that we were for certain having a girl since the development between 16 and 20 weeks is astounding! (Each week is comparable to 1 year of growth, INCREDIBLE!) Sooo anyways thats what we were expecting, weeeeellll apparently the "anatomy ultrasound," as they call it at the clinic, is a huge deal and you have to schedule it as a separate appointment and its pretty solidly booked out. oopsies. My Dr told us not to hold our breath and that we would probably have to wait a couple weeks to get in, well guess what we should've held our breaths because there was an opening for later that day! So at 2:45pm we trekked back into the clinic to get our ultrasound! (My Stepdad, Tony, didn't end up getting to see the baby because he had to be back at work :/ but Mom and I made it up for round 2!) We got into the room and our ultrasound tech was a little rude (bummer) but it was still really cool to see baby again. At the beginning of the ultrasound the tech said she calls all the babies a 'he' while she's going through the ultrasound. Okay so at this point I'm psyching myself out a little bit because I'm like "What if its a boy?! We've already bought things for a girl! I would love a boy, but we already bought stuff for a girl!! Did I mention that we already have 2 boxes full of baby girl stuff?!!?" So meanwhile I am enjoying the ultrasound but am super nervous to get to the end so she could tell me I was having a girl. But we did get some awesome shots of baby and her profile and we even saw her open her mouth, I think she must have been swallowing. It was just incredible! The tech did confirm that baby is a GIRL, and I was relieved for the sake of my two bins FULL of girl stuff, my bump pics, and the beautiful name we have picked out, oh and also all the girl stuff we have... did I say that yet? ;)