The Future Mrs Dakan

A few weekends ago I headed up to Dallas to attend one of my college friends, Megan's bridal shower.    Jackie and her mom hosted the shower and it was so nice and pretty! 

You KNOW I loved all the food!  :)

These cupcakes were so cute and yummy

Beth and I.  Hello SUN, my name is Kelly, have we ever met??  Jeeze, I'm pale!

The delicious punch that everyone kept talking about.  :(  It looked yummy but I stuck with my water.

Lexie making sure her presense was known.  She's so cute.

When she wasn't guarding Meg's presents, Lou Lou was.

Playing the "make a wedding dress game"

Megan with her two brides

Meg and her mom

Megan with her future mother in law and her mom

Jackie, Beth, Meg and me

Meg with the two hostesses

Saturday night after the shower the Stewart fam came over to Jackie and Bryan's house to hang out.  Little Payden perfectly happy sticking his hand down my shirt.  Ha!

How cute is that little face?!  He's been having a little separation anxiety from his Momma lately so he wasn't too thrilled when Bryan wanted to hold him at first.

Beth and cutie Avery

How pretty is she?!  She is so funny

Payden all happy!

Avery loves being a big sister as you can see here.  She may just want to let up on his neck a little bit...

It was a quick but fun weekend!  Next weekend is the big day and Miss Arent will become Mrs. Dakan!

21 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 21 Weeks, 

Size of baby: Baby T is about the length of a banana

Total Weight Gain: 8 lbs

Maternity Clothes: All maternity pants and regular/maternity tops

Gender: GIRL!!! She has a name but we haven't told all of our family yet so I'll let y'all know next week!

Movement: I've been feeling some movement in there but nothing too strong yet

Sleep: I love sleep.  I wish the feeling was mutual.  I've been waking up with very fast heart rates several times this week and can't fall back asleep afterwards.  More on that below....

What I miss: Just sleeping through the night.  And right now Chick Fil-A iced tea.

Cravings: Sweets 

Symptoms: Oh, this week was a doozy...  I actually felt pregnant for the 1st time on Saturday when I helped my friend Jackie and her mom set up for a bridal shower.  By the end of the afternoon I. Was. DONE!  My belly was feeling heavy and I was exhausted.  I've learned that I can't do everything that I could do before baby girl was growing in there.

Best moment this week: Just feeling her moving around and celebrating our anniversary!  Oh, and her bedding came in and it's so cute and we ordered her furniture!  :)

So, this week was WAY more eventful than we would have liked!  I started noticing about a week and 1/2 ago a weird feeling in my throat randomly.  After a few days of it I described it to my friend and she said it sounded like heart palpitations so I started paying attention to my pulse and it was palpitations.  It became more frequent so I called my OB and described what I felt and she wanted me to see a Cardiologist right away.  I went on Monday and he ran an EKG, Echo cardiogram (ultrasound for the heart) and hooked me up to a Holter monitor (portable heart monitor) for 24 hours.  Today I had another EKG and Echo cardiogram checking things out again.  

I for sure wasn't wearing the right shirt the day they hooked me up to the Holter monitor and had to walk through the medical building looking like this.  Awesome.  This thing was ANNOYING!!!  There were seven pads stuck on me with wires attached and they itched.  BAD!  Not to mention the 2.5' of wires hanging down.  The black thing hanging from my neck was the little computer that stored all my heart beats.  Did I say it was for 24 hours so I also had to sleep hooked up to this thing??

I think I did a pretty awesome MacGyver job with this thing on Tuesday morning!  I had a little extra time since you can't shower while wearing it!!  Awesome.  Luckily it was only for one day, I was able to take it off after work.  I tucked all those wires into my maternity pants and then stuck the monitor through the buttons and kept my sweater button all the way up like a nun to hide the pads.  Only one person asked me all day at work what was  hanging from my neck!  

Some really well hid wires!

See why I didn't want this showing??

So, the results weren't exactly what I hoped for but it could have been much worse.  I ended up at the Cardiologist three different days this week due to some heart rate issues (my highest heart rate was 210 beats a minute, not so good and that was just from walking up one flight of stairs.  You would have thought I had just sprinted a mile without stopping the way I was breathing).  I apparently am anemic and also have something called Supraventricular Tachycardia (SVT).  Basically my heart beats so fast that the heart muscle can't relax between contractions.  When the chambers don't relax they can't fill with enough blood for my body and the brain doesn't received enough blood and oxygen causing me to get light headed, out of breath and have a very fast heart rate.   I've been becoming out of breath just walking across the room or talking on the phone so it hasn't been the greatest week but my Cardiologist and OB got together and discussed the situation and came up with a plan for now.  I'm unable to take the medication necessary to regulate my heart or have other tests run because of baby girl but plan B is in motion so hopefully everything will work out.  My Drs say it's not going to get any better (actually, it's just going to get worse as she gets bigger and requires more blood) until after I deliver her and then we'll reevaluate my condition again.  Until then I'll just keep being monitored and hope for the best!  Best news is that baby girl is not effected by any of this, she's just hanging out and growing in there!

Other than that minor issue, I'm loving being pregnant and can't wait to meet our little girl in a few months!!  :)

Four Years

I can't believe it's been FOUR years since we said "I do" (and six years and a day since our 1st date)!!  If I knew then what I know now, well, I still don't really know what I'd say to the 26 year old me actually!  Ha!  It's been a great four years and even though we've had some pretty unexpected and crazy things happen this past year I wouldn't change a thing that was in our control.

March 24, 2007

Austin and I went out to dinner last night to celebrate, it was YUMMY!  We also exchanged gifts, I got him a crib and he got me a dresser/changing table.  ;)  Ok, so we didn't actually exchange the furniture but since I ordered them this week we decided we'd just count the baby stuff as our anniversary gifts to each other.

Here we are after dinner at Pappadeaux

Four years ago yesterday wasn't a very good day for our little Brody.  His Daddy locked him in the bathroom of the apartment for the entire day/night of our wedding and forgot to leave a light on for him!  Poor B!  He's forgiven his Daddy now though.  He is just the cutest little guy, isn't he?!  :)

This year I know is going to be our best year yet because of this little girl!  We can't wait for her to get here and meet her and love on her. 

I love this anniversary.  I think mainly because our third year of marriage was probably the best as far as learning about each other and ourselves.  Just when you think you know someone, something happens and you learn so much more and that's how 2010 was for both of us.  I learned that we are both stronger than I ever imagined and that without each other what was the hardest year of our lives could have been so much worse but thankfully since we had such great support in each other it just wasn't.  We also found the good in every situation we were handed and helped each other stay positive in some negative times.  We definitely learned what partnership meant in a marriage and I'm so grateful for that because it really is so important. 

Happy four year anniversary Austin!  I love you!

20 Weeks

Pregnancy Highlights:

How Far Along: 20 Weeks, half way there!!

Size of baby: Baby T is about the size of a cantaloupe!  She's getting big in there!

Total Weight Gain: 7 lbs, I'm keeping this up here for now because it's a good way for me to keep track, especially to use as a reference for my next pregnancy

Maternity Clothes: All maternity pants and regular/maternity tops

Gender: GIRL!!! We've picked a name we like but haven't officially decided on it just yet. Once we know, I'll announce it.  At home we call her by the name so I think it's going to stick.

Movement: I feel fluttering randomly and I thought I felt some kicking the other night.  My Dr said since my placenta is in an anterior position it may take a little while longer to feel her kick but it's in a perfect spot for an easier delivery.  Yeah!

Sleep: I love sleep. :) I've been sleeping pretty good this week. Some nights I wake up several times a night, sometimes none or just once. I woke up at 5am on Monday when Austin did and never went back to sleep.  Not too happy about that especially since it was the day after daylight savings... :( I get in bed about 9pm every night now. I'm sooo tired!

What I miss: Nothing really

Cravings: Sweets (normal) and candy (not normal).  I've never been a big candy person but I find myself moving over to the candy aisle at the gas station whenever I'm in there.  All things gummy especially  :)  I saw a recipe this week for Snickerdoodle muffins and I made them and brought them to work.  Austin asked me whose birthday it was (I usually make treats for coworkers bdays) and I said no ones, they just looked really good and he just gave me a look and laughed.  At least I was sharing and not eating them all myself!  He took some to work too and told me he was passing them out like presents because they were too good to just leave in the kitchen for people to grab.  Ha!  I think he's enjoying my random sweet cravings as well.

Symptoms: I feel pretty good! Just tired a lot and some tightness in my stomach.  My crazy dreams are back in full force!  Some of them are so bizarre and weird that I wake up upset and have a hard time going back to sleep.

Best moment this week: Feeling her kicking around (I think)!  It definitely felt different than any other stomach related feeling so I'm pretty sure that was it.  We also picked out her crib, chair/ottoman and bedding this week.  I need to order everything in the next week or so.  I had my 20 week appt with the Dr and she says she looks perfect based on the results of the ulrasound a few weeks ago!  At 18 weeks she was 8oz and everything looks great!  Her heart rate was 145 this week.  She's a strong girl!  :)

I can't believe this pregnancy is half way over already!  It has been going by so fast but when I think about how we found out the week of Thanksgiving it seems so long ago.  We are just so grateful that she's healthy in there and so far it's been smooth sailing.  Praying for an uneventful 2nd half!!

Build-A-Bear

This past Saturday Tracy and I took Leah to Build-A-Bear!  I had a coupon that was about to expire and I've been wanting to take her for the longest time so we held off as long as we could hoping she would "get it" and then went for it.

One thing she got FOR SURE was that it was her kind of store!  As soon as we walked in there she knew it was not a grown up store, it was a LEAH store!  She was walking around staring at everything and getting excited.

Helping Leah pick out which bear she wanted.  We'd show her each one and she'd say "no" and move on.  Nice!

Being a big girl and deciding on her own

Getting a little help from Mom and picking out her bear

Leah ended up with the pink bear and was a little confused watching them stuff it...

One thing she definitely got was the CLOTHES!  She kept saying "OOOH!!" to everything and picking it up and showing us what she liked.  It was so cute!

She even liked some camo shorts!  That makes Uncle Austin proud. ;)

Leah with "Mr. Bear" after she picked out her outfit and of course, shoes.  That was the most important thing for Leah "shoosh".

Back at home Leah wanted to show her Daddy her new bear and gave her kisses

And then carried it around the rest of the afternoon  :)

Leah taking the "shoosh" off and on and asking for "ELP!" when she couldn't get them on correctly.

This was SO cute!  I turned around while sitting on the couch wondering what Leah was up to and she was telling Minnie ALL about her new bear.  Seriously, we really think she was.  She was just talking a mile-a-minute in "Leah language" to Minnie and showing her the bear and telling her about her outing.  It was so cute and sweet.  Minnie just stared at her confused.  Ha!

Ok, this is a horrible picture of me but it's so cute of Leah that I had to share.  I kept trying to get a picture of us together (pretty much impossible these days) and so I was laying on the ground and she was standing next to me and I'd say "cheese!" and she'd say "sheeeze!" and this is what I got.  She looks so funny and cute!

Giving her new bear a big hug

She wanted to take Mr. Bear on a carriage ride.

This is the reality of trying to get a picture with Leah!  Ha ha!  I'm holding her in one arm, bear in the other and she is trying to flip over so she doesn't have to have her picture taken.  Nice! 

It was a successful outing that went much better than any of us expected!  Leah didn't really get the concept of building her own bear but she had a lot of fun picking out everything and having her bear in the end.  I can't wait to take her back in another year or two!

Oh, and if your child loves stickers, take them to Build-A-Bear.  No less than three employees tried to give Leah stickers and she wasn't having it!  They really love stickers there apparently...

Weekend Away

I'm a little behind in blogging but the weekend before last my best college buddies and I headed to Austin for a bachelorette party weekend!

We stayed at a cute house on Lake Austin.  There were many levels of sitting areas in the back!

Friday night we all got into town and just hung out, played games, enjoyed cocktails and ATE!  There were only five of us and we had more food set out than this for Friday night!  It was awesome.  Especially for the two of us who couldn't enjoy the adult beverages.

Lindsey got some cupcakes for us before she left town and the bakery girl decorated the box up.  It was cute.

Inside were some YUMMY cupcakes!  All different kinds!  I'm not going to say how many I ate because I lost track...

Megan playing Guesstures.  I love that game, we play it at our house with Katie and Lunchbox often.

I have no idea what Katie was trying to act out but I'm sure it was hilarious.  We laughed a LOT during this game!  Jackie and I DOMINATED!

Saturday we headed outside of Austin to a cute little winery and had yummy snacks while the girls tasted wine

Not the best picture of me but here I am with my "wine".  It was Welch's grape juice.  When Katie called to book the tasting she said that two of the girls are pregnant and they said they have a beautiful grape blend for us to try.  Lindsey and I were excited thinking since it's a winery, the grapes must taste pretty good! We figured they were joking about that when they poured us the Welch's....

The five of us!  Back in college we did everything together!  Four of us were Kappas together, we all hung out together, lived with each other, & went everywhere together.  Inseparable basically, it was so much fun!  Since then I've also lived with Jackie and Megan at separate times in Dallas and now Katie and I live only five minutes apart.  Lindsey and I are due only three days apart with our first babies!

Jackie and Megan, the bride-to-be

Katie & I

Hanging out with some wine barrels

Lindsey and Megan in front of the grape trees that haven't bloomed yet

We kept laughing at Katie because she looked like such a tourist so we had to get a good picture of it  :)

This picture took a long time to get up!  Katie and I learned about our self timers on the cameras.  Apparently we also need to learn a little bit about taking pictures in the shade...

After the winery we headed to the Hula Hut for a late lunch (SO good!) and then back to the lake house to hang out

Meg & Katie

Lins, Jaks & me

Our lake house.  LOTS of stairs!

We ended the weekend with an awesome slide show and just hanging out laughing about some of the crazy stuff we've done together.  Fun times!  Congrats again Meg, only a few more weeks until you're Mrs. Dakan!!