 |
| What?! A blizzard? |
Hey blogging friends, hope you had a good week last week. Mine was pretty nice and relaxing since 3 out of the 5 days of my work week were snow days! Brandon and I thought it was funny because they took it pretty serious on the news as they were calling it, "The Blizzard of 2011" as you can see from the pic. Although our area didn't get the expected 18" of snow, we got quite a bit and with strong winds and negative wind chills it made for several days off from school. The first two snow days were fun and relaxing, but by day three I started to get a little bit of cabin fever! So I got out and did my grocery shopping early, luckily the roads were pretty clear.
 |
My gluten-free, vegan
bithday brownie! |
Another fun thing about last week was that I celebrated my 26th birthday. We started the birthday "funtivities" with a dinner at one of my favorite restaurants,
Genghis Khan, where we loaded up on some delicious veggie stir-frys...Mongolian BBQ style! I mentioned my love for
Genghis Khan Mongolian BBQ back in
this post, and was super excited to go back. The only downside with this particular meal was that we ate way too much! Since it's buffet-style (you load up your plate with whatever veggies, noodles, meat, or seasonings you want then they stir-fry it for you), it's very easy to get a little more than you would usually eat, especially since we only get veggies, tofu, and noodles!
 |
| Enjoying Genghis Khan |
 |
| Time for "second plate"! |
Here's both of us with our "second plate" pictures. After this plate we both had to call it quits because we were incredibly full! The whole drive home we both felt like our stomachs grew several inches (Avery probably grew as well), but it made for a fun night with lots of good food. In the upcoming weeks I plan on attempting to re-create the exact stir-fry I get from there...wish me luck!
My birthday fun continued during the weekend when I got a
new camera, watched
Eat Pray Love off my Netflix...love that movie, and read Kris Carr's amazing new book
Crazy Sexy Diet. I also continued the celebration at my parent's house on Super Bowl Sunday where we had a spaghetti dinner and celebrated both my birthday and my younger brother's as well (he turned 20). Here is his, looking more like my big brother than little brother!
 |
| My "big" little brother! |
Check out the super-cute table decorations my mom had for me when I came over. It was my two favorite colors of pink and brown and she put little pretend pink baby foot prints on the table...too cute! She's been making fun homemade birthday table decor for years and I love it! I've got to start learning how to do that now that I'm going to be a momma! Here we are together. She's going to be one awesome grandma!
 |
| Table decorations my mom made. |
 |
| My awesome mom, best friend, and future grandma! |
 |
| With my grandparents. |
 |
| Brandon with the birthday girl...me! |
Oh and that picture from above of the birthday candle in the brownie is from some gluten-free, vegan brownies that I made. Trust me, I'm not that modest of a portion-eater right now, so although this brownie looks pretty tiny...I had two of them total-lol! I posted about them
here awhile back, and you can find the recipe for the brownies
here and the icing recipe
here.
One fun aspect of having your birthday when you're pregnant is that you get all kinds of cute baby stuff! So thanks to all my close family and friends for getting more adorable stuff for Baby Avery, she and I are so lucky to be surrounded by such love and support.
Speaking of Baby Avery, I'm moving into my 31st week of pregnancy this week and as you can see from my belly pics, she has been growing a lot. Sometimes I feel like when I have a lot of snow days from school, she goes through a mega-growth spurt, maybe because I'm sleeping more and just relaxing. Either way, my belly is starting to feel like it's extending straight out lately. Many shirts no longer fit, and I find that most liquid items I drink (mainly smoothies!) find their way like a target right onto my belly. Also, here's a fun comparison picture of me at 12 weeks wearing the exact same blue maternity tank top that I'm wearing in this week's picture. What a difference! This tank hardly fits me now, and for good reason...I've been growing a baby! It's fun to remember how excited I was at the "little bump" back then.
 |
| 31 weeks |
 |
Quite a chane since
12 weeks! |
With all this new growth, finding a comfortable sleeping position has been a bit more challenging as to now I'm down to two options...lying on my left side or my right side, but it all feels worth it because as she grows bigger the more I can feel her move! This week her movements really seemed to grow much stronger than ever before and at times I swear I can feel an arm or a leg sticking right out. Most of the movements seems to be coming from right around my belly button, but other times they are really high or really low. As these movements have increased in frequency and strength, it has really helped me feel so much more connected to her, so that's been a lot of fun.
 |
| Feeling hiccups! |
Another funny movement I've been experiencing is when she has hiccups. Some people have asked me in the past if I had felt those yet, but since I had no idea, I said "no". But after talking to my midwife last week, I realized I was feeling Avery have hiccups! It's not some big, crazy movement or anything, its just a light tapping feeling. There was one or two times this past week where I would feel a consistent tapping sensation, almost like she was moving her body to a specific beat or something...pretty funny! Either way, my midwife said it's actually a good sign because it means that she's "practice breathing" to get ready for her time outside of the womb, so keep it up baby girl! Well that's about it for my weekly update! Hope you all have a great week.
