It's a....

Ya'll ready for this?

Baby Richards is giving you the most adorable little fist pump of joy, because we found out today that this little bug is a...

BOY!!!

It's kind of what we had been thinking all along, and what most people had guessed, but it was still exciting to get the confirmation! We're both beyond happy, and can't wait to see him and meet him. There was just something weird in the back of my head thinking that I was more comfortable having a boy first, plus I'm pretty terrified at the idea of raising a daughter. We were just a little relived to hear the word BOY :) Regardless, bug is healthy and seems very happy in his temporary home! We watched in awe as he wiggled back and forth and stretched his legs out and back over and over. The ultrasound tech spent a really long time measuring everything and showing us every detail of his body. We got to look all down the spine, at the kidneys and bladder and I swear I could have watched his little heart beat forever! We didn't ask for this or know she was going to, but before we left she also showed us some 3D images. They're still pretty weird to me, but so fun to get an idea of what he might look like! I'm not going to post all of those, but if you're curious I'd be happy to share. 

Thanks for all your excitement friends! This little boy is already more loved than he could know!

19 Weeks

I cannot believe we're THIS close to being half way! It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time. It doesn't seem like I've really been pregnant that long, but when you think about it... this baby has been growing since October which feels like a lifetime ago. Time flies when you're growing a baby?

Anyway, what a great week, and SUCH an improvement from both weeks 17 and 18! I'm still blowing green snot, and I have sinus headaches here and there, but I don't feel sick like I did last week. Remember way back at 14 weeks when I was mean and angry all the time? It seems like I'm in some kind of hormonal upswing because I've been pretty happy and lovey all of a sudden. I still feel great, the back pain that I had been having is gone for now, so for the most part I feel like the same ole me with a growing belly. I have noticed that bending down to put on my shoes is becoming a little more taxing, so I'm definitely looking forward to warmer weather and flip flops! (soon please!) I've almost completely converted to maternity pants (even though I only have one pair) or leggings. My regular jeans still fit on my legs, but keeping them unbuttoned with the belly band just isn't practical for how much I move around during the day at my job. It always just rides up and makes me feel fat/uncomfortable. I will say though, whoever makes maternity jeans... why do you think pregnant women are giants? I'm a very average sized person, and I wouldn't consider myself short but every pair of pants I tried on a target last week (mostly size 2 maternity) were long enough to go down over my feet. No thanks, I'll just stick with the gap (and hand-me-downs for now).

The BEST part of this week... obviously... we got to find out the gender! We've been itching to get in for another ultrasound ever since we had the first, so waiting was NOT the easiest. I had a lot of anxiety about this ultrasound though, and kept getting things into my head that the baby wouldn't be positioned in the right way for us to see the gender, or that they were going to cancel on me, or the machines would be broken. I seriously drove myself crazy about it! I was also starting to think that they may be changing my due date because it didn't feel like my belly had really been growing much recently and I'm still not feeling any definitely baby motion. Regardless... all is well, baby is just the right size, we're still on track for our due date and I was nervous about literally nothing (maybe I should listen to my husband more often when he tells me to chill out?)

So are you ready for the great reveal....

My Valentines

This year I seemed to have a class full of little Valentines! Our school doesn't directly celebrate the holiday, but we did some fun activities for "heart" or "love" day and the kids (or their parents) were extremely generous with their gifts to myself and my assistant teachers. We spent the day painting hearts, and giving each other hugs and kisses... they are such sweet friends to each other sometimes.

Keith and I didn't do too much Thursday night, he surprised me with my favorite burritos and sparkling cider. We watched some TV on the couch and called it an early night. Friday we decided to go out for a nice dinner but anywhere we called had no reservations or open spaces. After contemplating just getting some cheap burgers in our PJs, we decided to get dressed and just go... if we had to sit at the bar, so what. We ended up getting to Lockeland Table just as someone had cancelled their reservation and we were seated right away. Perfect luck if you ask me! We had a DELICIOUS dinner and dessert and still managed to make it an early night. I just can't believe that this will be our last Valentine's Day as just the two of us! (or should I say... this is technically the first Valentines Day for the THREE of us) I was feeling so sentimental looking at these old posts, you should look too: 2010, 2011 and 2012. 

Hockey Fail

Last season we got lots of chances to see our local hockey team the Nashville Predators, but since the lockout ended it's been REALLY tough to get decently priced seats. Every Saturday home game the team has a raffle for $10 seats which is much more in our budget than the usual $60-$80 stubhub price tag. Our friends Cory and Jamie asked us to join them, plus, the more people you bring the better the chances are of winning tickets (if your number is called you can buy up to 4 tickets). We got up early in our PJs and headed downtown to wait in line with mostly scalpers haha but alas! We were not so lucky this time around. In lieu of hockey we had a delicious breakfast together at Sky Blue and then met later in the evening for root beer floats and a movie on the couch. The day started with uncertainty, but even though we didn't get to go to the game, we still had a great time with friends.

Class Project

I don't post too much about what all I do with the kids in my preschool class, mostly because they're so darn cute but I don't want to be posting their pictures all over my personal blog. Lots of days we play, learn letters and numbers and how to recognize our own names. We do plenty of art projects too, and this month we were in charge of decorating the information board at the entrance of the school. We've been talking about protecting the environment and learning all the different parts of trees so last week I had the kids collect pieces of tree bark that had been laying around the playground. We cleaned them off and brought them in to paint on, which they all really loved. I think the display turned out really nicely, so lets hope that they don't keep trying to pull theirs down to show their parents every day ;)

Superbowl Sunday

Not that it's ever a HUGE deal, but this year's Superbowl was much more low key for us. We had previously hosted a party at our place, but this year most of our friends were out of town or busy with other plans which was totally fine by me. We grabbed some wings, and headed down to Franklin to watch the game with good friends Trent and Jordie. They cooked up some great (and terrible for us) appetizers and we watched (or didn't watch) until it got too late to be out on a Sunday night. I am quite thankful that Keith has friends in town that love sports with him, and that they all have cool wives too. Can I get a hip hip hooray that football is over (for a little bit)?? Here's a look at past Super Bowl posts: 2010, 2011, and 2012.

Cookeville Trip

Last weekend Keith and I had considered the idea of driving over to Knoxville to see a couple of his bands that were playing together, but quickly changed our minds when we were invited to tag along with friends out to Cookeville. Brittney and Brandon had both gone to college there and Brittney actually grew up on a farm not too far, so we were excited to do some sight seeing and see some of their favorite local spots! We started by dropping by the farm to meet Brittneys parents and say hello to some of the animals before we drove up to Cookeville and had dinner and drinks at a new spot in town. The boys enjoyed their happy hour beers and I try to work off some unfortunate car sickness I developed on the way out there :/ The rest of the night we explored the Tennessee Tech campus, drove past a new park, got some coffee, had a second dinner (since I was too sick to eat with them earlier) and then finished off the trip with some doughnuts. Mmmm! We got back to the Berger's house in Smyrna pretty late, so Keith and I stayed the night there and had a great breakfast with them Sunday morning compliments of the boys! We are thankful for great friends and great weekend adventures!

This was actually the night before, the boys went to a concert together in their weirdo matching coats

Keith tasting Brandon's latest brew of beer

On the road

Passengers

At dinner

Goofballs

Brandon and the Golden Eagle at Tennessee Tech

Climbing things they don't need to be climbing

Like little boys

Pretty girl

Guess while ones are mine?

Late night doughnuts

Our morning breakfast makers!

"Snow" Day

I didn't know this about Nashville before I moved here, but now that we've spent more than 2 years in this city I can say with great certainty that we have some of the strangest and most unpredictable weather I've ever encountered. I guess it's just a Southern thing to have a week which includes: a mild 50 degree day, a balmy 70 degree day which lead to severe thunderstorms and TORNADOS and then a mega drop down to the twenties which led to 2 days of actual snow. I'm definitely not a winter lover, but I'd much rather just have it be cold, snow, and then be done with it. These weird days where it's warm and then cold are just odd and confusing. Thanks to the tornado storm a couple weeks ago our power was out for about 18 hours, and then just a couple days later the weather man teased us with a snow day. Compared to the crazy dumping of snow they got in NYC, this dusting seems so silly... but here are a few photos from this winters "snow" this still didn't call off school (for me at least):

Hearts

A few weeks ago we cleaned out our guest room closet which led to the uncovering of all my art supplies from my after school teaching days, and of course... WAY too much junk. This month my kiddos are learning about recycling, so I thought it was only appropriate to make them some heart shaped Valentine's Day crayons. Oddly enough, I've never done this before (and probably never will again?) It is pretty tedious, with all the unwrapping and chopping them up, but the results were great. I'm positive my babies will love them (and break them... and try to eat them... and lose them... you know)

17 AND 18 weeks

I initially wrote this entry over a week ago, but it never got posted because I've been in a fog of sickness, boo. This week (number 18 to be exact) has been full of exhaustion, and lots (LOTS!!) of tissues and snot. I think this really is the cold that never ended, because for most of this month I seem to have had congestion of some sort and my poor husband hasn't gotten any sleep at all because of the snoring it's caused, oops! So... no photo for week 17, this week's will have to do for both weeks, but I'll still let you read the post that I wrote:

"Week 17, I'm not so sad to see you go.... I'll start off by saying that I've really had it easy the past four months. One of my biggest "complaints" is that I haven't felt very pregnant and I know there are some women out there that have TERRIBLE symptoms from start to finish. If that's you, please feel free to call me a wuss haha. This week was hard because I just didn't feel like myself, which I think is probably my body's way of reminding me that I'm NOT just myself these days. I've been silly emotional about things I have no control over, and I've likely been making my husband insane because of it. Also this week... my sinuses! I can't breathe out of my nose and not because I'm sick, just for fun it seems. I've also been getting these acute sinus headaches the past few days that have left me in a daze. Thankfully my body is holding up pretty well despite some back pain and cramping when I'm sitting down for too long and don't have the option of reclining (like when I'm driving, ugh). I've been a champion sleeper (can't get enough) and my hunger hasn't slowed yet. I've been trying to cut back on snacks, but Thursdays experiment led to a very lousy feeling day, soooo I'll be eating away from now on. How many more weeks of winter? I can't stand to be bombarded with artificial heat much longer, I just want to breathe normally again and not get bloody noses weekly. You can take the girl out of Florida, but you can't make her like the weather, or get used to it for that matter."

Week 18 was another frustrating week. Normally when I have a cold I just work through it and wait until it passes, but this little baby bug has not so kindly let me know that this isn't an option anymore. Monday and Tuesday I came home and could do nothing more than get straight into bed and wait for Keith to bring me some food. Wednesday I got to work and immediately knew I couldn't make it through the day, and had to leave. I think this is one of the first "sick days" I've taken in... forever. It has all been such a learning process, and when I had to leave Wednesday I got really emotional, feeling like I had to "give up". I know that isn't necessarily the case, but it was a good wake call that I need to slow things down a bit. I'm still not feeling 100% even today, but hopefully this week I'll be able to finally kick this cold!

Baby is the size of a mango right now, and in just ONE MORE WEEK we'll be finding out whether this bug is a boy or girl! We're getting antsy, can you tell? Otherwise, no big changes to speak of. Some heartburn, still a little back pain, feeling like I weigh 1000 pounds... normal stuff I think!

Fingers crossed there is no more lingering sickness this coming week!!