Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years I have trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.
-Yoda


heheh just thought it was a cool quote. we'll be committed Jedi parentals - always in training! muahhaha.


dang...35 weeks...baby girl weighs as much as a honeydew melon now. and i can totally tell...i feel all her jabs and movements and squirms and whatever else she's doing in there. both hubby and i still stare in wonder when baby is moving like crazy in my belly and we see the curves and bumps she creates at tummy surface level. 


so i've been quite happy that i haven't gotten sick during this whole pregnancy (minus the morning sickness nausea feeling). i thought i'd get through unscathed...but wishful thinking. though not sick sick...the allergies were in full force this week. started feeling the sneezing sunday evening while we were checking out car dealerships. i didn't think much of it, my first mistake! come monday morning i was a snot, sneezing, watery eyed monster! so hard having allergies (and being sick for that matter) while preggo bc it limits the medicine i can take to get through the yuck. i was trying to not take any medications in this pregnancy but after 2 sleepless nights with a stuffed up nose and trying to breathe through my mouth..i had to sadly give in=(. 


i went to the dr. and was told regular claritin was okay...but claritin does nothing for me. before preggo status i used flonase which helped a lot- but not good in pregnancy. so dr. prescribed me some other topical type nasal spray (chromolyn sodium) which was super mild and not an antihistamine. sadly, 2 hospital pharmacies didn't carry it - it's now an otc medicine and isn't so popular anymore bc of all the other fancy schmancy medications. ha, well this preggo needed that one!!!! luckily cvs said they carry it, but had to order it..so it wasn't until wednesday that i was able to breathe decently. i was also prescribed chromolyn sodium eye drops since my eyes kept watering. ugh...i thought the hospital pharmacy gave me the generic brand so i used that one. then i got curious today and looked it up and realized that it was NOT what dr. prescribed. they prob just tried to give me something close enough? but man...it irritated me...i didn't want to take any antihistamine and plus those eye drops were category C in pregnancy!!! booooo on them. husby said since i only used it a few times and it's such a small dose it shouldn't have harmed  baby. i hope so...you know me and paranoia!


so today i'm a bit better...still a clogged up nose sometimes and just using saline rinses and the nasal spray. let's hope it's all better by tomorrow! why? it's paaaaaaaarty time=). get to hang out with friends and fam this weekend for our baby shower. so excited to see everyone and to see what seesters have in store=P.  haha i think the only thing i'm worried about is the line for the bathroom. my bladder is crazy now and i dunno if i can hold it in (yes i know i'm not supposed to!) with how much water i've been drinking! i did pretty well at tinzers shower..heheh so crossing fingers tomorrow goes just as well=). 


speaking of tinzers...yay my uci bff gave birth to a healthy, beautiful, baby girl!!!! though i was a bit scared for her since she was  a month early from her due date..everything turned out great! hehe i think chloe is looking like daddy yay right now...gonna tell them that next time i see the new parentals. it was so crazy though bc i had just seen her a few hours earlier from having some afternoon tea time with the girls. and then i get a text from yay (yes yay...hehe reminds me of gloria from modern family=P), saying "your bff's water just broke!" oh man, i think i screamed and my eyes were bulging as i read the text to husby! so so happy everything went well...can't wait to see them again.  i think the birth of their baby girl got us even more excited and antsy waiting for the arrival of our little one!


baby room is almost done...just have to put up the decals and a couple of framed items that i made when i was feeling a little crafty. i forget how evil joanns is for me....i can get lost in that store like how i get in target. only meant to buy a few items and ended up with so much more good stuff!!! muahahah! i wonder if baby girl will like the crafty and baking stuff like me? hehe we'll see huh? i've got so many projects i want to work on for baby and time is just creeping up on us now. full term in 2 weeks already? maternity leave in less than 3 weeks? eeeeeks=P!!!!

Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.
-E.B. White


so week 33 is here...and i've got me a little over 4lb'er baby in me=). they say baby is equivalent to a pineapple today...hmm is it weird that pineapple just sounds so good right now? hahah, gross. well i've enjoyed eating pineapple and watermelon in this pregnancy and especially now with the summer heat! i think just cold stuff in general is appetizing to me these days. 


ah boo, i experienced my first bout of ankle swelling yesterday. i had me some cankles! it was just the weirdest looking thing. it was like when i sprained my ankle(s) during flag football and our inca trail hike. seester said to just elevate my legs really high and drink lots of water..that the heat probably caused my ankles to swell. well, i've been guzzling water like it's crack these days, haha..so i'll attribute the cankles to the heat. plus i walked around a lot yesterday while we had the farmer's market in downtown. haha somehow i thought i'd be able to get away with not having this pregnancy symptom..i guess i should be lucky that it's only hitting me now? i'm glad my fingers haven't swelled up (crossing fingers they won't!) because i'm still able to wear my wedding band=). i know that's shocked a few people, they're like..really you can still wear it? so here's hoping!


i've noticed too that i've been getting more braxton hicks contractions (the non-painful, practice kind) lately. in all our reading/classes they say if you get 6 or more to call your doc/hospital. but our ob told us if i get 4/hr to notify her. right now i've sometimes been noticing 2-3 in an hour. but that's mostly when i'm sitting in our vanpool and can't really  move around. so i just drink water hoping it goes away. it doesn't hurt, for some reason i know one is coming bc my stomach starts to feel jumpy..like i've got butterflies in there and then all the sudden my tummy gets really hard. a midwife pointed out to husby and i that that was my uterus contracting..and then after about 10-15 seconds my belly gets soft again. so weird. 


when i told the fam about that my sisters got all excited that maybe i'd have the baby a little bit earlier than the due date. i'm like...please, please baby stay in there til you're full term (which i believe is at 37 weeks). haha i know, i'm being paranoid..but even when husby says..i wanna see our baby girl now - hehe i have to say..wait til she's full term please=). i know, it's normal for us first time parents to get nervous...we all want the same thing - a happy, healthy baby!


the past 3 weeks have been so busy with family stuff and all of our baby classes. about 2 more weeks to go and we're done with the classes. despite what people have said to us, we really enjoy our childbirth classes. we weren't able to get the 2-saturday sessions so we're going through the 5 week, 2 1/2 hr course right now. yeah maybe all the breathing techniques will get thrown out the door once i'm actually in labor..but just the whole understanding of labor and delivery is informative and super useful. duuuuuuuuuude i knew that i'd need to be dilated 10cm before i start pushing..but c'mon i didn't know that's how my hoo-ha looks when baby is crowning! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. i swear everytime we watch a new labor video i freak out. i mean, i'm glad we watch them bc i need to know this stuff but yikes...what the human body is capable of. boggles the mind. i don't think i want the mirror as part of my birth plan..haha i might freak myself out. i'll just opt to use husby as my focal point along with a pic of baby girl from our ultrasound and maybe a vacay pic to ease my mind (if that's possible while i'm screaming my head off from contractions=/). for now i'll just practice my hee's and candle blowing breaths..hee hee hooooooooo. 


the breastfeeding class was extremely helpful as well. i thought i'd heard it all from family/friends..but there's always more to learn! breastfeeding SHOULD NOT hurt. need to remember this=). we also had our maternity tour. hehe that was nice! didn't realize that labor rooms and the post-partum rooms were so big! and geez in the labor room the nurse pointed out to us the recessed lights above that can get turned on and just focus on our hoo-ha. ha, she's like..imagine it's like who wants to be a millionaire and you've got all that spotlight! mmhmm, sure lady. we also learned that when we go down the corridor from our labor room to the post-partum room, there's a painting we'll pass by that has a red button for us to press. aww and it plays the baby lullaby throughout the whole hospital to signify that a baby was just born=). how cute is that!


we've got our infant safety & cpr class coming up along with the remainder of our childbirth classes. man, once those are over we'll be in the home stretch. can't believe it..the weeks are just going by so fast now! i get up to pee at least once every night, sometimes twice. and even when it's time to go to bed i still stay up a little later. i don't know if that's a pregnancy thing or just me being all anxious. but i do like it when i'm just sitting in bed and i can feel baby moving around. such a nice feeling=). ha, though one of the nurses said that this may also be the baby's future sleep patterns once she's born. we got a night owl on our hands!


baby girl, mommy & daddy can't wait to meet you!

Think of stretch marks as pregnancy service stripes.
-Joyce Armor


haha i don't know why i find that quote funny. it's not funny to to know i have stretch marks, but to understand it in the light of that quote makes it okay=P. bah, so i'm getting them at my lower belly...i didn't realize it til i went outlet shopping with the seesters and the older one noticed them. my belly has been getting a little itchy but more so at the bottom where my pants touch my belly. and i told her i'd been scratching there..boo guess it makes the stretch marks worse? and i've been sooooo good with my cocoa butter! oh well, they always say no matter what precautions you take it's in the genes anyways. what's funny is that i couldn't see them bc my belly's so big now..and husby doesn't really know what stretch marks look like so he couldn't tell me. hahah so leave it up to the seesters to point it out!


ahhh this pregnancy is going by fast now! 32 weeks going on 33 at the end of the week. woohoo maternity leave in about 5 weeks!!!!! can't believe that everything is approaching  quickly now. we get so excited..but at the same time freaked out. or maybe just me=P. husby just can't wait to meet our little girl! he usually calms my nerves when i start imagining how labor will be. i switch back and forth between thinking i can do it all naturally and just asking for the epidural right when we go in to labor=P. hahah. we'll see how that one goes!


i've been in awe and full of gratitude at how much this baby girl of ours is loved! we are surrounded by so many people who care about us and are just as excited as husby and i to meet her and welcome her into the world! my co-workers threw us a baby shower last week and it was so awesome to have everyone there. i'm the only girl coworker that is/has been pregnant in our section and usually all the showers we throw have been for the dad's since our section is predominantly male. so it was nice to see 2 of my guy co-workers help out one of the other female co-workers plan the shower. haha and everything was SO pink! all our other baby showers have been for boys, i'm the first one having a girl...so they had fun with that as well=). 


then the weekend before we went up north to visit lou's cousins since his niece was having her debut. they actually surprised us twice that weekend for the baby! once was for dinner friday night, which i thought was our surprise shower since his cousin was trying to throw me off. and y'know, i get all shy when the attention is on me....but it was super nice of them and the m-i-l to plan. then the sunday following the debut his other cousin was hosting a party for all the family to get together to celebrate her daughter's graduation/bday and son's graduation. haha little did husby and i know that this was also another surprise baby shower for us..since more of the family was able to make sunday. wow, we are truly blessed to be surrounded by our loved ones. in a few weeks it'll be the socal showers with our families and friends. can't wait to see everyone again=). always nice to have everyone together..and then it just makes it even more apparent that baby girl will soon be here!


third trimester so far has been going well. i am feeling the tired kick in these days. darn, i thought i'd still have the same energy as before. but this tiredness just seemed to happen all of the sudden last week. not to mention the heartburn! ugh yuck...i've been starting to get that too=/. and y'know the other icky preggo symptom that heightens in the 3rd...yup backed up. hahah tmi i know. at least the latter i'm doing better now. i think our trip up north totally threw off my regular type of meals here. and i realized that taking tums for the heartburn can also contribute to being all backed up. boo on that. i also found out at the beginning of the third tri that i have to be better with my food choices and learn my portions. i thought it would actually be hard to do, but it's not to bad actually. all those times i thought i was eating a lot of veggies, guess that wasn't even close to what i should be having. and i have milk like 2-3x a day. that's a new one for me..i used to never like the taste of milk except for with cereal or cookies. these days it's kinda refreshing. mmmm and so is ice cold water! i'd always drink my water room temperature but now i love it with lots of ice. and dude, with this summer starting..even better! 


so people keep asking us if we have a name picked out. ha, why yes we do! we'll probably say it at the shower  since i'm sure it'll be one of the main questions that day=P. it's actually the first name we came up with when we found out i was preggo. we knew we had to pick a boy and a girl's name since we didn't know the sex yet...but somehow it was easy to pick the girl's name. we came up with other names but this name just stood out for us. baby's full name and the nickname that she'll go by have such pretty meanings and just remind us of our love for travels and two of our favorite countries we visited. so i hope she grows up to love her name, the meaning, and live a life full of travels as well=P. but yes i know...whenever they tell you you're having a girl, better to be safe and have a backup boy name as well. that we're still working on too! though i'm pretty sure she's a girl...3 different ultrasounds/techs pointed out the anatomy and that that cannot change to a boy! hahahha...so despite people telling me, oh maybe the baby was just shy and you're having a boy, let's hope the techs know more on this topic=P. my coworkers have a pool going on about the baby (guess the sex, weight, height) and so far i'm hearing these "shy baby" words from those who guessed boy. hehehe.

Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.
-quoted from The Wonder Years


so..i've been away for awhile. not bc i didn't want to blog, it's just every time i'd try to write this new post i couldn't. why not post about other things? i don't know. just felt like if i can finally get my thoughts together on this post, i can slowly move on. long post on it's way...


people have asked us if we planned on getting pregnant, or was this an accident, why wait so long? you know..all the questions married couples begin to hear if they didn't have a honeymoon baby from the start. well...to be quite honest, the thoughts of getting pregnant weren't really serious until after dad passed away. on every wedding anniversary/birthday/celebration we'd constantly hear about how we should start a family now, we're getting old, your parents want grandkids, don't be selfish. in our minds we wanted to experience life and see the world. we didn't want to be that couple that regretted having children too early or weren't mature enough to take care of a family. it would make me sad if i had kids and in the back of my mind had bitter thoughts of "i wish i did that, too bad we couldn't do this...yadda yadda."  so, that was our choice. and i'm certainly happy with it. we've got so much to share with our new bundle of joy on the way and we're so excited to be parents. it is such a life changer!


you could say the final nudge to finally have kids was my dad. in an odd sense, his passing really hit me with this subject. hubby and i were unfortunately away on vacation while my dad passed and while gone we were already thinking about squeezing 1 more trip before babies. yeah, i think we had said that since 2010. but with dad's sudden passing, it's like a light bulb just clicked in my head. life is so short, and anything unexpected could happen. so, over the summer husby and i talked and we both felt we were 100% ready to have kids. and well...there you go...i got pregnant and we're expecting our first child this summer=).


of course i was wary when we started to talk about seriously having kids. i was still grieving for my dad, but starting a family was a choice that i was firm about. i would read articles online on how to cope with grieving and losing a loved one and was surprised how a few had said not to make any life changing decisions. i got scared...i mean, we wanted to have kids now. so what does this mean? throughout this pregnancy i think i can understand now why those articles mentioned it. while pregnant you get a surge of emotions. i was already crying at random moments before i got pregnant...and well you can only imagine how magnified it got with these pregnancy hormones. i'd start talking to baby about grandy (what my dad liked to be called=P) or i'd just have a random thought about dad..and i would just burst into tears. i would just get sad bc dad wouldn't be here to see our first child and teach her silly jokes and dances. so i keep telling myself that i need to always always be sure to tell baby girl about her grandy so that we can always keep dad's memory alive.


i know this may sound silly....but after this pregnancy my sisters and i are planning on getting little tattoos. we were supposed to do it earlier, but with me being pregnant...getting a tattoo was a no-no. they will all be matching tattoos and must have a ladybug in them. why a ladybug? at dad's funeral, 2 ladybugs flew into my lap. our families can get pretty superstitious..so they said it was dad & my uncle (dad's younger brother who had passed a way a few months earlier) visiting us. they wouldn't fly away, just crawling along my skirt. of course me being the scaredy cat, i didn't know what to do so when i stood up they fell. i put them in one of the white roses after bc i didn't want them to get stepped on. afterwards i looked up the meaning of ladybugs and they symbolize protection and much more:


This tiny little beetle brings with it a powerful message. Because the life cycle of the adult ladybug is short it teaches us how to release worries and enjoy our lives to the fullest.  When it appears in our life it is telling us to "let go and let God." 


Seen often as a messenger of promise, the ladybug reconnects us with the joy of living. Fear and joy can not co-exist. We need to release our fears and return to love  - this is one of the messages that the ladybug brings to us.

Ladybug teaches us how to restore our trust and faith in the great spirit.   When the ladybug appears, it is telling us to get out of our own way and allow the great spirit to enter into our lives.

you could say that i was a little surprised and skeptical. but all throughout my leave at home (homehome) i'd have random ladybug occurrences - not just seeing the bugs physically...but also tv shows/cartoons featuring the bugs, seriously? and it was just happening to me. so my sisters would tell me it's dad telling me it's okay that i wasn't there when he passed. to not hold on to that fact and blaming myself for going away. why am i sharing this? well i've noticed these little bugs a few more times since then and it's always reassuring to me that things will be just fine. when my sisters took me maternity clothes shopping we saw one. now mind you, this is INSIDE the store too!! i had just opened the door to show them a dress they picked for me and a ladybug flew towards me and landed near my feet. they joked and said it was dad wanting to shop with us too. the funny thing is that it just crawled around near me and when i was shutting the door to go change i said "dad, you pervert i'm gonna change go away!" and whatdoyaknow...the ladybug turned around and crawled the other way out of the dressing room. ha, so weird! and just this past weekend when i took my nephews out for a swim, a lady bug landed right next to me and one of my godson's. crazy. i know it may be insignificant and downright silly to some, but it gets me (us) by. these little things, help me to know that my dad will always be there for us. 

and so, with this pregnancy...i'm slowly realizing that. although dad won't be there physically to hold our baby (and future kiddos)...i know that he will constantly be watching over us. and yes, i know i keep saying it...i guess it's like a silent mantra. but it seriously helps me to know that. and these ladybug sightings just seem to be happen at all the right times. 

so yeah...i am now about 26 weeks pregnant and going with the flow. yes the emotions are still there, but i've learned to try to turn them into positive thoughts and not try to get sad. i know dad is uber happy for us. i know he was/is happy with all the decisions we made leading up to this point. i wonder if our baby will get some of my dad's  silly traits..hahah i can only imagine=). here's to the next chapter of our lives..it's gonna be a crazy one!

One joy scatters a hundred grieves.
-Chinese Proverb


so after finally getting my little baby bump and being super excited..haha i encounter my first rude comments about being "big" during my pregnancy. to the extent that i'm so big at 4 months that maybe i'm having twins? ha, oh well..i knew it'd happen. just didn't think so fast! yeah i was a little bummed at first, but had to realize..well some people just don't understand. until you experience the same thing, you never really know what the other person is going through right? i think that can be said in various situations. so as irked as i was when it happened, i tried to take it as a grain of salt...especially considering the person who said it.


either way, i vented about it and came home from work to lie on the couch bc i was getting a little tired. i was just lying on my side and closing my eyes for a bit before i started doing errands.  and i'm not sure if it's what i think it was, but i think i had my first baby flutters! it kinda had that feeling like when your heart kinda skips a beat...your stomach is full of butterflies. i think that was a flutter? hahah then i started giggling, put my hand on my tummy and was like..baby, are you trying to cheer me up? hehe then i waited and waited for more flutters but i was already happy that i got to feel this one. i think now's the time when i can feel the baby a bit. can't wait til he or she starts kicking more and moving around. awww i'm going to love these moments. it really is the little things that make me gush sometimes. 

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases from being shared.

-Buddha

i think i finally have my baby bump! yes it's tiny..hehe, but it beats looking like a bloated person the past four months. hahah husby saw me this morning in my pj's getting ready for work and was like...aww i like this shirt on you. look how tight it is now bc of your baby belly! okay, so maybe he didn't say "aww" but you get the point=). so despite the few gagging sessions i still have and the troubling tummy issues that come along with this preggo business...moments like these make it all worth it! we have our next dr. appt next week, i'm so excited to hear baby's heartbeat again. and then the week after we find out if we're having a little baby dragon ninja or ninjette. hahah.

this past weekend was pretty awesome. ever since we got engaged on 2/24, hubby and i have been celebrating that day as our valentine's day. it makes it easier than trying to make a reservation at crazy crowded restaurants and well..it just makes the day even more special for us bc it's when he proposed and i said (okay i giggled) yes! so, he surprised me with a nicely planned weekend getaway to catalina. we've always tried to plan a trip there, but for some reason it just never panned out. and i can't believe i've never gone before!!! it was so beautiful while we were there. dunno if it's bc our winter season has been kinda crazy, but we were blessed with blue skies during our stay. 

the room husby got looked right into the ocean and was so pretty to see from our balcony/windows. we played some miniature golf (ha, and we freaking tied!!), had some good eats (though my preggy appetite sometimes makes me not as hungry as my eyes seem to be), enjoyed wine & cheese hour (okay, lemonade and cheese for me=P), had such a relaxing couples massage (hahah and my first ever pregnancy massage. must get used to being on my side), rented one of those golf carts and went around the island for some breathtaking views (and we saw a fawn and he/she didn't even run away while i snapped a photo), and one of my most favoritest parts of the trip....watching "the artist" at the avalon theatre. 

oh i can't even describe how cool this place was. we watched their nightly movie showing and were lucky enough to see "the artist" being played here. it couldn't have been a better movie to see as a first timer at the theatre! after dinner we did the 15-minute stroll along the waterfront to the theatre and right when we stepped inside it's like you're transported back in time. the theatre was built in the 20's as part of a casino and back then was frequented by a lot of the old hollywood actors. you step into the main entrance to the theatre and there's an organist playing! ha, how crazy was that? he was playing some big band tunes and then finished with moon river...and it just totally set the mood for such a unique experience. the murals adorning the walls just added a special touch to the theatre. i felt like a giddy little kid in awe of my surroundings. so, that's why i say it was perfect to have watched "the artist" there since the movie is a black and white, silent film that takes place in the 1920's. couldn't have enjoyed our stay any more..i'm so thankful and blessed to have such a great husby=). thanks for the surprise!

hmm but on a more serious note, prayers for a close friend and a family member who are going through a lot right now. i pray for their healing and hope they know that they are surrounded by so many who care for them.

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
-Alexander Smith


happy valentine's day y'all! woohoo, finally get to tell everyone=). feels so nice!


happy birthday to my little seester too! you old girl! muahahhaahha. hope you enjoyed your martha cake=P.


quoting from mr. ice cube, today is a good day...