Bumpdate: 16 Weeks

Ahhhh bump photos. I never know the best way to frame them. But this has to be documented somehow. 

This Week's Details:

How far along? 16 weeks!

Size of baby? An avocado :)

Stretch marks? Still nothing but stomach is starting to get itchy which tells me there is growth there.

Sleep? I usually only wake up when Kyle starts to get up which tells me that sleep is going pretty well. I could only last a couple of minutes on my stomach the other night so I think those days are gone for now.

Best moment this week? As weird as it sounds, best moment was accepting that it is okay that I can't button up my shorts. I went shopping and got pants that will be a little more roomy and accommodating.

Maternity Clothes? I am still holding out on buying maternity clothes since skirts and dresses are doing an okay job right now.

Missing? I miss my morning energy at the gym. It may just be psychological but I feel like I am not able to just hop on the treadmill at 5:50 like I used to. It takes me a bit longer to wake up in the mornings so I'm hoping that I get some more energy as time goes on. It also totally depends on the day though. The other morning both Kyle and I were both able to get up and exercise without a problem.

Movement? I lay still every night with my hand on my stomach and try to see if I am feeling anything. I feel like I may have felt things in the past but it may have just been my stomach grumbling. I read the other day, for the first pregnancy, it's hard to feel anything before week 20. I am just so excited for the first bit of flutters!

Food cravings? A bad sweet tooth has crept in. I mean...I guess it's always been there but I feel like I need to have something sweet every night. Kyle went out and got me some cashew milk ice cream and I've tried to only have a couple of bites instead of a whole bowl.

Food Aversions? I'm doing better in this area. I've been able to get down most things especially with me getting hungrier.

Bump? Showing up a little more each day. I feel like it's a lot higher than I thought it would be, but that just may be the overall expansion of my belly as a whole. It's so fun to see it in the mirror.

Gender? I think Kyle and I officially decided we would have the doctor write down the gender and we will do our own gender reveal with a cupcake somewhere in the city. I honestly have no idea at this point. Kyle is still strong on the girl side but I can't say one way or the other. We will see!

Names? I laugh every time Kyle will bring up a name and I can say 'no' without even thinking that hard about it. I find that with names, in order to even consider it, I have to like it from the get go. There are some names that we used to like but they've slowly lost their appeal. Who knows? We could have a totally different name picked out by the time they come.

Labor Signs? Nope.

Looking Forward To? Feeling this little one flutter inside me and finding the gender!

Here are a few other things from this week: 

I went to a USU Alumni lunch and they picked a pretty great spot with a gorgeous view. Also, the scaffolding is coming off of the Capitol, revealing a newly renovated dome. It's extra sparkly now.

This book has been so fun! It talks about how different parenting is in France compared to America. The writer is very witty and it's been fun to look at why she thinks France has a better model to raising children. 

My mom sent us these items the other day. No, we still don't know the gender but this little kitty looks too much like Boo.

If it's not a girl, we will definitely hold on to these for the future (if we have a girl).

My bump was really showing one afternoon and this guy fell asleep on it (probably appreciating the warmth).

We took a Sunday drive out to Great Falls Park and watched the rapids. It was so peaceful.

I find that the more places we visit, the more excited I get thinking of taking our little one to explore! Also, I love Kyle.

Dear...March

Dear March...I can't believe you are here! February was a bit of a long month. So much has been going on lately and I have been really bad at updating the blog! So this is just kind of a catch up and to update on some fun things that have been happening lately. 

Dear voting...First, we voted....well, I voted...Kyle went in to the wrong center and had to mail in his vote. It felt great to be a citizen with a voice in the area. 

Dear Samuel... how come you are almost 5 months old?! It's KILLING me! Stop growing baby! I won't see you again until June and you must stay little!

Dear Nature...We went on a walk by our house the other day and saw a family of deer. It was so peaceful and quiet. Thank you for being you.

Dear Sunday Treats... Thank you for existing. I made banana cream pie Sunday for fun and tried not to eat the whole thing.

Dear Boo Radley...You are one cool cat of ours....you've been really sweet lately and we love having you around. 

Dear Ice Cream and Trying to Be Good...Kyle is so good at creating new flavors of you. He gets the really good milk and cream from a local dairy and it makes all the difference. In fact, Sunday was a new flavor: toasted coconut ice cream. Well, I've been trying to be good at healthy eating (Whole 30, Paleo, etc.) and it was a fight to keep from having a bowlful. 

Dear Spring...We've had crazy rain lately! I KNOW you are upon us and we can feel you looking around the corner. We are ready for you!

Dear Trade Joe's on Capital Hill...Great shout out to the Nation's Capital.

Dear SoulCycle...You are AWESOME! And so is my work for giving me free classes every once and a while! It's such a great workout and the bikes are so clean and work well. But somehow, you also do so well at making me feel like I jumped in a swimming pool once I'm done. You know how to get me! 

Dear McOmber Place Blog...That's about it for the update. I promise to try to be better at spending time with you. We are looking forward to another fun spring and summer here in Washington D.C. and beautiful Virginia. 

A Visit From Winter Storm Jonas

#2016Blizzard has been blowing up on social media the past 5 days and counting. Yes, Storm Jonas visited and dropped off 2 feet of snow, making it the largest snowstorm on record for several locations in the East but especially everywhere from Washington, D.C. to New York City. Luckily, Kyle and I were able to work from home on Friday and prepare for the snowfall  starting in the afternoon. I've always found it funny that people here get really anxious about snow until I realized why. They just aren't prepared for it and when it hits, driving becomes almost impossible with all the ice hitting the roads. Wednesday was the start of a small flurry and I found myself stuck on our road for 2 hours waiting for people to try to get unstuck. It was crazy and I'm glad we were home in time to get ready. Kyle went out and bought some firewood for our fireplace in case the heat went off and I cooked up an extra meal to have ready in case we lost power. It's funny how your thinking changes when you realize what you can't do if you don't have electricity. While working on Friday we watched small flakes turn into bigger flakes and we watched a wall of snow start to accumulate at the base of our door. It was exciting and fun to witness history but not so fun when it was time to dig out our walkways and car. It was also fun to get some snow days off of work the following week. Yay snow days!

I visited the grocery store Thursday night and managed to grab the last lonely skim milk on the  bottom left. The only other milk available was almond milk and chocolate milk.

Almost all of the produce was gone too.

Kyle and Boo waiting for the first flurries to hit. 

And hit they did. 

I got out before it got too bad to get some pictures. 

This is the sight we had the next morning. By dawn we had received at least 20 inches.

We couldn't even open the door to get out and had to climb out the window to start shoveling!

This guy thought he wanted to come out at one point but I could see it would turn the other way real fast. 

Kyle snapped this shot and I thought, "That's how I feel after all of this shoveling."

We got the walkways done enough to walk through and turned to get some of the sidewalk next to our house.

No one had even started shoveling the sidewalk so I caught this moment where we sat down not wanting to keep going. 

 Boo back inside safely and warm.

Our good friends came over in the afternoon and got us out of our cabin fever by taking us sledding across the street.

We found the perfect hill and actually ended up getting quite a bit of speed. 

Our buried car. This took at least 2 hours to dig out.

I guess I should say "Thanks Jonas for the memories!".

A Christmas Tree Saga

Well we have quite the story for the beginning of our Christmas decorating adventures. We decided to get our first tree on Black Friday. Target was selling a beautiful 6 foot tree that was already covered with lights. We knew we wanted a tree with white lights so we decided to pick that one up until we realized only the colored lit trees were left. And so it began...Here are the steps if you want to create the best story of buying a Christmas tree: 

Step 1. Buy colored light tree because they are out of white light trees 

Step 2. Take tree home and take off all colored lights

Step 3. Go back to buy white lights and see that the white light tree is available

Step 4. Buy white light tree and bring home and set up while planing on returning colored light tree

Step 5. Pull out chord to unplug for the night and chord breaks

Step 6. Return both trees to get a different white light tree

Step 7. Go to 4 targets and find they are all out of white light trees

Step 8. Go back to target to buy back broken chord white light tree to fix it

Step 9. Find they've sent it back to the factory

Step 10. Buy back the colored light tree 

Step 11. Take off colored lights and put white lights on

Basically, we ended where we started. We are just happy to finally have a tree for the first time and to have decorated it with white lights that we will make sure won't come off. This little guy was quite the helper (nuisance) as we began decorating. 

 Once we set up the tree, we made sure we watched two versions of
A Christmas Carol as well as A Charlie Brown Christmas.

 I shot this photo when we volunteered to help in nursery and
this guy drew some fun Christmas pictures.

 I LOVE how our church sets up our building during Christmas!

 A fun row house in Alexandria dressed in holiday style. 

 The cutest gingerbread trees at a nice restaurant in downtown D.C. 

 Work had extra tickets to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Kyle and
I had a lot of fun seeing what it is all about. 

My work also threw their Christmas party which is always incredible.

They had a theme of a train station and departures to different spots in the city.

This house blinkin a bright red and green and being voted #11

of the craziest decorated homes in the country!

 And here she is! The prettiest tree. After all the stress, it was worth it! We are so lucky to have a fireplace in our apartment and Kyle lit one to put the finishing touches on our decor.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas... :) and Happy Holidays!