4 months pregnant!

Today marks me being 4 months pregnant, and in honor of the occasion, I bought my first little baby outfit. Is this not the cutest thing you've ever seen??!!!



And even the back is adorable!!



I'm thinking this is going to make a good present to one of my other mom friends if I'm having a boy!! :)

Here's a belly shot at four months pregnant.




Happy New Year everyone! I'm going to be enjoying my sparkling peach cider tonight while you all get silly and feel sick tomorrow. :)

Belly Shots

This week I have just started noticing my belly really beginning to POP! It seemed like nothing was happening forever, (except in the upper chest region!) and then all of a sudden my pants are snug and I have a little bump! It's the first time in my life where I'm excited for a little bit of belly growth. Never thought that would happen.

Here are some belly shots for comparison:

              3 weeks                                    

And here is a picture from
tonight, at 14 weeks pregnant:

I can't help but giggle when I compare these pictures, because it looks like I'm puffing out my stomach after a big dinner in the second photo. I'm not, believe me.

I'm going Maternity Clothes shopping this weekend-- oh boy!

Volunteering Fun

Last Friday, I arranged for a group of my Pfizer co-workers to volunteer at St. Mary's Food Bank in downtown Phoenix.  

Our job was extremely complex, as illustrated below:

We portioned carrots out of large 50 lb bags into smaller bags to be given out in food boxes for needy families.  

Okay, so it wasn't really very complex.  But still.  It was nice to do something small to help out, and the need this year is so incredibly high.  Before we began volunteering, the staff gave us some details on the history of the food bank.  Apparently, St. Mary's Food Bank in Phoenix was the first food bank ever established in the world!  Wow!  They distribute 230,000 lbs of food to hungry families and shelters on a DAILY basis!  Amazing.  Also, we learned that in Phoenix, if you take a typical classroom of 30 children, 6 of them wake up hungry and don't know when or where their next meal is.  It's heartbreaking.  So please donate to your local food bank if you are able to!   Or if you are able to get a group of friends or co-workers together, they have volunteer shifts from 8 a.m.-12 p.m. or 1-4 p.m. Monday-Friday.  Just call them at 602 343-3128 to set it up.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon!

The BEST chocolate cake ever....

If you have even the slightest interest in chocolate and/or baking, you MUST make this cake. I have been reading The Pioneer Woman's blog (which is great!) and came across the recipe, and from the photos, it reminded me of a cake that a coworker of mine used to bring into work years ago. So I just made it today and now I have to restrain myself from devouring the whole thing. My friend used to call it Texas Sheet Cake, and it was good at the time, but I just realized today that the key thing missing from it was eating it WARM!!! You need to try it to believe it! Am I just being a pregnant piggie, you may be wondering? Quite possibly, but don't judge until you try.


Gestational Diabetes here I COME! (Eeek, just kidding, I shouldn't joke about these things--how horrible!)

Here is the recipe. YUMMY!

95% pink?

We had another ultrasound today for some general screening. Everything is looking great! And the ultrasound tech said that she thinks it's a girl.... I'm 12 weeks along, which is still early for gender identification, so I asked her how sure she was. She said, "oh about 95%!" But she said not to go painting any nurseries just yet because she has been wrong before! So we are excited! Either way, it's going to be fun. She (or 5% possibly he?) had her little ankles crossed and she mostly just slept through the whole thing. Then we tried to shake my belly a little to get her to move around and she finally kicked her feet as if to say, "hey, what's the big deal out there?" We got to see the brain and the chambers of the heart. I couldn't believe that it was all there and here I am not even looking pregnant yet (aside from the chest area, I haven't really grown much). It's all so amazing to me.

Here's a profile view of the little munchkin:



And here's a general view of her little body:



And finally, here's a view of the little kidlet's brain. Yes, I am such a dork and I'm interested in the brain. You're looking down at the top of her head: