A Little Bit About Being Pregnant with Baby #2

We found out we were pregnant a little bit before Thanksgiving.

Adam's family was coming for Thanksgiving so we decided to take advantage of that time to announce it to them.

I had seen on Pinterest (of course) this idea of having everyone in the family write something they are grateful for on a piece of parchment paper and stick each piece of paper into some dough before baking it into rolls.

Then when everyone sits down to Thanksgiving dinner, everyone opens their roll and reads the piece of paper and you all guess who you think wrote each slip of paper.

On one of the pieces of paper I had made up something that Ella was thankful for (her new little sibling coming in July, although in reality if Ella were to write something she was grateful for, do you think it would be that? I don't think so. I'm scared for the day when she realizes that the new baby coming to our home is here to stay forever and steal away some of her prized attention).

Adam's dad was the one who opened this roll with Ella's little note in it and it took a few moments before it hit people what it meant.

And then they realized why I had been so excited to do this whole parchment paper in the roll thing.

To announce it to my parents in Oregon I mailed them a whole bunch of pictures of Ella telling them that I had gotten more printed than I needed, which was true, but the real reason I sent them all those pictures was because I had slipped in the picture of all our feet with the announcement of the new babe coming.

And I included a little note from Ella:

 We hadn't planned on announcing it publicly until we were almost 20 weeks along but as I should have expected, I started showing with this baby way earlier than I did with Ella.

By 14 weeks I could tell that people were kind of looking at me with that, "I think she might be pregnant but I'm not about to ask her in case I'm wrong" sort of look.

So we finally decided to announce it at 15 weeks to put people out of their curious misery.

When I was pregnant with Ella I only bought one single item of clothing that was meant to be maternity, which actually was kind of too big on me because my tummy just didn't poke out that much with her.

I wore my regular jeans the entire pregnancy.

But since I knew I'd probably get a little bit bigger this time around I decided to at least look around at the maternity section at H&M to see if I could find anything reasonably priced and cute and I scored!

In case you were wondering, H&M's maternity section is AWESOME!

I got those maternity pants above for $20.

And I am in love with them.

I started wearing them long before I was showing because I just think they are so cute! 

I also got a maternity pencil skirt there for really cheap and I can't wait until my tummy is big enough to wear it.

Moving onto cravings...

Sometimes I crave vegetables, which is really weird because I am not a fan of those things.

And just like when I was pregnant with Ella I'm kind of not that into treats or junk food, which is definitely a blessing but sometimes sad because occasionally I just want to enjoy a dang bowl of ice cream instead of having my taste buds look down on it.

But the one not so healthy food that I have been head over heels in love with is grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

I pretty much eat that for lunch every single day.

 My favorites are harvati cheese sandwiches and sharp cheddar with pepper jack.

Oh my gosh that sounds so good, I think I need one right now.

I also eat crazy things at crazy times of the day and night because I HAVE TO HAVE IT IMMEDIATELY!! 

Sometimes I want chow mein, which is too bad because it's hard to make a legit version of that stuff in your own home.

At least, I can't figure it out.

The good news is, we live relatively close to Panda Express.

And we've been drinking fruit smoothies like no one else's business around here because I can pretend that I'm eating ice cream but it's a bajillion times better for you, which is why my taste buds and stomach approve of it so much more than ice cream.

And weird things like cereal and marinara sauce (two things that I'm usually not a fan of) I really like right now.

When you are constantly craving new things every other day your grocery bill tends to sky-rocket.

But it's all for the baby.

That's what I tell Adam.

 I've started collecting little things for baby, like this monkey stuffed animal that I found for a steal and little gender neutral things.

I'm excited for this baby.

But I am scared out of my mind to have two children under the age of 2.

In the long run it will be worth having them close in age (at least that's the plan) especially if the two of them are best friends one day and all that cute stuff, but I'm thinking that I'll probably disappear off the face of the earth when this second baby comes because I'll be so crazy busy trying to take care of both of them.

But it will be so fun to see Ella with a sibling and see how she interacts with him/her.

And we've been making plans for the new transition.

I'm going to take a break from art when this new baby comes and no longer take any clients.

That was a really hard decision to make.

I was and still am a little bit afraid of losing a part of who I am by setting art aside for several years.
But I know that I would feel so stressed trying to balance both and the stress isn't worth it.

In the long run I would regret if it I didn't make this choice.

 I'm excited to see what if feels like to love two little people with my whole heart and just dedicate my life to them and their daddy.