14/15 weeks

As most of you know, Mike and I got back to Phoenix last week after spending a little over a week on the Ohio/PA Tour 2010. The main reason for the trip was to meet our third niece, Kyleigh, who turned out to be as adorable as expected:

The trip was awesome. In Ohio, we got to spend a ton of time with our nieces, we met up with a couple of friends, and we hit some of our favorite spots, including Penn Station, Amish country and the Westside Market.

I also ate a lot of cake, thanks to the celebration of two birthdays (Kaitlyn's and my Mom's), as well as a very special cake made by Lesley. Only Lesley could figure out a way to combine my two biggest pregnancy cravings (cake and pickles) into one delish treat:

PA was just as great. We got to see a ton of Mike's family and friends on Friday night at his parents' house, finally got to try the Portuguese restaurant his parents always rave about and got some very exciting news: his sister is engaged!! Here she is, with fiance Patrick, telling us the good news and showing off her GORGEOUS bling (nicely done, Boat):

We also received a lot of really nice gifts for the baby and did some baby shopping with both families. It's pretty apparent already that this is going to be one extremely loved (and spoiled) kid.

All in all, a great trip. But now that we're back, we have a TON to do to get ready for the baby. We made a "to do" list while we waited to board our plane in Philly, and let's just say the length of it is rather frightening. This weekend, we got a lot of stuff into our new storage unit (more on that in a later post), so that we can start the transition from "den" to "nursery."

Since I didn't have a chance to blog while we were away, the baby has grown quite a bit a bit since my last update. Allow me a moment to catch up!

*The baby is now... 4 inches long and weighs as much as an apple!

*How I'm feeling: I seem to have hit a bump in the road with this during the past week. I was nauseous several times during our trip, and I picked up a cold that left me blowing my nose approximately every four minutes. The cold wouldn't have been so bad if I could take some medication... but I couldn't, so it was annoying. Getting ready for work was sort of rough for a few days with the nausea, runny/stuffy nose and jet lag combination. But I'm feeling a lot better now, and the cold has pretty much expired, so I'm good to go.

*Physical differences from last week: I started showing a bit more now than when we left for our trip. Mike actually came up to me while we were shopping at a store in downtown Bethlehem and said he could see my "bump." I'll show off an updated picture in my 16 week post.

*What's been on my mind: Nursery, nursery, nursery. I'm ready to get moving on this! Now that the couch and desk are in storage, we need to get new carpeting. Once the carpeting is done, we can buy the crib and dresser that we have our eyes on. And once that dresser is in there, I can fill it with all the cute little onesies, t-shirts, wash clothes and bibs that we've received!

*What I'm looking forward to: Just a few weeks until we find out the gender! Once we know "who's in there" (as my mom-in-law says), then we can really get moving on buying things we need. I'm also hoping to feel the baby move around soon. It'll be a few more weeks before I'll feel any solid kicks, but many pregnant women say they start to feel the "flutters" of the baby moving around at about this point in their pregnancy.

*Other random thoughts: I've been thinking a lot about pregnancy symptoms I hope I don't get. I'm not all that concerned about stretch marks for some reason (I can't imagine I'll be wearing a bikini anytime soon anyway), but I'm really hoping my feet don't permanently grow. I do NOT want to start my shoe collection all over again. I'm also very afraid of how much water I'm going to retain in oh, say, August, when it's 115 degrees outside and I'm hot and uncomfortable. Will I have ankles? Will I be able to wear any rings (I LOVE rings!)? Will my face plump up to three times its normal size?? Eek. I hope not.