4th of July Weekend

This past weekend myself, Adam, Mom & Aunt Lydia took the trip out to Long Island for a family picnic @ Uncle Hector's house in honor of Uncle Max's 88th birthday & July 4th. He and Aunt Anna were up visiting from Puerto Rico and they both look fabulous for their age. They are the sweetest people ever :)

We made our travel more relaxing by taking the ferry over to Port Jefferson, NY. When we arrived we had lunch & window shopped a bit. It was Adam's first time going to Port Jeff so that was a fun new experience for him. Of course traveling with my mother & Aunt Lydia is always an experience - the two of them are like Lucy & Ethel from I love Lucy! We also got to see some pretty cool fireworks in the evening while traveling over the bridge on our way home from NY.

Here is a picture of me with my cousins Danny & James, they were like brothers to me growing up. They even hung me on the wall once by my Osh Kosh Bigosh overalls! I was stuck on that hook for quite a bit until someone saved me, those were the good old days....

Here is a picture of my beutiful mom. She is always hamming it up for the camera! Maybe that is where my neice Melina gets it from???

Again the horizontal stripes on the tank top! hahaha...But this is a great picture to show how large my belly is. I can honestly tell you that our little one in my belly doesn't feel "so little" lately. He is extremely active and moves around all the time. Looking at all the movement in my belly is a bit freaky sometimes. We still can't get over how close we are to meeting our little guy, time is going by so fast.

Next week will be a fun entry to the blog, I will have had my baby shower & another doctor appointment to report about. This Sunday is the shower that Tammy, Mom & Debbie have been planning for our little bundle of joy. I am sure it will be a success with these 3 planning it. I must say they have been very secretive about everything...I guess they all know how I truley am - I would be planning all the details if they gave me a chance! I just can't help it! I can't wait to see everyone and enjoy the time with family & friends.

33 week doctors visit & Strawberry Picking

I went to the doctors this morning and everything checked out A-Ok. I gained 2 lbs. since my last apointment and my blood pressure was nice and low at 102/64. I also do not have any swelling in my hands or feet and the doctor was happy with that. She did ask about the babies movement because they would like for me to feel 10 movements a day. I told her no worries, in just the time span of me typing this post Baby Pavelchak has jabbed me at least 5 times. I think Adam and I have quite the active little guy! My next appointment is in 2 weeks.


This is from Baby Center - "This week your baby weighs a little over 4 pounds and has passed the 17-inch mark. He's rapidly losing that wrinkled, alien look and his skeleton is hardening. The bones in his skull aren't fused together, which allows them to move and slightly overlap, thus making it easier for him to fit through the birth canal. These bones don't entirely fuse until early adulthood, so they can grow as his brain and other tissue expands during infancy and childhood."

Weekend Fun-

This weekend mom & I went up to my sisters to spend the weekend and we had lots of fun with everyone. We got up there for dinner time on Friday and left Sunday morning. It is always a good time visiting we have lots of entertainment with Melina & Bennett, the two of them are too cute together! Tammy had the idea of strawberry picking on Saturday at a farm nearby since the beach plans looked so-so. There were thunderstorms in the weather forecast and we were worried to get all the way out to the beach & be stuck in the rain. Here are some pics from our trip to the farm.

Mom, Melina & Bennett in front of the tractor at the Farm. I wanted this picture for Baby Pavelchak's room, we are doing a farm theme in his room and I think having grandma & his cousins up on the wall will be a nice touch!

Here I am 33 weeks preggo, the horizontal stripes really show off my belly I have acquired with Baby Pavelchak! It was super hot outside picking strawberries but I was determined to get a good amount since our plan was to make Strawberry Rhubarb pie. Tammy and I prepared the pie when we got home and it turned out yummy!

Kitchen Pictures

The professional pictures are up of our kitchen - they came out great, I am so happy they were done for our contractor's site. It really makes me appreciate all the time & effort our home renovation took.

Check them out -

http://khimprovement.blogspot.com/

http://alexissteinphoto.blogspot.com/

New Washing Machine

So you know how things crap out at the most inconvenient times? Well our Washing machine died...It doesn't owe us anything after using it for 8 years straight but it finally doesn't spin the clothes correctly, they come out soaking wet all the time. So we went to Sears last night and bought a washer but we didn't purchase the fancy front loader type. We opted for a very efficient top loader because our dryer died on us about a year 1/2 ago and we had purchased the dryer that matched the washer at the time. We went this route because we eventually want to relocate our Washer & Dryer to the first floor when we do our addition off the back of the house. At that time we plan on buying the matching front loaders that not only look really cool but are even more efficient.

Our plan is to wait to do the addition until we eventually have 2 children that are too old to share a room, probably by the time our first child is 5 years old. At that time we would have both kids in the upstairs bedrooms then move ourselves to the first floor. The first floor bedroom currently is on the smaller side so we would go off the back of the house with an addition. Nothing too huge - just something that would make the first floor bedroom a master suite with a walk in closet & bathroom. While we do this project we would expand the 1st floor bathroom that is currently there and put the washer & dryer in that room. And you know what that means....No more trips to the basement!

I have been reading quite a bit about the front loaders & the only downside is that they vibrate & rattle much more than top loaders. So when the time comes, we will research & purchase a good set that will be quite & vibrate the least. Luckily Adam is a plumber by trade and super handy at just about anything he puts his mind to regarding our house projects so we rarely have to hire out help. The real trick will be "finding the time" to get this project done...but for right now we have a nice new washer that will be in next week - just in time to start washing all Baby Pavelchak's clothes I have to get to!

Here is our new washer :)

Weekend Events

Hi All!

We had a very busy weekend which started on Thursday night with the rehearsal dinner and then Friday was the wedding. We had such a good time at Rob & Sue's wedding, everything was gorgeous and it made me miss our wedding day all over again. I have to say that was a day I would love to be able to relive over and over again :) . It was so nice to share in their special day with them. Adam was a "natural" presenting his best man speech! I was so proud of him :)

Here are some pics from the wedding. I am officially 8 months pregnant in this picture. I danced all night and was full of energy - even with my heels on! Thank god I haven't experienced any bloating in my hands & feet just yet..... I thought I would be exhausted but I was up until 1 am partying with everyone, I was shocked!

The "first time grandparents to be" - John & Debbie

This weekend was also Father's Day so Adam and I went to breakfast at Parkside cafe in our town & it was really nice to celebrate Adam's first father's day. Adam took me there for Mother's day too. We then cooked a surf & turf dinner for Adam's dad John. I have to say we impressed ourselves on this one! It was super easy but very tasty. We made Lobster rolls & Beef Kabobs on the grill with veggies & pineapple. Check out the picture below, we were so proud of the meal I had to take a picture!

Sunday I was also in full nesting mode. We all know I am a little crazy with the cleaning & organizing, but this Sunday I really went over the top. We were getting professional pictures of our kitchen taken and we have an open floor plan in our house so everything needed to look in its perfect place.

Our contractor that did our renovations last year wanted our kitchen to be pictured for his advertising and I was super excited for that, I can't wait to see the pictures. So I put up the new dining room curtains that were done just in time from Adam's Aunt Eva. She hand made these curtains for us, I bought the fabric and told her the design I wanted and they came out JUST the way I wanted them :) She is quite the talented curtain maker in my opinion. Check out her work. -

Another fun thing that happened this weekend was a package that arrived on Friday in our mudroom off our Pottery Barn registry! It was the book/cubby shelf system we registered for! We was super excited about it & we just want to send a big thanks to all my girlfriends from college that went in on this gift - Corinne, Caralyn, Gillian, Niki, Sylvia & Margaret - thank you so much we love the gift and you all are so generous & thoughtful.

Here is a picture of it, we have to fill it with books and stuff but I put some things in just to give you the idea of what it will look like.

31 week appointment & Small Dresser

This past Monday I went to the doctors and found out that all my blood work I took 2 weeks ago turned out A-OK which is great. The doctors even commented on how "I have great nutrition and my diet must be very well rounded!" LOL....They obviously don't know how much crap I eat! But I think because I am very active and have continued my normal workout routine that it helps allot. My blood pressure checked out fine as well & I managed to not gain any weight this time...? Weird because I feel really heavy. I am sure at my next appointment the weight will appear. It has to because at this stage the baby is growing allot - on average a 1/4 pound a week!

On another note- the weather has been so-so here in CT, lots of rain and below average temperatures...so that makes for a very happy pregnant girl. I know any other summer I would be upset being that I love the summer, but this year I couldn't be happier! If July turns out to be a normal summer month, I can't complain one bit, I have been very lucky so far. Back in April we had a couple really hot days and I was actually really worried how I would do with heat but so far so good.

I finished the small dresser my mom gave me for the baby's room and I love it just as much as the other one. I am happy I did these dressers because honestly I can't sit still. I have always been like this, I thought pregnancy would make me be the opposite but it hasn't done that at all. I have to be grateful that I am still feeling good & not exhausted one bit. I vividly remember the days from my first trimester falling asleep at the dinner table, fork in hand...

This weekend we have a wedding to attend for our best friend Rob. Adam is the best man & has written a great speech so I hope he does well. Rob has been a lifelong friend to Adam and he is how I met Adam! What is really great is that Adam is responsible for his first date with his soon to be wife. How cute is that? These boys are inseparable, we even live just under 2 miles from each other. I also hoping for a great picture of Adam and I from the wedding to post next week.

Here are the before & after pictures of the small dresser :)

Baby's Room & Belly Growth Progress

So I have been growing a bit lately, can't you tell? Here is my growing belly, I am 30 1/2 weeks now! Here is a snapshot of what Baby Pavelchak & I are going through right now (provided by BabyCenter.com):

"Your baby's about 15.7 inches long now, and he weighs almost 3 pounds - like a head of cabbage. A pint and a half of amniotic fluid surrounds him, but that volume will decrease as he gets bigger and takes up more room in your uterus. His eyesight continues to develop, though it's not very keen; even after he is born, he will keep his eyes closed for a good part of the day. You may be feeling a little tired these days, especially if you're having trouble sleeping. You might also feel clumsier than normal, which is perfectly understandable. Not only are you heavier, but the concentration of weight in your pregnant belly causes a shift in your center of gravity."

Now for the Baby's room progress- The room is a little bare right now but I am sure it will be filled very soon after the shower in July & once Adam and I start emptying out our dining room which has become filled with baby stuff lately. Adam and I found this dresser at a consignment shop in Canton that I love going to find "trash to treasure projects" at and refinished it in a creamy yellow paint. The dresser is a timeless look which I love and will work perfectly as a changing table too once I put a pad on top of it.

I painted it a creamy yellow so that it would match with the colors in the baby's quilt/bedding but also so that in the future if we do have more children it is a gender neutral color since they will be sharing that bedroom for sometime. We also have another small dresser that will work nicely with a lamp on it that my mother gave us for the room that I am working on currently and will post pictures of when done.

The baby's room was a room in our home that we never got to with all our renovations last year so becoming pregnant was our motivation to finally rip down wallpaper, re-sheet rock the ceiling, install a closet organizer & paint. We couldn't have done it all without everyone who pitched in here & there to help out so a big thanks to both sides of our family who helped along the way!

The room will have a Farm/Barn theme so as things come along and we have stuff on the walls I will post more pictures. Here are the pictures we have so far of Baby Pavelchak's room, I included a "before" picture so you all can see the transformation that has occurred!

Baby Registry & Glucose Test Results

I received no news from the doctors on my glucose test this week so that means I passed and do not have gestational diabetes! Woohoo!! That is a sigh of relief because I have learned that your diet has to change drastically if you do have that condition and we all know I love my sweets!

On the Baby Registry front- Adam and I finally started it at Babies R Us this past Tuesday night (yes I know we have been dragging our feet on this task....). To our defense we have been doing so much around the house with our 2nd floor bathroom remodel & getting the babies room done that the registry just kept being put further down on the list. I will post updates on the babies room during this next week so you all can see our progress.

So Babies R Us was a challenge for Adam and I to say the least. I am a very simple person when it comes to things and it seems Adam is very opposite. For example - If I could have everything picked out for me that I knew fellow parents had success with that would be enough for me! Adam likes to read things and find out where it is made (like he wants everything from the USA because he thinks China is secretly trying to kill everyone....lol). So we battled allot in the store, we really didn't look as happy as this couple pictured below but we got through it! Then we went and got ice cream so we ended the night on a happy note :)

It must have been so much easier back in the day when there were no options, you had what you had for the baby and it wasn't much. These days you can buy a monitor that watches every move your child makes in the crib and comes along with a t.v. screen. The options are endless these days, it really gets overwhelming.

This weekend I have my friend Sylvia's baby shower so I hoping I get some useful tips by being there that will help us wrap up our registry on Sunday evening. We are also planning on going to the Belmont Stakes in Long Island on Saturday to see the horse race so that will be fun! Over the next 2 months we are going to try to spoil ourselves a bit with things we want to do because come August we will be very busy with our little one!

Doctors visit

Well today at the doctors visit everything checked out A-OK. The baby's heart rate is nice and strong and I am healthy. I had a huge jump on the scale - 8lbs ! The doctor and lady who took my weight said it was totally fine & at this stage in the pregnancy it is to be expected to have a jump. I figured I have done nothing different this past month - still working out and keeping up with my activity level so Baby Pavelchak is just a healthy growing baby boy. It did get me to thinking am I going to be having a Thanksgiving size turkey baby?!?!? hahaha....

Hitting the Wall?

Welcome everyone ! This is the first posting to our blog and let me tell you this is huge step for us. I don't think Adam and I could be anymore of a better match when it comes to being the polar opposite of "tech savvy" people!

I am officially in my last trimester of pregnancy #1 which will determine if there will ever be a pregnancy #2 ! Here is a recap of how Adam and I learned about me being pregnant.

Title - "OMG I am pregnant! "

I found this out at a "sick doctors" visit a few days before Christmas 2008. I had been feeling miserable with bronchitis for over 3 weeks & I couldn't take it anymore. I finally went back to the doctors for a stronger antibiotic with the hopes of knocking it out of my system by Christmas Day.... Well come to find out that trip to Mexico the first week of November proved Adam and I can reproduce! LOL.... When I came home from the doctors, with no antibiotics in hand Adam immediately asked me why I didn't get any other medicine (he could not get quality sleep for these weeks with me hacking up a lung every night - sorry for the gross details!). My answer was definitely not what he expected to hear it went like this - "Um..... Because I Am Pregnant!!!"

In that split second both our faces turned to big smiles and we couldn't believe the news. It was one of those days in life that you wake up & go about your way (like you do any other day) and news comes out of know where that changes you forever. Needless to say from that day forward we have been making adjustments to our daily lives and gearing up for Baby Pavelchak, it is amazing, fun, & a little scary all in one feeling to think in less than 3 months our little one will make his debut to the world :) Here is a picture of Adam playing my sister's children, they absolutely love to play with him, he will for sure be a fun Dad for our little one!

And what I have been feeling like so far....

First Trimester - Tired, tired, tired....oh yeah and sick. Not fun but I do have to say that since I found out I was pregnant at 8 weeks this first trimester went by pretty fast. I obviously was feeling miserable in December with the bronchitis that hung around longer than usual since my body was changing so much and I had no clue! So December & January were very long months for me. I would get up out of bed, feel fine then walk down stairs thinking I will be on my way to the gym like I normally would do before work, only to find out I would be laying on the bathroom floor hoping to puke & get it over with. And then some days I would just feel like I was going to puke and never actually do it which was worse.

I quickly came to realize that my gym schedule needed to change from mornings to evenings. It is amazing what a body can do though... I was able to get through work OK and to the gym just fine after a full day. By the time I would get home and sit down for dinner with Adam there would be a 5 min. window before I would be asleep sometimes with the fork still in my hand! As you all know I am quite the chatter box so Adam was shocked that I could barely stay awake in the evenings by 7:30pm (I think secretly he was enjoying the quite time).

Second Trimester - lower back pain & feeling like I officially have a "muffin top". Now when I say muffin top I mean the kind of feeling that you can still fit your pants but your stomach spills all over the top of your pants making you feel terribly uncomfortable. What was worse was that no one could even tell I was pregnant and maternity clothing did not fit me yet.

Now getting to the back pain - this came and went over a period of the last 2 weeks of my first trimester & the first month of my 2nd trimester. It was only 6 weeks but it felt like hell going through it. My body was creating a hormone called "relaxin" that prepares your body for baby making. The hormone sometimes causes the ligaments in your body to be over stretched and in my case my lower back got it bad. I could barely sleep/sit/or lean forward without feeling the pain. Sometimes it was really sharp pains where it would stop me dead in my tracks. Over the 6 weeks I went to see a physical therapist & tried a chiropractor. The psychical therapist ended up being the route that worked best for me. And then one day about 5 weeks into the therapy I woke up and realized I slept better and the pain had subsided just like that! I didn't have to continue therapy which was nice and I am crossing my fingers this pain doesn't come back.

Another strange thing was that all along with this back pain I never felt it while jogging or swimming laps in the pool so I kept my workouts going with the a-ok from the doctor and never skipped a beat in that department. If you all don't know already I like to workout it has become part of my daily life and it keeps me balanced. Whether it is running, swimming, going to the gym or even cycling, I like it all. I especially keep it up while pregnant because the more active you are the more stamina you will have for the biggest marathon in life - DELIVERY!! Yikes... that word scares me.

Third Trimester - I have just begun this stage and will continue to add updates since at this point you visit the doctors every 2 weeks! To date I have only gained 12lbs. which is fine and I feel great, this Friday the 29th I have my gestational diabetes testing and I will also have my normal check up. The scale will be showing some bigger #'s for sure this go around, I feel like I have gained 5 lbs, every morning I wake up feeling heavier than the day before!