Thanksgiving Photos

Hey Everyone!

We made it home safely from Maryland and are finally getting back into the swing of things here at home. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my family and we hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well :) Here are some pictures from our trip - only ended up taking a few:

My family on Thanksgiving morning before our annual Thanksgiving 5 mile race - the race was a lot of fun and I was able to run the whole thing without stopping, yay! My brother was so sweet and stayed with me the whole time so I would have some company :) Everyone else had fun racing and got some pretty good times!
In the photo (left to right): My Brother Connor, Step Dad Troy, my Mom Lya, random turkey, Me, Aunt Pooh and Dan.


My Mom's beautiful Thanksgiving table :) She is an amazing decorator and I am convinced she'll own her own decorating company someday soon (hint hint)!! She always does such an awesome job of making Thanksgiving a special day for everyone. Thanks Mama!


Mama getting everything ready... at the crucial moment before everything is done!

Those are pretty much all the pictures I have from the trip :( Wish I had taken more but we were busier than I thought we would be. I will work on taking more at Christmas time... which is coming up very quickly by the way - eek! I can hardly believe how quickly time is flying by. In 3 short months or so Ava will be here with is :)

Highlights of the trip:

• Getting to see my family for Thanksgiving and my Mom's birthday
• Having some funny conversations at dinner with the family - those are always the best!
  
• Surprise fireworks at National Harbor on the night before my Mom's birthday - fireworks are one of her favorite things and this was an AMAZING fireworks display. The willow tree one was my favorite.
  
• Georgetown shopping for my Mom's birthday - got to spend time with my Mom and Aunt Pooh and find a bunch of great buys including two pairs of awesome boots (Thank you Aunt Pooh and Mom for your help!).
• Black Friday shopping with Dan - something I have never done before but had fun wandering around with Dan, yay for Bath and Body Works sales!
• Dan and I getting to recreate some college memories at Einstein Bagels - we used to eat there almost everyday when we both went to ASU. They had our favorite holiday coffee too - yum!
  
• Dan surprising me with a cross necklace that we saw while we were out on Black Friday :) He hung it on our bedroom door at the house so I would find it - so sweet!
  
• Ava getting to be around and hear everyone's voices - can't imagine how amazing it will be to have her there with us next year for Thanksgiving and Christmas!
  
• Just being home - I love it there so much.

Things I am grateful for:

• My husband Dan and our little family - including Rico and Marley :)
  
• Our baby girl Ava and the smooth/healthy pregnancy that we've had so far - here's to the next 3 months going just as smoothly.
  
• All of our friends and family - I am so blessed to be surrounded by such amazing people and am so happy that Ava will have such loving people in her life from the very beginning.
  
• Our cozy home - lots of memories yet to made here!
  
• Our jobs - very thankful for the stability that we have.
• All of the things we have had the opportunity to experience and grow from this year - it was a BIG year for our little family, lots of happy times and some rough times but all of them have helped us to grow in a very good way. God is so good :)
  
• The opportunity to do the things we love everyday.
  

Week 25 Update

Hey Everyone!

Thought I would do just a quick overview of what has been going on lately during week 24 and 25. I have been feeling a little under the weather for about a week now... I just have a cough with some congestion but that is the only symptom. I have no idea what it is but it's almost gone, yay!! Besides that I have been feeling GREAT! I have been doing my workouts as usual (just have been forgetting to post them :( oops) and have also started doing yoga with my friend Clare at the Breathing Space here in Fayetteville and I LOVE it! It goes hand in hand with the things I am doing through HypnoBirthing to prepare for labor and have really seen a huge difference in my stress level and my ability to relax since I've started these two things which is great... if you know me really well you know I tend to me a very anxious person at times :/ but I'm working on it! My muscles have really started to loosen up too thanks to the yoga, which is great because I am always extremely tight through my hips and upper back/shoulders. So if you're pregnant I really really recommend yoga. As for HypnoBirthing Dan and I completed our final class this past Saturday and I have to say I am going to miss the classes... our instructor is awesome and it was nice to have a specific time dedicated solely to preparing for Ava's arrival. But I am going to continue doing my daily relaxation, affirmations and breathing to continue to prepare. The weekend was great - full of relaxation, workouts, a pre-thanksgiving dinner, movies and seeing an old friend. Great weekend spent with my favorite guy! This week I'm just spending getting ready for Thanksgiving, our trip up to Maryland to see my family (YAY!) and my mama's birthday :) I've decided for Thanksgiving to make my usual Pumpkin Pie Cookie Bars...

... along with a Pumpkin Chocolate Tart - both courtesy of Martha Stewart.

I am so excited to see my family! Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday and especially when I am able to spend it with my my family and Dan :) My mom makes the BEST Thanksgiving dinner EVER - that's right I said it! And I just love spending time with the people I love the most (will be missing the rest of my family of course that's on the west coast along with Dan's family). We're leaving to head up there on Wednesday evening - we'll throw the kennels in the back of the truck and we're out of here. We used to drive up there with the pups in the back of the car but they have just gotten wayyy too big and slobbery for that anymore. Not to mention that poor Marley gets car sick everytime we drive for more than 10 minutes :( And that makes for quite a rough trip with the car smelling like throw up and all. So we're going to try it this way and see how it goes this year.

As for workouts I have been doing about 3 days or so of CrossFit consistently every week along with some running. Here are my workouts from the weekend -

Friday:

Yoga with Clare


Saturday:

400 m. Run
20 x Back Squats (65#)

3 Rounds

Loved this workout that Dan made up for me, especially the run. Felt great!


Sunday:

2 1/2 Mile run with Dan - Wanted to prepare somewhat for the 5 mile Turkey Trot we do every year with my family on Thanksgiving morning... I think I should be good to run that far but I guess we'll have to see how Ava and I feel that morning. Excited to still be running though :)

Last but not least here is a picture I took this morning for week 25



Ava is growing so fast - she is the size of an eggplant now :) We only have about 3 different melon sizes to go until she's at the size she'll be at birth! I feel her consistently throughout the day now but still the strongest kicks are in the morning at 10 or so and before I go to sleep. She's a bus girl that's for sure!

Hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving if I don't get to post again before our trip... I hope it's a great day for all of you filled with people you love, yummy food and lots of tasty pumpkin desserts!!

Learning How to Crochet

I am so excited to go to Michael's today to get the things I'll need to start learning how to crochet! I have been wanting to learn for a while now but this morning I was looking at Etsy.com at different baby hats since it will still be chilly when Ava gets here and I realized that if I learned now I could make those things for her myself instead of having to buy them and they'll be that much more special :) Here are some pictures of the kinds of things I'd like to make for her...

I love this hat - so simple and delicate!

Baby Cocoon - Used for her baby pictures that we'll hopefully get soon after she's born :)

These seem so soft and comfy!

Those are the things I've come across so far that I'd like to try to make for Ava - first things first though and that's learning how to crochet. Should be fun!

Ava's Crib

Dan and I finally got Ava's crib set up this past Sunday and we LOVE it!! Can't wait to see how the rest of the furniture will look in her room once we get it :)

Week 23 & 24 Pictures

Week 23 Belly Picture

We've been doing a lot of growing the last couple of weeks! I'm at 40 3/4 " for my waist and I weight about 160 lbs now. As for Ava she is almost a foot long from head to foot and she weighs about a lb and a half according to my weekly update that I get :)

Week 24 Picture

On our way to church - finally dressed up for once :)

Workouts for the Week

Monday

Leg Extension x 15 (60 lbs)
Lunge Walk x 30 steps
Incline DB Bench Press x 10 -15 (20 lb dbs - 30 lb dbs)
Sprint 100 m.

3 Rounds

This was a fun workout and my favorite part by far were the sprints! Unfortunately I enjoyed them a little too much I think and pulled a pelvic muscle on my right side. Don't worry though cause it's already better and it's only Thursday. Now I know that full out sprint are out of the books for me for the rest of the pregnancy... just will have to take them a bit slower from now on. Still a really fun workout though :)

Tuesday & Wednesday

Rest for my pelvic muscle - feels a 100% better as of Thursday.. yayyy!

Thursday

"Baby Cindy"

5 x Pull Ups (Jumping)
10 x Push Ups (On Knees)
15 x Squats

As many round as possible in 15 minutes

Really happy with how this workout went :) I was able to get 11 rounds and I felt GREAT! Pelvic muscle did not bother me at all. Felt good to get a good sweat going on this rainy cold and windy day.

Babymoon - Wilmington NC

Hey Everyone!

So this past weekend Dan and I decided to go on a little trip that we dedicated as our "babymoon" - just a way for us to spend some time together away from home before Ava arrives. We decided to go to Wilmington/Wrightsville Beach here in North Carolina. We were going to stay at the hotel that we usually go to in Carolina Beach but they don't allow pets and for money purposes we needed to bring the dogs along so I found a place in Wilmington about a mile from the beach so that's where we stayed. The place was good because we were able to bring the dogs but I can't say it was very romantic... but it was in an awesome location (only about a mile and a half walk to the beach and close to shopping, restaurants, etc.).

The first night we got there we took the pups for a walk to the beach before the sun went down.

Last time we took Rico to the beach was over a year ago and he absolutely hated it. This time he seemed to love it... he bit at and pounced on the waves as they came towards him, chased a couple of shells that I threw in the water for him but got upset when he wasn't able to find them and of course played in the sand.





Marley on the other hand didn't want anything to do with the water - which didn't really surprise me. She does have it in her head that she's a princess after all :) It was great to see the ocean and be outside in the beautiful weather. That night we went out to eat at one of our favorite places - Front Street Brewery (they have the best chicken nachos EVER - they have a sweet sauce on them so they kind of taste like bbq, so good!)


. Saturday we went for a run to the beach in the morning and got the chance to watch part of a triathlon which was a lot of fun... Dan is getting interested in possibly trying one out some day :) The swim was my favorite part to watch. The rest of the day we spent wandering around different stores, went to see Couples Retreat which was HILARIOUS and sampled a bunch of yummy food at a place called The Fresh Market (they had an entire Thanksgiving dinner set up for us to try, along with some Cheesecake and Apple Cider, YUM). Saturday night was by far my favorite part of the trip - I think it was because Dan and I got the chance to spend some quality along time just sitting, talking and eating some tasty food (with the dogs the trip became a little bit busier than I had imagined). Dan was really sweet and decided to take me to Macaroni Grill for dinner - and it was SO GOOD! I got the Lasagna and Dan got the Eggplant Parmesan. I ate my entire dinner, half of the bread, a salad and two huge glasses of Blackberry Mint Iced Tea. The iced tea was soooo delicious... I could have literally drank 6 glasses of it if I had had more time. Dan made fun of me because I literally left nothing at the table hehe you would think that I never get to eat! I would also like to say that our server there was so great. For dessert we went to Coldstone - we shared a Founder's Favorite. Yum, yum, yum!


Such a fun night hanging out with my favorite guy :) The next morning before we left we went for another run which ended up being around 3 1/2 miles... haven't ran that far since the pregnancy but I felt great! Then we went to breakfast at an awesome place called Sweet and Savory. We both got breakfast sandwiches and coffee... once again I proceeded to make sure that every crumb and drop of liquid was gone before we left the table. I was hungry, what can I say! After breakfast we went and sat on the beach for a little bit... had to soak in some sun and listen to the waves one last time before it was time to head home. While we were sitting there we also got to see a ton of dolphins swim past... we always love when we get to see them :) We both were wishing that we could go out there and swim with them - they just seem so playful and sweet.

Such a great trip :) Next time we go to the beach Ava will be with us getting to see the ocean for the first time!