Half-baked and then some!

Thanks so much to my bloggy buddies who have checked up on me during my absence -- no reason for the absence, just life being busy and me not having much to chat about, which is a good thing. But I'm going to make a concerted effort to pop in more, even if it's just to tell you what I ate for dinner last night. Fascinating - I know!! I've tried to continue to be good about commenting, so hopefully you all knew I hadn't spun of earth's surface.

Baby news: We had our 21-week OB appt yesterday. We were scheduled for an ultrasound beforehand thanks to my "low-lying" placenta detected on the amnio 4 weeks ago. NoodleGuy came with me and I'm so glad because it turns out that it's our last scheduled u/s, thanks to my placenta moving up -- weep! How can they cut us off like this?!! I do have a 4D ultrasound scheduled in 4 weeks, cuz I'm crazy like that, so don't cry too hard for me here.

The radiologist who did the u/s this time was awesome - such a nice guy and he printed out something like 20 photos for us, it was insane -- the total motherload!! Bug was being shy in the beginning, keeping his hands up to his face, which was adorable, but made it hard to get a paparazzi shot. I wound up needing to be wanded after the tummy scan (oh, vaginoscan, how I've missed you!) to get a good look at my cervix, so the doc had me lie on my side and flip back and forth to try to shake Bug up. When we peeked at him again after I shook him up and got some good shots. We also got a money shot of his little frank & beans, but I'm sparing that photo ;)

Sucking thumb

Smiling. OK, more like chatting, but we caught him in a smiling-type pose.

Just hanging around

Waving hello

Another hand to face, but I like seeing his little arms and legs. Long & lanky like daddy!

Fashion news: I should have recommended these skirts before, to both pregnant women and those still TTC. They are NOT maternity skirts, but are nice and stretchy and fit great! I really can't rave about them adequately, they're so comfortable and versatile and only $15. They look great with a t-shirt & flip-flops or can be business casual with a short-sleeved sweater and flats. I could kick myself because I noticed that Old Navy is sold out of all but XL+ in most sizes, but definitely check your stores because they'll have more sizes -- it's worth it! It's the softest jersey knit and has a rollover top that is unbelievably flattering. I'm very happy to be able to buy items that I can continue to wear after Bug arrives.


House news: We're looking for a painter to redo our porch. It's wood, painted white and needs to be stripped and sanded before painted. We'd love a stained wood porch but got an estimate to both "properly" strip ours and stain it ($3300) vs tearing it down and rebuilding ($4700-$12,000 ouch!). Both options are more than we wanted to spend on this particular home-improvement. As I've mentioned before, we're hoping to move in @ 2 years, when we estimate our house has gained back the value we paid for it in 2007. We want to do good things for resale, but not necessarily go crazy with high-quality improvements. The guy who gave us the estimate was a carpenter, we're going to get an estimate from a more straight-up painter this weekend and hope it's not as painful.

Vacation news: OK, the fun stuff... we definitely want to do a babymoon but because of DH's training for the Boston marathon last week (and all the months prior) and my little sister's college graduation in May, we couldn't schedule it until June, when I'll be @ 28 weeks. Still plenty early enough to travel, but made us a little reluctant to do our first choice of a trip to the Greek Islands (so long Santorini, we'll get to you one day!). We pondered an easier European trip to London & Amsterdam, but with it being June (aka US college kids swarming the continent), prices are sky high. It seems that we have finally settled on saying closer to home and doing a week in Miami and Key West. We'll fly down to Miami, spend 2 days enjoying the sites and culture and then 5 days in Key West, fun fun and relaxation. We're both very excited about both places, neither of us have been and we love Latin culture and tropical settings. Wondering if anyone has any lodging and must-do recommendations for either place?

Whew! OK, clearly I should have blogged about some of these things over the past couple of weeks, instead of storing them up!