May 24, 2010

It has been a busy last few weeks. Last weekend was the baby shower and the belly pictures. They both came out great, but it left me exhausted on Monday when I went back to work. In addition we have had family in the hospital. We went from our ultrasound at the doctors last Tuesday to visiting our family in the hospital to our infant care class. When we got home I was not feeling very well. I woke at 1:00am and started throwing up. After about an hour of vomiting every 10 minutes I called the on-call doctor to see if I should go to the ER. She instructed me to go to emergency where they would let me into the labor and delivery rooms. They gave me a huge shot to stop the nausea and relax my uterus. I was having contractions again. After a few hours they started an IV. Right after they got that in I threw up again. This time the nausea medicine just got put through the IV tube. At abut 9:00am the released me to go home on bed rest. I was feeling better, just tired. I am not sure if I had a 24 hour flu bug or got some kind of food poisoning. Luckily I have felt fine ever since. It just took me a few days to get my fluids back up where I stopped cramping. Layla however, seemed to be as happy as a clam. She was very active and had the hiccups 2 times.

Saturday my mom and I went to target and bought the rest of the items for Layla's room. We purchased and assembled the changing table and the curtains for the windows. Her room is so cute. The only thing we are still working on is my sister is touching up the painting on the tree. Apparently I do not have the best painting skills. But she is making it look great.

On Sunday we went back to Treasured Moments Ultrasound and had another 4D sonogram done. It was amazing to finally see her face. She has either Shannon's, my dads or my cousin (which would be my great grandmother's) nose. She has Chris's lips and my chin. Well that is what we think from the photos. We waited a little too long to have the ultrasound done and the pictures came out a little squashed. She has jammed herself down in the uterus and there is not a lot of fluid around her face, making the ultrasound not as clear. She measured at 4lbs 9 oz and they estimated the due date at July 10. So one day earlier. My baby due date prediction is July 8, 2010 at 2:10pm.


Also on Sunday My mom, dad and step dad gave us there baby shower gift which was the BOB stroller. We are so excited. Even though we checked with the factory and they are unfortunately made in China, Chris loves the stroller and cannot wait to use it.

I cant believe that we are so close. Chris tells me every day how much he wishes he could hold her for a while. And believe me I wish we could trade off! But then at lunch when I mentioned that we are close to a month away he seemed a little panicked. I am nervous about the delivery, but I am still holding strong to going in with the mindset of having a natural birth with no drugs. I feel, right now, that if I can make it 9 months whats a few hours. It at least will not last longer that 2 days. At this point that seems like a piece of cake after 8 months of pregnancy. But of course we will see and I might end up eating my own words.

May 16, 2010 Baby Shower

It was a beautiful day! Thank you to everyone for making it such a happy memory.

May 15, 2010 Belly Pictures

I asked my sister Lindsey to take some belly pictures for me. She has a very artistic eye for photographs. We went to Descanso Gardens. It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of fun.

Mother's Day Weekend

Last weekend was my first official, unofficial Mother's Day. The weekend started out a little rocky. I have been getting acid reflux, or possibly heart burn, I'm not sure which one, that will last for about 24 hours. On Friday we went to Michaels to pick up some more stencils for Layla's room and a frame for my moms Mother's day gift. The customer service at Michaels was ridicules. Chris and I were struggling trying to find a frame and the women working in the frame section refused to ask us if we needed help and the bathroom was locked by a code! So I was pretty irritated when we left and I still had to eat dinner with massive heart burn! We decided to drive through Burbank to see if any thing sounded good, we then moved to Tuluka Lake. When we hit Studio City I thought a milk shake and a real burger sounded good. We happened to drive by a restaurant on Ventura and Laural Cyn called The Counter. It is a create your own burger place. They had so many choices and the meat of the burger was amazing. I got a 1/3 (post cooking weight) sirloin burger with a herbed goat cheese spread, sun dried tomatoes, grilled onions, garlic aioli on a whole wheat bun! It was so good except that the tomatoes became a little over whelming. We also got half french fries and half onion strings and a choc shake. The food was so good and not badly priced at all. It was one of the funnest impromptu date nights ever!

Saturday my sisters, aunt and grandma came over to help paint Layla's room. We didn't finish but it looks so good already. I went to bed really early so I was up at 4am on Sunday.

Mali had gotten into her food and fed herself dinner the night before so while I was baking scones for Mother's Day I smelled the most god awful smell and it wasn't the dozen red roses that Chris got me for Mother's Day. Mali had diarrhea all over her kennel, floor and wall. Chris had to get up and hose her and everything down.  After I finish baking I steam cleaned all the carpets and washed down the kitchen and bath room floors. It was an exhausting start to the day. Mother's day brunch at my aunts house was great and delicious. It was really special meeting my aunt sister and family for the first time. And who could not love made to order omelets. We only had a few mins from that party to going to Chris's moms for dinner. Shannon and Willy made serf and turf and it was great. I spent a lot of time talking to Chris's mom about what to expect at delivery time. It was a great end to a long day. 

My biggest cravings are for nachos!

We are at the end of the 7th month of the pregnancy and I can't wait to hold baby Layla for the first time!

Layla's Room!

Chris here. So much has been getting done on Layla's bedroom. We have been getting so much help from everyone to help prep the room. It is now painted a very girly pink with garden theme stuff being hand painted in the wall. We have some very talented family! Here are some pictures.

May 3, 2010 - 30 WEEKS

We made it to 30 weeks. Layla is around 3 pounds and 17 inches long. Her brain is now starting to regulate her body temperature. We are having an ultrasound at the doctors in two weeks. After that we are going to go back to the 4D place and have them do an ultrasound for our family.

Lots of stuff has been going on. My mom came over yesterday and painted the entire baby's room . Right now it is just pink but all of my sister and hopefully my very talented aunts will be coming over next week to paint all of the bugs, flowers and our tree mural.

Also over the weekend I baked cakes for my doctors appointment. I wanted to bring something in as a thank you to all of them. Last time I saw them they wanted me to make a cake wreck. A cake wreck is a professional cake that has gone bad. I bet they didn't know what I was capable of. I made three cakes: lemon cake with lemon curd and berry filling, frosted in Italian butter cream; brown butter cake with carmeled almond butter cream; and butter cake with peanut butter filling and toasted marshmallow frosting. Only one of the three cake made it to the office. Any guesses??? Yep, the peanut butter and marshmallow. So what do you think happened to the other cakes? What could a professionally trained pastry chef with a degree from the La Cordon Blue possibly do to ruin two cakes? Well be prepared to laugh!
After all the cakes were assembled I started frosting a crumb coat on the lemon cake. I was a little put off by how brown the frosting was but I figured I must have added too much vanilla extract. When I put the cake back into the frig to chill I noticed a bowl of white frosting. I thought how strange I don't remember separating the frosting into so many batches?! I was about to mix the two "frostings" together when the cakes gods themselves showed up and said "Don't do it." I put everything back in the frig and started the dishes. Within a few minutes I was yelling profanity and ripping my dish washing gloves off. My mom was yelling from the babies room wanting to know what had happened. I ran down the hall and said, "I frosted my lemon cake with brown butter raw cake batter!" I knew at that moment that I could not in good conscious give this to the unsuspecting doctors office. My mom agreed but was willing to take the food poisoning chance and took the cake home for her and my step dad. I did scrape off as much of the cake batter as I possible could.
The peanut butter cake came out prefect so all that was left was to stack, fill and frost the brown butter cake. I will say that I was quite tired by this point and was ready to be done with my cakes. I made caramel added almonds and then ground them up into a fine powder and added them to the butter cream. As I was stacking and filling, the cakes kept collapsing. I put them in the freezer to harden and then everything seemed to be fine. I arrived at work with the two cakes and was really leery about putting them in the frig. After a few hours the brown butter cake started to melt and fall apart. I decided to take my chance and put them in the frig with all of the mens lunches from the shop. Then as I was leaving work I placed them in the middle of the back seat so they would get the optimum a/c action. As I was driving down Tujunga Cyn and hit a red light having to come to a quick stop. Right as I was pushing on the break I saw my cakes starting to take a nose dive. I reached behind me, like an idiot, to grab the cakes, while slamming on my breaks. The women behind me, sorry to who ever you were, was not happy and I thought she had hit me. I pulled over while trying to think of how I was going to explain this to the insurance company. Luckily she did not hit me but my brown butter cake was upside down under the passenger seat! I saved the peanut butter cake. I was covered in frosting pulled over in a red zone blocking traffic. I decided to just get to the doctors office where I would use my sweater to clean off my hands and steering wheel. I was so embarrassed to walk into the office, but after all they are the ones who ordered the cake wreck!