Chicken Spaghetti

I tried a new Chicken Spaghetti recipe that I found here. I thought it was relatively healthy (except for all the cheese) and yummy. I used whole wheat spaghetti and followed the suggestion of throwing in some veggies. I finely diced a zucchini and sauteed it with the onion and bell pepper so it would not be easily detected by veggie-averse toddlers. I forgot to add in cayenne pepper which I should have because I thought it could use a little more spice/flavor. Still good though, and Cambry liked it. Win! In other veggie news, Cambry ate 4-5 lima beans at lunch yesterday! Let's celebrate the small victories :)

(Sorry these photos do not look that appetizing but what is a blog post without pictures, right?)

Baby #2 Bumpdate: 20 Weeks

Whoa, halfway through the pregnancy! I feel like my belly is a lot bigger and higher this week.

How Far Along:  20 Weeks

Baby's Size:  Banana

Maternity Clothes: Yep!

Movement: A good amount of movement. Nothing you can see from the outside yet, but lots of little wiggles.

Sleep: Great. At least one bathroom trip a night though.

Symptoms: Still kind of nauseous sometimes but overall pretty good. I never really feel 100% normal though. With Cambry I think once the nausea went away I felt pretty much like my normal self. With this pregnancy I seem to feel tired and lightheaded a lot of the time.

Food Aversions/Cravings: Nothing specific lately.

Best Moment this Week: Finding out the gender and seeing her on the ultrasound!! It is so fun to finally know. Also, having a 3 day weekend which meant time spent with family and having Greg home for 3 1/2 days! (He came home early on Friday)

What I miss: Having energy. I still need a nap almost every day.

What I am Looking Forward to: Having another little girl :) I bought this today. I am such a sucker for headbands and bows.

Also, working on the nursery. We need to clear out the furniture first, so it could be a while before any real progress is made.

Nursery Plans

I love getting to decorate a nursery. Especially a little girl's nursery. The walls are currently painted a very pale blue. I really don't want to repaint them. So I found a picture on Pinterest of the cutest little girl's room with light blue walls and different shades of pink. This is my inspiration for the room.

Now, my nursery will look nothing like this because this room definitely looks like a professional designer did it and it looks like a lot of money was put into it. But at least it gives me some ideas. Here is the room currently with the light blue walls. 

I found a few fabrics I like so far. I think I am going to go with different shades of pink and coral and some gray. I love mixing different prints.

The first 3 I have the actual samples of, but the 3rd one I found online. It is pretty expensive so I am trying to find something similar but less expensive.

I also ordered this stencil from PBK and I plan to do one wall with this.

I am not sure yet what will go on the walls, but the little details can wait. For now I need to figure out all the fabrics and have the bedding made. I will post progress updates along the way.

Memorial Day Weekend Fun

We have had a fun and relaxing weekend. Greg's parents visited a couple of days and Cambry loved all the attention. We went to Discovery Green Park downtown on Saturday and let Cambry play on the playground and the splash pad. Then we ate lunch at the little cafe there and had some good burgers.

We ran a few errands later that day and went to look at fabrics for the crib bedding. I am so excited about the nursery. I will have to do another post on that later. Greg smoked a brisket and we just hung out and relaxed the rest of the day.

We all went to church on Sunday and Cambry dressed patriotically in her new dress from Nana.

Today we have just been running a few errands and spending some time outside. Cambry wants to be outside all the time even though it is getting so hot already. She was wearing another red white and blue outfit so I took some pictures. She wore this same dress last year for 4th of July. I can't believe the difference. I hardly recognize that little baby a year ago. Makes me look forward to having one that little again.

Baby Mattern #2 is a...

GIRL!!!

We are so excited! I can't believe we are going to have another precious girl! Doesn't Cambry look thrilled? Ha!

Greg's parents are here this weekend and my parents came over tonight for dinner too so we had them bite into cake balls to reveal the gender. So fun to see their reactions. Everyone is very excited of course.

I was secretly hoping for another little girl. I love little girls (obviously), love dressing them up, doing crafty things for them, and look forward to painting nails (oops, already painted Cambry's toe nails!), doing hair, and a million other girly things. I would love a little boy too and I especially would love for Greg to have a son. The mother daughter bond is so special so I would love for Greg to have that father son bond. Maybe the next one will be a boy :) Assuming we still want 3 after having 2...

I am so thankful to God that everything looked great on the ultrasound and we were able to tell the gender right away. The ultrasound Tech said she was sure - no doubt - that it was a girl. I am so happy for Cambry to have a sister. I am picturing them in cute matching outfits :) I am so curious to know if she will look like Cambry or not. But what are the chances of 2 brown eyed parents having another blue eyed girl? I am thinking this baby will probably have brown eyes, but we'll see.

She was adorable and wiggly on the ultrasound. It just makes it so much more real seeing how big she is and knowing she is a SHE. I am excited to start planning the nursery. Oh and names. Names are so hard but hopefully we can start brainstorming one we both really like.

Yay for another girl!

Baby #2 Bumpdate: 19 Weeks

How Far Along: 19 Weeks

Baby's Size:  Large heirloom tomato (what is that?) or a mango. Lets go with mango.

Maternity Clothes: Yes, mostly maternity clothes, or stretchy shirts

Movement: I feel the baby move throughout the day which I love. I can tell he/she is getting bigger and stronger.

Sleep: Great. At least one bathroom trip a night though.

Symptoms: Still kind of nauseous sometimes but overall pretty good.

Food Aversions/Cravings: Can't really think of anything specific this week. I got a cold on Sunday so food was sounding gross there for a couple days but now things seem back to normal.

Best Moment this Week: Found the double stroller I wanted on craigslist for a great price. It is the same one I have now except the double version. So excited! Cambry tried it out and liked it.

What I miss: Having energy. I still need a nap almost every day.

What I am Looking Forward to: Finding out the gender tomorrow!! Although I sometimes get a little worried we will not be able to find out. With Cambry they almost couldn't tell. I had to drink a glass of water, eat a granola bar, do squats, then drink a Dr. Pepper to get her to move into a good position for them to finally see her girl parts.

Boy or Girl?

I put up a voting button just for fun on guessing the gender. I am so excited to find out!! Four more days! Just for grins, here are a few of the old wives tales below that will maybe help you guess.

- It seems like people say that worse nausea means girl. I have been pretty nauseous this pregnancy and it has been pretty much the exact same as my pregnancy with Cambry. A random lady at the grocery store asked me if I had been feeling nauseous. She said, oh you are having another girl. With boys its like you don't even know you are pregnant. Haha, just makes me think of that show I Didn't Know I was Pregnant. Lady, do you know how big my stomach gets during pregnancy? Pretty sure that will always be a dead giveaway for me.

- They say a higher heart rate means girl and a lower heart rate means boy. I have read that this is completely not true and has no correlation, but again, these are just for fun.
8 weeks - 166 bpm
12 weeks - 172 bpm
16 weeks - 154 bpm

- According to the chinese gender prediction chart (on BabyCenter) I am having a girl. However they have a voting poll where people say if the calendar was correct or incorrect for them. More people said it was incorrect than correct, ha! So maybe that means its a boy. I looked it up for Cambry and it did say girl for her.

- They say if you are carrying high it's a girl, and low it's a boy. This past weekend a lady at a restaurant told me she thoughts I was having a boy because I was carrying low.This one just makes no sense to me. Why would your body carry a baby differently depending on their itty bitty parts? Still, I had tons of people try to guess Cambry's gender by the way I was carrying. Probably half the people told me girl and half told me boy. I still don't really know if I carry low or high so I'll let you be the judge. Here are my 17 and 18 week pictures again.

- Sweet vs. Salty. They say if you crave sweets it's a girl and if you crave salty it's a boy. I crave salty more than sweet.

Once again, I don't have a gut feeling. I did have a dream a couple weeks ago that it was a boy. Even so, I am going to guess girl - only because the pregnancies have been so similar. However, my sister's pregnancies were different so we thought #2 would be a girl but it ended up being another boy. I guess you just never know! Greg's guess is boy. Can't wait to find out! The ultrasound is Thursday and we tell our parents Friday so hopefully I can post it Friday night or Saturday.