As we scooped, trick or treaters started making their way around the neighborhood. Since it was the first Beggars Night in our home, we didn't know how many kids would stop by. Overall, we passed out candy to about 25 kids. Almost all of them had a joke prepared; some were pretty bad and some were pretty good. If you've never heard of Beggars Night or the tradition of telling a joke in order to get your candy, check out this article on the history of Des Moines' Beggars Night.
This may sound like no big deal, but raking your own leaves for the first time is a lot different than raking your parents' leaves for the umpteenth time. Lucas did all the prep work getting the leaves in piles. I came home just in time to help scoop them into the bags. Our 77-year-old neighbor let us borrow these awesome yellow plastic bear paws to help pick up the leaves. Wow, these things are amazing! How have I never heard of them before? They are so much more efficient than using your bare hands or trying to scoop with the rake.
As we scooped, trick or treaters started making their way around the neighborhood. Since it was the first Beggars Night in our home, we didn't know how many kids would stop by. Overall, we passed out candy to about 25 kids. Almost all of them had a joke prepared; some were pretty bad and some were pretty good. If you've never heard of Beggars Night or the tradition of telling a joke in order to get your candy, check out this article on the history of Des Moines' Beggars Night.
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Back in the days of trick or treating, I remember mapping out my route block-by-block and house-by-house. Not all of my friends lived in my neighborhood, so we’d plan which neighborhoods we’d hit and coordinate rides from our parents. There was only so much time in the afternoon and too much candy to leave out there unclaimed. If only there was a better way…
Enter Trunk or Treat. I had never heard of such an event until last year. Maybe I’ve been living in the shadows or maybe it’s a new(er) idea. The idea is simple: park a bunch of vehicles in a parking lot and pass out candy. Instead of having to walk from house to house, you have to walk from parking spot to parking spot. On Sunday my church Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church in West Des Moines hosted a Truck or Treat. Instead of just having cars with candy, we also had activities and popcorn and drinks. The West Des Moines Fire Department even came with a truck and parachuted candy down from the ladder. Lucas and I took our car over to set up shop, as well. We placed five buckets in our trunk and covered them up. One had candy, the other had mystery foods playing the roles of a brain, heart, eyeballs and intestines. The kids had to use their hands – without looking – to feel around until they found the candy. Most of the 100 kids were willing to give it a go with just a handful not being the adventurous type. Those kids made a killing in less than two hours. The event seemed particularly well suited for adults with children under the age of two. They could walk from car to car or easily be pushed in a stroller or wagon without the parents feeling like they ran a race. There are at least a half dozen other trunk or treat events going on at local churches this week. If you've never attended one, I'd highly recommend it. Week 15 Recap After feeling pretty crappy last week and dealing with a range of growing pains, this week was much better. I dealt with a minor headache just one day. It's normal to have headaches and sometimes a bit of caffeine can help them go away. However, I realized I had caffeine the two days I got headaches. Not sure if that's a coincidence or cause and effect. To be honest, I don't want to find out. I've been having caffeine twice a week and am now likely just to stay away from it altogether - or at least until I find another possible link to my headaches. I did see a noticeable lack of energy this week. I went to bed by 9:30pm every night. Lucas and I read to Baby Spud for the first time this week. A buddy gave us a bag of children's books so we picked the "best" for pre-natal reading time including Huggly's Pizza and Never Too Little To Love. I'm sure Spud loved them. Week 16 Preview
I'm hopeful I get another resurgence in energy this week. It makes each day just that much easier when you can actually make it through without wanting to sleep the whole time. I had my 16 week appointment and all appeared well. Baby Spud's heartbeat was 148 beats/minute. My mom swears by the old wives tale that a low heartbeat means a boy and a high heartbeat means a girl. The heartbeat can range from 120-180. I haven't had any dreams or feelings whether it's a boy or girl. We will find out the gender, though, in just four more weeks. I also look forward to the first time feeling Spud move! It should sometime between now and week 20. Baby Bump After feeling like I grew quite a bit last week and having my innie-outie belly bottom already pop a bit, the bump has stayed the same this week. I thought I gained a pound or so last week, but then I lost it. I'm still below my pre-pregnancy weight. My doctor said it's not a concern now. I'm sure in a few months when I get huge, I'll be wishing I was still small! My sister-in-law tied the knot back in March. I offered to shoot the ceremony and create a wedding video. She loved the idea. She's been very patient as I kept telling her the video was on the way. This weekend - finally - proved to be the right time. I wasn't traveling and only had a few commitments I could work around. When it comes to editing video, I have to be in the right mood. It's like any other creative outlet. If you're not feeling creative, it's not going to turn out. I was feeling it this weekend and am happy to have already gotten her a three-minute "highlight" video, which I shared here. (I do not own the rights to the song in the video - A Thousand Years by Christina Perri.)
I also created a full-length video for the Mr. and Mrs. This video starts with the seating of the grandparents and ends with the couple driving away from the church. In case, tomorrow or years down the road, they want to re-live the ceremony moment-for-moment, they can. The 30-minute video leaves nothing out - including a few funny bloopers from the pastor. I edited my own wedding video, but this was the first time I edited someone else's wedding video. It was fun to create, and I'm happy I can provide these memories... for free. The amount of money wedding videographers charge is pretty crazy. I like to think I'm off to a good start with one happy client. Enjoy! Week 14 Recap In my blog post last week, I thought the worst I'd have to deal with in week 14 was light-headedness when standing up too fast. Oh no, this has been a not-so-fun week. Dreams It started out fine enough with just a few very vivid baby dreams. Now, if you have ever had the pleasure of waking up in the same room as me, you've probably heard one of my crazy dreams. I can remember dreams I've had since I was a child; I remember them practically every morning. This week's dreams included smoking and bungee jumping while pregnant, blacking out for an entire night and trying to piece it back together while pregnant and that another couple didn't love their baby and wouldn't take him in public because he had special needs. Yikes! I didn't get much rest those nights. Pain Then, constipation hit on Wednesday and Thursday along with pelvic pain. My research shows constipation is normal because the pre-natal vitamins back you up and at the same time your uterus is growing and taking up valuable real estate. I turned to high fiber foods like raw fruit and increased my water intake. In case that wasn't enough, I also ate McDonald's and had a cup of coffee. It worked! After feeling great for a few hours, I foolishly didn't eat a good lunch. I took chili to work and it just wasn't hitting the spot. I was surprisingly not super hungry so I just munched on crackers and peanuts. This was not a great idea. I ended up with a headache and kidney pains. They continued for the rest of the evening. I decided skipping lunch and a growing uterus was probably throwing me off as my research shows kidney pains aren't typical during pregnancy. I told myself if I woke up with pain, I'd call the doctor. However after eating dinner and getting a long night's sleep, by the morning the pain had subsided.
For the past four years, I've dressed up for a big Halloween party at my gymnastics club UDSGC in Urbandale. We've had up to 60 kids come party with us - all in their costumes. I'm not one to shy away from costumes so I've dressed up as well, playing a lumberjack, dark fairy, cheerleader and now a witch. That's Lucas being a super cool stormtrooper from Star Wars. I'm sure all (most) of you reading this blog post could have guessed that, but he drew blank stares from several child under the age of five or was confused for Darth Vader himself.
As we perused Halloween Express for costumes hours before the party, we had one mission in mind: don't spend $75 on a costume. My witch costume was on sale for just $15 and the stormtrooper ensemble was $25. As we were about to checkout, I realized this is the first time I've ever be a witch for Halloween. I just never had a desire to be such as cliche. While I pride myself in originality, I also pride myself in frugality. This also partially fulfilled Lucas' goal of dressing up as someone for Star Wars. While not his ideal, it was the best he could do for less than $75. The best part for him - when I ask him to take a picture with me, he doesn't have to smile. Week 13 Recap Goodbye first trimester. Week 13 was the final week of the first trimester. It went pretty well besides gagging on mouthwash. I took a swig of minting freshness from the bottle and began swishing. After 10 seconds, I spit it out and continued to dry heave for two minutes. I'm not sure what exactly set my body off, but I am not interesting in finding out. No more mouthwash for me in the near future. One of the great things about Des Moines is that we have plenty of restaurants to check out. My goal is to eat at every place in the metro. While I'm not sure that will ever happen, a girl can sure try. Another place to check off the list is the new Saints Pub + Patio by Jordan Creek Town Center. This is the third Saints in the metro and is in the old Mavericks/Maddy's Again location. I had not heard of this third pub until a friend recently mentioned it to me. Turns out, it just opened in July.
Lucas and I hung out there on Saturday to watch some football. He ordered the pretzel bacon burger and I got the French dip with seasoned waffle fries. Both meals were awesome. The French dip had a great flavor and the au jus was a perfect complement. The pretzel bun added a little something extra to a juicy burger and crispy bacon. I believe the menu is the same at the other two pubs as well. It's a nice, open set up with lots of pub tables and TVs. The staff was very accommodating to put our game on a couple screens while the Iowa game took up almost all the other TVs. It also wasn't packed, which meant we didn't have to rush out of there. All in all, we're looking forward to going back. Being a homeowner is fun, right? You have four walls all to yourself, a driveway, a yard and all the responsibilities to keep it running. Besides replacing our roof, which we knew we'd have to do, we recently had our first test as homeowners: a clogged kitchen sink. Discovery Family weekend at the Wardenburg's ended with a big home-cooked meal and some potato skins down the garbage disposal. My mom even commented how great it is that our disposal could handle potato peels. Well, the disposal handled them fine, but we now think they were the straw that broke the camel's back. Instead of water backing up into the kitchen sink, we found out that the pipe that hooked up to an old dishwasher is still tied into the sink line but not capped up on the other end. This allowed water to back up into this pipe and spill onto our basement floor. Awesome. Home warranty The house came with a one-year HSA home warranty so we decided to give the warranty folks a call to see if this would be covered. They wouldn't know if they would cover it until the cause of the clog was determined by a professional - of their choosing. They sent over The Plumbing Company to diagnosis the problem. He cut our pipe and tried to use his hand-held snake to plow through the clog. To no avail, he suggested we might have a caved-in pipe and could possibly need to jack hammer up the basement floor to replace that part of the pipe. The home warranty folks said they may be able to cover that if the cave-in was in such and such place so only so far underground. Bullshit. A second opinion
As a first time homeowner, I couldn't believe this was possible. I wanted a second opinion. Lucas talked to his very handy, capable, smart father for advice while I did the same. Unfortunately neither of their strength's is plumbing. Fortunately, when I called my dad, my uncle was standing right there. He said he knows a guy in Grimes/Madrid who will take good care of us. Lucas called up Kevin at Kevin Evans Plumbing, who said he'd swing by to check it out. Within 30 minutes of using his snake with an electric motor, he had unclogged the so-called "caved-in" pipe. He placed a rubber coupler around the cut in the pipe and said we should be good to go for a long time. Amazing! On top of that, he didn't even charge us! He just said my uncle owed him dinner. We still purchased a restaurant gift card for him because not paying anything at all to not jack hammer our floor is unacceptable. While a gift card isn't justice for his services, he did just earn a new customer for future services and referrals. Diagnosis Kevin didn't deny that was one tough clog. We told him a little old lady had lived here previously and then the house sat empty for nearly four months before we moved in. He said that makes sense because all the grease, food and crap that got stuck over the years had four months to harden and solidify. The potato peels were just too much for the pipe. Takeaways Kevin says don't put potato peels or pasta down the garbage disposal. Everything else is usually fine, even egg shells. Glad to learn that now! In the end, we didn't have to file a claim with the home warranty people. Most of the warranties are pretty limited, and they'll find anyway possible to not cover your claims. Glad the seller paid for it and not us. Many of us – including myself – have become slaves to the number of likes, comments, retweets, favorites and even +1’s we receive for every post. With this unnecessary pressure we’ve put on ourselves, expecting parents have found 1,000,001 ways to announce their awesome news on social media. Sans the cakes, baby shoes and non-existent baby bumps, I will simply say: Lucas and I are expecting a baby in April 2015! We're super pumped to make our family of two a family of three! Blog it out I’ve been bursting at the seams to tell the world we’re having a baby. Lucas and I decided to wait until the three-month mark to make it public, which is very normal. But as a blogger, I feel this is an especially long time to wait. I’m used to blogging about much of my (and our) life. Even though I’ve been extremely tired the past two months with no energy to write, it’s been very hard to not blog about my experiences. I know there are a million mommy blogs out there; I’m not here to become the next expert on growing/raising a child. I’m here to share my experiences, just like I have for the past three years. For me, my blog is practically a journal. When I look back in 10 years, I’ll have so much of my life documented and preserved; it’s going to be awesome. On that note, you can still expect my blog to be filled with completely random new experiences in my life. This will not transform into a baby-only blog. The past three months I don’t know what’s more nerve-wrecking: waiting for the result when you are trying to get pregnant or waiting for the result when you are not trying to get pregnant. I can only speak to the former and let me tell you – that was one of the longest minutes of my life. Lucas was sitting on the bathroom floor, and I was pacing as we waited. I passed the stick to him with a smile on my face. Neither of us screamed in joy or cried in happiness, we were just… part surprised, part happy, part scared to death, part amazed. While we like to think we’re ready for a child, is anyone ever really ready? I feel blessed it was easy for us to get pregnant, but the hard part comes in growing the embryo into a human being. There are more things pregnant women shouldn’t do besides drink and smoke. I’ve already had a few hiccups like soaking in a hot tub and eating cold deli meat, undercooked steak and undercooked eggs. Changing my diet has also included decreasing my caffeine consumption, which makes for some groggy mornings. Weeks 6-9 were pretty tough. Fatigue hit me hard (on top of no coffee) and nausea followed every meal. Fortunately, I haven’t actually thrown up – that would have made it a lot harder to hide it at work as we have just one bathroom with multiple stalls. Now going into the second trimester, my energy is pretty much back but my stomach is still a bit sensitive. Quick and easy foods like pop tarts, granola bars and soups are no longer appealing to me while fresh fruits and salads sound delicious. Instead of bigger meals, I’m eating smaller portions about six times a day, which really helps with the sensitivity. Baby bump Week 13: I’m starting to get that bloated feeling. When I wake up in the morning with an empty stomach, my tummy looks normal. Once I eat breakfast, it stays a little bigger all day. There’s no more sucking in. Maybe I’m being unfair, but I’m not counting this as “showing.” I’ll post my first tummy picture in the next week or two – regardless of how big (or small) I am. A few promises As I continue on this journey of growing a human inside my body, you can expect me to be pretty open about it all. I'll share things like how I’m feeling, pictures of my growing belly, working on the nursery, finding out the gender, picking a name and the delivery, to name a few. I have some wonderful friends who are moms who have promised to keep it real with me because they had no idea about the not-so-great-things that come with pregnancy and motherhood. I promise to keep it real with you too. One thing I promise not to share: sonograms. Part of me is still freaked out by 3D sonograms and the other part of me believes a picture of my unborn child is just too amazing and too private to share with the whole wide world. Awesome hair
Based on our baby photos, we're also pretty pumped that our child is going to have one awesome head of hair! |