Yes! Fall!!

Ahh, fall, my fav season. I feel like I should love summer best. I don't. It's autumn I love, the season of my birth. I love everything about fall- the cool evenings, leaves changing colors, pumpkin anything, getting to wear jeans and sweaters again, the start of school and the memories of how exciting that always was (esp cross country running starting), Halloween coming, Thanksgiving coming... AND this year, the start of my second trimester, during which I'm supposed to start feeling more energetic and during which the exciting things happen- feeling the baby move, baby starts being able to hear us, finding out the baby's sex...
This week, I'm finishing up Week 13.  Fingerprints have formed on baby's tiny fingertips, veins and organs are clearly visible through still-thin skin, and baby's body is starting to catch up with the head — which makes up just a third of the body size now. If it's a girl, she now has more than 2 million eggs in her ovaries (CRAZY, right!). Baby is almost 3 inches long and weighs nearly an ounce.

I doubt it's obvious to anyone else but to me (and Matt), I'm starting to "show" just a little, though it looks more like a little beer belly. I just keep telling myself that it's surely baby belly since my OB said I hadn't yet gained any weight. I just know it's hard to suck it in now.

This plastic baby is actually a bit smaller than our baby is now. It's a 11-12 week model that Matt was very excited to get at this pro-life booth at the state fair. I don't think they were very excited for us because Matt wasn't interested in joining their cause or taking any literature (though that was offered at least 3x), just a plastic baby. I resisted the urge to make off-color jokes like "well, I guess this baby is pretty cute... maybe I will cancel that little appointment for next week." Anyhow.

Labor Day weekend, we tried to get out and do some things. I'm still exhausted every other day so Saturday, I had to lie low, except that we had a wedding to attend in the evening, my college buddy Brandon. It was a sweet ceremony; they seem very much in love, and all of the groomsmen were our other college buds. I think it's sweet how long they've all been friends and it was nice to see those guys. They were my guys and although they were mainly my party buds, they did somewhat look out for me and I'm glad I reconnected with them a few years ago. Oh, and I rocked my dress in a whole new way ;)

Ohh AND I took first place in our college football pickem league for Week 1. I know! And the menfolk probably thought it was just dumb luck last year. Nope.

So luckily the next day, I felt pretty good because we went to the State Fair! When Matt and I were first dating in 2010, we went to the fair and had a dandy time. It was fun to relive a few of those memories, but now more open with being in love :)

We drove over with my parents and that was really fun. We had to go off on our own a few times since Matt's way of looking at things like the photography display is to walk as quickly as possible past (perhaps to make it seem like motion pictures); irritating. I mean, some things like the cake displays could've been a lot better, especially if you could taste them, but that's part of the joy and misery of the state fair with my parents- getting to see things like the canned good awards. Kinda interesting, kinda awful ;) Well, at least as a kid in tow it was. Now, I wouldn't have minded spending more time looking at the crafts, etc.

But... check out how cute these ducklings are!! I want 10!

The whole reason I wanted to go to the fair- hand-dipped corndogs. Yes, they are THAT good. I'm not really supposed to eat hot dogs but I made an exception.

Btw, look at the 2010 pics- doesn't this look like the EXACT same shirt on Matt?! It's not. Scary enough, he has a lot of shirts that are nearly identical. Cute, but nearly identical.

So, here's something not awesome so far about being pregnant- I've been eating fairly healthy foods, being really conscious of that. But I figured this one day, I'd let myself splurge a little. Except I get full REALLY quickly. So the whole day there, I only got to enjoy 1 corndog, 1 ice cream bar, and part of a plate of Hawaiian chicken on rice, and part of a fruit smoothie. I was planning on corn on the cob and pie and all kinds of other wonderful fair foods. But I just couldn't fit them. Has my stomach shrunk?

I dunno what it is about this pig but it seems to be Matt's highlight.

This was from 2010 but look at the grin on his face!

Everyone's other favorite part, unanimously, was the dog jumping contest. So cute. Of course, after we'd gotten separated and our cell phones weren't working well, Mom texted me that they were at dog joking. Took me awhile to figure that out. Watch this dog jump 22.8 feet (he was the leader when we left, just before the finals). A-mazing.

Which reminds me... we need to start amping up on Ellie's training for the Oktoberfest wiener dog races.

The only thing I missed doing was the chairlift. We did it in 2010, tres romantique.

Matt bought me a souvenir hat :)

 

We all had a fine time, well worth the drive. And look how cute my parents are!

So naturally, the next day, I was exhausted so thankfully we had the day off. I was pretty emotional about quite a few things. Bleh. Not much else to speak of the rest of the week. Mom and I have been walking a lot, which helps because most mornings I wake up really stiff in the hips/lower back. 

Ugh, this week I did go through my closet though and tried on a bunch of clothes that don't fit now. I keep telling myself it's cause of this pregnancy but it's still a bit discouraging when I can't even pull my jeans up past mid-thigh. Seriously, am I putting on weight in my thighs and butt?? I can tell that my hips are getting wider; Matt bought me two cute dresses from one of his customers, thinking that they would stretch (no, they're linen) and one is so unbelievably tight in the hips and the other in the top; those have never been problems before. So I put all my "post-baby" clothes into a different container; it helps to go to my closet and actually be able to find the things that do fit without picking through. On Friday, I went through wearing three skirts (luckily I work from home so I can change) because this cute skirt that fit me like 2 weeks ago now only fits when I'm standing but as soon as I sat down to work, I felt like someone had rubberbands strapped as tightly as possible around my stomach and I started to feel nauseous. Then the next skirt was okay for awhile then suddenly unbearably uncomfortable. Luckily the third one was elastic-waisted. I'm down to one pair of jeans, one pair of shorts, and one bra (and several skirts that thankfully my mom put elastic waists in a few weeks ago). So... I may have to start buying a few maternity items when it gets colder, which is anytime now.

This weekend we harvested most of our garden, anticipating colder nights ahead. We got a few red potatoes (we planted these way too late and in too shallow of a pot), lots of radishes (seriously Matt, what are we going to do with so many), a few more carrots (this was our 2nd harvest) and a lot of basil and chives. We just picked a few tiny tomatoes too. We have some squash, and cucumbers we think, that have blossoms but we're not sure if we'll get anything ripe in time. Next week we'll start sooner; we learned a lot.

I made Matt's fav taco soup for dinner so now it really feels like fall. Yeh, it's worth sharing the recipe here: 1lb browned ground beef, 1 can black beans (undrained), 1 can kidney beans (undrained), 1 can red beans (undrained), 1 can corn (undrained) or you could use fresh or frozen corn, 1 can diced tomatoes, 1 pkg taco seasoning and 1 pkg dry ranch dressing mix. It's like a non-spicy chili. I try to buy all low sodium items. Matt serves it with Fritos (which sounds gross, but it's actually amazing) and a little grated cheese.

Tomorrow, officially second trimester! Time is sorta flying.