15 weeks... and a bit of life in general

I meant to post last week separately from my preggo posts about the life of Mike and Jenn aside from pregnancy, but I never finished it. I was tired of typing on the computer at the time. I will just do a brief summary of what I intended to write about- We spent a lot of my vacation week working on the yard, which was fun. We weeded out the circle in our front year that has roses in it (we kind of let it go pretty bad), and laid down some weed cover and white rocks, so now it looks pretty : ) And we are trying to figure out this citrus tree in our backyard- at first we thought it was limes, but the other day we cut one open- it is orange on the inside and smells like a tangerine, but the skin is still dark green, and they seem "ripe"- the pulp of the fruit buldges out when you cut it with juice. But it is sour tasting- with just a bit of sweetness. Thought maybe they would get riper, and turn orange, but they seem so ripe now..... we are thinking they are some sort of hybrid, because I looked it up and couldn't find anything. Here is a picture:

Any ideas?? We are a bit baffled. But our friend Angelo did use them to cook some chicken in, and let me tell you, it was delicious. Remember my cravings for meat and citrus fruits? Yup, hit the spot : D

Anyways, can't think of much else interesting going on in life now. Onto the 15 week description from babycenter.com....

Your growing baby now measure about 4 inches long crown to rump, and weighs in at about 2.5 ounces, about the size of an apple (or navel orange according to thebump.com). Baby is busy moving amniotic fluid through the nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps primitive air sacs in the lungs develop. Legs have grown longer than arms now, and baby can move all its joints and limbs. Although eyelids are fused shut, baby can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, for instance, baby is likely to move away from the beam. There's not much for your baby to taste at this point, but taste buds are starting to form. Finally, if you have an ultrasound this week, you may be able to find out whether your baby is a boy or a girl! Don't be too disappointed if it remains a mystery though- nailing down baby's sex depends on the clarity of the picture and on baby's position. He or she may be modestly curled up or turned in such a way to "hide the goods."

As for me, my energy is starting to come back- I mowed the whole lawn by myself today! That is a first since becoming pregnant. I usually have Mike or one of the other boys here do half for me, or if no one is home, I only mow the front : D But today I did the whole thing, and he only did the weed-eater. I was so proud of myself! But here are a few things that helped with that- for one, it is a bit less muggy today than it has been in a while; two, our neighbor did mow a portion of our side lawn on his side the other day, so I got to skip that part. But here is my tummy at 15 weeks:

Baby is getting heavy to me. I can feel my tummy stretching a bit, and I had to get a body pillow for my hips at night. I can feel them moving out of their normal placing, and they get achy and sore at night when I am sleeping. Mike has started contemplating sleeping on the couch... : ( Apparently I am beginning to take over the bed a lot at night.

That's all I got for now. Time for breakfast and a normal Sunday routine of laundry and hanging out at home being lazy!

Taxes and this weekend

We finally got our tax return- being a first time home buyer paid off this year- we got the additional homer buyer's stimulus with our tax return! Which is exactly what we needed. At first we were talking about redoing our kitchen with the money, and then we agreed that we have a few debts we need paid off before we go about spending a bunch of money making our dream kitchen. So we sent a bunch of money at bills and other debts. Mike is hoping to get his motorcycle soon- he has been talking and dreaming about it a lot lately. He has been wanting a motorcycle since he was sixteen- well, before that really, but realistically he has been thinking about getting one for a while. We have been talking about babies lately- when are we going to start trying, you know- and we did come to the agreement that he gets a motorcycle before we start trying. As silly as it sounds, it makes sense- he doesn't want to start the parent thing, and then have all these excuses as to why we shouldn't spend the money on a motorcycle for him. Kids are expensive, and we both know we would be putting their needs first, of course, so I am totally ok with letting Mike spend the money on a motorcycle now (as long as we have the money!) so that we don't put it last later on down the line. 

Here is Mike sitting on the one he wants at the Harley shop.

The trick now is getting him back to work- we have the money thing worked out perfec

tly after the tax return- but only if he goes back to work. If not, his bike money we have set aside, unfortunately, will probably need to pay the bills this month. We both have our fingers crossed that he will be going back to work soon- he has been onshore for 7 weeks now, exactly as long as we have had our house. 

We had a good weekend this last weekend. Saturday was spent grocery shopping, watching movies, cleaning... We bought Twilight, even though I have already seen it, I wanted to watch it again. So Mike was sweet and watched it with me. Then I cleaned the house, which was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. It had been almost 2 weeks since I had cleaned. After that Mike and I watched another movie, called Role Models. It was pretty funny. After that we went to meet up with our friend Matt and played some pool. Then we went to meet with some other friends, a girl I work with named Samantha and her boyfriend Neal and played pool with them. It was a fun day. Yesterday we went to the tattoo shop that Josh has been apprenticing at- he finally got to do his first "professional" tattoo at the shop, and Mike got to be his guinea pig. Josh has been drawing a lot and he got to try tattooing on grapefruits, but this was the first time they let him use the tattoo gun on a person : )

Mike got two coi on his calf, together like a pisces symbol. Josh put some shading on it too but I didn't get a good picture of it. 

I also got my tragus pierced while we were there, and bought some rings for the other ear piercing that I have. 

Before we went to the tattoo shop, I mowed the lawn. I wanted to post some pics of our yard, because we have been slowly but steadily making improvements to it. We planted some geraniums in front of the mailbox after the tulips died, and last week when Mike mowed the lawn he put down some southern lawn weed and feed, so our grass is getting a little greener and a little less weedier. 

About a month ago, Mike planted a little garden- tomatoes in the back, and in the front there is mint, rosemary, cilantro, lavender, and basil. We had some gnarly rain last week, and it really helped our little garden grow! Soon I will be cutting some of the herbs and drying them. And hopefully our little tomato plant gives us some fruit : )

So that's about it for now. Figured I'd update and put some pics up. Things are going pretty good, so not much else to say for now : D

SNOW!

I forgot to add last week, it snowed!!! Yep, right here in Southwest Lousisiana we had about an inch of snow. Crazy, huh? People were so funny to watch, it was obvious they had never made snowmen or really played in the snow before, it was great. The snow was gone by about 2 pm, but we had fun with it while it lasted! 

Mike got his new gun!

Mike got home Friday morning from being offshore- not sure if he'll be in through Thanksgiving, but my fingers are crossed!!

So Mike was excited about his last paycheck, and he's been wanting to get his own gun for a while now- I got a gun about a year or so ago and learned how to use it- for my protection since I'm home alone a lot. It's a Smith and Wesson .38cal  snub nose 5 shot revolver. I like it : ) 

So I told him we could afford for him to get his gun finally this month- he picked out a Smith and Wesson also, his is .40cal semi-automatic. He likes his a lot : )

We have a friend Tim who works at the apartments that we live in, our roommate Josh works with him so that's how we got to know him. He lives out in the boonies, so when Mike told him he was getting a new gun, he offered to have us come out to his house, he lives on a bunch of acreage where he shoots his guns off for practice fairly often. We figured this was a much cheaper alternative that going to the shooting range where I first learned- it can get pretty expensive there! And the bonus was that Tim let us try some of his guns too- Josh shot a shotgun for his first time, I shot a .22cal rifle, Mike and Josh both shot a .50cal muzzle loader. I should have gotten more pictures of the guns, but I mostly just got a few of us shooting and some videos as well. Here there are, thought you would enjoy viewing our day today! : )

Mike

Josh

Josh and Tim

Me