17.5 Weeks

I found a less messy bathroom where I can take bump photos (the guest bathroom, obviously).  Hooray!  I'm 17 and a half weeks pregnant in this photo.  When I'm not doing the "bump photo hand pose," it's not noticeable to strangers, I'm sure.  My growing belly is very noticeable to me, though!

I bought a Snoogle yesterday and woke up with a horribly stiff neck this morning.  Those things are supposed to help you sleep better?  Do women use that instead of a pillow entirely?  Help - I need tips!

(This is one of my maternity dresses from Ann Taylor Loft, and I love it.)

The Last of the St. Martin Pics

Now that it's been about three weeks since we've been back from St. Martin, it's probably high time I finished posting our pictures.  This post is actually made up of all photos my dad took (which is why they are so perfect).

I'm not sure who, but I suspect my mom, asked the gardener to cut us open some coconuts.  (It may have actually been a request to tell us how to determine if they are ripe, and then it somehow turned into him cutting us down three coconuts.)  I did not partake in any of the coconut drinking, as I figured my doctor probably wouldn't be thrilled if I told her I got sick in a foreign country by drinking out of random coconuts.

Here is a view of our villa, taken from the shallow end of the pool.

Rainbows are common in St. Martin since there is usually at least one rain shower a day.  Capturing the rainbow in the pool is less common.

Here is the whole crew on Pinel Island.  Thanks for another great trip, everyone!

Sunbathing

It's the week before Harper's haircut, which mean she is at her height of cuteness.

I was around the house late this morning killing time before my 11:00 doctor's appointment, and the light was perfect for snapping some shots of our cutie.  (She was clearly less enthused about the photo shoot.)

The doctor's appointment went well, and we got to hear the baby's heartbeat again.  Always the most beautiful sound!

Even dogs occasionally blink for the camera.  She gets this from John.

This is the look I was getting by the end of our run.  The very clear "Are we done yet?" look.  Let's hope our baby is a little more tolerant of a clicking camera.

The Fam in St. Martin

I am posting this from John's (well technically "our") Mac, and let's just say I'm finding it a bit of a challenge.  I have no idea how to make scroll-down bars appear, so I keep pressing the down arrow to get anywhere.  It's pathetic.  I don't have a disk drive built into my laptop, and I'm too lazy to plug in the external one I have.  So really it's my own fault, but someone please explain to me why the ever-so-allegedly-wonderful Macs do not have scroll-down bars on the right-hand side automatically?  WHY??

My dad somehow got John's sister and brother-in-law to do this dorky pose.  I have learned, in all my years of photography with my dad, if you do a dorky pose, you will regret it.

Here is the whole gang out to dinner at an amazing French restaurant whose name I couldn't spell if my life depended on it.  This place has the best dessert of all time - "the unnameable chocolate dessert."  It's a pastry shell filled with vanilla ice cream and deep fried balls of fudge.  Yeah, I just said that.

John and his bro-in-law strike a pose, how cute.

I used to consider this dress loose and almost too baggy to wear without a belt.  While on the trip, squeezing myself into it, I realized I am not going to be wearing it (or any of my other dresses) for a long time.

14 Week Bump

I'm actually 16 weeks pregnant today, but since I just got my hands on my dad's photos from St. Martin, I figured I might as well post this 14 week bump picture.  I doubt I'll have any more belly bump pictures in quite this nice a setting!  My bump is definitely bigger now, such that John actually acknowledges I look pregnant.  People at work have said "I see baby" and someone (ahem, Ray) asked if I were SIX MONTHS pregnant.  Pretty sure I don't look that huge yet!

A New Kind of Shopping

So I have officially ventured into the world of maternity wear.  And that world is small.  Way too small, if you ask me.  Very few stores make maternity clothes, and even fewer actually carry it in their stores.  (Why is there no J. Crew maternity??)  I went to Target and Baby Gap to scout out their maternity options, and left with enough clothes to get me through the week.  The only problem is - what am I going to do next week?

I'm not that big yet, and I certainly don't need to change everything I wear.  Let me tell you though, maternity pants feel about a thousand times better than the pants I've been squeezing myself into for the past couple weeks.  Even my regular yoga pants were getting a little snug in the what-happened-we-used-to-get-along-so-well-yoga-pants way.  So now that I'm wearing clothes that are comfortable, I am not exactly keen on alternating between the sausage look and the normal look.  It's time to get serious in my maternity clothes shopping.

I'll try to snap a picture of some of my maternity clothes sometime soon.  And if anyone had any suggestions for where to get maternity clothes appropriate for a business casual law firm, I'm all ears (with a bit of belly)!

Santa's Little Helper

One of the hardest things about vacationing (okay, the only hard thing), is leaving Harper behind.  We knew she was in great hands because she was with David and Joyce, but we stilled missed her terribly.

Luckily for us this year, the villa next door had a dog that was all too eager to come hang out with us.  John named her Santa's Little Helper, after the dog from The Simpsons.

She looked a lot like Santa's Little Helper and seemed to have some of the same personality traits.  Those traits included stealing swimming goggles to make them a new toy, and snatching a piece of pizza from a low table when no one was around.

I would not say SLH has a "good" dog, but she was a sweet one that loved human attention and interaction.

Those of us who left our pooches at home were thrilled to have some canine companionship, and Santa's Little Helper provided just that.  When we were leaving at 6:30 AM she even came over to say goodbye.  Enjoy the good life in St. Martin, Santa's Little Helper!

A Few St. Martin Pictures

We are back from St. Martin, and instead of getting ready for work I am posting a few pictures of our trip.  (The internet was out at our villa all week, which is why I didn't get to post these earlier.)

I literally only took a handful of photos (instead of my usually 600) since my dad was around to memorialize the trip.  Once I get his CD of photos next week I will post a better sampling of the trip.

The weather was great, the villa was wonderful, and the company couldn't be beat.

While sitting under the umbrella I read through the first book of Game of Thrones, and I'm a tad obsessed.  I ordered Book 2 and can't wait to dive in on Wednesday when it arrives.

The baby will grow up to have a very fine French palate since I fed her almost entirely on chocolate croissants and chocolate twists from the French bakery. She was a fan.

It was a wonderful vacation - we had a hard time leaving such a magical place!