24 weeks

Brodie took this picture last week, but being the procrastinator that I am, I am just posting it now when I am almost 25 weeks. Oh well.

It has been a pretty good week. Baby is still making her presence known with lots of rolling and kicking and jabbing. One of our favorite things to do lately is to pull up my shirt and watch her move around like a little fish in there. Creepy and amazing at the same time

We hosted our first Thanksgiving and it was a success! I made my first turkey, and it actually turned out very well. I found a recipe while watching America's Test Kitchen the week before, and just decided to go for it and was shocked that it turned out so good. The recipe can be found here:

http://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/detail.php?docid=20850&extcode=M**ASCA00

My mom, Bill, James, Natalie, Josh, and my Dad came over and it was fun to have a small group-less pressure for the chef! I did have help with the other dishes, and my mom helped me pull everything together at the end. Overall it was a great day.

I also attended a week end class for Thai Massage yesterday and Friday. It was so cool. I am really looking forward to practicing this modality more. On the first day I got sick and dizzy from having this style of massage done on me, but then for some reason yesterday was much better. It can get a little intense with lots of compressions which during pregnancy can make you feel even more dizzy than you already feel. My partner eased up the pressure a bit yesterday, and it ended up just feeling amazing.

We have started working on baby's nursery (finally!) and I will do a separate post with lots of pictures. Brodie is in her room right now taping off some aspen trees that we are going to paint over in gray. I think it will be really cute, and I can't believe we are doing this for our actual daughter....who will be here in three and a half months! It's too crazy to believe, but it also feels very natural.

I have been experiencing a little back pain and hip pain, but nothing too bad. I'm also experiencing pain in my kidneys, which is definitely not fun but at this stage of pregnancy aches and pains are just part of the package, and I would not trade any of it. (get back to me in the middle of attempting natural childbirth and ask me if I still feel that way) Overall, I think the exercise and yoga have helped me have a relatively comfortable and easy pregnancy. I know that after the holidays the time is going to go by so fast and then she will almost be here. We are getting so excited and really preparing ourselves as much as we can, even though I know you can't be completely prepared and a lot of it will come after she is here. We signed up for a Hypnobirthing class that starts in January and are very excited. I'm so happy that Brodie understands my plan for birth and is supportive and not freaked out by it (I will write a whole other post on that another time).

Weeks 22 through 24 have been great! 25 weeks starts tomorrow and we are getting more and more ready to meet her everyday.