I love Mat.

This post will be completely unrelated to Baby (okay just the beginning part because I can't write a whole post without talking about the human being growing inside me).

I am going to take a few minutes to talk about how amazing Mat is.  I'm not usually one for harping on about him and I'm not very nice to him usually but he really is extraordinary.  Here are a few nice things he's done for me this week...

1. I work full-time now (on top of growing a life) and I'm having a hard time keeping the house liveable - it looks like a tornado went through .. so Mat got up early before work today and cleaned the kitchen, washed all the dishes, and tidied the living room - so nice to come home to a clean house!

2. He ate the gross part of the ice cream bar last night and let me eat the good part :)

3. He let me eat the inside of his pop tart because I don't like the crust (notice a pattern here - I'm a pain in the ass).

4. He fixed the heating in our house so Baby and I don't freeze to death.

5. He makes the bed every day (unless I'm still sleeping in it)! Every single day!

I could keep going but I won't bore you.  It's safe to say that I'm really annoying and he's the most tolerant, patient, helpful, loving human being I've ever met.  I think I'll keep him around for the next 50 or so years!  Also, look how cute he is when he sleeps :)

Now onto Baby.

We had our 20 week scan on Friday and it went really well!  Baby was happy and healthy and stubborn - kept hiding that pretty face from the camera.  Baby has two eye sockets, and normal sized arms, legs, tummy and head.  We kept strong and didn't find out the sex, and Baby was so happy and healthy that we don't need to have any more ultrasounds (provided everything continues to go smoothly).  Which means no more chances for us to cave and find out the sex :) 

I'm sure you all saw the bump photo on facebook but here it is again.  Baby is big enough now that I'm getting a very sore back (and I'm sure there's lots to look forward to in the lower back pain department in the next few months)!

This is Baby's hospital (along with the other 1100 babies who will be born there this year).  If you turn 180 degrees, you get a beautiful view of Parliament and Big Ben... and the river is such a lovely shade of murky brown :) 

I was reunited with an old friend today in London.  What are the odds that two girls who live on the same army post in 5th grade and then go their separate ways will end up attending the same university for Master's degrees in London?!  It is a smaller world than we realise!

That's all I have to report I think.  It's past 10 pm which is way past Baby's bedtime so I'm off to sleep!

Halfway there!

We're halfway there!  20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go!  People say they feel like their pregnancy goes by so quickly but I feel like I've been pregnant for ages already.  I'm sure the next 20 weeks will go by faster than the first 20 because we'll be so busy getting married and stuff :)

Our next scan is on Friday.. very exciting!  Baby's been kicking but just tiny little flutters.  Mat is annoyed he can't feel them yet but I'm sure Baby will be kickboxing in there hard enough for him to feel pretty soon!

Anywho, here's my photo this week:

Mat was feeling left out so here's his baby bump photo:

His bump is not quite as large as mine :)

We went to Stratford today to do some actual shopping and some window shopping for Baby.  We're not quite ready to invest in anything except one pack of plain white onesies but we did have a look at the insane amount of baby things available for purchase.  I see many trips to this store in Mat's future :) Too bad we haven't won the lottery yet!

This is just a life-sized chess board outside the shopping centre.

Before we went shopping, we went on the Emirates Airline.  One more thing checked off of my London bucket list!  It's basically a pod on a cable that travels across the river from North Greenwich to Royal Victoria.  I love it.  It's a short ride and you can't see much of the pretty old parts of London but it was quite cheap (you can pay for it with your oyster card because it's part of Transport for London) and a good Sunday activity!

Baby was really excited!  Kicked me a few times while we were over the river :)

O2 and Canary Wharf in the background. Ignore my tired eyes.

The weather has turned into fall finally.  It's been cold and rainy and rainy and cold for the last week.  Makes it difficult to want to do anything except lay on the couch!  Work has been exhausting.  I keep thinking I'll go do yoga or something when I finish but I get done and just come home and sit cause I'm too tired to function.  I suppose I should get used to the tiredness!

Amanda went back to America yesterday.  Womp womp :(

I'm going to end this post with a gripe about living in this country: everything closes SO early.  We live next to a "24-hour grocery store" that closes at 1 am every night and is only open 11-5 on Sundays.  And the little shopping mall near us has "late-night shopping" on Thursday nights - open until 8 pm.  British people - 8 pm is NOT late night shopping.  And Sundays are awful because there's a law that nothing can be open longer than 6 hours so everything is open 11-5 or 12-6 and that's it.  So if you run out of milk at 7 pm on a Sunday you are out of luck!

That's about all I know!  

Ramen noodles and Week 18

We're in week 18 now.  Had a midwife appointment last week and got to hear Baby's heartbeat. Very exciting!  Mat and I have been pretty adamant about not finding out the sex of the baby but as the date of the ultrasound draws nearer (September 20), we find ourselves wavering.. maybe we should just find out and not tell anyone? Those of you who know me know it's physically impossible for me to keep a secret so that will never happen.  I think we'll stick with our original plan of not finding out but the anticipation is killing me already!

Our weekly photoshoots with the chalkboard may look cute, but they are not cute in real life.  They mostly consist of me yelling at Mat for not taking a good picture and him trying to capture my ugliest faces.  It usually takes about 15 minutes, which is ridiculous.  Anywho, I decided to share the cute one, and another gem from this week's photoshoot :)  

The board has music notes because Baby can hear music now! Also, please note Mat's painting job.  He thinks it looks rustic :)

See? There were about 20 of these.. and pictures of me lunging at Mat to take the phone to see if he was taking any good photos.

Nothing else to report about Baby this week.  I haven't felt him/her moving yet but I also don't know what it will feel like so I've probably just missed it!  Or maybe Baby is just lazy and isn't kicking :)

One of the perks of living in London is the plethora of restaurants we have.  No matter what kind of food we want to eat, there is a good restaurant somewhere in London with that kind of food.  For the last few months we've been meaning to go to Bone Daddies, which is a ramen bar in Soho/Chinatown. People, this ramen is NOTHING like the ramen you buy for 20 cents in Wal-Mart.  This is magical noodley brothy goodness.  And they give you a bib to eat it :)  It's my new favourite place.

Mat's.

Mine and Mat's.  Mine was made with 20-hour pork bone broth.  It was literally heaven in my mouth.

Finally, here is what my Saturday night has been reduced to.  His and hers "wine".. if Mat was nice he would drink sparkling grape juice with me but he won't.

And here's another picture of the Shard.  I live near the Shard now and it's such a photogenic landmark that I take pictures of it all the time.

Finally, there was a minor crisis at Canada Water station (our tube station) today.  I was in Canary Wharf, just one stop away at the grocery store.. and when I tried to get on the tube to go home it kept saying "This train is not stopping at Canada Water due to a suspicious parcel."  Naturally I was annoyed because it took me ages to get home on the bus.. they let the train go through Canada Water but it didn't stop.  And there were helicopters and police everywhere in Canada Water.  It is a bit refreshing to know that Americans are not the only people who go into a panic about an unattended parcel though (also, how British of them to say parcel instead of package).

That was my excitement for the day.  Mat and I are cooking dinner now and being productive.  I'm at work full-time next week (finally) so trying to get things sorted out before I have absolutely no time!

That's all I know today!

Week 17

17 full weeks today.  Tummy is out in full force - I can't even pretend to squeeze into my non-maternity jeans anymore. Good thing I have my magical maternity jeans!  I didn't even eat a large meal before this photo! It's all baby (and a bowl of cheerios).

  I promise the chalkboard will be cuter next week.  I had Mat repaint it after this picture since every time I paint it the paint peels off when I try to write on it - wait till you see it, he should start a painting business ;) haha.

Mat had a three day weekend this weekend because yesterday was a bank holiday (basically a federal holiday where everyone gets Monday off work).  Considering Mat never gets any time off work, we didn't know what to do with all of our quality time! It was great!  We ate a lot, went grocery shopping, bought our wedding bands (mine is old and beautiful), went bowling, hung out in the garden, went out to dinner with friends, and watched football.  And today, Mat's only working a half-day (6am-3pm - a normal day for normal people but a half day for him) so he can come to the doctor with me this afternoon.  

I snapped a few gems of Mat this weekend.  He really does like hanging out with me, you just can't tell :)

Saturday was absolutely miserable.  It poured down rain all day.. and I made Mat use the flowery umbrella because the black one is bigger and I wanted the bigger one.  He's so good to me.

Mat going into our favourite store, Waitrose.  We always spend way too much money and have to carry our body weight in groceries home.  But we always have such yummy dinners afterwards!  We had homemade pizza for lunch and bacon-wrapped, mozzarella stuffed chicken with green beans for dinner.  YUM!

Our photographer Amanda was snapping away on our journey home after roast dinner on Sunday.  

Longest escalator in the world - Angel tube station.

Pretending to be in love on the platform.

Forcing me to hug her.

BFFs. Ignore my awkward stance.

Finally, I wore my baby on board pin for the first time yesterday!  And.... no one gave me their seat.  Further proof that Londoners are not gentlemen.

That's all.

MY DISSERTATION IS FINISHED!

THAT'S RIGHT PEOPLE. My dissertation is finished, bound, and ready to be turned in! FINALLY! I thought this day would never come :)

It's not a big deal really.. I just wrote a book. 

Okay fine, it's a HUGE deal and I'm SO excited about it!

I'm going to turn it in this afternoon :)

Not a lot else to report except that I have a real pregnant belly now.  It's kinda cute, but not so cute when I stare at my closet with exasperation every morning because I can't button a single pair of my jeans!  I bought a pair of maternity jeans but they're at the tailor until next week because they were about 4 inches too long.  So until then, I'm living in sundresses and leggings that suffocate my waist.

No cravings except still fried chicken.  I still want it all the time!  This week I mostly just want my bed because I have a cold and I feel awful.  I want to take so much Nyquil but someone in my tummy (ahem BABY) won't allow it.  So I'm sticking to orange juice and going to bed at 8 pm for a few days.

I'm having a bit of a crisis with the chalkboard.  The chalkboard part was coming off so I painted it with chalkboard paint.. but this week, when I tried to erase the chalkboard pens off the chalkboard, the paint came off too!  I think the answer is to just write with regular chalk but I need to repaint it again!  I'm going out to look for a new one today because it's getting to be quite labour intensive.  

Here's one more photo from this weekend.. I was crushing Mat's head with the umbrella because I'm selfish and was trying to keep myself as dry as possible.. oops :)

That's all I've got today!  Going to turn in my dissertation and enjoy doing no research, reading, proofreading, editing or referencing for the rest of the afternoon!

Week 15

Not a lot to report in the blog today.  Mat and I had a busy busy weekend.  We never see each other during the week so we have to cram a million things into the weekend and we never manage to get everything done!  

My dissertation deadline is looming.. only two and a half more weeks! I'm planning on printing the final copy and taking it to the bookbinder this week so I can turn it in a few days early.  I'm past the point of caring what it says.. I just want it to be done!

Baby will be 15 full weeks tomorrow.  I'm starting to actually look pregnant, a fact that Mat points out all the time :)  Pretty soon I can start wearing my "Baby on Board" pin on the tube without feeling like people think I'm lying!  I'm also going to have to start buying some maternity clothes in the near future because I can't button most of my jeans anymore.  I went into a shop the other day to look at maternity tights and they were £26 for ONE pair!  No thank you!  

Anyway, here's our week 15 photo (I finally managed to find chalkboard paint so the chalkboard is back!)

My pregnancy app says baby should be about 4.5 inches long at this point but Baby Horvath was 4.7 inches long at our 12-week scan... I think we have a future basketball player on our hands!

That's all!

Blogging.

I am blogging to avoid finishing my dissertation. I'm SO close.  13,849 words finished.. I need to get to 14400 at least but I just can't find the motivation to do those last 600 words!  I will be spending most of today in the library so hopefully it will be finished by tonight.

In other news, Baby is 14 weeks today.  My stomach is definitely starting to look a little bit pregnant.. not enough that strangers have started rubbing it or people have started giving up their seats on the Tube for me, but just enough that I can't button my jeans.  Also, I want to eat fried chicken for every meal.  Literally, every meal.  I have been practicing some serious self control or else I'd probably have gained an extra 10 pounds by now!

I realise this is an awful photo all around. Here's the story with the chalkboard. Basically it's a really cheap chalkboard (costs £10) and we write on it with chalkboard pens.  To erase them, you have to use cleaning spray.. which has also rubbed off the chalkboard.  So it's useless now.  We're going to get some chalkboard paint and paint it but we haven't had time yet!  So next week we should be back to cute chalkboard weekly updates.  But for this week, a piece of paper had to do :)

Mat and I went to Dorking this weekend to get out of London for a few days.  We hung out with Mat's family and friends and had a nice relaxing weekend!  And I hung out with my BFF's Alfie and Easy :)  I think I need a dog....

There was a huge bike ride (think 50,000 cyclists) going from London to Surrey (where Dorking is) on Sunday so all the roads were closed and there were cyclists going through town all day.  It was 100 miles from London to Surrey and back to London - pretty impressive ride!  I couldn't do it!  And even though that cloud looks quite menacing, it was actually a beautiful day.

I've decided to try a new library to finish off my dissertation so I've started going to the Senate House Library.  Because King's is part of the University of London Union, we can use other ULU libraries for free! It's nice to have a change of scenery.

For the final photo, here's a blue chicken (rooster? cockerel? one of those) in Trafalgar Square. I have no idea why it's there.

The end!