Welcome baby Max!

We have a new baby in the Rings family!!! Meet Max Benjamin, isn't he the cutest little thing?!

One proud papa!

He found his thumb already! :)

He weighed a whopping 6lbs 15oz! Tanya had just about given up that this baby was ever coming out. Her due date was 10/16 and had to go in to be induced on 10/22 (late at night). Luckily there were no complications and little Max was born at 6:07am on Friday 10/23. I'm bummed we haven't gotten to meet the little guy yet but look forward to a weekend with the family in just over a week. You better believe I'm taking a TON of pictures. :)

I had a doctor's appointment this past Monday for our own little baby Rings. Everything is going great so far. I've been feeling pretty good lately, eating like a horse, still having trouble sleeping and catching my breathe at times but otherwise great! :) Baby's heartbeat is 160. Last time it was at 150... seems to be climbing! I will have my 20 week ultrasound on November 16th. We are so excited to be able to see the baby!! Finally! Normally at that point we would find out if the baby's a boy or girl but sorry to disappoint because we aren't finding out! It's a surprise for everyone! :) Although I have a strong feeling, at this point, that it's going to be a girl. Could be the heartbeat that's leading me to believe that... could be that I feel karma is going to come back and bite me in the butt for being such a rotten hormonal teenager to my parents! Never-the-less we will be happy either way, boy OR girl!

So without further ado, here I am at 17 weeks...

No fat jokes, please! haha, just kiddn':)

Birthday's are fun!

This past weekend was a great weekend filled with lots of friends and family! Saturday was my best friend Kathy's 30th birthday. I wanted to make it a very memorable birthday so I planned a few surprises for the big day. First off I showed up on her doorstep to sweep her away for a few hours of pampering! Our friends Amanda, Des were in on the secret as well and joined us for manicures and pedicures at the Aveda Institute in Columbus. We had so much fun!!! Who doesn't love getting pampered?! :) So the plan for later that night was that Kathy would think her and her fiance Jonathan were just going to come over to our house for dinner. On the way over Jonathan was planning to stop at a wine shop in Worthington to pick up a bottle of wine to bring over. When they came in the shop, SURPRISE! There was a party of friends waiting for their arrival. She was totally surprised. Yay, my plan worked! What a fun night! :)

I hope you had a wonderful birthday Kathy! Love you! :)

I am sad, however, that we missed the wedding of our dear friend's Jim and Jenn. They planned a destination wedding in Vegas and we were unable to make it... not for lack of want but funds and the baby bug bit us. :) (but I do love that little baby bug) I hope you had wonderful, amazing, gorgeous wedding Mr. and Mrs. Russell!!

Life comes at you fast.

I had my doctor's appointment last Monday for the breathing thing, she gave me an aerosol treatment at the office and sent me home with an inhaler. Not quite sure what's causing this problem but it could be stress induced. Who knows... maybe it's just physically and emotionally hard for me to just let go at the end of the day and not care if the dishes get done, or if the floor has shoe tracks all over it, or what's the first thing I need to do when I get to work tomorrow. It also doesn't help that my husband yells at me for ACCIDENTALLY breaking the chain on our new ceiling fan in our bedroom. I mean it was an accident, it hangs low, and I ACCIDENTALLY bumped it while ruffling the blanket. It's not unusable and can be fixed... I feel horrible as it is. oopsey!! Anyway, so the inhaler has been helping, but my mind keeping me awake at night is not.

As far as the pregnancy goes, I've been feeling pretty good! I am very happy to report that I have more energy, food no longer makes me sick to my stomach, and I can stay up longer at night. yay! :) Actually my appetite has been out of control... hello baby weight! I have however been experiencing major sinus congestion, apparently this is totally normal. It's amazing what is 'normal' when your pregnant... nose bleeds, sensitive to smells, acne - oh I've got loads of that, insomnia, forgetfulness, etc. I've got it all! :)

...and this is me at 14 weeks.

So I believe Matt and I have decided on a nursery wall color and overall look. I'm so excited! We're going to paint the walls a color called Nightfall. It's a pastel silvery bluish color. Don't worry it's beautiful. :) The instant I saw it I loved it. Then I'd like to add some bright green accents, things like curtains, a lamp, bedding... stuff like that. I also kind of want to do a nature sort-of theme, something simple though. I found this gorgeous wall decal on etsy.com and I'm so happy that Matt likes it too!

LOVE IT. It's the little things that make life fun. :)

Well unfortunately life isn't all paint swatches and awesome wall decals... Matt's car got crunched this past weekend. Thankfully is is A OK but the poor Nissan is not. He got rear-ended which completely took off his back bumper and the trunk hood is totally smashed. The guy behind him was not paying attention and rammed into the back of his car which then caused Matt to lightly tap the car in front of him. I cannot begin to say how incredibly happy I am that he, and everyone, is OK! No one was injured and luckily everyone had insurance. So until the car gets fixed he has a fun little G6 to jet around in.

I feel like I was going to write about something else but I just can't seem to remember! Go figure!! Until next time...

weekend update

This past week has been a whirlwind. I guess I should start with last weekend... we made a very quick day trip to Pittsburgh to attend my sister in law Tanya's baby shower. It was a very nice party and I'm so glad we got to see Ben and Tanya one last time before the baby is born. She's only two weeks away from her due date.

Of course I had to get a belly shot, who knows if we're ever pregnant again at the same time! So this is me at 13 weeks and Tanya at 37 weeks. She looks so good for being 37 weeks pregnant! I look like I'm just a wannabe. haha. :)

Work has been ca-rrrrrrrrazy busy, but good. Yep, nothing more to be said about that!

Today we attended the wedding of Matt's cousin Dave and his gorgeous bride Christy. It was such a beautiful ceremony and they are such an adorable couple.

Aw, I just love weddings. :) Congratulations Dave and Christy!!! Love you both!

And here is where I tell you more about my problems. :)

So in the midst of all of our busy-ness I've been dealing with some annoying health issues... yeah I have more than just morning sickness! It seems that almost every night I lay down to go to bed I start having problems breathing, can't catch my breath, yawning constantly to get oxygen, taking deep breaths every couple of seconds, my lungs feel so incredibly tight and it makes me panic a little... this usually makes it really hard for me to fall asleep at night... as you can imagine. There have been numerous occasions where I've woken up at 1 and can't go back to sleep until around 4 because of this breathing thing. It's awful. I've had this 'problem' for quite some time now (waaaaaay before I was pregnant so that has nothing to do with it). I've tried to do my own remedies to help take care of this, like drinking tea before bed to try and help me relax, take a nice warm shower, you know things like that. I just can't seem to shake it. Nearly every night it happens, I don't know what causes it. I talked to some other people in the healthcare field and they thought it might be stressed induced which I could totally believe and there for a while I thought that's what it was, my job has been super stressful, I've got a lot on my plate, worried about the pregnancy.... well I'm at the point where I feel like I'm in control of what's going on with my job, and since we've heard the baby's heartbeat I'm feeling better about that stuff but yet I'm still having trouble catching my breath at night. What on earth could it be?! All of a sudden I've developed asthma that only hits me at night??? Ahh, it's so frustrating and exhausting. Well I've finally decided to go see my doctor about it and thankfully my appointment is tomorrow. I can't wait to hopefully get a solution to this!

Ok and that concludes me telling you about my problems. Thanks for listening. :)