Dinner with my friends

A huge CONGRATULATIONS to Steven and Leizl on their engagement!! WooHoo!! I am so excited for you both. Glad we could get together for yummy food the other night too.

My Farm Boy

Here's Peter's first run out with the lawnmower! He was so excited to mow the lawn himself!

25 Week Belly

This is in no way a glamorous shot, but just wanted to post how big my belly is getting!! We'll have to take some better shots very soon. =)

Week 25

This is what a 25 week fetus looks like - amazing isn't it?? I can't wait to see Ryenne!!

$&@! ... I broke my toe

There should be a warning in the pregnancy books about what can happen when you can't see your feet anymore! Yesterday I was walking into the living room and banged my foot on the doggy gate and broke my toe. Today is a beautiful shade of black and blue, whith some purple mixed in there. You can call me "gimpy" if you'd like.

Treasures

My dad brought over a few 'lost' treasures to the house today. When I was little I had a rocking boat that he made for me - lots of great memories. Anyhow, it's a bit beaten and battered, but it just needs a cleaning and some fresh paint and it'll be perfect again!

He also found a box of books - some were mine, some Nick's, and some Koa's. Peter and I had fun reading a stack of them today. So funny to have flashbacks of my parents reading them to me!!

Ryenne is moving a lot now, and I can now feel her from the outside. It's like there's an alien in there!! But it's so cool too. =)

A Mover and Shaker!

Yesterday morning at 5:30am we woke up because the dogs wanted to go outside for a few minutes. Ryenne woke up too and was VERY active... biggest kicks I've felt so far. I put my hand on my tummy and I could feel her moving around!! It was such a trip. I grabbed Peter's hand and put it on my belly... "Did you feel that?" I said. He said he didn't, but at that very moment she let out a whopper of a kick and he yelled "But I felt that!". It was such a trip.

She's definitely a mover and a shaker. Today her movements feel so much bigger than just a few days ago. I think pretty soon we'll all be able to see my tummy moving around.

Mom and Dad bought us a bassinett to go in our room. It's a bassinett/cradle and it's so awesome. It even has wheels on the bottom to take around the house if we need to.

Napili Condo on the Market

WOW... what a week. My mom has been such a trooper and helped us prep the condo for going on the MLS. I helped too - as much as I could - and was thoroughly exhausted each day.

Pregnancy Brain... BIG TIME!

The other day we washed my camera bag because it was getting a bit funky. I took out everything inside and checked all of the pockets. Then, off into the washing machine it went. After a thorough washing and drying, Peter took it out of the dryer and starting putting stuff inside. He found my cell phone inside!!!

I hadn't even realized that he had just taken the phone out of my bag THAT JUST CAME OUT OF THE DRYER and exclaimed "There's my phone! Thanks for finding it!". He gave me a confused face and then the enormity of what had happened dawned on me - my phone wasn't 'found' but instead is broken cause I washed it!!!

So fast forward a couple days and here I am doing laundry. TONS of laundry. I'm very proud of myself because I've been cleaning the house in addition to folding and putting away each load. Anyhow, the dryer beeps that it's done and I go to transfer the stuff in the washer into the dryer, and what do I find??? THE REMOTE CONTROL. Damnit... I did it again. I washed the darn remote and now that's broken too. Maybe I should be banned from laundry duty??? LOL

I'm supposed to be the responsible one...

Changes...

Well it's official - we're now completely moved out of the Napili Condo and it's going on the market next week. I'm a little nervous because the market is softening a bit and I'm hoping to get what I want (NEED) so we can build our house the way we want to. I'm sending lots of positive vibes out into the universe for a good sale.

Had a check-up today and everything is going good. Ryenne is 'standing up' in there. Her head is up near my belly button and she's kicking me very low. Sometimes it's really hard and it kinda hurts! She kept swimming away from the Doppler machine. We could hear her heartbeat for a few minutes and then she'd move. Finally we got a good 10 seconds. Her heartrate is great. The tummy is popping out a bit more now. We'll have to do pictures again this week if we have time.

According to the What to Expect When You're Expecting Book, I'm now done with the 5th month and am starting the 6th month! In March, I'll start the 3rd trimester... amazing. It's zooming by. I can't wait to see her though... and smell her and hold her and talk to her. So exciting...

We can finally sit!

We're leaving all of our big furniture in Napili so that we can stage out the condo for when it goes on the market. It's looking really great so far - just needs to be cleaned and decorated.

The only downside is that we had no chairs in Haiku! So today we went and bought a loveseat, some shelves, and a table to eat on. We had our first dinner on a table tonight - it was awesome - lobster and saffron rice (thanks Nick for catching lobster!) and apple crisp for dessert (thanks mom!). YUMMY.

As I'm typing this, Peter and Chico are snuggled on the new loveseat. It's finally starting to feel a little more like home in Haiku. =)

"But Mommy! I Love Chickens!"

Well it's official. We no longer have a well behaved "condo doggy". Chico and Dexter absolutely LOVE having a backyard and freedom to go outside and play all they want.

Dexter has been obsessed with all the chickens that roam the neighborhood and stares at them from the living room window. Today, a very unfortunate chicken got into the backyard and Dexter, in complete excitement, tackled it and killed it. He was SO EXCITED to show me his find. So it's official - he's now a Haiku doggy!

MySpace?

If anyone who reads this blog has a myspace.com page, let me know!
www.myspace.com/mariahmilan

21 Week Belly!!!

Here it is!! The growing belly! This was taken today by my mom here in Haiku (aka land of the red dirt). Thankfully, all the dogs were put in the house or else my skirt would have turned brown! LOL

I can't believe how much my tummy is starting to grow. I can't even see my feet anymore. I think it's awesome and I love to feel Ryenne moving around.

I ordered a special pillow online today and I hope it gets here soon. I'm so uncomfortable sleeping =(. We're still on the air mattress. I can't wait until our Tempurpedic bed gets here...

Baby Banana

Well we're now at the 21 week marker. It's truly amazing how fast time is now flying by! Here's the stats on Ryenne:

The baby's legs will be close to the final natural proportion to the body and head.
The baby's heart can be detected by a standard stethoscope.
Your hair and nails tend to grow rapidly now because of hormones that are released during your pregnancy.
Baby's Size and Weight this week:

Size: About 7.25 inches (head to rump).

Weight: Approximately 10.5 ounces

Right now your baby is about the size of a large banana.

We went shopping today to try to find crib stuff and we could only find cribs at ONE STORE on the island besides WalMart. Ugh. So we're going to have to order one online because the selection is SO BAD over here. Oh well - we'll have to order our stroller and carseat too.

We went to the fabric store and picked out all the fabric for Ryenne's crib set. It's SO CUTE! I can't wait to take a picture of her room when it's all done. Mom is going to make the crib set which is going to be awesome.

Oklee doklee... that's the update for now. =) TTFN!

20 Week Update!

Our baby girl is growing fast! I feel her moving around and kicking and punching all the time. I think she's a night time baby because she's most active in the evenings and before I go to bed. She sleeps almost all day long! Hmmm... sounds like me! *LOL*

We've almost got her name all figured out. Her first name is Ryenne (like Ryan) and she will have the middle name Alicia-Grace to honor two very loved women in my family. We also want to incorporate a Hawaiian name with appropriate meaning and I was thinking of Ualohekeakua which means "God has listened". I know it's a crazy ass long name - but maybe she'd like it when she's grown. We'll see. That part's not for sure yet.

We're loving talking about our daughter Ryenne and so amazed at how wonderful it is to call her by her name. I think she'll still have the nickname "Pepper" even after she's born!

Pepper's A...

Little Girl!!!
We are so happy, excited, overjoyed... The ultrasound was great and we got a few great shots of our little girl. What a wonderful day.

We can't wait to see what our little Ryenne looks like!

Oh the suspense!!!

OHMYGOSH.... the big ultrasound is TOMORROW! I am sooooo excited! I hope that Pepper shows him/herself and we get a good picture! I'd love a profile so that I can get it framed. Hopefully the u/s dude is cool. I'll post more tomorrow!

Pictures from Kona

We went to Kona last weekend to photograph a wedding and we got some pretty cool pix while we were there. Just thought I'd share a few of my favorites!!!


This is the view from our room! Isn't it killer? Couldn't have had a better view than this...


Hard to beat the Kona sunset! The vog really makes it awesome (although it gives me a stuffy nose!)


This was pretty funny! We had to take a pic of it! LOL


And here we are surrounded by lava rock. Check out the belly!

Moving Sucks!

It's been a little while since I gave any updates to the blog. It's been so crazy busy lately! We are in the process of moving from Napili to Haiku and it's very stressful and time consuming. I'm actually feeling extremely overwhelmed by it. There's so much to do, and I have so little energy to do it. Argh.

The cottage we're moving into is so cute. It's bigger than the condo and will be very comfortable for us and Pepper while we're building the house. Hopefully construction will start in March or April if we get everything going in a timely manner. I am so excited to have room for people to visit and a proper office for my business! Not only that, but I also love the Haiku weather! I just feel bad for Peter because the commute is about an hour and fifteen minutes each way. I told him that if he's miserable, we'll figure something out.

Mom comes home on Monday and I'm so happy that she'll be able to help us move. She's the "master packer" of the operation. Then on Wednesday the 18th we have our level II ultrasound and hopefully Pepper will cooperate and show his/her stuff! I'll definitely post what we find out.

Ok... that's the update for now. Hopefully I'll post again soon and be a little more upbeat! LOL