Boy Oh BOY!

On Monday morning, together with our parents, David and I had an amazing sonogram and learned that, most importantly, Baby Hodum is healthy and perfect, and secondly, that he is a BOY! Everyone is excited to meet little William in July! Here's his sweet little profile!

He's already BIG- he's in the 94th percentile right now and already weighs about a pound at 20 and a half weeks. It sounds like he's going to be a big guy! :)

Also, William's sweet little crib and nursery glider were delivered Monday! We've got some work to do, but it's exciting that we know that we're getting ready for a sweet little boy!

29 Years Today...

It's my 29th birthday today! Hooray! I think I might stop celebrating after this year, however. I'm getting dangerously close to the big 3-0. You know when a big life changer is coming when, among all the wonderful things you've received for your birthday, organizational tools like this set of drawers are super exciting:

Thank you, David!

And I was also thrilled to receive this diaper bag from my parents:

Thank you so much, Mom & Dad! 
Thanks for all the birthday wishes! My 29th year is going to be an amazing one, for sure! :)

PS- David is concerned you will think he only got me drawers for my birthday, and he did NOT. And even if he did, I would be happy. But he got me these beautiful Kendra Scott earrings I have been coveting:

 And something else is on it's way. David is the sweetest!

Nursery Ideas

David and I have been doing some research, planning, designing, and even a little shopping already for Nuggy's little nursery. I must say I think this is probably my favorite part of expecting so far, I am having a blast! A year ago if you told me I would like to look at Pottery Barn Kids catalogs and wandering through Buy Buy Baby would be fun for me, I would have laughed! Pintrest has been a great help as well. Thanks for the invite, Kelly! :)
We've already bought a dresser which we'll use as a changing table, too.  We got it at this great store in Dallas called Nadeau that my parents are in love with (and now so am I)! It has really neat furniture exported from Mexico and refinished. Here's a picture:

And my parents so generously bought us Nuggy's crib and a glider with an ottoman, which will be here on Monday!Thank you so much, what a great blessing!
We are going for soft, serene colors so the nursery is a calming place for both us and the baby. As I've made finds that I really love, I've been putting them together to get an idea of how they would all work.
Here are some things we're liking, if Nuggy is a girl:

And if Nuggy is a boy:

When we have the nursery all set up, I will share, of course! :)

Notes on my first trimester

I wanted to start blogging back in December when we found out, so I could keep a somewhat decent record of this special time. That never happened! So I figure I'll play a little catchup and write down what I remember.
First and foremost, I had some serious morning all-day sickness. Days were few and far between when I wasn't vomiting in the morning and nauseous all day. I'm pretty sure my more observant students figured out what was going on (some before myself, even!) because of my unusual diet of Townhouse crackers, Cheezits, Sprite,  ginger ale, and peppermints.

More Things I Like(d):

• Dole pineapple, orange, and banana juice (I was drinking 2-3 cartons a week at one point! STRANGE)
• Yogurt 
• Mac & cheese
• Mashed potatoes 
• Cheeseburgers
• My favorite meal: scrambled egg whites with cheese, black beans, and spinach salad with Greek feta vinaigrette 
• I really craved Dr. Pepper for some reason 

Things I Could Hardly Stand to Be Near:

• Pizza
• Anything with Italian red sauce- spaghetti, lasagna, etc.
• Chili 
•  Ice cream 
• Too many smells in the grocery store!

In November I really had little to no appetite because I was nauseous all day. This made Thanksgiving really difficult! Luckily, David's dad, Gene, came up for most of the week to help work on our kitchen remodel and put up a new backyard fence. I felt terrible, both sick to my stomach and because I spent most of the week on the couch while the boys worked sooo hard! I'm surprised Gene didn't guess what was going on right then. The worst was our Thanksgiving dinner. Because our oven, stove, and sink were disconnected due to the old countertops being removed and the new ones coming the following week, I was off the hook to cook dinner! So I decided to take the boys to Lawry's Prime Rib. Perfect for everyone! I don't like turkey but love prime rib, and the guys will eat both. Lawry's had a great menu for Thanksgiving dinner. And guess who could hardly eat any of it? This girl. It was a sad day for me!
I went a whole weekend with this terrible smell stuck in my nose, and I thought it was poor David! He's really had to put up with a TON. One night over Christmas break, we went with our friend Chase to the Market Street pasta bar (I believe I ate soup that night) where the guys got pasta they swear is the BEST THING EVER. The smell of it made me sick, and I could barely ride in the same car with this pasta. Even worse, the next day (and after I had made them throw the empty containers outside) I could STILL smell it. Terrible!
For the most part the mutant sense of smell is gone, but I'm still unable to eat pizza, ice cream, and at times the grocery store makes me lose my appetite.

The first trimester was an adventure for sure!

How we told the 'rents

After David and I went to the OBGyn (we LOVE ours, thanks for the recommendation, Kate!) we decided, since we were about ten weeks along and our doctor thought the baby was looking really good, to tell the parents as an early Christmas gift. So, the weekend after school got out for winter break, we asked David's parents to come up for the weekend. We also asked my parents to come up too, under the ruse to check out our new kitchen remodel and new fence.
We decided to tell our parents by giving them a special picture to announce the impending arrival of Baby Hodum, so I bought some cute little gender neutral baby Sperry Top-Siders, since David and I both have several pairs. And it's extra special because my dad has been Sperry's number one fan for as long as I can remember. We spent some time trying to find a friend with a good camera to take the picture but no one was available, so I got to open an early Christmas gift! Thanks for the new camera, David! I need to get some practice with it so I can take a million pictures of the baby come July! :)
Chase was able to take the picture, so on a cold December afternoon we went to a lovely park, stood on a log with the baby Sperrys in between us, and Chase took the following picture:

I picked out two Grandmotherly picture frames and two Grandfatherly frames, wrapped them, and then waited for our parents to arrive! When it was time to give the grandparents the frames, we couldn't wait to see their reactions. My mom already knew generally what the "gift" would be, but I know she was excited to see everyone's reactions. Betsy opened her frame and started crying immediately- she got the meaning of the picture. Mom didn't really even open hers and she was already crying. The best reactions came from the dads, because they both just thought we had given them a frame with a stock photo and couldn't figure out why the moms were crying. But when Betsy said "I'm going to have a grandbaby?" The dads got it and everyone cried. My poor dad was shocked- I don't think he saw it coming at all!
It was a great day and a wonderful early Christmas present for our wonderful parents. Afterwards, we went to Square Burger in McKinney Square to celebrate. And of course, mom had brought Nuggy his/ her first bunny, nightie, and little booties. :)

How Mom Found Out

One major reason why I am blogging again and about this new chapter to our lives is to be able to look back and remember this special time as David and I prepare to be first time parents. So, I can't leave out this little story about how I accidentally told my mom about the baby. This is completely NOT how I wanted to tell her!!!
I was leaving a doctors appointment in Dallas when I got an incredibly flat tire. Like, to the rim flat. By the way, this was the day after I took the pregnancy tests, and I was still very ambivalent about the idea of being pregnant. Anyway, I don't know how to change a tire. I know my sweet dad tried to teach me, so have my brother and my husband over the years, but I guess it's not something that has ever stuck. So I saw the flat, and called David to tell him I had a flat, but I knew he had to take a test for a UTD class that night and wasn't going to be able to help. Then I called my dad, but he couldn't answer because he was in a meeting. At this time my crazy pregnancy hormones had apparently kicked in, but I knew I needed to see if my dad was at home.
I remember calling my parents and knowing that I was about to lose it, and I also remember saying to myself that it was DUMB that I was about to cry, because I was perfectly safe in a nice neighborhood in Dallas. Mom answers the phone and says that dad is in a meeting, and that she's about to walk out the door. I start crying. I'm sure she thought, "Lauren, a flat tire is nothing to cry about. Get a grip!" But I told her, through sobs, that "It's not just the flat tire." Cry cry cry. "I have something else going on but I don't want to tell you." Sob sniffle sob. "This isn't how I wanted to tell you." I'm sure she thought something really horrible was happening, but she made me tell her. And then we both started crying and she told me how excited she was for us.
But at the same time her whole "book club" which is really what she calls her group of best girlfriends, were waiting to go to their Christmas get together, complete with a carriage ride through Dallas, and were all standing in her living room wondering why in the world she was crying, and what I had told her that had made her cry. I swore her to secrecy so I could tell my dad and David's parents "in some cute way" and then she had to go. Poor mom had to keep that secret from her best friends and husband for almost two weeks, I have NO idea how she did it!
And yes, my tire did get fixed and I made it to my grad class with time to spare. Sweet David took care of my problem from afar by sending the roadside assistance service we got with my car to fix my tire. He's the best!

I'm baaaaaack!!!

It's been too long since I've posted anything, but honestly, I didn't feel like there was a whole lot going on at the Hodum home to write about. But on December 5th, 2011 life as David and I have known it for the past six and a half years changed drastically when we saw this sweet little person for the first time!

David and I were a little shocked with our pre-Christmas surprise, but we are super excited to welcome Baby Hodum in July! I wanted to record a little about how we found out for posterity, and I must say it is sort of a funny story. The short version is I could be a candidate for the TLC show, "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant!" I had started taking some new medication, for which one of the side effects was nausea and apparently what I now realize was morning sickness I chalked up to being a side effect from the medicine. So, after a MONTH of dealing with it, barely being able to eat, and occasionally vomiting in the morning, I begged my doctor to change my Rx. He, of course, said, "Are you sure you're not pregnant?" to which I assured him I was NOT. So, he changed my Rx and also changed when I was supposed to take the meds. That was a Thursday, and the following Monday morning I once again vomited (in the driveway of our home, no less!) That's when I decided it would be a good idea to get a couple pregnancy tests (and a box of Mike & Ikes!) and see if the most obvious reason was what was making me feel bad. Two EXTREMELY positive tests later, David and I made an appointment with an OBGyn around here to "make sure." Because the baby, which we affectionately call Nuggy, was a major surprise to us both, I wasn't thrilled for the first week about our pregnancy, but now that I've had some time to accept this new chapter to our lives, I couldn't be happier!