Oh My Goodness Y'all...

I just found a FABULOUS deal!!!  Right now if you go to restaurant.com and enter the code COOK you can get 80% off of your gift cards.  I got $100 worth of gift cards for...are you ready for this, are you sitting down, because it is literally a steal...$8 YES EIGHT dollars!!!  I don't know if you've ever done restaurant.com or not, but you buy the credits (so I bought two 50 dollar credits) and then you get your codes, and you go back in and choose your gift cards and print them out.  Here is the list of gift cards I got for my first $50 credit, and I'm going to let Brad choose the ones for the second credit...

• 2 $10 gift cards to Blues Brothers BBQ (our favorite BBQ restaurant downtown...we LOVE it!!)
• 50% off to E.J's Landing (for Mom and Dad...they love that place)
• $25 off a $35 meal at Mamma Maria's (awesome Italian food!!)

So...we got all of that for FOUR DOLLARS!!! It is absolutely insane...this offer expires March 31st, so go now and save yourself some money!! 

24 Weeks

Total Weight Gain: And this is the week that I'll stop putting up this number haha :)
Best Moment this week: Just feeling baby girl move around all the time, and buying some clothes and obnoxious bows (Charley's not gonna be the only little girl rockin those!)
Gender: It's A Girl!
Movement: Yes it is AMAZING! I feel her all the time, and Brad gets to feel her too.
Food Craving: Rice Krispie cereal with milk and bananas.
What I miss: Sleeping on my belly and my workout routine.
Sleep: It takes me awhile to get comfortable, and I miss sleeping through the night.
What I am looking forward to: Spring Break!!!! We're going to the beach and getting lots of things done for baby girl!!
Belly Button: In for now, but it looks like it is going to POP out!
Symptoms: Sciatica and still tired, but wouldn't trade it for the world!!

23 Weeks...

Baby girl is about a foot long and weighs about one pound!! She can hear noises going on around her, and she's practicing "breathing" by sucking in amniotic fluid. She moves around A TON and loves to kick and jab me throughout the day. She's most active first thing in the morning, right when I get off of work, and right around bedtime. (Sorry for the lack of belly pictures, I promise once I'm not so pasty white after Spring Break I will post some...I think I hear the song "you're so vain" playing in the background somewhere :) Oh well)

Total Weight Gain: 7 pounds at last doctor's visit
Best Moment this week: Just feeling baby girl move around all the time, and getting the swatches for her bedding in...LOVE THEM!
Gender: It's A Girl!
Movement: Yes it is AMAZING! I feel her all the time, and Brad gets to feel her too.
Food Craving: Nothing really...I always want ice cream, but I always want ice cream ha!
What I miss: Sleeping on my belly and my workout routine.
Sleep: It takes me awhile to get comfortable, and I miss sleeping through the night.
What I am looking forward to: Painting the nursery, and organizing some of the clothes I've bought for her.
Belly Button: In for now, but it looks like it is going to POP out!
Symptoms: Sciatica and still tired, but wouldn't trade it for the world!!

In Case You Need a Good Laugh...

I am going to tell you the funniest story I think I have EVER heard.  My best friend's Mom told it to her, and she passed it along to me.  For the record this story is 100% true, no part of it has been made up or even enhanced...


There is a lady who works with best friend's Mom who has a son who has some form of mental handicap.  He is old enough and capable enough to stay home during the day by himself (so we're thinking he's probably 18-20 years old).  Anyway, this lady calls her son to check on him during the day, and he tells his Mom that he caught a troll, and he locked it away in the closet.  This is nothing new to her because he makes up stories like this to keep himself entertained all the time, so she thinks nothing of it.  A couple hours later she calls back to check in on him and he says that he keeps trying to feed the troll Skittles under the closet door, but the troll keeps pushing them back, so he decides that trolls don't like Skittles.  Still the Mom thinks nothing of this, and figures he's just really amused with this particular story.  But, when the Mom calls back a couple more hours later (so at least 4 hours have passed) and the son is panicking and says that the troll kept trying to get out of the closet, so he shoved a chair against the door so he couldn't escape she decides she should go home and check on the situation.  When the woman arrives home she finds a MIDGET locked in the closet!!!!  Apparently the census worker came knocking on the door, and her son thought he was a troll so he captured him!!!  How hilarious is that???  I couldn't stop laughing for hours, I'm still laughing as I sit here and type this story out to you!! Luckily the census worker isn't going to press any charges...

Speaking of trolls...how many of you played with these when you were younger, or am I the only one??

Shopping and Thriftiness...

With baby girl (we're closer in the name search, but still not quite there yet) on the way I am trying my very best to be thriftier. Don't get me wrong, since being married I have been thrifty, but I am trying to find ways to be even thriftier (is that even a word because I'm using it like it is). Before being married I had an OBSESSION with designer jeans, as in $200-$300 dollar jeans...yea I know, I know, don't judge me please. Since being pregnant I haven't been able to find any maternity jeans that aren't HIDEOUS or awkwardly shaped, until last weekend when I set out to find the perfect pair of maternity jeans. I was just going to head straight for the mall, but I decided I would stop in Once Upon a Child first just to see if they had any good deals, and I was THRILLED when I found a NIIIIIIICE pair of designer maternity jeans for, brace yourself, EIGHT DOLLARS. I could not believe it!!! I also found a cute pair of Old Navy maternity jeans for nine dollars. It was a very successful trip and I managed to stay out of the mall traffic. Then, this weekend Mom and I went to a couple of consignment sales in the area, Back on the Rack and Lauren Alex & Friends. These are not what I like to call my type of shopping, but I just braved the crowd and I'm glad I did because I found some really cute things, and got some GREAT deals!!

Here are three Christmas outfits I bought for baby girl at Belk for 50% off, and then an additional 35% off....
The more I buy for her the more excited I am for her to arrive!!

And I have discovered my new favorite store in Roanoke...it's called Two and a Half Sisters. It's right across from the upper level of Tower's. They are all about some monogramming, I wanted to buy EVERYTHING in there, you should go check it out :)