Hawaii

I got back late last night from my trip to Hawaii. A great friend of mine from Texas, Angie, got married in Oahu on Monday. I was lucky enough to get to go to Hawaii for her wedding to Troy. I met up with some of my best friends there - Hillary, Heather and Jennifer. The wedding was beautiful - right on the beach. An old vegan surfer guy married them; his name was Captain Howie. He did a great job with the ceremony. All in all we had a very enjoyable time, minus the fact that my body swelled up so much I felt like the Marshmallow Man by the time I flew home. I never thought I'd be "that girl" that got cankles when she was pregnant. Boy was I wrong. I got SO swollen - I think it must have been from all the walking around, especially in the sand, and the humidity. Enough whining out of me though, I know you all want to see pictures, so here they are:

Here's the happy couple, Angie and Troy:

Here's Captain Howie blowing into the Conch Shell...he blew into 3 times, all representing different wishes to the couple:
Troy, the Groom:

Angie, the beautiful Bride:

Hillary & Jennifer:

I had to shout out to my cute husband since I was at a wedding and it brought back wedding memories of my own wedding:

The sunset was absolutely beautiful:

I wasn't kidding about my cankles. I took this picture after what felt like a Chariots of Fire jaunt across the beach to get to the actual wedding ceremony (and lucky for me the swelling has gone down a ton since I've returned home):

Here's one more breathtakingly (is that a word?) beautiful view of the beach from a lookout point we stopped at:

You'll have to forgive me for the poor quality of the rest of these pictures. Our digital camera broke so I was stuck with two Kodak FunShare disposable cameras while in Hawaii, and the flash was struggling.

I bought baby Rocklin an adorable Hawaiian outfit while shopping for souvenirs. He'll match his Gramps (my Dad) because his Gramps likes these kinds of shirts!

My wonderful friends threw me a surprise mini-baby shower while we were in Hawaii. How thoughtful of them and how fun for me! They got me some super cute stuff.

We walked around this little area of Waikiki called The International Marketplace where you can buy souvenirs and such. Here are all of us girls taking a picture break:

Troy's parents treated everyone to a Hawaiian Luau the night before the wedding. It was so much fun! Here we all are (Kristen, Hillary, Angie, Heather and Jennifer) just after sunset:

Here I am in all my six months of pregnant glory on the beach:

Jennifer, Angie & Heather looked so cute in their matching Hawaiian dresses headed to the Luau

Congratulations, Angie & Troy! Thank you for letting me celebrate with you. I wish the two of you the best of luck in starting your new married life together. I love you guys!!

Bumbo Chair Recall!!

To all my mother and mother-to-be friends out there - I just read on msnbc.com that 1 million Bumbo chairs are being recalled due to reported head injuries on babies. Scary! I have a lot of friends who rave about the Bumbo chair, and I too have one on my baby registry. However, read this article and you may think twice: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21472055/?GT1=10450

Bye-bye cute blog...

So I kept hearing that when you pull up my blog page, it's just a big pink screen with no words. I think it's because the blog skin that I was using has since been yanked off the free market so I was forced to change the background to this boring greenish color. I don't know much about html, but I think it had something to do with that...not sure. Anyway, this new blog skin will just have to do for now until I have time to cruise the Internet for cute blog skins somewhere else.

Anyone have any suggestions on where to find cute blog skins for FREE?

The Biggest Loser

Are there any other "The Biggest Loser" tv show fans out there?? Last night I was so bummed - they voted my guy Phil off! I really liked him, he totally carried his team and then in the end it was a tie and another team ended up voting Phil off. Jerks.

Phil - you will be missed. :)

Yet another post about the little guy...

I'm trying not to make every post on here about pregnancy...but to be honest I don't have much else to talk about right now! My pregnancy has taken over my life and consumed my thoughts; especially lately as February is creeping up on me. I'm so excited for our little guy to get here, but at the same time I have so many overwhelming feelings, thoughts and emotions. I keep hearing from everyone around me that Adam and I better enjoy our time together now because before we know it life will be changed forever. This is something I understand that I don't fully comprehend now, seeing as we still sleep through the night, have a quiet house when we want it, don't have smashed up cheerios all over the kitchen, etc. etc. I think a tiny selfish part of me will miss having Adam 100% to myself once the baby is born, but the other part of me is so excited to grow our family. This is something both Adam and I have wanted all our lives!

I have so many questions that keep running through my head....will I be a good mother? Will I still be a good wife? Will my body every be back to "normal?" Will I still be able to juggle working some while raising a child and helping to keep our home in order? The list goes on and on and on. I've read multiple books on pregnancy thus far, and I guess you can only read and try to prepare so much and then the rest is left to the real life experiences and learning as you go. Lucky for me I have so many wonderful family and friends around me that are such amazing examples of mothers and women. I can only hope that I am half as good as a mother as my mom was to me or as my sister-in-law Sarah is to my two beautiful nieces. They make motherhood look so easy!

One other quick thing - last night I woke up at 4 AM with a horrible leg cramp and sat straight up and said OWWW really loud. I think I must have scared Adam, as he woke up and was like are you ok, what can I do... Poor guy, he probably thought the baby was trying to escape or something. I guess that's a miniature preview of what is yet to come. I hear that getting a charlie horse in your leg is quite common in pregnant women. I seem to get them a LOT! It is so annoying, and HURTS! Adam's sister Kristie said she too used to get them too and the best thing to do is get up and walk around. So early this morning at 4 AM I was up walking around our room whimpering with a stupid charlie horse. Thank heavens it subsided a bit and I was able to fall back asleep.

So I guess that's it for now on my thoughts on my little guy, as I like to call him. Actually, we have already picked out our baby's name. I'll close this post with his name, for those of you who don't already know:

Rocklin Jay Birkmeyer

Blog Skins

You may have noticed - I updated my semi-boring blog to this new super cute blog! I was checking out a friend of mine's blog and she had listed a link to this blog site for really cute and FREE blog skins: http://www.matiekay.blogspot.com/

Maybe having a cuter blog will make me motivated to post more often. :)

What do you all think - do you like this blog better than my old one?