We had our baby!

We have a baby now, yay!

She is super cute and we love her.

Charlotte Mia Allen
Sunday, January 8th, 2012 5:39am
8 lbs, 1/2oz (3644g), 20 inches long (51cm)

Love ya!
Laura, Jonathan, and Charlotte!

Happy Halloween!

Hello everyone!

We have been having a busy month, but we haven't forgotten about the blog!   I have not had many interesting things to post recently, but I will try to update you now...

Jonathan started teaching a new student this month.  For his new job, he has to wear a suit, so we went shopping on the 16th to get him ready for work.  He looks quite sharp, in my opinion. Don't you think so too?

 

Sorry the photo is a little blurry. He would not hold still to get his picture taken because he did not want to be late for his first day, lol.  Please ignore the pile of dirty laundry behind him.  He interrupted my laundry routine and made me drive him to the station, haha!

The baby is growing well.  As of 10/24 she weighed approximately 1,600 grams which is 3 pounds, 9 ounces.  She has been kicking and punching quite a bit and she has the occasional bout of hiccups.  We are so excited to meet her!  There are less than 10 weeks until our estimated date of delivery, so it feels like it is crunch time.  Here is an illustration of her size and development we saw in a Japanese maternity magazine:

Aww. 

Today we had some friends over for a halloween dinner.  It was a lot of fun.  Last night, Jonathan and I watched a scary movie and made my costume.  I think it turned out quite well.  

I was a skeleton complete with creepy baby skeleton, haha.  We had fun making the stencil and painting the bones onto a cheap dark-colored long-sleeve shirt.  What do you think?

Jonathan was a protester.

Nice sign.

Well that is all I can think of updating for now.  I am down to prenatal appointments every other week so we will be back at the doctor on November 7th.  We'll let you know if anything awesome happens!

Love,
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Mid-October

Hello all,

It has been an emotional week for my family, but all I feel like saying about it is that I love you all so much and I feel so lucky to have been born into such a wonderful supportive group of people. I appreciate all of my immediate and extended family for being there for each other during difficult times. When I come back I will do my best to show you in person how much I love and appreciate you!

We have been busy recently and the baby has been growing by leaps and bounds. I uploaded some photos of our weekend in Nagoya to the photobucket account.  If you want to see them, just click on the link that says, "Photobucket" to the right under "Useful Links".  I will post one teaser photo here now.

xo
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Baby Kicks, Pear Picking and Dinosaur Hunting!

First, the baby update:
Our little girl (maybe) has been getting bigger and stronger so very quickly.  She kicks me all the time, especially in the evenings when I am relaxing at home.  She is usually pretty quiet at work, but I have a fun thing to share with you all.  On Tuesday, Jonathan brought my lunch to me at school.  He was telling me about his plans for the evening and the baby started kicking like crazy!  I think she recognizes Daddy's voice!  My books say that her hearing is very well developed by now and she is beginning to open her eyes so she is much more sensitive to light and sounds.  She may even be able to recognize mine and Jonathan's voices!  It is so exciting to notice how she grows and changes.  We are now 27 weeks.  I start my third trimester next week.  The pregnancy seems to be going very slowly and very quickly at the same time. We will be a family of three in just three short months!

Now for our adventures and some more pictures:
This past weekend, we had many adventures! On Friday we went pear picking in Wakasa Town.  On Saturday we went to the Dinosaur Museum in Katsuyama, Fukui (about 3 hours northeast of where we live) with two of our friends from Obama.  And on Sunday we went to Kyoto for some tasty falafel and the open air flea market at Kita no Tenmangu Shrine!  Whew!  We forgot to take pictures in Kyoto, but we documented our excursions from Friday and Saturday. Enjoy some photos!

 It sprinkled for a few minutes so we had to take shelter under our umbrella.

 Above is the Fukuisaurus, discovered in our prefecture!  Below is the Fukuiraptor, also discovered here!

Love you all!

Laura, Jonathan, and baby!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Today is Jonathan's 25th birthday. Happy quarter of a century, love!

I made him a cake! And homemade icing (Jonathan had to help with the icing, though)!
Photos below:

Love,

Laura, Jonathan, and baby!

September Update & Laura loves Jonathan

Hello friends and family,

Sorry I have been so bad about posting recently.  I have been tired and struggling with morning sickness (again) and did not want to type up all the whiney posts I was composing in my head.  I have thrown up 4 times in the last 7 days (at work all times) and I am just so ready for fall to come.  I hope if I can just power through September, I will be able to make it.  I think my nausea is being aggravated by the heat (temperatures in the 80s and 90s every day) and my seasonal allergies, but I cannot take any medicine because I'm pregnant!  The recent bouts of morning sickness have not been nearly as bad as they were back in the first trimester (I am able to eat a bit more than just toast and crackers, and I have been keeping my prenatal vitamins down), but I am just tired of feeling so crappy.  I really need to start doing those prenatal yoga tapes because I can feel my stamina and muscle tone deteriorating every day.  I won't have the energy to deliver this baby if I do not get my act together and just push through the negativity and self-pity I have been stuck in!

I am truly happy to be pregnant and every single time our baby kicks me I stop and smile.  She is kicking all the time now, usually a couple of times per hour, but sometimes I think she is napping in there so I will go a while without feeling anything.  Or perhaps she is awake but still too small and is kicking me in the back or in my tummy fat, lol.  I love her so much already and I love Jonathan more everyday now that we are becoming parents.  I am so so so very lucky to have Jonathan in my life.  He is the best man I could ever hope for.  I am trying to hard to recognize when I am "pregnancy crazy" so that I don't freak out about little things, but he is just so patient no matter what I say or do.  He takes care of me emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially (although I try to take care of myself in all those areas too).  He does more than 60% of the housework: cooking, doing dishes, cleaning, and taking care of the garbage. I totally owe him a dishwasher when we get back to America. And a maid. We enjoy cooking so I think we can skip the chef. I am sure that once the baby comes, I will have a new person in this world that I love completely and unconditionally to a degree that I never thought possible, but I already love and appreciate her more than I could ever imagine because she has shown me that I made the right choice when I married Jonathan. If the first 2 years of marriage and 4 years of dating before were this good, then I cannot wait to see how great the rest of our lives will be. 

Everything in my life is changing in a big, irreversible way, but I couldn't be happier.  Heartburn, vomiting, nausea, bladder infections, backaches, homesickness (is there such as thing as "momsickness" where you miss your mom?), fatigue, and a lack of interest in doing anything outside of our apartment aside, I would not have chosen any differently if I could go back in time.

I love you all and thanks for bearing with me.  I am making a 25th week of pregnancy resolution to be more positive in my thoughts and words so that I can have the power and energy to overcome the little bumps in the road. Life is only going to get harder and busier from here on out and I want to enjoy the magic and little miracles around me every day.

xo
Laura, Jonathan, and baby

Here are some recent photos. Link to babymoon photos

Boy or Girl?

So we went to the doctor today for our 24th week check-up and ultrasound.
He takes a screenshot and says,
"Well, here it is."
I said, "What are we looking at?"
"The sex."
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Which one do you want?"
"Either one is fine."
"Girl, maybe. We will check again next time to be sure."

Hahahahaha. So we have a "girl, maybe."  I find this hilarious and I hope you do too.

Also, our baby girl is still too shy to let us have a 3D picture of her face, but we got an awesome profile shot of her trying to touch her toes. So cute!

We will post pictures... eventually!

Love you all,
Laura, Jonathan, and Girl Maybe