Baby update

I've been meaning to put the ultrasound pictures up for awhile. Here they are!




It's amazing the things they can figure out looking at the ultrasounds. I would not be able to see as much as they can. Of course it takes training.

My mom has been bugging me for a pregnancy picture. I thought I'd start with a pre-pregnancy picture, and I found a couple of pictures from the wedding to use for comparison. Nice huh? You can kinda see my belly in these pictures. Now here's one taken last Sunday: Wow baby boy, you are making Mommy fat!

Anyway, I am now starting to walk funny. I'm not waddling yet, but it's a sort of wobble. The baby is getting more active, and I feel him almost every day. Mike felt him a couple of weeks ago, but hasn't been able to much since, he isn't violent enough to be felt much outside of my belly.

I'm really hungry lately, I eat a lot more than I used too. Whenever we go out to eat I want meat. It used to be that Mike and I would split a dinner, but now I am too hungry and have to get my own food. Besides, Mike isn't a huge fan of steak, and I want that a lot.

I get tired a lot and very quickly. And I get short of breath if I walk to quickly or when I walk upstairs carrying laundry. My husband is very good about taking care of those problems for me. He rocks!

And I have heartburn almost every night. Ouch! It is not fun.

Other than that, things are going ok for me. I'm not sick anymore, and I am adjusting to being pregnant nicely.

And my husband is a great guy. He has done a lot to help me. One day I sent him a text letting him know I was having a hard time, and he made dinner, and got me a special treat for dessert.

I am due July 16th, but I assume the baby will be late, so I;m guessing late July, hopefully not as late as August.

Giddy!

I am seriously giddy and excited. D'you want to know why?

I just paid off my car!

Ok, so technically I haven't yet, I still have to mail the check because my bank is lame and doesn't let me do it any other way. But I have the money, I wrote the check, and I am going to the post office tomorrow to send it off certified, since it is a pretty big check.

I bought the car almost exactly two years ago, and took out a $7500 loan to pay for it. It was a six year loan, but I always intended to make extra payments on it, and pay it off faster. Well, for awhile I was putting a lot extra each month, like $300 or so more, because I was living with family and didn't have rent, and then after we got married, we weren't really paying attention to budget, so I kept it up. But then we realized that we had to pay for Mike's tuition, so we needed to start saving, and I cut back. Then tax season came around.

To be honest, I had completely forgotten about tax returns when I was doing financial planning. We figured we'd put whatever we got into savings as a cushion when the baby was born, but we didn't realize how much we were going to get. Being married put a big chunk back in our wallet. So we decided that we were getting enough to pay off my car, and to still have some savings for when the baby came.

We were told by my aunt, who did our taxes, that we would get the tax return next weekend, so we figured we'd pay it off then. Well, I logged onto our bank website today and noticed a big increase in my checking account. I was soooo excited! I logged onto the other bank site to check the payoff amount and wrote out the check immediately.

It's such a good feeling! We now have extra money we can put into savings or my student loans, and we will own my car outright! I don't think I will ever get another car loan. I kind of needed this one, since I was moving and needed a good reliable car, and I'm glad I have it, but I have made a personal goal to never have to do it again. I don't think people realize how much interest they end up paying on loans. The first few payments I made, more than a third of the money went to interest! That's why I decided so quickly to make extra payments. A six year loan paid off in two years? Not too shabby.

We paid off our car!