• Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 22 Week Bumpdate

    The weeks are seriously just flying by! Here is my 22 week bumpdate. 🙂


    Size of the Baby: A Spaghetti Squash! – about 11 inches and almost one pound!

    Total Weight Gain: Around 9-11 pounds. I had a doctor’s appointment this week and they weighed me at 112, which is a 9 pound increase but when I weighed myself at home the same day I was at 114.

    Gender: A sweet baby boy!

    Symptoms: I had really bad hip pain last weekend, which scared the heck out of me. I thought if it hurt so bad already, there was no way I could handle it getting worse and worse until baby is here. Thankfully though I must have just slept funny or something because it went away within the next few days.

    I also got scared and some anxiety because I kind of convinced myself at one point that the pain could be from a kidney infection. I had just read about people getting them while pregnant on the baby boards on one of my apps but thankfully it definitely wasn’t a kidney infection.

    That was really it for symptoms this week though. It was a pretty easy week!

    Stretch Marks: Nope!

    Exercise: I finally did a prenatal YouTube workout like I have been wanting to. It felt really good to get my body moving. I unfortunately only did one and am hoping to do more this week.

    Maternity Clothes: I bought my first pair of maternity jeans! I definitely needed new pants because all I’m wearing are leggings because that’s all that fit me. But I really needed a pair of pants for church and when I go out to nicer places.

    Unfortunately though I thought the jeans I bought fit well in the store but then realized they actually are slightly too short and a little too baggy so I’m going to return them and try to find another pair.

    Cravings: I had been craving disco fries, which if you aren’t from New Jersey you might not know what they are so let me explain really quickly. Disco fries are french fries with brown gravy and melted mozzarella cheese on them and they are typically sold at diners. They are seriously amazing.

    So anyway, I had been craving them for quite a while and had a really strong craving for them on Saturday night so I called one of the diners around where I live that is open 24/7 and ordered Disco Fries to go haha. Tommy was so awesome and picked them up for me!

    Nursery: We got about 99% of the shiplap done and even painted! We might need one more coat of paint but it looks so, so good. I just love it! Don’t mind the tape on the walls, we are obviously still working on it!

    Tommy is: still so excited about being a dad. He’s also trying to soak up the last little bit of time with just the two of us.

    Looking forward to: being able to buy the crib and dresser and see the nursery come together even more!

    Best Moments: Hearing the baby’s heart beat at our check-up! That obviously never gets old!


  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 21 Week Bumpdate

    There honestly isn’t too much to say about this week, but I still want to document it of course. 🙂


    Size of the Baby: An Endive (?) – about 10.5 inches and 12.7 ounces!

    Total Weight Gain: 9 pounds

    Gender: A baby boy! See our gender reveal here.

    Symptoms: Every once in a while I have trouble taking a deep breath. It doesn’t last long and I’m pretty sure it’s a normal pregnancy thing but it’s a bit frustrating. I also had a few nights where my nose would get super stuffy and it would be harder to breathe when laying down. I used my Essential Oil diffuser and that helped A LOT.

    I also had one day where I had this intense hip pain out of nowhere. It passed pretty quickly and hasn’t come back so I’m not worried but it was intense.

    Sleep: Oh how I miss my regular sleep. I cannot get used to sleeping on my side for anything. I usually wake up on my back in the morning and have to flip back over on my side. My body is just not comfortable that way.

    Stretch Marks: None yet!

    Cravings: To be honest with you I haven’t really had any lately, or at least not any strong ones.

    Exercise: I did take a couple walks this week but that was really it. I felt like my body really needed some rest this week so I didn’t push it.

    Tommy is: working really hard this week. excited to finish the nursery shiplap (which we should be doing this weekend!)

    Looking forward to: finishing the shiplap and paint in the nursery!

    Best Moments: My mom’s friend at work gave us a little gift of baby clothes! It was so sweet! I’ll include a picture below of what she got us.


  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 20 Week Bumpdate

    Can you believe I’m halfway to actually having a baby in my arms?! I sure can’t! Some days it feels like time is speeding by and other days I feel like it’s going to take forever to meet our little baby. Let’s see how this week went. I don’t think there’s a whole lot to say about this week after having such an exciting week last week.


    Size of the Baby: A banana! – about 6.5 inches and 10 ounces. At our ultrasound this week the technician told us he actually weighs 12 oz!

    Total Weight Gain: Around 7-8 pounds. I go back to the doctor next week so I’ll know for sure then.

    Gender: A handsome baby boy! Check out our gender reveal here if you missed it. 🙂

    Symptoms: Symptoms have been very mild the past few months and I’m so thankful. My biggest complaint though would be sleeping (and honestly it’s not even really that bad). As I think I’ve mentioned before, I’m having trouble sleeping on my side. My shoulders get really achy and I find myself waking up on my back.

    I also think I might have developed a slight dairy intolerance possibly? My stomach bothers me sometimes if I eat a lot of dairy, which has never happened before. I really hope this doesn’t means that Baby Zin is also intolerant to dairy because I definitely plan to breastfeed and I eat a lot of dairy so that will be hard to cut that out if I have to.

    Movement: I felt him move a lot a couple of days this week. I usually can feel him when I stop moving at night just before I go to sleep. It’s the coolest thing ever.

    Missing: Nothing this week! It’s been such an exciting week, I haven’t even had time to miss anything.

    Nursery: We started working on the nursery this week! Now that we know we’re having a boy we’re able to actually make some real plans. We started shiplapping one of the walls and it looks so good! I seriously love it. I can’t wait to see how it all comes together.

    Exercise: I haven’t been sticking to a very “specific” workout program this pregnancy. I did take a walk one day this week. I have been staying very active lately though. Like I just mentioned, we are working on the nursery so I have been on my feet moving around a lot during the day.

    Tommy is: having a lot of fun working on the baby’s room.

    Looking Forward To: Finishing up the paint/shiplap this week and seeing how it all comes out!

    Best Moments: Finding out the gender of sweet baby Zin of course!


  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 19 Week Bumpdate

    Hey friends, I’m a little a lot late this week for the bumpdate but that’s because it’s been such an exciting week! If you missed it, we announced the gender of sweet baby Zin yesterday. You can check that out here. Let’s recap week 19 shall we? This was probably the most exciting week yet!


    Size of the Baby: Mango – about 6 inches and 8.5 oz!

    Total Weight Gain: I think about 7 pounds.

    Gender: (I’m going to include this in even though we didn’t find out until 20 weeks.) A sweet baby BOY! I’m so excited! I believe we already have a name picked out too. As soon as we found out he was a boy I instantly didn’t like the names we had originally picked out for him. (We were debating between three.) We almost instantly decided right after I said that though that we really loved a new name. I’m still figuring out if I want to announce it before he is born, which to be honest I probably will. I am terrible at, and hate keeping secrets, but we need to confirm 100% if that’s the name we want before announcing obviously.

    Symptoms: A little bit of belly issues. I had a few days where I was very emotional thinking about how everything is changing and is going to completely change once baby is born. It passed pretty quickly but I did have a bit of a breakdown thinking about it. I also felt the skin on my belly stretching a lot this week, which was a bit uncomfortable.

    Movement: We finally felt him move you guys! I knew it was him too! I say we because I could feel it from the outside and had Tommy feel as well! We were laying down to go to sleep the night before I turned 20 weeks and I kept feeling little poking feelings around my belly button. I had a feeling it was the baby and it just kept happening and then we could even feel it from the outside! It was the coolest thing ever!

    Sleep: I sometimes wake up on my back and have to flip back over onto my side because my shoulders/arms/hands fall asleep from laying on them 🙄.

    Missing: I actually really had a day where I was missing my regular body a lot. I try not to dwell on this too much because I’m just so thankful to be pregnant. I think the skin stretching had something to do with it. It scared me a bit about how much my body has already and will change even more.

    Exercise: I walked A LOT this week. At the beginning of it we were still in Wildwood so I was walking about 3 miles there. Then we came home and I took the dog for a walk a couple of days and even did pregnancy yoga one night before bed.

    Tommy is: excited to know we are having a little boy!

    Looking Forward To: Working on the nursery! Now that we know it’s a boy we can really start planning and I am beyond excited. We are planning to shiplap one of the walls in his room this week. We are also going to try to buy paint as well.

    Best Moments: Same as last week 😉, relaxing on the beach with my husband.


    This week was a really great week (even though I kind of combined week 19 + 20 a bit because of the gender), but I am still planning on doing a full update on Monday for week 20 so check back for that!

  • Coffee Dates,  Faith,  Life,  Pregnancy

    Let’s Have Coffee | Vol. 11

    It has been way too long since I’ve sat down for a cup of coffee with you guys! In case you’re new here, I sit down and have a coffee date with my friends over at Erin’s blog. I’m a bit late to the link up this month but normally we meet every second Monday of each month. We just talk about whatever is on our hearts as if we were really having coffee together. We’d love for you to come join us!


    If we were having coffee, I would ask if you’ve heard the news that I’m pregnant! I haven’t joined in for coffee since announcing the news so I would have to catch up all up on that. It’s been a complete whirlwind since finding out in May, but we are so very excited for our little bundle of joy joining our family in January!

    If we were having coffee, I would admit that it’s hard for me to talk about anything other than the baby at this point. Our world is going to change so much and it’s so hard not to at least try to picture how our lives our going to look once baby is here. I’d also admit that it’s hard not talking about it because we are finding out the gender of our sweet babe this Monday!

    If we were having coffee, I would ask you what your favorite type of brewed coffee is for when you are drinking coffee at home. I’m always looking for new brands of coffee to try. I like to switch up what I drink so I don’t get too used to one type and then each cup really tastes great.

    If we were having coffee, I would let you know that I feel a bit lost since finding out I’m pregnant. There just have been so many changes this year. I started the year out as a stay-at-home wife, we moved out of our first apartment, and then found out that I was pregnant. I’m going to actually do a whole post about this soon but I’m trying to find my groove again with whether or not I’m going to still be pursuing blogging full-time. I’m still trying to work out exactly what all of this means for my life.

    If we were having coffee, I would explain that I am planning on working hard on my Etsy shop over the next few months. I have neglected it a lot lately. I plan on trying to stock it up as much as possible with new blankets, baby items, and home decor before baby comes. I also really want to collaborate with some bloggers within the coming months too so if that’s something you’d be interested in, please contact me!

    If we were having coffee, I’d ask how your spiritual life is lately. I feel like it’s so easy not to bring this up with friends but so very important. I would share that I’m starting to feel closer to God lately. I feel a bit lost in my relationship with him because my husband and I switched churches, then ended up switching back to our old church after moving back into town. We’ve also been so busy this summer that we have been missing a lot of church. This always affects my relationship with God as well. I’m really hoping with the start of fall we can really fall back into a consistent routine of not missing church anymore. I think that will be great for both of our walks with Jesus.


    Thanks for joining me for coffee! It was so great to have you. Before we go though, please tell me what else is new with you! I’d love to hear. 😋

  • Baby,  Pregnancy

    Baby Zin: 18 Week Bumpdate

    Hi friends. I know this bumpdate is a bit late but that’s because we just got home from vacation yesterday! I am planning on doing a vacation recap also, maybe either later this week or early next week so be on the look out for that 🙂.


    Size of the Baby: An artichoke – about 5.59 inches long.

    Total Weight Gain: 6lbs.

    Gender: We find out this Monday!! I’m still leaning more towards girl though. I will be surprised if it’s a boy.

    Symptoms: A few uncomfortable symptoms this week. I had leg cramping one night when I woke up in the middle of the night. I had a gum issue, where my gums in one spot were just really swollen and took so long to get better. I was also a lot more tired this week than usual. I took a nap a lot of days, probably because of all the walking I did on vacation though.

    Movement: Still unsure. I can’t wait until I can feel baby move!

    Sleep: Sleep was a bit rough for me this week. I had a doctor’s appointment this week and I asked him when I had to stop sleeping on my back and he told me now! This made it much harder to sleep the rest of the week because anytime I would get uncomfortable I would just lay on my back and fall asleep. I had to get used to sleeping only on my side, which was an adjustment. But my pregnancy pillow really helped with that and is now a very prized possession of mine, haha!

    Missing: I don’t think anything this week.

    Exercise: We walked at least 3 miles every day in Wildwood so I’m totally counting that as working out!

    Tommy is: getting more and more excited as time goes on.

    Looking Forward To: Our anatomy scan this Monday!!

    Best Moments: Definitely being at the beach, relaxing with my husband 🙂.