First Trimester Recap: Weeks 1-12

As I'm wrapping up week 12--yay! I thought I'd spend some time teaching you what I learned so far.

1. Being anti-social makes me sad. Looking forward to having more energy for the next 3 months and sorry to my amazing for bailing on every set of plans possible and having the craziest excuses.

2. If you are someone who had no morning sickness (BITE ME), but also, you should seriously have like 100+ kids. you go girl.

3. E.T. (until it's been proven to be a boy or girl) is now the size of a lime and I should probably stop calling it E.T. since it "His face looks unquestionably human: His eyes have moved from the sides to the front of his head, and his ears are right where they should be". Q-where were they before?! and WTF?

4. Speaking of limes. I love limes. Limes in water, limes in soda, Raspberry lime rickey's. I mean HEAVEN. delicious heaven.

5. Underwire bras are a thing of the past.

6. I am sick of waking up over 5x a night to pee.

7. There is a BABY inside me. I won't believe this until our sonogram.

8. I don't think I've gained much weight since I was having issues eating, but my pants are a little snug at times. Just around the belly button. Bella bands it is!

9. My god, hormones are a funny thing. I could cry and laugh at the same time. God forbid I accidentally leave the TV on for something like extreme makeover home edition b/c stick a fork in me, i'm done.

10. E.T. is one lucky kid, already. Our parents are through the moon and I can already tell will spoil 'it' rotten. So will it's wonderful aunt, and many friends by the name of auntie and uncle too.

I'm so excited to finally share the news and make this public. Only another week until Christmas to share with our families and then the world can know!

until then...

Times are a changin'

Some of you were probably wondering why my blog was suddenly private. This was only temporary and by the time you can read this it will be public again. Why do you ask when it's been MONTHS since I last blogged?

Well lot's of things going on with the Britts and life just got in the way ;-) We had a wonderful (and fast) summer, filled with lots of family QT, a trip to Europe and some amazing weddings. We started planning for 2012 and all the little things we want to do to the house, the trips we wanted to take and even talked about potentially starting a family sometime...

and well, you guessed it. some time came a lot sooner than I was planning for. All of a sudden, we came back from Miami and something didn't seem right. I wasn't feeling myself and a positive pregnancy test told us I was 6 weeks pregnant. I'm not one to hide things so I'll tell you honestly--I was SHOCKED. I was so surprised that I couldn't even truly muster a smile. The ultimate guilt. I don't know if woman want to admit this, but it's really hard to go from being a 20 something gal to PREGNANT. no drinking, no unpasteurized cheese, no deli meat...oh and exhausted. Tired in your bones, in a way no man could ever understand. And now, well, the nausea. I want to throw up constantly. My body was hijacked by something the size of a pencil eraser.

And at 10 weeks now, I'm ever so close to being able to reveal the news to the world. I'm in a much better place emotionally, yes, i'm excited :P (and scared out of my mind) but I'm still feeling le mis. And as I write this, it's Saturday night and I should be at 1 of 3 christmas parties. But instead, i'm sitting on my couch watching tv because I literally cannot get up and feel like puking. And the idea of pretending to drink two nights in a row makes me ill. Did I mention it's 9:30 and I feel like it's 2am? But I can say, I'm sitting in on a Saturday night with the absolute most wonderful husband in the world. He chose not to go out. I cried because it made me so happy. And then I laughed for crying? (oh hormones) Did I mention the bagel he got me this morning? (because if I can eat, it's only starch). And then the soup he tried to make me? And the countless tasks I asked him to do while I sat on the couch in misery? If there is one thing this baby has done thus far...it's make me realize how lucky "it" will be to have this man as their father.

quick snapshot of the landscaping

here are some pictures of the new landscaping. It's already starting to look different from Day 1... stay tuned for updates.

It's all starting to come together

The first step before the landscaping is finalizing and installing the fence. And due to some unexpected rain, we were set back and so we don't have much to show just yet. The fence looks AMAZING and now finally the landscaper can come and start work!

Before:

After:

Landscaping :)

With spring around the corner, Jarrett and I have committed ourselves to making the house look better on the outside. (And when I say "we", I really mean we are committed to it getting done, just not by us). It wasn't horrible...but just not what I wanted. It's become an obsession for me. Here I am with no understanding of plants, what works in the northeast, how much it costs. NOTHING. And yet, I have a vision I want executed. Enter google hell. I don't even know what I should be googling for ideas. "Bushes? Plants? Pretty House?" Boy does our landscaping have his work cut out. So here we go...in a couple of weeks, we'll have a new fence, and a new yard!

Here are some pics of before and current. Since it's just April, we need to wait to plant...but I wanted to get everything that was there GONE. (And remember, before picture was taken in the summer....not March where it's quite the ugly canvas)

So here is our blank canvas:

Happy 30th Jarrett...and 7th Knight!

By now I'm a week late announcing it, but last week was a fabulous week which was capped off by Jarrett's 30th birthday (and our little guy has turned 7!). (See pics from our photo shoot from their birthday night!)

We started the birthday with some Veuve Clicquot with Rich and Laura and then headed to the infamous La Paloma. This is by far our favorite Mexican restaurant in Quincy. In typical fashion I overate...and we finished the night with the boys <3

Then came the present! I had been keeping Jarrett's present a secret for months and it was killing me. K I L L I N G M E. I had debated what to get him. I wanted to blow it out of the water and really do it up since we don't have children yet and this is a big one. Jarrett and I have a huge love for food and Jarrett loves cooking....so I found a place in Boston called Stir. Stir is owned by Chef Barbara Lynch (think No. 9 Park, Menton, The Butcher Shop, B&G Oyster....). They have all kinds of cooking classes and offer private events... SO, i thought perfect! But even better you can hire BL herself to cook. We made a four course meal and it was TO DIE FOR!

Where dreams come true....

Here's a couple shots from our trip to Disney.

Our hotel. Love Disney Vacation Club!

@ the Flying Fish. Amazing wine pairing dinner.

@ Bluezoo (Todd English's restaurant)

I am a terrible blogger.

2011 has not been good for my blogging. It has however been good for the hubs and I, which means it's been very very busy. I promise to be better!

In January, we took on Disney World. What a fantastic way to be kids by day and posh foodie adults by night. I have to admit, it was a perfect trip. The weather was good, the rides were extremely fun and the food (Flying Fish, California Grill, Bluezoo...) all awesome!

February had me traveling a lot for work, including a trip on Valentine's Day. But also gave us some insight into our tax returns so we could plan for the home renovations. On the list was:

• New carpet for the stairs (installed, pics soon!)
• New dining room chairs (done!)
• Landscaping (in progress)
  

...I'll have some great pics soon. But as we got into March, we had a wrench thrown into the mix. While outside playing, Lincoln noticed a somewhat week, old fence and took advantage of the situation and "visited" our neighbors. Luckily I found him...but it made us realize we need to fix it sooner than planned. So we are currently getting quotes for that. OY!

I'll follow-up soon with pictures of the transformations and in the meantime we'll be focused on Jarrett's 30th birthday this Friday. What a weekend I have in store :)