Promotion, appearance, vegan, registry.

It's Wednesday morning. Scott is at work and Bruce is asleep. I'm curled up in a blanket on our couch in a living room filled with boxes and disorganization. We've had an eventful past few days. I think I'm ready to share my feelings again.

For those who haven't heard, Scott got another promotion! It was so unexpected. Just last week we were laughing at the idea of him picking up Sergeant anytime soon and then Friday I got a frantic phone call asking me to bring his inspection cammies, razor, and an iron to him at work ASAP. They informed him that he was going on a meritorious promotion board that day. He was overwhelmed and little bit frustrated but he pulled through and won his company board. He then advanced to the battalion board. On Monday, I was woken up to another frantic call requesting the same things, immediately. I rushed up to his work and was able to give him the goods and a good luck kiss. He was once again a little thrown off because he had no warning or time to prepare. From my knowledge and experience, when a Marine goes on to a meritorious board he is judged on his appearance (build, uniform perfection, attractiveness), his knowledge of the Corps and current events, and his prior stats (PFT, CFT, Pros and Cons, rifle score...). The Marine walks into a room filled with higher ranking Marines and is interviewed and judged in the previously mentioned areas. So, on Monday he sat around in his inspection cammies, studying his knowledge all day waiting for the board. At the end of the day he was informed that the board would be held the next day (yesterday) at 0900. He spent Monday night readying his uniform and going over his knowledge. His hard work paid off and he won the board the next day! He is in shock and I am blown away. Not because I didn't think he could do it (I fully believe that he is going to do big things in the Marine Corps/life) but by God's grace and timing. It has been only 4 months since Scott was meritoriously promoted to Corporal and now this! I sent out an email to our families last night sharing the good news and I received one back that hit me hard. Aunt Doe responded and said that she loves to get our updates because we are always filled with such good news. I don't know why I did not realize this until then, but we truly are. God blesses us and blesses us. Sometimes I feel like life is moving so quickly that I cannot keep up. That email made me feel completely selfish. Why would I ever want this to stop? We are being moved in the direction that God wants us. He is molding us and placing us just where He wants us for the glorification and advancement of His kingdom. I may feel out of control and overwhelmed a majority of the time, but that's great. The less control I have the more control the Lord has. He doesn't mess things up like I do. This promotion will help us to better provide for our new baby and put us just where we need to be. This will open up doors for Scott's career and for future opportunities. I didn't mean for this to be a long thing, I just wanted to share with you how proud of I am of my husband and how blessed we're feeling during this time.

Now, on to the baby stuff:
I have gotten a lot of questions about my appearance. According to the scale I have only gained a few pounds. Maybe four, but it depends on what time of the day I weigh myself. I do have a couple belly pictures but I am not ready to post them online. I might someday but it's still strange to be changing. I think that it is so engrained into the minds of girls to be skinny, that it's weird when you feel out of control of your body. When I see my protruding lower abdomen I automatically associate it with being unattractive. I feel like I need to suck in or tighten my abs. Consciously, I know this is not the case and I have a beautiful little baby growing inside of me. But, my subconscious just cannot grasp that yet. I am sure once I am showing a little more and I look more pregnant (and not just like I ate too much) I will be more willing to post stomach pics but right now, I'm just not there yet. Also, it's weird to post pictures online exposing that much of your body. Is this weird or uncomfortable to anyone else? 

As for my diet, I'm semi-vegan. I want to be vegan but it's hard right now. I ate 4 Chick-Fil-A chicken sandwiches in one week. I wanted them so badly! I ordered chicken fried steak at a restaurant and I ate almost all of it. And I have been eating lots of cheese pizza. It's so good. Now, my meat cravings have subsided but I am not over cheese just yet. This is another weird part about being pregnant. I have to accept that my body is going to want certain things and I have to be willing to feed it. If I am craving meat that badly I am probably lacking protein. If I could kill for a cheese cube, I might need calcium. I do know that I am not eating a very balanced diet. I am starting to head that way again but the first trimester made it quite difficult. I wanted lots of things that I normally would never eat. Now, I feel a little more in control. I have began drinking green juice again. As well as, cutting out meat and most fast food. Which, makes me feel better in my body. I feel better when I eat better, makes sense. I have decided that I will not pass up Meema's spaghetti, even though it has meat in it. One of the many books I have ordered is called Feeding Baby Green. It is all about nutrition and diet for babies and pregnancy. It talks about the different studies done that show that babies are more likely to eat what they were fed while they were in the womb. We want the baby to love Meema's spaghetti and her delicious meat sauce because it's a family thing. Scott and his family grew up on it and they all love it! And what can I say, it's delicious! We want to have traditions and this is definitely going to be one of them. We want that baby to want Meema's spaghetti! As of now, that's the only meat I'm consuming. I am also eating lots of different fruits and veggies thanks to our weekly vegetable crate. It keeps a variety of organic produce in the house which is ideal for me to snack on! 

First time eating meat in over a year! 

Registering was hard. But fun! We registered at three different places. First, it was a struggle to decide where we wanted to register. There are so many cute baby places! We needed places that would be accessible in California, Oklahoma, and Texas. After asking around we decided to register at Babies "R" Us and giggle.com. Babies "R" Us is a staple baby store that everyone has heard of. Giggle is a store here in CA but they also have a great online store. We are hoping that the shower guests will have most of the gifts shipped here and just wrap up the print out for me to open at the shower, so we figured an online registry should not be a problem. It would be difficult to travel with big boxes back to Cali. Especially since I will be flying. After we made up our minds on where to register we had to decide what to register for. And man, was this taxing. We did so much research to find the best baby brands and products. Luckily, moms are pretty great at posting reviews online about products so it was easy to see what people liked and what they didn't like. We still do not know what sort of thermometer to get- any suggestions? But I feel like we have decided on most of the other big things. I am hoping to do a post of baby gear soon. I want to show you all what we decided to go with and get your opinions on it. Especially any new moms out there. Most of our stuff is organic but that is what we decided was best for our baby and our family. I'll go more into detail about that later.

And finally, we moved this weekend! Yes, again. I'll post more pictures of the new house later.

Front. It's a duplex, our neighbors are to the right. 

Our backyard. Scott's going to make it pretty and put up our hammock!

Half of our kitchen. The stove and fridge are to the right. 

Love you all. I'm going to go eat. 

PS- My belly button is getting huge. It's like a crater in there. Is this normal? Is it going to shrink back down?