Pregnancy pics

This is me at 16 weeks!!And this is me at 18 weeks. (this was after the big move, in our new kitchen which is so nice. I am very tired at this point, but making it through. I still have been working full time and organizing the house in 4 days with now hot water, heat, or cooking gas. Thankfully the gas did get turned on at about 8:30 last night. But the house is ready for visitors coming today and we love the new place.)

A Big Week

Oh Man, I don't even know where to start with this post. Life has been a little crazy around our house. it started out with us finding an apartment. And all the details fitting in to place, for this wonderful new apartment, with great tenants next to us and a wonderful landlord who so generously has lowered the cost and made things very convenient for us. (I feel like there are so many details about this whole week, I will probably forget some). We were trying to think about when to move and how everything would work out. We were looking at guests coming, and school work and projects, work, and weather, and everything. Well come last monday about a week ago, through some circumstances and thinking, I said to Richard "We have to move this weekend, or we won't have time to move". So we thought about it that night, he called both landlords (old and new) and by tues night we had just decided to go ahead and move. Things kept falling into place, and God made it so obvious the rest of the week that he was guiding us and we were following His direction. Tuesday night was the only night that I didn't have anywhere to go. So Melissa (richard's sister) came over and helped me get started and we got a huge chunk of the apartment done. Slowly in every spare moment I packed up as much stuff as I could. My sister Jerelyn and her family so graciously told us that they would come up to help, and that was so huge. I'm telling you, we are forever indebted to them. They did so much for us this past weekend.
Quite a few people offered to help us move and by Saturday morning they were showing up and I think we did pretty good with getting our stuff in order before they all showed up considering the circumstances. God also worked it out so that our old landlord found someone to move into out old apartment and said he would not hold us to our lease, so that was a huge answer to our prayers and we will get our months rent and security deposit back and are not responsible for the utilities in that apartment. And our new landlord is only charging us $250 for the month of november and then starting the lease in December. God is providing for us in amazing ways. Oh I forgot one thing, throughout all last week, Richard was trying to find time in between his usual busyness to put in a washer/dryer hook up with a friend of ours. So that took up a lot of time.
Oh and Friday we also took the afternoon off and had our first ultrasound. It was amazing and so cool. We found out we are having a BOY!!!!! Richard is very happy, and I am excited now. I'm just so glad that everything is healthy, I am healthy, and the baby is kicking like crazy. :-)
So we got completely out of the apartment on Saturday (by the way, I think Jerelyn cleaned my whole old apartment for me, and I am so thankful for that, even my bathroom and oven).
We had a lot to do in the next couple days because we have guests arriving tomorrow!!!!!
Richard's brother Jason, and his wife Autumn and daugther Aspen are coming to visit!!! I am so excited to see them and cannot wait. It will be such a nice time.
But thankfully with so much help from so many people the house is livable and pretty inviting for guests. Stuff isn't out on the walls or set up really, but furniture is in place and boxes are at least stacked (the ones that are still unpacked, I have gotten to quite a few of them). The wasehr/dryer hook up is finally ready to go.
The only downside to this whole story is that there was a big miscommunication with the landlord and our gas has been shut off. There was nothing we could do about that over the weekend, and when we called yesterday, they couldn't come until today. So we have had no hot water, heat or cooking gas. But today I hope it wil be fixed. The heat situation is great though, no heat and we are still very comfortable in the apartment (very contrary to our other apartment) and we have been borrowing showers from friends for the time being.
Richard has thankfully been able to keep up with his homework on top of putting everything together and fixing things. Not as much as he would like, but at least enough to turn things in and take quizes and tests.
God is good and leading us and providing for us, and loves us. We are so amazed at how through just trusting him he has provided for all our needs. I am very very tired and exhausted from moving, lifting probably more than I should and staying up late, but we are nice and comfortable in a wonderful apartment that is a perfect place to start a family.
I will post pics of apartment and my belly as soon as I find time to find the jump drive and copy the pictures onto it to load up. :-) Thanks all for reading this.

Feeling the baby Move!!!

Just a quick note to tell everyone that I'm pretty sure I can feel the baby moving. I have wondered for at least a week or more now. I"m pretty sure now that it is the baby moving. I love the feeling and it is not too often. Well actually the last 2 days I have felt the baby multiple times on multiple occasions. I know everyone describes it differently but for me it is literally like someone or something is brushing their arm up against the inside of me. It is a little weird but so nice at the same time. I wish that I could feel that all day long, it is sort of a comforthing thing. I know in like 10 more weeks I will want it to stop and it will disrupt my sleep (I add that for all those mothers who will probably already say that to me. :-)) but for now I am enjoying it.
My ultrasound is exactly a week from now, and as the date approaches I get more and more excited to see the baby and find out what we are having. :-)
We also found an apartment and now are trying to work out all the details of timing for moving and all of that stuff. Kinda a little stressful, but I need to be patient and trust that God knows how it will all work out already.

Fall!!!

Yes, I'm one of those crazy people that love when the weather starts getting colder. Fall is my favorite time of year. The crip weather, the colors. Its just seems so refreshing after the hot summer days. I love the clothes too, Jeans and sweatshirts are my favorite.

Pregnancy update: I am currently 15 weeks pregnant. My belly is starting to pop out, and starting to not fit inot very many clothes. I'm at the stage now where I look like I have a pot belly, and feel like I should wear a sign, "its not a pot bellly, its a baby". :-) Here is a recent pic I took.

Richard has had the month of October off of classes. (the school has module classes going on this month). But instead of working on homework, his job has been so busy. So we are just plugging along, hoping to make it through. (I know we will).

We are also looking to move to a new apartment when our lease is up in November, so we are in the middle of looking all over for one. Please pray if you think of it, for a perfect price and situation.

I have made the move to the Scranton office, so my drive is about 10 min, and that is only because of traffic lights. :-) Its only 2 miles from my house. I love the change, and so far everything is going well.

A Praise: All of us Mayfield kids will be in Ecuador for Christmas time. We all bought tickets, although expensive but we all have them. It was a big relief to finally get them, and we will all love being together. I will be about 6 months pregnant, and Jerelyn will have her baby. Our family is expanding, but we love it. We are going to cherish the times we have together so much.

No Good, Very Bad Day

Have you ever had one of those days where everything seems to be bad, and you just want to start a new day or go on vacation? Today was one of those days for me. :-) I'll try to add the positive things in as well though.

It started out feeling very very tired. I seem to be more tired the last week or so. I got to work and found out one of the other receptionists was not coming in.(Positive #1, The store that I get a muffin from had resees chocolate muffins today, they were so good) Ok, I thought, thats fine. Usually my job is not very demanding at all. But today was a new thing. I was so busy talking to so many crazy people. (I do applications over the phone for legal aid) I hardly got to eat anything for lunch, which for a pregnant person, that is not a good thing. I had to leave work a little early to go to the dentist and get a cavity filled. That in and of itself would make your day bad.
So I got my cavity filled and it was very painful. I hate the dentist. Meanwhile, I'm still starving and can't eat anything because my cheek is numb. So I came home and layed on the couch for a half hour or so, and Richard came home. And he had a nice little yellow slip to present to me (he got a speeding ticket). That really throws everyone for a loop. He was irritated and I was trying really hard not to be for his sake.

Then I had to go grocery shopping. (postivie #2, I saved $37 on my bill, now that is pretty good). I always feel like I spend so much money so that isn't very fun. We are going on a mini vacation with Richard's brother and fam, and sister and Fam on wednesday, so I had to get a bunch of stuff for that. We are all kinda splitting the food. When we got home, I realized that I had forgotten the ingredients to make puppy chow that I was going to make for the trip. So Richard went back to the store for me.(Positive #3, I have a great husband who will do that for me, even when he has a lot of school work to finish before his 6:30 A.M. class) Meanwhile I'm making another kind of cookie (Centennial crunch) that requires melting butterscotch chips and peanut butter together. OF course I must've burnt the chips or something becuase it started to turn solid. but I still managed to get somewhat of a cookie made out of it, and it still tastes the same. But I'm embarrassed to take my famous cookies on the trip becuase they aren't normally that weird looking.

So Richard gets home from the store and I go to make the puppy chow, and I have to mess that one up too. Who messes puppy chow up? I am usually a pretty decent cook. But again I feel like I wasted all those ingredients, and of course I'm embarrassed to take not very good puppy chow on our trip with us. UGH!!!

And just remember while you read all of this, I am pregnant,(maybe I can blame all of this on being pregnant, at least my mistakes) very very tired, and all I can think about is laying down and sleeping.
So its 8:15pm right now, I'm ready to give up on everything, go to sleep and hope that when I wake up tomorrow things will be brighter and better. :-)
And in one more day I am going on vacation to the Beach!!!!

First Real Doctor's Appointment

Friday Sept 5th I had my first real Doctor's appointment. If you have talked to me about the doctor already you know what I'm saying real. I had an apointment near the beginning of August and had high expectations I guess. But they only took us into an office and asked us our family medical history and sent us away. They didn't even weigh me or anything at all. So I was kinda annoyed and still wondering if things were ok. I thought that appointment would give me some relief of the worry but it didn't do anything. Plus I knew my next appointment wasn't until Sept 5th and that felt like so long to wait.
But the day finally came. It was so amazing. The appointment itself was really quick but she said everything was great and looked completely normal and good. The best part was that we heard our baby's heartbeat. Richard said it was one of the coolest things he has ever heard. :-) She pointed at my stomach and said we should be able to hear it right here. As soon as she put the thing on we could hear it right away, loud and clear, and very fast and steady. Not much else to say about it, except it was so cool. I wish I could still hear it and listen to it. :-)
Its so amazing that its only the size of a Kumquat this week, and weighs less than an ounce, but we can still hear the heartbeat. God is so amazing, and we are learing so much more about his work of creation through finding out about our baby. Its so cool! :-)

My birthday

It seems that we always do something big for my birthday instead of our anniversary. The timing has just worked out better. Last year we were still in CO for my bday and on our annivesary we had just moved to Scranton. This year, we knew that NOvember would be a terrible time to try to do something because its close to the end of the semester for Richard, we will probably be moving into a different apartment, and I will be a lot larger (bellly wise).

So we planned a little gettaway, and tried to do it as inexpensively as possible but it was really fun. Friday night after work we got everything packed up and drove to a state park not too far from here and camped. Of course the weather here has been so AMAZING for like 2 weeks prior and the whole weekend/week after our camping trip. But the one night we decide to camp there is rain predicted, and yes it did rain. But it was just a steady drizzle and didn't really make it miserable. We got there and set up camp, then took a walk, (we had rain ponchos) and then when it got dark we went inside the tent and just read for a while. We were both pretty tired from the whole week, (and I seem to be constantly exhausted lately) so that wasn't bad for us, and we really had a relaxing time. By morning the rain had stopped and it was a beautiful camping morning. We lounged around a little and then went for a hike. Of course if I was my normal self this hike would've been a breeze, but by the end of it I was pretty tired, but very glad that we did the hike. We had lunch by the lake front at the park, then started our drive down to Doug and Steph's house.( Richard's brother and sister in law).

There we chatted for a while, then went for supper with some old friends from college. Its so fun to reconnect and spend some time together. Its fun to chat about how our lives have changed now. I think I will forever be friends with the people I went to school with. There is just a funny connection.

We woke up early Sunday morning and started our drive to NYC. I had never spent very much time there, but it was so cool. Doug and Steph helped us a lot with knowing where to park, and explaining a little about the subway/train system. We didn't have much planned but just wanted to see the city. First we went to Battery Park where we were going to get in line for the ferry ride, but we would've had to wait for a very long time and it was more expensive that we originally thought. (and we were trying to do this as cheap as possible). Richard had done it before and I was fine with seeing the Statue from far away, and so we were both content with that. (we both are pretty layed back about things like this). Then we went up to Times Square and walked around a lot. There is so much to see and all of it is so interesting. WE took a walk up to Central park. But come to find out, that park is huge with so much to do in it. We only saw a little part on the southern end of it. But it was still cool. By that time I was pretty tired. So we rested and just people-watched. NYC is the best place to do that. After that we walked back down to 34th Street and saw the Empire State Building, walked through the famous macy's, which by the way is so big. It was so incredible how big it was. By about 3pm we started heading back to our car.

We had made reservations at a restaurant called the Melting Pot that was located on the Jersey side on the water front facing the city. It was pretty easy to find and was such a great experience. It is a little pricey(the only thing we splurged on:-)) but you don't regret it. I could go on and explain all he food we tasted but it really wouldn't mean that much to you guys. But needless to say, the atmospher, the food, the experience was all so much fun.

WE finished pretty early about 8pm and walked around the waterfront which was so cool. Then drove the 2 hour ride home. It was such a fun weekend. We enjoyed ourselves so much. And one of the best parts of the weekend, is we still had labor day off (my actual birthday) so we could rest and get ready for the busy week ahead. It was so great. We will remember it forever. :-)

Then on Monday night, Melissa (richard sister that lives here in the area with us) came over with a beautiful cake that she made for me and a very very cute purse that she made. Perfect way to end my birthday. (Although I did miss being with my twin, and the rest of my family)