Marc and Marilyn and Andrew!

Happy New Year to all our families and friends!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

So tonight was quite interesting. Marc went for a run with Nikki while I met up with Cousin and Jose at Gap just down the street. After his run, Marc gave me a call to meet up with us. Cousin, Jose and I finished up shopping and started walking toward our condo. We met up with Marc and Nikki a few stores down. He says that he saw a stray dog that was following him a Nikki for a bit then the German Shepard mix bolted up the staircase toward the AMC.

So Marc handed Nikki over to me and ran up the stairs to find the lost dog. Cousin, Jose, myself and Nikki followed after him. When we got to the top of the staircase there was a movie theater worker and 3 teenagers petting the lost dog, Maple. Marc was on the phone calling the number on Maple’s tag. Unfortunately, the number was to an animal hospital in Highland Park. Marc was on the phone with the hospital trying to get information on Maple and her owners. Luckily, she was chipped and the hospital was able to find contact information, but the owners were not picking up their phones. In fact, the numbers went straight to voicemail. Marc was trying to figure out if there were other contact numbers available. We started thinking about taking Maple all the way to Highland Park and leave her with her animal hospital. There was no way Marc was going to leave without finding a safe place for her. Such a dog lover.

I tried calling the owners again and left a voicemail for the owners to call me back since we had their dog. Then poor Maple threw up. She was probably eating a bunch of junk while roaming the streets. Poor thing. I bet she was scared and wanted to be with her family. Then my phone rings! It’s the owners! He says, ” You have my dog???” and I happily say, “yup we’re at the AMC on the 2nd floor of the Marina Mall.” He explained that she got loose from his office just down the way. Shortly after we hung up the phone, he showed up and Maple was so happy. She was so thrilled to see her owner. He thanked us and they went on their way.

We gathered our things, said goodbye to Cousin and Jose and we went our separate ways. I took one look at Marc and gave him a big kiss. He was going to stand by Maple until he found the owners or until we took her to the animal hospital in Highland Park. Just another reminder why he’s so wonderful.

Yena decided to throw a Red Elephant Party. It’s basically a White Elephant Party, but she just wanted to pick the color red. haha. I haven’t see Yena in ages so I really wanted to stop by her little shindig. Marc and I picked up a few bottles of Welch’s Grape Juice, so that there was a non-alcoholic option at the party. We got to catch up with Yena a bit, which was great.

We met some of her friends and even got to talk to her friend Wendy who is now 7 months pregnant. She was funny because she was telling us that her husband, Van, wanted to name their child “Vanson”. She didn’t like the name because she named her bunny that. But check this, it wasn’t even a real bunny. It was a Build-A-Bear bunny. And she was like, “I don’t want to name my son after a build-a-bear bunny” hahaha. OMG!

Tara, Jeremy and Flash showed up. Flash is one excited little pup. He’s super soft too. Tara tried to calm him down before letting him play. Like any proud mama, Tara showed us Flash’s new tricks and all the things he’s learned in training. He learned so fast! He can “sit” and “wait” and “turn over” on command… as long as you have some yummy yogurt snacks. haha. He’s cute. We’re hoping to have a little play date with Flash and Nikki this weekend.

It was another great night with friends.

So today Marc and I hit up Bath & Body works to pick a few Christmas presents. As we were looking around I came across a lip gloss pallet that looked similar to this:

Anyway, I wanted to see what colors were on the inside so I tried to open it. I was having a hard time doing so, and Marc offered to help. Upon successfully opening the case, I noticed there was a tiny scratch on one of the color pallets. It had a small indent on it. Jokingly, I go “Ooooo you messed it up” and started laughing at Marc. Then he goes, “No I didn’t” and proceed to bring it closer to his face to see the minor imperfection in the lip gloss color. When he did that his thumb slipped into the whole color! His thumb was covered in red lip gloss color, completely ruining the lip gloss pallet. OMG! We both started laughing. I was like, “OOoooo now you REALLY messed it up” and walked away from him. haha. He panicked, closed up the pallet and walked over to me. I kept laughing at him and he bashfully showed me his red thumb. THEN! He wiped in on my jacket! HAHAHA. It made me laugh even more. What a crazy guy! We both started cracking up. After we gathered ourselves, we purchased our items and left. SO FUNNY!

Where do I even begin…A couple weeks ago, I went to my new dentist (Marilyn’s dentist) to get some fillings done.  The tooth near the fillings they worked on started to hurt.  I decided to give it a couple days before calling the dentist again.  Weekend passed and I was hurting…couldn’t eat food on the right side of my mouth hurting.  Hurt just to bite. 

So last week, I called the dentist and told them it was hurting.  They were able to squeeze me in, even though I literally waited about 1.5 hours.  The dentist said I had two options: 1) they could try to file the tooth to make sure there were no abnormal contact points or 2) the filling was near a root canal.  I half-jokingly told him that he found the ONE tooth (I think) that didn’t have a friggin root canal. 

So I went with option 1.  The next couple days, it was worse.  Before, I could bite food and I’ll just have to deal with the bearable pain.  But this time, I couldn’t even bite down on it.  I also had to take Allieve to help with the pain. 

As a result, yesterday I called the dentist’s office to let him know that I think I need the root canal.  I get a voicemail saying the office is closed from December 21st to January 4th.  I was like WTF.  Fortunately, he had an emergency number, which I felt bad calling.  But come on man, I already can’t eat and now I can’t eat for Christmas…that’s just crazy.

Fortunately, he was able to call up his assistant and they are actually going to open the office just for me today so they can work on my tooth.  Pretty cool of them to do that in their two week vacation.  Toothaches suck.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Cheryl and Nate took a mini vacation down to LA and we were all able to enjoy dinner with a bunch of friends. We met up at C & Os, a college favorite, and ate yummy Italian food, caught up on current lives and enjoyed the company of good friends. Cheryl even brought Sprinkles cupcakes for everyone! Yumm! It was good to see everyone. Cheers to another great night and 2 Sprinkles cupcakes .

Thanks for the pics Cheryl

So after talking to a few friends rocking the baby boat, I’ve realized that it’s super important to share and exchange stories. It really helps! We learn more, understand more and have someone to share the same level of excitement. I know I’m super emotional and can talk for hours about babies and pregnancy. Some people are interested, others are not. So it’s nice to be able to just gush about it all with someone who understands and agrees. It’s been awesome exchanging stories and sharing advice/tips. I also get loads of advice from friends / family that already have children. It’s a great time to share!

All the pregos/recent mothers around me currently:

Max – 18 weeks pregnant

Lanay – 20 weeks pregnant

Maricris – 13 weeks pregnant

Bahareh – ? weeks pregnant

Cherise – Baby Will is now 3 weeks old

Marissa – Baby Trinity is just a few days old

Lovene – Baby Andrew is now one month old

Vera – Baby Victoria is now 2 months old

Tammy – Baby Aiden is now 4 months old

Pregnancy symptoms – Remedies

Night leg cramps – do a few leg exercises just before bed for about 5 minutes

Nasal congestion – invest in a humidifier

Stretch mark prevention – pure vitamin E, motherhood lotion

Sharp abdominal pain – your uterus is growing, get used to it

Prenatal pills – take them just before bedtime

Nausea – take a nap or eat something

Today was the first day we were able to visit Bryan, Cherise and William.  He is sooo cute and such a good baby.  He allowed Marilyn and I to hold him without crying   It was great hearing stories about how their experience went…kinda like preparing us for what to expect come April.  Of course we forgot to take pictures but Cherise did so we’ll post that once we rip it from their site

We’re glad our baby is going to have a playmate nearby once he/she is born.

Weight: 115.0 pounds

Waist size: 34 in / 86.5 cm

Mood: exhausted!

Energy: low

Appetite: normal

Cravings: In n Out, California Chicken Cafe, hot pan de sal

Likes: hot pan de sal, oranges, peeled apples and Clarin’s body oil

Dislikes: soggy cereal

Pregnancy symptoms: night leg cramps, swollen gums