{Pregnancy Update} 36 Weeks

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How far along are you: 36 Weeks!

How big is the baby:

Your baby is still packing on the pounds — at the rate of about an ounce a day. She now weighs almost 6 pounds (like a crenshaw melon) and is more than 18 1/2 inches long. She’s shedding most of the downy covering of hair that covered her body as well as the vernix caseosa, the waxy substance that covered and protected her skin during her nine-month amniotic bath. Your baby swallows both of these substances, along with other secretions, resulting in a blackish mixture, called meconium, will form the contents of her first bowel movement.

At the end of this week, your baby will be considered full-term. (Full-term is 37 to 42 weeks; babies born before 37 weeks are pre-term and those born after 42 are post-term.) Most likely she’s in a head-down position. But if she isn’t, your practitioner may suggest scheduling an “external cephalic version,” which is a fancy way of saying she’ll try to coax your baby into a head-down position by manipulating her from the outside of your belly. (source)

Baby’s Gender: We both think it’s a girl. <—change

Baby’s Name: We have a name for a boy or a girl.  Choosing a boys name was easy for us and was decided upon months ago but the girls name has been a little more challenging but we finally decided on one.

Weight Gained: 25 lbs ish?

Clothes: Mostly just wearing dresses as they are the most comfortable.

How are you feeling: I am feeling pretty good.  I actually over did it a little this past weekend because I was feeling so great. Sunday we went for a long walk, swimming, to the market, to a museum and to get a snack which left me a little worried because baby wasn’t moving around as much. I ended up calling the midwives to panic that there was reduced fetal movement but was reassured that if I had felt s/he move at least three times in the last hour things should be fine and that because I was so active that was why the baby wasn’t moving as much.  Apparently my walking, swimming, etc is similar to rocking the baby so they felt pretty content to just relax.  Monday morning I woke up to lots of movement and this baby has been crazy active since.

What do you miss: I miss the desire to eat normally- I am getting to the point where I am having slight food aversions or just no desire to eat (don’t worry I have had no problem eating just lack of desire).  I miss running more and more but I think it’s because I know that soon I will be able to get back to it so there is combination of missing and anxiousness.

Symptoms: ,

Cravings: Green Lemonade (greens, apples and/or carrots and lemon). Blueberries. Amy’s refried black beans.

How are you sleeping: Sleeping has been a little more challenging, lately my hips have been bothering me and I’m finding that I am sore in my pelvis now too.

Workouts: This week I went swimming twice, to prenatal yoga and on a few walks.  Let me tell you I should have started swimming earlier, it is amazing during pregnancy.

Things I’m looking forward to: Finishing my last two weeks of work. Getting this house in order for the babies arrival. Touring the birth center.

In other news:

We launch Naturally Family!

If you haven’t stop over to our family blog, Naturally Family, then head over now and Meet The Family.  We have been discussing this weeks pregnancy ups and downs, our baby bucket list, my labor and deliver fears, what we learned in birthing class, a recap of our babymoon, 10 must-dos before labor and a so much more.

You can also check us out on  Facebook and Twitter.


 

 

Review: Pure Sweets

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Pure Sweets is an organic, gluten-free, vegan, kosher bakery in Philly.  A few months ago I contacted them about doing a review and the sent me a few items to try which include one of their crisp bars –The Ladybug, a flourless cookie- The Ape, a trio of mini macaroons- The Poodle  and a bag of trail mix- The Camel. Neil and I enjoyed everything so much that we ended up placing an order for a few more goodies for ourselves and an order of mini macaroons for our babyshower.

For ourselves we ordered:

  • The Kitty: Organic citrus cardamom cookies made with organic citrus fruit. We both really loved the flavor of these cookies but unfortunately they didn’t travel so well and ended up having a strange consistency.  I blame the heat and humidity we have been having here.
  • The Kid:  Organic brown rice crisp bar topped with organic peanut butter, organic blackberry preserves from Italy and organic single-origin dark chocolate. After loving The Ladybug we had to order another crisp bar and let me tell you that this one was even better! Neil and I both wished we had ordered two because it was really hard to share (we fought over the last bite).
  • The Bat: Organic single-origin chocolate macaroons peppered with organic cayenne. This was one of my favorite macaroons.  It was chocolately with just a mild hit of spice.
  • The Sphinx:  Organic rosewater cardamom macaroons. These macaroons were really great, such an interesting flavor.  We both really liked them but after trying a number of other flavors at the shower they ddin’t end up being a favorite of ours.  Tip: Crumble and add to vanilla coconut yogurt with sliced strawberries- so good!
   
   

For the shower we ordered:

  • The Sphinx:  Organic rosewater cardamom macaroons.
  • The Elephant: Organic cashew butter macaroons with organic caramelized nuts. This was my favorite of all the macaroons that I tried.  The caramelized nuts really made this so delicious.  I plan on ordering more of these soon!
  • The Owl: Organic salted almond vanilla bean macaroons. This one was good but you can get it dipped in chocolate and I think that would have made it even better.
  • The Panda: Organic single-origin chocolate chunk macaroons. I didn’t actually get to try this one (sad face) but Neil did and he absolutely loved it!
  • The Poodle: Organic lemon lavender macaroons.(I just checked my order and this one must have been snuck in by the good people at Pure Sweets) These are my second favorite ( The Elephant being my first) of all the macaroons. The lemon and lavender is such a great combination.
Pure Sweets photo shoot at our baby shower featuring father-to-be Neil and our friend Laura
   

Other things I love about Pure Sweets:

  • They donate 5% of their profits to charity.
  • The “bonus” details that are included with their products–> example The Poodle: Bonus: immune booster, 60 calories per macaroon.
  • Their products are organic, vegan, gluten free and kosher.
  • They have an amazing and personable staff to work with.
  • I also love that they offer gift boxes and wedding and other favors.
Disclosure: I purchased the reviewed items from Pure Sweets. All opinions are honest and my own.
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If you haven’t stop over to our family blog, Naturally Family, then head over now and Meet The Family.  We have been discussing this weeks pregnancy ups and downs, our baby bucket list and my labor and deliver fears.

Recipe of The Week: Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumble

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On Saturday we were at the farmers market and we tired strawberry-rhubarb juice we fell in love. We liked it so much that we ended up purchasing the ingredients at the market to make it again ourselves.

Fast forward to Sunday night. I have had a major craving for a fruit crumble and then it hit me strawberry-rhubarb crumble would be amazing. So our juice ingredients quickly became the ingredients for a crumble. I started on the crumble and sent Neil out to the store to pick up some vanilla coconut milk ice cream- because really how can you have warm crumble without ice cream?

Since this would be my first time ever using rhubarb I searched around the internet until I found what seemed to be a good recipe for Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble.  I finally came across this recipe from Willow over at Will Cook For Friends.  Her recipe is vegan and gluten free, but because I was out of gluten free flours I decided to just make mine vegan and used all purpose flour.  I also cut the recipe in half and used coconut sugar instead of granulated sugar, otherwise I followed the recipes ingredient list and directions.

The result was a delicious crumble! It was a little sweet for me but overall it was delicious.  We even had a little extra filling leftover (because we couldn’t finish our bowls) and we used it last night as a topping to our vanilla coconut milk ice cream.

Weekend Wrap Up: Showers and Dates

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How is it Monday already? We had such a busy weekend that I could use another day just to sit around and do nothing!

Friday we had our midwife appointment in the morning and then headed off to our designated jobs before meeting back up for dinner at American Flatbread. After dinner we headed to Neil’s Studio 54 themed work party for a short time but ended up leaving after being evacuated from the party tent due to severe thunderstorms.  We managed to get a little bit of socializing in and a session in the photo booth but unfortunately a certain soaking wet pregnant lady did not want to stand around the safety shelter and wait for the storm to pass so we didn’t end up returning to the party and missed The Village People (yes the REAL Village People), oh well!

Saturday we woke up early and made our way down to the farmers market where we made our first stop at the juice bar, which is new this summer and is our new addiction. We decided to go with two different juices to share, the minty lemonade and the strawberry rhubarb, both of which were really delicious.  We also picked up a load of veggies for the week including garlic scapes, greens, strawberries, herbs and radishes.

After the market it was time to head home and get ready for our baby shower!

After the shower we headed home to re-open all of our gifts and get them somewhat organized in the nursery.  After that we decided to have a date night out at Babies’R’Us and dinner.

Sunday we headed out to another market which wasn’t great but we did end up seeing our juice bar friends again and this time I ordered up a Green Energy and Neil a Runners Remedy.  After the market we picked up a few groceries and headed home for lunch before walking down to the beach, where we spent most of the early afternoon.

After spending a few hours at the beach we walked home and decided to use our free passes to the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center. We decided to pay the extra and visit the special Our Body exhibit that is going on until September.  Our friends raved about it and it was pretty amazing.

(Source)

After ECHO we weren’t ready to head home yet so we stopped down by the waterfront to sit and have a drink and a snack before heading home to relax on the couch and eat strawberry-rhubarb crisp.

How was your weekend?