TMI Tuesday: Things No One Told Me About Pregnancy...

First of all, I can't believe I am about to do this-to myself, Jason and anyone else who is lucky enough to read this post. BUT, it is MY blog and I want to be able to remember this even if it does suck right now. Now is your chance to turn around if you don't want to read about my personal issues, ha!

People always tell you how miserable pregnancy is, and all of the ugly stuff that happens during those LONG TEN (not nine) months--YES, ten months--most pregnancies last 40 weeks, which in my book equals ten months. I don't know if everyone is like this or if it was just me, but when I heard about all of the ugly nasty stuff that happened to everyone else I thought to myself "not gonna be me". That dark 'line' that goes from your belly button down (if you're lucky, MINE goes up WAY past my belly button, and to top it off--it's crooked), I didn't think I would get it--I said "my skin is too dark to get that" or "you could kick me in the face and I wouldn't bruise, I'm not going to get that thing"--I DID. Hormones don't care how dark or 'unsensitive' your skin is. I actually read that dark skinned women are more likely to get that line--lucky me.

No one ever told me that my feet would grow and STAY half to a whole shoe size bigger. I am now down to one pair of shoes I can wear here in Valdez without my feet freezing off, and those I have to wear without socks. Nasty, I know. Lucky me, poor Jason--that means new shoes, and lots of them, when we get to Maine, YAY :o)

People DID tell me you get heartburn and a lot of it. "Heartburn? Psshhh...I can deal with that". What they didn't tell me was that it isn't 'normal' heartburn that you get when you aren't pregnant. It's EXTREME heartburn. If it was normal heartburn and I just got it more often, I could deal. But it is heartburn that hurts 10 times worse than what it did before I got pregnant. It's heartburn that feels like FIRE crawling up your throat...and then crawling back down. Over and over. All. Day. Long. No matter what I eat. I have heard other women swearing TUMS were their best friends during their pregnancies, but not me. TUMS don't touch my heartburn. In fact, they RUN from my heartburn. I guess I could blame Paislee's hairy daddy for this one, and PRAY that her hair is limited to her head and doesn't cover her whole body like her daddy :o) Even if it does, she will still be a cutie :o)

Another major pregnancy symptom I have heard about is constantly having to pee. What I wasn't told is that your full bladder ISN'T the reason you always 'gotta go'. The REAL reason is because your bladder is being compressed as flat as a pancake by your uterus. So when you 'have to pee right now and can't hold it anymore,' all that comes out is a teaspoon. And when you have to get up 20 times in the middle of the night because your scared your going to pee in the bed...all that comes out is...you guessed it--a teaspoon. And if you DON'T go when you feel the need, well that's another thing no one ever told me about....

If your bladder isn't 100% empty, and you laugh, cough, sneeze or make one wrong move...that teaspoon of pee is going to end up in your pants. It is now a common occurance in our household to hear "ACCCCHHHHOOOOOOO!!!!" and then "D****T!!!" Jason thinks it's funny. I don't.

Something I was looking forward to about pregnancy was being beautiful. I mean, everyone talks about that 'glow' that pregnant women get, and how beautiful it makes them. What they don't tell you is that they are just telling you that to make you feel better because they know you need it. Sorry, but I have only seen a handful of 'beautiful' pregnant women in my life--half of that handful are celebrities, the other half are freaks of nature. That 'glow' that you hear about isn't beauty, it's oil, and an excessive amount--which makes you 'GLOW'. I guess since your hormones are all out of whack, you produce more oil while you are pregnant, making you all 'glowy' or better yet--GREASY. There is one perk to being pregnant in Alaska--it is so dry that my already oily skin has been saved from that part of pregnancy. God help me if I have my second pregnancy on the East Coast.

The last thing that no one told me about pregnancy is 'pregnant face'. No one told me that by the time I deliver this child my nose would be as wide as the state of Texas. Yes I have seen women in their last couple of months who have had the 'fat face syndrome' but I didn't know it was EVERYONE. I thought weight gain was to blame--now that I'm pregnant I'm going to blame water retention. Towards the end of your pregnancy you retain a TON of water--and a couple of liters of that retained water sits in your face and leaves you looking like Big Mama--unless you are one of those that I mentioned above--a freak of nature.

There are a few more things that I could talk about that no one told me about, but even I am not THAT brave to put them up here for the world to see. Plus, I have to leave you girls that haven't been pregnant yet something to write about on your 'what no one told me about pregnancy' post :o) You can say these things won't happen to you over and over, all day, every day until you get pregnant--but I can almost promise that unless you are one of those freaks of nature--they will happen, so don't say I didn't warn ya :o)

I didn't post this to gripe and complain about how horrible pregnancy is because luckily, I have had a VERY easy pregnancy and I feel blessed that I was able to get pregnant at all. I posted it because I actually think that it's quite hilarious, and will be fun to look back at. It will also probably slip my mind and I will forget about all of it the first time I look at my little girl's sweet face--and I have to be able to remember it all so I can warn her when it's her turn--and so I can warn all of you girls that will be going through it in the next couple of years ;o)

XOXO from my pregnant face, pee pee pants and too small shoes,

Tri Sigma: Faithful Unto Death

So I follow this great blog that Jodi introduced me to a while back called 'Kelly's Korner Blog'--it's a great blog, she blogs every single day and inspires me to do the same--hey I'm trying! Anyways, today she blogged about the sorority that she was in when she was in college--and I thought that was a great idea since I am so proud of the sorority that I joined in college!

During the spring semester of my freshman year at good ol' Barton College in Wilson, N.C., I was introduced to a FABULOUS group of girls who belonged to one of the three sororities on campus. I only went to a few of their recruitment parties throughout the year, but luckily they remembered me and gave me a bid :o) (Maybe I was a charity case since my mouth was still wired shut from the jaw surgery I had earlier that year, ha!). Anyways, joining this sorority was one of the best decisions that I ever made. After graduating highschool I thought I would never find friends like the ones that I had grown up with since daycare, but I made some of the BEST friends I could have ever asked for after joining Tri Sigma. These girls have stood by me through crappy boyfriends, bad grades, changing my major (3 times), transferring to another school, meeting the man of my dreams, moving 4,000 miles away to Alaska, marrying the man of my dreams, and now having a sweet little girl :o)
I just love these girls so much--they are truly the best friends I could have ever asked for! They are always calling, or catching up on facebook, or through text messages--and have always been there when I needed to cry or scream or laugh. And they surely won't miss an opportunity to get together to catch up--I could only invite a select few to our wedding since it was so small, but if I could have I would have invited the whole chapter--I WAS able to invite more of the girls to mine and Jason's 'going away cookout' and girls drove from Pennsylvania, Maryland and all over Eastern NC to come and see us before we left for Alaska :o) Luckily, I have been able to keep up with most of them even though we live in the middle of nowhere, and across the world--but I can't wait to get back on the east coast so we can all visit more often, and so I can take Jason and Paislee to some of the events that are held throughout the year, and introduce them to the fabulous world of Tri Sigma--after all, Miss Paislee is a legacy and hopefully a future Tri Sigma sister as well :o)

XOXO from lonely Alaska,

Paula Deen is my homegirl...

Since I made it a goal of mine to post more this year, and have found myself running out of interesting things to post about (I know, already), I decided to share one of our favorite recipes. Before I found this recipe I had never planned on even attempting to make fried chicken.Ever. But when your husband wants it, duty calls. So one day a few weeks ago, duty called from work wanting fried chicken for dinner, so I get my google fingers on and start looking for recipes, because I don't attempt fried foods, so I didn't have a recipe. I tried to cook fried pork chops once and it didn't work, so I've been scared of fried foods ever since. (I think it's because you have to use flour....I have found that ANY recipe that calls for flour usually gets tossed because me and flour don't get along. I don't know why). Anyways, when I came across Paula Deen's recipe for Southern Fried Chicken, I knew this was 'the one' since her recipes never fail to amaze me (or haven't so far), and she also says 'Ya'll' , so I know she knows how to make it like we like it :o) It's really basic, really easy and REALLY YUMMY--especially when you have a sweet husband that enjoys using the Fry Daddy to fry it up!

Ingredients:

-3 Eggs

-1/3 c. water

-1 c. Texas Pete (or your preferred hot sauce, if your from the South it will be Texas Pete)

Mix Eggs and water with a mixer, add Texas Pete and stir until blended. Your mixture should be orange.

Mix 2 c. of self-rising flour with a tsp. of pepper.

Season chicken with Paula Deen's house seasoning:

-1 c. salt

-1 c. black pepper

-1 c. garlic powder

DO NOT use all of this to season your chicken. Mix all of this together and put it in a container to use in the future, just sprinkle this pre-mixed seasoning on your chicken to your liking. If you cook pretty much anything 'Paula Deen' you WILL use this house seasoning again so it won't be a waste. If not, calculate on your own time how much you need just for this recipe--I'm no math whiz :o)

Dip the chicken in the egg wash, then coat with flour.

Fry in oil heated to 350 degrees.

Dark meat should take 13-14 minutes to cook, white meat should only take 8-10.

One word is all I need to describe this meal.....

YUM-O!

We had fried squash and collards with this, and Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding for dessert..I'll save that for another day :o)

XOXO from cold but smelling more like the south (at least in the Mozingo kitchen!),

We're READY for you, Paislee!!

We finally got to Anchorage this past weekend to get baby stuff, and I feel so much better and READY for Paislee now that we are STOCKED UP! Jason will be leaving for about a month here in a couple of weeks, and since the doctor will be cutting my traveling OFF, we had to make the trip to Anchorage so we would have everything we needed when we bring baby girl home--car seat, stroller, pack-n-play, diaper bag, diapers, wipes, baby bathtub, etc.--some of these things we could have gotten here, some we could not, but Anchorage is SO much cheaper AND we needed a fast food fix :o) We left Saturday morning and got back Monday night, and immediately put everything together, now we just need SPACE for it all! I will work on getting the baby her own little spot while Jason is gone. I also got lots and lots of craft stuff so I can make cute little bows, tutus, and stuff for her nursery. Hopefully she will like it all!

As the days go by, Paislee is getting bigger and stronger, which means I am getting a little more uncomfortable! I can honestly say though, I think I will miss all of these kicks and nudges when she is out :o) It is also already pretty obvious that she will be a daddy's girl-he talks to my belly at night and she just kicks and kicks every time, I love it!

Here I am, 30 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Is it just me, or have I gotten MUCH bigger since last week?

If you've noticed I don't like showing my face in my pictures because A. 98% of the time I haven't gotten

ready for the day and B. I HATE taking pictures, especially when they are 'posed' and by myself-so this is what you get :o)

Paislee should be about 18 inches long, and should weigh about 3.5 pounds.

Here is a sneak peek of Paislee's nursery bedding--the pattern is "Green Paisley Splash" and I LOVE it! The blanket above her nursery bedding was made by my mom to match her nursery and we just got it in the mail yesterday--I LOVE IT too!! Way to go Mama! I have been working on a blanket myself, needless to say--mine doesn't look that good :o)

Here is a tutu I am working on, with a matching NC State bow--which further proves that I love Jason very much because I am not an NC State fan, I'm more of a Carolina girl, but since Jason is more into sports than I am, we will deck her out in NC State stuff....for now :o)

Having a little girl is going to be so much fun, I can already tell!

XOXO from cold & windy Alaska,

It's about time!

I know, I know. It's been a while. I have to admit, I have been putting this off for quite a while now because I know that I have SO MUCH to update on and really don't know where to start--most people that read this know everything that I'm going to say anyways! Since it IS a new year, I would like to get better at this "blogging" thing, and post more often since we do have a little GIRL on the way :o)

I know last time I posted we still didn't know what we were having. I went home for 2 weeks in December, which by the way I hope to never have to fly again while pregnant, especially across the country--my ankles were HUGE! It was a GREAT two weeks, I got to spend LOTS of time with my mama, which is great when you are about to become a mama yourself :o) We also got to have another ultrasound, and this time we actually got somewhere! As soon as the technician put the thing on my stomach we saw that SHE was BOTTOMS UP! I was even able to distinguish what her parts were--and she is 100% a GIRL. She is precious and beautiful and I could watch her all day long. She is a big fan of her umbilical cord, it seems like it was her security blanket because she chased it the whole time and even had it draped over her arm at one point like a pocketbook--"you go girl!" haha! The technician said that her developmental skills also looked really good because she was trying to get the cord and her thumb in her mouth a lot and suck! Looks like she might be a thumb sucker like her daddy ;o) She was looking right on track with her size, and she looked healthy and is very active--hyper like her mama, LORD HELP US!

Isn't she pretty?? :o)

We spent the rest of my trip shopping, shopping, shopping! And I'll admit, we probably got WAY TOO MUCH--but it was fun and I got to make up for not being able to shop for baby stuff for the first six months :o) I also got to get together with Jodi, Lindsay and Alex and had a 'mini' baby shower--I got these sweet little socks with big purple flowers on them-which happened to match an outfit I had already bought PERFECTLY, a little onesie that says "This is my little black dress" and a princess hooded towel for when we give our princess a bath--THANK YOU JODI!!! We ALSO got some Dr. Browns bottles, a diaper/bath caddy and diaper rash cream from nurse Lindsay, the more practical one that remembers things that slip our minds--THANK YOU LJ!!!! I love ya'll both and can't wait to see you in June, and for ya'll to come see us in MAINE!!

Now I am back in good ol' Valdez, I got back about a week before Christmas so I could spend it with my husband :o) His boat will be leaving soon and he will be gone for about a month, but we are HOPING he will be able to come back around the time I hit full term--which is right around the corner!! I am getting so excited to meet our sweet girl, but so anxious about giving birth! I'm scared to death but I know it will all be worth it when I see that sweet little face :o)

By the way, Miss PAISLEE MARIE is now the size of a squash, at 29 weeks and 2 days old, she is 15-17 inches long, and weighs between 2.5-3.8 pounds--she is getting BIG and so is MAMA! We had already decided on Paislee, but were going to spell it Paisley, and we were back and forth between Marie and Reese for her middle name. We decided on Paislee Marie because "Lee" is after Jason's grandpa, dad and Jason, and Marie is after my mama and me--so she is named after her great grandpa, her grandpa, her daddy, her grandma AND her mama--what a lucky girl :o)

Here is a 'lovely' picture of my huge belly--thanks to Monica, who requests pictures weekly, sometimes BI-WEEKLY, I have a recent picture, taken yesterday, to put up--thanks Monica for keeping me up-to-date with my belly pictures, I will be glad you did ten years from now--even if I don't enjoy seeing my fat butt on a regular basis now :o)




Until next time, which is hopefully sooner than later... :o)

XOXO from Cold (but apparently not as cold as N.C) Alaska,

Fairbanks

Last week Jason and I ventured up to Fairbanks, a 6-7 hour drive from Valdez, with plans to visit the Arctic Circle, the North Pole, and to see Mt. McKinley. Sadly, we only saw the North Pole-we were advised against driving up to the Arctic Circle during this time of year because it is SO cold, and the roads are pretty much deserted, so we decided to skip out on that trip and save it for the Spring. We were also talked out of making the drive to see Mt. McKinley, because of the weather conditions and were told it was very unlikely that we would get to see it. Anyways, we were still able to see things we haven't been able to see yet--like tons of Caribou and Moose, AND we went to see NEW MOON :o) Which was great by the way. Needless to say, Fairbanks is WAY too cold for me, and makes me thankful for the "warm" weather we have here in Valdez!

One of the many Caribou we ran into....

We ate here for lunch one day, sorry--nothing

compares to southern BBQ!

We stole Santa's chair!

Me and baby are doing well--this time next week we will be ready to head to Cary to try and force the little booger to show us the goods! I'm ready to start shopping, and want to buy something besides yellow and green!! We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with your families and friends--we will be getting together with some of the other families from Jason's boat! It will be fun to see the other traditions from families from all over the country--although we all know you can't beat that good ol' Southern cooking ;o)

XOXO from cold (but not as cold as Fairbanks!) and snowy Valdez,

It's A....

STUBBORN LITTLE BABY!!!

Jason and I went for our 20 week check-up last Friday. Everything looked good with both me and baby-my uterus was measuring at 28 weeks though, which is a good indicator of TWINS--which we know there aren't BUT we let the Dr. assume what she wanted since it meant another ultrasound for us :o) She also tried to hear the heartbeat at that appointment, but no luck! I had drank a Dr. Pepper before our appointment just in case we got an ultrasound, so it would be EXTRA active! She was able to hear LOTS of kicking and moving around, so she wasn't worried about the babies health--so we scheduled our ultrasound for today, Tuesday.

So today, we go in ready to find out if we are going to have a boy or girl--but SURPRISE! Baby Mozingo didn't want to cooperate! "It" moved all around, kicked the whole time, but would NOT open them legs! Also, the umbilical cord was between it's legs so its boy or girl parts were hidden the entire time :o( The Dr. DID say that since she couldn't see any boy parts that she would guess that it was a girl--but last time she guessed a boy--so needless to say, Mommy & Daddy are FRUSTRATED!

After we got home and sulked for a while, I found out that there is a place back home that specializes in ultrasounds--2D, 3D and 4D, and you just pay out of pocket for whichever package you want. SO, we are calling tomorrow and are hoping to set up an appointment with them for when I come home in 2 weeks--lets pray for a little wee wee or yes ma'am sighting!!! This place seems really neat--they give you like 20 pictures, a DVD of your ultrasound, let you invite up to 6 guests, and ALSO since Jason won't be able to be there, he can view it live with us through the computer--how cool is that?? So lets hope and pray for some progress or even an appointment with this short of a notice!

Other than baby news, everything else is going good this way. We are taking a trip up to Fairbanks next week for the week, and are really excited about that! We plan to do LOTS while we are there including: seeing Mt. McKinley, the Northern Lights, the North Pole and the Arctic Circle--so we will be doing LOTS of driving, but figured its a once in a lifetime opportunity! I will post pictures from our adventure when we get home! Until then, here are a few of me and the growing stinker inside of me!

This is all that "it" wanted to show us today..

can you say-stubborn like his/her mama??

This is my 19/20 week bump

pardon the bulge in my sweatpants

please-they're Jason's and a little

big I guess---ha! Is it just me, or am

I bigger in my 18 week picture??

XOXO--from finally snowy Valdez--