Second Checkup with Ob-Gyn

JJ and I just got home from my 2nd appointment, this time to see Dr. Rahl at her Westerville clinic. Its pretty close to our house like a 10-15 minutes drive depending on which route we use. This time, they checked my weight and my blood pressure. Then, I was told to undress the bottom part, cover with a sheet and sit down on that examining table and wait for the doc. Gosh, you should see the horror of my face when I was told to undress! I was like, AGAIN? I guess I just have to get used to showing off what I got eh? More horror is about to happen in 6 months! I don't wanna know!

Well, the ob-gyn checkup was pretty quick. I was asked how I felt lately and then she did an ultrasound.


We saw the baby inside of me and its as if he/she knew that someone is checking him/her out! The baby flipped like it wanted to show off! How proud :) That was the coolest experience! We also heard the heartbit and its 176.20 bpm. My doc said its going to slow down in a few months. The baby right now is 3.94 cm and I am now on my 10th weeks. It will be 2 weeks more and I am over with my first trimester. Guess when is my due date? It's September 19th and that is our wedding anniversary day. It would be nice if baby will come out on that very day, isn't it?

I just learned from my blood test a week ago that I have mild anemia. Basically, I have to take ferrous sulfate added to my multi-vitamins with more folic acid medications. I need to eat lots of red meat as well. Before I left the clinic, I did one more test for hemoglobin. Basically more blood extraction (my favorite), she had more vials too! I don't get it! I have mild anemia and yet they kept extracting more blood! But get this, I did not look to the other side most of the time (this time around), I managed to look at what the lady was doing and making sure she is doing it right! :) So proud of me!

First Checkup with a Nurse Midwife

We have chosen who is going to be my ob-gyn for this pregnancy. She is a doctor from Professionals for Women's Health. She serves several clinic and hospitals in Columbus. She has one very close to my house (about 15mins. drive) . However, I could not get in to that clinic until March 19. We decided to go to one of her clinic in Dublin who has available appointment on this day.

The first visit would be to a nurse midwife. I was kind of nervous and scared about this whole thing, not very much looking forward to it but I am doing it for this tiny one inside of me. On this checkup, they run a bunch of test but the very first thing they did is to check my weight then my blood pressure and then I was given a couple of wipes and a little plastic cup to pee on. They did my urine test and was told I was indeed pregnant.

JJ and I had discussions with the nurse midwife. I am so glad he came along with me, he asked questions, stuff that I could not think off. Basically, do's and don'ts. We mentioned that I did not get enough sleep last night because I had bad cold and that I am very gassy. She told us tylenol and tums are very safe for pregnancy. I should mention that I am told to stay away from seafood! Will that be possible? Will see!

I had my pap test which I absolutely hated it, Gosh, I knew you girls can relate to this! After the pap test was the pelvic test and then finally I had my blood test. I couldn't wait until the lady stopped drawing blood on me. She had tons of vials and it really scared me because I hated to see blood! Well, she was really nice and very gentle though. She had this little cute pillow where she had me rest my hands while she is extracting my blood and the only thing I can do is to look to the other side :)

One Gift to Last a Lifetime

Finally, its Valentines Day, the day I've anxiously been waiting for. Anxious not because of the occasion but because I have a great news that I wanted to share to my hubby on this very day. It's something that is not anticipated and I thought that this day is the perfect day for him to know it. I never thought breaking a news like this could be this hard. I have thought a lot of ways how to break it. Do I have to utter the words or maybe I could use a prop and let him figure out the meaning. So I decided that I won't do good saying it in front of him. I don't wanna loose my composure which I know I easily will.

So yesterday, I left work earlier than normal. I stopped by at Hallmark to get a valentines card and a possibly anything I can use as a prop. It took me almost an hour to decide the least I can do. Well, this morning I woke up and assembled my best valentines day gift ever to hubby.

Now, as to when and where to give it to him was another dilemma. I made some nice breakfast this morning, we watched tv shows and movie and then we just had to wait for our dinner at McCormick and Schmick's which is at 5:30PM. It has been really hard and I felt like my heart is pounding too fast and its going to burst in any minute. I just found myself getting my stuff out. I am about to drop the bomb! LOL. Really, it was that hard. Finally, told hubby happy valentines day and handed him a tiny paper bag with my card and my gift in it. He told me, I shouldn't get anything for him and I replied that I did not get any. I made him read my card first and after that he grab the bear inside the bag and was surprised that it is not just a bear, there is something that came with it that says we are pregnant! I think he had positive mixed emotions about it. Surprised, maybe shocked? It's just surreal that it is happening. I mean he lost his Dad back in December and now someone is growing inside of me. Dad mentioned it the last time he came to visit us last christmas, that he said while talking to my dogs that it would be nice to have a little someone running around the house. JJ and I just never replied about it however like my friend Aya and Lyn said, maybe Dad knew in his heart that I already have something inside of me. That just tears me up and I am sad that he passed away in this very early stage of our pregnancy.

Got flowers!

Well I got home late tonight from work and hubby surprised me with proflowers waiting for me at the island table. I immediately opened it and saw my fave flowers, they are my fave colors as well. This is the second valentines day that he gave me these flowers and he knew he can never go wrong with it. Indeed it captured my mood for tomorrow's Heart's Day, and Babe you knew these and my I-phone is more than enough gift for me. Now I've got to figure out how will I carryout this great news, and best gift that awaits you and me.

My Baby is now a Girly

Twinkle turned 1 year old! Can you believe that? It seems like its was like a month ago when we first saw her. We had no plans of getting another critter but as soon as I hold her, we knew she'd be happier with us and we can give her much love a fuzzy critter longs to. Well not to make this rant too long, here is my baby girl in her first birthday outfit, and she did really good job modeling it for Momma:

She of course received some gifts which are mostly in pink! from her loving human parents. We are so happy for her and are really proud how she has grown. She is well mannered. She is a stinker, goofy and always starts a play. Just imagine when we are settled in the great room watching tv, movie or something. Star and Sunny were just laying around and her comes, little Twinkle running in full throttle back and forth the great room and on to the stairs going up and down! That leads to the big sister and big brother Sunny wanting to catch her and pin her down, maybe telling her to stop her craziness! However, when someone's really wanting to pick a fight with her, she will just ignore it like she is supposed to. She is feisty but well behaved dog, I tell ya.

Anyway, what did the stinker gets for her birthday? She had a pink donut, pink buddy, pink coach dog collar, pink photo frame and pink pup-pie cake! Her birthday outfit is a hand-me-down outfit from Star's first birthday but it was huge to her. It seems like she already reach her final size so I might get her a perfect size birthday tee for next year. The day after her birthday, Dada bought her more toys! and some chew2x and canoli.

And where are party buddies? Well of course, as usual its Star and Sunny. The boy looked handsome here while Star was kind of nervous the whole time. She was drooling and is not enjoying the party, oh well.....

Snow! Snow! Snow!

We just had snow mania in our place and so its time for fuzzy play! Star loves snow so much! I think she would play in the snow all day long if given a chance. She loves it when she is all covered up with snow. She just runs around me and only stops when we took picture.

Sunny on the other hand used to love snow but this time he did not. Maybe he felt it too cold and the snows could reach his boybits! I wanted him to really just run around like Star but he just really wants to taste the snow as you can see in the picture. Before he could warm up he already wanted to call this snow playing thing quits!

Twinkle's first was awesome. I thought she'd freeze after seeing so much snow but no she even had fun poopin' out! She went around to the bushes and sniffed, she even showed her goofiness and no signs of calling it quits until I had to!

In themed outfit

The fuzzies are in tune for today's Trick or Treating! We've shopped their outfit since the beginning of this month and we are quite happy with our choices. Though, Sunny's costume was kind of weird. Blame it to Dada! He picked a hot dog outfit for poor Sunny. He thought it will be more of Sunny since he loves hot dogs toys. They had their bath and grooming that morning so they smell pretty good and were looking handsome and pretty wearing their outfit. Twinkle and Star wasn't bothered at all. They wore the outfit with pride. Sunny was uneasy with the heaviness and hugeness of his custome. Overall, I think they had fun. They would bark when someone rang's the doorbell and then they would come to the door and sniff the kids when I hand them their candies. Here's my adorable doggies with their outfits!

I carved!

Wow so many first before this year ends! I just had my first pumpkin carving! It was so much fun and thanks to my ever loved JJ who did all the "fun"part. When I got home from work, the pumpkin was all cleaned up and was ready to be carved. I just had to choose what pattern I would want for my pumpkin to look like. He showed me a bunch of websites that I can use to print the stencils. Mine was pretty basic and was very easy to work with, same with JJ so we finished carving in no time. I then took them out, sat them in bed of dried maffle leaves. I lit a candle in it and took a picture. I think they were pretty and I am so proud I got my first pumpkin carving experince!

JJ's pumpkin

This is my pumpkin

Pumpkin's in the dark

Fuzzies loves Fuji

Remember we just did apple picking? Oh that was a lot of fun climbing up those tiny branches of Fuji tree. Anyway, I purposely picked tiny fuji's for the fuzzies. I knew they love apple and I thought maybe they would looked cute munching this tiny apples. As soon as we got home and put the apple bags on the floor, their face were on it sniffing and being curious if there is anything for them in it. Twinkle immediately got hold of a tiny one. She ran away with it and rolled over it and starting munching. Her face was so excited! Star and Sunny went with her and just looking at what she got. I called them back and gave them tiny apples as well. They did the same thing, they were rolling on top of the apple and giving that smiley face. Here they are:

Twinkle: An apple a day keeps the vet away!

Sunny: you can never go wrong with apple!

Star: Now you know my secrets for staying sexy!

Our first apple picking!

Fuji Apple Anyone?

I knew apple picking is really a fun thing to do. I just did not really pay attention to harvest time for the last years and before I knew it, I already missed my chance! Oh well, this year I really did watched it like a hawk. I put the dates on my calendar and booked JJ to come with me. We went to a nearest fruit farm and was so ecstatic to see how big this farm and orchard is! I mean they've got tons of products to offer. They not only have fruits but vegetables too. The varieties are amazing and everything were harvest daily. We did the U-pick thingy. Basically we go to their orchard and we picked as many apples as we can and then we were charged per bag. You can even eat while picking for free! OML, I am so stunned seeing those apples on the ground. Here's the score, 95% of the U-pickers were Asian!

Star is 3!

We just had birthday party for Star who turned 3 years old yesterday. As usual we started a day with bathing and grooming and making sure Star, Sunny and Twinkle are clean and smells good to party. I had Star wore her all time favorite birthday tee. She loves it, she was playful and proud wearing it. All three of them wore their party hat which looked really cute! Then I decided to make her birthday cake which is really just made from a pancake recipe. They love it when I make pancake for breakfast and most of the time ate most of my share. So this time, since they love pancake then that's what I made and just decorated it with some frosting. She received toys and chew-chew's from us and she was quit happy. Sunny and Twinkle loved the cake as well and they all played until they run out of juice! (Star is 24 years old in human age)

Mr. Sunny turned a year older

My boy is now two! I felt bad that we could not celebrate it much as we wanted to. We will be off for Vegas tonight and we are still finishing up our luggage. Its funny how things turned out to be. Last year when Star turned two, we also left for our Hong Kong vacation. So I guess, history repeats and they are destined to experience same treatment from their heartless parents! But...but Momma did good job. Momma won't leave without a little celebration for the big boy. We got him a huge birthday cake from the Three Dog Bakery. I also got him his birthday outfit, a party hat, some toys and a coach dog collar in black! Sunny together with Star and Twinkle chowed down the cake and played with balloons. It seems like they enjoyed it. Too bad they have to continue their purty at the Pet Palace Hotel and hopefully enjoy their mini vacation just like Momma and Dada in Vegas.

There's a Dog Bakery!

When I heard there was actually a dog bakery at short north (columbus) I knew I had to go there and check them out. I was excited about what they have for my babies. They need a different varieties of treats aside from the one's I could get from pet stores. I wondered if they have fresh baked biscuits, maybe cookies or anything yummy? Well, realized I needed to get a birthday cake for Sunny's 2nd birthday. Perfect timing, we have a reason to go and see the place! Finally, JJ and I drove down to Short North. It was one of those lazy Saturdays and we were on exploring mode. The place was very easy to locate but a little bit hard to get a parking on weekdays. We just lucked out that we went there on a weekend. They have so much stuff for my babies. I had a hard time picking what they might want. However, the birthday cake was already ordered. I couldn't wait til its Sunny's birthday. Aside from finding the Three Dog Bakery, we also dined in at an Asian restaurant. I had a blast exploring Shorth North and would love to come back there again, one day. Meanwhile, the fuzzies were all so excited looking at the goodies we got for them. They kept following the bag of goodies. As if they knew that its actually for them. They just kept their nose close to it and really paid attention to my moves. They sniffed and growl when one of them gets really close to the treat. They made sure they sat at a good distance to and from the goodies and that none of them gets sneeky! Anywho, here they are around the yummy goodies.

I especially liked this priceless photo of Twinkle. I don't know though if her eyes got big due to the flash or she was just enjoying her buckeye treat.

Star looked so happy and content after chowing down biscuits and the buckeye treat. I think they were stuffed. Mr. Sunny was already taking a nap by this time :)

Poor Little One

My little Twinkle got spayed this morning. I felt so bad for her because she was so tiny and sweet and I don't think she is ready for this but it was about that time that it needs to get done. We don't want her to get her first period and then be spayed after just like what happened to Ms. Star. So, Dada took her in to Big Walnut Animal Care Center where the Vet's are awaiting to care for her. I tell you, they are super nice in that place and are good in what they are doing. They finished the operation on time. She had to recuperate before we could pick her up but she did really well. I decided to go get her this time with Ms. Star and Mr. Sunny. Their nails needs to get trimmed. Dada came to pay the bills and off we were home. I had to put Twinkle inside a cage where the 2 fuzzies are off limits. Twinkle had to slow down on everything, no jumping, rough playing or else the stitches will ripped off!

Finally @ Charles Penzone

I finally got the chance to use my Charles Penzone gift card. Almost 6 mos. since JJ gave it to me as my Valentines day gift before I finally got so tired of my dry uneven colored hair. Actually, I had been wanting to get a hair cut for the past 2 months but something always stopped me from getting an appointment. I think I develop a salon phobia or some sort. If you knew me well, you've seen me blogging about my latest haircut and trying out new hair color before. The last one was when I had my hair cut really short. After that, I did colored my hair back to black and then I just let it grow. I also cut my bangs courtesy of Amanda, a friend from work. But thats just about it. The last 2 weeks, I was really close into getting a haircut in one of those small chain salons but JJ was so insistent. He wanted me to use the gift card to get massage, and maybe have my nails done. So I waited and finally today while I am off from work and JJ is working from work, we sneaked out and get lunch and at the same time get an appointment at Charles Penzone. I was gonna do online appointment but it would asked me to choose a stylist and I have no idea who would I pick. Finally, I got scheduled for 4:45 so now I have a new hair! Yayyyy! It wasn't bad experience at all. Jodi was fast! Well, I choose to just get a plane haircut with a style which she managed to get it done in 45 minutes! Wooott! wooot! Awesome, I will surely come back...had no choice, I still have $189 balance in my gift card.

My long hair taken 2 weeks prior to my hair cut.
(Excuse the tongue sticking out)

The new me :) style was from a girl I saw online, I took a picture using my cellphone and showed it to Jodi, my stylist. Basically a contemporary hairstyle with soft layers enough to touch the shoulder. The edges were textured to give a modern edge. She also fixed my bangs and made it more fuller.

I felt like a new human being after the cut. My head feels lighter, diffinitely a new person. Amazing what a haircut can do to a person, its like a magic, I feel chic and funky, LOL.

I bought my first furniture

I have been asking JJ to get me a nice curio cabinet that I can house my mini tea sets collection for quite a long time. It has never been granted! Arggh! I bought 5 mini tea sets recently and on top of that my friend Ligaya gave me one, I have not thanked her yet (I don't think!) bad me :( so I have quite a few collection in one tiny corner curio cabinet display. So, I took matters on my own hands. I search and found one off *bay that I have fallen in love with.

I ordered it, came so fast and JJ assembled. Dang, we found 2 imperfections. When doors are shut they don't align correctly as you can see in the peekture.

There was also a discolored area at the top left corner of the surface.


I then e-mailed the seller and he was very helpful. Without questions, did not even looked at the pictures I attached on my e-mail as my evidence, he just asked me to give him the letters of the parts replacement and in just 2 days, I received my replacement!

Wanna see my display??? Oh no not yet. I am still waiting for one more shipment and then I can show you my new entry way, hopefully before Fall everything will be into place.

Flowers from my Garden

I haven't really paid much attention to my garden this season. Weed extraction is the only thing I did after I put mulch on it last Spring. I have not watered nor fertilized it but it still flowering like crazy. I can't help but get my camera and get some shots. I also experiment some functions of my camera which I seldom do and I am happy about the result. What can I say I am just a plain boring Auto function user, well sad but true!!! LOL! Anyway, without further ado, here they are:

Pink Stargazer Lilly

Yellow Calla Lilly

Daffodil

Potentilla -Gold Drop

Grape Hyacinth

Purple Lupine (I have red's too)

Tulips (sorry I don't have a good micro shots!)

My Yellow Gladiolus are about to bloom in a week or two.

What's annoying about her

Twinkle is at the teething stage right now and you know how dog's behave when they are at that stage? Unlike kids who cries and gets uneasy or cranky when they are teething, dogs are at least to my experience from Star and Sunny, get crazier, they like to bite and nibble on our fingers, they bite our toes and ankle. If no one is there for them to play and play attention, they can really ruin your furniture. BUT, they good thing is that Twinkle has Star and Sunny plus JJ and I to chew on. So she is not really into our furniture. When Sunny was teething, he had literally ruin our side tables, coffee table and then some areas of stairway. Other common behavior they all portray is that they like to play with water. They all like to dig on it and dump everything out from the water bowl. Its kind of annoying because I have to clean the mess many times a day. I like to just leave them 2 bowls of water a day especially when JJ and I are at work. I want them to have access to water all the time. Now, as soon as we got home, I see flood of water! I can't really be angry at her, I know her gums are in pain and there is really nothing I can do, except to give her ice cubes from time to time. I hope it all comes out so this cleaning saga will end! Cross my fingers*

Taking care of Gadgets

I finally was able to bring my Ipod to work, thank God! JJ forbid me from bringing her to work without the invisible shield installed and vaja cases I ordered online. Now, I don't have to worry her inside my purse being scratched because the invisible shield protects her and then God forbids, accident happen it fell on the floor, there is always vaja cases for protection.

I am really enjoying her a lot, now I don't have to listen to xm radio that plays the same music over and over the whole freakin' day! Gosh, you have no idea how I hated it, now I can switch to my Ipod when I am on break and after work when I have to do the 2 report. It's just the perfect Ipod and the vaja case, I can just hook it on one of my belt loop. I am still working on my music, compilation I have about 1.59GB free space right now.

Plum out, Signature Bucket in and new Product Red

Yep, you got it. I have returned my second Coach handbag purchase after 3 days of receiving it. Don't get me wrong, the color was really pretty, the size is really good and its soft and I am really loving it but the reviews at the forum regarding patent leathers were not good and so I got scared that it might turn into one of those horrifying stories. Thus, the return of plum patent tote!

Sigh** my heart ached as soon as I stepped in into their Easton boutique. But JJ was there for me supporting how sad I'd feel for letting it go. In fact, right before we left the house we had an agreement that I can only look at displays but I should refrain myself from being tempted of getting a replacement, in short I better be a good girl or else I'd get a spanking from him :p

When we got there, there was no questioning or whatsoever but I was asked if I wanted to look around?? And I just smiled and looked down, I knew I'd be tempted and then JJ stepped in, he told the SA we will return it for now but we would look around and if there is anything I like we will think it over and come back the next day. Good reasoning/ errr good excuse??? LOL!

So days went by and my birthday is approaching. I felt anxious that I don't have a new purse for my birthday. I don't know if I can already call it a tradion but I've been used to getting purses on special occasions for many years now. Although deep inside, I am hoping that JJ will get me a purse even a wristlet will do so I waited with an agony.


On one of our trips to Easton, days before the 4th we stopped by at the apple store and JJ got me a replacement to my iPod classic which is his birthday gift.

I got the (Product) Red iPod Nano 3G. I am happy and excited about it and as soon as we got home he synchronized my new nano to our music library at iTunes and voila, I got the teeny winee iPod, working sweet! Now, I can use my Motorola stereo blue tooth headphone with iPod adapter, he got it for me from last years birthday and it hasn't really been used that much.

So what did we do on my very birthday day? July 4th is America's birthday and so most families gather for party, having fun, enjoying a good meal and what else! That same day, its hard to get a good restaurant for dinner. Its been a struggle for us ever since I got here 4 years ago. Most of them are closed! So this time we outsmarted them, lol, instead of dinner we went for lunch! Even then, the first two restaurants that we attempted were closed the whole day! What a bummer, so we went to Polaris Mall and found Brio Tuscan Grill was opened so off we go.

After a sumptuous lunch, JJ asked me where else I would wanna be and added that he would take me anywhere I wanted to go because its my big day so I blurted "prime outlet mall"! Although, that was already on my mind for days! I did a little shopping spree at the Correlle store. I bought some additional serving plates and miscellaneous stuff.

Then, off to the Coach store, again??? At first, I was really just planning on getting collars for my fuzzies. Yay, to designer dogie collars, wohooo!!! Star and Twinkle, got leather collars but my poor boy won't be getting anything on this trip, there is none that would fit him. There were a lot of people up there, lots of purses on sale from 15% to 60%. I told myself, If I ever get a purse, It has to be a little more or less than a $100 (let's call it self-control).

I spent a few rounds checking at their displays until I saw this tiny signature top handle pouch. I looked around for a different color and learned from one of the SA's that was the only 1 at the store. So I hold on to it and decided it was worth keeping. Yay, I am inlove again. It was just perfect for a quick trip to a movie, dinner, grocery shoppin' or doing a little errands. I also got a scarf to help the black color pop out a little bit. I also grabbed a purple butterfly cellphone lanyard which is very cute. This trip's motif was purple and I am rockin' it! WOhhhoooo!!!! Happy birthday to ME!!!!