Belly/Baby Pictures

I've decided to make this post full of pictures, especially since Mindi lives so far away! I'll do a real quick rundown of last week and then onto pictures.

*I started classes and prefer Polytechnic campus to Downtown Phoenix, like a lot.

*We canceled our offer on that house. The bank wasn't willing to help and we don't have the funds to satisfy the picky VA. The VA appraiser also never got scheduled to come out...

*Saturday was more house hunting. A sweet, beautiful, better house was found. It is under short sale however... Fingers crossed and prayers being prayed! We really don't want to live with family when this baby comes...

*Heard baby's heartbeat at my appointment. It took awhile for the nurse to find it (scared me) but she finally did and baby has a strong heartbeat of 175bpm :) Baby Benitez, or inchworm, was hanging out really low on my right side. Silly little one!

*I told my coworkers at my internship that I'm pregnant. They were already starting to wonder, apparently!

Up-close of belly on 7/17 (5 weeks). We had started to notice some changes in my belly but it was still hard for others to see.

Week 6 Ultrasound. So tiny but the heart was beating!

Week 7 Ultrasound. We were shocked how much he/she grew in only a week!!

This is an up-close of my belly actually a day before the 7 week ultrasound. My shirts were starting to get snug but Tim and I were the only ones really noticing still.

Same day as above. See? There is a little bit of belly poking out, but you may not have noticed otherwise :P

Today: 8/30 at 11 weeks

I know you can't see my face on this one thanks to the flash, but I like how it shows off the baby belly :)

That's all of the photos that I have for now, but it does get you caught up! As far as finding out what this little one is, I'm hoping that we can do that in October since I'll have an 18 week appointment then.

Inspections, and stuff

     Last time it sounded like the house was all secure... Don't panic! We got the house inspected on Thursday, yay! It is definitely true that inspectors will find anything and everything wrong with the house. It is good to know so that you can make sure proper things get fixed. It also results in a scary picture being painted. For our *almost* house, the major concerns include replacing the water heater, a few shingles that were attached to the roof with nails (they were supposed to use tar and a torch), termite damage to the trim (the house itself isn't wood, aside from the addition), spliced wires, and exposed wires.
     I realized that there is one more hurdle to overcome in the process of the house being secure: VA appraisal. The VA is very picky about the quality of house that their money funds in a loan so they require that one of their appraisers comes out to look at the house. Some of their appraisers are very nit-picky while others really aren't. We won't know who we get until it's already happening. The appraiser has power to say "This must be fixed before closing or we won't pay." The house is being sold as-is, thank you banks.... So we'll have to see what the appraiser dislikes (definitely the water heater), see if the bank might be willing to do anything, see if they'll let us fix stuff before closing, and then decide if it's all worth it. We'll see what happens.. There you go, Jessica! You can sit on the edge of your seat again :P
      Tim's been busy working, drawing, playing video games, helping me out, nagging about a 3DS again... He seriously has been helping me out though and deserves the "Husband of the Week Award" as far as I'm concerned. He did the laundry this weekend while I was at work rather than waiting for me to get home (that's typically my chore). Last night I was spending a lot of time getting ready for school today despite feeling ready for bed at 7:30. I gave up at 11 just thinking I'd make my lunch/snacks in the morning. Tim made me a tasty lunch with lots of food before he went to bed since he was staying up later anyways :) I'm constantly reminded why I love him so much!
      I think the baby has already started to play games with its daddy. Yesterday, I woke up with a fairly flat belly. Tim was sad because he loves rubbing my bigger tummy to say hi to the baby. I thought maybe it was because I had just woken up and used the bathroom. He left the bedroom and I got dressed for church. While doing so I rubbed my belly and then I felt my belly move back out (or inflate as Tim calls it). I teased the baby for hiding from Daddy since he just wanted to say hi. The other option is the baby just loves to curl up near my back during the night... I don't know!

Down the Hallway

   We're keeping some of you on your seats with this house stuff, I know :P We signed the new papers for the house!! Once we're given the go ahead, we can get the house inspected and appraised. At this point, we are the only ones who can decide to back out. We are both ecstatic and hope that these next few steps go well!
   Tim spent lots of his free time before work at the apartment. He finished moving everything that we missed while moving last weekend. I had planned on going myself to help with some cleaning since that was one thing I could do. Tim surprised me by finishing all of the cleaning before I even had a chance to go over there to help. The cleaning was all for the baby, he was concerned about me bending and being around the chemicals. I told him that I could have helped, but he wanted to do it for me anyways. And he loves me (one of his reasons that he told me).
   My internship started out great! I got to learn my way around the place, did lots of reading, and helped out. I love my coworkers at Honeywell's fitness center :) I even learned that one of them is LDS as well! One chore that we all have to do throughout the day is laundry. The towels are constantly being used so we're constantly washing them. On Thursday I cleaned the yoga mats, all of them. There was actually quite a few and it took a little while. I unrolled them all onto the floor and once I was done rolled them back up. I had pulled a stomach muscle the night before while rolling onto my side in bed... I swear that it has something to do with pregnancy and all of the hormones since I've done that same exact thing multiple times before without any problems. Once I got back up from putting my shoes back on, the pain came back really intensely. Oh the irony!
     The Howell's took family photos this last week with Noah. They wore the matching accessories that I made for the baby shower. Here's a picture that I "stole" from Deana's blog :D

I even got to hold Noah again Friday night while everyone was swimming. He's very talkative but is still sleeping a lot, like a newborn should.
    Baby update: I'm now 9 weeks pregnant! The baby is about an inch long already, all of the essential body parts now exist (they just need to finish developing and growing), gender is still indiscernible, the teeth are starting to form, earlobes & mouth & nostrils are easier to see, my uterus is already bigger than a grapefruit (before pregnancy it's the size of a fist), and as of last week the baby's tail was gone. Our little one looks much more like a person now! Albeit a very, very tiny person...
     I finally went to the maternity store and bought some new bras, so much more comfortable! My advice to future mothers: avoid underwire bras like the devil because they hurt sooooooooo much with pregnancy. I didn't believe Deana when she told me and I learned the hard way. I also got a couple pairs of maternity yoga pants. I doubted that I would find anything because my belly is too small for all of my normal clothes but all of the maternity pants I've been given are too big around my belly. The ones I got though are cut to fit right underneath the belly, which means I can wear them ANYtime throughout my pregnancy. I love them!

Busy, Busy, Busy

    We've been busy moving our belongings into Tim's family's house. I supervised a lot while Tim and our brothers (plus Kevin Schifflet) moved everything. Yesterday was a long day with all of the moving! I did have a break for work... I figured that I might as well go to work since I was only directing and making sure that the apartment door stayed shut. Most of our belongings made it out of the apartment and the rest will be moved out soon. We wanted to have time to see friends at Blake Shill's bbq, especially since Tim's work schedule makes it more difficult for him to see friends.
     So, the house that we put an offer on... ! There was the whole multiple offers thing on the one house we loved. The bank liked ours!!! Our offer was countered though since the bank wanted to move the closing date a month later which is no problem for us. We accepted, got back to them, and are now waiting to hear that they've signed the papers. As soon as those papers are signed we can get inspections done! Tim has been rather anxious to hear back since the bank was quick in responding for everything up until now. It should hopefully be soon though. Keep your fingers crossed!
     This week, I also get to start my internship! I'm excited and will have lots of choices for what I wear. I am allowed to dress more professionally, like for an interview. Since it's exercise related, I can also wear comfortable, workout clothes everyday. I am relieved because those are currently the most comfortable clothes I have that still fit nicely.
     Tim has been so sweet to me and definitely loves our baby so much. He makes sure that he lifts everything for me and will make sure that I don't bend down. Tim wants to be sure that the baby doesn't get squished. We even saw the baby again this week, and oh my goodness how much it grew! At 6 weeks, the baby looked more like a dot on the screen. One week later and it was a good sized blob that we saw right away! Tim says that our baby looks like a spaceship. I don't have pics to put up of it since our stuff is everywhere... Up until today, Tim has been insistent that it's a boy. He even referred to the baby by the boy name we have picked out. Now he's not so sure and is back to wanting a little princess.
    The only interesting thing that has happened about my sleep is I am now talking more in my sleep and have already met a couple of famous people in my dreams. Last week I met Bill Cosby. The most recent one was Liam Neeson. He lived in our neighborhood and joined the block party to play the clarinet with his nose. He was very nice and friendly in my dream. While that may sound strange, my dreams have always been that strange and sometimes more so. Because of that, I had always wondered how much crazier my dreams could possibly get with pregnancy. So far, it's just adding celebrities!

More Houses

   Last week, we continued our house hunting. We saw more houses that had possibilities than before. Our window for houses to look at was made broader because I originally only had 3 from what was sent to us... We expanded the area within Mesa that we looked at and had more of a trip. Out of the many that we saw on Tuesday morning, we found three worthy of offers from us. One of those we never got around to doing since we had to get pre-qualified through Bank of America to have our offer even looked at. That bank does that with every house they sell... Out of the two that we actually wrote offers for, one was a very cheap house that needed a decent amount of work to be done (flooring, paint, baseboards, etc). It was cheap though and still had a good sized backyard! Well, we got beat out on that house (meaning that someone offered higher than we did).

    That house was not our favorite of the day though! We put more of an emphasis on a different house that we both LOVED, even more than the blue house with the stolen ac. This house is smaller than many houses that we've looked at, but the floorplan and everything else just clicked with us. It also helps to add that the backyard was big, shaded, planted with trees, and beautiful. Tim teased me that I may just love the yard more than the house. I love the house too! We both love it. We put in a good offer and today heard back that there's now multiple offers (that could be anything over one) so to submit our best and highest offer. We have our fingers crossed, and are sending prayers! The Lord will make sure that we get the house that our family needs when the time is right. Soon we will know which direction our house hunt will go: either to inspections or scouring through more houses.

     Our entry-room (I can't decide if it should be a family or living room since it's the only one) is full of boxes. Half of them are packed with books and things while the other half are waiting for this weekend. Yup! This weekend is when we plan to vacate the apartment, aside from our cleaning supplies. This will give us plenty of time to make sure the place is clean before handing in keys. A room waits for us at Mum and Pops' house since Nathan vacated his room.

    Tim has still been working a schedule that makes me look forward to the weekends very very much. He tends to wake up right before I leave for work and I'm sound asleep when he gets home. I find falling asleep after he gets home to be much more difficult than before. This could be from the baby, my sleep schedule has changed in other ways too. Now back to my husband, he's been spending lots of time drawing and illustrating on his computer again. His drawings are a mixture of for friends, leisure, and for the Australians who are slowly making a video game for the internet. I have no clue how long this will end up taking. If, I mean when, this happens I will be sure to let you know about it.

     Baby update: From what I've been reading in my books, the baby has doubled in size since last week and is about the size of a BB pellet. The arm buds are starting to grow hands while feet are starting to grow on the leg buds. It's eyes and nostrils are forming as well. I feel so weird calling our child it! Tim and I currently think that the baby is a boy. About three more months and then we'll know for sure. I also spent some time figuring out when my weeks will turn over so I know when to read a new chapter in my pregnancy books. For those who're interested, that day happens to be on a Saturday which means I am now 7 weeks pregnant. And thank you everyone for your happy comments on the last post! We both hope that this pregnancy goes better. So far so good! Having had a miscarriage does make us more nervous about everything though.