Breach Baby Boy! :S

Went for a scan last week to check the growth of baby boy - they were worried that maybe he wasn't growing fast enough again, like Ana.

Good news:  Growth is great!! He is much bigger than either of the girls at this age.  Doesn't sound great to me in terms of birthing him, but great in terms of he's healthy and strong!! - And apparently I have a 'juicy, fat' placenta going in there, so that's good too lol :)

But the doctor at the hospital called me this morning to tell me that baby is breach - which we'd noticed during the scan, and been a bit worried about!  She said baby might still flip on its own until about 37 weeks, at which point he'll be too big.  I'm 36 weeks and 1 day today.  I have an appointment next week, and they're going to scan me at that appointment, to confirm baby's position.  If he hasn't flipped into birth position by then, they'll book me in for some very long-named procedure through which they try to externally get the baby to flip, 'so that they don't have to give me a caesarean'...  I'm completely terrified and anxious.  Maggie's posterior birth was hell, and I'm desperate to have this baby naturally - please baby just get into position!! The doctor also said (in response to my slightly edgy query) that there's nothing I can really do to flip the baby.  She said all the spinning babies and sitting forward stuff is great for posterior babies, but we don't need the baby to spin a little - we need it to do a complete somersault...  Mum said she had a couple of us breach, and people used to all the time and it was fine, but apparently it's higher risk with the cord and stuff so they don't really let you deliver naturally with a breach these days.

I'm a little upset cause baby boy was beautifully in position a few weeks ago - the midwives and doctors were saying he might come early, because his head was so low in the birth canal and he was was all ready to go!!  So why did he flip?!  The ultrasound lady (who has a teenage son who's causing her a lot of grief right now!) said "It's a boy! - This is just the beginning!" :)  Which made us laugh :)  But come on baby, flip back!!

So if you feel like praying for us to have a right-way-down baby, please do!! I would really like him to flip, or that very long-named procedure to come through, so that I can have him naturally!  I can't wait until he's here!  Pregnancy and childbirth continue to completely terrify me!

HE DID IT!!! :)

I feel like I should just mention...

...that JAMES GRADUATED FROM UNI WITH A FABULOUS JOB FOR NEXT YEAR!!!!!! :):):)

No more paperwork for a while :)  - except maybe for him signing the contract :)  We are SO excited and happy and relieved and grateful!! :)  BEST early Christmas news we could have received :)

YAY!!! :)

What a wonderful blessing :)

Yumm-o!!

I just published that last post about my Days of Health, then I went to the news, and saw this in an article about pizza hut:

I know why we're all obese.  It's because no matter how much we look at that and grimace at each other and say 'Ew!!!' it honestly looks awesome to me.  Along with all the 14 year old boys ... lol :)  I'd totally try it!! :)  Focus, Abby!  Focus!!! I'd better go and eat some crackers and cheese.

82 Days of Fitness: Day 38

So it was 84 Days of Health, minus 1 day for Christmas, and then another for our Anniversary Max Brenner and box of chocolates!! (By the way, I only ate 1 of the 3 James bought me - and the other 2 are stashed away... for... some other day... ;)).

James thinks I should scrap the 'days' thing, and just be a healthy person all the time, and I'm seriously contemplating it!  Have I mentioned how much clearer my skin as been?  I've always refused to pay any attention to the 'chocolate isn't good for your skin' thing, but I gotta admit my skin's been great since I started this!!

My health days were getting super, SUPER easy, but since our Anniversary it's been a lot harder to stick to!!  Ah Max Brenner!!!  I made chocolate brownies for family dinner on Sunday night, and I really, really wanted some. I acted cool though (of course) and was all good, but the fact that the 3 leftovers were still sitting in our fridge untouched by yesterday (after 2 full days of opportunity for James to eat them!), started killing me and I asked him to eat those 'awesomely delicious' brownies asap so I could stop thinking how ridiculous it was that he had such amazing brownies to his name and they were going untouched!!! I must admit it's not exactly points to my cooking skills that I can so confidently proclaim them 'delicious' and 'amazing' - Betty Crocker had a lot to do with it!! ;)  (Her triple choc fudge brownies mix, I can't get past it... mmmm.....).

But the benefits still outweigh my wishing I could eat chocolate.  So again, glad I'm sticking to this thing!!  And I really think I'll keep a lot of it up after baby comes, because I'll be wanting to lose the baby weight, and keep feeling healthy and strong for the recovery.  By the way, I should mention my weight gain all but stopped about 38 days ago - BIG benefit!!  With Maggie I was out of control weight gaining, and with Ana I was a little better, but not this good.  So yes.  Still here.  Still healthy.  I just (along with every other woman in the world) wish chocolate could be that awesome and be amazingly good for you!!!

Oh wait, before I go - one non-benefit:  I'm pretty low in calcium - not getting that glass of milk in every block that I was before, and it's affecting me.  There was the broken toe thing, and my nails are chipping and breaking like crazy.  I told James it was because of no chocolate, but he thinks it's because I'm pregnant.. scoff...sigh...

Boyz II Men :)

So last Friday night, for our awesome 5th wedding anniversary (yay!!) we went down the coast to see...

BOYZ II MEN

!!!!!!

:)

(I know, the title of this post may have given this away a little)

A few months ago I heard they were coming, and when I looked it up tickets had JUST opened, so I immediately bought them!!  THEN I called James, hoping he hadn't already booked us into something else.  Thank goodness he hadn't! :)

We love Boyz II Men :)  I have actually seen them in concert already... twice... but James had never seen them in concert, and we always said if they ever came back we'd go, so awesome that it happened to be on the day of our anniversary!!  Perfect :)

For my own personal record (which is really what me writing on this blog is about!) here are all the concerts I've ever been to... in chronological order.. because I like that :)

2005 Boyz II Men

 With Anitapee :)

Awesome, of course!

2006 Boyz II Men

With Briony :) 

(they came 2 years in a row! They're SO great!!)

2007 Keith Urban

With Tammy :) 

Keith knows how to throw a concert - he rocks!!

2007 Lionel Richie

With James - honeymoon date!!

I actually bought the tickets when we'd just been dating for a little bit, but I figured we would either be still dating or engaged or something by the time the concert came around - lucky! :) Lionel Richie, was amazing, and we loved, loved it!

2010 Tim McGraw 

With Tammy - he was awesome, but cut, cut, cut the 3 preshows!!

2011 Keith Urban

 With Tammy! :)

Seriously his concerts ROCK!!  He's coming back in January, exactly 6 days after my due date (sigh)... so Tammy's going WITHOUT ME for the first time, sigh...  At this concert I was 8 months pregnant with Ana - and we were in the 5th row! - it was AWESOME, I was sooo held back by my giant belly lol :)

2012 Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

Front row tickets with Tammy!!!

AMAZING concert experience, loved every second!!! :)   Wrote about it here...

2012 Carrie Underwood

 - with Tammy - incredible voice, awesome concert!  Wrote about it here...

And yes, Tammy and I are the concert people.  We love them. And we love country music :D

And now 2012 Boyz II Men :) - with James :)

Aren't they so cute?!!!  They've been together for 21 years now, and they've definitely still got it!!

They sang on The X Factor Australia a few nights before we went to see them, and although I'd been really enjoying the X Factor, it was CRAZY how much better Boyz II Men were when they came on!

It annoyed me that they weren't even really advertised for the show - One Direction (via video link lol) and some guy I'd never even heard of got top billing.  Don't people know how AWESOME Boyz II Men are?!!!    And how LUCKY the X Factor contestants were to sing with them?! (SOOOO lucky lol) :)  They were the first CD James had, and 1 of the first 2 Tammy (and therefore me :)) had (oh WAIT Tam! - Was that CD borrowed from one of your friends?!  I just remember listening to it over and over!), so we both grew up loving their songs I guess!  And they rock.

And look what they've been up to since they last visited:

Yay Boyz II Men!! :)  

Anyway our date was perfect :)  James had gotten off work a little early and we'd had a late lunch and outing with the girls, so we weren't very hungry for the buffet dinner at the casino before the show we'd been contemplating having.  To my surprise, not only did James buy me chocolates for our anniversary - and I'm talking 3 boxes of chocolates cause he wanted to make sure he got ones I liked - he suggested we go to Max Brenner for 'dinner' before the show instead!!  So we're talking 82 Days of Health now - we had an awesome pre-show dinner date at Max Brenner :)  Then we went up to the concert :)  I hadn't brought the camera, and iPhone cameras aren't very good (:p) so any photos I tried to take of Boyz II Men didn't really work, but here's James and I in our seats before the show, with some weird funny lighting thing happening on my neck...

We were pretty excited :)  We had fun playing Boyz II Men trivia up on the big screen while we were waiting for them to come out, and when they did (sans pre-show - YAY BOYZ II MEN!!! (I hate preshows...)), they ROCKED it!! :)  

Back in the day, they used to dance a lot - like, old school boy band styles, kind of motown, very choreographed, super cute.  At the other 2 concerts of theirs I've been to I don't remember ANY dancing, but they did kind of a Boyz II Men through the ages thing and totally busted out the moves again, we LOVED it!! :) And those guys are seriously some of the best singers in the whole wide world - when they just chill out and sing a capella together, it's just awesome!  I can't even describe how good they are.  But, the best :)

As they did at the other concerts I've been to, they handed out red roses to people near the front when they sung "I'll Make Love to You", you should have HEARD them going off to 'Down on Bended Knee' - on one knee, and we all got out our mobiles to call our Mums when they sung 'Mama'!  I was in a bit of despair when it was time, because I think there were too many phones going at once and I couldn't get through!! But I kept trying, and got through just in time for Mum to hear the end of the song :)  Once again, they grabbed the phones off people in the front row and sang into them - can you imagine?!  Sigh... :)  Oh I didn't mention... we were pretty far back, because I called and requested an aisle seat cause I knew I'd be hugely pregnant and might need to get out if I was uncomfortable or cramping up or something, so although there were lots of 'closer to the front' seats available, I bought ones closer to the back.  I think James was a little disappointed, but it was still awesome, and I was really, really grateful to be on the end when everyone was up and dancing, because I could stick my head into the aisle and see them dancing away on stage :)

(just thought I'd throw another pic in there - they're getting a bit old these days, but they're the old school cool guys lol :))

The only disappointment was the no t-shirt thing!!  I have a Keith Urban, a Tim McGraw and a Boyz II Men shirt, and we wanted to get James a Boyz II Men shirt, but they weren't selling any!!!!  The only thing they were selling was a meet, greet and photo after the show, but they were pretty pricey and we didn't buy.  James said next time, we're buying lol :)  I'll have to bring a better camera or it'll be wasted!!   Hopefully they come back again one day soon :)

Anyway, I wish I could chuck a video up of the whole thing and share it, but I can't, sigh... I wish I did for me too, so I don't forget!  But it was a fabulous concert and a perfect date :)  See?  Not even our bad date record could spoil these guys!!

And James?  Well, stoked to have been married for 5 years and perfectly happy and in love :)

Can't wait for the next forever!!!!

The Kankles...

...are back.

I thought I was doing really well, but I think since I've broken my toe I'm putting a lot of extra pressure on funny spots around my legs and feet, and the kankles are officially back.  Was shaving my legs last night and realised I couldn't even find the little bone that sticks out of the inside of the ankle!! Sigh... but only 8 and a half weeks to go!!! Wow that's a long time!! lol :)

Happy skinny ankle days to the rest of you!

Dates that Crash and Burn...

James and I go on the BEST dates.  They're memorable, involve spending quality time with my favourite person, and ... well, they're memorable.

Our very first date consisted of us driving around for an hour trying to find a park which was lit up at night.  It turns out, none of them around here are...  So James finally ended up parking the car with headlights shining over a park, and we sat and ate the yummy picnic supper he'd prepared (hot chocolate, marshmallows and Tim Tams - full points for chocolate ratio!), while I was a little nervous about 'bad guys' in the dark at this random park, then we went to a friend's party, and drove my sister and some random friends home.

In the random order they occur to me in, here are some of the other awesome dates we've been on:

• Last Saturday night we dressed up and drove all the way down the coast, to redeem a Spreets voucher I bought a while ago, for a '3-Course Italian Feast'!! - It sounded great, lovely antipasto entrees, beautiful Italian meals and yummy dessert.  I even thought that if dessert looked any good, I might have a 'treat for the week' for the first time since I started my 83 days of health!!  Our first tip was when I called the 'restaurant' to say we'd be running late for our... booking.  I stopped myself from saying 'reservation' by the way the young girl answered the phone, "Something-or-other pizza!".  It sounded like she tried not to laugh as she said "Yeah, okay" and then hung up.  We rocked up to the takeaway pizza place with a couple of chairs and tables for dine-in guests, and at the urging of the 'waitress', sat wherever we wanted.  We sat outside.  She brought us a couple of menus, and just double checking the conditions of the voucher I'd bought, I asked "So, no steak, right?"  She looked surprised, and said "That's right! - We're also out of lasagne  and you can have any dessert you want, but the only dessert available is the sticky date pudding" Ah, okay.  I went to a gorgeous Italian restaurant once, and had an amazing chocolate ... thing ... (if only I could remember what it was, or where that restaurant was, sigh..).  That's what I was hoping for.  No WAY I was ruining my health challenge with sticky date!  There is not a single spec of chocolate in that!  Our entrees were somewhat successful.  They just took a really long time to come.  We looked back and noticed there was a single cook in the kitchen, running around like mad.  After a while, he ran through a door at the back of the restaurant, and appeared in the next door Thai restaurant!!  Apparently he asked for reinforcement, because a moment later he reappeared in the Italian 'restaurant', followed by another cook, taking off his Thai outfit and donning the appropriate apron :)  Awesome :)  Then, a girl walked into the Thai place and placed an order at the front.  She then followed the Thai restaurant waitress out of the Thai place and into the pizza place, where they put her order through on the Italian 'restaurant' till...  either there's something really strange going on or the 2 places are cojoined, and share staff and tills.  For some reason all of this made us giggle like crazy, as did the couple at the next table, who were not hiding the fact that they'd been waiting for their meal for what seemed to be a very long time, and were extreeeeemely irritated.  But with the reinforcement of the Thai chef, eventually all of our meals arrived.  For mains I ordered crumbed chicken with chips (there wasn't a lot on offer!) and James ordered the fettuccine chicken pesto.   I couldn't stop laughing when they brought out James'.  Maybe the 'waitress' should have told us they were out of fettuccine too - but the spaghetti chicken pesto looked awesome :D  And my chicken came with a side of 5 chips, and some bonus veggies and a bonus salad.  We're pretty sure I cleaned the restaurant out of the last 5 chips :)  The tiny pieces of sticky date that eventually made their way to our table didn't look remotely appetising, and James quickly ate both so we could get out of there - running to our car (okay, I was on crutches, so it was more of a fast hobble) through the torrential rain of the crazy thunderstorm which had created the mood for awesome date :)  Thank goodness we have so much fun together, especially when things don't quite turn out the way we expect - Spreets have got to stop calling things 'feasts' and takeaway places 'restaurants'!!
  
• Then there was the awesome Valentines Day Scavenger hunt of 'special places' I put together for James last year.  We started off with the girls and the plan was to go to the playground with them (the first one where we ALMOST had our first date - no lights after dark there ;)) as one of the steps, and then drop them off to Mum's as another step, and after a few stops we'd end up at the temple cliffs where we'd meet up with our awesome friends the Macs, and have a fun picnic.  Due to weather restrictions (like, torrential rain), each stop became about a second long, kind of lamo, and we ditched the hanging out with the girls at the park part completely.  Later the rain died down to almost nothing, but we didn't exactly dwell at our picnic spot at the cliffs!
  
• And while we're on the subject of the Macs - there was the 'Glow Worm Caves' adventure.  We rocked up at a very remote location, where a lone scientist runs a little glow worm expedition on his property, where he accidentally found a glow worm wall (not cave) during a drunk evening stroll which almost killed him.  Really long story, but between the $70 000 outdoor toilet, the glowing mushroom room, the fake glow worm business cards, and the story about the woman who chose the wrong leaf to wipe herself with, the night was extremely informative, absolutley hilarious, and kind of terrifying!!  I couldn't wait to get off the mountain and back to civilisation!!  Obviously, these were not the glow worm caves most people go to and talk about.  Which is probably why it was such a bargain! lol
  
• And speaking of bargains, and the Macs, there was the time they called us to say they'd found a great 'Living Social' deal - an island paradise 2 night getaway for some ridiculously low price.  They said the island was just off Stradbroke, and looked amazing!  They'd already booked theirs for around Australia Day, and did we wanna join them?  Apparently the apartment next to theirs was free, so if we were keen, we should call quickly before it got taken!  It all sounded great.  We said 'We'd love to!' and looked up the bargain.  It became apparent as I opened the deal, that travelling with out of towners was not without risk.  "Why does it say Coochiemudlo?!!!" I exclaimed to James with some panic.  I'm not even worried about hurting the feelings of Coochiemudlo dwellers.  Because after 2 nights, lots of rain, lots of mud, tennis courts with not a raquet or ball on the island, dvd players with not a DVD on the island, a restaurant which 'doesn't open' (don't plan to buy half your meals there...), $10 mini towel hire, and really, really dirty floors, I'm calling false advertising!  They could at least admit that the island is basically a mud slab floating in the ocean! - At least then the 83 other obviously out of towners who bought the deal (haha :)) would be going into it with their eyes open!! Thank goodness for good company - and things only seem to get funner - or at least funnIer - when circumstances are a little tragic... which is why James and I spend so much of our dating times (and that entire weekend!) in stitches...
  
• Last year I was beyond excited when I won tickets to EVERY SHOW put on by a Brisbane theatre company for their theatre season.  That was 6 SHOWS!!!  6 awesome, fun, out of the ordinary and will not even touch the budget dates :)  I've been to see shows by this company many years ago and they were FANTASTIC!!!  Except, they're not anymore.  They're really terrible.  By the last 2 shows we were desperately trying to find excuses not to turn up, but when you've got free tickets to a $65pp show, you really feel like you should go, you know??  Also, we felt sorry for them.  Fortunately the very last show was by far the best, but by then our expectations were so low that all they had to do was hit a lot of the notes in tune.    I kind of want to go into more detail about their very lowest point (which James missed half of because he fell asleep), but I don't want to get specific on the (very, very) remote chance that someone involved catches wind of this and I hurt people's feelings.  But be careful about the prizes you claim.  It was a really painful time for us.
  
• The Proposal:   James had it all planned out - the walkway lit with candles, the dinner, the ring... and he was all psyched to do it for a Friday night in August 07.  Then I accepted an invite for us to have dinner at my brother's house that night - we didn't have anything planned that I knew about!  Rather than tip everyone off to the upcoming proposal by telling Jonny we wouldn't be there, or re-psych himself to propose another day, James simply decided to pull over and propose on the way!  So we got engaged on the side of the road in one of the dodgiest neighbourhoods around :)  Classy ;)
  
• The other week we decided to go on a date to the Southbank Friday night markets.  I haven't been for ages so was excited to check them out.  We rocked up to find out that it was pretty much the only Friday night of the YEAR that the markets aren't on, due to the Brisbane River Festival... sigh... does this stuff happen to anyone else?!
  
• Another time we decided to eat at an Indian buffet at Southbank.  There are so many yummy food choices there, it's pretty hard to fail, but we did.  To the point where when James picked up a tongful of salad, a swarm of flies flew out from underneath.  And we actually saw cockroaches scurrying around under the tables.  Try taking a bite after that!!  We didn't even complain.  We just left.  Shudder!
  
• Then there was our awesome honeymoon.  The first part of it was spent on a houseboat.  We loved every second of it.  Despite the fact that the toilet clogged, we ran out of water and there was a giant river rat onboard which ate a lot of our food, and our Lionel Richie concert tickets!!!! (don't worry - I don't know if the ticket booth people bought our 'eaten by a river rat' story but they reprinted them for us).  By the time we got back to dock and hand over the keys I was DESPERATE to get to a toilet.  But the owner hadn't mentioned he'd be working that day, and wasn't home.  After running up and down the road both ways of the rural river road and determining there was not even a servo nearby, James kindly broke into the guy's house so I could use his toilet, then we waited patiently for his workday to finish.  Fortunately he didn't mind the break-in at all, and was very interested to find out about the rat - he'd suspected that there was one on board...
  
• Every year on our anniversary, we book a little holiday, and I get a bad cold.  Then I lie in bed the whole time watching DVD's or really bad TV, begging James to go out and have some fun without me.  He hangs out with me anyway, and I try to do more than I feel up to and ruin every outing we try to take.  It clears up on the way home.
  
• Often, even if we do manage to have dinner somewhere perfectly nice, they'll forget us, and we'll be sitting there for an hour and a half watching every other table come and go before we ask about our order, or they notice us and bring us our meal with lots of free extras on the side 'for the little wait we had this evening'.  

Our dates often really suck it's true.  I'm sure there are bunches more bad ones that I can't think of right now.  But I don't know if I'd change that - we usually end up having the kind of hilarious time together that you just don't get in more beautiful or serene circumstances.

And we have had a few awesome dates... the Lionel Richie concert they let us in to even though our tickets were in pieces, the time we went and saw Wicked (not the theatre company we won tickets with..) and once we ate at a beautiful Turkish restaurant at South Bank called Mado - recommend!  And there have been many normal dates involving sushi and a movie, and beautiful dates to the temple.  It just seems to be the 'outside the box' events that end in trauma...

Tomorow is our 5 year wedding anniversary :)  We have, a really, really fabulous evening planned.  I was more excited before Tammy asked the other day if we were sure we wanted to do this together, because our hit and miss date ratio is so high.  But risking it we are... I'm sure it's an un-ruinable event... but if everything goes wrong, thank goodness we're in it together!! :)