Sweet 16

As of Wednesday (yesterday), I was 16 weeks along.  Crazy right?  I know - because that's 4 weeks away from halfway through this pregnancy - which pretty much blows my mind.  And 4 weeks away from when we find out if this baby Carter is a Mr or a Miss - pretty excited about that, mainly because it means we can start talking nursery decor, clothes, colors, etc.  Oh the fun!  But that means I have 4 weeks to get all this other stuff done on my to-do list.  Such is life.

I wanted to take these pictures to show you my bump, but also the last day with my hair looking like this.  Sick of it and got it cut later that night.  Wait until you get to the bottom of the post for that fun.

So here is the bump.  To me it looks big, but the good thing is that if I am not wearing a tight shirt, you really cannot tell.  So if I want to flaunt it, I do it.  If I want to avoid people awkwardly staring at my stomach wondering if I'm pregnant or just fat, I hide it away.  This lady I work with is so funny and is always like "flaunt what you got baby" - love her.

I had to get one with Willy because he was looking on the early morning photo shoot and just looked so cute.  He's also went to the vet that afternoon because he had a suspicious lump on his chin/neck.  Scary stuff.  He had to have some liquid removed from the thing and it's off to the lab to get tested.  Praying its not bad news or cancer!!!  This poor dog cannot catch a break....

So there you have it.  16 weeks in and baby Carter is baking away.  I'm thinking it's just going to get bigger from here....but I'm ok with that if it means a healthy sweet little baby for us!  Especially because I still fit in my pants....with the belly band, of course (cannot button them otherwise I feel like I will die).  I'm going to start keeping track of some baby details (that I stole from Krista) mainly so I can keep track for myself.  So read if you want to, skip if you don't!

How far along: 16 weeks
Size of Baby Carter: 2-3.5 oz and 4-6 inches (s/he was only 1 inch when we had the 10 week sonogram!)
Fruit/vegetable comparison: Size of an avocado - YUM my favorite!
Total weight gain: According to my scale, 5 lbs.
Sleep: Ok - as long as I have my big pillow, I'm ok.  Except I pee several times during the night.
Movement: None yet, I'm excited because my doctor said it could start this week...but I have no idea what to be looking/feeling for!
Unglamorous body changes: Bigger belly!
Food cravings: I wanted something greasy for lunch Tuesday.  Bad idea after.
What I miss: Sushi dates at Sakura with Jimmy!!!!!!  Used to be a regular thing for us!
Strange experiences: Now that people at work know, people stare...it's awkward for everyone.
Milestones: S/he is getting some ears and can start to pick up voices - crazy!!!!  That means they can start listening to music (one thing that I think Jimmy will insist upon!).  And apparently their boy or girl parts of developed at this point.
Best moment this week: Giving Jimmy his Valentine's Day present, which was some KU baby attire - fellow K-State people, please don't kill me....I did tell him there were only specific times when the baby can wear them, but it put a huge smile on his face, which was the goal!

And finally - my haircut.  Now, it's not a "mom" haircut, I promise.  I just am sick and tired of blow drying it everyday with so much hair AND when I wear it curly it's just so heavy and weighed down it looks terrible too.  It was time for a change.

But you can see my little bump!

Not a mom cut - I promise.  But a "Brittany wants to not take as long to do her hair" cut.  So there you have it.  Lots of things changing!!

How I saved $18,000 this weekend

Ok, so not all $18K was this weekend, but something happened and with some elementary math, my estimates are that over the course of the next 40 years - until I'm 65 - this will save me a little over EIGHTEEN THOUSAND dollars. Now, to the good part---HOW?

I have brown hair. I like my brown hair a lot and I like it when it's a rich brown color. This is why when I schedule my hair appointments, I always set aside time for a "cut and color". So about every 8 weeks, that appointment comes up, I spend 2 - 2.5 hours of my evening in the salon (which is fine because I like my stylist) and about $120, with tip included, to get that rich brown look. I used to get blond highlights when I was like 18/19 years old, that was more expensive than the $120....so I figured that I was getting a good deal. Two hair appointments ago, Jimmy BEGGED me to get some highlights. So I got like 10 foils done and it was less...like only $80. So the next time I went in, I was just floored that I was spending so much money to just get one color put on my hair, which really doesn't require too much skills (I'm not saying it's easy or discounting the school that goes into this...because trust me, I know it's not easy!!)

Fast forward to my browsing through a SELF magazine and coming across an article talking about hair color and what is "ok" to do at home and what is better to leave for the experts. And there I saw it....brown to a richer brown...."save your money, do it at home". But what if it messes up? What if my hair turns red/orange/blue/pink? I HAVE to get it done by a professional. In comes my mom who always dyes her own hair. She says it's easy and I should try it. Ok, so she's my right hand lady in all of this now :)

So after much internal agony and research, my mom and I were off to Target early Saturday afternoon...bought some nice & easy hair dye....and started the process. I was nervous through the whole thing but was determined to try to do most of it by myself so I didn't have to ask her to help every time I wanted to dye my hair. So after a detailed application process, lots of dye on my skin (ears, arms, you name it), we waited. Then waited 5 minutes longer, and then rinsed. And ta da................. (this is with all 5 of the wiener dogs of course!)

FYI: This is (from left) Daisy- parents, Lani - sister's, Milly, Willy and Puddles- parents!

I love the color and it looks great, no streaks or anything! To give you some sort of reference to what it looked like earlier that day, here is a picture of Jimmy and I the night before getting ready to head out on our date night.....

Big difference :) Love it!!

For those of you that are interested---here is my math behind this:

Normal hair cut/color with tip: $120
Box of Color (with tax): $8
Hair cut with tip: $45
Total: $53
Hair cut/colors per year*: 7
*(52 wks/8 wks = 6.5 per year, I rounded up to 7)

Salon cut/color--
$$ spent in one year (7*120): $840
$$ spent in 40 years (840*40): $33,600

Salon cut/color--
$$ spent in one year (7*53): $371
$$ spent in 40 years (371*40): $14,840

Difference over 40 years (33600-14840): $18,760

So there you have it...exactly how I managed to save over $18K in a simple Saturday. Now Jimmy should be thanking me, right? :) While this is nice for me, since I really do like my hair all one color and it doesn't take much expertise to dye it like that, this will work great for me! And I can do it at my convenience as well, which is something else I really like! I know that this is just not an option for those of you that really shine in the highlights and love them, so I'm sorry, I don't have a money saving solution of that magnitude to off-set your hair grooming costs. I'll work on it though :) But really, if you are nervous about dying out of a box- DON'T be! A few tips that SELF provided:

- First section hair off into 4 sections. Focus on one at a time
- Start at the roots and work your way down your hair....make sure you get the hair line that frames your face well
- Don't spread the dye all the way to the roots, wait until there are 5-8 min left and then drag the color down to the roots- that will make it look more professional

And that's it!! Good luck if you dare to venture into boxed dye :)