Happy Memorial Day

How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
~Maya Angelou

Prenatal Yoga

(also posted on Adventures with Baby Bear)

I while back I participated in a yoga video, see blog entry here. Well, I have loved yoga. Yoga practice was a big part of who I was and what I did before I got pregnant. I have been practicing yoga for over 5 years and I continued to practice yoga throughout my pregnancy. Yoga has been wonderful for me. I never took any formal prenatal yoga class, rather I continued to take my yoga class with my favorite yoga instructor, Monica Matthews. I modified my poses to accommodate my growing baby bump.

Yoga is amazing and helped me to feel amazing throughout my pregnancy. It helped with all the aches and pains that accompany pregnancy. It was especially wonderful for back pains and tight hips. The yoga poses helped to keep me strong and flexible; yoga helps you to build awareness of your body and to relax. It has just been absolutely great for me.

Monica asked to take come pictures on me in poses to put on her website. I was absolutely flattered. I was also honored to be in her yoga video which is an awesome yoga video, Yoga - Wherever You Are, for all levels (of course I am a little biased). Here are some of the photos that she took:

Just felt a little earthquake!!

Did you feel it? It didn't seem real big. But we definitely felt it. Not big but not fun!! We definitely felt it about 45 miles away.

This is what I found on Kcal9.com and here (Thanks Wee):

5.0 earthquake in Los Angeles at about 8:39pm.

EDIT: there was an aftershock of 3.1 at 8:45pm

Procrastination: 2 years later

It has taken me two years to finally get my wedding dress cleaned. As I have been nesting and getting our home ready for baby bear, I realized that my wedding dress (still in a garment bag) was in the corner of the room waiting to be cleaned. I am not usually a procrastinator, I am usually a planner who gets things done right away. But when it came to getting my wedding dress cleaned I just never got around to it. Well, it is finally off to get cleaned and boxed up. It is definitely time. I loved that dress and although I don't expect Baby Bear to ever wear the dress, I do want to keep it for me.

One of my favorite pictures of my dress:

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and mothers-to-be!!!

Our Anniversary update

We had a very nice low key anniversary. It was just perfect since we were together. Mr. Bear got me a dozen red roses that were absolutely beautiful and we went to yummy dinner at PF Changs. The food was good and the company was even better. It is hard to believe that not only have we been married for 712 days (Mr. Bear calculated the days), but we met 9 years ago to the day. Mr. Bear said it was a good 9 years and I agree.

At the end of dinner we got our fortune cookies and strangely enough my fortune cookie had two fortunes in it!! It had one for Baby Bear. What are the chance of that? That was pretty cool. It was nice to have Baby Bear with us to celebrate our special day!!

2 years!!

Today we celebrate our 2 year wedding anniversary!! I can't believe how quickly time has gone. I can't believe that in about a month we will add to our family a beautiful little Baby Bear.

We are pretty simple and low key people. With all that is going on, we are just going to have a nice low key anniversary. What matters most is that we are together. Each day is a special important day knowing that he is in my life. I cherish and celebrate every day we have with each other. I am so happy to be Mrs. Bear and I am so thankful to have such a wonderful man in my life who is loving, kind, and caring. I know that he loves me and that I am important to him.

We enter this new journey in our family as parents together. I know that Mr. Bear will be a great father. I see the love and kindness in his eyes. I see the apprehension and worry as well, but I think that all comes with the territory because I feet it too. I know that this will be something that we will do together. We both want to do what is best for our little girl and we both want to provide a loving home for our family. I love who we are together today and I love what we are going to become as a family in the days to come.

Mr. Bear is the best husband and everything I can ever hope for in a husband and life partner. I love him with all my heart and I look forward to many years to come. I am glad that I have him to share in this journey of life together.

Neglect

I realize that I have been very neglectful of this blog. Impending motherhood has been all consuming of my mind and body. When I am not working, I am thinking about Baby Bear's arrival and preparing as much as I can. I never knew that the idea of becoming a mother takes over you so completely. But, it does so in a good way.

I always thought that I would be able to retain a part of me that would be independent of motherhood. I still believe that I will (who knows I may be naive in thinking this), but I think it will take some time and at this particular time the changes in my body and hormones have taken over so completely that my needs are not so important as the needs of the new life that is inside of me. It is an amazing experience and feeling.

Many people say that motherhood changes you and I am sure that it will, but I also hope at the same time that I still able to retain who I am. I look forward to the challenges and rewards of motherhood, but I hope it will enhance who I am rather than totally change my entire being, if that makes any sense. I guess time will tell.

I have many thoughts and feelings with the idea of motherhood. Apprehension and excitement is all around this entire experience. Will I be a good mother? Will I continue to be a good wife? Will I continue to be me? So many questions run through my head. In the end this new life will enter the world and it is up to Mr. Bear and I to guide her through life. we are up for the challenge and we are so excited for this little one to enter our lives. But at the same time I am a little nervous about it all. Will there ever come a time where I do not obsess about motherhood and my abilities to be a good mother? Or is this a part of this new phase of my life and a part of who I have become? Hmmm, I wonder.

Happy Earth Day 2009

What have been doing to be green?

• I use reusable shopping bags whenever I go to the grocery store or Target. I do need to get better at bringing a reusable bag when I do other shopping, so that is my next goal.
  
• We recycle.
  
• I use natural cleaning products, pretty much vinegar is a cleaning staple in our household. I stop using dryer sheets and instead use vinegar in my rinse cycle and use the dryer balls in the dryer. I will definitely continue to do this for all of Baby Bear's clothes. It is better for us and better for the environment.
• I receive paperless statements and all my banking and payments are done online.
• I always reuse the back side of scratch paper. My work printer has scratch paper in it so I do my best not to waste paper when I do have to print things out.
  

I know it is not a whole lot considering that I do drive an SUV, but I don't drive much or very far to work. I was riding my bike to work a few days a week before I got pregnant, but at 33 weeks pregnant that is just not going to be very practical. I would like to get back to that again but we will have to see how Baby Bear will change things.


I know there is so much more that I can be doing and I will keep working on it. I do try to be cognizant and chose to be more earth and green friendly when I make choices on a daily business. But I do have to admit that I am not always good about it.

I love my cat

Chase Monster is just the best cat ever!! He may not be the most affectionate cat in the world but he definitely loves me. I truly believe that animals can sense when you are pregnant. Lately, he has been by my side a lot more. He knows that something is up and that I am moving quite differently than normal. Well, basically I am waddling.



Here he is looking outside and watching the birds. He can easily push the screen door open and make a run for freedom. But he would never leave the comforts of home and his mama bear. He just loves me too much.



Here you can see his bigness in proportion to the door.

He has never ever even made an attempt to go out, but I often wonder what he is thinking about as he looks out. Out there there is no bed for him to sleep on and no one to feed him when he meows. He must know how good he has it. He is the king of the house and so so spoiled (Baby Bear may disrupt that a bit).

Chase Monster could never be an outdoor kitty, he just doesn't have the street smarts, nor would he be able to run and jump fences as other skinny kitties would. He is big boned and not much of a runner.