18 Weeks

How far along are you?: 18 weeks
Total weight gain?: About 4 - 4.5 lbs
How big is baby?: The size of a sweet potato :) and really showing this week!
Maternity clothes?: Only wearing maternity jeans now.  I went and bought another pair at Ross because they have great cheap maternity stuff.  I'm wearing them in this picture.
Stretch marks?: Nope and I even bought cocoa oil yesterday to make sure I don't get them. (I hope it works)
Sleep?: Alright except for waking up around once or twice a night to use the restroom.  I used to never do that.
Best moment this week?: Drinking a cup of coffee and feeling our JuneBug start kicking like crazy.  Mommy is sorry, baby, but it tasted so good!
Movement?: Oh yeah.  I feel JuneBug all throughout the day and especially when I'm sitting down eating or going to sleep.
Food cravings?: Milk still tastes strangely more amazing than I remember from 3 years ago when I suddenly couldn't stand the taste anymore.
Food aversions?: Nope.
Labor signs?: No.
Belly button in or out?: Innie
What I miss?: Brie
What I'm looking forward to?: We find out baby's gender in 9 days and we are SO excited!

And I just realized that our blog doesn't include our due date... It's the 24th of June.  So hopefully we will have our JuneBug in time to enjoy some fireworks for the 4th of July!

Also, in my journey to becoming a new mommy, I've been looking up the most efficient, cheapest and healthiest ways to do things for baby once he/she is here (can't wait til we know if it's a he/she next week!).  I've decided that I'll be making my own baby wipes.  I found the greatest tutorials on how to make them from baby wash, oils, water and paper towels.  They even fit into those carrying wipes containers from Huggies and Pampers once you finish those out!  I'm really excited about them because I will know all the ingredients that are in them instead of some harsh ones that could be in store bought brands and I will also save a bundle of money.  Once you make homemade wipes, you could end up saving around $200/year in expenses on them.  As an added plus, they're gentler on a baby's skin, depending on what wipes recipe you use, and you can easily make more when you run out and not have to worry about driving to the store.

The other venture I plan on taking on is something I've kind of always wanted to do when I had a baby and that is making my own baby food.  With all these tutorials and recipes and how-to's on the internet and different blogs these days, there's just no excuse for me to say I "don't know how" or I "don't have time" because it's just not true!  It's just a little veggies and fruits steamed, mashed, frozen and voila!  I probably sound like a hippie at this point but I swear to you I'm not.  I really just want to be able to say I put my all into being the best mom I could be and to giving my JuneBug the best that he/she deserves.

Not sure who all reads these blogs since they may come up on Google searches but if you're looking for homemade wipes tutorials I found some here, here, and here.  I won't even bother posting the links to the homemade baby food sites I bookmarked because there are so many if you just Google it that you'd be amazed.

Wow this was a really long post! Thanks for reading :)