If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to Mommy Daddy Blog. We wouldn’t want you to miss out on our updates or giveaways ;-)! Thanks for visiting!

Yesterday marked 30 weeks! Only 10 weeks more or less to go! I’m getting very anxious at this point. When in bed my lower body never wants to cooperate, it just feels so heavy. When laying on my sides, it’s like all of my weight is being transferred to my hips and butt. I need a preggy pillow. JT’s wiggling all over the place, jabbing me wherever possible, lol. It’s not so much the unpleasant parts of pregnancy that have me anxious, I’m just ready to hold my bundle and move shortly after so that I can nest! We’re trying to move in May when school lets out for Daddy. It’s funny because JT’s due to arrive on a day that Daddy has finals! My mother will be here in advance so we have nothing to worry about.

We had a visit with the doctor today. Everything’s looking good. I gained 5lbs in 2 weeks, so I’m now at 122lbs with a total of 17lbs gained. I know I mentioned that I weighed 121lbs in my 27th week update, BUT when I caught a cold, I couldn’t eat much resulting in losing those hard earned pounds!!! It’s just so amazing how fast I can put on weight now. Pre-pregnancy I couldn’t even gain an ounce in a YEAR! My goal is to reach over 130lbs in hopes that I will be able to keep some of the weight. Most likely I won’t be able to…being an active, breastfeeding mother, *sigh*. I received my hospital check-in packet. I’m definitely going to the epidural class as it is required to receive one (I don’t want to take any chances) and I will try to go to the childbirth class. There’s one for breastfeeding but I don’t know if I’ll go or not. There’s so many resources right at my finger tips but that hands on learning helps too. We’ll see what happens.

That’s all for now, I’m pretty sure these last 10 weeks will bring something new and I’m ready!

(We have been keeping weekly accounts of our pregnancy since the 22nd week. If you’re interested in reading weekly updates prior to or following this one, click here!)

In the Mommy Daddy household, we eat lots of pasta. If you were to open our cupboards you’d find that they are packed with linguine, rotini, and rigate, our favorites. On a recent trip to the grocery store, I attempted to place whole grain rigate into our basket. I’m a whole grain fanatic and thought it would be great to have since we’re both trying to eat healthier. BUT, Daddy has this thing with wheat products, he refuses to eat them. So of course he “ew’d” at the whole grain pasta that I wanted to try. This resulted in me walking away from the whole grain rigate with my bottom lip poked out and a plan to sneak the pasta into the basket next time when Daddy isn’t looking.

Ronzoni must have received a signal from me because they were kind enough to offer us some boxes of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Penne Rigate to try! And guess what? Daddy loves it! Whole grain pasta tastes no different than traditional pasta, but it’s so hard to convince Daddy when it comes to the “brown” stuff. Thing is, Ronzoni Healthy Harvest lightens in color when cooked so naysayers won’t even notice! Daddy’s definitely preparing me for the battle I have ahead with JT. Hopefully he won’t be as picky as his Daddy!

Tonight’s dinner featuring Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Penne Rigate!

Ronzoni Healthy Harvest’s whole grain pastas were introduced to provide more nutritious meal options. Ronzoni Healthy Harvest’s pastas contain three times more fiber than traditional pasta and is an excellent source of Omega-3!

In honor of Leap Day (February 29th), also the last day of Heart Health Month, Ronzoni decided to offer all Americans a free box of Ronzoni Healthy Harvest to encourage families to take a leap towards healthier eating. To find out how to get your free box of Ronzoni’s Healthy Harvest on February 29th, visit the special leap day rebate offer!

You also have a chance to WIN a free box of Ronzoni’s Healthy Harvest Penne Rigate! Since Ronzoni was so good to us, we wanted to share the wealth. Leave a comment telling us why you would like to try Ronzoni’s Healthy Harvest to be entered! Comments will be closed on March 5th at 11:59PM CST and 4 winners will be chosen shortly thereafter!

Update: Comments have been closed and the winners have been announced here! Thanks to everyone who entered!

Over the past few years photo birth announcements have risen in popularity. Photo birth announcements are more convenient and budget friendly than purchasing birth announcement cards sold at a local department store. When purchasing birth announcement cards at the store, you have to pay for the announcements and the quantity of pictures that you are going to insert in to them. You then have to assemble and write out every single announcement; imagine how time consuming that can be. Depending on if the announcement cards that you’ve purchased have ribbons or scrap pieces attached to them, you may have to pay more than standard first class rates to mail them. Imagine having all of your birth announcements returned to you because of this issue. Now imagine the simplicity of ordering photo birth announcements. When ordering photo announcements, all you have to do is provide only 1 copy of the pictures you wish to use, pick out a design from a plethora of designs, and provide the company with the text that you’d like to add to your photo announcements. That’s it!

With the high demand for photo birth announcements, loads of photo announcement businesses are sprouting up. Some offer quality designs at high prices, some don’t put much effort in designs at all and still charge high prices.

Having an eye for photography and being a freelance graphic designer, I have pretty high expectations when it comes to the quality of photo birth announcements. I’ve come across a handful of sites that offer great designs at reasonable prices, one being PhotoAffections.com. Photo Affections offers vibrant, chic designer birth announcements that blew me away! Just by browsing through their collection of over 200 designs, you can see that their graphic designer puts in a lot of effort to perfect each and every one of them. Color schemes are unique and both fonts and accents are very crisp. Photo enhancements are done automatically and are free of charge! Announcements are printed on 5×7 Fuji Crystal Archive photographic matte/luster finish paper and come with premium 70 lb. envelopes. A minimum order consists of a quantity of 35 and special discounts are given with orders of 50, 75, 100, 150, and 200+!

Photo Affections is an experienced company. They’ve been in the printing business since 1997 and have been online since 2004. They are also in charge of the entire designing and printing process. There are no middle men involved. You can place your order, have proofs in less than two days, and have your completed order shipped off to you in another two days or less. Talk about a smoking fast turnaround!

Offering quality designs, affordable prices, extended discounts, with a fast turnaround, Photo Affections exhibits great leadership in today’s photo announcement industry!

I just came across an interesting video of a promo for an upcoming documentary entitled, “Being Dad: USA”. Just as the title suggests, the documentary is all about being a father. It looks like the producers are going around and interviewing regular ol’ dads and getting their perspectives on fatherhood and parenting as a whole. I came across the promo through Keith of African American Dad, a blog that I frequent, who’s included in it. It’s definitely worth checking out and I can’t wait until the complete documentary is available!

I laughed at the part at the beginning where the guy was explaining how he found out his wife was pregnant. As for those of you too lazy to watch the video:

Guy: You’re pregnant?

Wife: How’d you know?

Guy: I was just talking sh*t, I had no idea!

It made me think of when I got “the call” from Mommy when she found out that she was pregnant with Jayden. The conversation went a little something like this:

(Just a little back story: Mommy and I had a feeling we were pregnant weeks before it was official. She wasn’t experiencing any pregnancy symptoms, she had just developed a slight stomach pudge. There were no missing periods to go off of because she had just gotten off of Depo Provera. If you’re a first-time visitor here, you may want to read Mommy’s conception story. So now that you’re up to speed, we had just bought a pack of two home pregnancy tests. When we got back home, I had to get ready to head out to one of my classes to take an exam. So Mommy told me that she would take the pregnancy tests while I was in class.)

So I was sitting in class, waiting for the exam to start, when my cell phone rang. It was Mommy.

Me: Hello?

Mommy: Hounie… (”Hounie” is what we call each other; it’s a variation of the word “honey”)

Me: …yeees? (I had already sensed what was coming next)

Mommy: It said yes!

Me: Are you serious?! (smiling from ear to ear)

Mommy: Yes!

Me: Oh my God! (as if it were a big surprise to me) Did you take both of them?

Mommy: No, I only took one. But I wanted to call you when I saw that it said yes!

Me: Ok, take the second one and call me as soon as you get the results!

After we got off the phone, I could not stop smiling. I’m pretty sure the people around me were looking at me as if I was crazy (guy next to me: “Why the heck is that guy smiling for no reason?”). I couldn’t concentrate at all on my exam because I was so happy (two plus two is five, right? Right? No? Well who cares, I’m going to be a daddy!). As soon as I got done taking my exam, I called Mommy back.

Me: So…?

Mommy: It said yes too!

Me: Yes!!!

And it was official, we were pregnant!

Surprise!!! This 29th week update is full of pictures! Yes I am all belly and JT’s using up every bit of space that he has in there! He’s going to be a little HAM like his mommy. Note to self: upload our baby pictures. JT’s workouts are so powerful that they no longer tickle, they hurt!

I made Top Momma, go vote for me! I’m the picture of the pregnancy test. I wish I had chosen a different picture, I thought I would be able to change it later… I want to last after delivering JT so keep voting, paaaleeeese! Until next time! Enjoy the pictures!

(We have been keeping weekly accounts of our pregnancy since the 22nd week. If you’re interested in reading weekly updates prior to or following this one, click here!)