Family Fall Fun

With Halloween this coming Thursday- fall fun is in full effect! Over the weekend Nick was able to take Sunday off from studying to partake in a Phelps family tradition- pumpkin carving. I think last year in Grenada was the only year I have not participated in pumpkin carving in my entire life. Nick on the other hand had not carved a pumpkin in 10-15 years! WHOA!

Pumpkin carving with my little brothers is usually pretty classic. Every year Joey creates his own design for his pumpkin and they are never disappointing! Alex on the other hand likes to go through the stencil book and find one that is elaborate and cool. Over the years a system has somewhat developed where Maggie helps assist Alex in the carving of his pumpkin and my dad helps makes whatever Joey has created come to life on his pumpkin. I'm usually pretty tradition and just do a face or whatever the family pumpkin is or just bounce around and help, but this year Nick and I had our own!

All in all, another successful year of carving in the books!

Later in the afternoon we also got together to celebrate Nick's mom's birthday! Lots of family gathered together at the Leo house and it was a fun filled afternoon of just hanging, watching football, and catching up with everyone! The food was SO good and I definitely ate enough for both me AND baby!! I think this child is growing a lot lately because after a few weeks of eating like a normal human I am back to being starving every couple of hours (or 10 minutes after just eating a full meal.. but i digress!) I've heard this is normal in the 2nd trimester but I ate this way in the 1st trimester so I was hoping maybe I just went in reverse order... nope, looks like it may be a full 9 month thing, if we end up with a super chub on our hands we will know why!!! And at least eating is more fun during the holidays and the food is extra, extra delicious!! :)

It sure was a fun filled family day and it was super nice to see Nick relaxing and having fun since he's been mostly locked away studying for his first shelf exam on Nov 8th!

Internal Med/Life Update

Nick is still chugging along through his Internal Medicine rotation. He only hasa week or so left before he takes his 1st Shelf Exam and moves onto his next rotation (surgery.)  He continues to love IM and has learned SO much! Most days he has 2-3 of his own patients and so far all of his evaluations from the Doctors and Residents he has worked with have all been GREAT and rave about how well he is doing on the floor/in the clinic. YAY! Not that I am at all surprised, but definitely proud wifey over here.

He has now switched from working on the floor to working in the clinic. Clinic hours are definitely pretty awesome- he goes in at 8AM and is home around 4:30PM every day. He's super busy studying and completing case reports so he usually only spends an hour at home before heading off to the library for a couple hours. Still... much shorter days, and especially now that he has a 5 minute commute rather than a 40 minute commute... he's a much happier boy!  I know he misses some of the floor stuff, but I think it has been a nice change of pace and change of scenery to be in the clinic for a couple weeks! He has definitely loved internal medicine and I think he is surprised by how much he has enjoyed it. As of right now I believe Emergency Medicine is still his #1 but I know that the past 10 weeks have definitely opened his eyes to life as an IM doctor and he is definitely not crossing it off his list as a potential career!

I can't believe he almost has one full and long rotation under his belt! Time is flying! Surgery is next up, and while I know he will like it, I am definitely not very excited for the crazy hours it entails. However, I AM HAPPY to have it over with BEFORE baby arrives AND he has 2 weeks or so off for Christmas break- so I guess I can't complain too much about the timing :) Plus, I'm sure surgery will bring some good stories from his experiences... we already have a suture kit in our kitchen at almost all times so God only knows what else is to follow... ;)

In other news:  we are almost completely settled into our new house!! Wooo hoo! We've been living here for a full week or so now and really only have some small things left to do/some organizing, but all in all it's quite homey and we are loving it! Pictures and more updates on that another time.

Baby is continuing to grow big and strong and my glorified beer gut baby belly is gradually turning into a full on baby bump! Every day I see obvious changes, which is weird, but fun! Still waiting to feel the little nugget move!

He's dressed so doctor-y and cute every day that I couldn't resist snapping a quick picture! The cutest IM student ever!!!

16 weeks pregnant and enjoying having some energy back and the fall weather/wardrobe!

Coming soon...

Well, I guess I fell off the wagon a bit on the blog-front the past month here.. oops.

In some aspects of our lives A TON has happened. In other areas of my life- (ie: battling the fun that is the job market in Michigan) not much has changed.

But no point spending time on the not so fun news- lets move onto the exciting stuff!!

We are thrilled to say that we're having a baby!! Baby Leo is due in early April and we are on cloud 9 and could not be more excited to meet this little babe!

Of course, like all news these days, most people waited and wondered how we would go about announcing the news not only to our families and close friends, but also to the entire Facebooking world.

In terms of the Facebook announcement, we knew we wanted to use a picture but really had no set idea or plans. Nick was released from the hospital early one Friday and so we decided to take advantage and although we had no method to our madness set off to the park with my camera, a camera tripod, and the baby MD outfit I used to break the news to Nick months before.

Needless to say, when you set loose 2 first time parents-to-be at the park with the cutest baby scrubs outfit EVER, you end up with not 1 picture- but about 15 pictures in random places around the park in all different poses. And so our announcement was created as a silly collage of pictures with a cute poem. The whole thing was perfect and so very "us."  In all honesty, telling Facebook land wasn't THAT important to me, but being silly with my husband and daddy-to-be and getting adorable pictures that we love... priceless.

"Soon our house will be growing by 10 little fingers and 10 little toes, boy or girl nobody knows, but either way this April there will be... a new little Pierogi in our family tree!!"

This little baby is already so very loved and we are so blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who not only share in all our excitement, but also provide us with tons of support and love! Oh, and my parents are first-time grandparents to be.... they're slowly getting used to the terms "Grandma" and "Grandpa" as the entire family is enjoying throwing the terms around. And at the same time, all 4 of my grandparents will be first-time great grandparents! Lots of fun firsts around here. I was the first grandchild and now can pass that torch onto this little growing baby orange (no, that's not our nickname, it's simply the size of the baby currently. Nick hates that I constantly refer to the baby as fruit... probably because my timing of telling his usually coincides with him eating said fruit. "Oh hey you're eating blueberries, that's our baby!" "Can you believe that lemon you just put in your water is our baby?!" "Whoa before you eat that orange lets compare how big it is on my tummy!"... oops timing is everything!)