baby showers

it's been a while since i blogged and i really don't have a good excuse since i was put on bedrest since the beginning of july. yes i had premature labor two weeks ago. i had contractions while i was at work and ended up staying at the hospital for five hours! they gave me two shots of terbutaline, a drug that will stop the contractions. it worked but my doctor had to put me on bedrest for the rest of the pregnancy. it's not really complete bedrest, i.e. i can go to the store and get one thing but i can't shop for three hours --- which suuuccksss so much because now i have all this time to cruise the malls but my legs and my back aren't strong enough to do so. it also ruined my plans to take my cousin karyn to santa barbara and solvang, she came to california for a conference and she wanted to go wine tasting and tour SB...oh well! so i thought my troubles were over when i suddenly developed this rash called PUPPP (Pruritic Urticarial Papules and Plaques of Pregnancy). it's pregnancy related and it's super gross! check out the before and after pics of this website http://rainiersoapworks.com/puppp_relief.htm yeah...mine started on my tummy, then spread to my arms and legs. i was soooo miserable! to the point where i was only getting 4 hours of sleep. my doctor prescribed something but it didn't work so i did some research on the internet and found rainier soapworks which is a god send! it's been a week since i've been using their herbal soap and cream and now my skin is better and i don't itch as much. i've never ever had skin problems in my whole life so now i have newfound sympathy for anybody suffering from psoriasis or eczema. hmmm, so i do have an excuse for not blogging! lol!

anyway, i know it's tmi (too much info) for some people so i'll stop talking about it and change the subject =) last week was the week for baby showers...work threw one for me on july 13th and i got some amazing presents! my coworkers really went all out! i got this three layered cake looking gift package that they made, it's made up of painstakingly rolled up diapers! it's really crazy! check out these pics ... mark and i had a lot of fun opening gifts for baby vaughn and all my co-workers teased me that i'm gonna give birth before my due date 'cause i'm so big! they even have a baby pool going (on an excel spreadsheet pa!).

sunday, july 16th my friend stephanie (teptep) threw a baby shower for me and mark and invited all our friends. it was a blast! she went crazy and decorated their patio with streamers, baby blocks, balloons, bubbles, rubber duckies and GI joe's as centerpieces. our friend drew was the dj for the afternoon and did a fantastic job spinning! tep tep also came up with hilarious games like sucking OJ from a baby bottle (cham won), eating melted chocolate on a diaper -- gross but extremely funny (dammasch won), identifying mark's ankle (i was debating between the real thing and champ, i guessed wrong!), guessing the size of my belly using toilet paper, and a cotton picking contest (gary won). we also entertained ourselves with the bubbles and the electric fan that i brought along. with all the bubbles floating around, it created this relaxing environment on a very hot day. fun fun fun! check out the pics below (click on the link):

baby shower pics at tep's

this sunday my family is hosting another baby shower and i'm really looking forward to it because my college friends are gonna show up and my friend lori is bringing her baby over (born last March)! i've only seen her in pictures so i'm really excited to meet her =) i even bought an outfit for the ocassion heheheh.

so more baby update: we went to our last ultrasound to have the baby's weight checked...and to our surprise, our doctor told us that she's estimating that we are going to have a 9 lb baby! i was really shocked because mark and i are super skinny and how on earth did we create a 9 lb baby? so i'm gonna end up having a c-section per my doctor since the baby's too big. i wanted to have a natural birth but oh well, i've already accepted that this baby's in control...hahaha! anyway, i'm scheduled for august 15th, a week before my due date, unless baby vaughn decides to come early. will definitely blog and post pics on my family's baby shower. till then!

...

wanna blog about a lot of stuff but too busy! so here's some random thoughts/events that happened...

- my feet are now starting to swell and my itty bitty toes now look like fat sausages, vaughn's getting heavier by the week and yesterday was the official start of my 8th month -- whew i'm breathing a sigh of relief! i'm saved from the 7-month-premature curse that my family seems to have (2 of my nieces and 1 nephew were born at 7 mos)

- went to eileen's wedding last saturday and wore the dress mark's mom gave to me for my birthday...got lots of compliments on it lol! will post pics soon

- i have three baby showers! one at work, one with friends, and one with family. my sister isang and i handmade the family invites because there's a lot of old school peeps who don't have email addresses and won't know what to do with an evite heeeheeheee. turned out pretty cute, i'll try to scan it and post pics here. i also have some interesting shower party favors, shoot me an email if you wanna get one in the mail

- my bday was pretty mellow, mark made me breakfast (french toast, bacon, and eggs -- i love this guy!). i had to work since it was a weekday but we went on a tour in our imagineering department and i got to see how the rides are developed in the disney parks and also test out a new pirates ride that they are thinking about doing. had dinner with the future in-laws and mark that night, then just went home and chilled. one of the best weekday birthdays i've had =)

- oh did i mention that my feet are now a size larger (5.5)? i can finally fit in a shoe at the mall stores and not just at nordstrom. i wonder if they'll stay that size...then i can do some major shoe shopping! heheheh...if they get bigger and your current shoe size is 4.5 or 5, let me know. you can potentially inherit all my cute shoes!

- work's been a sonofabitch because i'm training my temp replacement and he's too super perky for me...arrrgghhhh! hahahaha, j/k. he's just being nice but with me being pregnant and hormones all over the place, i can't help but wanna strangle the guy when he gives me an over enthusiastic greeting on a monday morning

- it's sooooo hot in the valley (angela is it also very hot in manila?), and being pregnant does not help any, but i tell myself that it'll be over soon and it'll be worth every trickle of my sweat hahahah

ok i think that's about it for now. so i guess this is kind of a blog entry. just without pics and stuff. i'll post that soon. right now i have to tell mr. perky to come by and continue training. ttfn!

it's not how old you are but how you are old

mark and i celebrated our birthdays together for the second time. we decided to have a "small" party at the last minute and sent out evites to the usual suspects. got a few declines and maybes and only a few said yes so we both thought, ok, it's gonna small and intimate -- yeah right! our party started at 1:30, well, people started showing up as early as 1:30 even if the evite said 3 pm...because they wanted to see us and say hi before they go on to their previous engagements. rebecca, dan, and their cute baby girl arianna were the first to show up, then steve and rosalee stopped by, and lia and ryan came after. i forgot to take pics of the early comers =( oh wait, no, our friend paul came all the way from the bay area the night before, and gary spent the night so technically, they're the early birds...and angel too. anyway, i'm too lazy to write, so i'll do a bullet point of the things i remember...

- the boys checking out my pregnancy mags and their eyes growing bigger by the minute as they turn the pages
- the girls pretending that they're pregnant too and taking "spot-the-real-preggy" pics (much to their boyfriend's dismay)
- tep did a quasi photoshoot of my pregnant belly (official ones by lia in my 8th or 9th month coming soon)
- our filmmaker neighbor steve dropping by to join the party (and of course the boys were asking him what kind of filmmaker he is, when he said he doesn't do porn, they lost interest right away hahaha!)
- us loving the sepia tones from tep's cam, thus most of the pics taken were in sepia tones
- paul, raj, and jackie driving all the way from the bay area to come to our party! (well, paul drove down to see angel but that's another story hahaha!)
- everybody trippin out on my belly and saying how i'm gonna pop soon!
- everybody showing off their belly because now there's somebody who's got a bigger belly and they're not so embarassed by their beer bellies anymore (men! <--- roll eyeballs here)
- somebody put icing on my face and mark's...so we have this pic with icing on our cheeks which looks like? tsk tsk...so so wrong!
- the "take a pic with the pregnant lady" session, it's funny how guys are also really fascinated with the pregnancy process...i thought they couldn't care less!

that's all i remember so far...everybody was all giggly and happy, and had a great time. of course i was the only sober person in the room which sucked but oh well, i got to point and laugh at the drunk ones hahahah! the party ended around 2 but mark and i turned in early and left the guests to their own devices -- so we take no responsibility on what happened afterwards! here are some pics for everybody's entertainment (click on link below...warning: there's a lot of preggy pics in there, so if you are aversed to pregnant women in any way, don't open the link!=P ). till next!

Mark and Teresa's Birthday Shindig Photos

will you...?

yes i am now a proud wearer of "the rock" =) my ring looks exactly like this picture with the marquise diamond setting. Mark asked me to marry him last May 28th. i didn't mention it in my previous entry because our friends were supposed to do this major proposal production in an exotic locale with flowers and candles, the works! and we thought -- in true teray and mark fashion, we'd punk them and i could practice my acting skills (specifically, crying on cue)! hahaha! but i can't resist wearing the ring and he can't resist telling everybody that he's already asked...so we just dropped the bomb =) sorry isang, tep, ron, gary, lia, ollie, and everybody else who was in on it. mark can't keep a secret from me so he ruined your surprise hehehe. i really didn't mind but thanks to everyone for keeping it quite and letting him do the talking, that meant a lot to me.
on other news, today we went to do a 4D ultrasound of baby Vaughn ...btw for those who don't know, we're planning to name him Vaughn Arthur Endraca. it's the only name mark and i can agree on so nobody is allowed to complain ;-) anyway, below are some pics from the ultrasound (click on the pics to enlarge). we also got a video and a couple of black and white pics, isn't technology amazing [4D is done for vanity reasons only and not covered by insurance so we had to shell out some bucks but it was well worth it!]. Vaughn slept through the whole thing and buried himself deep into my placenta but we still got some pretty good images. right now he's in a breech position -- kinda like a u shape, his head is on my left side and his butt at the bottom of my abdomen and his legs are both raised up to his head. talk about chillaxing in mommy's tummy!


he's currently 3 lbs, and will get bigger as each week passes. i'm so excited to meet him!

it's 3 am i must be lonely...

hahaha -- nah, not really. just can't sleep. too hot in the valley tonight, 100 degrees. i feel icky! this is the only downside of summer. so i got up and paid bills, then browsed my friend's websites just to be nosy...and found this http://www.dierockersdie.com/ hahaha! can't believe i was a dierockersdie bandaid before =) check out the images link in 2003 and click on the pics to view them. i was a skinny fox back then, damn! now i feel like a house with no ankles, sometimes the idea of writing a blog entitled "the case of the disappearing ankles" fancies me. but then i'd have a great title but nothing else to say except pregnancy can cause disappearing ankles. tsk, tsk, so much for imagination. memorial day weekend was a blast...i spent the night at my sister kate's house friday nite since my mom was leaving for the philippines (again) on saturday. saturday was spent running around the park with my nephew and niece and daniel, feeding the ducks, and dodging frisbee golfs. i also took my sister suzy and mom for some last minute pasalubong shopping. sunday we went to rosalynne's pool party, didn't get to dip in the water since i will most likely sink and we didn't end up going there till 5 pm...too lazy to go into detail but let's just say brian got his ass whooped from their UFC (ultimate fighting championship) simulation with mark and gary ---> roll eyes here. hay men! they do weird things when they're bored! here are some pics from tep's pbase...ron promised me he'll email me more pics so i'll post them soon. monday we just lazed around and did absolutely nothing! overall it was a mellow weekend which i really needed =) k i think i should hit the sack...i still have to go to a training class tomorrow. i'm out!