Getting Ready for Turkey Day!

Well my FAVORITE holiday is right around the corner. I have spent the last two weekends cleaning the house. This is really not necessary since it will only be us, skister and her family and clay, but i still feel the need. I must say I love our house when it is really clean. If only we could keep it this way!

Thanksgiving truly is my favorite holiday. There is just something wonderful about spending the day with your closest family and friends and enjoying a nice relaxing delicious meal. Oh and browsing the Black Friday ads of course! This year will be tough to do without my glass of wine though!!

My last day of work is Tuesday and then I will be off until December 1st. Boy will be off Wednesday and Thursday so that will be nice. We rarely get to spend days off together. And what makes it even better is that you can start decorating for Christmas the next day!! Ha!

Tuesday marks 17 weeks for us. Seems like it has flown by, and we are getting so close to finding out pink or blue. A very close friend of mine found out that she is having a girl just last week. I am so happy for her and her family, and it makes me want to know what mine is even more! :)

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!! Gobble gobble!

Maternity Clothes are MAGNIFICENT!

Who knew that elastic could be SO amazing! Delana took me shopping this weekend and I found some great new clothes that fit!! Whoo hoo!! I felt amazing today at work not having to squish into my jeans. Thank you so much for going with me Skister. You are amazing in more ways than you will ever know. I am so glad that I got to experience this and all the other fun stuff with your help and guidance! Love you!! :)

Tomorrow marks week 16. Seems longer than that, but then seems like we just found out yesterday! Crazy how it all works. I went to the doctor last Friday for a normal check up and everything is still going great. The doctor said that my weight gain is perfect, which is good because I was afraid I had gained too much. She explained all the aches and pains and of course listened to the heartbeat. It is still in the 150s, which is what it has been all along. I also set the date for our big appointment.... the one where we find out pink or blue!! The big date is December 11 at 3:30. I am very excited and I hope that the time goes quickly!! I can't wait to call this child by its name instead of Jelly Bean or Kit Kat or The Baby!

Oh, one last thing, think pink Thursday!! :)

Test result are in!

Forgot to mention that I heard from my doctor last Friday about the results from the First Trimester Screening for Downs! She said that everything looks normal! Measurements and blood work all looks good. We were never worried, but it is a relief to know that the baby is healthy! Thank god! 14 week picture coming soon!

Halloween

Our last Halloween as just us and the dogs has come and gone. I am really looking forward to dressing up the baby next year. Maybe then Peanut will get a break! Yeah right... we already have plans for her to be a rooster! Here are some pictures of her and Stephen. The penguin is still going strong in year 4. I was a witch because I knew I could fit into a black skirt and shirt! Hope you all had a great Halloween.

12 weeks and counting!

Time for a new update! Weeks 10-12 have been pretty much the same as before... nausea, headache, hungry, tired, repeat. At the end of week 10, I started getting a really bad headache that would not go away. I was taking the 8 tylenol that I am allowed in a day and it wasn't doing anything. I got to week 12 and only knowing that I would be seeing my doctor on the 24th got me through!

We went to the doctor on the 22nd for the first trimester screening for Downs. They take a measurement of the nuchal fold on the baby's neck and they also do a blood test, so yehaw I got stuck AGAIN. Second time of many. One of the main reasons we decided to do the test is so that we would see the baby again! Since I am just a normal pregnancy with no issues (thank god), we don't get to see the baby at every appointment like my sister. I would take my boat over her boat any day though! (Love you Skister and your critter!) It is amazing how much the baby has changed! We could see its little toes and fingers, nose, backbone, throat, and tummy! The tech said that since we could see the nose bone,it was a good sign. Apparently babies with Downs do not have pronounced nose bones. The baby was moving around so much! The tech even made the comment "as soon as it stops moving I can take the measurement". Definitely Stephen's child! Here are the latest pictures of our little candy bar. It is a little bigger than your pinky right now, so we are having a hard time finding a candy to relate it to! The last one is of its face, still a little alien-ish, but you can see the eye sockets and nose bone.









On Friday, I went back to my doctor for a routine checkup. Everything sounded good (heartbeat at 158) and she gave me some meds for the headache. I also got a flu shot which was worse than I thought it would be. The needle itself.... cake, the serum.... painful. My arm still hurts two days later. I got home that night and took one of the pills for the headache and then slept for 16 hours. Woke up, headache gone! Thank goodness! This week we will be entering the second trimester! Hopefully all these fantastic pregnancy symptoms will start to go away!

On the home front, Stephen has almost finished the floors downstairs. I am about two feet away from having a toilet downstairs again and not having to climb upstairs nine times a night to pee! :) On the 15th, Stephen's father came in with a truck load of trees and shrubs for the house. He and Stephen spent the day planting! It's like living in a new place! Here are some pictures of the new plants!

The first is a magnolia, then a red bud, then 8 crepe myrtles along the fence, and finally a dogwood. All of these are in the front yard.





The dogwood is small, but
hopefully it will make
it!









These are in the backyard. There is a red oak, a Cleveland pear, and Bradford pear, and eight oleanders. The oleanders are very established and some are blooming! They are going to be beautiful next spring!





















Thats all for now. Hopefully this week I can get Stephen to take a new picture of my expanding stomach! Until then.....

10 Week Picture

Here's me at 10 weeks. I think Stephen took like 20 pictures.



This week at work was tough. I was really nauseous every day but Friday. Here's hoping this ends soon! It is neat that I am finally starting to show though! Too bad I just feel fat! Ha! I am really looking forward to seeing my family again so they can see the changes!

Stephen has been really helpful this week though. He really understands that there isn't much he can do to make me feel better, but he tries so hard! Love you Stephen!

We go to the doctor again on October 22nd and the 24th. The 22nd will be the first trimester screening, and the 24th is just a normal appointment. I'm looking forward to the appointment AFTER this one because hopefully at that one we will find out if it is a girl or a boy! I am getting very impatient!

Thats all for now. I'll post a new pic next week.

An update.. with Pictures!

I guess it's time for an update!

We went to our first appointment on September 25th and everything is looking good! The baby is measuring right on schedule for May 5, 2009. Stephen was really excited to see the baby and hear the heartbeat. The doctor said "Look at your little peanut" and we quickly told her that we already have a Peanut at home and that this little one would need a different nickname. So we came up with Jelly Bean. We are going to try to stick with candy nicknames until it is too big to be a candy anymore. Week nine it became The Whopper. :) We will go back on October 22nd for the first trimester screening and then I will go back on October 24th for my second appointment with our doctor.


We let the secret out to my parents that weekend and then we were of to Dallas for the cowboy's game. We had a great weekend and the baby got to go to its first professional sporting event! Stephen really enjoyed the champagne that was arranged to be delivered to our room, and I sat back and wished I could have some! I did however enjoy the chocolate covered strawberries!

Lucky for me, the weekend was uneventful in the morning sickness, well all-day-sickness actually. It was really nice to not feel on the verge of loosing my cookies for two days! And to make things better, we got to have some Braum's ice cream... twice!

Monday morning, it was back to normal. Bring on the crackers! I am so ready for this FANTASTIC part of being pregnant to be over so that I can enjoy this experience!

This weekend I attacked the baby room. Currently it is a guest room and is filled with all of our games and my scrapbooking stuff. We are planning to rip out the carpet and replace it with the same flooring that we have downstairs now. So I cleaned up the room and emptied the closet! I didn't think I would get as much accomplished as I did, but it is ready to have the bed moved out and the carpet ripped up! One step at a time though! I did put the few things that we have bought for The Whopper in the closet. It is so hard not to just sit in there and stare at those tiny onesies!

We haven't taken any belly pictures yet, but we will start this week as we enter week 10. Hopefully I can remember to take a picture each Tuesday. I wish I would have started once we found out since I have already seen some "enhancements". And as Stephen says, they'll never be the same again! Ha!

Well that's all for now! Hopefully I will remember to update in a few days!!