What's Up Down South

Here I am at around 30 weeks or so. I can't remember exactly when Greg took these pictures. It's hard to believe that I only have six weeks and five days to go before this little buddy will make his entrance into the world. I'm excited and nervous. I'm doing really great still. I think, after talking to Sarah today, that I'm probably having some Braxton-Hicks contractions but didn't really realize it. I'll have to start paying closer attention. Gotta love Zantac! It's been helping with the heartburn. I pretty much waddle around a little these days. It's hard not to. I'm still sleeping well at night for the most part. I laugh at myself trying to turn over though! It's like a beached whale! Really. I have to like literally try to flip myself over without everything going, "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" The same thing happens when I've been sitting at my desk and get up to walk around. It's like all my joints want to just...

My family and Greg's family had a baby shower for us in July. It was so great to see everyone! Here are just a few photos to highlight the event. I still need to get my mom's photos because she took more than I did. As the guest of honor, I was mostly required to open presents! Maria had her baby about one week after this, so good thing we got a picture of both of us pregnant at the same time. I wondered if that would happen! Glad it did. The awesome shower planners did a great job. The menu consisted of yummy fruit kabobs, chicken/rice salad on a croissant, nut cups, and delicious slushy punch. The decorations were so cute! It's hard to see in the picture, but my mom and sisters did sugar cookie cut-outs of sports shapes and then put "T" on some of them for Thomas. Sarah also made a really cute diaper cake. Stacie did the invites. And Sharon and Chan helped with all of the planning and logistics. It was such a fun day! I got so many cute things for th...

Happy 4th of July! Here I am at about 23 weeks. Feeling pretty good! For the 4th, my hard-workin', awesome, warrior, bread-winner husband was out supporting us (THANK YOU!) and I went up to Pleasant View to spend time with the fam. Emily's family is here from Nebraska, and we had a great weekend. Here are a few highlights. Sarah and Eliza. We can see where E gets those pretty blue eyes! Look at that little sweetie hammin' it up for the camera! This was the attempt to get a photo of the grandkids in their cute red, white, and blues! Tanner is the ham in this pic! Emily's new hair cut is so so so cute! And we were all so glad to get to see Colbie again. She wasn't sure who any of us were at first. But now Grandma tells me that Colbie will come to her. These two are only about two months apart.

Wow! I can't believe it's been 20 weeks already. That's halfway, right? I have had a terrific pregnancy so far. I have some of the common "aches and pains" but have done really well. It's awesome. I will have to post another picture again soon, because this bump is getting harder and harder to hide. Sometimes I feel a little self-conscious about it in a way, but I think I need to embrace it more and not try to hold it in! (Not that I do or can anyway!) The best thing lately is feeling the baby move more and more and knowing that's what I'm feeling. I totally notice movement after eating, and also sometimes when I play the organ. I think it's just louder so the baby can hear it and reacts a little. It will be fun to see if that continues and let's all pray they get Greg's awesome singing voice! We went to a movie last night, and the baby was really moving during that. Probably because it's so loud in the theater. A week or so...

Man! Full body shots are not at all my fave. I have to do a better pose next time where Greg's not looking up at me while laying on the couch. That's always been like my least favorite camera angle. But can you see that little belly showing? This is 17 and a half weeks. My waist is disappearing and it for sure seems like my already well-endowed bust line has expanded! I'm just trying to take it all in stride even though it's sort-of weird that your body isn't your own anymore in some ways. But I think it's totally awesome that my body is designed for this. Go women! Every day I really feel like it's a miracle that I'm even having a baby. That's such a cool blessing that I wondered if I'd have, and now it's happening, and it's really surreal at times, but totally awesome, too. Other than the fact that I've had a horrible sore throat (due to allergies) I feel great. (Well, still headaches here and there.) I'm not sure if ...

The weekend of Mother's Day we babysat my co-worker's dog. Her name is Chaco and she's a large Brazilian Mastiff. 100 pounds! She was very good and basically just followed me around the house wherever I went. The first night she was here, she slept on her doggy bed outside of our room, but in the morning she followed Greg down when he left for work, and started crying when he left! So I called her back upstairs and she slept right next to my bed until we got up for a walk. She has a hard time being alone I think. We had fun babysitting...or dogsitting, but we don't have plans to get a dog anytime soon! Here are a few photos of our Chaco adventures. She is a lummox and would just fall asleep by us wherever we were! When we tried to get her to stay outside, she would cry and bark and scratch our door. So she was usually in the house until on Saturday when Greg got the case of "We need to clean and vacuum and not have a dog in the house." So we left her outsid...