Decorations and Renovations

Well, I have not posted for awhile. I am still getting used to the idea that I am pregnant and cannot be such a workaholic as I used to be. Chris and I were told at both of our December Doctor's appointments that we should not go to Indiana for Christmas. I was happy to be able to rest and not have to run around, but at the same time, I was sad not to be able to see family and friends. I went in for a little while to work on Monday and then tried to finish my Christmas shopping for Chris. We decided that we were going to do stockings for each other and one present. I was having a really hard time, because I forgot that we live in North Carolina and Colts's jerseys are not easy to find here! The rest of the week I watched as Chris painted the kitchen and just laid around to rest. I did accomplish to clean our guest bedroom (guests, we are ready for you!) and get all of our Christmas decorations out and up. Chris got me a Garmin navigation system for Christmas. I am so excited about it! I have wanted one for awhile! We got Marvin a leash, new treats, and some wet food to mix in with his dry food. He really seem to enjoy this. I think that he enjoys time with his mom and dad even more. We did not get anything for our baby boy, because I hear he is getting a lot of stuff sent down from Indiana. My parents and grandparents will be here later this week to celebrate Christmas with us, and we are going to skype Chris's family tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with them. It was hard not being with everyone during the holidays, but I think this was best for Chris and I both to get some rest and stay healthy.

Due to the high volume of requests, here are some pictures of the pregnancy belly and some other updates that Chris and I have neglected to post about:

Here are some pictures of me and my pregnant belly. I will be starting my 33rd week tomorrow. I measure at 33 cm, so I am right on track! Our little boy is very active and likes to kick on my right side quite often. I still wear a lot of non maternity clothes especially tops. The styles are really good for this! So far no stretch marks, which is really making me happy. I do have the beginnings of my line that goes from my belly button down. My belly button is disappearing quickly.

For Halloween, I dressed up like a redneck man. We had our friends, Christine and Bruce, over to have dinner and to entertain trick-or-treaters. They made an amazing chicken tortilla soup, and we made a loaded potato soup. Both were delicious and we were glad for the leftovers! Here are a couple pictures of me and Marvin in his bowtie.

Here is a picture in our kitchen from Thanksgiving which we celebrated with my parents. Last year my dad came home from Iraq on Thanksgiving, so we were especially thankful to have him here with us. Chris and I cooked a turkey, apple stuffing, mashed potatoes, and a cherry and pumpkin pie. We also made some crescent rolls and caesar salad. It was all very good! This picture also gives you something to compare our new kitchen renovations to once we post those pictures on here!

I do not have an pictures of this, but I wanted to mention how thankful Chris and I are for all the generous gifts that family and friends have given us for our baby boy. My brother and sister-in-law have given us a lot of baby stuff that have been transported to North Carolina by my parents as well as many items my parents have purchased. We have also gotten a box of clothes from my cousin Megan that were all so adorable! Chris has had several co-workers given us clothes, wipe warmers, and other items that we might not have known to get. Dr. Lauren also sent our baby his first toothbrush and some socks and hats. We are very thankful for everyone's gifts and the advice that I have been given by others as well!

We hope to put some more pictures on here soon. Our next doctor's appointment is on Tuesday, so we will have an update about that as well.

My Wild Weekend

I knew it had been a long time since we posted anything, but had no idea it had been that long.  It seems like so much as happened, but yet not much that was worth writing about.  We've both been crazy busy with school stuff: I've had teaching and coaching responsibilities that seems to keep me from ever being home in the daylight, and Annalee's work is never done with meetings and workshops and lesson plans and helping teachers.  Add to that Annalee's grad courses, Marvin and his 90 pounds of 2-year-old energy, the "joys" of home ownership, my marathon training, and those pesky eating and sleeping habits that we just can't seem to kick, and there just doesn't seem like there's enough time to post to the blog.  Oh, did I mention that we have a baby boy due in just over two months?

On the baby front everything is great.  We're going to the doctor every two weeks now, and today was our most recent visit. Everything seems to be as it should.  At our last appointment, the doctor strongly recommended that Annalee not travel, so we've decided we will be staying in NC for the holidays.  It's disappointing that we won't get to go home to Indiana and see family, but at the same time it does eliminate a lot of the stress and pressure that comes along with such a trip that would only be amplified by the pregnancy.

No name yet.  We've test-driven a few different possibilities for about a week at a time, but none seemed like "The One."  We'll get it figured out eventually. The baby is moving a lot; he seems to move more when there's music playing or when certain people are talking. Could be coincidence, but we like to think otherwise. The baby's room is coming along.  We're still trying to find homes for all the stuff that was in there when it was our office, but we're getting closer. Should make some progress over the break. Little by little we seem to be getting the baby necessities, mostly through hand-me-downs from family, friends and co-workers.  How wonderful that has been!  I don't know if we can ever fully express our gratitude for everything that has come our way.  Thank you so much.  I can't think of anything else baby-wise right now.  I'm sure there's more, but I'll let Annalee add the rest, since he's living in her belly.

This was supposed to be a huge weekend for me.  Here was how it was supposed to play out:

Friday was to be a fairly normal day at school. Exams are this week, so we have been mostly in review mode, so it should have been pretty relaxed for me.  We had an away basketball game which wasn't my first choice of how to spend a Friday evening, but still not a big deal.  Saturday was the Thunder Road Marathon in Charlotte, which I had been training for since August.  A big deal, but something I was ready for and not nervous about. On top of that, awhile back I jumped at the chance to take a trip to Indy to see the Colts and Broncos with some buddies from college. I figured, I don't do enough fun things for myself, so why not get on a plane 6 hours after my first marathon and try to spend 24 hours acting like I'm still in college?  I even worked it out so I could see some family, albeit briefly, which was fantastic since it would probably be the only opportunity for a while. I would take Monday off to travel back in time to give my exams, and then be off for Winter Break and two weeks of relaxation.

The plan seemed foolproof. It would be difficult but not impossible. And heck, that's half the fun.  Here's what actually happened:

I've been busy.  It seemed like the to do list never got any shorter.  It seemed as though there was never enough time in the day.  Needless to say I've been stressed.  It was going to take a lot of hard work to make sure everything was in order before I left, but I was determined to make it happen.

Thursday it looked like everything was going to work out, but I was feeling a little bit off.  I just chalked it up to the stress.  Woke up Friday morning with a bit of sore throat, still a bit cranky and run down. I tried to convince myself it was no big deal.  As the day wore on, I felt worse and worse: I was chilled and the throat got worse.  I started feeling achy, moving slower. About lunch time I started to worry.  About 1:30 I went to the school nurse to see how worried I should be. She took my temperature: 102.4.  I can't remember ever having a temperature that high .  She told me I probably had the flu and that I should go home.  No basketball game for me, and the rest of my epic weekend was looking seriously in doubt.

Now I wouldn't say that I'm overtly stubborn, but I have my moments.  I had looked forward to this weekend for a long time, and I was not going to accept that some little virus was going to derail the entire plan before it got started. I was going to do everything possible to hold it together. I went home, stretched out in the guest bedroom (I figured I should try to isolate myself. Sick, pregnant wife = bad news), took some NyQuil and went to sleep.  Later, I got up, walked the dog and ate some dinner. I was feeling a bit better.  I decided I would see how I felt in the morning. If I thought I could run, I was going to try.

Saturday morning, I actually felt really well. I decided to run.  Now the nurse at school, after she took my temperature and I told her I was supposed to run a marathon, told me explicitly not to run.  That morning though, it wasn't going to stop me.  So I ran, and it was mostly good. I felt fantastic for the first half or so. The last few miles were a struggle, but I think that's pretty typical in a marathon.  My final time was just under 3 hours 30 minutes which was right where I'd hope to be before I had any illness to contend with. Can't be disappointed with that. (I could get into much more detail about my run, but I'll do that in a separate post.)

The run took a lot out of me.  I felt better than I might have expected given all the circumstances, but I had been bed-ridden a day earlier and just run a marathon.  The next decision was whether or not I wanted to get on a plane in a few hours. The wild card in all this is I had to be productive educator at school this week. After much debate, I decided that the trip was not a good idea. At one point that afternoon I was feeling well enough I almost got on the plane, but I certainly wasn't out of the woods in terms of illness or leg stiffness.  Getting in a cramped, flying germ incubator, and potentially infecting friends and family with my sickness just didn't seem prudent.


I've felt pretty crummy since then.  A lot of coughing and congestion. I think that verifies that I made the right call.  Maybe it validates that I shouldn't have run the marathon.  Who knows?

Ramblings of a mad pregnant woman

It has been way too long since a post has been made on our blog. My belly is expanding, and Chris is running more miles each week. We registered at Babies R Us. Oh my goodness, that was an experience. I highly recommend that if you are wanting to register, go to another store first. We registered for over 200 items and spent over 4 hours. It was quite a bit overwhelming. We haven't been to register anywhere else, because we aren't sure we are ready to devote that kind of time.
Marvin has been kind of clinging lately. He likes to lay his head really close to Chris or my face. He also has been sort of ornery. His favorite thing is to try and eat our socks before we notice. He also likes to tear up the couch. We are dealing with his little tanturms the best we can. If he has a particularly good day, we try to treat him with a trip to the park or another type of special treat.
We were surprised to have a niece born earlier this month. Addison Renee made quite an entrance. Chris and I had a lot of fun shopping for her. I also spent some time shopping for our little guy while we were out. Chris says that all clothes that are small are cute. I disagree. We just happened to find a lot of really handsome outfits! We are starting to make a collection in the range of newborn to 6 months. Don't worry; I am sure our baby will need lots more than what we have so far.
Names have been quite a hot topic with Chris and me. Right now we have a spreadsheet of names that we like that include middle names and different combinations of the names. We cannot decide what we are going with yet. It may become a question on our blog soon.

Well, I am tired, so that is all for now. We will post some more belly pictures soon!

And the Winner Is...

As you can see at the right, out of 22 votes in our gender prediction poll Girl won a majority of the vote over Boy by a vote of 12 to 9 with one vote for Alien (thanks Thom). So on Thursday we had our doctor's appointment and ultrasound as planned. Most of the visit we watched the ultrasound technician take pictures of the developing bones and organs and explain what we were seeing.

Above is a picture of the face. On the right is the forehead and eyes, in the middle is the nasal cavity and upper lip.  At the bottom is a hand that had made it's way into the picture. Below is the baby's profile with the head at the right, torso in the middle and a knee sneaking up on the left side.  Notice the hand up by the face still.

Finally, after she had shown us the whole baby from head to toe, and everything looked normal and seemed to be developing how it should she asked if we wanted to know the sex of the baby. We said we did and this is what she showed us:

In a slight upset Boy takes the title.  We are so excited, and family and friends seem to be excited too.  We would have been excited either way, but it's really cool to know. Now the baby is a "he". Now we can start focusing on names. (My brother Thom who was the one Alien vote says it should be Elliot due to the initals it would create. He's so clever). We went to Babies-R-Us today and started our registry, which was an experience and will have to be a story for another day.  It all has reached a new level of realness. The feeling is amazing.

The coolest part of the ultrasound for me was the clarity of the images.  The still pictures are detailed, but it doesn't hold a candle to what we saw on the actual screen.  I was surprised how often I knew what we were looking at before she told us, which I think was rather amazing considering how fast she talked. But the coolest and most detailed images came when she showed us a 3-D rendering of our baby's face and put it into motion.  Below is a still capture:

Notice his right hand and forearm stretched in front of his face.  You can also see some of his other hand above his head.  We seem to have a shy, wiggly little boy. As I'm sure you've figured out, he kept moving his hands up in front of his face and moving around as though he didn't want his picture taken. All of this also confirmed to Annalee that what she had been feeling was in fact the baby moving.  She was pretty sure that's what it was, but to see it happen on the screen confirmed it. Now it seems like he's moving all the time.

The rest of the doctor's visit went great, except for all the time we spent waiting for the docotr.  Everything seemed to be in good shape.  He is currently 11 ounces which they said was right where he should be. Annalee's gaining weight at a healthy rate, and her blood tests from our last visit were all normal. The ultrasound technician was not able to get a picture of the baby's stomach because it was empty.  She said it was nothing to be concerned with, just Annalee has to stop back briefly next week to hopefully get a good picture. 

Marvin's Graduation

Yah for Marvin! Yesterday was his third graduation from Pet Smart's dog classes. He has graduated from puppy school, intermediate school, and now the advanced school. In these classes, he learned how to do things that would help him pass the canine good citizen's test. He can sit for a greeting, stay, and walk. Above is Marvin with his diploma. Below is Marvin with his proud dad and pregnant mom.

Labor Day Weekend

Annalee is turning into a monster! Okay not really. Actually we (more specifically, I) have been very fortunate that the hormonal moodiness that generally comes with pregnancy (or so I have read/been told) has yet to rear its ugly head. I'm going to count our blessings and knock on the nearest wood or wood-type product. But right now the idea of "Preg-zilla" is fun to joke about, and Annalee is being a good sport about it, laughing right along with me, so we'll go with it for now.
The Preg-zilla name came from one of many conversations this past weekend with Annalee and her parents who were visiting over the weekend. As has been the case as long as I’ve known them, when Annalee is with her family she becomes an easy target for teasing. And I have been known to give a hard time or two, so I am not innocent in all this. It’s all in good fun: Annalee takes it in stride and gives her fair share back. Being with child is still relatively new so it is an obvious source of inspiration for the good-natured ribbing. Almost without exception, the teasing is steeped in hyperbole: if Annalee is the least bit disagreeable or cranky, she must be morphing into a monstrous caricature of her former self and it would behoove everyone to stay out of her way. From my standpoint this couldn’t be further from the truth, but it’s still funny.
We had a lot of fun this weekend. As is usually the case anytime we go somewhere or someone visits us, the weekend centered on food. On Friday evening, we went to the Wild Wing Café in Charlotte which gave us our wing fix for a while. Two mornings we went out for breakfast: Saturday led us to the Parkway House in Concord and Monday morning was at the Harrisburg Family Restaurant. Both were fantastic. Your typical breakfast fare, which on the one hand is hard to screw up, but on the other hand, can you really go wrong with biscuits and gravy, eggs, omelets, hash browns, etc? Both mornings I think any or all of us could have fallen into a food-induced coma directly after. Saturday night we went to P.F. Chang’s, which is always a positive eating experience. Sunday evening we went Bio-M-Bos in Concord for Mexican food which never disappoints. I personally think they have the best salsa of any Mexican restaurant I’ve been to.
The other meal from the weekend worth mentioning was lunch on Sunday during our trip to IKEA. For those who have not had the pleasure of shopping at IKEA, it is an experience unlike any other. Where else can you shop for all your home needs, eat a good meal, laugh at all the Swedish names, and do it all without spending a fortune? Sam and Gaye enjoyed the obligatory Swedish meatballs and mashed potatoes and gravy with ligonberry sauce. Annalee and I did the less interesting Buffalo chicken wrap and the chicken strips with fries. Topped off with apple cake and chocolate-chocolate cake.
Despite what all this eating might imply, “Baby” was the overarching theme of the weekend. Sam and Gaye brought four large boxes of stuff for us to go through. Some of it was Annalee’s from growing up, some of it hand-me-down, inherited baby stuff. It was a lot to go through. A lot of it we won’t keep, a lot of it we will. Some if it will just sit in the attic until we find out the gender of the baby or until the baby is older.
While Marvin and I went to his obedience class on Saturday, mom, Grandma G and Papaw Sam went to a bunch of garage sales. Most of them were a bust, but a few had some good stuff. We ended up with some onesies and the like and a toy. Gaye found a skunk Halloween costume that should be perfect for Audrey.

Aversions and Cravings

So, we are ending the 15th week of our pregnancy. I need to catch everyone up on what has happened. I have having serious food aversions that include (but aren't limited to): red meat, onions cooking, green peppers, bananas. It does drive Chris a little bit crazy, because it limits our options on dinner choices. I haven't really had any cravings. Although I do enjoy mac and cheese and chicken. I am not hungry most of the time but thirsty all of the time!
In the beginning I was sick a lot. By the way, the person that named it morning sickness was very wrong. Sickness happens all day long. I believe that I am over it, but I do sort of have a gag reflex going on when I brush my teeth and take my prenatal vitamins. In addition to the sickness, I am tired all of the time. It is crazy how much I needed to sleep! I would fall asleep watching T.V. or reading. I am thankful that my husband allows me to take much needed naps. This has helped me to leave school earlier and be more efficient when I am awake. I am still working on this especially at home with cleaning!
Today, Chris and I think that we felt the baby kicking! I had thought I had felt the baby kicking this weekend, but I thought maybe it was just wishful thinking. Tonight, while Chris was making dinner, he thought he felt the baby kicking too! We aren't sure, but it is exciting either way. According to our baby book the baby is only about 4 inches long. The baby will be growing a lot in the next few weeks (or so says the book). I have noticed that my clothes don't fit. They are too small, and I normally end up with buttons undone on my pants. My chest is also much larger. I cannot wear any of my button up work shirts!
Marvin seems to be adjusting to me being tired more often. He likes to sleep with me on the love seat which is hard to do comfortably with a 90 pound dog. Marvin doesn't even look at me anymore when he is ready for his walk. He knows that I am a lost cause. We are taking him to a class, and he has improved his behavior. It is hard for him, because he still is a spoiled puppy.
I am sure we will have more to post soon! My parents are visiting this coming weekend, and it seems it will be filled with exciting activities. Also, Chris and I will post belly pictures as well.

First Post

So we're having a baby.  We are about 14 weeks into this pregnancy thing, and we've talked about making a blog since we found out about our developing offspring.  This is the first time we've truly worked toward getting this thing off the ground.  We were inspired by friends who had created blogs to keep their family and friends informed of their goings-on:  it seemed like the perfect medium to share our lives with those we love and those who love us.  Unfortunately the twists and turns that are thrust upon a young couple during the first trimester of pregnancy are not conducive to sitting at a computer and pouring your thoughts onto a screen. We have begun to adapt to many of the realities of pregnancy as other complications sneak into our consciousness: the bottom line is even when it seems like things are getting easier, they are not. Now seems like as good a time as any to get the ball rolling.  So here we go...

The main idea of this site is to share our experiences and perspectives as our family grows and develops.  Initially it will probably center around dealing with pregnancy and the prospect of adding a small screaming infant to our household.  What it will become is hard to say.  We no doubt will share every aspects of our life: work, hobbies, goals, travels, mundane daily chores and annoyances.  There will certainly be stories and pictures chronicling our adventures.  It's fairly likely one or both of us will use this as a forum to vent and rant about who knows what.  No matter how this site evolves, we hope it opens a window to our lives for those who read it.