Merry Christmas!!!!

This Christmas, Jay and I stayed in NC as I am now too far along to travel. Although it was hard to be away from our families, we were happy to be together this year. We spent Christmas eve with our friends Joe and Jess, and their children. This is the only picture that resulted from that night:) Christmas Day, Jay and I spent the day together, then Joe and Jess and their children came to our house for Christmas dinner.
This picture was taken late at night, when I realized that we did not have a picture of us on our first and last Christmas alone:)

This is what happens when you think your timer is on, and it is not. HAHAHA.

This was our Christmas breakfast, a tradition in my family, cinnamon rolls, and quiche. MMMM:)

Everybody was very excited to open presents:)

Santa even remembered Moe

And now what you really come for... This is the END of my 31st week! I know I look tired. I am. This little one is up very early in the morning and kicks alllll day long! I don't mean little bumps and pushes, but hard, powerful, Rockette-kick-line type kicks. She also likes to stretch. I'm pretty sure she is stretching with all her might trying to gain some extra room. I've actually been able to grab an arm or maybe a leg, more than once. I guess that means she is happy and healthy, which I'm very willing to be tired for, I just wish she'd wait till after 5am to start her acrobatic extravaganza:)

And this is me at the BEGINNING of my 31st week. Do you see a difference? I can feel a difference for sure!

Oh, and just as a reminder... our baby girl will be here in approximately 7 weeks!!! Do you believe it??? I guess we better get a move-on in the nursery:)

Caught on tape!

This was too funny to not post. This is the "mommy-view" of my belly. I was laying in bed this morning, and she was going to town, doing her little dance as usual. I took it with my phone so it is not as clear as it was in person, but if you watch closely, you can see her wiggle:)

So much to say!!

SO much has happened since I last posted! Jay and I went home to Rochester for Thanksgiving, my sisters and I celebrated Sisters' Day, my family threw me a wonderful baby shower AND we celebrated my niece's first birthday...all in 3 days! We had such a wonderful visit home and it was so special to see everybody together. Especially since that would be the last time we travel home until after our little one arrives. We had such a good time, in fact, that I forgot to take any pictures until the day we left. My sister has pictures though... and maybe if I slip her my password, she'll post some pictures for everybody:)


We got home very late on Sunday night, and went right to work on Monday. I had been feeling a bit run down, but figured it was due to being pregnant and tired and lots of traveling and running around. Unfortunately, things got a bit more serious by the end of the week and I ended up in Labor and Delivery for a few hours on Saturday night. The good thing was that the baby was handling everything swimmingly...literally, she didn't stop moving, kicking, boxing, and whatever else she's doing in there, the whole time we spent there, much to the delight of the nurses who witnessed my ever moving belly:) So after a pretty rough weekend, I went to see my doctor on Monday, who promptly removed me from work. I am very thankful that I was not put on bed rest, but was a bit surprised that I could not return to work, as I expected to work for another month and a half at least. SOOO, I'm officially a stay-at-home wife, soon to be a stay-at-home mom:) Both of us are doing well, so no need to worry!


OK, so here are some pictures that I actually did take:





This is our cat Moe, under our Christmas tree that we can't decorate because she will more than likely take it out all together. She looks innocent here, but she is not. She is trouble.





My mom and her two beautiful grandchildren:)

Me and my sisters...and our babies (somebody else must have been taking this picture as well...not one of us is looking at the camera! Gina's not looking at anything...sorry G, its the only one I had)

And me... 29weeks pregnant. As you can see... most of my weight gain has gone straight to my butt! Honestly, I don't think it has ever stuck out quite that far...Jay refuses to comment on how big it is currently, or ever was, so I have no baseline to go by, but I'm SURE it was not that big before!

You can see by this picture how much room she is taking up... ALL OF IT! From the very top of my abdomen, to the very bottom. I've started to get comments such as "You're having a girl aren't you... I could tell it was a girl"

Hopefully she'll start pushing more forward and less upward soon:)

Belly pictures!

So here we are in the middle of my 26th week! Sprout is becoming extremely active and will kick in little spurts lasting 10 minutes or more. Then she'll rest a little while and get right back to it. She is most active in the evening and early morning, of course when I am laying down and trying to sleep. Jay is able to feel her regularly now and seems to be in awe each time he feels it. He was kicked hard enough once to be quite surprised by it and asked me if it hurt:)
Other than starting to not sleep very well, I'm feeling great. Here are some belly pics for you, so you can see our progress.

Here are some from the front since its now clear, even from this view, that there is a baby on the way...

And my rapidly growing profile:)

and from the other side... this one wasn't actually supposed to make the blog, since I look funny in it, but I can't figure out how to get it off without redoing the entire post. So it stays...

Pretty girl:)

Just to be clear, the title of this post has nothing to do with this picture and everything to do with the pictures to follow. This was just a funny picture... the things I do for my husband when his...now OUR...team is in the world series. Unfortunately I am usually asleep by the 5th inning, so I get the run down on the game when Jay comes to bed:)

Today I had another ultrasound. Because of my past medical history and surgeries, my doctor wanted to make sure the baby was developing correctly. She's perfect:) She currently weighs approximately 1lb 9oz and is measuring at more like 25 weeks, but they will not change my due date since she has to measure 2 weeks big in order for that to happen (I'm 24 weeks today). We have also scheduled my C-section, so our little one will arrive on February 19th...unless she has other plans, in which case, she'll arrive when she says so... still by c-section.

SO... here are her most recent pictures. This one is head on. She is looking at you, with her forehead at the right of the picture.This is her hand, with her index finger extended... clearly she is saying " GO YANKEES... WE'RE #1!!!"

Here is her profile in 3D.

another profile, a little more face forward

This would have been one of her face, but she put both hands up in front of it...no more pictures, please:)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN:)

Happy Halloween! Jay and I finally got to carve our pumpkins. Jay has never done this before, so had to get into "pumpkin slayer" mode...really show that pumpkin who's boss!

After a couple of hours, this is what we ended up with:) Don't laugh at Sprout's pumpkin, clearly mommy was tired of carving and instead of planning the design, she thought she could wing it.

out side of our front door on the steps:)

Tonight, we had our very good friend, KeithAnn and her mother in law come for dinner and to hand out candy. This is Gabe, her little one, dressed as a spider. He was a good sport in the beginning...

but things deteriorated quickly and he let us know that he had had enough of the humiliation, despite how cute he was:)

After everyone was gone and the trick-or-treaters stopped coming, we dressed Sprout up in her very first Halloween costume

Mommy view..

Ta Da!

And one from the side so you can see our most recent growth spurt:) We're only a few days shy of the 6month mark!

Pumpkin picking:)

Today Jay and I went pumpkin picking. We are planning on carving them this week... we'll see if we actually do it, but that is the current plan none the less! Before we went, Jay took some pictures of my belly for you:) This is the best one. Jay makes funny comments while taking my picture, which often results in an odd look on my face. So here I am, 23 weeks along...that's 5 1/2 months into my 9month pregnancy... so for all of you not doing quick math... I AM GOING TO HAVE A BABY IN 3 1/2 months!!! Does anybody else realize how crazy that is???
random picture of what we found under our stove when we pulled it out today (there was a sauce incident that required cleaning in between the cabinet and the stove) Our cat, Moe, spends much of her day trying to get something from under the stove. We assumed she had thrown one of her toys under there... we had no idea it was this severe. Those are milk rings, her favorite. There were 15 of them, along with a name tape from Jay's uniform, a cotton ball, and a role of tape. She's a little crazy.

So back to pumpkin picking:)

Jay was a little unsure about this one... but I'm not sure why.

We finally made our choices. One for Jay, one for me, and one for Sprout:)

This is specially for Diana... This is what Sprout's closet looks like so far. Those clothes are so much tinier in real life than they look in this picture:)

And yet another reason that I'm starting to worry that we are not at all prepared for this child to arrive in 3 1/2 MONTHS! This is what her room looks like currently. That is a wall paper border. I'm not sure why anybody in their right mind would ever choose such a creepy theme for their child's room...of course I don't know that the person who chose it WAS in their right mind. If you look closely, you will see a monkey on a horse dressed as a clown, and a rooster on a ball wearing a party hat. I'm not OK with this at all. We've not had the time or know how to get that thing down, but it has to happen SOON!

So, to end on a happy note, I'll post a pretty picture:) These were from my hubby. They opened beautifully and smelled even better!