Brrrr

This December, we have been having temperatures that are more typical for January.  Today we are slated for a high of -3.  Yes, negative three.  The windchill puts us around -30.  I made the executive decision that we will not be leaving the house today.  Luckily, Brian's down in Indiana for work, so he hasn't been having to commute in this the past few days.

I am finally done shopping for christmas and as soon as my last two packages decide to show up, I can finish my wrapping too.  We decided that there was way too much commercialism and stress going on and we would not be doing presents for adults this year.  We still got harassed so there are a couple things coming to grandparents.

Everett is in a love/hate relationship with preschool.  He loves being there but insists that he hates it.  He's always happily playing when Callum and I show up to get him at 3pm.  He has lots of friends there but still has to always be with his best buddy, Kenleigh.
He's recently discovered a love for Harry Potter.  I got a bunch of the DVDs for $2 each on Black Friday at Walmart so we've watched the first two and he wants to watch the third, but I can't remember at what movie they start getting rather scary.  I will have to do a little review reading today to see if 3 is ok or if we'll have to rewatch 1.
He had a great birthday party at splashland this year.  He invited 5 of his friends (and their siblings) and had pizza, cake, and lots of water sliding.  He even got to play in the arcade afterward and discovered air hockey and I managed to win him a packers teddy bear from the claw machine.

Callum is a fiesty, loving little bug.  Well, not really little at all, actually.  He talks all the time, is still obsessed with tractors, and loves wrestling his brother at every opportunity.  He is really attached to daddy right now and whenever he's home, Callum's on his leg or lap.  He wanders around the house at his leisure, bringing toys downstairs, reading books, and watching Mighty Machines.

Boy #3 is wiggly and makes me eat way too much chocolate.  I think he's going to be a pretty easy-going guy.  At both ultrasounds we've had, he's just chilling with his arms behind his head.  Relish it while it lasts, kid.  You're quickly running out of stretching room.

Here's the belly on Monday at 22w2d

And the ultrasound says...........

What do you think?



Why's that?



Are you sure?



But what if you're wrong?



Because some people were.



Everett really wanted a baby girl.



Brian wanted a brother for Everett.



It turns out....






It's another boy!!

I was flabbergasted.  I was sure that Everett was psychic and knew it was a girl.  No need to garage sale now!  We get to pull out all of our old tiny Everett clothes come February.

Here are the pictures!

Profile:

Parts (not a shy one, eh?):

Creepy little ultrasound face.  Just in time for Halloween!

Just chillin'.  One leg and foot show and the bottom of the other foot:

 

Arm and hand:

He liked showing off his legs and feet:

 Legs crossed:

Baby Shower, labor day, and week 27 [28w]

Well, I am finally getting around to posting again. We've just had piles and piles of errands to run this week and I haven't really sat down and made time to post. Oops.
Our labor day weekend trip was excellent (minus the sitting in a car for two days but hey). Here's the run-down.
Friday, we left Indiana in the morning and made it to LaCrosse by the early afternoon. We got to check out little sister Janelle's new dorm room and walk her down to band practice. She's taking all kinds of crazy smart people classes. :) Then we continued on to Apple Valley. We stayed with Nancy and Bettina and went out to dinner in Mpls at the Town Hall Brewery. I had a very tasty walleye sandwich that was bigger than my head.
Saturday was the baby shower! Mel, Nancy, and Britt put on an excellent party full of yummy brunch foods, the craziest fun games I've ever played, and wonderful decorations. Here's a picture of me with the hostesses.

We got all kinds of excellent gifts too. The list includes: a tub, bath kit, baby mozart cd, nursing pads, diapers, onesies, shoes, a handmade blanket, a towel, lots of bibs, a drop-in bottle set, burp cloths, nipple cream, a health care kit, a baby carrier, that cool fisher price aquarium, and even some stress relief hand soap for me!
Others took lots of pictures but I haven't gathered them together in one place yet, so maybe I'll post more later.

Saturday afternoon, we headed up to Ashland to see the fam. We tried out the new mexican restaurant in town and approved of it thoroughly. Christy had two friends in town with her, so the house actually seemed normally full. We then headed over to my parents' to see that whole gang and let Benj open his birthday present. I wish we had the camera out because he made the greatest face when he realized that there was a super cool monsters inc. stuffed car in the bag. I still laugh about it when I remember his expression.
Sunday Brian went for a run with Nora (both were thrilled to see each other) and I took a walk down to the lake. Boy did I miss that lake. I just sat down on a picnic table for a while and watched the water. Then we went to church with my fam and had a yummy sunday lunch with all the kiddos. Mom got this cool picture of me and Bri outside by the tree before we left for the afternoon:

We then went out on the boat to Long Island with Brian's fam. It was a windy day and there were icky waves on the lake that made the boat ride bumpier than a toad! I pouted.Then, for dinner, my family treked over to Brian's family's house for a backyard picnic. It was a fun time with good food. Christy (and friends) and I also took Amy upstairs to look at Christy's hand-me-downs to get her ready for school on Tuesday! We dressed her up, made her turn in circles, and Christy even cut Amy's hair for her.

Monday, we drove back to Indiana, which took FOREVER! We got back late but still brought up everything from the car before we fell fast asleep.

Phew! Now this week! Work was long and boring. I'm always amazed at how long four day weeks seem to take and how I think I would criminally harm someone if I had to work for five days. Wednesday, I had another ultrasound to check on that low-lying placenta. It was really cool to see snowpea again, even though Brian couldn't make it to the appointment (class! geesh!). His cheeks look chubbier and he was moving his mouth open and closed. (For a while, he was also sitting with his mouth hanging open, which the u/s tech thought was just the funniest thing. I said, hmm....that sounds like someone I know....) Good news is, the placenta has moved and the u/s tech said everything looks good for a vag. delivery. I got a profile pic but haven't scanned it yet. I also had to get my blood drawn again because they forgot to do a full blood count when they did my glucose test. Turns out, I'm anemic. Poo. This means more red meat, leafy greens, and an iron supplement every other day. Silly baby, stealing my iron!
Friday we went out to Boiler Market with the Tri club for some pizza and headed home at the late late hour of 8:30. Yeah....we're old and boring. :) Last night we managed to stay out until 10!!!! We went to a hawaiian themed party at Erin's house (a la Kevin and Erin, our friends from last fall!). Now we're up to today. Church this morning, Brian's on a bike ride now, I wrote out my thank you notes, and phew!!!! No belly pics yet, sorry.
Snowpea has been moving around like crazy lately and he's getting bigger so it's feeling stranger. He's about 2.5 lbs now(!!!) and it looked from the u/s that he's running out of room. You can see my belly move around when he readjusts his position and it kind of looks like there is an alien in my abdomen! :)
Anyway! That's all I can spew out for now. I'll try to update soon with more pictures.

New pictures galore! [20w4d]

Well aren't you just some lucky blog fans? Today you get not only a picture of my giant belly with prime example of funky belly doing measurements, though, Brian managed to catch a glimpse of just what hebutton-ness, but you also get new ultrasound pictures! And some news!!!
First off, here's the belly pic. Now you listen here, this is not just baby in this picture. There are also two mugs of yummy root beer! So here's what you get when you add root beer to snowpea. And please, don't look too long at the terrible belly button....it weirds ME out!
Now, what you really want to see! Snowpea's most recent pictures!!! Snowpea was very well behaved so the ultrasound tech could get all the important measurements necessary....well, besides jumping around like a kangaroo for the first while, but that can't be helped! It was mommy's done with work, I must now dance and play time. The ultrasound tech said snowpea was very photogenic and made for some pictures so beautiful, they could be in a textbook! Yay! Taking after me already. Ha!

Here's little snowpea's skeletor face:And here's one that's not quite so skeletor-looking:
A beautiful picture of my beautiful baby's perfect little foot:A lovely profile shot - just look at that cute face!!
And another, because that face is just too cute to not look at twice:
And finally, we were able to easily find out the sex! Snowpea cooperated very well and showed off:

BOY PARTS!!!!

Yes, yes, we shall be gracing the world with a mini-me of Brian. This totally explains all of the triathlon practice in my uterus...I was actually kind of surprised because Brian had thought it was a girl for so long, I had convinced myself of the same. While the ultrasound tech was still was looking for. He didn't say anything though just in case there was a chance he was wrong. I think the picture's pretty clear though. :) We are very excited! Not that we wouldn't have loved having a baby girl, but a boy is just so cool! We promptly went to the mall after the ultrasound and picked up a new pair of work capris and a shirt for me, plus two cute little Carter's outfits from Kohl's for the wee one. I'll post pictures of them later on. For now, I guess I'd better get this posted before people start rioting and knocking down our door! Thanks for reading!!

The results are in! [20w4d]

...but the pictures aren't scanned yet! You'll just have to wait a little while. :)

Triathlon baby [20w1d]

I swear this kid is trying to keep up with its daddy in training sometimes. Exercising the leg muscles for biking, doing some practice for swimming in general (probably butterfly), and definitely working on his/her running form. I'm hoping that he/she won't be too active for us to see much on the ultrasound this Thursday. I want to know what type of genitalia we have growing in there! :) Speaking of which, I am pretty much counting down the seconds until Thursday at 4:20 p.m. EST. Not so much looking forward to downing 32 oz of water beforehand, but you know.
Unfortunately, as I wrote about in our grown up blog, while I looked darn good for Hayley's wedding this weekend, we didn't end up taking any pictures of me that included my belly. The only one I have shows the very beginning of my belly against the white of Hayley's wedding dress!

In other news, we got another present today! It's snowpea's first stuffed animal! Right as I got home from work, a delivery person from a local florist shop rang the doorbell and handed me this cute little ball of fluff. It also has five balloons in varying colors of green and purple, but I couldn't manage to get them into the same picture frame. Oops. Oh yeah, and the giver! Duh! It's from the employees at CBE. (That's Chequamegon Bay Engineering for those of you not cool enough to know. ;) Brian worked for them for the past 2 or 3 summers now and is doing some additional work this summer while he doesn't have classes to worry about). Here's a picture!

Feeling Better [8w4d]

I knock on wood as I think and type that! The past two days I have been feeling much better. It's amazing how you never notice how great it is to feel alive and healthy when you are so, but when you feel rotten, you know you feel rotten! I've been pretty busy at work so I haven't had as much time to obsess snowpea development, and with this feeling better of course comes the obsessive worrying that there is something wrong. Seriously, I was a paranoid enough person before this all came about!!
Brian was a dear and scanned the ultrasound pictures from last week for me and also took a picture of my still nonexistant belly. Bloating aside, I still look the same. But gosh do I hate bloating!!
An interesting development has occured...I got a phone call from a school principal today about a prospective teaching job for this fall. There are actually two open positions - one for 7th/8th grade English and one that will focus more on American Lit. They are going to be calling back next week about an interview and mini-lesson, but now that snowpea is in the picture, it makes this whole idea a little trickier. Brian and I discussed and decided that it would be most fair to tell the school that I'm pregnant before (if) I would be hired. I would just feel terrible surprising them in August and saying, oh yeah, and by the way, I'm going to need to leave before the semester's out and I should probably be back by January. Yikes. Anyways. I'll keep you updated on the job prospects along with snowpea news. Here are the pictures.

The foretold belly pic at 8w2d:

Ultrasound pics from 7w3d: Snowpea's still pretty tiny at this point and all the pictures look basically the same.

Welcome! [7w3d]

Well, we still haven't told anyone about little snowpea yet, but after today's ultrasound, I felt confident enough to start the blog. So here it is! I guess I have to tell the background now... I took a home preg. test on Saturday, March 22 (the day before Easter) but the second line showed up so faintly, I didn't quite believe it. We spent the next few days kind of joking about "if" I were pregnant and then nervously laughing. Well, I took a second test on Tuesday, March 25, and that plus sign (different brand) was anything but faint!
Skip ahead! Sunday, April 6 - Morning sickness begins. As of this time, I'm still considering myself pretty lucky since I have not thrown up at all and only feel icky in the mornings and evenings. I try to remember that this means snowpea is growing and becoming a healthy little one, but seriously! I can't stand the thought of steak, burgers, any kind of sausage, mexican food, nothing!! I have become friends with bran muffins, cheerios, and fruit of all sorts though.
Skip ahead again! Our first ultrasound was originally scheduled for yesterday but the ultrasound tech called in sick. Needless to say, I cried about my wasted half hour of medical time at work all the way to work. Oy! So they rescheduled us for this morning. It was great. Bri was relieved to see only one little pea in there and we were both so happy to see (and hear!!) a nice heartbeat (rate=140bpm) and know that little one is measuring right on time according to our calculations. I took a picture of one of the pictures with my cell and it's kind of blurry but better than nothing. We'll try to get them scanned so they show up more clear and hopefully (crossing my fingers!) we can upload the video too. Seriously, who uses tapes nowadays?
Anyway! That's all for now. Oh, and p.s. - for morning sickness, I find varying the menu (cheerios, honey nut cheerios, plain goldfish crackers, granola) and some extra B6 are the best I can do to stop the queesies!