Baby Shower

About a week and a half ago, my friend Skye, my sisters-in-law Sarah and Beth, and I flew to Dallas for a baby shower in my honor!  Although the flight was rather rough, we made it there with plenty of time to spare (pun totally intended).  We got to hang out with my family for a bit before the shower began.  The hostesses were all related to me: my stepmom, my aunt, my cousin, my stepsister, 3 of my other sisters-in-law, and Skye.

It was a wonderful time with SO MANY PEOPLE!  I think that the invitation list was over 60 women, and about 2/3 came!  It was wonderful to see so many of my friends, family, and my mom's friends, too.  The women were all insanely generous, and Jared and I took about 3 or 4 days to go through all the wonderful gifts to make sure that things were washed and everything had its place.

It was an incredible party.   Did I mention that it was an LSU baby shower???  My sister-in-law, Marysia, designed the invitations with a purple and gold theme in mind.  They were awesome.  And all of the other hostesses did an amazing job with the decorations, party favors, and cake!  Some of the guests even got us LSU themed gifts!  It was so much fun!

Purple & Gold Stroller Cookies for party favors

The Table

The Delicious Cake from Panini in Dallas TX

Cake Server that belonged to my grandparents

Awesome bowling game my hostesses came up with

Getting used to bowling with a baby in my arms

Two of my sweetest friends and their babies

My best friend from high school, Camille

The best damn fruit salad in the world- made by my aunt

Me and my sister-in-law, Margaret, who is due about a week before me

Many, many thanks to my friend, Skye, who took all of the pictures of the shower. Y'all should check out her blog!  She posted on the shower, too!

And tons of thanks to all who hosted and all who came to the shower!  It was so wonderful to see y'all!

T-minus 6 weeks

Today marks the 34th week of our first pregnancy.  I am feeling rather tight in the torso region- not like contractions tight, but more like there's no room left tight.  In the past three weeks, I feel like I've gotten huge.  You be the judge- photos below.

I am regularly combatting swelling- not edema type, but just feeling swollen and having what my loving husband calls "sausage toes."  I have noticed that my shoes don't fit as well as they used to.  I also feel like the kid is dropping into my pelvis.  I have more room in my stomach now, and I don't get winded quite as easily as I did a few weeks ago.

We are slowly but surely getting everything ready to go.  We have the pack & play all set up with a rocking chair in our bedroom.  Our next big item to get is our carseat-stroller combo.  We have had one shower and will have two more before Spare is due to arrive.  I have a feeling that we'll definitely be able to get the carseat between now and then.

Otherwise, we put together a family to do list- things we need to get done before the baby comes.  I have been chipping away at it today: I did about 4 or 5 months worth of filing and finished hanging framed art/pictures.  Tomorrow, I am supposed to call pediatricians and the insurance company to find out about adding Spare on my insurance.

Generally, we are doing pretty well!

Week 32

Week 33

Week 34

Ziva & Gibbs

This is part one of my fur-babies post!  Part two will be some shots of our sweet and wonderful cats!  But this post is all about Ziva and Gibbs, our boxers.  They are wonderfully loyal and incredibly playful dogs.  They have tons of energy and are super lovable.  They love to give kisses, chew on rawhides, and chase/be chased!  We named them for two of our favorite TV characters: NCIS's Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Ziva David!

Here are some photos of them in all their glory!

Me & Ziva during the first week that we had her (October 2009).

Ziva & Zion learning to be friends (October 2009).

Ziva & Abuelo at Thanksgiving in Memphis (November 2009).

Gibbs, age 6 weeks. Photo sent to us by The Boxer Barn. (May 2010)

Gibbs during the first week we had him (June 2010).

Ziva & Gibbs sleeping (June 2010). For a long time after we brought Gibbs home, Ziva thought that he was her newest toy. So, he didn't sleep as much as the average puppy does, because Ziva wouldn't let him! We cherished these moments.

Again, we had to give Ziva something else to do while Gibbs rested as a puppy (Summer 2010).

Gibbs started growing and we're still not sure if he's done, yet! He learned to sit very quickly. He has always been much more motivated by food than Ziva is (Fall 2010).

Ziva on her bench. This is her favorite spot to lay down and nap. She can keep an eye on the driveway and front door to make sure that she knows who's coming and who's going (February 2012).

Gibbs resting on the couch (February 2012).

Ziva & Gibbs sitting (Fall 2011).

Overall, they are really awesome dogs.  They are incredibly protective of our "pack."  They, unfortunately, love to harass the cats and each other.  Their favorite place to go is the park.  We have to call it the "p" so that they don't know what we're talking about!  Other words they know: suppers, treats, biscuits, chews (rawhides), toy, ball, outside, inside, bed, ride, daycare (not as much anymore), and kisses!

We have been blessed by these sweet puppies (also called "poopsies" in our house)!  They are such great companions to us.  I am really excited about Spare's arrival and the fact that our baby will be well loved, protected, and kissed by our sweet dogs!

If any of you out there have ever brought a baby home to a dog before, please leave a comment on how you "introduced" them!  We are looking forward to it, but also want to be as prepared as possible for the first time the dogs meet the baby.

9 weeks to go!

As of Tuesday, we have only 9 weeks left before we meet our sweet little kicker!  (Obviously, the due date is just an estimated date, but we have approximately 9 weeks to go...)  I have really enjoyed being pregnant.  It's been really weird in some ways and really amazing in others.  I have had moments where I've been terrified about giving birth and moments where I've been terrified about being a parent.  But overall, I am really excited to see how this whole having-a-baby thing is going to play out!

This last week, I have been feeling lots of movement- mostly full-body rolls and feet/elbows digging into my sides and dragging across my belly.  Some of these are not so comfortable.  Again, I think I am carrying a ginormous Williams baby, so it feels like my stomach is much fuller than it should be at this point.  (We'll see if I'm right, in approximately 9 weeks!)

I've also (finally?) reached the point of not sleeping all that great.  I have had some head and nasal congestion this week, which has caused some headaches.  At night I have been having difficulty with a stopped up nose, as well as getting comfortable.  A few nights ago, I rigged a bunch of pillows up to where I could finally sleep well!  I slept from about 10:30pm to 5:45am without having to wake up to toss and turn and/or go to the bathroom!  It was awesome.  I will continue this new pillow obstacle course until it doesn't work anymore or until Spare arrives.

Our 31 week picture is posted below.  People have been super nice and telling me that I look great, etc.  And I do believe them, sort of.  I know that I look pretty decent for a pregnant lady, but I am already looking forward to the initial weight loss that will happen just by giving birth.  After that, I am looking forward to being able to walk comfortably at a 3.5mph pace (or faster) without feeling like I have to go to the bathroom.  And beyond that, I am wondering and hoping that I'll be able to get back down to my goal weight eventually.  I don't need to do that right away and I don't want to try too hard (I've heard that this can slow your milk production), but I am hoping that I can maintain some healthy weight while nursing, and eventually lose the last of the "baby weight" at some point this year.

Week 31

All in all, I have some anxiety about how this will all work out- everything from the birth to weaning, it seems.  But I know that with all of the love and support of family and friends, Jared and I will be able to make great decisions for us as we need to!

Bowling on the 27th

The hubs and I got to go bowling in late January!  We finally got into a fairly good routine with bowling, again, and we didn't suck nearly as much as we had in recent weeks.  This post will be fairly image-heavy, since the scores pretty much tell you how our trip to the lanes was.

But you should also note... We got a new fancy camera!  I used some Christmas money that my grandmother gave us (we were fiscally responsible with almost all of it; and then we divided up a little bit so each of us could have some spending/play money!) and ordered a new camera!  It's awesome!  I haven't really played with it that much, but you'll see that we used the "no flash" setting in order not to distract the other while we were bowling.  This means that some of the photos are out of focus, at least in the foreground.  But it's all about the pin action!

Jared bowling

Pin Action!

Me bowling

More pin action!

We have a rule... The first game never counts.

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Overall, I was pretty consistent.  I got tired in the last game, as you can see.  But we had a really good time bowling!  And my new camera takes way better pictures than my iPhone!

Hopefully, we'll be able to go this week, even though we missed last week.

My next post will likely be on our nursery furniture!  It came in this past weekend, but we haven't quite got the nursery set up... We are having some electrical difficulties in the nursery and upstairs hallway; hopefully this will be remedied this week!  Once we get everything set, I'll post!

In the last week...

... I have been feeling things that are different from any other part of my pregnancy so far.

First, I have not been quite as hungry.  I know this seems strange, especially because when you scroll down and look at my picture, you'll notice a growth spurt from last week!  But my theory is this: the baby is getting pretty big now; and this means that I don't have quite as much room in my actual stomach for as much food as I usually do.  This also means that I get really full, really quickly.

Secondly, I have been feeling a lot of rolls in my belly.  Whereas before I was feeling a lot of kicks and punches, now I feel entire shifts of the baby, rolling back and forth between my left side and my right side. I am still feeling those wonderful (read: obnoxious) little jabs at my right hip, which usually send me jumping out of my seat and making some kind of startled noise.

Finally, I have been feeling much BIGGER!  Again, the picture below shows the growth, but it's more than just what is visible to the naked eye.  I have been finding it more and more difficult to reach things like my feet or my glove box or anything very high in our kitchen cabinets.  I have also noticed that walking up only one flight of stairs (something I do regularly, partly because I feel lazy taking an elevator only one floor and partly because the elevator in my office building is super slow).  My lungs don't have quite the capacity they did even two weeks ago!

All of this is to say that when we went for our ultrasound almost two weeks ago, and the tech measured Spare as 3.25 pounds, when the books tell me the baby should have weighed in around 2.5 pounds, I now believe that I am carrying a giant Williams baby!  I thought that for sure the tech was overestimating because several of my friends have measured larger a couple weeks before they were due than their babies actually were.  But now that I am only 30 weeks and can't hardly reach my feet, I am thinking that the tech may have been right.

Anyway, wish me luck when it comes time to deliver said giant Williams baby!  After all, Jared was over 10 pounds!

Week 30