Winter Break

Jeremy and I are back at home after spending Christmas Eve and Christmas up at my parents' bed and breakfast. It was a whole lot of fun, despite the fact that Jeremy and several others in the family have been down and out with a nasty cold. Poor Jeremy was so stressed and needing a break from work and he's been sicko since his first day off! He's looking a little better today, so crossing my fingers that he gets at least two sick-free vacation days!

In addition to the traditional Christmas dinner, we had some fun events leading up to the big day. The annual Gingerbread House competition resulted in: Snakes on a Plane, good ship vs. pirate ship, and a good old fashioned house. All three turned out awesome and the ships took the grand prize.

Mom hosted a yankee swap/white elephant party at her place, and we ended up with an AWESOME hand-made Hogwarts throw pillow and some not-so-delicious root beer. I think Chandra took the win with an epic purple sparkly Jesus piggy-bank.

I hosted an ornament exchange/yankee swap at my house, and had a great turnout. Tons of really cool ornaments turned up this year and it was quite the competitive swap!

Mom, Chandra, Isabella, Brett and Jermanie all accompanied me on a trip that's been intimidating the hell out of me - registering for baby! It was much easier with their support and I am very grateful that they helped me out! Isabella was a huge help as the scanner-master and got everything scanned perfectly. Once we let Brett hold the scanner for about 30 seconds before it had to be confiscated when he started registering us for Disney Villain dishes :-p

Baby girl is doing great - with Jeremy and my mom both sick a few days before Christmas, Chandra went with me to my doctor's appointment and got to hear her heartbeat. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet the husband in my husband/wife doctor team. I liked him a whole lot better than his wife and am crossing my fingers that he will be the one on call when our girl decides to come! Everything was looking great and now I am sad to report that the next doctor's appointment is the one involving the blood glucose test. Yay drinking vast amounts of orange sugary water and having blood drawn! (For those of you who don't know, at my first OB appointment they laid me down for the blood draw and I still passed out!)

Jeremy and I interviewed two doulas in the past week and liked them both a lot. I think we've settled on one and I am really looking forward to working with her. We will also be taking birthing classes with her starting in February.

As for the great name quest, we are getting closer, I promise. People have been hounding us and I agree, it's time - it's just a big decision and we're trying to make the right one! Stay tuned - I'm sure the big name announcement will be coming soon :-)

Yay!

Just a quick little update - this morning baby girl woke me up with her kicks and I was able to see them on my belly! It kind of creeped me out, honestly. But tonight Jeremy and I were laying talking about baby names and she started up again. Jeremy was able to see - and feel - her kick for the first time! Such a cool moment!

Want to help us out? See if the genie can find a cool name for the little kicker!

BabyNameGenie.com - Baby Names, Middle Names, Baby Name Generator

Over halfway there!

I can't believe it, but we are already more than halfway through this pregnancy! At 21 weeks our little girl is kicking and punching me like crazy, as well as swallowing, digesting and listening to everything we say! Time to start watching our language :-p I've started taking a prenatal yoga class which I love - it's so much better than any yoga class I've taken in the past and I think a lot of it has to do with the instructor. I'm really glad because she is the only instructor in the Springs that offers prenatal yoga. Crazy! She's an RN and used to be a midwife, so she gives tips throughout the class on how you can take things we learn in yoga with us to the birth. It's fun being around other pregnant women one night a week too.

I have so much to do that I haven't even begun to work on - choosing a nursery mural,painting a nursery mural, registering, choosing a name, etc etc! I don't even know where to get started. A friend at work has a baby due about a month before us and they have their nursery completely done and are 100% ready for that little boy to come out tomorrow! Talk about intimidating. Sheesh I need to get my act together!

I know these took me forever to get posted, but finally some pictures from the ultrasound. Everything is so much clearer when you're seeing it on the big screen and she's wiggling around, so I have no delusions that people can actually tell what these pictures are, but maybe with my coaching you can squint and pretend these are pictures of a baby.

This is the bottom of baby girl's foot

And both of her feet side by side

Waving "Hello!"

Doing her impression of "The Thinker" with

her hand on her chin

No question she's a girl!

All her little vertebrae

And her adorable (if slightly skeleton-like) face!