2 Months To Go!!

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted an update. My dear sister Alicia decided to point that out to me this past weekend so I figured I had put it off long enough – it was time to get to posting!

So technically, we are 9 weeks away from a new birthday in the family. I’m definitely starting to get bigger and notice.

Changes I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks:
• I definitely cannot see my feet – in fact shaving my legs and tying my shoes are becoming rather difficult tasks
• My belly gets in the way when I try to wash dishes now
• When I squat or kneel down, there’s not quite enough room for my belly (and baby girl usually lets me know with a stiff kick!)
• Getting comfy at night is now getting difficult
• She’s apparently a night owl (she always seems super active when I wake up during the night – which in turn means I don’t always get to go back to sleep like I so wish I could!)
• I can actually feel different body parts – head, legs, back – which is just really weird and cool at the same time
• I feel pregnant all the time – I know this sounds weird. But before about 30 weeks there were times in the day when I got wrapped up in what I was doing and since my figure didn’t get in my way or distract me, I would almost forget I was pregnant. Now, between the flutters, kicks and protruding belly, there is always some sort of reminder.

So what is going on in baby-world these days? Well, she is getting close to her birth length. In fact my handy dandy phone app says she could be up to 19 inches long! She’s also becoming quite the chunker, weighing in somewhere between 3 and 4 pounds. Wow! Her big job in the next few weeks is to pack on the pounds. She is accumulating fat under her skin to keep her nice and cozy warm when she is born.

Anyway, that is about it as far as how we’re doing. We started our every two week appointments last week (it was every month) and so far, the nurses still say everything is looking great. I’ve been so extremely blessed to have such an easy pregnancy (thank you God!!) and with only 9 weeks left, I hope to keep it that way!

Now I’ll leave with a few pictures over the last few weeks…..

25 weeks 1 day (August 15)



29 weeks 2 days(September 13)



31 weeks 1 day (September 26) –
These are taken in the newly painted baby’s room. The pictures didn’t come out too well, but you can at least see the color we chose. Oddly, the pictures looked fine on the camera when we took them….

24 Week Update

Here we are at 24 weeks – almost 6 months along. Things are still going great! I'm starting to truly show so that people I haven't actually told are asking if I'm pregnant. Baby girl is growing like crazy too…. I can tell in that her kicks are getting stronger seemingly every day. The kicks, jabs and rolls span from side to side and from my hips up to my ribs, so she is definitely getting bigger. Mark and I have found it quite intriguing to sit and watch my belly until it moves :)

This week in Baby-ville
Your baby is about eight and a half inches long (crown to rump) and weighs one and a half pounds, gaining steadily at a rate of six ounces per week. Much of that weight comes from accumulating baby fat, as well as from growing organs, bones, and muscle. Those little ears of hers are getting sharper and can hear very loud sounds, from a yapping dog to a jackhammer. Also by now, that fabulous face is almost fully formed, complete with eyelashes, eyebrows, and hair. Is your baby a brunette, a blonde, or a redhead? Actually, right now her locks are white since there's no pigment yet.

Also, last time I promised a sonogram picture of Miss Baby Lanier so here she is! This is a profile picture of her face so you can see her head on the right side with her little nose and mouth and forehead and then her chest is over to the left and you can actually see her spine on the bottom. Pretty darn cool if you ask me!

This week in Mama-ville
We haven't kept up as well as we were with pictures of me (partly due to much time by me spent in Buffalo, NY). Here's a very recent couple of pictures of me though. And for those who wonder if I'm showing yet, well, I think the pictures speak for themselves. Do I hear a resounding "yes"?

23 weeks 3 days (August 2)

As for the house preparations, they are coming along. The baby's room is getting close to being cleared out and the office/spare room is becoming more like what it will be. Still a long ways to go but progress is being made. In fact, in the extensive cleanup, Mark found some MRE's from his Navy days (yes it's been a while) and decided to "explore" one of them to see if they were still good after 20 years…yikes!! His take on it… "it tastes old". I'm just going to trust him on that one! As for the baby room, I still haven't totally figured out how I want the room to look, although I've been gathering ideas.

In addition to figuring out what we want the room to look like, we've been researching all the things you need for a new baby: car seats, strollers – those are the biggies since we have to have those to come home from the hospital – but there are still plenty more other things like playpens and highchairs and swings and other stuff. And oh the options you have! Almost overwhelming! We went window shopping yesterday and in addition to a lot of looking, we had fun test driving strollers. In fact I think Mark may have enjoyed it more than me, figuring out how they all worked and what all "features" there were for each.

Well that's where we are this week. More to come!

Angela.

20 Week Update

Well I had hoped to make these updates more frequent but we have been so extremely busy! We've done a lot of visiting and enjoyed it all, but I'm actually looking forward to a weekend home this weekend.

So, we are now at 20 weeks… halfway… woohoo!! Exciting and scary all at the same time. My figure is starting to reflect the fact that I have a foot-long baby housed inside my tummy. I'm starting to get to feel the tiny kicks and rolls too, which is just too cool! I'm sure in about 3 months I'll be asking for less kicks to the ribs but I welcome them all right now. It's especially neat to be sitting at my desk at work and feel a little tiny kick in the abdomen…just enough to remind me of what is going on and remind me that I'm not alone at all :)

This week in Baby-ville
Many of your baby's senses are developing as specialized areas in the brain are geing designated for smell, taste, hearing, vision and touch. Millions of motor neurons are continuing to develop in your baby's brain allowing more controlled and conscious movement. This week your baby's skin will become covered with a waxy-like substance called vernix which will protect her skin from becoming scratched or chapped. Your baby is also starting to produce meconium, the result of digestion, which will accumulate in her bowels and eventually pass during delivery of her first diaper.

Baby size: 6.5 inches (head to bottom, so about a foot long total length), 10.6 oz (over half a pound!)

This week in Mama-ville
I've gained about 10 pounds and am attaining a little bit of a belly. Finally I'm looking more pregnant and less like I stopped working out!

For those curious, here's a snapshot of my growing self over the last month or so.

15 wks 5 days (June 10)

17 wks 2 days

Baby's first blueberry picking experience: 18 wks 5 days

19 wks 2 days (July 5)

Lastly, we had another appointment last week. Everything is looking great and we get to start thinking about birthing classes and hospital tours. And two days ago we got another ultrasound. Being "old" like I am we got the extended version and got to see lots and lots of baby's heart beating and brain scans and such. It is really cool that we can already see the chambers of the heart and watch the blood flow in and out!! And there at the end of the 15 minute ultrasound, we found out what everyone's been asking….what's the flavor.

Well, it’s a …… GIRL!!!

(And no, we don't have a name picked out)

We'll have to scan in some of the pictures and I'll show them in a later post, but I'll just add that it is really cool getting to see a mini human moving around inside of me up on a big screen!

That's about all the baby updates for now. If I get time maybe I'll post more on other stuff going on in our lives. Like I said, we've been staying quite busy :)

Angela

We're Pregnant!

I'm 14 ½ weeks pregnant now (out of 40 total). We've made it to the second trimester and things are moving right along. I have been so blessed to not have morning sickness (thanks Mom!!). I was quite tired in the first trimester. That eased a little bit in weeks 11 and 12 but it's back in force now. They say that you are supposed to have super energy in your second trimester, but a quick search shows not everyone gets that luxury. So I'm settling in to 9 hour nights and mid-day tiredness to boot. Sacrificing morning sickness for needing more sleep sounds like a tradeoff I'm willing to take though.

Today we had our 14 week checkup with our nurse midwives. There are four of them in the office and so far I've been very pleased. They are all very nice women and seem to be Christian women as well. Now don't get too scared by the name "midwife", I won't be giving birth at home. They actually operate out of a hospital in Fort Worth and operate under the supervision of a Doctor (which is actually who referred me to them). We got to hear the heartbeat again today (very cool!!) and she said things were going great. We will go every month until the last month, then every week from there out. Our next sonogram will be at 20 weeks (about mid-July) where we'll get to find out what "flavor" we get :~)

I've definitely begun to grow. I spent last weekend taking all the clothes out of my closet that I can no longer wear (~90% of them) and replacing them with a set that should stick with me for at least another month or so. I was quite lucky to have a mother-in-law that recently closed a used kids clothing store down and let me raid her unsold maternity clothes. It didn't totally outfit me but sure got me a good ways along. Now that my closet is revamped, I'm better now that I don't have to spend 20 minutes trying on clothes before work to find something that'll "work" for that day!

Finally, several people have asked about my growing self, so here is a snapshot of the time gone by so far.

8 wks 3 days:


9 wks 7 days:


11 wks 1 day:


13 wks 2 days:


14 wks 2 days:




Angela :-)

Warrior Dash

So after Angela, Keith & I finished the Fayetteville 1/2 Marathon back in Dec 2010, Keith would periodically send suggestions for future runs. One of the ones he suggested was the Warrior Dash. After checking up on it a bit I knew I had to do it! I mean, I'm not the biggest fan of running. Running an obstacle course though... that's a different story! The Warrior Dash is a 3-1/4 mi course of numerous obstacles connected with short runs between each... almost makes the runs feel worthwhile :-) So I signed up! It took place last weekend 4/16 & 17, and me and a friend from work signed up for one of the waves on Sunday.

They start a limited number of people every 30 minutes all throughout both days... This is mainly due to the obstacles since they slow everyone down. You see, it turns out that 14,000 people ran this thing over the course of 2 days... if all those people were trying to go through each obstacle at the same time... well, lets just say the wait time would be uninspiring :-(

All in all, we had a BLAST! We got dirty! And I wore a video camera, and got some really cool shots! I plan to upload video in the next couple of days... for now, here are a few pictures... Oh... there are prizes for the best costume so some people dressed for the occasion ;-)



The friend I ran with from work, Gwen, is in front of me in this picture... Good pic going over the fire! I'm behind shooting video!



The last obstacle on the course is a mud pit that you're forced to crawl through due to barbed wire being suspended only a few feet overhead! After that, it's a short dash to the finish line!

Whoops... Cowtown 10K... DONE!

Was scanning the old blog tonight and noticed I never published the results of our 10K efforts... my bad! We did it! Yea for us! Results can be found here (put our name in the field at the top). Keith finished in 1hr 1min 19sec, Angela and I ran it together this time and we finish in 1hr 6min 34 sec (and that was with a stop at one of the port-a-johns along the way :-) you know... 10Ks are more my style!

New Tree

I've kinda been lax on this... meant to post a picture a while back... sorry about that. Good thing is the tree is at least blooming now :-)

So here ya go... our new Gala apple tree. It's our understanding it'll need polinating from another apple tree so we're hoping there's another one in the neighborhood somewhere so the local bees can do their thing!