Sunday, November 30, 2008

New Foods

Well, I'm a little late on the October Foods picture and we since I had so much food in the freezer, I didn't make many new foods in November.

She pretty much likes everything we give her. Sometimes the first day is interesting but by day two, she's usually into it. She loves bananas!



Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Pictures

Opps! I forgot to publish this post the other day!

Here are some more pictures of Katelin... she's getting sooo big!

Warning... cuteness inside!

Kodak changed their site a little bit so I hope this works for everyone.

Mmmm...



My first homemade pie!

Seven Months Old!

Okay, so technically, Katelin is not 7 months old... yet. Maybe by the time you read this :) Katelin will be 7 months old on Thanksgiving but things may get a little crazy around here after today so I thought I would post now. I can't believe she's (just about) 7 months old already. Time is sure flying. Maybe I should start planning her first birthday party now! Save the date.. April 26th, 2009! Okay, maybe I'm getting a little carried away. Maybe I should sit back and enjoy all the other babies' first birthday parties. I have two in December alone!

As far as a Katelin update... she's doing great (as always!). She started waving and saying something that resembled 'Hi' around Halloween. Around the middle of November, she started with "ma mam mam mam ma". She repeats it over and over. Supposedly, I can't count either as her first word since she does them randomly and doesn't know what they mean. Whatever! We're trying for "dada" but no luck on that. Chris will tell her "say dada" after a round of "mamas" and she'll look at him and blow a rasberry (stick her tounge out and blow some spit at you!). So cute. She's mama's little girl!

Last week was the last week I had to work ALL 3 days (I know... what agony.. 3 WHOLE days!). I'm off tomorrow for Thanksgiving and then I'm off at least one of my normal 3 days every week in December. While I would love to sit around on my days off and eat bon-bons, it won't be so.
Tonight, I'm making an apple pie... from scratch! At first, I was going to buy a store-made, bakery pie. Then I thought, hey, it is Thanksgiving, I should at least bake a pie pre-made, frozen pie. That turned into making a pie but using a store-bought crust and now, I've decided to go all out and make the crust. I've never made a pie crust before so I hope it turns out good! I'm feeling all Suzie-Homemaker this week.
Thursday night/Friday morning, Chris and I are hitting Haggar at midnight so he can stock up on clothes. I'd say about 80% of his clothes come from the Haggar holiday sales. Great clothes at an unbeatable price. We get coupons every holiday weekend for 25% off the total purchase but at Thanksgiving, until 10am on Friday, we get 40% off! Love it.
Friday morning I'm hitting a few stores (at 5am) and then heading back to sleep for a couple hours. Chris will have Katelin duty (I should probably tell him that!). Then Friday afternoon, we're headed to Brownswood Texas for a family reunion on Chris' dad's side. We'll be back Saturday night.
Okay, I've rambled on long enough... more later!

Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

Katelin started out Halloween with her 6 month checkup. She was 17 pounds, 26.5 inches. 70th percentile for both. She had 5 shots so that wasn't such a good start to the day. She recovered quickly and was back to her normal smile-y self.

We carved a pumpkin for her and got her all dressed up in her clown costume. When Chris got home, we took her around to a few people's houses and then headed home to put her to bed. The clown costume she wore was actually my first halloween costume and my sister's before that. My mom made it in 1976 and it is still in good shape!

Hope you had a good halloween... I sure did!

Katelin (6 months old):


Me (~4.5 months old in 1978):

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

6 months old!

Katelin turned 6 months old on Monday! I can't believe how fast the months have gone by. She goes back to the doctor on Friday so I'll update her stats on here afterwards. Just wanted to post a couple cute pictures...

We went to the Pumpkin Patch on Sunday...


Took these on Tuesday...

Thursday, October 23, 2008

More Pictures

FINALLY adding more pictures of Katelin.
I can't believe she'll be 6 months on Monday!

August 19th


August 21st


September 6th


September 11th


September 12th


September 13th


September 19th


September 20th


September 24th

Friday, October 3, 2008

Feeding Time

Monday, September 15, 2008

Time Flies!

I can't believe how quickly the time goes by! I have all these goals of things to get done on my days off but I don't seem to accomplish very much! Organizing my pictures and updating my blog tend to fall to the bottom of the list.

Katelin is over 4 months old now. At her 4 month apt on September 2nd, she was 24 1/2 inches long and 14.6 pounds. She's still wearing most of her 0-3 month clothes although I've had to retire some already. Her 6 month appointment is on Halloween.

On Sept 7th, we started giving Katelin rice cereal. She's actually doing pretty good with the spoon. She still gets food all over her mouth, but a lot of the food goes in (and stays in) her mouth. Last weekend, I made up a bunch of baby food for her. I baked butternut squash, acorn squash, pears, and apples for her and then pureed them (separately) in the blender. We started her on the butternut squash on the 13th and she seemed to liked it. Everything else was frozen in ice cube trays so we now have over 100 frozen cubes of baby food :)! There are so many preservatives in the jar food and the cost difference is incredible. I'm not sure how much I spent on the veggies & fruit but it couldn't have been much. Not only am I saving money and feeding her preservative free foods, it is also "green-er". Even though I recycle everything I can, there is still waste in buying packaged baby food. If I remember to take my reusable grocery sacks into the store, the only waste is the fruit/veggie skin and the stickers they put on them. I have thought about composting or starting a "worm farm" but I just haven't gotten around to it. I need something easy and I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with the compost.

Katelin rolls over all the time now. She usually manages to roll-over during the night and winds up sleeping on her stomach. The first few days, she'd get her arms stuck under her and start crying in the middle of the night.

I started Baby Boot Camp a couple weeks ago. It is a great fitness class for new & expecting moms (& dads). The class is really answers some of the problems that keep new moms from the gym. Katelin comes with and enjoys watching mom sweat while she's all comfy in her stroller. If your baby needs to be fed, changed, or just wants a little attention, they understand and you just catch up when you're ready. The classes are really tough. Most of the moms have been going for a year or more so I'm the newbie that can't keep up. I'm so out of shape! We also finally set up our new elliptical machine but I haven't used it yet. One of these days!

Okay, this post is getting really long and I'm sure I'm just rambling now! I'm too tired to think anymore so I'm headed to bed!

I'll post some new pictures one of these days!

Monday, August 11, 2008

Rock On!




\m/ (>.<) \m/

More Pictures

Here are some "new" pictures of Katelin... some are a month old, but still super cute!

Life has been pretty busy lately.
My parents were in town for about 2 weeks. Katelin had lots of grandma and grandpa time!

I went back to work on July 21st. Everyone is really glad I'm back.. I'm pretty sure they were just waiting for me to come back so they could pass several big changes my way. There were two big changes in the works when I left and I thought they would be done before I get back but due to the ever changing priorities, they were just waiting for me to return. Fun!

On the 29th, one of my bowling friends from NJ came into town for work and we were able to meet for lunch. I usually only get to see her once a year at the national tournament we go to so it was great to see her.

We had the Dallas Summer Boat show the last two weekends in July. Luckily I didn't have to work it too much. I had to tow and help set up/pack up. Katelin went and wore her "boat show" polo (see pictures in the link above). She's just so cute!

The first weekend in August, we had the Mariah and Sea Fox dealer meeting (we just picked up those two lines in June). We flew out to Charleston on the 31st and came home on the 4th. Nice long weekend. While we were gone, Dallas had a heat wave (108 degree days!) so we were gone at a good time! It was pretty warm and humid out on the coast though. We were very hot and sticky when we spent any time outside. We got to check out (and drive) some of the new boats and of course, Katelin was adored by all! On Monday, we rented a car and drove around. We had lunch at Sticky Fingers... really good ribs! If you're ever around one, I highly recommend it.

Since we got back from Charleston, I've been working a lot and trying to recuperate, get unpacked from the trip, and getting caught up with laundry. Since we were gone Monday, I had to work Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (7am-6pm). I was soooooo tired by Thursday night! I still don't know that I'm caught up yet. I'm off tomorrow though so I'll get to relax a little more.

Well, I guess I should wrap up my random ramblings here and get to bed. Katelin was doing so well sleeping until 6am or later but now she's started waking up around 3 or 4am!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Quick Picture from our trip...

I just found a cool site for making online scrapbook pages! Scrapblog

It lets you be completely creative without all the cutting & glue-ing! And they have templates for the not-so-creative!

I made this page in about 5 minutes :)


(click on it to see a larger image)

I'll try to post more about our trip this weekend.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Back to Work!

Well, my 12 weeks of leave are officially over and I'm back to work this morning. Just thought I would do a quick post while my e-mails download. I haven't had access to my work e-mail so all the messages that were sent to me while I was out are now downloading.... so far, there are over 500! Yikes!

I decided to return to work on a reduced schedule. I will be working 10 hour days Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. I was thinking about going down to 20 hours a week but at 30 hours I can keep my benefits so it made sense to go the extra hours.

Happy Monday!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Chris and Katelin

Here is the comparison for Chris and Katelin.



Both are 10 weeks, 5 days in this picture.
Chris was 13lbs, 11oz. At 9 weeks, 2 days, Katelin was only 11 pounds, 6oz.

I'll post more later... for now it is time for bed!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Trish & Katelin

Who says Katelin doesn't look like her Mommy???



Saturday, July 5, 2008

Happy 4th of July!

As usual, we went out on Lake Lewisville for the 4th of July celebration. Brian, Robyn and Landry met us and we took out their pontoon boat. We had dinner at Charlie's and then went out on the lake to watch the fireworks.
It was Katelin's first boat ride and she seemed to enjoy it.


(click on the photo to see a larger image)

Landry is now 6 months old.


My camera has a fireworks setting so I thought I'd give it a try. Unfortunately, you need to hold the camera steady and the boat was swaying quite a bit so the pictures didn't turn out very well. I thought this one was cool though...


Hope everyone had a good 4th!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

2 Month Checkup

Katelin had her 2 month checkup this morning. She's getting sooooo big! She was 11 pounds, 6 ounces (50th percentile), 23 inches long (75th percentile), and her head circumfrence was 39cm (50th percentile).


We had a very busy time while we were out of town. Last weekend, my parents, my sister and I drove up to Detroit so I could bowl in the Women's National tournament. I didn't bowl very well but we had fun. Friday night, we went to the Detroit Tigers game.


Katelin went swimming for the first time on Saturday. The pool was a little too chilly for her but the "hottub" was not so hot... only 95 degrees. Since her baths are usually between 94-97 degrees, we tried swimming in there. She loved it!


I made Katelin a cute little onsie with a bowling graphic on the back and "My Mommy Bowls Better Than Your Mommy" on the front. Everyone loved her and her outfit at the bowling tournament (even if her mommy bowled horrible). How can you not love her though???


Coming home to Dallas with Katelin by myself was a little interesting. Getting through security took me a little extra time (getting her in and out of her car seat and getting everything on & off the belt) but she did really well on the flight again. She was fussy before take-off but once we got moving, she fell asleep and stayed asleep most of the time. I even got to eat my lunch while holding her. The only problem was that I gate checked her stroller and car seat and for some reason, the people at O'Hare didn't put them on our flight. We waited at Dallas for the next Chicago flight to get in hoping that they made it onto that flight but no such luck. The baggage service gave us a loaner car seat so we could leave the airport and then our stuff was delivered sometime between 1:30 and 3:30 this morning. Luckily they just left it outside and didn't ring the bell because I was actually sleeping. When I brought them in around 3:30 this morning, the sprinklers were going off so I'm glad we had the car seat in a water resistant bag!

Hope everyone has a great 4th of July. We're probably going on out the lake to watch the fireworks. It'll be Katelin's first boat ride.

Friday, June 27, 2008

More Pictures!

Here's a link to an assortment of pictures from 5/21 to 6/26....

Katelin is 2 months old today!

More Pictures of Katelin

Saturday, June 21, 2008

What a Weekend!

This has been a busy weekend for us. On Friday, we flew up to Chicago. Katelin made it through her first flight without a fuss. She slept most of the way. Taking off and landing didn't bother her a bit. Good thing since we fly several times a year! We flew using miles and because of the types of mileage awards available, it actually cost us less miles to fly first class so we spoiled Katelin. I hope she doesn't get used to it! We're back to coach for our next trip.



Friday night my cousin got married so we went to his wedding. Katelin got all dressed up in her pretty pink and frilly dress from Grandma Zimmerman.

We got to show Katelin off to all my family on my dad's side. She was very good. Didn't make a sound during the ceremony and only cried a little bit at the reception. When she did cry, the music was going so only a couple people right around her could hear it. The DJ had colored lights moving around on the ceiling and Katelin was mesmerized by them. I think we may need to try picking up a cheap colored light party ball thing from Wal-mart and see if that helps her fall asleep in the crib.

Since everyone on my dad's side got to see Katelin on Friday night, we had a little get-together with the people on my mom's side and a few of my friends Saturday night. It wound up being a meet Katelin/30th B-day party for me. Of course, Katelin was a big hit again. She got to meet Lucy, the 5 month old daughter of two of my friends from high school. Katelin looks so little next to Lucy!


Katelin is smiling a lot now (and not just when she has gas anymore). She's getting more and more responsive. She can roll over from her back onto her side so it is just a matter of time before she can roll over onto her stomach. That should be her next milestone. We go back to the pediatrician on July 1st so we'll have a height/weight update then. If I were guessing, I'd say she's around 10 pounds now and maybe 23 inches long. Of course, that is a complete guess.

I've added some new links on the left side of the page. Katelin has a You Tube site that we've posted a couple videos on. I've also added links to her newborn pictures/slide show. At 2-1/2 weeks, we had a photographer come out to the house and took some great pictures. He put together a wonderful slide show that will bring tears to your eyes. If anyone is expecting in the DFW area, see if he'll come to your area. He only does newborn pictures up to 3 weeks old though so you need to get on the schedule. He doesn't do any other ages either. He's amazing and his price was really good.

Sunday we celebrated a belated Father's Day for my dad and Chris since we were all in town before Jen and Scott headed home. We just went to Northwoods so Chris could have some Walleye before he headed home. Evidently, you can't get Walleye in Texas. Who knew! Chris also requested some pizza so Sunday night, we enjoyed some tasty stuffed pizza (YUM!). My last trip up to Chicago was so short, I didn't get to have any good pizza. I miss it.

Well, I hope everyone is doing well. It was great seeing everyone this weekend and we're looking forward to showing Katelin off even more :) I'll post a slide show with more Katelin pictures this week.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

The Big 3-0!

Okay, I said I was going to update this blog today so here it is! Today was my birthday and I turned 30. No big deal to me though. I feel like I accomplished a lot before I hit 30. Found a good job, bought a house, traveled to various countries around the world, got married, had a child... what else could I ask for???

I know you are all wanting to see new pictures of Katelin but it'll have to wait another day. We're leaving for the airport in 5 hours (6am flight!) and I've already shut down my computer. Chris' doesn't have any pictures on it. Katelin will be taking her first flight tomorrow! How exciting. Hopefully she'll sleep or be quite. We're going up to Chicago so it is only a 2 hour flight.

I'll try to update more tomorrow!
Trish

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

It's A Girl!


Introducing Katelin Alyssa Hicks!



Born April 27th, 8:02am
7 lbs, 3oz
20 inches


Katelin is starting out on the right foot with great timing! On Thursday, Chris and I completed our childbirth classes and then Friday night my parents got into town. Early Saturday evening, I started having irregular contractions and couldn't tell if it was the real deal or more Braxton Hicks. By the time I was ready for bed (around 11pm), they were getting more consistent and I started keeping track of how far apart they were. Chris came to bed around midnight and they still seemed pretty far apart, but getting stronger. Around 1 or 1:30, I woke him up and made him start timing them and by 2:30am, we were on our way to the hospital. At this point, I still hadn't slept any since Friday night. We got checked into the hospital and I was already at 7cm. As the contractions got stronger and closer, I had to make a decision if I wanted an epidural or not. I didn't know how much longer I'd be in labor or how much more the contractions would hurt. Around 4:30, I gave in and got the epidural. Once it kicked in, I don't know why I didn't ask for it sooner! For a while, I couldn't even tell when I was having a contraction. I took the opportunity to get a little rest. Chris was able to fall asleep but I don't think I ever did. The little bit of rest, even if I wasn't asleep, was nice (considering I had been up for about 22 hours at this point). I lost track of time but the next thing I know, they were having me push and Katelin was born at 8:02am. I have no clue how long I pushed but I'd guess it was only around 30-45 minutes. Seemed like a long time to me and I was wiped out (hence the really great second picture in the link below!). Since then, everything has been going great. I was in the hospital until Monday, late afternoon. My room had a chair that made into a bed so Chris was able to stay at the hospital with me as much as he wanted. Since the hospital is about 10 minutes away, he was able to come home and get cleaned up but Sunday night he was there with us.

As far as who she looks like, I can't really tell yet. She has a full head of dark hair and long legs like her mommy. Her face is pretty round like her daddy and it looks like she'll have his blue eyes.

Well, my brain is starting to go now so I guess that is about it!
I'll try to post another update in a few days with more pictures.

Pictures of our little sweetheart!

Monday, April 21, 2008

Nursery is Done... for now

We did some more work in the nursery this weekend. We finally cleaned out the 3rd bedroom upstairs (for the most part anyways!) and moved the guest room furniture out of the nursery and into that room. We now have 2 guest rooms and the nursery upstairs. :) The "new" guest room is a little smaller than the other one so it seems a little cramped but it works.
We have a lot of open space in the nursery now which will come in handy when the baby starts playing around on the floor and we accumulate a ton of toys! If we ever need all 3 rooms upstairs for guests, there is room to throw an air mattress on the floor.
We ended up getting a new white dresser from IKEA on Sunday. I love IKEA. We actually made it up there for breakfast which was pretty tasty (and super cheap!). We spent less than $8 total and we were stuffed. I don't know why, but it still amazes me how much time we can spend in IKEA when I have a list of what to get. We didn't stray from the list too much and we were still there from about 9:45-11:45 (including breakfast).
With the nursery "done" (for now at least), I was able to put away more baby stuff. The dresser drawers are loaded with blankets, hooded towels, wash rags, booties, mittens, caps, burp clothes, and bibs! The diapers & wipes that have been living in the game room for the past few weeks have finally been stacked & stored. The stroller and high chair have been assembled.
We still need to install the car seat bases and I need to pack up my bag for the hospital.
I had my weekly check-up today. I've hit 33.5 pounds gained. After I passed 25 pounds, my new goal was to stay under 35. I think I'll make that. I'm making progress (3cm.. not that everyone cared to know that!). Still no indication of when Baby Hicks will make his/her appearance. My doctor said I could go into labor tonight (scary thought!) or it could be another few weeks. We're just in a holding pattern now.
Chris just got home from bowling so I'm going to go spend some time with him before I crash into bed for the night.
Enjoy the new pictures of the nursery...


Wednesday, April 9, 2008

We have the best family & friends!

Since my last post, I've had two more showers. Two of my co-workers threw me a shower at work on the 26th and then two friends threw me a shower for some friends and family down here. We got tons of great stuff! When Chris and I sorted through all the shower gifts we got from our Chicago shower and these two additional showers, we were amazed! We have the most generous family and friends. We added up all the gift cards we've gotten and I was amazed! A great big THANK YOU to everyone! And we're still getting gifts in the mail from people who couldn't make it to the showers!

I've started seeing the doctor every week now on Mondays. Everything is still going well. I'm probably still gaining too much weight but my doctor stopped questioning it and I've stopped caring (for the most part). I'm not going to pig out and go crazy these last few weeks but I'm not going to stress if those darn numbers on the scale keep going up.

Everyone keeps saying that I'm still tiny (okay... I've never been tiny in my life!). I'm starting to feel huge but considering I have less than 4 weeks until my due date, I guess I'm doing okay. My back still hurts all the time. Maybe if I had stuck to the 25 pound gain that my doctor recommended, my back wouldn't hurt so much. Maybe I'll try that next time!

Thanks again to all those who have helped spoil this baby before he/she even arrives! Also, thanks again to my mom, Jen, Robyn, Sabina, Suzanna, and Alison for 3 great showers!

Enjoy the new belly pictures! Chris took these at the end of the day.. it was late, I was tired, and my hair was all over the place so sorry.. no glamor shots this time!

Trish

36 weeks, 2 days


Yikes!

Thursday, March 20, 2008

So Behind!

I can't believe it has been almost 2 months since I posted last! I've been pretty busy lately.

In February, I took two trips.
The first was to Chicago for my baby shower up there (and also to celebrate my sister's birthday). The shower was great. My mom and sister hosted it for me. It was mostly family with a couple of friends thrown in the mix. I got tons of great stuff and somehow managed to get most of it back to Dallas on the plane! There are still a few things at my parent's house but I was able to pack a lot more than I thought I would. Of course, getting out to the shuttle with a rolling suitcase, a huge rolling duffle, my backpack (stuffed to the max) and tote bag was a little interesting, but I made it. Luckily, I didn't have to go very far.

The second trip was to Albuquerque, New Mexico for our yearly national bowling tournament. It started out as a group of about 7 of us that bowled in college with a few others mixed in. This year, we had 20 people from all over the county bowling in our group. It is a great way to see each other at least once a year. About a week before we left, I started having horrible, stabing pains in my back. They are normal according to my Dr (I was expecting soreness, not pain like this!). My back hurt on and off the entire weekend and I didn't bowl very well. I think I only got/beat my average 1 game out of 9 (of course, it was a 245!).

This month brought 2 snow storms, another bowling tournament, more (or continued) back pain, and a new niece!
Okay, a Texas snow storm is a little different than what I'm used to, but it was still impressive for down here. We usually don't get too much snow here, more freezing rain and ice. On the 4th we had about 2 inches of accumulation but by the next afternoon, it was all melted. Then, on the 6th we ended up getting about 6 inches! This caused MAJOR havoc. Driving home from work, it took me about 40 minutes to get within 10 minutes of the house (normally the entire trip takes about 30 minutes so it wasn't bad at all). Then, it took me another hour and a half or so to get the rest of the way home. All the roads I tried to take to get home were closed due to cars stuck in the middle of the road or accidents! Chris spent about 2 and a half hours trying to get home and that was once he got to Denton! The roads were better by the next afternoon (patches of ice did stick around until Sunday though). That weekend, I bowled in the Denton County Women's Tournament and did fairly well. I ended up averaging about 195 for the 9 games and it looks like I'll get a little prize money for singles.
On March 14th, my sister-in-law gave birth to a healthy baby girl. She weighed 9lbs, 5oz! I'd feel sorry for my sister-in-law but since she was only in labor for about an hour and a half, it couldn't have been too bad! Not sure that the proud parents want her information out in cyberspace so I'm keeping the name and pictures to myself. We were really hoping to make it down to New Orleans to see them but it doens't look like it will happen. This is the last weekend that I can fly and with Easter/Spring Break, the flights are all really full. If we flew standby, we could probably get out there, but we may not make it back before Tuesday. Buying tickets this late isn't an option either (prices are way too high!).
As far as this back pain goes, it has to be the most annoying part of this pregnancy. I've had it fairly easy until this started. I did have a lot of nausea in the begining, but I could handle that. This pain (without good pain meds) is really getting to me. If I sit for more than 20-30 minutes, I have a stabbing pain mid-back on my left side. Walking around or laying on my side for a little bit makes it go away, but while I'm at work or in the car, it is hard to move around that often. Well, hopefully only about 6 more weeks of it!

We "finished" the nursery a couple weekends ago. We finally got all the wainscotting, trim, and baseboards up, caulked, and painted. We put the crib & changing table together. We still have the other furniture (full size bed, dresser, & chest of drawers) in there but we're hoping to clear out the 3rd upstairs bedroom (currently our junk room) and move the non-baby furniture into that room. That way we'll have 2 dedicated guest rooms and the nursery. The glider still hasn't made it into the nursery yet (still stitting in the game room) and I haven't washed the crib sheets to make up the bed. All the gifts we've received so far are still sitting in either the other guest room or the game room so those all need to find a home. I have 2 more showers in the next 2 weeks so there will be even more stuff to put away. (Not that I'm complaining!). I am also going to attempt to make a roman shade for the nursery. We'll see how that goes.

Enjoy the pictures!


Thursday, January 31, 2008

LOST Returns

In honor of LOST returning tonight (yes, I'm a huge LOST junkie!), someone sent me some pictures of cute baby apparel...



This is the site... they have all sorts of cute items for the nerd at heart!
http://www.squirtshirts.com/

Have a great day!

Friday, January 25, 2008

Random Thoughts on the Past Few Weeks...

What a busy few weeks!

We had a boat show in Arlington from the 10th to the 13th. Getting ready for boat shows is always a busy time. Chris has to decide which boats to take, make sure the are rigged, clean, and ready to go. I have lots of signage to create based on the boats he's taking and then I put together a notebook that shows all of our new and pre-owned inventory (including boats, bikes, and ATVs). Then, Chris has to figure out how to get all the boats to the show and home from the show. Luckily, I got out of hauling to the show but I did have to haul one boat back to the office on Sunday. The show was fairly small but we did get a few leads and we've since closed a few deals. I was at the show Thursday night, Saturday evening, and Sunday. Sunday was dead. Between people sleeping in or going to church in the morning and then football starting at noon, no one wanted to walk around the Arlington Convention Center looking at boats, tackle, and other outdoor related products & services. We typically take a TV to the show to play our Bad Boy Buggy DVD but Sunday afternoon, we switched it over to football. We only got to see the first half of the Cowboys game since the show ended at 5 and we had to pack everything up and take the boats back to the office. Once again, the Cowboys didn't play very well and lost. Would have been nice to see them get a little farther in the playoffs after such a great season.

On the 17th, we had another doctor's visit. I gained another five and a half pounds and even though I've read that you're supposed to gain about 1 pound a week and it had been almost 5 weeks between appointments, I got the weight gain lecture again. My doctor said she would have ideally liked to have seen me only gain about 25 total. I was up to 17.5 so with 15 weeks left, there was no way 25 total is going to happen. I'm shooting for 35 or less... we'll see how it goes. Chris made a comment to me later along the lines of, just because she's a skinny little b*&$@# doesn't mean everyone is :) I seem to be hungry all the time now but I'm *trying* to eat a little healthier. I've been munching on carrots, green peppers, and celery with fat free dip. I think that is a smarter choice than the Krispie Kremes and Honeybuns! I took the 1 hour glucose test for Gestational Diabetes at this appointment and I just found out that I passed. (Thank goodness!). GD is the most common complication with pregnancy. If I failed the 1 hour test, I would have had to go back and take a 3 hour test. I've had friends with GD and while they say it isn't *that* bad, it is still a pain. You really have to watch what you eat and test your blood sugar.

Mom and Jen are throwing me a shower up there in Feburary so Chris and I had to go register before the invites went out. There are soooo many products out there. Trying to determine what we really need, what will actually be helpful, and what is just a waste of money is tiring! We ended up registering at Babies R Us and Wal-Mart. I wanted to do Target instead of Wal-Mart but their return policy isn't very good if you don't have a receipt. The Wal-Mart by us takes anything and everything back. Chris wanted to register for the 50" plasma TV at Wal-Mart as a way to get people to laugh when they saw our registry but I didn't find it near as funny as he did. I made him stick to the baby gear. Speaking of baby gear... do you know how hard it is to pick out stuff when you don't know if it is a boy or girl??? Even if we knew what we were having, I'd want all the big items gender neutral so they could be re-used when we have our 2nd child. It would be nice to know for the small stuff though... receiving blankets, caps, sleepers, onsies, even pacifiers come in blue, pink or yellow/green.... we are going to have sooo many yellow and green items around the house!

Okay, I think I've rambled on enough here. Enjoy the new belly picture. I'm starting to get bigger. A lot of the clothes I wear, you still really can't tell, but then other outfits makes it very noticable!

26 weeks - January 26th

Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Holidays Are Over!

Well, we made it through another hectic holiday season. We enjoyed our time off and got to spend time with a lot of family. A couple weeks before Christmas, Chris' brother Lee and his family came up to Denton for a visit. While it was a short trip, it was good to see everyone. The twins and Avelinn keep getting bigger and bigger!
My parents came down just before Christmas and stayed until New Years Eve morning. They brought lots of gifts including a glider and several other baby items. My sister sent down some cute Illini booties! They are soooo small (and cute!) If our child takes after my big feet, he/she will be out-growing them in no time!
Christmas day was spent at Chris' mom's house. She had a small gathering over for dinner. We had a great meal and I think we all ate too much (as usual).
After Christmas, Chris' brother Ben came into town with his wife Brande and their 3 yr old son Jacob. We got to enjoy their time here.
The weather cooperated with us and we were able to take a trip to the lake between Christmas and New Years (I LOVE Texas weather). We went out with my parents, Ben, Brande, Jacob, Chris' cousin Chad and his wife Stacy. I think Jacob had the most fun. He got to drive the boat for awhile and then play in the cabin. He was climbing all over the bed and loved turning on and off all the little lights around the cabin.
We didn't do anything for New Years Eve. Just enjoyed a quite evening at home. I made it to about 12:30am and then I gave up and went to bed! The next day, we went to a bar in Dallas to watch Illinois in the Rose Bowl. The Dallas Illini club usually has a crowd of 20 or so people there watching the game. Unfortunately, a lot of the regulars were at the game and a lot of recent grads had gone "home" for the holidays. There were only a few tables of Illini fans. After a depressing first half, we left to spend a little more time with Ben and Brande since they were headed back to NOLA the next day.
We headed back to work on the 2nd and made it out to see ICE that night. ICE is an exhibit at the Gaylord Texan Hotel that features amazing ice sculptures. The rooms are kept at 9 degrees and there is over 2 million pounds of ice used. There wasn't as much to see as I was expecting, but at 9 degrees, we were ready to be done when we had seen it all. I'm not used to temperatures that low anymore! I've become a Texas cold-weather wimp.
Here are some pictures from the last couple weeks:




No big baby news this post. I'm feeling a lot of movement now. Chris can feel it at times as well and we can see movement. Last night, Chris felt a good one and I saw his hand move pretty good!
Since I haven't posted a picture in awhile, I figured it was time. I was really showing last night so I snapped a picture. Not the most flattering, but you get the idea. While my belly looks pretty big in this picture, I'm still not showing that much in my normal everyday clothes. A lot of people say I still don't look pregnant. Oh well, one of these days, there will be no denying it!


23 weeks, 4 days