Week 32!

September 12th

Baby girl is the sized of a Naked-Tailed Armadillo (kinda ugly, lol- she's not, but the armadillo is). She's close to 18 inches and weighs about 4lbs now! Her sweet little head should have a full coating of peach fuzz and maybe even some hair! She also has a full set of fingernails and toenails. I cant wait to do her nails :D Babies born in the 32nd week of pregnancy have a 90% chance of surviving- starting to feel better about things! :D 

How's Mama? This week was ROUGH. I got a nasty cold that I just was not able to shake. It turned a little worse towards the middleof the week and I ended up with a small fever and a smoker's sounding cough. SO tired all week too. Braxton Hicks were a little more common this week and there were also TONS of baby hiccups (which are the cutest thing ever). Krystal brought over a humidifier for me during the week and I'm pretty sure this saved my life. I dont think I could have slept without it. 

How's Daddy? He's also tired. He ended up sleeping on the couch a few nights this week :( Between my usual uncomfortable shifting around and my awful cough, he was just not able to get any sleep next to me. John ended up having to go out of town for work for Thursday and Friday too. He was SUPER productive over the weekend though!

This week: This week started off with us having the Kinlaws over for dinner! We hadnt done our "Taco Tuesday" in awhile and even though it was Monday when they came over, we still had our usual Mexican cuisine :D Luckily, by this point I wasnt sick yet- or at least I didnt know it and I didnt spread my germs. Tuesday I started to feel pretty run down and by Wednesday I had a nasty cough. 

Mason snuggles while I finished up dinner!

We had our first baby class Wednesday!!! I did my best to keep it contained during our baby class, still not realizing the severity of my cold. We learned a lot in the first class and even knew another couple in it! Small world! Phil Moore's best friend, David Boone, and his wife are in our class! They are super sweet. We started to learn about labor and delivery and some relaxation techniques during contractions. 

Thursday morning I woke up around 3am with a fever, chills, cough, runny/stuffy nose- it was not pretty. :( Of course we had a retreat at work on Thursday that was important for me to be at, but with a fever my doctor told me- no way. I needed to stay home and rest for me and the baby. John had to leave Thursday morning for his business trip and I felt so bad for him. He did not want to leave me. He's so good for me. I ended up sleeping all day anyway, so it wasnt a big deal he wasnt there and he was back the next day. lol. My fever was gone Friday so I went to work for the rest of our retreat. 

Saturday, John and I went shopping for supplies for the weekend projects we had planned and we snuck in an afternoon date for wings and football. Thank goodness I was feeling even better! We picked out paint for the nursery, found a sweet chandelier for her room, and got some crown molding. After that, even though I was feeling better, I was exhausted. That pretty much sums up my whole day. I crashed while John got busy.

Sunday, we had Jim and Jane come over to help us with some projects around the house. I was feeling even better, but still very tired, very easily. I still had an awesome cough too. They painted the nursery, hung the chandelier, and worked on patching the ceiling (from the HVAC leak this summer). I worked on cleaning out our master closet some and finished power washing what I could reach. It was a very productive day!

Our kitchen became a construction zone

So did the baby room. haha. 

Getting ready to paint!

 Daddy is excited! The paint color was a little darker than we wanted, but we had already been to Lowe's twice trying to fix the color and were not going back again. So it's perfect :D LOL

I forgot to take a before photo with all the stuff on the ground on the shelf in the top of our closet, so I got one with it all on the floor. LOL. I spent a very long time going through stuff and purged a lot, but then I started to smell the paint and had to go outside. So power-washing it was! 

Jim and Jane surprised us with our first baby present off the nursery! Our pack and play!! They went ahead and gave it to us so Jim could be apart of it since our shower was girls only :D

My sweet little nephew

On August 21st at 1:24am my heart grew a whole size bigger. Our best friends welcomed their sweet little boy into this world and John and I got a new little love. Mason, there are not words for how happy we are that you are finally here and definitely no words for us to describe just how much we love you. You have definitely stolen our hearts. 

Uncle John got to be the first one to hold him after mommy, daddy and the nurses! He was very proud :D

 His sweet little newborn face- just about 2 1/2 hours old!

 Smitten

When little man was born he was 7lbs, 12oz and 19inches long! Krystal did an amazing job and I basically think of her as superwoman now. She rocked her entire pregnancy and rocked labor even harder. Her positivity through the whole thing has been inspirational and I am incredibly proud of her. 

Our favorite little family :D

Watching him grow and learn has already been one of our favorite things. 

 He's the cutest little boy in the world.

 My heart grows bigger every time I see John love on Mason. It's one of the most precious things in the world to me. In the past John's always been a little hesitant around babies (like most guys) but he immediately jumped into loving this little one as hard as he could. He holds him every time he gets a chance. I cant wait to see this man with our daughter. 

 One of my new favorite things is Krystal sending me his sweet pictures while I'm at work. It just makes any day better. 

We love you Mason! We cannot wait to bring your cousin into this world so y'all can be best friends :D It's going to be so much fun watching y'all grow up together. 

31 Weeks!

September 5th!

Baby girl is the size of a small clawed otter this week! So cute. She's close to 17 1/2 inches long and weighs over 3 1/2lbs now. She keeps piling on the cute baby fat she'll have and her immune system is nearly ready to fight all on it's own! 

How's Mama? I've been pretty tired this week. Lots of naps when I get home from work. I can also tell that she's up squishing my lungs now because it's a lot harder to catch my breath when I go on walks. We've started to be able to feel little body parts poking out of my belly and she'll continue to play back with us some when we poke her. lol. I thought I *might* be having Braxton Hicks contractions this week and that was confirmed at my appointment this week. Crazy! They dont hurt- well most of them dont. They mostly feel like the top part of my uterus is getting tighter in a band. I usually starts to feel like she's poking her butt out but then a whole band around my belly will get hard. Only every now and then are they uncomfortable. It is definitely getting harder and harder to sleep. Lots of pee breaks in the middle of the night and overall discomfort. So I'm just tired a lot more. That's okay though :D Honestly, I'm just thankful my back doesnt hurt anymore- that was probably one of the more annoying pregnancy problems I had for awhile.

How's Daddy? Doing good! Still working on projects around the house when he gets home from work OR he takes care of me. Sometimes both. He's an amazing husband and we are so lucky to call him ours. He gets to feel baby girl a lot now and pokes at her to get her to play. Sometimes she's shy and other times she'll play back. I cant wait to see them interact when she comes out :D It might be the most precious thing ever. Work is super busy for him. They are still trying to complete the renovation project in his auditorium at work and he has a ton of other video projects he's working on. I know he's overwhelmed in every area of his life right now, but man he sure is a trooper and I am beyond thankful for him.

This week: This week John and I both got our hair did. LOL. Which meant we got to spend some time with the lovely Kala :D We also had a baby appointment Friday. Unfortunately, John didnt get to make this one either- so it was the first one I went to by myself. It was totally fine and took all of 20 minutes. haha. I got kick count instructions to keep an eye on how baby girl is, my blood pressure was perfect! YAY! I didnt gain ANY weight- in fact I lost a lb. I was very proud of this because I had kind of overdone it and dont want to be too much bigger than I have to be. I was also measuring a week ahead- which I was told is normal at this point to measure a week or two in either direction. Finally, baby girl seems to be head down- I had them check even though it was still a bit early- but my doctor thought she was head down. We'll know better next time! Oh! and her heartbeat was perfect. Y'all dont even know how big of a blessing that was to hear :D Why? Well....

That morning on my way to work, I was only about 2 miles from our house getting ready to turn right onto HWY 42 from a back road. I saw a big box truck/large moving truck (not really sure what to call it) pull out of a gas station that was not too far from where I was. Usually they are going so slow you can pull out in front of them. This guy gunned it and then proceeded to turn onto the back road I was on. I remember thinking he was rude because he didnt use his blinker, otherwise I could have gone if I had known he was turning. Then I realized he was going WAY too fast and I watched as his truck tipped over. THE ENTIRE TRUCK WAS FALLING OVER. I thought for sure he was going to hit me. He didnt, but I heard a loud crunch behind me. Y'all there were no words for how panicked I was. I jumped out of the car as fast as I could. Nobody else had pulled over to help yet, so I waved at a truck I saw on my way to the car behind me, while I was trying to dial 911. On my way back to the car I froze thinking- oh no. Whoever is in that car, could be dead. I might see a dead person. The truck had landed on top of the car and slide off. I just knew I was about to see the worst sight of my life, but I ran over anyways. Miraculously, the man driving was fine. I asked him if he was okay and if he was alone and he said yes, so I proceeded with my 911 call. I got so lucky and had waved down an off-duty volunteer fire fighter and EMS guy (same person). He might have been stopping anyways, but I'm not sure. I was in full blown panic mode. We decided later that I had a panic attack. I called John after 911 and couldnt get words out. I was hyperventilating and just couldnt process everything fast enough. Y'all. I was driving the mustang. Do you know how close I was to dying. The truck would have for sure crushed me and my little girl. My roof would have provided no protection. I was literally feet from it being me. The fire fighter that stopped came over to me and did his best to calm me down. He was like, you cant have this baby today ma'am. You need to calm down. Between him and John, I was finally able  somewhat. The guy in the other truck ended up being completely fine too. Talk about a miracle. So many miracles in this morning. I had so many of the fire fighters come up to me and tell me how lucky I was to be alive (I dont know why they thought saying that to an 8 month pregnant lady was a good idea) but it's so true. I was so lucky and so incredibly blessed to not be hurt at all. To not have witnessed someone else pass from this earth and to be able to help however I could. The Lord definitely had me and little girl wrapped in His arms that morning. Needless to say my blood pressure had to be through the roof and I was worried about how my panic attack impacted her. Luckily, I had my doctor's appointment that afternoon and everything was perfectly fine. Praise the Lord. :D

Over the weekend, John and I KNOCKED OUT SOME HOUSE PROJECTS! I was so proud of how much we got done! John did some incredible work in the garage and got rid of the cabinets we didnt need! We can even park a car in there now! Almost both!! We also got the power washer up and running and both worked on power washing the house some. I cleaned out our entire laundry room and organized it. It's not exactly what we want, but it's exactly where it should be right now. What we want is an entire other project that will have to be completed another time. Right now it just needed to be cleaned and organized. John also added a top to the washer and dryer so stuff stops falling behind! It's very useful! I cleaned the bathrooms as good as I can without bleach and John took care of the yard. It was incredibly productive and we were both pretty proud of ourselves :D 

Office closet was a hot mess. And now our dining room is even more of room as well as the whole entire office. :D You gotta make a mess to clean a mess, right? 

 Left side before with all the crap in the middle

 Right side before

 SO much better and there is a car in there! I'll try to get another picture in the daylight :D

Saturday night we went out to celebrate Mitch's birthday. The whole JoCo crew went to Deep River and got to spend some time together. I got to meet the Northrups baby- Nick- and held him for awhile. Afterwards, some of us went back to the Weavers house for a fire and s'mores! 

Yay!! for a productive weekend, good week, and healthy baby!

30 Weeks!

August 29th

Baby M is the size of a platypus this week (minus the tail)! She's about 17 inches and close to 3.5lbs! At this point it will start to get harder to gauge how long she is and how much she weighs, so even more than before it will be guesses :D Only time will tell! Baby girl is going to start losing her lanugo this week (the "furry coat" she had on to keep her warm before she grew some fat:D). 

How's Mama? Feeling great! It's getting a bit more challenging to sleep, so I'm tired. But at the same time I still have more energy than I have yet. So I'll take it! :D Other than that, just soaking up her sweet kicks all day, every day :D 

How's Daddy? Doing good too! He has gotten to feel even more kicks and can see her move some, which is pretty cool :D He's in daddy-go mode and has been really working hard on the garage! 

This week: John and I actually went to Williamsburg for the weekend. If you dont remember, about this time last year when we were getting ready for our big West Coast road trip I got roped into buying a vacation at Bass Pro. Yes, the vacation included a time share presentation. Well before we were pregnant, we were going to use it to go to St. Petes, Fl! in March. Then we decided to go to Puerto Rico in March and moved it to Sept. Well then, we found out we were pregnant and our schedules didnt make sense to move the trip again. Well, we decided to save as much of our vacation time as possible for when the baby comes and decided that St. Pete's was just too far to go for the weekend. The only location close to us that had an opening was Williamsburg, so we decided to move it to there. Honestly, when it came time for the trip this past weekend, we didnt even really want to go. We wanted to stay home and get stuff down around the house. But, we went anyways. We both were glad we did. It was a nice chance for our to-do list to not get in the way of enjoying some down time together. So Friday off we went! 

First, we stopped in Richmond. We hit up The Veil Brewery first. It came HIGHLY recommended by numerous people. John said it did not disappoint! We'll have to take another trip some time when I'm not pregnant :D Next we stopped at Starbucks. THE PUMPKIN SPICE LATTE is out! I also got some pumpkin bread- the baby was hungry :D We stopped in to visit Stone Brewery- the East Coast version just opened recently! Having been to the one on the West Coast, we had to stop in! Definitely not as grandiose as the West Coast one, but it was still very nice. It just opened, so they still have a long way to go! We sat outside and John enjoyed his beer and I enjoyed my PSL. It was wonderful :D The weather was PERFECT. It was the calm before the tropical storm/hurricane (whatever it was) was supposed to hit the area. (It only ended up raining a little). lol. But we enjoyed our time together and watched the sunset. It was awesome. Then we headed off to Williamsburg! 

The Veil!

Stone Brewery- East Coast :D

Enjoying our drinks :D

The beautiful sunset

 Me and Baby Girl :D

Our first stop was to check-in to our hotel. This is where things start to go downhill. When we arrived, we were greeted by a very unpleasant woman working for the BlueGreen Vacation Company I signed us up through (so sorry again John!). She informed us that we were not actually staying in the hotel I was told and that our presentation time was 8:10am the next morning. I had been told by numerous people that we would get to choose our presentation time. John's one request was not to get up early Sat :( So he was NOT pleased. Mix that with how hateful the lady was and we were both pretty unhappy. We went and checked in at our hotel and then found our room dirty. We called them to come clean it while we went to dinner. Even though we were both in a bad mood we decided to make the best out of it anyways. Our dinner that night was DELICIOUS! I had some interesting shrimp and grits and John got a burger. The sides were amazing. I would go back. :D

Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn to sit through a painful presentation. I'll do my best to keep this short. When we arrived we were paired with a sales rep who started to give us their spill of information. Some guy (maybe a supervisor?) came and sat down and listened to him too. We hope the guy was new- he was the only one we didnt want to throat punch). We let them know how dissatisfied we had already been and did not plan to spend any money. Of course they are trained to combat this and it was just annoying. Then we got lead to a presentation room. The presentation was supposed to last 45 minutes. 2 hours later- not even kidding- we were done. The entire presentation was about how we should live our life and the guy spat out ridiculous study information and stats about vacation. Nothing about the actual vacation package they were trying to sell us. Then we met with the supervisor guy again and he continued to try to sell us. John kept letting him know as politely as possible that we were not interested in any way. Finally, he got the point and walked us out. It was ridiculous. John- I am SO sorry I made us sit through that and I promise you I will never sign us up for one again. Now it's in writing and you can hold me to it :D

After our little morning adventure, we headed off to get brunch. We had the most amazing food. John had a delicious homemade chicken biscuit and I got biscuits and gravy. I could eat it all over again. NOMS. Then we headed back to the hotel and put on some football and took a nap. It was much needed. Because of the "tropical storm" Williamsburg had closed Colonial Williamsburg and other attractions. We were really fine with this- it was a great excuse to be lazy and relax. lol. After our naps we decided to venture out and try a few breweries in the area. The first one we went to we sat outside and talked about baby girl names FOREVER (nothing much came of this though. sigh). The next one had a shuffle board table and we played a few rounds against each other. It was a lot of fun.  I had a girl(about our age) come up to me in the brewery and tell me how beautiful I was. It was so incredibly nice and made me feel so good. :D After our games were over we went and got dinner at a pizza place close by. We decided we wanted to hurry through dinner so we could make it to putt-putt before they closed. Our waiter was HILARIOUS (we were the only ones in the restaurant and he kept making jokes about the wait times. haha). We enjoyed him very much and the pizza too! Then we were off the putt-putt. It was Blackbeard themed! Random, but awesome. John swears we tied. I never saw the score sheet. :D 

First Stop

 Shuffle Board!

This man cracks me up

Putt-putt! Scary pirates!

 Always making me laugh

 Being ourselves

 I love him so much 

 Baby had to be silly too!

 Not sure who is scarier...

Sunday we got up and got breakfast in Colonial Williamsburg and decided to walk around it and check it out for a bit since the weather was so nice. Brunch did not disappoint again! Williamsburg is definitely not short of good food! Afterwards, we headed back towards home. We stopped to get the Carter from the in-laws house and ended up staying and eating dinner with them. It was nice :D 

:D 

 Lots of carriages!

 Finally got to pet a horse!

 Colonial Williamsburg was very neat :D

Monday- on our extra day off (YAY!) we started more house projects! Well John worked in the garage and I cleaned out closets! Fun stuff. haha :D 

Anyways, it was a great week :D