Shower Pics

Here are some great photos from the shower, with all the wonderful gifts I received! Again - thanks to everyone!!!

Here's one of Mom and me when I'm opening a gift from my Aunt Leona... it's an adorable baby memories photo album and some cute little socks.

This is the crib quilt that my Aunt Barbara made and an amazing blanket she crocheted. Mom sewed all the crib and nursery linens for us, and gave Aunt Barbara the extra fabric for the quilt. We cannot wait to get it home and put it all together!

Here I am opening one of the three giant gift-filled packages from Mom (Grannie). She and Dad (Paw-Paw) have been buying and collecting everything from socks to diapers to bottles --- and everything in between --- since we told them we were expecting their grandchild. They're so excited and we're very blessed by everything they've done for us!!

Here's one of my with my Mom (Grannie) and Jeremy's mom (Gram). They're both so excited!!

Here's one of my and Leslie, my best friend from Louisiana Tech. She's going to be the Godmother, and I think she's excited, too. :o)

Thank You!!

A great big thank you to everyone who helped to plan and attended my shower today in Jennings. It was wonderful to be able to see everyone and visit. Jeremy and I sincerely appreciate all the generous gifts we were given to prepare for the arrival of our little one. We're so very excited! And the best part.... we managed to pack EVERYTHING into our car to take home, along with all our luggage and Christmas gifts.

I have lots of pictures from the shower and will post them soon. I was hoping to do that on our way back to Michigan (22 hours in the car... gotta find something to do!), but I think the computer is completely buried under all the baby stuff. So... I'll try to get them up by next weekend once we're back home.

But again... THANK YOU to everyone!! Have a wonderful New Year!

We have pictures!!!

Today was my scheduled 18 week ultrasound. It was amazing! We were able to see all these really cool glimpses of our baby. The ultrasound tech at the hospital was really narrative, so we know exactly what we were seeing. During the ultrasound, she measure all the different parts of the baby's body, including the heart and all it's four chamber, the leg bones, arm bones, both kidneys, the spine, it's brain, and more! It was amazing how much you could see! Here are some pictures.... Enjoy!

(And no, we didn't find out the gender - we don't want to know!!)

Here's a profile view of it's head:

Here's the baby looking straight at you, head to the left and body to your right:

Here's another profile view, this time head to the right and body to the left. If you look closely, you can see some curly lines on the side of it's face. That's it's hand, like it's waving. The straight line along the from there to the left is it's arm.

And here's another profile view - you can see the profile of it's head pretty well here, face looking upward.

And my favorite... a tiny little left foot!

We're really looking forward to seeing everyone when we're home at Christmas!! We got a ton of snow here over the weekend - about 10" overnight. It was crazy! We took a lot of pictures, so hopefully tonight or tomorrow I'll have a change to post some of them on here. (I have to get them off the camera first!) Check back for those in a day or so...

The smallest person in our house will have the most crap!

So... We spent 2 hours at Babies-R-Us yesterday. Wow. There's a lot of baby stuff out there. But they think they've got it all figured out for you. When you tell them you want to develop a gift registry, they give you this notebook with a handy "New Parents' Checklist" to guide you through the selection process -- there were about 220 items on this list!

One of my favorites... the light-up musical wipes warmer! Okay, I'll never actually understand the logic of this. It brags that it "warms wipes in 10 minutes!" So, you're supposed to anticipate the need for a diaper change, then run and turn it on so it'll be ready. Then, when you get in their to change the diaper, this plastic box sings and dances to entertain the baby for one minute. And all for the low low price of $39.95! Needless to say, you won't find that on our registry.

So we diligently took our time walking around the entire store meticulously inspecting every item, the discussing the use to see if it was needed, desired, or just completely useless. And if we decided it was useless, we laughed about the type of people who would spend money on such a random silly purchase. And, worse than 5 years ago when we did our wedding registry, I was reminded of Quick-Draw-McGraw I have for a husband. Never let this guy have a real gun - he wants to shoot everything. If I even touched an item on the shelf, he was there with the scanner gun, micro-seconds from hitting the trigger!

But alas, we finished some sort of registry there. We included neutral-colored clothing and onesies, changing table cushion and covers, a "manly" diaper bag for Jeremy, diaper wipes, diapers, and blankets and matress covers. We picked out bottles, formula dispensers, baby cutlery, tiny tupperware bowls, and bibs. There's the ear thermometer and a snot-sucker. And we couldn't leave off the Boudreaux's Butt Paste! There's washclothes and towels. And a few toys and some books. We have carseat and stroller accessories. But no car seat or stroller yet! (We're still deciding on one!) Oh, and no high chair yet, but we did pick a booster seat. And, I can't forget the animal crackers. Yes, there's this big giant bin in the middle of one aisle filled with gallon-size bags of animal crackers. I said "Mmm... Animal Crackers! I want some!" (Translation: I've been walking around this crazy store for 2 hours and I'm getting hungry.) So Jeremy scans two. Yes, apparently we're requesting two bags of animal crackers for the baby. I was going to get online as soon as I got home to delete them, but I think I'll leave 'em there for now. I makes me laugh. :o)

Then we headed over to WalMart. We created an additional registry there. At least by this time, we'd decided on what we wanted, so it was slightly easier. It only took us about an hour there. But we've got our registries established. I'm now off to continue my high chair/stroller/carseat research online. We must pick one soon!

Visit our registries, if you want to browse and entertain yourself. See if you can find the animal crackers!

172 beats per minute! That’s the Lightbulb’s heart rate.

We went to the doctor Wednesday morning. He reviewed all of my bloodwork results – all is well. All of my measurements are right on target for being 10-weeks pregnant. So the due date remains at May 22.

Then the best part… He took us into the exam room to listen to the heartbeat! Except we didn’t get to hear it. After about 3 minutes on putting a great amount of pressure on my always-full bladder with the Doppler-stethoscope, he turned it off. He said he heard the heartbeat a couple times, but couldn’t capture it on the speaker long enough for us to hear it, too.

So out he went, and came back with the portable ultrasound machine. So we got to see pictures!! The doctor laughed about us having a shy baby – which Jeremy and I thought was pretty funny, and likely impossible with us as parents. Then when he got the image up, he said “Nope, not shy – just a wiggle worm” as we watched the baby doing back-flips! It was completely amazing. Although it’s not much larger than a peanut in its shell, we could already see arms, legs, a body, and head! We could see its little tiny heart beating – it’s about the size of a pea, and beating at a whopping 172 BPM!

Unfortunately, this machine wasn’t connected to a printer, so we didn’t get to take a picture home. (I was hoping to post one on here.) In 8 weeks I have an appointment at the hospital for a full ultrasound so they can measure everything on the baby. At that time I’ve been assured I’ll get pictures.

And to the always-full bladder. No, I’m not crazy. It’s not “all in my head.” I’ve been reading. Apparently in the past 10 weeks, the volume of blood in my body has increased by 50%. Additionally, the extra hormones my body is producing cause increased kidney function. Combine those two, and that explains why I spend a large part of my day walking to and from the restroom. See… I’m not crazy!

Okay… more later!

A Few Funnies...

... There's not really anything new to tell. I have a doctor's appointment next week, so hopefully I'll have a picture to post. But until then... have a few laughs.

The Integral of Little Paw

So... because a long time back the guys I work with saw a picture of Dad and realized that he's slightly vertically challenged, they began calling him "Little Paw." So, now when he's referred to in conversation with these guys, we refer to him as "Little Paw". Now that he's going to be a grandfather, Dad's chosen to be called Paw-Paw. So I shared this information with my lovely co-workers. Because we're a bunch of engineers and happen to have taken 30+ hours of math and calculus in college, we began laughing at the idea of him being "Little Paw Squared" or (Little Paw)2. Then, yesterday afternoon, this became the ultimate result of the conversation:

Quick Update from my Doctor

I got a message from my doctor, Dr. Shellie Steenken, today. She's gotten all the lab results back from the gallon of blood they took from me two weeks ago. All my levels came back "normal." They confirmed my blood type is A-Pos. All counts were normal, and there were no signs of any infection at all. All good signs.

I won't see her again until October 24. I'll keep you posted, but so far so good!

The Nursery

After several trips through Babies-R-Us, JC Penny, (both on the internet via my couch, of course), and any other online retailer of baby "stuff", I came to the conclusion that there was nothing out there (at least nothing reasonably priced, anyway) that was suitable for the vision we have for the nursery. So I asked Grannie (my Mom) if she was up to sewing the linens, given she has enough time. Of course she was up to the challenge!


Because we're not finding out the gender, our theme has to be neutral. The all-white and off-white sets are really pretty, but they'll be ruined the first time the baby throws up on them. (And I think we're pretty guaranteed that will happen!) We want bright colors - a more stimulating enviornment. So... off to the fabric store!! After about an hour of stacking bolts upon bolts of fabric on top of the racks (I think we drove one of the workers crazy!), we settled on a scheme -- shown in this picture. Working from the bottom of the stack, up, you have...

blue/green/orange/yellow stripe - crib skirt, curtain trim, quilt


solid orange, blue dots, solid yellow, red stripe - sheets and blankets


white with dots - bumper for crib, curtains


red with dots - diaper bag


According to Mom, we bought too much fabric. But she assures us she'll use as much of it as she can, making coordinating accessories and blankets with the left overs. But we have a scheme!!


We also found these cute wooden letters - about 8" tall, all capital letters. We're going to paint the room two colors - probably green and yellow, sorta like wainscoating with a chair rail. We'll use a thin flat wooden rail to go around the room between the top and bottom colors. I want to get the entire alphabet, A-Z, paint them in bright colors, then attach them to the chair-rail to make the alphabet go around the room.


So that's our plan for the nursery. For those of you who know our house, we're using our office/study. The room has a pretty wide doorway opening, so we're putting in french doors. It's going to be sooooo cute!!

If I had a quarter for every question, we'd already have our baby's first year of diapers paid for!

Everyone who finds out we're expecting a baby asks the same questions. So, I'll answer them in this blog so that you all know everything there is to know as of now.

How are you feeling?
Luckily I have not yet been blessed with the dreaded "morning sickness." And no, I'm in no way complaining. No, I haven't thrown up at all - day or night. I have been really tired - being pregnant, even so early, definitely sucks all the energy out of me. I've spent more than one lunch hour catching a recharge-nap on my couch at home. And I have taken more than one evening nap after work. I've had some headaches, but I think they're more due to caffeine withdrawal as opposed to pregnancy. My sense of smell is extremely heightened, and some odors do make me nauseated. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good. I can tell that something is causing my body to change a lot, but it's not a bad or uncomfortable feeling.

When are you due?
My initial due date is May 22, 2008. However, I have a doctors appointment near the end of October. At that time she'll be able to perform some other tests which will better determine the exact stage the baby's at, thus possibly revising the due date slightly. If it changes, you'll know!

Are you going to find out the gender?
No - what fun is that? We think that part of the excitement is the suprise of saying "It's a ____!" So, in about 7.5 months, you'll get a phone call and we'll fill in that blank! Yes, we know that by not finding out the gender we can't decorate in pink or blue. And we're completely okay with that. Everything we pick will be non-gender-specific.

So... yes, if we had a nickel for every time someone asks us one of these questions, we'd probably have our baby's first year of diapers paid for by now!

So... We're having a baby!

Well, we've known for over a week now. Things are finally starting to seem real. I'm getting really excited about everything. So, why "The Lightbulb," you ask? Well... a while back a couple of our friends nicknamed Jeremy Tommy Lightbulb. (Since his real first name is Thomas, and for all we know he gets paid for screwing in lightbulbs all day!) So, for whatever reason, we've begun referring to this little thing taking over my entire body (yes, the baby) as "The Lightbulb." So that's the story. I guess right now it's probably more the size of just a fillament. (Yes, I'm sure Jeremy could tell me the exact specifications and proper name for a lightbulb, eerr lamp, that is about 1" long, the apparent size of our baby right now. )

So... I hope to use this blog as a way to keep everyone updated on how I'm doing, what preparations we're making, etc. I'll post photos and stuff like that, too. I'm pretty certain that you, my lovely readers, will be able to post comments to anything I write. So go ahead! (I just don't promise I'll be nice to you if you're mean to me. And I'll blame it on the hormones. They're crazy you know!)

Enjoy the blog... and I'm sure if I'm not updating fast enough, you'll let me know!