Blast from the Past

With mom on facebook, I couldn't resist re-posting some of the old pics she put up on her profile:-) How fun are these??




These rosebud outfits are about the cutest things ever! I wish I could find some now for our soon to come new baby!

These were, I believe holiday outfits.

This was at Pyrmont, many many years ago.

And this one was at a car show. Can't believe I used to dress like that!!! LOL

Halloween

So, this year at our office we decided that instead of playing 80s music and dressing like 80s teenagers, this year we would play Disney music and dress at Disney characters. After much deliberation, I settled on being the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland. I was amazed at the comments made this day. Anywhere from..."I didn't realize it was you, I thought you had someone new working here" to "Did you do something different to your hair?" LOL Um, yeah.. And I was shocked at how many people, even while wearing the hat, couldn't tell me who I was supposed to be. The sad thing is, that in a few months time when the new Alice in Wonderland movie comes out, with Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter, everyone will then know who the Mad Hatter is. Everyone has sold out to current Hollywood. :-( How sad!

I will have to say though that I don't think the Mad Hatter was ever 8 months pregnant! :-) Overall, we had a fun day and I will miss not getting to dress up for work next year. I guess I will have to just have a costume party next year to get my dress up fix!:-) Or go trick-or-treating with the kids while dressed up and embarrass the heck out of them...Either way, it'll be fun!!

Braxton Hicks who?

So I'm about 90 % sure I have begun getting Braxton Hicks contractions. The good news is, that they're not bad at all, just a little annoying and makes me nervous a little b/c she really does still need to "bake" a few more weeks. The bad news is, that they're starting to become more frequent. I probably had about 6-10 at work today. Not something you want to have happen when you're in the middle of taking care of patients. My only true fear of labor is having my water break while at work in front of everyone. Other than that, I'm really not that stressed about it.
I am going to attempt to at least labor in the water and if the right doctor is on call when I go into labor, I intend to attempt a water birth with no drugs. People think I'm crazy. Don't care. I really honestly think if I hadn't had the "shakes" so bad and been only 17 the first time around, I really could have made it with no drugs the first time, but we'll see.:-)
Only 49 more days of pregnancy left and only 26 days of work left (both approximations of course). I can't wait! Don't mind the being pregnant bit, but I am SO ready to meet the little ballerina living in my belly!!

I still suck at blogging, but hope my new netbook helps...

Hello all! It has been a dreadfully long time since I last posted and I apologize. As soon as I get home these days I get something to eat, do homework with the kids, and usually then go to bed. It makes it hard to blog...and on top of that, whenever I do have time to blog, I have no computer on which to do it...since the kids are always on the laptop and my husband is generally on his computer. Or Kayla's on Shawn's computer and Jarrin or Jimmy are on the laptop. Sigh. So, I had mentioned to Shawn that I might like to get a little netbook that would be just mine that the kids can't use and that I can use when all the other computers are taken. He surprised me by ordering one this week and it arrived on Friday. It's pink and adorable and I like it so far...it is a bit small and will take some getting used to, but I'm sure it won't take long.
On the pregnancy forefront, I cannot believe that we have only SEVEN weeks left before our baby will be here! And that is if she doesn't come early! It's a shocker I tell you! I have been counting down the days though, especially now that at least the living room is painted and the carpet is in. One less thing to do. I am working on painting a changing table now. Chocolate brown and I'm going to do pink accents. I also need to do a second coat on the bassinette and my co-worker is working on putting a new cover on the bassinette pad. I am also going to put some ribbon accents on it. It should look cute:-) I also made her a blanket. It's fleece and all I did was cut it and tie the ends, but I don't care. I still made it. LoL.
The shower is finally scheduled and coming up soon. I can't wait! I have been holding off on buying some things, especially clothes, because I don't want to buy a bunch of stuff and then get a bunch of doubles at the shower. Right now she only has one winter outfit...to come home from the hospital in! Lol
Anyways, everything is going great and I'm feeling fantastic. I still need to get some belly pics on here (I KNOW Amber...) but I can't take them myself and we've all been so busy! Hopefully, I will get my USB port working soon and put up some pics of the house (once everything is back where it's supposed to be) and belly pics too. Love to you all and hopefully I will be posting a lot more often!

The end of summer, the beginning of 6 months...

Again, it's been awhile since I last posted and I wish I could say that it means that I have completely finished my house and that we're completely ready for baby--but that would be a lie. Sigh. We're trying, but this summer has been extremely busy! Seems like we're always rushing off to somewhere every weekend when I would have the most time to do stuff....oh well. This past week/weekend were very busy, since we had a few birthdays. My husband Shawn turned 38 last Friday and I decided to make him a cake. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

I also agreed to do my niece Bailee's birthday cake...again, pretty proud of it! It was my first attempt at a layered cake and I think I did pretty darn awesome:-) Next layered one I'm planning is Kayla's for her 16th. I'm really excited about that one!

All in all, it's been a busy summer and the time is just flying by. I am really enjoying being pregnant, but I can't wait for our little bundle to arrive! We're through month five and into month six now, believe it or not and have less than 4 months left before the big day! Now I just have to finish painting my kitchen, get it refloored, paint my living room, get it recarpeted, and start re-arranging the kids' rooms and we'll be all set...lol. Baby is now the size of an eggplant, but is definitely more mobile than one. I believe she has finally learned how to flip upside down because the last two days I have finally had kicks that don't feel like they're trying to come out the bottom of my uterus! They're up near my ribs now, so I'm not sure which was better! LOL

Before I finish this blog, I do want to inform interested parties that I have decided not to return to work full time after the baby is born. I will still be doing some part time work for the office I am currently at, but it will be less than half of what I'm working now. I am looking forward to the extra time to spend raising my kids and helping with school and even believe it or not, being all domestic and cooking dinner and cleaning (I know, I know, none of you believe that....). I am nervous and aprehensive though about the drop in income and how I will manage being at home more often when I have worked full time for so long. Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers as we embarq on this new road that we hope will be rewarding for the whole family. :-)

More than half way there!!

Well, it's official! I have now been pregnant longer than I have left to be pregnant! Lol We'll be 21 weeks tomorrow. I can't believe we're this far and yet sometimes I feel like we should be closer to getting to hold this precious little girl and we're just not yet. Sigh. I feel like we've entered the fun stage though. The time where I don't feel awful anymore...actually, I haven't really felt that awful through the whole pregnancy. I now kinda know what those women are thinking when they say they love being pregnant. If I could sleep through the night and didn't have such awful backpain, I'd feel great! I'm also now in the stage where I feel her moving a lot of the time. She still moves more when she's squished, which cracks me up, but she's starting to get a bit of a pattern. She's most active around 7:30 or 8:00 in the evening so sounds like we're going to have another night owl.
Shawn and I just went to the Dayton Celtic Festival on Friday and had a great time. I picked up some baby clothes while I was there...couldn't help myself! Got a white onesie that says "Irish princess" in green; a pink shirt that has a green clover that says "baby Irish"; and a little dress with green and white stripes that says "Thank heaven for baby girls" with clovers under it. So cute:-) So this baby is definitely coming out Irish whether she likes it or not! LOL. She also got to go to her first Gaelic Storm concert in utero. It was loud enough I'm sure she heard it! Or at least felt the vibrations!
Anyway, things are good, now I just need to kick everyone into high gear so this house is ready for our baby girl in a mere 4 and 1/2 months! Can't wait!

AND....Baby Briley is a...

girl!! At least according to our technician and according to the pic below. :-) While either one would be fantastic as long as they were healthy (which she is btw), we are very excited about this baby being a girl.:-) I can't wait to go buy all thinks pink!! This poor baby girl will not get the chance to be a tom girl until she can talk back. Lol.

Also, like many girls, this princess needs her space. She did not take kindly to the ultrasound tech chasing her all around with the wand and she moved and rolled and kicked and changed positions as often as she could. I felt more movement in there in that half hour that I had all day. She doesn't like to feel squashed apparently. No wonder I've been in maternity clothes for 6 weeks already!

And of course, due to the amazing advancements in technology these days, we also got an awesome 3D picture of what our little baby girl is going to look like. I swear it looks like she's trying to play peek-a-boo!

And since I never did get the original ultrasound pics up, here is one to show you just how far our little sweetheart has come in the past 11 weeks. This was her at a mere 7 weeks, compared to her at 18 weeks in this most recent ultrasound:

Isn't pregnancy amazing! Who could believe that the blog in that picture could already look like a tiny person! Wow. Anyway, I'm exhausted and ready for bed, but just wanted to show off like the proud mama I am! Can't wait for her to arrive!