So much to do, so little time

So much has happened, and is happening, since my last post. Where do I begin?

No more apartment!
We have moved into our fabulous new house here in McKinney. We love it and Gabe loves it. We still have a lot to do but everything is coming along nicely. If you haven't been invited over yet, please don't take it personally, we've just been swamped. Call me and come over for a visit!

Gabe turned 2 in December
He is growing like a weed and is learning so much so fast. He has turned into quite the little trickster. He loves all things trains and cars. He still calls anything with wheels a choo choo and no matter how many times I try to correct him that it is a truck or tractor, he simply looks at me like I'm crazy and says "no mommy, it's a choo choo". We'll get there.

Pregnancy
This pregnancy has turned out to be a bit of a roller coaster ride for us. First of all, moving from a house to a very small apartment then moving again into a new house, all in a matter of four and a half months, while pregnant, is insane. I don't recommend it to anyone! Talk about stress at a time that is already stressful.

We had three unfortunate trips to the doctor for emergency sonograms due to bleeding. Fortunately everything has been fine and all I needed to do was rest a little more. Which really meant no more lifting, including lifting Gabe. But, other than those three incidents, things have been pretty normal. Normal body aches, mood swings and hormones. Hopefully they haven't been too bad for my two guys at home. Lately I have just been tired all the time. Oh, the joys of the last few weeks of pregnancy.

Most exciting
In my last post we had just found out that our new little peanut is a boy. Since then we have given him a name: William Reese Thompson. We can't wait to meet him. Well, we can wait two and a half more weeks, but not much longer! Gabe was born at 37 weeks and came spontaneously so we, and my doctor, are expecting an early arrival from Will as well. With that in mind, I will have bags packed for myself and Gabe by the end of this week. Just to be prepared.

Back to the title of this post...

There is so much to do before William's arrival. Don't be surprised if the next post is all about his birth. Based on my recent dedication to posting (or lack thereof) , it might include his one month photos as well. Ha!

Say a prayer (or cross your fingers) that things go smoothly for us. We will be happy to see you all, so call us up to come meet our new little guy and see Gabe become a great big brother in just a few short weeks!

Week 34

I had my doctor's appointment today and - so far - cutting my work hours has helped. We are going to give it another week and still keep an eye on my blood pressure. If everything stays on track the new goal will be to induce the third week in December. Meanwhile, I'll just keep things simple and stay off my feet as much as possible.

Our boy is doing great and starting to move around a lot! Sometimes I think he's swinging around on my ribs like a monkey. Which figures as his nursery has just a few monkeys hanging around as well. Yep, we have finally finished it. (Well almost, just a few more decorative touches to go.) It's painted, furnished and my mom made us some great crib dressings and curtains. We have a few more pictures on our flickr site so check them out!

Sugar, weight gain and braxton hicks

Today I had my gestational diabetes test. For those of you who do not know what this entails, basically I have to drink 10 ounces of a glucose mixture and then get my blood checked after an hour. I should get a call tomorrow with the results. My glucose happened to be orange flavored and tasted a bit like Orange Crush with about 10 cups of sugar added. Now anyone that knows me knows that I can handle sweet: chocolate, cakes, candy...there haven't been many things that have been too much to handle. Let me tell you, I found out that after today I think I have had enough sugar for the rest of the week and I probably will not be able to drink orange flavored anything for a long time to come. Let's hope my results come back clean so I don't have to do it all over again!

I have also now gained a total of 14 pounds. That's right on track so far and I'm expected to gain probably another 8 to 10 before this whole thing is over. Since I gained 5 pounds this last month I have now passed up Chris in his sympathy weight gain. He has held at 10 pounds. Which brings me to the question: is this sympathy weight really attributed to this pregnancy or has his diet and activity level just adjusted as mine has? Are there any scientific studies that link it to hormones and is this pregnancy really wreaking havoc on my husbands body as well as my own? Hmmm...

Also worth mentioning are these weird contraction-like sensations I have been having. Apparently they are called braxton hicks contractions and are pretty much like labor contractions except so far they haven't been painful and don't affect the cervix. Just leaves me a little sore after a while. That, combined with my growing back aches, may unfortunatly leave me with the possibility of having to cut my working hours down yet again. Cross your fingers that I can stay on my feet for the next 10 to 12 weeks until this baby comes.

As for that nursery I keep mentioning, it is painted! But yet still not finished. Chris and I still have a chair rail to put up and then wait for our furniture to arrive. By next week we should have a picture. At least one of an empty room. There's no word (yet) of when our furniture should be here but hopefully in the next two to three weeks.

Stay tuned.

Salt Lake Shower Yields Gifts, Cornhole and Good Hygiene

Chris and I attended our first baby shower. Yep, now everything is starting to seem more and more real. We are really having a baby and now our house is starting to show it. For my birthday back in August Chris bought us tickets to SLC to visit my family before we hit the no travel zone (aka the third trimester). While we were there my mom and sister-in-law, Amanda, threw us a baby shower. It was a lot of fun. Because we wanted to see as many people as possible while we were there the baby shower was co-ed (much to the "delight" of Chris).

We played two different shower games. The first was for all the men who attended (all 8 of them). They had to drink beer from a sippy cup and the first to finish was the winner. Needless to say it was fun to watch.  Take a look for yourself, below. My mom's friend and co-worker Karl won with my uncle Dan coming in a close second.

After the beer drinking, the second and final game was for couples. We all had to dance with our significant other, with an egg held between our foreheads.  The last couple left dancing without dropping their egg wins.  Chris and I made it to the final two before we dropped our egg.  Oh, so close!

However, our spirits weren't dampened by the loss.  Rather, we felt blessed when we opened lots of loot in the form of great new clothes for our little guy and a few gift cards as well. Chris' mom even made the trip and got us our car seat. She's doing her part to make sure her grandchild will travel safely, and in style! It was really fun to have her there.

Before we left, my mom and I made a couple of trips to some fabric stores and picked out a few things. She is going to make the bedding and curtains for the new nursey. I will be sure to post pictures as soon as we see the finished product. I'm sure they will be wonderful.  She did such a great job helping my neice Stella out with her room I'm sure our little man will love his just as much!

All in all, it was a great trip. Hopefully we won't have to stay away too long after the little man is here. A ski trip would be very nice this season and we hope to fit it in.

One other thing to mention is our newfound fondness for a game to which my brother Paul and his wife Amanda introduced us: Cornhole. We've posted some pitures of us all playing on our Flickr site (see below for an example). I would like to mention that Paul and I won 5 of the 7 games we played as a team. We rule! Needless to say, Chris is planning to build the appropriate fixtures so we can play here in Dallas as well. If you live in the area, don't be suprised if you're invited over for a game or two in the near future.

Next up? Painting the nursery. I will have pictures soon. We plan to have it done by the end of the month if not sooner. We have furniture arriving in October. Wow, this pregnancy is flying by!

Long time, no post

It's been a while since our last post and a lot has happened in that time. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your perspective), we've broken the updates into sections for easier consumption.

Home Improvement
First, what's the reason for the long delayed posting? Our new office...well, office/guest bedroom. In order to make room and prepare for our little man we have disassembled the office (as we once knew it) to combine it and our guest room. First we painted the room. Then we assembled some new office furniture (by we I mean Chris). Finally, we moved the guest bed from the old guest room to the new combo room. Next on our agenda is to paint the now empty remaining room - the nursery - and acquire furniture. We'll post about our progress in the nursery as soon as we've actually made some. In the meantime, here's a photo of the new office/guest bedroom.


Family Reunion
Before all of this (way back in July) we went to Lake Tahoe for my family reunion. It was lots of fun and we got to see many members of my extended family that we hadn't seen in a long time. We also got to use our new camera and took a ton of photos (see below for one example). Among the fun activities at this year's reunion were karaoke, kickball, rafting, wake boarding and even a photo scavenger hunt. On top of all that, each night had it's own fun from card games to a Trivial Pursuit smack down. All in all it was a great trip!


Our Baby Boy (In Progress)
Two weeks ago we had our 20 week sonogram and got to see (almost) irrefutable evidence that our little guy is indeed a guy.

There are even more pictures of our baby on our Flickr site and while he seems to look a bit more like a little alien than a baby, he's OUR little alien. :-) During that same appointment, we received news that I have what is called a low lying placenta. That condition may or may not correct itself in the next few months. If not, it looks like we will have a planned c-section. That's not something to worry about at this point so we are focusing on getting everything ready for the big day.

Meanwhile, my little hitchhiker has been kicking up a storm. We're hoping that in the next week or so Chris will be able to feel some kicks as well. It all seems to be going so fast. Next thing you know it will be December and we'll have a whole new reason for delayed posting.

My Birthday
For my birthday, Chris gave me a round trip ticket to SLC so I can visit my family in September. I'm going to let him tag along. While we are there my mom is throwing a baby shower. Yay, gifts!

Last, But Not Least
For our last bit of news, we just found out that there's a bun in a different oven. Chris's middle brother, Michael, and his girlfriend Melissa are expecting a little one of their own. We are very excited that our little man will now have three cousins close to his age (two in the Dallas area). Our family keeps growing and growing. We wish Michael and Melissa the best of luck.