Happy 2nd Birthday Hannah!!!!

*I wrote this on 2/17/2010 but am posting it on 2/18/2010. Not sure why the date still says 2/17. Hannah's birthday is 2/18!

Our adorable niece, Hannah Grace, turns 2 today (*2/18)!!! It's been really great for me to be around a baby the last 2 years. Before Hannah, I had never really been around a newborn before....I didn't even know how to hold her. I know having my own baby is going to be totally different, but I still think it's been a good experience. She's so much fun these days...she recognizes us, can call us by name, wants to come to us, wants us to play with her - she especially loves her Uncle Chris!! My in-laws hosted her family birthday party this past Saturday, and I think she had a great time!

A little look back....

The day she was born...
Hannah turns 1...
Hannah turns 2!!
We got her this cute little summer dress and she wanted to wear it over her clothes.We also got her a Ms. Potato-Head!! Fun for all!!
And now a picture that will live forever...Jason will regret that he let me take it...
Ta-da!!!!! She'll love this when she's 16! :-)

Happy Birthday, baby girl! We love you!!

A bowl full of jelly!

I've hit the 30-week mark! T-10 weeks until my due date. Wow, that's gonna be here before we know it! She's still an active little thing. She was having Dance Party USA the other night about 1:00 am when I was awake with Cody. I'm getting worried she's going to have her nights and days mixed up when she gets here. Although, she's pretty active during the day, too. Maybe we're just going to have a super active little one. Or maybe she's getting all her activity out now and she'll be a peaceful little thing when she gets here. I like thinking about it like that (thanks, Laura for putting it that way!) Ha! :-) I felt her having the hiccups for the first time this past week. They don't feel very strong to me yet, but it was a very rhythmic motion and then they stopped after a bit...I figured it had to be hiccups. One night last week I could feel her moving around and so I pulled my shirt up over my belly because my belly was moving around. Chris asked me if Sara Kate was hot...ha! I told him to watch my stomach move and he said it's moving around like a bowl full of jelly (hence the title of this post). Very clever. Here's my 30-week belly picture.
And this week she's still the size of a squash.
Baby's now the size of a squash!

As baby's skin smoothes out, her brain just keeps getting more wrinkled. All those grooves and indentations increase surface area, meaning more room for that oh-so-essential brain tissue. She's also adding some brawn -- her grip is now strong enough to grasp a finger.

What else...

We have the dresser, and it's all built! Chris said the directions sucked, but he got it together in about 3 hours. I took Cody to the park yesterday afternoon to walk, and when I left the frame was up...when I got back it was finished. Yay! It looks great!

Yep, it came in 2 boxes. Fun, fun!

This wasn't even all the pieces.

Making progress!

Done!

Thanks to Phillip's girlfriend, Holly, we also have some art work for the walls. She did a great job!

In sad news, we've had our first baby stuff related casualty. See these cute little socks?
Well, we got 2 sets of these socks for Christmas, thanks to my mom and sister-in-law. I thought about taking 1 set back and exchanging them but just decided to keep both sets. Sara Kate is gonna need socks, right? Apparently Cora thought SHE needed a set, too! I have baby stuff in a box on the floor of the spare bedroom, and I had left the door open one day. Cora went in there, got the socks out of the box, and proceeded to shred/unravel them. I wasn't home from work yet but Chris said they were completely destroyed. It's definitely going to be hard to teach her that Sara Kate's stuff doesn't equal Cora's stuff! It was the first casualty, but I'm sure it won't be the last!

And finally, I'll leave you with a picture of the first outfit Chris has bought for his daughter. He went to Target between school's one day last week and thought she needed this outfit. I thought it was sweet...plus, it's a pretty cute little summery dress!

29 Weeks...a few days late

Thought I'd do a quick update of this past week before it completely slips by me. This past week brought a doctor's appointment. I didn't care for the doctor I saw this week; Chris didn't mind him, though. He was short and sweet and didn't have much to say...that's the reason I didn't care for him. I am hoping he won't be the one on call when it's time to deliver! He did say my weight is good (glad he didn't have any complaints...2 friends have said he was a meanie to them about their weight), I'm measuring fine, and my blood pressure is good. I asked about my levels from my 3-hour glucose test. Turns out I passed the 3-hour with flying colors...all 4 blood draws had my levels between 60-70. Yay! I go back to the doctor on March 1 (which will be about 32 weeks). After that, I go every 2 weeks, and then at 36 weeks, I go every week. Yikes! That'll be here before we know it! We also took an infant CPR class this week...it wasn't a certification, just a class. The only difference between the class we took and an actual certification was that we only covered infant and child CPR and there was no test. It was interesting; I remembered alot from getting certified while lifeguarding. So check that off the list. Another thing to check off the list is registering! That was kind of stressful. We ended up registering at Target and Wal-Mart. Target was fine, even though we were in there forever. But the trip to Wal-Mart annoyed the ever-living daylights out of me!!! We go to get the scanner and they tell us they only have 1 in the store. I was like, you're telling me a retail GIANT like Wal-Mart only has 1 scanner??? That was the most rediculous thing I'd ever heard!! Also, turns out these 2 girls had it (and apparently they had had it for a while) and they were in NO hurry. We followed them briefly...they seemed to be just hanging out. They even had a cart with groceries. I was super annoyed. Anyway, Chris called the other Wal-Mart and their 1 scanner wasn't in use so they held it for us until we got there. Really, we didn't find much baby stuff to register for there...think we probably had a little too much fun on the baby toy aisle but we were grasping at straws. I REALLY wish we had a Babies-R-Us...now that would have been fun! :-) Let's see, what else....oh, we have a new "fruit" of the week! I use quotations b/c I really don't think squash is a fruit. And I also have to say BLAHHH!! When it's time to give Sara Kate veggies, the idea of giving her squash grosses me out b/c I think I'll have to taste it. Chris can introduce her to that veggie. :-) I can't get the picture/info. to copy/paste this week! Will try again next week (guess that would technically be later this week). Also, no belly picture this week...never got around to taking one. Will be sure to do that next week, too (also, technically this later this week)! Oh, and hopefully I will be posting pictures of the dresser/changer soon b/c it's supposed to be here Wednesday. Yay!

Meet George!!

Chris and I are on day 3 of home confinement because of the weather (church was canceled today). We're starting to get a little stir crazy, too. The snow stopped yesterday, and we got about 6 inches of snow on top of about an inch of ice. The drift in front of our front door measured 9 inches...crazy! I've definitely not seen snow like this in my lifetime. Yesterday afternoon I tried to go out and build a snowman...the snow was WAY too powdery. I couldn't get it to pack at all. Chris, with his infinite snowman building wisdom, said it needed to warm up a bit so the snow would melt a tad and pack better. So I figured today was my day! So I layer up and head out back. As I'm working on my base, Chris comes out and says 'I can tell you've never built a snowman before.' Ha! I did tell him about this one time when I was growing up, me and my friend Ashley had to scrape up ALL the snow in the front yard (which obviously wasn't much in south Arkansas) to make a tiny little guy. Haha! So he gives me a little guidance and I get going. Base...check! Mid section...check! Head...check!
Time to accessorize him! Chris was a big help here! He brought me a carrot for a nose, paint stir sticks for arms, an old pair of gloves (Laura, you should recognize these! :-) ), and I told him to bring me a scarf and an old Big Bird hat me and brother wore when we were little (can't make a snowman without that hat making an appearance). The eyes and mouth were a little more tricky. He ended up cutting eyes and a mouth out of a cardboard razorback coaster. It worked. So without further ado, meet George!
Isn't he cute?? :-) I'm pretty proud of him!

And now here are some other pictures of the great snowstorm of 2010!
I took Kacie outside to see what she would do. She was like, I don't think so!!!!!
The dogs, on the other hand, have had a blast playing around, especially Cody (as the video evidence from my last blog shows)!
I look forward to Sara Kate being old enough to go out and play in the snow! :-)

Dogs + Snow = Fun!!

So our winter weather arrived with a vengeance! It started with freezing rain about 3 pm Thursday afternoon, then transitioned to sleet maybe around 7 pm, and then finally to snow about noon Friday. It's been snowing pretty hard and isn't supposed to stop until tomorrow. We took video of the dogs running around outside a little bit ago...they run around like puppies in snow. It's cute!

28 Weeks and Introducing.....

28 weeks means welcome to the 3rd Trimester! We're still hanging in there. I really don't have too much to report this week. Baby girl is still a movin' and a shakin'. Every night she gets pretty active between 8:30-10:00. Chris has a teacher friend whose son was the same way...turned out when he was born he had his nights and days mixed up. Ouch! I was thinking about that early this morning at 2 a.m. when a certain dog (who shall remain nameless...*cough*Cody*cough) just HAD to go outside. Well, I was awake for a little while and baby girl was moving around the whole time. Hopefully she doesn't come out with her nights and days mixed up but I guess we'll have to wait and see. Our fruit of the week is still an eggplant (think this is the last week for that).

Baby's now the size of an eggplant!
Baby's lungs are mature enough that, if born right now, she has a pretty good chance of surviving (with help from medical technology). Her skin is still pretty wrinkly (one byproduct of living in amniotic fluid) but will smoothen as fat continues to deposit.

And here's the obligatory belly shot. Not the best picture, but you get the idea.

The other thing I thought I'd do this week is 'introduce' our little bundle of joy! So here she is... Sara Katherine Michaels!

This is her at 20 weeks...I'd love to have another ultrasound to see her again! Unfortunately, insurance only pays for one. And yep, she has a name. Lots of people already know, but I thought I'd officially post it on here. Sara was the name of Chris' Grandma Michaels, and Katherine was the middle name of my GG (grandmother Greer). We plan on calling her Sara Kate. Yep, we're doing a double name. My dad made the comment that double names are a southern thing and we live in Northwest Arkansas...yes we live in NW Arkansas, but I was raised in south Arkansas, and I would definitely say Arkansas is a southern state. We think it's very classic name and one that will grow well with her as she grows! Sara Kate has been our girl name for 5 years, and we decided we just couldn't give it up. A couple years ago, Chris actually had a Sara Kate in his class and fortunately, she was a good student and a very sweet girl so the name didn't get ruined. Ha!!

In other non-baby news, NW Arkansas is supposed to get hit tonight and tomorrow with an ice/snow storm. We've had freezing rain falling for a couple hours now and it's supposed to do that and sleet all night and then snow all day tomorrow and into Saturday morning. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the ice storm of 2009!! I keep saying I'm gonna build a snowman so maybe I'll actually do it this time! :-)

27 Weeks!

Baby girl is 27 weeks! And actually, today is January 23, which means exactly 3 months until my due date. Kinda crazy! A couple of people have asked if I'm nervous. My answer right now is no, ask me again in April. Haha! I feel like things are pretty much under control. We have the room painted, the crib put together, we're going to order the bedding and the dresser/changer this week, we are signed up for birthing classes (the end of February), I've signed up for a breastfeeding class (sometime in February, I forget exactly when), we have an idea of what car seat/stroller we want and we're looking at crib mattresses, we need to check out pediatrician's at some point...I'm sure there is other stuff, I just don't know what it is. Thoughts? Suggestions?

This week has brought a tad bit of discomfort while sleeping, actually just the last couple of nights. Probably around 18-20 weeks, I was waking up at night with some hip pain if I'd been sleeping on my left side. Then it kind of went away. The last 2 nights I've been waking up with pain in my right hip, along with the same pain in my left hip. I woke up around 5 this morning and just couldn't get comfortable and ended up just dozing off and on for the next 3.5 hours. I'm sure this is nothing compared to what's to come, but it's still annoying! Also, I've started noticing that when I roll over at night it's not as simple as it once was...I have to almost sit up and turn over. Guess that belly is getting in the way. Ha! Speaking of the belly, here's my 27 week picture. Turns out the best picture we took today was one where I was being goofy. So goofy belly pic it is!
And our fruit of the week is still an eggplant, it just has different info.

Baby's now the size of an eggplant!
Baby's lungs are going through some major developments these days, which (combined with the opening of previously plugged nostrils) means she's now able to practice inhaling and exhaling. The lack of air in your womb means every "breath" is filled with amniotic fluid, but hey -- it's progress.

Ok, now for a funny story. Yesterday was my mother-in-law's birthday (Happy Birthday, Sharon!!). Today we went up to Rogers and had lunch with the family to celebrate. Afterward we went to Chris' grandparents house to hang out for a bit. We were sitting there and Jenny (sister-in-law) had been patiently waiting to feel baby girl kick. She started kicking and I went and layed on the floor. Jenny was pressing on my belly and felt some pretty good kicks. We called Sharon over so she could get in on the action. So Sharon and Jenny had their hands on my belly trying to feel kicks and they told Hannah (our niece, who turns 2 in February) to come over and feel the baby. So she came over, knelt beside me, and put her hand on my boob. We all cracked up and Hannah was just as serious as she could be. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. It still makes me giggle! Hopefully the humor of the story comes through in this post! :-)