The fruits (and vegetables) of our labor

Just 2 and a half months ago, we planted our little garden. It has done quite well so far! In fact, we are thinking of expanding the long strip of a garden into an L-shape along the fence so that we can plant more things next year. Our only disappointments this year were the peppers. I don't know if I bought bad plants or just didn't plant them in the right places, but we only have one very sad looking pepper. Our broccoli grew tremendously. Unfortunately we didn't get to enjoy it. It kept getting bigger and bigger and we wanted to see how big it would get, when all of a sudden each of the green dots on the head of the broccoli turned into a yellow flower! OOPS! Now we know better for next year that you have to pick the broccoli when it's normal size before it turns into a bouquet of flowers!

cucumbers and tomatos

The garden - cucumbers, watermelon and canteloupe are very viny!

chive onions - we have cut these many times this year and used them. They are tasty!

Sweet corn. We haven't had any yet, but we are looking forward to it!

Tomatos - waiting to turn red so we can pick.

And we finally have a watermelon coming in...I hope it turns out good. I haven't heard a lot of success stories with these in the past. We'll see.

All of these vines and just one little cantelope so far. Hopefully we will get more.

Dennis is really looking forward to this.

Rebecca's Baptism

On Sunday, my cousins Jim & Julie baptised their daughter Rebecca Renae. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Here is Rebecca at the after party...she changed out of her long christening gown.

Another picture from the party.

The baptism at the church. Rebecca with her parents and Godparents.

A view of the church...very pretty.

159 days down, 121 to go

OK so I know there is no need to post ANOTHER belly picture....BUT my dad and stepmom surprised me this weekend with this really pretty pink shirt that I just love so I thought, why not? Anyway...here we are at 22 and a half weeks :) Aren't we cute?

Peek-A-Boo

Today we went for a 2D/3D/4D ultrasound at The Belly Factory in Frankfort, IL. We got the confirmation that Angelica is indeed a girl! The woman who performed the ultrasound has been doing ultrasounds for 35 years and she assured us that this is definitely a baby girl! She sure looked cute in there! She was doing a lot of moving around, waving her arms, sucking her thumb, and lots of smiling. She even gave us the "thumbs up" sign! The ultrasound tech showed us everything and said that it looks like she is developing great. We even got to count her fingers and toes and saw all 10 of them there! We got a ton of pictures and a video. Here are some of the cutest shots. :)

Since we are at 22 weeks, she doesn't have a lot of fat under her skin yet, so she is more skeletal looking - but still very cute!

Here you can see her head, eyes, nose, mouth and she is giving us the thumbs up!

Here she has moved her hands away from her face and just appears to be smiling.

We saw a LOT of thumb sucking going on in there!

I like this picture. It looks like she is folding her hands to lay down and take a nap.

And another with her arms bent and hands in front of her face.

Hi there!

Now we have one arm on either side with a hand on either side of her face. Peek-a-boo!

hahahaha

What a cutie pie!

She will of course look a lot different once she is fully developed. Our main purpose for going in was just to make sure of the sex. All of these pictures were kind of a surprise for me. I didn't think we would be able to see her in such detail! My mom and Dennis's mom came along for the trip and we were all pretty amazed at what we saw. The tech also recorded the sound of her heartbeat and put it in a little teddy bear, so she will have that to comfort her after she is born. All in all it was a great experience that I would definitely recommend!

22 weeks

Today marks 22 weeks into the pregnancy...18 weeks to go. I have FINALLY started feeling the baby move pretty regularly. I notice it mostly at night after dinner, but also off and on throughout the day. I have to say I was a little freaked out that I wasn't really feeling anything at first. There were little flutters here and there, but nothing all that definite. Right around 20 weeks we went swimming at a friend's house and after I got out of the pool I started feeling some serious poking around going on in there. As we have gone swimming at our house, I feel the same thing once I get out of the pool. I think she likes it when I swim and wants me to get back in the pool! haha....maybe she will be a little water bug like her mom!

At last week's checkup I met with another of the Dr's in our practice. There are four doctors altogether and you never know who might be the one there to deliver so they want you to meet them all. The new Dr. I met was really nice. He went over the results of my ultrasound and said that everything looks good and normal. That was also a nice sigh of relief. We listened to her heartbeat, which is finally slowing down a bit. It started off pretty high around 177 and is now down to the 140's. Just like anything else, as she gets bigger, the heartbeat will slow down. The Dr. also measured me and said I was measuring at 22 weeks although I was technically at 21....so just a little bigger than we expected.

The Dr's had been concerned about my weight as I started out overweight. They only want me to gain a total of 12-16 pounds throughout the whole pregnancy. In the beginning, I lost a little weight, but now I am up 3 pounds. Hopefully I can keep the pace slow so I don't go overboard. I am starting to get my appetite back, but working from home I am able to grab granola, yogurt, fruit, veggies, etc. instead of a candybar (although once in a while I do have some ice cream...still though one quart of ice cream has lasted me over a month, so I'm not doing too bad!) After the baby is born, I won't just need to lose the baby weight, but another good 50 lbs or so to get back to being healthy. I actually kind of feel excited about it though rahter than overwhelmed. I was so depressed for so long with not being able to get pregnant and then having a miscarriage that I feel a million times better now and I can visualize myself having a more active lifestyle once again. Because of my weight they gave me an early diabetes test, which was normal. I will have another one at 28 weeks just like everyone else does.

This week we will be going to The Belly Factory in Frankfort http://www.thebellyfactory.com/ where we will get to have another sneek peak at Angelica. Our whole purpose for doing this is to make sure she is a girl before we start painting the room and taking tags off of things to get ready. Although the Dr's office was fairly certain that she is a girl, they will never give a 100% guarantee. The ultrasound machines at The Belly Factory produce 3D images on a very large screen and they will give you a 100% guarantee on gender. If the baby is not in the right position to see, you can come back later at no charge. It's pretty cool what they can do now in terms of seeing so much detail so early on. I think it will be fun to see her squirming around in there and it will be nice to get the confirmation that she is definitely a girl. (If not, I have a lot of exchanges to make and will need to spend some serious time shopping!) I am sure I will post some pictures when we return.

I also have a friend who has recently taken some maternity photographs through Janet Lynn Photography in Crown Point, IN http://www.janetlynnphotography.com/index2.php?v=v1 (Click on "Galleries" at the very bottom of the screen. The first bar on the left is an example of some of the maternity photographs.) She also does excellent work with newborns, babies, kids, families, etc. I am thinking of striking up a relationship with this photographer. I am the type of person who really puts a LOT of value into photography and also in having a good relationship with just one person who I can work with for a long time. She takes pictures of newborns during their first 7 days of being born. Won't that be exciting! The week between Christmas and New Year's if she is born near her due date! After the catastrophe we had with having HORRIBLE wedding pictures, I am of the mind that you get what you pay for when it comes to photography and I definitely want to work with someone who knows what they are doing!

This week all of the kids are going back to school. I always really enjoyed going to school when I was a kid, but the first week of school was always hell for me with my allergies. I would literally have to walk around school carrying a box of kleenex all day long, looking like I was crying from tears constantly flowing down my face and having a runny nose. It lasted about 2 weeks and then I was back to normal. After moving to Beecher, my allergies got much worse. We are surrounded by farm fields which means lots more ragweed, pollen and who knows what else. For the past 3 years I have had to go to the Dr. and get steroid shots to help my allergies. I knew that with being pregnant this August, it would be hard for me to not take any medication, but I am pressing through. Just one more week to go and I should be better. Although I didn't really like getting the shots or the side effects from them, I was so miserable I would cave and get them. It is kind of nice to not have that option this year.

Well those are all my thoughts for now. I just thought I would post a quick update since I have not been that good about updating the blog that much this year. I will post more after the ultrasound later this week. Happy Wednesday! :)

18 week ultrasound

We had our 18 week ultrasound on July 22 and found out that we are having a girl! Here are some of the pictures. Instead of giving us the usual printout, they gave us the pictures burned on to a CD ROM.

here is her cute little butt - and a bent leg

Here she is laying on her back and you can see her legs bent.

Here is the front hald. She is laying on her stomach with her arm bent and hand touching her face.

Here is a view of her head. I am not sure of the angle of this one.

I believe this is just a measurement of the size of her head so far.

Here she is laying on her back with her nose pointed up towards the top.

And one last headshot.

These pictures were not as easy to see...for us anyway. Since she is bigger now, it is harder to get a picture of her entire body in one shot. So they have to take pictures of different segments of her body. The ultrasound was interesting. It lasted about 45 minutes. For the first half hour I was alone with the ultrasound tech. She didn't say much to me, just kept taking pictures. I think she took a little over 100 pictures in all. She then went to get Dennis so she could show us the baby together. During the ultrasound she was concerned that the baby would not roll over so she wasn't able to take pictures of her spine. Once Dennis came back in, she turned the ultrasound back on and there on the screen was her spine. So, we got lucky and we were able to finish the entire ultrasound that day. That was also when we found out it was a girl. Both Dennis and I thought it was a girl, but we had no reason for that guess. It was just a guess. So, since we were guessing it was a girl, we figured it would probably be a boy. Honestly, we didn't care one way or another. I think I'd like to have a boy someday too, but whatever God gives us, we will be happy with. We knew there was only one baby. So while we were excited it was a girl we were also a little disappointed it wasn't a boy. It was kind of a weird feeling. I am sure if it was a boy, we would have been disappointed it wasn't a girl as well. But the only way you can have both is with twins and we knew that wasn't the case ahead of time. We are anxious and excited about meeting our little girl and hope that one day we will be able to give her a sister or brother too!

It's a girl!

We had an ultrasound on July 22. Although the Dr's office won't give a 100% guarantee, our ultrasound technician was very certain that we are having a girl! We do have another ultrasound scheduled in late August just to make sure before we start painting the room, etc.

We have been very excited with this news and have already been shopping several times. We registered at Babies R Us and Pottery Barn Kids. We've bought at least a dozen or so outfits! I had a very successful shopping trip with my friend Jen and bought very cute pink ruffly curtains, an adorable little flowered chandelier light, and some pretty three dimensional nylon butterfiles. We have decided to decorate the room with pinks and pastels and go with some sort of a butterfly theme. I am planning a date with my stepmom to look at paint colors and styles. She is an expert when it comes to interior decorating.

We planned to use my old crib. It was a beautiful crib in it's time and had a really cute canopy over the top of it. It met all of the modern day safety standards. My dad came over one night to help Dennis bring it up from the basement and assemble it, but we had trouble with a few parts and it wasn't as sturdy as we had hoped. I was really bummed out, wanting to hand something like this down to my daughter, but figured I wouldn't be able to sleep well at night if I was worried about the integrity of the crib. So, I started looking at other options. I ended up finding a beautiful set at a really good price on craigslist and thanks to my mom, we got it! (Thanks mom!)

We have decided on a few names. We are 99% sure we will be naming our baby Angelica. We aren't sure on a middle name and probably won't decide until she is born. We picked out the name Angelica 2 years ago when we were in Rome. We were waiting for our tour guide to take us through the Vatican and the street intersection we were standing at was Angelica and Angelico. We both loved the name. (Before this trip we were set on the name Sophia, but it has become very popular now and with a last name like Smith we want something a little more unique.) Our other option for a name is Natalie Noel. We say that if she ends up being born on Christmas, we may name her Natalie Noel, but we will see. The name Natalie means "born on Christmas." Our official due date is still December 23rd.

Here are some of the newest pictures. This Wednesday we will be at 21 weeks.

20 weeks pregnant

19 weeks pregnant

The new nursery set!

Changing table/dresser with glass front drawers

Armoir with glass front drawers and a hanging and shelf section behind the door.

And the crib. It converts to a toddler bed and to a full size bed.

Staining The Deck

Dennis took a week off of work. After working 90 hours in one week he needed a break! Although we didn't make any plans to go on vacation we did plan to take care of a lot of little things around the house and have some fun. I took the week off as well. The biggest project we tackled was staining the deck. We had it installed last year and the wood is pretty well dried out now. We put on a stain/water seal protectant which should last us a few years before having to do it again. It was a lot of work as we had to do the whole thing by brush, but it turned out nice.

Den, staining the deck..

Here you can see the difference between the stained and unstained wood. It definitely adds a nice color to the deck. It also protects it from water, etc.

Living in the land of the wind, our old patio umbrella completely blew inside out and was beyond repair, so we found this one on clearance! It is bigger and looks pretty nice.

Here is the finished product.