Our baby is already a stinker!

So, I had to go to the Dr. yesterday for a personal issue and while I was there, the Dr. decided to do a prenatal checkup. He whipped out that device to listen to the baby's heartbeat but Baby wasn't cooperating. He moved the wand-thingy all around and kept asking the baby where it was hiding. Meanwhile, I was trying to hold it together and not freak out. He decided to lay me flat to see if that helped. It didn't. So he said he'd go get the other ultrasound machine. He said my uterus could be tilted back and that's why we couldn't hear the heartbeat. Once he did the other ultrasound, my fears subsided. There was the baby. And the little stinker waved it's arm at me as if to say, "Don't worry momma, here I am!". I could see the heartbeat too. It was so cool. The Dr. asked me if this was worth the few minutes of worry and it totally was. I just wished Nathan would have been there to experience it with me. The Dr. did confirm the tilted uterus so I don't know if this will always be an issue or not. My online research says it usually tilts back in place between weeks 10 and 12. I'm in week 10 now.

I also couldn't believe how much the baby looks more like a baby since my last ultrasound at the beginning of the month. And I have a better ultrasound picture now (above). I've been feeling pretty good lately. Nauseous is gone. Just battling the fatigue and tailbone pain. My wonderful husband made his first craving run for me this week. It was an easy one at a reasonable hour. I wanted french onion dip and since he was going to get that, I also had him get me original Krunchers chips and sunflower seeds (which I haven't eaten yet). I can't get enough of the chips and dip right now.

I have a few pictures from the past couple of weekends to post. I will try to get them up this weekend.

Oh, and Nathan is having surgery on his right wrist for his carpal tunnel on Wednesday, July 1st. Say some prayers that all goes well and that he has a speedy recovery.

-Dawn

In Case You Haven't Heard. . . We're Having a Baby!!!!

OK, so even though almost everyone knows that Nathan and I are having a baby, I've been waiting to post it on here so I could upload the first ultrasound pictures. Well, we've been pretty busy the past couple of weekends and when we are not going, going, going, I'm exhausted, nauseous or just don't feel good. I finally got around to asking Nathan to scan the pictures last night, which he did willingly, but he couldn't get them out of the HP Wizard to email them to me. So. . . long story short (not really, at this point!), we're having a baby but I can't post the ultrasound pictures as of yet. :) :(

As of today, June 16, 2009, I am 8 weeks, 5 days pregnant. I'm not really sure when people ask if I should say I'm 8 weeks at this point or 9 weeks. I get these weekly email updates and the one I got this week is Week 9 because it says I'm 8 weeks, 5 days. Very confusing if you ask me. Anyway, my due date is Jan. 21, 2010. It was pushed back from Jan. 13th at my last appointment.

Many people ask how I knew I was pregnant. I guess I had early symptoms but they were the symptoms you might read about but the ones that most people don't experience. First, I had a metal taste in my mouth. I had it every morning for about a week and a half. Yuck! Then, my gums were bleeding every time I brushed my teeth (and once when I was checking out at the grocery store!). I really didn't know these were symptoms at the time. I think the one that gave it away the most was, as Nathan puts it, my super-sonic sense of smell. The new ceiling tiles in our basement smelled so bad to me and everytime I opened the refridgerator, I thought something smelled bad (I think it was that our Brita pitcher needed to be cleaned). Then finally, I had a few more normal symptoms that I won't go into. :)

I decided to take a pregnancy test on Mother's Day. Even though I wondered, I thought for sure it would say "Not Pregnant". When it said the opposite though, I about fainted. Nathan was still in bed and I ran in there. He pretended he was asleep. I was shaking him and he finally said, "I can ignore you all day" (nice, huh?). I said, "No you can't because I'M PREGNANT!" He opened his eyes realy quick then. I cried as we hugged each other. I kept looking at the test to make sure I had read it right. I was just in shock. We had to quickly move on though because we had our families coming over to celebrate Mother's Day and there was lots to do.

We told my mom, my brother and Nathan's parents that day. We wanted to tell everyone but we knew I should go to the Dr. first to confirm everything. The weird thing is that when I sent the email to invite everyone to the Mother's Day BBQ, Nathan's sister, Heather, asked me if we were hosting it to annouce that we were pregnant. She said her psychic just told her that that someone close to her was pregnant. When she sent me that email though, I didn't know I was pregnant but obviously, her psychic did!

Another weird thing along those lines is that once I made the annoucement at work last week, one of my co-workers told me that this girl who works in another department at our work, had asked his wife (who works in the same dept. as this girl) if I was pregnant. And she had asked the week before I found out. So I was pregnant but had no idea. I asked her how she knew and she said one day I was standing at the copier and she just looked at me and thought I was pregnant. She said she can usually tell by the eyes. Crazy! I now call her the "Baby Whisperer". (BTW, she says I'm having a girl!)

Anyway, I know this is a long post but there is so much I want to remember and have in writing about this whole experience. But all in all, we are very excited and feel very blessed. I'm excited for Graham to be a big brother because I know he will be great. And I already know that Nathan will be a wonderful dad because I see how he is with Graham. It's comforting to know he's been through this once before and we both won't be total newbies at this.

We will found out the sex of the baby when we can. I think that will be sometime in Sept. Nathan and Graham are pulling for a boy but I'm pulling for a girl so we can even out our household. But really, we just pray for a healthy baby either way. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that everything goes OK. I'm sure that I'll be posting a lot as we continue this journey through the birth in Jan. and beyond!

And hopefully, one of us will figure out how to get the ultrasound pictures on here sooner or later!

Love,
Dawn

I was on it -sort of-this weekend!

So I tried to make sure I took pictures this weekend but I didn't necessarily take the best pictures. So here goes. . .

Friday, Nathan and I went to the wedding reception for our friends, Andy and Toni, who got married in Jamaica a couple of weeks ago. The reception was nice and a lot of fun. Toni looked beautiful and I have to say that I'm a little jealous that she got to wear her wedding dress twice! What bride doesn't want that?

Toni, Andy and their head table

Mr. and Mrs. Swain dancing their first dance

me and Nathan at the reception

Chrissy, Janet, Amy and Toni

Jim, Nathan, Jaime and Kyle

Sat. we had a 1st birthday party to go to for Adelyn. She is the daughter of my sister-in-law, Jessica and brother-in-law, Jesse. I think Nathan and I were tired from the reception the night before but it was a good time. Adelyn is adorable and was cracking us up. Here are a few pictures of her opening her presents.

Jesse and Adelyn

After the party, we went to Graham's baseball game. They won and Graham pitched great. He was cracking me up because he was really watching the baserunners and making sure they didn't steal. He picked one or two of them off and he was charging the bases to make sure the runners got back and tagged up. It was a riot. I'm not sure what got into him but I liked it! Here are a few pictures of him pitching. He's a natural.

He winds up. . .

. . . and he throws it in there for a strike!

Right now, Nathan is at the Rennaisance Fair with some friends. I decided not to go since it was storming and I just wanted to take it easy. While he is gone, I took a couple pictures of the motorcycle he just bought from his friend, Mike. He's been wanting a bike FOREVER so I finally caved and agreed to it. Mike gave him a great price so I have to say thanks to him for that!

And finally, here are some pictures of our basement over the last few years. It went from all white walls, no ceiling and horrible tile to blue walls, no celiling and horrible tile to brown walls, a celing and carpet . Not to bad and it serves it's purpose.

Yuck!

white and boring

Stingrays!

Graham reaching out to touch a stingray

Nathan and Graham in line at the Stingray exhibit. Nathan had to take off his long sleeve shirt because it was hot and we were not prepared to be at the zoo! He doesn't usually wear a "wife beater" tank when we're out in public! :)

So anyway, we didn't do much on Friday night. I think Nathan and Graham played kickball outside and then we all just watched TV. Saturday we went to see the new Disney movie, "UP". My work gets these free screenings from time to time. This one was at Chesterfield Mall and we get free popcorn/soda and this time we got giant sugar cookies with balloons on them afterwards. The movie was very good.

After that, we had to go unexpectedly to the hospital to visit my stepmom. She's not doing too good. She has a tumor on her tonsil and had to be rushed to the ER on Friday. She was sedated when we got there so the 3 of us and Josh hung out with my dad for a while. Last I heard, they were still waiting for her test results to see how they are going to proceed. Please say some prayers for her and my dad.

After the hospital, we started to head home because Graham had 6:00 and 8:00 baseball games but we got a text saying the games were cancelled. We hadn't gotten too far so we turned out and went to the zoo. We weren't there too long because we were hot and weren't really prepared for the zoo. I had on jeans and not the most comfortable shoes. We did see the new stingray exhibit. The pictures above are Nathan and Graham as we were standing in line and a picture of Graham reaching out to touch a stingray (they are slimy!) (My stupid computer won't move the pictures to this spot so that's why they are at the top of the page.)

After the zoo, we went to Target to kill some time until we met up with Erica and friends at Las Palmas for Erica's bday dinner. It was a yummy and a good time. But we left our house at 9 am and returned at 9 pm so it was an exhausting day!

Sunday, we did some yardwork (and by "we", I mean mostly Nathan but I did pull weeds and sweep outside - my back thigh muscles are sore to prove it!) Then we went to Graham's baseball game. My mom came with us. They lost by 1 run! :( His team just isn't performing this year like they usually do. That night, we made dinner and watched the MTV movie awards. If anyone reading this watched, please let me know in the comments if the Bruno/Eminem thing was staged. Eminem looked pissed but I don't know if it was on purpose.

Our basement should be finished today. Thanks to Jamie and Brad for helping with the ceiling and the electric. Nathan and I have some finishing touches but it's finished for the most part. It looks so much better. I guess I need to take some pictures to post. Maybe next time!

Have a great week,

Dawn

No Pictures - Sorry

Not too much has been going on lately. Let's see. . . last week, Graham had a baseball game on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. He missed the Wednesday game because he went to the Cardinal game with his mom and grandparents. I think that's good because playing 3 games in 3 nights is a bit much. I'm not sure why they cram them all together, especially since he has no weeknight games this week? (But no fear, he has 2 on Sat. and one on Sun.)

Nathan and I both took Friday off from work. We were supposed to go camping over the Memorial Day weekend. I decided to stay home though. (I know, what a party pooper!). I just didn't feel like spending 4 days off of work that way. So anyhow, we ran some errands and such on Friday and then he left about 4:00. That night I went to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with his parents and sisters to celebrate Rachel's 31st bday. It was fun and was actually the first time I've done something with Nathan's family without him. :)

Sat. I worked out, cleaned the bathroom and swept the kitchen (my goal for the weekend was cleaning!). I met my mom and brother for lunch at Winery of the Little Hills down on Main St. in St. Charles. We walked around after and got ice cream. The 3 of us always have the best time together. Then my mom and I went to Fleet Feet (I got some tennis shoes that are 100% capatible to my feet characteristics) and TJ Maxx. Later we watched Mamma Mia. That night I cleaned out my closet.

Sunday I slept until 11:00! I couldn't believe it. I don't know the last time I did that. My mom and me went to lunch and to the mall and then later watched Bride Wars. That night I dusted most of the house (living room, computer room, bedroom) and looked through our wedding pictures and scrapbooks (guess I was missing my hubby).

Monday I worked out and ran up to the mall. Nathan got home about 1:30. We just vegged most of the day/night. He said he had a good time camping but I would have been miserable because it rained most of the day on Sunday during their float. He said it was a light annoying rain. Yeah, I know I would not have liked that!

It's probably good for us to have weekends apart from time to time but I really missed him a lot! I guess the next weekend apart will be when I travel to Ft. Lauderdale at the end of June for work.

Hope everyone has a great week! I'll try to start taking some pictures. The first weekend in June is jammed packed for us so that should yield some photo opps! :)

Dawn

Weekend Recap

This past weekend was a nice one. Friday we went to Graham's baseball game. The crazy part was when the wind whipped through the ball part all of a sudden and it felt like a tornado was sure to follow. The dust on the field was blowing everywhere (poor kiddos couldn't see what they were doing) and the temperature dropped what felt like at least 10 degrees. They finally called the game once it started lightening and raining. The Tigers were winning so it was all good! Later at home, Graham, Nathan and I just watched TV.

Saturaday, our friend Jamie, came over and finished the ceiling tiles in the basement. So between that and all the new lighting, it looks great! Brad will come over one more time to finish some of the outlets and then Nathan will put up base boards, etc. Then we can start decorating. I think we are in the market for a red couch to go down there if anyone has one they want to part with or hears of any good deals. It already looks so much better so I can't wait until it's all complete. The down side is that the ceiling tiles stink so I'm trying to burn candles and stuff to get rid of that! Hopefully, it will wear off soon.

Saturaday night we went to dinner at Cusumano's. It's a new restaurant that my friend Julie and her husband opened in O'Fallon. Her parents' owned the same restaurant in North County back in the day and closed it in 2001. Julie and Chris reopened it and it was just as delicious as ever. They have awesome pizza. The three of us went with Kelly, Seth and their kids Abby and Adam; Dan and his daughter, Anna; Jennifer, Chuck and their kids, Sarah and Jenna; and Jim and his sons, Jackson and Landon. It was crazy with all of the kids! Afterwards, some of us went back to Jennifer and Chuck's house to hang out. It was fun!

Sunday, Graham and I went to church. It was the first time Graham has really sat through a regular Catholic mass. He did good but he was admittedly a little bored. He's used to going to Sunday School at a non-denominational church with his mom that is A LOT different. Not sure if he will want to go back but we'll see. I'm just proud that he wanted to check it out in the first place. I wish my parish had a Sunday School he could attend during the mass. Sunday night, me, my mom and Nathan went to see Star Trek with Nathan's parents, Ray and Gail, Nathan's sister, Chantel and our brother-in-law, Bryan. It was good. I didn't understand everything but it was still a good movie. Nathan explained what he could on the way home! :)

A big group of my friends are leaving for Jamaica today for Toni and Andy's wedding. I'll miss my email buddies this week! I hope they all have a fun and safe trip though and I hope the wedding is beautiful!

Dawn

Worst Wedding Traditions

I saw this article and decided to post it since our blog started off as a way for us to update family and friends about our wedding. I thought it was interesting (and cool) how we didn't do any of the things that are listed on here about the worst wedding traditions. Therefore, I'm giving myself a pat on the back right now!


The Worst Wedding TraditionsPosted Mon, May 11, 2009, 11:47 am PDT

When it comes to weddings, who says you have to follow all the rules? Sure, if you want to stick with some classic traditions, go for it. But we believe that less is more, so it's time to reevaluate the old-school ways of saying "I do." The more you simplify, the more you'll be able to focus on the really important stuff for your big day...

Matching Bridesmaids Chances are the friends, sisters and cousins you've selected to be in your bridal party aren't all of identical make-and-model. One's a tall lanky brunette, another is a short curvy blonde. So outfitting them all in the exact same dress means there's a good chance someone is going to look awkward (at best) and awful (at worst). Instead, try doing different dresses in one color or a colorful array of complementary shades. My bridesmaids had 3 different tops and two difference skirts to choose from beacause I know not every style looks best on every one.

Big Bridal Parties Since there can be lots of posturing and jockeying for these prime positions with the bride and groom, keep the bridal party small to avoid potential quibbles (and even all-out wars!). Plus, with a more intimate group you'll save money on gifts for the bridesmaids and groomsmen. We each had 4 attendants and I think that was a good number

Long Vows Be kind to your guests by keeping your vows on the shorter side. This is especially important if your ceremony is under the blazing sun without umbrellas or fans. Say what you want to say, but don't bore your guests!Throwing Rice Does a blushing bride really want to be doused by a storm of hard little pellets that end up getting stuck in her hair, veil, gown, and worse, inside her shoes? Not the most comfortable situation when she's whooping it up to "Brick House" on the dance floor. We stuck with the traditional church vows

Assigned Seating Guests get miserable if they're stuck at a table away from the people they really want to hang with. Cocktail-style settings with open seating and lots of grazing are more inviting and lively. And you'll save money and migraines by ditching elaborate seating charts and place cards. I almost did this but decided to not stress myself out and let people sit where they want to sit!

Expensive Wedding Favors Weddings aren't about giving showy gifts; they're about celebrating your love with your loved ones. None of your guests expect pricey parting gifts. If you want to show your appreciation, leave a short, sincere note on each place setting thanking them for being there. Or let them know that a donation to a meaningful charity has been made in their name. If you were at our wedding, you know you were welcome to take an apple from the centerpiece and a leftover cupcake! :)

Throwing the Bouquet Nothing in life -- not the SAT's, not parallel parking during our drivers' test, not meeting our boyfriend's parents for the first time -- can compare to the pressure of being a single gal expected to push, pull, and pummel to catch that doggone bridal bouquet. Enough already. Been there, done that and hated it each time so that was a no-brainer not to do this

Removing the Garter Kind of cheesy, right? Kind of grope-y? Kind of I-don't-want-to-have-to-holler-like-a-frat-boy-as-he-runs-his-hands-up-her-thigh? Since the bouquet toss was out of the question, so was the garter toss!

Drunken Toasts Oh, the joy, the tenderness, the humiliation of an old-fashioned toast given by someone who has had a few too many sips of bubbly. Talk to your talkers ahead of time and let them know you'd like them to keep it sweet...and sober. Our toasts were great and not drunken. Well, Mike's may have been a little buzzed! :)

Leaving For the Honeymoon the Morning After After all the planning and partying, it's nice to take a pause before heading off to paradise. There's so much to think about when leaving town. Give yourselves a day or two or even longer to get organized. You need an extra breath before jetting off and finally melting into relaxation mode. We left the weekend after our wedding so we had time to breathe.

Good job, us!!! :)