20 week Glamour shots :-)

The doctor's office FINALLY kept an appointment (3rd time's a charm, right) and we got to see Baby Monty up close and personal! We saw the baby moving (wanted to suck its thumb but the ultrasound wand kept moving the hand away from the mouth and some busy busy little legs -- so weird that I can't feel it all the time yet)...heart, kidneys, spine all looked good to the tech and midwife. I've been prepping the baby for these pics and we actually got a great view of the entire face -- eyes, nose and mouth -- s/he was looking right at us! Very cool. The second one she printed for us was a side profile -- a little bit harder to distinguish what is actually what, but still amazing none-the-less. Heart rate was up at 159bpm again. And I actually gained some weight finally -- woo hoo (I know, odd to hear from someone starting where I did, but it was good news).

A shout out to my friend Sheryl, in NJ, who is 5 days overdue and waiting it out -- best of luck on bringing your 2nd lil' man into the world!!! Can't wait to see some pictures (and hopefully win your guessing game)!

Nursery Under Construction -- Part 1

Gma Jan came in over her Fall Break to start working on the nursery. The people that lived here before us had turned that room into a walk-in closet, so it was sad to see it leave, but the space is needed. The hardest part is that one wall is completely covered in cork-board, so it's been a challenge to figure out how to best cover its ugliness up. We went with 2 coats of primer, sizing and a wallpaper liner. If that stays up, wallpaper w/ pastel 2in. by 2in. checks and a safari border it will be on that wall only. The other 3 walls will stay this yellow-orange color Jim found (looks more yellow during the day and almost Tennessee orange at night).

12 week pic

The ultrasound machine wouldn't do any other pictures than the last freeze -frame, but it's still a good shot. The baby is 46.4mm long from head to rump and the estimated due date from that measurement is still March 18, 2009. To the left above the body is the baby's foot. Aunt Amanda has been calling the baby peanut since before she saw this picture, but I think she was on to something :-)

Telling the Grandparents-to-Be

The first weekend of August we went to Indy to tell my parents the good news and then told Jim's mom when we got back. Above is the baby's first picture at 7 weeks. Gma Jan got a stack of old pictures I found with the baby's 1st ultrasound pics included in the middle...she asked "Who's baby is this?" when she saw it and just kept saying "Really?" over and over again when told it was ours :-)



Pops got a poem (that's kind of his thing) about Baby Monty coming to visit him in mid-March...he was a bit stubborn about actually reading it because he was too worried about which order the dogs were going to eat in the morning, but I got him to cooperate finally! Then he was finally able to bust out his Crown Royal from 1972and share it with everyone there (I had a celebratory shot of water for the occasion).





For Gma Shell, we put all the ultrasounds on one sheet of paper and told her we found something she may want to see. When she opened it up, she said "Oh, Jim's colonoscopy" (referring to Grandpa Jim, whom we all miss very much)...we responded then with our "Reallys?!?!" as we almost lost it with laughter. After a little prodding she figured it out and was so excited about the good news all she could do was shed some tears.



Another great part of the weekend was that Uncle John finally got Easton to go in the pool and swim without being afraid!!! We were getting kind of worried about our lab that didn't like the water -- now we can barely keep him out :-)

Baby Poll

Guess Baby Monty's gender, birthday and time, weight and length. We'll probably close it soon after we find out the baby's gender to be fair to all participants :-)