not much going on here. kirstine's birthday is friday, and her party is saturday at noon. so we've got some cleaning to do. she is very excited about it, but all she really cares about is getting her tinkerbell balloon. she asks for it constantly. i've had to threaten her once or twice by telling her she wouldn't get it if she asked me one more time.

we had a beautiful day yesterday. our thermometer (which is always about 5-7 degrees warmer than it really is) said it was 75 yesterday and the day before. the kids got to go play in the back yard and i kept the doors and windows open all day. it's back in the low 40s today. and raining all day. which means it will be cold for her birthday. at least there's not a lot of kids coming over that we'll have to entertain. that would be hard in the house.

did i mention that when we found out we were pregnant i read an article that said you shouldn't tell your toddlers you're having a baby until a week or 2 before the baby arrives? scott and i thought that was hogwash. Will was about 16 months old when we found out we were pregnant with kirstine. it was the most precious time. i have the fondest memories of him laying on me and giving my belly tons and tons of kisses. he kissed her every night before he went to sleep. and he just loved to rub on my belly. why would you deprive your child and yourself of this wonderfulness? Kirstine is just as precious. she still gets confused and thinks there is a baby in her belly, too. when we pray at night (and she is a great pray-er. she keeps her eyes shut and her hands folded the entire time) we eventually get to the part that says "god bless mommy, daddy, bubba, kirstine, and the new baby" and as soon as we get to the new baby part, she lifts up her pajamas and points to her belly and says "baby right here!" (she also, like will, kisses my belly everynight before she goes to bed)
and then she did the cutest thing yesterday. i have the sonogram picture as my background on my cell phone. since they were in the room for the sono, they know what the baby looks like. so i held up the phone and asked her what it was, and she said the baby. then she grabbed the phone and said "i wanna hear the baby." (whenever she wants to talk to someone on the phone she says she wants to hear them).she put the phone up to her ear and said "hello baby" and proceeded to talk to the baby. i just died.
gran and papa arrive tomorrow night and the kids are very excited. i'll post pics next week of the "party". well i guess that's all for now.

Baby

This is from our sonogram on Thursday. The baby was 10 weeks, 6 days old. and 11.7 cm. Which, according to my guestimations based on our broken ruler that doesn't reach 12 cm, i think this about 4 1/2 inches long. We don't have a scanner, so i just took a picture of the picture. not super clear, but you get the picture.



(this is the same picture, just cropped)

It's been verified

We are definitely pregnant. I had my appt this morning at a bright and early 8:30. That may not seem early, but when you think about the fact that I had to get up at 6:30 to shower, eat, get dressed, get the kids up and get them fed and dressed up to leave the house by 7:30 to drive through rush hour traffic to get there by 8:30... especially when the kids and I usually wake up at 8am. So it was very early for me. We were there for a LOOOONG time. Not crazy at all about the office and how it runs. Those of you in Tampa and still using Women's Group... treasure it abundantly. I have never been more thankful for that practice than I am now that I am gone. They couldn't hear the heartbeat, so that stunk. But they did order a sono for me. Surprising for the first time, I am as far along as originally projected. Which means I will be 11 weeks tomorrow. So it was quite startling when I saw the monitor and saw how big the baby already was. With Will and Kirstine I got in to see the doctor earlier, and I was a few weeks behind what they thought, so their first sonograms were not terribly impressive. Will looked exactly like a baby alligator in one of his pictures. Kirstine was about a week farther along, so she had little nubs that were moving and we could see her heartbeat. But this was just way exciting to see how big it was. I cried of course. I am so not emotional, but there's just something about seeing that baby move inside you that is just so amazing. And since I still didn't 100% believe that I even was pregnant, it was very exciting.
So... my due date is August 14th, but since they will most likely schedule the c-section a week early, we are looking at an August 6-10ish baby!!! So I will definitely not be visiting Tampa for Giovanni's birthday party!

Icicles

Will has been asking every day for about a month to go see icicles. There is a little cliff right around the corner from our house (within walking distance if i desired, which i don't) that i always knew would make the perfect icicles when it got cold enough. i was talking about it with scott on friday night and he said they were there that morning and were huge. So i nicely yelled at him for not calling us. so saturday morning he called as he drove by to tell us they were there again (or still there?). so we got dressed and went down. The kids had a blast. kirstine's mittens didn't work at all, so she played barehanded. will eventually took his gloves off as well. we brought some home with us, but they quickly broke. (i found kirstine in the basement with hers in pieces crying to me, "i broke it, i broke it" - so cute). we saved them and they are still in the fridge.

Today

Will and I went outside and poured water all over our back porch and almost immediately before our eyes it turned to ice! fun fun fun! according to my blog it's 17.9 degrees outside at 9:30. other than that we won't be leaving the house today.

i should have knocked on wood yesterday while i was typing my entry. i threw up about an hour later. :)

It's noon and it's 29 degrees outside.

pregnancy thus far.

I don't have my first appt til next thursday, so I'll let you know how that goes then. My hope is that they give me a sonogram so I know how far along I am. Cuz all I can do is guess (7ish weeks?).

Symptoms so far: TIRED! Just like with Kirstine (but not with Will) I sleep all the time. There have been a few days I haven't taken a nap, but other days I have taken 2. And most days my naps are about 3 hours long just like the kids.
I am a little nauseous here and there. But mostly just if I don't have food nearby, which I am really bad at. So I bought some saltines to try and keep with me to pop in when I feel it. I haven't actually thrown up at all. I eat fine at lunch, but I'm not usually very hungry at dinner. But that's it. So far not so bad.

My sweet Kirstine

We were sitting on the couch eating breakfast and Will asked me for his Zebra and Blanket. I told him to go get it off my bed (cuz I'm not getting it for him!). Kirstine immediately stands up and says "zeba banket". I ask her what she's doing as she jumps off the couch and she says, "i'm going to get bubba's zeba and banket." that clear. and off she goes. she has a little trouble getting off my bed, but eventually she gets down, walks back to us and says, "i jumped. here you go bubba." and gives him his stuff and gives him and then me a big kiss. i just melted.

Monster Jam

Scott, Will, and I went to see Monster Jam on Saturday night. (Uncle Bill, Aunt Janet, and "Wobby" kept Kirstine). Will and Scott went last year in Tampa with Uncle Matt, Ricky Pelham, and Jordan. Even though it was super loud he loved it (or at least the memories of it) and has loved Monster Jam ever since. So we were very excited that it came to Birmingham this year. The show that came here was a very small one. I think there were only 8 trucks total (as opposed to about 30 in Tampa), and the only ones we knew were Grave Digger and El Toro Loco. (which are Will's 2 favorites, so that's good). Pluses of it being a small show? It didn't take as long. Minuses: lots. there wasn't enough room to race, so the racing part consisted of 4 cars lined up for them to jump over and that was it. normal shows they actually race around the stadium and end by jumping over a row of cars. Plus it stunk that we didn't know anybody. (and we used to watch monster jam on tv every day, so we know a lot of trucks). el toro loco lost the first phase of racing, and then stalled out almost immediately during the freestyle, so that stunk. but grave digger, as always, put on a fabulous show. Even though Will kept his ears plugged the entire time (and refused to put the ear plugs in) he still had a very good time.

GO GATORS!!!!

YAY!!! In preparation for the big game last night, we made Gator shirts. I had been wanting to make this specific one for Kirstine for a while, but just hadn't gotten around to it. Will wanted to make one as well. We kept asking him what he wanted it to say. The first time he said, "GO GATORS!" And then the next day he said, "I AM a gator!" He then went back and forth but ended up on the latter of the two. Unfortunately I just bought him undershirts, and they're REALLY short, so he can never wear them out of the house. But Kirstine's turned out really cute.