21 Weeks

So, it has been a month since my last profile picture. In that time I have been to the doctor again and heard Georgia's heartbeat again. I also got my glucola for my next appointment when I'll have a glucose test. In even better news, Shawn has felt Georgia moving and is very excited about that. He didn't like to admit it, but he was jealous that I could feel her and he couldn't. Now he loves to keep his hand on my tummy to see if anything happens. She is moving around a lot more now, or at least I feel her a lot more. Also, she seems to not be a morning person, kinda like me. She moves around more in the afternoon and at night. So far, she isn't big enough to keep me awake at night with movements, so we'll have to see how that progresses.

In other, non-baby related news, flowers and plants are starting to look good. The irises have long since bloomed, but other things are happening now too.

This is an ornamental pepper plant we got at the plant sale the Botanical Garden has each year. I had seen them in the Botanical Garden before and had wanted some, so I was excited that they went on sale this year. They all started out yellow, but have slowly started changing colors.



Last year we made a bigger "garden" in the back yard for the veggies, but then the plants just didn't do anything. So, we went smaller this year with just one tomato plant. And to change things up we put it in a planter and stuck it in the front yard. It looks really good and already has lots of little tomatos on it.



Next, because I am a Tiger, I got tiger lilies a long time ago. They have spread and now I have several. They are really pretty and the only orange flower I have had so far. I planted some orange calla lillies, but they haven't bloomed yet, so we'll see how they do.



So, the end of May means the end of AWANAs at church. Since AWANAs will start shortly before my due date in the fall, I will not be returning for the forseeable future. Here is a picture of me and my sister-in-law after the awards ceremony.



Before going to church that night I took my profile picture for week 21. As you can see, I am bigger.



In other news, Shawn has looked around on the internet at various ultrasound pictures and has decided that Georgia is cuter than all the other babies he has seen. I never really thought that babies looked that different on ultrasound pictures until I saw a few more recently, and you can really tell a difference in some babies. But of course, I think that Georgia will be amazingly adorable. I can't wait to see what she will look like, and what color hair she will have. The funny thing is, Shawn and I look so different from each other there is no telling what our babies will look like. I mean really, I am pasty white with dark blond hair and blue eyes. He is really dark skinned with black hair and brown eyes. I'm just hoping that Georgia will be able to go outside for more than five minutes without getting sunburned. We shall see in the fall what she will look like.

Baby updates

First, this is my profile from a week and a half ago. At 17 weeks I hit the mark where sleeping had become a little harder. I get hotter at night and I have problems trying to get comfortable. As a result, I am skipping the few tv shows that I stayed up for past 10pm and am going to bed earlier. While it still takes a little while to get to sleep, actually being in bed earlier gives me more time to sleep.



Now, at 18 weeks, I went to have THE ultrasound. And it was great! Our baby was pretty cooperative for the most part. When the woman tried to get a closer look at the heart it took a long time cause the baby was being so wiggly. But other than that, the baby measured on target and looks healthy (no cleft palate, the tummy has closed around the cord, no thickening of the neck, the nasal bone was the right shape, and so on). The first thing I said when I got in the room was that we did want to know what the sex was. And the baby was a trooper and we got to find out almost right away!

This was the first thing we saw after the baby came into focus. Such a cute little profile.


Then, she went for the money shot and we found out we are having a little girl!



When she was done doing all her measuring and checking out all the things she needed to see, she went back to the profile. The baby kept putting both her hands to her face, and then one thumb got put in her mouth. So we have a thumb sucker already!



Now, before we even got pregnant we had started talking about names. By the time we went to the doctor's office for the first time we had names picked out for a girl and for a boy. I will wait until we have a boy to reveal that name, but the girl's name we picked out was Georgia Elise. Now, there is a long background for the girl's name. I have been thinking of baby names almost since I was in high school. Now, the boy name, Shawn threw out the window almost right away because the first name was so common in his family that he didn't want to use it. But the girl's first name has always been the same. It was my dad's grandmother's name. She was named Georgia Ann. I loved the name Georgia and thought it was so pretty. I have heard from people that thought it was a little old fashioned, but I figured it was better to be old fashioned than to have a trendy name that will be so common. We went through a long process of finding a middle name that sounded right with Georgia. For some reason I got stuck on the letter E (I thought that a name that started with E would sound good with Georgia). Then I found Elise, and it sounded perfect. It is a shortened form of Elizabeth, and it means consecrated to God. So it sounded pretty and the name had a nice meaning.

Nursery

So, I forgot to take "real" before pictures of when the nursery was a workout room. So imagine the room filled with a big weight bench, weight stand, and a heavy bag with stand (for all you non-fighters out there that is a 70 pound punching bag). For the record, Shawn misses his workout equipment. We didn't have any other spare room to put them in, so the weights went to his cousin's house (they bought the set together many years ago). The punching bag and stand are to be relocated to my mom's house unless we can find someone to buy it from us.

The before pictures are basically just white walls.



Without the windows covered it is hard to tell what paint color that is, but we painted the walls a light beige color and the trim is a chocolate.



After painting, Shawn and our friend George installed dropped down crown molding and behind the crown we put in rope lighting.



Then we finally put the crib in. Once it was all together we put the bumper pads and the bed skirt and sheet on. The theme is woodland creatures.



This is the quilt. The set has a deer, a fox, a bear, a bunny, owls, trees, and a hedgehog (or porcupine, we can't tell which).



Then, we got wall stickers that matched the crib set and put them around the closet.



And over the crib. We also have a little cross over the crib that has a little poem on it.



Then we put the curtains and valances up.



Finally we got the lights behind the crown hooked up so you can see what it will look like.



We are still working on arranging the other furniture in a workable manner. Plus, we are looking for a small bookshelf. When everything is finalized I will put up more pictures.

14 Weeks

So, I started taking profile pictures with the intent to do so every month, but after 8 weeks I forgot to do so at 12 weeks. But I did last weekend for 13 weeks. The funny thing is, I had gained most of the weight that I have gained by the time I took the 8 week picture. Mostly I think I gained that weight from eating lots of little snacks to keep from being nauseous. But the good thing is that I have only gained about 4 or 5 pounds so far.

Here is 8 weeks. The main reason I look big here is that my belt buckle is poking out from the rest of my clothes.



In between pictures I had a birthday (30!). For my birthday my brother didn't buy anything for me, he bought something for the baby. It was Clemson stuff, a little shirt with a matching bib and a banner that I am going to hang outside the door of the baby's room.



This is the shirt under the bib.



And finally, my profile from last weekend. Even though I am essentially the same weight in these two pictures, my body is all shifting around and my belly is poking out way more now. I guess I officially look pregnant! By the way, that is the baby's room. We have started painting. I'll have another post when it is finished.

New Addition

So, we've been trying to get pregnant for about 8 months. On Christmas day I had my last period! We took a test on January 24 and it was positive. We couldn't believe it. I thought the whole time while I was waiting to take it that it would come back negative, but it didn't! That day we told our parents and our siblings. We asked them to not tell anyone until after our first appointment. We went to the doctor on Wednesday and had our first ultrasound. You can see a tiny little peanut shaped baby. We even got to see it's little heart fluttering and hear it's heartbeat. That was about the coolest part of the day. Then we took the picture and showed it off to our parents and let them tell everyone else. I got on facebook that day and sent out a message to our family members that are on there and told them. Then today I put up the picture and spread the news to everyone else on facebook. Below is the picture of our tiny baby.



I already have 4 other appointments scheduled with the doctor. Our ultrasound for finding out the baby's sex is on May 3, for all of you out there wanting to know. As of today I am 8 weeks pregnant and the baby is due on October 1.

So far, I feel tired a lot, and up until last week I felt fine. But then the nauseau hit and I have been trying to find foods that I can eat that will not make me gag. Fortunately I have only felt nuaseau, so that is good.

Stay tuned for more posts on little baby C.

Snow!

So, this past weekend we had a snow storm. It started snowing around 3:30 Friday afternoon and didn't stop until after midnight. We had already planned on going to my mom's house to eat dinner that night. So we went and before we ate we went looking for the baby goats and took snow pictures.

This is in the pasture with the goats looking towards the cow's pasture.



After dinner we stayed and watched a movie and it kept snowing. This is looking out the front door to my mom's side walk.



When we got home we took a picture of the front yard from the driveway.



When we woke up in the morning we took a picture of the back yard from our bedroom window.



When we got home the night before the next door neighbors had been making a snowman, so we took a picture of it the next morning too.



That day we went to my mom's house and Shawn made a snowman. We had lost most of our snow to melting by then, but she still has plenty. We had only gotten 7 inches, but she had gotten 8 1/2 inches.



This is a side view showing the little hat the snowman had on it.



So, we no longer have any snow, but there are still small patches on the ground at my parents house.

More Baby Goats

So, it's that time of year. The goat population has exploded on the Gunter farm. There were four baby goats born one weekend that got really cold and only one of them survived. Then the following week five more babies were born, two sets of twins and one single baby. Then that weekend an animal attacked one of the babies and killed it and another baby has disappeared. The next day two more were born. So as of now, there are six babies.


This is the poor baby that didn't survive the animal attack. This was the only picture that I had of a baby with Shawn. It was cold and Shawn ended up borrowing a flannel jacket I had left at the house in case I needed it.


This was one of a set of twins. They were so cute and tiny and were shivering.



There is an old john boat that my dad has in the field. The babies have decided it is a good place to hide from us. They all eventually ended up under there to huddle for warmth.



Before relocating to the boat, these two babies were hiding under the disc implement for my dad's old tractor. He had a tarp laying across it and it kept the wind off of them.



This was taken during the snow storm. These two babies had some how gotten under on old shed out in the pasture that is only about 6 inches off the ground. I had to just set the camera down and hope they got in the picture. They are facing the other way so you can't see the head.



All in all, there has been a lot of activity at my parent's farm.