1/28/09

We had our doctors appointment today! Before the appointment we had an ultrasounds and they said Collin weighs just over 6 lbs. I'm still measuring for February 25th (2 days early). They said that is in exactly the 50th percentile so he is average. When I asked the doctor how big that means he'll be if he continues at this rate and she said about 7lbs! That's such good news!! At least he's not huge already!! I was afraid Collin was going to be like 11 lbs or something absurd!

The doctor did my group b strep test and then checked my cervix to see if I was dilated at all. I'm happy to report I'm 1 cm. I've been reading some people are like 39 weeks and still 0 cm. At least I know I'm making SOME progress. I know you can stay 1-2 cm for quite awhile, but at least I know I'm getting closer. Sooo...everything seems to be going good! We'll have our next appointment next Wednesday and see if there is any more progress...

1/27/09

Ok so I'm writing a day late...

Sunday was "nesting day" I guess. We woke up and decided to go run a bunch of errands that we needed to get done. We started off by going to Babys R Us to return a few things we had gotten doubles of. We thought it would be the smart thing to go to the one further away from us because it was the area we needed to go to anyway to go to Costco. Trouble was...we got there and apparently even though they have a Babys R Us sign they consider themselves a "Babys R Us Express????" They said they could only exchange the stuff they carried there at their store. Well they took back a couple of things so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Then we went to Costco. On our way home I told Pat to go ahead and turn towards the other Babys R Us that is close to us. I figured we might as well get it all done since we were out. So we went and returned the last thing we needed to take back and decided to buy a few different things that we hadnt received. It was a bunch of little stuff like a few different types of bottles, since I keep hearing you have to try a few different ones to see what the baby will actually use. We also got some hygiene/first aid stuff like nail clippers... haha...they are so tiny that they actually have a magnifying glass on them! .... We got a baby thermometer and a couple other things I can't think of right now.

So that was about it for our day out. We got home and I had to grade papers ALL DAY after that. I guess that's about it..

Update on me... I haven't been feeling too great. I feel like I'm lucky if I get more than 4 hours of sleep total in a night. I'm dragging myself around school these days. Only 3 more weeks of school..that doesn't sound too bad...but seems like an eternity!!!! I'm hoping they go fast (or that baby Collin decides to meet us a week or 2 early)!

1/25/09

This weekend was pretty busy! I got a boost of energy to do stuff on Saturday so we got up and took Stoli over to Pat's parents, and then went to the outlet mall. Pat had been talking about going to the St. Arnold's brewery here in Houston with his friends on Saturday afternoon, and he wanted me to go, but one..it's so not fun to go hang out with everyone else getting drunk while you are the only sober one, and two... it is so backwards for a 9 month pregnant person to be seen as a brewery. Is it just me that thinks that???

Ok so we went to the outlets and were there for awhile. Then we came home, and we were talking about taking a nap but as soon as we got here I wasn't tired again so I decided to finally wash all of the baby clothes we had received and put away all of the stuff that's been sitting in our dining room since the baby showers. Then by the time I actually got tired enough to lay down for a nap it was time to get ready to go to Sarah and Eddy's baby shower. We had to leave an hour early because it was way down by Galveston.

I was planning on wearing a dress, which meant I would have to wear open shoes. I realized I really need a pedicure again! Where are you Steph????? Well...I had to attempt it myself, and I was pretty much sweating by the time I was finished from having to find any position possible to first cut my toenails and then repaint them! I wouldn't have repainted them but when I was cutting them the paint started chipping off so I had like 2 toenails on each foot painted and the other 3 weren't...so I HAD to paint them. Let's just say some prenatal yoga would have really paid off.... Good thing I can't really see my feet at this point anyways... in my mind they look pretty good.. but who knows right?? Nobody tell me any different if they notice I have nail polish anywhere on my foot but on my toenails!! ;) Ugh...and then after all that.... I realized it was too cold to wear a dress!! So I ended up wearing boots anyways...

So we went to the baby shower.. it was pretty fun. It was mostly just friends hanging out. They did something cute where they had a bunch of plain white onesies set out with markers and people could make their own onesie for the baby. Our friend Dave was in the creative zone and making all these random onesies. I made one with a monkey on it for them since their theme is monkeys.

The whole night our friend CB had been trying to feel my stomach to see if he could feel the baby kick. He started kicking while we were sitting there so I told CB where to put his hand (of course, by my rib since that is where is kicks the crap out of me!) He was so excited to feel it. Collin has been kicking me soooo hard lately!! It is really starting to hurt!! I think he must be using 2 of my ribs as practice goal posts!! "He's gonna be a socca playa.... he is... he iiiiisssss..." (Billy Madisson)

Well that was all for Saturday... I'll fill you all in on Sunday tomorrow... It's late already, and I need to get to bed!! 4 weeks left!!!

1/22/09

All the pictures I've been promising my readers!!!

This slideshow is a revised one of the baby's nursery. The old pictures are still on there, so just scroll through them to the new ones.




This slideshow is of the baby shower from Kristy and Stacey! I don't have pictures from the other baby shower yet... I'll post those as soon as I can get someone to send me some digital photos :)

1/21/09 (part 2)

We had another doctors appointment this afternoon. We got to hear Collin's heartbeat again. It's so weird knowing it's not your own heartbeat you're listening to, but really neat! They took my weight again (the low point of my day..haha) but I had only gained 1 lb in 2 weeks so that's great!! I always dread stepping on that scale. I know it's baby weight, but it's still unfortunate seeing that scale go up and up and up and up..............

Then the doctor came in an measured my belly, and I forgot to ask what the measurement was but I must still be measuring correctly because she didn't say anything. I told her I had been feeling sick so she prescribed some medicine to help with the nausea. I don't know if it's a bug or if I'm just backwards and getting morning sickness in the 3rd trimester instead of the first. I asked her if I went past my due date how long she would wait to induce and she said only 1 week, so we know for sure Collin will be here by the first week of March. I'm hoping it doesn't come to that!!!!!

We asked her about the pediatrician we picked and she said she's heard great things about her so that's good news. She also felt around my belly, pressing on different parts to feel how the baby is positioned and she said he is head down so that's good news too! No breach baby! She said his head is "waaay" down low already so I'm really hoping that means he is getting ready to come soon!!! (Of course not TOO soon! but in a few weeks) We scheduled an ultrasound for next week so they can estimate the size of the baby, but I may reschedule it for a week later so it's closer to due date time and we have a better idea of what kind of torture I'll be in come delivery day!!!!!! :0/

1/21/09

I'm staying home from school today because I was up not feeling well ALL night long! Ugh... I hope those kids at school didn't give me the stomach bug that's been going around! I only got a couple hours of sleep so I decided to go ahead and take the day off to recover. I'm not feeling great, but much better than I did last night. I really needed the sleep though. So I figured I'd finish writing about the weekend now..

My mom, Patrick and I went woke up and went to The Woodlands early Saturday morning because my mom had never been there and I wanted to go look for a dress to wear to the baby shower that afternoon. We went to Gap Maternity (their clothes fit me the best!) I found a few dresses to try on... luckily they were having a sale too! I ended up getting a really cute dress for only $13!!!! What a deal! Then we looked around a little bit and went to Borders and my mom bought a TON of baby books for Collin! :) They are all so cute! She was specifically looking for "Pat the Bunny" (which she found). I think it used to be one our favorite books when we were little. As we were checking out we saw they also had a bunch of books in the bargain section so I went to look for one, and they had a little box of baby books about little sports characters that I knew Pat would love reading to the baby. I got them and when we got in the car and I opened I saw that one of the characters (the football) was named Collin!! With 2 Ls!! How cute is that?? The book is all about good sportsmanship so I think it will be a keeper!

When we got home my aunt, cousins and grandmother were here at the house waiting to see the nursery. I think everyone likes it!! It's come together really nicely! I hurried and got dressed for the baby shower that started at 1. It was so convenient because it was at my friend Stacey's house who lives literally 4 houses down the street, so we just walked over there. It was put on by my friend Kristy as well. When we got up to the door they had put a big wooden stork outside in the yard!! It was adorable! Then inside they had decorated soo cute! Everything was decorate in brown and baby blue polka dots. Kristy had gotten a ton of party favors that were personalized. She had hershey bars that were wrapped in blue wrappers that said "It's a Boy" on the front and the back had nutritional facts like "Serving Size: One Bouncing Baby Boy" and " Hammers & Nails 20%, Baseball 20%, Hugs 20%, Sweetness 20%....Love & Joy 100%." There were also little boxes with mints inside that say "Jessica R. Daniel's Baby Shower January 17, 2009: Thanks for celebrating our Special Delivery" and then a little bundle of Hershey Kisses wrapped up with a tag that said "Ten Little fingers, Ten Little toes, Oh how fast baby Collin will Grow!" Haha... I thought that was so cute. Stacey had hand made a diaper cake also that was adorable! It has 3 tiers. The top one has all newborn diapers and then they go up in size on the next tiers. It was wrapped in brown and blue ribbon and has baby socks, bibs, etc hanging from it and then topped with baby blue shoes. It's too cute to even take apart for the diapers!! There was a TON of food too! Kristy handmade chocolate covered strawberries that were sooo good! And they had turkey spaghetti and salad and a really delicious punch made with ginger ale, grape juice and punch. We played a game where everyone had to wear a necklace and if they said the word "baby" they had to give away their necklace or take it away from someone who said it. I think Steph won at the end with the most necklaces. We also played a game where they had to guess the size of my belly!!! I thought they were going to actually get out a tape measure...but they passed around a roll of streamers and each person had to pull out as much as they thought would fit around my belly. My friend Gabs was really really close, and then it got around and Julie was the last person's paper to be measured and she was SPOT on!! It wasn't as embarrassing as I thought it would be. Haha.. The day was really fun!

Later on that night, my mom, Steph, Sam (her b/f), Pat and I went to eat at Buca di Beppo because Pat needed to carb load for the half marathon he ran in the next day. We were all pretty exhausted and went home to bed after dinner.

On Sunday, Pat and I woke up at 5am so I could take him down to the start line of the marathon. He hadn't really trained at all, but I knew he would do great. The plan was for me to just go back to meet him at the finish line and pick him up, but I dropped him off and when I got home I was too excited to see the race and go see him run that I got dressed and went to find him at mile 9 on the course. I finally saw him! It gives me a boost of energy to see people I know while I'm out there running, so I thought I would surprise him. I took him some orange slices knowing that at that point it gets pretty draining! After I saw him I went straight to the finish line. I managed to squeeze my way in (huge belly and all) to the front of the gate so I could see him as he was passing. I yelled out his name as he was coming, and he managed to come give me a high five just before crossing the finish line! :) I'm so proud of him! Me and my bright ideas signed up for 2 half marathons last year, not knowing I'd be pregnant, and Pat ended up taking them both over and doing great in BOTH!! Right after the race we had to rush back home to get ready to go to my other baby shower at my mother and sister-in laws'.

We got to their house at 12:30 when the baby shower was supposed to start. It seemed like everyone got there right at the same time! We had a really good turnout! As you walked in they had cards out for people to write down their advise for me as a new mom. I haven't gotten to read the cards yet because they are putting them in a book for me, but I can't wait to see what everyone says! Hopefully people gave us some really good advise! I feel like I can use all the help I can get right now. They had a bunch of food set out also! We all started off the shower by eating and then started playing games. The first one was a sheet of paper where there was a list of different animals and you had to guess the name of the baby animal. I was sooo bad at it! I made a lot of mine up! Like an armadillo?? Who the heck knows what a baby armadillo is called?? I wrote down roadkill. Haha... That was what the majority of my answers looked like. I only knew like 8 out of 20 real answers. :( After that we played a word jumble game where there was a list of scrambled up baby words and you had 5 minutes to unscramble them and figure out what the real words were. I did a little bit better on this one... like 12 out of 20. Haha... I didn't win either game.. or even come close! After the games we opened gifts and ate cake. There were soo many gifts!! I loved everything we got, but my favorite thing we got this weekend was a photo shoot with the photographer from our wedding for 4 different sessions when the baby is growing up throughout the first year!! My mom gave us a box and I opened it and it had a few different things for bathing the baby, and then there was a card. I opened it and it had one of our engagement pictures on the front and said "You've come a long way, Baby!" And then inside it says the gift is for 4 photo shoots : when the baby is 1 week, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year old. We will get to pick 10 pictures from each session and then they will be bound in a leather book for us to have. I can't wait!!!!!! Besides that, we got soooooo many nice gifts this weekend! THANK YOU SOOO MUCH to everyone for their amazing generosity!!! We are pretty much set for Collin to come! Now he just needs to decide when he'll make his appearance. Hopefully sooner than later!!!!!

1/19/09

It's been awhile since I posted! It was a really busy weekend!! I had a bunch of family come in this weekend, and I had 2 baby showers in one weekend!! We got soooo much stuff!!! Our house is full of stuff now. Our dining room is pretty much Babys R Us waiting to be unpacked.

Ok...well I'll start off with Friday. Stephanie came in and we hung out for awhile. Then we went to a basketball game at school. Our sophomore team lost by one point right as the buzzer rang! Bummer! Our JV team looked horrible so I'm sure we lost. We left at halftime. We waited for Pat to get off work and then decided to go met up with him for dinner at Joe's Crab Shack. Steph and I both thought it sounded good because they have delicious french fries. Pat was saying he didn't want to go there if they still got up and danced around. I was like "i'm sure they don't do that anymore." I hadn't been there in a really long time. He reluctantly agreed but said "if they bust out with the macarena we're walking out." Haha..so I agreed... being positive they wouldn't play that song from the early 90s.

When we were at the bar waiting to be seated the lady next to us had a glass of white zinfandel with like 5 cherries at the bottom. It looked SOOO good! Haha... I could definitely go for wine soaked cherries right now! My virgin strawberry daquiri will have to sufice for now. Ok so they sat us down and we had crab and shrimp balls as an appetizer and they were just as good as I remember! So this is about the point the first song came on when they turned down the lights and started walking around the restaurant singing. Oooops.... Well they have these new things on the menu called steam pots. They had a bunch of different kinds to choose from. We decided between the 3 of us to order 2 and share them. As we were eating my mom called and said they were almost here. While I was trying to give them directions on the phone I saw something that looked like gum on the side of one of the pails but I pointed it at it and neither Steph or Pat were paying attention. When I got off the phone I said "is that gum?" and Pat said "no it's just shell" and grabbed it. It DEFINITELY was NOT shell!! It was sooo gross!! I stopped eating! Pat went to wash his hands and came back and actually wanted to keep eating! Eeww!! We told the waiter and the manager came over and ended up comping our entire meal (minus the 1 beer Pat had). We only paid like $4 for the whole meal! No wonder people pull scams at restaurants!! hahah... Ohhhh and I forgot to mention...to make the meal EVEN better.. the macarena DID come on!!!!! Right around the time of the gum incident. Haha... I'm not sure we'll be going back there again!

Ok... I'm going to post the rest about the weekend later...

1/14/09

Last night was crazy....we went to a breastfeeding class... I thought it was going to be totally awkward, but it wasn't too bad...we didn't have to pull out our breasts or anything! I didn't know what to expect!! Haha...

Pat and I went in to the class in a bad mood though because as we were driving up we saw some of the MOST annoying people walking in. They were in our class on Saturday. Seriously.... MOST annoying!! Pat and I were rolling our eyes the entire time. So there is this girl and her mom was signed up for the class with her. It turns out that the baby's father came in from Louisiana so he came too. Is that fair...that the rest of us pay per couple and they get 3 people????? The mom kept making stupid comments the entire time. We walked in and it turned out there was a $10 charge per couple but they had accidentally notified people that it was free. Well as she was taking the money this lady kept saying she would have paid $50 for it....Pat and I were like "can we charge her $51 so she'll leave???" Even the lady the teaches the class obviously wanted her to shut up!! Haha... well hopefully we never have to see them again. Ohh...AND just to give you an idea of how crass these people were... I had to go to the restroom at some point during the class.. there was a single restroom near the conference room but this girl was in there. I tried going to the cafeteria where the big restrooms were but it was locked because it had closed for the night. So I went to wait for the single restroom and I literally waited like 10 minutes outside.... that's not the bad part... I understand if people have problems... but I hurried up and went and somehow beat her back to the conference room...just to hear her announce quite loudly that "her stomach was f*$&ed up!" Wow...really??... keep it to yourself....

Other than the trio of backwards individuals.... the class was really informative. She pretty much just talked for 2 hours about how to get started and the best positions to hold the baby. Now let's see if I can actually do it. I might have some trouble because of the PCOS, but when I asked her she said she would come help us when the baby comes and we'd just have to wait and see how it goes...

Other than that.. Pat and I went to meet with our potential pediatrician today. My friend Kristy recommended her. I wasn't sure if we were going to have to meet with other pediatricians, but after we met with her Pat was like "she's the one!" We both felt really comfortable with her, and she was really easy to talk to. She was super friendly and even though we were just there for a free consultation she never seemed like she was in a rush to finish the conversation or anything. She has 3 kids of her own.. actually 2 of her own and she adopted a little girl from China. I thought that was really neat. She answered all of our questions and she seems like she is going to be great with baby Collin. I also liked that she said she makes it a point to call people back personally, not just have the nurse do it. She also said no matter what that a sick child is always seen either the day you call or the next day. They don't tell you they are all booked up. And she said an infant is ALWAYS seen that day. They even see patients on Saturdays and they have a protocol for Sundays where the doctor will follow up with you and see if it can wait until Monday or if it needs to be addressed immediately. The other thing that I really liked right away was that when I introduced myself and said a friend of mine had referred us, she asked who it was. I figured she would pretend and be nice, but not actually remember who Kristy was since they have so many patients, but she right away knew who she was and started talking about Lexi and asked if I was a teacher also...so she must actually get to know her patients and families well. That makes me feel really comfortable...

Ok well that's all for now... 44 days and counting down...

1/10/09

Today was such a long day! We had our childbirth marathon class at the hospital. It went all the way from 9-4:30!! It was like information overload though... I can't say I actually remember any of it now that I'm writing about it..

Of course they showed the dreaded birthing video!! I wasn't ever planning on watching one of these...EVER!! The way I see it... I don't know why I need to see EXACTLY what happens!! I mean.. I'm gonna do what I have to do.. no need preparing visually for it!! I was fully expecting to watch the video and decide on keeping this baby in my belly forever so I wouldn't have to go through it, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong.. it was pleasant to watch...but it wasn't traumatizing either..

The class started by all of us introducing ourselves..first the pregnant women and then the men. To get the partners involved the teacher had a bunch of index cards with "dirty" pregnancy words. Each guy had to pick one and say it out loud (sort of an ice-breaker to make everyone laugh). She then defined what the words were after each person. I was hoping Pat would get a really funny one.. but he got off easy with cervix... haha.. Nothing too embarrassing..

Anyways..the class continued with her giving us a bunch of information on all of our options when it comes to having the baby and signs of deliver and how to look for them...

At the end of the class we did some breathing exercises. The first thing she made us do was grab a handful of ice chips and squeeze our hand and hold it for a minute. Our men were supposed to ignore us and give no support to the pain. It was just to make us aware of what we do with our bodies when we're in pain... like walking around, flinching, etc..... go figure. It was totally painful though!!!! If thats nothing compared to childbirth I'm in trouble... Well then she showed us different positions that can help us relax while we're in labor and had our husbands help with relaxing techniques. The best one was at the end... she had us lay on the floor on our sides and had the men massage our backs. She was talking about relaxing your muscles (like they do at the end of a yoga class). Then she had us grab a handful of ice again but kept going with the relaxation technique. When she told us to get rid of the ice I didn't even realize it had been 2 1/2 minutes!!! Crazy!! I guess consciously trying to relax actually helps.... Hmmm..we'll see about that when I'm actually in labor....

Well other than the class.. everything is fine. Collin is still moving around a ton. I'm busy getting everything ready for my leave from work on February. My last day will be February 20. That should leave me a few days to rest before the baby comes. Then I'll have 12 weeks off work so I'll only need to go back for a week and a half at the end of the year. I wasn't sure how long to take, but I just can't imagine leaving our baby in daycare at 6 or 8 weeks. At least when I have to go back for the last week Pat will be finished with school, and then I'll be off for the summer. I'm excited that I'll be lucky enough to get to spend all that time with Collin when he comes! :)

1/7/09

Sorry... I promised my readers that I would post a couple days ago and fell behind... I'm here to give an update now...

Monday was our first day back to school. It was only a teacher workday so it wasn't too bad, but waking up early again after having two weeks off and sleeping in every day was very difficult. We got there and they had chick-fil-a breakfast for all of us, so I guess that's always a plus to any morning. We had to get our grades for the first semester finalized and then work in our rooms to get everything ready for the students on Tuesday. I got lesson plans finished too for the next 2 months... I'm so on top of things!! Once I got home from school I played with Stoli for awhile and prepared to watch the Fiesta Bowl to root on our Horns. The game was supposed to start at 6:30, but of course didn't start until an hour later. As I watched time go by all I could think about was how late I was going to be up and how tired I'd be on Tuesday. I figured if the game was a blow-out I could just go to sleep early... well NO SUCH LUCK!! Man... it was a close one!! I didn't think we were playing all that great. I don't know why we even had our O-line on the field! They probably could have just sat on the bench and the game would have ended the same... practically the same with the defense. Muschamp better step up his game before he takes over for us as head coach!! Haha... I act like I actually know what I'm talking about!! Well either way... I thought it was over when OSU scored their final touchdown. I can't believe we scored to win the game with only 16 seconds left!! They made that touchdown look so easy that I can't figure out why they were having such a hard time the entire game until the last minute!! Of course I was so excited about the game that I got about 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before school started! Well worth it the bloodshot eyes I had in the morning!

Tuesday was brutal.... it was nice to see some of the students... of course, others not so much... But overall the day wasn't soo bad. I was just excited about Pat was coming home! It's lonely here at home without him. I was planning on taking a nap when I got home from school since I had gotten so little sleep, but I was too excited to have company again that I watched a movie instead. Him and Steph finally came in around 6. They brought me a "Fiesta Bowl Champions" t-shirt that even had the scored printed on it already!! We went to dinner, but as soon as we got home I hit a wall!! I was so tired! I went to sleep kind of early...

School was just another ordinary day today. Back to routine as usual...

In baby news:
We had another appointment today. I was shocked because we didn't even have to hardly wait. We sat down and they took us back in less than 5 minutes... that's never happened before at a doctor's office! AND the waiting room was packed! Even the doctor came into the room really fast too! Made my day so much better for not having to wait around... My weight was good today! Right on track... no extra holiday pounds this time! :) The doctor measured my belly and said I was measuring "spot on" so that's perfect! Also the nurse had us listen to the doppler for the heartbeat and said "sounds perfect... can't complain about that!" I guess that means Collin is growing just as he should! The dr. answered a bunch of questions for us about what to expect in the next few weeks, what will happen when the baby is born, etc... Overall.. it was a great office visit. They almost seem pointless since they don't do much, but it's neat to hear the heartbeat and have them tell us we are right on track! :) Now I just hope the days go fast!!

Oohhhh yeah!! And I can't forget how excited we were to get home and have a ton of boxes from UPS on our doorstep!! We got our big baby car seat from my dad that we can use from when Collin is born until the next few years of his life. I want to install it, but I don't want to be the weird lady driving around with a car seat and no baby... My family also got our infant car seat which you can hook into your car when the baby is an infant, and you can use it to carry the baby around everywhere!! AND they sent us the play yard!! Soo exciting!! It feels like its getting so close!!!! Ohh...and the final thing that was missing for the nursery came in! My brother and his fiance, Andrea, sent us the wooden letters of Collin's name to put in the wall. Thank you to everyone for sending us our great gifts!!! I was going to post pictures of the nursery already, but I'll wait and put them up as soon as we get the name put up. Will try to do it ASAP!! :)

1/4/09

I woke up this morning at like 9:30, but laid in bed until like 11:30. Then I was finally so bored that I got up, took a shower, and went to Wal-Mart and Blockbuster. Ever since then I've been laying on the couch watching "The L Word." I didnt realize how provocative that show was!! Well...at least it kept me entertained today. I've been working on the blanket I'm cross-stitching for the baby all day too. As long as it takes, if I keep working on it at this rate, I should be able to finish it by the time Collin is 3 years old!!

Speaking of Collin, he's been actively kicking all day. I guess he rested the past few days and now he's making up for it. Well I guess I've gotta get some sleep tonight so I'm going to head off to bed soon. I'll update after my first day back to school tomorrow.

1/3/09

Wow...it's been awhile since I posted!! Hopefully you guys haven't stopped checking in... I haven't had much to post about, but now I'll update on everything that's been going on for the past few days..

On the 31st, we woke up and Pat said he hadn't felt the baby kick in awhile so when he started moving around I told him to put his hand on my belly. He started out softly moving around..and then he started kicking REALLY hard!! Pat said one of them felt like he scratched me! Haha... It kind of hurt!! I think the rough-housing with his daddy has started already!! :)

My mom came up late the afternoon of the 31st with Simba, her shar pei. We were worried he would be difficult to have here, but he's been pretty easy-going. We had to partition the house into 2 parts though. We didn't really make any big plans for the new year, even though we had a few options. Some of Pat's friends from high school that were in town went to a club in Houston, but can you believe they charge $50 to get in?!?! And it's not like I can drink anyways! Forget it! Some of our other friends were going to another bar, but again..the no drinking thing makes it kind of boring. So instead we had our friends Kevin and Stacey (our neighbors) over and we bar-b-qued, watched football and played Battle of the Sexes. Stacey and I dominated the guys (of course)!! It was pretty low-key, but I know 2009 is going to be a great and exciting year!!!

The past couple days we haven't done much either.. just kind of hang out around the house and rest. I've been waking up late and then taking a nap in the afternoon! I don't know how I'm gonna handle waking up at 5:30 am again starting Monday!! Uggh!

Steph drove in this morning to drop off a bunch of stuff my mom had sent up with her from McAllen for the baby's room. She brought us our bassinet and 2 really neat paintings my mom got for Collin's room. They are both sports jerseys, one football and one baseball. They both have his name on it and the #21 (the day we found out I was pregnant with him)! Ohh yeah! And also a book rack that you hang on the wall for all the cute baby books we'll be reading him! Andrea (Pat's sister) already bought us 3 classics to put in there: 2 Dr. Suesse books (Green Eggs and Ham, One Fish Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish) and Polar Express. I can't wait to read them to him!! There's a few others I can think of that I need to make sure I get too.

Steph also came in to pick up Pat because they left for Arizona to see the Fiesta Bowl with my dad. Sooo lucky!! Not fair! I can't believe I had to get left behind. Ohh well...Hook 'Em Horns!!

After they left I went to get a prenatal massage.. it was actually really awesome! I was thinking of asking if I could get that message even when I'm not pregnant?? haha... They'd probably think it was weird, but I thought it was great! Maybe I just really needed it!!! When I got home from the massage my mom was putting together the bassinet.. haha..and having a hard time doing it! But she did it and it great!! It's already in our room waiting for the baby to come. I would post pictures of it, but Pat has the camera in Arizona, so I guess they'll have to wait. My mom is now upstairs putting all the stuff up on the walls in the nursery. Good thing she's here doing that because who knows when we'd actually get around to doing it!! Boredom has pretty much set in... I'm now on my second viewing of 27 Dresses today alone... I should probably try to get to bed early today since I have to get back in the routine day after tomorrow :(

I'll post new pictures of the nursery and bassinet soon!