Our first visitors!

We've officially broken in the guest room. Our friends Scott, Kim, Madison and Savannah (otherwise known as our son's future wife) came out last week to visit while Scott attended a conference. Kim and I took Madison to the Houston Zoo on Thursday. The zoo itself was really enjoyable, but the heat and humidity found the two pregnant ladies wanting to hide out in the only air conditioning around - the bathroom. We spent the next couple of days laying low just trying to recover!

On Saturday evening, we all went down to the Kemah boardwalk to ride some rides and have dinner. They have live music on the weekends and this time it was something called Zydeco, which is like Cajun bluegrass. Right up our alley! Madison was sooo cute dancing to the music and I just couldn't resist joining in. It was really nice to have friends here as we are still very much in the process of making connections here.

A few hours after the Blands left, Mick's mom, Eileen, and her husband Roger arrived for a visit on their way across country. They brought along their dog Gidget who is due to deliver puppies any minute now. We've been watching her like a ticking time bomb. It's really funny because the whole thing weirds me out. We can see the puppies move in her belly and although I can watch my son do the same thing in my stomach, it totally freaks me out to see it on her. I know I'll have to go through this at the end of summer, but I just don't like to think about that part!



We went to the NASA Space Center on Monday and got to tour the NASA campus. We saw the old mission control room that they used when they landed on the moon, as well as the astronaut training facility. We even saw the new lunar rover that they will take up to the moon in 2020. It was really and interesting trip. It made me want to be an astronaut!

Today we headed down to Galveston Island to see the Titanic Exhibit at Moody Gardens. It was pretty neat to be able to see actual artifacts from the wreckage. We each received a boarding pass with the name and information of a real passenger from the ship at the beginning of the tour, and when you reach the end you get to find out whether or not you survived. Unfortunately, Eileen and Roger didn't make it, but my lady and her two sons did live. Whew!

Baby Clothes

Now that I can finally shop for gender-specific clothing, I had to start filling the closet with some boy-friendly duds. Here are a few shots of the outfits I got, as well as some that the Blands brought us when they came to visit this past week. Although I have to admit that boy clothes are not nearly as "awww"-inducing as girl outfits, it's so fun to imagine my little guy in them in just a few short months!

It's a Boy!!!!!

I can't believe it, but there's no mistaking it! We are having a son! I haven't been able to quit smiling all morning. I was pretty convinced that we were going to have a girl, so I guess the jokes on me. As far as names go, we were set on Emily, but seeing as that would totally get the boy beat up, I guess we'll have to come up with something else. That may take awhile.

The baby is very healthy, right-sized for his age and development. He was cracking Mick and I up by poking himself in the eye. You can see him do it in one of the ultrasound photos. We also got to see him yawn and drink the amniotic fluid. It was difficult to get good facial shots because he always had his hands up by his face and he was resting his head on the placenta. Mick asked the tech if she could tell whether or not the baby was cute, and she said yes. (Although, what else would she say?)

Anyway, I'll spare our son future embarrassment and not post the "proof" pic, but these are the latest shots.

Settling in - finally!

"As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15

Whew! What a long and exciting weekend! We are officially in our new house so I guess that makes us real Texans. I can start to hear the drawl already.

We closed on our house on Wednesday and were anxious to get in and claim our domain, however due to the back log of work that the contractors still had to do on the house (touch-ups, etc), we were met with a group of strangers in our home and we were the ones who felt like we shouldn't be there. We stuck around waiting for a refridgerator to be delivered that didn't actually show up until Friday. Thus began the craziness of waiting windows and rescheduling appointments that dominated the next couple of days. Thankfully, most everything did eventually get done. I wouldn't really expect anything different for this type of a move anyway.

By Thursday night, Mick, Bella and I were sleeping in our new bed in our new house surrounded by boxes and happy as clams. There is just something so comforting about being reunited with our stuff. I'm sure that says something about me psychologically but whatever.

Anyway, Mick and I had to run to Best Buy to get a wall mount for the TV and there by the checkout stand were boxes of the illusive Nintendo Wii. We had toyed with the idea of getting one for the past couple months but they were always sold out. This seemed like striking gold! How could we not buy one? We had some extra Christmas money, and since mine will likely be spent on maternity clothes, Mick generously ponied up for the game. Reagan came over on Saturday and we all "played" tennis and bowling. (I use that term loosely, because I mostly just swung my arms with reckless abandon and hoped I did something successful.) My mom and Aunt Mary came by last night for dinner and Mick and Mary really battled it out in tennis. Good times were had by all.

Lastly, here's an updated picture of the baby bump. This week is 20 weeks! I can't believe that I'm five months pregnant and half way there already. The baby has been kicking daily which is fun for me but not quite interactive enough for anyone else to get to participate. Mick is the only other one whose felt it and that's probably because it's not awkward for him to have his hand on my belly for an extended period of time waiting for something to happen. The best part about being 20 weeks is that we get to find out what the baby is next week! We are beyond excited since we've waited an exceptionally long time to find out. Be sure to check back next Monday for the official word!

Soooo tired of apartment living

We are winding down to our last nights at the apartments since we closed on our new house this morning (Yea!). It couldn't come soon enough either. The apartments themselves are decent enough but we experienced some interesting things last night that made us all the more anxious to leave.

First we took Bella out for a walk and were greeted by a cockroach crawling from the neighbor's apartment. Yuck! If there's one bug that Mick cannot stand, that would be it. It was pretty amusing - and loud - to see how Mick tried to kill it. It think we got it, but those suckers hold on to the last minute.

Then we were pleasantly walking around the parking lot when we couldn't help but notice that a ground floor bedroom window had its blinds partially up and a pair of feet sticking near the window. When Mick casually mentioned this to me, we realized that those feet were actually attached to a hairy, naked man whose bum was out for all the world to see! Of course, I found this hilarious and had to call my sister right away to share the story. I mean, come on! Close your blinds, man!

Anyway, as I mentioned, we did close and are officially homeowners once again. Tomorrow is a crazy day with something like 6 or 7 different deliveries/vendors scheduled throughout the day. I'm tired just thinking about it. I'll try to snap some pics and get them posted this weekend. Now, I just hope our new neighbors aren't exhibitionists...

A quick thought...

So, up until this point I've considered pregnancy to be pretty boring. I hate admitting that, what with all the creation going in my body, but I've certainly realized even more how uninvolved I actually am in the process of this little one's development. With the baby's movements getting more profound this week, I feel so excited about this phase of pregnancy! Not only am I physically conscious of when the baby's is awake, I can even see things happening as my belly moves. Yea! This is the time I've been waiting for!
P.S. In case anyone's keeping track, we're over eighteen weeks...almost half way there already.

Odds and Ends

We received a nice little surprise last night. I was fretting all day about how the baby's doing, which, thankfully, has not been an often occurence for me thus far. I'm not sure if this was intentional or a scheduling error, but I have seven weeks between my last doctor's appointment and the next one. This creates lots of time to wonder just what in the world is going on in there. I hadn't been feeling the baby's small movements in a number of days, so my imagination was running a bit wild.

Anyway, I was reading with my hand on my belly, when suddenly I felt a definate bump under my hand...and then another. It really surprised me because this was much stronger than I had ever felt before, strong enough to be able to feel it outside of my body! Of course, when Mick tried to feel, not a whole lot happened, but after waiting patiently, it started up again and he got to feel too. What a treat! I may just make it the next three weeks until our doctor's appointment after all.

We've been very busy with things pertaining to the new house lately. We close next Wednesday, and so we've been dealing with the endless tasks of inspections, walk-thru's, setting up utilities and insurance and financing, as well as coordinating furniture purchases and deliveries. It's nice that I'm not working, because it makes dealing with all this stuff easier. I really couldn't imagine trying to orchestrate all this while working fulltime.

Mick is enjoying his work and has been put on a project called "Constellation." He will be working closely with NASA and, as I understand it, the project deals with the replacement for the Space Station. Mick is excited because a childhood dream of his was to design something that would go up into space and now he has that opportunity. Now he just needs to make it complicated enough so that they have no choice but to send him up there to put it together! Fat chance, but we can still dream.