Happy Valentines Day…one week late

To my Valentine’s

 

Babe,

What an amazing year 2012 has already been. I can’t believe in a matter of weeks I get to become a parent with you. How exciting! I am more and more amazed each and every day at how much I love you. I can’t even believe how this pregnancy has bonded us even together even more…what an amazing journey we are on and there is NO ONE I’d rather do this with. You are the most amazing husband and I am so blessed by the Lord that you are mine. Over the past few months I have seen you be the most caring, tenderhearted, servant to me and our baby. You have been so selfless and have taken such good care of us. I truly don’t deserve you. Thank you for being such an amazing husband and leader. Thank you for loving me so unconditionally. You are my everything and I love you so very much!

 

To our littlest Valentine,

   Clara Grace…your Mommy and Daddy love you so very much. With each passing day we are getting more and more excited about meeting you. I can’t wait for next Valentine’s when you are actually here with us. You are a joy to our hearts and words cannot express the love we have for you even now. Keep growing like a good girl and know that you have two parents who already think you are the sweetest little girl ever. We are so thankful to Jesus for blessing us with you! As parents I know we are bound to make many mistakes…be patient with us baby bear…we’re going to figure out this parenting thing with you as our first. We love you more than words can even express.

 

Love,

Mommy

28 week update…

28 week update

Wow…heading into the third trimester. Craziness. Where have the past 28 weeks gone? I can only imagine that the next twelve will also fly by. Clara Grace is still moving around quite often. I do feel like its getting tighter in there though…especially when I feel her pressing on both sides of my belly. We’ve been busy getting things ready and purchased for the nursery. Nicholas finished the carpet and set up the crib this past weekend. It looks so cute and every morning when I see it in the nursery I can’tbelieve in a few months she’ll actually be in there (well maybe a little longer than that since she’ll stay with us for a while). I’ll do another post soon of the nursery and crib set-up with some pictures.

I had my two hour glucose test this past Friday. It wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating. The drink wasn’t delicious at all but it also wasn’t absolutely gag worthy. I chose the orange one and proceeded to camp out in the waiting room. Nicholas was so sweetto keep me company! I had my appointment during this time and everything seems good. Measuring right on track at 28 and will go back again in a month. Afterwards we went to Panera for a little breakfast and headed home to relax (the drink made me really tired).That afternoon we headed up to Cape Elizabeth for a night away. It was so relaxing and nice! Sweet Hubby, huge soaking tub and room service…three of my favorite things!

My glucose numbers came back a little high so I now have to switch up my diet and check my blood twice a day. Nick and I met with the nutritionist and nurse and went over all of the changes. Boy am I going to miss all my carbs! I was super bummed when they called to tell me…but like we talked about its better to be safe than sorry. The nurse said that they just changed the passing numbers this year because so many women were having large babies. Sounds like I would have passed on the old system but alas…not this time. Nick has been amazing and we went on a big grocery run last night. Hopefully I’ll get used to it and perhaps it’s a healthier option for my eating anyway.

Here are some 28 week belly pictures taken by my sis…

I will be 30 weeks tomorrow so of course this post is a little old. I really need to post right when I write the post…not two weeks later

Our Baby Girl Has a Name

Clara Grace Tolley

 After many prayers, conversations and looking through baby name books, our sweet little girl now has a sweet little name.

 Now I can finally monogram something

I’m still here…

So I’m going to try and re-cap a little over the past few weeks…this is what bad bloggers do

 

December – Was crazy and amazing. We kept talking about how next year we are going to have a seven month old. It was our last Christmas as just the two of us and Nicholas made it so extra special! He was so sweet to me and bought things for both baby girl and I. He even ordered her some stuffed animals from Restoration Hardware that are adorable!

I’ve been sporting my new maternity coat and using my new sewing machine (crafty crafterson here). We spent lots of time with family and he and I watched so many made for tv Christmas movies (even after Christmas). Nick got to feel the baby move for the first time around 21 weeks which was so cool. She also put on a nice show for everyone on Christmas and my Mom got to feel her kick Christmas morning. I started having a little trouble sleeping during this month. mainly from my hips hurting and waking up often. It seemed that I had too many things going through my brain and I just couldn’t sleep (this has been slightly remedied and will be discussed in January’s re-cap…below ) Other than that I felt great and tried not to overindulge too much on all of the holiday goodies. We still have bags of Christmas candy around from my amazing stocking! Nicholas outdid himself with the candy and funny thing is we really haven’t touched much of it…only in the extreme chocolate craving moments. Nick and I had most of the week after Christmas off and that was so awesome. We relaxed, did errands and worked on organizing the basement. Such a sweet time to spend together not doing much of anything after the hub-bub of the holidays!

 

 

January – New Year’s Eve we went to Matt and Rachel’s and had an appetizer party. Libby, Mike, Rachel and John came and we had such a great time. Here are a few pics from the party. We all made stuff and the spread was amazing. Some highlights (at least for me) were Libby’s oreo truffles (thanks for making those for the pregnant lady), Rachel H’s cheesecake bites (yummy), Rachel T’s mozzarella balls, Nick’s trifle (a joint effort but mostly his doing)

and bruschetta (DELICIOUS) I actually made a sandwich with the leftovers the next day. I tried a new white queso dip recipe (http://penniesonaplatter.com/2011/11/30/queso-blanco-dip-the-second-and-final-attempt\) It was so delicious and I will definitely be making it again! We had a great time just hanging out and eating good food! We went back to work and that was hard…December’s time off really made me wish that Nick and I worked from home J Baby girl’s kicks got much more powerful and we can actually see her moving around sometimes. It doesn’t feel like little kicks anymore…more like big kicks and rolling around. I love feeling her move and it gives me such comfort throughout the day to feel her up and about. Since I seemed to be waking up a lot thinking about the nursery and all of the things we needed to get, Nicholas made it a priority for us to get some of that taken care of. So in one week we went to Nashua 3 times and also Burlington and Epping. What an awesome hubby! For my b-day we did more baby errands and actually brought the crib home. So at this point 90% of the furniture for her nursery has been purchased, we also got a stroller and her bassinet came before Christmas (thanks Mom and Dad) so I keep telling Nick he’s going to have to start wearing his tool belt for all of these assemblies. We also were able to buy some carpet for the nursery and Nick has been cutting that and for her room. I can’t believe what a difference it makes and how much I love it. My b-day was awesome and Nicholas basically gave me two b-day weeks to celebrate! We took my actual birthday off and did some furniture/carpet shopping. He ordered me some things from Etsy that I had been wanting to get baby girl and he also is taking me away this coming weekend. I can’t wait to get away and spend some more time just the two of us (those days are very numbered). I also got the most beautiful tulips delivered to work. He knows they are some of my faves and it was so sweet to have a little taste of spring!

 

 

I can’t believe we are 27 weeks in. She is going to be here before we know it! Time is flying for sure. We can’t wait to meet our little girl! Our birth classes start next week so I’m sure that’s going to make it feel even more real!

I am now 28 weeks and just hadn’t posted this. I’ll be back with more recent updates…I PROMISE.

Belly Picture Post…Finally.

My original goal for belly pictures was to do a picture of the fruit/food that the baby was the size of. We started off strong with a sesame seed and blueberry (which Nicholas grabbed from the delicious breakfast buffet we had while in Charleston and carried around for us to do that picture later). We missed the poppy-seed and never used the lentil that we bought, the figs became bad after I bought those so needless to say I was not doing a good job of keeping up with this. I have since taken a different approach…have a belly picture taken every few weeks. You’ll see I’m definitely missing some weeks but at least we are documenting the ever growing belly at least a little. My sweet hubby took the first two pictures (which were prior to us announcing our pregnancy) and since then my amazing photographer/sister Rachel has taken the rest for us.

6 weeks 

In between these pictures Rachel took some anniversary pictures of us so technically they are also around 6 weeks. As you will see in the blog post, these were later used for our pregnancy announcement at around 10 weeks.

http://www.rachelhalsey.com/blog/?p=1653 

7 weeks

13 weeks 5 days

17 weeks

18 weeks

22 Weeks and Five Days

24 Weeks

Rachel also blogged a few from the 6 month shoot - http://www.rachelhalsey.com/blog/?p=1750

Well if you made it through this massive picture overload…Thank you. I will try to do better in the future of updating these belly shoots as we go along.

Best News of 2011

I thought it is only appropriate today to finally post baby girl’s pictures to celebrate our biggest, most exciting news of 2011. We have had three ultrasounds at this point so below are the best pics from each ultrasound.

10 Weeks -

17 1/2 Weeks -

19 Weeks -

Thanksgiving…a little bit late.

So the news is out…WE’RE HAVING A GIRL. I still can’t believe it. Wow. We told my family on Thanksgiving. The tradition of the Thankful Ship  (photo stolen borrowed from Rachel Halsey) continued this year. Nick wrote the below slip about our little girl and read it at the very end of the thankful ship round.  Everyone was very excited and it was so nice to share with everyone on such an appropriate day. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving…the food was out of this world. I must tell you that I think I have been looking forward to this meal for months! Everyone was so sweet to make stuff that this pregnant lady was craving (thanks guys for the ham, mac and cheese, pecan and chocolate pie, broccoli casserole and so many more delicious items)!! This baby loves her carbs (or maybe its just the Mommy) so the two roll options were also scrumptious. I have to give a special shout out to my sweet, sweet husband for waking up early on Thanksgiving to make mashed potatoes (something that hasn’t always been included in our traditional southern style Thanksgiving) and corn bake. Boy did he outdo himself…not only by getting up early, but also by making such DELICIOUS items. I wish it was Thanksgiving again tomorrow.

 

This year we are especially thankful to the Lord for so many blessings. He is so good to us and we can’t believe next Thanksgiving we’ll be celebrating with a new little one in our little family. I am so thankful for such an amazing husband who is attentive and loving to me and our baby. It totally warms my heart to hear him pray every night for our little girl and for me as we are walking through this pregnancy. He goes to every appointment and prays for us right before we go in as he knows I always get nervous, holds my hand as I get blood drawn and helps me remember the questions I want to ask the doctor/midwife. He totally picked up the slack for the months I was not feeling well, and continues to help around the house whenever it is needed. I am truly blessed by the Lord for giving me such an amazing husband and could not have asked for anyone more perfect for me. We are also so thankful for the good report of our little girl this past Tuesday. We had our anatomy scan and everything looks great! We got some more pictures of her (I’ll do a post with the ultrasound pictures from our gender determination as well as the anatomy scan in the next couple of days). The ultrasound technician as well as the doctor could not believe how active she was (maybe she really loved the grape nuts I had for breakfast). She was swimming all over the place. So much so that the doctor when listening for her heartbeat had a hard time finding anything but kicks and fleeting beats of her heart as she swam on by. I am feeling her a little more often now, but obviously its nothing in comparison to how much she is moving around in there. Just a few kicks here and there a few times a day.

 

I’ll close this post with a few pictures my sister Rachel took (I still have plans to do a post with some of my belly shots as well as our ultrasound pictures…boy do I need to get better at this blog thing).

 

We found out more about you…

I couldn’t post these any earlier because Nick and I were waiting to do the big reveal to my family on Thanksgiving (we were going to tell Nick’s parents that weekend too, but we didn’t end up seeing both of them so we told them on Tuesday).

Wednesday, November 16th

Dearest Baby,
Well Daddy and I are about to find out your gender. We are so very excited! Our appointment was scheduled for tomorrow, but I literally cannot wait! Your sweet Daddy called to see if we could switch our appointment to a day earlier. I talked to him at lunch and she had called him back to say she has an opening! Daddy keeps talking about how we will finally know if we will have a son or daughter. Either way we will be ecstatic…we just can’t wait. I also am looking forward to seeing you again on the ultrasound screen! I’m sure you have gotten bigger in the last 7 ½ weeks (Mommy sure is). Well baby…we love you so much and can’t wait to see you tonight. This is the next step in learning more about our son or daughter…our lives will never be the same.

Love you.
Mommy

Thursday, November 17th
We were so excited to find out last night that we are having…A GIRL! I honestly still can’t believe it. Everyone kept telling me boy, so I really think that is what I was expecting. It took the ultrasound lady about 40 minutes to confirm it completely. Our little girl was sitting with her ankles crossed which made it very hard to determine for sure. I drank a little more oj bounced on a ball and tried to get her to change positions. She was definitely active from the juice, but it took her awhile to finally get out of her comfy position so the ultrasound lady (Jessica) could tell. We still have our anatamoy scanned on the 29th, but Jessica was kind enough to do measurements and tell us everything looks great. It was so amazing to see our daughter! She looked to be sucking her thumb during part of the ultrasound. We are so in love! Nick and I went to the mall that night and bought a few things for our sweet baby girl…it has only just begun! We are so thankful to the Lord for blessing us with such an amazing miracle!

A little of this and that…

So I’m already turning out to be a horrible blogger and the baby isn’t even here yet. Hopefully I can get into gear and really start blogging up a storm!

A few highlights over the past couple of weeks. I’m finally starting to feel human again! After weeks of constant nauseousness, I think I have turned the corner (at about 16.5 weeks…this is for the Abbie of the future who wants to remember when this took place for future pregnancies) and its awesome! I am have a few cravings here and there but nothing really out of the ordinary. I’ve wanted a tuna sub from Strafford House a lot lately, but I told Nick last night that I need to keep this under control. I don’t want my baby getting too much mercury! Pink starbursts were also something I was loving for awhile. I blame this on Nick’s choice of a skittles/starburst bag of halloween candy. There are about 30 opened starburst packages from a certain someone looking for the pink ones. At this point I think they have all been found and eaten.

In other news I think I’ve felt the baby move a couple of times this week. I could be wrong but I definitely feel little distinct thumps on my belly when I’m sitting very still or sitting in certain positions at my desk. I’ve been calling our baby Thumper this week for that very reason (only until we FINALLY know the gender and we can get a name picked out). I did a little maternity clothes shopping this weekend with Nick and my sister (and John of course). I was very overwhelmed though and I guess I still feel too in between to really want to spend a lot of money on clothes. I did get some Gap jeans which I love and Nick bought me some belly cream and the baby some bath toys from Destination Maternity (already he is taking great care of his babies).

I literally cannot wait to find out the gender. Our plan is to find out and take the day to celebrate…clothes shopping…lunch or dinner out and then maybe some more online shopping Our poor bank account better get ready (If you’re reading this Nicholas, time to add some more to my baby shopping budget).

That’s all for now. I have big plans to post some pictures in the next few days. The belly is really starting to make an appearance so I need to document this growth from beginning until now!

Dear Baby

Dearest Baby,
It’s a beautiful Fall Sunday morning. Its so weird for me to think about you being here next Fall. Oh what fun we’ll have. Visiting apple orchards, picking out a pumpkin, taking walks and looking at the leaves. I can’t wait! We’re thirteen weeks along today. Time seems to be flying. I can’t believe you’ll be here in 27-29 weeks.
Baby, your Daddy and I love you so much. We pray for you daily, and think of you constantly. You are so loved and cherished long before we have even met you. We are praying that you will be growing strong and healthy! Our hearts are so full. When we got to see your first picture 3 weeks ago I couldn’t help but cry. What a miracle you are! I can’t wait to feel you moving around in my belly! What a blessing you are to Dad and I already. Here is Daddy picking up some reading material for us!

Keep swimming and kicking and hanging out in my tummy! Hopefully its nice and warm for you in there (I’ll try and convince Daddy to keep the heat a little warmer this winter so that you won’t get cold )
Love you with all that we are!
Mommy

P.S. Here is your first picture (please know that given our family and especially your Aunt Rachel this will be the first of millions)