OB appointment

Tuesday, February 3rd I had another OB appointment. It was pretty much routine. This time, even the med student was able to find the heartbeat because the baby (whom we know is Peter now) has very little room to move around!

I've been feeling it, and the ultrasound on Monday confirmed it, that Peter's head is toward my upper right side and his feet are down toward my lower left, at an angle with his head facing up. Every so often, he must stretch his head up because I can feel it pushing against my side. It feels strange, but I love it because it reminds me that he is there and moving around well.

Today (2-4-09) I felt what I describe as the first real kick. It didn't feel like flutters or gas like I've been feeling for several weeks now, it felt like a real all-out kick. He still has his feet at the bottom, which will be interesting should he end up kicking my bladder!

Here are some Baby Bump pictures, taken today at 19 weeks 4 days:

20-Week Ultrasound

Today, we had the 20-week ultrasound (we're 19 weeks & 2 days pregnant, in the 20th week). The lady who did the ultrasound this time was the same one who did the ultrasound when we were 11 weeks pregnant. She remembered us from last time, which I thought was really neat. She told me that she was going to do a lot more measuring this time, but when she was done, she'd turn the monitor so that we could see better.

It was so amazing, as it always is, to see our little baby moving and growing and living inside me. We got to see the baby's heart beating, and the ultrasound tech pointed out all four chambers of the heart. She showed us just about every little millimeter of our baby, and pointed out features like the legs, knees, arms, hands, head, eyes, etc. Toward the end, the baby started to wake up and squirm a little, but it was still difficult to see the gender 100%. She came in from below the baby, to see between the legs, and was sort of nudging the baby with the ultrasound wand to get the baby to move it's legs a little for a clearer view, but the baby didn't want to move! She zoomed in and pointed out the area between the legs. She and I both agreed it looks like a little boy! :) She was pretty sure that what we were seeing between the baby's legs wasn't the cord. I remembered a similar view of our daughter Anna and her ultrasound view didn't look like this one. I'm 98% sure we're having a little boy. Which seems right, because I've been feeling like it was a boy almost from the start. In fact, the past few weeks, I've caught myself referring to the baby as "he" without stopping to think about it and then I think, "Well, we don't know yet, it might not be a 'he'!"

We got four pictures this time! One of my favorites is of his tiny little feet, which look like they'll be pretty long by the time he's born. The ultrasound tech was trying to get a cute picture of his face, but every time she'd zoom out, we'd see that his arm was right across his face. So, she had to go a little further to avoid the arm. So, the pictures of his face look more like a skull than a face, but it's still cute to see.

Here are the pictures:









We're excited to learn we're having a boy (we would have been happy with a girl too) and now we can start calling him by his name: Peter. We look forward to his birth-day and trust that God will help him grow big and strong...just not quite as big as his big brother who weighed in at 10 lbs at birth!!

Misc. pictures

Here are some misc. pictures of the kids doing various cute and mischievous things...





I also found this mess one day after I came back inside from helping Daddy off to work:

Needless to say, Mommy was NOT happy, it was a huge mess and a horrible waste of ink refills. They didn't get a snack after naptime that day. Thankfully, most of the ink came off, but it took a while to clean.

Stairs Redo

Daddy had some time off during the Christmas and New Year's holidays, so we decided to use the time to redo the stairs in our house, which were so loud and creaky the kids would wake up if we tried to go up or down when they were sleeping.

Here are a couple before and after pictures as well as a couple of pictures of the kids "helping".

Under the stairs, before any work.

The old stairs after ripping up the old carpet.

You can just see Benjamin's little face peaking over the gate at the bottom of what used to be the stairs. Daddy is standing on the basement steps.

Here's Anna with Daddy at the top of the basement steps. This picture was taken at what was the bottom of the steps going upstairs.

Here are the new steps going upstairs. They are SO nice and quiet, even without new carpet!

Here is the underside of the new steps going down to the basement, we put in insulation (our house has none) and drywall to replace the old plaster & lath we tore out.

That was quite a project! We were hoping to have it done in one day, but it didn't work out that way, so we had to spend the night downstairs (our bedrooms are upstairs). We dug out the little tent we had for the kids to sleep in and they had a blast!

Christmas 2008

I know it's a bit late for posting about Christmas, but I finally got around to downloading & resizing all the pictures from Christmas break. There were a LOT of pictures (which included the process of the total stair replacement for our house) so I'd been putting it off. Here are some highlights of the kids' Christmas, 2008.

On Christmas Eve, their Grandpa Orange came for a visit. He gave them bedding (twin size so they can use it in the future also when they outgrow their toddler beds). Benjamin got Spiderman and Anna got Cinderella (Dinsey Princesses). They also got matching trash cans for their rooms as well as lightsabers (so they don't fight over Mommy's anymore!).




Christmas morning was our little family celebration. We couldn't afford much, but the kids enjoyed their presents, particularly the "main" presents. Benjamin got a shopping cart and Anna got a toy cat. The cat seems to be the best gift so far, Anna still LOVES that cat and she sleeps with it every naptime (if she actually naps!) and bedtime.



We also had a dollar store gift in each child's stocking.




Later on Christmas day, we went to a family get-together with Mommy's side of the family. They had lots of fun with all their cousins, which I think they enjoyed more than the presents, actually!



Here are all the cousins for a silly photo. Benjamin and Anna are in the back, and can't be seen that well for all the antlers.

Kiddos

Yesterday, I was taking progress pictures of a costume I'm working on and Benjamin wanted me to take his picture. So, I decided I should take one of Anna too. Here they are:

Benjamin, less than a month from being 4 years old.

Anna, 2½ years old.

OB Appointment

My 2nd OB appointment was January 6th, 2009.

For my 2nd appointment, since we couldn't hear it the first appointment, I was praying that we'd be able to hear the heartbeat nice and strong, healthy and normal. First, a med student tried, but I knew he wouldn't find it because he wasn't doing it right (I felt like saying something, but thought that might be rude!). Then, my doctor tried, but no heartbeat except mine. Though, my doctor pointed out every time we heard a little "whoop" sound that it was the baby kicking. As my doctor kept trying to find the heartbeat, the baby kept kicking. It was so cute hearing the kicks coming through the doppler "whoop"..."whoop", and he/she did it a lot! But, my doctor still couldn't find the baby's heartbeat, so she had the med student go get another doctor. It took him a while, but that doctor eventually was able to find the baby's heartbeat and it WAS nice and strong, healthy and normal. Jason said the baby must be a boy (I've been feeling like it's a boy for some reason) because he's being stubborn like his brother!

Our ultrasound to find out if we can see the gender is scheduled for February 2nd, and I'm very excited! :)