28 weeks and counting

Here is what we're looking like at 28 weeks! Only 3 months to go! 

And here's what the baby looked like at our 27 week sonogram. I bet you can't guess what she was doing...

Yep! Waving again! She's so big you can only see part of her in the sonogram picture. The sonographer was impressed by her head size. She said, "oh, that's a big head circumference!" Lovely! I blame Greg! She's weighing in at about 2# 7oz and is in the 60th percentile for size (measurements of her head, waist and femur bone). And I'm officially in the appointments every two-weeks zone! That means we're getting close! 

Mary Grace and Bill's Wedding

We went to St. Louis this weekend for my cousin, Mary Grace's wedding. The Mass was at St. Ann, my family's church and the reception was on the top floor of a building downtown. It was a beautiful day and we had awesome views! 

The fam before the reception

Greg and I getting ready to stuff our faces with delicious food!

My cousin and her new husband cutting the cake. He was nice and didn't smash it in her face!

A view of the Arch from the reception

The new family

Another picture before the reception started

On Sunday my dad scored tickets to the Cardinals game. It was the first time I had been to the new stadium. The Cards got killed, but it was neat to visit the new stadium!

We had a great weekend in St. Louis. This weekend my mom, sister and nephew are coming down to help paint the baby's room! We already have the colors picked out! I'm excited to see the finished product!

Lake house adventures

Two weekends ago we went back up to Arkansas to work on the lake house. It rained the entire time! Greg was able to get the yard mowed before it started raining too hard! He is loving the 4 wheeler and pull behind mower! 

With the help of Greg's mom, we were able to get a lot done that weekend. We built doors for the other side of the shed and hung them. We painted a couple interior doors for the house. And Greg decided that he wasn't happy with the shower set up, so he demolished part of the bathroom! Awesome! Now we get to learn how to put up backer board and tile! That's for another weekend. We did have the heating and air installed! It is much nicer up there now! It's almost ready for visitors! 

On our way home we ran in to bad traffic in the middle of nowhere. We sat without moving for an hour (some people were getting out of their cars and talking to their neighbors!). So we decided to take a detour and use the GPS to find us a different route. We end up turning onto a road that we think should bring us back to the main road past the accident. At one point we had to drive over a little running water. No problem in Greg's truck. But we probably should have turned around when we ran into this...

That would be a family trying to get a hold of their two horses who happened to get lose because of all the flooding! You can see the water is almost to the road in this section. But we decided to go ahead and a little further down the road we saw an SUV stuck in the middle of a flowing river! They were attempting to get across the road, but the water was too high and running too fast and they weren't going anywhere! So at that point we decided to turn around and go past the horses (who were still on the loose) and back through the overflowing section. What an adventure! After all of that, we only added an extra hour and a half to our trip. Not too bad! Hopefully Arkansas gets a little reprieve from the rain for a while!

Birthday celebrations!

Greg turned the big TWO NINE on the 24th of April. I know, it's been a while since I've had a chance to sit down and post a blog! We celebrated by going out to eat with friends, attending a crawfish boil and going to Cirque Imagination. 

This is the only picture I was able to get!

Cirque Imagination is basically the show for retired Cirque Du Soleil people...so they're like 18 instead of 14! It was awesome! I highly recommend going to see a show if they are in town! This is a clip from a Cirque Du Soleil show. The girl who did this at Cirque Imagination grossed me out! As a physical therapist, I worry about about the problems they are going to have when they are older! But it is pretty impressive none the less! It was a great birthday present from his mom and a fun addition to his birthday weekend! 

This last weekend we were back up at the lake doing more work on the house. Remember this picture? 

Try not to throw up!

It now looks like this! Much better! We texture painted the walls. We also built new doors for the shed. They look awesome and are incredibly heavy!

We're heading back up this weekend and we should have a new heating and air conditioning unit by then! Ooohhh, the luxury! I have a feeling we're going to be spending a lot of time in Arkansas this summer! Hopefully we'll be in Dallas when I go into labor! I don't know that I want our kid to be born in podunk Arkansas! I don't even know where the closest "medical facility" would be!

                      

It's hard to believe we only have about 13 weeks left! Look at that belly! It's getting tough to run (OK, it's really probably considered a jog!) on the treadmill without my stomach hitting the front bar! Don't mind my crazy hair...it's super humid in Dallas and there's no taming it! Next week I have to do my glucose tolerance test. Here's hoping I didn't make myself diabetic with all the carbs I'm eating!

And last, but certainly not least...Buon Compleanno, Bubba Joe! That's "Happy Birthday"
 in Italian for my brother who is in Italy. It's his birthday today (May 7th)! At least I'm on time with someone's birthday!

Side note!

Tonight at Jamba Juice the lady asked if I wanted a shot of calcium for the baby! I wanted to say, "What baby?! Are you calling me fat?!" But I decided to be nice! How fun is that? Strangers are finally able to recognize my pregers belly for what it really is!

The moles are terrible in Dallas this time of year!

OK, it's not moles. We're having a sprinkler system put in. According to Greg it is long overdue. We never had a sprinkler system growing up in St. Louis (unless you count my parents setting up the sprinklers for us to run through), so I kind of think it's a little silly. But I guess, when in Dallas...right?

Hopefully in the next few months all of our outside pictures will have lush, green grass as far as the eye can see (or at least to the lot line)!

Crystals

I used to like crystals. In fact, in grade school I grew my own crystals on a rock in an empty soda bottle. It grew really quickly and had every color of the rainbow on it! I think there was even a girl in high school whose name was Crystal. And I like the restaurant Krystals, even though it's no where near as good as White Castle.
What I don't like are crystals that show up in a urinalysis. Which is what happened to me the other day at my GI appointment. Apparently crystals aren't supposed to be there and can be an indication of kidney stones! Lovely! So he decided that I should have an abdominal ultrasound done to look for these.
Yesterday was my day to have this test run. I'll start by saying that the entire test only lasted about 15 minutes. It was supposed to be a regular ultrasound focusing on the kidneys and bladder. What ended up happening was that the sonographer was so excited that she got to look at a baby instead of old people's kidneys all day that we spent 10-12 minutes looking at the baby and 3-4 on the kidneys! The sonographer was so funny! She kept telling me that she wasn't supposed to be doing this, but if I didn't mind then we would keep looking at the baby. We literally went from the top of her head to the soles of her feet and discussed how the baby looked in each view. We were able to see the ears, see that she was sucking her two fingers like Hook 'em Horns, her tongue was moving when she was drinking the amniotic fluid, we saw HER kidneys, her heart, her 10 fingers and toes, her legs crossed at the ankles and much, much more! I'm not kidding! We went through everything and the sonographer was giddy the entire time! Apparently the baby and I "scan" well. Good to know! I was loving it, but all I kept thinking was, "Greg is going to be so mad he's missing this!" Because we weren't supposed to be looking at the baby in the first place, she wasn't able to print out any pictures. But it was a fun experience anyway!
And my kidneys...well apparently that pain that I've been having at night is due to hydronephrosis. Which basically means something is blocking the tubes that let the fluid drain from the kidneys. It could be stones or it could be that the baby is sitting on them! Treatment: drink lots of water so I don't develop an infection and hopefully everything will be better once the baby is born. This pregnancy thing is not for sissies!