It's a Girl!

Yep, my mommy instinct is apparently way off because we are having a baby girl!

We had our ultrasound today, and it was so neat to see our little one, moving around and yawning and stretching! She already has a cute little nose and looks like she has my tiny little ears! And it is DEFINITELY a girl. No question of having a stem on the apple!

All is well and she is measuring perfectly on time at 1lb. 3ou. and 11 1/2 inches long! She has muscly little legs and we got a good picture of her yawning! She has all her fingers and toes and everything is the right size, AND there is only one of her (phew!). I am right on target to, with my weight gain and general health.

Here is my baby bump at almost 23 weeks.

So now we get to start decorating!

And i can't wait to see our little Gwen Natalie for the first time and see how she looks!

Lots of STUFF!

Wow! I think i have been busy lately! i haven't posted for two whole weeks! I need to get a belly picture up soon, as our little one seems to be growing by leaps and bounds this week and i am feeling distinctly pregnant ALL of the time now! i have had a crazy week, that is for sure. Last week i was in charge of taking care of some animals for a friend of ours, which took up most of my evenings. And i had a FABULOUS massage week and had 6 massages! Yeah! Then on Friday i got a call from my cousin Marla. You see, the girls summer camp that i usually counsel at was going to be going on this week. I had decided not to cousel this year, as i think it would be too much for me to do being 22 weeks pregnant. But a gal that was going to do kitchen help had a family member die suddenly and they were short on kitchen help. Could i possibly come up and help?

So luckily i only had one massage scheduled and was able to get it covered. So friday night after getting the call i threw some stuff in a suitcase, finished my laundry and headed to Boise to stay the night with my cousins and ride up to Cascade in the morning with Marla. It worked out well too, because me and my hubby are getting to stay with our aunt and uncle at their cabin in Placerville THIS weekend, so Marla will be dropping me off on her way home. God is so good!

And so far this week has been so much fun! I have greatly enjoyed cooking with my aunt and uncle and other friends and it is a nice way for me to still be involved with camp! I have been able to rest enough and sit a lot while preparing things. And if i stand for too long, my aunt yells at me to sit down. So i am well taken care of!

It has been such a joy to be here, as i know i will not be able to participate for several years (you just can't cousel or work in the kitchen AND take care of a 6 month old baby!)

And this week has served another purpose.....getting my mind and body occupied so that monday comes faster! Because monday is when i can cease calling the baby and IT and call it either HE or SHE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited!

Another plus to being up here has been the huckleberries! I love huckleberries and you can't hardly find them anywhere in the valley, and if you do you pay an arm and a leg for them. Well my Aunt and i found the MOTHER LOAD within our camps grounds and i am going home with TWO GALLONS of huckleberries as big as blueberries! I am so excited! Of course i probably have at least as many mosquito bites as huckleberries, but i suppose i will survive! I have found the "pregnancy safe" mosquito spray, doesn't work so well. Last night i counted about 40 bites on my back alone, not to mention the two on my forehead giving me a third eye, and the one on the tip of my nose, making me look like Rudolph. Life can be quite funny sometimes!

So that has been my two weeks. I will be updated you FOR SURE on monday when i know what it is!

Half Way There!

Today i am officially 20 weeks into this thing they call "pregnancy." I can hardly believe i am half way! it has gone by so fast! Today our little baby is 10 1/2 ounces (so a little more then your morning cup of orange juice) and from head to foot is 10 inches long! Apparently once you hit 20weeks they start measuring the legs in the measurement too. So i think that is pretty big! I don't feel like i have grown a whole lot in the last two weeks or so, but if you haven't seen me for three or four, there has been some definite changes.

I now feel like i actually look pregnant all of the time, even in the morning (though some people may still hesitate to say anything if they don't know me). Almost any food is good, except Chinese, and i am starting to feel a tad more aches and pains. I am SOOOO thankful for my weekly massage which i know has kept me from being achy sooner. My poor hubby still has not felt the baby move, it is like it knows when he is trying to feel it and stops moving. I have noticed that even if i am thinking about how to get my hubby to feel the baby move, that it will stop. Little stinker!

But all in all i am feeling good, and really enjoying being pregnant. It is especially fun to feel it move and have the private happy moment wherever. In the grocery store, at church, in the morning when i wake up, whenever!

We can not wait to find out what name we will be giving this little monkey on the 27th! I am excited to see our little one again and be assured that all its parts are there and in the right place and so on and so forth. And now we are in the planning stages for several baby showers. I am so looking forward to them cause it is fun to get cute baby stuff and you get to see people you haven't seen in awhile, as they tend to come when they get a shower invitation.

I still can't believe i am halfway, but looking back i am thinking "I still have a long way to go!" :(

Hail Mary

Last night i attended my first ever rosary. A dear friend of ours had a grandpa die, and as their entire family is catholic, the funeral services are all catholic. I found i know very little about catholicism. I had assumed a rosary would be similar to a viewing. Not so!

I found myself sitting there, wondering what the purpose of a rosary is. Essentially they repeated lines of words about Mary, full of Grace and a few times the Lord's prayer, and entreated Jesus to save all sinners, especially those in need of Your mercy. I found it strange and sad. I found myself wondering why anyone would want to be catholic! It was boring and long and i found little personal meaning in it for myself. Then i began to think that as a catholic maybe they find comfort in it.
"If i repeat this meaningless dogma the right amount of times then i am saved and can go about my life until the next sunday that i need to repeat it."

I thought that was rather sad and i found myself hoping that they were not repeating the rosary in hopes of helping the deceased relative to make it to heaven.

It was all very confusing, and hard to pinpoint the reasoning behind it. I found myself wondering how catholics work. Why the rosary beads? What is there significance? anyway, it was just rather intersting and sad.

4th of July

The 4th of July for our family is a rather unique event. You see, around here we have a Demolition Derby every year on the 4th. And as of last year, my hubby has been in it!

What they do is get businesses and people to sponsor them and then using their sponsor money they buy an old piece-of-junk car, strip it down, put a big, bad engine in it, paint it real pretty and then ram it into other derby cars as fast and as much as they can! There are rules for safety, and this year was the first year in 26 that they had to take someone off in an ambulance, though it was only a precaution. It is really loud, really hot, really dirty and REALLY FUN! Some would say it is really HICK and i would have to agree with you. I am not even sure why i myself enjoy watching it, but i do.

Unfortunately my poor hubby had a string of bad luck this year and only got in a couple of good hits before his motor mounts broke. This year we learned to weld motor mounts with a stick welder rather then a wire feed, it just does not produce a heavy enough weld.

But he is already planning for next year, 3rd time is the charm!

And i survived the derby and even enjoyed it! I was worried about sitting in the heat and getting too hot and dehydrated. So i was very careful to drink lots of water and in the end i drank about 128 oz. of water during the whole day! The worst part was sitting for so long, as i have found that our little monkey likes to hang out in my pelvis when i sit and it gets very uncomfortable! But it also afforded both my mother and mother-in-law to feel the baby kick! So that was exciting! Also the heat affected me more then i thought it would, and in a different way. I was fine while we were there, it was the next day that i was BEYOND exhausted! And though i had stayed up pretty late, it did not translate into the level of exhaustion i was feeling, so i am blaming it on the heat.

Anyway, i am feeling like myself again today and am managing to get SOME things done around the house today (i am also painting my nails, surfing the internet and watching Star Wars, which, by the way, i think means i am definitely having a boy! I enjoy the movies, but i have been kind of obsessed since i have been preggo!)

We can not wait to find out what we are having on the 27th! I am excited no matter what we are having, though i will be shocked if they tell me we are having a girl. I just REALLY think it is a boy! We will know soon enough though and then we can start planning!

148 days to go and counting...

well, today i am officially 19 weeks into this crazy adventure they call PREGNANCY. Our little munchkin weighs 8 1/2 ounces and from its head to its bum is 6 inches long (i don't know why, but they never measure the legs!). It is growing hair now and can hear things (yeah!). I am feeling its movements a lot more strongly and often. Last night i was able to SEE it move! I couldn't believe it cause usually you have to be farther along for that to happen! I was so excited i called my hubby in, and of course as soon as he got there it stopped. Poor guy is getting frustrated!