26 weeks

This was taken late at night, can you tell? Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends! Baby and I are looking forward to some mashed potatoes. Yummy!

Baby kicks?

About a week and a half ago I started to feel kicks. Not for sure if they are kicks, elbow jabs or punches. We like to think they are kicks so we have a future soccer player or dancer in our family. I have been feeling her periodically, but she is most active at night...she definitely gets that from her mom and not her dad! Sunday night Jeremy felt the baby move for the first time. We were both so excited. He felt her kick twice and then she stopped for a minute. As soon as I said, "I think that is it," she kicked again. Already playing tricks on us!

Our baby girl is going to have lots of boyfriends...friends that are boys, that is. There are two couples in our Sunday school class that are expecting boys, our wonderful friends Brad and Tara already have a boy and we just found out today that some great friends of ours are expecting a boy. Jeremy said he is going to have to be sitting down with all these boys and "have a talk" that is if my brother doesn't do it first knowing how protective he was with me growing up.

Have a great rest of the week! We are looking forward to next week...Thanksgiving! Time to eat and be with family!

One more thing "checked" off

When I posted last what I meant was the pictures are getting harder for me to post as I get bigger, but I will continue to do it. Sorry if I confused you.

Well, I am proud to say that we have checked another thing off our list...we bought baby furniture! With Jeremy as my husband, that was a huge accomplishment! He is very discriminating when it comes to style and quality of furniture because of his background. We both finally agreed on something. We bought it from USABaby. Now we pray that the 8-12 week turn around is accurate.

We are having to work on our back room (the 4th bedroom in the back of our house) before we can start on the nursery. When we moved into this house that room suddenly became our storage room/laundry room/basement/close-the-door-when-company-comes room. Now it will be our office. When we bought the house it was paneling, so we drywalled it, but never totally finished it. Jeremy has been finishing the room with trim and crown molding. Now we are finishing up the paint before we can move our office into this room. The current office will be the nursery. I am so thankful that Jeremy is so talented and is able to do all this work on our house! Sadie has to be in whatever room we are in...she's such a people-dog. Well, she got curious when Jeremy was painting and the picture below shows what happened.

Today (Monday) I was off work because I traveled this weekend for work. I took advantage of my time to do research on daycare. A lot of places have waiting lists so it is better to get a start on this now. Hopefully we will find something that fits by the end of the year.

Did you know that there is no Expecting Parents Checklist? My good friend Brooke, who is also pregnant, and I were talking about this. Wedding checklists they have...you know, 8 months away meet with the florist, 2 months away send out invitations. With babies, a whole new territory, there are no checklists lists like this. Of course there are books, websites and doctors, but those are usually medically related topics. Those are all important as well. Thank God for family and friends that have had babies or I wouldn't know what to do. I mean, I am a first-time mom after all.

Hope you are well! I still can't believe it is already November! The time sure has flown by!

Jeremy was in a wedding two Sundays ago for his good friend, Gary Churchman. They love to play golf together. Jeremy actually danced a lot that night...very unusual for him at weddings! And even while I am pregnant I still love to dance!

Sadie's tail...and it is oil-based paint! It will be there for a while. :)

23 weeks

These are getting harder for me to share personally, but I will continue to post for the sake of all the out-of-towners. :) We go to the doctor tomorrow. I will post again after that appointment.

Happy Halloween!

Getting ready!

Sorry we have written anything in a while. We have been busy looking into nursery furniture, bedding, registering, childcare and baby names. Any suggestions or information on these topics are helpful! Send them our way. We have about 4 names that our favorites right now, but that is something we have time on. Jeremy has wanted to make something for the nursery. For those you who don't know Jeremy does woodworking (and is amazing, if I might brag for a bit). The problem is whatever he chooses to make will take a long time and may not match the rest of the furniture. We are still figuring that out. I went into a store last week and the woman said, "We suggest you to order furniture between 20 to 22 weeks along" suggesting that we needed to get a move on. Well, guess what? I am 22 weeks. Don't tell an already overwhelmed pregnant something like that! My mom says that the baby can just sleep in a laundry basket in the beginning, babies don't know the difference. I get the point, but I don't think I could do that. :)

We have officially become "expecting parents". Yep, we have registered for maternity classes. I am sure we will have many stories from those to come.

I am experiencing the joys of pregnancy! Everyone loves touching my belly. Right now I don't mind at all because it has all been family and friends. When some old woman in the grocery store starts doing it then there might be a problem. Julie, our friend and youth minister at Beargrass, gave me a great shirt the other day. Thanks, Julie! It sums this whole experience up...

Maternity Wardrobe: $2,408 (by the way, I will NEVER spend this much!)
Nursery Furniture: $1,317
Touching my belly: $5
Some things money can't buy. For everything else, you need cold hard cash.

Sorry no pictures of the belly. We will post some next week before our doctor's appointment. Pictures below are from Lindsay Puckett's wedding. We grew up in youth group together. Jeremy and I are close to their family. I don't have pictures of Lindsay but she was a beautiful bride with an incredible dress with red on it!

Stay dry with all this rain and pray for the people in California!

Blessings-
Laura and Jeremy

With the parents of the bride, Mike and Jill

With John and Terrianne

With the sister of the bride, Kelly (practically our lil sis)

Half down, half to go

It's hard to believe that we are half-way through this pregnancy. I think it has taken us this long to wrap our minds around the idea of having a baby. Now we have the remainder of this pregnancy to get a move on a lot of stuff! There is so much to think of and plan for that it is very overwhelming! As my friend's mom said to me recently, "The only thing the baby really needs is food and love." I think we can handle that.

Posted is a picture of me at 20 weeks. I am so thankful for the fall weather that is getting here tomorrow! I have found out that heat and pregnancy don't go very well together. It makes me sympathize for women who have babies during the summer months.

Happy Fall! (Finally!!!)

It's a girl!

Apparently these are the girl parts.

A profile shot.

Looks like all five fingers are there.

Cute little feet!

Her hand is in a fist. Wonder what that means?

Yesterday we went to the doctor and had our ultrasound. According to the ultrasound tech everything looked very good. That was the best news to hear! A doctor will then read all the results and let us know if she sees any problems. We have been praying for a healthy baby regardless of gender!

It took literally 10 minutes before we could tell what sex baby peanut was! We stared at the butt for quite a while. The ultrasound tech said, "This is one of the most stubborn babies I have had in a long time." We were for sure thinking it was a boy after hearing that statement inheriting the genes from the father. :) Jeremy and I were really thinking that we weren't going to be able to find out that day. Luckily the tech was persistent. After shaking my belly way too much and making me turn to my left side, the ultrasound tech was relieved to let us know it was a girl! Instead of stubbornness, we like to just think we have a modest little girl.

We are both very happy. One of Jeremy's first responses was, "Girls are so much more expensive!" We have already begun to think about the teenage years, weddings and more. It's amazing how fast our minds were looking into the future. Posted are pictures from the ultrasound. She will apparently be a gymnast because she was in the tightest little ball. We hope she continues to be healthy!

Now it is time to start thinking about names, planning the nursery and picking out cute outfits. Jeremy will be outnumbered in our household. He is doomed!