32 Weeks and Counting!

Here's my belly picture from last week. Miss Kendall certainly is growing in there! I will be 33 weeks tomorrow (Thursday), so only 7 more weeks until m y due date! Wow, time sure is flying by!

Thanksgiving at the Farm

My cousin Jessica and Me
Jessica, my aunt Theresa, Grandma Saundra and bigo me
Grampy and Blake
Blake and his cousin Olivia
Blake and his birthday buddy cousin Skylar

It was good to see the clan at the farm! My dad's family is a big group of people who we just love being able to see when we're in Wichita. Blake has soooo many cousins, it's great for him to spend time with all of them, though we wish we were closer so they could all grow up together! Maybe someday!!!!

Blake Saw Snow!!!

While we were driving to Bryce's grandma's house, it started to snow!!!!
It doesn't look like too much snow, really, but to Texans (not that I consider myself a Texan), it's quite a bit!
Blake and his cousin Bella playing in the snow! She's from AZ and he's from TX....neither of them were really prepared clothing wise for Kansas weather!!!!
As I mentioned above, we weren't quite ready for the freezing temperatures! Blake didn't have any mittens, but was desperate to play outside in the snow, so we improvised--socks as gloves! It served the purpose!

We went to Kansas for Thanksgiving. We got to spend some time with my mom's family and my dad's family, all in Wichita. Then we headed West to spend some time with Bryce's family! We sure had a fun time with everyone, though our limited time had us running from house to house! Blake was totally in love with the snow! I couldn't hardly keep him inside long enough to warm up! He just enjoyed watching his feet get buried in the white stuff as he walked through the fresh fallen snow in Grandma Jane's yard! It was fun for all of us to see the snow, but we were glad to not have to deal with it for too long! I had to drive in the snow on the icy roads....it had been quite awhile since I had done that, but I was pretty impressed with my abilities!

Greensburg, KS

I was able to get a few snap shots when we drove through Greensburg in November. The place is still an unbelieveable wreck nearly a year after the devastating tornadoes ravaged the area! The bottom picture is from a town, I believe, just West of Greensburg. There's a local artist that makes these crazy signs and figures and has them along side the highway. I think they're neat!

Christmas!

Building a gingerbread house with TT

The finished product! It didn't stay together for too long, but Blake and Timberli had fun constructing it!

We had a nice Christmas here in Austin this year. It was quiet and nice. My office let me off Monday through Wednesday, so I had a wonderful 5-day vacation at home with Bryce and Blake. We pretty much took it easy and enjoyed being able to be home with one another for such a long period of time!

Christmas at Our House

Running downstairs to see what Santa had brought! No need for clothes!
The goods!
Aawww....Daddy's stocking had coal in it!!!
Santa brought a bike!!!!!!!
Checkin out the goods! Underdog the movie! Woo woo!

Christmas at Grandma Pam's House!

Blake and Grandma Pam!

Christmas Day

Here's Blake riding around at Grandma Pam's house on his 4 wheeler! It was 60 degrees, hence the shorts. Didn't quite feel like Christmas, but it was nice nonetheless!

One more picture of the completed paint job....Well, kinda....

And Here I Am!

Yikes!!!! Where did that belly come from!?! This is a picture of me at 28 weeks. I'm 29.5 weeks right now. I go to the doctor again this week, but when I was there two weeks ago, I had my glucose test (no gestational diabetes for me!!!) and my doctor and I briefly discussed my labor plan. I really just want to go into labor on my own and hopefully have a natural delivery. I had a C-Section with Blake and want to avoid having to go through that at all costs. Everyone thinks I'm crazy to want to go into labor, but I don't care. I want to have that experience for myself. And it sounds easier to just schedule a C-Section, but it's not easier for me and the healing process is twice as long. My doctor is fine with me trying to go into labor and delivery the baby on my own. He said he'll do an ultrasound at 37 weeks just to see how big the baby is (since Blake was nearly 9 pounds) and we'll sort of devise our final plan at that time. I'm excited!

We've pretty much chosen the final name for our baby girl. We knew that we wanted to incorporate Kendall in her name as it's a family name and has a lot of significance for me and the Kendall side of the family. We've chosen Kendall to be her first name and Reese as her middle name. We were going to go with Kendall Grace, but it seems like the name Grace is everywhere these days and we like to be a little different with our names (nothing wrong with Grace at all--it's very pretty!). So, anyway, I think that's going to be her name!

We're just trying to get ready for Miss Kendall to come join our family. My shower is in about 3 weeks and I can not wait! Bryce's sister and two of our friends are throwing me a brunch shower on the 27th! I've pretty much been hybernating in my house the past couple of months, so it will be so fun to see all of my friends and open all of the fun pink baby girl stuff! I'll be posting here and there trying to catch up on everything that's happened since Thanksgiving! I seriously have not downloaded any pictures onto my computer since before we went on our trip to Kansas in November! I've got everything downloaded now and just have to work on updating my blog! Hope everyone's well!

Before.....
In progress.....
Still in progress.....
Blake helped me paint! That was interesting, that's for sure!
And after! I'm still working on the rest of the room, but at least the dreaded painting is over!!!!

I ended up just creating my own stencil and going around the room with varying sizes. The circles aren't perfect because of the texture on our walls, but I got my point across. I'm happy with the results. I went ahead and took the lighter color of lavendar onto the ceiling and am glad I decided to do that! I never can get the line where the ceiling and the wall meet perfect enough, so by just painting the ceiling the same color, I avoided having to deal with that! The lavendar is so light, you can hardly tell the ceiling is the same color.

I know I've been MIA for awhile....I just needed a break for awhile to just get through the holidays and just sort of chill out. I have so much to post! I've been working diligently on the nursery--it's getting there! Our family has been doing really well. We had a great Christmas here in Austin, but we missed seeing our Kansas family this year! Well, I'm going to start posting pictures! Hope everyone's doing well and I'll start checking blogs again soon--I'm sure I've missed so much!!!!!!

Ok, so this is a picture from the PBK collection I've chosen for Kendall's room. The reason I'm posting this is because I want to paint her room the same as they've painted this room. So, I get how to paint the different shades of lavendar, of course, my dilemma lies with the polka dot sort of chair rail border they're showing. I could make a stencil and paint around the room, but...our walls are textured and I don't think the circles would come out with crisp edges. Does anyone know any tricks to painting textured walls? Or does anyone have any ideas how I could create a border similar to this with something other than paint? I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how I want to do this, but I can't come up with anything! I've been working on the nursery a little bit each night and I'm making progress! I cleaned out the closet and had Bryce take the doors off last night. He moved the changing table into the closet to give us more space in the room. It fits in there perfectly and I think it's going to be a pretty good solution to the small space issue we have! I'm just going to have to work hard at keeping the closet organized since it will be exposed!

Forgotten Photos

Uuuhh....is Blake giving us the bird!!?!?!?!

Ryan, Blake and Brad
Blake showing the camera the movie Grampy got him for his third birthday! I thought this was hilarious!





I found some forgotten photos on my camera that I had wanted to post and never did....The top one is my cousins Brad and Ryan with Blake...so cute! And then the bottom one cracks me up! I guess he was excited about that movie!

Early Thanksgiving!

Shamika, Justin, Jenni, Dave and the back of Hollee's head....and my plate directly to Hollee's left...lol!

Part of the spread
Busted!!!!!
Jason, Marit, Jenn and Sean on the patio--See the buildings being built in the distance? Austin is growing!
Geoff, Serena and Dave
Hollee and Shamika--Shamika is due 11 days after me and look at that belly!!!! These two would love to know I posted this pic of them on here...heehee!

So I had a nice pot luck Thanksgiving lunch with my work family yesterday. Our company provided a Honey Baked Ham and then the rest of us brought different things--we had a ton of good food! There's so much left over that we're eating lunch again today! I was that girl with the camera, of course....I have a couple of pics of my friends at the office--I'm sure they'd love to know they're on my blog! I'm not in any of them, heehee! Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving to all and I hope everyone has tons and tons of yummies to eat this year! I am looking forward to eating as much as I want and not feeling overly guilty--Kendall's a growing girl, she needs multiple Thanksgiving dinners!!!

Blake had his three-year well child check up today (yeah, it's late, but geez! You just can't get in to see a doctor these days!!!!!). After waiting 15 minutes in the waiting room and then another HOUR in the little dr's office for the doctor to actually come in and examine my son and then another 15 minutes, I just left. He was going to have a flue vaccine, but I couldn't wait any longer. I sort of was on the fence about getting a flu shot for him because of the horror stories, so having to wait while the nurse who was supposed to administer the vaccine yakked to another nurse at the nurse's station helped me make up my mind to skip it. We can deal with a little flu around our house, but we can not deal with autism, which is a possible side effect of the flu vaccine in younger children (there are arguments on both sides of the fence). Anyway, here are Blake's stats:

He is 39 inches tall--95th percentile
and 39 pounds--also 95th percentile!!!!!!!!

I got to have a nice lecture about what to feed him and such because the child gained 13 pounds since his well child check up when he was two! Yeah, 13 pounds!!!!!!! He should gain under 10 pounds, but more like 5 in a year! Yikes! I don't think Blake is overweight at all, so I'm not concerned, but his growth this past year was astounding! He was so scrawny for his height (last time he was only in the 25th percentile for weight) last year, so he's really just put on weight he needed--he's by no means overweight. Anyway, so I guess I just have to watch things when it comes to his diet....crazy!

Nothing much else to report. We'll be spending the weekend preparing for our trip to Wichita and Ulysses, for which we are very excited! I'll probably get a small jump on Christmas shopping as well tomorrow....not looking forward to that at all! Hope everyone is doing well and I'll post some pictures if anyone's interested.

21 Weeks

Here's another belly shot....I thought this pic showed the bump more than the other pics do. I'm officially more than half way there! Wow! It's going quickly! I'm not ready!!!!!!!

Kendall's new changing table! Still need to put the legs on and the changing table topper, but Bryce couldn't haul it in the house by himself, so that stuff will have to wait. Plus, not sure where I'm going ot put it yet--see below pic!
And the crib all put together--well, for the most part!
Yikes!!!!!! See what I have to deal with here!?! I made a huge mess by dragging Blake's old clothes out, so it's not usually this messy, but....yeah, this is what I'm up against to get this room ready for our baby girl!

Today was Kendall day! I found quite a bargain on a changing table at the Pottery Barn Outlet (conveniently located 20 minutes from my house!). They had all furniture an additional 60% off and then I got my 40% employee discount on top of that! The crib is a darker wood, so they don't really match, but for $100, you can't be too picky! Besides, I really liked this changing table when we had it in our store! Kendall got her first outfit today too! It's a little white dress with bloomers I've been eyeing at Pottery Barn Kids! Heehee--it's so cute! I also got the rug that matches her bedroom and the crib skirt--everything was on sale! So, overall, it was a productive shopping day!

Sadly, the weekend is already over! It seems like they just fly by these days! What's everyone doing for Christmas? Any big plans? We'll be here in Austin this year. I get Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off the week of Christmas, so I plan on relaxing as much as I can--might get a few hours in at Pottery Barn too....can't hurt to make a few extra bucks, right!?!

Haha...this is when we were making the cookies we weren't allowed to take to Blake's school for Halloween. I think Blake had more flour on him than what was in the cookies! He had fun helping me, though!

Didn't have too much to post today, but I didn't want to let my blog get stale--I've been on such a roll lately! Maybe I'll take some pictures tomorrow. I pretty much just deep cleaned the house today, so nothing too much to take pictures of! I've been going through all of Blake's old clothes to see what will be acceptable for a girl and am working on taking the rest to a resale shop. Hopefully they'll buy back a lot of it! Otherwise, I don't know what I'll do with all of it! Maybe Lisa J.'s idea of Ebay is a good idea.....may be too much work for me, though! And I have this disdain for the post office.....we just don't get along! We shall see....but that's all that's been going on around our house this weekend!