34 Weeks!

(By Jen)

Here is how the pregnancy is going:

Wardrobe:
* Still not completely in maternity clothes. Yay me! However, I do borrow Greg’s shirts once and awhile since they feel so good.
* I am (and have been) done buying maternity clothes – even though the temptation arises at times to “just buy one more thing that will make me feel cute.” ;)
* ALL of my shoes still fit. Fortunately for me, my feet haven’t changed sizes!! =)

Cravings:
* Still crave fruit quite a bit of the time. Jamba Juice and I have become BFF’s. =)
* Still can’t stomach the thoughts of homemade salads and dressings, but LOVE restaurant salads – weird, I know.
* No smell or sight of food has made me get sick thus far. I am fine with everything except homemade salads. ;)
* Crazy thirsty for water, but I’m not ravenous most of the time, nor do I eat everything in sight like they say all prego’s usually do.

Physically:
* Haven’t really gained a whole lot of weight.
* My hair HAS gotten thicker on my head, and has somewhat ceased to grow everywhere else on my body.
* I just don’t bend over anymore if I don’t have to. I tend to kick things around and hope that someone else will pick them up for me. =)
* Pregnancy has been an absolute breeze for me except for that horrible nausea phase at the beginning (no throwing up though, so that was a blessing!), and tiredness when I am used to going, going, going – maybe labor will be an absolute breeze too?
* Still have a bladder the size of an elephant and don’t have to go 8 million times a day
* People are telling me I am FINALLY looking pregnant. Woo hoo! =)
* No emotional mood swings so far. In fact, I have been a lot more laid back. I have to say, I have felt almost 100% normal this whole pregnancy.

Noah:
* His room is about ¾ done now. We just have a few loose ends to tie to make it look all “pretty” for him.
* We met with and established his pediatrician this past week.
* He really loves my right side and likes to wad himself up over there. Lately it’s been fun to see how many different shapes my belly can take on.
* He gets hiccups quite often that last for a long time – kinda like his mama.
* Greg reads to Noah every night out of his “Little Boys Bible Storybook.” He does a good job of paying attention, but then likes his “playtime” with Greg afterwards. =)
* Greg can now hear Noah’s heartbeat without having to use my stethoscope!

Advice:
* I haven’t really had too many people come and give me unsolicited advice or tips like they say people will try to do. Although….. when I ask for prayer that I’ll be a day or two late when delivering Noah, that’s when people feel like they need to step in and say something to the effect of: “that is the silliest thing they’ve ever heard,” or that “I will change my mind.” I’ve even heard other comments criticizing me for praying for lateness. Just keep in mind, most of you don’t know the whole story or the whole reason behind praying for this…..
* I myself have been solicited for pregnancy advice and tips though. It’s fun to finally be on the other side of the fence. =)


Just 6 weeks till d-day!

Baby Shower!

This past weekend was the baby shower for Noah! Jen’s 5 hostesses (one of whom was unable to attend at pretty much the last minute) did such a fabulous job planning one big shower, and made it everything and more that she had ever wanted. It had been scheduled, probably a little earlier than the normal time you give a person a baby shower, but with the holidays coming up, people’s calendars tend to fill up fast! Even though it was still a busy weekend for a lot of people anyways (and a lot of people were sick too – definitely didn’t want to catch their germs!), we still had an awesome turnout, and we sure got blessed with a lot of nice things! We were told on more than one occasion that this shower was the biggest one they had ever attended in their whole life. Yep, we most definitely feel loved. =) But it doesn’t stop there...... the presents STILL keep coming! We went home from church on Sunday with tons of bags of presents, and even to this day, they still keep coming! =) Jen came home from work on Monday with presents, and it has even become fun opening the front door (and the mailbox) and seeing what packages await us that day too. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and this is making us VERY excited for Noah’s arrival. =) Our living room looks like a disaster right now too, thanks to a friend of ours who dropped off 2 HUGE garbage sacks, stuffed to capacity, of baby clothes for us . Baby clothes of all sizes, in perfect condition, everywhere. We’re pretty much set for almost the first 2 years. We consider ourselves to be very much blessed and very loved. Have we mentioned that already!? =)

Thank you to everyone who came and for all the wonderful things you brought to help us prepare for Noah. Thank you to everyone else who sent things in your absence. That was so thoughtful and very sweet of you to think of us.

52 more days to go!

4 out of the 5 hostesses

Adorable cupcake cake
Adorable "flower" arrangement (made out of baby socks)

Presents!

Jen’s 28th Birthday!

It was a great birthday weekend, full of extreme relaxation and fun surprises.

It all started last Friday night (a week before her birthday) when Greg surprised Jen with one of the first of her birthday presents. Total surprise. He loves to do that kind of thing. =) This past Friday night, when he called to say he was on his way home, he had another surprise up his sleeve. He said, “start packing – we’re going away for the whole weekend!” So we packed up our stuff and headed up to Denver – one of our favorite places to get away. First stop, dinner at Landry’s. He had researched seafood places in Denver (since Jen has been craving seafood lately) and decided on Landry’s since it had the best ratings, and also because we had been wanting to go there for a long time now. Amazing food. Definitely will go back. After that, we headed to our room, where we had fun staying huddled in our room and shutting out the rest of the world for the next 2 days...... well...... sort of. Greg had yet another surprise up his sleeve for Saturday night. The only thing he would tell Jen is that “we had to be somewhere at 5:00 for dinner.” So, on Saturday, when we got to the restaurant, he had arranged for our friends David and Ali to surprise Jen and have dinner and celebrate with us! It was SO much fun. =) Sunday (yesterday) it was such a bummer to have to go home. However, we made a couple of stops on the way home that made it quite exciting! Jen got some new “fat clothes” (as she likes to call it) from Gap Maternity, and Noah got a HUGE sack-full of clothes from The Children’s Place outlet store in Castle Rock. We hit the mother lode for him that day with all the good sales they were having! We hope that store stays open for a very long time as we plan to hit it up quite a bit! Next week we’ll celebrate the rest of Jen’s birthday with her family. Since Greg hogged her all weekend, they want their turn too. =)

We’re now past the 30 week point! 7.5 months along and both Jen and Noah are getting bigger all the time! Here is the latest belly picture.

A Baby-centered Weekend

It’s been a great, but very busy weekend! Skipping over Friday (since we didn’t do anything for the baby) and moving on to Saturday, we spent a nice/lazy/relaxing morning and early afternoon at home. Later that afternoon, we had an early dinner with Mom and Dad Fulkerson, and after that, they took us to buy the glider rocker we’d been eyeing for the nursery! It was definitely SO exciting and we can’t wait to put it together and start using it. So now, with BIG thanks to both of our parents, we have our two major nursery pieces purchased – our crib and our rocker! Did we mention how exciting this is!?!? Now all’s we need is a baby shower to put the finishing touches on everything, and then a baby. =)

All day today, we had our childbirth prep (a.k.a. Lamaze) class. It was quite the information packed class with a lot of visuals and hands-on activities. As we looked around the room (we were one of 8 couples), we noticed that Jen was the smallest pregnant person in there by far, and there were even people in there that had about the same due date as her and they were ginormous! We kept thinking that people were probably looking at us and wondering, “why are THEY here? She’s probably not due for another 6 months or so!” But at the same time, she also prided herself in the fact that she was the only one who didn’t have to get up and use the bathroom like 10 times an hour. Yes, she has a bladder the size of an elephant, and being pregnant has not changed that either...... yet. ;) Let’s hope it doesn’t. Greg did a great job learning how to be Jen’s coach, and he learned a lot about how to help Jen get through the first stages of labor with relative ease. We did however, get insane giggles at one point during the class and almost had to excuse ourselves. Yes, we were taking things seriously, but how come the giggles always have to come at the most inappropriate of times? Anyhow, it was a great day, and it made us both nervous for delivery day AND more prepared and excited.

Noah is quite the active little guy...... actually, he always has been. Lately, he moves and moves and moves and moves and moves. We wonder if he ever sleeps! They say that babies are developing sleep patterns at this stage in pregnancy, so we’ve been trying to be quiet and calm at certain times, and loud and playful at times, hoping with all hope that that will help him make a pattern and stick to it – we just hope that he doesn’t come out thinking that it’s acceptable to continue to “play” at 3 am! ;) Actually, night time “play time” has become one of our favorite nightly rituals. We like to go to bed early, have Jen lay on her back, and watch him move all around in her belly and make it morph into different shapes. Quite often, we can figure out just where his little head is. =) We also hear that he is learning (and can recognize) our voices at this stage in pregnancy too. So Greg talks to him whenever he can since he hears Jen’s voice all day long.

That’s about it for now. Another belly picture to come soon!

Rocktober

Remember how we were hoping that life would slow down once we got done vacationing and everything? Well, it only seems to have gotten busier and busier. Usually around the holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas), our calendars are chock-full of events and things to do almost every night - but seriously? September and October too?

Here’s just a little bit of what’s been going on:

(By Jen) – My friend Ali made (and sent out) THE cutest baby shower invitations for my shower last week for all my non-affiliated church friends/family. She is so awesomely creative! I hope someday I can be as creative as her when it comes time for HER baby shower. I was going to take pictures of the invites and post them, but she already beat me to it and blogged and posted pictures on her site - and again, she is much better at picture taking than me, so click here to visit the post on her blog and see pictures! I KNOW you will love them! ----- Bunco is back in full swing again. We took a break over the summer, but we commenced to start again last month. It’s a lot of fun and I enjoy my night out with the girls SO much!

(By Greg) - Let the studying begin! I got my CFA books in the mail the last week of September and I have created a schedule to get through the 3100+ pages of reading by December 31st! Halfway through October, I am still on track. It’s nice when days are slow at work, because I can read on the job, which allows me more time to hang out with Jen during the evenings and stay caught up on my reading! ----- As some of you may know, the Rockies made it to the post-season again (Rocktober!) this year! My friend and I got tickets to Game 3 and we were extremely excited! The game was supposed to be on Saturday night, but it was freezing, there was drizzling rain, there was still snow on the ground, and the temperature was in the teens; therefore, they postponed the game until Sunday night at 8:00 PM MST! First pitch temperature was 31 degrees (the 2nd coldest game in Coors Field History) and we’re certain it was in the high-teens by the end of the game. The game didn’t get over until 12:15 AM, which means I didn’t get home and in bed until 1:45 AM! It was an awesome experience, and although it was freezing, I’d do it again in a heartbeat! Also, I got one of those cool looking “Rocktober” towels that you see the fans waving around during the games! =)

It was fun this past week...... we got to go with Brian and Becca to look at a potential first house for them! It’s the cutest little house and it’s even kinda close to us too! It brought back some fun memories of when we went and built our first house. =) ----- We went to a wedding this past weekend. A friend of Brian’s (who has become our friend too) got married on one of the nastiest days we’ve had this fall. It was a beautiful wedding though and we had a lot of fun. The weather didn’t seem to bother anyone. ----- Coming up next week, we have our first “Childbirth prep,” (a.k.a. “Lamaze class”) to attend. We’ve been told it’s both worth our time and not worth our time. But knowing how we like to be prepared for everything, we’re going. ;) Should be interesting! ----- In our spare time we keep buying things here and there for Noah. Some necessities, some fun things. His room is full of all kinds of fun stuff! This is all just too exciting!

SOLD!

Yay! We finally sold the Trailblazer! This was something we’ve been wanting to do since last summer, but for some reason never got around to doing it. So this summer, back in July, we posted an ad on Auto Trader and hadn’t had one single call on it...... until the week before last. It’s not like we were in any huge hurry to get it sold, but once you know you are ready for a new car and start looking at new ones to replace it, you kinda get excited and just want to get it off your hands, ya know? So we said our goodbyes last Tuesday morning – we are officially now back to being a 2-car family again. We don’t plan to get our next vehicle until spring/summer of 2010 because with winter raring its ugly head at us, we’d rather buy a car AFTER all the snow and ice has melted off the roads. ;)

It was a great car and we LOVED having it, but we’re sure we’ll love our NEW car even better! Gotta love that new car smell. =)

Now...... off to do our research on some of the vehicles we already have picked out...... can’t wait to reveal our final choice!!!!!

Name That Baby!

Well.... we have to admit, this was one of THE most difficult things we have ever had to do in our life. We really thought that since we had officially picked out a girl's name, that that was kinda a sign that that's what we were having. Plus, there were really NO boy names out there that we even remotely liked at all. We even said to ourselves, "well, if it turns out to be a boy, we'll just have to get ready for one of the biggest challenges ever!" Challenge extended - challenge accepted - challenge overcome. After having read many books, looked on many websites, consulting with friends and family, and staying awake many hours and agonizing over what to call our son, we finally came up with a name that we both love.

Meet Noah Alexander!

We chose this name for many reasons. The meaning of the name doesn’t really mean anything significant to us, but we figured that he DID need a short first name since his last name was so long. We also figured that he needed a "normal" first name since his last name isn't something you commonly hear every day. The only name we kept running back to was Noah - we had dreams about him being called that, jokingly called him that while picking out names, and even prayed for clear guidance for a name. Noah it is! We chose the middle name because that's Jen's Grandpa's middle name. We desperately wanted any name we picked out (for boy or girl, first or middle name) to have someone from the family's name in it. So after writing down both sides of the family (and definitely vetoing a few), Alexander seemed to be a perfect fit and flowed the best. Hopefully he will make his great-grandpa very proud! So...... in the future, when/if we get pregnant again, we hope it’s a girl only because we already have the name picked out and we won’t have to go through all this again. If not...... we get to go through this all over again! ;)

What a wonderful gift we have been given! We feel so blessed and really are in awe with the plan God has for our life together and the life of our son. Our lives have truly been enriched and blessed beyond measure lately, and we just can't put in to words all the emotion and excitement we are going through.

6.5 months along! Getting a little bit bigger now!