A Girl, A Guy, Four Pets, and a Baby

One Year Old in a Flash

2012-01-24T17:21:00.001-08:00

One Year Old
I cannot believe how quickly the year flew by! It's so hard to believe that I have a one year old! She's walking 100%. She says "mama", "dada", "gigi", "diaper", "baby", "bye bye", "papa", "poppy", and more that I can't think of. She knows where her nose is and will point to it when asked. She throws her arms wide open when you ask how big is Finley. She's extremely happy. She smiles at strangers. She loves her doggies and kitty cat. She loves dancing to the Fraggle Rock theme song. Her bed time is 8:30 and if it's a weekend, she'll sleep until 7:30-8:30ish. She's got a great sense of humor for someone so young, and I'm just so excited to watch her grow even more. (Even though it's bittersweet.) It seriously feels like just yesterday I wrote this blog. And re-watching this video that Anna made me last year makes me so sad at how much has changed in what feels like no time. I'm happy that my little baby is growing up and turning into such a fun little friend, but I miss that tiny little baby, too. I think what makes me the most sad about it all is that it went SO FAST, and I know that means that the rest of the years will go by just as fast. :( Anna made me another video for her birthday that is just as much a tear jerker as the last one. I am crazy about the songs in this video!

The Party
When I first starting thinking about Finley's birthday party, I originally didn't want a theme. I just wanted it to be pink and yellow and aqua. Then Anna said she had seen the greatest theme and thought we definitely needed to use it for Fin. She was definitely right! "One Year Old in a Flash" is perfect for Fin because Anna and I have a photography business. It just makes sense! Not to mention, the year did go by in a flash. I knew from the beginning that I needed Anna's help with the planning, and that was the best decision I made during all of this. She is much more organized than I am, and she's extremely creative. We are already partners in business, so bouncing ideas off of each other comes naturally to us and that is kind of how we planned this whole thing. We were constantly texting each other about different things we found online, or words we came up with for the food. The downside to Finley's birthday is that it comes a few weeks after Christmas. I knew that we needed to really get the major ideas planned before Christmas or else her birthday party would get lost in the mix of the holidays. The invitation was the first thing that needed to be done, so I went on Pinterest for ideas. I only found two birthday parties that used this same theme, and I took ideas from their invitations and made it my own. I created the invitation in Photoshop, saved it as a pdf, and went to Staples to have them printed off. Little did I know, it was not that easy. For some odd reason, Staples could not get my blue color printed correctly. (Oh yeah, we didn't go with yellow, pink, and aqua. We saw a birthday party that was aqua and red and fell in love with the boldness and contrast of the two colors.) The guy at Staples called 5 surrounding staples and none of them could get my colors right. So he called other print shops in Granbury. No luck. Finally, DAYS later, a local print shop employee recreated my entire invite to a T with a blue color that was almost right. I was so thrilled, I even looked past the fact the the "Y" in Finley was kind of cut off. :) Once the invites were out, we made sure that we had everything that needed to be ordered, ordered. Finleys onesie came from Etsy, her suspenders came from Etsy, the props for the photo booth came from Etsy, and the fabric for the backdrop for the photo booth came from etsy. The plates and cups came from Shop Sweet Lulu and her hat came from Baby Once. She had a pretty expensive little getup going, but we wanted her to look like a little press baby. We originally planned on having the party at Anna and Eddie's house, but about two weeks ahead of party time, the weather for January 14th said the low was in the 20s!! We had been planning on having the party kind of inside and outside, and that weather forecast squashed everything. We immediately changed the plan to the country club where I live, and that ended up being a great decision. They made the food and gave us a very large space for a very reasonable price. We probably would have spent more having it Anna's house anyway. Now fast forward to the actual day of the party. The weather was NOT in the 20s. It was a beautiful day, and we had a really great turn out. Anna took candids, the photo booth photos, and the pictures of the whole set up. I'm so thankful that she did all of that, because there is no way I could have done that and visited with people. The kiddos loved the photo booth, and their goodie bags. I ordered the little disguise glasses from Oriental Trading Company, and Hooper and I made the little mustache and lips suckers. (Just cut out foam paper and made a hole in the middle for the sucker.) There ended up being 20 kids at the party! And half of them were Finley's age or younger! It really was so much fun. I know that Finley had a great time, if you can't tell in the photos below! By the time the party planning and the party itself was over, it felt like we had planned a wedding. Seriously. I'm aware that Fin won't remember her first birthday party, but I sure will. And I've got the photos to show her just how much fun it was.

, her suspenders came from Etsy

Weeks 49-52

2012-01-24T15:19:00.000-08:00

Sad news. I can't find weeks 49 and 50. So after a year of taking these weekly photos, I mess it all up in the last few weeks. :( But here are weeks 51 and 52 at least. I have a lot to blog about, but I'm going to save that all up for her birthday blog. I'll post that in a little bit.

Weeks 29-48

2011-12-16T08:45:00.001-08:00

Oh my lanta! It's been way too long since I've updated. Finley is almost a year old! And it's almost her first Christmas! Sheesh, if Blogger made uploading photos a lot friendlier I think I would keep this up to date a little better. Luckily, only a little while longer for these weekly photo posts. Once she's a year old, I won't be taking her picture every week. Although that would make a really cool computerized transformation thing when she's older. So where do I even begin on what's been going on?? She is walking, babbling, she has one tooth, and she's just the sweetest little thing. She LOVES her stuffed animals. When I was little, I loved my stuffed animals because I would imagine that they were real animals. I preferred them over dolls. But she's too young to imagine that, so I'm not sure what she thinks exactly, but I know that she loves them. There's no denying that. She sleeps with a little teddy bear under her arm every night. Right now, as I type, she has stuffed bunny in her hand as she's walking around in her penned in area. She got her tear duct unclogged finally last month. It was very traumatic for me to watch, but it was over in no time and her eye has been awesome ever since. Before she had it unclogged it was goopy every single day. It was awful in the mornings and after naps, and she hated for us to clean it. I'm very happy that we had it taken care of instead of waiting any longer. In fact, if we would have waited a few more weeks, we wouldn't have been able to have it taken care of in office. It would have been a surgery. So, thankfully we did that when we did. Finley got Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease from the church nursery and it was awful. She had a 102 fever and was so cranky and clingy. Hooper called the nurse on call to see what we should do. The conversation went like this:
Her: "What is her temperature?"
Him: "102."
Her: "How are you taking it?"
Him: "Well I'm a little scared. But I think I'm taking it pretty well."
Her: "No. How are you taking her temperature?"
Him: "Oh. Rectally. There's one you can tell your friends later."
:) We took her to the doctor and she told us that she had little sores all in her mouth. Bennett (our niece) had what we thought was hand food and mouth, but her appointment was after Finley's. Benny had little spots on her feet, hands and her face. We didn't really think Fin had it because we didn't see any spots. Turned out that most of hers were in her poor little mouth. Over the next several days she had spots pop up on her feet, legs and hands as well. And Hooper got it, too. It's extremely rare for adults to get it, but leave it to Hooper. It was good to finally get over that whole ordeal.
Once Fin turned 9 months old we started feeding her pretty much any and everything that we eat. (With the exception of peanuts, eggs, and a few other things she can't have yet.) She LOVES pizza. She eats an entire slice of a medium pizza from Dominoes. I'm sure she'd eat more if I would let her. (But that'd be one less slice I'd get. ;)) She can eat the little baby food pouches that they feed themselves. That is a great thing! It makes on-the-go feeding so much easier. We finally moved up to a convertible car seat. She tolerates it okay. We had our local car seat safety officer come to my work to inspect if it was put in properly, which it was not. Thankfully Hooper thought to call him. We are really hoping that Fin gets a DVD player for Christmas this year, because we think that road trips to Elkhart and Seguin will be so much easier if she can watch The Mickey Mouse Clubhouse or Little Einsteins. Those are her favorite shows at the moment. We are currently planning her first birthday party and I'm really excited! Anna is helping out a TON with the planning and she's even letting us have the party at her house. I definitely couldn't do it without her! I promise to post a birthday blog! Meanwhile, I have a TON of photos to upload to complete this blog so I better get to uploading. Hopefully I'll blog again soon.

Weeks 22 - 28

2011-07-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

22 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

25 weeks

26 weeks

27 weeks

28 weeks

Holy Moly. I have been a bad bad blogger. Let's see, in the lost time Finley has started eating baby food, she sits up and she has said Da-Da. She started eating baby food June 28, sat up June 30 and said Da-Da on July 20th. She had her 6 month checkup and got more shots and everything is going really well with her. She weighed 15 pounds and 6 ounces and was 26.5 inches long at that visit. She's in the 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height. Her sleeping habits have changed a little bit and it's frustrating. Somewhere around 5 and a half months she started waking up a lot during the night. Now things are going a little bit better and she's waking up one to two times, but still... that is bad compared to the weeks that she was sleeping all through the night. I don't mind it as much when Hooper is here to help me, but he's been out of town here and there working on his new album and those nights when I have to work the next day are the worst. My mom has been sweet enough to come and stay with me and help me, but it's still hard. Luckily, Hooper will only be leaving one more time in the near future and I'll only have to work one day during that time. Her little tear duct is still clogged but we are going to hope it resolves itself and wait it out a little bit longer. She has showed a lot of interest in crawling and I think that is the next milestone right around the corner. We had our first bout with diaper rash shortly after introducing baby food. She started pooping what I call poop nuggets and they were making her bottom raw. It was sad. :( But now we are much better and her poop is soft again. :) I just noticed that this blog is really choppy but I don't know how else to tie in so many weeks worth of posts! I hate that I'm such a failure as a blogger these days. In other Hooper family news, we are making some changes to our house. I can't wait to blog those changes when it's all said and done! We got a new roof, a new garage door, are getting new landscaping as I type this and are having our house painted soon. I can't wait! Just the new roof alone makes a HUGE difference in the appearance of our house. Oh and yesterday we got our air conditioner revamped and it's working better than it ever has since we've owned the house. More news in my life is that I'm now addicted to Pinterest. I mean A-D-D-I-C-T-E-D. There are so many things that I want to do with my house now! For starters, I want an upright piano and I want to paint it. :) And also, I can't wait for Christmas. Speaking of holidays, I've been sort of peeking around at baby Halloween costumes and I just can't wait for Finley to wear her first costume! I suppose I'll wrap this blog up now. I still can't believe how long it's been since I posted. :(

22 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

25 weeks

26 weeks

27 weeks

28 weeks

18, 19, 20 and 21 Weeks!

2011-06-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

18 weeks

19 weeks

20 weeks

21 weeks

Whoops! I took way too long of a break between blogs. I'll just sum up the past four weeks quickly. Finley starting rolling over at 18 1/2 weeks from back to front. That is the hardest of the two rolling over positions. We hadn't seen her successfully roll over either way until she did it from back to front though. The thing is, tummy time is extremely hard when she wears that dang harness. I know that she was down to nights and naps so we should have done tummy time when it was off of her but the truth is, tummy time is hard to schedule because we have hard floors everywhere but the bedrooms, and we dont hang out on our bedroom floors very often. But my super baby rolled over anyway. With no practice and hardly any tummy time under her belt. Since then she has rolled over in both positions. At 19 1/2 weeks we were at dinner and I set her bottle on the table in front of us while she was on my lap. I looked down to see her reaching for her bottle so I scooted closer to it. She grabbed it and put it in her mouth. She can't quite hold it up enough to feed herself yet, but we are getting there. At 20 weeks we went to her recheck at her Orthopedist. We did an x-ray of her little hips and then waited for the doctor to come in and let us know how things looked. He walked right in and said that she looked great and that if his exam went well, we could "trash that thing" (referring to her harness). Well, the exam went great and she doesn't have to wear her harness anymore! That was the news we prayed for. The best part about that news is that her hips are forming correctly and all is well in that department. The next best thing about it is that we don't have to mess with that stinky thing anymore. And also, she can now wear pajamas! We were having to just put onesies on her with the harness because the pants shouldn't really be worn with the harness on top of them. (After her appointment we went to Old Navy and got her two cute pajama sets.) The only downside to no harness is that she is now rolling over and that harness kept her pretty much secure on her back at night. Now she can wiggle all over the place and it scares a Mama! But we'll take the trade for sure! In case anyone is wondering or if I wonder when I have my next child, Finley is eating 4 ounces per feeding when we feed her bottles. Most babies her age eat around 6 ounces I believe, but she just doesn't ever want more. This works out well for me because of my pumping issues. I really only make enough for her to have tomorrow's feedings. Sometimes, on a good day, I'll get to freeze a bag. If she moves up to more ounces per feeding I don't know if I can keep up. Maybe my body will kick it into high gear and make more for her, but who knows? Right now she and I have it all worked out perfectly for her feedings and things are going well. Sure I'd love to be storing up months and months of milk, but that just wasn't in my cards. Finley does eat some formula every now and then and she is starting to accept it a little more now. One of the main reasons I haven't stopped breast feeding yet is because she hated formula so much. If she will start eating it as good as she does my milk then I'll be more tempted to stop. Another reason that I have a hard time stopping is 90% of the time it puts her to sleep at night. My initial breast feeding goal was to just do it. Then I set a goal to make it through the painful times I was having the first few weeks. Then when it didn't hurt anymore I wanted to do it for 3 months. Then that goal became 6 months. Well Sunday she'll be 5 months so we'll see if I reach that goal and if I make a new one.

16 & 17 Weeks

2011-05-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

16 weeks

I truly meant to post a blog last week and every day I just kept running out of time. The past two weeks we have started feeding her rice cereal. I can't believe she is old enough and big enough to eat cereal! That is nuts. She doesn't seem to love it, but she doesn't seem to hate it either. The doctor said it is mostly just to teach her to eat from a spoon and to push food from the front of her mouth to the back of her mouth. We went for her recheck last week and Dr. Kennedy still feels a click in her hips. :( We are still on the nights and naps routine and go back for a recheck June 1st. Today we had Finley's 4 month checkup and she got more shots. She is now 13 lbs and 2 ounces and is 24 1/2 inches long. Her weight is in the 50th percentile, head is in 50th and her length is in 60-65th. She used to be in the 90th in length but Dr. Watts said that they usually find where they will be around 6-9 months. So maybe she'll be tall again next time. We have moved up to size 2 diapers but she can still wear 1s. Her waist is very thin so the 2s are big, but her thighs are so chunky that the 1s are small. I am writing this blog in my email because blogger is down for maintenance right now, so there's a chance that I might not be able to post this until tomorrow or even later, but I didn't want to wait any longer to write it all out. Finley has had a little cold for about a week now but it isn't keeping her down. As a matter of fact, she doesn't even seem to notice it. Last Sunday was my very first Mother's Day and it was great. Hooper offered to take Finley first thing that morning and let me sleep in but I didn't take him up on the offer. Then he made me some waffles for breakfast. At midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning I had to wake up and feed Finley and he jumped out of bed and grabbed the computer to show me the video that he and Finley made me. Here is the link. Watch it all the way through because it made me laugh pretty hard. They also got me cards and a gift certificate for a pedicure and an eye brow waxing. (I am in DESPERATE need for both.) It was a great first Mother's Day. Finley and Hoop did well. :) I need to set a major goal for myself to blog on Wednesdays like I originally planned. I hate blogging late.

17 weeks

15 Weeks

2011-04-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

Fifteen weeks! Man! I just can't believe it's been that long since this precious bright eyed little baby was set on my chest for the first time. Just typing that sentence made me get a little choked up. I can't tell if I still have weird new mom hormones kicking, or if becoming a mom just makes you more emotional period. I had to fight back tears watching "The Office" last week. Today I'm catching up on Glee and have almost cried about 5 times, and I shed a few watching "Bethenny Ever After" earlier. So what is it, moms? Is this just what I am now? An emotional human being? I used to never cry. My husband has even referred to me as "Ice Princess" on more than one occasion. I guess I need to start carrying tissues with me and work on my hideous cry face if it's going to come out in public. Speaking of cry faces, sometimes Finley will be in a deep sleep and all of the sudden she will wake up with the saddest frowning cry face and cry the saddest little cry. Hooper and I refer to this as her having a bad dream, because once we talk to her and get her to focus on us, she stops. It's so weird, but so so sad. Hooper put together her Jumperoo a few nights ago and man, does she love that thing! She isn't tall enough to touch the ground yet, so we put a puffy pillow under her feet and she goes to town! She squeals and laughs and bounces all around. Next week we go back to the specialist to check her hips and I'm hoping that he's going to tell us that she can go without the harness all the time now. The week after that, we go for Fin's 4 month check up! I can't believe that! I am DREADING the shots. :( It's very hard for me to look at my little baby screaming and looking up at me like, "Why are you letting this happen to me?!?!" The past week two things have changed. One being that she rubs her eyes when she is tired now. :) It is adorable. The second thing is that she can put a lot of weight on her legs now. She loves to "stand" up. She especially loves to stand with Papa (my dad). He calls her Dancing Girl and she just squeals and dances and stands and laughs with him. I think that she has realized the whole cause and effect thing with my dad. She does something and makes him laugh and she enjoys that he's laughing, so she does it again. And again. And again. She is getting really good at grabbing things, and I am really impressed with her improvement of her motor skills over the past week. Normally I can't really tell much of a difference with things in one week, but this past week she has made progress! She still isn't that strong with tummy time though. But we are working on it. :) I can't remember if I've mentioned in my blog that she has clogged tear ducts. We have tried 3 different medications and nothing works. The doctor said that more than likely when she is 6 months old she will have to have a little procedure to unclog them. :( The photos from this week aren't very good, but at least I remembered to take them. Oh! I almost forgot to talk about Easter. We had a great Easter in the Hooper and Roe households.

Finley got a great Easter basket and she LOVES every item that was in it. The past several weeks she has enjoyed chewing on everything she can et her hands on (including a live baby chick!). We went ahead and got her a teething ring and she really likes it! We also got her a glowing seahorse that plays music and ocean sounds and it has become her new favorite toy!
One of the clients at work seriously had this conversation with me:
Her: "Chelsea when are you having that baby? Is it in April?"
Me: "I had her in January."
Her: "What?? You're kidding me aren't you?"
Me: "No. I had her in January."
Her a few minutes later: "You are kidding me aren't you?"
Me: "No I promise."
Can you BELIEVE that?! That would mean that I am 9 months pregnant right now! I swear, some people don't think before they speak. It was really offensive. But a different client was totally shocked that I had a baby. He said I never looked pregnant and I "certainly don't look as it I just had a baby". Then he gave me $20 to go get her something nice. :) He quickly became my favorite client. In other news, Hooper and I ordered new bedroom furniture two months ago and it finally came this week! We are LOVING it!

I am very happy with the furniture and I adore the new bedding from West Elm. I'm a little irritated at Ashley Furniture for not telling me that it would be two months before my delivery would come, but I'm getting over it. I am not holding the same grudge against them as I am that rude client.

I hope to blog again next week!

Bases Around The House

2011-04-27T11:22:00.001-07:00

Here is just a little blog for new mommies. A "base" is something I made up in my own head. I don't even think I've talked to Hooper about it. But a "base" is somewhere you can put the baby. Bases are really important around the house because if you have to go to the bathroom, it is just more comfortable to have a base near you instead of leaving the baby in the living room unattended. Does this all make me sound crazy? Oh, who am I kidding? I have probably sounded crazy since I first got pregnant. The bases that we use around our house are these:

Above is the Summer Infant Rest Assured Sleeper. It is the first base I used. I kept it in the bathroom when I was home alone with Finley and she was a newborn. I would just lay her in it while I did my thing. The thing is a GREAT base because you can put it pretty much anywhere and the baby can take a nap. I still use it now when I shower.

This little photo is her bouncy seat. She LOVES her bouncy seat. She has one, Bennett has one, and Gigi keeps one at her house. We usually keep this in our bedroom. It's not nearly as easy to transport around the house as the infant sleeper is, so wherever we put it, it usually stays for a while. (It's not heavy, it's just very wide and awkward to go through doorways with.)

Her swing stays in her nursery because it is not easily transported. It's really the only base in the nursery other than her crib. Her crib is filled with pillows and probably cat hair, so we don't ever use that yet. She enjoys her swing, but she doesn't HAVE to have her swing like some babies. I think that Hooper and I were both scared that she would become dependent on it to go to sleep, so we didn't use it all that much in the beginning. Now we use it more though because she is a good sleeper with no assistance falling to sleep.

And of course there is her Pack N Play. We don't use this too often as a base because she can get fussy if we lay her in there and it's not bed time. She affiliates it with sleep, and if we just need to set her somewhere for a short time, she thinks we are trying to put her to bed prematurely. When she gets a little bigger, this will probably be one of the main bases when we turn it into the play pen type thing.

Her Bumbo is one of the easiest bases to use. We can just pick this little thing up and put it wherever we want. She loves it and we love it, so it is definitely one of our favorites.

The Fisher Price Rock and Play Sleeper is one of the best baby items that you can purchase! It is so incredibly light and very easy to move around. If you look it up, it has some of the very best reviews of any baby product. It is great for babies with reflux. My little niece, Bennett sleeps in hers every night. She has reflux and it has helped tremendously! My only complaint about it is that the patterns aren't very cute, and I'm a pattern girl. But I would advise ANY mom to get this for their baby. Finley spends a lot of time in hers in our living room. She takes her evening nap in it every night.

And now last but not least, our new found base is her jumperoo! We have only been using it for a couple of days, but we have no complaints so far! Finley really loves it!
The thing for a new mom to know about "bases", is that not everyone uses them, not all moms think you should have something planned out like that, but I promise it will make things easier. If I recommended only two for newborns it would be the infant sleeper and the rock n play sleeper. The two of them are just too easy to move around and so convenient. Not that anyone even asked for my advice, and not that I'm Miss Mommy-Know-It-All, but I really just think that these things make life a little easier. I remember wondering how in the world I was supposed to take a shower when Hooper went back to work. I decided I'd just wait until he got home from work to do so, and I did it like this for a few days until the time came when I had to take Fin somewhere during the day while he was working. That's when I realized how easy it was if these objects were already strategically placed around the house for me to set her while I did other things. I hope that these recommendations help some of you out!

13 and 14 Weeks

2011-04-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

13 weeks

Let me start off by saying that I don't always have my baby in a plain white onesie. I realize that a lot of her pictures are taken in plain white onesies and that is because she sleeps in them frequently. With her harness, she can't wear pajamas because the pants don't work with the leg stirrups, so it has to be a onesie pretty much. And I tend to remember that it's picture/blog day late in the evenings. Which is also why I don't blog sometimes. :( I was talking to my friend Maggie the other day via text and she and I both agree that this age is by far the best so far. (Her little boy is one week older than Fin.) By the way, you can follow her blog here. Hey hey! Look at me! I finally figured out to insert a link! :) Anyway, this age is so great because Finley is so happy all the time! She just smiles and smiles at anyone who will talk to her. She is reaching for toys and loving dangling things. She always wakes up in the best mood, and this morning she was so hungry (she slept all night without waking to eat) but she was still happy so she was smiling and crying at the same time. She just couldn't decide which emotion she felt strongest. Speaking of sleeping, she has been doing so good at night. We have no complaints regarding her sleeping habits. She goes down every night about 10:15 and we wake her up at 6:30. Occasionally she will sleep all night without waking at all, and other nights she usually wakes up once around 3 for a feeding. I think I mentioned it in the last blog, but I'll say it again. I prefer for her to wake once in the night so that my chest doesn't feel as though it might explode, and so that I don't worry about my milk supply dwindling away. Sorry if that is too much information, but I am a too much information kind of girl. Anna went back to work Monday which means that my mom now has all four girls during the day! Yesterday was her first full day with them and she had 11 bottle feedings and 9 poopie diapers to change! On Monday, I actually had all four girls by myself and nobody pooped except for Elliott, who is potty trained, and I only had to feed the babies twice each during the time I had them. Not much has changed really since the last post except that Finley is getting stronger and she has definitely been reaching for and appreciating her toys a lot more. It is now past my bed time so I must end this abruptly. I hope to post another blog next week, but I can't make any promises. :)

14 weeks

10, 11 and 12 weeks!

2011-04-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

10 weeks

11 weeks

12 weeks

I can't believe I have slacked so much on blogging. I'm really disappointed in myself because my goal was to have a blog for every week of Finley's first year. :( Oh well. I will try to do better from now on. Since the last post Finley has grown so much it seems! She smiles ALL THE TIME and she laughs when you tickle her or when you make certain faces. She is so easily entertained and I just love it. Last week she grabbed her own pacifier and put it back in her mouth. Granted, it was her Wubbanub so it was easier to grasp onto, but still. She slept through the night a few nights in a row, and I thought I would be really thrilled the day that happened, but instead, I was worried about the whole breastfeeding thing. If you go without pumping or feeding then your body thinks you don't need to be producing milk anymore. So I was concerned that if I slept all the way through the night that my body would start producing less milk. Therefore, when I hear her stirring at all at night I get her up to feed her. I'm sure her pediatrician would tell me not to do that, and instead just go pump, but it's so much easier to just grab her and feed her. I may work on that over the next couple of weeks though. At her recheck appointment 2 weeks ago we did not get a new harness and I was really disappointed. HOWEVER, yesterday we did! Annnnnnnnnd, she only has to wear the harness during naps and at night time! I am so pumped! The doctor said that her hips look great on the ultrasound and we are beginning the weaning process! We will do nights and naps for 6 weeks, but we will go back for a recheck in 4 weeks. Going back to work has gotten easier and it feels more normal now. I do LOVE my days off though. Spending time with her is my favorite thing to do. At her 2 month check up she weighed 10 lbs 14 oz and was 23 and 1/4 inches long. Her head is in the 50th percentile, her weight is the 50th percentile and her length is the 75th. She has cradle cap and we are treating that with Selsun Blue on her scalp for 3 minutes during her baths. I haven't noticed an improvement but my mom says that she has. She still has really goopy eyes and we are now on our third medication for them. This little teensy weensy bottle of eye drops costs $50! And I mean it is TINY! We are on day 4 of it and it seems to be helping A LOT! I took FIn over to Anna's house last week and we took some photos of her. I use the term "we" very loosely because really, Anna did 99% of the photographing. I am so pleased with how they look! I am so happy to have such a great best friend that also happens to be married to my brother and as a bonus is my business partner! I am so excited to continue to photograph our kids for many many years to come! Here are some of the photos and below that are the closeup weekly pictures. I hope to blog next week and to get back on the wagon!

8 & 9 Weeks

2011-03-18T19:15:00.000-07:00

9 Weeks

8 weeks

Here she is in her two month pictures.

Finley's recheck appointment was okay. He still felt the click in her hip and we didn't get a new harness so that was a let down. Her harness smells so bad. She has gotten poop on it and she's spit up on it several times. We go back next Thursday for another recheck and then two weeks from then we will get another sonogram. We have gotten pretty used to the harness, but when I took it off of her a few nights ago to bathe her, I just held her in my arms without it and I just loved the way she felt. I just want to hold her all the time without an awkward canvas and velcro annoyance in the way. I haven't had a lot of time to blog because last week I went back to work. My first day back was Wednesday and it has been tough. I am only getting about 6 1/2 hours of sleep a night and I am completely exhausted by the time I get home. I miss Fin while I'm at work and when I'm home I just want to hang out with her instead of blog. I'm sure once I get adjusted to the lack of sleep and the shortage of hours at home, I'll be more likely to do things like blog. Hooper's brother and his family came into town for a few days of spring break and we had a great time with them. They were all so excited to meet Finley. Hooper and his brother played a show together while he was in town also.

The week before, Hooper's dad and stepmom came into town for the day.

I'm sure lots has happened in the past weeks but I am just so tired. I hope to get back in the groove of blogging on time soon.

7 Weeks

2011-03-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

Finley has a baby cousin!!! That is the biggest news of the past week by far! Bennett Ryan Roe was born Monday, February 28th and we are soooooo excited that she is here! She is so adorable with two very prominent dimples in her cheeks and one in her chin! She also has the most hair on her head that I have EVER seen on a newborn. She is just such a doll. Holding Finley and then holding her is so strange! She feels so light and Fin feels so huge! I am so excited for these two to get to grow up with each other only being 6 1/2 weeks apart. Here are a few pictures from the first few days with Bennett.

Mom and I made Bennett some burp cloths too! I LOVE them!

Finley has started spitting up a lot lately and I can't figure out why. She spits up formula as well as breast milk and she doesn't act like it bothers her. It definitely bothers me though because if we are in public then she has spit up all over her clothes, and we have to change her sheets so often. There are also times that we don't even know that she has done it and she will sleep with her cheek in it. Now she has an awful rash on both of her cheeks. :( You can see it in the close up picture at the top. She seems to be doing well with her harness. It doesn't seem to bother her at all, but it is still hard for us to change her diapers. She had a blow out a few days ago and poop got on her harness. That is really gross because we can't take it off and put it in the washer. We can only wipe it with a wet rag. One week from today I go back to work. I am not looking forward to being away from her for 10 hours. I haven't been apart from her for more than a couple of hours here and there. I have no idea how it will all work out with schedules and pumping and all that jazz, but I surely hope that the transition is easy for both of us. I have no doubt that Finley will be fine and wont have any trouble adjusting because my mom will be keeping her. Plus, she'll have Elliott and Beckett there to sing her to sleep when she gets upset. Here are some pictures from the past week.

6 Weeks

2011-02-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

6 weeks old

I'm going to break this blog into 3 parts because it's going to be lengthy.

Part 1 - The Past Week:
I didn't write my 6 week blog Wednesday because I figured I'd wait until after Finley's appointment with the Orthopedist Thursday. And I didn't write my blog Thursday because by the time we got home I was very tired and wanted to wash some bottles and watch at least one of our many Thursday night television shows. So how has the last week been? Well, it's been really great. Finley has been in such a good mood and we have a pretty good schedule going that she and I are both used to. (It will have to adjust back a little bit when I go back to work and I'm dreading changing it!) Her hair seems to be lightening up a bit. It actually appears to be a reddish color right now. Her eyes are lightening up a little bit also. I'm hoping they will stay blue! We've been giving her some formula bottles for a couple of weeks on and off when it's convenient and nursing is not and that is going well also. Her poop is much nastier though. In the past week I think she's had about 5 leaky poops that got onto her clothing. I hate that! Hooper's mom came down for the weekend and let us sleep a little longer in the mornings. She also changed all of her poops! I was a little spoiled by that. Alice and Lefty finally got their haircut after months of growing and matting. Alice looks like a completely different dog. I've never had her this short, but she's still adorable and seems to be more comfortable. Also, when I picked them up from grooming Alice jumped into the backseat and into Finley's car seat! I had to pull over on the side of the highway and get her out.

Some days Finley and I go run errands with my mom and Elliott and Beckett and we all have such a good time together. I am so glad that we all live so close and are able to spend so much time with one another. Hooper put Finley in her Bumbo for the first time and we know it's way too early for her to actually be in there and for it to be practical, but she actually sat up really well in it.

Finley has been smiling more and more at people. She's smiled at my dad and Eddie and Sherry now also. Basically, if you talk to her in a baby voice and get her to focus on you, she'll smile at you. She loves sweet baby talk. She also has a weird spot on the wall that she loves. When she's on her changing table, there are fabric hoops on the wall right next to her (most of you have seen them in previous posts). She has a certain spot right next to one of the hoops that she looks at when we are changing her and she just smiles so big at it! It's so weird! She's probably done it over 20 times now. She doesn't always look at it, but if she does, she smiles.

Part 2 - Newborn and Family Photos:
Speaking of smiling, Anna had taken some newborn photos of her when she was somewhere around 9 days old or so. We really wanted to have some family photos also, but my roots were horrid and I felt ugly and large and was rarely putting on makeup when she was that young. So last Friday we finally did them! Anna did such a great job. She had some great ideas and Hooper and I are just so pleased with how they turned out. Here are some of the favorites! Which are your favorites?

Part 3 - Hip Dysplasia
Yesterday we went to her appointment with the Orthopedist and we waited for about 2 1/2 hours to be seen and I forgot to pack diapers! Luckily, she didn't poop while we were there, and the hospital let us have two diapers. :) When we were finally seen, her doctor was really sweet and down to earth. He examined her hips over and over again and looked over her ultrasound and told us that she has a very mild case of hip dysplasia. When we were first speaking with him, he told us she'd have to wear the Pavlik Harness for 3 months. But by the end of our appointment he changed it to two months. Basically, she has to wear this harness that keeps her hips in place and will help form her socket like a cup. We are allowed to take the harness off to give her a bath, but that is it. She has to sleep in it, nurse in it, play in it, ride in the car seat in it, etc. People have asked if putting her in the car seat is hard but it is not. Her legs are open when she is laying down, but they can move towards each other also. So far, she hasn't had any problems with the harness. It's very frustrating for us as her parents because we want to see her grow in length and feel her little legs and watch her kick. It's also very hard to change her diaper. The only things that she can wear are onesies and dresses. No pants. :( It's very weird to hold her in it because she feels so incredibly short and I know that really, she's very long. I keep telling Hooper that when we take it off of her for good we are going to feel like she is so long! I was really emotional about this whole hip dysplasia thing when her pediatrician first brought it up to us, but I am better with it now. When we first entered the hospital, a young girl with cancer got off of the elevator and I feel like it was God's way of reminding how silly I am being, and that there are WAY worse things that could be going on than having to wear a harness for 2 months. In two weeks we will go back for a check up and the doctor will adjust the harness since she is growing. Speaking of growing, she is definitely going through a growth spurt right now. Her feeding schedule is outrageous! She wants to eat every hour! It's hard to keep up! But back to her hip dysplasia, like I said before, it's such a tiny problem compared to all of the things that some other families go through. But with that said, I would still appreciate your prayers regarding the issue. Please pray that Hooper and I (and my mom too since she'll be keeping her when I go back to work) have patience and get used to the harness very quickly. And that Finley gets used to it in no time and has no issues with it. And most importantly, please pray that this harness fixes the problem!

5 Weeks

2011-02-16T17:03:00.001-08:00

Well we had Finley's ultrasound done Monday and Tuesday her doctor's office called and said we need to go to the Orthopedist at Cook's next week. :( I was trying to be very optimistic, but that news makes me feel more pessimistic. I just hate the thought of her having to wear a harness. I googled information about hip dysplasia in infants and basically, the only form of treatment that I've found is that harness.

I know that I'm being very silly about the whole thing because the truth is, there are far worse things out there than a little harness for a number of weeks. And being at Cook's and seeing the children watching a Valentine's Day puppet show in their hospital gowns reminded me just of that. It was pretty heartbreaking to think of the families that pretty much have to live up there while their children get treatment. I pray that we are never one of those families for any reason. Anyway, on a happier note, Monday was also Valentine's Day. Finley wore an adorable heart dress for the occasion and my dear husband brought me some roses and some tulips and left me a sweet card.

Oh, some great news is that Finley is DEFINITELY, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT smiling at us on purpose. She has smiled at Hooper, my mom, Anna and me. I took these pictures with my phone one morning when I was talking to her and she was just so happy!

Sunday night Hooper and I left Finley with Anna and Eddie and we took Elliott and Beckett to Cici's. It was a great evening. I feel that it is important to spend some quality time with the girls with Finley, but also without her sometimes. Up until 5 weeks ago, it was just the two of them. Now in the next few weeks they will have a baby sister also. They are both excited to have baby Bennett around, but I just think that it's important to have moments with just them sometimes.

I got a pedicure yesterday with Anna and the guy that works there made a comment about both of us being pregnant. That was a blow to the old self esteem. I'm definitely not losing weight like I had hoped. We did take Finley for her first walk this weekend and it was very pleasant. I hope that I start taking her on walks daily when the weather allows. Maybe that'll assist the weight loss. A girl can dream. *Sigh.

Anyway, I can't believe it's been 5 weeks. Here is her birth announcement. And below are her "one month photos".

4 Weeks

2011-02-10T17:01:00.000-08:00

Finley has her first cold. :( Sunday night she coughed a lot during the night and at 8:00am I called her pediatrician's office to see if we could get in. Since there were 4 snow days last week, I assumed that they would be so busy and not be able to see us until Tuesday. (She already had a recheck set up for Tuesday to check her clicking hip again.) But much to my satisfaction (partly because I was worried about my baby girl, and partly because the Tuesday appt was set for 8:15am and it was my birthday and that's a little too early for me.) they were actually able to see us Monday instead. Finley had a fever of 100.3 and Dr. Watts diagnosed her with her first cold. She hasn't been fussy or anything, just very very snotty. Her snot drains down and causes her to cough. We have propped her Pack N Play up on some books so that she is not laying flat, and during the day she is pretty much in her bouncy chair or in my arms all day. We have used that aspirator on her snot so many times that she has started to sort of get used to it. Don't get me wrong, she definitely doesn't prefer it, but she doesn't cry every time now. Dr. Watts did check her hip again and sadly, she has to have a sonogram on her hip at Cook's hospital on Monday. I am praying and hoping for a clean bill of health after the sonogram, but we got our estimate for our portion of the bill today and it ain't pretty. But I'd definitely rather be safe than sorry. If she does have something going on with her hip, it will be so much better for us to get this all taken care of while she's a baby than wait until she's older and her bones have already grown. They weighed her at her appointment and she weighs 9 lbs 4 oz. The nurse said, "That's all length! She is so long!" But they didn't check her length again because it wasn't a well visit. Other than her cold and the dreaded sonogram news, the week has been great. I can't believe how fast time has gone by really. It's pretty crazy to think that I will return to work in no time. It actually makes me sad because I wont be home until after 6 on the days I work and it seems like I'll have to feed her, feed myself and then go to sleep. The good thing is that I only work 4 days a week though, so I'll still have 3 days a week to spend with my baby girl. :) Here are a few pictures from the past week. Please pray that next Wednesday's post will say that the ultrasound showed a healthy hip!

3 Weeks

2011-02-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

3 week pictures

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks. When I hold Finley and look at her sweet little eyes it feels like just yesterday when they handed her to me for the first time. But then when I think about breastfeeding and all of the pain I've been enduring, it feels like it's been months! Things have gone well the past week. We have been on a very strict eating schedule of every 2 hours during the day and it has helped tremendously with her sleeping at night. She has been going 5 hours between feedings and then 4 hours between feedings which ends up giving me about 7 hours of sleep during the night. Then during the day time we usually sneak in an hour and a half nap at some point. This week it has been icy outside and for the first time that I can ever recall, Granbury schools have been closed for 3 days. I don't EVER remember that happening when I was a kid. The bad news about that is that they will have to make up the days later on in the year. But the good news about it is that Hooper has been able to be home with me the past 3 days! It has been so awesome! It's very selfish of me to have been hoping for snow days, but I can't help it. Life is so much easier and pleasant when my husband is with me. So far, the baby blues haven't made anymore appearances. I'm really glad because I was really praying that it wouldn't turn into Postpartum Depression. Thank Heavens that I feel back to normal now. In fact, my family that has been sick for the past 3 weeks is finally on the mend! Elliott and Beckett are better, Mom is better, Anna is better, Eddie is better, Dad is better, which I believe made me better! Last night we were finally able to all eat as a family and visit and pass Finley around. She was so good at dinner too. She just stared at Anna and slept on Mom and "judged" Eddie as he says. (With her scowl she is known for.) She was sweet with Dad too but then started getting fussy when it was time for her to eat. I was nursing her in the formal living room while rocking the Hooter Hider and Elliott and Beckett came up to me and asked what I was doing. Needless to say, I gave Elliott an entire lesson on feeding Finley. I tried to get away with just telling her I was feeding her, but Elliott came back up to me after accepting that explanation for a moment and said, "Are you just teasing us?" So then I had to go a little further into detail and tell her that she was drinking milk from my boobie. Elliott quickly informed me that she is not allowed to say that word. (Sorry Anna and Eddie.) So then I said, "Well she is eating milk from my chest. And you're allowed to say that word." She was so curious so I let her peek under the Hooter Hider and she was just blown away. She then asked me who "poured the milk in there" to which I replied, "God did. He does that for mommies when they have little bitty babies." She was so intrigued by the entire process, and I can't say I blame her. It is pretty strange. After I was done feeding Finley, I told Elliott to tell the family how Finley was eating. She said, "She drinks milk from Chelsea's chest. Jesus put it there." :) I figured it wouldn't hurt to give her this life lesson because she will be having a baby sister in less than 5 weeks. I can't wait! Anna and Eddie will be having their 3rd little girl on either March 7th or sooner. Anna is scheduled for a C-Section on the 7th, but her other two girls both came early so we shall see! Oh, Finley's bellybutton finally came off last Thursday. Dr. Watts had put some silver nitrate on it to really dry it up and it finally fell out of her onesie as I was about to change her last week. The good news about that was that that meant we could finally give her a bath in her bathtub instead of a sponge bath. There is still some black/red on her bellybutton but it's getting more and more clear with every bath now. She LOVES bath time by the way. It completely calms her down and puts her in such a serene state of mind right before bed. I think we'll be giving her lots of night time baths in the future! Saturday we took our first real family outing. We went to Babies R Us and Saltgrass in Ft. Worth. She did really well the entire time. Just slept the whole time really. Her cute outfit with her cardigan was that day. :) Here are some pictures from the past week.

2 Weeks Old

2011-01-26T11:35:00.001-08:00

Today Finley is two weeks old! I can't believe it! I meant to write a blog last Wednesday when she was one week old but I was just so tired. I did, however, take a photo of her. So what all has happened in two weeks? Well, Finley has grown half an inch and gained 6 ounces. That is good news because she had her two week checkup today and one of the main points of this checkup is to make sure she is back up to her birth weight (8 lbs 1 oz). At Finley's first appointment which was last Monday she weighed 7 lbs 15 oz which is totally normal because they expect them to lose up to 10% of their weight in that first week. One thing that we were concerned about was that at her first appointment her doctor noticed that her hips clicked. She said that she'd recheck them today and if they were still doing it, she'd have to have an ultrasound on them. So I was extremely nervous for today. I even had to call in reinforcements to go to the appointment with me since Hooper couldn't take off work again. Mom and Elliott went with me and luckily the doctor did not notice the clicking like last time. She said that last time it was clicking every time she rotated her legs back but this time she had to really hunt for it. Since it's not totally gone, she will recheck her again in two weeks. Things have been going well around here but I wont lie, it's lonesome and sometimes hard with Hooper at work. We are on a feeding schedule that was recommended by her doctor of every 2 hours during the day starting at 8am and then at night we go as long between feedings as Finley will allow. It gets very hard to have such a demanding schedule like that. Not to mention it is very painful for me. :( Oh, at Finley's doctor's appointment they said that she is in the 50th percentile for weight, 50th percentile for head, and 90th percentile for her length. Her bellybutton still hasn't fallen off and that usually happens around 10-14 days from what I read. Dr. Watts says that she has a very thick stump and it will take longer for hers to dry out. Hooper put together the swing and the bouncy seat this week and today Finley took a nap in the swing while I napped on the couch and it was very nice. Yesterday and the day before she and I both stayed in my bedroom all. day. long. I never even turned on my tv. Every time she slept, I tried to sleep, and otherwise I played on my computer and she played in my bed with me. It was nice to venture out of the house today and then out to the living room when we were home. Ha. Anyway, these first two weeks have been a little bit of an emotional roller coaster and I look forward to the "baby blues" leaving my system in the next couple of weeks. A lot of people don't really warn you about the emotions that you feel after you give birth. Mainly it's about loneliness for me because my ENTIRE family has been sick and hasn't been able to come over and see us. Mom is finally feeling much better and has been able to come over a few nights this week which makes me feel much better. I know that I'd feel so much better and happier if I wasn't alone all day long. Not to mention lacking sleep. Don't let all of this negative talk fool you though, I have been having a good time with this sweet little baby girl. She is so adorable and I know that I need to appreciate these moments when it's just the two of us because I will never get these 6 weeks back again. Hopefully by the time I blog next week I can say I've kicked the baby blues and that everyone in my family is better and we've been having lots of family time. Here are the two pictures from this week and last week and then some others I took with my phone recently.

1 week old

2 weeks old

NOT 41 Weeks! :)

2011-01-16T17:13:00.000-08:00

(Let me preface this blog by saying that it is a little bit all over the place but I'm on pain meds.)

Thank goodness I'm not writing a blog titled 41 weeks! From now on my blogs will be different. :) I am going to continue to try to blog weekly, but I'll probably switch my blog days to Wednesdays instead of Sundays because it'll be easier to log how many weeks old Finley is. So let me start this one off by talking about the morning of January 11th. Everyone was pulling for a January 11th delivery so that her birthday could be 1/11/11, and early that morning I was beginning to wonder if that was actually going to be the day. I woke up and had some cramping and went to the restroom and there was some evidence (I wont go into too much detail in this part) of a baby coming in the near future. The only problem is that this "evidence" could mean a baby is coming that day or coming in a few weeks. But since I had had absolutely NO signs or symptoms of labor thus far, I got pretty optimistic that perhaps Finley would make her debut on 1/11/11. As the day progressed, I continued to have some cramping but the next thing I knew it was late at night and I was not having any contractions and my water hadn't broken. I went to sleep that night after taking two Benedryl (not good timing!) and having a late night video chat with my friend Faith. I slept for about an hour and fifteen minutes before I woke up to a pain my abdomen. It was about 12:45am on 1/12/11. I paid some attention to the pain but then fell back asleep. Then I woke up again with the same pain. As I woke up a little more I realized that these pains were occurring very close together. I grabbed my iphone and opened up the "Notes" area and started logging the times that I felt these pains. I went to the restroom and texted Anna asking her if these could be contractions and what I should do. After about 35 minutes, I woke Hooper up and told him I was pretty sure I was having contractions and they were 2-4 minutes apart. He called the doctor on call and the doctor said if we think we might be in labor, go to the hospital. So, we grabbed our bags, kissed our pets and headed that way.

On the drive up there, the contractions were 2 minutes apart and every bump in the road hurt like heck. The drive really didn't feel like it took that long, and I continued to log my contractions the entire time. When we arrived at the hospital, we went into the emergency room area as instructed and checked in. It didn't take long at all to get into a room and for a nurse to check me. At this point I believed she would tell me I was in full blown labor and I was dilated to a 4 or so. Instead, she told me I was dilated to a one and they had put in a call to the doctor on call (who was not my doctor) and she hooked me up to some machines while we waited. The contractions showed up on the monitor and sure enough, they were 2 minutes apart. I think that all of this was taking place around 2:30am but it all is kind of a blur now because I was in such agonizing pain. When the on call doctor called back, he told the nurses not to admit me yet. To him, all he knew was that I was dilated to a 1 and having close contractions. But somebody can be dilated to a 1 for weeks. So as mad as I was at him, I understand why he didn't want to jump the gun and admit me. However, with the pain that I was in, you can bet your bottom dollar I wasn't going to go home had they tried to send me home. So we stayed in the same room we were in, the nurse kept checking me, and it was as if I was admitted, the only thing is that I wasn't getting any attention from a doctor and I wasn't getting ANY medication whatsoever. I got my blood drawn and my iv and it hurt like a beast. They had to poke me over and over to finally get in my vein. Once they had the iv placed in my hand, it never did feel comfortable. I still don't think it was in there very well. At 7am, the nurse left and the new shift came in. This is where I feel like things really changed.

Two nurses walked in and I was a little shocked. Our other nurse never said goodbye. (I didn't fancy her too much though.) So my new two nurses were as sweet as pie. One of them was probably a little younger than I am and it appeared as if she was training. She was an RN, but she was probably new to the hospital or something. The other nurse came across as very maternal and very calming. One of the very first things she told me after they went over all of my stuff was that I was handling the contractions completely wrong. She said that if I tense up, nothing will progress because it tenses up my cervix also. She encouraged me to take a breath in for 5 seconds and breathe out for 3 seconds for the duration of my contractions. She worked with me on this for a little bit and then they left the room. Almost immediately after they walked out, I felt a large pool of wetness under me. I told Hooper that either my water broke or I just peed myself. He went and got the nurses and they were ecstatic! They said that yes, my water did break and this was great news because now they could admit me no matter what. My water broke around 7:20am. They ordered some pain medication and ordered the epidural. I can't put into words quite how bad I was hurting during this pain. I was trembling so bad. So fast forward to my epidural at about 9:50am. That is where the pain stops. So basically, I was having the worst pain of my life every two minutes apart from 12:45am to 9:50am. I had gotten some pain meds through my IV at some point but it didn't do squat. After my water broke I was dilated to a 3 and then I was a 6 at 9:59am and quickly became a 9.5 at 10:10am.

When my doctor got there it all just happened so fast. Oh, to go back a little bit, we had told everyone NOT to come to the hospital yet because things were going so slowly and I hadn't even been admitted until after 7. I have been told over and over that with your first born, things move slowly and don't have your family and friends wait in the waiting room for hours on end when things are so unpredictable. Well, things were CERTAINLY unpredictable. My mom made it in time to be in the delivery room and Anna barely made it there in time. It was a pleasant surprise that Anna was able to be in there with us. My doctor was very welcoming of us breaking the rules a little and having more than the allowed 2 people in the room. :) Okay, so back to the story... The nurses were a little frantic before the doctor got there because of the way Finley's heart rate was going during my contractions. But the doctor was there in no time and I was told to push during my contractions. She told me that I might feel the urge to push because I'd feel some pressure, and sure enough, I knew exactly when to push. Let me just say that I did not feel ANY pain after I got my epidural. I only felt this pressure that let me know when to push and I pushed when I needed to and before I knew it, Finley was on my chest.

All of the timing of this event seems that it took so long but seems like it all went so fast. It's so hard to explain how it all runs together and how I could be in the worst pain of my life for such a long period of time and then feel the happiest I've ever felt hours later. Finley was born at 11:15am and she weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and is 21 inches long. We stayed at the hospital Wednesday night and Thursday night and we were treated so wonderfully by everybody that we dealt with. I was sad when we got moved into a different room and our nurses were no longer our nurses. I felt like I owed so much to them. I know that I have to give them credit for my water breaking when it did. I truly feel like the breathing exercises helped move that along.

So I'll fast forward a little bit since this blog is the longest blog ever. And also this blog is full of rambling but I want to make sure and have it all logged for the future. :) Anyway, Finley is the cutest little baby I've ever seen and she is just absolutely perfect. Hooper and I are both just so excited about everything. The first night at home went so great and last night was a little bit rougher. Finley is sleeping well and eating well but we get scared at night when we take our eyes off of her. I'm sure that most new parents feel this way. It almost makes me want to sleep in shifts and have one of us stare at her while the other sleeps and vice versa. I know that is a silly concept but it's scary to be a first time parent. Tomorrow is her first pediatrician appointment and I'm really excited about it. I'm excited to ask questions and to make sure that we are doing things right and to make sure that all is well with her. Below are some of our pictures from her birth and from the past few days. The first two are my Notes on my phone of my contractions. :)

40 Weeks

2011-01-10T15:26:00.000-08:00

Well it looks like this will be the final post before Finley's arrival. I can't believe I made it beyond 40 weeks. I surely thought since my nieces came early and since all of my girlfriends were induced early if theirs didn't come early, that she'd have made her grand entrance by now. But here I sit 40 weeks and 1 day pregnant. One of my iphone apps tells me what food size Finley is on the different weeks and for the past several week she's been a watermelon. I thought that was as big as it would ever get on the app, but today I glanced at it and it said "You are past your due date" (Thanks for the reminder, I almost forgot.) and that she is now the size of a pumpkin. The good news is that she is where she wants to be no doubt. She isn't making an effort at all to come join us, and with this cold weather, I don't blame her. When I first got pregnant and realized what my due date would be, my first instinct was to wish for her to be born as far away from Christmas as possible for her sake. After we realized things about tax credits and insurance, we started wishing for her arrival to be before 2011. (Selfish? Maybe so.) But now I am happy that we are technically over the Christmas time frame. Although some people still have their decorations still out. Speaking of, some people still have PUMPKINS OUT! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!? At my appointment last Thursday, when she went to "check me", she said she was going to strip my membranes which is a way of inducing labor a little bit more naturally. But when she was "checking me" she said, "But you'll have to be at a one for that.... annnnnnd, you aren't at a one yet. I am so sorry Chelsea." She was really sad for me I think. The great news that came out of the that appointment though was that we set up an induction date. She called me later on in the afternoon after checking with labor and delivery's schedule to let me know that there was space for us to come in Wednesday night at 5pm and check in. We will then eat dinner, watch tv, play on our laptops, and they will give me some medication. If I'd like, they will even give me sleep meds to help with my anticipation of the next morning. When we wake up, we'll shower, eat a light breakfast and they will start the induction process. So basically, Finley will be here by the end of Thursday. At this point I'm pretty sure that that will be the day. I don't foresee her coming out any earlier on her own. Although I have wished for the dramatic "My water just broke!!" moment, I don't think that is in my future. I also think that she is a bigger baby than what the doctor is thinking. I am very curious to know her stats, but even more curious to see what she looks like and to hold her. It's a strange feeling to grow something in your belly for 40 weeks without ever really meeting her until she is meeting everyone else. I am very anxious at this point. I'm not sleeping well, but I'm still for the most part pretty comfortable. I still feel like I could walk around the mall and lift my nieces and comfortably fit into a booth at a restaurant. I have seen pregnant ladies who look absolutely miserable before and I just don't think I'm there yet. The curiosity and the not knowing and the anxiety of the pain is probably my biggest issue I have going on right now. But I know that is only normal. It's weird to wrap this blog up and to know I'll never be posting another pregnancy blog about Finley again. But it's also a relief. :)

39 Weeks and a Final Nursery Reveal

2011-01-05T16:32:00.001-08:00

Well I made it past 39 weeks. I can't believe it. Honestly, I'm not miserable though. I keep wondering when I'll feel like I can barely move, but it hasn't happened yet. I go to the doctor again tomorrow to see if I've progressed any. Last week she told me I was 1/2 a centimeter and I really feel like that was just a pity 1/2 she was giving me. :( But tomorrow I hope that we start talking induction if things haven't progressed. I have still been sleeping on the wedge pillow for my indigestion and it is so great! It really helps and I sleep pretty comfortably on it. Below are the photos of Finley's nursery. It is finally finished. My mom hemmed the bedskirt and made the most amazing window valance and that was all we needed for it to be complete! Mom is still going to make two more pillows but that will just be a bonus. We have everything ready for Finley's arrival and we are just getting very anxious for her to get here already! My friend Maggie who is due tomorrow and who has been a great pregnant friend during these 9 months is in labor right now! And my cousin had her baby last night! It makes me want to have her so badly! The pets have been acting a little different which makes me feel like it's happening soon. Lyle has been so frisky and she's been climbing up on my belly and laying down and purring and licking my face pretty much on a nightly basis. Lefty, who usually either doesn't cuddle with anyone or cuddles up with Hooper, has been sleeping right next to/on top of me every night. And sweet little Alice is always right next to me so it's hard to tell if she knows anything is going on. :) Spanky hasn't been acting different though, but he's the only male in the animal family so maybe he doesn't have those maternal instincts. Last night some of my best girlfriends came over and Lissa brought her 6 month old, Mailey James over. Alice LOVED her. She was so curious about her in the car seat and she wagged her little tail nonstop while she watched her. Then I found her licking her little bitty baby hand. That makes me think that Alice is going to love Finley. Lefty and Lyle? I'm not so sure about. But Alice and Spanky are extremely sweet natured. I really wonder if I'll have a post at 40 weeks. The first picture below is of course my weekly Sunday picture. I'm beginning to look a little puffier in my face I think. And don't even get me started on my feet, hands and ankles! Eeek!

38 Weeks

2010-12-26T15:51:00.001-08:00

Well nothing has changed at all since last week. Well, last week I wasn't dilated and this week I'm dilated 1/2 a centimeter. Big whoop. At our doctor appointment we had our sonogram and she estimates that she was around 7 pounds 4 ounces at that time. That is not large enough to discuss an induction at this time. :( Sooooo, we play the waiting game some more. I don't feel any closer to having her than I did 3 weeks ago. I have gotten a little bit more freaked out about the whole birthing process recently but I imagine that those feelings will just keep growing stronger as the big day approaches. I have been sleeping about half of the night on a wedge pillow and that is helping me a little bit with sleeping and acid reflux. We got some gifts from some great friends including our jogging stroller that is also a travel system! It is so neat! Such smooth turning and has an mp3 hookup and speakers! Hooper is really excited. Speaking of gifts, yesterday was Christmas and Finley made out like a bandit!!!!!!!!! Anna has already spoiled her so much! She already has more shoes than I have and has some of the cutest outfits I have EVER seen. She will be the best dressed baby around for a while I have no doubt. My mom and dad got her lots of great goodies too. I just can't wait until she is here and I can dress her in these outfits! Anna says that I have to take her everywhere or at least take her picture every day with all of her outfits! :) Today we have really been nesting. Hooper and I have been working really hard at putting all of her clothes away and arranging her closet and drawers to what makes the most sense to us. That was really hard to decide what goes where and what is considered hangable and what should just be folded. We've been doing lots of laundry also. I also swept the kitchen with my new broom that I love so much. Hahaha. And Hoop hung up some photo frames and we are planning the layout of our photo gallery in the living room. I think today has been very successful in the nesting department. I wonder if I'll have a 39 weeks post or a 40 weeks post. Heck, I might even have a 41 and 42! Ay yay yay! Below is today's picture. I do think that I look bigger than last week.

37 Weeks

2010-12-22T16:53:00.000-08:00

Well we are getting closer and closer to the due date! I have reached a point where I am not sleeping well at all. I wake up usually around 11:30, 1:30, 4:00 and 5:30. This morning I had such bad pains in my stomach that I had to get Hooper up to help me get out of bed. (They were just gas pains.) Every time I rolled over or had to use the restroom in the night I was in such bad pain. I can't wait for tomorrow when we get our sonogram and then talk to the doctor again. I am really hoping that she'll set an induction date! After we go to our appointment we are going to finish up our Christmas shopping. Other than feeling gas pains sometimes and not sleeping, my indigestion is still kicking and I'm having pains in other areas that will remain nameless. Finley is still moving around a lot and I still feel like she's really high. But remember, the doctor said she's really low. That makes me think she might be really long! I just can't wait for our sonogram to find out! Anyway, here is my photo from Sunday. And below are some of our favorites from our maternity session we had Sunday! Anna took the photos and edited them! We LOVE them! Don't forget to see our website for more photo details. www.aandcphotos.com

Update

2010-12-16T19:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had an appointment with the doctor and it was the first of my weekly appointments. We felt like it was a really good appointment because we got a lot of questions answered. (Probably because Hooper came with me and I wasn't just shy and silent the whole time by myself.) This is also the point when she starts "checking" me. So far I am not dilated but I am 50% effaced. When she checked me she said, "Whoa, she's really low" which surprised me a little. I mean, I know I feel her on my bladder but I was thinking she was still pretty high up. I also asked her if she could tell if she was head down and she said yes, she's head down. That surprised me too. I've been thinking I've been feeling her head but I guess it's been her bottom for the past couple of weeks. (Don't tell Finley I confused the two.) I'm glad that she's low and head down because that means she's just in position to make her grand entrance. Or exit I suppose. Toward the end of the appointment I asked her about how big she thinks that she is right now. She guessed that she's about 6 1/2 pounds. At that point I reminded her that my brother was 11 pounds and they took me two weeks early because I was so big and I still weighed 9 1/2 pounds. Hooper weighed 5 pounds but he was 6 weeks premature. She was a little bit shocked at all of the big baby news and she said we need to do a sonogram at the next visit and check how big she is. She had previously told us that she would not induce any earlier than one week unless there were medical reasons to do so. After talking about the big baby syndrome, she did say that if Finley is big then that is a reason to induce earlier. (We are really hoping to have her before 2011 for multiple reasons. 1. Dr. Deem will be out of town January 1-3 and that is just scary to me. 2. Blue Cross Blue Shield and Harris are having some disagreements right now and the two might not work together after December 31. 3. Tax cut. and 4. The sooner the better! We can't wait to meet her!) So I am really happy that we discussed the big baby scenario with her because this way we get to have a sonogram that we probably wouldn't have gotten to have otherwise. I can't wait to see her on the screen again! I just need to fatten her up in the next week so that she's considered big and she can come early! :)

36 Weeks

2010-12-13T17:51:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that I am 36 weeks pregnant. In the beginning, Finley was only the size of a sesame seed and now she is the size of a watermelon! I remember everyone saying, "Just wait until she's the size of a watermelon!" and I felt like it was sooo far away. It's so strange. I know that the holidays are going to make the rest of this time fly by and I am just so excited. I'm getting a little nervous for the actual birthing process, but I'm really elated to see her face and finally meet her. Last night was the first night that I really thought, "Holy moly. I could go into labor at any given moment now." I woke up choking (because of my dang indigestion) and my first thought of waking up in that panic was, "Did my water break?!?!" It made me laugh after I finally realized that I was choking and not going into labor. That is the second time that I have choked in my sleep because of my indigestion and it really stinks. We started finally washing Finley's blankets and washcloths and burp rags. We also started packing our bag for the hospital. We really should have done that a long time ago, but what can I say? I slacked and thankfully it's worked out so far. I don't really feel like she's "dropped" yet because I still feel her in the same spots and one of those spots is relatively high up by my ribs and I'm pretty sure it's her head there. I am ready for her head to be down and for her to be ready to arrive! Tonight I have a sore throat and that is really a bummer. I haven't been sick this whole time and I really don't want to get sick right here at the end. I'm a little bummed that we didn't get a picture for 35 weeks but I also don't feel like I look much different over the past few weeks. However, I could be way off. I do think my face is getting a little bit more swollen and that really stinks but it's all a part of it I suppose. Anyway, I wonder how many more of these posts I'll have before she is here!!!

35 Weeks

2010-12-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

I wasn't able to write a blog Sunday because I was so sick. I should have written one Monday or Tuesday but I got busy and then forgot. :) Saturday night I woke up in the middle of the night and was violently ill. It was sooo not fun. Vomiting is unpleasant enough any normal day in life, but when you have a 5 or 6 pound baby in your belly it is even worse. When I would lay back in bed and try to let my stomach settle, Finley would start moving around. It was so horrible. The only way I can think to describe the feeling in my stomach that night was like those big glass balls that have the lightning in them and when you put your hand on it, then lightning goes to your hand. Do you know what I'm talking about? It felt like there was a lightning storm all over my stomach. Bottom line, it was awful. Sunday morning when I woke up I still felt bad and Hooper called the doctor. I took some medicine and ended up sleeping the day away. The last week has been pretty good considering I'm entering the home stretch. Sometimes I'm uncomfortable and most of the time I'm hot, but it's okay. The main complaint is of course the indigestion. I keep hoping that when Finley moves down it wont be so bad. Oh, I forgot to mention a few weeks ago that I wrecked my car into a pole that appeared out of nowhere. I was parked and then went to pull out and the pole scraped the side of my car pretty deeply. When I told my mom she informed me that when she was pregnant with me she backed into a tree in the yard that had always been there. :) I think she and I are two peas in a pod. We are so alike that it's strange sometimes. I just hope that when Finley is pregnant, she doesn't wreck her car too. Anyway, hopefully I'll get back on schedule and blog again on Sunday. I can't believe that it's almost time!

33 and 34 Weeks

2010-11-28T18:27:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks I have felt Finley more and more. She seems to be more active and running out of space to be active! Wednesday night we were in Elkhart at Hooper's dad's house and all of the sudden I started feeling really sick. My stomach felt so sour and Finley was moving all around to top it off. I finally ended up vomiting A LOT and I felt much better afterward. It was really weird though. It all came on so fast and then left so fast. I very rarely in life ever vomit and I have had about 4 different vomiting spells since being pregnant and none of the episodes had anything to do with morning sickness or pregnancy nausea. It's almost like my body is so protective over Finley that if ANYTHING bad enters, my body rejects it very quickly. Although not fun, I think it's kind of neat how that works. Thanksgiving was awesome in Elkhart and we had a great visit with Hooper's family. We took Alice and Lefty with us and they had a blast with Hooper's dad's dogs. They did not, however, have a blast while I was sick. Alice ran out of our room and crawled in bed with Hoop's dad and Cathy! It was funny. She didn't like all the commotion going on while she was trying to get her beauty sleep. It's exciting to know that next year we will have Finley with us when have our Thanksgiving celebration! I can't believe that her due date is only 6 weeks away. We don't have our bag packed yet, but we can work on that this week. Anna and I have been staying super busy with photography sessions so that everyone can get their family pictures done in time for Christmas cards. Today we had 4 sessions, yesterday we had 2 sessions, and tomorrow we have 1 session. It's a lot of fun but it's really hard for me to get up and down off the ground now so I feel like Anna is having to pull all the weight. Today we did a double maternity session for Maggie and Amanda and I kept thinking how funny it looked to passers by that two pregnant ladies were taking photographs of two pregnant ladies. :) I am starting to feel more swollen in my feet and ankles and hands and even sometimes my face. My wedding band and engagement ring still fit but there are days that it's definitely a tight squeeze! I took off my socks today and there was a definite change in the size of my calves from where the socks were and where they weren't! Anyway, this blog was really a lot of rambling, but I hate that I am slacking and having to blog two week's worth these days! Hopefully I'll get better!

33 Weeks

34 weeks

3-D Sonogram

2010-11-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

One of our friends was kind enough to do some 3-d photos of Finley last week and we were so happy to see her sweet little face! She kept her arm up in her face the majority of the time but we were able to get some shots. Fara thinks she measures around 4.4 pounds and she also told us that her head is in the 91st percentile! Her head measures about 2 weeks ahead of her body! Here are some of the photos as well as some photos of Hooper and me when we were little. Who do you think she looks like?

32 weeks

2010-11-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

I think I've crossed over into the land of uncomfortableness. It's getting more difficult for me to get up, to bend over, to do some every day things that I took for granted. My knees are starting to feel like they could give out. Two weeks ago my knee did go out and I fell in my hallway. It was scary, but I landed ever so gracefully on my bottom and not my tummy. :) Sunday morning I had the worst leg cramp of my life that lasted on and off for over 15 minutes. It hurt so bad that I was trembling and there was nothing I could do to make the paint go away. I would physically pull my foot and toes up towards me with both hands and my foot resisted against the pull and came out the champion in the battle every time. It was crazy and I kept thinking to myself, "this has to be worse than childbirth." I'll let you know after Finley gets here which was worse! :) This past weekend was my baby shower thrown by my best friends and it was incredible! They truly outdid themselves with this one. It was so elegant and cute and had such a great theme - Pickles and Ice Cream! Two of my favorite things! Anna took lots of photos and then that very night made a photo montage that made me cry! (I have included the montage at the very bottom of this post.) I attached some photographs from the shower to show you how creative my friends are if you aren't going to watch the montage. Also, my mom's very dear friend Terre made Finley a quilt out of the fabrics that are in her room and it is GORGEOUS! We got lots and lots of great necessities and some great fun things also! I just can't wait to put all of this stuff to use and for her to be here!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

30 and 31 Weeks

2010-11-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

I failed at writing a blog last week so this one will be a double week filler inner. The past two weeks I have had killer indigestion still. My friend and coworker finished working on the fabric birds for us so we secured them to the branch we found in our backyard with hot glue and hung the branch! This is one of my favorite parts of the whole nursery! I have been looking forward to it ever since I got the idea from someone else's blog! (I'm totally a nursery DIY idea blog thief!) We still have to write on the wall below the birds for that part to be completely done but that'll get done a little later. Hooper's mom got us some storage drawers/cubes for our bench and I really like the way it looks. It is much more practical with the storage cubes in it than without. I was in a wedding this weekend and we had a terrific time hanging out with some of our friends that we don't get to see very often. I wish that we could have taken a lot of photos but there was no way we could have kept up with a camera since Hooper was an usher and I was a bridesmaid. Friday on our way out of town I put my iphone on some rap Pandora and Finley had one of her most active days ever! I think she liked it! She is kind of kicking me in the ribs a little bit now and making me a little bit more uncomfortable. Last night she had the hiccups for a long time as I lay in bed. I didn't sleep very well in our hotel at all. I can't tell if I am now to the point of just not sleeping very comfortably or if it was because I was in a strange bed. Let's hope that it was just the bed issue. Here are some pictures..
30 weeks

31 weeks

Hoop kissing Finley at Cody and Katherine's wedding in the photobooth

29 Weeks

2010-10-24T17:03:00.000-07:00

Horrible indigestion. Bad gas pains. That's about the only negative thing going on pregnancy wise right now. The indigestion seems to be getting worse. And I have had such horrible gas pains that I've actually had to go home from work twice. We got the bedskirt and the pillows back from the lady that was making them and the bedskirt was too long. :( However, we decided that we are going to rig it a way that will work without having to hem it. In the photo below, the bright aqua color on the bed is the top of the bedskirt. It is NOT the sheet. Mom and I talked about the window valance today and we decided exactly what we want and hopefully we will get that done in the next month or so. Other than that, the nursery hasn't changed much. I took some photos of some of my favorites of Finley's clothes. There are also tons of leggings and shoes that I love that I didn't want to get out. My belly looks a little bigger in this photo than last week and I'm getting a little bit more uncomfortable. But only 11 more weeks to go! That is so crazy!

28 Weeks

2010-10-17T12:55:00.000-07:00

I am feeling Finley a lot more often now. She is a busy body these days. The cool thing is that I can see her moving almost every time she moves. I wish everybody that I love could see these movements in person because it's so neat. Mom got to witness a big old ripple across my belly today. I have been trying to video the movements to show people but it's really hard to see it on the video as clearly as you can see it in person. But I have attached two videos where you can see a little bit of it. We didn't do anything nursery related this week because it's all out of our hands until we get these two projects returned from the outside sources. I can't remember if I mentioned in my last blog that I think my ph balance is out of whack being pregnant. I get body odor much quicker and I think I need to switch deodorant. That might be a little TMI but it's true. And after all, I write these blogs so that I can look back in my next pregnancy and see what to expect and when. And at this point, body odor is what to expect. :) It's not a disgusting onion type of b.o, but it's just not a nice fresh armpit smell that I'd prefer. Ha. Finley is apparently around 17 inches long now. That is outrageous to me! She's almost as long as she will be when she's full term. She still needs to put on the pounds though. She only weighs around 3 pounds right now. She's longer than Alice weighs more than her! That is NUTS! My indigestion has still been rough. I finally got my hair done this week and got rid of my awful roots! I went to Ft. Worth with my mom today so I didn't have time to get Sassy or Emmi for the photo so I had to use Alice again.

27 weeks

2010-10-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I will only have 13 more of these weekly blogs to write! Where am I ever going to find 13 pets for the pictures though? Ha. Of course I'll still blog after she gets here, but this specific type of blog is what I'm talking about. This past week went pretty well. I have started having a pain in my tailbone area when I sit for a while. It mainly hits me in the car on the way to or from Ft. Worth or further or at work in my seat. I think I've decided that I'm going to get a super cute cushion from Pier 1 and put it in my chair at work. I have been having the world's worst hot flashes the past two weeks. And once they hit, there is almost no getting rid of them. My coworkers all complain that I'm freezing them out but I honestly can't help it. It is awful! I've always been a very hot natured person anyway and to maximize it to this point is almost too much to bare! My indigestion is still kicking in but Zantac has become a very good friend of mine. Thursday I had my doctor's appointment where I had to drink the nasty drink and get my blood drawn to test for gestational diabetes and anemia. I haven't gotten the results yet but I am hoping that all is well. The past two days Finley has been so active! Last night I'm pretty sure she was having a party in my uterus as I was watching SNL. I love feeling her move because it assures me that she's okay for the time being. When I haven't felt her in a while I start to panic a little bit. Sometimes I nudge her just for her to nudge me back. :) We got some nursery work done this week. I got this shelf idea from a blog when I was first researching nursery ideas. It is from one of the two nurseries that were my main inspirations for Finley's. I must say, I copied it almost to a T. You can call it nursery plagiarism I suppose but I couldn't help myself. When I found the old dress of mine I instantly remembered this one photograph of a shelf in "Norah's Nursery". So I ordered a shelf from Home Depot for about $11, ordered a vase from West Elm with free shipping for $9, found the letter "F" at Hobby Lobby for $2.99 and spray painted it pink (it was black), got some fake flowers at Hobby Lobby for around $2, and found the PERFECT nursery alphabet art on etsy for $20. We already had the frame but it was brown so my lovely husband spray painted it white and voila! I love this little area of the nursery! I am very pleased with how it turned out. So now we are only waiting on a few more things for the entire nursery to be finished. Something tells me that even when it is completely "finished" I'll still find some more things to add and create. :) Below are the two nurseries that inspired me from the beginning. I still don't know how to insert links so just forgive me and copy and paste if you want to see them. You will clearly see a LOT of my designs and ideas came from them. The shelf is the one that is the most copy catted! What can I say? I love a good idea when I see one!
http://designdazzle.blogspot.com/2009/11/yellow-aqua-red-baby-nursery.html
http://designdazzle.blogspot.com/2009/08/hip-fab-baby-nursery.html

For my photograph today I have no makeup on and I wanted Spanky to be in it since the others have gotten to be in one. You can tell that he is scared because he is standing on the gliding ottoman. I just thought it was funny. Maybe I'll have to go outside and find lizards and toads for the coming week's photos! Ha!

Elliott's Sleepover

2010-10-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Friday night Elliott stayed the night with us for the first time. We told her about it Wednesday I think and she looked forward to it and kept asking my mom if it was today yet. :) When I called Anna to see if Elle was ready for us to come get her, Anna said that Elliott kept asking where we were. Once we got her, she had her bags all packed and she was so excited! It was sad to say goodbye to Beckett because she didn't understand why she couldn't come too. Our first stop was Cici's so we could eat pizza and play the crane game. Let me just tell you, I don't recommend going to Cici's on a Friday night. It was packed! Which meant our crane game was crowded and everyone was winning all of our goodies! She had her little purse with her and had it packed with quarters and we played the game until we won a little pumpkin head man. She didn't understand why we had to leave and why we couldn't stay and win a goody for Mommy, Daddy and Beck too. (Last time we won 9 so winning 1 was quite a shock to her.) Once Unc reminded her that we needed to leave so we could get back home and build our tent she totally forgot about winning anything. She was so excited! First we had to stop by Home Depot because Elliott packed her hammer and wanted to build something while she was with us and Finley's room needed new fan blades so we decided that Unc and Elle could do that together. She LOVED Home Depot! They already have their Christmas stuff out so that was a huge plus and their baskets are pretty fun to ride in for a kid. After we got home was when the REAL fun began though. She and Unc put up the tent and changed the fan blades and then we made our smores and ate them in the tent. We laughed and laughed because we all spilled chocolate everywhere and Ellie's hair got stuck on her face because of her marshmallow mess and when I told her she was funny she said, "You can say that again!" It was such a great time! After that we played Hi Ho Cherry-Os and she won. We even let Spanky play with us. He got 2nd place in the first hand but he kept knocking all of his cherries off of his tree. Elliott thought the funniest thing was when Lyle wanted in the tent and would "scratch" at the side over and over again. After two smores each and several games, it was time for bed. And I mean real bed. Not in the tent. She got extremely hyper right before bed and wanted to dance and then she finally hit the pillow and was out like a light. In the middle of the night she woke up and said, "Chelsea? Don't leave me." which I thought was so sweet and then at 6am she rolled over and said, "Goodnight Chelsea." and kissed my shoulder. It melted my heart! She is just the sweetest natured little thing ever! When we woke up around 8:30 we went to the donut store and came back home and ate in our tent. I said, "Just let me know when you want to go home." And she said, "We have so much to do today! We have to eat donuts, make animals on the wall (puppets), and play the cherry game!" So she definitely wasn't ready to leave yet. Unc got out all of the old fan blades from Finley's fan and took her out to the porch so they could "build". They screwed all of the blades together to make a large piece of nothing, but to her it was something. After a few hours she was ready to go home which made me a little sad. But I kept hanging on her words from the night before. "This is the best campout ever!!!!" When I told her that her parents were on their way to get her she told me that I needed to take her home. I tried to tell her they'd be here in a minute and she said, "But Beckett's waiting on me." Which I thought was really sweet. Even though my feelings were hurt that she was ready to leave, she made me feel much better when she asked me Saturday night if she could spend the night again. It's no secret that I think my nieces hung the moon, and Elliott just totally confirmed it to me this past weekend. It was definitely a sleepover I'll never forget and it was indeed, the best campout ever.

26 Weeks

2010-10-03T15:56:00.000-07:00

We didn't do any nursery work this week other than change out the fan blades so there aren't any fun photos to post. :( I ordered some things for the nursery though that should be here within the next couple of weeks. I felt pretty good all week until Thursday evening and then all day Friday. Thursday I had some stomach aches and then Friday I felt like I had a huge gas bubble in my stomach that wouldn't go away. I could barely walk and felt like I needed to be doubled over when I did walk. I ended up having to leave work early and I came home and slept the rest of the day. I didn't even turn on the tv once! Or post on my facebook! That is when you KNOW I'm not feeling well! I called my doctor and asked what I could take and Hooper got me some medicine and by that evening I was much better. Which was good because we promised Elliott a sleepover at Chelsea and Unc's house! That is a whole different post altogether but let's just say that we lived a kid's dream for about 27 hours! But like I said, I'll post all about that later. Supposedly Finley is around 15 inches long from the top of her head to the bottom of her feet and weighs around 2 pounds. I really think I've gained like ten pounds since the last doctor visit. It sure feels that way at least. I need to purchase some more maternity clothes but that's a really hard thing to do. Buy clothes that you might not ever wear again. I mean, yes I want to have another baby, but who's to say that the seasons will be right with my clothing? I might have a summer baby and not ever need a maternity long sleeved shirt again. Catch my drift? It's just hard to fork over money for these clothes. However, Gap and Old Navy have some GREAT maternity clothes! I got Finley the cutest little skirt today from Gap and I can't wait to put her in it! Here is a photo. And below is a photo of me today with Lyle. I figured it was her turn since the two little dogs got to be in some. :)

REAL Pictures!

2010-09-27T13:09:00.000-07:00

I got inspired today to take some real photographs of some of the nursery. I feel like my iphone pictures don't do any of it any justice. The color doesn't even look right in the iphone pictures. So below are some of the things that you have already seen, but much better detailed photos. The little dress is the one I talked about in my last blog that was mine when I was little. The blanket was also mine when I was a baby. As with all of the photos on here, you can click on them to make them bigger.

25 Weeks

2010-09-26T18:36:00.000-07:00

We did a little nursery work this week and fewer things excite me more than that! Our dresser came in and today we stocked the cabinet on it with all Number 1 diapers and some wipies. It looks extremely organized and I realize that it probably wont look that way for long. But for now, it makes me feel relieved and happy. Hooper raised the crib today. It was lowered because Beckett stayed the night over here some weeks ago. Mom and I took all the fabric and pillow forms to the lady that will be making them for us and she said she'd have them done within a month. You have NO IDEA how happy I am to get those done! She is making the bedskirt, covering a bench cushion, and doing about 5 or 6 pillows. Mom is going to make the window valance but we can't make that until we get the material back from the lady. Other than those projects, the only thing left to do in the nursery is one more final project that is in the works. I am hopeful that it will get done soon. A lady I work with is working on part of it and then once we get that part, we'll have to finish it in the room. It is the thing I am MOST excited about for Finley's room. I cannot wait! Other than that, there are just finishing touches really. We went to my parents house and went to the basement to get tons and tons of books for the shelves and we stocked those today. I also found a bin of some special little dresses that my mom saved from when I was a baby. I want to coordinate at least one of those little dresses into the nursery, so that'll be just one more finishing touch I suppose. The pregnancy this week has been no different from the last couple of weeks really. Still having indigestion. My bones in my bottom hurt when I sit for a long period of time. Sometimes my hands get tingly. I am 25 weeks along now and only have 15 more to go. That is just nuts to me! Anyway, my picture this week is not too pretty, but you get the point at least. And here's a picture of the dresser also. Remember, these are only phone pictures. When the whole thing is all put together I will take a lot of photos with my good camera. :)

24 weeks

2010-09-19T15:01:00.000-07:00

This week has gone pretty smooth. I slept a lot harder than I have in previous weeks and woke up a LOT sleepier. I have been sleeping so hard that when I wake up at 2:00am for my usual urge to pee, I have creases all over the side of my body from my clothes. They are actually painful creases. But I'll gladly take them if it means I'm sleeping in the same (allowed) position for long periods of time. I say "allowed" because I'm still waking up on my back sometimes and that's a pregnancy no-no at this point. We did some more nursery work and I am SOOOO happy with the results. My friend Maggie recently got some letters to spell out her baby boy's name on the wall and it inspired me to do Finley's name on the wall also. Here is Maggie's blog site www.mgwalton.blogspot.com . It was pretty impossible to perfectly wrap the letters with the fabric like I had originally planned but then my mom had the idea to tear off strips of fabric and wrap the letters like a mummy. I am so happy with how they turned out! Hooper wanted to put the guitar in the nursery from the very beginning and I wasn't sure how exactly to get it to fit in. Finally I had the idea to paint it all white and give it a modern feel and then my mom had the idea to put the fabric on the pick guard and Hoop had the idea to make the fake strings with fabric. I LOVE it! Hooper's mom came into town this weekend and she got to see the nursery for the first time. She also got to hear Finley's heartbeat. I wish she could have felt her moving but she's been less active the past few days. She normally get a surge of energy right when I lay down to go to sleep. I surely hope that that trend doesn't stick around when she's out of my belly! The only things we are lacking for the nursery now are the pillows, the bed skirt, the window valance, and the dresser. And luckily, Hooper's mom ordered us our dresser and it'll be here this week! I am so excited! I can't wait to get everything finished in the nursery and post real pictures of every detail!

23 weeks

2010-09-12T19:00:00.001-07:00

Not much difference between this week and last week really. I'm feeling pretty good. Just that haunting indigestion but I've come to realize that is just a part of pregnancy that I need to get used to. It isn't all day every day so I'm happy with that. Hooper talked to Finley through my belly last night and she moved A LOT back at him. We got a kick out of that. (No pun intended. ;) I'll be here all night folks!) We did a little bit of nursery work this weekend. We are having the window valance and bed skirt and pillows made by somebody else, but I wanted to do something myself. You know that impulsive feeling you get when you have a great idea and then all of the sudden you want to do it right then? Well that is how I was feeling about a couple of ideas I had for the nursery. So, we made it happen. Thank Heavens for my mom who majored in Art in college and used to teach art school! I had some ideas and my mom really made it happen. I googled images of whimsical birds and vintage birds and found a couple of birds that I really liked and Mom and I brainstormed and brainstormed of how we could create these little artwork frames of the birds made out of my fabric. Lucky for me, she was smarter and knew that the material would fray if we just cut the shape of the birds out. (I wouldn't have thought of that until I actually crossed that bridge.) So she had the idea to cut poster board in the shapes of the birds and use quilt batting behind a square of fabric to sort of give it a 3 dimensional look. I am SOOO happy with the finished product! I think that the birds are adorable and are EXACTLY the look I wanted. The only other project that I worked on was covering a lamp shade with fabric. It was hard work! It sounds easy, and it only took me about 20 minutes, but there was a lot of thinking involved and I still didn't make it flawless. We got a little night stand from Target for $14.99 and got the lamp and lamp shade there as well for pretty cheap. The nursery isn't lacking THAT much now. We just need to get all of the fabric creations complete from the outside source and get a dresser and then add lots of knick knacks and books on Finley's shelves and I'm thinking it'll be complete! Little by little it is all coming together. Here are some photos from the weekend. One of these days I'm going to take REAL photos with my real camera and you'll get a better feel for the colors. You'd think since I claim myself as a photographer, I'd use something other than my iphone. :)

New Photo

2010-09-09T17:54:00.000-07:00

I got a surprise sonogram today when I went with Anna to her appointment! I was so excited! Finley wouldn't really cooperate much. She was looking toward my back the whole time but she turned for just a second and Fara was able to get this shot.

Sometimes after I eat a lot, I'm quite certain that this is going to happen...

22 weeks and 3 days

2010-09-08T14:50:00.001-07:00

The real point of this blog is just to post a photo that goes along with 22 weeks. But just an FYI, I went to the doctor today and everything is still going good. Finley's heart rate is 160 and my blood pressure and urine are good. I have gained a total of 14 pounds which is kind of scary to me since I imagine I'll gain a lot in the last month. Last night and today I have the world's worst indigestion. Anyway, here is a photo. It's been raining all day so I'll blame my look on that. :) Oh yeah, and Lefty wanted to be in this photo since Alice was in last week's.

22 weeks and 1 day

2010-09-06T18:19:00.000-07:00

I should have written this blog yesterday but this weekend has been jam packed. Lefty has been really sick, Hooper has been out of town and this is the weekend that we (Faith, Anna, Shanna, Kayla, Lissa and I) arranged for Mackenzie to come down and spend the holiday with us. The weekend was bittersweet because we had such a great time with each other, but it was jaded by my sick little dog having to be hospitalized pretty much all day every day, not to mention I had some pretty bad stomach aches myself. Our plan for the weekend was to act as if we were out of town and lay by the pool and giggle and for the three of us that are pregnant to drink virgin pina coladas and for the others to drink whatever their hearts wished. It truly was a great time when I was able to forget about Lefty and her belly ache. We laughed so hard and we had so much fun playing games and learning even MORE about each other than we already knew. (You girls know what I'm talking about! LOL) But back to the pregnancy stuff, this past week was smooth. I don't have a new photo to put up because I look really bad today. I'll probably post one Wednesday after my doctor's appointment. I saw my stomach move on Thursday and it was nuts! We lay in bed watching it in amazement for a while. Since then I've seen it a few times. I feel her a LOT. She has gotten a lot more active at night time and early in the morning. Oh, Wednesday a stranger told me that I'm definitely showing in my face now. So, there's that at least. Haha. I am really lucky and blessed that I get to be pregnant with two of my very best friends. Anna is due two months after me and Faith is due a month after Anna! It's really a great bonding experience to share. We used my Doppler and Faith borrowed a different Doppler from a friend and we tried to listen to the heartbeats last night. We found Anna's baby's and heard it loud and clear. The Doppler that Faith borrowed shows the heart rate, so on her it did show a high number for a second but we weren't ever able to clearly hear it. (She just texted me that she heard it for 30 seconds tonight though.) We didn't really need to hear mine since I was feeling Finley move all around as we were searching on the other bellies. I am so excited that these three children will be so close in age. Another fun thing is that another friend of mine, Maggie, is due three days before me. So we are able to share all kinds of things about how we are feeling, how we are sleeping, nursery progress, etc. It makes it very nice to be able to have someone you know be in the same boat as you and due within just a few days. Here is her blog by the way. www.mgwalton.blogspot.com I highly recommend it if you need another blog to follow! Well, that's really about it for this past week. I will write more Wednesday I suppose. If not, I'll at least add a picture. And apparently I don't really know how to post a link on here. I couldn't get Maggie's blog link to work. :(

21 Weeks

2010-08-29T17:09:00.000-07:00

My goodness how things have changed this past week! I really think my stomach popped! Everything was normal and then Tuesday I ate a bean burrito and a Mexican pizza for lunch and all of the sudden it was like I couldn't hold my stomach in for the life of me. It was just protruding! I felt like it was the food's fault until hours had passed and I went to dinner at a best friend's house. All of my girlfriends noticed that I was bigger than the previous Tuesday. It really was bizarre. I mean, I would expect to be a little bit bigger week by week but in just a matter of days I looked totally different. So here we are on Sunday and I am still protruding. I can't blame it on the bean burrito and the Mexican pizza after this many days. So I suppose this is it. I am DEFINITELY showing, no mistaking it. I was showing before, but still one of those "if you're a stranger and you think I look pregnant, you probably shouldn't bring it up because there's a chance I could be bloated or I could have just had a baby" type of showings. Not only do I look different, I feel different too. After I eat I have worse pains than before. It still feels like my stomach is being magnetized to the floor, but even worse. I am having some round ligament pains also. It feels very strange when I am standing up and I rest my hands on my desk at work. Imagine that I'm sort of bending over but just resting that way. In those moments it feels like somebody has ripped what few abdominal muscles that I had before out of my stomach and replaced them with something strange that feels as if it is pulling apart in my abdomen. But other than moments just here and there, things are still going great. I usually wake up every two hours almost on the dot to change sleep positions or go pee, and that's okay with me. At least I go right back to sleep. Last night I woke up crying because I had a dream that Hooper really hurt my feelings. Lame I know. When I have the day off from work I tend to either sleep until noon, or at least lay in bed until noon. It's really nice. Apparently at this week in the pregnancy Finley weighs over a pound. She should be about 8 inches long from the top of her head to the bottom of her rump. I feel her pretty regularly now and Hooper actually got to feel her on Friday night. It was really cool. I had put my hands on my belly and thought that I could feel it, but when you're feeling it from the inside it's hard to tell if you are really feeling it from the outside too or if you are imagining it because you know it's happening. So I told him that I was pretty sure I could feel her and to put his hand there. He did and sure enough she moved right then. He was really excited and it was a pretty cool moment for us. This morning I was certain that Spanky was ready for Finley to be here, as he put his paw on my stomach and attempted to rip open my belly button. Then I realized that he just wanted to snuggle with me. Alice is laying her head right by my belly as I type this.

Everyone asks me, "What is going to happen to your dogs when Finley is here? They aren't going to get nearly as much attention!" Here is what I have to say about that. Yes, I know that you have had children before me and you have said the same thing that I am about to say, but I also know myself and I know my dogs and I know how I feel about the situation. My dogs will not suffer as a result of Finley's arrival and existence. As it is already, Alice gets the most attention of all the dogs. Not because I play favorites, but because she is so much more dependent on me. She only weighs 3 pounds, so her jumping up on my lap when I have Finley is not going to be a bad thing. I will welcome her to join us. Laugh if you want, but if you know my bond with Alice then you should have faith in what I say. She cuddles up so close to me at night and when I get up, she stays in the same spot and awaits my return. Finley wont be sleeping in our bed so our cuddle time should not be interrupted unless I am getting up to feed Fin or to tend to her in some other way. In these situations I feel confident that Alice will either come to the nursery with me, or await my return as usual. No biggie. Now with Lefty, she is extremely independent. I don't see much changing with her either. She only wants up on our laps every now and then, and she sleeps in our bed sometimes and on the floor sometimes. She is pretty happy with life as long as she is being fed, let outside, and has fresh water in the bathroom in our bedroom every night at bed time. Heck she's just happy to be alive and thankful that Hooper saved her! Spanky boy is a combination of Alice and Lefty. He is very snuggly and attached, but he also can take care of himself pretty well. (He can't pour the food or run the water though.) He's a really, really good dog and I think he'll be very protective of Finley. I think it will be a little bit of an adjustment for him, probably more than for the other two. But I think it will make him feel more needed and like he has another job around here. (Other than chasing away Lyle and telling us when someone is here and when there is a storm outside.) So there you have it. I really think my dog situation will remain like it is. We will all be one big happy family and no body's bonds will disintegrate. Like I said, laugh it up if you wish, but you watch. 2011 Christmas cards everyone will be wearing matching outfits! (Kidding.) Okay, off of my soapbox now. Here is a picture of me today. I'm telling you, major difference from last Sunday.

20 weeks

2010-08-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Halfway there. I really can't believe that. It has gone by very fast it seems. I really think that the timing of the pregnancy has a lot to do with that. If I would have gotten pregnant in November then it probably would have felt like a long pregnancy because from November to the summer seems like eternity! The months from January to May seem to drag on. But it always seems to me that summer flies by, and then Christmas comes before we know it. So I think that's why it feels like it's happening quickly for me. It is crazy how the last week I have felt major changes. I went from not really feeling very pregnant to feeling pregnant. I feel her move around all the time now. I have a hard time bending over to pick things up. Not that my stomach is huge or anything, just that it hurts. Also, my feet have started swelling. I really hate that. It's pretty uncomfortable, but it gives me an excuse to take a break and put my feet up. (At home that is. I wouldn't do that at work unless it was absolutely unbearable. I don't want my coworkers to think I'm lazy! My husband already knows I am so that doesn't matter. :)) I don't think my stomach has gotten any bigger the past couple of weeks. Below is a picture from a minute ago and it is a horrible picture. I don't have any makeup on and I look very tired. I'm not really tired though. I slept until 12:00 today. :)

19 weeks 2 days

2010-08-17T09:02:00.000-07:00

I really want to start posting every week on Sundays but this week my Sunday was busy. So here is my 19 week post. Everything has gone really well in the past week. It's a little bit hard to move in the night but that body pillow is so awesome. I'm still having indigestion but I realize that comes with my food choices, and when it all boils down to it, I believe it's worth it. :) I craved jalapenos so badly yesterday and made nachos at lunch just to have a host to bring the jalapenos to my mouth. They were so delicious and worth all of my pain last night. I think I'm feeling Finley every now and then. I feel little flutters here and there. She is about 6 1/2 inches long from the top of her head to her bottom. She is the size of a small cantaloupe. I don't think I'm showing anymore this week than last week. Not much of a post this week but when I'm pregnant next time I want to be able to look back and see how I am feeling and what's happening at different points. Here is a picture from Sunday at exactly 19 weeks.

18 Week Sonogram

2010-08-11T13:05:00.001-07:00

Okay so here is the short blog regarding our sonogram we had done Monday, August 9th. This sonogram was an extremely important one for Hooper and me. Since we declined the Quad Screen blood test, we were very anxious. The ultrasound tech at my doctor's office used to be a high risk ultrasound tech. This means that she knows exactly what to look for when it comes to anything that might be wrong that is viewable in a sonogram. We spent about 25 minutes in there with her as she made sure that every little thing measured correctly and that everything looked okay. She assured us that there were several things that we could rule out and Dr. Deem even told us that most of the things the Quad Screen tests for appeared to be okay through the sonogram. The ultrasound tech told me that Finley was extremely active. She was very wiggly on the screen. Oh and she did assure us that Finley is a girl. :) Dr. Deem told us that she is measuring in the 44th percentile which means if she stays at this rate throughout the pregnancy, she should be about a 7 pound baby! Here are some pictures that we got at the visit.

18 weeks

2010-08-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

This will be a short post because I plan to post another tomorrow after our doctor's appointment. Just to sum things up I am 18 weeks today and Finley is the size of a mango. After those couple of days that I blogged about in the last post, things are going well again. I finally figured out a position with the body pillow that works for me. I also got an at home fetal heartbeat detector and it is AWESOME. It was $29 on amazon.com and I would recommend it to anybody that is expecting! I have heard her heartbeat every day for the past three days. All it takes is a little water on my belly and a little pressure with the monitor and bam! There's her heartbeat pumping loudly and clearly through my headphones! I researched a lot of different at home Dopplers and a lot of moms said that this one worked wonders for being so cheap. I am so happy that we got it. Actually my mom got it for us. Thanks Mom! It is called Angel Sounds if you're interested. Hooper was out of town Wednesday through today and Anna, Eddie and Elliott have been gone since Thursday to Sea World so Mom and Beckett came over for an extended slumber party! We have had such a good time! Beck has christened the crib and she was so used to the nursery that when Mom would say, "Beck, are you ready for bed?" She would lead her back to the nursery with her bottle and walk right in. Saturday the three of us went to get all of the fabric for the nursery and I couldn't be happier with it! We also went to pick up our awesome glider that Hilda, Sarah and Laura got for us. Let me tell you, it is even better than the one we tried out in the store. I mean, of course it's the same one but it's a new one. The one in store has been sat in by hundreds of people. Ours is fluffy and brand new and just anxious for my bottom to sit in it! I love it so much! Here are some photos of our slumber party, the fabric, one of the fabric projects, the chair, and my belly. Please know that in the photo of Beck lounging on my body pillow I am terribly embarrassed by the appearance of my bed. It turns out that this post is longer than I thought it would be. Perhaps tomorrow's wont be as long as I initially planned.

17 weeks 2 days

2010-08-03T17:55:00.000-07:00

I'm gonna just get straight to the point here. I am officially into week 18 and I can honestly say that the honeymoon seems as though it might be over with this pregnancy. Within the past two days I have had more pain than I have felt at all in the pregnancy. In the mornings I feel pretty good but after I eat lunch it's as if I can barely walk. Everything inside my stomach feels as though it weighs 200 pounds and is being magnetized toward the floor. In other words, it's far from comfy. I went from looking like I had gained some weight to looking like a pregnant lady over night. A few mornings ago I stretched really big in bed and my halfway asleep mind imagined stretch marks popping up one by one rapidly as I stretched my stomach. It was so strange. So now that I had that weird half awake dream, when I stretch I think about it even though I know that isn't how they'll come about. I also realized recently that I might ought to start sleeping on my side now. This is an extremely uncomfortable position for me to get used to. I am normally an every position sleeper. I fall asleep on my back, roll over to the left, then the right, and awake on my stomach all in smooth motions that don't awaken me. Now that I'm aware of the fact that the best position for pregnancy is on your left side, I awaken with every movement, or desire for movement I should say. I finally went to get one of those weird S shaped body pillows for pregnant ladies and I'll tell you what, that thing is expensive! Once I saw the best one there which was the full S shaped one, I realized that it might be made for "average" women. Meaning that my 5'11" body might be squeenched in the S and I'd be completely racked by the time I was in there. Soooooo, I opted for the candy cane shaped one. I gotta say that I don't really understand it yet. I went back to sleeping on my back and decided we might cross that bridge next week after I talk to my doctor about sleep positions. But aside from all of the pregnancy stuff, things are going well with baby stuff. We got the nursery painted and that is soooo relieving to me! I have so many dreams for this room and slowly but surely I think they're coming true. I will probably post pictures here and there of the room and then a final one when it is completely done. And I can't wait for that day! Our great friends Hilda, Laura and Sarah got us our dream glider chair and ottoman for the room and in a couple of weeks it'll be here! I don't understand why everyone in their right mind doesn't own a glider. Why would we spend money on a regular Laz-E Boy and not on one of these wonders?! I can't wait for the room to be all done and to just go sit and glide in there with a good book as I await Finley's arrival. Oh yeah, that's another thing. August 9th we go to the doctor for our gender sonogram. So remember, I cheated on my doctor and already found out so I'll have to put on my best Oscar winning performance of pure shock at the appointment. HOWEVER, if she tells us that this baby is a boy, there will be no acting involved. It's really a big appointment because she'll tell us how the baby is measuring and how things are looking so far. I am really, really excited about it. Nervous too, but mainly excited. Here are a few photos of the nursery so far. Please note, the running horses boarder IS NOT THE NURSERY. That was before and I have hated it since we bought the house but taking it down was really hard so it waited until now. :)

It's a.......

2010-07-21T10:58:00.001-07:00

GIRL!
Finley (something) Hooper. :) We still have to come up with a middle name. We have a friend that is an ultrasound tech and she offered to do my gender sonogram at 16 weeks. I really debated about it because I sort of felt like I'd be cheating on my doctor. Well, as soon as 15 weeks rolled around I started getting more and more interested in taking her up on her offer. I asked her a few questions about it and the next thing you know, we're getting a sonogram at 15 weeks! Some people have asked if we are absolutely sure because it's early, but the truth is she's NEVER been wrong, at her office they normally do the gender check at 15-16 weeks, and she assured me that she wouldn't have told me if she wasn't 100% positive. This entire pregnancy I have felt very strongly that I'm having a girl so it wasn't a complete shock to me. I mean, of course I had no way of knowing but it was just something that I can't really explain. Now if I go back on August 9th and they tell me it's a boy I don't know what I'll do. I mean, of course I'll be happy with a boy, but this huge feeling I've had since day 1 would really confuse me if it was wrong. To tell our mom's we had pink flowers sent and a card from Finley herself. :) Now that we know the gender we can start the nursery process! I'm really excited about that! Hooper probably isn't that thrilled about that part because that means he has to finish tearing down the awful wallpaper border of running horses in that room. It also means that his man room will be no longer. Here are a few pictures of all things Finley.

a gift from Aunt Anna

another gift from Aunt Anna

14 weeks and 3 days

2010-07-14T12:32:00.000-07:00

The first trimester is officially over which is when lots of ladies celebrate. That usually means no more nausea or morning sickness, a boost of energy, and not many food aversions. To me it doesn't feel too different. I didn't have any of those nasty things except for indigestion and from what I understand, that will only get worse. We went to the doctor today and it was a really good appointment. It turns out that I haven't gained one pound during the pregnancy! That is awesome news to me because I struggle so badly with weight. I just knew I was going to get in trouble for gaining too much and I was very pleasantly surprised when she said otherwise. I even think I'm showing a little bit which confuses me a little bit about the non weight gain. I'm actually ready to be full fledged showing so that I don't just look bigger. More good news that she told me was that my baby will definitely not have cystic fibrosis. We ended up declining the quad screen blood work after a lot of deliberation and thought put into it. If we would have decided to have that done, it would have been done at today's appointment. Since we didn't do it, today's appointment was just listening to the heartbeat, visiting with the doctor, and scheduling our sonogram to tell the sex! We have it scheduled for August the 9th and we are so excited! I can't wait! Right now the baby is the size of a naval orange - about 4.5 inches long! We have 25 weeks and 4 days to go!

12 weeks!

2010-06-27T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm just gonna write a short little blog here since I just wrote one less than a week ago. But today I am officially 12 weeks pregnant! This time is typically the time when women feel safe enough to tell EVERYONE that they are expecting. I honestly considered waiting until this moment to tell people but there is absolutely no way that I could have waited this long. Today the baby is the size of a peach and measures about 3 inches long. Crazy that what feels like just yesterday it was only the size of a sesame seed! I'll blog again next week when the baby is a different fruit or veggie!

11 weeks and 2 days

2010-06-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Sunday I officially crossed over into the 11 week mark. Really meaning that I am going on 12 weeks and have completed 11 weeks. It's so strange how this time flies by, but then it seems like it was a long time ago that we took that test. So far I'm still wearing my jeans. I got a pair of maternity jeans from Gap that I am so excited to wear because they are so stinkin' cute, but I'll enjoy these jeans while I can. I read online that if you are taller, it could take longer to show. I also read that if you're pudgier, it can take longer. So looks like I'll be hanging out in my regular clothes for a bit longer. I wear some maternity shirts sometimes because they are adorable and they just feel better. I mean, let's be honest here, just because I don't look pregnant doesn't mean I haven't gotten bigger everywhere else. I can't help that I'm hungry all the time. I realize that I'm not technically eating for two when this baby is only the "size of a large plum" as of now, but it sure does make me hungry. Speaking of being hungry, I've been eating lots of Spaghettios and then wouldn't you know it, they got recalled. Lucky for me (and the baby) Hooper got me the ones without meatballs and the ones WITH meatballs are the ones that were recalled. So *sigh. I'm really anxious for this week to fly by so that I can officially be 12 weeks and in the "safe zone". I know that things can still go wrong after week 12, but it's just a thing women look forward to. Pregnancy symptoms I've been having so far are pretty much just major indigestion and some bathroom issues that I won't get into on a public internet site. Oh yeah, and I want to eat all day long. Other than that, no morning sickness and no nausea. Things I've been craving lately are Tuna fish (and yes, my doctor said I can eat one portion of tuna week and you better believe I keep up and meet my quota every week), ice cream, cereal, a bloody mary (which I have not acted on and will not so don't you worry), pineapples, grapes, and nutrigrain bars. Last Tuesday we went to the doctor and the nurse got out the doppler thingamabob and attempted to listen to the heartbeat. She couldn't find it after trying for about 5 minutes and then she reassured us that our doctor would probably come right in and find it immediately. Well, she didn't. The doc actually said that it was too early to necessarily hear it with that thing and she wouldn't have had her nurse try had she known she was going to. She did let us hear a little swishy noise and she said that that was probably the baby swimming around in there being too fast for us to get a heartbeat read. I didn't have the heart to tell her I had eaten Mexican food beforehand. Just kidding just kidding. Anyway, we left feeling a little down about it but she scheduled us to come back this week to try again just for reassurance. Well fast forward a week and here we are. We went to the appointment today at 11:20 and a different nurse came right in and got the heartbeat on the first try. It was a very nice sound to hear and we were so relieved. It was the quickest doctor's appointment that I have ever been to and I didn't have to pee in a cup! Wahoo! The heartbeat is in the 170s. Now I feel like we can breathe a sigh of relief for a while. Our next appointment isn't until mid-July so as long as everything feels normal, we wont be back before that. Makes me want to go out and buy my own Doppler thingamabob! Until then, I'll just keep on taking my Tums, eating my Tuna fish, and dreaming about a Bloody Mary.

First Sonogram

2010-06-08T14:08:00.000-07:00

Today was the first sonogram. The lady that did the sonogram was so sweet and she was really informative and helpful. She had such a soothing voice and she even let us break the rules a little. (And she liked my dress so that is a big plus in my book. :)) She said that the baby is one inch long and measures exactly 9 weeks. That is a few days off from our original due date but she said since it's so close, the doctor probably wont change the date. Hooper asked her if we could video the screen and she said that they really aren't supposed to let us do that but that we could. :) The little baby was sooo wiggly! I'm sure he/she was saying, "Feed me Seymour!" Here is the video and one of the still shots.

News

2010-06-06T08:14:00.000-07:00

Well there have been some major changes happening lately. It's really only one major thing but with that one major thing comes LOTS of changes. Budget changes, home changes, lifestyle changes, and body changes. If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm pregnant. On May 10th Hooper went to Big Lots (classy) on his way home from work and picked up a couple of pregnancy tests. He came home and insisted that I take one right then and there. Me being as tired as I was, taking a test was the last thing on my mind. I was in a bad mood anyway and didn't want my mood to affect my reaction if the test read what I knew in my heart it was going to read. But a little bit of pressure and a, "I'll take one if you'll take one" comment later, I opened up one of the boxes. This particular test looked like a heartworm test at my work. I didn't look like a pregnancy test I had ever seen. There was no stick to urinate on. In fact, the instructions said to urinate in a cup and then use this little dropper and drop four drops onto this little dot on the test. This is all fine and everything but the said cup didn't exist. I suppose they want you to use one of your own. Well I wasn't about to pee in one of my very own cups and then drink out of it a few weeks later. So my lovely husband got a water bottle and cut the entire top half off of it. So anyway, I did my business in the water bottle, dropped four drops where I supposed to do so, and then turned around and did something else. (Probably picked up dog poop or something but I can't remember.) Before 30 seconds had passed my anxious husband said, "Baaaaaabe..." He was staring at the test from the moment I set it on the countertop. There it was. A big old double line positive. We immediately got in the car and went to the store to get a recordable card for Mother's Day. (This was the day after Mother's Day.) We went by Anna and Eddie's and I asked them if I could take Elliott with us because we forgot something at my house. In the car I taught Elliott how to say "I'm gonna have a baby cousin" and we recorded her on the card. We drove over to my mom and dad's house and gave Mom the card that she couldn't understand. Finally after listening about 8 times we told her what it said. She was over the moon with happiness! Next up was my dad. We took Elliott with us into his room and had her tell him the same thing. Poor Dad couldn't understand a word of her message. So we had to tell him to. He too was extremely excited but seemed like it hadn't really hit him yet. By the time that all of this was going on, Hooper had already called all of his family. We finally took Elliott back home and she told her parents the news as well. They were able to understand her after a few tries. (She got a little more clear the more she said it.) Anna helped me get to her to say a little bit clearer as we recorded her on the phone to send out to my best friends. When we finally decided to make it public on our facebooks, Anna and Eddie had her make this video for me to post.

So here I am now 9 weeks pregnant. I'm tired, I feel as though there is a bubbling pool of acid in my esophagus, and television shows make me get a cry face that ordinarily wouldn't do so. So far no nausea though. That is the big plus. According to the What to Expect When You're Expecting app I have on my phone, this week the baby is the size of a prune and my uterus is the size of a grapefruit. This is apparently the time when a belly will start appearing. It does specifically say that if you're bigger, your belly wont show up quit yet. So there's that. Ha. We have our first sonogram this Tuesday and we are really excited. As of now the due date is January 9th. After the sonogram they will adjust it if need be. I have already been eyeing different nursery schemes and I'm really pumped about that part. We have a few names that are front runners, and the chinese fortune calendar and the pencil test both say that this baby is a girl. We shall see. Anna seems to think it's a boy. Hooper and I don't really prefer one over the other just as long as the baby is healthy and doesn't come out with a full beard.

a & c photography

2010-03-30T10:52:00.001-07:00

Well, the title to my blog is "Chelsea's Changes" and a big change just occurred in my life. My sister-in-law and I just recently started our own photography business. a & c photography is our name and we couldn't be happier to start this new adventure! Here is the link to our blog www.annaandchelseaphotography.blogspot.com . Below are a few photos from recent sessions.

More Changes

2010-03-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

The house is still slowly but surely coming along with some changes. Actually, the past month or so things have been going really quickly. We hung curtains, we painted the kitchen, changed out light fixtures, got the new trash can and the new table and chairs, hung some art, painted the bar cabinets, put the material up in the bar, and got a new lamp. I am really excited about all of the above. Below are some before photos followed by their afters. We still have to put shelves in the bar so stay tuned for that photo on a later date.

survey says...

2010-03-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

Lissa filled out this survey on her blog so I grabbed the survey and I'm gonna do it too. Thanks Liss! :)

who sings the last song you listened to?
Larry Hooper

what time did you wake up today
the dogs woke me up earlier and then a text message did me in.

who has your heart?
In a romantic sense, Hooper. But my friends, pets and family have my heart also.

if the last person you kissed asked you to marry them, what would you say?
I already said yes.

do you have any siblings?
one hilarious brother.

do you have someone that you can tell anything to?
I have a few people that I tell everything to.

what kind of music do you listen to?
I'm on a huge John Mayer kick right now. But I generally listen to all kinds of music.

do you think high school relationships can last?
yes. I have seen them last.

would you date a 20 year old at your age?
No.

are you missing anyone right now?
I'm missing Mackenzie.

have you ever kissed anyone who's name starts with a j?
Yes.

does sex ruin relationships?
it can

if you needed help at 3 am, who would you call?
mom. that is assuming that hooper was with me at 3am and he couldn't help. mom lives 1/5 of a mile down the road.

what was the last thing you said to your mother?
thank you.

do you resemble your siblings at all?
yes. we don't look identical but you can definitely tell we are siblings.

how is everything in your life going?
everything is going really well. the house is coming together. elliott and beckett are hilarious. our family is extremely close. hooper and i are doing great. the pets are great additions. it's all going well.

is there someone you just can't imagine your life without?
yes. several things.

what do you think about sex before marriage?
it's your business.

where you single a month ago?
no.

do you where your hair up or down more often?
down

do you currently want any tattoos?
yes.

has anyone told you you've changed lately?
no.

are you the same person you where two years ago?
for the most part. but a little chubbier.

the person you have the most feelings for calls you right now, why?
he's locked in the bedroom. he's really not but if he called me from right down the hall it'd have to be something like that.

how many people have you kissed this year?
hooper, elliott, beckett, mom, dad.

when is the last time something really bothered you?
nothing i'd want to post for everyone to see.

could you go out in public looking like you do now?
absolutely not. i'd need a comb, a teeth brushin', and a bra.

what was the last thing you drank?
the milk from my cereal bowl.

how many colors are in your bed comforter?
two. olive green and white.

how many hours of sleep did you get last night?
10ish. :)

is there someone that you would do anything for, no questions asked?
absolutely.

did the person that hurt you the most ever apologize?
no. i don't believe so. but we live and learn. it's water under the bridge.

do you like to take walks?
love taking walks.

what's your favorite song right now?
comfortable - john mayer (Lissa that's for you!)

how do you feel today?
pretty good. excited to take pictures of my nieces.

are you easy to get along with?
i hope so.

what do you think about people who intentionally try to make you jealous?
i think that's silly.

do you want to punch anyone right now?
no. not off the top of my head.

how did you get your last bruise?
i don't recall.

if you could erase one thing in your life, what would it be?
i don't know.

do you like to draw?
not really.

how many colors has your hair been?
it's been blonde, brown, borderline black and everything in between those.

what was your favorite disney movie as a kid?
the little mermaid

are you named after anyone?
yes. My mom.

what is your favorite color(s)?
blue or gray

do you have a best friend?
i am blessed with several of the world's best girlfriends.

do you want to see someone right this very minute?
not right this second because i mentioned i need a few things before anyone sees me.

how much longer until your birthday?
11 months

how old will/did you turn this year?
i turned 26.

how is 2010 so far?
it's great

can you drive, legally?
yes i can.

who is the one person who can cheer you up no matter what?
hooper

what are you doing tomorrow?
work

your ex comes up to you and tells you they're sorry, what do you say?
thank you. i accept.

who is the last person that called you?
anna i think

do you look like your mom or dad more?
i'm not sure.

what color are the walls in the room you're in?
a tan color that has a hint of gray and a hint of green in it.

do you judge people?
guilty. i wish i didn't, but i do.

is it easy to make you laugh?
yes. i love to laugh until i cry.

what is the last movie you saw in theatres?
valentines day

why did you last cry?
i was at my grandmother's funeral.

who is your last text from?
anna

your ex is in a car wreck and almost dies, do you care?
of course i care.

what are you listening to now?
the real housewives of new york city

do you need to apologize to anyone?
i'm sure.

do people often judge you?
i don't know.

how is your heart lately?
fine.

are you good at hiding your emotions?
yes.

is there one person you'll never forget?
there are several people i'll never forget.

are you ready for summer?
yes!!!! my body isn't, but i sure am!

what is one thing about yourself you wish you could change?
metabolism.

2010-03-10T17:05:00.001-08:00

I took a very long break from the blogging world and during that break I got married. I feel that since there was such a big gap there, I need to update about the wedding. I know it was over four months ago, but I will never get tired of talking about it. :)

The day was October 24th. I woke up that morning at Anna and Eddie's house in the bed with Anna and Elliott. (The three of us had a slumber party since I couldn't stay at home with Hooper.) Elliott was in such a good mood and she said in the sweetest little voice, "Good mornin'!" It was such a great way to start the amazing day. I hurriedly showered and headed up to the DeCordova country club to get last minute things in order and get my hair and makeup done. The day was spent with my best girlfriends as we ate sandwiches (thanks Brenda!) and laughed and all remained shocked that I wasn't having panic attacks at all. I am so blessed to have the best girlfriends that anyone could ever wish for and so lucky that they chose to stand by me on the most important day of my life. They are the ones that kept me calm and the reason why the panic attacks never came. Before I knew it, it was go time. The weather and the ceremony were perfect. (With the exception of a little excess wind.) Hooper looked very handsome and his groomsmen were truly dashing. (I don't use the word dashing in my every day vocab, but that is indeed what they were.) After the ceremony we took lots of fantastic photographs thanks to www.laurenclarkphoto.com and then we went inside to begin the evening festivities of dancing, eating, laughing, dancing, making flip books, dancing, and sweating. It was THE most fun night. We will forever be indebted to our amazing parents for everything that they did to make the day and evening the best. They went through more stress so that we wouldn't have to and it all turned out perfect. After the wedding we took a limo to the Hyatt at the DFW airport. From there we flew to the Bahamas and stayed at the Sandals Resort. We had THE BEST HONEYMOON EVER. Here are some of the favorites from the photographs.

New Kitchen Table

2010-03-07T12:22:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, we have been updating our house little by little. Yesterday we went to Ikea with my mom and had a great time. Mom LOVED Ikea by the way. She had a great time from the moment she first walked in. She couldn't get over the hand dryer in the restroom or the way that the basket glided across the floor. The reason why we went there was to get a new table for the kitchen. The table that we were using was fine, but a. it wasn't ours. b. it didn't go with our kitchen. and c. it was a tiny bit outdated. I say outdated, but keep in mind that my taste is extremely contemporary. So one girl's outdated is another's dream table. (Maybe dream table is a stretch.) Anyway, needless to say, we found the perfect table for us. It goes so great with our kitchen and the retro feel that the kitchen has. It seats up to TEN PEOPLE! The extra leaf stores under it and it's pretty simple to put the leaf in and take it back out. Since it's just Hooper and me at this point in our lives, we easily could have gotten a little bistro table but I love to entertain people over here. Not only that, but then we'd just have to buy a new table again when we have a family. So getting a table that seats ten was perfect for me. There was only one problem. The chairs that I loved were limited. They only had fivestock. But we bought all five and plan to go back to buy the rest on a later date. (Ikea isn't very close to home and it's pretty much an all day adventure that'll surely end up with some damage to my bank account when I do return.) They had some really modern high chairs and toddler chairs that matched the table perfectly too so we went ahead and got Beckett a seat and Elliott a seat for our house. Elliott has already tried hers out and she loves it. I love Ikea and I love new things so naturally I love this new table. Here is a photo of the old table.Here are some photos of the new table and new chairs.

Oh yeah, and we also got a new trash can which I have been wanting for a long time. The old one was so plain and so dirty and so gross. Here is the old one and the new one.

Anyway, the kitchen seems to be the subject of the updates lately so I would imagine more photos and blogs will come soon.

Out of the Loop

2010-03-04T18:51:00.000-08:00

My blog looks like poop. I think I need to create a new one and start from scratch. Why is it all jumbled? And why can't I post photos throughout the blog? They all default to the beginning of the blog and I have to inch by inch drag them down.

Home Improvements

2010-03-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

We've officially been in the houe for seven and a half months now and we've made some drastic and not so drastic changes to improve the place. I haven't blogged in FOR-EV-ER (<--to be said like the kid on the sandlot)so I figured that this subje

ct would be a good one to start back with. The most drastic thing that we've done to this house is pull up the carpet and put down some wood laminate flooring. What most people don't know is that we really couldn't afford to do such a thing, and we were not p

lanning on doing something so cosmetic in the first few months of home ownership, but we had to. Well we didn't really have to put the flooring down, but we definitely had to pull the carpet up. We had a little leak problem with the master bathroom and it ruined the carpet in the living room as well as our enterta

inment center. When we pulled up the carpet we saw how unbelievably nasty it was underneath. Apparently several dogs had

peed all over it and our dogs were peeing everywhere on it too. We knew that we didn't need to get carpet again but we couldn't really afford anything else. Buuuuuut after about a week of having a dirty concrete floor we got a Home Depot card and

put some floors down. I don't recommend getting

a Home Depot card, but I also don't recommend having a living room that looks like ours did at that time. The floors were a great step up with this house, and though we couldn't afford them, I am glad that the leak happened and we have this now. :)Here are some photos. Sidenote: I had an EXTREMELY difficult time post

ing photos to this blog. I think I need a tutorial. If I ever get the hang of this, I'll start updating more on home improvements.

My Sweet Nieces

2009-09-21T19:26:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I wonder if my nieces will ever grow up and fully understand how much I love them. How often I smile just thinking about them. How Elliott's little pronunciations of her "r"s and her "l"s can brighten up my worst of days. How Beckett's eagerness to walk as fast as she can towards me makes me giggle at just the thought of it. I always wonder how it will be possible to love my own children as much as I love them. I know, I know, everyone says, "You'll love your own even MORE! You'll be amazed!" I don't see how that is possible, but anyway. My point is, I love my nieces. They are my miniature best friends. I hope that they grow up to understand just how important to me they are.

It's Been a While

2009-06-24T19:16:00.001-07:00

This blog doesn't have much of a point other than the fact that I haven't blogged in months and I'm due for one. I'll bring you up to date a bit on what's going on in my life. Hooper and I are waiting to close on a house, so that's about the most exciting thing that we could have hoped for. Here we had no idea we were anywhere close to buying a house, and things just started to fall into place. We got a new puppy named Alice and she's the best thing since sliced bread. Other than her pooping and peeing everywhere this side of the mason dixon. Today is officially 4 months away from the wedding. We got our honeymoon booked for 6 nights at a Sandals Resort in the Bahamas and I CANNOT wait! We got our engagement pictures taken in Lubbock and we LOVE them! We finally got to go register! It's summer which means it's swimming weather, and I've been doing a lot of that with my girlfriends and Elliott. Elliott is a swimming fool I tell ya. She has no fear what so ever! She's actually quite the fun little swim partner for me. But then again, she and I can have fun doing just about anything together. She calls the pool the "pwwaa". She even calls the lake that. Anna and I just started doing a workout video called "30 Day Shred" and it is kicking my butt. Today was only day 3. I'd like to be shredded by the time of my bachelorette party, but that'll never happen. Speaking of, wouldn't it be sort of neat to keep a weight loss blog, and every day write your weight, and what you ate and did that day to assist in the loss of that weight? I think it would be cool. It would definitely hold you accountable, that's for sure. But I'm not ready for you all to see my number just yet. Maybe some day though. Anyway, this is a poorly written blog, but it's more just like one liners of what's been going on lately. It's far too late for me to think about writing nicely. I actually think I'll go to bed now. Nice to talk to you all again. Hopefully I'll be back here in the blogging world sooner than later. Instead of putting up a picture of me in this moment, I'm going to put up one of our engagement pictures. I look better in it than in person right now.