The New House, Baby Showers, and Belly Pictures!

A crazy month it's been! First of all, we are settled into our new home. Still have some minor things like hanging more art on the wall, and cleaning out the few things in the garage still, but for the most part, it's done.....(oh yeah, besides the baby's room....that still has a lot of work to be done). We LOVE our house! It's perfect and we couldn't be happier with it! Here are a few pictures. (front, dining room, guest room, master bath, and baby's room coming along)

We got a new bedroom set from Daniel's parents as our house warming present and we absolutely LOVE it as well! We've slept SO good on our new, KING-SIZE mattress....I don't know how we ever slept on a queen! It's awesome! We have a little sitting area in our bedroom, which is pretty cool. It will be very useful as well once our little guy gets here.

It took Lexi a while to get used to the new place, after loving life at Daniel's parents house with their dog, Jolene. But, she's learned where she can and can't go now, and is loving being able to wander between the huge backyard and the front yard as well. This is a picture of our backyard one evening as the sun was setting (taken from the back deck) as well as a picture of the back of our house. And then little, precious Lexi at her new home! I still haven't taken pictures of the living room/kitchen/basement yet, but I'll get to it eventually.

I've had some great baby showers hosted by the best friends anyone could have! Debbie threw me one in Texas early September, and then Sarah, Lori, and Lindsay all threw me one here early October. The food, decorations, company, games, locations, and EVERY single thing was perfect and I am so thankful for all my friends and family who were able to come! And a huge thank you to my girls Debbie (and her awesome husband Badi who did a ton, too), Sarah, Lori, and Lindsay! Thanks Debbie for planning everything, opening up your beautiful home to everyone, and loving Baby and me so much! And a big thanks to my girls for driving all the way from North Carolina and Florida to give baby Stewart and me the wonderful shower in Georgia!

Here are some pictures from the Texas shower! I'm so glad several friends I normally don't see too often were able to come! (My camera died right before the shower in Texas, so I'm waiting on pictures from friends before I can post pictures from it.)

And last but not least.....I'm growing more and more each week. I can't believe he'll be here in about 7 weeks!!! I'm so excited but honestly, scared out of my mind as well....(not about being his Mommy, but about the day I go into labor). Please keep me in your prayers. I know I'll forget the pain and only think about how he's doing the whole time, but the thought of it all has always scared me. I can't wait to see him and hold him though!

The Past Month

We officially sold our house and closed on it at the end of August. Since we sold it much faster than we expected, we had to be out of it without having our new house officially purchased yet. But, we found the perfect house and are so excited to be moving into it at the end of this month. The month of September, we've been living with Daniel's parents. They have been so gracious to offer their place for us to stay while we were in transition of houses. Daniel, Lexi, and I have felt like we've been on vacation for the past three weeks...a nice, comfy bed and room to ourselves, an amazing front porch and rocking chairs to relax on in the evenings, lots of land for Lexi to explore, and even other pet-friends for Lexi. His parents are amazing, and don't like for me to "over-do" myself, so I've been able to relax and just enjoy them and my pregnancy.

The first weekend we were here, I went to Texas for a baby shower that my best friend, Debbie gave me....I'll have to blog about it next when I've downloaded pictures. I also plan on blogging about our new house (with pictures) when we move in as well. We have another week and a half until we move in. I'm so excited to be officially starting another chapter of my life with Daniel and our baby boy! What a fun road it's been so far...and yet so many more memories to come!

My Mom's Visit

I have been wanting to post a little more about my mom's visit from a month or so ago, but am just now getting around to it. About every two weeks or so, we've documented belly pictures as I've continued to grow. When my mom was here, the baby finally started to show his size and I guess I finally started to show. So, we took some pictures the night before my doctor's appointment (19 weeks) in which we found out it was a boy.....see picture below (as well as previous post):

My mom took the above picture, and then she had an even better idea! Leave it to my crazy, funny, silly, outgoing Mom to come up with this and BEG me to take her "pregnant belly picture" as well. Didn't want to leave her out. So, I took this picture as both of us tried our hardest not to ruin the picture by cracking up! We laughed so hard!

As mentioned in an early post, I didn't like the idea of my mom leaving after being here a week, so I convinced her to stay an extra day since I wasn't ready for her to leave. The last night, we went to the CVS to pick up her prescription (she had run out of ashtma medicine since she hadn't planned on staying so long). While there, I decided that we should do another silly something the last night she was here. So, we did! CHEAP FACIALS! We bought a strawberry (clear in color) peeling mask and a chocolate mask, and split it:

After staying up way too late most every night she was here, we did have to say good-bye and she did have to return home to Texas. But, we got a lot done together (shopping, registries, quality time, and lots of laughs). The day we registered at Target, Mom HAD to buy the baby boy this cute little thing....it's a stuffed animal, rattle, little blankie all in one. Mom LOVED it when she saw it and couldn't resist buying the baby it. Nana will be the one who gave him his little bear who I'm sure he will love and carry around with him even when he's three years old or so. It's SOOO soft and adorable. The morning Mom left, she got it out again to play with it, so I had to take a picture for when he's older, he'll know how much Mom already loved him!

Thanks Mom for coming out here for a week! Can't wait to see you again soon (and neither can the sweet baby boy). We love you and miss you!

Baby Belly Pictures

I'm 23 pregnant now and time is flying! In the past month or so, I've really started to show more and more. It took a while, but now that I'm showing, there's no hiding it. In the past week or so, I have felt the baby moving every day. Daniel has even been able to place his hand on my belly and feel him kick and move. It's a great feeling and I love it! One of my favorite things to do right now is lay a t.v. remote flat on my belly and lay down and watch it wobble back and forth when he kicks, moves, rolls over, etc. It's fascinating and still hard to believe sometimes that we're really going to have a baby! Enjoy the pics! (Most of them are taken after I get out of the shower and right before bed, so please ignore the big hair/glasses, etc.)

We're Having A......

My mom was here since last Tuesday afternoon and (sadly) left today. We had a great time hanging out and enjoying the time together. She originally was going to come for the Fourth of July week, but since I had an appointment to find out the sex of the baby this week, I convinced her to wait and come this week. I'm glad she did. (I'll post another blog later this week about my time with my mom)

On Thursday, we finally found out what I've been carrying in my tummy for 19.5 weeks now---A BABY BOY!!!! The appointment was at 4:00pm that afternoon. Daniel wanted it in the afternoon so that he could take off early and not have to return to work after the exciting news. Mom and I got up that day, ate breakfast and lunch at home, and then went up to my school to work in my "new" (I had to change classrooms at the end of the year to give the SS teacher a larger room) classroom so that I'll be a little more prepared once preplanning starts. It helped kill the time until 4:00 and kept the anxiety down. After about an hour and a half of working in the room, I was tired and wanted to go home and "wait it out" until 4:00. Daniel got home, and we all just hung around the house until 3:30 and then left the house and headed that way. We met Daniel's mom at the doctor's office.

It didn't take long for me to see what he was---less than three minutes I would say. Kristy (the lady doing the sonogram) didn't say much throughout the whole thing, so right when I saw the "boy part," I said, "Well, it's a boy isn't it?" Kristy said, "You think so?" I was so sure (it was REALLY obvious that our boy was proud of himself), so I said, "Yeah, it's a boy, right?" Sure enough, she finally made it official by saying it WAS a boy! When we were looking at his body and arms at a certain point, he even grabbed himself at one point--so there is no doubt it's a boy! Haha!

I think we were all shocked except for Daniel's mom. She kept saying that she just knew it was a boy since that's the only sex his side of the family EVER has. haha. My mom, Daniel, and I though were (for some reason) thinking it was a girl, so we had to re-adjust our thinking over the next few days....it didn't take Mom and I long to do so though with all the shopping we've gotten in the last few days. We even did both of my registries---Target and Babies R Us. Daniel's mom was funny because she just knew it was a boy and wasn't shocked at all since "Stewarts only have boys"--which has turned out to be true, yet again.

Daniel and I are thrilled to be bringing this little one into our family. It's been so much fun just the two of us (plus Lexi), but we can't wait until our world is rocked with our new baby boy! It's going to be a time of excitement as well as a WHOLE lot of learning, changing, and adapting. But I could not be any happier!

The First of (Hopefully) Many

After months of people (mainly one) trying to convince me to start a blog, I finally sat down and did it! I love reading others' blogs and seeing pictures, so I figured with a baby a little over 22 weeks away from being here, I'd go ahead and start one to document the pregnancy and of course the baby (and other things, too).
Life is going well. We couldn't be more excited with a baby on the way. We just celebrated our 1st anniversary at the end of May, my completion of graduate school, finishing painting and fixing up the outside of our house, and and are now starting to prepare for the most special thing of our lives--our baby! We will find out if it's a boy or girl on July 15. My mom is coming into town a few days before that, so I couldn't be more excited that she will be here with us when we find out the big news. Most people are thinking it's a girl....either because it's what they really think or because a girl is certainly due in both of our families. There are so many sons, grandsons, and nephews on both of our sides, and barely any daughters, granddaughters, and neices! Either way, we'll find out in only 9 days and will be VERY excited either way. We have not got our hopes set on one way or another. I have taken two pictures so far of my pregnant "belly," but will save them to post until I take a few more and you can actually tell that I'm growing. Stay tuned.