Babymoon!

Last weekend, Grant and I took some time off to Branson! When we found out we were expecting, a final getaway with just the two of us was a top priority. With travel plans and visitors already scheduled through the rest of the summer and several travel/holiday plans for November and December, we decided that October was the month to go. We toyed with several ideas, finally deciding to stay near home.

Branson kept us busy all weekend. We arrived on Thursday night and left Sunday after lunch. The place we stayed was a condo resort with a lot of neat activities - an indoor and outdoor pool, hot tub, movie rentals, sand volleyball court, horseshoes, a mini golf course, and more - all for free! Our room was like a standard hotel room, but it had a mini kitchen area and a screened in porch with a ceiling fan. We really enjoyed our accomodations! It was so nice to take a nap with the breeze blowing in through open windows one afternoon.

Outside the Dixie Stampede

One of the beautiful horses!

Joseph at the Sight and Sound Theatre was the highlight of our trip. It was the Bible story of Joseph with some creative plot added. The theatre itself was really neat, and the show was spectacular. I enjoyed the fact that the show was not only entertaining, but challenging and inspiring. The Dixie Stampede was the other show we saw. It was a lot of fun and, of course, we enjoyed the food!

Other than those things, we did a little shopping, walked around Branson Landing (an open air shopping and restaurant development), and ate at a fancy Mexican restaurant called Cantina Laredo. The queso was to die for!

All in all, we enjoyed a relaxing weekend, overall spectacular weather, and each other's company. It was nice to get out of the construction zone (aka our home) for a few days and refresh! We're one step closer to bringing this baby home with us :)

Love, the George family

Mango

Nineteen weeks means that we are almost to the halfway point - time is flying by! This past week was full of excitement as we had our ceiling re-finished and had several family members in town visiting. The weather has been beautiful, which puts me in a good mood no matter how crazy life can get. (It definitely has been a crazy couple of weeks!)

Symptoms have been about the same. I'm actually feeling really good right now. The naseau has completely gone away, my appetite is back in full force, I have infinitely more energy than the first trimester allowed, and I'm getting really excited now that it's starting to become more real to me.

Baby is appr 6 in and 8.5 oz - about the size of a mango!

Our exciting week didn't end with housework and visitors, though. Last Wednesday (the 17th), Grant and I were laying in bed (at his parent's house, since our house was a disaster of a workzone). We were getting ready to fall asleep, when I got a sharp kick from the baby. Startled, I excitedly shared the news with Grant, who instantly wanted to know where this kick was. I put his hand on my belly and the baby proceeded to kick Grant's hand three more times! What an incredible "first" experience to share!

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. We are tired of waiting to find out the gender of our little one! Now that we are in the time period when everyone finds out, it seems like we will never get to our ultrasound. We still have a couple of weeks to wait, so I'm trying to occupy myself with cleaning up the wreck that the ceiling job left behind and focusing my energy on our baby registries.

Love, the George family

Pregnancy Announcement "Photo" Shoot

Several weeks ago, we made the big public reveal on facebook. We had been trying to decide how to make the announcement and were coming up blank. A couple of days before we needed to put something together, I had a thought that we could use this sweet onesie from ORU that we had purchased a few weeks prior. We asked Grant's mom to take a few pictures of us and our mini photo shoot with the ORU onesie was born! It was a lot of fun!

And here is the finished product that become our official annoucement:

Love, the George family

Sweet potato

Our little sweetie is now the size of a sweet potato that is about five and a half inches long and weighs about six and a half ounces. Our kiwi sure is growing fast! We enjoyed a little "babymoon" getaway this past weekend in Branson, and it was fun to be showing just enough that other people might begin to notice.

My symptoms this week have been typical for mid-pregnancy. I continue to have growing pains as everything moves around to find a new place while kiwi takes up residence. I've been very hungry the past several days - guess it's a growth spurt! :) Sleeping is getting easier as I become more accustomed to my growing belly. Exercising regularly has helped me to maintain a higher energy level and feel better overall.

We are so excited about the development of our little one this week! Now that my belly is really starting to show, it's becoming a lot more real. We can't wait to feel the baby moving around...I have felt some flutters but no real defined movement as of yet. Myelin is developing in the baby's brain this week. This is amazing - it means that our little one's brain is beginning to wire itself to recognize patterns and process automatically. Wow, God's design is astounding!

We are still working hard to prepare everything for our March arrival :) It's a little crazy around here this week, and definitely the most difficult part of pregnancy right now. We are having our ceilings fixed and re-sprayed over the next several days, which means that we will not be sleeping here for a while. It will all be worth it when the basement is finished!

Love, the George family

Onion

In the craziness that was last week, I forgot to actually post on the blog! Whoops! We had our second appointment, which was definitely the highlight of the week. We scheduled an ultrasound for a few weeks from now (hooray!) and we got to hear our kiwi's heartbeat again. It was beating strong at about 155bpm. Perfectly healthy for this point.

My symptoms this week were all out of sorts, mainly because I got a bug Monday and Tuesday. I wasn't feeling too well all day Monday, but pressed on to clean the house and get things done in preparation for the ceiling work we are having done next week. After dinner, I progressively felt worse and worse until I finally started getting sick Monday evening. And then Grant got sick, too. It was not the most pleasant 24 hours, but we rebounded fairly quickly, I belive because we had many people praying for us :)

The most exciting part about this past week was our second appointment. This one was even more exciting for me than the first one. We were so looking forward to hearing kiwi's heartbeat again. We even got an audio recording of it this time so that we could share it with our parents!

The most difficult part...well, obviously, being sick. It's never ideal, and especially while pregnant. I did lose quite a bit of weight, but we were only sick for about 24 hours, so some of it was water weight that came back right away. My goal for now is to stay healthy and keep eating!

Love, the George family

Avocado

Since when is an avocado bigger than an apple?? Hmm, curious. Maybe those little apples you get at Panera compared to the large avocados... It's fun to track the "size" of our baby anyway :)

This week we are 4 months in. I am finally starting to feel better. Books, e-mail updates, and lots of friendly advice givers have been telling me that I will feel better for several weeks now. Each week (okay, day) I've been hoping that I will feel better to no avail. The past couple of days, I feel like I'm a little more back to "normal." Sleeping has still been difficult and I continue to experience a few of the "joys" of pregnancy off and on. My hope is that I will find a more comfortable way to sleep - pronto, please!

16 weeks

The most exciting part is that we have appointment #2 this week! Hooray! I'm excited to hear the little one's heartbeat again and to make sure that everything is okay. Of course, I have plenty of questions that are just dying to be answered.

My body changing is the most difficult. It's an odd stage to be in because I haven't felt the baby move yet (which is completely normal), but my body continues to change. Weight gain has still been minimal but weight distribution has shifted a lot - so weird! I'm adjusting to all of the changes and eagerly anticipating those first movements. If only I knew when to expect them!

Love, the George family