Merry Christmas

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Kiran says to keep Jesus on top of the stable (which is better than the trashcan) this season.

Did you know....

that my SIL is due 18 days before me???

COUSINS!

I need help

I have a favor to ask you guys. I'm a bridesmaid in my friend Jilly's wedding on Dec 31. She just asked us to wear black dresses. So I had the black dress that I wore in my sister's wedding from last year when I was 18 weeks pregnant with Kiran and I planned to wear that. But I guess that its true that you show faster (much faster) with the second. I'm only 11.5 weeks and its very tight. I don't think I'm going to be able to fit in it at all in another week and a half. So.... I'm asking you all if you have a black maternity dress I can wear for one night??? I have a fancy jacket I can wear with it so it can be strappy or sleeveless or whatever. Thanks!!!!!

Hi

I bet y'all are wondering where I've been. Eh, you probably haven't. Anyhow...

I'm at the beach.

And at the beach, you can be lazy and not feel one ounce of guilt.

So I'm at the beach, being lazy, and not feeling guilty. :)

Today

Today we are thankful for Zofran.

Many thanks to all of you for your prayers and well wishes and "Hope you feel better soon." I am happy to report that I am feeling much better...thanks to a magic pill. Remember two weeks ago when I threw up so much? We thought it was a stomach virus? Yeah it wasn't. I went back to "normal" morning sickness for a few days then last week I started waking up every day and throwing up every half hour until either the medicine worked or I went to sleep that night. So my doctor and I decided I'd just take it every day before I got out of bed. Oh I haven't thrown up all week and I've really felt pretty good (minus the regular pregnancy stuff- tiredness, weird food aversions and cravings, etc).

So today we are thankful that there is such a medicine like this that is safe for pregnancy.

Oh and when I went to get my prescription filled at Target, the prescription had on it the directions of
"Take 1 pill 30 minutes before chemo treatment, then another 8 hours later." When I picked it up, the poor pharmacists were like
"Have you taken this medicine before?"
I said "yeah"
they said "Well you know then to take it 30 minutes before your chemo treatment..."
At this point I realized what was going on and I interrupted them "No wait No I don't have cancer I just can't stop throwing up because I'm pregnant."
I felt so bad :(

Due Date

First it was July 3. Then it moved to July 15. Today Dr Hardin and I made an executive decision to make my due date July 7. Y'all pray really hard that this baby comes one day early....on July 6. See both of my nephews are born on that day. My sister-in-law had a kid then; so did my sister. I want one!

Dr Appt

Today we went to Maternal-Fetal Medicine to determine if I needed to take shots of lovenox throughout the pregnancy to protect me from blood clots. We were pleasantly surprised when we were ushered in for an ultrasound! We saw our baby, measuring perfectly at 10 weeks. The little arm was even waving at us! The heart rate was 167 and everything looked good.

We then met with the dr and went over our options. We were both really impressed with him. He gave us information- benefits and risks of both treatment and no treatment and then basically left the decision up to us. With his guidance, we've decided to not do any shots unless circumstances change like I need to go on bedrest or something like that.

So basically today's appt was great! Bonus ultrasound and no shots! Woohoo! Tomorrow I get to see my regular OB.

Baby Grant

I figured I owed you an explanation.

The people who owned our house before us had a 3 year old son named Grant. They, like all good parents, purchased the wooden letters of their son's name to adorn his wall. Unfortunately they chose to glue the letters to the wall. I have yet to figure out how to get the letters off without destroying that part of the wall. So we just decided to call our new baby Grant and not worry about getting the letters off.

Now if we could only agree on a middle name...

Welcome Baby Jesus

Kiran has been taking things to the trash for us but only under close supervision because we keep the trashcan cornered off so she can't you know play in it. Whenever we have a dirty diaper (yeah we totally get her to take her own dirty diapers to the trash!) or a piece of paper that needs to be thrown away, we head to the trash can where an adult moves the stool that is blocking it. Kiran meticulously puts the trash in her right hand, opens the lid with her left hand, places the trash in the can and closes the lid.

Today for the first time, Kiran went to the trash can all by herself and tried to furiously push something in the already full trash can. Unfortunately, it was the Welcome Baby Jesus book we've been reading at bedtime.

This is wrong on so many levels.

First of all, is she jealous that we've been reading and talking about another baby? This does not bode well for Baby Grant when he/she arrives in July. I hope she doesn't try to shove him or her in the trashcan.

Second of all, its a book about JESUS. Really Kiran? You couldn't have chosen Yum! Yum! I'm Ready to Eat! or The Belly Button Book. Oh no- she's trashing the Jesus book.

Y'all pray for my daughter.

Sporadic Posting

Sorry for the sporadic postings lately. I thought I just had a stomach virus last week but this week has been quite awful as far as throwing up/nausea goes. I haven't really felt like being on the computer at all. So I'll just throw up some pictures of Kiran and save my deep thoughtful posts for a later time.

Kiran was proud of herself for climbing up in the blue chair by herself

This is our other child- the one we call "Crazy Hair"

Kiran likes to put bags on her arm, wave and say "Bye-Bye"

Home

What a loaded word.

I've thought a lot about this word over the past few years. I especially thought about it as we lived in a foreign country- where we didn't have most of the things that remind us of "home". We would love it when we'd receive a package and inside was a taste of home. But really is that what home is- a taste? a smell? where the heart is?

This weekend I finally felt like our new home was home. For the first time, we stayed home all weekend. We didn't drive to Greenville for anything. We spent Saturday in the yard raking and bagging leaves. Many of our neighbors were also out and about so we got to see many of them. A neighbor brought us a gigantic piece of cake leftover from her daughter's birthday party. We went to sunday school and church at a local church and met some really nice people. We shopped for furniture in our town. It was so cozy, so homey.

Sometimes I wondered if I'd ever feel like I was at home again, like I did when I was a kid at Bendingwood Circle. I think a little sense of wandering is good for we are strangers here on earth. But my heart yearns for that familiar home, that sense of belonging. And it was nice to see it begin to flourish here in our new home.

If you know me, you know I love to travel! (surprise!) But what many of you don't know is that I love to come home equally as much. I love experiencing new cultures, seeing new sights, and expanding my experiences,but I also love how much it makes me miss home. I love how it makes me crave the familiar and how wonderful it is to step through the threshold of home.

I hope your holiday is filled with a sense of home wherever you may be.