Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite times of the year for quite a few reasons. It means that I can decorate for Christmas! I get to spend lots of time with my family and it remninds me of the many things I have to be thankful for.

This year we did lots of traveling, as usual. My parents were able to come from Kansas and stayed at our house from Monday to Friday and it was great to see them. We also got to hang out with Jeff, Jacob and Emma during that time. Thursday we went to New Ulm and spent the day with my Dad's family. And Friday we went to Grand Meadow to see my Mom's family. Carl and I went from there to Colfax to be with his family. Three excellent Thanksgiving meals in two days! I'm not quite sure if my baby bump is bigger this week because of the baby or the food... But we had a great time seeing everyone and were blessed with excellent driving weather. I think the highlight was playing Telephone Pictionary - you have not played that game until you have played it with my family! I laughed so hard it hurt and still couldn't stop. I love it! It was sad to say goodbye to my parents at the end of it all, but we will get to see them in just one month when we go to Kansas!

And now for all the things I"m thankful for. Carl and I both have amazing families and we are so grateful for that. We could not have asked for better parents or siblings - they are the best! I'm also thankful for a warm place to live and an incredible husband to share it with. At our wedding we had some one sing "When God Made You". One of the lines is "When God made you he must have been thinking about me." And I believe it - he couldn't have made a better husband for me! :-) And now we are not only thankful, but also excited beyond belief that God has given us a baby to add to our family and bring into our home. We can't wait to meet our little guy and feel so blessed to have him already!

We're Having A...

...Cantaloupe, apparently. According to my fruit ticker anyway. Really?! Cantaloupes are huge! How did it go from a mango to a cantaloupe in one week?!

And on to the belly bump pictures - we forgot week 17. We're really not very good at remembering to take these, but here are the ones we have.

18 Weeks

This was a somewhat lumpy stage. I was pretty convinced my other organs were fighting the baby for the front position. I was really hoping the baby would win and it finally did. I'm glad that's over!

19 Weeks

And Today - 20 Weeks

And now, for the news you really care about. We had our 20 week appointment today and it was awesome! I think I've said this before, but I used to hate going to the doctor, and now I love it! I told the ultrasound lady that I didn't want her to be done, I wanted to stay longer. Even getting my finger pricked and a flu shot couldn't ruin that doctor's appointment for me. We got to see our baby! And it's a boy! And most importantly, he's perfectly healthy in every way. The lady said he was a very active baby and at one point she had to give up on getting a look at the lips, chin and nose and go back to it later. First she said he was being camera shy because he kept turning his head. Then he kept covering his face up and flailing his arms around. She said, "Well, now Baby's getting feisty!" Later, when the doctor tried to listen to the heartbeat, we could only hear bits of it between wild kicks. :-) So watch out us. We're going to have a crazy baby on our hands in a few months! We also got to see him laying with his head on his hand, sucking his thumb, waving and covering his ears with both hands. So cute! And that boy can kick. It still just feels like little butterflies or bubbles to me, but those little arms and lege were flying when we were watching him today! Oh, and just because I'm proud of him for passing all his little tests today I'll brag and tell you that he's now 13 oz., and according to the doctor, has a beautiful spine and everything else is perfect too. Good job Baby Boy! :-)

Fun With Pumpkins

I will be honest and say that I really don't like Halloween. I can't stand all the previews for horror movies and all the creepy costumes, and especially the house across the street with all the nasty decorations and the creepy lady serving things out of a cauldron in her driveway. But I love seeing all the cute kids and their costumes and I love carving pumpkins! Carl and I always carve pumpklins together. He usually prints off some design to carve and makes something cool like a pirate or something. But I refuse to cheat and I always make my own. And Carl's is always perfect and mine is not. I try to make it really cute and sweet looking and most of the time it ends up being the scary one. This year Carl didn't print off anything, he did it all on his own and it is of course, still perfect. I decided to make a really cute pumpkin that teaches about shapes (Yes, I know I'm a nerd). And guess what? It's creepy. Carl told me it looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie. What can I say? I am artistically challenged. But we had a lot of fun and they looked cute sitting in our windows when all the trick-or-treaters came!

And. if you hadn't noticed, the stem on my pumpkin looks like an iguana sitting on my shoulder. Gross!