Well, I’m finally back at the blog. Hopefully I can get back to posting regularly now that I have the ability to do it from my phone.
Just some highlights since Sept… I’m no longer pregnant, go figure… Ava Camille was born Nov 18 @ 11:48am. She weighed in at 7 lbs 2 oz and 20 inches. She’s now 3 1/2 months old today.
We ordered and received a new dining room table from Amish Furniture of Austin. We hope that it’ll become a family heirloom…
We installed a motion sensor light switch in our laundry room tonight and feel very proud! This thing didn’t have the best instructions. I mean they made sense but they were still confusing. We tried to install it the other day but ended up putting it on hold to look up better directions online. Lukily D found what we needed and it’s all up and running! It’s really nice to now just be able to open the laundry room door and the light comes on. It’s a pass-through to the garage so it gets lot of traffic.
The path our neighborhood has been building to the “lake” is finally open so we took a walk and it turned out to be just as pretty as I’d hoped. From the neighborhood brochures before we moved in I thought it looked really cool. They’ve restored the little fishing shack and built a pier to the water although the pier is much higher than the water right now. Anyway, I was hoping to have my maternity pictures taken here and I think it has some great possibilities! The pictures aren’t that great because I used my phone and the sun was going down but it’s still pretty.
After our little bit of exercise we decided to go out to the Salt Lick for dinner (we didn’t feel like cooking). The Round Rock location just opened on Tuesday so we thought we’d check it out… we now live exactly 5 miles from it. 
It was just as good as the Dripping Springs location. Bonus… they take credit and have a full bar! Anyway, I’m sure we’ll be frequent visitors.
Sorry all for falling so far behind in my updates. I’m just going to make one long post instead of trying to back track to all of the happenings over the past month.
As of today I’m now 27 weeks pregnant – 13 weeks to go. Today also marks the beginning of the third trimester. Baby Girl is kicking up a storm and it almost never seems to stop. It’s really cool to feel but then I have to confess it gets a little annoying. Then she’ll stop and you get worried. It’s a never ending battle. I’ve updated the Baby Stuff page to include some belly pictures so you can see it grow over the last several months along with pictures of the nursery decor. We hope to paint in the next few weeks so that when the furniture arrives we can set it up and get things moving.
We successfully closed on the new house back on August 8th. We were supposed to close on the 11th but were able to move it up a few days which was nice. Unfortunately it didn’t help us start moving any earlier because we waited until the last minute to start packing and had to do that all weekend. My parents came up to help on Sunday and then the movers arrived at 10am Monday morning. Thank goodness for those guys! They worked their butts off and had another appointment after us to start at 2:30 in the afternoon with probably 100 degree temps. We were able to get the bathrooms, kitchen, guest room unpacked the first couple days. D and my dad put up ceiling fans. Our room quickly followed in un packing so we weren’t living out of suitcases. D and I have also since installed another ceiling fan (one more left) and the garage door opener which we’re very proud of. Last night we finished installing the surround sound speakers in the ceiling and connecting the new receiver and 46″ LCD tv that we bought. (TV was only allowed if we sold our old one and luckily the buyers of the condo agreed to buy it. ) We’re still in the process of unpacking our offices and clearing out Baby Girl’s room. D has also mowed the lawn for the first time last weekend and it looks good! Here are some final pictures of the house from July 20th.
We were on our way home one day and saw an armadillo trying to cross the street at the neighborhood entrance. I’ve never actually seen an armadillo alive so I made D stop the car so we could take a picture.
Back on August 4th I served on a Jury for the first time ever of even being called for Jury Duty. It was a simple case of Failure to Yield. It was an interesting experience. Even though the case was fairly simple, it still wasn’t easy to make a judgement. I surely hope that I never have to serve on something more severe!
August 9th we attended a Round Rock Express Baseball game with PC&J. It was fun and perfectly close since we now live only 3 miles from the Dell Diamond where they play. Unfortunately it was a night that they don’t do fireworks (Fireworks Friday’s) and the Express lost the game but fun none the less.
Last weekend we took a staycation out to the Hyatt at Lost Pines near Bastrop, TX. It was a lot of fun and very relaxing. Since we weren’t able to afford a big vacation this year but still wanted to get away this was a great solution. We drove out on Friday afternoon and took the scenic route through Elgin instead of going down I-35. Felt more like a vacation this way. Anyway, the hotel was really nice and comfortable. A great place for families because they have activities all day long for kids. Things like a three legged race, balloon toss, smores, movies, etc. They have a great big pool area with a lazy river and even horse back riding, bicycling, canoeing the Colorado River, golf or disc golf. Something for everyone. Well, we stayed until Sunday and really enjoyed it. I included the few pictures that we took on the trip below.
Lobby
Back porch of the lobby
View of the back lawn from the back porch.
We caught this butterfly in one of the many gardens.
Hummingbird Garden from our balcony
Smores
There were several weddings going on on Saturday and on the way through the lobby to our room there was this Cinderella Horse Drawn Carriage. It was really pretty!!
GIRL!!!
We’re super excited. We didn’t really have a preference on the gender… I keep saying that it’s the second child that we’ll be pulling for the opposite. We had a feeling all along that it would be a girl. The old wives tales turned out to be true in our case. One of the tales is that if the heartbeat is over 140 bpm it’s a girl, hers has been in the high 150′s. Another tale is when you dangle a pensil over your wrist if it rotates in a circle it’s a boy and a straight line indicates a girl. This test was performed on me on July 4th by Tia Lulu and it indicated a girl.
Just as with our past ultrasounds she didn’t want to cooperate. She was sitting way back and down low so it was hard for the sonographer to get any good measurements. I ended up having to lay on my side for a few minutes to see if she would move. D and I took the opportunity to nudge her in the right direction and D also sang the “I like to move it, move it” portion of the song from the Madagascar movie. We think that’s what did it. 
Anyway, I’ve added some ultrasound pictures to the Baby Stuff along with the videos that they took.
Enjoy!
I’m pretty sure I finally started feeling baby move around. I first noticed it on Monday morning when I was at my desk at work. I felt this little nudge inside and then it happened a few more times. It’s a pretty strange but exciting feeling! Been happening mostly after I eat all week.
I think I’m finally showing a little bit too. Haven’t taken a picture yet though. I noticed my jeans were tighter this week and I wore my maternity carpri pants yesterday and they fit a little better than the past few times I wore them. I’ll take a pic soon and add it to the blog for all to see.
I’ve been sleeping on my side a lot more lately and man, I can’t wait until I can sleep on my stomach or back again… I still have 20 weeks left to go. 
I tried proping a pillow behind my back so that I don’t roll over and it helps a little because I still can stretch out like I’m on my back but I’m angled enough to not put pressure on my major arteries that supply nutrients to the baby.
Had my moms in motion excercise class on Tuesday and it felt good although it was a little different because we had a sub instructor. They couldn’t find anyone to teach the class on Thursday so it was cancelled. Hopefully next week will be better. The instructor has to be certified to train pregnant ladies so we don’t over work ourselves. Our normal girl is out on vacation for two weeks. She’s traveling to Egypt for a medical mission trip. Should be interesting to hear all about it on her return!
So… we’re coming up on 20 weeks Monday. At 20 weeks they do the anatomy ultrasound to check that everything is progressing well and we also will find out the baby’s gender. That appointment is Tuesday morning at 8am. That same afternoon I have another appointment with my dr for the normal monthly checkup. I can’t believe that we’re already nearly halfway through this adventure!!
I suppose within the next month we’ll put together the registry for the baby showers… so many things to think about and research!!
And last but not least… my progress tickers!
They made a ton of progress this week (as of July 3rd)! We have a fence, fireplace hearth, front door, glass in the kitchen cabinets, and the glass surround for the shower.
We went by on Sunday (July 6th) and they were installing the wood floor. We could only see through the window because they were working in the entry hall and we couldn’t get it. D went by on Wednesday (July 9th) and much more progress was made but again he couldn’t get inside because the doors were locked. He went by to stake out where the trees should be because they installed landscaping on Thursday. So we should now have landscaping complete, from what D saw through windows we also have carpet, appliances, and a completed wood floor (except for dining room because they ran out), plus the rain gutters installed.
You ask, what’s left? As far as I can tell just our blinds and the gas meter!!! We’ll of course make another trip out this weekend to get more pictures and see the final touches.
Another update, it seems that when they were writing up the Deco Addendum from the Deco center. They forgot to add wood in the living room and therefore didn’t charge us for it ($6,700) however it was on the drawing that indicated we wanted it so the installer installed it. Well, they came back asking for us to pay a portion ($1,700)… we sent them to our realtor and he was able to get it for us free!
We’re officially under contract on the condo…again! We hope this one will stick. Her 10 day option period starts today. She has that timeframe to come in and measure anything she wants and get her inspection done. We are set to close on the condo on Aug 13th!
Since I haven’t really been making too many updates on the pregnancy front I figured I’d throw one in here…
So far I’m still feeling fine. My books say I should start feeling movement but nothing yet so we’re still waiting. I’m still able to wear my regular clothes though I have to unzip my jeans a little when I’m sitting [:S]. As of my last appointment (2 weeks ago) I’m down 6 lbs from before pregnancy. I think it’s from the lack of appetite I had at the beginning but I feel like I don’t get full as fast anymore which is good. Guess I’ll start gaining here soon.
I’ve also been having a lot of anxiety dreams lately which is never a good way to wake-up. Hopefully those go away soon as I’ve really never been much of a dreamer… guess it’s a side effect of being pregnant? For the last few weeks, I’ve been going to a ‘moms in motion’ class at the gym and it’s been fun. I get to meet other pregnant ladies that work at Dell and the trainer is really nice. I did have to force myself to go yesterday though because work has just been crazy but I’m glad I went in the long run.
Tomorrow we’re going to interview daycares and possibly get on waiting lists. I know it sounds crazy to do it so early but I hear the wait lists can be pretty long and I don’t want to have to scramble at the last minute!
Other than that I’m just chugging along… we should have some more updates after the next appointment in 2 wks.
