One Week Away!!

So today is Wednesday and that means that next Wednesday is my official due date. It is really hard to believe that I will most likely have a baby by then! The doctor says that they will set my induction date at my appointment next Wednesday is she does not decide to come before then.

The past few weeks have gone by soooo slow for me. I finished my summer semester of school two and a half weeks ago, so I had nothing to distract myself with since then. Two days ago fall semester started so I have had more than usual to fill my days, thank goodness! I am taking a full load, all online, and so far I think it will be manageable.

In the mean time I have scrubbed the house to death, deep cleaned every room at least once, washed all the baby stuff and finished setting up the nursery. Now I am just waiting.

Mya and I hanging out a week or so ago

Baby room!

Poor Corey. For work he has to jump (out of some sort of aircraft) at least every three months and for some reason or another every jump he has been scheduled for in the past couple months have not gone through. Finally last week they got him on a blackhawk jump, which is great, because they take away your jump pay if you don't jump within the requirements. That would have been a substantial chunk out of his next paycheck.

Anyway, we thought all went well and was pretty routine. And then the next day it looked like he had gotten a bunch of bug bites along his lower back. And then the next day it all turned pink. And then the next day it blistered and turned bright reddish. My poor husband has landed in some poison oak or something similar. It looks like the poison got all over his shirt, his ACU coat must have pulled up when he landed at the jump, and then rubbed all along his sweaty back. I feel so bad for him! It itches like crazy and I don't think the benadryl and steroids and zyrtec they gave him are doing much to relieve the pain.

In the last couple weeks/months Corey has started fishing again. Here are some pictures of us at a couple different lakes around Fort Bragg. Corey says he has never really fished for catfish before, so he has been trying to learn about them since most of the lakes around here have them.

Baby kitty fish

Pretty sunset

Baby Stuff!

The last month or so has been filled with tons of baby prep! It's exciting and scary all at the same time. I've known everything I wanted for the baby for a while now, and the buying of it all was officially given the go ahead when our new carpet was finally put in.

It took the guys forever to do it and I am going to gripe about it a little. The buying of it took several hours in the store even though we had an estimate and everything already done when we got there, the install date got pushed back, the carpet got in late, and when the guys came to finally do it they were late and took forever! All day. It looks good, and is a 100% improvement over the nasty stuff that was here before, so I am very happy with the end result. And now the baby room actually has more than a subfloor.

Corey with the shelves and dresser and newly carpeted floor!

We have most of the big stuff ordered now, except we are still debating the need for a glider. We are waiting on the crib to get shipped since it got lost on the first try. For some reason the processing of the order is taking a lot longer than the first time, so it is still not even close to shipped. :( They say between the 1st and 7th of July is should be here. Very excited to get it and get it put together!

 As soon as the crib gets here I am going to put in a major decorating effort! We already did the not so fun prep like the painting and replacing the fan blades and stuff, so all that is left is the girly decorating part that Corey wants no part in haha.

Last Saturday I went to a cool event for military moms to be called the Boots and Booties Baby Shower. It was hosted by the city and they had tons of raffles and cool things they did for 1000 expecting moms from Fort Bragg. Of course, I didn't win anything lol, but someone even won a car. I got to eat all the food and treats though and meet other preggo ladies, it was pretty fun and an awesome thing for the city to do.

a picture from the event

me at 31 weeks and 3 days right before I went to the boots and booties thing

While I was at this event Corey spent the second day in a row at the Toyota dealership. It took them three hours, maybe more, to do his 5k mile check up the day before. The truck had several recall notices, so we asked if they could check that stuff too. They said they couldn't, so we had to make another appointment for that. It took them over five hours. So frustrating because they literally have to look at a number on the part and compare it to the recalled numbers. We even had an appointment, both times.

Corey did some asking while he wasted his day off there, though, and decided to buy running boards. The guys at the dealership gave him advice on where to buy them cheapest and said he could install them no problem. So Corey is getting a present for his truck that I will appreciate. It's getting harder and harder to climb up into that thing! I am sure he will post a picture on facebook when they come in.

Here are some other pictures! (can you tell who is the most spoiled dog of them all??)

Mya trying out the swing my sister Elena & bro in law Mark got us.

Mya testing out the car seat

me at 30 weeks 2 days

Mya hanging out with Jocelyn. Best friends already!

Corey, being the awesome husband he is, bringing me pillows to make me a pillow castle on the couch!

Two weekends ago we paid for another elective ultrasound. We wanted to see how much she had changed since the last time we'd seen her at 19 weeks. She had her hands in her face the entire time, so no face shots, but I will never get tired of seeing her!

sucking her thumb, so cute she did it the whole time.

I had to change doctors, so at my first appointment on Monday they, to my surprise, did a growth ultrasound. (The Army doctors/hospital I was at before don't do this.) Again, so cool to see her! From her head, spine, femur etc measurements they say she is measuring two weeks ahead, in the 80th percentile. Pretty cool that they can do that even though I know they are often off with those measurements. 

I like the new doctor, I actually got to meet him!! On post you just get whoever is on call that day and there is a large number of them. This was the first time I actually saw an OB since I got preggo. The best part is that their office is like five minutes away from the house and the hospital we will deliver at is just as close. Much better than a thirty minute drive on post.

Since we didn't get to see her face in the ultrasound we paid for they let us come back yesterday for a free re-scan. This time the placenta was all in the way of her face, but we got something. At both ultrasounds I had this week the doctor and tech said that she has a ton of hair already! I think that's crazy and I can't wait to see if they are right. 

Corey says she has upgraded from skeletal alien to a zombie. 

zombie baby lol

I can't believe it's May already!

April Update!

April has been a pretty crazy month for us! We've had tornado season like crazy, as has much of the south if anyone has seen the news lately. Fayetteville and surrounding cities got hit pretty hard a couple weeks ago. I'm terrified every time we hear about a tornado watch or warning now just because I have seen the reality of the destruction it can cause, whereas before it was just a distant possibility. We live far enough out from the main city area that our home and neighborhood were safe, but many were not so fortunate. One thing that was nice to see after all this is the community getting together and helping each other out.

This was a Lowes after the tornado!

Corey and I spent a quiet Easter together. We made a nice dinner, colored some eggs, and ate candy (that part was probably just mostly me... we can pretend he helped me eat all the cadbury eggs) 

In anticipation of getting new carpet we have been trying to organize/ spring clean our closets and garage and things. We spent the last couple weekends cleaning! I had Corey rearrange our living room furniture, go through all our clothes and shoes and everything and make donation and trash piles. We had a Corey-truck-load of trash to take to the dump at the end of it, and I still have one more closet to go through! Everything looks way better. I should have taken before and after pictures just remind myself how bad we had let things get, haha. I felt like a hoarder at the end of it all. 

After the furniture move, we have our old couches piled on one another in our room. Corey, of course, thought it would be fun to crawl in them haha. We should probably move them to the garage or something. 

Mya has been very sick lately! I had to take her to the vet multiple times. At first I thought she had caught Bubba's kennel cough, but the vet said no, she had allergies. She also had a weird limp, and it turns out she has a bad knee that pops like crazy. Poor baby was so sick and limping.. it was so pathetic. When she wouldn't get better and she just got sicker and sicker I took her again and asked them do more testing. They ended up finding out that she had a really bad upper respiratory infection (I don't know how they couldn't tell just by listening to her struggle to breathe!). They put her on some stronger antibiotic and got her treatment started there for a while before letting her come home. She is much better now, I am happy to say, but still a little sick. I hate feeling helpless when any of the babies are sick.  

We had good weather the past two days so we wanted to get out of the house and go exercise. We tried to go hiking in a place we haven't been to yet, about an hour away. We took Bubba and loaded geocaches into our GPS and everything, and when we got there they were having a lame festival and had ruined our plans. They wouldn't let you park, you had to take a shuttle, and Bubba couldn't get on the shuttle that was across the freeway from the place, so we called it quits and went home. We were very disappointed. Maybe we will try again next weekend if it doesn't rain or tornado on us again. 

Baby Update: 

We have decided that her name will be Joslyn (I am pretty sure on the spelling, I asked most of our family members what they thought and I think I am persuaded on this spelling/very slight pronunciation difference over Jocelyn). I can feel her moving around sometimes now, which is a pretty weird sensation. Mostly flutters and every once a couple days something stronger. Hopefully Corey will be able to feel her soon! 

We still haven't bought much for the baby or started on the nursery besides having painted a couple months ago. We are waiting until our new carpet is installed before we buy furniture or anything, but I have a million ideas so hopefully within the next month I will have pictures of progress!

I don't know if anyone saw these on facebook, but they do this all the time haha. They are so cute
 Bubba is in Mya's bed. 

Mya is in Bubba's bed.

Last couple weeks...

Last Monday we had our 20 week ultra sound! As Corey said, she's still a girl and right on track for growth and everything.

The good news is that Bubba is not sick any more and most of his patches of missing fur have grown back. He looks a lot healthier and seems happier.

The sad news is that Mya is now sick. I thought she had caught Bubba's kennel cough and she had also started limping weird. I took her to the vet and it turns out she has bad allergies and her trachea is all swollen or irritated or something so she is having trouble breathing. She also has a bad knee, it pops in and out a lot and the vet (her name is Dr. Bell, haha) said that she probably strained it. So she is on antibiotics and pain killers and cough suppressant. Poor baby always seems to have something wrong with her lately :(.

Well, last week our oven made a weird noise and the heating element was sparking and on fire when I was heating is up for dinner. The heating element turned out to have gone bad, there now being a big hole in it. Everyone we talked to said it was an easy replacement that you could do yourself.

So... we ordered the part and it came a few days later. Corey put it in, it was really easy. But when we turned the power back on to the oven, it turned off. No sound or anything, it just turned off. Now we can't get any power to it. None of the wires look or smell burned. We are not sure if the plugger inner thing is burnt out, hence no power to the oven somehow, or if the oven is totaled.

We need to call an electrician I guess to find out what is the issue so we can get a new oven. Corey's voltmeter thing isn't reading anything when we put it in the receptor, so I hope we didn't damage our kitchen too bad! In the mean time, it sucks!

We have been trying to improvise for meals, but my cooking skills are limited. Haha here is picture we had on facebook, cooking mac n cheese on the fire pit.

Here is a picture of me at 20 weeks pregnant. It feels like I am growing and showing more every day! Very strange and hard not to freak out at the scale haha.

Okay, I guess that is all for now! Wish us luck that we didn't short out our kitchen and that we find an awesome new oven!

Bubba Adventure

Corey and I received a letter a couple weeks back from the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Center. They informed us that we had until the 8th of March, which was the day we opened the letter, to claim our brindle pit bull or they would have to send it to a shelter or euthanize! It listed all these fees and daily upkeep fees and vaccination fees and so on that we would have to pay if we wanted to claim him as ours.We ended up calling them and they were very nice and helpful and eager to help us reunite with Bubba.

It is fifteen and a half hours to Milwaukee with no stops from here. We left, with the two dogs to avoid boarding them, on Friday morning. The trip was okay, just very long. We got lost in Chicago because they deleted one of their state highways and our GPS didn't understand. We were driving in circles in southern Chicago, which is all industrial stuff. We have never been that up close and personal with factories and things before. The air is horrible there and I can easily see why!

I was driving when we got to our hotel about 40 minutes away from the animal shelter. It was just our luck that the hotel we chose, (we chose it because animals stayed free and they had a nice indoor pool and a nice rate!) was housing the republican party of Wisconsin's convention or something. Who are trying to get rid of unions or something (you have probably heard some of it in the news). Which is making people very mad. They were screaming at me, "Tax the rich, not the poor!" At least I think they were. It was very much like on South Park when the crowds just scream rabble rabble and make no real sense. I had NC plates and it did not deter them or convince them I was innocent. They blocked all the entrances and moved very slowly out of the way to avoid arrest. I wanted to run them over. I had been stuck in a car for sixteen something hours and relief was just a few hundred yards away! It took a great deal of self control not to scream back at them or do something equally rude.

So anyway....we stayed over night at the hotel and got to relax a little in the morning. We even ordered breakfast room service which was awesome! Then we picked up Bubba the next morning at 10am when they opened. It was snowing out. And it was sticking. I was getting very nervous for the poor civic at that point. We made our way out of the snow and the state and got home at 3am Sunday night.

The cool part was they didn't charge us anything at all for him! Nothing for his upkeep, shots, x-rays, and all the vet stuff. It was very awesome of them. I think they felt bad because we drove so far for him. Bubba is okay, he is just very skinny. He has a couple new scars and they had thought he had frostbite at one point, but he is okay. We think he remembers us and he is still scared of everything.

We still have no idea what happened to him or how he got to Milwaukee, but we are glad we had him chipped and that he is okay. He does have kennel cough, and unfortunately we didn't know that when we decided to put him in a car for 17 hours with our two little pomeranians, so we think they will all be sick soon despite them being vaccinated. Mya especially, since she needed her booster this month but we held off because she had her antibiotics from her dog bite the other week. :(

Here are some pictures! Sorry this was so long!

 Mya the princess in the car.

The Bubba back at home in his bed

Stuff

Here's an update about our last week or so!

1. Corey tricked me into getting a new dog. A giant dog that is over a hundred lbs for sure. He's very laid back, I just wish his tail wasn't so destructive when he wags it. Now we have three dogs and a cat. I guess we are definite animal lovers. Here are some pics of Trip.

2. Mya thought she would have a fun and exciting adventure through a tiny hole in our fence. Our neighbors just got two three legged dogs that like to bark and I guess Mya wanted to say hi. (Mya is my 4 lb Pomeranian). Then we heard her screaming like she was dying and ran outside and sure enough she got bit by one of the dogs. She is so traumatized but is only a little bruised in one spot. Poor baby!

3. Yesterday morning we went to do an elective scan of the baby for fun and to maybe find out the gender a little early. The tech said that she couldn't confirm a boy or girl, but is leaning toward girl. I still think its a boy so I haven't bought anything. Here's the pic that Corey put on his facebook, its a legs and butt view if anyone is like me and can't really tell anything. We will go back in a few weeks to do it again and hopefully will know for sure!

4. It's starting to be nicer weather more consistently here so Corey is dreading mowing the lawn again. I'm enjoying it and today we will probably be taking the big dog to the dog park.

5. Today finishes up my spring break, which really just consisted of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off. Weirdly enough I didn't have any midterms, but I did have to take a final in my one eight-week class. I got a 78 (which is actually a C- on our grading scale) on the written portion and a 100 on the hands on portion. Not my best, but I still got an A in the course.

6. I was supposed to be working this whole last week but they were over booked on instructors at the school we teach at so I just cleaned a whole bunch and relaxed instead. Oh, and I got promoted as of March 1 haha. I think its funny.

7. Corey is enjoying his new unit... not. The only good thing is unless they have some specific task to do he only goes in early on Mondays and gets to go in at 9 like a normal person the rest of the week.

8. We are excited to go pick out stuff for the new baby whenever the gender is confirmed! I haven't bought anything for the baby yet except diapers and its killing me! I think we have the crib set narrowed down and hopefully we order it soon.

9. I still haven't gained any weight. I actually weigh less than I did when we went to California for the holidays. Maybe my fat is just turning into baby? I would be okay with that. I guess smaller, more frequent meals really does work. Corey says I don't have a bump yet but none of my shirts fit any more and I have been wearing all his clothes lately. I think maternity clothes shopping is daunting and should be avoided as long as possible.

10. I feel like I wrote way too much about me this time...... but I am just so excited for our new baby and want to share the experience with our family!

Baby!

We had two doctor appointments today, one of them being an ultrasound! We were so excited to finally see that there is something in there. My little sister Brianna is visiting for the week and it was pretty cool to share that with her, too! Here's one of the pictures they printed out for us.

Quick Catch Up!

Well... since our last post was in Feb 2010, I would say it's been a while since we have done this. We decided to catch up and start using the blog to help keep in touch with our families since we live so far away!

Some things that have happened to us since last year...

One sad piece of news for us, our pit bull, Bubba, ran away from home one day last year and no one ever found him. :( We still miss him and hope wherever he is now he is happy.

Our cat, Butters, has been disgraced and has picked up some bad behavioral problems that we are trying to work on. He is pretty much an outside kitty now and I think we are all happier that way.

My little sister Brianna spent the Thanksgiving holiday with us last year, a visit that we very much enjoyed since I get to see so little of my family since moving to NC. We had a lot of fun and can't wait until she visits again!

We went to a zip line course while she visited and had a lot of fun!

We spent a couple weeks in California for the holidays last year. We had a lot of fun seeing Corey's family and I got to meet some family members I didn't previously know. The weather was, of course, awesome and Corey's parents were nice enough to drive us around so I could sight see. We had a wonderful vacation!

More recent news for us....
Corey got a new truck, a Toyota Tundra Crew Cab SR5 with the TRD package. Every since Corey's last car, the Honda Element, got over 50% destroyed in a bad car accident last year we had been planning on trading it in for something safer with no problems. Since he plans to get out of the Army after his latest contract is up and since we finished paying off my car (woohoo, huge achievement for us!), we decided that now was the time to do the trade. I am glad he got what he really wanted this time and he is very happy with the purchase so far!

Corey recently got assigned to a new unit. We are not sure how much we like it yet, but one definite advantage is that they only have PT formation in the morning once a week, so Corey gets to sleep in about an hour and a half longer than usual, which is awesome and makes a huge difference. Much better to wake up at 0630 rather than 0445 everyday.

For Valentines day Corey made the house pretty for me and made dinner with candles and got me pretty roses! I saw it when I got home from a long day of playing Army and it made me very happy! I got him some work out equipment, way less romantic but it's what he wanted. (since his new unit only makes them meet for PT once a week, he's been doing it all at home and weights and things make it much easier) I am still somewhat surprised that he has actually been using it in the mornings before work.

The most important recent news is that we are expecting a new little Bell in August! We have our first ultra sound in a week so we will be sure to share if they give us a print out! In anticipation of the little one we are redoing one of our spare bedrooms and will be putting in some type of hardwood or hardwood laminate. We finished painting it and are very happy with the results so far.

That's all we can think of for now, hopefully we will have more to share next week! :)