Just a quickie

I had a great birthday. Me and Leeann had a little party together with my family since her birthday is 2 days before mine. Chris made me a Rainbow Bright cake...

Here's Leeann's Peach cake! We both turned 2 this year!

Pretty awesome huh? He said it's only the 2nd cake he's ever made. He also got me the great new staind album (he gave it to me on Wednesday!) and then also bought me another Nicholas Sparks book (one of my FAVORITE authors.) I can't wait to read it. I'll probably save it and read it when I'm in the hospital. My dad got me a great sewing kit box thing... it holds all your thread, pins, measuring tape, thimbles, bobbins... if it has to do with sewing, this box will hold it. It was the perfect gift since my new sewing obsession.

This weekend has been... well... alright I suppose. Yesterday and today have been a little rough. Yesterday afternoon my BHC turned very regular and for 3 hours straight they were every 3-5 minutes, with some of them being very painful. So we called the doc and went in to Labor and Delivery out at baptist. The contractions were very regular, and pretty close together, some only a minute apart! But they said they weren't "painful" enough yet. They wanted me to come back in when they "curled my toes" and my "eyes teared up." But that's not quite what my OB had told me... She had said she didn't want me going into active labor for real long... since they need to do a c-section. So I was a little confused. They gave me an Ambien and sent me home so I could get some sleep... But it made me hallucinate on the way home! And I only slept for 3 hours! I was up from 1 til 4 this morning... with nothing to do... and regular "not quite painful enough" contractions. So I played guitar hero. Then I came back to bed. I asked chris to get up this morning with taylor (I usually try to get her on the weekends, since those are the only days he gets to sleep in.) So i did sleep in til 8... but it was not real sleep... more like tossing and turning the whole time with my eyes closed.

Today has been both productive and very unproductive... I cleaned out our closet, got maddie's clothes put away, re-organized the baby stuff, went through taylor's clothes, went through my clothes, cleaned our room, picked up my craft desk stuff... So in that sense, I got a lot done. Still having contractions all the time though, with no increase in intensity :( I'm getting kinda frustrated. Every 5 minutes is just annoying at this point. And I've been sick to my stomach and had a headache... I"m just blah. Maybe in the next few days or so this will increase and I'll have some news to post. Til then... It's just a waiting game. And I'm definately losing!

Oh B-day!

Today is my 24th birthday... Yipee! I'm officially in my MID-20's! Did you know the cast of Friend's were supposed to be in their mid-20's? That seems odd to me. Anywho. Today's been good so far... I woke up... had a Baby Ruth for breakfast... kinda uneventful. But I just laid taylor down for a nap and I may sneak out for a bit while she sleeps (my mom's here... i'm not leaving her asleep, at home, alone!) SHOPPING! I got some birthday money, and nothing to do today, so that's what I'm going to do. BY MYSELF (that makes it even better.) I had lunch with my mom yesterday for my birthday (Thanks mom and dad!!! The fried pickles really hit the spot.) And chris gave me an AWESOME CD! The new Staind (an old favorite) and I love it. I got some great birthday cards in the mail from some great friends. Yup... It hasn't been too bad. Chris won't be getting home til later tonight though... he's got softball practice :( But he needs his excercise and those guys need as much practice as they can get! Although, I agree with Jennifer... has it ever helped before? :) Just teasing guys! When he gets home I'm sure we'll do some cake and ice cream. Who knows what else is planned... I'll let you know this weekend how the rest of the day goes.

Me and my dad

Me and my mom My dad, dani, mom, and meI had a HUGE head!

I did have my OB appt yesterday (hence the OH-B part of the title... I didn't think anyone would get that... so I explained it :) ) I actually had to go in on Monday cause I was having alot of contractions. Turns out I was dehydrated and had to be hooked up to an IV for a while. They also gave me a pill to make my uterus relax, but I still had some mild contractions and the pill only made me sick. My weight had fluctuated alot too, but I'm guessing it's just because I was dehydrated and lost some water weight. My appt went well... no dilating, only mild contractions. I had some sugar in my urine (sorry if that's tmi) but it was from my cinnamon toast crunch i had for breakfast. Otherwise, all is well with me and the baby. Only 18 days left til this kid is out for sure! I'm excited... we set our room up! The pack-n-play is again on my side of the bed (same as when taylor was born.) We'll see how this whole set up goes! I wonder how we'll handle all four of us in one room! YIKES! Atleast maybe it'll teach taylor not to wake up at every little noise in the middle of the night. I'm sure we'll have MANY sleepless nights once this kid gets here. I can't wait!

GO TITANS GO!!!

Last night chris had the opportunity (through work) to go and sit in on a Titans radio show. They were doing it from the O'Charley's in Brentwood. Anyways, chris got to have a free dinner (thanks mark!) and then got to meet Mike Keith, "the Voice of the Titans!" Mike sat and talked with chris and the guys a little while before the show started. Chris said he was a great guy and real friendly.
Anyways, I guess they sat right in front of Mike Keith and Jeff Fisher during the show. Afterwards, they got to meet Jeff Fisher. Chris said he was suprised a bit at the fact that him and Jeff are about the same size... chris always thought Jeff Fisher was taller! Chris had Jeff Fisher and Mike Keith sign a football for him! Mike Keith was suprised that chris wanted him to sign SACKED on the football, He said it was the first time anyone has ever asked him to sign that, even though that's one of the phrases he's known for!

They also got to meet one of the cheerleaders (whoopie!) and chris got her to sign a poster... just for ME! :) LOL. He had her make it out to his wife! I wonder how often that happens. I don't really care for the titans cheerleaders so it was a bit odd that he did that. I asked him why he didn't have her make it out to one of my brothers if he didn't want it. But I decided I'd use it as my motivation to get in shape after this baby's born!

Chris had a great time and was very excited about last night! He kept talking to me about it all night long. I'm glad he had the chance to go. He loves football. He's actually told me recently that he thinks he might like it a little TOO much! I told him I didn't think so. I thought that's just the way guys get. So what if he spends over an hour every night on NFL.com. That's not obsessing, is it??? :) (Just teasing babe!!!)

ChattaNEWga (lots of pics)

Yesterday was our family "vacation" for the summer. We just took a day trip down to Chattanooga to see my little sister and the aquarium. We had an absolute BLAST! It was one of the funnest things I think we've done since Taylor was born. It wouldn't have been nearly as great if Taylor hadn't enjoyed it as much as she did. Michael and his fiance Leeann also went down with us, which was cool. It was fun to hang out with them.

We started the day going to the aquarium which is in two buildings. The took the ocean journey one first. Me and chris touched some sting rays, and he touched a shark (a little one.) Then we saw some cool butterflies. Then came my absolute favorite part of the Aquarium... THE PENGUINS! I honestly was so excited to see them I almost started to tear up (thank you hormones.) That was the first time I've ever seen penguins in real life and I LOVE penguins. The best part of the penguins, though, was the fact that Taylor got just as excited as I did, if not more-so. She could have stood there for HOURS watching them. She was laughing and talking to them. They would come right up to the glass and just stare at you and she loved it! The rest of the aquarium was pretty cool too. And, of course, you HAVE to walk through the gift shop to leave, so we went and got taylor a couple things. She immediately walked up to the stuffed penguins and picked out the one we would be getting for her! We also got her a real cute baseball cap with a penguin on it.

Then we took the River Journey part of the aquarium. It was pretty cool too. Taylor loved walking up to the glass and watching the fish. She would squat down and start talking to all of them and pointing, turning and looking at me and chris to make sure we could see it too. It was funny. Me and Chris touched some sturgins this time... I have no idea if that's how you spell it. This part of the aquarium had alot of turtles and such. I think chris liked them alot. He used to love turtles. We did see an alligator snapping turtle and chris told us about catching them in the pond behind his house when he was younger and all the things they did to them. It was kinda crazy. They looked MEAN. Taylor enjoyed this part of the trip too, but I think she was getting a little tired (she'd only slept for the last 20 minutes of the trip in the car and that was it for a nap... and it was after one at this point.)

When we left the aquarium we went to the Creative Discovery Museum. It was so cool... but we only stayed for like 30 minutes or so, because we were meeting Cayce and Joey to eat some lunch. Taylor had a blast there too. We're definately going to go back one day and spend most of the day there. There's TOO much to do. It's the coolest interactive kid museum I've ever seen. But we had to leave to get some lunch so we had pizza at the Mellow Mushroom. Then we went on to see the IMAX 3-d movie that goes along with the aquarium. It was Dolphins and Whales. It was kinda boring. And Taylor didn't behave well in there. Chris watched about 10 minutes of the movie and then was out in the hall the whole time with Taylor. She was just too tired/restless to sit there through that.

I wasn't quite ready to leave after all this and so we went and let Taylor play in some fountains they have set up for kids to play in. We stripped her down to nothing but her diaper and let her go! It was fun to watch. She LOVES water and had a BLAST once she started splashing. And she splashed and splashed and splashed. If it wasn't getting windy, we would have let her play longer cause she was having so much fun. But it was cooling off outside, so we got her cleaned up and then went over to cayce's home.

We hung out there all night and relaxed, we grilled burgers and just had fun. It was great to be able to spend time with Cayce and Joey and Michael and Leeann. They're fun people! I don't think we got home til after midnight, but it's okay, cause Chris is still in bed asleep and it's 10:30.

Overall, this was one of the funnest vacations I've ever been on. I think the good majority of it was so awesome because we got to watch how excited Taylor got and how much fun she had.

Well, Here's the pictures. Enjoy!

Michael passed out on the way down
So did taylor
He looks a little evil in the picture, but there he was so cute!


Surfs UP!

A real shark cage!


Talking to the fish

Taylor and daddy looking up at the fishes!

Sea Otter! Taylor called them Puppies!

alligator snapping turtle
Discovery Museum
Taylor actually hit that little boy when he got in there with her.
Nurse Taylor

Michael and Leeann
Our family :)
Cayce and Joey
WATER TIME!
Penguin Parking Meter!!!

Her diaper hung lower than her knees!!!

She had no nap at all yesterday besides 20 minutes in the car before we got there... so when we got to cayce's place, Taylor CRASHED!

What should my belly be?

I'm painting my belly! I'm excited to do this... but I can't, for the life of me, decide what to paint it. So I'm here to ask for your input!

Below are some pictures with a few different options. These are not the only options for me. I could do any of these, or a basketball, watermelon, baseball, beach ball, any other round thing you can think of!

So, I'm going to post this, and a poll on the side. You can either leave a comment, or vote on the poll and let me know what you think. (The poll will close Sunday night at 11:59 pm! So vote soon!)

What do you want on my belly????Just a side note, My favorites are the fish bowl and the globe... I don't know why. But I think they're funny. Choose Wisely!!! :)

Oh My Goodness!

Taylor's 15 months old (tomorrow). She had her 15 month Dr. Appt today... She's growing, growing, growing! She's moving up the curves. She's over 22 lbs now (43%) and 29 inches tall (11%). So she's actually growing faster right now than she was at her last visit. She was only in the 7th percentile for height then, and like 20 something for weight. Her head is still HUGE compared to the rest of her! I don't think it's too noticable though.

She did have to get 3 shots :( It was so sad. I'm hormonal, and almost started crying when she did. It was hard to hold back. But afterwards we went to the store and bought her a new "baby" to make it all better. She thought her bandaids were kinda cool. That's a first. They always freaked her out before.

She's passed out in bed right now... it wore her out pretty bad. I'm sure she'll be alseep all afternoon. Hopefully she won't feel bad when she wakes up though.

She does have to go back at 18 months for another check-up, and if her blocked tear duct (she's had it since 2 months old) still hasn't cleared up, then they'll recommend a good eye doc to take her too. Also, Madison will be going in for her 2 month visit at the same time as Taylor's 18 month. That's just insane to me.

Well, I think it's my nap time too. I woke up with the sore throat and runny nose chris and taylor have had all week. Maybe I can sleep it off! Hope y'all have great weekends!

OB Update

One month left! Dang my arm got tan this summer!

I went to my OB appt today. It went well, with some weight gain and all! This is the last one I can keep my pants on at! That's actually what my OB told me :) This means dilating time! Though I'm sure there will be none (there wasn't with Taylor), it is still a sign that the end is near! Only 3 more appts til my little Madison will be here. Gosh... All the things that are left to do are getting slightly overwhelming.

And I had my first actual realization that I am going to have TWO kids... I'm going to be at home, alone, with 2 kids. What will I do? I'm so lucky to have such good examples around me! Hopefully I'll be able to manage it. I'm just not going to think about it til I get there though. I'm sure I'll manage it all somehow. If I was going to have a one year old, I think it'd be a bit easier on me... but the age difference will be so much. But at the same time, Not enough. Does that make sense?

Regardless, I got nervous for just a second. But oh well. Women have done this for thousands of years. I can handle it. Hopefully.