Temperature Drop and I Mean DROP!

We left for work this morning and the weather was a mild 72 degrees. When we arrived at work it was a bit windy and chilly with a temperature of 57 degrees. At 1 p.m. I had to go to an offsite meeting and the temperature had dropped to 42 degrees with strong winds and some rain. It was amazing how quickly the temperature dropped in just a few hours. It's still in the 40's now and will drop to the low 30's this evening We brought in some potted plants and wrapped the sprinkler pipes. Burrr!

Week 18

I'm still feeling good. This weekend we walked around the Houston Zoo and Herman Park. We also went to an Imax show and the Benjamin Franklin exhibit at the museum. The Benjamin Franklin exhibit was pretty cool. I didn't realize how much he actually did and accomplished in his life. With all the walking I felt tired in the early afternoons, so I took a cat nap on Friday and Saturday for a couple of hours.

I'm sleeping well and the body pillow I bought is working great. I'm using it along with a regular king size pillow with me sandwiched in between.

My belly is starting to grow and sometimes after I eat dinner I can feel my belly stretching. This picture really doesn't do justice to how big I'm getting. So far I've gained a total of 10 lbs.

Brazos Bend State Park

We finally took the girls (Scout and Teeny) to Brazos Bend State Park this year. It's been over a year since we last took them and they were so excited when we pulled into the park and they realized where they were. It's cute to see dogs so excited to do something.

The water level at the park's lakes were the highest we've seen and it made for some great alligator and bird viewing. In fact, there were 4 alligators on the bank of the walking path and it's the closest we've come to wild alligators. The park cautions people to stay at least 30 feet away from the alligators, but since they were pretty close to the path the distance we could give them was about 15 feet. It made for some great pictures.

Baby's Doing Great

We had a doctor's appointment on Monday and got to hear the baby's heartbeat with a doppler. The doctor said it sounds great. Our next appointment for an anatomy ultrasound is in 3 weeks. We can't wait!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My wife usually cooks a big Thanksgiving dinner, but we decided to take it easy this year and got a pre-cooked meal instead. It's heating up in the oven now and smells yum yum yummy!

Week 17

Well it's week 17, but I don't look much bigger than last week, so no belly pic this time. I'm still feeling good and I'm starting to get a little hungrier than normal.

We got the changing table yesterday and so our baby's room is coming along nicely:

Lion Closeup

We got a great view of the new male lion at the Houston Zoo. They have a very nice lion exhibit that includes an underground tunnel which shows some of the back portions of the exhibit where the lions like to hang out and sleep in the shade.

This is what we saw when we went down there, a sleeping lion. It's the closest either of us have been to a lion:

Firefly Lights are Perfect!

The firefly lights I got for my birthday are awesome. They really do look like fireflies in our front yard the way they light up and fade. I'd love to add some in the house, maybe the babies room if we can figure out a way to use them with baby decorations.

PS3 Launch

We'd love to get our hands on a PS3, but we're not crazy enough to camp out in front of stores like people are doing in front of BestBuy, Target, Circuit City, etc. The PS3 goes on sale tomorrow with some stores starting to sell them at 12:01 a.m. and people have been in line as early as Monday here in Houston.

With the PS2 I was lucky enough to get a few of them at launch (via online stores) and then sold two on Ebay to help pay for the one I kept. My original PS2 is still working great, but the PS3 is amazing.

First Trimester Screening Result

We got our FTS result today and it's normal. More specifically we have a much much lower chance than average of having a baby with Down's Syndrom (1 in 2246) or Trisomies (1 in 5601). Woo hoo, that means we won't have to consider an amnio if we wanted to test further. :-) We're very happy. I wasn't really worried anyway, I think we're going to have a very healthy baby.

Week 16

We started week 16 today. I'm still feeling good, but had a little bit of insomnia last night that may have been due to indigestion and was up from 2 to 4 a.m.

We assembled the baby crib tonight and it looks great. We're just waiting for the changing table to be delivered. Then we'll have to think about getting a glider.

I considered getting one of those pregnancy pillows, but my younger sister said all she purchased was a body pillow from Linen's 'n Things, so we got one today and I'll try it out tonight.

I don't think I've gotten any bigger, but here's an updated pic anyway:

Was it the Baby?

I think I felt the baby last night. It's hard to describe the feeling, but I think it was like a flutter or percolation and I felt hungry, but really wasn't hungry. My wife looked it up and said all that sounds like it was the baby. :-)

I'm Utterly Spoiled!

And lovin' it!

My birthday was this week and my wife spoiled me with lots of gifts. My favorite presents were an authentic replica of the DaVinci Code cryptex, firefly earrings, and firefly garden lights.

I had a hard time letting her know what I would like when she asked, because I love tech gadgets, but I have a lot of the main ones. She did an awesome job on her own coming up with all my surprises.

She wrote a rhyming clue to figure out what the cryptex code was and when I got it I found the firefly earrings inside:

Harry Potter's spell will show
A feature like the fireflies' glow
A Latin word will shine the way
And lead you to a treasure this day

The code is 5 letters, can you figure it out? Post your answers and I'll let you know if you're right!

The firefly lights are professional lights made to simulate real fireflies (lots of theme parks use them). In an earlier post you can read how excited I was to see my first real fireflies, so you can imagine how I'm going to love seeing these every night in our yard.

Now I can't wait for christmas!

Week 15

We begin week 15 today. I'm feeling good and showing. My flat stomach is not so flat anymore.

Babies"R"Us

We bought baby furniture from Babies"R"Us today. The "lifetime" crib we bought can convert to a toddler bed and full size bed, so we didn't mind the price tag of the furniture set too much. It's a very nice set and should last a long long time, at least that's what we're hoping for.

My wife also couldn't resist and bought a cute pair of unisex overalls for the baby. The other item she just had to buy and I agreed when I saw it was a toy telephone. You remember the one we all had as kids? It is rotary (what the heck is that?). You pull it and the eyes blink. I told her the baby isn't going to know what it is since telephones have changed to much since then. Fisher Price calls it the Chatter Telephone.

Flowers and Teddy Bear

Our friends in Portland sent us a very nice surprise to us at work today. It was a beautiful flower arrangement in a clear vase with a teddy bear hugging the vase. We told them this weekend that we were now in the 2nd trimester and so they sent us the surprise. It was so sweet of them.