It’s almost week 26… and “Daddy”’s birthday was Monday! The big 3-4! and to think, we met when he was 28 He is still the most handsome guy I know and getting sweeter by the day. He literally wakes up, jumps out of bed by my alarm (while I hit snooze and doze off for 10 more minutes) every morning before I go to work, makes me breakfast and a lunch, feeds our dogs, lets them out and makes sure I get my prenatal vitamin. He has done all the laundry since I became pregnant (I tried doing it to be a good wifey and the huge gallon of soap fell down from off the dryer and hit me in the neck/shoulder… he told me thats why I should let him do it). He cooks dinner, preps my foot soaking baths, makes sure I aways have water, puts on movies, gets me ice cream, has been freezing his tail off at night because I am perpetually hot…. and never complains. He.. is just amazing. I have done nothing to deserve this treatment except gain weight and carry his baby in my belly… God only knows why this man chose me! Its such a blessing to go through pregnancy in itself, let alone with a partner who would do anything and everything he possibly can for you and not expect an ounce in return. I am so excited to see him hold Audrey for the first time. He is going to be the absolute BEST dad. Even though he deserved the moon, I made him a banana pudding pie and we just had a quiet evening in for his birthday. Just what he wanted.

we are getting really anxious to decorate Audrey’s room and started on a small project for the nursery this afternoon

We also bought paint for her room: “Poetic Princess”

and.. how exciting! We received a copy of our baby shower invitations from Brandy and they are SO CUTE!!! We are so lucky… Check it out!: BABY SHOWER

I am feeling great. Audrey is kicking around in there like CRAZY. We were walking out of Home Depot and she totally stunned me, causing me to stop in the middle of the parking lot and tear up. I thought my bladder was going to fall out. Shayne had a mini heart attack; but she is getting STRONG. I took a video of my stomach moving the other night. She moves the most when I get settled into bed, just when I am getting comfy and dosing off… she starts romping around in there. My stomach pops up as she jabs, it is so weird!

Those shoes were a smiiiidge tight. I think my feet are just swollen these days.

yay 2012! Where has the time gone!?

I rang in the new year like an exhausted, swollen-footed, achy pregnant woman should - on the couch, in my robe with sparkling grape juice. I first had a 3 hour nap and around 11:45 pm Shayne came upstairs and got me out of bed for the ball drop and midnight cheers/kiss. It is going to be the most exciting year of our lives, I just couldn’t let midnight pass me by in slumber. The year of Audrey Elizabeth!

Last week we went to the hospital where I will be delivering her. Our {amazing} doctor only delivers at only two hospitals in Nashville, unfortunately they are not exactly the most convenient to us, but we toured one Saturday. We decided when we walked in, this was where it was happening. I immediately felt relieved and calm, which is a miracle in itself because I hate going to hospitals. We toured every floor, the labor/delivery room (which is HUGE), postpartum recovery rooms and we saw the nursery. There were 3 newborns in the nursery, one just minutes after being born. He was being weighed, measured, just screaming his little head off and all of us preggos were beaming, peering in. And as I looked around, I saw all the dads-to-be getting glossy-eyed. My heart melted, it was the sweetest thing. You forget how emotional the dads must be. Shayne and I were just in awe. It was so surreal. But very humbling, like, THIS IS SO HAPPENING, GET READY.

HAHAHA. I was trying to tell Shayne how to hold the camera and what the pic should look like so I made him model, love his face:

haha, Macee is like, get outta our picture!

..aaaaand, 13 more weeks to go! WHAT?! This definitely has been the smooth sailing ‘mester. But, hello marshmallow legs/feet! I woke up literally screaming bloody murder the other night because both my calf muscles locked up something fierce. It is absolutely agonizing pain. I mean, obviously nothing like labor pains I am sure, but, what the HELL!? Luckily I have a wonderful husband, who has been nothing short of perfect this entire pregnancy, who started rubbing my right calf, saying in sleep, “This one?” And I said, in tears, “No! Both of them!” haha. Poor Shayne. But other than that… easy breezy. I went to my 24 week check up today and found out I have gained a whopping 25 pounds thus far! Holy sheeeeet! A pound a week! Doc said it was perfectly fine for me (especially considering we just went through the holidays) and I shouldn’t worry but… uh… I have never been this tubby in my LIFE. Its hard to swallow the large number. But I take it with a smile, really….. its all part of the journey.

We found a fantastic baby/maternity consignment store! They have TONS of baby clothes for CHEAP. And when I say cheap, I mean, gently used GAP/Polo/Carter’s/Gymboree/The Children’s Place outfits for less than $2! I went in to see if they had any maternity pants, I found a pair of Motherhood Maternity jeans for $3.25! I was a kid in a candy store looking at all the baby girl clothes.. literally for dollars and cents…plus everything marked was 50% off. It was like Christmas. We only got a few things for Miss Audrey, but we will definitely be back there. So thankful we found this place!:

Next appointment I get to drink the yummy mystery orange drink for the glucose test. Can’t wait.

It’s now week 22! Only a couple more weeks and….. 3rd trimester! WOW. The time has just flown by. In aboooout 3.5 months, we’ll have a baby in the house! WHAT?!!? It is so bizarre… and amazing. We are getting antsy to decorate Audrey’s room, too.

Last week was Christmas! What a great one… My folks drove up from Houston and spent the weekend with us. Friday night we had a fantastic meal at Flyte downtown Nashville. Visiting the ‘Ville any time soon? I HIGHLY recommend visiting this restaurant. It was exquisite. Afterward, we headed over to Opryland to check out the lights and such..

(Check out that awesome BUMP!)

The LeBlancs brought us gifts!…. We are so thankful to have gotten a new DINING TABLE! We have been eating on our laps…. no more! This table is so nice, we love you LeBlancs!! We had Christmas Eve dinner and played Rummy on the new table. (Which I have now become a Rummy addict… )

I received some great gifts this year, to my surprise. Shayne and I weren’t planning on exchanging gifts, since we weren’t expecting company until just before the holiday. But, my dad had gotten me a James Avery bracelet with 2 charms for my birthday in October. For Christmas, he bought me another charm (I <3 YOU) (among an AWESOME-smelling, leather, Italian purse he picked up on his trip to Italy)…  and Shayne got me a charm as well. After I opened it, I couldnt help but tear up! (It’s A Girl)

THEN, to be even sweeter… he put a James Avery box into Audrey’s stocking. I opened it up and he got her a tiny baby-sized bracelet… so we can start getting her charms

Shayne also got me a few comfy maternity shirts and a fabulous robe. I have really been getting bigger in the tummy and some of my clothes are not fitting as great.. However, some stuff in my closet actually LOOKS better with my preggy tummy, which is kind of funny. Its all in your perception. But he has definitely been listening to me lately and took it upon himself to get me some stuff that fits this expanding belly. LOVE him! So in return, I gifted him a sewing machine. Shayne sews?! Shayne DOES sew. Shayne sew very well. NOW he can sew very well and FAST. He has sewn hems in my pants, patches on things, a skirt made of ties… all hand stitching. Can’t wait to see what baby stuff he comes up with… next project though, curtains!

But, enough about that fun stuff. My feet/legs are swelling…. hello, CANKLES! I kinda see them as badges of pregnancy honor. I mean, I couldnt possibly go through my first pregnancy without getting them. No way! My ankles/feet are normally pretty skeletor… the bones stick out… you can actually see them. Now? Do I even have an ankle bone?  I am on my feet all day at work, and for some asinine reason management won’t let me sit down (lame? I know. So lame… and RUDE).. so when I get home and take my socks off, which have now made beautiful, decorative indentations in my surrounding ankle epidermis, I can barely touch the bottoms of my feet they are so SORE. HELP! Besides getting off my feet as often as I can, which is a JOKE. Think of something else! But I invested in some great furry slippers and foot soaking salts. It’s all for you, Audrey! Mama loves you!

Next doctor appointment is the 11th. Not sure what is going to happen but.. until then.. hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year’s Eve! 2012 is going to be the most amazing year of my life!

For our Christmas cards this year, we had to include a nod to baby. Since we’ve been keeping her name under wraps… we decided our Christmas cards to family and friends would be the perfect vessel to reveal her name.

This took awhile but we finally got it BTW - it was Shayne’s idea to write it on the stocking! He’s so creative.

Little baby Stephenson aka Miss Audrey Elizabeth Stephenson

“What’s in a name?”: Audrey is Old English and means “noble strength.” (LOVE that! I have such high hopes for this little girl! Her name is perfect!) Elizabeth is of Hebrew origin and means “God’s promise.” Good stuff!

Truth be told, we named her years and years ago (almost 6 years ago!).. when we were just dating. Haha, I guess you could say things were pretty serious from the start for us… or I guess you could say we just knew what we wanted. But either way, her name was already known before she was a twinkle in our eyes. So, we took two names from Caroline’s grandmothers..and voila! We’ve held onto it for all these years and are so so so so happy to be giving her this name. It just seemed to make the most sense to both of us to give our first born (girl) a name from family members and those two names just clicked… and sounded so feminine I remember us discussing names for our babies, dreaming it up and just wondering who and when this name would be given. :)

Aaaaand, we also got her car seat! Aunt Shirlee sent us the most awesome car seat… a 3-in-1… I was just so mesmerized by it, and imagining her strapped in it for the first time. So FUN.

Hope you all enjoy time with your fam this weekend! My dad and Lisa are driving up to Nashville on Thursday, can’t wait to see them!

Merry Christmas!

AHHHHHH! Baby girl is getting so big in the womb!! We had our 20 week ultrasound today - the “big” one - and undoubtedly, we are DEFINITELY having a sweet baby girl. At 15 weeks our doctor took a sneak peek and told us he was 90% sure it was a girl and we totally went with that but.. the past few days I have had anxiety about his 90% being wrong and… what would we do with all the baby girl things everyone has sent us already? I was having preggy anxiety, I guess.

But sure enough, the lengthy ultrasound ended with the technician typing “>>>>>> GIRL” on the screen. Eeeee!!!

Following the appointment, Shayne and I went registering!

Haven’t done that since our wedding! And while it is fun and all… and wishful thinking, I was downright overwhelmed. Especially in Babies R Us. I have absolutely no clue what goes into caring for a baby as far as all the gidgets and gadgets. I guess one of the nerve-racking things (but could also be good?) is we are starting from scratch. Literally. We have nothing baby. And having just moved here, no family hand-me-downs. So we had to scour the store, every single aisle, and give everything a good nod before we moved on. Because we need it or we will!

But SUCH an exciting day. I was tempted to register everything pink and girlie but I realize…. what if we have another baby (haha!, so ridiculous to think about right now, but realistically…)? What if we want to give this to someone who isn’t having a girl? So I tried to reign it in on things like high chairs…  :)

Baby Stephenson is registered at:

TARGET

BABIES R US

POTTERY BARN KIDS

Week 19 and like I said, I am feeling great. As great as I have felt since realizing I was preggo. Still sleepy. But now I get to rest my weary head on our new KING bed that was delivered today!! Yahooooooo!!! :) I am stoked.

Some wonderful new developments (pun intended): baby Stephenson is MOVING! She is bouncing all around in there and causing some (welcomed!) night restlessness. I woke up early one morning and felt crazy little flutters, almost like air bubbles moving around. I just laid there and all I did was smile and rub my belly. HOW FUN. I have been wondering, when is she going to start making some noise in there?, well here it is! It happens here and there, pretty erratic right now but hopefully I’ll pick up on her movement schedule soon. Other than that the only thing I am “craving” I suppose is orange juice with lots of ice, so its super cold. If there was an Orange Julius down the street, I would be loving life. Must be said, though, I have been eating kind of poorly lately but hopefully we’ll get that worked on soon. We have put up some Christmas decorations but we don’t have our tree yet… hopefully getting that this weekend! And sadly, I realized the other day, I cannot go ice skating…. what a bummer!! But all is worth it - we’ll go next year. Daddy can hold baby while Mommy skates around the rink. Ha. So here are some photos of my ever-expanding tummy. It really does feel bigger than it looks, I suppose.

My view:

and Daddy’s girls:
(Macee knows its picture time now…she knows exactly where to stand and she knows to look at Daddy, SO cute!)

And Daddy’s little man wanted to get in on the photo session:

<3

Whoa! I have been wanting to blog but we have been so busy moving, Thanksgiving week was crazy busy at work and we don’t have internet at our.. NEW PLACE!

So let’s roll it back to Thanksgiving… 2 days before we finally moved into our new home. It is a bigger, roomier, 3 bedroom town home south of Nashville. We are LOVING it. Work was crazy, crazy busy of course and moving just made that week even more exhausting. I can’t believe we do the things we do sometimes.. always making things hard on ourselves! Not on purpose. But resilient as we are, we got everything moved in and made a yummy (18 LB.) turkey dinner with all the trimmings for the two (I mean, three!) of us. The Burridge’s were scheduled to come eat with us, reason for the huge turkey, but had to regretfully detour their trip to TN. We STILL have leftover turkey, thankfully its all tucked in the freezer. I mean, is this turkey perfectly, beautifully roasted or WHAT? It was the best, moistest turkey we had ever made. We were so proud of ourselves and for brining the turkey for almost 2 days. I highly recommend it!

We went out Black Friday shopping for the first time ever and got the best deal, in my opinion, anyone could ever get… EVER. As some know, we have been sleeping on an air mattress since we moved to TN because we left ALL of our furniture in Florida. I KNOW. We’re bad asses… or stupid… either way.. its been rough lately because my back is killing meeeeee. We decided it was definitely mattress/bed time. Lucky for us Black Friday was rearing its ugly head and I did some Googling. A local mattress store was having a sale and we scored a King size mattress, 2 pillows, bed frame, box spring, mattress protector and delivery all for under $450. UH YEAH. How ridiculously lucky. And its being delivered tomorrow! I cannot WAIT to plop my pregnant butt onto that huge bed for a nap.

Week 17 came and went and week 18 just flew by. So now as I enter week 19, I definitely feel better than the past 2 weeks. I was wore out! I felt icky, fat and gross. Lots of unpleasant gas, bloat, back aches, acne, the list goes on But I feel better now that we are settled in our new place and the dust is settling. I always get super stressed when we move, and being pregnant just made it that much more nerve-racking. Especially since Shayne literally moved everything in on his own.

So since we have these extra bedrooms, baby has her own ROOM! And we have been flooded with lovely gifts! The beautiful floral watercolor paintings from Shayne’s aunt, the flower wall hangers and Pottery Barn Kids rhododendron painting (mentioned in my previous post! She takes good notes!) from Aunt Cuzzy and the nursery furniture and (TONS!) baby clothes from Grandma Jean and Grandpa Mike… we are so, so thankful.

I have not taken a belly photo in a couple weeks but I definitely will soon, maybe tomorrow! I think with life being so hectic the past 2 weeks with work business, moving craziness and settling in, my self image has been feeling less than photogenic. Belly soon! And its getting big.

our lucky number!

Its 16 weeks and me and baby are doing great. I think I am really starting to feel my energy surge back up and the only thing I can “complain” about is this persistent stuffy nose/sometimes bloody nose! I am planning on getting a humidifier….soon.

I have been trying to feel where baby is. I run my palms all over my lower abdomen, like our nurse does at our appointments when she so matter-of-factly finds baby in .3 seconds by just massaging my tummy. I have been meaning to ask her how she does this. I wanna know where baby is too! But anyhow, I think I found her last night and told Shayne to feel, we definitely felt something.. weird.. whether a gas bubble or baby it was something! We’ll hold onto the thought it was baby. I still havent felt the flutters yet… can’t wait.

But first, we move! We are moving, AGAIN, for like, ok wait let me just add ‘em all up real quick… the 6th time in 5 years! We only signed a 6 month lease in our current apartment because we were so pressed for time to move from Florida to Tennessee, we grabbed the first apartment we could find in this area. Thankfully we are getting out of this box and moving to a bigger, roomier town home further south of Nashville. Baby will have her own room when she is ready and so will guests! I was bumming because I thought I wouldn’t have a nursery to nest but now I will Even if baby doesn’t inhabit it for awhile…

Already, I have been really looking for things to decorate baby’s room. I love shabby chic decor and just leaning toward a decor thats simply baby pink, white and fresh. I don’t want a “theme” in the room but I loved these on Pottery Barn Kids, especially since Daddy works at a nursery… I think these are absolutely perfect:

Yeah, its true… I dont work a 9-5 job anymore… I dont sit behind a desk or fiddle with paper clips. And yes, of course, I sometimes wonder what am I doing with what I am doing BUT who takes care of me like this!? Thank you Whole Foods for providing jobs that offer ridiculous (meaning, AWESOME) maternity benefits - see: this gift included with enrollment in the free maternity program. Did I mention it was all FREE of charge..

Diapers? Wipes? 2 books? Education pamphlets? Prenatal vitamins? AND a $25 gift card?! Yes, please and thank YOU!

They must appreciate how important mamas and their babies are And I definitely appreciate THAT.

I feel so thankful today… and how appropriate! Thanksgiving is only weeks away and on that note, I have begun to make the menu/shopping list. I LOVE Thanksgiving so much, it ties for first with Christmas as my fave holidays. Ooo I just love Christmas too. I can’t WAIT to move to our new place and start Christmas DECORATING!! And to think.. little baby girl will be with us next holiday season…. ugh, geez, my heart just melted and smiled at the same time.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

15 weeks and our *sneak peek* ultrasound appointment confirmed doc is 90% sure we are having a little GIRL! We heard her heartbeat first… she was squirming all over the place! She was not having it staying still for the nurse. Probably had a lot to do with the coke I had before the appointment.

We are soooooooooooooooooo excited to have a little princess bun in the oven.

So that 10% of uncertainty will undoubtedly be settled December 14th - our 20 week ultrasound. But nonetheless, 90% is enough for us! We’ll get to take home a recording of the ultrasound, I cannot WAIT!

We were definitely seeing pink today and had to get something to celebrate the occasion and.. it is so fun now to actually go into a children’s clothing store and have a reason to buy :)

Baby girl, here are your official first girly things from Mommy & Daddy. We already love you so much, our beautiful little princess!!! This dress just jumped out at me at Gymboree (they were also having a SALE!) and baby will be born Spring time, and since winter is creeping up on us, the Spring/Summery clothes are all on the clearance racks right now - peeeerFECT!

((FYI:Name(s) are top secret and will NOT be revealed until Shayne wants to say lol SO DON’T ASK! :)))

Macee is veeeeeeewy excited to have another girl in the house

Check back for more! and now I’ll be pinteresting ideas for the nursery………..