In Full Bloom

My amazingly talented friend and neighbor took these fantastic maternity shots of me and our family last week. I intended to do the shoot a little earlier in the pregnancy but I'm glad things didn't work out until now as this is a more true representation of about to pop! She did a wonderful job of capturing our entire family during this exciting time of waiting and preparing to meet our little guy. I posted my favorites here although it was really hard to decide! You can view all of the pictures here:

http://www.sabrinakphotography.com/

enter into the proofing galleries

Our photo shoot is titled 10/26/09 Maternity/Family and the password is Counts

If anyone is looking for quality family/children/maternity professional photographs at a reasonable price let me know. She is not only incredibly talented but a lot of fun as well. She took most of these pictures in our master bedroom after she set up all of her cool equipment. It was a great experience and I am glad to have some nice photos to remember just how HUGE my tummy has been this pregnancy!

Not for the faint of heart!

We went to the playground this morning with Jessica, Clare, & Francis...a normal occurrence until this happened...

Honestly, this picture doesn't do it justice since you loose the depth aspect. Its a giant gaping hole exposing the insides of his tongue muscles. Oh ya and he got it from the underside as well. Thankfully the holes didn't line up so it didn't officially go all the way through.
A call to the pediatricians office sent us to the local urgent care center. Mommy was slightly panicking on the way as his tongue was so swollen he couldn't close his mouth anymore. Forty five minutes later Curtis finally stopped screaming bloody murder when he fell asleep in the back seat. As soon as the doctor walked in we had to wake him up and screaming resumed. That HAD to hurt! They believed that even though tongues normally heal pretty well on their own, this one was so jagged and deep that it would probably need stitches. So they sent us to Texas Children's Hospital. The first doctor at TCH said she couldn't decide if we should stitch it or not, the second doctor said the same thing, finally they sent us into the procedure preparation room and brought in an entire team of doctors to decide. In the end it was thought that the procedure was too risky for a borderline call. Obviously they would have had to sedate him in order to do the stitches, the bleeding involved in the procedure is quite a bit given the rich blood flow in the tongue, the airways of toddlers is not something to mess with, and the pain and discomfort of a stitch on a little tongue was in the end not worth it. Thank God! We were both really anxious about him having to be put under. So we are now home with our minced meat tongued child...sigh! The really sad thing is that it wasn't even a spectacular fall. It was a total run of the mill happens a thousand times a day little trip that sent us running around from hospital to hospital! Poor little guy!

Random Updates

Sorry no new posts for such a long time. The morning after our last post we all three came down with the swine flu. Needless to say the end of that vacation wasn't nearly what we had hoped it would be! Praise God none of us had any complications and after lots of medication, tissues, rest, and TLC we are all feeling much better!

Jacob and I had a wonderful date evening in the Woodlands last weekend. We stayed at the Marriott near the mall and enjoyed fantastic food, shopping, Holy Mass, and lots of rest. It was a wonderful weekend after begin cooped up during our bout with H1N1. Curtis stayed at his Nana & PopPop's house and got some great quality time with them as well as a good chance to practice sleep overs for when Mommy and Daddy are in the hospital with Nicholas!

Jessica threw me a fantastic 'shower'. A few of our very dear friends and family and their beautiful children came together to celebrate our little miracle and it was a nice chance for me to thank them all for their support over the past year. I am still in awe of the graces that God has given us this year and feel overwhelmingly blessed that Nicholas is 'near completion' in the womb and appears to be healthy and thriving. Thanks again Jessica for all the thought you put into each and every moment of the shower. It was such a special celebration for our entire family!

As I said, Nicholas is 'near completion' as we approach the last few weeks of our pregnancy. I am feeling great and can't wait to meet our little man! There will definitely be a lack of posts from now until after he is born as I try to finish up some projects and most importantly get lots of rest! Be sure to check out pictures of the shower on our Picasa site :)

Glodeo

Tonight we attempted to join in on some on the hot air balloon fun by attending Glodeo where all the balloons take turns firing up and make a kind of light show. We quickly changed our plans when we found out it was going to cost us over $20 and the parking was backed up for miles an hour before it was scheduled to begin. So we followed the locals and found a great spot to view it from afar. We are really excited to go back to the same spot tomorrow to watch the mass ascension. We met a man that gave us two locations based on which way the wind is blowing in order to have the balloons fly directly over our heads and possibly land in the fields next to us. Hopefully we will get lucky in the morning. Check back for pictures tomorrow to see :)

Albuqueque

Quick post before we run out and have more fun :) weather is AMAZING! very cold in the mornings and makes it up to about 70 in the afternoon. Went to Explora on Wed, ate dinner at a local New Mexican restaurant with Jacob's co-workers (Curtis was fantastic and SAT patiently for an entire 2 1/2 hour meal...impressive!, Zoo and Aquarium yesterday, fancy dinner last night at a local place like Bennihana's where they cook in front of you (awesome food and great entertainment!), tons of hot air balloons everywhere absolutely breathtaking, off to do some shopping and have a more relaxed "normal"day today, Mommy and Curtis are both a little overstimulated by all the fun so we are hopefully going to have a more restful day today! Lots of love to all. More later...if I stay awake! posted a few pictures on our Picasa more to come

Weekend Renovations

Back from a fantastic weekend in Chicago, be sure to check out the awesome pictures on Picasa. Mom, Curtis, and I had a great time hanging out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins. They are a beautiful family and were such gracious hosts to all of us.

Super busy weekend that started with finishing up the grout on our new tile in the guest bathroom. Porous tile+dark grout=lots of hard work! But its done and looks beautiful. Hopefully tomorrow night we can get it sealed and put the baseboards back on oh and get our potty back also :)
We went to IKEA on Saturday to pick up a few things and decided it was finally time to make use of our Baylor/toy/computer/room. We bought this awesome new shelving unit and I can't even believe how much more useful the room is now. We took down our 'bar' that we used as a computer desk, touched up the paint, and reorganized everything. I am finally happy with how this room turned out...four years after buying the house! Not totally done yet but you get the point.

Now we need a weekend to rest from our weekend!

September

September has rolled in on us and found us extremely busy. We are all grateful to have such wonderful family and friends to keep us entertained! We had a wonderful long weekend in Minnesota with Mike, Emily, Anna, Willie, and Jacob's Grandmother and family. Mike and Emily are always such generous hosts and we all had a great time running around Minnesota and watching the kids play together. Anna and Curtis got along beautifully and were the best of friends by the time we left. In fact poor little Anna cried the entire way to drop us off at the airport because she knew that meant Curtis was going to leave...too sweet! Little Willie is such a fantastic little guy with nothing but smiles and laughs all the time. We keep telling Mike and Emily that they are really in for it with their next kiddo seeing how well tempered and easy going their first two have been :). We thank God daily for their awesome friendship and look forward to seeing them again soon! Jacobs Grandmother is doing wonderfully. She is such a sassy lady and time has not slowed her down one bit! We got to spend quite a bit of time with her this trip and we all love our GiGI!

As you can see from our pictures I am getting REALLY BIG! I can hardly believe we have less than 12 weeks to go. We are all getting super anxious to meet our little man and are especially grateful to have so many distractions between now and then to keep Mommy from nesting 24/7! Curtis, Nana, and Mommy are headed to Illinois on Friday to visit with some family. Should be a great time to see everyone and we are all ready for the gorgeous weather! During the week Curtis and Mommy have started our new St. Francis Nature Club which meets at various parks in the area each week with a science/nature themed unit for the kids. This week we read the Very Grouchy Ladybug and took our magnifying glasses out on the hiking trails looking for bugs. We are so blessed to have so many like minded kids and parents so close to our house!

I think that just about covers everything lately. There probably will not be too many posts in the next 12 weeks. Mommy is starting to feel very big and very tired and Curtis is almost ready to give up his nap time...this could be a dangerous combo! Happy Wednesday! Be sure to check out all of our pictures from all the above mentioned activities!