Pictures

Here's the 19 week belly shots and pictures of the outside of the house decorated for Christmas.

Movement!

Big news, I've felt our peanut move! Not all the time yet but now and then I can feel our little one testing the water so to speak! I can't wait until Dana can feel the baby too, poor guy's missing out! Felt the first movement on Weds and I wasn't at all sure that's what it was but I felt movement again on Thursday and after talking to other ladies that are pregnant or have given birth found out that it was the baby! Dana and I are thrilled to know our peanut is doing well! It's amazing to realize we're almost half way there, can't believe in a few short months we're going to have a child! It's mind blowing, wonderful but it will be a huge change that's for sure! :-)

I haven't taken new belly shots yet this week so you'll have to wait until later, I'm being lazy! :-) Did decide maternity work pants (least at Kohls) are horrible! So scratchy so I just bought "regular" pants in a few sizes up from my old size and voila perfecto! Got some skirts as well so now I can be dressed appropriately for work but still comfy!

We went and saw the new outdoor mall by our house with our friends, man was it cold out that night! I think Gregg's temperature gauge in his car said it was 14 degrees out! What were we doing voluntarily freezing our toucasas off you ask? Well I had a free gift card to redeem and they do a light show to the music of the Trans Siberian Orchestra which was just amazing! Had a wonderful time but we were very glad to stop in and warm up in stores!

Dana's raise has taken affect so we're very excited about that! He's doing so well I'm so proud! Plus his boss has said if a supervisor spot opens up-right now he's essentially and asst supervisor-he's a shoe in! Way to go honey! :-)

Other then that we've just been decorating the yard for Christmas, I believe Dana took some pictures I'll post those later with the belly shots. He did a great job hanging the lights! We're going to decorate the tree tonight so I'm looking forward to that!

Until next post have a great day everyone!

Thanksgiving Day Belly Shots

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful feast! We certainly did over at our friends Keith and Sandy's house...and again at ours! LOL It was all so yummy! Here's my 17 weeks belly shot.

Drum Roll Please.........

We know you are all anxiously awaiting to hear girl...boy...do we know? Nope. There was a misunderstanding between the dr's and the nurses apparently and we're too early to accurately tell if it's a girl or boy, so alas we are still in mists of mystery and did not get to have an ultrasound today. However we DID get to hear the peanuts heartbeat which was at 160 when moving and 145 when at rest. The baby is moving quite a bit although I can't feel it yet it was nice to know peanut is practicing for future tantrums. We do have an ultrasound on Dec. 15th when we'll be 20 weeks and we'll get to know then. I'm up 6 pounds from last month which is right on target, blood pressure is good and everything looks very good on our side. Still nursing my disappointment about not getting to find out today but overall I'm happy. Least we did get good news and we know the peanut is healthy which is the most important thing. :-)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Rough Night in Max town

What a day Friday was, poor Max had three seizures-all very short-one at 1PM, 8:30PM, and 11:30PM. What happened is the vets office didn't give us his full dose of phenobarbital in error so he only got 15mg compared to the 75mg he's supposed to have so for 3 days he didn't get a full dose (my fault for not double checking the prescription bottle) They apologized profusely when I called and told them their error and I took Max with me to pick up the full dose just in case he had another seizure I didn't want him to be alone. At any rate I gave him his regular full dose at around 4:30PM since that's when I usually give him his second dose of meds. 4 hours later when Dana went to dinner with friends Max had his second seizure of the day. I felt so bad for him, on the upside he is recovering faster and he knows who I am a lot faster even though he's still dazed. Dana gets home and we're talking about Max's day and we're keeping an eye on Max, well as we're laying in bed Max has his third seizure of the day so we're able to get the valium out in time (the seizures are so short it's hard to get it in the syringe before he's done) and got that in him but that messed him up the rest of the night. He was restless for 2-3 hours after getting the valium and kept walking into things, finally I just got up and got him to lay down on his bed so I laid next to him for about an hour and he calmed down and slept the rest of the night. We're going to talk to the vet about that because the other 2 seizures he had were done before the syringe could be filled so I didn't give him valium and he just laid down to rest up and relax afterward but that valium really messed with him last night. He's doing fine so far today and I'm certain now that he's on his proper dosage he'll be just fine but it was pretty scary. I felt bad for Dana since the one last night was the first time he'd seen Max having a seizure and it's a scary thing to see but even more so when you haven't witnessed one before. At least from this we learned the signs of when it's about to happen, he gets very confused looking and starts walking around dazed and starts to tremor.

On the upside of the day I did get a lot accomplished such as holiday and regular grocery shopping, got the pantry, fridge and freezers organized so that felt good. Got laundry and dishes done which is always a nice feeling. I was pretty tired from all that so I passed on dinner with our friends but Dana went and had a great time. Gregg's dad is in hospice care so that's been pretty rough on Gregg to deal with but we're all hoping it'll help his dad out. His dad has alzheimers and is just in poor health because he refuses to eat so that's been very hard on them. At any rate the dinner out was just what he needed to unwind and relax with friends have some laughs etc.

16 weeks

Well I was officially 16 weeks yesterday so I'm fully in the second trimester now I guess! Here are some new belly shots, these pictures are of me in one of my maternity tops and the maternity jeans. The pictures of the dog pictures is what's going in the nursery. 5 days and we get to know girl or boy!! We're getting to excited to know which we're having! Boys name is back under discussion so we'll keep you aprised of that situation. :-)

Finished!

Well I came home to a finished nursery! We just need to pick a blind to put in there and some pictures but overall the room is done and ready for our kiddo! Here's some pictures of the nursery. We did decide to put the recliner in the nursery because it's the most comfortable chair to relax in and gives plenty of room for baby and whoever drew the short straw on the late night pick up wink wink.

The crib.....



The toy chest.....


The diaper table....


The closet with goodies.....(diaper bag, snuggli, pack & play, hiking pack)


The highchair in the closet......


The handsome (and tired) daddy in the recliner.....


It's such a happy room I can't wait for our munchkin to see it! Hopefully there won't be too many screaming fits in there! Lol

Story Time

Well I got moved today sitting in the nursery looking at all the bright colors thinking how happy our munchkin will be in there and decided to snag one of the Dr. Seuss books I bought to read him/her to sleep and read to our munchkin. Since Dana was/is finishing up the trim in the nursery-he's doing a great job by the way-I went downstairs. Had Dana and Max listening away and hopefully our munchkin got something from it too. Lol Yeah I know, I'm a little crazy.

I'm off to go look at gliders to see if one suits my fancy at all. It's either that or we'll move the recliner chair from the loft in there which is not a bad idea, told Dana when I get back we'll have to move it in and see how it looks!

10 days to finding out girl or boy! We're getting more excited each day! Can't wait to know if I'm buying cute little boy clothes with trucks on it or these adorable coveralls I found for a girl! Here's a picture of the baby outfits we have so far, we bought the first 3 ourselves and the last outfit is from my best friends David and Vienna.

Flying Solo

Good morning everyone! There's not too much new to tell you all except today is Dana's last day of training so come Monday he'll be flyin solo in his department! He's nervous but also excited. It's going to be pretty stressful for awhile as he finishes learning and adjusting to the new tasks but I'm certain he will excel and do a fantastic job!

Max goes in for his blood test next week to make sure the drugs they have him on aren't messing with his liver etc. So far he's been completly seizure free! He's loving getting peanut butter twice a day, little does he know it's "doctored" peanut butter. Lol

Other then that we're just looking forward to Thanksgiving, it'll be our first in our home! So excited about that. I'm going to do the turkey and everything even though it will probably just be us but that means more snacks for me and baby! Hee hee

In 12 days we get to go in for our ultrasound and we're very excited about that, can't wait to see if Dana's right or I am! Lol According to my newsletters I should start to feel the baby moving soon and I'm looking forward to that, hopefully not long after Dana will also be able to feel the baby move!

Here's the current belly shots at 15 weeks 1 day! Can you believe I'm almost 4 months pregnant now??!!? For awhile I wasn't sure we'd ever get to that point but here we are just trucking right along! I'm having some cramping again so my uterus must be needing more room, very exciting!




These are pictures of the toy chest I ordered from ABC Distributing and took me two hours to put together. Lets just say it's a good thing baby can't understand me yet 'cause it was not a happy time! LOL There is also a picture of the toys our friend Bryan gave us that his daughter had outgrown so it's full already!




Have a great day everyone! We'll keep you posted as news comes up.

What a way to start the morning

Poor Dana, I let Max out earlier and remembered to turn the alarm off and reset it. Well then I let Max out again later forgetting the alarm and the poor guy had to come dashing down the stairs to turn it off....from a dead sleep....oops. Yeah we can say he forgave me but it was pretty grudging. Lol Ah well, I'm allowed to be blonde now and then right? Lol

We went and saw The Guardian last night with Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher, very very good movie. We both really enjoyed it and thought the acting was well done. The ending I would have changed a bit I think but over all it was great!

Today is laundry day and sweeping. Maybe yanking weeds in the back now that the frosts have killed them off but we'll see. Think I'll go see if I can get back in good graces with donuts. hee hee

Movin' on up

Happy November everyone! Got very exciting news this morning that Dana did get the supervisor position for his work and he starts training for that next Monday! I'm so proud of him and I know he's looking forward to the additional responsibility! Not to mention extra moola! Lol He's been at the company for almost 2 years now so it's a great sign of how great he is he's moving up so fast!

Here's some pictures of me at 14 weeks 1 day in one of my new maternity tops (hey there was a sale so I had to have a couple! Lol Got Dana some new jeans for a great deal too which is always nice!) I think I just look like I've gained 10-15 pounds but I had just had lunch at Olive Garden...lol

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween all you Ghouls and Goblins! Okay okay so it's a corny line but it's the best I could come up with at the moment. :-) We had a great time! Got over 100 kids this year! First ones to our door were these two little boys, one was dressed as a fireman and his brother was a dalmation! They were so polite (I think they were probably 3 & 4) and so cute! Just wanted to snag them for a hug! Had a little girl who couldn't have been more then a year old who was a flower and she was by far my favorite little kid costume of the night! She was just adorable! Only kicker to our candy stash was we only planned for 50-60 kids.....so after running out of candy, then our rice krispy stash we bummed some suckers from our neighbors Jim & Gregg. Good thing they bought like 50 pounds of suckers! We all teased them until we needed candy! Lol We were out there chatting with them and saying how much fun this Halloween had been, they had these tombstones that screamed and moved so that was very cool, put our house to shame! Lol Guess we're going to have to raise the bar next year!

As most of you know we (provided baby cooperates) are going to find out if we're having a girl or boy on Nov. 22nd-if you have not guessed you need to have your guesses for gender in by the 20th! We decided the only fair way to let everyone know w/o having anyone be "second place" is to post the info on our blog so make sure to check back that day! Don't call and hope to find out because we aren't going to tell you! :-D

It's bedtime here, good night all! Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! Muh ha ha my pretties!

Boo at the Zoo

We ventured out into the ghoulish world of Boo at the Zoo and must say parking was quite the challenge! I think we had to park about 2-3 miles away and then walk in. Whew, good thing we came prepared to walk! Our friends weren't able to join us as her son was sick, poor guy really wanted to go too. We saw everything from the cute to the scary! Carebears, princesses, Buzz Lightyears (felt very safe with them around), lions, werewolves, unicorns it just goes on and on! Saw a few locomotives that were very cute! Got to hear kids say "Twick or Tweet" which is always adorable! Didn't get too many pictures because those buggers move awful fast and our camera alas does not move at full throttle kid speed! We did snag a few as you'll see below. My personal favorite was the kid that was dressed as a wonderbread loaf!

Maternity Wear

Well I decided since all my jeans are just a little too snug when I sit to feel comfortable unless I do the redneck leave the fly down and hope no one minds......I went and picked up a pair of maternity jeans. Hilarious thing was one size was way too small and the one I ended up getting is too big but they didn't have an in between size. Lol Good thing I can grow into the ones I bought! Here's a current belly shot in my too big maternity jeans. This is 13 weeks 3 days.






We're going to Boo at the zoo today, that's where the kids can dress up in costume and walk around the zoo getting candy and such. It was a lot of fun last year and we're going with some friends this year so I'm looking forward to it. Love seeing the kids all done up and excited, they always look so cute! And some of the costumes are incredible! I of course am just pulling on my slightly too big maternity jeans and a top and going that way. Lol

I went with our friend Gregg to the flea market yesterday where I found a nice Christmas gift, I daren't say for who 'cause you never know how sneaky they can be to figure things out. Ha ha We had a really nice time but we both were wearing sweaters and in the begining that was fine...until it hit 70 and then we were just roasting to death!

Well I noticed our time has officially rolled back an hour! I was going to change that later tonight but guess I'll do that this morning instead. :-) Actually wasn't too rough for me this morning since I pretty much slept from 6 pm to 7AM. Dinner did not agree with me at all and my tummy wouldn't settle down so I had boughts of unpleasantness. Mostly just sleep though. Feeling much better this morning and I'm about to go treat myself to breakfast while I put gas in the car.

Heartbeat of Life

It's official, our baby has a strong heart beat at 156! Dana and I are thrilled and can't even describe our joy at hearing the heart beat! It's the strangest sound, kind of a whumpa whumpa whumpa really fast but oh my gosh so thrilling to know our little one is doing great! Our next appt is 4 weeks out but that's when, if baby cooperates, we can find out the sex! We're so excited at all these milestones!

In the blink of an eye

One day it's a beautiful crisp fall day and the next we have snow on the ground! It was 36 degree's a few days ago and very chilly with the wind! The next day it was 33 and warmer because the sun was out. Go figure with Colorado! I just looked out our window and I see it's snowing again. Glad our Halloween decorations are already out or we'd be having a heck of a time putting stakes in the ground! I went and got the Halloween candy a few days ago, hope it makes it to Halloween! It's looking very yummy! Here's some pictures of our yard decorated for Halloween.




















Max has been doing very well, no more seizures and he's full of energy now that it's gotten cooler. Guess we'll have to ramp up his work out! Lol He has become quite the artist at snagging things to chew on in the kitchen so we're getting another gate to block him from there. Silly nut ball. Here's a picture of him chillin' on his couch.














I began taking the bus on days it snows so that Dana could have a car that will drive in the snow, not be a sled! It's not bad at all, it gets me to work pretty quick and I don't have to modify my routine much so that's nice! I will be getting home later but c'est la vie.

Oh yes and I've changed my gender guess to the minority of a boy. Dana is shocked and is sticking with the girl guess. Lol Either way we're very excited and can't wait to meet our little one in May! We also finally chose a car seat which is on our registry, it got good reviews in Baby Bargains and also pretty good reviews from customers on the site so we're pleased with our choice thus far.

Spoke to a friend of mine who's expecting her second and we're trying to work out plans to meet up when she goes to AZ to give birth. Hoping to get shots of our big belly's together!

Been getting warranty items fixed around the house which has meant people coming and going quite a bit. This Friday I think I had about 3 companies that were here so that was quite interesting, most of them were great but the heating guy was a complete moron.

Belly Shots

Here are belly shots for anyone who's interested. The ones in the pink Snoopy outfit are when I was 9 weeks 1 day and the ones in the gray "comfy" clothes are 11 weeks 1 day.

11 weeks 1 day

Well we have almost made it through the first trimester! Next Thursday marks the 12 week mark and the week after that we go in to hear the heartbeat! We're very excited to hear what our baby's heart sounds like and to see if the heart rate is still at 170 or if it's come down a little. I ordered some adorable Snoopy border to put on the walls in the nursery that I'm very excited about! Poor kid is going to be so Snoopy'd out! Lol

I've been feeling pretty good, morning sickness seems to have turned into night sickness which isn't a lot of fun but what can you do? Exhaustion has caught up with me and I'm ready to sleep by 1 or so in the afternoon! Poor Dana, I don't think he hardly see's me awake anymore! Lol

I've been researching car seats and have found that to be a little daunting. We know we want the convertable seat so we don't have to mess with hauling a car seat out and around all the time but finding one with good ratings that will still fit an airplane seat is proving slightly harder then expected. We've found a few good possibilities though after reading Baby Bargains and now we just need to stop at the store and check them out in person.

They apparently have finally sold the lot next to our house so once that home is built we won't have any more lots near us to worry about! Yea!!! The neighbors and us have all been in great debate as to which model is going in next door, we all figure it will be a two story and have a pretty good idea which model but we're still awaiting to see.

After several calls by Dana to our newest warranty guy we're finally getting our small items fixed which we're happy about. I have two warranty people coming today and something like 4 next Friday. There goes shopping! Lol Other then that our big excitement has been waiting for Halloween, we can't wait to see the kids all dressed up! Dana wants to go do some shopping to do the yard up this weekend and I'm very excited about that! Can't wait to see how it looks!

Max is doing well, hasn't had anymore seizures although he has had a couple accidents in the house and has decided the trash can is a great place to snag things from. After he chewed the handle off my handheld masher and pulled a knife that was on the counter down too we've decided he's going to be blocked from the kitchen. Can't have him hauling down things that can hurt him afterall. We've been making sure to play ball with him in the mornings and make sure he gets plenty of affection and play time when we get home so I'm sure that will help. We've discussed getting another dog as a buddy for him but we just aren't quite at that point I don't think. We aren't sure we want another dog right now since Max is still being trained. You never know though, all I have to do is see the right one and fall in love! Lol Dana's much more stoic then I about that type of thing, I'm a huge marshmellow when it comes to animals! We did buy Max a football which was hilarious to watch him figure out...for about a day until he popped a hole in it! He's now got it in pieces all over the house. Lol

Sylvester is still having issues when he's out and about as to where it's okay to pee and where it's not. Since we've tried everything we can think of we've decided he needs a good home where he can be an only cat. It's too bad because he's a sweet cat but he's peed in every room of our house including the nursery-on a plastic bag that was on the floor-and we just can't have that in our home. We both think he'd be happier in a home where he can be spoiled rotten and he's the only cat, he was fine before we got the dogs and he's never gone back to fine even after adjusting to them.

Seizure Scare

Well Max has apparently developed epilipsy according to our vet. He had two seizures right in a row yesterday afternoon so I rushed him to the vet to get checked out. Scared me something silly I'll admit! Scared him just as bad though I think as once he recovered he looked at me like he had no idea who I was and what was going on, poor guy. Luckily they were very short seizures, I think the whole thing lasted less then 1 minute from the first, to the break in between to his second. Happend so fast I didn't even see the first one just heard it but I was there for the second. Vet has prescribed valium in case Max has another seizure for us to administer to bring him out of it and he's now on phenobarbital twice a day. They kept him for about 4-5 hours yesterday just to observe him and make sure he was okay. Once we got there to pick him up Max was so excited and just couldn't stop bouncing around. It was so wonderful to see him back to being Maxish again! Lol Dana and I picked up a football for him to play with and he's had a blast trying to figure out how to get this big ball in his mouth to carry.

Dana and I are going to our first soccer game later today with our friends Jim & Gregg which should be interesting. We've never been to one at all and figured why not! Lol

Sunday we're going to see Lion King which we're very excited about, we've heard great things about it and can't wait to see the show!

On other news I think I've finally decided on my guess of boy or girl, I'm going to guess girl. I think the majority swayed me a bit! Lol Long as our munchkin is a healthy one we'll be happy! Dana hasn't entered his guess but he's saying girl as well.

Due Date

It's come to our attention that not everyone got the due date information for our child. May 3, 2007 is when the newest addition to the Clark family is due. We have also decided that if we have a girl her name will be Karalee Elizabeth, if we have a boy he will be Thomas Benjamin.

Moving Rock

Well for the last two nights we (Dana, our neighbor Keith and I) have all taken on the task of moving the 3 tons of river rock into the borders of our yards. It's hard work and my back is definatly feeling it! Lol On the upside now that the rock is down they can finish up the fence pretty soon and once those two get the rhythm down there's no stopping them!

As most of you know we started a guessing game of whether we're having a girl or a boy! So far the overwhelming response has been girl! And most of the responses seem to think I should carry for an extra week, what is up with that? Thought you all were my friends/family here! Lol If you haven't seen it and would like to toss your guess in it's at www.expectnet.com ClarkBabyGenderGuess. I have also heard that certain family members are betting a steak dinner on the outcome so I'm very curious to see who will be supplying the fliet mignot!

Nothing really new symptom wise, my morning sickness has been pretty good all week about either showing up only once or not showing up at all. I don't show yet even though we are 10 weeks today which of course means I should be out past my feet right? wink wink. Dana and I are getting very excited to hear the heart beat on the 25th, if we can think of a creative way to tape it we'll try to do that. Maybe Dana's camera can catch it.....

I went to a going away party for an old co-worker of mine and it was very fun, he's moving on to bigger and better things which I'm very excited about for him! My work is going great, I work with wonderful people who always make me laugh! I'm challenged and always learning yet at the same time I'm getting very comfortable with my work and what's expected of me which is a wonderful feeling.

I just got home a little bit ago so I think I'll go see what Dana would like for dinner. Have a great night everyone!

Hard at Work

Well Dana and our neighbor Keith really worked hard this weekend on finishing up the fence. They got two sides done and have started spreading some rock around the fence line. I helped them shovel that but wasn't much use for the fence since three people just get in the way. Can't believe how much they've gotten done!













As you can see in this picture Dana is showing his expertise with the nail gun. That sucker was so loud!


Dana also treated me to Marie Callendars last night which was delicious! I pigged out on two bowls of potato cheese soup and a piece of cornbread. Well worth the 65 mile roundtrip drive! Our neighbors Jim & Gregg also went with us so we had a great time chatting with them. I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond today to spend my b-day gift card and got myself a handheld vac for the car. I haven't fired it up yet but I'm hoping it works well.