Trip to Lake Mead

My parents wanted to do something out of the house before they left town.

So Adam suggested we take a little trip to Lake Mead.

We had lunch at a restaurant on the water near one of the boat launches.

While we were there we saw hundreds of fish swarming to eat what visitors were throwing to them.

Then we drove to a nice little beach along the shore.

My parents and Adam got to go swimming.

Abby and I had to endure the 100+ temperatures on the beach.

Our little beach bum taking a nap.

Adam cooling Abby down.

Hundreds of catfish swarming around the dock. People were feeding them popcorn and bread.

Here is a video of the feeding frenzy.

Family

Over the last two weeks Abby has met some of her family. My mom came a few days before Abby was born and just left this morning. Dad joined her this past Wednesday. Leah and her family came over to visit one day. We also spent Father's day at Adam's parents where Abby met Michael and Breez. I even took her to school to meet my students and several teachers.

A little family picture.

Grandma Karen holding her new grandaughter.

Grandpa Craig came all the way to Las Vegas just to see Abby.

Grandma Gamble holds Abby on father's day

Isabel and Elliot give Abby kisses

Cousin Breez holds a sleeping Abby.

Pictures from Home

1 day old, our beautiful baby girl finally makes it home.

2 days old, lounging in her bouncer.

3 days old, all dressed up with no where to go.

Abigail Has Arrived

Going Home

Adam the proud Papa

Just born

Our Family

First picture

Abigail At Home

Spoildest Baby on the Block

From Amber:

I've been told I need to update my blog. It has been a while, but we've been busy. Plus, the cute little one isn't here to show off yet.

Adam and I watched this video (there is also a book, but we didn't read it) called "The Happiest Baby on the Block." It is about natural reflexes that help to calm babies. Anyway, our baby may be the spoildest baby on the block. Thank you to all those loving and caring family and friends who have showered upon our baby. She has just about anything a baby could need.

I went to the doctors today. My due date is next Monday (according to their little wheel thing, my 8 week ultra sound said the 10th, but she doesn't use that date for some reason). My body doesn't seem aware of the impending due date though. Which is fine with me as I'm enjoying my track break (it ends June 20) right now and am not ready to switch to my maternity leave, which will start as soon as she is born regardless of the fact that I am currently on vacation. I 'get' to go back to the doctors on Tuesday. She is going to decide then what to do. She said she doesn't want the baby to go more than one week over. I suppose that is good as the longer she stays the larger she grows. My mom flies in next Wednesday, so she's ready for any time after that. I'd really like her to wait until the 10th at least, since that is the day I have been using all year.

Adam and I have everything set up and ready. Cribs good to go and bassinets in our room, car seat is in the car, diapers and odds and ends are organized, we even have her dresser drawers crowded with all of her 0-3 month clothes. We're feeling pretty physically ready. Although emotionally is a whole other story. I'm NOT looking forward to the whole labor and delivery part. The lovely things they share with you in class does not make one want to shout for joy, that's for sure. But I'll make it through. And it finally (yes, finally!) dawned on Adam that taking care of a baby is going to be hard work. We were at Target buying a scrub for the baby bottles when he suddenly realized that those would have to be washed constantly. That led him to realize that there will be a lot of work involved with taking care of our little one.

I have posted some pictures below for those curious as to the state of our baby's room. I also posted belly shots as a request from my mother. They are from early last month. I am sure Adam (and our Moms) will let everyone know when baby does arrive. We'll be sure to post pictures, you know when we find the time amidst all of the baby care that is looming into view.

Me, May 2010 8 months pregnant

Her bookcase full of books, toys, and mom's old collection of Disney movies.

We emptied out 1/2 the closet for her. It now holds her 0-3 month dresses. The pink diaper hanger is the same one my mom used for my brother and I.

So many toys, how to choose.

Shots of her room.

Adam's mom gave us the rocking chair in the corner. It is comfy to sit in and very reminicent for me as it is quite similar to the one my mom has in her living room.

We have a baby bath stored under the crib as well as a box of 3-6 mo clothes and another tub of even larger clothes. We also have about 500 diapers from NB-size 2 (some are hanging in the closet).

The world map is Adam's. He thought we should hang it in her room. I hung it there so she could see it when she woke up. The world is at her hands, I suppose.

The guest area. We left the queen bed and the table on one side of the room for our guests. Mostly this means my mom as she is the one who visits most regularly.

Those shelves on the wall were made by my grandfather and painted by my grandmother. I used to have them in my room when I was younger.

Work Stress

From Amber:

So people keep telling me that I need to keep my stress low for the baby. The problem is that I work in a crazy, crazy place. An elementary school. I happen to teach all girl fifth graders this year. This should be wonderful, and in many ways it is. The problem is that fifth grade girls are FULL of drama!

Most recently is a problem with she said she said garbage. The girls are not clique like in the classroom, but apparently they cannot get along outside of the room. This amounted to one of my girls bringing a knife to school this week. She stole the knife from her father and brought it in to use it against another girl. The knife was never seen by myself or admin; we know about the knife because the father brought his daughter to the AP and told him about the situation.

It is hard to know exactly what happened because, well, kids lie. But when the stories were hashed out from several different little ladies a few things became obvious. #1 the girl who brought the knife had been picking on one of my more 'immature' girls for a while. This picking on had led to her threatening the immature one. #2 the other girl threatened her back with her older cousin from a local midle school. #3 this led the original girl to bring the knife to school. #4 the knife lady was pulled out of school from her dad about 10 minutes into the day she brought the knife. She claims to have left it in her desk. We have no way of knowing if this is true.

She claims someone must have taken the knife from her desk while she was gone. I personally think she lied to her father and probably has the knife at home. In any case the AP and I spent an afternoon searching every girl's desk and bag. He had called school police, but they told us to do it. They didn't feel like being involved in the situation. Apparently a girl with a knife is not a dangerous situation. In any case, we never found the knife.

Now here is a frustrating tid bit. All of my girls know who brought the knife (they were told). They expect the girl to get in trouble. The problem is that the knife is no where to be found and the only reason we know about it is because her father told us. No evidence, no trouble. The most he can do is RPC (request parent conference) the girl. But, since he already talked to Dad, there isn't any real point in doing this. So to my class of ladies, it looks to them like it wasn't that big of a deal after all.

In better news, spring break is next week. Yippy!

Working Out

From Adam:

I decided that I would start working out last Saturday. I have been having a lot of fun with it. Hopefully, it will last longer than two weeks like the Wii Fit Plus episode I had. I have been working out with my Mia Finnegan Mini Trampoline DVD in the living room every ohter day and on the other days I have been doing push ups, pull ups, and dips on my iron gym that I got for my birthday last year. I got the tramp/DVD for Christmas last year. Well on Saturday I skipped the last part of the aerobic session because I was winded, but I did do the strength portion of the DVD. On Monday and Wednesday I did the DVD again in the same way (skipping the last portion of the aerobics b/c I was winded). On Tuesday I did three sets of pull ups, push ups, and two sets of dips-as many as I could do each time. Thursday I did the pull ups, push ups, and dips routine. On Friday I did the DVD again, but this time I was able to do the entire aerobic session without becoming overly winded. This got me really excited! Unfortuneatly, on Wednesday one of the resistance bands used with the tramp snapped during the strength workout so I only did aerobics today. I was thinking about using two 2 quart water jugs, from food storage, for my resitance during my strength workout, but I am not sure what I will do yet. I have looked up surgical tubing and it is about $10 bucks for five feet on eBay. Seems a little expensive to me.

Updates on Baby

Today we had another ultra sound. This one was much more entertaining. We watched as baby yawned (or perhaps swallowed) several times. The tech said she's gonna be a talker. We also saw her grab and hold onto one foot for a while, and we watched in the 4D real time as she tried to get her thumb into her mouth. After measurements of the heart and brain, the tech was able to get a much clearer picture of the genitalia. It is definitely a girl. Adam and I are both very excited. Baby is growing well, in the 65%. The doctor said he should not need to see me again unless our midwife gets concerned in the months ahead. As of now, everything is looking great.

One of the 4D pictures. She's trying to get that thumb in.

Yawning or swallowing.

The definite girl picture.

Last week my mom was in town. She helped Adam and I paint the baby's room. We painted the room yellow and white with a bright Winnie the Pooh boarder. I was thinking of paler colors, but Adam really wanted bright. It looks very cheery in the room.

If you look closely you can see that he is painting over a light blue.


Our finished work.

I'm doing okay. A few aches and pains, but nothing the doctors are worried about. I have to go back to work starting tomorrow, track break is over. I'm sad because it is a Friday and Adam gets Fridays off. But it's okay; I've been bored since Mom left so it's about time I go back to work.

It's a...BABY!

The ultrasound tech cannot be certain of the baby's gender. She saw three white lines, which makes her think it is a girl. However, our baby was being "stubborn" and would not turn over. So the tech did not get a good glimpse of the area. She cannot be certain that there is not male genitalia there. She did see what she believes is female genitalia (the three white lines), but said that she can't give us a guarantee.

On a better note, everything looks good. The tech measured EVERYTHING. The head, the arm, the leg, the tummy. She said the baby is 13 oz, and this means if we took baby out and stretched it out the baby would be about 13 inches long. But we won't be doing that. She also looked at the blood flow of the umbilical cord and placenta. There was also plenty of amniotic fluid for baby. Everything looked good and she said her measurments were consistent with our current due date.

She viewed the heart several times. She said she could see all 4 chambers, and we could all deffinately see it beating. The heart beat was 153 per minute. But she didn't see everything she wanted to about the heart. Our baby was very comfortably laying face down on its placenta and absolutely refused to turn over.

We have six pictures of the face, but they aren't great. The view was difficult for the tech. When she did have a good view, baby put its hand infront. Being quite shy. Actually baby was irritated by the whole ultrasound process after a few minutes. At one point we watched as the baby kicked out at me repeatedly (I didn't feel this). It was very amusing for Adam and I. The tech wanted to see details of the face more clearly too. She couldn't see anything that looked bad, but she couldn't get a clear look at the lip.

The profile (side) view. This is my favorite. Baby's little nose and hand can be seen.

A view of the face. The hand and torso can also be seen here.

The tech said she was going to recommend we come back for another ultrasound. She left and about five minutes later the doctor (not ours, we were at a different office) came in. He congratulated us, said everything looked good. He joked that the baby was very stubborn, so for this reason he thinks it's a girl. Then he told us that our doctor wanted to know that everything was progressing well and the baby looked healthy. He said that everything was good and he would send the report today so that she would have plenty of time to review it before our appointment next Wednesday. Then he said he would like us to come back in 4-6 weeks for another ultrasound. He hoped that the baby would be more cooperative, and a bit larger, so they could see everything better.

So we set another appointment for four weeks from now. I kind of wanted to wait the six weeks, but my track break is just finishing up at the end of four weeks. So we set it up for my last work day off so I wouldn't have to miss another day of work.

All told we were very excited to see our baby on the TV screen. The ultrasound was very thorough and quite neat. I didn't really want to go again because we'll have to pay for it again. But it will be good to confirm that everything is good and possibly get a better assurance of boy or girl.

~Amber