23 Weeks, A Wedding, & Christmas!

This has to be quick. So my goal is to make it more pictures than words... which is hard for me because I like to story tell. But Ah well, here it goes.

A Wedding

The weekend before Christmas Sam and I drove over to Spokane for our BFF's wedding. Ryan got married! The wedding was gorgeous, the reception was a blast, and we had SO much fun hanging out and pretending to be experts on marriage. Congrats Ryan and Christie!!


Christmas

Christmas this year was with the Nielson fam. It was a rare year as ALL FIVE Nielson kids were able to be together to celebrate. We had a really good time playing games and eating lots of food with the whole family. And all the grandkids are getting SO cute. We had a blast watching them all play together. It was really good times. Unfortunately, I'm getting ultra awful at taking pictures and I didn't take a single pic all week. I know... it's horrible. So, I have nothing to show for our awesome adventures in Clarkston... sorry!! :(

23 Weeks
Well, I think this is when the weeks start crawling. It feels like they've just flown by til now. I mean... there were huge differences between 13-15-17-19 weeks, but I feel like the 20's are all gonna mush in together. Nonetheless, I've taken a belly shot and there's been some definite growth. Baby Boy N. is growing! AND, he's moving! A lot!


This morning I laid in bed w/ my hand on my belly for a good 10 minutes and just felt him rolling and kicking and swiping at my insides. He was rearing to get up and go this morning! Love that.

Well, that's it for today folks. I hope everyone has a WONDERFUL New Year's Eve celebration and I wish everybody the happiest of New Years!!

2009 was a great year... now bring on 2010!! Woohoo!!

21 Weeks & Sam Goes to Jail

Ok, so Sam didn't actually go to jail. He did however go to San Francisco on a guys weekend to celebrate Ryan's last weekend of bachelorhood with Ben, and they did visit Alcatraz. Here are some pics from that weekend full of shenanigans.

Headed out to "The Rock."


Just trying out an old jail cell for size... maybe this one was Al Capone's?


They went to a Sacramento Kings game Saturday night and Ryan couldn't pass up this photo-op. I guess he better get his thrills while he can.

So maybe it wasn't all evil shenanigans... they did manage to fit in a trip to the Oakland Temple. It's so gorgeous!!

It sounds like they had a fun trip and hopefully Ryan got some words of wisdom from the two happily married travel companions of Sam and Ben. We're so happy you finally found a girl to put up with you Ryan, and we can't wait for the big day tomorrow!!

21 Week Update
Well I'm over the halfway hump. I don't know how this pregnancy can feel like it's crawling and speeding by all at once.

We got to have another ultrasound yesterday since our 17w one was a bit early and they just wanted to have another look at Baby N's organs when they were a little more developed. I had no problem with that! Bonus ultrasound! Yay :)

He looked great and was super active and wiggling all around. He was pulling his feet up to his mouth and stretching and kicking and moving around like crazy. Here are some of the pics from our Ultrasound...

And here is this week's belly shot!

I definitely have a belly now... And Baby N is moving SO much now! It's so fun to feel him squirming around in there and to know he gets to go everywhere with me. It's probably the only time he'll have to suffer through a spinning class with Mom or work for the Department of Ecology. Kinda fun.

Well that's it for now! Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season!

20 Weeks & I Got Clams

Broken Heart... Valve. An Update!

So, first off... thank you to all of you who have expressed your concern about my Dad's surgery. The surgery went well and although he's had some bumps in his recovery (I guess that's why no one ever says open heart surgery is easy??) he's doing remarkably well. He's so optimistic, and even through the moments of excruciating pain, he manages to find the bright side and has totally managed to keep his glass-half-full attitude!

Dad, you are SO loved by your family and friends and we are all pulling for you to get through all this recovery stuff as soon as possible. Thanks for being so strong and managing to put smiles on our faces even when we are frustrated and think you have every excuse to be too! You manage to keep up your "good spirits" and go with the flow. I love you so much and am so grateful for the wonderful example that you are to all of us.

Razor Clam Digging 2009

If there's one thing that the Nielson family loves to do, it's get together and have a good time. I suppose if there was only one thing you could love to do, that'd be a good one, right?

So this weekend Sam's parents, sister and her husband all came up and it was a grand ol' time. Sam and I had already been planning on getting our Christmas tree Saturday morning and it worked perfectly into the Nielson weekend agenda o' fun. We cut our tree down and then Maria and Jodi went to town with the decorating! Woohoo! Let the prego girl just stand aside and hand off the light strands, I was TOTALLY ok with that :) It was so much fun and there is nothing like having your tree up and decorated. Love. It. Thanks Maria and Jodi!!

Then, it was off to Ocean City (just north of Ocean Shores) for the Razor Clam dig! If you've never done this, then you've never experienced the feeling of being up to your knees and elbows in ocean water/sand/muck, in the pitch black, in the freezing cold. So. Much. Fun.

I opted to sit this one out and play the supportive lantern-holder role. You know, played the prego card. Which seriously isn't that lame of a move since Sam is always sick after we go clam digging for at least a week afterwards. But it's always a blast.

I also thoroughly enjoy the chocolate milk/donuts ritual that usually follows the whole event.

20 Weeks - Half Baked
Crazy, right? How did this thing get half done already? I'm feeling good, and apparently so is Baby BOY N.! He's moving. A lot. He loves to wiggle around a bunch at night while I'm trying to get to sleep... I'm afraid I have a night owl, and I only have myself to blame for that.

Oh, and we hit another fun milestone! Last Saturday morning when Sam and I were just waking up Baby N. was really hopping around in there. I told Sam we should maybe start seeing if he can feel him, knowing that usually it takes many many tries until the husband successfully feels said baby. Nope. It took about 30 seconds. Baby N. reached right out and gave Sam and pretty good high 5 right in the palm. Pretty cool.

So here's today's belly shot. Actually, this was taken yesterday and I fully feel that my belly has gone down a bit today. It's kinda weird and is very influenced by how much is in my stomach and um... bowels. Nuff said.Still, pretty significant difference, right? How did I think I was showing at week 12?

It's really a strange feeling though. It just keeps growing and I have no control over it! So, on that note... I think it's about time for my afternoon snack :)

19 Weeks & a Broken Heart... Valve.

I gotta start off the beginning of the post by dedicating it to my Dad. He had OPEN HEART SURGERY today! I'm happy to report that everything went well with the surgery and he is currently recovering in the Intensive Care Unit.

He found out last week he had a failing aortic heart valve and needed immediate surgery for replacement of the valve. This is a major surgery. They take a jigsaw to your chest, separate the ribs, and stop the heart. That's the easy part. They then have to remove the valve, put in a new one, get your heart going again, and sew you back up with such precision - can't even be off by a hair - or else you could mess up normal blood flow and need a pace maker installed for the rest of your life.

All reports say the surgery went as good as it possibly could have and my Dad's now on the road to recovery. I am SO relieved!! I was kicking myself I didn't stay down there all week instead of flying home last Monday so that I could be additional support in the waiting room, but it sounds like he had a great cheering squad... all 3 of my sisters, one bro-in-law, and my mom sat in the OR waiting room throughout the whole surgery, and were all there when he woke up.

So Dad, thank you for opting to have this surgery ASAP because we all need your ticker workin' for another 66 years! This world would be a much worse place if it was minus one Ladd C and I am SO happy you're on the road to recovery :)

If only we just lived closer...

So, now on to the weekly pregnancy update!!I am 19 weeks!! How did I get so far along? This is ONE week from being half way through... crazy.

I am feeling definite movement, but I wouldn't say I've felt "strong kicks". But the movements feel much more distinct and much less like other weird things that could be going on in my body. I love feeling him move. Love. It.

Other than out-growing most my pre-prego jeans, everything is going great. I feel good, have tons of energy, and have not had any strange-off-the-wall cravings yet. Darn. The belly is definitely showing but could still be mistaken for A Too-Much-Thanksgiving-Peanut-Butter-Pie Belly (Mmmmm, thanks Shelley!!)

Speaking of the belly... here it is at 19 weeks:So that's about all there is to report this week. It's been super busy around here and life's not slowing down anytime soon. We got Sam's family coming to go clamming out at the ocean this weekend, so maybe I'll post some fun pics from that. It's always a guaranteed good time :)

Big Ultrasound, and...

We had our BIG ultrasound two weeks ago and Baby N. was NOT shy about letting us see HIS parts. He was super active throughout the whole thing and was squirming around and sucking his fingers and waving his arms and sticking out his belly and arching his back and putting on a whole big show!

There was one part though, when the tech wanted to get a profile shot, and all he wanted to do was lay face down. She had me roll to my left side, then back to my right side, then back on my back to see if we could get him to move. Sure enough, he was now looking straight up but quickly rolled over to cover his face again! It was too cute.

She told us we had a "difficult" baby and I could only reply that he is his father's child.

Here are a few of the ultrasound images we got to take home with us :)
Since our ultrasound was so early (17w) and they usually don't do them until 20-21 weeks, we got to schedule another one for 21 weeks! I can't wait. It's two weeks from today and I am so anxious to see our little boy again.

I'm starting to feel him move more and more and yesterday I popped into my Dr's office to hear his heartbeat just for fun. It was beating healthily away at 150 bpm and the nurse had to move the doppler multiple times to find his heart because he kept wriggling away and she would lose him!

I am loving pregnancy and all the planning and am starting to get REALLY excited to shop nursery items and plan a theme. A post regarding preliminary nursery thoughts will be made soon, and so will the 19 w update!!

The weeks are just flying by!