Our little boy!!

We just got back from our ultrasound yesterday morning and are excited to announce that we'll be having a healthy little boy! Our technician got a few "great shots" and said he wasn't a very shy one :0) It was so amazing to see him moving all around, playing with his fingers, kicking around his feet. This tiny little 12 oz. boy inside me!?! We were in awe the whole time and couldn't tear our eyes away from the monitor. All the measurements looked great and he seems to be active and healthy. Kindly placing his head on my bladder...hence the frequent bathroom trips, I realized. We'll post one of the pictures we got once we unpack our scanner (yes, we moved this Saturday as well!) so stay tuned. She got a great one of his face looking at the monitor and his hand looking like it's waving :0) One of the best parts was that Matthew got to feel him kick for the first time right before we went in! Maybe it was all the OJ I had drunk that morning or maybe he just wanted his Dad to know he was excited to "show himself off" for the first time to his parents :0) Either way, that was fun for Matthew and for me.

So it was quite an eventful Easter weekend. With our big move into the city on Saturday, Easter Sunday with friends, our ultrasound Monday morning and Matthew securing a new job with an art handling company only a few blocks from our house! We feel overwhelmed with all these gifts from our Father...who never fails to provide, we just forget often that He does. We have a new home number, new cell phone numbers and a new address for anyone interested. Just email me at amyclaire@myway.com and I can pass that info along.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend yourselves. Stay posted for the ultrasound picture of our boy! How weird is THAT to say?!? Much love, Amy

First Signs of Restlessness!

Well that's what our kiddo is looking like this week...plus or minus those certain private parts...which HOPEFULLY we'll find out this Monday at our ultrasound. As you can tell, those legs are getting lanky and are starting to move around. And last night I felt it!! Matthew and I were just laying in bed talking when I felt an odd tap in my lower belly. It weirded me out since I'd heard that you usually feel flutterings or bubbles or something before kicks but this was as if someone was flicking me with their finger inside! I put my hand down there and felt it again!! It was the slightest little bumping, but so different than other gassy or bloated feelings I'd been having!! I grab Matthew's hand to see if the baby would tease us again...but it didn't...of course :0) WHAT A WILD FEELING!! Guess s/he liked the Whopper Jr. we picked up at 10:30pm after leaving our Home Group and having a starve-attack. Mmm, nothing like grease & fat to get the baby moving, right?! So all these little steps along the way are reminding us that there's really a person growing inside me. Even if we can't see their physical presence yet! We'll keep you posted on how things go next Monday morning.

Slow Growth

Today I am 18 weeks along. Two weeks shy of starting my 5th month...and I'm afraid I don't have much to show for it. A lot of the past few weeks of "growth" has been some legitimate growth, but mostly just being bloated and gassy. Sorry, TMI, I know. Though my selection of pants has slimmed down I'm still fitting into my jeans and cords. No one could tell I was pregnant at this point, besides Matthew and I of course. This week has given me a little more to hope for as the area right below my belly button is slightly sticking out. That gives me hope that one of these mornings I'll wake up with a real baby belly and it's not all an allusion in my head :0)

We're about 10 days away from our big ultrasound and praying that Jesus is keeping this little baby safe and healthy. At about 6 inches today, it should be even bigger by that point and hopefully photogenic enough to post those pictures on here so you can see it's first portrait! Woo-hoo!

Today we take the train into the city to hear my favorite bluegrass band, Old Crow Medicine Show, give a free live radio concert at the World Cafe. If you get the World Cafe (usually in the 80's on your radio dile...xpn.org) tune in at noon and you'll hear some hootin' n' hollerin' from Matthew & I :0)

Hope you all enjoy the weekend and the coming of spring on Sunday! All here in Philly....don't forget, Rita's gives away free regulars that day!! Ahh, who could survive a summer without Philly water ice?!

Way to go Allison!

Our partners-in-crime during our last few months in Colorado (before they headed back to sunny CA and we headed to chilly PA) just had their first kiddo on March 4th. Welcome little Emersen! Isn't he beautiful!? Now we have some role models to call in the wee hours of September nights when we don't know WHAT to do with our newest family member...ha, ha ;0) We're so excited for them and wanted to show you their cute boy. We're busy this week trying to get Matthew better from a nasty cold that won't go away and enjoying hosting one of Matthew's buds from Colorado. This is our big packing weekend as we head to our new home NEXT weekend and celebrate with a Birthday(my 25th)/House-Warming potluck the NEXT weekend...busy weels ahead! We're getting anxious for our ultrasound in two weeks and my "halfway mark" appointment with the midwife during my 20th week. I'm hoping by then I might have at least SOMEWHAT of a pregnant belly. Not much has changed since the last posted picture. I know, I know...I'll be so sick of being big by August I'll regret ever saying anything. But I'm ready to put on some bulk here at 17 weeks!

Getting My Greens

So I haven't been able to eat anything green in awhile which I doubt is very helpful for the little bambino. I decided the other night I was going to MAKE myself eat something green, even if I had to force it down. I thought I had a brilliant idea...I would puree a box of frozen spinach and just drink it. Sounds pretty easy, right? Just like holding your nose and drinking your medicine when you were a kid. Well, if you've ever pureed a vegetable, you know it doesn't exactly liquify...it more "sauce"ifies. I tried drinking the thick mush but practically threw it back up just by the consistency of it. I was making shrimp marinara, so Matthew suggested I just add the pureed spinach to that. Mmm, above is our creation. Not exactly appetizing for a queasy pregnant gal. But eating it the dark, watching a movie seemed to help some. Thankfully this past week, I've been able to start eating my spinach salad again...hopefully no more pureed spinach will enter our kitchen again. Our latest exciting news is that we just found an awesome apartment near my other two pregnant friends down in the city. So we'll all be having our new babies within a month of each other and be less than a mile apart! Great news anticipating this transition to working from home. God is good and is providing in ways for us we NEVER expected...from a wonderful home, to friends partnering with us in this journey!

Bizarre Dreams

I'm not sure how many of you gals who've been pregnant before have experienced this random side effect, but I have been having the most BIZARRE and vivid dreams since I've been pregnant! I won't go into ALL the details since they might give YOU weird dreams, but last nights was hilarious...I dreamed that I was at my normal monthly check-up when my midwife asked me to go ahead and deliver the baby so we could make sure everything was okay. So I did, and we both held the baby, checked it's heartbeat, etc...Then she said "Okay, time to go back in!" So I said "Bye little guy, see you in a few months" and popped it back in. Weird! The funny thing was that we couldn't figure out if it was a boy or girl yet. Hadn't quite GROWN those parts yet...ha, ha. So no revelation in my dream of what we're having! But we did schedule our 19 week ultrasound for the end of March. Who knows if they'll be able to find anything out or if we'll have a "private baby" who keeps it's legs tight :0) We're heard dissappointing stories about that, so we're trying not to get our hopes up too high about finding out if it's a boy or girl. But if the technician can tell, we want to know. We'll be sure to keep you all posted.