Showered in Katy

Last weekend, Kara got to be the center of attention at her baby shower hosted by Lee's sis, grandma, and some of his mom's closest friends. They made us feel so honored and special.

We played a few games which I would recommend for any shower:

• Guess the number of jellybeans in the jar
• Guess what's in the sack (pass around several sacks with a baby item in each, and the participants must guess what the item is without looking) - I got 9/10 right! This made me feel like I might be a competent mother.
• Make up a princess name for the baby (the participants had to make up nicknames using only letters from Lee & my full names). Some names of honorable mention were; FiFi LiLi NeNe YeYe RaRa HaHa, Tiny Fashionista, Tea Leaf, and Fonesha (pronounced phone-isha). I came up with Shy Bean.

We had a great time talking, laughing, and eating the best cookies and petit fours ever! I was especially excited to see my best friend from college (shout out to Lauren) come in from Austin to celebrate with us.

Right now I don't have any pictures, but I will likely post some later.

Thanks again to all of the lovely women who helped with the shower and made me and our little girl (FiFi LiLi NeNe, etc) feel so special.

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

This past weekend was perfect for getting us ready to celebrate the Christmas season.

On Friday, we received about 2 inches of snow in north Houston. It didn't stick, but we were able to watch the flurries fall for most of the day. I kept trying to take the dogs out in the snow, but they weren't impressed. Apparently, they don't recognize snow as cool or special, just cold wetness on their paws. Since the snow was melting as soon as it hit anything, I wasn't able to take many good pictures. So, I decided to make Kermit lay down on the wet ground until enough snow accumulated on his fur to take a picture.



On Saturday, Lee and I hung our Christmas lights. Since I am 8 months pregnant, it was his turn to get on the roof, which was slick from the freeze the night before. He was obviously uncomfortable being up there, and this was totally against all of the safety rules that are drilled into him at ExxonMobil. But he did a great job, and now our house illuminates with the warm, fuzzy glow of Christmas.


Unfortunately, we are still waiting for our advent story to come in. We like reading Arnold Ytreeide's advent books. He has 3 books, and I guess they fall under the historical fiction genre. This year's story is Bartholomew's Passage. The story is segmented into chapters, so there is a reading for each night of advent that eventually leads you to the birth of Christ Jesus.
This is probably our most stable Christmas tradition. Lee and I enjoy taking half an hour each night to snuggle up, read a chapter, and pray. Hopefully the book will come in soon because we already have quite a bit of catch-up to do. If you would like to check out these books, here is a link to the publishing company http://www.jothamsjourney.com/
You can also order them through LifeWay bookstores.

Baby Sitting?

We received a very gracious gift from my grandmother, Grammi.

She recently moved into a new retirement community and had too much furniture for her space. There were two chairs that belonged to my great grandmother, Mema (Grammi's mother-in-law). Since the cloth was somewhat worn, Grammi had them re-upholstered. Here is a shot of one of them for your viewing pleasure:

The footstool was re-upholstered by my mom, in about an hours time. Quite expedient and crafty!

We'll be using one for Kara's room, giving us a place to "baby sit". Eventually, it will join the other chair in our bedroom, giving mommy and daddy a very nice place to relax.

FBC Couples Baby Shower

This past weekend, our friends from Faith Bible Church threw us an awesome Couples Baby Shower. The dads don't usually get to be a part of the baby parties, but this party was made for the guys and the gals to enjoy.

It was sweet (flowers, cutsie cupcakes, pink packages), but not too sweet (pizza, more root beer than I've ever seen in my life, and a practically naked toddler running around trying to fight the men while streamers were hanging from his diaper). Needless to say, we loved it!

This group has been a huge blessing to us since we moved to Spring 2 years ago. We have been able to share our joys and our struggles with them. We have prayed for them, and they have prayed for us. And several of us are just entering parenthood, so we will have new joys and struggles to share...I'm sure.

Here are pictures of Kara's soon-to-be friends from our church group. They had fun at the shower too!

There's something missing

I knew this would happen some day. The change was slow, but it has finally come to the point where I can no longer deny it. I just have to be honest with myself...I have no belly button.

My umbilical wonder has disappeared. No more trapped lent. No more...well, that's all it was probably good for.

Here is a cute video to help mourn the loss of my belly button.

Final Trimester!

We are officially in our 3rd trimester! Kara and I are growing, and she has continued to be incredibly active. We love watching her move and stretch around my belly. She is reactive to touch and pressure, which has given Lee a great way to play with her/antagonize her over the past weeks. But she gets her revenge at night by kicking him in the back while he is trying to sleep. I didn't realize this was happening since I am a heavy sleeper.

The picture on the left is week 16, and the picture on the right is week 27.

Kids are cute

The little one in the picture is my cousin, David. He is 4 years old, which means he is active, a bit rambunctious, and extremely inquisitive.

This weekend was the first time he has seen me with a belly. He understands that pregnant means baby, but was a little curious about how the whole thing worked. He kept coming up to me to feel my belly and try to get a peak under my shirt. After being satisfied that the baby hadn't come out, he would look at me and pronounce, "It's still in there."

After a while, I guess his mind got to thinking...and he came up to me with a question. "How does the baby get out?"

It's an innocent question, but really, what do you tell a 4 year old? So after an awkward silence, and possibly a bit of blushing, I told him the truth. "I'm going to push it out."

It must have been a good answer, because as you can tell from the picture, he likes to push things. So he put both hands on my belly and started to push on it. Unfortunately for him, but luckily for me, my grandpa quickly put a stop to that.

David will just have to wait like the rest of us. But it is nice to know that he is excited about meeting his cousin.