Pregnancy update

I had my regular prenatal check-up today, and they told me they like to do an early ultrasound just to check on the progress. So, Nicole and I got a little peek at baby #3 (no gender info yet, but you're welcome to guess anyway). It was so neat to see the baby already, and the most special part was to see (and hear) the heart beating steady.

This baby feels more and more real all the time, but I loved getting to actually see the head and hands and such. By the way, as you interpret my inkblot, this picture is a profile shot with the head at the bottom right. You can see the spine leading up the left-hand side of the shot, and the two little dots of lighter color at the top are a glimpse of the legs. I'm biased, but I think this baby is already cute! I felt bad Matt couldn't be there in person to see it!

Our little family, is, of course, quite excited about this baby, but Vanessa is so much more excited and interested than I expected. Everyday she wants to see my profile and touch my belly, exclaiming, "Mommy, your tummy is getting bigger!" She likes to look at pregnancy websites with me to see how big the baby is supposed to be and how it changes. She can't wait for this baby to be born so she can hold it and feed it. Vanessa also regularly picks names. The names change frequently, but currently she likes Alyssa for a girl, and Scott for a boy. It will be fun to see her reactions with future changes!

Nicole most of the time is content just the way things are, but she loves the idea of getting to be a big sister. She also loves taking care of her baby dolls, and names them the names of babies she knows. I think she still likes being Mommy's "baby", so hopefully we can help her adjust well to a new baby when the time comes.

Snow Days

Since moving to Texas, I thoroughly expected to not have a white Christmas. Yet to my delighted surprise, the night before Christmas Eve it snowed, and snowed...

and stayed! so we went out Christmas Eve morning excited to play in the 6 inches we got.
It was a little colder and windier than we thought...
so seeing, playing, or staying outside was hard...
But we managed to make a snow mound man out of the dry powder!

Since then, we've had some other snow days. It's been a bit surprising how many cold, snowy days we've had here. I am beginning to think that when we got ready for our big move, we accidentally packed some Utah weather in there somewhere. We've begun to be less and less excited every time it snows. We like the sun! Still, yesterday, we got about 3 inches of snow and Vanessa was home (school delays and sickness), so we decided to enjoy the snow again.

And here's the girls first authentic-looking snowman. They even hung in there for making most of it before begging to go inside for hot chocolate and a movie.

Drawing frenzy

The girls have busy at work drawing lately...just about every time they spot a paper they want to draw. Here are some of my favorites:

Nicole has started drawing faces (with legs), and decided to draw a family portrait

Each person is turned a different way. Clockwise from top: Vanessa, Mommy (she said I was going crazy because I couldn't swim with everyone else), Nicole (the dot is a toy under her), Daddy, and the last person was her own creation-Daddy's cousin "Rana" (We've been watching Jungle Book lately!)

Here are a few of Vanessa's drawings. We just recently saw A Bug's Life for the first time. Here is Francis the Ladybug:
Heimlich the Caterpillar:
Slim the Walking Stick:

And when she ran out of paper she drew on the back of the note pad. The Queen Ant:

And people ask me if they're twins...

Peaceful Sleep

I have more great news. Nicole recently had a much needed follow-up sleep study done. For those who may not know, she has been sleeping with a cannula (nose tube) hooked to an oxygen machine. While that has been a helpful temporary solution, it never was fully getting the job done.

With the follow-up, they were able to confirm that she is still dealing with sleep apnea and requested a second sleep study at that clinic so she could be studied while sleeping with a CPAP and mask. Monday night I went in with her to the study. It took a few hours to get her hooked up and asleep enough to allow the pressurized air to be attached to her mask, but once she was set up, she went into a long, deep, still, restful sleep for a while. Our wonderful sleep tech, Tom, kept me up-to-date on how things were going, and asked me, "Has she ever slept this well?" I thought for a minute on that. This may be the first in a long time that she didn't move or wheeze for more air while in deep sleep. It was an emotional moment (still is) to see her laying there and knowing she was getting the best sleep...the sleep her little body needs so much.

We still have to go through the process of getting our own CPAP and mask for Nicole and adjusting her to it (the not so fun part), but after hitting countless road blocks in Utah trying to make all this happen, it seems incredible that we are so close now! We continue to discover why the Lord led us here to Lubbock. I can't wait to see how much better Niccoli will feel from getting great sleep!

News

September 2nd, 2010