Chloe's Christmas and Shopping Spree

First, I wanted to show you all what Chloe raked in for Christmas. She's not even here yet and already buying gifts and taking up my closet space. Of course, I'm just fine with that! I am missing a picture of one very cute Christmas item she received that I have already packed up with my Christmas stuff, but other than that this is what she got:

This is an outfit she got from my Mom and Dad. I love teal on a little girl and am so excited to get to see her in it!
This one is from my brother and his family. They are Tennessee fans (obviously) and my brother loves to give Russ a hard time because we are Razorbacks fans. I'm in need of a huge orange bow headband for her now.

My sis and her hubby bought her the horse. When you squeeze the tail, its mouth opens to reveal a flashlight and it whinnies. Too cute! My Mom and Dad gave her the froggy rattle.

I've posted before about Kohl's Cares For Kids. This quarter they are selling Dr. Suess books and stuffed animals. I have already bought all four of them! I'm running out of room on my shelf.

I did manage to stuff the last two guys that Russ and I bought tonight into the shelf. One good thing about it is that they will eventually be moving to Chloe's room! I hope she likes to read!

While at Kohl's tonight, I wanted to go look in the baby section. We have bought very few things for Chloe and I was itching to spend some cash. We made out pretty well!

Russ loved this blanket and had to buy it for her. It is extremely soft and too cute! He didn't have to twist my arm too much...
I picked this onsie up and loved it! It says "Mommy loves me" and I just think it is so sweet and cute. I put it down because it was $7.00 and I think that is a little much to pay for a onsie. Yes, I'm cheap. Anyway, I walked off and when Russ and I got up to the register he had picked it up because he knew I liked it so much. Awwww.
These were on sale and I couldn't resist them. It took me forever to pick out two that I really wanted. She won't even be in them that long, but I just couldn't decide.
The main reason I went to the baby section was to buy Chloe something to wear to church services for the first time. I wanted something cute and summery to show her off in and found this little number. I had picked up a frilly white dress first, but settled on this one. I love hats on baby's and that's what sent me over the edge. Plus, Russ liked it better than the frilly dress.

I hope you all enjoyed my pictures!

Here are some Christmas Pictures!
Russ and I

My sis, Chelley, and her hubby, Chris

My brother, Jeremy, and his wife, Shawna

Their kids, Kaylee and Jordan

My Dad and Mom

Christmas aftermath

Kaylee and Jordan in the wrapping paper

We have a family tradition that my Granny Tiger started years ago. Her and my Pappy would save their change all year and on Christmas day, they would put it all into a bag and let each grandchild and great-grandchild get a scoop of the change. The little kids get to use two hands and the adults get to use one hand. We then all count our change together and see how much we each got. We (my family) don't get to go to Granny Tiger and Pappy's for Christmas very often anymore, but they always send my parents money to get the change and we have carried on the tradition. It's one of the best parts of Christmas and you would be very surprised how much change you can scoop out of a bag in one hand. I scooped $45.87 this year (after Dad handed out the change we didn't scoop)!

Dad handing out the rest of the change from the bagKaylee counting her change

I hope you all enjoyed our Christmas pictures!

Bump Watch - 24 Weeks

VIABILITY!!! I'm so excited to be celebrating this milestone! Chloe is a little wiggle worm and I couldn't be happier.

Weight Gain: I don't really want to talk about it. I weighed Christmas morning and had gained 2 1/2 pounds over 2 weeks which was really good in my opinion. That brought my weight up to 10 pounds. Then I weighed the morning after Christmas and it said I gained 3 1/2 pounds on Christmas day! YIKES! I'm sure I'll lose the majority of that since I won't be eating sweets and rich foods, but still. I had no idea that gaining that much in a day was even possible. Made me sweat. So my total weight gain so far is 13 1/2 pounds. At least I'm still within normal range.
That's it for now. I hope everyone had a happy holiday. Stay tuned for Christmas pictures!

Scrapbook Pages and Onesie

Since my family hasn't made it into town yet, I decided to catch up on my pregnancy scrapbook. Ok, by catch up, I had to do two bump watch pictures and our "it's a girl" page. Not much to catch up on, but a good few hours of scrapbooking fun!Bump Watch - 20 Weeks

This is my "It's A Girl" spread.
1st page of the spread.
2nd page of spread.

Bump Watch - 22 Weeks
I found this onesie at Target the other day and couldn't resist. I bought Chloe a pair of pink pants to go with it.

I hope everyone is having a nice holiday.

Recipe Time!

Kriss asked me to post my recipe for corn casserole. This is a family favorite of ours and we have it every Thanksgiving and Christmas...well, and a lot besides those two times. So here it is:

Corn Casserole

1 can cream corn
1 can whole corn
2 eggs slightly beaten
1 8 oz. sour cream
1 stick oleo melted
1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix
Salt and pepper
1 T sugar
1 cup grated cheese

Stir all ingredients (except the grated cheese) together and pour into a 9x13 baking dish. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Sprinkle grated cheese over the top and bake an additional 20 minutes.

Mmmm good. I can't wait to make it for Christmas dinner. Glad I get to wear stretchy pants this year!

Belly Pats

I recieved my first non-family member belly pats today! YAY! I have been looking forward to someone patting my belly since around 20 weeks. I'm not one of those girls that hate all people in my personal space (at least people who aren't creepy). A woman that I work with patted my belly today and I loved it! I don't even know her that well, but it just made me feel so great. If you are a friend of mine in real life, please come pat the belly! It is supposed to bring you good luck!

A Couple Tidbit

I was on pregnancy.com yesterday and they had a list up of the top 100 boy and girl baby names of 2008. Chloe was number 12. I couldn't believe it was that high. It doesn't really matter much, I was just shocked. I don't know a single Chloe in real life. I had a little girl named Chloe in a class when I worked in daycare, but other than her, I don't know any. Logan was number 9 which I wasn't shocked about. We knew when we picked out that name that it was common. If you want to see the list it is located here.

For the other tidbit, the second trimester message board on WebMD has a Thursday tradition of measuring their bellies with toilet paper. Then they each post and say how far along they are and how many sheets big they are. I am 23 weeks tomorrow and am 9 sheets big. It's just a fun little game that we do.

My Husband, the Non-Secret Keeper

Every Christmas I get my shopping done early. I like to wrap everything and put the gifts under the tree to enjoy them for a couple weeks before the aftermath of Christmas sets in. But, every year, there is never anything under the tree for me until the day of or day before we open gifts. Maybe this sounds totally selfish, but I like to anticipate what is under all that wrapping paper. I like to think about the gifts I bought and how Russ will react when he opens them. It's all part of Christmas and I hate to miss that. The last few years have resulted in fights because Russ leaves his shopping until the last minute. One year he went to Little Rock with his Dad on CHRISTMAS EVE to shop IN A SNOWSTORM.

This has always been a point of contention so I started early with him this year. "Honey, don't you think you should go get a few gifts today since it's nice weather?" "Honey, there still isn't anything under the tree for me." "Baby, I gave you a list, didn't I?"

So, last night I started whining about my lack of gifts under the tree. I hate it that he leaves everything until the last minute. I'm a "get it done early" type of person and he is so not. So after I made him feel about 3 inches tall (which is pretty difficult since he is 6'2), he left to "go work out." I didn't think anything of it. This is his normal evening routine. After a while I started wondering where he went because the work out room closes at 9:00 p.m. and by this time, it was 9:30 p.m. Oh well, I climbed in bed to do a little reading before going to sleep.

The gift situation really is a catch 22. Russ can not keep a secret for anything. My list consisted of the new George Strait cd, a jump drive to store my pictures on, a Willow Tree figurine and a few other odds and ends. A couple of weeks ago, he did actually get me the jump drive and George Strait cd. I know this because he came home from Wal-Mart (of course these two gifts were in Electronics so he remembered them) and said to me "You did say you wanted the new George Strait cd and a jump drive, right?" Surprise ruined. Last night, he came home and said "Now which Willow Tree figure did you want?" When I told him which one (Cherish), he said "oh, I got the wrong ones." Yes, ones plural. "You bought me two?" "Aww, man!" He is a horrible secret keeper.

Though, this little bit of information worked to my advantage because then he brought out one of them a gave it to me last night and is going to go get the one I really want instead. He also bought me a really cute book and gave that to me last night, too. By the way, he NEVER pays attention to the budget...but, how can I really complain about that? That part always works to my advantage.

Here is the Willow Tree figure he gave to me last night.

It's called "Our Gift" and I cried when he gave it to me.

This is the book he bought for me.

And just because I love this, I bought this little onsie for Chloe last weekend.

I sure do love that man even though he can't keep a secret to save his life.

Kristin Billerbeck is Blogging!

Kristin Billerbeck is one of my favorite authors. She writes "Christian Chick Lit"...you know, romantic comedies of women who don't sleep with men on the first date. Of all the books she has written (and I do own them all if you know me in real life and want a good read), the Ashely Stockingdale series is the absolute best. I recieved her newsletter over e-mail today and imagine me insane delight when I saw that she has started a blog. Woo hoo! This is the most exciting news I have read in a long time! So, girls, go check it out. It is bound to be a great read!


Girly Girl

Pictures

Now for your viewing pleasure, here are some more pictures of me as a baby and toddler. I just love all the pictures Mom gave me. I love to go through and look at them all the time. Russ gets really annoyed with me because every time I look through them, I want him to see how cute we all were and he gets bored with that. HA!

This is me in my Daddy's arms a few hours after I was born. I don't know my exact weight at birth, but I was over 8 pounds. I love this picture!
This is me at 6 weeks old. I still have that double chin. Why is it so cute on a baby? Well, I think it's cute anyway...
This is a family picture from February of 1984.
This is also from 1984. Mom thinks this was a Christmas picture. Isn't it crazy how much more "toddler-like" I look compared the picture from February? I had to clarify with Mom that they were both from the same year!
These are my siblings and I at the same time in 1984.
This is a later picture of my siblings and I. I'm not sure what year it was. It had to have been around the same time that my Aunt Suzie and Uncle Joel got married because the dresses my sis and I are wearing are the same dresses we wore to their wedding.

That's all I have for now. I hope you all enjoyed these pictures!

Scrapbook Cover

I wanted to share my scrapbook cover with you since I've been sharing the pages inside. I just finished this today. I finally found some embellishments that I liked to go on the front. I originally had bought a green book with animals on the front, but eventually decided that it would be better for the baby's book, not my pregnancy book. I love the way it turned out! The sticker at the top right says "Always in my heart." The orange one on the left with the hearts hanging off says "labor of love." Heh, heh. If the makers only knew...anyway, the green one in the middle says "mommy-to-be" and the orange one in the bottom right says "bundle of joy."

Driving Courtesy

Sometimes I think we live in a world full of rude and uncourteous people. Oh wait. We do. Last night on my way home from work a man pulled out of a parking lot into the turning lane. He needed to get into my lane. Being the nice driver that I am (seriously, I'm a very nice driver), I let him in front of me. He waved to say "thanks" and drove on. When he got to the intersection, another driver whipped in front of him, cutting him off. He proceeded to blare his car horn for at least 20 seconds. When we got further down the road, he whips into the turning lane and passes the guy. The other car tried to pass, but there was too much traffic. As they were playing this insane road game all I wanted to do was get out from behind them. I was also thinking about how I was just nice to the first guy and let him in front of me and he can't just let it go that the second guy cut him off. Personally, I don't think it was worth potentially causing a wreck to get even. They probably didn't even know each other and won't ever see each other again. I wish more people thought about how they drive and how they act towards people. It's just not worth it to me to exert that kind of road rage to get to a destination faster. If I'm late for work, I don't take it out on the other drivers because it was my fault that I was late, not theirs.

Purple?

Is the purple lettering easier to read than the brown? I had the darkest shade of brown that I could and I didn't care for the green.

Bump Watch - 22 Weeks

I've been told by more than a few people this week that I'm "starting to show." It's about time! Though, I'm very happy with my progress. I have a coworker that is 3 weeks ahead of me and she looks like she is about 3 months ahead of me. She has a long way to go...grow...and I feel bad for her skin. Also, everyone says that it's all in my belly so that makes me happy. I think my hips have widened, but haven't gotten bigger.

Weight Gain: 7 1/2 pounds. I have no idea how I didn't gain anything in the last two weeks. It's not like I don't eat. I do. Like a pig. I am right on track for my weight gain goals. My goal was to gain 25 to 30 pounds and if I can gain a pound a week from here on out, I would make that goal. Though, that sounds horribley scary now that I think about it. Oh well, if Chloe needs a pound a week, she'll tell me.

That's it for now Blogger Buddies! Have a great weekend!

Background Woes

I am having the hardest time selecting a new background for this blog. I didn't like the way my new header looked with the old one so I went searching for a new one. The only think I don't like about this green background is that I'm going to have to change the color of my words. The white is way too hard to see in my opinion. What do you think about this one? Yay or Nay?

Hello Kitty

I want to deliver baby girl here.

Healthcare Crisis?

I was reading one of the blogs I frequent written by an ER doctor. Check it out here. He had included a link to an article on CNN about getting in to see your doctor in a timely manner. The article was awful! Among their suggestions was calling a local news station to complain that you couldn't get in to see your doctor. By the way, if I was a doctor, I would fire you from being my patient if you did that to me! It also said that instead of saying you have a sore throat, tell the receptionist that your throat is closing. Again, YOU'RE FIRED!

This got me thinking that it really is no wonder that there is a shortage of primary care doctors right now. If patients treat their doctors like this and primary care doctors are one of the lowest paid positions in the physician realm then why are we surprised that they are all going into different fields?

That thought made me stop and think about all the hypochondriacs that I know. I'm not a person that runs to the doctor every time I get the sniffles and I think people who do that are, not only ridiculous, but also a waste of time. We live in a society that wants instant gratification. This is where medicines and antibiotics come in. We get the sniffles. We go to the doctor straight away (if you can get in on a short notice). They give you antibiotics. We completely ruin our immune systems after the 5th round of antibiotics in a month and then we wonder why we are always sick. Well, gee, that's a tough one.

Some people today would classify my parents as child abusers because I don't ever remember going to the doctor when I was younger. If I had the chicken pox (summer before 1st grade), I didn't go to the doctor. I sat on the couch with my sickling siblings and rubbed calamine lotion all over my body until I got well. If I had a cold (every single winter until recently), I took cough meds, but never remember going to the doctor. My parents were able to nurse me back to health, many times being sick themselves. I am thankful that they were the type that were patient with ailments because my immune system rocks! I haven't been truly sick in years.

Now, as an adult, I try to keep that perspective in mind. If I get the sniffles, I certainly don't rush off to my PCP and act like it's an emergency that I see him. It's a wonder how people will work with you if you are just nice and courteous to them. Tell them what is really going on, don't exaggerate the truth. They are trained to weed out the emergencies from the "sniffles". And for goodness sake, America, stop being hypochondriacs!

Registry

I've been trying to find a bedding set that I like from Wal-Mart. I chose Wal-Mart for my registry because I feel like I can get more of the bigger items for less. I think Target is too expensive with bedding and things that baby won't use for more than 2 or 3 years. Anyway, so I went to our Wal-Mart and I hate all of the bedding sets they have on the shelves. I like more vivid colors and I don't care for pastels as much. I found a couple of sets on the Internet that I love. Do you all think it would be tacky to register for something that people won't be able to get in a store? Or I could just not register for bedding and buy it myself. Either way, I can't get it in a store. It will have to be ordered online. Here are the two sets I like. I'll make a decision on which one soon since I still have a lot of time.

Petals

Spring Time

Also, I was wondering what you all would do in this situation. There is a very limited number of travel sets (stroller and infant car seat combo) at our Wal-Mart. I believe there were four at the biggest Wal-Mart. One of them was Pooh and I don't like Pooh at all. There was another that was brown and I didn't like it either. That left two to choose from. One was pink and grey. Very cute and I liked it. It was under $200.00 which meant hopefully I could get it at a baby shower if people went in on it. The other was a teal set that was cute, but over $200.00. It was the most expensive one there. I don't want to be picky about what I get and I don't want to register for the most expensive items because then I'll be less likely to get what I need and I would feel bad about it. So, here's the problem: If I have a boy sometime, I won't want to put a boy in a pink car seat and stroller. Russ said that we would just buy a different one, but that seems impractical to me. But, if we don't do that we will have to register for the more expensive neutral one. What I really want to do is get the pink and grey, but it just seems silly if we end up having a boy later. What would you do?

I'm probably thinking about it too hard. I just want to be cost-effecient and not be greedy when it comes to this. Decisions, decisions...

Movement!

Our sweet little Chloe Jo finally kicked her Daddy's hand. I have been able to feel her for about a month now, but last week I started feeling her throughout the days. I also started feeling her on the outside a few weeks ago, but everytime I yelled for Russ to come feel her, she would stop. Little stinker! So last night, I told Russ to put his hand on my belly and just leave it there for a while. She was really active so I thought she would be cooperative and she didn't disappoint! He finally got to feel her a few times and he was completely excited about it. She already has her Daddy wrapped around her finger. Too cute!

In other weekend news, I went with my Mom and Dad down to my sister's house and Mom, Sis, and I went Christmas shopping. I got everything done except for shopping for Russ. He's a little hard this year because he hasn't given me a list. I have two things for him and a lot of the budget left.

Chelley told me that she is going to call Chloe Chlogan until we know for sure that she is a girl. She and my Mom aren't convinced of the results from last week. I'm very convinced because it was way early with the first guess and there was a reason the radiologist never came out and said "it's a boy." He only kept showing us her little bottom and what looked like boy parts. He would pan over to the umbilical cord and say "This is the umbilical cord. This is not." I'm excited to start buying pink and ruffles and bows so I'm just going to go with it!

That's all for now. Stay Cool Blogger Buddies!

The Name Game

We have chosen a name...okay, we already had chosen a girl name I just needed a little convincing. Our princesses name is.....drumroll please....

Chloe Jo

The Future

How can you not love a sweet little girl with pink sneakers and bows in her hair?