Kick, Punch & Roll!

At 22 weeks Remy is a kicking, punching, and rolling machine! It seems like she is moving constantly. I am surprised at how much I can feel her now and also how strong the kicks are. Everything I have been reading says that I should be able to start figuring out her sleep cycle by when and how often she moves...but like I said, she moves ALL THE TIME! I'm starting to wonder if she ever sleeps! Uh oh.

Right now she should be around 12 inches long and anywhere between 14 and 20 ounces according to one website. Pretty much everything else says she weighs around 1 pound now. Her fruit comparison this week is a papaya (which I've never had nor seen, so I'm not sure how big this is exactly.) The books also say that she is sleeping around 12-14 hours a day (lets hope that's true) and looks like a miniature newborn.

The past week I've started to feel achy in my hips and lower back. I'm not sure if it is a sign of things to come or if it's just because I over-did it last week. (More about that in a minute.) I've been feeling alot of pressure in my lower stomach and feel like I am carrying her low. I think this is a good thing because I would take the pressure over crowded lungs ANY day! The books also say that I could get an "outtie" any day. I really hope this doesn't happen, at least not this soon...outties kind of creep me out. haha!

This past weekend we had our 4th Annual White Elephant Christmas Party. While it was in a different house this year, with different people in attendance, and I was unable to partake in the flowing wine it was still SUCH a great time! We started these parties while we were living in Eudora with our Kansas City friends, however, none of them were able to make it out here this year. This was the biggest one so far and possibly included the funniest gifts yet! Gifts ranged from half empty bottles of liquor to a bowling ball (carrying case included) to the famous As Seen On TV Eggies maker! :) In preparation for the party I did alot of running around all week, cleaning and cooking - so I think that could have contributed to my achiness. Looks like it might be time to start slowing down a little. Either way, it was a GREAT time and totally worth it! :)

We are really looking forward to Christmas this weekend and getting to see all of our families, including Mandy & family and Whitney & family! We really miss getting to see them whenever we wanted... In other family news, this past weekend my little sister, Hannah, turned 15! I cannot believe she is this old already. She is a freshmen in high school and even drives a car to and from school! I have loved every minute of watching her grow up and could not be more proud of the person she is. She is unbelievably smart, beautiful and is one of the sweetest people I know. (I can say these things here without her getting a big head because I'm pretty sure she doesn't read my blog! haha) Anyways, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my favorite little sister! :)

Merry Christmas!

Bryant, Danielle, Belly & Remy Cakes

I would like to introduce you to...

Remy Elise Muir! Well, I suppose I can't introduce you just quite yet, as she is still hanging around in my belly...but you get the idea! :)

We officially decided on her name after having many, many, many discussions about her middle name. We have known for awhile that if we were having a girl we would name her Remy, we just couldn't agree on a middle name for her. Because Remy could easily be a boy or girl name, it was important to me that her middle name be very feminine - in order to avoid any confusion. Although, I'm sure with a unique name like Remy she will still have some future annoyances, but really...who doesn't have SOME issues with their name? For as long as I remember, more people than not tend to spell my name as "Daniel." So I guess even if you have a 'normal' name, there is no guarantee. :)

I am so happy to have her name figured out and can't wait to officially meet Miss Remy Elise! This past weekend we put up a new decoration in her room with her name on it - adorable! (See photo below) Bryant calls her "Remy Cakes" which makes me melt every time...hopefully she enjoys her nickname as much as I do!

Love,

Bryant, Danielle, Belly & Remy Elise!

P.S. In Belly news, (I'm talking about our dog here, not my expanding stomach!) we have been having some issues with keeping him off of the couch recently. It's my fault because I was letting him get on the couch with me when I laid down. Anyways, with the baby on the way, we've been trying to train him to listen better (yeah right) and stay off the furniture - especially when uninvited. HOWEVER, despite our best efforts, now he is sleeping on the couch every time I come home for lunch AND after work!

I suppose you could say that Belly & I are not getting along at the moment and after some stern discussions, he doesn't seem to be getting the point. Hopefully he will stop before he is banished to the garage...or worse, outside! GASP!

21 Weeks

Well we're past the halfway mark and on the downhill slope! Only 19 weeks to go! :) My mom has been having trouble figuring out how many months I am based off weeks, so I think I will go ahead and start posting both weeks and months. 21 weeks would make us in our last week of the 5th month. Therefore, next week we will be beginning month number 6! I think I like the way that sounds better!

At 21 weeks our sweet little girl is the size of a banana, which makes her around 10.5 inches long and around 13 ounces. HOLY COW - she is almost a pound already! She is doing all kinds of things, like: producing meconium, (if you don't know what this is, don't ask - yuck!) moving around several times during the day, and she can now hear and recognize my voice....pretty exciting!

This past weekend we went to Kearney with several people from Stockton. It was such a good time! We ate really great food, watched a hockey game (a first for both of us), went bowling, sat around and visited, and shopped! It was a very relaxing and fun weekend. We are done with Christmas shopping, although we are stilling trying to find a digital SLR camera/video camera. We're not in a hurry, but would like to have one by the time Little Girl Muir gets here.

I have been feeling really great lately, however, I am starting to dread the 3rd trimester. Everything I am reading keeps telling me to enjoy being comfortable while it lasts, because I will be miserable soon enough...I'm really not looking forward to that. Oh well, in the end it will all be worth it! :) (But in the meantime I am going to pray that my 3rd trimester will be as easy as the first 2 have been - I probably just jinxed myself though!)

Whitney & Shaun are letting us borrow their glider and this past weekend my mom brought it back from KC with her. Little Girl Muir's room is filling up quickly! Everytime I walk past her room, I stop and look inside, imagining what it's going to be like when she's actually in there. I catch Bryant doing it alot too! Speaking of which, Bryant is going to be the best dad in the world. He has been unbelievably patient with me and is always eager to help out around the house. Little Girl Muir & I are so lucky to have such an awesome guy in ours lives! :) I think she already has him wrapped around her little finger...

We have decided to start reading books about what is going to happen AFTER she gets here, and not just books about pregnancy. I started reading one last night...who knew there were so many kinds/colors of poop! Soon I am going to check on classes at the hospital and look into infant CPR. It's starting to get real folks!!!!

Until next week,

Bryant, Danielle, Belly & Little Girl Muir

P.S. We have officially decided on a name for our little girl...will be posting it soon! :)

Little Girl Muir's Room

As promised, here are a few pictures of Little Girl Muir's bedroom. This is her crib bedding and the vinyl wall decals that I put up this weekend. I still have more to do, but this is the work in progress:




P.S. Before anybody yells at me, I know you aren't supposed to have the bumpers in the crib BUT she isn't sleeping in there yet...I promise I will take them out upon her arrival! :)

20 Weeks!

You know what 20 weeks means, right? WE'RE HALFWAY THERE! :) This week seems like a huge milestone. I cannot believe that we have actually made it to the halfway mark and that in just 20 more weeks (give or take) we will have a sweet baby girl moving in with us.

In baby news, Little Girl Muir (f/k/a Baby M) now weighs in at around 10.5 ounces and is around 6.5 inches (crown to rump) or 10 inches (crown to heel). She is about the size of a canteloupe, which seems enormous - and trust me I can tell she is getting bigger. I feel like my "bump" is constantly getting larger and my clothes smaller. For the most part I have felt pretty good. The achiness in my abdomen is not awful and really only bothers me when I roll from side to side at night. I still haven't gained any weight, which Dr. Hodny doesn't seem worried about...so I'm still not complaining, but I imagine the pounds will start packing on soon enough. Speaking of packing on the pounds, I have been starving lately. Every time I eat I get full really quickly, so I don't eat much - but then an hour later, I'm hungry again! It's annoying, but I guess that's what happens when your belly is full of baby. :)

Bryant spent this past weekend deer hunting and working with their new hunting dog, Molly. It started snowing early Saturday morning so Belly & I stayed at home where it was warm. I did some deep cleaning and also worked on Little Girl Muir's room a little. I had my eye on a bedding set for awhile, so once we found out we were having a girl I went ahead and ordered it - it looks perfect in her room! I also put up some vinyl wall decals which are adorable - I will put up pictures soon. Her room is coming together quickly and it is really starting to seem real that soon we will no longer be a two person family! (But in the meantime, I am taking every opportunity I have to get a nap in!) :)

This coming weekend we are going to head to Kearney, NE with a group of friends to do some shopping and to go to a hockey game. It sounds like it's going to be alot of fun and I am really looking forward to getting out of town for a few days. We are pretty much done with Christmas shopping, so my shopping will likely revolve around the little girl that tumbles around in my belly all day! :)

We have definitely decided on a first name for Little Girl Muir, but are still working on her middle name. I promise I will post her full name as soon as the decision is made! :)

The bump at 20 weeks...


Bryant, Danielle, Belly & Little Girl Muir

That's right, Baby M is a sugar & spice, ribbons & curls, beautiful little girl! Bryant & I couldn't be more excited about the news and have already made our first baby girl purchases. :) I think we're going to have a spoiled one on our hands...but seriously, how can you resist all of those cute girl clothes!

The plan was that we were going to have the ultrasound tech write down whether it was a boy or girl in a card that we brought with us and seal the envelope so that we could look at it later when we were by ourselves. (Actually, we originally planned on opening it on Christmas Day...but I just didn't have the patience to wait FOUR MORE WEEKS!) Anyways, our plan kept evolving and eventually we decided that we would open the envelope after leaving the doctor's office at dinner and then we would go to this adorable baby store in Hays, Bella Luna, to make our first gender specific purchase. However, then we found out that Bella Luna would close shortly after my appointment and that we wouldn't be able to go after dinner, so again - our plan changed. So, what really ended up happening was during the sonogram we asked the tech to avoid showing us "the goods" and asked her to put the info in the card...we would wing it from there.

The sonogram was unbelievable, amazing, incredible, and any other adjective you could use to describe seeing one of the loves of my life for the first time! She moved around alot so we were able to see her wiggle her toes and toss her arms about. She kept covering her little face with her hands, which was adorable! The tech was great and showed us all the cute stuff - and the important stuff. It really is amazing how detailed the ultrasounds are...we were even able to see the blood pumping to and from her heart. The tech also let us know that she weighed 10 ounces, which means she is a little bigger than average (the books say a baby at 19 weeks should weigh around 8.5 ounces.) The whole process lasted around 30 minutes and the tech made sure to take lots of photos for us (including one pointing out whether it was a boy or girl! Which turned out to be a pretty clear shot! haha) Here are some of the pictures:




After the ultrasound I had my 3rd appointment with Dr. Hodny...this was the first time I actually had to wait past my appointment time and it took F.O.R.E.V.E.R.(Keep in mind the entire time we were waiting around we had the envelope that said what "it" was and decided we wouldn't look quite yet...) After we got in to see the doctor we did the normal checkup, weight/blood pressure/measure/heartbeat/etc. Everything looks healthy and we are growing as scheduled. During the ultrasound her heartbeat was 161 and during the appointment it was 144...so she must have calmed down by the time we got to the 2nd appointment.

After we FINALLY left the doctor's office (with sealed envelope in hand) we decided to torture ourselves a little more and wait until we were in front of Bella Luna to open the envelope. After we parked the car, I was dying to find out and we decided to rip the envelope open right there and see if we were going to be buying pink or blue! I held the envelope so that we could look at the same time...and there were the words "It's a girl! Congratulations!" I think we were both in shock for a second and then we started laughing, kissing, and hugging. We were both so excited and happy to find out that a little girl would be entering our lives in just a few short months!

We went to Bella Luna right away and were overwhelmed with the amount of adorably girly outfits. Everything from huge bows to tutus! :) We decided to just buy a few things, which included a pink football hair bow and a crocheted owl stocking cap. ADORABLE! We then went to dinner at Gella's and started making phone calls to our family and friends to spread the news.

The first person to find out was Aunt Whitney. Bryant announced that we were having a little girl by telling Whitney, "Well, it looks like Lyla is going to get a Remy!" (To explain this better...from the very beginning, we decided that if we had a girl we would name her Remy and if a boy it would be Owen. However, the other day I asked Bryant if we would definitely call her Remy or him Owen once we found out and he said no - so I figured we would still think about it once we found out. On the day of the ultrasound Whitney sent us a text that said, "Just so you know, Lyla says Remy way better than Owen.") In all of the excitement after finding out it was a girl - I hadn't even thought about what her name would be for sure, until I heard Bryant tell Whitney that Lyla was getting a Remy - so I guess that's it...our baby girl has a name! Well a first name at least...we still haven't decided on the middle name yet. :) Stay tuned for the name blog!

Anyways, to wrap up this incredibly long post, we couldn't be happier and am I so excited to finally be able to start making some decisions on our little GIRL'S room and prepare for her arrival! We are still waiting to hear back from Dr. Hodny to make sure that everything looked healthy from the ultrasound. He told us that the radiologist would look at it and let us know how everything turned out. He told us not to worry because if there was anything major that was wrong they would have called him right away. I'm anxious to hear back, but am optimistic that our beautiful little girl will be just fine! :)

Pink thoughts,

Bryant, Danielle & Belly

Happy Thanksgiving

We’re ALMOST halfway there! At 19 weeks, Baby M is the size of a mango – which makes him/her around 6 inches long and 8.5 ounces. I think this is the last week that Baby M is measured from crown to rump, so there will probably be a dramatic increase in how long Baby M is next week when he/she is measured from crown to toe. During this week my book tells me that the baby is developing a protective coating over his/her skin called vernix caseosa. It’s a greasy, cheese-like substance that keeps the baby’s skin protected while hanging out in amniotic fluid for 9 months. It sounds disgusting, but I’m sure it would be painful without it when the baby makes his/her debut.

In my next update I will no longer have to use he/she or his/her! We may also be able to drop the name “Baby M” soon as we pretty much have it narrowed down to what we will be naming the baby once we find out the gender…but no promises! :) We only have 2 days left until we find out what we are having…and I’m sure it will be the longest 2 days of my life. I am thankful that Thanksgiving was this week so that it made the time go a little faster – we also got our Christmas tree and decorations put up! This year we spent Thanksgiving at my parent’s house for both lunch and dinner – which were amazing, as usual! Everybody was home, except for Mandy and her family; she had to work on Thanksgiving Day in KC. We weren’t able to spend Thanksgiving with Bryant’s family this here either; they celebrated the holiday in Wichita. Unfortunately, Bryant had to work on Friday and today, so we couldn’t leave town. Hopefully we will be able to spend Christmas with both of our families this year though. It is crazy to think that next year during the holiday season we will be a family of THREE! :)

I have been feeling pretty good this past week – although my hips are starting to get a little sore from sleeping on my side and the round ligament pain is back. It’s not terrible pain, but it certainly doesn’t feel great. The nosebleeds have stopped for now, which I am also very thankful for.

Speaking of being thankful, this Thanksgiving I have been thinking about how thankful I am for just about everything. Bryant & I have been very blessed and couldn’t be happier right now. This has been a whirl-wind of a year, which sometimes makes it easy to forget how great our life really is, especially with Baby M on the way and a healthy pregnancy thus far. We recently heard a story about a little boy and watched a music video based on the little boy's life called “One Last Christmas.”

Here is a link to the story: http://www.matthewwest.com/2010/11/30/one-last-christmas

And here is a link to the music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye39mgcHC3E

It really puts everything in perspective and makes me appreciate our life even more. You should check it out…but make sure you have a box of Kleenex nearby!

Happy Thanksgiving

Bryant, Danielle & Belly