Babies, Band, and the Beach

We had our monthly doctor visit today to check the vitals and the baby and I are still doing great. Her heartbeat was 157 today- when the doctor was trying to listen to the heartbeat the baby kept kicking the monitor. The doctor said she was "fiesty". Is that a bad sign??

Now our doctors visits will be every two weeks for the next 8 weeks and then in the last month we'll go every week til she arrives! I think it's slowly starting to sink in that our baby will be here very soon...!

This is one of my favorite pictures of me as a little girl at the beach. Makes me excited to see what our little girl is going to look more like- me or her good lookin' daddy.

In other news, I went to Melanie's first band concert of the season tonight and it was so adorable! I can't believe she can get those kids to all play so good after two months of school. She's my hero. Too bad "it's just band".

I'm not fat, I'm pregnant.

My belly is definitely out and proud these days. At least now I finally look pregnant and not just like I'm getting chubby in the middle. It's such a strange emotion to continue to get bigger and bigger and gain more and more weight. I've never been a strict dieter or fanatic about exercising all the time, but I've always tried to keep my weight under control so that my clothes fit right and I feel healthy. So it's been hard to tell myself that all this growing huger is just the baby and that I won't feel like a blimp forever. I've still been able to continue exercising regularly but I am starving all the time. I eat constantly (which is acutally kind of fun).

I'm just about 26 weeks now (14 more to go!). I get a weekly email with updates about the baby and this is the picture I got this week saying our baby is probably about 14 inches long and 1.5 pounds now.

I've still been able to wear my regular clothes for the most part, but I am starting to wear more maternity clothes because they are SO comfortable. I think I may wear pants with the big stretchy belly forever..! Here is a maternity outfit I wore this week that Erin helped me pick out. (I told Mel that I feel like I'm wearing pajamas to work because everything is so stretchy and soft.)

Carving, Chili and Children's Choirs

So I played hooky today. We woke up and it was cold, rainy and a perfect day to stay in bed. And Jamie was already feeling pretty bad so he convinced me to call in sick with him and we made pancakes and then slept til noon. Made me glad we don't have any kids... :)

But this weekend was great- we went to a friends house for a pumpkin carving party and ate alot of chili and had a good time. I let Jamie do all the carving (I'm not really into scraping goo out of the innards of pumpkins).

Then Sunday was our first Bentonville Children's Choir concert of the season. It went smoothly-we have a really good group of kids this year!

We finished up the weekend at Jim and Emily's house. The boys cooked us dinner while Emily and I watched Sleepless in Seattle. Rough life, I know.

(Jamie at work on his masterpiece.)

(This is Josh and Carrie's little boy, Collin- future singer in the BCC!)

(Jamie's masterpiece completed...)

It's all in a day.

6 months down... Three more to go. It's going so fast! Jim pointed out last night that technically if I were to have the baby now that she could survive (with months in the hospital) but still it was weird to think about our baby being so "real". She's been kicking like crazy the past few weeks- so much that I start to worry when she goes a few hours without "saying hey". The other night I actually noticed my belly moving from all her Tae-bo she's doing in there. It was pretty neat to watch my stomach as she kicked and punched away.

My students at school are excited about me having a baby and ask me alot of questions. My favorite so far is when this shy sixth grade boy didn't really know how to word his question and pointed at my belly and asked me "how long has that been in there?". They are all a little worried about who will be taking my place while I'm on maternity leave. I do love my students and will miss them... but I can't wait to stay home with our baby (at least until school starts again in the Fall).

Here are a bunch of random photos I took in my classroom this week:

Tennis Addiction

When Jamie is not playing tennis, he's watching tennis (on the 24 hour Tennis Channel). And when he's not watching tennis he's reading about tennis. But at least he has a healthy hobby and I love watching him play! He had another tournament this weekend and made it to the semi-finals (where he lost in a close match). It's fun watching him doing something he loves so much!

(I got a little Photoshop happy on this one, but I liked how his shadow turned out in this picture.)

Here's a short clip of Jamie's sweet tennis skills!