What's Your Name??

When it came time to come up with a name for our baby Josh and I struggled a little. He rarely liked anything I said. It was either too weird or he knew someone with that name, blah, blah, blah. Well, my dad had no problem suggesting names. He's been giving me ideas before I was even pregnant. Most of the names I loved but Josh didn't. One day my dad called and said he had a new name picked out. He said we should name our little girl Sadie. Hmmm....I really liked that name. And I didn't know very many. I started saying it to Josh and eventually it grew on him too. Whew! We had a first name.

The middle name was easy! Lauren is my middle name and Josh has always loved it. He hated that I dropped it and kept Russell when we got married. And I love how Sadie Lauren sounds together.

I admit I was a little nervous announcing our baby's name. Not that it matters but I know not everyone will like it. It made me so happy to read the comments from all the people who love her name. It makes me love it even more! I find myself saying it every chance I get. And now she's no longer an "it" or "baby", she's Sadie!

And on a random note, before our ultrasound last week I asked several people at work if they thought we were having a boy or a girl. I said whoever was right I'd bring them a treat. Can you believe only two people said girl??? So I got them something special...

Sonic gift cards. Katie and Michelle love drinks from Sonic as much as Sadie and I do so it seemed like the best gift.

Dancing Queen

This past weekend I headed up to Northwest Arkansas to see my friend Kelly, the Dancing Queen. Friday night when I got into town I met Kelly and Laurie at one of our favorite places, Chili's.

Laurie took a picture of the two preggo girls. If you didn't already know I just love being pregnant with friends.

We had a great time at dinner. We stayed there a while laughing and talking. When I'm around these girls it reminds me how much I miss them. After dinner Kelly went home to get rested up for her big dance competition and Laurie and I headed back to her house. Laurie is always so gracious to ask me to stay with her when I visit. When I made my way up to my "room" I saw something on the bed. Sweet Laurie had gathered some of Sarah Kate and Emily's things for Sadie.

This picture doesn't do the clothes justice but there are several cute things in the pile. I am beyond thankful for this!! And I love that Sadie will get to wear clothes from Sarah Kate and Emily...her soon-to-be friends.

Saturday morning we got up and ready then headed to their church for Mugs and Muffins.

Look how cute Kelly is!!

This is blurry but this is the group at our table. Kelly, Me, and Tracy in the back and Kim, Laurie, and Shannon in the front

We had a great time. The speaker was wonderful. She recently lost her daughter in a car accident and she had a lot of great things to say.

As soon as the program was over I headed to Fayetteville for Zach's birthday party.

It was so great to see Rebekah and Cilla.

It was also great seeing Jennifer and her sweet fam too!

It was so cute to watch Zack open up his gifts. Katie is such a good mom and helped him out a little. I can't believe Z is almost 3. I remember holding him in the hospital when he was only a few hours old. It's so hard to imagine he is THREE! He sure is a cute 3 year old though.

Colson was such a love. All the excitement just got to him!

And one of my best friend's Katie. I hope I can be half the mom to Sadie that she is to Zach, Reese, and Colson. She's amazing.

After the great party I met up with my friend Shannon for lunch and shopping. I can't BELIEVE we didn't get a picture just the two of us. I'm just sick about that. I chose Noodles for lunch and it was so good.

I was too embarrassed to turn on my flash so the pictures are dark.

Artichoke spinach pasta....oh my. I've missed you.

After lunch and a little shopping I headed back to Bentonville to hang with Laurie and fam for a while. I just LOVE Emily and Sarah Kate and they are so much fun to be around. Getting a good picture of the two of them was NOT easy.

Cute girls. They are growing up so fast. Emily is about to be 5! I also held her a few hours after she was born and it seems like it was just yesterday.

Steve eventually took his girls on a little date and Laurie and I got ready for Kelly's recital.

Laurie is such a good friend. I loved getting to spend so much time with her this weekend. She's hilarious and we always laugh a lot. We were both so excited and nervous about Kelly's dancing debut.

Here's our table at the event. It was all really nice and the food was good. Even better than the food was the company.

Check out those great poofs! I had to take a photo.

Me with two of my favorite friends! I miss them a lot!

Kelly's fan club. We all had a great time!!! Kelly didn't win but she made us proud and we had a blast watching her dance. I was sad when it was all over and we had to leave.

We headed back to Laurie's house and I packed up and went to bed. I had to leave early Sunday morning to get back for church. Laurie was sweet enough to fix me some coke to take with me.

If you can't tell I had the best weekend. Every time I go back and see all my friends it makes me really sad to leave. I can't wait to get back and see them all again.

The Big Day

Yesterday was such a fun day! I will tell you though the waiting was AWFUL! My ultrasound wasn't until 2:30. TWO THIRTY!!!!!!!!!!!! Torture is what it was. I had planned to leave work around 2:00 but at 12:00 I knew there was no way I could sit there. I asked my boss if I could leave early so I could get a few things done before hand. When I left work I met up with Jill for a second because she needed to give me something.

How cute is this?? GUESS WHAT WAS INSIDE?

Homemade chocolate chip cookies. They made my day. Seriously. When I received these I knew it was going to be a great afternoon.

After I met up with Jill I went and got a coke, for the baby, and ran another errand then met up with Josh at the apartment. We soon headed to our appointment. I was soooooooooo nervous. I just wanted everything to be ok with our baby. I had no reason to think it wouldn't be but I was still nervous. On the way there I asked Josh what he thought it was. He said, "Girl". I told him I think it is too. When we arrived at the clinic I was so glad we didn't have to wait too long.

Josh read for a few minutes while I filled out paperwork. Then it was time to go back. This ultrasound was done at Baby Views. We elected to have this done because the big ultrasound with my doctor is still weeks away. Of course we wanted to find out the sex early but we also wanted to have a good thorough look at our baby. Shea Foster, the tech, is WONDERFUL! I was hesitant about spending the money (you all know how cheap I am) but from the first few minutes we were there I knew it was money well spent. She went over everything. She looked at her spine, her stomach, bladder, her feet, fingers, she measured her head, the skin behind her neck, everything. And while she did all of this she explained exactly what she was looking for. She didn't tell us if our baby was a boy or a girl well into the ultrasound. Apparently our sweet little baby wasn't wanting to flip around to get a good view. She was moving and pushing her legs like crazy though. Then very nonchalantly Shea said, "you're having a girl." I think I stopped breathing for a second. Here we are, watching our healthy little baby move all over the place, and then we're told its a girl. It took all I had not lose it on the table. I was just so overjoyed. I would have been perfectly fine with a healthy baby boy but the last few weeks I felt that I really wanted a girl. It was such a relief at the end of the ultrasound to hear her tell us that she looks perfect. The only "issue" which isn't really an issue is that she is sitting very low! In fact she's as low as she can possibly get. And she's BFF with my bladder (which is why I still get up multiple times during the night). The only problem this causes is back pain. I told Shea as long as I know she's healthy I don't care how bad it hurts. It's amazing how seeing Sadie move all around and knowing she's healthy that puts all the nausea and pain in perspective.

Ok...moving on...after the appointment I called my mom and told her we'd be there to her house in 20 minutes. I had to go home and get their "gift" ready. Since we didn't know if it was a boy or girl I didn't want to put two gifts together. At this time I had already sent out a text to a few very anxious friends so the texts were already coming back which made me even more excited. When we were all set with the gift I called my dad to make sure he was headed home. I told my mom I wouldn't tell her until they were both there. We both arrived at their house around the same time.

I wanted to tell my parents some other way than just coming out and saying it. My friend Todd

offered to design me some cards (the one I posted yesterday). He made one with our girl name and one with our boy name. I was going to just put the card in an envelope and give it to them. Then I thought that was way too easy. So here's house it went....

Mom and Dad with their gift

When they opened up the sack there was a wrapped present.

Inside the box was an envelope.

Inside that envelope was another envelope.

Inside the envelope was the card! I love this picture. They were both so excited! They wanted a healthy baby too but they both wanted a girl as well. In fact my dad had a dream I had a girl before he even knew I was pregnant (although I was pregnant when he had the dream) so he was convinced that's what we were having. Needless to say they are thrilled!

After the reveal we all told everyone we knew. Ha. Then mom and dad went to run a few errands and so did Josh and I. We then met back up at their house, ate dinner, and watched a DVD of the ultrasound. It was great! I'm so glad my parents got to see Sadie in action.

I want to thank you all for the sweet comments, tweets, facebook posts, and e-mails. It's been so much fun hearing from all of you. Yesterday afternoon and evening I just kept thanking the Lord for a healthy baby girl that I do not deserve. I feel so unworthy to be her momma. I trust the Lord will guide through this entire process of parenting. It's already overwhelming and I haven't done anything yet. :) Thanks again! You all are the best!

Baby Bazyk

Things I Never Bought Before

Since I found out I was pregnant there are a few things I've bought that I have never bought before. It's been a humbling experience on many levels.

First up is Tylenol. In my opinion I might as well take a sugar pill because Tylenol has never helped my headaches at all. But when those unannounced migraines (caused by hormones) strike you'll take anything. And Tylenol 3 isn't much better but it at least puts you to sleep.

Next up is Miralax. I won't go into detail because I imagine all of my blog readers are smart and can figure out why I would possibly need to buy this. Apparently this said problem is common among pregnant women. It's something no one warned me about ahead time. So for all you soon-to-be-pregnant women, consider yourself warned.





This product goes hand in hand with the Miralax. Miralax has side effects and this medicine helps those. PTL.

Ahhh...indigestion. You've been a bad friend to me. I've never had a problem with you before but now you visit me multiple times a day. Aren't you sweet?!?!

I should confess that I bought this because I burned my esophagus on some hot spaghetti. Nice going, Hillary. But being that pregnancy is known for heartburn, etc the healing process was definitely delayed. And I can tell this will come in handy later on as well.

Ok, so I've had sweetarts before but I never bought them in bulk like I do now. I always opted for chocolate candy but chocolate candy doesn't relieve the nausea. These beauties are my best friends right now. I have some close by at all times.

Coke has also become a new friend of mine. I hardly ever had any kind of a coke (I don't call them soda or pop and you shouldn't either) before I became pregnant. Now I love them. I don't want anything but coke. The only thing that makes a coke better is when Sonic adds a little cherry to it. Oh I could really go for one of those right now.

I'm sure as this pregnancy continues I'll have more "never bought" items. I'm eager to find out what those will be...

Lunch Date

Today I had lunch at Panera with Jill and Amelia.

They are two of my favorite girls. I always have a great time when we get together and today was no exception. Amelia is so stinking cute its ridiculous. You really need to check out all the great pictures of her on Jill's blog. And look at her Halloween costume. Oh. My. Word.

Thanks Ladies, for meeting up with me on this cold, rainy day. Can't wait until next time!

V-O-T-E

If you haven't received any phone calls, e-mails, mail outs or seen any campaign signs along the streets then you might not know that tomorrow is a big election day. And if you haven't had any phone calls emails, etc then clearly you haven't left your house and you have no phone or internet service. This election campaign has become rather annoying and I for one am glad it will be over with tomorrow. At least for a few months until they start campaign for the 2012 election. Even though the process can be rather annoying I love voting. It makes me feel so proud to be an American. Having the right to choose what I feel is best for myself, my family, and our country is a huge privilege. If you haven't already voted you really should consider it. Even if your "one vote" doesn't matter its your duty as an American to vote. I admit I've missed a few elections since I turned 18 and I'm ashamed of it. I am going to do my best to make sure I vote during all important elections.

This past Friday I went with my parents to early vote. I would have waited until tomorrow but this week is so crazy and I knew there wouldn't be time. A library close to work was an early voting sight so I had in my mind we'd mosey on over there vote and be done. I think a lot of other people had that idea because it took us almost an hour. It would have taken way less time if I had waited for election day. Regardless though we waited in line and eventually cast our votes.

After that long ordeal we had worked up and appetite so my dad treated us to lunch at Bravo's.

It was really good! He even ordered us dessert to share...

...Pumpkin Creme Brulee. It was divine and helped me forget about the long voting line.

Ok....Americans...go vote! I'll be interested to see how this election turns out. And I'll be thrilled to see all the campaign signs come down that are lining every street in the United States.

*The photos were taken with my iPhone which is why they are terrible, no offense iPhone camera.*