December flew by! Maybe it was due in large part to traveling three weekends in a row.
#1, 12/10/15-12/13/15 - Houston!
Home is where the heart is and sooo much of my heart lives in Houston. I traveled to Houston to visit family, see Allie in her acting debut and meet and spend time with Fadya's mom (who was in town from Lebanon).
First stop: lunch with my momma and her momma. We surprised my grandma when we stopped by her house and I jumped out of the car. It's really just the precious little moments with some people that make the most impact!
The matriarch!
Thursday night I joined my parents, aunt and cousins at Allie's Christmas play. This was big-time, not an elementary school play, but a production at the local community college! She was such a big shot and the cutest little elf.
Sweet Allie!
Saturday-Sunday I got to meet and spend time with one of my favorite ladies in the world and her mom! Fadya and John flew her mom in from Lebanon to spend a month exploring and visiting in Texas. The last time she was in the states was about 30 years ago, so it was a whole new world for her. I'm so glad I was able spend some quality time getting to know her!
Fadya told her about me and how much I love grape leaves and all Mediterranean food, so we spent our Saturday afternoon learning how to and making a feast of grape leaves, tabbouleh, dandelion leaves and potatoes. Un-freakin-believeable!! I was in heaven stuffing my pregnant face with all the deliciousness.
We tried to pay attention and made real big plans of recreating her homemade recipe, but we'll see if/when that happens...
So delicious and so much fun!
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#2, 12/18/15-12/20/15 - Dallas!
Just to get away and spend some time with the prettiest ladies in Texas, I coordinated a weekend with my college soccer teammates and our mommas. We spent so many days and weekends and games together in college, so it's so fun to meet up and catch up!!
I met mom and Fadya on Friday and we went to the ICE! exhibit at the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine. The theme was Christmas Around the World and we really enjoyed the artistry of all the ice carvings. Thank goodness for the big winter coats they provide!
ICE!
We made last minute plans to head to Fort Worth to crash a graduation celebration with Brent and Danielle. The friends you make in college are like no other friends you'll make in your life.
Auntie D loves baby Shults!
Love these people :)
Saturday was about relaxing, going to the movies and then getting ready for our Girls Night Out! First we had dinner at a great hotel restaurant and rounded out the night at the musical Elf!
Pre-dinner
All the pretty ladies!
Our foundation.
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#3, Christmas!
I spent Christmas Eve and Day with the fam bam. Unfortunately, I was missing my hubby, but my little man kept momma company with all his wiggling ;)
Next year, we should all be together. I feel like I should start making lists and schedules for the Christmas traditions I want to start and continue with baby. I mean, because I'm sure everything will be smooth and easy and seamless with an 8 month old.
Christmas Eve with the fam!
Christmas Day at my parents is about "Uncle Steve's Fried Ribs," tacky Christmas apparel, moonshine (but not for me), games and laughter. While we surprised everyone in the immediate family with a personalized Yeti cup with their name from baby (Pawpaw, Lala, Uncle Steve 2.0, etc...), Ursula's mom surprised me with a cake ball bouquet. Wowzer. Check out Diana Mares's D Delights. They are delectable!
My shirt had a gingerbread boy and said "Mommy's Little Man" :)
I missed my hubby, but had a great time with the extended familia!! Now that Christmas was complete, it was officially the final countdown for our vacation-turned-babymoon to St. John and the British Virgin Islands with John and Fadya!
[Pregnancy brain is a real thing. I spent time writing this blog, picking and arranging pictures, editing my words and was finally ready to publish. Then instead of publishing, I hit delete. When the website asked me if I was sure, I clicked yes. Without hesitating. Then I wanted to cry, but instead I opened a new post and started over. ugh.]
It was finally time to find out the gender! So many people asked what we were hoping for and so many people said they were hoping for (specifically) Eric to have a little girl. Truth be told, until I found out I was actually pregnant, I always wanted a baby boy first. Once I did find out and I immersed myself in baby searches on Pinterest, I became reallllly open to the idea of tutus and bows and glitter and matching outfits and frilly dresses :) Maybe a mini-me wouldn't be so bad (except for our bank account)...
Timing worked out great to include family in our ultrasound and gender reveal. Almost all our parents were in town to spend Thanksgiving with us. (Eric's mom celebrated in Texas!) The earliest our doc would schedule the gender ultrasound was at 23 weeks. That milestone fell on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, so I booked an appointment. Mom, Dad, Bill, Sharon, Eric and I loaded up to head to the ultrasound appointment!
In the waiting room.
Unfortunately there was some miscommunication, so not EVERYBODY was able to go back in the room during the scan, but we were able to share that moment with Lala and Mimi! Babyzilla was wiggling around in the tight quarters. It's incredible to see the growth in just a few short months. Baby weighed just over a pound and lungs and hearing were developing. Wow. Below are some of the still shots captured while we were watching the big screen.
Baby was flexing for us!
A precious little profile.
Let's be honest, this is kind of a creepy pic!
The world slips away when I see the movement up on the screen, all that matters is the man beside me holding my hand and the little human wiggling around inside my tummy. I almost said to hell with it and asked to see the gender, but Eric encouraged me to hold out so we turned our heads as she went over the baby's bottom.
In the envelope she handed us, she wrote one little word on one little yellow sticky note that would change our lives forever. Somehow, I managed to fold up the envelope and put it in my purse so I could deliver it to Cortney later that evening!
No idea how I was able to wait!
Back home it was time to get to work. I had wrapped the box before everyone got in town but now it was time to determine where/how to hang the box. Originally we were going to do the reveal on Friday after Thanksgiving, but the weather did not look like it would cooperate (and I would have lost a lot of sleep in anticipation!). Insert mom. She came up with the idea of poking a rod through the top of the box and affixing it to the ceiling of our patio cover. With a few pieces of tape and some strategically tied fishing string, we should be able to release the balloons and streamers.
The dry run.
It was a family affair :)
Putting Grumpy and Daddy to work!
Now that the details were worked out, Mom and I delivered the box and the envelope to Cortney. She would return in a couple hours with the finished product...
The Big Reveal!
A baby boy. Mommy's little man. Daddy's little buddy. We are so happy!
At the last minute, we told her to put an extra piece of tape across the bottom to make sure nothing slipped out. Well, it worked (too well), but we had a quick fix for that pesky piece of tape.
In keeping with the theme of discovery, we had 4 phones and 2 iPads streaming the reveal so we could include family and friends from out of state!
FaceTime with Vicki
Now that we knew, I downloaded all the pics we received earlier that day at the ultrasound appointment. This is a pretty clear picture of my little man and the family jewels. ;) [I pray this is the first and last time for any pic of these family jewels to be on display for the world to see......]
Hard to miss the gender in this shot!
One little word.
I'm so glad we were able to share this moment with so many loved ones!
The next day was Thanksgiving and with so much to be thankful for, we had a beautiful day and delicious feast at our home in OKC. What a week, I needed a nap!
I had been asked where I'm registered for several weeks, so when Eric was home mid-November, when I was about 21 weeks along, I told him he had to go with me for the first trip to Babies R Us to start the registering process. I figured that between his street smarts and my book smarts, surely we could knock this out fairly quickly. Boy, was I wrong!
The excitement is radiating off his face :)
After filling out the paperwork, and letting them add the 'diaper package' to our registry, they gave us the scanner and said "Good Luck!"
Um. Where do we start? We went to the bottle section because, of course, a baby needs some bottles. Dr. Browns was the first brand we came to (and I had heard rave reviews) so we started scanning. And scanning. And got size 1, 2, 3, and 4 nipples and bottles and drying racks and short ones and tall ones and fat ones and skinny ones. (Dr. Seuss could write a book about them!)
"What is a boppy?"
We walked around a little bit and realized registering for a baby is not for the faint of heart. We still didn't know gender, so we were limited with some products. My sweet husband kept saying that 50 years ago 'they' didn't have any of this shit, so we'll be fine without it...but I kept saying well I'm sure it all serves a purpose and 'they' wouldn't have created it if there wasn't a need or opportunity to make our lives easier. After twenty minutes in the infant section we ventured over to the strollers.
Who knew there were soooo many strollers!
I should have brought an experienced mom with me. We spent another 20 minutes browsing and scanning until we found ourselves in the nursery furniture section. Now here was something we thought two educated adults could shop for! So we sat and tested all the rockers and gliders... but still didn't decide. Meh.
We scanned the 27" FAO Schwarz Tiger and Elephant (because those are completely necessary, regardless of geneder) and called it a day.
Priorities.
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Thank goodness my favorite moms were spending some time with us that weekend! Regan and Flo loaded up the babies in Dallas and headed to spend a couple days in OKC. Becuase they love me so, they signed into my Babies R Us account and completely revamped and updated our registry while I made breakfast one morning. Lifesavers :)
It was such a great time hanging out with no real plans and very eye-opening to see how not-baby-proof our house was. We have defined our new normal--watching Frozen multiple times in a 24 hour period and baby bath time. It was perfect! I love my girls and I completely adore their kiddos!
At about 19 1/2 weeks, I felt baby's first little flutter!! I was laying in bed reading before going to sleep and felt the tiniest little blip. It didn't register at first, but once I actually considered the feeling, I knew it was our little one making its presence known. What an overwhelming feeling. Unfortunately, Eric was out of town for work, but I called him in tears to tell him the news!
