My Big Fat Belly- 20 Weeks

How I'm Feeling at 20 Weeks: Anxious!! I'm so ready to know the gender! Other than hyped up anxiety about Wednesday (4 more days!) I'm feeling pretty great. They belly is growing and the baby is really starting to kick a lot more. Chase felt the baby move for the first time yesterday! It was so sweet. We were laying down to take a nap and Chase laid his hand on my belly for awhile before going to sleep and that's when he finally felt a few kicks. He smiled so big!!

Baby Movements: I can tell that the baby is getting stronger because every now and then I feel kicks that are a lot harder than the regular ones. They kinda catch me off guard sometimes. I love it!

Gender: Boy or Girl? What will it be? On Wednesday we will see!!!

What I'm Looking Forward to: I've been on Pinterest a lot lately coming up with really cute ideas for the nursery so I'm ready to get started on it. This means that we've got to buy Brantley a twin bed and move the crib into the nursery. I've also decided that we're going to swap Brantley's furniture, aka the nursery furniture, with the smaller more grown up furniture that is in the nursery now. There is a desk and dresser in there that will go well in Brantley's room. I'm hoping to have the twin bed by BR's birthday and get started on the nursery in February.

Baby's Development at 20 weeks:

Baby is about the size of a cantaloupe this week!!

Baby weighs about 10.6 ounces and measures about 6.5 inches from head to bottom (about 10 inches from head to heal). She's still got a lot of growing to do though. We are halfway done!!

• She's got working taste buds.
• Now, she's gulping down several ounces of amniotic fluid each day -- that's significantly more than before.

Bump pic of the week:

I'll be back Wednesday night to announce gender!!

Post-Christmas Gift Swap

Top Left Photo: Nikki, Erin, Jami, Ashley K, Ashley W, Me (19 weeks pregnant) and Lauren (35 weeks pregnant).

 This year the gift swap was at our new house. I loved having all these girls over for dinner and a fun game of Dirty Santa. There was quite a bit of stealing but in the end, I think everyone was happy. This year we swapped yard/porch decorations. They were all really cute!

I love these ladies and I love this tradition we have started!! I'm already looking forward to next year when we swap inside Christmas decorations.

Pregnancy Brain Fart...haha!

Today has been a rough day for my memory/brain function. I can't even remember all the stupid stuff I've said or done today. One of the things I do remember happened while I was shopping for jeans at Motherhood Maternity this afternoon.
While in the dressing room, I tried on this shirt pictured below and thought "Hey, this is really cute on me. I think I'll send a picture to Chase." So I took the picture and sent it to Chase...or so I thought.

After finishing my shopping and purchasing 2 pair of jeans (halleluiah!) and this shirt. I received a text from Chase saying, "I thought you were shopping for jeans?" Immediately I think "oh great, I shouldn't have bought the shirt." I send him a pitiful message saying that I'll just take the shirt back so I don't have to hear about it when I get home. (Still not realizing what I had done.)

Chase calls me immediately and says, "You don't have to return the shirt. I was joking." Oh okay. I'm walking through the parking deck, headed back to the store to return my shirt. Then he say, "I just saw your picture of Facebook and thought it was funny." WHAT? I stopped in the parking lot and asked, "what do you mean Facebook? I sent that to you in a text...didn't I?" Then it all clicked and I began to laugh at myself because I realized just what I had done.

I had posted the picture to Facebook instead of sending it in a text message to Chase. Oops!! Let's just say that I'm REALLY glad I wasn't trying on bras of bathing suits. I would be so embarrassed!

I hope that made you laugh like it did me. I'm brain is struggling today so hopefully it clears up tomorrow. haha Probably not until well after this baby is born.

My Big Fat Belly - 19 Weeks

How Am I Feeling at 19 Weeks: I'm still feeling pretty good. My only complaint is that since the baby is doubling it's size just about every week, my lung capacity is getting smaller and causing me to become short of breath very easily. I need to be doing more exercise I guess to help keep me and my lungs in shape. I officially growing out of my jeans with a belly band so I'm headed to the mall to buy some new maternity jean, I hope!

Baby Movements: The baby is for sure getting stronger because I can feel kicks much more often these days. Chase hasn't been able to feel any yet but I think he will in the next 2-3 weeks.

Gender: We will find out Boy or Girl on January 11th. I really can not wait for that day to come! I am fully expecting the baby to be a girl but since we still don't know for sure I'm very anxious about knowing. We've decided to have a little fun that day and invite a few family members and close friends over to reveal the baby's gender. I need some excitement in my life so I thought this would be a cute way to spice things up and have a good time with friends and family.

What I'm Looking Forward To: Of course, I'm looking forward to finding out the gender of the baby so we can start on the nursery. I've been on Pinterest everyday it seems like coming up with great ideas for boy and girl nurseries. I really can't wait! Either way it's going to be so cute and we are not using any NEON colors this time, haha! I'm really not sure what made us think that lime green was a good color for Brantley's nursery.

Baby's Development at 19 Weeks:

The baby is the size of a mango! 

At about 6.0 inches long and weighing in at about 8.5 ounces, she's getting there! 

• Developing a protective coating over her skin, called vernix caseosa. It's greasy and white and you may see some of it at her birth.
• Working on her five senses. Nerve cells for her sense of taste, hearing, sight and smell are developing in her brain.
• Arms and legs are now in the right proportion to each other and the rest of the body.

The baby bump is growing and we're almost halfway through!!

Portrait Innovations - 22 1/2 Months Old

These are some of the portraits we had taken of Brantley at Portrait Innovations back before Christmas. They turned out great and MANY of them are going to be framed and hung up in our house.

Below is the portrait we had made of Brantley with the portrait of Chase's mom when she was around Brantley's age. It is truly amazing and such a blessing that Brantley looks so much like her late-grandmother, whom she is named after. This is such a special portrait. I've already framed it and put it up in Brantley's room. I can't wait for Chase and Glenn to tell her about Grandma Donna one day!

Christmas Dinner at Nana & PopPop's House

I didn't take very many or very good pictures this night. Bad Mommy! But after eating our yummy dinner my mom had prepared, we sat down to open gifts.

Brantley got her new dollhouse from my parents and the extra people and furniture from us. She loves her new dollhouse and plays with it daily.

Before leaving to head home, Uncle Brett got down in the floor and played with Brantley and Alyssa. It was really cute! We don't see my brother and his family enough so moments like this kinda make me a little teary eyed. We love you guys!!

To finish off my line of Christmas posts I leave you with this cute video...

Ho, Ho, Merry "Kwissmas" everyone!!

Our 5 Stops on Christmas Day!

After seeing all that Santa had brought Brantley that morning, we loaded up in Bebe's Highlander and headed down to Prattville to see all the family. Our first stop was at Chase's Uncle's house but I didn't take any pictures there. Oops! Brantley was given her first of 3 baby dolls by them. So sweet!

Next we headed over to Chase's Granny Smith's house for brunch and to visit with the family. Brantley enjoyed playing with her new wooden doll and dressing her. She even shared with Meri Ansley a little bit. Before we left and headed to our next stop, Brantley had to play the piano with her Daddy. I'm hoping her love for the piano continues to grow as she gets older but if she's anything like me, she'll be too busy to sit still and learn how to play.

On the way to our third stop (Beverly's parents) BR fell asleep in the car so when we got there she and I stayed in the car for an hour long nap. Much needed! When she woke up we went in and had lunch and opened more presents. Baby doll #2 for the day was received and a few really cute books.

Our forth stop was at Chase's Grandfather's (His mom's dad) house in Millbrook where we got to see his Granny Brantley and lots of other family members.

Brantley was given her third and final baby doll of the day along with a stroller and change of clothes for the baby. I'm not sure why but this gift was my favorite. The baby doll is so cute!! She also got a coloring book and crayons, dress-up clothes and a tea set. She is very loved at their house/in that side of the family.

For Chase's grandfather we had portraits made at Portrait Innovations in Hoover of Brantley with the portrait of Chase's mother when she was around Brantley's age. It turned out really great and he loved it.

This is the portrait that we had made (along with others that I will share later). The whole thing was Chase's Dad's idea and it turned out great!

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Last but certainly not least we headed over to Chase's Aunt Carol and uncle Ted's house for dinner with the family and to play a little Dirty Santa. Dinner was delicious and BR had fun playing with cousins she doesn't see very often. Dirty Santa was really crazy with almost 30 people playing but it wasn't too too bad. I came home with a game called Farkle Frenzy and Chase, bless his heart, ended up with a hummingbird feeder. He almost had a $25 gift card to Academy but his Uncle Ted stole it from him to end the game. Bummer! We still had fun though.

It had been a very long day for all of us so it was finally time to pack up and head back to Hoover. Brantley had on her pajamas and Beverly and I had pillows. Night night! haha

We had a wonderful time celebrating with Chase's family and I'm so thankful for each and everyone of them and the love they show us every time we are down there. Again, I will say we are truly blessed! God is so good to us!!