Happenings

Well not a whole lot (again) has been happening in our neck of the woods since the last update post but again here are some highlights:

1. We enjoyed a nice Valentine's Day evening at Ryan and Raumi's house which consisted of some always tasty A&B taco pizza and great company. They were even nice to let us borrow lots of baby boy clothes/bibs for the baby's first few months of life - his closet is filling up fast!!

On a side note, Bailey seems to have developed a bit of a fetish though and will prop herself up to drag all the baby clothes I folded up in the baby's closet and drag them all over the floor in the baby's room. She doesn't destroy them, just drags them all out and sniffs them endlessly. Before I even got them out of the box, she had dragged out several bibs and onsies. Oh - beagles and their noses!!

2. The beagles seem to be snuggling together more these days. I will poast some pictures in teh side bar of this. Not sure what's going on. They usually acted like they didn't like each other but now they snuggle.

Also, Jay and I are attempting to get both of them (mostly Jerz) on a behavior "boot camp" program of sorts prior to the baby's arrival. This includes treadmill training (to burn off excess nervous energy out of them). Jerz has gotten the hang of it. Bailey - well, we'll keep working on her. Once the weather is nicer, we will be able to take them out for more walks. We are trying to live by the Dog Whisperer's credo "exercise, discipline, then affection." For those of you that know anything about our dogs, you know that Jerz thinks she is basically the "pack leader" and that even Jay and I are part of her pack. We're trying to break her of this.

We also have the Pedi Paws trimmer on its way to work on getting their nails (aka talons) under control - to save both the floors and also so they don't accidentally scratch the baby. We'll keep you posted on how that goes! Right now they absolutely freak out when we try to cut their nails!!

3. BABY MOVEMENT!! I have been feeling the baby move for several weeks now, I think even back to 18-19 weeks along or so. But, starting Sunday (24 weeks) he has begun to be more active! I have to say I quite enjoy it - and he has cooperated with Jay and given him a few good kicks and punches to feel! We have an appointment tomorrow morning - just a regular checkup. Hopefully all is still going well with him. I've been feeling well and continue to grow along with baby!! 3 and a half more months to go! Can't wait!!

And....we get this question a lot so here's our answer - we are working on a name. We probably won't divulge the name prior to him being born, however, when we do come to a final decision...

4. Last weekend we got to spend time with Mike & Carrie and Lyns and Nick Saturday night for an evening out. During the day, I devoted my time to cleaning the house and Jay worked and snowblowed again!

On Sunday, we went to Riley's First Communion and then to the after-party at the Ramkota. That was also a nice day/evening. Always good to spend time with family!

5. This coming weekend we are doing our 2nd annual "Caribbean Party" at our friends Val and Brian's house (Saturday night). We started the tradition last year when we really wanted to do something fun and tropical-themed since none of us were able to get away on a tropical vacation. We decided to continue the tradition. Good food and a good time is sure to be had by all! :) Yeahhhh Mon!!

Well that's all for now. I have officially stopped playing v-ball so I'm just going to watch my team play this evening. It will be hard not playing but I know it's only temporary!

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week and weekend and hope to see you all soon!!

Baby Valentine

To the tiny baby Valentine in Mommy's tummy,

Who weighs only a little more than a pound
And stretches just a bit over a foot in length,

Who wiggles and kicks and flutters around in Mommy's tummy
And who lays still whenever Daddy wants to feel you move,

Who makes Mommy's tummy pop out more and more each week
And who can now hear the sound of Daddy's voice,

Who is four months out from being "due" to be born
And who has miraculously developed in just five months' time,

Who this Valentine's Day is still one with Mommy
And who next Valentine's Day will have 8 months on his own under his belt,

We think about you every day,
Dream about you every night,
And try to patiently wait until your arrival.

We wonder who you will look like,
Guess which day you will be born,
And dream of what gifts God will give you.

We pray for you,
Hope for you,
And try our best to prepare ourselves to be your parents.

Mommy has been entrusted to be pregnant with you, for you,
We both have been entrusted to care for you once you are born,
And we can only hope to be worthy of this responsibility.

To our tiny baby Valentine,
Today we have each other,
Soon we will have you,
And then we will have everything.

Checkin' In

Well, it's been a couple weeks since the last post...nothing too exiting has happened in the last couple weeks but here are some highlights:

1. Congrats to Ryan & Raumi on their new baby news! Along with Tom & Candace's new addition plus the other friends I know who are expecting this year, our little guy will have lots of play buddies!

2. Although I may jinx us - the weather has for the most part cooperated with us lately so that we haven't gotten snowed in for quite awhile! Life at our new house is much more enjoyable when Jay doesn't have to spend the majority of his free time out snowblowing!

3. We hosted our first Super Bowl get-together this year with almost all of the Gerving family able to attend. Not going to lie, I made some delicious homemade boneless buffalo wings. However, we need to invest in a deep fryer for that endeavor if I ever try it again!

4. I took 2nd place twice - with two separate partners - in Ran & Julie's annual pinnocle party this year! The 2nd round we only loast by ONE point. I believe my net earnings were $14.50. I'm thinking of going pro.

5. Baby has progressed to approximately 1 foot long in length and roughly a pound in weight, according to various resources. No wonder my belly is expanding - I've got a footlong in there!! I've already started purchasing clothes for the little guy too - couldn't resist an ad on Bisman Online for some newborn and 0-3 month baby boy clothing.

6. We had McKenzie's 5th birthday party at the bowling alley this past weekend which was fun. I also went ot Jay's cousin's wife's baby shower on Saturday in Dickinson with Sandy and Lyndsey - which was also fun. Along with Missy's baby shower that we had a few weeks ago, I got some good ideas for baby!

7. It's February which is a GREAT month for me - not only Valentine's Day but my birthday as well! This means Jay has to come up with creative gift ideas twice in one month! ;)

That's all I can think of for now....will check in again soon hopefully! Have a great rest of the week and hope everyone has a great Valentine's Day! Go Sioux!!

Team BLUE!

Here are pictures from our ultrasound today. We are having a boy!

I think he's trying really hard to give a thumb's up to us but his little hand got stuck. In the two previous ultrasounds he had his hand/thumb up as well. He gets this from Daddy! We ran across a baby picture of Jay the other day where he's sitting with a thumb's up too! :)

Legs & Feet

His little face. He decided to cooperate and look at us this time instead of hiding his face!

We are just over 20 weeks along - or about halfway through. I have started to feel the baby moving more lately. If you've seen me lately I'm starting to look a little more "poofy" as my mother so lovingly puts it! ;) Jay likes to call my stomach my "boiler" - he's so hilarious!

Have a great week everyone!!

At least it's not 44 degrees below anymore...

So...famous last words on Friday were that Jay and I didn't have anything planned for the weekend - we were looking forward to catching up on some shows we had DVR'd, doing a few things around the house, going to church/out to eat and enjoying the milder weather.

So much for that!

While the weather is indeed milder temperature-wise the winds have been blowing like crazy since later last evening. When we woke up this morning, it was apparent we weren't going anywhere for awhile! (We could have a new idea for those Snickers commercials). We really should have taken pictures prior to Jay's marathon snowblowing effort (approximately 4 and a half hours). It's hard to explain but the whole driveway was filled in and not only that but also our street.

Here are some pictures post-snowblowing (and also after some of our kind neighbors helped out with their Bobcats to dig out at least enough for us to get out of the end of the driveway with a vehicle):

Looking from our garage north. About as high as those snow piles are at the end of the driveway was how deep the snow had blown in.

Looking at our house from the street:

Looking west down our street. As you can see, the guys with the Bobcats dug out at least enough for vehicles to pass. This was filled in all the way across this morning.

Same story, but looking east:

That big drift basically extended out all the way across the driveway.

Closer up photo. The new stuff blew in while Jay was snowblowing further out in the driveway:

Jay worked his tail off and again we're grateful that our new neighbors stepped up for us again and helped with their Bobcats. They are also to be thanked for going around the neighborhood to plow out at least enough snow so that vehicles could get in and out of the subdivision.

The winds are supposed to continue until about 6:00am tomorrow so Jay went back out this evening for an hour or so and is currently trying to get rid of a bit more snow so it doesn't pile up so high again.

So I didn't feel completely useless, I decided to clean while Jay was outside and also kept the dogs from going absolutely bonkers.

We did manage to make it out of the house to go to church and to Space Aliens for supper. Once we got back, Jay bit the bullet and as I mentioned is out snowblowing for awhile again tonight to minimize the damage as much as possible tonight so he doesn't have to spend as much time tomorrow...hopefully!

Other than that, the beagles are snoozing away (today was exhausting for them apparently). Baby is still growing and I still think I'm feeling some little flutters of movements. This morning I felt a couple pretty distinctive little taps a little below my belly button. We're at 19 weeks now. Almost halfway there!

Tomorrow hopefully the wind will die down and we will actually get to enjoy the milder temps! Starting to think we're still going to have snow by the time the baby arrives in June at this rate!

Baby Update

We had an appointment yesterday for the baby and all seems to be going well! The heartrate was at 140 and it was strong & steady! Not as much movement by the baby this time - so he/she must have been taking a nap! (It was mid-afternoon, don't we all want to take naps at that time?)

The baby is about 6 inches long now and weighs a little over 5 oz - approximately the size of a can of soup! I'm still waiting to feel some movement (doctor said anywhere between 18-22 weeks is usually when you feel the first movement). I swear I've felt a little flutter or two and think that I saw something move this morning but by the time I realized it, it was over. Oh well, it's defintely got my attention now!!

Our next appointment is 3 weeks from today where we get THE ultrasound. We still aren't 100% sure if we're going to find out if the baby is a boy or girl yet but if we do, it would be in 3 weeks! Either way, it will be fun to get to see the baby again!

2009 Begins

So another year has begun and not a whole lot has changed since 2008 - especially the weather! Jay continues to snowblow our driveway several times a week - even a couple times a day sometimes. Maybe we should have rethought the whole 100 foot driveway thing...

We spent New Year's Eve in Glen Ullin which was a good time. I even stayed up until 12:45am - a new record for me since being pregnant! I did manage to catch a nice long afternoon nap on New Year's Day to help make up for lost sleep though!

Other events of the past week or so include getting things hung up on our walls at the house, going through some more boxes, me and my mom and Aunt Barb going shopping for maternity clothes for me (it's getting to be that time - one of these days I'm going to wake up and my regular clothes aren't going to fit anymore), did I mention Jay snowblowing, football watching, girls' night at Val Gerving's house, softball team reunion with Morgan and some others at the Ground Round, cross-country skiing last weekend, and not much else.

Here are some pictures from the past week:

Guitar Hero on New Years Eve:

The NYE Partygoers:
Our dog Bailey LOVES stuffed toys. While I was putting clothes away the other night, she decided to drag all my Santa Bears out into the living room and hallway (one not pictured was in the hallway). Just made me laugh how it looked like someone blew up a Santa Bear factory in our house when she was done!

Bailey also loves standing on the steps Jay had made for the dogs - especially while riding in the Durango:

More Wii playing from NYE

We also got some b-ball in on NYE:

As Lyndsey said - she let Nick dress himself that day:

Just got done making some lasagna for supper (have to say, I make some pretty dang good lasagna) as Jay finishes up some "touch up" snowblowing so we'll enjoy a late supper and watch some TV to wind up the weekend. Jay goes back to work tomorrow after his long vacation.

We have an appointment tomorrow for a baby checkup - the next one in 3-4 weeks will be another ultrasound. Still debating on whether we will find out if the baby is a boy or girl at that time. We're at about 17 weeks and counting now - almost halfway there!!

Have a great week everyone!!