Christmas and New Year's

Christmas was a lot of fun this year. I had to miss both the Kipfer and Isch Christmases so I was very sad about that. The Thanksgiving schedule worked out a little bit better than Christmas, but that's alright. I had a great time seeing my family and spending time with them. The little one is taking up too much space in my belly so I didn't get to eat nearly as much as I wanted to, but I'll make up for that next year. :) Overall, Christmas was great. Midnight Mass was gorgeous, even though I was dead tired by the time I got home. The baby really liked the music at church, so she was awake and kicking all through the service. I did really miss Drew though. It would have been nice for him to be home.

I can't believe it's already 2010. Where did 2009 go? I feel like it flew by. Other years I've gotten to New Year's Eve and have thought to myself, "Okay, I'm ready for a new year. It's time." This year, I just couldn't believe where all the time had gone. It seems like 2009 just rushed by. Hopefully 2010 goes a little bit slower, but I feel like once I have the baby all my life is going to do is pick up speed, which is really sad. Drew was able to call me on New Year's, with the help of a very generous friend's calling card. It was nice getting to talk to him since how you spend New Year's Eve is supposedly how you spend the rest of the year. Drew, looks like you're stuck talking to me. Hope you enjoy it! Hahaha. It was a nice relaxing New Year's just spending time with my mom and relaxing.

The construction upstairs is on hold until after the baby is born. We realized that we weren't going to make it happen before she got here, so we started focusing on the space that we do have and organizing it and making it ready for her. It's been a lot of cleaning and rearranging, but it's coming together. It helps that I'm in a nesting mood 90% of the time, so all I want to do is get things done and moved around and ready for the baby to get here. It'll all be together soon enough.

We're finally at the point where we go see the doctor every week. The baby is measuring a centimeter small, but the doctor isn't too worried about it. She said that me being as active as I am and the fact that I used to walk everyday is probably why she's so small. Everything else with the baby is great. The only problem that's come up is that my platelets are very low. I found out that I'm one of 7% of pregnant women that this happen to. What are the odds of that? Being one in 7% of women? Crazy, but it happens I guess. I'm glad I had mentally prepared myself to not have an epidural, because the way it's looking now they won't be able to give me one anyways because of problems with clotting since my platelets are so low. There are some other complications associated with it, but hopefully not anything the doctor can't remedy with modern medicine.

Three weeks til her due date!!!! I can't believe it! It's flown by so fast. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was going to my first appointment with Drew and now I'm seeing my doctor every week and they keep telling me that she could come at any time. She really needs to stay put until Drew gets home. I keep telling her that I can't start going into labor until at least like 5 p.m. on the 18th, which would be well after Drew gets home at 2 p.m., but that she really does need to stay in there until her due date. Hopefully she's a good listener and doesn't appear until the 24th. For now, we're just praying and keeping our fingers crossed that she's patient.

Thank you all again for all of your thoughts and prayers.

Thanksgiving for Two!

I can't believe Thanksgiving has come and gone already! It seems like this year has flown by!!! I feel like I was just sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner last year and yet a year has passed. This was probably the easiest Thanksgiving that I'm ever going to get as far as timing of family dinners. My mom's side was early Thursday and my dad's side was later Thursday. Drew's family dinners were both on Friday at two totally different times. It was great to be able to go to all four family celebrations; this is probably the only year that they will fall like that. That's the joy of married life though. Haha. Having to choose which side of the family to celebrate which holiday with. As long as I'm with family, I'll be perfectly content.

Dinner Thursday with my mom's side was great! The baby didn't really like the fact that her space was taken up by my full belly. She started kicking almost immediately after dinner. I got to spend some time relaxing before I had to go to my dad's side's dinner. I got there right in time for dessert. My Aunt Debbie makes amazing desserts so I didn't really mind. It was great sitting around with them telling stories about the baby and my cousins and me as babies. I heard a lot of funny stories that I had forgotten. My grandma got to feel the baby move around. She really really enjoyed that. Thursday was a great day.

Friday morning I got up and left for Bluffton with the Kipfers for the Kipfer family Thanksgiving. I had a lot of fun relaxing with the Kipfers. Rafe was getting a back massage from the baby when I was holding him. She wasn't a fan of getting smooshed by another baby. I guess she doesn't do competition well. Lunch was amazing, as usual. It was really funny watching Gwen pass out in a tryptophan coma!! Haha. I probably would have too if I had sat down for more than a few minutes. Then we went to the Isch family Thanksgiving. It was wonderful meeting some more of Drew's family that I had not met before and seeing many of his relatives that I had seen before. Dinner was great and Jayla and I decided, against our better judgement, to keep eating even though I think we were going to explode. I had a great time talking to Drew's sisters and cousins. Overall, Thanksgiving was absolutely wonderful this year, except for my missing fiancé.

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers. They're going to help so much with the last month and a half of Drew's time on the ship.

Bluffton Baby Shower

This past weekend, my mom and I went to Bluffton for a baby shower that was hosted by the ladies on Drew's side of the family. It was great getting to meet everyone in his family that I haven't met yet. Being able to put a face with a name now for most of his family is really great. The decorations were beautiful and the food was amazing! Grandma Judy made me some pumpkin cookies that were probably the best tasting cookies that I've ever eaten in my entire life!!! I love pumpkin anything: pumpkin bread, pumpkin coffee, pumpkin pie, etc. So to have some pumpkin cookies made by the lovely Judy Kipfer was WONDERFUL!! The advice that was given to me by these ladies was invaluable and I treasure all of it. It was also very nice being in Bluffton, since I've only been there one other time since Drew and I have been together. I'm sure we'll be going there a lot to visit family and stuff once the baby gets here, so it was nice to get to visit and see where everything is now.

I just wanted to thank all of Drew's family for the lovely gifts that they gave us. They were wonderful and we treasure all of them. Thank you all so very much!!

Thank you all for all of your thoughts and prayers. It is only through God and your prayers that we are making it through these long six months. Thank you so very much.

visiting with drew

Well, this past Sunday I got the chance to see Drew for a few hours. Other than port security being a HUGE pain, it was a great day. Supposedly they weren't letting the crew off at a certain time because it was too windy (that's what I was told at least so don't quote me on that one...ask Drew for more details). We got about 6 hours together. It was definitely better than no time at all but the hour or so that port security took from us would have been nice to have also. He did get to feel the baby move, although she decided it was going to be a quiet day and she didn't move around quite as much as she has in the past week or so. She does things that way though, everything in her own time and the way she wants it, so I guess I wasn't that surprised. His face was priceless though when she did decide to move. Drew said that it was absolutely awesome to feel her move and roll around. She definitely recognized her daddy's voice though. She really likes it a lot! I have the distinct feeling she's going to be a daddy's girl, but he'll have to share her. Haha. After relaxing for a little bit, we all had lunch together, Drew's parents and grandparents and the two of us. It was nice having him there in person and be able to talk to him in person and not just over the internet. It definitely was a mixed blessing though. I loved having him there in person and seeing him and knowing he was ok, but it was very very difficult to put him back on the ship. That was definitely a very hard thing for both of us. I was able to deal with it a little bit better than putting him on the plane 4 months ago, but definitely wasn't a cake walk either. Luckily, we only have 2 months left. That's a positive thing. It definitely made it easier that I got to spend a few days with Drew's parents and grandparents before I had to come home. I had a great time with them in Fort Myers. Overall, it was a great weekend and I loved seeing Drew!!!

Thank you to everyone for all of your thoughts and prayers. It is all truly appreciated!!!

1st Trimester, Check. 2nd Trimester, Check

Well as I sit here thinking about it, my second trimester has flown by. I feel like I was just writing about being done with my first trimester and now I'm writing about being done with my second trimester. Nothing too out of the ordinary happened in my second trimester. She has gotten a lot bigger, as she should, but I love to sit around and watch her move and kick and punch. I'm ready for the third trimester and I'm ready for her to be here. I hope she doesn't come early, but I definitely can't wait to meet her. I'm finally starting to show. It's nice to have a belly and not just look like I've eaten a pretty decent sized meal. I know that one day soon I might regret saying that I'm glad that I have a belly but for now I love the fact that I do. I've been unbelievably fortunate with not gaining a whole lot of weight and not having a whole lot of swelling. I hope that it stays this way for the rest of my pregnancy. Being active has definitely helped with that.

It's been very nice to be at home. Not working has been very relaxing. I've been running errands for my mom and doing chores around the house. Even though our house is a mess at least I feel like I'm nesting a little bit before she gets here. The upstairs is still a wreck but it's moving along. I'm still hoping that it's going to be done before she gets here.

Thanks everyone for all of your prayers. They are all greatly appreciated!

Fall in Love with Baby Kipfer

My cousin hosted a baby shower for me this weekend for everyone who lived in Southern Indiana and most of my family. It was beautifully done. Because it was in October, she had the idea of having the theme be "Fall in Love with Baby Kipfer". It was fall themed with apple cider and fall colors and stuff like that. It was great!! Julia made such amazing food! A pregnant woman's dream come true! Haha. A lot of people were there. We all just barely fit into her cute little house, but we did. The shower started off with mingling and socializing. Time for everyone to get to know each other. There were a lot of people from different sides of my family that didn't know each other. And Janean had only met a few people before the shower, so it was a great time for her to meet some other people in the family too. After that we ate all the delicious food. Some of the best food I've eaten in a long time. Then we played some games. The first one we played was a questionnaire about Drew and I as babies. My answer sheet didn't count (neither did the two grandma's answer sheets. that probably wouldn't have been fair), but if mine had I totally would have won. I only missed one question out of all 18. It was hilarious!! The next game we played was a baby food guessing game. My aunts, Pam and Debbie, volunteered with my cousin's girlfriend, Amanda, and one of my family friends, Maria. They were pretty brave souls. I got to feed them baby food!! It was hilarious watching their reaction to the taste and smell. I fed them things like carrots, apples and cherries, chicken noodle dinner, and butternut squash. I loved it!! Haha. After that I opened presents. We got a TON of blankets...that was kind of the joke of the shower was the crazy number of blankets that we got! The shower was so much fun though. I loved having everyone all there to celebrate our little one.

I wanted to say thank you for all the gifts and for everyone who came to the shower. It was so much fun and I loved having everyone there together. It was great having everyone meet each other and share some time together. I also really want to thank my cousin, Julia, for hosting such an amazing shower. Her devotion at the beginning of the shower was a great insight into living my life as a mother through God and His word. I really loved it.

Thank you for all of your prayers and thoughts. It is all very much appreciated.

man! she likes to move!

i have discovered just how much she loves to move. the other night i just laid in bed and watched her roll and kick and punch. it was probably the greatest feeling in the entire world...well at least until she gets here and then i'm sure i will have a million more great feelings. but watching her move was pretty great for right now. so watching her move and roll around is by far my new favorite pastime. it definitely blows rugby and cycling out of the water!! she definitely LOVES to move around. i can definitely see her constantly being on the move whenever she gets here. it makes me really curious to see if she'll be interested in dancing or sports or what will make her happy. but i'm that it'll be probably be something where she'll constantly be on the move.

all of her movements and just all of the stuff she does absolutely amazes me. i can't even begin to describe the feelings that i get whenever i watch her move around in there. she really is one of God's little miracles and i am so grateful to be blessed with the ability to carry such a beautiful little being. i love her so much (sorry drew, still love you, but i definitely love her in a very different way. can't help it. i'm the mom and i spend every day with her. haha).

all of your prayers and thoughts are greatly appreciated. thank you so much. we love all of you.