Names

As some of you know we mentioned that we thought the baby's name would be Caroline....it's a name we both liked plus it's a family name on my side. But after telling several people the name we're thinking of they thought we were saying Carolyn and that is not what we want people calling her....plus for some reason now that it's getting closer I have been having second thoughts on the name. I can be so indecisive sometimes and that annoys me about myself! So, we still don't have a name picked out as of yet. And the funny thing is, we've had 2 people make some personalized gifts for her with the name Caroline on them......one was a swaddle blanket with Caroline embroidered on it and the other was a onesie with her name on it. Oopsie. So, if you're one of the people that we've told Caroline, please don' t get us a personalized gift until we have come home with her and the hospital has forced us to name her! Ha!
Tomorrow we have another doctor's appointment and this time we will have another ultrasound to see how she's postioned. I'm so excited! More to come on that.

34 Weeks Dr. Appointment

I had my 34th week check up yesterday and found out I am already dilated 1 cm. That's not very much but it still kind of shocked me. My doctor told me to take it easy these next few weeks. My last day at work is Wednesday, so thankfully I will be done with that soon. However, I have a list of things to get done that I was planning on doing before this baby gets here and my doc told me to take it easy on that list. Yikes! She said if I went into labor soon they wouldn't try to stop it at this point but she'd really like to see me go for another 2-3 weeks before we go into labor. I have so much to get done! Oh well, I'll just need to listen to my body I guess. I have a feeling this baby is coming before Christmas.

Let's see what else is new? Leland and I went out on a date to the symphony last night. It was nice. I'm not sure going to the symphony is my thing. Leland fell asleep during first piece. He said he was just listening to the music with his eyes closed, but when his head starts bobbing I'm thinking he's not listening so much as he is sleeping! But it was fun to get out of the house and go downtown one more time before we're confined to the house for a while. We have a couple of Christmas parties to go to here in the next few weeks but other than that, I'm just getting too uncomfortable to get dressed up and go out anywhere so hopefully I can make it to them.

Well, that's about it for now. We'll keep everyone posted on any changes.

Nursery Progress

The nursery is just about finished. I finally decided to just paint an accent wall in the nursery. It looks really good with the cream color on the other walls. I have a few more things to do but for the most part am done. I want to put some more stuff on the wall where the dresser is and get a rug to go in there, but other than that, we're ready!

I just love looking at all these cute little girl clothes. I can't wait to get her all dressed up!

Church Shower

The ladies at our wonderful church, Hope Bible Church, hosted a baby shower for me last Sunday. They were so very sweet to do this for us. There were ladies there that I hadn't even met yet that came and brought us gifts. We go to a fairly small church and so we've really gotten to know the members there pretty well and we have felt blessed that the Lord led us to come to this church. We got some really nice stuff and I wish I had better photos to post. I had one of the ladies take some pictures for me with my camera and I know one of the hostess, Jill, took some she's suppose to email me so I'll post those when I get them. We played some fun games and had a little devotional time and ate food and cake and they watched me open gifts. It was really nice and we are so thankful for our church friends here in Missouri!

One of the games-try to guess what baby food it is. YUM! Remind me to never buy Macaroni and Cheese dinner

All the kids there were so cute. They all wanted to help hand me gifts and see what I got. I think I had about 6 of them surrounding me.

This was a diaper cake that one of the hostess' and her daughter made for us. It had little goodies all stuffed around it.

These were two knitted blankets and some booties that two ladies made for us. I thought that was so special and nice. We were just overwhelmed with everyone's generosity.

8 Month Baby Bump

Here's my 8 month baby bump. I'm actually 32 weeks so when I say I'm 8 months, I still have 2 more months to go. Since you're pregnant for actually 10 months (40 weeks) it's kind of misleading. So anyway, here it is.
I had my 32 week check-up appointment with Dr. Moore yesterday and all is well. She checked me again to make sure I'm not dilating since I'm still having daily contractions but they are so irregular and infrequent that we haven't been too worried. I've gotten so used to having them I tend to just ignore them now but I hope I'll know when it's the real thing! I'm sure it will be obvious! My doc said that after 2 more weeks I'm in the clear for a safe delivery-in other words they won't try to stop labor because I'll be far enough along. That just seems crazy to me that it's getting so close! She checked the heartbeat and the baby had the hiccups at the time so it was kind of funny sounding on the heartbeat checker thingy. I will have another ultrasound when I'm 36 weeks to see what position she is in and make sure my amniotic fluid looks good. So far I'm feeling okay, just starting to get tired easily and my back is always sore-I pretty much look like a granny when I first get up and start walking and then I'm just waddling the rest of the time. So far, being pregnant has been a wonderful experience and even though I complain at times about it, I want to cherish this time while I can because it's just flown by so fast and it's such a miraculous thing to experience. I only wish Leland could feel all the movement and kicks and things like that that I do.

Fall Flowers

We have Chrysamthemums in our flower beds that I've been having to trim back all summer long because they were getting out of control and now they are finally bloomed! I'm so excited they are finally here. When we moved here in January, they were just little twigs sticking out of the ground and I never thought they'd blossom into this.

I heard Sadie going nuts one day outside barking and I went downstairs to see what she was all worked up over-it was a little snake. I think it's just a grass snake. I think Sadie scared it so bad it didn't even make a move when I went down to look at it. We have a little creek behind our house so I'm sure it came from back there.

National Day of Prayer

This came in a forwarded email that my friend Niki emailed me......

"I am asking every believer in Jesus Christ to set aside Monday, November 3 as a day of fasting and prayer . I would urge you to review the prayer of Daniel on behalf of his people in Dan . 9:3-19, and to pray that way for our nation. And finally, I would ask you to distribute this call to prayer as widely as possible so that the greatest number of people would lay hold of the throne of grace all at once. It may be that God will show mercy to America , that He will shed His grace on her once again."

'If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.' 2 Chronicles 7:14

In church today, this was the very topic our sermon was over, Daniel's prayer in chapter 9. This is the prayer we should be praying for our nation right now.