Rolie Polie

Ethan let us catch his first big trick

on camera last night. I laid him our bed so

I could go get his pj's and the way that he was

wiggling I thought, he's going to actually roll over.

I called Chris to come watch & he thought

to get the camera & sure enough, after

about 5 minutes or so he did it!!!

Please excuse our silly encouragements

but we were pretty excited.

First 8 weeks

I know, I know, he's 10 weeks old now but

I only have this made up through 8 weeks.

Maybe now that I have regular internet access

I can update this better!

Ethan is such a character these days,

jabbering away, giving huge smiles (thanks to Linda,

Chris's boss, who got him started a few weeks ago),

and being a very happy baby in general.

He loves to "stand up" nearly the whole time he's

awake which is great since we need to keep

him off his back as much as possible.

Poor little guy has a flat spot

on his head thanks to back sleeping :(

At least he still has all of the hair back there, right?

I went back to work on the 28th of Sept.

and I miss Ethan A LOT!!

He's getting along just fine at Becky's

so that makes leaving him easier I think.

We hope we can work out a way for me to

start staying home some time after the first

of the year. Maybe then I could try to do some college!

Anyway, here's the link to the real reason everyone

"tunes in" to this blog:

Click here for slideshow

Mommy's Little Man

Since I have internet for a few minutes I thought I'd post as many pictures as possible.

Here are some of my favorites so far, enjoy!!

I think almost everyone heard that I broke out with an awful rash but it has finally cleared up!

Ethan's still doing great & growing like a weed. I can't wait for his 3-week doctor apt this Friday to see what his weight is up to.

Time to get back to my Little Man!

1 week

And doing great!

Ethan saw his doctor on Thursday and

Dr. S said everything looks good.

He even passed the "cuddle test"!!

(He is quite cuddly I must say)

He weighed in at 7 lbs 1 ounce,

back up from the 7 lbs .6 ounces that he came home at.

Our first few nights were a little rough but Ethan has gotten used to our house and now he wakes me up once a night to eat and sleeps like a pro the rest of the night. (Knock on wood!)

So far he's been easy to please, crying only if he needs changing or is being changed (he hates being naked) or really wants to eat NOW! We feel lucky that he's so laid back & hope he keeps this temperment. Here are some pics from our first few days. . .

Ethan's birthday

Family & Friends

Ethan's first bath

He's Here! ***Updated with his name***

Ethan Rylan Gregory

Born July 25, 2009 at 8:37 am

Quick Information: Boy :P 7lb 7oz, 20 3/4 inches.

100% Adorable.

2. . .

"2" Huge!

That's about how I'm feeling. Of course I've seen my profile in the mirror but it wasn't until I saw the picture below that I realized how big Little Man has gotten. No wonder it hurts to walk!! :)

We got a lot accomplished this weekend. The kitchen cabinets and built in book shelf in the dining room are sanded & ready for stain. The drywall is now completely done in the kitchen/dining room (okay, save for a really small part behind the back door but that should be done tonight). The wall between the kitchen & dining room has been trimed in. L.M.'s room has been primed & the base paint color is up. Chris was even able to start building L.M.'s closet shelves!!

I can't wait to get the staining done so we can have dishes in our kitchen again (it's been about a year since we've had that "luxury")!

3. . .

Finally full term!!

At least that's what we're considered now that we've made it to 37 weeks. So, L.M. can show up anytime now, it would definitely be fine by me!!! I just hope we can come up with a name once we see him! If anyone has suggestions go ahead & send 'em our way.

Now that it's stopped "raining" on L.M. we got back to fixing the house. Eric came over on Saturday and Chris helped him put up the "split rail" (as Chris calls it since it's not really at chair height but is closer to splitting the room in half) up in our room so it is now done! Well, for now. We plan to change the rest of the trim but that's for later, probably much later. :) Then on Sunday my mom & brother made it out to help some, too. Jason worked on his bassinet project, mom worked on some of the kitchen cabinet doors & I managed to get some sanding done on the cabinet facings. Finally, things are moving again!!!

4. . .

Two "4"'s this week. . .

4 weeks to go & our 4th shower!

Sunday evening our church family showered

us with a lot of love!!

We had so much fun with the games

(Kara was very clever with the clothes pin game!!),

and the food was great, too!

Most of all I feel so blessed to have such an

amazing church familly!!!

These great little goodie baskets Anne made up with

storage containers we registered for, love it!

MMMM, chocolate cake w/ "whipped cream" style icing!!

Here's the clothes pin game that Kara showed us up on.

Audrey has been such a great help with

the showers & made them so much fun!!

Thank you everyone for all of the wonderful

gifts in helping Chris and I prepare for Little Man's

arrival, we really are blessed to have such

loving family and friends!!!!!

New Livingroom furniture

I came home yesterday to some surprising new Livingroom furniture!!

What do you think? :)

I must send out a big "Thank You" to Chris's

Dad & brother for such an interesting conversation piece.

Not that you can really have a conversation

while it's in use but maybe this will inspire me to

learn sign language!

All jokes aside, Chris is thrilled & he doesn't

really plan to keep them in the Livingroom,

he just couldn't wait to play.

What a big kid!! :)

5. . .

It "rained" on Little Man all weekend!

On Saturday Connie had a shower for us at her house.

Lots of family came to help get us ready.

***************************************************

Then on Sunday, my friend Amy & Tonya

threw a shower for us with my co-workers.

Amy had us play a game where everyone tried

to guess how big my stomach was by

cutting a piece of twine to that length.

It was a hoot!!

We all got a great laugh out of that.

Thank you so much everyone for all of the great

help that you have given us to get ready

for Little Man's arrival!!!

We can't wait for him to get here to try it all out!

6. . .

Spring showers!

We had our first baby shower this weekend.

Thank you to everyone who came and got us off to a great start!

Here are a few pictures from the Gregory's shower:

We also had our "belly shots" taken this weekend.

My friend Amy Saysanavong took us out to a couple of

locations around town and photographed Chris, Me & Little Man.

I'll post those once they are available.

(There's a link to Amy's site on the left bar if

you want to check out her other work)

7. . .

We got a little more accomplished this weekend.

Art was able to finish up the chair rail

for our new room so once we get it all polyurethaned

it can go up and that room will be complete!

He also got us started on the new frame work

for L.M.'s closet door.

Tonya got a chance to come out and help out this time, too.

She got some more paint up in the kitchen and

primered L.M.'s closet!

Eric & Chris worked on drywall and cutting the

half wall between the kitchen & dining room

down to size. Now we can cut the wood & get

that wall finished.

I think we can, I think we can. . .

8. . .

So I don't have anything new to report but I wanted to keep up the countdown. We took it pretty easy this weekend which was a nice break. We did some registering for Little Man and picked up the bedroom suite from Chris's mom that we will be using & that was about it. Maybe the break will help us refocus and get back to work this coming weekend. Hope everyone has a nice week!!!

9. . .

9 weeks to go!!

Ack! Single digit weeks!!

This was taken somewhere near midnight

but at least we remembered this week!

And here are some snaps of our progress

this weekend (5/29 - 5/31). . .

The only thing left for this room for now is

the chair rail and it will be done!

That is Aly in the shelf. Of course we put her in there

but she seems pretty content!!

Chris's custom closet work is pretty nice, don't you think?!

I'm so glad to have better storage.

A little bit closer! I can't wait to be done!!!

10. . .

10 weeks to go!

**Should have posted this on 5/25**

With everything we were working on last weekend we didn't snap any "30 week" pictures of my belly but we do have some pictures of our efforts. . . 

There was a wall heater in the lower portion of this hole

so Chris decided to make us a charging station

while patching the hole. He's so clever!

All patched up. This is going to be a really useful space.

Yay!! We finally have a whole ceiling again!

The paint is only a first coat and there will be a glaze

over it as well so I'll update when we have it done.

Even though we got a lot accomplised (primered the kitchen/dining room, new lighting fixtures in the kitchen/dining room, the ceiling put up in the kitchen/dining room, primered our room, painted our closet & new shelving unit, got some more cabinet doors stripped, and I'm sure there are a few other things I just can't remember) it still feels like we are soooo far from the finish line but I know we'll get there, we have to!! :) Oddly enough, I'm glad I don't have another 3 day weekend coming up, it took 4 days to get over this one.

Single digit weeks here we come!

26 week check up

**So I typed this up a few weeks ago but just now getting pictures to go with it so, better late than never!!**

Original post:

We're getting closer! Little Man is doing great & getting bigger all the time, something that is becoming very evident to the outside world as you can see. . . 

28 weeks:

Since the tech at our 25 week ultrasound couldn't disclose anything (or even give us any interesting photos) I found out as much as I could from my doctor at this check up. As of 4/21 Little Man was approximately 750 grams (1.65 lbs) and at EGA (estimated gestational age) of 25 weeks, pretty spot on! Most importantly we found that the fluid was at 11.7 cm, perfect!! Normal is measured between 8-20 cm so we couldn't be more pleased (and a little relieved, as much as I tried not to worry about it I still was slightly preoccupied by it).

L. M. has been soooooo active the past few weeks, I think he's practicing to show Chris up as a drummer or something. He still seems bashful, though, as every time we try to "play" with him he abruptly stops moving and stays still for a minute or two before pounding around again. At least he's working out, right?! :)

It's weird to think we're almost in the third trimester. I hope (for now!!) he's comfy in there and doesn't decide to show up early. We're (meaning the house) sooooo not ready!! There's still so much to do! Whoever's not able to help out physically please send up prayers for us that we can pull it all off! I keep telling myself it will all fall into place but it sure doesn't look like it right now. . .

22 week check up

We had a check up this morning and things are still looking good. We are up to +5 lbs to date and measuring right up to where we should be. We do have one very slight concern which is the fluid amount from our last ultrasound was on the "low side of normal" so we have to do another ultrasound, yay!! Sounds fine by me. The doctor didn't seem worried about it at all and after we chatted for a minute about what/how much I've been drinking he didn't feel like there's any thing else I should be doing and that it will probably be just fine on the next ultrasound. We get to see little man again so it works for me!! We go for that on April 21 so he should be pretty big by then, I can't wait!

I have a new cousin!!!

Updated with more pics!!

Okay, so she's my 2nd cousin but it's fun that my cousin & I

are both adding to the Welch family this year!!

It's not quite the feat that Gregory's are pulling off

this year but that's for another post.

Yesterday, March 13 @ 1:02 pm

Micheala Jade Fuentes

was born weighing in at

8 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long.

Congratulations Kris & Dave! She is beautiful!

Let us know what to expect a few months.

Almost half way there

We just had our "20" week ultrasound and everything is looking great!! He's measuring up at approximately 19 weeks 3 days which is pretty spot on for August 1st. Let's hope he sticks to that and doesn't decide to wait until later, it's going to be a long summer as it is!

I've definitely been feeling his movements and once I discovered it really was him, I realized I'd been feeling him since the 16th week. He didn't feel like a "flutter" or any of the other ways that were described to me so I convinced myself that it wasn't him, it must have been something else. Then, last Tuesday night shortly after we had gone to bed, I decided I would try to feel with my hand what was going on. I pressed in on my tummy and a few seconds later I got a shock!!! It felt like something the size of a racket ball rolled against my hand! I gasped & woke Chris from the light sleep he'd just fallen into. "What's wrong?!?", " I just felt him! I really just felt him. . .with my hand!!" It took me forever to go to sleep after that! And of course, he's been making his "rolling" more pronounced each day since then, mostly at night or

when we're in the Prelude. In fact, the morning after my "discovery" on my way to work I pictured in my head a miniature dolphin doing tricks in my stomach. :)

And here are the new pictures, enjoy!!

Sucking his thumb?

Jason said little man looks like a monkey in this picture, I think I kinda agree :)

Check up

We had our third prenat visit today & all is well! His heart is drumming away at 156 bpm & we appear to be "right on target" with weight (+2 lbs to date) and measurements so far. It was a quick visit & I think we even got out of there before our scheduled visit time! Kentucky was having a state tornado drill today at 9:07 am and our appointment was scheduled for 9:00 but since we got there early the doctor asked to go ahead & see us so we could be on our way. I thought that was really nice of him. We were in the car at 9:07 so we didn't have to do the hospital's drill! 

Next week we get to go for our second ultrasound and I can't wait!!! Hopefully I'll have some more good pictures to share!

What's bigger than WOW??!!?

The ultrasound went great! Unfortunately we weren't able to get a recording (hospital rules) but the tech did print out some really good pictures, especially for only being 11 1/2 weeks, enjoy!

Big surprise finish!!!

The tech was very certain of her findings & we couldn't disagree!
We were just shocked that we were able to find out this early!!