Christmas in Cleveland...

Merry Christmas and
Happy New Year!

Well, we spent 11 days in Cleveland with Joshua's family before visiting my family (I will post next about our visit with my family in a few days...stay tuned!).

We arrived a day early because Wheeling was supposed to get an ice storm, and we didn't want to get stuck there for an extra day or two. Our car was packed to the gills. Norah had stuff piled up on either side of her in the back seat. Not sure how safe that would have been in an accident, but you gotta do what you gotta do I guess.

We had a great time in Cleveland visiting with all of Josh's brothers, their wives, dogs and his parents. (We missed Aunt Katie and Steve and hope to visit with them soon.) Norah of coarse was a big hit with everyone! She got lots of quality time in everyone's arms and even took her first evening walk in the Baby Bjorn with Grandpa Elek and met one of the neighbors. She got lots of fun presents from everyone as well. She also got to meet her extended Elek relatives and some of her cousins fed her!

Enjoy the pictures!

Norah's first evening stroll with Grandpa Elek!

Grandma and Grandpa Elek

(I am making a picture book for Norah with all of her grandparents,
aunts and uncles, so I thought I would include those pictures!)

Uncle Tim and Aunt Marisa

Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Jim

Aunt Charlene and Uncle Jeremy

Napping-Mom, Norah and Gizmo
(our dog who is living with mom and dad Elek until we can keep her!)

Napping again-Norah and Dad

Cousin Chris getting ready to feed Norah. He did great!

Cousin Scott feeding Norah

Cousin Allison holding the now youngest cousin in the family

This is Norah's crib that Grandpa and Grandma Elek bought and put up at their house since we do not have room for it in our small apartment. It is nice that she has a place to sleep when she visits and we will have it for when we move in June! Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!

Here is a close up of the crib set! Elephants!
(I couldn't flip this one for some reason.)

Thanks for taking the time to look at all the pictures!

Visitors!

Norah has had some recent visitors in Wheeling before we left for Cleveland.

Two of my close friends from Pittsburgh came to visit the day after my birthday which was very much needed. Joshua and I had an all-nighter with Norah the night before and she had not been feeding very well, so she had pretty much been crying all day and could not be consoled by the time they arrived. It was helpful to be able to hand her off so that we could have a break. As soon as our friend Allie held her she was quite. That's when I let my guard down and cried because, well, it is just a little stressful at times when you can't figure out how to help your new baby. It's great to have friends and family help out when you are so tired and can't think of one more creative way to settle your new one.


We enjoyed lunch and conversation with Allie and Erin and we got to meet Lucy, Erin's second little girl who was born one month before Norah. It was so nice to be with my friends. I wish I had been a little more putt together and not so emotional, but that's what they were there for, was to meet Norah and support Josh and I, which is exactly what they did!

This next picture is of one of our students "Chevy." We met Chevy on our New Orleans trip last year. (Chevy is her nickname.) Chevy and I became almost instant friends once we really got to see how goofy each of us was. She is a ton of fun and I'm so glad she got to come and meet Norah because unfortunately Chevy is leave WJU and will be joining the Air Force this coming April. We will miss Chevy very much!


We are now in Cleveland, so I will try to post some more pictures from here soon! We are enjoying the down time. Norah has her crib set up here too, so I will get some pictures up of that as well.

Week One!

Norah is one week old today! She had her first pediatric appointment today and everything looks great! We have been pretty tired lately and not been able to blog or e-mail out pictures alot, but I thought I would take a few minutes to share some of my favorite photos from the week at home.

This first picture is of Norah in the hospital sleeping under the blue light because she had jaundice. We loved these little black foam glasses she had to wear and thought she looked like a little superhero! We figure this is how they make superheros, they give them these glasses and bake them for awhile after they are born!

This is Norah on her trip home from the hospital. Her clothes are a little big, but so cute! She is just too sweet!

This is one of my favorites! She likes to have her hands next to her face alot. She had her hands up around her face in her sonograms too!

This is two of Norah's cousins that came to meet her. Ellie is on the left and Cora on the right.

These are my grandparents McCowin with their three great grandchildren! They love being great grandparents!

When we got home from the hospital some guys from our dorm made this welcome home sign! We loved it!

These are the women from my family that came to visit. (L-R) My mom and she is holding Ellie, my Aunt Linda, my grandma, Cora being held by my sister-in-law Heather and me. And Norah of course!

This is one of our first family pictures!

This is one of my favorite moments in the day, which happens several times each day. When she is ready to feed I put her up on my shoulder to get situated for feeding and she starts to make out with my neck, then cheek and then nose! It tickles so much and is the best feeling. She is so sweet!!!


This is just a cute one!

Joshua's brothers all came to visit too and Marisa our sister-in-law! We loved having them! (L-R) Jim, Tim, Jeremy, Joshua and Norah (front and center)

Uncle Jim drove from Virginia so he stayed with us for two nights. He and Joshua played lots of XBOX and Norah played too! I loved this picture of her little bum!

So there they are, I hope you enjoyed the pictures. More to come for sure.

Norah is Born!

Hey, this is Joshua posting for Rach. No time to write a full post, but you can go here to see pictures of Norah and the delivery if you want to.

Trying to Induce Labor

Well, we've tried almost everything we can think of to induce labor, and nothing has worked. So, we decided we would try to guilt Norah into coming out. We figured if we baked her a birthday cake, she would HAVE to be born. So, we baked her a delicious chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and wrote "Happy Birthday Norah!" in home-made vanilla frosting. The cake was very delicious, and... ultimately ineffective (so far at least). So, even with an honest to goodness birthday cake, Norah's still not born. Ugh. Tuesday it is.

Here's the cake!

Norah didn't seem to be motivated by the guilt, but we ate the cake anyway. (We went to our friend Katie's house and ate while we decorated her Christmas tree.) Now... all we need is for Norah to actually be born.

P.S. Our apologies to Uncle Tim for Norah not being born on his birthday. Maybe next time.

Christmas in Wheeling

This is our real Christmas tree that we put up the day after Thanksgiving! I love having a real tree in our apartment!!! We knew we needed to do it soon one because Norah would be here soon and we would not have the time or energy after her arrival and two because we leave for our Christmas break on December 15th or 16th, so we need to get as much Christmas in in Wheeling as we can!

We rearranged (Josh did, not me) the apartment to make room for the tree and to make room for Grandma Elek's rocking chair in the bedroom. That's why Grandma B's (Josh's grandma) davenport is in the living room now, but it is only out in the living room under one condition and this is a condition that Grandma B set up many years ago, "No eating on the davenport!"

I also took a picture of Norah's corner in our bedroom so that those of you who may not be able to make it to Wheeling to see her can see her "crib."

We hope to visit with lots of people over the holidays while we are at our families houses. Feel free to stop by and visit us and meet Norah!

By the way, I will be induced on December 4th if I don't go naturally before then. I am getting a little anxious now that we are a week away from life drastically changing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My family came to Wheeling to share Thanksgiving dinner with us since we are unable to travel 6 days from our due date!!

It was really nice to have everyone hear. It was my grandparents, my parents, my brother, sister-in-law, two nieces and cousins.

Josh made his first turkey and homemade stuffing!! It was really good! I decorated the table as you can see below...

Here we all are at the table in the lounge across the hall from our apartment! Who would have thought we could pull off Thanksgiving dinner for 12 in a college resident hall!

These are my grandparents with my two nieces Ellie on the right and Cora on the left. Ellie is 6 months old and needed glasses, so Cora wanted a pair too. I happened to own 2 pair of fake glasses so i wrapped a pair up for her when she came! She loved them!

I hope everyone had as great of a day as we did! Now the wait really begins as I do not really have anything major to do, so Norah can come any day now!!

Spaghetti Sauce

So here I am 8 days from my due date! I'm feeling pretty good for the most part, but I am having a little bit of lower back pain, and this is really the second day that I have had any, so I'm not complaining.

Josh came home from work tonight and started figuring out what to make for dinner. Now in case you are not aware, I am the number 1 pickiest eater in the United States of America and if there is one thing that I am the most picky about it would have to be spaghetti sauce.

He offered to make some homemade sauce because he knows that's really the only acceptable option for me. Since my back has been hurting we decided to eat in the living room where I could keep my feet propped up and sit in a more comfortable seat. He prepared the plates and drinks and carried the plates out to me first. He handed me my plate and then handed me his and I put his on the end table next to me. He turned to get the drinks and a grated cheese. I quickly assessed our plates and realized that my plate had more spaghetti on it and I knew I probably would not be able to eat it all. I quick scanned to the kitchen to see if he could see me and quickly switched our plates. The reason I didn't want him to see me switch the plates was because I have a million and 1 quirks that he is learning to live with, so I try to spare him the moments to observe that there may be more that he is unaware of!

So we eat our dinner and he turns to me and says,

J: What did you think of the sauce?

R: I liked it but I thought it was a little spicy.

J: (mouth drops) It was a sweeter sauce though and my secret ingredient was grape jelly.

R: Really! Grape Jelly! Well that's weird, because honestly the sauce has a kick to it.

J: I did not put any spices in it! Not even black pepper! Wait....(quickly darting his eyes back and forth between my plate and his)

R: (I quickly realize that I did something wrong and need to confess) Ummmm, I switched our plates!

J: Why did you do that!!! I put alot of red pepper flakes on my sauce! I was wondering why mine was not that spicy!

R: Well, it looks like Norah's coming tonight!!!

We both started laughing so hard because I'm so weird. I told him how I thought he might think it's weird if he saw me switching plates.

Below is a picture of me and how I need to eat my meals with a towel over my stomach. I can't not spill things down the front of me and spaghetti sauce is a hopeless cause when it comes to spilling!

He explained his ingredients, they were as follows: sauce, paste, garlic, salt, a tiny bit of onion and grape jelly. It all went into the blender as any type of chunk produces the gag reflex for me! :)

This is just one example of how hard he has to work to make our meals good for both of us. I usually know that there is a difference, but since I was not in the kitchen the entire time he made dinner I didn't even think that our plates would be different! The funniest part was that the whole time I was eating it I kept thinking to myself, "Why does he have to push it with these spices to get me to try new things."

Ahhhh, marriage....you never know what's going to happen!

Catching up...

It's been awhile and I thought I would catch people up on what's been going on.

We are currently 3 1/2 weeks away from our due date!! I am hoping Norah comes early, but she probably won't. I have been having pain almost every time I stand up or walk in my lower pelvic region, which is annoying. I've been to the doctors twice since it started and there is really nothing they can do for it.

On top of that my muscle disease, Myotonia Congenita (click to read about it if you are interested), is getting worse, which we knew would happen throughout the pregnancy, but it has really cranked up several notches in the last few weeks. My doctors do not really seem to understand it though, so they really only respond to the pelvic pain. They never ask how it is. It's great! I highly recommend seeing doctors that don't understand what your disease is! :) They keep saying, "your almost done," and trust me I know!

I've had a few scary episodes with the myotonia and one involved driving, so I've pretty much decided on my own that it's not worth the risk of something happening that I would really regret, so either Josh drives or I don't go unless I can get a ride with someone else. I'm grateful for the fact that we are completely ready for Norah to come because otherwise, I would be going crazy if I knew there were things I needed to get done right now.

Students have been visiting me more throughout the day and bringing me movies to watch. Even our janitor, Jim, yells at me if he sees me in the hallway. He tells me to go put my feat up and relax! :)

Josh has been really great! He does the grocery shopping, dishes, cooks (which he does everyday anyways!!), gets me my late night bowls of cereal and my glasses of iced tea! I was teasing him the other day because I typically wash the dishes because I love it and it's my domain, but lately it's tiring to stand that long, but the way we do dishes is 100% different. My dish drainer looks like a well oiled machine that stacked the dishes in the most efficient effective way possible. His dish drainer looks like abstract art! I do not know how things do not go flying out onto the floor! It makes me laugh! They have never fallen, which I think is a miracle.

I have also learned the sounds of our apartment and dorm very well. I know exactly who is in the hallway at all times. I know how often the kid upstairs vacuums his carpet (he is OCD about it and I love it! I want to meet him and just have a conversation about the joys of vacuuming!). I hear Father O'Brien singing hymns upstairs. I hear our clock ticking, which often leads to me pulling the battery out! Our tub runs constantly and we need to use a wrench to turn it on and off, but the nut is so stripped that the water will not turn the whole way off!!! That sound drives me crazy so I keep the door shut.

I know what you are all thinking at this point. She needs a life, but I have a lot of time at home lately, so this is what my life consists of at the moment!

We had a joint service last night at our church. The three services combined into one and all of the musicians played together! It was really great! Josh played his djembe (click to see a picture), African drum. It turned out that the one song was mainly him and another guy playing drums and they had a little duet part in the middle of the song. He did so good, I was so proud of him and was tearing up! Everyone loves his drum playing and he does not think he is that good at it. I can honestly say he did not practice for one second for the service, so he had no idea that he would be playing that much. He was really nervous, but did such a great job. I told him that's how you know you are good. You don't practice and then you kick butt on a duet!! He laughs that I call it a duet, but I don't know how else to describe it.

Ok, that was a long update and kinda random, but that's kinda how I talk, all over the place!

Furby

Happy Halloween!!!

I'm a furby!!! This is my favorite halloween costume ever!!! I have been a furby for halloween for the past 7 years! This costume has a great story that I will share with you....

In October of 2000, I was a junior in college. My roommates and I lived next door to some popular senior girls who were having a halloween party and they invited us to attend. We were all very excited as we had never really been to a halloween party since we were kids.

We made a special trip to Walmart late one night to purchase our costumes. We started looking around in the adult costumes, but I was not finding anything I liked. I wondered to the children's aisle and there she was...The Furby costume! I had to have it. Little did I know that it would be the best $6.78 I had ever spent!

The night of the party, my roommates and I made a special dinner for our big night and then spent the next hour getting ready for the party. My roommate Stacy was a baby doll (she is about 5'9"), Mandy was Dr. Evil (she has very long naturally curly hair and jammed it all into a bald cap!), and Kimmy was Zorro.

After all of our preparations, we were ready to make our way to the party. I was the first one to the door and knocked excitedly! The door opened, and picture The After School Special when the nerds are invited to the cool kids party and the record player stops. The majority of the people at the party were dressed up as pimps or hoes or some version of a slut for whatever costume they were trying to pull off (ex. nurse, military, etc.).

My roommates and I decided without even communicating that we were going to stay for the whole party and not be made to feel like we are the odd ones out. Sooo, I turned sideways, as my furby ears were too wide to walk straight in and we entered the party!

It was one of the funniest nights of my life. We participated in all the games, one being that you had to line up guy, girl, guy, girl and pass an apple down the line between your neck and chin using no hands. So here I am trying to get an apple from some "pimp" and my furby ears are slapping him in the face!!! It was priceless.

We left the party and laughed for hours for the rest of the night as we talked about the situation that we had just been in. That is one of my favorite stories from college!

So, I continue to wear the furby every year as it is still a crowd pleaser and the story always seems to be a winner as well!

Expectant Mother Parking

So since I found out I was pregnant I was very much looking forward to parking in expectant mother parking spots.

Now the only time I have come across expectant mother parking spots is at Babies R Us and Dick's Sporting Goods corporate office (where my mom works). The two times that I was at either of the those two places while being pregnant, it was pretty early on in my pregnancy, so I did not feel the need to park in those spots.

Now that I am significantly bigger....

My incredibly talented husband distorted a recent photo of me so that I could make my point more clearly!

I would like to start parking in those spots, but unfortunately, there are no expectant mother parking spots. It stinks! I can't find them anywhere here in Wheeling.

I do have to say, the weather has gotten significantly cooler in the last two days, so going on outings is not as bad as it was when the weather was in the 80's and 90's.

Becoming a mom...

This has been a hard week here at WJU. We found out Monday afternoon that one of our students died. This student went on our New Orleans trip last year for spring break and he was such a sweet, hard working guy. He was pretty quite at first which made me want to get to know him all the more. I would talk to him any chance I got and I think he probably thought I was a crazy lady at first.

I remember one day we had a bunch of black soot and debris on the floor from the ceiling that had been riped down and I looked at him and said, "Come on lets race to see who can get the most cleared off the floor!" And off we both went and within seconds I slipped and fell flat on my butt!!! He laughed so hard as he helped me off the floor!

He started dating one of the other women that was on the trip, who is equally as sweet as he was. I was so excited to find out after we returned home from the trip that they were dating.

This week I cannot stop thinking about her and the grief and loss she is experiencing. I spoke with her briefly Monday night. Tomorrow is the viewing and Friday the funeral service. Every time I find myself in silence I think about him and his girlfriend. Then I start thinking about his parents and even his girlfriends parents.

I can't help but think about how devastating it must be to see your daughter grieving her boyfriend or to feel the depth of pain of loosing your adult child. Then I feel Norah kick and I think that she is safe inside of me and although I am so excited to meet her and hold her I'm scared to have her out because I know I will never be able to keep her wholly safe. I also recognize she is not wholly safe inside either because anything could go wrong.

I know that I can't continue thinking about all of this or I will feel crazy, but my grief for our student is pretty intense right now and my emotions are hard to put to the side. I also think about how this all challenges my faith. I think I am learning to put more and more faith and trust in God. I do not like cliche answers and statements that seem to fly out when a death occurs, especially when it is someone who is young. As I have worked with many Hospice patients and their families and seen the struggle of those comments that they have had to field, I now experience that frustration myself and do not have the answers even though I desire and have worked in a field of death and dying. When it hits you personally it is very difficult. However, I do feel closer with God and that I want to understand the depth of who He is and His love.

I know Norah will have pain and grief in her life and I just keep thinking about how I will respond to her as her mother and how it might be harder for me to see her that way than it is for her.

I remember the day my first niece was born. I loved her so much instantly. I can't imagine how I will feel when I am holding Norah for the first time.

I also need to say that I am loving Joshua more and more through all of this. I love seeing his excitement for Norah to come and even how he is with our students during this difficult week we are experiencing.

I know this post is all over the place, but I just had to express some of what was going on inside of me this week.

I'm getting kicked!

Norah has been quite active lately! We went to a restaurant today to watch the Brown's game and I was leaning forward over the table and she kicked so hard that I sat quickly back from the table because she kicked right at the part of my stomach that was touching the table! It was such a weird feeling.

She kicked later tonight and I had to shift positions in my chair. It's just a strange feeling, but so fun at the same time.

I will be 30 weeks on Wednesday! I can't believe how fast it all seems to be going now. We feel ready in the sense that if Norah came earlier we could sustain her in this world with what we have set up in the apartment, but it will just be a big change and I do not know how to prepare for that. I guess I can't, but I "prepare" in my own way and do anything that I can control.

We just got our diaper bag this weekend so we are going to be packing it this week! You never know! :)

We started our birthing classes last Tuesday and have four more Tuesday night sessions to go! Last week our instructor walked us through the whole process from when contractions start to when the baby is born. It was great! I'm definitely an information gatherer, so these classes are helpful for me. I'm looking forward to the hospital tour so I can see exactly where we will be and all the machines, tools and other things that might come into play during the labor.

Another interesting thing that we just learned is that our doctor likes to be standing when he delivers babies, so they crank my bed into the air at his level of standing to deliver the baby. Now, this raises a concern for me being that we Elek's are short and I fear that I will need to yell down to Josh to let him know how I am doing! We have an appointment on Friday with the doctor, so we will be looking into our options! :)

So, that's an update for now about Norah and all that's been going on!

I cooked dinner!

We also reorganized our kitchen a little to make room for baby stuff and I cooked dinner last night for some friends! I had this great dinner at my friend's bachelorette party last week and I got the recipe.

Josh typically cooks, well cooks all the time, but I can make something every once in awhile. (It's actually wonderful to have a husband who cooks!!! I'm sure I do not appreciate him enough for it.)

I woke up at 7:45am and prepped the meal so that I could get some work done during the day. I couldn't wait to eat it later because it is so good. It is Chicken and broccoli stuffed shells with an Alfredo sauce. Here is a picture of it in my favorite purple casserole dish that I got for our wedding over a year ago and am using for the first time because we have a full kitchen now!

JOY!

Last year, we did not have a kitchen in our apartment. We pretty much made up a kitchen, but the biggest challenge of that living situation was the dishes.

I was happy to take the challenge on though and after some brainstorming and shopping around we purchased a cart on wheels and made it into our "dish washing center."

Below is a picture of dishes after they were completed. We would put dirty dishes into the white plastic bins in the three basket drawers underneath and then roll the cart into the bathroom (2nd picture) and wash dishes in the bathroom sink and put them on the dish rack on top of the cart and then roll it back into the kitchen.

"Dish washing center"

It was quite the process!!!

Well, after finding out we were expecting, it became pretty apparent to us and the university that we were going to need a new living space. So, this summer we moved into the graduate apartment building just off campus and they began working on a new living space for us. We were not expecting as nice of a kitchen as we got! We were really excited about it even when it was not completed. I teared up the first time I walked into our new kitchen. It is just beautiful!!

Now the best part of the kitchen for me is the sink!!! The first night the water worked, I did a bunch of dishes and it was stress free!!! Just like the good'ole days! I love my new kitchen sink! We will be able to put the little baby tub right on the counter top to give little Norah a bath and when she is able to sit up we can give her a bath right in the sink! Like I used to do, which I only know because I saw pictures of it! I took some pictures after doing the dishes because I was so excited!!

So now, there is even more....

in my life!!!!

Officially done & Les Miserables

So today I am officially, officially done with grad school. I had my last day of my internship with Hospice Care of The Washington Hospital.

It ended up being a very productive day. My supervisor had to go take care of an emergency situation, so I was left with a long list of things to do and I was the only social worker on the in-patient unit. I had a great initial assessment with a new patient and their family. They were a very pleasant family to work with. I also took care of a discharge plan that ended up being a little complicated, but I handled it just fine. The nurses were looking to me for help and I just felt like I was in a groove.

I felt sad though towards the end of the day because I do not have a job lined up to keep that momentum going. I am very glad to be done with grad school, but all that hard work and still no job. It just feels strange.

So, on my way home from my last day I was listening to the second cd of the musical Les Miserables. For some background info, Joshua just finished reading the book Les Miserables on Sunday, I rented the movie (no music) Sunday night and we have the Original London Cast Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert cd, which is the greatest and their is a DVD of it as well.....


Anyways, I am driving home feeling a little strange about being done with my grad program and being unemployed and as I listened to this fabulous musical I cried most of the way home and especially every time someone died or hit a high note!!! Regardless of my pregnancy hormones, this very well would have happened to me on any given day. I just love this musical and am hooked on the music right now.

I wish I could say that I read the book or will someday, but that's just not who I am. I can love a musical without reading the original story. Joshua on the other hand does not care for musicals, but I think this might be the way to go for him. I think he is enjoying the music now that he knows the real story behind it all. I may win him over yet!

I do own the VHS of the 10th Anniversary concert, but we do not have a VHS right now. Our friend Damian does though, so we are going to watch it with him soon! OH! I almost forgot! The best part of the concert is that at the very end actors who played Jean Valjean (main character) from around the world all come up on stage in tuxes and they sing a famous song from the play and each of them take a line and sing it in their native tongue!!! It is one of the most beautiful things I have seen/heard!!!

So, that was my day today. My mom comes to Wheeling tomorrow to help me organize the chaos in our new apartment and then my college roommates come tomorrow evening for the weekend! I can't wait!

Graduate Degree -> Check!

So I am officially finished with my graduate degree! I had a final presentation today and then I left the University of Pittsburgh for the last time....and had a parking ticket! Of course!

It felt a little strange to leave and drive out of town. I almost teared up a little. It's just so nice to be done. Three long years have come to an end. I can remember going to my first class. I was excited and not sure if I would be able to do it. I've never been one for the class room setting. I really did well in grad school though. I got higher grades than ever before, I got published in an online magazine, I worked for two Hospice organizations and wrote a lot of papers. I feel good about all that I accomplished.

It took me so long to fill out the application to apply for grad school and lots of encouragement from friends to just do it! :) I'm glad I did.

I also had an interview with a Hospice program and should find out in a few days if I will be hired. This job would be huge for me in the long run. I never expected to get hired into a Hospice program right out of grad school. I feel like there is a good chance that I will be hired, but you never know.

We went to dinner tonight to celebrate! It was fun! Then we went to our favorite coffee shop and played a speed game of Monopoly and I dominated!

Well, I need to go rest up for our big vacation. We leave friday for Bryson City, NC to stay in a cabin with our friends Babs and Carrie. (Babs=Adam)

I am officially an MSW!

Norah!

We are having a girl!!! We just found out on Friday! We loved the ultrasound because she is so much bigger than the blob we saw a few months ago. We got to see her spine, head, eyes, nose, heart and the blood running through it, we saw her kick her legs out and move her head back and forth. The best part was that she stuck her tongue out!!!

Our technician is so great because she gets just as excited as we do and this is what she does all day long!

From the title you can guess that her name will be Norah. We have not picked a middle name yet. That's the harder part for us for some reason. The name Norah means honor, from what I found. That was not a driving force behind the name, we just really liked it!

I am definitely starting to feel her kick now. I think it was helpful to see her do it on the monitor. She is 11oz. and in the 50th percentile for weight and length.

We left for Coopers Rock, WV about 3 hours after we found out about Norah. We had planned a camping trip with our friend Damian who will be moving to California in a few short months. (Joshua will be posting pictures, I just don't have the patience right now to upload them.) It was actually nice to get away and I had busted my butt on one of my final papers Thursday night so that I could go camping and not worry about it.

It was nice to get home and take a shower and clean!!!! I think it's funny that people keep saying things about "nesting" in my pregnancy becasue to tell the truth I think I have been "nesting" since the day I was born!

Alright, I'm off to finish my paper.

Lots going on....

I've been really busy as I near the end of my grad program!!! I have a total of 5 more classes left. I will be finished with my very last grad class on July 25th and I will be done with my last day of Hospice (for my grad program) on August 9th! I can't wait! It's so close. I am supposed to be working on one of my final papers right now, but I'm too distracted.

I just talked to my sister Amanda who is also pregnant!!! She is 11 weeks! I'm so excited that we are pregnant at the same time! She lives in Utah though so we will not get to see each other too much, but we are making plans to fly out there with our little one about a month after she has hers!

We will find out next Friday at 8:30am if we are having a boy or a girl. We both want a boy, but we think it will be a girl. Not sure why, we just do. We will be excited either way! We already have names picked out for either.

Two days after my last class we are going on vacation with our good friends Babs (not a women, his last name is Babcock) and his wife Carrie. We will be staying in a cabin in the mountains of Bryson City, NC which is just a few miles away from the bottom of the Smoky Mountains. We will be spending a day touring The Biltmore Estate, the three of them will be going white water rafting one afternoon. I asked my doctor if I could go and I thought she was going to scream! She was funny! I figure there's no hurt in asking. I've been promised a slow canoe ride on a calm body of water!!! We will also spend a day in Cleveland, TN visiting the area where Babs and Joshua spent a summer at a pre-school camp teaching Bible lessons and chaperoning, "The Lions Den." They also want Carrie and I to eat some type of beef sandwich which they cannot stop talking about. It should be a nice time. I got a maternity bathing suit the other day for the trip!

I have been applying for some jobs as well. I have received one call back, but they are not sure if I have enough experience. I should hear back from them in a few days. We will see.

So, that's my update. I'm trying to find a picture, but I do not know what to put up. We will see.....


You might ask, why would she put a picture of elephants up? Well, that is going to be our nursery theme...boy or girl. We found a cute gender neutral crib set at Target that has little elephants and the main color is green with some brown. It's really cute! We are excited about it! The designer is Amy Coe.

Anyways, hope to hear from some of you!

Ellie!

This is my new niece Ellie! I got to take a nap like this with Cora when she was this small too! It's helpful to have another familly member who wants to sleep all of the time! It makes me feel normal!

Our nephew Emmet will be here next weekend so all of the cousins will be together soon! It's fun to see our family grow!