36 weeks

I had my 36 week check-up this morning, and everything looks good. I haven't dilated any yet, so baby boy should be hanging out inside for a little while longer. I'm glad. We still have a few things to get done to get ready for his arrival. But progress is definitely being made. His room is almost done and I'm finishing up some projects at work. Cliff finishes up the regular season this week, and the girls will be playing in the state tournament in Tupelo all next week. I was hoping baby Graham would hang in there, at least until after the state tournament. We don't know yet if the girls will make regionals or nationals again this year yet, but even if they do, I'm pretty sure Cliff won't make the trip to Kansas this year. We'll see.

Bless my heart, I know I am huge! And check out those swollen ankles. I totally put my shoes on just to have my secretary take this photo, ha. I have definitely reached the "barefoot and pregnant stage." To compare, here I am at 35 weeks with Mimi:

Hard to tell the difference since the pics are at slightly different angles. I feel sure I am a little bigger than I was at this point with her. This is the last official pregnancy photo I took with her too. I did take one on the morning we went to the hospital to have her, but that photo has not, and will not ever see the light of day, ha. I think I'll try to keep it real and at least take a couple more photos in the next few weeks just to document this pregnancy. Now whether I choose to share them is a different story.

Hoping to share finished nursery pics very soon!

32 weeks

Well, let's give me a little more credit, I'm actually 32 and a half weeks now, ha. I went to the doctor for an ultrasound the other day and was informed of what I already thought to be true...I am carrying a big boy! I have been measuring a couple of weeks ahead consistently throughout my pregnancy, but this week my doctor wanted to peak in and see just how big baby brother is. Everything looked great, and he is already between 4 and 5 pounds. I couldn't remember how many ounces she said because my eyes were fixed on the screen when she measured his head. I was busy freaking out a little when I saw that his head is measuring 36 weeks, a whole month ahead! Yikes!

Here's a sweet shot of the man-child:

My doctor isn't concerned at this point, but they will check again closer to my due date, and then we may have to discuss a c-section if it comes down to it. I don't want to have to do that, but I am not interested in birthing a huge baby, ha! Amelia was 8 pounds and 3 ounces and was 21 inches long when she was born at 39 weeks. Considering the big and tall boys in my family, such as Cliff, Chris and my brothers who are all 6'3-6'7, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to have a big boy on my hands. At least it helps explain why my belly is so big.

And speaking of, here's the big mama today, at 32.5 weeks.

This was me a couple of weeks ago, at 30 weeks:

We are making lots of nursery progress, and I am so excited about it. I can't wait to post pics when we're done. His room, as I am sure will be the case for most things about this boy, is SO different from his sister's. I am really starting to look forward to meeting baby Graham and seeing what he will be like. Not much longer now!

A mega Christmas re-cap

Well hello there, 2012. I suppose it's past time for me to do a Christmas post. I have been waiting to share Christmas pics here and on facebook because I have misplaced my camera and kept hoping it would turn up. Sadly, it still hasn't, so I'm just going to recap our holiday and share some pics that I got leading up to Christmas and some that Katie took on Christmas Day, the last day that I can remember seeing my camera. I can't even handle the thought of having absolutely no pictures of Mimi from Christmas! Thank goodness for Aunt Katie.

I am overwhelmed at how behind I am on recording our family' memories, so I will just make this mostly pics and try to do better from now on. I really want to do an update on everthing Amelia is up to these days soon. She is such a mess!

I'll start with a cell phone pic of her decorating her pink tree the day after Thanksgiving. This year was the year of enthusiasm. She was so excited about every little thing to do with Christmas. We had fun decorating her very own tree.

Amelia got to participate in the children's program for the first time this year. We were SO proud of her for standing up in front of the church like such a big girl and singing her songs.

Impossible to get a good pic of that many kiddos!

 She was excited that Grammy came to see her. Papa had prior commitments at their church. Aunt Katie, of course, was also there but she was the one taking these pics, so no evidence of her, ha.

She also got to attend a fabulous party with her Mission Friends class.

Mrs. Brenda and Mrs. Bethany did a great job with their party, and the kids had a blast decorating cookies and cupcakes. Have I mentioned how much I adore our church and the preschool department? Amelia LOVES going to church, and I love that she is learning about Jesus and the real Reason for the season at such a young age.

We got to spend a day with Baby Jackson while Mare was in a wedding during the holidays. How cute is he in this onesie I made for him?

We made our annual trip to the Mall of Lousiana with Lindey and Pailyn to see Santa. You may recall that we haven't had a successful photo with Santa since she was 8 weeks old.

Well, my friends, we had success this year! This isn't a great pic. I was trying to sneakily break the rules of no photos, ha. I do have the actual ridiculously overpriced photo that we purchased, and I plan to scan it and include it here for our memories. She had a big ole grin on her face and I loved every second of it.

She was so excited to meet Santa, and although she hesitated just for a second, she hopped on up in his lap and told him that she wanted a princess castle and "a lot of colored lipsticks." Of course, this was after she had requested a dollhouse for the past couple of months. She saw a commercial for the Disney princess castle about a week before Christmas. We had to tell her that Santa had already made her dollhouse, ha.

We had a lot of fun playing at home in the days leading up to Christmas. This was an especially fun day because she got a new teaset in the mail from Uncle Chris and Aunt Kaki. We immediately had to have a goldfish picnic on the living room floor.

 We also made some cookies for Santa. She was really pumped about it here, but lost interest while they were baking. Oh, and Grammy and Papa stopped by to play.

 I ended up having to finish most of them myself. She did add a few sprinkles though.

And then, the day finally came! Even though she had some sassy and not-so-well-behaved days this year, Santa still thought she had been a very good girl and brought her a dollhouse, a lot of colored lipsticks, some books, some Dora bath toys, some DVDs and her very first basketball goal!

We had to wait forever for her to wake up on Christmas morning. When she finally did, she was a little groggy and didn't go as nuts as I had hoped, but she was still very excited. We have it all on video and I took some photos, but you know, the whole camera being lost thing is preventing me from sharing.

Luckily Katie came over before we got ready for church and snapped a few pics of Mimi and her new stuff.

Last year as a family of three at Christmas! (My face was totally swollen here, I'm sure due to the excessive amount of salty foods I consumed on Christmas Eve, ha.)

On Christmas Eve we went to my grandparents house, as usual. Since my grandfather just passed away in October, it wasn't exactly the cheeriest of days for everyone there, so I didn't take many photos. After church on Christmas Day, we went to Cliff's Aunt Lisa's to have lunch with their side of the family, and then we went to my parents' that evening for supper. Katie came along with us, so that's why I have a few pics from that night.

By this point in all our holiday running around, I am always dragging. These babies looked like I felt that night!

But when they woke up, they were ready to go!

 Amelia got a ridiculous amount of gifts from my parents and siblings. She is such a blessed little girl!

 Pretending to be a country girl with my brother's grunt call. (At least I think that's what it is called.)

 We were so glad to have the Walkers home from Alabama to celebrate our first Christmas with sweet baby Jackson.

 I am so crazy about my precious nephew! He is seriously the happiest, sweetest baby ever.

This little girl is pretty crazy about her aunt too.

We are SO incredibly blessed to have great families, a wonderful church and so many wonderful friends. Amelia got an insane amount of gifts this year, but I hope in years to come she will learn more about giving to those less fortunate than us, and all of the other things that go along with Christmas that don't involve getting presents. It's hard to believe that next year we will have a little baby boy crawling around in front of the Christmas tree. I'm pretty sure our fun has only just begun!

27 weeks

I thought I'd give a montly update on baby boy. I'm 27 weeks now, and growing bigger every day, yikes!

Not much has changed since last month, other than my belly, but we have decided on his name. He will be called Graham Davis Furr, or Baby Graham, as his big sister calls him. There's not much of a story to his name. Davis is my maiden name, and although we would have loved to have called our son Davis, I really wanted to call him by his first name, and we couldn't come up with anything we liked for a middle name with Davis.

Graham is a name that we've liked since I was pregnant with Mimi, but it wasn't our top choice. Our top choice from back then had gotten a lot more popular since 2008, and there were issues with so many others that we liked such as they didn't go with our last name, etc. Graham was a name that we had thrown around but hadn't committed to it yet. However, Amelia immediately started calling him Baby Graham and kissing my tummy and talking to him all the time. After about a month of that, it really felt like that was his name. So Graham it is.

We're clearing things out of the guest room and hoping to make some major progress in the nursery while we're off for Christmas. I will be sure to share that progress when it happens.

And to compare, here's a belly pic when I was a little further along than I am now, at 28 weeks with Mimi.

Although I feel ginormous, I guess my belly isn't that much bigger than it was with her, although the scale says otherwise. I do weigh a few pounds more now than I did at this point with her, as my doctor was so kind to point out to me the other day, ha. I'm trying not to freak out too much over how big I am, and just be thankful that everything is healthy for me and for him so far. He is a super active little guy, much more so than his sister was. We've reached the alien in the belly stage! Last night I was just watching him jump around in fascination. Isn't the miracle of life amazing?

I got so annoyed during my first pregnancy when people would make comments about how big I am, and say the always annoying, "I don't think you're going to make it!" But this time, I have to admit that I think that on an almost daily basis, lol. Just how AM I going to make it for 3 more months?!

A Fancy Nancy Birthday

Even though it's almost Christmas, I just couldn't move on to the next holiday without finally documenting Amelia's third birthday! I promised that I would scale her party back this year, and I did. Really, y'all, I did. But that doesn't mean things can't still be cute, right?

I absolutely loved everything about her party this year! The theme was based on some of Amelia's favorite books, the Fancy Nancy series.  It was so ridiculously pink and girly and this girl loved every second of it. I am pretty sure it was the happiest day of her life so far.

Here are a few shots of the party details.

 

There was a dress-up table for the girls and boys to get fancied up as they entered the party.

  

The girls got more into the dressing up, of course, but this guy liked being fancy too!

Some other random shots of the birthday girl and her friends

She blew those candles out like a champ! I was so excited for this because last year it was too windy and the candles wouldn't stay lit. This was her first time to get to do it (besides the little cupcake we had at home last year.)

As you can imagine, she absolutely LOVED opening her presents this year. Since she has SO much stuff already, I seriously considered requesting no gifts from our guests, but after seeing her get so excited for her friends at their parties, I thought I should at least give her one more year of gifts, especially now that she's old enough to be excited about them.

Posing with one of her faves, Aunt Katie

 And Grammy and Papa

 and Aunt Mare

Believe it or not, there are about 150 pics that I did not share. You're welcome, ha. It was such a fun party, and I'm so glad that we did it for her. She said thank you over and over again. I have decided that three years old is the best age for enthusiasm for things like birthdays and Christmas. A trip to the Dollar Tree excites this girl, so you can imagine what a birthday party and Christmas is like for her.

And now that I've finally documented her birthday, we can move on to Christmas in a few days. Didn't 2011 JUST start?