Baby Explosion

OK, so it was only a few weeks ago that the baby bump appeared - and now I am HUGE! it's like I went to bed with a gummy-bear baby and woke up with a toddler.
My goodness, baby grows fast.
I have been feeling little bubbles of movement - but all inside, Allen hasn't been able to feel anything yet. Although now that the baby exploded I have felt the movement outside my belly as well - but no one has been around to feel it with me. so I am still the only one who has experienced this wonderful feeling.
My belly button used to be a really deep innie - but now it is really shallow, I wonder when it will "pop". Allen keeps looking to see if I am "done" yet. Like my belly button will pop up like one of those turkey thermometers.
I am going to have an ultrasound again tomorrow, so I will have more pictures to show you all. Hopefully I can get them posted this weekend. - Wow, that will be three posts in a week - a record for me.
Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.
More to come.

21 weeks

Hello family,
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving Weekend - I hope you all did too. Allen and I went up to Dallas to visit his family. We left for Dallas at 5am Thursday and arrived at about 9:30. We visited with the family and had "Dinner" at 2. After such a wonderful big meal, we all promptly fell asleep until roughly 6 when we decided to go to the movies. We saw Casino Royale, the new James Bond film. It was good. I haven't seen many 007 movies, so I don't know how it compared or related to the others, but I liked it. It was a sold out seating, so we all couldn't sit together, but ya can't talk anyway. The movie let out at about 10 and by then we were all tired again.
Allen wanted to do Black Friday, so once again we were up at 5am, this time to hit the stores. They were a mad house, lines formed for blocks just to get into Best Buy. Allen had never seen/done Black Friday, so I was the supportive wife and experienced it with him. We "shopped" for a few hours - purchased nothing, but got a feel for the craziness. Lets hope he doesn't want to do it again next year.
Friday afternoon we went to Aunt Billie's and had another family feast. Yowzer I have eaten ALOT! And Friday evening we had a birthday party for me and grandma Dorothy. I got a cool baby book, Christmas guest towels and a sweater set, Grandma Dorothy got a cheese platter, small plates and some candies.
Saturday Morning we all met for a big brunch with some of Will's family, and we left at noon to head back home. We stopped in Conroe (about 90 minutes outside Houston) at an outlet mall that has a Motherhood Maternity store and bought a few articles of clothes. It is still Autumn here, and I don't have any transeasonal clothes. All of my bigger regular clothes I am no longer able to squish into, so we augmented my wardrobe enough to get me to Christmas when I have a feeling more will be coming.
Tracy (Allen's sister) gave us some baby things. I got a breast pump, bouncy chair, a little bassinet, and if we want it we can have Emily and Courtney's old crib. Courtney will be in it until April, and then transition into a big girl bed.
When we got home Allen and I moved some furniture around in the "office" to make room for a crib. As it is now, there is a corner of the room a crib can fit into - Hopefully we can make this a nursery with a computer in it instead of an office with a crib in it.
As for the baby, I feel the baby moving around quite a bit, but Allen hasn't felt it quite yet. Baby is still spending a good deal of time on my sciatic, but no problems besides. I go in for my next ultrasound on Friday at 1pm - Hopefully I will get around to posting the new pictures this weekend.

For those who have been asking, we have established two registries, one at Target and the other at Babies R Us - They are under CJ (or Allen) Nash; you will also be asked asked where we are - texas is the answer.
Blessings to you all.
More to come.
CJ

The next ultrasound

On Wednesday I returned to the medical center to have my second official ultrasound. The appointment was scheduled for 9am, but we were told to come 30 minutes early to fill out paperwork etc. Why we have to fill out the same forms every time I'll never understand. At about 9:45 they took us back for genetic counseling. I will be turning 35 during this pregnancy and that puts me in a high risk category - they wanted to let us know all of our options. Do we want to do an amniocentesis? Well we thought we did, until we were informed of the risks for miscarriage. I can't take that risk. Although the doctor recommends it, the test really is only for information on the health of our baby. We are going to keep this child regardless of it's health conditions, so why risk the child's life to satisfy our curiosity. All of our questions will be answered when the child comes into this world. Here are two ultrasound photos. the first is the profile, baby has it's little fist up by the eye. In the second picture baby is looking right into the "camera" - looks like an alien.


Work is coming along wonderfully. I love my little church. We had a Fall Festival on Halloween evening from 6-8pm. we decided to have the festival only 9 days in advance, so we had to work quickly. many people volunteered and made light work. Candy, drinks, food, decorations and prizes were donated by many right away. Come Tuesday evening we were all set up outside in the parking lot and over 400 children came through, played games and won prizes. We had a booth where the children (and parents) could make salvation bracelets and hear the Gospel!! the table was always full! Kids were lined up to hear the story and get their own bracelet. We brought in 400 corn-dogs and they were gone by 7:15 - each child received a ticket for one corn-dog as they entered the festival. We had a drawing for 2 bicycles (1 boy's and 1 girl's) and other fun contests. The kids had a great time, collected tons of candy and after the festival was over there was very little mess to clean up. No trash on the ground and even the bathrooms were in acceptable condition with no damage to them at all. it was a great evening.
Things are going well all around.
Thank you for your well wishes and prayers.
Love to all
More to come