The Results are In...

That's right folks. According to my doctor there is a "200% chance" we are having a girl!! We couldn't be more excited. In addition to her "goods," we also got to see the two sides of her brain and the four chambers of her beating heart, and the doc measured her head, stomach, and thigh bones...her legs and head are measuring about 4 days ahead of the rest of her! Overall she is in the 51%, meaning she is exactly dead on target for her "age" development wise. We didn't get as many cute pictures from this appointment as we did from our last one...a few face shots that look mostly like Skeletor from the old 80's He-Man series (I'll post pics when I get them scanned into our computer!). The doc tried to get a good profile but just couldn't get the right angle...I think he was irked that she trumped his ultrasound skills, so he wrote a note in our file to give us a freebie ultrasound at our next appointment, just so that we can get our cute profile! Yay!

And we already have a named all picked out (in fact, it's been picked out for a while...it was the boy name we were having trouble with, and now we don't have to worry about it!)...

Alina May

Besides sounding really pretty, Alina is a mixture of Alex and Kalina (my "Russian name"). We'll call her Ali for short (a mixture of Alex and Kelly), and May is after my maternal grandmother. We are very excited that we have picked a name with a little bit of Russian flair to honor Ali's dad's side of the family, and a little bit of Southern charm to honor her mom's side.

I've been slowly but surely acquiring baby gear, sale by sale. My latest score was a cute sling that will help me keep my hands free while wearing Ali around. Here's a pic of me trying it out with a very patient kitty.


And finally, in some non-baby-related news, we had our first good spring-time Texas storm! True to form, the clouds blew in and out in about 45 minutes, but not before giving us a solid hail storm. Check out the footage!






Hope this finds you all well! I'll post updated belly and ultrasound pics soon!
KC

2nd Tri

Well, I've officially made it into the second trimester! General opinion on when exactly that transition takes place varies. Some say it's the 12 week mark...I think because that's three months, which is 1/3 of the traditional "nine months" of pregnancy. Others say 13 weeks because that's closer to 1/3 of the actual 40 weeks of pregnancy (with an extra "bonus week" as my cousin put it). So, I waited until 13 weeks, 2 days...as close to actually 1/3 of the 40 weeks as I could get!

I can already tell that I am a prime candidate for the return to "normal" that all the books talk about. I stayed up past 11 three nights out of the last five! I've been able to go back to eating pretty much whatever sounds good to my husband (instead of the other way around). And I've started to long for exercise again.

I have also realized that I am NOT one of those women who will be at 20 weeks and you won't even be able to tell they are pregnant. (Seriously. I had a friend like that. NO bump at 20 weeks!) For your viewing pleasure, a shot of my beginning-of-second-trimester bump (sorry it's kind of fuzzy):
...and I love it! So far (ask me again in the middle of the Texas-summer-third-trimester), I am loving being pregnant! And I have a feeling I will LOVE my 2nd tri.

It's so hard to wait four weeks between every appointment...I'm halfway there. Two more weeks and we'll get to see Cosmo again...and MAYBE find out if Cosmo's a he or a she. Yay! Oh, and in other Cosmo news, he/she already has distinct fingerprints! That kid is amazing!!

Hope all is well with all of you!

#7: I'm 30! (and I love it!)

That's right. Last Wednesday I turned the big 3-0. After hearing so many horror stories about the angst and drama that accompanies this big day, I was determined not to let myself fall prey to those feelings of "I'm soooo old!" In all actuality, I am delighted to be 30!

Don't get me wrong, I loved my 20s. I earned 2 degrees, had 2 fulfilling careers, got married, traveled to exotic locations, bought a house, and became the proud momma of two adorable cats and the proud momma-to-be of one adorable baby. But in my mind, 30 marks the turning point into actual adulthood. I think people will take me more seriously now that I'm a 30-something.

Alex was traveling the day before my birthday and was not scheduled to land back home until after midnight. But, being the amazing man that he is, he finagled his way onto an earlier flight, and made it home at 11:56, just in time to spend the last four minutes of my 20s with me and to see me into the official start of my 30s. I love that man.

He then took me out to breakfast (kolaches--yum!), my team took me out to lunch, and we met our good friends for dinner at P.F. Chang's before meeting our softball team at the bowling alley. What a great day! The "big" party was this Saturday. Alex planned the entire thing, and it was awesome! We (a group of about 25) took a tour of Lake Austin on a cute little party boat, complete with multiple deck levels, a great stereo system, and a kitchen for all the snacks. The weather was perfect for the outdoor festivities (gotta love early March in Texas)--a breezy, slightly cloudy 80 degrees. We ended the evening with dinner at Waterloo Icehouse.

It was a GREAT birthday week, and I am so blessed to have all these wonderful people in my life to celebrate it with!!

Here are some party-goers on one of the boat levels with a shot of the 360 bridge in the background.
Here's a very happy birthday girl snuggled up to the mastermind behind the event:
And finally, the always fun group shot:

For more pics of the evening, check out the link in the photo albums section on the right. Enjoy!