China update

I spoke with Jason a little while ago. Their flight was loooong but good. He was able to get some good sleep on the plane. The bus ride from Shanghai to Wuxi took twice as long as had been previously estimated - 4 hours instead of two. This is most likely due to high traffic since it's a big holiday weekend in China. It was about midnight, Sunday morning when we spoke and they were off to bed for a few hours. They will set off early Sunday morning for a much longer bus ride to the orphanages where they will be staying for the next week. Also, Jason made an interesting observation... apparently, China smells like plastic (go figure), diesel fuel, and cigarette smoke no matter where you go. Delightful! Keep on prayin' my friends!

Off to Shanghai... and beyond!

God has blessed me and my family with so much and, as hard as it was to do, I had to give my husband to the Lord this morning to do His work. Jason left early this morning for his trip to China. He'll be gone for the next two weeks following the path that God has led him down. I will post updates as I receive them. Also, thanks to everyone who has been supporting Jason's trip both financially and through prayer. Please pray for safe travels and a life-changing trip. Pray for the Holy Spirit to be working in the lives and hearts of those whom Jason and his group will come in contact with over the next couple of weeks. And finally, pray for me and Jack here at home. We've never been away from Jason for so long and are already feeling a bit lost without him (at least I am - Jack hasn't noticed yet). Love to you all!

Quick update

We had to go in to Baylor's Prenatal Diagnostic Center (sounds scary, I know) yesterday morning for a Level II ultrasound on Baby Girl. At our last ultrasound, the tech and midwife saw a choroid plexus cyst on Baby Girl's brain and wanted to check the progress of it and to see if it had gone away. Well, we got a wonderful report yesterday and the cyst is gone. Praise the Lord! We got to see Baby Girl's perfect little body and could clearly see her cute little nose and precious little lips. According the the ultrasound, she's just under a foot long and is weighing in at 1 lb, 13 oz. She'll be her in just a few short months and we're getting so excited!

17 months!

Jack's another month older as of Saturday. His little personality is just shining through and it's so fun to watch it develop. He's a bit precocious at times (what 1-year-old isn't?) and he'll just get this gleam in his eye and we know he's up to no good. He still revels in sneaking off to see if he can unroll the toilet paper or pull all his jammies out of his dresser. Thankfully, we're getting somewhere in teaching him to "play" clean-up and we can get him to usually put things back where he got them (when he wasn't supposed to be getting them in the first place). He's just so incredibly sweet lately that I'm beginning to wonder if he's got an idea that something's going on in Mama's tummy. He wants hugs and kisses and for me to hold him all the time now. When I ask him "Where's Mama's tummy?" he lifts my shirt and hugs my belly. Then he hits me. Ah, well, you can't have it ALL I guess.

Sharing a smoothie with Daddy...

The new nursery

Just thought I'd share a few pics of how Baby Girl's nursery's coming along! I need to take a few more of the wonderful fabrics my mom and I picked out this weekend. They're absolutely beautiful (thanks Mom)! I'm so excited to see how the room turns out. I think it'll really be nice and definitely girly!

The crib (those are dresser parts in it) and the lovely shade of chocolate brown on the walls. We still need another coat of paint - it'll be a tad darker than this.

The dresser's coming along...
...just needs drawers now!

A rough week

This week has been a difficult one to say the least. Tuesday before last (when our A/C was out) he started getting a runny nose. No biggie, we just figured it was a little cold or allergies or something. Well, we kept waiting and waiting for it to go away and it never did. By the time Labor Day rolled around he had terrible chest congestion and an awful cough and wheezing. Needless to say, we were worried and I took him in to see the doctor first thing on Tuesday morning. Poor guy had an icky ear infection and ANOTHER case of bronchiolitis - that makes the 3rd time this year if anyone's counting. Dr. Harris (Dr. Raine isn't in the office on Tuesdays) sent us home with a nebulizer and some antibiotics. The first couple of nebulizer treatments were NO FUN. I swear, Jack thought I was trying to suffocate him or something. He'd scream and fight and by the time it was all said and done with we'd both be sweating. Terrible. He's tolerating the treatments much better now and will even "help" me put the mouthpiece on the machine. He's also slowly getting better but he seems to be having such a hard time getting over this stinkin' sickness!

I'm growing a person! - and some other ramblings...

I'll be 23 weeks this coming Wednesday (which makes me 22 weeks, 3 days when this pic was taken). This little lady is super busy in my belly and it just makes me so happy! I just love laying down each night and feeling her bounce around while I'm reading. My midwife actually said that we probably wouldn't be able to feel her kicking as much as we felt Jack due to the position of my placenta (right up front). I actually think we're feeling her more at this point in the pregnancy than when I was this far along with Jack. She must be a REALLY strong kicker!

We're finally getting the nursery together. I say "finally" since we were close to done at this point in my last pregnancy - funny how different you do things your second time around. So, we made the trek to IKEA this morning to get baby girl a dresser for her room. It was our first time at IKEA and it was blissful. I love that place! Anyway, after perusing the showroom, enjoying a lunch of swedish meatballs and apple cake, and hunting for our dresser in the self-service furniture department we loaded up the car and headed back home. Jack snoozed the entire way and Jason and I decided that we definitely needed to paint before putting the dresser together. We came home and let Little Man stretch his legs for a bit and then headed out to The Home Depot to take advantage of their Labor Day paint specials. I've got Jas scheduled for the rest of the long weekend at the very least, working on Baby Girl's room. He's actually painting as I type this. Don't worry, I'll post some progress pictures as soon as I can.

Swingin'

Jason and I took Jack on a walk down to Pantego's wonderful Bicentennial Park last weekend. He had such fun running on the deserted playground (since we went at 7:30 a.m.) and loved not having to share the swing with anyone. Jack on a swing is the epitome of happiness. Love it!

Just for Gigi and Pappaw

We had dinner a week or so ago with the fam for Jason's Uncle Ross' birthday. We got this great picture of Gigi and Pappaw with the Jackster and I just had to post it. Aren't they precious?!

Hot, hot, HOT!

So, our air conditioning went kaputz this past week. Yep. The last week of August. Perfect. We spent a miserable 2 days without A/C. Boy are we glad to say that we have a nice new unit that keeps everything fabulously freezing! We had a wonderful couple of guys from Blackmon Mooring come out and do a great job of making sure we didn't have to endure more than that first night without air (which is really important when you have a pregnant lady and a one-year-old in the same house). The service tech actually stayed till about 10:40 finishing up and we were cool as cucumbers within minutes of his leaving. Aaaahhhhh!

YAY DADDY!!!

We got word this week that Daddy passed the audit portion of the CPA exam with flying colors! We knew you could do it Jas! Way to go!