Maternity Model

Yesterday, I had a maternity photo shoot. A local photographer needed a maternity model to add pictures to her portfolio. I volunteered as this meant free pictures for me! Mason was very shy about the whole process. However, the photographer was still able to get some great shots. I have only seen a few pictures that she e-mailed last night. She had to have taken over a hundred and we can’t wait to see the rest! Above are a few samples!

New pictures

Daddy and Mason showing off their balloon hats. Rob had a birthday earlier this month and the restaurant we ate at had a magician make balloon characters.
Mason and his valentine he made during craft day with the mom's club.
Mason was smelling my fake flowers today... so cute!

I can’t believe how fast time is flying bye! Here we are at the end of February and I am entering the third trimester with our new baby to be. I am still feeling okay… getting a little more uncomfortable. He is a very active baby; especially at night! This worries me as he is already keeping me awake by kicking and punching me!
Mason is doing well. He is teething again; not much fun. He is learning new words every day. His favorite phrase to say always starts with “I just…” and then he adds different words like “throw” or “did it”. His friend Jacob, who is three, tends to say “I just…” many times a day. Mason loves to imitate and copy!
Mason has grown a lot lately weighing in at 23 pounds 14 ounces! That is almost a three pound weight gain in the last two months! He runs at full speed, tries to jump, and throws a ball with some strength behind it now. Mason throws the ball so well that we have to take away harder balls for inside play now. He can throw well with both hands, but tends to prefer the left hand. We are having fun!

Ouch!

This morning I became a nervous mom as I received a call from Julie while I was at work. Mason fell and hit his head on a bookshelf. Julie was unsure if he needed stiches or not. So, I paced my office as Julie brought Mason to me so I could assess the situation. His eye was swollen and there was about a 1 inch cut. The bleeding had stopped but we were still unsure about the stiches. To be on the safe side, we headed to the doctor's office. The nurse practitioner felt that stiches were unnecessary and we were instructed to apply ice, antibiotic oitnment and to give him tylenol. What a relief! The swelling had already gone down by the time I picked him up at the end of the day. He took a 2.5 hour nap today indicating that this ordeal wore him out. It wore me out too... I think every mom's worst fear is to get a phone call at work reporting your child is hurt. I am sure we will have many more incidents to come though!

Boy Oh Boy!

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Uncle Rick made this cookie cake- prepared for either boy or girl!

Our sonogram today revealed that we are having a boy! Rob and I were a little surprised as we both felt that it was going to be a girl. In fact, we had not even discussed any boy’s names! The best part of the sonogram was when the baby started opening his mouth and it looked as if he was trying to lick his hand! It was pretty neat seeing his tongue moving and his little fingers stretching! We learned that he is healthy to date and all of his parts and organs are present and working.
Mason was the one to inform Rick, Cathy, Bradley, Ben and Blake. I made a little sign that he wore around his neck that said “It’s a Boy!”. I will have to get a picture of him and the sign to post on here. It will be great having two boys so close in age growing up together. The other nice part is that we don’t have to buy much to prepare for baby boy #2! We are defiantely working on a baseball team of boys between Rick and Cathy and their three boys, our good friends Joe and Julie who have two boys and ourselves!

Snow Day!

Not sure what to think about that cold white stuff!
Notice that this is actually Rick and Cathy's road- that is how much snow we were driving on!
Belly last week at 21 weeks

Yesterday was an adventure! It started snowing about 7:30 am. Mason had an 8:45 am doctor’s appointment. Since I have never driven in snow before, I was a little anxious as I kept seeing that white stuff pile up! We left for the appointment early which was a smart idea since the roads were already in bad condition. Our road was completely white and it looked as if no one had traveled on it for awhile. We made it to the stop sign which is two miles from our house and I figured the main roads would be in better condition. However, I realized that stop signs are a bad thing! It is very slippery to get going again. We finally made it to the appointment going about 25-30 mph on the main road. I felt as if I had to pry my hands off the steering wheel as I was gripping so tight!
Mason’s ears checked out good and he has gained 1 pound 5 ounces in the last three weeks! This good news made me feel better about our drive. We are still waiting for the results of the anemia test. However, Mason seems to be in very good health now!
So, now we must venture back on the road. I decided to head towards Rick and Cathy’s house as they are closer to where I was and closer to my doctor’s office for which I had an ultrasound appointment. It is still snowing hard and I get a call from Rob saying he is staying in Charlottesville for awhile because the roads are so bad. Mason and I take it really slow towards Rick’s house. We get almost there and I start up this little hill. The hill is so slick that my car won’t go up and it starts sliding. I call Rick and he came to our rescue with his four wheel drive truck. We ended up leaving my car in a nearby parking lot since he couldn’t get my car up the hill either.
Unfortunately, the weather was just too bad for my doctor’s office to stay open. My ultrasound was rescheduled for January 25th which of course is a major disappointment. After several hours, Rob finally made it to Rick and Cathy’s too. He has his own stories of slipping and sliding all over the road! Fortunately, we are all safe and I guess I am an experienced snow driver now!

Holiday Update

Mason's new lounging chair
Overwhelmed by presents!
Cat riding- a new sport!

Well, here we are in the new year...2008! We had a wonderful Christmas with Rob's side of the family. On Christmas Eve, we had the family over to our house for dinner. Christmas morning we ventured out early to Rick and Cathy's house to open presents and start the day of eating! Mason was a bit overwhelmed with the whole thing. He was not sure about all of the presents and people everywhere. In the middle of opening presents, we put Mason down for a nap and he slept for two hours! I am sure next year will be a whole different experience for him.

For New Year's Eve, we had Rick, Cathy, Brad, Ben and Blake over for game night. They received the Wii for Christmas and brought it over for us to try. It was a lot of fun and you actually do get a bit of a workout depending on which games you are playing.

Mason had his 15 month checkup last week. He still has an ear infection so he is back on medication. the other concern was that he has not gained weight in the last three months. He has grown taller and is actually average in that category. However, he has dropped to the 5th percentile for weight. So, we are trying to fatten him up! I am sure it is due to the fact that he is very active and I am guessing he has a fast metabolism like Rob and I do. We go back to his Dr. in two weeks to check his ears again.

Besides the health concerns, Mason is doing great! He is very smart and learning every day. He has recently showed us that he knows some sign language. I had good intentions of teaching him baby sign language but fell off tract of doing the signs myself. Mason watches a couple of sign language videos though. This week he signed "ball" and "more" while saying the words at the same time. Rob was not convinced at first that Mason was actually signing intentionally. So, Rob asked Mason "Show me the sign for ball." Mason promptly signed ball. I guess those videos really work!

Adventurous climber

Mason has learned how to climb! We find him in odd places like on top of his desk or on top of the dining room table! He has been talking a lot and I can't even count how many words he can say now. His latest words have been "all gone" or "all done".

I am now in my 18th week of my pregnancy. I am feeling pretty good too! I barely passed my first diabetes test and will have another one in about ten weeks. Luckily, I am okay to eat Christmas goodies! We have our sonogram scheduled for January 17th and we hope to find out the gender!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas!