Video of Avery kicking!

I recently talked about how much Avery's been kicking and moving around, and I had been trying for weeks to capture it on video. However, she seems to know when the camera starts rolling because she stops as soon as I hit the record button! The other night, I decided to drink a non-caffeinated root beer (that girl loves sugar!), pulled out the camera, and finally captured something worth sharing! Some of them are hard to see, and since I know where she likes to kick, I'll try to point out when and where to look. The link to the video is at the bottom of this blog.

Play-by-play of Avery's "karate match" with my stomach:

• At about 5 seconds, if you look at the far right side of my belly, you'll see a nice little kick.
  
• At about 15 seconds, you'll see her shift from the right side to the left side of my belly, leaving a fun little "bump" on the left side! (That is SUCH a COOL feeling!!!) Then about 5-10 seconds after that, you'll see her rock back and forth in there.
• At about 26 seconds, you'll see a few more little kicks on the right side.
• At about 40 seconds, you'll see me whole stomach jump!
  
• At 50 seconds, another tiny kick on the right side.
  
• At about 1 minute, you see another big kick on the right side.
• At 1:15, you see a couple of jabs on the right side.
• At 1:20, a few more little nudges.
• At abut 1:30, some more kicks 

and then she goes quiet! As you can see, she likes to kick me on my right side, A LOT!

Click here to watch: http://youtu.be/1ORp6UppBuA

The video was taken when I was 26 weeks and 2 days pregnant.

Baby Name Reveal!

So we finally decided to reveal the name of our little girl! Drum roll, please... And Baby J shall now be known as....

It feels great to FINALLY announce it! We've had her name picked out since March (I was about 10 weeks pregnant), even before we knew she was a girl! Neal and I kept throwing out names and we just couldn't agree on a name! Well, in my line of work, I deal with a lot of mailings, and some of you may have heard of Avery brand labels. I happen to see it one day and thought, "Hmm.. that would be a pretty name!" I was a little nervous to tell Neal, since we hadn't agreed on a girl name yet. When I mentioned it to him, he paused and said he really liked it! From that moment on, we seemed to both be very happy with it! The middle name was a pretty easy decision. We decided to name her middle name after my mom's middle name. I look forward to telling Avery about how we came up with her middle name and how special it is, but we may have to come up with another story as to how we decided on her first name. I don't think she'd be too happy to know that mommy named her after a paper/label supply company...

About a week after we decided on her name, Neal did a Google search for "Avery Johnson." What we found, I definitely did NOT expect to see!! We found that a male NBA basketball player was named Avery Johnson! Since I'm not a huge fan of basketball, I had no idea who he was, but there have been quite a few people that have told me that Avery Johnson was a good player and is now a coach for the Brooklyn Nets! So maybe we can tell her we named her after a professional basketball player! (Hey, it sounds a lot better than naming her after paper/labels)

A little background on the name Avery:

Avery is originally a boy's name, it's pronounced AY-vree. It is of Old English origin, and the meaning of Avery is "elf or magical counsel." It is a form of the name Alfred.

Traditionally a masculine name, Avery is used on both boys and girls today. Avery is also fairly common as a last name.

It is the name of several towns and counties in the U.S.; there is also a crater on the Moon named Avery.

Popularity rank of Avery's name: Year Girls Boys Overall 2011 18 201 50 2010 23 210 64 2009 32 223 78 2008 38 216 89 2007 48 221 97 2006 52 212 97 2005 67 215 113 2004 77 225 127 (www.babynamesworld.com)

Images of Avery taken at 25 weeks & 3 days:

Random Thoughts

I titled this blog "Random Thoughts," but honestly, ALL my thoughts these days are random... 

Kicking: 

She’s kicking SO much these days! I absolutely LOVE her little kicks! She’s only jabbed my bladder a few times, so I can’t complain! She’s either scared of her daddy or his touch comforts her, because every time she starts to kick and Neal puts his hand on my belly, she stops! He’s felt a few good kicks, though. One of the first one’s he felt he said, “What was that? Was THAT was a kick? Wow!” She's my little soccer player! Lately, I’ve been able to watch her kick just by looking at my stomach. It’s actually more entertaining than almost anything on TV these days!! I could just sit and watch her kick all day!! Ha! Sometimes I think about the scene from Total Recall when the guy has an alien (Quatto) pop out of his stomach. (See photo) Weird I know, but hey, I’m pregnant…Most of the time even I don’t know why my mind acts the way it does. On a side note, if you've never seen Total Recall, you definitely should; it's a great movie!

Total Recall (1990)

Weight gain:

Here’s where I tell you some personal information that I probably shouldn't share (and you probably don’t want to hear), but oh well!! I have no shame!  My weight gain has really snuck up on me! I was right on track weight-wise until week 20, and then I doubled my weight gain in FOUR weeks!! (Someone really found their appetite again!) At week 20 I had gained 9 pounds. By week 24, I was officially up 19 pounds! TEN pounds in FOUR weeks?!?! EEK! In my defense (I know, I know… NO excuses!!), I had JUST gotten back from my vacation when I got weighed, where we ate out for practically EVERY meal, and (thanks to Regan, my dessert buddy) I ordered a dessert after every meal!! Since then, I’ve really started making better eating choices! And I’m trying to walk a lot more than usual. My goal is to gain no more than 30-35 pounds throughout the pregnancy (doc said 25-35 lbs would be ideal), but with the summer coming up, I’m worried that I’ll retain a lot of water, which will probably make those numbers on the scale increase! However, the number on the scale means NOTHING to me, as long as the baby is healthy, that’s all that matters!! 

The Nursery:

I’m getting really excited about the nursery! It’s coming together really nicely! This weekend my mom helped me with a 7 foot tall wall decal, which took us about 3 hours to put up. It was definitely NOT as easy to put together as I expected!!! (I’ll explain it all when I blog about it in the room reveal!) She’s also going to sew the curtains and crib skirt, since I can’t find anything that I want in stores!! Also this weekend, Neal and my dad hung a really large mirror and a ceiling fan. I can’t wait to share the photos with everyone! But I’m waiting until it is complete to reveal the room.  

Looking back:

I was looking back at some of my past posts, and I realized that I really was miserable in the beginning! I am SSOOOOOO glad that part is over with! I truly almost forgot how terrible I felt! Now I’m just tired all the time and peeing nonstop! Other than that, I can’t complain! Oh, that and my bellybutton is slowly closing up, my belly skin is starting to tighten, my rings are getting tight on my fingers, I get some mild cramping or pinches in my stomach occasionally, I’m gassy, moody (ask Neal), and oh this heat! I sweat SO much these days! I sweat mostly on my back and butt, which is really attractive when it soaks through my clothes! When I’m at home I wear panties and a sports bra. So PLEASE call me before you stop by for a visit! Haha! 


Photos:
25 weeks pregnant (at this point, I'd rather start counting DOWN the weeks! Saying I have 14 weeks left sounds a lot better!!)

Key West Trip

We just got back from Key West, and let me tell you, traveling and being away from home while pregnant isn’t very fun (Well, I had fun, but my body didn’t want to cooperate with me!)! My advice to couples wanting to plan one more vacation before starting a family: Do it BEFORE you get pregnant!! 

We went to Key West to attend my very dear friend, Christina’s wedding. By the way, she looked absolutely gorgeous and the wedding was so much fun!!  We arrived on Tuesday, June 5^th by way of airplane. Our first leg from Houston to Tampa was great! Then I saw the tiny plane we had to get on to go from Tampa to Key West. It looked like a toy plane. But I’ve never had problems or fears with air travel, so it didn’t bother me too much… Until it was time to board the plane. It started raining. Since you had to walk on the tarmac to get to the plane, I got wet, so that didn’t help my mood any. Once we got on the plane and all 16 passengers boarded (and that was a FULL flight!), it started POURING! I immediately start freaking out. Neal was across the aisle from me (but still within reaching distance), so he was trying to calm me down. I kept saying, “We can’t take off in this weather. We can’t take off in this weather. We are too small. There's no way. ” But the plane started heading out to the runway. I’m fighting back the tears as I look around the plane and see other passengers sleeping or reading. Why isn’t anyone else freaking out?!?! Neal is trying his hardest to calm me down. “Look, the rain is slowing down.”  I respond with “Ummm, I’m looking out the window and the rain is coming in sideways. Our plane is shaking from the wind! Don’t tell me it’s slowing down.” Luckily, the pilot comes on the intercom and announces that we can’t take off in this weather and that we’ll have to wait until it slows before we take off. MY PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED! Thank you, Lord!! 

Day to day breakdown:

Fast forward to Key West, we arrive to cloudy weather. We are in paradise, and we don’t even get sun? That’s just great. We shared a house with my other dear friend, Jamie and her family, (Regan, Lily, Doris and Karen). They were wonderful housemates!! We always had clean laundry and dishes! I’m definitely inviting them on our next vacation! :-) 

 

Wednesday: snorkeling with Neal. The sun was hiding behind the clouds again and the water had this weird substance in it (which the tour guides said it came from the coral around us…) so our visibility wasn’t the greatest and I only saw a handful of fish. But it sure was nice to be in the water!  

On the boat, getting ready to go snorkeling!

Thursday: Neal and Regan made it a guy’s day and went scuba diving. I can’t scuba since I’m pregnant, but honestly the thought of scuba diving freaks me out, so I’m glad I had a good excuse to NOT go!! So instead the girls went shopping and then to the beach. Again, the sun decided to be shy so we cut the beach day short and I went & got a prenatal massage and Jamie got a mani/pedi.  

Neal scuba diving

Neal is "underwater planking", according to my brother!

Girls beach day!

Friday: Neal and I went to Bahia Honda State Park, which was the first day we got to see the sun come out! It was such a beautiful day (but very hot!!!). I had a great time spending time with Neal! We also got to meet up with the bride-to-be and have some lunch! 

Bahia Honda State Park

 

Saturday: We walked around Duval St. and had a quiet day before the wedding. The wedding was so beautiful, and Christina looked amazing in her gorgeous dress!! The food was SO good!!! And we cut up that dance floor!! As painful as it was to dance (see my feet comment below), it was SO much fun!! I’m sure Baby J wasn’t too happy with all the dancing, shaking and twisting I was doing!!!

Mr. & Mrs. Allen Burks!

The girls!

The hubby and me!

Dancing!! Lily loved NKOTB!!!

Sunday: We had planned to go on a stake-out in search of the New Kids on the Block. They were on a cruise that was docking at Key West Sunday morning. But, Neal got really sick overnight so we decided to sleep in. Just knowing NKOTB were on the same small island as me had my head spinning!! We even had Lily (20 months old) singing “Oh oh oh oh oh.” (From their song The Right Stuff).  We had breakfast at Denny’s and then stopped at CVS for some medication for Neal, but there were no sightings of them…

Then it was off to the airport to go home. Of course our flight to Ft. Lauderdale was delayed. We didn’t have much time to get to our connection flight, but we made it! Neal and I slept all the way to Houston. Once in Houston, we went to the baggage claim to pick up our luggage. We were there for an hour before we realized that we were probably not going to see our luggage come around the baggage carousel! Neal’s bag was missing and so was Jamie’s. We had to file claims. When we got home and I started unpacking, I realized all of Neal’s clothes, our toothbrushes, hairbrushes, toiletries, and ALL of my makeup were in the other bag… The bag showed up to our doorstep at midnight the next day (Tuesday morning).  I’m just glad to have it back!! 

Jamie waiting for our bags that never showed up... Haha!

 

My feet:

I’m not quite sure how to explain what my feet looked like on this trip, but let’s just say they looked like Hobbit feet without the hair. My ankle bones and arches disappeared completely! I didn’t recognize myself from the knees down! It was disgusting!  My thoughts are combining the air travel (and pressure on the plane), the salty restaurant foods, walking all over the place in flip flops, and my added pregnancy weight, that my feet were doomed to swell up! I elevated them whenever I could and I soaked them in ice cold water, both of which helped a lot! I had purchased some cute sandals for the wedding, but I was unable to wear them due to the swelling of my feet!  I’m just glad to be back home and back in my routine because my feet are back down to their normal size!