Some Fun (and Some Not-So Fun)

Getting ready to have her picture taken with Santa, Maddie danced around in her "Princess Shoes" (black patent leathers). She really likes them!

Hanging out with the Big Guy! She loved him and even walked around Santa's little area at the mall while he pointed out the reindeer and snowman. She wouldn't stop pointing at Rudolph, so all of the photos have her pointing :)

A few weeks ago, Maddie and I mailed her Christmas list to Santa. This morning, she got a letter back! She still too young, of course, to really appreciate this but I think she'll really

enjoy it in the years to come.

What a great group of people those folks at the North Pole, AK post office are.

And this is my 16wk belly (well, 15wks 6days...close enough!)

Yesterday afternoon, I started having some pretty intense pain in my lower abdomen that would begin as a stabbing pain and change to a really bad cramp. They were happening every 30 minutes and uncomfortable enough that I called the on-call obstetrician. He directed me to the ER, where I sat for about three hours last night. After ruling out a urinary infection, they sent me for an ultrasound, where the lady proceeded to scan me without saying a word ~ making me really nervous. Suddenly, she gasped, "Oh baby, sit STILL!" Turns out he was moving and kicking so much that she was having a really hard time getting her measurements. She confirmed that we've got a definite baby BOY in here (even showed me his 'parts'), but most importantly, everything looked great. He is measuring 16wks 1 day, my cervix was closed, and they let me know that my placenta has moved away from my cervix so I don't have to worry about a previa anymore (thank God). The ER doctor thinks it may have just been pain from hauling Maddie around (the girl weighs a little over 35lbs, after all) or maybe that the area near my c-section scar is stretching and causing the discomfort. It started out to be a pretty scary visit, but ended up great.

In other news, I got Maddie's birthday supplies ordered and they shipped today. She is a Wow Wow Wubbzy fanatic, so we're doing a Wubbzy theme. She is really enjoying all the Christmas commotion and can even sing Jingle Bells. She also expressed her first "I want it" after seeing a toy commercial for a Strawberry Shortcake play set. Ahhh, it has begun. She is growing up so fast, guys. She has a wonderful vocabulary and uses sentences; her words are clear and she remembers the names of everything (like carbon monoxide detector. She used to just call it "Beeeep", but now she says "Carbon monoxide detector"). She is also starting to understand that mommy has a baby in her tummy (well, as much as a 2yr old can understand the concept of a person growing inside of another person). She says, "Baby in mommy's tummy, Maddie's baby [to] play wiff". We won quite a bit of boy clothing on ebay (oh, do I have a love-hate relationship with ebay y'all!). $40 for about 105 pieces of clothing (and another $50 for shipping ~ ouch!). Almost everything is brand new with tags. With Maddie, we spent about $200 every other month on clothes - or more - so I am really excited to have found such cute things for a great price. We got all kinds of stuff from 0-9 months, so I'm hoping it'll hold us over for the next year. I don't think there were too many newborn items, so we still need those. So much fun! We also got an email about the crib recall, stating that Stork Craft is sending a replacement part to fix the problem (as in, they're sending us a whole new side of the crib to make it non-dropside). So, no new crib to hunt for. The nice thing is that a. we won't have to spend any money on new furniture (except for a dresser for Maddie) and b. the nursery will get set up pretty much as soon as Maddie gets all of her Big Girl Room things together. Fun, fun, fun!!!