Thanksgiving...and the name is out!

We were lucky to have the opportunity to get away for Thanksgiving and stay in a beautiful house in Highlands, NC.

This is the house where we stayed
It was so perfectly decorated!
Joel was my personal chef for the trip and kept me stuffed! He made french toast, lobster tails and filet mignon!
The outdoors were just as beautiful as inside...there were trails and landscaping all throughout the backyard, which led down to a stream that flows behind the house.
We watched movies, football, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and played a couple of hands of cards...it was just nice to get away from home and enjoy some real down time. We also took the world's windiest road to Franklin, NC to see Quantum of Solace on Thanksgiving Day. It was a nice "private showing" as we were the only ones there!
On Friday, we went into town to get lunch and do some shopping along main street. I was looking forward to trying out Nick's restaurant, but when we arrived it appeared that they were not open. Someone in the parking lot informed us that Nick had passed away that morning...we were very sad as Nick was a legend in Highlands, his restaurant having been open for over 30 years. Saturday was a gloomy day, so we packed up and headed home a little earlier than we had planned.

And now what you've all been waiting for...................Ace's real name will be.....................................

Nathaniel Joel "Nate" Penny

We think it's perfect....just like he will be, of course!

24 Weeks and Nursery Progress

I've come to terms with the fact that I will never be as good at updating the blog as Sharla! She is right on time with the weekly updates, but I'm more of a bi-weekly girl. :-)

So here's 24 weeks! I'm really showing now...so if co-workers (that work outside of the office, but happen to come by), church members or even just people out (so far a grocery cashier, a cashier at Moe's, and a waitress at a lunch place by work) didn't know yet, they do now! I don't think I've ever been asked "how are you feeling?" so much in my entire life! I am feeling generally well and am trying not to complain too much (Joel might have a different take on this) since I know the 3rd trimester will be especially uncomfortable.


I have also told my managers that I won't be returning and they were very supportive of my decision...I really couldn't have asked for it to have gone any better. 3 months and counting until I will be working at home.

Joel is working very hard on Ace's room--He has ripped out the carpet, put up the beadboard and is now working on painting. Here are some progress shots--the beadboard will be white and the top will be blue.

We're looking forward to a mini-vacation in Highlands, NC for Thanksgiving. We are going to drive up Wednesday afternoon/evening and come back on Saturday. I'll definitely have pictures from our trip!

Sammy- aka The Ladies Man

Now that it's colder, we're getting good use out of the gas logs that we scored for cheap at the end of Winter last year. Sammy really seems to like them, but his lying by the fire makes me think that he'd be a lot happier if he had a lady friend to join him. When Joel was taking these pictures all I could imagine was how they looked like they should be profile photos on doggie-match.com and how Sammy's profile would read...enjoys sleeping all day, rawhide bones and short walks around the neighborhood.

Sorry Sammy, I think I'm destined to be the only lady in your life :-)

22 Weeks

Everything is still going well. We had a doctors appointment last week and met the other doctor in the practice. We liked her just as much as the first one, so that was good. I'll go back at 26 weeks and have the dreaded glucose test..blah!

We (by we I mean Joel) have started working on the nursery and we are going to register at Babies R Us today. We'll also mark "go to a rock concert" off of the things to do before the baby arrives checklist at the Coldplay concert tonight.

Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for the announcement of Ace's real name...:-)

Nursery Inspiration

We're starting to gather things for Ace's room--including some good deals. We got a changing table from craiglist and a glider at a consignment sale for $30 each. TJ Maxx has been a good place to find some nautical accessories. Joel will being working soon on the paint and beadboard that we are going to put at the bottom. I can't wait because I'm dying to get in there to arrange everything!

NYC

I'm too tired right now to post the details of the weekend...but mom wants to see pictures...Us in Central Park

Our Hosts: Ben & MollyPumpkin carvings at Chelsea Market

Joel & Ben at the battery
Inside the battery's fort (classic Joel w/cannon pic)
The mastadon freaked Ben outMe, Ace and a big turtle!

A little behind....

Here's the 20 weeks belly pic--halfway done!

Here HE is!

That's right...we're having a little boy!

He did his best to disguise his boy parts, but finally gave us a peek. Everything looks good and he is measuring right on schedule which was very reassuring. We're ready to jump into choosing a name, decorating the nursery and stocking up on all the things we need to get ready for his arrival!

Tomorrow's the day!

Tomorrow is the big ultrasound....so if you haven't already, get your votes in. It's pretty skewed to girl right now. We'll have to see if the majority is right!

Here's the 17 week belly pic!

IT'S FALL

I was so happy to decorate the house for Fall last Saturday....it's probably my favorite season...and having an excuse to have candy all over the house isn't half bad either :-)

My attempt at being Martha-like (recognize the basket, Mom?)

And surprisingly saved the perfectly proportioned pumpkins from the basket to make this little topiary

HAPPY FALL!

Spoiled already?

We've received many presents for us and our baby from our sweet friends...

From Joel's assistant this cute robe and towel set...and behind that many clothes that "Nanna" couldn't resist shopping for the day after we announced that Ace was coming...

Some good reading materials for the parents-to-be...The Belly Book to record things during the pregnancy from Sharla & Josh, Belly Laughs to keep things light and humorous from Liz & Rex, and Safe Baby Handling Tips from Rachel & Nelson

I think Joel needed this page...can we add a part about Mommy not liking chess either?

And Nelson and Rachel gave us some good baby name suggestions--

we were cracking up at this. Needless to say, our baby will not have a name that ends in the "y" sound...or anything that can be construed into a nickname ending in the "y" sound. This limits the choices of names greatly!

We're very excited that in ONE WEEK we will know if Ace is a boy or a girl...and then I can start shopping!

Belly Update

I know this is long overdue....I think I officially "popped" around 15 weeks, but here it looks more like 16....

12 weeks

13 weeks

14 weeks

15 weeks

16 weeks...and my new haircut--thanks to Meredith :-)

Labor Day Announcement!

We're having a baby!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but when I'm keeping a secret it's hard for me to talk about anything else! You can catch up on what's been going on so far with some posts I just posted.

We made the trip home to tell our families this weekend (under the guise of attending the Campbell football game)--it was a fun surprise to deliver!

Catching Up

Forgive my back-posting here--but here's what we've been up to for the past couple of weeks:

My sister Megan and her friend Lauren came to Atlanta for the great wedding dress search! We had 2 days to find the perfect dress for her wedding in October-and luckily we found it! It was a fun weekend with lots of yummy food, Olympics watching and playing games. I also got to spill the beans about the baby :-)

Then Sharla, Josh and Jackson visited! The weather didn't co-operate for us to do a photo shoot like we had planned, but we had fun nonetheless. Josh helped get our computer back into shape, Sharla is a pro at helping navigate Babies R Us (and listening to the gripes of a disgruntled first time mom while trying to manhandle car seats and strollers) and Jackson is so cute and smiley. Sammy did good, and was more interested in stealing Jackson's toys than anything.

This weekend we made the trip home to let the family in on our secret. Both of our parents were very surprised and excited. Joel's mom (now known as Nanna) pulled out a ton of Joel, Lauren and Alan's baby clothes for us to take that were in surprisingly great condition. And she got a start on clothes shopping for the little one...I have a feeling he/she is going to be a little spoiled by Nanna. While we were home we attended the first Campbell football game in 58 years. It was sooooo hot! And although we didn't win, we put up a good fight (which was much more than we expected).

For now we are glad to be home and have a relatively quiet September planned.

10 and 11 Weeks

10 Weeks

11 Weeks

Getting bigger and bigger....we're excited for Sharla, Josh and Jackson to visit this weekend! Going to get Sharla to help me look at some things at Babies R Us and do some maternity clothes shopping! We're also anxious to see how Sammy does around Jackson, since he's never been around a baby before...he should know to be on his best behavior!

3rd Doctor's Appointment

We had our 3rd doctor's appointment today, but the first at the new practice. We met with Dr. Anthony, one of the two doctors. We did all the normal visit stuff and heard the heartbeat by the doppler. Since it will be 8 weeks until our next ultrasound--the one where we find out if Ace is a boy or a girl!!!--she did a quick ultrasound for us on an older machine, just so we could see our little baby, but it couldn't print out a picture. He/she was swimming and kicking around and looked much different than our first ultrasound, with actual arms and legs.

9 weeks

My weight is still down from where I started, but my belly lump says otherwise! I'm starting to feel better this week, although my hormones are still slightly raging. They seem to manifest in crying at something Joel did, said, etc rather than anger at my co-workers.

Ace took his/her first boat ride this week with our new friends Meredith (hereby known as Aunt Mer) & Dave. They went to church with my friend April Brown Erichsen from Meredith...and moved to GA in June--only 1 town away from us. They were fabulous hosts on the boat, and their marina had a low country boil that night that they invited us to. Joel tried wakeboarding and I just enjoyed the ride! Silly me forgot my camera...so no pictures :-(

Awkward Week!

Holy Hormones! They totally kicked in this week! Apparently pregnancy makes me a little, um...witchy. Mostly this was evident at work, since I was having trouble dealing with some of my co-workers. Usually I'm cool as a cucumber and just let things roll off of my back, but this week I definitely had to press many issues that I would normally let go. I was able to write-off my bad mood one day blaming a storm that had kept me up the previous night (which was true). But then the next day I was still in a crabby mood. One co-worker even said "you're still not feeling well, are you?" So I must have had a scowl on my face to go with my bad attitude. :-)


So things were already weird at work (and I'm bothered because everyone just thinks I'm nuts, rather than pregnant)...and then we had a baby shower for a woman in the office. Towards the end of the shower people start chatting about who will have the next baby, and all eyes are suddenly on me. So I have to make a big deal about it not being me (sorry, Ace) and try to change the subject. I guess in a few weeks the joke will be on them.

8 Weeks

Not much going on with the belly. I cleaned out my closet and moved all the clothes that I'm not able to wear right now to the guestroom closet. It does make getting dressed a lot easier since there's not too much to choose from! I'm still losing weight since food sounds, smells and tastes so yucky...but hopefully that will ease up soon!

I miss food....

My morning (& afternoon) sickness is no fun...but I am glad to know that Ace is in there growing and that's what is making me feel so bad. But I miss food! I'm pretty sure I couldn't even walk in to Ryan's now without gagging.

I can't stomach milk (or ice cream :-( ), eggs, or meat of any kind unless it is fried. Healthy, I know.

Foods that I can stomach--carbs, carbs and more carbs. I'm loving pasta, potatoes, cookies... I am also craving salads and cold veggies, so I guess that's a good thing.

No odd cravings yet, I just miss food tasting the way it used to taste. So many things taste different, and not in a good way!

7 weeks

That's not my bellybutton poking out, just the streched closure on my pants...so I think these pants have about had it!

First Ultrasound

The ultrasound was great! We had a quick scare that Joel was going to have a meeting conflict with work and I didn't want to reschedule since the sonographer is only in my doctor's office every other week, but his meeting was cancelled and he was able to attend!

From my (type-A) charting I knew that I was around 6 weeks. The baby measured at 6 weeks 2 days, giving us a due date of March 10, 2009. From more reading online, I knew we may or may not be able to see the heartbeat and tried to keep calm about this. Thankfully though, we were able to see the heartbeat and it measured at a good rate- 117 bpm.

Here's our little cutie's first picture:

In-utero name

I wanted to decide on a nickname pretty early on, to make the experience a little more real. Since we are no where near ready to decide on baby names, it's nice to have something to call him/her other than "the baby."

There are many aspects of this pregnancy that the number 1 is relevant to, so we decided on Ace! It's different and special and I love it! Now if only deciding on a real name will be this easy....

6 weeks

Here start the belly pictures! Morning sickness definitely has kicked in this week, so I've already lost the little weight that I did gain at the Ryan's megabar. We have our first ultrasound on Thursday!

Amber's High School Graduation

I just realized that I never posted these pictures from Amber's high school graduation...boy am I behind. Sorry Mom , Dad & Amber...it's on my to-do list to get these ordered and prints to everyone...hopefully these will hold you over :-)
The Cornett Girls

The Cornetts

Mom, Dad & the grad!

Congratulations HCHS Class of 2008!