Ryan's 4th Birthday Weekend

Well Knoxville weekends are always so much fun. There is nothing better than seeing my 2 nieces who I seriously love and adore like they are my own. I can't imagine the love I will feel for my own child because I am seriously obsessed with these 2 little girls! We went up to celebrate Ryan's 4th Birthday. Cathleen and I left on Thursday and Brad planned to join on Friday. When we got there Corinne and Cathleen had hair appointments so I took the girls back home to play. Below is probably the last happy picture you will see of Ryan on a trampoline (and for good reason as you will read). This little child loved nothing more than to play on her trampoline. Everytime we would come to town it would be Aunt Chrissy, Uncle Brad pleaseeee jump on the trampoline. She just loved and adored this trampoline and of course always wanted friends to join. The sisters had a nice dinner out at Outback and then went shopping to gather all of the food for Ryan's 20+ friends that would be joining her in her backyard for her birthday on Saturday. Friday morning we dropped Ryan off at Pre-K and she is just so cute getting all dressed and ready for school and hanging her tiny little backpack and kissing us goodbye I just love taking her to school and seeing all of her friends. Cathleen and I took Hayden on a long walk through the neighborhood and then came back to the house and had some fun making Hayden laugh. I mean could she get any cuter?!

This picture is from later in the weekend when Brad joined us and we had a great weekend of bonding with Hayden. She is just the sweetest little baby and I love her laughs and constant babble!

The next best part of being an Aunt that only visits every so often is seeing Ryan after school. I mean everyone at school knows her aunts and uncle are in town and she always gives us such a warm welcome as they walk her out to the carpool line. Miss Rachel her teacher told us she had mentioned how Uncle Brad couldn't come until Friday because he had to work..Ryan must keep these teachers quite entertained!

We went to Target to pick up the remaining princess decorations and Ryan was just so happy this afternoon. Note this little outfit that will officially never be worn again because the shirt now RIP.

Soooo after getting home and playing with the girls Uncle Brad finallly arrives. Ryan is soooo excited that Uncle Brad is there to play. They watch tv for a little bit and then Brad and I are getting ready to go have dinner with Meghan and John when miss persusive convinces Brad to jump for 4 minutes after Brad suggests 5 (I guess she has her numbers backwards because she thought she was getting the extra minute in her favor). Well next thing you know the house is chaos. I hear screams and I come downstairs to find Corinne very calmly holding Hayden telling us that Ryan has fallen on the trampoline and popped her elbow out of socket and Dantley is taking her to hospital. Within seconds Corinne and Cathleen are in the car as well and Brad and I are holding Hayden trying to process what just happened. Brad and Ryan were jumping and poor Ryan took a fall ON THE TRAMPOLINE and must have stuck out her arm to brace her fall. Brad looks down and sees that her elbow is popped out the opposite way and immediately gets Dantley's attention. They take Ryan to the closest hospital (in what I hear was the fastest drive to the hospital you could imagine with a nervous parent in the driver seat.) After an extra and some sedatives that are not even remotely calming this poor child in excrutiating pain they discover that she has a compound fracture (meaning her humerus was broken in 2 different places.) The ER doctor there tells them "this is about as bad of a break as you could possibly have (way to keep the parents calm buddy). And this would require surgery because it involves using pins to set the bones back in place. She is transported to Children's hospital via ambulance with her mommy and Cathleen and Dantley return home to grab a couple of clothes and I head back to the hospital with them. Grandmother and Grandad and Corinne are in the ER room with her when we arrive. She is very groggy and just moaning "ouchie" and telling us how thirsty she is. It was unbearable to witness and I was so choked up everytime I walked into the room. I heard Ryan had some great one liners at the first hospital such as calling out "I need a doctor" "I need medicine" I am sure she entertained the ER staff for sure. She is given morphine every 2 hours and told that she will not be operated on until the morning. What??? You mean this little girl who is still wide awake after being given IV morphine is going to have to endure this pain allll night? I don't know how Corinne and Dantley remained so calm. All Ryan wanted was some water but they couldn't give her much because she would be having surgery in the morning. Her little fingers were swelling up like sausages and her arm was in a brace until the morning. Cathleen and I returned home to see Brad (who is of course beating him self up and feeling sooo guilty that he was the person on the trampoline with her when this all happened. He is so in love with his little niece and just couldn't shake the fact that he was there with her and that she might hate trampolines and Uncle Brad after this fall) We all say our prayers and wait for the call in the morning. The orthopeidic surgeon had much better news for mom and dad. He said this was a very common fracture and that with Ryan's resiliance she would be back playing with a good arm in about 4 weeks. She would have pins that would go straight through her skin and then they would put a cast over them. After 3 weeks they would take off the cast, remove the 2 pins and after a little stiffness and soreness the little princess would be back to new. (I mean here we are all thinking 8 weeks in a cast months of physical therapy and he's saying in a month she should be much better this sounded too good to be true.) Well after about a 20 minute procedure Ryan was resting with her beautiful pink cast on. She remained in the hospital all day Saturday (the day of her birthday party so we did have to call around Friday night to assure that 24 kids would not be showing up the next day). Brad and I got to spend the day with Hayden and we couldn't have had a better day. We went out shopping for some get well presents and came home with lots of Scooby Doo gear (Ryan's favorite!), a cake and come balloons! This is a picture of Hayden worn out at the mall and us enjoying a meal in the food court while she napped.

Ryan in the hospital recovering from the anesthesia and procedure.

So once she got home we all took turns watching Scooby Doo DVDs with Ryan and trying to make her as comfortable as possible. She got so sick at one point and all the sisters sat in the bathroom with Ryan with our hearts breaking as she endured such pain and nausea. The next day we tried to make as much of a birthday celebration out of the day as we could before we left (although poor Ryan didn't understand why we weren't staying for her birthday party. I don't think the poor thing even realizes that she was in the hospital during her scheduled party).

Look as she tried to open her first present.

Looking at her new Leapster Tinkerbell game.

Well I had bought the girls matching monogrammed beach towels for their beach trip in September again...looks like a 4 year old with a broken arm and the beach won't be in the picture this year!

I mean as much as Miss Bunny is trying to comfort Ryan it is so pitiful to see the little princess in pain.

Well we hated for Ryan to have to go through all of this pain but I am happy to report that she is doing much better. After having many friends from school visit and lots of toys and movies to keep her company I think this tough little cookie is going to be ok. We just can't stop thinking about her and wishing we were there to help out!

24 Week Update!

What a treat to have Alexis drive all the way from ATL to help me spend the day planning our nursery and coming to a doctor visit. Soo I bought these fun bump stickers and so lieu of an eggplant this week we have the 24 week bump sticker! Well Alexis arrived this morning and Brad and I had taped out the nursery furniture in the future nursery so that she could see how much room everything would take up and we could start looking at details. We went back and forth about which bedroom to use and we are about 95% positive we will use the smallest room which means one less piece of furniture to purchase and two more windows to cover with curtains but for now we have still chosen the bedroom that is facing towards the front of the house. Who knew a glider would take up sooo much space in a nursery...it is causing our crib to be off-centered and therefore ruining all of our painting and design plans...but thanks to Alexis we have come up with a good back up plan and I can't wait to start making some purchases! At the top you see some picture frames that we plan to incorporate in the nursery and then of course there is the wall monogram that I have falled in love with! (obviously we won't be planning that until we come up with a name and we will be using a midnight blue for the letters and a yellow frame for the background I love how the letters pop off the board)..Well Alexis and I also had lunch at Larkins and then stopped by Lowes to pick out some paint samples (make my head spin with all the different choices of blue paint!) ...dropped into Home Goods, stopped by my favorite and the newly re-opened Swoozies and then headed to my doctor's appointment. Everything went well other than being told that I would have to start taking iron supplements (yuck) because of my mild anemia...the baby's heartbeat was in the 150's and I was measuring between 24-25 weeks. (This was the funniest part of the day as Alexis who has never been to a pregnancy visit asks the doctor who is socially awkward with 0 personality "Wow the baby is measuring 24 inches that's huge" haha I think we got a good laugh the doctor simply let her know that that is the length of the uterus and did not entertain our humor with this sincere question!) Anyways it was so fun for her to be with me and hear the baby kick at the nurse as she tried to listen to his heartbeat...I am so happy that everything seems to be going well and that I am feeling soo much better....We then went birthday shopping for Ryan and stopped by some of my favorite baby boutiques...Such a long, fun, and tiring day. I miss my all my girls soo much and hope that we can all share in these exciting moments of each other's lives because it really means sooo much to me that everyone has been so interested in all of the details of my pregnancy...soo thankful and appreciative for all of the support!

Now onto the 24 week update.....

*How far along? 24 weeks

*Total weight gain? 16 pounds (I was actually relieved that I hadn't hit the 20 pound mark and as I held my breath on the scale I think the nurse got a good little laugh at me!)

*How much does the baby weigh? 9 inches (1.7 pounds) aka an eggplant

*Maternity clothes? Well destination maternity caught my attention when they advertised free shipping and I splurged and bought 3 more pair of work pants, and thought I would try a full length pair and a pair of capri yoga pants (thought I could give these a try at the gym and see how they do), and one cute shirt to wear with jeans...I can only wear collared shirts to work and they are still just barely buttoning but they do so instead of spending a bunch of money on clothing that I cover with a lab coat I will sport my polo button downs until they will no longer work!

*Sleep? I am sleeping a whole lot better (minus the retainers that the orthodontist made that are waking me up in excrutiating pain) my sleep is going just fine for the time being!

*Best moment of the week? Having Alexis spend the whole day with me and feeling like I made some progress with the nursery...oh and we bought a tempur pedic bed and I can't wait to see if it makes a difference with my back pain from work!

*Movement? I have finally accepted that yes what I am feeling is the baby moving..I was so leary to ever admit to myself that I was actually feel the baby moving because I read all of these blogs about these moms who describe this kicking so early on and it seems soo crazy to me...but yes I do think the random thuds I am feeling against my stomach are definitely kicks and I think the nurse solidified this feeling for me when I felt the baby kick when she was checking the heartbeat and she said "man he is just kicking me telling me to stop probbing him with the heart monitor.

*Food cravings? Well after the rapid weight gain I tried to eat as healthy as possible this past week...It was pretty successful minus all the homemade cookies, muffins, brownies, and chocolate I have indulged in...oops!

*What I miss? Not being able to go to Nick and Ashley's shower this past weekend because I was just too tired after work and couldn't imagine staying out till 11:00 pm...

*What I am looking forward to? Finally having my belly "pop" out..I hope I can soon actually look pregnant and not just like I have gained 15 pounds!

*Milestone? Admitting and finally knowing in my heart that I am feeling my little baby move around in there ....not a better feeling to be had!

*Names? Oh goodness...we shared with Brad's parents some of Brad's favorite names and it was too funny to hear their reactions...but we are still searching for the perfect name and haven't spent too much time on this issue in the past week

*Working out harder? I have mostly been spinning but wow today was rough..I get nervous sometimes because I get so mad at my body for getting so tired so I keep pushing myself harder but then remember the saying in the back of my head "never push through a workout when you are pregnant" so I am trying to remember I am not just taking care of myself but I sure do hate my loss in endurance.

Sissy is coming Wednesday night and we are going to Bonefish with her and the Harris' that evening ...then we are leaving for Knoxville on Thursday to celebrate Ryan's 4th birthday!!! I can't believe my little princess in all grown up and in pre-K...this is so crazy. I have got to find her an "Ariel barbie with feets" whatever that mean I think I am supposed to find her a barbie of Ariel from The Little Mermaid and we all know I don't like to disappoint her! I can't wait to see how much Hayden has grown in the last month and hear all of her one liners she has recently been saying like "uh-oh" ...Brad will joing us on Friday and then we will have Ryan's party on Saturday with lots of friends from school. I can't wait to meet Bronson (Ryan's boyfriend) this should be a fun weekend!

Pregnancy

So how luckey are we?! We have already been showered with gifts and I couldn't feel more excited about the gifts we have gotten to hang in little Redd's closet. It's such a fun surprise to open a box with a beautifully wrapped gift for your unborn child and not feel soo loved! So thanks to all our friends and family who have sent us such sweet gifts for the little bit!



So we found this web site that will show you what your baby will look like. It's called Baby Morph or something like that. You submit a picture of yourself and your husband and click the morph my baby link. So we submitted the two pics below and look at the pic the program created for us (it's hilarious):

I mean how funny...I am curious where the eyes come from? I mean we can't even look at this without giggling....what fun picture we will have to pull back up when the little nugget is let's say 2 or so!

23 Weeks

Wow, I can't believe I haven't blogged about pregnancy since our 20 week visit at the doctor. I get mad at myself because I really want to document this all for our little nugget to read back on (although who knows how much my little boy is going to care about his mom's blog but I can at least be hopeful!) Anyways, we have had loooots of fun shopping the past couple of weeks and by us having fun Brad has hated almost all the clothes I have bought and is pretty indifferent about the baby bedding (but he has been a GREAT sport and that's all that counts!) We bought our bedding about 2 weeks ago and I just love it. It's what I always envisioned my little boys room to look like (seersucker!). The crib skirt is seersucker with yellow(goldish) piping and then the bumper is just plain seersucker. The crib sheet is this mosaic pattern that I just love because while the seersucker is a slate (grey) the mosaic has some of those baby blues and yellows that I love as well. So my biggest obstacle has been curtains. We have decided to make the nursery the room with 3 windows (1 standard size and 2 small windows) so of course traditional drapes are not wide enough to cover all 3 windows and roman shades won't work how I would like because of the blinds that were installed in the frame. So I have decided I am either going to do white drapes with a seer sucker border or seersucker drapes with yellow piping...and then from that decision, we can hopefully decide if we are going to get a light or dark colored glider (I know too many decisions already and I'm only working on a nursery.) But that's a whooole separate discussion because of course I like all these custom upholstered gliders because I like the fabric better and I can have the cushion monogrammed (don't worry the cushion flips for future children's monogram) but all the gliders you can buy at Babies-r-us etc don't have cushions that move and therefore our whole monogram plan is ruined....We have decided on a crib and I just love it. I saw it in Savannah when I would go looking at dresses for Ryan and I took a picture of it probably 2 years ago and now I'm pregnant and still don't like anything nearly as much (I have tried to like furniture less expensive but it turns out it really isn't that outrageous and we may trim back on the pieces we purchase.) So yay as soon as Buy Buy Baby opens in Greenville Sept. 14th they will know me pretty well and I will have an order placed for our baby's crib. Other things on the to do list for the nursery is a toy bag/hamper that sissy may be able to sew for me. I am also trying to decide on the rug for the nursery and the monogram above the crib (I know a name would be nice first but all these custom made monogram letters take up to 10 weeks to make so we seriously need to get on this name thing!) We have narrowed the name list down and by narrow down we have names we both agree on and hopefully with some compromise and some brainstorming on middle names we will come up with something original ( I mean I still think we're months away from announcing the name but I am being optimistic!)

Okay so now that I am all sad about missing out on the spaghetti squash (which is the size the baby was when I was in Chicago and last week's papaya pic (which we made an effort to take we seriously couldn't find a papaya only mini ones that were smaller than the spaghetti squash) so anyways here is our nugget this week appearing about the size of an ear of corn!

*How far along? 23 weeks

*Total weight gain? Please everyone don't gasp 15 pounds (I am still shocked that this little nugget helped contribute to my 6 pound weight gain in just 2 weeks (although I am sure Chicago didn't help either) ..my what to expect book says in the next few weeks you should see a tremendous amount of weight gain ( I sure am hoping that I was just ahead of the game!)

*How much does the baby weigh? 1.5 pounds

*Maternity clothes? my least favorite activity to do on my days off is shopping for maternity clothes. It seems as though I am in this awkward stage ..my regular clothes are too tight but maternity clothes do NOT look right at all. I spent almost 2 hours in the maternity store today just trying to get some basics down...really didn't find much but I always leave saying oh when I get bigger I will go back and buy this or that so who knows. I have literally been to evvvvery maternity website and cannot find anything I like...I need a maternity personal shopper. I also need maternity gym clothes because people must seriously think that the gym has not been doing me well lately. The only thing I can find in way of activewear is yoga pants that are just like big comfy sleep pants and will not be good for my workouts so I just keep squeezing into my too tight spandex capris...

*Sleep? Hmm nothing too new other than I probably knock Brad out with all of my movements all over the bed trying to stay comfortable. I also am waking up 3 times a night to pee again..little man must be enjoying resting near my bladder.

*Best moment this week? I think the best moment was going to Charlotte for a date day with the husband. It was so great to shop for our little nugget and we really had such a great day planning for him!

*Movement? Well I still feel him every now and then little almost like heartbeat feeling thuds against my tummy...but it definitely hasn't picked up in frequency or intensity.

*Food cravings? ooooooh goodness the sweet tooth is baaaack and worse than ever. I mean I have always enjoyed my cookie or brownie usually just after dinner but now it seems every meal requires sweets and not just a bite or two I want three and four cookies...I don't know where it came from because I seriously wanted nothing to do with chocolate until 3 weeks ago...I always like fresh fruit and still not liking giant chicken breasts or really any kind of chicken that I can smell (as in if we cook it in a crock pot) or if it's not cut up realll small. I hate that pizza gives me the woooorst heartburn (I am soo thankful that I normally do not have any of these intestinal/esophageal issues when I am not pregnant because they are miserable. I hate to chew up tums because it's just a load of calcium and makes the intestinal issues worse so it's a lose/lose situation with this new heartburn I am experiencing!

*What I miss? I miss my arms feeling more toned..I think since I have stopped going to some of the weight bearing exercise classes my body has taken a toll.

*What I'm looking forward to? I can't wait to actually see the baby move in my stomach and let Brad share in the fun movement of the baby. I also can't wait to get the nursery looking as perfect as I envision it.

*Milestone? I have made it 3 weeks without a full day of my debilitating sickness...so I am thinking it's over!
*Nursery? Well I have obviously gone into wayyyy too much detail of my busy planning of the nursery

*Names? Still talking I think I am actually coming around to some of Brad's names..imagine that...looks like Mr. Stubborn will get his rockstar name after all...no just kidding I haven't gotten that flexible

*Working out harder? I starting basically only spinning and stepping the past few weeks. I have become addicted to spin and it really is so much easier on my joints and my bladder!

Once I for sure decide on curtains and find some maternity clothes I will be happy for a moment and then I will be focused on the next projects..I still have been meaning to research more on carseats, strollers, high chairs etc and that will probably take up a good portion of my evening...after I read all the other mommy blogs I am obsessed with reading.

Oh I almost forgot sissy got us this great rain forest jumper/play area (wow I don't even know what they are called) but I love it...and it sits in our room and reminds me of how our house will never look quite the same in a few months!

Chicago Girl's Trip !

One of my best friends, Jenny, and I decided to go to a city we have both been wanting to visit and have a fun last girl's trip for me before the baby is born. We had such a great trip together and she is literally like a sister to me and we just had an easy going vacation and also got to see and do a lot of neat things. My pictures are pretty much shown in the reverse order of how we did them but I will give some fun descriptions below.

On Friday night we had made dinner reservations at a steakhouse recommended by a friend who used to live in Chicago. We started the evening by going to the top of the Hancock building (obviously the view was amazing). Jenny had a glass of wine and we soaked in the scenery and of course watched all the adorable couples dining in the fancy restaurant one floor below us. We then took a cab to Wildfire for dinner where we got 3 different crusted filet medallions and finished it off with a giant piece of chocolate cake for prego..we then headed to an improv comedy show which was not really our cup of tea. It was along the lines of SNL skits that just don't make sense and not really our take on funny.


We just had a ball going to Wrigleyville! I mean what a different kind of baseball atmosphere. We were definitely out of place not wearing Cubs or Reds attire but we had such a great time people watching and enjoying all of the excitement and hype of a Cubs baseball game. The Cubs have been Brad's favorite baseball team since 1995. This is truly his dream day and he was very envious of all the pictures I was texting him with. We walked up and down the road with all the bars and restaurants that people visit before and after the games..then there are people hanging off rooftops watching the game and the field just had such a old kind of charm to it that you just couldn't help but love.

We ended up buying standing only tickets because little did we know that tickets would be impossible to come buy (or at least in our price range). We took the red line train to get there ($2.50) and you are literally steps away from the stadium.

I mean I am just in love with this building. How can you not love a Donald Trump sky scraper. (We also discovered that this was my boy Bill Rancic's project he won for winning the first apprentice...nice job Bill...awww if only I could have seen him and Guiliana it would have been amazeball (thanks for coining the term Guiliana~) Jenny and I went up to the terrace which has an outside restaurant/bar. It was very swanky and I was obsessed (too bad I have a little munchkin growing inside of me or we might have stayed for a cocktail.) The first part of the building is parking, then the second break in the building is the hotel and the top part is residential and I want to own a place there!

Another picture outside of Wrigley Field.

We decided to have lunch on the water and watch all the boats and yachts go by. Thanks to our i-phones we were able to navigate the city quite well. It was beautiful weather and we enjoyed a good lunch along the river!

This was from our architecture tour which came highly recommended by multiple people. It was very informative and makes you appreciate the neat layout of this clean, beautiful city. I would just love to live along the river in a condo...sigh

The infamous "bean"...Jenny loved the bean and we touched it and walked around and now can say we have been to the "bean"

I think we were racing from the airport to downtown just so we could finally check out this Chicago style pizza that we had been researching for weeks. We decided on Uno's the original Chicago deep dish pizza...our take was we are much bigger fans of the thin crust New York style pizza (sorry Chicago) and so after our first meal we had just realized that our weeks of research and thoughts of eating pizza at every meal were now not going to happen...It was tasty but one trial of the pizza was enough for us!

As you can see we had a great time. Spent most of our time on the hop on/hop off bus tour and got to also visit the Navy Pier, see Oprah's Harpo Productions, see Oprah's current resisdency, see Lake Michigan beach area, Millenium and Grant Park, and the miles of shopping on Magnificent Mile (although we both did so good and didn't spend a dime on shopping except for Brad's cubs shirt and poor Jenny left Chicago without any neon green relish). Oh the baby is fine and is just hoping his mommy stops eating so much food...thanks Chicago is what he says!