life of cassie louise

with all the talk here lately of mason - we have neglected to show off our attack dog - cassie louise. pretty much every day we are at home she is either chewing her foot in the corner which drives brad completely crazy, sleeping on the nice cool hardwoods, or sleeping in various places on the couch. we captured some of her naps today, even though she was peeking during the pictures to show you how hard of a life our dog has. it is pretty funny to see the stink eye she gives us when a new package arrives and we start putting it together. not sure if she knows exactly what is about to happen, but she knows there have been some major changes to the house. these changes include the loss of the extra bedroom which she would lounge in during the day (now the nursery), all the new baby stuff (swing, bouncy chair, etc...), and the most important change is she can no longer sit with kammy on the couch because it crowds her. we're sure that cassie will be a really good big sister when mason arrives as we have seen her firsthand around other little babies and she is very careful and curious. anytime they make a noise she is sure to let us know because she gets really nervous. it is going to be very interesting to see how she acts when the baby is in the house permanently instead of just for a couple of hours. here are a couple of the pictures of our original baby...

sprawled out on the top of the couch, giving her an elevated view of all our happenings...

asking mommy when mason will get here

mason's crib...

you might be thinking that we've forgotten that our child needs a place to call his own. while we've been busy getting other things ready for him, we've also been slowly piecing together mason's room. there are still a few finishing touches to be done, but by and large, it is ready. for your viewing pleasure, here are a few photos from various angles...

my sister korey is painting a couple of items for the walls flanking the chair (which is a glider by the way, although it doesn't really look like one). we're hoping that she'll bring them on the plane from new york with her when she comes to meet him :)

we are officially 37 weeks now (technically full-term), so any time the munchkin wants to arrive is fine by us. i guess we should finish watching the childbirth video sometime soon!

have a great week!

itchy, but still pregnant

last week was interesting... brad and i made major progress on our "things to do before mason gets here" list and we completed a test-run in the triage room of the hospital. starting about a week and a half ago i started itching like crazy (all over) and having some sharp pain in the upper right side of my belly. i figured it was just another quirky pregnancy symptom and went along my merry way. last tuesday, though, i decided i'd look it up in the book just to confirm my suspicions and discovered instead that it was on the "call the doctor first thing in the morning" list. oops. so i called and was ignored for 7 hours until brad showed up at the doctor's office and demanded to talk to the nurse (my doctor was in surgery all day). they told us to go to the triage station at the hospital, so away we went!

six hours and seven vials of blood later, we went home with no more answers than when we entered. turns out the lab was having "issues" that night. no kidding. anyway, it turns out that it is just more quirky pregnancy symptoms (the pain is probably bruising on the inside and the itching may be allergy related), but they did rule out all the scary stuff like liver/gallbladder failure. praise God. we did get to enjoy six straight hours of mason's heartbeat, which was strong and stable. we also gained valuable information about what we need to bring with us to the hospital to make our stay a little more enjoyable (flip-flops, quarters, my own pillow, etc!)

it was an unexpected adventure, but nothing compared to the wild ride to come with mason's arrival! for those of you counting down with me, we are t minus 4 weeks. yea!

what happened??

as you might imagine, growing a baby is a gloriously bizarre phenomenon... truly miraculous, yet at the same time, hilariously odd. brad and i have been taking "belly shots" along the way (not quite as frequently as we had intended, but enough to really see the growth chart in action). as i was downloading a few today from the camera, i came across the 8 week shot versus the 32 week shot. all i can say, is wow -- what happened?? and dream of the day when (hopefully) my favorite jeans will be more than just a distant memory :)

many of you have asked to see the belly shot, so in a moment of weakness, i won't leave you disappointed (perhaps disgusted, but not disappointed!) here it goes...

(we're 35 weeks now, so it's still not a completely accurate picture of what i look like today!)

almost done

we are getting closer and closer to completing project new floors at the reece household. as you can see from the pictures, the family room and foyer are complete. we are still waiting on our drapes to be returned from the cleaners for the dining room -they will be in tomorrow along with the flooring crew who will remedy the mismeasurement issue. as for mason's room, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of his mattress, so we can begin decorating and kammy can settle on the furniture layout. we'll update with pictures as we make progress.

we're hoping this weekend will bring some much needed rest and relaxation as well as a bit of rug shopping to warm up the new wood floors. let the bargain shopping begin!!

just for fun, see if you can find the hidden kammy that didn't want to get up when the picture was taken.

better late than never...

so apparently it's been a little over a month since our last ultrasound and i'm just getting around to posting the picture... my apologies to those of you checking back to see if "soon" meant anytime before his arrival! i took the liberty of rotating the image for those that are unaccustomed to interpreting photos from the womb. p.s. you're looking at his face :)

i'll try to post more on our recent events later this week. between working and growing mason, i've hardly been able to keep my eyes open, so rushing home to get on the computer hasn't been at the top of my priority list. no offense.

however, with any luck, we will be rid of the flooring people by friday (long story, lots of complications) and brad and i will be well on our way to crossing off more items on the "before mason arrives" list.

sometimes it gets worse before it gets better...

we're in week 6 of home un-makeover, but the good news is that we're making progress! at the moment, the soothing sound of a jackhammer is removing the tile from the entryway which will soon (as in this week!) be replaced with hardwood floors. the demo crew has been hard at work for 6 hours thus far, which has done wonders for the amount of dust in the house and my hearing! the drywall has been repaired, baseboards are in, and brad has been painter-extraordinaire and touched up all the walls and repainted the baseboards in the living and dining rooms. the carpet we picked out is on back-order, so the flooring company is pulling out all the stops to see if we can move up the stocking date... after all, we do have a baby on the way!

speaking of mason, the little monkey is growing like a weed! as if things weren't crowded enough in my guts, he is finding innovative ways to wiggle around in my belly. we see the doctor every 2 weeks now and at my appointment tomorrow we'll get to see his progress. all is going well, though, and despite the 98 degree houston heat, we're staying as comfortable as possible.

thanks for checking in... with a lot of prayers and well wishes, we might just be back to normal by the time mason arrives!