Much to Look Forward To

We only have one more week of school left! Friday we get out of school early. My school's done at 12:15 and Nick's is done at 1:15. After that, it's off to our ultrasound to find out if we're having a boy or a girl!!

Saturday morning we will be getting up super early to make the 16 hour drive back up north to family! First stop- Iowa for a week, then off to Indiana for a week. Christmas is coming so fast and I'm so looking forward to it and all that it bring...closeness to our family!

I took the first pregnancy picture this past week. Thought I'd share it with all of you. This is me at 20 weeks and 2 days.

Poll

I forgot to mention in the previous post: Please take our poll to the right! We want to see what you think the baby is! :)

Week 20

Time has flown right by! I can't believe we're almost done with 20 weeks which marks the half way point! Everything is still going great! I went for an appointment this past Monday after Thanksgiving. My doctor's words were, "You're weight is great! You didn't gain anything over the holiday!" Haha...I told her that I just find myself not being able to eat much at all these days. I do believe this was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't have seconds of anything! I could barely eat everything on my plate! I don't mind really and it makes me look forward to Christmas because I know I will be able to keep myself from pigging out.

This past week Baby Fishback grew a lot. I was having growing pains...not so much pain but just discomfort...a few days this week. I could feel my muscles pulling and stretching to make room for the baby. I've heard a few people say that one day they are not showing and they wake up the next morning and then they are showing. I think that was me on Friday morning. I can definitely feel the bump myself but just hadn't been showing much at all. On Friday morning the shirt that I chose to wear was just a little tight around the belly and it stuck out just a little bit above my belly button. I know some of you have asked to see belly pics...I think the time is coming close where you can tell. No pics today, but maybe next week! :)

Nick and I have doing a lot of yard work the past two weekends. We cut down a dead tree in our front yard with help from friends last weekend. However, we didn't get it completely cleaned up. So today, Nick and I spent the afternoon cleaning everything up. I really do dislike yard work but it needed to be done and it now looks so much better!

Some other exciting news...IT SNOWED!!! Yesterday it was forcasted to snow around 2-4 inches. I came to school prepared to have a bunch of crazy, wound up students. Sure enough, around 9:15 it started snowing. The kids went crazy! We took them outside to play in it and they had so much fun catching snowflakes on their tongues. I forgot my good camera at home, but I used my camera phone. It was difficult to see the snow falling on the camera so I got no good pictures. It didn't stick to the ground at all, but it was fun while it lasted. I don't know what's going on with the weather these days. Houston never gets snow...or so we were told. In 2004, it snowed around 3 inches on Christmas Eve. Last year around this time it snowed and actually stuck to the ground. This year it snowed again! I'm thinking these political people may want to reconsider "global warming".

Only 13 more days until we find out what we're going to have!! Nick decided he wants a boy, I really don't care what it is, but I just have this feeling that it's a girl. :) We'll see soon!

Christmas Wreath

Here is the wreath that I made for our front door. I had to have Nick help me out with a few things. I had fun doing it and I only spent a little over $10 on the entire thing at Hobby Lobby.
Hobby Lobby had premade decorated wreaths for $30!! I like mine better...and it's cheaper!

Week 18

It's so hard to believe that we're already into the 18th week...it's really gone by so fast!! I am so thankful for so many things! We went to a doctor's appointment 2 Friday's ago to hear the heartbeat. Our doctor found it almost immediately and that was such a relief!! Last time our doctor couldn't find it and then we had to wait until the ultrasound 4 days later. That was torture then, so it was a wonderful sound to hear finally!! We also found out the results of the genetic abnormalities testing which is a normal procedure. Our doctor said everything looks great and we have a 1 in 10,000 chance of having a child with down syndrome. When the doctor said that, I teared up a little bit...I guess I didn't realize how much I was really worrying about this and once she said that, I felt this huge load lifted off of my shoulders. The whole appointment went well and my doctor said that even though I'm losing weight still, it's ok. I'm healthy and the baby's healthy! I think at that moment, Nick and I let ourselves get really excited!

Nick and I have been pretty busy lately. School's been very demanding on both of us. We had a curriculum audit and so we had to make sure we really knew the districts curriculum in case we had to talk to any of the people doing the research. The reason we had to have this done is because we are one of the largest districts in the state of Texas with a high ranking on our students' performance. They hired a group of people to come in and make sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. Of course it was talked up and we stressed over being interviewed and asked a million questions...the day of the audit for Nick's school, he never even had anyone come into his classroom to look/observe/ask questions. The day of my audit, one person came in with the principal for 10 seconds, looked, never asked any questions, and then walked out of the room. I guess we heard that we did a fantastic job and to keep doing what we've been doing all a long. A lot of stress for nothing really...LOVE IT! haha

Nick also started his after school tutoring program to make some extra money for the baby. He gets home about 2 hours later than usual 3 days a week. It's not bad at all and it's so worth the extra money. He told me he was going to be doing it again this year for the baby and my heart was warmed at the thought of his kind, loving heart towards our child already. Then the other day, we were talking and he said we would probably be using the money for a crib and/or travel system and other things that we might need. He had really been putting more thought into it than I thought he had. He's going to be such a great daddy!

Last weekend I went on an all day shopping excursion with my friends Paige and Leslie. We traveled 3 hours away to San Marcos, TX (close to Austin and San Antonio) to a huge outlet mall. We were there from 10:45am-5:30pm and had only been to about 8-10 stores! We did a lot of walking and we all wore ourselves out. I bought my first pair of maternity pants. My jeans were pretty snug and just not comfortable to wear when sitting down. Every Friday is jeans day at school and I really wanted to enjoy wearing jeans to work. They helped me pick out a pair of very comfy jeans! I'm thinking that I might wear them the rest of my life...(not really) haha!

This week is Thanksgiving break and Nick and I are so looking forward to spending time with one another and relaxing. We have plans to try and camp in the back yard (if it dries up outside and doesn't rain again this week!), put up Christmas decorations, and go to a couple of different friend's houses for Thanksgiving. I also am planning on making a Christmas wreath to hang on the front door, and I'm making some presents for friends and family so I'll be busy being crafty! I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!!

Week 14

We are officially in the second trimester! Still have morning sickness all day, but that's ok because it's so worth it. I've also been feeling my ab muscles and ribs starting to ache a little from the stretching and growing. It's pretty cool to think that our baby is just hanging out inside and some days it seems so unreal!

Here is what our baby is doing during this week:
By this week, some fine hairs have developed on your baby’s face. This soft colorless hair is called lanugo, and it will eventually cover most of your baby’s body until it is shed just before delivery. By now, your baby’s genitals have fully developed, though they may still be difficult to detect on an ultrasound examination. In addition, your baby starts to produce thyroid hormones because the thyroid gland has matured. Your baby now weighs about 1.6 ounces (45 grams) and is about 3.5 inches (9 cm) long from crown to rump.
http://kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_calendar/week14.html

Baby Fishback

Nick and I have been blessed with the miracle of life. We are expecting our blessing to be born around April 27. We are a few days away from being done with the first trimester and are looking forward to the joy of second trimester!

We had been trying ever since my doctor gave me the ok to start trying again which was the end of June. Thankfully it didn't take long at all. I am very aware of my body and when it changes so I knew or thought I was pretty sure I was pregnant even before taking the test and of course it came back positive. We were excited but we both had our nervous reservations about it. I could feel myself fill with worry about the chance of loosing another baby. Of course that worry is still there a little, but with God's help and taking it day by day, we have managed to get this far. We are just now letting ourselves become more and more attached to our baby and growing with excitement with each passing day.

Around week 6 I started getting very nauseous. I started throwing up every morning and it would persist throughout the day. I was starting to loose a few pounds because it was difficult to keep things down. I was able to get by on Sprite and crackers until Sept. 14th. I had a doctors appointment that afternoon and woke up to the usual and rested all morning (I took the day off). I couldn't keep sprite and crackers down. I ate nothing and went to the doctor (Nick was with me). They did an ultrasound and checked everything and it was looking great. They also said that being sick was a good sign of a healthy baby. However, not being able to keep anything down is dangerous so they gave me a prescription for nausea meds. While we were waiting for the prescription to get filled, Nick decided to take me out for ice cream for my birthday. I was thinking that it sound pretty good and I would try it. It tasted so good and I ate the entire thing. We walked out the door and I knew that I was going to throw it all back up. Thankfully there was a trash can right outside the door for me to use. I couldn't believe I had just thrown up that much in public!! Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get my medicine and start feeling better! It did help me so much and I was able to not have to leave the classroom while teaching to go throw up! I'm still taking it every 5 hours because I'm still nauseous. However, the past two days I've been nauseous, just haven't thrown up! My mom told me she was sick the entire pregnancy with me! I am hoping that the second trimester will be great and my hormones will level out like they say they will!

We went in for an ultrasound on Thursday and what an amazing difference 5 weeks can make in the development of a baby! Nick and I were amazed and thrilled to see our baby kicking, moving, and wiggling around. It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced in my life so far. I was relieved to see a healthy baby who had a great heartbeat and so much energy. I can't wait to start feeling our baby kick in the next couple of months! I wish we would have brought our video camera, if we had I would probably watch the whole experience every day! Plus it's so much better live and in person than a photo. But the photos are a great thing to look at in between ultrasounds. Our next one is Dec. 18th and that is to determine the sex of the baby! We're excited about that as well!!

This picture is a profile shot. The head is on the left.

The fist is right in front of the face.

The back of the baby. It measured between 2 1/2 and 3 inches.

Anyway, I'll continue to keep you all posted on our journey...hard to believe we only have 6 months left! So much to do, so little time, but I know we'll get it done! :)

Until The Whole World Hears

Our church has been going through a series on simplifying our lives in all areas. Money, time, and our relationship with Jesus. My heart hurts for the world in this day and age. The devil has come to steal, kill and destroy and if we take a good look at our very own country, you will see that the devil has been hard at work doing just that. He has cluttered our lives with so much junk. Things that the "world" says you have to do. For instance, you have to watch this movie or TV show because if you don't well then, you're wasting your time on other things. Or, you have to go shopping and buy this, this, and you just HAVE to have that! You have to get your kids involved in every extra curricular activity or else you're a nobody. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of "Keeping up with Jones'"! The devil has been attacking me and my family and I'm sick of it! But I know that the book of James in the Bible teaches us that going through these trials, brings us perseverance.

Since Nick and I have purchased our home, there have been many things that I think we should purchase to make the house feel more like a "home". I have been guilty of living in the world and thinking that everything is great with my relationship with Jesus. I turned to Jesus through that situation and with his help, I have not purchased anything extra for our home except for what we needed. I have come to realize through prayer and reading God's word, that I need to be living within my means and not buying into what the "world" is selling me. False hopes of happiness in material things are not what I desire any longer. It is only through Jesus that I could ever fully understand the more meaningful things in life, like keeping my thoughts on things above and not things on this earth.

We have it so good in America. Every person I knows has a roof over their head, clothes to wear (though they may not be the most fashionable), and food to eat (even if they depend on Jesus to get it). Everything we have belongs to our Father in Heaven. He gifted it to us and we are enjoying the gifts he's given us. I have really started asking myself, "what am I doing with the things that God has given me? Am I using it for his will or my own selfish desires?" I am not even close to being perfect...these are just things that I feel the Lord is teaching me and molding me to change me into being his creation. There are so many people in this world who need to hear the word of God. It's hard to imagine but it's true, there are many people who have never heard of Jesus.

My desire is to please Him, and to live my life fully for Him. I know that it's not going to happen at the snap of a finger. It's a process that I must go through, a time of learning and changing of the heart and mind. During all of this change, many songs have helped during this process. Music speaks to my soul in ways I can't explain. One song in particular that I love to listen and sing to is a new one by Casting Crowns.

Casting Crowns is one of my favorite bands of all time. There new CD is set to come out in November. The album is called "Until the Whole World Hears" which is where the hit single came from. This song just speaks to me in so many ways. Not only is the beat great, but the lyrics are amazing. The combination of the two just blows me away and gets me pumped up to go out and speak it until the whole world does hear. Check out the song by clicking on the link to listen to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICxIWulmsDo&feature=fvw

These lyrics speak to me deeply:

Want to be your hands and feet
Want to be a life that leads
To see you set the captive free
Until the whole world hears
and I pray that they will see
more of you and less of me
Lord I want my life to be
the song You sing

Scripture:

Mark 16:20- Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.

Ephesians 3:20- Now to him who is able to do immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.

Galatians 2:20- I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Ephesians 2:10- For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Proverbs 13:7-8- One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth. A man's riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat.

Proverbs 14:32- When calamity comes, the wicked are brought down, but even in death the righteous have a refuge.

My final thoughts are that the devil does tremble at the name of Jesus. He cannot control us unless we let him control us. I am working to have Jesus control me fully because he does desire what's best for me. For example, in Jeremiah 29:11-13 it says this:
"For I know the plans I have for you" declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." God is great, and I pray that you may find him, and if you've already found him, then I pray that you can let go, and let God do it all for you...anyone of you who may be reading this.

Jon's Senior Pictures

Trip to Iowa and other stuff

I flew up to Iowa the weekend of August 15 and had fun spending time with family and friends. Mom and Isaac came to pick me up at the air port and we went out for lunch together. We enjoyed a delicious meal from Olive Garden. The next day Jonny took me to the state fair and we saw a lot of stuff. Pictures are below of the fair. I also went to my cousin, Stacia's wedding. The reception was a fun time with dancing and great food. They had a cake buffet at the reception that was so cool. They had all different types of cakes made, from a tradition 3 tiered wedding cake to strawberry, angel food, german chocolate, carmel, and the list goes on. Everyone loved it!

From the Iowa State Fair:

The butter astronaut

The famous butter cow
A butter TV

Jon and I posing for a picture

And this is what you call a chicken lip...it's a huge chicken finger put on a stick dipped in hot wing sauce. YUMMMM!!

This pumpkin won second place in the largest pumpkin contest

Flying back to TX, landing in Atlanta, GA to catch connecting flight. Thanks to a tropical storm, the weather was just lovely.

When I got back to Texas, work started the next day. We had several meetings and so that meant lunch out everyday with my team! We went to a great BBQ place that Nick and I like, only to find this sign that said, " Thank you! Guy Fieri and Crew of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives." They came and flimed in July while we were on vacation and didn't know about it. It is suppose to air sometime this fall. I've got the DVR set to record all the new episodes of that show. Nick and I love watching that show anyway so we are excited to see them talk about T-Bone Tom's! T-Bone Tom's actually was flooded by Hurricane Ike and they have a water line inside and it was taller than me! They came back quickly though and are booming again.

Summer Vacation

I realized I didn't really talk about our summer vacation. We had great time! We got to meet our nephew, Vincent for the first time. Below is his photo. He is such a good baby and so adorable! We had a great time playing with him...even though he did use my shirt a few times for a spit up rag. :)

Lindsey eating some Gogurt
Uncle Nick had a great idea to put the camera around his neck and then swing our neices around in circles and set the time to take a picture. It turned out pretty good.
Jenna


Natalie loving the spinning! This is like one of my fav photos ever!

Jon's bedroom

The photo above of Jon's bedroom closet brings back some GREAT memories! We moved my family back into their house after the fire. It took 5 months of work to get the house in order and at least ready to live in. We used Jon's bedroom closet as the place to store all the hang up clothes and blankets that came from the cleaners. There was a LOT of weight on the shelves. We took a break in Jon's room after moving all the stuff upstairs. We were standing there and making fun of some of the stuff Dad wore in the 70's- particularly a leather jacket decked out in fringe. We had been giving Dad a hard time about that jacket since it came back from the cleaners (a few months before they moved back into the house). Keep in mind, this jacket weighs about 10 pounds itself (I may be slightly exaggerating but not by much).

Jonny points at the jacket and says, "Why are we keeping this??" All of a sudden, the shelves start to collapse, slowly working it's way around the closet like thousands of people doing the wave at a sporting event. All of the clothes piled to the floor with the shelves lying on top of the mess. Isaac took one look at it and said, "It looks like it did before we moved out!" (My brothers made a mess of that closet with their toys and so the plan was to keep this new closet nice and organized.) We all started laughing so hard and even Dad started laughing after the intial shock of it collapsing. Jon blamed it on the jacket and we were all laughing so hard we were crying. It may have been a "you just gotta be there" story, but I'll never forget that moment...and we'll never let Dad forget that moment either! You know we love you, Dad! :)

House Pictures

After a lot of hard work, we finally feel settled into our home. We're so glad to be unpacked and organized! There are still lots of little projects that we have in our mind, but due to time and money, we'll get to them one at a time and do a little bit at a time. Our first big project would be to paint the downstairs. The color we have now is nice, but when they repainted the downstairs, they did some touch ups in a color that didn't match. Plus, we want some color! We're waiting until the fall to complete this major project so we can open the windows and not die of heat exhaustion!

School is just around the corner! I went into my classroom to start working this past Wednesday. I was slightly dreading going back because it felt like I didn't get much of a summer. But once I was in there and planning and being creative, I started getting excited about this coming school year. Nick has helped me a LOT and so I owe him lots of back rubs. But it's worth it because I couldn't do half of the stuff with out his wonderful help and support. Good thing he's a junior high teacher and doesn't have to get creative every year! :)

I am headed back to Iowa this coming weekend for my cousins wedding. I'm nervous about the trip because I'll be flying by myself again. At least I'm an experienced flyer now! I'm looking forward to getting to spend even more time with family and friends. My brother Jon, who turned 18 in June and will be a senior this year, is driving me to the state fair to hang out for a day together. I'll be finishing taking his senior pictures while I'm there. I've already edited several and so when I get them all finished and he gives me permission, I'll post some on the blog. Isaac will be 15 later this month and will be a freshman! He's already had a week of "unofficial" football practice. He's loving every minute of it. I can't believe how grown up they are becoming. Then again, I don't think I should be turning 24 in September!! I'm growing up too fast! :) I'll post some photos of the trip when I get back!

Crazy Squirrels!

We purchased a humming bird feeder in hopes that it wouldn't take long for it to be discovered. We're still waiting for some humming birds... I got a little impatient so I decided we needed a regular bird feeder because of have a couple of cardinals that are both beautiful! We hung it up right outside our living room window. We thought for sure it wouldn't take long at all for them to find this feeder! We're still waiting for the cardinals to come close to it...

The birds haven't been brave enough or adventurous enough for the feeders, but you can always count on one animal to be creative. This creature is a cute, bushy tailed, small eared, beady eyed, grey squirrel. We have three of them that love our backyard. As I was trying to attract the cardinals by sprinkling their feed in the yard, the squirrels took advantage! They look so cute out there sitting right under the window just eating so fast.

Two days ago, we were sitting in the living room watching tv. We heard this scratching sound and both looked outside from the direction of the sound. Our eyes spotted a squirrel, climbing up our window, half on the screen, half gripping who knows what. Perdi spotted it as well and went crazy trying to get up in that window to get it. The squirrel got scared and ran off. Snickers also loves to sit in the window and watch them in the yard. This has happened several more times and were able to get pictures. We love the squirrels and are planning on buying some squirrel food just for them.

Snickers also discovered a really BIG stink bug on the same window and was trying to get it. The bug was on the outside (Thank you Jesus!) so it was kind of cool to watch. I was able to get a video and ended up capturing the moment Snickers pawed at it and it flew away. Enjoy the pictures and the video below.

We've got our eyes on you!