The showering begins!

Last week Matt and I had our first two showers. The first was last Friday night with Matt's coworkers and their wives. We got a lot of stuff and we had a really good time. I took a pic before the shower. I was 32 weeks and 6 days when the picture was taken, I feel like I am even bigger now! My hands and feet are starting to get pretty swollen now. I hate it! I see Dr. Norwood on Monday so I am going to see what he says. My blood pressure has been pretty good so I'm not too worried, I guess it's just pregnancy swelling. I had another shower last Sunday with a lot of the people I grew up with. Again, we got a lot of great stuff! My camara died so I am waiting on pictures from some of the girls that were there. I'll post them as soon as I have them.

Matt didn't like having to guess the candy in the diaper.

Nesting

We have been without the internet at our house for about a week, so I haven't been able to update the blog for some time. We FINALLY got the rest of the nursery furniture tonight after a long drawn out process with Babies R Us. We got a damaged armoire and it took FOREVER and a couple of trips to Arlington to get a replacement. We were very happy to finally get it in the nursery tonight, with the help of my parents! I can now start to get some of the stuff, that we have already received from people, put away as well as a few things I have purchased. We have our first shower in one week. I really wanted to have everything in place as far as the nursery goes so we can get all of our goodies in place! Here are a few pics of what we have done so far! We have a little more touch up painting to do so these are not the entire finished product. Enjoy!

Cora's crib

We don't have our bedding yet.

Her little friends are waiting on her!

Armoire

Changing table (we still have to install the blinds and curtains)

Two of my favorite outfits. I hope she loves the Beatles too. That's where she gets her middle name, Jude, from.

Two of my other favorites. She is sure to be a Packers fan.

This is her Navy outfit. I had to get it for when she gets to meet her cousin Clint who is in the Navy and away from us all right now. The pants are capris and SO cute!

I should probably stop buying shoes.

3D Sono

Ok...here she is! She looked really cute but still wanted to keep her hands in front of her face most of the time. We did get a few good ones though. We also found out she is breech. She was head down at the 25 week sono but she must of moved! She has about 10 weeks to get back in the right position.

Mouth wide open, she took lots of breaths or drinks...not sure which.

Cute little face.

She stuck her tongue out at us twice, she also opened her eyes twice.

It's a Boy!

Well, we officially added a new member to our growing family! We have finally adopted our long awaited friend, Gizmo. For those of you who don't know, here is the story. My mom works with blind woman who has a seeing eye dog named Gizmo. About a year ago it was decided by Jan, my mother's friend, and the seeing eye dog people that Gizmo was ready to retire from his 5+ years of service. Jan asked me and Robin if we wanted to adopt Gizmo and give him a good home to spend his golden years in. Gizmo is the best dog and we gladly accepted! We did not have our Jack at this time and we thought we would be a one dog home. After a tradgic accident involving Jan's new dog, we found ourselves a year later still with no Gizmo. We had really given up hope that we would ever even get Gizmo, until last week. Jan called and let know the time had come and she needed to get Gizmo into his forever home.
So, that brings us to today. Robin and I picked up our newest family member this afternoon at Jan's new apartment. I have to say, it was one of the saddest things I have done in quite some time. Gizmo hasn't just been Jan's pet for the past 5 years, he has been her constant companion and best friend. Most importantly, he has been her eyes and has kept her from danger. Gizmo was Jan's roomate and friend when she went through her divorce a few years ago. Needless to say, Jan was very upset when we picked him up today. Robin and I were both crying and hugging Jan. I don't know how you can ever give up your pet, but in Jan's case she had to, she needs to get ready for her new, younger guide dog. Please pray for Jan over the next few weeks, she is really going to have a hard time adjusting to life without Gizmo.
Gizmo and Jack have spent a weekend together before but we were still nervous about their meeting. Gizmo is a lot older than Jack, he is 9 years old, Jack is barely one. Everyone who knows Jack knows that he has neverending energy. This is a little overwhelming for Gizmo, but I have to say, they LOVE each other! They have started back where they left off and I believe they are going to be best buddies! Jack is SO happy! I am posting some pics of the new brothers.

Gizmo on the left, Jack on the right

Soccer Mom in the making

Matt and I got a more family appropriate car this weekend. After considering lots of different options, we ended up getting a new Honda CR-V. It's a pretty cute little guy and I am getting used to driving it. I have been pretty much an anti-SUV girl for quite some time now, my tree hugging nature always held me back, but this little crossover utility vehicle can keep my Green side happy. It gets 20-27 miles per gallon, which I am pretty sure is better gas mileage than my Jetta. I was also pretty sad to not get another VW, but we really couldn't find anything there that kept both of us and our wallet happy. This is not my car but a picture of one I found online. This is pretty much what it looks like. I really wanted a black or dark blue one but this one is an '08 and they were very willing to make us a deal on it, we just couldn't resist. I will try to post a pic of our car and a 28 week belly pic this week.


I have been off of work this week after a weekend of having some high blood pressure issues. Dr. Norwood gave me a clean bill of health today and told me to not stress so much about it. I think he thinks that was a lot of the problem! My BP has been a lot better since Sunday and I just had a trace amount of protein in my urine. My ankles, hands and face are not swollen and I have felt great, so I am going to rest as much as I can and get back to work on Friday night. I just hope I can take it easy at work from now on. I am now starting to go to see him every two week and he feels sure we can keep a close enough eye on the BP with my more frequent visits. I was hoping I wouldn't have to go on bedrest or anything crazy like that! I have stuff to do! I have showers coming up and I am throwing two showers for friends as well! Anything to keep Cora healthy though, if that means bedrest, then I will go on bedrest! I'm just praying and keeping my fingers crossed to continue a normal, healthy pregnancy. It's going by so quickly! I think I'm really going to miss it!

Things are moving along

Jack loves to help out.

We are making progress on Cora's room. Today we get our new carpet put in and I CAN NOT WAIT! We have been without carpet since before Christmas and I am looking forward to getting life somewhat back to normal around here. This is a boring pic but it's where we are at now. We are going to get the chair rail up later this week. Also, some of our furniture for the baby was damaged when it was getting loaded into our truck at Babies R Us, so we will have to wait a little longer to get another armoire in.
We celebrated our friend Adrian's 30th birthday party on Sunday night at Joe T. Garcia's in Ft. Worth where the food is always great!!! I actually had on make up and some cute new maternity clothes, so I took a 27 week belly pic before we went to dinner. Cora is getting bigger and bigger!

A toast to Adrian.

27 weeks

Getting bigger

Well, there's not much new going on here at the Stogner House. We went to Oklahoma this weekend to go to Matt's sister, Stefani's baby shower. It was a really quick trip but it was nice to get to spend some time with Matt's family. Stefani got a lot of great stuff for baby Alex, who is due February 23. We think Stefani will probably deliver before then, we are just hoping she can hold him in just a little bit longer.

We (mainly Matt) have gotten started on getting Cora's nursery together. We will get the new carpet in the house on Monday the 19th. We will pick up the furniture on Wednesday. Hopefully we will have the painting done by Wednesday as well. Then we will really have things going, I can start washing her clothes and getting everything put up!

As far as our health goes, I passed my glucose challenge, so no diabetes for me! I was so happy! Matt and I also start our birthing classes the first Monday night in February. I am really looking forward to the classes. I think Matt is looking forward to them too, but I know he is worried about having to watch videos of births!

That's it for now. Here are some pics of us getting the nursery together. We are getting the primer on for the chair rail that Matt is going to put up. We are going to paint the lower part red and the upper part off white. I will post a pic of our bedding too. I think it's going to be very cute when we get it all together. Please don't pay attention to the way we look. We just got in from Oklahoma when we did this. My belly is a lot bigger than the last post. I am 26 weeks and 1 day preggo here.

Jack was helping us out.















Baby Cora's bedding. I hope the paint and furniture look good with it.