12 Weeks

The last week has been a good week for us. I'm feeling like a normal person again and I can eat! I've been eating a few small meals a day because I found out the hard way that eating the normal amount 3 times a day means I'm overly full and dying of heartburn for the rest of the day, oops! I heard that eating several times a day is better anyway and keeps the nausea at bay so I'm all for that! Apples, peanut butter and Peppermint tea are now my food and drink of choice.

This week I told work about my pregnancy. My boss has been in the loop on everything and was so excited when I told her we were expecting. She threw her hands in the air and yelled "yay! That's the best news I've heard all day!" She told all of the Principals and they have been coming up and congratulating me all week.

So far everyone is convinced it's a girl except for 3 people who are thinking boy.
We have our NT scan Monday morning and a follow up visit on Thursday just to check progress and then I'm thinking after that we'll stop the 2 week visits and move to 4 week visits for a while. Some of my girlfriends have asked to attend the ultrasounds that Steve can't make it to, so I now have a companion list :)

Today is my friend Emily's birthday and last night we celebrated by going to Auntie Pastos for dinner and then out on the town for a girls night out. It's so great that Houston banned smoking in all restaurants and bars! I could sip on my water and not have to worry about inhaling 2nd hand smoke all night. Happy Birthday Em!!

Our Family is Growing By Two Feet!

That's right, Baby Hendrickson is finally on the way! We are pleased to announce that we are expecting our first baby in July!

We'll be posting updates and ultrasound pictures on here from now on so feel free to come check it out whenever you want. Stay tuned for a run down of how the first trimester has been treating us :)

Here is a run down of the first trimester:

4 weeks
Today was Thanksgiving and I made it through the entire day without spilling the beans! I’m trying really hard to keep this one under wraps until at least 10 weeks when my doctor says I will be out of the danger zone.

Due to a little blood clotting issue I have, now that I’m expecting I have to do a daily injection of a blood thinner called Lovenox. The worst part is the injection has to go in my tummy. This FREAKS Steve out and he runs for the living room each time I have to do it.

I did my first injection two nights ago and let me tell you…it hurt like HELL!! I was shocked! I was not prepared for it to burn as badly as it did. Tonight I did my third shot and it was better, it didn’t hurt near as bad as last nights. I found the closer I get to my belly button the worse it hurts. If I stay on the sides it still burns but doesn’t hurt too bad. My tummy has several little bruises on it, but it’s all worth it if this will keep everything going.
5 Weeks
This week the morning sickness kicked in. Did I say morning sickness?? I meant all day every day sickness and it’s way worse at night. I can barely function during the day. The only thing I can eat is apples and ginger ale. I read on the message boards that most of the girls had this until 10-15 weeks! I don’t know if I can handle feeling this way for 5-10 more weeks! My house is a wreck. I haven’t done laundry in days and the dishes are piling up. Wonder when Steve will realize he needs to get to that? Haha.

We had our first ultrasound today! We were hoping to see more than we did so Steve was a little disappointed when all we could see was a little rice thing. They said it was still a little early but that I was actually measuring exactly 6 weeks putting my due date at July 31st! We scheduled an appointment for 1 week from now to see if we can detect heartbeat. Steve is happy but reluctant because the first time we had a slow heartbeat and the 2nd time we had no heartbeat. He is on the edge of his seat, but I have a good feeling.
6 Weeks
Saturday morning I got up and made my way over to my moms for our annual Christmas shopping trip. Before I got there I was feeling sick. Once we got in the car I was really sick. We stopped at babies r us and got some preggie pops and then at Walgreens to get some emetrol. After that we went to Whataburger and got breakfast. Between the 3 I was feeling better by the afternoon, but still not grand. I did manage to shop until 6pm and then go to Lights in the Heights that evening.

My cousin Michael and his wife Kristi came over and we went to this Italian place nearby for dinner, then we headed over to lights in the heights. It was fun to see all of the different decorations. We walked the entire thing and then we were all ready to get back to the car. Once I got home I started feeling bad again and took some emetrol and got in bed. Sleep tends to cure the feeling so it wasn’t long before I was off to sleep.

Sunday I woke up feeling somewhat okay and we put our lights up, by the time we were done with that I was sick again and we missed my company Christmas party, then I missed work on Monday. Tuesday at work was AWFUL! I felt on the verge of barfing all day. Luckily my doctor called in prescription and that has helped a LOT! Yay for safe medication!
7 Weeks
Today we went in for our 2nd ultrasound and there was our little gummy bear with a healthy heartbeat of 132 bpm! I was sucking on preggie pops the entire time to keep my nausea in check. When Steve saw that heartbeat he was very excited and we were both amazed at how much growth had taken place in just one week. Here is a picture of our little gummy bear. You can see a head and little flippers where the arms are developing.

8 Weeks
well this week is the week of Christmas and we hosted Christmas Eve at our place this year. Our house is so small I was a little worried about people not having enough room to sit, but it worked out okay. We had just enough room for all of us. I took my zofran as soon as I woke up and took it all day to make sure that I wasn't sick through Christmas Eve. My family had several conversations about babies and I was dying to spill the beans but just decided to wait another 2 weeks. By hearing my cousins talk it sounds like we are going to have a family baby boom here soon. One cousin is trying and the other will start trying this summer! Woot! My little cousin Tyler is 3 years old and he is the cutest thing. He asked us why we have Biscuit and Magnum and we said "because we like having them" and he said "y'all need to take those dogs to the shelter!" LOL we laughed about that all weekend. I wish I had the battery charged on my camera so I could post pictures. Tyler had a ton of presents and it was so fun watching him open them. He would get so excited!!! My dad got him so spurs for his cowboy boots and he was sooo happy!!! I can't wait until next year when we have a new baby so poor little Tyler isn't the only kid at Christmas.

On Christmas day I got up and warmed up a ham and then it was off to my in laws for the day. They asked us to bring the dogs so we loaded them up and took them to grandpas for the day. He has a huge yard so they played all day and we were surprised at how good they were! The food was so good and enjoyed seeing everyone. Then it was off to my mom's for a quick visit. She has her Christmas lunch really early so we got there well after it was over but it was so nice to get to spend a little time with my mom on Christmas.

Once we got home we didn't leave the house for a few days!
9 Weeks
We had another ultrasound on Thursday. Again it's amazing how much my little gummy bear has grown! It now looks like a baby and has officially graduated from embryo to fetus. Did I mention that Steve has been a true blessing? The last few weeks he has been doing laundry, cleaning the house, bringing me drinks and food, and not complained once. He's been living off of sandwiches and TV dinners since looking at food makes me want to hurl and I haven't cooked a thing. I feel like a big loser because all I can do is lay in bed all day while he waits on me hand and foot until the nausea subsides.
10 Weeks
Praise the Lord my morning sickness is easing up on me. I'm still queazy but it's much more manageable than before! It was back to work this week and super slow. I'm starting to notice a little bump in my tummy, but all of my clothes still fit just the same. I actually made dinner this week for the first time since I was 5 weeks. I made spaghetti. I still have an aversion to meat, coffee and veggies. I've been forcing myself to eat raw veggies with ranch to keep up with my veggie intake.

Trip to Fallingwater

Well I figure it's about time I post the pictures from our trip to Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Fallingwater house. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside so you'll only get to see a few of the outside. The company I work for celebrated it's 30 year anniversary by flying the entire company and spouses to Pittsburgh to see the house. Of course I was excited because I remember when Angelina Jolie took Brad Pitt there last year for his birthday because apparently he's a big architecture buff. Anyway Steve and I thought it was a lot of fun and really enjoyed the tour. We also got to see the other house about 15 minutes away that he designed for another family called Kentuck Knob. We were both in love with Kentuck Knob. It's not as famous but it made more sense to us for a family home, but then again we aren't Architects so...

We were really impressed with the City of Pittsburgh. It blew Houston out of the water and we weren't expecting that. Before we left we had to find something to do with our babies and everyone knows how we are about our dogs. We found a cute little place called Bed and Biscuits (tee hee isn't that a funny name) to take them. They got their own "suite" and got to go to Doggie Day Care during the day.

The lady said that Magnum immediately made friends with another Jack Russell and ignored Biscuit completely. Apparently this upset Biscuit and she got really sad. She would run up to Magnum and he would blow her off, so she would run back and sit in the ladies lap. The lady said Magnum would run by lick Biscuit on the face real quick and then run back out to play. Biscuit had a little bit of a tempermant problem and would bite the other dogs and handlers that went up to her too fast. She wasn't a big fan of doggie daycare. Magnum thought it was awesome.


Biscuit and Magnum's Suite


View from one of the many cantilevers


View from one of the other cantilevers






Back view of Kentuck Knob


View from Kentuck Knob

Thanks Grandma Rich!

Grandma Rich sent Biscuit and Magnum a care package from California. Inside there were toys for Biscuit and Magnum. Biscuit's was a little doll with a hippie outfit on. Here is a picture of what the doll looked like 30 minutes after Biscuit got a hold of her.


Oh there's one eyeball left...gotta take care of that

Our first major home project

Since we've moved into our house we knew we would eventually need to update our deck. The deck was awesome but definitely had to date back to the 70's or 80's. We threw a party a year or so ago and all of the girls heels were breaking through the wood and by the end of the party there were holes everywhere. It was just rotted out and time to go. We got several ridiculous quotes over the last year or so and finally found a contractor that would do it for us at a reasonable (okay dirt cheap) cost. We'd already priced the wood ourselves so we knew we were getting a more than fair deal here. We still have several more projects to go around the house until it's just like we want it, but getting the deck done is a huge accomplishment for us!

After ripping up all of the top portion we found that most of the deck underneath was in great shape! We replaced a few beams and support boards, but other than that it had done very well over the years.

I was sure we were going to find all kinds of dead animals under there, but all we found were a few possum skeletons. bummer.

Anywho...take a look at our before and after pictures (minus the staining of course):

Summer is coming to an end...

Well we have had a busy month. Our niece and nephew Austin and Kennedee stayed with us for a week in early August. I took the week off to spend with them. First Austin got here and Steve took a couple of days off, so we went to the Astros game and then to see Transformers. Great movie! I didn't think I'd like it but it was actually pretty good. Kennedee arrived on Tuesday and instantly got my kitchen going. She helped make dinner every night and baked all kinds of stuff. She's my little gourmet chef. My house was 100 degrees all week long with that oven on! We also took a trip to Schlitterbahn with Cousin Christine and Thomas. That was such a blast! It reminded me of when I was younger and we used to go the water parks during the summer. I was very sad when Austin and Kennedee left :( My vacation was over and my babies were gone. Hopefully we'll get to spend time with them again at Christmas!

Magnum is growing super fast! He's almost as big as Biscuit and he's only 3 months old. Speaking of Biscuit, she has a total phobia about her feet. Steve recently took Biscuit to the vet to get her nails trimmed for the first time. I warned him that it was going to be a very stressful event and not just a little jaunt to the vets office for a simple nail trim. I warned him to make sure the vet knows to muzzle her. Yes we actually have to muzzle our sweet little smurtle! So they chose not to muzzle her and she lost her darn mind! Steve said she looked like the little tazmanian devil at the vets office trying to remove any digits or limbs in the vicinity of her paws. The vet tried to continue trimming her nails and I guess after he almost lost a finger he decided to muzzle her. After she was muzzled it took 2 people to hold her down for the nail trim. Once the trim was over and the muzzle was removed she was fine, back to sweet little Biscuit. When she got her rabies shot, she spent two days in her kennel. She wouldn't come out for food or to get in the bed. Anytime you touched her she screamed bloody murder.

Then there's Magnum. He lays on his back and sleeps through his nail trims. He got his rabies shot and didn't make a peep. He ran around like nothing ever happened. He could care less. We have found that Magnum also likes to dig holes and play in mud puddles. Unfortunately we don't notice he's been doing it until he's run in the house tracking his little muddy paw prints all over the floor.

In other news I finally decided to get off my lazy bum and start going to the gym with Steve every morning. I figured what the heck, he wakes me up every morning, I fall back asleep and then it's harder for me to get up. So now I get up with him and go. It's been nice hanging out before work and getting the work out over with! He's very good about his schedule so he's been a great motivator.

Here are some pictures from the last month or so: