32 Weeks

I am 8 months pregnant, and only 8 (hopefully) short weeks until my due date!!  Chris and I are both very excited to meet our baby girl, and I am getting more and more anxious to not be pregnant anymore.  I LOVE getting to feel our baby move around inside of me, but I am starting to get very uncomfortable.  Lots of lower back pain, and I have had problems recently with my hands and feet swelling up - especially when it is hot outside.  I can no longer wear my wedding ring, and my feet are usually crazy swollen at the end of the day.  I've also been having some Braxton-Hicks contractions which aren't really painful, just make me pretty uncomfortable because my entire belly gets hard as a rock!!  Other than those lovely aspects of pregnancy, I am still not too terribly tired these days and can usually still muster up enough energy to take Lexie for a walk when I get home from work.

My mom and I sewed some curtains for baby girl's room this weekend, so other than some more decorating elements her nursery is pretty much done.  My mother-in-law and I went to a CPR class today - hopefully we never have to use what we learned but it is nice to be armed with the information just in case.  (My mom and Chris have to be certified in Pediatric CPR for their jobs so they didn't need to go to this class with us).  Chris and I went through the childbirth classes at the hospital and also got the tour of the labor and delivery area, so it is all becoming that much more "real" with all these preparations!!

My first baby shower is this weekend, so I am so excited to get together with some of the people I love the most and celebrate our 'lil Heathbar's upcoming arrival.  We feel so blessed to be bringing this little girl into the world where there are already so many people who love and care for her so much.  She is a lucky, lucky girl!!

In other news, Chris and I became an Uncle and Aunt this month after my sister gave birth to her little boy, Jackson Hasley Garcia, on April 12th.  We went down to Arkansas for a quick trip so that we could meet the little guy, and had a lot of fun getting to see my sister and brother-in-law and of course snuggle with baby Jackson.  It was nice to get some advice from them, and also gave us some good practice!!  Chris said that his "hand-off" (i.e. when he transfers the baby to someone else) could use a little work, but I think he had it pretty much mastered by the time we left!  Below is one of my favorite pictures from our visit ... I love that the cousins are only going to be a couple months apart from each other in age!  Jackson sure did like taking naps on his cousin (even though she felt the need to kick him a few times).

Here is Chris with his nephew...

Gotta love snuggling with a sleeping baby!  I had a nice little "cushion" for him to sleep on (even if said cushion kicked him a few times).

Since busy season is officially over now (hope everyone got their taxes filed on time!) I should have some more time to post on here.  And I only have 4 more weeks of work before I will start my maternity leave so then I will really have time to do some blog posting!  May is an exciting month for us - we have some showers, weddings, and hopefully some time relaxing at the Lake over Memorial Day with my Dad and Stepmom.  I will be sure to post some pictures from all these fun events!!

-Ellie