27/28 Weeks Shot

I am not too much different than last week. Overall I have energy and I am feeling good. I think I might just be ready to get done with my class so I am just siked overall. Only one week left of class!!! I just have to stay focused for just a little longer and then I can start focusing on getting the nursery done and enjoy some "free reading" which I haven't really been able to do in the past 84 weeks.

First thing to go after Abby gets out is the double chin =))

Buster

Buster is the new addition to the Garner family. Jayna got a Puggle puppy over the weekend. He is really cute. He wasn't quite 8 weeks yet so he was still a bit wobbly on his feet. He was very affectionate and loved toes even if they were in your shoes! He has more of the pug face and the beagle body. The kittens were introduced but they were not liking him very much. Hobbes freaked out a bit. I really hope this is not their reaction to little Abigail. I am sure we don't have anything to worry about but little people can be scary sometimes too to animals =)

Honestly how could you say no to face like that?!

Hobbes was raring up to go. She was not quite as bold as Calvin which is a little backwards to their personality. Maybe it was Busters male testosterone that threw her off.

Buster chewing on Aunt Tina =)

We're Registered!!

We wanted to let you know that we finally had a weekend where we were able to register at both BabiesRUs www.babiesrus.com and
Target www.target.com . Enjoy our selections, and remember, spend spend spend, hehehe, jk.

A Saul Suprise!!

Christina and I were down in Bowie, MD yesterday doing some shopping for the babies room, etc. We ended up at Lowe's to pick up some cap stones for our retaining walls outside and we had a great surprise.

While we were in line, we see our good friend from Campbell come running up to us, Danielle. We knew that she just had a baby about 3 months ago, but she is tiny as a 2 by 4 now. We chatted for a little bit, got to meet her husband for the 1st time, Rob, but unfortunately we did not get to meet Anna, she was being babysat at the time.

We promised to keep in touch and to get together soon. They also have a blog if you want to check it out sometime: http://www.kukich.blogspot.com/

Bradley Method Class Vol. 2

Christina and I had our 2nd class last Sunday and boy was it a shocker. I have be warned by my friends that you will eventually watch a video on childbirth and you will see everything.

I was preparing myself for this time and hoping it would come much later, but little did we know that they decided to play us a portion of the video in this class.

We first watched a video on how to massage your pregnant wife. Let me tell you something, it was a straight porn video basically except no nudity. It was made in the early 70's, probably around the time that our youth pastor, Charlie Brown, was working at Giant. The video had the cheesy music and the two people that were in it, seemed awfully comfortable with each other. Christina and I just laughed most of the time, so it was hard for her to relax while watching it, bc she saw the faces I was making.

The next part about made me as with what Iron Maiden sang, "RUN TO THE HILLS". Our instructor is all about midwives and having the baby at home, since she did with her 2nd one. The 2nd video we saw was of women about to give birth walking around their room at the midwife clinic place practically buck-naked. At least some of the women wore a tee-shirt, but they must of forgot to put on their pants and undergarments for the video. A weird thing in the video I remember was one lady wanted to have her daughter in the room to watch her give birth to her soon-to-be brother. While the prego lady was walking around the room (let me remind you walking around naked) trying to speed up the delivery, her daughter would try and look up her mom's skirt to see if the baby was coming out, but remember the lady was not wearing any clothes.

We then saw another lady have her baby in a bath tub. You saw the head come out, she petted the babies head, then the rest just slid right down the water slide.

Our instructor was nice enough to edit out most of the labors, but she said will be see much more soon. Let me tell you I can't wait, I am going to bring popcorn next time, and a bag to puke in.

Youth are Awesome!

Today was the day the youth came to help us with laying sod and other miscellaneous stuff around the house. We had signed up to get some youth come and help us during their fund raiser/auction. We had Keith, Josh, Jordan, Daniel, Michael, Dean, and Tommy come and help us. Let me tell you, they were worth every dollar that was spent. They got most of the planned work done in less than 2 and 1/2 Hours. We had anticipated that it would take about 4-6 Hours but we were way off. They layed the sod, backfilled the retaining walls, spread top soil, put up a perimeter fence on the garden, chopped down a tree, helped the neighbors with their sod, cleaned railings, and more. There was nothing they couldn't or wouldn't do. It was really amazing and the outcome speaks for itself. Abby is going to be SO excited about having grass in the backyard she just doesn't know that yet. She and mommy are a little tired and sore though. So we might take it easy for the rest of the weekend... I think I bent down and pulled one too many weeds. =)

This is a before shot, with the patchy grass/dirt.

Joe aerated the ground Friday night so we would have some of the prep work done by the time the youth came over the help. The machine really pulled you along.

This is how the pallets of grass came when they were delivered. We went with 3 pallets this time which covered a large portion of the yard just not all of it. We were able to seed the remaining area with the help of Tommy and the youth!

This is a during picture, but it is instant gratification and change. I looks really great!

Keith was the brave soul that climbed the tree in order to tie a rope around the top which would guide the tree on where to fall. It was a rickety ladder but there were 8 guys holding it for him so he was covered.

This was everyone that helped. Our neighbors were in on the action as well because they were also doing the sod in their yard too. So we have a really nice backyard all over.

Fingers crossed this will help with the water problems! One of these days it will be able to rain and not flood our basements or wash everything away =)

Week 26/27 - Better late than never =)

I am a little late in my belly posting this week. The mornings have been hectic this week. Abby has been keeping me a wake the past few nights with acid reflux. All I have to say is she had better have some hair after all of this! They say that when you have acid reflux your baby will come out with a lot of hair... We will see if this wives tale holds true. Joe and I both didn't have a lot of hair. And I pretty much didn't need a hair cut until kindergarten!



I was so excited on Wednesday night because I went to bed at 9:30 but that was the night that I was pretty much up all night or uncomfortable with the gag reflex/acid reflux. So much for trying to get some sleep. I know that this is only preparing me for the inevitable... but come on, at least give mommy 5 hours of sleep prior to officially coming into the world ;) And the Bradley teacher has scared me away from pretty much taking tums. She said that they have aluminum in them and that aluminum is the new mercury. I guess when our parents were having kids the big scare was too much mercury and now it is too much aluminum. I read the label and couldn't find any aluminum but maybe it is found in all of those colored ingredients that get added. They were helping a little bit by the way, but I don't want to do anything that will hurt little Abby. So I will just try to eat light dinners, not shovel my food in, stay away from spicy or heavy (greasy) foods, etc. We will see how that goes for now. There are really less than 3 months left so I think I can manage that.



This morning I woke up at 4:20 because Abby decided to have a Tae Bo session inside of my belly. It was cracking me up! She was seriously either punching or kicking so fast. Normally they are slow and seem almost like stretches, but these were serious kicks. So I just laid there for the additional 10 minutes til I had to get up and just let her do her thing. She tired out pretty quickly.



There is the bump, I think I can almost call it a shelf because it literally catches all of my crumbs. I never really realized how messy of an eater I was till I get pregnant. Or else the hand to mouth coordination has gotten a little sloppy.

Peek a Boo =) She started moving when we were taking the picture but you can't really tell that yet.

Bradley Method Class

We went to our first Bradley Method Class on Sunday afternoon. I think that it will be a good experience. Our teacher is very intelligent, her personality is just not bubbly or excited, which is definitely not everyones personality. The first class was an introduction to the bradley method, went over health and nutrition, and exercise and relaxation techniques. There is only one other couple in the class with us. They are around our age and believe they are having a girl too! They seem to be a really nice couple. I was hoping to have a few more couples in the class for more interaction and questions, but it should be fine. One thing that scared Joe outside of just the class and topic in general was the fact that the teacher told us first thing that she was going to breast feed her baby if he needed to be fed during the class if necessary. So you are sitting in class trying to concentrate on what she is saying but at the same time her baby is strapped on to her. The class does promote natural childbirth, etc. but it can't wait or be worked around a 2 hour class just for the sake of the dads?! At least she has a wrap to cover but still I can understand Joe's uncomfortableness.

Babies R Us

Joe and I went to register today at Babies R Us. Angie and Elsa came along for moral support and advise which was definitely an added benefit for us! It is just a huge task and a big ordeal. There is all this pressure and details that you have to think about with every purchase of baby stuff that a wedding registry just did not have. The wedding one was fun, this one had its cute perks but other than that it was a lot of "what ratings did that brand have?, "were there any recalls on that crib?", "is that really necessary?", "check the book!"

We started the registry at 9:30 right when the store opened and got out of there 10 minutes before noon. Needless to say we were all wiped out! But we were successful in getting the registry about 90% done and we also bought the nursery furniture which was very exciting. http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3014526 is the link to our furniture. I was just hungry and tired by the time we left... The good thing about Babies R Us is that you can also add to and delete items via the website, so you don't have to keep going in. Part of the overwhelmingness (not a word probably) is that there are tons of products on the shelf in pretty packages and colors and that is what you look at first. The perk about online is you can have the ratings and can look through at your own speed. You also don't have to deal with all of the people. The store was getting really packed by the time we were leaving.

Check-up

I had my regular Dr's appointment last Wednesday. Joe wasn't able to make it to this appointment because he had a dentist appoint the same afternoon. His was much more painful than mine - believe me! So it was just Abby and I. They go through the same drill but I wished at the end we would get some sort of report saying how we are progressing. The nurses practically don't speak or say a word. They tell you to go pee in a cup, step on the scale and then strap of the blood pressure contraption and don't tell you any results unless you ask. The only result that I would actually understand would be the weight and during this appointment I got bold enough to ask the question of what I weighed the last time compared to what I weighed this time. Well to spare all of the details, I had gained 5 pounds! I am telling you what it has been a pound a week so far! When I asked the dr. she just laughed and said that some people just gain differently but nothing is totally out of whack. Which is reassuring to a degree and the I start doing the math on how much I have to get off once Abigail comes out and then I start to get mad. But Abby just has to understand that she has to help mommy get the weight off that she helped me put on.
Also another little funny thing that happened during this appointment was when the dr. was finding Abby's heartbeat she was kicking the wand. I don't think she liked the pressure being there. She is a fiesty little thing. I think Joe and I should be getting a little nervous =)

One more wedding weekend =)

This past Saturday was Jeanette and Greg's wedding! She was such a beautiful bride and the wedding was awesome. The wedding was in Pittsburgh, PA which I love going to visit. This was Joe's first time in Pittsburgh and I wished that we had more time to check out the city so we will just have to come back up and visit Jeanette and Greg. =) They got married in their church which had beautiful stained glass, and unique architecture. Then the reception and dinner was at the Wyndam Hotel where we were staying. It was nice to be able to walk to the wedding from the hotel and then just go upstairs to our room once the wedding was over. Prego's get tired around 9:30/10pm but we made it til the end! Phyllis flew up to MD and Angela drove to North Beach and we all met at our house and drove up together. So it was a fun ride up and back with the extra company. Angela is 4 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy so I had plenty of questions since she is ahead of me with everything from registry, day care, drs. appts, etc. It was really great to see everyone and catch up over the weekend. And Joe was happy that he went because he got to meet Jeanettes Uncle Jack Stanfield who was a hockey hall of famer in the 1970s. So he had a lot to talk about during dinner.

Jeanette and Greg! Isn't she beautiful?!

Me, Angela, Phyllis, and April (Campbell peeps at the wedding). I wished we had taken a side shot of Angela and I because I think it would be hard to tell who is further along than who. I think Abby likes to spread her little self out!

Slippery When Wet!!

Well we had a interesting day this past Monday to say the least. Sunday night we got rained on like crazy, I mean it really poured. I don't think I got a full hour of sleep Sunday night bc of the rain coming down and the wind going like crazy.
We both woke up not feeling our best and seeing that the weather was still really bad outside we decided to stay at home. I could work from home so it wouldn't be a problem, Christina on the other hand does not have the capabilities to do that so she wasn't able to do any work. We had lost power that morning probably around 1am bc I could tell that our ceiling fan in the bedroom wasn't on and I knew the power was off, like a sixth sense or something.
I was able to call my mom at about 7 am Monday morning and see if she had lost her power too, which in fact she did. She also informed me that their basement was flooded with about 2 inches of water covering the entire floor. I was a little bit worried bc they have a brand new house and brand new houses are not supposed to have leaky basements.
Right after I got off the phone with her I was getting ready to go over and help clean up I asked Christina to go downstairs in check our basement. I knew it wasn't good when she came back up and had tears in her eyes. She said ours was flooding pretty fast as well.
Here's the thing, we had two Sump Pumps installed and our entire perimeter of our basement dug up the day we moved into our house over a year ago so there would be no more leaking problems. It held up great so far, no leaks what so ever.
Here's the problem, we never bought a battery backup for the sump pumps so when the power went out the pumps just filled with water and we have our own Water Park in our basement. Once Christina said that the basement was flooding I threw on some shoes and ran downstairs bc we have all of Jennifer's furniture she bought for her new house in NC just sitting in boxes down there. I was able to find a small cement island of dry land in the middle and I moved everything I could of hers onto it. Let me tell you furniture gets VERY HEAVY once it is water logged.
I was able to move most of the stuff that wasn't wet already over and Jennifer came down and we were able to clean up the rest as best we could. We were able to get the basement halfway dry and take a few mins for a breather.
Our power did not come back on until around 12:30 p.m. that day, so imagine almost 12hrs of no power with two pregnant ladies and me. We all were pretty calm once the water was controlled.
Once our power came back on I went back down to the basement to check on our sump pumps. We were able to borrow a wet vac from our neighbors to help suck up some of the water when we heard a pipe burst.
I look over and see that one of the sump pumps that is under our stairs has water shooting out of it everywhere and an extremely fast rate. I run over to it to see what happened and see that a pipe got disconnected it looked like. We then shut off the power to the pump and called the company that installed them.
Even though we shut off the power to the pump water was still coming over pretty fast and within 30 mins our entire basement would of been about covered in 2+ inches of water. We called the company that installed the pumps and had them tell me what to do in order to stop the water.
While I was on the phone with the tech, my cell phone decided to jump from my ear into the water barrel where the sump is. I was just speechless, literally. I was able to get the pump connected to the valve again and the water stopped.
We fished out my cell phone and Christina was able to dry it out. It looks like I'll just need to get a new battery for it.

Well after the sump pump predicament I hadn't even had a lot of time to go over and help my mom out.
I go over and see that she still had a decent amount of water in her basement. I spent a couple of hours cleaning it up as best I could then we had a nice surprise. Two members from our church heard about what happened and came over to help out. Charlie and Mike are awesome, they helped move out two carpets that were in my parents basement and Mike brought over his heavy duty shop vac which cleaned up the floors nicely. They said they are going to run a couple of errands and they'll be back. It was about 9 o'clock at night and went back over to our house to eat dinner. Wouldn't you know that the Hunters, a family from our church, come over with one of their humidifiers. It was extremely nice of them to do that and we were very happy to see them.

At about 9:30 or so Mike and Charlie came back with more humidifiers for both of our house and a giant fan. Again, they went above and beyond to help others out, we are so lucky to be involved in a church family like that.

So it has been about almost 2 days since the flooding and both basements are drying up great and the humidifiers are really helping out the smell. My parents are still looking finding out if they any sort of flood insurance and all that fun stuff. Our basement is a mess, so hopefully in the next few days once we have some free time I'll be able to straighten and organize it again bc we have to finish moving Jennifer out of Abby's room and into the guest room soon bc the days a chopping away fast.

Edwards/McGarry Wedding

Jennifer and Sean got married this weekend in Georgia! It turned out to be a really beautiful, unique wedding. They got married at Callaway Gardens which is this huge park filled with trails, ponds, butterfly gardens, etc. The weather reports were calling for torential downpours but luckily it only rained for a little while and then let up for the remainder of the day, so the ceremony was pretty much dry and clear. The wedding started a little before 2pm and it was located right outside of the chapel. During the ceremony they had an organ practice going on inside the church so at 2 pm they had music playing at the wedding! Jennifer and Sean being the little daredevils they are...decided to have the ceremony on a rock in the middle of the creek that ran along side of the chapel. So the two pregos in heals climbed down into the creek and hopped along some rocks to get to the middle. We all made it safely out and back and even the pastor was game for climbing out there. Joe was the photographer and got some great shots of the wedding. Jennifer is now officially Jennifer McGarry! So congratulations to both Sean and Jennifer!! Get ready for the adventure. After the ceremony we were able to get some shots of the newlyweds and the family. They were also able to carve their initials into the tree, which is something you don't get to do at a lot of weddings! And who brings a machetti (spelling?) to a wedding beats me... maybe I need to look into this whole Ranger thing a little more =)

Pre-wedding pics at the butterfly conservatory. They take such great pictures together!

There is the wedding party on the big rock. You can't see the water around us but there is... Sean's best man Craig was his friend from Ranger school.

There is Sean carving out the tree with their initials. It took skill and concentration. They will now have to go back every couple of years to keep it engraved in the tree.

It says SMJ (Sean - McGarry - Jennifer) 4-Evr. They started to use shortcuts towards the end. =)

Here is all of the new families together. On the front row it is Colleen, Megan, Kate, Jennifer, Mary (mama), Grandma, Christina, Christina. Back Row (L-R) Craig, Nate, John, Sean, Steve (daddy), Grandpa, Steven and Joe.

Week 24/25

Here I am another week bigger! Dark colors can do amazing things because it kind of looks like I am going back wards a little bit...

A special surprise!

So I haven't blogged in a while and I know I have been a slacker. I will promise I will do better when Abigail comes. So when I was on my business trip April 22-24th Joe was working really hard on a "secret project" at the house. He told me he was building something and that got me all worked up just thinking about what kind of trouble Joe could get into by himself. But luckily when I got home he had been leading me on in the wrong direction and he actually finished painting our downstairs all by himself!! I knew that it was a really hard job and that he spent a lot of time on it. He did a really great job and I have a pretty amazing husband!