Meet Penny's New Friends!

Lately there have been a lot of babies being born! As previously mentioned, my sister-in-law (Jonathan's brother's wife), Anne, and my brother-in-law Jedi just had my adorable little nephew, Ray Lawrence Johnson. Anne went through torture to have this little guy. I had to wait till I was discharged from the hospital in order to meet him, but it was immediately love at first sight! Here are some pictures of the little guy...

He has already been to his first Cub's game!!

His Uncle Jonathan absolutely adores him. Isn't this picture so precious?

A few days later one of the sweetest little girls on the planet was born. My friend Michelle has been such a faithful friend to me. She has taught me so much about loving my husband and is such a godly example. I love her!! We have been praying for a couple of years that God would bless her and her husband, Ryan with another baby (they have a son, Jack), and He did! This baby was a miracle baby in so many ways! She was born with both the cord tied in a knot and around her neck. Michelle also had one of the worst births I have ever heard of, but it was all worth it for beautiful Avery Elaine Anthony.

This is sweet Avery with her family! They are so cute!

Last, but most certainly not least, my best friend on the planet, Amy and her husband, John had an adorable little boy named James Ryan Carruthers. I am so sad that I haven't gotten the opportunity to meet him yet (they live in Washington) but it is going to happen soon! Amy is going to make the most incredible mom. She has always perfectly balanced me out. Her friendship has been one of my life's sweetest blessings. Amy had a total horror story c-section, but she is SO absurdly tough it didn't even phase her. I love this little man already! The way I see it, he will be my son-in-law some day :) Here he is...

Here is James and his excited daddy, John.

I don't know why God chose to give all three of them HORRIBLE labor and deliveries, but the way I see it, they already did the hard work so I'll just waltz on in and before I know it, it will all be over! :)

Thanks for meeting Penny's friends! She has been kicking me like crazy, I'm pretty sure because she is so exited to meet them! Especially, that cute little boy, James :)

Update on Penelope Mae

Well, life has been a little crazy these past few weeks! God has definitely been teaching us to trust Him.

Jonathan & I decided to take a vacation at an expensive, little Bed & Breakfast we like to call Glendale Adventist Hospital. It all started a few weeks ago when I came home from work with some weird chest pains. I had minor heart surgery in high school to correct an heart node problem and because of that, when we called our OB, he wanted me to come into the emergency room just to be safe. On the way to the hospital I also started developing a massive migraine unlike any headache I have ever experienced in my life.

Because of the pregnancy and the severity of the migraine they decided to admit me, which turned into about six days of constant vomiting and cardiology consultations. The final diagnosis was an inflammation of my chest wall caused by my growing belly, spreading my ribs apart. It sounds stupid but it can actually be somewhat painful and unnerving. It's called Costochondritis and it's said to feel somewhat like a heart attack so it can be relatively painful.

The unfortunate thing about the timing of all this was that my sister-in-law, Anne was actually on the other side of the hospital giving birth to my new (and precious) little nephew, Ray Lawrence Johnson. We were incredibly blessed by our family and amazing Bible study who provided endless amounts of encouragement and service to us.

I honestly think the whole thing was harder on Jonathan than it was on me. I barely remember anything from it, but he had to deal with the puking and crying from all of the failed IVs. God has blessed me with the sweetest, most patient and loving man that I ever could have asked for. He never once made me feel like I was an inconvienance. I am SO thankful for this incredible man! He is going to be the most amazing daddy!

Once we got home from the hospital things got a little worse before it got better. Now that I am feeling so much better I look back on the prehospital morning sickness and realize how easy I had it. I can't believe the things that I have taken for granted and I am daily asking the Lord to remind me of the countless ways that he has blessed me.

In the meantime, little Penny has been doing pretty well. She is kicking like crazy and Jona even had the opportunity to feel her kick after he played her a Beatles marathon through my belly. :) I would love to show you some new pictures of her because we have gotten several but she has been looking rather alien-like lately and they may scare you even more than the picture of me in the hospital.

We have had several doctor appointments to check up on her and so far the only thing they are a little concerned about are her dilated kidneys. Apparently this increases her chances of down syndrome. They made us go to genetic counseling which we found to be completely absurd. It is amazing to us that people would abort their baby just because of a slight chance of a birth defect.

We are so eager to meet this little one! I am at 23 weeks and it seems like it is just creeping by. I always found it a little interesting that people would tell me not to give up. That has never ever been an option. I truly believe that I would throw up every day for the rest of my life just to have this amazing gift. I can't imagine loving this little girl more and I can't wait to hold her and tell her what a little stinker she's been!

I Hate Pink

Please be forewarned. This blog post is going to be boring. For some reason, I decided to link my blog to facebook, which I now think was a big mistake. Now instead of people choosing to come to my blog, everyone gets a notification that I wrote a note. OK, now down to the reason for this post.

I have been so stressed out about the baby's room! I'm not typically someone who would spend hours and hours thinking about this, but I keep getting asked "what are your colors?", "what is your theme?" "have you chosen a crib?" and on and on. It's almost like I'm getting married all over again, minus the whole crib question.

So I decided to do some internet browsing and look at some nursery ideas. My dear husband eventually saw what I was doing and said, "Wait. We're actually gonna decorate a room for her?" After staring at him for a good 10 seconds he said "Never mind." That totally made me laugh. I think he thought we should just stick her in a closet somewhere because she wouldn't really know the difference. He has a point. :)

After I resumed my search I came to a shocking realization. I hate the color pink. Then I found out that I hate hearts and flowers and purple and everything else on the planet that's girly. What is wrong with me?! Is my poor little girl completely doomed by my apparent lack of femininity?

For example, this makes me want to puke...

And I showed some ideas to my mom and my sisters and they loved this room. Me, not so much.

I do have to admit that I found one room that's pinkish that I do kinda like it. And I really mean KINDA. The dumb thing is that one of the reasons I like this is because I love those gorgeous baseboards. Which has nothing to do with any of the baby stuff whatsoever. Although the baby stuff isn't too bad.

So my brother's precious girlfriend, Julie and I sat down and looked together for about an hour. Everything I found that I liked, Julie graciously reminded me that I'm trying to create a room for a girl not for a hospital patient. Which we found out, is my big problem. I love things that look clean and sterile. I know what you're thinking, "what on earth is this dumb girl thinking, having a baby and wanting to maintain a sterile environment". I KNOW!!! I'm crazy!

Anyway, here are some of the ones that I actually do like...

I like this one and it is girly, but I don't really like yellow that much. Which is the whole point of the room. But the stuff on the wall is adorable huh?

I like this one a lot but is it masculine?

Ok these next two are my two favorite nurseries. This one is adorable and pretty girly, but it is a Pottery Barn room and it costs about 4 billion dollars. Seriously, the crib alone is $1200!! And once again, I love the room mostly because of the mural but how on earth could I ever do that? And for the record, I think the peach is yucky. But the room is adorable huh?

Last one. I know this is really simple, but I really like it. Jonathan said that the crib makes him think of an animal cage, so maybe not, but tell me what you think of this...

Ok. I welcome your ideas, advice, whatever. If this bored you to tears, I apologize. If you think I am a failure as a girl, I understand. :) And just so you know, I honestly am not freaking out about it. We have a long way to go and for Pete's sake, right now we are only 80% sure its a girl any way!

One Hundred and Hell Degrees

I apologize if you are offended by this blog post title, but that is approximately how hot it is in SoCal today. I'm not even joking. Everything is sweaty. Everything. I think my fingernails are even sweating.

I was always known as a happy child growing up. Typically had a good attitude, never ever threw tantrums. Ask my mom, I was a pretty good kid. Until... it got hot. Every ounce of Christianity immediately left my soul the second I get over heated. I had been known to literally turn in to Satan once it got over 85. Since I have grown into a more mature adult, I have learned to take better control of my anger and the demon possession instead turned into OUT OF CONTROL crying. I'm not even joking.

I came home from school today, poured myself a big drink, spent a little bit of time trying to fix our crappy air conditioning and then I bawled. Like a baby. I can't help it. Heat makes me completely lose it.

I'm starting to think that baby Penny hates heat as much as I do. For the last three days there has been this ridiculously hard spot sticking out on the right side of my stomach. I think it must be a foot or elbow or something, but it's like she is saying, "Mom, what the heck is happening?! I will continue to stab you until you improve my living conditions". I can't say that I blame her.

If there are any of you who would like to confront my complaining and bad attitude could you please wait until December? This is more for your sake than mine. You seriously do not want to tempt the "heat" demon to come out of hiding. :)

It's A.... GIRL!!!

At least we think so :) Today was our OB appointment where we hoped to learn the gender of our little wee one :) I was very sick at the beginning of the appointment but very excited.

At first the nurse told us we wouldn't be able to have an ultrasound but I tried to flash my dimple and sweet talk our doctor. I should have realized that a fat, sweaty, pukey pregnant girl has no charm whatsoever, but he was very gracious and took the time to give us an ultrasound.

I'm coming to realize that what I think is cute about my kid probably no one else does (except for my faithful parents and in laws :)), but, THIS BABY IS SO STINKIN CUTE!! It literally looked like she was doing the "YMCA" dance, or some other form of aerobics (she clearly doesn't take after her mama).

Her arms were up then down, to the left, to the right. Then about ten more reps of that. She was in a pretty awkward position so my doctor took the ultrasound thingy and practically started punching my belly with it. She. was. ticked. It was like she new exactly what we wanted and there was no way she was givin' it up easy!

Our doctor said that he was 80% sure it was a girl and I'll take it! :) It's looking like this feisty baby will be named Penelope Mae Johnson :) Of course if it turns out to be a shy boy we will still be thrilled!

What's In A Name?

Oops, I just realized I left you three (sorry Bethy :)) in the dark about Pinkie! Here are some of our name choices, but first...

We have been talking a lot about the baby's name. I know we have a long way to go, but I'm not really a fan of calling the baby "it" for 9 months. I have always been one of those people who thought it was stupid to hide the name until birth. It's always really awkward when you ask expectant parents if they have a name and they respond with, "yes, but we are keeping it private". What are you supposed to say then? "Wow, a secret. That's really cool." I don't know, maybe I'm the only one who thinks it's awkward. But now...

I totally get it! I think I have learned a lot during the pregnancy. One major thing is that EVERYONE has an opinion. When it comes to morning sickness, food aversions, pregnancy health, I am totally fine with an opinion, especially because it is given as an encouragement, as a matter of fact I WELCOME opinions. So please don't think that I'm an arrogant brat that has to do this on my own, 'cause I don't want to! :)

BUT, sometimes I'm a little blown away that people will actually tell you to your face that one of your name choices is "a horrible name for a baby"! Isn't that funny?! On the other hand, if my parents had actually wanted to name me Zerubbabel, I would hope that some one would have kindly and graciously asked them to reconsider.

So with all that said, I'm a little insecure about our name choices at this point, but we still have a little time. Like I mentioned in the last post, in about 16 days we will find out the gender. I would love to be able to call that baby... "blah blah" (you know what I mean) from that day on.

Here are our top choices...

Boys-

Malaki/Macachi Rivers or

Dallas Philip

Girls-

Mya Pinkerton (hence the nickname "pinkie") or

Penelope Mae

So... now I feel like I will scare everyone away from commenting. :) Maybe we should just stick with "Blah Blah". With how original some people are starting to be with naming their children, he/she probably wouldn't even stick out!

Baby Update-15 weeks

I know I still have some things to cover as far as our vacations, but I thought I would give my readers (aka "Mom & Dad") a baby update.

We are currently at 15 weeks. We are getting so excited as the baby seems to be healthy and we have had more and more time to imagine what our lives will be with little baby whatever. :) We currently call the baby "Pinkie" (I'll explain in a sec). Words can't express how much we already love this little one!

It seems as though this pregnancy has been a little complicated. I put every ounce of hope that I had in July 18th. It was supposed to be the day that my 2nd trimester started, therefore sending the morning sickness on it's evil way. No such luck. My days are spent napping on the couch interrupted by violent dry heaving. I have really worked on counting every single second of nausea as a blessing. I honestly don't feel discouraged by it. I am thankful for symptoms that allow me to know this baby is healthy and growing, and in the meantime have caught up on my sleep.

In 17 days we will find out if we are having a little pinkie (girl) or if we have forever ruined our son's masculinity by calling him such a girlie little name :)

P.S. This ultrasound picture was taken at 12/13 weeks? I know our baby looks like it's armless, my kind Doctor informed me that he/she indeed possessed two perfectly normal arms. As a matter of fact, when the Dr. showed me the baby like this, I couldn't stop laughing, which made the armless baby look like he/she was dancing, which made me laugh all the harder. In explanation, those are the baby's shoulders :)