Catching Up

 It's time to catch up on life!  My baby Drake is now 8 weeks old, and I am the happiest girl in the world.  So, I will start with Thanksgiving... just three months ago.

Thanksgiving

I remember Thanksgiving well.  I was in some serious pain because I had eaten too much.  Room in the stomach is very limited when you are 7 months pregnant!

Baby Shower

My baby shower was so fun!  We had yummy food and treats, and even hot cocoa!  It was so nice of everyone to come.

Mickey made me this diaper tower/cake, and I am still using these diapers to this day!  Thanks Mickey!

The shower was at Christine's beautiful home.  Christine, Connie, Jenny, and Mickey did such a great job throwing the best baby shower ever.  I'm glad my two favorite girls, Abbey and Stella, were able to come to my shower as well.

"D" Day

Here I am looking refreshed before Drake was born.  I had only been in labor for an hour or so.  My water had broken around 10:00 pm while Dan and I were watching Rambo II.  The movie selection was not my choice!  This was taken down stairs before they took me up to the nice Maternity area.  The nurse behind me gave me the most painful experience in my life.  It was worse than everything combined during the whole labor and delivery.  I shiver just thinking about it.  She checked me to see how much I had dilated and effaced.  That's all I gotta say about that!

And here I am after delivering Drake.  Notice the haggardness?  I was in labor for 12 hours total, and pushed for 45 minutes.  Soon after I got into my room before Drake was born, I was given the epidural, which didn't even hurt at all.  Connie and Christine slept in the room on the floor, poor souls!  The nurse kept coming in to change my positioning so that the numbness was distributing evenly throughout my lower body, so I didn't get a very good nights rest either.  Dan was snoozing on the couch.  Christine had to leave to drop off her car, and we were worried she would miss Drake being born, but she made it!  Connie and Dan had each of my legs (since I couldn't feel anything), and Christine was taking pictures.  It is so hard to push out a baby!  I was not prepared for that.  Maybe it was extra hard because of Drake's hair!

My beautiful, healthy baby boy.  Words cannot express how life changes and becomes so much sweeter after you become a mother.  

My sweet sisters, who are always there for me.  Thank you Connie and Christine!

One of my favorite moments after a baby is born is when they get their first bath.  They almost always cry.  Drake stopped crying when his hair was being washed, it was so cute!  He was really enjoying it.  He still loves it to this day.

We were in the hospital a couple of days extra because the doctor was worried Drake had an infection in his umbilical cord.  They had to put an IV in his poor little arm and keep him in the nursery to give him antibiotics.  All the blood cultures came back normal, thank goodness.  Because we stayed for a few more days, we celebrated New Years in the hospital.  Christine brought a bag of goodies for me and Dan including Martinelli's sparkling cider.  Thanks Christine!  Baby Drake was my first kiss of 2011.

Welcome home baby!

Family Pictures

Here are a few of the individual family pictures that we took when we were taking the Webb family pictures.  Thanks to the magic of editing pictures, I was able to make myself look a little less like Courtney Love and a few pounds lighter! 

We can't wait to meet Drake and hold him in our arms!

Halloween 2010

Okay, it's about time I update a little so that we all don't have to keep looking at that freaky kid!  These pictures were taken from facebook, so they are not the best quality.  I have more that I just haven't uploaded to my computer yet.  But for now, here are a few.

Me and Dan were invited to a housewarming/halloween party a couple of days ago.  It was a murder mystery, so we all had to dress like our 1920's character.  Dan was Jon Jacobs, the murdered man's best friend, and I was Bob Bucks, the murdered man's accountant.  We all had to be in character, so we were acting pretty much the whole night.  I gotta tell you, I suck at acting!  I guess I wasn't feeling the character very much!  And I didn't really know the people there very well.  Dan was taking his role very seriously.  I would go over to him and try to talk to him and he'd ask, "Are you in character, or my wife right now?".  I got a kick out of that!  Dan looked so cute in his little gettup... like a newsie!  I won best costume... I think people liked my shoes, which you can't see.  They are my Betsey Johnson black and white shoes that I love so much.  The hat was pretty sweet too.  It was a fun night!

Watch this!

This kid is so creepy!  I think he must be a midge because he's so weird looking!
I don't know Connie, maybe we should post our Land Down Under lip-synching video to youtube.  What do you think; )

It's a...

BOY!

Boy oh boy what a surprise.

I convinced myself that it was a girl for sure.

Dan claims he always knew it was a boy.

I have never seen Dan so happy: )

 baby boy's profile 

Baby boy's name will be

Drake Lee Elder

Above is a picture I am going to paint for the baby's nursery.  It will set the theme of his room nicely!

I am 4 months along (19 weeks).

Baby is 10 oz and in perfect health.

I think that I can feel him move but I'm not sure.

What a little miracle it is to grow a baby in my belly: )

So long, XS

When I first started this blog in June 2007 I had just been hired at XS Salon and Spa.  I loyally stayed with them for over 3 years through endless rumors of closing, bouncing paychecks (mine never bounced), down sizing, and new hires.  When I got hired there, mom was still alive (but not the same b/c of the accident).  XS was a place for me to forget about the world and my life.  I really did love it there, and I loved everyone I worked with (which is why I stayed so long).  It was a sanctuary for me in many ways, and I will always be grateful that they hired me years ago.  So, when I came into work on a regular Wednesday, it came as a huge shock to find out they really were closing for good... the next day!  Thankfully, our Salon Manager got in contact with a newer salon/spa and got a lot of us in there.  I thank my lucky stars that they needed an Aesthetician... otherwise I would probably be unemployed right now!  All of the XS employees received a printout of their clients and phone numbers... mine was 23 pages!  For 2 days I had Stephanie (who was my lifesaver) call all of my regular clients and let them know where I was.  Salon G.  Literally right down the road from XS.  My clients have been coming in to see me, thank goodness, and I have been pretty busy (considering it is summertime=slowtime).  It has been a very smooth transition.

Salon G is like a breath of fresh air compared to XS.  Don't get me wrong, XS was a beautiful place, but Salon G is so bright and airy and cheery.  It was time for a change.  Everyone should come in and see the place!

RIP XS

Pregnancy

I gotta admit... I do not like being pregnant.  I have been told things get better the 2nd trimester, so I am looking forward to that!  I have morning sickness.  Not just in the morning, but all day.  Yep, I feel like a cancer patient going through chemo.  Hopefully by week 13 (I am at week 9) the morning sickness will go away like everyone is telling me it will!  The other thing people do not tell you is how uncomfortable being pregnant is.  Now, I knew I would be uncomfortable like at month 8 and 9, but I never expected to be uncomfortable right now!  Never mind the fatigue and the feeling like a weakling... I'm talking about the aches and pains from things growing bigger!  I know I should not complain... especially since I am lucky to have a baby growing inside of me in the first place!  And I know it will all be so worth it in the end.  I just want this dang morning sickness to go away.  I've already lost 4 pounds since getting pregnant.  Nothing under the sun sounds good to eat.  I never know what to make for dinner (resulting in Dan starving).  I just have to snack on whatever seems good at the moment.  Here are some random things Dan runs to the store for so far...

The Velveeta is the only thing that I can seem to stomach more than once.  The Lucky Charms are a no go since I threw them up on Sunday.  And I am enjoying some Puff Cheetos as we speak.  Do you really want to hear something crazy?  I don't even want candy anymore!  Sweet stuff never sounds good!

So at 9 weeks, my uterus is the size of a grapefruit, and the baby is the size of a large grape.  Come on baby, grow, grow, grow!