6 Month Belly Shot & 27 week survey!

I missed my survey last week, so I'm combining 26 and 27 weeks!

How Far Along: 27 weeks! 

(She's sleeping and waking at regular intervals, opening and closing her eyes, and perhaps even sucking her fingers. With more brain tissue developing, your baby's brain is very active now. While her lungs are still immature, they would be capable of functioning — with a lot of medical help — if she were to be born now. Chalk up any tiny rhythmic movements you may be feeling to a case of baby hiccups, which may be common from now on. Each episode usually lasts only a few moments, and they don't bother her, so just relax and enjoy the tickle.)

Size of baby: About 14 1/2 inches long, and over 2 pounds (the size of a head of cauliflower)!

Total Weight Gain/Loss: 2 pounds last week (Thanksgiving) and 1 pound this week.  Total, I have gained 18 pounds.  

Gender: A Sweet Baby GIRL!!  Emery Katherine will be here before we know it!

Movement: This past week was the first time I felt my stomach get rock solid in certain areas and could feel Emery's body right there.  I can't imagine how this will be once she really has no room to move!

What I miss: Mobility!  Bending, getting up, and rolling over are all getting more difficult!

Sleep: Pretty good still, only getting up once in the night to go pee, if that.

Symptoms: Can tell a huge difference in how I feel between "2nd trimester" and "3rd trimester" (even though 3rd doesn't technically start till 28 weeks).  Kyle is adapting wonderfully to me really needing him again and not being able to do a ton on my own like before.  My left rib is definitely going to be my problem spot I think.  The numbness has turned into a dull pain, and requires me to lay down and stretch it out for a while when I can.  I lost some meals a couple times in the past weeks, but I think it was just from exhaustion.

Notes: Can definitely see the bottom of my belly button, but still an innie!  No dark line down my stomach, stretch marks, or swelling yet! 

"To-do" items checked off our list:  
- Found really cute bedding from JC Penney for the nursery and changed some other items around on our Babies R Us registry!  MUCH happier about the changes (THANK YOU TARA for knowing me better than I know myself!)

- The guest bedroom furniture has been moved and set up down in the basement.  
- The closet and built-in-bookshelves are reorganized too which took forever!
- Went fake ring shopping and found a perfect sterling silver and cubic zirconium one from Kohl's for only $9!  It was driving me nuts not having a ring and I've gotten several compliments on it!
- Registered at Target (still have to actually go on and add things though), and used the coupon that came in the mail for a free $20 gift-card if creating a baby registry!
- Kyle has completely demoed the wall from our storage space closet.
- The plumber came out and marked the spots on the concrete that had to be removed.
- Kyle removed all the concrete (only 4 hours of using a jack hammer... eugh!) so the plumber can set all the new pipes soon! 

Cravings: Slushies-- ALL. THE. TIME!

Best Moments this week: Having everyone react so positively towards Emery's name.  Going on such a fun date with Kyle at the Sundial, to celebrate our 4 year anniversary early. Having a perfect shower last weekend in Charlotte!!

What we are looking forward to: A WEEKEND IN TOWN-- FINALLY!!!  We hope to get a lot done and try to watch some tv!

And now here is my 6 month belly shot, I'm looking a little sleepy!

Stove Top Chicken Bake with Vegetables Recipe!

I found this recipe in a magazine, tried it out last week and loved it so I wanted to share!  It's so cold outside, warm hearty meals always taste so good.... not to mention it's an easy recipe to make!

Stove Top Classic One-Dish Chicken Bake with Vegetables

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups hot water

1 pkg (6 oz) Stove Top Stuffing Mix for Chicken

1 1/2 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces

1 can (10 3/4 oz) condensed cream of chicken soup

1/3 cup sour cream

1 1/2 cups shredded low-moisture part-skim mozzarella cheese

1 pkg. (16 oz) frozen mixed vegetables, thawed, drained

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Add hot water to stuffing mix; stir just until moistened.  Set aside.

Place chicken in 3-qt. baking dish.  Mix soup, sour cream, cheese and vegetables; spoon over chicken.  Top with prepared stuffing.

Bake 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.  Makes 6 servings, about 1 1/3 cups each.

Our early 4 year anniversary celebration!

Kyle and I were married on a beautiful sunny day in December of 2006 -- the 16th to be exact.  It was an amazing day, one where I thought I couldn't love Kyle anymore than I did at that moment.  I've been proved wrong year after year, as each time our anniversary rolls around we both say 'THIS YEAR was by far the best!"  We've gone through a lot this year with additional work responsibilities, traveling to see & support family, and everything that goes along with pregnancy!  I am so proud of the man Kyle is, and I can't imagine going through this next step of parenthood with anyone else by my side.

A couple months ago, on Groupon there was a deal for the Sundial Restaurant in downtown Atlanta, spend $20 get $50 worth of food.  (The coupon expired on the 4th, so we celebrated our anniversary early!) This revolving restaurant offers a breathtaking 360-degree panorama of the Atlanta skyline. You take a glass elevator up, which climbs the hotel's 73 stories situated 723 feet above the city.  The elevator was awesome, although I did get nervous looking down (did pregnancy just make me scared of heights?).

The inside was completely decorated for Christmas, and they had a live band playing Christmas songs the entire time.  The perfect atmosphere to enjoy a wonderful dinner and overlook the city.

This was our favorite view as we could see the GA dome, Centennial Park, the Aquarium, Coke Museum and more!

All the views were amazing though.  It was fun to look into all the windows of the buildings and see the amazing lofts or even workaholics still at the office!  You can see highway 75 in this view, which was stop and go like usual:

We took our time eating and talking.  Love my hubby in his cute jacket :)

We ordered the most amazing appetizer! It was called "Shrimp Casino" and had shrimp, scallions, garlic cream, bacon, parmesan cheese, and bread crumb mixture that you spread onto buttered toast.  For our entrees, Kyle got the "surf and turf" which was absolutely delicious and I got the "kansas city strip steak".  Is your mouth watering, because mine is?!

We snagged a belly shot near one of the Christmas trees.  26 weeks!

 

And got one of the two of us as well:

We decided to skip on dessert at Sundial, and on the way home stopped at Pink Berry a frozen yogurt place. We had heard wonderful reviews about this place, and it was really good! 
They let you put whatever toppings you want on your yogurt so we got: Fruity Pebbles, Captain Crunch, Gummy Bears, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and chocolate chips!  YUM!
 
Even though we had said NO PRESENTS, Kyle of course broke the rules.  I was getting ready before dinner in the bathroom and all of a sudden heard the standard iphone ring go off.  Mine and Kyle's phones don't have that ring anymore, but I went in search to find it to see what on earth was going on since Kyle was no where to be found.  The sound was coming from the laundry basket!  I pulled up clothes and as soon as I saw it I gasped!  Kyle heard me from the closet (where he was hiding).  It was a beautiful iphone 4... oh my goodness!!!  I never told him that I wanted one, but he knows how much I love my old phone and that I would never ask for an upgrade.  Kyle's response was "It was the perfect gift to get you for our FOUR year anniversary" (get it iphone FOUR)?

So now I'm having fun figuring out all the new things this one can do.  Video, camera with a flash and 2 apps running at the same time WOAH I'm pumped.Thank you sweetie for the iphone, but most importantly for being my companion through thick and thin, and my caretaker these past couple months when I've been out of commission with the pregnancy.  Love you more than you know!!

Baby Name Reveal!

Once we told our families her name, we decided to share our secret with everyone! BIG SURPRISE we like to share things :)  It definitely would have been neat to wait till she was born, but it's so nice to be able to refer to her by name no matter who we are with!

So without further ado, here is her first and middle name:

We both have always leaned towards different names, but wanted it common enough where people know how to pronounce them.  We have LOVED the name Kate for forever it seems like.  Then when we first found out we were pregnant, we found Emery through a baby name book, and loved how classy and a little old fashioned it is.  Emory (with an "O") is a masculine given name by definition AND there is a university here spelled that way, so we decided to go with Emery (with an "E") to be more feminine, and I think the "y" at the end helps make it girly anyway :)

We couldn't decide which one would be her first and which one would be the middle for the longest time.  Then finally decided on Emery Katherine sitting in the doctors office right after we found out that we were having a girl.  It was like there weren't any other options, and we haven't had any second thoughts about it since.  We refer to her by name always now, and couldn't love the name anymore!

Hope you all love it too!  Have a great weekend!

Our Thanksgiving Travels

Last Wednesday, we ended up taking half days at work, to miss the terrible holiday traffic out of ATL.  Our plan worked and we arrived at the cabin in Boone just in time for a spaghetti dinner with my family! It was great to spend some quality time with everyone in the family, and we had a great time relaxing, laughing and enjoying some time in the Valle Crusis Park.

OH and we spilled the beans and told them our name for our baby girl :)  I do have to say that KYLE was the one who cracked and said that we had to tell them.  We had tortured my family for about an hour with some really tough hints, and NO ONE was close!  I think my dad's favorite guess was "CARLTON" hahahahaha.
The Sams seriously couldn't get any cuter!  Love how much they are smiling right now!

Mom and Grandma had prepared almost all the food in advance, so all we had to do was stick it them in the oven.  It was absolutely delicious!

This Thanksgiving was an emotional one for my family, as we truly have so much to be thankful for.  Just the fact that dad was able to eat with us at dinner had me in tears all night.  It's been a tough year for my family, and I think it says so much by how we can all begin the year crying around Tara's dining room table trying to take in some tough news, and end the year crying because we are so thankful how this year has panned out.  God is good!

After dinner we all went out and enjoyed the campfire that Kyle had made.  Natalie and Nathan had helped him collect sticks all afternoon for it, so we stayed out there for a while!  And look in the picture below, Dad's hair is starting to grow back!!

On Friday, it was time to head to Winston Salem, NC for Mikey's (Kyle's brother in law) 30th surprise birthday party!  Rachel did such a great job organizing the event, and we had a great time catching up with all of Mike's family and friends.  Here is the entire Guenther/Cress/Clifton clan:

After the party, we finished the drive to Raleigh and slept at Kerry & Brads house.  Saturday was so relaxing, as the girls sat and talked while the guys worked on the Model-A in the garage.  The food was amazing, and the dessert was even better as Brenda made 4 pies!!  

Kerry and Brad told us the gender of their baby (A BOY!), and we did tell Kyle's family our name, by playing hang man!  Everyone loves the name we picked out, and I'm so happy about that!!

Sunday Kyle and I woke up at 8 and were on the road back to Atlanta so he could start demo on the storage room wall.  It was a whirlwind of a trip, but we are so thankful for our families and how close we all are.  What a year this has been, we are so blessed!!

Adding a guest bathroom in the basement!

So that's our big project that I've been referring to for a while now, we are adding a guest bathroom to go next to our new guest bedroom down in the basement! (Our basement used to be just stairs to the garage, but we added hardwoods and an entire room down there-- click here to read!)  Kyle and I had been throwing this idea around for a while, but really started to consider it when we got pregnant knowing that our poor guests would have to walk up one floor to use the hall bathroom, or two floors to take a shower!

Luckily, in the basement right next to our office room (which is officially the guest bedroom now) was a storage room that we had jam packed full of bins.  It's the only storage in our house besides the attic, so we were worried where we would store everything.  That's why we did the attic project, that I posted about earlier this week, which solved that issue!

We had a plumber/handy man referred to us by a friend, and after getting a reasonable quote from him on the entire project, we decided to go for it!  The great news is that he's letting Kyle do a lot of the work to save us money!!

We cleared out everything that was in the storage room and either gave it to good will or put it in the attic.  Next was DEMOLITION day for Kyle, which we drove back early from Raleigh for the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

So here are the before pictures.  This is looking from the staircase down to the basement.

The door that you see is the one to the storage room and the guest bedroom door is just to the right.

Here is the view of the inside of the storage room... beautiful I know!  It luckily already had the hot water heater in there so it's not too much work for all the new pipes!

 We decided to move the wall out a couple feet to help make the bathroom a little larger.  So Kyle started taking off all the sheet rock and removing boards!  To say he had fun was an understatement :)

And another view:

 Next was removing all the 2x6's and door frame.

Crazy how much space there is with no wall there!

Kyle also cut the hardwoods shorter since we are moving that wall out some.

The plumber came by today and marked out the spots on the ground where Kyle will need to break up the concrete.  This will not be fun, but it's necessary to get all the piping in for the toilet, shower and vanity.  So that's the update for now, lots happening around here I tell ya!

Guess who else is pregnant?

Kerry and Brad!

Kyle's parents are going from 0-3 grandchildren in a matter of 8 months, isn't that crazy?? We've known for a while now, but we just found out the gender last weekend! It's so fun going through this pregnancy with so many best friends and family, Kerry and I are exactly 7 weeks apart!  Congratulations you two, we are SO EXCITED about the arrival of our little nephew in April! 

Pumpkin Apple Bread Recipe!

My co-worker, Gina, makes the best Pumpkin Apple Bread every fall, so this year I got the recipe and tried it out myself!  Oh man it's just so good!

Pumpkin Apple Bread

Items you'll need:

Flour

Baking Soda

Ground Nutmeg

Cinnamon

Salt

Ground Cloves

All Spice

16 oz can Pumpkin

Oil

4 eggs

Sugar

2 apples

Butter

Directions:

Sift together in large bowl: 3 cups flour, 2 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp ground nutmeg, 1.5 tsp cinnamon, 3/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp all spice.

In seperate large bowl whisk: 16 oz can pumpkin, 3/4 cup oil, 4 eggs slightly beaten, 2 1/4 cup sugar.

Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture.  Stir well until combined.  Fold in 2 apples, peeled and chopped (approximately 2 cups).

Make topping: 1 T flour, 5 T sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 T butter crumbled into coarse meal).  Set aside.

Divide batter between two, 9"x5"x3" butter loaf pans.  Sprinkle with topping.  Bake in the center of the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes or until tester comes out clean.  Cool in pan on racks for 45 minutes.  Remove and cool completely.  Can be kept chilled in fridge for 1 week or in freezer for 1 month.

Adding attic storage project complete!

Last week when my brother was in town, Kyle took advantage of having a work partner to get a project completed (since I'm pretty useless carrying anything these days-- let alone huge sheets of plywood)!  Our storage room in the basement is completely going away (will post this week on that project), so we desperately needed to put flooring down in our attic for storage.  Unfortunately before there was only a 4 foot by 4 foot section that was floored, and look at what a mess that was!

Kyle mapping out where the new flooring was going to go:

And another picture.  It is a pain with all the trusses but definitely worth it:

Nick and Kyle finishing up the flooring section:

Smiling at their hard work:

And the finished product:

I know it doesn't look like much, but we've already moved shelves up there and have bins stacked very neatly. This was our first project that we had to complete before we got moving on all the others, so be prepared for lots of project blog posts soon!  Thanks again Nick!!