I have been feeling light flutterings of movement from the baby for a few weeks now. But yesterday I was actually able to feel the baby moving from the outside, with my hand on my belly. I had just eaten some yummy chocolate cake that my Aunt Kay made for Thanksgiving and sat down to watch some tv. I called Greg over, and of course the baby didn’t cooperate then so that he could feel it moving. Once Greg left, the baby started kicking again. It was the coolest feeling though.

Well, it looks like I have to get the RhoGAM shot. ARGH. Greg went in and had his blood type tested, and it turns out he is O+. Since I am O-, that means the shot will be necessary for me. Darn, I was really hoping that he would come up with an RH-negative blood.

I guess if I were to look on the plus side, at least I could donate blood for him should he ever need it, since O+ blood types can only receive O- and O+ type donations. He just couldn’t reciprocate since I can only receive O-. My immediate family is all O- though, so no worries there.

Well, our Thanksgiving was awesome! In the morning, we exchanged early Christmas gifts. Greg and I got two Harry Potter DVD’s which we are very excited about. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. We had so much fun with our family and with Aunt Kay and Katie and were sad to see them go. We also got to meet Brian’s girlfriend, Na. (We all really like her Brian – she’s great!) One extra special thing about this Thanksgiving is that it is the first time that I can remember that we have been able to have extended family over for a holiday. Everyone pitched in with the setting up and tearing down of the feast. I think everything went really well and the food was good too.

On Friday, Karen, Cindy, Mom, and I went to Archiver’s and then came back to the house to do some scrapbooking while Dad and Greg watched Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers extended version.

We have a few pictures of our Thanksgiving posted here in our Photo Gallery.

Well, Greg and I went shopping last night for all the Thanksgiving goodies that we will be preparing for Thursday. We bought a 17 lb. turkey! Also planned for our menu is stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, peas, cranberries, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pies (pies complement of my mom-thanks Mom!)

We will have a total of 10 people at our house for the holiday: Greg and I, my family (mom, dad, Brian, Karen, Cindy), Karen’s fiance Zach, my Aunt Kay from Scottsdale, AZ, and my cousin Katie (from C Springs). I am so excited! I don’t think I have seen my Aunt Kay since 1995 or thereabout, so Greg has never yet met her. We will also have our two dogs plus 2 dogs of my parents’, their dachshund Missy and new chihuahua Abby. What fun we are going to have!

My mother-in-law bought this great book for me, Living Well on One Income in a Two Income World written by Cynthia Yates. (Thank you Marilyn!) I am thinking she knows my heart pretty well for how I am feeling right now. I really want to be able to be a stay-at-home mom once the baby comes, but am nervous about the financial aspects of things. I just finished this book and am feeling quite encouraged. I actually had a great shopping moment yesterday that made me feel like I was living out some of the book’s principles. It was quite empowering.

Greg and I had received a set of small drinking glasses as a wedding gift that we just absolutely loved. When we asked the couple that gave us the glasses where they got them (we wanted to purchase more), they sheepishly admitted that we were basically “re-gifted” from their wedding. hehe. No matter-we love the glasses nonetheless! We have searched high and low for more sets to complement the 4 glasses we already had. We had found a few more at Sears, but they didn’t have enough to fill complete our set. Lo and behold I found enough at Ross this weekend to complete out our set of 12 – and for a great bargain price too. I also found matching small bowls to round out my great catch.

Over the weekend we became proud owners of a brand new 40 gig iPod. (I was convinced that it was a cool toy to have after seeing my friend Nate’s iPod when he was visiting us.) This gadget is amazing! The only downfall with it so far is that I have now become not only a computer widow but also an iPod widow as Greg has spent many hours now on our computer loading CD’s into iTunes. Hopefully I will get my turn soon so that I can get more of my music represented in the playlist as well.

We went with Kristi and Jimmy to see The Incredibles last night – what a great movie! I would definitely recommend it to others. It is totally clean, creative, and funny. One of the first things that Greg said after it was over was that we would definitely need to buy this one when it comes out on DVD. I can see why it is doing so well in the box office.

Greg’s sister, Kristi, is currently visiting with us and we are having so much fun! This all started out as a great surprise for Greg – he had no idea she was coming! She and I have been planning this surprise visit since September, and it has been SO hard keeping it a secret. I also purchased Kristi and Greg each a Bela Fleck & the Flecktones concert for last Friday. (Since I am pregnant, I could not attend due to the loud noise, smoke, and long periods of standing that would be involved.) It was awesome watching his reaction as he opened our front door on Thursday to see Kristi standing there on the porch. His jaw dropped, he paused for a moment, and then loudly exclaimed “It’s YOU!” Ryan, a family friend, also came with Kristi so it has been a great reunion time.

Kristi and Greg went to the concert on Friday and had a good time. Then on Friday we took Kristi to Casa Bonita (since she had never been) along with Ryan and another family friend, Jimmy, who lives in Longmont. That place is so fun and the sopapillas are delicious. (Cannot say that about the rest of the food there though.) We have been having a wonderful time with Kristi. I am so glad we still have a few days left with her yet too.

My echocardiogram results from my appointment yesterday were good and normal. Hooray! I am still going to be wearing a heart monitor on Thursday for 24 hours as a final precaution, but I am glad that everything is turning out to be okay.

It was weird seeing my heart beating on the ultrasound. Kinda cool too. It made me excited to see the baby move on the ultrasound when we get to go in next month for that.

We are now 16 weeks into the pregnancy. I cannot believe it. I had my 4 month checkup yesterday, and it was actually pretty eventful. We got to hear the heartbeat again, which was very reassuring since that is really our only way of knowing everything is okay for now. I cannot wait to feel the baby move! The doctor said that could happen any time now between 16-20 weeks, but since this is my first pregnancy, I probably won’t notice it until closer to 20 weeks.

I asked my doctor about the fast and hard heartbeat that I have had occur from time to time. This has been happening to me for about 5 years now. It used to be just when I was majorly stressed, but lately it has been occurring for no reason that I can tell and is now more accompanied by dizziness and sweating that can last up to 10 minutes and then it just goes away. Sometimes it beats so hard that I can actually see my shirt move on my chest. This, accompanied by my blood pressure which has been on the high end of normal for the entire pregnancy so far, prompted my doctor to do an EKG. At least, I think that is what it was called. I was all hooked up with wires to a machine. Towards the end of that test though, I started to sweat really badly (and not normally) and then after it was done and the nurse had me sit back up I felt really dizzy and my ears started muffling all sound. Not as if they were plugged though-it was really weird and it felt like I was going to pass out. So they made me lay back down for awhile. Anyways, this was different than my normal heartrate things that I was telling them about. The EKG test did show that my resting heartrate was higher than normal, although not alarmingly so. I guess it is supposed to be between 60-100 and mine was 117. After awhile, they took my heartrate again and it was back to normal. Maybe the machine stressed me out, even though you cannot feel anything when you are hooked up to it. But my doctor wants me to see a cardiologist on Monday to get an ultrasound of my heart just to be sure. I think I will also get a heartrate monitor to wear for 24 hours too…

Well, it is official. Our team is moving to another building on the 12th of this month. We are not happy about it, but I have resigned myself to the inevitable. The building is about 10 minutes away from our current building. I guess I will have to start packing a lunch every day-ick. My last 2 jobs have had cafeterias (and the ones before that had food easily available-grocery stores and pizza places are convenient that way) and I guess that has spoiled me. Also, it just seemed as this move, coming on the heels of the re-org announcement and all, was a bit weird. I mean, we had this big meeting with our new VP saying how excited they were for us to be a part of this new team and all, and then they move us to another building and out of the way like a red-headed stepchild. (The whole organization is not moving, just our immediate team.) Just seems as if the move counteracts their whole meeting and Happy Hour where they were trying to “welcome” us onto the team. Yeah, welcome to the team, now move out to this other building so we don’t have to see you every day.

On a positive note, Greg and I will still be able to carpool. It just will not be as convenient as it is now. Oh well. I guess now that I getting used to the idea, I am a *little* excited about a change too.

Hooray, Bush won!

Greg and I both voted yesterday and were pretty proud of it. The polling place was at the school right by our house, so that was cool. We also only had to wait in line maybe a total of 2 minutes. Lucky us! We were disappointed that Salazar beat Pete Coors for Colorado Senate, but also were excited to see that most of the amendments that we voted for or against went how we wanted. Greg was also pretty tickled that there was one amendment that he and I voted differently on. He voted for Colorado’s Renewable Energy bill; I voted against. It passed. Actually, in talking with Greg afterwards, he had some good points as to why he voted for it. I voted against it because our energy bill is already so high, but taking Greg’s opinions on it into consideration, I am not upset that it passed. You know, our country is so great – I loved being a part of the whole democratic process.