Work Chili Cook-Off and Pumpkin Decorating Contest

Last Wednesday at work we had our 3rd Annual Human Resource Division Chili Cook-Off and Pumpkin Decorating Contest! Last year I entered both the chili cook-off and the pumpkin contest and won an award in both. I just didn't have it in me this year to do both and just decided to enter the chili cook-off.

There were only 3 of us that entered the Chili Cook-Off this year and we awarded a "Judges Favorite" and "People's Choice" award. There were 2 Judges brought in from outside of our division that sampled the 3 Chili's and voted on their favorite and then everyone from within our division got to sample the chili's and choose their favorites.

Chili Cook-Off Entries

My entry this year was Gregg's "Firehouse Chili" again and it was SOOO good!!! Quite a few people remembered my chili from last year and were so excited that I had brought it again! I have to say that it was pretty darn tasty and my favorite of the entries by far! I won the "People's Choice" award again for the 2nd time!!!

my Chili set-up

The Pumpkin Decorating Contest also had 3 entries this year! There were 2 entries that were baseball and Texas Rangers theme and then a 3rd that was inspired by the Director of their Department.

Pumpkin Contest Entries

"Scariest Pumpkin" Winner
(made to look like one of the Department Directors)

"Most Creative Pumpkin" Winner

38 week update and small scare

We had our 38 week appointment last Monday (10/25). Not too much has changed for me in the way of progress. I am still 1/25/-3 (meaning my cervix is just barely open and still pretty thick and that Cade is very high up). This little boy seems to be perfectly happy in his current home and in no hurry to make an appearance!

Prior to my doctor checking me she got the ultrasound out to listen to Cade's heartbeat. She had a little bit of a difficult time locating Cade's heartbeat this time and when we did find it is was down from his normal rate (called a deceleration). We kept listening to it and it came back up but then went down again. This was enough to cause quite a bit of concern in my room and my doctor sent me to L&D triage to be monitored. She told me that if there were any additional decelerations that she was going to deliver Cade right away and that she was guessing we would have a baby by the end of the day. Total PANIC now beginning!!!

Gregg and I left her office and headed back to Parkland to go to triage with our heads spinning! We have our bags packed and everything ready for Cade to get here but hearing that he could be coming that day was not at all what we were expecting and we were not ready!

We were admitted to L&D Triage around 2:30pm where I got to change into a lovely and stylish hospital gown and placed on fetal monitors.

My sweet husband took this picture (without my knowledge) while I was being admitted

While I was being monitored Cade's heartbeat was textbook perfect the entire time! It stayed between 140-150 bpm the entire time, had great variability and beautiful accelerations throughout the entire time. (I know most reading this won't understand what that means but it is exactly what you want from a baby's heart rate when monitoring it!) So, we were sent home around 6pm to keep waiting. I am guessing that the way I was sitting in the doctor's office somehow caused the umbilical cord to become temporarily compressed lowering his heart rate. This is something that is normal and often occurs during labor with contractions. The fetal heart rate tracing we saw while in the hospital showed that he recovered well from the decels and has plenty of reserves to handle the little dips that he had. By the time we were discharged both Gregg and I were a little disappointed to be leaving without a baby- we had come to terms with delivering and welcoming this little one to the great big world! BUT we were very happy to know that everything looked good with Cade and that he was healthy enough for us to be able to go home!

I have used a doppler monitor several times over the last week to check out our little one's heartbeat and everything has sounded great! (One of the perks of being a former L&D nurse and still having access to all the equipment!) I have also really been paying attention to his movements and doing kick counts.

Our next appointment is on Tuesday (11/2) afternoon. I have been having some contractions off and on these last few days and think that maybe Cade has dropped a little. (That could entirely be in my imagination though!) I am hoping that I have made some progress and that maybe my doctor will talk about inducing me by November 10 if I haven't gone into labor on my own!

Nursery Complete and Bags Packed!!!

Cade's nursery is complete and all bags are packed and in the car!!! (Actually this was done the middle of last month but I have been a bad blogger and am just now getting around to posting these pictures!)

standing at the door looking into the nursery

The crib side of the room

The dresser side of the room

(I still have some re-decorating to do on top of the dresser. I want some picture frames to go up there and the cornucopia will disappear after we have our newborn pictures done.)

the window on the wall opposite of the door

The quilt that my Mom made from all the fabric in Cade's bedding
Cade's bag is packed and ready to go!

Now all we need is a baby to bring home!!!

36 Week Pregnancy Update

Once again, I am a couple of days late with this update since I was 36 weeks on Monday but I wanted to wait until after our doctors appointment and sono this week to post!

I am 36 weeks pregnant!!!

Here is the latest profile picture of Cade's little face!

(Sonos aren't near as much fun these days as they were when he was little because

now he is all smushed in there and the pictures just aren't clear and great!)

Again, I just left the pertinent questions that have new answers to read!

Sleep: Not so great anymore these days. I only sleep a couple of hours at a time and then wake up uncomfortable and have to reposition. I am also up about 3 times each night to use the restroom and often have a hard time falling back to sleep afterwards. I know that God is preparing me to be up every 3 hours with a newborn and getting me used to sleeping less so I better just get adjusted to this new reality!

Best Moment this Week: Without a doubt my sono appointment yesterday and finally getting to see our boy again and hear again that everything is developing normal with him! But a close second would be my weekly doctors appointments where we get to hear Cade's sweet heart beat!

Our boy has hair!!!

(I have been seriously hoping that Cade inherits my hair genes and not

Gregg's lack of hair genes!)

Movement: Still very active and moving around a lot! He has not dropped any at all and so is still moving high up and kicking my rib cage! Even though these movements are occasionally uncomfortable I LOVE feeling every single one of them and know that I will miss this bump and all his movement once he is born!

Food Cravings: Mainly still anything cold. I have to have something cold to drink at all times or will nearly panic! I have also eaten A LOT more chocolate lately than I ever do normally. But I want my chocolate frozen before I eat it!!!

Anything make you queasy or sick?: Yes! At times I feel like I am in my 1st trimester all over again with the sudden waves of nausea that seem to over take me.

Labor Signs: I have had some regular contractions recently but they weren't consistent or frequent enough for me to worry about them. (Nor were they enough to do anything to my cervix which is only dilated to a 1 and still very long- meaning that it hasn't thinned out any at all!)

Belly button In or Out: Still in for now but creeping to the out position!

Happy or Moody most of the time?: I have been a little moody and quite emotional over this last week. I think the combo of not sleeping good and being uncomfortable in general tends to make me more irritable than usual. And the crying- I cry over the littlest thing and can't stop!

Milestones: We are less than 2 weeks away from being considered "full term" and couldn't be more excited! I am still measuring a little small and our sono yesterday guessed that Cade is weighing right around 6 pounds right now.

Weekly Wisdom: I really don't have any great words of wisdom for today but found this cartoon particularly entertaining!

Dallas Baby Shower

This past weekend was my baby shower here in Dallas hosted by my dear friend Susan! Susan and I met when I moved to College Station before my 6th grade year. We both went to Tech and have grown closer over the past several years living here in the DFW area. She has an adorable 15 month old daughter, Carlee, and has been such a huge supporter and help throughout my pregnancy! I am so glad to have her as a "Mommy friend" and role model and look forward to all the fun times that we have ahead of us!

me and Susan

The shower was fantastic! Susan's house was decorated so cute and everything matched Cade's nursery just perfect!

Cute wreath that was hanging on the front door to welcome everyone

YUMMY food!!!

diaper cake that matched the wreath

little jungle animals decorating the table

my invitation and baby book were on this table

drink table

We played a couple of fun games at the beginning of the shower and I realized I have quite a bit to learn! The first game was to match the mommy animals with the baby animals. I did good on all the farm animals but was pretty terrible when it came to the zoo and exotic animals! Gregg's Mom is a kindergarten teacher and blew all the rest of us away at the game! The second game was a baby "Price Is Right" and we had to pick the right price of various baby items. I have A LOT to learn about these prices!!! (I think I got 4 out of the 10 items right!)

Playing games

Mrs. Miller (Susan's sweet Momma) came to town to help with the shower

overalls with a firetruck on them from my Dad
onsies that my niece Bailey picked out for Cade

big boy firetruck pj's
burp cloths that my Mom made

Thanksgiving bib and burp cloth made by my Mom

basket of goodies from my cousin Mikka

bib for Gregg and Cade from Gregg's Mom, Beverly

soft jungle blanket

cute new bag for Cade (I LOVE everything and anything that has his name on it!!!)

Carlee helping opening up the exersaucer

SOOO excited about our swing and exersaucer from my sweet girlfriends

part of my baby bedding!

a quilt that my Mom is making to match the bedding

(it has all the same fabrics in it that the bedding does)
wonderful gifts for baby Cade

me and Grinna (my Mom)

Mee Mee (Gregg's Mom), me, and Grinna

me and my 97 year old Great-Aunt Cleacy

Thanks Susan for throwing Cade and I such wonderful Baby Shower! And thanks to everyone who came to the shower! Our little family is so grateful for all of the love and support that we have received from our friends and family throughout this pregnancy and we look forward to introducing everyone to our precious boy in November!

Trip to Lubbock- Concert, Maternity Pictures, Tech Football and Baby Shower!

We flew to Lubbock last Friday morning (technically we flew to Amarillo and drove to Lubbock because it saved us $400 to fly to Amarillo) to see family, have my maternity pictures made, and have my first baby shower!!! Gregg's Dad picked us up from the airport and we met his Aunt and Uncle in Amarillo for lunch before heading on to Lubbock. We stopped of in Plainview quickly to see Gregg's Mom at school and then went to my parents house.

We got tickets several months ago to go see the Zac Brown Band Friday evening with Gregg's 2 sisters and brother-in-law. The concert was really good! They played all their music off the current CD plus a lot of great songs from their new CD that comes out this week. They were very patriotic and showed a lot of pictures/ videos of their recent USO concert in Iraq. Robert Earl Keen even stopped by the concert to play a quick song before going to his own concert that evening. (He was playing at KA Kalf Fry) My favorite part of the evening was when they played Charlie Daniel's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" and Cade went absolutely CRAZY!!! He was dancing and having a good little party in my belly and it was so fun to feel!

Saturday morning we got up early to go meet Lynette and have my maternity pictures made! We had so much fun taking these pictures and are really looking forward to our next photo shoot in November with Cade! I love the preview pictures that Lynette posted and can't wait to see the rest of the pictures from the day!

After pictures on Saturday we changed clothes and headed to my parents tailgate area to hang out and watch the Tech game! My feet started swelling on Friday and were HUGE on Saturday so I was banned to the recliner in the travel trailer for the day with my feet elevated. Luckily we had TV in there too and Gregg's sisters, brother-in-law and baby Landry all came to watch the game in the trailer with me! I ventured outside at halftime since it had cooled off significantly and sat in my new reclining lawn chair that kept my feet elevated. The game was fun to watch during the first half but a little hard to stomach for the second half. I love my Red Raiders and while I was disappointed with their performance overall I still believe in and support this team and the coaching staff and think we have potential. It was great to see Tech with a defense after being an offense only team for the last 10 years. Now I just hope we can find a good balance between offense and defense that will keep us in the mix for the rest of the year! I look forward to our next game in 2 weeks and am interested to see what Tech does with their bye week. Wreck 'Em Tech!!!

My Mom's friends threw me my first baby shower on Sunday! It was a such a great shower and Gregg, Cade and I are truly blessed to have so many amazing friends and family members in our life! This little boy is loved and VERY spoiled already!!!

Me with the wonderful hostesses

YUMMY food!

Me, Landry and Misti (Cade and Landry are going to have so much fun together!)

getting ready to open up presents

adorable sock monkey

pictures for the nursery

perfect blanket for our future Red Raider!

sweet blanket that Gregg's mother made for Cade!

our highchair from the hostesses

Thanks to everyone who was at the shower and for all the wonderful gifts for Cade! We can't wait to be back in Lubbock with our little guy in November and introduce him to everyone!