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3 months and counting!

Why is it that the only time I ever "find" to update the blog (well actually it's time I "make") is while I am at work and therefore my posts are short. You all deserve more...that is the 3 of you who actually read this. Now I say all that only for this to be another short blog.

Braxton is doing great! He officially started sleeping through the night at 11 weeks! My tired body thanks him! There have been a few random nights when he doesn't make it the whole night (like when i screw with his schedule like i did over the weekend), but when he does wake, he doesn't need to be fed anymore which is great! We are now coming up on 14 weeks and he gets more and more fun every day. He smiles constantly and now when we play games with him, he full on giggles. It is so cute and sweet to hear a baby laugh. He always had little laughs he kinda did, but these are real "belly laughs". I love it!

Anyways, here is his 3 month pic...

3 months old and 15 pounds! (approx. 25 inches long by my home tape measurer so who knows how accurate my measurement really was).

Totally been MIA

Okay. So it has been forever and I apologize for being MIA. So much has happened that I can't really encompass it all in one post. SO I will summarize the past 3 months very quickly.

WE HAD A BABY!!!

Braxton Charles Shoults was born September 3, 2008 at 1:00pm via C-section. He was 20 inches long and weighed a whopping 9 pounds 3 ounces. He is a beautiful baby boy. Here is his first picture the moment after he was born.




Alot has happened in between his birth and now. I am back to work and he is now 11 weeks old. There are tons of pictures I could share, but they would be never ending on this blog. Instead, you can see a bunch on my or Chadwick's facebook page. And you can also see some at www.fuzzyshot.com/CUBuffskier (we update this one with new pics quite frequently).

We are plannin to take a picture of Braxton each month on his birthday of him sitting in the Luv Sac (bean bag chair) to show how much he is growing. Below are the ones from his first 2 months.

1 Month old. I forget how much he weighed here but it was around 11 pounds I think.

2+ months old. He weighed 13 pounds 9 ounces and was 22 inches long at his 2 month appointment.

OK. That's all you get for now. I will try to be better about posting now that ife is settling down and we are getting used to having a baby. We love him so much and he is a ton of fun. Look for more pictures and info to come.

video

More Pictures

We got more of our bedding pieces!! So we now have everything we NEED for our abby boy to come home. This week we got the curtains and the crib bumper. I haven't hung the curtains yet cuz I still need to get a rod, but the bumper is in place! See pictures below!

The inside of the crib with super soft fleecy fabric! I wish my bed looked that soft!

The finished product! I love having all the additional color in the room!

Another view of the crib! Can you find the hidden feline?

We also have another ultrasound tomrorow mornign at 8:30 to check the size of the baby one more time before he is due. Based on what this ultrasound shows, will effect the decisions we make as to what our "next steps" are. So hopefully we will have a "plan" in place early next week at my Doc appointment come Tuesday! Or perhaps, the holiday coming up will live up to it's name...."Labor Day". Who knows! But I am definitely ready to be done and to finally meet our new little man!

The Latest News

So, what's new?!?! Well, I'll start with the fact that we had an ultrasound done about 2 weeks ago and it confirmed that our baby boy is big! While the ultrasound is not always completely accurate, it still gives a good idea of what we can expect. It estimated our little boy to weigh about 8 pounds at 35 weeks! With the 90th percentile! Give or take a pound and we are almost certain that he is in the 7-9 pound range at that point. SO my doctor and I ahve been having discussions about what this will mean for me and my labor. We have run several extra tests, like the glucose screening, jsut to double check, and everything is checking out fine. It jsut looks liek Chadwick and are good at producing future College Linebackers! Now the debate will be CU or Michigan!

So right now we are playing it by ear each day as to what the next steps are. My doc won't do anything like induce until at least 39 weeks and even then there are other issues to consider. So we are having anohte ultrasound on Aug. 29th to check his size one more time and then we will make a decision from there. I'll try to keep everyone posted.

In the meantime, Chadwick keeps trying different methods of his own to induce labor. Some will go unmentioned, but he tries to convince me every day to drink castor oil or eat spicy food. Other days he tries to get me to go for 2 mile long walks where i waddle around the lake by our house. And he has now discovered the pressure point in my ankles that supposedly can induce labor....but hey, I get a foot rub out of it right?!?!

So for now, jsut one day at a time. I do have a few contractions here and there, but nothing consistent. And i definitely don't sleep well anymore. But I guess it's all jsut preparation for when our big "little" guy gets here. Ok, that's it for now. Enjoy a couple of pics below.

The bed skirt Grandma Kathie made. Pic doesn't do it jsutice, but it's super cute!

My use of existing wall decorations....plus some sports memorabilia!

Pictures (in chronological order)

No time for captions....just enjoy!

It's been WAY TOO LONG!!!!

So I have been slacking on my blogging. I apologize. But I do have an excuse....I've had other things on my mind as you can imagine. Like the fact we're about to have a baby!!

So what has happened since my last post?? A lot! I don't want to drag on too long, but I'll fill you in on a few of the top things.

1. We got air conditioning installed in our house finally! And we are thankful we did seeing as Colorado just broke a record with 24 consecutive days above 90 degrees.

2. We took our birthing class at the hospital and both learned a ton. Chadwick especially was very interested in learning what this whole birth process is all about. He is gonna be a great dad!

3. We had 2 more baby showers. One was thrown by my co-workers and one by my sister. Everyone so was generous and we really enjoyed celebrating with friends and family. We truly are blessed.

4. This one just happened today...apparently our baby could be here any day! I have been measuring "big" at my last few doctor's appointments and was supposed to have an ultrasound next week on August 12th to check the size of the baby and what not. Well today at my 35 week appt., I measured at 39 weeks pregnant! Babies are born/full-term at 40 weeks! If these measurements are true, I only have 1 week left! Now it is not likely I will have the baby next week, but you just never know. It could be that our boy is just big. It could just be the way he is positioned. Or it could just be the way my body is built. Needless to say, the doctor's bumped my ultrasound up to this week, so we will be having one on Wednesday morning. So we should know on Wednesday what is really going on and what steps we need to take next. As you can imagine, I am SUPER anxious to find out what the deal is. Prayers are greatly appreciated! More to come on this once we know.

Lastly, I always get more and more questions to see the baby bump. Despite my story above about measuring big, I don't feel like I "look" huge. However, i do "feel" huge. I definitely have a pregnant waddle going on these days and my back and hips are hating me right now. Anyways, here's a few pics.

**I'm having issues getting my pictures to load. I'll try again later. Check back soon.**

The Last Trimester - Things are becoming REAL!!!

Wow! A lot had happened since my last post!!! Baby Shower! Birthday! New Carpet! Furniture put together! AND THE START OF THE 3rd TRIMESTER! Needless to say, I have a lot of photos to share that go along with all these things! Enjoy!

An updated prego pic of me! I am definitely starting to get VERY uncomfortable!
The 3rd trimester has officially begun. This baby could be here anytime in the next 10-14 weeks! AHHH! (12 weeks until my due date, but they say give or take 2 weeks).

Two weekends ago, my mom and dad threw me a baby shower in Cincinnati with all of my extended family! We had a great time, and I feel truly blessed that everyone was so generous with their gift giving! After spending a whole weekend there and having a party, i sadly only have 1 picture form the trip, but it's a good one. Above is my cute grandpa Charlie mowing his lawn. (Our little boy is going to have a middle name of Charles after this guy!)



The next big event was the installation of our new carpet thanks to the US Government and all the billions of dollars they just went into debt by giving us all money! However, I am grateful! We got the new carpet in our master bedroom and the baby's room and it is SO nice. This house is really starting to feel complete now! And, since the carpet is done, we were now able to set up all the baby furniture! Look at the pictures below...it's all starting to hi me that there will REALLY be a BABY sleeping in there soon. No decorations on the walls yet, but it's coming along.

A view of the room from the doorway. Crib on the back wall. Dresser and changing table on the front wall. Notice the lovely new carpet. Our animals love laying on it.

The crib with drawer beneath. I am going to use the drawer to store blankets and such. You can already see some of them in there.

The dresser with changing table on top. The cool part is that later on, we can take the changing table off and it can jsut be a dresser on its own.

Here's where the crazy pregnant side of me came out. For some reason i just HAD to put all of his clothes that we have in hsi dresser. There really is no point in doing this because I have to wash all these clothes before he can wear them. So why did i fold them all and put them in?!?! Who knows?!?! Ask my raging hormones!

Last picture for now is of the rocking chair/reading corner. I put the bookshelf next to the chair so that we have all of our books right there at night to read before bed! Now I just need to get more books to fill it up. We are thinking bout painting the bookshelf a light blue color, just to add something to the room. But Chadwick thinks he likes the light colored wood. Thoughts??
Oh, and, can you tell Jack likes his baby brother's new room!?!?

We also had a great time celebrating my 24th birthday. Chadwick made me a steak dinner on Thursday night and then we had some friends over Saturday for a BBQ! Thanks to everyone for all the generous gifts! I am used most of the money to buy a patio umbrella for the table on our back porch! and I am using the rest to go shopping!I have to be honest though, all this baby stuff is much more exciting than a birthday. Thus, tons of baby pics this post and none of my bday! Sorry!

That's it for now. Hopefully more to come soon!

Love,
Ashley

Baby Furniture!

Some of you have already seen what our baby furniture looks like, but for those who haven't, here it is. It looks just like in the picture. We also got the dresser and changing table that is back in the corner of the pic. It is so awesome and pretty in person. Thanks mom & dad willis for helping us get it!




We also just bought a glider/rocking chair for the room too. You can see it above. It looks a lot darker in the pic than it really is. Imagine more of a carmel tan color. But the chair is great. Super Comfy! And we could even use it as a regular furniture piece afterwards!

So now that we have all this furniture in our posession, we are just waiting for our new carpet to get installed so we can set it all up! Hopefully the carpet will be done in the next 2 weeks or so! I can't wait.

Wow, 2 blogs in 2 days. I'm proud of myself. Don't expect this to be the norm.

A Few Pics and Name Ideas

So some people have been asking to see pictures of me pregnant. While I don't have any that i am particularly fond of, I'll still share! To the right is Chadwick and I at our first baby shower we had in Texas. Above, is a picture from the same trip to Texas but now we are down at College Station for Lauren's graduation.

We have also pretty much settled on 2 baby names for our little one. Chadwick apparantly got bored at work the toher day and wanted to see how one of the names looked in big letters spelled out...here is what he came up with...

Name #1 for baby is Braxton. It's different, but we like it. How many people do you know with an 'X' in their name? Not many! The full name we are thinking here is Braxton Charles Shoults. Charles comes from my Grandpa on my mom's side, and Chadwick's Great Grandpa on his Dad's side.

Name #2 for baby is Owen Charles Shoults. But right now, Braxton is winning! However, I refuse to give him an official naem until I meet him. So we'll have to wait until September to see!

Ok, that is it for today. More later.

We are blogging!

So we trying to do this whole blogging thing again. Hopefully, we keep up with it better this time. But now we have more REASON to blog. As most of you know, we are expecting a BABY BOY at the beginning of September! So this is going to be a good place for us to document the pregnancy and then eventually the life of our little boy. I'll hopefully be able to post some good stuff starting here this coming long weekend. Until then, get excited!

Here's a teaser...it's a video of our first ultrasound when we found out it was a boy....

http://vimeo.com/879508