Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

Well 2011 is almost here... that's the year Baby Z will be born!  Not too much longer now...

Justin & Kacie went over the river and through the woods to Aunt Cathy's house near Jackson, MN for the holidays.  They have much more snow than we do in Mitchell... but that is changing as we speak with the snow storm coming through to bring in the New Year! 
 

On the way to Aunt Cathy's house...

Lots of deer in the area.

 

Aunt Cathy's Christmas tree... with all the presents underneath!

Justin, Kacie & even Baby Z got lots of great presents!  Kacie enjoyed a nice 3 days off for the holiday weekend, and Justin is still enjoying his winter break from school... school resumes on the 3rd.  On his break, Justin has been relaxing some, hunting with his brother, doing stuff around the house, and has started to make a toy box for Baby Z.

The doctor appointment yesterday went well.  Baby's heartbeat was around 130, blood pressure looked good, and both mom and baby continue to gain weight!  Next appointment is Jan 13, and after that the appointments continue every Thursday at 1 week intervals until the big day!  The new due date is Feb 11, 2011... maybe it will be on Kacie's birthday!

Every Tues night in January, Kacie & Justin will be attending some sort of expecting parent or childbirth class held at the Avera Queen of Peace Hospital Community Room -- that's the hospital Baby Z will be born at.  Kacie may also sign up for an infant and child CPR class sometime in January.

Here's Kacie & Baby Z at Week 33.

Tomorrow, New Years Eve, may be an interesting day with the weather ... Cabela's closed early at 6pm today, and it's supposed to be worse yet tomorrow with more snow and wind!  We were planning a trip to Canby for the weekend to see family, but doesn't look like that will be happening now with the nasty weather.  We'll choose to stay safe and warm indoors instead.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from our home to yours... :-)

Does this count as baby's first picture with Santa?!

What have they been up to?

Kacie, Justin and Baby Z have been doing well and keeping busy!

Justin started Junior High wrestling practice on Nov 17th, and their first meet was yesterday evening in Mitchell... so it's been hard for him to squeeze in any more deer hunting.  He may go with some teacher friends to bow hunt near Chamberlain tomorrow though. 

Kacie has been staying busy at work with lots of holiday events at the store lately.  She has an Ice Fishing Classic weekend to organize this weekend (so unfortunately will miss the Cleveland Christmas!), and she'll take pictures of kids with Santa the next 2 weekends in a row!  She's also planning for a "Santa's Workshop" for kids at the store which will include fun things like holiday crafts, writing letters to Santa, story time, cookie decorating, etc.  And she's starting to plan for when she'll be on leave from work and will have to train in a few people at the store how to take over her duties while she's out... she's planning for taking the full 12 weeks that the state of SD offers for maternity leave.

Kacie and Baby Z are at 30 weeks right now -- only 10 or so more to go!  Hard to believe.  Next appointment is Dec 9th.  So far so good.  She'll sign up for expecting parent and childbirth classes that will take place in January 2011.  Baby Z has still been fairly active and tends to get the hiccups about twice a day or so!  Apparently hiccups mean that the baby is healthy and working to develop her lungs.

We missed seeing any family on actual Thanksgiving day (Kacie had to wake up at 3am to work for Black Friday!), so we went to see family in Canby on the weekend instead.  Here are a few pictures from Vivian's house.  It was fun, but the time always goes by too fast ... and it's hard to get around to see everyone before we leave!  We imagine it may be a little harder yet once Baby Z arrives!

 

 Earlier last week, Kacie took part in the "Parade of Lights" for work on a cold Monday night -- Nov 22.

Kacie, Shannon & Andrew braved the cold to ride the float!

Parade theme was "Christmas Around the World" -- Cabela's float theme was "Hawaiian Christmas".

updated pics of Kacie & Justin

Week 27

Justin's first archery deer!

Nursery!

The nursery is coming along! 

We found this old dresser in Vivian and Gary's garage, so we took it home... and Justin painted it all white, cleaned it up, and added on some cute butterfly knobs!  Wish we had a "before" picture to show -- it was kind of dirty and beat up, but Justin did a great job of fixing it up nice for Baby Z's room!

We got the crib and bedding set all put together, too!!  



Now we're just waiting on the rest of the curtains to arrive -- they will match the bedding set... And a rocking chair would be nice!  If anyone has an old one they're not using, let us know -- we'll take it! :)

And here's Kacie with a homemade fruit smoothie (made by Justin) -- Week 24!!

 

crib and bedding set!

We ordered a crib and crib bedding set online tonight (both on sale of course)!! 

Here's the crib -- "Graco Sarah 4-in-1 Convertible Crib" -- only the crib will be white, not cherry like the color in the picture.

Nursery colors will be browns, pinks, and blues...

  Now can't wait to start getting the baby's room all set and ready to go!  :-)

Oct 2-3 Weekend

Well it was the SD Youth Pheasant Opener this past weekend... and resident opener this coming weekend... maybe someday we'll be taking our little girl out for her first pheasant hunt!  Crazy to think about.

Also this past weekend... Justin, Kacie and Woody traveled to Canby for the weekend.

Justin helped his cousin, brother, and uncle on a "while you were out" remodeling project on their grandma and grandpa's bathroom!

 

Kacie enjoyed the beautiful fall colors and cool weather relaxing with her family on the farm. 



And Woody thoroughly enjoyed being a farm dog for the weekend.

Justin has parent teacher conferences tomorrow evening.  He also painted our upstairs hallway yesterday... just a few more finishing touches and it should be done soon!

Kacie has been working long hours this week at the store getting ready for the big non-resident pheasant opener weekend!

Baby Z has been very active fluttering and kicking around

inside Kacie's belly... and growing

and making mom's belly bigger

which lots of people have been noticing lately!

Blueberry, Papaya... and Watermelon?!

Baby Z aka "Blueberry" is now the size of a Papaya according to thebump.com! 

We started calling her "Blueberry" in week 7 when she was the size of a blueberry!  That's pretty much what everyone in the family refers to her as lately! 

It's been fun to learn what sized fruit she is each week!  Can you imagine what Kacie will look like when she's the size of a watermelon!?

February 2011!

Well as you may already know, we are expecting a baby in early February 2011!  February 5th is the due date... who knows, maybe it will even happen on the same day as Kacie's birthday!  We had an ultrasound earlier this September and found out it's a GIRL -- "no hardware between the legs", said the ultrasound guy!  So we're pretty excited about the idea of a little girl!


Kacie started feeling the baby flutter around in early September around Labor Day weekend... And Justin felt the her kick for the first time on September 9... and now we both have been feeling her wiggle around in there pretty regularly.  It's a pretty cool experience for first time parents!


We're pretty sure we have a girl name picked out and locked in ... and we even have a few boy names ready just in case!  Picking out a name we both like was hard!  Especially when one of us is a teacher!  It seems Justin has had almost every name as a current or previous student already with only 2.5 years of teaching under his belt!


Kacie's next doc appointment is October 21st, after the busy opening weekend of the pheasant season in South Dakota.  She's been pretty busy the last few weeks planning for the big pheasant opener events at work, and now traffic at the store probably won't slow down until after the winter holiday seasons!  So January and February is a good time to have a baby since work will slow down then.


Justin's been busy with teaching, training in his student teacher from DWU, and keeping up with his American History masters classes... oh yeah, and all the work Kacie has for him at home!  This summer, he remodeled our bedroom, and he's now in the process of remodeling our upstairs hallway.  All the old and ugly floral wall paper is now GONE! 


Baby's room is painted and set to go, now we just need to find a crib and all the other baby essentials to fill the room with.  Colors will probably be:  pink, lime green, light blue, browns, and whites.


Kacie had fun shopping around at garage sales this summer for gender neutral baby stuff ... but now that we know it's a girl, it will be more fun to shop!  And maybe she'll get a few hand-me-downs from her baby cousin, Jaylyn, who was born August 21 this summer!  They will be best-cousin-friends and can't wait to finally meet each other!

9.26.10 - Week 20 - halfway there!

She's growing pretty well and fast inside that belly!

Well that's all for now!  More updates to come another day!