Colorado Pictures

We've had a very nice time in Colorado thus far. Here are a few pictures from the last few days! :) It's very, very pretty but very, very cold. We've been able to relax quite a bit and the boys have gone skiing a couple times. It's been a great vacation so far!

A pretty, snow-filled valley

My dad, my mom, me, Ben, and Matt at Keyah Grande Lodge

Ben getting tackled by Lucy, my parents' dog

Making a snow angel!

A pretty barn

Reagan wanting to be held because the snow is cold on her paws!

Our White Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all! So...we started Christmas Day at Mary and Allyn's house - here's a brief glimpse into what Christmas morning was like. This picture says it all - a very busy group of excited children with adults trying to keep up with them. Next year, cousin number 6 will be included in this mix...! :) The kids had a great time, and we enjoyed the couple hours we were able to spend with everybody. Thank you to everyone!

Around 11:30 a.m., Ben, Reagan, and I hopped in the car to drive to Colorado to see my parents and brother. We planned to stay the night in Santa Fe and then drive the 3 hours to Pagosa Springs the following morning. Around 7:00 p.m., we weren't so sure we would be able to stick with that plan. Just outside of Santa Rosa, NM, we encountered some wintery weather. The snow came down QUICKLY. We were stuck, solidly, for about 2 hours with 100 of our closest friends on I-40. Believe me, I was panicking. Ben was handling it fine. The man in front of us told us that a semi had tried to climb the hill but kept slipping down...so most likely, we were all going to spend the night on the road until things got cleared. "But don't worry," he had said, "this will blow over by about 5:00 tomorrow morning." What?!?! That did not sit well with me! It was so dark and snowy and I was worried about our dog and my already-slightly-uncomfortable-pregnant-self and just wasn't in the mood to stay on I-40 for 10 hours or however long it was going to be. Here are a couple of pictures we snapped from the car...looks like fun, right? :) However, we can say that we did experience a white Christmas!!

Thankfully, around 9:00 p.m., we started moving. Bless those New Mexico highway rescue workers!! We were able to slowly but surely (after making a rather challenging stop to get some water and snacks...just in case) make our way to the Best Western in Santa Fe, NM, and we finally caught a few z's. We woke up and happily drove the 3 hours it takes to get to Pagosa, so now, we're here! I'll post more pictures from our trip, but here's a picture of the snow and the sun! It's beautiful and sunny and freezing - when we drove in, it was about 11 degrees. The sun helps, though. Ben and my brother plan to ski/snowboard a few days (unfortunately, I am excluded from those activities this year) and overall, we plan to just relax and enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

A happy sight at the end of our drive! We hope to have better weather for the return trip... :)

Can you find the dog in this picture?

Sorry - couldn't help myself. I don't have any new baby news to post...just a funny picture of Reagan. We found her happily surrounded by her toys in her bed last night and it just made us laugh! The top picture - how we found her. Bottom picture - after some of my creative styling...

The growing belly...

Here we are at 21 weeks!

Picture of the Baby Girl!!!

Here's the sonogram picture from yesterday.  This obviously isn't the money shot revealing her gender, but Dad's already getting a little overprotective.  She was moving around quite a bit, so it was tough to get a good view of her profile.  Hopefully she looks like her mom.  As you can tell, this is her father's first attempt at posting here.

PINK, PINK, PINK...

Baby Harris is a GIRL! Our little one is a GIRL! We are still in shock. Truly! We kept asking the sonographer if she could check again. But it's a GIRL! More importantly, however, everything measures and checks out just fine. She's about 13 oz., 8-1/2 inches long, and wiggly. We're still measuring "on schedule" so no change on the due date or anything. We'll post a sono picture as soon as we can scan it in! :)

Furniture

Remember when I said that the furniture wasn't due in until mid-January? Well, it decided to arrive early! We moved all our things out of that room to other spots in the house, and on Thursday we received our pretty new baby furniture. It fits in the room pretty snugly (baby furniture is awfully big). I'm posting a couple of pictures.

In other news, we find out Monday afternoon whether the baby is a boy or a girl - very exciting! Definitely something to look forward to on Monday. Unfortunately, this week has been a bumpy one. I've been sick and can't seem to kick it. I hope that I'm better by Monday...I want to go back to work and feel like my(pregnant)self again. :)

What a feeling!

I think I felt the baby move! It was so exciting for me! It must be all the yummy food I ate yesterday. The baby must be saying "thanks". And now I know why it's so hard to describe the feeling. It was like a small something was bumping up against me - it happened 2 or 3 times within a few minutes. Very fun! Anyway - wanted to share that with you all. Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Baby Room: "Before"

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! So, these are some "before" pictures of the baby's room. Right now, you can see it is a storage area for various things (and our Christmas decor). We plan to get the room painted sometime in December (along with most of the house) and then hopefully the furniture will arrive mid-January. I think it'll be neat to see how the room transforms!

I am happy to have a few days away from work. Ben has a few days off as well, so that's good. We have plans to celebrate with both of our families and then get a few things done around here. Enjoy your holidays!

Baby's room: view one (storage for the Christmas decor)

Baby's room: view two (stuff we moved so we could decorate for Christmas!)

Baby's room: view three (view of the closet door)

And, here's our tree. :) So fun to have it up!

Update, 17 1/2 weeks

So...nothing really new to report! I have crossed off three things on my "to do before baby list".

1. We ordered the furniture! :) It's chocolate-colored and we purchased a nightstand, crib, and a dresser and hutch combo. It took us a long time to find this furniture - I had no idea I'd be so picky.
2. I called the pediatrician we'd like to use and thankfully, he's still accepting new patients! He's the same pediatrician that the baby's (future) cousins use AND the same one that Ben went to as a child. So that's good!
3. I signed us up for some classes at the hospital. 14 hours worth of baby preparation. :) The classes start in January and continue through mid-February.

So yay! We've done some things. Until we find out if the baby's a boy or girl, we probably won't do much else. After that, we'll start looking at bedding and fabric for a chair and paint colors. I think that after the holidays we'll really see things start to speed up!

Overall, we've been doing well - staying busy with the baby prep. and then life in general. I've been feeling well, also - just waiting to feel the baby move! I'm really looking forward to that.

Until next time, take care!

First Baby Dream

So...I had my first baby dream on Saturday night! I woke up Sunday morning and was happy that I finally had one. I hear of friends having dreams about their babies and I had only dreamed about baby furniture so I was very excited to have had my first "baby" dream...until I started thinking about it and realizing what it was that I had actually dreamed about. In the dream, we had twins. A boy and a girl. And we hadn't purchased anything! We had to get cribs and everything. But for some reason, that part wasn't bothering me (now you know it was a dream...haha). However, at one point Ben walked into the room where I was and he was carrying the two babies, one on each arm. And.........they were puppies. Baby poodles. So what do you think that means? :)

So in reality, I'm sad that I haven't actually had a dream involving a real baby yet. I know it'll come soon enough...

Congratulations, Ben!

We attended a Grand Opening/Dedication tonight for the Tom Muehlenbeck Center in Plano. If you look very closely, you can see Ben's name on the plaque! He's part of the Parks and Rec Board for Plano. :) Go Ben! You can kiinnnda see - well, from this angle at least - a baby belly bump on me! It's the first time I've noticed it in a picture - quite exciting!

Halloween

A happy group of trick-or-treaters! Mary and Allyn (Ben's parents) are such good sports - dressing up and everything! Next year, there'll be one more added to this group - hard to imagine! :)

As many of you know, this is my current little one, Reagan. I couldn't resist posting this picture of her from Halloween. She's a lobster. And obviously not happy about it. She only stayed in the costume for a picture or two then I took it off of her. I know she was relieved, although it took her a little bit of time to get over her embarassment.

Doctor Visit

All went well today with our 15 week checkup. We heard a strong heartbeat and all looks well. We will find out if the baby is a boy or a girl on the 3rd of December. Five weeks away. Can't come soon enough! Ben was hoping we'd be able to find out sooner than that, but unfortunately, we cannot. I'm ready for my energy to return, although I've heard that sometimes it takes a while...we'll see. I just keep waiting for it to "bounce back". I'm pretty good until about 8:00 and then I crash! But, as many of you know, 8:00 is not too drastic a change from my pre-pregnancy bedtime. Haha. :) Other than that, all is well. :)

Pregnant and Counting Down

7 weeks, 4 days

12 weeks, 2 days

Hello everyone! Ben and I think this blog will be a good way to reach out to our friends and family and keep you all updated about my pregnancy and the baby's progress. I have observed several friends do this, and I can only hope to be as committed to our blog as they are to their blogs! After the baby is born, our hope is to continue to keep you updated on the little one. :) We're very excited and are looking forward to the arrival of him/her (and yes, we're finding out - hopefully in about a month or so). Ben and I both think it's going to be a boy - in other words, we'll be shocked if it's a girl. Reagan has no comment. :)

Pictures from our trip to Glacier National Park

On June 8th, Ben and I ventured to Glacier National Park in Montana for a mini-vacation. We had a wonderful time. We hiked, walked, and drove to see some amazing and beautiful sights. It's pretty perfect up there! We thought this would be the best way to share some photos from our trip with our friends and family (thanks to my friends for giving me this idea in the first place!). We hope you enjoy!


Hike to Apgar Lookout






White-tailed deer running away from me.



A burned tree from the 2003 Robert Fire


Trees burned from the fire and new growth




The Apgar Lookout (Finally! After 3.3 miles uphill!!)


Avalanche Lake Hike





I really liked this big tree.


Avalanche Lake. It was a rainy day, but thankfully our $3 ponchos kept us from getting soaked.

Ben in McGee Meadow - a "wet meadow". A wet meadow can best be described as being soggy all the time. It's kinda spongy. Anyway, pretty neat; we'd never seen one before.




Polebridge, Montana - a quiet, secluded little place with a good bakery. And interesting people. And nothing but outhouses for guests to use. A very unique experience.










Driving to Kintla Lake (near Canadian border)



Kintla Lake - a very remote area!




A giant, natural saltlick where mountain goats like to hang out.


Look closely. The small white thing on top of the ridge is a
mountain goat.




Running Eagle Falls, near East Glacier, Montana





Marking our presence (Ben calls it "defacing park property" but I wanted to carve my initials into the bench!)


Two Medicine Lake



The General Store at Two Medicine Lake - very cool and very historic.



A little bunny. Couldn't resist.


Ben and I went on a helicopter ride and toured the park! It was amazing - but I don't think we'll do it again. It was a pretty rough ride coupled with the fact that an eight-year-old boy who was sitting next to me was on the verge of vomiting (there were 6 of us on the helicopter, including the pilot). He was crying and hyperventilating about 90% of the time. I felt bad for him. But it didn't do much to ease our own motion sickness! :) Anyway, here are some pictures Ben managed to capture (many of which he did while sticking the camera out the side window of the helicopter).












Notice all the waterfalls!



Hidden Lake - still a little frozen over




A Glacier!



Bears! Throughout the entire trip, I wanted to see a bear. I was a tad obsessed with seeing a bear - I just wanted to see one. We were warned over and over again about bears and to be aware of them and what to do while you're hiking and camping, etc. So I thought for sure we'd see one (don't ask me what I'd do at that point). Ben, on the last day, reluctantly drove me through the Bear Adventure Park where we saw some bears. Behind fences. We saw some black bears and some grizzlies.







Our lodge in Whitefish, Montana


Our views while eating dinner at our lodge...








Our room at the lodge!




One of our prettiest pictures....a fisherman at Lake McDonald


Flathead Creek


McDonald Creek

Skipping rocks...




Ben's freezing feet in the creek.



We recommend visiting the park - especially if you like outdoorsy things. It was a great vacation, and we look forward to returning (someday!).