Oh Hailey, it’s been a rough couple of days!  It all started around midnight Sunday when I woke up with a horrible stomach ache.  By 2am I was throwing up, which I thought was great, cause then I’d feel so much better – right?  Wrong!  It happened again around 4am; that’s when I knew we were in trouble.

I called the doctor and she said that no matter what I had to stay hydrated…for your sake.  So, I drank quite a few liquids and ate one saltine cracker.  About 10:30am, those things decided not to stick around either.  By then I had cold sweats, hot flashes, and body aches.  I slept a lot and tried to get down some more liquids; luckly those decided to stay down.

By the time your dad got home from work I was not much better.  I tried to eat some chicken noodle soup but that wasn’t going down so good so I switched to Jello…that seemed to be okay.  I took a hot bath and went to bed with the hopes that I could make it through the night.

I am thrilled to say, it’s 8:00am Tuesday morning and I made it through the night without incident.  I was able to stomach some solid foods this morning, and I feel SO MUCH better!  I am still having some hot flashes but my body aches are a million times better and I can actually function without feeling ridiculously weak.  I’ve managed to lose 5 pounds since Sunday…that’s pretty much all the baby weight I’ve gained with you in 2 days!

I tell you what, this whole experience has given me new found respect for those new moms who have morning sicknesss…I’ll gladly feel this way for 2 days as long as I don’t have to do it for 2 months!  All things considered, I feel pretty lucky!

Well, your 2^nd official baby shower is scheduled for this weekend!  It is being hosted by my good friend from college, Christine.  She is my mani/pedi and shopping buddy so you’ll get to go with us when you get old enough to enjoy those things!

All of your grandmothers will be there and all are looking very forward to your arrival.  It’s hard to believe that’s only a couple of months from now! 

We are still in the process of trying to find a rocker/glider for your room.  Those suckers are expensive!  I went on my lunch break today to buy your bedding set – once that’s in place the basics of your room will be pretty much done.  Then we can focus on the accessories and decorating – fun, fun! 

The car seat/stroller travel system that we wanted for you has also arrived.  Since it’s the new year model it wasn’t available until now.  It’s grey with pink accents and very functional…which I’ve learned is very important.  The car seat is pretty heavy….I can’t imagine how heavy it will be once you’re in it.  I’m gonna have great arm muscles!

Hopefully we’ll have some pictures posted from the showers soon!

The day started out great until I opened my day planner and realized that today officially starts the beginning of our 3^rd Trimester!  How can we possibly be 2/3 of the way through this process already?  I guess not even knowing we were pregnant for 10 weeks took a big chunk of that time away, but still….only 12 weeks to go!?!?

My team at work is throwing a shower for me tomorrow.  All the girls from Uline are invited to attend so it should be a ton of fun!  They’ve been asking for baby pics of me and your dad and for all kinds of interesting information so I know they’ve got lots of fun stuff planned.  I can’t wait!

We still need to find a rocker/glider for your room so your father and I will probably embark upon that mission this weekend.  It’s also daylight savings time so we’ll be losing an hour.  That means one less hour of precious sleep for me…or as your dad said, I’ll just fall asleep on the couch an hour earlier now….7 instead of 8!  🙂

We found out that our neighbors, Noah & Cheryl, are having a baby girl! I am so excited that Hailey will have a playmate so close in proximity and age. How fun! We also got word that Jeremy & Stacey (Brad’s best friend in Iowa and his wife) are also expecting a baby girl in July! This is really great news because Jeremy is all boy all the time and they already have a son….having a girl will definitely help balance things out for poor Stacey!

Well, it’s 3:30 in the morning and I am wide awake. I woke up about 2:30am to go to he bathroom for the 2nd time since going to bed and my nose started running. I blew it in the bathroom and went back to bed, about 15 minutes later it was running again. I blew my nose in bed this time which rattled your father from sleep a bit (neither of us can blow our nose without reaching at least a 7.5 on the decibel scale!) so when I had to blow my nose a third time I decided to head for the living room.

So, here I am am, at 3:30 in the morning parked in the reclining couch with a box of kleenex and a million things running through my mind. I am exhausted, but just can’t seem to fall back asleep….I am sure I’ll pay the price for that tomorrow. I have a feeling the number of sleepless nights I spend on the couch may become more common as we go along.

Well, we are 27 weeks along as of Friday. Just a few more days and we’ll be in our 3rd trimester! It’s so hard to believe! Our neighbors Noah & Cheryl, and our friends Jeremy & Stacey should be finding out the sex of their babies this week. I am so anxious to know what they are having. Especially Noah and Cheryl…will you have a playmate or a boyfriend living 2 doors down!? 🙂

We went to dinner with our friends Phil & Brandon last night. They are the ones that adopted an adorable baby girl from Russia, Alina. She’s almost 2 now so they were kind enough to give us a bag full of the clothes she can no longer wear…..some really cute stuff! As your father and I were going through the bag, we just kept trying to imagine how it was possible that clothing could be so dainty…and that the person wearing was going to be so small…and most of this stuff was 18 months! We are really in awe when we hold up the newborn clothing.

We already have plans to put you in swimming lessons as soon as possible. They say you can start as early as six months! That should work out well since you’ll be about 1 year old by the start of next swim season.

Well, I should probably try to get some sleep so I am not just miserable to be around tomorrow. I’ll be thinking of you…always.

Your mom and I went to Las Vegas last weekend.  Don’t worry, we didn’t lose our life savings so you can still go to college.  We were in Vegas from Thursday to Monday and had a wonderful time.  We were there for the wedding of our friends Chris Yard and Amanda Vasquez.  We stayed at Planet Hollywood on Thursday and at the Paris hotel the remainder of the time.

If later in life you find yourself with an odd obsession with Prince, that’s probably because we watched a Prince tribute band named Purple Reign at the House of Blues.  It was pretty loud in there so your either going to have an aversion to loud noises or we messed you up for life.

The most exciting part of the trip was that I got to feel you kick for the first time!  You’ve been such a squirmy worm throughout the pregnancy.  Your mom has been feeling you kick for a while, but this was the first time she felt you from the outside.  We hope your restlessness is not a sign of things to come 🙂 .

This was the fourth and final time you’ve flown in your mom’s belly. So far you’ve been to San Antonio, Iowa, Indianapolis, and Las Vegas. Your mom and I love to travel so much, there will be many more flights in your future!

BTW, the title of this blog is a quote from a popular movie from 1996 call Swingers staring Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn…you just put a whole new spin on it.

Brad, Kristine, and Hailey at the Bellagio

Stephanie, Chris, Amanda, Jason, K & B

Purple Reign at the House of Blues

So your father had this great idea when we found out we were pregnant – set a countdown clock that would count backwards to your due date. Well today, for the first time, it is showing a double digit number….gone are the triple digit days! While this clock seemed like a fantastically fun idea when it showed 180+ days, I am starting to think it’s a bad idea for me now…especially since my heart rate increased when I saw it showed 99 days today! YIKES!

I woke up this morning to the delicious smell of breakfast cooking. Your father decided to surprise me with breakfast (pancakes, eggs, bacon, and chocolate covered strawberries) for Valentine’s day! He also gave me a very sweet card. I truly am the luckiest woman alive! I gave him a card and some new cologne – Kenneth Cole’s RSVP. After breakfast we went and got haircuts then went to look at baby furniture. We still haven’t decided on your bedroom furniture though we have it narrowed down to a few choices.

After furniture shopping, I went to the mall while your dad took a nap. The minute I got home we went right to it….painting your room. We’d already chosen the color – it’s called Moonlit Yellow – and fortunately, Brad had taped off the room last week so we were pretty much ready to go. However, we’d both forgotten how much we hate to paint. If we can help it, I think this might be the last room we ever paint! Though we have quite a few friends who are true do-it-yourselfers, your father and I just can’t seem to derive much pleasure from most DIY projects. Just one of the things we have in common!

Brad the Painter

As the story goes, babies are delivered to their parents by a stork. But we don’t believe that to be the case for our little girl. On the weekend we believe you began to grow in your mommy’s tummy we were hanging out in our swimming pool. Dragonflies are all too common around our pool in the summer time. But on this weekend, on this day, there was a special dragonfly.

He was the friendliest dragonfly we’d ever seen. He just would not stay away from your mom. He’d land on her shoulder, her head, or if she held out her hand the little guy would perch on her finger. I could hold out my hand and he would land there too. But he seemed to be most infatuated with Kristine.  He hung out with us all weekend.   That’s why we believe our little angel was delivered to us by, not the stork, but the dragonfly.

Hailey's Dragonfly

On Kristine's Hand

Kristine and the Dragonfly