Christmas Away From Home

Spending Christmas away from my family is always hard. Although this year was hard, just like any other, I was looking forward to a quieter Christmas with my In-laws. Christmas at my family is always very chaotic, loud and crazy. I usually look forward to this and always have a great time but this year I was ready for a quiet laid back Christmas. Neal and I had a great time with his family.

We didn't go down until the evening of Christmas Eve. We ended up leaving work earlier than planned due to some bad weather that was moving in. We headed to our house around noon and loaded the puppies and luckily we just missed the weather and made it to North Little Rock with no problems at all. We did dinner with Bill and Sissy Christmas Eve and the next morning opened all of our gifts. We got our camcorder which will definitely come in handy with a baby on the way. I got a food processor and a few other great things and Neal got cologne and some other good things. The one that really made out like a bandit for not even being here yet is Reese! She got some adorable clothes from her Aunts (we exchanged gifts when we were home for Thanksgiving) she also got her video monitor and some ornaments for her Christmas Tree from her Nana and Papa. Her Gigi and Pops got her a couple of sun dresses, some ornaments for her Christmas Tree, some pink slippers with cute little butterflies on them, some flowers to wear on her head, the cutest little gold ballet flats and an adorable little green stuffed monkey. I am so excited about some of the cute things that she got so I have taken some photos to share with you.

Later on Christmas day we went to Neal's Mimi and Papa's house to do Christmas lunch with the family. Neal's cousin Lori found the cutest little Shitzu that Papa and Mimi have taken in as their own that they have name Bogie. He is such a good addition to the family, he is so cute and was very sociable. Christmas night we went to see Brothers with Neal's parents, pretty heavy but a good movie.

We did a lot of shopping the day after Christmas. Reese again got a lot of new clothes. We also went out to dinner at a great steakhouse for Neal's birthday. Overall it was a great Christmas. I am very excited about Christmas with my family next year with an approximately 8 month old baby girl!!!

A growing belly

We recently had another ultra sound and they confirmed that Reese will in fact be a girl. I went ahead and bought all of the fabrics for her room and dropped it all off to be made into bedding (I will posts pictures once I get it all together). This was a bit scary due to the fact that one of our friends, who was scheduled to deliver Lucy a couple of weeks ago, delivered a healthy happy baby boy even though their ultrasound confirmed that they were having a girl. I am really hoping that the two ultrasound technicians that we have had are correct in their girl predictions.

My belly is really beginning to grow faster so I thought I would update my blog with a photo!

Reese Kennedy!

On November 17th we were so blessed to find out that we will be having a baby girl! I would be thrilled either way but I have to say after doing a few weeks of shopping it is going to be so much more fun to shop for a baby girl.

It was so amazing to get to see her on the ultrasound screen. In one shot we could clearly see her delicate little spine and towards the end she even stretched her tiny arms above her head, it was really cute. She has already gotten a few outfits and I have picked out all of the fabrics for her nursery. We have another ultrasound on Friday the 11th so I am waiting to buy the fabric or do too much more until they confirm one more time that she is in fact a girl.

We have decided to name her Reese Kennedy. It feels so much more real now that we know she is a girl and that we can call her by name. I find that Neal and I talk to her more often now that we can all her by name. I am now 21 weeks and I haven't felt her kick yet and I am SO ready. I want to have a way to know that she is okay. I know that everything says that you may begin to feel you baby sometime after 20 weeks and that you should not worry about it (especially with your first baby) until 26 weeks. It is hard not to worry but I trust God that she is just fine. I cannot wait to see her on the ultrasound on Friday so that I can know that she is just fine and maybe I will get to start feeling her move before then. I feel so blessed to get to experience all of this and to get to have a baby that is half me and half Neal. I was so fearful that Neal and I would not get this experience but God was faithful and I am so grateful.

So, Neal is the only chance in his family to carry on the McAllister name and we are pretty sure that we only want two children and the first one is a girl. So we know what the expectation is for baby number two. We will hope and pray for a boy the next time around but either way we will be so thrilled. Who knows if we have 2 daughters maybe one of them can convince their future husbands to take her name.