Patrick 24 Week Baby Bump and New Car

I hate taking pictures of myself while pregnant, but everyone says I will want them later on so below is a 24.5 week picture of the baby bump!

We also bought a new car! Yay! I am really sad to see my infiniti go but luckily it is just going to my sister so I can visit it if I want :) We drove all of the crossover SUVs that were in our price range and decided we liked the Acura MDX and Toyota Highlander the best. It was such a hard decision, but we decided on the Highlander. I think it will be a great family car! They didn't have our top pick for color, but i'm still happy about it! Below are a couple of pictures of our new car!

Glucose Test and Family Picture

Today I took my glucose test and I had been dreading this test! I was a little worried that I would fail considering the amount of sweets I ate over Christmas and my test was the Monday after Christmas weekend. I was also dreading it because I have heard such horrible things about it. I started drinking my drink and thought oh this isn't too bad. However, about half way through I started to feel really sick and could tell how sugary this drink really was! After drinking it, I immediately started to feel sick. I thought I wasn't going to be able to make it without getting sick. Miraculously I held on and was able to make it the required hour! However, immediately after the test I got violently sick. My results came back just fine, so I am really glad I don't have to do more tests!

We also bought Patrick's baby furniture this weekend! I am so excited about it and hope it doesn't take as long as they say it will!

We realized that we didn't have any pictures of Michael and I and the dogs. We thought we should get a family picture before Patrick arrives, so we asked my dad to come over and take the picture. I think we took about 50 before we got a couple that work. My dad had to hold treats in front of the camera to get them to look. Below are a few of the pictures.

Patrick is growing fast!

On the Thursday before Christmas we had a bit of a scare. I woke up and had severe cramps and pressure in my lower abdomen. I had big plans to finish all of my Christmas shopping but couldn't get off the couch because of the pain. I decided to try and rest and eat a little bit and see if that helped. By the middle of the day I still wasn't feeling better, so I gave my doctor a call and she said I could be having irritable uterus syndrome and to drink 4 large glasses of water in an hour and call back if the pain wasn't gone. Well it didn't go away so they recommended I go to the ER because it could be pre-term labor. I immediately burst into tears and called Michael and told him to meet me there. After an hour or so of testing, they found that baby Patrick was just fine and that he was growing faster than my uterus could grow and accomodate him. I was told to rest for the weekend until my appointment on Monday. They think everything should work itself out just fine and the contractions should stop. However, resting over Christmas weekend is a tad bit hard with the schedule Michael and I have. I was just so thankful everything was okay with Patrick! Hopefully my body will catch up to him soon! Although it was stressful, i'm glad we went to the ER and got everything checked out. It makes me feel so much better knowing he is just fine.

Hard to believe that this Christmas is the last one with just Michael and I. We had a great time hanging out with family, but were bummed about having to take it easy. We normally go to Knoxville on Christmas day and started driving there, but about half way there I wasn't feeling very well and the roads were getting bad so we turned around and went home. Although we didn't like missing out, I think it was the best decision. Michael and I just hung out with the dogs and watched movies all night. Not exactly what we had planned for Christmas, but still fun :)

Fun Weekend!

This weekend has been a blast! So many fun things!

On Thursday we had Michael's company Christmas party and it was really fun! It was an all night affair, so I ended up having to take a vacation day on Friday from being so tired! It was worth it though!

On Friday, we went to the Garth Brooks concert! It was unbelievable! He played from 7:30 til 10. I was so excited we got tickets to the original show, since he played all of the requests from the crowd after the band went off the stage. It was great!

On Saturday we went to lunch with Michael's grad school friends. It was great to see all of them, especially since Blevins lives in the Cayman Islands and Bethany lives in Charlotte. We also got to see Lisa and Michael and their new little addition, baby Jack. He was precious and just made me that much more anxious for my little Patrick to be here!

On Saturday night we went to an ornament party for Lund and April. It was fun to meet a lot of Michael's high school friends that I have heard him talk about but haven't ever met!

On Sunday we had the Whitson Family Christmas get-together with my dad's side of the family.

It was an eventful and really fun weekend! Love Christmas time!

Lately

Well it has been quite interesting lately with all of the snow! We had not had snow for years before we bought our house and thought it would be no problem living on such a big hill! Ha...not the case! I have had two pretty scary experiences in the past 2 years with my car. It does not have four wheel drive or even front wheel drive, so it is pretty much worthless in the snow. For the past week, it has sat in our driveway and I have a feeling it won't be moving for the next week either!

Last week was one of the most scary experiences I have ever had! I was on my way to a Junior League provisional Christmas party and the road to get there dips a little bit into a creek. A few others cars had gone in front of me and had no trouble, so I figured that my car could make it just fine. I knew it was pretty cold, but there looked to be no ice. I made it through the creek just fine, but the other car's tires dripped water which immediately froze. My car doesn't stand a chance in any ice, so I started sliding back down the hill towards the creek even though my foot was still on the gas. There is a big drop off from the road into the creek and I was terrified that my car would flip and end up in the creek. So I lightly tried to pump my brakes hoping the car would stop! It finally did about a foot from the creek! I was so thankful and very lucky! All of these thoughts were going through my mind about how to get out of the car if my car flipped into the creek! It would have been difficult to get out of the car in general, but since I was five months pregnant it made it that much more scary!

I, of course, was so shaken from the experience that I immediately called Michael who was at dinner with his family and told him it was an emergency and he had to come immediately. He is probably used to these calls by now, since he got a similar one around this same time last year, but he was there in less than 5 minutes. He ran across the creek almost falling straight into the creek to make sure I was okay. It was very sweet of him! The cops showed up right after he got there and I was very thankful for that! They got a tow truck to be there in 3 minutes, which was much better than the 45 minutes I was told at every place I called. Luckily, there was no damage to my car and it only had to be towed about 5 feet. I felt really silly, but was just thankful that everything worked out the way it did!

So, needless to say, we are looking at a new crossover SUV for me to drive. We originally sold my old SUV so that we would not have two large cars, but it looks like we are going back to 2 SUV's! I definitely don't want to have any car problems with Patrick in the car!

SEC Championship!

Michael and I went to the SEC championship to watch Auburn and South Carolina play this past weekend. It was so fun, especially since Auburn won! We went with Graham, his dad, brother and my dad. I kind of wished it would have been a better game for the South Carolina fans, especially since it was South Carolina's first trip to the SEC championship. We also got to see Peter and Sarah, one of Michael's good friends from grad school. It was so nice of them to brave the traffic and come hang out with us!

We have been playing with the idea of going to the National Championship, but have decided we just aren't going to be able to make it. It was very tempting, especially after we found out we could get tickets! But, with little Patrick on the way, it just didn't make sense for me to take vacation when I could spend that time with him after he is born. Oh well, maybe we will make it back to the National Championship again in my lifetime and he can come along :)