Mommy I can hear you :)

First of all I would like to thank all of you who commented about when you first began noticing a bump. Your comments made me feel better about my non-expanding belly. I have also found comfort in pictures off of the what to expect website. The pictures are both of women at 16 weeks, and as you can tell there is a drastic difference in the size of their belly. Maybe the bottom girl is carrying twins?

I was excited to read that my baby this week can now hear my voice. That is very exciting to me. I have been talking to the little one all along, but now he/she will actually hear their mommies voice. The source said that babies can now begin taking in tunes of songs as well if the mother sings the tune to them. It said that when they are born they may even recognize a familiar tune. When my step mom was pregnant with my youngest sister my dad used to hum a song when Kat was kicking to calm her. To this day she will still fall asleep to that tune if she remains still enough. I kind of want to start reading to the baby soon (is that weird)?

Where is my bump???

So, I have decided that everyone else at 16 weeks either has or had an obvious little bump. However, I still get the question every day "When is your belly gonna grow"? I want a bump that everyone can see so people can understand why I get moody if I do not get to eat, why I can't take my eyes off babies in public, and just because I want one. To me I have noticed that my body has changed in various ways, and my belly has grown. However, I have been looking at blogs of others who are pregnant and they had bellys at 16 weeks, and mine is still just a tiny

bump. I am going to post pictures of me at 8 weeks and me at 14 weeks, and you can let me know if you think my belly has grown. I truly do not see a change in pictures. My pants are to small to button now so I know I have a small bump but nothing drastic. If you are or have been pregnant will you comment and let me know when your obvious bump first appeared? The top picture is of me at 8 weeks and the bottom is 14 weeks (sorry my head is cut off).

MOM

We all know how exciting it is to a mother to hear their baby say their name for the first time. I myself can not wait to experience this, and know that I am the only person in the world that he/she will be refering to. However, can you imagine your son being in a critical car accident on Christmas day, and watching him lay in bed day after day for two months not knowing when he will recover, and then hearing MOM. How powerful would that be? It brings chills and tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

Well today, my Aunt Libby was able to experience this. Matt called out to her today by saying MOM. I can not imagine how happy she must have felt at that moment, and I can just imagine her standing over his bed with tears in her eyes saying "I am here my baby what is it that you need". For most moms I am sure after 23 years you take the word for granted, but when tradgedy strikes, you do not know if you will hear your baby call out to you again, and the word is not taken so lightly.

I am so excited that my cousin called out to his momma today, and I am so grateful to God for allowing him to recover, and I pray daily for continued recovery. God is so good, and I know that Aunt Libby is one happy mommy today.

I have included a pic of Matt and I when we were babies. This is probably around the age he said mom for the first time. I have also included a picture of him at 22. He is still her baby no matter how old he gets, and I am sure that the word Mom is one in which she will always be exctied to hear.

Sydney the Destroyer

As many of you know from my previous posts we have a new puppy who we named Sydney. Sydney is a lot different than my baby girl Bella in that she is a larger breed dog with a whole lot of energy. I think I took for granted what I thought was a lot of energy with my little Yorktese when she was a puppy. I never realized the difference between large and small breed puppies until I had the two to compare. Growing up I had a boxer named Abby, however, I do not really remember her puppy days, and therefore I just assumed that Sydney's puppy stage would be a lot like Bella's. Man was I wrong.

Above I have included a picture of Bella the first night we got her, and Sydney a couple of weeks after we got her. There is definetely a difference in size.

Here are a few more differences:

1. Sydney is very strong (she can basically pull me over when I am trying to contol her). Bella, could not move my arm if she tried.

2. Sydney can jump on the furniture (including the bed) at 4 months. Bella still has not accomplished jumping on the bed except for maybe 5 exceptions her entire life.

3. They are both very jealous and moody, however, Bella is the moodiest one of all.

4. Sydney can destroy things very quickly (she has destroyed doggy (Bella's favorite toy of all time), books, cords etc). When Bella was four months all she could destroy was a piece of paper.

5. Sydney has to go to the bathroom a lot, and it is actually a big hassle to clean up her accidents that she has indoors. Bella used a litter box for the first year of her life, and her messes were basically non existent.

Below are pictures from my Birthday walk. You can tell that Sydney has already grown a whole lot in size. In fact I could barely control her on the leash just to take this picture. Nick had to run with her to get her energy out.

Anyways I could go on and on about the differences. However, I love our new puppy and I am trying to gain dominance over her (the dog whisperer makes it look so easy). Whenever she is jumping on me I can snap, tell her to sit, push her down etc etc etc and she still will not stop. However, as soon as Nick snaps from across the room she lays down like a perfect angel and does not move a muscle. I guess I just don't have the magic touch. Well the main point of this post was to talk about the trouble Sydney got into today. Today at Target I bought Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy, and actually finished the entire book in about an hour 1/2. I loved the book, and I was laughing out loud while reading it. Afterward Nick and I went upstairs to cook dinner, and we left Sydney in the room outside of her kennel, and I left my book laying on the bed. When we came back down from dinner we found that Sydney had enjoyed my book as well, and had chewed the cover and a few pages. Geez. Oh well, it is still readable, and at least I finished it before it was destroyed.

3 Posts in one day!!

Just thought I would add a few pictures for you to enjoy. This first is a picture of our new puppy Sydney. She is already 2 times this size.

Below is a picture from Gatlinburg this past weekend.

I thought I would add a couple of Christmas pictures. Christmas was a hard time this year, but it was also our first Christmas as a married couple. The first is a picture on Christmas Eve at Nick's parents house with our babies (all three of them). Below is just a cute picture of my baby girl. Bella's favorite place to lay this year was below the Christmas tree.