Baby Clint

It's a Boy!



No...this one's not ours! Ours still needs a little more "baking" time. :-)


This past Saturday we rode up with my parents to San Antonio to celebrate my grandfather's 90th birthday that is this week. Sadly, he was diagnosed with full blown pnemonia right before so he was unable to attend the party. We still got to see a majority of the family that decided to come anyway.

I was super excited to see my cousin Erin's new baby, Clint. You'll remember that she was 6 weeks ahead of me for her pregnancy. Clint was born on August 26th. Here's a few pictures we took.

Jason was happy to hold Clint for a little bit and even got him to go to sleep. His response to seeing Clint, "I want one of those!" Everyone else said, "You will soon enough!"



You'll remember my cousin and I took belly pictures together during our pregnancies, well here's one of the last ones we'll take.


My belly is now MUCH bigger than her's!



My sister, Cheyanne, and I were able to take a belly picture before we all had to head back home. (She is due Feb. 2nd)




Don't forget you can cast your vote HERE for your chance to win the pool if you're closest to the right info for baby Straub!! (Or click on the link to the left here on the blog.)

35 Weeks

Well, we're just about at the 9 month mark. As Jason says, "35/4o" (as in the fraction). Although he thinks baby will be 1 week late. This past month we went on our "babymoon" to Washington. We were able to spend some time with Brian and Emily at THEIR new home, have 2 wonderful days to ourselves exploring downtown Seattle, a weekend with Jason's family for his cousin's wedding, and then dinner with my aunt and uncle that live in the Tacoma area. It was a VERY busy 7 days, but ones we will treasure as the last big trip just the two of us.

I know I am behind on posting belly pictures, so here's a collage of the last few pictures we have taken. It's a bit harder to tell the difference in the weekly ones we are trying to take now, but there is a slight difference.


Sleeping has become difficult again, mainly because when I have to roll from side to side I'm sore and trying to get this belly to flip takes so much work! If I can get 3-5 hours in a row and then about 2 more hours after getting up for a trip to el bano, then it's a "good"night. A couple days this week I've had to take a nap in the morning to make up for lack of sleep at night, luckily I have been able to get those naps in. There was one night that heartburn woke me up because I felt like the burning was all the way up to my ears! I felt like a cartoon character looks when there is smoke coming out of their ears, it hurt so bad. I haven't had heartburn that bad this entire pregnancy.

We have 1 more of our "2 week" appointments this coming week, then we go to weekly appointments. (Fun, fun....) Which means we're definitely in the final stretch (no pun intended). Which also means it's time for everyone to make any predictions on gender, date, and weight of baby.

On our main blog page (http://txstraubs.blogspot.com) you can click on the link in the left sidebar for PregPool.com and make your guess for $10. All you need is a paypal account. We figured this is the easiest way to have friends/family guess and Jason will update when the little one is here and whoever wins will have the money deposited directly to their paypal account, no need to collect from each person and make sure we get it to the winner in the hectic time when baby first arrives. (You can also go to www.pregpool.com and do a search for "Straub" to find the pool.)

Happy guessing!

New Sonogram Pictures

Well, I did promise new sonogram pictures. Some are here and the rest can be seen by clicking here.

Since we are now going to doctor's appointments every 2 weeks, we were pleasantly surprised when they did an ultrasound. We've been missing being able to "see" our little one and how big he/she is getting. Usually it's just in for the usual, blood pressure, weight, any complaints, listen to heartbeat. So when we lucked into an ultrasound we were very happy!

Everything is going well. Baby is growing and growing. I've only had 1 day so far where I truly felt like I could do nothing. I had no energy what-so-ever and felt like I should have just slept all day. We are attributing that to a baby growth spurt day, since the next day I was totally fine again. (Good thing too since my baby shower was 2 days later! Post to follow on that soon.)

During the ultrasound baby was face down by my left hip, bottom up by right ribs. They didn't decide to turn over until the very end. Kathy, the nurse practitioner, told us this baby is very much arms/legs! What a surprise with 2 tall parents. (FYI: I was 21.5 inches long when born and Jason was 20 inches.) We couldn't get an angle of the face or anything so the first few pictures are of head, a leg bone, heart/abdomen area, ribs, spine, etc. So I asked if we could at least get a picture of a foot (because I thought it would be cute to go with the one of just the hand we have). Kathy was looking, but then said, "I've got to get out of this spot because it's just WAY to obvious to me!" We totally missed an opportunity to try a humble guess at boy or girl! We are still laughing at the fact that Jason and I were looking for a foot on the screen, we were oblivious to the fact we could have tried guessing the gender! Hahaha! Yes, we still want it to be a surprise, and apparently God does too since neither of us were paying attention!

So here are the latest pictures that we will add to the scrapbook one day:

(Pictures are labeled to help you pick out what is shown.)



These were at the very end when baby finally turned some and could get a profile view at least.







This is our favorite: Baby is sucking their thumb, and the spot just above is a foot!
(See what I mean about all arms/legs?!)


If you look closely you can see baby's nose just below the fist, and the forehead/cheekbone.



Remember you can go to this link http://picasaweb.google.com/mls624/Sonogram81209#
to view ALL the pictures we have and zoom in if you need to see it bigger.


Oh and right after leaving I got a call from the office, they had finally caught up with my file and realized I had not had my glucose tolerance screening, which is usually done between weeks 24-28. (I'm at 31 today, hehehe.) I was hoping to skip it because I truly feel like everything is fine in that area and I didn't want to drink the icky drink and sit for an hour and be a pin cushion. But, I was a good girl and went the next morning. My mom was sweet and went with me to sit and wait so Jason could at least have 1 morning to himself on his days off. I survived it, and will know beginning of next week if I passed or not. (If not I have to go do it all over again and sit for 3 hours! Let's pray that doesn't happen.)

Next week will mark the beginning of month 8! New belly picture then, and we'll probably start weekly ones at that point.

Thanks for taking the time to read/view all of this!
We're very thankful for all of our family and friends praying us through this special time.

28 Weeks (7 Months)

Wow! It's been 7 months already, the time has flown by it seems.

I was out of town when I marked the entrance into my third trimester. Jason and I had been to San Antonio with his family and then I went over to College Station for a while then back down to San Antonio to fly back home. While in San Antonio, the second time, I had dinner at my aunt & uncle's house then stayed the night at my cousin's house. We were able to take "belly pictures" again. We were both excited to since it had been exactly a month since the last one. She is 6 weeks ahead of me for her pregnancy.

Brian got a good picture of us discussing our size!

Erin (34 weeks) Michelle (28 weeks)






Here's me from the past few months:


It's interesting to see them in succession to really see how much I've grown! I do know that right now I'm growing about 1 inch around the middle of belly each week! I've tracked it for the last 3 weeks and that is what it has been.

This coming Saturday is the baby shower my mom and sister have been planning. I'm looking forward to spending some fun times with friends and family that are coming into town.

So... any guesses by seeing pictures of if it's a boy or girl? Still seems like about 90% are saying "boy."

(My cousin's having a boy if that helps you make any comparisons.)

4th of July

I know I'm a bit behind on updates and pictures so today will be the BIG posting day. I decided just to let Jason take the car to work so I can stay home and rest, do laundry, and such for our trip this weekend. We'll be in San Antonio with all of his family (parents and brother & family) so I know it will be busy. Resting now is important.


Our friends the Van's, Kurt, Susanne, and Tex came down to Valley for the 4th of July weekend. We were lucky enough to get to spend some one on one time with them and also in group settings. Yes, I just stayed a week up with them in League City, but it's always nice to see friends!

Friday the 3rd

Jason had off so he and Kurt went golfing. A mutual friend, Andrew, was able to join them for the final 9 holes. They started close to 10 am and finished just before 2 pm. Needless to say Jason got a bit of a sunburn. :-)

Susanne and I went to the Family Thrift Store to do some shopping. Then we all came back to our house and relaxed/cooled off before heading to the bowling alley.

Dinner at the bowling alley, love their fajitas and nachos, and the Hartzler's came and joined us for a couple games.
Kurt, Andrew, Jason

Susanne, Ruth, Michelle


We all had a very nice time chatting and getting a bit of a workout bowling. This is the first time bowling since pregnant so I knew to take it easy, I even used a 6 lb ball, which is half the weight that I usually use. The kids had fun too. I'll post video clips later if I get the chance, or they'll go on YouTube instead. I broke 100, ok I think it was 100 even, but still a great game for the shape I am in.

Speaking of shapes. I took this fun picture of the "2 bowling balls" . . .


which then led to this picture....

Yes, we are totally silly!

Saturday, July 4th

I was able to sleep in some while Jason went to breakfast with Kurt & Tex. They then stopped on the way back to the house to locate a geocache. (More info about geocaching HERE.)

Jason and Tex play Connect Four and we all relaxed for a bit then got ready for BBQ. Barry & Michele Goldsmith from Jason's office hosted the bbq. Super yummy appetizers, games, swimming (for Tex), and some really great grilled meats!

Games:





Yes, Jason even drank a beer!! (He said it tasted like every other beer he's had. Not too fond of them I guess.)


Me and my water bottle, Jason wouldn't let me take the funny picture holding his beer. :-(

Back to the house later on and we headed over to grill hotdogs with my dad. (When I say "we" I mean, ME.) Dessert was yummy cake and ice cream and root beer floats. The 4th is Grandma Straub's birthday and tradition is root beer floats that day.


We hurried back home where I prepped our floats while Jason set up the chairs in backyard to watch the fireworks show to be done at the Bville Sports Park just down from our house. We had a very nice view of it. I downloaded Patriotic music from amazon.com and played it on the laptop while we watched. Our neighbors assisted with a few "up close and personal" fireworks.


Then I dug out the "Rambling Wreck" from last year some time for Jason to light. Had to explode something!! It was so windy it took a votive candle to get it to light and actually go off. Here's some "action shots" of it and the mark it left on the road.






Sunday the 5th

Church with the Van's and the lunch at El Pollo Loco. There were 15 of us there for lunch before the Van's drove back to LC. We were so happy that Jim and Darlene came to join us for lunch! I hadn't seen them in so long, and the Van's missed them the last time. We all had a wonderful meal and took some photos. (I only have this one from my camera, I'll post others when I get them.)

What a great weekend celebrating our country's independence with friends and family!

Love you all!