Thursday, March 31, 2011

Busy day.....

This morning I got to work and they were all dying to know the news, was it a little boy or a little girl!  I showed them the ultrasound picture that stated "GIRL" and after that all I heard were screams!  By mid-morning they put this cute little basket full of suckers in the break room for the winning girls' team!


The boy guessers got a cute basket full of suckers too, even though they didn't guess correctly!

It was a very cute idea and I think they all had fun with it!  Thanks girls!

Tonight I met Dixie and Sandy at Panera Bread for supper.....we also Skyped Dina, she is still living in Guatemala till the beginning of June.  I haven't talked to her in a while so it was fun catch up with her.....I also got to tell her our news, not only were we expecting but that we are having a girl......she was pretty excited as were Dixie and Sandy!

Here is a picture of Sandy and Dixie talking to Dina via the computer.....

That ends my busy day....this busy week is catching up with me....good thing tomorrow is FRIDAY!


One last picture to end the night, this is a picture I forgot to put in my last posting.....this is the cute oneies that Carson showed up with last night, he is going to be the "Best Big Cousin"....

It's a.....

GIRL!  We found out that come August we will have a little girl on our hands!

We celebrated last night with a "Gender Reveal Party" at our house with our family!  I thought it was a fun way to tell them, hopefully they enjoyed themselves as well!

All week I had them submit their guesses if it was going to be a boy or a girl.....then I ordered some cupcakes that had little plastic stars inside that said "It's A Girl" and in order for everybody to find out what gender we were having they had to bite into the cupcake.



Lanette, Ang and Carolyn though we were having a boy........

And Dad, Chris (who must be way off to the side), Mom/Carson, Gary and Dennis thought it was a girl....
                                                                                ...good job girl guessers!

Here's Nathan enjoying his cupcake....

Before everybody left we gave them a "HERESHEIS" Hershey's candy bar with a copy of our ultrasound picture on the back!


Now we just have to wait till August to meet this little girl!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Guess the Gender...

The girls at work are having so much fun guessing the gender of the baby, they even put up two little jars in the break room, one with a blue rattle and another with a pink one.  They are having people guess which sex we are having by writing their names on a little piece of paper and putting it in the jar of their choice. 


I hear there is a fun prize for the winning "gender team"! 
Who will win?  Find out tomorrow?

Monday, March 28, 2011

Anniversary!

This is us just 2 years ago.....


Tonight I came home to flowers on the table......

We thought about going out for supper tonight for our 2 year Anniversary but after a weekend of a little stomach bug for both Nathan and I, we decided it was probably better if we stayed home....so we had steak and potatoes on the grill and green beans, yummy!

We also had many family and friends either call, text and/or send us cards or gifts for our Anniversary, thank you everybody for making our day "extra" special.  I can't believe how fast these last two years have gone! 

Friday, March 25, 2011

Check List

We have another thing to check off our (okay my) check list of things I would like to do around the house.....

Nathan got the hallway upstairs painted this past week and it looks so much better, no more ivy stencil on the walls.....yeah!  We weren't really planning on painting the walls right now but you know how it goes... we painted the baby's room in order to get the carpet put in.....which lead to painting the trim in the spare bedroom so we could change the carpet in there.....which lead to getting new doors in the baby's room, spare bedroom and our bedroom.  Now that the doors are white I thought we needed to change the trim to white (it used to be tan) which you know lead to painting the walls tan instead of white.  Did you follow all that?

Here's my little worker bee......

Back to normal.....but looking much better, tan walls with white trim.....


Thanks honey.....it looks awesome and I promise I think I'm done with the painting projects for at least a little bit!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Week #19

We've made it another week, I can't believe we are at the 1/2 way mark next Wednesday plus we get to find out if we're having a little girl or a little boy....stay tuned.  I hope these next 20 weeks go as fast as the first 20 weeks, minus the being sick part....I could do away with that forever!

Well we received our Week #19 gift a little early, got it delivered to me at work yesterday....which was a fun surprise....so I took it home and told Nathan that he could open this one, which he was so excited about!

As you can see my Mom and is getting pretty creative with her gift wrap/decorating skills......

And here's what's inside......
                                           ....a cute picture frame, Ho Lo stickers and a gift card!

My favorite!  My Mom & Sister know me all too well!  Thinking ahead, I have a feeling that going to Ho Lo will have to be one of the baby's first outings :)

We've been enjoying a some what relaxing week at home, trying to get some odds and ends inside the house done since the weather has been cold and rainy out...I thought last Sunday was the 1st day of Spring....so bring on the sunshine!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Weekend of Fun!

What a fun yet busy weekend....Friday night we worked around home, cleaning, working on the laundry and any other odds and ends we could get done before headed to bed. 

Saturday morning I headed to Des Moines with Mom, Ang and Carson.....our first stop was of course lunch, Texas Roadhouse....yummy!  Then it was off to Homemakers where we spent hour after hour shopping for baby furniture, chairs and anything in between.  I ended up finding a white dresser (in the clearance section - yeah) for the baby's room plus a crib w/mattress.  Ang got a new chair for her living room and Mom got a new chair for one of her tenants.  Now we just have to wait till April 6th when all of our goodies are delivered.

While I spend the day with the girls Nathan headed off to Greene right away in the morning with Gary to buy his new toy......a new John Deere riding lawn mower.  Boys and their toys!

Later in the afternoon the guys drove to Des Moines to meet up with us....we all met at Brandie's house and took off from there, 1st stop was to an Irish Pub for a quick drink, then it was off to the "Funny Bone" for a night of laughs and supper!


Toast to Janis' birthday.....


And of course Carl had to get himself on the stage with the comedians before we left.......oh Carl!


After getting home really late Saturday night night and/or early Sunday morning we spent Sunday morning sleeping in and catching up on things around the house.  I ran some errands right away in the morning while Nathan stayed home and painted the trim upstairs in the hallway.....hopefully within the next day or so he will get the walls painted.......then I think we're (he's) done paiting for a while. 

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Week #18

Well we made it to another week!
My cough/cold is almost gone, a 2 week sickness - no fun!  I have been wearing the bioband pretty faithfully as the mornings are better but I still feel ify all day long.  The weather has been beautiful the last couple of days so Nathan and I have already got a couple walks in.  We also finally got our Christmas lights off the house and garage, an over due task!  Nathan has also been busy working upstairs on the new bedroom doors and then Grandma Sally came to the rescue today and primed the trim in the hallway for us this morning.  I hope to get the trim and maybe even the walls painted within the next week or so.

This week's surprise gift came from Mom, Grandma Sally and Ang.......a box of goodies for me!  A couple maturity shirts with some fun jewels to go with!

Can't wait to have something new to wear even if it's from the maturity department!  Thanks again gals!

Grandma Sally is in town, oh how we love when she visits.  She has been busy seeing lots of people including the new addition at the Uhlenhopp household, little Zion - what a cutie he is, got to see him for the 1st time last night as we went and visited! 

Grandma Sally also had an "extra" special gift for Baby Rausch this week, a cute little oneies to add to his or her closet as we celebrate week #18 - thanks Grandma!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Week #17

Well we made it to Week #17 and found yet another fun surprise in the mail on Wednesday.  (I think my Mom is having a lot of fun with this)

Here is what we received this week.....


A "luck" card because I'm having pretty good luck with the bioband so far and not taking it off for nothing.

We also go a fun little info card listing all the changes our baby will be going through this next week.  The candy bar represents the baby's length, approximately 5 inches long.

The cough and cold is slowly getting better.....hopefully this upcoming weekend will be better and I'll get more done besides coughing and blowing my nose, which is how I spent last weekend!  Looking forward to yet another weekend!



Monday, March 7, 2011

Monday-Monday-Monday!

Well it's back to Monday, our favorite day of the week.....back to work after a nice relaxing weekend!  Over the weekend we did run some errands, go to a movie in Grundy with Chris and Kasey and got a nap in on Sunday.....it was great!

Today I left work a little early to go to my Doctor's Appointment.  I was hoping I gained a little bit of the weight I lost last time back but I didn't......didn't gain a single pound actually, my doctor wasn't too worried though.  Everything else looked good and the baby still has a strong heartbeat.  All the test results came back good with the ultrasound and blood work that was taken last month.  I did have to get blood drawn again today because my platelets were a little low, just something they are going to keep an eye on over the next couple of months.  I did find out that I'm O- blood type, something I never knew before. 

Now on to some odds and ends, last Wednesday we made it to Week #16 and to our great surprise we received this fun card in the mail from Frannie...
The baby received it's first $10.00.....inside the card it read "$10.00 should buy me 6 Baby girls names, with the suggestions of Elizabeth Sue, Sara Lynn, Adelyn Kay, Sophie Jo, Madeline Marie and Carlyn Ann listed.
Good guesses Mom but who knows maybe it's not a girl.....we won't find out till early April.

Our "BIG" project yesterday was putting together a highchair, yeah we purchased our first baby item and even though we know we won't be using it for a while we went ahead and bought it online because it was on sale/going out of stock and we liked the colors and the fact that it folds down very nicely for storage!

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Catching up....

It started Monday, February 28th......I woke up for a horrible cough and cold that hasn't gotten any better all week, hopefully I can shake it off soon but not being able to take anything to get better isn't helping much.  Oh well, one plus to the week, I only threw up once, been too busy coughing.....too bad I went from one thing to another.  Looking forward to a restful weekend though!


It's February 23, 2011 and we have lived in our house in Hudson for 1 year already......I can't believe it!
                                                   Moving day......

Seems like just yesterday we were still trying to sell our house in Waterloo to find something bigger within a small town.  I think both Nathan and I have enjoyed the past year and this new adventure.  We have been busy working around the house, making it ours.  We have painted the basement and add some cupboards and a piece of counter top to make it into my very own scrapbooking room.  We have redone the small bathroom which is right off the kitchen on the main level along with painting and adding a closet and cubbies to the mud room.  We also painted and added cabinets to the office which made it look into a totally different room.  Onto the upstairs we painted the spare bedroom and called that our bedroom for a few months while Nathan and I totally gutted the master bedroom, pulling off the wallpaper border and repainted the whole room along wtih the trim.  We also turned the little room which is right off of our bedroom into a walk-in closet for me.....must say I absolutely LOVE it!  And the latest project has been the babies' room.  We ripped out the old wooden closet and Nathan has been busy repairing the walls, fixing the ceiling and putting in a new closet.  He also painted the whole room plus put up new trim boards, with the carpet in there now I can't believe how much better that little room looks. 

                                The baby's room before and after carpet!


I've been doing some research online regarding what I can do about my morning sickness.  I found a website where I could order a "Bioband" - not sure if it will work but I'm willing to try anything at this point.

Exciting news!  February 22nd, my Bioband came in the mail today, it’s a black band that goes around your wrist.  It has a little metal piece that needs to be placed on your P6 pressure point on either wrist to help with morning sickness…..I hope it works, I don’t enjoy throwing up every morning and we’re going on the 4th week of it now.



February 18th
The baby’s room is officially painted and/or done for now.  Carpet got put in today and it looks great (picture to come).  I was busy vacuuming it many times tonight in order to get all those little pieces picked up.  We also ran to Menards to get new mini blinders for the bedroom.  While we were there we looked at a new bedroom door and ended up buying one (hopefully Nathan is able to put it in with the help of our neighbor Ron without any problems).  We figured putting a new door in would not only look better but would be easier to use instead of trying to strip the 4-5 layers of paint off the old door.



Happy Sweetheart's Day!
It’s Valentine’s Day and we have so much to be grateful for.  Nathan and I exchanged gifts Sunday night, the night before - I got a new DVD from Nathan, which is perfect because that’s about the only thing I like to do at nights lately, watching TV and/or movies while I sit and relax.  I gave Nathan a box of Twinkies, his favorite little snack plus an Iowa t-shirt for work and some car/truck cleaning stuff. 

When I got home from work on Monday, I had a beautiful green plant on the counter from Nathan….he really must think I have a green thumb since this is now the 7th “live” plant I have in the house.    Our counter was also full of Valentine gifts from Frannie & Grandpa Gary…..somebody has been in our house today, is what both Nathan and I said to each other.  Nathan and I got a board game and a bag of chocolates plus a gift card to Target.  Plus Baby “girl” Rausch, which is what Frannie thinks we’re having…...well she (or he) made out pretty good too!  A box of diapers, a picture frame, a Chicago Bears reading book, a lime green/bug night light and a package of white oneies.  What a fun surprise to come home too.

We also mailed out “Happy Valentine’s Day” photo card with the ultrasound picture of the baby to all of our family members, so they all know now!

On a side note the last two weeks haven’t been much fun as I've had really bad morning sickness but hopefully within the next week or so it will come to and end.
  


Well we made it to Monday, February 7th without any bad snowy weather......I took some yummy “Cookies & Cream” bars into work this morning, I put a note on top of the bars said “Happy Monday….enjoy a treat from Diane and Baby Rausch.”  This was a test to find out reads the notes left on top of desserts that are brought in and who just drives right into the goodies.  If took a little while but as the day passed on I think everybody in the office found out the good news!

I left work a little early today to go to our 3:45 appointment.  We got right in and Nathan sat in the room with me till the Doctor said the words “vaginal ultrasound” then he was out of there.  He waited in the waiting room while I got the ultrasound done, it was very cool to see hour little baby on the screen.  The doctor couldn’t believe how active our little baby was, it would not stay still so the doctor could get a good measurement of the head and/or the length.  He/she also kept moving it’s hand up by it’s face….I said he/she was probably picking it’s nose because I haven’t been feeding it enough.  From my first appointment in January till this appointment I had lost 5 pounds, not on purpose I just haven't been able to eat very much during the day.  I also had started throwing up every morning right after I would get out of bed.....so I figured I'd lost a couple pounds but not 5.  After the ultrasound was done I went back out to the waiting room to show Nathan a couple pictures the Doctor had given me, they were so fun to look at........then I got some blood work done for some test they were going to run........we won't find out the results until our March appointment.  After the blood work my arm was a little sore and bruised but I just thought of it as one of the joys I get to go through during the next 9 months.



We have moved onto the month of February......
February 2nd to be exact....Nathan and I were planning on going to my afternoon appointment that consist of an ultrasound (our first picture of our little boy or girl) plus I was supposed to get some blood work done but due to a bad winter weather/storm the clinic was closed.  I waited until the next day and called to reschedule our doctor's appointment for Monday, February 7th.



It was January 24th and I stopped by Jodi’s after work to talk to her about Whitney’s Valentine Party that I  helping her with on February 12th.  As we got to talking I followed her into her office and told her I needed to write something on her August calendar….she said "WHAT?"  I said just fill to August 17th because that's when Baby Rausch is due to enter the world........she was so happy for us!  She also said she wondered if something was up during Christmas time when her and the kids stopped by our house to give us a Christmas gift she thought maybe I wasn't feeling the best....I guess she knows me too well because I thought I doing pretty good hiding it from everybody!

After I left Jodi's house I headed onto to Applebee’s to meet Dixie for supper, we were going to talk about the upcoming Scrapbooking Retreat at the end of February but I wasn't feeling the best and was really struggling on what to order….I figured sooner or later she would find out so I went ahead and told her our baby news, she was so excited for us as well!



It was the weekend of January 15th & 16th we got up bright and early, loaded the car and headed to Aplington to meet up with everybody else for a weekend of fun.  The weekend consist of sledding in Burnsville, Minnesota with Mom, Gary, Chris, Kasey, Carl, Angie, Tyler, Trista and Trish, Brady.  We stopped for breakfast at Perkins in Clear Lake and that’s where we all received our goodies bag from Mom. 

The bag was full of snacks and things we might need for the hours of sledding….hats, gloves and socks.  Then Mom handed each couple a large envelope…..inside that envelope was another envelope…..then a smaller one…..and so on.  All the envelopes said something to the effect of “We have Announcement”….. “Top Secret”……”Big News”…...when we finally got to the final envelope the card said “We are going to be parents"……..with the back saying "with a grand in front of it”  We all looked around the table and tried to guess which one of us were expecting…..playing along with the game - I guessed it was Ang right away......all she could say on the spot was “No, it’s not me”  Then Mom went around the table and asked each couple till it got to us…….and we said “YES, it’s us”.  Everybody was very happy and surprised for us.  It was a very fun to tell them all! 

After breakfast we hit the road again, arriving at Buckhills where everybody (but me) did 2 hours worth of sledding. 
                                   Getting ready to head up the hill....
It looked like fun and I think everybody had a good time….then it was onto the hotel where we checked in and then spent a couple hours in the pool area.  While the guys watched some football us girls played the game Last Word, of course we did some laughing as well!  We then loaded up the cards again and headed to Burnsville Extreme Zone to grab a quick bite to eat (or that’s what we thought).  Service was so bad and after waiting 3 hours for our food let’s just say not all of us got our meal before we finally left.  We were going to stay and play laser tag and/or do some bowling but it was going to be another hour wait and we were all getting pretty tired so we headed back to the hotel where some of us crashed for the night while others went swimming again. 

Sunday we got up, grabbed some breakfast, packed the car and headed back, making one quick stop at the Medford Mall to do a little shopping.  It was a fun weekend for all 12 of us. 

Nathan also talked to his brother Darren over the weekend, telling him the our new......we wanted to tell them before we headed up there the following weekend for Nolen’s 4th b’day party, we didn't want our news to wreck his birthday!



January 14, 2011 the day of our first appointment at Allen's OBGYN Clinic in Cedar Falls.  I saw nurse Lori Hanson a nurse practitioner who helped me do a lot of paperwork plus my exam, she said everything looked great, which made me feel good!  Found out I was 9 weeks along plus that our due date is August 17, 2011, which is what we thought!  After work Nathan called his parents to tell them the news, his Mom didn’t believe us......2 new babies in the year of 2011.  Darren & Heather had just told the family over Thanksgiving that they were expecting July of 2011.  

I also called my Dad later in the evening and told him the news.......I asked him if he had a 2011 calendar and/or if he had anything scheduled for August 17th yet", he said "NO"!  I said "well you do now, you're going to be a Grandpa again", he was pretty excited!



Christmas Day!  Grandma Sally was in town and we weren't going to tell anybody else about our news till after our 1st doctor’s appointment but with Grandma being in town we thought it would be funnier to tell her in person instead of giving her a call and/or emailing her months.  Plus Mom kept telling us we should tell her because she wanted somebody else to know (aka Grandma and Gary) because it was killing her that she couldn't talk about it with anybody......I know how she felt!

We waited until it was just Mom, Gary and Grandma Sally left and Mom & Gary’s house and then we told her our BIG NEWS!  I had gone on the computer and printed off an August calendar and circled August 17th, the day I was guessing (or calculating from the help of the Internet) that would be our due date.  On that date I wrote “Baby Rausch is Due”.  Since Mom already knew we were more worried about what Grandma & Gary’s reactions would be…..they we both pretty surprised yet excited! 



Sunday, December 19th Mom and I ran to Kohl’s to do some shopping after church and on the way back babies, maybe because she keeps mentioning to us how much Carson would love a cousin on this side of the family, well before I knew it she was asking when I was going to the doctor for my yearly and/or if I was going to talk to him about how long we’ve been trying to have a baby.  I really couldn't even answer her, I didn't know what to say so I just started crying…...not being a crier she wondered what was wrong.  I couldn't hold it in anymore, so while we were sitting in the car in the middle of her driveway I spilled the beans!  She was very exciting for us and this new chapter of our life.  I was bummed that I couldn’t keep the secret in anymore…..we were trying to come up with a fun way to tell our parents....oh well!

We have really loved all the support we have received from family and friends as we've had a chance to tell everybody one by one our exciting news......why does August have to be so far away?  We know that it will be here before we know it, we just need to move onto the beautiful Spring weather and I think that will help.