20 Weeks

1. How far along? 20 weeks today. We're at the halfway point! I can't believe it!

2. How big is Baby Girl Wade? The size of a cantaloupe(!) The way she is measured now changes -- instead of measuring crown to rump (since babies are mostly curled up before 20 weeks they're therefore hard to measure otherwise), she'll be measured now from head to toe.

3. Movement: she's currently tap dancing around in there as I type. As someone who worried pretty much the entire first 16 weeks of this pregnancy, it's really reassuring to be able to feel her move all throughout the day. Just when I start to worry about her, she'll give me a little kick.

4. Wardrobe: I made big strides in the clothing department this week! I reached my breaking point and made a trip to Macy's and Motherhood, plus ordered a few things from Old Navy (they haven't come in yet). Then, we went to Kohl's this weekend where my sweet mama bought me several cute pieces. Plus, a friend from work is going to pass along some of her stuff to me, so hopefully some of that will work. I won't be hitting the runway anytime soon with my vast wardrobe, but at least I have enough key pieces to hopefully get me through the next month or so.

5. The name game: we think we have a solid frontrunner, and are trying it on for size -- referring to her as that, practicing calling to her using that name (even sternly sometimes!) and thinking through all the implications (initials, rhyming names, abbreviations, is it too popular?). We've decided that we'll keep the name to ourselves (with some input from family) until we're absolutely sure, but we will likely reveal it before she's born. After all, a proper southern girl is going to need some monogrammed pieces when she makes her debut!

6. Baby stuff: my mom, sister and I did some preliminary baby store browsing this weekend. I was encouraged to find some really nice furniture options for around the price range I had in mind. But when it comes to baby stuff, there are so many options! I ended up dreaming about car seats that night. I can't even imagine how I'll get to a point where I feel educated enough to register. So, if you have any advice on products or brands you loved, stuff you couldn't live without, stuff you didn't end up needing, I'm all ears!

Screen Time

From last week's ultrasound:



Things I can't even handle:

• That little hiccup/head tilt she does.
• Her little hands up to her mouth.
• Her tap dancing little feet.
• She's already training to be a gymnast, with all those flips.
• That glorious heartbeat.

Happy Friday!

19 Weeks

I skipped my 18 week update, but it wasn't by mistake. We secretly had our anatomy scan on Tuesday instead of Thursday, and I just knew if I wrote an update post that night after hearing the news I would mistakenly slip a "she" or "her" in there somewhere.

So now that the excitement of the gender reveal is behind us, we can get back on track.

1. How far along? 19 weeks today.

2. How big is Baby Girl Wade? Either the size of a mango or a large heirloom tomato (random?) That translates to about 6 inches and 8.5 ounces.

3. Movement: I'm definitely feeling her move! It actually started a bit after the 16 week mark. About once a day, while sitting (at work, at the movies, etc.) I would feel what I was pretty sure was a baby flutter. But I was surprised to feel it so early so I was reluctant to say for sure that's what it was. But now I feel her multiple times a day, mostly when sitting but also sometimes when laying too. Nothing strong, definitely faint but pretty exciting.

4. Belly: I'm still in that stage where if you didn't know me you might not be able to tell whether I'm pregnant or just ate too many cheeseburgers. But the belly is definitely getting bigger and my clothing options are getting smaller. Speaking of which...

5. Wardrobe: This is what my once-full closet looks like now, with just the clothes I can still fit in (and some of these are becoming questionable):



Looks like a shopping trip is in order SOON.

6. Names: I had hoped that once we found out the gender, we'd just "know" what the perfect name was. No such luck. I think we have a few solid options, but I keep second-guessing all of them. Good thing we have some time.

7. Nursery: I actually had lots of boy nursery ideas in mind. Now that it's a girl? I'm totally stumped. And all of the furniture options (and prices!) can be really overwhelming. Looks like I need to be hitting up Pinterest and blogs for some inspiration.

I'm not really sure why, but MTV's 16 and Pregnant has been on in the background while writing this post. Something I'm thankful I don't have to worry about in this pregnancy: Will the baby's daddy stick around? (See also: Will I be able to graduate high school? How will I find a job/support the baby?) I guess if my only dilemma is which car seat to choose and whether to splurge on a glider rocker then I'm doing pretty good.

Baby Wade's Gender Reveal Party

As soon as we set our 18 week anatomy scan appointment for the Thursday before Easter, I knew I wanted to have a little gathering to let our families in on the news.

We live about an hour and a half away from both families and didn't want to tell them over the phone (and also deal with the "who found out first?" issue). Plus we wanted to have a little fun with it.

Easter weekend was already packed with lots of other activities and celebrations, so we set our party for lunch on Good Friday. Pressed for time and wanting to keep things casual, I sent out email invitations via Paperless Post.



Let me just take a moment to say that I was SO impressed with Paperless Post. So much faster, easier and cheaper than a paper invite (I was able to scrounge up enough credits to send all of my invites for free) and yet so much nicer than a traditional eVite. And from the customizable envelope liners to the animation of "opening" the invite, it's a nice experience for the recipient (at least I think so). Plus I think being able to see the guest list and others' responses is nice too. I'll definitely be using them again in the future.

As I was designing the invitations and planning my decor, I had visions in my head of a lovely Spring lunch in my sister's yard on the farm on a beautiful, sunny Spring day. But as tends to happen on important dates in my life, the weather decided not to cooperate. Rainy, cold and windy was the forecast, so we had to move the party to our church fellowship hall. Oh well.

Lee made me these long planters and I turned to my go-to party trick: growing wheatgrass.



I added pink tulips (blue flowers are hard to find!), but balanced them out with lots of other blue, green and yellow elements. I also created quick and easy burlap table runners with burlap from Joann and tied them up on the ends with ribbon.





For food, we stuck with a Spring picnic theme: chicken salad croissants, fruit salad, mini tomato pies, pasta salad, pimento cheese sandwiches, chips and dip and a nugget tray from Chick-fil-A (yum!). We also served cake a lemonade, but I didn't get a picture.

We had everyone "wear their guess" as they walked in the door.



Team Boy:



Team Girl (looking a little lean!):



We made the announcement by passing out Easter eggs with a peep inside to announce the gender (pink peeps for a girl and blue for a boy).



Well, the majority of our guests were WRONG, because Baby Wade is a little GIRL!!

Here's a video of the reveal:



Lee and I actually found out on Tuesday. I got paranoid that the baby might not cooperate and then I had this party planned and no gender to announce, so we moved the appointment up to Tuesday but didn't tell anyone (they could barely stand the thought of us knowing and not telling for 18 hours, much less 3 days).

Well, she did cooperate and immediately showed us her stuff, so we had fun having this secret all to ourselves for a few days.

Happy parents:



Britt and Erin:



Me, Katie and Erin





And a cute shot of Brevyn, just for good measure.

We had such a fun time celebrating with our families, and I can't wait to start planning for this sweet little girl! More to come soon!