Happy Holidays!

22 Weeks

What an exciting time of year! Shannon's finished her Fall semester (but still doesn't comprehend the meaning of "time off"), we've celebrated the holidays with family in NC, and we're about to embark on a road trip to MN for Christmas -- complete with fun stops along the way. 

But first, we need to update you on some exciting happenings...

• The baby is kicking up a storm now! Carl has felt it move a number of times and it's really fun to interact with our little one inside. 
• It weighs over a pound, so this fancy iPhone app tells us, and is the size of a papaya. Sure is a long way from that little sesame seed! 
• We (mostly) cleaned out the room we will designate for the baby, at least for the first few months until we upgrade to a new home. Of course, we use the word "room" loosely as it's technically a large walk-in closet in our loft. As long as it has a door to keep it nice and quiet in there for long bouts of sleeping... we can dream, huh?  :)
• Oh, yes... and one more thing... 

We found out our baby's gender during the ultrasound several weeks ago. It was really exciting and both of us were quite shocked. The only "hint" either of us had that it was a boy was that we both had multiple dreams about our baby and it was a boy in all of them. So... don't believe in any of the old wives tales, none of them were true in this case!  

Halfway There - 20 Weeks!

We feel like it was just yesterday that we were sharing our exciting news with you all. And now the adventure is half over! 

Just after Thanksgiving, we had an ultrasound at UNC Hospital. Our little one was measuring right on track with a "strong," 144bpm heartbeat. We were perfectly happy seeing the 10 wiggling fingers and toes but glad they covered all the medical bases, too.

The most interesting part of the visit is that baby decided to stay curled up in a ball, with its head down for the entire scan. It was not interested in being disturbed and put up a little show when we tried (kicking and flailing its arms). Shannon moved around, tried coaxing it - nothing. Stubborn little thing was not moving. To prevent us from staying for further testing, Carl decided to put his hand on the belly and move it all around and voila, the baby moved out of the position. Though it apparently has a preference for daddy, we appreciate that it inherited both parent's ability to stay curled up and sleeping for long periods of time.

Here's to 20 more happy and healthy weeks ahead...