Nothing much to report

Nothing that news worthy has happened over the last couple of weeks. We had a WONDERFUL Christmas. Since we couldn't travel to see any family, they came to us. My parents, brother, and NEWLY ENGAGED little sis, and her fiance, came up on the Sunday before Christmas and spent most of Christmas Eve with us. For Christmas day, we were SUPPOSED to go to Montgomery and have a big slumber party at Matt's aunt and uncle's house on Lake Conroe. Instead, we spent the day at Allen and Dena's and all the family ended up coming to us so it was great. I followed the rules and stayed on the couch the whole time, as hard as it was.

I'm still doing the same as far as contractions go..except I think they are getting a little more intense. I go to the doctor, this Thursday, Jan 3rd. Hopefully I'll get to add some activity, but if not, then hopefully the next week. By then I'll be 34 weeks and the doc says IF I went into labor around then, it would be a lot safer for little Brody. So we're continuing to pray that he's growing bigger and stronger everyday, so that when he comes, whether early or full-term, he'll be strong and not have any complications. However, as much as I want him to stay in as long as possible, I absolutely cannot wait to see him! I'm getting so excited to hold him, kiss him, and just cuddle with him. But..I'm trying to patient. He's got some more cooking to do!

He must know I'm talking about him...I've had like 3 contractions just sitting here on the couch typing this!

I'll update you again after my appt on Thursday. Oh, and I'll put up a new belly pic as well. (I'll break the rules and get up to take one)

Most Amazing Man Ever!

Matt graduated from Texas A&M last Friday, Dec. 14. I am so proud of him! He has worked so hard the last 2 years since we've been married to juggle being a husband, taxidermist, student, and daddy to be. It hasn't always been easy, especially this last semester, but he's always been so faithful to put God and our family first, and still managed to get through some pretty tough classes. He's AMAZING! Congratulations Matty!

However, that's not the only reason for this post. Since I was put on bed rest last Wednesday, he has been like...well, Superman! He caters to my every need...fixes dinner, gets me drinks, cleans the house, calls me when he's at work to check on me (and make sure I'm not getting up from the couch). He finished all of our Christmas shopping last night too! He's absolutely wonderful. I am so blessed! He cares so much about me and baby Brody and does anything possible to make sure we are healthy and ok. I love him more everyday.

I know my Matty will be embarrassed by this post and think it's silly that I put it up. But I had to. I am to make him famous, brag about him, and build him up with my words! Thank you Matt for being the best husband a girl could ask for. You are going to be an amazing father! Baby Brody and I love you so much!

And the verdict is in....

At my appointment this morning, it was confirmed that I will officially be on bed rest for sure the next 3 weeks, and more than likely until Brody is born. The contractions aren't getting much better, and a couple of other things are going on that we need to keep under control so that our sweet baby boy is not born sooner than desired. I am 31 weeks and 1 day, as of Tuesday, Dec 18. In 3 weeks when we re-evaluate the situation, I will be 34 weeks. She says after that point, it may not be as crucial for me to be on such strict orders and we may increase activity. If he was born after 34 weeks, things would be a lot better for him as far as development and how long he would have to stay in the hospital. But hopefully, he will stay in longer than even that...every week he stays cookin, the stronger he'll be.

So I'm doing exactly as told. I don't want to take any chances that could potentially be harmful to little Brody. She put me on medication to stop the contractions so hopefully that will help as well.

And big news...because of all this...I'm officially done with work! We stopped by after the appt to talk to my boss and explain everything and he is the most amazing person ever. He is so willing to do whatever he needs to do as far as my maternity leave and benefits, etc. I'm taking my last 7 weeks of maternity leave starting now and then I'll get a few more weeks of disability to make sure we're covered by the amazing insurance, until our new insurance kicks in. Even though I'm quitting to be a stay-at-home-mommy, they are still paying me for 7 or more weeks and I get all the benefits. It is such a blessing! More than likely, Brody may be born within these 7 weeks..and he'd be 38 weeks by then so that will be perfectly fine. But even if he wasn't, they are going to let me stay on as long as I need to, to make sure we're covered. How awesome is that?

So this is where I'll be for the next 3 weeks and possibly more...on my couch, with my Bible, laptop, books, tv remote, lots of snacks, and movies (that i'm not allowed to get up and put in the dvd player...but probably will anyways). I'm trying to be positive because I know this time is very important and I don't want to risk anything. But I'm such a "busy" person and like to get things done around my house..especially this time of year!

Which reminds me...I forgot to mention that the dr won't allow us to drive 3 hours to my parents this weekend for Christmas or to Montgomery on Christmas Eve to be with Matt's family for Christmas. So we're really bummed about that. But of course, our families are amazing and are working out ways to come to us for Christmas.

Who knew this would be the most relaxing holiday season ever?

Bed Rest? Seriously?

Oh what I wouldn't give for a chance to crash on the couch and take a nap, or just relax with my laptop somedays. So I would think the words "bed rest" would have been music to my ears. However, that wasn't quite the reaction I had when I was told yesterday that I had to be on COMPLETE BED REST for AT LEAST a week. The nurses exact words were "24 hours a day in bed or on the couch, can only get up to go the bathroom, can take 1 shower a day, and can eat one meal a day at the table if you just have to. The only place you are allowed to go by car is Matt's graduation on Friday morning." So why the drastic measures you ask?

Tuesday night I started having contractions. Being my first pregnancy, I had no idea what contractions felt like. All I knew is I was in horrible pain and my belly was as hard as a brick. I finally forced myself to go to sleep, thinking it was just some weird growing pain. Wednesday morning, the pain was gone but the tightness was still there. I couldn't feel Brody moving and that scared me. Finally about 9am I called the dr to see what they thought. They had me come in and do a non-stress test to monitor the baby's heart rate and check for contractions. Sure enough, I was having contractions 2 MINUTES APART! Brody's heartrate looked great and he was kicking at the monitors on my belly so that made me feel lots better. But the contractions, obviously, were still a concern to the dr. I am 30 weeks..I definitely did not want to be going into labor this early.

I was sent over to the hospital for more monitoring and was finally given an IV and a shot to stop the contractions. I wasn't dilating so that was a good sign..and they did a test to see if I was at risk for pre-term labor and it was negative. So basically I was just having contractions for no reason? maybe? I'm still not sure. They said it could be caused by dehydration or over exertion. However, if the contractions continued, I could eventually go into labor. After a little over 4 hours at the hospital, I was sent home with my strict orders.

So here I am... the morning of my first full day of bedrest. What to do..what to do...any ideas?

It's beginning to look a lot like...

This is my absolute most favorite time of the year! And for so many reasons!

First of all, this is the time we stop to really consider what Christ did for us. God sent his son to Earth to be born as a baby, live here as a man, and to die on the cross for our sins. The greatest gift of all. A gift that we should be celebrating all year long, not just one day in December.

Sadly, for many, this isn't even a time to celebrate the birth of Christ, but instead is just for spending way too much on gifts, decorations, and winning the "Best Decorated Yard" contest. The world gets so caught up in the "hustle and bustle" that Christ's birth is pushed to the back burner. In fact, where I work, we can not even say Merry Christmas to customers! We have to say "Happy Holidays." It breaks my heart to even think about it.

Don't get me wrong, I love giving gifts to my family and friends. Decorating the tree is the highlight of my year. And driving around to look at Christmas lights on houses makes me feel like a kid again. I love it! But these things are meaningless. Fortunately, Matt and I were both brought up in homes that taught us the true meaning of Christmas. Looking back, my fondest memory of Christmas morning is my dad reading about Christ's birth from Matthew 1. Before we opened any gifts, we would sit and listen to him read, then he would ask us questions about it, and we would pray. Of course at the time, I just wanted him to hurry up and get finished. But now, as an adult, and with a baby on the way, I am so thankful for that time.

Second to giving thanks to God for sending his Son, is decorating the tree. I actually hated decorated the tree when I was a teenager at home, but I think having my own home and family has made it more special.

However, I must say that I'm quite a stickler about my tree. Growing up we always had a tree with "kid" ornaments on it. My parents always gave us cute little Hallmark ornaments each year. So the tree was covered in them. No color coordinating, no matching, no uniformity of the placement on the tree. Of course as I child I loved the tree with all my ornaments on it. But NOW...I am very particular about the tree. And Matt is exactly the same way. It's quite funny! All of our ornaments are from a set...they are the same style and color coordinate. Each ornament is strategically placed on the tree to make sure that there is flow and uniformity. I know..its sick. The only ornaments on our tree that are not from the "set" are a couple of "Our First Christmas" ornaments...and I put those towards the back. When our children are old enough to have ornaments and care about decorating the tree, I don't know what we're going to do! They might have to have their own kid tree or something.

I know there are others of you out there that are the same as us...other OCD tree decorators. What do you do for your children? Do you sacrifice your own selfish desires and let your family Christmas tree be filled with sports figures and Barbie, randomly placed all over the tree, with gaping holes in some areas and clusters of too many in others? I realize that when Brody is born and is a little older, and has young siblings, our outlook on all of this may completely change. But right now, we love our OCD tree. And did I mention that the star HAS to be placed on last?

Here are a couple of pictures of Matt stringing the lights and the final product. (We didnt get any pics during the actual decorating process. It was too serious a job to be interrupted by taking pictures. :) )

Here is the final product. However, you can't really tell what colors our ornaments are from these pics. For some reason some of them look gold in the pictures. They are all various shades of blues, white, and silver. The colors of the tree skirt.

I love traditions (probably why I'm an Aggie) and I hope that Matt and I are able to start some with our own growing family. I forgot to mention that while we decorate the tree, we have to have hot chocolate. Ideally, I would like to have Christmas carols playing in the background, but this year there were some football games on so we nixed the carols. But the hot chocolate is a MUST, even if its 80 degrees outside. I learned of another tradition this past weekend that Kirby's family does that I loved! Does anyone else know about the hiding the elf game? It's going to be a must in the Palermo household during the holidays.

What are some of your family traditions at Christmas time?

Britney, A Belly, & A House

I never thought I would be a once a month blogger..my original intention was to update at least once a week. However, as you've all seen, that has not happened. So this might be quite a long post since I haven't updated since Oct 28. Not a lot has happened in the last month, but I have pictures!

For Halloween we struggled on what to dress up as. We wanted to incorporate baby Brody in our costume. What we came up with..well..quite ridiculous haha.

Yes, we were Britney and K-Fed.

Belly Shot

(28 Weeks)

House Update

I've been promising pictures of our new house for the last 3 months. We finally finished construction on our 3rd bedroom/study and have ALMOST the whole house organized. We still have a few pictures to hang, etc but for the most part..its done.

Here is the conversion of our garage to a bedroom. Thank you to Lance and Blake (matt's cousins) for their awesome work! If you need a carpenter, let us know! We will give you his contact info!

Before

After

And we can't forget the faithful family and friends who helped with the painting and tiling. Larra's parents (Larry & Tina), Matt's parents (Allen & Dena), Larra's sis Shelley, Leigh Ann, and Charlie. I hope I'm not forgetting anyone!!

(Matt and Charlie inspect the progress so far)

(Allen diligently lays the thin-set)

(Shelley, dad, and Matt grouting..the final stages!)

And here are the pics of the rest of the house. We would love to have you awesome people over anytime! well, I take that back..we would love to have you over anytime...after Dec 14. That's when Matt graduates and we're trying to get past that before we make any plans. Things are hectic for him these last couple of weeks. So let's plan something for next year :) Enjoy the house pics..they've been a long time coming!

(3 different angles of the living room)

(dining area)

(guest bathroom)

(our bedroom)

(our bathroom)

(Brody's pretty much empty room)

And that's our house! Seriously..the longest post ever!

24 down...16 to go!

I know, I know. It's been a while since I've posted. As some people have said "I've blossomed" since the last post. Brody is growing and so is everything else on my body haha.

There's not much new to report...we had an anatomical sonogram on Oct 11 at the hospital and the results were great. They said he is growing fine and everything looks wonderful. He is already such an active little boy...if this is any indication of what he's going to be like, I'm going to have my hands full! He gets it from his daddy :) I've still been pretty sick off and on. I don't think I posted about this in any previous posts...but I took off 6 weeks of work in order to try to recooperate and take care of myself and Brody. It's 6 weeks less of maternity leave I'll get in February, but who cares because I won't be going back :) Those are the most wonderful words ever! Let me say it again...I don't have to go back to work after Brody is born!!! I get to stay home and be the wife and mom I'm called to be and so desparately want to be! I've just finished my 5th week of being home and these last 5 weeks have been WONDERFUL! The sickness has interfered with me getting things done that I've wanted to do, but I have been able to cook, clean and help my husband in ways that are not possible when I'm working 8-5 everyday. When I go back to work on Nov 5, I will only have about 12 or so weeks left of working..hopefully I can make it!

Other than that, there's really nothing new as far as Brody goes. We have been really busy the last few weeks working on our house. We converted our garage into a 3rd bedroom/study so we have been very preoccupied with construction, painting, finding tile, etc. Laying the tile is our next step...won't that be fun. I've been promising pictures of our house and as soon as we get the room all done, I'll post some...PROMISE!

On top of handy man projects, Matt has been swamped with a semester long project for school. I keep reminding him he has less than 2 months left!!! Graduation is Dec 14! WHOOP!

So for all of our friends who we have neglected for the last couple of months who think we have fallen off the face of the Earth, now you know why. Our life is crazy..but then again, who's isn't?