Hello everyone..!!
Here are some pictures of the little Slate that is on his or her way....He/she is 14.5 weeks old and is growing very fast...!! Hannalize is doing well also. She has been feeling good most of the time, but with the occasional "not-so-hot" times as well. Pregnancy sure has some interesting side effects.....
It was so fun to get the ultrasound last week. We counted his/her fingers and toes, and he/she seems to like to suck a thumb. As you can tell, we don't know if it's a boy or a girl. We have made the decision to wait it out and to be surprised when the baby shows up in late November.
The baby is scheduled to show up on November 29th, which is the Saturday of Thanksgiving Weekend. For our friends and family in South Africa, Thanksgiving is always the 4th Thursday in November, and is a 4-day weekend. Hannalize will probably not be cooking the traditional turkey dinner that weekend. Joel will take care of that, while remaining ready to head out for the hospital at a moment's notice. Fortunately for us, the hospital is one block over and one block down from our house. Hannalize keeps telling me that I'd better shoot my deer early in the season, since I won't be doing much hunting as it gets closer to the baby's scheduled arrival.
We're working hard on deciding the baby's name. The deal was that if it's a boy, I get to name it, and if it's a girl, Hannalize gets to name it. I was informed yesterday that she has decided on a name....of course, that will be a surprise for everyone should it be a girl. I am still trying to figure out a name if it is a boy. I've had several ideas, but nothing has really stood out yet. I'm open to suggestions, so if you have any, please let me know.
We're going to start working on the baby room soon. It is going to get a new window, since the original window from 1922 lets in too much fresh air. We're also going to take off the wallpaper, give it a fresh coat of paint, and build a new cupboard. Hannalize already knows what she wants for the bedding and decorating scheme (and it is very cool..!!!).
All in all, this is really getting to be very fun and exciting as we draw closer to the new one's arrival. It seems like it's so far off in the future, but at the pace that time is going by, it will be here very soon..!! Neither of us can believe that we're already through the first trimester. It was only a little whle ago that we were making all of the trips to the clinic in Spokane and taking shots and hoping and praying...now we're almost halfway to the arrival...WOW..!!!
OK, we hope you enjoy the pictures, and we'll have some new ones in about 5 more weeks.
We also hope summer is showing up where you live, because it certainly is NOT showing up in North Idaho. It's cold, gray, rainy, and just plain nasty. We've had lots of flooding and only about 3 days that we could really enjoy outside. We thought we'd escape the rain and clouds when we left Western Oregon, but this year, it seems as if we're back in the Willamette Valley....
Enjoy the pictures...!!
Love,
Joel & Hannalize
