Baby Update

Last week I hit 18 weeks. It's going by fast, yet slow at the same time...if that makes any sense. There were a few big developments last week. The ears are now in their final position, and the cartilage is slowing turning into solid bone (that actually started in week 17) so he/she is flexing and moving around a lot supposedly. I THINK I felt some movement mid last week, but it was so subtle it was hard to tell. Due to the growing baby and Christmas time gluttony, today was the first day I couldn't button my jeans, so I got to put the hair tie trick to good use this morning.

One disappointing thing I read this past week was that I am no longer supposed to sleep on my back because my uterus can squish a major vein which would cause decreased blood return to my heart. Shane has to wake me up a couple times a night and nudge me to get on my side. My back has been hurting more and more too, and laying on my back is the only comfortable position for my back pain. Very annoying. Good thing Shane is there to help.

The only things I've really been craving to eat are green beans and oranges. I was wanting potato chips for a week or so, but i resisted the temptation and now I don't want them anymore...again, thank you Shane.

One of my sisters, Becca, sent me a prenatal yoga DVD this past week, so I'm excited to put that to good use this coming week.

Mom and Dad are going to Jamaica soon on a missions trip, so keep them in your prayers. Alright, that's it for now!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Just wanted to share a few pictures of the morning.
















Shane and his new shirt from the in-laws.
















My sister satisfying my need for chocolate with a orange shaped chocolate...and it's not hollow!





















In front of the tree with my new fleece on.





















And this one's for the family down in Louisiana that we are missing. Love y'all! Next Christmas y'all can pass around the baby instead of the phone. :)

We are so blessed to have a Savior that would sacrifice His Son for us as the greatest gift of all. Let us not forget this Christmas season.

Love, Shane, Rebekah and Baby K

The good and the bad...

It's been a rough start to the week. I'll go into more detail later, but the first news we heard was on Sunday night. We found out that the guy I gave Boomer to has taken him to the animal shelter. A girl I work with has been looking for dogs online for a month or so now. We have had converstaions about our old dogs, and I have told her about Boomer. She was on craigslist Sunday night and ran across a dog named Boomer. She didn't think it would be mine, but she texts me and sent me the link...and it was. Pretty devastating and heart breaking. I've cried and Shane's prayed for Boomer. It just stinks that there is nothing we can do to change the situation. So, with that said, please pray for me, and for Boomer.

On a good note, yesterday morning I had my 16 week appointment. Everything looks good according to the doctor. All they did was take a urine sample, blood pressure, listened to the baby'sheart beat, and measure my stomach. The last 2 appointments have been pretty boring. We will find out on January 10th what we are having. So, happy 2011 to us!

Shane and I had the rest of the day off, so we drove out to Mebane to get a couple warm tops. Our house is freezing, and it's freezing outside, so it was time to expand our winter warmbrobe a bit. It was nice to relax for the day, get some laundry done, and watch football.

Sorry this was a depressing blog, but we just have a lot on our minds.

Thanksgiving!

This past week was a lot of fun. Matt, Becca, Will, Mike, Konomi, and Grayson all came in town to celebrate Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad's house was packed. Will is walking now, which is a lot of fun to watch. Grayson learned more games in a span of 4 days than I thought possible. He played a lot of foosball. He didn't like playing with Uncle Matt because he was the Foosball Champion. No one could beat him, not even Grayson. Mom, Becca, and Shane were all sick with a nasty cold most of the weekend, so that drained them of energy. Shane and I had to work every day but Thanksgiving, but it was nice to see everyone when we could. The kids in my famiy do secret santa every year. Since we will all be scattered for Christmas, we exchanged gifts on Friday night. Shane is the newest member of the family, so he was the first to give his gift to his person, Konomi. We missed the Kirkpatricks/Harringtons this year but hopefullywe'll be able to celebrate together next year.

I will be 15 weeks along in a couple days. We have my 16 week appointment on December 13th and then we'll be able to schedule an 18 week appointment to find out if a girl or boy is growing inside of me. Last week, the 14 week email said that the baby's kidneys are now producing urine which is released into the fluid around him...kind of interesting to think about. A little more exciting than that, the baby is now squinting, smiling, frowning and sucking it's thumb. It's about 3 1/2 inches long (which is an inch longer than it was at my ultrasound on 11/11/10.)

The website I base everything on says that I should be feeling a lot better and more energized...but I'm not. I'm still tired all the time, and sleeping 10 hours a night, and don't feel too great before or after eating, but I'm sure it'll go away. I also use the bathroom 3 or 4 times a night which is getting old, but y'all probably didn't care to know that.

I'm sorry this is a bland pictureless post, but I'll try to grab some from my mom to post later on.

Funny story. I've been reading in magazines and on websites that I will have vivid dreams while being pregnant. Well, this morning Shane and I woke up at 5 am so that I could take him to work to have the car to take my mom to work at 7:45 and then myself to work because it was supposed to rain all morning. When I got to my mom's in between dropping Shane off and taking her, I fell asleep and I dreamed that something like Extreme Makeover Home Edition came to the house after Shane and I had left for work and COMPLETELY changed all of the work Shane had done. I ran around the house screaming and crying and yelling at the workers for messing up his work and yelling at Jeanie for not being appreciative of all Shane had done. I was SO angry. When Shane finally got home from work that day, I showed him all around the house (it had tripled in size somehow too) and we were impressed and all, but I was still angry that no one seemed to appreciate the work Shane had put into it. Pretty funny. Also in the dream, as Shane and I were eating breakfast before leaving for work, we saw lizards, rats, mice, and a little mole crawling around our kitchen floor. After the renovations were completed, all the critters were gone. Very strange.

Happy December to everyone!

Happy Birthdays and blessings!

Happy birthday to Mrs. K (today) and Meghan (last Saturday)! Shane and I were able to meet up with Mr. K, Mrs. K, and Meghan in Asheboro last Saturday for dinner and dessert. It was short, but we at least got to see each other and have some fun together. We all laughed a lot, which is easy to do when Shane is around.

We had another doctor's apppointment yesterday and got to meet one of the doctors at the OB office. She was very sweet. I did found out that I have Group B Strep, so I'm on amoxicillin for 7 days. I was worried when she told us, but the doctor assured us that this is VERY common and that the baby and I would be fine. We were able to listen to the heart beat again, which was great. We listend to the baby's heart beat and then mine so we could hear the difference. The baby sounded like I sound when I'm in the middle of a work out...must be working pretty hard in there.

Shane and I have been learning a lot recently. We've been on our knees in prayer and trying to spend time in the Word daily and are overwhelmed by His grace on us. We've been learning day by day to lay our burdens at Christ's feet and were humbled and blessed today. We are so thankful for those of you in our lives who teach us lessons and bless us with your obedience to Christ. We hope to learn by you and live the way you live. Thank you, you are an answer to prayer.

The baby!

It was confirmed today. I do have a baby growing inside of me. Very exciting! I cried (happy tears), and Shane was in shock (with a big smile on his face). I am 12 weeks along, the baby is 6.24 cm long and the heart is beating at 146 bpm...which is right where it should be at this point. We were able to hear the heart beat, SEE the tiny little heart beat, see fingers and toes, and see the brain. It was amazing. Wanted to share these pictures with y'all. They aren't the best of what we saw, but this is what they sent us home with. At least you can see that something is there. Woo hoo! God is amazing.

I put a poll on the blog for everyone to vote if they think we are having a girl or a boy, so VOTE! This will be fun. :)

Grayson Highlands National Park

All packed and ready to go!

Trying out the new hammock!

Climbing on the rocks.

Ponies on Mount Rogers

After 3 days of no showers...

Hope you enjoyed our weekend in a nutshell!

6 months married and pregnant

Who would have thought? We are pregnant, and very excited! I am about 9 weeks now, so the baby is the size of a grape. All of the organs have formed but are still developing. I think we find out the 18th week what we are having, but not sure considering we haven't made it to the doctor yet. Hopefully we'll get there in the next couple weeks.

The apartment is still working out great for us. There were a few cold nights (we don't have heat), but we just bundled up and were fine. As much work as it was, I'm thankful the upstairs had to be reinsulated, because it's a lot warmer than it would have been if Shane hadn't switched the insulation to something thicker, and put in the vent chutes. We were going to go out this week to buy a heater for the winter, but we got home a few nights ago and found a brand new heater in the garage. Jeanie had ordered a heater for us that is supposed to heat up to 1,000 sq ft, so we can put it on downstairs and it'll heat upstairs and downstairs. It was a very sweet, generous surprise.

This past weekend, Shane took us up to Grayson Highlands National Park in VA. We had a great time. The weather couldn't have been better. I got a lot of fun pictures, so I'll post those in the next couple days. There were wild ponies, the leaves were yellow, orange, and red. It was a beautiful weekend. My nephew, Grayson, called me on my birthday and I told him Shane and I were going camping. He asked if he could come because he's never been camping. I told him he could next time. Maybe Shane can take him out to Jordan Lake this summer. I had no idea we would be going to a campground with his name in it. He would have thought that was so cool.

Looking forward to hopefully seeing all of our family in the next couple months for the holidays!

Ready for fall...

Boy has it been a hot summer down here in Apex, NC. I guess there has been no motivation to update the blog since the house has been finished, but frankly, there are a lot more exciting things to tell everyone about than our accomplishments. We ran into some family friends tonight while we were out walking in the neighborhood and they shared a lot of wisdom. We live in the love and forgiveness of Christ. We just need to focus on how to love Him more each day we wake up. Our friend kept pointing to us and saying, "This is success. This is what success feels like. This is what success looks like. You will never know success more than you do right now. You are living for Christ." His whole point was that we shouldn't be living for anything but Christ. We go to heaven alone. We don't bring anything with us.

Shane and I have been learning a lot through our prayer life, times alone with the Lord, and experiences with people at work, circumstances at work, etc. Tonight's conversation was such a blessing...and we wanted to share it with y'all.

It's FINISHED!

The apartment is finished....well, close enough. Woo! We've been married a little over 4 months and 2 of those we lived with Jeanie. Pretty crazy. I have to say that it's great having our own space, with a fully furnished kitchen. What a blessing!

I know y'all have been impatiently waiting to see all of Shane's handy work, so here it is!

The kitchen. I'm standing at the door between the garage and the apartment. You can see Shane's door, our STOVE, pantry, table, and nicely painted floor.

Jeanie repainted the cabinets and they turned out great. There are a few brass knobs that we are going to take off and replace with glass knobs that match the other ones. Sorry for the mess.

Jeanie picked out a new countertop and sink, so Shane cut the countertop to fit PERFECTLY between the walls. He also cut a hole to put the sink into that was perfectly aligned with the cabinets above where the microwave sits. Very impressive.

Our new fridge and cabinet. We still need to paint it white to match everything else. I went grocery shopping for the first time in a while last week and I have completely forgotten how to shop. I came home and Shane asked what was for dinner...I couldn't put a meal together with what I bought. So, we went out to eat. Pretty sad. I took Shane shopping with me last night and he was very helpful. We cooked a yummy dinner tonight.

Our stove. It's so nice. Notice the cookie sheet with no cookies on it. We can't cook dinner and not cook dessert.

And now for the upstairs.

Shane watching TV on our new couch!

The bedroom without a wall separating it from the couch. It's nice, we can watch TV from the couch or the bed.

SHANE!

Shane's really happy we are living in the apartment. So am I.

Thanks for keeping up with all of the house updates. We are really happy with how it turned out and I'm pretty sure Jeanie is too. Shane worked so hard and we are thankful for the help from Matt Wall, Dad K, Dad P, David, Jeanie, and Tim.

Shane's birthday was last Monday. Mom and Dad P had us over to dinner and David and Sarah joined us. Mom made london broil, sweet potato wedges, zuccini and onions, salad, and lest us not forget the made from scratch Red Velvet cake with cream cheese icing. Mmm, mmm, good.

We opened gifts from everyone there. It was very special.

One of Shane's new pairs of shoes.

On his actual birthday he got some mail from family, opened gifts from me and from Mom and Dad K, received lots of calls, and Tim Gregory came into town and surprised him. I told Shane I had a surprise for him at 4:30, so he thought we were going somewhere. Tim pulled in right around then and surprised Shane. The 3 of us went out to Cracker Barrel for dinner and then drove out to Durham to say hey to Tim's mom. It was a fun evening. He felt very loved from everyone, so thank you for all of the calls, cards, and gifts.

That's it for now. We are loving our place and would love everyone to come by sometime and see it. Hopefully we will get rid of whatever is biting us before you come. We'll have to get a bug bomb or something.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET BOY!

Happy birthday to YOU, happy birthday to YOU, happy birthday to SHAAAAAAAANNNEEEE, happy birthday to YOU!
Love you Shane!

Pictures!

You know how people take pictures of their baby to document all the changes and growth and then email them to family and friends? I feel like that with this house...except it's not our baby OR our house. Hmm. Moving on...

Protecting ourselves from fiberglass. I think some snuck into my nose considering I've had quite a few nosebleeds. Gross.

Shane mudding. I think this was hour 88.

Picking at the bubbles in the wall upstairs for Shane to re-mud. He used an old piece of drywall so it was kind of messed up.

Mudding.

So dad was building a fort while Shane was working...just kidding. The camera lens got covered with drywall dust so you can't really see dad. He was helping put up the remaining pieces of drywall. Pretend Dad K is in the picture too because he did a lot of work the weekend before but I didn't get any pictures. :(

We decided to get the air compressor out to blow the dust out of the lens. After we cleaned the lens, we blew air on ourselves. I think we are going crazy.

David came over one night and had dinner with us, and before he left Shane had him help take the cabinets back off the wall.

Upstairs is FINISHED!

The beginning of priming downstairs.

Jeanie painting. I caught her off guard.

The interior door with molding.

Shane dropped the ceiling because of some 2x4's that were in the way. It was a pain, but it looks awesome!

One of the new light fixtures.

The cabinets and the light fixture above.

Ceiling fan in the kitchen.

All we have now is:

- a few more places leading upstairs that need to be painted

- painting the floor, bathroom, and stairs

- fixing the railing

- installing a smoke detector

- installing appliances

- moving in!

We are so close!

I'm assuming I'll be able to put pictures up in a week of everything completed with all of our stuff in place, etc. Very fun! Hope you've enjoyed this.

Close to finished...but not close enough.

Alright, time to get on your knees in prayer. We are ready for this project to be finished. Jeanie scheduled a final inspection for Monday morning, so we are hoping to have everything done by then. The final inspection will allow the electricians to finish their work, and it'll give us a certificate of occupancy. My dad is over there now working on it while Shane and I are at work. We are thankful for his help. There are a few little things that need to be done in order to pass (put up a hand rail for bottom part of the stairs, mud the side of the wall facing into the garage to make it fire safe (I think?), and other things I can't think of. Stuff we need to finish up that doesn't have anything to do with the inspection is caulking, priming, and painting the walls (which Jeanie has been working on the past couple days), mudding in some areas to smooth the walls out, and painting the floor downstairs. Jeanie picked a really neat color that I forget the name of (reddish, orange) that looks really good. The walls are cream and the cabinets are going to be painted white. She got a great new countertop and sink as well. Shane worked for a while yesterday cutting a hole in the counter top for the sink to fit into and cut it to the right length, he also put in the spray hose and faucet. I'll put pictures up soon. Thank you all for keeping up with everything and keeping us in your prayers. Please pray that we finish everything up by Monday so that it passes, and that if we don't, the city will be available to come back when we are ready. It'll be so fun to enjoy the space once we move in!

The construction continues...with smiles on our faces!

Wow, I didn't realize that it had been 3 weeks. Whoops. Sorry!

This past weekend was great! Mom and dad Kirkpatrick came in town to spend some time

with mom and dad Puffer and us. We went out to O'Charley's friday night and then came by the apartment to show off Shane's hard work. Then we finished off the night with cake, ice cream and coffee at the Puffer house. Saturday, ALL DAY, the dads and Shane put up the ceiling in the kitchen and garage area (downstairs). They worked from 10am-6pm, and the dad's help was huge. We are so thankful for that. I'm really bummed because I forget that I'm documenting everything and I didn't get any pictures of the 3 guys working together...so all I have is the final result. Just picture them all working and completing sweating through their clothes. With that said, they deserved the steak dinner that the moms prepared. After dinner Shane and I wanted mom and dad K to experience Good Berry's, a local frozen custard place that is so delicious. I think they loved it. I got pictures there, but I took them on the disposable camera we took on the honeymoon, and they aren't developed yet.

Sunday we all went to church together at Vintage 21, minus dad Puffer because he was teaching sunday school at Summit. After church everyone but me went to our favorite Mexican restaurant, La Rancherita. I felt horrible and today is the first day I am feeling better. It worked out well that I had Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off. I hated missing lunch at La Rancherita, but I know that we can make it happen again. We look forward to getting out to Monroe to spend some time fishing, shooting clay things, and eating at Jason's with the parents! One thing I wish my dad could experience is riding the dirt bike, but it's gone. :( Hopefully we'll get another one in the future.

Alright, and here are some picture of the apartment. Last post I think we were just finishing up the insulation upstairs. So here is what has happened since then...

Shane is boxing in the wires downstairs because they couldn't show in order to pass inspection (I'm learning a lot through all of this, I'm sure some of y'all already knew this)

A close-up of the wires...boring.

Shane putting up insulation on the ceiling in the garage.

The drywall upstairs! Matt Wall helped Shane with the drywal from the wall to the ceiling, and then Shane did all of the storage space drywall himself. He sweats through 2 pairs of jeans each time he works usually.

We work well together. :)

Shane picking up some drywall to take upstairs

Shane next to his WALL! He put up the drywall on one side of the wall downstairs.

There it is again.

The other side of the wall doesn't have drywall becuase we had to get the insulation on the ceiling and the walls downstairs checked before we could cover it up with drywall.

And here is the ceiling that the dads helped Shane with! Ah, I am so bummed I don't have pictures of them working. From what I hear, they had a good time.

The ceiling on the other side of the wall.

And onto the next thing...

Mudding begins! Mudding upstairs that Shane did last night.

And Shane is mudding the left side as I sit here, lazily, on the computer and write about it.

And here we are! Thanks for keeping up with us everyone! We thank God every night for what He has given us and the opportunities that He gives us to serve and love Him. Good night!