Christmas Day!

I forgot to mention about our fantastic Christmas.

Christmas Eve we went to our church service at 5:30 and then headed towards Davenport following the service. There ended up being a large accident on I-80 so we were stopped for 2 hours. Thankfully, Ben had reminded me to pack the car with extra blankets, so we stayed nice and cozy during the wait.

Christmas Day we got up and headed up to my late Great Aunt's condo in Chicago. We had an amazing family dinner there with my dad's side of the family. Brie showed off and was adorable in her Christmas Dress from the Howards. She met for the first time her Great Grandma Spitzer and the Chalifoux family (my dad's sister & fam).

Here is an adorable picture from the day, I still need to get the good pictures from my dad. But I uploaded a few on our flickr site: www.flickr.com/photos/massung

ER Visit

Well Brieanna had her first trip back to the hospital. And no it was not to see the doctor, it was a trip to the Blank ER.

We had gone out to the mall and Target and on the way back to the car (not carrying any bags) Brie was strapped to me in the ERGO and I slipped on some major ice. Because she was in the Ergo I was able to catch my fall with my right hand and kind of cradle (although unnecessary) her with my left. Well I went down on one knee and she ended up hitting back her head on the cement.



So we got in the car, Ben looked at her, and I looked at her, noticed there was a large red area on the back of her head and decided it might be wise to take her in to the hospital. She did not loose consciousness or vomit or anything that would indicate a concussion, but we thought it might be wise. So we put a call in to our family physician and headed on our way to the ER. Our physician thought that she probably didn't have a concussion either but he thought it was wise to get her checked over. While on the way to the hospital she wasn't acting like herself, she was VERY tired, couldn't keep her eyes open and was not very smiley (not our little girl). So of course that freaked me out even more and reassured me that going to the ER was the right thing to do.

So we went back to our favorite place, Blank Children's Hospital where the ER staff took a look at her. The resident who came in and saw her, had actually seen her when he did a NICU rotation and remembered who she was based on her asymptomatic diaphragmatic hernia. That was great that he knew of her at least, and he was pleased that she has had no issues since leaving the hospital. He checked her over, a nurse and a doctor checked her over and gave her a clean bill of health.



So today, she's fine, happy and back to her goofy self. Thank goodness. And the large red spot on her head - is gone.

New Car seat

Well, in preparing for the new baby to arrive in March, I've begun to resarch carseats for Brieanna's new one.

Today I went to Babies R Us to try Brie out in several different car seats that I had looked at online with fairly high ratings. I was glad that I tested her in some, I found one that I thought I had liked online, but putting her in it made me realize how much I didn't like it. I had a 15% off coupon at Babies R Us so I was hoping to find one there but left empty handed. No big deal, just wanted to come home and do a bit more research.

So we went to Target, my favorite store, we looked at some car seats there. I didn't have a 15% off coupon for Target so I wasn't planning on purchasing one there. We looked at Britax at both stores. Britax is one of the top rated for convertible car seats, but little do people know that The Learning Curve makes one that is just as well rated by the National Highway Safety Administration. I found the "True fit" carseat online before I even saw it in the store. But then arriving at Target today I sat Brie in it, fell in love, and even better, it was on clearance for 15% off!! No coupon needed. Needless to say I'm very happy about the purchase, knowing that she's safe, and can be in the 5 point harness until she's 65 pounds. (Which will be a LOONG time from now) Here's the new car seat <http://www.learningcurve.com/product/detail/Y11006?locale=en_US> and a picture of Brieanna in it.

Kiddo's room

So yes, I'm still not revealing the gender, but due to advice from my fantastic brother <http://bradleyspitzer.blogspot.com/> we will now mention names so we don't confuse people.

Brieanna and the new baby have their crib's in the same room and I uploaded new pics of the completed room on our flickr site. I LOVE having the room completed and finished. Even though baby won't be here for another 13 weeks, so we hope, it's nice to know I don't have to run around large and trying to get things done.

Anyways, you can find our pictures at <http://www.flickr.com/photos/massung>, and on my facebook page. The room was painted that way for Brieanna, and really all we did was recover/obtain a new glider, and add a crib!

The bugs were inspired by some awesome decorative plates we got for our wedding from Tim and Teri Adams - we LOVE them and were our inspiration for the room. Someday I'll get a picture of them up on here.

Here is an old video of Big Girl B in the tub - I think it was taken around June? I don't know the exact date.

Anyways, here is a video of her now in the tub- my what a change! Daddy B has been making a fun noise whenever she's in the tub and she gets SOO excited and squirms away with a smile. This video didn't capture the best smile, but you get the idea.

Ahh... winter.

Well we survived the blizzard on Tuesday. They were predicting it to be this big thing and then it didn't turn out to be anything exciting. BORING.

Big girl B had her synagis shot today. Her Nurse Miss Jill came and administered it. Poor girl had to make the baby cry. Big girl B had the nice alligator tears and everything. Good news is she weighed in at 14 pounds 1 ounce. Not bad for the little squirt. We don't see her physician until January unless there is something wrong, so I have no idea what his opinion will be at this point, but I'm pretty sure he will be a-ok with it.

Baby is still moving around like crazy. The belly is getting larger and larger every day! We will hit the 25 week mark on December 28th and we will continue to be thankful for each day we are pregnant beyond that. I'm still feeling fantastic and look forward to seeing the continued progress of this little one. We feel incredibly blessed to be pregnant again and we know that God's hand, timing and provision will continue to be with us throughout this pregnancy just as he was with Big Girl B. No matter what happens, we know that it it all a part of His hand.

The Amnio for baby is scheduled for Tuesday, March 17th. We will know more about the lungs at that point and we will have a better idea of what day the c-section will be. I personally am hoping for the following Wednesday which would be the 25th. Big Girl B was born on the 25th, I was born on the 25th, poor daddy B was born on the 16th, so he's just left out. But since the amnio is scheduled for the 17th, we can't deliver before then. Oh well.

Well that's all for now.

Here we go again...

Well we have had a fun month so far, December 1st we got to experience seeing our little baby, on an ultrasound and finding out that so far so good. Baby is HEALTHY and weighs around 13 ounces. The ultrasound techs joked that this one would come out just as big as Baby B - which I'm now going to have to call Big Girl B! Weird. Of course she has no idea how her world is going to change, and I don't care to tell her just yet. You know kids, they don't always understand long time frames, so I figure we'll just tell her when it get's closer. HA.

We do know the gender of Baby - but we know that not everyone wants to know, so I will do my VERY best to not share the news on this site. It will be difficult, but I will try VERY hard.

We spent the weekend before Thanksgiving in Nashville, TN, staying at the luxiourious Spitzer B&B (my bro lives there), we are so thankful for their accomodations for our family. It worked out very well. We went down for a Youth Pastor's Conference and learned lots. It was a nice time to get away and for neither of us to worry about work. We headed back after the conference on the Monday before Thanksgiving and went straight to Davenport where we stayed at the other Spiter B&B (also know as Nana & Papa's house!). We determined before heading down the TN that it would be great to tack on a bit of vacationing at the end of the trip, so off to Dport we went. Although it wasn't a lavish location, we were so thankful to have the ability for Nana to watch Big girl B overnight and for daddy B & mommy B to go to a hotel and have basically a 24 hour vacation. Mommy B did this as a complete surprise for daddy B. (All these B's will have to make the next baby NOT a B name! Whew!) It was a nice vacation and was the first time we were able to get away TOGETHER for an overnight without Big Girl B. Thanks again Nana for watching her!

Speaking of Big girl B, she's been teething more! Which I say, bring them all on at once, so we don't have to go through it more than a few times. She's got two in on the bottom that are razor sharp, and then there are at least two coming in on top. She confuses us by sleeping through the night, every other night. So that means, tonight we will be awake, since last night we weren't. ;-) Oh well, the joys of being a parent. She get's her second synagis shot next week, and she will have her weight done again then too! She's been fairly healthy, other than one bug that she's had this week, which I'm not sure what even to call it, because it could also be hand in hand with the lovely teething.

Tomorrow is St. Nick's day and we are starting our new M home tradition of decorating the tree and the house and eating lots of cookies, I finally made daddy B his birthday cake/pie/cheescake last night (I know basically in time for his half birthday) but he rewarded me this morning by saying that it's so rich, he couldn't finish his piece. That's unusual! So now, I'm off to make him some of his favorite cookies, oatmeal scotchies. And then probably on to my favorite sugar cookies. We are excited for this new tradition.

We leave you with a picture that we took with the Z family and the S family when we were home for Thanksgiving!