paper or plastic?

we've cheated and let antonio open a few presents a little early this year. it's been so much sitting him down with a present in front of him and watch his little face look up at us saying "now what?". it took a few tries, but he's gotten really good at ripping the paper open. of course, once he rips open the paper it goes straight to his mouth. he actually cries when you take it away from him. i was talking with a woman at the bookstore and she said to me "oh, but don't let him eat the paper because it's toxic". and i thought to myself, these days, i don't know if the toys are any better!

bearing gifts

to keep up with antonio's appetite, i've starting pumping in the mornings. monday morning, i set antonio down on his back in his activity gym, surrounded by his toys. then i get myself set up. it's been a couple minutes and i look over at antonio, who is all of 10 feet away from me. well, much to my surprise i see that my son is quite contentedly chewing away on....the dog bone. i guess cornflower felt like sharing and brought the bone over for him to play with it. and the worst part is, i actually hesitated and pondered whether i should just let him chew on it another minute so i could finish pumping. he looked happy enough and he actually looked kind of cute. but don't worry, i quickly realized that letting your infant son chew a nylabone is not such a great idea.

will he forgive us for this?

Big Smile

This morning when I went in to wish Antonio a good day and say goodbye, he suprised me with a huge smile. I had expected him to be asleep as he normally is. It was like he purposefully had woken up and had been waiting for me to come to his room. It was definitely a good start to the day.
-Andrés

a very merry unbirthday

happy 6 months antonio!!

i can't believe my baby boy is already halfway to his first birthday. the time has flown by. every day he seems to do something new as he grows into his own little person. i miss the days when he was just a few days old, but i look forward to what he'll do tomorrow.

wish list?

it's that time of year again. the shopping malls are decorated, you hear christmas music in the stores, the air is getting crisp. i love the holiday season and i can't tell you HOW excited i am to put up our tree with antonio this year and start our own family traditions. of course with the christmas season comes the christmas shopping. people keep asking me what i want and if i have a wish list. and this year i'm really struggling to answer that. it's just different now that i'm a mom. what could i possibly want for myself when i have antonio? i've already been given the greatest gift of all.

my new motto

i've been baking cookies like a madwoman the past 3 days. and andres will testify that i'm a bit of a disaster during the baking process. usually the cookies come out pretty good but the process of making them is another story. well now that i have antonio i'm trying not to stress over it TOO much. so i have a new motto for when:

- you add almond extract by mistake to your tricolor spumoni cookies that you've spent an hour on already
- when your cookie gun explodes trying to make orange spritzes because your husband is the only mexican in the world that doesn't eat chocolate
- when you're halfway into making chocolate mint cookies only to find that you have no peppermint extract

i just shrug my shoulders and say "qué se va a hacer"

my latest obsession

children's books!!!! my goodness, it is sooo hard not to go crazy at the bookstore. and even though antonio is only 5 months old, i'm already starting to find favorites. the current frontrunner: tomie depaola. i remember the story of strega nona from when i was a kid and when i looked him up i found several other titles, including a mexican cinderella story. i love his illustrations in particular. fortunately, andres has been able to stay a step ahead of my obsession and yesterday we went to the library as a family where i ended up getting tons of books to read to antonio over the next few weeks. i'm looking forward to each and every tale and picture. what an adventure!!

typo

so when i found out i was pregnant i joined babycenter.com and found a group of women online that were also due with their first child the first 2 weeks of june. over the past year we've become good friends and i've been fortunate enough to meet a few in person. one of them's name is christi. i was posting a comment to her the other day about another group of us getting together again. however, i made a typo in my post. the result: i asked our Lord and savior if he wanted to go to ikea.

the best medicine

i am convinced that if i could bottle antonio's laughter and sell it, there would be a lot less disease in this world. it is impossible to feel anything but joy when you hear that sound.

sense of touch

sometimes i co-sleep with antonio. he just falls asleep in my arms, both of us on our sides, facing each other. as he falls asleep, he reaches out his little hand and strokes my face. it's like he's learning my face with his hands, to feel his soft little hand moving over my lips, or squeezing my nose, or brushing my cheek. it is just the most wonderful touch in the world!!

old saying

whoever started the saying about not crying over spilled milk had not just spent 15 minutes using a breast pump to get said milk.

after waiting at the doctor's office for an hour and a half

you realize how cold 68 degrees really is. you hope that your son's cries during his shots aren't too bad because, for the first time, you forgot to wear nursing pads. you panic that you're doing something wrong because your son weighs 13 pounds and the baby in the waiting room that is one week older than your son weighs 18 pounds. you learn the most horrible sound in the world is hearing your baby scream in pain from his shots. you wish someone had come to the appointment with you so that you could use the restroom. you really wish you were closer to home. you want to cry from realizing how overwhelming motherhood can be.

but then the doctor comes in and tells you to keep doing what you're doing because your son looks great, and everything seems a little better.

Bike Commute on New Frame

I finally was able to ride my new frame today. It felt really good, made the hills easier. My only problem I had was that I guess I didn't tighten down the screw for the saddle enough, because for the first half of the ride, I was thinking how it was really weird, but it felt like the frame was pushing me backwards off of the seat. And I finally got to a point in the road where I could pull over to not have cars zipping right by me, and low and behold, my saddle was almost pointing up. So I had to loosen it, and then fix it, and then tighten it down. The second half of the ride felt much better, but due to my roadside tune-up of the saddle, I almost missed my bus, but was able to grab the very last seat before it left for midtown Atlanta.
-Andres

superstitious and stupid sunday laws

i take the blame as being the one solely responsible for the redskins losing this past sunday. i did not buy the lucky beer, pacifica. i was so mad at myself because i remembered on sunday morning that i didn't buy any pacifica the day before and because of the sunday laws here in georgia, i couldn't buy it yesterday. i was nervous all day because i knew they would lose because of it. and sure enough they did, and it was an UGLY loss. 21 unanswered points. ugh.

andres makes fun of me for being so superstitious during football games. i try to explain that that's how it was when we were growing up, and now we're all like that. like last season, my nephew was "made" to watch the redksins because he was a lucky charm. or one super bowl year, my dad kept making my mom go upstairs because she would bring them luck if she wasn't watching and he would just pound on the ceiling in the basement to let her know that something good had happened (as if she couldn't tell from the shouts). and the sad thing is, it seems like the redskins can only do well if antonio is napping. i may be very superstitious, but i don't think i could go as far as to make my 4 month old son take a nap just so that my team wins. or could i...

the shepherd and her sheep

as annoying as all the licking is, i love that cornflower loves antonio. she looks after him as if she were tending to her flock. when she hears him on the monitor, she usually beats us upstairs to his room. when he cries, she whimpers. she sleeps in his room, as if to keep him protected. i know that, someday, antonio and cornflower will be the best of friends and they'll spend hours delighting in each other's company. i just wish i didn't have to make so many trips to antonio's room in the middle of the night only to find that it's just the dog.

crazy hormones

pregnant or breastfeeding moms should not watch the last of the mohicans. my goodness, talk about a sobfest. i think i may need to redo my make-up this morning. and the thing is, i've seen this movie about a hundred times!!

the best part of waking up...

some mornings antonio sleeps in bed with me after his 5:00 feeding. one of my favorite things about it is when i wake up and watch him sleep for a little. and then he slowly wakes up, looks right at me, and gives me a huge smile, as if to say "good morning mami!". makes my heart melt every day.

careful what you wish for

when antonio was born there were moments where i wished he were older and sleeping through the night. but now he is older and sleeping through the night and i'm wishing for those first few days home from the hospital when he was so tiny. we started putting him in his crib in his room over the weekend and i think it's been harder on me than on him. i even slept on the floor of his room the first night. i know he's just across the hall, but after having him sleep by my bedside, and sometimes in my arms in my bed, he seems so far away. he's growing too fast! before i know it he'll be starting his first day of school, leaving for college, getting married and having kids of his own.

i completely understand how some people can have such large families. i went to visit my coworker in the hospital last week as she just had her baby, and it really hit me how much i miss being pregnant and the whole experience of giving birth. there's something about the newness of a newborn. the exhiliration of meeting your child after 10 months of waiting. i don't think there is anything that can replicate that feeling, i don't even know how to describe it. it's such a wonderful feeling and is almost addictive. almost makes me want to start trying to have another one already.

hail to the redskins!!!

they won!!! of course with the win comes the torture of actually having to watch. fortunately, here in atlanta i only had to sit through the last 10 minutes of the game, including overtime. that was enough for us. poor antonio, he's going to have to get used to it too. poor baby was asleep in my arms and when they almost scored on the last play of the game to win i jumped off the couch and yelled. antonio woke up scared and started crying, i felt so bad. andres may forbid me for holding antonio during games, he actually thought i was going to throw him (i was NOT). it actually hurt to hold in my yells/cheers so as to not wake up antonio a second time. it's going to be a looonnng season.

Ansley Park

Today at lunch I went walking and found a lovely pocket park hidden by trees. Dappled in shade, it has little cascades that empty into two pools of water. The flowers reach out past the rocks to let their reflections play along the water's rippling surface.

futile

i give up. i am constantly trying to keep cornflower from licking antonio. i don't see what the point is though. i turned away for a moment while antonio was in his bouncer. cornflower seized the opportunity of course and the look of sheer joy on my son's face when i turned back and found the dog licking his face was priceless.

it's official

antonio was finally baptized two weeks ago on August 25, 2007. deacon bob did a wonderful job with the ceremony and made it extra special by allowing my niece and nephew to help. it was so wonderful to have our family and close friends there. every person there i know will (and already has) play an important part in our son's life, so i felt so blessed that they could be there the day antonio officially joined the church.

i wondered at what God was telling antonio as he held his head up and was attentive throughout the ceremony, seemingly hanging on every word of deacon bob. i know that angels were whispering in his ears.

touch of grey

the past few weeks have been such a blur, i feel like i'm just getting back into the swing of things. the last sunday in july, the three of us were at home relaxing in the afternoon when we got a very unexpected phone call. "se nos quemó la casa, juli". to hear my father tell me that our family home had caught fire was...well, there's no words to describe it. apparently the house was struck by lightning and started an attic fire. we were blessed that it happened on a sunday afternoon and that the neighbors were home to knock on the door and tell my parents their house was on fire. the smoke detectors hadn't gone off yet because the fire was only in the attic. as my mom watched the siding start to melt away she started having chest pains. she was taken to the hospital where over the course of the next two days we were again blessed to find out that she has no heart disease and it was not a heart attack. simply a broken heart at watching 30 years of memories go up in flames. i went home as soon as i could to visit and help out in any way i could. but it turns out my son was more helpful than i could ever be. there is something about a baby's smile that seems to make the world disappear and you just forget about everything bad in the world for a few brief moments. though i know the fire was probably always somewhere in the back of their minds, i think antonio's smile and bright eyes helped in the healing process.

as for the house, the damage from the fire itself was minimal. the water damage, however, was not. it will be several months before my parents can move back into the house as the house has to pretty much be rebuilt on the inside.

it's hard to describe how i feel about the fire. our house on mulberry bottom lane was the only house i ever lived in until i got married. yes, i know it's just "stuff" that got ruined. but it's more than that. it's the memories that go with them. there are things that have been ruined that i will never be able to show my son and say "see, this is the dollhouse that i was given that your abuelo carlos glued on each shingle one by one" or "when your abuelo carlos would go on business trips, your tío and tías and i would take turns to sleep in this big bed with your abuela julia" or "this is where your abuelo carlos would tuck his cookie tin at night and i would come home from school and eat the marble cookies". there will be new things to show and share with my children, but it just won't be the same. even though it will be the same house, it will not feel like the same home.

a little disturbing

i was changing antonio's diaper the other day and was a little disturbed by the picture on it.

is it just me or does it look like ernie has been eating alice b. toklas brownies?

what's worse than having ants???

BABY ants. ugh!!!!

things i've learned so far

motherhood has taught me so much already. for example:
- there is no such thing as dinner time. sure enough as soon as we sit down, antonio decides he MUST eat. i guess he feels left out.
- there is no such thing as a quick errand.
- drying my hair is a thing of the past. i'm lucky i can shower at all, or even brush my teeth some days.
- "pregnancy brain" doesn't go away after having the baby. the other day i put bread crumbs away in the fridge and i walked out of the house with the baby without his car seat.
- just when you think your heart is going to burst with love, your son does something else that makes you love him even more.

and much, MUCH more...

first movie

antonio has officially seen his first movie!! we decided to take a chance and go see harry potter 5. the movie was sooo good, though so much had to be left out because the book is so long. antonio slept through most of it. he only decided to be awake the last 30 minutes so i walked around with him along the side of the theater to keep him happy. i'm so blessed...i have the best baby!!

twinkle toes

i confess i am addicted to "so you think you can dance". i think i watch every episode at least 3 times before i delete it from the tivo. i really enjoy my thursday and friday mornings now because i put on the show and antonio and i dance around the living room. we're nowhere near as good as the people on the show obviously, but we have lots of fun. he LOVES to dance. i think his favorite so far is krumping. and this morning he was smiling like crazy while i moved his pudgy little arms and legs while he was in his bouncer. sooo cute!!

what's your superpower?

it's been almost 5 weeks since antonio was born and motherhood is amazing! every day i love my son more and more and i love watching how he's already growing into his own little person. i admit, it was much tougher at the beginning than i thought it'd be, but it is more than worth it. every day antonio is alert a little more, smiles a little more, looks right at me a little more. i don't think there are enough words to describe how being a mother makes you feel. and i have to admit, one of my favorite things is the feeling i get when all he wants is to be held, but only by me. it's like some sort of mommy superpower, the ability to be the only one who can calm him, to be the only one he wants sometimes. i revel in every moment of it.

Antonio Domingo Stell

Sorry it has taken us a while to post (we've been a bit busy, but we are now finally starting to get a rhythm to things). But here is the exciting news!!

Antonio Domingo Stell was born June 1st, at 7:20 pm. He was 6 pounds 13 ounces, and 19 inches long. We'll do our best to keep updating our picture site of him. Everyone is doing fine now, Antonio is steadily growing, and Julia is recovering from the c-section well. I find it very surreal that Antonio is here, and the 4 grandparents just couldn't get enough of him. It is just so amazing holding him and seeing how he is slowly staring to interact with us.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

last day

today is my last day of work.

and, i am totally taking my stapler.

National Bike to Work Week

I have started working at Perkins + Will this Tuesday, and I am really enjoying it. I am working on a research and development laboratory in Shanghai. It sounds like it is similar in concept to the research laboratory that Carlos works at (Sloan-Kettering Building). I have been taking the bus everyday, and today was my first day of riding my bike to the bus stop, I figured I'd start now, since its the National Bike to Work Week. You can see my morning bike ride, just click on the dashboard to see some cool information on it. My evening bike commute seemed harder to me, although it didn't really take me that much longer time-wise, but it felt great to get to work after having ridden to the bus stop.

Falling into Place

With God's help things seem to be falling into place. I had my thesis presentation this past Monday, and it went well. I accepted a job offer with the company Perkins + Will. I am really looking forward to working there. They are really into sustainability, but not only in their practice, but in the office as well. All the power they purchase is green power (wind or solar) and do things like give incentives for people to take mass transit or bike to work. They even have a shower in the office for people who do bike in. And our medical benefits retroactively begin my first day, so God willingly that will help us out with the hospital bills.

So I am almost done with school (perhaps forever). Just two presentations and one final exam left!!!

unfit

if you want to see something amusing, watch an 8 month pregnant woman try to do prone walk-outs over a swiss ball without falling off. or trying to play hopscotch.

i'm starting to think i'm not really fit to be teaching balance and coordination to my kiddos anymore.

free advice

never make a pregnant cuban woman angry.

highlight of my day

the highlight of my afternoon: a co-worker brought in one of her baby goats to the clinic today and then proceeded to ask me if i could do physical therapy on the goat. i don't think i've laughed that hard at work in a while.

coming together

this past saturday i went to a consignment store in midtown to look at a glider i had seen on craig's list. the one i had ordered from target fell through, it was a big fiasco and i won't bore anyone with the details. the end result was that i had to find another glider. so like i said, i went to the store to look at one and it was really pretty and in great shape. and when i got there, she immediately took 50 bucks off the price. so i snatched it up because it was another great deal, i was so excited! well, the store also happened to be about 1/2 mile from IKEA so of course i HAD to go. and it was a good thing i did. the shelves we had been looking at online are being discontinued and so they were all 60% off!! another great deal!! and they only had 2 left of one of the kinds of shelves. so it was perfect timing. of course, i got some other things for the nursery, you just can't beat IKEA's prices. andres asked me to wait to put the shelves together so he could help, but i put together one of them just to see it. here is a picture of some of our nursery stuff. other stuff we got were curtains, a toy organizer, and a blanket. i can't wait to get the walls painted and start hanging stuff on the walls. and we need to paint the glider black as well. i can't believe it's only 9 more weeks!!!!

Sizemore Group Interview

This past Wednesday I had my interview with the Sizemore Group. It went very well. They do some interesting mixes of work, with a strong emphasis on sustainability throughout. My next interview is this coming Wednesday, hopefully it goes as well as my first two.

Smith Carter Interview

Friday March 9th was the Georgia Tech Architectural Career Fair. It went really well, and as an outcome of the fair I have been talking with a few firms here in Atlanta. My first interview was yesterday, and I was really happy with how it went, and really liked the firm. It was with Smith Carter Architects. They are based out of Canada, but have an office here. They do work all over the world, and due to me speaking spanish, I may get to work on the jobs in Mexico and Brazil, and get to go out there for client meetings and site visits. They do primarily lab buildings, as you can see from their website, but they are attempting to make the buildings as sustainable as possible. Which is a admirable challenge, as lab and medical buildings use a lot of resources just in their daily functions. I see trying to make these buildings green as an exciting challenge.

Tomorrow morning is my next one, hopefully it goes just as well.

case of the mondays

i definitely had a case of the mondays today. just one of those blah kind of days. you know it's not going to be a great day when you start off your day by knocking over a bowl of milk with your boobs. also, it doesn't help when you are somewhat nauseous to begin with and then one of your co-workers goes into detail about how one of her goats has mastitis and she had to get all the milk out and it was like a strawberry milkshake coming out. i don't think i'll ever drink another strawberry shake.

what am i turning into?!

my belly is starting to get so big that i have a hard time kneeling during mass without my belly getting in the way. it's super uncomfortable because my belly is getting squished against the missalettes. so i've become one of those people that keep their butt on the seat while they're kneeling. i hate it!! years of catholic school have made that one of my biggest pet peeves (i won't go into girls wearing shorts/skirts with "juicy" on the butt. yes, there are girls that wear that to church. i know. like i said, don't get me started). i know my half sit-half kneel is for a "good" reason, but i just can't get over it. look what i've become!!

Recycling Station

We decided to finally start recycling even though they don't pick up in our neighborhood. So we now have a recycling station in our back patio, that we can then take once a month to recycle. I know, not very exciting, but I feel better about how much we are now sending to the landfill. And now we have a nice bench to use and enjoy our patio with.
-Andres

no luck

we didn't win the lottery. :(

golden pig

so this is the year of the pig. but my brother made me aware of the fact that it's not just any pig year this year. it's the year of the GOLDEN pig. apparently it only happens once every 600 years. supposed to be very good luck and those born in the year of the golden pig will have a life of good fortune and prosperity. it was keeping this in mind that i decided to buy a lottery ticket today. a bunch of coworkers and i went in together and got 10 tickets for tonight's drawing, a record 370 million. come on golden pig!!

first big purchase

so today was exciting in that we made our first big purchase for the nursery!! we ordered a glider from target. it was such a blessing because it was an item very high on my wish list but we couldn't find one we liked in our price range. but target was selling this one 60% off and we had a code for another 10% off. so we got a GREAT deal on it. i can't wait for it to get here, even though it won't ship for another month. it comes in white so we'll probably paint it black to match the crib we are getting. i can't wait!!!

like a kid in a candy store

last weekend andres and i went to target. we were really there to get a bunch of non-toxic cleaning supplies (guess who's influence). but we ended up just going through the baby section and the toy section, just to see. it was so cute to see how andres' eyes lit up when we found this whole section that had little dragon and knight action figures/figurines. i don't know if we've mentioned this before but the theme of our nursery is a sort of enchanted kingdom type theme. dragons, knights, castles, etc. andres was so excited that he decided that we had to register at target right then and there. and sure enough we registered for a bunch of little jousting knights and dragons for our son. i think it's hard for andres sometimes because since he doesn't experience all the physical changes, i feel like he feels left out some of the time. so it was so sweet to watch because andres knew he was picking stuff out for his son.

just like how at night when andres reads to his son, he can feel our little monster kicking when he hears his father's voice. andres loves it and i'm really happy that he gets to experience that bonding already.

life changes

i did it! i bought our first pack of diapers today! you think to yourself, 10 bucks for 40 diapers, not too bad. but then i remind my husband that this one pack of diapers will probably only last about 3 days. so much for decreasing our carbon footprint.

it's slowly becoming more and more real that this is actually happening. we are having a son! it's just so hard to believe sometimes. but it's little things like this that remind me how having a baby is really changing our life. it took a lot of willpower, but i passed on buying cookies, frozen pizza, and other non-necessity groceries because i wanted to get the diapers instead. (i couldn't pass on the ice cream, but that is truly a necessity these days and my little cookie monster is demanding it. how can i deny my son his ice cream? after all, if i wasn't getting him his cookies, he should at least get his ice cream.)

i can't believe it's only about 3 months to go! hopefully he'll have a name by the time he is born.

bad Catholic

is it wrong of me to have thoroughly enjoyed not having to fast this year? there are definitely some perks to being pregnant (aside from having this wonderful little person growing inside of you).

this is off topic from the title of the post, but i saw my belly move the other night!! it was the coolest and weirdest thing i've ever experienced! it was so cool to SEE that there's someone in there, yet it almost grossed me out at the same time. it felt like the scene from spaceballs (yes, i know it's a rip off from alien, but i like the movie spaceballs better) where the little alien comes out of the dude's stomach at the diner and does a little song and dance. i just sat there and laughed at my stomach for 10 minutes.

i confess...

i don't get my eyebrows waxed on a regular basis. and yes, i have dark, somewhat thick eyebrows. and obviously i don't care.

so why is it that every time i go to get a manicure, whoever is doing it gives me the third degree on why i don't get them done. it's none of their freakin' business! and, why would you tell an obviously pregnant lady that she has bushy eyebrows?! i just wanted to reach across the table and pull out her eyebrows hairs with my bare hands. and then of course, i wanted to cry. (gotta love the emotional rollercoaster of having out of control hormones.)

i have more important things to do with my life than worry about the shape of my eyebrows. so just leave it alone!! i'm not paying for your opinion on my eyebrows, i'm paying you to PAINT MY NAILS!!! this must be part of the reason why i don't get my nails done very often.

going nowhere

andres and i came to the decision over the weekend that we will not be moving to baltimore this summer. we have decided to stay here in atlanta for a while longer. while we are disappointed that we have again had to postpone moving closer to family and friends, it is probably the best decision for our growing family. trying to get the house in order and selling it now has proven to be more stressful than we had anticipated. and the prospect of having to move at least twice within just a few months of our son's birth is too much. it's not fair to him. we want to really enjoy this time of preparation and enjoy being parents for the first time after the birth of our son. by staying here, we can also start to prepare our little cookie monster's nursery. andres can also focus on his schoolwork during his last semester. so, though it was a tough decision to postpone moving, it's for the best.

sad times

it's reading articles like this that make me want to adopt the thinking in the movie "the village". let's just go off in the middle of nowhere and create a little community that doesn't buy into all the bull of today's society.

don't you just love how they call it the cervical cancer vaccine? let's call the kettle black a moment and tell everyone what it REALLY is, a vaccine for genital warts. that's right, genital warts. sounds gross, but that's what it is. it's those nasty pictures that we all had to look at in sex ed. it's just been all twisted and everyone wants to make it sound better by calling it HPV and now let's just call it cancer. let's face it folks, it's warts.

and, let's not start saying that genital warts causes cancer just to scare everyone. sure, it increases your RISK of developing cancer, but it is not the same as cancer. these people must have done really poorly in geometry and the transitive property. A does not equal B in this case.

just had to vent. i really could go off a lot more on this topic, but i'm rather hormonal and i would rather not include the several choice words i'm really thinking. definitely makes me worry about what sort of crap doctors will be trying to brainwash us with when my son is a teenager.

cookie monster

i've come to the conclusion that, unlike his father, my son loves cookies. chips ahoy in particular. every time i eat a couple of them (it's never just one!), our little bean starts jumping around like crazy. i know it's not the healthiest habit, but sometimes i eat the cookies only to feel him move more. i hope this means that he doesn't take after his father and actually LIKES chocolate.

you've probably figured it out...

if you read andres' post about the kick, then you probably have figured out that IT'S A BOY!! the weather held out and we were able to make it to the ultrasound without any trouble. everything looks good, our little boy was moving all over and playing peek-a-boo. it was such an amazing moment. it still seems surreal to me (us) sometimes.

my parents just happened to be passing through atlanta the day of the ultrasound so they were when we found out. andres and i were in such shock during the ultrasound at seeing our baby. but when the technician moved the wand and no one was really saying anything, my mom was the first to exclaim "it's a boy!"

it was such a wonderful moment seeing our son, i didn't want it to end. it's been a lot of fun picking out stuff for the nursery keeping our SON in mind. we'll post some photos of things we've picked out soon.

it's a boy!! all we need now is to decide on a name!

Kick

Last night was the first time that I definitely felt our son kick. Julia has been able to for a while now, but up until last night, I was never truly sure if it was just my pulse, Julia's pulse or the baby that I was feeling. But last night there was no question. I was so excited, and truly amazed. He started kicking a ton after that first kick, as if to make sure that I knew it was him.
~Andrés

Fun Game

So I've set up a little game where you can guess the baby's sex, weight, day/time of arrival and so forth. I'd love to see what everyone's guesses are. Though anyone who wishes me a 10 pound baby is no longer my friend. Have fun!

Guess Baby Stell's Height and Weight (and more)

The person who wins gets to pick the name! Heheh...

figures...

figures that the one day this year that there is snow in the forecast for atlanta is the day i have my ultrasound scheduled. i don't care if the dogs need to learn how to pull a sled, we are going to that ultrasound!

The countdown

Only 3 more days until our big ultrasound! I can hardly contain myself! I can't really think of anything else to say because I'm just so excited!!!

Growing

I debated on whether or not to post a belly picture, but decided to go ahead. My belly isn't that big yet, but I am wearing maternity clothes almost exclusively. It's just so much more comfortable! Anyways, here is Baby Stell 18 and a half weeks. We find out the sex on Thursday! Only 6 more days!

Why I do it

Sometimes I get very frustrated with my job, whether one of my kiddos has a total meltdown or I get buried in paperwork. But there are definitely days that have moments that make me smile and help me remember why I do this.

On Tuesday I was working on skipping with one my kiddos who is autistic. He usually does pretty well with it but I hadn't seen him in a few weeks and he just didn't feel like skipping. He was getting very frustrated with me (and I thought he was going to hit me like he is often known to do) but instead he turned around, gave me a really mean look, and yelled at the top of his lungs "spaghetti!". It was so hard not to laugh in his face. I still laugh out loud when I think back to it.

Summer of Baby Stell

We may need to change the name of our blog, as bigger things are going on this summer than the dog's rehab. We're having a baby! Some of you may have already heard through all the grapevines, but our baby is due on June 9, 2007! We are sooo excited! We plan on finding out the sex in a couple weeks so we'll post it on the blog (we will try very hard to keep more up to date on the blog) First trimester morning sickness wasn't awful, but definitely happy that it's over. Julia is now really excited about her growing belly starting to show (AND getting to buy new clothes!). Andres is excited about becoming a dad and likes doing research on strollers. He even wants to find (or invent) a pack 'n play that's iPod ready!

We feel so blessed to have been given such a wonderful gift and we are so happy to be able to share it with all of our friends and family!