Turkey and New York

Thanksgiving this year was a little different for us. Instead of going down to Iowa or Missouri, Cortney's parents flew us and Nick (Cortney's brother) out to Pennsylvania to spend Thanksgiving with their Aunt. Cortney's parents drove the painful 19 hours! We flew into Philadelphia and had a 2 hour drive to Cortney's Aunt's house. She lives on the side of the Pocono Mountains and has the most breath taking views. Here are some pictures from her house: Thanksgiving day the women spent all day preparing for a meal for 30 people! Cortney's Aunt works with some people who live in Germany and were stuck in the U.S. for the holidays. We had several employees as well as lots of her friends joining us for Thanksgiving.

Our Table

The day after Thanksgiving we went to New York City! We had tickets to see the Rockettes live at Radio City Hall for their Christmas Spectacular event.

Radio City Music Hall

The Rockettes!

After the show we took a bus tour around the city since we only had one day in the city which is not enough time to see everything. The bus picked us up in Times Square and stopped at the Empire State Building, Macy's (The largest Macy's in the world), China Town and Little Italy, Soho, Greenich Village, World Trade Center ... ect. We only got off at China Town stop and did some shopping and also at the Rockefeller Center stop. You could see everything from the bus, plus waiting for the buses took forever so we only got off twice. We also got the famous hot dogs and a slice of New York style pizza! Here are some pictures from the bus tour:

On the bus

Madison Square Garden

The infamous Naked Cowboy

Cortney's brother Nick and Aunt Pam on the bus

Times Square

All in all it was an awesome trip!

In baby news, we had another appointment yesterday. It was just a regular check up to go over the ultrasound we had a few weeks ago. The doctor was very pleased with everything and said Cortney's weight and other stats looked perfect.

And lastly, we have put in an offer on a house! We just had our inspection and are back negotiating some more to get some money to do some minor repairs. We are suppose to close on December 22nd so keep your fingers crossed. Here are a few pictures from our inspection ... the people who lived here before were definitely wall paper fans!

Front of the house

It's a ....

From the last appointment: the quad screening (down syndrome, tay sachs, ect.) all came back negative which is great. The OB was very pleased with the blood work!

We had our comprehensive ultrasound on Monday, November 17th and the name says it all. We had to have a 3D/4D ultrasound because Cortney's brother was born with a Ventricular Septum Defect which basically means he had a hole in is heart. The doctors wanted to monitor the progress of the heart so we got to see everything ... and we mean everything ... growing inside the baby.

The ultrasound started with the skull, onto the structure of the brain, down through the face, the heart (most time was spent here), the stomach, kidneys, hands, feet, lengths of arms and legs, and then on to the gender. The baby moved around so much so the nurse had some troubles keeping the baby still to find the gender. Then the baby moved just right and she said "I can tell the gender, would you like to know?" We said yes and she started typing on the screen ... IT'S A GIRL!!!

After the ultrasound the nurse said the baby looked great! She has all of her fingers, toes, her brain and all of the other organs are growing at the rates they should. The doctor then came in and told us we should probably have an echocardiogram around 24 weeks to monitor the heart again. Right now, at 18 weeks, the baby's heart is the size of a nickel so it is hard to tell if there are any small problems going on. From the ultrasound yesterday the doctor says he doesn't see anything major happening but scheduled the echocardiogram just to be safe.

Just so you can scale the size of the baby:

Week 18:Your fetus has become amazingly mobile (at least compared to you), passing the hours yawning, hiccuping, rolling, twisting, kicking, punching, sucking and swallowing. And, baby's finally big enough that you'll be able to feel those movements soon.

We have another appointment with our OB on December 2nd for a regular check up and then the echocardiogram on December 30th. We will keep you all updated on the progress of the heart. But for now enjoy the awesome pictures we got from the ultrasound!!

Profile picture

Leg

Hand

A New Addition to Our New Family

As most of you know we recently just got married on July 12, 2008 at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, NE. It was a beautiful ceremony with our family and friends and we could not have asked for a better wedding! We just got our photos back from the wedding and reception so please feel free to check them out at www.pictage.com/397427 You can order whatever pictures you like in whatever size you want and they will ship them directly to your house!

After the wedding we jetted off to Las Vegas for some relaxation ... and well gambling :) Cortney's dad's friend Bill Novak, who is a travel agent, got us the most amazing room at Mandalay Bay. We had views of the Strip AND of the mountains. It was perfect. Here are some pictures of the room we stayed in:

We spent most of the days relaxing in the room and walking around the Strip like tourists. Our highlights included seeing the MGM lions, going to the show Zumanity at New York New York, the Bellagio water show, eating at Cortney's favorite Italian restaurant in New York New York, the Shark Reef at Mandalay bay, and of course the yardsticks of margaritas ... which were most often purchased at Coyote Ugly (Dustin preferred their flavors ... hmm)

A few weeks after we got back from the trip we found out we were expecting our first child! Yep, a Las Vegas baby! Here are a couple of pictures from the first ultrasound at 8 weeks along:

We have all been teasing Jim that the baby's profile looks like him so shoot him an email letting him know the baby does look like him lol. We already had a second visit with the doctor as well which was at our 12 week checkup. We got to hear the baby's heartbeat only for a few second because the doctor said the baby was moving around a lot. When she finally found the heartbeat again there was this loud noise and the doctor said, "Your baby just kicked the microphone!" The baby did this several times so we gave up on any more attempts on trying to hear the heartbeat. (Dustin insists the baby is a boy and that he'll be a soccer player or a field goal kicker)

We do want to find out the sex of the baby before the baby is born. The 20 week ultrasound where we find out the sex of the baby will be scheduled sometime in late November so we will keep you posted. We do have some names picked out but we want to narrow down the list before sharing them. But we are open to suggestions!

Hopefully we can continue to update this blog as much as possible to keep you all in the loop with the pregnancy and our new life together!