Precious Time

If there's anything in the world to make you realize how precious time is, it's your newborn baby.  I no longer have time to make sure my house is spotless, grade piles of papers, or surf the internet. But that's perfectly fine. There's nothing I'd rather do than play pat-a-cake, rock and sing, and stare into these eyes.

Bryce Peyton Tippett was born on August 26, 2011 at 2:09 pm, after a l-o-n-g long wait at the hospital. I was induced and the whole process took about 26 hours.  Whew! It was painful, nervewracking, and even upsetting at times, but the joyfulness was so overwhelming that I would do it all again tomorrow.  I never knew I could love so much.

I also realize how precious every moment I spend with my baby is. He turned 11 weeks old on 11/11/11, and it seems like yesterday (REALLY!) that we were coming home from the hospital.  Time is already passing so quickly. I wish I could just hold the clock still every once in awhile.

Here's my little man at around 8 weeks.  I just love him to pieces! Now, at 11 weeks, he's smiling all the time, holding his head and body up pretty much by himself, really wanting to roll over, and cooing at us quite a bit. We are so blessed that he is such a happy baby.  I can't wait to see what the coming months have in store for the Tippett Ranch!  Love you, Bubby!

On My Summer Vacation....

...I obviously didn't blog.  It's not that I didn't want to--it was just a bit inconvenient.  We decided to drop the internet at our house and just have it on our phones.  I wouldn't recommend that. Mobile phones are just not conducive to blogging.  We are working on a way to get wired again at our house, though.  I missed blogging!

Anyway, I thought I'd share a few highlights from the summer of '11. Enjoy!

June started off with a wonderful two-week vacation in Florida where we enjoyed the beach...

                                            

                                                              admired the palm trees.....

                                  Stayed in several awesome hotels (Thanks to Hotels.com!)....

                                Took a gator-hunting ride on a fanboat through the Everglades....

    

                                                    (no gators seen on the boat, but.....

                     
                                         we did see this baby gator in the museum afterwards!)...

                               ...took a ride on the Jungle Queen riverboat in Fort Lauderdale...

                                            ..and saw LOTS of millionaires homes! WOW.....

                          ...played in the Florida Science center.. (that's me creating a cartoon!)

                      Cole got to ride in a space flight simulator...(I couldn't because of Tiny T!)....

                                         ...I got to pet a manatee at the Florida Marine Center...

 ....again, I need to say how wonderful the beach was.....

 

...and Baby T took his first plane round-trip plane ride!

Speaking of Baby T, this summer the little one got bigger...(below, we're at 29 weeks)...

and bigger.....(33 weeks)...

....and bigger! (38 weeks!)...

We also took the haunted "ghost tour" in Hannibal with my aunts who visited from D.C...

...and saw some awesome fireworks!

Sweet Pea's nursery is coming right along. In early July, I painted a tree on his wall that I thought would look good with his bedding.  It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I still have some work left to do, but it's pretty much ready for a baby now.  Here are just a couple of sneak peeks.

Overall, we had a terrific (but F-A-S-T) summer.  It's so hard to believe that Little Tippett could be here any day now.  Now, we play the waiting game! I go back to school tomorrow, and we'll see how long I make it! It's all up to Sweet Pea now! :)

24 weeks.....

Friday (May 6) marked the sixth month point for Sweet Pea and me.  He finally decided to make an appearance in my midsection this past month.  I am definitely looking a little rounder these days, and I couldn't be happier! It's nice that people are finally able to tell that I am carrying a baby in there and that maybe I haven't just made a few too many trips to the buffet.

Sweet Pea and I have gotten along so well during pregnancy that I am starting to worry that I will be paid back with a horrid delivery.  I have been having very vivid dreams regarding labor lately, and, although they are idiotic, they do still scare me! I know in my heart that God made me capable of doing this, but the unknown is just so frightening.  I guess I reached the six month point and realized..."Ummm...I'm going to have to HAVE this baby!" In these freak-out moments, I try to remind myself that I have the best support system anyone could ask for and that millions and millions of women have done this for millions of years.  And then I have a glass of chocolate milk and everything seems okay.

We still haven't reached a consensus on a name for our little cowboy.  I have been so blessed to have lots of suggestions from my co-workers, who started a "Name Jar" for Baby T.  Sadly,  though, we've not agreed on anything suggested so far. I feel so often like his name is just on the tip of my tongue and I can't quite form it. I am praying that it will come to me. I'm combing phonebooks, movie credits, and magazines for ideas, but I got nothin'.  I am also thinking maybe we should go to the hospital with several names in mind and name him when we see him. Maybe a completely different name will come to me or Cole when we see Little Tippett.  That's what happened when I was born.  I was going to be "Amanda"!  

Here's a little list of various other things I've noticed lately:
 *I'm more easily worn out. I can't run here-there-and-everywhere like we are accustomed to doing!
 *I'm more easily winded. A couple trips up and down the stairs for laundry proves this one!
 *I'm soooo weepy lately! Hello, hormones!
  *I'm in love with all things Baby....onesies, bottles, toys, diaper creams.......
  *My heart beats a little faster when I think about actually holding my little boy.

Well, I'm hitting the hay. (See star 1).  Here's a picture of me today at 24 weeks and 3 days.  I see the doctor tomorrow! :)

Blue Party!

Well, Sweet Pea continues to cause excitement and surprise in this house.  We found out yesterday that our third "pea in the pod" is a B-O-Y!  My feeling was totally wrong, I suspected a girl.  Cole was so right, even from the beginning.

Last night, we had a "gender" party to celebrate.  We incorporated another one of my friend Tia's awesome cakes (she made the Pea pod cake from our birthday party, too!).  I called Tia from the doctor's office after the ultrasound and told her we were having a boy. She whipped up a very BLUE cake and frosted the outside with white so that no one could tell what color the inside was.  Then, she carried on the "Pea Pod" theme, as you can see below, with the decorations. (I'm telling you...she's awesome!) We invited our family members (my mom, my grandma, my brother, Cole's parents, sister and her husband and their daughter, and Cole's nephew) out for supper and cake. No one knew the sex of the baby except us.  But, they would find out at dessert when they cut the cake!

As you can see, it's too cute to eat, but we ate it anyway! Below is a video of the actual cake cutting. Look out, there's screaming involved! :)

As you can see, we are thrilled to have another cowboy running around on the Tippett Timbers.  We can hardly wait for August to get here! Now, if we could just agree on what to name the little buckaroo! :)

Also, here's a 'bump' picture of me today at 20 weeks and 4 days. He's starting to make himself known now!

Bump?

During what has become my daily routine of "hmm, will this fit today or will it not?", I do a general full-length mirror check. I tell myself I'm checking to make sure I haven't missed a button or left a sticker on the back of my pants (yeah, done THAT before...twice).  Really, though, we all know deep down what I'm doing. I'm checking for a bump.  "Do I have one yet? Can you tell in this outfit? What about from this angle? This one?"

Now, I've never been a small girl.  My stomach has always been a little, shall we say, less-than-flat.  I've got some chubbiness there that I'm not exactly fond of, but, hey, it's there. In other words, I'm no beanpole. I'm more like a full grown tree trunk--lumpy and bumpy in places.

Regardless,  I've been longing for the day when the "chub" turns into "baby". I am past the four month mark now and moving into month five. My real-waist pants are definitely not working for me anymore, but I just seem to be getting thicker, not rounder.  (Nope, not just gaining weight either--only up two pounds!)

BUT...

This morning....I think I might have seen something. A little "shape" protruding from my belly.

No, wait, I definitely saw something.

I think.

I'll let you decide. :)

SUPERsized!

I'm not the only one getting bigger around here.  Check out the supersized egg that our chickadees provided us this week.  Cole strutted around saying that he had them "so well trained that if they don't lay for a day, they lay double the egg the next day"!  Our niece thinks double yolkers are the coolest, so we'll have to be sure to let her in on this little gem. Enjoy! :)

Thunder

(This blog post is long overdue, but it's been nagging at me...)

Don'tcha just hate it when someone steals your thunder? You know, that "oh-man-I-thought-I-was-big-stuff-and-I-just-got-one-upped-bigtime" feeling? Ugh. This happened to me recently and I really let it get to me. I mean, I let it totally tork me off. I walked around, kind of in a cloud of my own negativity for awhile, and fumed silently.

Then, that very same day, a note appeared in my mailbox.  A note from a lovely, sweet person who told me that she thought that I was a wonderful teacher and that she appreciated the effort I put into my students' lives.
This little messenger had no idea I was having a bad day. However, she was God's angel softly reminding me that life is not, in any way, about my 'thunder'. It's (in part) about serving His kingdom by doing His work--something I should do without want of any credit (i.e. "my thunder".) My focus that day had been all wrong. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, dear Angel for humbling me and helping me realize the important things in life! You were my lightbulb! :)