Ultrasound Scheduled!

I had a great OB appointment today, and we got to schedule the big ultrasound for Feb. 19, 3 weeks from today. Can't wait!! I'm adding a poll to the blog about whether you think we'll have a boy or another girl! Just thought it would be fun to see what people think!

Sweet Baby Kate

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing my friend Kristin's new baby, Kate, who was 10 days old! She is a total sweetheart already! I just had to share some pictures I took of her! Congratulations, Kristin and Beau!

Rising (TOO) Early

Unfortunately, I woke up at 4:30 this morning, so I've been reading and trying to get back to sleep for close to 3 hours now! Well, that's not entirely true. I gave up about an hour and a half ago, and I've been playing online, looking at photos of newborns because I'm taking pictures of my friend's newborn this afternoon. I'm really excited, but it's been quite a while since I've done newborn pictures, and I'm very, very, very nervous about it!!

I also decided to give the old blog a new look, and what better style to sport than a sweet Valentine's Day theme? I thought this one was pretty cute.

In pregnancy news, the main thing that is bugging me right now is that I'm not sleeping very well. I'm also having crazy dreams, and I think it's related. Not sleeping deeply and waking often makes me remember the dreams more vividly! It's truly annoying because they are crazy and some of them are not very enjoyable to say the least. Also, on a positive note, I have my next OB appointment this week on Thursday (my birthday!) and I'm pretty sure I'll get to schedule our big ultrasound. I'm looking forward to having an actual date to, uh, look forward to! Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a crazy planner. We just can't wait to find out if we're having a boy or a girl!

Well, I'm off to see if Brad might be close to waking. :)

Vacation Time!

I am so excited! We are planning a little family vacation to Florida at the end of April! I have really been wanting to go on a family vacation before the baby comes, while it's still just the three of us, and I loved the idea of a beach vacation. Well, we finally decided that we could do just that in April and visit our friends Mark & Becky and their son Carter - and let the boys enjoy the NFL Draft together - all at the same time! So we're flying down for kind of an extra-long weekend. I can't wait! I'm so excited to get some great pics of Miss Nat at the beach!

I can't wait for warm weather in general! This winter has really gotten to me like no other before has. Come on Spring!!

Sweet Natalie

Last night, we went out to dinner with our friends Bill & Katie and their daughter Brooke. We all got cheesecake for dessert, and I was sharing my half with Natalie, who was sitting on my lap. At one point, I got a bite for myself, and I realized that Natalie had opened her mouth wide and was following the fork all the way up to my mouth, thinking it was her bite. Katie noticed too, and we both started laughing. I was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes, and Natalie didn't understand. She started looking at me very intently, then she'd lay her head on my shoulder and give me a hug. I had to tell her numerous times that I was really ok, I was just laughing, and she just kept trying to comfort me. It was so sweet, but I felt bad!

Nice Tan, Nat!

How can you look at this face and not smile? I don't know if you can totally tell in the picture, but her face is really orange from thoroughly enjoying leftovers of Nonny's baked spaghetti (this pic is from Monday night). It looked like she had a bad fake tan that just covered part of her face and didn't match her neck or anything. She didn't care - she was eating yummy spaghetti!

RSV Check-Up

Great news! Natalie is officially off the nebulizer, and has a clean bill of health! She still coughs every so often during the day, but the doctor says her chest sounds - and I quote - wonderful! YAYYAYAY!!! She also said that her ears look soooo much better, and there is no infection there, but there's still a little fluid. Apparently that's to be expected, and the amount of drainage she has in her nose/sinuses already will determine how long it takes her little body to absorb/get rid of the rest of the fluid in her ears.

The doctor did say that there is a good chance that this winter and possibly next winter, Natalie may have wheezing again even with just a cold. That would mean back to the breathing treatments. However, it is greatly in her favor that we don't have asthma on either side of our families. Praise the Lord for that! We are continuing the zyrtec for her and hoping that takes care of a lot of the "colds" that she was having. Hopefully it will help keep her immune system nice and strong!

Big News!!!

OK I know you can barely read Natalie's shirt in this picture, but it says "this little chick is gonna be a big sister!" Yes, the Billheimer family is going to be adding another member this July! I am 13 weeks today, and I think I'm finally moving past the extreme fatigue and crazy food aversions, praise the Lord! Although this terrible cold that I have has not been an easy one to get through since there's not much I can actually take to make things more comfortable. Things are going very well in general though! Now we're just trying to prepare for our new little one! We can't wait to find out what we're having. We should be able to find out sometime in late February. I'm hoping I get to schedule the big ultrasound at my next appointment, which is on my birthday Jan. 29! So maybe in a few weeks I'll have an actual date for that ultrasound.

Six by Ten

Saturday I started a project called "Ten by Ten" where you take ten pictures on the 10th of each month, taking one picture every hour on the hour for ten hours, just to kind of chronicle your day. I kept my 50 1.8 lens on the camera because I love what it can do, but I'm still getting used to it, so these are not the greatest pictures. Also, due to illness and stuff, I only got 6 pictures in. But hey, I tried! And here are the results:

9:00 am: Natalie sliding down her slide - her big Christmas gift from Mommy & Daddy. Right after she slid down, she patted me on the chest and said, "Mama." She really doesn't call me anything usually, so this was really touching to me!
10:00 am: Naptime for Miss Nat! She normally doesn't take a morning nap, but she's had a lot of them recently since she's been sick.

11:00 am: Things that are keeping my family going this past week. :( With the obvious exclusion of the vaporizer (aka the Star of the Show), which was running in Nat's room during her nap.

12:00 pm: Breathing treatment #2 for Natalie. Doesn't it just break your heart? I am soooooooo thankful that this is just something we have to do for a week or so, not for the rest of her life. My heart goes out to all the mommies who have to do this with their kiddos every day.

1:00 pm: Natalie absconds with my lens cap. She's decided she knows where it goes on the camera, and SHE (and ONLY SHE) wants to put it back on. The problem is, it's a little tricky - you have to squeeze 2 little parts on each side and fit it into the lens. She's basically not capable of doing that at 16 months. Some grown-ups might not be. ;) But it frustrates her to no end.

2:00 pm: Snack time! Natalie was just talking away, eating animal crackers. She did the sign to let us know she wanted to eat, but then wasn't very interested in the crackers. We've decided that she's using this sign not to ask for food, but to say "pretty please" on top of her regular sign for "please." Sigh. It would be nice if she used it correctly!

Well, that's the end of our day, January 10, 2009, at least our day in pictures. Maybe February will go better!

Oh, and speaking of the 10th, Happy Birthday Miss Kara! Hope you had a fun 3rd birthday party!

Illness Update #3

Natalie and I are both better today! Praise the Lord! Thanks to everyone for their prayers!

Amazingly, she fell asleep at 6:00 pm last night and slept about 13.5 hours! She usually sleeps 11 hours at night. I figured she must really need the sleep - and she must be feeling better - to sleep that long. Brad did a breathing treatment before he went to bed, which I was very thankful for. He's been home with her today (we've been alternating days) and she's doing so much better! She's eating and drinking, but still a little clingy at times. She hasn't had a fever today, which is really great news. Also, she's being more tolerant for the breathing treatments again. I think it sounds like she's really close to feeling like her normal self. I just talked to her on the phone, and she told me all her animal sounds, which was cute. :)

I slept pretty well last night, and am feeling SO much better today. I am still very congested, but the sinus pain is gone, and that's really the worst part. My voice sounds terrible, but I think that just happens sometimes when you're on your way to getting better. Hopefully in a couple days I'll be as good as new . . . or close at least! :)

Illness Update #2

Natalie is better and worse today. She woke up in a terrible mood, but her temperature was only about 99. She ate some fruit for breakfast, but rather grudgingly. She was just not a happy camper today, and it seemed really odd to me. This is the worst mood she's been in since she got sick. I was wondering if her ears were bothering her, because I had read before that ear infections often continue to get a little worse even after they are on antibiotics, which we're on day 3 of. So we got ready and went to her re-check and her RSV is about the same, not surprisingly. We have noticed her coughing less, but she's still congested and she's still wheezing a little, so we have to continue the breathing treatments. Also, her throat is not red anymore. None of that was a surprise. The bad news is that her ears both look terrible (mother's intuition?). So we decided to give her an antibiotic shot today, and hopefully that will better jump-start the healing in her ears. We're also continuing the oral antibiotic that she's on, and we'll be going back next week for another check-up. The doctor said she might not be contagious on Friday, depending on how the next two days go, so basically she can't go back to Katie's until next week. It's frusting for us to have to miss work, especially since I only work 3 days a week, but Brad is going to stay home with her tomorrow so I can go in, and then it looks like we'll be able to make up the other days later in the month, so that's great. I wasn't looking forward to going in on the weekend! :)

My congestion is still pretty bad today, but my throat is better. I have a little bit more energy, but I still just want to rest, and Natalie is not in a resting mood today. I don't know how to describe her mood. Discontent, I guess. Nothing seems to make her happy for long, and it's pretty draining. I'm just praying that she starts feeling better soon - for all of us!! Brad looked up the particular shot she got today, and some people say they felt better later the same day, so that's wonderful news! Pray that Miss Nat can be one of those!

Illness Update

Natalie is doing much better today, praise the Lord! I am feeling worse, and that stinks, but I'd rather myself be sick than her. She slept well last night, and Brad (aka the best hubby and dad ever) did 2 breathing treatments on her while she slept - and it doesn't wake her! Her fever was MUCH lower when she woke up, so that was encouraging. She's been drinking more today and ate some fruit for breakfast and asked for lunch and ate some of a bean burrito! Ha! Brad says she's in a good mood too, so that's wonderful!! I will go ahead and just be positive and say we're on the downhill side of the virus, and I'm soooo thankful for that. Now I'm just trying to decide what's going on with me. Ugh.

Thanks to everyone for their continued prayers!

Sick Again

Please pray for Natalie and for our family's health in general. It seems that we are unable to all be well at the same time anymore, and I've pretty much reached the end of my rope. Currently, Brad has a sinus infection (he's feeling much better and is on antibiotics), Natalie has RSV (a respiratory virus), and I thought I was getting over my allergy/cold/whatever, but I've been extra tired today with a headache and an irritated throat. I'm praying I'm not getting Brad's sinus infection, but even if I escape that, I don't see how I could not get Natalie's RSV, which they say manifests itself as the common cold in adults. That I can handle, but I'm also really ready to just be WELL for a while.

Back to Natalie. We took her to the doctor this morning since she had a cough, congestion, and fever over the weekend. Turns out she has RSV, a red throat, AND her ear infections are still there. So she's now on a stronger antibiotic, we have to do breathing treatments every four hours (that she really doesn't like), and try to get her to drink as much as possible. Turns out that drinking thing is WAY more difficult than it sounds. I even tried to get her to drink some blue raspberry pedialyte (which she seemed to like earlier) from a syringe, and she spit most of it back out - on her white shirt. I won't be bothering with that trick again. *sigh* She basically doesn't want anything to do with anything that goes in her mouth. I'm praying that the antibiotic kicks in quickly and starts working on the sore throat - maybe that's why she doesn't want to drink or eat. The doctor seems to think the RSV will get worse before it gets better, but we're praying it's peaked already and that we're on the downward slope because she does seem better to us today. Her fever seems to be lower and the motrin seems to be keeping it down better today. Her mood is actually quite good, surprisingly. Just don't try to get her to open her mouth. :(

Thank you for your prayers - truly, truly.

Another Long Overdue Update

Well, I've done it again and it's been too long since I posted anything. Christmas is just crazy. I just did 2 posts with lots of pics from Christmas, though, and I'll try to do my best to get down what Natalie's been doing lately in this post.

Natalie cut her 8th tooth today. It seems like it's all the way through, but she was awfully fussy this evening, so maybe there's still a little bit left. She does seem to get through it more quickly now, but she's still got SO many teeth to go, I dread all the teething yet to come!

Natalie has added a few animal sounds to her repertoire! She knows:

• cow
• sheep
• horse
• snake
• rooster (although she says "hoooo hoo," but she is trying to say "doodle doo")
• kitty
• doggie (but only sometimes)

Here's a quick list of cute stuff she's been doing lately:

• Brad taught her how to tell a secret, so she gets a kick out of leaning into your ear and making "whispering" noises.
• She's so prone to runny noses that we seem to be constantly using saline in her nose. She'll find bottles of it lying around and put the bottle (lid on) into her nostril.
• On a related note, she's on some eye drops right now, and she will find other kinds of bottles (the eye drops are definitely not within her reach), and act like she's putting them in her eyes or in a baby doll's eyes.
• She got lots of baby dolls for Christmas, and I think her favorite part about them is feeding them their bottles. It's so cute! She knows just what to do! (see pictures below)
• She fairly consistently says "nose" when she points to her nose and "mouth" when she points to her mouth. She also knows these body parts, just by pointing: eyes, ears, head, hair, teeth, tongue, hands, feet, and belly button.
• She loves her Brown Bear book, and I think it's because she gets to point out the eyes on every single animal each time we turn the page. She definitely has a fascination with eyes.

Christmas in Ohio

We arrived in Ohio around 8 am EST on Tuesday, December 23 after Brad drove 12.5 hours straight! This works best for us right now since Natalie gets really fidgety after a while. She slept pretty much the entire way, praise the Lord! She did wake up every time we stopped for gas, but she would just look around, then go back to sleep on the road. The only drawback is that it leaves Brad super tired the next day! We had lots of fun with family, and Natalie especially enjoyed hanging out with her cousins. She also was very excited about Al & Deb's dog, Rosie, who is a silky terrier. Miss Nat would chase her around the house saying "Casey!" and making clicking noises and motioning for Rosie to "come here." Rosie is not quite as accomodating as Casey, but they got along ok. :)

While we were in Ohio, I think all 3 of us were sick in some form or fashion. I had the usual allergy/cold stuff, Brad actually came down with a fever but seemed to recover fairly quickly, and we ended up having to find an urgent care place open the day after Christmas to take Natalie, who was very quickly pronounced with another ear infection. This makes 2 in about a month. We really think that allergies may be the culprit and plan on trying out some baby zyrtec very soon. Thank goodness, she recovered very quickly and you wouldn't even hardly know she felt bad by the very next day. Sunday, we went to Elizabeth's first birthday party, and after a nap for Miss Nat, we were on the road again that evening! She was awake for an hour and a half (which was fine by us) before drifting off, and on the way home, she slept all the way through until we reached Mustang!

Here are a bunch of pictures from our trip!

Happy first birthday, Elizabeth Grace! Glad we could share your big day with you!

Christmas in Oklahoma

Well, I'm ashamed that I have not posted anything in about 3 weeks, but I'm going to do my best to catch up tonight! I have to say, Christmas has got to be one of the hardest times of year to sit down and keep track of what's going on, but I really should make a better effort!

Here are some pictures from our Christmas celebrations here in Oklahoma. We had lots of fun at Nonny & Poppy's for lunch and then at Oma & Papa's for dinner!

Fun with Nonny and Aunt Kimme, playing with her new (mommy's old) purse with Gram, hanging out with Poppy, playing on her new cool trike from Oma & Papa, and sitting with Daddy.

This last one showcases her new "cheeeeese" face. We're not sure where she picked it up because we've never said it to her, but she says "cheese" a lot of the time when you try to take her picture. Pretty cute! :)